“I’ll talk with Katie and get an update on everything going on here. You see to Jamie,” Sean said.
“Second floor. Third door down the left hallway,” Katie told him helpfully.
Alexei would honestly rather do anything else—absolutelyanything else—than talk with Jamie. He still climbed the stairs, taking them one at a time, and made his way to the bedroom in question.
This time he knocked.
When he got no response, Alexei thought about going back downstairs, giving Jamie the privacy he so obviously wanted. But it was that need for privacy that everyone worried about. Having Katie in the house and able to sense Jamie’s intentions before he even thought them no matter how much it hurt during her own recovery was the only reason Jamie was allowed to be alone right now. When Katie wasn’t on watch duty, someone on the team was glued to Jamie’s side, making sure he didn’t do anything he would regret.
They’d removed all the weapons in the house save for those issued to the Secret Service, but Alexei knew that wouldn’t stop Jamie.
Because it wouldn’t stophim, if Alexei were honest with himself.
Alexei opened the door and stepped inside, finding the curtains drawn over opaque plas-glass windows, the room as dark as it could be during the day.
“Lights on,” he told the attending computer.
The lights came on at full brightness, causing Jamie to wince from his sprawl on the bed. “Go away.”
Jamie sounded absolutely terrible and looked even worse. His clothes were wrinkled and looked like he’d slept in them for several days straight. Dark circles seemed permanently pressed beneath his reddened blue eyes. He hadn’t shaved since before the attack and the beard growth he was sporting looked strange on him. Alexei was so used to Jamie being clean-shaven that his rumpled appearance struck him as wrong.
Then again, he was one to talk. Sean had been the one cajoling him into the shower at least once a day, shaving his face for him, and basically forcing Alexei to at leastlookhuman even if he didn’t feel like it. His parents and sisters had been making sure he was eating even though everything tasted like dust in his mouth these days.
Alexei understood how it felt to be in Jamie’s shoes right now.
He hefted the bottle of vodka, shaking it a bit. “Katie give me. Need shower first.”
“I said go away.”
“Nyet,” Alexei said. “Shower. Owe me that, at least.”
Jamie flinched with his entire body, and somewhere deep inside, Alexei was glad. He felt terrible afterward, but for that one single second, he was glad Jamie was hurting.
Alexei watched as Jamie slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, staring dully at where Alexei stood. He ran a hand through his greasy blond hair, moving as if he’d aged fifty years in three days.
“Okay,” Jamie said quietly. “Shower.”
Jamie disappeared into the en suite bathroom, clean clothes in hand, and closed the door behind him. Alexei listened for the shower turning on before he moved to set the vodka bottle and glasses on the nightstand. Something flickering on the bed had him looking over to see what it was. He picked up the holopic frame and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.
One corner of the holopic frame was dented, the siding beginning to split, but the internal components still worked. Picture after picture slowly appeared then disappeared, his brother’s face smiling up at him.
The tears came, sudden and hard. Alexei scrubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand. He took a deep breath as he tried to stave off a crying jag that would leave him a fucking mess on Jamie’s bedroom floor.
That didn’t stop him from looking through all the pictures of Kyle that Jamie had saved in the holopic frame. He never even made it to the end of the cycle before Jamie came out of the bathroom however long later, riveted by Kyle’s wide smile at the stove as he cooked something in a pan. That kitchen was gone now, destroyed by the attack on the condo his brother and Jamie had made a home in.
“Donovan found it in the wreckage and brought it to me yesterday,” Jamie said.
Alexei looked up from the holopic frame, blinking hard to keep the tears at bay. “Condo not safe. Is also crime scene.”
Jamie shrugged, water dripping down from his soaked hair to seep into his T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved, but at least he’d managed to get dressed in clean clothes. “I didn’t ask him to go.”
Jamie wasn’t in the right state of mind to ask for anything right now. It’s why the entire team was watching over him, just like they were watching over Alexei. But at least Alexei had Sean to stand between him and the pain.
Jamie…he didn’t have anyone.
Coughing, Alexei set the holopic frame down on the nightstand and picked up the bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the cap and filled both glasses up to the brim. “We drink.”
Alexei held out one of the glasses to Jamie, who didn’t move and just stared at him. Alexei raised an eyebrow, silently challengingly Jamie todo something, because he wasn’t going to be the only one clawing his way back to a new normal. If Alexei couldn’t wallow in misery forever, then Jamie sure as fuck wasn’t getting that option either.
