Odd, but it didn’t mean he’d turned. Jesse remembered how it had felt. He hadn’t actively fought the team who came for him, but he hadn’t cared much either. He’d been afraid to go back, afraid he didn’t belong there anymore. “You feel dirty. At least I did. I didn’t have a family to go back to, but if I had, I would have felt weird about it. I didn’t want to be around anyone I knew. I felt like the man I’d been was gone, and being around old friends would just remind me. Sometimes it got so bad, I wanted to die.”
It hadn’t helped that no one welcomed him back. He’d been met with suspicion and distrust, and people who wondered what he’d done to live when everyone else had died.
“I understand what you’re saying and that’s fairly normal, but I have to take into consideration that it could have been an emotional reaction to leaving a place he now thought of as home,” Kai mused. “Ace, on the other hand, was very calm. There’s nothing in his reports that even says he has nightmares. He could be stoic. He could be lying to preserve some sense of manliness, but I get suspicious when there’s no emotion at all present.”
“Maybe he’s not an emotional guy.” He’d met a lot of soldiers who knew how to hide what they were feeling. The battlefield wasn’t the place for a bunch of feelings.
Kai adjusted his glasses as he spoke. “We’re all emotional, Jesse. It comes out in different ways, but the smart person can read it for what it really means. Take the reaction you had to Ms. Grant. You intended to get her to believe that you are no longer interested in her and that she’s bad in bed. Way to punch a chick in the gut by the way.”
His stomach dropped. Did they have to go back there? “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
Jesse looked down at the files again. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Naturally Kai wouldn’t leave it be. The man never let up. “If I had to guess, you two finally had sex and then she realized she wasn’t ready, but couldn’t talk to you about it until this morning. You realized you love her and think you can never have her. It’s one more thing you want in life that you don’t get, one more thing you managed to taste before it was taken away from you. So you tried to throw up a wall between the two of you.”
He was getting a little irritated. “Do you have a point, smarty pants?”
“I do and it’s about the problem with Ace Monroe. Even when we know we should stay calm, we lash out. My point is one way or another, there should have been some kind of reaction, whether it’s relief or anger or anxiety. The other two who were taken were treated for depression briefly. There was nothing in their records that drew my attention, but I would need access to them personally to really understand them. I can’t do that right now so I’ve got time for a session with you. How about it, neighbor? I could go and get Phoebe and have a little couples counseling. After all, I kind of have to live with you two. It would be nice to not be in a war zone.”
Jesse had zero illusions about why Kai had been brought in. Eve had felt Jesse needed more specialized treatment and Tag had found Kai, a former Army Ranger who now specialized in treating PTSD in returning soldiers. A whole crew of sad sacks now came in and out of Sanctum via stairs that led directly to Kai’s office. Unfortunately, Kai’s office was also his home. He’d set up a whole suite of rooms where he worked and lived. Jesse and Phoebe were staying in his guest suite. And Jesse had stayed in Kai’s room the night before. Where the hell would he go now? “Sorry about this. I’ll try to convince Tag to let us use a couple of the privacy rooms now that you’re back.”
Kai’s lips ticked up. “I don’t think you’ll convince Tag of anything. That is one man who could use some time on my couch. I dream about it at night, you know. Ian Taggart is one large mass of previously undiagnosed personality disorders. He’s like a walking, talking Nobel Prize. Well, if they gave them out to psychologists.”
“You know what I’m saying.” In his own way, Kai was as sarcastic as Ian.
“I’m happy to have some company, man. I’ve started to feel like the Phantom of the Club some days. No, really. It’s lonely during the day. I found myself playing the keyboards and laughing maniacally. Scared the crap out of the cleaning staff.” Kai settled himself in a chair across from Jesse. “I was mostly joking about the couples therapy, though from what I understand, you could probably use it. You’ve been through a lot in the last few days. You want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.” The last thing he needed was a therapy session. He had to talk about the crap with the Caliph. It was kind of required so he didn’t go nutso again, but he didn’t need to drag his nonstarter of a relationship with Phoebe into it.
“Spoken like a true stoic. There is always something to talk about. Especially when your week started with an attempted assassination by the woman you love.”
“I don’t love her.” He sure as hell wasn’t going there.
“Okay. By the woman you’ve spent the last several months with. Every free second of the last several months with.”
“Yeah, well, she followed me around a lot. It was all part of her plan.”
Kai grinned and slapped his hands together. “Good, we’ve reached the ‘rewriting history’ phase of the breakup. It’s my favorite part.”