“Just about.”His Bronx roots came out when he spoke in complete sentences.He pointed at the speaker.“Doesn’t that noise make you want to nap?”
Jerry chuckled.“I learned to appreciate it in sniper school.Helped me focus.Didn’t distract me.”
“That what you listen to when you’re up in a tree in your Gillie?”
Jerry set the basket in his closet.“When I’m not having to listen to your inane chatter.”
“I got you, bro.”He held up his phone.“Erin wants to know if she can get Olive’s number.Something about packing and being roommates.”
“Sure.”He swiped his phone and sent Brock a text with the requested number.“Erin ready for the full team experience?”
Brock’s cheeks turned bright red.“Don’t know, bro.I’ve cooked on it for a couple of weeks.I mean, what if it ain’t her cup of tea?”
“What ‘it’?Us?”
“Yeah, like, the whole brothers in arms thing.I mean, what if—”
Jerry put his hand on Brock’s shoulder.“Listen, this is who you are.You told me how much you found your real home when you had your first formation in basic, remember?If she doesn’t like this part of you, you might ought to consider that when thinking about making any future plans.”
“Yeah.”He paused for a moment, then went back to his lighthearted normal.“I’ll get this to Erin, and I’ll see you downstairs.Daddy said ten minutes.”
After Brock left, Jerry looked at the packing list he’d made.He had everything accounted for except his shower kit.He’d need that in the morning.
They had to be at the Nashville Airport by 0600 hours.He planned to pick Olive up at 0430.Sunday morning traffic shouldn’t cause a problem, but he didn’t feel comfortable without that thirty-minute buffer.
With everything in order, he left his room and went down to the courtyard.On the stairwell, he could smell the grilling meat.Per tradition, Norton fed the team lunch before breaking for block leave.Several members of the unit would be at the wedding, but not most of them.Osbourne had been gone a long time in Army years.
Norton watched him approach from his station in front of the grill.“How’s things, Jerry Maguire?”
“Smooth and steady, Daddy.Ready for tomorrow?”
“My entourage has it all planned out,” Norton said, smiling under his red beard.“All I have to do is show up.”Norton had to let the Secret Service coordinate a lot of their travel, which was the price he paid for having married the only daughter of the Vice President of the United States.
“Are they going to be on the ship?”
“Apparently.”He grinned.“Cynthia said she better not see them.”
Jerry laughed.“I can actually hear her say that in my head.”
Norton grinned a loving grin and looked up, staring at a memory.In a rare moment of vulnerability, he said, “We hadn’t been married long, and we just got that place near the gate.”
“The blue house,” Jerry filled in.
“Yeah, with the pool.Anyway, it’s late one night after a jump, and I can’t sleep because—reasons—so I decide it would be a great idea to sneak out of bed and clean my pistols down in the garage.So I had just broken down the Springfield .45, and she storms in there barefoot in her nightgown and, man, I never heard Cynthia read anyone the riot act like that, all about guns and killing.I will never forget that.”
Norton shook his head, still grinning.
“What did you do?”
“Well, I figured out that right then, Cynthia was much more interesting than my Springfield, so I took her back to bed.She’s really something when she gets up a head of steam like that, let me tell you.”
Jerry accepted a plate from Ibrahim and wandered over to the table with the toppings and sides.Cynthia was a physician and the daughter of the VP, but women were women at the end of the day.He didn’t think Olive would scold him for performing maintenance on his gear in their home.They had really never had a disagreement.He wondered what might get her goat.
Captain Peña arrived with his wife, Emma, who had often acted as their tactical debriefer under the callsign 24-10 in years past.They made their way to Norton’s side, so Jerry made his way to elsewhere.
Some other wives and girlfriends had already arrived.Olive would have joined them today, except she had to pull her final shift before vacation.No getting out of it.
Tim and Leanne Waller arrived late.Jerry spotted the pair and cut across the courtyard, his grin pulling wide at the corners.Weeks back, Leanne barely looked pregnant.Now she rocked side to side with each step, palm splayed across the taut dome pushing out her shirtfront.
