I know, she mouthed back, then shook her head ruefully.
And that was that. On the plus side, now she knew the divorce hadn’t destroyed her sexuality. Desire was back, with a vengeance. And the possibility, long forgotten and newly awakened, of the excitement of a crush, a date, of falling in love.
Just not with the student whose name she’d not even gotten.
*
Jack Powell parked Rose’s BMW 3-series at the back of the lot next to his therapist’s office building, safely away from door dings. He’d been getting around by borrowing Grannie’s or Rose’s car when he needed to, or taking the bus to and from campus. After she got back from Turkey, Rose had offered the use of her car, going a little vague when he asked her how she’d get to and from work. While he waited for his appointment time, he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and scrolled through his text messages until he got to Keenan Parker. He thumbed in a text.
What’s up?
The reply came before he had his helmet off.
Not much. You?
He had two choices here: the truth, or a funny story. He opted for the joke. Asked a librarian out for a drink and got turned down.
lol too smart for the likes of you.
He’d downloaded a keyboard filled with obscene emojis, and sent Keenan the middle finger, followed by Want to get lunch?
Can’t today. Team lunch.
Keenan was just over a week into an eight-to-five job at Field Energy Company, and suddenly Jack’s best friend and former teammate on SEAL Team Nine was an office drone, working late, going in early.
K. I’ll try Rose.
He swung his leg over the Ducati’s seat and texted his sister while he walked into the nondescript two-story building situated just off Lancaster’s main drag. His therapist’s office was on the ground floor. She shared space and a receptionist with another psychologist. The reception area was tiny, four chairs dangerously close to a water cooler, the receptionist crammed behind a desk no wider than the chair she sat in, but the therapist, Colleen Sloane, came highly recommended by someone who knew his way around trauma and PTSD, a captain on the Lancaster police force.
God knew Jack needed someone to talk to.
The receptionist looked up when Jack opened the door. “Hi,” she said. “Perfect timing. She’s ready for you.”
“Thanks,” he said, keeping his limbs tight to his body. His shoulders, helmet, and backpack threatened the water cooler and the tiny table stocked with tea and hot cocoa. He was used to maneuvering in tight spaces with a ton of gear, but his coordination, normally as smooth and automatic as a gymnast’s or a dancer’s, was shot. This felt awkward and wrong on so many levels. A backpack, for Christ’s sake. Not an MK17.
He made it down the narrow hallway and into Colleen’s office without dislodging any of the pictures. She was waiting for him in the chair under the window and gave him a friendly smile as he closed the door and set his backpack on the floor, his helmet on top of it. For a second he looked at the backpack. He was being such a good boy, going to class, going to his therapist, on time, neatly dressed, doing all the things normal people did.
What the fuck had happened to his life?
“How are you, Jack?” she asked.
Their conversations always started the same way, open-ended questions that left him feeling raw and exposed. “Fine.”
Her smile never changed. He knew she was beautiful, tall, blonde, slender, with a bob that framed her face and blue eyes. Understated makeup. Acknowledging her femininity, but not playing it up. Which made him think of the librarian. Erin Kent. He remembered her from the Introduction to the Library class she taught for the college’s incoming veterans. Erin Kent, who, despite a connection very similar to the rush of adrenaline and testosterone from a combat high, turned him down three days earlier.
Colleen was still watching him. When it came to waiting him out in silence, she always won. That wasn’t like him either. He’d thrown his body into every dangerous situation imaginable, expecting it to give out, but what ended up washing him out of the SEALs was nothing physical.
A door slammed down the hall, and he jumped so high Colleen might have had to peel him off the ceiling. “Yeah, okay, fuck, I’m still jittery as hell, and yes, I still have the tremor.”
Her gaze flicked to his hands. He held them out for her to see. The tremor, intermittent, came and went without his consent. It wasn’t bad now, a fine quiver running through both of his hands. It got worse when he was tired, and much worse when he was under severe stress.
Which was why he was back in Lancaster, spending as much time as he could in the quiet, orderly, predictable college library, not on SEAL Team Nine. Not at Gray Wolfe, doing the job Keenan just left for an office job.
What the hell was up with that, anyway?
Colleen made a note on her notepad. “How are you sleeping?”
“Same as the tremor,” he said. “Intermittently.”
“How much are you sleeping?” she asked.