“Bailey,” Hunter said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Bailey said. He turned and walked back toward the tablet, his boots echoing on the concrete. Active Duty - Hunter And Bailey -Gay- - Checked
Active Duty. Pre-deployment inspection.
Hunter stared at it. His throat tightened. This was the part the manuals didn’t cover. The part that didn’t go into the official log. The part where two enlisted men, both gay, both active duty, both terrified of a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ world that had technically ended but never really left, had to decide if the thing between them was just deployment pressure or something that survived a C-130 flight into a combat zone. “Bailey,” Hunter said
One line remained, handwritten in the margin in Bailey’s neat, cramped script. Active Duty
“You haven’t slept,” Bailey said. It wasn’t a question.