Casey and I spent our days in the office and our nights between the sheets. Sometimes one of us had an appointment in the afternoon—therapy for me, physical therapy for him—but most days ended with us naked and tangled. When I came in on Saturdays, he came in with me to help so neither of us had to feel quite so guilty for the amount of time we spent in each other’s beds.
Sometimes I still wondered if I should have listened to Clint and not dated a coworker, but I really liked Casey. He was smart and funny. We could talk forever or just hang out in silence. We worked great together, and we were even better in bed. And besides, Clint had married a coworker, so his argument was invalid. Diego and Sarah gave us hell for it, but that was just par for the course in the training department. I’d had my doubts about being able to pull off this job without fucking it up, but so far, so good.
On the way back from the conference room with yet another box of records, I overheard some of the guys from another department talking about partying over the weekend. Someone had gotten shitfaced and puked on the wing commander’s front tire outside the officers’ club, and someone else had passed out on the sidewalk in front of the Navy Exchange.
Drinking for fun hadn’t really appealed to me, so I couldn’t relate to wanting to get smashed in the name of a good time, but the conversation did stick with me for some reason. It didn’t give me any nostalgic feelings. No mouth-watering at the thought of getting hammered. No barely resistible craving for a drink. It was strange hearing about people drinking but not envying them or needing to fight any urges.
And then I realized what it was—I hadn’t felt the need to drink recently. At all.
Weird. Because for way too many years, every minute I spent sober was one minute closer to getting unsober. I’d count down until I could crack open my first drink, and even before the hangover had receded, I’d be counting down until I could start pouring beer into my face again. The constant obsession with my next drink had occupied so much real estate in my head that its absence was huge. And alien. And—please God—permanent?
I hadn’t thought there’d ever come a time when I wouldn’t have to fight cravings every minute of every day, but here I was. Maybe it was Casey. Maybe it was the job. Maybe I was just too hooked on the clarity and stability I’d found over the last several months. The nightmares sucked, but the waking hours when I was actually clear-headed and had my shit together? Damn. That was new. And I liked it.
With a renewed sense of . . . hell, pride? Feeling like I was really back on the rails? Well, whatever it was, it made me grin like an idiot as I headed back to the office with the box of records.
I’d have to take Clint out to dinner soon. I owed him one.
Two weeks into this, Casey and I started getting tired of takeout, so we swung into the commissary and picked up some actual food, which we took back to my place. Between our two apartments, mine had the bigger and better kitchen, but Casey was far more competent than I was when it came to cooking, so I stayed out of the way while he got to work.
The boot didn’t seem to be slowing him down any. He moved around the kitchen easily, boot clicking on the linoleum. If he needed something out of a cupboard below the counter, I took care of it, though—crouching was still a challenge for him.
While he went through the motions of making a chicken stir-fry, I sat at the kitchen table and propped my sketchbook on my knee. “You don’t mind if I’m doing this while we’re talking, do you?”
Casey shook his head. “No. You said it keeps your hands busy, so . . .”
My hands and the parts of my brain that I used to keep quiet with a bottle.
As I started sketching, I cleared my throat. “So, uh, is it okay if I ask about your career?”
He glanced at me. “I’m assuming you don’t mean the part where I’m playing office drone.”
“No.”
He swallowed, but then shrugged. “Sure.”
I watched him for a moment while he focused on cooking, and finally asked, “Why the SEALs?”
Casey sighed, and the food sizzled as he chased it around with a spatula. “I couldn’t even tell you why it started. I was really into military movies from the time I was a kid, and somewhere in there, I just knew. First I wanted to be in the military, but then when I started reading about the SEALs, it was like looking into my own future, you know?” He scowled. “I thought it was, anyway. What about you? Why the Marines?”
“Didn’t have a lot going for me, I guess. I needed to do something after high school, and wasn’t good enough to get a football scholarship, so it seemed like the next best thing.”
“Why not art school?”
I laughed bitterly, sliding the pencil under the line I’d just drawn to add a soft shadow. “After everyone warned me my whole life that art was fine and good but would never actually get me a respectable job?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” He scowled. “My sister got the same shit. People saw her music as a way to get into college and get scholarships, but a career?” He glanced at me, the scowl turning to a grin. “She showed them, though.”
“Yeah?”
“She’s first chair violin for a symphony in New York. It’s not loads of money, but it pays the bills and she’s happy.”
“Good for her.”
I bit down on a comment about at least one of us being moderately successful and not a complete fuckup. My therapist had been on my case about that. About self-berating. I wasn’t a failure. I’d had a setback. A big one, but not an insurmountable one. Comparing myself to someone who didn’t have nightmares about being shot at wasn’t really fair to anyone.
“Anyway, SEALs or not,” he went on dryly, “it’s just as well I joined the military. My parents were saving for all three of us to go to college, but most of that money went to legal fees and rehab for my brother.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Around the time I was getting ready to enlist, he had a huge setback, and the lawyers alone almost bankrupted my folks.”
“Jesus.” I watched him, not quite sure what to say, and finally settled on, “How’s he doing now?”
“He’s been holding steady for a couple of years now, but with an addict like that, you just never know for sure.”
I bristled, but tried not to let it show. “If something will set him back? Or if he’s really sober?”
“Both. Sometimes he can weather really horrible stress without a problem. Like when he lost his job—he was fine. As far as we knew, anyway. But then other times, it’s like he’s on a hair trigger. One thing in his life gets out of whack, and suddenly he’s getting arrested for possession or DUI again. Or everything looks fine, and he’s getting evicted for cooking meth.”
“Jesus . . .”
“Yeah.” Casey’s hands stopped mid-chop. Then he rolled his shoulders and tilted his head to each side like he needed to get a crick out of his neck. “My parents and I actually had to have a long discussion about my career and how it relates to my brother. They don’t want anyone or anything to hold me back, but we all have to face the reality that if something happens to me . . .” Casey paused and, as he went back to chopping, added, “What can we do, though?”
“Yeah. Wow. That’s heavy.”
“It is. But that’s the reality of having someone in your family who’s that on edge.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Was that what my family had been dealing with all this time? Stressing themselves into knots because no one knew how to save me or how to keep me from sinking deeper? And all that on the heels of cumulatively spending three years worrying I’d come back from the Middle East in a box? Kind of explained why they barely talked to me anymore. Fuck. What had I done to my family?
“Logan?”
I shook myself and looked up from my sketchbook. I hadn’t even realized I’d started drawing again. “Sorry, what?”
He cocked his head, but then broke eye contact while he tossed a handful of diced peppers into the pan. “You just zoned out for a second.”
“Eh. It happens sometimes.”
“I know.” He glanced at me. “I’ve, uh, seen it. At work.”
“Really? I didn’t think anyone noticed.”
“Kind of hard to miss,” he said softly. “Diego does the same thing sometimes. I think half the guys in the building do it.”
I shuddered. There was something oddly comforting and depressing about having that many people around who dealt with those moments. Tonight, it was just an intense train of thought pulling my focus out of the present, but I’d seen Diego. I’d seen some of the other guys. I’d done it myself. I wondered if there would ever be a time again when half the people on a base didn’t have some form of PTSD.
Watching Casey cook, it hit me in the gut to know that for right now, he was one of the lucky ones. He’d never been to a war zone. He was still unscathed. What did somebody like that dream about at night?
And how much longer before he got a dose of combat trauma like the rest of us?
That thought sent a chill through me, and I didn’t dare let my mind linger on it. I cleared my throat and tapped my pencil on my half-drawn sketch. “So, um, is there anything I can do to help? Cut something up, or . . .?”
“Nah.” He tipped the cutting board over the pan and pushed some more peppers in. “It’s pretty easy.” With a wink, he added, “You’re just here to entertain me with conversation.”
I laughed, which broke some of the tension I hadn’t realized was still lingering in my chest. “I can do that. I’m pretty good with after-dinner entertainment too.”
“Oh, I know.” He grinned. “I’m counting on it.”
I pushed the lid down on the banker’s box. “Oh my God. This is the last one.”
Casey grinned at me from his cubicle. “Well, last one for today.” Leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, he licked his lips. “The sooner we finish all of them, the sooner your nights and weekends are all mine, yeah?”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” It was a Friday night, the end of my fourth week of plowing through these records, and the prospect of a completely free weekend—one spent with Casey—sounded amazing. I probably should have spent the weekend working on this, but since I had Casey’s help and we still had some time before the inspection . . . eh, what was the harm in a little time off? “How about I go drop this in the conference room, and then we get the hell out of here?”
He was already on his feet and reaching for his keys. “Love that idea. Let’s roll.”
I didn’t even take the time to give the room full of boxes a satisfied look. I could gloat another day over the empty space where today’s boxes of unfinished records used to be and the growing pile of boxes marked Finished. Right now, that whole getting-the-hell-out-of-here thing was way higher on my priority list. That and I didn’t want to look at the remaining boxes. We’d get to those.
We’d driven in together because . . . well, we’d woken up at his place, and figured we’d end up there again tonight, so why bother with separate cars?
In the passenger seat of his car, I briefly closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “Oh my God. I will be so glad when that shit is done.”
“Yeah.” He patted my leg. “Then you’ll get to start teaching.”
“Great. I mean, I’ll be glad when the records are done, but I’m . . . kind of nervous about teaching.”
Casey smiled warmly. “Don’t worry about it. It’s stupid easy—you just read from the PowerPoint and notes, mostly. And you’ll have one of us with you for a while until you find your feet.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“But don’t worry about it right now.” He watched me over the console as the engine idled. “We should do something when all the record bullshit is over.” His eyebrows rose. “Chill? Or celebrate?”
“I think chilling will be celebrating at that point.”
“Yeah, I agree.” He ran his hand back and forth on my thigh. “We’ll figure something out. For tonight, how about a movie?”
“Sounds good to me.”