Just like that the conversation moved from Chessly and me to breakfast, but I wasn’t stupid. At some point I could expect an ambush when they thought I wasn’t paying attention.
It came near the end of the meal. As I sopped up the dregs of the gravy on my plate with the last biscuit I’d won from Danny in a spirited game of Rochambeau—because he always went to scissors, which made it easy to beat him—Callahan slipped in a sly question.
“Girls talk, you know. Wonder what Chessly will tell my girl when they meet for coffee?”
“That I showed her a good time and was a complete gentleman while I did it.” I stood and walked my plate over to the sink where I rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. “Fuck’s sake. The way you guys act, you’d think I don’t have a clue how to treat a woman.” I grabbed the now empty frying pan off the trivet in the middle of the table and went to work washing it. Since my buddies had done all the cooking, the cleanup was on me. Their commentary made me want to finish in record time so I could escape to my room to avoid any more of it.
Bax must have spent the night at Piper’s, so at least I was spared his bullshit. Could have done without Danny following me to my room, though.
“So your date is coming over to study today?” he asked, mocking me with the corner of his mouth as he crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe to watch me strip the sheets from my bed. “Totally explains the need for clean sheets.”
“It’s Sunday, asshole. I always wash my sheets on Sunday—that is ifsomeonelets me have a turn with the washer.” I shot him my own mocking grin. “You got a thing for appliances? Seems like you spend a lot of time in the laundry room.”
”Ha, ha. You’re hilarious, Finnegan.”
Pulling a set of clean sheets from the bottom drawer of my dresser, I motioned to him. “If you insist on razzing me, you could make yourself useful, at least.”
“Fuuuck.” He pushed away from the door and dragged his ass over to the side of the bed. “The one thing I promised myself after I left the Air Force was I’d never make a bed again if I didn’t have to.”
I snapped the bottom sheet across the mattress, and he grabbed a corner with enough force to pop the fabric out of my hand. Snagging the elastic corner again, I pulled it over the edge of the mattress and tucked it in. In about a second flat, we had the bottom sheet pulled so tight over the mattress we could have bounced a quarter off it.
“Guess that explains your bed.” I flicked the top sheet over the mattress and smoothed my side of it.
Even after stopping to flip me the bird, Danny was way ahead of me, his side looking utterly perfect. I tossed the blankets across, and in about five seconds, he’d smoothed them out and folded a perfect hospital corner at the bottom of his side. I stopped for a moment to stare at his work before finishing my side.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “Was there a prize for being the fastest at making your bed?”
“Our sergeant usually rolled us out of bed about two minutes before he demanded we be on the parade ground—dressed in fatigues with our beds made and our teeth brushed. Last one to muster got twenty extra push-ups during PT.”
I blew out a breath. “Fuck, man. Your sergeant sounds like a bigger hard-ass than Coach Larkin.”
“Larkin’s a teddy bear compared to my CO, trust me.”
Standing at the bottom of the bed, I snapped my comforter across it without asking for Danny’s help, but he gave it anyway. I wasn’t a big fan of making the bed either, but with my teammate’s help, the job took about a tenth of the time it normally took me.
“Before today I thought you were kind of a slob, but now I get why your bed’s a disaster. I wouldn’t appreciate the daily reminder of all that military fun either.”
I gathered up the dirty sheets and stuffed them on top of my smelly workout gear in my hamper. The faint stench of sweat had started to sneak out into my room, telling me I was a day or two past when I should have done laundry.
“Thanks for the help,” I said as I carried my dirty clothes out into the hall.
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Danny said as he followed me.
“Like I told you earlier, we’re studying together. We do that often, actually.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’ve only ever seen Chessly here with Jamaica. When have you two been studying together?”
I headed downstairs. “Since the beginning of the semester. But we usually meet up in the Union or Hillman.”
“Yet today she’s coming over here? That must have been an epic date last night.”
I heard the laughter in his voice as he followed me through the house to the laundry room.
“Don’t you have something better to do than follow me around today?”
He watched me load my sheets into the washer, measure out laundry soap, and turn on the machine. “Nope. Sundays are my day off from the tire shop. Thought maybe you’d want to get your ass kicked inMaddenthis morning.”
Bax and I usually playedCODtogether against a bunch of guys online. Of course, that activity slowed way down after he started seeing Piper. Danny, on the other hand, hardly ever wanted to playCOD, opting forMaddeninstead. He said after his military service, first-person shooter games stopped being as much fun.
