#sleeper hit

“It’s nothing,” he insists, and makes himself meet her eyes. “I promised, remember?”

“Yeah, I fucking remember. It went something like: she’s the apple of Maverick’s eye and she’s eighteen and I’m never gonna be that guy. Jesus Christ. Who else knows?”

“Nobody,” he says fast, and then amends, “well, actually, Hangman guessed, I think. Surprised he didn’t say anything. I suppose he might not actually have known, could have just been being a dick.”

“Yeah, highly possible.” Nat’s hand drops to her belly like an afterthought. His eyes follow it. It’s still weirder than he has words for, knowing Hangman’s kid is growing in there. Some days it feels hopelessly unfair. Other days it’s exciting. Mostly it makes him wistful. 

He knows she doesn’t like talking about it, so he takes his eyes away as soon as he catches them there and stares instead at the back of his phone. He wants badly to open it and see what Amelia’s said – hopes for a picture of her going about her day, even though the ones from school always make the shame a little stronger. 

“I just,” he says at last, after the silence has stretched out for too long, “I really meant for it not to happen. Honestly I did. I meant it when I said it about Maverick, you know, it’s not just how young she is, it’s how much she means to him. I’ve only just got him back in my life and losing him again would just be— it’s not something I want. Plus it would be really fucking annoying to be the one at fault this time.”

Nat snorts. “Yeah, he’s the only person I’ve ever met who likes to say I told you so as much as you do.”

“He doesn’t even need to say it,” Bradley agrees morosely, “it’s that fucking face he makes—”

“Right? I don’t know how he doesn’t get punched more.”

“Same.” They share a smile, brief and long-suffering, before Nat’s face sharpens back into seriousness.

“I just need to know that you’re thinking this through. I know you like her – and don’t get me wrong, I like her too from what I know. But she’s so young. I mean, are you gonna – what, go to Harry Styles concerts with her? Visit her at college? Be out partying until three AM?”

He winces. “Jesus, no. I mean, you know, if she wants to do that she’s got friends to do it with. I don’t think she’d want to go, though. And she's definitely not going to college. It's just... none of it is really who she is.”

Nat thinks about that for a moment, chewing a mouthful of her dinner. 

“Well who is she, then? What about her makes you think this will work?”

“She’s…” he eats a bite of his own, giving himself a minute to consider it, “she’s figuring herself out, honestly. But not like I was at eighteen. It’s like she knows who she is already and she’s trying to work out how that fits in with the life she’s expected to lead. Her dad’s an asshole, I think he’s fucked her up more than she realises, but she isn’t angry about it like I was about my parents dying. He does piss her off, but it’s like she’s just… she just works with it, you know? I really admire that about her. Shit happens and she takes it and gets on with her life. Doesn’t let herself wallow in it.”

Nat frowns. “She’s always struck me as a pretty serious kid.”

“Yeah, she is. Wicked sense of humour when she lets it out, though. You should hear her with Hangman.”

“God, I’m not sure I want to. He likes her, then? Not sure what that says about her character.” 

Bradley laughs at that. “You let him knock you up, you are absolutely not one to talk.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she says, but she grins briefly too. It fades when she asks, “Is that – did you sleep with her, then? When she was staying with you?”

His shame is bright on his face. He has to look down, something inside him twisting. 

“I tried to put it off, but she insisted. And honestly I didn’t take all that much persuading.”

Nat is silent for a long time. When at last he can bear to look back up at her, she’s watching him with such a mixture of pity and worry on her face it’s almost too much to see. 

“Just promise me,” she says, her voice newly urgent, leaning forward across the table towards him, “promise me this isn’t going to come back badly on you. She’s not going to turn around in six months and say you pressured her into it, or—”

“I would never, Phoenix, Jesus—”

“No, but she could start to feel like that’s how it went down and it wouldn’t matter how you think it’s going now. When you’re that age, it’s all so in flux, how you feel about yourself and other people and relationships, and—”

“That’s not her.” 

Nat just keeps looking at him, dark brows furrowed. He looks back, asking without words for her to trust him. Haven’t they all mocked him for years about being too slow to make decisions, too cautious? He needs her to trust that he’s thought this through with the same – more – care than he’s ever made a choice in a bird. 

“Where is she now?” 

The question surprises him, but he figures it’s innocuous enough. He looks at his phone at last; opens up the message Amelia sent. It’s a picture of her and her friend May in long, slinky gowns at a store somewhere. May’s throwing up a peace sign. Amelia’s half-turning towards her, grinning or laughing, her face bare of make-up and her hair knotted messily on top of her head. He misses her deeply and absolutely. 

“Shopping,” he tells Nat, knowing the warmth in his voice is going to give him away more than anything else ever could. “Graduation dresses.”

“Graduation— fucking hell. High school graduation.”

It comes out of him weary: “Don’t. I know, okay? I know. It’s not what I would have chosen for myself. It’s not something I was looking for, and it’s not something I wanted. But I can’t let go of her, Phoenix. I just can’t.” 

Nat’s dark eyes are as solemn as he’s ever seen them. “She’s it?”

“Yeah. She’s it.”

She reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. Just once, quickly, like a benediction. “Then I’m behind you. All the way.” She pulls back, smiling just a bit, her mouth pulling up at one corner. “Still going to give you shit about it, though, fair warning. A fucking high school girlfriend. You absolute cradle-robber.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, feeling suddenly lighter, better than he has since he left Amelia in San Diego three weeks ago, “at least I didn’t drunkenly knock up my enemy-with-benefits, or whatever the fuck you and Hangman are.”

“Oh, he’s absolutely still a douchebag,” she says, grinning, but the softness in her eyes gives her away. “I hate him, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Bradley echoes, even though he knows Hangman has wheedled his way onto the flight coming to collect Phoenix and a few of the others when they dock in Cypress for no reason other than to see her a little sooner. Even though he knows she’s signed the lease on a shared apartment with only one bedroom and a nursery. 

She notices his expression and shakes her head, sounding suddenly much older and wiser than she has a right to. “None of it’s ever simple. In books and movies it’s always so linear, you know? So obvious in retrospect. But it’s always a goddamn mess and we’ve got to just figure out the best way through that we can.”