The pieces of my puzzle.

Fifteen.

A/n: this chapter is dedicated to a dear friend that I've known for a very long time. Love you girl!! Thanks for the chapter idea.❤️❤️

(Azara's POV)

I was exiting my office and heading to my jeep, when I heard someone call my name.

The Pilots had succeeded in mastering the training simulation so now we were just keeping them fit and ready for the mission which was in five days away.

I turned around to see Rooster running up to me. "Hey Az." He said stopping in front of me. He had a bright grin on his face and he seemed excited but nervous at the same time.

"Hi Brads." I smiled back at him. I began walking to my car and he followed, insisting on carrying my bag and papers for me.

"I'm glad I caught up to you. I was meaning to ask you something." He said nervously, placing my papers in the backseat of my car.

"And what might that be, Bradderz?" I smirked, placing my bag in the car, and turning to face him.

He rolled his eyes playfully at the new nickname before continuing. "You know how we only have training tomorrow morning and then we have the rest of the day off?" He questioned.

I smiled. "Yeah I know, I was the one who gave you that day off." I said snarkily.

"Az, c'mon." He whined, placing his hands on my shoulders and shaking them playfully.

I chuckled. "Ok ok. I'm listening." I said, giving him my full attention. He smiled at me and took a breath before speaking.

"Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow evening?" He asked, smiling down at me expectantly.

"Like just the two of us or-" I began asking but he cut me off.

"Yeah just the two of us, I wanna take you somewhere." He was practically bouncing up and down with excitement but kept it contained incase I rejected him.

"Like a date?" I questioned softly, barely above a whisper.

I held my breath, waiting for a response.
I felt like I wasn't ready for his answer.
If he said that it was a date, what would that mean for us? What did he expect from me?

My mind instantly began to overthink, running all the possible worst-case- scenarios through my head.

That's one of my biggest problems, I always overthink everything. Doesn't matter if it's big or small I always overthink it.

Rooster, noticing that I was going to overthink every little detail, squeezing my shoulder gently.

When I looked up at him, he had a big smile on his face. "It can be whatever you want it to be." He replied, his brown eyes twinkling with hope.

And when I looked into those twinkling eyes of his, I thought why the heck not.

I did still have feelings for him, but wasn't ready to move too fast. I would never know what could happen if I didn't try.

And with the mission coming up I didn't have allot of time. There was still a voice in the back of my mind that told me to get out of this situation before he left me again but I pushed it away and let the next sentence slip past my lips.

"Yes, Bradly I will go out to dinner with you." His smile grew bigger and brighter as he pulled me into a quick hug.

"Ok great. What time suits you?" He asked tilting his head slightly to the side.

I thought for a moment before looking back up to him. "Does 5:30 work for you?" He nodded in response.

"Perfect, I'll see you then. I'll text you the details later." He answered, giving me a wink before walking towards his Bronco.

I leaned against my car and closed my eyes, sighing. "Well, there's no turning back now." I mumbled to myself.

There was no need to worry. Everything would be fine, right?

***

The next morning I was teaching the pilots some more martial arts. I was sweaty and out of breath. I had already gone up against Payback and Fanboy, who weren't too bad, but still needed to work on some movements.

Coyote, who was not the best at it, but hopefully after a few more training sessions would get better at it.

Hangman, who was really strong and liked to use brute force instead of practiced movements.

Bob, who was way too afraid of hurting me to be able to fight properly.

And Phoenix, who was probably the best out of the group, but I still won.

Next I was going up against Rooster.
I was waiting for him to come back from getting changed.

I sat down om a bench and took a big gulp of my water, trying to get my breath back.

I almost choked on my water when I saw Rooster entering the room. He had a sleeveless, black tank top on that showed off his muscled arms and shoulders.

"You ready?" I asked him as we walked onto the training mat.

"Ready to kick your ass, for sure." I smirked, getting into my fighting stance. "Okay before we begin, please don't be like Hangman and only use brute force." I begged.

Rooster chuckled lightly as he also got into his fighting stance. "I'll try my best."

"Oh yeah and don't go easy on me, like at all. I'll be fine, show me what you've got." I stated, knowing he wanted to go easy on me just because he's a gentleman.

He threw a punch at me, but I blocked it easily. He continued that pattern for a while until I whispered. "C'mon Roost, let go." I smiled as he suddenly side-stepped and landed a punch in my shoulder.

A look of guilt flashed across his features, but he continued anyway. He landed a few blows but I blocked most of them.

I then decided to surprise him a bit by grabbing his wrist, crouching down and using his weight as momentum to throw him over my shoulder. He landed on his back with a thud.

He recovered quickly and got a few blows on me but I was too agile for him to knock down.

I finally decided to end this, since I was tired, and charged at Rooster, knocking him off balance, grabbing his arm, twisting it behind his back and knocking my shoulder into him, knocking both of us on the floor.
He was laying on his back and I was sitting over him, pressing my forearm against his throat.

(Rooster's POV)

She stood above me, her face centimeters from mine. We both were breathing heavily and were super sweaty, but were smiling nonetheless.

My brown eyes locked onto her green ones and it was as if we were in a trance, all I could focus on was her. Suddenly I could make out every little detail about her. The way her short brown hair fell in front of her face. The way her emerald eyes twinkled as they gazed into mine, her brows creased in concentration and her lips slightly pouted.

She was perfect, she was beautiful, she was Azara.

She suddenly smiled and patted my shoulder, getting off of me and standing. "Good job, you didn't do too bad." I smiled at her.

I watched as she gulped down her water and wiped her forehead with a towel. I forced myself to look away and grabbed my oen bottle.

What was wrong with me?

In reality it was simple.

Just one word.

Love.

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you're all still enjoying this book. I know I said I'll have the dinner in this chapter but it was too long so I'm splitting it in two. How are you guys doing? See ya next chapter!

~Mike. ❤️