By the time we wake up the next morning, with me still on the couch, I have five email replies in my inbox. All the men have voted on the Kresh job.

Yes, say Gunnar and Yang.

Let's do it, say Christmas, Toll and Ceasar.

Our fate is decided.

Over coffee, and trying to ignore your severe lack of eye contact, I call Kresh and confirm our employment. He is pleased, and asks us to be on the Russia/Himilaya border town of Bromia in 36 hours. It's a ten hour flight in Santa the PBY, so you and I have around 24 hours.

You can all but guess how I feel about you. I can all but suppose how you feel about me. We have 36 hours to either lay it down, or let the apathetic, sucking void of time steal whatever has grown between us. Three weeks would do it, too. Rob us of everything so carefully built.

Our time clock clicks, and starts to count down like a bomb.

I surmise through various small clues where our conversation last night ended, and my dream began. We did talk about Church. We didn't say we cared about each other. I want to rip out my hair. That boldness was a fake?! I still feel impressed with my dream-self's balls. He's a ballsier man than me, I think.

Nonetheless: you got ready to sleep, and I stayed up nursing a six-pack, and passed out. No revelations, no kiss. Your lips on mine...

Our last day together goes by in a blur, slipping through my hands like blood from a wound that I can't staunch. I piddle around in productive wastefulness, gathering my gear, cleaning my equipment, calm except for the nagging need to make the previous night's dream a reality. Your lips on mine...

You take your role in cleaning the guns up a notch, doing it all yourself, and you seem intent on doing your level best to make them like mirrors inside and out. After reminding me you have read every backpacking and army manual I own, you take it upon yourself to fold and roll my clothes and winter gear for optimal space usage. The bulky materials fight against you, but you prevail with iron will and rubber bands. Your one-track mind seems a byproduct of nervousness. I have read stories about how, in World War II, Japanese women would sew by hand thousand-stitch belts for their soldier sons, each stitch from a different woman. The belts were amulets: a way to keep their sons safe by carrying the blessings and prayers of their crafters. The intensity of the making was a dispelling of ills. I guess the principle holds true for you, too.

Like a child's stuffed animal, I haul around and sip the same beer all day, too distracted with preparations and my thoughts to drink at my usual pace. The last swallows have gone flat by the time I get to them. I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time...

We're mostly quiet, because there is little to say about the pain of being separated and even less to say about how we feel about it. It would be like asking the sky to turn purple to request you lay down your cards before me. Hey, Meera, how do you feel about me? Yeah, right. I don't need to ask: I can see your cards every time you meet my eyes, or I feel your gaze on my turned back. Truthfully, I've been seeing them for a while now. With every furtive glance, you project the sense our time is running thin. You are probably wondering what I'm going to do about it.

"You're gonna carry your gun at all times," I say, having broached the subject of Church again, desperate to relieve the tension. "Even when you sleep."

You stop winding paracord to look at me with strength in the face of adversity. "I will. I'll be safe, Barney. I promise."

"If something happened to you, Meera..." I trail off, the dream from last night surfacing strongly. Your lips on mine...

You appear in front of me, and lay a cool hand on my crossed arms. "I'll be here when you get back," you say softly, eyes gently coaxing me out of my worry.

I have to take your word for it, because I sure as hell won't be here to ensure it. I nod and crush the rise of the dream again.

With the pact made, Church and his bullshit take a backseat.

We stop to watch the 5 o'clock news when I realize I've had just about enough.

"Hey," I say, catching your attention. "Wanna go for a ride?"

You smile, soft and a little sad. "Yeah."

In minutes, we are clad in leather and donning helmets. The bike responds like thunder, and you slide with heavy desperation to go, leave, fly into place behind me. You are sitting closer by a few inches, all the better to wrap your arms around me further. Your fingers are laced as we shake the hangar on the way out.

The team and I will be departing in the morning, so it is nightfall as I point the wheel towards the bay. This is the best time of day: the sun brushes the swirled clouds with striating colors, ranging from pink to lavender to orange and gold. As I settle upon the well-trodden route that hugs the body of water, the day's last hurrah sparkles across the surface like nature's discoball.

There's a certain pressure between us. I don't even have to see your face to know you're depressed and anxious: I can feel it in the way you are trying to merge yourself to my back through the layers of leather and cloth. I wish I could carry you around with me, in my pocket, to take out when I need a fix, or like a Camelback, to sip as needed. But you're only so portable, and I wouldn't put you between me and a bullet in the back in a million years.

So we ride. We ride past the setting of the sun. We glimpse the green flash as the burning orb is extinguished into the next timezone. We ride past and through towns: past and through the cycles of despondency. We try to outrace the coming day, chasing that sun, because even the futility of the exercise is enough. You hold me tight enough to hinder my breath, just a little. I relish it. The vibration of the bike rattles loose our individual worries and fears, the secret and the known. We try to outrun our plagues.

Finally, I can't pretend to beat the clock anymore. I slow and pull us off the side of the road, to an overlook that shows the glow of the city against the ghostly clouds. You swing off, and unbuckle your helmet. "That sunset was beautiful," you say, walking to the rocky edge.

I kickstand the bike and dismount. "Beautiful," I agree. Not nearly so beautiful as you, framed by the lights on the ocean, your countenance whipped by salt air and ambitious mist. I join you to take in the view, from the distant red-green lights on the wings of a plane to the streams of car lights that move like platelets in the city's bloodstream. "You know," I say after a minute. "We'll be seeing the same sun. And the same moon, and stars."

You look at me with a teasing smile. "That was more romantic than I gave you credit for, Barney."

"I'm full of surprises," I reply. But my gut, from the place that tells me if I'm being watched, or if someone is telling the truth, is urging me to press my advantage.

This is as good a place as any. This is as best a time as I will have. This is the moment, my moment, our moment, to put this to rest. I am a man in love. In a split second, like my life passing before my eyes, I picture every wrong thing that could happen. I see your look of betrayal, of mistrust, of hurt. I see you turn and walk away, never to return, leaving me in an empty home with two beds, a second divot in the couch, two bowls in the sink, and two toothbrushes in the bathroom.

Then, I see everything that I might possibly gain from a leap of faith.

I see your eyes shining with love, unveiled from the shyness and hiding of our little game. I see you flushed with arousal as I kiss you, down your neck, between your breasts, around your bellybutton. I see you laughing unabashedly as I lift your toes to my lips. I see you melting into my neckrub after a long combat practice. I see your lovely soul, branded as mine, glowing radiantly from across a crowded room just for me. I see you relaxing against my inner thighs with a book, watching the sun set from the truck bed. I see days of peace and happiness. I see you getting dressed in my presence, and throwing a coy smile at me over your bare shoulder. I see your body, whole and complete, arrayed for me on a bed. I see our children, our grandchildren, their faces hazy though I try to bring them into focus. I see us old, gray, and frail, passing into the void, laying side by side, hands clasped.

In all, I see far more to be gained by the opening of my heart: someone to love and be loved by, someone to care for and be cared for by. Isn't that all anyone ever wants in life, even hardened mercenaries? Why have I not weighed the choices in this way before?

I've been in love with you for close to two months. In the eyes of the world, that is not a long time. But I know now what my heart says, and the world's opinion can go to hell.

I've known I was in love with you for several weeks. And those weeks have been the hardest of my life. Walking through minefields is easier than what I've had to endure. I've measured every word, gesture, thought and feeling, trying to keep this emotion inside, where it can't harm you, me, or our sweetly developed quid pro quo.

My strength and stamina have run thinner than I thought they ever would. I'm a mercenary: tough is my job security. But these weeks of trying to hide my heart and still live attached at hip to you has worn me down like the torture circumvention practice for Navy Seals. I'm tired, drained. I can't take it any more. That dream yesterday was the last straw.

It has to be tonight. I'm ready, but are you?

My decision is finally made. I accept the consequences, no matter what they may be.

I move my boots to face you squarely. Such a modest movement belying the gravity of my mindset. Such a simple motion to facilitate my utter joy, or ultimate heartbreak. "Meera, I have to get something off my chest." The words are easy because they come from the deepest recesses of my soul. Good, strong start. Now can I follow through, coward? If it were that easy, I would have spoken those words weeks ago.

You look at me expectantly, attentively. The wind lifts your freed hair like invisible fingers are combing it. You always want to hear what I have to say.

Will that change, in the next few minutes? We have but 12 hours left.

"I've been meaning to tell you something for...well, a long time now."

"What is it?" Your eyes are cautiously hopeful, drawn out and reflecting a hesitating rendition of what I am beaconing like a lighthouse.

I swallow, and shuffle forward, closer to you. "Maybe it would be best if I showed you."

You tilt your head. "Is this what I think it is?" you ask. More meaningful words have never been spoken.

Our game, played diligently for weeks and the last barrier between us, is exposed in a second, and washed away like sand from the shore several dozen feet below. "Yes," I reply truthfully. I'm done hiding. I am stripped bare, down to the bone, and you can either throw salt or soothing balm on me.

It's almost like my dream.

I have just enough time to register the change in your expression, and the shift in your body, before your lips are touching mine.