I walk back onto the beach, feeling the sand in between my toes. I head towards the chaos with the volleyball and towels in hand. I throw Phoenix hers when she asks me, "Skylar, you in the next round?" I wave them off and make my way over to our instructor, ignoring the protests from my pilot friends. "Hey Mav!" He looks over to me, then looks at the ball in my hands. "Wanna see if you're still any good?" I ask, twirling the volleyball in my hand. He smiles, standing up to walk over to me. "You sure about this, Skylar?" He asks with a teasing smile. "Hell yeah. Let's see what you can do."
Before backing up, I throw my towel over his now empty chair. I back up about twelve feet before I place the ball in my left hand, spin it a few times for good luck. I take a few big steps and toss it high in the air. I jump and make contact with the ball, sending it hard at Maverick. His hands move together to make a pass form. His pass is high enough where I set the ball right back. Maverick jumps and spikes the ball down on my ready arms. I passed the ball back to him, a perfect pass for a set. He sets the ball to me. I jump and contact the ball , sending it to the left of Maverick. He tries to get there in time, but he just misses, causing him to stumble, but he recovers.
I serve the ball back to him again. The pattern continues for a while. Bump. Set. Spike. Until Maverick spikes a little too far to the left, I dive to try to hit it. I miss. "1 to 1," Maverick says. Knowing how long this could last, I ask, "Best 2 out of 3?" He nods. He smiles at me before he serves. He jumps up and next thing I know the ball is on my forearms, and I am passing it back to him. He sets it back to me and I spike it down at him. The pattern restarts immediately. Maverick passes to me, I set to Maverick, and he spikes the ball back to me. Bump. Set. Spike. We volley back and forth for a while, each of us trying something new to cause the other to miss the ball. We have both stumbled more times than we care to admit. Finally, Maverick misses the ball after I spike it down at him, hard.
"2 to 1," Maverick throws the ball to me. I serve, not a jump serve, just a normal serve. I serve down to Maverick who passes it to me, I run up and set to him with a perfect arch. Allowing him to spike it down at me. Just before Maverick hits it down at me, I see out of the corner of my eye, a football flying towards me. I turn and catch the football. Still holding it, I see the volleyball coming right at me. I'm too far away to pass it, so I stick out my foot. The volleyball hits my foot and flies back to Maverick.
Maverick is shocked and confused on what just happened that he was too late, the ball flies past him. I smile, throw the football to Bob before jumping up and down. Maverick walks over to me, "That last one was pure luck," he says. I laugh, "Aren't all your moves pure luck?" I ask, referring to his flying. He nods and laughs. Maverick and I high-five each other. "You're still pretty good, Mav." He looks at the other pilots, who are still playing football, "You've gotten better." I shrug my shoulders, "Haven't played in a while."
I look out over the water to see the sun starting to sink under the horizon. Next to me, Maverick tells everyone that we can head back and what time class is tomorrow. We all head back to our vehicle. I walk off the beach, watching the other pilots laughing in front of me. Or so I thought. I hear someone run up behind me, "So, you're all buddy-buddy with Maverick now?" A male voice asks me. I turn towards the voice, "I've always been close with Maverick. I just try not to be when you're around." Rooster looks at me. "What?" He shakes his head, "I don't know. I thought I knew you, but apparently I don't."
"You want to get to know me, fine." I reach into his back pocket and grab his keys to his jeep. "Hey!" I shrug him off and grab his hand, pulling him along. "Hey Phoenix!" She turns to look at me. "Will you drive Rooster's Jeep back to base?" She looks at me confused, "We're going for a drive." She nods, "Yah sure!" I throw her his keys and continue to drag his ass over to my truck. "Get in." He gets in, I back out of my parking spot and drive down the road.
...
I pull up outside the gates of my childhood home. I place my truck in park and I slide my hands around the steering wheel before asking, "What do you want to know?" I feel warm under his gaze on my side profile, "Everything."
"Okay." I nod towards the house behind the semi-open gates in front of us. "That's where I grew up." I see Rooster staring out the front windshield. I take a deep breath before continuing. "My full name is Savannah Maverick Kazansky. I was born April 27th, 1994. My parents are Sarah and Tom Kazansky. I have an older brother, Jackson, who is married to Lisa, and they have two beautiful little girls, Kristen and Emily." I pause for a moment, I can feel Rooster looking at me, "Skylar, I already know this..." I cut him off, "Shut up!" He gets quiet before nodding that he's ready to listen.
"I had an older sister, Lia." Rooster speaks up, "Had?" I nod, "She passed away from cancer - Leukemia to be exact. When I was 12." I feel tears threatening to fall, but I look up trying to keep them in. "Oh, Savannah." He says with a look of pity on his face. "Stop it. It happened a long time ago. I don't need your pity." I snapped at him. He looks shocked for a second, but then nods understanding. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm just so tired of pity, ya know?" Rooster nods. "It's just I got so much after Lia died... And after Bri." I feel a hand slide onto my knee and give it a gentle squeeze. I look down to see Rooster's hand. I follow his arm up to his eyes, which are already staring at me. "I get it. Everyone looks at you like you're broken or might break at any second." I nod.
"Tell me about you," I ask quietly. He smiles, "Okay, My name is Bradley Nick Bradshaw. I was born March 9th, 1982. My parents, Nick and Carole Bradshaw, are both dead. I don't have any siblings." He looks at me. "What was High school like for you?"
"I was a straight A student. I was on the volleyball and softball teams. You?"
"I played football. I was a B average student. Any hobbies?" Rooster asks. "Reading, volleyball, and playing pool." I pause, silently telling Rooster to go. "Playing piano and card games."
I nod before pausing to think of a question. "Volleyball," Rooster says suddenly. I look at him confused, "What?"
"Volleyball started the bond between you and Maverick," he says. "Kinda, my dad told me stories about how Maverick and him would play volleyball against each other when they were in Top Gun. After that, I knew I wanted to play. So Maverick and Dad taught me, and after I joined in middle school, Maverick and I started practicing together. We used to play every Sunday. Every once in a while, I could talk Dad into playing with us. He would always drag Jackson with him. Jackson hated it until we started playing, then I think he started to like it." I smile thinking about our Sunday ritual. My smile begins to fade, "Then Dad's illness got worse. He stopped playing, which meant my brother wasn't dragged into it anymore. And it was just Maverick and I again. Then after graduating from high school, I went to flight school, and we just stopped. Anyway," I tear my mind away from those memories. I look over to Rooster, "What's your favorite childhood memory?" I ask. "Huh, never thought about that," Rooster pauses for a minute, thinking. He has the hottest thinking face, he bites his bottom lips and rubs his fingers over his mustache. My thoughts were dragged away when I heard his voice. "Probably when I was about four. I remember I was sitting on a piano in a restaurant. My dad was playing and singing great balls of fire. I remember singing along with him and mom... And Maverick. I try so hard to block him out of that memory, but he's there, and I guess I can't change that."
I smile, Rooster looks over to me, "What are you smiling about?" I smile even wider, "I'm trying to picture a little Rooster. Gosh, he was probably so cute!" He shakes his head, "You and my mom would have gotten along so while." I tried to picture her, but I only met her once when Maverick and I were at a diner. "What was she like?" I ask. A sad smile appears on his face, "Well, she had short blonde hair and bright-green eyes. She was loud, energetic, and always had a smile on her face. When she was really excited, she would get even louder. She always said what's on her mind, no matter if you wanted to hear it or not," Rooster pauses. I chuckle, "It sounds like our mom's would have been great friends." I say. "Tell me yours."
"Reading in my dad's office on base. It was one of the few ways I was able to spend time with him. From a young age, I started showing an interest in planes. Dad got so excited, but Momma on the other hand wasn't too thrilled. Every Thursday evening, I would go to his office and sit on the bean bag chair he had in the corner. I was there so often that everyone knew me and I knew everyone. One of his desk drawers was full of my books. I would read until he was done working for the day, and we would walk around base looking at all the planes before climbing into the car and driving home."
We sat in silence for a while. My mind starts racing, ever since we kissed a few days ago. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, think about us. What are we? What does he want us to be? What do I want us to be? Are we still friends? Can we still be friends? I look over at Rooster, who looks so peaceful, unbothered. "Bradley?" I whisper. His attention is immediately on me. I swallow sharply, "Never mind." I shake my head and turn away from his gaze. I mentally swear at myself for being such a fucking chicken, 'you fly planes, Savannah and yet, you can't ask a simple question to a guy that you are falling deeper in love with every day.'
My hands go to the wheel and slide down. I cleared my throat, "Are you ready to head back?" He nods. I smile at him before turning on my truck and shifting it out of park and into drive. The ride back to base was quiet, I had one of my dad's old CDs playing. I hum along to the song while driving down the road. I park in front of Phoenix and I's dorm house. "You okay to walk?" I ask Rooster. He nods and we get out of the truck. I half expect him to start walking away, but then again it's Rooster, always a gentleman. He walks behind me as I walk up the steps towards the dorm house. Reaching the top, I stop and spin around, "Goodnight Rooster." I go to turn back around and walk through the front door, but Rooster stops me. "We kissed," that is all he manages to get out before silence consumes us again.
I slowly turn back around, afraid of what I'm going to see or maybe hear. "Yeah". The silence is awful, so I break it, "And don't say you didn't want to because Rooster, your body is telling me something entirely different." He doesn't say anything, he just gives a confused look. So, I continue, "In the Hard Deck, the night before the first day. You kissed my forehead, and you've never done that before in our years of friendship. And the night we danced. You kept staring at my lips, and you started to lean in. When Phoenix interrupted, you were so mad. And on the beach you did the same thing, except I had enough alcohol in my system to do something about it." I finished my ramble and Rooster doesn't say anything, he just stands there, eyes wide like I caught onto his big plan.
I roll my eyes in annoyance, "Look Rooster, I have learned a lot about men and their stupid body language over the years. And I thought I figured yours out, but apparently not. So, I'm going to just say it, I've fallen in love with you. I realized that it started back in Top Gun after you spent a weekend in the hospital with me after my plane blew up. Then we graduated and we both got deployed to literally the other side of the globe. Then you're at Bri's funeral. When I started crying, you hug me so tight, and I felt so safe." I feel myself start to tear up. "I realized then that even after not seeing you for over two years. My feelings were still very much there. Then I left, and we were again on different sides of the world. And I thought, 'ya know, you're probably never going to see him again. So, you should let go of these feelings.' And I thought that they went again until you walked through the Hard deck doors the night before this mission started. Ever since then every time you wrap your arm around my shoulder, you kiss my forehead, you call me darling. All those little things you do, my stomach fills with butterflies."
I pause for a minute hoping he will say something, but time passes by, and he is still silent. "Bradley. I don't expect you to feel the same way. But if you don't, can you stop with the little things." We stood in silence a little longer before I had had enough, "I still want to be friends with you, Rooster." I open the front door and look back one last time, "Goodnight, Bradley." I walk through the door and close it behind me.
Signing, I lean back into the door and slowly slide down. The tears are forming again and this time, I don't stop them. I let them fall. My head falls into my lap and cries. I cry because I just ruined my friendship with Rooster. I could have blamed the kiss on alcohol, instead I confessed my feelings to a wall instead of a human. He looked frozen like he didn't know what to say or do, and I kept talking.
I hear footsteps running down the hall and over to me, "Savannah!" A female voice I need the most, except my mom, right now. "Oh, Sav, What happened?" She asks, wrapping her arms around me, one in front and one behind me. I lift my head and lean it against the door. "I told Rooster that I'm in love with him," I whisper, not able to talk any louder as the tears still run down my face.
"How did that come up?"
"We kissed the night we did karaoke on the beach outside Hard deck."
"You guys kissed?!" Phoenix whisper yells. "All he said was 'We kissed'. And I just unloaded everything."
"Everything?" I nod and lean my head on her shoulder, tears still running down my face. "Oh hunny." I tell her everything that happened that night on the beach and tonight in my truck, down to every last detail. Phoenix stands up, then lowers her hand down to me. I take it and she pulls me up. She slowly walks with me down the hall to the bathroom. She sits me on the toilet and starts me a hot shower. "Do you need anything?" She asks before leaving the bathroom. I shake my head before peeling my Navy sweatshirt off my body and throwing it on the floor. Undressing all the way, I step into the shower and stand there, letting the hot water hit my face, hoping to wake me up from this nightmare I'm currently living in.
20 minutes later, Phoenix came in and brought me some new clothes. I step out of the shower, dry off, and put in the new clothes. I look at the shirt and see it's one of my brother's old shirts- it's so long on my 5'8" body. I towel dry my hair and brush my teeth. I walk out of the bathroom and make my way to my room. I unmade my bed, some habits from home you haven't yet rid of.
Phoenix walks over to my bed. She rips the comforter out from under me and places it over me. I let out a content sigh. She climbs into my bed and starts playing with my hair. Immediately my swollen watery eyes start to close. And I drift off into a dreamless sleep.
...
Poor Skylar. But who need a man when you have an amazing best friend!
Til the next chapter, My Loves!