“God, baby. You have it. I love you more than my own life.” His eyes squeezed shut. “I probably should have led with that.”

“The whole love thing might have helped,” I bit out. “Or even something as trite as ‘will you marry me?’ may have sufficed.”

“Then let me start over,” he begged, meeting my eyes. “There is nothing more important to me than you, December.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not now. Not ten days before you deploy, and not because you’re deploying.”

“I just want to—”

“Protect me?” I finished for him when he couldn’t.

“Yeah.”

“Josh, if something happens to you, a wedding ring isn’t going to save my sanity or salvage my heart. The army has dictated everything about my life since I was born. Where I lived, when I moved, when I lost my friends…when I lost my father. I’ll be damned if I give it a say in when I become your wife. Only we get that say.” I pulled the blanket around my shoulders, trying to ward off the chill I knew had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the loss of Josh’s warmth.

“I don’t want to wait another year. I want you to be my wife, and I thought…” He laced his fingers and rested them on the top of his head. “I don’t care how I marry you, December. In a huge, crowded church, on a deserted beach, in the fucking janitor closet of city hall. I don’t care as long as it makes you my wife, and I guess I thought you felt the same way.”

“How I feel? I want you to want to marry me. I want you to marry me because I’m the only possible future for you, because I’m the one you can’t live without, and not because you think you have to. Not because Jagger and Paisley did it.”

“Look how happy they are!”

“Happy? For fuck’s sake! Did you even ask when their baby is due?”

He blinked. “No.”

“October ninth.”

He paused midshrug, finally clicking with what I was trying to tell him. “Yeah. You guys will most likely still be gone. She will go through this entire pregnancy, and probably the birth, on her own. Jagger is about to miss out on almost all of their first year of marriage and watching over Paisley’s pregnancy. Do you think that makes him happy? Is that what you want? For our first year of marriage to happen over Skype calls, wondering if we’ll ever make it to a first anniversary? Because that’s why you’re doing this, right? To protect me if you don’t come back?”

The muscles in his jaw flexed. “That’s not fair.”

“No. None of this is.” We stood in silence, staring at each other across this giant sinkhole in our relationship.

“I think you’re a pompous asshole who wouldn’t know love if it was delivered naked to you on a fucking platter!” Morgan’s voice carried from the field behind us.

Guess we’re not the only ones awake and arguing.

“One, I’m well aware of what love is, and two, what the hell do you expect from me, Morgan? I’m leaving!” Will shouted as Morgan arrived at the nearly dead fire.

“Oh look, a functioning military couple,” Morgan said, waving to Josh and me.

“Don’t bet on it,” I answered.

Josh tilted his head and shot me a look that said he didn’t appreciate the comment.

Too fucking bad. He’d just treated one of the most important moments of our life like it was another item to be checked off his pre-deployment checklist.

“Weigh in for me,” Morgan drawled, crossing her arms as Will caught up to her.

“Morgan,” he warned.

“Oh, come on, Will. My feelings for you are the worst-kept secret since Paisley’s for Jagger. I think we can all be honest here.”

Josh edged away. “Not sure this is our place.”

“Oh, no you don’t, Walker.” Morgan stared him down. “Tell me, if you had feelings for someone, wouldn’t you want to be with them? Even if they only had a couple months before they deployed?”

“Actually—” Josh started.

“Damn it, Morgan! I’ll be gone nine months. You want to start a relationship like that?” Apparently Will’s drawl was a bit more pronounced when he got mad.

Fascinating.

“It’s not like this is World War Two, Will! We can Skype, and write letters, and talk on the phone. Do you think I won’t wait for you? Is that it?” Morgan fired back.

Holy shit. Josh couldn’t have thought that…or could he?

“Is that the real reason?” I asked Josh, not caring that we’d just turned this into a melee. “Are you scared I won’t wait for you? That I don’t love you enough, so a ring will keep me around?”

Josh rubbed his hands over his face. “We are not doing this right now.”

“Wouldn’t you want whatever time you could get?” Morgan yelled at Will.

Enough.

“You know what?” I said, turning toward Morgan and away from Josh. “I’m with Will. If you have feelings for him, then talk during the deployment, be there for him, show him the woman you’ve grown to be. Don’t jump into a relationship because you think you’re on some stupid timeline.”

Her eyebrows shot to the sky.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to head home for the night,” Will drawled.

“You should take Josh with you,” I called over my shoulder as I stomped into our house, shutting the door with enough force to declare me a tantrum-throwing toddler. My clothes hit the hamper while I muttered to myself about the idiocy of men.