Sorry for the wait on this one, I've been really busy and kinda/sorta managing my time really crappily for writing. Anyway, here's the next chapter up, and it's once again really long! There's some sexuality and lot's of swearing in this one, so reader's discretion is advised! Enjoy and please review!
Disclaimer/ I do not own HBO or Band of Brothers yada yada. Also no disrespect towards any veterans!
The bar George and Josie entered that night was called the Hammytackler. It was a worn and withered old tavern seasoned with the southern spice that made it feel like it had been home in Georgia forever. It had rusty sienna colored shingles and wooden beam walls that were in desperate need of a paint job. Despite the visible outdoor improvement, the obnoxious red letters over the front doors screamed for attention, and it seemed to work because the loud ruckus inside the bar could be heard three doors down the street.
Josie almost found herself gagging as George pushed open the saloon-like doors for her. The trenchant smell of cigarettes and alcohol was suffocating for a girl on the small side whom, in the last half year had been bereaved of anything of the sort. Josie never really smoked, only on occasion. In her case, the only pungent smell of cigarettes she could detect in the last five months was the stale tobacco that clung to George's uniform, though nearly not enough entered her lungs as she wanted. She longed to hug George without him shoving her back, like she was one of his male buddies. She wanted her cheek to feel the rough material of his green jump jacket, and wanted his prominent smell of stale cigs and cotton to sift through her nose. His eyes. His hair. His muscular arms, him without clothes on… her without clothes on. Them together, all sweaty…
Fucking God, Josie. Snap the fuck out of it, she told herself. After her first encounter with George in camp, she had been having similar fantasies every night. After he told her she could fuck right off, reality hit her like a fucking bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe. George was never gonna fuck her, no matter how many times he pretended like he was. He just wouldn't, at least she thought so. So, lying in bed at night, Josie tried to trample every little hope she had to the ground, so when maybe her chance came around, the rejection wouldn't hurt like shrapnel hitting her intestines.
Josie let out a rather large, phlegmy cough as the pair entered the building.
"That's really lovely sound you just made Josie, can I hear it again?" quipped George, flashing his trademark toothy grin.
Her mucky green eyes narrowed at him, yet this seemed to pull the grin wider on his face.
"I'm sure every man in this bar will be all over you after hearing that."
Josie could feel unbalanced anger broiling inside her, not exactly triggered by his comment, more so why she couldn't have the perfectly shaped body that she knew best, when she wanted it with such aggression.
"No one's going to wanna fuck you, your fucking fat head would squash them," she spat through gritted teeth.
George's warm brown eyes suddenly expanded to saucers with confusion, yet the guilt Josie usually experienced after bitching at George didn't shock her stomach this time. He asked for it.
"Woah, this your, you know, special week of the month?"
Was he fucking trying to perturb her to the point of explosion? Well, looking at his big chestnut eyes and continuously handsome features, the only thing that Josie knew would be exploding were her ovaries. She could never stay mad at George, though she had to pretend like she was, just so he kept trying to at least engage her, even if it was pissing her off. She cringed at the thought of her being so fucking pathetic. She had to get her best friend to annoy the fuck out of her to keep him amused, so he wouldn't get bored and pick up where the conversation left off with some random girl standing over at the bar and not Josie.
"Fuck off George," she muttered, looking away from him. The bar seemed to be overcrowded; several sweaty bodies all dazzled in uniforms were cramped together at small circular tables.
She looked back at George, and his eyes were forgiving.
"C'mon Tiger," he soughed, and his comic brown eyes sparkled with charm. "Let's start this night on a right foot, alright? I can introduce you to the fellas."
His smile was contagious, like a virus that spread and infected every living being in the area every time he opened his mouth to say something, even if it was garbled bullshit. Josie had caught the grin.
"What about a left foot?"
George stuck out his left arm graciously, as if he were a prince "An arm?"
Josie's eyelashes fluttered, mimicking the feeling of butterflies arising in her stomach. She reached out and wrapped her hand around George's wrist, so her arm rested peacefully on his, and in unison they stepped towards the table where Easy Company sat.
Though every boy at the table looked different, and came with vastly separate facial features, hair colours and builds, they all seemed to blur together wearing matching dress uniforms.
"Hey Luz!" called a voice, whom Josie matched with a little tanned man, with jet black hair, a narrow face and thick eyebrows. He had a half cocked grin on his face, which caused his eyes to squint.
"Perc." A wooden stool made a god-awful sound as it scraped on the floor when George pulled it out for Josie, and he sat down in the one next to her.
"This must be the girl of yours I've heard so much about," chirped the little man, and Josie detected an accent that hinted that the man was from the Chicago area. He held out a hand for Josie to shake.
"Oh, how rude of me," announced George, leaning back in his stool. "Midget meet assface. Assface meet the shortest man in all of America."
The man shot George the death glare, and Josie assumed that he and George were good enough friends already because her smart assed friend hadn't gotten the shit beaten out of him yet.
"My names Frank, Frank Perconte," he introduced, as Josie grasped his hand, which was warm and rough, like the pages of the old school textbooks.
"Josie Adkins."
"Pretty name," said Frank, beaming.
"Yeah, well that's what my Mom thought, I suppose."
George then introduced Josie to the rest of Easy Company. All of the men seemed nice enough, and by the looks of it, they adored George. Every time something came out of his mouth, whether by Josie's standards it was utterly stupid, they laughed and cheered like a class of first graders laughing at a clown while at the circus. The only man who brought a very interesting reaction to the introduction was none other then Joe Liebgott.
"Hey George!" called Liebgott, who strolled up to the table where Josie sat, placed his elbow beside her and leaned on it, nonchalantly.
"Why didn't you bother to introduce me to your lady-friend?" he said, and his charming dark eyes gazed up at Josie, which sounded stupid but it intimidated her a little.
Meanwhile, George, who was very dedicated to the beer in his hand, quickly slammed the beer down, his eyes bulging with shock. What was this guy, a serial rapist or something?
"You stay away from her, Joe," he demanded, and the shock on his face was replaced with a grin. Joe Liebgott cracked a kindly smile, which caused the nervous pangs in Josie's stomach to disappear.
"I just wanted to be a gentleman and say hello," he rendered, "I'm Joe."
Josie shifted in her chair. "I'm Joe too, Joe-see."
"Interesting, funny one you've got here Luz," Liebgott said, winking and clicking his teeth.
"Josie," started George, leaning his head into the conversation. "Do me a favor and stay the fuck away from this guy," he teased, grinning.
Joe scratched the back of his neck, slightly abashed by the situation. "I wouldn't worry too much, Luz. I'm off to do bigger and better things, like that Spanish girl over there." His hand that clutched a beer gestured to Gloria, who stood in the corner, picking up conversation with Dotty, another girl in Josie's nursing squad.
Josie caught George's eye, and the two burst out in laughter. "Good luck with that," teased George, which prompted Liebgott to walk away in a confused manner.
Noticing Josie was drinkless at the moment, "Why's an alcoholic like you got no drink?" George chastised.
Josie sighed with exasperation. She wanted to take it easy tonight. Josie was what is known as a giant lightweight. About five shots of rum and she was giggling and over every guy all night, she rolled her eyes at the fact that George knew this fact very well.
"I don't wanna go to over-board tonight," Josie mumbled, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"Well, Jos," the devilishly handsome man started, laying his hand gently on his best friend's shoulder. Josie's insides felt as if they were being coated with warm butter at the touch. "This is my first night off in fucking forever, and it feels like I haven't seen you in fucking forever! All wanna do is get drunk with my best lady and pretend we're back at home, that ain't too much to ask is it?"
Josie's mind slowly faded back to every drunken night her and George shared back in Rhode Island (that she could remember, at least). Jesus Christ there was a lot of them. In fact, her first time drinking was with George. They were in freshman year, and George's older brother Paul had successfully stolen a bottle of Gin from their father's liquor cabinet. Down on the beach, the three of them managed to down the whole thing in a matter of minutes. As nasty as the straight shit tasted, Josie poured her share down the hatch with ease, she could vividly remember the adrenaline pumping through her veins, and the excitement bubbling in her stomach, the feeling she got when she was being naughty or breaking the rules. Needless to say, the night ended with two wobbly boys trying to sneak a girl who was tossing her cookies everywhere back into her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Josie laughed, and her green eyes locked with his brown ones. "Go buy me a drink then, hot-shot."
George slammed his hand down on the table, and his expression was ultimately delightful. "That's what I'm talking about!"
He hopped down from his stool in a joyous manner, and skipped off like a schoolboy who had seen his first set of breasts. Josie giggled and a sudden realization hit her that she really needed George. She needed his presence there to keep her happy, his laugh, his unique voice, his substantial amount of shiny brown hair, big puppy eyes, his smell… Oh fuck; she could feel the dread starting the settle in her stomach. It was the dread she had consistently tried not to activate by thinking about the day when she and George had to part ways, were shipped off the different places in Europe. Fuck, not even, for all she knew she or he could be sent to the Pacific. Or Italy, North Africa, China, she could be sent fucking anywhere and be deprived of George for how many years Hitler and the Japs wanted this shit to go on for. She tried to block it out of her mind, pretend like they would stay together the whole war, and never leave each other. She had to forget about it, even if it was just for the night.
Josie then picked up a conversation with the guy across from her, Skip Muck, whom she took an instant, extreme likening to. He was a total sweetheart, not a bad bone in his body. This made Josie's mind boggle, at the thought of the inevitably good-natured figure before her killing another man. Then again, George would be doing the same thing. She shuddered at the fact that the boy she adored so dearly would be laying rifle rounds into another man's heart, then twice as hard at the thought that George may get a bullet in his chest himself.
She could see George strutting back towards her with another beer for him, and what looked like a Pink Lady for her, yet he was stopped with a shout from Bill Guarnere. While trying to make it look like she was knee-deep in conversation with Skip, she inclined her ear so that she could hear what Bill was saying to George.
"So, you and the girl, huh, are you guys…" He made a quick sexual gesture, like he was humping the table.
George scoffed, and Josie was pierced with offense. Dick, he could at least pretend like she was decent, instead of acting like he thought of her as a cow.
"Naw, man," he chirped, then paused with thought. "We're like… like a llama and an alpaca." Bill's expression yelled what the fuck are you talking about yet it didn't seem to bother George. What the fuck was he getting at? Sometimes Josie hated his use of retarded analogies, yet other times it was fucking hilarious.
"We're similar, but we don't fuck," he drawled, cocking an eyebrow, proud of his witty metaphor. Josie could feel her heart sinking. She already knew the reality of her situation, but to hear it from the man himself suddenly made it ten times worse.
Bill just stared at him. "You're one fucking odd guy Luz."
George laughed and placed a hand on Bill's shoulder. "That's what they know me for, Gonorrhea."
It seemed like George was then caught up in a conversation with First Sargent Lipton, who sat beside Bill, and Josie realized this was a fantastic opportunity to check out every boy in the regiment she thought was worthy of any sexual act. She certainly couldn't with George around, for he would bring it to everyone's attention and embarrass the shit out her, not to mention make everything awkward. Her eyes glided among the young faces of the paratroopers seated around the room. Hmm, Talbert was somewhat cute, at least when he smiled he was. Babe Heffron lived up to his nickname, for in Josie's eyes he was quite the babe. However, he seemed too shy, not much of her type. And Webster… Josie couldn't even start about Webster. His eyes shone like the sun reflecting off of the ocean, his thick brown waves of hair were matted to his head. God he was fucking handsome. Josie could even see the hair on his chest poking out from under his shirt. She loved the brutish type of manly men.
Staring at Webster, Josie realized that it had been a fucking long time since she last had sex. She could have slapped herself in the face for thinking so crudely and pervishly. It was normal though, right? Like, she certainly wasn't the only girl who thought about these things, at least not the only girl still trying to mature and still had school-girl thoughts about males. It wasn't like she was going to go whore around tonight either, like most of the girls in her company would. Well, actually it was a possibility…
It wouldn't be that bad. She was no nun, and never had been. Most of these guys would be shipped to another camp within a matter of months and she would never see them again. It wouldn't be an odd occurrence, most of the guys here were ten times hornier then her. She could just have a quick roll with one and get on back to camp, it wasn't such a bad idea.
Okay, what the fuck Josie. She could have banged her head off the table for being so dirty, for even considering acting like a complete prostitute for a night. She wasn't like that, never was, so why was she thinking so much now?
When George arrived back at his seat, she downed her cocktail and thought she would let the alcohol make her decisions for the night.
"Hey, Luz," Malark elbowed him in the ribs. George sighed and passed him another beer, taking one for himself. It was turning out to be a pretty damn good night. He actually won a game of darts for once in his life, although he lost twenty bucks in a game of craps. Nevertheless he was quite buzzed and was enjoying some man-to-man bonding with his best friends.
"Looks like your little friend over there is havin' a jolly old time," he said, flicking his chin towards a round table across the room. At the table sat Josie, who was now clothed in her revealing royal blue dress, with her tits pushed right up in a drunk and happy looking Joe Toye's face. She was cackling like a hyena rather obnoxiously at something he said. Her blond ringlets were starting to go slack, her once cherry red lips were now faded, and the lipstick was slightly smeared on her mouth. Her eyes had gone bloodshot and now had a watery glaze to them.
Way to go Josie, drunk as a fucking skunk. God damn his best friend who couldn't hold her alcohol. Now it was his fucking responsibility to make sure she got on that bus and back to camp without hitting the sack with some weirdo. He knew that he didn't have to take care of her, but if he didn't he figured there would be a saddening guilt wrapped up inside him for who knows how long.
"Fucking lightweight," muttered George and rustled through his pockets, then slapped some change down on the bar for the bartender. The bartender, with an aging face and hair the color of salt and pepper stared into George's eyes. "Bar's closin' soon," he growled in a withered Georgian drawl, his vocal chords sounded as if they had been worn down by sandpaper. Nevertheless, George tipped an invisible top hat at him and carried on his way.
Though the floor was slightly spinning like a sailboat in a storm, George somehow had successfully traipsed over to Josie.
"Georgie!" Josie shrieked, upon seeing George come into sight. Quicker then a flash, Josie flung her wavering arms around his shoulders and in the process smacked him in the jaw with one of her uncontrolled hands. Fuck. The proportioned area of George's lower cheek stung from the unnecessary force.
"Jesus fucking Christ Josie," grumbled George as his free hand reached up and massaged the aching and inflamed area on his face. His other hand was braced tightly against Josie's back, preventing her from stumbling out of her stool and crashing onto the floor. What a fucking mess.
She giggled childishly, bearing an odd resemblance to a deranged little Shirley Temple knocked out on her Grandpa's cough syrup. Her glassy eyes gazed at George adoringly and she had a dumb little grin on her face.
"The bar's a closin' now, time to bring you back to the State of Georgia Mental Institution."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You liar," she slurred.
Mother of Abraham Lincoln's testicles, Josie was such a bi-polar drunk. One minute she was all lovey-dovey, the next getting all defensive and trying to scratch George's eyes out, or she would start balling like a three year old.
"I swear on my Grandma's grave I'm not lying," George pursued.
She frowned in a baby like way and crossed her arms in front of her rather well… Wow. Oh Jesus, they looked good. George was just realizing this now, he was rather blessed to be able to look at Josie's well, perky girls. It felt like an hour staring at them, but it had only been a few seconds. Was he drooling? Oh shit…
"I wan-na sta-ay!" she whined, bouncing in her stool drunkenly.
George rolled his eyes with exasperation. Why couldn't she be a normal drunk girl who stays sauve and just gets really horny? Well, normal or not, this is how George liked to think of drunk girls, not as bratty four year olds trapped in a twenty-year old's body.
"I swear to God Josie, I will throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and haul you back to camp if I need to," George relayed.
"I don't want my face hanging over your sweaty asscrack," Josie sassed, and her shoulder's jumped nervously as she leaned too far back in her stool, yet her heroic George was there for her rescue.
George smiled thoughtfully, with emphasized false gratitude. "Lovely."
By now the bartender was mumbling insults to his patrons, and the many inhabitants of the bar were beginning to shuffle out the saloon-like doors. George switched his eye contact from a loud, beaming Joe Toye trying to stumble his way over to Malarkey to Josie who was slouched in her stool.
"Alright schweetheart, I'm gonna tell you nicely we have to go, but if you start actin' up things are gonna get nasty."
Josie rolled her eyes and made a raspberry at him.
George shrugged whole-heartedly. This certainly wasn't the first time Josie unleashed the most wildest and violent verbal beating on her. But, she brought it on herself, what must be done must be done.
"Look," sighed George. "I don't want to do this Josie."
Josie sneered drunkenly. "Bring it on, cowboy."
George shrugged once again, "If you wish. Alright you alcohol fiend, time to get back to hooker-ville. If you don't get your fucking lazy ass up, I'll take your mother out for a nice Brandy-Manhattan and never write her back."
She frowned. "Leave my Mother out of this, she's a nice lady!"
George crossed his arms in front of him. "Then you've got ten seconds to be out that door with me," he pointed towards the door, where many uniformed men were still hobbling out.
She blew a great amount of air out of her nose in frustration, her face reminiscent of a little girl who got coal in her stocking at Christmas. "Fine… I can't get there in ten seconds," she mumbled, and clumsily stumbled out of her stool with George's assistance. "You're setting me up for a failure."
George couldn't manage to suppress a laugh. God, sometimes drunk people were so unintentionally hilarious. George threw his arm around her shoulder, even at his short stature Josie's head was buried in his under arm. She slid one of her spaghetti-like arms across his lower back, and clutched on to the green scratchy material of his uniform for support. One by one, she took baby steps that bore quite a resemblance to Frankenstein. One of her red patent heels nicked a table leg and she clumsily stumbled around, with George holding on to her tighter.
"C'mon, that's it Tiger," his voice transitioned from his normally loud and sarcastic tone to a faint and concerned one, as he gently guided her hands through the room. Although he was the one babysitting her right at the moment, his mind began to drift off and picture what it was like without her. After they got shipped out, he meant. Back on the glorious tiny state Josie was as much as a both motherly and wife figure towards him. Although she could be quite towheaded herself she always seemed to keep George at least a little bit in line. Well, she kept him from being thrown in jail, if possible. He was gonna miss her. He didn't know how the fuck he was going to follow orders if they didn't come with her advisement. He figured that he'd probably have a little conscientious Josie in the back of his head telling him what to do the whole time.
In what seemed like years, George had managed to get Josie out the cigarette and alcohol polluted building to a small bus that was cramped, stuffy and smelt of rubber. The whole bus ride consisted of: Grant, Penkala and Malarkey loudly singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, in high pitched voices sounded like a pair of dying horses; Liebgott desperately scrambling from girl to girl in the Nurses Corps trying to get his last chance to get it in; Lt. Nixon half heartedly arguing with the driver who didn't want him to spill his flask everywhere; Josie petting a passed out Joe Toye's head while saying something about baby bunnies; and Lipton running around like a chicken with his head cut off, making sure that every Easy boy was safe and no one was choking on their own vomit. The whole situation George found quite amusing. By this time most of his buzz had worn off and he was left to soberly analyze the scenario. Ah, the dynamics that protrude after alcohol is added to the equation. What a truly wonderful yet chaotic thing it was.
The bus finally stopped in the entrance of the base, where the passengers on the bus staggered out. Lipton had Joe Toye's arm slung over him and was struggling to drag him out the bus. He caught George's eye, and cracked a humble smile.
"Hopefully we have an easy day tomorrow," he said.
George cocked an eyebrow. He could dream of an easy day, but with Shit head Sobel back there would certainly be no easy in Easy Company.
"We can only dream, Lip."
Lipton nodded curtly and was aided by Skip, who took the unbearably heavily load of Joe Toye off him at the bottom of the bus stairs. To George's amusement Joe nearly knocked little Skip over after tumbling out the bus.
George nearly forgot about the girl in his arms, and was alerted by a groan that escaped her lips.
"I'm gonna regret this tomorrow," she moaned, leaning her head on George's arm. George grinned and patted her head.
"Bet ya will, kid."
The two traipsed through the camp grounds, George gracefully making his way through the rolling and mucky Georgian grass while Josie drunkenly fumbled around like a foal making an attempt to walk for the first time. George took notice when she sniffed the sleeve of her dress and her nose wrinkled in disgust.
"I know you smell bad," George quipped, grinning. "I have to smell you on a regular basis."
"I smell like… like..."
"Joe Toye's sweaty PT socks?"
At the mention of Joe Toye's name, Josie let out a girly little giggle. George froze and his eyes widened like saucers, staring at Josie in disbelief. He knew that giggle. Oh shit, no. Not Joe Toye.
"You didn't…"
Josie looked at the ground, rouge flushing into her cheeks. "D-did, what?" she managed between little fits of snickers.
"Oh fuck no. Please tell me you didn't fuck Josie… Please."
Her eyes quickly swapped from amusement to childish fear. "…We didn't do, the you know, unholy deed. We just… had a good time," she feebly said, and the girly little grin was starting to reappear on her mouth. Motherfuckin' wild child. He should have known better then to got her that Pink Lady, because once Josie is buzzed, all fucking hell breaks loose and any type of sexual tension is demolished.
George's eyes narrowed at her. "Define good time, Josie."
She rolled her eyes snottily. "I'm not a walking dictionary, take a hint," she said, and though she was still very far from sobriety, George was starting to notice that the slur in her voice was fading. Jesus Christ, the attitude with this one sometimes. George had the numbing fear in the pit of his stomach that Josie and Joe Toye got down tonight. Was it jealously? Yes, there wasn't any denying. He wasn't about to see his best friend get rode and chucked by some shithead like Toye. At least it was better then Liebgott. A fucking gorilla would be better then Lieb. Not that he didn't love the kid, but after hearing his words of wisdom about women, George made it his duty to make sure Jos didn't come in a eight inch radius of the man. If someone was gonna fuck Josie, he might as well do it the right way, like George would. However, he believed Josie's honesty that they didn't do the dirty, which caused him to backpedal to third base.
"Please don't tell me you sucked his dick…"
Josie looked around nervously, ignoring George and started to whistle a little swing tune, which made her answer quite obvious.
George's face contorted in disgust. "Oh my God Josie! Fuck! Why him? Why that? Oh God, you're fucking nasty sometimes!"
By this time her face was as red as a tomato. "If you must know, I was just returning the favor."
Ew. Fuck. Gross. George pretended like she hadn't said that, and shut his eyes, trying to burn the image before it came to life. It wasn't the picture of Josie naked, trust him, he had imagined that countless times before. But it was her and Joe Toye which made him wanna toss his cookies everywhere.
"Fuck me Josie. You're fucking nasty, you know that right? Out of all people, why fucking Joe Toye! Why not anyone!"
Josie's eyes narrowed sneeringly, even in her drunken state. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were jealous, George Luz."
Yeah, he was. So the fuck what? What if he cared about Josie and didn't want her getting thrown around and rode like a bicycle? She was his confidant, mentor, and everything in between and he wasn't going to let her lose her mental prowess because of some GI fucknut.
"Bet you'd like that," he muttered under his alcohol-stained breath. At his moderate remark, Josie's eyes made furious contact with his.
"Yeah, maybe I do George!" She snapped, her voice becoming dry with edging sobriety, though she was still intoxicated as the minutes waned on she was coming more and more like herself. "But it wouldn't make a difference to you, would it Captain Oblivious?"
Wow way to be subtle, Jos. George had always prided himself in his ability to read between the lines, yet Josie had always nagged at him for the common trait that males shared of obliviousness. You can only go so far in life when you're a guy.
George dropped his jaw in a melodramatic fashion. "Are you declaring your love for me, honey?"
He grinned and clicked his teeth as he saw that he was successful in his mission of making her cheeks transition from the paleness of the moon to the rouge of her lipstick. She cast him a satanic look, causing him to wince.
"No," she mumbled, shifting her eyes to the ground, and her lioness like persona had collapsed into a little puppy after being whipped.
"Maybe that little confession would have been more successful if you hadn't scrubbed down Joe," George contended, a smile budding on his lips.
The two had finally reached the vicinity of where Josie's cabin was, and George could sigh millions of times of the thought of hiking back to his own cabin, which was quite a stretch away, and of which he had to do in some moments time.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Josie's voice broke the tension that was unbeknownst to the two, which lingered in the humid Georgian air.
"Don't apologize to me," scoffed George, grinning at her. "I don't need an apology, but maybe the nuns in the abbey do."
She let out a sigh that breathed forgiveness, and squeezed his forearm affectionately.
"George Luz, what would I do without you?"
He shrugged, with a half-cocked grin. "Try askin' yourself that when one of us get's shipped out," he upbraided, his stomach freezing at the thought. She looked down at her feet.
"Yeah, well don't remind me," she mumbled, as they stopped in front of her cabin, where the lights had now been shut off.
"Promise you'll come see me next pass?"
George winked. "You bet."
He took one fleeting glance at his best friend as she ungraciously tip toed up the stairs and into her cabin, then he spun around and made the long venture back to Camp Toccoa.