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Bob and Phoenix have commandeered a corner table at a low key taco place off base. Neon sign, sticky menus, salsa that actually has bite. Phoenix has a beer. Bob has a Coke and a plate of carne asada that he has already organized into neat quadrants. They are supposed to be having a quiet night. Bob’s phone buzzes on the table. Then again. Then again. Phoenix glances at the screen and sighs. “You want to check that before it catches fire.” He flips it over.

Dagger Circus

Rooster: LUCKY

Rooster: come outside

Lucky: No.

Hangman: yes

Bob blinks.

Lucky: I am in sweatpants

Lucky: And my couch has claimed me

Rooster: We will unclaim you

Hangman: Respectfully

Hangman: emergency

Lucky: What kind of emergency?

Hangman: Fashion

Phoenix leans over her own phone. “Oh no.”

Rooster: We are at your door in five

Lucky: Absolutely not

Rooster: Photo: He is on your doorstep, arm outstretched for the selfie, wearing a vintage band tee and jeans. Hangman is behind him in a button down, hair too perfect, the kind of grin that means trouble. Between them, your front door, number plate visible, porch light on.

Rooster: We come in peace

Lucky: If you ring my bell I am calling the cops

Hangman: Babe

Hangman: firefighters are better

Lucky: Fine

Lucky: Give me ten

Lucky: You wake my neighbors and I am faking my own death

Bob stares at the screen, somewhere between amused and uneasy. Phoenix raises an eyebrow. “You can say it.” “Say what,” he asks. “That you wish it was your knock on her door,” Phoenix says, matter of fact. He looks down at his neatly divided plate. “She can go out with whomever she wants.” “Correct,” Phoenix says. “And you are still allowed to be annoyed it is the two loudest idiots we know.” He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. Ten minutes later, a photo hits the chat.

Lucky: Photo: Mirror selfie from your hallway. A few already half packed boxes in the background. You are back in the same jeans from your first night at the Hard Deck, mid blue, straight leg, snug where it counts. On top: a black top with stylized flames licking up from the hem in red and gold. Your eyeliner is a precise red wing that mirrors the print. You have one hand on your hip, one holding the phone, tongue almost peeking between your teeth.

Lucky: You owe me for this

Hangman: OH MY GOD

Rooster: We are going to spontaneously combust

Coyote: Fire hazard

Phoenix: Worth it

Rooster: Fire top - fire liner

Hangman: Respectfully - there is only ONE destination

Lucky: If you say club

Hangman: fire station

You stare at the text, then at yourself in the mirror. “Absolutely not,” you tell your reflection. Two minutes later, you are in the backseat of Rooster’s truck, arm braced against the window, listening to Hangman explain how this is the best idea he has had in months. “It matches,” he insists, twisted around in the passenger seat to gesture at you. “Top, liner, theme. We are giving them a show.” “Jake, I am not a mascot,” you say. “You are their patron saint,” Rooster throws in. “They talk about you, you know.” You blink. “What?” “Half the station comes into the Hard Deck,” Hangman shrugs. “You keep them alcohol hydrated. We are just letting you visit your fan club.” You want to argue. You also feel the little thrill of being told you have a fan club. You roll your eyes instead. “If anyone pulls an alarm just to impress me, I am leaving,” you warn. “Scout’s honor,” Rooster says. “We are not that stupid.” You look between him and Hangman. “Okay,” you correct. “You are not that stupid.” You start at a bar near downtown. It's crowded and loud in the Friday night way. You nurse your drink, enjoying the buzz but not chasing it. It's fun. It is stupid. It's easy. Until it's not.

You are at the bar trying to flag the bartender, leaning your elbow on the rail, when a guy twice your size edges in behind you. You feel his presence before he says anything, the way his breath hits the back of your neck, the shift of his chest near your shoulder. “Nice top,” he says, voice the wrong kind of low. “Matches your attitude.” You turn, already annoyed. “Thanks,” you say. “Excuse me.” You shift to step past him. He shifts with you, blocking. “Where you going, fire girl,” he asks. “I am just being nice.” “Then be nice somewhere else,” you tell him. Your finger taps the bar once. “You are in my space.” He chuckles, slow and ugly. “Little thing like you, what are you going to do, sweetheart, set me on fire?” You feel your temper crest. “Interesting idea,” you say. “Let us test your flashpoint.”

You step into him instead of away, finger planting dead center in his chest, pushing hard enough that he actually takes a half step back. Your chin comes up. Your voice does not get louder, it gets sharper. “You are going to take one step left,” you say. “And you are going to stop crowding women who didn't ask for it. Or I am going to teach you how fast this place will make you leave.” The guy blinks at the pressure in your voice more than the finger in his sternum. “You talk a lot for something that fits in my pocket,” he says. Behind you, Rooster straightens from his lean against the bar. Hangman’s posture changes like a switch flipped. They are moving before they even register the decision. Someone at your back says, “Hey,” calm and warning, but you are already past that. “Try putting me in your pocket,” you tell the guy. “See what happens.” Bob gets the photo a minute later.

Rooster: Photo: You, in your fire top, standing nose to chest with a man at least a head taller and twice your width. Your finger is jammed into his sternum, your jaw set. Your eyes are cutting up at him like knives. In the blurred background, people are starting to turn. The flame print at your hem catches the bar light like it is actually lit.

Rooster: Lucky vs Godzilla

Hangman: She is 5 seconds from committing a felony

The next photo comes less than ten seconds later.

Rooster: Photo: Same man, now turned sideways, held at arm’s length by Hangman. Jake has one hand flat on the guy’s shoulder and the other braced lightly on the bar, body between you and the stranger. He looks almost relaxed, smile easy, but there is a tension in his arm that says he is not going to move. You are behind Hangman’s shoulder, jaw clenched, hand still half raised.

Rooster: Fire marshal Seresin on scene

Coyote: Lucky was doing fine without you @Hangman she is definitely more intimating than you will ever be.

Phoenix’s reply hits fast.

Phoenix: Who let you two be in charge?

Lucky: HE PUT HIS BREATH ON MY NECK

Lucky: I am not built for patience

Bob reads the messages at the taco place, thumb hovering over his screen. The idea of you pushed up against some stranger’s chest makes 90 percent of his rational brain short circuit. “Relax,” Phoenix says around a chip. “You saw the photo. She had him pinned emotionally.” “That is not the point,” he mutters. She eyes him. “Do you want us to run interference or do you want her to never have friends?” He sighs, hating that she is right. “I want people to stop thinking they can touch her.” “Same,” Phoenix says. “In the meantime, she has an entire squadron and a bar full of witnesses. She isn't alone.” He knows that. He still grips his Coke a little tighter.

What the group chat doesn't see is the minute after the photos. Security has had a quiet word with Godzilla and escorted him toward the door. The music swells back in. The bar remembers it's supposed to be fun. You are still keyed up, shoulders tight, fingers buzzing with leftover adrenaline when Jake turns back around. He lets the tension roll out of his stance before he comes close, hands open, voice low enough that only you hear it. "You alright, fire girl?" he asks, and it is not a tease this time. Just a check. You take inventory. Heart a little fast. Pride intact. Necklace twisted. Top still on. "I am fine," you say, then adjust. "I will be. Just didn't enjoy being treated like that." His jaw ticks at that. He nods once, then lifts two fingers to get the bartender's attention. "Same again," he tells her, tipping his head toward your glass. "On me." You squint at him. "Jake Seresin buying me a drink out of pure chivalry. Should I be worried?" He shrugs, mouth crooked. "Respectfully, Lucky, you get harassed at a bar I dragged you to, I at least pick up your tab."

The bartender slides a fresh drink your way. His card is already on the rail. He doesn't make a show of the amount, doesn't make it a bit. Just taps and pockets it again. You watch him for a second, then bump your shoulder lightly into his bicep. "Thank you," you say, quieter now. "For the human shield and the alcohol." He looks away like he is playing it off, but his ears go a little pink. "Anytime," he says, and somehow it lands heavier than the word usually does in his mouth. When you all push off the bar to head back toward the dance floor, the crowd has thickened. Bodies, elbows, spilled beer. Jake slides an easy half step ahead, then back, turning his body into a path. His hand finds the back of your shoulder almost without thinking, warm and steady, fingers spread just enough to keep people from clipping you as you move. You glance up at him over your shoulder. "Careful, Seresin. If you keep this up, people might start thinking you are emotionally available." He huffs out a laugh, the sound low in his chest. "Relax, Lucky," he says. "I am just herding talent." You grin and let that stand, even though you feel the difference tonight. Even though his hand lingers that fraction longer between songs, thumb brushing the strap of your top once when you lean in to say something and he forgets to move it.

At one point, some pop track you secretly love comes on. You throw both hands up and yell, delighted. He laughs outright at your joy, then joins in, singing half the words wrong. For a few minutes it is just stupid dancing, your head tipped back, his hand circling your wrist to spin you without letting you drift too far away. You tap the back of his forearm, fingers warm against his skin. "Seriously," you say. "Thanks. For earlier." He looks down at where your hand rests on him, then up at your face. There is a flicker there - something like the start of a thought he will not let himself finish. "Dont worry about it," he says. "You are one of us. We protect our own." That answer is safe. You still feel it somewhere in your ribs. Part of a group of friends now, perhaps even family. Rooster, of course, documents everything. Another photo hits the chat while you are on the dance floor.

Rooster: Photo: You and Jake half blurred in motion, mid laugh. His arm is slung loose around your shoulders as you scream the lyrics to something objectively terrible. Your head is tipped toward him, his mouth open in a grin that shows more teeth than he usually allows. In the background, colored lights smear across the wall.

Rooster: fire marshal Seresin and his favorite arsonist

Coyote: disgusting

Coyote: I love you both

Back at the taco place, Bob sees that one too. He scrolls up, sees the picture of you squared off with a stranger twice your size, finger in his chest. Sees the follow up with Jake between you and the guy, that easy posture over a coiled arm. Sees the latest one of you laughing against Jake's side, everyone whole, everyone alive. Something in him knotches tighter and looser at the same time. "I told you," Phoenix says around a mouthful of salsa. "She isn't alone." "I know," he answers. He means it. It still grates to see any version of you pinned between a stranger and a bar rail. It still sits strangely to see Jake's arm around you, even when he can tell from the set of Jake's shoulders that it's protective, not possessive. Phoenix watches his face instead of his plate. "It could be worse," she says after a beat. "If she has to be out there with idiots, I will take those two. Jake has the mouth, but he also has a spine. He isn't going to let anything happen to her."

Bob studies the photo one more time. The way you are laughing. The way Jake is looking at you, soft around the edges in a way Bob hasn't seen him direct at anyone else. It stings, sure. It also lands like something he might need to trust one day, even if he doesn't know that yet. "Yeah," he says finally, wiping his thumb on a napkin and turning his phone face down again. "I know." Phoenix clinks her bottle lightly against his Coke. "Good," she says. "Now eat your food before I steal it." He does, but the image of your hand on Jake's arm and Jake stepping in fron of you without turning it into a joke stays with him. Not as a threat. As a fact. Somewhere on a crowded dance floor, you throw your head back and laugh at something Jake has said. 

You finish the drink. The bar feels smaller now. Louder. You are not in the mood to pretend your heart is not still racing a little bit. “New location,” you announce. “Less creeps, more hoses.” Hangman’s grin returns, bright. “Fire station.” “You were serious about that,” Rooster says. You lift your hands. “Match the outfit. Honor the theme.” They don't argue. Outside, the air is cooler, streetlights humming. Your ears are still full of bass. Rooster fishes his keys from his pocket and beeps the truck. Jake walks on your traffic side, one notch closer than he has to be, hand in his jacket. Not touching you, but there. “Front seat rules,” Rooster says as you reach the truck. “Senior pilot gets shotgun.” “Respectfully,” Jake says, “senior pilot is me, old man.” You cut in before the bit can escalate. “I get shotgun. Birthday girl rules.” “Not your birthday,” Rooster points out. “Spiritual birthday,” you say. “I survived a home invasion and a creep in one night.” Rooster snorts. “Can’t argue with that.” 

Jake opens the passenger door for you without comment. When he rounds to the other side, Rooster catches his eye through the windshield and mouths something very subtle like eat shit backseat princess. Jake flips him off behind the door and then slides in, shoulders a little tight. The drive takes ten minutes. The city thins, then tilts into industrial. The station sits on the corner, low and solid, wide bay doors closed, red trucks glinting behind glass. The front lights are still on, soft in the late hour. Rooster pulls into the side lot. “Last chance to bail,” he says. You look at your top, flames licking your ribs, liner sharp. “Absolutely not.” “What if they are busy,” Rooster asks, slowing. “Then we say hi and leave,” you say. “I am not insane.” “Debatable,” Hangman murmurs. You flip him off. 

Inside, the door off the side lot opens with a buzz. You punch the bell, then lean on the frame, listening. For a second there is nothing. Then footsteps. The door swings open to reveal a familiar face in navy shirt and gym shorts, hair mussed. “Lucky,” Ben says, startled and delighted at once. He is one of your regulars, always tipping in cash and never making you repeat his order. His eyes travel from your boots up to the fire print and go comically wide. “Oh my God.” You lift your arms. “Field trip.” Behind you, Rooster leans in and waves. “We brought enrichment.” Jake just hooks his thumbs in his pockets and grins like he owns the place. Ben steps back, sweeping an arm. “Get in here. Boys, the patron saint of hydration has arrived.” The common room is all mismatched couches and scarred tables, a TV playing a muted game, a whiteboard crammed with shifts. Half a dozen firefighters look up from cards and their phones. There is a beat of processing, then a cheer. “Lucky!” “What are you wearing, holy shit.” “Fire safety icon.” You laugh, warmth unspooling along your ribs. It's noisy, but not the same kind as the bar. Less sharp. More grounded. “You look like a recruitment poster,” one of them says. “If we put you in front of the station, response times would double.” “Illegal,” you say. “My contract with Penny forbids it.”

Someone tosses you a bottle of water automatically. Muscle memory. You catch it, twist the cap. “Relax. Off duty. I came to bother you.” “You succeed,” another calls. “Sit.” They make space on a couch. You drop down, tucking one leg under. Jake takes the armchair beside you, backwards so he can lean his forearms on the back and face the room. Rooster ends up perched on the arm, half involved in a card game he didn't start. “Word in the bay,” Ben says, “is you saved my guys from dehydration all spring.” “Word in the bar,” you counter, “is you tip like your life depends on it.” “That is because it does,” another says. “If you cut us off we would perish.” The chatter washes over your earlier adrenaline like cool water. Someone asks how Penny is. Someone else complains about a rookie who nearly backed into the hydrant. You tease them about their terrible jukebox choices when they come in. They boo you, offended, then immediately admit you are right. Rooster pulls out his phone and snaps a photo without asking.

Rooster: Photo - you on the firehouse couch, one hand wrapped around a water bottle, flame top bright under fluorescent, head thrown back mid laugh. Two firefighters on either side are grinning at you like you are the halftime show.

Rooster: patron saint of station 14

Coyote: put that on a poster

Fanboy: I would enlist

You feel Jake’s knuckles bump your shoulder lightly when he leans over to look at the photo. “You are a menace,” he tells Rooster. “You are just mad she has more admirers than you,” Rooster shoots back. “Incorrect,” Jake says. “I am her biggest fan. The rest of you are just understudies.” You roll your eyes. “Jake, shut up. You are all very loud.” “Respectfully,” one of the firefighters calls from the doorway to the bay, “you walk in here in flames and blame us for being loud.” They insist on giving you the grand tour. You get the full ladder truck walkaround, hoses, compartments, the big steering wheel. 

One of the younger firefighters, Diaz, is already pulling out his phone. “Pic,” he says. “We need evidence. Lucky in the house.” You groan. “I am not camera ready.” “You dressed like a Hot Wheels car and came to a fire station,” Rooster says. “You did this to yourself.” You end up in the middle of the three firefighters in front of the engine, the truck’s chrome catching every light. One of them tosses you a spare helmet. You jam it on your head, visor pushed up. Diaz takes the photo. About five minutes later, Rooster sends a link in the groupchat. 

Rooster: [Link] Lucky is actually famous 

Coyote: I took a screenshot for everyone who doesnt wanna go on Insta right now

Coyote: Screenshot: You are in front of the engine, fire top, jeans, helmet too big, one hand on your hip, other flashing a peace sign. Your eyeliner is perfect, red wings sharp. You look like you belong on a recruitment poster. The caption reads: “Hydration is important. Thanks to Lucky from the Hard Deck for keeping C shift alive. 🔥🚒”

Payback: ARE YOU ACTUALLY JOKING 

Fanboy: Respectfully, were was my invite?

Hangman: Lost in the mail

Phoenix: You guys are insane 

Lucky: Why do I look like I am in a recruitment ad

Coyote: Because you are

Bob: Lucky improving firefighter throughput by about 30%

Lucky: Professor with the math. I feel so seen

Bob scrolls back up and stares at the photo longer than he will ever admit. His eyes keep snagging on small things - the way your smile is big but not performative, like someone caught you mid-laugh instead of mid-pose. Then the video drops. Later he will notice it again in your close friend's story. Right now it sits in the chat, new and bright. Phoenix taps it open and angles her phone so he can see too. The clip starts to play and Phoenix actually chokes on her beer, coughing out a laugh. Bob doesn't laugh. Bob goes very, very quiet.

Rooster: Video: 9 seconds of pure chaos. You are over Diaz's shoulder, fire top riding up just enough to show a strip of bare lower back, legs kicking in the air. He has you slung in a proper fireman’s carry, one big hand braced behind your thighs, the other holding your wrist to keep you steady. You are laughing so hard you can't breathe, head hanging down, hand smacking his back in protest. Behind you, two other firefighters have Rooster and Hangman each under one arm, hauling them like misbehaving puppies. Rooster is taking it with theatrical offense. Hangman is doing his best dead weight act. Off camera, someone yells, “Get these hazards out of my bay,” and everyone laughs.

Lucky: OMG. 

Lucky: ✨he holds me in his big arms, drunk and I am seeing stars✨

Fanboy: not the Lana reference 💀

Hangman: He threatened to lock us in the hose tower

Hangman: It was hot

Lucky: I WAS KIDNAPPED BY PUBLIC SERVANTS

Rooster: Lies. You were a willing accomplice

Lucky: My crime was saying: “Firemen do not have the upper body strength the movies pretend they have”

Phoenix: Girl. Why would you poke the bear?

Lucky: For science

Bob stares at the paused frame of you over someone's shoulder, the way your hand fists in the back of his shirt, the easy strength in the firefighter’s arms. There is no actual danger in the shot. Just ridiculous fun. It still lands like something low in his chest. Phoenix sees his face and tuts. “Say it,” she prods. “She is drunk,” he says. “She is tipsy and with two guys who would fight the entire county for her,” Phoenix corrects. “That includes the firehouse if they had too.” He knows this. He still can't quite shake the image. “That isn't the part bothering you,” Phoenix says quietly. He pokes at a piece of meat on his plate. “He is carrying her.” “And she let him,” Phoenix says. “Because he is built like a tree and she is in a mood. That does not cancel anything else.” He looks at her. “It still feels bad.” “That is because you like her,” Phoenix says. “Not because she did anything wrong.” He hates that she manages to drop the truth without making it worse. He takes a breath. “I know,” he says softly. Without warning, Phoenix reaches across the table and steals his phone. She thumbs quickly.

Bob: [To Lucky, direct] Are you safe? Or do I need to come fire you out?

You see the text as you are sitting on a low wall outside the station, sipping water out of a paper cup, cheeks flushed. Hangman is arguing with a firefighter about ladder drills. Rooster is teaching Diaz how to whistle through his fingers. You blink at the screen, then at Ben who appears next to you.“Are we safe,” you ask him. He snorts. “You are on sacred ground. We will hose everyone down that is trying to do anything to our new mascot.” You grin and type back.

Lucky: Safe and hydrated

Lucky: Stop worrying. 

Lucky: I won't join the fire academy tonight 

Lucky: I like my job (and the pilots that come with it) too much 💚

Phoenix reads it aloud to Bob, just to watch his ears go pink. “See,” she says. “Nothing to worry about.” He pushes his glasses up, but he is smiling now, small and helpless. Phoenix pockets him his phone and tips her chin at him. “Are you done catastrophizing, or do I need to text Penny and ask her to ground the fire department?” Bob snorts, finally. “Please don't start a turf war.” “Then eat your food,” she says. “You can stare at her helmet picture again when I am not watching.” He flushes, but he does pick his fork back up. By the time he and Phoenix step out into the parking lot, the worst of the knot in his chest has unwound. She nudges his shoulder with hers, casual. “For what it's worth,” she says, “I like that you worry like this. You do it in a way that actually helps people, not cages them.” He looks down at his shoes, then at the small green heart still glowing in their chat. “I am trying,” he says. “To get it right.” “You are allowed to want things and still get it right,” Phoenix says. “Put that in your little chart brain.” He huffs a laugh. “A chart would help.” “Of course it would,” she deadpans. “Come on, Professor. We will drive past the station on the way back. You can see the building is still standing.” He pretends that is not exactly what he wants.

Later, someone orders pizza. It appears on the common room table like a miracle. You end up on the front bumper of the truck, slice in hand, legs swinging. Jake settles beside you, jeans creaking, shoulders almost touching. “Feeling better?” he asks. “Yeah,” you say, honest. You wipe a smudge of sauce from your thumb. “Less creeps. More hoses. Ten out of ten plan.” He exhales a little laugh, like he has been holding something. “Good.” You turn your head, searching his profile. Streetlight makes a halo out of the edges of his hair. “Thank you,” you add. “For tonight. For stealing me away.” His throat bobs. “You could have said no,” he reminds you. “I could have,” you agree. “I didn't." You let that sit there a beat. Then, very lightly, you lay your hand on his forearm, thumb brushing the fabric once. His skin jumps under it, like his body is ahead of his brain. He doesn't pull away. “Anytime, Lucky,” he says. The words are simple. The way he says them is not.

Inside, the others argue over the last slice. Out here, the trucks gleam in the sodium light. You finish your water, shoes knocking the bumper, and realize your heart has finally, finally stopped racing. At your side, Jake tips his head back, eyes closed for a second, letting the night air cool his face. When he opens them again, you are still there. He looks like a man who has just quietly decided he would run this kind of emergency response for you as long as you let him, because somewhere along the way you stopped being just the bartender and became part of his weird little flock of pilot friends, minus the flying thing. He looks at you then, really looks, like he is checking the seams for cracks. Whatever he sees makes his shoulders loosen a notch. “You tell us when you are not okay,” he says. “I mean it. Me, Rooster, anyone. We will peel creeps off you, wherever you are.” You lean sideways, shoulder nudge to his bicep. “I know,” you repeat, softer. “Thank you for tonight. Both of you.” “As I said, anytime,” he says. “I mean that in the annoying pilot way, not the casual way.” You pat his forearm once in answer and then Rooster stumbles out with Diaz, mid argument about whether hot sauce is a personality trait, and the moment folds up and tucks itself away. “Alright, senior citizens,” Rooster announces. “Curfew is approaching. Penny said we have to return her favorite bartender in one piece.” “Penny didn't say that,” you object. “She thought it,” he says. “I heard it with my heart.” You slide off the bumper. Ben waves from the doorway. “Night, Lucky. Come back any time. We will keep your helmet on standby.” You groan. “Burn it.” “Never,” he calls.

Back at your building, Rooster kills the engine and leans over the wheel. “Home delivery complete.” You unbuckle slowly, reluctant to let the night end. Amelia will want to see the photos tomorrow and roast you for the helmet. Penny will claim this proves she was right about you being chaos on two legs. You already feel the story sinking into your bones as another stupid, good memory. You open the door and slip out. Before you close it again, you turn around and face them. “Thanks for the kidnapping,” you say. “Ten out of ten. Would be dragged out again.” Roosters mouth curls. “Careful. We will put that on the flyer.” You snort. “Goodnight, idiots.” “Night, Lucky,” they say in unison. You salute, two fingers to your temple and then turn to walk towards your door. Rooster leans over the seat to holler, “Love you, sunshine. Text when you are home,” like a brother who has decided that is simply fact now. You flip him off affectionately and head for your door, phone already in your hand.

Dagger Circus

Lucky: home my friends

Lucky: left as everyone's fav bartender, returned as a honorary firefighter 

The chat lights up with hearts and gifs. Separate from it, your phone buzzes again.

Bob: [To Lucky, direct] Glad you are safe.

Bob: Sleep well, Lucky 💚

You stand in your half lit hallway for a second, thumbs hovering, chest oddly full simply because Bob sent you a simple green heart. Then you type.

Lucky: you too, Bob

Lucky: thanks for worrying about me 

You hit send, drop your keys in the bowl, and let the quiet of your apartment wrap around you. Salt still clings faintly on your skin. Somewhere out there a firehouse has your photo on their feed. Somewhere across town, a man who loves charts is staring at his ceiling and trying not to call what he feels by its real name yet. You drop your phone on the nightstand, crawl into bed, and are out before the group chat has even finished arguing about whether firemen or pilots have more upper body strength.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The next morning you surface slow, head foggy but not spinning. You roll over, squint at your phone. Notifications. Too many notifications. You open Instagram first and immediately groan at the station’s post. “Great,” you mumble. “Civic Barbie.” The video in the group chat makes you snicker anyway, so you throw it on your own story. You line up the Lana track so “he holds me in his big arms, drunk and I am seeing stars” hits exactly when Diaz swings you over his shoulder, because you are a menace and also very funny. Amelia clearly agrees. Within a minute your phone buzzes fourteen times. At least five replies are just “slay”, one is “mother”, two are unhinged keyboard smash. You like all of them on principle.

Rooster: Public service review: 10/10

Hangman: My calves hurt from being carried

Hangman: I feel victimized

Phoenix: That is the only lifting you have done this month

Fanboy: Lucky carried the night

You decide to ignore them for now and open a separate chat. 

Lucky: [to Bob direct] U free? 

Lucky: Hydrated with water but could use coffee

Bob: My briefing is done in 45 minutes.

Bob: I could pick up after and we can grab lunch? 

Lucky: Only if we get coffee first

Lucky: Or I am calling the fire department instead

He snorts, smiling. Phoenix sneaks a peak at the exchange. “You good,” she whispers. Bob just nods. He looks at the station photo one more time, then at your text, and lets the little sting from last night drain out. Hangman and Rooster can have their bar nights and fire station chaos. The goblin content, the Lana coded captions, the carry videos. Bob will take the quieter corners. The mornings after. The lunch runs. 

Fifty five minutes later he is parked outside your place, truck cleaned out, passenger seat cleared of maps and errant flight manuals. You step out in jeans, a soft tee, matching eyeliner, sunglasses pushed on top of your head and a tote slung over your right shoulder. Less flame girl, more civilian Lucky. He still has to take a breath. “You look nice,” he says, because he is simple and honest. “You look like you slept,” you say back, which in your shared language counts as a compliment.

He drives you to a small coffee place three blocks off the main drag, the one that does real espresso and grilled cheese that drips in exactly the right way. The bell over the door jingles when you walk in. You order without looking at the menu; he pretends to check it even though he always gets the same thing. At the table in the corner you hook one knee up on the chair, wrap both hands around your cup and hum when the first sip hits. “See,” you say. “Already better than getting kidnapped by public servants.” “You posted the kidnapping,” he reminds you, amused. “With a soundtrack.” “For the plot,” you say, prim. “Besides, they are my fan club.” He rolls his eyes, smiling. “Of course they are.” The conversation slides easy. You tell him about the one firefighter who tried to convince you to transfer careers. He tells you about a training flight that went sideways and then right again. You steal one of his fries. He lets you, like always. At some point, without thinking, your foot finds his under the table and stays there. He doesn't move away. He just presses back, gentle, the way he does with everything that matters. When you get up to leave, he catches the door for you. You step past, sunlight catching on the faint strap mark on your shoulder. You glance back once. “Thanks for lunch,” you say. It comes out slightly softer than you meant. “Any time,” he answers, steady. “Text me… you know. If you ever need anything.” You tilt your head, eyes searching his face. Something warm folds in your chest. “Copy, Professor,” you say. “You are very good at this whole quiet hero thing.” He flushes, but the little pleased smile stays. You walk out into the afternoon side by side, shoulders almost touching, and neither of you says the obvious part out loud: You keep coming back to each other, too.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

June, towards the end of the month and midweek. The Hard Deck wears its early-evening hush like a familiar jacket - doors open to the salt, jukebox idle, Penny counting a drawer by touch. The squad filters in by drifts: Coyote first (always early), Rooster humming something he hasn’t decided to inflict on the room yet, Fanboy and Payback in orbit. Phoenix slides onto her usual corner like the place was measured to her elbow.

You clock all of it. You always do. You also clock what’s not there. Bob isn’t. It’s not dramatic. It’s a shape - an empty stool that usually hosts a Coke bottle with the label squared like it’s standing inspection. You feel the absence the way you feel a missing ring on the rail under your palm. You tell yourself he’s flying late. You tell yourself the Navy doesn’t run on your schedule. You tell yourself it’s ridiculous to notice. You notice. You catch yourself scanning the door every time the bell lays down its clean note. The first three times, you let it pass. The fourth time, you hate yourself for the way your chest lifts and then settles when it’s only two chiefs arguing about darts. “Late sim,” Phoenix explains, not looking at you, which is her way of being kind. “Saw the board on my way out.” “Copy,” you answer, like you didn’t just check the door with your whole body. Penny flips a bill, side-eye sharp and fond. “You’re allowed to like the quiet ones.” “I like my bar,” you say, which is true and not all of it.

You busy yourself with something constructive. When in doubt: invent. A zero-proof, for a man who doesn’t drink and also refuses to be an exception. You start with cola - it’s him, steady and unpretentious. Lime for cut. Amarena syrup in the tiniest ribbon for the cherry he’d never order but deserves anyway. A dust of salt on the rim because the place lives by the water and so do you. You shake the lime in a dry tin to wake the oils, pour high for the fizz, bend low to check the meniscus because you like getting it right. You taste, adjust, taste again. Penny leans in, interested despite herself. “House name?” You wipe the shaker and let the right words land. “Steady Eight.” She blinks, then nods. “Put it on the chalkboard. Small. No hearts.” You chalk it in the corner - STEADY EIGHT (0%): cola, lime, amarena, salt dust - then immediately want to rub it out because it looks like you named a thing after a man who might not want it. It’s public enough to pass as a simple menu item. It’s private enough to feel like a note. He doesn’t come that night.

You laugh more loudly than you need to at Rooster’s nonsense. You throw Hangman to the wolves twice because he deserves it. You count your till twice at close so your hands are busier than your head. When the door locks, you look at the chalkboard one more time and wonder if you’ve overreached. If maybe his absence is not Navy, but you. “Stop inventing storms,” Penny says, like she heard your thought through the wood. “He flies. He’ll be back.” You pull a rag over the rail and call it even with yourself. “Copy.”

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Next night, the bell rings, and you don’t look up on purpose. You finish three tickets - lager, old fashioned, two sodas - because Penny would write you up in her soul if you didn’t. Then you look. He’s there, in the door, shoulders easing in the exact second the room takes him in like nothing ever goes missing here for long. You feel relief happen to you. It makes you stupid for a half-beat. You’re already moving before you decide to. Around the service end, out from behind the brass, into the lane Rooster opens with one elbow and a grin. You meet him where the light from the door thins and salt hides in the seams of your shirt.

“Hey,” you say, and it comes out too bright, too warm, too you. Your arms are already around his ribs before your brain clears its throat. It’s not a long hug; it’s a landing - quick, real, the kind that asks Are you okay and answers Yes at the same time. He freezes for a heartbeat - he’s a gentleman and he didn’t plan for this - then he’s there, solid and careful, one hand instinctively finding the middle of your back like he’s steadying a panel on a short final. He smells like sun and hangar and whatever detergent makes a shirt feel like a first good day. You let go first because you have to; you’re at work; you’re not here to be human, not out loud.

“Welcome back,” you tell him, dialing your smile down to professional. It’s still too much. “Late sim?” “Yeah,” he offers, soft, apologetic like he owes you anything. “Ran long.” “Copy,” you say again because it keeps emotion inside the lanes. You hook a thumb toward the bar. “You want-” “I want to not be in the way,” he answers, naturally. “And a Coke.” You nod, backing into your role. “I have something for you.” “What?” He’s wary and curious in equal measure. You lean in like you’re telling him a secret. “Trust me.”

Then you’re back behind the rail, moving with that speed that’s never frantic. You salt a rim with two measured taps, roll a lime once to soften it, press a careful wedge, drop it into a chilled glass. Cola. One small spoon of amarena - just enough red to catch the light. You set it in front of him without a word. He looks down at the chalk dust glittering the rim, then up at the chalkboard, then back to you, eyes widening in that honest way you like. “What’s this?” “Steady Eight,” you say, heart saying please like you hate yourself for it. “I built it yesterday. For you -” You catch yourself, pivot. “- for the menu. Zero-proof. Public, but -” You slide it closer. “Yours first.” For one second you can’t hide it - the insecurity that maybe he didn’t come because you are too much, that maybe you misread the steady, that maybe you named a thing you weren’t allowed to name. You decide to ban these thoughts for now. He takes a sip. The cherry tucks under the cola, the lime cuts where it should, the salt does that alchemy you were hoping for. His mouth curves, small and real. “That’s unfair,” he says, and you flinch until he finishes, “-to every other drink.” Relief makes you a little reckless. “It’s public,” you warn, playful to cover the shake that wants to start in your hands. “Squad can order it.” “Understood,” he counters. “But you slid mine first.” “Operational priority,” you deadpan, and feel the heat anyway.

Rooster is incapable of seeing a quiet moment and leaving it alone. He drifts over, eyes on the glass. “What’s the bobtail need-to-know here?” “Steady Eight,” you say, and Rooster’s grin ignites like he’s been waiting his whole life to be insufferable about this. “Baby on Board gets a namesake,” he announces to no one helpful at all. “Make room for the christening.” “Respectfully,” Hangman puts in, shouldering up and squinting at the salt rim, “how does a man earn one?” “You listen,” you tell him, sliding waters to the loudest offenders, “you ask, you don’t reach behind my bar, and you tip like your mother raised you right.” Phoenix flicks a look at Bob’s glass, at the way his thumb fits the curve just so. “Look at you.” She sounds pleased. “VIP treatment.” He tries to hide in his Coke and fails because it isn’t Coke. “It’s on the board,” he says, as if that makes it generalized. “Public,” Rooster concedes, “but also private.” He tips his chin to you. “She slid yours first.” 

You ignore them all like a professional and lean in just enough for him to hear you over the noise. “Glad you came back.” He meets your eyes. “I wasn’t gone.” It’s too much and perfectly measured. You smile like you didn’t just melt a little. “Okay.” Hangman claps once, delighted. “Somebody print the wedding menus-” Penny rings the bell hard enough to re-seat the room. “House rule refresh,” she calls. “If you narrate other people’s business, you clean tables.” “Objection,” Rooster says. “Overruled,” Penny returns, sliding a bar rag in his direction. He recoils like it’s a snake. Laughter breaks the tension, which is exactly what the bell is for. You tap the Steady Eight with your knuckle. “Tell me if the cherry is too much.” “It’s not,” and it lands as honest as gravity. He takes another sip, then clears his throat like he’s braver than yesterday. “And… Thank you. For making a thing that lets me belong without having to explain.” That one hits you where your good truths live. You keep your face steady and let your voice be the reveal. Maybe you had no reason to be insecure after all. “Always. It's my job.” He blushes and you slide back into motion - orders to fill, waters to sneak onto the rail, a table to rescue from its own decision-making - but you pass him once more and let your hand rest on the bar right beside his, close enough that your knuckles almost touch. Not a hug. Not nothing. 

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Moving day arrives on a Saturday, the last day of June, which nobody planned and everybody shows up for anyway. You find this out at seven forty-three in the morning when your phone buzzes on the nightstand and does not stop.

Dagger Circus

Rooster: good morning we are outside

You sit up. Stare at the message. Look at the window. It is not even eight o'clock yet.

Lucky: rooster it is not even eight

Rooster: correct

Rooster: we have coffee

Hangman: and two trucks

Hangman: because respectfully you have a lot of stuff for someone who lives in an apartment the size of a shoebox

Lucky: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT MY PLACE LOOKS LIKE

Coyote: phoenix

Phoenix: i have been to your place. i may have described it to the group

Lucky: i am going to kill all of you

Fanboy: we have donuts

Lucky: i will be down in five minutes

They are, in fact, outside. All of them. Rooster is leaning against his truck. There is another truck you haven't seen before - it is Coyote's, commanded without sufficient notice by the look on Coyote's face - holding a cardboard tray of coffees like he is presenting evidence. Hangman is already sizing up the building with the expression of a man calculating load-bearing capacity. Phoenix is in leggings and a pullover, hair up, looking like she has been awake for an hour and has already made a plan. Payback and Fanboy are arguing about something near the tailgate. Bob is standing slightly apart from all of it in his old hoodie, hands in his pockets, and when you push through the front door with your hair half done and your jacket not yet zipped he looks up and does that thing where his face just - settles. Like you arriving is a thing that makes sense.

"You didn't have to do this," you say, to all of them and none of them. "We know," Phoenix says. "Coffee first. Then boxes." You take the cup Rooster holds out. It is your order, exactly, which means Phoenix told him, which means this was organized at a level you weren't consulted on. You decide to be grateful instead of territorial about it. "I have a system," you say. "For the packing." "Of course you do," Hangman says. "We will ignore it lovingly." "You will not -" "Show us the system," Bob says, from behind his own coffee, and because he says it like he means it and will actually follow it, you feel the knot in your chest loosen a notch. "Okay," you say. "Follow me."

The apartment looks smaller with the intention of leaving in it. You have started, at least - boxes from the Hard Deck's stock room, broken down and rebuilt at the kitchen table last night, labeled in your bar chalk handwriting with increasingly specific categories. KITCHEN - USEFUL. KITCHEN - PROBABLY USEFUL. KITCHEN - OPTIMISTIC. BOOKS - HEAVY, SORRY. MEMORIES - HANDLE WITH LOVE OR I WILL FIND YOU. Hangman reads the last one. "Find us and do what, exactly." "Unspecified," you tell him. "But I will be creative." "She means it," Phoenix says, already moving toward the bookshelf.

They fan out without being directed, which is both impressive and slightly alarming. Rooster takes the kitchen because he claims to have a system for wrapping glasses that involves less breakage than anyone else's method, which you choose to believe. Coyote and Payback start on the heavy furniture, moving with the quiet efficiency of people who have done physical work together before and don't need to talk about it. Fanboy discovers your record of bar charts and mood boards pinned behind the bedroom door and spends four minutes reading them with the reverence of someone studying holy text before Phoenix removes him from the situation. Hangman carries boxes down the stairs with more care than you expect and less commentary than usual, which you will think about later.

Bob stays in the bedroom with you. Not because anyone assigned him there. He just gravitates to where you are, the way he always does, and starts carefully wrapping the things on your desk - the mirror, the little makeup jars, the books standing at attention - in newspaper with a methodical neatness that makes your chest do something soft and inconvenient. "You don't have to do the breakables," you say. "That's the annoying part." "I know," he answers, smoothing the paper around the corner of the mirror. "I don't mind annoying parts." You look at him for a beat longer than necessary. He doesn't notice, or pretends not to. "The plants go last," you tell him. "And they go in my car, not the trucks. I don't trust the trucks." "Coyote's truck is fine," he says. "The plants go in my car," you repeat. "Copy," he grins, which is the right answer.

By nine thirty the bedroom is half empty and the living room looks like a very specific kind of disaster. Boxes everywhere, some sealed and labeled, some open and waiting. Fanboy has created a staging area by the door that nobody asked for but is genuinely useful. Payback found a crate of things under your bed that you forgot existed and is carrying it out with the diplomatic expression of a man who has decided not to comment. "What is in the crate," you call. "Things," Payback says. "What kind of things?" "The kind that were under your bed." "Payback." "I am not looking," he says. "I am simply transporting."

You abandon the shelf you are clearing and go to look. It is: a spare blanket, three books you thought you'd lost, a broken lamp you kept meaning to fix, a shoebox of photographs, a jar of sea glass from the first week you arrived in this town when you went to the beach alone on a Tuesday because you didn't know anyone yet. You look at the jar for a moment. At the glass inside it, worn smooth and pale, green and white and one piece of blue that you remember finding and holding up to the sky. "Lucky." Phoenix is beside you, quiet. She looks at the jar, then at you. "You okay?" "Yeah," you say. You mean it. "Just - it's a lot. Moving is always a lot." She puts one hand on your shoulder, brief and warm. "You are moving somewhere better," she smiles softly. "And you are not doing it alone." You nod. You pick up the jar and put it carefully in the box marked MEMORIES - HANDLE WITH LOVE OR I WILL FIND YOU, which you made last night at midnight and which contains exactly the things that can't be replaced.

Bob appears in the doorway with a roll of tape and the look of a man who clocked the pause and is giving you space while also staying in range. "The shelf is clear." He holds up the tape. "Should I start on the hanging plants?" "No." You turn back to the shelf. "Those are last. I told you." "You told me," he confirms. "I am asking for timeline purposes." "Timeline purposes," you repeat, slightly fond in spite of yourself. "Yes. After the books." "Copy," and he disappears again. Phoenix waits until his footsteps fade down the hall. Then she looks at you. "You know he organized this." You look up from the box. "What?"

"All of it." She gestures loosely at the apartment, at the noise of eight people moving your life downstairs. "He texted the chat Thursday night after you told him about the letter. Said you were moving Saturday, said you needed hands, said anyone who couldn't make it before eight should have a good reason." She picks up a book, turns it over, sets it in the box. "Coyote organized the truck. Rooster got the coffee order from me. Fanboy and Payback just showed up because they are constitutionally incapable of missing something." A pause. "Bob wrote the message though. The whole thing."

You are quiet for a moment. Through the wall you can hear Hangman singing badly over Rooster telling him to stop, and under it the steadier sound of Bob setting down boxes with carful, even thumps. "He didn't tell me," you murmur. "No." Phoenix doesn't look up from the shelf. "He wouldn't." You look at the box in front of you. At the sea glass jar sitting on top of it, waiting to be wrapped. "Phoenix." "I am just noting the data," she concludes, and goes back to the boxes.

At some point Rooster puts music on from his phone propped against the kitchen wall, which begins at a reasonable volume and escalates incrementally every twenty minutes in the way Rooster escalates things, so that by ten fifteen you are packing books to Fleetwood Mac at a volume that makes the neighbor's door open and then, upon seeing the situation, close again without comment. Hangman sings along. Badly. Loudly. With conviction. "Jake." He turns, carrying a box, completely untroubled. "Yes." "You sound like a cat in a spin cycle," you tell him.  "I sound like a man in his prime," he returns, unoffended. "Those are not the same thing." "Agree to disagree," and he disappears down the stairs still singing. Coyote passes you with a box of kitchen things, expression diplomatic. "He has been like this since five AM." A beat. "He was excited." "About moving my boxes," you ask. Coyote glances at you over the top of the box. "About being useful to you." Simple. Without ceremony. And then he is gone too, and you are left standing in your half-emptied living room with that sentence sitting somewhere in your chest alongside the jar of sea glass and the photograph of yourself at twenty-two and the whole complicated weight of being cared for by people who showed up at eight in the morning with two trucks, coffee and ready to help you though any minor and major disaster the world might throw at you.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The plants are, as agreed, last. This becomes a group project despite your explicit instructions that the plants were yours and you were handling them. "I am just holding it," Fanboy defends himself, holding a trailing pothos. "You are carrying it to my car," you say. "I am accompanying it to your car," he argues. "Emotionally supporting it." "Put it in the passenger seat," you tell him. "Gently." "Obviously gently," he says, offended. "I am not a monster."

Bob is handling the big floor plant from the corner - the one that took two years to get to that height and that you have moved three times and that has survived everything including the bad winter and the sublet that went wrong and the six months you forgot to fertilize it. He carries it with both arms, careful, the way he carries everything that matters. He doesn't ask where it goes. He looks at you. "Backseat," you say. "Behind the driver's side. It leans that way." He nods and goes.

Rooster appears with the small cactus from the windowsill, holding it at arm's length with the expression of a man confronting something personally threatening. "What about this one," he asks. "Careful of the spines." "I am aware of the spines," he says. "The spines are aware of me. We have reached an understanding." "Put it in the cupholder." He looks at it. Looks at you. "It fits?" "It fits," you laugh. "It always fits. Don't ask me why." He goes. Phoenix takes the hanging plant from the hook by the window, the last thing left in the bedroom, and hands it to you. "Yours," she says. You take it. The room is empty now, properly empty, the walls bare, the floor clear, the light coming through the window in a way that looks different without your things in it. You stand in it for a moment. It was a good apartment. Small and expensive and yours, and it got you here, and that is enough. "Okay," you say. "Okay," Phoenix says, from the door. You walk out. You don't look back, which is not because you don't care but because you already know what empty looks like and you are going toward full.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Penny's house smells like coffee and something baking, which you will discover later is Amelia attempting banana bread at nine in the morning out of what she describes as a need to contribute and what Penny describes as a need to use the bananas before they turned. The bread is slightly dense and entirely perfect. They are both on the front step when the convoy pulls up - your car, Coyote's truck, Rooster's truck with the overflow -  and Amelia rockets off the step before you have fully stopped the engine. 

You open the door and she is already there, arms around your neck, bouncing slightly on her toes. "You are here." Like it is a fact she has been waiting to confirm. "You are actually here. Your plants are in the car. You are here." "I am here," you murmur, into her hair. "I made the room nice." She is talking fast, the way she does when she is nervous about something she cares about. "Mom helped but mostly me. I put a candle. And I moved the desk to face the window because the light is better and you need good light for your make up and I remembered you mentioned that once." She pulls back, checks your face. "Was that okay? Moving the desk?" "That is perfect." You mean it completely. 

She beams. Then she looks past you at the truck and the squad piling out of various vehicles and the furniture and the small mountain of boxes beginning to accumulate on the pavement, and her eyes go wide. "Oh my God. All of them came?" "Apparently." She turns to face the assembled chaos of the Dagger squad unloading a truck on a Saturday morning, and you watch her face doing something that is trying very hard not to be overwhelmed and is losing the fight. Rooster raises a hand. She waves back, a little dazed. Coyote gives her a nod. Phoenix smiles at her, the real one. Hangman makes a bow. Payback and Fanboy wave in unison.

Bob is the last out of the truck, setting down a box and then straightening and pushing his glasses up. He looks at Amelia. "Where do you want the books?" Practical and kind. "Heavy boxes first." Amelia blinks. Recovers. Points to the door. "Downstairs, down the hall, second door. I labeled the wall." "You labeled the wall," Bob repeats. He thinks about the painting he helped out with a few days ago. "With a sticky note," Amelia clarifies. A beat. "It says LUCKY'S ROOM. In case of confusion." "Good thinking," and he picks up the box. Amelia watches him go and then turns to you. "He is so nice," at normal volume, which is too loud. "Amelia." "What, it is a factual statement -" "Go help with the boxes." She goes, grinning, and you pick up the hanging plant and follow everyone inside.

Penny is in the kitchen, which is where Penny is when things are happening that she wants to be adjacent to without being in the middle of. She has made a full pot of coffee and there is orange juice and the slightly dense banana bread cut into slices on a board, and when you come through the door with the plant she looks at you over the rim of her mug with the expression that means she has already assessed everything and found it satisfactory. "How was the apartment," she asks. "Empty," you say. "It looked different empty." "They always do," she says. "The new one will look different full."

You set the plant on the counter for a moment. Look at her. "Thank you," you say, and you mean it for all of it - the room, the morning, the bread, the fact that she is standing in her kitchen on a Saturday acting like this is entirely ordinary when it is not ordinary at all, when it is actually one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for you. Penny picks up the plant and moves it to the windowsill above the sink, where the light is better. "Don't thank me," she smiles softly. "Bring the boxes in." You bring the boxes in.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

It is loud and chaotic and completely lovely. Hangman and Rooster disagree about the most efficient route up the stairs, which results in a brief standoff on the landing that Phoenix resolves by threatening to make them both carry the heaviest boxes twice. Fanboy drops a small box of bathroom things on the landing and spends three minutes collecting everything that rolled out with the energy of a man defusing a bomb. Payback and Coyote have developed a system for the heavy furniture that requires periodic shouted communication in what sounds like a private language they invented in the last twenty minutes. Bob moves between tasks quietly and without announcement, and you keep finding evidence of him - a shelf lined with books in the order you would have put them, your desk items arranged exactly as they were in the old room, the big floor plant settled in the corner where the light comes through the window just right.

Amelia is everywhere. She has appointed herself director of operations and is taking the role seriously, clipboard unnecessary but spiritually present. She directs traffic on the stairs. She tells Hangman where the bathroom boxes go when he reads the label wrong and tries to put them in your room. She makes three trips carrying things herself, smaller boxes and bags, and you watch her carry your shoebox of photographs upstairs with both hands, careful, like she knows what it is without having been told.

At some point the banana bread disappears entirely. Nobody admits responsibility. At another point Hangman, carrying a box past the doorway of your room, stops and looks at the window with the morning light coming through it and says, completely sincerely and without irony, "Lucky, this is a good room," and then keeps walking, and you stand there for a second with a box of kitchen things in your arms and feel something settle in your chest that does not have a clean name but is warm and real and has something to do with being known.

By noon the truck is empty. The room is full, in the specific wonderful chaos of a space that has just been moved into - boxes stacked, some open, the furniture in approximately the right positions, your plants distributed around the room in the places that look right and the places that don't yet but will. The bed is against the wall under the window the way you wanted it. The desk faces the garden. The little sofa is in the corner with the fuzzy carpet in front of it. There is still a lot to do, unpacking and arranging and the slow work of making a space yours, but the bones of it are there. The shape is there. And in the corner, Bob has somehow, without being asked or directed, put the sea glass jar on the windowsill where the light hits it in the afternoon.

"Bob."

He turns from where he is setting a box down. "Yeah."

"The jar." Your voice comes out quieter than you mean it to. "Thank you." He looks at it, then at you. Something in his expression is careful and open at the same time, the way it gets when he has done something he means and doesn't want to make a big thing of. "It seemed like the right place." It is. Of course it is.

Penny calls everyone for lunch sometime after the last book has made it on the shelf, which means she has been quietly cooking since ten and nobody knew. There is pasta, which feeds nine people with room to spare, and salad, and bread from the bakery two streets over that she sent Amelia for at eleven on the condition that Amelia did not detour via the arcade, which Amelia agreed to and mostly honored.

You all sit around the table and various surfaces, the squad distributed between chairs and counter and the two extra stools Penny produced from somewhere, and the noise is warm and overlapping and smells like garlic and coffee and the particular combination of people who like each other. Rooster starts a story about the truck that turns into a story about a different truck from three years ago that Hangman disputes at every beat. Fanboy and Payback are already making plans to come back and help you assemble the shelf brackets, which nobody asked them to do. Coyote is talking quietly to Penny about something involving the bar's sound system, which is apparently a separate ongoing project. Phoenix is beside you, not saying much, just present, the way she is when things are good and don't need commentary.

Amelia is at the end of the table eating pasta and watching all of it with the expression of someone who has been given something they wanted and cannot quite believe it arrived. You look at her. She looks back. She tilts her head toward the room full of people, the table full of food, the house that is already, improbably, starting to feel like something. Is this okay, her face says. Yes, yours says back. This is more than okay.

Bob is across the table, Coke in hand, listening to something Rooster is saying and occasionally correcting the details with the patient precision of a man who was there and remembers it differently and is not going to let it go. His eyes find yours across the table and he does that small, quiet thing with his mouth that is not quite a smile yet and entirely is one.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

You get home at half past nine a few days later with chalk dust on your hands and a new bruise on your hip from the corner of the stock shelf, which has been trying to kill you since March. The Hard Deck is clean, the till is counted, the last remains of Western Night - a few hats in lost and found, a few random pieces of straw some jokster hit in a few corners finally all removed - are finally taken care of. You are tired in the specific way that comes from a full shift followed by two hours of admin, the kind of tired that lives in your shoulders and the backs of your knees.

Your apartment is quiet. You like it quiet after the bar. You kick your shoes off at the door and leave them crooked, which you will fix later and then not fix later. You drop your bag on the kitchen chair. You put the kettle on because tea is what you do when you are too tired to think about what you actually want, and you sort through the small pile of post on the counter that you have been ignoring since Tuesday because nothing in an envelope has ever made your life better and you are an optimist about deferral.

There is a bill. A takeaway menu. A card from your aunt in a handwriting that has been getting harder to read lately. And a letter. Formal envelope. Your landlord's name in the top left corner. You know the logo. You have been paying him every month for two years without being late, not once, because the fear of being late lives in your chest like a stone you got used to carrying. The fear of being behind, of being one bad month away from having to start over, of having the floor drop out - it is not dramatic, it is just there, the way a scar is just there, the way you still reach for the store brand even when the tips have been good for months.

You open it standing at the counter with the kettle starting to hiss behind you. You read it once. Then you read it again, slower, because the first time your brain refused to take it in all at once and filed it under surely not. Dear tenant. Renovation works. Planning permission granted. Vacant possession required. Two weeks from the date of this letter. You look at the date on the letter. It was sent four days ago. You have ten days.

The kettle reaches a boil and clicks off and the silence after it is very loud. You put the letter down on the counter. You pick it up again. You read the relevant paragraph a third time as if the words might rearrange themselves into something that makes sense. They don't. The date doesn't change. Ten days is still ten days and the rental market in this city is what it is and you know what it is because you spent three months looking before you found this place and that was two years ago when things were cheaper and you were younger and the stone in your chest was newer and heavier. You pull out the chair and sit down.

The letter sits in front of you on the kitchen table. The takeaway menu is next to it, which is so absurd it almost makes you laugh except that the laugh doesn't come. Just a small, shaky exhale that is the beginning of something you are not going to let become crying, not yet, not on a Tuesday night after a long shift when you are still in your bar clothes with chalk dust on your hands.

You have a month's rent saved. Maybe two if you are careful. You have been careful. You have been careful for many years, even more since you moved to San Diego, careful in the way that means always choosing the store brand, always checking the markdown shelf, always letting yourself have the fancy chocolate bar once in a while but only once in a while and only when the rest of the numbers add up first. You have been careful and steady and it has been working and now there is a letter on your kitchen table that says ten days and the numbers are doing arithmetic you don't like.

You think about the deposit. Whether you will get it back in time to use it. Whether the renovations are real or whether this is the kind of landlord who uses the word renovations to mean something else entirely. You think about viewings and references and the first month upfront that every listing requires, which means you need the deposit back before you can use it and you need somewhere to go in ten days. You think about the gap between those two things. The gap is not nothing.

Your hands are shaking a little. You notice this the way you notice things at the bar that need handling - with a kind of detached, tired inventory. Except this is not a situation you can walk through and manage with a clean voice and a smile and a hand on someone's arm. This is a problem that has a date on it and you are sitting alone in a kitchen at half past nine and you don't know what to do with your hands. You pick up your phone.

You open the app and look at the list of names and your brain just - stalls. Rooster would come immediately and be so worried that you would end up managing him. Phoenix would be practical and good and you love her but you cannot be efficient right now, you cannot do the steps yet, you just need - you don't know what you need. Hangman would make a joke before he could stop himself and then feel terrible about it.

Penny.

You think about Penny for a long moment. About everything she has already given you - the job, the way she said you are one of mine the night of the first motto party like it was simply a fact. You think about showing up at her door at half past nine with a letter and a shaky voice and a gap in your numbers, and your chest tightens at the thought of it. Not because Penny would turn you away. But because you are so tired of needing things. Because you spent a long time being the person who handled it, who packed the borrowed suitcase, who quit the job with no backup plan and figured it out anyway, and the idea of sitting in front of someone you respect and saying I don't know what to do feels like handing something over you have been keeping upright through sheer stubbornness.

Your thumb hovers over the screen. Then it moves, almost before you decide it, and presses Bob's name. It rings twice. "Hey," he says, and his voice is exactly what it always is - unhurried, even, the voice of someone who picks up and means it. Something in your throat does something complicated. "Hey," you say back, and it comes out wrong. Too small. Too thin at the edges. You hear it. He hears it too, immediately, because he always does. A beat. Careful. "What's wrong?"

"I just -" You stop. Try again. "I got a letter. From my landlord." Your voice is doing that thing where it thins out when you are holding something together at the seams. "He's doing renovations. He needs the place vacant." A breath. "In ten days. I got the letter four days late so it's actually ten, not fourteen, and I just -" You press your hand flat on the table. "I don't really know what to do right now."

There is a silence on the other end, but it is not an empty silence. It is the kind where someone is actually taking something in. Actually staying. "Are you home," he asks. "Yeah." "Okay." A pause, clean and decided. "I'm coming over." "Bob, you don't have to -"

"I know," he says, and it is not an argument, just a fact. "I'm coming. Have you eaten? Is there tea?" The question is so calm and so specific that your eyes prick, which you were not expecting. "I was going to make tea," you say, and your voice catches on the last word, just slightly, just enough. "Make the tea," he tells you, quietly. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes." He hangs up before you can tell him it's fine, you're fine, you'll figure it out.

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You make the tea. You spill a little water on the counter and wipe it up, which gives your hands something to do for thirty seconds. You wrap both hands around the mug and stand at the counter and look at the letter and then stop looking at it because looking at it is not helping. You are still standing there when the knock comes. Thirteen minutes. You counted without meaning to.

You open the door. He is in a hoodie and jeans, the old ones, which means he was home and came straight out. His keys are still in his hand. He looks at your face and whatever he finds there makes something in his expression go quiet and steady and decided, all at once, the same way it does when something needs handling and he has already decided he is the one handling it. "Hey," he says. "Hey," you say.

He doesn't say anything else. He just steps forward and puts his arms around you, careful at first in that way he has, starting gentle and landing solid, like he is checking first that you want this and then committing to it completely. One hand flat on your back. The other at your shoulder. He is warm from the drive and he smells like detergent and the cold night air and something steady underneath both of those things.

You did not know you were going to lean into it until you do. Your forehead finds his shoulder and you feel the exhale leave your body like something that has been braced since the letter, since the silence after the kettle, since the numbers started doing their quiet terrible arithmetic. You don't cry. You just breathe, and let the shaking in your hands have somewhere to go. He doesn't say it's okay. He doesn't say anything at all. He just holds on, steady and unhurried, and lets you have the minute.

When you pull back he lets you go without making it a moment. You wipe your face with the back of your hand out of reflex even though there is nothing to wipe and he looks at the wall with great interest. "Come in." He comes in. He clocks the shoes by the door, the bag on the chair, the mug, the letter. His eyes stop on the letter the way they stop on anything that needs assessing. "Can I?" "Yeah." He picks it up. He reads it the way he reads everything - fully, without rushing, taking the whole thing in before responding to any part of it. You watch his jaw set slightly when he reaches the date. "He sent this four days ago." Flat. Certain. "I know." He sets it down. Looks at you steadily. "You have ten days, not fourteen." "I know."

He nods once. Pulls out the chair across from yours and sits down. He doesn't catastrophize and he doesn't minimize. He puts the letter between you like a problem that has a solution, even if the solution is not visible from here yet. His hands fold on the table, calm and present, the posture of a man who has settled in and is not going anywhere. "Okay." His eyes find yours, steady and unhurried. "Talk me through where you are. Numbers, timeline, whatever you have got." And because it is Bob, and because he asked like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to be asked, you tell him. The deposit and whether it will come back in time. The savings, which feel more exposed to say out loud than they do to carry around quietly. The math of first month and deposit on somewhere new. The gap. He listens without interrupting. When you finish he is quiet for a moment, thinking, and you can see him doing it - the same focused calm he has on the tarmac, running the checklist, looking for the margin.

"We should talk to Penny," he says. You look at the letter. "It's nearly ten o'clock." "Penny doesn't sleep before midnight," he says. "You know that." He pauses. "She is going to want to know about this. Not because she can fix it, necessarily, but because she will want to know." "I don't want to show up at her door asking for something," you utter, and you hear the old stubbornness in your own voice, the one that sounds like self-sufficiency and is sometimes just pride wearing a practical coat. He looks at you. "You are not asking for something. You are telling someone who cares about you what is happening." A beat, gentle and exact. "You know the difference. You have told Amelia that exact thing." The fact that he knows you said that, that he listened closely enough to know you said that, lands somewhere in your chest and stays there. "Okay," you agree, after a moment. "Penny."

He stands. You stand. You pick up the letter and fold it back into the envelope and pick up your keys and your jacket. You look around the apartment - at the shoes crooked by the door, at the mug on the table, at the place you have made into something that feels like yours over years of careful, steady work. "Hey," Bob says, quiet, from beside you. You look at him. "It's going to be okay," he tell you. Not as comfort, not as something to say. As a calculation he has actually run. "Not tonight maybe. But it will be." You believe him. That surprises you a little, and then it doesn't. "Copy." He opens the door. You step out into the night.

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Penny's house is ten minutes from the bar, which you know because you have walked it twice - once when she showed you the route after a late close, once on a Sunday afternoon when Amelia texted you from the front step and said come over I am bored and mom made too much pasta. The lights are on downstairs. Of course they are.

Bob knocks. You stand beside him on the front step with the letter in your hand and the cool night air on your face and the distant sound of the surf, always the surf, always underneath everything in this town. Footsteps. The door opens. Penny is in a cardigan and reading glasses pushed up on her head, which means she was doing the books, which she does on Tuesday nights because Tuesday is the only night quiet enough to think. She takes one look at your face. Then one look at Bob. Then at the envelope in your hand.

She steps back and holds the door open. "Come in." No preamble. No what's happened or is everything okay. Just Penny, reading the situation in one glance and making room for it. You step inside. The house smells like the bar's cleaner and coffee and something warmer underneath, the particular smell of a home that has been lived in well. The hallway light is on. Through the sitting room door you can see the lamp on, a mug on the side table, the books she keeps beside her chair. And then, from the top of the stairs, a voice. "Mom, who is it?" Penny tips her head up. "Lucky and Bob."

A pause. Then the sound of feet on stairs, fast, and Amelia appears at the bottom in an oversized sleep shirt and socks that don't match, hair half out of a braid she clearly fell asleep in. She looks at you. Her eyes go to the envelope. Back to your face. "What happened," she asks, and her voice is younger than usual, the careful voice she uses when something has gone wrong and she is trying to be older than she is about it. "Come sit down," Penny says, to all of you.

You sit at Penny's kitchen table, which is bigger than yours and has a fruit bowl in the middle and a child's drawing stuck to the fridge that Amelia definitely made years ago and Penny has definitely never taken down. Penny puts the kettle on without asking. Amelia drops into the chair beside you, close enough that your arms touch, and doesn't say anything, just stays there, which is exactly right. You put the letter on the table. Penny reads it standing up, kettle noise building behind her. She reads it the way she reads everything - once through fast, then back to the parts that matter. You watch her take in the date. You watch her take in vacant possession. You watch her set it down.

She is quiet for a moment. Not the silence of someone who doesn't know what to say. The silence of someone thinking, actually thinking, turning something over with the same hands-on-the-bar calm she uses when a problem comes in over the rail and needs managing before it becomes something bigger. "Ten days," she says. "Ten days," you confirm. Another silence. Amelia's foot finds yours under the table, a small warm press that she doesn't comment on.

Bob sits across from you with his hands around a mug Penny put in front of him without asking, because Penny always knows what people need before they say it. His eyes are on you, not the letter, the way they always are. Checking your face, not the problem. Leaving the problem to you.

Penny pours her own tea. Sets the pot down. Pulls out the chair at the head of the table and sits in it and looks at you with the direct, unhurried attention that she uses when something is going to be dealt with and she is the one dealing with it. "I have a spare room," she says. The kitchen goes very still. "It has a bed in it already," Penny continues, in the same tone she uses to go over the stock order, even and matter-of-fact. "It needs a fresh coat of paint on one wall where Amelia put stickers when she was nine and I never got around to finishing the job." She pauses. "The window looks at the garden. There is good light in the morning." Another pause, smaller. "You are basically family anyway. You might as well act like it." You open your mouth. Nothing comes out. You try again. "Penny -" "Before you argue," Penny says, "I want you to think about whether you would tell Amelia not to accept help when she needed it." That lands with the precision of something thrown by a person who knows exactly where the target is.

Amelia, beside you, has gone very still in the particular way she goes still when she is trying not to make a face that will give away how much something has affected her. She is failing. Her eyes are bright and her bottom lip is doing something she is pretending it is not doing. She is staring at the fruit bowl with great intensity. "Amelia," Penny smiles slightly, not looking at her. "You can say it." Amelia's composure lasts approximately one more second. "Oh my God," she squeeks, and then she has both arms around you from the side, face pressed into your shoulder, squeezing with the specific force of a teenager who has decided something and is not going to be subtle about it. "You are going to live here. You are going to live here and we can have breakfast and I can show you where mom hides the good biscuits and you can help me with my English essay and -" "Amelia," Penny says. "And," Amelia continues, muffled by your shoulder, "you can put your stupid lucky charms in the bathroom cabinet and leave your boots by the door and it is going to be so good, it is going to be so -" "Amelia." She surfaces, bright-eyed and completely unrepentant. "What?" "Let her breathe," Penny says.

Amelia loosens her grip by approximately ten percent. You laugh, sudden and real and a little broken at the edges, the kind of laugh that happens when something has been tight for too long and then isn't. You press your hand over your mouth for a second, feeling the shake of it, feeling Amelia still attached to your arm like she is making absolutely sure you cannot leave. "Sorry," Amelia mutters, to you, and she means it, but she also does not let go. "I just. I really want you to say yes." You look at Penny, who is watching you both with the expression she saves for things she will not name out loud because naming them makes them fragile. The lamp light is warm on her face. The fruit bowl sits between you. On the fridge, behind her, the child's drawing that never got taken down. "The wall with the stickers," you say, voice not entirely steady. "I will repaint it." Penny's mouth does its small, certain thing. "I know you will." "And I will pay rent," you continue. "Proper rent, not a favour." "We will discuss a number," Penny says. "A fair one." "And I will not be in the way -"

"Lucky." Penny's voice is quiet and even and final in the way it only gets when she means something completely. "You have not been in the way since the first night you walked into my bar." She looks at you across the table, across the tea and the letter and the fruit bowl and everything else between you. "You are not a guest here. You are not an arrangement. You are -" She stops. Picks the right word the way she picks everything, carefully. "Mine. The same way this bar is mine and Amelia is mine and this table is mine." A beat. "That does not come with conditions." Amelia makes a sound into your shoulder that is either a sob or a laugh and is probably both.

Bob, across the table, is looking at the surface of his tea with the focused attention of a man who is very moved and is determined not to show it in a way that makes this about him. His jaw is set. His ears are pink. He takes a careful sip of his tea and sets the mug down and squares it on the table, and you see his shoulders settle, something releasing in them, the thing that drove him here thirteen minutes after you called, the thing that has been sitting in the set of his spine all evening.

"Okay," you say. It comes out soft and small and means everything. "Okay. Yes. Thank you." Penny nods once, like it is settled, like it was always going to be settled, like she has been keeping a shape for you in this house the same way the bar has been keeping a shape for you since March. Amelia squeezes you so hard you make a noise. "Sorry," she says again, not sorry at all. "I am just. Really happy." "I know." Your voice is thick. You put your arm around her and feel her burrow in like she has always done this, like this is already old muscle memory between you, the specific weight and warmth of someone who has decided they are yours and is not going to be talked out of it.

Penny stands, collects the mugs, tops them off without asking. She sets a plate of biscuits on the table that she retrieved from a cabinet Amelia will absolutely tell you about later, the hiding spot revealed within twenty-four hours of you moving in. She sits back down and picks up her tea and looks at the three of you at her table and says nothing, because Penny does not need to say the things she shows.

Outside, the surf keeps its time. The lamp makes a warm circle in the kitchen. The letter sits at the edge of the table, still there, still real, but smaller somehow than it was an hour ago. Problems look different when you are not carrying them in an empty apartment at half past nine. They look like things that have solutions. Like things that have timelines and steps and people who will help you work through them without making you ask twice.

Bob catches your eye across the table. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. He just looks at you with that steady, even attention, the one that has been the same since March, since the first night, since a chilly evening when the room bent a little and a man with careful hands decided to pay attention and never quite stopped. You look back at him. Something in your chest, the part that has been tight since you opened the envelope, since before that even, since long before you came to this town and this bar and this table - loosens another notch.

"Thank you," you say, and you mean it for all of them, for the room, for the fact that this is what home looks like when you finally let yourself have one. Amelia steals a biscuit. Penny pretends not to notice. Bob's mouth curves, small and real. Outside, somewhere down the street, a cat argues briefly with the night and loses. The lamp hums. The tea steams. You are going to be okay.

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The spare room is generous. Big enough that your voice has a little echo when you first walk in with the paint, big enough that the drop cloth lies flat without argument, big enough that the stepladder does not feel like a threat to anyone's personal space. The window is wide and opens properly, both panels swinging out to the garden, and the morning air comes through clean and unhurried, carrying cut grass and salt from somewhere distant. It is, you think, an extremely good room to paint.

Bob stands in the middle of it with the expression he uses for flight planning, which is to say he is already running logistics on a bedroom and taking it completely seriously. He turns once, slow, assessing the walls in order. His eyes go to the ceiling line, the corners, the accent wall, the window. He is holding a roller. He has not used it yet. "We can work in sections," he concludes. "We are painting a room," you tell him. "Not invading Normandy." "The principle is the same," he returns. "Systematic coverage, no overlaps, work from the top down." You look at him standing there in his old jeans with a roller in his hand, applying mission planning to a Sunday morning in Penny's spare room, and feel something that is mostly fond and slightly helpless. "You are going to be unbearable about this, aren't you." "I prefer thorough," he says. "I know you do," you tell him, and hand him the tray.

Penny has taken Amelia to run errands, which was phrased as I need help carrying things and was transparently an excuse to give you and Bob the house for a few hours, which Penny executed with the casual genius she applies to everything. She left a playlist on the kitchen speaker that drifts down the hall - something seventies, warm and unhurried. She left coffee in the pot. She left a note on the paint tin that said one coat today, check coverage tomorrow, do not paint the window shut again which implies a history you are going to ask about later.

You change into your oldest jeans and a tee shirt you have been using as a paint shirt since you were twenty-three, which has the archaeological record of every wall you have ever touched. Bob is in a grey shirt that was probably once used for something respectable and jeans with a small tear at the knee he has not bothered to fix, which you find unreasonably charming.

You tape the skirting together. He tapes the ceiling line because he is taller and more precise and you are already learning the specific economy of working alongside him, the way tasks distribute between you without much discussion, the way he moves into the gap you leave and you move into the gap he leaves like you have been doing this for longer than you have. "Okay," you say, rolling up your sleeves. "Top down. No overlaps. Systematic." He looks at you, surprised and pleased. "You were listening." "I retain information," you say. "I just choose when to deploy it." He huffs a quiet laugh and opens the first tin.

It goes well for about twenty minutes. The room is large enough that you are not immediately in each other's way, which helps, and the walls are taking the white easily, the old colour lifting underneath like the paint is glad to be replaced. The open window pulls a steady draft through, and the curtains Penny has not yet taken down lift at the edges, and the whole thing feels more like a Sunday morning than a task.

Bob works the far wall with the neat, methodical strokes of someone who has done this before and will not be rushed. Each pass overlaps the last by exactly the right amount. His lines are straight. He does not drip. He is, predictably, very good at this, and you decide not to tell him so because he will file it under confirmed and become even more systematic about it. You work the adjacent wall with considerably more enthusiasm and slightly less precision, which is fine, it is a base coat, and the window is open, and the garden is doing something green and generous outside, and you are enjoying yourself more than you expected - which is, you are starting to notice, a thing that happens often when Bob is in the room.

The playlist shifts into something with a bassline that makes the room feel warmer. You are on the stepladder doing the top of the sticker wall, which has turned out to be more of a project than anticipated because nine-year-old Amelia was committed to her craft and some of these stickers have essentially become load-bearing. Bob is doing the lower section below you, roller moving in clean parallel strokes.

"She really went for it," you murmur, peeling the ghost of a particularly determined star from the plaster. "She was nine." He doesn't look up from his section. "I respect the commitment." "I am going to find every single one." You work the scraper along the edge of another. "Sand them flat, paint over them. The wall is going to be perfect." "The wall is going to be a base coat," he returns, patient. "Flat is enough for today." "I want it perfect." It comes out with more weight than you intended, the way it always does, because I want it perfect is a thing you reach for when you mean something else entirely and don't have the words for that yet. He glances up at you on the ladder. Just briefly. The kind of glance that takes something in and doesn't make a production of it. "It's going to be your wall," he offers, quiet and certain. "It can be whatever you want." Your wall. The phrase lands somewhere simple and significant. You look at the rectangle of plaster in front of you, at the white going on over the old colour, at the ghost of Amelia's stickers flattening out underneath. Your wall. Your window. Your morning light coming through it. "Okay." Softer now. "Base coat today." "Base coat today," he confirms, and goes back to his section.

It is somewhere in the third quarter of the first wall that you make your critical error. You have come down from the ladder. You have your brush out for the edging, the detail work near the skirting that the roller cannot reach, and you are doing fine, you are doing well, you are being systematic in a way that would make Bob quietly proud - when you stand up too fast from the corner and turn and do not fully account for the fact that he has moved and is approximately one foot behind you with a loaded roller. You see his face. You see the roller. You make a decision in real time that is not fully thought through. You tap the end of his nose with your brush. It is a small tap. Precise. A neat white dot, perfect, right on the tip.

Bob goes completely still. You take one look at his face and press your lips together so hard your teeth hurt. "Lucky." "It was an accident." "It was not an accident." He has not moved. The white dot sits perfectly centered on the tip of his nose. "You looked at me first." "I am a bartender. I look at everyone first. It is professional habit." He looks at you with the white dot on his nose and the roller in his hand and the expression of a man who is deciding something. The deciding takes approximately four seconds. "That was on purpose." "I genuinely cannot confirm or deny -" He reaches out with two fingers and taps your cheekbone. It is not a large amount of paint. It is a very deliberate amount of paint, placed with the calm precision of a man who has made a decision and is committed to it. You inhale. "Robert Floyd." "Accident," he returns, with zero percent convincingness. The corner of his mouth is doing something he is trying very hard to stop. "Professional habit." You look at your brush. You look at him. His eyes track the brush with the alertness of someone who has just realized he is unarmed in a room with one exit. "Don't." "I am not doing anything." The voice you use when you are absolutely doing something. "Lucky." "I am just standing here." "You are holding a brush." "I work with brushes. This is completely normal -" You feint left. He shifts. You go right instead, which was always the plan, and get a clean stripe along his jaw before he catches your wrist.

The catch is gentle and immediate, fingers wrapping around your wrist with the same instinct he uses for steadying ladders and catching trays, and then you are both frozen, you with the brush mid-air and him with your wrist in his hand, and the room is very small and you are both slightly out of breath from laughing and the light through the propped-up window is the particular gold of a June morning and he is close, he is very close, close enough that you can see the white on his jaw and the dot on his nose and the way he is looking at you.

He is looking at you.

Not at the brush. Not at the paint. At you, the way he does when he thinks he has a moment before you notice, except you always notice, you have always noticed, and right now you are close enough that noticing feels different, feels like a question that has been getting louder for months and is currently at full volume. Neither of you move. His thumb is on the inside of your wrist. It is not moving. It is just there, warm and accidental and not accidental at all, and your pulse is doing something he can probably feel and you are absolutely not thinking about that. The brush is still in the air between you. His eyes drop, just once, just briefly, to your mouth. The door bangs open.

"I AM HERE," Amelia announces, at a volume that suggests she has been saving it up. She is wearing an old shirt of Penny's that goes to her knees and has tied a bandana around her hair in a way that suggests she googled painting outfit and committed fully. She has her own brush, still in the packaging, and a look of absolute readiness. "Mom said I could help. I brought snacks. Where do you need me, let's go, let's -"

She stops. She takes in the room. The paint. You and Bob, standing approximately one inch apart, your wrist in his hand, both of you turned toward the door with the specific expressions of people who were in the middle of something and have not fully processed the interruption yet. Amelia looks at your wrist. At his hand. At the paint on his nose and jaw. At the brush still hovering in the air between you. "Am I," she asks slowly, "interrupting something." "No," you say, at the same time Bob says "We were just -" You both stop.

Amelia's eyes go to you. To him. To the half inch of charged air between you that she has walked directly into with a bandana on her head and a packet of crisps under her arm. A slow, delighted expression is spreading across her face, the kind she tries to hide and completely fails to. "Cool," she says, in the tone of someone who doesn't think it is merely cool. "Great. Totally normal painting situation. Absolutely nothing happening here." She rips open the brush packaging with great focus. "Where do you need me, like I said, ready to help, not interrupting anything because there is clearly nothing to interrupt -" "Amelia," you stop her. "Yes," she says, eyes very wide and very innocent. "Paint that wall," you point at the far corner. "On it," she giggles, immediately, with the energy of someone who is going to be thinking about the last thirty seconds for the rest of the day. She marches to the far wall and begins painting with extraordinary concentration, shoulders slightly shaking.

Bob has let go of your wrist. You are both facing forward now, attending to your respective sections with great professionalism. The brush is back at your side. His roller is back in his hand. Everything is normal. Everything is completely fine.

You load your brush. Beside you, very quietly, Bob clears his throat. You look straight ahead. "Don't." "I wasn't going to say anything," he murmurs. "Good." A pause. The garden does its patient thing through the open window. "You still have paint on your cheek," he notes. "You still have paint on your nose." "I know." A beat. "I was going to mention it." "Consider it mentioned." From the far corner, Amelia makes a sound that she converts, not very convincingly, into a cough. You turn your head toward her. "Are you laughing?" "Painting," she announces, with great dignity. "Very focused. Not listening." Bob makes a very small sound beside you that he also converts into something else, and you bite the inside of your cheek hard, and the morning light comes through the propped window and falls across the floor of your new room in a warm stripe and outside the surf is doing its patient thing and the playlist has moved on to something you half know and the wall is going to be white by lunchtime and the base coat is going to be good and everything is, in this moment, quietly and completely fine.

You paint. Amelia hums to herself in the corner. Bob works his section in steady parallel strokes. You do the edging near the window and do not look at him for three whole minutes, which is a personal record. Then, without looking up from the skirting: "For the record," you say, "I did boop your nose on purpose." "I know," he says. "The cheek was justified retribution." "Agreed," he says. "We are even," you say. A pause, warm and small. "Sure," he says. Amelia, from the corner, forgets to hide it this time. The laugh comes out full and bright and she doesn't apologize for it, just ducks her head and keeps painting, and you let it go because honestly, honestly, you are two seconds from laughing yourself. "Paint your wall," you tell her. "Painting," she sings back.

Bob passes you the roller without being asked, because you have run out of brush work and he has already clocked it. Your fingers brush on the handle. Neither of you comments on it. Outside, the June morning does what June mornings do - warm and unhurried, full of salt and possibility, the kind that makes you think something is beginning even when you cannot name what it is yet. Inside, three people paint a room white and the base coat goes on clean and the afternoon is still ahead of them and nobody says the obvious thing out loud. They don't need to. Not yet. The wall will be whatever color you want. You have time.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

It is a Tuesday afternoon, two days after the letter, and you are walking because the apartment feels different now that you know you are leaving it. Not bad exactly. Just - aware of itself. The walls doing that thing walls do when they know they are temporary, which is the same thing they always did and which you are now reading differently. Amelia showed up at your door at two with the specific energy of someone who has decided you need fresh air and is not going to frame it as concern because you would deflect concern. She just knocked and said walk and held up two iced coffees and you put your shoes on. She is a good kid. She has very good instincts for when not to ask questions, which is rarer than it should be.

You walk the long way, down toward the water, the route that takes you past the older part of the neighborhood where the streets get wider and the houses get further apart and the salt air is stronger because nothing tall is blocking it. Amelia talks. You listen. She is telling you about something that happened at school involving a group project and a person who did none of the work and still put their name on it, which is a story you have heard in various forms since the beginning of time but which she tells with enough specific outrage that it stays interesting.

You are not thinking about the letter. You are thinking about the letter.

The coffee is good. The afternoon is warm in the particular June way that does not demand anything from you. Your sneakers are comfortable. You focus on these things the way you focus on the small manageable details when the larger picture is doing something you cannot fix yet. You turn the corner onto the road that runs parallel to the beach and you almost walk past it before you stop.

It sits back from the street behind an overgrown garden that has long since made its own decisions about borders and structure. Iron gate, half open, listing slightly on one hinge. A stone path underneath the weeds, still there if you look. The house itself is two storeys, wide-fronted, with a porch that wraps around the side and a bay window that faces the water, the glass intact and salt-hazed. The paint has gone the colour of old paper, peeling at the corners, and the roof has a patch of darker tile where someone did a repair at some point and used what they had. The garden has a tree that is older than the house and knows it. It is not a ruin. That is the thing. It is not falling down. It is just - waiting. The way some things wait that are not broken, only empty. The locals call it the haunted house, you know this, everyone in a three mile radius knows this, though haunted is generous for what it actually is which is simply old and unoccupied and possessed of the particular atmospheric quality that comes from being the most interesting-looking building on an otherwise ordinary street. You stop at the gate and look at it.

Amelia stops beside you. She looks at the house. She looks at you. She looks at the house again. "Lucky," she says carefully. "Mm." "You have a face." "I have a face all the time." "A specific face," she elaborates. "A face that means you are thinking something I am going to have feelings about."

You keep looking at the house. At the bay window and the wraparound porch and the garden that has gone feral but not dead, the tree with its roots probably deep enough to survive anything. "It just needs some love," you say. Amelia makes a sound. "Oh no." "Look at the bones on it," you say. "That porch. And the window - if you cleared the salt off the glass the light through that window in the morning would be -" "Lucky." "The garden is just overgrown. That is not damage, that is neglect, those are different things. You can come back from neglect." "Lucky, you are homeless in ten days -" "I know." "- and you are standing at the gate of the haunted house having feelings about the bones -" "It is not haunted." "It has been empty for six years," Amelia tells you. "Mrs. Kowalski's dog refuses to walk past it. That is data." "Mrs. Kowalski's dog refuses to walk past the mailbox on Fern Street," you point out. "He is not a reliable source." Amelia stares at you. "You know the specifics of Mrs. Kowalski's dog's routing preferences." "She comes to the bar a lot and talks a lot," you say. "I notice things."

She looks back at the house. The gate. The garden. The salt-hazed window. Then she looks at you with the expression she gets when she is deciding something. "You actually love it." You don't say anything. You wrap both hands around your iced coffee and look at the tree, at the way the afternoon light moves through it, at the porch railing that just needs sanding and painting and someone to put a chair on it and sit there in the morning. "I love the idea of it," you admit eventually. "What it could be." "That is the same thing," Amelia says. You are about to argue when the sound of footsteps on the pavement behind you becomes the sound of Rooster's voice, which is never a small sound. "No way."

You turn. Rooster is there, in a t-shirt and running shorts, clearly mid-run, clearly having stopped because he saw you. Phoenix is with him, which means they were running together, which is a thing they do twice a week and never mention in the group chat because it would invite too much commentary. And behind them, slightly further back, hands in his pockets, Bob, who is in a jacket and jeans and who was clearly not running but was walking in the same direction and has arrived at the same corner at the same time, which is the kind of thing that happens in a place like this.

Rooster points at you and then at the house. "No way you have a face about the haunted house." "It is not haunted," you insist, for the second time in two minutes. "It has been empty since before I got stationed here," Rooster says. "Mateo from supply told me someone tried to rent it five years ago and left after two weeks." "That could mean anything." "He said the kitchen taps ran cold even when set to hot." "Old pipes." You roll your eyes. "That is a plumbing issue, not a supernatural one." Phoenix has come to stand beside you at the gate. She looks at the house with the assessing expression she uses for most things, the one that takes something apart quietly and puts it back together before she comments. "The porch is good," she admits. "Right?" you say immediately. "Do not encourage her," Rooster warns. "The bay window," Phoenix continues. "That is what I said," you tell her. Rooster looks between you both. "You are both doing it. You are both doing the face." "It just needs some love," Phoenix says, which are the exact words you used and which make something warm move through your chest. 

"That is what she said," Amelia reports, pointing at you. "Verbatim. And then she started talking about the bones." "The bones are excellent," you say. "THE BONES," Rooster repeats, at a volume the street does not need. "It has been standing empty for six years and you are talking about the bones. Lucky, you are about to be standing empty for ten days -" "I know, Rooster -" "- and you are having a love affair with a condemned -" "It is not condemned -" "- structurally compromised -" "Also not confirmed -" "- allegedly cold-tapped -" "PLUMBING." "Okay," Phoenix says, which is how she ends most arguments, and it works, and Rooster subsides with the energy of a man who has more to say and is choosing to bank it. You look back at the house. The tree. The window. The gate that just needs a new hinge. You sip your coffee.

"For the record," Amelia announces, turning to face you with the full authority of someone who has thought about this for thirty seconds and arrived at a verdict, "you are not allowed to think about this house right now. You are moving into our place, which is a good place with functioning pipes and a garden that I personally maintain -" "You maintain one pot of basil on the windowsill," you point out. "- and you are not allowed to already be thinking about moving out before you have even moved in. House rule. Instated now. Effective immediately." You look at her. "I am not thinking about moving out." "You are thinking about moving in," Amelia says, pointing at the house. "Which is the preliminary stage of thinking about moving out. I know how you work." "I am thinking about the porch," you tell her. "That is all." "Sure," Amelia says, in the tone of someone who is not sure at all.

Rooster drapes an arm around your shoulders from one side. Phoenix takes the other. You stand at the gate of the haunted house with an iced coffee going warm in your hands and two of your favorite people attached to your arms and Amelia in front of you with the expression of a sixteen year old who has decided she is the sensible one in this scenario, which says something about the scenario.

Bob has not said anything. This is not unusual. Bob often does not say anything while he is watching, and he is watching now - the house, and then you, and then the house again, the way he scans a room when he arrives somewhere new and is building a picture. You notice him doing it the way you always notice him doing things, peripheral and precise, and you don't say anything either, and for a moment the others are talking and the afternoon is warm and the gate is slightly open and the tree is doing its patient thing in the garden. He looks at the bay window. At the porch. At the garden gone feral and green and alive despite everything. Then he looks at you.

You are not looking at him. You are looking at the house, at the salt-hazed glass and the light behind it, saying something about the porch to Phoenix that he is not fully tracking because he has stopped listening to the words and is just watching your face, the way it does that thing it does when something has caught you - open, certain, the expression you get when you see potential where other people see problem. His mind goes somewhere quiet. It is not a plan. It is not even fully a thought. It is more like - a shape. A possible shape. A morning with the right light through a cleared window. Him and you on a porch with a coffee. A garden that has come back from neglect because someone decided it was worth the work. The specific warmth of a house that has been loved back into being something. He lets it stay for one second, that shape.

Then Rooster says something that makes you laugh, full and sudden, and you turn and flick his ear and the moment folds up and tucks itself away somewhere small and careful and not yet. Bob looks back at the house. The gate is half open. The path is still there under the weeds. The tree is not going anywhere. He puts his hands back in his pockets and listens to Rooster be wrong about the pipes with the patience of a man who has learned to be good at waiting.

You leave the house behind you when the group moves on, walking down toward the water in the loose formation that has become your normal. Rooster has resumed his run in spirit if not in pace, jogging a few steps ahead and then dropping back. Phoenix walks beside you. Amelia has attached herself to Bob, who is listening to her explain why the haunted house is objectively bad news with the expression of a man who disagrees but is choosing his moment.

"Cold taps," Amelia is telling him. "Even on hot. That is a sign." "That is a washer issue," Bob says. "Or sediment in the lines. Common in houses that have been unoccupied for extended periods. The system needs flushing." Amelia stares at him. "You just defended the haunted house." "I defended the plumbing explanation," he says. "Those are different things." Amelia turns to look at you over her shoulder, eyes wide, pointing between you and Bob. You point back at her. She closes her mouth. She faces forward again. Her shoulders are shaking.

You fall into step beside Bob, close enough that your arms almost touch, walking the way you have started walking together - not quite side by side, not quite in formation, just in the same direction at the same pace, easy and unhurried. "The bones really are good," you tell him, not looking at him. "They are," he agrees, not looking at you. "Told you," you say. "You did," he says. Ahead of you Rooster has broken into an actual jog, calling back something about tide timing. Phoenix follows at her own pace. Amelia is between them, having abandoned her campaign against the house in favor of whatever argument Rooster has started now. The afternoon opens out toward the water and the light is doing that June thing, long and generous, laying itself across the street and the garden walls and the surface of everything like it has nowhere to be. Behind you, the house sits at its gate. Waiting, the way it has always waited, for someone to decide it is worth the work.

June starts with a perfectly normal drunk girls night. Which, for you, means it has about twenty minutes left before it becomes a problem. You and Phoenix pick a place downtown with a live band, sticky floors, and fairy lights wrapped around pillars. The kind with a dance floor that is too small for the amount of people trying to use it. You have on a floaty black dress, that moves when you walk and absolutely should not be trusted, gym shorts undernearth, paired with boots and liner sharp as a threat. Phoenix is in jeans and a red top, hair down, looking like she could unmake a man with one eyebrow.

You promise each other two things:

No texting the boys.

No falling for people with good rhythm and bad ideas.

You both break one of those commitments almost instantly. The band strikes up a familiar riff - the kind of cheesy intro that makes everyone scream before they even register which song it is. The first notes of Time of My Life slide in and the whole bar loses its mind. You feel Phoenix turn toward you slowly. “No,” you say. “Yes,” she says. “We are not doing this,” you insist. Across the room, a tall guy in a faded Fleetwood Mac tee and forearms like rope looks from the dance floor to you, then to the space in front of him. “Bet you ten bucks that guy has seen Dirty Dancing at least three times,” Phoenix mutters. You take a long sip of your drink. “We are not doing this.” Twenty seconds later, you are absolutely doing this. The guy - Jack, as it turns out, sailor, polite, good smile, not your type but not not your type - asks very nicely if you trust him enough to try the lift. Phoenix, traitor that she is, has already pulled her phone and is backing up to get a good angle. “Just once,” Jack says, hands raised, palms out. “We will practice, I promise. No hospital runs.” You glance at Phoenix. She is grinning like a wolf. “This is stupid,” you say. “Yes,” she agrees. “Do it.”

The band hits the chorus. Your heart is already racing. You are tipsy and happy and the floor is loud and the part of your brain that cares about dignity clocks out for the night. “Fine,” you say. “Don't drop me.” You and Jack do a quick, shouted negotiation - where to run from, how high, when to bail. He seems solid, careful. You decide to trust the vibes. You take your starting position by the edge of the dance floor. The crowd around you clocks what you are about to do and instinctively clears a lane. Phoenix is filming, backpedaling, frame wide. “Please die beautifully,” she yells. You flip her off and then you are running. Feet pound, dress flying, heartbeat louder than the band for one sharp second. Jack braces, timing it. You jump, he catches, hands firm under your ribs. For a breathless moment you are actually airborne, weight light, arms out, crowd screaming. He doesn't drop you. You are up, stable, laughing in disbelief. The bar whoops. Someone yells “Baby!” It's cheesy and ridiculous and perfect. Phoenix is shrieking behind the screen. “Oh my God, oh my God, she actually did it,” she cackles. Jack lowers you carefully, sets you down like fragile glass. The bar catches its breath. The band rolls into the next verse. Your stomach flips, adrenaline and alcohol mixing in a way you are definitely going to feel tomorrow. Jack leans down, still a little breathless, smile crooked. “So,” he says into your ear, pitch friendly, tone hopeful, “can I take you out sometime or was that a one night only performance?” Phoenix’s thumb hits send right before you answer.

Dagger Circus

Phoenix: Video 

Shaky, excited footage. You and Jack do the full Dirty Dancing lift in the middle of a packed bar. You run, jump, he catches, you go up, the bar goes feral. The video catches your laugh as he lowers you, then leans in. His words are almost audible over the noise: “So, can I take you out some -” and then the clip ends. The Dagger chat explodes.

Rooster: EXCUSE ME

Hangman: Respectfully. that man has too much core strength

Fanboy: SHE DID THE LIFT

Coyote: Everybody focus

Coyote: What was the answer?????

Bob is on his couch, baseball game long forgotten, staring at his phone like it has personally betrayed him. His stomach does that ugly little twist he hates. He watches the video three times like a masochist, ears burning with each replay. Jack. Hands under your ribs. Your dress moving. You laughing. Jack asking the question. The video cutting off. He types, deletes, types again. Did you say yes? He doesn't send it. Two minutes stretch out long enough to qualify as torture. Rooster, of course, makes it worse.

Rooster: This is entrapment

Hangman: Yeah what was the answer

Hangman: asking for a friend and to see if I still have a chance

There is a long, horrible pause. Then a notification pings.

Lucky: Video

The clip is six seconds of pure chaos. The phone is bouncing from Phoenix’s hand as you two sprint down the sidewalk, boots in one hand, holding each others hand with the other. Streetlights smear into streaks. You are both laughing, breathless and near yelling. “Men suck,” Phoenix gasps. “Correct,” you wheeze. The video ends with you both turning a corner, still running.

Phoenix: That was the answer

Rooster reacts with a row of screaming emojis. Hangman replies with a gif of a man quietly sliding down a wall. Bob exhales. It's not much, but something in his chest loosens. You didn't say yes. He isn't proud of the amount of relief that gives him. He also doesn't examine it too closely. He types.

Bob: Please do not die. Hydrate. 

Lucky: Hydrated

Lucky: Currently outrunning bad decisions

Phoenix: We are fine

Lucky: Girls 1 - Men 0

Coyote: Scoreboard feels harsh

Lucky: Live with it or eat shit

The two of you end up at the pier because the city has run out of places that feel like forward momentum. Your feet hurt, your hair is wild, your eyeliner is smudged to perfection. Phoenix’s lip gloss is somewhere back at the dance bar. You have caramel stuck to your fingers from a shared crepe. It's a win. You stand at the railing, ocean breathing below, waves folding over themselves in the dark. The breeze tries to steal the warmth from your cheeks and fails. “I should have said I would go out with him,” you say absently, watching the water. Phoenix looks over, surprised. “Do you want to?” You think about it. “He was nice,” you concede. “And he didn't drop me. That's a plus.” She snorts. “Still,” you say. “I don't know. Feels like it would be a lot. I am already exhausted from babysitting pilots.” Phoenix bumps your shoulder. “You are allowed to be tired. You are also allowed to want someone who already knows you.” You take another bite of crepe to avoid answering that. There is a pause. The waves fill it. “If I were you,” Phoenix says finally, nodding at the water, “I would jump off the pier to reset my brain.” You laugh. “Bet.” She looks at you. You look back. “You are drunk,” she states. “I am not that drunk,” you maugh. “I was kidding,” she says. “I wasn't," you say. The next video the chat gets is from Phoenix.

Phoenix: Video

The angle is propped, slightly crooked. It looks like the phone is leaning against a pier piling. The shot shows a slice of sand, the dark line of the ocean, the glow of the pier lights overhead. You are in frame in your black dress and boots, standing near the waterline, hair whipped by the wind. You shout back toward the phone, voice bright and reckless. “Pier jump, public edition,” you announce. “Somebody tell Penny I am doing field research.” You kick off your boots, toss them out of frame, hike your dress just enough to run. Phoenix’s voice is faint behind the camera. “Lucky, I swear to God.” You sprint anyway. It is not an actual high jump off the pier - you are not suicidal. You take the stairs down the side like a somewhat responsible adult, hop off the last low step into the shallows, then run straight into the oncoming wave at full tilt. The camera catches you hitting the water mid thigh, splashing, yelping at the cold, then throwing your hands up like a champion. “Reset,” you shout, laughing. Phoenix curses, laughing at the same time. “You are insane,” she says, then the phone sways as she picks it up to film you turning back, dress plastered to your legs, hair wild, grin feral. “Come on,” you yell, motioning with both arms. “What, are you scared?” Phoenix flips the camera to selfie mode for half a second. Her face fills the frame, unimpressed but fond. “If she dies,” she says, “tell Penny I tried.” Then you hear the sound of her feet hitting the stairs, the film jerks, and the last thing the video shows is the ground tilting before it cuts.

Phoenix: Reset achieved

The boys see it in various different places at once. Rooster is at his kitchen table, halfway through a sandwich. Hangman is inexplicably on his balcony in socks. Coyote has just gotten into bed. Bob is still on his couch, heart somewhere in his throat. They all type the same thing, give or take punctuation.

Rooster: Is that our pier

Coyote: That is our pier

Bob: Please tell me you did not actually jump off something high

Lucky: Relax. Only the low steps.

Lucky: I am not trying to meet Poseidon tonight

Phoenix: Tide is calm. We are fine.

Hangman sends the only rational response.

Hangman: Beach. Now.

Rooster is already putting on his shoes.

Rooster: On my way

Rooster: If Lucky is reset we might as well be too

Coyote: Video of himself sighing and getting out of bed

Payback: I knew sleeping was a mistake

Fanboy: I am already in my car

Bob looks at the pier video once more, sees the way your shoulders shake with laughter, the way you run like you are trying to outrun something only you can see. He grabs his hoodie and his keys and some towels. He texts, separate.

Bob: Stay by the pier lights please.

Bob: I am coming. 

Your reply is almost instantaneous.

Lucky: Copy, Professor

The pier looks different at midnight, the way familiar places do when nobody is supposed to be there. The parking lot is mostly empty. The concession stands are dark. String lights along the rail cast warm patches on the planks. Down the ramp, the beach is silvered by moonlight. The water glows faintly with each break, foam catching the light. You and Phoenix are waist deep when they get there, outfits soaked, hair heavy with salt. You are both laughing so hard it doubles you over between waves. Phoenix spots the silhouettes first. “Company,” she says. You turn, boots abandoned at the beach, dress clinging to your thighs, eyeliner somehow still defiant.

On the dry sand, the pilots are lined up like a very stupid rescue attempt. Rooster, Hangman, Coyote, Payback, Fanboy, and Bob in a hoodie and jeans, all in various stages of realizing it is colder down here than they thought. “What are you idiots doing,” Phoenix calls. “Rescuing you,” Rooster answers. “Respectfully,” Hangman adds, “objecting to missing the Dirty Dancing show and the pier show in one night.” You plant your hands on your hips. “You are late to everything.” Payback gestures broadly. “We are here now.” Bob just watches you, relief disguised as exasperation. “Did you drive,” you call to him. “Yes,” he answers. “I also brought towels.” He holds up a grocery bag like proof. Phoenix points at him. “Best boy.” “Professor prepared,” Coyote mutters, impressed.

Rooster is the first to break. “To hell with it,” he says, pulling his shirt off in one smooth motion, discarding it on the sand. “We are swimming.” “In jeans,” Bob asks, horrified. Rooster is already sprinting. He hits the water with a yelp, stumbles, recovers, and barrels into the shallows like he was born there. Hangman grins, pulls his Henley off with less finesse but more enthusiasm, and follows. Coyote, Payback, and Fanboy share a look that says, well, we are here, and then they are running too. Bob stands at the edge of the dry sand, hoodie still on, eyes wide. You watch him, water lapping at your hips. “Bobby,” Phoenix yells over the waves. “In or out?” He hesitates just long enough for you to wade closer. “Come on,” you call, voice softer now. “You drove all the way here. Might as well get your money’s worth.” He laughs, breath puffing in the cold air. “I am wearing my good jeans,” he protests weakly. You roll your eyes. “You are a grown man, you have a washer.” He looks at the ocean, at his shoes, at you. He takes off his hoodie carefully, folds it, sets it by the pile of discarded clothes like he is surrendering something important. He tucks his phone and wallet into the sleeve, wedges it all under a rock where it will stay dry. Then he steps forward. The first shock of cold hits his ankles. He hisses through his teeth. “Cold,” he reports. “Correct,” you say. “Keep going.” He does.

By the time the water hits his knees he has gone past the point of no return. A wave hits him mid thigh and soaks him. He yelps, then laughs as it pulls back. You meet him halfway, hand reaching out reflexively when his foot slips in the sand. “Got you,” you say. It's almost the same words he used at the ladder. He catches his balance, hand closing around your wrist, warm even in the chill. “I see that,” he says, and his voice has that soft thread in it again. Behind you, Rooster and Hangman have started a splash war, which quickly escalates into an unspoken contest over who can scream more dramatically about cold water. Payback is lighting up the night with occasional high pitched shrieks. Fanboy keeps falling down on purpose. Coyote is trying to remain dignified and failing. Phoenix tips her head back and laughs at the sky. “Worth it,” she declares to no one in particular. 

When the cold finally starts to bite for real, the group staggers out of the surf in a dripping, shivering herd. There is a lot of swearing, a lot of laughing, and exactly zero coordination. Towels get passed around, shoes are found in the wrong piles, someone discovers sand in a place that prompts a full body shudder. You wring out the hem of your dress; Phoenix squeezes water from her braid; Rooster makes a big show of flexing like he just fought the Pacific and won. You all drift toward the lot in a loose knot, flip flops slapping, jeans squelching. Before Bob can even open his mouth to ask if you need a ride, Rooster jingles his keys and points at you and Phoenix. “You two. My car. Big brother rideshare is officially in service.” Phoenix rolls her eyes but doesn't argue. You are already halfway into the back seat when you look over and catch Bob’s eye. He lifts a hand, a small wave across the rows of cars. You return it, soft and a little reluctant, then vanish into Rooster’s back seat in a swirl of damp fabric and laughter. The chat gets its final update of the night from Fanboy, who ran back up the beach long enough to prop his phone against an abandoned beach umbrella and hit record.

Fanboy: Reset achieved (group edition)

Fanboy: Video

Wide shot. The pier lights glow overhead. The surf is in constant motion. The whole Dagger squad is in the water fully clothed, shirts plastered to their torsos, jeans dark with salt. Rooster and Hangman are yelling and splashing each other like ten year olds. Phoenix is shoulder checking Coyote into a wave. Payback is trying to body surf knee high chop. Fanboy himself runs back into frame at the last second. In the center, you and Bob stand close enough that the next wave hits you both at once, your hands linked without fanfare. You throw your head back and laugh. Bob looks at you like the cold does not matter at all.

Phoenix: Worth it

Rooster: 10/10 would get hypothermia again

Hangman: Respectfully. I cannot feel my knees

Lucky: thats because you are grandpa eighties

Bob sits in his car, towel around his shoulders, hoodie back on over wet skin, jeans heavy with salt. The lot is mostly empty now, just a few scattered cars and the sound of the pier behind him. He watches Rooster’s taillights fade toward town, thumbs hovering over his phone for a second before he types.

Bob: Text me when you are home, please.

The bubbles appear almost at once.

Lucky: yes sir 

Lucky: home or “in bed with tea and not hypothermia”

He huffs a quiet laugh, warmth cutting through the lingering chill.

Bob: I will accept either. Just be safe.

Lucky: copy, professor

Lucky: tonight was good. thank you for being there

Bob: Always.

He can feel himself smiling like an idiot in the glow of the dashboard. Out beyond the pier, the waves keep folding over themselves, relentless and patient. On the sand, there are countless footprints that mark where a small, ridiculous, waterlogged family chose to reset together.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Sunday afternoon in the beginning of June finds the Hard Deck quiet and the beach behind it even quieter. The lunch crowd has thinned, the regulars haven't arrived yet, and Penny has made the executive decision that the two of you are not needed for another hour at least, delivered in the tone she uses when she is actually being kind and doesn't want credit for it. So you are here, on the small stretch of sand that belongs to the bar the way a backyard belongs to a house - unofficial, familiar, worn smooth by years of the same people sitting in the same spots.

You have your sneakers off. Amelia has hers off too, both pairs abandoned in a heap that is definitely going to have sand in places sand has no business being. The waves come in lazy and shallow, just cold enough to make you curl your toes when the foam reaches them. You have coffee. Amelia has a can of something fizzy she brought from the fridge inside and has been aggressively sipping for the last ten minutes. She has also been talking for the last ten minutes, which you know because you have been listening for all of them, which is the whole reason she keeps going.

"So he sent me this four word text," she says, and flings a shell into the surf with the energy of someone filing a formal complaint with the universe. "Four. Words. After I sent a paragraph. That is actually a crime. That should be illegal." You wrap both hands around your coffee cup and watch the shell disappear into a wave. "What were the four words?" Amelia pulls her best exaggerated boy voice out from somewhere deeply unflattering. "'Sorry I fell asleep.'" She drops it immediately. "That is it. That is all he had to say for himself." You snort into your cup. "Classic." "And then," she continues, because there is always an and then, "he posted on his story like five minutes later. Playing video games. I saw it. I am not stupid. I have eyes. I have the internet." "He is not lowkey," you tell her. "He is just low effort. There is a difference and it is important." Amelia pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She stares at the water with the focused displeasure of someone who has been wronged and wants the ocean to agree with her. "So is he like. An ick." "Full body ick," you confirm. "Hard block."

She groans and drops her forehead onto her knees. The sound is muffled but expressive. You have come to understand that Amelia communicates in a full range of sounds that exist somewhere between language and a weather event, and this one translates roughly to I know you are right and I am still annoyed about it. "I hate boys," she announces into her sleeves. "That is valid," you say.  She peeks up at you over the tops of her knees, one eye visible, squinting against the light. "What did you do when boys were this annoying in high school?" You consider the question with appropriate gravity. "Made out with one of their friends," you say, deadpan. Then, a beat later, "Kidding. Mostly." She laughs despite herself, sudden and loud, the kind she tries to suppress when she thinks something shouldn't be funny. You count that as a win. You nudge her shoulder with yours, gentle.

"Listen," you say. "He is sixteen and texting like a wet paper bag. His emotional vocabulary is probably four words long and three of them are about video games. You are allowed to be annoyed. You are also allowed to be delulu about better people than that." Amelia lifts her head properly now. The breeze off the water catches her hair and she shoves it back impatiently. "Delulu is solulu?" "In moderation," you grin. "You are allowed to imagine a person who texts you back like a human being. Who sends paragraphs when you send paragraphs. Who actually reads what you write and responds to it instead of sending four words and logging back onto whatever game he thinks is more important than you." You pause. "That is not delulu. That is a minimum requirement."

She is quiet for a moment. The waves come in, go out. A gull somewhere behind you makes a sound of pure selfishness and then leaves. "Like Bob," Amelia states. It´s not mean. It´s not even teasing, not really. It´s just Amelia, who has been paying attention since the first time she watched you and Bob interact with each other and who does not miss things any more than her mother does. It lands the way true things land - quietly, with weight.

You throw a small stone into the water. It takes a second to find one because you need your hands to be doing something. When you find it you throw it a little harder than necessary and watch it skip twice before it doesn't. "Bob texts like a responsible adult with anxiety," you say, which is true, and which is also absolutely not the full answer and you both know it. "He uses punctuation. He follows up. He asks if you got home safe and actually waits for the reply." You pause. "Which, to be fair, is kind of the dream."

Amelia leans her whole side against yours, warm and solid, the way she does when she has decided something is comfortable and is going to stay there until told otherwise. You let her. The sun is doing that particular Sunday thing where it feels generous, unhurried, like it has nowhere else to be. "You are so gone," she says. It´s gentle. It´s also devastating. You let your head rest against hers, carefully, the way you would rest something you didn't want to break. The coffee is still warm in your hands. The waves are still doing their patient thing. Behind you the Hard Deck sits with its doors open and Penny somewhere inside it, and ahead of you the ocean goes all the way to somewhere you've never been. "Focus on your own ridiculous love life, child," you say, "We were talking about the wet paper bag." "We were," she agrees, not moving. "But we both know which conversation is more interesting." "Amelia." "I'm just saying." "You are always just saying."

She grins, and you feel it against your temple more than you see it. You let it sit there, the comment and the warmth of it, and decide you are not going to argue with a teenager on a Sunday afternoon on a beach. Partly because she is right and partly because arguing would mean admitting she is right, and you are not quite there yet. After a minute she straightens, picks up her can, takes a long sip. She is thinking. You can tell because she gets quiet in a different way, the way she does over math problems and essays, the concentrated stillness under the surface noise.

"Can I tell you something," she says. "You have been telling me things for twenty minutes." "Something else." You look at her. "Yeah. Of course." She rolls the can between her palms, not looking at you. "There is this thing that happens at school sometimes. Where I will be having a bad day and I will think, I will just go to the bar after. And I don't mean for the bar, exactly. I mean I will think - Lucky will be there." She shrugs, too casual, the way people are casual about things that matter. "It helps. Is that weird?" Something in your chest does a slow, complicated thing. "No," you say, careful with it. "That is not weird." "Okay." She still doesn't look at you. "Because sometimes it feels like - I don't know. Like you are the kind of person I can say things to. Things I can't really say to mom because she will worry, or to my friends because they don't get it yet, or to teachers because obviously. But you are like…" She makes a gesture with the can, vague and somehow precise. "Intermediate. Like the safe place between kid and adult where nobody is going to make it a whole thing." You are quiet for a moment. The waves fill it. You think about what to say and then decide that what she needs is not advice or redirection or even reassurance. What she needs is to be taken seriously, which is different. "Thank you for telling me that," you say. "I mean it. I am glad I am that for you." 

She nods, quick, done with the vulnerable part. She has learned that from Penny, you think - how to say the real thing fast and then move on before it gets too heavy. "Also," she adds, back to normal volume, "if I ever bring home a man who texts like sorry fell asleep, you are legally required to tase him." You laugh, full and real, and the afternoon rights itself. "Deal," you say. "Older sister clause." She looks at you then, quick and sideways, and something in her face does a small thing she doesn't comment on and you don't either. Older sister clause. You both heard it. You both chose to let it stand like it was always true.

You sit there a little longer than you need to, sneakers full of sand, coffee going cold, the surf patient and relentless. Amelia leans against you again after a while and you let her, and somewhere behind you Penny appears in the doorway of the Hard Deck to check on the two of you. She looks at the shape you make on the sand, you and her daughter with your heads together and your bare feet in the foam, and she stands there for a moment in the door without saying anything. Then she goes back inside to finish what she was doing, and her face when she does is the one she saves for things she doesn't want to jinx by naming.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The group chat pings at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, which is either a slow day or a disaster depending on who you ask.

Lucky: anyone alive enough to help me move a few kegs later

The replies come in fast and useless.

Coyote: define "help"

Rooster: I can supervise

Hangman: respectfully no

You watch the dots appear and disappear from various people who are apparently allergic to physical labor. Penny is going to make you move it yourself and you are going to pull something and she is going to say she told you so, which is the worst possible outcome. Then:

Bob: I can help 👍

You stare at it for a second. Then you snort so hard you have to put your phone down. Amelia looks up from her homework at the bar, one cherry stem sticking out of her mouth like a tiny antenna. "What?" You flip the screen around. "Look at this." She leans in. Reads it. Sits back. Stares at you with the expression of someone who has witnessed a crime scene. "Oh that is so violent." "Right?" You press the heel of your hand to your forehead. "What is this, a work email?" "He really hit you with the corporate reaction," Amelia says. She picks up the phone and holds it at arm's length like it might be contagious. "No warmth. No context. Just raw thumbs up energy. That is the 'per my last email' of digital communication." "He is so sweet in person," you say. "What is this digital hate crime.? "He typed 'I can help' and then looked at it and thought, you know what this needs? Bureaucracy." Amelia sets the phone down. "So you like him." You take the phone back and put it in your apron pocket. "Focus on the crime, gremlin." She gives you a look that says she is filing this away for later, which she absolutely is. She goes back to her homework. You go back to wiping down the rail, which you have wiped down twice already, and tell yourself the small warm thing in your chest is just gratitude that someone is actually going to help you move the keg.

The bell over the door rings forty minutes later. You know it's him before you look up. You are starting to suspect your nervous system has memorized the specific acoustic difference between Bob arriving and anyone else arriving, which is a problem you are choosing not to examine right now. He comes in the way he always does - one beat on the threshold, a quick sweep, shoulders dropping when the room makes sense to him. He spots you, raises a hand. You wave back and have a Coke ready by the time he reaches the bar. Label straight. You do it without thinking. "Hey," he says, easy and warm. "You said you needed a hand with the kegs." "Yeah," you say. "Thank you." You smile at him and mean it, and try to not think about the thumbs up, and are mostly successful. He goes to find Penny in the back. The door swings shut behind him. You turn around. Amelia has shark eyes. "You cannot let this stand," she says, pointing her straw at you. 

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Later, the bar settles into its Tuesday quiet. The kind where the jukebox is on low and the handful of people scattered around are minding their own business and nobody needs anything urgently. Penny is doing her evening count. You are restocking the citrus well. Amelia is back on her stool, homework technically open in front of her, actually watching Bob in the corner with his Coke and the relaxed posture of a man who has moved a few kegs and earned his evening.

You see her hop off the stool with a purpose that makes you want to intervene and also very much not intervene. She walks over to him like she has been dispatched. "Bob," she says. He looks up. "Yeah?" "Can I see your phone?" Bob blinks. His eyes slide past her to you, seeking information. You are suddenly very busy with a lime. You feel his gaze land on you anyway. "Why," he asks, voice slightly scared. "Audit," Amelia tells him. "You are under investigation for crimes against texting." There is a pause. "Is this about the thumbs up," he mutters.

Behind the bar, you press your lips together hard. Amelia gasps and turns to look at you. "He knows." You cover your face with one hand. "I thought it meant I can help," Bob says, defensive and earnest and somehow making it worse. "Like. Affirmative." "It does," Amelia says, pulling up a chair and sitting in it backwards the way she has definitely learned from watching Rooster. "If you are someone's math teacher. Or their landlord. On a phone it reads like 'ok whatever' said with completely dead eyes." Bob recoils like she has told him something actually upsetting. "What?" "Thumbs up is passive aggressive," she explains, with the gravity of someone delivering a medical diagnosis. "It is what you send when you want to say noted and also I resent you." "I did not mean that," he states, alarmed. "I know," you say, stepping in before he has a full crisis about it. "She is just explaining the subtext."

He rubs the back of his neck. His ears have gone pink. "I didn't want to use the wrong emoji and accidentally -" He stops. Starts again. "I do not really use emojis. I was trying to be... I don't know. Friendly." Amelia tips her head. It´s a careful angle, the one she uses when she is about to say something she already knows the answer to. "You don't use emojis with Lucky specifically, or you don't use them in general?" The pink deepens to red. "In general," he says. "I don't use them in general." "Let me see your phone," Amelia demands. He hands over his phone with the resigned energy of a man submitting to an inspection he knows he will not pass. Amelia opens his messages with the efficiency of a trained investigator. She scrolls. Her expression gets worse. "What," you ask. She turns the screen around. You lean over the bar.

His texts are immaculate. Full sentences. Capital letters at the start. Periods at the end. Not a single emoji in sight. Just clean, precise language that reads like someone who cares very much about being understood and is also maybe a little terrified of being misread. "You type like a tax document," Amelia snickers. "I like clarity," Bob says, which is such a Bob answer that you have to look away. "Do you like Lucky," Amelia asks, and the question is gentler than her previous ones, almost quiet, which somehow makes it worse. He opens his mouth. Closes it. You are reorganizing the speed rail by touch alone and absolutely not listening, except that the bar is not that big and you can hear everything. "I like her," he says, and then immediately looks like he regrets the simplicity of it. "She's - I mean, the whole squad likes her. That's not -" He adjusts his glasses even though they don't need it. "I just didn't want to send the wrong thing..." Amelia nods slowly. You move a bottle that doesn't need moving.

"Okay," she says, settling into the chair like she is about to deliver a verdict. "Here is what's going to happen. You are going to use at least one emoji per text to Lucky from now on. One minimum. Otherwise she is going to think you despise her." Bob looks at you over her head. You look back at him. You both look away at the same time. "One emoji," he says carefully. "Yes. But ground rules." Amelia holds up a finger. "Nothing aggressive. No skulls. Definitely not the eggplant." She pauses. "Do you know what the eggplant means?" Bob looks like he would very much like to be anywhere else. "I have been briefed." "Good. Keep it wholesome. Green things. Little suns. Smiley faces if you are feeling brave. The clover is good." She glances over her shoulder at you. "Lucky uses the clover." "I have noticed," Bob says, very quietly. Amelia studies him for a moment. Then she nods, stands, pushes the chair back. She hands him his phone. "You are dismissed. Character development starts now." He takes the phone back with both hands, blinking. "Copy." "Stop saying copy," she tells him. "It sounds like you are filing a report." "He can't help it," you say. "It's a condition." Amelia sighs and retreats to her homework. You and Bob look at each other across the bar. His ears are still red. Your face is doing something you cannot fully control. "Sorry about her," you say. "Don't be," he says, and means it, and takes a slow sip of his Coke.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The next morning you send a message to the group chat at nine forty-seven because the coffee machine at the Hard Deck is doing something unsettling, you are too tired to fix it and you are bored.

Lucky: anyone on base want coffee, going on a run

The replies are immediate and chaotic. Rooster wants two. Hangman wants something complicated that you write down and immediately lose. Payback and Fanboy are apparently sharing one brain cell and cannot agree. Coyote sends a voice note of himself sighing, which you take as yes. Then the chat goes quiet for a minute.

Bob: I would appreciate it 🙂

You stare at it. The little smiley face is so earnest it physically hurts you. It's the emoji equivalent of a firm handshake. It's the most wholesome, careful, trying-so-hard thing you have ever seen in your life. You take a screenshot and send it to Amelia. Your phone buzzes immediately..

GREMLIN 🦎: ok he is trying 

GREMLIN 🦎: that is the most divorced man emoji in existence 

GREMLIN 🦎: but we will workshop

You press your lips together. You type back to the group chat.

Lucky: thanks bob ☕️🍀

Then you wait, because you are apparently doing this now, and you want to see what he does with it. Forty seconds pass.

Bob: anytime :)

You look at the little colon-parenthesis sitting there in the blue bubble. Old school. Typed out. Like he looked at the emoji keyboard and decided that was too much and then compromised with himself and landed on punctuation feelings. Another screenshot. Your chest does something stupid and fond. Your phone buzzes again.

GREMLIN 🦎: HE USED A TYPED SMILEY 

GREMLIN 🦎: this is actually so cute I think I need to lie down 

GREMLIN 🦎: he is in his character development arc lucky 

GREMLIN 🦎: protect him at all costs

You look at the message for a second. Then you type back to Amelia.

LUCKY: mind your business 🍀 

LUCKY: also yes

You put your phone in your pocket and head out to grab coffee. Somewhere across base, a man in a squadron hoodie is looking at his phone with the quiet, pleased expression of someone who just realized they did not do a bad job, and does not know yet that two people are rooting for him from a bar stool and a coffee shop three miles away.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

You get ready at Penny's, together with Amelia. Amelia is on the bed watching with the focused investment of someone who has claimed a front row seat to a show she helped produce. Rooster's flannel is red and white, the kind of shirt that has been washed enough times to go soft, pearl snaps up the front, slightly too big in the shoulders so you tie it at the waist where it sits just right above your cutoffs. The cutoffs are yours - high waisted, frayed at the hem, the denim pale enough to have lived a life. Your boots are brown, worn in, the ones you have had since before this town, since before the Hard Deck, since a market stall in a city two moves ago where you paid too much and never regretted it. The bandana is red. You fold it twice, tie it at your throat, let the knot sit slightly off-center because off-center is better. You do your liner in amber tonight - a clean wing, warm and precise, the color of the bourbon on the chalkboard.

Amelia looks at you in the mirror. "You look like the main character," she announces. "I am always the main character," you tell her. "Of a western," she clarifies. "Specifically. You look like the woman the whole town is in love with." A beat, perfectly timed, the way she always times them. "Bob is going to completely lose it." You point at her in the mirror. She grins, unrepentant, and opens her mouth to continue, and you reach for the cotton pad on the desk and throw it at her before she can get a word out. It bounces off her nose. She gasps with the theatrical offense of someone who has been waiting for an excuse and launches herself off the bed, arms around your waist from behind, nearly taking you both into the mirror.

"Amelia -" "You like him," she sing-songs into your shoulder. "You like him and he is going to show up in boots and you are going to die -" "I am going to drop you -" "You cannot drop me, I am attached -" "Amelia Benjamin," you warn.  She lets go, laughing, and retreats back to the bed with the satisfied expression of someone who got exactly what she wanted from the exchange. You straighten your bandana in the mirror. Your face is doing something you refuse to examine.

"Perfect," Amelia decrees, settling back against the pillows. "Rooster is going to lose his mind about the shirt." She pauses. "Bob is going to lose his mind about everything else." You pick up another cotton pad. "Okay," she says quickly, pulling her knees to her chest. "Done. Going. Silent." She is silent for approximately four seconds. "You look really pretty though," she adds, genuinely. "Like, actually." You look at her in the mirror. She looks back, all bright eyes and messy braid and the particular sincerity she saves for when she means something without the armor of a joke around it. "Thank you," you tell her. She nods, satisfied, and steals your lip balm from the desk without asking.

Western Night starts the way all good things start at the Hard Deck - with Penny pretending she is not excited and everyone else failing to pretend at all. The chalkboard has been yours since noon. You spent two hours on it, chalk dust on your forearms, Amelia passing you colors from the stool below like a surgical assistant who has opinions about font choices. The result is western enough to mean something and strange enough to be yours - a banner of rope lettering across the top, a small cactus in the corner that Amelia drew and that you are pretending was planned, the signature drink listed below in clean block letters: SUNSET STIRRUP bourbon, honey, lemon, ginger beer with a smoked rim and a sprig of thyme Below that, in smaller writing: WESTERN NIGHT - dress up. two-step. tip your bartender.  Penny looked at it for a long moment when you finished. Then she tapped the cactus once with one finger. "Keep the cactus," she said, which in Penny's language means she loves all of it.

The Hard Deck at seven PM on Western Night looks like someone took the bar you love and tilted it two degrees toward something warmer and stranger. The string lights are still up from Neon Night, but Penny has swapped the bulbs to amber, which turns everything honey-gold. Someone has found a way to get the jukebox to play a Dolly Parton deep cut as the first song of the night, which sets a tone that the room immediately decides to honor. There are boots everywhere. There are hats of varying commitment. There is one man near the pool table in full rodeo gear who you have never seen before and who fits in perfectly. You step behind the bar and Penny looks at you once, top to bottom, then nods with the expression of a woman who knows she made a good hire. "Ready," she says. Not a question. "Born ready," you tell her.  

The squad arrives at seven thirty in a formation that suggests they coordinated without admitting they coordinated. Rooster comes first, because Rooster always comes first, and he is in a chambray shirt and jeans and his boots and he looks exactly like himself which is to say he looks good and he knows it. He spots you from the door and his face does three things in quick succession - delight, recognition, and then the specific grievance of a man who has just seen his own shirt look better on someone else than it ever did on him. "That's mine," he announces, pointing across the bar. "Was yours," you return, already pouring. "Finder's keepers." "I gave it to you for one night -" "You said keep it." You set a beer in front of him. "I have witnesses." "I said -" He stops. Looks at the shirt again. Sighs with the theatrical depth of a man accepting a loss with grace. "You look incredible," he concedes. "I hate it. Keep the shirt."

Phoenix arrives behind him in dark jeans and a cream top with embroidered details at the collar, understated and exactly right. She looks at you, looks at the bar, looks at the chalkboard. "Nice cactus." "Amelia drew it." "Of course she did." Phoenix slides onto her stool and accepts the Sunset Stirrup you slide to her before she asks. She takes a sip. Her eyebrows go up. "That's good." "I know," you tell her. Coyote comes in with Payback and Fanboy, all three of them in varying degrees of western commitment - Coyote in a vest and dark jeans that somehow looks effortlessly correct, Payback in a bolo tie he has committed to with his whole chest, Fanboy in a plaid shirt and the expression of a man who bought a hat on the way here and is not sure about it yet. "Hat," you tell Fanboy. "Keep it. It works." He straightens, visibly relieved.

Hangman comes in last of the group, and Hangman, to his credit, has fully dressed for the occasion in a way that suggests he took this personally. Dark jeans, a black western shirt with contrast stitching, sleeves rolled. He looks, objectively, unfairly good, and he knows it, and he walks to the bar with the gait of a man who has already decided tonight is going to go well for him. "Sergeant Lucky," he says, settling onto a stool. "You look like trouble." "You look like someone who Googled 'western outfit' and spent more than fifty dollars," you return. "One hundred and twenty," he admits, without shame. "Worth it?" You look at him. "Ask me later when I decide if you behave." He grins and picks up the Sunset Stirrup you have already placed in front of him. "Deal." You are mid-pour when the bell over the door rings again and Phoenix, from her stool, makes a sound that is not quite a word. You look up.

Bob Floyd has kept his pinky promise. The jeans are worn and dark, fitted in the way jeans get when they are old enough to have learned the shape of the person wearing them. The boots are brown leather, genuine, the kind with a slight heel that adds an inch he doesn't need, and they look like they have been in a box somewhere waiting for an occasion. The leather vest is dark tan over a chambray shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearm, the collar open one button further than his usual. The belt buckle is large and silver and slightly absurd and entirely committed to the bit. The red bandana is folded and tied at his neck with a neatness that is completely Bob even in this context. The sheriff's star is pinned to the vest, slightly crooked, catching the amber light. The hat is the thing. It is a proper hat, dark felt, wide brim, and he is wearing it with the careful posture of a man who put it on forty minutes ago in his truck and has been deciding ever since whether to take it off before he came inside. He didn't. He kept it. He walks through the door with it on and the room - your room, your bar, your people - notices.

"Oh," Amelia breathes, from the stool at the end of the rail where she has been granted special dispensation to stay for the first hour of Western Night on the grounds that she drew the cactus. "Oh, he actually did it." Rooster turns. Stares. "Bob." Bob stops just inside the door, doing his usual threshold sweep, and finds the whole squad looking at him. His ears go pink under the hat. He pushes his glasses up, which is very funny given everything else he is wearing, and then lifts his chin in a way that is trying for casual and landing somewhere closer to endearing. 

"You said boots," he tells the room. "I said boots," you confirm, from behind the bar. He looks at you. You look at him. The amber lights catch the sheriff's star and the belt buckle and the red bandana and the hat that he kept on, that he walked in wearing, that he committed to because he made a promise with his pinky on a night in May when Neon Night was winding down and you held his finger with yours and told him Western Night was next.

"Well," Phoenix says, into the silence, with the satisfaction of a woman watching something she has been waiting for arrive exactly on schedule. "Look at that." Hangman puts both hands flat on the bar. "Professor," he says. "You absolute menace." He sounds genuinely impressed. "Where did you get the vest?" "It was my grandfather's," Bob says, making his way to the bar with the measured pace of a man deciding not to be embarrassed about something he is slightly embarrassed about. "Your grandfather," Rooster repeats. "He had a phase," Bob says. The table erupts. You hide a smile behind the shaker and start making him a Coke, and when he reaches the bar and settles onto his stool you slide it in front of him and wait until he looks at you.

"You kept the promise," you tell him. "I keep my promises," he returns, quiet under the noise. You look at the hat. At the star. At the belt buckle that is genuinely enormous and that he wore without irony because you asked him to dress up and Bob Floyd, when he commits to something, commits. "The buckle," you manage, keeping your voice level. He glances down at it. Back up. "Too much?" "Not even a little," you tell him honestly. "It's perfect." His ears go from pink to red. He picks up his Coke and takes a long sip and looks at the chalkboard with great concentration, and Amelia, at the end of the rail, puts her head down on her arms to muffle the sound she is making.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Western Night finds its legs fast, the way your nights always do - one song becomes a sing-along, one Sunset Stirrup becomes a round, one round becomes the temperature of the whole room lifting two degrees. You run the bar the way you always run it, pace over volume, warm neon, steady waters, but tonight there is something extra in it because tonight you are in Rooster's flannel and your own boots and the room is full of people who dressed up because you asked them to. The smoked rim on the Sunset Stirrup becomes a talking point. Someone asks you to show them how you do it and you perform it for three people in a row at the bar, torch in hand, the rosemary sprig catching and releasing, and the small crowd that gathers to watch feels like a warm thing, like being known for something good. Penny moves alongside you, smooth and practiced, and at one point she leans in and tells you the tip jar has been full since eight fifteen. You grin and keep moving.

Rooster takes the jukebox. Of course he does. He starts with something slow and twangy that the room accepts and then escalates toward a Johnny Cash run that draws actual whooping from the pool table corner. At some point he adds a Shania Twain song that you did not authorize but that is exactly right, and you point at him from behind the bar and he points back with two fingers like a gunslinger and you shake your head and keep pouring.

Hangman dances with two different women and one man and appears to be having the time of his life, which is Hangman at his best - uncomplicated joy, all charm and no malice. Phoenix two-steps with Coyote near the jukebox with the easy competence of two people who have done this before in different contexts and never mentioned it. Payback and Fanboy are attempting to teach each other something that resembles a line dance and resembles several other things more. You watch it all from behind the rail and feel the particular satisfaction of a room that is doing exactly what you built it to do.

At nine thirty the room is full and warm and loud in the best way, and you step up onto the rail. You don't clink a glass. You don't need to. You just stand up, amber liner and Rooster's flannel tied at your waist, and the Hard Deck looks up the way it always does when you take the height. "Evening, Hard Deck." Your voice carries easy over the noise. "Welcome to Western Night. You look beautiful. Every single one of you." A ripple of laughter, warm and real. You let it settle. "House rules for tonight are the same as always with one addition -" You hold up a finger. "If you know the words, you sing them. That is not optional. That is western law." Another laugh, bigger. Someone near the back whoops. "The Sunset Stirrup is on special until ten. After that it goes back to regular price and you will have deserved it by then." You sweep the room once, the way you always do, and let your eyes land for a beat on the squad at the rail - Rooster with his beer raised, Phoenix with her small certain smile, Hangman already composing something to call out, Coyote nodding, Amelia on her stool with her chin in her hands looking like she is watching her favorite thing - and then on Bob, at the end, hat still on, sheriff's star catching the light, looking up at you with an expression that has stopped trying to be anything other than what it is.

"Now," you announce, lifting your hand toward Rooster and the jukebox. "Somebody play something with a two-step in it." Rooster, who has been waiting for this exact instruction, already has his hand on the machine. The first notes of a Dwight Yoakam song slide into the room and the Hard Deck exhales into it like it has been waiting all night. You hop down. The cadets at the end of the bar steady your landing, as they always do, as they always will, and you pat one shoulder and keep moving because there are drinks to pour and people to tend to and a night to run.

It's somewhere around ten, between a Sunset Stirrup and a round of waters, that Coyote appears at the service end with a look that means he is about to ask you something and has already decided not to take no for an answer. "Come dance," he says. "I am working." "Penny," Coyote calls. Penny, without looking up from the till: "Go." You point at her. "Traitor." "Two songs," she says. "The bar will survive." Coyote extends a hand with the patience of a man who has already won and knows it. You take his hand. He is a good dancer. Not showy, not performing - just solid and easy to follow, the kind of lead that makes you feel competent even when the footwork gets complicated. You two-step through the first song with the comfortable rhythm of friends who trust each other's timing, and the room gives you space the way it always gives you space, and for two minutes you are not the bartender, you are just a woman in boots and a borrowed shirt dancing to a song she half knows in a bar that feels like home. When the song ends Coyote spins you once, clean and unhurried, and deposits you back at the edge of the floor. "Thank you," you tell him. "Any time," he returns, and drifts back toward the rail.

You are returning to the bar when you feel someone beside you. Not close enough to crowd. Just - present. The specific presence you have learned to recognize before you look. You look. Bob is standing at the edge of the dance floor with his hat in his hands, which means he took it off at some point, which means he has been thinking about something long enough to forget he was holding it. His ears are doing their thing. His jaw is set with the particular determination of a man who has run the numbers and decided. "I don't know how to two-step," he says. "I know," you tell him. "I looked it up," he adds. "This afternoon." You go still. "You looked it up?" "There are videos," he says. "It is not complicated in theory." You look at him - at the vest and the boots and the bandana and the sheriff's star and the belt buckle and the hat now in his hands and the research he did this afternoon in his kitchen on a Saturday because he made a promise in May and he keeps his promises. "In theory," you repeat. 

"The execution may vary," he admits. He glances down at the hat, then at you, then at the dance floor, and something practical moves across his face. "I need my hands free," he says, with the tone of a man solving a logistical problem and absolutely not thinking about anything else. "For the steps." He settles the hat onto your head before you can respond. Both hands, careful, brim straight, the same deliberate attention he gives everything. It drops slightly over your eyes and you tip your chin up to see him properly and he adjusts it a fraction, fingers at the brim, and the contact is brief and warm and unhurried. He steps back. Assesses. Something in his expression does a thing he doesn't quite catch in time. "Better," he says, to the logistics of the situation. "Better," you agree, to absolutely nothing you are willing to name right now.

He is not perfect. The quick quick slow takes him two beats to find and then loses him on the turn, and he steps on your boot once, lightly, and apologizes immediately and sincerely and you tell him it didn't hurt and mean it. But he is present. Completely, entirely present - not in his head, not running the checklist, just here, in the amber light of the Hard Deck on Western Night, learning to two-step at ten PM because you asked him to dress up and he showed up in his grandfather's vest with a sheriff's star and research he did on a Saturday afternoon. He finds the rhythm on the third attempt and something in his posture shifts when he does - the same quiet settling he gets when something clicks, satisfaction without performance. His hand at your waist firms up a fraction, more confident now that his feet know where they are going. "There," you tell him. "There," he agrees, and his mouth does its thing. The song moves through its second verse and into the chorus and his lead gets steadier as it goes, the quick quick slow landing cleaner now, and you let him have the rhythm, let him feel it work, because Bob with confidence in something is a specific and lovely thing to be near. You are closer than the steps require. You both know this. Neither of you adjusts.

When the song ends he doesn't step back immediately. Neither do you. The noise of the bar is slightly distant and the amber light is doing something generous and the hat is still on your head and his hand is still at your waist, warm through Rooster's flannel, and the space between you is the smallest it has been since the ladder, since the beach. Then you move, because the bar is calling and Penny's patience has a radius, and he falls into step beside you as you head back toward the rail, his hand dropping from your waist to the small of your back, light and natural, the instinctive navigation of a crowded room. His hat still on your head. 

You feel the moment the squad clocks it. It is not subtle. Rooster sees you first - his eyes go to the hat, to Bob's hand, to the hat again - and his face does something that starts as a grin and escalates into a full stop. He elbows Hangman without looking. Hangman looks up from his drink. Looks at you. Looks at Bob's hand. Looks at the hat. "Rooster," Hangman says, with the reverence of a man witnessing something he will talk about for years. "I see it," Rooster confirms.

They whistle. Not simultaneously - that would be too coordinated - but in quick succession, the kind of whistle that carries clean across a bar. Coyote puts his head down. Payback and Fanboy exchange a look that contains an entire conversation. Phoenix closes her eyes for exactly two seconds. "In cowboy tradition," Hangman announces, cupping his hands, "when a man puts his hat on a woman -" "Bagman," Phoenix says. "- it means -" "We know what it means," Coyote says, already laughing despite himself. "- he is claiming her," Hangman finishes, delighted, spreading his hands like a man who has simply reported the facts and cannot be held responsible for them.

Bob has gone the color of his bandana. His hand has left your back. It has found the bar instead, and his thumb is doing its small incremental movement against the glass, the fidget that means his hands need somewhere to be. His jaw is set. His ears are vivid. He is looking at a fixed point on the rail with the focused attention of a man trying to wait out a weather system. "The ears," Fanboy notes, not unkindly. "Known quantity," Payback agrees. "Historically reliable data," Coyote adds, without lifting his head. "All of you," Rooster manages between laughs, "are terrible people and I love you." "I keep my promises," Bob says to the bar, which is not a denial of anything, which makes it somehow worse, and Rooster makes a noise that is mostly wheeze. You put your hand over his.

It stops everything. Not loudly - you don't reach for him, don't announce it, just settle your hand over his where it rests on the bar, warm and unhurried, your thumb against his knuckles. The fidgeting stills. The set of his jaw eases. He goes very quiet in the particular way he does when something has steadied him. You look at the squad. Along the rail, one face at a time. Hangman first, then Rooster, then the rest of them in their various states of delight. "Don't let them tease you," you tell him, quiet enough for him but not private enough to be a secret. Your eyes stay on the squad as you say it, which means it is also addressed to them, which means it lands exactly where you intended. 

Hangman closes his mouth. Rooster lifts both hands, standing down. Coyote finds the ceiling suddenly interesting. Payback and Fanboy develop simultaneous urgent business elsewhere. Phoenix raises her Sunset Stirrup in a small, private toast aimed at the two of you and no one else, and takes a sip without comment. Penny, at the till, doesn't look up. But the angle of her shoulders says she is smiling. Bob looks down at your hand. Then up at you. The red in his ears has not fully gone but his shoulders have dropped and his eyes have that quality - quiet, certain, the particular warmth of a man who has just been defended and doesn't quite know what to do with it except feel it completely. "Copy," he murmurs. You give his hand one small press. Then you pick up the shaker because there are drinks to make and a room to run and the night is still going strong. The hat stays on your head. Neither of you mentions them for the rest of the evening and neither of you takes them off, and the Hard Deck hums on around you both, warm and amber and full of people who are pretending very hard not to notice, and failing, and not minding at all.

The night winds down the way Western Night should - slow and satisfied, the room emptying in no hurry, boots on old wood, last songs played twice because nobody wants them to end. You run last call with the easy authority of someone who has done this enough times to make it feel like a gift instead of a closing, and the Hard Deck obeys with the good grace of a room that has been well taken care of. The squad lingers. They always do.

Penny rings the bell at midnight and the last of the strangers filter out into the warm June night, and what remains is the people who belong here - your people, all of them in various states of western dishevelment, boots off or loosened, hats on chairs, the easy comfortable noise of a good night settling into its final hour. You wipe down the rail. Penny counts the till. Amelia, who was supposed to go home at ten and negotiated successfully to eleven and then deployed a series of increasingly creative arguments to make it to midnight, is asleep in the corner booth with her head on Phoenix's shoulder and Phoenix's jacket over her like a blanket, which Phoenix is pretending to be annoyed about and is not.

Hangman carries chairs with genuine helpfulness, which is what Western Night does to him - two hours of uncomplicated joy and he comes out the other side briefly humble. Coyote sweeps. Payback and Fanboy stack glasses with the practiced efficiency of people who have stayed for closing enough times to know the system. Rooster wipes down the jukebox with the specific tenderness he reserves for things he loves.

Bob is at your shoulder, where he always ends up at closing, doing the quiet useful work of someone who has learned the rhythm of your night and moves inside it like he belongs there. He swaps your bar towel for a dry one without being asked. He tops your water and leaves it by your hip. He takes the heavy crate from your hands when you reach for it and replaces it with the lighter one, smoothly, without comment, and you let him because you have learned that letting Bob help is its own kind of language and refusing it costs something neither of you can afford. At some point, in the soft last half hour of closing, he is beside you restocking the lowboy and you are resetting the garnish well and the music has gone quiet and the only sounds are the surf and the soft industry of people who care about the same place. "Hey," you say, not looking up from the lime wedges. "Hey," he returns, not looking up from the bottles. "You two-stepped." "I did." "In your grandfather's vest." "It seemed appropriate." You smile at the cutting board. "It was."

A beat of comfortable quiet. The surf. The last of the amber lights. "Lucky." You look up. He is facing you, lowboy closed, hands easy at his sides, his hat is still on your head, but the bandana still loose at his collar and the star still pinned to the vest. He looks like himself and also like something more than himself, the way people look when they have spent a whole night being slightly braver than usual and found out they could. "Thank you," he says. "For the lesson." "Thank you for the research," you tell him. His mouth does its thing. "I will improve by next time." "Next time," you repeat. Like it is obvious there will be one. Like July is already a given. "If there is a next time," he says, careful. You look at him. At the vest and the star and the man who showed up in his grandfather's things because you held out your pinky in May and he took it seriously. "Bob," you say. "There is always a next time." He holds your gaze for a moment, steady and warm and entirely present. Then he nods, once, the way he nods when something has been confirmed that he needed confirmed, and goes back to the closing work. You go back to yours. Outside, June keeps doing what June does - warm and patient and full of something that hasn't been named yet but is taking up exactly the right amount of space.

The first week of May comes in lazy and bright. Three days after the beach, the sun is still in everyone’s bones. The Hard Deck is in pre-rush mode: doors open, floor dry, regulars trickling in. Penny is at the till. You are behind the bar topping up citrus and pretending you aren't waiting for a particular set of glasses to walk through the door. The bell rings twice. Your pilots pour in. Rooster strides in first, already mid story. Phoenix follows, relaxed. Coyote and Payback bring the breeze with them. Fanboy and Hangman argue about who cheated at pool last time. Bob is last, one hand on the door frame in that habitual check-the-room sweep, then he steps inside. They fan out to their usual patch of bar like they own the place. “Evening, degenerates,” you call. “Thirsty or annoying first.” “Both,” Rooster says happily, sliding onto his stool. “Also, important business: beach pics are fire.” “Absolute cinema,” Fanboy agrees. “Ten out of ten lighting,” Coyote adds. You blink, curious. “Yeah, the one you sent me is great.” “The one,” Rooster repeats, already half focused on the coaster he is spinning. “I sent you, like, five.” You frown, wiping your hands on a bar towel. “No, you sent me one. Foam line, me and Bob, illegal lighting, highly suspicious jawline. That one.” Phoenix’s head lifts. “Wait. You only got one?” You nod. “Yes. Why?” The squad goes oddly still. “Hold up,” Coyote says slowly. “How did you not get the others?”

“Because you did not send them?” you offer, sweet and lethal. Fanboy looks from you to Rooster. “You did send them. In the chat.” There is a beat of silence. You tilt your head. “What chat?” Six adult naval aviators stare at you. “The chat,” Rooster says. “The group chat.” You set the towel down very carefully. “What group chat?” Phoenix turns to Rooster like she is about to court martial him. “You have got to be kidding.” Bob’s brows draw in. “You aren't in the group chat?” You cross your arms, half amused, half wounded on principle. “I am apparently not in whatever mysterious digital space you all gossip in, yes.” Hangman looks honestly affronted. “That can't be right. We wouldn't be that stupid.” Payback groans. “We are exactly that stupid.” Penny looks up from the till. “Do I want to know?” “No, ma’am,” Coyote says quickly. You tap the bar between you and Rooster. “Explain. Now.”

Rooster drags a hand down his face. “There is a Dagger chat. For logistics. Hydration reminders. Harassment of Hangman. You know. Team morale.” “When did you make it,” you ask. “Before the Uranium run,” he admits. You run the math. They made it before you came along - no conspiracy, no deliberate slight. Still, you decide they deserve a little grilling. “So you have had this secret club for months, and nobody thought to add the person who pours your drinks and organizes your life?” Hangman winces. “Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds bad.” “It's bad,” Phoenix says. She jabs Rooster in the shoulder. “You are admin of the chat. Why did you not add her?” “I thought someone else did,” he protests. “I was flying. I was stressed. My bad.” You stare at him. Rooster looks agonized for half a second.

Then he pushes his stool back, stands up, walks around the bar side where he is still technically allowed because Penny hasn't stopped him, and drops to one knee in front of you like he is proposing to the concept of forgiveness. The entire bar goes quiet. “I have failed you,” he declares, hands clasped dramatically. “On behalf of Dagger group and as head admin of the chat, I formally apologize for this grave oversight. Please don't cut us off from your grace and also your drinks.” Penny snorts before she can stop herself. Phoenix covers her mouth, shoulders shaking. Hangman immediately whips his phone out. “Oh, this is going on record.” You look down at him and try to keep a straight face. “Bradley,” you say. “Are you begging me for digital access?” “Yes,” he confesses without any shame. “I am asking for your forgiveness and also your contact info.” Bob has gone pink around the ears, but he is smiling, soft and a little proud, like this is the correct level of groveling. You sigh theatrically, then hold out your hand. “Phone.” Rooster slaps his unlocked phone into your palm like a penitent knight turning over his sword. “Have mercy.” You scroll to the top of the chat list. There it is.

DAGGER CIRCUS

You open it. The most recent chaos is a meme about altitude versus attitude, a debate about what time everyone is hitting the Hard Deck next, and a criminally zoomed-in photo of Hangman looking like a feral raccoon. A little higher up, there is a picture of you. The caption reads “caught in the wild” - you mid-pour, light flaring behind your head like a fake halo. You go very still for a second. “Okay,” you say slowly, looking up at them. “Be honest. Are y'all stalking me?”

Rooster lifts his hands. “Respectfully, that is called appreciation.” Hangman nods, utterly unhelpful. “Yeah, Lucky, that is not stalking, that is… field research.” Bob goes pink and adjusts his glasses. “It's a nice picture,” he says, which is not denial at all. You scroll a little more, taking in the memes and nonsense. “Real vital communications in here,” you say dryly. Phoenix leans over the bar. “Add yourself.” You hand the phone back. “Absolutely not. I am not adding myself like some sad little hacker. One of you is going to do the right thing and formalize this. I expect ceremony.” Hangman points at Rooster. “You heard the lady. Do the honors.”

Rooster scrambles back onto his stool and pulls the phone against his chest like a shield. “Name?” “You have my full government name somewhere from that one time we made Hangman fill out a raffle ticket, but I am not spelling it twice on a Wednesday,” you say, wiping your hands on a bar towel. “Just put Lucky.” Phoenix is already typing on her own phone. “I have her number. Stand down.” Hangman looks mildly horrified that Phoenix has you in her contacts first. “When did you get her number?” Phoenix gives him a bland look. “When I signed up for the bartender union.” “You what,” Payback asks. “Ladies only,” you say. “Classified.” Her thumbs move and a second later your phone buzzes in your apron pocket. “You are in,” she says. “Dagger circus plus Lucky. Adults only.” You fish your phone out and check the notification. The last messages are already flying.

PHOENIX: welcome, lucky HANGMAN: we are so sorry pls dont poison us PAYBACK: speak for yourself, i have been an angel FANBOY: that is a lie and i have screenshots

You type, thumbs quick.

LUCKY: so. you all had a secret group project without me LUCKY: and none of you thought “hey we should add the bartender who keeps us alive” LUCKY: interesting

Rooster hunches like he has been shot. “She is roasting us in the chat already. We deserve this.” Bob’s phone buzzes softly. He glances down and his mouth curves before he can check it.

HANGMAN: in my defense i thought adding you would be too thirsty COYOTE: you literally send shirtless gym pics in here HANGMAN: that is community service LUCKY: anyway, punishment: all of you on water first round tonight

You shove your phone back into your pocket. “I accept my punishment with grace,” Hangman declares, hand over his heart like he is taking an oath. “You would,” you say, grinning despite yourself. The whole thing - Rooster’s dramatic apology, the mock ceremony, your shiny new presence in their digital chaos - sits in your chest like a small, ridiculous sun. You roll your eyes for form, but it still feels stupidly good to be claimed on purpose. Your phone buzzes again. Then again. Then it just starts vibrating in pulses as the notifications stack up - the backlog hitting you at once. Beach photos, the foam-line shot with Bob’s hands at your waist, blurry bar videos from nights you did not even know anyone was filming. On top of it all, a new meme pops up of Rooster on one knee in front of you at the bar, one hand to his heart, the other offering you a coaster like a ring box. Hangman has already slapped a caption across it:

HANGMAN: when you forget to add the bartender to the group chat and must atone

You favorite that one too. Bob scrolls past the chaos and finds the new photos Phoenix just dropped again: that foam line shot, the closer angle where you and he are leaning a little too close, the candid from the steps where he is looking at you instead of the camera. He tucks his phone away like those are sensitive documents and not just pixels. Phoenix clocks it, smirks into her beer, and lets it go. The night picks up. Orders roll in. You slide back into your rhythm, but now when Bob’s pocket buzzes with squad nonsense, your name sits right there with the rest of them. And when your apron vibrates against your hip, sometimes it is a meme, sometimes a logistics ping, and once, quietly, a new message from Bob.

BOB: Hey. BOB: I figured I should say hi somewhere that is not 8 people yelling in all caps. BOB: Text me here if you ever need anything. A ride. An escort to your car. Late night grocery runs. Backup at the bar. Anything. BOB: No pressure. Just… available.

You look up, find him at his stool with his Coke and his careful posture, and send back:

LUCKY: wow so you are telling me i have been serving you emotional support coke for TWO MONTHS and only now get the floyd hotline?

LUCKY: rude. canceled. blocked.

LUCKY: jk professor, thank you 💚

LUCKY: noted: rides, grocery bodyguard, bar backup, etc

LUCKY: just so you know, that goes both ways. if YOU ever need anything, you text me

LUCKY: sorry for the spam. gotta work now.

He laughs under his breath. Rooster, watching all of this, knocks his knuckles on the bar. “Officially,” he says, mock formal, “Dagger chat welcomes its most important member.” “Bold statement,” you say. “True statement,” he insists. “Accurate,” Bob says quietly. You pretend not to hear that last part, but your smile says you did. It is stupid how much better the night feels knowing the Professor hotline exists.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Tuesday nights at the Hard Deck feel like someone turned the volume knob down instead of off. The neon is still warm, the surf still hits the pilings outside, but the rail is only half full. A couple of locals, a pair of mechanics in oil-stained coveralls, one quiet tourist who found the place on accident. The jukebox drifts through soft rock instead of anthems. No one is yelling. No one is trying to impress anyone. Time loosens its belt and slouches. Penny disappears into the office with a stack of invoices and a promise to come yell if you burn the place down. That leaves you, the bar, and the kind of slow shift that makes you antsy because there is nothing to fix and too much space to think. You wipe the same dry patch of wood twice, catch yourself, and toss the rag over your shoulder with a muttered, "Get a grip." The bell over the door gives a polite ring, not the usual crash. Boots. You look up on reflex. 

Bob steps in like he is checking his coordinates - a beat on the threshold, a quick sweep of the room, shoulders untensing when he clocks the quiet. No squad. No chaos. Just you, a handful of strangers, and the soft hum of the place. "Hey," you call, leaning an elbow on the rail. "Professor. You are off duty?" He huffs a small laugh at the nickname and pushes his glasses up. "Mostly. Sim block got bumped. I was going to go home, but then Penny mentioned you were short tonight." "Traitor," you say, but there is no heat in it. "She sell me out that fast." "She said, and I quote, 'If you are headed down there anyway, make yourself useful and keep Lucky from reorganizing the entire bar out of boredom'." You click your tongue. "Rude. Accurate." He takes his usual stool near the service end, the one that sees everything and blocks nothing. You already have a Coke in your hand by the time he sits. Bottle, not tap. Label straight. You slide it over. "On the house," you say. "Consulting fee." He smiles, the real one, not the polite one. "Dangerous precedent." You shrug. "I live dangerously. I work here."

He takes a sip. It's always two swallows first, then he sets it down exactly where the ring on the wood already is. You didn't notice that he does that until you did. Now you can't unsee it. There is a lull. No one at the rail, no tickets hanging, no glass in the sink. Just you and a pilot on a half empty Tuesday. You grab the cutting board and a bag of limes, because idle hands aren't allowed in your religion, and start trimming ends. "You can talk, you know," you say, casual. "It doesn't violate bar rules." "I talk," he protests lightly. "You answer," you correct. "Different." He thinks about that, then nods, as if you caught him fair. His eyes drop to the knife in your hand. "Watch your fingers." You snort. "You wrap one wound and you think you are my OSHA officer now?" "Yes," he says, without irony. "Exactly." It pulls a laugh out of you that feels bigger than the joke. You slow the knife by a fraction. You do watch your fingers.

For a while you work in companionable quiet. He nurses his Coke, you quarter limes. The jukebox slides into something with a lazy guitar line. The tourist at the far end scrolls his phone. The mechanics tip their bottles together and argue about something only they understand. "How is the hand," Bob asks, eventually. You look down at your knuckle. The cut from the other night sits there, neat under a fading line of adhesive. It's healing well. Still, for a second, you see the creep, the grab, the way the whole bar surged around you like muscle around bone. "Healing," you say. "I have been very brave about not picking at it." He gives you a small approving nod. "Good."

You flip the lime, start another row. "I hate that my hands shook after," you admit, almost under your breath. "It wasn't even that bad, you know? I have seen worse. Had worse. I just - for a second it felt like I was back at this awful bar in my early twenties and I hated that. I hate that it still lives in the wiring." You weren't planning to say that. It just falls out, soft and honest, because the bar is quiet and because he is looking at you like there is nothing else in the room. He doesn't say you are overreacting. He doesn't say it was nothing. He nods, slow, like he is filing it under Important. "Some things stay in the wiring," he says. "Doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be pissed about it." You glance at him, curious. "You have those too?" His mouth quirks. "I have been in a plane that fell out of the sky when everyone did everything right. You don't forget the sound it makes. You can do the job anyway. You just - learn where to put the sound." You look at him properly now. The soft lights pick out the tired lines under his eyes that the squad never notices, not because they are blind, but because he hides them under quiet jokes and steady margins. "Where do you put it," you ask. He considers. "Checklists. Procedures." A beat. "Sometimes it leaks into the bar." You smile, faint. "Lucky me." He ducks his head, blushing, but there is a little spark of pride there too, like he is secretly pleased you see it as a compliment.

"Your turn," he says. "What was the awful bar?" You pull a face. "College town. Cheap beer. Sticky floor. Boss who thought 'smile more' was a performance metric. Men who thought throwing peanuts at the staff was flirting." "Sounds like a training environment for here," he says. "In the worst way," you confirm. "I lasted three months. One night some guy grabbed me by the wrist so hard I bruised and boss told me I should be flattered I still had it." You roll your eyes. "I quit. No backup plan. Just rage and a borrowed suitcase." His jaw tightens in that way you are starting to recognize. It's the look he had when the creep reached behind the rail. Quiet fury with nowhere to go. "He deserved to have his beer cut with dish soap," Bob says, mild as milk. You bark a laugh. "You are dark." "Control freak with long memories," he corrects you. "Bad combination." You finish the last lime, hands moving slower now that the story has surfaced. "Anyway. I promised myself if I ever worked behind a bar again, it would be in a place where I had backup and rules that meant something." "You picked well," he says. You glance around - the worn wood, the mugs, the sign Penny made about disrespecting the Navy and buying a round, the door where trouble gets walked out instead of allowed to take root. "Yeah," you agree. "I did."

The tourist pays out and leaves. One of the mechanics waves for another beer, you pour on autopilot, and the bar slides back into soft noise. When you come back to the rail, Bob is turning his bottle between his fingers, not spinning exactly, just adjusting the tiny sliver of condensation. "Tell me something that is not about work," you say. "We have covered trauma, now we need hobbies or I have to start charging therapy rates." He pauses, thrown. "Not about work." "You heard me. Hobbies. Favorite cereal. Most irrational fear. Last time you cried. Dealer's choice." He stares at his Coke like the answers might be printed on the label. Then he breathes out, accepts the challenge. "I like baseball," he says. "A lot." You grin. "That is adorable." He winces. "I walked into that." "You did," you confirm. "Team." "Kansas City," he says. "Grew up on it." You lean on your palms. "So you are one of those people who can talk ERA and trades and whoever got benched in nineteen-something." "Twenty-something," he corrects, reflexive. "And yes." "I know absolutely nothing about baseball," you announce. "Except that they chew a lot and there is always some guy yelling at an umpire." "That is a fairly accurate summary," he admits.

You point the bar spoon at him. "Okay. Deal. You fix my hand and my irrational bar injuries, you are now also responsible for teaching me Baseball For Idiots." He blinks. "Really?" "Yeah. I would like to understand what the old guys scream about on the TV. It seems important." His mouth does that small almost-smile. "I can do that. We can start with the basics. Inning, outs, why bunting is a crime." "Slow down, professor," you joke. "One trauma at a time." A song flips on the jukebox. Something seventies, lazy bass line, softer than the usual Hard Deck soundtrack. You sway a little without thinking, moving glasses in the rack. Bob watches the motion, then forces his eyes back up where they belong.

"Your turn," he says. "Hobby." You shrug, suddenly self-conscious. "I used to draw." "Used to?" "Life happened," you say, vague, which is your default, and then roll your eyes at yourself. "Okay, that was a cop out. I got busy. It felt stupid to sit and doodle when I was trying to pay rent." He looks at you like you just said gravity is optional. "How is drawing stupid?" "Because it doesn't pay," you say, like it is obvious, then catch the way his expression shifts. There is something stubborn there. Something that doesn't like that answer. "You stand on a rail eight hours a night managing idiots, drunk pilots, and Penny's standards," he says, voice calm. "If you want to put pencil on paper on your day off, no one gets to call that stupid." You look at him, surprised at the heat under the words. You feel something soft go loose in your chest. "Alright, Bob," you say, lighter, because the alternative is letting your voice crack. "You teach me baseball, I will draw you a chart." “A chart,” he repeats, amused - and a little bit doomed, because he loves charts and the person well on her way to becoming his favorite human just offered to draw one for him. "Pitch types," you decide. "Or whatever. I will make it pretty." He looks delighted by that mental image. "Deal."

A small group wanders in, orders a round, takes over the pool table. You move around the bar, take care of them, drop waters, laugh at one joke that actually lands. Bob stays where he is, reading the room like a second set of radar, ready to stand if something twitches in the wrong direction. Nothing does. When you circle back, he has finished his Coke. The bottle sits empty, label still stubbornly straight. "Refill," you ask. He hesitates, then glances at the clock. "I should not. Early brief." You nod, accept it. "Responsible. Hot." He chokes on air. "You can't just say that." "I can, actually," you say, smug. "Bar rules." His ears go pink again. He pushes his glasses up. He doesn't deny it. The door opens. Phoenix sticks her head in, scans, sees him, grins. "There you are. I thought you would be holed up grading checklists." "Recreational," he says. "Supervised." She clocks the limes, the quiet, you leaning on the rail a little easier than at the start of the night. "Good," she says. "That means you won't explode when I tell you we have a double sim block tomorrow." He groans, exactly once. You slide him a sympathetic look and tap your knuckles on the bar. "You will survive." "Preferably," he repeats. Phoenix orders a beer, then looks between you two, something almost approving in her eyes. "You kids playing nice?" "We are trading skill sets," you tell her. "He is going to teach me baseball. I am going to draw him a chart." Phoenix smiles, slow. "Of course you are." She clinks her bottle against his empty Coke, then against your bar spoon. "Don't let him undersell the ERA thing. He knows his stuff." "I figured," you say. "He talks about fuel planning like other people talk about religion." Bob mutters something about slander. Phoenix laughs and moves down the bar to harass the mechanics.

You wipe a drip near his bottle, more to have something to do than because it is needed. "Thank you for coming in," you say, finally, quieter than the music. "I know it's a haul after work." He shakes his head. "This is less work than going home and staring at a wall." "You saying my company beats your walls," you tease, but the question under it is real. He meets your eyes, steady. "Every time." Your heartbeat stumbles. That is not a line. That is just Bob, uncomplicated and true. You nod, trying not to look as affected as you feel. "Then come in next Tuesday too. I might need help cutting fruit without sacrificing more fingers." "Copy," he says, soft. "I will keep my schedule open." 

Later, when the bar closes and you are alone in your tiny apartment, you sit at the wobbly kitchen table with a cheap sketchpad you have not touched in months. You pull a pencil out of the mug where it has been keeping stray pens company. On the first page, you write at the top, in your bar chalk handwriting: "Bob's Baseball Chart." You are rusty. Your lines are not as clean as you would like. The proportions are off. You mess up a letter and have to go over it twice. It annoys you. You keep going. Somewhere over the surf and the traffic hum, jets pass overhead on night training. You do not see them. You feel the vibration and think of checklists and control freaks who know where all the kits are. You shade in the curve of the baseball, write "curveball" next to one arrow and "fastball" next to another. It is messy. It is not for anyone else's eyes. You know exactly who you are going to slide it to across the bar next week anyway.

 🍀🍀🍀🍀

The commissary at the edge of base is the opposite of the Hard Deck. Fluorescent instead of neon, linoleum instead of old planks, music thin and distant from tired ceiling speakers. People drift through the aisles with carts and baskets, brains half on grocery lists, half on whatever comes next. You aren't Lucky here. No eyeliner wing, no bright top, no bar smile ready. Just black leggings, an oversized sweatshirt with the sleeves shoved to your elbows, hair in something that can barely be called styling and is clearly losing the fight. Your cart has one wobbly wheel. Of course it does. You stand in front of the pasta sauces, doing quiet math. Store brand vs the nice jar. Your hand hovers over the expensive one, drops, reaches back for the cheaper label. Penny pays well and the tips are good, and for the first time in years you don't have to panic about rent. But years of panicking don't vanish overnight. You still don't quite trust that it will stay like this - steady income, contract safe, no axe hanging over your job. For the first time in a long while you can even put a little money aside, just in case things go bad again. So you curl your fingers around the store brand and drop it into the cart. Better be safe than sorry.

Bob comes around the end of the aisle in an old squadron hoodie and jeans that have seen better decades, carrying a hand basket instead of a cart because he always underestimates how much he needs. He is focused on the shelf in front of him, counting cans. He almost walks straight into you. He stops in time. You don't look up. He does. For a half second, the world tightens to the shape of your shoulders in that oversized sweatshirt, bare face, tired eyes scanning the price tags. No eyeliner. No theme. No Lucky persona, just you. You are still pretty. In a way that punches him harder than the bar glamour ever did. He realizes, one beat later, that he is wearing an ancient navy tee with a faded logo under the hoodie, hair flattened weird under a cap he didn't bother to straighten, and his basket currently holds: plain cereal, chicken breasts, instant coffee, and the same brand of Coke you slide in front of him at least four nights out of seven. He looks like a tired grad student, not a man who flies jets. His brain immediately offers three plans:

A: reverse course, pretend he never saw you.

B: drop basket, move to another aisle, start buying groceries only at 2300 from now on.

C: stand there like a deer in headlights and hope you never raise your head.

He actually takes one step back for A before his foot squeaks on the floor and your cart wobbles. The sound might as well be a flare. You look up. “Bob?” Abort is no longer an option. He freezes mid step, caught, then shuffles forward again like he always meant to do that. “Hi.” You blink once, then your face does that slow brighten he knows from behind the rail - smaller, less dialed up, but real. “Hi.” He pushes his glasses up, because of course he does. “Fancy seeing you here.” “People do require food to live,” you say, deadpan. You gesture at his basket. “I see you have chosen beige.” He looks down at his haul and winces. All neutrals. All boring. “I am committed to a color palette.” You laugh, soft and surprised. “You look like a stock photo of ‘single man who forgets dinner’.” He glances at your cart. There is pasta, sauce, frozen veggies, a suspicious amount of store brand, and one very fancy chocolate bar tucked under a bag of rice like you were hoping it would hide. A list is folded on the handle, half items already crossed off. “You look like you actually know how to cook,” he says. “I know how to make three things very well and lie about the rest,” you correct. “Also, I am in a committed relationship with coupons.” He notices the way your thumb smooths the edge of a yellow sticker on the pasta and he files it as a simple fact: you think about money.

“I didn't know you shop here,” he says. “Only when the fridge threatens mutiny,” you answer. “You?” “Only when the cereal runs out,” he admits. “And I like the quiet. Compared to...” You both picture the Hard Deck at peak chaos and say, in unison, “That.” It makes you both smile. For a moment neither of you knows what to do with your hands. You fiddle with the cart handle. He adjusts the basket so the cereal box stands straighter, as if that fixes anything. He clears his throat. “You look... different.” You arch a brow. “Good different or ‘wow, you are a troll without eyeliner’ different.” He flounders, alarmed. “Good. Good different. You look... relaxed.” You glance down at your sweatshirt, which has a small bleach spot near the hem and a logo from a city two moves ago. “This is my peak fashion.” “It suits you,” he says, before he can stop himself. Your mouth does a small, surprised tuck. “You are easily impressed, Floyd.” “I am accurately impressed,” he corrects, then mentally screams at himself for sounding like a manual. You tilt your head, studying him. “No aviators. No flight suit. I was starting to suspect you slept in Nomex.” He huffs. “Penny would ban me for smelling like jet fuel at her bar.” “Fair,” you concede. Your eyes flick over his hoodie. “I like the hoodie, by the way. Very ‘respectable citizen’.” He looks down, suddenly aware of the faint coffee stain near the pocket. “It is... old.” “Vintage,” you say, smiling. “Like Hangman, but less annoying.” That gets a real laugh out of him. The tension in his shoulders drops a notch.

A woman with a cart passes between you, apologizes, and you both step aside in sync. When she is gone, you find yourselves closer than before, aisle still half yours. “So,” you say, leaning lightly on the handle, “what does a WSO buy when he is not drinking Penny’s coke?” He glances again at his basket, resigned. “Apparently, beige.” You reach in without asking and pluck up the cereal. You read the label, unimpressed. “This is boring and sad.” “It has fiber,” he offers weakly. “I am talking about joy, Bob.” You put it back and grab a different box from the shelf - still reasonably sane, but with a cartoon on it and actual flavor. “Try this,” you say. “Looks like childhood, tastes like sugar and bad decisions.” He takes it, baffled and amused. “Lucky-approved.” “Expert-certified,” you confirm. “I lived on that for a semester once.” “You just told me you know how to cook.” “Yeah,” you say. “Now. Back then, I knew how to boil water and open a packet.” He nods, solemn. “We have all grown.”

You move down the aisle together without really deciding to. He matches your pace automatically, basket hooked in his fingers, shoulder a respectful distance away. You pause in front of the sauces again. He watches you hesitate, then reach for the cheaper jar. He pretends not to notice and instead taps the shelf above. “That brand does a decent one. It's usually on sale at the end of the month.” You raise an eyebrow. “You keeping a mental map of discounts now.” “I keep track of things that matter,” he says lightly. “Fuel, weather patterns, marinara prices.” It makes you snort. “Control freak.” “Accurate,” he says. “I dislike surprises.” You glance at him sideways. “I am a surprise.” He opens his mouth, then shuts it. His heart does a small, helpless stutter because, yes, you are, and yes, he dislikes surprises, and no, he does not dislike you. “You are a statistical outlier,” he settles on. “That is different.” You laugh. “I am going to put that on my tombstone.”

You turn the corner into the snack aisle. He thinks, briefly, about peeling off, pretending he forgot something in produce, giving himself an exit. Instead his basket bumps your cart, gently, and decides for him. “What are you doing for the rest of the day,” you ask, casual as a drink order. “Laundry,” he answers, tragic but honest. “Maybe watching a game if I get through all the briefs.” “Baseball,” you guess. He nods. “Homework for me, then,” you say. “I have to keep up with your lessons.” His face does that small bright thing again. “You started the chart.” You blink, then grin. “Maybe.” He looks delighted, like a kid told there will be cake later. “I can't believe you are humoring me on baseball.” “I am humoring me,” you correct. “I like watching you talk about something that isn't fuel margins.” He starts to protest, then realizes that would be proving your point. “Okay, fair.” You pick up a bag of chips and throw it in your cart. He reaches for the same brand and hesitates, because his brain briefly pictures you both eating the same thing at the same time, which is absurd and tiny and somehow huge. “Do it,” you tell him, reading his pause. “Live dangerously.” He puts the bag in his basket. “Peer pressure is strong.” “Bar rule,” you say. “If I see you outside the bar, I am allowed to interfere with your dinner choices.” “That isn't on the sign,” he points out. “I write the sign,” you remind him. “I can amend.”

You drift toward the checkout together now, carts and baskets loaded. The line is short. You pick one, he follows. For a second, as you roll up, he has the wild thought again: he could bail. Put the basket down, say he forgot something, shop at night forever. Keep this version of you - sweatshirt, cart, coupons, almost-laugh - as a one time glitch in the matrix. Then you tilt your head at him, hair falling out of your twist, and say, “I am glad I ran into you.” The thought dies where it stands. “Me too,” he says, a little too fast, then steadier. "It's nice. Seeing you... not working.” You wrinkle your nose. “You saying I don't look nice working.” “That is not what I -” he starts, panicking, and you laugh. “I am messing with you, Bob.” He exhales. “I know. My reflexes are slow off duty.” 

You shift your cart up as the line moves. Your phone buzzes in your pocket; you check it, make a face, more humoured than annoyed. “Everything alright,” he asks. “Amelia is being a gremlin,” you say, fond. You tuck the phone away. “Nothing new.” He nods and smiles. The cashier starts ringing up the person in front of you. You tap your fingers on the cart handle. “Hey,” you say, sudden, before you can talk yourself out of it. “Next time there is a day game on your schedule... if I am not on shift... maybe you can show me which team I am supposed to pretend to care about.” He blinks. “Next time.” “Yeah,” you say, playing it off with a shrug that does not hide the hope under it. “You can bring briefs. I will bring snacks. We will both pretend this is purely educational.” His heart does that steady, unrealistic, hopeful climb. “I would like that.” “Good,” you say softly. “Me too.” His heart does that unreasonable steady climb that has nothing to do with cardio and everything to do with you saying next time like it is obvious there will be one.

The person in front of you moves off. You roll your cart forward. The cashier gives you the standard greeting. You start unloading your items onto the belt. Bob stands behind you, basket on the floor, watching you grab the hidden chocolate bar and put it down like you are confessing to a crime. He doesn't say anything. He just smiles, small and fond. When it is his turn, you step aside, wait for him instead of bolting. You leave together, sliding through the automatic doors into bright afternoon. Outside, the parking lot smells like hot asphalt and a faint touch of sea. You both squint in the light. “That your car,” he asks, nodding toward a familiar battered thing a few rows down. “Don't insult her,” you say. “She can hear you.” He lifts his hands. “Sorry. Respectfully, your car is a marvel.” “Better,” you say. You stand there for a second, bags in hand, awkward again on the edge of leaving.

“Drive safe,” he says, because he means it and cannot not say it. “You too,” you answer. “Don't let the cereal go stale before you actually eat it.” “I have a system,” he insists. “I don't doubt that,” you say, and your smile is softer than you mean for it to be. You start toward your car. He starts toward his truck. Halfway there, you look over your shoulder. “Bob?” He stops. “Yeah.” “See you soon,” you call. “Bring your baseball brain. You need to teach me.” He nods, feels stupidly, solidly happy. “Copy.” He watches you unlock your car, load your groceries, smack the hood once like encouragement, then climb in. You wave once as you pull out. He lifts his fingers off the handle of his basket in a small answering salute you don't see, but it feels right. On the drive home, you catch yourself smiling at nothing, thinking about curveballs and kits and a man in an old hoodie who somehow makes the commissary feel less like a chore. In his truck, Bob glances at the cereal box on the passenger seat and thinks, not for the first time, that surprises are overrated - except when they look like you in a sweatshirt under bad fluorescent lights, grinning over pasta sauce. He decides he doesn't need to switch to midnight grocery runs after all.

 🍀🍀🍀🍀

Middle of May comes with sunlight and baseball. Penny has the Hard Deck open a couple hours early "for maintenance", which, translated, means she let you bully her into putting the game on the big TV and serving the squad soft pretzels before official opening. Shutters half open, salt air sneaking in under the hum of the pregame show. The lanterns from Neon Night are gone, but the hooks remember them. On the chalkboard you have written, in big block letters:

BASEBALL FOR IDIOTS guest lecturer: bob "professor" floyd syllabus: innings, outs, why bunting is a crime

Underneath, in smaller handwriting, you have added:

midterm: correctly bully the umpirefinal: understand what ERA is without crying

The squad has shown up for the free snacks and the chaos. Coyote has claimed the stool with the cleanest sightline to the screen. Rooster leans on the rail with a beer and the body language of a man who intends to heckle. Phoenix has a notebook purely so she can draw little skulls every time someone says something stupid. Hangman is already complaining about the lack of explosions. Bob is at the end of the bar, half seated, half standing, because he cannot fully relax with a game on. He has his Royals cap in his hands, not on his head, turning it over once and then setting it down exactly parallel to the edge of the bar.

You slap a sheet of paper down in front of him. It's your chart. Pencil lines, a little messy, ball and field and arrows. FASTBALL, CURVEBALL, CHANGEUP, written in your bar chalk hand, with little notes. You have drawn tiny screaming stick figures for "fans" and one small Bob in the corner with glasses and a speech bubble that says, "Actually." He blinks. Then he smiles, slow and stunned. "You did homework." "This is your lecture aid," you inform him, smug. "Use it wisely." Rooster leans in. "Is that a caricature of Bob correcting the world about RBI?" "Yes," you say. "It is.” Bob blushes and also looks like he might frame the thing. Penny wipes out a glass, pretending not to care. "If anyone explains stats at my bar, keep it under five minutes or I charge extra." "House rule," Phoenix agrees. You clap once. "Alright, Professor. Start with the basics. Inning. Outs. Why we care." Bob takes a breath like he is about to brief a mission. He points at the chart, at the TV, back at the paper.

"So, there are nine innings," he begins. Hangman groans. "Already bored." "Respectfully," you tell him, "no one cares, Jake. This is my class." "He is going to use the word sabermetrics," Rooster mutters. "Watch him." "You are all very rude," Bob says, but his eyes are bright. He explains anyway. Simple, patient, drawing little comparisons for you - three outs like three strikes at the bar, foul ball as "guy who gets kicked out and tries to come back through the side door". You nod, absorbing it. It is weirdly fun, not because of the game, but because he is talking about something that makes his shoulders sit a little broader. When he pauses to let a pitch play out, Rooster taps his pen against his bottle. “You two are disgustingly wholesome. Grocery store meet-cutes. Baseball lessons. Where is my off duty Lucky experience?” You squint at him. “Why do you know that? Are you stalking me?” It's more accusation-shaped teasing than worry. Rooster lifts his hands. “I have my sources.” “That is mysterious. But what?” Phoenix’s brows climb. Hangman straightens like someone rang a bell. “Hold up. When did you get a grocery store meet-cute?” You tip your chin at Bob. "Last week. Commissary. I was making life choices about pasta sauce, he was buying beige cereal. Very romantic." Hangman drops his pretzel. "You two met in the wild and didn't tell us." "It was a grocery store visit," Bob says, defensive for no reason. "There was nothing to tell." "I bullied his cereal," you add, a little proud and a little silly. "In case you were wondering who is corrupting whom." Hangman gasps. "She touched your cereal?" "I recommended a different brand," you correct, amused. "We upgraded from cardboard to sugar." Coyote points an accusing finger at Bob. "Unbelievable. Man is out here getting meet-cutes at aisle seven while the rest of us are stuck spotting you in uniform like common peasants."

Phoenix smirks into her beer. "To be fair, Bob hangs out at normal human hour places. You lunatics only exist in three locations: jets, gym, jail-adjacent bars." "Also," you add, pointing at Hangman, "you tried to flirt with me by talking about your closet as a hazard zone. The universe is not going to reward that with off duty encounters." "I maintain the line was good," Hangman protests. "It had dust on it," Rooster says. "We talked about this." Payback squints at you. "Do you at least get dressed up for the commissary, or are we talking full grocery goblin mode?" You think about your leggings, your oversized sweatshirt, hair barely contained. "Goblin mode." Fanboy slaps a hand over his heart. “I can't believe Floyd met goblin Lucky before me. Personally victimized.” You tip your head at him. “You already got your feral sighting. Remember?” He squints, then brightens. “Oh. Right.” Bob’s stomach does a small, ridiculous twist. “You did,” he says, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near careful.

You grin, all mischief. “We ran into each other downtown. Arcade bar.” Rooster perks up. “Absolutely not. When?” “Last Wednesday,” Fanboy answers, leaning back like he is about to narrate a legend. “I was annihilating civilians at Mario Kart. Look up, and who walks in looking for change for the machines.” Bob hears last Wednesday and does the math he does not want to do - grocery store aisle, your cart with the bad wheel, his heart doing something stupid - same week, same you, same city, two different versions of you and only one of them stayed. His brain, unhelpful, decides the fluorescent commissary is the low point on some imaginary chart while Fanboy got the neon version. He didn't ask if wanted to grab a coffee or dinner or if you wanted to go for a walk. Now the questions circle like jets in a holding pattern and he has no one to blame but himself for how high his pulse climbs. You raise a hand. "In my defense, I didn't know it was an arcade bar. I was just following a sign that said fries and beer." "She destroyed me," Fanboy says, long suffering and clearly lying. "I beat you once," you correct. "On Rainbow Road. The other races were a tragedy." "You held your own," he insists. "We got fries. We talked about how my generation is under attack." "You are two years older than me," you remind him. "Exactly," he says, as if that proves his point. Hangman slams a palm on the bar. "This is unacceptable. Fanboy gets Mario Kart Lucky, Bob gets grocery Lucky, and what do I get?" "A restraining order if you keep talking," Phoenix says mildly. Coyote leans in, eyes wide, milking it. "Did you at least grab drinks?" You shrug. "Sodas. I had to drive. I am very responsible." Fanboy nods, solemn. "She cut me off at two root beers.” "It was for your own good," you tell him. "You were starting to mansplain controllers to an eight year old." "He was doing it wrong," Fanboy protests. “You were doing it wrong," you sing-song.

The squad laughs. The entire thing is harmless, small. You and Fanboy trading fries over sticky bar tables while neon machines flash in the background. Bob knows that. He still feels the small, sharp edge of jealousy at the picture in his head - you in a different light, laughing at someone else's jokes, leaning over a steering wheel with your tongue caught in your teeth, not in his line of sight. It's not rage, just a tight ache. Longing with a jealous accent. He tells himself it's good that you have a life beyond Penny's bar and the ready room. He believes it. Mostly. The part of him that likes knowing where all the exits are also likes knowing he isn't the only one who gets to see the versions of you that come out when you aren't on shift. The other part of him quietly wants to be invited next time. Phoenix nudges him with her elbow, voice low. "You look like you swallowed a lemon." "I am fine," he says. She looks at him, sees through it. "You are allowed to not like the fact that other people ran into her as well." "I ran into her at the commissary," he replies, slightly sharper than intended. "There it is," she murmurs, amused. "You want more than aisle seven and chart club, Floyd. That is okay." He doesn't answer. He watches you instead. You are leaning on the bar now, telling Rooster and Payback about the ancient arcade machine and the teenager who smoked all of you at Street Fighter. You mimic the kid's victory dance. They crack up. Your face is softer than when you are working, sharper than when you are tired. You are fully yourself.

Penny cracks open a soda, sets it next to his elbow. "Relax, Bob," she says, casual. "Lucky collects all of us in the wild. You are still ahead." He glances at the chart, at the game, at the way you are watching the pitcher with real concentration now. He knows, suddenly, stupidly, exactly what he wants. Not another accident. Not a grocery aisle or an arcade or a half hour between shifts. A real thing. On purpose. On screen, the batter connects. The crack of the hit splits the comfortable low noise of the bar. The ball sails. You gasp, delighted. "That's a home run," Bob says, reflexively, already half smiling. "That's extra credit," you correct, eyes on the screen. The squad whoops. Hangman yells something at the television. Payback throws a peanut. Fanboy tries to high five the air. You turn, grinning, to look for Bob's reaction. He is already looking at you. For a second, the rest of the noise slides off to the sides. "Good call, Professor," you say. "Good chart," he says back. The little jealous knot in his chest loosens, not gone, just reclassified. Information. Motivation.

He thinks about Western Night, about boots and bad shirts and the ridiculous image of himself in a hat. He thinks about you at the commissary, at the arcade, here at the bar, all of it. He thinks, carefully, about asking. Not tonight. Not in front of all of them. But soon. Hangman throws an arm around both of your shoulders from behind, ruining the moment. "Respectfully," he announces, loud, "I demand equal opportunity wild Lucky access. Next time you leave the bar, you file a flight plan." "You are the last person I am handing my location to," you tell him. "We can rotate," Coyote calls. "Lucky custody." "Absolutely not," Phoenix says. "Y'all would forget the schedule and lose her at Trader Joe's." "I don't shop at Trader Joe's," you protest. "Too many choices." Bob hides a smile into his soda. He lets them bicker. He lets you grin at Fanboy's retelling of Rainbow Road. The game keeps moving, the bar keeps humming, and under all that noise something in him quietly locks onto a new heading. Happy accidents have been nice. He is done leaving this entirely to luck. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But soon.

 🍀🍀🍀🍀

The squad is early on the call of everyone´s favorite bartender who asked with help decorating for the first motto night. Penny hears the boots and sets out beers without looking, plus one Coke for Bob. “I saw the board,” Phoenix says, sliding onto a stool. “Looks good. People are going to swarm.” “Where’s Lucky?” Coyote asks, catching Penny between glass and rag. “Picking up last-minute decorations.” Hangman, who opted for an all jeans outfit and wears it with an surprising amount of grace notices something: Rooster isn’t here either. “And where is the mustache menace?” “Also picking up last-minute decorations,” Penny adds, bland as a runway. A glance slides along the rail to the quiet one. Bob adjusts his Coke on its coaster as if the wood were a runway and labels were centerline lights. Old Levi’s, white tee with a thin black seam at the sleeves. He tells himself it’s errands. He tells himself he’s fine. His stomach still does a small, impolite turn. The empty pocket by the door has a shape, and minds fill shapes whether they’re invited to or not.

The bell gives its clean note. The two of you come in together - Rooster first, boxes stacked to his chin, grin set to I brought the party; you behind him with two smaller cartons, sleeves rolled, wearing one of Rooster’s loud button-downs like it belongs to you. Every rib in Bob’s chest finds a new angle to be. Of course. Of course a girl like you would gravitate to a man like Rooster - witty, handsome, built-in soundtrack of a summer night. Of course the shirt lands on your shoulders and makes sense. Of course he helps you carry boxes and it’s easy and everybody sees it. Bob has no claim, no right - just a sudden, precise inventory of everything he is not. Abort. He breathes. Adjusts the label. It’s already square. He adjusts it anyway. Rooster thumps the big box onto a pool table. “Special delivery!” You ease your stack to the end of the rail, breathless and bright. “Balloons. Lanterns. A banner that may or may not violate codes.” “If confetti touches my floor, both of you are mopping with toothbrushes,” Penny warns. “Only if it’s Hangman’s,” you and Rooster say together and laugh like you didn’t mean to. Hangman clutches his heart. “They speak in sinc. I am ill.”

Rooster reaches, careless and familiar, and flicks one of his ridiculous buttons straight at your collarbone. “Fits you.” “Borrowed,” you say, easy. “Don’t get attached.” “Too late,” he lies, winking. “I think I might like the shirt on you even better than on me. If you want, you can keep it, sunshine, I am a generous man.” You shake your head but can't help the grin that creeps across your face. Bob’s pulse ticks louder in his ears. Jealousy is a stupid animal; it doesn’t read the room, it reads the shirt. He knows it. He hates that knowing it does nothing. Penny doesn’t indulge the bit. “If the rom-com is finished, hang the lanterns. Don’t scratch my ceiling.” “Copy,” you say, already moving. “Left bank mine, right bank Rooster. Coyote - you’re tall - hook duty. Jake -” “Respectfully,” Hangman declares, stepping in with a smirk, “I can help you up the ladder and make sure someone’s there to catch you when you fall.” You don’t even slow. “I would rather die than have you catch me.” Payback wheezes. Fanboy claps like a seal. Rooster checks your shoulder with his; you look up and flash him a grin. Bob hates it. Bob hates the heat that spikes under his collar because of a shirt, a touch, a laugh. He hates that it’s human.

Coyote’s hand arrives like a hook; you loop a lantern, neat as a checklist. “Two palms apart down the window line,” you call. Phoenix props the door half open to move air. You flick a glance over the room and it’s the thing Bob can’t stop loving: the way you set a picture in motion. Traffic control with a smile. Pace over volume. Heat lowered a degree no one can name. Phoenix slants Bob a look: you can help. Not you have to. He steps forward before he can talk himself into stillness. “Where do you want me?” he asks, steady. You look up and give him that small, private smile that punches clean through the noise; the little voice in his head quiets like someone turned down a radio. “Ladder duty,” you decide, crooking a finger for him to follow. “The betrayal!” Hangman groans from afar. “What did I do to deserve this?” “You proved untrustworthy,” you deadpan, already walking. “Bob didn’t.” The jealousy in Bob’s chest stutters, then evaporates; in its place, a simple fact lands and holds. He takes the ladder from your hands and, absurdly, feels two inches taller. 

He goes, still smiling - bit filed under performance, not threat. The stupid thoughts starts to thin. Bob braces the ladder - one hand on rail, one on side. You climb light, centered; when you reach for the top hook, the ladder whispers under your heel. “Got you,” he says - automatic, warm. You stagger a fraction and his hands settle at your calf and the side rail; not grabbing, anchoring. The world drops to three points: your weight through aluminum, his fingers deliberate, metal whispering against wood. Your laugh falls one register. “Occupational hazard,” you joke, and you don’t move until you feel his hold and answer it with your balance. “Take your time.” His voice is low and reassuring. Something in his chest reorganizes. Gravity doing the math: this is the thing - being the steady under your reach. You feel it too. He is the balance to your chaos, you charge forward with energy and he follows to make sure you stay grounded when needed. He wonders why he gave Rooster’s grin so much room in his head when the room itself keeps handing him the answer. “First clip,” you call, voice back to bar level. He releases the rail, not you, then lets go clean when you settle. “Next,” you say, and you both move like you’ve done this a hundred times: you set the pace, he sets the stability; you point, he measures; you lean, he’s there. The line goes up straight. Across the room, Coyote feeds Rooster a lantern. “Higher. No - higher than your ego.” “Impossible,” Rooster declares, pleased. You climb one rung higher for the corner clip. The ladder whispers again; Bob’s hands are there, firm. You glance down - half a second, all gratitude, nothing flirty - and it lands like a stamp he’ll keep forever. The lanterns soften the ceiling; the banner centers; balloons anchor to the rail with neat knots. Penny does a slow scan that reads like approval stamped under duress. Hangman leans on the bar, proud of nothing. “Working at a bar is hard.” “Try some hydration you weirdo,” you say, sliding him another water. Jake drinks, sighs, clutches his chest for no reason. “Vintage,” Phoenix tells him. “It’s the age.” He staggers like the word physically hit him. “I am not -” “Being born in the eighties,” Roster pokes, “means being old.” “Soup,” you add because you can. Rooster actually snorts. “Both of you - outside,” Penny threatens, but she’s smiling.

The doors open and the tide comes with it - sand still on ankles, sun still in hair, the kind of Friday that walks itself to the rail. White shirts, denim jackets, some with color. A regular tried to recreated your eyelines and you compliment her for it. Her smile lights the room. Your chalkboard does half the work and you do the rest. The room answers like it’s been waiting all month. It’s a hit from the first order. The Neon Highball goes out three at a time; the tip jar fattens fast enough to make Penny’s eyebrow climb and then stay there. You run the pace, not the volume - warm neon, steady waters, requests that somehow make strangers harmonize. People laugh like they mean it. Rooster has taken over the music and is allowed behind the bar just tonight and just because the two of you match. Bob watches. Rooster looks handsome behind the bar and the ladies love it. His aviators perched on his head like punctuation. You pass behind him, lift the sunglasses in one practiced sweep, and slide them onto your own face without breaking stride. The rail howls. Rooster squints at you in mock betrayal. “Identity theft!” You put them on your own face and laugh. Bob’s stomach does its annoying tilt again. Sunglasses, shirt - his brain loves a prop. He hates that about it. He also hates how much better the aviators look on you than anyone else in the room. Penny grabs her phone and snaps a picture of you and Rooster, menaces behind the bar. 

He looks down and then he hears you say his name. He looks up. The room falls away a step. “I am disappointed,” you say, eyes bright in borrowed glass. “You didn’t dress up.” He opens his mouth, then laughs at himself. “I didn’t.” “Why?” He could say he doesn’t costume. He could say he forgot. He could tell the truth: he didn’t want to be the wrong kind of visible. He picks something shaped like all three. “Next time.” You tilt your head. “Promise?” He hesitates exactly as long as a careful man does before committing, then holds out his pinky like a cadet. Your smile breaks clean. You hook it. It’s silly and ceremonial and somehow it lands deeper than anything he’s done tonight. “Legally binding,” you declare, solemn. “Enforceable by Penny?” he asks. Penny flicks a towel without looking up. “By God.” “Good,” you say. “Because next is Western Night.”

It ripples through the squad like a wave across a shallow: Coyote’s eyes light, Payback starts humming a two-step, Fanboy declares himself a hat person, Hangman groans theatrically. “Respectfully, I was not warned.” Phoenix sips her beer, pleased. “Bob just got himself into something.” Rooster points at Bob’s shirt like a tailor. “We’re talking boots, Professor. Belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. I can help.” “Respectfully,” Bob says, steady, “I will secure my own buckle.” “Chaps,” Hangman offers, trying to cause an incident. “Water,” you counter, sliding him one without looking. He drinks like a chastised horse. You take the aviators off and set them on Bob’s face for one second - just long enough for the squad to collectively ascend and for his ears to go vivid. You pluck them back and pin them to the register again like evidence and a dare. “Western Night,” you repeat, lower, for him. “Two-step corner. Boots. A shirt with snaps. You will be my favorite problem.” “I thought I was supposed to be steady,” he says, half protest, half hope. “You can be steady in boots.” Your voice is teasing. “That’s the entire point of boots.” Hangman squints at the chalkboard, already composing grievances. “Cowboy Jake has a ring to it.” “Grandpa Eighties,” Phoenix corrects.

At midnight, the first motto party slowly ends. Penny denies that she is sold. Penny is absolutely sold. She kills the music one notch at a time, swaps the playlist for something calmer, and the room answers like it knows the script: people start closing tabs, hugging friends, promising to text and absolutely not meaning it. Your chalkboard is smudged at the edges, lipstick has migrated onto several of the neon straws, and the tip jar looks like it got away with robbery. “Last call for glow sticks,” you tell a cluster of students who have been aggressively recreating an eighties music video near the jukebox. They cheer anyway. One leaves a folded twenty in the jar. Penny sees it and looks away on purpose, like if she acknowledges it the universe might take it back.

By the time the last regular waves out the door, the lanterns have dimmed to a soft wash and the banner has gone lopsided by a thumb width. It annoys you more than it should. Your feet hurt, your shoulders are tight from reaching, and your voice has that rough edge it gets on the third night of a run. You drop an empty into the crate and miss the first time. “Hand-eye coordination shot,” you mutter, then correct yourself, “slightly impaired.” “Occupational hazard,” Penny answers, not looking up from the till. Her mouth is doing its best not to smile. “You pulled it off. People are already asking when the next circus is.” “Western Night,” Rooster reminds her, too pleased with himself. “You approved it. We all heard.” “I said I would think about it,” Penny corrects, flat as concrete. “Penny,” Phoenix says, gentle and merciless, “you were humming along to the neon playlist. You are compromised.” Penny closes the till with a soft thunk. “Chairs up. Lanterns down. Opinions outside.”

They move. They always do. Coyote starts on the far tables, flipping chairs with smooth efficiency. Payback grabs a broom like he has been assigned community service. Fanboy unhooks balloons and pretends they are confiscated evidence. Hangman tries to wrangle a cluster of streamers and ends up lightly tangled, which is what happens when you are you. Bob goes where he always goes - orbiting your work, looking for a gap that needs filling. He isn't loud about it. He just appears with a crate when you run out of space on the dish rack and swaps it in without you asking.You reach for the banner, but your arms protest. You stand tiptoe, fingertips brushing the knot with no leverage. “I have it,” Bob says, already there. He braces a hand against the wall and undoes the tape with a care that doesn't peel paint. The banner comes down in one clean fold instead of a ripped mess. “You are officially taller than the tape,” you say, and the joke is tired but sincere. “Promotion.” “Ladder duty, banner duty,” he counts. “I am building a niche.”

You roll the fabric between your hands. Your fingers slip once, clumsy with end-of-night exhaustion. The banner sags sideways before you catch it. You grit your teeth, annoyed at yourself. “Hey,” Bob says, quiet enough that it does not carry. “That was a lot tonight. You do not have to do all of it perfectly.” “I do, actually,” you say, sharper than you intend. It hangs there for a beat. You see his eyes flicker. You sigh, then soften. “Sorry. Reflex. It is stupid, but... if the first one flopped, Penny was never going to let me try another. I needed this to work.” Bob takes that in, slow and serious, like he is reading a brief. He nods once. “It worked.” You huff a laugh that is half relief, half disbelief. “Yeah. It did.” You drape the banner over your arm and go hunting for tape residue. Bob follows with a damp rag and wipes the spots you point at, label-forward neat even when he is just cleaning adhesive. 

By the time the lanterns are down and the floor is swept, the Hard Deck looks half asleep. The neon signs hum low, the string lights have been clicked to warm, and salt air sneaks in through the propped back door. You lean on the stainless counter for a second too long. Your shoulders droop, your face goes neutral. It is the same slip Bob has started to recognize - the one that appears when you think no one is looking. It lasts only a heartbeat before you square up again, but he sees it. “Sit,” Penny orders quietly, catching it too. She points at the end of the rail. “Five minutes. That is not a request.” You start to protest, then wince when you unthinkingly flex a foot inside your shoe and feel the blister complain. “Copy,” you concede. The word feels wrong in your mouth when it is about your own limits, but you go.

Bob is there before you can overrule yourself. He has moved your Coke - the one you never had time to drink - to the end of the bar and set it on a fresh napkin. The label is straight. Of course it is. You raise an eyebrow. “Did I earn a break, or are you bribing me to stay upright for Western Night?” “False choice,” he says. “Both.” It pulls a tired laugh out of you. You sink onto the stool. The Coke is blessedly cold against your fingers. “My feet hate me.” He tilts his head. “I can help with that.” You squint at him, skeptical and curious. “What, you fly jets and do foot surgery?” He pinks, but holds his ground. “Not surgery. There is a first aid kit for blisters in there too. I saw it. You ignored it.” “You clocked the blister kit?” “I clock all the kits,” he says, like it's obvious. You hesitate. Pride pokes. So does the ache. Then you sigh and stick one foot out, toe still in the worn sneaker. “If this is weird, we stop.” “If this is weird, we never speak of it again,” he agrees. He crouches, careful, and unties your laces like he has been trained in not making a big deal of intimate tasks. When he eases the shoe off, you can't stop the hiss. The blister at your heel is exactly what he expected - angry, raised, the color of regret. “Cute,” you mutter, tired and annoyed. “Second self-inflicted injury at this job.” “It means you were moving,” he says, “Not a bad thing.” He reaches for the kit, straightens with a small pack in his hand. “May I.”

You nod. His fingers are gentle again - gauze pad, bit of gel, adhesive donut to keep pressure off. It is matter of fact, almost clinical, and somehow more intimate for how unflirty it is. “You know,” you say, watching his concentration, “for someone who spends most of his time in the backseat, you are very good at taking point on triage.” He huffs a laugh. “WSOs are control freaks in disguise,” he admits. “We like knowing where the emergency exits are.” He tapes the last edge, then looks up, checking your face, not his work. “Try it.” You slide your foot back into the shoe. It still hurts, but less like a knife and more like a complaint. “Better,” you admit. “I will survive.” “Preferably,” he says. “Western Night will be less fun if you are limping.” You take another sip of Coke, watch him stand, watch the way his knees pop a little. “For the record, I was nervous all week that nobody would show up and I would've bullied Penny into buying neon for nothing.” “That was never going to happen,” he says, without hesitation. You tilt your head. “Really? You had that much faith in my theme night powers?” “I had that much faith in you,” he corrects, simple and clear. “And in Penny. She wouldn't have put your name on the board if she didn't think it would land.” You look at him for a second longer than the joke version of you usually would. It's ridiculous how one steady sentence from him cuts through an entire week of what if it flops. The tiredness lets a different kind of honesty through. “You talk like that and are surprised I made you my favorite.” He blinks once, then swallows. The faintest smile tugs at his mouth. “Still holding that title, then?” You bump the bottle rim against his knuckles where his hand rests on the bar. “As long as you keep coming in early when I call for volunteers.” “Copy,” he says, soft.

From the doorway, Phoenix whistles low. “If I see one more tender moment I am charging you both rent.” “Get out,” you call, not unkind. “Or grab a towel.” “We are going,” she says. “We have to bully Professor into buying boots.” Coyote appears behind her, already grinning. “We found a store with hats that would destroy him in the best way.” Hangman materializes beside them like trouble drawn to a threshold. “Respectfully, I will be his stylist.” “Respectfully,” you say, “he will be his own stylist, and any hat decision goes through me and Phoenix.” Bob looks mildly panicked and quietly pleased, which is about standard. “I thought it was just boots.” Rooster leans around the doorframe, smudged from hauling trash, still in his twin shirt. “It's never just boots, Bob. Western Night separates the cowboys from the cowards.” Penny tosses a bar towel at his head. “Western Night separates the people who respect my floor from the people who muck it up. Out. All of you. I want the bar empty in five.” They scatter with varying levels of obedience. Rooster calls over his shoulder, “Text us your boot size, Professor,” which Bob pretends not to hear and absolutely logs to answer later. You stand again, slower this time, and stretch your back. The brief flash of pain crosses your face and you don't bother to hide it. Bob clocks that too.

“Go home,” he says. “Sleep. You can obsess about lantern spacing tomorrow.” “Rude,” you say, but you are smiling. “You aren't wrong.” He picks up his jacket, hesitates, then offers, “Do you want a ride?” “I have my car,” you say. “Which is a generous word for that thing, but it does run, and it is this obnoxious color I hated at first and now kind of love. Amelia thinks it is cool and the second she said that I reverse aged to 20, so win.” “Okay.” He shifts, like there is more he wants to say and he isn't sure where the line is. “Text someone when you get home.” “Is that an order, Lieutenant Floyd?” “Strong suggestion,” he says. “From a control freak who has seen enough stupid things happen after midnight.” You think about telling him you are fine, that you have done this for years. Then you see the way his jaw works, the way he pushes his glasses up like he is physically holding himself back, and you swallow the automatic brush off. “Alright,” you say instead, softer. “I will text.”

You grab your bag, your keys, your worn denim jacket that has seen too many shifts. At the door, you turn back. He is still there, Coke in hand, jacket over his arm, looking like he is trying to memorize the room. “Hey, Bob.” He looks up fast. “Yes.” “Thank you. For the blisters. For the banner. For not letting me fall off the ladder and die in a pile of balloons.” His smile is small and bright. “Any time,” he says. “Always.” You roll that last word around in your head on the walk to your car. It sits somewhere between ridiculous and reassuring. Your feet hurt. Your hands are nicked. Your shoulders are tired. The bar is still buzzing faintly behind your ribs. And under all of it, there is a steady little line that feels suspiciously like something you could lean on if you ever let yourself. Western Night is going to be a problem. You are already looking forward to it.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

It starts because Amelia is bored. Rain taps at the Hard Deck windows, thin and steady. Off-season afternoon at the end of May: tourists gone, regulars not here yet, jukebox humming some tired classic rock to an empty room. Penny is re-labeling bottles. You are leaned on the end of the bar, chewing a straw, scrolling. Bob is on his usual stool, Coke in front of him, tablet in hand, posture neat like he came with the furniture. Amelia is starfished on a corner table, cheek to the wood. "I am dying," she announces to the ceiling. "This is how I go. Boredom." "You are not dying," Penny says, not looking up. "You are mildly inconvenienced." "Same thing," Amelia groans. "There is no one to eavesdrop on. No drama. No fights. Not even Hangman being weird." "You say that like I am a circus act," a familiar voice protests. Hangman shoulders through the door right on cue, shaking rain off his jacket. Amelia doesn't even lift her head. "Your job involves flying a multimillion dollar jet," she mumbles. He pauses. "Ok, fair." He clocks the empty tables, the rain, the general air of meh. "Wow. Vibes are tragic in here." "Congratulations," Phoenix says, stepping in behind him, equally damp. "You match." You straighten. "You are early." "Sim got scrubbed," Phoenix says. "Weather. Maverick told us to go do something 'team building' and then stared at his phone like he wanted to punch it, so we left." "Mission accomplished," Hangman says. "We are here to build the team. And by team, I mean my ego." "Your ego doesn't need a gym," you tell him. "It's already jacked." He tips an invisible hat. "Thank you for noticing." Amelia makes a despair noise. "You see. Nothing is happening. We are reduced to complimenting him."

You look at her for a long beat. "Fine," you say. "We are fixing this." Penny looks up from the labels, instantly suspicious. "Define 'this'." "Boredom," you say. "We are having game hour." Her eyes narrow. "If you take out Jenga, you are banned." "Better," you say, and drop to your knees behind the bar, rummaging through your bag. "I come prepared." Bob glances up from his tablet, curious. "That is ominous." You pop back up and slam a battered metal tin onto the bar. It rattles. Amelia's head shoots up. "Is that," she whispers, reverent, "Uno?" "Uno," you confirm. Hangman squints. "We are adults." "You are barely functional adults," Phoenix says. "Cards are appropriate." Amelia is already on her feet. "Yes. Yes. Yes. This is what I was born for." Bob shifts on his stool. "I don't really play cards much." "You are about to," you tell him. "Come on, Professor. Field trip." He hesitates for exactly one breath, then closes his tablet, sets his Coke down, and follows you to the big round table by the windows. Phoenix drops into a chair, Hangman sprawls in another. Amelia bounces until you flick her forehead and make her sit. Penny watches all of you arrange yourselves, arms folded, equal parts exasperation and affection. "If you flip the table," she says, "you are mopping." "You cannot flip a round table," Amelia says. "Physics." "Don't challenge them," Penny warns.

You crack open the tin and dump the cards. They spill out in a bright waterfall, a little bent from use, still smelling faintly of plastic and ruined friendships. You shuffle with the easy speed of someone who takes this way too seriously. Bob watches your hands like he is timing a procedure. "Ok," you say. "House rules. We stack. We jump in. No mercy." Bob blinks. "Stacks?" "Draw Twos and Draw Fours," you explain. "You slap one down, next person either eats it or adds to the pile." Amelia vibrates. "Feed me. I live for chaos." Hangman bares his teeth in a grin. "I am going to ruin all of you." Phoenix rolls her shoulders. "I will write your eulogies." Bob, cautious, raises a hand. "Is there a printed rule set?" You meet his eyes. "Do I look like Hasbro?" He considers you for half a second. His mouth tips up. "No. You look like trouble." Amelia smacks the table. "Oh my God, he flirted. Write that down." You pretend your heart doesn't skip a beat. "You are getting extra cards for that." "Favoritism," Hangman complains. "I want extra cards if I flirt." "You get a restraining order if you flirt," Phoenix says. You deal seven to each of you, then flip the top card. "Yellow eight," you declare. "Bob starts. He is new blood." Bob picks up his hand, fans the cards out, brows knitting. You can practically hear the grids forming in his head. "Take your time," you tease. "I am considering optimal play," he says. "It's Uno," Hangman says. "You throw a card and pray." Bob picks a yellow three and lays it down, careful like it might bite. "Solid," you praise. "Color match. Defense." He looks quietly pleased. Amelia slams a yellow reverse on top. "We go back." Hangman groans. "Already?" Phoenix calmly drops a yellow skip. "Sit down, Bagman." "You people have no respect for turn order," he complains. "Correct," you say, tossing a yellow nine. By the time it gets back to Bob, the pile has seen every yellow in the deck and at least one red that no one challenged because you all collectively forgot you can challenge.

Two rounds later, the door opens again. Rooster, Coyote, and Fanboy stumble in out of the rain, flight jackets damp, mid-conversation. They clock the card pile, the way Amelia is narrating like a sports commentator, and immediately veer over. "What did we miss," Rooster asks. "War crimes," Amelia says. "Pull up a chair, spectators." They cluster at the rail and the empty side of the table, half watching, half heckling while they dry off. Back in the game, you see it: something in Bob shifts. His shoulders relax, but his eyes sharpen. He stops just looking at his own cards and starts watching everyone else. He notices Amelia always plays her wilds too early. He clocks that Hangman will hold onto a Draw Four purely out of spite. Phoenix is quietly ruthless. You will happily set yourself on fire to keep someone else from winning. "Uno," Amelia declares, throwing down a blue seven and smirking. "Bow before me." "Absolutely not," Phoenix says, dropping a Draw Two on her. Amelia wails. "Traitor." Hangman cackles and adds his own Draw Two. "Four." Coyote, now fully committed, whistles low. "Six." You look at your hand. Look at Amelia's face. Look at your Draw Two. You place it gently on the pile. "Eight." Amelia clutches her chest. "I thought we had something." "You have hubris," you say. Bob looks at his cards, at the stack, then at you. Slowly, like he is loading a weapon system, he lays down his own Draw Two. "Ten," he says, almost polite. The table erupts. "I didn't know you had that in you," you tell him, delighted and offended. He blushes, but there is a new glint in his eye. "Strategic strike." Amelia draws ten with the drama of a telenovela death scene. "Betrayed. Betrayed by everyone I love." "You called Uno too early," Bob says, trying very hard to sound serious. "We had to restore balance." "You used to be my favorite," she tells him. "You are now, respectfully, a war criminal."

Penny brings over a bowl of popcorn, because at this point this is dinner theater. "If anyone throws a card at anyone, they are doing dishes." Within four hands, alliances form and crumble. Hangman crows when he slaps a red nine on top of another red nine, jumping in out of turn. Phoenix calmly plays a Wild, changes it to green, and gives you a look that says she knows you have no greens. You swear vengeance. Bob gets louder as the rounds go by. The Coke and the chaos have him loose. He laughs out loud when Amelia slams a skip on Hangman three turns in a row. "You are targeting me," Hangman complains. "You are easy to target," Bob says. "Big surface area." The table howls. You actually fold forward over your cards. "Floyd, stop, he is already dead." Hangman claps a hand over his heart. "You wound me. Why would you say something so hurtful, and so true?" Bob shrugs, small smile. "Occupational hazard." You bump his knee under the table. "Look at you. Sassy." He glances at you, eyes bright. "Must be the company." "Your Uno villain arc is my favorite," you tell him.

The second game escalates. You are down to two cards. Bob has three. Phoenix has four. Hangman has half the deck, because justice. Amelia is narrating like it is live TV. "Lucky at two, Professor at three, Phoenix chilling, Bagman in hell," she says, phone out. "Who will survive this episode of Emotional Warfare Naval Edition?" "Naval," Coyote repeats from the rail, amused. "Like Navy." "I meant naval," she hisses. "Don't correct me in my own house." "It's Lucky's house," Bob says absently, laying down a green five. "Actually it is my house," Penny calls from the bar. "You are all tenants." You throw a green reverse on top. "Back to Bob." He narrows his eyes at his hand. The quiet part of his brain crunches something. Then he looks at you, and you catch a new expression - the one that means he is about to choose chaos on purpose. He lays down a green skip. "Unnecessary," you say, offended. "Regrettable," he says, not sorry at all. "But necessary." He follows it with a green seven. Amelia screams. "He skipped his crush. This is Shakespearean." You point at her. "You are banned." "From life," Hangman declares, throwing down a Wild like a gauntlet. "Blue." Phoenix eyes her hand, then drops a blue Draw Two. "Enjoy, Lucky." You groan and pick up two, glaring at everyone. Bob looks at his cards, at you, at the pile. You can see the whole debate play across his face. He hates that you just got hit because of his skip. He sighs and sets down another Draw Two. "Stack," he says quietly. "On me." Hangman yelps. "What?" "You can do that," Amelia says, delighted. "King." You raise both brows. "You just let me dump four on Bagman." "Correct," Bob says. "He deserves it." Hangman stares at his growing hand, offended. "Why?" "You know why," Phoenix and Coyote say together.

By game three, the entire bar is invested. Regulars lean on the rail to watch. A couple at the darts board cheers any time someone hits Uno. Someone has started keeping score on a napkin. Penny pretends she is not watching, but her towel stops moving every time Bob plays. It ends with you and Bob in a showdown. Everyone else is out or buried under too many cards to be a threat. You each have three. The pile is red. You throw a red nine. He immediately matches with his own red nine, jumping in out of turn. You hiss. "That's illegal." "It's not," he says. "You said jump in was allowed." "I am rescinding that rule." "You cannot," Amelia yells. "It's in the constitution." "Show me the constitution," you shoot back. She holds up a napkin with UNO written across it. "Ratified." Bob lays down a red reverse and gives you a small, obnoxiously smug smile. You glare, but you are fighting a grin. "You are enjoying this too much." "Correct," he says. "You said no mercy." "You have one card," you point out. "You going to say it?" He looks at his lone card, then at you, then at the table full of vultures. He takes a breath. "Uno." The table loses it. "No," you declare. "I refuse. I am undoing your Uno." "That is not how the game works," he says, laughing. You flip your own card. Wild. The bar actually goes quiet for a second. You hold it up between two fingers. "What color do you need, Floyd?" His smile falters. "I am not telling you that." "Then I am picking at random," you say. "You are not going to pick at random," he says. "You are going to try to read my face." "You know me so well," you say. Color climbs his neck. Amelia leans in between you. "This is foreplay," she whispers, then ducks when you swat at her. You look at him. Really look. At the tiny quirk of his mouth, the way his fingers tap once on the table, the quick flick of his eyes, not to the pile, but to the blue card already down. You grin. "Green." Beat. Bob exhales in visible relief. "Wrong." He slaps his last card onto the pile. Green three. 

The Buckhorn still smells like fryer oil and spilled beer, like somebody once mopped with ketchup and decided that was enough. Jess spots you first and launches herself at you, hugging so hard your ribs put in a formal complaint. “You look exactly the same,” she declares, leaning back to give you a once-over. You really don't. Your hair looks different now, your nails are blunt, and the little crescent of iodine on your knuckle never fully goes away now. There is less glitter and more truth to you these days. But you grin anyway and let her hook an arm through yours, tugging you toward the sticky table by the jukebox, where the rest of the girls are already half a pitcher ahead of you.

“Doctor’s back,” Marta sings, banging her glass. “Yeah,” you say. “Doctor is back.” Saying it out loud still lands like a click. NAVLE done, license issued, controlled substances log in your truck, the whole kit. You are Harris’s on-call now while he pretends to retire for the fourth time. Kelly kicks out a chair with her boot. “Tell me you brought free rabies shots for the table.” “Line up your muzzles,” you say, deadpan, and sit. That gets you a laugh from the whole group. It is almost easy to fall into the old seating chart. Jess runs point with the waitress, ordering cheese curds and onion rings like you are carb-loading for a sport you do not play anymore. Marta is bright-eyed and feral, peeling gossip like oranges. Kelly is laid back and lethal with one-liners. You used to be the sparkle in this picture. Hair curled, nails French-tipped, laugh in all the right places. Now your jeans have a manure stain on one knee you missed with the scrub brush, and the only shiny thing you wear is a thrift-store belt buckle that keeps trying to bite your ribs when you sit wrong.

“Remember when you made me borrow your glitter lotion,” you say, because someone should acknowledge the ghost. Jess gasps. “You loved it.” “I looked like a disco ball.” “You were the disco ball. Everyone looked at you that night at prom,” Marta says, pointing at you like a witness. It feels like a different life. It is a different life. The music flips to something you slow danced to in a gym under paper lanterns and questionable chaperoning. A couple in matching pearl snaps shuffles past, and you feel a small, clean tear in time - for a second you are seventeen and untouchable again. Then the kitchen door swings open, hot grease air rolls over the room, and you are exactly the age you are now, tired in a not-quite-bad way. Back in this town. Back in this bar. “Prom princess,” Jess singsongs, and you pull a face at the nickname. A question pops up in your head. Kelly beats you to it. She leans in. “So. Are the Abbotts still jerks?” You take a sip to buy two seconds. “Define jerk.” “Hot,” Marta says, and Jess shoves her, laughing. “Those are not synonyms,” you say. “They can be,” Marta sings. “Have you seen Rhett since you came back?” There it is - a name that lives in this town like a doorbell you cannot unhear. You remember hallway collisions and a fight behind the highschool gym where he called you princess and you told him algebra would eat him alive. You remember him slouched in the back of homeroom like detention was a personality. You remember how much energy you spent not liking him.

Kelly swirls the last inch of her beer. “He is taller now,” she says. “Or maybe his hats just finally fit his head.” You snort. “He still has the same stupid face.” Marta perks up. “So you have seen him?” You shrug, aiming for indifferent. “Feed store. Yesterday. Harris was talking vaccines with him. I was at the back by the syringes. He didn't see me.” What you don't say: he stood there with a coil of rope over one shoulder, listening while old Mr. Carver argued himself in circles about mineral mix. No eye roll, no talking over him, just quiet patience that seventeen year old Rhett never had. The lines at the corners of his mouth are deeper now, shirt worn soft at the seams, jaw sharper under the stubble. Out loud you add, dry, “Still walks around like gravity is a personal favor, so nothing new.” Inside, you have to admit there is something new. A steadiness that wasn't there before. And, annoyingly, the stupid face grew into itself and is now just handsome. Marta grins. “Same stupid face, upgraded settings.” “Don't upgrade him,” you say, stabbing an ice cube with your straw. “He doesn't need it.” 

For a moment the table goes quiet, all of you drifting into that space between seventeen and now. Then Jess starts tapping her nails against the sticky laminate. “We should do something dumb.” “No,” you say automatically, the word coming from the part of you that knows exactly how many milliliters are in your controlled drug log and where the lockbox sits in your truck. “Not jail dumb,” she says quickly. “Tradition dumb.” Marta’s eyes light up. “Lake.” Kelly’s mouth quirks. “Creek.” “Creek,” Jess confirms. “Abbott pasture. Like we used to. One sprint, one splash, out.” You can feel the map of it in your bones. The loose wire in the fence by the cottonwoods. The worn slide down to the bend where the water runs black and cold even in August. Senior summer you went so often it felt like a secret church. You were fast then. You believed you could outrun anything if your shoes were good enough. “Girls,” you say, “we aren't seventeen anymore. I have work early tomorrow. I am the county’s vet now. I can't get caught trespassing and skinny dipping.” They roll their eyes in practiced unison. Kelly studies you over the rim of her glass, curiosity and challenge in equal measure. The prom version of you would've squealed first, grabbed the keys, flung shirt and caution into the sage. The doctor version of you hauls a portable ultrasound in a Pelican case and keeps a headlamp in the glove box all the time. “Come on, teacher’s pet,” Jess pouts. “Don't tell me becoming a doctor made you boring.” “You know you want to,” Marta sings, already half turned toward the door. Kelly pushes her chair back with a scrape. “We go now,” she says. “You need to remember who you were before you got all grown up and responsible.” There is an old seam in your chest that remembers that creek - how the cold hit like a slap that set your heart straight. “Fine,” you say. “Phones stay off. No footage.” “Scout’s honor,” Jess says. She was never a scout.

You toss cash onto the table. The waitress waves you off like a familiar sin and scoops it up without counting. Outside, the parking lot is gravel and crickets. The sky is big enough to be rude about it. Your truck looks like every other truck lined up under the buzz of the security light, until you spot the clinic magnet on the door and the dent from the gate that got away from you last week. You leave it where it is and climb into Kelly’s instead. Marta calls shotgun before anyone can breathe and immediately bullies Kelly’s playlist, queuing up pop songs that owned the radio your senior year. You and Jess pile into the back, knees bumping, the vinyl seat hot through your jeans. The rules start before you hit the county road. No shoes in the water. First one in picks the breakfast spot. If you get caught, Marta will cry and say she lost a locket that belonged to her great aunt, may she rest in peace, even though that woman is very much alive and still terrifying. You smile and let the little grown up voice in your head get smaller, drowned under laughter and bad ideas. When your favorite prom-era song comes on, muscle memory takes over and you are the loudest one singing, windows down, night air in your teeth.

Halfway down County 8 the road turns to washboard and your teeth start to buzz. By the time you hit the turnoff, muscle memory has the wheel. Kelly kills the headlights a quarter mile early, and the night rushes in thicker - crickets swelling, a cow snuffing somewhere off in the dark, the smell of the creek arriving before the sound, wet rock and damp cottonwood. “Is the fence still loose,” Marta asks. “Last time it was,” Jess says. “Last time was nine years ago,” you remind them. “Time is a flat circle,” Jess sings, and the speakers rattle on a bass line from 2012. Kelly noses the truck under the cottonwoods. The stars out here are aggressive, chunked like ice. The gap in the fence is still lazy and familiar. You slip through one at a time, boots soft on the leaf duff, then loud against the first scattered rocks. The water ahead is a black ribbon with teeth. Jess is already unbuttoning as she walks, laugh bottled and ready to shake. Marta peels her shirt off like a magician doing a reveal. Kelly folds hers on a flat rock, because even her rebellion has corners. You stand there just long enough to hear your own pulse, then strip down to your underwear. Nothing fancy, snug and black. Your skin pebbles in the night air. “Practical but make it sexy,” Kelly teases. You flip her off, laughing, and the sound rides the dark straight toward the creek.

“On three,” Jess whispers. “One. Two. Three.” You run. The bank slides. The creek opens. The cold is a knife that insists on truth. You come up laughing because your body makes that choice before your brain can object. For a minute it is exactly like it was. You are girls in the dark. You are invincible and loud and water. “Okay,” Kelly pants. “We didn't die. We sprint out soon. We steal pancakes in the morning.” “Deal,” you say, pushing hair out of your eyes. Marta blinks toward the far fence. “Is that new,” she asks. “What?” “That light.” You hear it before you see it. A soft electrical cough and then the floodlight snaps on from somewhere up by the service road. Daylight drops out of the sky and nails the bank white. The crickets stop like a switch flipped them. Every cow in the lower pasture is suddenly a statue. “Don't panic,” you say, which is exactly what a person says before she panics. “We grab our stuff. We go. It's probably motion.”

You wade toward shore, heart thudding in that old rhythm that used to mean silly trouble and now translates to paperwork, lectures, and Harris shaking his head in that quiet, disappointed way that stings more than yelling. You rehearse your excuse as you climb onto the slick rock: We thought the fence was open. We lost a bracelet. We were leaving. You have just enough time to shrug on the giant flannel you stole from a former fling. It hits mid thigh, flaps in the breeze, does absolutely nothing about how bare your legs are. Then it hits you too - that sound behind the floodlight, neat and quick through the air, a whistle you know from a hundred clinic trucks and one rodeo you loudly claimed to hate. Hooves. Rope. You close your eyes for one heroic second of denial. “Run,” Kelly shrieks, and takes off. You bolt left, off the path and into the stubble field, laughing because the light is still swinging toward Jess and Marta, because your legs remember this sprint, because for one wild moment you are convinced you are faster than your common sense. Bare feet slap dirt. Sage snaps at your calves. You slice between two hay bales like you are back on the track team, all shirt and dare and that bad idea grin that always shows up two seconds too late.

Then you hear it. The sound you heard by the water. Hooves. Riders, multiple by the sound of it. Your guess is two. You run faster, not laughing anymore, but a big grin is still plastered across your face. Then you hear another sound. Rope moving. You tell yourself it's not for you. But then: Boom. The loop kisses your waist and tightens. Your momentum does the math. You plant. Face, knees, pride, straight into dust. The world goes sideways, stars tilt, your mouth fills with Wyoming and you taste last year’s harvest. “Jesus,” you cough into the dirt. “Ow.” The pressure around your waist loosens instantly. You can hear someone jumping off a horse, and then a hand lands between your shoulder blades, steady and warm, not pushing, just placing. The other hand flicks the rope free with a quick practiced twist. “You good,” a voice asks. Deep, not unkind, too familiar.

You roll onto a hip and glare up through a curtain of hair and dust. The floodlight behind him gives him a ridiculous kind of stage lighting, halo bright around the edges. Rhett Abbott stands there, hat brim cutting his eyes into shade, a coil of rope hanging off his arm like a bracelet he earned the hard way. For a heartbeat he is exactly the boy you remember, all stubborn jaw and trouble, and at the same time he is not. The feed store image slides over this one in your mind - the patient way he listened, the new weight in his shoulders - and the differences sharpen. He is taller, broader through the chest, less loose-limbed kid, more man who has hauled his share of days. “You lassoed me,” you say, as if that part is unclear. “You ran into it,” he says, calm and a little defensive. “I was going for your wrist. You juked.” “You don't get points for missed targets.” Boots crunch behind him. Perry steps into the ring of light, hands on hips, grin already happening. He takes one look at your outfit - underwear and an oversized shirt, legs dusty to mid thigh - and lets out a low whistle. “Well now,” Perry says. “Look like we caught ourselves a princess.” You sit up and clap dust off your palms. “Doctor Princess, actually.” Perry barks a laugh. “Doc Princess. That going on the clinic sign?” Rhett’s mouth twitches like he doesn't want it to. “Since when are you a doctor?” “Since the state printed me a license and the bank put me in debt purgatory. Why are you two playing hall monitor?” “Fence alarms,” Perry says. “We had a few trespassers recently and are running perimeters every other night.”

“Trespassers, huh?,” you say, trying to stand and then regretting it because your knee did not get the memo and there is a rock with your name stamped on it somewhere in this field. Rhett offers you a hand without smarm. You eye it. He leaves it hanging, not pushy. You take it because the ground is doing that clever tilt move again. His skin is warm and rough and annoyingly solid. He hauls you up easy. You hate how your balance finds him first and not your own feet. “Thanks,” you say, clipped. He shrugs, like gravity is no big deal. “You bleeding.” “Only my dignity.” You brush a burr off your thigh and immediately regret remembering that you have thighs and he can see them. Perry angles his flashlight so you don't have to squint. It is almost gentlemanly, if gentlemen wore old ball caps and boots that have seen three winters. He looks you over with an older brother's nosiness. “Lake night, huh,” he says. “Like old times.” “Creek,” you correct out of habit. “And we were leaving.” “Through the no trespassing signs,” Rhett says. “Those need fonts that are less ugly,” you say. “Hard to respect a sign that looks like a ransom note.”

Perry laughs again. Rhett does not. He studies you like a cow that might kick. You study him right back and hate the way your brain offers up the small, treacherous note that, yes, the girls were not wrong - he is different now, and his stupid face has gone and matured into something you would have to describe as almost attractive if someone swore you in on a witness stand. “Your friends scattered,” Perry says, tipping his chin toward the cottonwoods. “We had two in the water and one headed for the ditch.” “They will go to the truck,” you say. “I will tell them to park their criminal hearts elsewhere.” “Or you could just not be on our pasture after midnight,” Rhett says, like this is all very obvious and you are the one not keeping up. “Or you could fix your out of date boundaries,” you shoot back, heat spiking so fast it surprises you. “Fence looks like a suggestion in half the low spots.” “So do your clothes,” Perry says, then throws both hands up when you cut him with your best clinic stare. “Kidding, Doc. Kidding. I got a wife at home who can pin me to the wall in under ten seconds.” Rhett slides the rope off your waist and flicks it into an easy loop. He isn't ogling, exactly, but he is doing a very competent visual assessment. His gaze catches on your underwear for half a second before he drags it back up. “You doing house calls like that,” he asks, incredulous. “I was dressed like this for ten seconds before you showed up with your cowboy zip tie,” you say. “My pants are by the rocks. Don't faint.” Perry hides a grin behind his hand. “God, I missed your mouth,” he says. “High school was a delight.” “High school was a petri dish,” you shoot back. Rhett shakes his head like he is trying to dislodge a memory. “You always talked fast when you were wrong.” “You always talked slow when you were out of ideas.” That earns you the quick half smile again, the one that used to make teachers suspicious, and it's deeply annoying that it still lands low in your stomach the way it did in high school.

“Alright,” Perry says, pure pragmatism. “Terms. We walk you to the truck, you tell your flock to get off our grass. No sheriffs, no calls. You repay the favor by not doing this again.” “You got trail cam shots,” you ask. “Of our crimes against fashion.” “Not tonight,” Rhett says. “Only got shots last week of someone cutting fence. People get stupid when the creek drops. We've been running nights.” The word stupid lands and scrapes. Your knee throbs, dirt itches as it dries on your shins, and the truth hits: you are not a girl on a dare. You are a doctor out with idiots on a ranch that pays your invoices. You swallow the apology that wants to climb out of your throat. You don't owe Rhett Abbott an easy surrender in a field while you are pantsless. “Fine,” you say. “Escort me to my pants and the vehicle and we will get out of your hair.” “Hair is your department,” Rhett says. “I am working on rope.” “You are very good at tying things,” you say sweetly. “Congrats on your one skill.” “Lucky for you I have two,” he says, tipping his chin at the ground. “I can also pick people up after they faceplant.” “I didn't faceplant,” you lie. Perry cackles. “Sweetheart, you ate dirt like it owed you money.” You flip him off. He salutes.

Rhett walks a step ahead, sweeping his flashlight so you can dodge the worst of the burrs. It is an unshowy kind of kindness that makes your chest do a small, inconvenient thing you do not have the bandwidth to name. He shrugs out of his jacket and reaches it back over his shoulder without looking; you refuse on reflex. He doesn't argue, just hooks it over a fence post like he can pretend it was never an offer. “Your friends still at the cottonwoods,” he asks. “They know the drill,” you say. “In, out, no evidence.” “Except the part where Rhett roped the town princess,” Perry says, delighted with himself. You roll your eyes. “That nickname expired. There was a ceremony. Bagpipes.” “Town is slow with paperwork,” Rhett says. “Might take a decade.” “Then try this on for an update,” you say, climbing toward the trees. “If your heifer in pen three is still straining in the morning, check her calcium. She is flirting with milk fever. She will thank you with a live calf and Harris will thank you with a smaller bill.” He stops for half a beat, flashlight steady on your ankles. “You thought about that while you were trespassing.” “I do a lot of things at once,” you say. “You should try it.”

You crest the last bit of bank and there it is - the creek cut into silver and the floodlight painting everything the color of trouble. You stand in it for a moment, breathing hard, shirt plastered to your ribs, dust streaked up your shins, knee already thinking about bruising later. Your clothes are gone. No jeans on the rock, no hoodie, no scattered pile of bravado - just your boots sitting side by side like abandoned sentries, one tilted, your phone peeking out of the shaft. You crouch, tug it free, thumb already swiping before you register that the screen is lit. Group chat, buzzing with guilt. JESS: we bailed sorry sorry MARTA: we grabbed your bag and keys, thought you were right behind us KELLY: phone must be with you - love you - don't be mad - panic is not a crime

You sigh. Roll your eyes. Not even mad, exactly. Just tired. You haven't seen them in years. Tonight was nostalgia in a shot glass and the hangover decided to show up early. Boots crunch. “Your fan club ghosted.” “Not my fan club,” you say. “Barely my club.” Rhett rests the rope on his shoulder. “You got shoes?” “Yeah and a phone. Ten points to life choices.” You are slipping into your boots. He jerks his head toward the road. “Come on. We will walk you to the house. I will give you a ride.” You blink at him. “A ride. From you.” “I know. Scary. I will try not to lasso any pedestrians on the way.” You give him a little bow. “Thank you, good sir.” “Please don't make me regret this with medieval talk,” he says, deadpan, already falling into step beside you. 

You limp two steps and swallow a hiss, sharp pain knifing up from your sole. Perry clocks it immediately. “Hold up,” he says, crouching in front of you. He steadies your calf with one hand, slips your foot out of the boot with the other, turns it, and finds the culprit - one mean little stone wedged dead center. He plucks it out and flicks it into the dark. “You want a piggyback, Doc Princess?” “Absolutely not,” you say, heat climbing your neck. “And that nickname is retired.” “Doc it is,” Perry says, cheerful as ever. “Rhett, escort the doctor.” Rhett takes his jacket back off the fence post and holds it out again without quite looking at you, casual, like handing out jackets to half dressed trespassers is a standard Abbott service. Pride makes you hesitate. The night air doesn't. You take it. It smells like sun and hay, and the sleeves swallow your hands. You fall into step together toward the service road while Perry veers off to kill the floodlight and walk the fence. Crickets stumble back into their song. The sky is too full of stars for how ridiculous you feel. “So,” Rhett says, easy, “what were the rules tonight? In and out, no evidence, abandon the doctor if flank speed is required?” “Pretty much,” you say. “I believe the exact phrasing was tradition dumb, not felony dumb. We overshot.” “You overshot into a loop,” he says, glancing over. “You alright? Knee feels like you ate it?” “I didn't eat it. I sampled it. We are fine.” “Let me guess. That's the official medical term.” “Page one of the manual.” He grunts, a sound that might be a laugh. “Sorry for the rope.” “I know. I juked. You were going for the wrist.” You nod at the coil on his arm. “You always this accurate or just when you are targeting former classmates?” “Horse, cows, trespassers,” he says. “The loop doesn't discriminate.” “Good motto for a T-shirt,” you deadpan.

Rhett angles his flashlight low so you can see, then slows half a step like he is syncing to your limp without making a thing of it. “You got a playlist in there,” you ask, nodding at the truck as the ranch comes into view. “Or are we riding in silence while you judge me?” “Depends,” he says. “You still a country snob.” “I am a content snob. If the chorus says truck four times I dock points.” “Noted.” His mouth quirks. “So how does it work? You can be on my pasture calf-deep in crime and come back here tomorrow morning to treat my cow?” “That is how capitalism works,” you tell him, slightly smiling. “If I fix your cow I get to charge you extra for the moral whiplash.”

Rhett digs behind the truck seat and comes up with a pair of gray sweatpants, soft and a little faded at the knees. “These will save your dignity,” he says. “Drawstring works miracles.” You take them. They are heavy with someone else’s laundry soap, clean in a way that makes your skin sigh. You picture him in them for half a second - fresh out of the shower, hair damp, waistband riding low - and then you shake your head like a dog and stuff both legs in before your brain does more crimes. “They are massive,” you say, cinching. “Do they come with a map?” “You will live,” he says. “Roll the cuffs. Or start a trend.” You roll the cuffs. The pants swallow your ankles and you try not to enjoy it. The jacket earlier helped with the cold, but the sweatpants were the dignity triage you needed. 

Rhett parks you at the edge of the yard where the porch light does its best impression of a dying star. The sweats keep trying to slide off your hips. You are held together by baling twine, stubbornness, and the fact that his truck heater is already rattling to life. He opens your door like some kind of actual gentleman. You climb up, clutching the waistband with one hand and your dignity with the other, and collapse into the passenger seat. The cab smells like dust, leather, old coffee, and that citrus hand wipe thing he clearly overuses. “Seatbelt,” he says. “Look at you, law abiding,” you say, clicking it in. He slides in on his side, shuts his door, and puts the truck in gear. The dash light ghosts his profile, picks out the bruise along his jaw from some earlier encounter with something uncooperative.

His playlist comes on low and surprises you with a podcast intro. Not twang. Not trucks. An interview about soil moisture sensors. You look at him. He notices and does not quite look back. “What? I like knowing what is under my feet.” “Nothing. I am just updating the file. Rhett Abbott listens to nerd radio.” “Doctor Princess trespasses in only underwear,” he says, and pulls out slow. “We all contain multitudes.” You check your phone one more time. The group chat is a salad of apologies and heart emojis and a photo of your bag in the back of Jess’s car. “You mad at them,” he asks, eyes on the road. “Not really. We just don't fit like that anymore.” You hook a burr out of the towel with your nail. “It's like trying on jeans from high school. You can get them over your knees if you lie on the floor and swear at physics, but why?” “That an official medical metaphor too?” “That one is on the house.”

He keeps glancing over like he is checking you for fractures. “You good,” he asks as you pull onto the county road. “Nothing sprained, nothing broken, ego mostly intact?” “Ego bruised, knee scuffed, pride terminal,” you say. “Overall, survivable. Doctor-patient confidentiality will cover it.” “Granola bar in the glove box if you pass out.” Your stomach perks up. You eye the glove box. “You joke, but I will absolutely eat in your truck.” “That's why it's there. Have at it.” “Fine,” you say. “I will investigate your emergency provisions.” You pop it open. Inside: one slightly squashed peanut butter granola bar, a roll of neon green vet wrap, a half used pack of baby wipes, a folded bandana, registration papers, and right at the back, a small, matte foil packet that is absolutely not a sugar free mint.

You freeze for half a beat. Then your brain, because it is a menace, supplies the image of him in these same sweatpants, fresh from a shower, reaching in here for that and not the granola bar. Your face goes warm in a way that has nothing to do with the heater. “Baby wipes, respectable. Registration, boring. Bandana, cowboy on brand.” You pluck the granola bar out, then hook the foil with your pinky and slide it forward into the light. “And exhibit D,” you say. “Preparedness.” His ears go red instantly, color climbing up under the edge of his hat. His fingers tighten on the wheel. “That isn't for trespassers,” he says quickly. “That's just... general... safety. In case of… consenting adults.” You can't help it. You grin, slow and sharp. “Sure,” you say. “Ranch code. Check fences, count calves, keep one condom in the glove box in case of consenting adults.” “You are enjoying this too much,” he mutters. “A responsible cowboy is a rare and beautiful thing,” you say. You flip the packet over, pretending to read the fine print. “Regular size or is this aspirational?” “Doc,” he says, half strangled. “Hand it back before I drive into a ditch.” “You were the one who told me to open this,” you remind him. “I said get the granola bar,” he says. “You could've stopped when you hit food.” “You put it in the same box as the condoms,” you say. “This is on you.” He makes a strangled noise. “Doc.” “What,” you laugh. “You think I am going to clutch my pearls. Shocking news: I also fuck sometimes.” He definitely chokes this time. “Could you not say that word while holding that thing in my truck.” “Which one,” you ask, innocent. “Fuck or condom.” “Both,” he says, ears going red. You grin, shameless. “Relax, Abbott. I am not judging you for having a safety net. I am a fan of safety. Occupational hazard.” He cuts you a look, quick and helplessly amused despite himself. “You going to lecture me about safe sex now?” “Absolutely not,” you say. “I am going to commend you on your disaster preparedness. First aid kit, vet wrap, hydration, snacks, contraception. You are one laminated emergency checklist away from being a public service announcement.” He exhales a laugh, the tension easing out of his shoulders a little. “Good to know I am up to code.” You consider the foil for a second longer, feeling the weight of the tease and the way it brushes right up against something that isn't a joke at all. Then you tuck it back where it was, behind the wipes, the way you might return a scalpel to its tray. “There,” you say. “Reholstered.” “That's not a word,” he says. “It's now,” you say. 

You peel open the granola bar. Peanut butter and oats. “Want half, or are you worried it ruins the vibe of your seduction kit?” He groans. “It's not a seduction kit. It's a glove box.” “Tomato, tomato,” you say around a bite. “You want some or not?” He holds out a hand without taking his eyes off the road. You break the bar in two and drop the bigger half into his palm. He takes a bite, chews, swallows. “You always keep it loaded,” you ask. “Truck, rope, glove box, just in case a consenting adult falls out of a tree.” He chews, staring at the road. “I am not exactly starving over here.” Ah. There it is. The almost-brag, just enough edge on it. You hear the jealousy sitting underneath - the part that remembers you leaving, city men, other lives. You lean back against the seat, studying his profile. “Mhm. Mr I Am Not Starving. How many glove box emergencies you had in the last year?” His jaw works. “Some. Enough.” You laugh, soft. “Rhett. That was the least convincing brag I have heard since a frat boy told me he invented foreplay.” He side-eyes you at that. “You dating frat boys now?” “God, no,” you say. “Just saying, you are cute when you lie.” “I am not lying,” he says, very offended. “I have had… situations.” You raise a brow. “Situations.” “Adults,” he says. “Two adults. No paperwork. Happy now?” You grin. “Better. See? Nothing wrong with that. I have had situations too. Surprisingly, the world didn't end when I had sex outside county lines.”

He goes quiet. You can feel the air in the cab change, just a notch tighter. You tear another bite off the granola. “I mean, shocker, I did leave town. I didn't go celibate for eight years. There were a couple of people. Maybe a bartender on a very bad day.” His fingers flex around the wheel, knuckles pale in the dash light. “Cool,” he says, a hair too flat. “Good for you.” You bite back a smile. There it is again. The silent sulk. He is trying to be modern about it and his whole body is screaming mine at a thing he has not even asked for yet. “Aw,” you say lightly. “Look at you being internally possessive.” “I am not,” he says immediately. “I am fine. Adults have pasts. I read that on the internet.” You laugh. “Rhett. Your ears are red.” “They are cold,” he mutters. “They are jealous,” you counter. He stares harder at the road. “I just don't need details about your bartender era while you are sitting in my pants eating my granola bar and holding my condom.” “That's fair,” you say, amused. “No details. Just context.” You tuck the foil packet back into the glove box, behind the wipes, where it came from. “For the record,” you say, closing it. “None of them called me princess.” His hand jerks on the wheel so hard the truck noses toward the ditch. Gravel spits under the tires. You grab the oh shit handle on instinct.

“Jesus,” you yelp. “Stay between the lines, cowboy.” He yanks it back, swearing under his breath, face a shade you have never seen on him before. Some mix of mortified, startled, and something rawer he doesn't have a name for yet. “Don't say stuff like that when I am driving,” he says, voice rough. You settle back into the seat, heart thudding, and feel your own smile go softer under the teasing. “What,” you say. “The word, or the fact.” He swallows. “The fact.” You turn your head, watch the side of his face. The porch light flickers off in the rearview, the road ahead dark and familiar. “Just so you are clear on the updated file,” you say. “People I actually sleep with now don't get to call me princess. That is retired inventory.” His mouth twitches. “You keep saying now like there is a list pending.” “You keep a condom in your glove box in case of consenting adults,” you say. “I keep my options open. Nothing wrong with either.” He is quiet for a few beats, processing, making some internal decision. “Doc,” he says finally, voice lower. “If I ask you to keep that nickname locked up for me, is that a weird thing?” You blink. “You want it back?” He winces. “Not here. Not… like that. Just… it was the one thing that was mine. Even when I was an idiot about it.” Your chest does a small, unexpected ache. “Okay,” you agree “Then it is yours. For now. Safe word is algebra.” He huffs out a laugh, tension breaking. “Deal.” You nudge his shoulder with your knuckles. “And for the record, in case your brain is still being stupid - your glove box is allowed to have condoms. Your past is allowed to have girls. Your future is allowed to have sex. I am not going to cry because you get laid sometimes.” “That's… reassuring,” he says dryly. “Also for the record,” you add. “If you behave, maybe one day that glove box stock rotation can be a joint project.” He sucks in a breath, knuckles going white again. “Doc.” “Eyes on the road,” you laugh, smug. “I would hate to die now that I got you flustered for a good reason.” 

He shakes his head, smiling now, color finally fading from his ears. The truck hums along the road, heater throwing out real warmth at last. The initial awkward heat around that little foil packet settles into something else - awareness, yes, but not sharp anymore. Just a quiet acknowledgement of the fact you are both adults and that this thing between you has teeth and legs and somewhere to go when you decide it's time. You crumple the granola wrapper and stuff it back into the glove box next to the wipes and the forgotten maybe. “Anyway,” you say. “Ten out of ten for being a prepared man. Zero out of ten for compartment organization. That is a tetanus shot waiting to happen.” “There is a system,” he protests. “You have a condom on top of your registration,” you say. “Your system is chaos.” “Chaos with potential,” he says. You shoot him a sideways look. “Careful. I might start to think you are charming.” “That your professional opinion,” he asks. “Provisional diagnosis,” you say. “We will need follow up visits.” His fingers tighten gently around the wheel, that small, quiet pleased smile tugging at his mouth. “I can work with that,” he says. 

The two of you finish the rest of the ride in silence. “Keys,” he asks, as you pull up in front of your building. “Status?” “Gone with the girls,” you say. “I left the kitchen window on the latch for cross breeze. I can get in.” He tips his head, considering your floor. “You want a leg up or is that a felony?” “I don't think breaking into your own apartment is a crime,” you say. “It's a lifestyle.” He grins. “Copy. Tradition dumb, not felony dumb.” “Exactly.” The side yard smells like cut grass and someone’s overwatered mint. He gives you a knee and a steady shoulder. You step into his hands, plant one foot on the sill, one on the brick, and haul. The sweatpants do their best to betray you, but you get a grip on the frame and wiggle through like a raccoon who studied physics. Halfway inside, you pause and look down. He is there with his hands up in case you biff it, face tilted, hat shoved back, grin small and honest. It makes your stomach do a neat cartwheel. “On three,” you say. “You already did three.” “Then call it style.” You slide the rest of the way in, drop onto your kitchen floor, and pop the latch the rest of the way. The room is a rectangle of moon and streetlight. Your plant leans toward the sink like it missed you. “You alive,” he asks, voice from the yard. “Regrettably,” you say, and lean on the sill. He steps back so he can see you better. You look ridiculous, with boots on and in his sweats, hair a little wild, shirt hanging long under the jacket. He looks up at you like this is a scene from a different life, maybe one that could have started at seventeen and not now, almost ten years later. 

“Thanks,” you say. “For the pants. For the ride. For not calling the sheriff.” “Trying to keep my streak of not arresting doctors,” he says. “Doc Princess would ruin the paperwork.” “You are never letting that die, are you?” “Probably not.” He tucks his thumbs into his pockets. “You good tonight?” “I will text Jess and get my bag back tomorrow. I will also burn their group chat to the ground with a gentle lecture.” “Gentle?” “Like a hoof rasp.” He laughs, low. “Glad you are back, Doc.” You pretend the heater vent is very interesting. “I am not back-back. Trial. Six months.” “Six months is still back,” he says. “We will try not to rope you again before month two.” “Ambitious goal.” “Thank you, really,” you say again. “Welcome,” he answers. “Don't trespass again.” “No promises,” you say, because he expects you to, and because the creek at night is still a church even if you no longer pray the same way. You rest your elbows on the sill and watch him turn toward the truck. He takes two steps, and something in you decides it would like to stop being seventeen about this. 

“Hey,” you call after him. He turns, brows up. “You want to grab dinner sometime,” you ask. “To catch up. Maybe talk about how not to rope health care providers?” The smile starts slow and wins his whole face. It's the kind that says he didn't expect you to ask but he was hoping. “Yeah,” he says. “I would like that.” “Good,” you say, like your pulse is not sprinting. “Text me. After your fence checks. After my not-felonies.” He lifts a hand in a little wave. “Night, Doc.” “Night, rope guy.” He heads for the truck. You close the window, lock it, and stand in your kitchen in a pair of gray sweatpants that don't belong to you, smiling at nothing like a fool. Your phone buzzes on the counter with the last apology from the group chat. You set it face down, fill a glass, and decide that maybe this town has room for a new story after all.

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The truck ticks as it cools. Porch light cuts a square on the dirt. Perry is on the steps with a beer and the dog at his boots like a judgmental throw pillow. Perry squints. “So, you really roped the town doctor, huh?” Rhett hangs the rope on its nail. “She ran into it.” “Classic defense.” Perry lifts the bottle. “You good or do I need to stitch your conscience?” “She’s fine. Walked her to the road. Gave her a ride. Window entry was involved.” Perry sits up. “You boosted the doctor through her own window?” “Tradition dumb, not felony dumb,” Rhett says. “Her words.” Perry grins. “She talk like that in high school or is this the upgraded model?” Rhett tries not to smile and fails. “Upgraded.” The dog huffs. Perry looks him over like a mechanic checking a tractor. “Where are the gray sweatpants?” “In service.” Perry nearly inhales his beer. “You gave her the date pants.” “They are just pants.” “They are the pants the girls you usually have over wear the next morning when they still think they will see you again.” His eyebrows climb. “You gonna run that script on the Doc too?” Rhett rubs the back of his neck, eyes fixed on a knot in the floorboard. “Not like that. I don't want her thinking it's one night and done. Hopefully… different.” “Translate.” “She asked me to dinner. At the diner. To catch up.” He aims for casual and lands square in cardiac event territory. Perry slaps his knee, delighted. “The Doc Princess asked you out after you roped her in your pasture. This town has range.” “Stop calling her that,” Rhett mutters. “She is a doctor. And I'm not trying to have her in the sweatpants rotation. I want her to stay because she wants to, not because she forgot her jeans.” Perry softens for half a second. “Alright, alright. Doctor. Respect the degree, respect the feelings.” The grin comes back. “Also respect that my little brother is finally going on a date with his high school nemesis. Lord, I am lighting a candle.”

Rhett leans on the post. The wood is warm from the day. “She is not a nemesis.” “She was when you were seventeen.” Perry’s grin goes to the place labeled big brother. “Remember prom?” Rhett groans into his palm. “No.” “Yes.” Perry points the bottle like a pointer. “You wrote a note. Pretty and all. You went to the Buckhorn to give it to her and then you bailed, called her princess in front of Jess and ran a slant route out the door.” “I didn't run.” “You did a tactical retreat behind the pinball machine. She went with the linebacker who couldn't spell his own last name. She looked like the center of gravity in that dress and you looked like a boy who made a poor choice.” Rhett stares into the yard. He remembers the dress like a color you can't name - not red, not pink - something that made the room turn toward it. He remembers deciding that mocking you was easier than admitting his hands shook. He remembers not sleeping and also telling himself he didn't care. He wasn't good at telling the truth that year. “I was dumb,” he says. “You were a teen with a rope and a family name and a crush you treated like a snakebite. You are less dumb now.” “Thanks.” “Not done.” Perry points again. “Rules. No rope on the date. No lectures about fence posts. Don't call her princess. Wear a shirt with buttons that all close. Shave or commit to the scruff. Sit on the inside so she has the view. Order pie and share like a human.”

Rhett snorts. “Anything else, coach?” “If she tries to pay, split it clean. If she makes fun of your radio, accept it with grace. If you get stuck, ask her about cows. She has a thousand cow stories and at least three will be funny. Don't tell the one about me trying to tube a calf from the wrong end.” “Noted.” Rhett’s phone buzzes. He checks it and his face shifts. “She texted.” Perry leans in. “Read it or I will.” Rhett keeps it out of reach. “Made it in. Thanks for the ride. Your pants are settling in nicely.” Rhett reads it twice, then a third time just to be sure the words don't rearrange themselves. Across the table Perry is already watching him like a hawk. “Well,” Perry wheezes, “if that pants line isn't flirting, I don't know what is.” Rhett feels his mouth tug up before he can stop it. “Yeah. Kinda sounds like it.” “Good,” Perry says, bumping his shoulder. “She asked you out. You gave her a lift. You loaned her the good pants. All you gotta do now is show up and not try to be some rodeo legend you never were.” Rhett drums his fingers on the table, thinking. “She is back on a six month trial. Harris told Dad if the numbers are off or she puts one foot wrong on the paperwork, county pulls her contract and she is gone.” Perry sobers a little. “Yeah. I heard.” “I don't want to be one more thing she has to dodge,” Rhett admits. “If she stays, I want it to be because this place feels big enough for her, not because she got stuck here with some Abbott making her life smaller.” Perry studies him for a beat. “Then do the simple thing. Support her, don't crowd her, and for the love of God don't pick a fight with a Tillerson in front of her employer.” Rhett huffs out a laugh. “You ask a lot.” “I am asking you not to be seventeen,” Perry says. “You like her. She likes you. Let that be a good thing, not a reason she has to pack up early.” Rhett sits with that for a second.

“And be the reason it feels bigger,” Perry adds, pushing his chair back. He finishes his beer and sets the bottle down. “And maybe wash the truck. There is cow in there.” “Podcast is clean,” Rhett mutters. “God help me, you and your nerd radio.” Perry heads for the door, then pauses, one hand on the frame, mouth tilted in a half grin. “You know you had the biggest crush on her.” Rhett rolls the bottle cap under his thumb, metal clicking against callus. “Yeah.” “And she drove you crazy because you wanted to kiss the argument out of her and couldn't admit it without combusting,” Perry goes on. A laugh escapes before Rhett can stop it. “Something like that.” “Good. Keep the part where you want to kiss her, drop the part where you pick fights to prove a point.” Perry nudges the screen door open with his boot. “Get some sleep, Romeo. Tomorrow we mend fence. And then you behave like a man who isn't trying to scare off the best thing to happen to this town in ten years.” Rhett stands on the porch after the door shuts. The yard is quiet and the dog has decided to forgive him for nothing in particular. He thinks of gray sweatpants climbing a kitchen window and a voice from a window teasing him about felonies. He thinks of a dress in a color he never named and a girl who isn't that girl anymore and also exactly that girl where it counts. He flips the porch light off and goes in. There is dust on his hands and a date in the foreseeable future. That is new. He likes it.

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By noon the fence line is all heat shimmer and bad decisions waiting to happen. Rhett and Perry sit on their horses with a spool of wire between them, trading staples and smart remarks in the easy rhythm of two brothers who have been fixing the same stretch of fence since they were tall enough to hand each other pliers. The peace of it shudders when the snarl of quad engines rips across the pasture, loud and cocky like the machines own the land just because they can drown it out. Tillersons. They idle their engines and Luke gives the wire a lawyer smile. “Funny thing about borders. They shift if you don't babysit them.” Perry leans on his post. “Funny thing about babysitting. Some folks confuse it with trespass.” Billy nudges his squad forward, humming something tuneless, eyes bright like a magpie found tinfoil. “Morning, boys.” Rhett keeps his palm flat on a cedar post and his jaw neutral. “Afternoon.” “Fence is on our side of the cottonwood now,” Luke says. “Fence has been on this line since before you grew that haircut,” Perry says. “If you want to measure, bring a tape. And a lawyer.” It would probably escalate to the part where people start spitting old grievances when you clear your throat on the Tillerson side and say, perfectly even, “Will you boys please shut up? I am working.” Four heads swivel. You are shoulder deep in a very patient red cow, glove up to your bicep, coveralls streaked. The cow blinks, chews, considers the male drama on the breeze, and decides you are the only serious person here. “Hi,” you add, because manners. “Good to see you too.”

Billy’s grin slides toward delighted. “Well, if it isn't our very own Doc. You need a song to set the mood, darling?” “Please don't serenade me while I palpate,” you say. “She will associate your voice with discomfort and none of us deserve that.” Perry hacks a laugh. Rhett coughs to hide his. Luke scowls. “Our heifer good or not?” You focus on the uterine tone in your fingers, on the clean feel of a calf where a calf should be. “Good. Strong. Twenty six weeks by feel. Call it three months give or take. If everything stays quiet, I will swing by when she bags up to make sure she is progressing. If she labors longer than two hours without a calf on the ground, call me. If she stops eating, call me. If the first thing you do is Google, I will charge you a stupidity fee.” “Is that legal,” Luke asks. “No,” you answer. “But it's satisfying.”

You ease your hand free, strip the sleeve, snap the cuff. Your grab a towel and a bottle of water. You drink, wipe your face, and finally look straight at the Abbotts. Rhett is all stillness in the saddle, rope coiled, eyes on you like you are the only moving thing in a painting. Perry is smirking because he lives to narrate. Billy tips his hat down an eighth of an inch. “Darling, if you need anyone to write you a song about uteruses, I am your guy.” “Uteri,” you say, dry. “And please do not.” Rhett’s mouth moves like he is swallowing a comment whole. Luke glances between all of you and decides the only fun here is sharp. “Careful, Doc. Abbott pasture is bad for a person’s judgment.” “Strange,” you say. “I walked their grass recently and managed not to catch fire.” Perry claps his gloves together. “Speaking of judgment. Doc, one of our geldings is off on the right front. You mind taking a look before we lose the daylight to interpretive dance over property law?” You give him a look that says thank you for the lifeline. “Of course.”

There is a four-strand fence between you and them. You grab you bag, walk the way to the fence, grab a post, and hop. Perry steps up and offers his thigh like a mounting block. You put a hand on his shoulder for balance, then Rhett is there, already reaching, palm open, the easy assumption that you will take it. You do without thinking. He is stronger than he looks and he already looks strong. He pulls you up with one quick, neat lift that puts you next to his stirrup. “Want a seat,” he asks. It's not a boast. It's logistics. “I'm not walking twelve acres in rubber boots,” you say, and he shifts his foot, offers the stirrup, and gives you his forearm again for the swing. You land behind the saddle, one hand on the cantle, one on his shoulder to steady. The horse flicks an ear and accepts you like an extra blanket. You have been on a hundred patient backs and still, for one breath, the fact that you are on his horse and not theirs hums through the air like fence wire in wind. Billy’s eyebrow goes up. He doesn't hum this time.

Rhett keeps his voice level. “Blue. Walk.” The gelding steps out easy along the fence, hooves ticking steady, and you settle in behind the saddle, adjusting your arm around him to avoid the rope. You feel him take one long, slow breath, everything in him loosening and straightening at the same time - pride disguised as calm. “Hey, Doc,” Billy calls after you, cheerful and trying. “If you ever get bored of cows and these two charmers, I make a mean martini and a better playlist.” “I prefer animals that can be vaccinated,” you call back without turning. “And men who can read a map.” Perry snorts and eases his horse up on your other side. Luke mutters something sour about borders and the rhythm of hoofbeats kindly drowns it out. Up close like this, you can feel every small tell in Rhett's body - the way his shoulders sit a notch higher than before you swung up, the way his hand is light on the reins but his thumb strokes once along the leather like he is quietly pleased with himself. You lean in just enough that he can hear you over the tack and the creek. “Nice horse.” “Better company,” Rhett says, and it comes out casual, but you feel the words rumble through his back under your palm. He doesn't look over his shoulder at the Tillersons. He doesn't need to. He keeps Blue pointed toward the gate with that easy working trot, jaw loose now, whole frame settled in that particular way men get when something went exactly the way they wanted and they don't want to crow about it in front of witnesses. At the gate Perry swings down to open the chain. You slide off, Rhetts hand brushing your wrist on instinct as your boots hit dirt, a little spark of contact he doesn't comment on. “Thanks for the lift,” you say, steadying Blue's shoulder while you check your footing. “Any time,” he says, and this time the corner of his mouth cheats up, just a bit. He still doesn't spare the Tillersons another though. He doesn't have to. They already saw everything that counted - you on his horse, your arm around him, your hands competent. No prom princess anywhere in sight, and Rhett Abbott very clearly liking that picture.

The gelding stands tied outside the barn, patient as a saint. You crouch, pick up the right front, thumb the frog, trace the white line, and there it is - a stone wedged deep in the sulcus that would make any saint limp. "Rock jam," you say. "Not an abscess. I will pop it out. If he is still short tomorrow, soak and boot for two days." Perry tips his chin like that was the verdict he ordered. "Hear that, horse? Science says quit being dramatic." You work the pebble free with your hoof knife. It flicks out and you send it flying into the grass. The horse exhales like you took ten years off his joints. You run your hand down the tendon one more time, satisfied, then straighten and dust your knees. Rhett is watching you with that same steady, unpushy attention, like you are a problem he actually likes solving. "Thank you," he says. Simple, no garnish. "Put it on my tab," you say. "Rock extraction, one unit."

Perry swings back into his saddle. "Doc's rig is still up at Tillerson's," he asks you. "You want us to run you back to your chariot of questionable suspension?" You glance toward the rise. The clinic truck is a white square glinting by the Tillerson barn. You know Harris is up there running through deworming schedules and salt orders. Which means if you go back that way you get more of Billy's questions and Luke's somewhat unsettling stare. Your brain is already tired. "Actually," you say, turning back to Rhett. "Harris is with the truck. Can you take me straight to the office instead? I need to restock before evening calls anyway." "Sure." He doesn't even hesitate. "Perry can call Harris, let him know the change of plans. I will run you to town." "Look at that," Perry drawls. "Chivalry and logistics in one convenient package." "Be useful or be pretty." You tip him a look. "Abbotts are out here trying both." Perry grins at that, tipping his hat. You grab your bag, and meet Rhett at his truck. He loads your gear like it is automatic - bag and clipboard - then opens the passenger door with an easy "Careful, step's slick," that your stupid heart files away under annoyingly considerate. The cab smells like dust, leather, and the ghost of that citrus wipe you already know. He starts the engine, pulls out slow, and after a moment that familiar voice comes through the speakers: some ag podcast, the host talking about soil moisture probes and evapotranspiration curves like they are scandalous. You smirk, buckling in. "Back to nerd radio." "Ground is dry," he says. "I like to know how bad before it cracks." "Romantic," you say. "Talk capillary action to me." Color hits the tips of his ears, but he grins. "Careful. That is my best material." You watch the fence glide past your window for a few breaths. The day has that flat, humming quiet it gets between chores, when everyone is just lining up for the next thing. His hand sits easy on the wheel. Then he clears his throat once, like he is about to talk to a skittish colt. 

"About that dinner," he starts. "The diner one. I know we said we would, but I don't really want it floating around as some loose maybe. When are you free?" You raise a brow, amused. "Already here with the ownership claims, huh?" He winces, shoulders hitching. "That is not - I didn't mean... I just... want something on the books. A real plan. Not..." He trails off, jaw tightening like he wants to take the words back and start again. You watch him squirm for half a second, then take pity because you aren't actually cruel. "Relax, cowboy. I'm teasing. It's allowed to matter to you." He glances over, cautious. "Yeah?" "Yeah," you say. "And for your extremely official records, I am free tomorrow." You pretend to think, tapping your thumb on your knee. "Pick me up at seven at the apartment. We will test whether you can eat like a functional human being." The way his face lights is small but total - like someone turned the brightness up from inside rather than outside. "Seven," he repeats, like he is setting a brand. "I can do seven." "I know," you say. "You are very good with schedules. Rope, fences, nerd radio, unmissable dates."

He shakes his head, but he is smiling now, ears no longer red, the line of his shoulders loose again. The podcast host drones on about deep root zones. Your phone buzzes with a reminder about vaccine inventory. Outside, the valley rolls past, dry and stubborn and somehow full of possibility. He taps the steering wheel once, almost to himself. "Tomorrow at seven," he says again, softer. You let your knee nudge his. "Don't be late," you say. "I hear I am in high demand these days." His answering laugh is low and pleased. "Trust me, Doc," he says. "I am not planning on letting this one stay loose." The lot appears like it always does - a rectangle of gravel, one security light buzzing over the loading bay. He rolls to a stop behind one of the clinic trucks, eases the gearshift into park, and kills the engine. The sudden quiet feels thick after road noise and nerd radio.

For a second neither of you moves. "You sure you are good from here," he asks, fingers drumming once on the wheel. "You want me to wait in case you need to break and enter yourself into your own apartment again?" "Haha, very funny, cowboy,” you say, smile plastered on your face, "I will be fine. I know where Harris hides everything. Including the good coffee." He huffs a little. "Of course you do." You unbuckle, then hesitate, hand still on the belt. His cab light paints both of you in that soft, unflattering gold that somehow makes this feel more intimate than the truck bed would have. "Thanks for the rescue yesterday," you add. "And for not, you know… weaponizing it." "Low bar," he says. "I am hoping to clear higher ones than that." That earns him a smile you don't bother to hide. You shift toward him across the bench, just a little. He goes still, like a horse that hasn't decided if the plastic bag is dangerous. "Hold still," you murmur. You reach up and catch his jaw with your fingers, just enough to tip his face toward you, and press your mouth to his cheek. Not a peck, not a full claim, just a slow, deliberate kiss that says thank you and I see you and I am not pretending this is nothing. His skin is warm under your lips. You feel the moment it hits him - the tiny hitch of breath, the way his hand tightens on his thigh, the muscle jumping along his jaw. When you pull back, there is a faint print of your chapstick and something new in his eyes, softer and sharper at once.

"Goodbye, rope guy," you say, voice lighter than you feel. He clears his throat, tries and fails to look unaffected. "Bye, Doc," he manages. Then, a beat later, because he cannot help himself: "Text me when you get home. So I know you didn't commit any felonies." You roll your eyes, but it comes with another smile. "Possessive already," you tease. "ownership claims and all." He blushes at that and internally debates whether he should argue you on the term. Then he decides not to. "Yeah, well. Tomorrow at seven I am calling it invested." You open the door and hop down. On the gravel you look back once. He is still watching, elbow hooked over the wheel, brim of his hat tipped up so he doesn't miss a frame. You lift a hand in a little wave. He gives you one back, smaller, private. The building doors clicks behind you. Fluorescents flicker awake. As you start to wrap up your to-dos, you can still feel the ghost of his cheek against your mouth and hear his voice in your head, quiet and certain: Tomorrow at seven. You find yourself smiling at the empty room.

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Rhett is five minutes early. Of course he is. Truck is clean, inside and out. He even knocked the mud out of the floor mats and dug the rogue feed receipt out from under the seat. He showered until the hot water threat-gurgled, shaved careful, wrestled his hair under a hat twice before giving up and starting over. Blue jeans, worn just right at the knees and cuffs. Perry bullied him into a black dress shirt, buttons done up proper, sleeves rolled to his forearms. There is a faint crease where the hanger fought him. He smells like soap, leather, and the stubborn edge of his good cologne that only comes out for funerals and weddings. Apparently this qualifies. He is glad he let Perry talk when he sees you.

You push out of the building door with your keys hooked in two fingers like a habit, shoulders loose. The clinic version of you lives in scrub tops and coveralls. This version is unfair. You have on a soft, dark dress that hits mid thigh, skirt swinging when you take the steps. Denim jacket shrugged over it, sleeves shoved to your elbows. Old white sneakers instead of boots, laces double knotted. There is a thin chain at your throat, your nails clean but painted, a swipe of something shimmery at your eyes that catches the porch light like the glitter lotion the girls used to make you wear on game nights and at prom. For a second his brain throws him a split screen of seventeen year old you in a corsage and this you with a stethoscope thrown on the dashboard. They line up in a way that makes his chest feel too tight. You look less like the woman who pulls calves out of bad nights and more like the girl who once sprinted barefoot toward his truck and told him his music taste was tragic. Except your eyes are older, steadier. There is a knowing in your smile that was never there at seventeen. He is out of the truck before he remembers he meant to play it cool. He almost goes for the passenger door handle, hesitates, then commits, opening it for you like he has done this a hundred times in dreams and exactly zero times in real life. You pause at the curb, looking him over, and the corner of your mouth hooks up. "You clean up nice, cowboy."

The words land warm. He can feel his own pulse in his collar. Up close you smell like your shampoo and something sharp and floral that is not clinic soap. His tongue trips over the twelve things his brain wants to hand him. "You look…" he starts. There are better words flashing through his head, big ones, dangerous ones. Breathtaking. Stunning. The kind of pretty that makes a man believe in second chances. He picks the one that will not get stuck in his teeth. "You look beautiful." Your eyes flicker, soften, like he hit the right button. "Careful," you murmur, stepping past him to climb up. "Keep that up and this might start to feel like a real date." "It is a real date," he answers before he can help himself. You glance back at him over your shoulder, something pleased sparking there, then settle into the seat and tug the skirt under your thighs. He shuts the door gently, walks around to his side, and has to breathe once before climbing in so he doesn't fumble the keys like a teenager. In the cab, the air feels different than it does on clinic runs. The nerdy ag podcast is queued up, but he doesn't hit play yet. It feels wrong to drown out the first moments with someone else’s voice.

"You went with the good shirt," you note, eyeing the rolled sleeves. "Perry win that battle?" "He threatened to tell you I own the other one," Rhett replies, turning the key. "The one with the missing button." You grin. "Bold of you to assume I haven't seen that one already at seventeen." He half laughs, puts the truck in gear, and pulls away from the curb. Streetlights smear gold over the hood. For a minute you both just sit with the quiet, getting used to the shape of this. "So," you ask, tone light. "Where are you taking me? Or am I supposed to diagnose this outing as we go?" He relaxes a notch. This he can do. Plan, execute, run fence. "Diner in town," he says. "The one with the decent burgers and the pie you pretend you don't like. If you want, we can go for a beer at the Handsome Gambler after if we feel like it.” You tilt your head. "Look at you, having an actual plan." "You told me not to be late," he reminds you. "Figured I shouldn't show up without a destination either." You watch him for a second longer, then settle back, one knee angling toward him, hem of your dress riding barely higher. "Alright, Abbott," you concede. "Consider me impressed." He finally reaches out and taps the radio. The familiar drone of the soil nerd comes on mid sentence, talking about moisture retention like it is poetry. You snort. "You really put this on for a date?" He shrugs, one hand easy on the wheel. "You already saw the condom in the glove box. No point pretending to be someone I am not." You bark a laugh, head hitting the headrest. "Fair. At least your seduction playlist is educational." "Enhances the experience," he replies, deadpan. "Nothing like a good root zone overview to set the mood." You shake your head, still smiling. The last of your first date nerves seem to drain out through your boots and into the floorboard. He catches that in the corner of his eye and feels something unclench in his ribs.

"So," he asks after a bit, voice quieter. "You still glad you made room in your schedule for this and didn't tell me you were fully booked with vaccine counts." You watch the dark road ahead, then nudge his leg with yours, soft but deliberate.  "If I didn't want to be here," you tell him, "I would be in rubber boots up to my knees instead of in this dress listening to your nerd radio. Take the win, Abbott." He does. He lets it settle in his chest like a warm stone, steady and solid, as town lights come into view and the night stretches out in front of you both, full of whatever comes next.

The diner has not changed since 2010 and has somehow gotten older anyway. Rhett pulls into the cracked lot, slides into a spot under the buzzing neon coffee cup that has been half burned out since high school. Inside, everything is still brown and beige and laminated, the air a permanent stew of grease, coffee, and syrup that never quite leaves your clothes. He circles the truck to open your door again because at this point he is committed. You hop down, dress swishing, jacket collar pinched in one hand against the evening breeze. "You know," you mention as you fall into step beside him, "if you do that door thing one more time I might have to admit you are actually polite." "Reputation can take the hit," he replies. The bell above the diner door tattles on you as you walk in. Heads turn automatically because town muscle memory says new arrivals equal gossip. Then people recognize him and you and the attention turns from sharp to something else, softer and too curious. You feel the flicker of eyes. Highschool royalty turned clinic doctor and the Abbott boy. Together. In not-work clothes. Rhett feels it too, though he pretends not to, guiding you to a booth along the window that has one duct tape patch on the seat. You slide in, skirt smoothing under your thighs, and he takes the other side, hat tipped back just enough that you can see his eyes.

Sandy shuffles over with her pad, ponytail frizzed from the dinner rush. She stops, squints, then breaks into a grin. "Well, look at this," she says. "I didn't know we were doing formal occasions tonight." You arch a brow. "I am literally in a jean jacket." "For you, honey, that is practically a ball gown," she counters, flipping her pad open. Then her gaze goes to Rhett and gets knowingly sharp. "You bringing our Doc out in public, Abbott?" Rhett's ears threaten redness again, but he holds the line. "Just feeding her before she realizes she can do better." Sandy snorts. "Too late. She already sat down." Her pen hovers. "Burgers, both of you. Fries. Two sodas. Pie later." You blink. "You aren't even going to ask what I want?" "You order like a person who doesn't trust comfort food," Sandy says. "You will stare at the menu for ten minutes and then say burger, fries, soda and maybe pie. I am removing the inefficient part." You concede with a hand sweep. "I cannot argue with empirically collected data." She jots, gives Rhett a quick conspiratorial wink, and wanders off. You hook a finger in the edge of your water glass, spinning it. "Apparently we have been observed." "Apparently," he mutters. For a moment the jukebox hum and the clink of cutlery fill the silence. A kid at a corner table drops a fork. Someone laughs too loud at a story they are on the third telling of. The whole diner feels like an old sweater - fraying at the cuffs, still warmer than it has any right to be.

"So," you begin, tilting your head. "Is this weird for you? Taking me somewhere we used to end up by accident?" He studies you over the napkin dispenser, searching for land mines. "Little bit," he admits. "Back then I came here because I didn't have anywhere better to go. Tonight I actually picked it." You smile at that, small and real. "Upgrade," you say. "I approve." He toys with a sugar packet, fingers picking at the edge. "You came here a lot with your friends. After games. Before dances. Always with glitter on your face." "I remember." Your mouth quirks. "Mostly because the booth vinyl kept trying to reclaim our bare legs. Jess nearly lost a thigh once." He huffs a laugh, then sobers. "You were always... loud here. Not in a bad way. Just... lit up. Felt like the whole room tilted toward you." You blink, eyebrows climbing. "You remember that?" "Hard to miss," he replies. "Even when I was trying real hard to pretend I wasn't looking." That lands between you with more weight than the sugar packet deserves.

You lean your elbows on the table, lace your fingers. "Is that what princess was about," you ask quietly. "Deflection by nicknaming?" His jaw shifts. He looks at the salt shaker because it is easier than your face. "Partly," he says. "Partly because you came in like you owned the place and partly because you did not. You didn't know where fence lines were or what a bad winter did to a family. You were going to leave. Everyone knew that. Princess was... a way to say I noticed without saying I noticed." "So you were a teenage boy with feelings and poor communication skills," you sum up. "Shocking." He flicks a look up at you, sees neither mockery nor pity, just clear curiosity. That steadies him. "Yeah," he answers. "Pretty much that." You sit with it, tracing a circle of condensation on the laminate. When you answer, your voice is softer. "For the record," you mention, "part of why it stung was because you weren't wrong. I didn't know fence lines. I didn't stay. I just didn't like being reminded by a guy who never turned in his algebra homework." His mouth twitches. "In my defense, I was never awake in algebra." "Tragic," you respond. "The world lost such potential."

Sandy arrives with plates and mercy, thunking down burgers, fries, two sodas beading with cold. She eyes the space between you, clocks the tension like a long time pro, and decides to break it with sugar. "First milkshake is on the house if you tell me this is a date," she announces. "Sandy," Rhett protests. You don't even hesitate. "It's a date," you declare. "Chocolate. Two straws." He snaps his gaze to you, startled, then slowly grins as Sandy crows in triumph and heads back to the counter. "Two straws," he echoes. "Bold." "You are the one with the glove box condom," you remind him, picking up your burger. "I think we passed shy yesterday." He nearly chokes on his fry. The food is good, in the way that grease and familiarity always is. Conversation eases into safer channels. Clinic stories that don't break confidentiality. Calving season disasters with happy endings. Perry's latest attempt at smoking meat that nearly set the grill on fire. You mock his podcast. He argues passionately in favor of soil health. At some point the milkshake arrives and you do drink from both straws, bumping shoes under the table on purpose like you are testing how much contact the universe will allow. By the time you push the empty plates away you feel less like two people shaking hands over a fence line and more like something with a shape you recognize but don't have a word for yet.

Outside, the air is cooler, the sky bruised into full dark. He opens your door again without thinking. You climb in with an exaggerated sigh. "You keep doing this, Abbott, and rumors will start." "They already started when you walked in wearing that dress," he replies, closing you in and circling to his side. He pulls out of the lot, following the lazy curve of Main toward the Handsome Gambler. The neon cowboy boot sign over the bar flickers between pink and white like it cannot commit. He finds a spot half a block down, kills the engine, and sits for a half second, listening to the tick of cooling metal and the muffled bass coming through the brick. "You still up for a beer," he asks. "Or did Sandy's shake put us in a dairy coma?" You stretch your legs, sneaker toe nudging the glove box. "I can manage one beer," you answer. "Besides, if I go home now I will just sit there thinking about tomorrow's vaccine rotation list. Might as well procrastinate with purpose." "That I can help with," he says, and hops out. He opens your door again. This time you roll your eyes, but you are smiling. "Habit now," you tell him as you climb down. "You know if you keep this up I will get used to it." "That the worst thing that could happen tonight," he asks, falling into step beside you.

The Gambler is half full. Pool balls crack somewhere in the back. Somebody has the jukebox stuck on 90s country. A line of regulars claim their usual stools at the bar. Heads tip up when you two walk in. Rhett feels the weight of it slide over his shoulders and settle. Abbott boy and the Doc. Not a rumor anymore, at least not the vague kind. Perry is not here to heckle him, which helps. He steers you toward a small high top away from the loudest cluster. "Beer," he checks. "Light," you say. "I still have to pretend I'm responsible tomorrow." He orders two, drops cash on the bar, and comes back balancing the bottles between his fingers. You take yours, the brush of your knuckles against his sending a small, bright jolt up his arm.

"So," you say, picking at the label. "Is this where I am supposed to watch you prove your manhood at the pool table?" "Pretty sure I lost my bragging rights in senior year" he answers. "Billy wiped the floor with me in front of half the football team." "I would've paid money to watch that," you mutter. "You did," he reminds you. "You bought popcorn and narrated." That earns him a grin that hits him square in the chest. "Fine," you concede. "I will spot you a chance at redemption. One game. Loser buys the next round of fries I shouldn't eat." He grabs the cue rack key off the nail like he has done it a hundred times, hands you first pick. You choose a stick, roll it between your palms, then lean over the table to break. The balls explode across green felt, two stripes dropping clean. "Of course," he murmurs. "Of course you are good at this too." "Relax," you say, circling to line up your next shot. "I'm rusty." I have not hustled anyone since first second of undergrad."

You trade easy shots and slower ones, the game more excuse than competition. He uses his turns to breathe and watch the way the light skims your cheekbone, the way you bite your bottom lip when you measure an angle. You are competent at everything and it should be intimidating. Somehow it isn't. It just makes him want to stand closer. "You are staring," you mention without looking up as you sink another ball. "Table etiquette," he lies. "Have to make sure you aren't cheating." "You can barely count spots," you retort. "Relax, Abbott. You are allowed to like what you see." He nearly miscues at that, recovers, and sinks a lucky corner shot he absolutely didn't plan. "See," you say. "Positive reinforcement. Works on horses and cowboys." By the time you both get down to the eight ball you are laughing more than lining up proper shots, trading stories about the worst nights you have ever had in a bar. The time someone tried to ride a mechanical bull that didn't exist. The time you sutured a guy's eyebrow in the bathroom of a bar in your uni town with a travel kit and too much tequila around.

You glance at the clock over the bar as you chalk your cue and wince. "Okay," you breathe. "As fun as this is, I'm in danger of turning into a pumpkin. I have a 7 a.m. call about a colic case." He lowers his stick, instant. "Say the word. I will get you home." You nod, relief and something softer moving across your face. "Yeah," you admit. "I am tired. And if we stay longer Sandy might come in here and start taking bets on our future descendants." "She already is," he mutters, but he is smiling. He racks the balls, slides the cue back into the wall slot, and you both finish what is left of your drinks. On the way out a couple of heads tip at you, that small-town acknowledgment that doubles as a data point in someone else's story. You shrug into your jacket. He catches the edge of the door for you without thinking. "You are going to pull a muscle with all this chivalry," you tease as you step out into the cool night. "Barn core workout," he says. "Doctor recommended."

The ride back is quieter. The podcast stays off. The road unspools in front of you, dark and familiar, fence posts ticking by like a slow metronome. You lean your head back against the window, watching the stars flicker between branches. "Tired," he asks. "Good tired," you answer. "Not the kind where you start counting syringes in your sleep. Tonight was..." You trail off, searching. "Not bad," he offers. "Better than not bad," you decide. "I didn't once think about how many unpaid invoices are on my desk. That is impressive." "I can talk about soil health again if you want to knock yourself out," he offers. You snort. "Don't you dare. If you ruin the one date we managed to have without talking about uterine prolapse or compost ratios, I will revoke your glove box privileges." He keeps his eyes on the road, but his mouth hooks. "Noted."

He pulls up in front of your place, engine rumbling down to a low idle. The stoop light is on, a square of soft yellow on the steps. He sits there for a second, hands loose on the wheel, not wanting to crowd the moment. "Thank you," you say finally, turning toward him. "For the dinner. The milkshake. The public humiliation in the form of Sandy's commentary." "Any time," he answers, truth sitting heavy and easy in the middle of it. "Thanks for not deciding my nerd radio was a deal breaker." "It's a strong con," you admit, lips twitching. "But apparently not fatal." He kills the engine. The sudden quiet makes both of you more aware of how close the cab is. Crickets hiss somewhere in the grass. A dog barks two streets over. Inside the truck it is just breath and the tick of cooling metal and the shared awareness that this is the part where something usually happens.

He climbs out, comes around, opens your door one last time. You hop down, landing close enough that he could reach out and touch your elbow without moving much at all. For a heartbeat neither of you moves. You look up at him. The street light finds the line of his jaw, the smudge of stubble he missed, the way his eyes are trying very hard to be steady and not hungry. "No kiss on the first diner date," you warn, but your voice is soft, not sharp. "I have to maintain some professional boundaries." "Wouldn't want to be a liability," he says, trying to make it light. You fix him with a look that says you heard what he didn't say under that. Then you step in, close the last bit of distance, and wrap your arms around his middle. For half a second he forgets how to breathe. Then his body remembers. His arms come up around you, careful, then firmer when you don't pull back. You fit against him like this has been waiting in some old, stubborn part of the world since you were both seventeen and stupid about it.

He can feel your heartbeat through his shirt, quick but not frantic. Your cheek rests against his chest, just under his collarbone. He smells your shampoo, the faint sugar of milkshake, the bar smoke that somehow still lodged in your jacket. You feel like something he has no business wanting this much and every right to try for anyway. "Night, princess," almost slips out. He bites it back and edits in real time. "Night, Doc," he murmurs instead, voice low where only you can hear it. You linger one more breath, like you are deciding something against his ribs, then step back. Your hands slide off his sides, fingers brushing his belt loop in a way that feels accidental and very much is not. "Text me when you get home," you say. "So I know you and your nerd radio didn't crash into a ditch." "Yes ma'am," he answers.

You back up the steps, keys in hand, eyes on him until you hit the porch. At the door you pause, one hand on the knob. "For the record," you add, head tilted, "this was a good date." His chest does that tight loosening thing again. "For the record," he replies, "I would like more of them." The smile you give him at that is small and bright and entirely worth every second of him trying not to look like a fool. Then you slip inside, the door closing with a soft click. He stands on the walk for a moment longer, hat in his hand, staring at the empty spot where you stood. The night feels different now. Bigger. Less like something to survive and more like something to build in. On the drive home, he finally hits play on the podcast. The host launches back into soil moisture stats. Rhett lets the numbers wash over him, not really listening, one hand on the wheel, the ghost of your hug still wrapped around his ribs like a new kind of rope.

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The next time he sees you, rain doesn't fall so much as attack. It comes in sideways sheets, turning the yard into one big cold shower. The gutters on the Abbott house roar. The barn roof thrums. Rhett is already soaked through his jacket, hat dripping a steady line down the back of his neck as he and Perry drag a warped panel across the open side of the machine shed. "Little more to the left," Perry hollers over the noise. "You said that last time," Rhett fires back, boot slipping half an inch in the mud. The quad tires are already cutting trenches by the fence. The lower pasture is a dark blur with a silver skin - water pooling where it should not. Somewhere in the barn a colt bangs a stall door and Royal curses under his breath, trying to calm everyone down on two legs and four. Headlights swing across the yard, way too bright in the rain. Rhett squints. A truck nose creeps through the curtain of water, slow and steady. He recognizes the shape first. Then the clinic magnet on the door confirms it. He goes hot and cold under his wet jacket at the same time. "You got to be kidding me," he mutters.

You park near the barn, wipers still slashing when you kill the engine. The door opens into the downpour. You jump out in a rain jacket that is already losing the fight, hood up, jeans immediately drinking mud. Your boots splash, and you are walking through the storm like this is just another Tuesday. Rhett meets you halfway because of course he does. "What are you doing here," he calls, loud enough to punch through the storm. You flip your hood back, rain plastering hair to your forehead. Your face is wet, eyes bright in a way that is half adrenaline, half something that looks suspiciously like joy. "Hi," you shout back, like you are arriving at a barbecue. "Drove past the Miller place on my way home. Saw the creek trying to climb your fence. Figured you might need an extra set of hands." "We got it," he insists, out of habit. A crack of thunder stomps on the end of his sentence. You raise your brows. Behind him, another gust drives rain into the open shed, freckles of water dotting the exposed tractor. "Yeah," you answer. "Looks super under control." Perry appears at his shoulder, soaked, grinning. "Hey, Doc. Welcome to the spa." You bump his arm with your knuckles. "Ten out of ten, would recommend. Love what you have done with the mud." Royal calls from the barn door, voice edged with irritation that is not quite aimed at you. "If the social hour is done, we have a flood in the west ditch and a colt trying to kick through the world." You lift your chin toward him. "On it."

There is no time to argue. The storm sets the schedule. You fall in without asking for assignments. Ten minutes later you are shoulder to shoulder with Rhett on the back side of the barn, both of you wrestling a heavy tarp over the last exposed hay stack while rain punches each fold flat. "On three," he says. "One, two -" The wind picks the edge up and tries to turn you both into kites. You swear, dig your boots in, laugh when you catch him swearing back. The tarp slaps his hat, nearly takes it. You grab the corner and his sleeve in the same motion. "Hold still," you bark. "Unless you want to be found in the neighbor's field like a very sad scarecrow." You get the hay covered. You and Perry clear the worst of the debris from the ditch by the west fence, water rushing past your calves like icy soup. At one point you point at a calf standing wrong near the barn, head down, not bearing weight. "That one," you tell Royal over the rain. He scowls at the weather, follows your finger. By the time he gets there, you have already limped the calf into a stall, running your hands down the leg, checking for heat, swelling, the quiet feel of a sprain instead of a break. "Soft tissue," you report. "Stable. Wrap and stall rest. If she isn't better in two days, we will x-ray." Royal grunts, which for him is a Bennington crystal thank you. "Good eye," he says anyway. It does something small and stupid to your chest that he says it in front of his sons.

By the time the worst of the crisis settles, you are soaked to the skin. Your jeans are a second hide, your rain jacket dripping. Someone has turned the lights on inside the machine shed. It throws a warm rectangle into the rain where the tractor and baler live, smells like oil and wet dust. "Come on," Perry says, clapping Rhett on the shoulder. "We should check the East fence line while it is still technically today." Rhett nods, but his eyes slide to you. Your lips are tinged just on the edge of blue. You are rubbing your hands together more for circulation than nerves. "You freezing," he asks, stepping closer, voice dropping now that he doesn't have to shout. "I'm fine," you answer automatically, which is a lie, and everyone knows it. He jerks his chin toward the shed. "There is an old towel and maybe a sweatshirt and pants in there. Go warm up. I will check the East fence with Perry and we can regroup." You open your mouth to argue, but the word sweatshirt lands with a memory of gray cotton and his too big sweatpants sliding off your hips that you had to hold up with a fistful at the waist. "Fine," you concede. "But only because your hypothermic vet will charge you extra."

You duck into the shed. The change from cold rain to still air feels like stepping into another country. Water drums the roof relentlessly. The light inside is yellow and wrong but it beats darkness. You hang your wet jacket on an old nail and find the promised towel on the back of a lawn chair that has seen better summers. It is thin and scratchy and wonderful. You scrub your face and hair, warping the towel shape. You find the sweatshirt draped over the hood of the baler. It is navy, worn soft, ABBOTT RANCH faint on the front. It smells like the barn and soap and something that is just him under those. You peel off your wet shirt without overthinking it, goosebumps racing across your skin, and tug the sweatshirt on. It swallows you whole, hem hitting somewhere around your upper legs, sleeves past your hands until you push them up. The fabric is warm where his body heat hasn't fully left it. Boots scrape at the shed entrance. You shove your damp hair back and turn. Rhett steps inside, hat low, jacket half unzipped, rain dripping off the brim in a steady pattern onto the concrete. His shirt clings to him, darkened two shades, rolled sleeves plastered to his forearms. There is a smear of mud on his cheekbone. He exhales like the warm air punches him. He takes in the sight of you - bare legs, his sweatshirt, your hair messy, cheeks flushed from scrubbing off the cold. For a half second, he just stops. "Oh," he manages, very articulate. "That, uh. Fits." "You are going to have a reputation," you tell him, trying to ignore the way his eyes do a slow, involuntary sweep. "If you keep lending me clothes." He snorts, recovers enough to hook his thumbs into his own belt loops, like anchoring to something. "At this rate," you go on, tugging the old pair of pants over your bare legs, "if you loan me any more pants, you might not have any left." He looks at you again, drops his gaze fast like he got caught. The corner of his mouth tips up. "I don't mind that," he answers, mild. The words land heavier than they should. You feel it. The little shift. The way the air changes shape.

You cross your arms, more for the feeling of something to do with your hands than warmth, cuffed sleeves bunching at your wrists. "Careful," you reply. "That sounded almost like a line." "You are the one keeping a running inventory of my clothes," he counters. "Sweats, jacket, sweatshirt. Next thing I know you will be charting my socks." "Relevant data," you say. "I like to know what I am working with when I am trapped in a truck listening to your soil podcast and uncovering your glove box secrets." "That was one condom," he groans. "You act like there is a whole secret stash." You lean back against the side of the baler, bumping a metal panel with your shoulder. "Please. You can't tell me Mr I Am Not Starving only has one in rotation." He huffs a laugh, shakes his head. A drop of water falls from the brim of his hat, hits the floor between you. Outside the storm keeps shouting. In here, it is just the two of you and the sound of rain hitting metal, the faint tick of the shed cooling.

He steps closer without quite meaning to, brushing a hand over Blue's old saddle that is parked on a stand near you. Your knees are almost touching now. He smells like wet leather and the ghost of his cologne, turned warm by sweat. "You always do this," he says quietly. You tilt your head. "Do what?" "Walk into a problem that isn't technically yours and act like it is," he answers. "Drive out in a storm because you saw our creek being stupid. Stand in the ditch until your jeans turn into ice. Wear my sweatshirt like you own it." You shrug one shoulder under the navy fabric. "You gonna charge me a trespassing fee for the sweatshirt too?" "Thinking about it," he says. His voice is lower, edges softer than his words. "Kind of like the idea of you owing me." Your heart does an unhelpful stutter. You lift your chin, eyes on his. "Careful, Abbott. That sounds dangerously like possession." He holds your gaze, rain drumming a steady beat around you. "Maybe I like the sound of that," he murmurs. The joke line is right there. You could take it, make it light again, toss something about possessiveness and call him out like you did in your head. Instead you realize your hand has left your own elbow and found his forearm, fingers resting on damp skin just below the rolled cuff. His skin is warm under the chill. You register the moment your muscles betray you at the same time his do. He shifts, boots scraping, closing the last inch and a half of space. One of his hands finds the panel behind your hip, not quite touching you, but close enough that you feel the heat of it through cotton and air. "Doc," he says, rough, like the word is caught on something. "You are dripping on my floor." You blink. "Pretty sure the flood started before I got here." He smiles then, slow, involuntary. It hits you like stepping into sun. A streak of lightning splits the sky outside. The flash hits the gap under the shed door, turning the wet concrete white for a blink. The crack of thunder that follows is so loud it rattles the tools on the wall. The whole building shakes a little. The shock throws your balance off half a step. The floor is slick with water and mud. Your boot skids.

You pitch forward.

His arm is around your waist before you register falling, hand spanning the small of your back, pulling you in to keep you upright. Your hand fists in his shirt, grabbing at something, anything. You collide with his chest, the breath knocked out of you in a tiny involuntary sound. You feel the steady thump of his heart under soaked cotton, faster than it should be for someone who has been hauling tarps all afternoon. For a second it is all compressed: heat, breath, the smell of rain and horse, the solid line of his body against yours. You tilt your head up to apologize, to say something flippant about OSHA violations and wet floors and his rescue record. Instead you find his face inches from yours.

His hat has tipped back just enough that his eyes are clear in the light. There is a drop of water tracking from his temple along his jaw. His pupils are wide. His gaze drops once, quick, to your mouth, then back up to your eyes. Everything goes very, very quiet. You don't move. Neither does he. The distance between you is so small you can feel the ghost of his breath against your lips, warm from the inside, edged with cold from the outside air still clinging to his clothes. Your fingers curl tighter in his shirt without permission. His thumb flexes against your back, anchoring you there. "Careful," he murmurs again, but it sounds like he is warning himself. "Of what," you whisper, because talking at normal volume feels like breaking something. His mouth curves just a little, almost helpless. "Of me being stupid," he answers, and the way he says it tells you exactly what kind of stupidity he is thinking about. Time stretches. The storm could be happening on the moon for all either of you is tracking it. You feel yourself lean in that fraction no one can deny later, the part of you that remembers the glove box and his hands steady on a rope and the way he said beautiful all voting in favor. "Rhett," Royal's voice booms from outside, close, right in the doorway. "Fence is holding on the East, but the lower ditch is filling. You two fall in or you alive in there?" You jolt like someone snapped a rubber band. Rhett's hand loosens on your back without actually leaving. You step back anyway, clearing your throat, heat flooding your face in a way that has nothing to do with exertion. "We are good," you call, amazed your voice comes out even. "No casualties." 

Perry's head pops around Royal's shoulder, grin already forming when he registers the two of you and the space you are not quite occupying between you. His eyes dip to your sweatshirt, note whose name is on it, flick back up. "Nice look, Doc," he observes. "That thing comes in any other sizes or is the one you are swimming in standard issue?" "Limited edition," you reply, forcing your shoulders to unkink, tugging the sleeves up. "Very exclusive. Only for people foolish enough to show up in a storm." "Truly, you are the patron saint of dumb Abbotts," Perry says. "Storm is easing. You heading back to town or staying for the encore?" Rhett clears his throat, steps sideways, giving you space. "I can run you home," he offers, quieter, like the last thirty seconds are still echoing. "Roads get slick out past the Miller turnoff." You shake your head because if you sit in a cab with him right now you are not entirely sure if that almost will stay almost. "I am good," you answer, reaching for your damp jacket. "Truck has four wheel drive, and my shower misses me. Besides, if you keep lending me clothes every time we get weather, you really will run out." His mouth hooks without him asking it to. "Could be worth it," he mutters.

You pretend you don't hear that, because Perry absolutely does and you don't trust him not to turn it into a family group chat sticker. You shrug into your wet jacket over his warm sweatshirt, hood up again, your soaked jeans in your right fist. At the shed door you pause and look back. Rhett stands where you left him, hat shadow over his eyes, one hand braced on the saddle rack like he needs the extra stability. He meets your gaze, something unspoken hanging there between you, electric as the storm you are stepping back into. "Thanks for calling in your flood," you tell him. "Try not to float away." "You too," he says. Then, a beat later, softer, just for you, "Drive careful, Doc." You nod once, then push out into the rain. The cold hits you, but the place between your ribs where his arm had been is still warm. By the time you reach your truck your heart rate has almost come down. Almost. When you catch your reflection in the window - hair wild, cheeks flushed, his sweatshirt collar peeking under your jacket - you have to laugh once, breathless. "Almost," you tell your mirror self. "We are not doing stupid. Not yet." You don't look back at the shed. If you did, you might see him still standing there, watching you go like the storm is nothing compared to the thing that almost broke loose in a patch of dry concrete and bad lighting.

🐄🌾💉🤠💊🌾🐄

The next week wrings you out and hangs you up to dry. After the storm, phones don't stop. Spooked dogs that forgot how to be house trained. Cows with new limps and old injuries. Three colics. A cat that sneezed twice and now apparently needs last rites. You come to take care of the animals and somehow always stay to fix something else - a tarp over a leaking roof, a shorted fence charger, a barn door that won't latch. You fall into bed most nights still in your jeans because changing would cost five minutes of sleep you don't have. Your arms and legs ache, your knuckles are scraped, your socks have forgotten what "dry" means. Your body keeps score in blisters.

You only see Rhett in fragments. Once at the feed store, he is half hidden behind a pallet of salt blocks, talking to Joe Miller about pasture rotation. You stand beside Harris, trying not to fall asleep upright while he goes over tomorrow's schedule. Rhett glances over, catches sight of you, and his whole face lifts like somebody took a weight off his shoulders. You manage a tired little wave. He gives you a smile that is all soft edges and quiet concern. You are still thinking about that look an hour later when you are buried in invoices at the clinic. The storm means extra farm calls, extra meds, extra zeroes that have to line up right. Your eyes are sandpaper on the screen. When you stand to stretch, the room tilts for a second. You brace a hand on the desk, breathe through it, chalk it up to not enough water and too much coffee.

The front door bell jingles. You straighten, roll your shoulders, and head for reception, already rehearsing your gentle-but-firm speech for Miss Johnson about how her cat does not have cancer, she just snores. It's not Miss Johnson. It's Rhett in your waiting room, hat in his hands, looking like he is about to apologize for existing. His shoulders are tight, posture all wrong, like he expects someone to tell him he shouldn't be here. Your face lifts on reflex. "Hey," you say, warmth sliding in where exhaustion sat. "You lost?" The second he sees the smile, the tension drops out of him. His mouth curves back, slower, like he wasn't sure he was allowed. "Maybe," he answers. "Figured this was the only place in town I could find you standing still." You notice then what he is holding - a to go tray with two coffees and a grease spotted paper bag that smells like fries and something fried in the good way. Your stomach remembers it exists. "You brought bribes." "Doctor fuel," he corrects. "Coffee is half a crime scene, but Sandy swore the fries are fresh." You glance at the clock above the desk. You have exactly thirteen minutes before the next appointment. You trade yourself two more. "I can take fifteen," you decide. "If I eat standing I can pretend it is cardio." He huffs a laugh. "Come outside. You look like you need some sun."

Out back there is a little slab of concrete with two plastic chairs and a view of the dumpster. The sun hits it just right this time of day and turns it almost nice. You drop into one chair with a groan you don't mean to let out. He hands you a coffee and parks himself opposite, the bag between you like a peace offering. You steal a fry before he can open his mouth. "If this is some elaborate ploy to get on my good side, it is working." "Not elaborate," he says, cracking the lid off his cup. "Just saw you at the store looking like you could fall asleep in the mineral aisle." You blow on the coffee, then sip. It is too hot and too weak and somehow perfect. "Storm made people crazy," you report. "Everyone and God thinks their cows and dogs and cats and canaries are about to drop dead. I had an old lady mumble that the thunder was a sign of the apocalypse while I vaccinated her goat." "Was it," he asks. "The apocalypse would be quieter," you mutter. You dunk a fry in ketchup straight from the packet. "Half of this is real. Half is people needing someone to tell them the sky isn't falling." His eyes track your hands for a second, then your face. "How you holding up?" You shrug one shoulder. "Arm is attached. Brain mostly online. I slept in my jeans three nights in a row. Harris called me 'kid' yesterday and I almost cried about it, so that's a fun new development."

His mouth tugs at the corner. "You look tired," he says, careful, like he knows it's a risky thing to observe. "I am tired," you reply. "Storm plus calving plus 'my cat sneezed once' equals me wanting to sleep for sixteen hours straight the next time I'm not on call." He nudges the bag toward you. "I can help with that." You raise a brow. "You offering to sedate me?" "Cook eggs," he corrects. "Keep coffee coming. Guard the door. Make sure no one asks about goats or canaries until you hit at least hour twelve." "And watch me sleep," you say, unimpressed. "What in the Twilight is this?" Color hits his ears, fast. "I didn't mean it like that," he mutters. "Just... let you rest." You snort, but the jab is gentle. "Relax, Cullen. I know you aren't climbing in through the window. That is my job. You are just terrible at phrasing." "I am great at phrasing," he protests weakly. "You are great at fences and horses," you counter. "Mouth is a work in progress." He laughs, low and genuine, which feels like a mini victory. He picks at the lid of his coffee cup, eyes flicking down to his hands, then back up, bracing.

"So," he starts, and you already know where this is going. "About another date…" You groan softly, tilting your head back into the sun. "I am so sorry," you say. "I just don't know right now. These last days have been... a lot. And when I get half an hour off, honestly, I want to crawl into bed and hibernate." He nods, eyes fixed on the knuckles he is picking at. "Yeah. I figured." He tries for casual, for "no problem", but you can see it - disappointment, quick and sharp, before he gets the lid back on it. You set the coffee down, lean forward, and catch his hand where it rests on his knee. Your fingers curl around his, quick, warm, a little firm. "Hey," you say, making sure he meets your eyes. "Listen. I want another date. Very much. You are just going to have to be patient with me. Life and animals don't care about timing. It will always be like this." He searches your face, looking for the part where you let him down easy. It is not there. "Better get used to it," you add, a little wry. Something in him unwinds. His thumb presses once against your fingers like he cannot help it. "If 'getting used to it' means you stay," he says quietly, "I can work with tired. I know how to spell tired." You feel that straight under your ribs. You break the moment before it gets too big, squeeze his hand once more, then let go and steal another fry.

The clinic phone shrills from inside, merciless. You wince. "That is probably the woman with the apocalyptic goat again." He stands when you do, backing toward the door with you, coffee in his hand. At the threshold, he hesitates. "Thanks for the fries," you tell him. "And the caffeine. And the... reminder that humans exist outside the call sheet." He sets his cup on the counter, then opens his arms halfway, like he is giving you an out. You don't take it. You step into him and let your forehead rest against his collarbone for a breath. His arms close around you careful and solid, one hand splayed between your shoulder blades like he is memorizing the shape of you. You slump into it harder than you mean to. For a moment, everything in you goes weightless and heavy at the same time - tired bones, buzzing brain, all of it held together by a farm boy who smells like sun and hay and the coffee he didn't finish. You pull back first, because the phone is still ringing and Harris will yell. "I have to get that," you murmur. "Yeah," he says, voice softer. "Go save the world."

You slip behind the desk and snatch up the receiver. "County Veterinary," you manage. "This is Dr..." The rest is swallowed as the door clicks shut behind him. He is almost to his truck when you drop the call on hold for a second, lean over the counter, and shove the door open with your foot. "Rhett," you call. He turns, hand on his hat brim against the sun. "Yeah." You are half in the doorway, half in the clinic, phone muffled against your shoulder. "Don't make plans for Sunday three weeks from now," you tell him. "If the sky doesn't fall, I am off call. I will let you cook me those eggs. Maybe even watch soil documentaries." His grin starts slow and goes bright. "I will carve it into the calendar," he answers. "Rain, shine, or apocalypse goat." You roll your eyes, fail to hide your smile, and let the door swing shut so you can go tell someone their cat is absolutely not dying.

Later, when the clinic is finally dark and your truck coughs into silence outside your place, you buy yourself five luxurious minutes by not kicking your jeans off immediately. You flop on the bed, toes still hanging off the edge, and thumb your phone awake instead. There is already a text waiting.

Rhett: You make it home yet or do I need to rope any trespassers off your lawn?

You snort, because of course that is his brand of check in.

You: made it. no trespassers, just one extremely dramatic houseplant

You: also, for the record, i really do want that second date. i am just tired, not backing out. so don't spiral. that is my job.

The typing bubble appears, blinks out, appears again.

Rhett: Copy that. Zero spiraling, maximum patience.

Rhett: you sure you don't need backup on those 16 hours of sleep? i am great at standing guard and worse at eggs than i bragged

You bite your lip, smile spreading across your face where no one can see it.

You: stand down, cowboy. the loop doesn't discriminate but tonight it can rest and so will i. good night, Rhett 🤍

You hit send, drop the phone on the pillow beside you, and finally wriggle out of your jeans. By the time Rhett’s reply comes through, your eyes are already shut.

Rhett: night, doc. i will keep sunday free. try not to save the whole county before then.

The screen glows, unseen, then times out. Soft sounds fill the room that Miss Johnson would probably insist on classifying as ominous respiratory symptoms. In reality they are just the quiet, ridiculous snores of a county vet who worked herself flat and fell asleep smiling.

🐄🌾💉🤠💊🌾🐄

The clinic smells like chlorhexidine and coffee that has gone bitter under the warmer. Fluorescents hum. Your brain feels wrung out and pegged up like laundry. You push open the door to your tiny office and stop. There is an envelope in the middle of your desk. White, heavy paper. Tillerson letterhead crisp enough to cut. For a second you think: Billy wrote me a song, God help us. You slide a tongue depressor under the flap and open it. By the third line your stomach does a weird light drop. Luke’s signature. Not a joke. Not a prank. Private retainer. A number that makes your loans straighten their tie. New truck. Their brand, fully kitted. A small barn on their land converted into a clinic - stocks, surgery light, lab if you want it. Set your own hours. Answer one phone. Theirs. You pull out your phone, thumb clumsily on the screen. 

You: Can we talk?

Rhett: Of course. You okay?

You stared at that for longer than the typing window needed.

You: yeah. no. i dont know.

Three jumping dots. Then:

Rhett: Okay. Wanna come over? Sit on the porch. No one home.

You looked at the letter again, at that neat little salary line.

You: be there in 30

He hearts your message. You shove the letter back into its coffin of an envelope, grab your jacket, lock the office with a hand that suddenly doesn't feel like it belongs to someone who calmly palpated three cows today. The drive out of town turns the sky from gold to that deep between-blue. Crickets tune up. A hawk rides the last wind like it owns it. The Abbott porch light is already on. Moths work themselves dumb against the bulb. The house has that particular quiet of old farmhouses that know their people and are just waiting. Rhett steps out as soon as you pull in like he has been listening for your engine, not watching for your lights. He is in a soft T-shirt and jeans that have history, socks but no boots. His hair is damp in places. There is a streak of something like grease or dirt along one forearm where he missed a spot. Seeing him hits somewhere under your ribs. Familiar. Dangerous. "You made good time," he greets, coming down the steps. "Speed limit is a suggestion," you answer, trying for light. He huffs, relieved enough to reach for you without thinking, palm warm at the back of your neck, thumb along your jaw. You let yourself fold in, forehead to his shoulder for one long breath. "Hey," he murmurs into your hair. "You have that look like three emergencies and one idiot yelling at you. Who do I need to rope?" "No yelling yet," you manage against his shirt. "That might change." He leans back to see your face, brows pulling together. "Okay. That is worse." "I brought props."

On the porch, there are two chairs pulled close, two beers already sweating on the rail, his boots parked beside his usual spot. He really did plan to just sit and listen. You drop into the empty chair, envelope in your lap like it weighs more than your med kit. He sinks into his, knee angled toward yours. Porch boards creak. Somewhere in the dark a horse shifts, chain clinking. "Talk to me," he says, steady as a fence post. You hold the envelope out. "Read that first." He takes it. His jaw ticks the second he spots the name at the top. "Tillerson," he mutters like it tastes bad. His eyes move down the page. You watch his face shift in slow, unwelcome stages. The frown of focus. The little tightening at the salary line. The way his shoulders draw up a fraction when he hits the part about land and trucks. By the time he reaches Luke’s neat signature his whole body has gone still in that way animals do right before they bolt or kick. He folds the letter once, careful, and tucks it back inside. Sets the envelope down between you like it belongs in quarantine.

"That why you text," he asks, voice low. "Yeah." "You thinking about it?" The question is neutral. The tone is not. It has a flat edge. "I am thinking about what it means that it exists," you answer. "Means Luke sees another thing he can own," he snaps, quicker and harder than you expect. You wince, more from the bite than the words. "I am not a tractor, Rhett." His jaw flexes. "You think that matters to him?" Anger flicks under the tired. "I think it matters to me. That is why I am here. To talk to you. Not to get treated like I already said yes just because I didn't light it on fire immediately." He looks away, out toward the dark line of the pasture that has been his horizon since he was tall enough to climb a fence. "You know what this is," he pushes. "You do." "Yes." Your voice sharpens. "I also know what my loan balance is, what Harris’s face looks like every time we write off another bill nobody can pay, and what my gas gauge does when I am chasing colics from one side of the county to the other. So forgive me for not laughing and throwing it in the trash on sight just to prove my loyalty to your side of the creek." He rocks back a little, eyes narrowing. "They are buying you off," he insists. "You wouldn't be the county vet. You would be the Tillerson vet. The Tillerson girl. That is the whole point." You blink at him. Once. "That took three minutes," you say slowly. "I am impressed. We went from 'how are you' to 'Tillerson girl' in record time." He winces. "That isn't what I meant." "Feels like what you meant."

He drags a hand through his hair and leaves it braced on the back of his neck. "I meant they slap their name on everything they can reach. Land, water, people. They would put a brand on the sky if they could get a crane tall enough. You know that." "I know their reputation," you shoot back. "I grew up with it. I also know my body is not going to survive this pace forever. This town chews up doctors and spits them out. One stable contract could keep the doors open. Could mean I don't burn out and disappear in two years." He flinches, but not enough to let go. "So the plan is to let Luke lock you on their little hill," he says. "Soundproof. Exclusive." You stare at him. Cold slides in under the heat. "So that is it," you say. "In your head there is exactly one correct, Abbott-approved answer. Anything else makes me a sellout." "I didn't say that." "Not out loud," you reply. "You just made that face like I told you I am moving into their basement and marry Billy on top of that." He looks past you again, toward the invisible fence line.

"They will own your hours," he argues. "You think Luke is going to sit there smiling while you run out on a mare here because his cow has a cough. He will keep you on his side. He plays long. He has since he learned to count." "I am not stupid," you snap. "I see the angles. The financial ones. The moral ones. The way people would talk if I showed up in a Tillerson truck. I see all of it. That is why my brain is a mess. That is why I brought it to you instead of spiraling alone in my office." He latches onto one word. "Mess," he repeats. "You left because this town was too small. You came back and now you are already talking like you will bolt if the numbers look pretty enough." Your laugh is small and sharp. "You really want to go there?" He lifts his hands helplessly. "You asked what I think." "No," you cut in. "I asked you to help me think. Not to treat me like your personal line in the sand." He stares at the beer he has not touched. When he looks up, some of the anger has slid aside and something rawer sits under it.

"I asked you not to keep this loose," he reminds you. "I told you I wanted something solid. Something that didn't feel like it could blow away the first time you get a better offer. Then tonight you walk in with a letter that says 'hey, here is a better offer, all neat and clean.' Can you really blame me for reacting?" There it is. Naked. Ugly in the honest way. You let out a breath that shakes. "I came to you," you repeat. "With the letter. With my mess. Because I thought if anyone in this county could separate me from all of the rest of it for ten minutes, it was you. Instead you made it about whether I love Abbott dirt enough to stay broke on principle." He looks like that hits. He doesn't look like he is ready to admit it.

"My family is part of this," he says. "You know that. If you take that contract, we lose you. Not just me. The ranch. The folks who cannot drop that kind of money every time a calf coughs." "They would not lose me," you argue. "I would still be here. Same county. Same roads. Same people." "You really think it stays clean," he challenges. "Because the second you roll up in a Tillerson truck, every conversation shifts. Every time you give us news we don't like, there is that question sitting behind it. Whose side is she on?" You hate that he is not entirely wrong. You hate even more that he is using that possibility like a weapon. "Thank you," you say stiffly. "For assuming my ethics evaporate the second somebody puts my name on a nicer vehicle." "That is not what I said." "It is what you implied." Silence hits hard and sudden. Only the moths keep trying. You stand. Your chair scrapes loud on the boards. "Okay," you say, mostly to the air. "I am going to leave before we say things we cannot put back in the box." He is on his feet too, automatic, but he doesn't step in front of you. The envelope sits between you on the table, fat with all the ways this could go bad. "Doc," he starts. "Don't," you cut in, palm up. "Right now I can't think while you are looking at me like I have already defected." His shoulders sag a fraction. "That is not what I meant," he tries again, softer now. "You keep telling me that," you answer. "Maybe listen to how it sounds." You grab your keys. Your jacket. Everything you can carry that feels like yours. On the top step you pause. Not because you want to. Because walking away without saying the one thing that matters would haunt you later.

You look back over your shoulder. "For whatever it is worth," you say. "I don't want to be the Tillerson vet. I don't want to be anybody’s princess. That is why this is hard. Because there is me in the middle and a lot of men arguing about whose grass I should stand on." His reply is quiet, rough. "You are not a thing to place." "You just made a very convincing case that I am," you shoot back. "Think about that." You start down the steps. Gravel crunches under your boots. The night is too big and too small at the same time. Halfway to your truck you stop, breath stacking in your chest. You turn, yard light cutting his face into sharp planes. "You know what," you add, voice steady in that way it gets when you are done being nice. "Call me when you are not seventeen anymore." His mouth opens, a protest already there. You cut it off. "Actually, no," you finish. "Don't call me again. Ever."

Then you get in your truck, start the engine, and pull away, porch light shrinking in the rearview until it is just one more star you are not steering by tonight. Rhett stands there long after your taillights vanish over the rise. The gravel settles. The moths keep throwing themselves at the bulb. The porch light hums like it might burn out just to get out of this. He looks down at his hand and realizes his fingers are still curled like he was holding your truck door instead of empty air. "Shit," he mutters. The envelope sits on the table between the two chairs, white and smug in the porch light. He drops back into his seat and stares at it like it might get up and walk. Tillerson letterhead. Real ink. Real numbers. It shouldn't surprise him. Of course Luke saw what everyone else did the second you rolled back into town with a DVM and a truck that would go anywhere on fumes. Of course he clocked the way half the county breathes easier knowing you are on call. Of course he wants to own that.

Rhett scrubs both hands over his face and hears your voice instead. Call me when you are not seventeen anymore. Actually, no. Don't call me again. Ever. The words land harder than anything Luke ever threw over a fence. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, fingers locked so tight the knuckles go white. The boards under his boots are suddenly very interesting. There is a groove near the step where Royal has worn his heel for years. Another where Perry paces while he talks on the phone. He imagines a new one: the track he is going to carve tonight wearing a hole in this porch with regret. You came here. To him. With the letter. Your face tired, eyes a little wild around the edges, shoulders slumped like you had finally found the one place you could set the weight down. And he swung at it like it was a pitch with Tillerson written on the seam. He meant to protect you. Or the ranch. Or both. The motives are tangled enough he is not sure where one stops and the other starts. What actually came out of his mouth was: sellout, almost. Traitor, almost. Girl who leaves when something shiny shows up, almost. No wonder you looked at him like that.

He tips his head back against the siding and stares up at the slice of sky past the porch roof. The stars do not care. They never have. They just sit there while people down here draw lines and then bleed over them. You are not a thing to place. God. He did say that, did he not? Like it was a revelation and not the bare minimum. He gets up so fast his chair rocks. The envelope almost slides off the table. He snatches it before it falls, fingers digging into the expensive paper. For a half second he has a stupid impulse to rip it in half. To tear Luke’s neat signature right down the middle and throw the pieces into the yard. He makes himself put it back down, flat and whole. It is not the paper’s fault he panicked.

He grabs his cap from the rail and heads for the barn. If he stays on the porch he is going to pace himself sick. At least in the barn there are things that need doing that don't care if his chest feels like somebody roped a lasso too tight. The dark out here is a different kind. The good kind. The yard light dies at the edge of the lot and beyond that it is stars and the faint glow from the house windows and the smell of hay and horses. Blue lifts his head over the stall door when Rhett walks in, ears flicking forward. The gelding snorts, that low chuff that usually calms him down. Not tonight. Rhett grabs a curry comb anyway and steps into the stall. Habit. Something to put his hands on that is not his phone or that envelope. Blue is already clean, but he works over the shoulder, down the ribs, firm circles that scrape dust that is not really there. The gelding leans into it, eyelids drooping. “You wouldn't take their deal,” Rhett mutters at his neck. “You don't know what a signing bonus is.” Blue flicks an ear back, unimpressed. Rhett huffs something that almost wants to be a laugh and fails. “Yeah. I know. Not the point.” 

The words you threw at him keep looping. You could have just said you don't think it is a good idea. You didn't have to go for calling me selfish. You did not have to make it about you. He did exactly that. Took a thing that landed in your lap and made it about his old fight with a different family entirely. The brush slows. He presses his forehead against Blue’s shoulder and closes his eyes. The smell of horse and hay and the faint, sharp note of fly spray wraps around him, familiar as his own name. “I am an idiot,” he tells the horse. Blue shifts weight, hip cocked. Agreement. The barn door bangs once in the wind. Except there is no wind. “You hiding in here or converting,” Perry calls from the aisle. Rhett lifts his head, jaw already tightening. “Working,” he answers, too short. Perry appears in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, arms folded. He looks from Rhett to the very unnecessary grooming job, then back. “Yeah,” he drawls. “Really showing that dirt who runs this place.” Rhett goes back to the curry comb. “Something you need?” “Sounds more like you need me to talk sense into you,” Perry replies. “I assume you thought I wasn't home. Turns out I was. I heard everything”  Rhett stares at the stall wall for half a second like he could will it to close over the doorway. It doesn't. Of course it doesn't.

“Good for you,” he mutters. “Hope the show was worth the ticket.” Perry snorts. “Oh, it was like watching a rerun of Rhett Abbott, age seventeen. Only with higher stakes and worse lighting.” Rhett’s jaw knots. He works the brush harder over Blue’s ribs. The gelding flicks an ear, then sighs like it can feel the tension through the curry comb. “I was making a point,” Rhett says. “She is not thinking straight if she thinks Tillerson money comes without strings.” “No,” Perry replies, easy, too even. “You were making it about Luke. And you. And Dad. And every fence dispute since Jesus branded his first goat. She came here to talk about her life. You turned it into an Abbott grievances buffet.” Rhett stops brushing. The comb hangs from his hand. “She did not have to bite my head off either.” Perry lifts his brows. “She told you exactly what you did: took her hard week and made it about your pride. You don't like the angle, that doesn't make her wrong.”

Rhett bends to put the brush back, mostly so Perry doesn't have his whole face to read. “I was trying to tell her it is not safe up there.” “Then you should have said that,” Perry answers. “You could have said: Dad will lose his mind, Luke will use you, we are worried about you being that close to these people. Instead you went with: I can't believe you are doing this to us.” He tilts his head. “You hear the difference.” Rhett shuts his eyes. Your voice is still in his ears, sharp from hurt, not just temper. “I didn't mean it like that,” he mutters. “It came out wrong.” “It came out exactly like what you are scared of,” Perry says. “That you don't matter as much as the rest of her life. That she will leave again. So you hit first.” Rhett pushes off the horse, pacing once in the small square of straw. “You are acting like she is not thinking about us at all. Like she doesn't know what it would do to the valley. She isn't stupid.” “No,” Perry agrees. “She isn't." She is the one who dragged herself through eight years of school to come back and patch up every idiot and their animals within fifty miles. She knows exactly what this would do to us. That is why she looked sick holding that envelope.” He nods toward the house. “The fact she brought it here first instead of signing on a Tillerson placemat ought to tell you something.” Rhett runs a hand over his face. His skin feels too tight. “You know what else I saw? Her. Standing on that porch after a twelve hour day, asking the one man she actually trusts out here to listen while she thinks out loud. And instead he acted like she had already packed her bags and moved into the big house,” Perry says because it has to be said. “That isn't fair,” Rhett snaps. “Exactly,” Perry replies. “That is the problem.” Silence falls heavy. Blue starts chewing hay, unconcerned. Somewhere down the aisle a cow thumps against a board.

Rhett drops onto an overturned bucket, elbows on his knees, hands hanging. “He can't buy her,” he says. It comes out small. Ugly. “He can't just throw a number at her and win.” Perry’s expression softens, loses some of the edge. “He might,” he says. “He has got money, stability, a chance to pay off her loans before she is forty. That is what he is selling. He isn't selling her soul in the contract, Rhett. He is selling convenience disguised as safety. She is smart enough to see that difference. If you act like she isn't, that is what stings.” Rhett stares at the dirt between his boots. “What if she takes it?” “Then she takes it,” Perry answers. “She will still be the one who got her hands in our cows at three in the morning. She will still be the one Dad calls, no matter what he mutters about bills. You can be hurt. You don't get to treat her like a traitor for trying to make her life slightly less of a dumpster fire.” Rhett lets his head hang a second longer, then looks up. “She told me not to call again. Ever.” “Tonight,” Perry says. “She told you not to call tonight. Which, for the record, is correct. Anything you send right now is going to come out as either groveling or defensive. Give her air.”

Rhett pulls his phone from his pocket anyway, thumb already unlocking the screen by habit. Your thread is at the top, that last message from you sitting there like a bruise: Be there in 30. After that, nothing. He types: I am sorry. The words look pathetic and huge at once. He adds: I was out of line. Deletes both. “I heard that sigh from over here,” Perry says. “Let me guess. You typed an apology essay and are about to send it at ten thirty at night to a girl who specifically asked you not to contact her.” Rhett glares at the screen. “You are really enjoying this, huh?” “You melting down is not fun for me, believe it or not,” Perry replies. “Put the phone away. You want to help her tonight, do nothing. Let her be mad without trying to manage it.” “So I am just supposed to sit here,” Rhett asks. “Do chores and pretend I didn't  just blow it?” Perry shrugs. “Welcome to being a grown up. Sometimes the only move you get is not making it worse.” “What do you want me to do?” “I want you to stop guessing,” Perry says. “And I want you to stop acting like Luke already owns her if she even thinks about it. She is not a section of pasture you forgot to register. She is her own person.” Rhett exhales through his teeth. The word person hits harder than it should. 

He remembers your face on the porch, the way your eyes went cold when he snapped, the way your shoulders squared right before you said it. Call me when you are not seventeen anymore. He tucks the phone back into his pocket, fingers lingering for a second before he lets go. “What if ever means ever,” he asks quietly. Perry studies him for a long beat. “Then you live with the fact you pushed her that far,” he says. “You learn from it. You do better with the next person who trusts you with their hard stuff. That is the worst case.” Rhett grimaces. “I hate that plan.” “Then maybe do the work so it doesn't land there,” Perry answers. His tone softens, the tease ebbing out. “Look. You love her. Fine. She probably knows. But loving someone doesn't mean you get to draw their map. You want any chance of this not being the end, you need to show her you can hold your own fear without dumping it in her lap.” Rhett sits with that, the barn breathing around him. He can feel Blue’s warmth at his back, hear the quiet grind of teeth on hay. Simple, steady sounds. Things that do not change because a man said something stupid on a porch.

“Do I talk to Dad,” he asks. “About the offer?” “Not tonight,” Perry says fast. “Last thing she needs is Royal stomping all over town firing up about Tillersons stealing his vet. You start that wildfire and she will never forgive you.” Rhett nods once, slow. His chest still hurts, but the wild edge of it has dulled into something heavier, more solid. “So. Step one. Nothing. Step two. Homework.” “Step three,” Perry says, turning to go, “if you ever get another shot at that porch, start with: I am sorry, I was scared, and I took it out on you. Then shut up and listen. No speeches. No Luke monologues. Just listen.” Rhett lets out a humorless half laugh. “You practicing for pastor work on the side?” “Please,” Perry snorts. “I swear too much and my wife likes me that way.” He taps the stall door with his knuckles. “Lights in the house go off in an hour. Try to be done beating yourself up by then. The cows don't care who signs her checks as long as she shows up when they are in trouble. Maybe trust her to remember that.” He leaves, boots fading down the aisle. The barn door thumps closed behind him. Rhett stays where he is for another minute, then reaches for the brush again, more out of habit than need. He runs it once down Blue’s neck, just to feel something solid under his hand. He pulls his phone out one more time, thumbs hovering. The urge to send something is physical, like an itch under the skin. He can almost hear what you would say if he ignored your boundary now: You do not listen. You hear what you want. He locks the screen and shoves the phone deep in his pocket. It feels like lifting something heavy and setting it down where it belongs.

🐄🌾💉🤠💊🌾🐄

Rhett shows up the next night with flowers he is not even sure count as flowers. He spent ten minutes in the grocery store staring at roses that look like they belong at funerals and helium balloons that say GET WELL and CONGRATS, which both feel wrong. In the end he walks back out, parks the truck on the shoulder of County 8 and raids the ditch: sunflowers, purple weeds that might be fancy if you squint, a few stems of yarrow. They look a little wild and a little crooked in his hand. Which tracks. Now he is on the porch of your apartment building, heart somewhere near his belt buckle. The light hums. Your truck sits in the drive, clinic magnet catching what is left of the sunset. He can't pretend you aren't home. He knocks. Once, then again, knuckles a shade too hard. For a second he thinks about bolting, leaving the bouquet propped against the door like some weird rural delivery. Then the deadbolt turns.

You open in scrubs and an oversized hoodie, hair shoved into a knot that is losing the fight. No makeup. Shadows under your eyes. You look like you did last night, only more tired and less angry, which might be worse. Your gaze lands on the flowers first, then his face. Your expression shutters, neutral into guarded. “I said not to call,” you remind him. No hello. No smile. “I know,” he answers, fingers tightening around the stems. “So I didn't call.” He lifts the bouquet an inch, the letter in the other hand. “I showed up.” Your mouth betrays you with the smallest twitch before you flatten it. “That is not the loophole you think it is.” “I am aware,” he admits. “Can I talk for a second, or should I go apologize to the ditch and give these back?” You look at the flowers again. They are not pretty in the catalog way. They are honest. Dirt still clings to one root because he forgot to knock it off. Something in your shoulders drops half a centimeter.

“Porch,” you decide, stepping back just enough that he is not crowding the doorway but not inviting him in either. “You get five minutes. No yelling, no guilt trips, no fence disputes.” “That is a lot of rules for five minutes,” he mutters, then catches himself. “Yes. Porch. Rules. Got it.” He stays on the welcome mat, boots on faded coir, and offers the bouquet like a treaty. You hesitate, then take it, the letter with it too. Your fingers brush his. It is nothing, and he feels it everywhere. “These are…” you search for a word, sniff one of the sunflowers. “Very local.” “Ditch couture,” he says. “Felt safer than anything that might look like I spent Tillerson money.” That pulls a small, reluctant huff out of you. “You are already doing better than yesterday. You have mentioned them without insulting me in the same breath.” “That is kind of why I am here,” he says quietly. You lean a shoulder into the frame, flowers cradled in your arm like you are not sure yet if they live here. “Alright, Abbott. You wanted to talk. Talk.” “I am sorry,” he starts, because that is the part that burns his tongue if he doesn't get it out. “For what I said. How I said it. You came with something big and I made it about me and Luke and Dad and a fence line that has nothing to do with your life. That was wrong.” You just watch him. No nods, no little rescues. Just listening. “I should have asked how you were,” he goes on. “What you wanted. Instead I called you selfish and threw you leaving like a brick. I took the fear part and wrapped it in the meanest words I had. That is on me.” “Seventeen,” you say quietly. He nods. “Seventeen.” The porch light hums. A moth keeps smacking itself against the glass like it has a personal grudge.

“I was scared,” he pushes out. “Luke already took enough from us. The idea of him getting a hook in you too, with a checkbook and a contract, made my brain short out. That isn't an excuse. It's just the part I should have admitted instead of acting like a kid whose crush talked to another table at lunch.” Your jaw ticks once. “You hurt me,” you say, simple. “Not because you were worried. I get worried. That is most of my job. You hurt me because you lined up with the worst voice in my own head. The one that says any time I choose school or work or anything that is not this valley, I am abandoning people.” He flinches. “I know.” “No, you didn't," you cut in. “If you had, you would not have thrown leaving. You know how hard that was. Leaving. Staying. Coming back. Trying to hold the idea that I am allowed to want anything beyond this zip code without being branded a traitor.” He makes himself hold your gaze. “I see it clearer than I did yesterday.” You study him for a long moment. He feels stripped down to bone and baling twine.

“You don't get a vote,” you tell him. “In whether I take that offer. Or the next one. You can have an opinion. You don't get to weaponize it at me.” “Understood,” he says. “For the record, I am not here to argue about the offer. You could frame that letter or shred it. That is your call.” “Then why are you here,” you ask. “Because you hate to lose fights, or because your brother bullied you into not being emotionally feral?” “Little of both,” he admits. “Mostly because I couldn't stand the idea that the last thing you heard from me was me acting like a boy who just realized his favorite lab partner might transfer schools.” Your mouth tugs. “Accurate self diagnosis.” He almost smiles. “Look, you can still be mad. You can still tell me to get off your porch. That is your right. I just needed you to hear once, with the thinking part of my brain actually online, that I was wrong. You deserved better than what you got last night.” The seconds stretch. You shift the bouquet from one arm to the other.

Finally, you sigh. “I didn't mean it either,” you say. “The ever part. I meant the seventeen part. That was accurate.” “I earned it,” he answers. “You did,” you say. You glance at the wild flowers again. “Now you look more like a man who spent his night thinking about his words and arguing with a ditch about composition. That is at least twenty five.” “Twenty six on a good day,” he mutters. “We are not fixed,” you warn. “I figured,” he replies. “You still have me quarantined on the porch. I didn't expect cake.” “You don't deserve cake,” you say. “You might get tap water.” “Tap water sounds fair.” You step back at last and jerk your chin toward the kitchen. “Fine. Come in. Put those weeds in something before they wilt out of pure social anxiety.” Relief hits him so hard he has to cover it with a snort. He toes off his boots because his mom raised him that way, then follows you down the short hallway into the kitchen. You dig a mason jar out of a cabinet, fill it, drop the bouquet in. It leans, stubborn and lopsided. You place the letter on the kitchen table. 

He leans his hip against the counter, watching your hands. “You decided anything,” he asks carefully. “About the offer?” “No,” you answer. “I worked twelve hours and then argued with myself in the shower. That is as far as I got.” For a moment there is only silence. “What do you think I should do?” He freezes for half a breath, because this feels like a test and something more important than that. Then he nods once, as if answering himself, and taps a knuckle against the jar of ditch flowers like it is a whiteboard. “Options as I see them,” he begins. “Tillerson retainer pays down debt fast. New truck, fancy barn, all that. It also narrows your world to one gate and one man with a checkbook. High security, low purpose.” Your throat works. You don't argue, which scares him more than if you did. “Staying independent is messier,” he goes on. “You still fight the fridge and the whiteboard and the days when your truck is your clinic. Higher purpose, slower math. Both are adult choices. If you pick the money, I am not going to stand here and accuse you of selling out. If you pick the mess, I am not going to act like you owe this valley your wrists and your sleep forever.”

You have to swallow around something sharp. “And what do you want,” you ask. “I want competent vet care,” he says, deadpan, then lets the smile slip through. “I want you. In whatever form you decide you can be here. If that is six months and a goodbye, I will be mad at the sky for a while, not at you. If that is a long haul with a lot of stupid fees for Abbotts, I will show up with fence staples and pie.” You sit with that, shoulders a little hunched against the cupboard. You look at the stupid mason jar of stupid flowers. You look at the stupid man who is trying very hard not to be stupid. The part of you that wanted to slam a door yesterday loosens its grip. “You know the retainer includes a heated barn bay,” you say. “No more scraping ice off a portable ultrasound.” “I will build you a bay if I have to,” he answers, easy. “At the vet building. Or the old feed shed. Or my left lung if you need it. I am handy. I can trade fence work for power lines. Perry can bribe the inspector with trout.” “You cannot bribe inspectors with trout,” you object. “We can try,” he counters. The laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. He looks a little dazed that he earned it. “Glad something good came out of me being an ass,” he mutters. “Don't make a habit of it,” you say. “I am busy.” He nods and straightens. “I should get out of your hair. You look like you might fall asleep standing up and I don't want to be responsible for you concussing yourself on your own counter.” You walk him back to the door. The space between you feels different than last night. Not fixed. Just… less broken. At the threshold he pauses. “You meant what you said about the vote,” he says. “So I will keep my mouth off the scale unless you ask. If you want to talk pros and cons, call. Or show up. Or send a pissed off barn cat. And if you decide to take it, I will be mad at Luke, not you. I am trying to get that part right.”

You search his face for the trap. There is only a guy standing on your doormat, holding the edges of his temper like something he finally understands can do damage. “Okay,” you say. “I am holding you to that.” “Please do,” he answers. He steps down off the porch. Gravel crunches. He is halfway to the truck when you call, “Rhett.” He turns. You lean against the post, jar of wild flowers a crooked halo over your shoulder. “For the record,” you say. “Showing up instead of calling is still technically breaking the rules.” “Yeah,” he admits. “I am not great with rules when I am worried.” A beat. “This time,” you decide, “I am willing to call it an extra credit assignment.” His mouth curves. “Does that mean I passed?” “It means you didn't flunk out completely,” you say. “We will see about the rest.” You come down two steps, close enough that he can see the little scar on your nose. Before he can overthink it, you lean in and press a quick, soft kiss to his cheek. It lands at the corner of his mouth and brands him more thoroughly than any rope ever has. “Thank you for the flowers,” you murmur. “And the apology.” His pulse jumps so hard he forgets what to do with his hands. “Any time,” he manages. You go back inside. He stands in the yard like somebody unplugged him and forgot to plug him back in, until the porch light clicks off and the stars take over. On the drive home he leaves the radio off. The quiet is loud enough. Your line from last night loops, edited now in his head. Call me when you are not seventeen anymore. He taps the steering wheel once, a small private vow. Working on it, he thinks. Starting with tonight.

🐄🌾💉🤠💊🌾🐄

Three days go by before you do anything besides work, stare at the letter, and rethink Rhett’s words. On the fourth morning Luke Tillerson calls the clinic. Harris is out on a call. You are halfway through vaccines orders and invoices when the receptionist pokes her head in and mouths Tillerson like it is a swear. You wipe your hands, pick up the line in the back room. “Doctor,” Luke greets you, brisk. “Have you had time to consider our offer?” You look at the copy of the retainer on the counter. At Rhett’s handwriting in the margins. High security, low purpose. “I have,” you answer. “I would prefer to give you my answer in person.” A pause. “I can have my attorney call your office.” “I am not negotiating,” you tell him. “Just answering. I will be at your place at four. If that works, great. If not, I can send it in writing.” He doesn't like the lack of control in that sentence. You can hear it. “Four is fine,” Luke says. “We will be in the office. Billy is looking forward to celebrating your good judgment.” You picture Billy with a bottle he definitely should not open at work. “We will see about that,” you reply, and hang up before you can soften it. By three thirty your stomach is gnawing on itself. You wash up at the clinic, trade scrubs for clean jeans and a button down, keep the work boots. You drive out anyway.

The Tillerson ranch is what happens when money decides to cosplay rugged. Big gate, bigger sign. Gravel that has never met a pothole. You park the clinic truck where you can leave fast if your spine demands it. In the main house the air smells like money and lemon cleaner. Luke is behind a desk the size of a small island. Billy is sprawled in a chair in the corner, boots on a cowhide rug, hat tipped back, phone in hand. “Doctor,” Luke nods. “Can I offer you coffee? Tea? NDA?” “Water would be fine,” you answer. “No contract on the side.” Billy grins at that, pushes up to grab you a bottle from the mini fridge. “We chilled it special for you, darling. Tillerson brand hydration.” “Does it come with a royalty clause,” you ask, unscrewing the cap. “I am trying to cut back.” Luke steeples his fingers. “You said you have an answer.” “I do.” You sit. You keep your shoulders back even though your heart is tap dancing a little. “I appreciate the offer. Truly. It is… generous.” “Told you she had sense,” Billy murmurs. “But I will not be accepting.”

Silence. Even the air conditioning seems to pause. Luke’s smile thins by a millimeter. “You want to negotiate terms? We can adjust exclusivity if the numbers change.” “I don't want to negotiate,” you say. “I want you to keep calling the clinic like everyone else. I will keep treating your cattle. You will keep paying your invoices. We will both survive.” “You would rather drown in student debt than take a stable, well compensated position,” Luke asks, incredulous. “Is that the pitch?” “I would rather not put a collar on my license,” you reply. “Not for anyone. Not even you.” Billy whistles under his breath, low. “That sounded hotter than it should have.” You ignore him. “If I take this, it changes how people see me. How they trust me. Every time I pull into a yard, someone will wonder if I am here as their vet or your employee. That is not the kind of medicine I want to practice.” Luke leans back. “You think the valley will resent you for being successful.” “I think they will stop calling me,” you answer. “And I didn't go through eight years of school to spend my time being one man’s opinion on call.” His jaw flexes. “He put you up to this?” There it is. The weasel word. He.

“No,” you cut in, sharper than planned. “Rhett had an opinion. He also had the decency to apologize for how he expressed it. The decision is mine. You don't get to pin that on him because it is easier to stay angry at an Abbott than accept a woman doesn't want your offer.” Billy lets out a tiny “oh” that doesn't help. Luke’s eyes cool. “You are making a mistake.” “Probably,” you shrug. “That is half of adulthood. I will make my own, thanks.” You stand. Hand him back the fancy paper envelope that has been sitting like a brick in your truck. “I will see your heifers when they calve,” you add. “At the usual rate. If you want a second opinion on the contract, Harris can recommend three other vets within a hundred miles who might be a better fit for what you want.” Luke takes the papers like they are contaminated. “You are going to regret this.” “Maybe,” you say. “If I do, I will regret it on my own time.” Billy follows you to the door, because of course he does. “For what it is worth,” he says, softer than usual, “I respect the hell out of that.” “Turning down money,” you arch a brow. “That doesn't sound very Tillerson.” “Having a backbone,” he corrects. “We like that too. Sometimes. When it is not pointed at us.” You cannot help the small smile. “Tell your cows I am still cheaper than shipping them to Laramie.” He touches the brim of his hat. “Yes, ma’am.”

Outside, the sun is low enough to knife straight at the windshield. You slide into the truck, hands shaking a little, and just breathe until your pulse stops trying to headbutt your ribs. Then you put it in gear and roll down the drive. At the end of the lane, you turn not toward town, but toward Abbott land. Your brain tries to make a remark about patterns. You ignore it. You find Rhett where you half expect him to be: in the yard, by the old feed shed he joked about donating a lung to. There is a rough sketch duct taped to the door, lines and measurements scribbled. He is in a t-shirt and jeans, boots dusty, hair shoved under a cap, arguing with Perry over stud placement. Perry sees your truck first. “Doc,” he sing songs. “Twenty bucks says she is here to ask for free labor.” Rhett looks up. One look at your face and whatever joke was loading dies on his tongue. He wipes his palms on his jeans, meets you halfway between the shed and the truck. “Everything okay?” You stop in front of him, close enough to smell sweat and sun and that soap he uses when he remembers soap exists. “I told him no,” you say. His throat moves around nothing. “Luke?” “Yes.” He blows out a breath, eyes flicking briefly toward the horizon like he is thanking or cursing somebody up there. When he looks back, his expression is careful. “Okay. You sure?” “You promised not to try to talk me into anything,” you remind him. “I am not trying,” he replies. “I am checking.”

You think about the office, the way the contract felt like a leash in your hands. Think about your truck, and the whiteboard in the clinic, and Rhett’s stupid neon notes in the margins of a photocopy he stayed up too late reading. “I am sure,” you say. “I want to build the other thing. The messier one. The heated bay that doesn't belong to one last name.” Something unlocks in his posture. The smile that happens is not wild relief, not I won, just a quiet, deep thing that reaches his eyes. “Alright then,” he murmurs. “Mess it is.” Perry strolls up, hands on his hips. “That sounded like a decision. Are we celebrating or circling wagons?” “Bit of both,” you answer. “Tillerson's keep their money. I keep my independence. You two may get drafted into construction duty one day when I decide I want that heated barn after all.” Perry whoops. “Knew my charming personality would get me manual labor eventually.”

You spend the next hour actually exhaling for once - beer in hand, sunk into a porch chair at the Abbotts’, trading stories with Perry about high school disasters and the weird fact that you both pay taxes now. Rhett leans on the railing, throwing in the occasional dry correction when Perry embellishes too much. When Perry’s phone buzzes he glances at the screen, groans, and wanders off into the yard to take the call, leaving the porch and the quiet afternoon to just you and Rhett. Rhett traces a line on the label of his bottle with one fingertip. “For the record,” he says, voice lower now that it is just you, “I am proud of you.” You make a face, because the word hits something tender. “For turning down a pile of money?” “For choosing on purpose,” he corrects. “For knowing what kind of doctor you want to be and what kind of life you want to build.” Your throat feels a little tight again, but in a different way. “Ask me again when the truck needs a new transmission and I'm crying over invoices.” “I will be there,” he replies, like it is a weather report. “To hand you a wrench or a beer or a loan, depending on which one you let me get away with.” You bump your shoulder into his. “That is dangerously close to being supportive.” “Don't spread it around,” he says. “I have a reputation.”

You look at the shed, at the yard where you stood a few days ago vibrating with anger telling him not to call you until he grew up. “You did good,” you admit quietly. “Not trying to sway me. Not making it about you this time.” He shrugs, mouth quirking. “I am trying very hard to earn that phone call.” “You already did,” you say. “When you showed up with the ditch flowers.” His ears pink up in the fading light. “Those were structurally unsound.” “They were honest,” you counter. For a moment you just sit there, side by side, watching the sky go from afternoon blue to orange. “By the way,” you add, because you can't resist, “you realize agreeing to build me a heated bay is basically a long term commitment in this valley. People get married over less.” He gives you that slow, sideways look that used to come with the word princess and now comes with something heavier. “Maybe I am okay with that.” Your heart does a small, traitorous thing. “Careful, Abbott,” you warn, light but not really. “Start talking like that and people will think you are not seventeen anymore.” He huffs a laugh, eyes on the shed, on the rough lines of a future you picked. “Good,” he says. “I am not interested in living there again.”

🐄🌾💉🤠💊🌾🐄

Your schedule opens up sooner than expected, so Rhett swings by to pick you up - no black dress shirt this time, just a sand colored canvas jacket thrown over a dark navy plaid button down, the collar open and the fabric soft with wear, wearing the same beat to hell jeans and boots he works in all week. You are dressed for comfort, not spectacle this time - black leggings, old white sneakers, a soft gray T shirt with a cracked college logo, and a navy plaid flannel that fits a little loose, buttons open, hem hitting just below your hips. When you climb into the truck you tug it closer around you, fabric faintly smelling of your soap, like you took the quickest shower known to man and grabbed the first clean thing off a chair. For a moment, watching you buckle in, Rhett has the sharp, stupid thought that the shirt is his, that you pulled it off the back of his kitchen chair and never gave it back. The picture lands so hard he has to look at the dash, fingers tightening once on the wheel while he reminds himself that not every flannel that looks right on you started in his closet.

He drives you to the diner with nerd radio turned down low, more hum than conversation. When the host starts talking about soil quality after heavy rain, a small, involuntary smile tugs at your mouth, and he files that away like it matters. He hops out, opens your door, and you fall into step beside him without a word. Dinner is quiet in the best way. You are worn thin and he can feel it, like heat off asphalt. You sit across from each other in the soft glow of the neon coffee cup, trading short stories about the clinic, the ranch, the storm. You laugh at his stupid jokes, but it lands a few degrees off, like your mind keeps drifting somewhere he cannot see. He leaves the questions alone and lets you eat in peace. The diner spits you back out smelling like fryer oil and milkshake, same as high school, only now your knees ache and you know exactly how many ways a bar stool can wreck a lumbar spine. You are in Rhett’s truck, rolling toward Abbott land because you realized you left part of your vet bag there this morning after checking on the calf with the bad leg. In the parking lot you tried to argue that you would grab your own truck, swing by the ranch, then head home, but he shut the door on that one with a shake of his head. “Remember,” he tells you now, eyes on the dark road ahead, “I said I would do what I could to keep you here as long as I can. That includes not letting you drive into a ditch because you are too tired to keep your eyes open.” You start to protest, then just sink a little deeper into the seat, the tired winning. He pretends not to notice the way your head tips toward the window and focuses on the road, feeling quietly, fiercely pleased that at least tonight, he gets to be the one making sure you get your stuff and then home safe.

So here you are now, sitting on the tailgate, boots swinging. He is beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost touch, not quite. He killed the engine ten minutes ago, parking in front of the barn. Out here, the sky is a thick spill of stars. The world has narrowed to the ticking of cooling metal and the low hush of cows somewhere in the dark. You still have the diner mascara on. The rest is gone - gloss licked off by salt and fries, there is a stain on your sweatshirt - possible fry grease or ketchup. Someone bumped your drink and there is a faded soda stain on your thigh you only noticed once you sat down. Your jacket still smells like fryer smoke. “You alright?” Rhett asks after a while, voice soft in the dark. “I am fine.” You flick a pebble with the toe of your boot, watch it skitter into the gravel. “Just weird. Sometimes it feels weird being back here. Seeing Jess walk by blowing me a kiss to not disturb my date. Feels like a time machine that only works from the outside.” He thinks it over. “Princess still sticking?” You huff. “Shut up,” you say but there is no heat behind it. He shifts, elbows braced behind him on the gate, face tipped up so the starlight can find it. “You did look like one back then.” You grimace. "Don't start.” “What? It is true.” His mouth quirks. “You and your glitter.” You groan. “Don't bring up the glitter.” “Oh, I am bringing up the glitter,” he answers. “There was so much of it. Thought the county would have to file an environmental impact statement. You walked through the hall and left a trail. Looked like someone shook a fairy over homeroom.” You laugh in spite of yourself. “It was body lotion. Jess bought it in bulk.” “I remember,” he says. “Senior year football banquet, you hugged everybody and they went home shining like a disco ball. Perry still brings it up.” “That was the point.” You lean back on your hands, copy his pose without thinking, stare up at the sky. “It was armor. Glitter and lip gloss and loud. If people looked at that, they didn't have to see the rest.” He is quiet for a moment. You can feel him look over, even with your eyes on the stars. “The rest what?”

You shrug, shoulders rubbing denim against metal. “The part that was terrified I would blow my one shot out of there. The part that hated feeling dumb about fence lines and mineral mix and your dad looking at me like I was made of glass and bad decisions. Easier to be shiny. Shiny people can pretend everything is fine.” He considers that. “You weren't dumb.” “I didn't know anything about what mattered.” Your throat tightens more than you expect. “Tillersons, Abbotts, irrigation ditches, land leases. You all spoke a language I didn't grow up with. Graduation felt like getting pardoned from a sentence I didn't remember catching.” His boot scuffs the bumper once, thoughtful. “You learned fast.” “Yeah.” You watch your breath white the air. “In cities. In clinics. In lecture halls. Not here.” You rub your thumb over a faint scar on your knuckle where an iodine stain used to live. “Came back and suddenly I am the one with the language and everyone expects me to just slot in. Sometimes I look at those girls in the bar and I can't recognize the person they remember. She had glitter on her chest and homework in her locker and thought the worst thing that could happen was not getting into the right college.” “You make that sound like a crime,” he murmurs. “Sometimes it feels like one.” You swallow. The words show up without permission. “There is no glitter left on my skin anymore. Just bruises from cows and hand sanitizer burn. I keep waiting for someone to point it out and act disappointed.” He is quiet long enough that you almost regret saying it. Then, steady and certain, “I recognize you.”

You blink over at him. He is not looking at you like he is working up to something clever. He is just looking, like you are a thing he has known a long time and is still impressed to see. “You sure?” you ask. “Because there was a lot of glitter. It did most of the heavy lifting.” His mouth pulls into that crooked almost smile. “I saw past it even back then.” You snort. “You called me princess and told everyone I was allergic to dirt.” “That was me being seventeen and an idiot,” he counters. “I still saw you.” “Saw what, exactly?” He shifts a little closer, enough that your shoulders finally touch, solid and warm. “Saw the girl who stayed late to stack chairs after dances when nobody asked. Saw the one who would help the freshman band kid pick up his music when a senior knocked it out of his hands. Saw the one who would argue with teachers about stupid grading curves because she knew the quiet kids were getting buried even though you always had straight A´s. The glitter was just… shiny mood lighting.” You stare at him. “You weren't in those rooms when that happened.” His eyes crinkle. “You think I didn't hear about it? Towns like this run on stories.” He shrugs, looking back out at the dark pasture. “And now? The glitter is gone. You are still the one driving into flooded ditches at two a.m. because some old rancher can't get his truck to town. You are shoulder deeps into cows and pull when they are not able to deliver the calf by themselves. You are still the one who showed up in a storm just because you thought we might need help. Only difference are the scrubs and the degree.” Your chest does a weird hurt-soft thing.

“You think I am the same person,” you ask, voice rougher than you like. “Slightly more country now,” he admits. “Less sparkly. More likely to threaten someone with a rectal thermometer. But yeah. Same backbone.” You tip your head back again, stare hard at the stars to keep your eyes from doing anything embarrassing. Your voice comes out smaller. “I don't feel like her.” “No,” he agrees quietly. “You feel like you actually earned who you are now.” His shoulder bumps yours, deliberate. “Glitter washes off. This does not.” You let out a breath you did not know you were holding. It ghosts the chill between you, hangs there for a second, then is gone. “Deep thoughts for a man whose favorite audio content is about root zones,” you mutter, because you need to knock some weight off the moment before it crushes you. He hoards the silence for one second more, then plays along. “Root zones are important. Like identities.” “You didn't just compare my emotional growth to soil structure.” “Top five metaphors I have ever made,” he says, dead serious. You groan, shove your shoulder into his. He rocks with it, lets himself be pushed, then nudges you back. The motion is easy, tested, like you both remember how to bicker without drawing blood.

From the house, a screen door bangs. Light spills briefly across the yard, then cuts off again. You both wait a beat, listening. No one comes out. The ranch goes back to being all sky and fence line and quiet. “So,” he says after a while, softer again. “If I tell you I like this version of you better, the one without the glitter - is that allowed.” “Why?” You angle toward him, one knee turning on the metal. “Because she knows where your fence is now?” “Partly,” he admits. “Mostly because she lets me see the parts she used to hide under the shiny. The tired. The angry. The scared. The stubborn. The part that thinks she has to earn her oxygen out here.” You swallow. “And you are just fine with all of that?” “I like all of that,” he answers. “I like the girl who left. I like the woman who came back better. But if one of those pieces disappeared, it wouldn't be you.” The words settle somewhere deep in your chest, heavy and careful. For the first time in a long time, the thought that sparks in your head is not a defensive joke or a list of reasons he is wrong. It is simple, startlingly clear: No glitter left on my skin - but you recognize me anyway.

You look at him. Really look. There is hay stuck near his cuff and a long scratch on one knuckle. He smells like soap, horse, and diner grease. His hat sits on the tailgate between you, forgotten. You reach over and tug the front of his shirt gently, just enough to pull him that tiny bit closer that you could use as cover if you ever admitted how much you want to close the rest. “You realize,” you murmur, “that being seen like that is not exactly low commitment.” He huffs a quiet laugh, breath puffing against your cheek. “You realize I am not exactly in this for low commitment?” Heat unspools low in your stomach, slow and steady and a little terrifying. The air between you shifts. His eyes flick down once - mouth, throat, back to your eyes. You feel your own pulse jump. His hand lifts like it belongs on your jaw, hesitates, then lands light, callused thumb resting near your ear. You lean into it without meaning to, traitor that you are. “Rhett,” you whisper. “Yeah.” You are both leaning in, tilt and gravity and eight years of something slow burn between you.

The screen door bangs again, hard enough to make you both jump. Perry’s voice carries across the yard. “Rhett? You out there or did the Doc steal you for overnight observation?” You jerk back a fraction, breathless, hand still fisted in his shirt. He blinks like someone cut on a bright light. “Saved by the brother,” you mutter. “Or doomed by him,” Rhett says under his breath, eyes apology and frustration and something fierce all at once. You let go of his shirt, palm smoothing the fabric where your fingers creased it. “Relax. We were just sitting.” “Uh-huh,” Perry calls, suspiciously close now. “You two better not be making out on the tailgate I use for lunch.” You stifle a laugh against your knuckles. Rhett groans. "We were talking," he says. "Uh-huh," Perry replies. "Lot of oxygen being exchanged in that conversation." Rhett slides off the tailgate like it personally offended him. "You need something, or did you just come out here to narrate?" "Dad wanted to know if you were done hiding from the invoices," Perry answers. "Also Mom says if she finds hoof picks in the kitchen again, she is divorcing all of us." "Not legally how that works," you mutter. Perry grins. "Doc, always a pleasure. Try not to let my brother fall in love with you too hard. He breaks, I ain't housetraining another one." Your lungs forget how to operate for a full second. Rhett chucks a pebble at him. "Go away." Perry catches it, tosses it back, still smirking. "Barn door stays open. You two remember we share a property line with God and half the town's binoculars." He wanders off, humming. Silence drops again, thicker than before. The almost-kiss hangs in the air like static.

You hop down from the tailgate, dust your hands on your jeans just to do something with them. "Well." "Yeah." Rhett looks toward the house where light spills under the back door, then up at the sky, then at you. Something tight sits along his jaw that was not there ten minutes ago. "I should probably get home. Before Perry starts live blogging." He looks at you for one heartbeat too long, like he is arguing with himself. Then he blows out a breath, decision landing. "Come on," he says. "Let's get out of here." You blink. "And commit what kind of bad idea exactly?" He jerks his chin toward his truck "Get in." You narrow your eyes. "Abbott, I am not climbing into a vehicle for an unspecified adventure with a man whose brother just told me not to let him fall in love with me too hard." His mouth twitches, but his eyes are earnest. "I am not planning a felony." You cross your arms. "So what are you planning?" He hesitates just long enough for you to notice, then steps in close enough that you have to tilt your head a little to see his face. The barn light cuts him in half, one side shadow, one side honest. "Tradition dumb," he says quietly. "Not felony dumb."

The words land in a warm little pocket of recognition. You can see the creek in your mind, the cottonwoods, the sagging fence. Senior summer. The night a few weeks ago that already feels like a different life. Jess laughing, Marta yelling time, Kelly shoving you off the rock. "You remember that," you ask. "Hard to forget the night I roped you half naked on my pasture," he replies, voice dry. "Come on." You should say no. You have a clinic day tomorrow. There is laundry in your machine, charts to finish, bills to worry about. Instead you hear yourself reply, "You are lucky I passed tradition dumb on my last ethics exam." His smile flashes, quick and real. "I will take that as a yes." He guides you to the passenger door, hand finding the small of your back in a light, easy touch that guides rather than steers. The contact is nothing. It is also everything.

You climb into his truck. He turns the key and lets the engine rumble to life. The yard falls away behind you. Perry stands on the porch, arms folded. He gives a little two finger salute toward the truck, eyes knowing in the dark. Rhett pretends he didn't see it. You buckle in. "If your brother starts a betting pool on this, I am charging him double for farm calls." "Already does that for playoff games," Rhett says. "You would just motivate him." Gravel crunches under the tires as he turns toward the lane. The night swallows the ranch whole, then spits you out on the county road, headlights tunneling through the dark. For a while you both just listen to the engine and the thrum of tires. Then curiosity wins. "So," you ask, watching the reflection of the dash lights on his knuckles. "What made you think of the creek?" He considers, jaw ticking once as he shifts his grip on the wheel. "You said earlier you didn't recognize yourself," he says. "That you left the glitter behind. That skinny dip stunt back then - that was the last time I remember seeing you look like you thought the world could not touch you." You stare out at the shoulder, where weeds ghost silver in the headlights. "I was an idiot," you answer. "We could've broken our necks." "Probably," he agrees. "Still. You looked... free." "That is one word for reckless." He shrugs. "Tonight you looked like you were waiting for someone to tell you you are allowed to be here. Thought maybe it would help to sit where you didn't ask permission the first time." Your throat tightens. "You realize there is a fence and a land feud involved in that metaphor." "Good thing I fix fences for a living," he says. You huff out a reluctant laugh. "I can't tell if that is romantic or deeply concerning." "Little of both."

The county road curves. He takes it one handed, easy. You know this path as well as he does. The turnoff comes up, that familiar gap in the ditch where teenagers with more energy than sense always cut across. When he slows, your stomach does a weird little flip. "I thought you said no trespassing," you remind him. "The creek is on Abbott land," he replies. "We are fine. Creek is the line. We stay on our bank, not felony, not even misdemeanor. Just nostalgia with better footwear." He pulls off under the cottonwoods. The engine hum drops to a low idle, then cuts when he twists the key. Crickets reassert themselves, indignant at the interruption. The air smells like wet dirt and old water. You sit a second, hands on your knees, feeling the past and present stack on top of each other. "Well," you murmur. "Here we are. Tradition dumb with a safety briefing." Rhett grins in the dim. "Growth," he says. "I am told adults are supposed to practice it."

You open your door, hop down, gravel shifting under your sneakers. The air is cooler here, creek carrying its own lazy draft. He rounds the front with his hands in his pockets, then pulls them out like he remembers he is allowed to reach for things. "Come on," he says. "There is a rock that still owes me a bruise from when I was seventeen. Might as well aggravate it." You follow him down the little path through the cottonwoods. In the dark, your shoulder grazes his arm. You take his hand because the rocks are slick and because you want to, and that realization is its own quiet surprise. Both hands are rough from different kind of farmwork. The creek is a black ribbon, talking to itself over rocks. The old rock shelf is still there, smoothed by a thousand dumb decisions. You climb up, sit, pull your knees to your chest. He settles beside you with his legs stretched long, elbows on his thighs. For a while you both just breathe, listening to the water and whatever small animals are regretting their life choices in the brush. "So," you murmur finally. "New story." "Yeah," he answers. "Not you running from a spotlight. Not me pretending not to look." He nudges a stone into the creek with his boot. Little ripples spread. "Just us. On purpose."

Your pulse picks up again, quieter this time, but no less intense. The almost-kiss on the tailgate hangs behind you like a bookmark. This feels like the page you turned to instead of slamming the cover shut. "You know," you admit, voice low, "I used to sit right here and tell myself I would never end up tied to this place." He glances over, expression curious, not wounded. "And now?" "Now I sit here and think it is the first place that has ever asked me to stay for the right reasons." He takes that in, breath going a little shallow. "You saying that like I am one of the reasons." You look at him. The stars catch in his eyes, make constellations of their own. Your chest feels too tight again, in a way that is becoming familiar. "I grew up thinking only idiots fall for boys who never left home," you tell him quietly. "Turns out I am not half as smart as I thought." Something in his face goes open, raw around the edges and bright in the middle. "Doc," he says. Just that. Like a question and an answer at once.

The creek looks smaller now, you realize. It always does. Memory makes everything larger - the cottonwoods taller, the fence higher, the water some mythic river instead of a narrow, dark ribbon curling around rock and pasture. He grins sideways at you suddenly, that small, crooked thing that has been getting under your skin more efficiently every day. “So. Tradition dumb.” “Not felony dumb,” you say. “Wanna get in,” he asks. The air smells like wet rock and cottonwood leaves, like every summer you ever had here and all the ones you tried to forget. “You don't have to actually get in,” he adds. “We can sit and listen and pretend.” You look at him, at that careful, almost shy offer. It makes something warm push up against your ribs. “Are you backing out, cowboy?” “Never,” he says. “Just allowing informed consent.” “Consider me informed,” you say, and stand up. He follows after you. “Last time I was here,” you say, picking your way down the slope, “I was in less clothing and more trouble.” “You were in enough clothing,” he mutters. “For me to know you were here. That was the problem.” “Funny,” you say. “I remember a rope problem.” “I remember someone sprinting toward a loop,” he says. “You still holding that position?” He looks at you, a faint glimmer of the fact that he is a little high on stupid right now. “I am willing to revisit my thesis,” he says. You huff a little laugh. “So,” you start, “You going to turn your back like a gentleman or stare like a creep.” He makes a show of rolling his neck. “Doc, I have seen you shoulder deep in a cow. I am fresh out of illusions. But yeah.” He turns around, hands up. “Wall of modesty. Threat level zero.” You roll your eyes, but the gesture lands in your chest like care. Your shoes come off, then your leggings, and the flanell and the sweatshirt, tossed in a loose pile on a rock. The night kisses every inch of skin, goosebumps racing ahead of your better judgment. You take a breath that feels like a countdown. “Ready,” you call. “Born ready,” he says, still turned. Then, “Are you… you know… safe?” You look down at yourself - nothing but underwear, a body that has delivered calves and climbed fences and stood in too many barns at 3 a.m. You don't feel like a prom queen out here. You feel like an animal with a pulse. “I am in the same outfit you saw me in two weeks ago,” you say. “I will survive.” You take three running steps and dive. The cold is a slap, clean and total. It steals the air out of your lungs and replaces it with this sharp, electric awareness - of your limbs, the current, the way the world narrows to water and dark and the thunder in your own chest. You surge up with a gasp and a laugh, hair plastered to your face, the stars wheeling overhead.

On the bank, Rhett swears softly. You hear a belt buckle, the thump of boots, denim hitting rock. You turn away out of habit, though the night makes all outlines soft anyway. The splash behind you is big enough to drench your shoulders. He surfaces in front of you, hatless, hair dark and slicked back. The water beads on his shoulders, catches moonlight in a way that ought to be illegal. “Still not a felony,” he says, breath puffing white. “Maybe a ticket.” “How is it,” you ask. “Like licking a battery,” he says. “10 out of 10, would freeze again.” You laugh and flick water in his face. He retaliates, and for a ridiculous minute you are just two idiots splashing each other, making the creek louder than it should be, the cold a dare that keeps resetting your nerves. He grabs your wrist to stop you from dousing him again. You spin with the momentum and end up a lot closer than you meant to be, the waterline at your ribs, his hand firm around you. The night gets very small. “Careful,” he says, voice low now. “Bank sneaks up here.” “You roped me last time,” you say. “I will take my chances with geology.” He doesn't let go. His thumb moves once against your skin, barely a pressure, like he is remembering he is allowed to touch you at all.

"This feels good," you tell him quietly. His thumb moves once against your wrist. "What exactly?" You could deflect. Call it tradition dumb, call it unresolved creek business. Instead your mouth makes a choice before your brain can chicken out. "Because the last time I was out here with you, it sort of happened to us," you say. "Wrong side of the fence, wrong time, wrong everything. And I didn't want that to be the only version of it in my head. I wanted to come here on purpose. With you. When I got to choose." His throat works. Up close you can see the little crescent scar under his jaw from the gate that went sideways when he was sixteen. You had forgotten how much time you spent in high school staring at that scar and inventing better stories for it than the truth. "You always do that," he says. "Do what?" "Say the thing I am too chicken to start with." His fingers flex around your wrist, a small, sure squeeze. "I have wanted this for a long damn time." "This being hypothermia," you offer, because old habits die hard. "This being you," he answers, and there is nothing joking left in his voice. The creek keeps talking around you, small waves knocking at the bank. Somewhere a frog sounds personally invested. Your heart tries to match the rhythm and misses a beat. "How long," you ask, because you want to hear him put a number to it so you can stop pretending you did not see it coming. He lets out a breath that fogs the air between you. "You remember that stupid note?" "Going to need you to narrow it down," you say. "Exactly," he mutters. "The one I never gave you. Senior year. It said, and I quote, Will you go to prom with me, check yes, no, or algebra help." You huff out a laugh that comes out half shocked. "Rhett. That is tragic." "I know," he says, grimacing at himself. "I folded it. Walked into the Buckhorn. You were at the table with Jess and the others, glitter literally everywhere, talking about leaving town and saving the world. My hands stopped working like hands. So I shoved it in my pocket, called you princess like an idiot, and then spent the next eight years pretending I didn't care what box you would have checked." The memory hits clean - his voice in that bar, careless and sharp, the way princess slipped under your ribs and sat there like a splinter you could not quite dig out.

"You called me princess because you were scared," you say finally, fitting the pieces together out loud. "I called you princess because I was an idiot," he answers. "Fear was just the fuel. I hated that you were already halfway gone and I was welded to this pasture. You made leaving look easy. I made staying look stupid. That is too much to hang on a seventeen year old brain, so I didn't. I put it on your hair and your dress and your laugh and your glitter and pretended that was the problem." "And now," you ask. "Now I know leaving is hard and staying is hard," he replies. "And you are a doctor with iodine on your hands half the time, and I am a rancher who listens to soil podcasts, and I still want to ask you to things. Not just prom. Mornings. Pie in diners. The stupid Christmas parade. All of it." The words sit between you, raw and surprisingly simple. Something in your chest loosens that you didn't realize had been pulled tight. "I hated you," you say. His eyebrows jump. "I know." "No," you push. "Listen. I hated that you made it look easy. The staying. The land. Like you belonged here in a way I never would. Teachers patted your shoulder when you flunked algebra because they knew you would still be the one running fence and carrying this place and being useful. I got A’s and they told me I could go anywhere. That sounds like a compliment until you realize it also means you belong nowhere." He goes very still. Only his thumb moves, tracing slow circles over your wrist under the water, instinctive and steady, like calming a nervous horse. "I dumped all of that on you because it was easier than being mad at an entire town," you admit. "So when you called me princess, I heard disposable. I heard shallow. And I doubled down on leaving to prove you wrong. Then I got out and found out the world is full of people who don't care if you can pull a calf or fix a fence, and I missed this place so much it physically hurt. I resented you for fitting into a life I finally had to admit I wanted too." He swallows, eyes never leaving your face. "You want it," he checks. "Yes," you say. "I want the mess. The heifers and the midnight calls and the windmills that only work if you threaten them. I want to be useful here. And that scares me, because it feels like admitting defeat, like the prom queen came crawling back." "Hey," he cuts in, sharper than before. "Stop. That is not what this is."

The word sits in the air like a hand on your sternum, stopping you from rolling downhill. "What is it, then," you ask, voice low. "It's two idiots who were bad at their feelings trying again," he replies. "It's you choosing to be here even though you have seen what else is out there. It's me choosing to trust that you aren't going to wake up one day and decide you were slumming it with the ranch boy." "You told me I was selfish," you remind him, because the bruise is thinner now, but not gone. He flinches like something cracked. "I know. I am paying interest on that one." "I didn't come out here for an apology," you say. "I already took your flowers. I came because I wanted to know if you meant it when you said you wanted me. Or if you just wanted the idea of me staying." He looks straight at you, no tilt, no dodge. It almost hurts. "I want you," he says. "Exactly how you are. Messy. Tired. In my sweatpants. Elbow deep in cows. Laughing at my rope. Driving me crazy with your jokes about my glove box. If you leave, it will hurt. If you stay, it will still hurt sometimes because weather and markets and life. But I will not regret choosing with you. That is the difference between seventeen and now." Your throat tightens. The cold stops feeling like it is cutting in and starts feeling like a shell over something warmer. "Okay," you say, because there is nothing more eloquent left in you tonight. "I believe you." Relief jumps in his eyes, small and bright, like a match finally catching on the third strike. "Yeah," he breathes. "Okay." Water folds around you both, little waves knocking against your ribs. The night feels full instead of empty. "So," you say, because your heart does better when your mouth is moving. "Are you going to kiss me in this extremely cinematic setting or just keep monologuing about capillary action?" He huffs out a short, stunned laugh. "You are freezing." "Correct," you answer. "Do something about it." He steps closer, slow enough that you could back away. You don't. His free hand comes up to your jaw, fingers warm against your chilled cheek, holding you like he is still half expecting you to spook. "You say no, I stop," he murmurs. "No," you say, and then you see his eyes flicker and realize the trap you set yourself. "Not no," you correct, heart hammering. "Don't stop."

The first brush of his mouth is cautious, like he is testing the ice. You stand very still and let it happen, the soft press of lips, the taste of cold creek and his breath and something that is just him. Your hand finds his shoulder, fingers digging into cold, soft skin, and you open against him, not subtle. The kiss deepens. Slowly at first, then with a kind of hungry relief that feels like finally scratching an itch you have pretended not to have for a decade. His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, thumb at the hinge of your jawline, guiding, not forcing. You angle closer, bodies bumping under the water, all sharp hip and ribs and the drag of current trying to pry you apart. He makes a low sound into your mouth when your teeth catch his lower lip, a quiet, helpless thing you feel all the way down your spine. The cold stops being a problem. Or it shifts into part of the equation - chilled skin, heated mouths, the sting of air on your back when he shifts and pulls you more firmly into his chest. His arm bands around your waist and you hook your legs lightly against his, using his solidity to stay anchored as the creek tries to shove you downstream.

After a while you are not sure which is the rushing water and which is your pulse. Time goes weird. It narrows to the slide of his mouth on yours, the scrape of stubble against your upper lip, the way his chest rises under your palms in sharp, startled breaths like he cannot quite believe this is happening either. When you finally pull back, it is not graceful. Your teeth bump. Your noses knock. You break apart on a shared laugh that ghosts white between you, breathless and ridiculous and soaked to the bone. “Okay,” you manage, voice rough. “That was… data.” He huffs, forehead dropping to yours for a second, eyes closed like he needs the contact to stay upright. “Best damn experiment I have ever run.” You let your fingers rest at the back of his neck, thumb brushing the damp hair there, and just look at him. He looks boyish and not at all like a boy, some strange overlap of every version of him you have ever known. “I can't feel my toes,” you admit. “Good,” he answers, without thinking. “Less chance you run.” You snort, then shiver hard enough that your teeth clack. His expression shifts immediately - same man, different setting, the one you have seen in barn aisles and pastures at 3 a.m. when a calf is not breathing. Steady. Purposeful. “Come on,” he murmurs. His hand slides from your neck to your shoulder, turning you gently toward the bank. “Out. Before I have to explain to Harris that I kissed his vet into hypothermia.”

You slog toward shore together, his hand not leaving you, fingers wrapped around your wrist under the water like an anchor. The creek bed grabs at your feet, sucking and slick, but he keeps you upright, guiding you to the rock shelf. You scramble up first, knees barking against cold stone, then twist and offer him a hand like that is going to do anything. He takes it anyway, big palm swallowing yours, and hauls himself up beside you. Water sluices off both of you in sheets, pattering on the rocks, loud in the quiet. For a moment you just sit there, thighs touching, chests heaving, staring at the black ribbon of water you just climbed out of. “Not how I pictured our first real kiss,” you say finally. His eyebrows knock together. “You pictured it.” You roll your eyes, cheeks still hot despite the cold. “Don't get cocky.” He looks at you like he is saving this frame somewhere behind his eyes. “I did,” he admits. “Picture it. A lot. None of the versions involved you almost floating to Colorado.” “Mine involved less mud,” you confess. “And slightly better underwear.” His gaze flicks down and back up so fast you almost miss it, ears going pink again. “Your underwear is fine,” he says, then clears his throat. “Perfect. I mean, perfectly adequate. For not dying.” You laugh, the sound bursting out of you before you can stop it. That laugh pushes something loose inside, that old tight knot right under your ribs. There is no glitter on your skin anymore. No prom hair, no corsage, no high school costume to hide behind. You are all bruised knees and chattering teeth and a faint iodine stain that never quite leaves your cuticle. And still, the way he is looking at you is the same way boys used to look at you across gym bleachers - only deeper, steadier, like he recognizes you past all that noise and has for a long time. He reaches for you again like he cannot help it, hand cupping the side of your face, thumb sweeping once under your eye. “You okay,” he asks, softer now. You nod. “Yeah. Just recalculating the part of my life where Rhett Abbott kisses me at the creek and it's not a catastrophe.” “Low bar,” he mutters. “I have been a catastrophe before.” “True,” you agree. “But you are trending up.” He grins, quick and crooked, and leans in to press a smaller kiss to the corner of your mouth, then one to your forehead, as if he is trying out different coordinates now that he has permission. The shiver that runs through you this time has very little to do with the water. “Alright, princess,” he says, voice edging back toward teasing. “Time to move. Truck, heater, dry clothes, socks that are not plotting your murder.” You wrinkle your nose. “You called me princess.” He winces. “Habit. Sorry.” You think about it for a beat, then shake your head. "It's fine. Context matters.” Your fingers pinch the front of his soaked shirt, holding him in place for just a second more. “Out here, like this, it doesn't feel like an insult.” “What does it feel like,” he asks quietly. “Like you see me,” you answer. “Not the glitter. Just… me.” Something in his face shifts at that, subtle and enormous all at once. He swallows hard and nods, then gets to his feet and offers you both hands.

You take them. He hauls you up like you weigh nothing, steadying you when your bare foot skids on moss. His jacket is waiting on the rock where he dropped it earlier. He shakes it once, then wraps it around your shoulders without commentary, pulling the edges together with a care that feels a lot like reverence. The walk back to the truck is clumsy and half blind, toes numb, trail slick. He stays on the creek side, between you and the drop, palm resting at the small of your back when the path narrows. The floodlight is off now. The pasture is dark and full of cricket noise and the distant complaint of a cow who thinks grain should be a 24/7 right. At the fence, he boosts you through the lazy gap first, hands firm at your waist, then follows, landing with a grunt. Gravel crunches under your wet feet as you cross to the truck. He opens the passenger door. Cold air spills out - the cab lost its heat while you were in the water. He reaches in, twists the key, flicks the heater to full without climbing in yet, then turns back to you.

You stand there on the running board, his jacket swallowed around you, underwear plastered to you, hair dripping. He steps in close, one hand braced on the doorframe over your head, the other knuckles brushing your jaw. “Last chance to chalk this up to hypothermia,” he says quietly. “To tomorrow say you were delirious and that I took advantage of your poor judgment around open bodies of water.” You look at him, take in the sincere worry carved around his mouth, the way his eyes are searching yours for any sign of regret. “I am cold,” you tell him. “I am tired. And I am very sure I wanted that.” His shoulders loosen like someone cut a wire. Relief washes through his features, chased by something warmer. “Okay,” he says. “Good. Because I really did, too.” You step forward the little bit it takes to close the gap, press one more quick, sure kiss to his mouth, just a punctuation mark. “Come on, Abbott,” you say. “Get in the truck before my toes file a formal complaint.” “Yes, ma’am,” he answers, voice low and pleased.

It's almost Christmas, but Guam doesn't get the memo. The air sits on your shoulders like a hot towel that forgot it was supposed to be refreshing. Heat shimmers off the tarmac in glassy waves, and every breath tastes faintly of salt and jet fuel. Someone slathered on coconut sunscreen in the locker room and now it has migrated everywhere - into flight suits, onto kneeboards, into the cockpit where it will live forever. The surf is close enough that you hear it under the whine of the ground carts, a steady hush like the island trying to lull the base to sleep. Holiday spirit is trying, bless it. The mess hall has a few sad paper snowflakes sweating off the windows. A sun-faded inflatable Santa outside the rec center leans at a tragic angle, his smile buckling under humidity. A tired speaker coughs out Vince Gill's “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” which feels like a personal attack, because after all, no one that is currently here will in fact be home for Christmas. 

Dagger is here on a classified just-in-case, which translates to the opposite of heroic. Sim blocks that run long, pattern work that runs longer, training hops that start before breakfast and end after dinner, and PowerPoints that reproduce in captivity. The briefings pile up in neat stacks that smell like toner and despair. Side mission: learn how to teach without boring a squadron to death - debrief drills, ride-alongs in the sim, and the dreaded stand-up where you brief a tactic to people who already know it and still field their knives-out questions. They call it train the trainers, but it feels like learning to juggle while jogging. The real hero of every day is the industrial air conditioner that rattles like it is negotiating hazard pay. Off-duty, the team is feral. Movie night is still happening but got boring after Week Three. The prank war that replaced it? Very much alive. 

In the hangar, the concrete is cool enough to give your soles a break. Coyote flips a whiteboard marker in one hand and pretends not to study the schedule. Payback and Fanboy run a low-stakes argument about something irrelevant to everyone else but relevant to them. Hangman drifts in late with sunglasses and a grin meant to impress. Bob stands at the end of the table with a notepad, pencil sharp enough to split atoms, glasses fogging every time he steps from shade to sun. He has that grad-school neatness to his notes - headings underlined, margins squared, tiny arrows where other people would put chaos. When he looks up, his eyes do a quick sweep that takes the room’s temperature better than the thermostat does. He sees you walking towards him, easy step, unhurried as to not challenge the heat. "You good?" he asks you quietly, like he is setting a fragile thing down on a stable surface. "Define good," you answer, smiling, and the corner of his mouth clicks up.

Brief runs like weather. Threat rings, fuel rings, contingencies. Words that should feel cold feel hot here. The whole place hums with jet noise and the sea and the knowledge that sometimes just-in-case becomes go-now. But today it does not. Today, you taxi, you touch, you go, you taxi again. In the sim, the island disappears and you chase a ghost radar return through a storm you can hear but not feel. Your hands sweat inside your gloves and your brain does a small, neat burn. When the day finally spits you back out, it is late afternoon that looks like early evening. The sun hangs low and heavy, gold poured over the runway. A breeze sneaks in off the water and carries somebody’s grill - soy sauce, lime, a rumor of char. The squad breaks like surf, small groups peeling away toward showers or chow or both. You sit on the edge of a tug with your helmet in your lap and try to convince your spine it still belongs to you. Bob appears with two bottles of water and the kind of timing that feels suspiciously like care. He offers one without comment. It is cold enough to hurt. "Christmas in two weeks," he says, as if the calendar might need a reminder. "Feels wrong." "Feels like July put on a Santa hat," you say. The tide rolls louder for a heartbeat, foam flashing like tinsel at the shoreline. Hangman whoops at something, Phoenix fires back, and the sky decides to be ridiculous about it - pink on orange on blue like a kid chose the colors. Your shoulders unclench a fraction. The work will be here tomorrow. The sims will sweat you, the pattern will demand order, the slides will multiply. But for a minute you sit in the warm, salt-bright air with a bottle of cold water and the quiet steady of Bob at your side. 

Peace is disturbed by an air horn detonation that sounds like a tug just died. “Who did that,” Hangman yells, half out of his rolling chair, hand to his chest like he caught a SAM with his sternum. He leans back by accident. The horn screams again. He jerks forward, betrayed by upholstery. Bob is already moving, quiet through the doorway, glasses fogging a little from the jump in humidity. He clocks the build in two heartbeats: tiny canister zip-tied to the seat frame, trigger line to the tilt lever, clean cuts on the ties. Precise, tidy, a little ruthless. It looks like a checklist was involved. He looks at you. “Rainbow, that your work?” You grin. You do not answer. Something loosens under his ribs. It should be an eye roll. It is not. It is heat, specific and unreasonable, like the sun found a narrow place and decided to live there. Hangman prods the seat with a toe. The horn gives a warning squeak. “I swear if this took years off my life I am invoicing.” Phoenix is trying not to smile and failing. Fanboy is filming, because of course he is. Payback is laughing so hard he forgets to breathe.

Bob kneels to disarm. He is careful with the line, careful with the canister, careful with the ridiculous part of him that wants to show off that he can read your engineering like a love note. The knot is a bowline with a twist, the kind you tie when you do not want to think about it once it is set. He knows that knot. He has watched you tie it one-handed on a lashing strap without looking down. He feels you at his shoulder before you speak. He does not turn. He can map you from peripheral alone: the scuff on your boot toe, the nick on your kneeboard, the faint stripe the visor left on your cheekbone. Your water bottle is beading cold and one drop tracks down your wrist and disappears under your sleeve. He follows it with the kind of attention he pretends he saves only for radar returns. “Red wire to the lever,” you say, helpful in the way that is not actually helpful at all. It is mercy disguised as mischief. “I see it.” His voice comes out steady. That feels like a win. The horn comes free with a chirp. The room groans like a stadium robbed of a goal. Bob passes the canister up to Phoenix, who pockets it with a neat nod, field trophy acquired. Hangman reclaims his chair with suspicion written across his face in block letters. Over the noise, Bob risks it. He tilts his head, lets the glasses slide down his nose just enough to look at you over the rims. “You could have routed the line through the rear bracket. Fewer false alarms.” “Wanted the drama,” you tell him, and the grin edges wider, a touch of teeth. “Target selection matters.” He feels himself smiling back before he authorizes it. He should write this up as safety. He should be the adult. Instead he is cataloging the sound of your laugh and the way it pulls his attention like a beacon. He files it right next to the precise way you say his call sign on the radio, clipped and clear with that low hum under it that no one else ever hears.

“Air horn under a chair,” Coyote states, shaking his head like a disappointed uncle. “What are we, twelve?” “Speak for yourself,” Fanboy says, still filming. Bob stands, dusts his palms, and your shoulder is suddenly right there, close enough that if he leaned the smallest fraction he would line up with you like formation. He does not. He thinks about it. The wanting is simple. That is the part that surprises him. No calculus this time, no tree of consequences, just a clear vector: you. You tip your chin toward the chair, conspirator casual. “You liked the workmanship?” He answers too fast. “I liked the planning.” Then softer, because the room is loud and he does not need an audience: “And that it worked without anyone getting hurt.” You nod, approving, which hits him harder than it should. He can feel the shape of a future conversation like a runway in low vis. You, on an off day, sitting on a wing root with the sun on your knees, asking him how he would have improved the trap and listening when he answers. You, not moving away when he sits beside you. You, inside the quiet hours when the base finally chills and the surf is the only thing left making noise.

“Rainbow,” Phoenix calls, and points at her pocket where she stuffed the airhorn mere seconds ago, “Confiscated. Try again with a different victim.” “No promises,” you say, still looking at Bob. Hangman leans back on purpose now. Nothing happens. He relaxes into a smug sprawl that fools no one. The ready room drifts back to normal, if the squad has ever had a normal day. Bob stays where he is a breath longer than necessary, the side of his arm close enough to feel the cool from your bottle, the small static rise where your sleeve brushes his. He wants more of that. More of you smiling like you just got away with something. More of being the person you look at first when chaos lands. He pushes his glasses up. “Remind me to stay on your good side.” You tilt your head. “You already are.” You check the wall clock, hook your helmet by two fingers, then step in close enough that he feels the shade of you. Your hand finds his forearm just below the sleeve, a warm, sure squeeze that lands like permission. It lasts a beat and a half. Long enough for him to register skin, tendon, the small static lift of fabric. Long enough for him to think do not move, do not mess this up. “I’m calling it,” you say, voice low and easy. “See you in the morning, Bob.” His name sounds different from you. Less like a label, more like a choice. He nods because anything more ambitious might fail. “Yeah. 0600. Goodnight, Rainbow.” Your thumb presses once before you let go, a quiet punctuation mark, and then you are walking for the door with the tilt of a tired pilot who still has one joke left. You toss a two-finger salute at Phoenix, laugh at something Fanboy says, and vanish down the corridor that smells like solvent and salt.

That will do him in later, probably in the dark in his room, lying on his back, staring at a ceiling fan that is losing to the heat, while the surf keeps counting seconds nobody asked it to count. For now he just nods, the smallest surrender, and pretends the note he makes on the pad is about training outcomes and not the orbit he has been quietly falling into since the day you walked into the hangar with sun in your hair. He sits a moment longer than necessary, cataloging the afterimage you left behind. The faint print of your fingers still ghosting his sleeve. The way his pulse had answered without checking with him first. The small ridiculous fact that he knows exactly where you keep your spare batteries because you once asked him to grab them and he has been thinking about the word grab ever since. Hangman mutters something theatrical at his chair and gets a chorus of shushes. Bob caps his pencil, slides the pad into the folder, and stands. On the top page, in the margin next to a tidy list of fuel loads and sim blocks, a single word has appeared in his handwriting like it grew there while he was not looking: tomorrow. He draws a box around it and does not cross it out. On his way past the door he pauses. The corridor is empty now, humming with base noise and the ocean’s steady hush. He imagines catching up, offering to walk you to the lot, saying something that sounds casual and is not. He does none of those things. He saves them. He lets the wanting be a clean line, unbroken, stretching toward morning. “0600,” he says again, quiet, as if the island might carry it to you. Outside, the last light lays gold across the runway. He smiles to himself in a way that would give him away if anyone were looking. No one is. Good. He has a private thing to keep warm all the way back to his room.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

0600 comes in already warm. The briefing room lights hum, the AC loses the first skirmish of the day, and the coffee tastes like it was brewed under duress. Bob is there first, sleeves shoved to his elbows, clean T-shirt, legal pad open to a blank page he keeps not writing on. You slip in quiet. Boots, navy pants, a simple tank that shows a small, sun-warmed triangle at your collarbone. Your hair is still damp and the air picks up the smell of your shampoo - citrus, salt, something clean that trips every wire in him. You slide into the chair beside him and he feels his pulse edit itself. “Morning,” you greet, soft like it might break if you raise it. “Morning.” He becomes instantly aware of his own existence. Did he shower long enough? Does jet fuel ever really leave a person? He sits an inch straighter, checks the tragic AC vent like he can will it colder, and regrets every time he jogged to the hangar instead of walking. You set your kneeboard down and lean back. The tank’s strap shifts a fraction. His eyes try to be decent and look at the legal pad. He writes weather on the top line and underlines it twice. The pen leaves a shaky mark that would get him roasted in any other context. 

The door bangs. Rooster wobbles in like he is negotiating with gravity. His laces are tied together in a neat sailor’s knot and he is penguin-shuffling with full commitment, chin up, hands behind his back like naval strategy requires small steps. “Gentlemen. Ladies. Observe economy of motion,” he says, solemn as a professor. “Shorter steps, fewer mistakes. Revolutionary.” Fanboy snorts. “You look like a mall cop on a moving walkway,” Phoenix deadpans. Rooster reaches the front row, attempts a dignified pivot, and catches the heel of his left boot behind his right. The universe pauses to savor it. He goes down in slow, mythic inches, knees first, hand out, paper cup lofting coffee like a fountain in a tragic park. The thump is pure comedy. Your laugh detonates. You fold in half, useless, crying, and your hand clamps on Bob’s biceps like you need an anchor. The grip is strong. He feels every finger through cotton. Every circuit in him lights up.

He starts laughing too because resistance is pointless. It comes out surprised and helpless, the kind of laugh he almost never lets out in uniform. He flexes without meaning to and your hand tightens, hard enough to leave a ghost print. He would frame the moment if he could. Hangman saunters through the door, sunglasses still on. “Innovative doctrine, Rooster. Needs workshopping.” “Who did this,” Rooster groans from the floor. He is half laughing, half scowling, already reaching for the knot. “Check the knot,” Phoenix says, crouching to help. “If it is decorative, it is Hangman. If it is practical, it is Rainbow.” You wheeze, shaking your head, thumb digging an involuntary little punctuation into Bob’s arm. “Not me.” Bob has to swallow before words work. “Figure-eight on a bight,” he states, voice not quite steady. “Hangman.” Hangman puts a hand to his chest. “Slander.” Payback wanders up with a phone. “Candid feedback: the fall lacked structural integrity. Would have scored higher with a full sprawl.” Rooster manages to free a lace, stands, bows to sarcastic applause, and shuffles off to salvage dignity. The show breaks into pockets of commentary. The room resets to early-morning chaos. 

You are still laughing, softer now. You wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand. Bob is moving before he thinks, offering a folded napkin he stole from the coffee stand. Your fingers brush when you take it. That small contact hits louder than the air horn ever did. “Thanks,” you breathe, then glance at the imprint his sleeve is hiding. “Sorry. I mauled you.” “Occupational hazard,” answers. It comes out warmer than he intended. He can feel the spot your hand held like a brand through fabric. You turn a fraction toward him, shoulder to shoulder, legs out, heel of one boot tapping the chair rung. The citrus-salt smell is right there. He wants to memorize the exact ratio. He wants to ask what you use so he can buy it and never admit why. Instead he points his pen at the pad like he is actually a person who writes things down. “Big plans before the hop,” you ask, teasing light. He looks at the line that says weather and the empty space after it. “Study the tactical implications of footwear sabotage.” You grin. “Actionable lesson learned: check laces, then brief.” “Copy.” He underlines weather again. It is a miracle the paper does not catch fire.

Around you, chairs scrape and voices layer. Hangman is doing a post-incident reconstruction with the confidence of a guilty man. Coyote claims legal counsel. Someone fixes the projector. The briefing will start soon and the day will accelerate into its usual grind. For a beat longer you both sit inside this quiet bubble where your knee bumps his and stays there, casual like it might have always belonged. He clears his throat. “You smell like the ocean.” You tilt your head, amused. “That is my shampoo.” “It is effective.” Then, because he is Bob and honesty keeps escaping, “You are effective.” Your eyes catch his and hold. “So are you.” The AC coughs and gives up. He imagines walking with you to the flight line later, sun already punching down, and how he will steal the exact shape of this morning to carry with him. You. Damp hair. Tank top. The clean line of your laugh running through him like a current. Your hand on his arm because you forgot to be careful. The instructor steps in and the room draws itself up. You slide your hand off his biceps, leave a phantom pressure behind, and straighten your notes. He writes one word in the margin and boxes it so he will see it later when the sim is chewing on him. Later.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Brief runs tight and fast. The projector blinks awake, Phoenix owns the front, and the room snaps to it. Threat rings, fuel ladders, comm plan. Rooster mutters about dignity recovery, Hangman offers to play escort as long as it involves him leading, Coyote circles push times with a permanent marker like time might misbehave if he does not. You take notes with your usual shorthand. Bob sits beside you like gravity, knee against yours under the table, a quiet metronome he pretends not to notice. “Any questions,” Phoenix asks. “Only philosophical,” Hangman says. “Keep those for the chapel,” she replies, dry as salt. “We are wheels up after lunch. Get food, get water, get your heads on.” Chairs scrape. The room exhales. You stand and Bob stands when you do, body language that says he has already chosen his orbit for the rest of the day. The corridor is bright and busy. The mess hall is louder, metal trays and tired jokes, a line of pilots pretending caffeine is a plan.

You end up at the same table as always, long and chipped and capable. You slide onto the bench. Bob takes the spot next to you without asking, like he is afraid asking might make it not true. Your knees touch again. He does not move away. Neither do you. The AC here is winning by half a degree. Your hair has dried and that clean citrus scent rides the tiny breeze. He becomes unreasonably aware of his own T-shirt, whether it is living up to soap and deodorant. “Rice or noodles,” Coyote asks, like this is a debate with consequences. “Noodles,” you and Bob answer in unison. He feels stupidly pleased about something that is not a data point at all.

Payback and Fanboy arrive with identical innocent faces, which is how you know something is wrong. They sit across from Rooster, who is still nursing a bruise to his pride and a small coffee. Between them, a squeeze bottle of ketchup that is not quite the right shade of red. “Condiments,” Fanboy offers, generous. “Because we care.” Rooster lifts a brow, drags fries through the red, and delivers a lecture about humility while taking a heroic bite. The first chew is fine. The second is betrayal. He freezes. A hiccup rockets out of him, followed by a wheeze and a cough that sounds like a small engine trying to start. “What did you monsters do,” he manages, words tight. “Upgraded the ketchup,” Payback tells, managing the straightest face in recorded history. “Sambal for structural integrity.” “Scoville event,” Fanboy whispers, reverent. Rooster’s eyes water. He drinks half his coffee and remembers too late that coffee is too close to water. Phoenix slides a pack of milk that she got god knows where over without looking away from her phone. “Drink that.” “May God have mercy,” Rooster praises, then does as told. Hangman is delighted. “This is the best thing that has happened to me since this morning when I did not fall in front of the entire class.”

You laugh, shoulders tipping, and your knee presses harder into Bob’s. He feels the contact go right through him like he is an instrument tuned to one note and you keep playing it on purpose. He spears a noodle and eats it on autopilot because chewing is the only thing that keeps his mouth from telling on him. Conversation drifts. Schedules, the wind aloft, the way the island heat already feels like midday. Then Phoenix drops it like it is logistics. “Day off this weekend. Beach?” “Beach,” Fanboy echoes, instantly picturing volleyball glory. “Beach,” Payback says, picturing a cooler. “I can grill.” “Beach,” Rooster agrees, wiping his eyes, bravely reclaiming a fry. “As long as no one booby-traps the sand.” Hangman smirks. “No promises.” Bob’s fork pauses an inch from the plate. Beach. He has done it with them a dozen times. He has seen you there twice in a bikini, hair dried to beach-wild, salt on your shoulders, sunglasses perched like you stole the sun and it did not mind. Back then the crush was a manageable ache he could file as a minor hazard. Now it is a system-wide alert. He tries to be a person. A normal person. He imagines the sunscreen problem and nearly short circuits. He sees you laugh at something dumb Hangman says, tip your head, ask Bob to hold your water while you brush sand of your legs. He imagines being cool about it and fails in advance. “Umbrella,” he hears himself say. “I can bring one. Two.” You glance at him, pleased. “You are an umbrella guy.” “Preparedness,” he manages as a somewhat witty answer. His ears choose that moment to warm. He sips water like it might put the fire out. “Where,” Coyote asks. “Tumon or the little cove on the south side.” “South,” Phoenix states. “Fewer tourists, better water.” “More shade,” Bob adds, then regrets it because it sounds like a man thinking about sunscreen. Which he is. He adds a tactical tone to rescue it. “Easier on heat stress.”

“Look at Bob managing the sun,” Hangman says, but it comes out more fond than sharp. They all know who drags extra water coolers to the line. They all know who tapes a small checklist over the checklist and calls it nerd insurance. Your knee edges closer, casual. He can feel the seam of your navy pants against his leg. He looks down and catches the tiniest smile on your face and the thought arrives fully formed: do not drown in this. Then another follows it like a wingman: you could let it carry you and see what happens. “Beach it is,” you say, tipping your cup toward him like a toast. “Bob, you on sunscreen detail.” He chokes on nothing, manages to turn it into a cough, and nods like this is the kind of assignment one can accept without going red. “Copy.” Payback, done with his chili cruelty, points at the afternoon schedule with a fry. “Pattern work first. Intercepts later. Beach on the horizon. Good days ahead.” Rooster, chastened but recovering, squints at the fake ketchup bottle like it owes him rent. “Truce until the hop,” he says to the table at large. “Truce,” Fanboy agrees, already texting the group chat an all caps BEACH SAT with five exclamation points. 

Bob finishes his noodles and looks at you. You look back, eyes bright, mouth curved like the morning is going right and could get better. Your knee stays where it is. He lets his stay too. Under the table, two lines hold steady, side by side, and he tells himself it is nothing. Then he admits it is everything. “Brief room in ten,” Phoenix says, standing. You stand. He stands. The bench squeals. The mess hall hums. Outside, the heat waits, and so does the sky. He stacks your tray on his without comment. You let him. It is nothing. It is everything. And when you brush past him on the way out, light with the ease of it, he thinks about umbrellas and water and sunscreen and the clean line from this table to a strip of bright sand where he will try very hard to look at the ocean and fail, and he does not mind failing at all.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

The flight line is already simmering. Flightsuits zipped, harness buckles clicking, helmet bags traded for helmets. Heat lifts off the concrete in tight ripples and the smell is salt, jet, and that faint whiff of solvent that never leaves the gear. The higher up plants his boots on a wheel chock and reads from a clipboard like it is scripture. “Teams for tag. Dagger One: Phoenix lead, Bob in the back seat, Rainbow on the wing. Dagger Two: Hangman and Coyote, single seat. Dagger Three: Payback with Fanboy, Rooster as their wing. Hard deck ten. Perch eighteen. Two seconds of steady tone is a tag. Call it on tac. Tagged jet resets. No over-G. Knock it off rule stands. Questions.” The line answers with heat shimmer and the clack of buckles. Hangman tips his head, grin wide. “Rainbow on the wing. Cute. Try to keep up.” You take a step like you might. “Eat shit, Hangman,” you say, bright as a bell. Laughter pops off the line. Even Coyote snorts. “Language,” the higher up scolds, not really meaning it. Hangman leans in like he cannot help himself. Phoenix holds up her palm without looking away from the clipboard. You slap it. Clean smack of glove on glove. “Girls win today,” Phoenix says, small smile. You shoulder Hangman on the way past. “I am going to tag you, and it will taste even sweeter now.” Bob pretends to be busy checking a strap that does not need checking. He is not immune to any of this. You and Phoenix trading that palm smack. Your chin tipped up at Hangman with the exact amount of feral. The way you said sweeter and made it sound like a promise.

Visors drop. Coyote flips his down and freezes. The inside of his mask sparkles like a galaxy. He pulls the helmet back up and glitter puffs off his forehead in a shimmering cloud that catches the sun and his dignity in one shot. Bob actually laughs. Phoenix does too, short and sharp. You just grin. “Glitter is her trademark,” Payback announces, pointing at you like he is a naturalist who has discovered a rare bird. “Allegedly,” you say, not even pretending to look innocent. Coyote huffs, then laughs because it is objectively funny, and swipes futilely at his eyebrows. “I hope it jams your radar, Rainbow!” “Denied,” you grin. Bob catches the look you send him over the rim of your mask, hot with competitive joy and something he does not have a word for. He answers with a nod that means copy and also go be as fast as you want, I will watch out for you.

You swing into motion, boot to ladder, weight into the seat like you were built to fit it. Hangman drifts past with a two-finger salute that says he thinks this is already won. You do not bother to answer. Your smile says you will settle it in the sky. Taxi. Run-up. You line up staggered and shove the throttles forward. The runway blurs into a thin bright thing and then the island is falling away. Check-ins click through the net, Phoenix’s voice calm at the center. “Dagger flight, push tac.” You push. Static clears. The sky opens into blue wide enough to forget the base behind you. Taxi. Run-up. Staggered on centerline, throttles up, and the island drops away. The canopy fills with a clean, hard blue. Sweat finds the seam at the back of the neck. It feels good to be here. Check-ins click through the net. The sky feels big enough to forget the base behind you. This is the part where caution is supposed to win. You do not make it easy. You slash across the circle, flirt with the bandit cone, skate under their nose and out again with the kind of timing that would be cocky if it were not so beautiful. “Discipline,” Phoenix says, trying to sound stern. “Trying,” you answer, not trying at all. “Deck,” Bob reminds you, gentle. He can hear your smile in your copy. He feels absurdly like he was just allowed to touch your wrist.

“Commit south,” Phoenix says. “Two-ship hot.” Bob builds the picture on the scope and out the glass at once. “Two contacts co-alt eighteen, line abreast. Dagger Two. Hangman is high and a little slow, Coyote hot low.” “Rainbow, take high cover,” Phoenix. “We bracket on my mark.” You lift a few hundred feet, nose a little proud, sun washing the canopy. Bob feels it under his sternum like a key turning. “Mark.” Phoenix knifes left. You ghost right. Geometry snaps shut. “There is Rainbow on the horizon,” Bob says before he can stop himself. Phoenix is dry as salt. “Weather forecast, Bob.” He tries to be cool and fails. “Rainbow.” You roll pure vertical on Hangman, bleed his energy, then drop down the back side clean as a blade. The tone in your headset firms to a steady hum. “Tag. Coyote.” “Nice shot,” Phoenix cooments. “Reset north perch. Rooster, behave.”

You climb through the perch like you own it, trading knots for altitude in a way that looks like showing off and still clocks neat on tape. Bob tracks your alt band, watches the tape shave close to the hard deck on the way back down and settle. Reckless-but-not. He realizes he had a grip on the map board and makes himself unclench. “New picture,” he calls. “Dagger Three line abreast, Rooster dragging, Payback offset right, Hangman tucked tight.” “Rainbow, drag Rooster. I will anchor the dragger,” Phoenix. “Bob, feed me the cut.” You drop fast enough to make the alt tape twitch, low across their nose, and Payback bites like a fish that never learned. Phoenix flashes across Rooster, buries a lead turn. “Lead two, roll left now,” Bob says. “You will have Rooster in two.” “Copy.” The tone goes solid in Phoenix’s ears. “Tag. Rooster.” Up high, your tone scratches, hesitates, then firms on Payback. “Tag. Payback and Fanboy out.”

You feel the jet as a living argument under your hands, eager to prove a point. “Range hot. Fight’s on,” crackles over tac, and the air gets teeth. Hangman floats a hair high to sell slow, then drops his nose for Phoenix’s six. He is smooth, patient, waiting for clean. Smart. Bob’s tone is flat in Phoenix’s ear, all ice water and numbers. “Check low gate timing. Hangman pushing high to low, bearing two-three-zero. Closure four-two-zero.” You stay outside his wiper arc and let him think you are late. He settles in, lining up a bite that will not spill blood. “Rainbow,” Phoenix says in that pilot voice that already knows the answer. “I see him,” you say. He is big as a billboard. Hangman exhales a smile. “Easy, Phoenix. I promise it will not -” You push. Not dramatic. Timing. A sliver of throttle, a slice of stick. Your wake kisses the top skin of his right wing. Not a hit. A whisper. His lift burbles, tone warbles, and the line he loved wobbles like a heartbeat. “What the -” Hangman curses, correcting well and bleeding exactly the energy you meant him to. “You were about to be rude,” you laugh. You cannot see his grin, but it buzzes over the radio. Not angry. Slightly impressed. Twice as competitive. “Shot denied,” Bob reports, a tiny grin tucked into the calm. “Phoenix, clear to gate one. He is slow.” “Copy,” Phoenix says, dropping a shoulder and sewing the first timing gate tight enough to measure in breath. “Thanks for the cover.” “Anytime,” you say, sliding back into the bracket. Heart rate hums where you like it.

Coyote keys up, dry. “Legal counsel notes air is public. Please stop stealing it.” “File a motion,” Phoenix says, already angling for the second gate. “Picture east,” Bob calls. “Rooster and Fanboy split stack, Rooster high. Dagger One, press. Rainbow, hold high cover.” You do. Rooster shades down to threaten Phoenix’s nose. Fanboy drags low to bait you. “Trailer greedy,” Bob notes, amused. “On it,” you say, dipping to taste Fanboy’s vector. He nudges in and your tone flirts with solid. He wants clean. Good. You tip a wing. Not a break. A correction you learned by writing it a thousand times. The tag in his ear goes soft. He adjusts. You adjust his adjustment and take the angle back. “Rainbow, you are long on gate two,” Bob adds, not unkind. “Mind the clock.” “Copy,” you say, and feed the half second you were about to waste back to the gate. It flashes green. You do not look back. You do not have to. Fanboy misses the shot he thought was baked. “Good save,” Phoenix says. “Was not a save,” you say, even if it was. “Correction.” Phoenix laughs and you grin. 

Rooster’s grin cuts in. “Coyote, you want the dance or the slow death?” “Surprise me,” Coyote says. Rooster surprises him by doing both. He rates across the top of Coyote’s turn like he has a string to the sun, waits for clean, and takes it without flair. “Tag,” Rooster says, mild. “Coyote dead.” “Copy dead,” Coyote answers, already climbing back into the pattern. “Picture west,” Bob says. “Payback trailer on Rainbow, Rooster offset.” “Let him carry it,” Phoenix adds. You bleed a whisper of speed, then knife-edge a breath to move the lift vector off the line he wants. His tone cracks. He has to correct twice. Each correction costs him knots and dignity. “What was that,” Payback asks, baffled. “Rainbow on the horizon,” you laugh. “Weather good. Rude intentions detected. Intervention started. Tag.” “Weather got them both. Payback and Fanboy are out again,” Rooster jokes and Bob actually snorts a little. The fight continues. Bob watches Dagger Three regroup. “Rooster is back hot. Rainbow, he will go patient. Expect the late lead.” “Copy.” He does exactly that. He waits you out, turns the half chance into full, and steals a bead across your future. Your tone wavers. His steadies. “Tag,” Rooster says, pleased. “Rainbow dead.” “Copy dead,” you answer without fuss, rolling to watch the rest of the fight. 

“Good game,” you say, softer now. “Good tags,” Bob answers, and he does not care if it gives him away. Range is down to three. Phoenix with Bob. Hangman. Rooster. “Lets finish this,” Hangmans voice turns through radio, grin audible. “Picture north,” Bob calls. “Rooster low west, hot. Hangman high east, holding perch.” “Rooster first,” Phoenix says. They merge. Rooster runs a clean two-circle. Phoenix matches, patient. Bob drives the geometry. “Ease nose low for rate. Hold lift vector. One count. Roll level. There.” The pipper bites. Tone builds. “Tone steady,” Bob says. “Tag. Rooster.” “Copy dead,” Rooster answers, annoyed and fair. From the dead freq, Rainbow cannot help it. “Yes, Dagger One.” It crackles bright. Bob’s ears go hot. “Eyes up,” Phoenix says but it's endearing. “Padlocked high,” Bob adds a fraction late. “Hangman diving, low six, fast.” “Do not feed him,” Phoenix snaps, sliding the lift vector off. The shot wobbles, almost dies. Hangman holds patient and keeps pressing. “Short tone,” Bob warns. “Unload a breath. Now. Nose up one. Hold.” It is not enough. The tone in Phoenix’s headset settles to a hard, merciless steady. “Tag,” Hangman says, pleased. “Dagger One dead.” “Copy dead,” Phoenix returns, tight. “Range, terminate,” the controller calls. “Fight complete.” Silence for a beat. Then Rainbow again, softer. “Good tag on Rooster.” Bob runs the checks neat and fast, pen clicking back into the clip. In the corner of his eye, Rainbow’s jet sits where the dead jets sit, and he knows exactly who he will hear first when they taxi in. He also knows why he was late by a second, and it has nothing to do with airspeed. He files it under things to fix and things he does not want to fix, and he lets Hangman be loud all the way back to base.

Rejoin is a little movie. You lift into place on their right, a touch low, nose just a hair aft of lead. Sun washes your canopy and throws a bright line along your spine. The ocean lays itself out like glass and the island swells up out of it, green on blue, runway a gold thread stitched through heat-haze. For a heartbeat the three of you are just shapes against a postcard. Bob cheats his eyes left. He always does. In the corner of the canopy you are perfect-picture steady, small corrections so smooth they look like thought instead of motion. Your shadow skims the water beside you, a dark twin keeping pace. He listens and there it is again - the quiet static breath in your mic, a soft proof of life that settles something under his ribs. Phoenix keeps it calm. “Dagger One, initial.” Tower clears you. The approach falls into place like a checklist that decided to be poetry. Altitude. Spacing. Boards armed. Final.

You slide a half step closer on short final, close enough that he can see the sun catch on the curve of your visor. He imagines reaching across the few empty meters and knows he will not. Not here. Not yet. The wanting is a clean line, and he holds it. Main gear kiss. Nose follows with a neat little nod. Speed brakes bloom. Tires chirp and paint a thin rubber note on the runway that fades as fast as it arrives. The palm trees by midfield are doing their usual lazy-wave and the air smells faintly like hot brake and salt. Phoenix runs the calls in a voice that has never once panicked. Bob’s hands move with hers because they always do. He could do this in the dark. Today everything feels sunlit. You touch a breath after them, the same clean kiss, and hold the nose up that extra beat that says you give a damn about style. When it settles, he sees the tiniest puff of tire smoke and has to bite down on a grin. Your jet tracks true. Your wingtip glints. He wonders if you know how beautiful competence is from over here.

Taxi is warm air and the clack of concrete seams. A ground crewman gives the all-clear with paddles and a grin that says the show looked good from where he stood. Phoenix parks with that precise little brake check that keeps the nose from bobbing. Bob safes and shuts down by muscle memory. Master Arm safe. Ejection safety pins in. Battery. Radios. He says the words and watches your canopy in the corner of his eye as it pops and lifts. You pull the helmet off and your hair is a little crushed and completely unfair. You look over on instinct, like you felt him looking, and for half a second the base disappears. He lifts two fingers from his kneeboard - not a salute, just a hello. You answer with the same, the smallest smile riding the edge of it. In his headset, before the plug goes quiet, your mic gives one last soft breath. It is nothing and it ruins him in the best way. The game shuts off. The checklist takes over. Under all that neat, the line of you keeps running steady from horizon to hard deck in his head, bright and impossible to miss.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Dismissed, the squad migrates to the mess hall still in sweaty flightsuits, zips tugged to the waist, sleeves knotted at hips. Trays clatter. The air is salt and fryer heat and that thin ribbon of jet fuel that never leaves your clothes. Rooster holds court in an aisle seat, telling Coyote his tag was art. Coyote answers with a lawyer voice and glitter in one eyebrow. Payback baptizes fries in hot sauce until Fanboy starts drafting his will on a napkin. Phoenix eats like a metronome and punctures Hangman’s bragging with one raised look. You slide in next to Bob. Your knee finds his. He pretends to focus on noodles. You nudge his cup toward him without looking and his chest does that quiet, traitor-thing you have learned to cause. Jokes stack like plates. Laughter tips the table. Bob laughs too - not loud, just real - and stores the sound of your voice the way a person palms a coin and will not let it go. After, the locker room fills with steam and the click of lockers. Zippers. Velcro. The white tile hums. Bob steps under a shower and the hot water hits like weather. He tips his head back until the day runs off him in sheets. He tries to think about gates and timing, about the tiny correction you fed to the clock and how clean it looked from his tape. It keeps turning into you. Your laugh on push. The way you drove up Hangman’s nose - rude, legal, beautiful. Citrus shampoo and sun-warm skin. He presses his palms to the tile and lets the spray drum his shoulders until the ache settles into something steady. Doomed, he thinks, and finds he is fine with it.

They reconvene after lights shift from white to soft. The hangar doors are open to a warm night. String lights you hung the day before throw gold across concrete. Someone put on low music. Rooster deals cards, wearing an outrageous Hawaii shirt that could guide ships. Payback guards a bag of chips like it is classified. Phoenix leans against a toolbox, watching the room with a softened edge. Coyote still sparkles a little at the eyebrows. You drift to the quieter end and climb onto a cargo pallet, legs dangling, tank and shorts, boots swinging slow. Bob finds you like he always does, hands in his pockets, T-shirt and joggers, hair still damp. He sits beside you, polite space left, then lets his knee knock yours. “What’s on your mind,” he asks, voice meant for two. “Christmas,” you say. “Back home it smelled like cinnamon and cold and sometimes snow. Here it smells like jet and salt. My brain will not believe the calendar.” You try a smile that does not quite land. “It is my first Christmas away.” Something tightens under Bob’s ribs like a hand closing. You look a little sad and it hurts him in a way nothing on the range ever does. He wants to fix it, to haul winter in by the handful and set it down at your feet, to make the room smell like sugar and cinnamon instead of solvent and sea. He thinks for a beat, watching the runway glow. “Maybe we make it believe,” he says. “Give it a mission. Doesn’t have to be big. Just… something to point at.” You look at him, and he can see the click behind your eyes. A spark, then heat. You slide off the pallet in one clean hop. “Copy,” you say, now smiling. “I can work with that.” “Work with what,” he asks, too late. “Morale with a target,” you tell him. You step in, rise on your toes, and press a quick kiss to his cheek - warm, precise, high near the hinge of his jaw. “Thanks, Bob.” It lands like a flare. He goes very still, then a little bright. You tap two fingers to your brow in a half-salute and pivot, already moving, already building something in your head. He watches you thread through Rooster’s shirt and Hangman’s smirk and vanish toward the barracks at a near jog.

He stays on the pallet because standing feels beyond his current skill set. The spot your knee touched his is a pressure he can still feel. The place your mouth found is a live wire. He is smiling at nothing when Phoenix slides into the space you left, one brow up, phone in hand. “What was that,” she asks, light but pointed. “Nothing,” he says, and his voice betrays him. He clears his throat. “We were talking about weather. The, uh, calendar.” Phoenix looks at him the way only Phoenix can. Patient. Sharp. Kind enough to be dangerous. “Weather.” “Morale,” he corrects, fluster bubbling up. “Just, you know, in general.” “In general,” she repeats, and the corner of her mouth tries not to smile. He stares very hard at the concrete like it contains answers. His phone buzzes in his pocket. Phoenix’s does too. Across the bay, Rooster and Coyote both fish for theirs.

Group chat: Dagger Circus.

Rainbow: tomorrow, after work meeting. mission: christmas spirit

A beat. Then the reply storm.

 Rooster: is there cocoa Hangman: is there a dress code for feelings Payback: if there are tasks I volunteer Fanboy Fanboy: rude but fair Phoenix: copy, rainbow Bob: copy

Phoenix pockets her phone and gives Bob the kind of look that says she knows exactly how little he contributed to this plan and exactly how much he cares anyway. “In general,” she repeats again, amused. He pushes his glasses up, useless reflex with no glasses on, and tries not to glow. “In general,” he says, and sits there a minute longer, letting the word mission settle around the word you, and thinks that for once the general is specific enough to lift him straight off the ground.

That night the fan loses to the heat and the surf keeps counting seconds like it has orders. Bob lies on his back and watches the shadow of the blades crawl the ceiling. His phone face down, group chat muted, cheek still warm where you kissed him. He touches that spot with two fingers like he is checking a beacon. He makes a list because lists calm him. What he likes about you: the way you fly fast but never sloppy, how you steal energy and give it back as grace. The laugh that hits like a clean tone. The citrus-salt of your shampoo. The knot you tie without looking. The way you say his callsign on the radio, clipped and sure, and the way you say his name on the ground, even though it is the same word, softer. Your knee finding his under a table and choosing to stay. How you can build a prank out of zip ties and physics and still remember to hand him water. How you take an idea and run before he finishes the sentence.

He tries to be sensible. He is not. Every check turns into a want. Formation with you on his right. Umbrella duty at the beach. Cocoa in terrible white mugs. You in shorts and purpose, telling him he is a genius like it is a fact the island recognizes. He should sleep. Instead he lies there with a quiet radar lock where a heartbeat should be. No countermeasure. Hard deck set and ignored whenever you smile. He can call it what it is - a crush with bad opsec, a vector he cannot and will not correct. He is a little doomed. He does not hate it. He rolls to his side, presses his cheek to the pillow, and lets the word you be the last clear thing before the dark evens out.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Morning comes already warm. The briefing room hums, pens and tablets out, Phoenix at the front. Bob has his pad open, neat margins, trying not to replay last night like a highlight reel. You slip in late for you - not late, but late for you - breath a little quick, hair damp, civ jacket instead of flightsuit half-zipped. You drop into the chair beside him and lean close. “Good morning,” you whisper. He swears you smell like Christmas - orange peel, cinnamon, something that makes the room feel closer. His brain files it under classified and then under emergency. Your leg starts bouncing. Not a tremor - a tell. He doesn’t even think about it. Under the table, his hand finds your knee and settles there, gentle pressure, steady. You flick him a grateful smile that lands like a hit and he almost drops his pen. The pen clatters, catches in his fingers by some miracle. Phoenix doesn’t look up, but he sees the corner of her mouth tilt.

Brief runs. He listens. He’s also counting the small shifts of your knee against his palm and choosing not to move his hand because it seems to help. At lunch you stand, bag slung over one shoulder, nerves turned to purpose. You tilt your head toward him. “Wait up later? I’ll catch you.” “Copy,” he says, too fast. You don’t show. Not for lunch. Not for the afternoon brief. Hangman clocks the empty chair and raises both brows. “Is that even legal,” he asks the room. The sergeant just smiles like a person who has seen everything twice. “She is on a critical mission.” That lights the fuse. The squad finishes the block wired with curiosity and migrates to the place the group chat specified. The hangar yawns dark - main lights off, a black square that smells faintly of solvent and salt. Someone hits the door. It rolls, but no light catches. Bob steps over the threshold and his voice goes soft without meaning to.

“Rainbow?” For a heartbeat there is only surf and the tick of cooling metal. Then the hangar blinks alive - strings of warm lights zigzagging from beam to beam, a soft wash that turns concrete gold. The air shifts - cocoa blooming sweet and heavy, cinnamon cookies warm and wrong for the weather and perfect anyway. And you, halfway down the bay in shorts and a tank, a tiny Santa hat skewed on your head, grinning like you just landed a perfect shot. The whole squad inhales at once. Bob does too, and for a second the world is only light, cinnamon, and you. “Tada,” you say, and the squad actually starts applauding. You do a tiny mock bow. A projector whirs to life against the far bulkhead. Title slide in 200-point Arial, slightly crooked because the cart has a missing wheel: OPERAATION CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. The double a is underlined in angry red. You ignore it with authority. “Take seats,” you call, pointing at the pillows you stashed along the floor. “We are on the clock.” They fold down in a wide half circle. Phoenix crosses her legs and tips her chin, amused. Rooster steals the pillow with the palm tree print. Hangman sits like a man about to heckle. Bob takes the spot next to you without asking. You stand a little higher than everyone, partly for authority, partly because the projector remote only listens at some absurdly specific angle - 17.3 degrees off axis. It is the kind of number nobody remembers. You do, because Bob calculated it. The lights make you look like warm gold and his brain does that classified-then-emergency thing again.

“Concept of operations,” you say, clicking to the next slide. It pops up with a little star swipe. A crude op seal you sketched: a palm tree wearing aviators and an industrial AC unit with a medal. Underneath, your agenda. Silence, then a ripple of soft laughs. Rooster points at the slide that says Rules of Engagement: Prank Pause until Christmas Eve. “Truce, huh?” “Truce,” you say. “We can survive ten days without glitter in anyone’s visor.” Your verdict is final, no margin for disagreement. You continue. “Also, beach day is scrubbed. Blame the forecast.” Rooster looks toward the open doors at the perfect sky. “What forecast.” You point at the next bullet. “One hundred percent chance of paper snow.” Payback wheezes. Fanboy claps once, delighted. “We go with four lines of effort,” you continue, clicking through.

Decorate the ready room and bay. Paper snow, light runs, palm tree becomes Christmas tree. Tasteful theft from Supply only.

Secret Santa begins tonight. Gifts on Christmas Day. Daily micro-nice until then. Refill someone’s toothpaste. Polish boots that did not ask to be loved. Coffee fairy operations authorized.

Christmas Dinner. A proper sit-down in the bay, not chow. Tablecloths, real plates. I bribed the galley - we take over the kitchen on our day off. Everyone helps: if you can cook, you are on a station; if you cannot, you are on dish duty. Yes, Hangman, that means you.

Hangman clutches his chest. “Outrageous.” “Noted,” you say, already clicking ahead. “No formal menu. We cook what you can cook and in a way that spares your Uber driver from the Judas cradle. Signature dishes. Go.” Rooster’s hand shoots up and you point. “I am ninety-nine percent sure there is a grill somewhere,” he says. “I make mean BBQ ribs and a very good lemon chicken.” You nod, pleased. “Approved. Phoenix?” “Green bean casserole and mac and cheese.” “Coyote?” “Mashed potatoes and gravy.” “Fanboy?” “Payback and I are on tamales, salsa, and chips.” “Good. Bob?” He clears his throat. “Vegetables. Brussels sprouts with bacon, glazed carrots, sweet corn and squash. Also cranberry sauce.” Hangman crows, “Of course Baby on Board can cook, gotta make sure the kids will eat well one da-” Phoenix flicks him in the forehead and he snaps his mouth shut, arms crossing. “Whatever. Since I cannot cook, I am on alcohol duty.” You nod very solemnly. “Perfect. I have first course. Soup and salad. And a pan of cinnamon apples for dessert. Cookies are a group effort because somebody, meaning me, promised Christmas.” Hangman points at the slide. “Where is turkey?” Rooster does not miss a beat. “Where is snow?” You grin. “Exactly. We are building Christmas out of what we have.” Nods ripple like a small tide. You clap once, catching the room’s rhythm. “Alright, moving on.” You skip to the next slide. A photo of a canvas mail sack. Glitter stars. Your voice softens. “We got children’s letters. Addressed to the Navy. Some to Santa. Some to anyone who wears a flight suit. We read them. We answer them. We send them back with stickers and a patch if we can spare it.” You glance at the room. “We are far from home. So are they, in a different way. We can close that gap for one night.” Silence holds for a beat, gentle. Phoenix nods once, like an order just landed. Rooster’s face tips open in that way he tries not to let happen. Bob looks at you and forgets to breathe. You just made Christmas appear out of nothing but tape and willpower and a tiny Santa hat. His heart hurts in a way that feels like it is growing.

You save the tidy bit for last: assignments. “Phoenix, supervision duty. Keep us legal and sharp. Payback and Fanboy, palm tree and decorations. Coyote, mail triage and delivery routing. Rooster, you are on music, but if you put Gill on loop for four hours I will ground you. Hangman, plate duty. Bob is my personal assistant.” Hangman tilts his head. “Can my plate duty be eating?” “Your plate duty is transporting plates without dropping them,” you say. “Fitness test for your arms.” He grins, already sold. “I have never felt more seen.” Bob hears the words personal assistant and it lands like electricity under his collar. Personal assistant means zip ties in your hand before you ask, a spare battery in his pocket because you forgot you used the last one, standing close enough to hear the way you hum when you think. It is proximity as assignment, permission to orbit on purpose. You lift a stainless mixing bowl and give it a shake. Paper slips flutter. “Secret Santa names are here. Pull and keep it secret. No trades without blood.” They line up with surprising good behavior. You move the bowl. People draw. The room picks back up its buzz. Bob waits until the end and you hold the bowl for him, palm braced under, eyes bright. Your fingers touch his when he takes a slip. He swears the contact travels up his arm like a signal. 

The bowl is almost empty when Phoenix drifts back to you all, slip already pocketed. Bob finally unfolds his own and feels the little seesaw of relief and disappointment when it is not your name. A hand lands on his shoulder. Phoenix. Palm up. On her palm sits a newly folded slip. “Trade,” she says. He blinks. “Why?” “Because you need this more than I do.” “That is against the spirit of Secret Santa,” he tries. It is weak even to his own ears. She just lifts an eyebrow. The one that says stop wasting both our time. He swaps. The paper is warm from her hand. He unfolds it and your name looks back at him, simple ink that hits like altitude change. “Phoenix,” he starts, and she cuts him off with a look that is somehow kind and surgical at once. “Confess this way,” she says, quiet. “Take your time, but make it worth it.” He reaches for cover. “It is not like that.” “I know you,” she says, no heat, full certainty. “It is exactly like that.” He stares at the string lights so he does not have to stare at her. “I like her,” he says, and the word like is so small it feels like a lie. He corrects. “It is bad.” “How bad?” “Air horn under a chair and I still wanted to impress her bad. Knee under the table bad. She kissed my cheek and I thought about it for hours bad.” It spills now, quiet and unstoppable. “The way she flies. The way she laughs on tac. The smell of her shampoo. The way she says my name like she picked it.” Phoenix lets him run out of words. Then: “Good. Now do something about it.” 

He looks at the slip again like it might teach him how. “What if I mess it up?” “You will,” she says, almost smiling. “That is fine. Do not overengineer. Three beats. Useful. Personal. Brave.” She ticks them off with a finger each. “Fix something she never asks anyone to fix. Show her you see the small things - the knot she ties, the way she hoards cocoa, the playlist she hates. Then say it out loud when you are ready. Make the last one a choice, not a hint.” “You are very calm about this,” he says. “I am a fighter pilot,” she says. “I like it when people stop orbiting and commit.” He swallows. “And if she does not -” “If she does not, she will not hurt you on purpose,” Phoenix says. “But I did not give you that name so you could practice despair. Go be useful. Then be brave.” Bob looks toward where you are standing, laughing at something Rooster just told you. For a moment he thinks and he knows exactly what he is going to get you. He exhales, almost a laugh. “This feels… tactical.” “It is,” Phoenix says, already stepping away to steal the tongs back from Hangman. “Objective: make sure she knows. Timeline: ten days. Risk: low. Reward: potentially life-altering.” Bob rubs the edge of the paper with his thumb, then nods once like committing a flight plan. “Copy.” “Atta boy,” she calls over her shoulder. “And Bob? You got this.” 

You step up as Phoenix vanishes like smoke. Bob snaps to attention with a folded slip in his hand and absolutely zero chill. “Hmm,” you say, eyeing the paper. “Illegal Secret Santa switching going on here?” “Negative,” he says too fast. “That is - this is a… standard-issue… slip.” “Uh-huh. Standard-issue with Phoenix’s fingerprints on it?” He looks at the ground like it might have answers. “Couldn’t say.” “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” Before he can get another word out, Rooster arrives on cue, arm dropping around your shoulders as if he lives there. “Commander Rainbow, on behalf of the unwashed masses: thank you for organizing. Christmas is saved. I am moved. I might sing.” “Permission to sing granted,” you smile. Rooster leans heavier, steering you a half step away from Bob without meaning to. You tip out from under his arm with a neat little turn, tap his chest with two fingers, and aim him at the exit. "It's time for bed. Goodnight, Rooster.” He grins, unbothered, and obeys. 

You pivot back to Bob. He is exactly where you left him, folded slip in one hand like a secret handshake he is not sure how to use yet. “Walk me,” you say, easy as breathing. “Copy,” he says, and it comes out softer than he planned. Before the two of you leave the room, you turn to the others and clap twice. “Class dismissed. Time for bed, children!” A chorus of goodnights follow you into the hallway. You and Bob move through the dim bay side by side, boots quiet on concrete, string lights throwing warm little galaxies across the floor. Outside, the night is soft and salt. You fall into step close enough that your sleeves brush now and then. He can still smell cinnamon on your skin. He tries not to inhale like a person who has been holding his breath all day and fails. “Thank you for today,” you say after a few strides. “For the knee, for the everything, and for letting me steal your idea.” “Steal,” he repeats, amused. “I think you issued an order.” “Semantics,” you say, smiling. “You made it easy.” He wants to say it was not easy at all, that it felt like flying a perfect pattern with a storm at the edges, that he would do it forever. What he says is, “Anytime.”

The barracks swim up out of the dark. You stop at the bottom of your steps and turn to him. The pool of light from the doorway makes a small stage. Up close your eyes have that tired-bright look of a good day spent well. “I am most excited for the letters,” you confess. “I will bring the good pens,” he says, and when you laugh it lands somewhere he cannot armor. You step in and wrap your arms around him. It is simple and sure, a close press that smells like citrus, clean cotton, the faint line of jet fuel that never leaves the day and on top of that cocoa and cinnamon. He goes very still for one heartbeat, then folds around you, careful and all in, one hand finding the small of your back, the other bracing between your shoulder blades. His chest resets to your breathing like a metronome finally set right. “Goodnight, Bob,” you say into his shoulder, voice warm. “Goodnight, Rainbow,” he answers, a little steadier than he feels. You give one last squeeze and step back. The doorway throws a soft pool of light across the steps as you climb. You glance over your shoulder, smile, and slip inside. He stays where you left him, palms still carrying the shape of you, the hallway quiet enough to hear his own grin forming. Then he turns for his door with the folded slip in his pocket and a plan assembling itself in neat lines, as orderly as his checklists and as loud as a promise.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Breakfast is loud and fluorescent. Flightsuits half-zipped, trays clattering, coffee breathing like a dragon. When it is your turn, the galley cook squints at the ticket, then brightens. “Rainbow?” You nod. She slides over a plate like it is contraband worth protecting: a proper omelet that gleams, spinach and mushrooms tucked inside, feta soft at the seams, chives neat on top. Two toast triangles at attention. A tiny cup of cinnamon cocoa riding shotgun. Hangman leans over the sneeze guard. “What is this sorcery?” “Your Secret Santa showed up at 0500 and cooked it,” the cook explains. “Under supervision. Cleaned the flat top, too.” You pivot on instinct toward Phoenix. She is stirring her oatmeal with calm menace, face unreadable, knife skills visible even with a spoon. It fits. Of course it fits. “You,” you point a fork at her, no heat behind it and fond. “You did this.” Phoenix raises one brow like a drawbridge. “Secret Santa has standards.” Rooster laughs. 

Bob is behind you in line pretending the cereal dispensers are classified. His ears are pink. He sets a perfectly normal tray down like it might explode and does not look at you looking at Phoenix. You sit. First bite. The omelet is warm and bright and tastes like being looked after. You angle the plate so Phoenix can see your face. “Thank you,” you tell her, soft enough to make her blink. “Breakfast was going to be tragic,” she says, which is as close to a confession as anyone gets from Phoenix. Across the table her boot nudges Bob’s. He startles, then drinks coffee like that was his plan. Hangman points at your plate and pleads his case. “I will have the Secret Santa omelet.” “Window is closed,” the cook calls without looking. “Try again at 0500.” Rooster wheezes. “Imagine that.” You bump your knee against Bob’s under the table without thinking, because he has taken the chair next to you like gravity. “You taste this,” you tell him, pushing a corner of omelet onto his plate. “Secret Santa knows their way around a skillet.” He tries it, swallows, and nods very seriously. “Secret Santa did good work.” “Suspiciously good,” Coyote says, leaning in. “I detect Phoenix.” Phoenix sips her coffee. “Object sustained.” You grin at her, grateful and satisfied, then take another bite. Bob watches you enjoy it and feels something in his chest even out. You think it was Phoenix. Phoenix is letting you. The secret stays put for now, small and bright as the chive flecks on your plate, and that feels exactly right for a first move.

The day takes its toll. Heat clings under the collar, the air tastes like salt and sunblock, and the pattern drums a groove in your spine. Secret Santa kindness sprouts everywhere. Payback finds his rucksack strap reborn with tight sailmaker stitches - you snuck into the boys’ locker room last night and hunched in the corner like a gremlin to sew it back together. Hangman opens his locker to boots that shine, a visor wiped clean, and fresh wipes taped to the rim. He acts offended that anyone would mistake him for untidy, then smiles when he thinks no one is looking. Rooster discovers a Great Balls of Fire vinyl leaned against his shelf like a benediction. Someone has framed a squad photo for Phoenix and set it on her station, the glass catching light. Water bottles appear for Coyote wherever he goes - he thanks the god of hydration and accepts the kindness. Fanboy receives an after-work kit in his cubby: a cold beer, a bag of chips, and salsa. Bob finds a pen that is not Navy issue, smooth as a secret, and a pad of very good paper. God knows where they came from. No one asks.

By afternoon it is back to work. Flight training. You fly clean. Everyone does. Taxi in, checks tidy, chocks in, ladders down. The instant your boots hit concrete the squad scatters for water and showers like a flock that knows the way. Bob meets you by the tug for exactly thirty seconds. He passes you a cold bottle and you press it to the back of your neck; the sound you make is small and grateful and it will live rent free in his head until February. “Good?” he asks. “Good,” you answer, already melting toward the locker room. “I need a shower. Got big plans for later though. I will text.” “Copy,” he says. He wants to say rest. He says, “Let me know if you need anything.” You squeeze his forearm on your way past. “XO magic.” He watches you go longer than he should, the heat lifting off the concrete, the damp at your hairline catching the light. Longing sits under his ribs like a steady weight that somehow makes him stand straighter. He files the sound of your voice, the feel of your hand on his sleeve, and then drags himself back to the job because that is how he gets to be near you without fumbling it. Half an hour later, Bob’s phone chimes.

Rainbow: Hangar in 30. I got snacks and cocoa (cold because it is too damn hot). We are watching a Christmas movie. Get your asses here.

Replies pile in fast.

 Rooster: On my way. Hawaiian shirt is ironed by the power of my mind. Hangman: If it is Love Actually I defect to Air Force. Phoenix: No one is defecting. I will allow The Holiday or Home Alone. Payback: I am bringing a vat of popcorn that violates several codes. Fanboy: I will bring the legal scale for the popcorn. Also I vote Die Hard. Coyote: Legal notes Die Hard remains disputed but admissible. Rooster: Cocoa is cold. Is that legal. Rainbow: Legal and delicious. Sit down. Drink it.

A direct message slides in under the thread.

Rainbow → Bob: XO, quick list. Can you grab the projector cart key from Supply, two power strips, the spare fan from Tool Room, and the big cooler with ice. You are a saint.

A second bubble follows before he can type.

Rainbow → Bob: And maybe cups with lids so Hangman does not baptize the floor. Thank you.

Bob makes the loop like muscle memory: Supply for the projector cart key, Tool Room for the fan, cooler with ice from the galley, two power strips from the drawer that always sticks, sleeves of lidded cups from a crate marked with FOR THE KIDS. He stacks it all like a moving tower of logistics and shoulders through the hangar door. You are already there. Comfy clothes for once - soft T-shirt, drawstring shorts, bare calves, the tiny Santa hat abandoned on a toolbox. You are kneeling on a pillow in the glow of the string lights, frowning at a beamer picture that is one stubborn trapezoid. Concentration pulls your mouth to one side. He stops and just watches for a beat because this might be his favorite version of you - sun-tired, focused, a little domestic in a room that has never been domestic for anyone.

He steps forward. The cart squeaks. You start like a cat, then see him and your shoulders drop. The smile you give him is small and bright and it unthreads him with ridiculous efficiency. “Brought the kit,” he says, setting the cooler, the fan, the power strips, the cups. “Saint,” you smile You point the remote at the ceiling and swear softly. “Keystone is being a diva.” He takes the remote from your hand without thinking and angles it to that absurd number nobody remembers. The picture snaps square. You blink, then laugh. “Of course you know the beamer’s love language.” His ears go pink. You tug the cart closer. He crouches to run cables. You drop beside him. Fingers reach for the same HDMI. Touch. Both of you freeze, then pretend you did not. He plugs power, you feed signal, his hand keeps finding yours because the world is small and the screws are smaller and you are both working in the same inch. The projector purrs alive. The palm tree in your slide deck blinks on, smug in its aviators. “Thanks,” you say, softer now. “Anytime,” he answers, and he means it in a way that feels like it should not fit inside one word. For half a second the room narrows to the cable between your hands and the quiet space where he could say something true. He inhales.

The hangar door bangs open like a cymbal. Rooster barrels in first in the loudest Hawaii shirt on earth, triumphantly hoisting a tray. “I come bearing nachos.” Phoenix follows at human speed, carrying a stack of bowls like a judge. “No crumbs in the avionics. This is not a democracy.” Payback and Fanboy arrive with a bin that smells like popcorn and chaos. Coyote appears with a lazy grin, two bags of gummy worms stuffed in his pockets. Hangman drifts in, sees the cups with lids, and groans. “Do you not trust me?” “Empirically, no,” Phoenix deadpans. You stand, clap once. “Seats. Pillows. Cocoa is in the cooler because the weather is a menace. We are doing a movie.” “Vote,” Rooster says, already flopping down. “No,” Phoenix answers. “Compromise,” you counter. “One from the approved list. The Holiday or Home Alone. Die Hard is admissible but only after 10 pm.” “Outrageous,” Hangman mutters. “Fine. The Holiday.” Rooster gasps. “Character growth.” Bob slides to the floor at your side like that is where gravity filed him. Your knee finds his. He can feel the cool from the cocoa bottle against your leg. On the screen, the title card blooms. You lean into his shoulder for just a second while you adjust the volume and he goes still so you do not think you need to move. “Ready,” you say, and the lights dim to warm gold.

The movie rolls. People settle. Popcorn rustles. The fan he grabbed ticks a soft breeze across the row. You take a sip of cold cocoa, make a small content sound, and tip the bottle toward him without looking. He drinks. Cinnamon hums on his tongue. Your fingers brush when he passes it back. He thinks about saying the thing Phoenix told him to say later, not now. Useful, personal, brave. This was useful. Personal is happening on a pillow at 24 frames a second. Brave will wait one more beat. On the floor by your knee, his hand finds the edge of the power strip and quietly holds it in place so no one trips. You notice. Your hand slides down and rests on his for a heartbeat, a simple thanks that lands like a promise. The hangar is all soft light and easy noise and the exact right amount of you leaning into him. For now, that is enough. Intermission tastes like popcorn and cold cocoa. The Holiday ends to a chorus of mock gagging from Hangman and suspicious throat clearing from Rooster. Phoenix calls a five minute break like a range marshal. Someone kills the projector menu chime. Pillows get punched back into shape. “Nightcap movie,” Rooster pipes up. “We doing it.” “Die Hard remains disputed but admissible,” Coyote argues.  “Admitted,” Phoenix rules, deadpan. “Start it.”

The room resettles. You slide back down next to Bob, ankles crossed. The projector hums. Nakatomi Plaza glows on concrete. Fanboy whispers the opening line along with the screen because of course he does. Three minutes in, Hangman starts heckling reload times. Payback critiques stairwell tactics. Phoenix points a finger at the screen whenever the muzzle discipline is fine by her or not. Coyote objects to everything for sport. Bob says nothing and watches you watching, the way you mouth along with exactly one line and hide your smile in the bottle. An elevator door pings. The soundtrack swells. You lean closer and whisper like you have a co-conspirator. “I wish I was this cool.” Bob turns his head. “You literally fly jets.” “Ninety percent is checklists, holds, and PowerPoints,” you say. “I want a one-liner and a wind machine.” Rooster fans you with a paper plate. “Closest we have is the floor fan XO stole.” “It was on the requisition list,” Bob says, which is technically true. You tip your chin toward the screen. “One day I will stomp through broken glass and save a skyscraper.” Phoenix does not look away from the movie. “You already saved a hangar with string lights and a cocoa urn.” Hangman aims a kernel at you. “She wants a franchise, not a Hallmark special.” Fanboy points at Bruce Willis crawling through ducts. “That duct is the width of a moving van. Reality not found.” “Movies cheat space,” Bob says, automatic. “Also radios, batteries, and blood loss.” “Sounds like a personal attack,” Payback mutters happily. Rooster elbows your shoulder. He knows how you got your callsign and he loves to tease you for it. “Tell the origin story. The callsign. On brand for a blockbuster.” You wrinkle your nose. “It is not that cool.” “Objection,” Coyote says. “We will decide.” 

You sigh, but you are smiling. “Women in Aviation Day, old squadron. PR asked for a few photos on the ramp. It rained, then stopped, then the sun decided to be dramatic. Someone snapped me in front of 302 with a full arc over the tail. Looked like the weather department photoshopped it.” You push an invisible strand of hair behind your ear. “It ended up on the base page and then some aviation blogs and then my aunt’s Facebook and now my aunt thinks she discovered me. The next morning my locker said RAINBOW.” Hangman clutches his chest. “Viral callsign. We are not worthy.” “Not self-assigned,” Phoenix adds, which is the point. “Photo was good,” you admit, sheepish and honest. “Right light. Right hair day. Right rainbow.” “Right pilot,” Bob says, before he can stop it. Your eyes flick to him, quick and warming. “You saw it?” He swallows. He could lie or he could be the version of himself Phoenix told him to be. “When orders dropped for this det I looked up your old squadron,” he tells you, keeping it simple. “The picture was still pinned on the page. It fit. You show up when there is sun and storm at the same time and make everyone look up.” For a second the movie keeps yelling about detonators and none of it gets through. You hold his look like you are weighing something. Then you blink, and your mouth tilts. “Careful, Bob. That was almost a one-liner.” “Work in progress,” he admits, ears a little pink. He reaches to steady the power strip with two fingers as Rooster’s foot drifts near it. Habit saves the night again.

On screen, McClane yells welcome to the party. The room throws back a chorus of lines. Hangman complains that no one runs out of ammo. Fanboy argues that the only realistic part is everyone sweating. Payback announces he could eat a whole tray of nachos and then falls silent because he immediately tries. You take a sip of cocoa and hand the bottle toward Bob without looking. He drinks and passes it back, fingers grazing yours. “If they made a movie about us,” you murmur, “it would be ten minutes of clean flying and eighty minutes of you finding power strips.” “Box office smash,” he tries for a joke that lands.  “Critic’s pick,” Phoenix adds dryly. Coyote steeples his fingers. “Legal notes an Oscar for Best Logistics.” The projector fan ticks. String lights hum. Outside, surf plays the same song it always does. Inside, the squad settles into the good part where the hero crawls through ducts and somehow still has witty banter. You laugh at the exact wrong time to be cool and Bob decides this is the correct time to be alive. Later, when Hans falls in slow motion and the credits climb the wall, the room reverts to species. Rooster argues for Die Hard 2 and is denied by committee. Payback declares the popcorn bin a crime scene. Fanboy brings out his scale to weigh what is left. Phoenix stands and the room stands with her because some instincts are bone deep. You stretch, shirt tugging up at your waist for a second that fries Bob’s remaining brain cells. “Movie magic,” you say. “Zero glass in feet. One hundred percent unrealistic.”

“Next time we will add realism,” Hangman declares. “We will play a PowerPoint between acts.” “Threatening the audience,” Coyote drawls. “Bold.” You bump Bob’s knee with yours. “Thanks for the movie night, XO.” “Thanks for inventing it,” he replies. “Tell me again that jets are boring,” Rooster calls, scooping cups. “Ninety percent boring,” you shoot back. “Ten percent rainbow.” Phoenix flips the switch to half. “That is the cut line. Rack time.” There is a shuffle of trash and a rustle of pillows. You and Bob gather cords shoulder to shoulder, the small choreography you share now settling back over you. You coil cable, he pockets the remote, your hands brush, you both let it be normal. On your way out you pause by the projector cart and look back at the room you built - lights, pillows, cocoa, the ridiculous palm tree. Your eyes shine the way they did in that photo that named you. Bob sees it and thinks the movie had it wrong. Cool is not duct crawling or one-liners. It is this - turning a hot hangar into a place where people breathe easier, then sitting on a pillow and sharing your cocoa. You catch him looking. “What?” “Nothing,” he says, and it is a lie that means everything. “Good night, Rainbow.” “Good night, Bob.” You say his name like it belongs to you. Same word, softer.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Bob sleeps a little later than duty allows. It is Saturday and their day off. Three Guam-heat days have crawled by since movie night. Sun ladders the wall, the surf keeps its slow count, and his phone rattles across the nightstand. He gives himself one last breath with his eyes closed, then curiosity wins and he fishes for it. Your name fills the lock screen. His pulse flips, wide awake.

Rainbow to Dagger Circus: Eat well, champions. Guam Winter Olympics. Meet by the training grounds at 1200. Dress adapted - swimwear or you will skinny dip.Rainbow: Actually do not. I do not want to talk to HR.

He stares until the smile happens, scrubs a hand over his face, and sits up. Shower, quick stretch set, teeth, sunscreen. He pulls on a soft T-shirt and shorts with swim trunks under, socks and running shoes, towel and sunglasses in the bag, a sensible amount of optimism.

The breakfast room is slow and soft around the edges. Day-off crowd in ancient unit shirts and college hoodies, trays clattering, coffee breathing. Your chair is empty and the table lists a little without you. Bob takes his usual spot anyway, clocking the gap like a missing instrument on a panel, and decides he misses your noise more than he meant to. Bob eats on autopilot and plans. You did not show for breakfast, meaning you will likely be the person who forgets to eat until 1500 if someone does not force the issue. He raids the fruit bowls for oranges and pineapple, wraps a breakfast burrito in a napkin, pockets travel salt like a criminal, and detours to the galley cooler for a bottle of cold cocoa because the weather is still on offense. He tucks everything into a small insulated bag, and then writes RAINBOW across the front in neat lettering. 

“Winter Olympics,” Rooster reads off his screen. “Does that mean I am allowed to body-check Hangman?” “Contact is strictly controlled,” Coyote replies, stealing a strip of bacon. “Legal will allow sled incidents only with signed waivers.” Payback thumps down a tray that smells like syrup. “What are the events? I need to know how to cheat.” Shoulder shrugs make it around the table. Hangman squints at his phone. “She says come well fed. That sounds like a trap.” “Everything sounds like a trap to you,” Phoenix says, calm with oatmeal. “Be at the training grounds at noon. Bring towels.” The squad eats and chatter and then leave to get ready for Guam Winter Olympics. On the way out he falls into step with Phoenix. “Quick favor,” he says under the buzz of the room. Her eyebrow says proceed. He lifts a small paper bag from his pack. Inside are a new shampoo and conditioner in travel sizes, a little bottle of leave-in, a sheet of mini hair ties, face wipes, a tiny sunscreen. The shampoo is citrus and cedar, something that whispers winter without pretending Guam is not Guam. On top sits a folded card with printed letters so that you won't decipher his handwriting: You might like this one. “Secret Santa drop,” he says. “Could you place it in her bathroom?” “Key privileges,” Phoenix says, dry. “Perks of friendship and the same gender.” She checks the top item and sniffs the shampoo. “Citrus and not silly. Approved.” She tucks the bag into her tote like contraband and pretends the conversation never happened.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

At 1145 the squad reconvenes at the edge of the hangars like a parade that forgot to march. Bob has the insulated bag of food for you, a stack of towels, and the big cooler by the handle. Rooster has a megaphone and sins to answer for. Payback and Fanboy wrestle a bundle of tarps that look like sails for a ship made of chaos. Coyote guards a clipboard for style only. Hangman stripes on sunscreen like war paint and hauls a boombox that only speaks loud. A jumpstyle Christmas remix punches the air - so wrong it loops back to right. Phoenix only rolls her eyes and keeps walking. “Where is she?,” Rooster asks, spinning a towel like a lasso. “Setting a trap,” Coyote says. “Setting the course,” Phoenix corrects, then turns to Bob without turning her head. “You brought her food.” He nods. “Good,” she says. “She will act invincible until noon and crash at two. Keep her vertical.”

They are still trading guesses when you appear at the far end of the lane like a summer TV show walked onto base. Red swimsuit, red booty shorts over it, whistle at your throat, Santa hat perched at a jaunty angle. Sun turns your shoulders into a postcard. Bob forgets how to breath for one long second. Next to you stands a man who looks like he was grown in a lab for recruitment posters. Red board shorts. No shirt. Super muscles. He is standing close enough that Bob’s pulse mistakes proximity for threat. The guy beams at you like you are an inside joke he has been waiting to tell again and looks at you in the casual way of people who already know what each other’s laugh sounds like. “Champions,” you call, whistle chirping. “Welcome to the Guam Winter Olympics.” You hook a thumb at your companion. “Judge for the day, Lt. Matteo Morales. Friend from flight school. He will arbitrate your crimes.” Matteo lifts two fingers in a salute and then pulls you into a side hug. It lasts one and a half seconds longer than Bob’s nervous system appreciates. Bob feels it like a pinprick. Small. Sharp. Dumb. He hates it immediately. “Bias: extreme. Bribes accepted in the form of sunscreen.” Rooster lets out a low wow. Hangman whispers, loudly, “That is a lot of delts.” Phoenix says nothing and watches Bob instead. Bob catalogs every centimeter Matteo stands near you and hates that his brain is doing math on another man’s rib cage. Phoenix drifts close enough for two. “Commit,” she murmurs. “To what?,” he asks, too honest. “To wanting a thing and acting like it,” she tells him. “Copy,” he answers, and believes it.

You clap once. “Three events. Swimming relay at the pool. Water gun fight through the obstacle course. Slip and slide finale. You get points for winning and bonus points for style. Teams are split. No one chooses their own fate.” You read from a card like a gameshow host who stole the prize: “Team Blue - Phoenix with Bob, Coyote, Hangman. Team Red - Rooster, Payback, Fanboy and I. Matteo judges. No arguing with the judge unless you can out-plank him.” Matteo drops and holds a perfect plank like granite. Everyone decides not to argue. “Hydrate,” you add. “Sunscreen. White shirts on for Event Two. I brough enough for everyone and different sizes.” You turn to move and nearly trip over the insulated bag by the tool chest. You unzip, see fruit, a burrito, cold cocoa. Your face changes in a way that Bob will replay later when the lights are off. “Who is spoiling me?,” you ask the air. “Your XO,” Bob says, voice heavy on the word your, stepping forward like the man Phoenix told him to be. Your eyes meet his. You are smiling. “XO magic,” you say, softer. “Thank you.” You take a bite out of the burrito right there, disturbed only by Matteo demanding everyone's attention. 

“Event One,” Matteo calls, clapping. “Pool. Relay. Two lengths per swimmer. No flips because the lifeguard will throw me out. Blue vs Red. Loser carries the cooler back.” At the pool, the air tilts hotter. White lane lines tremble. Phoenix goes first for Blue, clean and ruthless. Rooster opens for Red with a kick like a motor and a grin like a problem set he already solved. Tags slap palms. Coyote swims like he was born a sensible mammal who learned. Payback grinds through the water like stubbornness is a stroke. Fanboy dives late and makes up half a length on belief. You smile, drop in, and the water takes your shape like it has been waiting. You are fast without showing off. It looks quiet and then the clock says it was not. Bob takes his leg for Blue and swims exactly the way he lives - tidy, efficient, a hair faster than you would guess. He breathes every three strokes and thinks on the odd numbers. You touch first by a neat fingertip. He touches second but comes up smiling anyway because you are laughing into your shoulder and that is the only data point he cares about. “Red takes Event One,” Matteo announces. “Style points to Bob for making freestyle look like a plan.” “Allegedly,” Hangman huffs, winded and pleased.

Event Two moves to the obstacle course beside the training ground. Plywood walls. Stacked tires. Cones and cover. Everyone pulls on white shirts that are begging to be ruined. Matteo hands out water guns filled with dyed water in red and blue. “Rules,” you say. “No face shots. Hits to torso count. Five hits and you are out for thirty seconds. Most tags in ten minutes wins.” Matteo blows the whistle and chaos blooms. Rooster crows and immediately takes a bright blue splash to the ribs from Phoenix, who never misses. Payback slides across gravel and pops up streaked blue, laughing like a danger sign. Rooster argues line of sight with Hangman while painting his shirt red; Hangman bargains a truce and betrays him ten seconds later because of course. You move the way you always do - fast, playful, inside the rules by an inch. Bob’s WSO brain flips back on. He calls lanes, shapes Blue into a triangle, times Phoenix’s reloads, and uses his own body like cover he wants to be. You roll a low barrier, stripe his shoulder red like a neon arrow, and wink across the plywood. He laughs, surrenders to the moment, and nails Rooster with a clean blue slash he will wear like a badge. “Red five, Blue six,” Matteo calls with two minutes left. The world becomes a gallery of blue and red hits on white cotton. Bob catches Fanboy being greedy around a cone and taps him chest then shoulder with two quick blue marks, buying Phoenix a lane to blue Payback off the board. You slip past Hangman and plant one neat red dot center mass; he yelps like a dog that just learned a word. On the horn, Blue edges it by a single tag. “Style bonus to Rainbow for the roll,” Matteo adds, unashamed. Hangman points at Matteo’s abs. “Bias.” “Correct,” Matteo says, still smiling.

Event Three returns to the lane that now shines with a river of foam. The slip and slide runs long past a curve of cones. Towels line the end like a moat for dignity. You stand at the start in red and grin like gravity is a pet. “Finale,” you call. “Two heats of singles, then pairs. Score is tied. Winner takes glory and the right to pick the next movie night.” Everyone looks at Phoenix. Phoenix looks at Bob. Bob looks at you and says nothing because that feels like courage. Singles run first. Rooster wins by a chest hair and a scream. Hangman tries a pose mid-slide and spins out, which means everyone wins. Payback barrels like a kid. Fanboy goes headfirst and invents an Olympic sport and also foam angels. Phoenix does not smile and then does when she realizes the laws of physics like her. Matteo lifts the whistle. “Pairs.” You meet Bob’s eyes. There is a click that feels like a choice. “With me,” you say, easy as breath. “Copy,” he answers. You link hands for the first steps, drop together, bodies parallel, and the foam grabs like a friendly wave. You bump shoulders and correct in the same second because you learned each other’s timing in a cockpit you never shared. The curve lifts you, drops you, sets you down at the towel line in a spray of bubbles. You are both laughing so hard the sky wobbles. “Fast,” Phoenix calls, stopwatch up. “Clean.” Matteo checks the time and nods. “Winners,” he declares. “On speed and on style.” Hangman groans and immediately asks if winners can be disqualified for smiling too much. Coyote writes precedent on his clipboard and underlines it twice. Rooster claims moral victory. Payback baptizes the grass. Fanboy declares the event peer reviewed.

Matteo steps in close to bump your knuckles. “Still a menace,” he says, fond like history. You bump back, then look over his shoulder at Bob like gravity remembered its actual job. Phoenix appears at Bob’s elbow and bumps his hip. “Better,” she says. He watches you push suds out of your hair, Santa hat listing, red bright against blue, smiling like you invented warm. “Better,” he says. It is not relief exactly. It is the moment a plan becomes a day you get to keep. Matteo lifts the whistle one last time. “Olympics closed,” he announces. “Medal ceremony later. Winner picks the movie. Do not say Transformers.” “Holiday documentary about knife care,” Phoenix says, deadpan. “Absolutely not,” Hangman groans. You hook a thumb toward the cooler. “Hydrate. Eat. We will write letters tomorrow. Tonight we brag and do nothing we have to.” Bob hands you a towel and you take it like you were already reaching for it. He wants to kiss you. He does not. He stands ankle deep in foam and sun and thinks about the way your hand felt in his on the run, and how close brave feels when the day keeps giving you good reasons to use it.

Hydration handled and snacks raided, Matteo hops up on a wheel chock and blows his whistle. “Medal ceremony,” he announces, holding up a roll of duct tape like it is sterling silver. You pull a shoebox from behind the cooler - inside, duct tape medals strung on paracord, each with a name written in Sharpie and your neat print. “First up,” Matteo says, “Best Freestyle.” He points at Bob. “For making free look planned.” You loop the tape medal over Bob’s head. He goes pink, tries to stand at parade rest, then can’t help the smile. You snap a photo. “Most Surgical Shot,” Matteo declares, turning to Phoenix. “For painting torsos blue from distances that feel rude.” Phoenix accepts with a tiny bow. You catch the exact second her mouth admits it is a smile and take the picture. “Caped Crusader,” goes to Rooster. “For towel-cape management and theatrical sliding.” Rooster poses with hands on hips. Click. “Most Betrayals per Minute,” Matteo invents, to a chorus of boos and cheers. Hangman steps forward, proud. “For truce offers immediately revoked.” You get him mid-wink. Click. “Foam Angel Gold.” Payback. “For the biggest slip-and-slide angels and the bravest gravel dive.” He throws a heroic pose. Click. “Clipboard Commander.” Coyote smiles, a little proud and a little drunk on sun and fun. “For lane lines, protests, penalty times - and never letting go of that clipboard.” He taps it to the medal like a gavel. Click. “Headfirst Valor.” This award goes to Fanboy. “For being first to go face first down the slide and setting the bravery bar for everyone else.” He salutes with dye-streaked hair, grinning. Click. Matteo turns back to you. “Last but not least: Morale Operations Lead. For inventing winter and making it stick.” He settles the last duct tape circle at your collarbone. The squad hoots. You salute with your whistle. Bob’s picture of you catches the light on your cheek and the grin that could power the base. Click. Hangman shields his eyes and points at Matteo. “Why are we taking photos when Matteo’s abs are stealing the show.” Matteo flexes on instinct. Phoenix does not look up. “Ten push-ups for flexing in a medal ceremony,” she says. “Bias,” Hangman complains. “Correct,” Matteo replies, already laughing.

“Group shot,” Matteo calls, corralling everyone into a heap. You slide in next to Bob, shoulder to shoulder, medals present, foam freckles drying into confetti. He frames the duct tape circles and the lane rinsed in honey light. “Three, two…” Click. “One silly.” On cue, everyone bites their medals. Click. Hangman commits like a fool and takes a mouthful of tape. Click. The next frame catches him prying duct tape off his tongue while the squad falls apart laughing. Matteo actually snorts, then scrolls the reel and starts airdropping. Your phone chirps with the set. Hangman leans over your shoulder. “Send the one where I look heroic.” “We don't have that one,” Coyote says. “Print one for the ready room,” Rooster adds. “Two,” Phoenix corrects. “One for the ready room, one for HR training. Seasonal atrocities.”

The rules go soft after the medals. Towels ring the end like a fence no one respects. Someone finds the dish soap again. Rooster turns the megaphone into a sports desk. “And in lane chaos we have Hangman attempting a technical belly-flop. Judges are divided. Physics is amused.” Hangman sprints, dives, poses mid-slide like a calendar and spins out sideways into the grass. He pops up grinning. “Ten for flair.” “Minus ten for lawn damage,” Coyote notes on his clipboard, extremely fake. Phoenix has put the stopwatch away and is policing sunscreen like a zealot. Payback is doing foam angels again. The sun slants warmer. The whole lane glows. You jog to the top again, hair in a wet knot, Santa hat holding on by stubbornness. “One more,” you call. “Style only. Trains allowed.” “Dangerous words,” Rooster says, delighted. Blue and Red scatter. Hangman and Rooster form a two-car chaos unit that leaves a wake of shrieking. Phoenix does a perfect no-hands slide that earns silent, religious respect.

Bob lines up a beat after you. He watches the way you check the tarp seam with your toe like a pilot checks a line of weather. He wants to be where you are going to land. “Ready,” you ask, glancing back. “Copy.” You dive first, clean and fast, a bright streak over white. He follows a count behind and the foam takes him faster than he planned. Halfway down you hit a slick spot and drift off line toward a cone. He adjusts without thinking, angles across your wake, and reaches. One arm catches your waist, the other finds the tarp with a palm to slow you both. You gasp, then laugh, and he turns his shoulder so he takes the slide into the grass, you landing on him instead of the cone. Everything is bubbles and sky for a second. You are half sprawled on his chest, breathless and grinning, sunscreen and citrus and sun-warm skin. His glasses are dotted with foam. You reach up and thumb a clear path on one lens, still laughing. “Saved you from a cone violation,” he says, voice a little winded. “Heroism logged,” you say, even softer. Your hand is still on his cheekbone. He is trying very hard not to look like a man with a favorite place to be. Rooster wolf-whistles like a cartoon. “Flag on the play. Excessive cuteness.” “Legal allows collisions that prevent hazard,” Coyote calls, flipping a page. “Precedent set thirty seconds ago.” Phoenix stands over you with her hands on her hips like a coach who knows where this is headed. “Injuries.” “None,” you say, not moving. “Paperwork,” Bob adds, also not moving. “Proceed,” she rules, and walks away to rescue a towel from Hangman’s boombox. You realize you are still on him. You push up and offer a hand. He takes it and you haul him to his feet. You are both dripping. You flick a bit of foam from his hair and he nearly forgets his name. “Again,” you say. “Always,” he says, and it comes out easy.

The next round is chaos on purpose. Trains form. Four-person slide, hand to wrist, everyone yelling. Hangman tries to surf a kneeboard and immediately eats tarp. Payback and Fanboy attempt synchronized spins and invent a new kind of disaster. Rooster cannonballs the grass. Phoenix takes one end of a towel and snaps a perfect wave across the slide so you and Bob ride it like you planned it. Between runs, Bob brings you your insulated bag and you tear into the rest of the burrito like the winner of a prize no one knew they wanted. “Eat,” he reminds, smiling. You take a deliberate bite, chew, then hold the bottle of cold cocoa to his mouth in return. He drinks. Your eyes do that quiet happy thing that ruins him. Last slide of the day, you and Bob go side by side and link hands for the first step. Dive, ride, bump shoulders, correct in sync. At the bottom you end up laughing on the grass again, faces close enough that he can see the individual flecks of color in your eyes. The urge to say something true is a pressure under his tongue. Phoenix’s three-point checklist in his head reads useful, personal, brave. Two down. He files brave for later so he does not waste it. Hangman sloshes past dripping, points at the two of you, and announces to no one in particular, “Disqualified for weaponizing adorable.” “Overruled,” Coyote replies without looking up. The sun sinks a notch. Soap puddles glitter. Someone finally turns the hose off. Towels become capes. You lean into Bob’s shoulder for a second that feels like a choice. “Best Olympics,” you declare. “Gold medal in foam,” he returns. You nudge him with your hip. “And in catching me.” “Standard safety procedure,” he says, but his ears go pink. You grin, collect your hat, and jog back to help coil the tarp. He watches you tuck hair behind your ear and thinks about all the ways today will replay later when the room is dark and quiet. Slide, catch, laugh, the thumb on his lens, your hand in his. He thinks this is the memory he will keep on top for a while.

Fun keeps unfurling for the rest of the afternoon. Time slips quick when the water is warm and the music is dumb in the right way. Someone cracks a beer - gift that keeps giving - then another appears like it cloned. You all take turns at the pool. Rooster commits an illegal cannonball that slaps the surface like a felony. Phoenix strolls past Hangman and gives him a gentle nudge that is not gentle at all; he pinwheels in with a yelp that echoes off concrete. You dive headfirst - clean line, perfect tuck - red catching the late sun. Bob files a high-definition mental photo: the slice of your entry, the burst of bubbles, the way you surface grinning and immediately drench Rooster and Hangman like you were born for payback. Your laugh goes big. His smile goes bigger until his cheeks ache and he lets it. Matteo crouches by the edge to say something low. You laugh, reach for his forearm like you will let him haul you out - and yank him in instead. Splash, whistle, chaos. The first thing you do is look for Bob. He is already looking. Phoenix appears at his elbow and bumps him once. “Better,” she murmurs, and he understands.

A minute later you hook an elbow on the deck and climb out, water running off your shoulders in bright strings. Bob is already moving before he realizes it, snagging a towel from the stack. You jog over, sun drunk and a little beer soft, and he opens the towel wide. You step straight into it - and into him. He wraps you without thinking, one steady sweep that makes a small warm room out of cotton and arms. You stay. You tip closer. Not long, less than a minute, exactly enough to prove it is not an accident. Your breath evens against his collarbone. His chin finds the top of your head like it has always known the way. Click. Neither of you notices Coyote a few yards back, phone angled, clipboard tucked under one arm. He checks the frame - Bob’s arms around you, your smile tucked into his shirt, sun turning the towel gold - and names the file something only he will find funny later: evidence_of_joy.jpg. Then he slips the phone back, lets the moment be, and goes to argue with Hangman about the legal definition of a cannonball.

Matteo clocks the moment when the chaos ebbs and the light goes honey-soft. He whistles once, spins the camera strap off his wrist, and herds you all toward the clean stretch of concrete like a lifeguard corralling dolphins. “Team photo,” he calls. “To send home to the family for Christmas.” Rooster flops to one knee with a towel cape. Hangman flexes and is booed on principle. Payback and Fanboy hold the duct tape medals like Oscars. Coyote insists on holding his clipboard. Phoenix stands center with the stopwatch at parade rest, a smirk she cannot quite erase. “Rainbow, Bob, slide down a step,” Matteo says, and with the authority of history he makes space for you next to each other. You step in close. Your shoulder brushes Bob’s. He feels it everywhere. “Chins up, hats on, no sunglasses if you want to remember your mistakes,” Matteo coaches. He drops to a half-crouch, frames the foam streaks on everyone’s white shirts, and fires a burst. Click click click. “Fun one,” he orders. Rooster lifts the Santa hat off your head and drops it onto Bob’s, backward. You laugh, reach to fix it, and Matteo catches the exact second your hand is still in his hair and Bob is smiling like someone forgot to teach him restraint. Click. “Trains pose,” Rooster yells, because of course he does. Everyone hunkers and throws their arms forward like a human roller coaster. You lean into Bob, cheek to his shoulder for balance. He is solid. Matteo lets it run, firing until the laughter burns down.

“Last one,” Matteo says, backing up. “Candid chaos. Do something dumb.” Hangman photobombs with a knee slide. Fanboy throws a handful of foam that turns into glitter in the light. Payback fake faints into Rooster’s arms. Coyote holds up the clipboard like a court order. Phoenix flicks suds off her wrist and almost laughs. You shoot Bob a look. He steps in like he heard a cue you did not say out loud, hands sure at your waist. In one clean motion he pops you up and settles you over his right shoulder. One arm wraps your thighs to steady you, the other rests on his side like this is routine. You yelp, then laugh, Santa hat slipping sideways as foam sparkles on your calves. “Oh my,” Rooster narrates. “Core stability for days.” “OSHA would have notes,” Coyote adds, entirely pleased. “Hold it,” Matteo calls, shutter rattling. “Yes, like that.” From up here the hangar looks small and Bob feels enormous under your hands. He is steady and warm and stupid strong. The thought hits quick and hot: that is very sexy. Your fingers curl at his shoulder on instinct. He glances up, eyes bright, breath even. “Got you,” he says, easy. Phoenix, dry as sand. “Form good. Load secure.” Hangman fans himself with a towel. “Somebody print that.” You tip the hat back with one fingertip and throw a ridiculous wave. Matteo laughs and rides the shutter. Bob shifts a half step, angling you into the sweet spot of light. Without a word the squad slips out of frame in perfect unison, like they practiced it. Hangman does not get the memo and Rooster hauls him by the elbow so hard he nearly trips. Click. One last shot. You feel the strength in the way he moves, simple and sure, and it does something low in your stomach you pretend is only the angle. He lowers you like you weigh nothing. You slide down his front, feet finding concrete, and your palm lingers at the back of his neck. “Show-off,” you murmur, breathless and delighted. His ears go pink. “Occupational hazard.” 

Your phone buzzes. Airdrops flood in. Matteo’s reel lands and you do your duty, firing the best shots into the group chat. People peel off for towels and water, clustering in little knots to rate angles and captions. Bob thumbs through his set. Swipe. Swipe. He stops. It is the one with you on his shoulders, sun catching you just right, both of you smiling like you forgot how not to. He looks at it and thinks he will never need a different picture of himself. You drift back into his orbit like you always do. Shoulder to shoulder. Damp, sun-tired, happy. “Good day off,” you say. “The best,” he answers, and this time he does not hide how much he means it.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Morning lands with a small headache - sun and beer doing their quiet revenge. You shuffle into the bathroom grumpy, then stop. On the sink: travel shampoo and conditioner that smell like citrus and cedar, a tiny leave-in, face wipes, mini hair ties, sunscreen. A neat little card: You might like this one. It has to be Phoenix - no one else has a key for your place. The mood tilts. You step into the shower and let Guam and summer and a hint of cinnamon-cinder rinse the sand out of your bones.

By breakfast you feel human. You drop into the seat next to Bob. He almost chokes on toast. Up close, you smell like ocean air, orange peel, a spark of spice - weirdly like home in a place that refuses winter. Fanboy says something dumb and perfect, you laugh, then point your fork at Phoenix - more affectionate than threatening. “Thank you for the Secret Santa drop-off. Please do not break into my room again or I will tell HR.” No heat in it. Phoenix sips her coffee, eyes mild. “You say that now and then call me again the next time your flight suit zipper mutinies and you end up stuck half in, half out.” Bob short-circuits for a heartbeat. Brain: image. Conscience: stop. Ears: pink. He discovers a deep interest in buttering toast that is already buttered. “Slander,” you say, fighting a smile. “Also that was one time.” “Petition to call me next time,” Hangman says, hand in the air like a child. “Over my dead body,” you reply. “If Phoenix is not available, I would call Bob. He is the most trustworthy of you all.” The table erupts. Rooster thumps the tray. “Vindication for the XO.” Coyote makes it official. “Legal affirms: Bob is trustee of zipper crises.” Payback points at Bob’s coffee. “Promote that man.” Fanboy already has his phone out. “Drafting a standard operating procedure.”

For a second everything at the table goes soft around the edges, at least to Bob. Trustworthy lands in his chest like a flare. Plate rattles a millimeter under his fingers, ears go hot, the room sounds three seats farther away. He wants to say all the big things - I will show up, I always will - and what comes out is smaller but true. “Anytime,” he says, steady. “I carry pliers and patience.” It gets a laugh, which helps. Under the table your knee taps his, a quick code he files under personal. He stares at his mug like it might bail him out, then risks a look at you. You are still smiling. The new scent sits on your skin like a secret he gets to keep for one more day. Inside, the checklist updates itself. Useful - ongoing. Personal - confirmed. Brave - soon. He takes a breath, lets the coffee hide his smile, and thinks: you picked him. That is going to fuel him all day.

Rooster snaps him out of it. “So, what is next on the bring-Christmas-to-Guam list?” You raise an invisible clipboard, flip an invisible page, and click an invisible pen with surgical focus. It blindsides Bob. A loud, unguarded snort slips out and the table actually pauses. It startles him, too; he is not usually a snort-laugh guy. Then again, he has never been this in love with anyone in his life before. Coyote barks a laugh in sympathy. “Objection. Prop comedy.” You shake your head, mock stern. “Plans for everyone who is not Bob or Coyote because you are guys are mocking me: Christmas palm tree tonight. I will acquire the palm from a reputable source. Your job is to bring anything that can pass for ornaments.” “I am offended,” Coyote announces, hand to heart. Hangman’s grin starts drafting a war plan. You spear him with the fork. “Nothing gross. No used socks. No biohazard. If it smells like a locker, it stays in the locker.” Phoenix, without looking up: “Add no glitter in the intake.” “Correct,” you say. “Acceptable: spare ribbons, old patches, safety wire bent into stars, red streamers, origami checklists, tiny duct tape medals, shell necklaces, paper snowflakes cut from PowerPoint handouts.” Coyote lifts his hand. “If I am excluded from ornament duty, I will require a written rationale.” Bob finds himself smiling again and just leans into it. “Legal will file Form PALM-1225: Declaration of Decoration. Coyote will notarize all ornaments. Any sock submissions require an environmental impact study.” There is a half beat and then the table breaks - Rooster wheezes, Fanboy claps once like a seal, Payback nearly spills coffee, even Phoenix’s mouth tilts. “PALM-1225,” Hangman groans, delighted. “I hate how good that is.” “Motion to adopt,” Coyote says, tapping his spoon like a gavel. You glance at Bob, eyes warm. “XO, you just invented bureaucracy I actually like.” He shrugs, pretending calm while something wide and happy runs through him. “Be here at 1900,” you finish. “Palm tree, lights, cocoa. If you bring a sock you will meet HR. HR is I in this case.”

The day runs like all Guam days here: fly, brief, sweat, repeat. By 18:30 the hangar is warm and echoey, fans whining, a sand-filled bucket holding a rescued palm, boxes of ribbon and safety wire stacked like cargo. You are already there in shorts and a tank, hair still damp, a coil of fairy lights looped over one shoulder. Bob slips in a few minutes later with a tote of command hooks, zip ties, and a roll of tape labeled PALM-1225. “Hey, XO,” you call. “Thought I said you weren't allowed here.” He lifts a clipboard he absolutely typed for this. “Temporary waiver. PALM-1225, section 3, subsection a: one logistics apparition permitted after 1800 when the mission commander has a history of climbing things without a spotter.” You blink, then laugh. It starts in your chest and goes bright. “Fine. Apparate, then. Spot me and hand me hooks.” “Copy,” he grins, already setting the ladder and feeding you a string of lights like it is procedure. He sets the ladder, checks the feet, gives it a little kick like a preflight. You pass him the first loop of lights and climb two rungs. He stands at the base, one hand steady on the rail, the other feeding you cable. “Left a little,” he says. “We want the weight even.” “You mean you want the palm to pass its inspection.” “PALM-1225 has standards.” You laugh and the sound bounces off the hangar ribs. He likes the echo more than he should. You work in quiet for a minute. Hooks go up. Lights drape. He passes ribbon, you twist it into candy-cane spirals around the trunk. When you reach for the next string your fingers brush his and both of you pretend it is about the job. He tracks your foot placement like a spotter and not like a man in love. Mostly.

Phoenix arrives with a tote and an expression that says she already fixed three problems you don't know about. “Symmetry,” she notes, handing you a coil. “Also I confiscated glitter at the door.” “Hero,” you say. Rooster follows wearing a T-shirt that should be illegal and a pocket full of old patches. “Ornament dump,” he announces, spreading them out like playing cards. “Dagger, Daggers, Dagger adjacent.” Coyote comes in with another clipboard and safety wire. “Stars,” he says, already bending perfect little five points. “All wire cuts go in the can. Legal does not like tetanus.” Payback and Fanboy wheel a bin of shells and string. “Island edition,” Fanboy says, reverent. They have punched tiny holes in the flattest ones and tied twine through. They look wrong and right at the same time. Hangman tries to sneak a sock out of his pocket. You point from the ladder without looking down. “Absolutely not.” “What if it is clean?” “It is not.” He grins and tucks it back. “Worth a shot.” Bob wraps a short strand of fairy lights around the palm’s crown and clips the plug where it will not show. Rooster gives the plug a look that says menace. Bob moves it to a different outlet, because he has learned. “Moment of truth,” Phoenix says, flipping the power strip with a knuckle. Nothing.

You and Bob exchange a look. He follows the cable run like a bomb tech, finds one sneaky connector sitting proud, clicks it home. The tree blinks to life in warm gold. The whole hangar exhales. You whoop, one hand lifted from the ladder like a victory flag. “Okay,” you call down, flushed and happy. “Decorate.” It turns into organized chaos. Old patches hang like badges. Safety wire stars spin gently in the fan breeze. Shells catch the light. Someone folds tiny paper snowflakes out of dead PowerPoint handouts. Coyote writes RULES on a scrap and tapes it to the base. Fanboy ties a duct tape medal near the top like a star and everyone allows it because the tape has earned the right. Bob stays at your side, handing up clips, steadying the ladder, catching anything you drop. When you finally climb down he passes you a water bottle before you ask. You tip it back, throat working, and he has to look away for a second like a gentleman. “Topper,” Rooster says. “We need a topper.” You dig in a box and pull out a tiny paper jet someone folded once upon a time, nose tilted up, wings sharp. You glance at Bob. “Approve the airworthiness, XO.” He takes it like it might be a real aircraft. Checks the folds. Smiles without meaning to. “Airworthy and adorable,” he says, and the table gets just loud enough that no one notices he said it to you and not the room. You climb back up and seat the little jet at the crown. Phoenix kills the work lights, leaves the palm and string lights to do the heavy lift. For a breath the hangar is gold. The tree is ridiculous and perfect. Somebody’s speaker picks a song without asking permission. It is that stupid Christmas track that keeps haunting you. “This fucking song,” you murmur. The first notes of “I will be home for Christmas” make a few people groan and others laugh. You look down at Bob and the two of you have the same thought at the same time. Not home. But this right here will do.

“Pictures,” Coyote says, because of course. He backs up, frames the squad under their palm, and places his phone on a chair, steadies it with hope and a clipboard and then sprints back.  You end up on the floor with the others, shoulder tucked to Bob’s, your knee finding his like it always does. Bob’s hand finds the small of your back for exactly one second. Your smile tilts. The shutter catches it. After, you hand out mugs and cold cocoa, the good kind that smells like cinnamon. People mill and admire their own work. You and Bob drift to the edge of the door where the night air cuts the heat. The palm glows behind you like a small, stubborn sun. “Good plan,” he says. “Good XO,” you answer. Silence, easy. Outside the surf keeps time. Inside the squad laughs about nothing. You lift your cup and clink his. When you look at him, your eyes are bright. He thinks about every checklist he has ever loved and how none of them say what to do when the thing you want is standing right here. “Tomorrow,” you say, like a promise. “Letters night.” “Copy.” He will bring the cords. He will bring the cups with lids. He will bring courage and see what happens next.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

The next day he does not see you once. Sims didn’t overlap, meals didn’t sync, you were nowhere, and it chewed through his day more than he will admit. By the time he hits the showers he is short-tempered and quiet, missing the gravity you bring to a room. Back at his locker a small Secret Santa package waits. Inside is a simple black frame holding the shot from yesterday - you perched on his shoulder, his hands steady, sunlight catching your face, both of you grinning like you forgot how not to. He lifts the frame and a folded scrap slips free. It is a handwritten note. Rooster’s handwriting is obvious even under a forced ugly scrawl. He opens it. “Man up and tell her. You are a great guy and you deserve to be happy. Also I can't stand you looking like a lovesick puppy anymore.” Bob breathes out a laugh, soft and helpless. Endearing, wrapped in tough talk. He tucks the note behind the photo, palms the frame like a promise, and decides that soon needs to mean soon.

Letter night glows before you even hit the door. String lights on, palm tree lit, two folding tables pushed together and covered in actual tablecloths. Stacks of stationery. Envelopes. A bin of markers and pens. A mail sack split open like a treasure chest. On the whiteboard: OPERATION CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. Rule 1: no crying. Rule 2: crying allowed. Bob shows up ten minutes late and ten degrees off center. He drops a box of stamps a little too hard on the table. “Are we sorting by zip or are we pretending geography doesn’t exist,” he snaps, sharper than he means. You look up from the mail sack. Your face softens like you already know. “Hey,” you say, quiet and steady. “Rough day?” It hits harder than any lecture. His heart does that bleed-out thing. “Sorry,” he says at once, voice low. “That was not for you. Long day. I missed lunch. And I missed…”, he wants to say you, he says the other word that means the same thing, “... home.” You nod, understandingly. 

Growing up, Christmas was a full-body countdown. You would wake up early to check if the tree lights still worked, memorize the shape of every present, and patrol the house for cinnamon. Then you got older. Holidays turned into travel days. The Christmas tree turned into Navy issued holidays. You live out of a bag long enough and home becomes a number on a key tag. All during flight school you were living in barracks, then deployments and missions came and in between not only the joy for the holidays, but also the home went missing. You find the notion of home again with the squad. Not because anyone here is sentimental on purpose, but because this is the first place in a long time that feels like a table you can set. “I understand. I miss it too.” You mean family, but this feels like family. You mean Christmas, and under these string lights it is Christmas. You mean home, and maybe this room counts. You do not say any of that. You pat the chair. “Sit with me. This is the only geography that matters right now.” The sour in him slides off in layers. You hand out cookies and cacao, and then prop your phone on a chair and start a video. “Keeping this for the people coming after us,” Hangamn says, solemnly. “Bro,” Coyote laughs, “you say this like we will die. This is literally a mission where the stakes are minus.” Hangman shrugs his shoulder. “Let the man have his one liner,” Rooster says and Hangman grins. “See, the mustache man gets me.” You pass out stacks. “Cold open. We will all read one aloud, then answer them afterwards. Friendly heckling allowed. OPSEC still exists. Go.”

Hangman rips his first envelope and a fistful of glitter detonates across his shorts. “Dude, what the fuck,” he says, mock offended. “I am billing the Pentagon.” Payback is already grinning. “Read it.” Hangman squints at the card. “Dear Pilot, my teacher is making me write this for ‘morale’. I do not like writing but I hope you do not die, k bye.” Payback and Fanboy bark out a laugh. Hangman stares straight into the phone camera, stone faced. “Why, in God’s name, did that letter need glitter?” “For morale,” Rooster snorts. “The ‘I hope you do not die’ part. Inspiring,” Phoenix adds, small smirk in place. You are already smiling, corners of your mouth dimpling, while Hangman tries to brush the glitter off and only manages to spread it like a bad decision. Rooster eyes the pile like a bomb tech and picks the least sparkly envelope. The second he lifts it his face tilts. “This one is sticky,” he announces, equal parts disappointed and grossed out. He tears it open and a flattened candy cane peels off the card like a fossil. Brows knit, he deciphers. “Dear Pilot, I hope you are well. My uncle is in the Army do you know him? His name is Tony. From Miles.” Rooster sighs like a man about to commit to a bit. He pulls a clean card and writes, voice warm as he goes. “Dear Miles. I am well. Guam is warm right now and we do have a pool. I do not know every soldier, but I might know a Tony with strong arms and a laugh you can hear across a hangar. If that is your uncle, tell him I said hi and that I hope he is home for Christmas. Also, thank you for the candy cane. It was very brave of your envelope.” He signs it, then holds up his sticky fingers. “Next letter must include a wet wipe by law.”

Phoenix plucks a letter with surgical calm. “Dear Pilot, how many missiles in a plane? Can you shoot ten at once? Are you scared? From Amelia.” She flicks her eyes to you. You give the smallest nod. Phoenix lifts a pen like a microphone. “Dear Amelia,” she says, voice steady and kind. “Missiles are complicated and your questions are smart. We do not talk exact numbers, but we carry what we need and we train until doing the right thing feels normal. I am not scared most days. On the days I am, I remember I practiced hard and my friends are very stubborn about keeping each other safe. Please eat your broccoli, wear your seatbelt, and tell your teacher you asked excellent questions.” Then she signs it, prints a tiny broccoli in the corner, and slides the card to the out pile like a finished procedure.

“Coyote,” Payback says, already fishing. “Grab the one with the dinosaur stamp.” Coyote plucks it out, straightens the Santa hat on his head like he is taking the floor of Congress, and reads. “Dear Pilot, you should have a dog in your plane. The dog can help and also be cute. My mom says we cannot have a dog because we already have me. From Ashley.” The room breaks. Rooster wheezes. Fanboy claps once like a seal. Hangman wipes a tear he will deny.  “Ashley for Chief of Staff,” Payback declares. “Approved,” Phoenix says, dead calm. “Someone send a patch to that kid.” Coyote rips a square from a scrap, wrestles it into the shape of a patch, and draws a creature that could be a dog, a dragon, or a scribble that believes in itself. He prints in neat block letters: ASHLEY - K9 AIRCREW, HONORARY. Then he slides a fresh card in front of him and writes, face gone soft. Dear Ashley, a dog in a plane would be very cute and very helpful at morale. Your mom is correct that you count as a full-time dog substitute. Please accept this patch. You are now Honorary K9 Aircrew. Woof is cleared. Love, Your Pilot Friends. He tucks the paper patch inside, seals the envelope, adds a rainbow sticker for good measure, and places it on the done stack with both hands like a ruling.

Bob screens the envelopes like a bomb tech - tilt, tap, listen for the wicked hiss of glitter. He picks one that looks safe and notices the scrawl under the address block. In kid caps, a postscript has been jammed in: FOR THE RAINBOW GIRL PILOT. He feels the smile happen before he can stop it. He hands it to you like it is a medal. Fingers brush for a second that he feels everywhere. “Honorary mention,” he says, soft and pleased. “Huh,” you utter, surprised and a little shy. Hangman leans back in his chair. “Of course our resident celebrity gets a special delivery.” There is no heat in it. Phoenix kicks his sneaker and tips her chin at you. “Open it.” You break the seal carefully, thumbs gentle, and slide the letter free. Something glossy slips out and lands in your palm. A photo, crinkled at the corners: an eight-year-old with weaponized dimples and two missing front teeth holding a hand-painted poster. A cartoon jet with seven stripes behind it, streaks of happiness, and RAINBOW in bubble letters that try to escape the page. A shark sticker is slapped in the corner. You read it out loud, bright and respectful, like the kid is sitting at the table. “Dear Rainbow Pilot, I saw your picture on my mums computer. You look really pretty. Do you have a crush? I do. It is you.” Bob has to pull a breath and hold it. Me too, kid, he thinks. Me too. You keep going. “Please do not die or I will be mad forever. Also do you like sharks?” Rooster makes a noise like a broken accordion. “Oh my God.” Payback folds in half laughing. Fanboy wheezes. “That is data driven affection.” Coyote steeples his fingers. “Legal notes that threats of eternal anger are an acceptable motivational tool for pilots under 12.” Hangman slaps the table. “Sold. Wedding is on the beach. I will wear glitter.” You hold up the sticker like evidence. “He attached a shark with hearts. This kid understands my brand.” The smile that lives in the corners of your mouth shows up and Bob feels it in his chest like a switch. Phoenix taps the edge of the photo, voice gone warm. “Write him back now before we all turn into people who cannot be trusted with nice things.” She pushes a fresh sheet your way and drops a fineliner on top. Bob is already sliding the bin of markers closer, already finding you a stamp with a little airplane on it. You look at Bob like his help is oxygen. “What do I say?” He swallows, then gives you the simplest version of the truth. “Tell him yes. You like sharks. And that you promise to try very hard to avoid making him mad forever.” It lands. You grin, sit forward, and start writing. Your handwriting is neat, the kind that looks like it could fly straight. Dear Shark Expert, you print. Yes, I like sharks. I like that they mind their own business and keep doing laps. I promise to try very hard not to die. Love, Rainbow. You add a tiny shark doodle that looks suspiciously like it is smiling. Bob watches your pen move and thinks about how you treat a stranger’s kid like a teammate. He slides a small sheet of wing stickers toward your elbow like a quartermaster who anticipates the line. “For the envelope,” he says, and you do not even look, you just bump his knee under the table in a thank you that lights him up.

He watches you for a moment longer and then he goes hunting for exactly the right envelope like a man with a mission from a friend. He wants one without glitter mines, without stickiness, without tears in the flap. He finds a pale blue one with careful loops in the return address and a tiny drawing of a cloud. He tilts it. Safe. Under the address there is no extra line, but inside, maybe there will be something he can hand to you like that first one. The thought feels greedy and honest at once. He puts it back. He looks for something better. He finds one with a stamp that has a lighthouse on it and the words Be Brave in metallic ink. Across the table Hangman and Rooster are loudly workshopping a kid’s letter about whether they can land a jet in the school parking lot for show-and-tell and if jet fuel tastes like blue slushie, drafting a doomed flight plan on a napkin. Their noise buys him privacy. He unfolds the letter and reads it in silence. Dear Pilot, sometimes I am scared of the dark hall at night. My dad says brave is being scared and doing the thing anyway. Are you brave all the time? From Jo. Bob feels the air shift inside his ribs. He writes back with neat, precise print. Dear Jo, your dad is correct. I am not brave all the time. I am often scared and then I do the thing with my team and it gets easier. I use a checklist, a deep breath, and a friend. You can borrow that. From Bob. He adds a tiny checklist box and draws a checkmark. When he looks up, you are reading over his shoulder. Your voice is soft. “That is perfect.” He can feel his ears go pink.

A few letters in, the room shifts from loud to easy. Laughter stacks with the soft scrape of pens, little pockets of bickering spark and die, and the knot in Bob’s chest loosens until it is just breath again. For you, this feels like the closest version of home-from-away you have found - string lights painting everyone gold, paper whispering, cocoa passing hand to hand like a secret. The phone on the chair keeps a quiet record - warm light, bent heads, stickers blinking on envelopes. You keep sliding bottles down the line. The cocoa is cold and perfect. Bob resets the pen pile, nudges the sharpies point forward, and builds a neat stack of finished letters at his elbow because his mind likes order best when the room is happy. You glance over, catch his small, content look, and think: this counts.

After another hour, the hangar empties on a tide of laughter and paper cuts. Letters bagged. Cocoa drained. The palm tree glows on after everyone wanders out in twos and threes, lights humming like a content cat. You linger to flick a last bit of glitter off the table. Bob is at the cart, winding the extension cord in tidy figure eights, the way he winds down his brain. The base goes soft at night changeover. Hangar lights drop to warm, the palm glow holds, the fans click slower. You pull the bay door closed and the world outside is a thinner heat, salt in the air, runway lights breathing in a line. “Walk me back,” you say, casual, like a habit you trust. “Copy,” Bob answers.

For a block you let the quiet work. Boots on concrete. A ground cart whining somewhere behind. You blow out a breath you have been holding all day. “I miss home,” you admit, not dramatic, just true. “Someone from my family was always humming. The smell of Christmas dinner. A proper tree.” He does not try to fix it with words. He opens his arms a little, a question. You step in. He folds you close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, steady and warm, pulling you in that last inch you did not know you needed. The hug lasts past the point where teammates would tap out. Past one taxiing jet. Past the sweep of a marshaller’s wands in your periphery. Your pulse smooths against his shirt. His breath evens against your temple. The base keeps moving around you and you do not. You are the one who loosens first. You tip back a fraction, his hand still at your nape for a beat, thumb resting there like a promise. “Better,” he asks, soft. “Better,” you say, and it is.

You start walking again. The surf keeps count at the seawall. A gecko chirps from a drain, Guam’s smallest referee. The cursed Christmas song drifts tinny from a barracks window, gives up after a bar, blessedly. “Detour,” he asks, chin toward the side gate. You nod. He palms the latch and you cut across the strip of grass that runs up to the safe line. You stop by a bench with a view. You sit shoulder to shoulder, knees up, the runway in front of you and the ocean beyond it. Far out, a squall drags a thin veil of rain. The landing lights turn it to lace. “Home used to be a street full of the people I grew up with,” you say. “Now it is a palm tree with safety wire stars.” “Home used to be a driveway and my family,” he says. “Now it is this walk.” Wind lifts a strand of hair at your temple. He tucks it back gently, his fingers resting on your cheekbone for one breath, then away. Useful, personal, brave - he files brave for the correct minute. You lean in until your shoulder settles into his. For a while you just watch the runway logic. A nose light appears, grows, lowers. Wheels kiss. Spoilers pop. Clean. Tidy. The neat of it pleases both of you so much you say nothing. “Open your hand,” you say. He does. You place one of the shark-sticker photos there, the kid with the weaponized dimples grinning up from his palm. “Proof of morale,” you add. He smiles. “Admitted into evidence.” You stay until the squall slides left and the air cools two honest degrees. When you stand he offers his hand without thinking. You take it without hesitation. Fingers to fingers, palm to palm, like choosing a lane.

You walk the rest in step, hands still joined. Past the palm tree that glows like a small stubborn sun. Past the tool chests that smell faintly of solvent and cinnamon. Past the window where the song almost starts again and does not. You trade a few quiet nothings - tomorrow’s brief, the list for the tree, whether Coyote will actually file the form he threatened. Your thumbs find an easy sway. Neither of you lets go. At your steps you pause. Warm light spills on your shoulders. You keep his hand for one extra heartbeat and look at him like you are checking a horizon line. Whatever you find makes your mouth tilt the way it does when the approach looks right. “Good night, Bob,” you say, soft. “Good night, Rainbow,” he says, and does not try to hide what is in it. You squeeze once, then slip inside. He stands for a breath with the towel under his arm and the photo in his pocket. Then he turns toward his own hallway, pulse steady, a new plan set where he keeps checklists: keep walking you home. Keep choosing the detour. Keep the hand.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

Lunch hums like a generator. Trays clatter, AC rattles, paper snowflakes sweat on the mess hall windows. You drop your tray beside Bob and only then notice the small box riding the corner of your plate. Brown paper. Red twine. A typed label in block caps: FOR RAINBOW. “Fan mail,” Rooster says around a forkful of something. “Or a bomb.” “HR would have notes,” Coyote replies, pleased. You tug the twine. The lid lifts with that soft cardboard sigh and the room scoots a little closer without meaning to. On top sits a small zip pouch that smells like December. Inside: sweets you did not think anyone here knew you loved - crisp spice cookies in wax paper, a little bar that tastes like orange peel and dark chocolate, honey candies wrapped like tiny suns. Under that, something from where you grew up - a battered postcard of a landmark only locals bother to photograph, edges softened by fingers. Tucked in its sleeve: a photo of your family. No note on the back. No caption. Just the kind of picture everyone else keeps on a fridge. Your mouth goes soft. You are already blinking when you find the envelope at the bottom. Your name in a handwriting you know like your own. Your best friend. You slide the letter out and the first line tips you back to being 16 on a curb under summer stars. Hey idiot, I miss you. Proud of you. Bring all that sky home when you can. It is cold here and the cinnamon is not as good without you. Your laugh kicks and breaks in the middle. You press your knuckle to one eye and breathe.

Across the table, Hangman stage whispers, “Is HR aware of emotional ambushes?” “Legal finds tissues admissible,” Coyote says, already offering a napkin like a verdict. Phoenix lifts her water in a small toast and keeps her face very neutral. It is a good neutral. It says I see you without saying more. Rooster leans over, trying to read the typed label like it will confess. Payback and Fanboy go quiet the way people do when something lands exactly right. You clear your throat and waggle the box toward Phoenix because she is the nearest and because it seems like something she would pull off. “You absolute criminal,” you accuse, light, grateful. “Now you are roping in my family and friends into this as well.” Phoenix does an elegant shrug. “Secret Santa has rules,” she says, voice mild. “Rule one: do not get caught.”

It should fit. It almost fits. Then your brain clicks through the last days like a slide deck. You did not tell her you missed home that hard. You told Bob in a doorway when your day went sideways. You told him it smelled like cinnamon and cold. You told him about the sweets you loved as a child. Your eyes flick to him without meaning to. He is looking at his tray like it contains state secrets, ears a shade pinker than regulation, shoulders very busy not rounding toward you. He nudges the water bottle closer to your elbow without looking up. “Hydrate,” he says, like it is part of the checklist. You take a swallow so cold it stings and laugh a little at yourself. “Okay,” you say, voice still not quite steady. You look at the table, at the box, at the picture you are not going to put down for a minute. “Whoever did this… thank you. This is a sneak attack and it worked.” Rooster taps the box with his fork. “Rate your gifts, Rainbow.” “Five out of five,” you answer. “Would cry again.” “Put that on a shirt,” Fanboy mutters, relieved. You break the spice cookie and slide half onto Bob’s tray without thinking, like feeding the person who sat next to you at a hundred family dinners. He blinks, then smiles at the corner, like you just handed him air. “Share with the class,” Hangman demands, hand out. You roll your eyes and flick a honey candy at his forehead. It sticks for a second, then drops into his palm. “Seasonal atrocities allowed until 1800,” Coyote rules, deadpan.

You pull the postcard back out and run your thumb over the crease in the middle, then set it under the family photo like a small altar. The letter from your best friend goes in your pocket - close enough to touch. You tip your head and breathe through that ache that hurts good. Phoenix bumps your knee under the table. “Eat,” she says gently. “Then cry. In that order.” “Yes, mom,” you manage, smiling now. As lunch melts into a dozen little jokes, your brain keeps tugging on a loose thread. Typed labels so no handwriting. Perfect candy choice. The postcard someone had to dig for. A photo that was not in any public feed. A best friend letter that needed reaching out and a favor asked. You glance at Phoenix again. She is careful, but her eyes, just for a second, flick sideways to Bob like a compass you were not supposed to see. You do not pull on it. Not yet. You just sit with your little stack of home in a box and the warm weight of a hand steadying your day even when it is trying to pretend it did not. “Good?” Bob asks under the noise, the word aimed only at you. “Good,” you say, and it lands like a thank you to the right person even if you never say his name.

🎄✨❄️✨🎄

The next days blur. Hops, sims, sweat, the sea punching heat right through flight suits. Secret Santa kindness keeps appearing like the island grew it. Payback opens his locker to find a neat rack of spice tins with handwritten labels and a folded card that says for experiments and crimes. You brought it in town yesterday. Phoenix 100 percent knows Hangman is hers, but he is actually trying so she lets the game live. He ropes you into stashing fuzzy socks with tiny airplanes in her drawer. She claims to hate them, then wears a pair under boots and pretends she forgot.

By the time dinner day lands, the bay is a different country. You and Bob arrive early. He wheels the cart like a quartermaster and you move through the space like a person who knows where light belongs. Tablecloths stretch over two long runs of worktables pushed end to end. Real plates - mismatched, rescued, perfect - stack at one end. Cloth napkins rolled and cinched with safety wire rings. Tea lights in mason jars throw low constellations. The palm tree you kidnapped glows warm, safety wire stars spinning gently in the fan breeze. Shell garlands drape the tool chests. Somebody hung paper snow that will curl by midnight and look even more loved. Music is low and wrong in the right way - the playlist is three parts Rooster, one part Phoenix’s secret stash of instrumentals, one part Fanboy’s seasonal chaos. The room smells like a treaty between home and here - lime and char from outside, butter and cinnamon from somewhere, coffee that refuses to die, cocoa with spice. Surf hushes under everything like a metronome that is finally on your side. Hangman shows up in an apron that says KISS THE COOK and gets reassigned to plate duty before the second S can finish. Phoenix sets herself at the pass with the calm of a tower controller. Rooster plays runner with illegal flourish. Coyote arrives with place cards he typed and cut by hand. Payback hauls in two warm coolers and bows. Fanboy performs last rites over the mac and cheese like a priest of carbs. Bob checks the power strip, the lights, the fan angle, the safe spacing of cords like it is a preflight and looks relieved when nothing trips. People drift in and go a little quiet when they see it. You catch the silence, tuck it away, and then call the room to you without raising your voice. “Places.” Chairs shuffle. Bob ends up to your right because gravity insists. Phoenix takes the end where she can see everything. Hangman protests his assignment twice, then starts carrying plates with the intensity of a man walking a Fabergé egg across a minefield. Coyote taps the table with a spoon. “Legal declares this a dinner, not chow.” Rooster wipes at his eye exaggeratedly. “I am moved.” Fanboy waves him off. “You are dehydrated.” 

You stand, fingers finding the back of your chair like you are checking a wing root you could do in your sleep. The room tilts toward you. Your Santa hat is clipped to your belt loop like you forgot and then decided not to fix it. “Okay,” you say, the word bright and steady. “We built this fast. We built it out of borrowed plates, contraband tablecloths, and stubbornness. It looks like it does because all week we kept making small choices for each other.” You tip your chin at the palm tree. “The letters felt like a real thing. This feels like a real thing. You people are the reason the calendar can be a liar and still lose.” A breath. The small kind of brave. “I will not be home for Christmas.” Your mouth tilts. “But then again, home is where the heart is. And right now, mine is here.” Rule 1 almost fails. Then Rule 2 saves you. Rooster raises his glass first, simple. Phoenix’s eyes are soft for once. Payback hums agreement like a big engine. Fanboy wipes his face with a napkin he swears is sweat. Coyote taps the spoon once more, an official stamp you did not ask for and needed anyway. Hangman, who wanted to heckle, does not. “To found family,” he says instead, almost quiet. The clink runs the table. Bob watches you over the rim of his cup and thinks this is the most dangerous sky he has ever loved.

Food lands like a wave with good timing. Everyone brought what they promised. Hangman floats plates down the line with unnecessary biceps. Phoenix controls the pass, two fingers, no drama. Rooster carves with a ridiculous flourish and succeeds. Coyote announces each dish like a docket item and somehow makes gravy sound like a motion that will pass. Payback unveils a pan with theatrical steam and Fanboy weighs something for the joke of it, then calls it legal. Bob ghost-manages heat lamps you do not have and hands you a plate last on purpose so he knows you get a full one. The talk is easy and overlapping. Rooster sings exactly one line and is fined a cookie. Coyote reads a short benediction off his phone that is half legalese, half kindness. Fanboy produces glittery paper crowns and is denied by Phoenix until she quietly wears one sideways like a compromise. Payback tells the story of the spice rack like it is a heist. Hangman tries to steal cranberry sauce and gets called on it by six witnesses. Bob, who swears he hates speeches, stands a little in his chair without meaning to. “To the person who keeps power strips where miracles can find them,” Rooster says, raising a glass at Bob. The table answers. Bob goes pink and mutters, “Logistics are a team sport.” You bump his knee under the table and trade plates without discussing it because you know he likes more vegetables and you will always take extra mac. He slides a napkin to your lap like a thought he thought before you did. You glance down, then up, and smile like he just fixed a circuit only you could hear whining.

Later there is a toast from Phoenix that is exactly one sentence and somehow breaks three people in the middle. “We keep each other safe,” she says. That is it. Everyone drinks like they understand the full paragraph behind it. Coyote reads out a list of forbidden ornaments that were attempted and confiscated. Hangman pleads the fifth on the sock. Fanboy claims the palm for science and tucks a tiny origami jet near the top. Payback swears he sees it wink. Dessert arrives on a rolling cart that never rolled this well before. Cinnamon hangs in the air like a memory. You set down the pan, lift the foil, and the room reacts like a stadium catching a ball. “Do not say a word,” you warn, smiling. “I promised apples.” Hangman claps. Phoenix, traitor to her own cool, says, “Bless you.” Bob is already at your side with the ladle and bowls. Your hands touch at the rim of the first one and both of you pretend it did not flip a switch.

The conversation turns soft in that post-dinner way. Laughter bubbles up and slides back down to the warm hum of people who like each other. Someone starts a game that is not really a game: favorite small thing from the week. Coyote goes first. “Patch for Ashley, K9 Aircrew.” General agreement. Fanboy: “Die Hard arguments adjudicated by facts that do not exist.” Rooster: “The towel cape.” Phoenix: “Not falling for ketchup.” Hangman: “Winning tag over Phoenix.” Phoenix lifts a brow. He amends. “Winning one tag over Phoenix.” You: “The shark sticker.” Then you tip your head toward Bob without saying his name. “And the way the room stops being loud when it needs to.” It is not even a compliment. It is location data for your heart. He hears it. Plates clear without anyone calling for it. Hangman does his dish duty with surprising grace and only two near catastrophes. Rooster dries and tells a story about a Christmas when all the lights went out in a town that should not have weather. Coyote writes dish tallies like a man who knows morale lives in accounting. Payback stacks chairs with an efficiency that insults physics. Fanboy labels leftovers like a lab. Phoenix refuses to sit until she checks every cord and then sits exactly halfway into a chair like a pilot who will always be ready to stand.

You all drift to the nest of pillows and blankets like the tide found a soft place to stop. Under the palm, little bags and lumpy parcels wait with names in thick marker. You hand master-of-ceremonies duty to Rooster because of course you do. He rolls his shoulders like he is about to brief a moon landing. “Commencing distribution,” he booms, and wedges an obstinate box from the bottom. The stack tilts, rights itself. You snort. Phoenix tuts once, no heat at all. “Hangman,” Rooster announces, passing over a green-wrapped unit held together by tape and faith. Hangman tears it open. A book of crossword puzzles slides out with a sticky note on top: Maybe you find the missing letter for your helmet in here. The room breaks. Hangman clutches his chest. “Defamation.” He is definitely doing one tomorrow on break. Rooster tosses him a second, smaller box - matte black. Inside: a foldable pool cue, clean hardware, HANGMAN engraved along the butt. For a heartbeat he goes very still, reverent despite himself. “Thank you,” he says, no tease, then the grin comes back. He points across the circle. “Coyote?” Coyote tips two fingers. Hangman actually stands and drags him into a quick hug that looks accidental and isn’t.

“Next up,” Rooster declares, plucking a paper bag with a sheet tossed over the top like a disguise. “Impeccable wrapping. A masterclass.” He hands it to Phoenix. She parts the paper and finds a bracelet. Not flashy - braided cord in deep greens, a few small beads that catch the light like they mean it. She blinks once. Twice. Surprise softens to something rare on her face. Her eyes lift to Hangman. “Thank you,” she says, simple and clean. Then she holds out her wrist. “Help me?” Hangman tries for a joke and can’t find one. “Yeah.” He moves over and takes her hand like it is live ordnance, careful thumbs, no swagger. He works the tiny clasp with pilot hands that do not fumble when it counts. Coyote narrates under his breath. “Tactical fastening.” “Load secure,” Bob adds, dry. “HR approves this contact,” Rooster stage-whispers. “Shut up,” Phoenix says, smiling straight at the floor. The bracelet settles. It suits her. She flexes once, testing fit, then squeezes Hangman’s fingers before she lets go. “Right color.”

Rooster fishes out a flat square wrapped in brown paper and tape that looks like it survived a deployment. He cradles it with both hands, grinning. “For the XO,” he intones. “Handle with reverence.” Bob peels the paper back. A vinyl slides free in a crisp sleeve - a clean reissue of a jazz classic he once talked about in the van, the one with the odd time signatures that make Hangman insane. His thumb traces the track list like it is a checklist. The smile escapes before he can stop it. Rooster is already producing a second, smaller parcel. “Companion piece.” Inside is a simple bottle of shower gel. Citrus and something wood-warm lift out of the cap. It is dangerously close to the way you smell after a shower when the air still holds salt. Bob’s ears go pink. Tucked under the label, a folded note in unmistakable Rooster scrawl: heard you like this smell. also go confess. - rooster. Bob smiles for a second and then he points straight at Rooster. “You.” Rooster feigns innocence for half a second, then caves. “How did you know?” “You literally signed the note that came with the last present,” Bob says, deadpan. Hangman clocks the paper. “Oh, a love note. Read it to the class.” Bob angles the card away on instinct, tucking it discreetly under the record sleeve. “Logistics,” he lies, which is somehow worse. Phoenix gives him a look that is half permission and half challenge. 

Rooster does not linger on the moment. Showman instinct kicks back in and he dives for the pile, hauling out a plastic-wrapped rectangle. “Payback.” Payback tears it open and holds up a black T-shirt so loud it creates weather. IT’S PAYBACK TIME explodes over a cartoon fireball that looks like it failed safety testing. The room collapses. Fanboy wheezes. Hangman grins so wide his cheeks will hurt tomorrow. Phoenix hums a verdict that could be approval or a threat. “Second course,” Rooster says, passing over a neat brown bag. Payback opens it to a stack of local spice packets labeled in tidy print - chili blends, toasted garlic, calamansi zest, things that can start or end friendships. A card sits on top: For food and prank war crimes. Payback presses the spices to his chest like medals.  “Whoever did this understands me spiritually.” He aims a grateful look across the circle. You raise a hand. He salutes you with the shirt, which makes the fireball wobble. Laughter rolls and settles.  Bob slides the note under the vinyl sleeve, heartbeat loud and stupid, the citrus-cedar scent settling at the edge of his skin like a nudge.

Rooster palms a parcel from the pile and squints at the label. “Coyote.” The gift lands in Coyote’s hands with a little weight and a lot of care. The wrapping is neat in a way that makes the room sit up a bit - crisp corners, tidy folds, a slim cloth band tied flat like whoever did it understands load-bearing knots. He slides a fingernail under the tape instead of tearing, peels the paper clean, and lifts the lid. First out is a simple black cap, unbranded, the good kind with a soft crown and a curved brim that will earn its shape. A narrow tag is tucked into the sweatband: for the next beach day. Beneath it waits a clipboard that looks like it could outlive a truck. The wood has been sanded satin-smooth and COYOTE is scorched across the top in clean block letters. He runs a thumb over the burn, approving. “Chain of custody,” he announces, deadpan. “I accept.” He looks around the circle, thrown by the elegance of the wrap. “Phoenix?” Phoenix shakes her head once. Payback lifts his hand, a little sheepish. “Crafts aisle and a wood burner. Do not ask how many fingers almost died.” Coyote stands to give him a steady, quiet shoulder clasp that means more than thanks. “Legal affirms: excellent gift. Beach prepared. Paperwork secured.” “Try the cap,” Hangman orders, already jealous. Coyote settles it on his head. It fits like someone measured.

Rooster digs again. “Rooster,” he reads, triumphant, as if he did not pick his own name off the tag. You and Fanboy trade a look you both fail to hide. Rooster tears into bright paper and holds up not one, but two Hawaii shirts that somehow look... restrained. One is a deep blue with tiny white palms and even tinier F-18 silhouettes hiding in the fronds. The other is a sunset red with clean cream striping that will look lethal with a tan. “Oh, he is going to be insufferable,” Hangman groans. Rooster pops the blue one on over his T-shirt, buttons two, and does a slow runway twirl on a pillow. “Fashion is warfare,” he declares. “I am prepared for conflict.” “Miracle,” Phoenix says, almost smiling. “Taste.” “We found them at the market,” you admit, pleased. “Fanboy spotted the tiny jets.” “I have an eye for stealth,” Fanboy says, satisfied.

Rooster’s hand goes back under the tree. He emerges with a perfectly rectangular package wrapped like a math problem. The paper is aligned to the pattern. The tape is invisible. The folds are identical. He whistles. “Surgical.” “Fanboy,” he announces, and sets it in front of him like evidence. Fanboy studies the edges, almost afraid to break the geometry, then slices the seam with a fingernail and lifts the lid. Inside: a slim black box with a clean face watch nested in felt. No logos screaming. Simple dial. Quiet metal. The sort of thing that lets the wearer do the talking. Fanboy blinks. “Oh. That is... grown up.” He cradles it with both hands and turns it so the light finds the glass. A small card rests under the strap: for timing your chaos to the minute. His eyes tip to Phoenix on instinct. She is already looking elsewhere, which is how you know. “I like punctual crimes,” she says into her coffee. Fanboy laughs and leans over for a quick side hug that she accepts like a medal. “Thank you, boss.”

Rooster fishes under the palm and comes up with the last bag. Brown paper. A clean band of color. He checks the tag, grins, and brings it to you like a ring bearer. The circle does the math without speaking. One name left. Bob’s. The feral dials down. You kneel by the pile and unload three parcels, each numbered in neat type. Your mouth curves. “My Secret Santa is spoiling me,” you say, voice gone soft. You take the first one. Inside: a fresh notebook with a stitched spine and six fine markers clipped in a row, red to violet. The note is printed and tucked under the elastic. Useful: for everyday briefings and the chaos they bring. You laugh quietly. It lands right in Bob's chest. Number two is flat. You slide it free and find a black frame. Inside sits the Guam Winter Olympics shot where everyone is laughing and Hangman is peeling tape off his tongue like a tragic hero. On the frame’s edge is a small rainbow pin. You lift it and fasten it to your shirt without thinking. The note taped to the back reads personal: maybe home can be here - with us. Your eyes shine. The room goes gentle. You reach for the last box, smaller than the first two, heavier than it looks. Inside the canvas pouch: a braided cord bracelet - black with a faint thread of seven colors running through - and a tiny stainless washer for a clasp. Under it, a typed card. You do not read it out loud. Your eyes move once, twice. 

Brave: You make this place feel like home. I look for you first - in rooms, on radios, and in days because you make them better. 

For a beat you do not move. The room thins to paper and breath. People drift off in soft chatter you barely hear. Your eyes stay on the card until they lift to Bob. He holds your gaze for one steady second, then looks to the bracelet waiting in your palm. “May I,” he asks, quiet enough that it is only for you. “Yes.” His fingers are careful. He slides the cord through the washer and settles the knot like he is arming a checklist you can wear. He does not let go yet. You tilt your wrist so the thread of color catches the light, then look up. Close-in quiet. Gravity you can feel. He meets your eyes and chooses a small kind of courage. “It looks right on you,” he says, voice low. “If you want it to mean anything more, I am very good at being the steady point. I will carry the cooler either way.” Your mouth tips, soft and sure. “Copy.”

The hangar is soft and gold under the string lights you hung last week. The palm tree wears binder-clip ornaments. Someone refilled the cocoa urn. Cinnamon and jet wash share the air like they finally learned to get along. The squad drifts in slower tonight, edges worn off by the day. Rooster’s still in his new outrageous Hawaii shirt. Phoenix still wears the glitter crown. Coyote still finds glitter on himself when he thinks no one is looking. The old speaker coughs. Vincent Gill slides in again, that same song that has been haunting the base since the first day you taped lights to a beam.

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas…”

You laugh, hand finding Bob’s sleeve without thinking. “This is ridiculous,” you say, shaking your head. “This songs keeps playing and neither of us is home for Christmas.” Bob’s smile tilts, warm. He shifts closer until you are toe to toe by the palm tree. “Yeah,” he says. “But home is where the heart is.” You mean to tease him. The words land and you do not. Something in your chest goes bright and tender. Your hand rides down his sleeve to his fingers and stays. He takes it like it is the most natural thing he has ever done, like he has been practicing in his head for months.

“Dance with me,” you say. He does not look at anyone else. You both get up, hands still joined. He steps in, careful, one hand settling at your waist, the other still laced with yours. You set your palm on his shoulder. The music is a little tinny, the floor is concrete, the palm tree is wearing a hazard placard star, and somehow it is perfect. You sway. The world shrinks to heat and light and the way Bob looks at you like you are the first sunrise after a long storm. His laugh lines are close enough to count. His breath evens out. Up close he smells like clean cotton and a hint of jet fuel that even the best soap cannot steal. You smell like citrus and something warm and sweet that makes him dizzy. The song keeps promising, and for once it does not sting. It feels like a joke you are both in on. You press your forehead near his temple for a beat, smiling against the lyric. He huffs a quiet, amazed sound that you could hoard if you were cruel. You are not. You give him your full smile instead, the one he has been chasing in the corners of rooms. Something changes in your periphery. A small ripple of motion. You glance up.

A mistletoe has appeared above you, bobbing gently. It is tied to a telescoping pole that is absolutely a stolen mop handle. Follow the pole and there they are: Rooster and Hangman on a table, braced like acrobats, both of them trying very hard not to fall while they get the angle right. Rooster is biting back a grin. Hangman is failing to bite back a grin. Laughter stirs in you, small and kind, and then it grows until it shakes you. Bob laughs too. It is not the careful laugh he uses to pass in a room full of pilots. It is real and a little wrecked. The sound shivers through your hands where you hold him. The room tilts toward you without closing in. Phoenix covers a smile with her cup. Fanboy and Payback pretend to argue about mistletoe legality like that matters. Coyote mutters that it is a violation of airspace and doesn't mean it and no one listens anyway. You look back at Bob. He is lit from the inside, eyes bright, mouth soft, joy written across his face like he forgot to hide it. Your grin matches his because there is no version of now where it does not. “Guess that means we gotta kiss,” you say, light and sure. “Guess so,” he answers, a little breathless, a little wrecked, like a man who just found a runway in fog.

The first day of April marks your one month anniversary at The Hard Deck. A month of hard work, long nights, eventful evenings and in between settling into a new life, place and job. The squad is gathered around a pooltable, but the play is forgotten because they watch you working your magic. Hangman whistles, soft and honest. “God, she is so pretty.” Bob doesn’t even turn his head. “She doesn’t think about you,” he says, dry as a runway. “You’re a customer.” There is a half-beat of stunned silence, then: “Whoa,” Fanboy grins, delighted. “Copy,” Coyote adds, impressed. Rooster claps once. “Damn, Baby on Board with teeth.” Hangman puts a hand to his chest, wounded for show. “A customer?” “Repeat customer,” Bob allows, finally looking up. “Loyalty points don’t redeem for anything useful.”

Penny, behind the counter, tries and fails not to smile. “He’s not wrong.” Phoenix takes a sip from her beer and tips her chin at Bob. “Since when are you funny?” “Strategic reallocation,” he says. “Less stutter, more aim.” Rooster drops down from his bar stool, already halfway to the jukebox. “He’s got aim, alright.” “So what do loyalty points redeem for?” Hangman asks. You swoop in from somewhere across the bar. “My attention. Sometimes a drink on the house. If I like you, a good line and a flirt.” “Sounds pretty useful to me,” Hangman mutters. Bob angles closer by a fraction, enough for you to feel it. “And a smile,” he adds, deadpan. “That is reserved only for you,” you shoot back and his ears turn pink just a tiny bit. “Alright,” Coyote says, laughing under his breath. “We’ve officially entered a new phase. Lucky is part of the teasing and therefore now our friend.” Rooster groans, happy about it. “Knew we’d get here.” “You wound me,” you say, mock hurt, “I thought I already was your friend.” “Favorite bartender, yes”, Payback declares, “Promoted to friend tonight.” You flash a grin. “I will take it.” And then you are on the move again. Hangman tips his head, still nursing the earlier hit, but smiling anyway. “A customer,” he mutters, like he’s trying the word on. “Cold-blooded.” “Accurate,” Phoenix deadpans Penny lifts her own bottle in a tiny toast from the rail. “To knowing the difference.” 

You scitter away to greet some regulars and then move onto a table that needs cleaning. You’re already working May in your head and April under your hands. Someone breaks a rack and shoves Bob the cue. He takes it and moves to the table. For a second, in the glow and the noise, it does feel like home - yours, Penny’s, Phoenix’s, theirs - and Bob’s, from exactly where he’s standing. He thinks about you one more time and decides the words sits right in his chest after all. Home and you. Lucky.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The Hard Deck settles into its spring rhythm. Doors open to the salt. String lights warm the wood. The regulars claim their corners as if the chairs grew out of the floor for them alone. You fit yourself into that rhythm like you has been tuning to it for years. You do it without fanfare. No speeches. No new rules pinned to the door. You just start doing small things that make the room feel like it belongs to the people in it. You learn the slow pour for the man with shaky hands so he does not feel watched. You stack soft napkins under the stroller wheel before anyone asks. You keep a quiet bowl of hair ties at the end of the rail and nudge it toward girls who came in straight from the beach with wet ponytails and no plan. If a first date is failing at the menu, you slide a water to buy them time and translate the cocktail list into two sips and a smile. Penny notices first, of course. Penny notices everything. You do not replace her. You run alongside her, a second pair of eyes and a second pair of steady hands. If Penny is reading the weather, you are marking the wind. One sets the bar. The other keeps the pace. 

The Dagger squad storms the Hard Deck like they never left it, all noise and salt and inside jokes. They make a straight line for you. You lift one palm without looking up. “I cannot talk to you right now, I am negotiating.” They skid. Penny is on the inside of the rail with a towel over her shoulder and an expression that says she has seen every idea and three of them twice. You have a notebook open and three napkins covered in arrows. “It is a monthly motto,” you tell her, tapping the page. “House vibe, one line, one evening, maybe the last Friday of the month if it fits, it changes every month. It goes on the chalkboard. A drink that matches the the words. Life band or something if it fits. People will love it.” Penny narrows an eye. “People love their beer cold and their floor dry.” “Exactly,” you say, like she just made your point. “May is for training wheels. We test it. If it flops, I will personally mop the deck with a toothbrush.”

“Whose toothbrush,” someone asks. “Hangman’s,”, you answer. “I object on dental grounds,” Hangman says from the far side, already grinning. “But I love the idea.” Coyote steps in, palms on the rail. “Monthly motto, sold. What is May?” You think for a moment. “Lite 80s - no costumes needed but rewards if you show up dresses up. Perfect playlist. A special drink. I will dress up, entertain, shake drinks all night long. “Alright,” Penny says at last. “May is yours. But if my floor gets sticky, you are on your knees.” 

Hangman inhales like a man about to sin. “Respectfully-” Phoenix smacks the back of his head with surgical precision. “Abort.” “-respectfully,” he continues, rubbing the spot, “I was going to offer to mop.” “Were you,” Penny says, not asking. Bob tries not to picture “you, on your knees” and fails in one clean mental image that detonates behind his eyes. Heat climbs his neck like a flare. Abort. Absolutely abort. Look at anything else. Coaster. Wood grain. The condensation line on the Coke bottle - why is it always the Coke bottle? He drags the label to square with the bar. It’s already square. He moves it anyway. He’s aware of Phoenix’s side-eye like a radar ping: Breathe, Bobby. He breathes and stops a boner from ambushing him right here at the bar. 

Coyote claps once. “Alright, details. What does ‘Eighties Lite’ actually mean?” “Warm neon,” you say. “Hall and Oates, Blondie, Toto, Springsteen if he behaves. Signature drink is the Neon Highball: vodka, lemon, soda, tiny lime wheel. Dress cue is simple. Denim and a white tee count. Jean jacket or color if you feel brave. Fun, not clown.” “Reward for dressing up?” Payback asks. “A shot poured by me and paid for by my tips. At least the first month,” you say. Penny cocks an eyebrow. “You talk like this has been decided.” “It will be,” you say, confident. "Respectfully," Hangman starts, but Phoenix lifts a hand without even looking and he shuts up on instinct. You gesture with your pen. "Speak." He straightens, all mock-serious. "As a student of culture, I feel obligated to ask if you need someone born in the eighties to QA your playlist." You tap your pen against your notebook, pretending to consider it. There is a half beat of silence. "Oh my God," Rooster says, eyes going wide with sudden joy. "You were born in the eighties." Coyote cackles. "Old." Hangman bristles. "I am not old." "Vintage,” Payback blurs out. "Seasoned," Bob says, almost under his breath. It lands. Rooster brightens. "Oh, that is good." "Cardigan-seasoned," Phoenix adds. Hangman flinches like the word hit him between the eyes. "Okay, hurtful. What am I, a soup?" The last line blindsides you; a sharp, completely undignified snort bursts out before you can stop it, your face going through three expressions in half a second as you try to get your composure back. Bob does not mean to laugh, but the sound of yours knocks his loose - a small, helpless laugh slips out of him too, and it feels stupidly good, like a valve finally opening. He lets it, and quietly files the moment away: You can crack, and he likes that he got to see it. You clear your throat, tap your pen against the notebook and drag the room back on task. If Hangman is going to flex being "seasoned", you might as well put that to work.

"You might actually be helpful," you tell him, biting back a smile. "Let me raid your closet for an outfit." Hangman brightens. "Respectfully - my closet, my bed, the floor of my bedroom, same inventory." Phoenix does not blink. "Denied." Rooster tastes the air like a sommelier of bad decisions. "Brother, that line had dust on it." You tilt your head. "If I ever step onto your bedroom floor, it will be in a hazmat suit and for science." Coyote chokes. Payback wheezes. Fanboy claps like a seal. Bob tries not to enjoy how fast you turn that into scrap. He fails, quietly, warmly. Hangman rallies. "Okay, okay. Respectfully, I can be professional. You can still try things on-" "-in the back," Rooster cuts in, "with the door closed and Penny standing guard." "Correct," you say. "Also, fair warning: if Rooster keeps antagonizing me, I will steal one of his shirts for the occasion." Rooster clutches his collar. "Absolutely not. These are heirlooms." "Then behave," you say, sweet as a trap. Hangman inhales like a man about to sin. "Respectfully-" Phoenix smacks the back of his head with surgical precision again. "Abort." "-respectfully, I was going to offer my assistance."

You flick the brass bell without looking. The clean ring slices the chatter. You point up at the hand-lettered sign: DISRESPECT A LADY, THE NAVY, OR PUT YOUR PHONE ON MY BAR - YOU BUY A ROUND. Penny doesn’t pause her pour. “House law.” Rooster bangs the bar like a gavel. “Guilty!” Hangman freezes, then grimaces like he’s reading his own sentencing memo. “How big a round are we talking?” You spread your hands to indicate the entire Hard Deck. “All of it.” A collective “OHHH” rolls through the room. People who weren’t listening are listening now. Phoenix tips her bottle at him. “Pay the tax, Grandpa Eighties.” That one lands. Hangman’s grin flickers. He drags out his card with the dignity of a man boarding a lifeboat. “Shots and waters,” he tells Penny, loud enough for witnesses. “For everyone.” “Growth,” Coyote says, impressed. Penny swipes the card with a satisfied little smile. 

You go to work - two trays, then four, then six - quick rows of shots, longer rows of water. The bar surges into joyful logistics: strangers elbow out of the way, cadets ferry trays like acolytes, someone starts a “Jake! Jake! Jake!” chant that makes him bury his face in his hands and laugh anyway. You’re living for it - this humming, harmless chaos. You thrive when a room needs a traffic controller with a smile. You split the crowd into left bank / right bank without raising your voice. “Left side, hands up - good - pass waters first. Right side, wait for the second tray - nobody touch the bell again unless you’re me.” The energy goes sparkling and orderly at the same time. Bob watches you run the storm like you were born in it. Okay, he thinks, this is the picture: she turns a near-mess into a party, and nobody spills. You deliver to the squad last: waters down first, then shots, then a spare water by Bob’s elbow he didn’t ask for but needed. “Hydrate before you celebrate,” you say, cheerful, pointed. Rooster salutes with his water. “Yes, ma’am.” Hangman eyes the sea of lifted glasses. “That’s… a lot of people.” “Respectfully,” Phoenix says, delighting in the word now, “you should've thought about that before you volunteered your bedroom floor.” “Objection,” he cuts in, then winces as another tray sails past. “Overruled.” You lift your own glass high and the bar quiets just enough to hear you. “To the Navy, to ladies, and to not putting your phone on Pennys bar.” 

A roar answers. “To Lucky”, the squad cheers and you smile. Glass meets glass. Shots go down first, waterafter. The room tips into laughing applause - the good kind - and you grin into it, running on the current you just set. The chant dies down to a satisfied buzz. Glasses settle. Waters disappear. Penny slides past you with a shoulder check that says fine, you win, and you tip an invisible hat back at her. Rooster, riding the afterglow, props an elbow on the rail. “Look at you,” he comments, soft for once. “Turning heartache into a home.” You wipe a ring that isn’t there and let the line land. “This is my home,” you say, mock-solemn, as if accepting the deed. Fanboy blinks. “Wait - like… you live here?” Penny’s towel pauses mid-swing. “No.” Before she can elaborate, Hangman peers down the length of the bar like a man hunting for a plot twist. “Respectfully… where?” You pop the service gate, step into the staff well, and toe a small wooden ledge. There’s a narrow hatch cut into the floor - the kind of crawlspace where dead kegs go to be forgotten. You flip the latch with two fingers and lift the panel. A cool draft slides up. The room leans in.

You spread your hands: “Home sweet home.” Chaos detonates, exactly the way you like it. “No way,” Payback hollers. “She’s a basement goblin.” “Subterranean,” Coyote corrects. “Classy.” Fanboy cranes for a glimpse. “Do you get Wi-Fi down there? Asking for science.” Rooster covers his heart. “You can’t live under the tap lines. It’s unholy.” Penny drops the panel back with a thunk, deadpan as gravity. “She does not live in my crawlspace.” “I visit,” you confide, stage-whisper. “Rent-controlled.” Hangman’s eyebrows are at their legal limit. “Tell me, is there room for-” Phoenix turns on her stool, slow and lethal. “Finish that sentence and I’ll put you in the crawlspace.” The bar laughs. Hangman zips an imaginary zipper across his mouth and mimes tossing the key. (He keeps the key. Obviously.)

“You all can eat shit,” Phoenix adds, cheerful as sunshine. “I’ve been to her place.” The table goes oooh in unison. Coyote points. “Witness!” Rooster brightens instantly. “Intel drop. Square footage. Closet contents. Is there a lava lamp.” “Cute, kind, lucky,” Phoenix says. “Plants alive. Bed made. Knives sharp. Not a goblin.” Penny nods once, like the court has heard from a reliable expert. You round the rail and hook an arm around Phoenix’s shoulders. She meets you halfway, bumping her temple to yours. “Best friends,” you announce, loud enough for the section. “Best friends,” she confirms, tapping her bottle lightly to your knuckles. Hangman slumps against the bar in mock devastation. “I thought we were best friends.” “We are,” Phoenix says sweetly. “At opposite day.” Rooster fans himself with a coaster. “I’m emotionally moved by this female solidarity.” “Hydrate then,” Penny says, sliding him a water he didn’t ask for.

Bob, a step back from the crush, lets the picture assemble in clean layers: you popping the hatch and detonating laughter on purpose; Penny deadbolting reality with a single word; Phoenix stepping in with receipts; the way you both lean together, easy and unperformed. Home, he thinks, isn't a place so much as the people who can make a joke out of a crawlspace and turn it into a boundary instead of a rumor. He realizes - quietly, in that place where he keeps good truths - that he likes you most when you are chaos on purpose and kindness by default. The squad joins him but he doesn't stop watching you at the bar. You pass Penny a fresh stack of coasters like they’re ammunition. Watches you set a water beside a beer without making it a lecture. Watches you laugh when something is actually funny and sidestep every line with grace and a spine. He catalogs it all because that’s what he does: build a clean picture and keep it steady. Also because he can’t help it. Okay, he thinks, honest with himself in a way that makes his ears warm all over again. I’m gone. Not crash-and-burn gone. Instrument-rated, steady-descent gone. Manageable, survivable, inevitable. He takes a breath - four in, four out - and lets the room come back in layers: Penny’s dry voice, Phoenix’s quiet laugh, Hangman muttering old under his breath like he’s trying it on for size. The night runs its course like the tide - slow and steady - and Bob’s eyes never really leave you.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

It is the middle of April. The Hard Deck is at that perfect hum where nobody is yelling yet and everyone is happy to pretend that time does not matter. Salt is in the doorways, neon is warm, the rail is full. You are cutting limes at speed. Quarter turn, slice, twist. Your head is still half on the rent due next week and the text from your friend you have not answered yet. The knife catches on a seed you do not see. It jumps. You nick your knuckle. Not deep, but clean. A red bead swells and breaks. "Ah, for fuck's sake," you mutter first, more reflex than joke, then correct it under your breath. "Cute." Penny looks up from the till like a hawk. “You good?” "All good," you answer on instinct, but it comes out a shade too fast. You grab a napkin, press, and try to keep moving. Someone needs two lagers, someone else is halfway through an Old Fashioned story, a couple on stools needs a mediator and a water. You miss one lime wedge and have to reach back for it. It is the usual dance, just with one step half a beat off. Bob is two stools down with a Coke and the posture of a man who is not in the way unless there is a reason. His eyes catch the motion, then the red on white. He is at the service end before you finish the next wedge. "Let me see," he says, and the calm in his voice is the same one he uses when the weather drops and radios get testy. "I am fine," you start, automatic. Then a drop finds the cutting board, bright against the wood, and another follows. Your jaw tightens. Penny clicks her tongue. "Sink," she says, already passing a clean towel. "Now. I will cover the rail."

You move. Bob moves with you without asking permission, already around the side of the well. He does not come behind the bar. He stops at the opening, palms up. "Step back," you tell a sailor who has eased too close for a look. Your voice is still steady, but there is a small tremor in your fingers when you pull the knife safely out of reach. You slide past Bob and into the little stainless cave. Water on. You rinse. It stings more than you expected. You hiss a breath through your teeth and have to shut your eyes for a second. You breathe again. Bob is there, steady as the Navy, towel open in his hands. “Paper towel, firm pressure,” he says. “Then we clean and cover. May I?” You nod and hand him your hand. His fingers are gentle and sure. He does not fumble. He does not make it a moment. He is in the mindset that fixes things first and feels later.

“Four in,” he says softly, mostly for you, “hold for two. Out for four.” You do it because he does it, and because it helps. He watches your face for the flinch, then shifts the pressure so it is firm without being mean. Behind you, the bar is still being a bar. Rooster is making the jukebox misbehave. Hangman is logging crimes with his mouth. Coyote is watching you the way a friend watches when he does not want to be obvious. Phoenix is planted like a guard dog at the corner. “Hey,” a voice calls from the far side. “Two margaritas and a smile. Or just the smile.” You do not look up. Your grip on the towel tightens. “Give me thirty seconds.” “Thirty seconds is a lifetime,” the voice complains. “Sweetheart, I am dying over here.” Penny’s eyebrow climbs. “You are not dying. You are thirsty. Big difference.”

Bob finishes the first towel and lifts the edge to check. The bleed has slowed to a polite ooze. He turns to the small first aid kit that lives under the bar. You watch him clock supplies like he is inventorying a cockpit. Saline. Alcohol wipe. Sterile gauze. Adhesive. He is all quiet competence and focused hands. It would be attractive even without the fact that those hands are on you. “Sting incoming,” he warns, and then he does it. You flinch and bite down on a curse, then let out a frustrated little laugh at yourself. "That is what I get for rushing," you say, almost apologetic. You do the breath count again. He waits. He does not apologize. He just steadies your hand over the sink until the burn steps down.

“Sweetheart,” the man calls again, louder now. “We going to do my drinks tonight or after the wedding.” “After your manners,” Penny scoldse, not looking up. Rooster leans into the noise with a grin. “Buddy, if you are dying, water is free.” “I did not ask you, mustache,” the man shoots back. “House rule,” Phoenix says without turning, voice cool as the beer cooler. “You get one warning.” Bob’s jaw tightens. He tapes the gauze with neat strips, then smooths the edges so they will not catch on towels or glassware. His thumb is at your wrist for exactly one second, checking for a clean seal and a pulse that is not jumping. He does not linger. He breathes and resets like he has trained for this. "Grip test," he tells you. He folds a bar towel and puts it in your palm. "Squeeze. Again. Any pain along the joint." "Only in my pride," you joke, but this time there is a real edge of embarrassment under it. Your mouth tips, small and real. "I know better. I got sloppy for five seconds." After three seconds of silence that itch at your nerves, you cave. "You're very good at this." He blushes, of course he does, and of course he keeps going. “You should change that dressing in a couple hours. Keep it dry. If it leaks through, we rewrap.” “Copy,” you nod, and you mean it exactly the way he does.

“Sweetheart,” the man at the rail crows again. “I am still waiting. You got time to flirt, you got time to pour.” You turn your head. “I am bandaging a cut.” He smirks. “Looks like you are letting your boyfriend play doctor.” Something ticks over in Bob. He looks up, calm and very direct. “She is hurt and then she is also working,” he says. “You will wait your turn.” “Oh,” the man says, delighted like he got a bite on the line. “The boyfriend speaks.” “Customer,” Bob returns, dry as a runway. “Act like one.” There is a ripple from the squad. Rooster’s grin gets sharper. Phoenix’s eyes light like she has a front row seat and snacks. Hangman’s eyebrows go high. You step forward, but the man is faster and dumber. He leans across the brass and reaches his hand behind the rail like he is going to pluck a bottle by himself. The bell rings. Clean and bright. Penny does not even look. She just flicks it with one finger and the room tilts a degree toward her. You tip your chin at the sign. “Read the rule.” “Disrespect a lady, the Navy, or put your phone on my bar,” Phoenix recites without looking. “You buy a round.” “And you do not reach behind the bar,” Penny adds, voice flat. “This is my house, not yours.”

The man smiles like none of that applies to him. “I am just helping myself.” “No,” you say, and your voice is not loud but the air listens anyway. “You are done.” The man rolls his shoulders like a dog pulling at a leash. “Make me.” Hangman’s grin goes slow and dangerous. He puts both palms on the brass and looks to Penny. “Permission to cross the rail, ma’am.” “One time,” Penny says, eyes on the offender. “Do not break anything I will have to replace.” “Respectfully,” Hangman says, and then he is over the rail like it is a gymnast’s horse. It is smooth and quick. He lands in the well, pops a beer from the low fridge, and sets it on the bar as if he has always worked here. The man reaches for it. Hangman slides it away with a flick. “Not for you.” “Hey,” the man snaps and grabs for Hangman’s wrist across the brass. Wrong move. Rooster is already off his stool, sliding into the gap. Coyote ghosts the other side without any sound at all. Payback and Fanboy stand up like two bookends. Phoenix does not move, she just uncoils enough to make space. “Alright,” Rooster says, easy as Sunday. “You are done.” “Out,” Penny commands, pointing with a towel like a baton. “Now.”

The man yanks like he plans to argue with gravity. Hangman catches his sleeve at the elbow, turns the motion into a gentle pivot that puts the guy’s back to the room instead of into the rail. Rooster takes the other arm, not rough, not soft. Coyote opens a lane with one shoulder. It is the same choreography the Hard Deck has seen since the eighties and the floorboards like it that way. “Walk,” Rooster tells him. “Use your words outside.” The man resists for form and then realizes there is no winning here. He gets hustled toward the door. The bar makes space as if the place is trained for it. Before they reach the bell, he tries one last grab at a bottle. Hangman is faster, palm down on glass, eyes up. “Nope,” Hangman chirps, bright and cheerful. “House says no.” The door opens. The surf pushes in a breath of salt. Rooster and Coyote walk the man over the threshold and make him available to the night. He turns to make a speech. The door closes in his face with a calm click. Rooster pats the window like he is blessing a ship and turns back inside with a smile that belongs on a warning label. “Handled,” Coyote says, dusting his hands in a way that is pure theater. “Two points for choreography,” Penny praises, satisfied. “Minus one for style. Do not hop my rail again without permission.” “Yes, ma’am,” Hangman replies. He hands the beer to Penny like a good boy. She arches a brow. “You going to pay for that one.” “I was hoping you would forget,” he admits, sheepishly. “I never forget,” Penny returns. She slides the beer to a woman down the row who has been cheering under her breath. “On his tab.” Hangman salutes. The woman grins.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding and turn back to the sink. Bob is still there. He hasn’t moved - except to check your wrap once more and set a skin-tone bandage on the counter so the gauze won’t snag. His voice stays low. “He grabbed.” Measured, controlled. “Are you okay?” “I’m okay,” you tell him. His shoulders drop a notch. You set your wrapped hand in his palm for a beat and squeeze. “Thank you. For the help. For the no.” He looks at your joined hands, then up. Pink climbs his ears; he doesn’t pull away. “Anytime,” he murmurs. “Always.” 

Phoenix drifts in like this is not on purpose. She flicks a look at your bandage, then at Bob’s face, then at the door where Rooster and Coyote are already on their victory lap back to the rail. “Status,” she asks. “Operational,” you answer. “Minor damage, no mission impact.” “Copy,” Phoenix says. She taps the bandage once with the back of a finger, very light. “Good wrap, Floyd.” Bob tries to play it off and fails a little. “Basic first aid.” “You can do a lot with basic,” Phoenix says. She leans her hip to the prep table and lifts her chin at the rail. “Rooster is about to serenade the entire event unless we redirect.” “On it.” You move to step out. Bob catches himself almost steadying you, aborts mid-reach, hand hovering like air cover.“Careful with citrus,” he says. “Use the scoop. I will fetch you gloves.” “You will sit down and enjoy your Coke,” you counter, but your smile is soft when you say it.

He hesitates, then reaches into the little kit again. He pulls a bright blue fingertip cot and holds it up. “Compromise.” You laugh. “Fine. Compromise.” You let him roll it over the bandage with the care of a man dressing a violin. It looks ridiculous. It saves your evening. He knows it. You know it. Penny knows it and is already shaking her head because she is pleased. You pop back to the rail. Hangman is halfway through a retelling that ends with him as the hero, and Rooster is already changing the details to make him the clown. “Your margaritas,” you say to the couple who asked, and you set them down with a perfect salt line and the kind of grin that tells them none of that drama was their problem. “Thanks for your patience.” “Worth the show,” the man says, wide eyed. “Tip the actors,” you tell him, and flick your eyes toward Penny. He laughs and does it. Bob returns to his Coke. The label is straight. He does not touch it. Phoenix bumps his shoulder with hers. “Breathe, Bobby,” she tells him, but it is affectionate. He does. In for four, hold for two, out for four. He looks at your hand once more, sees the blue cap, sees the way you move without favoring it, sees the way you do not even glance at the door where trouble went out. His face softens in a way only Phoenix is close enough to clock.

“You did good,” she says. “She got hurt,” he argues, voice strained. “She got nicked,” Phoenix corrects. “You fixed it. She handled the rest. The bar handled the part after that.” She tips her bottle. “Team sport.” He nods. The pink at his ears is fading. His hands, those steady, careful hands, fall back to the glass. He does not spin it. He just rests his palm there, like an anchor. At the far end of the rail, Hangman is still telling the story, which has now become an epic in which he saved the beer from a violent end and also the bar from a flood. “Respectfully,” Rooster calls him out, “you hopped the fence and stole a prop.” “Respectfully,” Hangman replies, “I performed a community service.” Penny rings the bell once, not for trouble, just for punctuation. “House rule addendum,” she calls. “If you make my bartender bleed, you drink water until Christmas.” A cheer goes up. The rule is a joke and not a joke. You grin at Penny like you just won something. She tips her chin back at you like she knows. Bob sits with his Coke and a feeling that slots into place with a clean click. It is not dramatic. It is not fireworks. It is just right. You got hurt. He helped. Everyone did their job. The night kept its shape.

He thinks about saying something when you pass again. Not big, just honest. When you do, he does. “Hey,” he says, soft enough that it is just for you. “Thank you for letting me help.” You pause, just a second, in the busy. “Thank you for helping.” He swallows. “I would again, any time.” You smile, and it is a real one. “I know.” Phoenix, from two stools down, suppresses a grin and fails. “Copy,” she murmurs to herself, and goes back to her beer. The night rolls on. The bandage holds. The bar remembers its rhythm. Outside, the surf keeps time. Inside, slowburn keeps doing what it does best, which is not hurry.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Late afternoon in April, the Hard Deck is technically closed. The big windows are open to let the breeze through. The lights are half up, the music is low, and the only sounds are Penny wiping down the rail and the scratch of a pencil on paper. Amelia is at a high-top by the windows, sneakers hooked on the lower rung, hair in a messy bun that was probably neat at some point. Her backpack has exploded across three chairs. A math workbook lies open in front of her, scarred with eraser ghosts. You sit sideways on the next stool, one knee up, hoodie sleeves pushed to your elbows, pen tapping against the problem set. “No,” you say, patient but firm. “You cannot just vibe your way through algebra.” Amelia groans, head hitting the table. “I can if the vibes are strong enough.” “You wrote the answer in highlighter,” you point out. “It deserved to be seen.” You pinch the bridge of your nose like a tired middle school teacher. “Bestie, it is three times x, not the Holy Scripture.” “That is a hate crime against my process,” she mutters, but she is already erasing. The front door creaks. Penny does not bother looking up. “We are closed.”

“Not to us,” Phoenix answers, pushing in with her shoulder. She has a cardboard tray in her hands loaded with milkshakes, condensation running down the cups. Bob follows with a paper bag that smells unmistakably like fries. Penny glances over, takes in the scene - milkshakes, pilots - and lifts one eyebrow. “Bribery.” Phoenix grins. “Our sim slot got cancelled. We were already halfway to your bar emotionally.” Amelia’s head pops up. “You brought sugar?” “Hi, gremlin,” Phoenix says, detouring immediately toward her. They smack a perfect fist bump without looking at each other. Amelia peers past her, then squints. “Where did you leave Grandpa Eighties?” Phoenix stops, gives her a look, then cuts her eyes to you. “You told her.” You sip your own chunk of stolen whipped cream off the rim of a cup and have the decency not to look sorry at all. “Of course I did. Cultural knowledge is meant to be shared.” “Actually, I am fine with that - now the gremlin roasts Hangman too,” Phoenix grins. “He deserves it. His lines are giving boomer energy and…”, you add a dramatic pause, “he was born in the eighties.” Penny huffs out a laugh behind the bar. “Do not let him hear you say that in my house. His ego will crack like old paint.” Amelia swivels on her stool to look at her mother. “Relax, you are the real boomer here.” Penny arches an eyebrow. “Keep talking like that and I will not drive you anywhere for a week.” “I will just get Lucky to drive me,” Amelia says, already swiping the nearest cup out of the tray and slurping loudly. “She has a cool car and understands the internet.” “Wow,” you say, hand to chest. “Seen. Validated.”

Bob clears his throat, watching the three of you with the slightly dazed look of a man who just flew through unexpected turbulence.“I feel like I did not understand half of the words that just came out of your mouth,” he admits. Amelia lights up like she has been waiting. She points her straw at him. “New candidate for Grandpa Eighties.” Bob actually looks offended. “I am in my early thirties.” You bite back a smile. “That is what makes it worse.” Amelia nods solemnly. “Yeah, you are, like, young on paper, but the vibes are very pension fund.” Phoenix snorts into her milkshake. Penny chokes back a laugh. Bob blinks. “My vibes are what.” “Grandpa core,” Amelia says, already workshopping. “Clean sneakers, good posture, emergency granola bar energy. You probably text in full sentences.” He opens his mouth to argue, then realizes he absolutely does. You catch the moment the awareness hits and lose the fight with your grin. “Relax,” you tell him, nudging his elbow. “It is a compliment. You are the safe one.” Amelia points between you and Bob. “Exactly. Emotional support grandpa.” 

Bob lifts the last milkshake off the tray and sets the paper bag on the bar. “Do I at least get partial credit for bringing sugar.” Amelia squints at him, solemn as a judge. “Depends.” “On what,” he asks, genuinely. She taps her pencil against the table. “How is your slang?.” He glances at Phoenix like he might find a translation there. She is absolutely zero help, sipping her shake and enjoying herself. “My Gen Z slang? I know what ‘vibe’ means,” he offers. Amelia makes a horrified sound. “You cannot just say vibe like that.” “Like what,” Bob asks, honestly lost. “Like a guidance counselor,” she explains. “Also you keep calling it ‘Gen Z’ out loud. That is like saying ‘the youths’.” You are laughing, shoulders shaking, enjoying this far too much. “She is not wrong.” Bob looks at you, then back at Amelia. “What am I supposed to call it.” “Just be normal,” Amelia says. “Or say slay.” Bob blinks. “I am not saying slay.” “You just did,” Phoenix points out. You are pretty sure if you laugh any harder you will fall off the stool. “He is trying,” you manage. Amelia drags up another mouthful of milkshake, straw rattling like a warning. “Alright. Hand over your phone.” Bob blinks. “Why.” “Gen Z audit,” she says, as if that is a recognized federal procedure. “I need to see your texting style.” Phoenix snorts into her cup. “This is better than television.” “No,” you cut in, still laughing, “you need to do algebra.” Penny taps the bar twice, judge and jury. “Lucky. If your unpaid intern fails algebra, I am taking it out of your tips.” “Rude,” you say, already sliding back into your chair. “Accurate, but rude.” Amelia groans as you spin the workbook back toward her. “I am being oppressed.” “That is correct,” you say. “Now expand this bracket before I revoke your milkshake privileges.”

Amelia shoots Bob a betrayed look. “You are just going to let her talk to me like that.” Bob leans an elbow on the back of a chair, milkshake cupped in his hand. “She is helping you,” he says. “That seems like acceptable oppression.” Amelia narrows her eyes, then sighs and starts writing again, lips moving as you talk her through the steps. You lean in, elbow on the table, drawing little arrows between terms, turning the problem into something she can see. Every couple of lines, you nudge her pencil back into the right lane without making a big production of it. When she finally lands the right answer, you flick a tiny star in the margin in blue pen. “There,” you say. “Proof of life, my little gremlin.” Amelia looks at the star, then at you, and beams despite herself. “Slay.” “See,” you tell Bob without looking up. “That is how you use it.” He huffs a quiet laugh into his cup.

Phoenix pushes off the table and heads toward the bar with him. Penny has already pulled a basket out of the paper bag, fries spilling over the edge. Phoenix steals one, blows on it, and nods. “Approved.” Bob leans his forearms on the rail, shake beside him, watching the high-top in the reflection of the back bar mirror. You and Amelia bent over the workbook, heads almost touching. Amelia mumbling through another equation. You listening, really listening, and correcting with a patience that is not performative, not for tips, just for the kid who has decided you are her new favorite planet to orbit. Penny follows his gaze in the glass. “Did not take long,” she says quietly. Bob blinks. “What did not?” Penny tips her chin toward the table. “For her to pick a sister.”

You both watch as Amelia finishes another problem, then collapses sideways across your lap in relief. You squawk, shove at her shoulder, then give up and let her stay there, one hand absently carding through her hair while you check her work with the other. Something in Bob’s chest, a knot he had not really noticed, eases a little. The Hard Deck has felt like home for a while now - Penny’s domain, the squad’s second living room - but there is something different about seeing you in the middle of it in daylight, barefoot in your sneakers, hoodie sleeves shoved up, making room at the table for a teenager and her disasters. He takes a small sip of his milkshake, feels the cold trace down his throat, and lets that picture settle into place: Penny at the bar, Phoenix stealing fries, Amelia swearing at algebra, you laughing over her shoulder. Home, he thinks, is not just the night shift and the noise. It is this too. Afternoon light, open doors, the way the people he cares about have started to overlap without him really noticing when that happened. Phoenix bumps his shoulder with hers. “You are staring,” she murmurs, amused. He does not look away. “I know.” She follows his line of sight, sees the way Amelia nudges your face with her hand until you make a stupid selfie together with bunny ears. “You soft,” she says, not unkind. He breathes in for four, holds for two, lets it out. “Maybe.” Penny slides his shake back toward him and wipes an invisible ring from the bar. “Get used to it, Floyd,” she says. “This is what we signed up for when we let her call this place home.” He does not argue. He just nods, feels that knot loosen another notch, and watches you laugh with Penny’s kid like it is the most natural thing in the world.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The last day of April splits open like a ripe peach. The first truly warm afternoon pulls everyone out to the boardwalk; the air smells like salt and waffle cones. They spot you first and go a little quiet. It is the first time you have shown up with the squad when you are not pouring drinks. Hangman’s eyebrow climbs. Rooster forgets his argument with a gull. Fanboy and Payback pause mid-bit. Phoenix keeps your arm hooked in hers and answers the room before anyone can ask. “Best friends,” she says, like a stamp of approval. That breaks the spell. Coyote grins and opens his arms for a quick hello. Rooster recovers enough to salute you with a melting cone. Hangman shifts into charm and then thinks better of it. You travel with them the way you work a bar line, folding into their rhythm without taking it over. Bob finds himself at your side before he decides to be, both of you easing one step away from the noise. Elbows rest on sun-blistered rail. The ocean throws light up into your faces. For a moment the chatter drops to a warm hum behind you and it feels simple. Off duty. Same tide.

Coyote hands out napkins. Payback argues that sherbet is a personality flaw. Fanboy orders the most chaotic sundae any shop should legally allow. Rooster goes pistachio again, because of course he does. Hangman buys a scoop and calls it lunch. Bob gets to the window first, cash already in his hand. “Two,” he tells the teen at the register, flicking a glance at your strawberry. He hands the bills over before you can fish for your wallet. “Hey,” you say, half protest, half smile. “You do not need to. It is fine.” He shrugs, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “Purely to stay your favorite.” You look at him, the noise of the boardwalk slipping a notch. “You do not have to bribe me,” you says, softer now, so it lands only where he is standing. You pass him his change like a secret. “You already are my favorite.”

Heat climbs his neck. He remembers to breathe for four, hold for two, out for four. Phoenix watches the handoff with a small, satisfied smirk and turns away like she did not see anything at all. You take the cone, bump his knuckles with your ring finger, and drift back toward the rail. He follows with his vanilla-and-cherry ribbon, trying not to grin and absolutely failing. Then he sees the way your strawberry melts at the edges and has to breathe for four, hold for two, out for four. His brain offers several unhelpful thoughts at once. None are suitable for a sunny boardwalk with friends. He files them with the care of contraband and keeps step beside Phoenix and you.

You are in your day off setting. No bar to run. No bell to ring. You walk in half turns, talking with your hands, making them laugh without trying. Phoenix matches your stride like you have been walking together for years. Rooster drifts on the outside like a brother who will body-block a bicycle if it gets ideas. Hangman prowls ahead, then back, then ahead again, orbiting your cluster with a grin that says he wants to narrate the day for future historians. You lick a red streak off your thumb and Bob nearly trips over a knot in the board. He recovers with the dignity of a man who wants to earn a doctorate in pretending nothing happened. Phoenix sees it. Of course she does. She bumps his shoulder, soft as a nudge from a wingtip. Breathe, Bobby. He does.

You are halfway through explaining to Rooster why pistachio is a personality when the crowd parts and two familiar silhouettes slide into the boardwalk light. Penny in a linen shirt and sunglasses she did not pay retail for. Maverick in a faded tee, grin that says he knows everyone and everything within a hundred meters. Your face lights like the string lights at the bar. “Parents,” you announce, and you are already moving. You fold Penny into a hug that is quick and real, then wrap Maverick without asking. He laughs, surprised and pleased. “Look at you,” Penny says, hands on your shoulders the way only she is allowed. “Off duty and upright.” “Barely,” you laugh, “They made me eat ice cream.” Maverick looks over your head to the Dagger herd. “Corrupting the bartender,” he scolds, falsely stern. “Shame.” “Corrupting is Hangman’s department,” Phoenix replies, dry. “We are just bystanders.”

Hangman spreads his arms like a game show host. “Respectfully, corruption is a public service.” He clocks the hugs, then points between the three of you. “Hold on. If they are your parents, then who are we.” You look at the squad and tip your head like you are deciding where to shelve them. “Neighbors who never return Tupperware.” Rooster wheezes. Coyote bows, wounded. Payback clutches his chest. Fanboy says, “Fair.” Hangman presses a hand to his heart. “I might not be your dad, but you can call me daddy.” “Gross,” Phoenix fake gags, without a blink. Penny’s eyebrow climbs with the precision of an aircraft instrument. “If you say that near my bar, you drink water all night tomorrow.”

“Counteroffer,” Hangman tries to appease, already retreating. “I call you landlord and pay rent in compliments.” “Rent is due first of the month,” Penny reminds him playfully. “Compliments do not clear.” Maverick claps him on the shoulder with friendly menace. “Careful, Lieutenant. She enforces.” “Copy,” Hangman says, properly cowed and grinning anyway. Rooster points between Penny and Maverick. “Double trouble on a date night. Should we clear airspace.” “We are actually civilized in public,” Penny reminds them and smiles. Maverick tips you a look that says he is filing this scene under Favorite Things. “You look happy,” he adds. “I am being supervised,” you explain, hooking a thumb at Phoenix. Phoenix slopes an arm around your shoulders like she has always done that. “Best friends perks,” she tells Maverick who smiles at that.

Penny turns to Bob, who has been present the way he always is, steady and not grabbing attention. She gives him a quick, approving nod that somehow contains two full sentences: thank you for looking out for her and do not be weird about it. “Evening, Floyd,” Maverick says, amiable. Bob manages a “Sir,” that does not choke on itself, small miracle. Hangman cannot help taking one last run at the bit. “So if they are Mom and Dad, and we are the neighbors, what does that make Bob.” You glance at Bob, then at Penny, then at Maverick, and decide to save him and roast him at the same time. “The only neighbor trusted with a spare key.” Rooster cackles. Phoenix smirks. Bob goes pink around the ears and still somehow stands taller.

Penny looks pleased enough to hide it. “Alright, children. Curfew is when the streetlights come on and you tip your bartender.” “House law,” Rooster says. “House law,” you echo, shoulder bump to Penny. She bumps back. Maverick salutes with a paper cup of something that is not water. “Carry on. Try not to get banned from the boardwalk.” “Try not to get banned from the Hard Deck,” Penny adds, eyes cutting to Hangman like a laser line. “Crystal clear.” Hangman salutes overly dramatic which makes Coyote bark a short laugh. Penny kisses your cheek, quick. “See you tomorrow, Lucky.” “Of course,” you say, and you mean it. The squad moves on down the boards in a loose formation that feels a lot like family, which is exactly how you like it.

Phoenix returns to your side. “Best friends,” Phoenix confirms again, smug and soft. You hook your pinky with hers. “Best friends.” Rooster wipes at a sugar smear on your cheek with the corner of his sleeve like the brother he has decided to be. “Family service,” he pronounces. “Gross,” Hangman says, grinning. “Adorable,” Coyote corrects. Bob watches you and decided that Lucky, off duty, is still Lucky. You stop at the rail above the beach. Sun on water. Gulls doing their chaos. Rooster squares everyone up for a group shot. “Phones up. Tall in the back. Beautiful in the front. Jake, if you blink I am making you a meme.” “I do not blink,” Hangman tries to argue, immediately blinking. Phoenix tucks herself to your left. Bob ends up to your right by some invisible math that favors him today. When Rooster counts down, you lean a little into both of them, easy as a porch swing. The shutter pops. Payback demands one more. Fanboy insists on candid only. Coyote captures you mid laugh when salt spray tags Hangman’s ankle and he does a very brave hop. “Send me that one,” Phoenix says over your head, already typing. “Frame it for the briefing room,” Rooster adds. “Morale poster. ‘Hydrate. Tip Lucky.’” “And do not narrate other people’s business,” you deadpan. The boys groan into their cones. They drift toward the pier in pairs. Phoenix detours you into a souvenir shop and comes out with a packet of star stickers because she knows what a chalkboard looks like with stars on May nights. Rooster buys a hat he does not need and gifts it to you with fanfare. You put it on anyway. Hangman tries to pay for every water bottle in a five meter radius and gets shooed away by a clerk who is not susceptible to his grin. Coyote just walks and listens and smiles like the day has done him a personal kindness. Bob hangs back with you and Phoenix as the group stretches out. You take a bite that threatens to drip and he instinctively turns a napkin so it hits your hand at the right angle. You take it without looking. Your fingers brush. It is nothing. It is everything. Respect sits right beside want in Bobs chest and somehow both feel clean in the sun.

They find a patch of sun on the steps and collapse in a happy heap. You end up between Phoenix and Bob. Hangman narrates cloud shapes. Rooster starts a rumor that Penny has already adopted you as an heir. Fanboy takes a video and swears it is for archival purposes. Coyote texts Penny a photo anyway. There is a very fast reply. It is a heart. Penny would deny it in court. A breeze lifts the edge of your shirt and Bob looks away hard enough to study a distant sailboat for tactical intel. His mind, a traitor, offers him an image he does not accept but does not deny: the taste of strawberry on your mouth, the heat at your wrist where a pulse beats, your laugh caught against his throat. He locks it all behind a breath count and sets a watch on the door. Four in. Hold. Four out. He is a gentleman. He is also very human. Want does not make him careless. It makes him steady.

“Beach,” Phoenix announces. Rooster rolls his jeans and bullies everyone into one more photo, toes at the foam line. The cold water shocks yelps out of half the squad. You laugh bright and free. Bob files the sound under necessary things. When a small wave tags your ankle higher than expected, you grab Bob’s forearm for balance. His free hand hovers, then lands light at your waist because physics. He is careful. He is warm. He lets go first. The tide is lazy and the first warm day has everyone ankle-deep at the foam line. Rooster’s rolling his jeans with theatrical suffering. Hangman’s daring the ocean to notice him. Phoenix shades her eyes and calls, “Ten minutes, no heroics.” You toe the lip of a wave, cold licking your ankles. Bob is beside you, shoes off, cuffs neat, that careful posture that says he’s calculating current and footing like a checklist. Another small swell hurries in; you skip back; he chuckles, quiet. “Cowardice,” Hangman declares from a safe distance. You take one step toward the next ripple on principle - and a larger one sneaks under, catches both your shins, and soaks your hem. You yelp; Bob laughs, an unguarded, bright sound you haven’t heard outside the bar. “Alright,” you say, eyes narrowing at the ocean like it insulted your rail. “War.” You splash him. It’s not much - just a flick of water at his calf - but the grin that appears on his face is illegal in three states. Something bold slots into place. He glances once at Phoenix (permission), once at you (consent), and then - arms out - steps forward and lifts you at the waist, easy as a training dummy.

“Bob!” you squeak, laughing already. “Shallow,” he promises, breath close to your ear. His forearms bracket your hips; your hands catch his shoulders without thinking. He walks you out three strides - only mid-shin, really - and sets you down into the swash as the next cool sheet runs over your feet. You gasp, then laugh, and your body does that thing laughter does when someone’s hands are still around your waist: it leans in. “Traitor,” you accuse, beaming. “Operational necessity,” he says, equally helpless with smiling. “Acclimatization protocol.” Behind you, the squad loses their minds. “Boooooob!” Fanboy starts the chant. “Bob! Bob! Bob!” Payback and Coyote pick it up like a drumline. “Respectfully,” Hangman yells, “that’s my move! Also - phone check!” Phoenix, already five steps ahead, has plucked your phone from your back pocket mid-lift like a magician and is holding it high, dry, and smug. “Handled,” she says, then adds, “Don’t drop my best friend,” with a warning that lands like affection.

Rooster jogs sideways along the foam line to get angle. “Light’s perfect - hold it, lovebirds!” You and Bob, mid-laugh, mid-splash, mid-everything, turn toward the shout. He doesn’t move his hands from your waist; you don’t move yours from his shoulders. The wave thins into lace around your ankles. The sun throws gold onto the water and catches in the corners of your smiles. Rooster clicks. Phoenix clicks, too - one beat later - from a closer angle, the one that catches the way your foreheads almost tip toward each other like you’re about to tell a secret you haven’t earned yet. A cooler surge surprises you both. You lurch; he steadies - broad palm flattening at your lower back, other hand firm at your side. You feel him breathe - four in, two hold, four out - and your chest just decides to match. For a heartbeat there’s nothing but breath and laugh and the ridiculous joy of cold water and warm hands.

“Okay,” Phoenix calls, sheriffing the moment before it gets ideas. “Back to dry land, Baywatch.” Bob eases you in, fingers splayed through denim and cotton as if the fabric might try to run away. He sets you down like you’re something he respects (you are) and steps back a polite inch that still leaves heat where his hands were. You shake water from your cuffs and flick some at his shin. “Retribution,” you announce. “I deserve worse,” he says, grinning. “True,” you answer, grinning back. Hangman meets you at the sand with a towel he absolutely stole from a stranger’s dog and claims is communal property. “Domesticity!” he declares, flapping it at your calves like a pageant coach. Phoenix steals it from him and does the job properly, thwacking his arm in the process. Rooster trots over with his phone. “Exhibit A,” he says, turning the screen: the photo is indecently adorable - your head tipped back in a laugh, Bob’s mouth open on one of those rare full smiles, his hands at your waist, surf fizzing white around your ankles. The sun hangs just where a cinematographer would put it. “Send it,” you say, with the courage of a person who forgets she blushes later. “Group chat, obviously.” Phoenix’s phone buzzes. She looks, then looks at Bob, then at you. “I’m keeping this one,” she decides, and does not specify where.

Bob’s own phone vibrates. Phoenix, of course, has already forwarded the close angle to him privately. No caption. Just proof. He glances, then locks the screen fast, as if sunshine might see too much, and tucks the device away. When he looks back at you, it’s there in his face anyway: that possibility he keeps letting live a little longer every day. You wring out your hem; he offers the towel properly this time; your fingers brush and linger a single second past necessary. The squad peels back toward the boardwalk like a flock that knows where to go when the sun tilts. As you fall in beside Bob, sand sticking to your ankles, you bump him with your shoulder. “Bold, Bob.” He keeps his eyes front and lets the smile live in his voice. “Temporary lapse.” “Try another lapse sometime,” you say, casual as weather. “Permission pending.” “Copy.”

Behind you, Rooster is already workshopping captions; Fanboy is lobbying for a sticker pack; Hangman is bargaining with the universe for a photo where he looks that happy. The foam lifts, the warmth holds, and somewhere in the camera roll of this day there’s a picture of laughter and hands and shallow water that everyone pretends is just a photo - while both of you know it’s a waypoint. When the cones are gone and the tide line creeps up, the squad migrates back toward the parking lot in that lazy, summer-is-coming pace. Rooster insists on one last selfie in the gold light. Everyone squeezes in. You end up against Bob’s side as bodies compress. Hangman complains about elbow room. Phoenix tells him to shrink his ego. The shutter clicks. In the quiet after, you scroll your photos and stop at the candid Coyote took on the steps. Your head tipped back, laughing. Phoenix laughing with you. Bob looking at you like the horizon line finally made sense. You feel that one land in your chest. You lock the screen before you start inventing storms, then unlock it and set it as a favorite anyway.

At the cars, there is the choreographed mess of goodbyes. “Text when you get home.” Rooster messes your hair and then fixes it like a decent brother. “Try not to start a bar fight without me,” he says. “Bring your wallet if you do,” you return. Hangman opens his arms like he expects a tackle. You pat his chest and step around him on purpose. He howls like you broke him. Coyote offers a palm for a high five that turns into a quick squeeze. Payback and Fanboy orchestrate a group chant about May being legally required to be fun. Bob lingers. He does not know if he is allowed to hug you. He wants to. It shows up in the way his hand half lifts and stops. You solve it. You step into his space and put your arms around him for exactly long enough to be unmistakable and not long enough to start a rumor. “Thanks for today,” you say into his shoulder. “Somtimes I forget I get to be a person out here.” His arms come up, careful at first, then sure. He breathes, and you feel it. “You make it easy,” he says, then hears what he said and winces a millimeter. You do not let him. You squeeze and let go.

The squad watches because they are terrible and wonderful. Rooster cups his hands. “And that is our show. Tune in next month for Hydrate, Tip Lucky, part two.” Phoenix flicks his ear. “Mind your business.” He grins. “Brotherly concern.” Hangman fans himself with a parking ticket. “Can someone get me ice. The chemistry is a heat hazard.” You roll your eyes and backpedal toward your car. “Bye idiots,” you say. “Bye Lucky,” Rooster says. Phoenix gives you ride. Bob opens the passenger door because it is there and because he is him. You slide in and catch his eyes over the roof for a beat that feels like a held chord. It is not a kiss. It is not nothing. “See you at the bar,” you say. “See you at home,” he says, then shakes his head at himself, flustered and honest. “I mean. The Hard Deck.” You smile. “Same thing.”

The Hard Deck always comes alive before the sun goes down, like the surf carries in all the noise and energy of the base with it. Fighter pilots do not walk into Penny Benjamin’s bar so much as storm it, their boots heavy on the worn wood floors, shoulders carrying bravado as if their flight suits have not been peeled off for even an hour.

Tonight is no different. Salt air slides through the open doors from the beach and mixes with beer, varnish, and lemon cleaner. The long bar curves under brass rails, glassware stacked in neat towers, taps hissing and quieting in quick bursts. A ceiling of model jets hangs over the bar, and beyond that the rest of the ceiling is ringed with ceramic mugs, names hand painted, rattling softly when the music bumps. Squadron patches and plaques crowd the walls. Pool tables sit under low lamps, chalk dust hanging faint in the light. A dart board ticks as flights trade throws. The piano waits near the windows, scarred and tuned enough for a sing-along when someone cannot help themselves. The bell over the door gives a clean note with each new arrival. Outside, the deck catches the last gold of the day; inside, neon warms up and string lights begin to glow. The room hums like a ready engine. Penny moves along the rail with quick hands and quicker eyes.

The Dagger squad arrives in their usual formation: Hangman is leading the pack with that smile that could light up a hangar, Coyote on his shoulder, Rooster strolling in with his aviators tucked into his Hawaiian shirt like he thinks it is still 1986. Phoenix is right behind, chin high, stride confident, and Bob… well, Bob Floyd trails just a half-step off her left shoulder. Like always. A bar is not the place he would choose if he actually had a choice. The bar isn’t his kind of place - too loud, too full of people who thrive on attention. However, when Phoenix shoots him a look upon hesitating at the door, and Bob, being Bob, follows. He isn’t here for the music, the drinks, or the laughter that carries across the floorboards. He is here because he is supposed to be. Being a part of the team means showing up, even when he would prefer a quiet evening with a book and maybe a ball game on TV. It is great for team building, or so he tells himself when the night runs longer than he wants and everyone gets drunker than he likes. He sticks to soda and water, watching and taking mental notes. He is sometimes annoyed, but mostly amused. On more than one occasion, he is stuck with driving a drunk Rooster or Hangman or Fanboy home. Mostly, he just listens to them bicker and banter and joke. They try to get under his skin, but even when he doesn’t seem to, he can hold his ground. At least against them - they are his friends; he knows them; they are predictable; and Bob is good at reading them. That’s what makes him such a good WSO. He knows all the scenarios - everything that has to be known. He runs through the options, knows the steps, and learns what there is to know. Of course, unpredictable things happen every day in an elite squad such as the Dagger Squad - new sims or different weather conditions, a small change in the technicalities - but Bob’s knowledge and ability to predict make the unpredictable bearable and easier to handle.

They drift to their usual spots. Hangman puts on a show at the pool table, Rooster claims a stool by the jukebox like he owns it, and Coyote heads for the bar, already waving to Penny. Phoenix rolls her eyes at all of them and tugs Bob along, dropping onto a barstool with the easy confidence of someone who belongs there. And Penny Benjamin notices. She always does. Her radar was sharper than any jet, they like to joke, and no one doubts it. She can feel a bar fight coming before the first insult, spot a sailor about to be sick before he turned green, and catch a pilot about to say something dumb before he opened his mouth. But tonight she seems different. Lighter. Almost giddy. Bob blinks. He has never seen Penny like that. Amused, yes. Patient, yes. Stern when she has to be. Excited and giddy is new. He smiles. It suits her. The hard edges that come from fending off too many guys and running the place for years is softer tonight.

Penny leans over the bar, grinning at Phoenix and Coyote as she slides their beers across. “You kids behave tonight. I’ve got something special coming in.” Hangman, never one to miss a chance, turns away from the pool table with a smirk. “Special? What, are you finally putting karaoke back on? Because I’d kill to hear Rooster massacre another Springsteen song.” Rooster scoffs. “Hey, the ladies liked it.” Phoenix rolls her eyes. “The ladies left.” Laughter ripples through the group, but Penny just shakes her head. “Not karaoke. Karaoke is for summer. I’ve got someone new coming in to help behind the bar. You all better be nice - and keep an eye out for her.”

That gets their attention. Rooster cocks an eyebrow, leaning back on his stool. “New bartender? Penny, you sure about that? Thought this was your kingdom.” Penny laughs, the kind of laugh that meant she knew something they didn’t. “Still is. But trust me - she’s going to fit right in. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll treat her like gold.” Hangman tilts his head, already grinning. “So… is she pretty?” The question hangs in the air like bait. Coyote groans, Phoenix mutters something about testosterone poisoning, and Bob… well, Bob shifts in his seat, cheeks warming. He keeps his eyes down, tracing the condensation sliding down his soda glass, pretending he isn’t listening too closely.

Penny’s grin widens. “Pretty?” She leans back and crosses her arms, eyes bright. “Real pretty. The kind of pretty that will probably bump my tips by about eighty percent.” That draws a whistle from Payback, who just joined the group with Fanboy in tow. “Oh, so that pretty.” The bar hums around them. Glasses clink. The jukebox rolls into another classic. Chalk dust hangs in the air from the pool table where Hangman just broke a rack a little too hard. Phoenix hides a smile behind her bottle, then gives up and lets it show. “You guys are pathetic.” “I’m persistent,” Hangman shoots back. “Big difference.” “Annoying is the word you’re looking for,” Rooster mutters into his beer, then laughs. Hangman raises his hands in mock defense, acting like he is innocent. “Hey, I’m just trying to get the lay of the land here. Penny brings in someone new, I’m naturally curious.” Rooster tips his chin toward Penny, one elbow on the jukebox like he owns it. “Curious is one word for it.” Laughter moves through the group in a loose wave. Shoulders loosen. Someone taps a bottle on the bar in time with the music. Coyote drums a short rhythm with his knuckles, then grins at Penny like he is trying to pry more details out of her without asking.

Bob stays quiet. He knows this rhythm and he lets it pass him by. He stands a half step behind Phoenix, soda sweating in his hand, and watches. He is not good at this kind of talk and never has been. He does not flirt like Hangman or strut like Rooster. He is not bad with women, exactly, he just does not push. He waits. He reads the room. He notices the small things. Penny keeps glancing at the door between pours. Her ponytail is a little tighter than usual. She has cleaned a clear spot at the end of the bar like she wants it open for someone. The regular at the corner stool tries to catch her eye and fails. She misses him on purpose.

But still, when Penny’s words settle - “real pretty” - something tugs at him. “Any other details?” Coyote asks, humoring Hangman. “Or are you just going to let him suffer?” Fanboy flicks a quarter toward the pool table; Hangman snags it out of the air without looking. Rooster laughs like he already has a plan he should not have. Bob stays still. The room keeps moving, there is the clink of glasses, low music, a burst of laughter, but his attention hooks on the door, on Penny’s easy grin, on the way the air seems to hold its breath. Something is coming. Something is about to happen. He feels it. For some reason, he is nervous, like he is just starting a new sim, unchartered territory threatening to erase the predictable and it makes him feel uneasy. A tingling shivers down his spine and he takes a sip of soda to calm his nerves. Sugar, fizz, a bite that clears his mouth. Phoenix bumps Bob’s shoulder, a light touch that says she knows he is quiet and that it is fine. He shoots her a grateful smile. His heartbeat settles into a count he knows from training. In for four, hold for two, out for four. He steadies his breathing without thinking about it. 

Penny checks the wall clock, then the door, then wipes the same clean spot on the bar again. The tap lines hiss and quiet. The register drawer thunks, and somewhere near the back a crate shifts with a dull scrape. Fanboy laughs at something Payback says, too loud, then cuts it off like he remembers to keep it down and that today it is important to behave. Hangman twirls the quarter across his knuckles. Rooster leans against the jukebox and watches the entrance like he expects fireworks. Phoenix bumps Bob’s shoulder again, a quick nudge that says she sees him. He glances over. She has that small, knowing half smile, the one that tells him to breathe. He gives her one back, tight but real. He feels the tension move through him and out, not gone, just lined up where it belongs. He resets his scan. Door. Penny. Clock. Team. Back to the door. He listens for the little cues he always trusts. A change in the crowd noise. The bell above the hinge. The first step across old floorboards. He cannot name what is about to happen, only that the air has shifted and the room feels as if it is leaning toward the entrance.

“Alright, c’mon,” Hangman drawls, his grin bright even in the dim light. “Don’t leave us hanging, Penny. You can’t drop a bomb like ‘she’s real pretty’ and not give us more.” Penny chuckles and dries a glass with a practiced flick of the towel. She knows they are all dying for her to spill the tea. “Details? She is smart. Funny. Sharp as a tack. Knows her way around a bar, and do not think you can pull anything on her. She will cut you down before you finish your first bad pickup line.” “Oh great,” Phoenix says, dry. “Another me.”  “Except prettier,” Penny teases. Phoenix gasps, half offended, half amused, and Penny winks. The room erupts again as the bar fills in around them: pool balls crack, the jukebox hums, glasses clink. Bob tries to tune it out. He reminds himself none of this matters to him. He is not here for a new bartender. He is not here to scope out anyone’s looks. He is here because Phoenix insists, and because being part of this squad means being part of the noise, whether he likes it or not. But still… curiosity nibbles at him.

Hangman cannot let the topic go.  “So, Penny… scale of one to ten?” Penny’s laugh comes low and certain, the kind of laugh that makes the squad lean in without thinking. She sets her elbows on the polished wood, towel slung over one shoulder, eyes bright with amusement. “Scale of one to ten? That is insulting. She breaks the scale.” “Oooh,” Payback sings again, trading a grin with Fanboy. “That kind of pretty.” Bob keeps his eyes on the condensation sliding down his glass, though his ears burn. He tells himself he does not care, tells himself he is not curious, but the chatter hooks him anyway. “Alright, alright,” Coyote says, leaning in, grin sharp. “But is she like pretty pretty? Or just good lighting at the bar pretty?” “Shut up,” Phoenix laughs, shoving his shoulder with the back of her hand. Penny shakes her head and smirks. “She is the kind of pretty that makes men stupid. You will see. I give it five minutes before one of you says something you regret.” Fanboy lifts his hand. “I would like to volunteer Hangman as tribute.” “Hey,” Hangman protests, palm flat over his chest. “I have not been laid in-” he pauses and counts on his fingers with mock care, “-like four days. Which means in about three more I am going to be unbearable. So I call dibs.” Rooster nearly spits his drink. “Four days? You are acting like that is a drought. Christ, Bagman, normal people go longer than that without throwing a tantrum.” “Normal people are not me,” Hangman fires back. “It is not a lifestyle. It is a service. I keep the ecosystem balanced.” Phoenix rolls her eyes so hard Bob thinks she might sprain something. “You mean you keep the ecosystem polluted.”

Laughter cracks around the table and bounces off the rafters. Ice clinks. The jukebox slips into another track with a warm click. Even Penny chuckles as she tops off glasses with practiced ease, her hands moving faster than the jokes. She is not done teasing. “Do not get your hopes up, boys. She is smart. Funny too. Quicker on her feet than any of you. You try your usual lines, and she will laugh you straight out the door.” “Ouch.” Coyote presses a hand to his heart. “That is cold, Penny.” “That is truth.” Fanboy leans forward, elbows on the bar. “Okay, but smart, funny, and that pretty? You sure she is real, or is this one of those Navy ghost stories?” Penny’s eyes twinkle. She sets a fresh glass on the clean spot she saved and taps it with a finger. “Oh, she is real. And trust me, she will outshine you all without breaking a sweat.” Bob lifts his soda, takes a slow sip, and keeps listening. The room swells and settles like a tide. He tries to stay outside the current. He fails, just a little.

Hangman stretches in his chair, all bravado. “Please. I have never met a woman who could resist this charm.” Phoenix does not blink. “You have never met a woman who has not resisted it.” The table erupts again, and even Bob hides a smile against the rim of his glass. Still, the words stick. Pretty. Smart. Funny. He tries not to picture what that looks like, tries not to imagine the kind of woman who can fluster Penny Benjamin of all people. He keeps his eyes on the condensation sliding down his soda, counts his breaths, listens to the jukebox hum and the soft crack of pool balls. Curiosity slips in anyway. It moves under the noise the way a crosswind moves under a wing, quiet but firm, finding hold where he least expects it. He tells himself to let it go. He does not. He feels it settle, light and certain, as if the room is already making space for someone he has not met yet. Hangman circles back to the topic, once again. He leans back on his stool, pool game abandoned, arms crossed like he is already plotting angles. He tips his chin toward Penny. “So what you are saying is, she is gorgeous, witty, and unattainable. Great. Sounds like my kind of challenge.” “Do not even start,” Phoenix warns, jabbing a finger at him. “Leave her alone.” “Relax,” Hangman drawls, easy as a Sunday. “I will be a gentleman.” Rooster snorts without looking up from the jukebox. “You would not know a gentleman if he hit you in the face.” 

Penny smirks and slides fresh beers down the bar, each bottle landing with a soft knock. “Trust me. She can handle herself. I am not worried about her. I am worried about you boys.” She nods toward the group, eyes bright. “She is going to eat you alive, leave you heartbroken, and when you wake up in the morning, you are going to want her to do it all over again.” The boys hoot. Payback bangs his palm on the bar. Fanboy whistles low. Coyote laughs and raises his bottle in a doomed toast. Hangman soaks it in like it is fuel, that lazy grin sharpening at the edges. “Sounds like someone I should meet,” he says. “Sounds like someone you should avoid,” Phoenix fires back. She turns on her stool and fixes him with the look that shuts down most bad ideas. It slows him, but it does not stop him.

Penny keeps moving, collecting empties, tucking cash into the register, but her attention keeps drifting to the front door. “House rules stand,” she says, not looking at Hangman. “You treat her with respect or you drink water the rest of the night.” “Crystal clear,” Rooster says, holding up both hands. “I, for one, am a perfect gentleman.” Phoenix rolls her eyes. “Since when?” The bar hums around them. Bob watches it all from his perch beside Phoenix, soda sweating in his hand. He notes the way Hangman shifts forward like a sprinter at the blocks, the way Rooster keeps glancing at the door though he pretends he is not, the way Penny polishes the same spot twice and then checks the clock again. He tells himself none of this is his business. He is here to be part of the noise, not the story. But curiosity keeps edging closer, steady as a tide. He is not going to get drawn into this. He is not going to wonder. He is not -

The bell over the door rings. A thin draft slips across the floor, carrying a salt edge from the beach. Conversations catch for half a second, like a record skipping. Penny looks up first. Then the ripple moves through the room and everyone follows. Bob’s eyes go with it before he tells them to. He holds his breath, keeps the count steady, and fixes on the entrance. The door swings wider. Low sun spills through the gap and throws a bright band across the worn floorboards. For a beat the light turns the figure in the doorway into a clean outline, all shape and suggestion. The jukebox hums under it, the pool balls settle, glassware quiets on the bar. It feels as if the room pulls its shoulders back and waits. Light slides off the door as it eases shut. The glow from the windows and the overhead bulbs picks you out like a follow spot, finding edges, catching on hair and eyes and the line of a smile that is not quite there yet. Cool air rushes in behind you and folds into the warmth of beer and wood and old varnish. Penny’s mouth curves like she has been expecting this exact second. Hangman straightens on his stool without meaning to. Rooster’s hand stills on the jukebox like he has forgotten what he was going to play. Phoenix tips her chin, measuring. Coyote’s fingers leave a rhythm mid tap.

You step inside. The door snicks closed. Your shoes find the first strip of light on the floor, then the darker wood. Heads turn and then try not to look like they have turned. The bar’s chatter starts again, but softer, as if testing the air. Penny’s towel stills. She reaches for a clean glass and sets it down in the space she cleared earlier. And just like that, Bob’s resolve unravels. He does not move. The soda stays cool in his palm. He does what he always does: he notes the details. You scan the room once, calm and sure. Your shoulders settle like the space fits you on the first try. You give Penny a quick nod, half a smile, a clean signal passed. Something eases in the bar, as if a held breath finally leaves the room. A small smile rises in Bob’s chest before he can stop it. Something has arrived, and everyone knows it. He does too.

You are not what he expects, and then you are exactly it. The way you carry yourself is confident and easy, graceful without trying. It looks like you belong here before you even clear the threshold. For a beat he thinks you belong in better places, maybe heaven or something, and then he sees the way the room bends around you and decides you already own this one. Your outfit is simple and precise. Jeans, mid blue, snug at the seat and upper thighs, then straight down to the ankle, no flare, no fuss. Clean seams, a neat hem, a faint whisker at the hip where the denim breaks. On top, a bright, punchy color that jumps against the warm wood and old brass of the bar and against all the navy and khaki in the room. The neckline is not modest, but it is not too much either. Just enough to keep a man guessing. Bob realizes he is thinking about that and feels heat climb to his ears. They go a little pink. He looks away for a beat, then back, the way you would check an instrument panel and then check it again. And it looks like you have fun getting ready, already expecting to turn heads. The color of your top pops like you chose it with the room in mind, the liner matches it on purpose, a clean line that says steady hand, good eye, and zero doubt about how it will play under bar lights.

Your steps are unhurried. Your shoulders settle, your weight is centered, your pace is easy. Heads turn, exactly as expected. You move with a light sway, unforced and sure, the kind that turns heads and makes men and women both feel you could have them on a string if you wanted. The door clicks shut behind you and the draft fades. Hangman straightens without knowing it. Rooster forgets the jukebox for half a second, mouth slightly agape. Phoenix watches your posture and nods to herself. Penny’s grin says this is what she has been waiting for. She grins like a co-conspirator who finally gets to reveal the surprise she has been teasing all night. Bob tries to keep his breathing even and fails just a little. He reads the room, then reads you again. Calm stance. Balanced stride. Eyes that take in what they need and try to skip what they do not. He tells himself he is only observing, like always. He knows he is lying a little. Curiosity has him now, and he feels it in the warm edge of his ears and in the way his attention keeps finding you, as if the rest of the room slips a shade darker and you come into focus.

Someone whistles low. It is probably Hangman. “If that is her, then I will not have any trouble keeping an eye on her.” Rooster laughs, loud enough to carry. “I don't think I will ever be able to keep my eyes off her.” The comments hang in the air like smoke. Penny tips the sign at the bar. “Disrespect a lady, the navy, or put your cellphone on my bar, you buy a round.” Bob feels annoyance flicker, a tightness across his chest. It is not jealousy. Not yet. It is the careless way they say it, like you are a game on a board and not a person who just walked in and changed the weather. Then you glance up. Your eyes sweep the room once, steady and sure, and catch on him. Just for a moment. A clean lock. The bar noise thins to a soft hum. Bob’s breath stalls on the count and then starts again. Heat lifts in his face. He does not look away. He cannot. In that heartbeat he knows he is a goner, and the knowledge is simple and absolute, like a switch flipped on.

You walk straight for Penny and the squad. You know exactly how you move. You always do. It is not arrogance. It is fluency. And maybe you have it easy, because the room moves for you. A sailor already two beers deep almost trips over his own feet trying to clear your path. Your hand finds his arm, steady and light, and you give him a smile that makes him feel like the only man in the world. “Be careful,” you say - nothing grand, just a gentle warning - and he looks at you like you have handed him scripture. You leave him standing and keep going. You learned a long time ago that a room will take whatever it can. So you decide what to give and in what measure. Tonight you give them a little entrance. Not too much. Just enough. Your hips carry that natural sway, unforced and sure, your straight-leg denim skimming clean lines, the bright top catching the lights, the sharp eyeliner cutting a precise wing when you turn your head. Heads tilt. Voices dip. Space opens. You let the moment breathe. Air seems to change temperature, tasting like a half-meant promise whispered in cheap sheets between two people hooking up for the first time, or like you are barely letting them in on the edge of a secret. And then you narrow your focus - Penny first, then the squad - and the rest of the bar falls in behind you as if it has been rehearsing this beat all night.

Penny leans across the bar, eyes bright. She looks both proud and a little delighted with herself, like a magician whose trick finally landed. She does not try to talk over the noise. She does not need to. She is Penny. She taps the bar once. “There she is. Right on time.” You set your bag behind the bar as if you have done it a hundred times before and pull her in a hug. Hugger, Bob notes, of course you are. “Traffic was light. Hi, Penny. Good to see you again!” It is earnest like you greet an old friend, it is real and kind. “Come meet the zoo,” Penny says, already half laughing. She gestures with the towel. “Dagger Squad, the second Lady. Second Lady, this is the Dagger circus.” You lean an elbow on the rail, easy and balanced. “Hi.” Your voice carries just enough to reach the group without pushing. “You might just start to call me your new favorite bartender right away!” “Hey!”, Penny scolds, laughing, “I am only accepting that because I know you will make the tip jar overflow!” As to prove the point, the sailor to steadied earlier drops a bill in the glass. You smile and wink, to no one in particular - Bob blushes a little nonetheless. 

Your eyes slide to the other woman in the circle and you smile. “Phoenix,” she says, offering a hand. Her grip is firm, palms faintly calloused, nails short. She wears a dark tank and jeans, hair pulled back without a single loose strand out of place. Her gaze is level, assessing, not unkind. “Welcome.” “Thanks.” You clock her fast: leader energy, protective spine, dry humor sitting right behind the teeth and kind eyes. You like her already. Your gaze shifts towards the boys. “Bradley. Rooster if you want attention. Bradley if you want good behavior,” calls the one at the jukebox, shirt loud, aviators tucked into the collar like an accessory he refuses to retire. He leans on one elbow, casual confidence in every line. Mustache neat, he smiles like he is not dangerous at all. “I take requests that make Penny mad.” “He is right,” Penny says, sliding a glass down the rail with practiced accuracy. She shoots him a look that is half warning, half fond. “Also, his trick is to serenade you. Do not fall for it.” Rooster spreads his hands and shrugs, already guilty. You smile. “What brings you to our favorite bar besides a tragic weakness for pilots?” Now you laugh. You wave him closer and he follows, already wrapped around your finger. He just doesn't know it yet. He stops right in front of the bar, right in front of the bar. You look up to him, lashes full and you can see that he swallows a bit harder. “Tips,” you say, tapping the jar, then your fingers find the two sides of his open shirt, slightly tugging. “And the chance to dress better than at least one of you.” You let go of him and Phoenix laughs. Rooster mutteres something under his breath and retreats back to the jukebox, suddenly being overly invested in selecting the next song. Payback flashes a grin. “Reuben, Payback. I will be your most responsible customer.” “You just lied in front of witnesses,” you say, but you do it with a smile that lets him enjoy it. “Fanboy,” Fanboy offers, already half laughing. “I am a delight.” “You are,” you answer, and slide him a water he did not ask for. “Pace yourself and I will believe it after midnight.” You take notes: Payback is all bright eyes and fast charm, sleeves rolled, watch scuffed from use. Fanboy is quick on the bounce, sneakers tapping a quiet beat, grin ready to launch. Coyote gives a small bow with the bottle. “Javy. Coyote. My hobbies include good manners, heavy lifting, and preventing Hangman from ruining things.” “Finally,” you smile, like a judge who has found one honest man. “We will get along.”

Hangman lingers at the edge, posture straight like a challenge he wears for fun. He waits until the others finish, then steps into the pocket of space at the rail like he owns it. He straightens - shoulders back, chin up, shirt crisp, fresh shave catching the bar lights. The grin arrives first, bright and easy, the kind that says he enjoys the game as much as the win. “Hangman,” he introduces himself, offering a hand across the brass. His grip is firm, temperature warm, confidence dialed to “effortless.” “Jake, if you are feeling friendly. I am usually told I am trouble in the best possible way.” You meet his hand without flinching, gaze unwavering. He has to look away first but he does it with a smile that speaks respect. He looks back up and gives you that practiced grin. “What do you like to be called?” “For now you can try favorite bartender. If you earn it, you can level up to my actual name.” He laughs and then grins again. “Or, how about I call you mine?” It catches you offguard but only for such a short moment no one notices. “How about we try please and thank you first? If you behave, we can discuss advanced titles in a few months.”

Phoenix snorts into her bottle. Coyote’s mouth ticks up. Payback murmurs, “Oof,” like he just watched a clean landing. Hangman keeps the grin but his eyes sharpen, competitor to competitor. “So there is a path to promotion.” “There is always a path,” you say, friendly and playful . “It starts with respect and tips.” “All I am hearing,” testing the line as he charts the territory, “Is that you can be bought?” It skirts the edge. Penny’s smile falters for a beat. Phoenix shifts, ready to step in and protect you. Bob goes still on his stool, spine straight. He does not like it when Hangman slides into casual disrespect. His fingers leave his glass and fold on the bar like he is bracing. Then you laugh, light and sure, and the tension eases a notch. Bob’s shoulders drop, breath steady again. “You have seen right through me, sweetheart,” you tease, voice sweet with sarcasm. “But there is no way in hell you can afford me.” The table pops. Rooster barks a laugh. Payback smacks the bar once. Fanboy wheezes, “Budget cut.” Even Coyote lets the grin loose. 

Hangman bows his head like he accepts the point against him. “Noted.” He lifts both palms. “Respect it is.” “Good start,” you say. “Now buy Phoenix’s next round if you want to keep playing.” He does not blink. “Done.” He drops a card on the rail. “Keep them coming. Add one of whatever you are drinking!” You laugh, bright and easy. “You know I drink for free, right? I work here.” Penny clicks her tongue in mock disapproval. “Rule number one: When they offer to buy, you take it!” You snap a salute to your forehead. “I will have a beer.” Penny’s smile returns, clean and bright. “Good,” she says to you. “Better,” she points at Hangman. She runs the card, flicks the receipt. “Sign like a gentleman.” Hangman signs. Phoenix gives you a small nod that says thanks and also I see you. You tilt your chin back, message received. You set a cold bottle in front of Phoenix, a water beside it, and slide your own beer to a safe corner. “I saw you were ready to step in,” you say, grateful, “Thank you.” “Girls support girls,” she answers. You clink bottles with Phoenix and the moment settles - clean, simple, understood. 

Then your scan lands on the quiet one at the end of the rail. It is not like you have not noticed him - you have, the whole time you had been here: quiet, shy, polite, handsome in a special way. Your favorite kind. Shoulders squared but not stiff, plain tee, careful hands around a sweating soda. You wait to see if he makes the first move. He doesn’t. So you look at him. His eyes are attentive, not grabbing. He meets your gaze and holds it - a little nervous, a lot sincere. When you face him, you turn your whole body, not just your head. The bright top catches the bar lights, your matching eyeliner cuts a clean line, and you give him your full attention like he is the only person in the room. “And you are?” you ask, gentle. “Bob,” he answers, then clears his throat. “I mean yes, Bob. Robert Floyd. Everyone says Bob.” His fingers find the glass, then leave it like he remembers not to fidget. “Hi.” “Hi, Bob,” you say, and it lands soft. “Nice to meet you.” He nods, then tries again. “Welcome to the Hard Deck. I mean Phoenix said that already, I just wanted to say it too. In case you did not hear it. From me.” You let a small laugh lift the edge of your smile, not sharp, just warm. “I hear it. From you. Thank you.” He looks like he is searching for safe ground. You give it to him. “You fly?” “WSO,” he tells you. “Back seat. Mostly. I mean that is the job.” He swallows, then braves a look. “You have already improved Penny’s throughput by about twenty percent.” 

“Throughput,” you repeat, amused. “High praise. Are you grading me, Bob?” He blushes, but stays with you. “Only if you want the extra credit.” That gets a laugh out of you and a small wince out of Rooster, who clocks that you are actually enjoying this. Hangman groans, theatrical. “Come on. Since when does Bob get the headline slot?” “Because he waited his turn,” you reply, not looking away from Bob. “And because he spoke to me like a person.” Payback puts a hand to his heart. “Ouch. Direct hit.” Fanboy points at Bob. “He is hogging the attention.” “He is not,” you say. You tip your head, eyes still on Bob. “He is earning it.” Bob tries for steady and almost gets there. “What do you want me to call you?” he asks, careful. “I will you tell you later,” you say, eyes bright, the ghost of a wink. “If you treat me well, I may let you upgrade by last call.” Hangman tosses his hands. “Unfair advantage. He did not even use a line.” You glance over at the boys for the first time in a minute. “Exactly. He did not use a line.” You let the words hang just long enough to land. “He seems like the most gentleman out of all of you.” Phoenix snorts into her beer. “Finally, someone with taste.” Rooster raises both palms. “I can be a gentleman.” “You can,” you say, kind but not promising. “Practice makes better.” Coyote grins. “Coach us then.” “I just did,” you tell him. “Listen. Ask. Do not reach behind the bar. And do not forget the tips.” That earns you a round of laughter. Penny slides past with a stack of empties and a laugh. “She is already training you.” 

“Of course,” you laugh. “It comes in the job description. Bar lady, cleaner, PR gag, babysitter.” Penny laughs. You clap your hands once. “But alas: I am here to work.” Hangman leans in, not quite over the rail but testing your space. “And what does that mean exactly?” You smile and step into his orbit without ceding an inch. Your right hand lands flat on his chest. You feel his heartbeat tick up under your palm. “As I said. Babysitting. Cleaning. Shaking drinks. Flirting. Smiling at everyone like they are the only person in the room.” You drift one inch closer. “Mainly, filling the tip jar.” You catch the jar with your free hand and slide it between you. You hold his gaze. He reaches for his wallet without breaking eye contact. He pulls out a bill. You lift your fingers from his chest to his elbow, then walk them down his forearm, slow and deliberate, until you reach his hand. The room watches. You pinch the bill from his grip, drop it into the jar with a neat tap, then give him a gentle push back and break the stare. Phoenix bursts out laughing first, Penny right behind her, then the rest of the squad. Hangman looks like he has seen a ghost. The boys holler. He is flustered past recognition. “Damn,” he mutters, finding his balance. “You are mean.” You laugh and slide him a beer. “On the house,” you offer, and then boop his nose. “Oh my god,” Rooster cackles. “Killshot.” They all laugh, even Hangman, who takes the beer like a good sport. You turn back to the rail and drop into motion now. 

You drop into the work and the bar fits you like a glove. The Dagger squad scatters - some drift to the pool table, others crowd the jukebox - but they all give you space to work your magic. Even Bob slides into a booth with Phoenix, Fanboy, and Payback, though you keep catching him watching; every time your eyes meet he looks away too fast, then looks back like he cannot help it. You and Penny click in five minutes - no bumps, no calls, just clean passes and quick grins like co-conspirators. You cut off a drunk with grace, swap a full water without a scene, dry glasses, shake tins, and pop caps like you were born behind a rail. The tip jar grows heavier by the minute, helped along by the way you make each person at the bar feel like they are the only one in the room - just for a moment, just long enough to leave a bigger bill and a little lighter heart.

After about an hour, you orbit back to the Dagger squad with fresh bottles in hand. You drop a beer for Phoenix, one for Coyote, another for Payback and Fanboy, then turn to Bob with a capped bottle. He is already lifting a hand to wave off when you twist the label toward him. “Coke,” you say. “Tastes better from the bottle.” He smiles, trying not to let his heart trip. “You noticed,” he says, almost disbelieving. “Of course,” you answer, giving him a soft smile you reserve for your favorites. He misses that; Penny doesn’t. You set the Coke on the table in front of him. His hands, big, steady hands that make something in you shiver, go to his wallet, fumbling for a tip. You place your hand over his. Warm. Sure. Bob’s breath hitches; his thoughts short-circuit. “Don’t,” you stop him, gentle. He takes a sharp breath, searching for words. “But I thought you said… the tips… for being liked?” It is painfully, perfectly sincere. You lean in a little. “Don’t worry, Bob,” your voice is low and meant only for him, “You I already like.” You straighten and start back toward the bar. Halfway there, you glance over your shoulder. Bob is still watching, ears pink. You let a small smile find him before Phoenix catches his attention with a comment and you slip back into the flow behind the rail. The room hums on; your rhythm never breaks. 

“Real smooth, Bobby,” Phoenix teases, and Bob snaps his eyes off you like he has been caught. “Relax,” she adds, bumping his shoulder. “It is cute.” Payback grins. “Man’s got manners. Rare species.” Fanboy nods, solemn. “Endangered, even.” Bob tries for normal. “It is just a Coke.” “Sure,” Coyote says, easy. “And the moon is just a night light.” Hangman and Rooster roll back from the pool table a beat later, riding the energy. “So,” Hangman starts, setting a cue on his shoulder, “has anyone mentioned the jeans?” Rooster whistles low. “Tailored by angels.” Bob goes very still. He has noticed. Of course he has - he could write a brief on it and wants to die at the thought. “Eyes up, gentlemen,” Phoenix reminds them, but she is smiling. Bob clears his throat. “They are… fine.” “Fine,” Rooster echoes, amused. “Academic term.” Hangman leans in. “And the top? Color match on the eyeliner? That is advanced tactics.” Bob’s ears go pink. He reaches for his Coke like it is oxygen. “Can we not-” “We can,” Phoenix says, merciful. “But also, he is right.” She tips her bottle toward the bar just as you dip behind the rail to grab a rack of clean glasses. The squad’s conversation stutters; the angle gives an unavoidably perfect view. Rooster bites his smile. Hangman looks at the ceiling like he is being tested by a higher power. Coyote mutters, “Focus” to no one in particular. Bob looks. Just a beat too long - his mind slips, quick and uninvited, into a thought he would never say out loud. Heat spikes; his face goes bright.

Phoenix tuts once and the boys jerk their eyes up like cadets. Bob drags his eyes up so fast he almost knocks his Coke over, breath catching like he has pulled too many Gs. He keeps his gaze on the condensation sliding down his bottle, fighting a losing battle with the heat in his face, but a helpless, private smile steals across his mouth. You straighten with the glasses and turn, grinning - you know exactly what that little move does. A customer calls for you and you pivot, all warmth and ease. He cracks a joke; you laugh, full and unguarded. Bob watches, helpless. Phoenix leans in, voice low: “Breathe, Bobby.” He nods, counts in for four, out for four, and risks one quick glance - just in time to catch the small, secret curve of your mouth as you flick him a look that says you see him.

The night refuses to end. The bar stays crowded longer than usually, like the room is holding its breath while you’re still on shift. Tips pile up; half the faces have names you know. Your squad has taken over a long table. Penny’s there. You still owe her a question, so you slide over. Bob’s at the end. You rest a hip on the bench’s worn back; it brushes his shoulder. He goes still, every muscle pulled tight. He feels your heat radiating off you from running around the whole evening. It almost burns him, but in a good way. You throw a smile in the circle, crossing your arms. “There she is, my lucky charm!” “Aww,” says Phoenix, “That is too cute!” “I have an idea,” Rooster throws in, “Second Lady is formal. Favorite bartender kinda desperate, and Penny was here first. So, how about we call you Lucky?” You cock your head. “I like that,” you smile and it is soft. Rooster looks so proud it looks like he might explodes. Your grin turns wicked. “But don't let it get to your head, chicken boy!” “Lucky,” Bob says like he is tasting the name on his tongue and he likes the way it tastes. You like the way it sounds when he says it. “About that actually,” you say smiling, “Filling your tip jar and being a flirting menace, I would like to introduce myself properly to the crowd. If you don´t mind?” Penny chuckles. “Darling, this bar has been your stage since you walked in. I feel like everyone is waiting for your big show anyway.” 

You beam and beeline for the rail. The squad rises and drifts after you, wanting a better view. And you - you live for this. You plant a foot on the brass and step up onto the railing - Penny would yell at anyone else, but with you she just shakes her head and grins - and two young cadets steady your hands like you are holy relics. They are pink-cheeked and breathless, this happening will replay this in their heads for months; you are pretty and you know it, and you wear that fact like good jewelry - never loud, always undeniable.

You do not need to clink a glass or call for quiet. You just stand there, bright top catching the lights, eyeliner sharp as a cue line, straight-leg denim clean as a runway, and the room looks up. Conversations taper. The mug rings rattle once and settle. The surf outside becomes the only background noise for a heartbeat. “Evening, Hard Deck,” you say, voice easy, carrying. “I am your new bartender. You may call me Lucky.” A ripple moves through the crowd; the name sticks as if the walls themselves nod. You tip your chin at the room. “House rules are simple: I flirt, I pour, I keep you happy. You behave, you tip, you leave the rail alone, and you do not teach me how to make the drink I have already made since before your first push-up.” Laughter breaks, warm and loud. You let it crest, then hold up a finger. “I am here for a good time,” you add, smile bright, “and I am strict when I have to be. Think of me as the safety brief with better eyeliner.” Bigger laugh. Penny points at you with the towel like an exclamation mark. Hangman shades his eyes theatrically. “Maybe,” he calls from the pool table, “I am in love, actually.” You look his way without missing a beat. “Maybe,” you return, “you are on water after this.” The howl that follows makes him snap his mouth shut and bow with both hands, laughing. You sweep the room with a glance that lands, for a beat, on Bob - end of the bench, shoulders squared, eyes wide and sincere - and you feel the tug to stay there. You do not. Not yet. You throw the energy back to the whole crowd.

“Now,” you say, lifting a hand toward the bar, “shots. One round on me. Penny’s pick.” Penny taps the side of a bottle with a knuckle - decision made - and the bar erupts in cheers. You hop down like a cat, the cadets easing you to the floor as if they have just escorted royalty. You pat one shoulder, wink at the other, and they look like they might ascend on the spot. “They are going to have wet dreams about this for months,” Fanboy utters. Coyote laughs. “You are just jealous.” “Maybe a little,” Fanboy sighs. “Sure wish that would have been me,” Hangman contributes to the discussion and they all laugh. 

You and Penny move as one: trays out, shot glasses fanned, bottle tilted, a fast white line of liquid catching the light. Phoenix slides in at your flank with a tray like she has always worked here; Coyote stacks glasses two high; Payback and Fanboy ferry the first wave toward the pool tables; Rooster clears a patch by the jukebox with a grin that says he is about to cause trouble and call it art. Hangman actually behaves, corralling the back row so no one elbows the rail. Bob is there too, at your shoulder, making sure no one elbows the trays from your hands. You feel his quiet presence, solid and close, your back brushing his chest as you pivot. His breath hitches, just once, and you smile without looking, steadying the glasses as if you planned the moment together.

The jukebox coughs, then hits a clean synth stab: Hall & Oates, Maneater. The room cheers like it willed the song into being. You laugh and lean into the rhythm as you pour, hips marking time, natural, unforced, the same easy sway you walked in with. Bob’s eyes flick down, just for a heartbeat, to the line of your sway and the curve it draws; heat sparks, guilt nips, and he jerks his gaze back up. Deciding you are more than fine on your own, he returns to where he left his coke and takes a long pull, trying to drown the sudden, unruly thought in cold sugar and bubbles.

Across the room, Rooster lifts his beer and salutes you with two fingers from the brim. Phoenix stands beside him, shoulder to shoulder, amused and watchful. You lift a hand, kiss the tips of your fingers, and toss it - half to Rooster for the assist, half to Phoenix for having your back. They immediately bicker like siblings. “It was for me,” Rooster insists, mock wounded. “In your dreams,” Phoenix says, stone-faced, but the corner of her mouth betrays her. “Lucky loves me,” Rooster goes on, then turns to the jukebox like he plans to prove it with a playlist. “Lucky tolerates you,” Phoenix corrects, knocking his shoulder with hers.

You move through the crush, handing off shots with a rhythm that keeps the line fluid. “Left bank!” you call, and the crowd surges as one, then eases when Penny repeats you. You lip-count, split a bottle perfectly across the last row, and tag the tray to Bob’s table with a little flourish. You hand out the shots. Hangman takes his with both hands like an altar boy and mouths behave to himself; Rooster salutes you again because of course he does; Coyote winks; Payback and Fanboy over-celebrate on purpose. You arrive at Bob last. “I know you don't drink. But third rule of the bar: If a shot is on the house, everyone drinks,” you lean in closer, “But of course you can say no.” “In fact, he cannot,” Hangman protests and you shrug your shoulders. Bob doesn't like to be pressured to drink, but he finds he doesn't mind it so much with you. Also, he doesn´t want you to think that he is a coward and a boring loser. So, he grabs his glass. Lastly, you grab yours. 

Phoenix lifts hers: “To Lucky”. And the squad echoes, grinning over the rims. He holds his shot but waits, eyes on you like he is following instructions only he can hear. Instead, you hook your arm into his, interwinding your limbs. He follows, and you exchange a deep look. It is the first time Bob doesn't falter and you realize that maybe under all his shy and polite facade there is something else. Bold Bob that slumbers under the surface and you decide that you have a mission: Bring him out, however that might happen. And then you take the shot together. The moment the liquid runs down his throat, Bob realizes it is water and not alcohol and for a moment he asks himself whether its possible to love someone after a few hours and barely any conversation. Glasses meet the table and Rooster claps Bob on the shoulders, impressed. Bob shoots you a look, grateful and you just smile softly. He helps you collect the glasses and carry them over to the bar. “Thank you for that,” he says quietly. You smile. “No one should have to drink when they don't want to”. You saunter off, getting ready to close out. Bob watches you for a moment longer, then returns to the table. 

The chorus hits - “Oh, here she comes” - and the bar becomes a sing-along. Even Bob sings along, a bit more quiet than Rooster but voice still there. You throw a glance to Penny; she throws one back: perfect. You skim the rail, slide waters into hands that do not know they need them yet, swap two coasters before a spill can happen, cut off one sailor with a smile that saves his pride and your floor. When the last shot goes, the tip jar is visibly heavier; someone tucks a twenty under the glass with reverent care. You grab Pennys hand for a second, twirling her and she does the same. You laugh freely and Bob cannot help but watch, the way a pilot watches the horizon line: steady, grounding, a little in awe and a little in love. 

Penny rings the bell for last call, and the room begins to pour out in slow waves - no one hurries, not when you are still here. People make it their mission to say goodnight, each angling for a sliver of your attention, and you give it gladly: a touch to a shoulder, a promise to remember a name, a joke clean enough to carry home, a quick side hug. Bob watches and decides that deep down you do not do this for the bills in the jar. You do it for quieter reasons: to ease a fresh breakup, to pull a laugh out of a bad day, to nudge someone toward a dream they almost left on the table. As the crowd thins and the string lights warm the wood, he sees you moving through the last few goodbyes with full hands and an open face, and he thinks: this is what right looks like.

Only the Dagger squad hangs back. You clock it the moment last call thins the room - these are Penny’s people, the ones with permanent seats in a place that does not do reservations. It is not so much entitlement as gravity; they belong here the way patches belong on a flight jacket. They bicker and laugh in low, familiar tones while you and Penny slide into the close-down rhythm. You move fast because fast is how you keep the tired from catching you. Glasses upside down to drain, bar mats lifted and rolled, taps locked, limes wrapped, garnish well covered, ice dumped and the bin wiped dry so it does not sweat overnight. Penny counts a drawer by touch, lips shaping numbers without sound. You chase a ring of beer you missed, swap a wet rag for a dry one, square the bar tools so tomorrow feels clean from the first minute. The jukebox clicks to a soft hum; the string lights shift from bright to warm. Outside the deck breathes salt air into the doorway and lifts the edges of your shirt just enough to cool skin that has run hot all night.

Exhaustion tries to settle in - new faces, new names, loud noise, miles of steps traced behind the rail - and you let it almost get you. Then you look up and catch Bob watching. He stands with the others, shoulders squared but not stiff. His eyes are steady, attentive, never grabbing. When you meet them, something in your chest loosens. You release a breath you did not realize you were holding. The ache in your calves eases. The noise in your head settles. You find new motivation for the last stretch: Stacking chairs. Payback and Fanboy are arguing over something. Hangman and Rooster spar over pool bragging rights, all noise and no harm, voices dropping when Penny glances up. It is easy background music after the crowd: friendly, contained, the kind of sound that makes a place feel safe. 

“Alright,” you say, clapping your hands once. “Show is over. Time to put the room to bed.” Phoenix reaches for a towel, purely symbolic. “I am here to supervise.” “Excellent. You can grade us,” you joke and Phoenix laughs. Chairs start to climb up onto tables. You hook one at the back with two hands, flip, and set it down on felt without the legs squealing. You are halfway through the row when Bob moves in beside you and mirrors the motion, careful and exact. He lines his chair up to match yours like alignment matters. It does, though no one but you and Penny ever notices. 

“You know,” you say - still not looking at him because you are busy pretending you are not flattered - “I am perfectly capable on my own.” “I do not doubt that,” he says - and then the rest jumps out before he can stop it, pure and unfiltered. “But a pretty woman like you shouldn't have to do the work.” The sentence lands, true and a shade too loud. He hears it the way you hear it - old-fashioned at best, perilous at worst - and it is too late to call it back. Color climbs his neck fast. Coyote hoots. Hangman slaps a hand over his own mouth like an airhorn he is trying not to blow. Bob shoves his glasses up, words tumbling. “I mean - you can. I know you can. I just thought - it is late - and I can lift the heavy ones.” Penny does not look up from the cash drawer. “He is a real gentleman,” she singsongs, delighted. Phoenix leans a hip to the bar, grin sharp as a wing. “Careful, Floyd. She is going to make you carry the building to prove a point.” You hook the next chair and flip it onto the table - slow, theatrical. “So,” you circle back, drawing it out, “you think I am pretty.” Bob makes a tiny, helpless sound that might be a yes and might be a prayer and might just be him choking. He looks like he is going to die if someone does not throw him a line. 

Rescue arrives in the shape of Rooster, who drapes an arm around your shoulders with the kind of respectful ease that asks first without words. You let him. Rooster, sensing the skid, snaps his fingers at the jukebox instead. “Hey. Who killed the music? Bagman, if you put on power ballads again I’m staging a coup.” Laughter bumps the moment off its axis, just enough air back in the room. You fight a smile and lose. You slide a chair halfway off the floor with one hand and point to it with the other. “Since the gentleman is volunteering, heavy ones are yours.” “Yes, ma’am,” Bob says, relief and determination colliding. He steps in, lifts the chair clean, and you feel the knot of the moment loosen. You can’t help watching the way his biceps press against his sleeve, fabric pulled tight like it might test a seam. So he does hide something, you think, and the thought slips a smile onto your mouth. Phoenix clicks her tongue in approval. Coyote offers a low “Attaboy.” Hangman mimes fanning himself. You glance at Bob as he sets the chair up top - steady, careful, no showboating - and let the verdict land where he can hear it. “Pretty good,” you praise.

His ears go pink, but his smile - small and real - stays… for exactly three seconds. Then the spiral starts. You can almost see the gears turn: She thinks I think she’s pretty. I said “pretty woman.” I did say it. Out loud. Everyone heard. Did I imply she can’t lift? She can lift - she just lifted. Chair ratio? Why am I thinking about chair ratios? Abort. His hand goes to his glasses though they do not need fixing; he re-squares the chair he already placed perfectly, checks his palms for nonexistent dust, then reaches for another like manual labor might save his life. And then the spiral dives: She probably thinks I don’t think she’s pretty because I didn’t answer. I want her to know I do. I want to say she’s pretty - no, not pretty, angelic. Tell her I’d marry her on the spot - wait, what, too fast, way too fast - oh God, I am so gone. He swallows, sets the next chair with surgical care, and you watch him tie himself in neat, adorable knots. You watch him try to tidy his way out of embarrassment and let him suffer - for one delicious beat - because it is adorable. The way he over-corrects. The way his focus narrows to the exact angle of wood on wood, as if the bar will grade him. The way his mouth presses like he is drafting an apology you have zero interest in accepting because none is needed. The corner of your mouth curves; you let him twist for a heartbeat longer - because it is cute - then you drift close enough for your sleeve to brush his and say, soft, “Breathe, Bob.” You hook the next chair and give it a token lift so he can take the weight. When he does, your fingers brush his for half a second - warm, steadying, intentional - and his shoulders drop a notch he did not know he was holding. “Copy,” he manages, voice low. You tip your head, amused. Cute, you think, and you let him see exactly that in your smile before you turn to wipe one last ring from the bar. 

Closing goes fast after that. Chairs up, mats rolled, tills counted. Penny throws the deadbolt; the neon snaps dark; the string lights dim to a warm hush. Salt air slips through the cracked door, lifting the edge of your shirt, cooling skin that ran hot all night. Phoenix calls goodnight and peels off with the others one by one - Coyote’s “later,” Payback’s two-finger salute, Fanboy’s wink, Hangman’s theatrical bow, Rooster’s off-key hum trailing him out. You wipe one last ring from the bar and set the rag down. Bob lingers at the threshold with an empty Coke bottle, courage gathering. “I just-” he starts, adjusts his glasses even though they sit fine, and tries again. “I just want to make sure you know that… I think you’re pretty.” Plain. Earnest. No safety net. You blink, then smile - soft, surprised, pleased. He panics at his own honesty, gives a tiny nod like a salute, and bolts. By the time he hits the lot, your laugh follows him out - not mocking, warm and bright - and lands between his shoulder blades like a hand. Mist beads on his sleeves as he reaches his truck. He shakes his head at himself, helpless grin spreading, and thinks - hopelessly, happily - I am so gone.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

Morning hits the squadron like a slap of jet fuel and sun. The Dagger team files into the ready room - coffee, folders, flight bags - still shaking salt air out of their hair. The door swings shut; the projector hums a low idle. On the whiteboard, today’s sim blocks wait in neat rows. On the table, someone has smuggled in a bag of powdered donuts.

“Roll call,” Phoenix says, dropping her helmet bag and taking the end seat like always. “Vitals?” “Hydrated,” Coyote reports, flipping his notebook open. “Mostly.” “Over-caffeinated,” Payback adds, lifting his cup. “Chronically charming,” Hangman says, sliding into a chair and kicking one heel onto the table until Phoenix tuts and he drops it. Rooster strolls in last, aviators perched on his head inside like a menace. He pauses by the whiteboard, uncaps a marker, and writes in big block letters: LUCKY.

“I like Lucky. It is better than Second Lady,’” Phoenix says. “It is also a promotion,” Rooster declares. “Effective immediately.” “On what basis?” Hangman asks, feigning official tone. “Throughput improvements, morale boost, and…” Coyote scrawls a bullet list under Rooster’s header, “Mastery of boundaries, precision pours, and calling Bagman on his nonsense.” “Objection,” Hangman says. “Overruled,” Phoenix answers. Fanboy leans back, chair creaking. “Lucky fits. The room changes when she walks in.” Payback points at the board. “We doing patch colors for her eyeliner too? Because last night was dead-on crimson.” “Crimson means mischief,” Coyote intones, like it is doctrine. “Crimson means you idiots need water,” Phoenix says, but she is smiling. Bob takes the chair beside her, quiet, notebook already open, pen lined up perfectly with the margin. He is not talking. He is trying very hard not to.

Rooster notices and can’t help himself. “So, Bobby.” He props a hip on the edge of the table. “On a scale from ‘respectful’ to ‘ready to carry the chairs and call her pretty woman,’ how are we feeling about Lucky this fine morning?” Bob’s ears tint a shade that would register on the HUD. “Respectful,” he says, measured. “Copy,” Phoenix says, deadpan, but her mouth curves. Hangman steeples his fingers. “New bar rule: if Lucky steps on the rail, you stand. You don’t look up her -” “Say it,” Phoenix warns. “-up… and clap politely,” Hangman finishes, palms out. “I’m evolving.” “You’re on thin ice,” Coyote says, but he is laughing. Payback shakes the donut bag. “I say we formalize. New bartender, new callsign, new SOP.” He clears his throat. “Section One: Title - Lucky. Section Two: Respect - non-negotiable. Section Three: Lines - do not try them; she invents better ones in her sleep.” “Section Four,” Fanboy adds. “Tips. You will tip like your mother raised you right.” Rooster pushes the marker toward Bob. “You want to add a section, Professor?” Bob blinks. “I’m not-” “He’s Professor now?” Hangman says, delighted. “Working title,” Rooster says. “Go on, Professor.”

Bob considers, then stands, awkward for half a second, then steady, and writes beneath the list: LISTEN. ASK. DO NOT REACH BEHIND THE BAR. Phoenix nods once. “There it is.” Hangman points his pen like a mic. “Speaking of Lucky - you told her that you think she is pretty, didn’t you?” A beat. Bob blinks. Bob looks away, then back. “Yes,” he says, the honesty dropping like a clean bomb. “I did.” Silence holds for a heartbeat before Payback goes, “Attaboy.” Rooster nudges, “Look at that - Bob’s turning into a heartbreaker,” and heat climbs into Bob’s ears. “Who knows, maybe we’ll see a ‘Baby on Board’ sticker soon,” Hangman adds, and Bob almost sprays his coffee; for one wild second his brain skids - what it would be like if you and he - nope, abort - he chokes on the sip and Phoenix thumps him between the shoulder blades. “Easy, Floyd. Breathe.” Bob is saved further embarrassment by no other than Maverick. Maverick strolls in, coffee in hand, flight bag over his shoulder, eyebrow already halfway up. He takes a look at the whiteboard. “Alright, which one of you is going to explain the new fan favorite? Penny can’t stop talking about her, and apparently neither can you.”

Coyote doesn’t miss a beat. “The love of my life.” “Gross,” Phoenix says, deadpan. Hangman leans back, laces his fingers behind his head. “My new wet dream.” “Extra gross,” Phoenix pulls a grimace that speaks disgust. Maverick’s eyebrow climbs the rest of the way. “Dial it back, Lieutenant.” Rooster caps the marker, nodding at LUCKY on the whiteboard. “She will be the death of Bob.” Bob goes very still, then tries to drink from a cup that is not in his hand. Phoenix slides his actual coffee toward him without looking. Maverick glances between the name on the board and Bob’s ears turning pink. He laughs, low and pleased. “Now I have to meet her.” “Hard Deck,” Rooster says, like he is offering coordinates. “Tonight.” “House rules,” Phoenix adds. “You behave, you tip, and you do not reach behind the bar.” “Copy,” Maverick says, amused. “Penny’s already briefed me.”

Then he claps his hands once. “Park the romance until 2000. We’ve got weather and fuel to tame.” The brief rolls: winds aloft, divert fields, contingencies. They break for the line; sun hits the tarmac like a spotlight; helmets click, ladders climb, canopies drop. Taxi comms crackle alive. “Dagger, check in,” Phoenix says. “Two, up.” “Three, up.” “Four, up.” “Five, up.” “Six, up.” “Seven, up.” “Eight, up,” Bob finishes, voice steady. There’s a beat of clean radio silence - then Rooster can’t help himself. “Quick administrative: eyeliner pool for tonight. Ten bucks a head. I’m on Purple.” “Put me on emerald,” Coyote says. “Mischief with restraint.” “Gold,” Payback adds. “Celebration.” “Black, classic,” Fanboy says. “Never misses.” “I’m taking navy,” Bob says before he can stop it. “Steady.” Hangman snorts. “Of course Professor picks navy.” Phoenix tuts once - audible even over UHF. “Radio discipline.” Maverick’s voice drops in cool as a shadow. “Copy Phoenix. Shut the betting chatter down, Dagger. Save your donations to Lucky’s tip jar for after we land.” Rooster: “…Copy.” 

Up in the clean air, Bob runs the checklist, eyes on the horizon line - steady, grounded, a little in awe. He thinks about navy eyeliner and a squared coaster, about a small smile saved for him alone, and the word that fits in his chest like it belongs there: Lucky. He breathes in for four, out for four, and smiles into the mask where no one can see. They test fly the entire day. It is long and tiring, but they are all ready for tonight. They meet again in the briefing room to discuss. “Notes?”, Phoenix asks. “Crosswind on final felt squirrelly,” Coyote says. “Tower was napping,” Payback adds. “Bagman talked too much,” Rooster offers. “Bagman always talks too much,” Phoenix concludes, then flicks her pen at Bob. “Floyd?” “Fuel planning was tight but within margins. Good calls all around,” he says, even and spare. “Good job everyone”, Maverick concludes. Phoenix collects the donut bag like a trophy and, without ceremony, pockets the eyeliner pool cash in a manila envelope. “Hard Deck at 2000,” she says. “Hydrate, wear deodorant, tip Lucky.” “Mission critical,” Rooster says solemnly. “Mission adjacent,” Phoenix corrects, but there is no heat in it. “Copy,” Maverick calls from the doorway, already halfway to the line shack. “Try not to get us banned.” 

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The Hard Deck hums like it remembers last night. String lights warm, model jets silent overhead, the surf folding and unfolding against the pilings. The squad pushes through the door in formation - Hangman already scanning, Rooster already detouring for the jukebox, Coyote already claiming a corner of the rail. Penny clocks them and tips her chin to the far end. “Brace yourselves.” You’re there. Navy eyeliner, crisp and sharp - no shimmer, just a clean wing that could cut a man’s bad decision in half. Navy top, too, a deep tone that makes your eyes look like the part of the ocean that keeps its secrets. You’re laughing with a pair of chiefs, one hand on the tap, the other palming the cash drawer without looking. The color hits like déjà vu. Coyote whistles low. 

“I owe Bob money.” “We all owe Bob money,” Payback says. Rooster groans. “I had purple.” “Pay up,” Phoenix crows. She skims open the envelope and starts dealing bills like she owns the place. “Emerald is out. Gold is out. Black is out. Navy takes the pot.” Hangman squints. “Who even picked navy?” Silence. Then everyone turns to Bob. “Professor did,” Hangman answers himself, incredulous. “Of course he did. Why do you know that, Professor?” Bob lifts a shoulder. “I’m partial to Navy.” It lands cleaner than he expects; he’s already smiling when Rooster points. “He made a joke.” “Technical quip,” Bob mutters, still smiling. Penny floats by, amused. “If you animals are betting on my bartender’s eyeliner, the house takes ten percent.” “Done,” Phoenix says, peels off a tidy share for Penny, and drops it in the tip jar. She fans the remaining cash, then turns to Bob. “Winner, winner.” Bob blinks. “Oh. Uh - are we sure this isn’t… I don’t know, unethical?” You slide a beer to Phoenix, a water to Bob, and lean on the rail. “It’s a color pool, Professor, not insider trading. Take the W.” Hangman plants his elbows like a courtroom lawyer. “Objection. Collusion. Someone texted the bartender.” Phoenix doesn’t even flinch. “Correct. I told Lucky the pool colors. That’s transparency.” “Transparency?” Rooster barks. “You steered the whole squad into a ditch.” “Also, how did you tell her? Did you stop by the Hard Deck earlier?”, Hangman asks. “I texted her.” Hangman’s jaw drops. “You have her number?” Phoenix: “Of course I have her number.” He pivots to you, outraged and fascinated. “Why don’t I have your number.” You don’t even glance up from popping caps. “Because you keep asking like that.” The rail barks a laugh. Rooster claps once. Coyote murmurs, “Crushed on entry.” Phoenix looks almost saintly. “I also told her Bob picked navy. Consider it… morale operations.” Every head swivels to you. You shrug, unbothered. “Navy was already on deck. Look at him.” You tilt your chin at Bob. “Steady choice for a steady man.” Hangman stares at Bob like he’s never seen him before. “I’m losing to sunscreen with a pulse.” Someone laughs. Phoenix presses the envelope into Bob’s hands. He hesitates, then nods and pockets it. “All right. But I’m tipping out.” He peels bills free - first to Penny, then another stack he tucks in the jar for you. “House cut plus bartender’s cut.” Penny taps the jar. “That’s the spirit.”

Hangman fans himself theatrically. “Favoritism.” “Accurate,” you say, deadpan. Rooster pinwheels a hand. “On what basis?” You spin a bar spoon once, silver flashing. “So far? He listens. He asks. He doesn’t reach behind the bar.” You nod toward the chalkboard: DON’T REACH BEHIND THE BAR. “Some of you test well. Some of you do not.” Hangman clutches his heart. “Targeted slander.” “Targeted truth,” Phoenix says, sipping the beer you slid her. Then, to Bob: “You’re welcome, by the way.” “For what?” Bob asks. “For the nudge.” Phoenix tips her bottle at your liner. “Told Lucky navy will make her eyes look like maritime jurisdiction.” You snort. You tap your wing lightly. “Phoenix made it an easy pick.” Rooster groans again, but he’s grinning now. “I hate how wholesome this fix was.” “Not a fix,” Penny calls from down the rail. “An education. Ten percent tuition.” Bob raises his water. “To education.” “-and to Phoenix’s wildly unethical ethics,” Coyote adds. “-and to Lucky’s right hook of an eyeliner,” Payback finishes. Glasses clink. You meet Bob’s eyes over the rim, smile tilted. “Smart man.” He almost tips again, then thinks better of it and keeps the rest of the envelope where it is. Hangman points between you. “So the official ruling: Phoenix meddled, Bob won, the house got paid, and Lucky is terrifying.” “Affirmed,” you say, already popping two more caps. “Next round’s on whoever reaches behind the bar.” Hangman yanks his hands back like the rail bit him. The squad laughs. The Hard Deck keeps humming. Navy holds. Bob keeps the pot. And Phoenix looks entirely too pleased with herself.

After a few calm minutes, Hangman slaps the rail like a judge’s bench. “Motion to overturn blatant favoritism.” “Denied,” Phoenix says without looking up. Rooster knocks his bottle twice. “Court recognizes: sore loser.” Penny drifts past with a tray. “If you boys want to litigate, appeals go through the bartender.” You tip the bar spoon against the wood - one clean tap. “Clerk notes: favoritism is accurate.” That’s when Bob goes pink and very still, every system quietly lighting up. He tries to swallow and finds his mouth already moving. “I also file timely appeals,” he says, surprising himself. Your laugh hits full and delighted. “Do you now.” “If I ever fall out of favor,” he adds, steadier now, “I’ll argue my case.” “Careful,” you say, eyes bright. “Favorites can be revoked.” He doesn’t blink. “Then I’ll reapply. Nightly.” Hangman staggers back like he needs a medic. “He’s dangerous.” Rooster leans his elbows on the rail, grinning. “Look at Bob, doing crimes.” Phoenix bumps Bob’s shoulder, proud. “Top of the class.”

You shift closer, one knuckle finding the brim of his bottle to straighten the label, the motion small and intimate. “Keep this up,” you murmur, “and you’re going to make me bias my grading.” “Ma’am,” Hangman says, recovering, “if bias is on the table, I’d like to submit my number for consideration.” He slides a napkin like he’s in a black-and-white movie. You take it, tear it in half without looking, and drop both pieces in the tip jar. “Considered.” The rail howls. Penny rings the bell twice just because she can. Rooster, still not done stirring, nudges the moment to the edge. “So, Lucky - why does Bob actually win.” You let your eyes find Bob’s and stay there a beat too long for comfort. “Because he’s my favorite,” you say, simple as weather. Silence steals two heartbeats, then the table detonates: cheers, whoops, the kind of friendly abuse that means they’re happy for him even as they plan to make him suffer. Bob melts and somehow stays upright. He tries for composure and ends up with honesty. “I’ll try not to blow it.” Rooster clutches his chest. “He’s humble. I’m ill.” You study him, amused, thumb running one absent-minded arc along the edge of the rail like you’re drawing a line only he can see. “Don’t try,” you say. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” “Copy,” he says, soft, and you tilt your chin like you heard the promise inside the word.

Hangman, desperate to recover some ground, leans in with his best grin. “So, Lucky - about my number.” You lean forward until you’re close enough that he blinks. “Jake, if you’re very good, Phoenix might give you hers.” Phoenix raises her beer. “Denied.” “I already have your number,” Hangman declares, outraged in a playful way. “I will block you,” Phoenix says without hesitation and gets out her phone. The whole corner laughs; the tension resets to fun. You slide a Coke to Bob without asking, a beer to Coyote, waters to the loudest offenders. 

The bell over the door gives a clean note and the room tilts a degree - Maverick in a faded tee and that unbothered grin, flight bag slung like he forgot to put it down somewhere thirty years ago. Penny clocks him first and slides a whiskey onto a napkin without looking. “You’re late.” “Traffic,” he deadpans, then nods toward the squad’s corner. “Heard you hired a star.” “You mean my co-conspirator,” Penny says and tips her chin your way. You step into the pocket between them, navy wing sharp, smile sharper. “Evening, Captain Mitchell. House rules: no showing off, no unauthorized flybys, and you tip like a man who knows better.” Penny barks a laugh. Maverick’s eyebrows go up, pleased. “You two are a dangerous duo.” “Only to bad decisions,” you say, stealing the whiskey, tasting, and sliding it back as if you’ve just QC’d the pour. Penny smirks, delighted. Before Maverick can volley, a stool skids near the far end - two sailors half-chest, half-stupid over a scratched pool cue. One jostles a civilian hard enough to slosh a glass.

You slide in between the sailors with a smile you do not mean and a towel you absolutely do. “Breathe. You’re about to pay for a new felt and I hate paperwork.” One starts to protest; you tip the cue out of his hand with two fingers like it was always yours, plant it on the table with a clean clack, and press the towel into the jostled civilian’s hand. “You okay?” A nod. You point the sailors to the door with a chin. “Outside. Ten seconds. Water. Then a choice: apologize or go home.” It’s not loud. It’s not a scene. It’s done. Maverick watches the temperature drop ten degrees and exhales a low, impressed sound. “You would have made a fine lieutenant.” Rooster, never missing a beat: “Lieutenant Lucky - I like that.” You scoff, grinning. “Please. I’d be at least a sergeant. Someone has to keep the lieutenants alive.” “Confirmed,” Phoenix says, saluting with her beer. “Rank granted.” Hangman leans in like a petitioning cadet. “Sergeant, permission to -” “Denied,” you and Penny say in the same breath. Maverick laughs into his glass.

Bob’s been quietly absorbing all of it, the precise way you took the cue, the way the room obeyed your voice. He finds a line before he can overthink it. “Chain of command checks out.” “Steady as the Navy,” you murmur, just for him. Penny taps the bar with her rag, satisfied. “Alright, Lieutenant-Sergeant Dangerous Duo’s on duty. Everyone else - hydrate and behave.” “Copy,” Maverick says, amused, lifting his glass to you both. “To Lucky.” “To Lucky,” the squad echoes. You tip your chin, eyes catching Bob’s one more time, warm and unapologetic. “Carry on, boys. I’ll be doing command and control - and collecting tips.” For a moment, when you think no one is looking, your shoulders sag and the smile falls clean off your face. It is back in place by the time the next order hits the rail, but Bob has already filed it under "things to remember" and added a quiet note to his mental brief: you walked that almost fight out the door, but it did not walk out of you. The corner settles back into noise - dice clacking in a back booth, a rag wiping a ring, Maverick trading one last quip with Penny before he ghosts. You move along the rail in a neat loop - waters, last pours, a steady hand on the night until it behaves. Penny rings the bell for last call and the Hard Deck obeys. Checks get signed, goodnights get traded. The squad lingers like they always do, gravity around a bar that keeps its own time.

“Alright, zoo,” Penny says, flipping a towel onto her shoulder. “Before you shed fur all over my clean floor: house business.” She tips her chin at you, eyes bright. “Lucky’s on for March. Consider it a probation month.” Rooster stage-gasps. “Probation? She ran this place like air traffic control.” “Everyone’s on probation with me,” Penny returns. “Even you, Bradley, eternal probation.” That gets the laugh she wanted. Hangman raises a hand. “Follow-up: does probation come with a hazing package? I have thoughts and monograms.” “Denied,” Phoenix and Penny say in unison. You lean on the rail, amused. “I’ll survive your ecosystem.” Your smile tilts, warm and certain. “I like it here.” Something unclenches in Bob’s chest at that - quiet, unmistakable relief. He catalogs it the only way he knows how: one, she said it; two, she meant it; three, April and the months that follow are suddenly a place on the map. Penny aims a thumb at the ceiling where the mugs ring the room - names hand-painted, history rattling soft when the music bumps. She holds up a new ceramic, unpainted, blank. “Pass March, we put your name up there.” The mug catches the light. You look at it for a half second longer than a joke would require. “Copy that,” you say softly. “I’ll earn the mug.” Bob’s pulse trips. The blank mug feels like a runway with your name not yet on it - space held, invitation issued, April waiting its turn.

They scatter to help close. The zoo actually behaves. Coyote flips chairs, Fanboy stacks racks, Payback sweeps like he’s been paid to, Hangman carries two things at once and demands praise for both. Rooster wipes the jukebox like it’s an antique. Phoenix posts up with Penny at the till and totals the night like a CO signing off a mission. Bob stays in your orbit - quiet, useful. He clocks the hiccup on Tap Two (foam all night) and, at your nod, ducks inside the rail. He bleeds the line, reseats the coupler, taps the keg to a clean two-finger head, then slides you the test pour and watches your face, not the glass. Your involuntary nod is answer enough. While you reset the garnish well, he drops to the lowboy and restocks with surgical calm: label-forward, dates rotated, caps aligned - eight neat columns set in formation. He leaves the two coldest where your dominant hand will land without thinking - he’s already clocked which side you favor. On his way out he swaps your dead bar towel for a dry one without breaking your count, tops your water with a lemon coin, and sets it by your hip. No commentary. No angle. Just… exactly what you needed. It tugs at your heart in a way that feels both ridiculous and very, very real.

He doesn't really want to go. He says so twice on the drive, once when the road leaves the county line, and again when the neon from a few towns over starts pooling in the ditches like spilled antifreeze. The guys drag him anyway - allegiance to them is counted in years rather than sense. They laugh and thump the back of his seat and tell him it’s good to “get out”. 

Rhett Abbott doesn’t need to pay for attention. He’s had enough women for that kind of pride to be a point of principle. But here he is, slipping cash into a place where money keeps the lights warm and the smiles warmer. The neon buzzes. The floor sticks. The air smells like vanilla, stale beer, and the kind of perfume that survives a storm. The group slides into a corner booth - out of the spotlight, close enough to watch everything. Rhett takes the outside seat, one leg stretched into the aisle. 

The club’s a paradox - too loud to hear and too dim to see. The DJ says something the crowd answers with money and shouts. A bartender with a comet-tail of glitter arches an eyebrow when his friends order a round and slide a stack of crumpled bills across the lacquered wood. Rhett keeps his hat on because it feels like armor and sets his shoulders against the booth because that’s where they go when he doesn’t trust his knees. He tells himself he won’t look long. He tells himself he’ll take the measure of the place and that’ll be that. 

Then you step out. 

The stage lights catch where your robe parts and paint everything else in suggestion. It’s midnight-blue satin, trimmed in rhinestones that throw little meteors across the ceiling when you move. A slit flashes a glimpse of the outfit beneath - white bodysuit stitched with constellations of crystal, a narrow belt at your waist, sheer tights with a neat seam, silver heels that catch and scatter the light like spurs gone fancy. Your earrings swing once, bright as tossed coins; a thin choker winks at your throat. Vanilla and clean skin drift ahead of you, the kind of perfume that knows how to survive a storm. His breath stutters. Something in his chest stands up straight.

The room’s noise goes muffled. Rhett now has the hat folded in his lap, thumbs pressed into the crease, and the grip goes tight without him meaning to. Awe, he thinks - distant and a little startled - not a word he uses even for bulls that jump like lightning or dawns that come up copper. It lands anyway, clean and bright, like steel ringing under a hammer. His breath stutters. He takes you in the way a man reads weather: the line of your shoulder, the sure set of your hips, the rhythm you drag the room into without breaking a sweat. The rhinestones ripple when you turn - stars shaken loose into a night you wear like it belongs to you. He notices dumb, human details that make it worse - in a good way: one nick on the heel, a single stone missing near your hip, the precise sweep of liner that makes your eyes look like they can cut and still be kind. He keeps his gaze on your face, like a promise he made himself. One boot plants hard on the sticky floor, one knee easing into the aisle as if his body wants to move closer, but his manners say stay. The track is all bass and no heart until you give it both. He forgets the drink sweating beside his hand. He remembers only the arc of your smile, the slow economy of your hands, the fact that a dozen people are looking, and somehow it feels like you’re teaching him how to breathe.

You’re beautiful the way the weather is - moving, indifferent, inevitable. It isn’t about skin; it’s about geometry and confidence, about the line from your throat to your shoulder, the certain way your weight shifts on the beat. You don’t rush. You never need to. The crowd leans in; you don’t have to meet them halfway. Rhett forgets the glass in his hand until the cold sweats down his fingers. He sets it aside without looking. His friends are hooting in that way that makes him embarrassed for men as a species; he lets their noise flow past him. He’s not staring like the others - at least, he hopes he isn’t. He’s watching. There’s a difference. He’s taken enough falls to know reverence when it breaks over him.

You find him sooner than he expects you to - maybe it’s the way he holds still in a room that otherwise never does, or the way he keeps his eyes north of your collarbone. You clock him like you clock weather too: the hat, the throat, the hands that look like they’ve known work and whiskey and the inside of a pocket when there’s nothing to say. Handsome, not old. Not the kind that tries to buy more than the room is selling. You give him that split-second that costs you nothing and feels like everything to someone paying. A glance held two beats past professional. A corner-smile that has the grace to be private while half the county’s here. When you turn under the lights, you aim one thread of your attention his way and tug. He feels it like a lariat dropped soft over his shoulders. It changes the air for him. He sits up a little. He forgets about leaving early.

You finish the first song with a flourish that’s all punctuation and no apology. Bills float like autumn leaves at the edge of the stage. A man with a birthday sash throws confetti and misses your mark by a yard. You walk the long curve of the stage to collect what the night owes you, and as you pass the side closest to his booth, you let your gaze sweep, then settle - briefly, unmistakably - on him. It’s not a promise. It’s not an invitation. It’s a gracious acknowledgement: I see you, and you are not the worst thing in this room. The set rolls on. You don’t burn hot; you bank and glow, a better kind of heat. When you step down, the room tilts toward you. Girls in glittered robes exchange nods like handoffs in a relay. You loop the floor once because that’s part of the choreography too - drink water, check on the table that’s tipping sloppy, nudge a bouncer with your chin about the guy who’s getting brave. You pass Rhett’s booth in that circuit. Close enough he can catch the warm-cool flicker of your perfume, close enough to read the tiny scuff in the leather of your heel. He keeps his eyes at eye-level like a promise he made to himself. When you reach his table, your fingers land - not on him - but on the edge of his napkin, two taps like a knuckle on a door. 

“You good, cowboy?” you ask, and somehow there’s no teasing in it. He wants to say something smooth, but smooth isn’t his language. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, voice turned down low, like talking in church. The ma’am is clean, not age. Respect. Gratitude he doesn’t fully understand. You give him your full attention for one breath, two. His hat’s brim casts his eyes into shade, but the line of his mouth is honest. There’s a scrape on his knuckle that says he works where there are edges. It’s enough to make you default to your safest move: keep it simple, keep it kind. You lean in, just a little, just enough to make it personal. He goes a touch stiff anyway - spine straightening, breath catching, fingers tightening around his glass. “You keep that seat,” you say. “You make the room look better.” It’s a small gift, but you place it real neat between you. Then you’re moving again, not lingering long enough to turn the moment into something it isn’t. You slide a clean coaster under his sweating glass on your way by, the sly courtesy of someone who understands the theater of attention. You drop a wink at the bartender who’s chronically two steps behind, rescue a drink before it ends up in a lap, and melt back toward the dressing-room door like tide through a channel. Rhett watches you go without greed in it. Wonder, yes. The kind that smooths a furrow between his brows and makes him breathe deeper. He hears his friends razz him for being “struck dumb,” and for once he doesn’t mind the accuracy. He tilts the brim back a notch and, for the first time since they crossed the county line, he smiles.

The next set starts with a different girl, different song, same bass. Rhett sits the way men do when they’re trying not to fidget. He’s aware of his hands, of the pull in his shoulder from the last ride, of the way the booth’s vinyl warms under him like a living thing. He doesn’t buy a dance. He isn’t here for that - not tonight, maybe not ever. He’s here because the world broke open in a place he didn’t expect, and because you saw him and didn’t make a joke of it. You return to the floor near the end of the hour, robe tied in front of your waist. You’re off the clock for ten minutes, and everyone knows it. The brave ones try anyway; you ghost past with a smile that says later or never. You angle your path close to his booth again, the way a bird uses the same current twice. “Still good?” you ask, a little amused now. “Better,” he admits, and the word sounds like he tried it on first. He nudges his glass toward the coaster you gifted him. “Thanks for this.” “Can’t have you leaking all over my stage,” you say and the joke isn´t lost on him.

You leave him with that, because that’s enough. Extra attention, not extra story. You don’t make a habit of feeding the hope that eats girls like you for breakfast. But a handsome cowboy who looks at your face before your body and says ma’am like it’s a bow without bending? He gets a little sunlight in the dark. When last call looms and the neon hum fattens into something sleepy, Rhett doesn’t feel cheated or used or lonely. He feels like he came out for a thing he didn’t want and found something he didn’t know he needed: beauty in the last place he’d expect - under neon, on sticky floors, in a room built to sell everything but this.

On the way out, his friends are all elbows and talk. He tucks his hat down and lets the night take his face. He doesn’t look back, not because he’s afraid to, but because he wants to keep the picture he already has - your glance, your two taps on the napkin, the way you made a mercy of attention without making it a debt. Outside, the air is desert-cool and honest. He stands in it a moment longer than the others, then climbs into the truck. The engine turns. The road rises up to meet them. A few towns over, a man who thought he needed nothing but the ride finds himself thinking about a woman who walked past him and left something better than a bruise: the clean, precise relief of being seen.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

He comes back on a Tuesday, alone this time in the hope that you are working that night. He parks farther from the door like distance might rinse the wanting off him. The neon has the same tired hum; the air has the same syrupy perfume. He tells himself he’s just killing an evening, that the road happened to bend this way. The lie doesn’t even bother to dress up. At the bar he orders water, then whiskey, then changes his mind and leaves both sweating on a coaster. He keeps glancing at the door like a boy whose ride might not show. The bouncer clocks him as harmless; the bartender clocks him as a tip in progress. Rhett tugs his hat brim and feels ridiculous for doing it indoors, then more ridiculous for taking it off and holding it in his lap like a shield.

When you step into the room, his chest lifts like he’s been underwater. The embarrassment catches up a second later: he came back for you. Not for the noise, not for his friends, not for a night he can’t remember on purpose. For you. You spot him quick - same booth, same careful posture, different quiet. There’s a nervous energy on him now, a newness that sits on broad shoulders and makes him look younger than he is in a way that’s almost tender. Handsome and not old, yes, but tonight he’s also shy, like the floor might tilt if he stands too fast. On your first pass by the bar, you give him that signature two-tap on the napkin. “You good, cowboy?” He swallows. “Workin’ on it.” “Want help?” you ask, light as a feather. He nods once, then finds his voice. “Could I -” He clears his throat. “If you’ve got time… buy a dance?” You run through your standard: “House rules. No touching. Two songs or three?” “Two,” he says, then adds in a rush, “Please.”

The private room is nothing special - lamp, curtain, loveseat that squeaks an opinion. You cue the songs with the DJ, then step in and let the curtain fall. You keep it professional: you tell him where to put his hands (on the seat), where to keep his eyes (wherever he likes, but you hold them), and how to breathe (steady, like the world isn’t burning down). “What’s your name?” you ask, as you smooth the edge of the curtain. “Rhett,” he says, voice low, hat abandoned on the side table like a surrendered flag. The natural next thing is and you? It rises to his tongue and stalls there. He knows what he’d get: the clock-name, the one printed on cards and whispered over bass, pretty and not-quite-true. He doesn’t feel like he deserves the real one yet, and the idea of prying at it feels wrong - like picking at a good knot just to see if it slips. Besides, part of him is afraid a name would puncture the magic, let the air out of the illusion he’s barely learned how to breathe inside. He swallows the question and lets mystery stay where it’s doing no harm. “First time?” you ask, already knowing the answer. He tips his head. “Feels like it.” “You’re fine,” you say, and mean it. “Just sit back.” 

When the music starts, you take your time. You don’t sell shock; you sell control. You straddle the space of his lap without collapsing it, move with the beat in smooth, unhurried lines. Your hands stay on your own body; his stay exactly where you set them. You let the closeness do what closeness does - the warmth, the rhythm, the suggestion - without turning it into something else. He’s so nervous it’s almost sweet. The first time you sink your weight a fraction, his breath catches against your shoulder. You can feel it when his body responds - nothing dramatic, just the plain human truth of it, pressure and heat and that sudden, involuntary change. He goes still, mortified. “Sorry,” he whispers, as if an apology could make biology reconsider. “I -” You tip your mouth near his ear so he hears you over the bass. “It’s normal, Rhett.” Your tone is easy, like you’re telling him the weather. “You’re doing fine.” He nods, Adam’s apple working, jaw tight with the effort of not fidgeting. You pace the dance to his nerves, trading spectacle for steadiness. When you roll your hips the barest inch, he bites off a sound and looks like he might actually forget how to breathe. You ease back a hair, let the music carry the moment so he can catch up. “Eyes up,” you remind, not scolding. He lifts them, and the gratitude in that look makes the room feel smaller and kinder. 

By the second song he’s found a rhythm of his own - hands anchored where you put them, shoulders dropping, breath syncing with the beat and your slow, deliberate sway. He’s still obviously turned on; that hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the shame. You let your smile tell him there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You keep the rules with the same gentleness you keep the time. “Doing okay?” you ask midway through. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough but steady. Then, quieter, “Better’n okay.” You let the last thirty seconds be mostly eye contact and suggestion, the dance equivalent of a hand laid over a racing heart to coax it calmer. When the song winds down, you slide away with the same professionalism you brought in, leaving an inch of air like a gift. “All done,” you say, soft but businesslike. “You were perfect.” He laughs once, breathy, disbelieving. “Don’t reckon that’s the word.” “It is tonight.” You stand, adjust your robe back on, and look him over for the telltale signs - spun out, spun up, or centered. He looks centered, if a little dazed.

He fumbles his wallet and then stops, catching himself before he turns the moment into a clumsy apology-by-cash. He folds the bills neat, places them where you can take them without a scramble, and meets your eyes. “Thank you.” “Anytime,” you say, which in this context means exactly what it should: if you book me, I’ll be here; if you don’t, we’re still square. At the curtain he hesitates, hat back in his hands. “I, uh-” He clears his throat again, that teenage echo he can’t quite shake. “I was… a little embarrassed. Comin’ back.” You tip your head. “You came back polite, sober, and respectful. That’s all anyone can ask.” He works his jaw, then nods like you just granted him amnesty. “Okay,” he says, almost to himself. “Okay.” You give him a small, private smile - the kind that doesn’t cost you and might carry him a week. “See you around, cowboy.”

Out at the bar, the room swallows him up again. He stands there a long second, getting his legs under him, then sets his hat on his head like it belongs there. He doesn’t bolt, doesn’t brag. He buys a bottle of water and tips heavy. On his way to the door, he glances back once - not to cling, but to mark the place where something careful and good happened. Outside, the night is cool and ordinary. He breathes it in like a man who finally remembers how, and he smiles at the ridiculousness of it all: full-grown, callused, more miles than money - and yet nervous as a teenager because a woman gave him two songs and treated him like he was worth the rules.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

He comes back on another weeknight when the parking lot looks washed out and the neon is doing its best. He tells himself it’s just habit now - same booth, same water sweating on the coaster, same way he keeps his hat low and his eyes level. Truth is, he couldn’t wait. He knows it and winces at himself for knowing it. You’re on second set. He spots you before the crowd does, like his eyes have been trained to find you. He watches the way you time the room, how you make it slow down without ever asking. Tonight it’s a black velvet bodysuit with rhinestone fringe that waterfalls off your hips and ribs, long gloves to the elbow, sheer tights with a razor-straight seam, silver heels that throw little sparks when you pivot. A short robe - deep green satin - slides off your shoulders in a shrug of light, and the stage catches you the way a tide catches a moon.

You dance in clean geometry - hips writing slow commas, shoulders ticking to the count, a spine roll that feels like a drawl. You use stillness like a weapon: hold, breathe, make the room lean toward you because you haven’t given it permission to breathe out yet. When you turn, the fringe answers in a bright hush; when you step, you plant like you mean to own the square inch under your heel. You don’t chase the crowd - you make it come to you. He watches the way you time the room, how you slow it down without asking. He doesn’t buy a dance. Not tonight. He just…looks. Tries to be decent about it, lets you work, and takes the gift of being allowed to witness without taking. When your eyes sweep his side of the rail and snag on him for two beats - no more, no less - his breath trips and then evens, like he’s found the rhythm you were always offering. As the track turns sly, you drift to the edge of the stage nearest his side and angle your back to him. Then you sink into a slow crouch - one knee forward, spine long, rhinestone fringe whispering as it settles - tilting your hips just enough that the view is deliberate. You glance over your shoulder, a two-beat dare, then rise like you’ve got gravity on a string. Heat flickers through him: a thought sketches itself in outline - hands at your waist, a laugh against his mouth - and he corrals it back behind good manners. Palms flat to the table. Eyes up, like a promise. The wanting stays contained, bright and clean, something he can carry without breaking.

After your set he realizes he needs air more than he needs courage. He slips outside, shoulders hitting cool night like a reset button. The brick wall’s rough through his shirt when he leans back. He counts his breaths, then the cars that pass on the highway. He tells himself he won’t make this a thing. He tells himself a lot of things. The door clicks. Footsteps. He straightens, half-guilty, and then forgets to be guilty at all. It’s you - same person, different lighting. The stage is gone; the armour too. You’ve got on a soft hoodie, jeans, sneakers that squeak when you step wrong on rain. Less makeup. Your hair is pulled up in a way that says you did it while walking. You look like a real night and not the idea of one. “My shift’s over,” you say, like weathermen say there’s a chance of rain. “I’m hungry.” “Oh,” he says, brilliant. “Yeah?” “Yeah.” You angle your chin toward the street. “You wanna grab a bite?” For a second he’s all thumbs and vowels. “I- I don’t wanna… if that’s- I mean, do you- Are you sure?” Your mouth tilts. “I asked, didn’t I?” He nods too many times. “Right. Yes, ma’a-” He bites it off, flustered. “Yes.”

You tuck your hands into your hoodie pocket and rock back on your heels, easy. “There’s a diner two blocks over. Good fries. Terrible coffee in a charming way.” “Bad coffee’s honest,” he says, relieved to find a sentence that comes out in one try. You start walking. He falls in beside you, trying to match your pace and not stomp it flat. The night is clean compared to inside - cold air, wet pavement, the hum of a soda machine from somewhere you can’t see. He keeps glancing at you and then away, like he’s checking mirrors. “You look different,” he says, and immediately wishes he’d thought about it first. “Good. I mean - you looked good before. Still do. I just -” He surrenders. “I like this.” “This?” you prompt, amused. “Normal,” he says, gesturing vaguely at hoodie, sneakers, the way your eyes look like eyes and not stage lights. “I like… you, like this.” A beat. “If that doesn’t sound wrong.” “It doesn’t,” you say. No edge, no test. Just fact. “Most people prefer the packaging. It’s nice to be the person for a minute.” He laughs, quiet. “Packaging’s a lot to carry.” “Pays the bills,” you shrug. “But sometimes it’s heavy, yeah.”

You wait at a crosswalk even though there’s no traffic. He notices that and files it alongside a dozen other small rules you keep - how you tap the napkin, how you leave a beat before you smile, how you never crowd. The kind of careful he understands. “Just so we’re clear,” you say, eyes on the blinking hand, “public place, quick bite, then home. I don’t do complicated.” He nods, grateful you said it first. “Me neither.” “Good.” The light flips. “We’ll split the check or you can get this one and I’ll get next time.” The words hit him like a warm palm to the sternum: next time. He tries not to make a ceremony of it. “I can - yeah. This one’s on me. If that’s okay.” “That’s okay,” you say, like you’re letting him hold one end of something light. You pass a pawn shop and a closed barber and a mural that’s lost half its colors to weather. He keeps wanting to look at you and keeps doing it in small, respectful slices. Without the stage paint, your expressions read cleaner - surprise, then humor, then a faint caution that doesn’t feel like a wall so much as a gate with working hinges. He thinks about the lap dance last week - the heat, the rush, the absolutely human problem of his body getting ahead of his mind. He thinks about how you handled it like weather: named it, steadied it, let it pass. He’d been embarrassed then. Right now he isn’t. He just feels… settled. “You always this nervous?” you ask, light. “Only when I like something,” he says, then goes pink like a teenager who realized he said it out loud. “Something or someone?” you tease, gentle as a nudge. He swallows. “Haven’t decided how brave I am yet.” “That’s fair,” you smile. “Food helps with bravery.” He looks at you again, more open now. “You, uh… You do this a lot? Eat with customers?” “No,” you say. “I eat after work a lot. Sometimes alone, sometimes with girls from the floor. Sometimes” - you glance at him - “with cowboys who say ma’am and don’t make me remind them of the rules.” He takes that in like he’s been handed a certificate he didn’t know he wanted. “I can keep sayin’ ma’am if it helps.” “It doesn’t hurt.”

The diner shows up like a lighthouse that never learned subtlety - buzzing sign, fogged windows, a bell that threatens to fall off the door with every swing. There’s a man at the counter with a newspaper, two teens in a booth destroying a basket of fries, a server refilling coffee like she owns the patent on it. You stop at the door and look up at him, close enough that he can see the small smudge of mascara under your eye and the clean skin beneath it. He likes this version more, he realizes. Not because it’s plainer, but because it feels like the right size. Like he could match it without borrowing courage he doesn’t have. “You ready?” you ask. He reaches for the handle and gets it open on the first try. “I am.” The bell gives its tired ring as you step into the warm, greasy light, and the night stays outside where it belongs. You greet the waitress like you’ve known her forever, and maybe you have - Rhett can’t tell. Maybe she knew your parents, brought your first milkshake with two straws, watched you stumble through a teenage date in this same booth. The thought warms him and needles him at the same time. He realizes he doesn’t know your history, not really - just the way you dance and how you look after a shift. And somehow that feels right. He doesn’t need the whole map tonight. He likes the not-knowing, the way your hello lands soft, the way the waitress smiles back like she’s been saving that smile for you. He lets the mystery breathe. He’s here for who you are across from him, not the footnotes.

The diner’s heat is the kind that fogs the windows and makes the ketchup move like molasses when you tip it. A bell wheezes you in; the server waves two menus like flags and points at a booth with a view of the pie case. Rhett holds the door, then the menu, then his breath until you’ve slid in and shrugged your hoodie off one shoulder. “Fries?” you ask, like a peace offering. “Patty melt,” he says, then amends, “and fries. If you’re, uh - if you want to steal some.” “I never steal fries,” you say, solemn. “I appropriate.” That gets a laugh out of him - quick, surprised, real. He puts his hat on the seat beside him, careful like it might break. When the server asks about drinks, you both say “coffee” at the same time and grin at the small, silly luck of it. The first minutes are clumsy in the way that good things start: too many half-sentences, a couple of “sorry, you go”, and one accidental toe-tap under the table that makes him go pink and you pretend not to notice. The coffee is exactly as advertised - terrible in a charming way - and you doctor it without apology. He drinks his black because that seems like the kind of person he’s supposed to be, then adds sugar on the second sip and doesn’t meet your eyes until he owns it.

“So,” he says, bracing a forearm on the table. “Do I - do I ask about work? Or is that like asking a magician about the trick?” “If you ask nice,” you smile. You take a fry and blow on it like you grew up respecting fire. “And I get to choose which trick to explain.” “Deal.” You prop your chin in your palm. “It’s not a sad story,” you begin, and watch the way his shoulders ease at that. “I like it. The job. I like the stage and the control and the cash in hand. I like that I write the rules and then enforce them. I like the girls - their hustle, their jokes, the way glitter ends up everywhere like a blessing and a curse.” He nods, listening for real. “And the part you don’t like?” “The hours,” you answer promptly. “Long nights. The two a.m. version of people who should’ve gone home an hour ago. My feet filing a formal complaint with my spine.” You grin. “But I soak them in Epsom salt and remind myself the rent’s early and no one’s telling me what to wear in the morning.” “Independence,” he says, tasting the word like coffee. “I get that.” “You?” you ask. 

He rolls the sugar packet between his fingers. “Parents’ place,” he answers. “I work the farm - fences, feed runs, whatever’s broken today. And I ride bulls when the circuit’s close enough to make sense.” Your brows tip up. “That the one where you wait around six hours to be a legend for eight seconds?” He huffs, pleased you said it right. “On a good day.” You tap a fry against the plate like a metronome. “So we both climb on unpredictable animals for money while strangers shout, measure success in seconds and tips, and try not to get kicked in the head.” That gets him - an honest, belly-deep laugh that turns a few heads and makes the waitress grin from the counter. He leans back, palms up. “When you say it like that, we might be union.” “And we both stretch after,” you add, smug. “Epsom salt or ice packs. Occupational overlap.” “Add duct tape and prayer,” he says, and you snort into your milkshake. You’re grinning like you’re proud of the joke and a little proud of him, too, and he feels it land exactly where it should. He doesn’t know how much of this diner knows you - who watched you grow up, who remembers your first bad haircut - but he realizes it doesn’t matter. He knows the version across from him: smart, funny, beautiful in a way that’s more geometry than glitter; good at rules without being mean about them; brave enough to call the job what it is and gentle enough to let him ask. “Do you win much?” “Enough to keep tryin’.” He rolls a shoulder like it still knows the last fall. “Enough to be stubborn.”

For a moment, comfortable silence stretches between the two of you. You break it first.  “Show me sometime,” you say, easy. “The ranch. The part where the day is chores and not applause.” “Deal,” he says, as if the word can stake a flag. He cuts the patty melt and pushes you a triangle without comment. You accept it without ceremony. He watches you in this lighting like it’s the first true picture he’s gotten: less paint, more person. You can see it settle in him - the preference he’s not sure he’s allowed to say. He tries anyway. “I like you like this,” he begins, then rushes to add, “Not to say I don’t - on the stage you’re- it’s… I just mean I like… this.” He gestures again - at your hoodie, your unguarded laugh, the way you dunk a fry and leave it there too long. “I told you in the alley,” you say, amused. “Food helps with the brave. And, sometimes it’s nice to be a person.” “I’m not here to save you. I’m… better at showing up,” he blurts, then winces at himself. “I mean - I am sure some men look at you and think… saving. I don’t. You don’t look like you need anything from me.” “That’s the point,” you say, and it lands between you, neat as silverware. “I chose this. I can choose something else later. I just don’t need a redemption arc to make it valid.” He looks relieved enough to grin. “Good. I’m short on arcs.” He’s still worrying the napkin edge when you tip your head, smile slow. You tap the rim of your coffee and lean just enough to make it private. “I don’t need a knight in shining armour, but I’m not saying no to a cowboy.” Color climbs his ears; his hand goes instinctively for a hat that isn’t on his head. He laughs, a little helpless. “I can do cowboy.” You nudge his boot under the table, grinning. “Then just keep showing up, cowboy.”

You trade small biographies over the grease paper: his brother, your favorite song to work to, his worst county fair, the best late-night breakfast order. He offers a ranch hack for sore feet; you offer a dancer’s stretch for his shoulder. You talk money in the frank way of people who’ve counted tips and gate shares: what it means to pay early, to have a little tucked away, to say no to bad offers because you can. He tells you he liked the way you set rules last week and how it made it easier to breathe. You tell him you noticed the way he kept his eyes up and how that made it easier to smile. You both laugh a lot - not the nervous kind this time, but the kind that loosens the screws in a long day.  When the server swings by with the check, you slide it to his side with two fingers. “You said this one’s on you,” you remind, light. He nods and takes it like a privilege instead of a burden. “Next time’s yours.” You pretend not to flinch at the phrase, then let yourself un-pretend. “Next time,” you agree, simple as salt. He pays in cash because it feels cleaner. You add the tip, more than the math, because the coffee refills came before you needed them and that’s worth something.

Outside, the bell complains you’re leaving. The air has turned the kind of cool that makes breath visible in little ghosts. The street is a cutout of quiet storefronts and one cat in a window who thinks it runs the block. “Thank you,” he says, and it’s not for the fries. “Thank you,” you say back, and it’s not for the patty melt. You hook your thumbs in your hoodie pocket and look at him the way you did from the stage the first night - steady, choosing. “Walk me to the corner,” you tell him. “Then I’ll call a car. Long nights and all.” “Yes, ma’am,” he is smiling because the word sits easy now. You fall into step. The diner’s neon hum fades behind you, replaced by the small, ordinary sounds of a town putting itself to bed. At the corner, under the tired buzz of a streetlight, you stop and pull your phone from your pocket. He keeps a respectful step back and finds the moon like it’s a thing he can lean on. “Tuesday?” he asks, the question shaped like hope but trimmed down to fit. “Tuesday,” you confirm, thumb hovering over the ride button. “If the truck holds.” He laughs softly. “I’ll make it.” “Me too.” You meet his eyes. “Long nights,” you add, with a crooked grin. “Worth it,” he says, and means the fries and the laughter and the way you don’t need saving and the way he doesn’t, either. Your screen glows with the car’s ETA. You nod toward the diner once more, like sealing a pact with cheap coffee and good conversation, and then the two of you stand there in the honest dark, waiting for a set of headlights to bend around the block.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

They roll up loud and laughing, the kind of pack noise that makes the neon hum sound shy. Rhett comes because saying no would’ve meant explaining a thing he doesn’t know how to explain. He sits at the end of the booth like a man trying to be a smaller target, hat brim a little lower than usual, hands behaving. You clock the group on your first sweep: elbows, birthday energy, a pile of small bills like a dare. You clock him second - careful posture, the steadiness that opens a seam in the room. You do not clock the fact that you’ve seen him since. Mercy is a skill.

Onstage, you let the first song run through the crowd like warm weather. When you cross to their side, you give the table a professional smile and then, in passing, you let your gaze land on Rhett and stay there a beat too long. The boys explode - whoops, elbows, the immediate chorus of “ohhh, cowboy” - and he goes pink and tips the hat like he can hide inside it. You move on without breaking stride. You didn’t out him. You just lit him up. After your set, you make a quiet loop of the floor. At their booth, you drop a fresh stack of coasters and, with your now-famous two taps on his napkin, murmur, “You good, cowboy?” He doesn’t quite look at you. “Workin’ on it.” “Attaboy,” one friend crows. “He’s shy. Fix him.” You arch an eyebrow, amused instead of insulted, and the table loves you for it. The friend who’s clearly treasurer for the night slaps a wad of bills on the lacquer and grins at Rhett with the benevolence of a bad idea. “Private dance for the man in the hat,” he announces, nudging the cash like a puck. “On us. Don’t you dare say no.” Rhett winces. “Y’all -” “It’s a joke,” another says. “We’ll make him sweat.”

You catch Rhett’s eye and keep it, the way you do when a skittish colt needs a hand on the withers. “Only if you want,” your voice is plain enough to cut through the noise. He takes a breath you can see. “Okay,” he says. “Two songs.” The private room hasn’t changed: lamp, curtain, loveseat with opinions. What’s different is the way he stands just inside the doorway like a man who won a prize and isn’t sure he deserves it. You close the curtain and set the music - something with bones, not just bass. “New night, new rules,” you tell him, stepping into his space until you can smell the soap under his cologne. “Hands can go here and here.” You take his wrists and place his palms - one at the outside of your waist, over fabric; one high between your shoulder blades. “They stay where I put them unless I move them. Clear?” “Yes,” he says, voice low like he’s back in church. “And you breathe,” you add, because you’ve learned to say it out loud to men who forget. “Deal?” “Deal.”

You settle onto his lap the way you always do - measured, in control - then let the difference happen: his hands, warm through your clothes, tentative at first and then sure as he feels the permission hold. You move slow, the kind of slow that doesn’t dare the room so much as tame it. He’s polite even now, focus flicking to your eyes when you remind him, an automatic correction that makes you smile. Halfway through the first song, you feel him steady. His fingers spread just slightly at your waist, not grabbing, more like memorizing. Heat rises between you in the honest way heat does. When you lean in, his breath catches at your temple. You could make a spectacle; you don’t. You choose intimacy instead. Near the end of the second song, you bring your mouth close enough to his that the air between you turns into a held note. You can see the shape of his restraint, the way his jaw works once like he swallowed a yes. “Not here,” you whisper, and it isn’t a scold; it’s an agreement. The almost-kiss hangs there, warm and deliberate, its own kind of contact. He nods, exhale rough with relief. “Not here,” he echoes.

You draw back, let the last bars of the song do the work of easing you apart. Then, while his friends’ laughter leaks through the curtain and the next track starts up somewhere out in the bright, you reach into the pocket of your robe and pull a small, folded rectangle. Plain, no glitter. You take his hand, turn it palm up, and set the paper there like a pressed flower. “For when it’s not here,” you say. He looks at the note like it might go off, then closes his fingers around it and tucks it quick into the inside pocket of his denim, like a man who knows how to keep a thing safe. “Okay,” he says, a little stunned. “Okay.” You smooth the front of his shirt with both hands, a practical gesture turned ceremonial. “You were good,” you tell him, the kind of praise that means respect and not performance. “Felt like it,” he admits, shy and pleased. When you pull the curtain back, noise slaps at the quiet you made. His friends are already halfway to a victory parade. “There he is!” the treasurer crows. “Cowboy survived!”

You give the table a showman’s curtsy and, with the same generosity you showed inside, throw the ribbing bone they’re hungry for. “He was a perfect gentleman,” you announce, all innocence, which somehow gets them louder. Rhett puts his hat back on and learns the limits of his grin. It refuses to be small. He tips you a thank-you that’s just for you, then endures the back slaps with surprising good humor, one hand staying near that inside pocket like he can feel the paper through the denim. On your way past, you tap his napkin twice, the way you do. “Eat something,” you tell him, as if that’s all you’ve given him tonight. He nods once. Later, when the hoots have thinned and the neon looks tired again, he’ll slip outside and, with the soft care he brings to everything that matters, unfold the paper to find your name and a number written in clean, sure strokes - no hearts, no stage-name, no flourish. Just a line between here and wherever you decide “not here” turns into. For now, the room keeps spinning and the boys keep laughing, and he sits there anchor-still, smiling like a man who just got handed the next chapter.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

He texts first, the next afternoon, thumbs big on a small screen, backspacing like he’s trying to rope a sentence and make it behave.

Hey. It’s Rhett. Was wonderin’ if I could take you on a proper date. Not here. Not the diner. Day off. Nice place. I’ll pick you up. Flowers and everything. If you want.

You let him sit in his own nerves for seven minutes that feel like seven miles, then:

I’d like that. Thursday’s my night off. Pick me up at 7? Allergic to lilies. Anything else is fair game. And I own a nice dress. Just so you know.

He stares at that last line for a good long while, grins at the truck door like it’s a friend, and replies:

7 it is. No lilies. I’ll try to be worthy of the dress.

He shows up on time, freshly showered and fighting his hair into a decision, dress shirt tucked into ironed pants. The truck is cleaner than it’s been in months; the boots are polished; the shirt is white and somehow makes him look both taller and younger. He’s got a small bouquet of not-lilies - sunflowers and pale roses and a little wild green like a field snuck into the arrangement.

When you open the door, he forgets how to talk. Third version of you. Not the stage and not the hoodie. The dress is black with a soft shine, cut to skim, not shout; a neckline that says yes, I know and a hem that says keep up. Your hair is down in a way that looks expensive and effortless even if it was one and not the other. Your makeup is evening, not armor. “Wow,” he says. Then, realizing “wow” is not a sentence, tries again. “You look- I mean- it’s unfair, is what it is.” You laugh, delighted. “I’ll take unfair.” He remembers the flowers and thrusts them forward like a man delivering good news. “For you. No lilies.” “They’re perfect,” you say, and you mean the bouquet and also the way he’s blushing like compliments are a bucking chute. You tuck the flowers into a vase by the door, slip a small wrap over your shoulders, and let him offer his arm like this is the version of the night it wants to be. He opens the truck door for you with the solemnity of a ceremony, then circles to his side and steadies his breath. The restaurant is the kind of place with linen and whispers, the kind of place he Google-mapped twice and called once to make sure he wasn’t supposed to wear a tie. He keeps sneaking looks at you at stoplights. “You’re just- I can’t even come up with a new adjective,” he admits. “I used ‘pretty’ five times in my head and it ain’t enough.” “Try ‘devastating’,” you say, playful. “Devastating,” he repeats, pleased. “There we go.”

Inside, you let the room notice you and then let it go. The host smiles differently at people who know how to wear a night; you two wear it well. Rhett pulls your chair; you touch his hand as you sit, a quick thanks that settles him. The menu is a map of places neither of you have been. He scans it like a man reading weather. “What’s a reduction?” he asks. “Sauce that had a long day,” you tell him, and he laughs, grateful. He orders steak because it’s honest; you order fish because it comes with a lemon butter that has you at hello. The server leaves; the candles flicker; your eyes do that soft-spark thing that got him the first night he saw you. “So,” you say, propping your chin in your hand. “Tell me something you don’t say in a loud room.” He thinks, thumb worrying the edge of a napkin. “I’ve got a favorite horse and a favorite cow,” he admits, voice low. “Don’t tell the others.” Your mouth lifts. “Names.” “June,” he says, already smiling. “Mare that pretends she doesn’t like me ’til I’m halfway to the gate, then follows like a shadow. And Button - black-and-white cow with a spot like a thumbprint on her nose. Head-butts the grain scoop if I’m slow.” “That’s extremely cowboy,” you say, delighted. “I’ll keep your secret from the union.” 

For a moment, you are quite. “Also, it’s perfect,” you smile. “I like labeling things in my fridge. Also not very rock and roll.” “Bet it’s straight lines,” he says, the admiration more obvious than he intends. “It is,” you confess, amused. “And I don’t have a tragic backstory, by the way. In case you were bracing for a savior role.” “I retired from saving,” he says. “Not very good at it. I prefer… showing up. With flowers, when I can.” “Noted,” you say, pleased. “I like this version of you.” “The one that remembers deodorant and uses a napkin?” He gestures at his lap, where the linen is obeying. “The one that looks at me like I’m a person and a miracle at the same time,” you correct, gentle. “It’s flattering without being greedy.” He goes pink again. “Can’t help it,” he admits. “You walk into a room and my vocabulary falls apart.” “Then say simple things,” you suggest. “Simple is nice.” “Simple is you look beautiful,” he says immediately. “Simple is I’m real glad you said yes. Simple is I might not eat because smiling is taking up all my face.” “Eat,” you say, laughing. “We’ll practice multitasking.”

The food is very good in the way expensive food often is - small miracles that make you feel like you’re in on a secret. You trade bites across the table, your fork knocking his in a little clang that feels like good luck. He tells you about the last fair where a storm rolled in sideways and everyone smelled like rain and adrenaline; you tell him about the choreography that only works with a certain song because your body learned the math of it. When the server refills your water, she glances at the way his eyes hold steady on your face, then leaves two extra dessert spoons like a blessing. You split a crème brûlée, the crack of sugar loud enough to make you grin at each other like kids.

He never quite stops complimenting you, but he gets better at weaving it in. “The way your hair catches the candle,” he says, offhand, like a man pointing out a constellation. “The way you make that dress look like it was built by an engineer.” “The way you listen like you’ve got nowhere better to be.” You volley back, not out of obligation but because he deserves to hear it. “The way you mind your hands.” “The way you don’t pretend to know what you don’t.” “The way you say please to the server like she’s your aunt.” By the time the check comes, the room feels like it’s shrunk to the size of your table. He reaches for the leather folder with a confidence that’s new and tidy; you let him, because this was his offer and it matters to him. Outside, the evening has softened around the edges. He walks you to the truck like the ground might move and he wants to be sure it doesn’t. He helps you in, then pauses with his hand on the door, looking up at you like he’s trying to memorize a night from bottom to top. “I had a real good time,” he tells you, simple as you asked. “Me too,” you say. “No notes.”

The drive back is easy. He turns the radio low. You talk about nothing on purpose: a billboard with a typo, a stray dog with a sweater, the moon being nosy. At your place, he kills the engine and then remembers he’s supposed to do something besides stare. He comes around, opens your door, offers his hand as you step down. You take it, not for balance but for the pleasure of it. On the sidewalk, you both stand there, politeness and wanting threading a neat border. “Thank you for tonight,” you say, and it means for the flowers and the chair and the way he didn’t rush the evening to prove it was one. “Thank you for saying yes,” he means for the third version and the way you let him see it. You both know what a kiss would feel like here; you both decide to keep it for later, an expensive thing you’re saving for the exact right hour. Instead, he squeezes your hand once, careful and sure. You squeeze back. “Text me when you’re home,” you say. “Yes, ma’am,” he answers, soft. He waits until your light goes on, then looks at the passenger seat where your wrap sat folded and thinks about the three versions of you - stage, hoodie, dress - and how each one is true and how lucky he is to be invited to learn the rest.

On the drive, he sends a single message at a red light, punctuation considered like it might tip the balance too far:

Home in ten. Tonight was perfect.If you want, I’d like to do it again.

When the swoop of your reply lands - simple and sweet, me too - he grins into the dark like a man with a good secret, and lets the road carry him the rest of the way.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

It is another Tuesday and he keeps to his usual corner - hat low, hands behaving. You clock him on your sweep and, when you pass the rail, you let a smile ghost over your mouth and lean in just enough for only him to hear. “Meet me after,” you murmur, breath warm against the brim. Two taps on his napkin. Then you’re gone, back into the current. He watches you work the room like weather - steady, self-possessed, kind when it’s earned. He’s getting good at the part where he lets the job be the job. When a floor host touches your elbow and points you toward a private room, he feels the instinctive flinch and names it for what it is - instinct, not instruction. He drains his water, texts his buddies some excuse why he doesn’t show up to the bar tonight, and steps outside for a pocket of air while the curtain falls behind you. The night smells like rainfall that changed its mind. He stands under the eave, counts his breaths, and thinks about fence posts: you set them straight, they hold. When you emerge later - robe knotted, hair fluffed back into order - he doesn’t ask anything with his eyes. He lifts two fingers in a hello. You answer with a tiny nod that says: Ten minutes.

The back lot is a choked gravel square behind the club, all dumpsters and the long hum of a tired highway. Ten minutes become twelve. Then you appear with your tote and a hoodie tugged over whatever the evening required. You point at his truck with your chin. “Drive?” you ask. “Yes, ma’am.” It’s muscle memory, the way he takes the county road that loses its lines and the town’s last streetlight in a quarter mile. You roll the window down an inch and let the cool air rinse the glitter off your skin. A field opens to the left - black ocean, crickets for white noise - and he noses the truck onto the shoulder. “Trunk bar,” he says, deadpan, fishing two cold bottles from a small cooler behind the seat. “Top-shelf: domestic.” You laugh, twist the caps, hand him one. “To long nights,” you offer. He clinks. “To surviving them.” 

You climb into the back seat rather than the bed - warmer, quieter, the kind of private that isn’t hiding. He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over your knees without commentary. In the dim cab light, you look like the in-between version he’s starting to love best - cheeks bare of stage paint, eyes still sharp from work, mouth soft. “Okay,” you start, settling sideways, one knee tucked under you. “Rules and realities.” He takes a breath. “I don’t mind the work,” he says, careful and plain. “I knew it the first night. I knew it when I asked you out. It doesn’t make me jealous. And even if it did - that’d be mine to manage. I don’t have the right to criticize how you make your living. I won’t.” Your shoulders ease. “Thank you.” “I won’t ask details,” he adds. “If I’m there and it starts to feel…loud in my head, I’ll step outside, take a lap, text you ‘smoke break.’ That’s me saying I’m okay, just getting air.”

“Good phrase,” you praise. “Okay. My side: I don’t talk details, either. Not because I’m hiding, but because I keep the job in its box. If you’re in the room, I still work. If you’d rather I don’t take privates while you’re there, say so and I’ll try to steer clear. But if it happens, it’s work, and when that curtain opens, it’s over.” He nods. “I can handle that.” You tap the bottle against your knee. “I won’t date on shift. After work, public places, and no asking me to bend house rules. No showing up drunk with your friends and making me your party trick.” He huffs a quick laugh. “Fair. I won’t bring the boys. If I come, I come alone, quiet, and I tip like someone raised me right.” “You already do,” you say, and then, gentler, “And I won’t take your money.” He blinks. “For the floor, sure. For… more than that? No.” “For dances,” you clarify. “Now that there is an us. If you need the distance of the ritual someday, we can talk. But I’d rather keep money out of our…thing. You want to support me? Feed me fries.” “I can do fries,” he is smiling, memories of food after a shift edged across his face.

“Next one,” you add, “if I text ‘long night,’ that’s code for: I need sleep, not questions. You text ‘home’ when you get there. I text ‘home’ when I get there.” He nods again, taking it in like fence posts sunk to the frost line. “Deal.” You drink, let the quiet sit. Crickets, far-off semi, the soft tick of the cooling engine. After a minute, you glance over, a little sideways-smile. “And since we’re doing honesty: I like what I do. The stage, the control, the cash in hand, the girls I work with - the hustle, the jokes. It suits me right now.” “Good,” he says, just as plain. “I like that you like it.” “I’m also tired,” you finish, a small shrug. “The hours pull at me. I don’t want to be a vampire forever.” He waits, open for whatever you’re willing to put in the space. “I didn’t make a big thing of it,” you go on, “but I did a two-year program at the community college - bookkeeping and payroll. I like straight lines, numbers that balance, lists that end. It’s…quiet control. I’ve been doing books part-time for a friend’s salon. Thinking about looking for more of that in the mornings. Feed store, co-op, maybe the diner. Nothing fancy. Just work that lets me sleep at midnight sometimes.” His smile warms from the inside. “That sounds like you,” he smiles. “The you in the hoodie. The you with labels on the fridge.” You nudge his boot with your toe. “Don’t mock my labels.” “I’d never,” he says, mock solemn. Then, softer: “If you want introductions, I can ask around. Co-op runs lean but honest. My aunt does inventory at the hardware store; I can put your name in her ear. Only if you want. I won’t push.” “I might take you up on that,” you tell him “When I say I’m ready.” “Yes, ma’am.” 

You rest your head back against the seat and look at him - really look, as if the truck light is new sun. “Thank you for letting the job be the job,” you say. “For not trying to rescue me from something I chose.” He tips the bottle toward you. “Thank you for telling me the plan before I grew one for you.” You clink again, easy. The rules sit between you not like a wall but like a map you both can read. A train moans somewhere far enough away to be romantic. He shifts, offers his shoulder without making a speech of it. You slide closer until your temple finds the place it belongs, and his jacket slides higher over your knees. No kiss - just breath syncing, the small choreography of two people who intend to keep showing up. After a while, you ask, “Saturday market? Sunflowers and pretzels?” He grins into the dark. “I’ll bring cash and a tote bag like a man with intentions.” “And Tuesday,” you add, a little wry, “I’ll still be at work.” “And I’ll still be polite,” he states. “And I’ll still text ‘smoke break’ if I need air.” “And I’ll still text ‘home’ when I get there.” “Me too.” You fall quiet again, the good kind. The beer bottles sweat into the cup holders. The field breathes. Somewhere beyond the windshield, the road waits to carry you back whenever you’re ready. Not yet. An hour later he eases to the curb outside your place, no ceremony. The engine ticks, the porch light hums. He pulls you into a quiet hug; you press a quick, warm kiss to his cheek. It’s nothing - polite, small. It’s everything - an outline of a later. A promise said under its breath: not here, not yet, but soon.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

The porch light is an old interrogator - too bright, too honest. Rhett eases the door shut anyway, boots set quiet on the mat, hat in his hand like an apology. The kitchen smells like coffee that has given up and hay that never will. Perry sits at the table with a ledger open and a beer sweating a ring onto a feed bill. He doesn’t look up right away. He doesn’t have to. “You’ve been out a lot,” Perry says, casual as a weather report. “What’s going on? New woman?” Rhett sets the hat on the counter, takes the beer Perry slid over without asking. “Maybe.” “That a yes?” “Workin’ on it.” Perry finally looks at him, mouth tipped into that familiar, half-wary grin. “You look like you found the good kind of trouble.” Rhett snorts, takes a drink, lets the bottle buy him a second. “Met her a few towns over.” “Bar?” “Club.” He lets the word sit there, plain. “She dances.” Perry’s brows go up a notch - not judgment, just recalibration. “Okay.” “That’s it?” Rhett asks, a little defensive without meaning to be. “What were you expectin’, a hymn? A judgment?” Perry closes the ledger and pushes it aside. “You like her?” “Yeah,” Rhett says, and the word sounds like it has roots. “I do.” “She like you back?” “She keeps meetin’ me where I am,” he states, thinking of diner coffee and your hoodie and the way you said meet me after like a secret that knew how to behave. “We set rules. We talk like adults. It’s…easy.”

Perry nods like that was the makes-sense part. “And the job?” “It’s her work,” Rhett says, shoulders tightening, then loosening on purpose. “I knew it from the start. I’m not trying to fix it. I’m not… jealous. If it gets loud in my head, I step outside. We got a code for it.” He huffs. “I ain’t a teenager.” “Not for a minute now,” Perry agrees, dry. He leans back, chair creaking. “You worried what Ma and Dad’ll say.” “Little bit.” Rhett rolls the bottle between his palms. “Dad’ll grumble. Ma’ll… I don’t know. Pray creative.” He stares at the condensation on the table. “Part of me doesn’t care. Part of me still does, and I hate that I do.” “Caring what they think ain’t the same as lettin’ it drive the truck,” Perry offers. “You can care and still keep your hands on the wheel.” He tips his chin. “You treated her right?” “Yeah.” “She treat you right?” “Yeah.” “Then we’re halfway to done.” Perry’s voice stays kind, a thing he only let out in kitchens after midnight. “Small town’s gonna talk no matter who you bring home. Might as well be someone who makes you less stupid than usual.” Rhett laughs, head dropping. “She does that.” “Good.” Perry reaches for the ledger, then doesn’t. “Look, Dad’s gonna be Dad. He thinks the sun comes up because he’s got fences to walk. But he ain’t blind, and he ain’t cruel. Ma’s got more room in her heart than she lets on. You don’t owe ‘em a confession. You owe ‘em the truth when it matters.” “When it matters,” Rhett repeats. Perry studies him. “You scared of bein’ the punchline?” “Little.” Rhett shrugs. “Boys see me there, they hoot. Think it’s a joke to buy me a dance. It was funny ‘til it wasn’t. Then it was… somethin’ else.” He feels the small, private weight of your number in his wallet even now. “She’s not a joke.” “I figured,” Perry says. “You don’t bring jokes into the kitchen.”

Silence stretches a comfortable inch. The fridge hums. Somewhere in the house, the old clock argues with itself. “She likes the job,” Rhett begins after a while. “Says it fits. The hours don’t, though. She’s thinkin’ about mornin’ work. Bookkeepin’. She did a program. Numbers and straight lines. Sounds like… peace, I guess.” Perry’s mouth curves. “That does sound like peace. You offer to ask around?” “I said I would. When she asks me to.” “Good.” Perry taps the ledger. “Co-op always needs somebody who can count better than Frank. I’ll put a word in a pocket, keep it there ‘til you say.” “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me.” Perry’s eyes go softer than his voice. “You’ve been walking around here like your boots got a secret. You’re lighter, even when you’re tired. That’s rare. Don’t throw it away ‘cause you’re tryin’ to make it make sense to other people.”

Rhett looks at his brother, that old seesaw of irritation and gratitude settling on the right side. “You ever gonna say something unhelpful?” “Probably by sunup,” Perry jokes. “For now I’m on a streak.” They drink a while in the quiet they’d been raised on. Rhett sets his empty down and traces the water ring with a thumb. “If I bring her by,” he says, casual as he can manage, “you gonna help run interference?” Perry’s grin comes quick and mean in the loving way. “I’ll keep Dad on fence talk and Ma on pie. You do the rest.” “She’s… three versions,” Rhett tells him, surprising himself with the confession. “Stage. Hoodie. Dress. All of ‘em true. I like ‘em all. I might like the hoodie most.” “Most men do, once they learn better,” Perry says. He pushes his chair back, stretches his back until it pops. “You look like you could sleep.” “I could.” “Text her ‘home’?” Perry asks, too knowing. Rhett’s ears go pink. “Yeah.” “Good.” Perry gathers the ledger, wipes the table, makes the kitchen look like a kitchen again. At the doorway, he pauses. “Hey.” Rhett looks up. “I’m glad it’s easy,” Perry says. “Life’s hard all by itself. Let something be easy.” Rhett feels that land where it is supposed to. “Yeah.” Perry nods once, a benediction disguised as a habit. “Night, little brother.” “Night.” The house settles as Perry’s footsteps go down the hall. Rhett pulls out his phone and types home, hits send, and stares at the delivered dot like it is a star he hasn’t noticed before. Then he puts the hat on the hook, turns off the porch light, and lets the dark be kind for once.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

Saturday shows up with a blue sky and a breeze that smells like peaches and kettle corn. He gets there early, tote bag folded into his back pocket like an intention, and watches the farmer’s market set itself up the way a barn wakes - slow, practiced, cheerful. You arrive with your hair a little messy and sunglasses you push up when you spot him. No stage, no heels. A cotton dress that swishes when you walk and sneakers that have seen some things. He’s a little gone before you even say hi. “You brought a tote,” you say, pleased. “I said I had intentions.” He offers his arm like a gentleman at a county fair. “Sunflowers and pretzels?” “Sunflowers and pretzels,” you confirm, and it becomes a plan.

You move like you’ve done this together for years - checking tomatoes for a little give, tasting a slice of peach off a knife, debating the merits of honey vs. maple syrup for ten unnecessary minutes because talking about small things feels like a luxury. He pays for the sunflowers; you slip cash to the pretzel guy like you’ve been trained in sleight-of-hand. He ties the bag handles into a tidy square knot without thinking. You notice. At the hot-sauce table you fish a few bills from your hoodie pocket; a fleck of glitter winks on the top note. Rhett squints, amused. “Is that… glitter?” “Occupational hazard,” you murmur. He opens his mouth to ask where from and you tip closer, conspiratorial: “This exact bill was stuffed in my bra last night.” He folds in half laughing, a helpless, wheezy sound that makes the vendor grin and throw in a sample. You wait for him to stop laughing and then smile at him. “Dinner at mine?” you ask, casual as the breeze. “I’m not an outside-clothes person. I want to change into easy.” “Yes, ma’am,” he says, so soft you almost miss it. He keeps finding excuses to look at you and keeps being surprised that the excuses exist: the way your ring finger taps while you count change; the way you tilt your head when you listen to the old beekeeper explain last spring’s blossoms; the way you break a pretzel, hand him the bigger half, and pretend you didn’t. After a few hours, you thread your fingers through his and tug him toward the truck. The drive hums easy; the quiet fits.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

Your place is a story he didn’t expect. Not fancy - soft. Paintings of lemons and tidepools. A ridiculous number of throw pillows. A bookshelf where romance paperbacks sit next to a worn copy of a bookkeeping manual with sticky notes like flags. There’s a candle that smells like clean laundry and the ocean pretending to be close. On the fridge, labels. On everything. He takes off his boots at the door without being asked and lines them up straight. “You can laugh,” you say, following his gaze to the fridge. “It makes my brain quiet.” “I would never mock your labels,” he says, sincerity and fondness wrapped together. He wants to live in this room. He wants to carry it around like a lucky coin. “I’m going to switch to easy clothes,” you tell him. “You okay to chop?” “I’m elite at chop,” he answers, and you grin like you’ll be grading.

You disappear down the hallway and he lets himself look around like a respectful thief. A plant hangs in a macramé sling and somehow thrives. A small bowl by the door holds keys and a tiny seashell. There’s a framed photo of women backstage - lipstick smiles, glitter caught like stars - everyone laughing. It makes him want to be gentle with the whole world. When you come back, his heart does a reckless thing he doesn’t try to stop. “Easy” is a soft knit set and socks that don’t match. Your hair’s down, and your makeup is exactly none. You look like the person he keeps falling for in smaller and smaller increments. “Okay?” you ask, suddenly self-conscious. “Perfect,” he tries, and it’s the easiest word he’s ever chosen. He clears his throat. “What are we… uh… what am I chopping?” “Garlic, onion, zucchini.” You set a cutting board in front of him, slide a knife his way, and turn on music with bones - something old, warm, and a little scratchy. “We’ll make pasta with tomatoes and basil. Lemon butter if we behave.” He moves the way hands learn - steady, efficient, careful. You rinse cherry tomatoes in a colander and steal pretzel bits between steps. You cook like you dance: with control and permission. He keeps waiting for the moment to make itself complicated. It doesn’t.

“Tell me one small thing your brother does that would surprise people,” you say, passing him the basil. “Perry quilts in the winter,” he gives his answer, straight-faced. “Grandma taught him. Keeps a box of scraps under his bed, names the patterns - Log Cabin, Flying Geese - like they’re horses. Pretends it’s practical, but it’s how he stays sane when the weather pens him in.” You light up. “That’s perfect. Bet his seams are straight enough to measure with a ruler.” “He’d deny it and then fix your hem in under a minute,” Rhett says, fond. “And you?” He tips his head. “One small thing.” “I name my plants like I’m giving them job titles,” you tell him, pointing. “Accounts Receivable. Payroll. Vacation Day.” He laughs so hard he leans on the counter. “You kill me.” “Not before dinner,” you say, but you’re laughing, too.

Garlic hits the pan and the kitchen smells like the kind of home he didn’t realize he wanted. You shoulder-bump him to reach the salt; he catches your elbow out of habit and then lets go because permission matters. The timer for the pasta clicks down in the background, the sun slants in through blinds, and a dust mote drifts like a lazy planet through the light. He sets the knife down. You look up at the exact same moment. The air tilts. “Can I-” he starts, and doesn’t finish because you’re already stepping closer. “Yes,” you say, a soft yes that feels like you pulled it from a warm pocket. The kiss is the opposite of the club - the opposite of noise. It’s the press of mouths that intend to keep being kind in the morning. He breathes out like he’s been holding something for years. Your fingers slip into his hair, his palm anchors at your waist over the soft knit, and the whole room narrows to the exact square of space you’re making together.

The pan pops.

You both jump apart, laugh, and then sprint in the same direction. He shakes the skillet off the heat while you fan the smoke alarm with a dish towel. The pasta timer starts yelling because it refuses to be ignored. You rescue the noodles; he rescues the garlic; the smoke alarm gives one last chirp of judgment and calms down. When the chaos settles, you lean against the counter, cheeks pink from laughing, and he looks like he’d sign a contract for a hundred more nights just like this. “Domestic disaster level: mild,” you declare. “Dinner salvage level: high.” He tastes the sauce with a wooden spoon, considers it like a judge at a fair, and nods. “It’s good.” “You sure you’re not just butter-drunk?” you ask. “Little bit,” he admits. “Also-” He gestures to the room. “-this.” “This?” you prompt. “This,” he says, and it means: you in socks; your kitchen that forgives; the way his jacket is still on your chair like a claim you both understand without words, the kiss and his hands on your waist. You plate the pasta into bowls that don’t match on purpose. He grates too much cheese; you don’t stop him. At the small table, you sit on the same side without talking about it, knees knocking like a secret handshake. He keeps catching himself smiling into his fork. “This is easy,” you state, half-wonder, half-decision. “Let’s keep it that way,” he answers, like a vow he can actually keep.

After dinner, you label a jar for leftovers - Pasta, today - and he laughs so hard he has to lean on the counter again. You set the jar in the fridge and stand there with the door open, doing nothing on purpose, letting the cold curl around your ankles. He steps up behind you, not crowding, just present, and you close the door on two people who, somehow, are already making space for each other. “Walk me to the couch,” you say, teasing. “Yes, ma’am,” he is playing along. You bring the sunflowers to the coffee table because they belong with the evening. He brings the pretzel bag because dessert is a state of mind. The music spins another old song, the kind that understands a day can be simple and still mean everything. He thinks - without panic, without apology - I could do this forever. You glance over like you heard it anyway, then curl your feet under you and hand him the remote like it’s trust in plastic form. The food nearly burned, the kiss didn’t, the labels are straight, and somewhere, at the back of his mind, a fence post sets just right in firm ground.

You kiss again on the couch during a movie that is not much more than background noise - unhurried, the kind that feels like you’ve already agreed to be kind to one another tomorrow. When you pull back, you’re both smiling like you can’t help it. “Stay?” you ask. “Just sleep.” “Yes, ma’am,” full of relief and something softer in it. He borrows a T-shirt you toss him and tries not to look too proud about the way it smells like your laundry soap. You brush your teeth side by side, bumping elbows on purpose. In bed, he lies on his back until you roll into the crook of his shoulder; then his arm goes around you like it’s always known where to be. No rush. No noise. He texts home out of habit, then grins when your phone glows and you whisper, “You are.”

Morning shows up kind and late. You sleep in. When you finally drift to the kitchen, you make coffee the way you like and he scrambles eggs the way his brother does when he’s trying to fix a day before it starts. There’s leftover pasta; there’s a half peach from the market; there’s laughter about the smoke alarm and a second kiss that tastes like coffee. The day isn’t a plan - it just happens the way good days do. You read him bits from the truly terrible blurbs on your romance shelf. He insists on watering Accounts Receivable and Vacation Day (“They look thirsty,” he says, solemn), and you pretend to fill out a write-up for his file when he folds the throw blanket into a perfect rectangle. You teach him your favorite stretch for his shoulder; he teaches you how to tie the square knot he puts on feed bags and, now, tote handles. At some point you both nap and don’t apologize.

Late afternoon tilts toward evening. You glance at the clock and make a face. “Long night,” you say, apologetic. “I gotta go get ready.” He nods, already reaching for his hat. “I’ll clear out.” “Or -” you offer, and you’re casual, like this isn’t a big, bright thing - “pack up whenever you want and lock behind you? Here.” You take the key from the little bowl by the door, slide it off the ring with the seashell, and drop it into his palm. “Spare. Put it back on the hook when you go?” He sits down like gravity remembered him. For a beat he just looks at the key in his hand, then up at you. Whatever he was going to say gets replaced by a quiet, “Okay.”

You kiss him once at the door - soft, quick, a promise with manners - and disappear down the hall with your “easy clothes” already in a heap and your work bag in your hand. He stands there for a full minute, letting the trust settle. Then he tucks the key onto the counter so he won’t pocket it by accident and rolls his sleeves. He cleans like he grew up being raised by kitchen tables: dishes washed, counters wiped, stove de-buttered, the sink shined until it shows him the good kind of tired. He finds your tiny compost bin and empties it, takes out the trash, and leaves a fresh liner like he’s trying to speak your language in chores. He folds a stray sweatshirt, straightens the stack of mail, and sets the sunflowers where the light loves them most. He drives out for another little bouquet - daisies this time, stubbornly cheerful - and a neat card from the drugstore with no picture, just heavy paper that feels like it means what it says. Back at your place, he writes slow, tongue caught at the corner like a schoolkid making sure the lines don’t lean.

Hey.

Rodeo’s next Saturday. I’d like you there if you want to be. My folks will be around, and I want to talk about that - what would feel good for you, what wouldn’t. No pressure, truly. We can do afterward-only, we can bail at first sign of nonsense, we can skip it entirely and share a basket of fries.

Let me know what works.

P.S. Kitchen’s clean (I hope I did it right). I put the key back on the hook. Text me “home” when you’re off.

 - R.

He props the note against the vase, right where your eye will land when you set your bag down. He hangs the spare on the little hook by the door, checks the lock twice, and leaves with that good ache in his chest - the one that means mine without meaning owed. Hours later, you come in on quiet feet, the day still humming in your bones. You drop your bag, reach to push the flowers into the light, and see the card waiting there like a heartbeat. You read the lines once, then again. Something warm and steady unfurls low in your chest - the precise relief of being chosen and consulted in the same breath. You touch the note with two fingers, smile at the lemon-clean counter you didn’t leave, glance at the hook with the key, and feel the room tilt - just a little - toward home.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

He parks under the busted streetlight again, engine off, radio whispering something old. When the back door of the club swings open and you step out - hoodie, tote, makeup mostly gone - he feels that familiar loosening in his chest. “You want fries?” he asks, holding up a greasy paper bag like an offering. “You read my mind,” you say, climbing in. “Hi.” “Hi.” He pulls away from the curb and takes the long road out of town, the one that runs past the shuttered feed mill and the water tower that never quite got repainted. You roll the window down two fingers’ worth and let the night rinse off your hair. 

He parks by the old overlook, where the highway turns into a ribbon of red taillights. You kick your shoes off and tuck one foot under you, easy. He opens the bag and takes serious custody of the salt packets. “Serious question,” you tease, stealing a fry before he salts them. “Did you buy extra?” “I bought emotionally,” he tells you. “So yes.” You laugh, and then it is quiet in the good way, the two of you working through the fries like a team with discipline. He keeps glancing at you and then away, like headlights. When he finally sets the bag aside and flattens his palms on his jeans, you know he is finding his words. “It makes me worried sometimes,” he confesses, honest right out of the gate. “And I hate that it does, because it’s a job like any other -” He tugs a sheepish grin. “- just with fewer clothes.” You snort so hard you slap his arm with the back of your hand. “Okay, hallmark. Put that on a mug.” “I’ll get you two” he grins, relieved that you are laughing. He sobers a notch. “I don’t want to be the guy who makes you manage my feelings about your work. That’s on me. If it gets loud in my head, I’ll do the smoke-break thing. Step out. Breathe. Text you I’m okay.” You nod, a small, approving hum. “And I’ll keep the job in its box. No details. If you’re there and a private comes up, I’ll take it if I want it, pass if I don’t. If there’s a night you’d rather not watch the room be the room, tell me and I’ll meet you after. I like that we can say things out loud.” “Me too.” He fiddles with the straw wrapper, then looks up, steady. “I know it’s early. But I like you. I want this to last. I want you to meet my folks - if you’re up for it. I’ll tell them ahead of time. Set it up right. No pressure on you. If it’s weird, we bail. If it’s fine, we stay. We’ll figure it out.” 

You hold his gaze, feel the careful sincerity of it land where it should. “Whatever you need from me,” you say. “Tell me. I’ll do it. And I’d love to see you work, by the way. The rodeo. It feels fair, me seeing your world, since you’ve seen mine.” He blows out a breath he’d been pretending he wasn’t holding. “Okay. Saturday. I go on around three. We can meet after the chute dust settles, do the rounds if you want. Or I can run interference.” “Around three. We can meet after the chute dust settles, do the rounds if you want. Or I can run interference,” he offers. “I’m good with whatever,” you answer. “And the out if we need it.” “Always,” he promises, immediate. “We’ll have a code. If you use ‘weather,’ that means you need a porch and air.” “Copy,” you tease, amused. “And if you say ‘fence post,’ I’ll pull you out of a feed talk with a fake call.” He leans back, lets the headrest take some weight. Below you, a semi mutters along the highway. Above, the moon does its best to mind its business. “Also,” you add, a touch tentative, “can I cash in that offer to ask around? For morning work. Bookkeeping. Co-op, hardware, feed store - whatever’s decent. The late nights are… doable. But I’d like more days that end before midnight.” “Absolutely,” he blurts - too fast - then reins it in. “I’ll talk to my aunt at the hardware store. And Perry knows the co-op’s manager. We’ll keep it quiet until you give the go. You tell me what you want me to tell them.” “Thank you,” you murmur. “I like asking you for help and not feeling like it costs me something.” “It never will,” he promises, plain. You nudge his knee with yours. “You’re very good at the grown-up talk.” “I practiced on the drive,” he admits. “To the bag of fries.” You reach over and set your hand over his, palm to palm, the easy, steady fit you were both getting used to. “For what it’s worth,” you say, “you’re allowed to have feelings about my job. You’re just not allowed to make them my problem.” He barks a laugh. “Fair enough.”

You share the last fries like they are witnesses. He tells you about a stubborn calf that figured out how to unlatch the pen and made a nightly habit of joyriding the pasture. You tell him about the new girl on the floor who choreographed to ‘70s soul and made even the bouncers smile. He listens with his whole attention; you give yours back the same way. When the milkshakes are gone and the paper bag is flat and defeated between you, he turns the key just enough to bring the radio back. A soft song comes on, one of the ones with bones. He doesn´t move to start the engine. Neither do you.

“Saturday,” he says, like a promise you can fold in half and put in your pocket. “Saturday,” you echo. He smiles. “And between now and then, I’ll ask around. Aunt Jo first. She’ll grill me. She’s mean in a loving way.” “I can handle mean in a loving way,” you smile. “I have glitter on my resume.” He laughs, tips your hand to his mouth, and presses a brief, grateful kiss to your knuckles - old-fashioned courtesy that never quite went out of him. Then he starts the truck, and you let the road carry you back toward town, toward keys in bowls and labels on jars and the feeling that this thing you are making might actually stay easy because you are both working at it. At your door, he doesn’t rush the goodbye. He touches your cheek once, light, like punctuation rather than a paragraph. “Text me when you’re home,” you say on reflex, then roll your eyes at yourself. “You are home.” He grins. “I’ll text you anyway.” “Do. And tell Aunt Jo I make a mean spreadsheet.” “Yes, ma’am.” You steal one more quick kiss - warm, certain, the kind that makes the hallway smell like salt and something better than luck - and then you are inside, and he is outside with his hat in his hand and a smile he can’t quite lose.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

He steps into the kitchen to find the usual rhythms: Royal sorting bolts into an old coffee tin, Cecelia drafting a grocery list like a battle plan. He sets his hat on the counter, drawing breath to speak -  “You don’t have to tell me,” Cecelia cuts in, eyes soft but sharp. “I’ve noticed. You’re different. Lighter these days.” He huffs a small laugh. “Yeah. I’m seeing someone. I like her. And I’d like you to meet her.” Royal’s hands still over the tin; Cecelia’s pen pauses mid-checkmark. “All right,” she says, nodding once. “Tell us about her.” “She dances,” he tells them straight up. No hedging. “At the club a few towns over.” Silence does a lap around the room. Royal sets one bolt down, lines it up with the others. “Son…” “I know,” Rhett answers - not combative, just immovable. “I knew it when I met her. It’s her job. She’s good at it, she’s safe in it, she chose it. She’s also funny and smart, and she’s got rules same as we do. I’m not asking you to like the idea. I’m asking you to meet the person.” Cecelia rubs a thumb over the corner of her list. “Are you sure she isn’t - ” she searches for a gentler word and doesn’t find one - “using you?” He huffs a laugh that isn’t cruel. “She makes more money than me, Ma. If anything, she’s spotting me on fries.” He softens. “And I’m not the one she needs anything from. She’s fine. I just want you to know who I’m with.” Royal leans back, chair creaking. “You know folks’ll talk.” “Folks would talk if I brought home a saint,” Rhett scoffs. “I can’t run my life on their opinions. I won’t run hers on ’em, either.”

Perry drifts in like he’s just remembered the concept of coffee. He doesn’t speak - just reaches for a mug and stays within earshot. Backup without a badge. Cecelia exhales, a long, thin stream. “Do you love her?” she asks, then waves herself off. “Too soon - forget I asked.” “It’s early,” Rhett admits. “But I like her real steady. We’re taking it slow. She’s meeting me where I am, and I’m meeting her where she is. We talk like adults. I’m proud of that.” Royal’s jaw works once. “What do you expect from us?” Rhett meets his eyes. “Be normal,” he answers, simple. “Be kind. If it’s too much, we’ll keep it short. If it goes fine, we’ll stay. I don’t need sermons. I need you to trust I’m not walking blind.” Perry finally chimes in, casual as weather. “He’s not,” he says, sipping. “I’ve seen him blind. This ain’t it.” Cecelia’s mouth tips - half worry, half something else. “What’s her name?” Rhett tells her, and the kitchen shifts a degree. Royal taps the rim of the coffee tin. “When?” “Rodeo’s Saturday,” Rhett replies. “I ride around three. I asked her to come. We can meet up after - lots of people, easy out if anybody feels weird.” Cecelia nods, practical mode clicking in like a gear. “Okay. Rodeo is neutral ground.” She pauses. “I’ll bring a pie. Does she like lemon or apple?” “Lemon,” Rhett says, surprised at how sure he is. “And the sunflowers at the market.”

Cecelia writes lemon and underlines it. The pen clicks twice. “We’ll be civil,” she declares, and her voice had found the path between bristle and welcome. “I can’t promise I won’t ask a stupid question. But I’ll try not to.” “That’s all I’m asking,” Rhett says. “And if someone else asks a stupid question, I’ll handle it.” Royal gives one of those small, gruff nods that means he is saying a lot more than he admits. “You get one thing from me,” he says. “Don’t let being lonely make you stupid.” Rhett smiles. “I won’t.” Perry bumps his shoulder on the way past, a brother’s amen. “I’ll stake out the grounds. Run block if needed.” Cecelia tears the grocery list in half and hands a piece to Dad. “Sunflowers,” she speaks, to nobody and everybody. “We can do sunflowers.” Rhett picks up his hat. The room doesn’t feel entirely changed, but it isn’t what it was five minutes ago, either. He takes the little win and doesn’t press for more. “Saturday,” he says. “Saturday,” Cecelia echoes. “We’ll meet her. We’ll be normal.” Royal goes back to his bolts, but his voice follows Rhett to the doorway. “Bring your best ride. And tell her we’re glad to meet who’s making you less ornery.” Rhett grins into the hall. “Yes, sir.”

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

The fairgrounds are already humming when he pulls in - dust in the air, kids with snow cones, an old PA system clearing its throat. He is half in his head and half in the chute list when a familiar voice cuts through the noise at his shoulder. “Hey, cowboy.” He turns so fast his hat tilts. There you are - leather jacket, white shirt, flare jeans, boots that mean business. Hair loose, a little shine at your mouth from lip balm. You look like the idea of a western that actually holds together. “What are you - ” He catches himself, grinning. “Whatcha doin’ here?” You tip two fingers toward the alley that runs behind the pens. “Marco’s working security today. Used to bounce for us, remembers my good side. He waved me through with a wristband and a ‘tell him to keep his spurs down’.” Rhett huffs a laugh, something like pride sparking behind his ribs. “You look like trouble.” “I am. The fun kind.” You loop your arms around his neck; his hands find your waist. He draws you in and kisses you - quick, sure, sweet, a little claiming. When you part, you smile at him - a little wrecked and a little in love. “You good?” “Better now,” he says, honest as it comes.

There isn’t time for much more - another quick kiss by the rails, your hand squeezing his wrist once like a secret, his thumb brushing your knuckles like he can’t help it. Then the pickup man is calling and the world narrows to rosin, rope, and eight seconds that always ask too much and give just enough back. You slip out the back, find a spot on the rail a section over from where families camp with lawn chairs and coolers. Not hiding - just giving everyone a little air. From there, you can see the gate, the judge’s hand, and the toss of the animal under him. The announcer rolls Rhett’s name like a dare; the chute bangs; the bull blows out and turns hard left. He covers. Not pretty - honest. Shoulders loose, legs talking, free arm drawing circles in the dust and sunlight. The buzzer hits and the whole place lifts with him. He hits dirt, scrambles, runs clean, and when he is safe he doesn't look to the scoreboard first. He looks for you.

You’re already on your feet, laughing a little with relief, hand pressed to your heart. He jogs to the fence, plants a boot in a rung, climbs two bars, and finds your mouth before the dust even settles - quick, grinning, nowhere near enough and exactly right for the public. The section around you whoops. Someone yells, “Get it, cowboy!” and he laughs against your smile. “You were so good,” you breathe, forehead tipping to his like you can steady him with touch. “I get lucky,” he pants, still catching breath. “C’mon. Let´s go meet my folks.” Down the rail, Cecelia, Royal, and Perry watch the whole small miracle - your hand on his cheek, his joy unhidden. Perry grins outright; Royal goes quiet in that way he does when something lands true. And Cecelia feels a hinge in her chest loosen, a little more room made. She’ll meet you as you are, no judgment, because her boy looks happy and that counts for more than the story she told herself before.  He drops back to the dirt, jogs the curve of the fence, and meets you at the gate. With a grin, he slides his hands to your waist and lifts you down off the rail - easy, like you’re the only thing he trusts to carry - setting you soft onto your boots. His hand stays at your waist and doesn't go far after that - sometimes around your back, sometimes linked with your fingers, like he is making sure you are never out of reach and never held too tight. You let him; it feels like the right size of steady.

⟡ ✿ ✧ ✿ ⟡

They’re waiting at a cluster of picnic benches like you all planned it that way - Cecelia setting down two foil-tented pies, Perry muscling a cooler into the shade, Royal with his hands on his hips, assessing and pretending he isn’t. “Ma, Dad,” Rhett says, voice easy. “This is -” he says your name like a good word, “- and these are my folks.” You don’t hesitate. You step straight to Cecelia, arms open. She startles, then smiles and gathers you in. “Oh,” she says, hands settling on your shoulders. “You’re warm.” “So are you,” you answer, like sharing an inside joke. “Thanks for meeting me.” Cecelia lifts the foil with ceremony. “Lemon or apple?” she asks - because she’s that kind of woman. “I brought both.” Perry pops the cooler lid, ice rattling, and grins like he’s been waiting to hand you a water all day. Royal gives a small, approving nod that says he’s taking the measure and likes what he finds. Rhett keeps a palm at the small of your back, fingers finding yours a beat later, and the bench becomes the easiest place in the world to sit.

“You ride good,” Royal tells Rhett, and then turns to you, “You look like you know how to spot a good tomato.” “I do,” you answer. “I also label leftovers. It’s a condition.” Perry chokes on a laugh. “He’s doomed,” he announces, delighted. “In a good way.” “So,” Cecelia says, slicing the pie like a diplomat, “you… ah…” She searches for something delicate and lands on honesty. “Do you ever - good grief, I’m going to ask this wrong - do you ever feel like folks are… looking at you for the wrong thing?” You could bristle. You don’t. You laugh softly - not at her, but at the question’s awkward boots. “All the time,” you answer, easy, handing her the knife to show you trust her hands. “At the club, that’s part of the ticket. But I set the rules there. Outside, I’m just a person in a hoodie who wants fries and a bed by midnight. And I’m doing bookkeeping part-time for a salon, looking for more of that. Numbers look at me for the right reasons.” Cecelia blinks, then smiles, relief smoothing something in her. “Numbers do have manners,” she says. “I like you.” “I like you, too,” you reply - and mean it. Royal hands Rhett a plate, then jerks his chin toward you with a kind of cautious affection. “You’ve got him laughing more,” he tells you. “We notice.” “Good,” you smile, like you’ve been handed a job you want. “He’s very good at making other people breathe easier. Someone should return the favor.”

You all eat pie that’s too sweet and perfect anyway. People drift by to clap Rhett on the shoulder; he fields it with his usual patience, always circling back to your side like he’s installed a compass for it. When someone asks if you’re his girl, he says, “Yes, sir,” without a flinch, and you feel the little click of a thing settling into one of its truest names. Cecelia does ask one more clumsy question about the club - some version of “how long do you think you’ll keep at it?” - and you just laugh again, gentle. “’Til I don’t want to,” you say. “And I don’t make big decisions when I’m tired. Right now I like the stage and the girls and the rules. I also like mornings. I’m letting both be true.” “That’s… very reasonable,” she admits, almost impressed with herself for hearing it. “Reasonable’s my brand,” you grin, nudging Rhett’s hip with yours. “His too.” “Sometimes,” Perry mutters. “With supervision.” They all laugh, even Royal, and then there are introductions to Aunt Jo at the table over - you tell her you “make a mean spreadsheet,” and she barks back, “Good, I make a mess,” and takes your number - and the sky settles toward late-day gold, and Rhett’s hand never really leaves you: fingers linked, palm at your waist, forearm brushing yours. Not because you need guarding. Because it feels good to have an always. When the band strikes up by the beer tent, Cecelia leans in and kisses your cheek, quick and soft. “Lemon suits you,” she says. “Sunflowers suit you,” you return, nodding at the stems peeking from her tote. “Thank you for seeing me and not the rumors.” “Thank you for letting me learn out loud,” she thanks you, and pats your hand - an apology shaped like affection. Rhett looks between you like a man who’s brought the right horse to the right ranch. “Walk?” he asks, thumb pressing once at your side. “Walk,” you say, and you go - through dust and laughter and the easy goodbyes between family - his hand finding yours again like it’s been there all along.

He walks you to his truck and opens the passenger door for you to climb in. You drive home with the windows cracked and dust still in their hair, grinning like the day doesn’t know how to quit. His hand rides the console the whole way, palm up, so you can lay your fingers there when the road goes straight. He drives both of you to your place.  You both laugh your way through the door. He drops his hat on the hook and you tug him in by the shirt, a quick kiss that lands like a thank-you and a dare. “You rode well,” you murmur against his mouth. “Got lucky,” he says, already smiling. “My turn,” you decide, playful. “Rules are simple. We are home,” the word hits clean in his chest, “you can touch wherever you want.” “Yes, ma’am,” he says, voice gone warm. You cue a song with bones on your phone and let the little speaker turn the room amber. Jacket off, hair down, you step between his knees where he’s perched on the arm of the couch and start slow - hips keeping time, shoulders easy, a smile that’s all private. He laughs once, delighted and helpless, and then goes quiet the way good men do when they’re paying attention. You lean in, let your weight find him an inch at a time; he exhales, hands steady at your waist. When his thumbs press, careful, you nod. “That’s good,” you say, and he flushes like you gave him a ribbon. You turn, back to his chest, and let your spine fit the length of him, rolling your shoulders to the beat until he has to breathe deeper just to keep up. It’s heat without hurry, the kind of close that makes the room smaller and kinder. “Okay?” you check, turning your head. His jaw is tight with trying to be respectful and you love him for it. “So okay,” he manages, a little broken around the edges.

You laugh, spin back to face him, and straddle his lap, settling there like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His hands stay where you left them until you lift them until they are not. He moves both hands to your face and the permission is written in the way you tip your face into his palms. The kiss that follows is slow and sure, a long yes that doesn’t need a witness. When the song fades, you don’t move away. You stay right there, forehead to his, catching breath together. He’s looking at you like he’s memorizing - like he’s been trying not to say something for days and finally found the right room for it. “I think it’s obvious,” he starts, then swallows, gathers himself. “But I wanted to say it so you actually know.” You go still, soft. “I’m in love with you,” he says, simple as a fence post set straight. “I am. I know it’s early to some people. I know it’s fast. But it’s true in me, and I’d kick myself if I didn’t put it in the air where you could reach it.” Your smile happens before you can decide on it. It feels like a door opening to a porch you’ve been building together by accident. “Thank you for saying it,” you whisper, thumb brushing his cheekbone. “I’m in love with you, too.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Bull riding is a man’s world. You know that. You feel it every day - how they count you out before the gate swings, how their jokes look for places to land, how a camera climbs your body before it ever finds your rope hand. You learned to stop asking for room and start taking it.

Tonight the arena is three towns over from Wabang. Close enough that the wind smells like the same stubborn grass, close enough that your bones remember which way the evening cool comes down the draws. Close enough that some kid you used to outrun on a gravel road might be on the rail, not recognizing you until the light hits just right. You drive past a diner that used to burn the toast and a gas station that still sells cherry icees you can taste if you try. You do not stop. You are not a ghost visiting old corners. You are here to work.

Pre-rodeo is a hum that wants to be a storm. You feel it in the wrists first, a buzz under the tape like a live wire; in the lungs second, that skinny slice of air that only widens when you make it. You park, kill the engine, sit for one count. In. One. Out, One. Then you move.

Trailer light; mirror check. You slick the flyaways with water because you prefer competence to cosmetics but you know how optics buy you time. Simple red eyeliner, Black leather vest, laces snug. Chaps that move when you do, not before. A little spider stitched small and mean at your glove knuckles - red, the size of a thumbnail, private and public at once. You powder the tail of your rope with rosin, slow circles that smell like old pine and heat. The ritual is quiet on purpose; the show can be loud later.

You walk the alley in a line the boys think is swagger and you know is economy. A teenager in a borrowed hat sees you and elbows his friend; a woman in a work shirt and good boots gives you a quick nod that says go on, then. You nod back. The stock boys pretend not to stare. The bull in your chute tosses his head and plants a message in the dirt: he owes no one anything. Good. You don’t owe him fear.

The proximity to Wabang does the strangest thing to your spine: it stiffens it and softens it at once. Your throat remembers dust and August and the thin metallic taste of county fair lemonade. Your ear remembers Royal’s voice - Don’t fight the first jump, kid. Love it or it’ll teach you hard. Your mouth remembers the bite of salt from curly fries and a boy with a too-long grin who always sat next to you and called coincidence what it wasn’t. You do not go there. Not now. You put the memories in your back pocket like you would a pocketknife: useful later, dangerous if you play with it when you should be working.

Five minutes to call. You stretch the shoulder that sometimes whispers about December and Christmas with the Abbotts one year. You check the brace - not too tight. You flex each finger in your glove and watch the tendons rise like cables. The announcer is warming the crowd with a voice built out of gravel and promise; he says toughness like a brand and heart like a weather report. You roll out your neck until it clicks back into place and give your lungs what they asked for.

In. One. Out. One.

Boys on the rail try their lines. Cute. Predictable. You make them eat their comments with a look and a half-smile they’ll tell stories about later, and you keep walking. The chute boss gives you the courtesy he gives money makers and the respect he gives pros. “You good?” he asks, purely procedural. “Better than good,” you say, because it’s true and because you like how it sounds rolling off the metal.

Three minutes. You lay a palm on the bull’s shoulder and feel the engine and muscle under skin. Left spinner, heavy in the neck, mean little twitch in the right ear. Scar on the muzzle says he’s met a gate wrong. Breath says he’ll test yours. You call him handsome under your breath so only the hide hears it. He snorts like he knows flattery from fact.

You step onto the rail and the world tightens to the shape of a job done well. The leather is a rumor until it squeaks; the hat brim throws your eyes into your own shadow; the hourglass winks once in the floodlight like a secret you decided to share. Out beyond the chutes, the crowd rises for things they don’t yet understand and maybe don’t need to. You don’t ride for their understanding. You ride for the eight quiet seconds that silence the part of your head that thinks too many words.

The sound man hits your cue - a low guitar, a little dirty - and the announcer smiles into the mic like he’s been waiting to say it all week. “Back in town and hungry for it - make some noise for Black Widow.” There it is. The name that used to feel like a dare and now fits like armor. You don’t wink. You don’t wave. You adjust the vest. You settle your hips. You swing a leg and sit the hide like it invited you and you’re polite enough to accept.

Staging narrows to mechanics. Rope across your palm, tail in the fist, knuckles flat, elbow arrowed. Knees soft. Toes light. Chin tucked so the head follows the line your body already believes in. You set your jaw where it won’t get in the way. The gate man waits for your nod; the bull bounces under you like a thought trying to get free. You bring the whole world down to breath and bone.

Somewhere in the stands, Wabang watches. Somewhere at a rail, a man you could find by sound alone is counting with you whether he’s close enough to hear or not. Somewhere under your glove, a little scar you got on the Abbott farm one summer faintly itches like it remembers Wabang more than you do right now. 

You tip your chin. Clean. No drama. The latch clacks. And the chute opens like a held breath let go.

The bleachers tremble when the chute bangs. Rhett feels it in his boots, then in his teeth. He isn’t riding tonight - hat brim low, hands empty, family around him like a fence that breathes. The dust lifts in sheets. The floodlights flatten color into bone and shine. You drop into the seat like you were born to it - clean hip set, chin tucked, rope tail snug. The crowd hears Black Widow; Rhett hears summers full of flies and heat and winters of snow and tea and a girl who counted under her breath so the world would hold still.

Cecilia leans forward, elbows on her knees, the way she always did when it mattered. “Royal,” she says, soft and sure, “is that our little-” “Cricket,” Royal finishes, not asking. His mouth barely moves; his eyes do. He watches the way you check the bull’s shoulder with your palm, patient, interested, unimpressed. He doesn’t blink. “Heard tell of a woman in the arena,” he rumbles. “Never thought it was our Cricket.”

Perry squints, grin threatening. “Hell. Look at her.” Rhett looks. The leather is a show; the seat is the truth. You rides the first jump like you love it - Royal’s old lesson turned into muscle and proof. Left spinner, hard and mean; you let the bull have his line, kills the waste, eats the seconds. Floodlight kisses the red spider on your glove like a secret that got tired of hiding. “God,” Perry says, like he is half laughing and half proud. “Cricket went and made herself a myth.” “She made herself a rider,” Cecilia says. There is steel in her voice. She squeezes Rhett’s knee through his jeans. “You see her hands, honey?”

He does. You chalk, you settle, you breathe. He hears it even from here. In. One. Out. One. The alley narrows to a shape around you. Your show name burns hot and red. Your old name whirs under it, small and bright. Both are true. He knew it when you were fifteen and shared fries at the county fair. He knows it now when you put your palm on angry hide and make the world hold still.

A man behind them leans in with a chuckle that doesn’t belong to anything. “Damn,” he says to his buddy, “I want her to ride me like-” Cecilia’s glance over her shoulder could sand paint. He quiets. Rhett doesn’t even turn; all his attention is pinned to the dirt. He catalogues the changes, the sameness, because that keeps his breath steady. The braid - tidier and longer, tied off with a darker ribbon. The mouth - set straight for work, curved at the edges for when the count goes right. The hands - stronger, quicker, still telegraphing nothing. You look older. You look exactly the same. Mostly you look like yourself, the way you only ever did when you were on the ranch and around the Abbotts. He watches you with a feeling that won’t pick one name: awe, relief, and that old, unfair hate that belongs to the boy you left behind - the one for whom your leaving was the end of the world and maybe still is on nights when the stars won’t shut up.

You look like motion made you larger. You look like the world bent around the space you took and decided never to spring back. He hates that a little, the way a healed bone hates the weather - ache that proves it mended crooked and strong. You eat seconds. You eat their noise. You ride without wasting a single breath that doesn’t buy you another inch of control. Rhett hears himself counting with you before he knows he started. In. One. Out. One. First hook, you win the pocket and stay open; second, you let the shoulder roll; third, you check the jaw and leave the head alone so the body can follow. The clock eats. The clock obeys.

Rhett doesn’t smile. He can’t. He’s busy. He’s holding the entire night the way you hold a skittish animal: still, gentle, willing to be bit if it means not letting go. The announcer is a faraway thing. The crowd’s roar is weather he’ll notice later. Right now there is only your spine over mean power and the old county-fair lesson turning into another second survived. Perry slaps Rhett’s shoulder once. Royal’s jaw softens. Perry’s grin shows up slow, reverent against its will. “She looks pretty when she’s working,” he says, and for once there’s no tease in it. Just truth.

The buzzer hits like a door slamming on danger. You make the dismount look like choice. Dirt scatters; a bullfighter buy you clean air; you clear the pocket and sticks the ground, knees easy, shoulders square. You tip your chin to the chute boss. A wink. A wave. A bow. The crowd lifts and lifts you with them. 

Scoreboard clicks. Second place.

“Eight clean,” Royal says under his breath, not superstition - fact. Cecilia breathes, “Lord,” the way some people clap. “Cricket,” Perry says, laughter caught in his throat. “Damn.” Rhett finally breathes like he means it. The name lands right where it always lived. Not the brand the world bought, but the first one, the one Royal gave a kid who wouldn’t stop chirping questions and hopping rails. “She’s back,” Cecilia says. “She never left,” Royal answers, meaning the important parts. Rhett keeps his eyes on you as you walk the rail, letting the noise hit and slide off like weather. You are scanning, working, the arena still a job in your hands. But he knows - he knows - you will look up when it counts, and when you do, you´ll find the one thing he’s been able to count by for years.

He doesn’t wave. He doesn’t shout. He stands a fraction taller on the plank, jaw tight, eyes hard to protect what’s softer under them. He hates you for a heartbeat - for leaving, for growing, for proving the world could be survived without him - and then the hate folds itself into heat and respect and under it something he cannot name yet. Perry’s hand thumps Rhett’s shoulder again and stays there this time, a steadying weight. “She was a kid last time,” he says, wonder slipping out sideways. “Look at her now.” Ten years is a long time until it isn’t. Rhett does look. Twenty-six, same as him; ten years, same as a lifetime. The braid is tidier, longer, the smile rarer, the eyes older - in a way he recognizes from his own mirror. Mostly you look like yourself - the version of her that only shows up in situation where you fight to not look and feel small. There is more steel in your eyes. Your smile is different, more show and flash when you wave at the crowd. You take the walk along the rail. The arena bends a little around you; it used to try to make you small and now it doesn’t remember how. You jump the rail to take a picture with a little girl that wears a shirt with a spider and she looks at you like you like you brought Christmas and birthday gifts combined.

And then you look up. Suddenly he feels like ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen all over again. The light flattens, the roar thins, and for one clean beat the distance between sixteen and twenty-six, between leaving and staying, between Black Widow and Cricket, collapses into a single line of sight. You drop anchor on Rhett like you did since you were ten. His mouth doesn’t move. His chest does.

You tip your chin - tiny, private, the exact measure of Good to see you again - and then you are moving again, back into the work, leaving him with the same thought he’s had since they were kids, only truer now that the years have had their say: You left and you came back. And he’s still right where you can find him.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Second place tastes like dust and sugar - sweet enough to want more, gritty enough to keep you honest. Rhett watches the armor stay on all the way down the alley: the straight spine, the lazy-mean walk, the red spider winking on your glove. He thinks you’ll ghost the pen, vanish into your trailer and your ritual.

They’re where they’ve always been: the Abbotts, three abreast like a line the world forgot to erase. Royal with his hand on the rail. Cecilia with her shoulders pitched forward the way she leans into things she loves. Perry already grinning like he got away with something. Rhett - still as fence post, steel outside so the soft parts don’t get trampled.

The whole machine of you stutters and reboots into something he remembers: knees loose, hat tipped back, that fast bright grin that never made it to cameras. “Perry!” you yell like you’re twelve again, and you’re already moving, sprinting the last ten feet across the dirt. Perry doesn’t brace - he just catches you, all air knocked out of him and laughter back in, picks you up and spins you once. Your boots kick a crescent of dust; your braid whips his shoulder. You’re talking into his collar - nothing words, happy noise - and for a heartbeat Rhett is sixteen again, jealous of anything that gets your first look, even his own brother.

Cecilia steps in like a tide - hands on your cheeks, a thumb to the little scar at your brow, eyes wet and fierce. “Cricket,” she says, and the name lands like shelter. You try to play it cool; you fail immediately. “Cece,” you say, small on the exhale, and fold into her hug like you forgot how tired you were until now. Royal waits his beat, then offers what he always offered you first: steadiness. No fuss. Just a hand that pulls you in tight and thumps your back like you’re a rider he’s proud to claim. “You sit a bull proper,” he says into your hat brim. “Always did.” You nod hard, swallow hard, and for a second your eyes shine the way they did when you were younger and did not yet have the steel to defend you from people that wanted to make you smaller.

When you turn, Rhett is there. You finally look at him. Just him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break. He lets the smile lift one corner of his mouth. “Hi,” he says, and it’s nothing like a boy and exactly like a man who waited without making a scene. The noise falls away for him the way it always does when something matters. He takes inventory because it keeps his hands still: dirt on your jaw, a split in your glove seam (right where he could fix it), the high pulse at your throat. The show has slid off you in layers - what’s left is heat and truth and that stubborn light he’s been chasing since the ferris wheel summers. He feels ten again before he knows why.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Gravel crunches. Royal’s truck rolls to a stop, door swinging wide. You jump out from the passenger side like you’ve been launched - truck too big for you by a mile, but you stick the landing anyway. Shorts, old T-shirt, one knee scraped raw and proud, braid shorter than it will be later with strands already escaping, a thin sunburn across your nose like a badge.

Rhett just stares.

Royal tips his hat toward his boys, half smile caught in his beard. “Couldn’t not take her,” he says, like you’re a force of weather. “Kid kept on begging to meet the calves.” 

Perry is faster. He plants himself in front of you, hands on hips, already grinning at the trouble you promise. “Hi,” he says, and it clicks in one second - older-brother energy snapping into place like a gate that knows where it belongs. You return the grin, then march straight up to Rhett and stop close enough to count freckles. You thrust out your hand, palm dusty, chin lifted like you intend to be taken seriously. He doesn’t take it. Not because he won’t - because he forgot how hands work for a second. You angle your head, unimpressed and amused. “Have you never seen a girl before?” Perry snickers loud enough to spook a pigeon. Rhett turns red to his ears and manages a grip; your shake is brisk, businesslike, done.

Royal hooks a thumb toward the porch. “Come on, kid,” he says, “Meet Cecilia before you charm the whole herd.” “Already did,” you say, not moving, eyes flicking past Royal to the small pen where the calves blink in the shade. Then you obey - because you decide to - trotting up the steps beside him, dirt-streaked legs, socks slouched, braid bobbing.

Rhett watches you go, feeling ten and brand-new at the same time, the day suddenly larger than it was five minutes ago. Perry elbows him once, delighted. “You’re doomed,” he whispers. Rhett doesn’t answer. He’s busy memorizing the sound of your feet on their porch and the shape of your hand in his, the beginning of a world he won’t know how to name for years.

A while later you walk through the west pasture. The grass is high enough to shiver against your knees, seedheads painting your shins with pollen. Royal takes the fence line at an easy pace, long shadow keeping you in the shade. Perry kicks through cow paths like he owns them. Rhett is there because he always is, half a step behind, hands in his pockets, watching the ground like it might tell him something.

You talk the whole way.

About the calves - how their eyelashes are ridiculous and how one of them has a white patch shaped like a boot. About the creek - is it cold all summer or just now? About your scraped knee - not from falling, from sliding like a champion, thanks. Every time Royal answers, you jump tracks to the next question like a grasshopper, landing, launching, landing again.

Royal hums to show he’s listening. Perry throws in commentary like he’s calling a game. Rhett mutters something that might be a laugh and might be a warning to himself. Finally - half exasperated, half enchanted - Rhett says it under his breath, not meant as anything but a grumble that escapes anyway: “Do you ever shut up? You’re like a cricket.”

You stop. You look back over your shoulder, sun in your eyes, mouth already curving. Then you stick out your tongue at him, quick as a dare. “You’re rude,” you inform him, then pivot and keep going, talking again before the grass settles. Perry snorts. Royal’s mouth almost smiles. Rhett pretends he isn’t smiling at all. 

The name hangs there for a few more steps, light as chaff. Then it drops into place with a small, satisfying click, like a latch finding its home. “Cricket,” Royal says once, testing it, and it fits like it was waiting. Perry repeats it with a flourish. Rhett doesn’t say it out loud. He files it away where he keeps things he plans to take out later when no one’s looking.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

“Cricket,” he says, soft, like the name might scare. Then, because you earned it and you chose it, “Black Widow.” You huff, a breath almost like a laugh. “Hey,” you say, as if ten years were a long lunch break. You pull him in, proper. You smell like chute nylon and hot sand and a summer that still thinks you are thirteen. He slides his arms around your waist and tucks his face into the rough of your neck. He stays there for a moment longer than needed, allowing himself to be sixteen and in love again. 

Perry elbows the rail because he can’t stand quiet when it turns tender. The two of you part. “Don’t just stand there, Rhett. Say something pretty.” Rhett doesn’t rise to it. He tips his hat instead, old language made new. “Rode clean,” he says, pride as plain as water. “Looked like first.” You huff, pleased. “Second pays enough to keep me hungry.”

Royal’s arm comes around again, a clamp and a thud between your shoulder blades. “You did good, kid,” he rumbles. You give him the small, satisfied nod you used to give when the calf finally took the gate. Then you turn to Perry with your mouth already twisting into trouble. “Heard you have a kid,” you say, tone pure mischief. “Who let you be responsible for a human on purpose?” Perry presses a hand to his heart, staggers like you shot him with kindness. “Not only that,” he says, delighted. “A wife too. You’ll come meet ’em.” “Yeah, of course,” you say, no hesitation, like you’ve had the address written on your palm for a year. “You think I’m passing up the chance to tell a small person all your secrets?” Perry whoops. “Bring it on.”

Somewhere behind his steady face, Rhett’s whole chest loosens. The word of course lands in him like a promise he didn’t ask you to make out loud. You will return home, he thinks, the thought as simple and enormous as fence meeting horizon. Maybe not every day. Maybe not forever. But home got bigger the minute you said yes to the kitchen and the kid and the idea that there’s a chair at their table with your name on it again.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Late spring, the kind that forgets itself after sunset. The creek is fat with meltwater, cottonwoods just starting to fuzz, calves still wearing ears too big for their heads. You’re twelve, all knees and scabbed shins, braid unspooling, T-shirt with someone else’s name written on the tag. You’ve spent all day handing Royal tools and pretending not to race Perry between fenceposts. Rhett walks the line behind you, steady and quiet, like the fence might wander off if he looks away.

By dusk, you’re soft with tired. Hay clings to your socks; your head sports a new scrape you’ve already decided to keep. The Abbotts’ porch light glows gold through the screen. Inside, the table is crowded - bowls, bread, the smell of garlic and something simmered slow. You stop in the doorway, feeling that strange tug again: not home, exactly, but something leaning close to it.

“Shoes,” Cecilia calls without looking up, voice all quilt and sunlight. You obey. The thud of your sneakers on the floorboards sounds like permission. She turns, wooden spoon in hand, scanning you like she always does. “Any damage?” “Minor,” you report. “Fence two bit my head. I won.” Royal chuckles. Perry fakes outrage. Rhett smirks into his glass.

Dinner is easy - bread still warm, stew too heavy on the vegetables for Perry and just right for you. Royal tells stories about bulls with grudges. Perry interrupts for effect. Rhett rolls his eyes, but his mouth curves anyway. You talk with your hands, knock your spoon once against your bowl, apologize, forget, and do it again. No one minds.

When the dishes are stacked and the house hums quiet, Cecilia wipes her hands and nods toward the mudroom. “Come here, kid. Help me fold.” You follow. The mudroom smells like soap and pine. Towels wait in a neat stack beside a row of hooks - four coats, all sizes. Yours hangs there too, lighter and smaller, but there. You know it’s yours because last week you left it on the fence and Royal brought it in muttering and Cecilia hung it anyway.

She passes you a towel. You fold. She folds. The quiet between you feels kind. “You’re shooting up fast,” she says after a bit. “We’ll have to start marking that doorframe again. Been a year since the boys got measured.” “Rhett keeps cheating,” you say, grinning. “Do not,” comes faintly from the kitchen. Cecilia smiles. “We’ll see about that.” She gestures with her chin toward the kitchen doorway, where the frame still bears faded pencil lines and initials: R, P, and a stack of years like tree rings.

Later, when everyone’s gone to the living room for pie, you wander over with the stub of a pencil. You’re just curious, you tell yourself - want to see where you’d fit. Rhett is already there, marking something. “Adding this year,” he says, not turning. Then, half a beat later, “You too.” Before you can answer, he scribbles Cricket under the lowest line - your name small, careful, tucked between the years like it’s been waiting. You stare. “I don’t-”

Cecilia appears in the doorway, drying her hands. “It’s fine,” she says softly, seeing the look on your face. “You’re family, honey. You come often enough we might as well keep track.” It hits before you can brace: the word family, clean and simple, and the way it lands right in your chest. Your throat knots. Your vision blurs. You blink hard, then harder. “Sorry,” you mumble, wiping your face with the heel of your hand. “I don’t- I’m not trying to cry. It’s stupid.” “Oh, sweetheart,” Cecilia says, already there, arms open. You fold into her like it’s instinct. She smells like soap and stew and the day. “It’s not stupid. It’s twelve.” You laugh once, bent and watery. “Twelve’s the worst.”  “It is,” she agrees. “And you’re doing it beautifully.”

Behind her, the kitchen floor creaks. Perry has appeared, pie in hand, eyes wide. “We doing hugs?” he asks. “I’m great at hugs.” He swoops in before you can object, nearly lifting you off the ground in a bear squeeze that smells like cinnamon and dust. “Perry,” Rhett mutters, exasperated but fond. “What? It’s emotional!” Rhett stands there, awkward and too tall for the moment, hands half in his pockets. Then he scratches the back of his neck and clears his throat. “Hey,” he says, quiet. “If you keep crying, we’ll have to add a waterline under your name.” You laugh through your sniffles, a little hiccup of sound. “That’s not even funny.”  He shrugs, cheeks pink. “Maybe not. But it worked.” It did.

Cecilia gives your shoulder a squeeze before stepping back. “All right,” she says, brisk again. “Enough heart-to-heart. Someone cut this pie before Perry eats it with the pan.” “Too late!” Perry crows from the table. Rhett rolls his eyes, but when he passes you a fork, his hand brushes yours just enough to make it count.

Later, after pie, you find your coat hanging neatly on its hook, still beside theirs. You touch the sleeve and then look at the doorframe - your name small and straight, a new line among the old ones. For a second you let yourself imagine a chair with your name carved in the back, waiting here even when you’re not.

Outside, the crickets start up like a promise. You smile. You sleep that night in a borrowed blanket on a soft couch and the quiet certainty that someone would still measure you next year, too.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

The sponsor wrangler finds you first - logo shirt, clipboard smile, eyes on the hourglass at your glove instead of your face. He steers his patter toward the banner wall like you’re part of the furniture. You go three steps with him, then plant. The man blinks when the furniture suddenly has brakes. “Just a few shots, Black Widow. Little smile?”

You tip your head like a knife. “Little check,” you say, and glance at Royal. “You need me now or can I give him thirty seconds?” Royal folds his arms. “Thirty. After that I start charging.” The wrangler laughs like he isn’t sure if it’s a joke. You line up in front of the vinyl, hands on hips, hat low. Flash. Flash. He asks you to turn a little. You do. He asks for a wink. You give him a look instead - camera-hot, teeth nowhere in sight. The wrangler decides he has enough.

Then the reporter oozes in, the kind that calls women “sweetheart” and men “sir.” He doesn’t ask; he enters your air. “Widow, got a sec? Off the record, what’s the secret - tight clothes or tight grip?” Rhett feels his jaw go hard. Perry shifts his weight like he’s already bored of the man’s face and is looking for something more interesting to hit. Royal doesn’t move. Cecilia moves enough - one step forward, chin up, storm gathering.

You beat all of them to it.

“Good question,” you say, smiling like you just found a snake under a rock. “My secret is I don’t mistake a microphone for a personality. You want a quote? Try this: ‘It’s not clothes, it’s core.’ Spell that right.” The reporter opens his mouth to be offended, decides to laugh instead because the camera’s still on, and backs away muttering about “colorful.” You hand the mic back to the wrangler without looking at him. He takes it like it’s hot. You dust your hands off - nothing on them, the gesture pure punctuation - and turn back to the Abbotts with the steel off your eyes again.

A little girl in a plastic hat appears from nowhere like a rumor, two front teeth missing and a Sharpie clutched like a weapon. “Miss Widow?” she squeaks. “Can you sign my hat? My mom says girls can’t-” She doesn’t finish because she’s already second-guessing it. You drop into a crouch so you’re eye-level. Rhett thinks his heart might beat out of his chest. “Your mom’s wrong about interesting things,” you say, gentle as you get. “What’s your name?”

“Kaylee.” You print KAYLEE on the brim, then add a tiny spider next to it. “Count with me, Kaylee,” you say, soft. “In. One.” She does, slow and careful. You nod like she just roped the moon. “Good. Keep that. It works.” Kaylee runs off, hat too big and pride bigger. Rhett watches the way your mouth tightens when she vanishes into the crowd. It’s the face you make when the world gets under your vest - fast, then gone.

“Come on,” Perry says, voice back to loud. “We got a cooler and a tailgate with our name on it.” You go with them to the gravel, to the beat-up truck where all the good conversations always happen. Cecilia fishes a bottle of water from the ice and snaps it into your hand with maternal force. You drink like it’s pay. Royal leans on the tailgate and starts asking the questions only someone who knows stock asks - shoulders on that bull look heavier than his last run? You liked the pocket he set on jump three? You answer like a pro, words clean, hands unconsciously marking beats in the air.

Rhett stands close enough to watch the tendon in your wrist work as you talk. Close enough to notice the split seam in your glove again. He takes it from your hand like it’s nothing, like he’s done it a hundred times, which he has. Pocketknife. Rawhide lace. The ritual is muscle-deep. “Hold still,” he says. “I am holding.” You lean a hip into the bumper, eyes on him now instead of the stitches. “You carry that lace for all your girlfriends?” “Just the ones who will beat me in the arena.” He pulls the lace snug, neat square knot, thumb brushing your pulse on purpose and not at all by accident. “There.” You flex your hand once. Approving. “Useful Abbott.” Perry groans. “Don’t encourage him.”

Royal’s phone buzzes. He steps away, voice low, hat tipped, already a silhouette in the glare. Cecilia drifts toward a knot of neighbors who remember you as freckles and scabbed knees. For a minute it is just you and Rhett under the wash of lot light and slow moths. “Riding Wabang next week and the one after?” he asks. You nod. “I will. Both” “How does that sit with you?” You taste it before you speak. “Feels like coming home,” you say, truth and bravado talking at the same time.

He opens his mouth, something careful starting there, when Cecilia is back, warm and direct. “Good. Then when are you coming for dinner?” She does not make it a question so much as a plan. “Tuesday, if you roll in Monday. I will do roast.” “Tuesday,” you say, quick and sure. “I will bring pie.”

Royal reappears, folding his phone into his pocket. “Heard Wabang.” His eyes cut to you, weighing and approving. “Enter both nights if they will have you, on both weeks. Purse is better on Friday, stock is ranker, suits you.” “Then I will take both,” you say. “I like honest work.”

Perry materializes like he was listening from ten feet away. “And go easy on Rhett while you are at it,” he adds, grin already out. “Man has a fragile disposition.” Rhett does not look at him. He looks at you. In his head he thinks the thing he does not say out loud, the one that never learned manners. The hardest thing you did to me was leaving.

Cecilia pats your arm, oblivious to the thought but not the feeling in the air. “Text me when you hit county line. I will keep a plate warm.” “I will,” you say. Your mouth tilts. “And I will measure again on the doorframe.” Perry groans. “Here we go. Another inch and she will claim she is taller than me.” “Only if the pencil agrees,” Royal says, straight-faced. Rhett pushes his hat back a fraction. “If the pencil agrees, I will not argue.” You laugh, small and bright, and it loosens everything. The lot is cooling. Trucks turn over, taillights smear red, moths pass like lazy confetti through the floodlight. You shift your bag on your shoulder.

“I should go,” you say, not sorry. “Early loadout.” “Tuesday,” Cecilia reminds, already stepping into a hug that lands you back on your heels. Royal gives your shoulder one firm press that says he heard your ride and liked it. Perry leans in for a noisy squeeze and stage whispers, “Bring two pies. Insurance.” “I will,” you say, “And Perry? Looking forward to meet your little bug.”

You and Rhett are last. You do not reach for him. He does not reach for you. He tips his hat instead. “Drive safe,” he says. “Count for me,” you answer, the private request hidden in the simple words. “In. One. Out. One,” he says, soft, like a promise he will keep whether you hear it or not. You back away a step, then another, braid over your shoulder, spider winking at your knuckles. “Tuesday,” you say again, and turn toward the dark road that points you at Wabang.

Rhett watches your taillights shrink, hears Perry’s ongoing pie negotiations, feels Royal’s quiet settle, catches Cecilia’s glance that says she saw more than she will say. He thinks what he always thinks when the night gets honest. You left and now you came back. He is still right where you can find him. Rhett stands there until the taillights quit being red and turn into night. Tuesday is only four sleeps away and somehow feels like a mile and a minute. It isn’t. It’s roast and a doorframe and a house that still carries your name like you never left.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Tuesday arrives faster than you think. You turn up the Abbott drive and you are sixteen with a new license, you are ten on your first visit, and you are every age in between. You aren’t even out of the car when a shape slips off the porch. You know it’s Rhett from the outline alone - taller than you remember, maybe just taller than he was - and you smile before you mean to.

“You beat the roast,” he says, taking the steps in two. “Barely,” you say. “Cece texted me a threat about Perry already eating all the sides.” “Accurate.” The corner of his mouth lifts. He reaches without asking for your bag and the pie, gathering what you’re carrying like gravity. You let him. The two of you walk in silence. Ten years feel like nothing and everything at once.

The screen door bumps once and swings. A woman steps out with a dish towel over her shoulder and a kid tucked behind her thigh. You’re already smiling at Amy when your brain catches up to the face above her. “Becky?” you blurt, then laugh at yourself. “Oh my god, Becky?” Her eyes go round, then brighter. “No way,” she says, already crossing the porch. “You are the infamous Cricket? Oh my god.” She pulls you in, towel and all, then holds you out by the elbows like she’s checking for proof. 

Behind you, the porch board creaks. Rhett is there, shoulder to the post, just watching - hat pushed back, that small private smile that lives in the corner of his mouth when the world organizes itself into a shape he likes. “Look at you. Back like nothing. Cricket aka Black Widow in my kitchen. What is this timeline.” “Please,” you say, grinning. “Look at you. The baddest baby from second period grew up and took over the Abbott porch.”

Perry hears that from three rooms away. “Confirmed!” he yells. “Married the baddest baby on purpose.” Becky rolls her eyes, same as high school, and tips her head toward the kid. “Amy, honey, this is Cricket. The one Daddy and Uncle Rhett won’t shut up about.” Amy slides out from behind Rebecca’s leg like she’s been released. “I heard so much about you,” she says carefully, like she’s reciting a spell she wants to get right. “Daddy says you ride a bull like you were born on it. “He’s right,” you say, solemn for her benefit. You offer a fist. She bumps it, examines your shirt, and spots the red spider on it. “Is that yours?” “Mine,” you say. “She’s small and mean and only bites if people are silly.” Becky snorts. “So, you.” “So, me,” you agree.

“Becky,” you say again, because it’s still funny, because it’s still true in your head. “You remember when you got sent to the office for starting a petition about vending machines?” Becky lifts her chin. “And we got the candy bars back by spring. You’re welcome for your childhood.” Amy gasps like this is legend. “Mom started a petition?” “Your mother started three,” Perry says, appearing with two forks he definitely does not need. “And a small riot over the dress code.” “Peaceful assembly,” Becky says, swatting him with the dish towel. Then to you, gentler: “You look good. You look… right.”

You feel it land - how time kept moving here without you, how chairs filled and a kid learned to say petition, how the pencil climbed the doorframe - and somehow there was still a space with your name on it the whole time. “Feels right,” you say. “We’re all older. Some of us taller.” You look up at Rhett for that part, on purpose. “By a hat,” he says, deadpan. “Cheater’s unit,” you fire back. Becky laughs, easy and delighted.

Amy is so excited she doesn’t stop for air. She leans in, conspiratorial, eyes huge. “And Uncle Rhett talks about you the way he reads the Bible. Slow. Like it matters.” You snort before you can help it. “That sounds dangerous.” Rebecca laughs into her sleeve. “He does,” she says, delighted and merciless. “Reverent, even.” Rhett goes a color you’ve only ever seen on ripe tomatoes. “Rebecca.” “What?” she says, all innocence. “Scripture’s scripture.”

Amy bounces on her toes, ponytail thwacking her shoulder. “He says you count. He showed me. In. One.” She inhales with theatrical care, chest puffed, then beams like she’s nailed a recital. You match her, just as solemn. “Out. One.” The two of you finish the breath together and the kitchen seems to land in the same place at the same time.

Cecilia, passing with a dish towel, taps Amy’s shoulder. “Let the lady breathe between questions, bug,” she says, fond. “Or she’ll have to start charging by the answer.” “I have allowance,” Amy says gravely, then turns back to you. “Also I lost a tooth. Wanna see?” “I was hoping you’d offer,” you say, and she bares the gap with pride. You put a hand to your heart. “Classic work.” Rebecca hooks an arm around Amy’s waist and peels her gently back. “Alright, press corps. Give the Black Widow an inch.” She looks at you, eyes soft around the mischief. “It’s good to see you, truly. Never knew I listened to stories about you in all my time here. Thought you were someone else. When Perry told me the infamous Cricket was back in town, I told him if he didn’t invite you I’d stage a coup.” You grin. “Always knew you had dictator potential, Becky.” “Don’t out me in front of my child,” she stage-whispers, then kisses Amy’s head. “Go wash up. Hands. Face. Forearms. Everything.”

Amy salutes and darts away, then skids back like she remembered something essential. “Friday we’re going to the rodeo,” she announces, breathless. “Daddy says Uncle Rhett might ride if his shoulder’s nice, and Grandpa says you’re braver than sense, and I think you’re both going to win.”

Your eyes flick to Rhett. There’s a split-second where the air warms and you feel like you are sixteen again. “Friday,” you echo, easy as you can make it. “We’ll see how the stock feels.” Rebecca’s grin tips sly. “Oh, she’s not the only one who’s heard things. Entries posted. Two Abbotts on the board. One by name and one by heart” She nudges Rhett with her hip as she passes. “Try not to make it a sermon in the chute.” He rubs a thumb along the seam of his pocket, not meeting your eyes. “I’ll try not to make it anything.” “Liar,” you say, gentle.

Cecilia rescues everyone by clapping her hands once. “Seats, heathens. Roast waits for no soul.” She touches your elbow as you pass her, a little grounding pressure that says welcome in a language you didn’t forget. “Good to have you where you belong.” Royal passes behind her, gives you a quiet shoulder tap that means he agrees with more words than he’ll use. You realize - sudden and bright - that the household grew and shifted without you and somehow kept you threaded through it anyway.

At the table, Amy claims the chair beside you like she called it years ago. “Can you sign my hat after?” she asks, already whispering though no one told her to. “Mom says you put spiders. I want two. One big, one little. So they can be friends.” “Deal,” you say. “But you have to promise to breathe on Friday.” She braces both little hands on the edge of the table and nods solemnly. “In. Out.” Across from you, Rebecca lifts her water glass in a mock toast. “To Friday,” she says. “To brave and foolish, in equal measure.” Rhett finally looks at you over the rim of his glass. The corner of his mouth lifts, rueful and sure. “To honest work.”

You tap your fork twice on your plate, a private drumroll you didn’t know you’d been saving. “To both of us starting the weekend right.” You don’t put teeth in it. You don’t have to. The tease is the truth. Perry whistles, shameless. “God help the bulls.” Royal only grunts, approval disguised as something else. Cecilia sets a mountain of roast on your plate like she’s building you a ramp back into the life you left.

“Eat,” she says. “Then we’ll measure the doorframe. I found the pencil.” Amy gasps. “Can I do the line? I’ll write CRICKET so neat.” “You can,” you say, feeling the old ache turn into something quieter. “Make it straight.” “Like a verse,” Rebecca murmurs, and you kick her lightly under the table. Rhett’s boot finds yours by accident-or-not, steadying you where the floor feels like moving.

Dinner goes the way time goes when you’re happy - loose, fast, and somehow full. Laughter bellies up to old stories; new ones wedge in without asking. Somewhere in the middle the house shifts a little to make room for you without really needing to. Dishes are a game. Amy crowns Perry with a foam beard; he poses like a sea captain; you bark a laugh you didn’t know you were saving. Cecilia clucks, secretly pleased. Royal dries exactly one plate and calls it supervision.

You take the towel and fall into the old assembly line. You dry; you pass to Rhett; he shelves. You still remember where every mug lives - Cecilia’s floral high, Royal’s chipped low, the blue ones stacked by habit - but you hand them to him anyway. Your fingers brush more often than necessary, the small, stupid electricity of it knocking politely and then staying. “Top shelf,” he murmurs, even when you already know. “I know,” you say, and let him tell you.

When the last glass clicks home, Amy tugs you towards the living room. The doorframe - still hosting years of lines and initials like tree rings - waits in the kitchen light. You back to the jamb. Rhett steps in behind you, palm to your crown, knuckles gentle at your jaw. For a moment, you feel like fifteen again and a buried memory resurfaces.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

July heat in the floorboards. A fly ticking the screen. Perry somewhere out back, singing off-key. Cecelia clinking spoons. Royal’s boots on the porch like punctuation. You’re barefoot, sunburned, still damp from the creek, hair rope-braided and shedding. Rhett says, “Back straight,” and you say, “Bossy,” and he says, “Honest,” and you both grin like you invented talking.

He marks you - CRICKET, 15 - and doesn’t step away. His hand stays a second too long, warm at your crown, his thumb a breath from your cheekbone like it’s checking for straightness that isn’t on the jamb. He smells like hay and laundry soap. You can count the dust freckles on his knuckles. Your pulse stutters. “In,” you whisper, because you need something to do with your lungs. “Out,” he answers, because he always does.

You tilt - moth-wing small - until the tip of his nose skims your cheekbone and your bottom lip brushes the edge of his. Not a kiss, not yet - just the promise of one, the shape of it, the sure knowledge that if no one speaks you will finish what you started. His breath catches. His thumb steadies your jaw like he’s making the line straight. Your hand finds his shirt, two fingers curled in cotton, tiny anchor. 

The house holds its breath with you. Then screen door snaps. “Pie!” Cecelia calls, miracle-loud. You both freeze; the moment blinks, breaks neat as twine. He clears his throat and underlines your name like he meant to all along. You study it with academic fury. The fly keeps time like nothing happened. Everything did.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

“Back straight,” he says. “Bossy.” The old summer flicker across his eyes too. You see it. You pretend you didn’t. Your throat does that treacherous, soft thing anyway. “Honest,”, he breathes out. Perry is suddenly there, scooping Amy under the arms and boosting her like a crane. “Steady hands, Picasso.” Amy bites her lower lip, all business, and drags the pencil slow and true. The graphite whispers. She adds the letters with her tongue caught in the gap of her teeth: C R I C K E T - crooked, perfect. “Attagirl,” Royal says from the table, proud like he invented handwriting.

Rhett’s palm lingers at your crown a heartbeat longer than needed, then slides away. He reaches past, steadying Amy’s sneaker against his thigh so she can dot the final T without wobble. Your shoulder brushes his chest; you don’t move. Neither does he. “Signature touch,” Perry proclaims, lowering Amy. “Gotta have one.” Rhett’s pencil clicks once. Quick as a secret, he inks the tiny spider beside your name. Your knuckles graze his wrist when you reach to blow the dust away. He doesn’t pull back; you don’t, either. “Straight,” Amy announces, satisfied. “Pretty as a verse,” Rebecca says, and you huff a laugh you can’t help.

“Still shorter than me,” Perry crows, rescuing the moment with exactly the right amount of nonsense. He slaps the jamb above his own line. “And definitely shorter than Rhett.” “I contain multitudes,” you say. “Short ones,” Perry says, delighted. Amy plants her fists on her hips. “Height isn’t the important part,” she declares. “Brave is.” “Listen to the management,” Rebecca says, kissing the top of Amy’s head. “She’s right.” Cecilia taps the counter with a spoon. “All right - jam taste, then bed for the brave one and planning for the fools.” She eyes you and Rhett. “Friday fools, specifically.”

Royal leans a shoulder to the doorway, comfortable as weather. “Neck-heavy stock on the sheet. Leave your chest soft on the first jump.” “Love it,” you say. “Ride it,” he corrects, but he’s pleased. Perry uncaps a jar and hands you a spoon. “Fig first. If you lie, it’s a sin.” You taste, close your eyes, let the porch and years and sugar do their work. “Holy,” you pronounce. “See?” Perry beams, vindicated. “God-tier jam.”

Rhett doesn’t touch the spoon. He touches the tiny spider he drew by your name instead, smudging an invisible speck with his thumb like he’s setting ink. “Friday,” he says, softer than the soap-smell in the room. “In,” you answer. “Out,” he finishes, and for a beat the house is so quiet you can hear the crickets outside. Then Amy yawns huge and theatrical, and the spell breaks into laughter. “Bed,” Cecilia says, ushering her out. Rebecca follows with a wave. 

You stand, pat your pockets for keys, lift the pie tins. “I should head out.” “I’ll walk you,” Rhett says, already moving, hat low, shoulder brushing the jamb as you pass your new mark. He takes your bag without asking. It’s nothing, it’s everything. Porch boards talk under your boots. Night smells like cut grass and dish soap drifting from the sink. The truck ticks as it cools. For a second you both just stand there in the wash of the porch light and moths.

“Thanks for dinner,” you say. “Thanks for being here,” he answers, like it’s simple. You set the pie tin on the hood.. The gravel is a dark ocean around you. “Friday,” he says. “Friday,” you echo. He opens his arms a fraction and you step in - one of those quiet, careful hugs that starts as courtesy and then isn’t. His chin finds the spot above your temple like it remembers the map. You count once together without speaking.

You step back first because one of you has to. “See you at the chutes,” you say. “I’ll be there,” he says. “Count for you. And watch you. Maybe steal your win.” “You will the do the first two,” you say, certain. Then you smile. “Maybe you will do the third.” You step into the car. He shuts your door. You roll the window down halfway, grin quick and mean as a promise. “Tell Perry I’m stealing a corner piece of pie next time.” “He’ll stage a coup,” Rhett says, lips tipping. “Drive safe.”

You put the truck in gear. The porch light skims your windshield; the moths spiral like confetti. You tap the horn once and go. He watches your taillights shrink until they stop being red and turn into night. His chest does the old, unfair thing. He feels sixteen again - standing where the drive meets the road, holding a lace he didn’t know what to do with - when you told him you were leaving.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

It’s the color of early morning that doesn’t belong to anyone. Gas station neon hums. The cherry Icee sign is lit for no one. The air smells like dust that hasn’t decided to rise. You’re already there when he pulls in: oversized shirt, braid a little crooked from sleep or nerves. He swings down from the truck and the door bang is too loud for the hour. If he speaks, it becomes real. He speaks anyway.

“Why here?” he asks, rougher than he meant. “Neutral ground,” you say, small smile trying to make it easier. “Didn’t want to make the porch sad.” “The porch will hear about it,” he says, and it’s not a joke. You nod toward the east, where the highway cuts a clean line. “I got a spot in a trailer. Stock contractor’s niece. It’s legit.” Facts; simple; like listing the parts of a rigging.

“What about-” he starts, and everything that could go in the blank crowds his tongue: us, me, the creek, Tuesday stew, Royal’s fence line, Cece’s towels, Perry’s dumb songs, the way your name fits on the doorframe. He picks none of them. “What about school?” he says, because he’s a coward and it’s safer. “I’ll finish,” you say, like that’s the easy part. “On the road. Night classes when I can. It’s not forever.” You grip the strap. “I just… I have to see if the world is as big as it feels from the chutes.” He hears: bigger than us. “Today?” he asks, and the word sounds like a test he’s already failed. “In a week,” you answer. “Next Friday.” You swallow and your eyes land on his shoulder - the place your hand knows. “I didn’t want to disappear on you.”

A week. It hits him sideways - relief and dread braided tight. Not now. Worse: not yet. A fuse lit in daylight. “You couldn’t wait longer?” It comes out thin. He means: pick us. He means: pick me. “If I wait, I’ll get good at waiting,” you say. “And I can’t be small that long.” “So I, we, this place - make you small?” His jaw tightens until it hurts. “That’s not what I said.” “It’s what I heard,” he says, too fast. “That’s not-” You start. “I can’t be my small. Not anymore.”

Wind flips the flag. A semi moans past and drags the horizon with it. He wants to grab you and shake a different answer loose. He wants to lie down across the road until the week changes its mind. He does neither. He shoves his hands in his pockets so he won’t reach and lose.

You pull a coil of rawhide lace from your back pocket and hold it out. “For your glove,” you say. “In case the next Friday in the chutes asks for more than you planned.” He stares at it like it might bite. “So that’s what I get? Lace and a countdown?” “You get the truth,” you say. “And time to hate me less.” “I don’t-” he starts, but the word is already wrong. He hates you right then in that specific way you hate weather for doing exactly what it promised: you were always going to go. He hates that the week will be a museum of lasts. He hates you because it proves the world is survivable without him at its center.

You see it land and don’t flinch. “Rhett,” you say - his name in your mouth is soft with teeth. “If I stay because you ask me to, I’ll punish you for it.” “I wouldn’t ask,” he says, the truest thing he owns. He doesn’t add that he wants to anyway. He doesn’t add that not asking feels like betrayal too.

The door chimes. The attendant yawns. Somewhere a radio mutters about weather three towns over. You step in close enough he can count the flecks in your eyes. You fix the curl at the edge of your braid because you can’t fix anything else. “In,” you whisper, offering him the only ritual you share. He clenches his jaw. “Don’t make me count you out,” he says, a plea dressed as anger. You nod, throat working. “Okay.” You lay the lace in his palm. He doesn’t close his hand.

“Next Friday,” you say, as if speaking the shape of it will make it less sharp. “After supper. I’ll come by first. I want to say goodbye right.” He wants to say don’t you dare make it pretty. He says nothing. You tip your chin like you do before a gate, turn, and go. You don’t look back. It’s the only mercy you give and he hates you for it.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Thursday, two towns from Wabang, the cab smells like dust and coffee gone thin. Rhett needs to run some errands before the weekend. Then, his phone buzzes in the cup holder. Unknown number.

hi. this is Cricket. i can never sleep before a ride. you want to grab a drink at the Handsome Gambler?

He stares at the screen long enough for the next buzz to come - three gray dots that never quite resolve. He thumbs back:

On my way.

He sets the phone face down like it might bite and takes the next turn without thinking. Headlights comb the fencelines. Moths break themselves on the glass and keep going. The radio is low, some old station that knows better than to talk between songs.

What does it mean that you’re back? He chews it like a nail. It could mean everything, which is a bad idea, or it could mean exactly what the text says: a drink, because Friday is close and the world is loud. He decides - out loud, so he’ll hear it - to not make it big. Not tonight. A beer is a beer. A door in, a door out. He can do that. The Handsome Gambler floats up like it always does: neon sign, the first loud voices floating in. He kills the engine and the quiet is immediate.

You’re outside under the neon, arms folded against the breeze, boot toe worrying a crack in the concrete. The sign paints you in red and white and a little blue; it’s not flattering and it doesn’t matter. For a second it knocks the breath clean out of him - how you look the same and not the same at all. Same braid, tighter. Same mouth, older at the edges. Then you smile. His heart does the old, unfair skip. “Hey,” you say, like it isn’t ten years and three lifetimes. He doesn´t answer and wraps you in a quick but tight hug instead. 

He holds the door and you slip past, his hand hovering at the small of your back without landing. Inside the Handsome Gambler, the jukebox is losing a fight to a Hank Williams cover and a hard pool break. You pause, take it in - the neon blinking like a bad idea, the varnish worn to truth, the air thick with cigarette smoke and cold beer. First time past the gravel and myth. It feels smaller than the legend and exactly the right size for tonight.

Rhett angles you toward a corner booth - a little wedge of privacy in a room made of noise. “One second,” he says, and peels off to the bar. You watch him lean in, trade a few words with the bartender, easy as habit. A nod, a grin, two bottles set down with the thunk of people who know each other’s ways. His life moved while you were gone. Of course it did. Yours did too.

He comes back with two beers and slides one over to you before he drops into the booth right next to you. There is enough space yet he lands right next to you, shoulders and knees touching like it is coincidence. “Cold enough?” he asks. “Close to holy,” you say, bottle sweating against your palm. The jukebox coughs up another Hank chorus; a cue ball cracks; neon hums. Up close, he smells like soap and road and the faint ghost of cedar from a tack room. Your legs stay touching. Neither of you adjust.

“This place seemed like the coolest thing on earth when we were kids,” you say, watching the people around you. “We all tried to sneak in. No one ever made it past the gravel.” Rhett’s mouth ticks. “Perry got as far as the ice machine once. Claimed it counted.” “It didn’t,” you say, and your laugh goes soft. “I have spend many nights here,” Rhett says, proving again that he has also lived these past ten years, “And honestly? I’d rather be at the county fair again.” You nod, slow, smile tugging at your lips. The mirror behind the bar folds you together with neon and old bottles, and the room tilts into memory like it’s been waiting.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Fifteen, heat slicking the midway. Grease and sugar in the air. Everything gold like the day’s been dipped in corn syrup. You and Rhett shoulder to shoulder at the fry stand, sharing a paper boat gone limp with salt. You pretend not to notice how your fingers keep finding each other in the ketchup. One soda between you because you’re “not thirsty.” You pass it back and forth without talking about mouths. The straw goes glossy. You learn how to sip without looking like you mean it.

You’re grinning when it happens. A boy from school - letter jacket even though it’s August, friend pack fanned behind him - sidles in with the exact smile that always looks for somewhere to land. “Well, if it isn’t Cricket,” he says, making it sound like a joke. “Heard you’re a real rider these days.” His buddy snorts. “She can ride me-”

Rhett’s head turns, slow, like weather rolling in. He doesn’t move otherwise. You feel your jaw lock. Your body knows this angle, this tone, this stage: the part where your throat forgets language, where you’re faster with a bull than a boy in a pack, where you go small because small used to be safe. “Walk,” Rhett says, very softly, to you, like a hand on the small of your back that no one else can see. You take one step, then another, paper boat in a death grip. The boys peel off, laughing at their own echoes. You don’t look back. The sound climbs your spine anyway.

You stop by the ring toss, like momentum let go. The whole fair breathes around you - lights, a loudspeaker begging the derby to work, children with blue tongues. Your hand rattles the ice in the cup because it needs a job. “This place makes me feel so small,” you say, and it’s too honest to be casual. “I ride bulls on weekends and whenever I can, but one boy opens his mouth and I shut up.” Rhett doesn’t say it’s fine. He doesn’t say don’t let it get to you. He looks at your white-knuckled grip and then at your face. “Okay,” he says. “Then we make a place that isn’t small.” “How?” He jerks his chin at the wheel. “Get higher.” You huff something that’s almost a laugh. “That’s not a plan.” “Sure it is,” he says. “Plan A: altitude.”

You let him tug you toward the ride. He buys two tickets like it’s not his last money and you both know it is. You get the last car - chipped paint, names carved into the steel: K+J, a heart that didn’t work out. The attendant kicks the bar with his boot and forgets to say don’t rock the seat. Halfway up, the wheel stutters and stops. Wind climbs your shins. The fair unrolls below: tilt-a-whirl trying to outspin itself, the demolition emcee feeding a dying microphone, neon that hasn’t learned to blink in time. Up here it’s just the two of you and a sticky straw and a horizon pretending to be forever.

“Guess we live here now,” Rhett says, light. His knuckles are white on the rail. “In,” you say, testing him, testing yourself. “Out,” he answers, and it lands low in your ribs like it always does. The car steadies. Your fists unknot an inch. “Do you think you’ll ever leave?” he asks, casual voice that isn’t casual. “Do you think you’ll ever ask me to stay?” you shoot back, then stare at the bolt head near your knee like it’s a quiz. He looks down at his hands. “I’ll… be where you can find me,” he says. It’s not an answer and it’s exactly one.

The wheel lurches and crawls a notch, then hangs. At the top, everything holds just long enough to turn your stomach into a pocket full of bees. You reach for the soda and miss the straw. Your knuckles bump his mouth. The car stutters a fraction, like the universe heard something it liked. “Sorry,” you breathe. “It’s fine,” he says, not fine. He taps the straw closer with two fingers, steady. You drink. He watches your throat like he found something on a map.

The wheel shudders, starts again, crawls. You don’t let go of the rail or each other. Down on the ground, the boys are already processed into background noise - cotton candy and bad aim. Up here, their words can’t climb. When your feet hit dust again, you both pretend to need air. You end up at the dart booth. The prizes swing in a light the color of melted sherbet. You spot it - small and mean: a ridiculous red spider plush with cartoon eyes.

“Want it?” Rhett asks. “You’ll never hit three,” you say, purely to be rude. “Respectfully,” he says, rolling his shoulder like a pitcher, “watch a professional fail twice.” He fails once, twice - far left, then an ugly bounce off the rim - and then he laughs, shakes his head, settles. In. Out. He hits the third balloon so clean the carny doesn’t even begrudge it. “Pick your poison,” the carny says, bored. You point up at the spider. He snorts like you’re kidding and then realizes you’re not. Rhett hands it to you with two fingers like it might hiss. You hold it by one leg. It’s silly and weightless and perfect. “Name her,” he says. “Later,” you say. “When she earns it.”

You end up at the ice cream stand again because everything ends at the ice cream stand. You buy ice cream for the both of you. Rhett leans his shoulder into yours like he’s making a wall you can lean on without anyone noticing. The boy with the letter jacket passes with his pack and doesn’t see you. It’s almost funny. “Still feel small?” Rhett asks, not looking at you. You twist the spider’s leg once and feel something in your chest unkink. “Less,” you say. “Altitude helped.”

“Plan A delivers,” he says, smug. “What’s Plan B?” “I don´t know,” he admits, “Maybe next time we say something smart back.”  You bump his boot with yours. He bumps back. Neither of you name the thing sitting between you, knees and elbows and something about to happen. A girl with blue tongue runs by shrieking. The loudspeaker finally dies. The night remembers how to be a sky. “Want the last of the soda?” he asks. “Always,” you say, and when your fingers touch on the paper cup, you don’t move them away first.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

“You know,” you say, breaking the silence, voice lazy but not casual, “I picked my name after that ridiculous spider you won at the fair. The red one with the crooked eyes.” Rhett’s head turns, slow. For a moment, the words hit him square in the chest - an ache and a flash, both. He can still see the booth lights smeared across your face, the balloon pop, the way you’d held that dumb plush by one leg like it was treasure.  “You didn’t,” he says, a half laugh caught on something softer. You grin into your bottle. “I did. Black Widow came from her. Figured she deserved an upgrade.”

He stares at you like he’s trying to place the years between then and now and keeps failing. That old night has lived in his head for a decade - your laugh, the fair lights, the way you’d said less small like it was a prayer. And now here you are, and tomorrow there will be a spider stitched on your glove, turning memory into armor. “Guess you didn’t forget everything,” he says quietly. You shrug. “You don’t forget the things that built you.” He takes a long drink, steadying himself. Maybe you left, but it turns out you didn’t really go missing. You carried the same pieces he did - just took them farther down the road.

The jukebox changes tracks. Outside, a truck passes slow, headlights sliding through the window like a promise that hasn’t picked a side yet. “Still got her?” he asks, teasing but almost shy. You nod once. Then you smile, real and small. “In my trailer. Never could throw her out.” For a moment neither of you speak. The neon hum fills the space where words could be, and Rhett thinks maybe forgetting was never the problem. Maybe surviving the remembering was.

The night thins over a second beer. Rhett yawns without covering and you click your tongue at him. “Rude,” you say. “Ancient,” he counters, then blinks, sheepish. “Sorry.” “Forgiven. We should both sleep. Tomorrow needs our brains.” You slide out of the booth. He stands when you do - old habit, no theater. Outside, the neon sign flickers like it’s practicing blinking. The lot is a shallow sea of gravel and truck chrome.

“At the chutes,” he says. “At the chutes,” you echo. You hug like you’ve learned how - brief, steady, nowhere to hide. His hand finds the middle of your back and lands this time. Your jaw brushes his shoulder; he smells like soap and dust and a little cedar. You count one breath together because you always do. “In,” you say, barely there. “Out,” he answers.

You break before the moment decides for you. He walks you to your truck; you walk him halfway to his. It’s dumb and perfect and exactly how you used to part after county-fair nights, or how you walked through the pastures - two kids orbiting in each others presence.

“Drive safe,” he says. “You too,” you say. “No sermons.” “No promises.” You laugh, get in, roll the window down. “See you, Abbott.” “See you, Cricket.” Engines turn. Headlights carve two clean paths out of the lot, angles that split then run parallel for a while, each holding the other in the corner of a mirror until the road bends.

On the way home, he keeps his hands at ten and two and lets the quiet talk. Ten years feels like a canyon until he remembers every mile before it - the creek dares, the doorframe marks, the spider at the dart booth. If a lifetime can start at fifteen, maybe ten years is just one hard winter a ranch survives.

On your side of the highway, the dash glows soft. You think about how leaving didn’t erase anything; it only stretched the thread. You think about the count, and the Friday draw, and a night at the county fair ten year ago. It´s a long time until it isn’t. There are still so many Fridays ahead. So many doorframe lines. So many small, honest seconds that make the big ones possible.

You both pull into separate driveways and sit there a beat longer than necessary, hands loose on the wheel, hearts running the same old count. In. One. Out. One.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Friday evening comes fast when you’re excited and under pressure. The lot glows; the dust tastes like a dare. You dress the part and then sharpen it. Black leather vest, cut close and laced tighter than rumor - clean V that shows a slice of sternum and just enough curve to make the cameras blink before they find your rope hand. The back is matte, the edges burnished; the laces crisscross like a warning. Simple red eyeliner, no glitter - heat without apology. Chaps black as a shut gate, stitched with a thin red welt that flashes when you move; they sit low over your hips, swing clean over your boots. Jeans dark, no whiskers, no tears - work-first, second-skin. Glove snug, the tiny red spider mean on your knuckles. Hat brim pulled down to throw your eyes into your own shadow. Rosin dust freckles your collarbones like you walked through fire and didn’t mind.

You look hot - purpose-hot, weapon-hot. Heads turn and you don’t give them the satisfaction of noticing. Rhett does look too. He tries not to - fails immediately. His gaze catches on the deep V of the vest, the polished line of your throat, the way the leather frames strength instead of pretending to hide it. His jaw sets like he’s bracing against weather. His eyes keep coming back, guilty as a hand in the cookie jar and twice as careful. Perry clocks it from ten feet out and drifts in with a grin he can’t be trusted with. He doesn’t look at you - he looks at Rhett looking at you. “Eyes up, preacher,” he murmurs, just for his brother. “Sermon later.” Rhett doesn’t blink. “I’m appreciating craftsmanship,” he says, deadpan, which fools no one. “Mm-hmm,” Perry says, delighted. “Real educational.”

You’ve got your game face on - steel instead of softness, edges instead of grace. It only melts for a few minutes when you say hi to the Abbotts. Cecilia’s palm is cool to your cheek. Perry grins like he already got away with something. Rebecca and Amy hug you tight. Rhett’s hat tips, small and private. Royal comes in last, touches your shoulder on the pass like a blessing he doesn’t need applause for. “Heard your draw for today,” he says. “Neck heavy. Don’t fight the first jump.” “I’ll love it,” you say. “You’ll ride it,” he corrects, gravel warm. Pride, quiet and unshowy, lives in the space between his words. 

You adjust a lace at your side, checking nothing and everything. The vest creaks, subtle and expensive. Rhett swallows like he just remembered how throats work. Perry’s grin grows teeth. “All right,” Perry says, clapping Rhett once on the shoulder. “Let’s get you to heaven by way of eight seconds, yeah?” Rhett tips his hat to hide a smile he doesn’t trust. The armor slides back into place. You tip your chin, and the leather, the whole look says exactly what you intend: I’m not here to be looked at. I’m here to be watched. 

People try to take pieces. Fans get the good ones - Sharpie on hats, a crouch to eye level, the tiny spider drawn on a shirt, a photo if they ask nicely. Reporters earn exactly what they earn: one quotable sentence, no wink, no teeth. Hustlers crowd the rail with quick talk and slow hands; you give them the look that says not tonight and move.

Back of chutes is heat and engine. The bull in your slot tosses his head like he owes no one anything. You touch hide once - left spinner, heavy neck, mean twitch in the right ear - and the read settles in your bones. “Two minutes,” chute boss calls. Rhett ghosts in at your elbow, already taped, already squared. “You good?” “Better,” you say. It sounds like metal. It feels like breath. He nods toward your glove. “Spider looks mean,” he says, and it’s a joke and a prayer. You nod toward his wrap. “Looks honest,” you answer, and that’s both of you saying come back whole without spooking the stock.

The house voice booms the name that used to be a dare and now fits like armor. You climb: rail, knee, sit. Mechanics take the wheel. Rope across palm, tail in fist, knuckles flat, elbow arrowed. Knees soft. Toes light. Chin tucked. Jaw set out of the way. The gate man waits for your nod. You find your count where you always left it. “In. One. Out. One” 

The latch clacks; the world bucks. The first jump comes hot and hard and you love it like a problem you were born to solve. You give him his line, kill the waste, eat the seconds. Second hook - you win the pocket and stay open. Third - you let the shoulder roll. Fourth - you check the jaw and leave the head alone so the body can follow. Floodlight kisses the stitched red spider as if it’s claiming you for the camera. The clock eats. The clock obeys.

Buzzer. You hit the ground hard and yet it still looks like a choice; you can hear the Abbotts cheer; dirt sprays and you’re on your feet, hat low, shoulders square. You tip the chin to the chute boss; you breathe. Scoreboard climbs. First for now. You barely have time to be lifted by the crowd before it thins to hum. Rhett is already climbing. His draw throws a shoulder and quits dirty in the middle - one of those bulls that lies about rhythm. He sets like a blueprint you’ve memorized. Rope. Tail. Chin. Soft knees. The gate snaps and he goes to work quiet, eating noise the way you did, line by line. From the rail you count for him because that’s the job the world gave you. “In. One. Out. One.”

He wins jump two with a small mercy in his spine; jump five tries to throw ugly and he makes it beautiful. Buzzer hits like a door slamming on bluff. He steps clean, rolls the landing, hat brim low. He looks to you first without meaning to - habit, home - and you give him the nod you save for true things.

The floodlights still buzz; banners snap tired on their poles; the grounds smell like dust, diesel, and sweet hay. After a beer on the tailgate you and Rhett sit in the bed of Royal’s truck, shoulders touching, your weight finding his without asking. The PA coughs out one last jingle; somewhere a chute gate bangs like an afterthought.

“I’m turning in,” you say, voice soft from the adrenaline leak. Goodnights line up like a chute list. Royal’s one-armed clamp, a thud between your shoulders that reads approved. Perry’s noisy squeeze and a whispered, “Win us breakfast tomorrow.” Cecilia’s palms to your cheeks, a kiss to your brow, pride bright as the floodlights. Amy barrels in next. “Two spiders tomorrow,” she insists, tiny fist on your knee. “One brave, one braver.” “Deal,” you say, solemn. “But you have to breathe for both.” “In, one” she declares, filling up. “Out, one,” you finish, and she grins like she invented air. Rebecca hooks an arm around Amy’s middle and leans in for a quick hug of her own. “We’re bringing signs,” she warns. “Subtle, tasteful, deafening.” “Perfect,” you say. “Subtle is my brand.”

Rhett is last. No fuss - just open arms. You step in. It’s brief and steady, the kind of hug that lands in the middle of your back and keeps a hand there a heartbeat longer than needed. “If you can’t sleep,” he says at your ear, “call.” “I will,” you promise, toss him a smile that hits clean, and hop down.

“Walk her,” Cecilia says to no one in particular and exactly to Rhett. He’s already moving. You and Rhett take the gravel toward the trailers - string lights humming, generators thrumming, rodeo-boys laughter thinning to yawns. Amy waves with both hands until Rebecca turns her toward the parking lane; Perry mimes writing CRICKET ten feet tall on imaginary poster board; Royal and Cecilia fall into their familiar silhouette against the truck.

At your trailer step, you pause. The grounds breathe around you - stock quieting, rigs ticking as they cool, a bull snorting once like a closing argument. “Game face tomorrow,” he says, eyes warm under the brim. “Steel,” you say. “Count,” he answers. “In,” you breathe. “Out,” he finishes. You bump his boot with yours, small and sure. “Night, Abbott.” “Night, Cricket.” He backs a step, like you’re a gate he knows to honor, then turns for the truck. You slip inside the trailer, lights low, heart loud; outside, he walks back through the dust, and the whole place settles like it knows you’ll both be up before dawn, ready to try and make the world hold still again.

The next day blurs - stretch, ice, tape; sponsors, stock lists, a nap that doesn’t take. Afternoon heat lifts in sheets off the pens. You eat a sandwich you don’t taste. Amy appears twice to practice breathing and once to present a glitter poster that says GO WIDOW in letters that shed on everything. By evening the wind shifts down the draws the way it always did. Steel slides over you like it was made to fit.

The grounds are louder tonight. Saturday purse, ranker pen. You pass through the small gauntlet - fans get the good piece, hustlers get the look, reporters get one sentence and no sugar. The Abbotts pull you into the quiet between. Cecilia’s hand to your cheek, quick and cool. Royal’s thumb taps your shoulder once: read the neck, trust your seat. Perry kisses Amy’s head and declares himself head of optics. Rebecca waves the sign like weather. Rhett meets you in the alley, taped and squared. “You good?” he asks. “Hungry,” you say. He grins, rare and quick. “Good.” Today, Rhett rides before you. 

He draws early and ugly - compact, catty, a bull with a bad opinion about gravity. He tapes quiet, nods to nobody, and steps into the chute like a man walking into weather he deserves. From the rail you watch the set: rope, tail, chin, knees soft. He’s textbook until the gate hits. The first jump comes out dirty and sideways. He moves with it - almost. The second lies about direction; he buys the lie. By the third he’s a half beat ahead of the shoulder and you can see the math turn on him - hips chasing, chest firm when it should be soft. The bull throws a corkscrew you’d call personal. He lasts five and change, then skates off the front end with his hat still on and lands like he planned to, which he didn’t.

The buzzer insults him by being late. The crowd does its thing - sympathy claps, winces, a few men in caps whoop like it proves something about the world that makes them feel better. Rhett tips his brim and walks out hard enough to make gravel complain.

He comes down the alley dark, ripping tape like it owes him money. You meet him in the strip of shade that smells like rosin and old heat. “Left lied,” you start, clean. “He changed on four and - ” “I know,” he snaps, too sharp. “I was there.” You blink once. Hands up, palms out. “Okay.” He keeps moving - angry circles in a too-small pen. “Sat crooked. Opened my knee early. Rode the damned front like a rookie. Stupid.” The word lands like spit. He kicks a pebble into the sheeted steel. The clang makes two heads turn.

“Hey,” you say, low. “Breathe.” “Don’t tell me to breathe,” he fires back. Loud enough that a couple stock boys look, then look away. “Fine,” you say. “Don’t.” He laughs - empty. “Wonderful coaching.” “I’m not coaching,” you say. Steel slides behind your teeth. “I counted with you.” “Yeah?” He swings toward you, eyes hot, jaw wired. “Counted me right into the dirt, didn’t it?”

That one hits sideways. You hold your ground. “Don’t put that on me.” “Who else?” he throws, searching for a wall to hit. “Royal? The bull? God?” “Your chest got proud when he got ugly,” you say, simple as wire. “He baited you. You said yes.” He takes a step - close enough you can see the quake still living in his hands. “You think I don’t know that? You think I need -  what, a sermon? A compass? I don’t need you fixing my head every time it tilts.” “Then don’t tilt it at me,” you bite back, and the edge in your voice is the first you’ve allowed. “I came to stand next to you, not in front of your damn mirror.” “Of course you did,” he says, laugh breaking. “Always the savior. Ride your eight and save the room.”

There it is - the old, stupid vein you both know how to hit. It hums ugly. “Careful,” you say. “I am careful.” He’s not. He’s sixteen and furious and the floodlights just happen to be different. “You breeze in here with your new name and-” “And what?” Your chin tips a degree. The spider on your glove winks like a dare. “And do the job?” “And act like it doesn’t cost anybody anything.” “That’s not fair,” you say, flat. He flings his arms wide at the alley, at the pen, at the version of himself that just cratered. “Nothing about this is fair.”

Silence loads. From the apron, Perry starts over and then stops, reading the weather. Royal’s shadow doesn’t move. Cecilia appears at the edge of things and, with a glance like a palm to the air, holds everyone back. You keep your voice steady because one of you has to. “You’re mad you lost. I get it. Be mad at the bull. Be mad at yourself. Don’t swing on me.” “I’m not swinging.” His hands open and close, betraying him. “I’m-” “-looking for someone to bleed,” you say. “Pick a wall.”

He stares at you, and something ugly and old reaches for the steering wheel. “You know what?” he says, tone going quiet, dangerous. “Go ahead. Walk. Go put steel on and make the whole place forget I ate dirt.” Your nostrils flare. “I’m on deck. I don’t get to choose when the world calls.” “Yeah,” he says, voice climbing, “go again like you did when you were sixteen.” It hangs in the heat like a slap. You don’t blink. You don’t let the wince out of its cage. You give him your palms like surrender that isn’t. “Okay.” He looks like he wants to snatch the words back. He doesn’t. Pride pins his mouth shut. That old fuse you both know burns hot and mean. “Good luck tomorrow,” you say, and the way you say luck is surgical. “Don’t need it,” he lies. “Clearly,” you answer, and step past him.

He doesn’t follow. He lets you go - like he did at the gas station, like he did at sixteen when he mistook not asking for virtue. It makes him sicker, and he wears the sickness like penance. You walk. You don’t hurry. Steel finds your spine like it pays rent. The alley breathes around you. The bull in your slot plants his head and scrapes a warning in the dirt. You put your hand on hide. The engine under it says prove it. You nod - at the bull, at the job, at the part of yourself that only makes sense under lights.

Behind you, he finally finds air and wastes it. “Fine,” he throws after your back, loud enough to sting, not loud enough to be a scene. “Go. Be big.” You don’t turn. You lift one hand without looking, a small, dismissive wave that says not my fight and you don’t get to pick my size.

The gate boss catches your eye. “You good?” “Better,” you say, and step onto the rail. Up in the mouth of the chute, leather squeaks, rope lies across your palm, tail in your fist. Mechanics shut the door on everything else. You tuck your chin. Knees soft. Toes light. Elbow arrowed. Jaw set where it won’t get in your way. You find the count where it always waits. “In. Out.” 

Back in the alley, Rhett stands where you left him, hands shaking, the taste of old words in his mouth. Perry touches his shoulder and gets shrugged off. Royal doesn’t look over. Cecilia watches you climb and loves you and wants to throttle her son and says nothing because saying nothing is charity right now. Rhett puts his hat back on like armor and stares at the chute you chose instead of him. He hates you for a breath - for leaving, for growing, for refusing to be small enough to hold without burning. He hates himself more for helping you go by making the door easy to reach.

The latch clacks. The world bucks. Your name hits the PA and all his anger falls through a trapdoor into the same old vow he can’t stop making, even when he’s failing at everything else. He counts for you anyway. “In,” he says to the dust. “Out,” he finishes, and the word tastes like apology he hasn’t earned yet.

The gate snaps and the world comes out mean.

First jump: hard left, dirty step, the kind that asks who you are. You answer with your spine - soft chest, hips talking, chin tucked where belief lives. Second jump lies about right; you don’t buy it. Third jump corkscrews spiteful and sudden - hips high, shoulder quit, a twist that isn’t rhythm so much as insult. You stay with it, a whisper ahead, then the bull invents a fourth beat and throws it on top like a dare.

It works.

You go light for a breath. The rope teeth your palm; your wrist takes a wrong truth; the world tips. Your hat stays on out of stubbornness and nothing else. You pitch forward - close enough to smell the hot, sour breath under horn - then whip sideways, fingers scraping hide. The ground comes up as an answer nobody wanted.

Impact knocks the air out of you like a door slammed in your chest. Vision scatters - stars, dust, a floodlight broken into lake water. Sound goes narrow: one whistle, one woman’s gasp, the bullfighter’s boot thunder. The bull cuts, looking for you; the fighters sell their bodies and buy you clean daylight.

You don’t get up.

The ground is cold and hot at once; your wrists are a white-bone scream, bright and precise. Your lungs do a fish thing - open, close, nothing. Time makes a tent and sits on your chest.

In the alley, Rhett’s heart stops time with it. Shock hits first - the kind that empties your head and turns your hands useless. He’s already moving when he realizes he started; hat gone, stride long, every muscle on the wrong frequency. Regret pile-drives in behind it: the last words he gave you were sharpened on old ghosts, and now you’re in the dirt while his pride echoes. The math is ugly. He would take the whole sentence back in his teeth if he could.

He hits the rail at the same moment a bullfighter slaps your boot as if he can pound breath back in. Somewhere, Perry says your name like a swear and a prayer. Cecilia’s hand finds Royal’s sleeve and knots. Royal doesn’t move, because moving would mean the world is allowed to be this, and he’s not ready to sign that form.

Then your lungs find the number.

Air claws in, raw. Vision squeezes to a pin and then opens. You swallow dust and stubbornness. The pain in your wrists has shape now - rope-bite blooming, tendons angry, a bright rope of ache up to your elbow. You catalog it the way you’ve cataloged worse: left worse than right, fingers all talking, nothing loose that shouldn’t be.

You roll to your knees. The crowd makes a sound you can feel in your gums. The bullbellies are already gone, fighters between you and temperament, the gate clanging like a gavel. You push to your feet with more will than leverage, hat somehow still low, braid hooked over your shoulder like a banner that didn’t learn retreat. For a second the ground sways. You square your hips at it and it decides not to. You raise your fist. Not high - just enough. Leather creaks. The stitched red spider flashes mean under the lights. Steel comes back over your face like a visor. The crowd explodes. It isn’t pretty; it’s grateful. Somewhere a stranger screams your name like he’s earned it; somewhere a little girl on the rail jumps straight up and down until her hat flies.

Rhett sags against the rail like a cut wire found a post. Relief is violent; regret worse. You look like everything he loves and everything he’s been scared to touch. And something else hits him then, loud and simple: you’re older. Not old - older. Boys do not silence you anymore. The world can still knock wind out of you, but it doesn’t get to make you small. You stand up in front of it and show your teeth.

He has never seen you prettier.

Not because the vest is carved close and the V is a sin under floodlights. Not because the red liner makes your eyes look like they could set weather on fire. Because you are standing - hands hurt, lungs burned, dust on your mouth - and offering the night your chin. Because beauty, it turns out, is a stubbornness that doesn’t humiliate anyone.

You step off the dirt under your own power. The chute boss reaches; you shake him off with a thanks that sounds like law. The medic shadows you; you let him hover and don’t let him land. You run the math of your wrists again - open, close, open - wincing where it’s honest and hiding it where it’s none of their business.

Rhett meets you halfway down the alley before he knows how to ask. His mouth opens; all the wrong words crowd it. You give him a look that says not here and I’m standing and we will not put a crown on your guilt in public. He swallows them. What comes out is smaller and better. “Hands?” “Mad,” you say. “Not broken.”

He nods, because if he speaks the apology he wants to, it will crack. Perry ghosts in, already making noise at the medic, already offering to rip a sleeve for a bandage like it’s 1880. Cecilia smuggles a water bottle into your hand with quiet ferocity. Royal’s eyes meet yours and say a book without moving. You drink, slow. The burn in your chest settles into a coal. The ache in your wrists steadies into a fact. The scoreboard is a rumor you don’t chase. You came here to ride; you rode; the ground had its say; you took your turn back. That is the whole of it.

Rhett stands just inside your weather. He can feel the print of the last thing he said like a brand he didn’t earn. He wants to touch your elbow and then doesn’t. He wants to tell you that steel looks better on you than it ever did in his head. He wants to tell you that when you went down, the part of him that’s been angry for ten years shut up so fast it left skid marks. Instead he says, “In.” You could make him eat it. You don’t. You let your mouth tilt, a fraction. “Out.” The alley gives that breath back to both of you. The noise of the grounds returns - another whistle, a laugh that thinks too much of itself, the clank of a gate that needs grease. The world keeps being a world.

“Next week,” he says, because penance he can actually do is better than guilt he can’t spend. “We fix the front.” “We fix the front,” you echo, as if he’s talking about wire and not pride. He nods, jaw tight around every other sentence. You flex your fingers once, wince and then deadpan: “Tie my shoe?” He almost laughs. “Yes, ma’am.” He crouches, quick competent hands doing a small, ridiculous intimacy the whole night can’t see. You watch his hat brim and his ears and you let yourself breathe through the throb. Perry hovers, theatrically useless; Cecilia posts herself like a windbreak; Royal stays where he is because some approvals don’t need walking. When Rhett stands, your eyes catch and hold, no audience. “I’m-” he starts. “Later,” you say, not unkind. “Later,” he agrees, like a vow.

The PA barks someone else’s name. The dust lifts; the floodlights flatten; the night moves on like it always does. You slide the steel back over the soft and turn toward the place work lives. Rhett turns with you, a half step behind, the way he always has when he remembers who he is. He thinks again - harder this time - about how the boy who let you go at sixteen because he thought not asking was mercy has nothing to teach the man in this alley.

You roll your shoulders once, shake your wrists open to the ache, and nod like a gate about to give. You’re not smaller. You’re not. And you are - damn him, damn the years - the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Not because you shine, but because you don’t flinch from the parts that don’t.

They steer you toward the med corner - a folding table, a battered kit, a lamp that makes everything look like a confession. You perch on the cooler lid because the chair wobbles. The medic hovers, asks if you can make a fist, if you can feel your fingertips, if your vision ever went black. You nod where it’s true.

“I’ve got her,” Rhett says, voice low enough to be permission and not a challenge. The medic reads the room and steps back two paces. Rhett snaps the kit open like he’s done it a hundred times - and he has. Tape, elastic, a brace with tired Velcro. He kneels so your wrists are eye level. His hands are all gentled edges now, the fight shaken out of them. “Left first,” he says. You lay it there. He checks, not just looks - presses your nails, waits for the color to rush back, runs his thumb along the angry line where the rope tried to overstay its welcome. “Tell me if I’m too rough.” “You won’t be,” you say, and for once it isn’t bravado.

He smears cool gel where the heat is loudest, thumb careful at the tendon. The ache recedes half an inch. He wraps soft underwrap, then the brace, then the elastic, firm without cruelty. He tests the strap, retests. “Move your fingers.” You do. Pain flares, then resolves. “Mad,” you say again. “Not broken.” He nods, concentrating like a man rewiring a fence in gusting wind. “Right.” He does the same to the other wrist, slower. You watch the small things: how he steadies your hand over his thigh so you don’t have to hold your arm’s weight, how he keeps the tape off your skin where it’s already starting to bruise, how he doesn’t ask again if you’re okay because he knows okay is on layaway.

“Thumb spica,” he murmurs, almost to himself, and adds a loop that cradles your joint. It’s stupidly tender. Your throat does that treacherous knotting and you clear it before it thinks it won. He finishes, sits back on his heels, surveys his work like a man who trusts his hands when his mouth isn’t up to much. “There.” You flex, wince, huff a laugh. “Useful Abbott.” He’s looking at your face now, not your hands. The apology is still in there, wanting out. What comes up instead is something else - awkward, earnest, bigger than small talk. “Dinner tomorrow,” he says, then too fast, “You should - come. And, uh, stay a few days. Help on the place. If… if you want.”

You go very still. Not steel - just still. The breath you were about to take waits to see what he’s really asking. He sees your silence and backpedals like a calf that realizes the gate swings the other way. “I mean - Mum told me to ask. She - Cecilia - she said Sunday, roast, and we’re short on hands - and-” He grimaces at himself, keeps going. “And I- I’d like it. I would. If you… stayed. With us.” A beat. Softer, truer: “With me.”

Your mouth tilts and finally commits to a smile you don’t hand out for free. “Gladly.” He blinks like the word landed warmer than he braced for. “Yeah?” “Yeah,” you say, as if the syllable were obvious as weather. “I’ll come. I’ll stay. I’ll be useful.” You look down at your wrists, then back up. “And I’ll let you boss my braces for a couple days.” He exhales, and the breath has relief tucked inside it like a folded note. “Deal.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “We’ll make Perry do the heavy lifting.” “Perry was born for it,” you say. “Cecilia’ll set your chair,” he adds, then, quieter: “It never left.”

You don’t trust your voice for a second, so you bump his knee with the toe of your boot. He bumps back. The lamp hums; the grounds keep exhaling end-of-night; somewhere Amy’s laugh carries thin and high as she retells your ride to a patient Rebecca for the fourth time. Rhett stands, offers you his hand out of habit, not theater. You take it, let him lever you up without pretending you don’t need the help. The braces hold. So do you. “Walk you to the trailer?” he asks. “Yes,” you say, because some answers should be easy.

You move through the thinning chaos side by side, shoulders almost brushing, wrists bound neat, the fight settled for now. At your steps, he pauses. There’s too much to say and not enough night to say it right. He chooses small, the way you both decided to. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Tomorrow,” you echo. He tips his hat, old language made new. You open the door and breathe out once, careful around your ribs. When you look back, he’s still there, hands in his pockets, not in a hurry to make the distance bigger. “Night, Rhett,” you say. “Night, Cricket,” he answers, and the way he says it carries all the things he’s not letting himself say until the time is right. He waited ten years for you, he can wait a few days longer. 

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

You pull into the yard with the windows down and the radio low. Before you can kill the engine, the screen door bangs and Amy launches off the porch like she’s been spring-loaded since dawn. “You’re here!” she yells, hair in a crooked braid that looks suspiciously like yours. She barrels to your door and then remembers something Cecilia must’ve taught her, skidding to a stop so you won’t open it into her forehead. You step out and she’s already on you - small arms cinched around your waist, that kid-weight that feels like a promise. When she lets go, she puts herself at your hip and stays there, quick feet matching yours like a shadow learning choreography.

“I made you a schedule,” she confides, solemn. “It says ‘Be With Amy’ and then it says ‘Lunch’ and then it says ‘Be With Amy More.’” “A very professional plan,” you say. “Who approved it?” “Me,” she says, scandalized you’d ask. “I’m the boss.” “Obviously.” You hook an arm across her shoulders and let her steer you toward the porch like she owns the house now. Maybe she does.

Cecilia meets you on the steps, hands to your cheeks, eyes bright and satisfied in a way that makes the word home sit down and behave. “Come on,” she murmurs. “We’ll get you fed.” Behind her, Rebecca leans in the doorway with a grin, and Perry calls from the kitchen, “She’s stealing all my help already,” like he didn’t hand Amy the marker and whisper what to write. Rhett is last, like he does on purpose now - time for everyone else to go first. He takes your bag without asking, tips his hat without fuss. The look you toss him is small and private and lands clean. He carries your things down the hall like the weight is familiar and good.

Dinner smudges into evening - the kind of gentle talk that sands away the road. Amy narrates your every move like a sportscaster (“Now she is sitting! Now she is drinking water!”), and you let yourself be adored because it seems to feed the whole room. The doorframe catches your eye on the way to the sink - pencil lines stacked like tree rings, your name right there. You touch it once, quick. It stays.

You sleep that night in the guest room that used to be a storeroom and now smells like lemon oil and sun. The window is cracked open to the slow choir of crickets. On the nightstand sits a chipped mug full of red and black markers and a note in Cecilia’s tidy hand: In case you need your spiders. You smile in the dark. Your wrists throb like honest work. You sleep hard.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Monday dawn comes crisp and plain. Work boots by the door. Coffee that tastes like resolve. The whiteboard on the fridge reads: South pasture check. East fence check. Creek trough scrub. Fix latch - again. Perry has added heroic feats in the corner with a sword doodle. Amy’s added stickers.

The morning scatters you like seed. You go with Royal along the fence, staples clicking home with that tidy little sound that means right. He doesn’t say much; he never needed to. When he does speak, it’s to point with his chin at a stretch of wire and say, “There,” or to rumble, “Good,” like the word weighs something and he trusts you to carry it. Cecilia and Rebecca run the house like a treaty - bread rising, laundry snapping on the line, a choreographed exchange of tools on the porch with no wasted steps. Perry argues with a latch that insists it’s sentient. Amy patrols, clipboard in hand, assigning grades for “effort” and “attitude” and “style.”

By late afternoon the sun tilts gold, and heat blows itself out into a wind you can live in. You and Rhett end up in the west pasture, saddles creaking, horses swinging easy. You ride the fence, then the fence rides you - silence you don’t have to pad with anything, the kind of quiet that puts words in order before you spend them.

You pull up at the high spot where the land opens like a book. The light goes honey and then something softer. Dust hangs in the air like a promise not to last. “About yesterday,” Rhett says. You breathe out once. The world waits. “About yesterday.” “I was an ass,” he says, factual as a fencepost. No drama. No preamble. “I was mad at me, so I picked you. It was easy and cheap, and I’m sorry.” The apology lands where it needs to. You feel it settle; you let it. “Thank you,” you say. He looks out over the pasture like he’s checking for stray cattle. “I was mad for a long time,” he admits, quieter. “At sixteen, at you, at every version of me that didn’t ask you to stay. I made it into religion, almost. Felt righteous. Turns out it was just heavy.”

You run your palm down your horse’s neck; he leans into the touch. “Leaving was the best thing I ever did,” you say, the words clean because you’ve scuffed them smooth on the inside of your mouth. “And the worst. Same choice, two truths.” He nods like he’s been waiting for that exact sentence. “Proud and sorry,” he says, like he’s naming your weather. “Both hold.” “They do,” you answer. “I left because I needed to know if I could be big on purpose. Not because anyone here made me small. I left because I was afraid I’d punish whoever kept me if I stayed. I’m proud I went. I hate the parts that hurt you.” He swallows like that knocked around inside his throat. “Being away grew you up,” he says, not with awe, just with recognition. “You come back with-” he gestures, searching-“edges that fit you. It looks good on you. The leaving. And the coming back looks… better.”

It finds the soft part of you that you built armor around and taps. You tip your chin at the horizon because picking a fixed point helps. “Sometimes I wanted to call you when it was bad,” you say. “More often I wanted to call when it was good. That was the worst part. Wanting to hand you the good thing, and you not being there because I’d made it that way.” His mouth pulls, apology and smile in a tangle. “I would’ve picked up,” he says, a little helpless. “I know,” you say, and you both let the ache have its half-inch before you take the air back.

The apology settles. The horses flick flies; the wind minds its manners. Rhett shifts in the saddle like he’s got one more fence to fix between you. “So,” he says, mouth crooked, “penance.” You arch a brow. “Go on.” “I’ll make it up to you,” he says, like he’s offering to replace a gate he backed into. “I’ll drive us into town, open the door, carry whatever you pretend isn’t heavy. I’ll procure pie and one respectable beer.” A beat. “For medicinal purposes.” You let it hang, enjoying him. “Medicinal.” “Doctor’s orders,” he says, deadpan, then softer: “Cece’s, probably.”

He looks out over the pasture, pretending to check a draw for strays and absolutely not thinking, It’s not a date, it’s late, it’s just… making it right. I absolutely want it to be a date. He doesn’t say any of that. He says, “After chores, Wednesday. We’ll leave from the farm. You don’t have to lift a finger unless it’s to point at the biggest slice.”

“I can be persuaded,” you say, hiding a smile in your glove. “Door, pie, beer… that’s a compelling treatment plan.” He nods like a man who just set a post straight. “Good. I’ll… wash the truck.” You gasp, delighted. “A full miracle.” “Don’t get greedy,” he warns, warm. “I’m still picking you up - in the yard. I’ll honk once. Then I’ll walk you to the truck like I’ve got sense.” “And you’ll open the door,” you prompt, because it’s fun to watch him promise. “And I’ll open the door,” he echoes, shameless now. “And carry your stuff.” You let out a small, helpless laugh that makes both horses tilt an ear like they’re listening. “Deal.” “Wednesday, then,” he says, steady again. “Pie and beer.” He doesn’t call it anything. You don’t either. The word sits between you anyway, all dressed up and patient.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Tuesday seems to move slow on purpose, all sunshine, warm weather and small chores. It’s the kind of day that looks ordinary from far away and feels like a pocket you keep checking just to be sure it’s still there. Morning starts with coffee and the good kind of quiet. You reach for a mug; Rhett is already setting one in your hand, eyes warm under the brim like he’s been up long enough to grow patient. Your fingers brush; neither of you make it weird. Rebecca clocks it over the rim of her cup and hides a smile in the steam.

Out in the yard, the list is a scatter: hose the dust off a trailer, stack a cord of wood that never ends, check the mineral blocks in the east lot. Amy attaches herself to your leg like a koala with a clipboard. “Shadow day,” she announces. “I am learning.” She writes LEARN on the paper in all caps and then draws a spider. Somewhere across the yard Rhett washes his truck like he promised. It is likely to be dirty again by the end of the day, but you appreciate the gesture. 

By the water spigot, Rebecca sidles in close and hip-checks you, conspiratorial. “Perry looked like that for a year,” she murmurs, chin tipping toward Rhett, who is doing something incredibly urgent to a coil of hose while very clearly not looking at you. “Like the sun was behind clouds and then realized it could just come out.” You shrug like it’s nothing. The shrug doesn’t explain your warm neck. “Uh-huh,” she says, amused and kind. “We see you.”

Late morning is the hose fight none of you intended. Rhett leans over the trough to scrub the green off the rim; you and Amy creep up behind him like cartoon burglars. “On three,” Amy whispers, hand on the handle. “One - two -” You spray. The arc hits square between Rhett’s shoulder blades. He jerks, yelps, turns, and you squeal and run, laughing hard enough to make your ribs complain. He gives chase, long strides eating ground, the hose hissing like a live wire.

You bank around the truck; he catches you at the curve, one arm cinching your waist from behind, momentum carrying both of you three more steps. You land against his chest with your hands braced on his forearm, breathless, water freckles on your face. Everything pauses - just long enough for you to feel the thump of his heart against your shoulder blade - then Amy’s war cry splits the air and soaks you both again. You break apart, laughing, dripping, alive.

At lunch, Cecilia puts a bowl of sliced peaches on the table and pretends not to notice the damp hair, the flushed cheeks, the way you take the seat next to Rhett like it was conincident. Royal passes you the bowl without looking and somehow it still feels like approval.

Afternoon heat settles but doesn’t smother. You and Rhett load the bed of the truck with fence posts in a rhythm that feels like a song you both know. He glances at your wrists, checks the braces without touching them. “How mad?” he asks, meaning pain. “Less,” you answer, meaning everything. He nods like that answer fits his bones.

Midafternoon, Rebecca swings by with a jar of lemonade and a sentence shaped like a question. “You good?” she asks, and it means is this okay, the way the day is doing it to you? You tip your head. “I am.” She grins like that’s what she wanted to hear and wanders off to find Perry, who is loudly losing an argument to Amy who swears the saw Big Foot the other day.

Little glances keep happening. By the gate; over the rim of a bucket; across Amy’s head while she narrates your lives like a podcast. Rhett is not a man who stares. He’s a man who double-checks. Today he double-checks you. You let him.

Evening slants gold and everyone drifts inside with the dust still on their boots. Dinner turns into after-dinner turns into the couch. Rebecca and Perry collapse first - she kicks her feet up; he pretends the remote is a scepter. Royal takes his chair like a landmark. Cecilia tucks a blanket into the corner and clucks at anyone who complains about the draft.

You end up on the couch beside Rhett. It happens without planning - you toss Amy a pillow, he shifts to make room, somehow the space you settle fills the shape between you two exactly. The movie starts (something with horses that get saved by courage and romance and contracts), and you are not touching until you are: thigh to thigh, the slow lean of shoulders that forget to hold themselves up. You could move. You don’t. He could move. He doesn’t.

Ten minutes in, fate intervenes in the form of Amy and Rebecca “accidentally” wedging themselves onto the other side, a tangle of blanket and elbows. “Plenty of space,” Rebecca says, deadpan, as she forces the geography of the couch to change. Physics does the rest. You end up tucked into Rhett’s side, the easy inevitability of it so complete it steals your breath for a second and then gives it back warmer.

His arm comes around you like it’s been trying to remember how - hesitant, then confident, resting along your shoulders with just enough weight to count. Your head finds the place under his jaw that smells like soap and dust and cedar. Your ribs let go of a long, old breath. Amy leans against your knee, eyelids doing the flutter. Perry whispers commentary he thinks is quiet. Rebecca shushes him with her foot.

When the hero horse clears the final fence and the music swells, Rhett tilts his head and presses a small, unassuming kiss into your hair. It is the kind of thing a person does when there’s nothing left to prove and everything to keep. You go still for the length of a heartbeat and then let yourself lean that fraction closer, the give of your weight a yes without ceremony. Across the room, Royal has his reading glasses perched on his nose and pretends to be studying the mail. He isn’t. Cecilia is very interested in mending a button that doesn’t need mending. Neither of them says a word, but the looks they trade are a hymn.

Credits roll. Amy is asleep, mouth open, one hand still clutching the corner of your sleeve. Rebecca peels herself up, stretches, and declares the ending “emotionally manipulative in a satisfying way.” Perry agrees with his whole chest and then tries to carry three empty bowls at once to impress no one in particular. You don’t move, not right away. Rhett’s thumb traces one absent-minded arc against your shoulder where the blanket slips. It’s not a promise. It’s not nothing. It’s the kind of touch you file under true.

Eventually, the evening sorts itself: Amy to bed, Perry to dishes with dramatic sighs, Rebecca to text someone a meme, Royal to the porch to check the weather by listening. You stand, stretching, and the loss of his arm around you is sudden and cool. He rises too - old habit - and walks you as far as the hall.

“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, like you’re both still on the couch. “Tomorrow,” you echo. “Pie and then a beer,” he adds, not overplaying it. “You will carry my things,” you tease, and the words puts a little star on the calendar in your chest. You trade a look that doesn’t need translation. Then you peel off toward the guest room with a warm ache in your wrists and a steadier one under your ribs, the kind that means something good is growing where nothing hurried it. Down the hall, Cecilia switches off the kitchen light and leaves the porch one on. Royal cracks the door to listen to the night. Somewhere outside, crickets pick up the count and keep it for you.

In. One. Out. One. And then the next.

The house goes quiet but your head doesn’t. You try the old tricks - left side, right side, count the breaths, count the fence posts you fixed - nothing sticks. The night is soft and blue outside the window, the kind that says come sit a while.

You pull on a T-shirt and cotton shorts, tug boots over bare feet, and slip out the back. The yard smells like cut grass and warm wood. Crickets run their metronome. You climb onto a hay bale at the edge of the stack, knees up, arms looped around your shins, and let the night take a little weight. It’s a small country out here - barn a dark shoulder, porch light a polite star, the wind nosing the leaves like it’s checking in. You breathe and it doesn’t behave, not at first. Then it does.

Footsteps, careful on gravel. You know them. He keeps to the edge of the yard like he’s not trying to spook a horse. When Rhett steps into the spill of porch light and sees you, his mouth does that slow, private lift. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks. “Not for lack of trying.” You pat the hay beside you. He comes, sets a palm to the bale like he’s asking permission, then climbs up and settles a foot of space away. Knees up, forearms on them, hat hooked in two fingers and hanging off his knee. Close enough to count the flecks in his eyes, far enough to pretend you’re not. “Too quiet?” he says. “Too many good noises,” you say. “Brains hate that.” He huffs, not quite a laugh. “Hate that too.” A long band of quiet. The kind that’s true. Somewhere a cow shifts, blows, goes back to dreaming a salt block into existence.

“Thanks for today,” you say finally. “For - all of it. For letting Amy draft me into her calendar. For-” you hunt the right-sized word and don’t find it- “for keeping a place for me, even when I wasn’t here.” He could reach for the bigger truth - you never left, not where it counts - but he tucks it away for a braver hour and picks steady instead. “Amy runs a tight ship,” he says. “You make good crew.” Your mouth goes soft like that actually hit. “Best compliment I’ve ever gotten,” you say, dead serious, and he tips his head in acknowledgment.

Another piece of silence. He turns the hat once, slow. “You ever think about…” He stops, scoffs at himself. Tries again. “About the other kind of life?” “Which one?” “The one where you… don’t drive away every Sunday night.” He keeps his eyes on the dark yard. “The one with gardens that get watered regular, and a dog that’s too dumb to run off, and-” He gestures, helpless and fond, “chores that never die and don’t have a crowd.” “Sometimes,” you say, and it’s not a hedge. “Not as a replacement. As a… parallel universe.” You tip your chin at him. “You?”

“Sometimes,” he echoes. The hat turns once more. “Kept thinking I’d recognize it if it showed up. Never did.” A beat. “Or it did and I didn’t have the sense.” You watch his profile - the line of nose and mouth, the stubborn kindness of it - and let the thing that’s in the air do its own math. He doesn’t say not like you. He doesn’t have to. The words sit down between you anyway, polite, waiting. You pick at a strand of hay. “I tried,” you say. “Other kind of lives. Boys with trucks and good intentions and apartments that smelled like laundry and loss.” You roll the hay thin, then thinner. “One wanted me smaller. ‘For my own good,’” you add, fingers making quotation marks that look like claws. “He said the road was a phase and a phase was a thing you correct.” You blow out a laugh with no joy in it. “He didn’t make it to December.” “Good,” Rhett says, like a closing gate. “Another was kind,” you go on, softer. “Funny. Sent me videos of puppies trying stairs. We lasted almost a year. But the world would tilt and the first number I wanted to dial didn’t belong to him. That felt unfair.” You lay the hay back on the bale like a hair you don’t want the wind to carry wrong. “So I quit pretending I could make someone the first call by force.”

Rhett swallows, looks down at his hands, the big quiet of him going attentive and raw. “I didn’t… find anybody,” he says, simple. Then, as if the truth requires exactness: “Found somebodys. Plural. Good people. Smart. Strong. One girl could out-weld Perry, which I didn’t know was possible.” It draws a ghost of a smile. “But I kept feeling like I was taking up space I wasn’t built for in rooms that were perfectly fine without me.” He shrugs. “I didn’t want to be a placeholder. Or make somebody one for me.” You nod. The barn breathes. The wind changes its mind and then changes it back.

“Royal says love’s a ranch job,” he adds after a while. “Not a parade float. Shows up every day. Leaves mud on the floor. Puts the gate back on its hinges when the wind takes it. I figured I’d know it by the mess.” He tips the brim of his hat toward you, not quite looking. “Turns out I knew it by the quiet.” You feel that like a hand on the center of your chest. You answer it without stepping on it. “I liked the mess,” you say. “All the noise the world makes when you’re winning or losing. But I love the quiet where my head sits still and somebody else’s doesn’t feel like a test.” You risk a look and find him already there. The night carries your breath back and forth like a small boat. You don’t touch. You both think about it and then let the thought go because there’s too much honesty in the air to cheapen with a wrong move.

“Sometimes I think I ruined us at sixteen,” you say, surprisingly steady. “Like if I’d stayed, we would’ve grown crooked anyway, and I would’ve blamed you for the shade.” He shakes his head, once. “I would’ve tried to hold you still,” he says. “Which is worse.” He glances up, meets your eyes, decides not to run. “You didn’t ruin anything. You grew it somewhere else and brought it back alive.” You smile with only half your mouth because the other half is busy being wrecked. “Still mad at me sometimes?” you ask, no flinch. “Sometimes,” he says, honest and vulnerable. “But it’s quiet now. Comes like rain on tin. Leaves like steam.” “Same,” you say. “Like a bruise under a shirt. You forget it’s there until somebody hugs you.”

He makes a sound that might be a laugh, might be agreement, might be a prayer. He puts the hat down on the bale between you. His hands are empty, steady on his knees. “You cold?” he asks after a minute. “Little,” you lie, because you want him to ask. He risks an arm across the back of your shoulders the way a man tests ice he already decided to cross. You let yourself lean, slow, until your temple meets his shoulder and the shirt there smells like soap and sun and something in your bones named rest. He doesn’t pull you closer. He doesn’t have to. Your breath finds the count without instruction.

In. One. Out. One.

Crickets carry it for you when you forget. The porch light clicks off; Royal has decided the night can be trusted. You stay on the hay until your legs go pins and needles and the breeze raises gooseflesh you pretend you don’t feel. Rhett notices like he notices everything slow. “Come on,” he says, gentle, not bossy. “Before Cecilia wakes up sensing someone disobeyed a blanket.” You slide down first; he follows, drops to gravel, and steadies you with one hand around your forearm when your foot finds a hole it didn’t expect. His fingers slip to your wrist, brush the brace, linger a second too long to be accident and not long enough to be a declaration. You don’t pull away.

At the door, you pause, and he holds it, and the old language of the gesture sets the air to right. “Night, Rhett,” you say, and the smile in it is wider than yesterday. “Night, Cricket,” he says, and the softness in it is a little braver. You pad down the hall with hay in your hair and dust on your calves and a head finally willing to be quiet. In your room, you sit on the edge of the bed and count once just because you can. The house breathes. The yard breathes. Somewhere out by the stack, a hat waits on a hay bale like proof you didn’t imagine anything. You sleep, at last, like a person who set something down without breaking it.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Wednesday sprints. Work always does when there’s something bright on the far end of it. You and Rebecca rake the loose grass Perry’s mower left behind, two conspirators turning windrows into neat green ribbons. “Art,” she declares, admiring your piles. “Agrarian minimalism.” You bow with your rake.

Later, you and Amy make the feed rounds - and, as Amy gravely adds, “the petting rounds.” She narrates each pat like a sportscaster. “Excellent muzzle. Ten out of ten ears.” A gelding leans his whole happy head into her shoulder. Perry strolls past and shakes his head. “These horses are spoiled.” You and Amy stick your tongues out in perfect sync. He snorts, busted.

Cecilia and Rebecca catch you on the porch like a pit crew. “Shower,” Cecilia orders, already holding a clean towel and the good soap. “We have objectives.” Amy appears at your elbow with solemn urgency. “Can I sit on the toilet while you shower? I will not peek.” Rebecca inhales to scold. You’re already laughing. “Permission granted, Peeping Not Tom. Eyes closed or you lose dessert.”

Amy squeezes them shut so hard her whole face crinkles. You sing under the steam and Amy belts along off-key, delighted. Perry’s laugh floats down the hall when he passes. “Concert tickets at will call?” Amy, eyes still screwed shut, hands the towel in like it’s the Olympic torch. “No peeking,” she reminds herself, turning her head with exaggerated dignity while you wrap up.

You let her be your stylist: she considers options with hands on hips, then selects black jeans, the soft tee with the tiny red spider at the hem, and the leather jacket that means business and mercy at once. “Hair braided. For old times sake,” she says like she is 77 and not 7. You let her pass you the elastic like a nurse in an OR.

From down the hall, a shower kicks on - pipes humming their familiar tune. You picture Rhett under that water, scrubbing off pasture and daylight, picking a clean shirt on purpose. The thought lands warm. Amy, entirely serious, tucks a spider sticker in your pocket. “For courage,” she says. You breathe. The house breathes back. 

The horn taps once - polite, practiced. Amy bolts upright on the couch like a fire alarm. “Date time!” she squeals, already windmilling toward the door. You don’t correct her. You just press your palms to your jeans to smooth nerves that don’t need smoothing and grin like you’ve been caught.

Cecilia appears with the pan - clean, shining, a hand on your cheek like a blessing. “Have fun,” she says, which in Cecilia means be careful and be brave. Rebecca fans her face with a dish towel. “I’ll allow kissing on the hand like a Regency ball,” she intones. “Anything more requires a committee.” “Committee is me,” Amy declares, spider sticker ready. “I will approve.” Perry hooks your elbow, solemn as a pastor and twice as dramatic. “All rise,” he says, and escorts you across the porch as if it’s an aisle and the lawn is full of witnesses. “I am giving this menace to pie.” Royal leans in the doorway, half a smile tucked in his beard, hat low. “Bring the truck back with four wheels,” he rumbles. Abbott for go on, then.

Rhett stands by the passenger-side fender, clean shirt, hair still damp, truck dusted to a shine he’ll deny caring about. He straightens when he sees you like the horizon just did something interesting. The nerves in his mouth tip brave. He steps forward, takes your bag with a quiet, “Got it,” and it’s nothing and everything.

Perry hams it up, placing your hand in Rhett’s like a ceremonial transfer. “Treat her gentle,” he says, eyes dancing. “Plan on it,” Rhett answers, simple, steady. He opens the door with old-fashioned care, palm out to steady you up the step. You settle; he tucks your bag at your feet and closes the door like it’s valuable. It is. Amy presses her face to the window, both hands on the glass. “Bring back intel!” she whispers, as if you’re off to spy. “Bed by curfew,” Rebecca calls, which earns her a dish towel flick from Cecilia.

Rhett rounds the hood, slides in, glances once at you and once at the road like he’s aligning two maps. “Ready?” “Born,” you say, and your knee finds the dash when the first bump hits. Neither of you apologizes. He eases the truck into the lane. Gravel crunches, the porch light throws a farewell across the yard, and the house recedes - a warm square full of people pretending not to watch. On the breeze, Amy’s voice chases you like confetti: “Kiss her hand! Regency rules!”

Rhett’s mouth curves. His right hand - the one not on the wheel - turns palm-up between you, a half-offer, half-joke. You lay your fingers there, light. He lifts your knuckles and brushes them with his mouth - quick, shy, perfect - like he’s been reading the same rule book. “Approved,” you say, a little breathless. “Committee satisfied,” he says, trying to be dry and failing. The road opens. The radio hums low. Ahead, neon and pie and a beer that tastes like someone else’s bad decisions wait to be investigated. He drives. You lean back. Between you, the quiet is not-empty in the very best way.

The diner glows like a lighthouse - neon fork buzzing, windows full of warm people and warmer pie. Rhett pulls into the slot that used to be Royal’s by unspoken law and cuts the engine. For a second you both sit in the quiet tick of cooling metal and the soft radio fade. Inside, the bell over the door does its old shy jingle. The waitress spots you before your eyes finish adjusting. “Well, look what the cat and good manners dragged in,” she says, already reaching for two menus she won’t use. “Same booth,” she adds, because of course she knows.

Rhett gestures you ahead, palm light at your back without landing. Third booth from the jukebox - the one the sky finds just before the sun goes all the way down. He slides your side of the table in with a little tug so you don’t bump your knee. It’s nothing; it’s everything. “Peach?” The waitress asks, pad ready but her mind already made. “Peach,” you and Rhett say together, then grin at your own cliché. “And coffee that’s flirting with good,” you add. She taps her pen, satisfied. “Two slices, two coffees. I’ll bring the good sugar.”

Rhett rests his forearms on the table, hands folded the way he does when he’s trying not to fidget. “I noticed,” you say, eyes dropping to his clean shirt, then back up. “You shine up nice.” His ears do the pink thing. “You, uh, look like you plan to win a pool tournament and a lawsuit.” “I contain multitudes,” you say, pleased. “Short ones,” he adds and there is no bite to it. 

Coffees arrive, dark and hopeful. The waitress sets down a little metal pitcher and winks. “Honey if you need it,” she says, as if she’s been informed by the grapevine. Rhett’s mouth tilts. Pie lands with the gravity it deserves - sun-warm, generous, the ice cream thinking about surrender. Rhett pulls the plates closer, and his knuckle brushes yours. Neither of you pull back. “To penance,” he says, and it’s half a toast, half an apology re-stated in sweeter language. “To penace,” you answer, tapping your fork to his like a bell. You eat the first bite the way you’d step into a river - careful, then all in. Peach, cinnamon, the cold slump of ice cream, the hot slide of honey he tips onto both plates without asking. The jukebox clatters into a song you both know by muscle memory and ignore on purpose.

You talk easy, in and out of old ruts that aren’t ruts anymore: the way the wind in Wabang always smells like it knows your middle name; Amy’s clipboard tyranny.  You trade tiny histories you hadn’t given to anyone else because they weren’t worth the postage until now - your worst rodeo motel (a carpet that crunched), his most heroic plumbing emergency (Perry, a wrench, and a prayer), the first time you both realized that counting worked. Somewhere in the middle you touch his wrist to make a point and forget to remove your hand for two breaths. He doesn’t move. You don’t say big things. You let the small ones stack.

When the plates are mostly crumbs and melted cream, he slips the bill away with practiced stealth.  “Beer?” he asks. Not casual, not heavy - just the next step on a map the day drew for you. “Beer,” you say. He stands. You stand. For the brief second before you move, the space closes - his hand at the small of your back, not quite touching, your shoulder tilted toward him like it’s found its favorite angle. The waitress says, “See you kids,” like she watched you grow up and is pleased with the edit.

You step out into evening - heat gone soft, sky low and kind. He holds the door because he was raised right. You brush past because you know exactly how close to get. In the glass you catch twin reflections - older, steadier, maybe braver. The Handsome Gambler hums like a bad habit that learned charm. The door swings open and the smell of beer, summer, and old country songs wraps around you like a dare. Same neon signs, same floor that sticks a little, but you don’t feel small anymore walking through it. The air feels yours.

Rhett follows half a step behind, his hat brim catching the amber light. The place looks smaller to him tonight - not because it is, but because you fill it better than the memory ever did. “You sure about this table?” he asks, nodding at the pool setup under a crooked light. “You scared?” you ask, already reaching for a cue. He huffs. “You used to apologize to the cue ball.” You chalk the tip with a little flourish. “Yeah, well. The road teaches you things.” He grabs his own cue, eyes still faintly amused, faintly uncertain. “Like what?” You bend, line up the break, and the crack echoes off the wood-paneled walls. Two solids drop clean. You straighten, give him that dangerous, slow smile. “Surviving bulls. And men. Turns out being good at manly things helps.”

He stares at the table, then at you. There’s surprise first, then something softer, more like pride, more like of course. “You practiced,” he says finally. “Practiced everything,” you say. “You have to, when the world keeps asking if you can.” You line up another shot, drop the three ball in the corner pocket. The little applause from a group at the bar makes you grin wider. You catch Rhett watching you instead of the game, the faint twitch of his jaw like he’s trying to reconcile the girl who used to miss easy shots with the woman who doesn’t waste a move.

“Your turn,” you tell him, stepping back, hips against the table. He leans in to shoot, misses by a hair. You whistle, low. “Guess all those years didn’t help your game much.” He laughs under his breath. “Been busy fixing fences.” “Figures,” you tease. “All straight lines, no corners.” He shoots you a look that says careful but it’s fond. “You talk more now.” “You listen better,” you return, and it lands somewhere between a compliment and a confession.

The jukebox slides into something slow, a song about dust and promises. You circle the table, chalk dust on your fingers, eyes glinting under the crooked lamp. When you pass him, he catches a faint breath of your shampoo and something else - warm, electric, the scent of a life lived at full speed. It hits him harder than whiskey. He doesn’t say it out loud, but the thought comes anyway, uninvited and loud: Ten years changed everything. And nothing.

You line up your last shot, the cue gliding against your fingers. “Eight ball, right corner,” you say. He knows that confidence; it used to scare him when you aimed it at the world. Now it steadies him. The ball drops, smooth as a promise kept. You look up, chin tilted. “Still scared?” He shakes his head, smiling small. “No. Not of you, anyway.” “Good,” you say, and rack the balls again. “First round’s yours. Second’s mine.”

He looks at you, the way your braid swings when you lean, the curve of your grin when you win, and he feels something like awe crawl under his ribs. You’ve got the same spark, but it’s grown teeth - and grace. “Guess the road did teach you a thing or two,” he says. You flash him a look over your shoulder, half challenge, half invitation.  “It taught me how to hold on when everything bucks.” He doesn’t ask if you mean the bulls, the years, or him. He just nods once, quiet, the same way he always did when he understood more than he could say.

You’ve just racked a fresh game when a shadow falls across the table - sponsor shirt, belt buckle loud, the kind of smile that thinks it’s a favor. “Well, if it isn’t the infamous Black Widow,” he drawls, eyes taking a tour you didn’t authorize. “Heard you can ride. Shame you gotta dress like that to-” You don’t let him finish. “Finish the sentence,” you say, mild as a butter knife. “I like to keep a trophy shelf of bad ideas.”

He blinks, recalibrates, chuckles like you’re being cute. “Just saying the brand’s the brand. Fans don’t come for fundamentals.” “Right,” you nod. “They come for tight cores and clean pockets. You’d know that if you’d ever made a whistle for something besides a bartender.” A couple stools down, someone chokes on their beer. The man shifts to square up, finds the floor suddenly uneven. He tries a different tack. “Could get you real sponsors if you smiled more. Wear my patch. I’ll make calls.” “You couldn’t book me a dentist,” you say, friendly. “And if I wanted to sell my smile, I’d charge per tooth.”

His mouth opens. Nothing useful emerges. He looks at Rhett like he’s expecting backup, bro-bond, purchase order for your time. Rhett doesn’t move. Hands in his pockets, eyes steady, he is the picture of a man who will haul you out of a fire but won’t take your hose while you’re using it. He gives the guy a polite, unreadable nod that translates to she’s talking; I’m learning. The man tries swagger again, thinner now. “You know who I am?” You tilt your head. “You’re the reason every committee now prints ‘Don’t Touch the Stock or the Riders’ on the back of the programs.” Beat. “Thanks for pushing policy.”

A laugh pops from the bar like a cork. Color rises under his tan. He looks at the eight ball, at your leather jacket, at the spider stitched mean on your shirt. “Tell you what,” you say, bright and bored. “You want a patch on me? Earn it. Pull your bull rope tomorrow. Eight clean. I’ll wear a sticker with your name on it for the drive home.” He sputters. “That’s not-” “Right,” you say. “It’s not.” Silence lands. The jukebox clicks, hunts for another song. He cocks his head like he might throw one last dart; decides against it; mutters something about “mouthy,” and peels off toward safer weather.

You watch him go long enough to be sure he’s gone-gone, then turn back to Rhett. You hook two fingers in his belt loop and tug, an easy little come on, like you’ve been doing it since you were kids. He goes willingly, heart doing that humiliating skip it has no legal right to. The casual claim of it - your fingers at his hip, the assumption he’ll follow - short-circuits him in ways a man shouldn’t admit in public. He catches up, close enough that your shoulder brushes his chest as you pass. “Thanks for letting me work,” you say, light. “Wasn’t mine to do,” he answers, softer. “Looked good, though.” “What did?” “Everything,” he says, and tries to make it a joke, fails, lets it stand. You bump his hip with yours, grinning. “Rack ’em, Abbott.” He does, hands steadying on the felt, and thinks - helpless, fond - drag me anywhere you want.

He watches you sink another shot - smooth, unbothered - and the felt tilts into memory. Not this room, not these lights, but that season when you were just starting to kick the small out of your life and make space for the larger thing you were building. Back when your hands moved faster than your mouth, when the words were still sharpening but your spine already knew the answer.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

They call it the Flats - a wind-scoured patch by the creek where someone’s cousin always had a truck, someone’s brother always had a lighter, and somebody’s uncle “didn’t see nothing.” A bonfire eats pallet wood and shoots sparks into a sky clear enough to shame you. Music leaks from a radio with one good speaker. Sixteen feels older there, and dumber.

Rhett leans on Perry’s tailgate with a warm beer sweating in his hand and watches you work a circle through the crowd, chin up, braid snared with dust, eyes on everything. You don´t smile much; when you do, it lands like a thrown coin. The boy who starts it - of course it was the boy who always starts it - blocks your path with a grin he wears like a badge. Big belt. Bigger mouth. He’s been loud all night, the kind of drunk that makes courage out of volume. “Hey, Cricket,” he says, sing-song, testing the name like he owns it. “Heard you like riding things that don’t got horns.” A couple of laughs snap like dry twigs. Rhett feels Perry go still next to him - statue still. He waits, because he knows you. You tips your head, loose and dangerous. “You heard wrong,” you say. “I ride anything that tries to make me small.”

“Cute,” the boy says, stepping closer, breath sour. “You wanna try riding me then? I’ll take it slow so you can count.” Perry’s boots scrape gravel. Rhett’s bottle turns to air in his hand. You lift a palm at both of them without even looking, a traffic cop in a torn denim jacket, and lock eyes with the boy. “Last chance,” you say. “Walk.” He snorts, leans in, makes the mistake of touching your braid like it was a bell pull.

The punch is simple. No warning. No speech. You step in and put your knuckles dead-center on his mouth, straight as a rulebook, hips behind it. The crack shuts the music off for a heartbeat. The boy’s head snaps; he goes down on his ass with a sound like surprise and pennies. Blood hits his chin like he’s been kissed by mean luck. Blood hits your knuckles as well, little red spots. 

Someone yells. Someone else whoops. An overeager friend’s fist clips your lip before you can duck. Quick, not full force, but it stings. You don’t waver. You don’t give ground. Your eyes lock, ready if he lunges again. On your left, the boy’s buddies puff up, more smoke than fire, until Perry slides between bodies with that grin he wears when he’s already decided to enjoy himself if it gets stupid. Rhett takes your right, eyes steady, shoulders loose, one hand free in case the pack has more guts than sense. “Everybody breathe,” Perry says, cheerful as a church greeter. “Or don’t. I’m not your mother.” The boy touches his mouth, comes up red, stares at the blood like it’s news. He starts to surge, then clockes the old Abbott steel staring out of two faces and the way your stance doesn’t shake. He thinks better of it.

“You good?” Rhett asks you, quiet. “Great,” you say, lip already swelling, eyes bright like fever and fun. “He’s done.” The boy decides he is. He spits, swears something about “bitch,” and gets hauled off by friends who suddenly believe in de-escalation. The ring of onlookers breakes into nervous laughter, relief, stories already growing new legs.

You shake your hand out once, wince, then laugh, too - sharp and real. The sound goes straight through Rhett like summer heat. “Illegal beer’s terrible,” you say, grabbing a bottle from the tailgate and pressing it to your knuckles. “But useful.” Perry barks a laugh and tosses you a clean rag. “You’ve got form.” “Royal taught me not to waste motion,” you say, dabbing at your lip. “He’ll kill me if he sees this.” “He’ll kill the other guy first,” Perry says, pleased. “Get in. We’re leaving before anybody decides they have cousins in law enforcement.”

He drives. You and Rhett climb into the truck bed - house rule when the night needs air to cool it. The road out of the Flats is star-stitched. Wind lifts your braid; the rag at your mouth blushes pink and you don’t care. You sit knee to knee with Rhett, boots braced on the toolbox, grinning like the world blinked first. Rhett watches you in profile: dust on your cheekbones, pride set hard under the hurt, the way you keep checking your knuckles like they’re a friend that needs looking after. He thinks of the steer in the demo pen that learned manners the day Royal stopped meeting it with force and gave it somewhere to put its fear. He thinks of how you count under your breath when things get loud. And he thinks, helpless and full: I have never loved you more than right now.

You catch him looking. You always do. “What?” you say, half dare, half laugh around the split lip. “Nothing,” he says. Honesty fails him, courage shows up late. “Just… good hit.” “Good target,” you say. “You were slow.” “I was admiring the form,” he says. It comes out like a flirt even though he did not mean to put teeth in it. “Besides, Perry looked eager.” From the cab, Perry thumps the roof like he can hear through the wind. “I was eager,” he yells, thrilled. “Next time let me at him first, Cricket!” You roll your eyes, grin wider, wince and all. “Boys,” you say. 

“Trouble,” Rhett says back, but it comes out fond. He takes the rag and holds it to your lip when the truck bounces. You let him. Your head tips toward his shoulder for a fraction before you catch yourself and sit up straight. He pretends not to feel the heat of you through denim. “Think Royal hears about this?” you ask after a minute. “He hears about everything,” Rhett says. “Cece is going to fuss,” you say, and the way you say Cece is warm enough to make his chest ache. The Abbotts are not just neighbors. They are the gravity you use to measure every other place.

“She’ll fuss and feed you,” Rhett says. “In that order.” “Payment for services rendered,” you say, then soften it with, “I’ll help with dishes.” Wind steals some of the quiet. Stars handle the rest. The road hums the truck into a steady rhythm that feels like counting. The bed jolts, your shoulder brushes his; you don’t move away. Neither does he.

“You always gonna swing first?” he asks after a long while - not judging, just checking where the map edges are. “Only when it’s worth it,” you say. “Only when someone tries to make me small.” You tip your chin at him. “You gonna keep catching me if I miss?” “I don’t think you will,” he says. “But yeah.” You nod once, like that’s a contract - both of you signing in road dust and night air. Your grin settles into something like contentment. The rag has gone pale, your lip has puffed, and the boy behind you has learned the hard way to keep your name out of his mouth.

“Hey, Abbott,” you say, voice lazy with victory and wind. “In.” He smiles before he can help it. “Out.” Your head falls on his shoulder and when he realizes that he goes very still. Out there, with the illegal beer skunking and the bonfire glow shrinking in the rearview, Rhett breathes with you like a vow he doesn’t know how to say out loud yet. He lets the night write it on his bones anyway: I’ve got you. I always did.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Back under the crooked lamp at the Handsome Gambler, he watches you chalk, line up, drop the eight clean, and thinks: same fire. The fist learned grammar. The girl who swung first now speaks first, and the room remembers its manners. “You’re up,” you say, handing him the cue, eyes bright. He takes it, smiles crooked. “I was just thinking,” he says. “Dangerous,” you tease. “Yeah,” he agrees. “But accurate.”

He watches you rack up another game. The faint scar on your knuckles catching neon like a thin thread of old fire. You flick him a glance that’s half-tease, half truth. “I learned to talk like steel because I used to lead with bone.” Silence settles around you that isn’t empty. He looks at your knuckles again - the old story in new skin. Before he can talk himself out of it, he holds out a hand.

“May I?” he asks. You look at him, measure the moment, then offer your fist like a dare you expect him to pass. He takes your hand the way he handles skittish stock and expensive glass: careful, sure. He turns your knuckles into the light, thumb skimming the pale crescent. Then he bends, slow enough to warn you, and sets a kiss there - no show, no flourish. Just gratitude and apology and a promise he hasn’t said out loud yet. You don’t pull away. You go very still, the way you do before a gate swings. When he straightens, your eyes are warmer around the edges. “Sentimental,” you say, but there’s no bite in it. “Accurate,” he answers. His palm stays under yours a heartbeat longer, a soft brace, then lets go like respect looks when it knows its job.

Behind you, someone laughs too loud. The game picks up on a TV. The world resumes its ordinary spin. You lift your beer; he steals a sip like he used to steal fries, and you let him like you always did. He breathes the way you taught him. “In,” you murmur, almost smiling. “Out,” he says, soft, and feels the warmth in his chest settle into something steady and good - like a family fire burning low and watched over, like a promise kept in the small hours under a sky that doesn’t blink.

You play out the rack - clean, easy, both of you lighter for having said some of the heavy. He steals the eight by a breath and lifts his hands like a man who knows better than to gloat. You rack again, because you can. Next game goes to you on a long rail shot that makes two old boys at the bar whistle under their breath. You tip them a mock-curtain call, chalk your cue, then set it down.

“I want to head back,” you say, soft but decided. “Weekend’ll be here quick.” He nods. “I’ll drive.” Outside, the night’s settled and the truck’s cooled. He opens your door like it’s a vow he enjoys keeping. The road between the Gambler and the grounds is short - radio low, windows cracked, that good silence riding shotgun. He taps the wheel with two fingers when the song hits a line he likes; you smile without looking over.

At your trailer he kills the engine. The dark is kind out here, lights strung like low constellations. Neither of you moves. “Thank you,” he says, after a beat. “For what?” you ask, genuine. “For letting me be wrong and not making me smaller for it,” he says. “For coming back without pretending you never left.” You look at him full-on. The porch light rims his hat and softens his jaw. “Thank you for being mad,” you say. “And then not being. Both mattered.”

He nods once, satisfied and a little raw. You lean in. He does too. The hug is tight - no play, no show - his arms around your shoulders, your hands at his back. He breathes you in like he’s been underwater and forgot he could swim. Before you part, he dips, unthinking, and presses his mouth to your hair. It lands like a benediction he didn’t plan. You slide back, fingers trailing his sleeve. “Night, Rhett.” “Night, Cricket.”

You hop down, boots on gravel, take two steps toward the door - then pivot, quick. He’s still watching. You come back on your toes, catch his cheek in one palm, and kiss him there: warm, sure, a little sideways so it feels like a secret and not a siege. He goes very still, then blinks like a man memorizing. “Sleep,” you say, backing away. “Weekend’s mean.” “I’ll count,” he promises, voice gone rough.

You climb the steps, key in the lock, light on. You lift a hand at the threshold; he lifts his back. The door clicks; the light becomes a square on the gravel. He doesn’t turn the engine over yet. He sits with the window down, listening to the night tick. In his chest the old word he wouldn’t say out loud turns over and settles: home. Not a place so much as a direction - two steps from the Gambler, a truck length from your trailer, a long time from sixteen and the worst conversation of his life. Maybe waiting wasn’t noble. Maybe it was just stubborn. Either way, tonight it feels like it learned patience on purpose.

He taps the wheel, breathes in, breathes out. “Friday,” he says to the empty seat, and smiles. Then he starts the truck and drives back through the gentle dark, carrying the echo of your cheek on his skin like a brand he chose. Friday is only days away and also already here in the way everyone says it like a promise.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Friday outruns your nerves. The grounds thrum - generators growling, mic checks snapping, stock rattling steel like weather with a temper. You pull the person you need to be over like a second skin: vest cinched tight, tape clean, spider winking mean across your knuckles. Black leather, low-cut V catching the floodlight, red liner sharp as a warning. You look like trouble on purpose. 

Rhett arrives late in that way only riders do - half-dressed in leather and dust, hat low, eyes already in the chute. He finds you by muscle memory anyway. No time for pretty. He catches your elbow, pulls you in for one quick, rib-straight hug that smells like rosin and sun and home. It lands like a promise and is gone in the same heartbeat. “Count for me,” he says into your hair, breath quick, voice calm. “In,” you answer, almost smiling. “Out.” Perry jogs past, clapping Rhett’s shoulder. “Quit flirting and go be heroic.” Cecilia’s look is softer: “Breathe, honey.” Royal just tips his chin toward the alley: Go.

Rhett steps back, thumbs the brim, something raw and ready in his mouth. “See you in eight,” he says, already turning. “See you in eight,” you echo, letting him go the way you never could at sixteen - palms open, steel in place. He disappears down the alley in three long strides, the crowd swallowing him, the gate man’s voice cutting clean. You set your feet on the rail and do what he asked, lending him your lungs from a distance as the latch clacks and the night decides what kind of story it’s going to be.

The arena sounds like a storm made of wood and lungs. Boards rattle. People stand, then sit, then stand again. Rhett does not move. He felt the bull fold under him in the eighth second, shoulder drop, head snap. He rode the twist, then the ground rose like a dirty wave and took him. Now the dirt is inside his mouth, iron and grit, and the sky is a bright white plate with dust on it. He tries to push up. His arm is a stranger. The world pulls left and keeps pulling.

The bull circles back.

You vault the rail without thinking. Black leather flashes, spurs catch the light, and you hit the dirt running. The pick up men are on the far side. The bullfighters are cutting the first angle, but the animal has Rhett in his eye like a nail set into wood. He stamps, snorts, throws clods. The crowd rolls into one long vowel. Rhett hears your name like a memory dropped in water. Older now, both of you. Lines at the eyes. Strength that does not brag.

You do not slow down.

You strip your hat and fling it past Rhett to the left, a snapping black bird. The bull flicks an ear. You take your vest half open and crack it like a flag. You are talking as you move, steady and low, voice made for skittish stock and men who will not admit fear.

"Hey. Big man. Right here."

The bull swings to you. There is a thin white line of scar on his muzzle, healed ugly. His breath is a hot engine. You plant your boots, weight forward, knees soft, hands out. You look at him like you look at a gate that sticks. Not angry. Deciding.

Rhett tries to get up again. Pain lifts the top of his head like a lid. He sees you draw the animal off his line by inches. He has seen you ride every kind of mean in the world, but he has never seen you like this, between horns and a man on the ground, making yourself larger than you are. "Count, Abbott," you call without looking back. "With me. In. One. Out. One." He obeys before he can argue. The numbers run like beads. In. One. Out. One.

The bull feints right. You go with him, a half step and a clap to keep him keyed on your hands. A bullfighter throws his body across Rhett's boots and hauls, boots scraping. The other tries to cut the hip. The bull hooks and misses by an inch. You slap your vest against your thigh and yell, not pretty, not brave, just loud.

"Here. Look at me. Come on."

He looks. For a second his eyes are nothing but night. You do not blink. Rhett sees everything in frames. The way your braid has come loose at the nape. The sweat at your temple. The small tremor in your fingers that you lock down by will. You have always been like this. Brave and reckless. The first summer, back when you were kids and Royal was teaching you both how to move around a cranky cow, you learned to square your shoulders and tell fear to wait its turn.

The bull charges.

You break left and cut right at the last possible breath, a small quick angle that makes him overshoot by a hair. He blows past your hip. A horn kisses leather where your thigh should have been. The crowd gasps, then swallows it. The pick up men are finally here, long reins, shouting. The bullfighters clap and kick and give the bull too many targets at once. He swings to them. You pivot and run three steps back to Rhett.

He is on his side, eyes open now, chest hitching like a bad engine. "Hey." You drop to a knee. Your hand finds the back plate of his vest, then his jaw. "Stay with me." “Hi,” he grits out. The tiny effort makes his lungs protest.  It comes out wrong. He tastes copper. He hates how small his voice sounds under the noise. Your mouth twists like you almost smile. "Hold still."

The bull stomps, angry at the new order. A pick up man gets a rope on him, turns him, gets him moving toward the out gate, shoulders leaning against power. You do not move away from Rhett until the gate slams. Your body shielding his in case the bull would go rogue again. The animal fights, but the angle is good, the door is open, and a second horse eases the line. The bull goes, still throwing his head, and then he is gone. The sudden lack of him makes the air feel thin. 

"You with me?" He blinks. The white plate of sky softens to blue. Your face comes into focus. Older, yes. Beautiful, yes. But more than that, present. The word hits him with more force than the ground did. "Yeah," he says. "I am now." EMTs are already kneeling. The backboard appears like a magic trick. You slide out of the way, still close enough that your knee touches his shoulder, still close enough that your hand can trap his if he starts to drift. The medic asks him questions. Name. Date. Where he is. Rhett answers because your thumb is tracing slow lines across his knuckles, and that tells him there is time to be gentle.

The announcer is trying to make it a lesson. He talks about heart. He talks about toughness. He does not have language for what you just did. Most people do not. They strap Rhett in. He hates it, but he lets them. When the medic moves to lift his arm, you are there first, sliding your hand under his wrist to help, your touch competent, not tender, but he feels the heat of it straight through. You meet his eyes.

"Do not do the macho thing," you say. "Let them look. You can curse at me later." He swallows. Dust scratches his throat. "You just stood in front of a bull for me." "Someone had to," you say, like you are talking about carrying in groceries. Then your jaw tightens. "And I knew you could not do it for yourself." Something opens in his chest he did not know was locked. It hurts, and it feels like relief. He wants to tell you everything he did not say when you left. He wants to ask why you came back. He wants to bury his face in your shoulder and count to ten. The stretcher bumps. You walk beside it. A kid leans over the rail and yells your name. You lift a hand without looking away from Rhett. "Keep counting," you say. 

At the mouth of the tunnel the light breaks into bars. It is cooler there, metal and shadow. The arena sound fades to a hum. You stop them with a palm on the medic's arm. "One second," you say. You lean down and set your forehead to Rhett's again, the exact shape of earlier. Your voice is closer. "You scared me." He almost laughs. It shakes in his chest. "You scared me back." "Fair trade," you say. Then you kiss his temple. It is small. It is the kind of promise that can survive daylight.

They wheel him on. You walk with them until the hallway turns and the rules say you cannot. You hand the medic Rhett's glove. You kept it in your fist the whole time without knowing. The leather is warm. Your fingers do not want to let go. Rhett watches you through the lift and drop of strangers' shoulders. For a heartbeat the crowd, the cameras, the long hard years, all of it goes quiet. There is only a girl who learned to run toward danger and a man who finally understands why she had to. He keeps counting your way until the room goes soft around the edges and the medic tells him to close his eyes. In. One. Out. One. When he opens them again, he promises himself two things. He will let them patch the body. And he will not be an almost to you, not anymore.

Later, you sit next to Rhett on a cooler. The medics have cleared him - pupils fine, pride bruised - just the usual bullrider blues blooming under the skin. The Abbotts drift at a distance on purpose: Cecilia and Royal by the gate, Perry narrating something for Amy. Rhett’s propped against his truck, hat tipped back, a crackling bag of ice pressed to his shoulder. Melt tracks down his biceps, silvering the dust. He winces once, breathes past it, eyes on nothing, mouth set in that almost-smile he wears when he’s hurting and pretending he isn’t. “Thought you retired from being stupid,” he says. “Tunnel rumor will say you just tried to get yourself killed for me.” You peel off a glove with your teeth and pocket it. “Would have been a waste. You still owe me fries.” That gets him. He huffs, which is as close to a laugh as pain will allow, and the sound bounces off cinderblock like a memory.

Inching just a closer, you tip your chin at Rhett’s shoulder. “You keeping that on as decoration or you going to hold the ice where the bruise is?” He shifts the bag up an inch. “Bossy.” “Alive,” you say. “You are welcome.” The Abbotts pretend not to listen. Somewhere, a radio crackles. The concrete smells like old water. “You look different,” he says, then decides to be braver. “You look the same and different.” “Older,” you say. “Meaner. Better boots.” His eyes go to your boots, scuffed at the toe, polished everywhere else. “I remember when you had to stuff paper in your left one because your socks had holes.” You laugh, quiet, soft and it stirs something in his chest. 

He thinks of fifteen. A shared order from fries on a Friday. He had licked salt from his thumb and said, dead serious, that he was going to ride anything they put under him and make it look easy. You rolled your eyes and said you were going to leave this town before it taught you how to be small. He told you not to, then pretended he had meant it as a joke. You both watched Royal set his shoulders against a twitchy steer and turn patient force into clean motion, and for a breath the world felt simple. 

“You left,” he says, softer now. It is not a charge. It is a pin dropped on a map. “Yeah,” you say. You do not apologize. “I had to.” He waits. You do not fill the silence. That is your oldest game. He breaks first, as usual. “And now you are back, and you are the one riding bulls.” “Looks like.” “That a problem?” he asks, too casual by half. “For who?” You lean one shoulder into the wall of his truck. “For the boys who cannot count to eight unless a girl spells it for them? For the men with opinions about my neckline? For you?” His grin shows up slow. “For me it is a story I am glad I get to watch.” You do not look away, which is what startles him. You used to look anywhere else when talk got honest. Ceiling. Dirt. The side of his face. Now you look right at him until he shifts again and the ice bag crackles. “Do not flirt if you are going to pass out,” you say. “It ruins the effect.” “Let me practice,” he says. “I am older. I need the reps.” “You always needed the reps.”

You could say more. You could say that every mile you put between you and this place was heavy with the shape he left next to you on the bleachers. You could say that the circuit chews and spits and that you learned to make teeth of your own. You could say that seeing him fall and not get up nearly knocked the air out of you. You do not say it. He watches you sitting there, legs dangling over the edge of the truck bed. He sees you at ten in a sunburned ponytail, your calves dusty, jumping out of his fathers. He sees you now in black leather and sweat, spine straight, the only person in the building who could make a bull look away. Between those pictures there is a long road but right here - and right here, he finds he doesn’t care. He loved you at ten, even if the word didn’t fit yet. He loved you at twelve and fourteen, and at fifteen when he almost kissed you. He loved you at sixteen when you left and it felt like the end of the world. He loves you now, ten years older, edges trued and soft places stubborn. He loves you now that you’ve come back - to the ranch, to the noise and the quiet, to the space beside him that never forgot your shape.

After another hour and another beer, you call it a night. “Try not to be an idiot,” you say. “I’ll work on it,” he answers. “Good,” you say. “I’m better at bossing people who live.” Perry, now within heckling range, barks a laugh. Rebecca and Amy materialize at your side to say goodnight; Amy’s gap-toothed grin is immediate and ferocious. “I like her.” “Excellent taste,” Perry declares, scandalized with pride. “Both of you.” He throws that last part at Rhett like a blessing disguised as a jab.

You make the rounds, saving Rhett for last because that’s what you do now. You step in; he meets you halfway. One-armed around your shoulders, his face finds the warm crook of your neck like it remembers the coordinates. You breathe once, steady. Perry groans in operatic pain. “Oh, for - get a room. Or a chute. Not right here. I’m fragile.” You tip a death-ray over Rhett’s shoulder that could fell a bull. Perry clutches his heart and staggers for cover. Rebecca is laughing into her sleeve. Amy claps like a tiny judge approving the scene. Cecilia’s smile is sunshine through the last of the storm. Royal’s mouth does that almost-smile it saves for family. You ease back, fingers trailing his sleeve, and the night feels properly finished.

Rhett watches you leave. Cecilia notices the way Rhett’s looking. Cecelia always notices. “You gonna tell me, or am I supposed to guess?” she asks, soft enough not to bend the air. Rhett shifts the ice, buying himself a second. “Tell you what?” She flicks her eyes toward where he just left. “Whatever that face is.” He tries a grin. It works halfway. “It’s nothing…,” he starts, then remembers lies don´t seem to work on his mother. He clears his throat. “It’s just - she looks like herself here. Even more at the ranch. Happy. Softer. Like that kid who stole the last fry and counted under her breath so the world wouldn’t get away from her.” He looks down at his hands, then back at his mother. Honesty gets easier once it starts moving. “Feels like her place has always been our table. I don’t know how to say that without making it sound like a net.” Cecilia’s hand covers his wrist, brief and warm. “No net,” she says. “Just tell her what you told me. Not a confession. The truth. A compliment she can use.” Her smile tucks at one corner. “She’ll appreciate useful.” Rhett nods. “I will, soon.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

The night sits on Abbott land like a warm coat. Crickets work the fenceline. The stars are big enough to make a man feel honest. They’ve got the fire low and the chairs dragged out where the yard gives to pasture. Royal nurses coffee gone mean a long time ago. Perry has a beer sweating in his fist. Rhett turns a bottlecap over and over like it’s a prayer wheel.

No one talks first. It’s the Abbott way. Then Perry quits pretending to be polite. “So,” he says, aiming at the sky and hitting Rhett instead. “Why didn’t you ever ask her out?” Rhett doesn’t look up. He rolls the cap to its edge and sets it spinning on his knee. “Which her.” Perry snorts. “The only her we’re all thinking about. Cricket. Widow. Take your pick.” Royal doesn’t laugh. He looks at Rhett the way he looks at a skittish colt - still, patient, a little sad he knows what’s coming. “Boy,” he says, not unkind. “You used to watch her and pretend you didn´t. You scratched her name into the door like she belonged there. Don’t start playing dumb now.”

Rhett lets the cap fall. It dies in the grass with a small, final sound. “I was twelve, then fourteen and then sixteen,” he says. “And dumb.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “And then she left.” Perry leans back and props his boots on a stump. “It was obvious,” he says. “The way you always found your place next to her and called it coincidence. The way you brought water like you didn’t notice her lips on the bottle.” He grins into the dark. “The way you counted when she counted, like you were both stealing air from the same jar.”

Rhett almost smiles. It breaks before it lands. “You want the truth?” “We did drag you out here to make you say it,” Perry says. Rhett nods once, like he’s taken a gate he wasn’t sure about. “I didn’t ask because she was always leaving,” he says. “And she needed to. I didn’t want to be the thing she had to cut loose to be big.” He pauses. The frogs fill it. “And because I figured I was the almost. Second choice in my own damn head. I thought - hell, I thought she didn’t like me like that. Not really.” “Hmm,” Royal says, which is half a sentence when you know him. He looks out at the pasture like he expects it to answer. “Or maybe you were just scared.” “Both,” Rhett admits. “She scares me in the right ways.” He huffs a laugh that isn’t mean. “Always has.”

Perry tips his bottle toward the house, toward the empty stretch of dark where the road runs to town. “She hugged you like it didn’t matter who was watching,” he says.  “I saw your face. You looked like were fifteen again when she kissed you on the cheek that one day.” “Felt like it,” Rhett says. He tries for humor and doesn’t quite make it. “Thought I might drop a lemonade.” Royal’s mouth doesn’t turn up, but his eyes do. “You were kids” he says. “No crime in taking too long then.” He sets his cup down. “But you ain’t boys now.” Silence again. A coyote barks somewhere out in the draw. The fire pops. In his chest, Rhett hears the old metronome: In. One. Out. One.

“I didn’t ask because asking would’ve made it real if she said no. And if she said yes, well. That’d be a whole other kind of real.” Perry whistles soft. “So you are hiding in almost.” “Yeah,” Rhett says. “I hide in almost.” Royal picks up a stick and stirs a coal like it owes him money. “You know what almost is good for?” Rhett shakes his head. “Nothing,” Royal says. “It don’t feed cattle and it don’t hold a gate. It’s just noise you make to keep from hearing yourself breathe.” Perry claps once, satisfied. “There it is. Philosophy with a hat.” Royal ignores him. “She left to not be small,” he says to Rhett like it’s the weather. “You don’t make her small by asking. You let her say no if she means no. That’s respect.” He looks over, the kind of look that put the fear of God in sons and bulls. “And if she says yes, you make damn sure you can carry your end.” Rhett sits with it. The stars don’t blink. They don’t need to.

“I almost told her ten times since she came back,” he says. “Almost,” Perry repeats, rolling the word in his mouth like a bad seed. Rhett laughs, finally. “All right. I get it.” He loses the battle with his own honesty and lets the rest out. “When she hugged me, I felt sixteen. When she walked away, I felt twentysix and tired and like I’d waste another ten years if I didn’t move.” He taps his chest with two fingers, a little embarrassed. “I don’t want to be almost to her. Not anymore.” Royal stands, slow and easy. “Then don’t be.”

Perry raises his bottle like a toast. “Ask her out, you coward. With your mouth. Words.” Rhett looks at the house again, then the road, then the sky. He breathes the way she taught him, the way he taught himself to keep from breaking things he wanted to keep. “In,” he says under his breath. “Out,” Perry echoes, softer than he means to. Rhett nods. “I’ll do it,” he says. “Use my words. Ask like a person.”

Royal picks his cup back up. “Good,” he says, which is a whole paragraph when you know him. He starts toward the porch. Perry barks a laugh and follows. “And bring me some sense if she says yes, ’cause I’m gonna have to hear about it for the rest of my life.” Rhett stays a minute longer, just him and the stars and the quiet that isn’t empty. He thinks about the kid who counted under her breath, and the woman who steps between horns and the people she loves like it’s a job. He feels sixteen and steady at the same time. He flips the dead bottlecap into the fire and stands. Tomorrow he’ll ask. Tonight, he breathes. In. One. Out. One. Then he goes inside.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Saturday comes in fast and mean and hot. You haven’t slept; the edges of you are sandpaper. Your wrist still hurts. Sweat tacky on your skin, tape itching, leather that usually feels like a second self now rides you like a bad idea. Little droplets climb under your wrist brace. Rhett climbs on against everyone’s advice and makes it look good - clean seat, smart saves, numbers that shut people up. You don’t have that gear today. Every jump feels like a dare you’re a half-beat late to meet. You hang on anyway. You finish. It’s enough to land second overall, Rhett a notch behind you in third. Usually second tastes like sugar with grit. Today it tastes like loss and failure. The scoreboard says you did fine; your chest says small and irritable and you can’t even name the reason. You strip the glove, shake the ache from your wrist, and the noise of the arena feels three sizes too big.

The fight starts stupid. Small tinder, big flame. You are still wired from the ride, from the cameras, from the way the sponsor rep said your name like a coupon. In the parking lot the wind picks up grit. Rhett reaches to take your bag. You yank it back like it bit you. “I can carry it,” you snap. “I know,” he says, soft as ever. “I wanted to help.” “That is the problem,” you fire back. “You always want to help. You are so soft. I do not deserve soft. I do not need it.” He does not step back. He does not lift his hands. He keeps his voice level. “You deserve not to be tired alone,” he says.

You laugh, sharp. “Cute. Put that on a shirt.” You pace three steps and turn on him. “I built this. I did it by myself. I got used to not expecting anyone. You show up with softness and something other that feels just as familiar and I do not know where to put it.” “Put it here,” he says. He taps his own chest once. “Or at our table. Or in the booth of the diner over pie. You do not have to do it by yourself. You have Perry. You have my parents. You have me. We are your family. You are not alone.” The wind takes the last word and throws it back at you. Not alone. Your mouth is still set. Your eyes are not. You brace your hands on your hips like you are about to tell the ground to fight you. It does not. It gives.

“I was alone for a long time,” you say. The first words come out like they are too big. The rest follow easier. “I thought I always had to be strong. Make it by myself. If I am honest, leaving the Abbotts, leaving you, that was the smartest thing and the dumbest thing at the same time. I needed to go so the world could not make me small. I should have brought you with me in my pocket.”

Rhett breathes once, slow. He takes one step. You do not retreat. He sets his hands on your arms, light. Not pinning. Not pushing. Anchoring. “You did the hard part,” he says. “Now let us do some of the rest.” You swallow. Something in your shoulders comes down. The fight goes out of your jaw. You put your forehead to his chest, fast, like if you think about it you might miss. He wraps you up and holds, gentle as a promise. You do not shake. You do not talk. You just breathe, and he matches you because it is the only language that has never failed either of you. “In,” you say, muffled. “Out,” he answers.

He drives you home, not to your trailer. To the farm. The road is quiet. The radio stays off. He keeps one hand on the wheel and one on the bench between you, palm up. You set your fingers there and leave them. You watch the trees go by and disappear into the dark night. You watch the stars and Rhett watches you. At the house he gives you a shirt without saying anything. It smells like cedar and dust and him. You disappear into the bathroom and come back with damp hair and bare feet, his shirt hitting mid thigh. He does not stare. He tries not to. He fails a little. His bed is bigger than it used to be, not for a sixteen year old kid anymore but now for a man that is taller and whose shoulders became broader as he got older. You both fit. You tuck into his side like you were carved to fit that space. He tucks a blanket around your legs like he has done this a hundred times in his head. The room hums with night sounds and the small click of the heater.

“I am not good at this,” you say into his collarbone. “You are doing fine,” he says. “You sure you want it,” you ask, and there is no steel in it at all. “Every night for the rest of my life,” he thinks, clear as a bell. He does not say it. He says the part that will not scare you. “I want this tonight. And tomorrow we can want tomorrow.”

You consider that. Then you take his hand and bring it to your mouth and kiss the heel of it once, quick. It feels like a signature. “Okay,” you say. He presses his lips to the small pale crescent on your knuckle, the one that will never quite fade. Your breath evens. Your weight settles. He watches the window until stars blink through clouds. He keeps his palm on your back, steady and warm, and lets the thought return, simple and strong, a tide that does not need words. I want this every night, he thinks. Every small softness. Every morning after a hard thing. Every counted breath. You sleep. He does not, not for a while. He is busy wanting and keeping watch, which feels like the same thing when the person under your hand is home.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Morning smells like coffee and hay. The house is quiet in the way a place gets when everyone’s already been up an hour. You come down the back stairs with Rhett, bare ankles, his shirt tucked into your jeans, hair braided quick and clean. He keeps a respectful half-step, hand brushing your back only when the last step creaks.

Cecilia looks up from the stove, takes in both of you with a single, expert glance, and turns a biscuit in the pan like she’s considering the weather. “Morning, you two,” she says, warm as a quilt. Royal nods from the table, newspaper folded into obedient quarters. “Coffee’s fresh.” Perry lifts a brow, only because it’s a muscle he can’t stop using. “Y’all sleep all right?” he asks, faux-casual. “Fine,” Rhett says. “Like a rock,” you say, and steal a strip of bacon off his plate with a speed that makes Amy gasp-laugh.

They don’t make a scene. They make room. A second mug appears beside your elbow; a jar of honey slides your way like an apology for every hard thing you did alone. Rebecca forks over the last of the scrambled eggs with a conspiratorial tilt. Royal reaches without looking and sets a clean knife next to your plate because you always forget you’ll need one until you do.

Breakfast is the kind that happens to you: biscuits that split with a sigh, jam that tastes like last summer, talk that loops easy over fence repairs and a neighbor’s mule who never quite learned manners. You eat like a person who finally believes there will be enough. When the plates are messy and the kettle clicks off, Cecilia wipes her hands on a towel and says, “I need to run a couple errands. Up to the feed store and over to Mabel’s for pie.” Her eyes cut to you, soft and sure. “Ride with me?”

You nod before she’s finished. “Gladly. I just need to grab a few things from home.” “I’ll drive you,” she says, the decision already folding itself into the day. “Can I come?” Amy pipes up from her chair, bouncing once. “Can I, Aunt Cricket?” The room goes very still, like a deer lifting its head in tall grass. The name lands in the middle of the table and glows. You blink. Your mouth opens, closes. Rhett sees it - just the shine at the corner of your eye, gone as quick as it came. You reaches your hand across the table to Amy, palm up. “Of course, little bug,” you say, voice steady and bright. Amy slides her small hand into yours like it was always meant to. Royal’s newspaper settles. Perry looks away like he’s being polite to his own feelings. Rebecca hides a smile in her tea. Cecilia only nods, like a plan that started years ago just finished rooting.

Rhett watches you stand with them - his mother, his niece - and something inside him sets like concrete in sun. You pick up your hat, squeeze his fingers once under the table, and follow Cecilia and Amy toward the door. And Rhett sits there with the taste of honey and the certainty that the road ahead already knows all your names. The screen door sighs shut behind Cecilia and Amy. They leave. The house breathes. Tires crunch the gravel, then fade. The kitchen holds its breath for half a beat. Royal lowers his newspaper an inch. Perry leans back in his chair until it creaks. They both look at Rhett like he’s a colt who just squared up to a fence he’s been circling for years.

“What’s going on,” Perry says. Not a question. Rhett rubs a thumb over a coffee ring on the table. “I’m gonna tell her,” he says. Simple. The room seems to fit around it. Royal folds the paper. “Good,” he says - four letters worth a page. “Say it plain.” Perry kicks the table leg. “And say it where the whole county can’t hear you mispronounce your own heart,” he adds, grin crooked. “Or do - give me something to live for.” Rhett stands. He can feel the plan forming as he speaks it. “Back pasture,” he says. “South of the cottonwoods. No neighbors. I’ll take the truck. Blankets in the bed. Flowers. Compliments and truth.”

They move without making it a meeting. Perry raids the shed for an extension cord and a coil of fairy lights last used for Amy’s school play. Royal disappears into the barn and returns with a clean old quilt - the good one with the blue stars - folded over his arm like an offering. Rhett drives his truck out to the backpasture. On his way out, he stops by the fence line, wades into the ditch for a handful of wildflowers that don’t match and don’t need to.

Out back, the day rips wide and quiet. They idle the truck behind the cottonwoods where the pasture turns away from the house and the sky is big enough to keep secrets. Perry climbs in the bed like a raccoon, stringing lights along the headache rack and down the rails, swearing cheerfully when they tangle and more cheerfully when they blink alive. “Not too bright,” Rhett says. “Son, nothing about this is subtle,” Perry says, satisfied. “Also, if you’re gonna whisper about your feelings ‘where no one can hear,’ try not to park by the cattle gate that leaves like a tattletale in the wind.” He points. “Back it up ten feet.” Rhett backs it up ten feet. The gate hushes.

Royal shakes out the quilt and helps spread it in the bed like he’s laying a saddle blanket. He tucks a few worn pillows at the head, then steps back, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed at the symmetry like a man judging a fence line. Rhett rolls a blanket tight to use as a bolster for your wrist if the brace starts biting. He stows a spare hair tie by the thermos because experience makes good guesses. He sets the wildflowers in the jar and fusses the stems until they stop looking like he ripped them out of a ditch (which he did).

Perry puts two tea candles in old jam jars and wedges them safe in the wheel wells so they will look like fireflies that learned manners later. Then he places a lighter next to it. Royal eyes the scene. “You’re not gonna talk her into anything,” he says. “Just tell her what you told your mama. Truth. Complement she can use.” Rhett nods. “I know.” Perry hops down, wipes his hands on his jeans. “And if you get tongue-tied,” he says, “say ‘I like you here.’ Point at the quilt. Point at the stars. Point at your dumb face. That’ll cover it.” He tips his hat toward the trees.

Rhett flips him a look. Perry just grins bigger and saunters off, whistling something smug. Royal lingers. He reaches out and tugs a corner of the quilt, straightens it a fraction, then presses his palm once to Rhett’s shoulder - solid, proud, brief. “She’s family,” he says. “Act like it. The rest follows.” “I will,” Rhett says. It lands as vow and normal sentence both. Royal nods and leaves him to it. When the dust from their boots settles, Rhett stands alone beside the truck and listens to the pasture breathe. The fairy lights wink against the chrome. He smooths the quilt one more time. He sets the flowers so they don’t block the sky.

Then he leans on the fender, hat low, and waits for a car door out front, for the sound of Cecilia’s laugh and Amy’s running feet, for your step in the gravel - so he can meet you at the corner of the house, take your bag without a fight, and say it plain where only the cottonwoods and the cattle can hear: I like you here. You fit. The rest can come slow.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆₊⁺⋆

Cecilia’s car crunches up the drive just as the light turns honey. Amy explodes out of the passenger seat before the engine’s even quiet, wearing one of your promo shirts two sizes too big - BLACK WIDOW across the front with the tiny red spider - and a grin that could blind a storm. She sprints straight for Rhett, skidding to a stop to model. “Look!” she says, arms out. “Aunt Cricket said I could!”

Rhett feels something in his chest kick hard enough to rattle his ribs. “You look perfect, little bug,” he manages, voice steady by a miracle. Cecilia closes her door, meets his eye over the roof, and smiles like a secret she’s kept since he was born. You come around the hood with a paper sack and wind in your braid. You’re flushed and easy, laughing low at something Cecilia says - soft, the way you get when you’re home. You tip your chin at Rhett, a hello that lands where a kiss might later.

Inside, the table fills itself: roast and beans, biscuits that split with a sigh, the tomato salad that only shows up when the garden’s showing off. Amy plants herself next to you, sits tall so the Widow on her shirt shows, and asks a mile of questions. You answer between bites, teaching her how to brace a plate with her forearm, how to count when nerves show up, how to say “no, thank you” in a voice that means it. Rebecca teases that the shirt’s worth ten points off fear; you say, “At least.”

Perry waits until everyone’s halfway full to get loud. “Y’all remember the night Cricket laid out Tommy Harwell at the Flats?” he begins, already grinning. “One punch. Man went down like a sack of wet feed. Illegal beer everywhere-” “Perry,” Cecilia warns, but she’s smiling. You point your fork at him. “Tell it right or don’t tell it.” “I am telling it right,” Perry says, wounded. “She gave him one warning, he touched her braid - boom, meteor strike.” He smacks a fist into his palm. “Royal, remember? Boy’s lip looked like a fresh brand.” Royal’s mouth does that almost-smile. “I recall,” he says. “Also recall driving over there because somebody called me and said my sons were going to start a war.” “Cricket ended it,” Perry says cheerfully. “Rhett looked like the ferris wheel got stuck at the top again.” Rhett glares at him without heat. “Eat your beans,” he says.

You lean back in your chair, laughing - real, head-tipped, eyes bright. “Tommy actually apologized to me at the supermarket a few days ago,” you offer, deadpan. “Said he found God. I said good, tell Him to mind your hands.” The table breaks. Even Royal chuckles under his breath. Amy claps, delighted. “Aunt Cricket, you’re a superhero.” You nudge her cap brim down with one finger. “Nah. Just stubborn.” Rhett watches you in the wash of kitchen light: the way you tease Perry back until he throws up both palms in surrender, the way you hook your ankle around the chair rung and listen when Royal asks about your next draw, the way Cecilia sneaks you an extra biscuit and you try to refuse and fail. It’s all so simple it hurts - like the world finally picked one key and stayed in it.

After dinner, plates scraped and stacked, conversation thinning into the sweet hum of work well done, Rhett catches your eye. He touches two fingers to the brim of his hat - old language, new meaning. “Walk with me?” he asks. Your mouth softens. “Yeah,” you say, pushing your chair back. You squeeze Amy’s shoulder as you pass - “Guard the pie” - and she salutes like she’s been given a post. Cecilia turns to the sink with suspicious efficiency. Perry suddenly remembers the barn needs checking. Royal pretends to read the paper and misses every word. Rhett holds the back door, lets the evening air spill over you both, and leads you out toward the cottonwoods and the quiet place where the fairy lights are waiting.

The cottonwoods made a hush big enough for two.  You round the tailgate and stopp. The last of the light goes soft over your face; something in your mouth loosened - the small shape you wear when you remember you were once younger and softer. “Rhett,” you say, warning braided with thanks. He climbs into the bed and holds out a hand. You take it - warm, sure - and let him pull you up. You lay down shoulder to shoulder on the quilt; your braid knocked loose against his arm, the sky a bowl overhead. For a while you just breathe. In. One. Out. One. Your laugh lands low and pleased. You tuck yourself under his arm - careful at first, then all at once when you decide the ground is steady and he is safe. He studies the wildflowers like they might help him line up the words. When he looks at you again, it’s steady.

“I’ve been thinking about how to say this since I was old enough to pretend I wasn’t,” he begins. “Back then I liked you so loud I had to act quiet about it or I was gonna embarrass us both. I sat next to you and called it coincidence. I brought water and carried your bags. I watched you and then pretended I wasn´t. I counted when you counted because it made the world hold still.” You tilt your head, that listening look you reserve for bulls and truths. “You were bad at pretending,” you say softly. He huffs a laugh. “Terrible. Then you left - and that was the smartest thing I’ve ever watched. You needed a place big enough not to make you small. I told myself I was proud. I was. I was also heartbroken and angry. I also got real good at being empty and loud about it. I hid in almost, because almost felt safer than a clean ‘no.’ Turns out almost is nothing. It doesn’t hold gates or feed cattle or get a man home at night.”

You watch his hands as he talks: the way his thumb rubs the edge of the pie tin; the way he keeps his palm open against the quilt like he’s reminding himself not to grab at what he’s offering. “I kept waiting for perfect,” he says. “Back then the county fair. Shared fries. Maybe the front porch. And then you left. I tried for perfect about five times since you came back. No cameras. No dust. No history. Thought I’d take a tidy shot. Maybe over pie at Mabel´s. Life never set that gate for me.” He quiets for a moment, then starts again. “And then you came back and you were you, but steadier. The way you sit a bull now - how you don’t waste motion? I want to be that for you. The quiet part that lets the rest work.”

You try to make a joke - habit. “That a job posting, Abbott?” “Yeah,” he says, surprising you by not laughing. “Soft where you’re steel. Steady where you’re tired. I want to carry some of the parts that don’t win buckles - braces and hair ties and the ‘later’ you hand to men who don’t deserve your now. I want to be the person who remembers your coffee order and your glove seam and the way your breathing shifts when you’re about to say you’re fine but you’re not.” Your breath catches. “Getting specific.” “I’ve always been specific about you,” he answers, and it comes out easy, like he’s been practicing honest longer than he knew. “You look like yourself here - around my folks, with Amy in that ridiculous shirt, with pie you didn’t have to buy. You fit. I like you anywhere, but I like you here most. With us. With me.”

You look up at the lights, buying a second. “And when I’m not here?” “Then I meet you where you are,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “Back road at dawn, airport curb at midnight, or behind a chute when the world’s loud and you need someone who won’t add noise. I’ll hold space. I’ll learn when to shut up and when to say, ‘Breathe.’ I’ll be proud out loud and angry in private, so you don’t have to spend yourself on other people’s feelings.” Your mouth softens; the line in your brow eases. “What do you want from me?” He considers that like it deserves care. “Truth. What you can give on days you’ve still got some to give. A chance to be a place, not a test.” His voice dips, gentler. “And for you to let us - me, Perry, Amy, Rebecca, my folks - count as your family when you need one.” “Big ask,” you say, but there’s no bite in it. “Worth it,” he says. “I don’t need you to be soft, but I won’t let the world punish you for not being. I can be soft enough for both of us when that’s what the moment needs.”

Silence folds warm between you. He lets it. The pasture breathes. Somewhere a cow coughs like an old aunt clearing her throat. The fairy lights hum. He clears his throat, and the last piece finds its place. “I liked you when we were kids. I like you now in the way that makes room for everything you’ve had to become. That’s the whole of it. No almost. If you want it, I’m here. If you don’t, I’ll still be proud and quiet about it and make sure you’ve got good braces for your wrist in every bag. And I will buy you these fries I still owe you.”

You turn to him. The expression on your face is sixteen and older at once - light with something settled, content like a question finally answered. You kiss him. No rush, no tilt of the world - just the clean click of something long lined up finally pushed home. His hand finds the back of your neck, gentle; you breathe against his mouth once, counting without numbers. When you pull back, your voice is steady and bright. “I liked you when I was sixteen,” you say. “And I think I love you now that I’m older.” He closes his eyes just long enough to feel the word settle into his bones. When he opens them, you’re still there - leg hooked over his, head under his chin like you were always designed to fit that way.

“Okay,” he murmurs, not to tame it but to give it shape. “Then we’ll do it like we do everything. Slow when it needs slow. Fast when it’s earned.” “Tell me something true and small,” you say, settling closer. “Something I can use.” He thinks for half a beat. “If you tape your wrist over the sleeve next time, the brace will bite less in jump three,” he offers, shy about the tenderness of it. “And-” he swallows- “and I sleep better when your braid’s on my shoulder.” You huff a smile into his shirt. “Both useful.” He kisses the pale crescent on your knuckle. You don’t pull away. “Another?” you ask, eyes half-lidded now, warmth moving through your voice like honey through tea.

“Amy’s never going to stop calling you Aunt Cricket,” he says. “And my mother already has a cupboard with your favorite mug. You name lived in my house since you were ten and in my heart for just about the same time.” Your throat works. You tip your face up and kiss him again - soft, grateful, certain. The stars burn through. When the night finally leans cool, he tucks the blanket tighter around your legs. You thread your fingers with his and set your joined hands on his chest like a stake in the ground.

“In,” you murmur, because habit, because home. “Out,” he answers, and the word rings easy and enormous and right. He holds you there in the quiet where truth doesn’t have to raise its voice, where a life can start by naming what’s already been true for years and promising to keep choosing it, breath by breath, until the sky runs out. The night settles over the cottonwoods like a blanket someone’s been mending for years. The fairy lights dim to a hush. The quilt holds your heat. You and he make a narrow country out of the truck bed: two pillows, one folded arm, your leg hooked over his like you planned it that way in another life. Wind ghosts the rails. Cattle breathe somewhere beyond the trees. You listen to the small sounds a body makes when it stops bracing: the way his chest slows; the way your wrist brace crinkles when you shift; the soft click of his teeth when a thought finds a place to land.

He speaks first, quiet so the stars don’t eavesdrop. “That night on Perry’s truck bed,” he says, “at the Flats - you with a split lip, grinning like the sky was your accomplice-” He huffs once, shaky and fond. “I thought I had never seen anything prettier. Every day since you have been back, you show up and challenge that view.” You turn your face against his throat to hide what that does to you. He keeps going, a little steadier now that the first admission is out. “You bite and claw,” he says, reverent as a prayer that doesn’t ask for anything. “At the world when it needs it. At fear when it shows its teeth. And I am in awe when you are.” You slide your palm up his ribs until your hand rests over his heart. “There will be times I will bite and claw at you,” you warn, even, honest. “Not because you deserve it. Because the habit has teeth.” His breath catches against your cheek. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck,” he says, and the vulgarity lands like a vow - rough-edged, simple. “If it’s me, I’ll take it. I’ll wait out the storm. I’ll still be here when your jaw unclenches.” You go very still, then softer than either of you thought you could be. “I don’t want to hurt you.” “You won’t,” he says. “And if you do by accident, we’ll fix it. That’s the job.”

You laugh into his shirt; he soaks the sound up like rain on old ground. He turns and kisses your knuckles in the dark, finds the small crescent scar by feel alone. “Tell me something you’re afraid of,” he asks, not pushing, just offering a place to set it. You swallow. “Slowing down,” you admit. “Finding out that if I stop moving fast, I won’t know who I am.” He tightens his arm around you just enough to register. “Then we’ll slow down together on purpose sometimes,” he says. “So it’s a choice, not a punishment.” You breathe that in. “You?” “Wasting time on almost,” he says. “I’m done with that. I want the whole thing.” The night tilts toward sleep. You kiss the corner of his mouth, lazy, certain. “You have it,” you tell him, and you feel the promise settle like a fence post finally sunk deep enough.

Later - half-dream, half-waking - you feel him brush your hair back from your face with careful fingers, like he’s checking a horse for burrs. You press closer; his hand slides to the nape of your neck, a steadying weight that says here. You sleep. He does too, eventually, counting with you by habit until the number becomes the kind of quiet that keeps.

Dawn shows up gentle. The fairy lights look sheepish in it. Mist hangs low over the pasture; the truck roof clicks as the air cools it. Birds clear their throats in the hedgerow. Your calf is asleep where it crossed his thigh; you wiggle it back to life and he groans like a man discovering new uses for pain. “Morning,” he says, voice wrecked and happy. “Morning,” you say, stealing the first kiss because you can. You stretch, wince at the brace, and he pretends not to notice while he shifts the quilt so it doesn’t bite. You sit there a minute, both of you, watching the day admit itself. 

“When we go in,” you say, eyes on the cottonwoods so you don’t get spooked by his face, “I want you to tell everyone I’m yours.” His head snaps toward you. You keep going, steady. “We were quiet about this for too long,” you say. “No more. I will kiss you in front of the cameras, and I will kiss you in front of your family-” you glance at him now, a quick, bright strike of a look- “because that means more.” For a second he just looks at you like the sun came up twice. His mouth opens; nothing smart comes out. He blinks hard. He laughs once, breathless, and you hear the edge of a man trying very much not to cry. “You just made me the happiest man on earth,” he says, voice thick enough to plant something in. He cups your jaw, thumbs careful on your cheekbones like he’s memorizing warmth. “God, you did.” You tip forward until your forehead meets his. “Good,” you say, satisfaction and promise in one syllable. “Let’s go make it official.”

He kisses you - nothing showy, just sure - and then hops down to the grass, turning to lift you like he always meant to. You let him, because letting someone love you is work too, and you’ve decided to do it. You straighten your hat. He smooths the line of your braid. The fairy lights flicker out in the growing day. Together, you walk toward the house where coffee and noise and family wait. 

The back door gives its soft old sigh as you step in together. Morning has already spread through the kitchen - coffee, toast, the low hum of people who know where everything lives. Cecilia looks up first. Her eyes take in the distance - or the lack of it - between you and Rhett, the way your hands are still linked like you forgot to stage it. Her smile arrives like sunrise. “Oh, honey,” she says, crossing the tile in three steps. “You were always part of this family.” Royal stands, chair legs scuffing. He doesn’t make speeches; he just sets his big palm on your shoulder, squeezes once, and nods to Rhett like a man co-signing a deed. “’Bout time you two quit wasting daylight,” he rumbles. Then, gentler to you, “Coffee?”

“Please,” you say, and the word lands like home. Amy rockets in from the hallway wearing your too-big promo tee and a ponytail that means business. She plants herself in front of Rhett, hands on hips, face serious as a judge. “Uncle Rhett,” she says, “don’t mess this up.” “Amy,” Rebecca warns, fighting a laugh. “No, she’s right,” Perry says, appearing with a jar of jam and a grin that should have its own warning label. He points the spoon at Rhett. “Because if you do, we’ll kick you out of the family and she’ll move in. I will help her hang shelves. I will repaint your room. I will reassign your chores.” “Perry,” Royal says, not quite hiding his amusement. Rhett raises both hands. “Message received.” You lean into his side, bumping him with your shoulder. “I like the shelves,” you tell Perry, deadpan. “And the room.” “See?” Perry crows. “Consensus.”

Rebecca slips a mug into your hand like she’s been saving it for this exact moment - the blue one with the hairline crack no one lets go of because it’s perfect anyway. “You take the corner by the window,” she tells you, quiet and conspiratorial. “Best light.” You tuck against Rhett’s hip and sip. The coffee tastes like home and family and love. Cecelia brushes a crumb from your cheek with the same absent tenderness she uses on Amy. Royal pulls another chair to the table without asking who it’s for. Amy threads herself under your free arm and stays there, proprietary and proud.

Rhett clears his throat, suddenly shy. “We were gonna-” He glances down at you; you tip your chin, go on. He squares up, hand warm at your back. “We were quiet. Too long. So, uh - this is me telling everyone. She’s mine. And I’m hers.” Cecilia’s hand flies to her throat; Royal’s almost-smile becomes the real thing. Amy squeals and claps like a firework in a small room. Perry slaps the counter. “Announced like a gentleman,” he declares. “No notes.”

You turn your face up and kiss Rhett in the kitchen, soft and sure - nothing to prove, everything to keep. Amy spins in a circle like she’s going to take off. Rebecca whoops. Perry stage-whispers, “Somebody get the good jam, it’s a holiday.” Royal murmurs something that sounds a lot like finally and pretends to be very busy with the kettle. Cecilia pulls you into a hug that smells like flour and safety. “You were always ours,” she says into your hair, then leans back to look at both of you. “Now you’re yours, too.”

Amy tugs your sleeve. “Aunt Cricket, can we make pancakes with chocolate chips?” “We can try,” you say, eyes bright, voice steady. “You’re on stirring duty.” “Uncle Rhett,” Amy adds, squinting at him. “Still - don’t mess it up.” “I won’t,” he promises, and the room believes him.

Perry claps his hands once. “Team picture around the griddle,” he commands. “Royal, smile like you own the place. Cece, wield the spatula of destiny. Rebecca, grab the plates. Widow - sorry, Aunt Cricket - apron up. Rhett, get the syrup and try not to cry on it.” Rhett flips him off with the gentlest expression anyone’s ever worn. You catch his hand, lace your fingers, and tug him toward the stove. “C’mon,” you say. “Let’s feed our family.”

2023, late summer

You have not seen him in person for almost a year. You sit on a bench by the beach, where you have met in the best and worst times of your lives. The sand under is feet is softly crunching as he walks over to you. You know it is him by the way he walks. It is strange how the brain remembers, you think before he comes to a halt next to you. “Hey”, he says softly and sits down next to you. A couple of years ago he would have pulled you in a hug, a couple of months ago he would have pulled you in for a kiss. Today, he does neither. Above you, the sky is greyish blue, before you the ocean is dark blue. The sky is grey today - It is a stormy but beautiful day. Waves are crashing onto the shore; seagulls are squawking in the distance and neither of you says anything.

“It might rain later today”, you say, simply because you don’t know what else to say. He just nods. “How are you?”, you try again a few minutes later. “I am okay.” You shoot him a look and he lets out a dry chuckle. “No, really. I think I am truly okay this time. I am working on myself, who knows, in a few months I might even be more than okay.” You smile, and it is genuine. “I would love that for you”, you tell him, and you mean it. It hasn’t felt like this with him since quite some time, maybe, if you think about it, it never felt like that with him.

“How are you?” You sigh. “I think this is the first time I have felt like this in a long time.” “Like what?”, he asks you. “I cannot get over you, and to be honest, I don’t think I ever will. I don’t know if I want to at all. But, in the last months, for the first time since I have met you, I stopped missing your presence in my life.”

He swallows hard. “That is a good thing, I guess.” “For you at least”, he thinks to himself. “I love that for you”, he says, and he hopes he doesn’t sound as bitter as he feels. You just smile, so he thinks maybe you haven’t noticed. You sit there in silence; it is neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. It just exists, its everchanging, and all the same to him. His mind drifts to different times.

2015, summer

You are barely out of high school. It is the first summer after your graduation, you feel wild and free and happy. He is only barely older than you, not more than a year. You had met him at your graduation party, where he celebrated his younger sister. However, he didn’t pay much attention to her that day, rather talked to you the entire night. For him, it was love at the first sight, for you as well. He had asked for your number, and then for a date, and here you are.

Today, a slight wind is blowing, ruffling through your hair. It is summer, but the air is chilly and the sky not as blue as it is supposed be during these months. He cannot stop watching as you walk through the sand, your shoes in your hands and your hair all over the place. You turn around and look at him. He should feel caught, but he doesn’t. You watch him and under your gaze he shivers a bit. Then, you smile and his heart fills.

The sound of crashing waves fills the air, and for a moment you close your eyes. When you open them and look at him, you cannot help but notice the glimmer. His blue eyes are littered with little darker droplets, and they look like the waves in front of you. The two of you share a connection that feels magical, as if you've known each other for much longer than just a few weeks.

You walk over to a bench and sit down to watch the ocean. He feels like he is invincible, his life is better than good. He is an amazing race driver, the people call him a prodigy, and here he is, with a beautiful girl in his arms. His blue eyes stare at you while you look at the ocean, the waves slowly crashing onto the shore. He thinks he loves you. He doesn’t think he has ever felt this sure about something before.

2016, spring

Life is complicated, he is jet setting around the world, and you are studying at a university overseas. Your love is simple, though. Both of you are committed to make it work, and it does, somehow. Both of you are very young as well and your relationship is still new as well. But you want to see where it goes with the two of you. You talk almost every day, he sends you postcards from all around the world – you keep all of them in a box, they are your most prized possessions. You watch his races whenever you can, even though it means waking up in the middle of the night. He flies out to you whenever he can, you rarely visit him enough. He wants to protect you from the media, at least for now.

2016, early fall

“I cannot do this anymore!” you tell him. It is half a year later, and the honeymoon phase seems to be over. You never see him anymore, and when you see him, it doesn’t feel the same anymore. He is different now, more famous and people are drawn to him like a magnet. And he doesn’t tell them to stay away, even when he is with you. They draw him in just like he used to draw you in. He goes on so many parties, he changes, he is not the person you used to know.

The two of you fight more, and because you are still so very young, you don’t know how to communicate in your anger. You fight and you hurt each other, then you make up. It is draining, and you find yourself at the same point every other week. So, you decide to break up with him when you visit him the next time. And you do, and he doesn’t really say anything, he just listens and then lets you go. Your eyes beg him to keep you from going, to stop you from leaving, but he does neither and so you are leaving.

In between Christmas 2016 and the first days of 2017

The two of you are caught in a dangerous circle. Christmas is the time to reconcile and to forgive, so you text him “Merry Christmas” and it seems like he has waited for that opportunity. He asks how you are, and if you would be home for the vacation. You tell him that you are feeling okay, and that you are home. You tell him that you don’t think that meeting is a good idea. He does agree, in the end.

However, the city both of your families live in isn’t that big after all, so running into each other is almost inevitable. It is only half bad when both of you are Christmas shopping with your mothers. You exchange a few courtesies, some longing glances, and unsure smiles, and then you are off into different directions.

It is dangerous however, when the two of you meet on one of the dance floors of the clubs. There, alcohol is involved and your silent longing for each other crashes over you like waves whenever the two of you are drinking. Before you count to three, the two of you are making out in the bathroom of some club, consumed by love, hope, and desire. It happens more than once, and you feel terrible after every time. Yet you feel hopeful that you might be able to make it work, somehow.

By the end of the holidays, you need to go back abroad, and he needs to go back to racing, and you haven’t talked about what happened over the holidays. It might be better this way, but it kills a part of you. You know that he isn’t good for you, you know that this will end in a heartbreak, but you cannot stop thinking about him. He still texts every once in a while and you call him when you are drunk. He tells you that he loves you and you slur the same on the phone, but neither of you make the decision to get back together.

2017, spring

“I hope someday I will make it out of here”, you say and look at the ocean, “I hope one day I can forget everything I think I know about love, even if that means forgetting us, forgetting you.” The two of you are just about to begin the second decade of your life, you feel like you are on top of the world, like you can achieve everything. At the same time, a simple heartbreak feels like the end of the world. Or maybe it wasn’t a simple heartbreak, maybe this thing with Max was more.

It’s a warm spring day, you wear a light blue dress that gently moves with the wind. You look like an ethereal being, Max thinks, when you stand a few meters away from him, your lower calves are being caressed by the water. He wishes that was him touching you like that.  

You make a promise that day you would stay away each other for good. No more late-night calls when you were drunk, no more texting, even if it just to ask how the other person is doing. You want to treat each other like one would treat an addiction – by going into cold withdrawal. Both of you know that it wasn’t going to be easy, but none of you would have thought that it was going to be this hard.

2018, early in the year

A year later you agreed that you belonged together. It was quiet confession whispered into the darkness of a hotel room somewhere on this planet, and it felt like the two of you were the only people in the whole wide world. You had gone back to one another, relapsing despite both knowing that it would possibly end in disaster. But right now, it doesn’t feel like a disaster, it feels like the beginning of something beautiful. Together you can conquer the world, together you will manage to cross every ocean.

Your skin shines almost blue under the fluorescent light of the big city, the sheets white and clean and innocent. You are asleep and he holds you close to his chest, and it feels like this will last forever. At least he hopes so, he really does. The cityscape outside the window twinkles with bright lights, casting a vibrant glow into the room as you sleep peacefully in his arms. He holds you gently, feeling the rise and fall of your breath against his chest. In this moment, time stands still, and he allows himself to bask in the sheer bliss of your presence.

As the morning sun begins to filter through the curtains, painting the room in a warm, golden hue, he watches you stir awake. Your eyes flutter open, and a soft smile graces your lips as you meet his gaze. His eyes seem bluer than ever before under the soft light of this cold morning. Amidst the chaos of tangled sheets and limbs, he whispers to you, reaffirming his commitment to you. He kisses you with all he has in the hopes that this is enough to keep you with him, for now at least.

2018, winter

You smile at him, tears shimmering in your eyes. They don’t fall yet; they just get caught in your eyelashes. You are once again trapped in the same cycle of fighting and making up once that has brought you to your knees before. On top of that, you are struggling with yourself and him being away all the time. Your cold fingers are wrapped around the to go cup of some coffee place. You take a deep, shaking breath.

“Some days I just hate myself so much, that it almost paralyses me”, you say, a pained expression written across your face. He pulls you against his chest, where you take another shaking breath before you start to cry quietly. “Don’t hate yourself”, he tells you, “You are better than everyone else.”

Your quiet cries turn into sobs at his words. When you free yourself out of his grasp, you look at him and he is scared by how empty your eyes are. “I feel so, so terribly that I have even fooled you to think more of me than I am truly.” He shakes his head. “Stop!”, he tries to tell you, but it is like he is talking to a wall. “I cannot lose you”, he begs and now you shake your head. “I am sorry, but I am no good for you like this. I am in pain, and I need to heal. I need to heal for myself and not by relying on you.”

He gets a bit angry now, you can feel it. “But that is what a relationship is for, to rely on each other and help each other as much as possible!” You scoff. “It should be, but how is that supposed to work, Max? You are never here!” “You know that is not a fair argument, I have no other choice! But you on the other hand, you could come with me all the time, if you weren’t so –“, he stops himself. You take a step back to get a bit of distance between you and him. “If I wasn’t so what, Max? Stubborn? Selfish?” He rolls his eyes. “Now you are just putting words into my mouth! I don’t know what I was going to say!”

You scoff again. “Do you think I am stupid?” “No, but I think that you are selfish because you don’t want to come with me even though you have the time! I think that you are picking a fight over nothing right now because you don’t like the way your life is right now! And I think that you are overreacting, and that you are not really feeling that terrible!” He is really angry now, his eyes cold and his cheeks red. Your expression is almost blank. “Are you done?” He nods. “Good, because we are done!” You turn around and leave.

2019, spring

You haven’t heard from him for a few months. From his Instagram you can tell that he is out partying a lot. It can mean that he is over you, or that he is drinking his sorrows away. You find that it doesn’t bother you as much as it used to. You have made new friends, and you found a job that makes you happy. You would claim to be over him, but you that would be a lie. You keep busy and occupy and don’t think about him as much anymore, what makes it all a bit easier.

Today, you arrive at home later than usual after an evening at the bar with your new colleagues. There is one of them you particularly like, he is really kind and even walked you home. You almost asked him to come up with him, but it is too early for that, you tell yourself. Closing the door to your apartment behind you, you take off your shoes when someone rings the doorbell.

You open, almost entirely sure it will be your colleague. When you look up, your gaze meets his blue eyes, and you almost close the door in his face. Only almost. He looks terrible, tired, and exhausted. “What do you want?” “Please,” he murmurs. “Please, let me love you.” His eyes search yours for any kind of answer, lips quivering. You don’t know what to say. He stands in front of your door and in all those years you have never seen him looking so lost.

“My life only makes sense when I am with you. When you are not there, I don’t know what to do with myself.” You let him and that night both while his wounds heal with every touch, every kiss you share, your wounds rip open with every caress and yet it feels exactly right.

2019, early summer

After that night you don’t talk to each other for a few months. One day, you run into each other at the market when you are out with your colleague, who is your boyfriend now. Max feels nauseous when he sees how happy you are with another man by your side. He wants to leave, but then you see him and like you want to rub your happiness into his face, you walk over to him. He plasters a fake smile onto his face and greets you.

“Max, meet John, my boyfriend!” John shakes his hand, seemingly excited. “Babe, you never told me that you knew the infamous Max Verstappen!” Max smiles again, it is crooked and doesn’t reach his eyes. “We used to date, actually!” You giggle, it is a bit shrill and so not like you, Max thinks. “That was a long time ago! Anyway, it was nice to see you again, Max!”

2019, fall

Neither of you know why, but the two of you get into contact again after that run-in. You tell each other about your lives and your struggles and confine in each other once again. You meet up for dinner occasionally, and you never tell John that you are meeting Max. You tell yourself it is because you don’t want to start an argument, but the truth is that you know that this is more than a simple dinner between friends.

Today is one of these days. John thinks you are out with your girlfriends, but you are sitting in the booth of some fancy restaurant. Until now, everything had gone smoothly. But now, you give Max a disappointed look. “What do you have against him?”, you sigh. Max had just made fun of John. He is silent for a minute, seemingly finding the right words. “He has everything I will never have”. You don’t have an answer for that, so you wipe your mouth with the blue napkin. Strangely enough, it has the same color as the dress you are wearing. Afterwards you fold it on your plate, neatly. “I think I have to go.”

“Yeah, of course”, he scoffs, “You always do that.” “Do what?” “You keep me close; you make me crawl back to you when you are alone. And then, when you have me at that spot, you find someone else to give your love to. And here I am once again, spilling my feelings to you, and you leave.” Now it’s your time to scoff. “This is the problem; you give me tiny pieces like this and call it spilling your feelings.” He stays silent. “You are just angry that I moved on before you did.” You get up and carelessly throw a few bills on the table. Then, you leave without another word.

He thinks that he has every right to be angry, because just a few months ago you had told that you had to find yourself before you anything else. But maybe you were just too kind to tell him that you had to find yourself without him. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, when he knows that this is all that matters. What he doesn’t know is that you never truly moved on. You were with John because he distracted you from Max, and he made you feel like you were worthy of love. But all you wanted was for Max and you to be together again.

2019, summer

It is a warm summer night where he lives. The days are so long now that the sky doesn’t turn dark at night, rather it is colored in a deep shade of blue. The phone rings and disturbs the comfortable silence of his balcony. He puts his glass of wine down, and when he sees your name on the screen, his finger lingers above the “decline” button for a while. Then, he decides to pick up.

“Yes?” “I am sorry”, you slur, “I didn’t know who else to call.” He sighs. “You have a boyfriend, no?” He can hear that you take a shaky breath, and he knows that he has said the wrong thing. “He left me here by myself. I am alone and scared and I am sorry I called you, but I really didn’t know who else to call”, you say, and he can hear that you must be crying. “Where are you?”, he asks and gathers his things, “I will come and get you.” “Thank you”, you tell him, “Please drive safely.” He wants to hang up, but you say another sentence that makes him stop in his tracks for a second. “And Max? I might have a boyfriend, but he isn’t you. And he will never be you.”

When he finds you, you sit on a bench, bottle of water in your hand. The fresh air and the liquid have sobered you up. You look miserable, but he still thinks that you are beautiful in a strange sense. Your hair is pulled up into a messy bun and your sparkly blue dress clings to you. You carry your shoes in your hand when you get into the car. “Thank you”, you say, voice quiet. “Do you want me to take you to your place, or”, he takes a deep breath, “do you want to come to mine?” You don’t hesitate when you answer him, and it makes him regret the offer less. “Yours, if you really don’t mind.”

He does not mind, obviously. He could never mind you, really. You might broke his heart before, you might were going to do again, but he doesn’t care. He would do it all again for you, the heartbreak, the pain, if it meant another chance, another chapter written together with you. “About what I said before I hung up – “, you start, and he interrupts you. “No need to explain”, he says, “No hard feelings-“ “I mean it”, you say and his heart jumps in his chest. “You mean the world to me, Max. You always have and I think you always will.”

When you arrive at his place, you barely make it out of the car before his lips are on yours and you are once again drowning. He makes love to you that night for a long time, and afterwards you fall asleep in his arms. He tells you that he loves you, and you tell him that you love him. For one night, everything is okay and good. You both indulge in the notion of what is, what could have been, what might be. The next morning, you leave before he wakes up.

2019, fall

A few weeks later, he shows up at your door in the middle of the night. “I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I came here”, he says, and you let him into your apartment and into your arms without thinking twice. “I feel like I am drowning”, he tells you and you cannot help it, but your heart breaks a bit. “Everyone tells me I should be so happy, I am achieving what so few have achieved before me, but I couldn’t care less. All I want is to be worthy of your love, all I want is for you to love me. I want to be with you, I want to be what you deserve.” “Oh Max”, you say and rake your fingers through his hair. His head is resting in your lap, he holds onto you like you are his lifeline. “You are more than I will ever deserve.”

“And Max?”, you take a shaking breath, “You do not need to long for my love, you already have it all.” He sits up now, looking at you with his blue eyes. Currently, there is a storm of emotions present in them, and you want to look away, but his gaze holds you hostage. He gently leans forward and places a kiss to your slightly parted lips. Your body reacts on instinct, kissing him back, wrapping your arms around his neck.

2020, summer

You are happy, truly. Max and you are better together than you have ever been before. All is well and all is good. Being with him doesn’t hurt like it used to, it heals you. Both of you have become better people, better partners, you are both trying hard, and it works. Sometimes, people deserve a few more chances than just two, you think as you watch Max walking towards the water.

You are spending a calm weekend in a house by the beach. The ocean is blue, the sky is even bluer, not a single cloud is visible. You think of all the good memories you have made with him, and it seems like you never had bad phases. You know that is far from the truth, but right now it feels like all the pain and hurt was worth it, because it all worked out in the end.

Max disrupts your trail of thought when he sits down next to you. “Hello, my love”, he says, and you smile up to him. You sit up to take a better look at him, bathing in his present. “I found something down there by the water, wanna see?” You nod, and he pulls out a little box. You are confused for a moment, until he opens it, and a beautiful ring is inside. “Oh my god, Max!”, you breathe out. “When I saw you for the first time, it was like I was walking into the ocean. The water was only gently caressing up my calves, but I wanted to dive in further and further. That night you were wearing a blue dress and you drew me in like the tidal waves. Every day I spent with you, I am falling in love more and more. You are beautiful and strong and powerful like the ocean, and I want to spend my forever with you. Do you want to marry me?”

2021, summer

It has been almost a year since he had asked you to marry you. For the remainder of 2020 everything had been better than well, but around the New Year, the two of you seemed to have taken the wrong path once again. You fell back into old habits, you fought more. Now, it is summer once again and this time, he decides that he cannot do it anymore. He tells you that you have become too much for him, that you are drowning him and that he cannot take it anymore. You don’t argue, you are happy that it is over. You leave him and move away, somewhere closer to the ocean.

2021, winter

It is a cold day. He sits by the usual spot on the beach by the water, two cups of hot coffee in his hands. You walk up behind him, sitting down next to him. “I am sorry I am late”, you say and acknowledges your apology with a nod. He holds a cup in your direction, you reach for it with blue gloves covering your hands.

“You look tired, exhausted”, he notices, and you chuckle. “Because I am!”, you answer, and he cocks an eyebrow. “Because the last months were rough. Because getting over you was the hardest thing I ever had to do.” “It doesn’t have to be like that”, he says – it slips before he can stop himself. He knows saying that isn’t really fair, after all he had been the one to end it this time. You shake your head, and he can tell that you are annoyed.

“Coming here was a mistake”, you say, “We need to stay apart, we cannot keep coming back to each other!” He wants to protest, but he knows that you are right. “I am sorry I asked you to meet.” You nod, grab your back and get ready to leave. Before you make your way home, you pull out a little box out of your pocket. “I still need to give this back to you”, you say and hand him the ring and then you leave.

When you are gone, he feels empty and angry. He regrets breaking up with you every day, but he is too proud to admit that to you or anyone else. He loves you so much that some days it feels like it is killing him. But he cannot do anything about it. He is too proud and too stubborn to crawl back to you, and his rational mind knows that it would ultimately end in another heartbreak.

2023, late summer

Now, a couple of years later he almost says out loud that you should’ve really stayed away then. It would have spared both of you a lot of heartbreak. But it would have also robbed you of many great moments together, moments were he felt like life was perfect and that he would never find a love like this again. But then, he thinks that he will never find a love like this again regardless. You are all he ever wanted, and all he ever needed. He cannot explain while he simply wasn’t able to keep you with him, while the two of you kept on slipping away, only to find your way back to each other after some time.

He thinks that maybe the two of you are like the ocean and the beach and the tidal waves. You are pulled towards each other by a strong force, but you also seem to never be able to stay with each other. He catches himself thinking that he wants to turn back time, but to what moment exactly?

The danger that he would find myself in one of the bad moments is way too likely. He thinks that instead it is for the best that he just accepts that this is and should be a final goodbye. That doesn’t mean that he won´t think about you every single day for the rest of his life, he doesn’t mean that he will ever get over you, but it means that he is okay with losing you now. It is for the best for him, and for you. And all he ever wanted and all he ever will want, is the best for you, even though that might not always have been obvious.

2022, early summer

You decide to give each other one last chance and he is determined to make sure that neither of you will regret it this time. You are hopeful, you are certain that the two of you could make it work, especially after your last chance even included engagement. He gives you back the ring in the very first week after you decide to get back together, so you are once again engaged. He carries you on his hands, and you try everything to give your all for each other. He wants to make it work; he wants all the best for you. He treats you like a queen; he buys you present and supports you the best he can. He does everything in his power to make you happy and be the partner you deserve.

The end of 2022

It does work for a good while. But somehow, neither of you can abstain of some old habits. You know each other too well, and that makes hurting each other a lot easier. Too easy if you think about it. You know it shouldn’t be this easy to hurt each other, but maybe you finally need to see the truth for what it is: the two of you might be made for each other, but maybe that is why it didn’t work. Amidst the perfection, there is boredom and the longing for more, which neither of you can explain. But it makes you challenge the relationship and each other.

2023, late summer

“Promise me, that we will wait for each other”, you murmur in the crook of his neck when you are saying goodbye to each other. “I promise”, he says and gives you a gentle kiss on your forehead. You free yourself from the hug, but he feels like you have just freed yourself from him, from them. He knows this is goodbye, no matter how much he doesn’t want this to happen. It is better for him, he tells himself, but it doesn’t work. It is better for you; he tells himself and somehow that works. He knows he must let you go for good, so that you have the chance to find a life, a purpose, besides this.

2007

He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him. It is summertime, and he is barefoot. He doesn’t need shoes where he is going, you live down the street from his home. He believes he hears his mother’s voice scolding him, but he does not care. He knows that she isn’t serious. He laughs and he hears his mother laughing before he runs through the little garden door and onto the sidewalk.

Only a couple more houses. He greets the neighbors, who only see his fair colored hair running by. They know exactly where he is off too. He comes to a halt in front of your house, which is a lot smaller than his. He looks at the beautiful yellow sunflowers growing in front of the property. He has to put his head back to admire the flower heads because the stems excel his little body. He catches his breath and skips onto the walk that leads to your front door. Jumping up the stairs, he is about to ring the bell when the door is ripped open, and you hurl your body at Mick.

Few minutes later you sit on the swings of the playground close by. “And we went to the beach almost every day, Mick! The sand was almost white, not yellow at all, like I always imagined. Mama bought me a yellow dress and it is so pretty, I must show you next time, I will wear it on the first day of school!” You always talk that much, and even more when you are excited like you are right now. Mick doesn’t mind. He can spend all day listen to you, every day.

Two weeks later, when school starts again, Mick picks you up to walk together. You walk out of the door; the sunflowers are still blooming, and you wear the yellow dress. And somehow this day changes everything for him, he just doesn’t know it yet. It is in this moment that Mick thinks for the first time that he might loves you. It is innocent, it is playful and still so very, very real. After school, when you are still wearing the yellow dress and he waits for you outside the school so that the two of you can walk together, he decides to be brave. When you skip down the stairs of the school building, he smiles at you, you smile back. One of your milk teeth is missing, but it makes your smile just more adorable.

Micks heart beats fast in his chest when your little hand grabs his. On the way home you stop by one of the many fields surrounding your hometown and he picks a yellow dandelion for you. “You know, one day I am going to marry you!”, he says, and you take the flower from his hand and put it behind your ear. “You better!”, you answer him and stand on your tippy toes to blow just the hint of a kiss on his cheek. Then you laugh loud and free and start to run towards home. Mick laughs and he follows you.

2013

Six years later, Mick is still your best friends. You don’t see each other than much anymore because he goes karting a lot now. He is on track almost every day. Sometimes you tag alone, sitting on the bleachers, doing your homework, and watching him racing by. Today is one of these days. It is late spring, the sunshine starts to warm up with every day passing, and you look forward to the summer, because Mick usually has more time then. It is too warm to go carting, and you would have his undivided attention once again. You wear a yellow sweatshirt, and you wave at Mick when he steps out of his cart.

He smiles, waves back and comes over to you. “Hey”, you greet him with a wide smile. “Hey back”, he says and sits down next to you. He pulls you in a short side hug. “You really missed something today at school”, you tell him, “Lukas asked Susanne to be his girlfriend!” “No way!”, Mick exclaims, more excited by your excitement. He doesn’t really care about what happens at school.  Life is very different for the two of you nowadays, while you go to school, meet your friends after and on the weekends, he is always busy. Some days he doesn’t show up at school at all. You don’t like these days. School is better with your best friend.

You are just teenagers now, but it doesn’t feel like that. You still play with barbies, and Mick is too busy to go around in circles in a little car and adolescence hasn’t quite reached the two of you yet. Some of your friends start to date, if you can really call it that, but that is still a bit weird to you and Mick. For other people it is not, and they start to ask if you are a couple, and both of you always say no. Sometimes Mick wishes that you would say yes but that would mean that he would have to kiss you and he thinks that is gross.

“Mick? You are not listening!”, you accuse him. He utters a quite apology. “What were you thinking about?”, you ask, and he becomes bright red. He doesn’t know what to answer you, and he is grateful when his father waves the two of you over. You get up first, the conversation quickly forgotten when Michael tells the two of you that you would go and get ice cream.

You cheer, your arms wrapping around the neck of his father. Mick wishes that was him in that moment. You climb into the car and Mick gets in as well, and you are already talking again, this time telling Michael about your day at school. At the ice cream place, you get lemon ice cream in a cone, like always. It is your favorite; you always tell Mick that. Like he would ever forget. You happily hold your cone in your hand, your tongue licking up the yellow delicacy. Mick watches you closely and for a moment a thought comes to his mind. Maybe kissing wouldn’t be as gross if it was you and if you just ate lemon ice cream, because you would taste like lemons and his ears turn red just a tiny bit.

2016

You are as kind as summer, that much Mick knows. The sunshine that hits his face right now reminds him of the glow of your soul. He is really happy with his life right now, but he is even happier when he gets to spend time with you. He is excited for next year because he would finally start in Formula Three and it is a new chapter. The both of you are older now, proper teenagers now, awkward and shy and there is a little shift in your friendship. It is in lingering touches and testing the waters yet none of you makes the first step, because this friendship you have is worth more than anything else. Also, Mick is older now and he doesn’t think kissing is gross anymore. But he finds out that most of the time when he kisses a girl – which is rare, you know, since he is usually surrounded by boys – he thinks about lemon ice cream and how you would taste.

You still talk a lot, like you always used to do, and it is reassuring to Mick, because even though is life is fast and exciting, it shows him at some things stay the same. It is the comforting notion of consistency that he associates with you. Generally, you haven’t changed that much, Mick thinks as he observes you while you are talking. You are more grown now, obviously, but while his face breaks out with pimples every once in a while, yours seems to be graced by the absence of puberty acne. Or maybe he just never looked closely enough, so he decides to do that now. You shave your legs now; he realizes and for a moment he asks himself whether that is because of a boy. But, he tells himself, you would tell him if you have a crush on someone.

Then, on the other hand, he isn’t really there anymore. He makes an effort to see you though, he likes to tell himself. But mostly the two of you hang out these days when your parents meet up and you tag along. Just like today, when your father had cooked saffron risotto and you had lemon ice cream for dessert. The two of you sit on the old swings of a long-abandoned playground and sway back and forth just a bit. You look more beautiful now, Mick realizes as he continues to watch you, more grown-up. “You never really listen anymore!”, you complain, and he is ripped from his thought. “Even when you are here, you are never really here!”, you accuse before you get up and stomp through the grass and the dandelions towards the house. Micks wants to tell you that he wasn’t thinking about racing but that he was thinking about you, but he doesn’t know how to, so he rather doesn’t say anything. Instead, he walks back to the house as well and pays the tall sunflowers next to garden gate no attention.

2017

He hasn’t seen you for a while. He is just so busy with racing, that he rarely comes over anymore. It makes him sad. You still text, but it became rather occasionally. You have your friends in your hometown, you are settled in school. He doesn’t want to take that away from you by pushing his non-existing presence on you. Truth is, he misses you. He misses your friendship. You are still friends, obviously, and he knows that he can call you and you will pick up and listen to him no matter what. But you don’t call him for this kind of stuff anymore. You are not best friends anymore, friends more for the fact that you had grown up together rather than anything else.

But today he wants to change that. He wants to reconnect with you, breath life back into the relationship that is slowly fading away. He is back home for two or three weeks, so he decides to just go over to your house like he used to. Suddenly he feels like he is 6 or 8 or 12 again. He opens the familiar garden door and slips though. The sunflowers stand as tall as ever, but he doesn’t need to look up anymore. Your parents’ car is not there, so he assumes that you are home alone. He rings the doorbell, but nothing happens. No one comes, and he is about to leave, when he hears you calling from upstairs. “I will be right there!” He hears you run down the steps. And then you rip open the door. You wear a yellow summer dress, and your cheeks are flustered. “Mick!”, you exclaim, “What are you doing here?”

You seem happy to see him, but it is not like it used to be. You don’t move in for a hug, you don’t grin widely. A small smile graces your face. “Hey”, Mick scratches the back of his head, “I was back in town, so I wanted to check in and see how you are doing.” You are about to answer when you get interrupted by another person emerging from behind. “Oh hey, babe. Mick was just coming by to say hi”, you smile up to the guy standing behind you. An arm snakes around your waste. “Hey Mick, I am Felix. Y/n has told me a lot about you!”, he extends his hand and Mick takes it to shake it. “Do you want to come in? We have some freshly made lemonade”, you ask him, but he shakes his head.

He forces a wry grin on his face. “No, thank you. I just remember that I need to help my mum with something. But you two have a good day!” Felix waves him goodbye and disappears into the house. Mick turns around and when he is almost through the garden door, he hears you calling after him. “It was nice seeing you again, Mick.” He smiles at you, and this time it is sincere. “You, too.” He leaves your property and returns home.

He doesn’t know exactly why it pained him to see you with another guy. It was not like what you had was exclusive. If he was honest with himself, there was nothing between you at all. All he can think about is that you must taste like lemon when Felix kisses you because you made lemonade, and he finds that this isn’t really fair.

2019

It is a warm summer day, the sun shining. You cover your eyes with your hands, looking up into the sky. You smile. It is a beautiful day. You laugh when a finger pokes in your side. “Mick, stop!”, you laugh and stick your tongue out at the boy next to you. Both of you have found your way home for the summer break, and despite not having seen each other for a while, it feels just like 2008, 2012, 2015, all over again.

You didn’t really talk to each other for a few years when Mick was always away and busy and your lives were really different. You were teenagers, and it felt impossible to bring your different lives in harmony, so you separated paths for a while, both you doing your own thing. You outgrew your teenager years at some point, however. Mick still remembers the day you reached out to him again, a delicate try to revive a friendship that had been lost between the passing years. He was so happy when you called him that evening when he laid under the yellow light of just another hotel somewhere. The pillows were bright yellow, so bright they almost hurt his eyes. You call and he almost tells you. “I thought of you when I entered the room because the pillows are yellow and so are you to me”, but he doesn’t. He is just happy to hear your voice and he listens to you talking, and he spends hours on the phone with you.

Now, you are laying on the grass by the local lake. Dandelions sprouts, poking out in between the green patches of the meadow, and you want to stay here forever. You lay on your towel; you feel like you are surrounded by a yellow ocean of flowers. The skin of your arms tingles – you forgot to use sunscreen. Possibly you would have a little sunburn later, but you couldn’t care less. Micks’ blonde hair is almost golden in the sun, you are blinded when you look at it. You feel hot. You don’t know whether it is the sun or something else. You decide not to think about it for now.

The blonde boy next to you wears a yellow cap. “Yellow is not your color!”, you tease, and he mocks offense. Then he laughs and puts the cap on your head. You smile and stick your tongue out. “Yellow is very much your color, though!”, he says so casually the compliment almost escapes your grasp. Then you realize and a little blush forms on your cheeks. You turn away from him, embarrassed by the effect he has on you.

“Let’s go for a swim”, you say to change the topic and get up. You are wearing a white bathing suit that has sunflowers all over it. You take of the cap and throw it on your towel, where it almost disappears because your towel is yellow as well. For a moment you think about that, the fact that yellow seemed to have seeped into the relationship Mick and you have had for all these years.

Mick agrees, and you both make your way to the water. The coolness of the lake water is a welcome relief from the heat of the sun. You splash around, laughing and joking with each other, like nothing has changed since you were little kids. The years of barely talking are long forgotten. As you swim, you can't help but steal glances at Mick. He has always been handsome, but something about him has changed since the last time you saw him. Maybe it's the way he carries himself, or maybe it's just that you're seeing him in a new light now that you're older. After a while, you both swim back to shore and lay back down on your towels. You feel the warmth of the sun drying your skin and the coolness of the grass beneath you. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, enjoying the peaceful moment.

You must have fallen asleep, and you are awakened by something tickling you on your back. Slowly, you open your eyes. You spot Micks body next to you, and the close proximity makes your breath hitch in your throat for a moment. “Don’t move”, Mick whispers and you do as he says. When he is done with whatever he was doing, he grabs your yellow polaroid camera from besides you and stands up. You can hear the shutter click two times and then Mick sits down next to you. He wipes something off your back. His gentle touches give you goosebumps on your arms and leave you feeling warm inside your chest.

“All done”, he says a few seconds later and you sit up. Around you, you can spot the yellow dandelions laying on your towel. “What did you do?”, you ask with suspicion in your voice. “I created art!”, he says and holds on of the polaroid pictures in your peripheral vision. You can only steal a quick glance before he tugs it away under the cap, shielding from the sun and giving it time to develop. “Whatever you say!”, you say, and he looks at you intensely for a moment. It freaks you out a bit, so you stick out your tongue at him and he laughs. He turns away and looks over at the other side of the lake where a handful of people surround the little hut that sold ice cream and fries and everything you needed for a day by the lake. “Ice cream?”, he asks you and you nod. “Lemon?”, you nod again and want to get up, but he gently pushes you down on the towel. “My treat”, he says and before you can argue he gets up and disappears.

When Mick returns, he is already fighting for his dear life. The ice cream is melting and dripping everywhere, and you cannot help but chuckle a little bit. Mick throws you a playful glance and you lose it when his eyes cream falls, just beside his towel. “Shit!”, mutters Mick and sits down. He hands you the ice cream, looking a bit like a puppy. “We can share”, you offer and hold the cone out to him. He takes a big lick and both of you have to laugh.

2020

You arrive in Sakhir on a Wednesday and Mick personally picks you up at the airport. He is nervous, he doesn’t really know why, but he maybe because this race could be the one that decides about his championship. Or maybe he is nervous because he is picking you up and he again hasn’t seen you for a few months and he missed you so much.

You step out of the airport in sweatpants and a pale yellow shirt and Mick thinks you might be the most gorgeous person he has ever seen. You look confused, a bit lost, until you see him. Your face lights up and Micks heart drops when he realizes that you are so excited that you are running towards him. Before you reach him, you drop your suitcase and jump into his arms. He catches you; he holds you close, and he takes in your scent – you smell like lemons and sunflowers and happiness. You smell like yellow, and Mick cannot remember that he has ever smelled something more delicious before.

He lets go of you eventually and takes your suitcase and your backpack from you, whatever he can to help you out. He brings you to his rental car, which weirdly enough is an ugly yellow and he holds the door open for you. He drives you to the hotel while you excitedly tell him about your flight and what movies you watched and what your favorite song is at the moment. You also tell him stories he already heard because you call almost every day, but he doesn’t mind.

Sometimes, when he makes a comment or throws in a joke, you laugh and place a hand on his bicep he swears he melts like the lemon ice he shared with you last summer by the lake. You arrive by the hotel, and he again carries your stuff up to your shared room. It is big, bigger than any hotel room you had ever stayed in and the first thing you do is to step out onto the balcony into the warm sun and close your eyes. Mick joins you soon after, and as the sun is starting to go under, a golden husk is painting your face in a shining yellow. You look like the sun, Mick thinks, and you feel like he it too, he thinks when you look at him and smile.

A bit later, you meet with the Schumacher’s for dinner in a place close by. It is the perfect mix of a restaurant and a bar, looking almost like some American diner. You order burger and fries, and lemonade and Mick steals a sip. You complain, playfully and take a sip of his beer as retaliation. Life is good right now, it is happy and joyful and yellow, Mick thinks. His family knows you, and while you talk Mick cannot help himself but watch. The two of you sit so close, squeezed into the booth. Your hand lays next to your thighs, and Mick can almost touch it. He forgets about that fact for a moment when you talk to him, and he is pulled into a conversation about your childhood memories. He takes a sip from his beer and lets his hand fall on the bench. It touches yours for a second, and he doesn’t know what to do. Does he pull away? But then you link your pinky with his like some kind of promise and Mick leaves his hand there, tied to you by your pinkies and the longing in his heart.

You walk away with Gina next to you, over to the little stage to find the perfect karaoke song and Mick cannot help but watch after you. He is enchanted by you, and he wonders how you haven’t realized yet. When he finally tears his eyes away from you and that yellow summer dress, his parents grin at him. “So, what is going on between you and her?”, his father asks her, and Mick shakes his head. “She is still my best friend, dad. That’s never changed.” “Yes”, his mother says, “The only thing that changed are your feelings for her, am I right?” Mick doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t know what to say. He knows that his mother is right, but he doesn’t know what to say to his dad. He doesn’t know what, if there is anything between the two of you, but he hopes there is. He looks up and your eyes are on him, and you smile and for a moment he is almost sure that there is something and he breaks out in a silly smile. His parents exchange a look and intertwine their fingers with one another.

Mick wins Formula Two on a bright, sunny Sunday in Sakhir. But you outshine the sun on this day, he thinks. Your smile is so bright Mick is sure your cheeks will hurt by the hand of the day. His right ear hurts a bit because you yelled into it, but he doesn’t mind. Winning Formula Two feels even better than winning Formula Three, especially because you are there this time. The occasion calls for celebration, everyone knows that. The team somehow manages to find a location where all of you fit. They buy drinks and snacks, and it is not something professional, but Mick think it is perfect the way it is. It is perfect because you are here, and you are laughing, and dancing and Mick could just spend the entire night watching you.

He is the star of the show, of today, but he feels like that should be you. He has won because you have inspired him to do better every single day since 2019, if he is honest maybe since the day, he met you for the first time. He talks to his dad and his mum and some other people when he sees that you are leaving for the balcony of the venue, so he excuses himself. His mother and his father are exchanging a knowing glance but spare him with a comment. He makes his way through the crowd, needing longer than he anticipates because people stop him to congratulate him. Eventually, he is able to join you on the otherwise empty balcony.

He just watches your back for a moment, and how the yellow dress you are wearing once again is gently swaying in the wind. He wants to go and talk to you, but the view is too pretty to pass up on. “Are you just going to stand there and watch me like a creep, or are you going to come here and give me a hug?” He laughs, slight embarrassment peeking through in the sound. When he walks over to you, he doesn’t need to see your face to know the wide grin you are currently wearing on your lips. He steps closer you and wraps his arms around your hips from behind. It is different than the other hugs you have shared all your life, it is more intimate, more real somehow. His heart is beating fast in his chest, and he is almost sure that you can feel it.

You place your hand on his arms, relaxing against his chest, snuggling impossible closer. “Are you enjoying your party, my champion?”, you say, and your words give him goosebumps – the good kind. My champion. He never wants you to call him anything else again if he is being honest. “Hm”, he hums in agreement, chin resting on your shoulder, “Even more because you are here.” The words he speaks are not above a whisper, because he is a bit afraid to say them out loud. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, Mick. Since I first met you, I knew that you were destined for great things.”

Mick cannot help but laugh, and you turn around in his embrace. His arms are still around your waist, your arms are now behind his neck. He is close to you, has he ever been this close to you before? His laughter dies down, but he still grins from ear to ear. “I think the first time we met, we were like two years old, and you hit me on the head with a shovel.” You scoff, but Mick knows it is all playful. “I don’t remember that, but I am sure you deserved that”, you grin up at him, “Anyway, that feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Because it is”, Mick says and rubs gentle circles on the fabric above your hipbones, “But most of my best memories are with you. Like that summer last year? I don’t think I have ever felt better than during that time with you.” You smile up at him, and Mick feels like you are impossibly closer now. “Do you remember? When we were eight?”, you ask him, your voice barely above a whisper, “You gave me a dandelion and you said that you will marry me one day, and to be honest… I always hoped that you wouldn’t break that promise.” Mick smiles, and it is soft. He looks down into your eyes and you take his breath away. “One day, I will keep true to that promise”, he says.

While most of your friends at the elite school you visited decided to study business or law or finance at some prestige university in Monaco or even overseas, you decided to turn your passion into your profession. While taking some evening online classes on how to open a business, you opened your own little store in one of Monaco’s busy vendor streets. The store combined your many crafting abilities. You offered the materials, but also the finished products. You crotched and sewed unique pieces of clothes and bags, as well as pillowcases, stuffed animals, and other items. Self-made jewelry and hand painted mugs are gracing the shelves of your little store. In one corner, different kinds of flowers are presented from which costumers could decide which flowers they wanted for the little bouquets you loved to make. In short, the store offered everything if one was on the lookout for a special and unique present.

This was also what brought the famous Charles Leclerc into your store. Looking for a present for his mother for Mother’s Day, he had walked into your store. You greeted him with a little paint stain on your cheek and a messy bun, yet he somehow fell head over heels for you. He adored how down to earth and hardworking you were. That day, he left with a present that made him his mother’s favorite child for a while, and your number in his phone.

He insisted to organize the first date and took you out for a fancy dinner. It was nice, to be part of Monaco’s high society for a night, even if it was just for a few hours. But it didn’t matter, because Charles made you feel like royalty, like you were special at any given moment. You didn’t need to be part of high society if you were with him because he treated you like you were a queen.

Of course, you knew who he was, as he was part of Monaco´s finest. For a while, you were afraid that the two of you wouldn’t work out, as your lives were so different, and you were afraid that you simple weren’t enough. But that changed when on your third date the two of you sat on the floor of your atelier for hours, painting on canvases and mugs and Charles not once was afraid of getting his hands dirty. He never did, actually. When he wasn’t away, he even came and helped you out at the store sometimes, standing behind the cashier and advising costumers. One time you came out of your atelier to find Charles gushing to some costumes about your crafts, and it left you with a very warm feeling in your chest.

However, it wasn’t always easy. While most of the other drivers had girlfriends that could made space in their schedules to fly out and visit, you barely could do that. The weekends were essential to your income and being gone from your business for more than two days wasn’t working for you. You still tried as much as possible, sometimes flying out for a day only to see him race on Sundays and fly back home immediately. It made you and Charles equally unhappy, but he understood and supported you, nonetheless. He couldn’t be prouder of you and your achievements that you worked hard for, more often than not working long and tiring hours. He knows that you are not like other wags - that you don’t have as much time to come and visit him at races. Sometimes he selfishly wishes that you had more time, but he knows that he would rip you away from the thing you love the most – your little store and your arts and crafts.

At the moment, it is especially hard. Charles is gone almost every weekend, sometimes not even coming home in between because he doesn’t have the time. You understand that, you really do. And you are also insanely busy right now. Still, it isn’t nice to only see your boyfriend for few days every three weeks. You make it work though, your love and commitment for one another as strong as ever. You call whenever you can, even though there is a time difference in most places where he currently races. Most nights, he is afraid to wake you up, but usually you are still up working, even when he calls in the middle of the night. It worries him, sometimes. But he knows that arguing doesn’t help with your stubbornness, so he usually just asks you to make sure that you stay healthy and get enough sleep. You nod, knowing that you certainly do not get enough sleep at the moment.

Times are hard for your business right now. You feel like just your store isn’t enough anymore, you need an online presence. It is inevitable in current times. You don’t have the money to hire someone, so you decide that it couldn’t be that hard to set up a website by yourself. Turns out, you are naïve, and sleep is overrated. After a week of hard and dedicated work you have managed to set up a website that lives up to your perfectionist standards. You are, after all, an artist. An Instagram account follows soon after. You refrain from following Charles, because you don’t want to appear like you use him for the cloud.

You sadly had to let go of your assistant just recently, as the owner of your building had increased rent. You would’ve looked for another place, but the location of the store was just too good to be given up. Furthermore, the fact that your apartment was located just above the store made many things easier for you. So, you had no real other choice than to suck it up and pay the much higher rent. Letting go of your assistant however meant that your workload increased drastically. You had to take orders over the phone, take care of the deliveries yourself. You still produced most of the stuff in your store yourself, but you had to order materials as well as some products that you offered but didn’t craft yourself. In short, it was a lot of work, and you felt increasingly stressed about it.

The good thing about all of it is that Charles is just as busy as you, which means he doesn’t realize how stressed out you actually are. He usually isn’t there much more than two or three days in between the races, and you can afford to close the store one of these days. The others, you work a little less, only 6-8 hours, not the 16 hours you normally have on your clock on a long day.

Today is an especially shitty day at work. You take a moment to catch your breath. Why on Earth did the elevator have to be out of order in this particular building with 15 stories? And why did your client wanted something delivered to the highest floor? You utter a short but very heartfelt “fuck” when you catch a glimpse of your own reflection. Quickly, you brush the strands of hair that stick to your slightly sweaty forehead out of the way, trying to look somewhat representable after all. You walk to the door of the apartment on the address and wonder for a moment, why everything looks so familiar in this building. You ring the doorbell and when the door is opened, you know why you recognize the building. A soft “oh” escapes your mouth before you catch yourself again and smile at the man before you. “Hey Daniel!” “What are you doing here, y/n?”, Daniel asks you, confusion etched into his features. You hold up the packages in your hand. “Bringing your delivery?”

“That is your store? I never knew, my girlfriend loves your stuff, and some of the best presents I have ever gifted are from there!” You smile shyly. “Yeah, I ask Charles to not tell anyone, I don’t want it to come off as I am using him to push my business!” Daniel shakes his head. “Y/n, you have been with Charles for what now, four years?” You nod your head. “Well, not once have I heard you trying to use Charles for anything, so don’t you worry about that! Especially because you don’t need Charles for that, your store is a fucking lifesaver and just generally amazing!” “Thank you, Daniel!”, you smile at the man before you and then look at your watch, “I would love to chat more, but I need to get back to the store. How about we meet for dinner with Heidi and Charles soon?” “Sounds great, have a good day!” You bit the Australian goodbye and make your way down the stairs.

Later that day, when it is already dark outside, your phone rings. Charles is calling from overseas, tired after a tough day at qualifying. For half an hour you chat until your respective day, exchanging some loving words, just enjoying each other’s presence. “Daniel told me you delivered his order personally today. Is your assistant sick?”, Charles suddenly asks, and your heart drops down your knees. You had prayed that Daniel would not mention it, that he would just forget about it. For a moment you are angry at the Australian, but then you remember it is not his fault. He possibly didn’t have any foul intentions when he told Charles. You take a deep breath. “She´s okay, but I –“, another deep breath, “I had to let her go.” Charles perks up, you can see him straighten out in his chair. “My landlord raised the rent, and I simply couldn´t have afforded the store and my apartment anymore if I had kept her.” Charles brows furry in concern now and your heart drops a bit further down. “Why didn’t you tell me, mon amour?” You sigh, and your face falls.

He doesn’t sound mad; he sounds concerned and worried and a bit hurt. You sigh. “I am sorry, Charles. I just didn’t want to bother you with that, you have so much on your plate already!” “Please, my plate could be filled to the brim and there would always be space for your problems as well!” “Thank you, love”, you tell him. For a moment, Charles just looks at you. “You know that it is okay to ask for help, right?”, he tells you and you sigh. “I know Charles, but I want to manage this by myself.” He nods. “I admired that you want to do this by yourself, I am just saying that I am here for whatever you need me for.” The two of you continue to talk for another hour, before Charles is tired and needs to sleep. You look at the clock and groan when you see, what time it is. You will have to get up in just a few hours, even earlier than normally, to pick up fresh flowers from the market.

The next weeks fly by in a blur. You haven’t really seen Charles for a while now, which is hard. Now, you are excitedly looking forward to the next week though because you had decided to fly out to Charles last race of the season and go on some well-deserved time off right after. It would only be a week and a half, but it was the first time you had some sort of vacation for a long time. And you get to spend that time off with Charles, which makes it even better.

The weekend goes surprisingly good, Charles landing on the podium. You claim it is because he is a great driver, he claims it is because you are his lucky charm. He kisses you in front of all the media and you don’t mind. You keep your relationship private, but not secret. After the race, you join him and the other drivers for the celebrations. You know most of them, you are even friends with a few. You also talk to the other wags, even though you usually feel a bit out of place. It is not like they give you that feeling, it is more because their lives are so different. They are all amazing and talented and so, so good looking. You admire them and have only positive feelings towards them – just sometimes it is hard to find a topic to talk about.

The celebrations run long, and the next morning Charles and you sleep in until midday. He treats the two of you with breakfast in bed ordered to your room, and afterwards you get ready to head back to Monaco. The plane trip is long, and you spend most of it sleeping. The two of you have decided to spend your time off in Monaco, using the time to also catch up with friends and taking out the yacht a few times. Towards the end of your time off, you get a bit anxious, nervous about all the work surrounding your store. Charles picks that up and tries his best to ease you out of it. He gives you a lot of reassurance and takes you for some spa treatments.

You are significantly more relaxed by the end of your vacation, and dread going back to work a bit. However, when you step into the store on Monday morning, you are happy. You missed your store and once again realize that this is your passion. The next week is full like usually, but you have found the fun behind all of this again. Charles keeps you company, sometimes he just sits next to you when you crotched a new stuffed animal. Also, he runs errands for you when you need it and just tries to help where he can.

Which is also why you give in when he asks you to take another day off. He had asked your best friend if she could take over the store for you and obviously, she says yes. Charles and you spent an amazing day – well, an amazing first half of the day until your friend calls you in the late afternoon to tell you that one of the pipes is leaking all over your store.

You almost lose your mind – if the damage would be bad, it would mean your entire store, your entire living was gone. Charles immediately drives you over, parking the car as close as possible. You rush out, and in your panic, you don’t even realize the tables and chairs that surround your store. Maybe a new coffee shop opened next to you? You rush in. The store is dark, and when you turn the light on, it blinds you for a moment. You scan for damage, but instead you are met with an orderly store, so clean it is almost shining. New lights have been put in, perfectly illuminated the different shelves of your store. There are balloons and decorations you haven’t seen before. In one corner, a buffet is built up and you are beyond confused.

Before you can ask Charles a question, someone knocks on the door and enters. You are even more confused when you see Daniel standing there, smiling widely, Heidi right next to him. “Hey!”, the Aussie greets you, “I am sorry if I am a bit early, but Heidi was so excited to attend the event in honor of your Social Media launch!” You are honestly flabbergasted. “Uhm…”, you say, “Welcome guys!” Then you turn to Charles. “Could I have a minute?”

You pull him by the sleeve of his shirt into the atelier of the store and look at him puzzled. “What is going on here, Charles?”, you inquire. He nervously scratches the back of his hand with one hand. “You were so stressed out these past months about your store. When I realized that you made an Instagram account and didn’t tell me, I was worried and confused. Then you told me about the increase in rent and how you were afraid that you wouldn’t be able to pay it anymore. I know you would never accept my money and I admire that, so I came up with a plan: I organized a launch event for you – which by the way starts in 45 minutes – and invited all our friends.” For a moment you debate whether you should be angry at him, but the puppy eyes look he gives you makes you realize that he only tried to help you.

“I… Don’t know what to say…”, you tell him, and he gives you a tiny smile. “I am sorry for not telling you, but you would never have allowed me to do this if I had asked. I just wanted to tell you that it is okay to ask for help, especially the people we love. And I finally want to show everyone how proud I am off you and of what you have managed to achieve. You truly are an artist, and I want the world to see that I have the most talented girlfriend!” His words have brought tears to your tears, which you try to swallow down. Instead of saying anything, you take a step forward and throw yourself into Charles arms. “Thank you!”, you mumble into his chest. Charles pulls away and looks at you. “Anything, and I mean that, anything for you, my love!” He presses a gently kiss to your lips and then pulls you into another hug.

“By the way”, he says when you pull away, “You look absolutely gorgeous, but there is a dress hanging in your bathroom upstairs. Lando is coming to take pictures for your Instagram account, so in case you want to change.” You shake your head and laugh. “Charles Leclerc, you really are incredible!” You race upstairs to change in the gorgeous dress Charles bought you. It is in your favorite color and matches the colors present at your store. It fit you perfectly, and when you came back in the store, Charles eyes were immediately on you. He comes over to pull you in a hug and a sweet kiss and you almost get lost in the morning, until you hear the shutter of a camera click. “Lando!”, Charles scolds the man, and he lifts his hands in mock defense, “We were having a moment here!” You laugh and Charles smiles, so all of you know it is not serious. You move in to hug the man who is your friend as well and are just about to say something, when someone puts an arm around your shoulder.

“I am sorry to interrupt, but Heidi desperately needs your help and guidance with some of your pieces!”, Daniel says and already pulls you with him. You are more than happy to help and immediately engage in a conversation with his girlfriend. Soon after, the store is flooded with people who chatter happily, and are in awe with the store you call your own. You yourself are beaming with happiness, almost flying around on cloud seven. When you check your phone, your Instagram account has reached many more followers, and most of the drivers have tagged your store in their story. People keep on pouring in for hours, until way into the night. By the end, your store looks almost plundered.

“Finally, mon ange!”, he breathes out and you could’ve sworn that you can see tears welling up in his eyes. “What happened?”, you ask, still very much confused. You try to sit up, and immediately Max and Daniel rush to your side to assist you in your undertaking. When you are propped up, you look at your friends, who are standing around the bed – a hospital bed as you have realized by now. Pierre gently strokes your hand, and Lewis raises his voice to tell you what had happened.

After your collapsed in Pierre´s arms, and your friends and colleagues form a wall to shield you, Pierre gently picks you up and carries you out of the public eye and into Lando´s room. Everyone is close to panic, no one really knowing what had prompted you to pass out. The doctors, alerted by someone, rush in, and examine you. They cannot really find any reason, apart from the injuries in your face. They suspect that it might be something severe, so the whole grid is close to losing their mind. You are than a friend to most, rather part of their family. The called ambulance takes you with them, Pierre riding in the back with you.

When you arrive at the hospital, the doctors take you away from Pierre to examine you thoroughly, determined to find out what is wrong with you. It takes an hour, one more, and another. By now, the hallway of the floor you are on is filled with the other drivers. Everyone wanted to be there for you when you wake up. With every minute, the boys get more nervous, grow more worried. After four hours, the doctor comes out.

“We stabilized her. We assume that she suffered an acute exhaustion attack, caused by a lack of sleep and too much stress paired with a concussion. We expect her to sleep for a few days, but she was lucky. It could have been way worse. She will need to rest as much as possible once she wakes up to ensure that neither her brain nor her heart will suffer from long term consequences.”

The drivers are all shocked. You are still so young, and now this. They realise, all for themselves, that maybe they had demanded too much of you for too long. Guilt threatened to eat up them, more with every day you didn’t wake up for. Until three later, on a Wednesday, you finally wake up again.

You are quiet for a few minutes. Just when you are about to say something, the door opens and a nurse steps in. When she sees all the drivers, she rushes them out - all except one. Pierre doesn’t leave your side. He sits with you when the doctor comes in and tells you that you were lucky. He makes it very clear that you must take time for yourself to make sure that you would not suffer lasting effects. You nod, trying to understand everything he says.

“Would you mind leaving me alone for a minute, please?”, you ask. The doctor nods, while Pierre stays by your side. “You too, Pierre.” He looks at you, shocked for a minute, offended even. “Don’t send me away, y/n. You seem like you need someone with you right now.” “Just give me a fucking minute alone, Pierre!”, you snap at him, and he gets up and leaves without another word. You know that wasn’t fair, but your whole world just turned upside down. You will apologize later.

You clench your hands to fists; you feel like you are going to lose your shit. The feelings threaten to drown you, you are barely able to keep yourself over the water. You need to get out of here – you want to be everywhere but here. You lift yourself out of bed, determination flooding your system. When you stand up, you grind your teeth. Your whole body is almost shaking because just the act of getting up was so exhausting. You feel so very small, weak, and fragile. You take two, three slow steps, holding onto the hospital bed with every step. When you reach the end of the bed, you back another step forward, but without holding onto something, your body gives in. You crash to the ground; your body hits the floor with a loud thud.

Immediately, the door opens and Pierre storms in. He sees on you sitting on the floor, knees pulled to your chest, head buried in your hands. He rushes over to you and takes you in his arms. “I am so afraid, Pierre!”, you sob into his shoulder as he holds you. His heart breaks right there and then. You cry for what feels like hours, and when you are done, Pierre helps you onto the bed again. The doctors had allowed for you to leave the hospital in Brazil to be taken care of by your personal doctor in Monaco. However, much comes with that – your transport must be organized, you have to talk to the team, and all of that.

You are starting to panic, you feel so exhausted still, you have no idea how you would be able to manage all of that. “You don’t need to worry, ange. We are scheduled to fly out tonight in the private jet, everything around the transport is organized. Only Max, Daniel, Lando and I will join so that you can rest as much as possible. We will have to leave for the weekend, but I will promise you that we will be back as soon as possible.” You nod, overwhelmed that they cared so much for you. After one last check up, the doctor wishes you all the best and discharges you.

They provide you with a wheelchair because you are still weakened and every bone in your body hurts – even the ones you didn’t know you had. Pierre pushes you out of the hospital and towards the parking lot, where you can spot Daniel standing between an unfamiliar car. Usually, all of you drove fast and sporty cars, but this was a car you expected to see in a suburban neighbourhood where everyone had at least three kids.

“Nice ride!”, you say, and your voice is still hoarse. You are pretty sure that you look like shit, but the boys do not let on. They don’t look at you with pity and you are beyond grateful for that. “Thanks, we had to improvise a bit!” Daniel walks over to you and pulls you out of the wheelchair with ease, lifting you into his arms bridal style. He carries you over to the car, careful to not hurt you. However, his limb coordination when it comes to carrying people apparently isn’t the best. You close your eyes when you see the car door frame coming closer, but instead of bumping into the hard metal, your head is met with a soft surface. You open your eyes and see Lando smiling at you. The boy had put his hand over the door frame, softening the impact. Your eyes almost start to water at the sweet gesture.

Once you are seated, Pierre climbs into the back with you and helps you to put your seatbelt on before he settles himself in. Lando sits in the back as well. Max is the passenger princess. Daniel is starting the car, and you watch Max still without his seatbelt on. Before, you can say something, Pierre turns to Max. “Put your fucking seatbelt on!”, he says and a small smile appears on your face. You don’t really catch more of the chatting, as just the way to the car exhausted you completely and you opt for some sleep. Pierre´s shoulder functions as your cushion, and it is quite comfortable, at least for this purpose. Already almost in slumber you only subconsciously realize that someone puts a blanket over you. You snuggle closer into Pierre and fall into a deep and dreamless slumber.

You wake when someone unbuckles your seatbelt. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you!”, Pierre apologizes, but you wave it off. “I think I have slept enough the past days”, you joke half-heartedly, and he gives you a tiny smile. Only now in this close proximity, you can see the dark bags under his eyes, the worry on his face. He looks five years older, beard unshaved, little stubbles growing in a disorganized way. “I am sorry for causing you so much worry”, you whisper barely audible, but he hears you, like he always does. He shakes his head. “Mon ange, no. None of this is your fault, if anything, it is ours.” You are just about to ask what he means when Daniel interrupts the two of you.

“We should get going!”, he says, and Pierre helps you out of the car. He carries you the last few meters to the jet, and places you down on one of the seats. Before you can engage in a conversation with him, Lando joins you on the seat next to you and slams a big bag on the table. “Y/n, I hope you are hungry!” You focus your attention on him and just now realize how hungry you are. “Starving, actually!” Lando smacks his lips and starts unpacking the bag. “Well, in that case, good for you, because I come prepared!” There is everything you could ask for – snacks, fruits, sandwiches. You decide to start with an apple, which Lando insists on cutting into small pieces for you. “Lando!”, you laugh, “I am not a child!” He grins. “Well, y/n, you need care and nursing and love now, so we all have decided to you are no longer our mum, you are now our child!” You flip him off playfully and continue to eat your apple pieces quietly while Lando talks your ear off, which you honestly do not mind. It distracts you from all the negative thoughts.

After a few hours, Daniel, Lando and Max are asleep. You are quite awake on the other hand and the soft shine of a display coming from Pierre´s seat indicates that he as well is awake. You carefully walk over to him, holding onto the seats. It takes all of your strength to make the few meters, but you manage and fall into the seat next to the Frenchman. He looks up from his phone and gifts you a smile. “Hey”, you say softly, “You okay?” Pierre shakes his head but continues to smile. “You are unbelievable, y/n! You are the one that was in the hospital the last days, not me.” “I can still worry about you guys though, no?”, you grin crookedly, but Pierre is still very serious. “Of course, but the important thing now is that you need to get better, and to do that, you need to learn to say no, and you need to learn to listen to yourself.” You want to interrupt him, but he doesn’t let you. “But most importantly, we – me and the others – need to learn to get our own shit together, and not always bother you!”

You can feel that he is a bit angry, so you gently place your hand on his biceps. “Pierre, you never bothered me. It was just a bit too much the past weeks! Everything will be fine, in fact, everything is fine.” Pierre shakes his head at you, you can feel that he is still upset. “No, nothing is fine. The last days were absolutely horrible, y/n. I was so afraid; I don’t think I have ever been this afraid. I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid that I would wake up and someone was going to tell me that you died. It was a nightmare, I don’t ever want to feel that again – so I am begging you, please take all the time you need to rest and heal. I cannot lose you.” You are a taken aback by his words. “I will, I promise!”, you say, and Pierre pulls you onto his lap and into a tight hug. He doesn’t let go for a while, and you don’t mind. It keeps you from falling apart.

You land a few hours later, you before you can protest, Lando lifts you out of your seat. “My turn!”, he laughs, and you decide to not pick a fight. “Yeah, it’s cool”, you say and playfully roll your eyes, “Just pick me up whenever.” Lando makes a sad face, and you can sense that he feels bad. “I am sorry”, he utters, “I should have at least asked if it was okay for me to pick you up!” You shake your head. “Don’t worry about it, its not like a have a choice. I can´t exactly walk away”, you joke. You know it is a bad joke, and maybe it was too early to joke about it. For a moment, it is quiet, but then Daniel lets out a little snort. He tries his best to keep in a laugh, but when Max looks at him, he cannot help himself and bursts out laughing. The Dutchman joins him, so do you, and in a matter of seconds, Pierre and Lando are laughing as well. It takes you a while to calm down, because all of you just really needed to laugh off the shock of the past days.

Lando carries you down and into the car. Charles had offered to pick you up and drive you to your apartment, joined by Pierre. “Hey Charles!”, you greet the man and move over to give him an uncomfortable hug over the middle console. He doesn’t seem to mind, however. “You don’t know how good it is to see you, y/n!” You smile at him after you pull away, and he starts the car as soon as Pierre has settled in as well. A bit later, you arrive by your apartment building. Pierre gets out the wheelchair, and helps you to climb in. It is still new for you, and you hope that you will get rid of it soon. It makes you feel utterly helpless, but just the few steps in the plane earlier were hard and exhausting. For a moment, the thought that you might never be able to race again crosses your mind, but you push it away violently. So far, you had achieved everything in your life that you had set your mind to, and you sure as hell will not let anything stop you now.

It feels good to be back in your own space. You exhale deeply and you immediately start to feel a bit better. The familiar surrounding eases your negative thoughts, and you find yourself calming down. “Alright”, says Charles, “I will get going and get the crutches from the doctor, and get groceries, then I will be back!” Before you can say something, he is out of the door. “The doctors in Brazil contacted your doctor here to consult and discuss next steps.” You nod, feeling slightly overwhelmed. Pierre tells you bit more about the topic, but you can’t really focus your attention. At some point, you let out a big yawn. Pierre chuckles. “Seems like someone is tired!” “Exhausted”, you tell him, and he gives you an understanding nod. “How about you take a nap?”, he offers. “Sounds super!”

He helps you into your room, where you quickly change into some shorts and a shirt. After you are done, Pierre enters the room with a glass of water in his hand. “I know that you like to keep a glass of water next to your bed, so I figured I would bring you one!” “How do you know?”, you question. He shrugs his shoulders. “You mentioned it one day…” “Thank you!” He smiles at you, puts the glass down and grabs the blanket. He throws it over you and gently tugs you in. “Sleep well, mon ange!”, he says but you are already sound asleep.

The next week is exhausting, more mentally than physically. You are able to leave the wheelchair rather quickly, but you still the need the crutches for support. Despite the fact that you weren’t really injured, at least not in the traditional sense, your body was still weak. You just cannot really rely on it right now, so the crutches are there to support and help you. You are just happy that you are out of the wheelchair and that you have a tiny bit of your independency back. What helps even more however, is the constant support of your friends. They cannot be with you right now, as there are still two more races for them to finish. Your doctor appointments keep you occupied, your family visits and helps you with whatever you need. Your friends call you, sometimes just to tell you minor things but it helps. You don’t feel isolated, and you cheer on them from your living room. Right now, it feels okay to not be on track – you feel like you are going to be okay.

The season ends in the end of November. Winter has Monaco in its grip, the first snow falls. Everything looks so pretty that you cannot really feel down. On top of that you love Christmas, and you keep yourself busy with present shopping, at least until you have to get ready to leave for England. It is a Tuesday, and you had just been at the doctor’s office. While your doctor is sure that you will fully recover, he also gives you a real perspective on things. The possibility is there that you can race next season, but the cost could potentially be high. He tells you to consider your options. Lando picks you up from this appointment and together you drive to the airport. The two of you were scheduled to fly to the McLaren headquarters for a week to discuss the next possible steps. The flight goes over quick, you are unusually quiet – and Lando just lets you be. He can sense that you need the time, so he gives it to you.

When you step out of the airport, Zak waits for there for you personally. The older man pulls you in a tight hug, it had been a while since he had seen you in person. “Good to see you, kid!”, he tells you with a fatherly tone in his voice. You grin at him, happy to see him. You climb into the car and Zak drives you to his home, to have dinner with his family. You quite enjoy it, but you feel yourself get tired after a while. Lando notices and decides to call a taxi for the both of you to drive to the hotel.

You share a suite, in case something was to happen during the night, but you sleep well. After a nice breakfast, you are getting picked up for the headquarters and inside you are feeling very nervous. You are good at hiding it, but you fiddle with your fingers. Lando takes one of your hands and gently squeezes it. Only now that you are not good on foot you realize how big the McLaren compound really is.

The core team meets in a room close to the entrance for your sake. They are all beyond happy to see you, everyone is relieved that you are on your feet again, at least partly. It is not many people, as you agreed with Zak to discuss the next steps in a small team before you met with everyone. After exchanging some courtesies, it is time for you to tell them of your decision. You take a deep breath and Lando once again squeezes your hand. No one knows what you are going to tell them, and you don’t really know how to tell them. You decide it is best to rip the band aid of fast.

“After consulting with my doctor yesterday, I think it is best if I resign for indeterminate time, until I am fully recovered.” The room is eerily quiet, everyone is a bit shocked. “While I could possibly sit myself into the car next season, I would not be able to give you guys the results you deserve. Trust me, this is not what I wanted, but if I race next season, the possibility of lasting health issues is very likely, and I do not believe that some half-assed results are worth that. I want to apologize –“ “Don’t!”, Zak interrupts you, “We have all developed a soft spot for you in our hearts, and we were all shocked when we heard what the doctors in Brazil said. Your health comes first. While we are deeply saddened about you resigning for indeterminate time, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we would like to keep you around one way or the other.” You nod, tears welling up in your eyes. On the one side because they were so supportive, on the other side because you stating your resignation makes it a lot more real.

Now it is official – at least within your team – that you will not start next season. It feels a bit like your world is ending, your goals are out of your reach. You feel hopeless, and like you are – quite frankly – an absolute loser. Self-doubts threaten to eat you up, you want to curl up in a ball and just stop existing for a while. You spent the rest of the meeting lost in your thoughts, and the next days go by in a blur. You visit the headquarter many more times that week, talking to the team, discussing the best way to communicate your indeterminate resignation. You call Pierre a lot, telling him about everything. He deserves to know from you, so do all of your other friends. You cry a lot those days, Lando never quite leaving your side. He is there for you, so is everyone else. Yet you find yourself withdrawing yourself from almost everyone except Pierre. You call him daily, sometimes more than once. Many times, he has to listen to you softly sobbing into the phone, and it breaks his heart. But he never blames you, he always listens, he always comforts you.

After an exhausting week, there is only one more thing to do – film your resignation video. You cry during the video too, but you don’t mind – you love your fans, and they deserve to know the truth and witness your real feelings about your resignation. In the end, the video is 10 minutes long – you explain your reasons, you promise that you will be back. And you mean that. Somehow, you have found your fighting spirit once again. The video ends with a collage of your best moments in F1. A tribute to your achievements so far, but you are now certain there will be more eventually. You will put all the work in necessary so that you would heal properly, and that you would be able to sit in the car next year.

You fly back to Monaco alone – Lando would have come with you, but you told him to stay home with his family for a bit. He drove you to the airport and saw that you get to the plane just fine. When you land, Lewis and Valtteri are already there to welcome you back. They are kind and gentle and brotherly, and your soul heals a bit when they take you to lunch that day. They don’t make you feel like a loser anymore, they tell you that they are proud of you for making this hard decision. The three of you share things that you have never spoken about before, and it helps. The sun is shining on a white Monaco and your heart becomes full and hopeful. You are still weak and exhausted, and when they take you home you are more than ready to sleep, but it is different.

The next week is a busy week once again. You visit your doctor and your personal trainer a lot, discussing measures to help you healing, and setting up a slow training program that would help keep you in shape, while not overburdening your body. You still call Pierre every day to talk to him. He is with his family in France for Christmas, and he has invited you to join him. You tell him you will once you feel better. He understands, like he always does. He makes you laugh with his joke, and he tells you he misses you. You miss him, and when he drops one of his compliments, it is somehow different now. Your cheeks heat up sometimes, and your heart skips a beat.

Christmas is nice, and special. You are home, and for once you have nothing to do – no real training, only little exercises. No media duties, and you enjoy the time with your family. After New Year’s, you travel back to home to Monaco to rest and heal. The boys are all there for you – for whatever you need. They ask you how you are all the time, and they help you where they can. It is the little things, really, and one day you feel particularly bad about it. You cannot really give them anything back at the moment, and you feel like you are using them. You wake up with those feelings that they, and to distract yourself from them, you go on Instagram. Scrolling through your feed, you occasionally send them funny videos. It was the least you could do. After an hour or so, you lift yourself out of the bed, finally. You are very hungry, and you think about ordering something, when suddenly your doorbell rings. You need some time to reach it, walking slowly with your crutches, and when you open it, Daniel stands there in front of you. “You send me the first Reel on Instagram like one hour ago, so I figured you are hungry by now. I brought groceries and I am here to cook for you!” “I… You shouldn’t have!”, you try to argue, but Daniel already moves past you and into your kitchen. You follow him slowly.

When you see that he is already collecting dishes to prepare breakfast, you just sigh. He picks up the defeated sound and perks up, smiling at you. His face falls when he sees the way you look at him, like you are almost crying. “Hey hon, what´s up?”, he asks you. “I just… I feel so bad about all of this. I feel like I am using all of you, and like I am not giving anything back!” Daniel shakes is head violently, and he comes over to pull you in a hug. You almost disappear in it, and he draws soothing circles on your back. “Y/n, don’t ever say or think something like that again. You have almost given your life for us, and this is what friends are here for. We help each other when we can – sometimes one or the other does give a bit more. It equals out in the end. Besides, you still listen to all of us rambling, and you still give the best advice!” He pulls away and a tiny smile is on your face now. He ruffles your hair and before you can protest, he is back in the kitchen. “Now, go rest your ass on the couch, mate!”, he says, and you cannot help but laugh when you limp over to the living room.

Breakfast is nice, and Daniel makes you laugh with his stupid jokes. It is good to feel like this. You know that right now was the easy part – your friends are here, and they all have time for you. But you are afraid of what is coming after the winter break – when they are all gone, and you won’t be able to be with them doing the things you love the most. It will most likely break your heart, but you try not to think about it, at least not now.

It is a few weeks later, the next season will start soon. You have picked up training again, very slowly. It mainly consisted off walking on the treadmill, holding onto the sides. A few easy exercises that keep your body mobile and flexible and your muscles occupied. Spring is blooming in Monaco; the first sun is shining. Everything is going well. Well, almost everything. Right now, you are beyond embarrassed.

You had felt better today, so you had taken the taxi down to your favourite park to enjoy some time there. It had been late afternoon already, you had walked around a bit and sat down in a small restaurant to eat dinner. Now, it is later than expected, it was dark, getting colder by the minute, and you are beyond exhausted. Furthermore, the crippling feeling in your legs leaves you to panic, which is why you – against all rationality – do not call a taxi. Instead, you call Max, who picks up almost immediately. “Can you pick me up, Maxie?”, you choke out, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. “Send me your location!”, he says, and you can hear that he already picks up his keys. You nod, even though he cannot see that, and send him your location with shaky fingers. Max is there just ten minutes later to collect you. As soon as you see him, the tears really start to flow. He wraps his arms around you, his sweatshirt is collecting your tears, and he whispers encouragements while he gently strokes your hair. After a few minutes, you calm down and he helps you to his car.

He holds open the passenger door for you, and you climb in, almost falling because your legs are giving out under you. But Max is there, he catches you, and helps you. He closes the door behind you and gets in on his side. “You okay?”, he asks. You nod, using the sleeves of your sweatshirt to wipe away the leftovers of your tears. Max starts the car and drives through the dark streets of Monaco. You don’t know where he is going until he stops at the drive through of a Fast-Food restaurant. “I figured the occasion called for ice cream or a milkshake”, he tells you when you he sees your questioning expression. A tiny smile creeps onto your face. Max orders you a milkshake and gives it to you. You hold it in two hands like a child and Max cannot help but laugh. You pout a little, but ultimately smile when he takes a picture of you holding the cup in your hand.

He drives you to your place and helps you up to your apartment. Reaching the door, he stops for a moment and thinks. “Would you like some company tonight?” For a moment you think about telling him to go home, because you don’t want to trouble him any further. But being alone tonight sounds terrible, so you push down the unnecessary feeling of guilt and nod. He steps into the apartment with you and helps you take of your jacket. Together, the two of you settle in on the couch and put on a movie. You feel your eyes get heavy, but before you can tell Max that he might as well go home as you are about to fall asleep, you slip into slumber.

The next morning, you wake up in your bed. You stretch and roll over to your phone. A text from Max. “Don’t get scared when you wake up, I am sleeping on the couch.” You smile to yourself and get up. Max is still asleep, so you climb into the shower. Once you are done and dressed, you make your way into the kitchen to make breakfast. Already in the hallway, you hear voices. You are confused – you know that Max is here, but who else? Stepping into the kitchen, your eyes fall on Pierre. Immediately, a big smile appears on your face. “Pierre!”, you exclaim happily and his face lights up once his eyes fall on you. He rushed over and wraps you in a tight hug. What you don’t see is the wiggling eyebrows Max aims at Pierre. Pierre just rolls his eyes and then closes them to take in your scent for a moment. Soon after, you break the hug, but Pierre stays close, his arm loosely wrapped around your hips.

Max excuses himself shortly after, as he has an appointment. You bit him goodbye, and when the door falls close, you turn around to Pierre. “Why are you here already?”, you ask him, and he flashes you a cheeky grin. “Not happy to see me?” You shake your head but laugh. “I am more than happy to see you, Pierre! I was just thought you would arrive in two days.” “Well,”, he says and wraps you in another hug, “I really wanted to see you!” You are happy that your face is buried in his chest because a blush creeps on your cheeks.

Pierre pulls back a little and looks at you. “Are you feeling better today?”, he asks with genuine concern. You nod, “Yeah, thanks to Max. He picked me up last night and stayed over to make sure I was okay.” “Max told me what happened. Please, ange, you need to be careful. I know it is hard to be confined in this space and not being as independent as you used to be, but you need to watch out for your health.” You sigh, but nod. “I know. I am just really tired off this, and I want to experience things again. I am afraid that I won’t ever be able to get into the car again…” Pierre nods understandingly. “I get that. But the more you rest and listen to your body, the sooner you will be fully healed.” “Yeah, you are right. I –“, you want to say something more, but suddenly, your stomach growls.

Pierre laughs and you grin, a bit embarrassed. “I think you need some food!”, Pierre says. “Yeah, I am starving!” The two of you make your way into the kitchen and just now you see the huge bouquet of flowers on your kitchen counter. “Wow, these are beautiful”, you exclaim, “Thank you Pierre!” He smiles and waves it off. “It´s nothing”, he says, but for you, it is everything. Pierre pulls out one of your pans, and as you are about to help him, he shoots you a glare. You lift your hands up in mock defence and make your way into the living room. You get your laptop from the couch and sit down on the dining table, as you have some things to finish up. Just because you were not a driver anymore, that didn’t mean that you had nothing to do. Especially now that the winter break slowly came to an end – you had agreed with McLaren that you would be involved in their Social Media activity. It had been Lando´s idea, and you are really grateful for it.

While you couldn’t start on the grid next season, you also didn’t want to entirely leave the F1 world. You are not yet sure if that is a good decision, to be involved but not driving, but you would have to wait and see. Pierre joins you a bit later with some breakfast, and you are beyond happy to finally have him with you again. The two of you will spend some time in Monaco together, before the new season started.

You make the most out of that time. Some days you just sleep in, you in your bed and Pierre in the guest bedroom, and then you would have a long breakfast, you would take a little walk, talked with the fans. He helps you with your exercises, he is a gentle trainer, yet he inspires you to go a tiny, tiny step forward every day. He massages your muscles when they are tired, he applies the lotion your doctor prescribed you. He takes you out for lunch or dinner, he goes shopping with you if that is what you desire. He finds the best clothes for you, you feel pretty in them, you feel worth it in them. He makes you feel safe and protected and if you knew better you would say that he makes you feel loved, but you don’t talk about that. Right now, it is not the time for it, and you both just enjoy what you have for now. The lingering touches, the way the two of you gravitated towards each other. He takes good care of you, and he never gives you the feeling of being a burden, even if you need help with silly little things. Like when your arms and hands are so tired that you cannot take off your own socks. He never makes you feel like you have to be embarrassed about any of those things and it helps.

The break ends soon after these great moments and you hold up quite well. Saying goodbye to Pierre is hard, and you cry. He holds you and presses a kiss on your forehead and tell you that you can always call him. But it will be different, there will be the time difference and he will be busy, and you will be not. He still makes sure to call you whenever, and it works good somehow. Maybe it is because summer comes to Monaco and your friends visit you whenever you can. You train, you take it easy, you rest, and you heal. Soon enough, you are able to go for jogs again, your training becomes longer and harder and you seem to be on the right way. By the summer break, you feel stronger already, and life is rather normal again. You still feel exhausted some days and you are not where you used to be. But you were okay with that.

The sun lifts your mood up, even on the days you don’t manage to run very far. You still go out these days, just go get the kilometres down, to keep your body moving. Summer break comes, and with that the boys are back in town. They spend most of their free time with you, and you are beyond grateful for that. It means the world to you, that they come and visit. Pierre spends a lot of time in Monaco with you as well. You take it easy, enjoying the time together. Just like over winter break, he takes you out a lot. You go and see museums, concerts, whatever there is to do. Some days are exciting, others are slow and relaxing. You take naps on the day bed on your balcony, enjoying the warm summer sun. Your head often rests on Pierre´s lap, or you are cuddled up in his arms during those naps. Still, you don’t talk about it, it is all very natural, your relationship growing stronger every minute you spend together. However, labelling it is not your priority right now, it is still your healing journey.

The two of you also spend lot of time together with the other drivers. Like today for example. Currently, you are laying in the warm sun on the deck of Charles yacht. The boys are bickering about something, while you are reading. You had just left the harbour a few minutes ago, and the boys already distracted you from your book. You cannot help but smile though, you had missed this. It was almost like you were still part of the driver line-up, and you feel relieved that nothing has really changed. They are all still the same adorable dorks they used to be. Some time later, Charles stops the yacht in the middle of the sea. By now you are sweating and very warm, so you are the first person to take the leap of the deck into the ocean.

It is not really a problem; you feel good today. The guys follow soon after, and you start to joke around, splash each other with water, dunking each other under. You have so much fun that you don’t really listen to your body. You splash and dunk and swim around. Pierre watches you closely, like he always does. When you climb up the ladder, he is relieved that you choose to take a break, so he follows. You, however, have other plans. You are about to get ready to jump off the boat another time, when Pierre stops you. “You sure about that, do you not rather want to take a break?” You grin at him with the objective to calm him down. “I feel fine, Pierre!” He nods. “Just be careful, okay?” “Of course!”

You feel your mistake when you start to run to jump off the deck. Your legs are suddenly very, very heavy. You cannot stop anymore however, and before you realize, you are in the air. The force of impact on the surface of the water knocks the breath out of your lungs, your entire body suddenly feels heavy – almost too heavy for you to swim towards the surface. It takes you long to emerge from the water, too long. The others realize when you don’t come up immediately. Charles starts to swim towards you. A splash rips you from your apathy and you swim towards the surface with heavy arms. You emerge coughing and one second later Pierre is right next to you. He helps you to hold yourself over water, and soon, Charles is by your side as well. You are embarrassed, but they don’t let on how scared they really were. Pierre helps you up the stairs and you sit down in one of the seating areas. Pierre brings you a towel and wraps you in it. When the towel is around you, he doesn’t let go. “I am sorry!”, you whisper, “I should have listened to you.” Pierre shakes his head. “Don’t worry, just don’t scare me like that again.” “I won´t!”, you promise and snuggle closer into Pierre. He holds you and you fall asleep soon after.

The rest of the summer break is spent similar. You hang out with Pierre and the guys, you go to France with Pierre, you visit your family, life is good. But then, the races start again, and fall comes to Monaco and with that the rain and the grey days. You are not able to go out of your apartment that much anymore, you are lacking energy and you feel like you are making steps back. Your training doesn’t go as smooch anymore, you feel like your comeback might be in jeopardy.

You are in a bad mood, there is no reason to sugar coat that. You are beyond miserable. The feeling that you will not return next season haunts you, and you are terrified of it. What if you will not manage to ever race again? You have never known something else; you have never learned something else. You feel like you are drowning, and your saving comes in form of a particular Frenchman. He knows that you had been able to go on runs again and that you did harder workouts again, he knows that you were on a way to get better. When your best friend calls him and tells him that you spent most of your days inside now not doing much, he doesn’t believe it at first.

He does, however, when you open the door and look like you haven’t changed out of your sweatpants in a week. You look messy, eyes puffy and tired features. He is scared to see you like this, so hopeless and so… He doesn’t know how to describe it, but you look so little, so tiny. You weren’t the tallest, but usually you carried yourself like you were the tallest in any room. Now, you are hunched over. For a moment he thinks you are going to close the door in his face, but you don’t. “Put your clothes on, we are going for a run!”, he tells you. You don’t protest verbally, but your attitude shows him enough. He doesn’t flinch though. He drags you out of the apartment – you still haven’t said a word. He takes your hand when you arrive downstairs, and he pulls you with him. A little “Pierre, I can´t!” leaves your mouth, but he pretends that he doesn’t hear it. And, after the first meters, you seem to shake off the paralysis that had a tight grip on you the past week.

Your breath is steady, and you are keeping up well with him. It starts to rain, the trail becomes wet, and you slip at some point. You fall, and this little happening seems to make you fall apart. You stay on the ground, and you don’t grab Pierre´s hand when he reaches out. At first, he doesn’t realize but then he sees that you are crying, and he doesn’t care about his outfit – he drops to his knees next to you and hugs you. You want to turn away from him, you feel so fucking weak and pathetic, and he sees you in that state. It embarrasses you; it makes you angry. You want to push him away, you struggle a bit against his grip, but Pierre doesn't let go of you.

“Why am I so weak?”, you cry softly in his shirt, but Pierre hears you. “You are not weak, mon ange”, he whispers. He pulls you a bit closer, like he is afraid that the rain will wash and carry you away. “You are the strongest person I know. I know that life is hard at the moment, and I cannot imagine how you are feeling. But you will get there, I know that!” “I feel like I am the absolute worst version of myself right now, and I just don’t see myself driving next year, but… But that´s all I have ever known, it´s all I have ever wanted!” Pierre still holds you close. The rain is coming down harder now, and you are getting soaked to the skin. You don’t care, it doesn’t matter to you. “If I know anything, I know that you will come back stronger next than ever next year!” “Why do you keep on believing in me, Pierre?”

“You might see yourself as the worst version of yourself right now, but I think you are the strongest, the fiercest version of yourself right now.” For a moment, Pierre falls silent. He takes a deep breathe before he whispers the words into your ear, as if he is afraid that they will be washed away by the rain when he speaks up or speaks them further away from you. “And I believe in you because it is the only thing that keeps me sane. I cannot even begin to think about the fact that you might not ever race again, because it would affect my life in so many ways. It might be selfish, but I would not get to see you as much anymore, and the thought of that is terrible to me. I want to be able to come out of the garage and walk over to hug you. I want to hear your laugh sound all over the paddock because someone cracked a joke. And, most importantly, I believe in you because I am completely and helplessly in love with you.”