” My heart sank again. “Y...you’re not actually going to do anything tonight?” I asked her. Trish shifted uneasily beside me. “Probably ...not,” she replied, “you know me and first date. I may not even like him; maybe there won’t be any chemistry between us anyway.” “But what if there is?” I asked her. Trish squeezed my hand again, “Let’s just play things by ear.” She told me. I just sat there for a few minutes as Trish tidied up her lingerie. I knew that her quietness meant that she was. And you were in the heart of a battle field. Gunfire, mines, bombs. Your chances of survival were very low. I doubt whether very many others in that settlement of yours managed to wake up this morning…” “Tracey…” mused Sharon. Her best friend was probably also dead. And all they’d wanted was a holiday in the sun. Her eyes exploded in tears. “You bastards! You bastards! You fucking fucking bastards!” “I can see you’re unhappy,” mused the sergeant. “And I can’t promise you the security or the. He waked to the edge with the rope in his hands, and snapped the rope into his belt loop and harness. Double-checking his connections, he stepped to the edge and smiled at them."Coming?"With that single word, he jumped off the edge, and started rappelling down the drop, within seconds his feet hit bottom. Holding the rope, he spoke into his mic as he looked up."Okay, I'm at the bottom. Come on down."Ted helped Jen hook up, and whispered to her, "Your brother pushed it, there. He should not go. “If you get her drunk, she sleeps here.”Bill warned.“We have a very big bed, Bill.” Mary replied.‘Don’t go there,” Bill growled.“Mmmmm. I might like that.” Interjected Jen.Stan changed the subject. He regaled Jen with stories about his college days with Bill. Mary even added a few salacious tidbits of her own.Jen relaxed. She fell into the conversation as if Stan and Mary had been her friends for life. She even told a few stories of her own. She was pleasantly buzzed by the time dinner was.