04/10/22: CUTEST PROLOGUE FOR THE CUTEST COUPLE AROUND!!! Aaaaaaaaa I’m So Happy We’re Gonna Get

04/10/22: CUTEST PROLOGUE FOR THE CUTEST COUPLE AROUND!!! aaaaaaaaa i’m so happy we’re gonna get to see them in an actual relationship this time!!! IT’S TIME FOR THE REAL DEAL!!! they deserve to be so happy together, i’m over the moon. i know this prologue is super short but i still NEED to highlight my favorite parts so that’s what below the cut!!! 💞

“His velvet jacket draped over his shoulder with just as much swagger as he had when he approached you last night at the wedding – watching him walk was going to be a problem, you realised. Did he always walk so sexy?”

“Was this your ploy? To get me back here…” he bit back a smile as he was in front of you again. You shook your head, a shy smile unable to be held back.” your rooster has such a way with words i’m already turning into jelly!!!!!!!!

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare be sorry,” he reassured you, swallowing hard. “Gee, they look good on you,” his voice dropped and his hands pressed into your hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh as you inhaled sharply.” THE DIALOGUE TONE CHANGE IN THIS I’M OBSESSED!!!

“Curiosity killed the cat,” his lip quirked, lowered his face to yours and you slipped his dog tags over his head, but didn’t let go of the chain. His warm hazel eyes caught yours.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 i can visualize the scene so perfectly!!!

“he made a face, his palms sliding to your ribcage, lightly tracing the bones under the pads of his long fingers. “Last guess. Better make it a good one,” he warned softly, his tired rasp just… just doing things. Bad, naughty things to your already overstimulated brain. Gee, if this was a dream you did not want to wake up.” PHYSICAL TOUCH ROOSTER YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS AND LOVED BY ME IT’S JUST SOMETHING SO PERSONAL AND IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE IN EVERY INTERPRETATION OF HIS CHARACTER THE WHOLE PART ABOUT HIS PALM SLIDING TO YOUR RIBCAGE AND TRACING??????? INSANE. BEAUTIFUL. AND HIS VOICEEEEEEE!!!! “just… just doing things.” YEAH!!!!!!!!! I GET IT!!!!!! SO VALID, SO REAL!!!

“Nathan…” your voice trailed off and watched his face direct you towards another no and you quickly added, “iel?” reader trying to fix it last minute!!! CUTE!!!

AND OF COURSE FROM THE MOMENT I SAW THE LETTER N IN THE MIDDLE I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE NICHOLAS BECAUSE OF GOOSE AND STILL I GASPED WHEN BRADLEY SAID IT AJHDJSHDHSHS ANYWAYS!!!

“Nicholas,” you said again, burning into your brain so you’d never forget it.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥲🥲🥲

AND THEN THE WHOLE NICHOLAS WAS DAD’S NAME PART 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

“And there you have it. I’m all outta mystery,” he blinked, licking his lips. You were desperate to have him kiss you again. You gave each other bashful grins and fell into a slightly weird silence. He was so fucking handsome, how had you been so blind that this man was in front of you? Looking this fine, smelling this good… and wanting you just as badly.” AND WANTING YOU JUST AS BADLY!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“That part was the hardest part to grasp.” BELOVEDS I REALLY AM GETTING EMOTIONAL!!!

The Relationship Experience - prologue

read this first - the boyfriend experience

Tugging at the chain around your neck, rationality setting in, you texted Rooster furiously fast. “Bradley N. Bradshaw… your dog tags are right here where you left them,” you said as you typed, hopefully getting his attention before he got too far away, or at least seeing your text before he reported.

Fuck, he texted back simply. That wasn’t good, you realised.

Continuar lendo

Tags

october fic recs 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing fake dating is good but REAL DATING IS ABOUT TO BE SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!!!!!! obsessed already more romcom material incoming the dog tags make me go a little insane i’m not gonna lie

(christmas) baby please come home

summary: in which lieutenant commander bradshaw and his girlfriend throw a christmas party, complete with a christmas tree, copious amounts of champagne, blended friend groups, and the true meaning of the word home

OR what do you do when your boyfriend gets deployed over christmas and he get you two christmas presents?

pairing: Rooster x Fem!Reader 11.8k

warnings: 18+, explicit language, explicit sexual content

part of @notroosterbradshaw ‘s hello december challenge

masterlist and playlist

It was obvious that you knew how to throw a party.

Furthermore, it was obvious that none of your and Bradley’s friends - baring Max, but only because he had professional help - would ever be able to pull off a party of the same caliber as your Christmas party.

Subconsciously, you wanted your friends to be jealous of you and impressed with how well you and Bradley had pulled things off. It was, admittedly, such a vain and shallow thought - no, desire to want to be the best at this. At throwing parties.

The Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack was currently echoing throughout the downstairs on the Sonos, the twinkling jazz giving off a whimsical, yet sophisticated vibe, the Christmas tree looked stunning in the living room where it was covered in nearly three thousand white lights and countless ornaments, and the food that you and Bradley - but mainly Bradley - had spent all morning and last night preparing was laid out on festive serving dishes, complete with seasonally appropriate plates and napkins, perfectly folded in their napkin rings.

You had scoured San Diego county for the most gorgeous garland possible to serve as the centerpiece on the dining room table, the berries and pine cones in it perfectly matching the plates and napkins and serving dishes. You had vacuumed the hardwood floor twice and washed it once before everyone came over and knew you would do so again once everyone left, if only so you could casually say it’s fine, you can keep your shoes on, we’re washing the floor tomorrow anyway. The candles weren’t overpowering, there was soft lighting all throughout the house, and you’d somehow wrangled a recipe for the cookies Bradley’s mom used to make from Sarah Kazansky and hadn't even burnt them.

Because you wanted people to talk about it - the party. And to say did you see their bathroom? It was so clean, there weren’t any water spots on the faucet. The beef tenderloin appetizers were delicious, they had to have gotten the meat someplace special? No, definitely not Vons, maybe some local butcher in La Jolla? Aren’t they such a sweet couple? Such a good pair.

Because it had to be perfect.

All of it.

Because this was Bradley’s Christmas. His only Christmas that year. Nothing could go amiss. And you wanted everyone to be jealous of it, so much so that tonight would be equal to if not better than how they celebrated the actual holiday with their own families - in their own homes - on Christmas Day.

Because they weren’t going to be spending the holiday on a drafty aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific far from home like Bradley was.

And Bradley deserved the entire world and all the happiness he could possibly have. The way his face had lit up when you’d first suggested the party after he’d gotten his orders at the beginning of November would stick with you for months. You’d told him that everything would be perfect, that you would pack enough Christmas spirit and love and gifts and food into one evening that it would take the sting out of being away from home - being away from you - at Christmas. Even if for just one night.

The guests had all arrived, some promptly and some not-so-promptly, with you and Bradley greeting them all, telling them to help themselves to all the food and drinks they wanted. Apparently, Max had a surprise for later that you prayed was not him putting on a Santa suit. But the conversation and drinks were flowing with ease, despite the blending of your two friend groups for the first time.

It was a good party.

Except right now, it was your turn to be the jealous one.

You watched, enviously, as one of your work friends leaned against the kitchen island with a glass of prosecco in her hand, while the other gripped Jake Seresin’s bicep. The jealousy wasn’t because of Jake or any attention he may have been giving her, mind you.

(Because no, no - while you may no longer have had an intense hatred for Bradley’s nemesis cum friend, you still didn’t actively seek out his presence and you definitely didn’t want his attention - not for anything other than a great party as he left your - no, Bradley’s house later that night.)

No - you were jealous of her dress. Her gorgeous, deep garnet, midi-length, sleeveless dress. That looked absolutely stunning on her, though a touch too fancy for a Christmas party in South Park. She looked gorgeous, beautiful - statuesque.

You absentmindedly fixed the bow on your wrap dress. Your long sleeved, silk wrap dress - that also did plenty to hide any unwanted lines or bumps around your stomach. And your arms.

Weeks ago, back when the party was but a pipe dream, you’d been eyeing this absolutely adorable, sleeveless, mini-dress for the event. Like your friend’s dress, it probably erred on the side of slightly too fancy for a house party, but it had been so pretty and so perfect. It had sat in your cart online for at least two weeks - you just wanted to see if it would go on sale before you finally pulled the trigger.

Until Thanksgiving.

When you saw how unflattering your arms looked in the black cashmere tank you’d brought for dinner to your parents’ house. You thanked your past self for having the forethought to pack a cardigan, which didn’t come off until hours later after all your aunts and uncles and cousins had left and you were snuggled up in Bradley’s arms.

Maybe you should try the HIIT classes on your Peloton instead of all those beginner rides you were still doing with Cody? Or get arm weights? The girls who worked out in the front two rows of your pilates class swore by them. They barely needed any input from the instructor - they just knew how to move their bodies that way. Or maybe you could ask your parents for a higher Class Pass subscription for Christmas? It would give you something to focus on while Bradley was gone.

You hadn’t been this self conscious at the gala back in October and that dress was far more daring than anything you’d ever worn before; practically open back, with a risqué slit and a deep v neckline, to say nothing of what you had worn just for Bradley later that night.

So, why now? Why tonight when you were supposed to be enjoying this time with your boyfriend and all your friends before the holidays? Why tonight, when everything else was going so right, were you being bogged down by this insecurity in your own home - no, no, it was Bradley’s home, not yours.

Was it because he was leaving? And you didn’t want one of his last images of you for three months to be your arms in a too tight dress? Because that was so shallow and silly and ridiculous.

But what if it was true? Bradley was so pretty and handsome and charming and sweet, what if there was someone else on that boat that also thought he was pretty and handsome and charming and sweet? And you’d seen all the other aviators and naval personnel at that gala, they were stunning. What if Bradley thought that too - no, no, no. You weren’t going to focus on that for one of your last nights with him.

Bradley loved you, Bradley proved how much he loved you every single day, Bradley catered to your every whim about this party with the biggest smile on his face.

Bradley loved you.

You were just being ridiculous and shallow and over dramatic and spiraling before he left. Bradley loved you, Bradley loved you. He loved you. He - was wrapping his arms around your waist.

“How’s it going?” His voice rumbled in your ear and you leaned back against him.

God, he was so strong and soft and warm and smelled so pretty all the time. You were going to miss him so much. You felt him fiddle with the bow tying your burgundy dress together and ducked your head.

“Good, just came to get a drink.” Which you had been doing - about three minutes ago. “And wanted to make sure everyone in here was all set.”

Bradley hummed and swayed you back and forth in his arms. “Look at you, hostess with the mostess - or however that goes. You want me to make you another drink?”

You nodded. “Please.”

You both had decided to set up the bar in the kitchen, while keeping the food in the dining room and the dessert in the sitting room for later. Hours ago, before you had even hopped in the shower, the bar had been painstakingly set up and organized. Now, it needed some work. You cursed yourself for not checking on it earlier in the evening - you couldn’t believe your guests had been serving themselves from this all night.

The glasses were no longer in neat rows, organized by type, the bowl with the limes was running dangerously low, and the caps to the liquor bottles and the champagne corks were scattered across the table. Without a second thought, you started organizing everything before Bradley could even get you a fresh glass.

You could tell he wanted to say something, but - at least for that moment - he just rubbed your back and then poured you another glass of champagne, making sure to put the bottle back properly. Meanwhile, you scooped up the stray corks and foil and other bottle caps and threw them in the garbage underneath the sink. You had enough time, maybe you could pop those dirty wine glasses in the empty dishwasher? Wait - there was a puddle of condensation underneath an open bottle of champagne. You frowned. Clearly, someone hadn’t put it back in the bucket. Who would do that? Didn’t they know to put it back exactly where -

“- You good?”

Bradley’s voice was so soft and reassuring and you couldn’t believe you’d soon be going without hearing it for months. Unable to wait another second, you wrapped your arms around him in a hug, which he eagerly returned and you nuzzled his chest. Bradley’s shirt for the party was an exceptionally soft flannel in a solid navy color that you’d found on sale. He hated buying himself clothes, even more so spending a lot of money on them, but he always liked whatever you picked out for him.

Maybe you could buy him some new clothes while he was gone? By now, you knew what he liked and didn’t like - right down to the colors and fabric types. He needed some new undershirts - and socks. You nuzzled your face into his chest. He felt so warm and soft and smelled so good. You had to buy a travel sized bottle of his cologne before he left.

“You sure you’re okay, kid?” he asked again.

“Just a little overwhelmed - and kinda tired.” You pulled your head back to look at him, but the two of you still kept your arms around the other.

“Well,” Bradley started, “to be fair, you did do like all the work for this party, think it’s valid to be a little tired, sweetheart.”

“What? No?” You were offended on his behalf. “Bubs, you made all the food and -”

“- Yeah, but you helped with the food and did all the work getting the house ready.”

You cocked your head, considering this. “I mean, I did. Didn’t I?” Bradley chuckled. “Okay, fine - I’m tired. But it’s a good tired, I think?”

“A good tired, huh?” His thumbs were making the most soothing circles on your hips.

“You should’ve just led with that last one.” He kissed your temple and ran his hands up and down the silk fabric covering your arms. “Would’ve known exactly what you were talking about then.”

You lightly shoved his chest and then pulled him back in for a hug. “I’m also gonna miss you a lot…”

That was the crux of it. You were going to miss him so much you thought your heart was going to burst. And enjoying all the Christmas festivities tonight - on the second Saturday in December - made it all the more apparent that Bradley wasn’t going to be with you over the holidays. He wouldn’t be with you again until March.

You two had gotten through plenty of training missions, short diplomatic visits, and off-sites - on your end - over the last eight months. But this was Bradley’s first, real deployment.

God, if only Emily Simpson could see you now. You and Bradley had both been so cocky, so confident back in October at the gala about how effortlessly you handled the time spent apart. But you hadn’t been staring down a three month long deployment back then.

Three months was a long time. Six pay cycles, at least twelve trips to the grocery, four off-sites, the entirety of Q1, five nail appointments, twenty four pilates classes, and if he knocked you up that very night, it could be the entirety of a first trimester of pregnancy. Not that you wanted to be pregnant - at least not for a while. Like quite a while. It was just a way to compare time. You didn’t want to be pregnant.

Three months, three months, three months.

And then he’d come home to you. To you and your life together.

That’s why the party had to be perfect. Because it would remind Bradley of home and all he had to look forward to when he came back in three months.

“I’m gonna miss you, too. Never really had someone to miss before on one of these - not like this.”

And then he kissed you - quick, little butterfly kisses that soon turned bolder and more daring, especially considering there were five or so other people milling about the kitchen. Bradley’s tongue licked your bottom lip, eventually coaxing your mouth open. He tasted like the old fashioned you saw him drinking earlier. You slid your arms up his chest to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer and fiddled with the ends of his soft hair.

The sounds of the party disappeared around you - you could no longer hear Frank Sinatra singing Jingle Bells, Jake and Georgie talking in the corner, or Javy getting drinks for him and his girlfriend to your right.

All you could focus on was Bradley. And how warm and soft and strong he felt in your arms and how -

“- Fuck’s sake, Bradshaw. Do you want us to leave or…”

You turned around to face Jake and Georgie, the latter of whom looked beyond embarrassed, and leaned back against Bradley’s chest. Shit - you’d forgotten you had an audience, especially Jake and Javy.

“Sorry…” You felt warm all over at getting caught. Normally, you and Bradley weren’t big on PDA, but you’d been needy lately - both of you had been.

Further down to your right, Javy just chuckled. “Give ‘em a break. You’d be the same if you could hold someone down long enough.” Bradley laughed, while Jake turned beat red.

While him and Javy started chirping at each other, Bradley took your hand and led you out of the kitchen, past all the guests congregating in the dining room and over towards the sitting room.

“Here, I know what’ll cheer you up.”

There were only a couple people in this part of the house - Caroline and Max, Bob and Callie, and Natasha and Rory, the latter of whom had gone with her to the gala back in October. They were a relatively quiet crowd and looked to be captivated by a story Max was telling. But then again, people were always captivated by Max.

“…so I say to Garoppolo, ‘you really wanna get the shit beaten out of you for the second time this week?’ Because a guy who folds in front of the fucking Broncos’ defensive line is not one I think can handle being humiliated like this on - aww, if it isn’t Bradley-Boy and our lovely hostess. Come here and give me a kiss, sweetheart.” You chuckled and started over towards Max. “No, not you, darling. I meant Bradley-Boy.”

With giggles and jeers, everyone turned towards Bradley, who was definitely blushing. But ever the dutiful host, he trudged over towards Max and planted a sloppy kiss on his forehead.

You had met Max over a year ago via your best friend from college, Caroline. Bradley, on the other hand, had met Max in late March at Mission Beach, right before the two of you had started going out.

Since moving back to California, Bradley had taken up surfing again and relished his weekend mornings out in the chilly Pacific. It had taken a couple weeks for the guys to realize they were both regulars and get past the initial head nod greeting, but after that they got on like a house on fire. Despite Max being a typical nepotism baby, VC-firm-bro type and Bradley the outgoing, naval man, they were each other’s best friend.

And to be perfectly honest, you thought they may have been a little in love with each other.

Who knows, maybe you would have been at Bradley and Max’s holiday party if you hadn’t met him in April.

“All good now, peaches?” Bradley teased and then turned to everyone else in their little group. “Just so you know, the story ends with Jimmy G challenging Maxi-Pad to a closest to the pin contest and Max shanking his tee shot.”

You laughed and wrapped your free arm back around Bradley’s waist. “Was this how you planned to cheer me up?”

“Oh, god. What’d you do now, Rooster?” Natasha teased.

“Can I call you ‘Rooster?’” Max asked, much to Caroline’s delight.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Bradley said and then turned towards Natasha. “And nothing, just trying to do everything so can to make sure my girl has a lovely evening.” Everyone let out various sighs and swoons, except Nat and Max, who feigned gagging. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

He grabbed your free hand again and brought you over to the upright piano in the corner, next to where Callie and Bob were lounging on the loveseat. You desperately hoped Bradley was going to play for you - maybe even some Christmas carols. He had such a natural talent for it, even beyond his usual Hard Deck repertoire of that damn Jerry Lee Lewis song. He could play Debussy, Ravel, Schumann - anything, really. You figured he’d start off with Jingle Bells or something like that, but he surprised you with something new.

Bradley’s fingers twinkled out the opening notes to Linus and Lucy and you, and the others in the sitting room, couldn’t help but laugh. He had been right - this did cheer you up. You had always loved the Peanuts.

Growing up, you’d gone to the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa too many times to count. It became your favorite place during your parents’ divorce and you always begged your dad to take you whenever you were having a bad day. But then, when the divorce had been finalized and you, your dad and brother eventually moved down to Berkeley, you didn’t get the opportunity to go as often. But your love for the cartoon characters never died and you had the sneaking suspicion that Bradley had learned the song for you - this was the first time you’d ever heard him play it.

You took a hearty sip of your champagne and leaned your arms on the top of the piano, eventually resting your cheek against your fist. Your cheeks hurt from the massive smile stretching across your face as you looked fondly at Bradley. He was concentrating so hard, his tongue was peeking out of his mouth. And his long, graceful fingers were flying across the keys.

You couldn’t imagine how long it took him to learn this if he was already off book. Did you mention his fingers? His hands? God, they were beautiful. Strong and long and corded - was that the right word? You recalled it from those regency romance novels you had hidden on your Kindle. God, you loved him so much. So fucking much. You’d never loved a person this much before - oh, you were going to miss him so much.

“You two are just like Lucy and Schroeder,” Callie cooed, snapping you out of your thoughts and causing Bradley to fumble a couple of notes. He also was blushing, which was sweet.

A couple more people filtered into the sitting room, drawn in by the music, and soon people were throwing out requests for Bradley to play while others chatted in the background. He took Pete’s suggestion of Jingle Bells and soon played a jazzy version of the song.

While Bradley played, the older man came up to you to chat. Penny couldn’t make it to the party, which was admittedly a bit of a disappointment, but she was hoping to stop by later once things wound down a bit at the Hard Deck.

“Hell of a party, kid.” He toasted you with his beer.

“Thanks, I just wanted to do something nice for Bradley.”

“Pretty sure you could’ve gotten a pizza and he would’ve been happy.”

You considered that. “True, but that hardly sounds fun - plus, this way I could get a new outfit.”

Pete smiled and you both glanced over towards the piano for a moment as Bradley got Natasha and Bob to sing along with him. It was nice seeing them all carefree and happy and just lighter. Bradley glanced over his shoulder at you and winked.

“It’s nice seeing him like this,” Pete said. “Hell, last Christmas it was like pulling teeth to get the kid over to Penny’s for Christmas Eve and to see him get a tree and have people over at his place is just - it makes me really happy. Sorry if that’s corny or -”

“- No,” you reassured him, “well, maybe a little. But corny is good sometimes. Especially around the holidays.”

“You guys gonna do gifts tomorrow or…”

You shook your head. “Nah, we’re gonna do them tonight after everyone leaves.”

Pete took a sip of his beer and nodded. “The kid wouldn’t stop talking about your gift, I swear he told everyone on base.”

You felt yourself heat up and glanced over at Bradley again. “Really?” Pete nodded. “I’m nervous now, we promised we were only doing one present, so I hope he likes mine...”

“He will,” Pete sounded certain. “You think you guys will do this at your place every year? Maybe start a new tradition?”

That was a lovely thought. Celebrating Christmas with Bradley for the next x amount of years. Plus, doing this before Christmas would give everyone the opportunity to get together before the actual holidays.

“Oh, I’d love to,” you gushed, “but it’s Bradley’s call. It’s his house - what?”

Pete cut you off with a look. “Come on, by now you know it’s your house as much as Bradley’s…”

Oh, gosh. You hoped so - one day, at least. The two of you barely spent a night apart, baring whenever one of you was away for work. You barely considered your apartment your home anymore. Instead, it was on the couch in Bradley’s living room, watching TV. Or cooking breakfast together on the weekends and watching Sunday Morning at the kitchen table. Laying beside him in bed at night, his big arms wrapped around you, as you whispered how much you loved each other. You had never felt this way before Bradley, like another person was home.

And you wanted to be home all the time.

You could feel the heat creep up your neck, the warmth only amplified by Bradley’s soothing voice singing Let It Snow.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Pete apologized, “I just wanted you to know that I can see how much you guys care about each other. And he’s my kid - at the end of the day, I just want him to be happy.” He laid a reassuring hand on your shoulder and you ducked your head before nodding.

Back when you had first met him, you had imagined that gaining Pete’s approval was how you would have felt had Bradley’s parents been alive to give it to you. You thought about them often - more often than you’d ever let Bradley think - and especially as of late. Would they have liked you? Would they have gotten along with your parents? From what you’d been told, they would have made amazing grandparents. Maybe Bradley would even have had more siblings? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“He makes me really happy, too,” you whispered. Pete pulled you in for a hug and then the two of you just watched Bradley playing for a few moments while the party continued around you two.

“I’m gonna get another beer, you want anything?” Pete asked.

You just shook your head. “Nah, I’m good for now, but thanks again for coming. It means a lot to both of us.”

“Wouldn’t miss it, just make sure the kid doesn’t drink too much. He always gets a little chatty…” And then Pete set off towards the kitchen, leaving you alone, but only for a moment until you heard Max’s voice in the hallway.

“Caro, darling, will you help me with something outside…” You crept over towards him, curious to see what he was up to and why he needed Caro’s help.

Caroline didn’t even look up from her phone. “I’m not giving you a handjob, darling.”

“Oh, please don’t,” you drawled, alerting them both to your presence, “Mr. Harrington already thinks we’re delinquents, can’t have him thinking we associate with them, too,” you said referring to your - no, Bradley’s neighbor.

Mr. Harrington hadn’t exactly called you and Bradley delinquents - rather, he had called you a fresh young lady after you had unknowingly flipped him off at an intersection in another neighborhood, only to find out that he was the crotchety old man that lived next door to Bradley. He had been waiting for you in the driveway when you’d gotten home a few minutes later, demanding to talk to Bradley about you. But the old man hadn’t stood a chance with you and Bradley had just stood on the porch with a proud smile on his face as you gave him a piece of your mind. Since then, he’d just pass silent judgment whenever he saw you outside.

Max held up two fingers. “I’ll be on my best behavior, Scout’s honor.”

“It’s three fingers, dumbass.”

He breezed past you and started towards the door, gesturing for Caroline to follow him. “Good thing I was never a Boy Scout then…”

“Please, Max. Just tell me if you’re going to -”

“- Secrets, secrets are only fun unless you don’t share with anyone -”

“- That’s not even how it goes!”

Max shrugged and grabbed Caroline’s hand, pulling her close to his side. “It’ll be fun, we promise! Plus, maybe Max won’t even come back to the party…”

Oh, he was definitely doing the Santa thing. But at this point, maybe it would be fun and memorable? And maybe you were just drunk enough to let it happen.

“Fine, fine. As long as Max doesn’t come back to the party, you can do whatever you have planned -”

Max cut you off with a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, love. Now, Caro! Your assistance, please!”

You waved them off towards the front door and made your way back to the sitting room where Bradley was taking requests for his next song.

His eyes were scanning the room for whom you realized was you and a great, big smile spread across his face. “Nah, I got one already. Just needed my girl in here for this.” You chuckled and walked over towards the piano. “Figured we had to end on a high note, plus I heard a rumor Santa’s coming…”

There were hoots and hollers throughout the room, which didn’t let up even as Bradley played the first notes of the song he apparently needed you for assistance.

“I’ll sing the first few lines, but then you gotta take over, alright, sweetheart?”

You sat next to him on the narrow bench and giggled, not quite knowing what he had up his sleeve, but more than ready to go along for the ride. “You got it, rocketman.”

Bradley pecked you on the lips and then turned to the room as he played.

“I really can’t stay…baby, it’s cold outside…I’ve got to go ‘way…baby, it’s cold outside…”

Oh god.

---------------

Hours later, after all your guests had left, fuller and far drunker than they’d been when they’d arrived, you and Bradley were tidying up the living room. The dishwasher was rumbling in the kitchen, the first of many loads you’d have to do tonight and tomorrow, but it was drowned out by the music still playing on the Sonos, while the extra food had been put away in the fridge.

From your spot across the room where you were fluffing the couch cushions, you glanced over towards Bradley. He sat, leaning against the chaise lounge, and idly sipped from a bottle of champagne that he kept putting down on the floor - though on a coaster, mind you. His hair was perfectly tousled and messy and he had a pleased smile on his face as he stared at the Christmas tree in front of him. His right hand was absentmindedly running up and down his thigh, just begging for you to ride it.

You joined him on the floor and he wordlessly passed the bottle of champagne to you before throwing his arm around your shoulders.

“You did good, kid,” he said suddenly.

A smile lit up your face. “Really?” Brady chuckled at your earnestness. “You’re not just saying that because this is like the first halfway decent party you’ve ever -”

“- Hey! I’ve been to plenty of decent parties! But I think - I think that this might be the best one yet.”

As a reward for his sweetness, you gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You think everyone got along? I only overheard one argument between Caro and Jake.” And it had been over the latest cryptocurrency scandal of all things.

“Yeah, but to be fair, I think trauma bonding over your singing really brought everyone together.”

You were not as bad as Bradley had said - at the very least, you could carry a tune. Granted, you wouldn’t be on the Voice anytime soon, but if you were an SNL cast member and needed to sing for a sketch, you might be okay. And no one really focused on the actual singing during Baby It’s Cold Outside - it wasn’t exactly the paragon of Christmas songs or social norms.

But it was just about the perfect duet, in that it was a crowd pleaser, a little slutty, and campy as hell. And as it so happened, you had been feeling a little slutty with all the champagne you had drunk throughout the evening. Plus, with Bradley on the keys and no one else sober enough to make fun of your less than stellar singing skills, you had been a glutton for attention. You had used your champagne coupe as a microphone and had only spilled a couple drops - at first.

“- But baby, it's cold outside -”

“ - This welcome has been -”

“ - How lucky that you dropped in -”

“ - So nice and warm -”

“ - Look out the window at that storm -”

“ - My sister will be suspicious -”

“ - Gosh, your lips look delicious -” Bradley kissed your proffered hand and you shimmied around the piano bench, eventually draping yourself over his shoulders while he continued playing.

Would you regret it in the morning? Probably. Did the song have a weird history? Yes. But it was your goddamn Christmas party! And you had wanted to have fun and fawn over your boyfriend. It had also been a good distraction from what you had correctly assumed was Max planning to crash the party as Santa with a sleigh full of presents for everyone. But Max was richer than Croesus; he could afford it.

“Come on, Bradshaw. How’s she been this year? Naughty or nice?”

You shot Bradley a glance, curious as to what his answer would be. But he just smiled wryly and toasted Max with his drink before taking a sip.

You closed the distance between the two of you and whispered in his ear, “Clever boy…”

He grabbed your ass, thankfully out of sight of your guests. “My smart girl…”

“Is that what you want me to be tonight?”

Frankly, you had been shocked Bradley hadn’t kicked everyone out then and there.

But now you were cozy and tired in all the best ways and had Bradley to yourself for the rest of the evening. You burrowed your face into his chest and pressed a couple kisses to the column of his neck, suddenly desperate to touch him. It seemed Bradley was of the same mindset and carefully settled you on his lap. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling you closer and you shifted your attention to his lips.

Somehow, the two of you wound up laying on the floor at the edge of the Christmas tree. The soft lights made Bradley’s brown eyes appear like pools of chocolate and you flushed. He groaned as you rolled your hips against his lap, already feeling the bulge forming in his jeans. Shit - were you going to fuck underneath the Christmas tree? Like properly fuck on the floor underneath the Christmas tree.

You started grinding against him, desperate to be closer, and then kissed along his neck in the hopes of leaving a reminder of this night for him. You peered up at the Christmas tree, lost in the beauty of the moment, when you suddenly noticed something.

The presents.

The presents under the tree.

The three presents under the tree.

Except…

There were only supposed to be two presents under the tree. One from each of you. You had been very clear about that right after Thanksgiving. Had even set a price limit.

Fuck. Oh, no. No, no, no. You pulled back and Bradley chased your lips with his own.

“Bubs! We said one present each!”

He shrugged underneath you and kept rubbing his hands in soothing circles on your hips. “It’s nothing - well, it’s not nothing. But it’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I figured this would be a good time.”

“But - but I only got you one!”

Oh god - oh god. You ruined it. You ruined Bradley’s Christmas. You knew you should’ve gotten him that Otis Redding vinyl, too. But a Theragun? What had you been thinking? That was such a dumb gift. So impersonal, so boring, so basic. It was on three different gift guides from the Strategist for fuck’s sake. You figured it would be good for his back while he was deployed, you knew it had been giving him a lot of trouble lately. But now that Bradley had given you two gifts? In two separate boxes?

You didn’t think the ornament you’d gotten him counted as a separate gift. Tacking it onto the box was just something your family had always done.

Clearly noticing the panic on your face, Bradley sat up slightly. “Hey, hey. It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s -”

“- I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to ruin everything. I knew I should’ve had a back up present for you-”

He said your name firmly and you looked up at him. “- You didn’t ruin anything, alright? Hey, why don’t you open it first and then we can talk about it, okay?”

“Okay…”

You reached out for the present like it was going to explode, barely even taking notice of how nicely it had been wrapped. (Granted, you were still you, so you did actually notice, but probably would have fawned over the quaint wrapping paper and grosgrain ribbon a bit more had you not already been wigging out.) Next to you, Bradley bit his lip as he watched you peel through the paper. Why was he so nervous? He always gave you the best presents.

At first, there was nothing but a small gift box. It wasn’t terribly heavy. And it definitely wasn’t jewelry. Mainly because any of the jewelry you actually would have liked was definitely not within the spending limit, which Bradley knew. But also, it just didn’t feel like jewelry. It couldn’t have been an ornament, he wouldn’t have been this nervous.

So, what the fuck was it?

You slid your finger underneath the flap of the box and popped the lid open. But then there was the tissue paper. Goddamnit, Bradley! Why was he so good at wrapping presents! You glanced up at him only to see that he was blushing. Properly blushing. Like pink neck, pink cheeks - hell, even the tips of his ears were pink - blushing.

Unable to take the suspense a moment longer, you dove into the tissue paper to find -

“- A key?” Your fingers gently picked up the offending object, only belatedly noticing that the key fob matched your favorite work tote bag.

Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been wanting to ask you to move in with me for ages, it’s just we had so much time until it would become an issue, but then I got deployed and I know your lease will just about be up by the time I get back in the spring. So, I figured now would be a good time to ask if you wanted to move in with me? But if you think it’s too soon, I can totally wait. However long it takes for you to be comfortable with it is fine with me - I just want to have my life with you.”

“Bubs…” your voice was thick. “I uhh -”

“- I always want to come home to you - if you’ll have me?”

Oh god, oh god, oh god. You let out a disbelieving laugh. You would have Bradley Bradshaw in any way you could get him. He was your home.

You wiped away a wayward tear. “Bradley, this is - this is so unbelievably perfect. Yes, yes, I will move with you.”

He surged forward to kiss you and you temporarily forgot all your previous worries because Bradley wanted to move in with you. He wanted to share furniture and go grocery shopping for food that would go in the same fridge. He wanted to wake up beside you every single morning and come home to you every single evening and go to sleep beside you every single night. He wanted everything. And that’s what you wanted to give him.

“God, I love you so much.”

You never got tired of hearing him say that. “I love you, too. Sorry I made such a big deal about the presents…”

“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve just put it in with the other gift, I get how it could have thrown you off.”

He was being nice and not pushing it for the moment, which you really appreciated. “Say, why don’t you open your gift from me and then I’ll open your other one?”

You crawled over towards the other two presents under the tree and gave the one that said to; rocketman to Bradley, while you took the other one with your name on it. It was decently sized and relatively light. The thing with Bradley that always made you nervous was that he gave the best presents.

For your birthday, he had not only organized a trip for the two of you out to Catalina Island, but he had also learned how to fucking sail Penny’s boat, so he could be the one to take you there himself. He had been so excited and had looked so cute in his white linen pants and navy blue button down and you swore you had never been more attracted to him.

And then, for your six month anniversary, he had somehow gotten you two into Addison out in Carmel Valley for dinner and then followed that up with a trip to the drive-in to see a special showing of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Though to be fair, neither of you had paid as much attention to the movie as you had been too busy necking each other in the backseat of the Bronco.

In short, he was a prince among men. Well, except when he wasn’t. But that wasn’t often. So, you were excited, but wary to open his gift, knowing nothing could possibly top the house key.

You tore through the wrapping paper to find another box similar to the one from earlier, except this one was heavier. Beneath the tissue paper laid a thick white envelope and an apron in a Liberty pattern. Your smile grew as you opened the envelope and saw that Bradley had gifted you cooking lessons for the next three months.

“Bubs.” You nudged his shoulder. “This is perfect, thank you. The apron is super cute, too.”

Bradley chuckled. “Now you can stop wearing mine and hopefully stop burning risotto -”

“- It was one time!”

“Yeah and you almost burned down your apartment.” You made a face and he made one right back before turning serious. “But I thought it would be nice, something for you to do while I’m gone.”

You kissed his cheek. “I’m excited and I’m gonna make you the best dinner you’ve ever had when you come home to me, alright?”

“It’s a date.”

“Perfect, now open yours!” You pushed the present towards him.

Bradley was one of those people that opened presents like they were going to save the wrapping paper, which meant he did it slowly and purposefully. This normally didn’t bother you, but you were already a little on edge from earlier and had to sit on your hands to stop you from ripping the paper off yourself.

First, he took off the little ornament you had affixed to the package. Harkening back to your first date, you had gotten him a Saturn V Rocket ornament to add to the tree, giving your rocketman something to aspire to.

He shook his head. “I’ll get there one day, sweetheart…” he said fondly. “Now let’s see what we have here.”

The nerves settled in your stomach again and you barely let him unwrap the present before you jumped on him with an explanation.

“Wait, is this one of those -”

“ - It’s a Theragun. I know I make fun of you for having a sore back and being old a lot, but I thought this could help when you’re deployed and I’m not around to tend to your every need,” you teased.

Bradley conceded a nod. “You do give good back massages…” You preened. “But I get these ads on my Instagram all the time, so this is perfect, thank you.”

“I figured it wasn’t something you’d buy for yourself and it’ll come in hand -”

“- I bet it’s a wicked strong vibrator - owww!”

“Bradley!” You giggled. Holy shit, you hadn’t even thought of that. There were like five different speeds on that thing and six different attachments. Fuck. “In that case, maybe I should keep it…”

“You wouldn’t dare.” He slid the box behind his back and you crawled over to steal it away from him.

But before you could wrap your arms around him, Bradley pulled you into his lap and eventually the Theragun was pushed away and the two of you were sprawled out on the floor making out like a bunch of horny teenagers again.

Goddamn - you really were gonna fuck underneath the Christmas tree, weren’t you? Now that would be the perfect memory for Bradley to take with him. Festive and fun and spontaneous.

His hands felt sinful as they crept up your thighs. It was like he was mapping out the slowest route to his destination, especially as they cupped your ass and ground your body against his. Suddenly, you let out a hiss as your elbow hit the hardwood floor, but quickly reassured Bradley that you were okay once he stopped to check in with you.

He whispered your name. “I need you so badly.”

“- Fuck, me too. Want you to take me right here -”

“- Owww,” Bradley let out a groan against your lips.

You immediately pulled back, concern lacing your features. “Shit, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just - I don’t think we should do this on the floor?”

“But it’s very spur of the moment?” You glanced around the living room, past the Christmas tree and the wrapping paper from your respective presents. “What about the couch?”

“We just got it dry-cleaned - again.”

You sat further back on his lap and Bradley propped himself up on his elbows. Your wrap dress draped prettily over your bare thighs. “We can put a towel down?”

“Isn’t it upstairs?”

You made a face. “I could go get it? Or we could break out a new one?”

“Then I might as well come upstairs with you -”

“- But I want it to be spontaneous!”

He rolled his hips and you sighed. “We can be spontaneous upstairs…”

“Yeah, but…” You could feel the tears starting to form and your throat closing up.

Bradley tried to get in your line of sight after you ducked your head. “Hey, what is it? It’s alright.”

You sniffled. “I just want you to have some good memories before you leave and be spontaneous - especially since during the party I was pretty stressed and uptight -” The last word came out bitterly, but Bradley didn’t let you finish your sentence.

“- Hey, none of that, alright? I knew you were a little stressed, but just chalked it up to the party. What’s really going on, sweetheart?”

You wanted to tell him. That you were going to miss him and wanted him to be able to think of the two of you doing all these fun and exciting and wonderful things before he left. That you didn’t want him to think of you crying and puffy eyed and sad. That you didn’t want him to think of you having sex in your bed, like any other night, but how you couldn’t even make it upstairs because you needed each other so much, so desperately and had to make due with the living room floor.

Just say you were tired. Just say you were tired.

But when Bradley took your hand and threaded your fingers together and started drawing circles across your palm, the tears came. And came and came and didn’t stop. You rubbed at your eyes with your free hand and repositioned yourself to lay beside him.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay, come here.” Bradley wrapped his arm around your shoulders and let you rest your head on his chest. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, honey.”

Once the tears slightly abated, you took in a deep breath to ground yourself. “I wanted everything to be perfect for you since you’re not going to be home for Christmas and all this stuff went wrong -”

“- Sweetheart, baby, no, no. It didn’t go wrong, everything went really really right.”

“Really?” you whispered.

Bradley chuckled. “Yeah, best Christmas I’ve had since - fuck, I can’t remember when. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around you.

“I know it was dumb to be worried about it - and to let myself get upset over it - but I think I was just so focused on the party and the presents and making everything perfect because I don’t want to think too much about you leaving.” You sniffled. “And I feel like that makes me seem childish or like I can’t handle this - your job, I mean. But I’m really just going to miss you, so fucking much. And I’ve never felt like this before.”

The look in Bradley’s eyes after you unloaded all that made you feel ten times lighter and you regretted not saying anything earlier.

“Sweetheart…” He tucked your hair behind your ear. “It’s definitely not dumb to be worried about stuff like that and I know you can handle all of this - I’m not worried in that respect. I just want you to know how much I appreciated every single thing you’ve done for me these last couple weeks trying to make sure I had a good Christmas. And I know it’s cliche to say, but it’s the goddamn truth - I don’t care what we do for Christmas as long as I get to spend it at home with you, alright?”

Your heart soared and you felt the tears forming again at his words. I don’t care what we do for Christmas as long as I get to spend it at home with you. Because in the end, that was all that really mattered. You just kept your reply simple. “Alright, rocketman.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You kissed him again. “I love you so much, bubs.”

“Even though I’m old and don’t think we should fuck on the living room floor?”

You chuckled at his attempt to bring some levity into an otherwise heavy conversation. “Yes, Bradley. I love you even though you wouldn’t let me fuck you on the living room floor…”

This time, Bradley pulled you closer, so your body was spread out on top of him and kissed you, licking your bottom lip before opening your mouth up to him. His hands snuck underneath the skirt of your silk dress, skirting the edge of your panties. You sighed. His hands were calloused and a little rough, but they still touched you like you were the most precious thing in the world.

“Hold up, I never said I wouldn’t let you, I just said I don’t think - hey!” Bradley tried to fend off your tickle attack, but could only get a few words out between his giggles. “Stop, you know I’m old!”

Your ridiculously handsome, thirty-six year old, naval aviator boyfriend was giggling on the floor of your house because your were tickling his sides. If only you could show this version of Bradley to the Navy - maybe then they wouldn’t take him away from you at Christmas. Stupid US Military Industrial Complex. Fucking Lockheed Martin.

“Also, are you still upset that I got you two presents? Because if you are, can I just make you come once tonight? Level the field.”

You giggled. “Shut up.” Your kiss cut off any reply he had been about to give and you licked his bottom lip, coaxing open his mouth.

“Uh, uh, uh.” You paused and tilted your head slightly to look Bradley in the eye. “Now, what did Santa ask earlier, huh? You been naughty or nice this year?”

There were two ways in which this could play out - with two different, though ultimately satisfying results. One would play out relatively quickly - and the other would ensure you were occupied all night.

“Nice?”

Bradley clicked his tongue. “Don’t know about that…”

“Why not? Haven’t I been good?” You pouted, completely exaggerated, which Bradley picked up on in an instant.

“Good girls don’t typically have to ask if they’ve been good…”

“Maybe I don’t want to be good tonight…”

Bradley sucked in a breath as you snuck your hand underneath his shirt and teased the waistband of his jeans. His skin was hot to the touch beneath your fingers as you unbuttoned his shirt. You leaned forward to press little butterfly kisses to his neck and gradually made your way down past the little tufts of hair on his chest.

“Please touch me, sweetheart. Please.”

There was a carnal need inside you to mark his skin. To give him proof of your love and need for him, so that he could look at the marks in the mirror until they faded. A kiss across his neck, a soft bite on his shoulder, another on his bicep by his tattoo. You’re mine. Mine, mine, mine. And I want everyone to know.

“God, Bradley. You’re so beautiful,” you whispered against his skin. “So beautiful and all mine.”

Bradley let out a whine as your teeth grazed against the sensitive flesh on his neck. “Fuck, I love you.”

His hands inched up your thighs, getting closer to the throbbing heat between your legs. Maybe it was the festive spirit, the fact that Bradley had asked you to move in with him, or that he was shipping out in 28 hours for three months, but you were pathetically wet already. Desperate and needy and as naughty as he had joked earlier.

“I can feel the heat pouring off you, sweetheart.”

“Can we go - ahhh - can we go upstairs, please?”

He pulled back slightly. “What happened to fucking on the living room floor?” he teased.

“Don’t want to fuck up your old man back anymore - Bradley!” you cried out as he smacked your ass.

“Old man, huh?” His smile was sinful and you were putty in his hands.

You widened your eyes, trying to appear contrite. “Sorry, sir. It won’t happen - Bradley!” He cut you off again, but this time because he was tickling your sides and your giggles made it impossible to speak. “Ta-take me upstairs, bubs - please. Don’t - don’t want you to hold back.”

“Now how could I refuse that?”

Gradually, the two of you made your way upstairs to the bedroom, though with a couple of breaks in between for Bradley to press you up against the walls and on the staircase. You’d have bruises tomorrow, you were sure. But you wanted them to last - to be something to remember this night by for the weeks and months to come.

You landed heavily on the bed, bouncing slightly, and peered up at Bradley. His bare chest was rising and falling steadily with each breath he took as he looked you over, like he was trying to memorize you.

Without breaking eye contact, you rose to your knees and pulled at the pretty little bow tying your wrap dress. Hours ago, you’d felt self conscious about your body in front of everyone else, but at that moment you felt like the most beautiful girl in the world. Bradley’s eyes widened as he took in the way you slowly pushed the silk dress off your shoulders, leaving you only in your burgundy bra and panties. It wasn’t exactly a matching set, but the colors matched and that was enough for the two of you that night.

“God, you’re gorgeous.”

Bradley lunged forward, causing you to fall back against the pillows and you wrapped your legs around his hips with a gleeful cry, which he promptly cut off with his lips.

After spending ample time just kissing you and running his hands up and down your body, Bradley lavished attention on your breasts, licking and biting and sucking on them like a man possessed. Your nipples were peaked to attention, thanks to the slight chill in the bedroom and his thorough ministrations. With one hand, he paid special attention to the skin just below your nipple, rubbing his middle finger along the tender flesh while thumbing at the raised bud. Meanwhile, his other hand kept trekking downward towards your clit.

“Oh god!” you cried out against his lips as he slid his fingers inside you and crooked them just right.

“So fucking wet, sweetheart.”

Fuck. You could feel yourself clenching around him, desperate for something more. You were needy for him that night. Needy to have your boyfriend all to yourself. To give yourself to him completely. Your orgasm was well and truly building up inside you, but you wanted to come on his cock first. There would be plenty more opportunities that night to come apart in other ways.

You’d work him all through the night if you had to just to get your fix before he left. The thought made you desperate.

“Bu-bubs, please. I need more - need your cock inside me.” You pulled him closer, grazing your thighs against his throbbing cock.

Bradley groaned. “Such a needy fucking thing, bucking against my fingers like that, huh?” You whined. “But I’m gonna fuck you nice and slow, yeah. Make sure you savor it.”

It sounded fucking sinful the way your cunt was sucking in Bradley’s fingers. He’d begun scissoring them inside you so as to not have to remove them just yet.

More. More. More. You chanted the words mindlessly in your head. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Finally, he pulled out his fingers and shamelessly dried them off on your breasts. “You ready?” You nodded frantically. “Don’t think either of us is gonna last long.”

No, you didn’t think so either. But you didn’t want to prolong this. You needed to be close to him and to know he was real and good and yours. At least for tonight.

Knowing each other as you did, you raised your hips slightly, letting Bradley to slip inside you. You both moaned, you loving the stretch and him loving the tight warmth. You wrapped your arm around his neck, bringing his lips closer to yours, but not daring to lean in those final few centimeters to touch, and instead just breathed against each other.

“Fuck,” you rasped against his lips, “I love you.”

“Love you so much.” He snapped his hips against yours and you cried out. “Gonna miss you.”

You ducked your head to swipe your lips across the scar on his neck. “Can’t wait for you to come home to me.”

Home. Home. Home. Bradley wouldn’t just be coming back to San Diego in three months: he would be coming home - to you. And to this great, big, beautiful house he wanted to share with you. And to the life he wanted to share with you.

He groaned your name. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Can’t believe it’s happening.”

Tears pricked your eyes and you bridged the gap to kiss him. “Bubs, I’m so close, please.”

“Tell me how to get you there? I wanna wait for you.”

If he kept saying things like that, you wouldn’t be too far behind. Without breaking eye contact, you brought Bradley’s hand down to your clit and he played with the sensitive nub. You keened against his hand, which was coupled with a particularly deep thrust of his cock. You felt that coil in your belly finally unraveling.

“‘M close, feels so good. Again…”

He repeated the action again and again, telling you how gorgeous you were as you took his cock and how much he loved you and needed you and you felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Because for tonight you were.

With a strangled cry of his name, you came and true to his word, Bradley followed shortly after. Fuck. He felt so good. He made you feel so good, so full, so loved.

“Good girl, such a good girl for me.” He peppered kisses up and down your neck and across your cheeks, before settling on your lips. The two of you sat there like that for a few moments, trying to even out your breathing and be as close together as possible.

But eventually Bradley had to pull out and you whimpered at the loss. He settled you back against the pillows and then started cleaning you up with the towel in his nightstand. Before he got to your still leaking cunt, he scooped up some of your cum with his fingers and brought it to your lips.

“Open.” You did so without a second thought and cleaned off his fingers, getting high off the taste of the two of you mixed together. “Good girl.”

Then you let yourself get settled underneath the covers. You could go to the bathroom in a few minutes because right now you wanted to be with Bradley. Your bodies were both hot and sticky underneath the white sheets, but you couldn’t think of anywhere else you wanted to be than in his arms.

Bradley nuzzled your hand, eventually pressing a kiss to your palm. “It’s not too long, just three months.”

“Three months without you.” Kiss. “Without your singing.” Kiss. “Your cooking.” Kiss. “Your smile and your silly little mustache.” Kiss. Kiss. “Three months without you, rocketman.”

Your eyes were swimming with tears, but they were properly dripping down Bradley’s cheeks.

“But we still have tonight.”

You still had tonight. And you’d be in each other’s arms till the morning light.

---------------

Two weeks later, as you sat in your childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve, you were at once hit with a startling realization: it wasn’t your home anymore. It hadn’t been in years, really. Not since you’d officially moved out after college. But that fact had never been so apparent until you were waiting for the Facetime call to connect to Bradley.

Your home was in San Diego with your friends and your job. Your home was with your boyfriend, snuggled up on the couch watching TV, perusing the aisles of the farmer’s market, watching him surf, and cooking dinner together. Your home was with Bradley.

And you just wanted to be home - you just wanted Bradley.

You had put on a brave face during Christmas Eve celebrations with your family - at least with your extended family. You had sung carols at church, helped Mary and your dad prep and lay out all the traditional Christmas Eve dishes, organized the Yankee Swap with your brother and Lauren, and had a few too many cocktails with your cousins. But as the last of your grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins had left and your dad had turned on NBC for the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, you had lost it.

Properly, honestly, well and truly lost it. As in fat tears streaming down your face, snot clogging your nose, remnants of your mascara rimmed around your eyes lost it.

Goddamn Harry Bailey got to come home in time for Christmas! Harry got to toast to his “big brother George: the richest man in town.” Granted, George had basically just tried to kill himself, so the comparison wasn’t perfect - but still! Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Navy pilot Harry Bailey got to be home for Christmas! Why couldn’t Bradley? Fucking Navy. Fucking stupid US Military Industrial Complex. Fucking Lockheed Martin.

At the sight of your tears, Mary had just opened up her blanket and let you burrow against her side as she rubbed your back like she used to when you were a kid, while your dad had gotten you a cup of Sleepytime Tea. Eventually, once you had calmed down enough and they had said all the right words to soothe your heartache, you had kissed your dad and Mary goodnight - Mary had hugged you a bit tighter than usual - and they both had told you to give Bradley their best during your Facetime call.

They liked Bradley - a lot, actually. Of course, they’d given him a tough time when they first talked on the phone all those months ago, but by the time Bradley officially met them at Thanksgiving, it was like he’d known them for years. He just fit.

He loved to talk to Mary about her history classes at Berkeley and how her students were doing. He had the same sense of humor as your dad and also loved the Patriots despite their recent offensive coordinator troubles.

He just made you lighter and made things lighter. He fit.

And you could only hope that one year he’d be able to come up to Berkeley with you to celebrate for the holidays instead of being all alone on an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Pacific. Fucking Navy. Fucking stupid US Military Industrial Complex. Fucking Lockheed Martin.

Shit! The call was finally connecting. You felt tears in your eyes as you finally got to see your beautiful boy again. Though the picture was a little grainy, Bradley was sitting in what looked like one of the quiet rooms in your office, clad in his green flight suit. And he had the most wonderful smile on his face at the sight of you.

“Hey, sweetheart. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas, bubs,” you said, hoping your voice didn’t come out as thickly over Facetime as it did in your room.

For what felt like the longest time, but was probably only a few seconds, you stared at each other, just drinking in the other’s face. Bradley already looked tired. This was your first Facetime since he’d left two weeks ago. Normally, you talked over email - which was actually kind of fun.

Early on in your relationship during a one week special detachment, you had unironically sent him a pretty formal email to check in:

Bradley,

Hope you’re settling in well. Let me know when it would be a good time to connect via FaceTime. I can put some time on my calendar whenever you’re free. I’m heading to an off-site in Raleigh on Thursday, so I’ll be on East Coast time.

Miss you and stay safe,

It had even been from your PwC email address, which he never let you forget. But soon quasi-formal emails became your thing. They probably set off a bunch of red flags to the censor team and you had never sent one from your work email again, but it was fun. You’d even thought of a couple code words and phrases to use.

“You have a good night? How’s your dad and Mary? Tell them thanks again for the package.”

Your parents had had the idea to send everything they normally would have put in Bradley’s Christmas stocking to him on the carrier. He had emailed the three of you a picture of the package, received in perfect condition, on his bunk yesterday. You two had decided that he would open it while you were on your FaceTime call. It wasn’t anything particularly special, except for two small gifts you’d snuck in before bringing it to the post office, but you were excited and could tell Bradley was too.

You held your breath as he parsed through the Dr.Jart sheet masks, Churchill cigars, various Christmas themed candies, new electric toothbrush heads, and scratch cards until he got to the bottom of the stack where your two special presents were hidden.

“Now, what’s this?” He shot you a teasing glance as he opened the envelope.

You remained tight lipped, just glad it hadn’t been opened by Naval mail security. Bradley slid the object out of the envelope and you could see his eyes widen, even over Facetime, as he realized what it was before he promptly turned it over and glanced around even though there was no one else in the room with him.

“Shit - how’d you - how’d you take this?” He leaned back in his chair and stared at it, clearly a little in awe.

You felt your cheeks heating up. “Well, I know you have a couple on your phone, but figured an old fashioned one might be nice too - especially if you’re in a tech blackout or whatever it’s called. But do you really like it - seriously, you don’t have -”

“- No, I love it. You’re not getting this back from me.” You giggled. “But you gotta tell me how you managed to get the Polaroid in the shower with you and still get the soapy titties in the picture?”

“Can’t tell you everything, now can I?”

(Caroline had taken them for you. It truly had been a bonding experience and was honestly not half as sexy as Bradley was probably thinking. But you just smiled - more than content to keep that a secret from him.)

“Well, it is very much appreciated. So, thank you, I love it, seriously.”

You tried to peer into the box from halfway across the world. “There should be one more thing in there from me - and you don’t have to use it, but I know something similar always makes me feel like you’re right next to me…”

Bradley gingerly unwrapped the final tissue paper package only to reveal a travel sized bottle of your perfume. You giggled, watching him spritz his wrist and breathe in the scent.

“Fuck…I’ve missed that.”

You rested your cheek against your fist and just watched him. For a minute, it felt like he was right in front of you. It made you want to do something terribly cliche like hold your palm up against the screen and imagine you could feel the heat from his hand as he did the same thing back.

But instead Bradley just smiled at you and asked you all about your Christmas Eve activities.

So, you told him about sneaking outside to smoke with your cousins, drinking too much champagne, eating too much food made from your grandma’s recipes from the old country, getting an actually good gift in the Yankee Swap, and crying over Harry Bailey. And he just listened and smiled and asked questions at all the right parts and kept telling you how much he would have loved to do all that beside you next year.

And then with your remaining five minutes of calltime, Bradley told you all the goings on aboard the ship and how he and Callie and Javy were doing and about the fancy dinner and breakfast planned for tomorrow.

But then the dreaded countdown clock on the side of the screen popped up, signaling you had thirty seconds left. By then, both of you had tears in your eyes as you tried to say goodbye until your next call.

“So, we’ll talk in two weeks, okay? Should be just after New Year’s, but keep emailing me. I love reading them when I get the chance.”

You wiped a stray tear from your eye. “Of course, I’ll give you a full Christmas morning breakdown.”

Bradley chuckled, but seemed to glance at the countdown clock and sobered up. “I love you, I love you so much and I’m so happy I get to come home to you, sweetheart.”

“I love you, too. Merry Christmas, bubs. Please come home.”

-----------

a/n: sorry it took me so fucking long to write again, but a girl can only be so self indulgent! merry christmas, this taglist is shit sorry!

Taglist: @sunderlust @seasonsbloom @ticklish-leafy-plant @lass-that-is-gone @katcoquette @daniellef89x @double-j @bradshawswife @hufflepuffprincesse @cloudycluster @sithbelova @mavencalorers @fav-rooster-fics @thebeautifullydamnedone @unordinare @callsignvalley @pricklepearbloom @browneyedboys @cherrycola27 @whatblogisthis216 @agentofkrypton @lcahwriter @kyliesalvatore @noellreadfiction @coyotesamachado @heartsofminds @jocsrecs @notroosterbradshaw @roosterforme @iblogtopassthetime @karateperson @nessrin @frenchtoastix @piceous21 @princessphilly @spideyngwen @mrsjobarnes @calmpunker @softspiderling @feralforfrank @fivsecondsflat @sexualparkour @greenorangevioletgrass @sexygaypalpatine @moonyscardigans @carousallie @liveholland @supernaturaldawning @melancholyy-hill @currentlybradshaw @summ3rlotus @seesaw-jk @roostereads @milestomaverick @some-lovely-day @steadfastconviction @sometimesanalice @jupitercomet @rae-gar-targaryen @oncasette @whisperofsong @call-sign-jinx @howdysebby

Tags

fic recs 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster december they're soulmates bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing I LOVE DECEMBER AND I LOVE CHRISTMAS BECAUSE THAT MEANS CHRISTMAS FANFICTION I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE TOP GUN MAVERICK CHRISTMAS CONTENT AND I’M NOT DISAPPOINTED bradley giving smart aleck a key god he’s such a romantic IT’S ABOUT THE SIMPLE GESTURES jordan i adore you this made me ugly cry in my bed i was a MESS

770 notes View Post

fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

18/08/22: HI!!! ME AGAIN!!! THIS TIME TO SCREAM ABOUT JAKE SERESIN!!!! may, i swear to god, how do you do this???????????? there is no oxygen left in in lungs. you outdo yourself again and again. the way you write jake makes me feels like i’m on a roller coaster. you understand him as a character so well (the day i have the capacity to make a full review of all parts of bad habit is coming soon and i know it’s gonna break me because you dissected him on that one, BEAUTIFULLY BY THE WAY!!!) this cowboy au has ruined me forever and i owe you my life for every story you put out for us to read.

“You flip the hat again and put it on. It’s big enough that it goes slipping down a few inches, almost covering your eyes.

Something on Jake’s face goes taut, his gaze darkens, the fist on the bartop clenches once then relaxes.” my brain is buzzing already. the way you set a scene. the way you describe everything!!!!!!! AND OH- OH- HE’S JUST AS AFFECTED BY THEIR INTERACTION!!!!! WHORE ❤️

“He’s silhouetted by the lights of the bar, bordered by the people crowding behind him to order, but you can’t see anything past the green in his eyes. He’s pushed so close he’s almost between your legs, your thighs like open brackets around the shape of him. The hand at the brim of the hat wanders down your back slowly before settling on the backrest of your stool. It’s not even a touch, just the allusion to it, but your heart goes pitter-patter in your chest.” yeah. you write poetry!!!!! this is poetry!!!!! and the use of “pitter-patter” was very on theme i loved it.

“You don’t know what to say to that - your cheeks feel kind of warm, and your brain is buzzing like a beehive.” exactly the same way i feel when i read your work coincidentally!!!

“You’re a cute one, huh?” he says, voice only a little mocking. He leans into your space, crooked grin so close to you that you can see the stubble forming along his cheeks and jaw, a golden dusting of hair against the sun-kissed skin. For a breathless, head-spinning moment, you think about how it would feel pressed to the inside of your thighs, raspy and tickling and just the right side of painful.

He rights the hat, pushes it higher up on your forehead, and then his hand travels to the back of your neck, stays there. His thumb brushes from the brim of the hat to the knob of your spine, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. You let out a shuddering breath, legs clenching.” JESUS CHRIST. HIS HAND TRAVELS TO THE BACK OF YOUR NECK!!!!! STAYS THERE!!!!!! HIS THUMB!!!!!! I JUST DIED!!!!!!

“He laughs, the sound a little heavier than it was before, and says, “You ever dreamed about any of those, too?”

It’s crude, it’s forward, it’s an innuendo so thinly-veiled it’s pretty much translucent. It should make you balk.” JAKE SERESINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. I HATE HIM. I HATE YOU FOR WRITING HIM LIKE THIS. HOW DARE YOU?

“Anything I could make come true?” he asks.” 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 STOP.

“It’s an offer as much as it is an out. If you pull back now, you’re pretty sure he’d leave you alone. Jake is forward, confident, sure, but he doesn’t seem like the pushy type. For some insane reason, you feel safe with him.” yes to everything here. beautiful. he’s a prince. ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

“It starts as a tingle, as pins and needles, and when you look down, you find Jake’s hand on your thigh, just above the knee. Fingers splayed wide, radiating heat. As your heart rate kicks up a notch, you squirm in your seat.” IT STARTS AS A TINGLE!!!!! AS PINS AND NEEDLES!!!! IMAGERY 11110/10 AS ALWAYS. AND THE HIS FINGERS AGAINS PLS DO NOT DO THIS TO ME. favorite lineeeeeee!!!

“See, there’s this rule, sugar,” he says and leans even closer. For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he just goes on, “You steal the hat, you ride the cowboy.” there is absolutely no rule he is lying to his teeth but i’ll allow this.

“Your brain implodes.” YEAH. NO SHIT.

“Part of you wants to say no. Let Jake take you home or to a bathroom stall or to the back of his pick-up. Make good on that rule you’re not sure he didn’t just make up. Give into the insistent thrumming of want in the pit of your stomach.” YEARNINGGGGGGGGG. their interactions feel so magnetic because of the way you describe them. very insane of you.

“So you clear your throat, slide off the barstool, and right into his arms. For a second, you’re chest to chest, stomach to stomach, then you’re stepping away, wondering distantly just how flustered you look and taking the hat off.” CHEST TO CHEST!!!! STOMACH TO STOMACH!!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!

“He waves back silently, then casts another long, lingering look at you that makes your heart miss a beat or two.” PLEASE GUYS GO TO THE BATHROOM STALL THERE IS STILL TIMEEEEEEEEE

incredible and showstopping as always. i’m fearing for my life because of part 2. you’re the best ever.

dime store cowboy . hangman

PART TWO

pairing ; cowboy!jake seresin x female!reader

synopsis ; jake teaches you about the cowboy hat rule.

wc ; 2k

warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; explicit language, non-explicit sexual content (it's just flirting)

note: YEEHAW PARDNERS.......... i'm so obsessed with this i'm gonna cry, thank you forever to the anon who requested this. also what if this becomes a series what then WHAT THEN. sorta modified the title from that one kacey musgraves song lol.

sol. sunderlust. you already know what i'm gonna say thank you for being my bestie :(

The whole thing is Carrie Underwood’s fault. You’ll go to your grave swearing it.

It’s just that you’re three strawberry margaritas deep, the lights in the bar are all dimmed, all neon, all flickering, and Jake is leaning into your space like he’s trying to smell your perfume, smiles at you like he’s completely charmed, and then somebody starts playing Before He Cheats on the jukebox and your brain just sorta like. Short-circuits.

The song always gives you an unwarranted burst of confidence, makes you feel like you, too, could vandalize a cheater’s car in a flurry of righteous wrath, so it’s not that difficult to reach up, lifting half out of the bar stool, face suddenly just an inch from his, and steal his hat. The fabric is surprisingly soft beneath your fingers.

At first, Jake looks surprised, his mouth twitching in amusement.

“What you trying to do with that, sugar?” he asks.

And the thing is this. You’re new in town and decidedly more urban (cosmopolitan, you’d like to say, but really, who are we kidding here?) than the rest of the crowd. It’s all a bit strange, all unfamiliar, but when your co-workers invited you out for a Friday night of drinks at the local bar, you were beyond grateful. It was supposed to be a nice little get-together among people who would hopefully become friends. You didn’t expect a guy who looks like he could be Mr. August in a calendar dedicated to half-naked hot cowboys doing various types of manual labor to walk up to you and start flirting like his life depends on it.

At least you think he’s flirting…? You’re not that well-versed in this whole thing.

You shrug, hope you look more confident than you feel.

“When I was little,” you say, turning the hat over and peeking at the inside, where a label proudly states Property of J. Seresin. You let a finger run over it, tracing the shape of his name. “I used to dream about being a cowgirl.”

You flip the hat again and put it on. It’s big enough that it goes slipping down a few inches, almost covering your eyes.

Something on Jake’s face goes taut, his gaze darkens, the fist on the bartop clenches once then relaxes.

“Did you, now?” he asks, his voice suddenly lower, and he takes a step closer. His hip knocks against your knee where you’re angled toward him, every point of your body unconsciously straining closer during the conversation. He tips the hat back an inch or two from your forehead, clearing your vision, and looks down at you, searches your face for something. “Looking good.”

He’s silhouetted by the lights of the bar, bordered by the people crowding behind him to order, but you can’t see anything past the green in his eyes. He’s pushed so close he’s almost between your legs, your thighs like open brackets around the shape of him. The hand at the brim of the hat wanders down your back slowly before settling on the backrest of your stool. It’s not even a touch, just the allusion to it, but your heart goes pitter-patter in your chest.

“Do I?” you ask, breath hitching, legs bouncing with the nerves of it all.

You just don’t do this sort of stuff. Flirting with people, letting strangers chat you up in bars, going along with the quips and the banter and the coy touches… you’re so out of your element. And even Carrie Underwood and her misplaced pep talks have deserted you now. She just threw the match, and then she hightailed it out of here. Traitor.

Jake nods. “You’re real pretty, sugar,” he says. “I especially like the hat with that dress.”

You glance down at yourself and grin. The dress is decidedly too much for a joint where everybody else seems to show up in denim or flannel. You’re just glad you skipped heels in favor of sneakers to dress the whole thing down - you would have stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of cowboy boots.

“This isn’t really… saloon appropriate, is it?”

He laughs, and the sound of it warms your chest. “Not exactly,” he agrees. “But I like it. It suits you.”

“How so?”

Jake lifts a shoulder in a shrug, something unreadable playing about his mouth. “Makes it look like you’re not from here.”

You frown and ask, “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Sugar,” Jake chuckles, and the sound of that stupid, ridiculous pet name sends a shiver down your back, “that’s just about the highest compliment I could ever give a girl.”

You don’t know what to say to that - your cheeks feel kind of warm, and your brain is buzzing like a beehive.

“I can’t really… see in this thing,” you mumble, tugging at the brim that keeps slipping. Suddenly a little frail.

Jake laughs again, and you decide that you don’t just like the sound - you love it.

“So you dreamed about being a cowgirl, yeah?” he asks, withdrawing his hand and taking a swig of his beer.

You blink a few times until your vision goes from blurred to focused. Then you clear your throat. “Yeah, like… in elementary school, I think.”

“What’s your opinion on cowboys, then?”

You shrug, turn your upper body sideways to finger the stem of your cocktail glass. “I suppose they have their uses.”

He laughs, the sound a little heavier than it was before, and says, “You ever dreamed about any of those, too?”

It’s crude, it’s forward, it’s an innuendo so thinly-veiled it’s pretty much translucent. It should make you balk.

But there’s something about the night. The music, the drinks, the boy. The heat of the summer outside and the thrill of a new town and a new dress and a new life. It all makes you feel a little bit dangerous, a little bit sexy, a little bit loose. Maybe just for one night, you can pretend to be someone else. Let your hair down.

“Maybe,” you say, hoping it comes off mysterious instead of guarded, closed-off, disinterested. You turn to take a sip of your margarita, and then, in a move so bold not even Carrie Underwood and her car-wrecking could claim it, you lick the salt off the rim of the glass.

When you glance up at him again, his pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any green left visible. He’s looking right at your mouth.

“Anything I could make come true?” he asks.

It’s an offer as much as it is an out. If you pull back now, you’re pretty sure he’d leave you alone. Jake is forward, confident, sure, but he doesn’t seem like the pushy type. For some insane reason, you feel safe with him.

“Depends,” you say. Your voice has gone so quiet you’re surprised he can hear you over the din of the bar. The song has changed, but you don’t recognize the tune. You can’t focus on anything except the man right in front of you anyway.

He doesn’t ask what it depends on, and you’re glad because you don’t have an answer for him. You’re playing this whole thing by ear, and apparently, your hearing is impaired.

It starts as a tingle, as pins and needles, and when you look down, you find Jake’s hand on your thigh, just above the knee. Fingers splayed wide, radiating heat. As your heart rate kicks up a notch, you squirm in your seat.

Jake raises his free hand and tips two fingers to the brim gently. “You know what this means, pretty girl?”

His thumb traces a path up the inside of your thigh, leaves goosebumps in its wake. Suddenly, your mouth is drier than the Sahara desert.

“What?” you ask stupidly. You feel like there’s an entirely separate conversation happening here, one you aren’t really following.

He smirks, but his eyes don’t move from your face. “It’s not really something good girls do.”

You’re distracted by the tuft of hair protruding from the unbuttoned collar of his flannel, the same color as his beard. You wonder if it stretches all the way down beneath the obnoxiously large belt buckle.

Your voice has gone airy. “Why not?”

He hums, fingers traveling just a little higher up on your thigh, almost creeping beneath the fabric of your dress now. You hope you’re not sticky with sweat. It’s so hot in here. But then his fingernails scrape over your skin, the softest of touches, and that thought dissipates along with any other.

“See, there’s this rule, sugar,” he says and leans even closer. For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he just goes on, “You steal the hat, you ride the cowboy.”

Your brain implodes. If you tried to get up right now, you’re pretty sure you’d keel right over.

“Does that really exist?” you ask, voice barely more than a whisper. He’s so close that you can smell his aftershave, can count the freckles scattered on his nose. So close if you just lean in an inch, half an inch, just a bit…

Somebody says your name, and you almost topple backward off the bar stool in your attempt to put distance between him and you.

Your co-worker stands a step behind you, eyebrow raised and a disapproving look on her face.

“I’m heading home now. You still need that ride?”

Part of you wants to say no. Let Jake take you home or to a bathroom stall or to the back of his pick-up. Make good on that rule you’re not sure he didn’t just make up. Give into the insistent thrumming of want in the pit of your stomach.

But there’s a rational part of you left, too, one that hasn’t drowned in margaritas or the green of Jake’s eyes yet. One that remembers who you really are, truly, beneath the thin veneer of tonight’s pretense.

So you clear your throat, slide off the barstool, and right into his arms. For a second, you’re chest to chest, stomach to stomach, then you’re stepping away, wondering distantly just how flustered you look and taking the hat off.

“Thanks for letting me borrow this,” you say sheepishly and hand it back to him.

Jake smirks, something in his eyes twinkling.

“Always happy to make a lady’s dreams come true,” he says, popping the hat back on. “Anytime, Ma’am.”

You grope around for your purse blindly, a lump in your throat that makes it impossible to speak. That and the fact that you have no idea how to answer that.

“Seresin.” Your co-worker nods at him.

He waves back silently, then casts another long, lingering look at you that makes your heart miss a beat or two.

“I’ll see you around?” you ask, voice trembling like a leaf in a thunderstorm.

The corner of Jake’s mouth lifts in a grin.

“You can count on it,” he says and tips his hat at you. “I believe you may owe me a ride.”

Tags

fic recs august 2022 Top gun top gun maverick jake seresin hangman my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing who would’ve thought i would be into cowboys??? anything and everything for jake seresin insane writing i am hyperventilating sooooo much physical touch in this one i can’t handle this

2K notes View Post

fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

28/09/22: i’m so excited to see where this fic is gonna go!!! the summary was so bittersweet and i’m a sucker for these stories so <3 this first chapter set up the universe really well and i NEED MORE ALREADY. here are my favorite parts:

“Now, is that anyway to be talking to your husband?”

“Bradley!” You shrieked, hiding your burning face in your hands as Mrs. Miller’s words rang in your ears. “You promised you wouldn’t tease me about that.”

The boy simply shrugged, popping a raspberry between the ghost of a smile on his lips.” THE TEASING!!! BUT THE SUMMARY SAID UNREQUIRED LOVE SO I’M HURTING ALREADY THIS WAS SO CUTE!!!

“Nothing else could be real but the two of you sitting on the sandy beach, gazing at the night sky and eating fresh raspberries as he poked fun at you in his soft, steady voice.” nothing else could be real but the two of you!!!!!!!!! beautiful!!!!!!! MY FAVORITE LINE!!!

“I always knew you were a smart boy,” she praised him, teasingly. “And smart enough to stay out of trouble, I hope.” smart? yes. enough to stay out of trouble? absolutely not.

“Those two will be halfway to the courthouse by the time Pete finishes flipping that burger.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

“Mrs. Petunia shook her head. “High school is far too young—”

“Thank you—”

“—for Bradley to get a proper engagement ring. You be patient young lady or he’ll propose to you with a plastic ring from the arcade!” love interruptions like this truly. i love cliches.

“You just remember, when you’re surrounded by all those college girls,” Mrs. Dempsey told him sternly before he left to swap out with Maverick at the grill, “that you’ve got a perfect, little duck waiting for you back home.” OH THE FORESHADOWING I SEE IT ALREADY!!!

“For a moment, you thought you felt Bradley stiffen, but it passed so quickly you felt you could have imagined it. And then Bradley — your Bradley who bathed his tongue in raspberries and his skin in moonlight — let out a quiet chuckle.” i am already saaaaaaaaaad!!!

i love mrs. dampsey already and the kettle story was so cute!!!

“and Mrs. Dempsey liked to joke that the noisy kettle was actually Mr. Dempsey messing with you when he felt you were too in your head. Neither of you could imagine making tea with anything else.” i cried.

“Maggie Lawson was a single mother of two who had cried literal tears of relief when you walked into her flower shop with the “help wanted” sign at 17. You were sure there were many times you could have left — the flower business wasn’t exactly booming — but you never did. Not when you were 17, not when you graduated high school, and not now. You loved the flowers too much. You loved Maggie too much. You were perfectly content with working there your whole life.

Even if your high school self didn’t agree.” i love how you described that duck really likes her job it wasn’t what she envisioned doing forever when she was younger!!!

“How do you—” He hesitated for a moment. “How do you say ‘I’m so sorry I spilled iced coffee on your favorite shoes, I promise it was an accident. Now would you please forgive me already?’, but in flowers?” I’M SO CURIOUS TO FIND OUT IF/WHICH ONE OF THE PILOTS WAS THIS THAT SPOKE TO HER!!! THIS WAS ADORABLE!!!

“Duck?” SCREAMING!!!

AND ALL OF THEM JUST STANDING THERE CRAMPED INTO THE SHOP SJHCJSHD WHAT IS GOING ON? YOU GOT ME HOOKED!!!

“But your eyes stayed fixed on the man you hadn’t seen since you still knew how to win plastic rings at the arcade.” did she really get an arcade ring? i’m also super excited for more flashbacks 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

amazing introduction to this story and i can’t wait for more!!!

If It Looks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck

summary - Weirdly, being in unrequited love with your childhood best friend wasn’t really a huge problem for you. Though you suppose it’s a lot easier to deal with when he’s halfway across the country and not, you know, living exactly one block away from your childhood home for the foreseeable future. And for a man who hasn’t spoken to you in nearly three years, he sure seems happy to see you.

warnings - language, brief allusions to death

word count - 3.0k

afterglow masterlist

Continuar lendo

Tags

fic recs 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster september bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing THIS IS A ROOSTER ROMCOM I FEEL IT I KNOW IT i have no idea where lemoore is or if it’s a small town or not but i got those vibes and i’m rolling with it tell me if i’m wrong tho i wanna imagine it right CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS LET’S FUCKING GO the old ladies are adorable BRADLEY LEFT FOR 3 YEARS? flower shop <3 i have a feeling DUCK is also gonna be an influence for the rooster callsign i could also just be insane

447 notes View Post

fivsecondsflat

1 year ago

Baling Christmas cookies with Hazel 😭😭

author's note/s: 742 words. not so much of the baking itself but it does set the scene for this. sapphic fluff 4 dayz, as the kids like to say

If you had to swat her hand away from the bowl of cookie dough one more time, you were going to lose your mind. Or maybe put the bowl in the fridge and find a way to lock it as you finish up your current batch of cookies.

“Hazel, seriously,” you tsk at her.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. But I did tell you that I’m a sucker for chocolate chip cookies - baked and unbaked.”

Hazel shrugs and puts her hands up as if to say, ‘What can you do?’, and you can only roll your eyes at her affectionately as you move the bowl away from her. She was always a nice little distraction to your daily tasks and in stressful situations, but you really needed to get your baking done before mid-afternoon. The holidays weren’t in full swing just yet but you didn’t wanna do your Christmas shopping when everyone else was; huge crowds weren’t Hazel’s thing and they weren’t yours either. Besides, even though you didn’t know what to buy, it’d be nice to know which shops to visit again once you do.

“You can have them once they’re out of the oven and cooled. They’re yummier and healthier that way,” you say pointedly. “But that won’t happen if you keep distracting me.”

She hums, walking around the island and stopping right behind you. She presses a kiss to the back of your head before snaking her arms around your waist, her chin resting atop your shoulder. You smile to yourself as you lean back, letting her sway the two of you in silence as you continue shaping the dough.

After a moment, she asks, “Why are you making all of this so early, anyway? Isn’t baking treats supposed to be during the twenties of December when it’s really Christmas already?”

You shrug, placing another cut out soon-to-be sugar cookie on the tray. “Force of habit. It’s kind of like a tradition my parents and I have for the season, helps us prepare to get into the holiday spirit and all that before doing some early shopping or just window-shopping. You have something like that too, right?”

Hazel tightens her embrace as you feel her shake her head. “My family’s not the type. Mom puts in more effort at the PTA meetings for the school’s Christmas events than she does in decorating our own house — and before you ask, yes, the house does have decorations. It’s just that we have people that come over to put them out and around the whole place.”

A frown spreads across your face at that. You knew the Callahan family situation was pretty rocky which was why the two of you never really talked about it unless she brought something up, but hearing little bits and pieces of Hazel’s home life always made you feel sad. It sucked that she and her family fit right into the ‘rich family but not rich in family’ stereotype. “I can help you decorate, if you want.” Thinking about doing her humongous house was a bit dizzying, but it’s not like they had to do it all in a day.

You place the cookie cutter down and turn around to face her, and Hazel has the softest look on her face that you almost forget what you were going to say. “Would that be okay?”

“Yes,” she answers without hesitation. You chuckle at her eagerness, wrapping your arms around her shoulders to bring her closer. “That’d be so okay. I think that would be really, really great actually, and then maybe we can… wait, but didn’t you say you were gonna go look for gifts later?”

“Traditions can be altered. It’d be nice for the two of us to have one of our own, don't you think?”

She rocks back on her heels, beaming at you as she nods vigorously.

You grin back at her before pressing a kiss to her cheek, then moving your positions around so that she was facing the countertop and you were hugging her from behind. “Okay, part of this new tradition too is that you actually help me bake these cookies, so go and get to it, Callahan.”

“Yes ma’am,” she says in a mocking soldier-like voice, but she does pick up the cookie cutter without another word.

You let a few seconds pass before going, “Oh, and Hazel?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t get any ideas about eating the cookie dough again.”

Hazel barks out a laugh. “No promises, pretty girl.”

Tags

SO CUTE fic recs 2023 it's the most wonderful time of the year november hazel callahan hazel callahan x reader bottoms 2023 my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing SHE NEEDS ME I NEED HER butterflies in my stomach going crazy doing backflips what is this

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fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

10/08/2022: well hello!!! i’m literally just here to reblog my favorite fics so i can write long extensive reviews about them like my very own personal silly little goodreads or whatever!!!!

Tags

diary my silly little goodreads

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fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

14/08/2022: MISS LURKYMURKER!!!!!!!! there is no way this isn’t a dream!!!! euro tripe rafe is back on this stupid little app and I AM BEAMING!!!! you are one of my favorite authors of all time and i will follow you to the grave. i read euro trip and then college trip and then managed to just drown in all your work at the beginning of this year (i used to be too shy to get off anon but i’ve been here for a while) and the thing is: i don’t even like rafe 😭😭😭 i came across your blog because i saw another author i really liked saying incredible things about you and just had to give your rafe a chance. AND I AM SO GLAD I DID!!! the way you write him in your universes is just so lovely i couldn’t help but fall in love???? all thanks to your beautiful brain and writing (i’ll be a mess when s3 comes out and euro trip rafe just isn’t there on my screen. life is so unfair.) ANYWAYS!!! all of this to say, i breathe and live for euro trip, the story has a very special place in my heart and SEEING YOU WRITE FOR THEM AGAIN- AM I DREAMING? i’m just crazy happy. here’s me just, idk even know… crying over them??? a super classy review (me when i lie) of this beautiful little nugget you decided to bless us with!!!

“Because you’d meant it. You’d asked him how he was, and you’d wanted to know he’d be okay. Rafe didn’t know whether he deserved that. He didn’t know whether he ever would.

And so, he’d run away.” sometimes i forget how insecure he’s always been :((((

“Rafe swallows. His mind fails to stray from the first voice he heard; the heart-squeezing pressure it places on his chest.” THE HEART-SQUEEZING PRESSURE IT PLACES ON HIS CHEST. dude!!!!! your writing!!!!! i visualize and i feel everything!!!!! how do you do this idk but WOW.

“The way his name falls from your lips is a sharp knife to his chest. And then you ask, “How are you?” and it plunges, twists, cuts deeper.” she’s being so kind and it just makes him hurt a little more my heart can’t survive this.

“Some space from Rafe should come as a welcome relief.

Except that it doesn’t.

All it tells you is that he isn’t himself, at a moment; a large part of him is hurting, and a small part of you wants to fix that.” THE FACT THAT THIS PRE EURO TRIP!!!!! THEY WERE JUST BABIES, THEIR FEELINGS WERE STILL SO VERY MESSY AND CONFUSING I LOVE THEM!!! SHE WANTS TO FIX IT ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

and then he bumps her chin!!!!! because of course physical touch is rafe’s thing, i missed him so much!!!!

“you pause, you trail off, you soften your expression and watch Rafe’s falter,” i love the way they are not exactly mirroring each other but it’s more of a action-reaction kind of thing, you know? soulmates since forever!!!!!

“And perhaps that’s why this hurts so much; why the comfort of your presence is crushing pressure to his chest. Because letting himself yearn for you — want you, hope to have you, one day — means letting himself love, feel love, feel it all.

Including that which he lost.” i am in so much pain right now.

“Why?” He teases; he’ll break if he answers honestly, he isn’t sure he’ll survive it. Bad, he thinks, I’m doing fucking bad and you’re going to make it worse before you can make it better,” BAD, HE THINKS, I’M DOING FUCKING BAD AND YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE IT WORSE BEFORE YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER!!!!!!!!!! favorite fucking line!!!!!! just crush my heart.

“He swallows. He tries to find something else to say; something stupid and meaningless that’ll push you away.

He can’t.” of course he can’t!!!!!!!! he’s always been so honest with her!!!! and especially now that he’s so vulnerable, his mom’s death is still so recent… he can’t!!!!!! ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

“He resists the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over your skin, ensure that you’re real, you’re here, you’re worried about him.” god he’s always been so in love i almost forgot he’s just so drawn to her, like a magnet. i can feel how strong the urge to reach out to her is for him!!!!!!!!! i love the way you write i really do i am in love!!!!!

“You’re here. You were here three months ago, when the wound was still fresh, and it may not be close to healed, yet, but you’ll still be here when it is.” ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

“A friend,” Rafe affirms with a nod. “A friend who I make out with sometimes?”

“And there he is,” Topper says then, throwing an arm over your shoulder as he brings up your rear. “Knew all it’d take was a conversation with you.” A FRIEND WHO I MAKE OUT WITH SOMETIMES QUESTION MARK… I HATE HIM, I HAVE SO MANY BUTTERFLIES ON MY STOMACH RIGHT NOW!!!!!! and really love that we get a little bit of playfulness here because he never lets himself crack open too much!!!! I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM and i love topper’s comment.

“Thank you. Seriously,” his breath is spicy mint, faint raspberry.

“I didn’t do anything,” you answer meekly, folding your arms across your chest. Your forearms brush his as you do so, warm sunshine with rippling muscles.

“You did,” he says, disarmingly sober. “You always do.” these tiny little interactions pre-euro trip make me swoon!!!!!! they kill me from the inside out!!!! it’s all so delicate and intimate and it’s just too much and not enough and it’s everything!!!!! SHE DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT SHE IS TO HIM!!!!! JUST HER PRESENCE WAS ENOUGH!!!!!!! my favorite interactive in this part.

“But I want to sit with you,” Rafe grins easily, nudging your shoulder with his.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 he’s adorable and i’m devastated he isn’t real.

so beautifully written as always!!!! you never miss!!!!

Euro trip blurb: august

Synopsis: Rafe remembers when wanting was enough. (For him, it was enough, to live for the hope of it all)

Warnings: mentions of a parent death, cursing, angst, fuckboy Rafe in full force

a/n: I think this is one of the earliest blurbs I’ve written! Set in the summer before junior year, right after Lillian passed. I remember mentioning that Rafe spent a lot of time avoiding Y/n during the aftermath, because a part of him knew that letting her in would mean letting everything else in too. Here’s some perspective!

“I can’t decide,” the girl whines, the space between her collarbones forming an osculate as she sighs. She angles her body toward Rafe’s expectantly, fresh sunlight bathing her skin burnt amber, faint tones of sepia. “You pick,” she decides, handing him the two spoons in her hand. “Raspberry sorbet or matcha?”

Rafe Cameron doesn’t bother. He places them into the container in front of him untouched, neat movements juxtaposing the sloven way he pulls her close. His lips are firm, impatient enough to leave her breathless; the careless kind of ardency she may define as yearning.

She’d be wrong.

Rafe hasn’t let himself feel anything since his mother’s death. When he bruises her with kisses, tastes the sea-salt, honeysuckle on her skin, it’s because he’s running away.

“Raspberry,” he says when he pulls away, giving her waist an absent squeeze. There’s a barely there imprint of cherry chapstick on his lips, brilliant red that swirls hints of sweet sorbet.

She nods her approval, turning toward the counter to place her order. And when Rafe does the same, when he reaches around her and pays (with clean wad of cash, leaving a tip that’s almost outrageous — even for him), he feels overwhelmingly as though he’s just going through the motions.

Summer’s been hard.

His mother passed away three months ago, today, and all he’s done since then is avoid, avoid, avoid. His father, his younger sisters, his responsibilities, the majority of his friends; all the things he loves, all the things he deserves — you.

Most especially, Rafe’s avoiding you.

Because when he’d walked into class two days after her funeral, red-rimmed pupils with pockets of insomnia beneath the lids, you’d looked up at him and asked, “Hey, how are you doing?”

And you’d done it in that soft, aching voice you never used; it was gentle, genuine, and it’d broken Rafe’s heart cleanly in two.

Because you’d meant it. You’d asked him how he was, and you’d wanted to know he’d be okay. Rafe didn’t know whether he deserved that. He didn’t know whether he ever would.

And so, he’d run away.

Weeks and weeks of missed periods, of stumbling into Noah White’s house dangerously half-cut, and then, at the helm of another cruel summer, opportunistic hook-ups with every girl in his class.

Except you.

“…and then, Lacy said her older brother can totally hook us up!”

Rafe blinks.

“So?” The girl adds, bringing a spoonful of ice-cream to her mouth. “You in?”

“Huh?” Rafe asks then, rubbing the back of his neck distractedly. Endless hours in the sun have lightened the tips of his hair; he’s let them grow out, tease through the frayed edges of his baseball cap.

“Lacy’s?” The girl repeats, brow furrowing a little. “The party? Are you even listening?”

“Oh,” Rafe falters, he shakes his head, he expertly avoids eye contact, “yeah, sure Liz.”

“Yay!” The girl named Liz exclaims, nudging his shoulder approvingly. The movement times perfectly with three sets of footsteps; the bell above Daily Scoop jingles, and in walks warmth, perplexing familiarity.

“Bring Noah,” Liz adds, though Rafe isn’t really listening. His heartbeat quickens. He feels the surface of his palms grow clammy.

“…it’ll be fun, I promise,” continues a voice, glowing and gentle and overwhelmingly soft. “Besides, they’re playing 10 things I hate about you, and you guys know how much I love Heath Ledger —”

“Dude,” groans a deeper voice in response; Topper, maybe Kelce, Rafe doesn’t really care, “you’ve made us watch that film like, a million fucking times already.”

“So? You don’t hear me complaining every time you guys rope me into spending my Sunday playing nine-holes —”

“Except that golf is actually fu— oh, shit, Cameron, is that you?”

Rafe swallows. His mind fails to stray from the first voice he heard; the heart-squeezing pressure it places on his chest.

“Oh, uh, hey,” he answers, turning toward the source of the commotion slowly. He hopes that his expression reads blithe disinterest, that being here with Liz gives you the wrong impression.

It doesn’t.

“Rafael,” you say slowly, taking him in. You haven’t seen much of him over the past three months; his hair is longer, his skin warmer, sunburnt. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His pert nose holds a smattering of brown freckles.

The way his name falls from your lips is a sharp knife to his chest. And then you ask, “How are you?” and it plunges, twists, cuts deeper.

Rafe needs it to stop.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says with a grin, swivelling his cap so it sits backwards on his head. He abandons his table with Liz to head over, all charm and smooth confidence, expertly hidden grief.

“Hey,” you repeat, raising your eyebrows in surprise.

Perhaps you didn’t expect him to approach you so easily. He’s been avoiding you like the plague since his mother’s funeral, and you know it shouldn’t bother you as much as it does. You’re the one who’s always complaining about his annoying grin, his annoying comments, his annoyingly relentless presence and the way he refuses to let up — aren’t you? Some space from Rafe should come as a welcome relief.

Except that it doesn’t.

All it tells you is that he isn’t himself, at a moment; a large part of him is hurting, and a small part of you wants to fix that.

“I’m good,” he answers with a grin, bumping your chin playfully. It’s a tendril of soft touch, but it’s heat enough to set nerve-endings aflame. “Better now that you’re here.”

You frown then, surveying him through narrowed eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant,” you mutter, a crease forming between your eyebrows. “I mean with…” you pause, you trail off, you soften your expression and watch Rafe’s falter, “…everything. Your mom. How are you doing?”

Rafe flinches, almost. The last few words are a barely there whisper, impossibly gentle, as though you care about his answer.

About him.

And perhaps that’s why this hurts so much; why the comfort of your presence is crushing pressure to his chest. Because letting himself yearn for you — want you, hope to have you, one day — means letting himself love, feel love, feel it all.

Including that which he lost.

Because, really, who on Earth’s capable of loving him as unconditionally as his mother did?

“Why?” He teases; he’ll break if he answers honestly, he isn’t sure he’ll survive it. Bad, he thinks, I’m doing fucking bad and you’re going to make it worse before you can make it better, and so, he adds, “You gonna cheer me up with a kiss?”

“Rafael,” you sigh, taking a tentative step forward. There’s half an inch between you, now, faint bergamot mingling with spicy cologne, musk. “Why are you being like this?”

It isn’t the response he expected, and the revelation burns his throat dry, coats his waterline with unshed tears. He swallows. He tries to find something else to say; something stupid and meaningless that’ll push you away.

He can’t.

“I don’t know,” his voice breaks, and he tries not to wince as he clears his throat. Topper and Kelce have long abandoned their posts on either side of you, burying themselves with a menu they’ve already perused a million times . “I’m… it doesn’t matter. Surviving. I’m surviving.”

“Well,” you start, chewing on your bottom lip gingerly. Rafe’s eyes fall to their raw surface, the contour of your jaw, your soft neck. He resists the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over your skin, ensure that you’re real, you’re here, you’re worried about him. “You’ve just… I don’t know. I never got to give you my condolences. I’m sorry, Rafael, I can’t even imagine how…”

You trail off, exhaling slowly. “…I’m here. If you want to talk —”

“— or not talk?” Rafe questions, but he’s grin now, crescent moon curve to his lips that meets the corners of his eyes. It’s the first time in a long while he’s let himself really smile.

You’re here. You were here three months ago, when the wound was still fresh, and it may not be close to healed, yet, but you’ll still be here when it is.

Rafe doesn’t know when the months slipped by; somewhere between his mother’s death, and now, he lost himself within loss, within mourning, endless grief. He doesn’t know when he stopped hoping for, wanting love; when he stopped living for the hope of it all.

He realises now that it doesn’t matter. Lillian Cameron wouldn’t have wanted her son to just give up.

“Will you just —” you pause, pinching the bridge of your nose frustratedly, “— I’m here, okay? As a friend.”

“A friend,” Rafe affirms with a nod. “A friend who I make out with sometimes?”

“And there he is,” Topper says then, throwing an arm over your shoulder as he brings up your rear. “Knew all it’d take was a conversation with you.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, fixing him a stern glare.

“He’s right, though,” he agrees with a wink, and then he pauses, dipping his head until he’s at eye level. This close, you can see specks of green within his blue irises. The tip of his pert nose is sunburnt. And when he adds, “Thank you. Seriously,” his breath is spicy mint, faint raspberry.

“I didn’t do anything,” you answer meekly, folding your arms across your chest. Your forearms brush his as you do so, warm sunshine with rippling muscles.

“You did,” he says, disarmingly sober. “You always do.”

His gaze lingers as he turns back around, and you try not to focus on the way your stomach flips, the way your breath catches at his words.

He’s returning to a table with Liz, you remind yourself, no doubt the millionth girl he’s taken out, kissed on the beach, this summer. You’re not special. He may look at you like you’re the only girl in the world, but you can’t be — not to a douchebag like him.

So, you don’t let his words get to you.

And when you decide to try out two new flavours (mint chocolate chip and raspberry sorbet — a combination that causes Topper to gag, violently), you try not to think about the fact that they taste like Rafe’s breath on your skin.

—

“I can’t believe you actually roped us into this crap,” Topper grumbles, nudging his way through the crowd with you and Kelce close behind. He halts nears an unoccupied patch of grass, crisp blades dried out by the unforgiving, Carolina heat.

“You guys are going to love it,” you insist, unrolling your plaid picnic blanket. The projector is a perfect distance away, cotton candy clouds overlaying large screen.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kelce scowls, setting down several snacks before getting comfortable. “You fucking owe us.”

You send him a saccharine sweet smile, stretching yourself out on the picnic blanket before reaching for a bag of Skittles. The air is thick with the scent of foxglove and forget-me-nots; it’s sticky humidity and cicadas, salty heat that reminds you of the beach.

“Come on,” you press, propping yourself up onto your elbows. You pop several Skittles into your mouth, chewing thoughtfully before continuing, “You haven’t even given it a chance. Just — just wait until the movie starts, alright? And then —”

“Wait a minute,” Topper interrupts; clearly, he wasn’t listening in the first place, “is that fucking —”

“Space for two more?”

You freezd. You recognise that voice; so well, in fact, that you know that the question is directed only at you.

“Uh,” you turn and lift your head, met with Rafe’s figure crouching down beside you. The burnt orange sunset lightens his irises; they look softer, somehow, more genuine than they did. “Why?”

Rafe raises his eyebrows. “For me and Noah?”

“Can’t you guys, like,” you gesticulate awkwardly, floundering, “I don’t know, sit somewhere else?”

“But I want to sit with you,” Rafe grins easily, nudging your shoulder with his.

You frown. “This isn’t what I meant,” you say, eyes darting toward Noah furtively. “When I said I’m here, I didn’t mean you could crash every hang out I plan with Top and Kelce —”

“Sweetheart,” Rafe says then, and he’s almost laughing — how dare he? What about this is funny? “I wasn’t trying to crash your…”

He trails off slowly, trying to find the right words to say. He isn’t sure how he’s able to convey how much your Daily Scoop-side rendezvous meant to him; how very much you’ve helped him feel like himself again.

He feels like an idiot for ever avoiding you. He wants you — needs you to know that.

“…thank you,” he finishes, exhaling slowly. “For… for before, just — thank you, okay?”

For being you. It prompted him to cancel his plans with Liz, just in case, prompted him to drag Noah to the drive-in, just because. Reminded him how it felt to live for the hope of it all.

You may not have been his to lose, but Rafe Cameron held onto the promise of a future where you were.

—

tags: (just some besties) @notdisneychannel @r0und3bitch @destourtereaux @itsalexwin @flossiewrites :)

Tags

fic recs august 2022 outer banks my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing euro trip rafe euro trip i refuse to tag just rafe cameron because this is not him this is my beloved euro trip rafe lurkymurker aka the goat pre-euro trip idiots and oblivious in love your writing makes me have butterfly infestations in my stomach it’s kind of insane invented the boy obsessed trope will not be streaming s3 so euro trip rafe is forever canon in my head

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fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

02/09/2022: technically, i read this on the 28th but have not been able to go back to normal until now. okay. MAY??????? not you breaking my heart again????????? i’m so excited to see where you’re gonna take this story. i already love them so much. the way you write bradley just does things to my heart that are unexplainable!!!!! plus your attention to details just makes everything so much better. anyways. THIS WAS BEAUTIFUL AS ALWAYS YOU NEVER DISAPPOINTS. YOU SHOULD BE OUT THERE SELLING NOVELS I AM SO VERY SERIOUS. HERE ARE MY FAVORITE PARTS (i literally just highlighted the entire thing):

“Inside the bar, everything is like it always is. The chatter of the customers, the drawl of the music, the smell of beer, and the Ocean Breeze scented cleaner you use to wipe the floors. Far below it, the scent of the real ocean breeze drifting in through the opened windows. It seems wrong for the Hard Deck to be unchanged, unaltered, untouched when your own life has gone so completely off the rails.” you really know how to set the atmosphere for us readers.

“Allergies,” you lie. “I’ve got two on tap here, which one did you guys have? The German or the…”

“You don’t have allergies,” Bradley points out. You’d made it a point not to look at him, but now your gaze snaps in his direction. He stands with his eyes narrowed, with his hands on the polished wood of the bar top. Concern flutters across his face.” OH HE LIKES HER SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! I ALREADY KNOW IT!!!!!!!!!!!! THE FACT THAT HE REMEMBERED HER ALLERGIES 😭🥺🤲 you got me giggling and kicking my feet.

“There’s something about Bradley Bradshaw. You like to think of it as a gravitational pull. Something with force, something that makes people look at him. Something that grounds them, too, though, gives them a tether.” HE REALLY DOES!!! NO WONDER HE GENERATED 1.4 BILLION DOLLARS WORLDWIDE (AND COUNTING)!!!

“Bradley Bradshaw makes for a good North Star.” not me sobbing already… and the fact that you bring this back at the end… favorite detail!!!!!!

“He places a large hand on the countertop, palm down, and you should be looking busy, but all you can do is stare as his fingers starfish across the wood.” starfish across the wood!!! aaaaaa may, the imagery <3

“You do look up then. Bradley has brown eyes, round and big and deep. There’s something about them that makes you want to trust him, trust his words, trust the sincerity. It almost makes you start crying again.” so tender 🥺🥺🥺🥲🥲🥲

“Under any other circumstances, you would have laughed. But your stomach is coiled up in knots so tight you wonder if they’ll ever untangle again. Like the earphones you fish from the bottom of a purse.” :((((((((

“You’re never going back from this, you realize suddenly. No matter what happens from here on out, there’s never going to be another moment where this hasn’t happened. Where you weren’t pregnant, where you didn’t mess it all up. The plan, the dream, the life.” you didn’t mess it up you’re going to be okay. i need someone to reassure her.

“And you’d been stupid enough to hope. Hope for more, hope for better, hope for something.” to live for the hope of it all???????? reader is august… AND YOU POSTED THIS ON AUGUST. MAY!

AND HELLO MOJITO MENTION!!!!

“That’s not true. You’d like him to hug you. You’d like him to tell you it’s going to be okay, even if that might be a lie. You’d like him to be nice to you.” SHUT UP SHUT UP AND THEN AT THE END BRADLEY DOES EXACTLY THIS!!!!!!!! HUGS HER AND COMFORTS HER!!!!!!!!! IS NICE TO HER!!!!!! MAYYYYYY THE PARALLELS!!!!!!

“It’s the most terrifying thought of your life. You’ve never experienced something so wonderful. Even as the fear eats away at you, even as your stomach churns and your head spins, some part of you feels illuminated with light.” getting major waitress vibes!!!!!!!! normally the protagonist would automatically view the pregnancy as something bad especially in her situation but she feels ILLUMINATED WITH LIGHT !!!! beautiful !!!!!!

“And then he does what men do best: He leaves. Walks away from you and the baby growing inside of you. Walks away from the mess he made, the dream he shattered, without a care or a thought. Without looking back.” he’s such a piece of shit and i love how you phrased this.

“Twenty minutes later, Bradley Bradshaw finds you in the exact same position.” YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

“It’s like somebody’s cut your chest open. Scooped you clean like taking a spoon to a tub of ice cream. Behind your ribcage, you feel hollow in a way that aches down to your bones. That spiderwebs through your veins.” she needs to rest :(

“Only this Virgin Mary wears Hawaiian shirts, apparently. It almost makes you laugh.” this whole virgin mary comparison was so funny ajdhhsfhhsyh

“What happened?” Bradley asks, something hard to his voice. But when he goes to touch the side of your face, carefully as if you’re injured, as if you’re made of porcelain that’ll break at the slightest jostle, his brown eyes show nothing but genuine concern.

It makes you cry harder.” SHE STARTS CRYING AGAIN BECAUSE BRADLEY IS JUST BEING SO KIND !!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!! I UNDERSTAND !!!!!!!! AND YOU CASUALLY MENTIONING THERE WAS SOMETHING HARD TO HIS VOICE I JUST KNOW HE WAS READY TO BEAT WHOEVER MADE HER CRY !!!!!!

“But he doesn’t push. Doesn’t try to get you to explain it, doesn’t ask again. He just sits there with you, elbows on his thighs, and lets you cry.” my most beloved man <3

“Bradley looks at you, then pulls his knees up, lets his arms dangle between them. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, and his voice is very gentle. “But if you want to… I can listen.” giving her space and being patient so she feels comfortable if and when she opens up 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“This is the thing about Bradley Bradshaw. He has the kind of face that makes you want to tell him things. Makes you want to spill your secrets to him, pour them into his space. He’s steady, reliable, calm. It would be so easy to trust him.

That’s dangerous.” FAVORITE DESCRIPTION OF BRADLEY EVER??????????????

“You just want to pretend you don’t have to do it alone. Just for a moment.” just for a moment!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ALONE HE’S GONNA HELP YOU AND YOU’RE GONNA FALL IN LOVE AND IT’S GOING TO BE BEAUTIFUL!!!!

“Bradley’s eyes are very brown. A soft shade of brown, like milk chocolate. When you look at him, you feel warm all over.” BUT NOW I SEE DAYLIGHTTTTTTTTTT

“One moment - and in it the rest of your life.” 😭

“After half an eternity, Bradley says, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” STOP. THE FACT THAT HE PICKS UP ON *THIS* DETAIL?????? OH HE’S BEEN OBSESSED WITH HER FOREVER RIGHT?????? JEHCHEGCHSGXSHHXYSD I LOVE THISSSSSSS.

“Beside you, Bradley shifts his weight. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m really putting my foot in it today, aren’t I?” beloved 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 he’s doing his best!!!

“There’s always been something traditional about Bradley Bradshaw, like he’s one of those men written by women people rave about all over TikTok. If he takes a girl out on a date, he probably holds open car doors and pulls out chairs for her, hands her his jacket if she gets cold.

Distantly, you wonder what that would be like.” DISTANTLY… SURE MAY… I KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING WE ALL KNOW…

“Yeah,” Bradley says, completely sincere. “Your body, your choice.” FEMINIST KING 👑

“It’s endearing in a strange way because there’s nothing performative about it. It’s just bumbling and awkward and peculiarly genuine.” the way you write bradley is also so genuine!!!!! all the little details about him just MAKE SENSEN and makes him so real. of course he would be one of these men that really cares about women’s rights and know a couple of things but not brag about it. i love him.

“Bradley’s got a nice laugh, one that starts in his belly and seems to end at the back of his throat, punches out into the air from back there.” SEE!!!!!! THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!! HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD AT MAKING HIM REAL????? THIS IS EXACTLY HIS LAUGH!!!!!!

“But when you glance up at him from beneath lowered lashes, stomach tight with anticipation, Bradley doesn’t look judgmental at all. Instead, his face is wide open, his eyes clear, the corners of his lips still curled upward with the remnants of his smile.

Luke laughed at you, but Bradley is looking at you with something like admiration, and it takes your breath away.” TAKE MY BREATH AWAY REFERENCE PERFECTLY PUT I LOVE THIS!!! MAY YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS!!!

“No,” he says. “I think you’re really, really brave.”

And then you’re crying again.” I AM INDEED CRYING AGAIN.

“And Bradley is so nice. So goddamn kind even though he doesn’t know you, not really, even though this isn’t even his problem. Sits there on the floor of the Hard Deck with you at half past one am on a Sunday night, and doesn’t complain, doesn’t sigh. He just listens.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

“You don’t feel brave. You feel terrified, you feel overwhelmed, you feel… you feel… you feel like the whole world has toppled over. You feel like Atlas crashing down, buried beneath the weight of his burden. You feel tiny. Inadequate. You feel scared, scared, scared.” LIKE ATLAS CRASHING DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELL YEAH THE MYTHOLOGICAL REFERENCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Suddenly, you think of that tiny, unborn child inside of you. Abandoned before it ever came into the world.” :(((((((((((((

“Instead, Bradley takes a deep breath and says, “Marry me.” EVERYBODY CHEERED!!!!! i would also like to know how his brain goes DIRECTLY to this solution jahdhshdhshfjshdhd <3

“Bradley pushes on, “It wouldn’t be permanent. We could get a divorce quickie in a year or two, just stay together long enough for you to get settled with the baby and everything. Plus, you’d get free healthcare.” He glances at you, and the blank expression on your face must light a panic in him. Now his words come faster. “I wouldn’t expect anything from you, of course I wouldn’t. It would just be… keeping up appearances. Just for a while….” and he just keeps talking ahdhshfhshdhshdhshdhdhd because he’s so nervous he’s overstepped but he just wants to help and make this make sense <3

“But I could babysit, and then you could go back to work. I really wouldn’t mind. I’m good with kids, you know?” AND HE COULD BABYSIT- HE’S GOOD WITH KIDS?????? OH BRADLEY. SWEET BRADLEY. BRADLEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

“For a second, just a second, you let yourself imagine it: Imagine saying yes to this mad, insane, incredible proposal. Imagine marrying Bradley, someone soft and warm and responsible, someone completely opposite to Luke. Imagine him in a tux and you in a white dress, imagine his mustache tickling against your cheek as he leans in to kiss you. You imagine one of the quaint little houses you grew up in, but one that would belong to you, at least for a while. You imagine a toddler running through it, imagine Bradley bending down to scoop them into his arms. You imagine a life without this aching, shifting loneliness. You imagine a life with Bradley.” THE WAY YOU FOLLOW UP “A LIFE WITHOUT THIS ACHING, SHIFTING LONELINESS” WITH “A LIFE WITH BRADLEY” IMPLYING THAT BECAUSE OF HIM SHE’S NEVER GONNA FEEL ALONE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!

“When you do marry, when you walk down that aisle, you want it to be for love. And people can call you delusional, naive, whatever. You don’t care. You just know you want the big thing, the real thing, True Love, capital t, capital l. You want the hurricane of romance, the monsoon of love. You want to fly into it.” i relate. this is very real. and i loved how you described it as a hurricane.

“And he means it. Bradley carries his heart on his sleeve, you’ve learned this much. He tries to hide it, but he’s no good at it. Eventually, his emotions always get the better of him, burst forth like fountains. It’s part of his charm.” JUST A VERY PERFECT PARAGRAPH.

“You pretend like you’re not still reeling from his proposal, like it’s not suddenly become impossible to do so much as look at him without your heart flopping around like a fish finding its sad end on dry land.” WITHOUT YOUR HEART FLOPPING AROUND LIKE A FISH FINDING ITS SAD END ON DRY LAND??????? HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH THESE??????????? PERFECT.

“I know,” he interrupts you, a smile spreading on his face. “But I’ll feel better knowing you got home safe.” CHIVALRY WILL NEVER BE DEAD AS LONG AS WE HAVE BRADLEY BRADSHAW!!!

“That makes your insides clench in a way they shouldn’t. Your chest feels tight, and you look away just in case you start crying again.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😔😔😔😔😔

“It ends quicker than expected because time always goes the fastest when you want it to go slow. Then you’re thanking him, saying goodbye, both of you pretending he didn’t just propose some strange, fake marriage to you behind a bar counter not even thirty minutes ago.” time really does go fastest when you want it to go slow!!!!!

“It’s like being five again, trying to get somebody to look at the picture you drew. It’s like being ten again and being overlooked. It’s like being fifteen again, still vying for the attention you’ll never really get.” STOP HURTING ME??????? WHAT IS THIS????? ENOUGH.

“So, like a child, like you’re five again, like you’re ten again, like you’re fifteen again, you say, “I’m getting married.” and then you bring the “you’re five, fen, fifteen” motif again <33333333333333333 PERFECT.

“It might be the worst thing you’ve done in your life: Dragging poor, kind Bradley Bradshaw into the mess you’ve made of your life. Nevermind that he offered. It doesn’t matter.” DANCING WITH OUR HANDS TIED STARTS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND!!!! I’M A MESS BUT I’M THE MESS THAT YOU WANTED!!!!!!!! SORRY FOR THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONNECTIONS I AM AWARE THAT I AM ILL.

“The loneliness is everywhere, then. In your chest, in your bed, in your veins. Crawling like a shadow that swallows you whole.” this description??????????? yes.

“You lead him out the back. Out of the corner of your eyes, you spot the exact corner you huddled in a few days back, agonizing over the positive pregnancy test, the decline of your life, the decay of your dreams. Don’t look, you tell yourself, and then do it anyway.” sometimes idk what to comment next to the quotes so i just write nonsense but i just really feel the need to highlight them because i loved how you wrote it.

“When you look up at him, there’s something strange on his face. Something that looks less like surprise and more like awe.

His eyes are so brown, and your heart beats so fast, and you’re dizzy like you just got off a rollercoaster. ” LIKE AWE?????????? AND IF FEELS LIKE YOU JUST GOT OFF A ROLLERCOASTER????? I LOVE ROMANCEEEEEEEEE

“An opportunity. That sounds like business, sounds like a transaction, sounds rational and level-headed and reasonable, and you latch onto the idea. Maybe if you try to take the emotion out of the equation, it’ll be easier.” oh we’re gonna *suffer* with this one aren’t we????? i can already tell she’s gonna try denying her feelings really hard…

“Bradley hesitates, and for a second, you think he’s going to say something. But then he just shrugs, nods, says, “That’s fine. Yeah. Whatever you want.” WHATEVER SJDHSJCSJDHEJDHSJD OK SURE BRADLEY. SURE. stupid boy he’s not fooling anyone <3

“As you look at him, here in this pastel lighting, here on the verge of something monumental, there’s something so reassuring about him. Something so steady and reliable and constant. Something that makes you think, with him, maybe it could be okay, no matter how insane the whole idea is. An opportunity. An investment that just might pay off.

North star, you remind yourself. Bradley Bradshaw is the North Star.” NORTH STAR ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS!!!!!!!!!

“Then he says, “Can I hug you?” I AM BAWLING MY EYES OUT. WHY IS HE SO KIND?

“When Bradley pulls you into his arms, when he holds you against his chest loosely, carefully, giving you room to pull away at any moment, the whole thing almost bowls you over. It’s the first time anybody’s hugged you since you found out you’re pregnant, since your entire world came crashing down, and you can’t help yourself. It’s a visceral reaction. You cling to him, wrap your arms around his neck, press your face into his shoulder and your chest against his and squeeze your eyes shut, and stay there for longer than you planned to, longer than you should. Let him hold you tight enough that for a moment, for a while, it almost feels like you’re whole again. Like you’re not alone.” beautiful. so so so so beautiful.

“You could get addicted to it, could get greedy and selfish and never-satisfied. Could eat it raw.” I LOVE THIS PART I LOVE HOW YOU WROTE IT THANK YOU FOR WRITING IT? WOW. POETRY.

“Bradley smells like sunscreen and sandalwood. You try to commit that scent to memory, try to ingrain it into your brain and your body. Something to remember the next time the loneliness sets in.” stop 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“Finally, he pulls away, and his smile is gentle. You feel every inch of separation like an ache in your bones, like an echo, like a reverberation.” HUG HIM AGAIN!!!!!!

“I don’t even have a ring for you,” Bradley says, a frown etching itself into his forehead. “I’m sorry.” WHY IS HE THE SWEETEST MAN ON THE PLANET? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS???????

“I think you should have something, though. I want to give you something,” he interrupts you. “I just don’t know….” i’m so in love it’s ridiculous at this point.

“Bradley reaches into his wifebeater and pulls his dog tags from beneath the fabric. Before you know what’s happening, he’s tugging the thin silver chain down over your head, moving your hair out of the way carefully. It settles against the skin of your neck, warmed by his body heat.

You stare down at the metal dangling over your dress, the letters of his name etched into it. Bradley Bradshaw.

Your heart seizes.” SHUT UP SHUT UP MY JAW DROPPED TO THE FLOOR. THE DOG TAGS!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!

“He never had a mustache. He was never a stranger. Your dreams were never this: Rushed and fake and no ring at all. You, pregnant with somebody else’s baby, and Bradley, marrying you to get assigned to a base of his choosing. None of it real. No True Love, no capital t, no capital l. Not even lowercase. Nothing but madness and guilt and business between you.

And still you want it, want it so bad it swells inside you, pushes against your ribcage with enough pressure to crack bones - you want to be wanted.” THIS WHOLE PARAGRAPH IS SO BEAUTIFUL I THINK IT SETS THEIR STORY UP PERFECTLY. what we might expect from now on. because nothing is going according to her plan but it’s all goinf to be okay and perfect regardless. also the “you want to be wanted” line feels like it was extracted from the depths of my heart.

“Friends. This man you barely know. This man who is doing something unfathomable for you.” BECAUSE HE LIKESSSSSSSSS YOU!!!!!!!

“And then later, in the bar, as Bradley’s friends discuss some new Star Wars show you haven’t seen, as they order round after round of beer you can’t drink, as the sky goes from pastels to blues to blacks, you’ll pretend you don’t see Natasha staring at the dog tags around your neck, pretend you don’t wish you could hold Bradley’s hand, pretend you don’t feel like you’re falling apart, like you’re capsizing where you sit, like you're kicking water miles and miles and miles below the surface.” star wars name drop ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️. also: this paragraph, like the entirely of this chapter, was beautiful. VERY SAD AND ANGSTY BUT BEAUTIFUL.

“Beneath the table, you put a hand on your stomach, fingers spreading out, close your eyes, and let the current drag you under.” i am 100% not mentally stable enough to survive this story i know it in my bones.

MAY!!!!!!!!!!! i’m already looking forward to the emotional turmoil these babies are going to go through!!!!!! I’M SO EXCITED!!!!

baby, let's play house. rooster (part 1)

pairing ; bradley bradshaw x female!reader

synopsis ; marriage of convenience. you got yourself in trouble. bradley has a bit of a savior complex. together, you come up with what could potentially be the worst idea in the longstanding and illustrious history of bad ideas.

wc ; 12.5k

warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; angst; explicit language; explicit sexual content in later parts; pregnancy; mentions of infidelity; mentions of vomit; mentions of Tom Cruise; unhealthy family dynamics; one mention of suic*de but it's not a plot point; age gap

note: uhm... i blacked out. idk either. part 2 should be out eventually, which of course means that i haven't even started writing it yet. there will probably be several mistakes in here regarding the navy, etc. so i'm sorry about that i'm just dumb :-(

sol. sunderlust. crab. bestie... i love you forever, what would i ever do without you?

When you’re fourteen, sitting on a floral couch in one of the nondescript, army-commissioned houses you’ve been moving to every few months since you were old enough to remember, your mother turns on Cocktail with Tom Cruise, and you decide that, once you’re grown up, you’re going to be a bartender. You’re going to do just what Tom does - get a job in some dive, work your way up, learn the bottle slinging and the shot pouring and the flirting, and then you’re going to franchise the whole thing and take it national. It’s going to be just like TGI Fridays, except your drinks will actually be good instead of whatever watered-down punch they serve.

Of course, you’re fourteen, and you don’t even know what alcohol tastes like yet. Years later, you’re going to take a shot of Tequila at a bar, you’re going to splutter and cough and think you might choke, and it’ll leave you wondering if maybe you’ve made a mistake. But for now, you’ve got a dream, and you’ve got a plan, and not a smidge of doubt that you’ll make it all come true.

You’re going to do just as Tom Cruise does - minus the best friend’s suicide from the movie and the real-life Scientology thing and all that. But you’re going to be successful. You know it.

So this, then. This is not part of your plan at all.

Behind you, there’s a bang, and then the back door is ripped open. The buttery light of the bar spills in a rectangle across the beaten path, but it doesn’t reach your little corner. You hear the muffled thud of footsteps, a curse, followed by a shout of your name.

“Yeah?” you call back, hope you don’t sound like you’re balancing on the edge of a mental breakdown. Hope you don’t sound like you feel.

“Your shift’s about to start. I really need you in there cutting up some limes, please,” Jerry, your co-worker, says. Thank God he doesn’t walk over to investigate just what you’re doing huddled in the sand behind the bar.

“Okay,” you answer, voice a little wobbly, “I’ll be in in a sec.”

You wait until you hear the door shut behind Jerry, then you unfold yourself, get your shaky legs underneath your weight. You feel like somebody hit you over the head with one of those huge hammers they use to knock down walls. The nausea is back, too, something queasy and watery that shifts through your stomach.

Inside the bar, everything is like it always is. The chatter of the customers, the drawl of the music, the smell of beer, and the Ocean Breeze scented cleaner you use to wipe the floors. Far below it, the scent of the real ocean breeze drifting in through the opened windows. It seems wrong for the Hard Deck to be unchanged, unaltered, untouched when your own life has gone so completely off the rails.

You sneak in a quick, discreet bathroom break to swipe at the mascara smudged beneath your eyes, to dab at it with some damp toilet paper, to hope nobody will notice the obvious signs of tears still clinging to you. To stare at your reflection in the mirror for a moment, try not to think about that stupid test you buried at the bottom of the trashcan. You can taste your heartbeat in your mouth.

You don’t look any different - same nose, same hair, same eyes - but something has irrevocably shifted inside of you.

Behind the counter, you cut up the limes you promised Jerry. The scent clings to your fingers, the juice settles in the calluses. The steady sound as the knife meets the cutting board and the familiar motion of your hands help to ground you a little.

“Could we get a refill?”

You lift your head and then immediately lower it again, shoulders going up, turning to the side in an attempt to hide your face. If there are two people you don’t want to see tonight, then…

“Oh my god.” Natasha’s face pushes into your line of vision, her eyebrows crinkled, her mouth pursed. “Have you been crying?”

Waving her words of concern away with one hand, you grab for their empty glasses with the other.

“Allergies,” you lie. “I’ve got two on tap here, which one did you guys have? The German or the…”

There’s something about Bradley Bradshaw. You like to think of it as a gravitational pull. Something with force, something that makes people look at him. Something that grounds them, too, though, gives them a tether.

Ever since he first walked into this bar a little over a year ago, it’s like he’s become a fixture in your life, even if you only see him once or twice a week, even if it’s just a quick exchange of words over a countertop. Bradley Bradshaw makes for a good North Star.

He shrugs, and there’s something almost sheepish to it. “It was part of your list of reasons why you’re better than Hangman last month.”

You pause, still holding the glasses, and stare at him. He looks right back.

“That’s beside the point,” Natasha pipes up. She’s balancing both her elbows on the bartop, pulling herself closer. “Why were you crying?”

That sort of shifts reality back into focus. What are you supposed to say? I let a guy who isn’t even really my boyfriend but also not really not my boyfriend knock me up, and now I have no idea what the fuck to do? To two people who are little more than glorified acquaintances?

You shrug and decide they look like they’d enjoy the new craft beer Penny got on tap. It has notes of vanilla and apple, and you’re not much of a beer person, but even you like it. Or at least you used to.

“It’s nothing,” you say, drawing the first glass. It ends up perfect - amber liquid topped with just the right amount of foam, the little bobbles popping as you push it across the counter toward Natasha. Your life might be a mess, but at least you still know how to draw a damn good glass of beer from the tap. “Don’t worry about it.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow, but then she lets it go. “You know I’ll beat a guy up for you, right?”

You don’t doubt it. If there’s anybody in this bar you wouldn’t want to cross, it’s Natasha, and not just because of whatever training the Navy put her through. You’re convinced she came into the world knowing how to take a guy out.

“Yeah,” you agree and are surprised to find you mean it. Realistically, you’re not particularly close to any of the pilots. You chit-chat sometimes, have had a few drunken conversations after everybody else has filtered out of the Hard Deck while wiping down tables or collecting shot glasses, but that’s not really enough to support a true friendship. Still. If you asked, you have no doubt Natasha would go to bat for you. “It’s okay, though. I’m fine. I’ll put this on your tab, yeah?”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but then decides to let it go. Sighs, “Okay.”

As Natasha pushes off the bar to rejoin her group of friends toward the back of the bar, Bradley takes a step closer instead. You make it a point not to look at him, but the yellow and white of his Hawaiian shirt flashes in your periphery despite your best efforts.

He places a large hand on the countertop, palm down, and you should be looking busy, but all you can do is stare as his fingers starfish across the wood.

“You can talk to me, yeah?” he asks, and his voice is soft enough that it almost disappears in the din of this Saturday night. “Whatever it is.”

You do look up then. Bradley has brown eyes, round and big and deep. There’s something about them that makes you want to trust him, trust his words, trust the sincerity. It almost makes you start crying again.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

Then somebody’s shouting an order at you, and you’re pushing a coaster under a sweating Cuba Libre, you’re pouring a Tequila shot, you’re looking for the maraschino cherries, you’re passing out salt shakers, and you don’t notice as he disappears and you don’t think about anything for a short, blissful, beautiful time.

Two months ago, you met Luke halfway through the door of a bar you’d seen on Instagram, something with low lights and neon signs and booths cushioned in lush, ruby velvet. They had this signature cocktail there, something with rum and gold foil and a lot of smoke that drifted up in sweet-smelling plumes.

Luke was charming and laughed a lot, and when he put his hand on your waist, when he looked at you, your heart skipped a beat or two. And still, the first thing you told Penny about at work the next day was the cocktail and not the guy.

You’re almost entirely sure you’re not in love with him, but you’re excited about the idea that maybe someday you could be. Luke is a nice guy. He works in finance somewhere in San Diego, takes you to expensive seafront restaurants, and once or twice, he even bought you expensive lingerie. Luke likes the same movies as you do, likes putting on Jazz music when you go down on him in his car, and that always manages to make you feel strangely sophisticated even with a dick in your mouth. He’s older, and he has a real, grown-up job, completely unlike you with your singles soaked in beer.

He’s a stead-fast, reliable guy. If you have to be in this situation with anyone, you figure it’s better to be in it with him than some twenty-something surfer dude who couldn’t even find the word responsible in a dictionary.

The anxiety has been gnawing at you since last night, has been chipping away your composure and your calm. Has reduced you into a jittery, terrified, chafing shell of your former self. All day you were fumbling - burning your hand on the heated water kettle in the morning, almost running a red light, cutting your finger deep enough it didn’t stop bleeding for a whole five minutes.

Earlier today, you took a last, desperate stand. Propelled by the sort of hope that exists against all better judgment, you went on a CVS run and returned with three more pregnancy tests. You left them back at your tiny apartment, right on the counter where you put them out in the first place, those three tiny, horrible, life-altering plus signs laughing right in your face.

And that was it then. Your fate decided. Your luck run out.

Since you were fourteen, sitting on that floral couch, the course of your life had seemed so clear to you. You’d been so sure of where you wanted to go, so sure of how to get there. And yeah, okay, maybe you used to think you’d get there sooner, but that’s never deterred you before. Slow and steady wins the race, that’s what you used to think.

Now, ten years later, everything is muddled. You can’t see an inch ahead in the fog of all this.

To add insult to injury, those tests were fucking expensive. The next time you check your bank account, you might start crying.

So you spent a good fifteen minutes curled up on your bathroom tiles, staring at your shower curtain, blinking away tears you never shed. You spent a good fifteen minutes trying to figure it out, trying to untangle it, trying to make sense of how you could fuck up so completely.

And then you finally picked yourself up, massaged the grid pattern of the tiles off your cheek, and shot Luke a text asking if he was free tonight.

He drops by at the end of your shift.

“Hi, babe.” Luke grins as he slides into one of the bar stools. “You good?”

You nod, then pause. “Not really?”

You’re wiping down the bartop, dumping an ashtray you collected from the smoking zone outside into the trash. The Hard Deck is empty now, even the last stragglers filed out. Bob selected a song on the jukebox before he left, something slow and decidedly country. Your hands shake when you go to wet the rag again.

Luke frowns and leans across the bar to look at you closely. “What happened?”

“I have to tell you something,” you say and run the tap. The water hits the chrome of the sink with a splatter.

Luke raises an eyebrow, grins. “Illicit confession?”

Under any other circumstances, you would have laughed. But your stomach is coiled up in knots so tight you wonder if they’ll ever untangle again. Like the earphones you fish from the bottom of a purse.

You just so manage a half-hearted chuckle, a sad, pathetic little sound that has Luke’s eyebrow climbing even higher.

He pushes a brown paper bag across the counter. “I brought your favorite take-out… Would that cheer you up?”

Almost immediately, your stomach growls in answer. You’ve been so hungry the past few days that you can’t even manage to be embarrassed. “Mexican?” you ask, something like excitement in your voice for the first time in over 24 hours.

“Ah...” Luke bites his lower lip. “No, uhm… I got something from that one place we went to. The fusion kitchen?”

“Oh…” The excitement dampens immediately, and you force a smile. “Yeah, cool. Thanks.”

“Sorry… you did say you liked it when we went.”

He’s right. You did say that.

Luke likes experimental food, things like that cocktail with the gold foil. Things that look much better than they end up tasting. He takes pictures of them and posts them on his Instagram, and he always makes sure not to get your hand in, your purse, your foot. He doesn’t even follow you back, and you want to not care about trivial things like social media so very badly that you never ask him about it.

He looks genuinely apologetic, though, so you resolve to forgive him. You smile and say, “I did! This is great. Thanks, Luke.”

His satisfied smile puts you at ease.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

It’s a bit like a bucket of ice water. The ease slips away as quickly as it came. You start wiping almost furiously at a stain on the bartop, then give up. Stare at your fingers gone wrinkly with the sudsy water.

You open your mouth, and then you say, “I’m pregnant.”

It’s not what you meant to say. You meant to ease into this, make it sound… less final, somehow. As if that’s at all possible. As if that isn’t exactly what it is. Final.

You’re never going back from this, you realize suddenly. No matter what happens from here on out, there’s never going to be another moment where this hasn’t happened. Where you weren’t pregnant, where you didn’t mess it all up. The plan, the dream, the life.

Tears aren’t enough anymore. You’re going to run headfirst into the ocean and scream until the saltwater fills your lungs.

Luke laughs. You stare at him.

It takes a moment, but slowly he realizes that you’re not joking. That this is serious. The smile slides sideways off his face.

“Oh,” he says, and you can’t look at him anymore. So you let your eyes wander, down towards the lapels of his white dress shirt. He’s still wearing his suit and tie, and the realization that he’s come straight from the office touches you more than it should. At the same time, guilt settles in your stomach. You’re doing this to him, you’re altering his life, you…

The rational part of yourself scoffs, takes over the reins. It takes two to tango, you remind yourself. This is as much his fault as it is yours.

But that doesn’t get rid of the bitter taste in your mouth.

“Why…” Luke pauses. “Why are you telling me this?”

When you look up at his face again, his expression is carefully blank.

“Uh…”

“Shouldn’t you be telling the father?”

You blink. The cogs of your mind turn slowly like somebody slapped gum between them. “I am,” you say, wondering what the hell he’s on about.

“I’m not the father,” Luke says, very matter-of-factly. “You don’t need to lie about it.”

“I’m not lying.” You’re too stunned to even be insulted by the insinuation.

“It’s alright.” He shrugs his shoulders, his expensive suit in the tacky, glossy fabric catching the light. “It’s not like we’re exclusive. I don’t mind if you slept with somebody else.”

“Not exclusive,” you repeat lamely. Maybe that part shouldn’t catch you as off guard as it does. You’ve never discussed it with him in as many words, never sat down to have the whole boyfriend/girlfriend talk, but you’ve been seeing each other semi-regularly for two months now, and you’d just sort of assumed…

“Sure.” Luke nods. “Don’t blame this one on me, then.”

Oh. Your heart clenches, and suddenly it feels like you can’t breathe.

“I didn’t sleep with anybody else,” you say, but your voice sounds far away.

Luke shrugs. “Well, it can’t be mine.”

You don’t even know what to say to this. You’re in desperate, burning need of a shot, and the realization that you can’t have one zaps through you like a pain.

“We always used a condom,” Luke is saying, and his words drift to you through a fog, through a mist, through a thicket of fear and anxiety and ice-cold panic. “I made damn sure of that.”

“It’s not….” You clear your throat. “They’re only like… 98 percent safe. Condoms, I mean.”

“What, so you’re saying we’re those two percent?”

He looks like he’s about to start laughing again, and suddenly you barely recognize him. You’ve always known that Luke wasn’t the love of your life, but that was fine. Love hadn’t been part of the plan anyway, that was for later, much later, after you’d gone international and gotten rich off Mojitos and Pina Coladas and the occasional Old Fashioned. But Luke had been… well, he’d been nice. Always. He’d been someone to laugh with, had been long walks on the beach, and quick tumbles in his backseat. He’d been fun and nice and…

And you’d been stupid enough to hope. Hope for more, hope for better, hope for something.

“I can’t have a baby with you,” he says. His voice rings with finality.

What are you supposed to say to that? With those three positive pregnancy tests back home on your bathroom counter. With the knowledge that you haven’t slept with anyone else.

“Well,” you whisper, and the words come out softer than you want them to, “you are.”

Luke is very quiet for a moment. He’s looking right at you, the blue eyes you used to think were open, inviting, now slitted and probing. Like a snake.

“Jesus,” he says finally, draws back to run his fingers through his hair, a gesture of exasperation. His voice has lost some of its calm. “What do you want from me?”

You wonder if you look as dazed as you feel. “I don’t… I don’t want anything from you.”

That’s not true. You’d like him to hug you. You’d like him to tell you it’s going to be okay, even if that might be a lie. You’d like him to be nice to you.

Instead, Luke, who looks increasingly distressed, jerks his head and says, “If it’s a family you’re after… I can’t give you that.”

Everything has happened so quickly - the toppling of your plans, the chaos of your life. You haven’t really had time to think about how you want him to react. Not like this, though.

“Why not?” you ask and regret the question the moment it’s out of your mouth. You sound like a child - lost, confused.

Luke sighs. He rakes a palm over his face and shakes his head. When he finally looks at you again, there’s something almost guilty on his face. You can’t tear your eyes away, can’t help but feel your stomach plummeting down down down toward the ground. It’s like standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, feeling what the fall might be like even with both feet firmly planted.

“I can’t give you that,” he says, “because I already have a family.”

Beneath you, the ground seems to quiver.

“What?”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, then reaches into his pocket and produces a shiny, golden wedding band. When he slips it back onto its original place on his finger, you watch the patch of pale skin, several shades lighter than the rest, disappear.

Your breath gets stuck somewhere in your chest.

“You’re… married?”

“Going on five years,” he says, and you think he sounds sad, but maybe that’s just your hope getting the better of you again.

You don’t know what to say. For a moment, you just stand there with the rag still in your hand, listening to the sad, sad voice of some wanna-be cowboy drawling from the speakers. Hear the phantom thud of the cues hitting pool balls. Turn your head to where the pilots were having fun earlier, back when things weren’t all jumbled up.

The whole world moves far, far away from you. Like something you watch on TV screens, something intangible, something fake. It’s not something that happens to people like you. It’s not something that happens to real people.

“It’s… you didn’t tell me that,” you say, and it’s like your voice echoes through a long, long tunnel, bounces off the walls like a tennis ball. “I didn’t know.”

And then you think back on it. Think of whispered phone calls in the dead of night, think of erratic work schedules, think of his insistence to come here instead of going to San Diego. Think of how little you know of his life, how firmly he kept you locked out of it.

Suddenly you’re not so sure if you didn’t know or if you just didn’t want to know. If you closed your eyes to what was right in front of you.

Guilt and anger and confusion flash through you in rapid succession. You feel sick to your stomach.

“I’ll give you money,” Luke says. It’s a peculiar thing - you see his mouth move before the words ever reach your ears, like a movie that’s gone out of sync with the audio.

“Money,” you repeat, very slowly. Or maybe not slowly at all. You just feel like you got stuck in molasses, like the whole world has been dipped in something sticky.

“Well. You’re getting rid of it.”

It’s not a question. He says it like it’s a fact, like it’s something that’s already been decided. Like it’s something you don’t get a say in.

You stiffen, fingers sinking into the wet rag. Soapy water drips over the lacquered wood of the bartop.

“No,” you say. “No, I’m not.”

About five minutes ago, you hadn’t even made your mind up about it yet. Hadn’t decided whether to keep it or not. Had still been weighing the pros and cons in your mind, turning them over like a Rosetta Stone that might help you decipher the encrypted, tangled mess of your thoughts.

And now that he’s said it, now that the option is right there in the open, suddenly you know that’s not the way you want it to happen.

“What,” Luke says, “you wanna have it?”

“Yes,” you answer, and you know it’s the truth.

Maybe it’s stupid. You’re twenty-four. You’re broke. You pick up shifts at a bar to pour tequila shots for other people. You live off the guys you flirt with long enough they decide you’re worth a tip. All those plans of grandeur, of franchises and cocktails and Park Avenue apartments, are dead-ends. You’ve been walking a cul-de-sac your whole life.

And still… something about it feels right to you.

You’ve been thinking about the whole thing in theory - the theoretical truth of that test, the theoretical reaction of Luke, the theoretical existence of that baby, the theoretical impact on your life. But it’s not a theory. It’s real.

There’s a baby growing in you.

It’s the most terrifying thought of your life. You’ve never experienced something so wonderful. Even as the fear eats away at you, even as your stomach churns and your head spins, some part of you feels illuminated with light.

Luke laughs. “Babe… no offense, but that’s a horrible idea.”

You clench your teeth and grit out, “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

He shrugs. “Well, you’re gonna get it. You really think you could raise a kid?”

“I don’t know,” you say, truthfully, and wonder where all this calm is coming from. “But I want to try.”

Luke stares at you as if you’re growing a spare set of ears right in front of him. Then he laughs again, shakes his head. You can’t see what’s so funny about any of this.

“Babe,” he says, “this isn’t some new Cocktail recipe. This is an actual child you’re talking about.”

If you weren’t so goddamn tired, it would make you angry. Set fire to you like a fuse. But you’re drained, empty, hollow. You want to go home, want to curl up in bed, want to cry. You want to go back two weeks in time, back when you were still just a failing waitress with a big dream. Back before the responsibility of it all hunched you over.

“I’m doing it,” you say, and hope he understands the decision is final. Hope your voice is firm.

Luke exhales. A muscle in his jaw twitches as he grinds his teeth, as he turns half away from you.

Finally, after an eternity, he says, “I can’t be involved in this.”

For your part, you understand that decision is final too.

You nod, grab onto the bartop to keep yourself from toppling over. The ground beneath you is a gaping, beckoning abyss. It’s going to swallow you whole.

“Fine,” you whisper. “I’ll do it alone then.”

For a moment, Luke looks almost surprised. As if he was sure you’d fold eventually, see reason. Listen to him.

You wonder if that’s how it’s been before - him pushing and you giving in. Rearranging your life to fit his schedule, his plans, his wants. Shrinking yourself to make room for him. And you didn’t even notice.

You straighten your spine.

“For what it’s worth,” Luke says as he slides off his chair, “I’m sorry.”

And then he does what men do best: He leaves. Walks away from you and the baby growing inside of you. Walks away from the mess he made, the dream he shattered, without a care or a thought. Without looking back.

You watch his retreating form, watch the set of his shoulders, the spring in his step, watch as he bounds down the steps onto the gravel of the parking lot, watch as the shadows eventually blot out the sight of him.

Good riddance, you want to say, but you can’t even form words.

With your heart torn to shreds, with your fear clawing a bloody path up your throat, you sink down onto the floor, press a hand to your mouth, and you sob.

Twenty minutes later, Bradley Bradshaw finds you in the exact same position.

You know it’s been twenty minutes because you’re staring at the digital clock of the dishwasher, counting down the wash cycle. The neon red of the numbers blurs through the veil of your tears.

It’s like somebody’s cut your chest open. Scooped you clean like taking a spoon to a tub of ice cream. Behind your ribcage, you feel hollow in a way that aches down to your bones. That spiderwebs through your veins.

Bradley pauses in the doorway, silhouetted by the outdoor lighting you still haven’t turned off. Like this, with your vision blurred, he looks like a drawing of the Virgin Mary on one of those cheap, tacky candles. Descending on a flurry of clouds and light and doves. Only this Virgin Mary wears Hawaiian shirts, apparently. It almost makes you laugh.

He casts his eyes over the room, a slight furrow dipping between his brows. It takes you a moment to understand he hasn’t seen you yet, not with how you’re crouching by the crates of Corona.

Part of you wants to hide, wants to crawl under the jutting canopy of the bar. Wants to pretend you’re not here, fold yourself into a tiny pocket square of a person until he leaves again.

“Hello?” Bradley asks, genuine confusion laced with the word, and you know you can’t do that.

“Hi,” you call back, and your voice sounds tiny. Miserable. You push up on your knees to preserve a bit of your dignity. The room goes spinning in a whirlwind, and you catch yourself with both hands on the wood, lifting up to peek at him over the edge of the bar. “I’m down here.”

For a moment, Bradley just stares at you. He takes in the scene, the smeared mascara, the swollen eyes, the fresh tears leaving tracks down your cheeks like you’re drawing rivers on a map.

Then he snaps into action. He’s crossing the room before you can even really come to terms with the fact that he’s here in the first place, pushing through the hip-high swinging door that separates the oval space hugged by the bar from the rest of the room and falling to his knees by your side.

It makes you cry harder.

“Nothing,” you say, which is a ridiculous lie, all things considered. You’re crouching on the floor of your workplace, over an hour after your shift has ended, crying your eyes out. Clearly, there’s something wrong. “I’m fine.”

Bradley sits cross-legged on the hardwood floors, his knee close enough to graze against yours. He looks decidedly out of his depth, almost uncomfortable. Helpless. His mustache quivers as he opens his mouth, then closes it again.

But he doesn’t push. Doesn’t try to get you to explain it, doesn’t ask again. He just sits there with you, elbows on his thighs, and lets you cry.

It’s nice not to be alone. To have somebody with you, even if he doesn’t know you. Even if he has no idea what it is that has you on the brink of a complete crisis.

You do your best not to think about it. Not about the baby, not about the guy who just dumped you. Not about gold foil and Instagram posts and wedding bands. Not about how he’s made you a homewrecker, and you didn’t even know.

Maybe this is karma. The universe punishing you for your sins. Something like that.

Maybe it’s just really, really bad luck.

“What are you doing here?” you ask when you’ve finally calmed yourself enough the sobbing has subsided to sniffles.

Bradley jerks his head noncommittally. “I forgot my wallet.”

“Oh.” You try to get up, but your legs won’t cooperate. “I’ll help you look.”

He shakes his head, pulls you back onto the floor by the elbow. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll look for it later. What happened?”

There’s something about his tone that tells you this time he won’t let you get away with a half-assed lie. Which doesn’t stop you from trying.

“Just… rough day.”

Bradley looks at you, then pulls his knees up, lets his arms dangle between them. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, and his voice is very gentle. “But if you want to… I can listen.”

This is the thing about Bradley Bradshaw. He has the kind of face that makes you want to tell him things. Makes you want to spill your secrets to him, pour them into his space. He’s steady, reliable, calm. It would be so easy to trust him.

That’s dangerous.

But you’re so tired, and you’re so broken, and you’re so terribly, horribly lonely. With Luke gone, with your parents out of the picture, with nobody to help and no one to hold you, the loneliness is like an ache, like a stain, like something that festers and spreads and unfurls inside of you.

You just want to pretend you don’t have to do it alone. Just for a moment.

So you say, “I think I did something stupid.”

Bradley’s eyes are very brown. A soft shade of brown, like milk chocolate. When you look at him, you feel warm all over.

“Alright,” he says, and there isn’t an ounce of judgment in it. It’s just a gentle, careful nudge for you to continue.

“I…” You exhale shakily, look down to the floor, twist the bracelet around your wrist. It’s so much harder to form the words the second time around. “I’m pregnant.”

Saying it to Bradley, who is practically a stranger, saying it to someone outside of whatever little bubble, whatever vacuum two people playing at love built around themselves, makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.

You’re pregnant. In a few months, your belly is going to grow to the size of a watermelon. You’re going to get ultrasounds and wear maternity clothes and buy a crib. You’re going to hold a baby in your arms, a baby that will become a toddler, will become a child, will become a teenager, will become an adult. They’re never going to leave again.

I’m pregnant.

One moment - and in it the rest of your life.

It’s a skyscraper, it’s a monument, it’s a mountain. It dwarves you. How can you ever be enough for the path that lies ahead?

The panic jumps you. It rattles you. Suddenly you’re panting, you’re shaking, you can’t think, your head spinning circles around the enormity of it all.

“Oh,” Bradley says. He sounds like he expected you to say just about anything except that. “Congratulations.”

You stare at him, and he backtracks.

“Unless you don’t want me to congratulate you? Sorry, I shouldn’t just….”

“No,” you stop him, your voice a tiny, trembling thing. “It’s okay. Thank you.”

You wonder what it might be like if you were older, if you were married, if you weren’t such a fuck-up. Would people beam at you, hug you, shake your hand? Would they share the joy they must assume you feel?

Neither one of you says anything for a while. Through the opened windows, the sound of the ocean drifts in, of the waves crashing against the shore. The chrome of the fridge you’re leaning against is cold even through the layers of your shirt. You count the wooden tiles on the floor.

After half an eternity, Bradley says, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

It’s like a knife to the heart, it slices right through you, stabs you between the ribs. And you’re not even angry, don’t even feel betrayed… it just hurts. The kind of pain that stays with you. The kind of pain that leaves phantom traces even after the wounds have healed.

“I don’t,” you say finally.

Beside you, Bradley shifts his weight. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m really putting my foot in it today, aren’t I?”

It’s almost enough to make you laugh. “It’s okay,” you say, even though it isn’t. This whole thing isn’t okay. “I’ll be fine.”

Without hesitating, Bradley says, “I know you will be.”

There’s such conviction in his voice that it baffles you. You stare at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“He’s… have you told him, though? Or are you guys not in contact?”

Still trying to recover, you shrug. “Yeah,” you whisper, drawing your shoulders almost all the way up to your ears, “I told him.”

You can tell he wants to ask more, but he gives you a second before his next question. “And you… you guys are gonna try co-parenting? Or is he… are you going to get married?”

That makes you frown. You say, “What is this, the 1950s?”

“I just think….” Bradley clears his throat. “I just think if you get a girl pregnant, you should step up. Take responsibility.”

Of course he’d think that. You’re not even surprised.

There’s always been something traditional about Bradley Bradshaw, like he’s one of those men written by women people rave about all over TikTok. If he takes a girl out on a date, he probably holds open car doors and pulls out chairs for her, hands her his jacket if she gets cold.

Distantly, you wonder what that would be like.

“I don’t want somebody to marry me out of responsibility,” you say. “I can take care of myself.”

Bradley scrambles. “I know that!” he says quickly, and out of the corner of your eye, you see him shift his weight forward, elbows resting on his thighs. “Of course, I know that. I just thought… I just thought you shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

It’s such a simple thing to say, but it almost bowls you over. You turn your head to the side, press your face into your shirt sleeve and dig your fingernails deep into the skin of your shins.

Bradley watches you, eyes intent, and then he probes carefully, “Are you… are you going to keep it?”

You sink your teeth into your lower lip, blink against the sudden dampness. Keep your face turned away from him. The shame of it all, of the situation you’re in, of him seeing you like this, overwhelms you. Your vision blurs.

“I think…” You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I always used to think if I ever got in this situation, I’d just get an abortion but now… I don’t… I just don’t think it’s the right thing for me.”

Slowly, he nods. “You want to have the baby,” he says, and it’s not really a question, but you answer anyway.

“Yes. I mean… I don’t know, it’s just… I want this. I don’t know why or how, but I… it feels like I have to do this.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says, completely sincere. “Your body, your choice.”

Now you do snort. “What, are we at a rally?”

“I follow a few Instagram accounts,” he admits. His voice has gone almost sheepish. “Abortion rights should be everybody’s concern. Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

It’s endearing in a strange way because there’s nothing performative about it. It’s just bumbling and awkward and peculiarly genuine.

“You sound like you spend too much time on Twitter,” you say softly, and it makes him laugh. Bradley’s got a nice laugh, one that starts in his belly and seems to end at the back of his throat, punches out into the air from back there.

After things have gone quiet again, the anxiety sets back in. Or maybe it’s been there all along, chomping at the bit, and you just didn’t notice.

“You must think I’m crazy,” you say finally, a self-deprecating chuckle loosening from your throat.

But when you glance up at him from beneath lowered lashes, stomach tight with anticipation, Bradley doesn’t look judgmental at all. Instead, his face is wide open, his eyes clear, the corners of his lips still curled upward with the remnants of his smile.

Luke laughed at you, but Bradley is looking at you with something like admiration, and it takes your breath away.

“No,” he says. “I think you’re really, really brave.”

And then you’re crying again.

You’re surprised there are any tears left in you after your earlier session, but they burst forth now, in a sudden eruption of all the fear and all the pain. And Bradley is so nice. So goddamn kind even though he doesn’t know you, not really, even though this isn’t even his problem. Sits there on the floor of the Hard Deck with you at half past one am on a Sunday night, and doesn’t complain, doesn’t sigh. He just listens.

You don’t feel brave. You feel terrified, you feel overwhelmed, you feel… you feel… you feel like the whole world has toppled over. You feel like Atlas crashing down, buried beneath the weight of his burden. You feel tiny. Inadequate. You feel scared, scared, scared.

“I don’t know what to do,” you confess, choke it out between sobs. Wonder why you’re telling him this. When you don’t know him.

Funny how it is so much easier at times to be honest with strangers than it is to be honest with the people we love the most.

“I’m so… I’m so scared, Bradley.”

He moves as if to touch you, then seems to think better of it and slumps back into himself. The expression on his face is unreadable, his eyebrows furrowed, his jaw clenched.

“He’s not gonna… the father isn’t going to help you out?”

It makes you realize you never really answered his earlier question. And you don’t know why, can’t explain it rationally, but for some reason, this, too, makes embarrassment well up at the back of your throat.

What is Bradley going to think? The poor, little, stupid girl who got herself knocked up by a guy who won’t even stay? Is that what everybody’s going to think now? Is that all you’ll be?

It’s a life sentence, this whole thing.

You shrug, pause. Shake your head. “No,” you say finally. “He’s not going to be involved.”

You know it’s true. Luke won’t come back, not now, not in ten years, not in twenty. There was something final about that exchange, something permanent. Something that can’t be undone.

Suddenly, you think of that tiny, unborn child inside of you. Abandoned before it ever came into the world.

It’s just you and me now, baby, you think to yourself, and it goes through you like a current, sweeps you under like a wave. We’re all alone. All we have is each other.

“What about your parents? Your dad’s in the Navy, too, right?”

If you could, you’d run away. Fold yourself to invisibility. Slip into the pockets between moments and become something other, something that exists out of sight.

You think of your parents. Floral couches and polished hardwood floors. Tom Cruise on the television as your mother scrubbed every part of the house like she was getting rid of an illness, wiping away a disease, perpetually finding another stain or another cobweb or another wrinkle to smooth over. Think of your father, rigid and strict and absent. Always on some mission, always thinking of a greater good that definitely didn’t involve you, always looking through you even as he looked at you. You don’t know if you have a single memory of him smiling.

You haven’t spoken to them once since you gave up a perfectly fine full-ride scholarship to college.

“My parents,” you say, and as the words spill from you, you realize they’re the truth, “would probably kill me if they found out I got pregnant out of wedlock. Maybe if I were married, they’d give me back my trust fund or something, but… No, I don’t think they’d help me out.”

A muscle in Bradley’s jaw jumps, then he’s looking away. Turning to the side so you’re knee to knee again. You stare at his profile, at the curl of his ears, the cut of his jaw. The jagged edges of his scars blur through the fog of your tears.

“So, how are you… do you have a plan?”

You had one. You had Mojitos and Daiquiris and Cosmopolitans. You had a slew of business classes at a community college. You had a dream and a set of tools to achieve it, and when you close your eyes, you can almost see it right there in front of you.

But now it’s been swept up in a hurricane. Swallowed by a tsunami.

“No,” you admit, and your voice trembles. “I have no idea what to do.”

Bradley’s jaw moves as he chews on his lower lip. He swallows, and his throat unudlates with it, and then he’s shifting, shuffling forward a bit.

“I…” He clears his throat. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he looks nervous. “I may have an idea.”

“An idea?” you repeat slowly.

You think he’s going to tell you about some friend who’s looking to hire someone, looking to rent out a very cheap apartment, works at a doctor’s office and is going to treat you for free. Something like that, maybe.

Instead, Bradley takes a deep breath and says, “Marry me.”

It takes a while for the words to register. At first, you think you’ve misheard, then you wonder if maybe the romantic parts of your mind cooked that up. If he even said it at all.

But Bradley is looking at you expectantly, the only indicator of nerves the slightest glimmer in his brown eyes.

And you can’t help yourself. You laugh, even through your tears. It’s a sound that rips from you unconsciously, unstoppably, because surely he’s joking. It’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard.

“Good one,” you say, and wonder just how big of a mess you look like. You wipe at your cheeks, your nose with your sleeves and sniffle once, twice.

Bradley’s lips twitch into the pathetic half of a smile, then he’s serious again, avoiding your eyes.

And that, finally, is when you realize that he isn’t joking at all.

“I…” You pause, mind whirring, head spinning. “What?”

“It’s just….” Bradley shrugs, then explains, “It’s only a suggestion. But you said your family might consider supporting you again if you were married. It might be an option.”

You don’t know what to say. You feel like you’re in a low-budget Hallmark movie.

Bradley pushes on, “It wouldn’t be permanent. We could get a divorce quickie in a year or two, just stay together long enough for you to get settled with the baby and everything. Plus, you’d get free healthcare.” He glances at you, and the blank expression on your face must light a panic in him. Now his words come faster. “I wouldn’t expect anything from you, of course I wouldn’t. It would just be… keeping up appearances. Just for a while….”

Finally, he trails off. The silence stretches between you like a palpable thing, thick and dense like summer heat.

When you were twelve, sitting in the back of the car as your parents argued up front, the woods of Washington flying past in rapid ribbons of black and blue and green, the moon a disk of silver in the sky, a deer ran out into the road. You remember the screeching of the tires as your dad did what you’re not supposed to and brought the car to a sudden, abrupt stillstand. You remember the wide eyes of the animal, the muscles locked in its state of catatonic horror. You remember the flanks rising and falling quickly beneath the matted fur.

For a second, you feel like that deer. Frozen. Caught completely off guard. Vulnerable.

Then you think you might be a little overdramatic.

You say, “What the fuck, Bradley?”

Part of you expects him to backtrack immediately, laugh, and tell you that he was joking after all. But Bradley stands his ground, even as he still won’t look right at you.

“I probably wouldn’t even be home much anyway. I leave for work all the time,” he says, brows drawn into a straight line above his eyes as he stares intently at his thumb rubbing circles into the skin of his arm. “But I could babysit, and then you could go back to work. I really wouldn’t mind. I’m good with kids, you know?”

You’re not entertaining the whole thing, not really, but you can’t help yourself. Your curiosity takes the upper hand.

“Why would you… why would you ever offer this? You barely know me.”

Bradley seems to think about it for a long moment, his face unreadbale. Then finally, he says, “There’d be something in it for me, too, you know? I’ve been meaning to get assigned to North Island permanently, do a relocation. But those spots tend to go to the guys with family, so…” He shrugs, but the gesture seems forced. “I could help you out, you could help me out. Win-win.”

“That’s all?” you ask, and you don’t know why there’s something like disappointment in your voice.

Bradley looks like he wants to say something else, and for a moment his face is vulnerable. But then it shutters again, and he nods. “That’s all.”

For a second, just a second, you let yourself imagine it: Imagine saying yes to this mad, insane, incredible proposal. Imagine marrying Bradley, someone soft and warm and responsible, someone completely opposite to Luke. Imagine him in a tux and you in a white dress, imagine his mustache tickling against your cheek as he leans in to kiss you. You imagine one of the quaint little houses you grew up in, but one that would belong to you, at least for a while. You imagine a toddler running through it, imagine Bradley bending down to scoop them into his arms. You imagine a life without this aching, shifting loneliness. You imagine a life with Bradley.

When you finally shake your head, when you let go of that ghost, it feels like it takes a piece of you with it.

“No,” you say softly, and it breaks you open in ways you can’t describe. “I can’t let you do that, Bradley.”

It’s just too insane. Too far out there. It wouldn’t be fair to him, when you’d be getting so much more out of that arrangement.

And besides. I don’t want someone to marry me out of responsibility. That’s what you told Bradley earlier, and you meant it.

When you do marry, when you walk down that aisle, you want it to be for love. And people can call you delusional, naive, whatever. You don’t care. You just know you want the big thing, the real thing, True Love, capital t, capital l. You want the hurricane of romance, the monsoon of love. You want to fly into it.

Bradley’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Okay. But if you… change your mind, yeah? I’ll be here.”

And he means it. Bradley carries his heart on his sleeve, you’ve learned this much. He tries to hide it, but he’s no good at it. Eventually, his emotions always get the better of him, burst forth like fountains. It’s part of his charm.

“What,” you say, “right here on the Hard Deck’s floors?”

It’s a sad attempt at a joke, but Bradley is nice enough to laugh anyway. “Sure thing. You guys have the cleanest floors in all of North Island, did you know that?”

You hum. “Sure. I’m the one who cleans them.”

Finally, you get up off the floor, unfold yourself from the bundle of misery you’ve crumbled into. Your legs ache, your back hurts, your chest still feels hollow. All the crying has left a dull pain pulsating behind your left brow.

The two of you look for Bradley’s wallet together, finally find it over by the pool table. You pretend like you’re not still reeling from his proposal, like it’s not suddenly become impossible to do so much as look at him without your heart flopping around like a fish finding its sad end on dry land.

“Can I give you a ride home?” Bradley asks as he watches you lock up. The Hard Deck has an old lock that gets jammed whenever the slightest bit of dampness creeps into the air. You have to hang onto the doorknob with all your weight while simultaneously turning the key to get it to lock.

“I drove here,” you say, casting your eyes about for the tiny tin can you call your car. You can’t even remember where you parked earlier.

“You okay to drive?” Bradley asks.

You glance at him. With the lights off, the parking lot is almost covered in a thick blanket of darkness. The headlights of a few passing cars winding their path along the coastal highway illuminate patches of gravel now and then. Moonlight spills silver and dim across his shoulders, like fingers caressing him. He looks concerned, examining the state of you.

The truth is that you’re tired. Bone tired. Dead tired. So tired you could probably go to sleep where you stand if you put your mind to it. But you don’t want to bother Bradley anymore, have already stolen enough of his time.

So you’re about to decline, but it seems you hesitated too long.

“I’ll take you home,” Bradley says decidedly, “and you can come get your car tomorrow, okay? I don’t think you should be driving like this.”

“You don’t have to do that, you….”

“I know,” he interrupts you, a smile spreading on his face. “But I’ll feel better knowing you got home safe.”

That makes your insides clench in a way they shouldn’t. Your chest feels tight, and you look away just in case you start crying again.

Is it too soon in your pregnancy to start blaming raging hormones?

Wordlessly, you let Bradley lead you across the parking lot toward his monstrosity of a car. His hand hovers at the small of your back, incredibly close yet never touching. He’s big behind you, bulking, and you try not to think about it. When he opens the door for you and waits until you’re buckled in to close it, you feel like your head’s going to explode.

The ride home is quiet, as is the town around you on this Sunday night. An old Killers song plays on the radio, and you think of deer stepping out into streets, then press your eyes closed and will the thought away.

In Bradley’s car, with the windows rolled down, with the Californian night breeze whipping your hair into your eyes and clearing the fog from your head, for a short, blissful while, nothing seems real. It’s one of those liminal moments, a not-time, when reality feels like a dream and even the sharpest knives don’t cut deep enough to hurt.

It ends quicker than expected because time always goes the fastest when you want it to go slow. Then you’re thanking him, saying goodbye, both of you pretending he didn’t just propose some strange, fake marriage to you behind a bar counter not even thirty minutes ago.

Bradley waits until you’re inside the building before he starts the engine again. You hear the roar of it as you climb the stairs up to the second floor.

In your bedroom, you don’t even bother getting undressed. You just slip under the covers, pull them up over your head, bury in the sticky, stale air beneath them, close your eyes, and fall asleep within seconds.

The first time you told your parents about your bartending dreams, your father yelled at you for forty-five minutes. He hurled words at you that hurt, that left scars, that made you wonder and kept you second-guessing yourself for years, that stayed with you. Your mother didn’t say anything.

Somehow, that was worse.

You call her on the landline at five pm on a Tuesday, just before your dad gets back home, and she answers after the third ring. You’re so sure she’s going to acknowledge the four-year gap in contact, the crumbling of the relationship, the fall-out of screaming and crying, and your dad kicking you out of the house.

What you get, instead, is a ten-minute spiel about who brought what to last week’s church potluck and which laundry detergent your father’s contact allergies don’t act up with.

You’re sitting cross-legged on your bed, your digital alarm clock counting down the time in radioactive green. Outside, you hear the sounds of jets roaring through the sky. In your tiny kitchen unit, the faucet is leaking.

Finally, five minutes into a lecture on the advantages of pre-chopped garlic, you interrupt, “Mom?”

You wonder if she hears the shift in your voice, the slight tremble of it. Something makes her go very quiet on the other end of the line, no sound but her breath.

Drip-drip-drip goes your faucet.

When she doesn’t acknowledge you, you push on, your heart beating a staccato rhythm against your ribcage, “I might… I think I might need some help.”

She doesn’t answer for so long you think you might have lost connection. Then you hear shuffling, imagine her walking through her empty house the way she sometimes does - like a phantom, like a specter.

“With what?” she asks after an eternity.

It’s all you can do to keep yourself from hyperventilating. Years of pain and fear clog up your chest, settle like goosebumps on your skin. You close your eyes and let your head drop back against your pillow.

“I’m pregnant,” you say.

And then you can feel it through the phone, like something physical. What you’ve always known deep down. The disapproval and the disappointment, and the complete lack of understanding.

You’ve never been who your parents wanted you to be, and they’ve always punished you for it like it was a crime.

When your mother says your name, it’s so plain. That she can’t understand what you’re doing, with your cocktails and your late nights. That she doesn’t see why you’d ever choose something like that over a real education and a real job. That she cannot fathom how it could come to this now - you, broke, young, alone, pregnant.

It’s like being five again, trying to get somebody to look at the picture you drew. It’s like being ten again and being overlooked. It’s like being fifteen again, still vying for the attention you’ll never really get.

Your mother is a stubborn woman, set in her ways. She knows what she wants from people, more specifically, what she wants for them. And you’re no exception. Nobody’s ever asked her a question whose answer she couldn’t find in the bible.

More than wanting you to go to college, wanting you to work in an office, your mother has always wanted you to get married. To fit yourself into the picture-perfect stencil of white picket fence and smiling husband she cut herself. For you to let some guy put a ring on you, put a kid in you, buy you a house and a porch swing and a family van.

It’s pathetic, but it doesn’t matter how much time passes. How much older you get. At the end of the day, you still want her approval, just once, even if you have to lie to get it.

So, like a child, like you’re five again, like you’re ten again, like you’re fifteen again, you say, “I’m getting married.”

“Oh?” your mother asks, and there’s so much hope in the one word it hits you like a ton of bricks.

“Yeah,” you confirm, and then the lies just burst out of you, and you hate yourself, hate yourself so much it’s like bile on your tongue, “yeah, we’ve been engaged for a while, and now with the baby and all… It’s been long overdue.”

Your mother almost sounds excited. Sure, she’d probably prefer for you to have been married before getting knocked up, but all of this must still seem better than the last plan you presented to her four years ago. “What’s his name? What’s he do?”

You squeeze your eyes closed. If your mother knew you at all, if you hadn’t spent the past few years not speaking, you’d like to think she would have heard the shame in your voice when you say, “Bradley. He’s a Naval aviator.”

It might be the worst thing you’ve done in your life: Dragging poor, kind Bradley Bradshaw into the mess you’ve made of your life. Nevermind that he offered. It doesn’t matter.

Your mother starts babbling, the way she only does when she’s actually pleased about something. She’s talking about how happy your dad will be that you’re getting married to a fellow army guy, but you barely hear it. Now that you’ve gotten the approval, it doesn’t feel at all like you thought it would.

It just hurts.

For a while, you just let her keep talking as you blink away the tears, as you stare at your bedroom wall, as your mind spins and spins and spins in circles. Then you promise to send her an invite, say your goodbyes, and hang up.

It’s like you’re numb all over. You stay on your bed for another five minutes, and then another, and you feel just as empty as you did after your last conversation with Luke.

What has your life become? How could it crumble as quickly as it did, going from okay to horrible in less than a week?

Even when you weren’t speaking to your parents, you never felt this distant from them, this far removed. A chasm you’ll never be able to breach. An ocean you’re never going to bridge. The only way you’ve ever gotten your mother to be happy with a decision you’ve made is when you lied to her.

The loneliness is everywhere, then. In your chest, in your bed, in your veins. Crawling like a shadow that swallows you whole.

And then the panic sets in, ice cold in your veins, and with it comes the guilt. Your stomach rolls with it.

What have I done? you wonder. What have I done to myself, to Bradley? How will I ever get out of this?

You scramble. Blindly reach for a dress to slip into, for a pair of flip-flops, for your car keys. It’s a miracle you don’t crash on your way to the Hard Deck. Your heart works itself up into a frenzy, and the guilt gnaws at you, slashes at you, paws at you. All these emotions are tearing you apart.

In the back, Bradley and Bob are playing Pacman on one of the retro machines. They’re pretty loud, too, and from what you gather in your mad dash through your workplace, Bradley seems to be disproportionally competitive about the whole thing.

Figures. Nobody gets into Top Gun without a cutthroat streak and a mean penchant for ambition.

“Bradley,” you say, and when he looks up, his eyes sparkling, the smile slides right off his face. “Can I talk to you?”

He seems stunned for a second, then nods and deposits his beer on a nearby table. “Sure thing.”

You lead him out the back. Out of the corner of your eyes, you spot the exact corner you huddled in a few days back, agonizing over the positive pregnancy test, the decline of your life, the decay of your dreams. Don’t look, you tell yourself, and then do it anyway.

The sun hasn’t set yet, but twilight is descending on the world rapidly. Everything is washed into soft pastels, the sand and the last surfers shaking salt water from their hair. Bradley’s shirt and the honey gold of his skin.

You can’t look at him. It’s a shame that grows in the pit of your stomach, that settles there, heavy like a stone. How can you do this to him?

You’ve never felt worse about yourself, and still… The fear is too big.

Since you decided to give up on the scholarship, since you walked out of your parents house four years ago, you’ve been on your own. You’ve been footing your own bills and renting your own apartment and paying for insurance on your car. You were alone the time you got a cold so bad you couldn’t get out of bed for two days. You were alone when your tire popped on the highway and you almost hit another car. You were alone when you got rejection after rejection from the big San Diego bars, the ones that end up featured on TV and in magazines.

And that was fine. You’re strong, you know you are. Any issue that came your way, you managed to figure out eventually. You’ve been doing fine without any help.

But this, here, now. This… You just can’t do it on your own. Not when it’s about a baby. Your baby.

So you take a deep breath and ask, “Is the offer still on the table?”

Bradley exhales. You watch as he takes a step closer to you, as his shoes move in the field of your vision, grains of sand crunching beneath the soles. When he speaks, a cadence of insecurity has snuck into his voice, “The marriage?”

You nod because you can’t say it. Your mouth just won’t form the words.

“If…” Bradley clears his throat. “If you want it… yeah.”

When you look up at him, there’s something strange on his face. Something that looks less like surprise and more like awe.

His eyes are so brown, and your heart beats so fast, and you’re dizzy like you just got off a rollercoaster.

“I…” You pause to collect your thoughts, and then you rush it all out at once, scared that if you don’t say it now, you never will. “If I were to say yes, like, hypothetically… I’d need to know that you’re not just doing it for me. That there’s something in it for you, too, so….”

He’s nodding before you’ve finished. “I told you. I wanna stay here. I’m sick of getting sent around the country all the time, so… It’s good. It’s an opportunity.”

An opportunity. That sounds like business, sounds like a transaction, sounds rational and level-headed and reasonable, and you latch onto the idea. Maybe if you try to take the emotion out of the equation, it’ll be easier.

Bradley seems relaxed about the whole thing, much more relaxed than he should be given the absurdity of the situation, but you feel like you need to make things clear anyway, if only to put yourself at ease. That’s what people do before singing contracts, right? Put all the cards out on the table?

So you go on, “And I wouldn’t, like… Like you’d still get to do anything you want. I wouldn’t expect you to help with the baby or anything. And you could keep dating, of course, you could, I won’t mind. I promise. It’d just be for show, right?”

Bradley hesitates, and for a second, you think he’s going to say something. But then he just shrugs, nods, says, “That’s fine. Yeah. Whatever you want.”

For a moment, you both just look at each other.

“This is insane,” you say because it is, and you don’t know what else to say.

And Bradley just chuckles and agrees smoothly, “Yeah, it’s nuts, isn’t it?”

As you look at him, here in this pastel lighting, here on the verge of something monumental, there’s something so reassuring about him. Something so steady and reliable and constant. Something that makes you think, with him, maybe it could be okay, no matter how insane the whole idea is. An opportunity. An investment that just might pay off.

North star, you remind yourself. Bradley Bradshaw is the North Star.

At the very least, you won’t be alone.

“So is that….” Bradley shifts, scratches the back of his neck. “You saying yes, then?”

There’s a lump in your throat like you’ve swallowed a pebble. It almost chokes you.

“Yeah,” you agree finally, and can’t believe you’re saying this, doing this, can’t believe you’re this mad and this selfish and this desperate. “I guess I am.”

It’s awkward after that. You both just stand there, you with your arms around your own ribcage, Bradley with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. Space and silence stretches far and gaping and glaring between you.

Then he says, “Can I hug you?”

That’s sort of the last thing you expected him to say.

You blink at him. “Uhm… sure?”

When Bradley pulls you into his arms, when he holds you against his chest loosely, carefully, giving you room to pull away at any moment, the whole thing almost bowls you over. It’s the first time anybody’s hugged you since you found out you’re pregnant, since your entire world came crashing down, and you can’t help yourself. It’s a visceral reaction. You cling to him, wrap your arms around his neck, press your face into his shoulder and your chest against his and squeeze your eyes shut, and stay there for longer than you planned to, longer than you should. Let him hold you tight enough that for a moment, for a while, it almost feels like you’re whole again. Like you’re not alone.

For the first time in a week, for the first time since that positive test, things feel real. You feel real. Only with his hands on you. The thoughts that have been echoing through your head constantly, loud enough to drown out everything else, quiet.

You could get addicted to it, could get greedy and selfish and never-satisfied. Could eat it raw.

Bradley smells like sunscreen and sandalwood. You try to commit that scent to memory, try to ingrain it into your brain and your body. Something to remember the next time the loneliness sets in.

Finally, he pulls away, and his smile is gentle. You feel every inch of separation like an ache in your bones, like an echo, like a reverberation.

You can’t cry again. You’ve been doing it so much recently that you just won’t allow it again. If you’re going to do this, if you’re going to be a mother and a wife, in whatever capacity, you’ll have to be strong. No matter how hard that will be.

“I don’t even have a ring for you,” Bradley says, a frown etching itself into his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” You’re shaking your head quickly, vehemently. “No, Bradley, that’s fine, you don’t need to….”

“I think you should have something, though. I want to give you something,” he interrupts you. “I just don’t know….”

And then he seems to think of something. The epiphany is practically written all over his face, and for a moment, he looks so much younger. Rosy cheeks and all.

Bradley reaches into his wifebeater and pulls his dog tags from beneath the fabric. Before you know what’s happening, he’s tugging the thin silver chain down over your head, moving your hair out of the way carefully. It settles against the skin of your neck, warmed by his body heat.

You stare down at the metal dangling over your dress, the letters of his name etched into it. Bradley Bradshaw.

Your heart seizes.

When you were younger, much younger, you used to dream of this. You used to imagine what being proposed to would feel like, what it would be like. A fancy restaurant, an expensive glass of champagne, and a diamond ring at the bottom of the flute. Something flashy, something extravagant, something beautiful. The man in your fantasy was faceless at first, and then he looked like Robert Pattinson, and then he looked like your first crush, and then he went back to being faceless again.

He never had a mustache. He was never a stranger. Your dreams were never this: Rushed and fake and no ring at all. You, pregnant with somebody else’s baby, and Bradley, marrying you to get assigned to a base of his choosing. None of it real. No True Love, no capital t, no capital l. Not even lowercase. Nothing but madness and guilt and business between you.

And still you want it, want it so bad it swells inside you, pushes against your ribcage with enough pressure to crack bones - you want to be wanted.

You wonder what Bradley dreamed of. Not you, probably. So much younger than him, so naive, so gullible, falling for married men and getting yourself into situations you can’t climb out of yourself. Making him do this when he deserves better, more, deserves something true and real.

It makes you sick to your stomach. It makes you want to cry. It makes you want to ask Bradley to hug you again, so you can forget, just for another second, just for another moment.

Instead, you say, voice barely a whisper, “Thank you.”

Bradley shakes his head. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, and he sounds so genuine you have to avert your eyes. “We’re friends, right?”

Friends. This man you barely know. This man who is doing something unfathomable for you.

“Yeah,” you agree softly. “Friends.”

And then later, in the bar, as Bradley’s friends discuss some new Star Wars show you haven’t seen, as they order round after round of beer you can’t drink, as the sky goes from pastels to blues to blacks, you’ll pretend you don’t see Natasha staring at the dog tags around your neck, pretend you don’t wish you could hold Bradley’s hand, pretend you don’t feel like you’re falling apart, like you’re capsizing where you sit, like you're kicking water miles and miles and miles below the surface.

Beneath the table, you put a hand on your stomach, fingers spreading out, close your eyes, and let the current drag you under.

part 2 coming - soon

Tags

fic recs i am very excited! 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster september bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing seasonsbloom you will always be famous FINALLY A ROOSTER SERIES I PRAYED FOR TIMES LIKE THIS the way you write him is so ❤️‍🩹 the angstiest of angst i am also very mentally ill but technically read it in august

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fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

14/08/2022: OKAY!!! HERE WE GO!!! i read this one a couple of days ago and can’t stop thinking about it. this bradley has crawled inside of my brain and refuses to leave (and honestly, i don’t want him to!!!)

jordan, this is the first fic of yours i had the pleasure of reading and it blew me away?????!!!!!!! i read the sneak peak and just kept coming back to your profile to see if you had posted the full thing and then you did!!!! and i was so ready to dive into this!!! so now that i’ve (tried to) collected myself enough to try and write something of a coherent and worthy enough review, here it is! spoiler alert: it’s just me screaming over your beautiful writing :)

the description really had me hooked from the beginning, we love a smart, bratty girl!!!! i love her personality so much just as much as i love bradley’s and for you to be able to make her just as real and multidimensional… REAL TALENT!!! she’s opinionated and stands her ground and is funny and so smart!!! i just love her and think she’s such a good fit for rooster.

“Plus, he liked smart girls. There was something about them. It didn’t hurt that the ones he had come across were always a little prissy, a little spoiled - a little uptight.

A little bratty.” of course bradley rooster bradshaw has a thing for bratty girls. of fucking course.

“Over the last two weeks, you had been texting frequently, starting off the day with your Wordle scores and a fun fact. It was cheesy and a little nerdy, but you were a big trivia fan - and San Diego County Barstool Trivia Champion - and Bradley had wanted to impress you. It was important that he impressed you.” in love with both of them playing wordle together and separating little fun facts for each other???? bradley thinking it was important that he impressed her!!! he’s a whore but he’s such a romantic and kind of can’t help it??!!! he really likes her and wants to prove himself even with little things like this 🥺

“You were both on drink number two and the awkwardness of your earlier outburst hasn’t quite dissipated yet. The sexual tension on the other hand? If Bradley had thought it was high earlier, it was stratospheric now.” love this!!!!! LET’S GO STRATOSPHERIC!!!!

“If you’re gonna be a brat about it, at least get my title right, sweetheart,” he snapped, the first time all night. He shoved his knee in between your legs, widening the space between your thighs just slightly. “It’s Lieutenant.” no this whole ranking thing is making me go a little insane… just a little… of course he was gonna take the chance to correct her!!!

“Bradley hooked his foot around your barstool and dragged it even closer to him. You let out a squeak and had to brace yourself by holding onto his shoulders.” AND I HAVE PASSED AWAY. JUST LIKE THAT. ABSOLUTELY NO WORDS. HOW DARE YOU DO THIS?????? WHAT IS THIS?????

“And that was when he knew. Knew as well as the sun was going to rise tomorrow morning that you were going to fuck that night.” please stop i can’t functionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn THIS IS SOOOSIDHSHHDHSD

“What the fuck did you say to her?” Phoenix hissed in Bradley’s ear, snapping him out of his daydream.

He startled and then gestured wildly. “It was going fine for a while and then I told her I was in the Navy and she started going on about defense budgets and misappropriating government property and Uncle Sam sucking my dick - I don’t know, Phoenix!” PHOENIX MY BFF LOVE OF MY LIFE, LOVE HER LITTLE CAMEO!!!! and bradley’s answer 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 the way he’s just so dumbfounded by their interaction so far!!! he’s so stupid!!! i am in love with him!!! this was so in character!!! you nailed it!!!

“Fuck. He wanted you - desperately. And worse than that, he liked you. Liked how smart you were, liked your sense of humor, liked you. And some part of him felt bad for setting you up.” AND WORSE THAN THAT HE LIKED YOU!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I LOVE IT WHEN WRITERS EMPHASIZE THIS LITTLE THING!!!!!! because liking someone means so much!!!! and him realizing he did kind of unintentionally hid what he does for a living from her because, let’s be honestly, it normally should’ve come up sooner than it did. anyways, i like that he understands!!!

“You let him take you by your elbow and guide - read drag - you towards the exit, barely stopping to allow you to grab your clutch off the bar top. Knowing Hangman and Phoenix were no doubt watching the entire series of events unfold, Bradley threw his middle finger up over his shoulder, and then let the door close firmly behind his back.” HOT!!!! THE MIDDLE FINGER!!! DRAGGING HER AWAY!!!!!! THIS IS DOING IT FOR ME!!!!

“No, I’m gonna take you home and fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk straight in the morning, that sound good, sweetheart?” You nodded dumbly. “And for the record, it’s not a truck, it’s a Bronco.” STOP i just know he has the time of his life when he gets to correct her on anything!!!! like he finally has some advantage shhfhshcjshdhdhd AND HIS MOUTH IS SO FILTHY I LOVE HIM I CAN’T HELP IT.

“Fuck. Imagine if you weren’t so blissed out getting finger fucked and you could talk back at him? This time he let out a groan.” ABSOLUTELY NO WORDS. I NO LONGER EXIST. AGAIN WITH THE ADVANTAGE!!!!! AND THE FACT THAT HE’S DOING THIS TO HER YOU KNOW!!!! IT’S ALL HIM!!!! ROOSTER’S EFFECT!!!!! I CAN SEE HIS EGO INFLATING LIKE A BALLOON!!!!

“Shh, shh, that’s a good girl, yeah? Such a good girl for me.” NOT A GOOD GIRL DROP. INSANE INSANE INSANEEEEEEEEEEE.

“A few moments later, the Bronco practically rolled into his driveway on two wheels. Thankfully, Bradley had left the porch light on so the house wasn’t entirely dark. You looked at the house critically and he desperately wanted you to like it.

It was important to him that you liked it.” NO BECAUSE HE WAS ALREADY UNCONSCIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!! HE NEEDS HER TO LIKE THE HOUSE!!!!! HE’S SUCH A ROMANTIC I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL!!!!!! i love this change in the narrative in between their heated moments so much. it adds so much depth because it’s slowly becoming so much more than just lust. i feel it’s always been a little morr than just lust with them? ❤️‍🩹

AND THEN HE CARRIES HER FROM THE CAR TO THE HOUSE!!!!!! EVER THE GENTLEMAN!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!

“In turn, you smacked his back. “And you would know all about that - making demands. Hostage negotiations, CIA blacksites - mmmhh!” she’s ridiculous i love her and this made me laugh!!!

“Navy’s good for one thing, I guess,” you muttered against Bradley’s neck while your hands ran over his body.” SPEAK YOUR TRUTH!!!

“When he eventually pulled away, your eyes met, and he rested his forehead against yours.” favorite little detail 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 tenderness in the middle of so much frantic want!!!!

“Fuck me, Bradley - please?”

You said his name. Not lieutenant or asshole or some other slightly condescending moniker. You said Bradley. As in you wanted him - the guy who had originally asked you out. The one you had tried so hard to impress all those days and nights spent texting.

And who was he to say no to that?” was he getting a little insecure? MY BABYYYYYYY I GO BALLISTIC WHEN HE GETS EMOTIONAL!!!!

“Please,” you whimpered sometime later. It was a simple, one word response, but it proved to be his undoing.” i forgot the name of this kink but rooster definitely has it!!!!! anyways IT PROVED TO BE HIS UNDOING????? DUDE I LOVE YOUR WRITING SO MUCH.

AND PAUSE- NOT HER TRYING TO TALK ABOUT CO2 EMISSIONS WHILE RIDING HIM HOW IS HER BRAIN STILL FUNCTIONING LIKE THAT??? in the next line of dialogue i know she doesn’t remember the amount or whatever but the fact that she even tried to bring it up shdgshchhshdhdhd silly!!!

“The absolutely blissed out expression on your face made him groan. “God, look at you now, all cock dumb for me. What happened to that smart girl from before?” GODDDDDDDDDDD.

AND THEN HE LISTS THE PRESIDENTS I CAN’T-

“Good boy,” you just managed to get out before Bradley really felt himself losing control.” IT WASN’T ENOUGH FOR YOU TO THROW THAT GOOD GIRL IN MY FACE YOU HAD TO BRING A GOOD BOY DROP INTO THIS AND EXPECT MY BRAIN TO STILL BE ABLE TO ABSORB ANYTHING AFTER? how???? and the fact that he likes it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ugh!!!!!!

“Gotta wait a couple more dates before we start talking about kids, sweetheart.” THE WAY MY STOMACH STARTED CARTWHEELING OVER HERE LIKE IT’S THE FUCKING OLYMPICS MY GOD. FAVORITE FUCKING PIECE OF DIALOGUE I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ANYMORE.

“You both laid there, side by side, chests rising and falling heavily. Fuck. Neither of you knew what to say - if there even was something to say. It had never been like that with anyone else - ever.” IT’S NOT LIKE THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!!! between all the banter and teasing they just really like each other so much!!!!! yeah!!!!

“So, how do we really feel about the stache?” You brought your finger up to his mouth and dragged it across his mustache and then to his lips.” skchjsjdjdjdjdjd i love her!!! and this is my second favorite detail. but absolutely do not mess with the mustache.

“You’ll change your mind after riding my face.” WHORE!!!

“He kissed your nose. “You know us military guys, ready with a moment’s notice.” You yawned. “Or maybe not…” i think i take it back, this might be my favorite detail. the fact that he notices the yawn and probably of course notices that she’s getting tired and sleepy so no round 2 for them at that moment but maybe later 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 rooster my beloved!!!! (the bar is very low i am aware).

“He so rarely allowed himself that time during the week - the ability to ‘just do’ and not over think everything. To do whatever he wanted. But that Saturday morning was different.

Because that Saturday you were there.” HELL YEAH BECAUSE THAT SATURDAY YOU WERE THERE AND IT CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

“Morning,” he rasped as he opened his eyes. You were staring at him, looking like a deer in headlights. “How’d you sleep?” like a deer in headlights! i love this comparison, it made me visualize the scene perfectly!!!

AND YOU HAD TO GIVE US A SCARE I REALLY THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA LEAVE FOR GOOD I WAS STARTING TO GET SO SAD. very mean of you.

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” He tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t hide his smile or the relief he had felt.” ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 babies!!!! it was all for fun and giggles, a little humor in the morning!!!

“You know, I’ve been thinking…”

“Smart girl.” FUCKING KILL ME.

“You ignored him. “You already fly in that death trap plane and can handle all the g-force so the astronaut training programs shouldn’t be - don’t look at me like that, all surprised I know what g-force is, I’m not an idiot.” i can see him just staring at her in awe while talking about this!! i can see it!!!! he’s so amused!!!!

“He wasn’t about to give up on this just yet.” *JUST INSERT SO MANY HEART EMOJIS* one of my favorite lines!!!!!

“He pulled his lips away from yours. “- Wait, wait - it’s not okay for me to exploit foreign nations, but it’s okay for me to potentially colonize space?”

You straddled his waist, barely moving your lips away from his neck as you gave a reply. “Shh, shh, we can work out the details later…” no because i’ve been watching for all mankind on apple tv+ for the past month and that’s exactly the plot of the show (and there are so many elements in it that connect to the top gun universe) like, bradley’s right on this one sjdhjshdjdjdsjjdjd this made me laugh!!! and it was a perfect ending for the part 1 of their story!!!! i love their relationship so much!!! i love the way you write!!!!!!

and even when we’re wrong in every way, we come out the other side okay [part ½]

Summary: in which lieutenant bradshaw has a thing for smart girls - and maybe ones who hate his guts on principle. a lie by omission is still a lie after all and bradley never exactly told you what he did for work…

OR you take on the us military industrial complex one hinge date at a time…well sort of

Pairing: Rooster x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+, explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral (m receiving), vaginal fingering, p in v, and slight dom/sub and praise and rank kink elements), idk basically she’s a bit of a brat? and he likes it? it’s kind of filthy, but it’s supposed to be kind of funny and a little silly?

A/N: thanks to everyone who liked the sneak peek and provided such positive feedback! but i really have to give a shout out to my buddy sol (desertsagecelestial) for being the absolute best sounding board with this fic! definitely check out her wip, it’s amazinggggg. anyway, enjoy! (9.9k) Part 1.5

Continuar lendo

Tags

fic recs august 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing bratty reader and rooster have my heart i fucking loved this will be rereading until the end of time so many [redacted] thoughts as well i need to breathe horny jail meme is so real

3K notes View Post

fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

04/09/2022: i love smart aleck and bradley so so much, every time you write these little blurbs about them my heart grows 3 sizes. I MISS THEM!!! my favorite parts are below the cut ☺️☺️☺️

ps: i’m still laughing at the warning “they fuck but it’s tender and kinda sappy shdhshchhshdhss <3

“would you have told me?” you whispered. “if i didn’t have to pick you up today, would you have told me what happened?”

“no.” bradley didn’t even look at you.” god, i love this concept. you already started with a banger for me. of course he would’ve just gone home and not said a word about the accident. emotionally unavailable beloved!!! and the little repetition of them saying “no” after!!! it hits!!!

“bradley nodded and wordlessly took your hand. he looked so small and young and sad sitting next to you. you brought his hand up to your mouth and kissed it, trying to put all of your love into the simple action.” i am so single it’s getting painful. also: favorite detail!!!!!!!!

“you’re not gonna stay?” he whispered.

“i wasn’t sure if you wanted me to?” you asked in an equally quiet voice. he nodded. “i don’t have any of my stuff with me...”

“we can pull something together, plus it’s friday and i - i don’t want to be alone - i want you - want you to stay.” at this stage in relationship it really feels like stepping on eggs, doesn’t it? but they already like each other so much and after the accident of course he was going to want her to stay 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 this made my heart flutter, i can hear him saying it!!!

“but bradley had asked. and you’d do just about anything bradley asked.” ❤️‍🩹

“you liked it. you liked the house. you liked the coziness it exuded. because you liked bradley. you really liked bradley.” BECAUSE OF HIM!!!!!!!!

“and then he gave you a kiss on the forehead and headed upstairs.” forehead kiss!!!!!! second favorite detail!!!!!! physical touch you will always be famous (especially with bradley)!!!!!!!!! ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

“it’s nothing fancy,” you tried to brush his words off, “i just added some stuff to the sauce you already had and made a salad. you’re the cook.”

he chuckled. “only to impress you - i’m serious, any time you come over for dinner i spend like three days before thinking of what to make. penny actually just gave me a couple cookbooks.” absolutely in love with the hc that bradley KNOWS how to cook. and now you mention he PLANS their dinners 3 DAYS IN ADVANCE??? HE’S READING COOKBOOKS????

the repetition of the you like him so much is killing me. i know what you’re doing, jordan. i know where this is going.

“and then when you finally saw bradley sitting on an exam table with his flight suit tied around his waist, it was like you could breathe again.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“you frowned, suddenly, snapped out of your reverie. “how did they know to call me?”

bradley’s cheeks colored and he was looking anywhere but at you. he cleared his throat and eventually looked up. “you’re on my list.” HE WASN’T GONNA TELL HER BUT HAS HER NUMBER ON HIS EMERGENCY LIST??????? JUST IN CASE???????? BRADLEY 😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥺

“you got up from the table and wrapped your arms around him. he felt like home and you couldn’t help but burrow your face into his neck.” and he feels like home if the shoe fits walk in it everywhere you go ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗

“sweetheart,” he bounced you slightly on his lap, “you know i’m crazy about you, too.” i’m smiling like an idiot.

“and all you kept thinking was bradley bradley bradley.” love this line.

“let me take you upstairs...” he mumbled against your neck, his lips peppering you with kisses and his teeth leaving marks you’d find tomorrow.

“you don’t wanna - do this on the kitchen table?” you pulled back, but didn’t get off his thigh. it impressed you how he was able to support your weight.

bradley squeezed your hips and chuckled. “i’m kinda fond of it - don’t want have to buy a new one after it breaks.” i love their banter!!!!!!! he wants to be a gentleman and take her to bed and of course smart aleck needs to tease him a little!!!! AND THEN HE JUST CASUALLY MENTIONS IT COULD BREAK. AAAAAAAAAAA

AND THEN HE FOLDS THE DRESS?????? ENOUGH!!!!!!!

will not be highlighting the entire smut (as much as i want to) because of the little dignity i still have left but you nail it every time. it’s just perfect and so very them.

“bradley chuckled. “well if you’re gonna beg me...” STOP!!!!!!

“and you loved him. you loved him so much.” THIS LAST LINEEEEEEEEEEEEE. YES.

jordan <333

I can’t decide which scenario would be hotter…. Bradley and smart Alleck fucking before a dangerous mission or Bradley and smart alleck fucking after Bradley almost dies on a mission and thought he would never see her again. (angst is so hot to me??)

oh SHIT - for the latter scenario, i feel like it would be super interesting if it was smart aleck that was the one really effected by it and they’re both kind of like woah since it’s early in their relationship and they haven’t said i love you yet even though they've said everything but it? and it’s her that’s like “fuck you could’ve died and i would’ve never seen you again?”

i’m envisioning if she has to pick bradley up after he was in medical for observation after the incident and someone (probably mav or phoenix) tells her what actually happened because we all know bradley wouldn’t say anything? and she’s like super quiet on the way back to his place and is the one driving:

warnings - light smut (is that a thing? they fuck but it’s tender? and kinda sappy? but there’s angst in the beginning. anyway sorry for making you wait so long for this)

“would you have told me?” you whispered. “if i didn’t have to pick you up today, would you have told me what happened?”

“no.” bradley didn’t even look at you.

“no?”

“no.”

you scoffed and your hands tightened on the steering wheel. “you don’t think i should know that my - that my boyfriend’s plane crashed into a fucking mountain? that i almost lost - that i might never have seen you again without getting to -” you cut yourself off, not believing you’d almost let the words slip out.

it was too early.

though bradley finally turned to look at you, he didn’t say anything. you shook your head and then focused back on the road. the rest of the drive, though it was mercifully quick, passed back in silence.

you pulled into his driveway and put the car in park, but didn’t turn it off.

“you have to tell me stuff like that, bradley - and it can be after or before the fact, i don’t care. but if this is going to keep working, you’re going to have to tell me stuff like this.”

he sighed, but it was more weary than exasperated. “i don’t want you to needlessly worry about me -”

“- that’s bullshit. i worry about you every time you go to work - i’d have to be an idiot not to. but i think i worry more when you don’t tell me anything? i’d rather know something than nothing and have to work around your moods like a fucking minefield. there’s two people in this relationship and that means we shoulder the burden together, alright?”

bradley nodded and wordlessly took your hand. he looked so small and young and sad sitting next to you. you brought his hand up to your mouth and kissed it, trying to put all of your love into the simple action.

“alright.”

“call me later, okay?” you said eventually, loathing having to let him go, but knowing you hadn’t been invited to spend the night - or even inside. you never wanted to overstep or assume. it had barely been three months - hell, he hadn’t even seen you without makeup on yet, to say nothing of inviting yourself over.

when he didn’t respond, you unlocked the doors with a resounding click, but bradley didn’t move.

“you’re not gonna stay?” he whispered.

“i wasn’t sure if you wanted me to?” you asked in an equally quiet voice. he nodded. “i don’t have any of my stuff with me...”

“we can pull something together, plus it’s friday and i - i don’t want to be alone - i want you - want you to stay.”

you knew you could scrounge together some basic toiletries from your work bag, but didn’t have any clothes in your car besides that morning’s pilates gear.

but bradley had asked. and you’d do just about anything bradley asked.

“okay.” you turned off the car and the two of you made your way into his house.

you hadn’t been there since sunday morning before the two of you had headed off to torrey pines for the afternoon. but, as usual, bradley’s house was neat and clean and smelled faintly of his tom ford cologne and the stir-fry he’d told you he’d made for dinner last night.

there was something comforting about his house and the furniture he’d put together - none of it quite matched, not exactly, but it all worked regardless. you liked his worn, brown leather couch and the wide armed oak wood chairs that he’d had shipped from Virginia and that his PS4 was neatly tucked away in his TV cabinet. you liked his massive dinning room table that was just begging to host a dinner party and the kitchen island stocked with practically every kitchen gadget known to man. you liked the white, high thread count sheets he had on his bed and the way he stopped tossing his not-quite-dirty-but-not-quite-clean clothes on the leather chair in his room because you said it looked messy.

you liked it. you liked the house. you liked the coziness it exuded. because you liked bradley. you really liked bradley.

and today you had almost lost him.

“want me to make you something to eat?” he was looking around the kitchen, but it didn’t seem like he was really focusing on anything. “i can make it while you shower?”

he turned towards you, almost startled. “yeah, that would be good? thanks.”

“cool, just uhh - just holler if you need anything.” and then he gave you a kiss on the forehead and headed upstairs.

while bradley was in the shower, you fished around in his well-stocked refrigerator looking for something to make for dinner. you smiled fondly thinking about how he had way more food - and good food at that - in his fridge than you did in yours. eventually, you decided on some pasta with a side salad.

there were plenty of veggies readily available for you to doctor up the sauce and you had just finished adding the last bit of seasoning to it when bradley came back downstairs.

his hair was still slightly damp and he had thrown on a pair of gym shorts along with a grey UVA crewneck sweatshirt. you felt terribly overdressed in your work clothes.

he came up beside you and peered into the pot. “smells really good.”

“it’s nothing fancy,” you tried to brush his words off, “i just added some stuff to the sauce you already had and made a salad. you’re the cook.”

he chuckled. “only to impress you - i’m serious, any time you come over for dinner i spend like three days before thinking of what to make. penny actually just gave me a couple cookbooks.”

if it was even possible, your heart melted even more.

you liked him. you liked him so much.

“really?" he shrugged and ducked his head. “feel like i gotta up my game.”

you strained the pasta and poured the sauce over it and then brought all your plates over to the breakfast nook in the corner. the two of you sat in companionable silence, just letting the events of the afternoon catch up with you.

it was crazy to think just three hours ago you’d been sitting in your weekly team meeting when your phone lit up with a call from an 858 number. something instinctual had told you to answer it and as soon as the voice on the other end had said we’re calling to inform you that lieutenant commander bradshaw has been in an accident you swept up your laptop and grabbed your tote bag and were out of the building in three minutes.

the next fifty minutes spent in traffic on I-5 were hell, especially since the number that had called you was only an outgoing number and you hadn’t known what would await you at the med center off base. and then when you finally saw bradley sitting on an exam table with his flight suit tied around his waist, it was like you could breathe again

you liked him. you liked him so much.

pete and natasha had met you in the hallway, telling you there had been an issue with bradley’s engine - the plane had been unsalvageable and he had known to bail out, but the canopy had gotten stuck and he had to eject later than advised, hence the hard landing into a mountainside in the mojave desert. miraculously, he only had a couple scratches and an ice pack on his shoulder.

he had been lucky. this time.

you frowned, suddenly, snapped out of your reverie. “how did they know to call me?”

bradley’s cheeks colored and he was looking anywhere but at you. he cleared his throat and eventually looked up. “you’re on my list.”

“your list?”

“you know,” he cleared his throat again, “if something happens to me.” your eyes swam with sudden tears, but bradley kept rambling. “i mean, it’s just you - and mav, i mean pete, but he’s normally with me, but yeah. i thought you’d want to know if -”

you got up from the table and wrapped your arms around him. he felt like home and you couldn’t help but burrow your face into his neck. “- bradley -”

he rubbed his hands up and down your back, bunching up your dress. “- which sounds stupid because i literally just told you i don’t want to worry you, but i also want you to know if something bad really does happen to me and i don’t - i don’t walk away with just a sore shoulder.” you squeezed him even tighter, completely ignoring what he’d just said about the sore shoulder.

you liked him. you liked him so much.

“i just didn’t like that you ultimately had to worry for nothing - and i know you said you always worry, so next time something like this happens, i’ll tell you -” you pulled back to glare at him “- not that i’m planning on doing that, but stuff happens.”

bradley sat you on his lap, both your dinners temporarily forgotten. “i know - god, i know.” you cupped his cheek, rubbing your thumb along the scars there. “i just - i guess i didn’t realize how close i was to losing you, not when i - i mean i -”

the words caught in your throat for a moment, but bradley’s hopeful expression spurred you on. “- i like you, bradley - a lot. like a lot a lot. and i guess just knowing something could’ve happened to you when we’re just really getting into this scared me and i probably was a little snappier than necessary, so i’m sorry, i was just scared.”

“sweetheart,” he bounced you slightly on his lap, “you know i’m crazy about you, too.”

and just like that, you couldn’t wait another moment and brought your lips to his, kissing him like it was for the last time. without taking a breath, you straddled yourself across his thigh, sliding yourself in between bradley and the table. his hands slid up your thighs, pushing up your checkered crepe dress so your underwear brushed against his bare leg.

as his hands snaked underneath your dress, you started grinding yourself on his thigh - wanting to be even closer to him. your back arched, inviting his touch, and you sighed as his fingers kneaded your breasts over your bra. his gorgeous, still damp hair was mussed and fluffy from how your own hands were running through it and he sighed against your mouth.

and all you kept thinking was bradley bradley bradley.

you liked him. you liked him so much.

“let me take you upstairs...” he mumbled against your neck, his lips peppering you with kisses and his teeth leaving marks you’d find tomorrow.

“you don’t wanna - do this on the kitchen table?” you pulled back, but didn’t get off his thigh. it impressed you how he was able to support your weight.

bradley squeezed your hips and chuckled. “i’m kinda fond of it - don’t want have to buy a new one after it breaks.”

you giggled. “what about the dishes and -”

“- later, later,” he kissed you twice, “gotta make sure my girl’s taken care of first. make sure she knows how much i care about her.”

the two of you dashed upstairs like a pair of teenagers, bumping into the doorframe once you got to bradley’s room. it reminded you of your first time with him after that fateful first date. you pulled at the back of your dress, trying to pull down the zipper, but bradley beat you to it - carefully sliding the zipper down your back and then folding your dress and carefully laying it on the chair in the corner.

you moaned. the man had merely folded your dress instead of letting it puddle on the floor and your pussy was practically clenching on air.

your stupid boy. your stupid sweet, kind, thoughtful boy.

you liked him. you liked him so much.

the two of you finished getting undressed and laid down on the bed, bradley on top of you, clearly trying to be mindful of his sore shoulder.

his hand slid between your bodies and played with your clit before he slipped two fingers inside you. you whimpered, desperate for him. “that’s my girl, could feel you dripping on my thigh downstairs.”

normally, you would have savored his touch, gotten lost in the foreplay. but tonight you just wanted him - wanted bradley.

“bubs, i don’t - i just need you inside me...”

he groaned your name. “you’re so - fuck.” he rubbed his cock along your slit, but didn’t put it inside yet. “you’re so wet for me. you want me to lick that pretty pussy of yours? or do you want me to fuck you?”

you nodded, nuzzling into his neck and pressing butterfly kisses to his shoulder. suddenly, he pinched your clit and you cried out. “gotta use your words - don’t wanna have to ask again...”

“i want you to fuck me,” you whined. “please fuck me.”

bradley chuckled. “well if you’re gonna beg me...” without letting another moment go to waste, he slipped inside you.

every time bradley fucked you it felt like the first time. and to know that today you were almost robbed of that chance to do this again - to be with him like it was the first time - made you pull him closer, not wanting there to be an inch - a centimeter - separating the two of you. proving to him and proving to yourself that he was there - he was alive and beautiful and good and yours.

“i can’t believe you’re mine,” bradley whispered against your neck, unknowingly repeating your thoughts.

and you loved him. you loved him so much.

-----------

a/n - that was fun!

Tags

fic recs 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster september bradley bradshaw my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing bradley and smart aleck i love them i need them to be happy forever will be thinking about bradley cooking FOR DAYS just planning their little dinners and testing the recipes <3 i’m still not over the pasta maker i love emotionally unavailable men

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fivsecondsflat

2 years ago

03/10/22: MAY WRITING FOR ROOSTER EVERYBODY CHEERED I CHEERED I CRIED I LAUGHED I GOT SHOT HAD EPIPHANIES!!!!! sweet may, i will never get tired of saying how much i absolutely ADORE your writing. it’s so special, i don’t know exactly WHAT IT IS ABOUT IT, but there’s something here or a combination of factors idk i just adore it i would read your grocery list!!!!!! anyways this was adorable and i had to highlight my favorite parts because 😭❤️‍🩹

“You can’t help it - you laugh. It’s a sound that punches from somewhere deep inside of you, that comes with a certain amount of relief. That echoes through the darkness of your hotel room, bounces off the ceiling and back into the shadows.” bounces off the ceiling and BACK INTO THE SHADOWS. HELLO??? POETRY???

“Don’t laugh at me.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

“By all means, Bradley could be a star in an 80s porno, what with the mustache and those Hawaii shirts. And the embarrassing dirty talk.” stop i love him!!!

“What you hadn't exactly planned on, though, is that your boyfriend, apparently, is really, really bad at phone sex.” STOP IT’S HIS FIRST TIME HE’S TRYING 😭😭😭😭 POOR ROOSTER

“You’re really good at dirty talk in person.”

He’s quiet for so long you think maybe he’s hung up. When you draw the phone away to glance at the screen, you miss half his sentence.

“... easier when you’re there,” he’s saying by the time you got the phone back up to your ear, and you can hear the note of uncertainty in his voice. It’s endearing, but then you’re totally whipped for him, so that doesn't say much. “Like this, I just get self-conscious. I don’t know.” EASIER WHEN YOU’RE THERE BECAUSE THEY TRUST EACH OTHER SO MUCH ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 (not me absolutely making up headcanons about a BLURB- anywaysssssss)

“Bradley,” you say, and hope your words are as sincere over the phone as they would be in person, “I think you’re the hottest person alive, you know? You’ve sort of ruined me. I get wet when I see an airplane now sometimes. I don’t think there’s anything to be self-conscious about. Just act like I’m right there with you, okay?” NOT HER GETTING TURNED ON BY AIRPLANES SKJCJSJXHHDDHDHDHDDH also: comforting him!!!!!!!! i think you’re the hottest person alive 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 they’re so cute!!!!

“Another moment of silence, and then he hums an okay, and his voice has reached just that pitch that makes you think the phone should be vibrating. And like. That’ll do it. You shove your hands back into your panties, where you’re still swollen and wet and aching to be touched.” HIS VOICE GOING DOWN AND IT’S ENOUGH TO GET THE BACK ON TRACK I LOVE THIS.

MISS SEASONSBLOOM I MISSED YOU!!!

romeo - "i want you to kiss every inch of my body." with rooster?

your blurbs are always so incredible! congratulations on 1.5k!! 🫶🏻✨ hopefully i’m not too late, i’m awful at time zones as well 😅

♡ pairing ; rooster x reader

♡ wc ; 600

♡ warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; explicit language; phone sex; this is really sort of silly

♡ note ; anon I’m sorry, i read that dialogue prompt and it sort of made me laugh??? so then this was born, I apologize.

“I want you to kiss every inch of my body.”

You can’t help it - you laugh. It’s a sound that punches from somewhere deep inside of you, that comes with a certain amount of relief. That echoes through the darkness of your hotel room, bounces off the ceiling and back into the shadows.

Tinny, distorted by the miles and miles between you, Rooster’s voice says, “Don’t laugh at me.”

The comment does what it does most often: It makes you laugh harder.

“I’m sorry,” you say, breathless, giggles cascading in an unsteady stream. “You just… you sound like an 80s porn star, Bradley.”

Bradley harrumphs and you hear sheets shifting, imagine him rolling around on the mattress. “Honey, I don’t think you’ve ever even seen an 80s porno.”

“You don’t know about my porn consumption,” you say, immediately, and then you start laughing again.

By all means, Bradley could be a star in an 80s porno, what with the mustache and those Hawaii shirts. And the embarrassing dirty talk.

“I’m not great at this, am I?”

That stifles your humor. He sounds… not exactly hurt, but a little insecure, maybe. Your heart drops and you back-pedal straight away.

“It’s okay, Bradley,” you rush to say. “We’ve never done this, and I think it’s awkward anyway. This just works better over text, you know?”

It’s true. When Bradley’s gone, most of your correspondence happens via emails or scheduled video calls in computer rooms he shares with other aviators. Which means that most of your sexual endevours during his absence are restricted to your right hand or a vibrator and the wide-ranging expanse of your fantasy.

Now that it’s you gone for a change, though, you gone and Bradley all alone in your bed at home, you’d really wanted to try. See how this thing might play out. What you hadn't exactly planned on, though, is that your boyfriend, apparently, is really, really bad at phone sex.

“It’s funny,” you tell him, shoving your phone between shoulder and chin as you roll over onto your stomach and fold your arms beneath the pillow. The throbbing between your legs has receded to a dull intensity somewhere at the back of your mind, like the tides licking lazily at the shore. “You’re really good at dirty talk in person.”

He’s quiet for so long you think maybe he’s hung up. When you draw the phone away to glance at the screen, you miss half his sentence.

Another moment of silence, and then he hums an okay, and his voice has reached just that pitch that makes you think the phone should be vibrating. And like. That’ll do it. You shove your hands back into your panties, where you’re still swollen and wet and aching to be touched.

And still, you can’t help yourself. You just have to. Biting the insides of your cheek to keep the grin out of your voice, you drawl, “Now. Let’s get back to it, stud.”

“Now who’s the one stuck in an 80s porno?”

Tags

october fic recs 2022 Top gun top gun maverick rooster bradley bradshaw so so good my silly little goodreads masterclass in writing seasonsbloom you will always be famous THIS BLURB!!!!!! I SWEAR TO GOD- i’m putting this in the bradley bradshaw fanfiction hall of fame HELLO OCTOBER!!!

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