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Jake stumbled out of his truck with cotton in his mouth and a steady kick-drum pounding in his head.Turned out there were consequences to liquor, even if it was taken in celebration of none of your friends dying.He found himself jolting awake at the crack of dawn, curled up on Javy’s couch–every bit of where he did not currently want to be. He eventually found his keys (in Javy’s jean pocket on the floor of his bedroom. His clumsy movements accidentally startled Bob awake for a brief moment, but he rolled back over into Javy’s arms, safe and sound) and tripped down the porch stairs with a bone-deep exhaustion.He took the time to scrub the sleep out of his eyes before he took off, thanking God above for the fact that their house was only a few minutes away. By the time he pulled into the driveway and slugged up the porch, he was dreaming about passing back out on their couch. Upstairs into their own bed felt like a pipe dream when he could barely keep his eyes open.He scrubbed a hand down his face, wincing at the sharp trill of the birds and the barking dog down the street, each little sound piercing his eardrums and making him promise to never let Fanboy run alcohol again. He took a special moment to curse the fact that some dickhead neighbor decided to cut his lawn at quarter to seven in the morning. Jake wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and smother the world out with a pillow over his head.Why he’d ended up at Javy’s instead of back at home, he couldn’t remember. Jake was pretty sure kissing Bradley on the deck of the carrier blew their cover on the whole Bradshaw-Seresin secret, but he could also remember Phoenix muttering something about adrenaline and tension, so there really was no telling. He only hoped that Bradley had actually made it home. If he had to run around all of California trying to locate his fucking husband while tripping over a hangover, he was gonna be pissed.With his eyes closed, swaying dangerously just outside the front door, Jake tried with all his might to will Bradley’s sleeping existence into their bedroom.He kicked off his shoes and locked the door behind him, barely stopping at the clattering in the kitchen.“I thought we could go get breakfast,” he called, sending out a silent thanks that Bradley forewent the usual blaring radio as he cooked. “And you’re never gonna guess who I found in Javy’s bed this morning, sweetheart, you lost that bet–”He turned the corner to find not Bradley, rather a terrified-looking blonde woman, with a heavy cast iron pan in one hand, a whisk in the other. They stood, blinking at each other for a moment, unsure what to do.Jake was pretty sure he was hallucinating.Stepping back to survey the room, he blearily wondered if he stumbled into the wrong house. There were the same cabinets, the same shitty coffee maker, their photos and post-its on the fridge. It was their kitchen, so who the fuck– A cold wave of what the fuck washed over him as he took in all the possibilities, of a geriatric break-in of this woman trying to get away with their good pans, of the fact that she maybe stumbled into their house and she was confused, maybe Jake really did sustain a concussion and he was seeing things–It all broke apart when she finally gathered herself to shout at him. “Now you listen here, I don’t know what the hell you want, but you wouldn’t be the first man I’ve cracked over the head with a skillet. You better get before I call the police!” She dropped her whisk, coming up to wield the cast iron with both hands as she took a threatening step forward.His hands shot up, showing her his palms. “Hang on, ma’am! There’s some kind of mix-up here.” He tilted his head, never taking his eyes off her as he took another step back, shouting “Rooster!” as he did. He hoped the callsign would be enough to rouse Bradley into some state of alertness. Sure enough, there was a shuffle, and then quick, uncoordinated steps down the stairs. “Let’s put the pan down, ma’am, we can talk this through. Is there someone we can call for you?”“Don’t give me that shit,” she snapped. She called Bradley’s name and all but sagged in relief as the man turned the corner, in nothing but his underwear and a wild case of bedhead.“What the fuck.” He looked between Jake and the woman, confusion and panic rising with every pass he made between the both of them.“Call the police,” Jake murmured, his hands still out defensively.Bradley cut him a harsh look. “I’m not calling the police on my mom.” “She was gonna call them on m–your mom!?” Jake snapped to look back at the woman, and sure, the similarities were there. It was the same fire licking in her eyes, the same curls on her head.“We’re just gonna… yeah, let me have that.” Jake watched helplessly as Bradley moved forward to take the skillet out of his mother’s slack grip so he could set it back on the stove. “Thanks. Damn. We really can’t have a moment’s peace around here. Mom, stop looking at him like he’s doing a B&E.”“He could be for all I know,” she snapped, rounding on her son.Jake could see the moment everything caught up to Bradley. The sleep-slackened line of his shoulders went taught. His jaw clenched, and his hand went flat on the counter top just so it wouldn’t curl into itself. “Mom,” he started out slowly, “This is Jake Seresin. Jake, this is my mother, Carole Bradshaw.”Clearing his throat, Jake stepped forward to offer his hand. “This wasn’t ever how I thought this meeting was gonna go, but pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’m sorry for scaring you like that.” He made sure to keep his tone light, to not have anything he said be a slight to either Bradshaw. “I wasn’t expecting company.”Carole regarded him a minute before taking his hand. “Well, why would you be expecting company in my son’s house?” She shrugged, eyes appraising. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”Bradley rolled his eyes. “He lives here, Mom, that’s why. When did you get in? How did you get in? You didn’t call.”“Pete called me, I was on the next flight out. I didn’t think it’d be an issue to let myself in.”“Maybe you should have called.” The smile on Bradley’s face was tight, something Jake had seen countless times over the years of trying to make them work.Jake shuffled on his feet, mourning the loss of a nap and a nice hangover-relieving breakfast with his husband. All he really wanted was to run upstairs and collapse into bed, letting this whole odd interaction fade from his mind as sleep took over. But he had the feeling that if he left the room, the tense air might dissolve into a shouting match.He could just see it, him laying in bed trying to smother himself with a pillow as the two of them scream at each other, all muddled details and volume and way too many volatile emotions for seven in the morning.Carole made an aborted motion with her hands, underlining her point in red varnish and bony fingers. “I tried to call, you weren’t picking up your phone.”“I was busy.”“You always are.”It felt like a well-worn argument. Not something Jake was supposed to be witnessing.“Why didn’t you get a hotel room–”And okay, alright. “Rooster, we couldn’t ask your mother to get a hotel room.”“Pete told me you got shot down.”The whole room stilled. Jake’s head pounded in-time with his heart. Bradley blinked at his mother, stony resignation settling in his eyes. “He’s not supposed to give out those kinds of details.”“Baby, you nearly died.” “I’m not having this conversation in my underwear.”“Honey, if it were up to you, there would be no conversation.”Jake snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. “At least she sees through your shit, too.”Bradley cut him a sharp look, telling him to back off. “I’m gonna go shower. Don’t hit him over the head in the meantime.”A part of Jake resented how Bradley ran and left Jake standing awkwardly in the kitchen with Carole. He cleared his throat. “It really is a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’ve heard a lot about you.”“I’m sad to say I can’t say the same,” she murmured, her voice laden with grief. She curled in on herself like it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart. “You in his squadron? That why you’re staying with him?”“Well…” People usually live with their spouses, were the words sitting right at the tip of his tongue, but he held them at bay. If she really knew nothing of them, it was probably the worst time possible to mention that her son had gotten married right under her nose. “It’s something like that, ma’am.”“You can call me Carole, honey.”He smiled. “With all due respect, I absolutely cannot do that.” His mother would beat him senseless if he heard him refer to Mrs. Bradshaw as something so brazen as her first name. It went against the sensibilities. “When did your flight get in? You must be hungry.”“If breakfast is cooked by a stud like you, I’m famished.”“My, my, Mrs. Bradshaw, aren’t we forward?” he teased.Despite his insistence on cooking, Carole made her presence known in the kitchen. She was right alongside him, whipping up pancakes and scrambling eggs with ease, gliding her way through the kitchen like she’d never really moved out.There were times when she looked for things in certain drawers, frowning when she’d found something that had been moved—most often by Jake himself. When they’d moved in, the house had largely been untouched from when his mother had lived there. Beyond signs of living, mostly from when Bradley said Pops was in town and feeling nostalgic, the house was an untouched picturesque family home.It took some work and slow rearranging, but the house had finally changed from Bradley’s childhood home, to Mom’s old house, and finally to home. And with that came Jake reorganizing where the utensils lived in certain drawers.Carole gave him an odd look when Jake pointed her in the right direction for the spatulas.“You sure know your way around in here,” she said, a little too casually as she dolloped the batter onto the pan.“Comes naturally with the territory. I do most of the cooking and I’m nosy by nature.” He shrugged, easy.Carole nodded, fetching her spatula out of the correct drawer. “Do you fly with Bradley?”Carole Bradshaw was good at keeping her hands busy, Jake thought. She was also good at keeping her tone light when leading someone into an active minefield. Jake knew it wasn’t long before she started drawing parallels or looked at the photos pinned to the fridge a little too long. Before she pieced together that Jake was probably more than Bradley’s wingman.Jake hoped Bradley came back before the pieces truly clicked together. “Yes ma’am. I flew with him during the mission, too.” He looked up, meeting her eyes with regret pulling at his mouth. “I can’t give you any details about it, I’m sorry. Even if I could, that’s for him to tell you about.”“Figured as much,” she huffed, “if it was left up to him, I probably wouldn’t have ever known.”“I don’t think he wanted you to worry,” Jake told her, hoping against hope he wasn’t overstepping any bounds.“Honey, it’s my job to worry about him, I am his mother."“I can appreciate that, Mrs. Bradshaw.” Jake had done enough worrying about Bradley on his own, too. They’d fought so hard at TopGun, pushing against each other to make sure they could really accomplish something like the suicide mission they’d been sent on. They were both so stubborn on how they thought the mission should be flown, what it took for them to both come back from it, that they almost jeopardized their places in it. Jake cleared his throat. “God knows my own mother’s done enough of that over me.”She seemed to approve of that answer, and something tight in Jake’s chest relaxed. She prodded at the edge of a pancake, and Jake slid a plate out of the cabinet to put at her elbow. “So, Jake.”“Ma’am?”“You married?” She lifted an eyebrow, eyeing that band on his left hand he hadn’t taken off since he got off that carrier.He laughed sheepishly, unable to help the confusing mix of pride and grief flooding his chest at the question coming from his very own mother-in-law. “I am.”She hummed. Her eyes wandered, lingering for a moment on the fridge. Jake could name and describe each photo that was pinned there. Some of them on deployment, some of Mav, some of Jake’s family, some of Bradley’s parents both together and separate. Photos Bradley had printed from his phone of the rest of the Daggers, some of Natasha, some of Javy. Moments of a life long-lived. Proof that, against all odds, they had lived. They were alive, still able to relive those memories.Jake stood still, as if any shifting would betray weakness in front of this woman.“Bradley said you were living here, right? Why not with your spouse?”His jaw worked, and he swallowed thickly before he responded. “It’s complicated at the moment, Mrs. Bradshaw.”Carole took the avoidance for what it was, and let him have the out. “Bradley’s been up there a long time, hm?”Jake could’a cried in relief. “You’re right. I’ll be right back, I’m just gonna make sure he hasn’t jumped out the bedroom window or something.”Carole snorted. “Sometimes it scares me how much like his godfather he really is. I’ve had to pull Pete out of more than one tricky situation by his ear.” Jake could smell a story in there that he was definitely going to ask about later. Maverick stories, as Bradley told them, ranged from bittersweet to downright fantastical to borderline illegal, sometimes all in one sitting. Sue Jake for wanting to know the details on exactly whose windows he was jumping out of and why. “Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ll get him to you safe and sound.” He smiled at her before heading upstairs.He found Bradley in their bedroom, sitting at the edge of the bed with water dripping down his shoulders and wrapped in nothing but a towel.Jake slipped into the room and shut the door softly behind him.“Hey there, darlin’,” he murmured, sinking to his knees before his husband, letting Bradley’s eyes come to him in their own time. “That’s a thousand yard stare if ever I’ve seen one.”Bradley huffed a humorless laugh. His shoulders were slumped, his hands handing carelessly between his legs.“I didn’t know she was coming.”“You don’t have to apologize, it’s not like she actually knocked me around—““No, I.” He cut Jake off, but stalled as soon as he started. His face did something complicated, brows furrowing and jaw working. Searching for the life of him to find words that always seem to slip through his fingers. “I haven’t been that close in years. My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes, I didn’t even really have time to think I’m going to die, not with Mav there. I just. We kept going.” His words came slowly, like he was processing them, feeling them on his tongue before letting Jake hear them.He took Jake’s hand, fitting their fingers together as he pressed their hands over his chest.“I don’t think my heart stopped pounding for hours.”Jake’s hand rubbed up and down Bradley’s leg, something for Bradley to focus on, something for Jake to savor.From the deck, to medical, to debriefs, they weren’t given a second of peace. From everyone giving praise, and clinging, and celebrations, this was the first time they’d been properly alone since before the mission properly began. Since that acknowledgement between them just before the carrier fell into micromanaged chaos.
Give ‘em hell.
You make sure you come home.
“We all knew the risks going in. We knew what happened, how close it came…”Jake shifted, knocking further into Bradley’s body so he could wrap his arm around his shoulders, squeezing tight to the hand still gripped in Bradley’s. “I think I popped a damn blood vessel when control refused support,” he murmured into Bradley’s shoulder, enamored with how warm he was, how alive he felt under his hands. “Damn near cried like a baby when they got a signal from your ESAT.”Bradley let out a shaky breath, burying his nose in Jake’s hair. “Hearing my mom say it out loud… I think it started sinking in. She never wanted me to fly, didn’t want to lose me like Dad.” Bradley’s cheek pressed into the side of Jake’s head, and Jake did little else but stare out the bedroom window. The sun was up, now. He could see a glimpse of one of their neighbor’s garage doors beginning to slide open. A bird landed on the fence in the backyard. “I almost proved her right, and I didn’t even call her beforehand. Even afterwards, Mav was the one to reach out.”“For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s too angry,” Jake offered. “I think she would’ve knocked your head off with the skillet when you got within range.”Bradley laughed, clutching him tighter. “Oh, it’ll come. Six days down the road, when she’s pretty sure I’m not gonna spontaneously bite it, she’ll let me have it. You’ve never seen a dressing down until you’re staring down Carole Bradshaw’s barrel.”“You’ve met my mother, Bradshaw, if they’re any bit similar, I’d say you’re in for it.”Bradley pulled away just enough to gather Jake’s face in his hands, sweeping his thumbs under Jake’s eyes like it was reverent worship. Like Jake was the one that almost didn’t come home. “All these years, and you’re still able to piss me off.”“What can I say, sweetheart? I consider it a personal talent.”Bradley pulled him forward, kissing Jake until he gasped, fingers curling in Bradley’s hair just to keep him in place.The smile Bradley had on when Jake pulled away was one that could only be described as love-struck.Dopey, his mind supplied.The only thing keeping him from going back for more was the woman waiting downstairs. He winced and rocked back on his heels.“Honey,” he started, gathering Bradley’s hands in his. Bradley hummed. “Get some pants on. Breakfast is getting cold, and we have to face the music eventually.”He watched as Bradley’s face scrunched in on itself. “Maybe she’ll forget about the whole getting shot down thing if we tell her we’re having a baby.”“Two problems with that, Bradshaw,” Jake leveled him with a serious look. “One: that’s an awful bold way of saying you’re ready to settle down. Are you tryin’ to surprise me as well as your Momma?”Bradley’s hands drifted down Jake’s arms, pulling him close as he tipped to lay flat on the mattress. “We’ve talked about it,” he pouted.“That’s so far down the road it’s not even in the same country.” He leaned over Bradley’s stomach, propping his chin up on folded arms. “And we can’t exactly make a surprise baby without adding more questions to the pile.”Rolling his eyes, Bradley clicked his tongue. He smoothed a palm across Jake’s shoulders. “Fine, it’s a no-go. What’s your second problem?”“You never told your Momma we got married.”Bradley tensed under him before shooting straight up to his elbows. Jake jostled, wincing at the movement. He ended up propped up with hands on either side of Bradley, bare inches from his face.“Shit,” Bradley hissed.Jake nodded. “Yeah, shit.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The cup of coffee Carole pressed into Bradley's palm was something of a white flag.Jake made himself busy — really just loitered — around the fridge, pouring a glass of orange juice and setting it on the edge of the table as he surveyed the damage.Carole sat across the table from her son, fingers curled around a cup of coffee, a stubborn set to her jaw. If Jake had any doubts as to if the two of them were related, the disturbingly similar posture and expression would have blown them out of the water.The static air was probably for Jake’s benefit. No one wanted to argue around a third party, let alone drag them into it unless they were looking to publicly sink their teeth into sensitive places. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he was pretty sure both Bradshaw were above such a spectacle. At least for the moment.“How was your flight in?” Bradley asked suddenly. He had both elbows up on the table in an act befitting a rebellious teenager rather than a thirty-three year old man.Carole’s eyelashes fluttered as she looked up at him, surprised he was the one to break the silence. “Oh, it was…” She grimaced. “I made it, in the end.”Bradley took that for what it was. “Who’s got the girls at home?”Girls? Jake frowned.“Manny offered as soon as he heard I was leaving. He was with me when I got the call.”Jake watched Bradley frown, eyes squinting. He took a deliberate sip of his coffee, leaning back in the chair. “Manny is…?”“My neighbor, he’s got enough backyard space for both of them and the patience of a saint.” She shook her head with a heavy sigh. “I swear, I was so strung out I plum forgot about them before he jumped out to offer.”Bradley tipped his head back to look at Jake. “Mom’s dogs.”Jake gathered. "I thought for a second that there were more little Bradshaws running around," he replied, tone flat.Carole looked at him like she plum forgot he was there, too. “That ship has long sailed. You don’t have to stand there, come have a seat.” She patted the place between her and Bradley. It took a second to register what he said, but eventually snapped into motion. “Thank you,” he said, sliding into the chair.Bradley tapped his elbow, motioning for the stack of plates and forks between Jake and Carole.“How are you not as hungover as I am?” Jake muttered in Bradley’s ear as he passed him a plate, his utensils following shortly after. “I stopped drinking by the time Fanboy started passing out shots,” Bradley shot back, smirking up at him.“I hate you,” he hissed. He sat back in his own chair, dragging his orange juice back across the table from where Bradley had been reeling it in. “If you were so sober last night,” he continued, a little louder for everyone to hear, “then how did I end up on Javy’s couch last night? Slough me off on the nearest Dagger?”Bradley squinted at him, not wilting at all under his mother’s calculating look. “If you remember, sweetheart,” he said, slow and dripping in sarcasm, “you got mad at me when I tried to cut you off, and literally wouldn’t leave Javy’s side. You damn near bit Tash’s hand off when she tried to get you in the Bronco.”Jake did not remember. He remembered being slumped in Javy's backseat, bitching at anyone that would listen to just turn the fucking AC on. He remembers leaning against the glass, and the lights of a drive-thru fast food place he was pretty sure they didn't even eat at. He remembered, maybe, someone's face in his hands, pushing a pair of sunglasses up their face with clumsy hands. “Alright, well, your mama doesn’t need to hear about us drinkin’,” he dismissed, ears burning. Carole laughed. “I’ve seen it all, honey, I can promise you that.”Jake raised his eyebrows, thinking of the trouble their squad had gotten into after getting kicked out of the Hard Deck. Twice. “I don’t know if you have, ma’am.”“My best friend ran off to join the Navy when I was seventeen, and I didn’t meet Bradley’s father until I was twenty.”Bradley laughed, committing to stealing Jake’s juice just so he could slug half of it down. “Mav had to beat the guys off with a stick.”Carole grinned, bright and honest. “I’ll never forget the Fourth of July barbecue,” she swore, leaning back in her chair, fanning herself with a dishtowel. “It was your father’s first time introducing me to his aviator friends. It was just me and him. Pete was off with one of his girlfriends because wasn’t too sure of your father yet and didn’t want to give him the time of day.”Bradley frowned. “There was a time when they didn’t get along?”Carole hummed, lost in a hazy 80’s night. “Well, Pete wasn’t too fond of any of the men I dated. We always joked we should just throw in the towel and marry each other. I was just about to give in when Nick came along.” She smiled dreamily, the years seemingly slipping from her face. “He ticked the boxes I didn’t even know I had. My mom and dad loved him, and,” she reached across the table to grab Bradley’s cheek. He willingly leaned into her hands, looking fondly at her. “–he gave me the best gift I ever could have asked for.”This is what their reunion should have been. Emotions were running high, Jake knew, but they deserved this kind of moment. Something so painfully familiar and perfect that Jake almost felt like he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.Ultimately, he didn’t have the strength to run away. Not with his and Bradley’s conversation pinging around in his head, or with Carole’s desperation weighing his shoulders down, keeping him seated. That wasn't the only reason he stuck around, single-mindedly focused on every little interaction between them.He hadn’t lied to Carole earlier. He really was nosy by nature. He wanted to know how they could go from such a volatile interaction to Bradley leaning into his mother’s hand like it was something they did every day. Not like Carole and Bradley hadn't consistently spoken to each other in years.If Jake let himself sink he could almost fool himself into believing this was a normal family breakfast. Like Carole was still a part of Bradley’s life, and not like he and Jake were hiding the elephant of their marriage plain in the middle of the room.“So Pete wasn’t a fan of Nick’s for, oh, maybe a week.” She rolled her eyes with every bit of fond exasperation she could muster. “And then my best friend stole my boyfriend. From then on he wasn’t Carole’s boy, and I wasn’t Goose’s gal, nah, it was Maverick and Goose.”“Were you ever mad at ‘em for it?” Bradley wondered.She glanced up at the ceiling like it held all her answers. “Not that I could remember,” was what she decided on. “They were the military’s boys first, but the second they had any kind of free time, they came knockin’ on my door. I had never been on adventures like that before. Probably never will again. But I’m glad we made the memories while we could.” She waved her hand, like it could dispel the melancholy that settled over the table. “But that barbecue. Hon, I am telling you, I’ve never seen Iceman go as red as he did on that day.”Jake’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He stopped mid-chew and had to swallow before he did something like gasp and choke. “Admiral Kazanski?”Carole nodded gleefully. “Well he certainly wasn’t an admiral at the time, but we all knew he was on his way. I’m mixin’ Nick up a drink — ‘cause Pete taught me all he knew, and I wanted to show off — and Tom slides up to the bar, cool as anything, and he starts trying to chat me up, asking if he can call me. Then Nick comes up outta nowhere, slingin’ his arms around Tom's shoulders like hey Ice! You met my girl, then?” A raucous laugh bubbled up out of her, shooting up and switching positions in her chair three times in as many minutes. “I couldn’t believe his face. And then Pete actually met Tom when they went off to TopGun. We agreed never to tell Pete until after they got home. It would’ve started fights we never would’a heard the end of.”She wiped a tear of laughter out of her eye, and it went quiet for a minute. “We, uh, never did tell Pete. Didn’t seem important, not when Nick wasn’t around to tell it.” She shrugged, eyes still cloudy, and tossed her dish towel to the tabletop. She took up Bradley’s hand, scooting closer so she could hold it in both hands.“I’m glad you’re home, baby.”“Me too, mom.” He squeezed her hand, and Jake’s hand fell to Bradley’s thigh under the table, a reassuring touch.Carole cleared her throat, rubbing her misty eyes.“Ah, I’m all caught up in the past.” She sniffed finally and waved her hand. “Jake, you probably have some stories like that, don’t you? I can’t begin to count the times one of Nick or Pete’s boys accidentally tried to get cozy.”Jake leaned back in his chair, snatching his hand back from Bradley as if he’d burned him. “He’s in the Navy too, so it’s mostly from civilians when we’re on leave that it happens. No one can resist a man in uniform, let alone one that I leave for two seconds while he sends me to grab another drink.” He reached across the table for the half-empty coffee mug. It wasn’t hot enough to burn his throat, but it was good enough to distract from Bradley’s focus on him. He shot Carole a proud smirk. “He was something of a catch before I took him off the market. Life of the party if ever I’ve seen one.”Leaving details out was easy, not breaking face to turn and say something snarky directly to Bradley’s face was quite different.“Yeah, Jake’s husband’s great,” he told his mother, shit-eating grin plastered all over his face. “He’s great at the piano, too. Not to mention a phenomenal pilot—definitely better than Hangman himself.”Jake didn’t have any hard feelings about kicking Bradley under the table. The fucker barely flinched.“I wouldn’t go that far,” he ground out. “He’s a pain in my ass and thinks he’s hot shit while on the ground, forgive my language, but I wouldn’t take him any other way. He makes sure I stay on my toes. I’d never hear the end of it if I let him outpace me.” He gave this bit directly to Carole, clearing his throat and straightening in his seat. “We push each other to be better. I don’t think I can imagine a life without him.”Carole’s soft smile was fiercely fond. “You've got quite the man. You sound like you love him a lot.”“I do, ma’am.”He said it like the vows Carole never got to hear—the one’s they didn’t mean when they said them, the ones they grew into and learned in their own time what they meant.If it were under different circumstances, he’d probably reach for Bradley’s hand. He’d swipe his thumb across the space left for a ring they’d long lost in the Pacific, maybe even tell Carole the story of how it happened.Those were not their circumstances. Instead, Jake felt his skin prickle. He heard the clink and scrape of Bradley gathering scrambled eggs off his plate. The rattle coming in through the open window of a beater clunking down the road. Those damn birds. Life went on. Jake did none of those things.He drank Bradley’s coffee, and the table settled into silence. - Jake’s phone pinged. Again, and again, and again, and—“Do you need to check that?” Carole asked, when the dishes were cleared and cleaned and put away. When the table was wiped down and there wasn’t anything else to keep grateful hands busy.When Jake was about to crawl out of his skin, because the tension was back again. Somewhere between a snarky remark and Bradley’s hand trailing Jake’s back as he slipped by, Jake looked up and found something hard and steely in Carole’s eyes. There was a twitch in the corner of her mouth, a thread that was just itching to be pulled on. This woman had something to say.Jake knew she was biting it back for the sake of polite company.They settled in the living room, each with their own coffee mugs. Carole was tucked up into the corner of the couch with Bradley opposite her. Jake was left to the stuffy old recliner, somehow still stiff in a chair that, until this moment, always wrung any and all tension out of him just by looking at it.They hadn’t said much since breakfast. Carole commented on the change in decoration, Jake had to keep himself from commenting on his own design choices. Bradley looked like he’d already thrown up in his mouth.With Bradley’s near-death, Carole's sudden appearance, and Jake’s apparent habitation of the house all off the table for topics suited for polite company, with all three leading to bigger, deeper issues, there wasn’t all that much small talk to be made.Jake tapped against the arm of the recliner.His head still fucking hurt.“It can’t be an emergency, they’d call.”And he knew it wasn’t anything dire—he’d taken a quick peek before committing to washing the dishes. It was mostly Phoenix quadruple texting about something or another, with notifications of Fanboy reacting to every message as he got caught up from the night before.Jake cursed the very day the Daggers chat was made. He was added on a technicality, he knew, but it was nice to be able to take one look at the screen and have his evening’s plans already laid out for him.And sometimes Payback sent photos of the dogs he encountered on his runs, those were always a plus.Another notification pinged.Out of obligation and a newfound love of putting his phone on silent, and definitely not the judging eyes of his mother-in-law, Jake slipped his phone out of his pocket.Phoenix: sound off whose fucking bathroom am i in
Phoenix: [Sent an attachment] It was a photo of Phoenix, half slumped and miserable looking in a bathtub. Her hair was wild around her sleep-lined, makeup-tracked face.Fanboy: is that Payback’s tub.Phoenix: why do you know that
Phoenix: I actually don’t wanna know.
Phoenix: once again. sound off, who’s not deadThere were a litany of texts that came in after that, most of the squad checking in and sending locations from the night before. And then came the plans for a group breakfast.Phoenix: stop trying to break down the door, i’m alive
Phoenix: have you ever slept in a bathtub at some point it’s just comfyFanboy: I don’t care if you’re comfy in the bathtub get up we’re getting hash browns.
Fanboy: hangman and rooster better respond before I call Maverick.Javy: Jake’s probably asleep, he left mine pretty early this morning.Jake rolled his eyes, finally sending a response.Jake: At Rooster’s. We already had breakfast.Javy: then you’re tagging along to apologize for your previous behavior. You two better get a move on.Jake: Bradshaw ain’t leaving the nest. Mama Rooster made it to town last night.Javy: oh.Phoenix: OH I LOVE BRADLEYS MOM SHE CAN COME TOO
Phoenix: I’m out of the tub, if you stand me up I’m gonna call Cyclone.He had the decency to wince, knowing it was a genuine threat. On the other hand, he paused, a new question burning in the back of his throat. When exactly did Phoenix have the occasion to meet Bradley’s mother?“Is it a longshot, or have you kept up with the garden?” Carole asked, slicing through the silence and dragging Jake’s attention back to her. He slid his eyes to Bradley, taking in the delicate wince.Rooster once said he was a Jack of all trades, master of one.That one happened to be flying — he made the declaration right before Jake smoked him in one of their little competitions. He’d sneered at Bradley, asking how good he could be at anything else if that’s what he considered mastery. Bradley pinned him down with a hostile glare, a feral glint in his teeth.I’m good at what counts, Hangman, he’d said.He'd spat Jake's name like a curse. Jake wanted him.Bradley was a Jack of many trades, master of far more than one.Unfortunately for the both of them, and more importantly their backyard, gardening was not among these trades.Bradley went pink under his mother’s question, and he stood. “We can survey the damage,” he said, a little sheepish. “But don’t hold out hope.”Carole led the way with the look of a woman about to go to war. Bradley hung behind, stopping right beside Jake’s chair.“The rest of the group is going for breakfast, they’re pissed we haven’t been hanging on their every word,” Jake supplied, gesturing to his phone. “Who needs kids when you’ve got grown men and Phoenix begging for your attention?”“God forbid we go AWOL for a few hours,” Bradley huffed. His lips pressed into a thin line and rested his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Go on ahead.”“Hey.” Jake reached out to grab Bradley’s wrist. “Talk to her.”Bradley’s jaw worked, teeth grinding against the very idea. “I don’t think I know how anymore.” He looked up and out the window. “Go drink your mimosas and talk shit. I’m gonna go let my mom make me pull weeds in my own fucking yard.”Jake huffed a laugh, releasing Bradley’s wrist so he could reach around and smack his ass. “Somebody’s gotta straighten your ass out,” he declared. He climbed off the chair with a sigh, feeling older than his years. “I’m finally realizin’ it’s a two person job.”He reeled Jake in by his beltloops. “Not up to the task, Seresin?”“Just didn’t know what I was signing up for, Bradshaw,” Jake grinned. “But I’m always up for a challenge.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Funny how even the rattle of a shopping cart could get lost in the clamor of a Home Depot.Every time Bradley turned his head a new filter of sound funneled into his ears. The beep of registers, the aggressive rattle of bigger carts with squeakier wheels, the chatter of radios and customers alike meshed together to create one terrible symphony skill-lessly burned onto an old cassette.His mother was at his elbow, following Bradley, who was following her.She had taken one look at the old backyard and sighed. She listened as Bradley told her about the guys he paid to take care of the yard while he was on deployment. They usually just cut the grass and probably a little trimwork around the porch and sidewalks. They were utilitarian in nature, and the garden space was little more than a dry bed where nothing had dared to grow in years.Carole barely gave him enough time to send a quick text to Jake and empty out the back of the Bronco, shoving an old shelf and an unlucky popped spare tire into the garage before loading them both up on a journey to the sprawling wood and concrete joy that was Home Depot.“I practically raised you in that garden,” Carole shook her head, pointing so Bradley would swing the cart around. “You’ve been doing it since you were little, you can’t be that bad at keeping plants alive.”Bradley sighed. Quite the contrary. He tried to keep an ivy in college to liven up his depressing dorm room. The salesperson said it was virtually unkillable—Bradley had doubts about that at the time, after all, he did kill a cactus once. Sure enough, he managed to not only over-water it, but then got so paranoid of repeating his mistake that he ended up drying the whole thing out.“I don’t have a lot of free time, Mom, some things just fall off the priority list.” He narrowly avoided rolling over her heel when she stopped to look at a line of shiny yellow watering cans. “Besides, you pretty much banned me from helping after you found me running through your flowerbed.”She laughed as she ran her fingers over the lacquered can. “I think I hurt your feelings so much you never wanted to help again.”Bradley shrugged. He didn’t remember that part. He remembered Mom’s hand yanking him up by the arm out of the flowerbed, scolding him until he hung his head in shame. He’d marched up those stairs to go get cleaned up just as she told him to. He was still in sorry shape when Mav came home that night, prodding his side at the dinner table while he wondered aloud what had their little Bradley so upset.“I was never much help anyway,” he said, shaking off the memory.“Well, I liked the company.”It was a frivolous thing to say. Something you tell a neighbor when they drop in without warning. What you say to an acquaintance you spent a handful of minutes catching up with in the grocery store. What you say to a stranger down the bar after conversations about both everything in the world, and nothing at all important.His mother said it like there was no one else she’d rather have had with her, smudged with dirt and baking under the sun until she proposed they head inside for a popsicle before they died of heatstroke.She spoke like he cherished every minute of wiping dirt off her son’s nose, and looking out the window, proud of their work and the beauty it brought. Like she didn’t care how her flower bushes looked in the end, as long as she got that time with him.Bradley couldn’t remember when he grew out of the garden.It was probably around the same time Mav took him up in the air for the first time.“Speaking of company…” Carole sent him a sly look, a smile beginning to sneak up. “You got anybody to spend your leave with?”Bradley raised an unimpressed eyebrow, bringing the shopping cart to a halt. “I’ve got the squad. Me and Mav are talking again.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve got Jake.”“It’s nice to have friends,” his mother granted. “But you’re dodging.”“Alright. Since when do we talk about boyfriends?” He reached out to twist a leaf rake in its holder, watching the prongs fan out. He stopped it short and moved down the aisle.“You’re thirty years old, sweetheart, it’s a reasonable question.” She paused in front of the gardening gloves. There were plenty of options, but a garish pair with purple flamingos caught her attention. They were thrown in the cart alongside a smaller, more boring pair with blue rubber palms and fingers.Bradley kicked up a foot on the bottom basket of the cart. It rocked back and forth as he stood, watching his mother peruse the aisle. She shot him a look over her shoulder, expecting a rebuttal where Bradley had none.“You really don’t have anybody?”He was about six seconds from finding an alcove of plywood and stock doors to hide in until she lost the line of questioning. He was finding that he’d rather have a CO scream right up in his face, catching strays and spit, than have his mother dance around asking him about his apparent lack of partners.“You wanna talk about boyfriends? Who’s this Manny guy?”“That’s not—Bradley, he’s a friend.” She waved her hands in the air, spluttering her way through such an obviously ridiculous notion.Bradley draped himself over the cart, walking it close. “Close enough to watch Maisie and Kelma while you’re gone?”“Somebody had to! He was just nice enough to offer.” She rolled her eyes, huffing off to a different aisle. Bradley followed after her, smelling blood in the water. She stood tall, taking very long strides for such a small woman. She plucked things off shelves and tossed them in the cart for a minute or so before sighing, a resigned slump easing through her body. “Alright, he’s sweet,” she finally admitted.“‘Sweet’,” Bradley parrotted, grinning.“Divorced, with a daughter a little younger than you.” She pursed her lips and twisted them to the side. “He’s sweet.”“Mom,” Bradley gasped, affronted and scandalized. “What would the neighbor’s say?”She batted his arm, cussing at him. “Stop it. It’s nothin’ like that.”“Be careful, I’ll tell Mav. He’ll want to see this firsthand.” Bradley turned just in time to see Carole’s cheeks coloring, caught red-handed. Bradley’s eyebrows shot up, the tease dying in his throat. “So you’ve already told him, huh?” He elbowed her, knocking her a half-pace out of line.“Honey, Pete Mitchell can smell a juicy story 50 miles away in pouring rain. He clocked me saying good morning a little too cheery across the fence while we were on the phone and hasn’t left me alone since.” She rolled her eyes. “That man is a gossip if ever I’ve known one.”Bradley stared at her. “You were just trying to wrangle my dating gossip out of me.”Carole snorted. “He had to learn it somewhere. Just like how you had to learn how to dodge all these questions.” The phrase my father’s son, pinged in between his ears for a good few seconds, and she took his flat stare for something akin to annoyance. “I’m not saying you have to tell me anything, I just…” Her fingers fussed with the gloves in the cart. She took them up, resting the material against the back of her hand as if to check the color against her complexion.He’d just barely opened his mouth, caught somewhere between snapping about honesty, and another urge to confess anything she wanted to know just to keep her from getting upset.This was the most confusing part of how Bradley viewed his mother. Every minute he was looking for an escape, itching for a fight, and in the next, he hung on her every word. He craved her advice and her stories and her warmth. He had never been good at navigating the two, much less striking a balance.His mother sighed, reaching out to hold his arm. Bradley met her eyes head on, never wavering as she swished words around in her mouth, trying to figure out which ones to say. “When you’re ready, I’m here. You know you can tell me anything, sweetheart.”Anything was a broad scope.Bradley found that he didn’t have anything she’d want to hear. - “I almost ran over your spare,” Jake announced, matter-of-fact as Bradley slugged his way through the garage door. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the knob rattle, stopping him in his tracks. He leaned against the railing, watching his husband navigate the kitchen.Bradley didn’t even turn around as he set the paper bags on the table. “We should get your eyes checked. A tire on the ground is a pretty big obstacle, Seresin, just imagine trying to fly like that.”“Maybe the lesson is putting your shit away,” Jake shot back.Bradley shot him a bland glare between grabbing things off the table and stocking the fridge. Jake rolled his eyes and went to help.“You didn’t leave your momma in the parking lot or something, right?”“She’s outside, Mav called her as we were pulling up. How was everyone at breakfast?”Jake pointed a finger at him, jabbing it in the air between them. “Never let anybody take me home again, Bobby’s got blackmail on me, now.”Bradley laughed, “What’s the damage?”“I ain’t tellin’ you that.”“Alright, well what’s the ransom?”Videos of Jake’s drunken backseat karaoke leading into disgustingly sweet and equally incoherent moments of Jake professing his love for his husband. On the record and probably seared into Javy and Bob’s minds enough to leave marks.Jake thought that maybe it was forgivable. It hadn’t even been a week since Bradley stared death in the eye and spat in its face, Jake was allowed to drink his weight to avoid thinking too deeply about that.Javy, good man that he was, was willing to let it lie. It was nothing he hadn’t seen or heard before, probably in worse states of pathetic desperation, but Bob?Bob had an agenda.One word about Hangman finding Bob half-naked and asleep in Javy’s bed that morning, and the videos were leaking into the group chat. Jake didn’t know he had it in him, but he kind of respected the evil look behind those silly glasses.Their Baby on Board was growing up, it was enough to bring a tear to Jake’s eye.“Mutually assured destruction,” was what he finally told Bradley, loving the amused spark in his husband’s face. “What happened with the green thumb effort?”Bradley groaned, slapping a bag of black eyed peas into the pantry. “We're gonna have to actually use the shed in the backyard, now. I had to literally wrangle her away from a weedwacker in between her telling me that she thinks I’m gonna die alone.”Jake stood back to watch Bradley’s single-minded focus on making sure everything he was unpacking found its place. “The talk didn’t go so well, then.” It wasn’t a question, but it was also more than a statement. A prod for details that Rooster would never own up to on his own.“It’s not like I could tell her with fucking hardware store lightfixtures staring at me.” He gripped the lip of the table, shoulders bunching up around his ears. “At this point, I’d rather just propose again and tell her that way.”Jake leaned up against the table with his arms crossed over his shoulders. “Yeah, ‘cause fuck five years of marriage, right?”Bradley’s head hung, the fight leaving him in a huff. “That isn’t what I meant.”“She also thinks I’ve already got someone,” he reminded him, waving the fingers of his left hand. Bradley cursed, long and low as he pressed his temple to Jake’s shoulder. “I don’t think she’s gonna take very kindly to me making her son a homewrecker.”Bradley peeked up at him. “Your husband just isn't enough for you?” he teased.“I think maybe your momma can empathize with a hot-blooded flyboy falling into her lap. If anything, I’m doing her a service making sure your dumbass doesn’t grow old and lonely.”Jake leaned back a little as strong arms caged him in against the table, Bradley’s hands flat on either side of him. “That’s a lot of commitment, Seresin.”“Already signed the papers.”Jake had half a mind to pull him in and show him just how committed he was, but the rattle of the garage door took the urge and destroyed it with the urgency of a woodchipper.Bradley jumped back, red-faced, like he was a teenager caught breaking a door open three inches policy. Very subtle, bravo, Rooster. Jake cleared his throat as Carole stepped into the room with her cell phone still in her hands.“Hi, Mrs. Bradshaw,” Jake greeted, putting on an easy smile.“Hi, Jake, back already?”He nodded. Bradley was back to putting the final groceries away, looking about ready to waterboard himself under the kitchen faucet. “I made up the guest bedroom,” Jake started, tone light.“Did you boys convert the office?” she asked, a frown pinched between her eyebrows.The house was small. There was great storage, but only two bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. The office in question was a room upstairs Jake thought was barely enough room to turn a circle with your arms spread, let alone make another bedroom.It was a perfect starter home, just enough for the two of them.Not quite enough, say, for three grown adults who would have no occasion to share a bed with each other. The couch in the living room was a pull-out, but the mattress was a piece of shit that came stock with lumps and back pain.“It’s still up there. We mostly use it for storage,” Bradley answered for him. He took an apple out of the fridge and crunched through it, talking through juice. “Holiday stuff, files, nice dishes, shit like that.” Funny how he’d talk through a mouthful, yet hold the apple up and away to avoid getting anything on his old Hawiian shirt. Jake hated how endearing he found it.“Then where are you going to sleep?” I can’t kick you out of your bed.”“He can take mine,” Bradley offered, “the couch is comfortable enough.” He only looked at his mother, completely ignoring the look Jake sent him to call his bluff.“Very kind of you, Bradshaw” he cut in, “but I’m not a guest in this house, I can sacrifice a week or two of sleeping on the couch. And you are technically still on med leave. You’re sleeping in bed.”“I was given an all-clear,” he protested.“And orders to rest, darlin’, you know you won’t get any in the living room,” Jake snapped. “I ain’t fucking budging, you can take it up with your mother. Excuse my language.”Carole waved the curse off like an afterthought. Bradley rolled his eyes something fierce and bit off more apple than he could probably chew. - Bradley threw the quilt on the couch before tossing himself down on it.Carole went to bed a half-hour ago, leaving him and Jake to sit in the living room, sipping on beers as they both thought about how unwilling they were to have Jake sleeping downstairs.“You’re gonna pull your stitches,” Jake fussed, “I ain’t taking you on base this close to midnight if you pop ‘em.”Bradley shifted more carefully on his side, watching Jake stuff a pillow into a new case. “They come out soon anyway.” Most of his bruises had cleared out, the most painful thing about them was how they looked. There was still the matter of a gash he’d gotten from the rough descent, caught on a tree branch he didn’t even remember hitting.The whole mission had him pumping from adrenaline, moving from moment to the next while never really having time to process much of anything. He knew what happened, could line it out perfectly, but there were holes in his memory where the details should have gone. There were blank spaces and the drone of voices where there should have been words, but Bradley couldn’t pick any of them out.Shining moments stuck out, you got this kid, deciding to go back for Mav, and the man shoving him into the ground, and the pull of his arms as Mav screamed at him to eject. The relief and utter disbelief when he heard Jake through the radio. Those were the ones that played like a feedback loop in his head. Sometimes his hand still smarted from smacking against the trigger for the flares he’d long since ran out of.Jake squatted next to the couch, tapping the cushion by Bradley’s nose. Bradley blinked up at him, feeling more lost in his living room than he did a minute ago, with phantom air whipping around him as he gripped the strings to a parachute.“You alright?”“Yeah, I just.” Bradley pressed his knuckles into his eye sockets until he saw light. He took in a measured breath and let it out slow. He blinked out the spots in his vision and dropped his hands, rubbing the material of Jake’s shift between slow fingers. “Don’t sleep down here tonight.”“You want her to see me sneaking out of our bedroom in the morning?”“Set an alarm. Sneak out the window, I don’t care.”“You’re so romantic tonight,” Jake crooned, a sarcastic lilt at the end.Bradley slipped a hand under his shirt. “Look. Either you come up to bed, or mom’s gonna come downstairs to me spooning you on this couch, Hangman, your choice.”Jake laughed, leaning in to steal a kiss. “I already gave a speech about your medical reports, are you trying to get me killed?” He pulled away and rocked up to his feet. “Come on, darlin’. Take me to bed.”A memory flashed behind Bradley’s eyes, of sitting on top of a piano with his family around him. Of feeling so loved and secure that nothing bad could ever happen.He let Jake pull him up, mindful of the stitches in his side and careful of the scars in his heart, and take him to bed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Pete Mitchell, Jake assumed, was Maverick’s biggest fan. He had to be, when he had CO’s knocking at his door and the threat of permanent grounding looming over his head around every corner his whole damn career. A man like Maverick had to believe in himself like nothing else to be able to pull off a fraction of the stunts he was able to on the daily. Jake witnessed the man steal a multi-million dollar aircraft for chrissakes, and instead of any veritable punishment, he was appointed team leader.Which admittedly resulted in him getting shot out of the air, so maybe that was the punishment in and of itself. Jake’s whole body sparked to life in phantom sympathy pains when Bradley privately told him what happened after the comms went out, he couldn’t imagine the weight of Bradley’s aches, or pains in Maverick’s aging bones.The man predictably shook off all their concerns. He said something about a bag of frozen peas and an ice bath as soon as he was released from medical. All the details he’d heard from Bradley, and the ones Jake had collected himself made it seem like ol’ Pops was just fine. Like he fell off someone’s porch and bruised his shoulder. Thirty years in the Navy and the most Pops had to show for it was the rank of Captain and the ability to shove that shit down and walk it off.Jake respected it.He had been the first to say that Pops needed an ego check, but Jake respected that ego in a man who had the skills to back up the talk that came with such an inflated head. He’d known a lot of big talkers in his career, had certainly done his own fair share of peacocking, but he hadn’t known many men or women who could go toe to toe with him, much less put him in tone-lock. Jake made damn sure Maverick worked for it, but it was still Jake’s nose rubbed in the dirt.Maverick had quite the reputation. Professionally speaking, there weren’t very many people who hadn’t heard his name, and even less who hadn’t heard the tall tales that became more extravagant with each and every iteration. Jake had a lot of assumptions about a whose face he didn’t even know until a few short months ago. He had even more expectations.In his time of personally knowing the old man, Jake never had many ill feelings towards Maverick.He had an addictive air about him. Every move he made was a grand occasion, one you couldn’t help but watch and try to anticipate the next batshit crazy turn. Every story was more ridiculous and more unbelievable than the last, the kind that had you keeping an ear out for them and asking for more details.Jake heard all kinds of things about Maverick before they’d officially met. Most were professional, but a select few were personal. Personal experiences as told by a benevolent CO, from someone in a bar close to base who’d had the opportunity to share a drink and grab some advice, from snippets and snide remarks coming from a man with an unmistakable chip on his shoulder.It was a long time before he got Bradley’s side of the story. And while Jake was apprehensive about Maverick on Bradley’s behalf, he was still a grown man capable of forming his own opinions about people.The issue was that Rooster wasn’t one to outright hate lightly. Jake still wasn’t sure if hate was the correct descriptor for what Bradley felt for Pops — most times it depended on the day and what sort of mood he was in. Jake would indulge Bradley in half-stories that never fully ended before another began, and Bradley would change the subject when Jake fielded deeper questions.Until two weeks ago, Bradley’s entire being shifted when Maverick was mentioned, god forbid he walked into a room.There had been many times that Jake witnessed Bradley roll his eyes at an incoming call or text and simply throw his phone out of reach, as if afraid of his own reply he’d inevitably send given enough time and opportunity.This morning, between slow kisses in the soft light of the early morning and reverent wandering hands, Bradley was groaning, pulling away from Jake to search for the phone vibrating on the nightstand.“Fuck’s sake,” Jake huffed, hooking his fingers in the collar of Bradley’s shirt in an attempt to drag him back down. Bradley fumbled with the charger, but eventually pulled up the phone. He dropped onto his back, Jake following close behind until he was sprawled on top of him.“If this is the only time you’re getting with me today, you think hard about picking up that phone, sweetheart,” Jake murmured, mouthing up his neck.Bradley winced, gesturing with the buzzing phone. “It’s Mav.”“It is o-six-hundred.”“I’m sorry,” Bradley apologized, giving him a quick peck before rolling away and accepting the call.A month ago, Jake would be half-way to getting some. Neither hell, nor ol’ Pops Maverick could stand in his way.Now, Jake tipped on his front, shoved his face into Bradley’s pillow and debated on whether or not he could risk sleeping in.Jake listened idly to Bradley’s side of the conversation while he made his decision, reasoning that if Bradley really didn’t want him snooping he’d soldier on downstairs and take his call elsewhere.Bradley’s voice was the perfect white noise. Low and sleep-rough, trailing and picking up in all the right places, it was the perfect guided meditation. Jake took in deep, measured breaths and let the sound wash over him.Something about the weather, something about his injuries and yeah, I’ve been keeping away from stress. Yes, I’m sleeping well, something resigned about how Bradley knew Maverick was gonna spill the beans to his Carole eventually and just wished he knew beforehand, something about Jake, something Bradley was getting defensive over.Cracking an eye open, he saw Bradley flat on his back with one leg bent, his foot flat on the mattress. The grip he had on his phone blocked most of his face from Jake’s view, but he could spot that scowl anywhere.“I don’t know what you’re implying, Mav,” he said, conversational and flippant. “It’s not like you’ve ever kept anything from me before, I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”“Petty,” Jake butt in with a smirk.Bradley glanced at him, murmuring your specialty, before turning his attention back to the ceiling as Mav kept on. “I’m not hiding, I’m waiting for the perfect moment to tell her.”Jake rolled out of bed, taking the time to stretch before heading to the bathroom down the hall. When he came back he made quick work of gathering his things for a run. He grabbed his watch from the bedside table, letting Bradley catch him by the wrist and pull him down.“I’ll be back,” he murmured against Bradley’s lips, vaguely hearing Mav’s voice from the phone still pressed to his husband’s ear.“Come back safe,” he told him. “Let’s see if we can go out today, since I’m sacrificing the only time I get with you right now.”“What about your momma?”“Mom’s a grown woman and she can fend for herself for a few hours.” There was a vague agreement Jake could hear from the other end of the line, and he raised an eyebrow.“Didn’t think she was gonna let you out of her sight.”Bradley rolled his eyes. “Mav’s coming in to see her anyway. And I’ll still be alive if she goes a few hours without seeing me.”“You get to tell her that.” He straightened up and fixed on his watch. “Text if you need anything.”Jake gathered his keys and his headphones before slipping out the door, barely sparing a thought to wondering whether either of them set up the bubbling coffeemaker the night before.
-
Bradley greeted his mother with his phone still sandwiched between his cheek and shoulder.Like many old men, Mav talked extensively. He was on his way up from his hanger and said Bradley was his entertainment for the drive. Calling to catch up as an excuse for a phone call could only work so many times a week, Bradley thought, and Mav had tagged his limit three days ago. He talked through Bradley brushing his teeth, through getting dressed, and still on through a cup of coffee Jake was kind enough to start before heading out on his run.“Tell Pete I say hello,” Carole told him as she came down the stairs, tone soft to benefit the early morning.“Mav, Mom says good morning,” he announced dutifully, and in turn: “Mom, Mav says to take your meds.”“I don’t take them ‘till seven,” she said, popping out of the fridge with a carton of cream.“’s that account for the time change?”He watched her mouth twist off to the side. She put the carton down on the counter next to the coffeemaker and sighed. “I better go take ‘em, then. Can’t let you boys give me any higher blood pressure.”Bradley dropped his head back, watching as she passed behind him. “We try our best,” he said, that winning smile in place.“And succeed too much,” she told him, matter-of-fact, ruffling his hair before she left.He put himself upright, slumping into his chair as far as he was comfortable. Dining chairs were never for reclining, let alone with bruised up one side of your body, stitches up the next.As if reading his thoughts, Mav cleared his throat. “When’s your next check up?” “Day after tomorrow,” he answered. “Jake wants to remove the stitches.” He wasn’t surprised when Jake floated the idea. He would’ve been all for it, had Jake not followed it up with the insistence that Bradley still go and get his all-clear. If he was already going to the doctor, might as well leave the removal to them.The doctors, at least, wouldn't have some crazy compulsion to stick the wasted thread in a jar with a plan to parade it in front of their future grandchildren, talking about the day Granddad saved Grandpa in possibly the most romantic day of all time.Bradley suspected the details would have morphed so dramatically by that time, that Jake shot down no less than a dozen enemy planes, somehow with no guns or missiles as a direct feat against both men and God.
“Just to have it done, or sentimentality?”
Bradley snorted. “Definitely sentimentality.” Mom walked past him, tipping a palm-full of pills into her mouth. She drained a glass of water and went in for a second to wash it down. “I think your squad member is trying to get all sweet on me, Mav.”Mav huffed. There was the click of a turn signal in the background. “That’s between you and him,” Mav grunted. “And the U.S. Navy, probably.” “Can’t have anything fun in the Navy.”“Oh, I’ve had plenty of fun,” Mav mused.“I know you have, Mav. You’ve been thrill-chasing since before I’ve been alive. Penny told me you once stole a plane for her.”“It isn’t as if I gifted it to her,” his protest was cut off by a click of his tongue. “We were on a date.” Jesus Christ, the audacity of this man. “At least if I stole a plane with Jake, he’s another serviceman. Penny’s a civilian.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly thinking at the time.”
The coffee pot didn’t slam back into the stand, but it was damn close. Bradley jumped at the sudden noise, twisting to look at her. “Mav I’m gonna let you go, we’ll see you later,” he butt into Mav’s train of thought, keeping a sharp eye on his mother’s shoulders bunching up around her ears. She was still, like she wasn’t even aware of her own rough handling.Bradley heard Mav’s voice through water slogging between his ears. The call dropped with a tone, and Bradley dropped his phone to rest face-down on the table. “Mom? he asked.“I’m sorry, I–I’m sorry.” She shook out her hands once she finally released the lip of the sink. “I think I just need to sit down.”Bradley jumped into action, springing up from his seat so he could guide her down with a gentle hand on her elbow. “It’s fine Mom, come here.” He hovered over her, hands twitching for some kind of task or explanation. “Is it your meds? Did you take them on an empty stomach?”“It’s not that honey, I’m okay.” She waved him off, her face tight and tense. She grimaced and her mouth pulled into a tight line. “I need to talk to you about something.”It was such a small turn of phrase that was able to pitch the peace of the kitchen into a freefall of everything that could mean. Bradley was stuck to the side of a canister as it spun on an axis, his stomach twisting itself in painful little knots.He thought of the summer when he was fourteen. Impressing Maisie Roberts in baseball cleats and a pair of his dad’s aviators hooked into the collar of his shirt, feeling like nothing bad could ever touch him, only to come home to his parents sitting him down on the back patio, breaking the news on Mom’s diagnosis between gripping his hands and telling him everything was gonna be okay.It had been a long road to get back to okay again.He dropped down to his haunches, one steadying hand gripping the leg of her chair. “It’s not back, is it?” The question barely made it out into the air between them. Bradley was too terrified to know the answer.Somewhere in his chest, he was fourteen and shaking in terror, just knowing his worst nightmares were back for a rematch.“No Bradley, it’s nothing like that,” Mom assured him, cupping his cheek in a chilled hand. “Any screening I’ve had recently came back clear, you don’t have to worry about me.”“Ah, fuck.” He sighed, hanging his head between his shoulders. “What the hell, maybe lead with that.”“I didn’t think you’d jump straight to that,” she admitted.“Where else would it go?” he demanded. “If you’re gonna ask me for details on the mission, I can’t give them to you. They’re confidential.”“No, that isn’t it,” she shook her head and took a second to gather her nerves. All sorts of scenarios ran through Bradley’s mind, from house foreclosure to bad investments, to some older brother somewhere out in the world.“Honey, I need you to know I’ll always love you no matter what. I’ll never judge you for your choices, but I am your mom, baby, I’m allowed to worry.”Bradley leaned back, that guard pulling back up on reflex. “Where’s this going, Mom?”She cleared her throat. “Bradley. I know you boys get real close to your deployments,” she began before stopping short, eyes flickering to the light fixture overhead, searching for the words among the darkened bulbs. “But there’s got to be a line.”“Is this about Jake?”She ground her teeth, trying to string words together like beads with too-small holes. “I’m not a fool, and I sure as hell didn’t raise one either. You–God, you talked so highly of his husband. He seems like a nice man, but–”“Mom, Jake saved my life.” Bradley pushed up to his feet, slowly, more mindful of his body than he’d ever been before.“A man can make you feel like that."“No,” he cut her off, stepping back until his hip met the counter, "I mean that literally, I'd be dead if not for him."Carole looked at the ceiling, fighting against something Bradley would rather not know about. “You can’t let a man take advantage of you because you think you’re indebted to him.”“Don’t make assumptions based on something you don’t know anything about,” he snapped. “He has his moments, but he’d never do something like you’re thinking.”“Then explain it to me,” she demanded. Her fingers twisted into the bracelet wrapped around the opposite wrist. It was a gift from Dad. Bradley’s chest twisted, remembering every time he’d ever heard Mav murmur prayers to his best friend, talk to me, Goose. Bradley wondered what Dad would think of them now. He wondered, had Dad still been alive, if they would be in this mess at all.“Explain to me how you dance around each other like you do, and how you can’t keep your hands off each other. Explain how he’s living in my house, and how you know just as well as I do that that guest room hasn’t been lived in. I understand why you were being so guarded about it yesterday, but I just want you to be honest with me.” She took in a breath, her jaw setting tight, mouth thinning in a hard line.He knew he was cornered. After all, Carole Bradshaw did not raise a fool, and she certainly wouldn’t let him pretend that she was one, either. It didn’t stop the sharp inhale, or the anger that was quick to flood his veins. It was the quiet sort of anger, the kind that layered and built over years and years. The kind that you didn’t know how thick it was until you began to peel it back. He’d started at the seam, picking at the edges, only for it to peel back like old wallpaper, his exposed nerves put full on display.“This isn’t your house, Mom. And I’m not a kid, you can’t tell me what I can and cannot do in my own home.”“Bradley–”“No, Mom. Even if what’s between me and Jake is anything like you’re thinking, it’s between me and him. Just because you’re here doesn’t mean you can come at me like this.” He paused, sighing tight. “Look. I know you’re concerned. I know you’re thinking that it looks bad, but Mom—Jake is—If he’d been just one second slower, both me and Mav would have been fished out of the ocean in pieces. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you talk about him like this.”“I will never be able to repay him for what he’s done, or what that means to me." Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, but sharp all the same. Bradley crossed his arms over his chest, letting her come to the conclusions in her own time.It was never a question as to which side of the family Bradley had inherited his stubbornness from. Carole had always been just as bull-headed as Maverick. Both of them coming together to raise Bradley was only going to have one outcome."I’m not denying he’s a good man. But I can’t let you both destroy the life of another person. You can’t get in between someone’s marriage, Bradley, no matter what you went through together.”If Carole was going to push, Bradley would push back. It was the only way he'd ever known.“You don’t have to worry about that. That should be at the very bottom of your list of things to worry about.”There was never going to be a perfect moment to break the news.Things were never going to line up all pretty, presented in a perfect package with the ribbon of opportunity tied in a bow on top. There was no way to hide that Bradley had hidden this from her, and for so long. Bradley took the parts of his problem and examined the sum of them with a dreadful resignation.Don’t think, just do, was a whole lot easier to get on board with when you’re practically mainlining adrenaline and skirting death by the skin of your teeth“Mom, Jake isn’t cheating on his husband,” he told her, putting every ounce of surety into his voice that he could. He cleared his throat, trying not to shrink under her stare, swallowing so hard he felt his throat click. “At least he better not be, ‘cause he’s got Natasha and Javy to answer to if he is.” The joke came on a nervous laugh. His mother wasn’t laughing. “Jake’s husband. You’re lookin’ at him. We’re married, Mom.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Alright look, wait, hold on.In Pete’s defense, the door was unlocked. Practically open. He didn’t even have to use his key that, depending on whether or not Bradley ever got around to changing the locks, may or may not even work.He was also carrying breakfast. He had a beautiful selection perfectly curated for Carole and Bradley’s tastes, with whatever else he chose on the offhand for Jake, carefully packed and pretty. It was difficult enough to wrangle the door open on his own, but Pete held something called determined audacity and got through the door with all items, including his dignity, intact.And then he heard Carole call his name, asking if he was there. It wasn’t a happy sort of call, no sir.Mav always knew when he was in trouble.He gulped softly, wondering if he could slip out the door again and leave breakfast on the stoop—something of a peace offering to make her forget whatever he may or may not (but probably) have done.It would never work. Carole’s memory was just as long as her son’s, and the Bradshaws loved to keep the score.He braved the kitchen, finding Bradley and Carole standing opposite each other. Bradley was up against the sink, hands curled around the counter behind him, grounding him to the formica like glue. Carole was in the middle of the room, facing Mav, looking like she needed to be holding onto the counter — whether it was to keep her standing or to keep her from wringing Mav's neck, he didn't quite now yet.Mav looked between the both of them, and then to the bag from the bakery dangling daintily from his wrist. He shook it towards them like a sinner offering penance for his crime.“Good morning! …What are we talking about?” he asked, just casual enough. Probably. - Bradley had seen his mother give Pete many looks throughout his life. He’d seen her shoot him the stink eye, he’d seen her absolutely melting with love for him. He’d seen her angry with him, her face as cherry-red as her temper.To this day, Bradley doesn’t remember ever seeing Carole disappointed in Pete.It rocked him almost as much as when she turned that look on him next. - “Alright Javier, spill. When did you get goin’ with Bobby?” Jake demanded, placing his phone face-down on the table as Javy slid into the booth across from him. Javy, bless his heart, was still in his sweats, hood pulled over his head as he continued to rub sleep out of his eyes. In any other instance, Jake would have been worried about his driving, but Jake watched with his own two eyes as Javy climbed out of Bob’s Honda Accord before wandering inside the breakfast diner.Javy squinted at him past his knuckle, looking like he’d been sucking on lemons in his spare time. “Just ‘cause I’m not awake right now doesn’t mean I’m up for being vulnerable and soft about my love life.”Jake grinned one of those award-winning smiles, the kind his mama would pinch his cheek and give him compliments for. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try. C’mon now, I’m your best friend, who would I be if I didn’t pry for every detail that I can spread to my mother later?”“I don’t know why I put up with you.”“Labor of love.”Javy grunted. “If you don’t get me a cup of coffee in the next five, I’m ordering an Uber.”“Duly noted,” Jake nodded, catching the eyes of a waitress just coming out of the back. She came and went quickly, sleepy but chipper for the early morning. A few minutes later, Javy had that cup of coffee he was itching for.After a long sip and a happy sigh, Javy slumped down the booth, his feet knocking with Jake’s under the table. “We spent time in medical when we were training,” he began with a shrug. “After I stalled out and he and Natasha ejected. We just got talking… got breakfast, and then it developed from there. Don’t give me that look, I was gonna tell you. Just not until things calmed down again and we got a little more comfortable.”Jake lifted an eyebrow, taking his time adding a cream into his coffee. “The two of you seemed awful comfortable the other night.”Javy sucked at his teeth before a smile broke out over his face. “We were. Though, the hangover the next morning was particularly terrible.”Scoffing, Jake held his mug out so Javy could tap his own against the rim. “I’ll say.”“How’s the situation with Momma Bird?”Jake sighed, long and hard, before shaking his head. “Didn’t call you out here for that, Javy, I’m not shuffle-ball-changing to talk about my marital issues. Come on, tell me about Bob. Does he treat you nice? I’m gonna have Phoenix on my ass if I have to bury him, and might be facing divorce if I do, so he better be a damn gentleman.”“He is a gentleman, and it’s too early for him to have done anything,” Javy stressed. “He’s great, really. We haven’t really talked about anything yet. We’re just... seeing how it goes.”“But it’s going well?”Javy grinned. “It is going well.”Jake reached across the table for Javy to bump their knuckles together. “Happy for you, Javier. But we still get you for Thanksgiving, remember that.”“Oh, but you don’t want us for Christmas," he teased.Jake withered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You kidding? It’s gonna be enough of a shit show without adding any risk factors. I swear to God, Javy, if Mrs. Bradshaw goes until Christmas not knowing I’m married to her son, I’m gonna become a widower.”“And how’s my little white boy a risk factor? He’s the kind of guy you take home and know he’s gonna be an instant hit.”He paused and tried to think of Bob showing up in an uglier-than-life Christmas sweater that was somehow half olive green and half mauve, looking all disarming with potluck contributions in his hands and a nervous smile on his face. Bob’s the kind to get dragged into playing with the nieces and nephews, somehow be a hit with the uncles and then butter mom up because he helped clean everything up afterwards. “No, you know what? He’s the diversion. Don’t show up to Christmas unless you’ve got Bobby with you.”Javy grinned. He finally dragged himself up, sitting straight and pushing his hood off his head. “Glad I didn’t have to talk you into it.” - In Jake’s defense, now, nobody told him anything.There was an old Jeep in the driveway, and Pops, heeled-in, in perfect lock-step with Carole as they made their way out of the house. Seriously, Pops looked like he was gonna be sick. Jake almost broke into a run to direct him into the grass instead of the driveway.Jake broke into a light jog as soon as they saw him, waving and grinning sunnily. “Good morning Pops. Ma'am. Where are you kids headed off to?”Mav stopped, propping his hands up on his hips. “We’re headed to go see Penny for breakfast,” he explained, head bobbing like he’s trying to convince himself of the very fact. Aw shit, looked like Pops was in trouble. For what, god only knew. Jake might as well get the details from Bradley when he got inside.Jake nodded vaguely, turning to look at the Jeep. “Didn’t know you owned anything with more than two wheels, Pops. Thought it would’ve been too much stability for your taste.”Pops laughed. “Carole won’t get on a Kawasaki anymore, we had to compromise,” he explained, nudging Carole's arm with a smile.“It doesn’t matter what you drive, Pete, it always feels like we’re in a death trap,” she dutifully told him, tone clipped but sure. “Excuse us, Jake.” She nodded jerkily, never quite meeting his eye. She didn’t wait for Pete to catch up before climbing into the passenger side.Jake watched her go, blinking slowly. Well shit. ”Something happen?”Pops clapped him on the shoulder, his mouth set in a grim line. “I’m gonna bring her around, don’t worry.” He nodded once, still in denial as he followed after Carole.It took some time for Pops to turn the engine over, but even then they didn’t peel out of the driveway. He turned up the sidewalk to give them their privacy, not wanting to rock the boat any more than it had been.He found his husband tipped over the couch, legs crooked over the back and his head hanging off the edge, looking like a scorned teenager. “Darlin’,” he started, pausing just long enough for Bradley to remove his hands from his face and peek up at him.“Jacob.”Jake’s nose scrunched up. Oh god. “Why did Pops look like he was getting sent to death row?”All he got was a longstanding groan, and Bradley went back to scrubbing his eye sockets out. “They still in the driveway?” he asked. “Takin’ off now,” Jake informed him. Bradley nodded, looking up when Jake patted his calf. “I’m gonna shower. Get dressed and ready for the longest drive of your life.”Bradley squinted at him. “Any reason why it sounds like you’ve decided to skip the country?”“Let’s get some air. Get dressed, I’ll be down in seven.” - There was a plan.Jake had acquired a lot of trivia knowledge about Bradley over the years. Even before, when they were at each other's throats with no rhyme and very little reason, there were always new things to pick up about Rooster. He liked his coffee black and lukewarm, he slept with his socks on, his nose twitched when he had something stupid to say in an inappropriate setting.He hated cold tomatoes and only wore rings on his right hand. And of course, the kicker: the man took to car rides like a brand new baby. They’d shown up to a few too many events with Bradley just cracking his eyes open, sleep lines pressed into his face. It took him all of six minutes to get comfortable before he was slumped against his seat-belt and out like a light.Being behind the wheel was also a certain way to drain away all of that infamous Bradshaw tension. It was that control factor, Jake figured, the freedom in his hands and the wind in his hair, because he refused to drive without the windows down. Here, Bradley was unguarded, seeming younger than Jake had ever known him.They had some of their most essential talks in this Bronco. This was where Bradley told Jake that he loved him for the first time, where Jake pulled the plug and strung his apartment key onto Bradley’s ring.It was a great plan. Give Bradley something to do, something to distract himself with, and he’d talk about what was bothering him. It was better than other methods they'd employed throughout the years — in the past, they slammed a lit on their issues and let them simmer. It would turn into a cold war that, usually, led to a round of sex anywhere but their bedroom, and a talk about the problem after the fact.Jake was pretty sure they didn't have the time for a cold war, and with the threat of a populated house and the possibility of getting walked in on by Bradley's mother or god forbid Maverick, they were going to figure it out.It was a surefire plan. Bradley drove, Jake would let him stew for a few minutes, and then Bradley would offer the information. It had never failed before, it would not fail now.Hopefully.It'd been twenty minutes and Bradley was white knuckling the steering wheel. Jake would be impressed that he was keeping the exact speed limit for once, had he not been more concerned about his husband’s thousand mile stare on the horizon. When some yayhoo with a full bed of junkyard scraps and half-done DIY projects zipped past him going fifteen over, the usual wow, buddy’s got somewhere to be, was nonexistent. Bradley didn’t even blink, just headed out of town, stuck in his own world.Jake was getting concerned.He checked his phone, slapping it on his thigh before clicking on the radio. He should have had Bradley stop and get a drink or something before leaving. Now he was empty handed, not quite twitchy but getting there, on the road to nowhere, just like he’d wanted.He cleared his throat. Bradley turned his face a degree towards him, not taking his eyes away from their designated spot on the horizon. “Found Bob in Javy’s bed the other day,” Jake started, breaking oaths and risking the blackmail. Javy knew it was gonna happen eventually. What Jake knew was going to trickle down to Bradley eventually. The perks of being married: a built-in gossip partner. “They’ve been involved for weeks.” “Oh, yeah?” He wasn’t listening. That was the kind of gossip that Bradley would jump on like a stray to scraps.“Javy’s gone on him, darlin’. We’re planning on taking them to Christmas.”Bradley’s hand curled around the gear shift. What he planned to do with it, going the limit down the highway with no obstacle in sight, Jake didn’t know. “That’s nice,” Bradley dismissed, his mouth going right back to that pursed frown. The tendon in his cheek flared as he worked his jaw and ground his teeth together.“You’re not listening to a single thing I say, huh?” Jake drawled. He propped his elbow up by the window and leaned his cheek on his hand. “I could tell you I fucked our neighbor up the street, and you wouldn’t even know it. You know, the older one? Gray hair?"Bradley nods along. “Yeah, Jake, that’s great.”Alright, enough. Jake shifted, his phone dropping between the seats. He clicked his tongue, but left it there for a more pressing matter. He snapped his fingers twice near Bradley’s ear. “Bradshaw.”Bradley jumped, his eyelashes fluttering as he came back into his body. “What?”“There he is,” he scoffed. “I thought you left your brain back at the house for a minute. I didn’t realize being pretty gave you the right to run around all stupid.”He watched as Bradley bristled against him, his shoulders curling up defensively around his ears. “Forgive me for having something on my mind, Hangman,” he snapped, finally breaking away from the horizon to glare daggers at Jake.Oh, it was like that, was it? “Didn’t realize you had the mental capacity for things, Bradshaw, in fact, I thought you were limited to one–.”“I don’t need this right now–”“You need to get your act together–,” Jake rolled his eyes, looking ahead just to spot debris in the middle of their lane. “–Shit, baby, watch the road!”Bradley whipped back around, jerking the wheel hard before he had even assessed the damage. They were lucky the road was empty ahead, but not lucky enough to miss the debris entirely. One of the wheels on Jake’s side caught, and Jake damn near hit his head on the ceiling with how the cab jolted with it.Pulling them back into their own lane, Bradley’s knuckles were white on the wheel again, eyes wide and chest heaving. “Are you okay?”“Fine,” Jake croaked. “Pull over.”He pulled off onto the side of the road, not quick enough to ignore the new rattle around them. Bradley was spitting and cussing under his breath, something about alignments, something about new tires, something about how no one knows how to tie a truck bed down anymore. He sounded all of his Pops’ age as he climbed out of the cab, slamming the door shut behind him. Jake watched the wind whip his layered shirt around him through the rear-view mirror.Watched out the side mirror as Bradley looked at the rear passenger tire and then started cussing that out, too.Watched as his husband got a hand in his own hair and yanked for all he was worth.Jake unclipped the tension-locked seatbelt and climbed out of the cab.“Popped?” he asked, squinting against the sun until he could slip his sunglasses on. He reached back into the cab for a second until he came back up with Bradley’s sunglasses. If he focused, he could hear the hiss of the tire underneath Bradley sputtering and groaning like an old oil cell.“Goddammit!” He kicked the actively deflating tire like it would, in fact, inflate it. Jake nearly gasped when it kept deflating. A big ol’ surprise if ever he’d seen one! Bradley was not surprised, nor impressed. He squatted down next to it, pressing his thumb into the gash in the rubber. “Can’t patch that,” he said, barely glancing up to Jake next to him. He hauled himself to his feet and was rooting through the Bronco’s trunk before Jake could get up the gumption to answer Bradley’s next question. “Where’s the spare?”Jake grimaced, dropping sideways into the passenger seat so he could look at Bradley through the cab. “Ran through, sitting in the back of the truck.” He huffed with everything he had. “It’s been on my mind to replace since last month. Bradley, it’s fine. We can call Triple A and be out of here in no time.”Bradley pulled his phone out of his pocket and took one look at the screen and tossed it to the middle seat. “No signal.”“You’re taller, you can climb up and throw your phone in the air, see if it catches something,” he suggested lightly. “It’s either that or flag some bleeding heart down.”“Wow, you are just one bright idea after the next today,” Bradley said, saccharine with a tight smile.The back of the Bronco slammed shut, but Jake followed right after him, circling around the car. “You wanna break down what you meant by that, sweetheart?”Bradley stopped in his tracks, hands on his hips. Jake couldn’t see his eyes, but the rest of his face was all tense and sour. “Well whose idea was it to be out here in the first place? Seems to me like if you hadn’t dragged us out here, honey,” he spat, “we wouldn’t even be here!” “Maybe I’m just trying to help out a guy who’s too chickenshit to talk to his own damn mother,” Jake snapped, crowding Bradley’s space until they were sharing breath.“I don’t want to fucking hear this right now.”Jake fisted Bradley’s shirt, pushing him back until he slammed against the side of the Bronco. “Same ol’ Rooster. Run from your mother, run from Mav, but you can’t run from me. You hear me? We’re supposed to be in this together, jackass, you better start fucking acting like it.”Bradley’s hand gripped Jake’s wrist, breathing hard. His face was flushed, and Jake couldn’t tell if it was from anger or from the heat.Jake held his glare, giving it back with everything in him.With a groan, he dropped his head to Jake’s shoulder. “Since when do you get to lecture me about teamwork?”“When you’re so far up your own ass you’ve got a second head,” Jake answered. He ran his hands through Bradley's hair, scratching idly through his scalp. “I’m not gonna tell you how to tell Momma Bird, but we’ve kept it from her long enough.” A mournful sound came from the back of Bradley’s throat, and Jake paused. “What.”“I told her,” Bradley confessed, voice a filtered murmur as he spoke into Jake’s shoulder. “We were fighting and I just spit it out.”“While you were arguing?”“Yeah.”“You’re brave, baby. I don’t know how you were raised, but if I dropped it on my Mama like that, she would’a have struck me down right then and there.” He shivered, only half dramatically.Bradley snorted. One hand curled around Jake’s hip, the other hung loose, held up by a finger crooked in Jake’s beltloop. “Mav came in before she could.”Jake clicked his tongue. “How many times are you gonna let Pops save your life, huh? He’s out pacing me, and it’s kind of pissing me off.” Whatever Bradley replied with got lost in the fabric of Jake’s t-shirt. Jake shrugged, jostling him up. “What was that?”He pulled his sunglasses off and hooked them into the collar of his wife-pleaser. “I said he’s obligated to, he’s kinda my dad and all.”Scoffing, he stepped back and went back to the passenger seat. “I don’t think that’s obligation, Bradley.” He rooted around for his phone between the seats, aware of Bradley’s presence as he leaned against the Bronco at Jake’s hip. He came up with his phone, and snagged a half-empty carton of cigarettes out of the glove box before stuffing them in his back pocket. He rounded the front of the truck and climbed up on the hood. “I guess I oughta thank you for having the top up for once,” Jake muttered as he climbed up on the roof.“Thought I was gonna get sent up there,” Bradley pointed out, hands on his hips as he squinted up at Jake.Jake pulled a face at him. “No strenuous activity,” he recited. “If I pull you to your doctor appointment all broken again because you fell off a car, who are they gonna blame?” He held his phone up, surveying the emptiness around them. He cursed, “Couldn’t we have blown a tire literally anywhere else? Shit, still no signal.” He tried again, but no texts went through, every call was stopped before the first ring. He slid onto the ground and fixed himself back up. “How long until civilization?”“Thirty miles?” Bradley guessed.Jake nodded, slipping to sit in the shade of the Bronco, pulling the carton of cigarettes out of his back pocket before he hit the ground.“That bad?”Jake stared up at him, a cigarette between his lips, and began to list: “We’ve got a flat in the middle of nowhere with no service, we’re gonna have to either walk thirty or flag some poor idiot down, and you told your momma you got married under her nose and that I lied to her face about it. It is a cigarette kind of day, Bradshaw. Grab my lighter out of the console?”Bradley’s cheeks puffed out before he sighed and did as Jake asked.There were eight cigarettes overall, stale, and a brand Jake didn’t even smoke. But, they were his compromise cigarettes. He’d tried and failed four different times to quit smoking before Bradley came home and put the carton in his hand. This is your last one, alright? is what he said. After the pack was gone, they’d find patches, or gum or something to help him wean off, but that was his last pack.Jake took the challenge for what it was and quit cold turkey after he smoked four.Now, the carton lived in Bradley’s glovebox. Jake saved them for special occasions. The last one he'd had was right before their mission — well, that one was bummed off someone on the carrier, so maybe it didn't even count.Nevertheless, Jake figured that it had been a hell of a week.Sliding into the dirt beside him, Bradley handed Jake the lighter. He waited for Jake to light it up and take a breath of his own before he reached expectantly across the space between them. Jake just stared at him.“This is my emergency smoke, Bradshaw, go find your own.” He took a pointed drag, blowing the smoke between them, lifting an eyebrow.“I bought them,” Bradley pointed out, letting his hand drop. He used it as leverage to lean into Jake’s space, dropping his chin onto Jake’s shoulder.Jake smirked down at him, flicking away the cherry. “As I remember it, they were a gift from my husband. He got them for me when I quit.”“Sounds like a dickhead. Who gets a smoker a fresh pack when they’re trying to quit?”Humming, he took one more inhale before offering it to Bradley. That was his last one. There were seven left, stowed in the carton resting on his thigh until another moment of weakness took over him. “He just knows all the right buttons to press to get what he wants.”The cigarette left his fingers. Jake found that he didn’t care about the loss.“Pops looked like he was about to pass out.”“We owe him dinner.”“Well, you get that backyard lookin’ right, and I’ll throw him a whole damn barbecue,” Jake propositioned, knocking their shoulders together. He drifted down, leaning heavily against Bradley’s shoulder. “We fucked up.”“Tell me,” Bradley sighed. “One thing at a time.” He stood up, pulling Jake up after him. “I’m gonna walk up the road, see if I can grab some signal. The jack and the toolbox is in the back, you work on getting that tire off.”Jake raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “This is unequal labor,” he remarked dryly.“Who forgot the spare?”“Who ran over god only knows what?” He already had the back of the Bronco open and was digging for the toolbox. “Go on,” he huffed, “call for help, pretty boy.”Bradley winked at him, sliding his sunglasses on before he began his light jog down the road.Jake sighed. All in all? That was almost better than he could’ve hoped for. - It took Bradley a handful of minutes to come back, and Jake was most of the way through taking the flat off.“I have never found you more attractive.”Jake looked up at his husband, incredulous. He had a coffee-stained EZ-GO cup of lug nuts next to him, and dust clinging to every crevice of his body because the wind decided to kick up. “So I take it you forgot about the lack of spare?”“You ruined it.”“No, no, go back to telling me how sexy I am,” he encouraged, grinning for all his worth. “Take My Breath Away is about to start playing, I’m soaking this in.”Bradley shoved his thigh with the sole of his shoe and rolled his eyes. “Oh, look, Bob’s on his way, Berlin’s gonna have to wait.”Jake clicked his tongue. “What a fuckin’ cockblock,” he tutted. “He’s on his way?”“Yeah, he’s bringing Javy.”Jake snorted, shaking his head. “How many fighter pilots does it take to change a flat tire?”“Guess we’ll find out,” Bradley hummed before pausing, those gears in his head turning just a little harder than normal. Jake pulled the tire off, and it fell to the dirt with a defeated cloud of dust. “Babe, are… Javy and Bob a thing?”Jake looked at his big, stupid husband. “Wow.”“What?”“I have never been more attracted to you.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Carole pushed, Pete pushed back. That’s how they were as kids. Young and stupid, running around their small town, attached at the hip with elbows crossed.Carole pushed Pete to get his head on right. Pete pushed them to get out of their little corner of the world, to experience life. Pete was no stranger to a push. He damn near lived his life by them, anything to propel him forward, anything to give him that edge. For a long time it was his dad’s legacy. For a long time, it was Carole. And then Goose came along. They flew high and fast, and while Nick was always right behind him, he also had a hand gripped in the back of his collar, keeping him grounded in a way he had forgotten since earning his wings.After Nick, Pete had to push himself.After Nick, Pete no longer had the right to stand his ground when Carole pushed.“What are we talking about?” he asked, sliding his wares onto the table under the careful watch of his best friend and godson.“Mom this doesn’t have anything to do with Pete,” Bradley started. “Let’s bench this until later, it’s not going anywhere—.”“Bradley.” Pete watched Bradley’s mouth snap shut, his teeth grinding. “Does he know, too?”By the look Bradley gave him, Pete didn’t have to guess the topic on conversation. That was, unless something else had been dropped that Pete had no prior knowledge about. Guesses about extending government contracts or gambling addictions, or hell, Bradley planning to move out of the country for good all zipped through his mind.Pete had rarely been a man who prayed, but weighed the pros and cons to get on his knees and beg for an elopement to be the worst of their problems.“He was briefed on all of us, I’m sure it came up.” Vague deflection – Bradley really had learned all of his tricks.“You just—how long? I…” Carole pressed the heel of her palm into her temple, no doubt trying to stave off some kind of stress headache.Pete stepped forward and reached out, intending to lead her to a chair. “Care, let’s take it down for a second—.”“Oh, leave me alone, Pete,” she burst, slapping his hands away. He let his hands drop to his sides, unable to do anything but watch the carnage unfold. Carole whirled on Bradley, her hands fisting into the legs of her pants. “Why? I’ve never even heard about this boy, and suddenly you’ve run off and got married? I—We spoke on the phone a month ago, you didn’t think to even mention you were going to—!?”Bradley laughed, his body screaming hysterics and disbelief in the same movement as his shoulders curled in on himself. “Fuck, Mom. When’s the last time we’ve talked about anything further than hi, how are you? Pete fell out of a plane again. Are you anywhere fun right now? We don’t exactly talk.” “Maybe this is something to have a damn conversation about!”“Yeah?” Bradley took a step forward, a mirror image of that night in the classroom. Mav could see his cheeks redden and that wild fire light in his eyes. “Well maybe we should have also had a conversation before you had Iceman set my career back! But no! You’re the only one allowed to just do shit on your own, fuck what the rest of us think or want!”“That isn’t what this is about! This is about you going off and getting a husband without telling anybody. I looked like such a fool—!” Bradley stared down at her, and everything in Pete told him it was time to go. “Actions have consequences, Mom. I wasn’t hiding my husband from anybody, and everyone who had a right to know, knew.”Carole reeled back like she’d been struck, flinching in and curling her arms round herself.“Bradley,” Pete began. A start with no intention to finish.“I… can’t even look at you right now,” Bradley’s mother said, her tone denoting a brand new stage of grief.She didn’t fight this time when Pete took her by the arm. “Carole, come on. Let’s take a walk. We can come back to this when everyone’s cooled down.” He shot Bradley a heavy look before guiding her back down the hallway. He stopped her by the doorway to let her put her shoes on. “Let me grab my keys,” he told her before rejoining Bradley.Bradley hadn’t moved much beyond putting soiled coffee mugs into the sink. He startled when Pete touched his shoulder, still red-faced and steaming. “Mav, I—.” It seemed he didn’t know where to go beyond that.“I’m gonna talk to her,” he swore, “but then it’s your turn. Everything on the table.”He hadn’t seen a look so close to a pout since Bradley was fifteen. “You better work some of that magic shit, Mav.”Pete gave him a nod. “Eat those pastries for me, would you, they were expensive.” Bradley scoffed a laugh and left him to his own devices.He led Carole out, hand slipping into his pocket for his keys when he caught sight of Jake down the driveway. He heard Carole mutter a curse under her breath, but kept charging right on ahead. Pete wondered if he should start blinking in morse code or something to warn Jake of what lay ahead. He had half the problem in good hands, but who knew how caustic Bradley was gonna get when Jake walked onto the battlefield.Jake called a greeting as he approached, poor kid knowing nothing about how tightly strung the woman between them was. Pete replied in kind, slinging out some excuse to take off and see Penny off the top of his head.He didn’t actually have a plan where they were going. He just knew that he needed to get some serious space between the mother and son before someone said something they were never going to be able to take back.Jake nodded towards Pete’s old Jeep. “Didn’t know you owned anything with more than two wheels, Pops. Thought it would’ve been too much stability for your taste.”Pete laughed agreeably. “Carole won’t get on a Kawasaki anymore, we had to compromise,” he explained, nudging Carole's arm to try and engage her.She rubbed her arm sourly. “It doesn’t matter what you drive, Pete, it always feels like we’re in a death trap.”Pete’s heart stammered in his chest. She was already pulling away, excusing herself as she left him behind before a well-worn apology could fall from his mouth. Phantom pains bloomed in his knees, and he could all but feel Nick’s body in his arms. Weightless in the water, cold under his hands.”Something happen?” Jake guessed. Pete clapped him on the shoulder, not completely sure he wasn’t about to collapse under himself.“I’m gonna bring her around, don’t worry.”He climbed into the driver’s seat and slid the key home with shaking fingers. Carole was turned away from him, holding her arms around herself. “That didn’t go so hot, did it?”“Just drive, Pete,” she murmured.Pete drove.He drove her to the waterfront, tracked sand in the slippers she’d barely slipped into before storming out the door as they wandered down to the water in delicate silence.Pete was two steps ahead of her before she dropped to the sand, stretching her legs out in front of her. She squinted out into the morning light.Whether the quiver in her lip and the scrunch of her nose was from the glare from the water, or unshed tears threatening to fall, he did not know.“He used to say to me,” Carole sniffed, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek. Pete lowered to sit next to her, stretching his legs out until his knees groaned. Carole took her time, and Pete was content to sit until she was ready. He rubbed a hand across her knee, and she took it. Held it tight. “He was so little, with his little blond curls, and… and he’d say to me, Mommy. Do you remember how he’d hold your face in his hands until you’re looking right at him?”She held her hands out in the air, taking the face of a ghost into her hands, asking him to give weight to her words.Pete laughed. It was a wet little thing, nevertheless full of joy from a memory long gone. “I remember. He was so serious.”“Still is,” she said surely. “But he held my face in his hands, patted my cheeks until I wasn’t looking anywhere else,” she flattened her hand, motioning straight ahead, “just him. Mommy. You are my best friend.” Her hand dropped, and Pete was quick to snatch it up. Her chin wobbled, her mouth screwing up before pulling down.“He’s not wrong, Pete,” she whispered, like she was afraid of the breeze picking up her words, tying them up in a pretty ribbon bow before dropping them off at her son’s doorstep. “I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a conversation before I came here. I don’t know how to make it better. How can we talk, when every time I try, he’s yelling—.”“—and you’re yelling.”“—and I’m yelling. We just… we don’t… I don’t know what to do.”Pete shook his head, looking over the water. “They don’t teach this in parenting books.”She laughed, tossing her head back in the absurdity. “Chapter nine: what to do when you screw up your relationship with your son beyond repair.” “I don’t think it’s beyond repair. Don’t give up hope, Care.”“Peter.” She squeezed his hand before letting go to rub her temples. “The kid went and got married.” She made a sound in the back of her throat, sharp with disgust at herself. “I think he even tried to tell, me, and I just… wouldn’t listen. God, Pete."“I know, Care.” They watched a couple of surfers on the horizon dipping and weaving through the waves. There was a young family on a morning walk, the father with the baby wrapped to his chest, the mother holding the hand of a toddler as they kicked at the water edging closer.Carole drew her knee up and wrapped an arm around it.As inappropriate as the moment was, Pete wished he had a camera. She was breathtaking, with the breeze in her hair, the early sunlight kissing her freckled skin. He was sure he had a dozen photos that would look exactly like this one, stuffed away in a photo album he keeps for when he feels especially alone. He could name all of their circumstances by heart.They were precious. Moments from their little family through time.Even if they’d strayed from each other, they would always have a home in Pete’s heart.“Do you think Nick would know what to do?” Carole asked, her stare far off, and no doubt decades behind.“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I think we can figure it out together.”She nodded quickly before tapering off. “I did figure something out though.”“What’s that?”“My butt’s wet.”Pete laughed. “So’s mine.” -
I can’t even look at you right now.
Her words buzzed in Bradley’s ears. A morose tone, stubbornly locked in until he could do nothing but squirm and wait for the impact.Jake’s voice filtered in and out of his awareness, a steady cadence until it dripped with the same cutting tone as his mother’s. A snap next to the shell of his ear, insults thrown, six heartbeats later his head started swimming. All that potential energy finally given a place to flow. Things he didn’t mean. Car doors slammed. The heat against the back of his neck. A kick that left his ankle smarting.
I can’t even look at you right now.
Solid hands slamming him back down to earth and a lifeline given.The knot in his throat loosened. The tension that drained, not because it was finally resolved, but because he didn’t have to shoulder it alone.They were in this together. - Four men piled into Bob’s Toyota Camry was not exactly how Jake expected the day to go. He and Bradley were in the backseat, the tire up on a blanket between them. Bradley had his arm resting on top of it, chin on his forearm as he watched Bobby and Javy in the front seat with shifty eyes and a twitch in his mustache.Jake rolled his eyes and rapped his knuckles against Bradley’s temple. Bradley shot him a glance before tipping his head in the most obvious way possible to the couple up front. At least he was back in his own body. Cognizant, but only focused on Bob and Javy in front of them.“What were you two doing out here?” Bob asked, glancing back in the rear-view.“Geocaching,” Bradley answered, like he’d been thinking up an excuse for the past half-hour between suspiciously gathering intel.Javy twisted around, an eyebrow lifted at Jake, who could do nothing but shrug in meek defense of his brand new love and appreciation for geocaching. “New hobby?”“It’s nice to do things together,” Bradley went on, bringing his own shovel to dig them into a deeper hole.“Find anything?” Bob asked.“Dust,” was the only thing Jake could come up with. Not that it deterred Javy from pressing on with asking Bradley the most inane questions about their newfound couple’s activity. Bradley had either done a few late-night’s worth of reading into it, or was just particularly quick on his feet today, because he answered every question with ease, had a stupid list of trinkets they’d supposedly found, and had invited Javy and Bob out to their next hunt in a manner of fifteen minutes.Jake’s head already hurt in preparation of watching his husband fumble out of this one in the event that solid plans were actually made.Bob’s phone chirped with the directions to the tire shop, and Jake almost sang in relief.One drive, and suddenly their whole day’s eaten up. Despite Bob’s insistence that they didn’t have anything else going on and that they’d be glad to help, Jake insisted that they could deal with the rest.Jake wasn’t chomping at the bit to have a serious discussion in the middle of a garage’s lobby, where every other point was interrupted by the sound of an impact wrench and classic rock filtering in and out of the door.They dropped Bradley, Bob, and the tire off at the repair shop before Javy and Jake continued back home to pick up Jake’s truck. Jake made it out without too many probing questions, one sincere apology about having to call them out like a pair of damsels in distress, and a promise that beers were on them next time.“Just glad I had him call for backup, who knows what would’ve happened if I was the one running the phone,” he put in lightheartedly, something of a comedic send-off.“Nah, we’ve got your back, Jake,” Javy told him seriously as they pulled into their driveway. “We do.”Jake laughed, unclipping his belt and swinging his door open. “We’ll send a gift basket for you and Bobby. Let me run inside, I’ve got an apple laying around somewhere, forward it along with a little kiss.”Javy clicked his tongue, and his fist clipped Jake’s shoulder as he got out of the car. “Not just me and Bob. All of us, man. Not just on Rooster’s side, yours too.”Leaning one forearm along the top of the car and the other on the door, Jake dipped his head back inside. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”Javy gave him a flat look, a smile playing in his eyes. “Maybe you could use some for someone other than your hubby.”“Never call him that again.” Jake slammed the door shut with a shudder. He walked straight up the sidewalk, barely pausing long enough to send Javy a disgusted look before unlocking the front door.He looped around through the kitchen, pausing as a bundle of treats caught his eye on the dinner table. They found a new home in the passenger side of the truck as he backed out of the garage and peeled out down the street.Not too long later they said their goodbyes to Bob as Javy picked him up, and settled into their new home of the auto repair shop.“What number are we?” he asked, sitting down next to his husband. The chairs were a lot more comfortable than they looked. The air conditioner was also startlingly efficient, unlike most of the shops he’d been to at home. Jake was no stranger to the ol’ backyard shop as your cousin fiddled around until something feels right.“We’re under Seresin,” Bradley informed him.Made sense. “What’s the estimate?”“Half-hour or so,” Bradley rattled off. “Guy said they weren’t too busy, so it’ll probably be shorter.”“So that puts us home… Shit, hour and a half?”“Probably two, generously,” Bradley winced. “I wonder what Mom and Pete are doing.”Jake hummed, shifting in his chair until his arm pressed against Bradley’s. “Cooling down? Kicking tires? I don’t know what Pop’s version of bring her around could be. Probably better than ours.”“I said some shit I shouldn’t have.”“Which time, sweetheart?”"How many times have I opened my mouth today?"Jake crossed his arms and straightened his back. "Can't fault you for sticking to what you're good at, huh?" He knocked his boot against Bradley’s sneaker and sent him a little look. “She’ll forgive you.”Bradley dropped his head back to look at the ceiling. The door to the garage space opened, and the symphony of the blue collared man burst forth, only to be cut off just as fast. “I better find some more of that to go around, then,” he muttered, “or there’s no way this is gonna work.” He rubbed his forehead with a curse. "I'm sorry," he said, cracking his eyes open to look at Jake, "for taking it out on you. That's not fair, I'm sorry.""Well," Jake hummed, "you're forgiven." He said it like he was a man of the cloth, wiping Bradley's sins clear off the record like they'd never been there at all. "Now remember how to say those words, practice 'em real hard, and maybe we can bring Carole around ourselves."