Slick and salty, running down her throat.
Where the hell had that come from?
Actually, she knew… but she didn't like it.
6
BRUTUS
"So you guys do this every Monday?" Brutus asked Takeshi Satomura as the formation broke and people started going to do their jobs. "Just... car maintenance?"
"Any Monday we're not in the field," Takeshi told him. "It's not just vehicles, but all our equipment."
Brutus noticed Takeshi had a faint accent. Something in the vowels hinted at somewhere else, a place far from Fort Pickett.
"Why so much maintenance time?" Brutus asked, but before Takeshi could answer Sergeant Orkin called his name. "Talk later?"
"Cool." Takeshi went off in the other direction. Brutus hurried over to Orkin, who had a pile of clipboards in his hand.
"Okay Brutus, I'm going to pair you off with Sergeant Castellanos." Orkin handed him a clipboard. "You're going to be on the ISV over there."
Brutus took the clipboard, surprised. "I'm not being given the shit details? I fully expected to be scrubbing toilets or something."
Orkin chuckledshook his head. "That's not the way we operate. And you're going to be getting plenty dirty today, so don't think you're getting off light either. Head on over, get familiar with the check sheet before Castellanos joins you."
"Deal." Brutus walked towards the line of vehicles that looked like stripped down pickup trucks. Getting closer he thought he could identify the original vehicle the large truck was based off of, but the drab green paint and pipework sides definitely changed the overall design.
Walking around the truck, he had to admit that whatever the purpose of the vehicle was, it was a badass looking truck. He'd just completed his trip around the truck when Sergeant Castellanos came over, stopping him in his tracks.
He thought she'd looked good when he stopped by her room, with her hair damp and sticking to her neck, her undershirt clinging to her athletic frame. Then, she'd looked like a very sexy woman, and Brutus found it hard to tear his eyes away.
But now she looked like something out of a dream, clad in olive drab coveralls, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. There was a confidence in her stance, a knowledge in her eyes, that made Brutus's pulse quicken.
"You ready to get to work?"
"Sure." Brutus flexed his hands. He was wearing thin gloves to combat the chill, but still his fingers were stiff with the late winter cold. "You're not freezing?"
"Nope." Castellanos flexed her own gloved up hands. She was wearing Mechanic's gloves, the lightweight material meant to protect her hands and give her better grip on the day's labors. She looked him over, checking out at his own outfit. "Are you?"
"A little," Brutus admitted, shivering in the pullover Gore Tex parka that had come with his issued uniforms. It was in the current coloration style, and was reasonably warm on his upper body. It was his legs that were suffering. "I know, I know, big baby. But this is different from games."
"How so?" Castellanos asked, stepping forward and taking the clipboard from him. "By the way, where's the rest of your thermal gear?"
"My what?"
Castellanos sighed. "The Army has a freakin' seven layer system of clothing to use in the cold. Even with your older uniform pattern it works. Let me guess, you skipped the long underwear and thermal t-shirt, and just went with the standard ACU. Wait, of course you did, you're wearing your workout shirt underneath. Fuck, my bad."
"No, it's okay," Brutus said quickly. "Maybe I can adjust during lunch. Look, I just... for games in places like Cleveland or Buffalo or something, we've got these heavyweight thermal compression tops, and our shoulder pads themselves are insulating. It's a solid half inch of padding and plastic around my upper body before we get to the jersey. And on the sidelines we've got the parkas if we need it, and heaters, and more."
"Okay well, get through this morning, and after lunch we'll get you back to the barracks and get you into the right gear," Castellanos said. "In the meantime, you can get warmed up by getting down and crawling around this beast with me. It's my ISV, so I baby the hell out of it."
"Satoshi was telling me about these Mondays," Brutus said. "I didn't think the Army spent so much time doing basic maintenance."
"We put our gear through hell on a regular basis," Castellanos explained. "Out there, our lives can depend on these vehicles working properly."
Brutus could see the logic in that. "Guess it's the same in football," he admitted as he got down on the ground. "We just have an equipment manager and his staff to do it for us."
Castellanos chuckled. "We've got maintenance personnel too, but only for the bigger problems."
