of that. He’d been stationed in the sandbox for months and then years on end.
Still, whenever he came back to the States, she was always there, waiting for him at the airport, and she was right. Being with her had always been just so damn easy.
Sister, sister, sister, except, Tasha wasn’t his sister. She was right about that fact, too.
Still, his job had always been to protect her. For years, that had been Thomas’s prime directive: to protect Tasha from all of the assholes who would hurt her, including her alcoholic screw-up of a mother.
Maybe, because he knew how much Tash had loved Sharon despite the relentless dysfunction caused by her mom’s disease... And maybe because he’d always worked hard to temper her excitement at the news that Sharon was coming back home...
Sharon’s getting out of rehab, and she says this time’s the charm! She says this time it’s gonna stick!
Ah, yeah, Tash, well, that’s really great, but you know that’s something Sharon really can’t know, right?
Thomas, this time she promised!
Well, I know she really wants it to be true, but remember what we learned from those Al-Anon meetings? The fact she made that promise means she’s still got more to learn.
Maybe it didn’t matter what Thomas said, because when it came to Sharon, Tasha always ended up disappointed.
And maybe because he knew that Tash had loved him with that same intensity and ferociousness, it had seemed fitting that, after she stopped giving Sharon the power to disappoint her, that he should step into that dominant role and continuously disappoint her, too.
All because of rules that he’d arbitrarily made to help himself clarify and define their very weird relationship.
His best friend. And how weird had that been to be twenty-something with a fourteen-year-old best friend? No wonder he’d been shouting sister all over the place.
And the idea that he might’ve been holding open the parking spot for a girlfriend and a lover in his life...? Keeping it vacant for his tweenage bestie...? Waiting on her to grow up...? Boom. He was back to super-creepy.
Again, no wonder he’d clung so hard to sister, sister, sister.
And while he was clinging and closing his eyes to the fact that time was passing, she’d grown up. She’d left her messed-up childhood behind, working her butt off to break the cycle of dysfunction, to understand the many insidious ways her mother’s addictions and other mental health issues had damaged her. She’d stepped up with courage and optimism, moving on and building a life for herself that was complete without him.
So why did she still want him, then? That conversation last night had been one of purpose and intention. She hadn’t been playing—she’d debated with her very heart and soul.
But what if that was just residual—leftovers—from her shitty childhood? An echo of what she’d once thought she’d wanted?
Except, he was the one who’d intruded—at Alan’s request, for sure, but Tash had made it very clear that she would have preferred any other SEAL as her bodyguard during this trip.
So maybe—and this was a shocker—he could take Tasha at her word. That their being thrown together like this had opened her eyes and made her realize that she still wanted him in her life. Maybe, especially when all hell had broken loose, she’d seen just how strong their childhood bond still was—that the friendship and trust they’d shared was solid, unbreakable.
Fate had thrown them together back when she was much too young, during a time when neither of them were ready for more than that friendship, but now was indeed not then.
Tasha wasn’t his sister, and she was no longer a child.
She’d kept her distance for years—appropriately giving him space after the night of the White Russians. She’d accepted his no with both grace and respect. And then she’d grown and matured, while he’d stayed mired in the past, unwilling and unable to see her as more than the girl she’d once been.
What did that say about him, wanting to keep treating her like a child even though she was clearly an adult? Some men treated all women like children, and how creepy was that?
What if he could just let go of the past, and meet Tasha, as very much his equal, here in the present?
Thomas found himself thinking about last night, and the way her hair had shone as it caught the overhead lights, the smile that curved her graceful lips and made