“Yeah, but lowest scoring team member has to bring the morning coffee,” Bull pointed out. “Since that’s gonna be her, anyways…” He smiled at her. “I was trying to give you an out, TL—that stands for team leader. If I had to choose between bringing coffee because I was team leader, or because I sucked…”
“I’ll bring the coffee,” the lieutenant said.
Bull shrugged. “Sir, yes, sir! And now I suppose I should do the intro thing, even though I’m pretty sure you all know who I am. Bull Edison, from Indianapolis, Indiana. Assistant manager of finance and sales at a Fortune Five Hundred company that shall remain unnamed. This is the third time I’ve come to camp. This time I’m hoping for a balls-deep experience.”
He was looking right at her, so Ashley instead focused on her wine glass, hoping he was done.
He wasn’t. “I mean, I really wannaploughmy way through the next two weeks, go at this thinghardandroughand—”
“Thank you,” Lieutenant Slade interrupted him. “Todd?”
Todd worked with Bull, and he was looking to improve his paintball game score.
Paintball. Great. Ashley was going to suck at paintball.
“Well, since you seem to have come to an agreement about your team leader…” the SEAL lieutenant said, again as he looked at Ashley, as if waiting for… what?
She was certain that being team leader was going to be awful—confirmation coming in that packet of info—but if it wasn’t her, then who? No way was she subjecting Clark and Kenneth to Team Leader Todd or—God help them—Bull.
“We voted,” Todd said. “The chick’s it.”
“I do believe we are done here,” Bull said. “Boom. Bull out!”
He and Todd laughed as they got up and walked away.
Ashley stood, too. She had to get out of there—God forbid she start to cry. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
***
Jim followed Ashley out of the mess hall and into the heat of the Florida night. Tropical insects were making a racket in the trees, and the air was thick and humid. “Wait up. I’ll walk you.”
“You don’t have to.” She barely glanced at him. Her voice was calm but her shoulders were tight.
“We’re going in the same direction.”
“Yes,” she said with the slightest of sighs. “I noticed that I was assigned the RV between yours and Lieutenant King’s. That wasn’t necessary. I don’t need protection.”
“You sure?” Jim asked. “Because that was pretty passive back there. I kept waiting for you to do something, and you just didn’t.” He’d purposely tried not to step in—although a few times Bull pushed him too far. Still, he’d waited and waited andwaitedfor Ashley to defend herself. But she hadn’t.
She finally looked over at him, her face a pale blur in the mostly-moonlight that lit their way, but again her voice was even. “I’m sorry, you think my beingpassiveis the problem…? Not Bull’s language and behavior…?”
“So youdowant my protection,” he countered.
Ashley laughed a little. “That’s not what I said.”
“Isn’t it?” he poked. She had to be furious with him, or at the very least massively, crushingly disappointed, but aside from the tightness in her shoulders, she let none of that show. And, in fact, as he looked more closely at her body language, her tension seemed to be more about bracing for another attack than righteously brittle anger.
As they approached her RV, she ignored his question as deftly as she’d ignored Bull and Todd back in the lounge. “Please don’t walk me to the door. I’d prefer no one mistake your misguided chivalry for impropriety.”
He stopped there, at the fork in the trail. “Although that would be one sure way of convincing Bull and Todd to keep their distance.”
She looked at him sharply, and he realized that she’d misunderstood, and quickly added, “I’m not suggesting we actually, um, hook up. That wouldn’t be… No. I mean, theimplicationwould be an easy solution. Just to make themthinkthat—”
She cut him off. “That’syour idea of a solution?”
Jim shrugged. “They’re Neanderthals. It would work. Put a little fear into ’em.”
“Fear ofyou,” she pointed out.
