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roosterbruiser · 2 years

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𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 ☾☽ 𝐂𝐡. 𝐈𝐈𝐈

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

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

☾☽ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟔𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗

The sky is cobalt blue when I get to the base. It’s already seventy-nine degrees outside and not even a fraction of the red hot sun is visible, blazing just out of view. I’m lugging my leather bag, sunglasses pushing my hair back, and my headphones are shoved deeply in my ears. I’m listening to Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed and trying to match my footsteps to the beat--which is to say I’m walking slowly.

The base is very quiet, very still. The motion-sensor lights wink on as I walk down the halls, air conditioning humming distantly, and the fluorescents seem impeccably bright and white.

Sleep found me for only a few hours the night before, and even then, it was fitful.

Penny had come out of the back just as Rooster and I parted, our mouths slightly parted. My body was cold without him against it, the kind of cold my fingers got when I am nervous. Rooster’s hand was still holding mine and our hands released only when Penny’s eyes flickered to their union.

“Bradley,” Penny smiled, pretending that she didn’t see us just holding hands, “good, you’re here. Someone’s gotta walk us ladies to our cars.”

Rooster had recovered remarkably fast.

“It would be my honor, Miss Benjamin.”

I gathered my things hastily, ignoring Penny’s eyes burning my cheek. I was embarrassed and felt silly for feeling embarrassed. Rooster and I had been so close that I felt that anyone who looked at us could tell we had touched--like there were some invisible markers or something.

“Did I miss anything?” Penny asked, chuckling.

“No,” I said, looking up at her, “just a couple of lieutenants taking advantage of a vacant jukebox.”

Penny glanced past me, squinting at Rooster.

Rooster walked Penny to her car first and she waved to me with a sneaky look on her face, her dark eyebrows pulled together and her mouth twisted as she bit the inside of her cheek.

She said something to Bradley I couldn’t hear from my spot below the American flag.

“Goodnight,” I waved to her, then whispered as she pulled out of the lot, “nosy.”

Rooster met me under the canopy again, his face shadowed in the moonlight. He smiled down at me and it was softer than any of the smiles I’d seen from him that night. It was almost a knowing smile, like we shared some sort of knowledge now.

“Should I put my number in your phone?”

My belly ached with that uncertain hunger again, like I was missing something.

I handed him my phone silently.

“1-9-9-2,” I told him and he laughed.

“Very trusting of you,” he said.

“I have access to all your files,” I said, “so, you know. Eye for an eye or whatever.”

The breeze kissed my neck and as Rooster navigated my phone, a small smile playing at his lips, I pulled my hair into that makeshift bun at the back of my head again. I looked up at the stars, the sand in the parking lot crunching under my shoes. It was cloudy, but only partly. The moon was white like talcum powder.

“Waxing gibbous,” I said quietly.

“What’d you just call me?”

I pointed to the sky, at the moon, laughing.

“The moon phase,” I said, “waxing gibbous.”

When I peered at Bradley from the corner of my eye, his head had fallen back as he gazed up at the sky, my phone lit up in his hand. His throat looked golden even under the dim light of the moon. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed and I was suddenly overcome with a vast spectrum of emotions. My throat ached with want but my eyes filled with tears. He looked like a man and a child at the same time, very tall and broad, but his face pulled together curiously as he gazed up at the moon like he had a million questions about it.

How could anyone leave him alone on this planet?

When he caught my gaze, he smirked, quirking his eyebrows.

“Are you checking me out, Lt. Ledger?”

“Classified,” I’d returned curtly.

He grinned as he finished typing on my phone, handing it back to me happily.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

I nodded, itching to see what he’d labeled his contact as. I restrained myself.

“Goodnight, Bradley,” I whispered.

He stiffened with excitement when I said his name. There was a moment where we stared at another under the light of the moon, the waves a constant lullaby, the air tasting of salt and sand.

“I like when you say my name,” he whispered, his voice slightly strained.

I swallowed hard, pressing my thighs together tightly. I wanted to tell him that I would say his name whenever he wanted me to. He could call me in the middle of the night and I would say it again and again until he fell back asleep. He could radio me from the air and I would say it over comm, in front of everyone. He could ask me at lunch time, or in the middle of a pool game, or on a long drive.

Instead, I said, “Get home safely, Bradley.”

He watched my lips.

Then he watched me walk to my car. My mouth was dry and my legs ached from being pressed together so tightly. As soon as I was in my car, the doors locked, I nearly burst. My chest tingled and my hands were shaking.

I couldn’t wait any longer; I peered into my side mirror and saw that Rooster was in the Bronco already, pulling out of his parking spot. He honked at me before driving out of the lot and into the night, his engine rumbling, the Bronco a dot of bright blue in the dark night.

I scrambled to my phone and opened up my contacts, scouring until I saw it: Tramp. I tapped on the contact and stared at his number, aching for any part of him. Reclining in my seat, partly deflated, I pressed on the ‘message’ button and saw a conversation already existed.

Oh, sugar baby, sweet thing

I drove home in a daze, no music on. Then I went inside my home, fieded Stevie at the front door, washed my face, brushed my hair, lit a candle, laid in my crisp sheets, cuddled into my linen duvet, and closed my eyes.

Sleep would not come, though.

All I could think about was him, his fingers on my phone, typing a message to himself.

Just as I turn the corner to Memorial Hall, I spot a figure at the end of it and pause. No chance in Hell it’s him, but when I squint, I see that it is him. It is Rooster.

He’s standing before his father’s portrait, dressed in just a pair of gym shorts and old sneakers. His bare chest heaves and sweat seems to glow under the fluorescents. He has very clearly been running, his cheeks hot and red. I think I feel his body heat from where I’m standing at the other end of the hall.

He hasn’t spotted me yet. I take another step in his direction, willing him to see me, but then I realize he has headphones in, too. I feel stuck suddenly, unable to move, unsure if I should even approach him.

He knocks a knuckle softly against the glass of the portrait, his cheeks puffing out for a moment. Then he turns--startling when he sees me standing there, my bag slung over my shoulder, my smile lazy. He lets his eyes wash over me before he strides to my side of the hall. We meet in front of Maggie’s portrait.

Each of us takes a headphone out.

“Faye,” he pants, “good morning.”

“Bradley,” I nod.

It is hard to keep my head angled towards his, hard to not let my eyes fall down to his glimmering chest. His muscles strain under his skin as he attempts to catch his breath still.

“What’re you listening to?”

Instead of answering, I gingerly hold my free headphone towards him. Instead of taking it, he turns his free ear to me. My throat is tight when I press the bud into him.

Jackie is just speeding away / Thought she was James Dean for a day

He looks down at me as we listen, a sweet smile on his lips. Even his mustache is dripping sweat. I try to even out my breathing.

Without a word, he picks his dangling headphone off his wet shoulder and very delicately places it in my ear, pushing my hair back. My mouth goes dry. I strain to hear what he is listening to over Lou Reed.

Oh yeah, alright / Take it easy, baby! / Make it last all night

I can sense how quiet the world is round us as we finish each other’s songs without speaking, a true cacophony as Tom Petty and Lou Reed sing.

When I am this close to Bradley, all I can think about is how solid his shoulder felt under my cheek, how correct his lips and nose felt in my hair. All I can think about is the hours that I tossed in bed, how warm it felt between my legs when I finally dipped my fingers inside, his name falling off my lips and withering away into the dusk of my room. No relief came. I wonder if he can tell this close to me--if there is something about my lips, my fingers that give me away. I want to put my mouth on his chest and suck the sweat off his skin.

His lips move, but I can’t hear him. I tug the headphones out and cock my head.

“I said,” Bradley says, “you look gorgeous.”

Pink tickles my neck and face. I turn towards Maggie’s portrait and her grin taunts me. Bradley follows my gaze, registering what we’re standing before.

“Wow,” he says, “she looks like she’s laughing at us.”

I nod, smiling. Her eyes are bright and wide. A spray of freckles covers her nose and cheeks. Her hair is pulled back and she is in her whites, but she’s open-mouth smiling.

“She probably is,” I say, “from beyond.”

Rooster beholds her beside me, his arms crossed.

“You two must’ve been popular,” he comments.

I nod.

“She was, definitely. Everyone was in love with her. Men, boys, girls, women, pilots, captains,” I tell him, “who could resist that face?”

Rooster looks at me, but I don’t look away from Maggie’s portrait.

“Anyone ever told you that you guys have the same face?”

I shake my head.

“No, no,” I say, “well, yes, but no. Look at her nose. She had this perfect patch of freckles because she never wore sunscreen.”

Bradley is looking at the portrait again, squinting.

“And look at her teeth,” I say, grazing them over the glass, “she had this incredible chip in her front tooth and the one below it. Really turned on the charm, people loved it. She got it in college, when she was playing tackle football at a frat party. And people loved that she got it from being tackled by a frat boy.”

She had FaceTimed me that night our freshman year of college very late and I scrambled in the dark to answer it, apologizing profusely to my grumbling roommate.

“Are you okay?” I’d hissed at her.

She was drunk, her eyes bleary, giggling. She grinned at me, pulling the camera of her phone close to her mouth. Her front teeth were drenched in blood.

“Coleton chipped my teeth!” She’d burst, all smiles.

“Who’s Col--you know, what? It doesn’t matter. Do you want me to look for a dentist for you? Let me see, stop moving!”

She bared her teeth like a wild animal and proudly showed the cracks. Yes, there was definitely two chips and they were definitely bleeding.

“I think it’s cute,” she told me, sucking the blood from her teeth and swallowing it, “do you think it's cute?”

Rooster is grinning, chuckling.

“And her neck,” I say, pointing to her delicate throat, clear of blemishes, “it’s, I mean, it’s perfect. Spotless. I have four freckles on my throat.”

I turn to him and point.

He leans down, narrowing his eyes, nodding. Then he raises his hand and presses down on my skin, making note of all four with his index and middle finger. His fingers are warm and he touches each of them slowly, an agonizing kind of slow. I try hard to swallow normally so he doesn’t feel the lump just under his touch. He is humming, his fingers lingering on the last freckle, his eyes downcast and shaded by the curtain of lashes that line his green eyes.

He takes his fingers away and lets his hand fall beside him. I know that if he brought his fingers to his nose and breathed, it would smell like me. The thought almost makes my knees buckle.

He straightens out again, meeting my eyes.

“I like your throat,” he says.

My heart stammers. I want to excuse myself and douse myself in cold, cold water.

“You can have it,” I say, “it’s yours.”

The brevity of what I said holds us in silence, his mouth ajar, his chest rising and falling slower now that he’s caught his breath. His cheeks are still red, he’s still glowing, his skin so achingly close to my body and touch. I wonder if he’s looking at me the way I’m looking at him, if he wants to touch me as badly as I want to touch him. If his fingers are tingling, if he will be careful to keep those two fingers on his right hand clear of the shower stream.

He steps closer to me and just when I think his face is going to near mine, he turns to Maggie again, eyes washing over her.

“I’d bet people loved the both of you,” he says, then he turns back to me, smiling, “I mean, look at you. Who could resist?”

I’m dizzy.

“Not many,” I whisper and I’m teasing but I can’t get my lips to smile.

“I should hit the showers,” he says and it sounds like an invitation.

It lingers in the air like rotting fruit.

“I didn’t know how to tell you this,” I breathe, “but you stink.”

We share a grin and his moss-colored eyes flick to my mouth where I’m chewing on my bottom lip. He’s thinking about kissing me.

I can’t remember the last time I kissed someone, really kissed someone in the real way; the one that curves my spine and makes the back of my head prickle with desire, when my eyelashes flutter closed and my breath catches in that delicious spot between my throat and mouth.

Just before he moves towards the shower, still grinning, he brings his two fingers up again and ghosts them over the freckle that’s lowest on my throat--where my collarbones kiss--and then he walks away.

When he’s gone, I turn to Maggie.

“Did you see that?” I whisper.

She grins back at me.

☾ ☽

When my doorbell chimes, I hardly hear it.

It is 6:57 and I am in my closet, sorting through the polyester and cotton and linen, my hair already falling down my back, freshly brushed. Sound and Vision is hurtling through the soundsystem in my living room, where Stevie is perching on a marmalade-colored chair licking her paws politely.

I pause--strain to hear anything over David Bowie.

It rings again.

A stone sinks in my belly. I pull my robe around myself tighter, gritting my teeth, feeling a flurry of flower petals bursting in my belly. He’s early.

I race to the living room, where the sun is drenching the room in ochre. I have four candles burning, my record player on, the fan is mercilessly churning hot air around the room, and as I step on the living room rug, I realize that even the carpet feels hot from the San Diego heat. But at least my house smells like maple.

“Coming!” I call, even though he can’t hear me through the thick door.

I race down the stairs, my feet bare and my lips painted pink.

Rooster is there. He is smiling when I first swing the door open, like he had held his face in place as he waited. When he sees me, my hair probably stricken from the heat and my body covered by a silky robe, his smile falters. He blinks a few times, letting his eyes drop down my body. My throat feels warm all over again, the way it did after he touched me. I was sure his fingers had left some sort of mark, some sort of evidence that he had touched me. But my neck looks like it does on any other day.

He’s wearing a pair of true-blue denim shorts and a sage-colored button up, except that only three of the buttons are done. His chest glistens under the red-hot sun. He’s holding a bouquet of lavender, wrapped in crinkling brown paper.

“Bradley,” I greet and my voice sounds steadier than my legs feel, “you’re early!”

He meets my eyes again. His eyes look so very green. He swallows hard and I want so badly to look down at my own body and try to see it from his eyes.

“Hope that’s alright,” he says, “Lieutenant Ledger.”

I squint, swallow.

“There’s a joke in there somewhere about birds and worms.”

Rooster laughs.

I open the door wider and gesture for him to come inside.

“Please excuse the heat,” I say quickly, “this house was built in 1899 and it’s just cursed any central air conditioning I’ve tried and I, like an idiot, am trying to find cute window units for all the rooms.”

He steps over the threshold and is still smiling at me when I close the heavy front door behind him. My music is still blaring. He holds the lavender out for me and I take it from him, but our fingers brush against another’s just one time very softly, enough for my thighs to spring together again.

Even without nearing the flower, the lavender’s fragrance envelopes my nose.

“Lavender brings luck,” I smile, “are you trying to tell me something?”

I sound like Maggie.

His cheeks are painted pink.

“There’s a joke in there somewhere about clovers,” he quips.

My throat constricts. I point to the wooden stairs and nod.

“Let me get a vase,” I say, motioning for him to follow me.

As I start up the steps with him trailing behind me, I am suddenly entirely aware that I am entirely naked underneath my robe. I don’t even have panties on. My knees almost buckle, my neck growing red.

He is silent behind me, but his footsteps echo on my stairs. I enter the kitchen and hold the door open for him. He looks so big in the doorway--so unfamiliar in this landscape. He looks like he belongs here. His cheeks are already turning pink from the heat. After a beat, he follows me into the kitchen and noticeably deflates when he feels the air conditioning.

I grab a vase, which is really an antique measuring cup from somewhere in Nebraska, and fill it under my faucet. What should I say to him? I rack my brain, biting my lip, trying to get myself to look over my shoulder at him.

“Your house,” he says suddenly, “it feels so much like…like a home.”

When I turn and face him finally, he has his back to me on the other side of the island. He’s looking at my beautiful refrigerator, at the doors that are littered with gaudy magnets, polaroids, magazine cutouts, stickers, and sticky notes. Only little pieces of the eggshell-colored fridge are visible through the mess of life that I have stuck on the fridge.

Even the back of his head looks handsome. He’s so tall and broad, his shoulders lifting and falling with every careful breath he’s breathing. His hair is shorter in the back and little parts of it are starting to curl at the nape of his neck.

I unwrap the lavender on the island, still watching him while I grab a pair of gardening shears from my outdoor-tools drawer. I snip the ends of the lavender at an angle and very carefully put them in the glass. They sprawl and spill over the sides, dropping little purple buds. I set them on the sill above my sink quietly and the colored flowers looks breathtaking against the dying sun.

His fingers whisper over a polaroid on the top right corner of the fridge. I watch him, scooping some bits of lavender into my hands and setting them back on the paper I spread out. It crinkles under my touch, but he doesn’t turn around. The polaroid he’s touching is one from 2015. It’s Maggie and I in our flight suits, standing on the tarmac in front of our F-18, our helmets propped under our arms. His index finger brushes very softly over Maggie’s face, then mine, where it lingers.

In the living room, Always Crashing in the Same Car has started. It floats through the closed kitchen door and Rooster does not look away from the refrigerator.

“I want people to feel that way about my house,” I say, swallowing, “it’s important to have a place that feels like home when you’re, you know…grown up, I guess.”

Rooster’s hand falls to his side. My throat feels warm, my mouth open a little bit.

“Smells like home, too,” he says, just barely, voice almost a whisper.

“What does my house smell like?”

He turns so his left cheek is facing me. It’s blushed. His eyes are downcast and there’s a sad sort of smile creeping onto his lips.

“Smells like you.”

Instead of sinking to my knees, I pull my robe around myself tighter and Rooster finally turns so he’s looking at me. We’re smiling at each other. I could faint.

“You want a drink while I finish getting ready?”

He shakes his head.

“That’s okay,” he whispers.

He seems very soft right now, like the brash boyness he wears on base is just a malleable membrane that can be peeled off him with slight ease. Like whatever defenses he had up, they dissipated when he crossed the threshold of my kitchen. He’s looking at my face, his eyes glimmering beneath the Edison bulbs that hang above him.

“Put on any record you want,” I say, “and I’ll be quick.”

I round the counter and his eyes follow me. When I am standing beside him, reaching for the door, he nods.

“Take your time,” he says, “I’m early.”

I barely make it back to my bedroom before my chest is heaving with desire. I lean against my closed bedroom door and try to catch my breath. My basil walls seem to breathe with me, gold frames cluttering the walls as they expand with rapid exhales. All the eyes of the people I love--Maggie, my mother and father, Bob, Jagger, Maneater, friends from high school, friends from college--they all stare at me, grinning. I think of Rooster standing in my living room, his peppery cologne staining my furniture deliciously. He’s looking at all the pieces that make up my home, all the pieces of myself that are kept safely away from base, tucked into my private life like a confidential file.

I open the door a crack and the music has stopped. I can see Rooster’s shadow from the hallway, the tallest thing in my home.

“The cat’s a bitch,” I call, “her name is Stevie.”

His laugh echoes down the hall and it sounds like it belongs there, among the picture frames and knick-knacks and vinyls, more than anything I’ve ever brought inside. I close the door again and drop my robe on the floor.

It’s 7:15 when I step out of my cool bedroom and into the hallway. I’m wearing one of Maggie’s t-shirts, one that had been past along a long line of men and one-night stands, and it has the Rolling Stones logo printed on the front, though it has faded greatly with age. I’m wearing a paisley mini-skirt, one my mother wore in the 70s. It brings me a sense of comfort--a sense of strength, maybe--to be wearing the clothes of the women that I love.

Rooster is standing with his hands in his pockets, evaluating the shelves and shelves of records I have framing my television. The shelves reach the ceiling and he cranes his neck to read the sides of the cardboard cases. Love by David Bowie is spinning soundlessly, ready to be flipped.

“Couldn’t find anything you like?”

Rooster whips around, beaming. He looks at my shirt, my skirt, my legs, my hair. Oh, Lord.

“Found a few,” he tells me, “but got overwhelmed. How many…”

“Last time I counted,” I stay, moving to stand beside him, inhaling the dusty scent the old records radiate, “I think it was over five-hundred.”

Rooster laughs in shock, wide-eyes searching the endless records.

“If you look,” I start, fingers ghosting over both copies of Blue by Joni Mitchell, “I have a lot of duplicates. I got all of Maggie’s records.”

Rooster is watching the side of my face.

“Obviously,” I whisper, grazing my two copies of Hounds of Love by Kate Bush, “we had the same taste.”

I face him and he’s smiling down at me. His eyes are sweet and wide. The oppressive heat in the living room does not feel so bad when we are looking at each other, our arms grazing another’s.

☾ ☽

Rooster opens my car door, which is not the first time a man has opened my car door, but it is the first time I’ve cared. His back is straight and his shoulders are squared.

“Lieutenant,” he says almost mockingly, nodding.

I nod at him, too, pretending that I’m not blushing.

“Bradley,” I return, pretending that I don’t see him stiffen when I say his name.

The leather seats of the Bronco are impeccable. They’re gray, unblemished, not faded with age or sagging. The car is freshly polished and vacuumed, the dash free of dust or trash. A folded paper map is neatly folded and rests on top of the radio.

When Rooster gets in the Bronco, he’s beaming. He pats the dash and glances at me as we buckle in.

“This car is my baby,” he tells me.

And he doesn’t say it, but I know that it was his father’s car. We are two people who have lost big parts of ourselves. There is an unspoken bond between those that have looked death in the face and made it out the otherside. We walk on the earth with heavy feet. He doesn’t have to say it, but I know that this car is the biggest piece of his father he has left.

He motions for me to connect my phone to the aux cord and I do.

The only part of the car that isn’t original is the radio.

“My old man would’ve changed the radio out, too,” Rooster says even though I don’t question it.

The evening sky is baby blue. Pink clouds drift lazily across the sun that is beginning to sink. It’s almost 8:00 now and we are in Rooster’s cyan Bronco, racing down the Pacific Coast Highway. The top of the Bronco is soft and the windows are down. The air smells like the ocean, which we are approaching rapidly.

He has his sunglasses on and he’s tapping the thin steering wheel, singing nodding to the beat with his sharp jaw. Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd is grooving through the speakers. A giddiness is climbing my throat the closer we get to the beach, the closer we get to sunset. My hair is frolicing in the wind like a flighty child. The music is too loud for either of us to talk, but we are both smiling.

There is a paper bag crinkling at my feet and when I lean forward to look inside, Rooster’s arm suddenly juts out before me, like a barrier. He grins at me, just shaking his head.

“It’s a surprise!” he yells over the wind and the music and the ocean.

I lean back, holding my hands up in surrender.

“You look unreal, by the way,” Rooster adds, glancing at me, voice still carrying over the sounds around us with gusto, “like, fictitious, even.”

“I thought I was the one with the English degree,” I bite back teasingly.

My thighs are pressed together so tightly that I imagine crushing an aluminum can between them. I think I could break open a geode even.

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” I say, leaning towards his ear so I don’t have to yell, “for a tramp.”

There is no center console in the Bronco. The empty seat in the middle of our bench blinks back at me as I lean over it. We both look at each other, but we don’t say anything. Rooster sucks his teeth.

Oh Honey by Delegation is playing now.

When we pull into the parking lot of Flat Rock Beach, it is almost completely empty save a few cars nestled into corners beneath palm trees. The sun is ablaze now, racing towards the earth. Already, the moon is high in the sky, translucent.

Rooster opens my car door again and holds my hand as I climb out. When his warm hand is holding mine, I think about the night before at The Hard Deck when he played mine and my sister’s song, when he gave me his quarters and I picked a song for him. I think about how solid he felt against me, like I was actually dancing with something deeply rooted in the earth, like a tree.

He reaches inside for the paper bag, then opens the back door. He pulls a large flannel blanket out of the backseat and then nods towards the edge of the parking lot where the steep stairs break up the sharp, sand-covered rocks. My heart is racing. I smooth my skirt out.

“After you,” he muses.

We are the only people on the beach. All around us are steep cliffs made up of brown stone and golden sand. The beach is a small one and I am able to see the northwest end of the beach from where we are at the southwest end.

Rooster lays the blanket out swiftly and tells me to sit.

The sand is soft and warm beneath the flannel. I sit, facing the water, which rolls in calmly. Above us, the moon is growing brighter as the sky grows dimmer.

“Aren’t you going to ask what’s in the bag?”

I look at Rooster and he’s standing beside me with a lopsided smile. I pretend to think, tapping my chin, sitting with my legs crossed, arms propping me up.

“Okay, I’ll bite.”

Rooster immediately reaches into the bag and its crinkling is the only sound in the world besides the traffic above us, the waves rolling in. He reveals a thick circular bottle with a dark liquid sloshing inside of it.

“Maraska cherry wine,” he tells me, “a personal favorite of mine.”

I nod, biting my lip.

“Didn’t take you for a wine guy,” I tease.

“Didn’t take you for a tequila girl,” he quips, handing me the bottle.

I blush. He pulls out an identical bottle and we both break in laughter. I lay it beside the other bottle, against my thighs.

“We also have two plastic wine glasses, dried figs, one half-loaf of sourdough, and a block of the finest Whole Foods brand cheddar cheese.”

We fall into each other so easy that it knocks the breath out of my lungs. He is on his knees on the blanket now, looming before me larger than life, the moon drifting in the sky above us like a spotlight. He is pouring the cherry wine in the plastic glasses, his eyes down, his lips sinking into his bottom lip.

He hands the dark glass to me, eyes finding mine for a moment.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

When he has his glass of wine, he falls beside me. We are both lying back on the sand, reclined on our elbows. Our skin is only inches apart. The sky is dying.

I have not been on a date since my sister died and when I think this, I get dizzy; the kind of dizzy I would get when my mother spun me round and round in the backyard, the trees above me a canopy of green leaves that billowed above us.

I sip my wine until my throat is hot.

“What else did Bob tell you?” I ask suddenly, “or maybe I should ask what you asked?”

Rooster is smiling, eyes lingering on the rolling waves, the white foam of the ocean.

“He told me you two became close in undergrad, but you and your sister really took him in while in the Academy.”

Bob is pressed into many of the memories I so bitter-sweetly reminisce. He’s in photographs in my house, in my dreams sometimes, in my handwritten phone book that I keep in my purse for emergency purposes.

“And he told me that you are funny and kind and smart,” Rooster says before pausing, “but he didn’t have to tell me that. I would have figured that out right quick.”

I nod, blushing. I take another sip of wine; it’s sweet and bitter on my tongue.

“He told me that you take care of people,” when he turns to me, I pretend I don’t notice and just smile softly, “but he didn’t have to tell me that either.”

I swallow and keep my voice steady.

“And what made you decide to ask him about me?”

He laughs and it’s his turn to pretend like he doesn’t see me looking at his cheek. The cheek that faces me is free of facial hair except for the top of his lip. It is free of scars, too.

“You’re asking the tough questions, Faye,” he laughs.

I shrug smally. His laughter fades and he becomes pensive, sighing.

“If it wasn’t your quick wit or the way you handle your drink,” he teases and I blush, “then maybe the--well, do you really want me to go into details?”

He suddenly turns and looks at me, the corners of his mouth pulled up, his eyes earnest and soft. I smile at him and nod two times, very seriously. My heartbeat hastens.

Rooster watches my face, eyes lingering on my lips.

“Maybe the precise moment was after I finished my critically-acclaimed performance,” he teases, “and I looked for your face, but couldn’t find you. I went to the front doors, just to catch my breath, but I saw you out there.”

The back of my neck prickles with goose-flesh. The freckles on my throat feel red-hot like coals in a fire.

“You were sitting on the stoop, leaning against the building. The flag was blowing above you. And you were just quietly sitting out there, existing. You looked like you belonged right there, like you were planted there, or something. Truth be told,” Rooster says, “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you over the years, stories about you and Crimson acing missions and climbing the ranks like it’s no one’s business, stories about you two working hard and playing harder. And then, of course, Bob told me what happened. But when I saw you, you weren’t what I thought you’d be.”

I think of the first time he saw me, only a few days before, standing outside The Hard Deck in a flowery dress. Had my face been small and pensive as I stared at the front doors or had my face been open, my eyes swimming, a smile tugging on my lips as I watched him swagger towards me? I want to ask, but I’m scared to know.

“What did you think I was going to be?”

He swallows, thinking.

“I guess I thought you would be hardened. Mysterious, maybe.”

His eyes are looking right into mine. We are resting our cheeks on our shoulders and the sun has disappeared from the sky. The cherry wine has stained his lips red.

I force myself to say it.

“And what am I really?”

His eyes flicker to my lips.

“Warm. And frightfully pleasant.”

I stifle a shiver. I finish my glass of wine and sit up to pour another one. He watches the back of my head, I can feel his eyes getting lost in my hair. I sit like that for a moment, just breathing, and pop a sweet fig in my mouth. It gets stuck in my molars.

“Nobody has a bad thing to say about you,” Rooster says quickly, “did you know that?”

I nod. I know already that I am someone people like. I am non-offensive, I am not mean-spirited. Even before, when Maggie was alive, I was polite and kind. People loved Maggie and they liked me. Now, though, no one can say that they don’t like me--even if it’s true.

“People can’t say bad things about the girl with the dead sister.”

A beat passes and Rooster moves to mirror me, somehow scooting closer to me in the process. Our arms are touching now, our skin damp and tepid.

“Maybe you aren’t giving yourself enough credit,” Rooster suggests.

I hum. Then I shake my head and take another gulp of wine, smiling at Bradley.

“What about you, Bradley Bradshaw? Driving a piece of history, classically trained on the piano, military family…” I start, “I want to hear all about you.”

The waves crash in the distance and I glance up at the sky once more. The moon is full and bright; robust. Just as he opens his mouth, my tongue prickles with another question.

“Wait,” I interrupt, “when’s your birthday?”

He cracks a smile.

“June 27th,” he starts and I press him by leaning into him just slightly, “1984.”

I have to think for a moment, reciting the order in my head.

“A Cancer,” I smile. I don’t say anything about the eight years that separate us.

He’s watching my lips again. I swallow.

“Will you tell me about your parents?”

He swallows, too. Then he nods to his glass and bottoms it out. He pours himself another silently, eyebrows furrowed just slightly. I tear off a piece of bread and crumble a piece of cheese, placing a dried fig on top. Just as Rooster finishes a heaping swallow of wine, I hand him to food.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

I nod. I think about how good it feels to talk about the good parts of Maggie. It makes me feel like she’s still alive, like we are only a few states away from each other and she’s at a frat party while I’m trying to get to sleep before an early class. Maybe Rooster doesn’t feel like that at all. My cheeks grow hot.

But before I can say anything, he starts, staring off into the distance. He tells me all about Goose: about his memories of banana pancakes when his dad wasn’t deployed, about baseball games in the backyard, about drive-in movies in the Bronco, about the millions of pictures of them together, on base and off. He tells me about what he can remember about his father’s favorite things--favorite bands, favorite movies, favorite food. The Supremes, Tootsie, steak.

We are lying on our backs now, flat on the blanket, blinking up at the open sky above us. I am closer to him now, the breeze encouraging us. There are three points of connection between our two lying-bodies; our biceps that are permanently against each other’s now, our hips which rest just so against each other’s, and the toes of our shoes that lazily fall into another.

“It’s weird when a parent dies so young, because it’s like missing a ghost. Memories-- sure, maybe a few, but sometimes I wonder if they’re real. Like, for example,” Rooster says, his voice deep and hard, “I remember my dad always smelling like sunscreen and cigar smoke. Cigar smoke, sure, I can understand that. But sunscreen?”

I smile.

“That is an odd thing,” I whisper, “but even your truth is still true. On some level.”

Rooster is quiet for a moment. We each take another swallow of wine.

“I guess I never thought of it like that,” he whispers, “I guess I’ve always considered real life to be the most important.”

I shrug.

“Fuck real life,” I whisper.

He turns to me, measuring a grin.

“Fuck real life,” he whispers back.

We both bottom our glasses and he gingerly takes mine, sitting up to refill it before he lies down beside me again. The breeze he brings back with him is a gust of saltwater and treebark and amber.

“My mom pretty much raised me by herself,” he says, “and Maverick tried to step in to be some sort of surrogate father. Except, you know, it was obvious that my dad’s death had fucked Maverick up pretty bad.”

I stayed silent, allowing him to chew his words.

“My mom got sick when I was in my last year of undergrad, right when I had applied for the Naval Academy. It was quick. I guess that’s lucky.”

Quick. I think of how quickly Maggie went, free-falling through the air like a sinking stone. Maybe it hadn’t felt quick for her, or Rooster’s mother.

I swallow more wine until I can feel the gritty sugar coating my teeth, can feel the fuzz wrapped around my brain.

“It’s not lucky to lose both your parents,” I say.

He nods.

“I know I shouldn’t be angry, that I should accept it and move forward, but…how? How do I do that? No one has been able to answer that.”

I turn so we are facing each other. I know my breath smells like sugar and cherries and cheese. Bradley is still chewing his last piece of fig and turns to me with a sad smile. The scars on the other side of his face, his neck, glow rice-white in the moonlight.

“Who told you that you shouldn’t be angry?”

This question catches him off-guard. He furrows his brow and frowns slightly, searching my face.

“The world, I guess. Isn’t that the number-one rule of therapy? Of healing?”

I shrug.

“Why shouldn’t you be angry? Why should you have to stuff that feeling away or wait for it to go away to heal? It’s silly, really,” I scoff, looking at him with half-lidded eyes, “And you can be angry. I’m angry still, but it’s smaller now, because I’ve let little pieces of it out. I’ve felt that anger and I’ve nurtured it and now it just lives with me.”

Rooster smirks.

“Is that what Stevie is?”

We laugh. After another beat, he faces me too. We let our plastic wine glasses rest between us and he watches my eyes.

“You seem like you’re okay,” he says, “how?”

The question makes my belly cold. A dot of clammy sweat forms on my hairline. It’s going so perfectly--I’m afraid that if I touch it, if I breathe too hard, this night will collapse like a house of cards.

“I am a pretty ritualized person,” I start, “and it is easier to function--for me, at least--when there’s routine. So I made a routine for every part of my day. You know, boring stuff. Wash face. Make bed. Farmer’s market on Sunday’s. Leftovers on Thursday’s. That helped me to feel like I was in my own body again after the accident.”

Rooster’s face is earnest.

“You talk about her so often,” he murmurs, “it still hurts to talk about my parents.”

I nod, smiling even though there are tears prickling my eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I do talk about her a lot. My parents really don’t, though, and I get that because they lost a daughter. I mean, if you knew Maggie…” I trail off, sniffling, “she was just larger than life. So obnoxious and flirty and stupid-fun. I can’t talk about the day she...but she would hate it if people only remembered the way she died.”

Rooster pours more wine into my glass and I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, closing my eyes, trying to hear Maggie’s laugh in the waves against the sand.

“And, honestly, Bob was the first one that was brave enough to tell stories about her. I wasn’t even there yet,” I chuckle dryly, “but it felt so good to just let her live through all the good parts of her life. There were a lot of them.”

Rooster swallows.

“And do you still struggle?”

I nod vehemently.

“Of course I do--often. But Maggie would hate that, of course.”

“And what do you do when the pain comes?”

He asks this and does not explain what ‘the pain’ is, but maybe it’s because he knows that I know. Maybe he sees our invisible string now the way I saw it in the Bronco, when I knew that his father had once cherished the car before him. The pain is the sticky grief that tangles feet in sheets and pinches bellies and knots hair.

“It comes and goes,” I whisper, “and I just try to be gentle with myself.”

His eyes glisten beneath the moon.

“Can I tell you something?” I whisper.

I am drunk for the second time in Rooster’s gaze. Drunk and kind of sad and kind of giddy and my whole body yearns to be closer to him.

“Of course,” he whispers back.

A beat passes. The sentence I intend dies on the tip of my tongue before I can say it. I want to tell him about the six months after Maggie’s death--when my ribs ached with each breath and each breath was already an aching reminder that I was alive, when my left ear rang incessantly, when my wrist was pinned against my chest in a sling, when I was still getting confused when I drove even if it was a route I’d taken a thousand times before. Whenever every single day was a hazy mirage and my bed was never, never empty.

I suck in a deep breath and lean closer to Rooster

“I’m drunk,” I say instead.

He laughs. Then he brings his hand to my face and rests it on my right cheek. His hand is so warm, so heavy. His four fingers are all tall enough to touch my hair, which billows in the sea breeze. His short fingernails just softly graze my scalp. His thumb, though: his thumb comes to the corner of my mouth and just gingerly touches the spot where my lips meet. I wonder if his fingers are stained now like my lips are. I want to kiss his thumb. I could fall asleep just like that, with his face a few inches from mine and his wine-stained breath fanning out over my face.

His eyes find mine and his are very serious, very deep.

“I like you, Faye,” he says decidedly.

My heart squeezes in my chest. I wish I could go home after this, dizzy with those first exciting feelings, and have Maggie waiting for me. She would beg for details, pausing whatever John Hughes movie she had on while I was gone, fanning herself with enthusiasm during my stories.

“I like you, too, Bradley.”

After a beat, his thumb still just softly touching my lips, he whispers: “Who could resist?”