Lindsey smiles again, her blue eyes twinkling, and asks mischievously, “Really?”
“Really,” I answer. I get the impression that she digs me. Maybe she's flirting, maybe I'm just off my game, but I like it, and I decide to try a little bit more. “I just get motivated by the idea of a goal in front of me.”
“Well then, you did pretty good on the first leg,” Lindsey says, strapping on her helmet again. “Think you can keep up on the second? Race you around to the ski hill.”
Before I can reply, she takes off. I watch her for a half-second and then grin, putting my water bottle away quickly, scrambling to get on my bike. I know that even with letting her get a head start, I’ll ride her down. “You're on!”
Chapter 2
Lindsey
Right now, I'm struggling with the bad side of my job, namely trying to keep the paperwork right on a group of people who don't quite operate by normal military rules. The Army seriously didn’t train me how to handle the personnel paperwork of the United States Military Academy.
“PFC Morgan, how's that schools request coming along?” my commanding noncommissioned officer, Sergeant Greene, asks. She's been in the Army a long time. She joined back before 9/11, and she's been at the Academy for three years. She's got the system down cold, and I think that there'd be a lot of Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels who'd be seriously pissed at me if it weren’t for her.
I pull the paper off my desk and hand it over to her, and she gives me a little nod of thanks. “Not a problem, Sergeant. Major Landry is going to be able to go to the Christmas break course at Leonard Wood. And I've got the travel requests in to Washington for the Band, too. I should be hearing back from Washington tomorrow or Thursday.”
“Good,” she hums, checking the form. “Okay then, get out of here. Nothing too stressful going on. The Supe's got nothing major going on this week, and we've got all the new folks' pay right. Anything else, they can go bitch to the Housing Office about it.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Greene,” I reply, grabbing my backpack and heading for the door. “See you tomorrow.”
That's the good thing about being at the Point. The office hours are different from the rest of the Army, and for the most part, the Academy treats things on the so-called 'gentleman's code.' That means that unless you're in trouble or in some other way fucked up, there aren't any of the morning group formations, whether it's for PT or anything else. Instead, we show up for work, we do our jobs, and we get our free time. Even our office hours are different. Instead of the nine to five that most units operate on in garrison, we run by the timeline that the Corps of Cadets does, which means that while we start stupidly early at seven thirty, I'm also out of the office by four on most days.
Not that I can take advantage of that free time. As a Private First Class, I don't exactly make great pay. I mean, twenty-two grand a year isn't peanuts, especially since I don't have to pay for health insurance or an apartment, and even food can be free most of the time, but I'm not exactly living high on the hog, as my grandmother used to say. I've got bills to pay, specifically paying off my student loans for community college. It was the whole reason I joined the Army in the first place. My parents tried hard, but they're both working class people, and after a high school career where I kinda spent three years goofing off and spending more time watching the hot ice hockey guys than studying, I found myself short on scholarship options when I graduated. Still, I've got my associate's degree, so the Army was a good choice, since I can make Specialist or Sergeant faster that way, and then I'll have a good GI Bill afterward to finish out my degree. They even offer options to help you study in the service as well, but I'm not ready for that yet. Kinda strange, being somewhere that’s meant for college studies when I'm not ready for college.
I get back to my barracks and change quickly, wanting to make the most of the time I have to ride. My one weakness, the thing that I'll admit I've spent too much money on, is my bike. Once I realized that I didn't like the hard contact of hockey, and I'm nowhere near the pretty princess style that makes a good figure skater, Minnesota's favorite sports went out the window. But what my home state did have was lots of good roads for riding, and in the months that I've been here, I've gotten back into riding again.