Page 52 of Passion and Payback

Kai had been…choosy. I wouldn’t go so far as to say amoral, but a certain looseness to his moral code always bothered me.

“I know infidelity is a big thing for you,” he said, clearly thinking of an ex or two of mine and probably his as well. “But there wasn’t much I could do about it. Sure, I could have pulled rank, but for what? To piss off everyone and hurt the group cohesion? Plus, nothing I said was going to stop those guys. They would have made even more stupid decisions when they were out of my sight.”

“So you what…babysat them while they cheated?”

“I made sure they wrapped their shit so they didn’t take home any ‘surprises.’ I made sure if someone looked shifty, I didn’t let them go off to get mugged or killed because all they sawwas a beautiful woman who wanted them. I also made sure they didn’t get rowdy or cause too much trouble that would get us all in trouble and probably locked up for the night or longer.”

“Squad Dad,” I said with a chuckle. “One who wasn’t too worried about their moral health.”

“Sometimes,” he said, poking at another snail. “Sometimes, their mental well-being was more important than their morals. Sometimes those guys needed to…not remember who they were or what they had waiting for them.”

“Did you ever feel that way?” I wondered, taking another snail out of its shell. It tasted good. I had no idea what seasoning they used, but the food was packed with a richness that exploded in your mouth. The problem was, I didn’t know if they were just overcooked or if it was me, but I did not like the chewy texture. “Wanting to forget everything back here, even me?”

At that, he looked startled and looked away. “There are times when thinking about home, about what you left behind, is too much to bear. It can be a great comfort, but sometimes it’s the worst torture you can put yourself through because they’re miles and miles away, weeks and months away.”

“So thinking about me hurt sometimes?”

“This feels like a dangerous line of questioning.”

I chuckled, reaching across the table to take his hand in mine, squeezing. “I’m just wondering. I’m trying to understand as best I can.”

“Fine,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite feel genuine. “Then yeah, sometimes thinking about you was the worst thing I could do. And I understood those guys when they decided they wanted to get fucked-up and get fucked rather than think about their family and friends.”

It had to be lonely in a foreign land hostile to your very existence. You didn't know if you or someone close to you would end up wounded or killed or if you’d be able to come back whenyou were told. Even when you were ‘let loose,’ you were still on a chain that kept you tied to the very place you didn’t want to return to.

How did that knowledge, that yearning, affect someone? Could I blame any of them for what they did so far from home?

It wasn’t like I hadn’t had a similar sense of unmooring. After the attack, I’d looked at everything in my life and felt…nothing. Everything had been so surreal, so distant and without meaning. Even when I finally found the strength to pick myself up and begin trying to put my life back together, I had been doing it because it was the only thing I could do, not because it was something I wanted.

It was only piece by piece that things began to make sense again. At some point, the color started to come back gradually into my world. At some point, I stopped smiling at the cats because they were cute in a way I could faintly remember but because the goofy twirl of their tails as they chased it was funny. I stopped showing warmth to people because that was what I’d always done, but because those people made me happy.

But before that? Nothing, just a desperate attempt to know something other than the world of gray pain I lived in.

I was pulled from my thoughts when the waiter reappeared. Despite the French influence on the menu, everyone spoke English. The woman was the epitome of dignified and classy. If she cared the slightest about Kai butchering the language while ordering, not one hint showed on her face as she took his order. I wasn’t willing to risk it, so I simply held the menu out to her, pointing to what I wanted.

“And anything to drink?” she asked.

“I’ll be honest; neither of us is a wine drinker or knows much about it,” I said, glancing toward Kai.

“So,” he said slowly. “If there’s anything you’d recommend, we’ll take it.”

“A far wiser choice than some who come in here,” she said softly, winking. “Would you like another aperitif while you wait?”

“I don’t think…” I began, but Kai interrupted.

“That would be great, thank you,” he said.

I knew better than to say anything, so I waited until she left before leaning in close and dropping my voice. “This place doesn’t have prices on anything. These cocktails are probably twenty bucks.”

“My bank account can handle it.”

“Oh yeah, because the military is so well known for being generous with their pay.”

“You’d be surprised when you keep getting bonuses. And over the past several years, I haven’t spent much money while I was here. I stayed at the barracks or with friends. Got my meals there, for the most part, didn’t do much shopping,” he explained with a shrug. “You’d be surprised how much money I’ve built up. I’m not going to the poor house just because I spend…quite a lot of money tonight.”

Quite a lot of money? The amount of money he was pouring into this night was going to be absurd. Not one thing on that menu sounded like it would be a reasonable price. Yet there was truth to what he said. More than once, I’d made a comment to him over the years that he was allowed to spend money and maybe get an apartment.

He’d always insisted on staying at the barracks or with someone else and throwing them money to cover his expenses. He’d never been a big spender. That had always beenmything. We’d grown up dirt poor, but where I enjoyed my money, he was content to leave his alone and live off a comfortable minimum.

---