Page 60 of For the Record

Jack’s eyes lifted to his daughter, and you could see them lighten for a moment, before going gray again.

He scoffed. “They called you?”

Rachel nodded, and his eyes scanned to me, looking me up and down in assessment. I wasn’t needed here. I knew that. It was probably far too personal for me to even be around. But surely if she didn’t want me here, she would have said that. Or she would have refused to let me drive her or forced me to stay outside with the nurses.

But then again, the anger in his eyes—the eyes of a man who’d witnessed far more than he deserved—was taking over. He wouldn’t hurt his daughter. I knew that too. But a confused prior-service man was something I understood well, and I knew things could go south easily in situations like this.

Jack shook his head. “Ridiculous,” he spat. “I ask a couple questions, and they start sending everyone in here like some kind of SWAT team.”

Rachel mustered the smallest of smiles, this wavy grin that wobbled slightly. “I understand, I do—”

“Do you?” His voice raised. “Does anyone? I’m like an animal in a damn cage. No way in or out and people circling me all day. No one will tell me where my wife is, and they all treat me like I’m some kind of mental patient.”

Her back straightened, and every fiber of my being begged to be beside her. To calm her tightened brow, to caress her hip and whisper to her that it was okay. She nodded. “Okay, well, give me just a second, and I’ll come right back, okay?” Her whisper was just enough to make him nod at her.

She gave me a look and mouthed. “Can you stay?”

I nodded and went to sit on the couch as she slipped outside to talk with the nurses.

An animal in a cage. I knew how that felt. It was probably the only thing Jack and I had in common, other than the fact that we both cared for his daughter.

After deployments, trying to settle back into some kind of a normal lifestyle felt impossible. I thrived on routine and was hardly ever handed it. I needed instruction, a guide, anything. Without it, I felt lost, cornered and backed into a wall that left me no way out. It was suffocating.

“You gonna tell me the same thing too?” Jack asked, throwing himself back into the recliner with a glare my way. “Want to tell me to ‘calm down’?”

I crossed my arms. “Wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Good.” He crossed his arms back.

We sat in silence, glaring at each other across the coffee table. Rachel’s soft voice mumbled outside the door, low enough for her words to be unrecognizable.

A distraction. That would be good, right?

I looked over at the stack of vinyls, recognizing the one on top as the same that Rachel had played in the car before.

“You like The Romantics?”

When his eyes squinted at me, I dipped my chin to the stack.

He glanced at me, to the record, and back. His nose scrunched the same way Rachel’s did when someone told her that Eric Clapton was overrated. “I don’t care much for you being so nosy.”

“Well, I don’t care much for you making my girl cry, and yet here we are.”

His eyes widened at the blow. And truthfully I didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh. Jack was a good guy. He was confused and disoriented. I would be a grumpy ass if I was in his position too. It wasn’t exactly his fault. That didn’t make me any less upset at the small pool of water that had been forming in her eyes.

I didn’t exactly mean for the whole my girl thing to slip either. That would probably only confuse him more.

Although Rachel was mine. I wasn’t sure exactly how, though. Definitely not in that she was my girlfriend or really even what I would consider a friend. This was something more than that. As if her soul was tethered to mine. Even if she went off and married some rich golfer later on in life, she would still be mine.

Jack slumped his shoulders, looking out of his blinds to Rachel and the nurses talking outside. Whatever he saw must have shaken him a little, because the anger in his face was fading slowly.

He looked down at the pile of records and picked up the first one. He took it out of its sleeve and opened the player to set it on top. The needle slowly lowered, and a crisp guitar thrummed in the room. My shoulders relaxed a little. He wasn’t yelling. Wasn’t crossing his arms or glaring at me like I was his mortal enemy. That had to stand for something.

“Military?” he asked, looking at the tattoo on my upper arm.

I’d answered this before, of course, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“PJ. Used to know a lot of SEALs before. Never really wanted to be one. Cool guys, though.”