Read Online All for You by Jessica Scott - Free Book Online

lose. They’d gone out every night that week and still Reza hadn’t drank. “You always say that.”
    Reza glanced at his watch. He needed to run down what was going on with Sloban’s packet. It had been over a week of playing phone tag with the doc and if Reza didn’t know better, he’d think she was avoiding him.
    He hadn’t given her any reason to avoid him. Not at all.
    He was getting pissed, though. He needed answers. Not for Marshall or any stupid briefings. He needed them for Sloban.
    The kid was counting on him.
    Beside him, Teague scrubbed his hands over his face. “Because it’s always true,” Teague said. “I think my liver went AWOL after the sixth shot of tequila. And you had to go run off and ruin the party because you had to go to bed early.”
    Reza scoffed quietly. Teague had no idea why Reza had been called away. Being the first sergeant meant his phone was always on. Last night, Reza had spent a good portion of the evening talking a kid and his wife into marriage counseling because if the kid ended up arrested one more time, he was going to get his ass thrown out of the army.
    Luckily, they’d agreed.
    More than a week had passed since the incident with Emily at Talarico’s . A week that Reza had been chasing the hair of the dog, looking for a cure to rein in the untamed beast thrashing inside him, dancing with temptation, seeing how close he could get before the fire inside him burned.
    He’d managed. A week, and temptation always just a single shot glass out of reach.
    He’d keep managing if he wanted to keep his career. With the deployment looming, he couldn’t afford to screw up again. Not if he planned on being on that plane.
    He wasn’t going to let his boys go downrange without him.
    “I can’t help it if your tolerance is as low as a baby Chihuahua’s,” Reza said with a grin.
    Teague groaned and covered his face with both hands. “What are we doing here anyway?”
    He motioned around them to the classroom slowly filling up with officers and enlisted from around the unit. Some he was friendly with. Others, well, they weren’t exactly in his fan club. Reza tended to get cranky with the staff when they didn’t play nice or tried to make decisions for his soldiers. That was Reza’s job as the first sergeant and he’d be damned if any staff weenie was going to do his job for him.
    Reza glanced over at Teague. “You didn’t hear?”
    “Obviously not,” Teague said dryly.
    “There were five suicides this weekend. The corps commander has ordered a stand down. We’re getting training from the shrinks.”
    Just saying the words sent a twinge through Reza’s guts. He sat back in his chair, shifting uncomfortably. Fort Hood was a big post. It was inconceivable that he’d know any of the victims even though a couple of them had been in the brigade. And yet a nagging sense of unease stirred at the nape of his neck.
    Teague mirrored Reza’s stance. “Five suicides in a weekend? What the fuck is going on?”
    Reza slowly shook his head, rubbing his hand over his bottom lip. “I don’t know, man. It’s pretty bad. Three were in our brigade.”
    Reza kept watching the sergeants and officers as they filtered into the classroom.
    Reza’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out. A single picture from Claire.
    A memorial. There were four of them in that picture, taken the day they were supposed to leave for Kuwait: Claire, Reza, Miles and Wacowski. Their first deployment had been in the bag. One more mission and they were going home.
    God, but had they ever been that young? The Thunder Run to Baghdad felt like a lifetime ago.
    Bitter resentment burned in him. He’d taken ’Ski to the docs and they’d told him to take a sleeping pill and get a good night’s sleep.
    Ski had never woken up.
    And Miles had died because Reza hadn’t been on that last mission. He’d been tied up, arguing with the docs.
    He’d lost two men that day. This day, seven years before.
    Claire