They were never supposed to ship together.
Same AIT company. Same bay wing. Same ugly walk to the DFAC. Riley takes it as a joke the universe decided to finish. Cole takes it as weather he can live in. Eli takes it as a statistical error. Dean takes it as proof he is charming enough to bend orders. The truth is simpler: a clerk got bored and a roster stuck.
Fort Moore is not Fort Jackson. There are more doors that lock. A lock is not privacy. A lock is a suggestion with a hinge.
The friendship holds. The orbit tightens. Cole carries the last hundred meters. Eli doctors her coffee without announcing it. Dean takes the street side and will die before calling it worship. A team leader named Hensley asks, too pleasantly, why the same three males are always in her pocket.
Battle buddies, she says. No story.
Under the work, the arrangement is still live. Cole already had first. Dean wants a date like she runs a window. Eli is mathematically aware that time is passing and is trying not to call it jealousy. Riley looks at the room and refuses to let it get stupid.
New rule: she is not picking second.
Eli gets an hour so he is not learning how to be touched in a crowd. Saturday, a borrowed end room, one cheap chair, one bed that was not meant for three. Cole watches because she will not send her first away to wonder if he was replaced. Dean and Eli get her at the same time, same night, same mouth, because she wants both and she will not rank her friends.
Same Roster is Book 2 of Barracks Bunny: explicit, tender, and stubborn about the picnic table. Nobody is leftover. The unit still has to be boring in the hallway.
