This is Just a Dream

Chapter 20

The air in Eden's house was thick, it was a confused mixture of tension and longing.

“Why do you look so pensive?” she asked him.

"I’m observing," Garrett replied, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He was observing, truly. He was watching the way she tilted her head when she listened, the way her fingers traced the rim of her wine glass, and the subtle, unconscious movements that told a story of a woman who had weathered a storm and decided to stay standing.

"And what are you observing?" she asked, her lips curling into a knowing, teasing smile.

"I'm observing that you are not the same person who stood on that porch a year ago," he said, his gaze fixed on hers with an intensity that made the surrounding tables seem to dissolve.

Eden’s expression shifted, the playful light in her eyes softening into something more introspective, more fragile. "I know. I think... I think I'm still trying to figure out who I am now. The 'before' feels like a lifetime ago, and the 'after' is still so new."

The mention of the 'before' hung in the air, a silent, third party to their company of two. They both felt it—the ghost of Adam. He was there in the tilt of her head that mirrored his, in the way Garrett’s hand involuntarily clenched when he spoke about the past, and in the shared, unspoken language of grief that had formed the foundation of their connection.

Garrett felt a sharp, stabbing pang of guilt. He was a man who had been tasked with protecting Adam’s memory, and here he was, actively, aggressively creating a new narrative that didn't include him. He was a thief, a man who had wandered into a garden he hadn't planted and was now reaping the harvest.

"You were his whole world, you know," Garrett said leaning forward on the sofa he was sitting on, his elbows on his knees, the words heavy and deliberate. He needed to say it, to acknowledge the specter so he could put it back in its box. "Every time he talked about home, he talked about you. You were the only thing that kept him looking forward."

Eden looked down at her hands holding her wine glass, her expression guarded. "I know. He used to write me letters from the wadi. He told me he was only holding on because he had a reason to come back. And then..." She stopped, the silence between them thick and suffocating. Wiping a tear that had slipped down her cheek, "Then the news came. And for a long time, I thought that was it. I thought my story ended in that valley, too."

Garrett reached out, his hand gripping hers in a comforting hold. "But it didn't," he said, his voice firm.

"I am," she agreed, her gaze locking onto his again, her eyes searching his for an answer to a question she hadn't yet asked. "And so are you. Why are you looking at me like you’re afraid the world is going to end if you blink?"

Garrett felt a surge of panic, a primitive, primal urge to revert to his training and deflect, to initiate a maneuver that would put space between them. But he looked at her—this woman who had seen the worst of him, who had heard his voice in the dark, who had held the other end of the line while he carried the weight of his own failure—and he knew he couldn't lie.

"Because I'm terrified," he confessed, the admission feeling like an unmasking. "I’m terrified that if I allow myself to see what’s actually happening here, I’ll lose the only thing I have left. I’ve spent years building walls, Eden. I’ve spent my life becoming the person who doesn't feel, the person who doesn't need, the person who doesn't hope. And you… you’re the first thing that’s ever made me want to burn it all down."

The air between them seemed to crackle, the tension so thick it felt like he could reach out and pull it like wire. The attraction was there—unspoken, undeniable, and utterly consuming—but it was wrapped in the wire of their shared, agonizing history. It was a love that felt like a battlefield, a dance on the edge of a blade. A barbed wire.

"Then let it burn," she whispered, her voice a tremor in the quiet.

Garrett felt a jolt of electricity that traveled from his spine to his extremities. He was a large, hardened man, a man who moved with the deliberate, efficient grace of a predator, but in the face of her vulnerability, he felt entirely, completely undone.

He leaned across the couch, his presence filling the space, his shadow casting a protective arc over her. "Do you know what you’re asking for?" he asked, his voice low and vibrating with a primal intensity. "I’m not a gentle man, Eden. I’m a man of war, a man of grit, a man of hard, ugly choices. I’m not the life you were promised."

"I know," she said, her voice stronger now, more certain. "I want the life that’s right here. I want the man who stayed in the room with me until the sun came up. I want the man who listened to my stories about toddlers and hamsters when he had a world of darkness to manage. I want you, commander."

Garrett stared at her, the intensity of her words stripping away the last of his defenses. He reached out, and this time, he didn't pull back. He laced his hand through her hair, his fingers wrapping around the strands with a protective, possessive grip that felt like a vow.

"I’ve spent my life training and killing," he said, his voice raw. "I’ve spent my life believing that if I just stood the line, if I just kept the world at bay, I’d be safe. But the world didn't come for me, Eden. You did."

Garrett was focused on the way her breath hitched, the way her gaze dropped to his lips, the way the tension in the room seemed to shift from agonizing to inevitable.

"I don't want to be the reason you look back," he said, the ghost of Adam still looming, a quiet, mournful shadow in the back of his mind.

"I’m not looking back," Eden replied, her voice firm. "I’m looking at you."

She moved her hand, her thumb tracing the scarred skin of his cheek, a gesture that was at once incredibly gentle and devastatingly intimate. Garrett felt his heart rate spike, the familiar, adrenaline-fueled surge of a soldier entering a fray, but this was a different kind of combat—a battle not for territory or survival, but for the right to believe in something again.

They ate the silence between them.

They breathed in each other's air.

He felt a sudden, frantic need to make their own rules.

The way she was looking at him with a mixture of patience, anticipation, and a daring that he found entirely intoxicating.

“I don't want the night to end yet."

“It's just the beginning,” he said as he took her into his embrace.

“We should do something?” she said.

“Anything you want, I'm yours for the next few days until I have to with what you want.” he said as he gripped and stroked the back of her neck.

“Let's go away. Let's get away and enjoy ourselves for a few days. We need fresh air and time. I need just us Garrett” she said as she closed her eyes and enjoyed his affection.

“Anything you want baby” he said as he leaned in and kissed her stealing the air from her lungs.

She had effectively taken the air from his lungs long ago and now she can experience how it felt.