Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Jen

" T his morning we'll be giving you the local area orientation. There's a few Forward Operating Bases where our friendlies are stationed out here, as well as local points of interest."

I nodded along as Mark gave me the introduction. Last night it'd seemed innocent enough to accept his offer of an orientation, but now I realized that meant I'd be spending a good portion of my day with him. I considered canceling, but the Colonel had agreed and gave us authorization for the flight and it was too late. Now that we were in the briefing I was apprehensive.

Mark was giving the brief, and he was wearing his Combat Flying Shirt. It was aptly nicknamed the ‘Sexy Shirt.' It was made of the same flame resistant material as our regular flight suit, but this was designed for hot weather, and to be worn under body armor. The sleeves were full length and the same camo pattern, but the center, the part that covered the chest, stomach and back, was made of a torturously sexy moisture wicking material, and it was skin tight.

Mark wasn't just giving the brief, he was doing so while letting us know he had firm pecs and tight abs. It was bad enough that last night when he brushed his rough knuckles over my arm I was instantly covered in goosebumps, now I was trying to subtly fan myself to keep from passing out as I got a close up look at his sexy body. I pushed up on my chin to force myself to look into his eyes...those piercing eyes which were glued to me. Dammit, snap out of it girl!

Mark continued. "We'll take off to the north, hook west along the river, back down through Mazar E Sharif, then south of The Wall."

"The Wall?" I asked. Finally, joining the conversation.

"The giant-ass mountain range south of us. It doesn't taper off like any decent mountain, it just drops four thousand feet. Thus, The Wall."

I nodded again. I was having mixed feelings about the flight. On one hand, I was thrilled for the chance to be in a flight with Laura, when we weren't being shot at. On the other hand, I was still unsure of Mark and the rest of the crew. Last night had been nice, but I still hadn't forgotten about how they ‘accidentally' set fire to the airfield when I first got here. I could only imagine what else they had in store. Nick and Ross had both told me about some of the other crap they'd pulled. They really didn't like the Apache guys. But they did come through for us when it counted. When I'd messed up. Whereas what Ross had done was commit the ultimate sin as far as MEDEVAC was concerned.

Mark was wrapping up his map reconnaissance and asked, "Any questions?"

"Think we're good. Sarah, you and Karolyn go with Nick and start getting everything ready. I'll head to the Tactical Operations Center for the last minute updates."

"Sure thing." They stood up and headed out. When Sarah passed by Mark he grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. I watched him lean his head down to her ear. He whispered to her so that no one else might overhear. She smiled, stood up straighter. Then hunched down again and blushed. He jerked his arm and she stood up straight again. Then he straightened, winked at her and walked away. Sarah was preening; she ran her hand through her hair, like a nervous distraction. But she was still standing tall.

A mixture of jealousy and curiosity hit me. I gathered myself and approached her and asked, "What did Sheppard say to you?" It almost came out as an accusation.

"He told me to stop slouching so much. He said that I shouldn't try to slink away from my Amazonian height and instead I should own it, and own the room with it. He said I was too smart to be so shy, that a twenty-two-year-old flight medic was practically unheard of, that I must be smart and capable to hold that position, so stop hiding from it."

She was holding back on me. "And?" Sarah looked down sheepishly, though I couldn't help but notice, she didn't slouch. "What was the blush?"

Sarah turned deep red again. "He said…he said that some boys are slow, and whichever one of these knuckleheads it is that hasn't caught on yet might need a hint. Give him a kick in the ass so that he takes notice."

"Caught on?" Somehow, she managed to blush even redder. "Ah…I see." I looked back to Mark, he was already heading to the operations center. I wasn't sure what to make of it. He wasn't flirting with her, and given how he was at the bonfire last night, it's like he assumed some sort of fatherly protector role over her. It was...sweet. It also made me wonder how he'd known Sarah was interested in a guy here before I'd caught on. I could only blame my inattention on the fact that he was distracting me so thoroughly from everything, I hadn't noticed.

"So what exactly have you been up to after hours?" I said with a playfully accusing tone.

"Nothing." Her blush deepened and she brushed her hair back in a nervous way.

"Nothing? The type of nothing that has you hanging around the Apache guys?"

"No…their mechanics. Mechanic," she muttered.

"You're going to tell me all about it later." I said smiling, then I took off after Sheppard, getting my mind back to the flight we were about to go on. "Sheppard, I'll call the Weather Officer and get the updated weather briefing," I said walking into the operations center. "Least I can do since you did all the planning."

"We'll get it, you get your gear and we'll meet you outside." Mark, followed by Brady and Artie, all walked over to the phone.

"Okay." I couldn't help notice Laura smiling as she got up from the table. "What's so funny?"

"These guys always fight to get the weather brief. You'll never have to make that phone call yourself."

"Why's that?"

"Just stick around for a minute, you'll see."

I peered through the doorway to watch them. "Hey what's that annoying noise?" Brady asked, strutting through the room like a rooster.

"Fuck off," Ross said, standing up and walking away.

"That's it, found it!" Artie yelled.

Ross gave them the finger as he walked out. "Fucking pricks," he mumbled, as he walked past us out the door.

I watched Mark dial the phone. He put it on speaker, then moved back so that Brady and Artie could get in closer. When the voice that answered on the other side came through you could see the two of them melt. Mark just grinned as he watched them.

"Good morning, this is the Bagram weather officer." The voice was husky yet sultry. It poured out of the phone like honey and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. If I was being honest with myself, even I found her voice sexy. Hard to blame the guys for liking it. It was instantly clear why the men fought to make this phone call.

"Will that be all gentleman?" she asked, having finished the brief.

"That's all we need, thank you," Brady said with a stupid smile.

I'm sure that's all you need. I may not blame them for finding the woman's voice hot, but that didn't mean I didn't want to slap the silly grin off Mark's face. Now irritation flooded me, both at myself and him since I had zero claims on this man. That fact didn't alleviate my sudden jealousy. How the man had managed to wrap me up in knots like this was a mystery.

" Weather void time is ten-thirty, my initials are Echo Charlie."

Laura whispered to me "A weather briefing isn't valid unless it has the weather officer's and pilot's initials, they give them phonetically."

Sheppard peered over to me and gave a "watch this" nod. Artie pointed to Brady and mouthed, "It's your turn."

Brady nodded and said "Your initials Echo Charlie, mine are ‘Big….Cake'."

A sexy laugh came over the speaker. "Big Cake. Good one. Be safe boys." The weather officer giggled on the other end. I rolled my eyes and backed out of the room. Even her giggles were alluring. As I turned back to the hallway, Laura caught my annoyance.

She slapped my shoulder lightly. "Lighten up, will ya? They get bored. It's a fun game. It's not like they get to talk to women out here."

I smiled, "Um…what are we exactly? I know you work with men, but don't tell me you've started peeing standing up. Don't we count for anything?"

"Oh Honey, that's so cute. You still think that you're a girl. We've been over this already. As far as they are concerned Ross is the only woman on this base. Although, if you ask them they might say he's the only bitch on this base."

I snorted out a laugh, but couldn't manage a real response. I was a little ashamed of myself, but their constant mocking of him was amusing.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" was all I could manage.

"That Ross is the only bitch? That's a good thing. Who needs two of him around?"

"No, not Ross. The not being a girl bit." Now that I knew the story with Ross, I kinda understood why the others thought he was a bitch. I didn't feel sorry for him at all.

"Works pretty well for me. I don't hear complaints from anyone else. I mean, really what do you expect? You want them to hold doors for you and carry your bags to the aircraft?"

The image of Mark carrying my flight gear in his combat shirt flashed through my mind. I quickly chased it out before my knees buckled. "No. I don't expect to be treated any differently, I just…" She cut me off.

That damn evil smile appeared again and her finger started waving at me menacingly, "You don't want to be treated differently, you just want brownie points for being treated the same." She folded her arms and tilted her head at me. When I didn't respond she smiled. "Gotcha."

Damn her for being right. I didn't care about being noticed until stupid Mark in his stupid sexy combat shirt flirted with some…girl…on the phone. He didn't even flirt with her, he just watched someone else do it. What the fuck was wrong with me? "Come on, let's get to the aircraft so that we can get this orientation flight underway." I shoved past her and headed into the equipment room.

We grabbed our helmet bags and armor and started out to the flightline. "It would be nice to have someone carry this shit, though," I joked to her. It was easily over fifty pounds of equipment.