Page 35 of Hold Me Down

"Which time do you want to talk about?" Travis tried, aware of the other three watching—and probably judging—him.

Jeremy squared his shoulders. "Frankly, I don't want to talk about any of them, because it's not like you listened before."

"Fair." Travis nodded sharply, knowing it was true. "But I'm listening now, and while you don't owe me anything, you clearly have things to say, and I don't want things to fester between us if we can avoid it."

Look at me, trying to communicate properly, the dry voice at the back of his head supplied.Doctor Kumar would be proud.

Fully facing Travis now, Jeremy held his gaze for an uncomfortably long time before nodding.

"Fine. I'm pissed that your partner had to break his leg during a fucking training exercise for you to see you've been a match always ready to burn the shit to the ground for months now. I know people had told you this, one way or another, but you blew us all off, so while I appreciate you taking responsibility now, it's too late."

Travis nodded. "You're right."

What else could he say? This didn't hurt as much as the dressing-down from Kalei in that hospital room had, but it still stung. Jeremy was a guy whom everyone respected highly around here, and his opinions counted for a lot—partially because he didn't offer them too often.

You asked for this, Travis reminded himself.

"It is too late, and I can't go back in time and change things," he said. "Trust me, I would if I could. I'd prefer to break both my legs instead of one of Dave's."

"Yeah, maybe the solution is that no one breaks anything," Clay said from his place at the small table. He'd been silent from the moment Travis had shown up, and he was frowning now. "It won't help anybody, including Dave, if you think your injuries are somehow okay."

"That's not what I meant—"

"That's how you've been acting." Jeremy put his mug at the table and crossed his arms, making Travis's arms twitch in response, wanting to mirror the gesture. "You've been taking risks as if nothing else mattered but the rush of it."

Travis swallowed back a protest, because… Well, because he couldn't argue with that, could he? He had been pushing it, he had been feeling reckless and unbalanced, and he'd somehow found a flicker of comfort on that edge of danger.

He should have known better. He'd seen what happened to the guys who couldn't turn the heat down and always chased the next high.

But he'd ignored all of the warnings— from Kalei, and Ian, and a few other guys, some more direct and some disguised as jokes and taunts—because whatever was going on with him certainly wasn't PTSD, which meant he was fine, only a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Thinking that way now seemed stupid, but that was honestly how he'd felt before. As if PTSD was the only option. As if he could only be perfectly fine or suffer from a raging PTSD that destroyed his life, with nothing in between.

He cleared his throat. "I'm working on it now."

It wasn't an easy admission, but he made sure to meet everyone's eyes, showing them he was serious. These were his teammates and they had his back, and a part of having his back meant not letting him off the hook too easily when he screwed up.

"Good." Jeremy dropped his arms to his sides before picking up his mug. "Glad to hear it."

With that, he headed to the door, clapping Travis on the shoulder on his way out.

Martinez followed a moment later, with a reassuring smile and a pat of his own. "What he said."

Inhaling slowly, Travis looked at Clay, who rolled his eyes at him.

"Yeah, if you're really committed to working on it, we're good."

"And taking care of Dave," Ian added, "but we don't have to tell you that, do we?"

This one was easy.

"No, you don't."

"Figured." Ian nodded. "Now, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be working from home, rechecking all of Kalei's beloved procedures?"

"Watch it." Travis turned to make sure their boss wasn't there. "You know he has ears everywhere."

"I'm certain he knows there's no one around here who loves procedures more than he does."

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