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“Right, yeah. Same.”
Before I could blink, an idea flew into my mind. If I got orders to be a drill instructor, I might not have to leave. I could be stationed at Parris Island for another three years instead of moving to Hawaii.
And even though it was Lyndi’s face that popped into my head first, I swiped it away for a more logical reason. My pops. It would mean I’d be only a short trip away from him if he was right about his prognosis and he didn’t have much time left. It wasn’t like I’d get to see him all the time, especially not while I was a kill hat myself, but it’d be better than being across the Pacific in Hawaii.
I took a drink of my Coke and nodded at him. “Hey, so uh, what else can you tell me about drill instructor duty? You know, just in case I wind up gettingvolun-toldto do it.”
“Uh, well, be prepared for very little sleep. And when youdosleep, don’t be surprised if you find yourself sleep-IT’ing someone in your closet.”
My burrito was halfway to my lips, but I lowered it. “Hang on, back up. What?” Of course DIs would sleep-IT instead of sleepwalk.
IT stood for Incentive Training—as in, “here’s a littleincentivenot to do whatever you just did again.” It could be push-ups, bends and thrusts, side straddle hops, sit-ups, leg lifts, you name it. They’d call you out in front of the other recruits and make you keep going until they’d made their point, and after the first time I’d gotten IT’d in boot camp, I’d spent the rest of the time not doing anything that would prompt them to do it again.
Grant laughed. “No joke? The other night I woke up to Tess pulling on my arms, yelling that it wasn’t real. But in my head? I totally saw it, clear as day. I wasn’t at home in my walk-in closet, I was on the drill field telling some recruit to do push-ups for dropping his rifle.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. When I snapped out of it and realized what was going on, you have no idea how happy I was that it wasn’t Tess I was yelling at. She wouldnothave enjoyed that. At all.”
Since I’d seen this guy lose his mind on a few recruits, I totally understood why she wouldn’t. In fact, it sounded like it’d be pretty terrifying for her.
“Did your daughter wake up?” I asked.
He smiled. “Nope. Kid sleeps like a rock, thankfully. And she has one of those white-noise machines, you know? Best twenty bucks I ever spent, and I didn’t even know it would come in handy forthatreason.”
“That’s wild.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t want to be a drill instructor after all. The worst thing that could happen on recruiting duty is that I’d have a dream I had to do pull-ups during a high school lunch hour in the nude. That would be terrifying, sure, but it definitely wouldn’t qualify as being a walking-nightmare like what Grant had described.
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, so I put down my burrito and fished it out. Seeing that it was my dad, I rose from the table and held up a finger to Grant. “Hang on, man, it’s my dad.”
“Cool,” he replied through a mouthful of food.
When I stepped away, I quickly answered the call. “Hey, Pops. Everything okay?”
“Sure is. Just wanted to ask you somethin.’”
Relief mixed with curiosity flowed through me. “Okay, shoot.”
“You think you can get them to give you some time off so you can come out and see your old man?”
I blinked, looking around the room, though I wasn’t sure what for. “Uh, I don’t know, when? Andwhy?”
“No reason. Except I wanna meet this girlfriend of yours.”
My stomach dropped right into my boots, and I stifled a groan. “Ah, hmm.”
“What? You can travel every weekend to take your fake dates to weddings but you can’t spare some leave to see your dying father?”
I curled my lip at his wording. “Ouch, tell me how you really feel.”
“Sorry, but the truth hurts,” he teased, coughing. “Son, you haven’t taken leave since who knows when. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to burn. Why don’t you take a couple weeks off and come see me next weekend.”
“Pops… I’m a professional wedding date. My weekends are always booked solid.”
“Is it booked next weekend?”
I frowned. Actually, it wasn’t. I’d only had one wedding on the calendar for next weekend, and the couple had called it off. And it was a shame, too, because my client had booked one of my more expensive packages.
