Page 22 of Point of Contact

Even so, she did seem to have a soft spot for Riley, spending a lot of time talking with him, taking pictures of him. The idiot was the most photogenic out of their whole sorry-looking bunch, and several of the guys had taken to teasing him and calling him Brad Pitt.

The rest of the day was spent with everyone doing odd jobs around the base, then pretty much just sitting in the shade and waving the flies away. A couple of guys watched a DVD on someone’s laptop, Enriquez strummed his guitar and sang under his breath, while Smitty hunched over a sketchpad and drew obsessively. Riley sat on the ground under the camo netting, leaning against a hooch wall with his iPod earbuds in, eyes closed. The sunlight was filtered through the netting, creating a dappled effect across his face.

“What do you suppose he’s thinking about?” Kimi dropped to the ground next to Jesse, who was methodically taking apart his M4 to wipe and oil it down. Fuckin’ thing had jammed that morning during the firefight.

He glanced at her and shrugged. “Probably a steak dinner, a hot shower and a beer. Like everyone else in this cesspit.” She gave him a rueful quirk of her lips and nodded.

“I’ve only been here two weeks, and I can’t wait to get back to civilization. You’ve been here, what, seven months?”

“Little over.” Jesse finished with the oiling and started reassembling his weapon with practiced ease. Kimi pointed her camera toward him and he flushed self-consciously. She noticed and put the Nikon down.

“You okay with me doing this?” She indicated the camera, and he nodded, mumbling, “I guess. But Brad over there makes a prettier picture.” They both looked over at Riley, who was bobbing his head to the music, a slight smile playing over his full lips.

Kimi took a few shots of him and turned back to Jesse. “I’m actually thinking of making him the focus of my piece,” she admitted. “Typical young American man, barely out of his teens, and all he’s known in his short life is living at home with his parents. And war.”

Jesse clicked the last piece of his gun into place, and looked it over with critical eyes before replying. “He was raised by his dad, a single father. Riley is—an interesting guy. He’d be a great subject for your story, and I know he’d get a kick out of it.”

“Can you tell me anything about him? His dad, any of his background?”

Jesse laid his M4 down carefully on the little table he was sitting in front of before leaning back against the sandbag wall to stretch his legs out and cross them at the ankle. “I only met his dad once, right before we shipped out.” He told her briefly about the party at Riley’s house, leaving out the altercation and of course the dude’s sexual orientation. That wasn’t his story to tell, it was Riley’s, if and when he chose.

“They seemed really close,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on the ground as he thought of how Riley defended his dad that night. Jesus. He glanced up to see Kimi watching him closely.

“What?” she asked with curiosity in her tone, and Jesse shook his head.

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “It was a fun time, and like I said, Riley and his dad are super close. I don’t know what happened with his mom. He never talks about her.”

“What about you?” Kimi asked, moving over next to Jesse and mirroring his pose against the sandbags. “What’s your background?”

Jesse snorted. “I’m so fuckin’ boring, Kimi. Don’t waste your time on me.”

“You’re so not boring,” she exclaimed. “I’ve watched you on these last few patrols. You’re a natural leader, and the guys look up to you.” She looked him over. “You’re a little older than they are, right?”

Jesse snorted again. “Yeah. I’m the old man at twenty-four. Crazy, huh?”

“Try being thirty-two,” she teased, and it was Jesse’s turn to give her the once-over. Red hair up in a messy ponytail and full of dust, her freckled face streaked with dirt, her lips chapped—she looked about twelve, and he said so.

“Aww, thanks. I’m not a high-maintenance girl, but I have to admit I can’t wait to get a mani/pedi and a facial.” She displayed her ragged, black-encrusted fingernails. “I have dust ground so deep into my pores, I’ll never get clean.”

“I know the feeling.”

They gave each other commiserating grins, and Kimi repeated, “What’s your background, Byrney?” Jesse didn’t reply, and she tried again. “Why did you join the Army?”

Jesse cleared his throat. “Well, I had kind of an...isolating childhood,” he said, memories of awkwardness, of uncomfortable looks on his friends’ and their parents’ faces, welling up. “I just wanted to see the world, I guess. Serve my country. Isn’t that why everyone joins?”

Kimi pulled her ever-present notebook out of the pocket of her cargo pants and flipped through it. “So far I have ‘because I was bored,’ ‘because it was the Army or jail,’ ‘because I was tired of living with my mom and not having any money.’”

Jesse laughed. “Fuckin’ idiots.”

“It’s interesting, though,” she mused, “that no one’s said ‘because of 9/11.’”

They sat in silence for a minute, digesting that, and Jesse said, “I guess none of us are that noble, Kimi. We’re all kind of the losers, the frontline grunts that society and even the military look down on.”

“And yet you’re the ones actually fighting the fucking war,” Kimi said. “Eighty-five percent of the combat in theater right now is here in Korengal Valley. Why do you think I fought so hard to get embedded with you? You’re the tip of the spear.” She let that sink in. “Don’t sound like losers to me.”

“Hell, ain’t no one gotta like me,” called out Smitty, from where he’d obviously been eavesdropping. “Just gotta trust I’m trained to do my job, and that I’ll do it, motherfucker. A little respect, you know?”

There was a chorus of oorahs, and Kimi said, “I’d trust each and every one of you with my life. And I do, each time we go out there. I wouldn’t survive one hour without you ‘losers’ watching my six, and I don’t think I want to hear you call yourself that again.”