“Sure,” Logan said, raising the beer in his hand to his lips. He’d been nursing the same one for an hour now. If he knew nothing else, he’d instinctively known, if he let himself seek the numbness a bottle could bring him, he wouldn’t come back up. He’d been careful not to allow himself that solace.
“What’s not to like? It’s a great company. Good people.” Logan nodded to the group across the room, trying not to note that Sam’s eyes had crossed to him more than a few times.
Everyone else seemed to be content to let him stay on the far side of things. He knew her head was probably trying to calculate some precise measurement of time before intervening, balancing all the factors to know when to step in and try to lure him into the group.
He had a feeling she’d been studying even more about trauma, since she seemed pretty damned sure he needed help. Not that he could argue with her. He didn’t question that he had post-traumatic stress injury. He just didn’t know what the hell to do with that information.
“They are,” Zach said, and Logan thought he was about to say more, but the screech from a baby monitor on a nearby table interrupted him.
Logan’s body stilled, tense as he shifted into autopilot. His mind instantly processed the noise, eyes checking his surroundings before his brain gave the all clear. But not fast enough, or subtly enough.
Logan willed his breathing back to normal, but his heart rate was another story. His body just didn’t seem willing to come back down from fight-or-flight mode nowadays. And the toll was starting to wear on him.
Zach had seen that.
His friend’s voice was quiet as he spoke, talking more into the glass he raised to his lips than to Logan.
“You still seeing someone? Getting some help with being back?”
Logan’s lips thinned as he shook his head once. “Not since the hospital.”
Both men kept their eyes on the group across the room as Jack reentered, holding little Maddie, fresh from her nap. The way she scowled at everyone and reached for her mom was almost comical. Apparently, she wasn’t one for company first thing after her nap.
Zach took a long swallow and Logan knew he was measuring his response. “Think it might help?” he asked.
Logan grunted. “You obviously do.”
“Well, it’s that or head out to the monastery.”
Logan laughed out loud at that. That was Zach’s thing. He’d gone all Zen-like when he returned, going off to chant with the monks or some shit like that. Not exactly Logan’s thing.
“If you don’t want to use the VA services, I’m sure your health insurance would cover it.”
Logan nodded and smiled at Zach. “Yeah, I’ll call.”
What else could he say?
The fact he had insurance to cover something none of the other guys who’d come back with him were getting was just one more thing to piss him off. He needed to get out of there before the anger took over. Before it blinded him and ruined this party for everyone.
He should be grateful. He was lucky to have what others didn’t. Instead, it fueled his anger in ways he couldn’t explain.
Rage scratched his skin and raked his bones.
He stood and handed Zach his beer bottle. “Can you take care of that and say goodbye to Jack for me? I gotta take off.”
Coming here had been a big mistake. He wasn’t ready. And no amount of therapy was going to change that.
Before he could walk away, Chad approached from the other side of the room, quietly joining them to make a trio of former military.
“You know I like you, right, man?” Chad asked.
Logan laughed, in spite of himself, and shook his head at Chad.
Just like that, the anger ebbed a bit and he felt a fraction of the tension drain. It took the edge off a little, being flanked by two guys who understood.
“All right give it to me,” Logan said, readying himself for a new way to die.
The guys had christened “You know I like you…” as the opening line of the now-running joke of ways they’d kill Logan if he messed with Sam.
He had to admit, some of them were pretty funny. Zach wanted to cover him in banana puree and toss him in the gorilla cage at the zoo. The plans were getting further and further from the realm of reality and more into the land of the ridiculous. As evidenced by the gorillas.
Chad smiled wide as he launched into his latest “kill Logan” plan. “First, we need to build a big pit.”
Jennie and Sam walked over to join the group, cutting off Chad’s plan, as Jennie shook her head at her husband.
“Enough with the plans, mister,” she said as she twined her arms around Chad’s bicep and looked up at him with a chastising scowl on her face.
Logan’s eyes flipped to Sam. His heart jumped when he saw the wistfulness in her gaze as she watched her two friends. She must want that kind of love as badly as he wanted it. She was a hell of a lot more suited to it than he was.
He wasn’t able to give her what she needed right now, but part of him selfishly hoped she didn’t meet anyone before he got his shit together. Wow. How screwed up and selfish was that?
“What plans?” Samantha asked, her head swiveling around the group. Logan all but choked as he realized how that explanation might go. Yeah, Sam. They’re all planning my death because they’re afraid I’ll act on what I’m feeling and then dick you over in the end.
Jennie had the tact to explain the joke without making the connection to Sam, and Logan had a feeling his relief matched that of Zach and Chad who had been looking a little ill at her question.
“The boys think it’s fun to come up with ways to kill a SEAL.”
Samantha gasped. “Kill a seal? Why would you do that! Poor baby seals.”
They all laughed and Chad made the clarification. “No, Sam. As in capital S-E-A-L. Like this guy.” He tossed a thumb toward Logan, spelling out the designation that stood for Sea, Air, and Land, the three theatres of operation of a Navy SEAL.
“Oh! That kind of SEAL.” Sam nodded thoughtfully at Logan and the wheels started to crank in her head. Unlike when the guys laid their plans, Logan actually squirmed under Sam’s study of him. What would she come up with?
“Hmmm,” Sam murmured, clearly deep in thought as she walked away from the group, muttering under her breath.
The remaining friends looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“She’s the one who could do it, you know,” Chad finally said, and the rest nodded.
And, apparently, Logan thought as he watched her walk away, she was busy coming up with the step-by-step of precisely how she would take him out. Wonderful.
Chapter 5
Sam wanted to lean on Jennie as they walked toward the locker room, but it seemed ludicrous when Jennie was a good few inches shorter and probably twenty pounds lighter. Okay, thirty. Thirty pounds lighter.
But, it was Jennie’s fault she was here.
“That woman is nuts. Certifiable. Someone needs to stop her. Stop the madness,” Sam said as she clutched her stomach with one arm and leaned a hand along the wall on the way back to the locker room.
Jennie laughed.
Traitor.
“I think you’ll survive. Besides, people love her spin class. They line up for it a half hour ahead of time to get a spot. You’re lucky I saved you a place.”