Off Base (Out of Uniform 1)

The senior chief stretched, contemplating all of them through narrowed eyes. “I agree. I’m tired of this crap. It’s a new navy now, and you never know who’s on your team. Word is we might even get some female recruits in the next year or so.”

“Fuck, I’d take a girl over a—”

“I wouldn’t care. About either.” Morrison tossed a flaming shit pile right in the middle of everything, eyes still the fuck on Zack. Hell, he might as well just hand him a congratulations card.

“You say that now,” Cobb sneered. “But you just wait. What if—”

“I said knock it off.” The senior chief’s voice was the same tone he used on the rifle range or on the grinder. “I’ve had about enough of this shit. From all of you. Get your heads back in the game. This training’s serious. Treat it with the same respect you would a mission. And that’s an order.”

Hell. Morrison hadn’t exactly outed Zack but he’d certainly drawn way more attention than Zack was comfortable with. Even now he could feel curious looks tossed his direction. And Morrison and the senior chief undoubtedly meant well, but one look at Cobb’s thundercloud face and crossed arms told Zack that things were about to get way the hell worse.

Chapter Eighteen

November

“I saw your application for the permanent position in the stack of vitaes that just landed on my desk. Nicely done.” Professor Hu started speaking even as she knocked on the open door to Pike’s office. His door was open because it was technically his office hours, even if he almost never got visited by a student.

“Thanks.” Even with everything happening with Zack, early in the week he’d still gone ahead and put his application in for the full-time job. He did it partly because employment had been hard enough to come by during his last job search. But also it felt like an admission that he and Zack were going nowhere if he didn’t try for the job. Of course that was before Zack had doubled down on denying what they had in public.

Don’t give up on us. Pike was trying his damnedest but it was hard.

“I don’t mind telling you that a number of us are thrilled that you’re considering joining us permanently. And don’t forget, the peer evaluator will be visiting your classroom in the next week or so. That should be fun for you.”

Professor Hu and Pike clearly had vastly different ideas about what constituted fun, but he nodded anyway.

“It’s not a formal part of the application process, but it will give us the chance to give you feedback that will help you next term.”

Short of a life raft, Pike wasn’t sure what could help him next term, but he said, “That’s great.”

“I better get to class, but expect a call from the department secretary soon about an interview.” She swished away, long purple vest dancing behind her.

Soon. Pike said goodbye to her even as the word reverberated in his head. Soon, he’d hear from Zack. Soon he’d know that Zack was safe. Soon they’d have solid footing for this...whatever it was they were building. It had been a couple of days, and he hadn’t heard from Zack, not that he’d expected to. Zack had warned him he wouldn’t be in contact, but Pike hadn’t been prepared for how deeply he missed him—the shared meals, the gaming, the working on house projects. This thing was so much more than sex.

“Professor Reynolds?” The knitter from Pike’s Introduction to Stats appeared in his office door. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure.” Pike came around from behind his desk to remove a stack of papers from the seldom-used visitor’s chair. Rosemary. That was her name. “What can I help you with, Rosemary?”

“I’m working on the Chapter ten homework, and I’m just not getting standard deviation at all.” Taking the seat, she set down a tote bag bulging with yarn, needles and textbooks. She pulled out the stats book, which was crammed with papers.

Perching on the edge of his desk, Pike worked through two of the textbook problems with her banging away on an ancient calculator, but it was clear she wasn’t understanding what he was saying. Her foot twitched back and forth as she struggled and her bag tipped over, spilling skeins of yarn, meters of brightly colored thread decorating his carpet.

Meters. “Hey, Rosemary? How many meters or yards is one of your skeins?” Pike crossed to the small white board on his office wall.

“Two twenty,” she answered, looking at the label.

“Okay, now bear with me here...” Pike sketched out a problem of finding the standard deviation between five skeins of close but not exact lengths of yarn. Then he had Rosemary calculate the answer, and he swore he could see the gears in her head finally clicking. They worked through a few more real-world examples he came up with on the fly.