The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

22: Below the Belt

It was a boy named Joe Liebgott who ended up with her next, skinny but rather tall. He smirked all the way over to her, a lock of hair falling roguishly into his face as he all but strutted over.

Charlie felt her palms clam up right away. He was definitely going to be a handful.

"Alright, sweetheart?" he asked as he came to stand before her.

Charlie nodded with a shy smile and looked away, towards where Autumn was greeting her partner beside them. She was paired up with Don Hoobler, funnily enough, and the pair of them were laughing with each other already.

"I'm Joe," introduced Joe, even though Meehan had called out his name when he'd picked him for Charlie. "You're Charlie, right?" His smirk was smug as he ducked to meet her eyes and winked.

Charlie nodded. She chewed on her bottom lip as she looked anywhere but at him, trying to get him to ease up on the winking and the intense eye contact.

When Meehan ordered them to begin going over disengagements, Charlie felt herself blush again.

"Don't worry," Joe told her. She could hear his smirk widening. "I'll go easy on ya."

Charlie nodded and met his eyes only briefly before turning her attention to his hands as he held them out, waiting to take hold of her wrists.

The whole time Charlie was working with Joe, even when they left the disengagements behind and moved onto the punches and blocks again, he flirted relentlessly. She thought he could even give Floyd a run for his money, though perhaps that was just because Floyd had never liked her in that way so she'd never borne the brunt of the full force of his flirting before. Really, Charlie only knew second-hand how much of a flirt Floyd could be when he wanted to. He always went easy on her where his charm was concerned.

The day was hot and getting hotter with every punch thrown, and Charlie was getting increasingly anxious that she might not smell very nice. When she sparred with Joe she tried to keep her distance, even as he tried to get close to grapple with her, and had to force herself to keep from grimacing at the feeling of sweat running down her back beneath her ODs. The whole thing was just disgusting.

When they next had to change partners, Joe gave Charlie a wink. He took her hand and bent at the waist, leaning down to kiss the backs of her fingers, before he stood with a mischievous grin. There was no way he didn't know how terribly he was flustering her.

"See you around, sweetheart," he said, and moved back into the crowd of paratroopers again.

Charlie's final partner of the day was Don Malarkey, and he was grinning at her as he made his way over.

"Hey there, Charlie," he greeted her.

She smiled back at him. "Hi, Don."

"Listen, we gotta be real good at this, alright? I'm tryna impress your CO."

Charlie laughed at him. "Lieutenant Maddox, you mean?"

"Right," he confirmed.

"Isn't she your ex-girlfriend?" she asked as they got into position to spar. At this point, they'd worked on everything enough that the disengagements could be done as part of the sparring as opposed to in isolation beforehand, so all they had to do was fight.

Don shrugged, smirking now. "Yep. Never said I was the one who broke up with her, though."

Charlie shook her head. "Well, how are you wanting to impress her? Are you beating me to a pulp or are you letting me win to show off your kindness and humility?"

"The second one," he answered. "I'll be the best sparring partner you could ask for."

"Well, you've got some steep competition," she warned him. "Skinny and Joe were quite good."