Kickass Anthology by Keira Andrews, Jackie Keswick, Jade Crystal, Nancy Hartmann, Tali Spencer, JP Kenwood, A.L. Boyd, Mia Kerick, Brandon Witt, Sophie Bonaste

didn't say."
    "Didn't have time before you went postal on my ass."
    "State you were in that day, you wouldn't have told me anyway."
    "No." The dark spikes swished and bobbed in what might have been a nod. "Probably not."
    "Wanna do it now?"
    "Not really." Jack didn't sound final about that, though, and when Tom held out the tin of Stella he settled the laptop on the armrest and leaned back into the cushions.
    "Ask you something?"
    "G'head." Jack popped the top on the beer and took a long draught.
    "Why d'you even bother with a PhD?" Tom had wondered about that for a while. Jack's vibe had never been student . From the moment Tom had first heard him speak, he'd known he faced someone practised and sure of his skills, someone who had nothing to prove. "I heard your prof bragging the other day that you're writing up... and it's barely been a year."
    "Funny that," Jack muttered around his beer. "I distinctly remember him wanting to kick my ass out the door not two months ago."
    "So why d'you bother with it?" Tom asked once more. "I can't see you being desperate for a title, or letters behind your name... so why?"
    "Needed something to do when I left the army. Going to school sounded... novel, I suppose."
    "Novel."
    Jack shrugged. "Never really done it before, so, yeah. Novel."
    "You've never been to school."
    "No. The army had online courses. 's where I got my degree."
    Tom had no idea how to answer that. Jack was intensely private and not given to sharing. Tom had accepted that and didn't dig beyond the little things he learned here and there. Recently, though, every new revelation was as unexpected as a slap with a wet fish. He knew that Jack had served in the army. He remembered Jack saying he'd lived on the streets. But how those two fit together? For once, Tom wasn't comfortable with silence between them. It felt... wrong... to leave the conversation where it sat, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
    "Did you hate the army so much you got out?"
     
    THE YEARS living in Rio's house had given Jack an eclectic taste in music, as well as a phenomenally huge collection of tracks, and he idly skimmed through the listings on his laptop trying to find something that matched his mood. He wasn't falling down drunk, just starting to mellow enough for his mind to relax and for Jack to crave a soothing background for Tom's searching questions.
    "I didn't leave the army because I hated it," he said, replacing the soft waves of Touhou Jazz with a mix of Al di Meola, Paco de Lucia and Carlos Santana. "I loved being there. Loved what I was doing, but...I had to leave."
    "They threw you out?"
    "No. I...," Jack grew silent and took another long draught from his beer. His mind conjured up images of heat and sand and blood. Gods, so much blood! It had soaked his fatigues, had compromised his grip on rifle and tourniquet alike, and his nails had retained traces of it even three days and four showers later. The wash of blood wasn't the worst part of that particular memory, though. That was reserved for the rough, raspy voice urging him to leave and Jack stubbornly refusing to take a direct order. After a time, Jack sighed and set the beer down. "I made a mistake and someone got hurt."
    "Who?"
    "My CO."
    "He was mad at you?"
    "No."
    "You lost me," Tom admitted. "If he wasn't mad at you, and..."
    Jack sought the words for an explanation when the room around him disappeared. He stared into the middle distance, seeing himself standing once more outside the barracks, just days before Christmas and exactly one year after the mission that had ended with Gareth Flynn on a med-evac flight home.
    Jack had known that Gareth would be at the gate to see him off. Despite the previous night's angry words, Gareth cared. Just… not the way Jack wanted him to. The way Jack did.
    He drew a deep breath and hefted his duffel bag more comfortably over his shoulder, trying to burn those last images of Gareth into his memory. He had made a promise to