Free Drowning in Fire by Hanna Martine

she’d suddenly reappeared in his life two months ago . . . and then had disappeared again, leaving him unexpectedly shredded.
    Three years apart from her, he discovered, hadn’t cut into any of his want.
    Griffin unfolded himself from the car and David followed, pushing out from behind the steering wheel. “Fine. You’ll come with me,” Griffin said over the roof. “Gwen’ll meet us there. That’s it. That’s all I’m bringing.”
    David ran a hand through his curly blond hair and nodded tightly, knowing there would be no further discussion on the matter. “I’ll make sure you’re safe, that all the roads to the gathering are clear.”
    Their eyes met, smudging that line between personal and professional. “I know you will.”
    David jogged around the hood and hopped up onto the sidewalk. The mild winter day was punctuated by music streaming from an open window. A Primary man washed his car in his driveway. A couple walked their mutt, heading for the two Ofarian men. The working class neighborhood was where Griffin had grown up, and it smelled and felt the same. Wonderfully the same.
    He let the couple and the dog pass by before saying to David, “They’re throwing me a peace offering. As they should. The Chimeran chief owes me a massive apology, I owe them a first-person account of Keko’s capture, and then we’ll be back on even footing. I hope.”
    David grinned. “So you’re saying it’s good that your ex-lover has a jealous, angry streak?”
    Griffin laughed ruefully, and it hurt. Thinking of Keko usually did.
    “Are you ever going to tell me what happened three years ago?”
    David had been with Griffin in Colorado two months back when they’d discovered Keko being held captive by one of their own, and the revelation of Griffin’s previous liaison with the Chimeran woman had come to light. But Griffin had never spoken of the awful misunderstanding that final night three years ago around the Senatus bonfire. It would only undermine his already tenuous position among his own cabinet and his Ofarian detractors, who still possessed a powerful voice.
    An image of the mighty Makaha, reduced to sagging in the snow and dirt, half his arm black, his mouth open in a scream, assaulted Griffin’s memory. Followed quickly by one of Keko, and her horror and shock and disgust. And then her back as she’d turned away.
    “Maybe someday,” Griffin replied.
    After the incident, he’d appealed to the Senatus many times, but his stance that Makaha had attacked first fell on deaf ears. So he’d given up trying to make contact, but had not given up on his dreams. He still desperately wanted to be part of the Senatus, but he realized now that he’d rushed the process before. He’d barged in waving his opinions like flags, but after witnessing their fractured system and lack of true communication, he knew now that he needed a new approach. He just didn’t know what that was.
    David may have been more right than his joke intended. The chance to move forward with the Senatus had risen from the ashes of any possible future with Keko. Ash. Yeah, that’s what they were now. Griffin tried to see that as a good thing.
    “Will Kekona be there?”
    Griffin shrugged, feigning ignorance by checking his watch, but he remembered all too well what Cat had told him after she’d returned from Hawaii two months ago: Keko’s generalship had been given to Bane. He also knew that that action would’ve destroyed her. And there was nothing he could do about it.
    As he caught David watching him, he knew that no amount of nonchalance would fool his friend, but that David would also never press for information Griffin wasn’t willing to give.
    Griffin peered across the street to the picture window of the second-floor apartment, alive with the flicker from the TV. “You sure you want to sit out here tonight? Call up Hansen to be on watch. This is beneath you.” He said that last sentence with a grin.
    “Nah. I’d rather