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12
BEAU
Taking my tray of food over to one of the long tables of the chow hall, I sat down alone and put my camouflage cover next to my tray. Good thing Zac would be back from his honeymoon tomorrow.
It’d been a long week of solo lunch breaks without him to talk about nothing with, and since there was a lot more thannothinggoing on with me at the moment, I’d be glad to have him back come Monday.
“How’s it going, man?” Grant asked as he dropped his tray across from mine.
“Whoa, who let you in here like a normal person?”
He grinned. “I’m not on chow duty right now, but I was supposed to be.”
“Nice. Gotta love surprise time off. You didn’t want to go home for lunch, though? See the fam?”
“Tess and Sadie are at some petting zoo across the bridge, and I didn’t want to ruin their time by telling her I was free. So, here I am.”
I cocked a brow. “‘Ruin their time’? How would that ruin their time?”
He ran a hand over his extreme high and tight—drill instructors always had that or a shaved head—and heaved out a beast of a sigh. “Man, I feel like sheintentionallytries to keep her schedule clear on the off chance something like this will happen and I’ll be able to come home for lunch. I don’t like it, so I encouraged her to take Sadie to do something fun. If she found out I had some free time, and she wasn’t home to hang out? Ah, I don’t even want to think about it.”
I swallowed, feeling bad for the guy. But then again, if he’d remained blissfully unattached like I had, he wouldn’t have to worry about all that.
“That sounds rough. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all good, she’ll adjust. I just hope it’s not so hard for her by the time the baby comes. I’m trying to hit J-hat before then so I’ll have more time off.”
“I hope you make it,” I offered with a small smile.
“Thanks. Have you done a B billet yet?”
Every Marine had to do a B billet at some point after they made sergeant, and it was usually one of three duties: drill instructor, embassy guard, or recruiter.
That last one had always been the one I’d had my eye on because I figured I’d kill it. But I likely wouldn’t have a choice. Being a DI seemed hard but manageable, and the idea of spending three years in three different countries guarding an embassy actually sounded pretty cool. But so far, I hadn’t been told I was needed for any of the three. It was only a matter of time, though.
“Nah, not yet,” I replied. “But I’m thinking I’d make a good recruiter. I’ve got good people skills.”
He smirked and pointed at me with his fork. “I bet you’d have to with your little side gig.”
“Exactly.”
“Being a drill instructor is insane. I swear, I think the hardest thing is the yelling.”
I frowned as I swallowed a bite of my burrito. “Yeah? What, like you feel bad for doing it?”
“No. I mean, yeah, kind of, in the beginning. But I got over that pretty quickly because otherwise I wouldn’t be a good enforcer. Gotta remember it’s just mind games, and they’ll be all right in the end. We all were.”
“True.”
I thought back to my time in boot camp with a shudder. Kill hats were total psychos, and it still blew my mind that Grant was able to be such a chill guy with me one minute and such a hard-core screaming machine the next.
“But yeah,” he went on, wincing as he touched his throat, “the thing about the yelling is… I had no idea howbadit would hurt. The first yell of the day? I dread it. I wake up every morning, and I’m not even mad about going to work itself, it’s that the second I make that first yell, I know it’s gonna feel like someone’s digging a knife around in my throat.”
I cringed. “Ugh, dude. That sounds terrible.”
“It isnotfun. I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever gonna have a normal voice again, and this is only my first cycle,” he said, the same scratchy voice every DI had illustrating his point.
“I’m sure you will. I’ve known plenty of former DIs, and they talk normally now. I bet you’ll get used to it.”
