Five Dates by Rachel Robinson

Author:Rachel Robinson [Robinson, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Tommy

The stale air in the makeshift gym on base tastes like dirt and sweat. I’m in the middle of the desert. Some structures are sturdier than others, like the mess hall where we eat and our sleeping quarters. They have actual plywood walls. The gym wasn’t so lucky. I bench press my max as sweat slides down the sides of my temples. I’m constantly wet from sweat, my clothes clinging to me like a second skin. An air conditioner is a luxury reserved for the main office and nowhere else. Not that I’m complaining, I could be living in this place full-time instead of visiting for a deployment.

I gave up on my prescribed workout. Now I’m on the plan to get as jacked as I can while I’m gone. Protein and heavy weight. It helps me forget what I left. Who I left. The situation I left. Not that I want to forget Margo, but for the first month I was distracted by visions of her. I have replayed our fourth date a hundred times in my head. Followed by visions of her naked and others of her being harmed with a crowbar by her psycho ex. The nightmares had me sweating more than the dry heat.

Lipman grabs the bar from me and slams it back into the rack. “Good set. You done in the gym for the day?” he asks, checking his watch and then the monitor to piece together what time it is here and what time it is back home. We work in the shadows, in the dark, so mostly we’re sleeping during daylight hours to compensate.

Wiping my hands off on a towel, I exhale noisily before dragging it across my face. “That meeting is happening at sundown. I’m going to shower and head out. I’ll probably hit the dust pit once more before bed so I can sleep. I’m having a hard time this week.” My mind won’t turn off. I try not to burden my teammates with my worries. The last thing they want to see from the fucking new guy is angst. They want to know my mind is clear and focused on the job at hand.

We have four targets we’re working on capturing, and if tonight’s dinner meeting goes smoothly, we’ll know where two of them are located. Sometimes getting the information we need is sneaky, and other times it’s blatant and old-fashioned—a dinner with new friends with loose lips.

My teammate wipes down the equipment he was on, getting frustrated because sand always finds a way in. “I’ll be back on comms for the meeting,” he reminds me. “I’ll work out with you again when you get back.” He clears his throat. “We’ve all been sleeping like shit.” Lipman’s girl broke up with him via email three days into the deployment. She changed her number and deactivated her email address shortly after. They were together for over a year. Expect the unexpected in deployments and that trickles into real life, too.

My stomach churns.

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