Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother Chapter 130

The shower water scalds my skin, but it’s not enough.

Not enough to scrub off the heat he left behind. Not enough to slow my racing heart or steady the way my hands won’t stop trembling.

I lean my forehead against the foggy tile wall, steam curling around me like smoke, chest heaving.

*What is wrong with me?*

He crouched in front of me like I was prey, like I was something he could devour in one breath and I—I could barely look away. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

Before he liked me—even *tolerated* me—he still made my spine light up like a fuse. Now that he’s here, now that he’s close on purpose, that he may even see me as a friend… It’s like trying to hold back a wildfire with a glass of water.

I can’t feel this way about him. I *can’t.*

Tyler is—

Tyler is not *this*.

I step out of the shower, dry off quickly, and pull on my softest black leggings and a hoodie. My hair is damp against my neck in a loose braid. I barely glance at myself in the mirror before leaving the bathroom.

When I come out, he’s sitting on his bed, forearms resting on his knees, fingers tangled loosely together. The muscles in his back flex through the black cotton of his shirt. His jaw is set. But when he looks up and sees me, something shifts. Something I can’t name.

I sit on my bed. My heartbeat won’t slow.

“Asher?”

He turns his head, eyes meeting mine. “Yeah?”

“What’s the real reason you didn’t want me to see you shirtless earlier?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Doesn’t look away either.

I panic. Fill the silence the way I always do—with rambling.

“I mean—everyone has insecurities. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. It’s just… you don’t look like someone who *would* feel that way. You kind of look like a Greek god, if we're all being honest and...”

I stop myself because he huffs a laugh and shakes his head, that smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I’m not insecure about my body.”

My mouth opens. Closes.

Yeah. That tracks. *Have you seen yourself?*

“Then what is it?”

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he says, “Come here.”

My stomach flips.

I hesitate, but his gaze is unreadable. Not teasing. Not guarded, either. Just... focused. Like I’m the only thing that matters right now.

I get up and sit next to him on the bed, close but not touching. His scent hits me all over again—cedar and something darker, something warm and impossible to describe.

He turns, and when our knees brush, I nearly forget how to breathe.

Then his hand slides onto my thigh—just a little pressure, like a tether—and he says, “You remember this one?”

He’s pointing to the long scar slashing across his forearm. The one I see every time he moves. The one that lives in the back of my mind.

I nod.

He doesn’t move. “Touch it.”

My throat tightens. But I reach out slowly, gently, and run my fingertip along the line. It’s warm under my touch. Raised and smooth and terribly real. It's long, too. And I can't help thinking about how much it must've hurt.

His grip on my thigh tightens—just for a beat. A silent reaction. A warning? A pulse?

I’m breathing too hard. I can feel it. So can he.

“This is nothing,” he says quietly. “Child’s play compared to the rest of me.”

Something in my chest cracks. I don’t mean to, but a tear slips out.

He brushes it away with his thumb. Slow. Soft. Reverent.

And then he says, “That’s why I didn’t want you to see.”

My heart twists in my chest.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” I whisper.

He gives a half-laugh, bitter at the edges. “There’s no point in doing that to you.”

I sit in silence, blinking quickly.

Then I ask, “Was it… the same incident that hurt Rooster?”

He stills. His eyes don’t move from mine. “Yeah.”

My voice is smaller. “Did you get hurt the way he did?”

“No.”

A pause. Then—“Rooster got burned. Fourth degree.”

I blink again. “I didn’t know there was a fourth degree.”

He nods once. “It’s when it burns through the skin, muscle, even bone sometimes. That’s why he’s lucky to have his arm.”

I feel cold suddenly, despite the hoodie. My fingers twitch in my lap.

My voice cracks. “Yours weren’t burns?”

He shakes his head slowly. “No.”

My chest aches. I don’t want to push him, but I want to know. I want to know everything. What happened. What it did to him. Why he wakes up in the night breathing like he’s drowning.

“I talked to Anna,” I say quietly. “The day I fell. I saw her and, well, she talked about you.”

His jaw shifts.

“She didn’t tell me anything. She didn’t tell me what happened. Just…” I exhale. “She told me how many of you came back.”

He nods, and his arms move—pulling me suddenly, gently, into his lap. One hand on my waist, the other on my shoulder. Holding me close. Like he can feel the ache inside me and needs to fix it with his own hands.

I don’t resist.

I melt into him.

“I guess you’re not the one that wasn’t hurt.”

He doesn’t speak. Just shakes his head.

I ask, “Did you have the worst injuries?”

His voice is soft. “Out of the four that lived, yeah.”

The word lands heavy in my chest. Worst than a fourth degree burn?

Tears blur my vision.

“Why are you crying?” he whispers against my temple.

I press my face into his shoulder, my voice muffled. “Because what if you go back and you don’t make it out?”

He pulls me closer. So tight I can feel his heartbeat.

“That’s the job, princess.”

I sniffle. “Well… your job sucks.”

He chuckles low in his chest. The sound vibrates through me. Calms me and unravels me at the same time.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “It really does.”

I stay right there, curled in his lap, the feel of him solid beneath me, wrapped in the warmth of something that feels like it could burn the world down.