Free All for You by Jessica Scott

about—yeah, she couldn’t really count on a warm reception and an invitation to drinks afterward. She figured it was close to what a rabbit must feel like when facing a pack of wolves. She glanced around the room, seeing that every single right shoulder sported the giant combat patch of the First Cavalry Division, a patch that covered the entire space reserved to tell the world they’d been to war. Her own right shoulder felt conspicuously naked. She was a slick sleeve. She’d learned that term recently and it was not a term of endearment.
    But she wasn’t a rabbit and damn it, she was not going to back down from doing her job.
    The war was far from over. She’d get her turn to deploy. She knew that but standing there, in front of a room full of combat veterans, her carefully prepared speech escaped her. The notes on her slides, which had been vetted by the hospital commander, seemed somehow…empty. Futile.
    “I’m here…” She cleared her throat as her voice broke. “I’m here today to talk to you about behavioral health.” Someone coughed in the back of the room and she didn’t dare look up. She was afraid she would see Reza watching her again. Afraid she would look in his eyes and see something there that she wasn’t ready to deal with.
    There were demons hiding in the shadows of his eyes. She didn’t have to be a psych doc to see it. There was something deeper, though, beneath the shadows and the sadness etched into the lines beneath his eyes. Something that called to her. That urged her out of her tight, protected box. Something that made her want to reach out and seize the risk.
    To touch him. The truest part of him, not the harsh exterior he presented to the world.
    Refusing to be cowed, she lifted her gaze to scan the room once more. A mistake. The hostility was not in her head. Arms were folded across chests. Jaws ground furiously at being cooped into a hot classroom. Several cheeks were packed with chewing tobacco, their owners’ spit bottles close by.
    She was not going to reach anyone here. It dawned on her in that moment that the hospital commanders had no idea what the attitudes were down here in a line unit. How was she ever going to reach these men when they didn’t want to hear one word she had to say?
    The interpersonal conflict in her office seemed somehow so trivial. So distant, despite recognizing at least two commanders she’d gone toe-to-toe with.
    Swallowing, she set down her papers and folded her arms over her chest. She glanced in Reza’s direction, wishing she had a translator to help her figure these rough men out.
    An echo of the first argument she’d had with Reza danced at the edge of her memory. She was not going to reach anyone with carefully prepared PowerPoint sides.
    She swallowed and took a deep breath, speaking before her common sense took over and talked her out of it.
    “So how many of you think that behavioral health is for pussies?”
    Half the room burst out with coughs attempting to cover laughter. The other half were busy picking their jaws up off the floor. It had been a reckless gamble, one that would have made her father cringe in shame, but one that worked because the tension snapped, fizzling a little bit. Granting her an opening she might not have had otherwise.
    “Be honest.” She glanced at the sergeant major, who looked ready to brain the first officer or sergeant that raised his hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that.” She shot a quick grin at the sergeant major and a few more chuckles drifted out of the crowd. “Look, we all know that I’ve got you held captive for an hour and we can stand here and stare at each other or maybe we can talk about what’s going on that we’ve got so many soldiers willing to hurt themselves.”
    She made the mistake of looking in Reza’s direction.
    He was watching her, his dark gaze intense, his mouth flat. At least he wasn’t glaring at her. That was progress, she supposed.
    She gripped the pen in her