Page 21 of The Woman Left Behind

“Something Levi said.” She quickly amended, “Ace,” because that’s what everyone else called him—except she couldn’t make the nickname stick in her head. She didn’t have that trouble with any of the others; some of them, she didn’t even know their real names. “That they looked at me as their comic relief.”

To her dismay, Boom laughed. “Not in what youdo,because you try so hard sometimes you put them to shame. It’s what yousaythe whole time you’re doing it, cussing under your breath like you think we can’t hear it, yelling that we’re insane morons, little things like that.”

“Oh.” She did tend to mutter to herself, and after that first horrendous day, she might have gotten in the habit of telling them what she thought of them and the ordeals they put her through, but what was the point in saying they were syphilitic sadists if they thought it was funny? “I thought maybe y’all didn’t like me.”

He put his ham-sized hands on his hips and scowled at her. “What makes you say a stupid-ass thing like that?”

Jina sighed. She was beginning to feel like a moron herself. She never should have brought up the subject, because acting needy wasn’t cool. “I don’t get invited to the cookouts,” she mumbled. God, how lame! She might as well be in middle school again.

Boom’s mouth fell open, and he looked thoroughly befuddled.

“The cookouts?”

“Yeah. When y’all hang out together.”

Funny; as she watched, his dark skin took on a sheen as he began to sweat. He rubbed his jaw. He looked left, then right, as if some elusive answer lurked off to the side. “Uh,” he said.

Yeah.Uh.

She sighed. “Never mind. I know I’m not a real part of the team, I’m a tech FNG you’ve been saddled with.”

Boom was beginning to get the panicked, slightly crazed look a lot of men got when confronted with things like female feelings and etiquette. “The wives do it,” he finally blurted.

“You’re blaming it on the wives? The same wives who—I’d like to point out—I’ve never met?” It was probably mean of her, but she was beginning to have fun. Boom looked so totally helpless and at sea, and it was kind of funny because after Levi, he was the one the others on the team looked to for guidance, because he was the oldest and most experienced.

“You haven’t?”

She snorted. “Nice try. You know I haven’t. I’m fairly sure you’d have noticed if I’d been sitting at your dinner table.”

More jaw rubbing. He shifted his feet. “Uh,” he said again. Then he rallied. “The wives plan the barbecues. If any of the single guys are dating anyone regularly, they’re welcome to bring their girlfriends, but most of them don’t unless it’s starting to feel serious. I, uh, I guess we didn’t introduce you, did we?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Hmm. Okay. My wife’s name is Terisa, Snake’s is Ailani. She’s Hawaiian. She does some catering on the side, so when she cooks, we like to be there, because she’s damn good. Terisa’s a nurse. That means she orders a mean pizza.”

“I’m going to tell,” Jina blurted, because for sure he’d get in trouble if his wife knew he’d said that. She relished having something to hold over any of the guys, even the nice ones. Well, they were all nice, except for Voodoo. And Levi.

He glared at her. “You better not. No way in hell am I arranging for you to come hang out with the team if you’re gonna start tattling.”

“Are you? Arranging, I mean.”

“I guess. I’ll tell Terisa you’ve been left out. She’ll get mad at all of us, then she’ll call Ailani, then they’ll get something planned.”

Jina had a second thought. “How about I throw together a taco bar or something like that at my place?”

If she’d taken the time to have a third thought, she’d have kept her mouth shut, because Boom jumped on that like a duck on a june bug. Evidently he’d thought twice about informing his hardworking wife she needed to put together a cookout. A split second after, she remembered how small her place was. If all the guys brought dates, if Boom and Snake both brought their kids, she’d have about twenty people crammed into her little condo. She didn’t even have enough chairs for twenty people to sit down. Oh, what the hell; she could buy some cushions and throw them on the floor. The kids, at least, wouldn’t mind, and she’d make sure she was one of the floor sitters herself.

She forced herself to concentrate on the rest of the parachute lessons, but damn, if anything could distract her from her terror at the idea of jumping out of a plane, throwing a kind-of impromptu party for the guys—and two wives, an unknown number of girlfriends, as well as some little kids—did the job.

Then, the next day, the weather gods smiled on her. Rain didn’t stop them from training, it just made the training more physically miserable. Oddly enough, it gave her the courage to take that first jump off the tower, because she figured the ground was muddy enough to give her some cushion. Looking up, the tower didn’t seem that high; looking down was a whole different perspective. Even in harness, knowing she was hooked to safety ropes, her stomach was knotted up. But this wasn’t much different from zip lining, and she’d done that a bunch of times. Well, thefirstpart, the stepping off into thin air and trusting your harness, that was like zip lining; the landing and learning how to hit and roll was something new. Twice she face-planted in the mud, much to the guys’ amusement; even Voodoo laughed out loud. “So glad I can make y’all happy,” she snarled as she picked herself up the second time.

“We’ve all done exactly the same thing,” Jelly said cheerfully. “You’re doing good.”

The rain was still coming down when she went to the swing-landing training, but at least for that she was under a roof. The concept behind swing landing was that she was pulled from side to side, mimicking wind, and she had to learn how to guide a parachute under those conditions.Zip lining, zip lining,she chanted to herself as they ran her through the exercise again and again. She was safe; her harness was connected to ropes, she wasn’t going to fall; she might land wrong and break a bone, but that was true of zip lining, too, so she handled the swing-landing training just fine.

That left only actually jumping. Out of a plane. From a couple of miles up. Oh shit.

But, thank God, the rain didn’t let up, and the weather system that produced the rain added some healthy wind gusts to the mix. Levi made the call to postpone the last phase of jump training, and Jina lurched from one panic-inducing scenario to another: the taco bar at her place. The food, and the lack of space, were the least of her problems.

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