The hangar was empty. The night crew was on break. The only witness was a sleeping loadmaster fifty yards away, earbuds in, dead to the world.
Fort Hood, Texas. 0300 hours.
Bailey didn’t blink. “Hunter.”
Hunter swallowed. He looked at the list.
“You haven’t slept,” Bailey said. It wasn’t a question. Active Duty - Hunter And Bailey -Gay- - Checked
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.
Hunter lay back down, sliding under the landing gear. His heart was pounding against his ribs like a rotor out of balance. He pressed his thumb to the fresh checkmark, smearing the ink just a little. The hangar was empty
Active Duty. Pre-deployment inspection.
Bailey stood. A ghost of a smile—the one Hunter had only seen twice before, once in a supply closet during a tornado warning, once in a hotel room on a three-day pass—flickered across his face. Fort Hood, Texas
