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heartsofminds · 23 hours ago

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Blooming (II)

So instead he settles for an affectionate squeeze to the right side of her face with his palm. “I wish you weren’t so young.” or Bradley Bradshaw is emotionally immature and he knows it, but she just wants to kiss him.

Warning: Contains curse words, a failed age-gapped relationship, and sexual connotations. 18+ readers, only.

A/N: Welcome to part two of my new series, Blooming. Here we learn about Rooster and Hangman’s past and his lack of emotional stability. Stay awhile, and enjoy 9.1k words in honor of our favorite aviator’s birthday.

Bradley knows he has a temper.

One that makes his face hot and his chest flush a deep pink. His ears are always scarlet and the vein in the side of his neck attempts to become four-dimensional. The voices of everyone around him become muffled and he breathes deeply through his nose. His view of his immediate surroundings becomes blurred; almost as if he’s underwater and opening his eyes without goggles.

And although Bradley knows he has a horrible temper, he also knows that he desperately needs to work on keeping it in check. It’s been a long time since he’s blown up. It’s been an even longer time since he’s felt so angry that he couldn’t breathe; his lungs feeling crushed and like he’s up in the air with no oxygen.

He doesn’t know who he inherited his short fuse from. His mother was the most patient and kindhearted woman on Earth and his father, from what he had been told, was an oddball who was so obnoxiously goofy that nothing would ever be taken seriously enough by him to set him off in such a volatile way.

And then there was Bradley.

Bradley Bradshaw, who already had a chip on his shoulder from his father’s reputation, his mother’s death, and the fact that his beloved godfather didn’t believe in him enough to hold his own that he pulled his papers from the Academy the first time he applied and refused to acknowledge why Bradley was so pissed at what he had done.

So that’s how he found himself in a class with people younger than him, literal infants in his humble opinion, and was embarrassed knowing that he stuck out the minute someone asked him how old he is.

He made friends there, of course. He even had himself something sort of a girlfriend too. Her name was Tanner, and she was a knockout; tan skin and curly red hair with freckles that dotted her skin like how craters kiss the moon. But she was only nineteen and here he was at twenty-four; hopelessly in love with her and treading in the dangerous waters of knowing that their relationship was going to inevitably end. Mostly because they lived in such different worlds.

Venus always looks close to Mercury until you realize that they orbit at different speeds.

And despite it all, he was ready to bite the bullet for her. He was ready to settle down the minute she said: “Go.” He was ready to do any and everything she wanted if she just as much as felt the need to ask him. She was his everything because he had nothing and he knew it was a dangerous game to be playing; putting all that trust and responsibility in a person, let alone a nineteen-year-old girl. But Bradley pushed this fear aside and realized that this was his new normal. With his mom dead and Maverick out of the picture, she was the sole proprietor of his grounding and he assumed that he would be her’s as well.

Bradley knew that he liked being comfortable and because he loved this girl so much, he was willing to swim in a sea of unknowns and discomfort. It was uncharted territory but it couldn’t be so bad. And boy, how that came back to bite him in the ass.

While he did trust her fully (well, three-quarters of the way if you were to be exact), Rooster knew that they probably were not on the same page. Reading the same book? Yes. On the same page? Maybe sometimes, but definitely not reading the same paragraph and he’s for certain they’re not comprehending any of the words the same way.

He knew she was young and still in college, a breeding ground for meaningless hookups and boozy frat parties, but he never wanted to be too controlling. He had seen enough of that bullshit in his fellow midshipmen. He had witnessed the kicking of walls when their significant others pissed them off or even the disgusting “locker room talk” that he assumed all guys grew out of after they graduated high school. But with each “Her tits are huge!” and “God damn I’d do anything to fuck her!”’s he hears when getting dressed after an intense training session, he realizes that a lot of the people he’s around are still boys and teenaged ones, at that.

And then the realization clicks again that man, sometimes it fucking sucks being so old.

But despite it all, Bradley knew that he wasn’t in control of her and couldn’t make himself have the heart to if he tried. So he didn’t loom over her the way that he would’ve liked to sometimes and understandably, he did get rather jealous every now and then. And he was working on being more open and communicating what he’s feeling when he’s feeling it or whatever his friend Phoenix was always on about when he came to her with relationship troubles.

While Phoenix’s advice did work and he had admitted to himself that the female pilot is more emotionally intelligent and sensitive than she ever let on, the fights and disagreements still happened despite him using her tactics. Sometimes he would find himself shouting hurtful things at her or refusing to speak whenever she was attempting to rile him up so he would yell at Tanner. She had told him once during a late night pillow talking session that she picked fights with him so she would have some reason to actually be mad at him.

But whenever he felt his cheeks get hot and his ears turn red while arguing with her about spending too much time with one of her male friends (for what feels like the eightieth time in the nine months they had been dating), Rooster remembered that he was yelling at a nineteen-year-old girl, with turquoise bedsheets and fairy lights all around him in a shitty dorm room with a nosy roommate on the other side of the door.

So while Bradley does have a temper, he learned rather quickly when to pick his battles. He took deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. He clenched his fists at his sides and closed his eyes. His thumb rubbed circular motions over his pointer fingers and he would picture his mom’s face, bleach blonde hair, and ocean blue eyes giving him a soft smile and saying, “You’re alright! Just calm down, babycakes.”

When he would get like that he would always think of what his mom would do and he knew that his mother was the kindest woman in history and that she raised him well. He would always see women as an extension of themselves and not an extension of him.

Girls have their own brains and own consciousnesses and own sets of morals. Bradley recognized that keeping his unwarranted thoughts to himself was easier than letting them out and causing an F6 tornado of problems that were just a poor projection of his own unhealed trauma and insecurities.

And while this along with Phoenix’s pep talks helped him be the best man and boyfriend he thought he could manage to be at the ripe age of twenty-four, Rooster realized that he had some shortcomings and that he kept failing to realize one thing: That not every girl he’s with is meant to be his.

One thing that routinely had Rooster seeing red regardless of how much self-soothing or how much he tried to focus on his mother’s voice in the back of his head is whenever Tanner would visit him on base.

Jake Seresin was not shy in the slightest and Bradley was (and still definitely is) convinced that God put him on this Earth to see if he had a hidden brain aneurysm because he’s sure one will erupt from how much stress the blond regularly puts him through. And yeah, Hangman’s annoying, and yes, Rooster is definitely not one of his biggest fans, but his girlfriend’s wandering eyes on the younger pilot wasn’t Jake’s fault in the slightest. But since he can’t force himself to be angry with Tanner, he settled for directing his anger towards Hangman and God, did that make his blood boil.

He had already brought it up to her numerous times before; telling her that he wasn’t trying to be a dick or prove that he was an Alpha male. Just that the idea that she always seemed more intrigued in what Jake had to say or was doing whenever she comes around bothers him like no other. Of course, that started a screaming match with her face as red as a tomato and his breathing resembling that of a woman experiencing contractions, but he had thought they worked it out.

Well, shit, the make-up sex they had after was enough of an agreement, he had thought, but obviously not because it was happened again and this time, it was enough to make Bradley lose it entirely.

Bradley knew that their relationship was probably coming to a close soon. He had a sixth sense for these kinds of things and he didn’t know if his intuition was really strong or if he just had a propensity to worry himself to death, but he felt like he could always tell when people’s feelings about him had shifted.

Well that, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Tanner was losing interest. She didn’t remember the small things he had told her in passing like she used to and she never divulged much into her daily life with him over the phone anymore. She always sounded tired. Bored, even, and he couldn’t tell if she was bored of the conversation or bored of him.

He chose to ignore it. He chose to ignore the sounds of unfamiliar voices in the back of their phone calls. He chose to ignore the fake interest she had while giving him the little reactions people usually have when you’re talking to them. He had caught her a few times laughing at morbid things he would say, which proved his theory that she was hearing him but never really listening. He chose to ignore the fact that she never told him she missed him anymore or that all the letters she would send would be signed with her name neatly at the bottom.

She clearly had surpassed the need to declare her love for him with a comma following her signature on a piece of stationery paper.

Bradley chose to ignore all of this because living in denial is always better than having the burden of proof thrown in your face for you to forcefully accept it.

So as a last-ditch effort to mend the relationship before biting the bullet and calling it quits with her, he invited her to the base to visit him. He made a deal with himself; if it went well, he would leave it alone but if she seemed like she’d rather be strangled with barbed wire than be there with him, he would let her go.

When Tanner arrived, it was all butterflies and rainbows. She engulfed him in a hug and kissed his face like crazy. He didn’t remember her being such a fan of lipgloss when he had seen her two months prior, but he figures a lot can change about someone when you very rarely see them. So when she laid sticky cherry flavored kisses on his cheeks and neck, he didn’t question her on it and relished in the fact that she was there with him and that maybe, quite possibly, she was still in love and that this was it for him.

She’s eager to hold his hand and to listen to his stories about whatever bullshit he has going on at the moment. She even gives him a rundown of her current friend group at college and what drama is brewing between whichever group of people and how she found out about it and what she intends to do to prevent things from getting so insanely messy.

She’s basically glued to his hip the entire weekend. Her hand is always twisting their fingers together and the band of her purity ring (which has definitely been rendered useless since she’s been dating Bradley) rubs against the junction between Bradley’s thumb and pointer finger and fits like a cog in a wheel; as if it had always belonged there. She smiles sweetly at him, and he has her full attention whenever he speaks or walks into a room.

When Tanner asks to use the bathroom and insists that she can find it herself without his help, Bradley doesn't think anything of it. She’s a big girl and as much as he wanted to go with her so he could soak up every second of the limited time they had together, he had to be laissez-faire. He couldn’t control her and he knew that lurking around every corner would make her feel like a child.

So Bradley settled on passing the time by sitting down and relaxing. He leaned forward slightly, his elbows rested on his knees and his legs were spread enough to be proportionate with his torso. He tapped his feet, drummed his fingers on his legs, and fiddled with his watch. He knew that she was a slow walker with zero sense of urgency to her. There were some exceptions to that; those only being if she was running late for class and she had an exam that specific period or if she was horny beyond belief and was begging him to “fuck the shit” out of her on a shitty ass college dorm mattress.

It didn’t seem weird that fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no sign of her. As a means to prevent himself from worrying to death or pacing around the base like a fucking lunatic, Bradley decided to busy his mind by going over his ever-growing “to-do” list that he kept in the back of his head.

Despite all the mundane tasks and intrusive and borderline obnoxious thoughts he had going a mile a minute in his brain, Bradley was surprisingly an organized thinker when it came to remembering all the things that he had to do. He carefully sifted through his responsibilities and assigned them blocks of time and where they would fit in his day before he checked his watch again and realized that an entire forty minutes had passed since he had last seen his girlfriend.

Something was off, and the familiar impending pit of doom that often plagued his stomach made a reappearance as he sped walked up and down the hallways of the base.

She’s fine, right? The base is huge and she’s terrible with directions so she may have just gotten lost, right? And figured that he would come looking for her, right? She’s fine. She had to be.

And when Bradley rounded a corner and was met with a supply closet at a dead end, he paused at a loud thump that followed a high-pitched moan.

“Oh God!” he heard a breathy squeak from a female voice, “Harder, daddy. Please, I’ve been so good!”

The pit in Rooster’s stomach turned into a ball of fire. He recognized that wheezy gasp anywhere. Hell, he had heard it two nights ago when he had her face down in the backseat of her 2002 Ford Focus.

He should be the only person eliciting those kinds of sounds from her. He had a death wish for whoever was on the other side of that metal door, because one thing about Bradley Bradshaw was that you never messed with anything that was his.

Rooster kicked open the door with his fists clenched to his side. He knew his ears were bright red and he felt himself starting to sweat bullets through his uniform shirt. The anger was hot as hell, and if he was in a better mood, he would make the joke that hell was right in front of him.

Her blouse was unbuttoned and it's been shifted over to one side of her chest, her nipple poking out through the gaped hole the button was supposed to secure. Her bra had long been taken off of her and the denim shorts she had worn to the base are hanging off of a random filing cabinet that was stored in there; showing that they were taken off in a frenzy.

And low and behold, the man of his disdain (even more so now than ever before) was in front of her, hoisting her up around his waist and fucking into her relentlessly. His uniform top was unbuttoned and his slacks were limp around his hips.

The sudden kick of the door opening did little to interrupt them, but Jake noticed Bradley standing in front of them; a damn near homicidal gleam in his eye and his entire body flushed pink with red hot anger. And like the asshole that Hangman is, he sent him a smirk and a wink before leaning forward to suck a hickey behind the redhead's ear.

“You son of a bitch!” Bradley screeched, “I’ll fucking kill you!”

He barreled his way into the small and rather dingy supply closet. Bradley grabbed Jake by the collar of his shirt and pushed him into the wall. Jake sputtered a cough; the wind knocked completely out of him.

His girlfriend (or soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, really) shrieked and gawked her eyes in horror at the scene taking place in front of her. Bradley wasn’t supposed to find them, and he wasn’t supposed to know that the reason for their break up was because she was unfaithfully faithfully fucking another man.

Tanner buttoned her blouse as fast as she could and pushed her denim shorts up her legs speedily. She had been embarrassed and ashamed before, but this was a whole new level. Not only had she been caught red-handed, but caught doing something dirty and quite possibly something illegal.

Hangman had finally caught his breath. His blue eyes gazed up at Rooster with a gleam of mischief. He knew that there was no way for him to charm himself out of this one, and if he was gonna get his ass beat, the least he could do was have some fun with it.

Jake sits up, tightening his belt his head, a smirk still on his face as he pulls up his pants and tightens his belt. “Oh look, it’s Chicken,” he scoffs, “I mean Rooster. How are you, man?”

Bradley seethed with rage. His fist went straight to Jake’s eye, the impact making the blond pilot stumble back a bit. Jake had to admit, Bradley was one strong mother fucker and his eye swelling shut definitely proved his realization right.

Bradley paused, trying to calm his breathing a bit before speaking. He knew that if he didn’t get himself under control, he may actually fucking murder Jake Seresin and although that wouldn’t be half bad, he worked too goddamn hard to get kicked out of the Navy and face criminal charges on the base.

His ears were still glowing red and his breathing even heavier than before. Tanner stood in the doorway of the supply closet in shock and utter panic.

“Ooh, you’re lucky you didn’t get my good side, Bradshaw,” Jake taunted, “But I’m sure Tan over there thinks every side is my good side. Don’t ya, baby?”

And oh shit, Jacob Michael Seresin did have a fucking death wish and in that moment, it was evident that he really didn’t give a fuck what Bradley could do to him. Any opportunity to get underneath Bradshaw’s skin was a golden one, and Jake just couldn’t bring himself to not be an asshole.

And oh, how Bradley fucking hated that. He grabbed the blond pilot by the collar and yanks him up to stand. He was too angry to speak. Shit, his brain was so fried from all the heat his body was exuding that he couldn’t even begin to think of words to put into sentences that would even make any fucking sense.

“Bradley, stop! Let him go!” Tanner yelled, and all of his senses in his body are turned off except for his tunnel vision sight and his sense of touch. That was made unmistakably apparent as each blow delivered to Hangman’s face and torso kept coming and coming and coming.

Jake’s face was black and blue and he’s sure he has baseball sized bruises all up and down his upper body, but he didn’t care. He finally had another missile to add to his arsenal of things to fuck with Bradley’s head. The result of that alone outweighed the healing time he would need.

Eventually, a commander walks by and pulls Rooster off of Hangman, and that was how he and Jake and Tanner all found themselves outside of Admiral Gadson’s office to tell their accounts of why Tanner’s bra was in the hallway and why Bradley’s face was beet red and why Jake’s right eye was swollen beyond belief.

Rooster sat straight up and looked ahead, choosing to ignore the sounds of Tanner and Jake’s hushed conversation beside him.

So that’s how Rooster found himself on garbage duty (”indefinitely”, Admiral Gadson had said, but he liked the kid and felt bad for him, so really, he said it meaning two weeks) and with no girlfriend.

And yeah, Bradley Bradshaw definitely had a temper and was definitely naive. And as he’s picking up orange peels and scrubbing dried piss off of toilet bowls, he made note of two things: One, he desperately needed to keep his temper in check and two, he would never make the same mistake to trust a young girl like that ever again.

Man, does it fucking suck being so fucking old.

ii.

(Y/N)’s body is on fire.

She’s not particularly hot, per se, but she most certainly is flustered. And for once, the source of her panic isn’t from a deadline or an application or some bill she had to have transferred over from her college apartment to the new one she would be living in come fall semester for law school.

No, (Y/N) is on fire because of the sandy-haired pilot beneath her right now.

Bradley Bradshaw’s old Bronco was a lot roomier than she ever anticipated it being, but then again, she wasn’t that great with dimensions (Damn you, astigmatisms.) and she wasn’t big on cars or motorcycles or boats or planes or anything that supplied humans with transportation, really.

She had just been responsible for closing the Hard Deck by herself again and like clockwork, the handsome aviator wandered his way inside to tell her about how he had misplaced his sunglasses and despite the fact that they were closed, he just had to find them tonight.

(Y/N) knew it was a ploy for him to get to talk to her alone. The mischievous glint in his eye when the words came out of his mouth told her so and besides, his beloved aviator shades were practically glued to his face. So how the hell did he manage to lose them?

“Crazy how they’re basically glued to your damn head and you managed to lose them,” (Y/N) teases, rounding out from behind the bar to help Bradley search for the glasses, ”How the hell are you a pilot? Get lost often, too?”

Rooster shakes his head, his gaze falling on the floor and his hands finding the sanctuary of his front pockets. The smile on his face gives his true intentions away, but he’s unaware that (Y/N) notices this.

“Directions are different than placement,” he jokes, “I do happen to be smarter than a fifth-grader, you know.”

The joke sits in the air for a few seconds before (Y/N) realizes that she has a stupid grin on her face and that damn, he looks really good in the lighting of Hard Deck.

“Obviously not because you can’t do simple math,” she chides, “I’m twenty-one. Not ten, jackass.”

“Hmm,” he leans on the side of the bar top with a smug look on his face, “Couldn’t tell. That baby face of yours says otherwise. I think it’s the dimples.”

She scoffs and puts her hand to her chest. “Jesus, Bradshaw. Weren’t you just trying to take me out on a date last week? Now I’m in fifth grade?” she starts looking around the bar floor for his sunglasses, “Seems pretty fucked up for a Navy man, don’t you think?”

“Pretty fucked up that you know I’m in the Navy and have a rank but refuse to use it when you address me,” Rooster quips. He starts to look on the floor of the booths near the area (Y/N) is searching.

(Y/N) stands up straight and crosses her arms. She takes a deep breath before approaching Bradley, putting a hand on his chest and giving him her doe eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Lieutenant Bradshaw,” she adds extra thirst to her tone, ” How could I ever can I make it up to you? I’m just so young that I don’t know any better.”

Bradley grins and takes (Y/N)’s hand on his chest in his and entangles their fingers. He looks down at their conjoined hands, his pointer finger running across her newly obtained class ring.

His tongue comes out to lick at his bottom lip before his gaze shifts from their hands to (Y/N)’s face.

“I can think of a few things.”

He reaches up to grab the side of her face and pulls her in for a kiss. It’s soft, sweet even. It reminds her of how grooms kiss their brides during their wedding ceremonies. His lips are soft and plush, she thinks, and that was the best goddamn kiss she’s ever had in her entire life.

(Y/N) detaches their lips and reaches up, taking both of her arms and looping them around Bradley’s neck. His hands move to her waist and he leans down to kiss her once more. This time he deepens it. The kisses are still soft and on target, never leaving her lips once at all. He’s not messy or miscalculated. It’s almost eerie, how his kisses are deep and starting to get rough but yet he was still thoughtful and delicate with her.

His tongue swipes against (Y/N)’s top lip, and she opens her mouth to let it enter. (Y/N)’s not super experienced. She’s only ever kissed her college ex-boyfriend like this and they had broken up the summer going into her Junior year so it’s safe to say that it’s been a while.

The sparkle in both of their eyes says the same thing, and she’s taking his hand in hers and leading him out of the front door of Hard Deck. He hugs her from behind as she struggles to lock the door, the kisses he’s planting on her neck making her giggle and lose focus.

“Stop it, Bradshaw,” she says between laughs, ‘Penny’ll kill me if this door doesn’t get locked which means you can’t keep coming back to get me alone because I won’t be allowed to close by myself again.”

Rooster giggles into her neck, his chuckle and the hairs from his mustache tickling her neck.

“I bet I could sweet talk her,” he says, landing another kiss on the dip of skin just behind her earlobe, “She doesn’t call me sweet pea, for nothin’.”

(Y/N) turns around and kisses him on the lips. “You stole my nickname, you fucker, so matter of fact, maybe I won’t lock the door because you can’t be trusted anymore.”

Rooster brings her face closer to his again. His teeth tug on her bottom lip, not hard enough to draw blood but hard enough to make her wince.

“She was my aunt before she was yours,” he says, lips grazing over hers, “Remember to respect your elders, chick.”

“Well if you’re going off of that guise, I’m not sure how Penny would feel watching us make out in front of the door when she watches the cameras back tomorrow morning.”

(Y/N)’s statement makes Rooster back up and embarrassment washes over his face. (Y/N) had only ever seen the pilot with a smirk on his face; confidence and glee the primary emotions energizing his expression. To see him embarrassed was a sight for sore eyes.

“Let’s move our transaction to my car, hmm?” he asks, hands finding her hips. (Y/N) nods eagerly and Bradley takes her to the beloved 1977 baby blue Ford Bronco that he had inherited from his father when he had turned sixteen many moons ago.

He opens the passenger door for her before walking to the driver’s side. (Y/N) climbs in and shuts it, and the soft sound of metal falling on the floor of the car can be heard. She cranes her neck and moves her knees to the side to retrieve whatever had fallen from the force of the door closing.

And fuck, Bradley Bradshaw was either blind or a liar because low and behold, his “lost” sunglasses are in her hand.

He shuts the door to his side of the vehicle and a small smile is on his face. He doesn’t turn to face her just yet. He knows that she’s found them and if he’s starting to figure her out as well as he thinks he is, he knows that her voice will be pipping up from the right side of his car in three, two, one-

“You know, if you wanted to make out with me, Bradshaw you could’ve just asked,” she says, placing the aviators in his cupholder, “I’m not a floozy, but I wouldn’t have said no to you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he asks, turning to face her head-on, “And I don’t think you’re a floozy, baby. If so, only for me, right?”

He gives her a smile and the inky blue of the California night sky paints a mural for her eyes. She never thought she would be into pilots, let alone older men, but yet, here she is in the passenger seat of a Ford Bronco, trying to debate if she should leave him hanging and only make out with him, or go all the way.

He’s so damn fit and such a good kisser. The way he looks at her makes her mouth water and the way he teases her makes her so fucking wet. The ball is in her court and the hard part isn’t playing, but deciding when to start.

(Y/N) leans over to kiss him again and this time, she grabs his face with both hands. There’s a warmth in the pit of her stomach and a hunger in her eyes. Bradley reclines his seat with one hand and guides her over to straddle his lap with the other.

He thought he was way past the need for messy sex in the driver’s seat of his car, but you can never set expectations without some minor setback now, can you?

(Y/N) is so goddamn horny and ready for him. She can’t remember being this desperate for anyone, really, and of course, she’s had sex before but she never remembers it being exceptionally good. It was just okay enough to get by and she always figured that she had enough time to have all the mind-blowing sex in the world the older she got. She was only twenty-one now, for fucks sake.

Bradley’s as hard as a fucking rock and he doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline pumping through his veins at fucking in the parking lot of such a popular place or if it’s exciting because he has a knockout sitting in his lap, her clothed cunt (that he knows has to be absolutely soaked for him) grinding like hell over his growing erection.

He’s not been this horny since high school and if he was in a clearer state of mind (and maybe a better man too, he thinks) he would’ve opted to have taken her to dinner and then back to his place. At least there he had a bed and a couch they could fuck like rabbits on. Both pieces of furniture are government property technically, but then again, so is he until his service duty is up, so what even is the big deal?

“Fuck, chick,” he breathes, grabbing her hips to push her down on his hardened clothed cock even more, “You’re such a good kisser.”

She giggles into his mouth and fuck, he’s a goner.

‘Yeah?” she asks, grinding herself even more onto his erection. She lets out a small moan (one that she thought Bradley couldn’t hear but his slight chuckle of amusement lets her know that she’s been caught) as the layers separating her bare pussy from his denim-clad package catches on her clit just right.

“Yeah, baby. You’re a fucking knockout.”

This makes her smile even more. Their kisses are sloppy now, the constant grinding crafting a veil of ecstasy around them both.

“(Y/N)?” he asks. His fingers unbutton her shorts and starts to slide them down her legs.

“Yeah?” she answers. Her cut-offs are completely off her legs and on the floor near Bradley’s feet. The lilac-colored panties she had on were completely soaked where her weepy hole sat.

If it was under any other circumstance or with any other person, she would find herself flushing pink and attempting to hide her face in her hands. But her arousal and also the fact that she feels so secure in what Bradley is doing with her prevents that.

“Are you awake?” he asks.

She doesn’t answer him, just continues to move her hips in circles in his lap. Her head is thrown back and the pressure and slight burn his jeans are providing her hardened clit feels like a slice of heaven.

“Sweet pea? Are you awake?” he asks again, but this time, his voice doesn’t sound like his.

It’s too high pitched; too womanly.

“What the fuck?” she questions and then she hears it again, and the view of her surroundings starts to blur and everything starts to fade.

She’s completely pantless standing in a sea of black and then she hears it again.

“(Y/N )? I’m headed out. Text me if you need anything!” and she recognizes it as her godmother’s voice. And then it clicks, and holy hell, the idea of Penny finding her like this terrifies her.

(Y/N) shoots up in her bed, the sleep shirt she had worn completely soaked through with sweat.

“Jesus Christ,” she sighs to herself, palms rubbing at her eyes to help process what the actual fuck just happened.

And as she stands in the shower with the cold water running and the sunlight shining through the stained glass window Penny had in her guest bathroom, she feels ashamed.

She just had a wet dream about Bradley Bradshaw like a fucking teenager and shit, maybe he was right. She was too young for him to take her out.

iii.

Bradley was always surprisingly nervous.

As a pilot, he was a total adrenaline junkie and small things that make his heart race satiate him enough to get through the day. He was naturally inclined to panic but every time his stomach dropped or he felt like his heart would stop from how hard the muscle was pumping, it filled him with a sense of euphoria.

Pilots can’t be nervous wrecks. Especially naval pilots, and that was a lesson he had learned rather early. He picked this up through recounts of his Uncle Mav and Uncle Ice’s stories when they would be in charge of watching him while his mom worked the night shift. The mission impossible-like stories replaced his bedtime stories when his mom wasn’t home and Bradley never had the heart to tell her, but he would rather listen to Maverick and Iceman before he ever heard her rendition of “Goodnight, Moon” ever again.

But one thing was sure and that one thing stuck with him forever. Pilots can’t be nervous. Getting nervous would get you killed; whether that be shot down, captured, or ejected from your aircraft was up to the pilot and the cockpit was already small enough as is. There is absolutely no room for such a large feeling like nervousness.

So his entire life up to this point at thirty-five years old, he always found a way to dodge his nervousness. Is it healthy? Not really. Does it help? Well, not really either but he doesn’t really have much of a choice now.

Wanting to ask a girl he liked out on a date? Oh, the fast beating of his heart when he approached her wasn’t nerves, it was just because he liked her so much. She thought that him saying his heart “Beats louder for you because it wants you to hear how much you mean to me,” was endearing and Bradley knew he was lying and he was literally about to shit himself from the anxiety looming in his chest.

He was the starting pitcher for the boy’s high school state game? He wasn’t nervous, just excited, he would say even though the blown look of his pupils and the gnarly sweat stains near his armpits told everyone else otherwise.

He was getting ready for his promotion to Junior Lieutenant and had to be absolutely perfect and could not afford to fuck up under any circumstances? Bradley wasn’t nervous. He was just so undeniably ready to work his way up the ranks. But really, his palms were so goddamn sweaty he’s sure that he grossed out two Captains and one Admiral when he went to shake their hands.

And there are so many other instances that he could name and correct his nervousness for another feeling, perhaps.

Unbeknownst to him, Rooster Bradshaw never really knew that thinking about his feelings this way was unhealthy and was probably (well definitely, really) preventing him from being a fully emotionally intelligent man the way his mother would have liked him to be.

So no, Bradley Bradshaw didn’t get nervous per se but when the dark-haired pilot walks into a room filled with twelve of the best naval fighter pilots in the nation, he’s alarmed. Bradley is competitive, no doubt about that, but at the end of the day he can’t help but remain the team player his parents had raised him to be.

His “no man left behind” mentality had gotten him caught up numerous times before and his need to ensure that everything was fair made him known to be a stickler.

But is he nervous? Hell no. Just slightly worried; scared, even because when the nation’s best is sitting in a squad room with their flight suits on and no information about what was going on, whatever was to come had to be huge; even bigger than all their egos totaled together.

Hangman makes some shitty joke about Bob’s glasses; something along the lines of “four eyes” and how the Navy doesn’t need satellite cameras to spy on people. They could just look through Bob’s glasses and see all that they need to see.

It earns a few chuckles from the other pilots sitting around and even if Rooster was itching to talk or do something to occupy his mind, he absolutely refused to acknowledge Jake Seresin more than what was necessary.

Phoenix walks to her seat and “trips” on Hangman’s chair, tugging the leg back not enough to pull him out from under completely, but enough to startle him and make him choke on the words he was fixing to leave his mouth.

Everyone chuckles a bit before they’re made aware of Admirals Simpson and Bates coming to speak to them. Bradley straightens up in his seat. He was always so painfully self-aware and he didn’t need something else to pick apart about the interactions he had had today while he lays in bed at night.

They’re given the run down of why they’re all there which, in Rooster’s mind, is always the same.

They get told how talented they are and how well they perform in their roles. It’s always one big confidence boost before getting pushed off the cliff to the reality of the situation. Because they’re so good they’re going to be shipped off to play mission impossible, and because it’s mission impossible, there’s an even larger chance that they won’t make it back alive.

Rooster’s had at least twelve of these talks in the last ten years he’s been flying and before, the thought of being up in the air, unaware if clouds and a blue sky were the last things he would ever see scared him.

But then he kept making it back and he kept getting “invited” (more like ordered) to carry out more prestigious and dangerous missions. So no, Rooster isn’t nervous at all. There’s nothing new to the expectations he and his fellow pilots are under. The word “curveball” ceases to exist in the Navy’s vocabulary, anyway.

And as much as he tries to be respectful and attentive, his mind starts to wander and the evasive thoughts that he usually has take precedence over what’s currently unfolding in front of him.

He looks the Admirals in the eye, but little did they know that his mind was far from the pupils of the respected Navy men in front of him.

It’s not until he hears the word that he freezes. His heart stops. His blood runs cold. His ears start to glow red and he has to flex his fingers on both hands repeatedly to keep it together. He’s not felt like this since high school when he had to give his Valedictorian speech.

“Maverick.”

He didn’t know that the word alone would make his blood run cold, but it does.

It’s then when he realizes that fuck, he should’ve allowed himself to feel nervous every once in a while because he’s not even sure what feeling he’s feeling right now is even called.

He’s scared. He’s angry. He’s hurt. He’s saddened. He’s resentful, and he guesses that all of this can be added up and made to equal out to simply being nervous.

Bradley figures that Maverick feels the same way too because it’s obvious that his gaze refuses to catch his the entire time he’s speaking. He hadn’t seen his Uncle Mav in years, and he certainly wasn’t planning on the first time he saw him being today of all days.

It’s hard to believe that he was his stand in dad for so much of his life. He was the guy that attended his Kindergarten graduation. The guy who taught him how to shave his face and how to talk to girls. He was the guy who came to as many baseball games that he was able to fit into his busy military schedule and the guy who he practiced his Valedictorian speech in front of for weeks. He was the same guy who held him when his mother finally passed away and the same guy who let him sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor when he had nightmares after her death.

Maverick encapsulates what Bradley’s childhood was and even though he can’t help it and wants to hate him, he can’t stop himself from looking at his godfather with child-like wonder.

But then Bradley shuts that down as soon as it enters his mind.

Fuck that.

He was Bradley then. He’s Rooster now, and Maverick had his chance and blew it.

Pilots don’t get nervous because it can get you killed. But what they don’t clarify is that you can be killed physically or emotionally and Bradley is too damn prideful to figure out which one they really meant.

iv.

It’s been two days since (Y/N) found herself closing the Hard Deck by herself with the unwarranted help of Bradley Bradshaw.

It’s been forty-eight hours since he flirted with her and offered to take her out on a date. It’s been two-thousand eight-hundred and eighty minutes since he smiled at her and asked her how old she was. And it’s been one-hundred seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds since he laughed at her and told her that she was too young.

And although two days isn’t a long time (unless you’re five years old and your perception of one minute is a literal fucking second) it feels like a lifetime and God, the counting and the flashbacks and the remembering has been eating her alive; even more so than her being bored.

The embarrassment of her recent wet dream is all consuming too, but she knows she’s too shy to ever utter that admission out loud. It’s one less thing she has to worry about, but five new insecurities and emotions she has to face now.

(Y/N)’s kept her eye out for Bradley the entire night.

She had seen the familiar gang of Navy pilots come in. Hangman had come in and sat with her at the bar for a little bit, telling her about his day and throwing in some cheap flirtatious remarks here and there. She has half the mind to ask him where his friend is, but from the interactions between the two she had clocked from the corner of her eye two days prior, she knows better than to do so.

Jake would probably laugh in her face and accuse her of having some school girl crush on Bradley. The blond was relentless with his teasing, and if he had come across a weak spot, he would use it until the river of discomfort it caused the other person ran dry.

“Don’t look so sad, pretty girl. I’m here now,” he had said, and all (Y/N) could offer him was a free beer and a soft smile.

But that was two hours ago and the fleet of Navy pilots had long since left Hard Deck. Jake had mentioned something about early training tomorrow morning and how he had to leave so it left no surprise that once he headed out, everyone else who was in Miramar for the same mission followed.

(Y/N) is slightly relieved that she didn’t have to face Bradley tonight. She knows that she has a tendency to ramble when she gets extremely nervous and the fact that she dreamt about dry humping him in the driver’s seat of his car definitely adds fuel to the fire of embarrassment that burns deep in the pit of her stomach.

It’s a Monday night and the bar closes at midnight rather than its usual 1 AM. Aunt Penny had let (Y/N) close the bar by herself for the past two nights so when she had slipped out with some excuse about Amelia (which (Y/N) knows is bullshit and that her godmother was really going to visit Maverick, but nevertheless she doesn’t call her out on it) it was decided that (Y/N) was responsible and ready enough to close on her own.

Even though the bar has been closed since midnight, (Y/N) can’t help but take her time shutting down for the night with hopes that the brunette pilot would show face before she turned the lights off and locked the door.

The jukebox had been unplugged and the glasses had been washed and set out to dry. The bar top had been scrubbed clean and all the napkin dispensers were full. (Y/N) even went the extra mile and made sure all the bathrooms had soap and paper towel because she was that desperate for stupid Bradley Bradshaw to come in and kiss her breathless.

She doesn’t think of herself to be a hopeless romantic, but she does have a tendency to hope for the best and sometimes the best isn’t realistic in the slightest. She would probably never see him again and he probably was turned off by how young she was. He was probably ready to settle down soon and get married and be a homeowner and have kids and the thought of something so permanent made (Y/N) a little nauseous.

Sure, she wanted to be a wife and a mom and a homeowner but that’s some day and not any day soon. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to live by herself with no roommates yet, so how could she possibly be ready for marriage or kids?

(Y/N) then realizes that she’s being extremely theoretical and that she should just turn her brain off and stop being delusional. Bradley Bradshaw was not walking through those doors tonight and Bradley Bradshaw was definitely not thinking about her the same way she was thinking about him.

So as she scrubs the bar top counter one last time before she gets ready to leave, she hears the bell above the front door go off. She has half the mind to look up and to yell out that they’re closed, but she stays quiet. She figures the person who walked in would take the hint and see the bar basically abandoned and would turn on their heel and walk right back out.

But when (Y/N) doesn’t hear the bell ding again signaling that the person had left, she puts the rag down and looks up.

And holy shit, it’s Bradley standing right in front of her with his arms outstretched and leaning on the bar.

He’s wearing a gray t-shirt with “NAVY” written in the middle and black running shorts. He has on Birkenstocks and his sunglasses are pushed up to rest on the top of his head.

“Penny here?” he asks, “It’s kinda urgent.” His eyes look around, taking in the surroundings of the bar and fuck, he may be too late. Matter of fact, he knows that he’s too late.

(Y/N) shakes her head. “We close at midnight during the week and it’s,” she looks at her watch, “Nearing one-thirty. You missed her by like two hours, Bradley. Sorry.”

Bradley shakes his head and locks eyes with her. His eyes are filed with so much emotion and she can almost see his subconscious drowning in whatever sorrows he was battling with internally. He looks hurt, scared even. It was totally opposite the fire and childish twinkle they held two days prior as he mindlessly flirted with her when searching for his wallet.

(Y/N) knows something had happened but she figures that it’s not her right to pry. She’s quite a private person herself and knows how annoying it is when people try and get into her head.

Some things just aren’t for other people to know.

“Hey, why don’t we go for a walk or something as soon as I close this place up?” she offers.

She only does because she knows that he needs someone to talk to and something to take his mind off of whatever was troubling him, but she also does it selfishly; knowing that this was also an opportunity for her to get him alone and actually get to know who Bradley Bradshaw is.

He offers her a soft smile. “Yeah. Yeah,” he says, wiping the corners of his mouth with his pointer finger and thumb, “I would like that. A lot.”

(Y/N) offers a grin and a light laugh before exiting the bar and turning off the lights. He opens the door for her and she locks it, putting the keys in her car before they head out to the beach near the strip of buildings where the Hard Deck is located.

The inky blue sky takes (Y/N) back to her rather embarrassing but hot dream about the Lieutenant and she feels her cheeks getting pink. She thanks God that they’re outside and that it’s dark and that he’s not really looking at her because her sudden flush would be hard to explain.

While they walk down the beach they talk about any and everything.

She tells him how she choked on a Lifesaver once in first grade and cried so hard that she threw it up. He tells her about how he sliced the back of his ear open in third grade from climbing on top of his kitchen counter and banging his head on the door to his mom’s spice cabinet. She talks about how she had totaled her first car when she was sixteen because she was riding an old lady’s ass and didn’t have enough time to brake before a turn. He tells her about the time he concussed himself from hitting his head on the glass of his aircraft because he wasn’t strapped in tight enough.

The silences in between stories is comfortable and his voice soothes her. Her heart isn’t beating out of her chest like she thought it would be doing. She’s not anxious or panicked. She’s relaxed and she realizes then that that’s what Bradley Bradshaw’s aura does to her.

They walk back to the parking lot of Hard Deck and he walks her back to her car.

He opens her car door for her and she teasingly gasps, “Oh, what a gentleman, Bradshaw.”

Bradley gives her a grin, “Can say my momma raised me right. Nothing but the best for you, chick.”

Chick.

It makes her tingly inside that he calls her that. It’s her nickname for him and although it’s kind of funky, it’s sweet, in a way. Well, she relishes in the fact that Penny calls her sweet pea still so chick can’t be so bad in comparison to that. Besides, what else did she expect from a guy who goes by “Rooster” casually?

“Told you I wasn’t cheap, Bradley. None of this should be a surprise to you.” She smiles at him and he steps closer to her.

He looks down into her eyes and his hands go up to cup the side of her face and for a second, (Y/N)’s heart stops. Is this really happening, or is this some plot to another one of her embarrassing wet dreams again?

Bradley wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her so fucking bad but it’s almost like there’s some invisible force preventing him from moving. He knows that that’s not true and that the force is himself because he tends to be his own worst enemy in situations like this.

So instead he settles for an affectionate squeeze to the right side of her face with his palm. “I wish you weren’t so young.”

And with that, he walks to his car and shuts the door, starting his car and sitting in it until (Y/N) decides to pull out of the Hard Deck parking lot.

He wishes she wasn’t so young and that he wasn’t so old as he drives back to his government supplied housing and little does he know is that (Y/N) lays in bed with a frown on her face thinking the opposite.