Page 57 of My Forbidden Commander

We go quiet after that, just three sets of boots picking through the shale, my free hand never leaving my rifle, even though my arm is screaming from Sykes’s weight on the other side. I lose track of time. I lose track of most things except the next twenty meters and the one after that.

Movement ahead. I hear it before I see it—boots on rock, more than one set, coming from the fold in the terrain we’re about to walk into. I lower my half of Sykes without saying anything, and Liu does the same on his side, easing him down onto a shelf of stone. My rifle is up, and my heart is going crazy inside my chest, and I brace myself for a fight we don’t have the bodies to win.

Then the shapes round the bend, and it’s not the enemy at all.

It’s Hayes. Delgado. Petrillo. Maddox’s whole team behind them, and Gabriel out front looking like he walked the entire climb on pure will alone.

The sensation that goes through me is so strong it’s almost violent, pins and needles crawling up my arms and into my scalp, my rifle dropping an inch before I even register lowering it. I don’t have a name for the feeling. It’s bigger than just relief—more like the ground steadying itself under my feet after an earthquake.

Gabriel’s eyes find me first, and for one unguarded moment his whole face changes, something raw moving over it, something that has no business being on a colonel’s face in front of nine other soldiers. Then it’s gone, folded back behind a veneer of command, just like a knife folds back into a handle, so fast I’d doubt I saw it at all if I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for.

“Report,” he says, already crossing the distance toward us. “Where is Callahan? Wilder?”

“Holding up the OP, sir.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “They covered us so we could get Sykes out.”

Bishop and Petrillo are already moving past me toward Sykes, cutting away the dressing to look at what’s underneath, Liu filling them in fast and clinical.

Gabriel’s eyes drop to my side, my hands, back to my face, the same fast inventory he’s always done after I’ve been in a firefight. “You’re not hit.”

“No, sir.”

His shoulders ease a fraction. Then he looks past me at the mountain, and his jaw goes tight.

“Maddox, Quinn, Walker, Delgado, push ahead, find Callahan and Wilder, help them extract.” He turns to Hayes. “We get Sykes to the vehicle. Move.”

They scatter into motion, Bishop, Liu, and Petrillo rigging a stretcher out of two rifle slings and a poncho while Hayes stands guard. For one moment, nobody is looking at us.

Gabriel’s hand closes over my arm, and he pulls me off the trail into a stand of scrub pine, and before I can ask what he’s doing, his mouth is on mine.

It’s not careful at all. His fist bunches in the front of my jacket like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on, and I melt into him without a single thought of stopping it, my own hands finding his collar, his jaw, anywhere I can touch to prove to both of us that I’m still here, still breathing.

“I thought—” His voice breaks as he speaks against my mouth. “Callahan said one casualty and didn’t say who, and I have been walking for hours not knowing if⁠—”

“I’m fine.” I pull back just far enough to look at him. “Gabriel, I’m fine.”

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life not knowing you’ll be there in the morning,” he says, and it comes out rough. Not at all like he rehearsed it—as if it surprises him as much as me. “I can’t do that again. Wondering…”

“Gabriel—”

“I love you.” It tears out of him, both hands gripping my jacket now, holding on like the mountain might tip and shake us off. “I love you, Noah.”

I go completely still.

I’ve been shot at. I’ve been pinned down and hopeless. But I’ve never felt anything like this… this cold spreading fear that has nothing to do with bullets and grenades. I’ve been surviving those for years. This is different. This thing took my mother apart, piece by piece. It’s what turned my father into a man who could walk out on his family and not look back. It buries you deeper than any round ever could.

If I say it back, I’m handing him the exact thing that gets used to break people. I know how the story goes. I’ve lived through the ending before.

Gabriel watches me as the silence stretches, his eyes going distant as he visibly retreats.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he says quietly. “I know what… If you can’t⁠—”

“Shut up, sir.”

He blinks at me.

“Just… shut up.” My voice cracks, but I don’t care. I’m realizing it’s far too late for me—Gabriel already broke through all of my defenses. “I love you too. I’ve loved you since the first night you held me in your arms. I just didn’t want to say it out loud because saying it out loud means it can be taken away and I don’t… I don’t know how to survive that again, but I… I can’t not say it either. Not after this. Not after thinking I’ll never get the chance to be in your arms again.”

I’ve never seen such a big smile on Gabriel Wolfe’s face. It changes his face completely, wiping away two decades of worry, and I’m the only one who gets to see it.