Rae paused from her note-taking.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Solo said. “How could someone like Shay drag someone like Gabe anywhere?”
Rae looked up and inclined her head slightly. “Is that what you think?”
Solo grabbed her phone again and flicked to a picture of them all from Rosie’s photo shoot the previous weekend. She thrust it toward Rae. “That’s Gabe, between me and Shay.”
Rae tipped her glasses forward and looked at the photo for a few moments. “I see the discrepancy in size and bulk between the two of them, yes. Do you have trouble believing Shay could’ve pulled Gabe out of harm’s way?”
Solo sat back in her chair and studied the shiny image as she clenched and unclenched her jaw. “Gabe’s around fifty pounds heavier than Shay,” she said and put the phone back in her jacket. “I just…”
Rae waited, her pen nib resting on the paper.DidSolo have to trust her witheverythought? Even the ones she hadn’t voiced to anyone?
“I just don’t see how she did it,” Solo finally said, filling the taunting silence.
“People are capable of extraordinary feats of strength under the right, or wrong, circumstances,” Rae said. “Does it bother you that Shay rescued Gabe?”
Solo wrinkled her nose. “Rescuedis a bit dramatic. I think the rest of the squad had the situation under control, and the enemy was already retreating.” As the words came out, she began to realize what Rae was trying to get her to admit. “You think I’m jealous of Shay’s relationship with Gabe, don’t you?”
“Whatdoyou think of their relationship?”
Solo gripped the arms of her chair. Therapy was going to be regular bouts of frustration then. “I wish it’d been me.” She threw her hands up. “There. I said it. That’s trust, right?”
“Thank you.” Rae smiled softly. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
Solo yanked her ear hard and glared at the door. It’d be so easy to get up and leave. Janie hadn’t shown up, and this was supposed to be couples’ therapy. Why was she the only one spilling her guts? She looked back at Rae, who appeared so comfortable in every way. Was her life so perfect? Was she even in a relationship? Who was she to tell Solo to do anything? She’d had enough orders when she was a soldier to last her the rest of her life; she didn’t need anyone else dictating what she should and shouldn’t be doing.
She pushed up from the chair but headed to the window instead of the door. Lori had warned her these sessions were going to be hard. Gabe had said she had to fight for her family if she really wanted it. And Solo had never backed down from a fight, even when the odds were massively against her.
“I’m jealous of it.” Solo pressed her forehead against the glass. “I want to be Gabe’s best friend. And I’m not. Shay is. And I kind of resent her for it.”
“If RB and Woody are best friends, like Shay and Gabe, what are your feelings about your place in the team?” Rae asked.
Solo couldn’t decide if she liked the way Rae had essentially ignored her silent tantrum or if she didn’t like that Rae hadn’t acknowledged her irritation. “No one other than them took me seriously in the Army, but even they thought of me as the baby of the group, always in need of extra care or having to be bailed out of some trouble or other.”
“And what about now?”
Solo scanned the street, but there was still no sign of Janie. Had something happened to her, or had she just given up on them? “I honestly thought I’d outgrown all of that, but Janieleaving has brought the curtain down on that charade.” She turned back around and retook her seat. “I had to take the triplets to work on Monday, and that could’ve been a nightmare…”
“But?”
“But the team was amazing. They created a sleeping space and a play space for the girls, and Woody set up monitors, so I could keep an eye on them all day.” Solo shook her head. The triplets had adapted surprisingly easily to their makeshift environment and had been better behaved than they’d ever been. Even Tia had left Luna alone for the majority of the day. Part of Solo wanted to believe that they’d sensed her need for them not to be any trouble, but that would mean they were aware that one of their moms had left them. Solo didn’t want them knowing that at all, didn’t want them thinking they weren’t perfect enough to keep Janie at home with them.
The thought burned her brain like acid, and she tried to shake it away.
But now that it was there, she couldn’t do a damned thing to evict it. Wasshenot enough for Janie to stay? Ifshewent away, would Janie come back for the triplets?
“That sounds like a good thing, your team coming together to help you and your girls when you needed them most,” Rae said.
“But it’s a return to form, isn’t it?” Solo picked at the wooden arm of her chair. A splinter slipped into her nailbed, but the pain from her heart was taking up too much space in her brain to really register it. “Baby Solo needs rescuing again.”
“Isn’t that what families are there for?” Rae asked. “Chosen families perhaps even more so. You rescue each other. Like Shay rescued Gabe. Like you rescued them all with the garage financing.”
Solo inclined her head, considering that for a moment, before she shook the idea away. “That was Janie’s money.”
“Yes, but would Janie have invested in the team if you hadn’t told her how important that dream was to all of you?”
Solo shrugged. “I guess not.”
