Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother Chapter 120

I find her in the last place I check—tucked into a side room off the main hall I almost missed. The door’s half-closed, and I nudge it open with my shoulder.

There’s a couch. A pool table. Shelves full of books lining the back wall. And her.

She turns at the sound of the door, startled, and straightens up from where she was standing near the bookshelves. Her hands fidget at the hem of her sweater, and her eyes—wide, glassy—meet mine for just a beat before she looks away.

Shit.

“Penny?”

I step in fully, shutting the door behind me. “What’s wrong?”

She opens her mouth but doesn’t speak. Just shakes her head.

“Is it your head?” I’m already crossing the room, eyes scanning her. “Are you dizzy? Did it come back? You need to lie down—”

“No,” she interrupts quickly, hand lifted like she needs to push the panic out of the air. “No, Asher. It’s not that.”

I slow, but I don’t back away. “Then what is it?”

She swallows hard, then looks up at me, something unreadable behind her lashes. “That movie…”

I go still.

“…is your work like that?”

I exhale through my nose. “Kind of,” I say. “Snipers do recon. Distance stuff. I’m more on the ground. Door kicking. Extraction. But yeah. Same world.”

She shakes her head slowly, like she’s trying to clear a thought. Or maybe stop one from taking over. Her bottom lip quivers.

I step closer and take her chin between my fingers, forcing her to look at me. “Why do you ask?”

She blinks, and one tear slips out, trailing down her cheek.

“You must’ve been so scared,” she whispers, her voice breaking on the last word.

*Fuck.*

I don’t know what hits me harder—that she’s crying, or that she’s crying for me.

Most people don’t ask. They don’t want to know. Not really. They want stories. Cool details. The part where the villain dies and the hero limps home.

But this girl? She’s worried I was *scared*.

“Hey.” I wipe her tear with my thumb. “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t think about that stuff.”

“But it happened, right?” she says, voice fragile. “Not like the movie but close enough. People trying to kill you. Friends dying.”

I guide her gently toward the couch. “Penny, don't think about it. Sit down.”

She does.

I drop onto the cushion beside her, elbows on my knees, exhaling slow.

She tugs her sleeves over her hands and glances sideways. “Why’d you come looking for me?”

“You didn’t come back,” I say. “And any excuse’s a good one to get away from the parade of future failed influencers in the other room.”

She chuckles softly. “How are we gonna last a whole week?”

“Carefully,” I mutter. “Maybe by faking injuries. We could say you re-concussed yourself.”

She leans back with a laugh. “Mister Hayes. That’s the second time you’ve cracked a joke around me.”

And fuck.

She can’t say things like that. Not in that voice. Not with her cheeks still pink and her legs curled under her and her hair falling like silk across her shoulder.

I look away, jaw tight. Silence swells between us.

Then she says, “Pick a color.”

I frown. “What the hell are you going to do?”

She giggles. “Just pick.”

“…Blue.”

“Okay, now a number between one and three hundred.”

I give her a look. “Why do I feel like this is a trap?”

“Because it might be,” she teases.

I sigh. “Seventy-nine.”

She nods like I passed some test and stands, walking to the bookshelf. I can’t help it—I watch her. The way she tilts her head. The way her fingers dance along the spines like she’s searching for something familiar.

After a minute, she says, “Hey, come help me.”

I stand and cross over.

“I need that one,” she says, pointing toward the top shelf. “The only blue one.”

“Got it.”

I put my hands around her waist and lift her—like she weighs nothing. Which she almost doesn’t. Her hands brace the shelf and she grabs the book.

When I lower her down, her hair brushes my cheek. My hands linger for a second longer than they should.

“So what kind of sick game is this?” I ask.

She shrugs. “You open the book to the page number you said, and whatever the first sentence is describes your future.”

I raise an eyebrow.

She opens the book, flips to page seventy-nine, and reads the first line aloud:

**“It wasn’t the fire that ruined me. It was that I waited for someone to pull me from the flames, instead of walking out myself.”**

We both go quiet.

Her eyes scan it again, like maybe she’s trying to make sense of it. Or maybe she already has.

I clear my throat. “Your turn.”

She looks at me, curious. “What?”

“Pick a color.”

She blinks. “Oh. Um… brown.”

I find a deep brown leather-bound book near the bottom. “And your number?”

She thinks for a second. “One hundred and twelve.”

I flip through the pages, find it, and read:

**“The hen laid two eggs and forgot which one was hers, so she sat on a pinecone.”**

Penny blinks. Then she bursts out laughing—head thrown back, eyes shining, actual tears.

I can’t stop the grin that pulls at my lips.

She wipes her eyes. “That’s… that tells me absolutely nothing, but I'll take it.”

I tuck the book under my arm and say, “You’re ridiculous.”

She nudges my side. “You love it.”

I don’t say anything.

But God help me, she’s not wrong.