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roosterbruiser · 2 years ago

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𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 ☾☽ 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐈𝐈

☾☽ 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐲 "𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞 "𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫" 𝐋𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐫

☾☽ 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw feels like he’s been homesick his entire life. He’s always on the move; jumping from one squadron to another, living one mission to the next. Somewhere in between losing both his parents and carving a successful career as a Naval aviator, he’s never found himself a home. When a call to serve on a high-priority mission with an elite squadron brings Rooster back to Miramar, he finds that home. Except it’s not a house that he finds--it’s the former backseater that observes and records the mission for the Official Navy Record.

☾☽ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐓𝐰𝐨 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐𝟕𝐭𝐡-𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟒𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎

The heat in Virginia is different than the heat in California. San Diego is hot--very hot, always hot. And it is a wet sort of heat, like the air is clouded with ocean water. Everything smells like warm sea salt in the summer. Virginia, though--it is disparate. It is a muddy sort of heat--not unlike the heat of Kansas summers. There is no dry season here, just like Kansas, so the heat is wetter, muggier. There is no such thing as sea-salt air here. It just smells like the earth: like mud, like leaves, like fresh-cut sweetgrass, like dusty gravel, like bloodroot and butterfly weed.

It smells, somehow, more like home than Kansas ever has. That is the first thing I notice when I breathe my first breath of Virginia air, its heat coating my lungs thickly.

We are in a rental car and it smells of fresh leather and vacuumed carpet in here. The windows are cracked and that sweet, muddy heat is seeping into the car and mingling with the air conditioner that’s blasting on our faces. I think if my father was here right now, if he was the same person he was before my sister died, he would whine about having the windows down and the air conditioner on. But Bradley is the one who cracked the windows--and when he did it, when he first inhaled that rich, metallic scent of his home state--I could feel his spine tingling from the front seat. He deflated with a sort of sweet relief.

“Too hot, baby?”

He asks this with his eyebrow raised, glancing at me from the corner of his eye.

I shake my head softly, pushing my sunglasses up my nose. I can’t stop smiling--haven’t been able to since our plane touched down, bouncing on the tarmac.

“Just fine, Bradley,” I tell him, trying to ease the tinge of concern twisting his tone, “I’m excited. Get excited!”

His hand is on my thigh, splayed over my naked leg. He’s trying to rub a freckle off my skin with a persistent thumb--or that’s what it feels like. It feels the same way it always does, feels like there’s a pit of honey dripping down, down, down into my belly. Feels like we’ve been doing this for a long time; feels perfect. Now he pats my leg a few times, not soft but not rough, like I’m a trusty steed. Atta girl.

My hand was resting over his, but then he’d rolled the windows down and I’d watched his sweet face slack in bliss and now my fingers are locked in the curls at the base of his neck. He’s leaning his head into my palm slightly, just so, more malleable under my touch.

“Don’t know why,” he breathes, leaning further into my palm, looking down his nose at the road, “we’re going to an empty house.”

Indian Summer by The Doors is playing now.

His aviators are low on his nose, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he sings softly, and he’s kissed by the California sun. Still--even now, even after our months and months together--I wonder if he has his own private sky. He must engulf himself there when my back is turned, when I am out of the house, when he goes right and I go left. Because his skin is the most perfect color, even and glistening.

“Won’t be empty when we’re in it,” I sing softly, tugging on his locks.

He chuckles, shaking his head softly. But there’s a slight smile gracing his lips now.

He was covertly nervous on the flight early this morning. Just a bouncing knee, a tapping knuckle, a fluttering eyelid. He didn’t say it, but I knew. I have known him for almost a year, but it has felt like a lifetime and then some. So I know that he wasn’t really nervous about flying --how could he be?

I’ve heard that some pilots have trouble flying commercial because it’s out of their control, but I know that isn’t the case with Bradley. No, not really. I know that what he was really nervous about--what he is still nervous about right now on this winding gravel road--was going back home.

I first brought up the idea of going to Virginia in May.

We took the Bronco, the soft top unfolded, and I sat in the middle unbuckled. It was strangely becoming a habit each time we were in the Bronco. It was that pull he had over me--the one that had been there since the very start of it all, the one that reduced me to a compliant puddle at times, the one that had only intensified in our time together--that made me scoot in next to him. He didn’t even have to say anything anymore. After he closed the passenger door behind me, I would be waiting for him in the middle of the bench.

When he slid in beside me, tall and tan and perfect, he grinned and slung his arms over my shoulders. That sweet peppery scent, the one that perfumed our sheets and bath towels now, overwhelmed me for a moment as I gazed up at him.

“Don’t know if I’ll ever get over it,” he said, shaking his head softly.

I let my hand fall to his thigh, resting gently over the rippling muscles beneath his blue jeans. My American boy.

“Get over what? My brazen disobedience of traffic laws?”

That was when he curled his arm around my neck, his hand cupping my chin as he brought his thumb to my smiling lip. He stroked there very softly, careful not to smudge my lipstick that he’d watched me so carefully apply in the bathroom mirror.

“I was gonna say you wearing that lipstick, sitting in my baby,” he said, his minty breath tickling the apples of my cheeks.

He pressed down on my lip and I puckered, placing a soft kiss on the pad of his thumb. My kiss stained a tart-colored lip-shaped tattoo there.

“But we can go with your thing if you want,” he finished, shrugging faux unceremoniously.

And when I leaned up to kiss him, he closed the space between us before I could. He had been waiting for me to move, waiting for my eyelashes to kiss my cheeks, waiting for my lips to part, waiting for my chin to tilt. He tasted like toothpaste and gum, his lips very soft and smiling against mine.

I was the one that pulled away--had to because my cheeks were flooding and I was starting to get that ache between my thighs, the one Rooster had a sixth sense for. He was still cupping my jaw, his fingers pressed into the fat of my cheeks, his thumb still red from my kiss. He pressed his forehead against mine, his nose brushing mine.

“Think they’d be mad if we bailed?”

I knew he was chiding. He wouldn’t miss Phoenix’s birthday, wouldn’t miss the squadron’s first celebration since August. Rooster was a good friend, loved his friends.

I squeezed his thigh, humming, pretending to think about it.

“But then how would she get the gift I so dutifully picked for her?”

I was chiding then.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, licking his lips, taking the bait.

“It’s supposed to be our gift,” he said.

He moved to start the car, his arm falling off my shoulders. He plucked his aviators from their holder and slipped them on in that effortless way of his, turning to grin over at me. The sun was still setting and the sky was a warm gold--but it looked like it just shined for him.

“Yes, I’m sure Phoenix will look at the wrapping job and know that you contributed,” I teased.

Rooster put the car in reverse and started out of the driveway, his hand resting on the passenger seat headrest, cheek turned so I could see his scars glowing in the May evening light.

“Hey, I can’t be good at everything,” he defended, biting a smirk as he put the car in drive and turned the wheel, “that’s your job.”

I leaned into him and his arm fell over me again. It felt like the most natural thing in the world as we started down Mulberry Street, no buckle over my lap but safe in his grip.

“I’m starting to think you have a crush on me,” I told him, leaning forward to turn the radio on.

He laughed--that pretty, perfect laugh. It made my fingers warm.

“What makes you say that, baby?”

I shrugged, knowing he had one eye on the road and the other on my form as I turned the dial, surveying the static for a good song. I was still smiling a teasing smile.

I stopped on a station that was in the middle of playing You Make Me Feel Like Dancing by Leo Sayer.

Then I leaned back into his grip, his hand holding my shoulder, drawing lazy shapes there.

“I think it’s all the sex,” I told him.

Then we were laughing again and it was good, perfect.

The past year had felt so entirely perfect that it made me dizzy to think about. Laughing in the Bronco, the top down, warm evening air kissing our tan skin, Leo Sayer playing, unbuckled but secured; it only felt natural to be that blindingly happy. It took us both a few months to become accustomed to the feeling, to submit to it. But somewhere between drinking cherry wine on the yarrow flower-perfumed patio on Thursday nights and dancing in the dim morning light on the entryway tile, it happened. We fell forward, fell in, tumbled then found purchase with each other.

It was a warm night--not unlike the warm July nights of our first summer together--and the sun had set in a pool of orange-gold and sunk beneath the glittering ocean with a deliberate sort of grace.

The Hard Deck was just as full as it was the first weekend I had reclaimed my title as Jukebox Queen. Bodies packed onto the dirty, makeshift dance floor like sardines in a tin can, peanut shells crunching over lug-sole boots and platform heels. Everyone smelled like beer and sand and sweat and cigars. It was a good smell--one that made me think of my late summer romance, one that made me think of falling in love between picnics and prosecco. It made me think of Maggie, too--everything did still.

It was the first time the entire squadron had been in the same state since late August of 2019, after the Uranium Mission.

As soon as Rooster and I stepped into the bar, pushing our sunglasses to our hair in tandem, we were being called home to the pool tables. Familiar faces dotted around the green velvet, strong arms signaling us to come their direction, open mouths beaming.

Rooster’s hand was in my jean pocket, which was making me flustered, but I was too dithered to care--if not because I was so head over heels, mind-bogglingly in love with him then because my friends were in the same state as me for the first time in months.

“Y’ready?”

Rooster asked as I lead the charge, navigating the crowd with him trailing beside me, casual and cool as ever, throwing a grin in every direction.

“Born ready, Bradshaw.”

Everybody was there--dressed in civilian clothing. Bob was closest, standing beside a stack of chairs with his arms crossed over his white t-shirt. I almost gasped when I saw him--very tan, cheeks scruffy, his hair grown out just to his ears.

“Faye Ledger, get your ass over here!”

Bob was the first person to wrap his arms around me--we collided like magnets, clicking into place, Rooster’s hand falling from the pocket of my shorts in a silent sort of nudge.

“Robert from Major Authors,” I called to Bob, turning my head in his shoulder, grinning against his neck, “that haircut is pushing it!”

Rooster slyly, very discreetly, tapped my bottom one time as he bypassed our hugging forms. It was something he did often whenever he knew he wouldn’t get caught. A pat when he was in my office, as he passed by me in the lounge, while I was taking cookies out of the oven.

Without even seeing, I knew he was wrapping Phoenix in a tight hug.

“Phoenix won’t let me cut it,” he laughed, pulling back, holding me by the shoulders.

“Let me take you in,” we said at the same time.

I held his forearms and they felt bulkier, tougher than the last I’d seen him. He looked bulkier, tougher in general; his hair highlighted by the sun, his skin kissed golden, his cheeks peppered with scruff, his eyebrows darker, his eyes brighter. He even seemed taller to me.

“Love this,” I whispered, running my hands over his stubbled cheeks, “you’re such a man now. Look at you!”

He grinned, pleased with himself, blushing only slightly.

“Look at me? Look at you,” he told me, grabbing my newly cropped hair in one gentle hand, “you’re bald!”

It was an over-exaggeration, of course--one that made me bite my lip and smile. I had cut my hair shorter so that it laid against my collar bones instead of the base of my spine.

“Howdy, kid!”

A third voice said this.

Hangman was standing beside us, grinning, breaking up our reunion with ease. He looked bigger too--except his hair was not grown out and his scruff was minimal. But still--his body seemed heavier, leaner. The buttons on his shirt gapped over his broad chest.

“Tally,” Bob whispered, eyes widened.

Hangman and him laughed together then and I was smiling, peeking between Bob’s right fist and Hangman’s lower lip, wondering if there was any sort of remnant of the beach bonfire on the last Saturday before the mission. But no--both of their skin was unblemished, just like their camaraderie.

“Gimme some love, sugar plum!”

Hangman’s arms were wide open, his blue eyes crinkled but shining in the low light of The Hard Deck. I was still grinning when Bob released me, when Hangman closed the space between us and wrapped me up in his arms. He held me very tight, alarmingly tight. He still felt like a marble pillar, studier than anything in The Hard Deck. That was just the way Hangman held me--the way he’d held me in the women’s restroom on the carrier when we thought Rooster was gone, the way he’d held me on the tarmac when he’d saved the day, the way he’d held me on my brick porch before he left for his next posting way back in early September.

“How you been?” I asked him, patting the vast expansion of muscles rippling beneath his shirt, “North Carolina treating you alright?”

He pulled back, his teeth whiter than printer paper, looking absolutely pleased. He smoothed his hand over my hair, careful not to bump my sunglasses, tugging on the cropped ends.

“You know I’d rather be here,” he said, “but I’m the only aviator with two confirmed kills, so they treat me like a God. Which, you know--I am.”

Before I could respond, Bob pat his back, biting a grin.

“Same old Hangman,” he said, ambling back to the table to greet Rooster.

Hangman was searching my face, eyes falling from my hair to my mouth and to my nose and ears and cheeks.

“You look good,” he finally said, raising his eyebrows, “still in love with Bradshaw or have you come to your senses? My time to shine yet?”

I pushed his chest, cheeks reddening.

“Madly and deeply,” I told him, “sorry ‘bout it.”

He opened his mouth again, still smiling, but then I was tugged from his grip into a softer one. Strong, yes--but scaled down. And it was when I smelled the Nivea and good shampoo that I melted into the hug.

“Can’t hog all the Faye on my birthday,” Phoenix called to Hangman, holding me close to her.

“It’s in my nature,” Hangman called back before winking at us.

“Happy birthday! Thirty-two doesn’t know what’s coming.”

“Good because neither do I,” Phoenix responded, “and your man was zero help.”

Most of the first hour continued on like that; hugging, grinning, complimenting, scouring unfamiliarities, tugging, laughing. It was a most gleeful reunion, one that began around the pool table, everybody falling back into place like old times.

Rooster fell into place beside me after his second round of pool, while I was conversing with Bob and Phoenix about their station in Florida. Rooster wrapped an arm around my waist from behind, kissing my hair casually without interrupting my sentence. And without missing a beat, without breaking conversation or eye contact, I let my hands fall over his and squeezed softly. We were good at that then--touching each other in the way couples did, an arm here, a squeeze there, a sly glance.

Bob was smiling in that Bob way, like he was coyly confident about something, like he was happy about something that I was happy about. Phoenix was more obvious about it, softly shaking her head with the smallest of smiles on her pink-painted lips.

“Can you go more than ten minutes without touching your girlfriend or will you implode?”

Rooster set his chin atop my head and I could feel his grin. I’m sure he could feel my deep blush, could feel the string between us tighten.

“You wanna find out?” He lipped back.

Bob was blushing. I shook my head at him, rolling my eyes at Phoenix, at Rooster. But we were all still smiling--how could we not be smiling?

“I do,” Coyote called from the pool table.

Hangman nudged him, grinning, laughing.

“Can you go more than ten minutes without touching your boyfriend or will you implode?” Bob quipped, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Hangman and Coyote were stunned into silence for a moment, frozen with the pool cues in their grips, as Payback and Fanboy sputtered beside them. Rooster was even impressed, nudging Bob. Phoenix was smirking and I knew it was because she got Bob all the time then--that she knew what had changed, what Bob had found in Florida besides scruff and a tan.

After the Happy Birthday song, after the cake was doled out, after pool games had been won and lost, after drinks had been drunk and shots had been had--that’s when almost everyone in the entire bar was dancing, corralled by the Dagger Squad, who were perhaps the drunkest and rowdiest crowd in the bar. Of course they were operating under the guise that it was all for the birthday girl, the one turning thirty-two, the one everyone had missed so dearly: Phoenix.

It was Hangman who handed me a quarter first, dropping his blue eye in a wink. I was standing beside Payback and Fanboy then, nursing my usual, watching Rooster lose a game of pool to Coyote and Phoenix.

“I reckon you owe me a dance,” he said very coolly, chewing a piece of gum, his jaw flexing, “y’know, since you’re always breaking my heart.”

I rolled my eyes, inspecting the quarter so I wouldn’t have to look at his eyes glowing in the crowded room, so he wouldn’t see how red his words made me.

“I’ll dance with you,” I said, meeting his gaze, “but just remember: this is charity.”

That made Payback and Fanboy sputter again.

We were all, except the designated drivers, a little tipsy by then. My ligaments were becoming chewing gum, my vision a little watery, my smile red and wide. Everyone was getting looser, happier, cozier.

“Hangman, you’re losing your touch!” Payback called, shaking his head.

“Having to pay your women to dance with you. What’s North Carolina doing to you?” Fanboy finished, his beer sloshing as he gestured towards us.

There was that impenetrable ego. I was certain that even a jackhammer could not chisel away a bit of it. It was something I admired deeply--also something I attributed to his asshole-outbursts, like the bonfire.

Grinning, giddy as ever, Hangman gave a small shrug.

“Laugh all you want, but I consider myself a purveyor of women’s rights,” Hangman said, grabbing my wrist so I was holding the quarter in the air before us, “closing the wage gap one Faye at a time.”

Before I could even respond, a chuckle closed in my throat, Hangman was tugging me towards the jukebox and into the buzzing bodies crowding the dance floor.

I glanced very quickly at Rooster, Rooster who somehow became more and more gorgeous every minute of every day that passed. His hair shining beneath the yellow lights, his smile one of admiration, his chest rippling beneath his Hawaiian shirt.

“I’m gonna pay for that one, aren’t I?” He asked over his shoulder, catching my wide-eyed gaze, my gaped mouth.

“Most definitely,” I laughed.

When we reached the jukebox, I slipped the quarter in. He took his usual stance, leaning against it, resting his head against his fist as I carefully began to peruse the selection. It was how we’d stood when I’d reclaimed my title, when I’d outdrank him. It made me pink to think about that night, every part of it; the dancing, our quiet conversation, the man at the bar who mistook me for Maggie, the car ride home, Rooster touching me for the first time.

“So, how’s it going really?”

I rolled my eyes, glancing at him. I was surprised to see that he seemed genuine. He was searching my profile, dusting over me like he’d forgotten what I looked like, his mouth flat and more serious than before. It wasn’t quite as intense as Rooster’s gaze before the mission, when I’d had to rip my face away from his. But Hangman was looking at me with a certain softness he was void of when he spoke to other’s. I knew that. I knew that so much.

We had not fallen out of complete contact. The Dagger Squad had a group text that received a fair amount of attention and we frequently video called each other whenever we could. And I kept up with everyone on my own accord--sending Coyote my cookie recipe whenever he messaged me at midnight, watching sci-fi movie trailers Fanboy sent, sharing a Pinterest board with Bob, mailing a good bottle of Hungry Hawke wine to Phoenix. Hangman was in the mix too, somewhere between him sending shirtless selfies and song recommendations I’d pretended that I hadn’t already heard.

“Things are good,” I said honestly, smiling softly, “like stupid-good, if we’re being honest.”

He swallowed, taking a sip of beer, surveying the crowd around us. He took a deep breath and I knew what was coming next.

“So, you’re happy then?”

I nodded, furrowing my brow slightly.

“Unfortunately, I am. Very, very happy. So happy that I don’t even mind going into work anymore.”

Hangman pretended to gag and I elbowed him. As if he minded going into work, as of he didn’t love it. He broke into a smile again.

“How’s that promotion suiting you? Like having your own office?”

Of course I did. Who wouldn’t?

“Oh, sure,” I said, still filing through the song choices, “and now Rooster and I are office neighbors.”

Hangman finally looked at me, somewhere between revolted and bemused. He stared hard at my cheek and I pretended not to notice.

“Y’never get tired of the guy?”

That was when we looked up together, looking out and over the crowd to Rooster, who was laughing with his head tipped back and his mouth wide open. He looked so gorgeous, so perfectly in place there at the pool table beside his friends.

“Never,” I said to him, smiling at the way Rooster gently clapped a hand on Bob’s shoulder, “who could get tired of him?”

Hangman sighed.

“He is pretty dreamy,” he agreed, “you know, in that puppy-dog-in-the-window, last-kid-at-soccer-practice kinda way. If you’re into that, I guess.”

I bit my lip, containing my grin.

“And what about you, Bagman? Gracing any ladies with your presence these days?” I asked, eyebrow quirked, “For more than a night, I mean.”

Hangman cackled.

“Nah,” he said, “I prefer California girls.”

He was being cheeky--I could feel his heated eyes, his watchful gaze.

Pressing down on 092, I turned my body towards me, still biting a grin. When my eyes found his, his spine straightened slightly and his shoulders stiffened just a tiny bit. The beer bottle was pressed close to his grinning lips, his eyes half-shut.

The opening notes of You’re So Vain by Carly Simon flooded the bar.

“Good thing I’m from Kansas,” I said sweetly.

His eyes widened as he registered the song. He cackled into his beer bottle and it sounded hollow, breathy. His eyes crinkled when I reached my hand out towards him.

“Now or never,” I told him, “you son of a gun.”

It took less than a minute for the squadron to follow suit, everybody’s eyes heavy and half-shut, everyone’s grins spreading, hair waving in the hot air of the bar, stomping over peanuts and stamping in puddles of beer and warm vodka. And Hangman got me to himself for a short while on the dance floor, only able to spin me one time before Rooster tapped in, dipping me and peppering my face with sweet kisses.

“Missed you,” he mumbled against the blushed skin of my cheek, “not used to sharing you these days.”

Even Bob was on the dance floor without having been serenaded by me and Rooster. It was a good, funny thing to see how Phoenix and him operated together after they’d been flying with each other for over ten months; they were closer than before. I knew what bond backseater’s and stick jockey’s developed, knew that there was a deep mutual trust between them and it had only grown since Bob and Phoenix had left Fightertown. All she had to do was ask and he was dancing with us all night. It made me warm, watching them dance, watching her push his glasses back up his nose after he bought her a shot.

We danced for a long, long time. My hands smelled like copper and tequila by the time Rooster pressed his face against mine, mustache tickling my ear as he pushed my hair from my face, and asked if I was ready to leave.

It was well into the wee hours of the morning when Rooster and I made our rounds, kissing everyone’s cheeks, burying our noses in each other’s necks as we hugged. Everyone was moaning for us to stay, but my limbs were growing heavier and heavier by the minute. It was a sweet, melancholy goodbye. Silly, too, since we were all meeting for brunch the next morning.

“Happy birthday,” I said to Phoenix, who was perhaps the drunkest out of everyone, “take some ibuprofen before you go to bed!”

She smiled that dazzling smile, her thin, pretty lips wrapping around her pearly teeth. Her hair was falling around her flushed face like brunette curtains, her eyes glassy and slacked.

“It is a happy birthday,” she said, slurring softly and holding a finger up at me for emphasis, “and I’m Phoenix, remember? Rises from the ashes and all shit.”

And when Rooster and I were finally outside in the darkness of the night, it felt so quiet, so cool. I had to stop for a moment, dipping my head back, letting my face angle towards the stars, my eyes heavy. Rooster was beside me, fingers lazily entwined with mine, twirling the Bronco’s keys around his index finger. His ‘Tramp’ keychain thudded against his palm with a sweet, heavy thud.

“S’so nice out here,” I told him, grinning, breathing in the salty air around me with a quiet desperation.

For a long moment, I just drank in the night; lazily blinking at the black sky, counting the waves as they rolled in endlessly, cherishing each blinking star, pressing my heels down against the sand-sprinkled asphalt.

“Waxing gibbous,” Rooster noted.

It made my heart swell that he could note the phase of the moon--something he hadn’t been able to do before. It made my mouth fill with cotton and feathers and everything that was soft and sweet.

I knew he was smiling without even looking at him--felt the stretch of his cheeks and the glimmer in his eyes.

“What’d you just call me?”

He didn’t respond but when I finally let my head fall forward, when I finally met his gaze, his face was more sober than it had been before. His hand had fallen out of mine so he could stand before me. He was just watching me, his eyes glazed, his mouth twitched into a funny sort of sad smile.

“What?” I said softly.

He shook his head slightly. From inside, there was still a great deal of noise. The jukebox was still spitting out tunes I’d queued before leaving, the squadron was still buying each other shots, boots were still stomping the floor, peanuts were still crunching, people were still yelling over the music, bodies were still dancing. But out there, between Rooster and I, it was quiet except for the world moving around us.

“My parents would’ve really, really loved you,” he said quietly.

He said that often.

Of course, he’d told me our first month of knowing each other that he was disappointed, angry that I would never know his parents. But in the months we’d been in a relationship, in the months we’d been living and working together, it happened more often and more seriously.

One time he said it while we were showering together on a Tuesday in October, when I was humming a Loggins and Messina song as I lathered my hair. Chinese food was en route, cherry wine was chilling in the fridge, and he’d gotten me a new Mazzy Star record that we were going to play. I was happy, that accidental kind of happy--the one that just oozes into the bloodstream and infects the rest of the body easily, completely. He had been watching me from under the stream, lips twitched, eyebrows sloped.

Another time he’d told me when I’d picked him up from the bar after a night of drinking with Maverick and Hondo, when I was nestled into the driver’s seat of the Bronco in one of his t-shirts and a pair of slippers. He’d said it when we opened the door, drinking me in, his face somewhere between somber and sober as his eyes fell from my hair to my toes. He’d leaned there against the door for a long time, softly shaking his head, biting his lip.

Again when I danced in the parking lot of a Whole Foods late on a Sunday night, paper bag brimming with chocolate chips and baking powder and brown sugar hugged against my chest, as Rooster crooned playfully. He’d started singing as we stepped out the door--Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd--and I had started bobbing my head, which encouraged him to sing louder until his voice was booming in the lot and I was prancing around him. We were falling apart at the seams, laughing until our ribs were aching, our hair soft and our love even softer. And he’d pushed me up against the car, the paper bag crinkling between his broad chest and my own, and gazed at me beneath the street lamps with adoration swimming in his shining eyes.

Almost every time I let him pull me onto his lap--at The Hard Deck, sitting on the piano bench in the middle of the evening rush or just at home on the sofa or at the kitchen table. Whenever he caught me as I would be walking past, circling his arms around my waist, pulling me out of whatever task I’d been attending and subduing me with solid thighs and shoulder kisses. He liked it when I submitted in those small ways--when I let him take care of me, hold me, cherish me.

Always when I befriended waiters, bartenders, checkout staff, dressing room attendants, strangers. One time, after a barista and I clicked particularly well over our shared love for Neil Young and drip coffee, he’d silently led me to the sunlit sidewalk outside and just watched me there as the blush faded from my cheeks. And then he had brought my knuckles to his lips, whispering against them as the afternoon ticked forward around us.

I always followed his sentence with the same phrase--it was the most honest thing I could utter, could admit.

“And I would’ve really, really loved them.”

But that time he didn’t melt into my arms. He didn’t step closer to me and wrap his arms around my waist and bury his nose in my hair. He just kept watching me, his eyes becoming glassy.

“Take me home,” I said, whispering.

And I don’t know why I said it--I don’t know why I felt like it was the right thing to say. I don’t know if it was what he wanted me to say. But looking into his glassy, amber-colored eyes I recognized that sweet sadness. It was how I’d felt--naively so--when I first thought of taking Rooster home for Christmas. I wanted to him to see, to understand every bit of what I’d lived--wanted him to hold it in his palms. And maybe that was what he wanted from me too, wanted me to hold it carefully, nurture it. Maybe he wanted me to digest his past as hungrily, as voraciously, as he’d digested mine. Maybe it was only fair, only time.

He blinked, twirled the Bronco’s keys once more, gaze faltering and landing on my shoes. I knew he misunderstood what I’d said and I had to swallow hard to keep myself from calling out to him. He started for the car again, dejected, before I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled his body back to mine. I cupped his cheek and he was soft under my palm.

“I mean your home,” I said, trying to sound as sober as I suddenly felt, “take me to Virginia.”

He was surprised, blinking a few times, eyebrows furrowing slightly. He was searching my eyes, maybe trying to gauge my sobriety, but I blinked back at him with a wide open face. I smiled, thumb ghosting over the white scar on his cheeks.

“I mean it,” I told him, coming close and pressing my chest against his, “wanna see where you grew up. Wanna see your childhood home.”

He was beginning to smile, the corners of his mouth tugging up.

“I wanna see where you came from,” I continued, stroking his face softly, “you know, just to make sure you weren’t really made in that lab after all. I’m still not entirely convinced.”

We laughed. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against him, our bellies kissing. He turned his cheek to stealthily kiss my palm before shaking his head lightly, biting his lip as he held my gaze.

“You sure?”

I nodded easily, vehemently.

“‘Course I’m sure. Never been more sure about anything.”

“Faye,” he whispered, “it might not be easy.”

We were both thinking about the Christmas before--how hopeful we’d both been about my family, how rejected I’d felt, how sobering the encounter was. But there was no room for that in that conversation; we were already wound tightly with a giddy sort of excitement. And beneath that excitement, I recognized a fear in him--a fear I understood, a fear I would wash away with water from my cupped hands, a fear I would soothe between my two lips. Besides, as morose as it was, his parents would not be able to reject us. Going to his home was the mirror version of mine. We would be in an empty house--and we were very good at being alone together.

I nodded sharply. Of course I understood that.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” I said and my voice was quiet and my smile was small and my hair was billowing in the wind and I really, really meant it, “I promise.”

He tilted his head. Carefully, he brought a finger to my face and grazed the scar on my chin. It made me warm and cold simultaneously, made me shiver all over. Then he ran the finger over my lips, pressing softly where they parted.

“You’re perfect,” he mumbled, chuckling dryly.

Before I could respond, there was a face-splitting grin on his lips. And before I could raise an eyebrow, he had leaned over and thrown me over his shoulder in one swift movement. My hips were balancing haphazardly on his shoulder, his arms secured around my thighs, my shorts riding up in the salty breeze.

I was laughing the way children do when they’re excited; with utter, complete abandon.

“I’m gonna make an honest woman outta you one day,” he crooned.

Now we were here, on Virginia soil, deep in Richmond and inhaling the muggy air.

“Almost there,” he tells me, turning left onto Pond Pine Way, “almost to the point of no return.”

I know he’s teasing me. I know he doesn’t want me to get my hopes up about the house. I know he doesn’t want me to be disappointed by its vast emptiness. I know he’s trying to preserve his feelings and mine. I know this. I know this very, very much.

But I am ready. I am ready to step onto the sweet grass in the front lawn, ready to gaze at the estate, ready to drink it all in with him beside me. I am ready to digest this place where he came from, ready to give him a good birthday in this house where he was raised, the last home he ever knew before he found me and mine.

“Bradley,” I say, my voice steady and careful, “do you want to turn around?”

He considers this.

I know he hasn’t been to the house in years--hasn’t been in Virginia in years. I know little pieces like this. I know that the house is largely unchanged, almost the exact way his mother had left it before she died. I know he considered renting it out for a few years but never did. I know he has a cleaning service come once a month and pays them a pretty penny for, what I assume is, mainly dusting. I know the house is big. I know the address of it, too: 78 East Black Willow Lane. Simple things. But also I know Rooster dreams of the house, know that he still remembers the nooks and crannies, know that he can still recall all the sounds it makes.

I know that it must hurt, too. I know that it must hurt to go there, to smell the smells, to hear the groaning and settling, to see everything through the eyes of a man--the man of an age his father never reached, never even got close to. But I know that the ache for it all, the one that hollows out the middle of his chest, must overpower all of that.

“No,” he breathes, shaking his head, “I don’t want to turn around.”

I wish we were in the Bronco so I could be sitting beside him, nestled up close to his chest, resting my head on his shoulder, his arm slung over me. But the best I can do right now is bring his hand to my lips, to pepper sweet kisses there.

“It’ll be good,” I whisper and I’m trying very hard to make my voice happy and soft, “promise.”

Black Willow Lane is enchanting, bewitching. It is a long stretch of red pavement, lined with lucious pitch pine trees on either side that stretch tall and wide to form a canopy over us. And dotted between the trees are spurts of sprawling, pink Joe Pye Weeds. The sharp scent of pine and the sweet scent of the wildflowers perfumes the air between us, somehow prevailing against the unmistakable scent of new-car.

There are houses dotted along the road, each one set far back on ample land, their driveways long and winding. We pass a big, white house with horses--big, chestnut-colored ones--galloping inside a white fence.

Rooster makes a noise I don’t think I’ve heard him make before--it is something between a gasp and a dry chuckle.

When I look at him, his cheeks are pale, his mouth is ajar. He squeezes my leg.

“That’s the Denver Farm. God, I can’t believe they still have horses. They’ve gotta be in their seventies by now.”

It’s making me fuzzy--listening to him talk about these little pieces of his past, things only he knows as the only living Bradshaw. I kiss his knuckles a few more times and his hands are heavy and warm in my grip. Good. He isn't tense. Not yet.

He takes a deep breath--I’m watching him as pockets of the late morning sunshine peer through the trees and onto his pink cheeks, his white scars, his dark sunglasses. I hold his hand tighter when his Adam’s apple bobs, when the car begins to slow, when he flicks the blinker on.

The radio is off now. The wind is not blowing. I lean forward to turn the merciless air conditioning down. For a moment--that is the only sound in the car. Just the steady plink-plink-plink of the blinker.

Rooster looks over at me.

I’m doing my best to look as giddy, as excited as I feel. I want him to look at my face--at my smile, at my flushed cheeks, at my crinkled eyes--and know that it will be okay. I want him to do this. I want him to come back to this place and feel like he’s home. I want him to walk into the house with his hand locked in mine and feel the weight of the day--the early morning flight, the nerves, the anxieties, the fast food, the long drive, the weight of everything--slip out of his hands and into mine. I want to hold it for him today, the day of his homecoming, the day of his thirty-sixth birthday.

“Y’ready?”

He asks me this to give himself another moment, just one more.

“Yes, sir,” I whisper to him.

It is beautiful. Even the gravel driveway that’s stretching in front of us is so, so beautiful. The pitch pines have thinned and made way for Eastern Redbuds, which are placed identically on either side of the drive, pink as my cheeks. And the lawn is cut and green, greener than any grass I’ve seen between Kansas and California. The driveway is long, too, at least a quarter of a mile.

“Oh,” I whisper, sitting up straighter, angling myself towards the passenger window.

He’s going very slow, the way he’s supposed to drive on gravel. He’s basically inching forward, the rocks crunching beneath the tires of the car perfectly, gorgeously. I’ve always loved the sound of crunching gravel.

Outside, there are birds calling. I can hear them--sweet and sorrowful, hopping from one pink-flowered branch to the next.

“Jesus, I forgot how pretty it is,” he admits lowly, “especially in the summer.”

That is precisely when the house comes into view for the first time. It is so sudden, so breathtaking, that my mouth goes dry. I clamp my fingers over his and he readjusts in his seat, glancing over at me with a sly smile.

“You like it?”

My throat is caked with cotton. Oh, my God. I can’t speak.

I nod rapidly, furrowing my brows.

Maybe it is because the sun is shining so brightly. Maybe it is because it is Rooster’s birthday. Maybe it is because I am so in love. Maybe it is because I am looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses these days. But it is the most perfect house I have ever seen.

A tall and wide brick colonial, ivy climbing in tendrils of emerald up the front of the house, around the white trim and the navy shutters. Two proud chimneys gracefully descend from the right and left corners, and a big, navy-colored front door rests under a white-pillared canopy in the middle of the home. And to the left of the house, attached to the brick with white-painted metal and glass, is an enclosed greenhouse. The house is symmetrical and sturdy, but still comparable to a fairy-tale. It is dreamy. Yes, it is very dreamy.

The gravel driveway thins into a circle driveway which wraps around a patch of what I can assume must’ve been a garden in its prime, but now houses a ring of green grass and a slew of withering plants over soft dirt. That is how most of the landscaping looks--like in its prime it is beautimous, coveted but is now sagging and empty--besides the trees that sit at the back of the property which are all a gift from mother nature. It seems full and wide-open at the same time--tall, study trees dotting the property but also giving way to rambling lawn.

“Bradley,” I whisper and I sound like I’m in awe because I truly am, “this is…”

He’s looking at me, his eyes resting peacefully on my cheek. He squeezes my thigh again, one last time.

“Beautiful,” he says.

When we are engulfed in the Virginia air completely, when we inhale the mud and the flowered redbuds and the calling birds, when we move to stand together on the gravel side-by-side and his arm falls around my shoulders, I know we have made the right choice. He is as sturdy as he’s ever been beside me, sturdy and soft and warm, holding me close to him.

I’m still taking it all in--counting the never-ending windows, wondering where his bedroom was, wondering where we will sleep, wondering if the fireplaces are made of brick or plaster, looking out to the side of the house where there’s at least a few acres of land--trying to keep my breathing steady.

I glance up at him, unable to close the gap between my lips, and let his watery eyes fall to mine before I reach up and press a flat palm to his cheek. His eyes are soft, very warm, very kind.

“Welcome home,” I whisper before smiling, “and happy birthday.”

He kisses my palm, fingers wrapped securely around my wrist.

“Thank you,” he whispers into my skin, “now let’s get inside.”

Just like when we went to my parent’s house for Christmas, he carries the suitcases without me having to ask, tucking them beneath his arms. I’m holding the duffel that contains his presents, each of them wrapped meticulously and sweetly.

I walk ahead of him and he follows closely. The sun beats down on us and it is indisputably hot--but it’s a heat I could stand in for hours, the kind of heat I would live inside of if I could.

“That dress my birthday present?” He asks, coming up quickly to pinch the bottom of my left cheek, just hard enough to make me squeal, jumping slightly.

“Maybe it’s one of them,” I say back, stepping onto the porch.

It is one of them--it is a dress I bought especially for today.

It is a dress that I scoured for, one I had to try on twice before buying. It is floral, the cyan and blush and rust colored flowers overlapping and small, and drapes over my legs carefully before it splits over my left thigh. The sleeves are capped, the bodice is tight, and there is a small cutout in the middle of my back.

It is the first dress of mine that has been bought for an occasion since Maggie passed--and it was harder than I thought it would be to come to a decision. I accidentally stayed in the boutique for half the afternoon, going back and forth between midi and maxi and floral and plaid.

I bite my lip, grinning over my shoulder. His sunglasses are low on his nose, his shirt stretched seemingly to its limit over the broad expansion of his chest, a few straggling sandy chest hairs peering out the collar. He’s wearing jean shorts, his legs big and capable and tan. He looks like the perfect version of himself--the happiest, the healthiest.

“Lord have mercy,” he whispers, dropping the luggage beside me, “I am a lucky, lucky man.”

He kisses me and it’s a hungry kiss, our first one on the grounds of his childhood home, our first kiss on this porch that shields us from the sun in its ample shade.

“Oh, I know,” I whisper against his lips, patting his shoulder, beaming, “now get me inside. Sugar melts, you know.”

He kisses me again, shaking his head, digging the keys out of his pockets. There is not a moment’s hesitation--he twists the lock with ease and opens the door, letting it fall wide open. Then he looks at me, picking the luggage up again, nodding for me to go first.

But he should go first--deserves to. This is his home. This is his homecoming.

“No,” I whisper, furrowing my brows, “go on. I’m right behind you.”

He does step inside, a small smile eating his lips and a deep admiration for me pulsing in his gentle gaze. And I am telling the truth--I am there, right behind him, just like I always am. And I let the door close behind us, treasure the heavy-sounding click when the brass doorknob engages.

The house is washed in white--all the walls evenly painted the color of an eggshell, the crown molding the identical shade, the ceiling lofted and bright but broken up with dark wooden beams. The entryway--which immediately offers a wooden staircase ahead of us to the left and a long, wide hallway to the right--is roomy, vast. It is brick that gives into beautiful wooden floors, the same dark color of the beams on the ceiling.

There is furniture dotted around, old heirloom pieces, and photographs still hanging on the walls. There are vases and figurines and little tiny pieces of Bradley’s life--of his family’s life--before everybody left him. There is even a woman’s coat hanging by the door, a yellow one, right beside a pair of red rain boots. It is like playing a game of hide and seek, little clues that someone was here just before us, that their presence was tangible but fleeting. Yes, standing just here in the entryway with the sunlight streaming in from the big windows, it looks like they were only just here. That they only just stepped out the door for a moment and are due home anytime now.

“Smells the same,” Bradley notes, wringing his hands together as his eyes fall over the home again, “like exactly the same.”

I breathe in deeply: it smells like polished wood, like sweetgrass, like something sharp and peppery, like something very sweet and soft like the petals of a daisy. Yes, it smells like all of these things. It is the scent of a home; the scent of skin.Skin but better.

I bring my open palm to the middle of his back and let the duffel fall onto the brick. He leans into my touch, blinking at the coat by the door, at the boots waiting for feet.

“I love it,” I tell him and I don’t have to try and sound sincere because I just am telling the truth wholly, “it’s perfect. Show me around.”

He glances back at me, his cheeks rosy. He looks happy, very happy.

He shows me upstairs first. I am overwhelmed by how large the house is. The stairs, which are broken up by a sprawling landing that I would certainly utilize as a reading nook, are that same rich wood but are decorated with an ornate wool runner. There are seven bedrooms, all of them with hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings. The bedrooms form a perfect rectangle around the stairs, hallway lined with the hand-carved railing. Most of the bedrooms are entirely empty--empty of furniture, of decorations, of anything at all.

“The house was in my mom’s family for a long time,” he tells me, “I can’t remember when it was built, but I know it’s old. My mom was an only child. This was her wedding gift when my parents got married.”

The house is so big, so empty, that his voice is echoing.

I sigh, running my fingers along the solid-brass door handles, each one a different shape and design. I could study them the entire day and never grow bored, not once. Maggie would’ve loved this one--an oval with flowers engraved delicately over its entirety.

“Some wedding present,” I whisper, smiling.

“My parents wanted a billion kids,” he tells me, “they were gonna fill up all the bedrooms. Never got the chance to.”

He’s standing against the railing, outside the sixth empty bedroom, his hands tucked into his pockets as he watches me explore the bedroom. When I catch his eyes, they are a sweet sort of sad.

I step into the threshold, leaning against the doorframe. The sun is bright--I think the house must be at least half windows, all tall and wide, all letting in the late morning sun. I’m smiling very sweetly at him as my head rests against the wood.

“Can’t imagine five more of you,” I tease.

He’s smiling sweeter now, cheeks pink.

“Try,” he whispers.

I let my eyes slip shut and breathe deeply, making a show of raising my eyebrows and letting my shoulders fall, my chest expanding.

The truth of the matter is that I can imagine five more of him, smaller versions, half of him and half of me. I can imagine them running amuck, their soft-soled shoes thudding the wooden floors heavily. I can imagine his laugh--his perfect, throaty laugh--ringing through the echoey halls five times over, each one louder than the one before. I can see five little heads of curly hair and amber eyes and tan limbs and little fingers.

“I’m trying,” I whisper, a teasing lilt still in my voice, “but all I see is flames and destruction. A sign that says ‘end of times’. Is that what you’re seeing?”

He does it again, too swiftly for me to argue and too quick for me to catch. My hips are balancing on his shoulders, teetering uncertainly as I squeal and grasp for purchase, fisting his Hawaiian shirt as he hooks my legs in his arm, hand coming down on my ass one time. He starts down the hall towards the final bedroom--the one that overlook the front of the house, the circle drive.

“It’s my birthday,” he protests, “you can’t be naughty.”

I hum, waiting for him to correct himself. Cheeky boy.

“Well, wait a minute,” he follows closely, “that’s not what I--okay, maybe--!”

“Well,” I sigh dramatically and slap his back softly, “I suppose I’ll be on my best behavior, then.”

Another hit to my bottom. I bite my lip hard.

“Lady, I--!”

“--I don’t speak caveman, Bradley,” I interrupt, my voice echoing down the hall.

We laugh. He kisses the bend of my hips carefully through the bunched fabric of my dress. It makes my thighs ache.

He carries me all the way to the end of the hall, stopping before closed French doors. He lets me down, leaning over and setting me on the floor with a thump. My dress falls back to its place in the middle of my calves, dangling an inch above my leather boots. He’s grinning at me, that boyish smile, the one that makes his mustache look full and even.

“This was my parent’s room. Then it was just my mom’s room,” he tells me and his grin is still wide, untainted from the sudden brutal reality of us standing outside here, “it hasn’t changed very much at all.”

Instead of pushing him forward, pushing him inside, I stand out here with him. His hands fall to my hips as he gazes down at me, his lips pink as I swipe my thumb over them carefully.

“We don’t have to go in,” I tell him and I mean it.

I wonder if it is like Maggie’s bedroom at my parent’s house--a time capsule. Maybe it’s the last palace on earth where there is an inkling of a molecule of one of them left behind. A hair on a pillow case. A fleeting breath. A particle of skin. A dot saliva. Maybe even just the scent of their scalp or the scent of their lotion. Whatever it is or isn’t, I don’t expect him to go inside. Maybe he wants to be careful about his time in there. I understand, I really do.

He nods, moves to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

“I know. But I want to.”

And with that, he disconnects himself from me, presses the doors open.

I am overwhelmed with the scent of gardenia perfume and dust as the two doors waft the cool air of the bedroom towards us. Bradley doesn’t falter; I keep my hand on his shoulder as we step inside.

This is the fullest bedroom in the house. And it is not white in here, not at all. The walls are covered from crown molding to baseboard in floral nouveau-style wallpaper, all pale pink and pale green and muted purple, all delicate line work and soft curves. And there’s a fireplace, big and made of brick, settled against the wall with the French doors. The room is very big, big enough for the California King that resides against the wall ahead of us and the tufted sofa and armoir that are situated before the fireplace. All the furniture is the same deep, rich wood, covered in a thin layer of dust.

Bradley very softly elbows me, nudges me. Go ahead. Look around.

I get the sense that he wants to let the room wash over him by himself for just a moment. So I step forward, the heels of my boots clacking until I step onto the ornate rug that stretches across a large portion of the floor.

“Smells good,” I tell him with a smile, “smells like gardenia.”

He’s looking at me when I turn my cheek towards him.

“That’s what that smell is? Gardenia?”

I nod softly.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what that scent is, like, my entire life,” he tells me, smiling, “and you just waltzed right in and knew?”

My cheeks are the pale pink color of a rose.

“Actually, I didn’t waltz right in and know,” I sigh, shrugging, “I knew as soon as the doors opened . Before I waltzed in.”

He’s shaking his head at me, the way he does when he’s amused, the way he does when he wants to pinch my hips and throw me over his shoulders, when he wants to press kisses against my face and nuzzle his mustache all over my skin until I’m bright red. This is what he looks like right before he tells me that his parents would’ve loved me.

“That’s the closet,” he tells me, nodding his head towards the second set of French doors in the room, “not sure I’m ready to go in there yet. All her clothes are in there still. Didn’t know what to do with them.”

I want to tell him that I will do whatever he can’t. I want to tell him that I will go through his mother’s clothes and separate them and read their wash instructions and wash every piece of clothing the exact way they’re meant to be washed. Even if I have to wash every piece by hand--I will. I want to tell him that I will take whatever is slipping from his grip and hold it tight to my chest.

Instead, I just nod, understanding.

“Is that the bathroom?” I ask, pointing towards the last door in the room.

It is the color of the floor, very solid, a pretty brass handle sitting high.

“Yes,” he tells me, “you can go see it if you want.”

I step forward, cross the floor very politely and carefully, and open the door. The scent of gardenia perfumes the air heavier in here. I take measured breathes, squinting through the light of the windows.

The bathroom is beautiful, too--black and white checkered tiles, twin basins sitting in a hunk of wood shaped like a cabinet, brass fixtures, a clawfoot tub sitting in the nook of the window that overlooks the top of the greenhouse. There’s a shower, too--encased in a rust-colored tile with the same brass fixtures--tucked into the space behind the door.

“Spacious,” I call to Bradley.

And as if the house is proving my point, my voice echoes.

The downstairs is just as impressive, just as expansive and beautiful. Although it is mostly barren, furniture only dotted here and there, it is still beautiful.

There is a dining room that sits just before the entrance of the greenhouse, directly below his parent’s old bedroom. It is a long, wide room--big enough to fit at least fifteen people. Definitely big enough to make a lone mother and son feel small.

The kitchen is a separate entity, a broad and long room that makes up much of the back of the house, directly overlooking the acreage in the back. It is a classic kitchen--all neutral tones and dark wood, brass fixtures, antique pulls and handles. The appliances are antique too, all of them the same avocado color of my oven at home.

The living room, though--it is the largest room in the house. It is big enough to fit thirty people--all wide-plank floors and vaulted ceilings and openness. There is a fireplace in here, too--the same brick from upstairs--and it is very large. It takes up most of the wall to our right, bricks shaped like an arch. The walls are white, that nice eggshell color, the windows seem endless in here. It is bright and perfect; feels like the sun is shining the brightest in this room.

And in front of the fireplace is the piano. It is the piano Rooster had told me about here and there, the one he said his father pounded on religiously, the one where he’d sat when he missed his father unbearably. I can see him now, baby Bradley, tucked up on his father’s lap, grinning a toothy grin as his father jauntily sings. It’s sweet--it’s all so sweet.

But now my belly is twisting itself inside out because Rooster is squinting at the piano and God, I really hope he notices. I really hope he meanders over there without any prompting from me and touches the keys and knows. Surely he notices the shine--the wood freshly dusted and polished, sheening in the sunshine. Yes, maybe its cleanliness will draw him in.

His hand, which has been resting on the small of my back, falls away lazily. He’s doing it, walking towards the piano with his eyebrows pulled together. And I have to bite my lip as I watch him, try and stifle the excitement that’s burning my throat.

He dusts his fingers over the smooth, shiny wood.

I can’t help it. I have to say something, can feel the words begging to rip out of my mouth.

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him, “play me a song.”

His hair looks golden, golden and so curly and soft, as he rounds the piano to sit on the bench. His cheeks are hollow and rosy as he situates himself, as he looks down over the keys that I know are very clean.

I step forward carefully, pinching my own palms.

“I would, baby, but it’s been years--s’probably out of tune.”

Even as he’s saying this, his hands are coming up to ghost over the keys. Surely he notices how pristine they are--they are glowing in the sunlight. I rest my arm against the flat top, still smiling down at him.

I won’t let myself say anything else. He is so close to playing, so close to bringing my surprise into fruition.

I wonder if he is scouring his mind, trying to remember if he had paid for the cleaning service to dust and polish the piano. Maybe he had once before, maybe they always did a polite dusting. But no chance they would clean it so dutifully--the piano looks brand new.

He finally does it. He flexes his fingers and presses down on the keys. The sound that echoes in the empty living room is a beautiful one--the instrument having been professionally cleaned and tuned yesterday, arranged all the way from San Diego by me.

He retracts almost immediately, surprised, bewildered. I still say nothing, but keep my eyes on his battering eyelashes, his rosy face, his bobbing Adam’s apple.

“Well, that’s…”

He presses on the keys again, this time with more confidence. My skin gooses at the sound--it is a sound pure and deep, one that makes my soul squeeze. My elbow, the one sitting atop the piano, vibrates.

I watch him think as he presses the keys, testing each one, chest rising and falling in rapid succession. And when he reaches the last key, when it plays flawlessly, that’s when he stares down at his hands for a moment. I can see the gears turning. I know he’s putting the pieces together. But I will not nudge him my way--I will let the surprise flood him organically. But dammit if my cheeks aren’t aching from beaming down at him.

It clicks. He turns his face to me, his mouth agape, his eyes shining.

“Surprise,” I whisper to him, punctuating it with one little shake of my open hand.

Then his eyebrows pull together and he looks like he’s anguished almost--his eyes get glossy and his mouth, ever-parted, turns up in the corners into a strange little smile. His lips are pink and wet.

“You did this?”

I nod.

“I remember you telling me about the piano your dad used to play. Figured it was still here,” I start, rounding the piano slowly, “so I did some research. Called around, explained the story. It’s funny, the guy said he remembered your family. Said he used to tune the piano back in the day. Told me he would polish it, too--free of charge.”

It made me ache when the man told me this. It was so sweet, so abnormally kind. It made me feel like I was living in a different world entirely in San Diego--one where people don’t do things for each other like that, one where there is no such thing as free of charge. I’d forgotten that putting my roots down somewhere meant that they would grow and contort with other people--that it connects us, entwines us.

“Wilbur?”

I nod, tilting my head.

“You remember!”

Rooster isn’t saying anything now, but opens his arms when I come to settle myself on his lap. I fiddle with the top button on his shirt, can’t help that face-splitting grin.

“I think it sounds beautiful. Doesn’t it?” I question, turning to the keys, “I guess I wouldn’t know. I’ve never played before. But he said he remembered the Bradshaw’s and he had really good Yelp reviews. I figured…how many Bradshaw’s can there be on Black Willow Lane?”

When I look back, he’s shaking his head lightly. His arms tighten around my waist. I comb my fingers through his hair, tilt my head, move to flutter my eyelashes against his cheek, still grinning.

“You’re surprised?”

He nods sharply.

“Faye, I don’t even know what to say, I--!”

I kiss his lips softly, cupping his chin, holding his jaw bone in my palm. His face is warm.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him, “now, you can play to your heart’s content. I’m going to place a grocery order. And then I’m going to pick up the groceries and make you dinner. And then we’ll have cake and you can open your presents. And before you say anything, yes,I did bring party hats and yes,you do have to wear one when you blow out your candles.”

He’s looking up at me with a grin that’s devouring all his other features. I think his pupils might even be heart-shaped. I squeeze his cheek affectionately, my heart throbbing.

“Happy birthday,” I tell him for the hundredth time today, “I love you so much.”

So that is exactly how his birthday goes. I place a grocery order, get enough food to last us a week, buy a couple bottles of prosecco and cherry wine and one bottle of tequila for good measure. I call a bakery, the one with the best reviews, and order a small white cake with raspberry jam and cream--one we could finish easily in one week. We bring our suitcases into the living room and Rooster pulls a mattress down from the attic to make a bed in the living room, layering linens and goose-down pillows over it once it is cleared of dust. I carefully unload the duffel of presents, placing them beside the bed, each of them wrapped in brown paper and tied with green twine. He’s answering phone calls sporadically, thanking this person for their call and thanking that person for the gift.

He is all smiles, his eyes shining, his face rosy. It’s perfect--he’s so elated, so excited. And I almost want to hug his shoulders and shake him and tell him I told you I would make it easy! Have I ever lied to you? But I don’t. I just watch him, let his mood infect me, tell him happy birthday every chance I get.

I pick up the groceries and unload them in the golden light of the late afternoon. He is sitting on the piano bench, still adjusting himself to sit comfortably, still surveying the keys and pedals.

We are a few rooms apart, but I can hear it when he finally starts playing. It takes a moment for me to recognize it, too--only a moment. But when I do, it makes me laugh as I stuff a few blocks of cheese in the refrigerator.

He’s playing Vienna by Billy Joel.

Everything feels warm. Everything is drenched in sunlight. Even in this house that feels like it’s still someone else’s, this house that feels like it was left for only a moment but also for decades, this house that feels like it’s lonesome here on all this land on Black Willow Lane--it does feel like a home. Yes, it does feel like a home whenever I am in the kitchen putting away groceries and Rooster is a few rooms over, playing on the piano his father used to play. It feels like we are supposed to be here.

I am walking back into the living room when the song draws to a close.

“Encore,” I call, clapping, leaning against the doorframe.

Rooster is the striking image of his father right now--so much so that it almost knocks me off my feet; sitting at that pretty, shining piano, wearing his Hawaiian shirt and denim shorts with his sunglasses hooked in his sandy locks, his body long and lanky, his throat thick with laughter, his mouth wide open and grinning. He looks happy. So, so very happy. And I know that I always think that he looks like he belongs, but right now, it’s taking my breath away. He has never belong anywhere more than he belongs on that piano bench, in this near-empty living room, grinning at me as the sunlight washes over him.

“Smile,” I call not a moment after, angling my phone at him.

It’s something I feel like I have to do--something I gladly do--these days. Who else will take pictures of him now that his parents are gone? It is my job now, one that was pressed into my palms, one that I have taken with a certain pride.

He smiles pretty for the picture, his cheeks dusted with roses.

After I tuck my phone in my pocket, he leans back and cracks his knuckles, raising a brow at me.

“Does the little lady in the dress have a request?”

His voice is deep and throaty. It sends a chill down my spine.

“Hmm…know any Jerry Lee Lewis?”

He’s grinning.

“This one goes out to my girl,” he says into a nonexistent microphone, speaking to the invisible audience, “the first time I tried to woo her like this, she left the bar and cried under a palm tree.”

He’s smirking, I’m shaking my head, biting my lip. He isn’t entirely wrong.

It’s with a slight jolt that I imagine his parents here, smiling coyly, exchanging private glances, as they watch their only son perform for me in this living room.

“It’s all for you, baby,” he croons before he starts the jaunty tune.

I stay in my spot against the doorframe while he plays, pounding on the keys, filling the sort of noise I think it needs. Yes, this house must always be filled with sound--every single sound. Footfalls--running ones, walking ones, sleepy ones, cranky ones. Laughter--dry chuckles and big throaty laughter and everything in between. Music--records and piano and guitar and everything in between. I hope, suddenly, that he teaches our children to play piano right here in this living room, sitting on his lap on that bench.

And when Great Balls of Fire finally ends, I clap, flushing.

“Color me impressed,” I smile, smoothing my hands over cotton draped over my thighs, “thoroughly impressed. Now, you’re good to play while I cook? No record player. Think I might go crazy if I cook in silence.”

He nods, grinning brightly.

“Anything for you,” he says sweetly, “baby.”

I do make dinner by myself, smiling, slowly working my way around the kitchen. It is a quick dinner--one I’m comfortable making, one I’ve made for Rooster before. It is just searing steak and grilling asparagus and mashing potatoes and baking drop-biscuits.

So when I call that dinner is ready, he files into the kitchen and rises plates off, pressing soft kisses to my temple as I dress the plates.

I carry both plates to the living room, biting my lip. It’s when he sits on the floor, legs criss-crossed, that I serve the birthday boy and we eat across from each other on the swept floors.

“Thank you,” he tells me.

“Oh, it’s no big deal. I like making steak.”

But then he shakes his head at me. Sunlight kisses his curls, his cheeks. And it’s when he’s looking in my eyes, when we are both laying on our bellies eating nice food off nice plates on antique flooring, that I get it. Oh. Thank you for spending my birthday with me here. That’s what he means.

I wonder how many birthday’s he spent alone before this, when his parents were gone, when Maverick may as well have been gone, too. And it makes my heart hurt, makes my throat squeeze. So I just lean forward and he does too and we kiss over our plates, his hand holding my face softly.

“You’re everything,” I tell him, “did you know that?”

It’s later, after dinner has come and gone, after we’ve sat on the living room floor and drank our cherry wine and talked about the plane ride and the car ride, when I scour the kitchen for matches. There’s a gas stove--I know they must be around here somewhere, but there are just so many drawers.

The cake, the short little cake adorned with raspberries and confectioner sugar, is sitting limply on the counter with unlit 3 and 6 candles pressed into its spongy layers.

It’s darker now--only a little while until sunset. The house is glowing, glittering because of the electric tealights Rooster found in the attic with the mattress. They’re littered everywhere now--bright enough so having the curtains drawn and the overhead lights off works. It’s enough to set the tone, enough to get me from here to Rooster without tripping.

“Y’get lost in there, baby?”

I can practically see him in the living room now, sitting criss-cross on the linen-clad mattress, exuding all the sex and strength of a Navyman but punctuated peculiarly with a cone-shaped party hat strapped under his tense jaw and nestled in his sandy locks. He’s being a good sport about it, lips twisted into a rueful little smile when I hooked his party hat on after mine.

“Yes. No,” I call back, “stay there.”

He laughs. It is a beautiful sound.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckles, “don’t hurt yourself!”

The matches are in the last drawer I look, pesky things. But then the candles are lit and I’m carefully balancing the cake in my flat palms, starting my descent to the living room. And it is really striking; this house drenched in gold sunlight and yellow, flickering candlelight--even if it’s electric flames.

“Happy birthday to you,” I start, my voice solitary in the house, “happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Bradley.”

I round the corner and there he is, just like I pictured. He’s sitting with his legs crossed on the mattress, a blip of warmth in the white sheets. And the sunset is so warm behind him, casting him in the most tawny of lights. He’s smiling coyly, his mouth closed and his cheeks red.

“Happy birthday to you!”

I very carefully sink to my knees before him, angling the cake towards him. He’s not even looking at the cake, though--he’s looking at me, biting a grin. In the light of the true flame from his birthday candles, he looks positively pleased. His lips look wet and bitten from smiling so much, so hard. His eyes are wide and watery.

“Make a wish, baby.”

I nod to the cake with a grin.

Before he makes a wish, he carefully comes around the cake and brings his face close to mine. He presses his lips against my forehead and they’re soft and sweet. They stay there for a long, long moment. He even brings his hand to rest on the side of my head to hold me there. As if I would move. He breathes me in and I am so happy, I think I could burst. He disconnects himself, sinks so his lips ghost over mine a few times, hand holding my cheek.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

And then he blows out the candle. His face is shadowed now. His eyes find mine and my heart is pulsing, throbbing. It is throbbing, pulsing with this all-consuming love. I could drown it. I could positively die in this glow.

“I know,” I whisper to him, “grab a fork.”

We eat the cake for a while, sitting with our knees together and the cake settled on the floor between us. It is sweet and moist, the cream melting on our tongues and the raspberries bursting between our teeth.

It’s the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. He says it, too--before I can.

Then it’s quiet. It is a different kind of quiet than that quietness back home--even when the record player is off. This quiet feels louder, amplified by white walls and empty rooms. It is not oppressive, but it is obvious. And here, out in the country, the artificial sounds have dissipated. There’s no cars whirring by, no horns honking, no bass thumping, no tires squealing. But there’s crickets and cicadas singing, harmonious above the sound of the warm breeze.

We sit in the quiet for a while.

My phone is lying open between us--I’m sending all the pictures I’ve taken of Rooster to the Dagger Squad group message. The photos are perfect, a collection of our day.

Rooster very early this morning--too early this morning, so early that most would consider it still night--when we loaded our luggage into the car and started for the airport. His eyes are closed, his nose wrinkled, his mouth half-smiling. He’s holding up a pathetic thumbs-up, lit up by the flash of my camera. Rooster sleeping on the airplane, his fingers half-enveloped in a bag of peanuts, his mouth hanging open and his head lolled to the side. Rooster walking through the airport, the photo blurred with movement, his grin wide and his mouth open as he spoke to me behind the camera. Rooster in the golden light of his childhood home, sitting at his father’s piano, smiling very handsomely. Rooster in a candlelit room, sitting on the continent of white bedding, a party hat strapped to his head. He’s smiling smaller in this one, the candles blown out, a fork in his hand.

Me: The chronicles of Bradley “Birthday Boy” Bradshaw :)

Rooster chuckles, shaking his head, pink dusting his cheeks.

Bob responds first--breaks the dam, brings the rest of the squadron flooding in.

Bobby: Now everyone say, “thank you, Bradley, for being born!”

Fanboy: thx 4 being born, old man! put any thought into retirement homes yet??

Coyote: morelike chronicles of Bradley “Dad Bod” Bradshaw

Phoenix: you guys having fun?? send more pics of the house!!!!

Payback: Faye, blink twice if he’s forcing you to listen to him sing

Hangy: 36 going on 63.

We’re both grinning when I look up at him again, pushing my phone to the mattress as it continues to buzz with messages. That’s how the group chat always is--one message is followed up with seventy others, streaming in steadily over the course of the day.

“Can we talk about something?”

He sounds different from before--not upset, but somber. Pensive.

He still has his party hat on.

I quirk a brow, but nod and bite my lip.

“Anything,” I tell him, taking another bite, “everything.”

Now he takes another bite, chewing carefully before he finds my eyes again.

“It might not be the most fun topic,” he tells me, “or the most birthday appropriate.”

Maybe a part of me felt a conversation like this coming. We are sitting in his empty childhood home, on his thirty-sixth birthday, in a state that he used to consider his home state. We have walked around this mostly-empty home all day, smelling his mother’s perfume, sitting on his father’s piano bench. There is still that distinct feeling that something is missing--inexplicably, truly missing.

“You’re the birthday boy,” I smile.

He takes a breath. I sometimes wish that I had the good sense to steel myself. I have entirely forgotten what it is to be hurt by the one that loves you, because he has never done it in an unforgiving, unrelenting way. He has never tried to hurt me. My guard is totally and completely down now. I am all in, all the time.

“When you were in the control room the day of the mission,” he starts, his voice low, “what was it like when I got shot down? When you thought I was…gone?”

Oh. My throat is dry, tight. He’s right--this isn’t the most fun topic.

He’s never asked me this before--he has specifically never asked me this before. After he came home, we were cast in the bright white light of life--too busy soaking each other in, too busy falling in love, too busy moving him into my house--and refused to be eclipsed by the mission. He didn’t offer and I didn’t insist. So we just did not talk about it.

I know that it touched him deeply, perhaps deeper than any of his other missions. He still jolts awake sometimes, hair matted against his hot scalp, breaths jagged and rapid. I know he still has bad dreams about it--about ejecting, about not ejecting. I know he still sometimes gets shaky when he knows he has to fly that day--even if it is a routine drill, even if it is very nearly a joyride. I know he still has to collect himself at work sometimes, ducking into my office in the middle of the morning or just before we are due home, sitting in the chair across my desk. I know he asks for comfort silently, doesn’t verbalize his anxiety, just reaches out for me and finds purchase on my skin. I am always solid for him, always ready to take the brunt of it.

We’re looking at each other now. Our forks are drooping in our slacked grips.

“How honest should I be?” I ask.

I’m asking if he wants me to sugar-coat any of it.

He blinks a few times, sniffing, shaking his head softly.

“Painfully,” he decides.

Sometimes when I think back to that day--of Cyclone dismissing me, of Hangman finding me in the hallway, of Hangman holding me as I came entirely undone, of the hideous sobs that wracked me--I get nauseous. I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel like one of my shoes is gone. I feel like the back of my shirt is ripped.

But it’s Bradley’s birthday. I can do this for him, can be entirely honest, can be entirely true.

“If I look at my life,” I start softly, letting the fork fall to the floor so I can bring my hands to my lap and hold them there, “and break it up and stack it like-like a tower of blocks--and all the good parts are on the bottom and bad parts are at the top--those few hours would be at the tip. The very, very tippy-top.”

My fingers are cold again--cold like they were the day my sister died, cold like they were on the carrier when Hangman tried to rub some heat into them.

Rooster is watching my face, a crinkle between his flighty furrowed brows, his eyes half-shut, the corners of his mouth pointed towards the earth. He looks acutely anguished.

“What did you do?”

Humming, I can’t help but fidget and readjust.

“Cyclone asked me to take a lap. I don’t really know why, I guess,” I tell him, “maybe he could see it on my face.”

“See what?” Bradley whispers.

His fork is on the floor now, too. The cake has been forgotten. I swallow hard.

“Um,” I whisper, smiling very sadly, “agony.”

The crickets seem especially loud when we let the silence of the house swallow us. He’s watching my face with his lip tucked between his teeth, brows pulled together as he tugs the skin around his thumb nail.

“Don’t want you to feel like you have to be…” I sigh, “you know--sorry or anything like that. I’ve never wanted you to feel that way.”

He nods. I’m looking at the cake--the raspberries are starting to capsize as the cream deflates and melts.

“You know that I am, though,” he says, rasping, “I am sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry about?”

He sucks in a breath.

“I shouldn’t have…” he trails off.

And I know that he feels stuck. He’s stuck because if he didn’t disobey direct orders, if he didn’t go back for Maverick like his father would’ve--then he would have another loss, he would be reeling still. But when he did that, when he turned back, he could’ve blinked out of my life and left me here. There is no answer here. I know he’s sorry about all of it. I know.

“What did you do when you took a lap?” He follows finally.

I sit back, move my knees away from him so I can pull into myself, pull my knees up to my chest. I wrap my arms around my legs, the air-conditioning kissing my exposed shins, and set my chin atop my knees.

Should I tell him all about it? Should I tell him about Hangman finding me? Should I tell him that my opal necklace, the one I never take off, falls on the exact same spot on my chest where Jake let his hand rest? Should I tell him that I was so beside myself that I ripped a good cardigan and kicked a shoe off? Should I tell him about the way my knees buckled and the way Jake had to collect me like a boneless heap in his arms? Or would it be too much--entirely too much--if he were to know these things?

Swallowing, I shake my head.

“I took a really long bathroom break,” I say decidedly, my hollow laughter following closely.

He’s not laughing--not even dryly. He moves his birthday cake beside us and spreads his long legs, essentially blocking me between them. He leans back on his palms and nods for me to keep talking.

“If I’m being entirely honest,” I start softly, “I wasn’t alone in there.”

His eyes are soft--they flicker with recognition.

Then his face hardens suddenly, hardens so his eyes look darker and his lips look thinner and whiter. I know that he isn’t angry with me--know it isn’t in his nature to be angry with me, even when he wants to be.

“Say it,” I whisper.

He sucks in a breath.

“I’m trying to imagine how upset you must’ve been for Hangman of all people to comfort you,” he says, his tone anguished and bitter.

My chest tightens.

“He was good to me,” I whisper back, “I might’ve sobbed myself to death without him there.”

He groans softly, raking a hand over his face. He presses against his eyelids for a moment.

I want to tell him that we should stop talking about this. I want to tell him that this conversation is weighing too heavily on him, especially today, especially here. It is a conversation that is fruitful and pointless simultaneously.

But I don’t say anything. I just watch him process.

“I’m glad he was there,” he admits, still not taking his hand away from his face, “it just nauseates me to think about it.”

My spine prickles.

“About what? Him and me?”

He shakes his head and lets his hand slip to his lap lazily. He looks at me with red-rimmed eyes, heaves a sigh.

“You thinking I was gone. You thinking I’d left you behind.”

Oh. My ears are red. Of course. That makes sense.

“You didn’t, though. You didn’t leave me behind,” I sigh, “you aren’t gone.”

He nods a few times.

After the mission, the squadron got a four-week sabbatical. It was a happy one, a celebratory one. Rooster is happy--I remember him being very, very happy. We didn’t talk about him leaving, didn’t talk about his next posting. We just took it day by day, soaking each other up, dying in each other’s arms every night.

Sure, I knew he was thinking about it all. I knew he was digesting what happened in his own way, which was largely private. I was silently rubbing knots out of his shoulders every morning, kissing his palms when they fell victim to his fingernails, loving him as thoroughly and sweetly as I knew how.

And it was on the second-to-last day of the sabbatical that he held the kitchen door open with his bare foot, leaned against the doorframe, and watched me silently for a few minutes as I crocheted on the couch. It took me a few moments to notice him, to notice his gaze. And when I finally looked up, when I finally smiled at him, that’s when he said it.

“I’m staying,” he told me soberly, “I’m staying here.”

“Okay,” I whispered back to him, biting a smile, “good.”

Of course in the days and weeks after, he’d told me about the position as an instructor, about his interest in teaching the next generation of Top Gun pilots. I knew he wasn’t telling me everything, but I never pried. I took what he gave me and thanked him. It was all I needed.

Now I think I can feel it coming--all that truth, all those words. They’re bubbling inside Rooster’s chest. I know this is when he gives me everything.

This is him walking up the stairs with his arms overflowing with clean laundry. Before, I was trailing behind him and grabbing discarded socks and fallen t-shirts. But now--now I think he is going to transfer the load into my arms. I think the truth is going to be warm and heavy in my arms, that I’m going to have to strain to see over it, that it’s going to smell like soap and linen.

“I’m a good pilot,” he starts and it isn’t cocky at all--he’s just saying it because it’s the truth, “and I’m a good wingman. And I used to think that was the most important thing in my life. It was, actually--for a long time, it was. No house to come home to, no wife, no kids, no parents, no girlfriend. It was easy to go on whatever detachment they wanted me to go on because I was just…alone.”

It feels like there is a ball of twine coiled harshly inside my chest. My eyes are watery.

“And then there was you.”

He’s smiling softly at me, eyes swimming in that gooey-sort of love. Sticky and viscous like honey.

“You know, I was hooked from the moment I first saw you,” he laughs, “squinting at the sun, smiling something stupid, waiting for me before you even knew me, calling me names.”

I nudge him, cheeks burning. He grins wickedly.

“Then there was something to lose,” I say softly.

His face softens, sobers. He nods. Yes, there was something to lose. Everything to lose.

“I wasn’t scared of dying,” he says.

And then that’s all he says for a long moment. Death didn’t scare him before he met me. Death didn’t scare him because it meant that he would be with his parents again. Death meant being released from this lonely world and being catapulted into the one after, where the people he lost live. But then there was me.

I’m biting my lips so hard that I taste pennies.

“It was your face I saw,” he says softly, nodding, his eyes trained on mine but distant, “your mouth. Your nose. Your eyes. All of it. And to think about leaving you behind--God, it fucking broke me.”

That must’ve been the moment that he apologized to me. That must have been when he told me he was sorry in that private way over the comms, when he knew that I was listening. That must’ve been it. I was there with him, pressed into the back of his eyes, an amalgamation of his grief. I was going to be the last thing he thought of before he died.

I hold his ankle in my hand, stroking him softly, soothingly. Any part of him touching any part of me slows our hearts in tandem--beats that can be measured easily, slowly.

“I thought I’d want to keep going,” he says, “thought I’d wanna keep flying. But then we had that month together. And I really, really thought our time before the mission was perfect. Don’t get me wrong--it definitely was in its own way. But those four weeks. I mean…that was the happiest I’d been since I was a kid.”

They were perfect. Late night drives in the Bronco with the windows down and the radio up. Early mornings at the farmer’s market, showing Rooster which stand had the best heirloom tomatoes. Afternoons on the beach, spread out across faded beach towels, wading in the warm water. Dinner with the Dagger Squad almost every evening, either on my living room floor or at The Hard Deck or on the patio of a seaside cafe. The weeks were perfumed with lavender, sunscreen, tequila, maple.

“They’d offered me the position--the instructor position--pretty much immediately. I told them no at first. Then I told them I’d think about it.”

I nodded and he continued, eyes washing over me. My dress is fanned out around me now that I’ve stretched my legs out before me, my socked feet resting on the inside of his left thigh.

“What changed?”

“Well,” he starts, sucking in a breath, splaying his fingers over my ankle mindlessly, “I went on a run one day. And I came home and you were crocheting on the couch, right where I left you. I went into the laundry room to grab a towel and realized that you had thrown in a load of my laundry. Nobody has done my laundry in a long time. And you know I don’t need you to--or expect you to--do my laundry.”

“I wanted to,” I say.

He nods, squeezing my ankle.

“Right. You wanted to. I guess…I guess I just got a little overwhelmed with it all. Being in the same house as you. Waking up with you every morning. Homemade food. You--God, everything about you made me want to stay. I just want to be the one that’s there with you for everything--wanna be the one that sings to you in parking lots and fixes your air conditioner. And suddenly,” he whispers, “I wasn’t willing to risk it all anymore. So I didn’t. I won’t. I feel like I’ve finally had enough. I can just sit still now.”

My throat is clogged. I want to cry, but it is his birthday, so I won’t cry. I am still the one that holds it down.

Instead, I smile, squeeze him. His fingers drift from my ankle to my toes. He squeezes my socked foot a few times, a small smile tugging at his lips. I’m sure he feels relieved--finally telling me everything, letting it spill from his chest to mine.

“I meant it when I said that you belong here,” I whisper gently, “right here, with me.”

He takes hold of my ankles and swiftly tugs me towards him, my legs falling over his spread ones so our hips graze another, our chests pressed together. He wraps his arms around my frame and pulls me closer, impossibly closer.

“You’re good to me,” he mumbles before pressing his open mouth over mine.

He’s warm and solid beneath my lips. He tastes like raspberries.

“Can’t help myself,” I say, smiling against his lips, pecking him a few more times as his mustache tickles my nose, “now, are you ready to open some presents?”

The evening welcomes us slowly--one minute, we were backlit by the dying sky and now we are in a shimmering, empty house with battery-operated candles flickering all around us. The crickets are quieted, but still croon gently outside. The house settles, croaking and groaning, but still echoes with a vast hollowness.

It is almost midnight now.

The cake is back in the refrigerator, covered with saran-wrap, beside the half-drunk bottle of cherry wine. All the electronic tea lights are on the living room floor now, corralled from the dusty cardboard box from the attic and the ones that straggled in the kitchen. All the birthday presents--an original pressing of Great Balls of Fire I bought on Ebay, a new pair of brown aviator Ray Bans, another Hawaiian shirt in a print he somehow didn’t have before, a film camera, two more good bottles of cherry wine--have been opened and are now neatly stacked beside Rooster’s suitcase. I am still in my dress and he is still in his jean shorts, but his Hawaiian shirt has been unbuttoned almost entirely. Beside us, his phone plays music, just loud enough to dull the sharp edge of silence.

The end of (They Long To Be) Close To You by The Carpenters is floating through the air now..

I am lying on my back on the mattress. Rooster is lying on his stomach, hugging my hips tightly with his head resting on my belly. I’m softly combing my fingers through his hair, cherishing every breath that fills his lungs and puffs out of his nose. He’s holding me tight, holding me down. It makes me feel like I can let go--makes me feel safe here.

My eyes are heavy. I know his are, too. But I know he’s awake because his breathing isn’t louder than the music, than the crickets. I know his legs must be aching like mine, his mouth dry. We have been up for nearly twenty-four hours.

“Pajamas,” I suggest quietly.

He grunts very softly.

“Not yet,” he whispers, muffled from the bunching of my dress that’s no doubt wet with his saliva, “s’still my birthday.”

I pull his hair very softly. I wish I could pretend to be annoyed with him, but I can’t. I would do anything for him, whenever, wherever. But more than that, I truly understand why he wants to soak in every single moment of his birthday. He’d been celebrating them alone for a very long time before now. He deserves to live, breathe every moment of his birthday in whatever Hawaiian shirt he wants. And I’ll keep my dress on just for him to press his cheek into.

“Only another minute,” I tell him, glancing at my phone, “how do you want to spend it?”

He nuzzles deeper into my belly--kisses my ribs through my dress. His breath is hot, his body is heavy over mine. Even now, even after all this time together, the strength he possesses is enough to make me woozy. He is the strongest person I’ve ever met, ever will meet. He could take my life in his hands and raise it up over his head with complete and utter ease. He sighs softly, open mouth pressed against my ribs.

He’s saying: Like this. Just like this. Don’t move, hold still.

So I do. I comb his sandy locks with all the softness I can muster, fingers expanding over his scalp and tangling in his hair. He’s still peppering kisses all over my midsection, still moving slowly, lazily. With every sweet, warm kiss he’s coming closer to me.

Honey starts dripping from my heart--my eyes water. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with it all--with all this endless love.

It’s midnight now. I sweetly tug on his locks.

“You’ve officially had your thirty-sixth birthday,” I whisper, “are you the reviews in yet?”

He chuckles. Finally, he sits up; his forearms are resting on either side of my body, his chest pressed against mine, his hair mussed and messy from my fingers. He’s smiling, his face swimming with love in the twinkling light of the room.

“S’gonna be tough to top next year,” he rasps, tilting his head, “you sure you’re up for the challenge?”

My throat is pulsing.

“I’m always up for the challenge,” I return.

He softens. His right hand cups my left cheek; his thumb grazes the scar on my chin sweetly, softly.

“You keep changing things,” he says.

When I quirk my brow, he continues, clearing his throat.

“You keep making me like things I didn’t care about before,” he all but whispers, his breath warm as it fans over my face, “cats. Prosecco. Good sheets. My birthday.”

I’m laughing. He’s still watching me, fondness pulsing in his grin.

“I’m showing you the finer things in life,” I tease, bringing my hand to his hair again, tugging his locks as his eyes slip shut again.

Stand By Me by Ben E. King starts.

His eyes open suddenly, but he does not move from my grip, does not move away from me. His amber eyes are swimming, open and calm, as he begins searching my face. Fuck, he’s so beautiful right now. His eyes fall from the crown of my hair down to the swell of my cheek, to the slope of my nose, to the curve of my mouth, to the quirk of my brow.

“What?” I whisper and I sound as love-drunk and breathless as I feel.

He shakes his head slightly and sucks in a breath.

“I thought I’d be able to wait,” he whispers and I barely catch it, hardly hear him over the crickets and the music, “but I don’t think I can.”

He moves carefully, leaning up. I’m reeling at the loss of contact for a moment, my hands falling still at my side. His face is flushed, his smile wide and his lips wet. He’s digging in his pocket, his jean pocket, and that’s when I sit up on my elbows.

I can feel my pulse in my eyes--it quickens. My heart is beginning to hammer in my chest, heat flooding my cheeks and throat. I suddenly know what is going to happen, know what he is reaching for, know why he didn’t want to change into pajamas, know why he wanted to stay awake past midnight. My mouth is dry and wet simultaneously as I gape at him.

His eyes fall to mine when he retrieves it finally--the marmalade-colored velvet box. It is small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. It is not big enough to hold earrings.

We’re looking at each other and he’s grinning and I’m reeling. He’s proposing to me--he’s about to propose to me--and all I can do is let my mouth fall open and wide. He leans forward and kisses my cheek softly before he nods to the side of the mattress.

“C’mon,” he encourages, “stand up so I can do this properly.”

I’m not sure how I do it, but I’m on my feet and his hands steady me for a moment, gripping my hips. My dress is wrinkled as it spreads out over my legs again, my feet still socked, my hair messy from lying on my back and oh, my God he’s kneeling now on the floor. His face is flushed and he looks happy, so unbelievably happy.

So darlin’, darlin’ stand by me / Oh, stand by me / Oh, stand / Stand by me

His face is angled towards me as he takes my left hand in his right, holding the ring box in the palm of his left hand, waiting. He swallows and he’s laughing, a beautiful sound, one that is hollow and overwhelming.

“Faye,” he rasps, “you’re the best person I’ve ever met--you’re my favorite person in the world and it’s not even close. I don’t even really remember what I was doing before I met you. Sleep-walking, I think. You’re fucking perfect, baby.”

My cheeks are wet, my mouth is open. He’s holding tightly to my fingers and I’m gripping him just as securely, just as tightly. My belly is pulsing with want, with excitement.

“I think I knew I was going to marry you that first night at The Hard Deck,” he says, chuckling, “and it had a little bit to do with that dress and a lot to do with how easily you clicked into place. I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to ask.”

He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses the skin there, his mustache tickling me. My hands are very warm in his grasp, my heart still racing, my chest pulsing.

“I told you--almost a year ago now--that you had to give me a chance. You had to let me try and know you all the way. And you really did give me a chance. I know you, baby. I know you better and better everyday,” he is grinning warmly, thumb stroking my hand, “and I wanna know you better everyday for the rest of our lives.”

He flicks the box open with his thumb and I very nearly fall to the floor, very nearly let my knees buckle under me. My breath is trapped in my throat, a bubble of air that could burst into a gleeful laugh. Through my glassy eyes, all I can make out is gold and opal and diamond.

“I think I love you too much; it scares me sometimes. Couldn’t even wait to do this tomorrow, like I planned--had to do it right now. But you make it all so fuckin’ easy, Faye. You won’t be alone ever again, not if I have somethin’ to say about it,” he’s being so earnest, his eyes pouring into mine, “let me take care of you forever. I promise I’ll make you happy. Marry me, baby.”

For a moment, I am speechless. It’s just him gazing up at me, his eyes wide and wet and his mouth twitching into a grin. It’s just me gazing down at him with my messy hair and my wet cheeks and my flushed face. I’m holding tight to his hand, heart hammering, breath stuttering. Stand By Me is winding to a close, the crickets are crying quietly, and the house settles with a sigh.

“As if you even had to ask,” I finally whisper, my voice thin and tearful.

And then we’re both laughing and I’m still crying and he’s pressing kisses to my hand as he takes the ring from the box and carefully slips it onto my fourth finger. It glides up easily and rests decidedly, glimmering in the electric glow of the candles.

He’s grinning up at me, still kneeling on the floor of his childhood home, when he cups my hand in his and presses a soft kiss over the ring.

I am engaged. I am engaged.

He stands and wraps me in his arms and we’re kissing and I’m crying and laughing and my heart is weeping and my eyes are heavy and his lips are warm and the living room is empty, empty, empty except for us. The ring is a new weight on my finger--just heavy enough for me to remember that it is there. He’s kissing my throat, pushing my hair away from my face, telling me he loves me.

And that’s when I almost say it.

I have to call my sister!

It almost lurches from me like it’s completely normal, like she isn’t really gone at all. She is gone, though. She’s gone and she isn’t back in San Diego, waiting on my call. She didn’t go to the jewelry store and help Bradley pick out the stone or tell him what color of band I wanted or let the jeweler use her identical hand for a size reference. She’s not going to pop a bottle of champagne at The Hard Deck tonight and announce that her sister is engaged, isn’t going to insist that a round is on her. She isn’t going to plan my bachelorette party or get me ready the morning of my wedding. She isn’t going to get drunk and cry during her speech, the strap of her dress falling down her glowing shoulder. She isn’t here to do these things. No, she isn’t.

Bradley pulls back, cupping my face, pressing his palms to my cheeks. He’s looking down at me so steadily, so sweetly that I’m swooning all over again. He thumbs the tears from under my eyes and smiles.

“Are you happy?”

He asks me this like he knows that I almost slipped up, that I almost grabbed my phone and dialed my sister’s number.

“Yes,” I tell him, “so, so happy.”

I am happy. Yes, it is infecting me wholly. I have never felt more happy about anything in my life. It is my favorite thing that has ever happened to me. I am shaking because I am so happy, crying because I am so excited. This is good. This is perfect. This is what I want. Even if Maggie isn’t here--I will allow myself to be this happy. This stupid, blind sort of happy.

We kiss a few more times, him still holding my cheeks, but then he grasps my wrist and brings it to rest on his shoulder.

“It fits, right?”

I nod, flushed.

“Lucky guess?”

He shakes his head, smiling.

“You sleep real hard when you drink tequila,” he tells me, laughing.

My spine prickles. I have to rack my brain, but I’m sure--yes, I’m entirely sure that the last time I drank tequila was in late August, just before everyone departed. Yes, that was the last time I drank enough to fall asleep before Bradley, before even waiting for my moisturizer to absorb.

“I’ve known for a long time,” he tells me, like he knows that I’ve just made the connection, “started working on it in September. Picked it up just before Christmas.”

I wish I could just sit on the floor and scream into a pillow--the excitement that’s bursting through me makes me want to resort to juvenile antics.

“I knew you had a crush on me,” I bite back, as if I’m not still tearing at this moment.

He hums, nodding, pressing another kiss to my nose.

My hand looks so pretty resting on his shoulder; my fingernails trimmed and clean of polish, my fingers lanky and soft. And the ring looks perfect there--very delicate and feminine.

I really look at the ring now. It is a gold ring, the band thin and round. There is an opal stone set in the middle, the color of a moonbeam, a sweet circle. And set around the opal are dainty white diamonds. It looks like a flower, or what children draw when they make the sun.

“The opal is antique. The diamonds and the band, though--they’re from my mother’s engagement ring. She liked bling, but I knew that wouldn’t be for you. So I had the gold melted down and reconstructed,” he tells me, watching my face carefully, “and what was leftover made this.”

His thumb lands on my opal pendant. I’m melting beneath his touch.

It is his mother’s gold--the gold that sat on her finger, a gift from the man she married. A gift from the man she lost. A gift from the man--the only man--she ever loved. It has been sitting in the middle of my chest since October, right in the middle of my breathing, and I didn’t even know it. I have been so close to her in this way.

He thumbs the few fresh tears that roll down my cheeks.

“I had no idea,” I mutter.

He flashes a pretty, pretty smile. A smile that I will get to see each morning and every night.

“That’s the whole point of a surprise, baby.”

Be My Baby by The Ronettes begins, soft below my sniffling and his laughter.

We look at each other. His eyes are the color of amber glass, his lips smiling, his skin flushed and sweet. He looks tired, but ecstatic. Deliriously happy. He is shaking his head softly, pressing his nose against mine, kissing my cheeks.

“You can ask me to dance and I’ll say yes,” I whisper to him.

He doesn’t ask--doesn’t have to. He just kisses my forehead, pulls my body flush against his. He encloses his arms around me and lets his hands splay at the base of my spine, fingers needling through the cut-out of my dress to press against my skin.

I leave my left hand in its place on his shoulder. I twirl his curls around the fingers of my right hand, lean forward so his lips are pressed against my forehead. He’s humming softly and it vibrates against my skin, makes me want to cry.

Oh, since the day I saw you / I have been waiting for you

We don’t say anything while we twirls us around the room. I think both of our eyes are closed, I think we are breathing the same breaths. And I think our spines prickle when we think of stepping out of this moment--away from this home that was once his parents but is now just Bradley’s. But then I’m biting my lip because this dainty gold on my finger, the ring that fits so snuggly, is a guarantee that everything that was his will be mine. This home is ours.

“You’re my girl,” Bradley whispers and his voice is strained like he’s holding something back, holding something in.

“Always was,” I return, “take me to bed now.”

I press a very soft kiss to his throat, just over the scar there.

☾ ☽

I wake up before Bradley. It is early, very early--the morning light is baby blue as it streams in from the windows all around us. Beside the mattress, beside Bradley’s naked form tangled in sheets and blankets, there are two empty glasses stained with cherry wine. Stacked beside the glasses are photo albums that we found in the attic, ones we flicked through after dinner last night. His phone is still playing music, which we had fallen asleep to. April She Will Come by Simon & Garfunkel is floating through the empty air. There are birds singing outside, flittering past the windows in a stream of brown and gray and white.

I’m lying on my side, facing Bradley, watching him sleep with his mouth wide open. His broad chest, flushed with sleep, is rising and falling very steadily. The dim morning light is just beginning to touch the sheets, just beginning to kiss his skin. My hand is resting on his belly, the ring glimmering in the sun.

It is our last day here, in this house. It has been good to us. So good to us that I almost don’t want to leave here, don’t want to leave Virginia. Most of all--I don’t want to leave the house sitting here by itself. The house must have been so lonesome before we came, sitting here with it’s white walls and sprawling bedrooms, settling on the green lawn. Before we came, nobody sat at the piano and played Your Song by Elton John as I set a tray of cookies on the counter to cool. Before we came, nobody used the red-tiled shower in the primary bathroom, nobody cherished the checkered floors. No one sat in the enclosed greenhouse, basking in its heat, imagining the herbs that could grow in the ample sunshine. No one walked the property, hand-in-hand, and pointed out all the old familiar places. Before us, the house was silent. No music to be played, no love to be made, no laughter to be had.

Bradley mentioned the night before last, as he grazed the wallpaper in his mother’s room, that he was considering selling it. He said it solemnly, eyebrows drawn together and mouth clamped shut tightly. I did not press, never press him. But he continued on his own, sighing, telling me that he hated that it sat empty.

I’ve thought about it. I would be sad to sell my home back in California; my sister had been there so many times that I sometimes wondered if there were still little pieces of her there, particles and atoms. I would be sad to leave everyone in Fightertown, I think, but I would find a new job. I would miss the beach very much and the palm trees. The Hard Deck, the stench of jet fuel. Yes--I would miss it all very much.

But life would be sweet here in Virginia.

We could fill up these bedrooms the way his parents intended. We could paint the walls and pick out new furniture to nestle in beside his mother’s things. We could plant a new garden in the eye of the circle drive. We could plant herbs and flowers in the greenhouse and plant fruits and vegetables outback. We could buy some chickens and always eat fresh eggs. We could buy some goats to graze the acres, a cow to milk. Stevie could find companionship with field kittens and stray tomcats. We could stay here, where there’s room for everything, and drown in quilts and sweetgrass and weathered wood.

We could stay.

“Mornin’,” Bradley whispers, voice thick with sleep, not opening his eyes.

“Morning,” I return, grazing his cheek.

He hums at my touch.

“S’too early,” he tells me, cracking an eye open to peer at the color of the sky, “c’mere.”

He pulls me so I’m resting on top of him. We are both naked, pressed up against each other in these sheets. My cheek is in the middle of his chest and I can hear it, can hear his heartbeat as it steadily thumps. He’s stroking my hair very gently, his touch still stuttering with exhaustion.

“I was thinking,” I whisper.

I can feel his tired smirk from above me, the one that precedes a jibe.

“Lord help us all,” he muses.

A beat passes. I kiss his skin. He is starting to smell like gardenia perfume.

“What if you didn’t sell the house?”

His hand halts and rests heavily on the top of my head. His thumb is still stroking, though, the way it always does.

“It would keep on sitting here, then, I guess.”

Another beat.

“Well, what if you didn’t sell the house because we moved in?”

Now he pauses completely, frozen beneath my cheek. His heart rate is still steady--I count the thumps. He’s digesting, waking up still. A few moments pass. We quietly sit in my suggestion.

“That’s what you want?”

I look up at him. His eyes are open wider now, his hand falling to the back of my neck.

“Yes,” I whisper, “I think.”

He nods, his expression borderline unreadable. He watches my eyes, my mouth. Then the corners of his mouth begin to tug upwards softly. He resumes his gentle stroking of my unbrushed hair.

“We could get married in California,” I suggest, lazily dragging my index finger over his tanned skin, “then make the big move after.”

“You’ve been thinking about this,” he says.

I nod.

“Yes,” I smile, “daydreaming.”

He grins at that.

“There’d be a lot to do,” he says and he isn’t lecturing me, more musing to himself out loud, “we’d have to pack up, ship out. We’d have to sell the house. I’d have to apply for a transfer.”

I hum against him. He’s right--it would be a lot.

“We could give ourselves a year,” I suggest, “get married, sell the house, make the move.”

He’s just gazing down at me now, his hair messy and his eyes glassy. He’s biting a grin. His cheeks are still flushed, lines from the pillows pressed into his skin.

“Say that first one again,” he commands, his voice low.

A warm tingle shimmies up the column of my spine.

“Get married,” I say.

It still makes me blush to say that . Get married. I’m getting married. We’re getting married. It’s all so much, so overwhelmingly perfect. I have to swallow all my giddiness, all my excitement.

“Mmm,” he whispers, “music to my ears.”

Everyone knows now.

Rooster had taken a photo of me early in the morning after the proposal. I’d woken up before him, slipped into his button-up shirt from the night before, and started on banana pancakes. He woke up the the sound of David Bowie, walked into the kitchen to me setting the table with a mug in my hand. And before I could even say anything, he had grabbed his phone and reached for my hand, snapping a photo of my messy, happy form.

The responses were immediate.

Bob FaceTimed me instantaneously, his face pressed up against Phoenix's. They had been all grins, maybe even a little tearful, as they congratulated us and asked to see the ring over and over. It was Phoenix who teased Rooster for proposing on our first night--which made him shrug, smug. I’m a man who knows what I want is what he’d told them.

Coyote, Fanboy, and Payback had--of course--placed a bet on when it would happen. And they had no issue telling us about it in the group message, chastising Rooster for not holding off longer.

The last person to respond was Hangman.

I was on the back porch, sitting on the steps with a glass of cherry wine, catching my breath. The crickets were chirping beneath the song of the cicadas, the trees billowing in the evening breeze. Somewhere distantly, there was a cow mewling, frogs crooning on the edge of a pond.

Rooster was in the kitchen, finishing up dinner, singing an REO Speedwagon song off-key as he waited for the salted water to boil.

That was when Hangman called--like he knew I would be alone.

“Cowboy,” I greeted with a soft smile, pressing my phone against my cheek as I burrowed deeper into my cardigan, “been waiting on your call.”

It was quiet on the other end for a moment.

He must’ve been at home by then. Some small apartment with clean floors and not enough closet space. Some apartment that’s close enough to base but not close enough to any bars. A place where he was alone most of the time, lying between cheap sheets with some half-read Teddy Roosevelt biography on the bedside table.

“Hey, kid,” he greeted, exhaling, “just saw the news.”

I glanced down at my ring--the heaviness was still foreign on my finger. A good foreign, though--one I couldn’t wait to embrace, one I knew would be easy to fall into. The opal gleamed beneath the setting sun.

“Aren’t you gonna say congratulations?”

A beat passed.

“Congratulations,” he said flatly.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to say.

He was always brazen about his crush on me--it wasn’t groundbreaking when he shot me those private winks, when he teased Bradley, when he asked me to dance with him. But we had become friends since the Uranium detachment--closer friends than I ever thought we would be. We had shared that private moment the day of the mission, one where I’d let him achingly close, one where he’d proved to be a necessary solidness beneath my fingertips. And after that, we’d been friends. Good friends--the kind of friends that should be happy for each other when they get engaged.

“That’s all you got?” I asked gently.

He sighed.

“I’m happy for you,” he said, a little louder now, “really. I am.”

Then I let another beat pass--let him sit in silence.

“Thanks,” I’d said, “I’m happy, too.”

“Stupid happy?” he teased.

I bit a grin, craning my neck to look through the kitchen window. Bradley was bobbing his head to a song that wasn’t playing, chewing the song as it burst through his lips, stirring a saucepan of white-wine braised garlic. It made my heart throb.

“Yeah,” I sighed, shaking my head, “stupid happy.”

“What about February,” Bradley muses, still smiling, still raking his hands through my hair, “is that enough time?”

I nod, raising my eyebrows.

“February would be good,” I tell him.

☾☽ 𝐚/𝐧: I am......in love w these dumbasses. that's why there's a five-part epilogue series. gotta get all that fluff out. xoxo thank you all so much for reading :)

☾☽ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

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