“You can call me Mack,” she says.
“What kind of callsign is that?” I ask.
“That’s not part of the deal,” she says. “My name is MacKenzie. I promised to tell you what you could call me and only my friends and family call me Mack. Besides, you already know what I do. So tell me, how did you get that God awful callsign?”
“All right, I’ll give you that play. I screamed like a girl the first time I jumped out of a plane.” Her companions both snicker, because that’s not exactly the hallmark of a SEAL. “They said I sounded just like Tarzan when he swings through the trees.”
“How long have you been a SEAL?” Hooter asks.
“About seven years,” I answer, and for the first time I realize how long I’ve been doing this. I’ve never put much thought into settling down before, finding something more stable. The idea pops up from time to time, usually when it’s time to renew my contract, but this time feels different. I’ve been at this game a long time. My body won’t hold out in this job for another decade, and there’s no guarantee I’ll live that long if I try.
“How long have you all been flying?”
“Five years,” both her friends answer, and I expect her answer to be the same, that they all went to flight school together or something like that, but what she says next surprises me.
“My whole life.”
Clearly, it surprises her companions as well, because they look as blindsided as I’m sure I do right now. They obviously didn’t think she would volunteer that information herself. So Mack, the pretty pilot, likes her life private. Good to know.
“How’s that?” I ask, my voice low and a little rough. I love the idea that she’s given me something. That this beautiful and intelligent woman will make me earn everything that she gives me and, yet, she’s just given me this. It’s mine and I’m keeping it.
“I flew pipeline spotter routes as a baby with my grandfather.”
“So you’re from a town with pipelines,” I say, hoping she’ll elaborate because I have no idea what that could mean. She’s clearly from the south, but other than that, I’ve got nothing.
“Yes,” she says with a small smile, knowing that I’m doing my best to dig out the information.
“And what kind of pipelines would those be?” I’m really grasping at straws here, and we all know it by the pained look on the guys’ faces. Mack, however, is enjoying every moment of my pain and suffering. She looks like she could happily bask in it all night.
“Oil,” she says, and her accent thickens around the word like the very substances she spoke of.
“And the town would be?”
“For fuck’s sake.” Hooter laughs. “Put the poor guy out of his misery already.”
“Right?” the other one adds with a grimace on his face. “This is painful to watch.”
“East Texas,” she says, answering my question before turning to her friend. “I was about to. I’m not a monster, you know.”
“I’m not so sure.” Cinco chuckles. “You’re pretty mean.”
“I am not!” She laughs at his insult. They’re clearly close and this kind of banter is totally normal for them.
“You really are,” he laughs.
“So where are you from?” she asks me, and I’m so surprised she’s engaging in conversation that I startle a bit.
“New Jersey.”
“I bet that’s cold,” she says.
“Shoveling snow isn’t a childhood pastime I’m eager to take up again,” I say, making her laugh.
“No, I don’t imagine it is.”
“Don’t you have snow in Texas?” I ask grasping onto anything that could link us, bridge the gap. Fuck, her friends are right, I’m pathetic but I also can’t bother to care.
“Some,” she answers. “But not enough to shovel. And if we did, I let my brother do it.”
