Chapter 5: The Morning After

When she woke up, she looked at her watch. It was six AM. They had roll call at seven! She rolled out of bed, completely disoriented. Reaching for the reading lamp over the bed, she realized she was in Wedge’s room. Wedge has his bed next to a wall and his lockers next to the bed. The backs of his lockers make a small room for his bed. She got up and found Wedge asleep in an easy chair, so she eased into the bathroom and started a much-needed shower.

The hot water helped with the throbbing headache she got for her troubles. This was all Wedge’s fault anyhow. She grabbed a towel that she always left in there and dried off and went to enter her room and realized that the door was locked. SHIT! Rule #1: don’t lock yourself in the bathroom. She normally locks that door because she doesn’t want anyone, including Wedge, rooting around in her things. She tapped on his bathroom door and opened it a crack, and he handed her a cup of coffee. “Good morning sunshine.”

Surprised that he was up, she took the cup and said, “I locked myself in the bathroom.” She was nervous because the towel was small and barely covered her.

He gave Roxie her purse and said, “toss me your keys,” and he moved to the side where he couldn’t see her digging around for the keys. Most bastards she knows, would try to get a little side boob action. Her arm extended from his bathroom door, and he took the keys from her, then went out into the hallway and entered her room. A moment later, he knocked on her bathroom door. She opened the door, and she was in her room alone. Her keys were on her vanity counter.

She dried and brushed out her hair, did it up in a bun, then yanked on her uniform. She grabbed her backpack and headed down to the bike garage, grabbed her bike, and rode off to work. When she got to the blockhouse, he was in the weapons flight office chatting with Master Sergeant Dan Baker and Josh Gravely. She wanted so much to go in there and hear if they were talking about her. They probably were. She’ll ask Josh later; he had been straight with her.

She was pondering what they were talking about when Wedge came up behind her and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Huh? Oh, a bit worn out,” she lied. She felt like she had been run over by a lawn mower.

“I’m going to be over at Load Standardization most of the day. After that would you like to grab dinner?”

“Let’s see how I’m feeling...”

“No problem,” and off he went. Roxie shook her head. She was pretty fucked up yesterday, but it was all his fault. Roxie wouldn’t have gotten so drunk if he wasn’t so damn nice to her. She wasn’t sure how that logic worked, but she was stuck with it.

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