Tight Quarters (Out of Uniform 6)

He didn’t linger over his meal and wine, instead heading back up to the hotel room, intent to bury himself in his research for the rest of the night. But as he was opening the room, his phone alarm chimed. Oh right. He needed to call Oscar, especially if he was going to be gone a few weeks.

His old mentor answered on the first ring. “Spencer! I saw your email. You finally got permission to embed?”

“I did. How are you? Been wondering if you had a good week.”

“Not bad. The chemo nurses really are the best. There’s this cute young one, I simply must have you meet him.”

“I don’t need you playing wingman.” Spencer laughed. Oscar was the one who’d originally introduced him to Greg. He didn’t need another round of heartache from overzealous matchmaking, even if he did like the vision of the eighty-something Oscar ogling his care providers. Showed he still had some spunk left. “Save him for yourself.”

“Ha. That ship has long sailed, my friend. These days I’d rather work on my memoir with my limited energy. I’ll just live vicariously through you and your Bachelor-of-the-Year exploits.”

“I never should have let them run that feature,” Spencer groaned. “And how is the memoir coming? I’m going to be busy the next few weeks, but I can look at some chapters—”

Oscar scoffed. “I’d sooner have you see me in one of those ridiculous hospital gowns, ass hanging out. You’ll read it when I’m done.”

“Okay, okay. But tell me you’re not going to talk about my first assignment.”

“How could I not talk about my new A&E writer, whose first review got hate mail? I saved some of those, you know?”

“It was a terrible production of The Nutcracker. It deserved the review.”

“I know. And I’m still glad I didn’t listen to those theater owners who wanted your young head.” Oscar laughed fondly. “I hear you’re following in my footsteps, spoke to the paper’s latest group of interns. Managed to give them words of wisdom and not corrupt their budding journalistic minds. Quite the honor.”

“I’m enjoying mentoring far more than I thought I would,” Spencer admitted. “Some of these kids have real promise. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve done when I’m back.”

“Well, when you’re back in Los Angeles next, stop by. I’ve got a nice Pinot Gris I’ve been saving for you.”

“I will. You take care until then.” They ended the call with promises to talk soon. And Spencer hoped they would. He wasn’t ready to lose Oscar to his cancer, not yet. He’d been almost a second parent and was far warmer than Spencer’s art dealer father. And far more fun to talk to.

Spencer worked on his notes for several hours, using a bad straight-to-streaming drama as background noise. He must have dozed off at some point, because next thing he knew, he was blinking awake and his phone was vibrating across the nightstand. As soon as he saw the detailed message from base with instructions to report, he was wide awake, adrenaline surging. Go time.

Chapter Four

Bacon helped his mom with her toilet, changed her flickering hall light, tightened her kitchen faucet, and triple-checked her locks. She lived in a not-so-great section of Chula Vista, so he worried, but she was close to the school where she worked as a teacher’s aide and to her favorite park, where she enjoyed the ocean views that her life in Kansas had sorely lacked. After he finished there, he thought about heading to a bar, trying the whole get-laid plan, but he just couldn’t summon enthusiasm for the endeavor and ended up coming back to the barracks, sober and frustrated.

And determined not to jerk off thinking about silver fox reporters with intense eyes and...

Okay. That happened. In like vivid detail too, a whole fantasy of blowing Bryant while on his knees, Bryant’s hand in Bacon’s hair, him saying filthy things in that cultured voice of his. Which was why when he woke up to the news that they were deploying, he was uncharacteristically embarrassed about his fantasy life and gave Bryant extra personal space as he greeted him at the base gates.

“We’re on a transport to a base in the South Pacific where we’ll do more training before being sent into the field.” He filled Spencer in as they walked briskly in the eerie early morning chill. “LT says to remind you that you can’t say which one in your reports. Most likely it’s not just our team on the transport, but expect a long, boring thirteen hours of flight time. You got everything you’ll need?”

“Yup.” Bryant patted the backpack he was carrying. He hadn’t overpacked, which was good. Bacon had his own bag, which he’d had ready to go, spidey senses telling him this call-out was imminent.

“Good.” Bacon kept his voice light and friendly, as if being nice was a way to outrun his guilt over fapping to the guy.