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He was memorable with his size, but she couldn’t place where she might have seen him if not the USO.
“I’ll leave you all to get to it.” Graham nodded and then departed.
“I didn’t want today to be too boring for you, so we’re going to start with running urban insertion drills,” Bryson said. “You’ll see us breach a residence and do run-throughs in the shooting house. After lunch, we’ll do climbing and rappelling practice here on the tower, followed by hand-to-hand combat exercises.”
“Do you normally do all that in a day?”
“It depends. I want to make sure you get a good overview. Let’s get started.”
* * *
For her first three hours,Erin listened and observed as the men ran through drills. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the men were overly cognizant of her presence and not being their true selves like she’d hoped. It was still progress, especially with Captain Bryson explaining to her what the men were doing.
“Have you ever worn night vision goggles?” he asked.
“I did when I went to the 5thRanger Open House in Dahlonega, Georgia. You guys use the newer thermal imaging version to detect heat signatures, right?”
“We do use ENVGs.” He nodded as if impressed. “You want to do a run-through using them with the team in a blackout scenario?”
“Hell, yes,” Erin replied automatically.
The captain chuckled. “Before we break for lunch here shortly, I’ll put you in for Gabler.” Bryson strolled over to join the team. “Gabler, it’s your turn to get the MREs for lunch.”
“MREs? What are you talking about?” the soldier with a long, narrow face asked.
“MRE Monday,” Bryson said authoritatively.
“That’s not a thing, Captain,” another man said.
Their confused gazes shifted from Bryson to Erin. It dawned on them at the same time as Graham’s warning about Bryson’s sense of humor replayed in her head. “I hear most are pretty decent, so if you think that making me eat an MRE for lunch is going to scare me off, that won’t work.”
“True. They’re probably better than my cooking. Just wanted to give you the full Green Beret experience,” Bryson drawled, breaking into a big grin. “We typically send someone to pick up food.”
Bryson opened an app on his phone and handed it to Gabler, who typed, then passed it to a teammate.
“The USO is hosting a cooking class for couples in a few weeks. It’s free and will be a fun date night.” It would also be an incredible opportunity for her to meet their wives, see the men outside of training,andforall of them to see her with Graham.
“Sign me up,” Bryson said. “My bride-to-be might appreciate me expanding my repertoire beyond grilling and cooking eggs and bacon.”
“Couples means you’re out, Cruz, unless you want to bring your roommate,” Gabler said.
“He and I are not a couple,” Cruz protested. “And I could bring a date to a cooking class, but I’ll leave that to you old married couples.”
Erin had already picked up that the outgoing soldier and shortest team member was the target of much of the good-natured ribbing.
“My wife would love for me to take her to something like that, especially if it’s cooking something fancier than mac and cheese or spaghetti. Put me down,” another of the men said.
She’d overheard Bryson using some of the men’s names in snippets of conversation. But, with the men wearing combat shirts or brown t-shirts instead of uniform tops with name patches, she hadn’t matched up the names she’d heard with who everyone was. “If you want me to sign you up, I’ll need your names, and they like to get your email and phone number to send a confirmation and reminder. If you prefer not to give that to me, you can go to the USO website yourself.”
“The colonel trusts you to be here, so I do too. I’m Louie Atkinson,” the man readily supplied his name.
“Louie, Louie. Oh, oh,” Bryson sang. “That never gets old.”
Atkinson groaned and rolled his eyes. “For you, maybe.”
“You need a name like mine. There are no songs for Gregory.”
“I will come up with a song for you eventually,” Bryson promised, waving a finger at his teammate.
