by S. M. LITTLE
“Please, call me Lucy,” she said. “And you don’t have to disconnect from it, you just leave it here. Inside of these walls you’re Dr. Long. The one who provides the hope that all of your patients need. Outside of these walls, you’re just Greg.”
“I kinda like that,” he said. “What time do you get done today?”
Lucy’s heart fluttered a bit from his question, and she stammered out her response.
“In a…couple of…hours.”
“Are you ok?” he asked her.
She quickly regained her composure and responded, “Yes, I’m good.”
“Good, would you like to get some drinks, or go bowling?”
“Bowling?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s actually great fun! You can play your game and chat at the same time,” he said.
She thought about watching him from behind, as he bent over, throwing a bowling ball and damn near screamed out, “Yes!”
“Good!” he said. “Can I pick you up? Say around 5ish?”
“See you then, Doctor,” she replied with a smile.
After that, E.R. duty seemed to drag on forever, but at last, she was free. Lucy raced home to get showered and ready for her date. She was unsure what to wear and decided on some tight-fitting jeans and a snug, but cute, top that showed off what she had.
Lucy wasn’t what she would call a ‘head turner’, but she knew she had it where it counted. She stood 5’6”, had a slim, athletic build, with just enough up top to get guys’ attention.
She dolled up her hair and was making sure her make-up was perfect when the entry buzzer sounded. Lucy sprayed a light mist of perfume in the air and walked through it while she answered the door buzzer to her apartment by saying, “I’ll be right down.”
When she walked out of her apartment building, Greg stood there, gaping, jaw on the ground. She thought something was wrong with him until she realized he had never seen her outside of the hospital. She was always in baggy scrubs, never had make-up on, and wore her hair up. Greg’s gaze instantly sent blood rushing to her cheeks.
“Easy there, cowboy, you get to look all night long,” she said seductively.
“I do?” he stammered. He felt like a high school kid again.
“Yeah, and maybe not just look, if you’re a good boy,” she said.
With that, Greg nearly tripped going down the steps to the sidewalk.
They made their way to the bowling alley, getting shoes and each picking out the ball they wanted to use. A server came over to take their orders for food and drinks. Greg seemed relieved when Lucy ordered a rum and coke.
“Something I should know about, cowboy?” she asked.
“Not really. I just have this theory. You can tell a lot about a woman by what she drinks,” he answered.
“And?” she asked.
“Well, ladies that order Cosmos and fruity-tooty drinks are high maintenance. Girls that order beer are down to earth and real,” he said.
“And me?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet. Haven’t had that happen,” he replied, gesturing to her drink.
“And just how many drinks have you bought for the ladies?” she teased him as she went to roll her ball down the lane. She swore she could hear him gulp when she bent over.
“Um…not many. It’s more of an observation,” he stammered out, hoping he was able to cover himself.
“Don’t worry, doctor,” she said in a sexy tone, “You’re safe with me. No judgements.”
After that, it was his turn to roll the ball. She could tell she was getting to him because his ball went straight into the gutter.
“Oh, poor thing. Your ball’s in the gutter,” she said as he was trying to take a drink. The drink got sprayed three lanes over.
From that point on, Greg was completely enamored with Lucy, and would do anything she asked. It was a match made in heaven, if it was meant to last.
CHAPTER TWO
JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
Mike “Yeti” Willingham tightened the last bolt on the front landing gear of the Boeing C-17, otherwise known as the Globemaster III. It was a massive aircraft, reaching 174 feet in length, with a 169-foot wingspan. It was powered by four Pratt & Whitney engines, each rated to give up to 40,440 pounds of thrust.
Today marked the overhaul/refit phase for this particular plane and Mike was finishing up with the landing gear. His best friend, Pete Correro, was working on the hydraulics system. They had grown up together, played high school football together, even joined the Air Force together. Life, for each, was never far away from the other. Theirs was a true brotherhood.
Mike’s nickname was Yeti because he stood 6’3” and weighed around 260 pounds. Pete wasn’t much smaller than Mike, making the duo a formidable pair.
When the two decide to go to a bar together, most of the hardasses in the crowd parted like Moses and the Red Sea. Nobody messed with them, and nobody started a damn thing when those two were around.
Mike found it funny because, in reality, he was a gentle giant. An enormous teddy bear that only wanted fun and friendship. He was extremely loyal, almost to a fault. He was also extremely smart and could have had a future in any line of work he wanted, but he loved to wrench on stuff.
That’s part of what drew him to the Air Force. A chance to work on things that no ordinary mechanic could say they had worked on. Bigger vehicles, and in this case, planes, meant bigger tools, and any guy will tell you that a tool is also a toy.
“Need a hand over there, Pete?” Mike called out.
“Yeah, can you hold this pump while I ratchet it in?” Pete said.
It was an unspoken thing between the two that they could almost read each other’s minds. Mike knew when Pete needed help, and it worked the other way, too.
Mike walked over, held up the massive hydraulic fluid pump with one arm, and waited for Pete to tighten it in. Using the torque wrench, Pete tightened the pump with just the right amount of torque. They both took great pride in their work, after all, lives depended on what they did in the hanger.
“Looks like that’s done, what’s next?” Pete asked.
“Wing root,” Mike said with a grimace.
A wing root inspection required them to get into the interior of the wings to inspect every nut and bolt there. It was no small feat for both large men to get into the wings and took a considerable amount of time.
They grabbed a ladder, placed it under the wing, and opened the small hatch they had to crawl through. Mike was the first one to go through. He got one arm and his head into the compartment and got stuck.
“Pete, I’m stuck,” Mike shouted out.
“I can see that. What would you like me to do?” Pete replied.
“Push!” Mike yelled.
“Just like Winnie the Pooh,” Pete grumbled.
Pete got under Mike and started to push.
“Hey, that’s my ass!” Mike shouted.
“Yeah, and if it wasn’t so bulbous, you might fit!” Pete hollered back.
“You just wait till it's your turn, buddy,” Mike said back.
Together, they pushed and twisted until Mike managed to crawl into the wing. It was a cramped space, with no more than two feet of clearance to crawl through. Mike crawled towards the outer part of the wing, just to get some space to turn around so he could help Pete, but Pete had already climbed into the wing.
“How the hell did you do that?” Mike asked.
“Lots of KY jelly,” Pete laughed.
They split up inside the wing, each taking a section and inspecting everything there. It was a slow, tedious process, but eventually they were finished and climbing out of the wing.
“That about does it for today,” Pete said. “Time for a beer?”
“Absolutely,” Mike replied.
Even though there were on-base clubs, Mike and Pete preferred to hang out with the locals. The local places provided better atmosphere and entertainment.
They got cleaned up and headed
out. The two found it somewhat funny that most of your average citizens didn’t know that life on base was a lot like civilian life. An eight-hour workday followed by whatever you needed to do. You had a place to stay on base but you weren’t confined to staying on base. If you planned to travel over three hours away, you needed to obtain leave, but otherwise you were free to go wherever you wanted.
This particular evening, they decided to go to a local bar called Greg’s. It was a biker bar through and through. There was a small stage for local bands to play on, and typical biker music like ‘Born To Be Wild’ or ‘Freebird’ could be heard every weekend. At least one fight happened every night and generally a pool would be started by one of the locals to bet on who would take whom home. It was the greatest place on earth in the opinion of Mike and Pete.
Tonight was no different, being a Friday night. They walked into the place and headed straight for the bar that was built along the left-side wall of the building. The stage was at the back, and tables littered the floor in front of stage and all the way to the bar. It wasn’t a very large place but managed to pack in enough people to make the fire marshal blush. Currently, a band was torturing a ZZ Top song.
Mike and Pete walked up to the crowded bar and two guys immediately vacated their stools.
“Thanks, guys,” Mike said. Having a reputation sometimes came in handy.
“The usual?” a woman asked them.
“Yeah, thanks Barb,” Pete answered.
Barb was the owner. She had bought the bar several years ago and never changed the name. She was the epitome of a biker chick. Orange Harley Davidson bandana around her head, leather everything and a large nose. She had several nicknames, none of which she liked. Mike and Pete paid her respect by calling her by her name, instead of trying to be funny, like everyone else.
It was still relatively early in the evening, so no shenanigans had happened yet. Just the usual local guys trying to hook up with the local girls. The girls were paying little attention to the men because they hadn’t consumed enough booze yet. It was a typical, small-town hangout. Everybody knew everybody, nobody was married, and they all ‘took turns’ having fun. Hence the ‘hook up’ betting pool and subsequent fight that Mike started that night.
“Hey Barb, I got ten bucks on Stumpy going home with Cindy,” Mike shouted over the music. It was now Bob Seager’s turn to get torn to shreds.
“Pool’s open!” Barb shouted. She took Mike’s money and went to a chalkboard. She wrote ‘$10 – Stumpy/Cindy’.
From somewhere on the miniature dance floor, you could hear Cindy shout, “I’m worth a hell of a lot more than ten!”
“Not from what I remember,’ someone shouted from amongst the tables.
“Oh shit,” Barb grumbled. “It’s starting early.”
“Just wait, Barb. This is gonna be good,” Pete said.
A girl flew from the dance floor, jumped two tables, and landed on some guy. She toppled him to the floor, put her knee in his crotch, and smacked him in the face. Getting up, she jammed her knee back into his groin. Everyone could hear him groan as she stood up.
“Now that’s entertainment,” Mike yelled out. Catcalls sounded throughout the bar, and everything went back to normal.
“See Barb, no harm, no foul,” Pete said.
“That deserves a shot!” Mike hollered. The entire bar erupted into chants of, “Shots, shots, shots.”
Barb pulled out the plastic cups and started lining up shots of Jack Daniels for everyone.
“You’d better be able to afford this, this time,” Barb glared at Mike.
“Since when have I not?” Mike shot back.
“There was that one time…” Barb started to say.
“That time doesn’t count. I was arrested,” Mike blurted out.
“Yeah, for starting a fight in my bar!” Barb hollered back.
“That guy was getting tough on me. What was I supposed to do?” Mike shot back.
“He wasn’t getting tough on you. He was a Navy squid, and he was shooting his mouth off about the Air Force!” Barb yelled.
“Same thing!” Mike shouted back. He was now standing and the veins in his neck were bulging.
“It is not the same thing. It’s not even in the same ballpark as the same thing!” Barb screamed as she stood on the bar.
“Oh, yeah?” Mike blustered back, joining her on top of the bar.
“YEAH!” Barb blared back.
They stared at each other for a minute, each breathing heavily, looking for all the world like an intergender fight was about to take place, right on the bar.
Just when it felt like the whole place was going to erupt, they both grabbed a shot of Jack, downed it, and embraced.
“Damn good to see you, Mike,” Barb said.
“Same here, Barb,” Mike said, getting down from the bar.
Pete just sat back and smiled. He’d seen these two do this routine for years and it never failed to get the bar laughing.
The band was now on to their second set of ridiculous covers, playing “Gimme Three Steps” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was horrible. The second set of the night also marked the time when fights would start brewing. Enough booze had been consumed that the women were now picking which guy was going to get lucky, and the left-out guys started getting sore about it.
One guy, in particular, was aching to get some revenge. He walked with a limp now because Cindy had kneed his jock into the third row.
“Um…Mike!” Barb shouted. “You might want to take care of that.” She was pointing at the guy heading towards Cindy.
Mike calmly put his beer down and made his way to Limpy.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Mike warned him.
“Stay out of my business,” Limpy said.
Mike didn’t waste any time, he grabbed Limpy by the arm and jammed it into his own back. Mike then grabbed Limpy by the back of the neck and squeezed.
“I said, I wouldn’t do that,” Mike reminded him.
Limpy replied by trying to kick his leg backwards into Mike’s groin, but Mike was too quick for such a sloppy move. Mike took his own left leg and crossed it in front of his right, blocking the kick meant for his jewels. Limpy thought that was the end, but Mike did not relent. His left leg continued until it went around and in front of Limpy. As soon as it was in front, Mike tripped him and pushed him faced first into the floor. Mike holding the arm bar as Limpy went down. Mike pushed the arm in even tighter, making Limpy howl in pain.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Mike growled at him. Not giving Limpy any time to think, Mike picked him up and dragged him to the door. Pete was already there, holding the door open. Mike tossed Limpy into the street, with Pete hollering, “And don’t come back!”
With that, the rest of the night went smoothly. Mike even won the pool when Cindy did indeed leave with Stumpy.
CHAPTER THREE
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Tina Rush placed her backpack in the rear cargo holder of their jeep. She and her husband, Bob, were going on a camping trip. They had been planning it for weeks, and as par for the course, Bob was waiting on her to finish packing.
“Don’t say it, otherwise, no damn lovin’ for you in the tent tonight,” Tina chided playfully.
“I had no intention of saying anything about how long it takes a woman to pack even though she’s had over two weeks to get ready. It hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Bob shot back, trying to egg her on.
This was the way it was with these two, always seeing who could make the other laugh. Tina knew she should have been ready days ago, but work had bogged her down.
Tina worked at the Allen Institute in Seattle. She was a scientist working on a human genome project. Tina spent hours upon hours staring at computer screens or into microscopes, trying to piece together what exactly made up human DNA.
She was extremely good at her job and the company paid her handsomely in return. At parties, when asked what she did for a living, she would answer th
at she was a lab tech, just to make the conversation easier. It would, inevitably, be followed by questions about what she did in the lab. In turn, she would be forced to answer with medical terminology that very few could understand. What followed, every time, was an uncomfortable silence because no one could ask follow-up questions. Every. Single. Time.
“That’s it,” Tina announced as she sat in the passenger seat. “No lovin’ tonight!”
“It wouldn’t matter anyway, you’ll be asleep before nine o’clock,” Bob pushed back.
“Did you hear that, girls?” Tina said, looking down at her chest. “He thinks we won’t be awake long enough for love.”
“I guarantee it,” Bob said, pushing even further.
“Well then, my girls say that you don’t have enough balls to try,” Tina challenged.
“Your girls and I need to have a chat about who is boss,” Bob said, knowing he had won the conversation.
Bob pulled out of their suburban home and started the drive towards Mount Rainier National Park. It was full of campgrounds, hiking, climbing, and anything an outdoor adventurer could want. It was their favorite place to go camping because of all the different activities it offered.
“My girls look forward to that conversation,” Tina said as she settled in for the drive. On long drives like this, she liked to think back on the events in her life. What had gotten her here, and where she her life was headed.
The latest mock argument between her and Bob got her thinking about how they had met and eventually gotten married. They met while she was in school, earning her degree in molecular biology. She, at the time, couldn’t understand why Bob found that so interesting. He even said one time that it was sexy. Weird, that man.
She had been out on a Saturday night with her girlfriends, enjoying a night out in the big city. They were at a nightclub frequented by college students. She was about to hit the dance floor with her friends when a guy caught her eye. It wasn’t because he was cute or anything like that, it was because he had a serious stalker look and feel about him. He kept staring at her, following her around the club with his eyes.
She was about to tell her friends they needed to leave when stalker guy tapped her on the shoulder. He was about six and a half feet tall, thick, and scary looking. Tina turned around so fast she nearly fainted.
