“For too long! The others can’t get dates and won’t sign up for Mail Call.” Her nose wrinkled as a wry smirk claimed her lips. “We must do lunch and get to know each other. That way, we have company when the team deploys. There’s always the military spouse groups, but…”
“But it isn’t the same as knowing someone whose husband is in the same place as yours. I get you.” I pulled her in for a quick squeeze. “Let’s definitely do lunch. Next time Jackson deploys, it’ll be my first time left behind without him. You can show me the ropes.”
“‘The ropes’ is a funny way to say ‘dumplings, rum, and binge-watching TV’.”
I laughed. Jackson had just extracted himself from a hug with a man crowned in messy red hair. He had a long, silvery scar that ran horizontally along his right cheek, just below the cheekbone. Reading scars isn’t a sure thing, but I would have put my money on a bullet wound. Yikes.
“Dillon Bader,” the ginger said, and gave my hand a single, firm shake. He had a faint accent, Irish or Scottish, and I wouldn’t ask which because mistaking the two tends not to go over well. “I’m on automatic rifles.”
“Did you try toeatan automatic rifle?” I asked.
He grinned, fierce and proud. “Thought the flechette was my iron pill for the morning!”
More laughter. The group ambled towards the grill as the introductions rambled on. Jackson slapped Dillon’s shoulder. “This asshole damn neardideat that bullet. Went through his helmet, both sides.”
A tall, brown-haired woman stuffed a bottle of beer into my hand. “Then we had to patch two oxygen leaks in his suit so he could keep on breathing. I’m Paulie Trengove. Nice to meet you, finally.”
“You, too,” I said. “Grenadier?”
“I like the guns that go boom.” She had a wicked smirk and a sharp gaze, and if I hadn’t fallen ass over ears for Jackson, I might have signed up on Team Paulie. I got the idea she had a mind sharp as a nail and a mischievous streak bigger than Jupiter. “What about you, Sebastian?”
“I teach history and science to a bunch of adolescents who’d rather be making out in empty classrooms,” I replied.
Dillon chimed in with, “So, a barracks?”
“No. These teenagers areteachable,anddon’t try to eat bullets,” I said, with careful enunciation for comedic value.
The fireteam cracked up. Xasan tossed the bratwurst onto the grill. “That is a thankless fucking job, Sebastian.”
“Tell me about it. But it’s important.”
“It is, at that.”
Banter flew with the easy lobs and spikes of a friendly volleyball game between friends who have played together for years. I listened to the chatter, and I watched as the team worked together socially as well as they must have worked together in combat. They would converge on a topic to check on each other, around mouthfuls of hamburger or bratwurst or potato salad, then retreat into jests and warm humor to let the concern fade.
That they loved and supported each other as siblings shone through in every word they spoke. Jiaying and I tagged in as outside opinions and questions only those tangential to the unit but not inside it could ask.
We also offered targets for inquiries and conversation when the team had exhausted their emotional bandwidth for themselves. Jiaying talked about training, about stupid recruits and the advances in the battle armor the US had become famous for. She had her own flotilla of funny stories about herself, too, because teasing brought us closer.
“What about you, Sebastian?” Dillon said. I’d learned he had a stony demeanor and a soft heart, just by watching him interact. He was their guard dog, all hard lines and sharp teeth, but I imagined if the right person offered belly rubs, he’d roll over. “You ever serve?”
I started to wave that off, as I had for years, but Jackson touched my lower back to short circuit that. “You hear about General Derlega’s jackass son?”
Dillon rolled his blue eyes in an eloquent statement of opinion about Neil Derlega. “That shite. What about him? I heard he fucked up a training exercise and should have ended up hung by his balls.”
“Bastian was on that training exercise. He was the doc.” Jackson looked at me. His expression had filled up with pride, and I overflowed with gratitude.
That was a secret I didn’t have to keep anymore. One Icouldn’tkeep, not from this rowdy military family who’d accepted me into their midst. They would understand where other people might make polite noises and never internalize what my ordeal meant.
I didn’t have to carry it alone. Jackson had ensured I had people to carry it with me. Until he’d handed my secret to these beloved assholes, even I hadn’t understood how heavily it had weighed on me.
Big eyes all around. “Oh, shit,” Dillon said. “How bad did he fuck up, really? Because I wondered if that whole story was made up to cover him drilling the wrong privates, if you know what I mean.”
“He fucked up pretty bad,” I said. “There’s a line where you cross over from ‘mistakes were made’ to ‘total fuck up’, and that line is, ‘my medic ended up run over by a truck’. He blew way past that line.”
“Fuck me,” Jiayang said. “You got run over by a truck?”
“Just part of me. Small piece, really, in the grand scheme of things.” I held up two pinched fingers. “Tiny bit. Nothing important. Just my spine. And my hip, but I have a spare so it’s fine.”