“I prefer the term Boy-King, actually.” Thevoice came out of nowhere. All four men groaned, and Ryan wonderedif he could hide in his footlocker.
“Ten hut!” called Patrick who folded his armsbehind his back. His hands rested on top of each other, with hiselbows poking out; his feet were a few feet apart.
The other three snapped to the call, and stoodin regimented formation.
“Don't let me stop the conversation, Privates.Continue on. I would like to hear it,” Drill Sergeant Grabowskisaid, as he took a seat on Patrick's bed.
Kenneth blinked, and turned a cautious headtoward the Drill Sergeant. He felt the need to explain that hedidn't say a damn word, and should be excused. But instead he justsnapped his head forward. All thoughts of dropping his daddy's nameleft him completely.
Brendon looked like he was doing his very bestto swallow his tongue and choke so he could die and not have totake part in THAT discussion.
Patrick had found his happy place and refused tolook anywhere but straight ahead.
That left Ryan struggling to find something tosay that wouldn't get him killed.
“Now, y'all were talkin' just fine, before Icame in,” the man on the bed said. “Come on, I wanna hear it.”
Ryan was pretty sure he didn't want to hear it,as much as he wanted to kill them for talking like that abouthim.
Patrick cleared his throat, and finally brokerank. “Sorry, Drill Sergeant Grabowski. We were just blowing offsteam,” he stated.
Ryan thought Patrick had big balls.
“Uh huh, blowing off steam, Gandhi. I get that.So, where were we? I had a hard on for Freckles and he wanted me tochoke on it. Right?” Phillip supplied.
“And he said you were the anti-Christ,” Brendonadded helpfully.
Ryan thought Brendon had no balls; they wereprobably sitting on his girlfriend's mantle back at home.
“We went over that. I prefer Boy-King, remember,Furry?”
“Yes, Drill Sergeant Grabowski, I forgot,”Brendon responded.
“So, tell me why I'm the anti-Christ, Freckles,”Phillip said pleasantly.
Ryan so did not want to tell the drill anything.He actually didn't want to even breathe in the same room as DrillSergeant Grabowski, because he knew without a doubt that it wouldbe the wrong way.
“Umm, I thought...I said that becauseyou're...difficult to...work with,” Ryan said, finally. Yeah, hestuttered over his explanation, and it wasn't so much true, as theywere the words he managed to put together in a short amount oftime.
Phillip rose suddenly and stood directly infront of Ryan. He had his cadre cap off and it struck Ryan howtruly beautiful the man was.
“I'm difficult? Of course I am. My job is totrain you, and all of your fuck-up friends, to do battle. Tosafeguard this great nation. My job is to make sure you are readyto face any and all threats, Private. So you won't be a threat tothe man next to you. When you leave here, I won't be reading yourobituary because you were poorly trained. I’ll know I did allwithin my power to train you correctly. That means making sure youfour fuck-ups get with the program. So, you can continue yourlittle conversation, bitch like a girl about how fucking evil I am,but don't forget the training I'm doing is going to save yourfucking lives one of these days.” With that said, he did an aboutface and strolled out of the room.
No one said a word, until Brendon let out a deepbreath. “Wow, I thought he was going to go Full Metal Jacket on ourasses and kill us.” He stood up straight, and pasted a fierce lookon his face. “It's a good thing he left, otherwise I would have sojacked him the fuck up.”
Patrick, blinked, and then laughed. “Yeah,Brendon. We could see how you were going to fuck him up,seriously.”
Kenneth nodded. “Adding the bit about theanti-Christ was just to lull the big guy into thinking you were akiss ass, so that you could sucker punch him, right?”
“Fuck you all, bitches. I had it under control.”Brendon snarled.
Ryan just stayed quiet and shook.
Chapter Two
“This group is the most ate-the-fuck-up platoonI have ever had the displeasure to train,” Drill Sergeant Connellytold them. “First, how many of you fucking assholes got throughkindergarten without the ability to know your left from yourright?” he spat out in disgust.
“Apparently, Mark, every fucking one of them,”Phillip intoned dryly. “Even Freckles doesn't know his left fromhis right and here we had him pegged for a certified genius.”
