Then it would all slip away, and I couldn’t tell dreams from reality for a while, and then everything would clear a little and I’d again remember I was in a hospital. Even then, I wasn’t so sure which parts were real and which were hallucinations. A bunch of alarms going off and people panicking, followed by jostling and moving and then nothing—I still didn’t know if that had happened or not. Same with someone leaning over me and saying they were putting me under again to get rid of the spiders. That… That had to be a hallucination. Right? Except it felt as real as anything else, so what the hell did I know?

  Sometimes there was a lot of pain. Sometimes it seemed far away, like a memory more than reality. Then it would be very, very real again.

  At some point, I surfaced from the dreamy haze, and this time, nothing sent me back into it. I pushed the button on the pump in my hand—somehow I knew that was a thing I could do to deal with the pain—but the relief that came didn’t fog my head. Not quite as much, anyway.

  I opened my eyes and had better luck making sense of my surroundings. My mind and vision were clear enough I could actually piece together the hospital room, the monitors, and the various tubes and wires. I even managed to reach back into my memory and find that horrible moment in the hallway. When I’d faced off with Charlie Butler’s daughter. When there’d been someone in a room who I hadn’t seen, and he’d…

  Shot me.

  God. This again? Because reaching even further back into my memory, I found the long, miserable recovery after the two bullets I’d taken a lifetime ago. The pain. The surgeries. The constant, unshakable fatigue.

  At least I’d been able to walk, even if I’d been slow. This time, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be walking very well for a while.

  Experimentally, I moved my right leg a little, just to be sure I still could. My ankle and knee did obey and move, but the fresh pain that subtle twitch ignited had me gasping for breath.

  “Whoa, hey.” Seth’s voice. His hand on my shoulder. “Careful. Don’t try to move your leg.”

  I stilled, and breathed, and I steadily came back to earth as the pain receded.

  But the hand on my shoulder didn’t move.

  Seth…

  Seth was here.

  And so were dark circles under his eyes which I was pretty sure hadn’t been there when things had gone down in the cabin.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  He managed a soft smile. “I got here a couple of hours after you got out of surgery. I haven’t left since.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  He seemed to consider it, then shrugged. “I don’t even know. I’ve kind of lost track of time.”

  “You should get some sleep.” I found his hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Neither am I.” Seth pushed himself up and leaned in to press a kiss to my forehead. “You’re not getting rid of me, so don’t argue.”

  I laughed, which took serious work. “I don’t want to get rid of you. I want you to take care of yourself.”

  “I am. Don’t worry.” He laced our fingers together. “And I’m staying with you after they discharge you, too. Make peace with it.”

  I closed my eyes. “Discharge me? I don’t think I can even get out of this bed without needing a damn nap.”

  “Not surprising.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No.” He ran his thumb along mine. “The doctors said you lost a fuckload of blood, and it’s going to take time for your body to recover from that. They keep reminding me that you’re probably going to be really tired for a few weeks at least.”

  That made sense. In that moment, though, I was the kind of tired that didn’t feel like it was ever going away.

  Seth chewed his lip. Then he whispered, “If the guardsmen hadn’t given you a field transfusion on the way here…” He trailed off, avoiding my gaze.

  The blood I still had turned cold, and I held his hand tighter. I had no memory of anything after the hallway. From the distant look in Seth’s eyes, he remembered a hell of a lot more than I did.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

  “I know.” He swallowed as if he were trying to hold himself together, and when our eyes met, there was a faint hint of tears in his. “I thought I’d lost you again.”

  I gave a tired laugh and weakly squeezed his hand. “You should know by now—you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  I’d spoken without thinking, and I immediately thought, oh shit. I’d just given him the out. The chance to say he was getting rid of me. And maybe that was what he needed to do, because God knew he wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t brought my stupid self back to Idaho.

  But he said, “I don’t want to get rid of you. I don’t want to let you out of my sight again.”

  “I almost got you killed, though.” I swallowed hard. “I got your friend killed.”

  Pain flashed across his face even as he shook his head. “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Except I—”

  “Brandon,” he whispered. “Don’t.” He squeezed my hand. “Yeah, it hurts to lose Marcus, but I don’t blame you for it. You had every reason to believe it was safe to come back here. His murder? That’s on the fuckers who were trying to kill you, too. It’s on that Klan lawyer and his daughter. So no, don’t you dare blame yourself for it.”

  “Still. I’m sorry. If I hadn’t…” I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “I know. But it’s not on you. And Jesus Christ, I’m just glad you’re still here.”

  I looked up at him. “You… really?”

  He laughed softly, kissing the back of my hand. “Of course I am. I thought I was watching you die out there, and…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to lose you, Brandon.”

  I just stared at him.

  “I didn’t want to lose you the first time.” He gripped my hand tighter. “And this time, I thought I was losing you for real. Before I even got a chance to tell you that I want you to stay.”

  It took a second for my drug-fogged brain to make sense of that, and when it did, I was suddenly even more awake than before. “Really? Like, for good?”

  “Yes.” He pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. “I love you, Brandon.”

  Tears suddenly pricked at my eyes. I didn’t want to actually break down, mostly because I was pretty sure it would fucking hurt, but hearing him say those words… God, I’d ached to hear him say that the whole time we’d been together. Not just “I love you,” but “I love you, Brandon.”

  Seth finally knew me. The real me. And somehow, despite everything I’d done and everything that had happened because of me, he still loved me.

  I wasn’t sure how, but I managed to keep my voice from cracking. “I love you, too.”

  “We’re both going to need a hell of a lot of therapy after this,” he said softly. “For ourselves, and for us. As a couple. But I want to do this. I’ve already had a taste of you being gone, and I just came a little too close to you being gone forever.” He shook his head. “I’m not losing you again.”

  “I’m here as long as you want me to be,” I whispered, and it felt like the most honest thing I’d ever said to him. I’d had to hide so damn much from him while I’d been living as Andrew, but now I could be me. And maybe Seth and Brandon really could pick up where Seth and Andrew had left off.

  There’d be therapy, yes. Physical for me. Psychological for us. Between that and a lot of patience, we could do this.

  We could finally be what Andrew Keller had dreamed we would.

  Epilogue - Seth

  Two years later

  * * *

  There wasn’t a lot of parking down by the Floating Boardwalk, but I got lucky and found a space. Then I sent Brandon a text.

  Seth: I’m here.

  He wrote back a moment later.

  Brandon: On my way. Be there in 10.

  That was fine. I was a little early anyway. I rolled down the window, killed the engine, and sat back to enjoy the fresh late afternoon air. The day had been a long one, but not a bad one. Most of my days seemed to be that way lately.

  Life had changed a lot since Brandon had shown up at my doorstep. About six months after we’d come back from Seattle, I’d resigned from the force. These days, I was working as the physical security manager for one of the commercial properties in town. It wasn’t an overly exciting job, but it paid well, and even though I had to work with law enforcement sometimes, it put some distance between me and the cops I’d worked with in the past. Maybe I’d go back to that someday—it did kind of get into a person’s blood—but this suited me for now.

  Brandon was working at the credit union again. Everyone there had been more than a little shocked when he’d resurfaced with his real name, but it had been far less traumatic for them than for those who’d thought he was dead. He said it sometimes made him feel caught between Andrew’s life and Brandon’s, but it was starting to feel more and more like his own.

  The therapy he’d been getting seemed to be helping in that department, too. He’d finally been able to process his grief and trauma over Rhys’s death, his own two near-death experiences, and his time in witness protection. Just being able to finally open up and talk through those things had done him a lot of good. In fact, both of our therapists and our couples counselor were worth their weight in gold for all they’d helped us over the past two years.

  It wasn’t perfectly smooth sailing, and we hadn’t expected it to be. I had some resentment and trust issues I’d still be working on for a long time to come. Brandon had a lot more survivor’s guilt than he’d realized, not to mention guilt over Marcus’s death and what had happened to us. That was to say nothing of the complicated feelings he’d had over shooting Ella. Technically it hadn’t even been deliberate—he’d squeezed the trigger after taking a bullet himself—but he’d been ready kill her if need be. And he’d struggled with that because at the end of the day, she’d been manipulated and weaponized by her psychopath father.

  “She still knew right from wrong, though,” he’d said a few months ago. “That’s what I keep going back to. At some point, manipulation or not, she had to accept responsibility. And she was there to kill both of us just like she killed Marcus. So… I shouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

  Maybe eventually he wouldn’t feel guilty.

  And he’d been dealing with all of that on top of reestablishing our relationship, which had been a challenge and a half. Over time, though, we’d gotten better.

  These days, we were in a good place. Still as imperfect as we’d been as Seth and Andrew, but happy. He was more open about things these days, both because of his therapy and because he didn’t have to keep the bulk of his life a secret anymore.

  It also probably helped that, although we’d technically already been together for three years, we took things slow and basically started over. Brandon was still finding his footing in Coeur d’Alene as his real self instead of Andrew Keller, including reconnecting with his friends and coworkers. He’d also had a long recovery after taking a bullet to the thigh—physical therapy and two follow-up surgeries were no joke. So it had made sense to take as much pressure off us as we could. Just let our relationship happen organically, the same way it had in the first place.

  So we’d started by dating. I’d stayed with him for a little while until he’d recovered most of his mobility, and then I’d moved into a place of my own. Naturally, I hadn’t been able to stay in the house where my friend was murdered, so I’d moved into an apartment a couple of blocks down from Brandon’s. Living apart had been good. It gave us a chance to start from scratch and figure out who we were as a couple.

  Of course, we’d spent more nights than not together. If I was picking up overtime, that meant fewer sleepovers, and if Brandon was especially sore after physical therapy, our sex life would be back-burnered temporarily, but we’d made it work. Our relationship was better than ever even when we had to pump the brakes in the bedroom.

  And finally, when I asked him a year ago if he wanted to move in together, same as I had more than once our first time around, he’d said yes.

  Now we were sharing a small ranch-style house that gave us some breathing room and also didn’t require him to go up and down stairs all the time. The large fenced-in yard that was perfect for a dog was a bonus, too, especially since our landlord didn’t mind us having pets. With the comments we both kept making lately about swinging by the animal shelter, I had a feeling we’d finally have a dog before too much longer.

  Our life together was unremarkable and boring, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  That wasn’t to say everything was unremarkable or boring. The investigations and prosecutions of everyone who’d tried to kill us had been long and stressful, though most of that was finally winding down. The militia groups in Indiana and Eastern Washington had shot themselves in the foot by coming after Brandon. They’d both been under heavy surveillance for a number of things, with active investigations into all kinds of criminal, borderline terrorist, and not-so-borderline terrorist activity. Once they took part in a hit, and especially after they’d committed acts on American soil while operating as a paramilitary force, law enforcement came down on them hard. The ATF, FBI, and Homeland Security had enough evidence to charge dozens of them with piles of crimes relating to what they’d done to us, and on top of that, trafficking weapons and drugs, carrying out other hits (some successfully, some not), and God only knew what else. Brandon and I only had to testify about our situation, so we didn’t know all the details about the rest of the investigations and cases.

  “Basically,” Will had explained to us over beers one night, “they fancied themselves a citizens’ army who moonlighted in organized crime.”

  The legal system, it turned out, did not approve of that sort of thing. Like the original militia Brandon had taken down, most of the key players were now dead or awaiting sentencing. The rest were under heavy surveillance.

  As for that motherfucking lawyer who’d orchestrated everything, Brandon had relished testifying against that fuckweasel, and I’d been thoroughly satisfied watching the defendant squirm through the entire proceeding. Even better was watching the jury slowly shift from neutral expressions to absolute disgust whenever they looked at him. The guilty verdict came as a surprise to absolutely no one except Charlie Butler himself, since he’d somehow believed they’d acquit.

  Sorry, asshole. The jury hadn’t shown him any mercy at his trial, and the courts had shown him none at his sentencing. Now Charlie was on his way to prison for the rest of his life. With any luck, he’d live many miserable years behind bars, knowing he was the reason his own youngest daughter was dead. Not that I expected him to have much if any empathy. If anything, he’d be angry that something of his had been taken away from him along with his wealth, his job, and his freedom.

  As long as the rest of his days were hell on earth, that was fine by me.

  And Brandon and I were, as much as we ever would be, safe. There was always the chance of someone coming after us, but the marshals were keeping tabs on anyone who might have any interest. Nothing to do now but move on with our lives.

  Approaching footsteps pulled my gaze away from the glittering lake. I knew immediately it was Brandon; his gait was still a bit uneven, and sometimes he used a cane when his leg was really bothering him. No cane today, just that subtle hitch in his steps.

  I smiled as I met his gaze. He was still dressed for work—shirt and tie with Brandon Gaines: Branch Manager on a lacquered pin—and he looked damn good. Was his leg cooperating tonight? Because I’d been in the mood all day for something fun in the bedroom, and one look at him now just intensified that mood.

  God, I want you.

  I kept that to myself for now, though, and just rolled up the window before getting out of the car.

  “Hey.” He smiled, put a hand on my waist, and kissed me lightly. “Sorry I’m a little late.”

  “Are you?” I glanced at my phone. Sure enough, he was about five minutes late. “Eh.” I shrugged as I pocketed it again. “I’m sure we can make up for it later.”

  From the way he grinned, we were absolutely on the same page. Shame about that dinner reservation, or we’d probably have headed straight home right now.

  Brandon cleared his throat. “We, um… We still have about twenty minutes before our reservation. You want to…?” He nodded toward the Floating Boardwalk.

  As if he needed to ask. We’d wandered along that footpath countless times in our past life, and it had become a twice-weekly routine to walk it while he was strengthening his leg. It never got old. Not even when he’d still had to walk slow as hell and needed to stop every so often to catch his breath.

  “Sorry,” he’d panted one time. “I’m completely out of shape now.”

  “Baby, you’re recovering from a bullet hole through your leg.” I’d squeezed his shoulder. “We can take all the time you want, because I’m just glad you’re here.”

  Today, he was walking with more ease, and he didn’t get winded like he had in those first few months.

  He did, however, stop a couple hundred feet from the beginning of the boardwalk.

  Alarm surged through me. “You okay?”

  “I’m good.” He smiled, pressing his elbow on the railing. “I was planning to stop here.”

  “You—oh. Okay?” I tilted my head. “Why’s that?”

  His little grin made my knees weak. “Do you remember the first time we stopped here?” He tapped his knuckle on the railing.

  I rewound a bit, and the memory came back. My cheeks heated as I returned his grin. “I seem to recall this was where I kissed you the first time.”

  “Mmhmm.” He cupped my neck in both hands. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  Then he claimed a soft, perfect kiss. We’d both been a little tentative the first time, but we touched with practiced ease now. The way his lips moved against mine was both familiar and thrilling, and… Did we have to go to dinner? Couldn’t we just go home, and after we’d finished, order pizza or something? Because fuuuck.