Under The Cover of Darkness

-chapter 3-~reconstructing~

What a dick. I mean, he knows I'm here. Hell, this is my mother f-ing feast for crying out loud! I am the champion here and he actually has the audacity to be a sleaze at it? 

I sit next to Amanda and Charlie, Henry is off getting us some beer and directly in front of me is an open expanse of green, between all of the picnic tables arranged behind the pack house, and my eyes are drawn to a handsome man with handsome shoulders and handsome hands clasped onto a girl with equal beauty. 

Oh, you guessed it. Brighton. And some girl I didn't remember from four years ago, but who she was didn't matter. 

He hadn't even shown his face at this celebration barbecue until after the sun had gone down. He had come alone and by the looks of it he wasn't leaving alone. 

"Oh, don't tell me." Amanda began, sass coating her tone like it was dipped in it with a skewer. 

I glanced at her with a flat expression. "What a shame, a bad ass warrior gets the never ending fucker as a mate. How is that even possible?" 

Charlie guffawed, "Shit, Danny. Well, it's a good thing he's a total jackass, you wanna know why?"

"Why?" I asked. Charlie never keeps a straight conversation for more than 30 seconds. He was the perfect friend. 

"Mated wolves have less fun," he winked at me and I laughed at his not at all sexy smize. 

Henry soon saved us with the alcohol, and we kicked off a heated game of King's cup with another group of our friends from the unit. 

If you've never played, this game is one tricky bastard. My stomach pouched out soon from consumption of carbonated, calorie filled, but the beautiful companionship of the Coor's Light straight from the pitcher. 

My forehead rested against Henry's shoulder, but I didn't even remember putting it there!

His shoulders began to sway back and forth, "Dannnnny," he sang in a high pitched voice. 

"Wakey wakey, soldier!" cooed Amanda from my other side. 

"Private Armin!" Charlie shouted, the close proximity to my ear shooting a shot gun shell of energy right up my spine. 

"God! I'm up, I'm up!" I complained. 

"Private Armin, you weren't just sleeping, were you?" I turned around in my seat to face Charlie pacing back and forth in front of me. My lips spread like a cheshire cat at the way he held his beer bottle behind his back with both hands, pacing frantically in an exaggerated, drunken impression of our Lieutenant Turner. 

I shot up from my seat, hand cocked and ready for salute, "No ma'am, no!" I held in my snicker. 

Charlie's pacing froze and his face shot into my direction. His jaw ticked and his eyes narrowed until I was sure they were just closed. Could he see right now? I wondered. 

He marched toward me with his feet flailing in every which way. He got into my face and I couldn't hold it in any more. 

I snickered. 

"Oh, Sir Shelley, we do apologize!" Amanda cried. 

"Say, do these pants make me look scary to you? No, tell me," I guffawed and fell all the way to the grass covered ground and rolled onto my side. Henry's impression of Coach West was always spot on, asking about his never changing outfit of a navy sweat suit. 

"But do your pants match your jacket?" Amanda asked Henry in fake horror. 

Henry screamed his best horrified woman's scream, "I've got to change!" 

Just then the speakers on the porch elected to play a different tune, Come on Eileen. 

I just screamed from my spot on the ground until Henry hoisted me to a stand by both of my flailing hands. He proceeded to dance with me in a way that made me wonder if my arms would pop out of their sockets. 

Not that I could really feel my arms anyways. 

This was how it always was with these guys. I laughed every time Henry stumbled and I stepped on his feet or my forehead rammed into his chest and he didn't seem to even notice. 

I sighed in content when the song ended. What a good song! What a good night! 

I'd never laughed this hard, felt so light. 

"I think I'll call it a night, y'all," I called. I noticed Amanda yawn from her seat on the picnic bench. "My dear Amanda," I called giving my best noble knight impression, "Do you care to accompany me to bed?"

Before I'd even registered my own words Charlie and Henry whistled their approval. Amanda and I stared at each other for a moment before busting up. 

She wove her own arm through mine, "Ohhh, yes please!" she squealed, making me laugh harder. 

"See you tomorrow, boys," I called over my shoulder in a voice which I drunkenly believed to sound like Marilyn Monroe, when it probably sounded more like Marilyn Manson. I clumsily flicked my dark chin length hair, scratching my neck in the process. 

Amanda and I sauntered and skipped our selves all the way to the soldier's quarters on the first floor of the pack house. Soon we were tucked away in our beds which lie in bunk fashion in our own room. 

"Psst," I heard from the bunk below me. Then silence. 

I giggled, "Psst?" I tried to make it sound like a question in which my vocal cords chimed in and I sounded more like a bumble bee. We both laughed uncensored. 

"We're so bad ass!" Amanda tried her best to whisper once we had stopped laughing, an effort that was just pitifully in vain. 

"I can't wait to kick ass, Amanda! Tomorrow we're real soldiers! No more training!" I heard the rustling of sheets and I imagined Amanda was probably punching at the thin air. 

"He he he," I said in a silly voice that just kind of comes over me sometimes. Then I shot up in bed, "Amanda!" I said in faux alarm and an awful British accent. 

She gasped in answer. 

"I must go visit the loo," I was already up and standing in the middle of the room. 

"Psh," she answered me in the dark, "I don't care," she said sounding like a baby. 

I giggled at her again, she just got me. I was reaching for the door handle, "Hold down the fort while I'm gone!" And I was out the door as I heard "Ma'am yes ma'am!"