- Hunter And Bailey -gay- - Checked | Active Duty

Are we still doing this? – UNCHECKED.

“Then mark it ‘CHECKED, GHOST’ and initial it,” Hunter grunted, twisting a wrench a quarter-turn. “I don’t need the Captain having a meltdown at oh-four-hundred.”

Bailey didn’t blink. “Hunter.”

One line remained, handwritten in the margin in Bailey’s neat, cramped script.

Hunter swallowed. He looked at the list. Active Duty - Hunter And Bailey -Gay- - Checked

The hangar bay was a cathedral of shadows and steel, smelling of jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, and the metallic tang of a Texas night bleeding into dawn. Hunter was on his back, wedged under the fuselage of a C-130, a headlamp cutting a white beam across the belly of the beast. His checklist was smeared with grease, the ‘CHECKED’ box for the port landing gear still empty.

Then he handed the pen back.

Landing gear hydraulic pressure – CHECKED. Tire tread depth – CHECKED. Emergency flare inventory – CHECKED. Secondary comms test – CHECKED.