In Love and Diplomacy

Chapter Twenty-Four: You Don't Get to Apologize

"You're as safe as a mountain,
But know that I am dynamite"

- Sigrid, "Dynamite"

Chapter Twenty-Four

I'd been so sure his walls were indestructible—but I was wrong. Stone barriers came crashing down, burying me in rubble as I tried to get my bearings. He'd actually answered.

Who was this stranger in the driver's seat, his voice thick with emotion?

This wasn't Sterling, who stood with walls higher than I could climb; who'd let me steal glimpses of his real self on rare occasions the barricade was slightly lowered.

This wasn't Reed, who'd sat in dauntingly thoughtful silence across from me and worked on a puzzle, who'd made me coffee and dinner, who'd played with my dog and argued with me over the answers to crossword puzzles.

This was someone in the middle—someone forced into the gap between the two, a vulnerable area of clashing polarities. The place where oil and water greeted each other like old friends and agreed to bend the laws keeping them apart.

I don't know if I can meet you there, but I want to. I think I'd like who I was in that space between.

I couldn't believe he was willing to admit there was something more behind his hesitation; something more than a doubt in quality or a doubt of intentions.

My voice rose as I offered to meet him in the middle. "I'm trying to understand."

His eyes refused to look at me, refused to invite me any further. My heart threatened to ache as much as my bones.

"I can't always protect the people I help," he quietly clarified.

"You're afraid of losing someone."

Pieces were clicking together, and I was getting a better picture of the man beside me. Our past conversations were expanding as clarity cast them in a new light.

He tried to retreat. It was expected, but still hurtful. "It's unprofessional to get close."

I wasn't going to let him slither out of this; he didn't get to brush me off. I'd realized there was a final piece missing, like the one still in my pocket. "No, it's not just clients. You don't get close to anyone. Something happened, didn't it?"

He didn't answer.

"What happened?" I continued in his silence.

Something had happened to him—I felt it in every structured cell still singing with pain, right down to every molecule that composed my being. I saw it in his face. "You said I deserve answers."

He grappled with his truth, but he relented, turning the hazards on and pulling the car off the empty, soaked road. I stilled in my seat, waiting in trepidation for an explanation.

Something, anything to explain him. Explain that crease in his brow that never smooths, the eyes that never stop watching. The heart that never welcomes another.

"I was new," he began, his fingers tight, and body stiff. "I was recruited for Greystone right out of college, but I hadn't even wanted the job. I was just boots on the ground."

My eyebrows rose in surprise, creasing my own forehead as shock settled in. My voice reflected my incredulity. "You didn't want to work for Greystone?"

"We all have dreams," he reminded. His face twisted in a wry smile, but he didn't offer any more information. I didn't ask; it was a conversation for another day.

"My first assignment was with Alpha team. It was a high-profile international job, a foreign politician wanting American security on top of his existing teams. It was a short assignment, forty-eight hours max. Get in, do the job, get out."