First Sergeant Lovato

Chapter Two

I couldn't remember the last time I had had this much time off. Well, you know, as 'off' as you can get in a war zone. Being off work in Afghanistan is kinda like living in a small shopping mall: there's a few stores on a base to go to, there's the equivalent of an internet cafe, and sometimes there's places for dancing or watching movies on some nights. Oh yeah, and the only other difference is that everyone you see walking around basically never change except here and there maybe if someone is on a mission somewhere, much like I was here for.

So needless to say, having time off ends up sounding a lot more luxurious than it actually is. I had no need or desire to spend any money on anything (which was mainly movies that were for sale in shops) plus Devonne had told me I could take whatever movies I wanted off her hard drive, which I definitely would be doing before I left.

Before I left. In two more days.

After we'd finished eating, we headed back to Devonne's tent briefly, whereupon she told me I could take a shower now since the majority of people already had and the shower tent would be mostly unoccupied since everyone was now getting ready to go to work. I declined and said I'd rather take one later tonight, especially since we were gonna go running. Hurray...

"Well, I've gotta get going to the company." Devonne said. "I can give you the code for the door to this tent although I wouldn't recommend coming and going too much, because technically you're not supposed to be in here."

"Yeah, that's okay, it's only a few hours before I'll be going to meet up with my soldiers at the motor pool anyway. I'll just go to the internet cafe and see what's going on back in the states." I told her.

"Oh yeah, hey..." She paused for a moment, "Did you ever end up talking to your family again over the years? I know you mentioned back in basic you weren't on the best terms..."

I nodded. "Yeah, we talk now. Probably not as much as most people do, but it seems like once you start deploying and stuff they tend to start actually worrying about you."

She smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. Well good, maybe you can spend a little time this morning doing that. And you know... if you ever get too bored you can always come see me at my TOC."

It sounds crazy, right? Who would get bored of not working? But it happens out here. Work keeps you busy, passes the days quickly, and you get into a pattern of doing it so much that if you do get time off, the day just crawls way too slowly.

"I'll probably take you up on that offer."

She shrugged. "I mean, you know the drill, you can't just sit and chat with me or something, but if you need to use a computer to write anything up or whatever you can at least be around me while you do it."

"Yeah, that sounds nice." I smiled.

She motioned towards the door. "Well, time for me to get going. If I don't see you before, just come by later on about 1700 and we'll go have dinner."

"Sounds good." I followed her to the door.

We stood standing by the door, face to face, in an awkward silence.

"I'm really glad you are here." She said, brushing my cheek lightly with her hand. She leaned in and gave me a kiss, which I happily returned.

She took a deep breath. "Okay. Oh! One last question, do you have one of those little prepaid phones out here or no?"

I actually didn't, because at the base I was normally stationed at we didn't have any signal for cell phones. This base was much bigger and thus did have said cell signal, I could tell. I'd seen people on phones since I'd been here. Granted, no one was on a smart phone or anything out here, but texting was still definitely going on with those that had the basic candy bar phones that you could buy.