15
“This is criminal!”Gabe exclaimed as he struggled to keep up with the team powerwalk. He wore shorts, a crop top exposing his belly, and a navy-blue bandana around his head to catch the sweat that rushed down his face, though it still dripped down his lengthy silver locks. He gripped the straps of his backpack as he pushed on forward in his ankleweights.
Art could tell by the way he was panting that he wasstruggling.
“You guys want to take another break?” Tony asked, glancing back at Wes and Art, who were directly behind him and Gabe as Frances led theirway.
“Come on,” Frances said, trying to catch her breath, leaning forward and resting her hand on her hip. “We just…have to make it…to the pavilion, andthen—”
“You can’t even finish your sentence!” Gabebarked.
“Okay, a break, if youinsist.”
They pulled over to a cluster of rocks, and Frances tossed off her backpack and plopped it onto the ground before her. She wiped her arm across the sweat covering her brow, her skin glistening in the sunlight as she sat down and unzipped herbag.
“Everyone okay?” Art asked as he and Wes settled on a nearbyrock.
“I’m taking these damned things off my ankles, is all I know,” Gabe fussed as he began removing them. “Did they teach you guys at the post office how to torture aman?”
Her grin suggested her pleasure with Gabe’s complaints. “The post office just taught me how to hate humanity. The torture I learned fromRockyIV.”
“Ah, that’s a good one,” Tony noted, nodding inapproval.
“I don’t care if God himself came up with this abuse,” Gabe griped. “I was in the armed forces once before, and I don’t care to be in it again. Gotthat?”
“Now how are you accusing an innocent sixty-three-year-old woman of making things worse than the military?” Frances asked as she rested her hands on her hips and gave him a crosslook.
“I wasn’t accusing some innocent sixty-three-year-old woman. I was accusing you, Frances, and if you don’t watch yourself, there’s gonna bemutiny.”
She laughed heartily. “You’ll all be thanking me when the Fabulous Five are killing it at FieldDay.”
“Only if we survive training,” Tony said as he took a sip from a bottle of water he’d grabbed from his bag. “And we’ve been doing more than enough, so I don’t see any harm in us taking a few extra breakstoday.”
Wes and Art smiled at each other. While Art was feeling the pains of their training, he didn’t have any complaints, especially since Wes kept sneaking a grab at his rear to motivate him to keep ongoing.
They’d trained three days a week for two weeks, doing the usual combination of hiking, walking on the treadmill, laps in the pool, and other forms of torture Frances had devised to help them improve their overall physical health. On top of that, each of them was expected to handle a list of classes and/or activities designed specifically for the activities they were participating in. In Art’s case, that meant weights for his biceps and triceps to help him in the Frisbee toss and tug-of-war; for Wes, that meant participating in the community walking-flag-footballscrimmages.
Wes leaned into Art and offered apeck.
“So sweaty,” Artteased.
“See, you guys. Stop for one minute, and Art and Wes’ll be running into the bushes,” Frances kidded with asmile.
“I’d be with a man too if I thought it’d get me out of this,” Tony said,winking.
Gabe wasn’t about to let them have the last word. “I feel like there’s a story I should fit in here about this time I was in the service, but Art knows italready.”
“Is this the general?” Tonyteased.
“Naw. It was a cold night when an officer shared his sleeping bag with me in the bushes. Wanted to show me how good he was with his hands. I thought he was going to give me a massage…and well, I guess he did, and what a massage hegave.”
Tony burst into laughter. “Come on. You’re pulling ourlegs.”
Frances eyed Gabe curiously. “Did your wife know about this handsyguy?”
“Oh, my wife knew about it all,” he replied. “I don’t know if she would have found me that interesting if I hadn’t had mystories.”
“I doubt that’s true,” Art assuredhim.
