Page 4

Troy’s eyes widened. “Speaking of…have you guys screwed yet?”

Dean picked up a nearby binder and smacked Troy across the knees. “Out! Go scrub the bathrooms, find cobwebs, walk into the ocean, I don’t care, out!”

Troy darted off with a laugh before Dean could find something to hit him with in earnest. Dean glared at his retreating shadow before returning to the computer. He swore, one of these days, he was going to find a way to keep Troy quiet for at least ten minutes a shift.

His attention was pulled toward his phone, which blinked its silent alert. Opening the screen, he smiled softly at Marco’s name above the text notification. The man was confirming their date in a couple of hours, and Dean tapped back his response.They were going to some Thai place Marco was a fan of and swore up and down Dean would like, right before the hot food burned him out. Dean, who adored spicy food, took that as a personal challenge and was looking forward to the little competition they would have.

Dean had no sooner set the phone down than the thump of the doors to the clinic being thrown open jerked his head up. His heart hammered, and he only managed to unclench his fist when annoyed cursing and footsteps could be heard. Troy appeared in the doorway, rolling his eyes.

“Shot himself,” Troy grunted.

Dean stood up. “What?”

“With a bag round,” Troy added.

“A...those bags of beans...for practice? How did...never mind,” Dean said, pushing past Troy to deal with whatever soldier had just stumbled through their door.

Just another day.

SLOANE

“Look at the ass on that one.”

Sloane grunted at the words but gave no further reaction. His thick fingers tapped at the phone screen as he typed out a message to his sister. Why she felt he was the one to come to when she was having boy troubles was beyond him, but he couldn’t ignore her when it sounded like she was half a step away from hysterics. Sloane would have happily dealt with the problem in person in his own way, but he was pretty sure he’d end up in jail if he terrorized a fifteen-year-old boy who probably didn’t know his head from his ass, let alone how to treat a woman.

“Seriously, look, before she’s gone!”

Annoyed, Sloane looked up to see what all the fuss was about. His eyes fell on a woman jogging past the front gate, nearly out of sight. Sure enough, she was wearing what Sloane thought were probably yoga pants, though he wasn’t sure those were the best choice for a jog.

His companion elbowed him. “See?”

Sloane leaned away, glaring at Private Simmons. “Yeah, great.”

Private Johnathon Simmons rolled his eyes. “You’re no fun.”

“It’s a nice ass. What else do you want? Am I supposed to be drooling over it like some middle schooler?” Sloane asked.

“A man can appreciate a nice ass at any age,” John said, looking like he was trying for dignified but falling short and looking pouty instead.

“Appreciating isn’t the same as drooling. Told you that when you creeped out the last girl who went through here,” Sloane grunted.

“I was flirting.”

“You were fucking creepy.”

“You just don’t get it.”

The third member of their front gate watch trio, Trisha, snorted. “He gets plenty.”

Sloane turned his glare on her. “Thanks.”

Trisha shrugged, barely acknowledging his foul expression. “When it’s true, it’s true.”

John sniffed indignantly. “Well, not all of us are gifted with stupidly good looks, alright?”

Sloane rolled his eyes, returning to the conversation with his sister. He would much rather deal with her drama than listen to Simmons whine about how he couldn’t get lucky. It didn’t matter what anyone tried to tell the private, Simmons would continue bemoaning his fate, never once considering thathemight be the problem. If he wanted to moan, groan and carry on, that was his business, but Sloane wasn’t willingly going to feed into it.

“Sloane looking good is only half the battle. The fact that he doesn’t treat every woman like a starving dog treats a pork chop is the other half,” Trisha shot back.