Extra Bonus #76: Thatcher and the Psych Evaluation (Patreon)

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this bonus scene to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!! xoxo Krista & Becca

RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

SPOILER WARNING: This bonus takes place during UNLUCKY LIKE US and will contain MAJOR spoilers from the book and will ruin your reading experience if you have not read Unlucky first.

“THEY’D HAVE to be fuckin’ out of their minds to pass me but not you. You got this in the bag,” Banks tells me with all the confidence of a six-foot-seven Marine.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. The call is coming through the car’s speakers, and I glance at the name on the screen. BANKS.

I ask, “You tell the doc that you blew out your back in September?” I’m skeptical that my brother would share any detail about all the injuries he’s accumulated over the years.

“Hand-to-heart, I didn’t lie in that room. Not my fault if she didn’t ask me about my back, and I strained it. I’m fine now.”

Fine for my brother is still walking around in pain. “She ask about your head?” I switch lanes, then turn off into a parking lot.

“If it was on my shoulders, yeah. Still attached. Good to go.”

I almost laugh, almost smile.

I’m glad he passed the psych eval.

Glad he’s not benched. Because it wouldn’t feel like being sidelined for a Friday night football game. Failure here means suspension from a career with a thousand hoops to jump through to get back to the job. It’s been stressing the whole team. Akara included. But I understand, more than anyone, that everyone needs to be fit to do this job.

I am fit for it.

I have little doubt. I’ve been more concerned about my brother failing. He had a migraine before his appointment, and Sulli and Akara almost convinced him to postpone the eval for another day. Banks being a fucking gabbadost’ insisted he could make it through.

He did.

But we all still worried a shit ton.

I park the SUV in an open space. “You going to Luna’s birthday tonight?”

“Planning on it,” Banks says, his voice tighter. “Whole situation is fucked though.” He doesn’t need to explain what he means. Lily was assaulted. Luna was kidnapped. One of the worst outcomes in an op that shouldn’t have touched any of these families.

An op that I helped design, to an extent. I was a part of it. I helped plan and execute it. Luna…what happened…

I clench the steering wheel firmer and pull into a parking space, shutting off the ignition. Everyone has been concerned about her, not just me and Banks, and that concern has piled higher and higher the more we learned in the hospital.

She’s missing three years.

And that night has been plaguing me.

As a lead in security, I take responsibility for what happened to Lily and Luna. I carry it with me most days, and nothing like that can ever happen again. I’m twice as hyper-vigilant of my surroundings. I’ve checked my rearview mirror a dozen times. I’m heightened and practically vibrating and in tune to every little threat around me. More aware, more alert.

I can’t tell if that’s all a good thing.

It can’t all be bad—not if it protects the people around me. One of which, now, is my daughter. Nothing like this can happen to her or to Jane. I can’t ever let it.

Luna’s amnesia has affected some in the family more than others.

Last thing she knew about Banks and me was that we were her little brother’s bodyguards. I’ve formed a closer relationship to Sulli than to Luna in the past year, but I’m still more than just Xander’s bodyguard now to Luna. I’m her cousin’s husband and her roommate.

That’s disappeared in an instant.

It’s an even bigger change for Sulli, who formed a friendship with Luna during the three years she can’t remember.

We’ve all tried giving her an unholy fucking amount of space, but we were all also invited to her twenty-first birthday party at a bowling alley, so we’re venturing into unmapped territory here.

Still in the parking lot, I check my watch. I’ve got a minute to spare.

“How’s Sulli?” I ask.

“Menzamenz,” he breathes out. Half and half. “She’s still tiptoeing around the whole thing, not knowing if she should try to rekindle a friendship with Luna or just let it go. And fuck if I have the answers.”

I take a tight breath, thankful that Jane and Luna haven’t shot that far off course. Their relationship isn’t completely derailed.

“I’m not sure how to unfuck it either,” I say, then glance at my watch again. “I’ve got to push out.”

“Stay frosty,” he says before we hang up.

On the way into the building, I text Jane. How’s our baby?

She responds so quickly that I figure she must’ve been holding her phone.

A literal angel. Look at these cheeks. – Jane

She sends a pic of Maeve, who's squinting and smiling so big her cheeks puff out. My lips lift for a fraction of a second before my emotions plateau.

I hear the unbearable quiet over the radio, knowing what was happening on the other end. I feel my panic in my chest from the sheer helplessness of being miles away.

I wasn’t there.

Never in my life did I imagine I’d miss the birth of my child. I swipe a hand over my mouth, and after a quick text back to Jane, I pocket my phone. Each footfall to the doctor’s office is strained now, and I can’t understand why every time I think about my daughter, it’s attached to that awful fucking moment in time. It’s so frustrating that my brain can’t unlink them.

When I reach the reception desk, I’m whisked to a clean office with books lining oak shelves and a sitting area with a brown leather couch and matching club chair. I’m instructed to take a seat on the couch and wait for Dr. Bentmore.

I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but I’m anxious for this to end.

I want to get back to Jane’s detail. She hasn’t had time to buy Luna a birthday present, and she wants to go shopping for one. We’re going to bring Maeve.

It’s a whole process, and I need to be there. Not here.

Here is a necessary nuisance that I just need to push through.

“Thatcher,” Dr. Bentmore enters the room briskly with a bright smile. She’s nearly as tall as Sulli. Her honey blonde hair is curled in waves, and her blue pantsuit looks trendy enough to be Calloway Couture.

I stand to greet her with a shake of her hand, and my anxiousness immediately churns to nerves as she takes in my brick-walled stance with a laser-focused gaze. She’s a hawk.

How in the hell did my brother pass this?

But he did pass it. I’m good. I’m fine. There’s nothing to unfuck here.

“Dr. Bentmore,” I say, my voice low and husky. She urges me to take a seat. I do. Stiffly. “I don’t have much time,” I tell her. “I need to get back to work.”

She nods and flips open a file with paperwork. “We won’t take that long.” She scrutinizes me again, observing my posture. “This isn’t an interrogation, Mr. Moretti. We’re just here to have a conversation.”

I don’t understand. Do I look fucking worried?

My jaw sets. “I don’t think it’s an interrogation, ma’am.”

“Then why are you so tense?” she asks conversationally.

“I always look this way.”

She picks up a pen to scribble on the paperwork. I don’t try and defend myself. There’s nothing that needs defending. I’m not failing this thing because I look like a fucking fortress.

She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Let’s start with your childhood. How would you characterize it?”

I cross my arms over my chest, which probably doesn’t help her thinking I’m not some stone-cold, brick-walled asshole. But I didn’t plan to come into this evaluation and pretend to be someone I’m not.

“It had its ups and downs,” I say. “Same as most people’s childhoods.”

She stares through me. “Most people don’t lose a sibling when they’re twelve. How did you process it?”

I shoved it down.

Buried it.

I take a shallow breath. “Same way most men process their feelings, I guess.”

She smiles and that smile is starting to feel less inviting. “And how’s that?”

I grind down on my teeth before I just spit out the truth, “I didn’t talk about it.”

She writes something down. “And do you still not talk about it?”

I shake my head. “I talk enough. I’ve talked to my wife some and others, but I’m not about to burden anyone with my horseshit.”

She frowns. “You think coping with the loss of a loved one is horseshit?”

Christ. “It’s in the past,” I snap. “I like to keep it there.” My tone all but says drop it. I’m not having this conversation with a psychologist I barely know.

Dr. Bentmore flips a page in the file. “You joined the Marine Corps after high school. How was that?”

I hate this.

How my brother put up with this is beyond me.

I rub my lips, my wedding band cold against my skin. “Fine.”

Her eyes meet mine. “You were deployed twice—”

“If this is the part where you ask me if I saw anyone die, you can save it,” I say in a low, tensed voice. “I’ve been through shit, sure. Everyone has despite your effort to claim my shit is worse somehow. I lost a brother. I went to war. I came back and almost died in a fire. Then I got shot three months ago. That’s the extent of my trauma.” I leave out the part about missing Maeve’s birth. I can’t stomach saying it out loud. “None of that has ever made me unfit to be in security.”

Her gaze softens. “I apologize if you feel like this is an interrogation. With certain people who keep their emotions very close to the chest, it can feel invasive when asked to open up.”

I grind my teeth, trying to stop from saying something I shouldn’t. She’s just doing her job, and I’m the one who’s on the side of “psych evals are necessary” on the team.

Dr. Bentmore looks back down at her papers. “How are you sleeping?”

Be honest.

“Fine,” I lie.

But it’s a bad lie. One she can spot in a heartbeat because I intended to tell the truth, and it’s more of a half-assed lie anyway. An ill-attempt.

“It’s not unusual for veterans to have sleep issues after their service.”

“It doesn’t interfere with my job,” I say.

“Can you explain more about it?” she asks.

“They’re just nightmares,” I say, not willing to go further than that.

“Can you describe one?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I forget them as soon as I wake up,” I lie.

She doesn’t meet my gaze as she jots a note in the file.

I don’t feel good about this anymore. “I’ve been a lead in security for years,” I tell her. “I’m used to taking on responsibility. I enjoy that part of my job.”

She’s nodding now but she’s still scribbling. The next hour drags minute by fucking unbearable minute. She enquires about my feelings on certain events like the Summer Fest shooting, my surgery and recovery, the birth of my daughter, then asks about my relationships within security, my relationships within my family, and my feelings about the future. I try my best to be honest, but I flipflop between half-truths and vague responses. The moments where I am fully honest, it feels like walking through waist-deep tar.

I can’t tell if she’s more uneasy when I’m forthcoming or when I’m vague.

And then she finally says, “I think I have all the information I need, Mr. Moretti.” She isn’t looking at me.

My body goes cold. “That’s it?”

“You said you needed to get back to work,” she reminds me.

I did say that.

I do need to.

And would she be saying that to me if I didn’t pass? It eases me, and so when I leave the office, I forget about the eval and focus on what’s ahead. Jane. Maeve. Luna’s birthday.

Thank you so much for reading this month's extra bonus! We hope you enjoyed getting a sneak peak into Thatcher's life during the Unlucky Like Us timeline. He has a lot going on, and this was a pivotal moment for him where things are changing even more in his life, so we definitely had to visit his POV during this time. The extra podcast is coming later today. So keep on the lookout!!

xoxo Krista & Becca

"Thatcher and the Psych Evaluation," Copyright © 2023 by K.B. Ritchie