“I can’t even imagine the strength, the bravery it takes to do what you did, Jack.”
With a snort, he said, “Not fishing for compliments here, sugar. Just telling it like it is.”
“You still deserve to hear how incredible I think you are.”
He wasn’t touching that comment. “Anyway, on our last mission, we were helping an EOD team. They’re the explosives guys. They were disarming an explosive device they’d discovered while traveling, and we were back up since we were the closest team around. Anyway, just as they’d given the all-clear, someone screamed about tripping a bomb we hadn’t been aware of. The guy was running toward us at full speed, hollering about how we had to get the fuck outta there as fast as possible.”
Holly began to fade into the background as LJ transported back to that last horrifying day in the Middle East. With each word he spoke, the weight of the memories increased until a crushing weight sat on his chest.
“Do you need to stop?” Holly asked as she kissed his chest. Just that one little touch of her lips grounded him in ways he wouldn’t have thought possible.
“No. Don’t need to stop.” Now that he’d started, he just wanted the fucking poison out of his system. “My best friend, Mick, had been standing next to me, and like a fucking hero, he ran toward the guy instead of away. I have no idea what he was thinking. Maybe he thought he could get to him and help drag him out of the blast zone. I’ll never know, and that’s one of the things that haunts me to this day.”
“Oh, Jack,” she said. Yeah, she knew what was coming.
“I screamed at him to get his stupid ass back, but he didn’t listen. The blast was huge, took out an entire building. I was thrown about fifteen feet from the force of it. Later, someone told me I was only in the air a few seconds, but fuck, Holly, it felt like hours. I witnessed it all. Mick’s death is branded on every one of my fucking senses. I saw his black and charred body. Felt the heat as it scorched my skin. Heard his fucking screams of terror and anguish. Smelled his fucking melting flesh, and, fuck, if the goddammed smoke didn’t coat my taste buds. I was helpless, so fucking helpless as I flew through the air and crashed down to a pile of broken bones.”
“Helplessness,” Holly whispered.
LJ pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. Fuck if he would cry now. “Gets me every time. So, you see, sugar, I relive that shit in vivid detail during the night, and I lash the fuck out at anyone or anything near. I can’t be trusted and I’m not sure that’ll ever go away.”
She grabbed his hand, pulled it from his face and pressed her lips to his fingertips. “What about talking to someone? Going to see a therapist? I can go with you.” Her voice held a note of pleading.
Too sweet. Too goddammed sweet. “I’ve done it, sugar, for about two years. Learned some shit to deal with the panic attacks during the day, but it didn’t do shit for the nightmares.”
Of course, he hadn’t told the therapist everything. He hadn’t told anyone everything. Never uttered the words of the trauma that haunted him in the night.
All of a sudden, Holly shot straight up. “Oh, my God!” She spun, kneeling next to him. “I know someone. LJ, I know someone perfect.”
“How? You’ve lived here for five minutes.”
“He doesn’t live here. He lives in Tampa.”
“He? You fuck him?” He narrowed his eyes.
With a roll of her eyes, she swatted his chest. “Jesus, LJ, of course not. Will you listen for a minute?”
He made a show of zippering his lips closed and tossing away the key.
Holly snorted. “You’re ridiculous. Okay, my brother’s best friend growing up lived next door to us. His family went through some shit while he was in high school, and he eventually fell in with the wrong crowd.”
“A one-percenter MC?” With a smirk, he raised an eyebrow.
“Ha, ha. Are you listening? This is serious LJ.”
Ugh, he was an ass. Here she was, working to come up with an idea so they could not only be together, but he could finally have relief from the crippling nightmares. He placed a hand on her thigh. “Sorry, sugar. Keep going.”
Shooting him a sassy smile, she said, “Thank you. Anyway, his name is Baxter but we call him Bax, and he spiraled out of control pretty fast. Drugs, fights, theft. Eventually, when he was eighteen, the cops picked him up on an auto theft charge. He was sentenced to ten years, served five.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. When he came out, he was a different person. He was a man, but he’d made that transition while behind bars, which I imagine would scar anyone.”