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Bradley was always told that his parents were always in love.
People told him that Nick and Carole Bradshaw made falling in love look easy. They always loved each other from the moment they met. Their love extended beyond the curtain of death and his mom never stopped loving his dad even after the accident.
Bradley said in response that they were probably looking down at him with their hands connected, waiting for him to feel the same as them.
What people didn’t know was the story his mom told him.
The day that Bradley got back from his first date with a girl, he came back telling her that it wasn’t right. It could have gone worse, but Bradley still felt hopeless.
“Love is like a maze,” his mom said while scooping ice cream into two big bowls for the two of them. “You run in and hope that the person you choose will stay with you to the end. Today, you entered that maze, but she wasn’t your match to take you to the end. You will meet many people in this maze, but there will be one fit for you.”
That was the day before his mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Bradley would like to think his dad was by his mom’s side in her last days, holding her hand as he led her to the end of their love maze.
He, however, felt trapped in his.
Bradley felt he was going through his love maze at a leisurely pace, but maybe that would all change when he was accepted into the academy.
That dream was a dead end. The one person Bradley thought he could trust turned his back on him. It was like Mav purposely took him in the opposite direction and Bradley couldn’t help but run back further into the maze.
Now, he just felt more lost.
There wasn’t time for love in Bradley’s life so he pushed through college and he climbed his way to still become a naval aviator. It felt like darkness was slowly sweeping and Bradley was going to be even more lost.
That was until he met Primrose Beckert, although everyone called her Rose.
In some ways, Bradley didn’t know why he agreed to attend the wedding with her. Don’t get him wrong, the blonde hair and green-eyed woman was conventionally attractive. Bradley just didn’t swing that way.
And neither did Rose.
As Bradley wandered around the hotel where the wedding was, he noticed two figures right by the bathroom. His body screamed at him to leave the figures alone to save himself from the embarrassment, but the hair of the one was too familiar.
That was when he met Rose and Mia.
A beautiful couple that Bradley felt immediate regret stumbling into. His rushed apologies and covered eyes didn’t spare him from the chaos of what was next to come. If only he knew what he had gotten himself into the second he turned the corner.
The talk about Bradley being the surrogate was quick and Rose was willing to take the risk to get her parents off her back. Rose and Mia agreed that Bradley would try to conceive the “normal way,” with Rose as she was not keen on going to a clinic for sperm donation.
It was quick work and the pregnancy tests that followed all came positive. Biologically, it was his baby, but he knew that Rose and Mia would take care of their child between the two of them in their love maze.
Things changed quickly and Bradley slowly started to question if love mazes have a mind of their own.
Bradley loves his daughter. He loved her the moment that he learned of her existence. He loved her, even more, the first time he held her in his arms. He loved her, even more, the second that Rose flatlined, the moment he learned that Mia disappeared without a trace, and he realized he was about to be alone in the whole parenting process.
“I gotta make up for your two moms’ love,” Bradley remembered saying as he held Lillian in his arms as she cried their first night out of the hospital.
Rose and Mia were only companions in Bradley’s love maze for so long. It was a fork in the maze and Bradley knew he had to go down the path with his daughter waiting and let the two others go down their path.
Lillian was now a piece of Bradley’s love maze. A person that Bradley could count on and keep him company. In the back of his mind, he thought maybe this was the person his mom was talking about.
That was until he met Jake Seresin.
It was a deployment after his time at Top Gun, where he won without much competition. Bradley had just gotten off the plane and was instructed to go to his bunk to sleep.
The tall blonde with green eyes and a toothpick twisting in his mouth caught Bradley’s eyes the second he entered the room. His feet led past the blonde, but Bradley could feel the stare at his back.
As much as Bradley wanted to get to know Jake Seresin, he was met with Hangman instead, cocky but had the skills to justify it. He had self-confidence the size of the carrier they were on and a southern drawl that made his heart skip.
It didn’t help that Bradley had eyes and knew the other man was attractive.
That facade quickly faded into resentment the second he and Hangman got off their first flight together.
“God, Rooster, you fly like we got all the time in the world to be out there,” Hangman was leaning against his plane as Rooster walked past him.
“I’m getting the job done, Hangman.”
“The slowest way possible. Where’s your sense of fun, Rooster?”
Bradley left the idea of fun behind the second he held his daughter in his arms. It was all about getting back home to her in the safest manner possible.
“You done sitting on your perch and plan to take the shot, Rooster?”
“I’m getting there, Hangman.”
It felt like the taunts were relentless and Rooster was barely getting by without punching the cocky pilot in the face.
“C’mon, Rooster, where are you?”
“Right where we are supposed to be, Bagman, but you just had to fly ahead.”
Rooster this- Rooster that- and God, Bradley wanted him to shut his mouth for once. Yet, his gut was stirring every second Hangman looked at him.
“Rooster,” Hangman called out and Bradley spared a glance to see the man shirtless. His eyes quickly averted away to prevent anyone from noticing his stares, “When are you gonna learn to keep up with me?”
Bradley opened his mouth to retort but his eyes quickly went down to his pants. It might have looked fairly normal to most people but Bradley could feel his stomach stirring. Hangman was pulling a shirt over his head and walking out by the time Rooster registered that the tent in his own pants was growing. He groaned before running over to the shower and putting a hand over his mouth to muffle his indecencies.
After a couple of months on the carrier, it was almost time to go home and see Lillian. Most of all, get away from the blonde who has been driving him crazy. Most of the pilots on the carrier were also disembarking with him, but not Hangman, for god knows what reason.
Most of the pilots were celebrating their last week, but Bradley did not expect to be shoved into a dark corner with Jake and their mouths to meet hurriedly.
All those weeks of pure anger between them suddenly faded and Bradley was matching the rhythm of Jake’s mouth. Arms started to tangle around each other and their tongues danced in each other’s mouths. The sound of moans and groans slowly filled Bradley’s ears and he couldn’t help himself.
He tugged off of Jake and the two of them stared at each other: brown eyes on green eyes, “So?”
Jake laughed as he leaned his forehead onto Bradley’s shoulder, “That’s all you are going to say, Bradshaw?”
“I don’t know, Seresin,” Bradley’s hands instinctively went to the blonde hair in front of him and ran it through. He felt a hum against his collarbone and Bradley was trying everything not to bring the blonde back to his lips. “You were the one who brought us into the corner.”
“You have a better place?”
That’s how they ended up in Bradley’s bed. Some of the beds were already occupied by sleeping aviators, but the two of them didn’t care. Their shirts came off quickly and it was like they didn’t stop.
It was crazy how fast Bradley grew to memorize the shape of Jake’s lips against him in all different areas of his body. The way Jake’s body shook when his mustache brushed his muscles made Bradley’s mind blur.
Once the two of them were out of breath, they settled onto their backs with their arms wrapped around each other. It was enviable what was coming, but Bradley wanted a few more seconds with Jake.
The blonde pilot leaned against Bradley’s chest and looked up at him.
“Bradley,” Jake’s voice was soft and his breath was right at Bradley’s heart, “You know we can’t.”
Bradley knew exactly what Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell meant, but his heart was singing at the body against him, “We will find a way.”
Jake huffed out a small laugh before he got up from the bed and pulled his shirt on, “You sure about that, lover boy?”
Bradley surged up and met Jake’s lips briefly before kicking him off his bed with a small laugh.
The last few days were dizzying for Bradley. He went to briefings, flew his plane, and went to debriefs. It was a cycle he had gotten used to these past weeks.
Now, Jake was always around in some way. Maybe, it was just Bradley overthinking, but the blonde seemed a step or two behind him. The comments didn’t stop coming at Rooster, but there was a lack of bite this time around.
Their last night drew upon them and most pilots were out at the mess hall. Jake and Bradley took full advantage of that. After a few drinks with their fellow aviators, the two of them drifted out of the room, hopefully leaving enough time between them to not be suspicious.
With no one in the barracks and blankets or towels to help tie the doors shut, Bradley and Jake held each other for a second before surging toward each other. Suddenly, all Bradley felt was Jake: his body, sounds, and movement. They held matches and gasoline and the fire at which their bodies were moving was addicting.
Pleasure swarmed Bradley the second he saw Jake on the mattress below him. His blonde hair was messed up and green eyes stared back at him and Bradley froze.
The image took him back to the only time he saw blonde hair and green eyes looking back at him. The ones that Bradley could remember on the white hospital bed, slowing fading life as she smiled at him.
“Be an amazing father for me,” Rose’s voice echoed in his mind and Bradley shivered.
“Roo?” Jake surged up to him and cupped his jaw. No longer did Bradley see the pretty eyes that caught his attention, but the ghost of someone who reminded him of a little five-year-old waiting for him.“Hey, are you-”
“I’m so sorry,” Bradley could feel the tears on the corners of his eyes. “I can’t-” Rooster shook out of Hangman’s grasp as he jumped off the bed. He swept the shirt and boxers laying on the ground and put them on quickly. His ears tingled at Hangman’s pleas for explanation but Rooster was rushing out the door.
He found a stall in the barracks and cried in the shower.
Just when Bradley thought he found the person to navigate his love maze with, he had to fuck it all up. It was stupid in some ways how much Bradley had fallen for him. How easily he thought that he found the one that he would cling to, but it wasn’t meant to be.
As he carried his bags out of the carrier the following day, Hangman stood in front of him. His eyes shifted away from the blonde who stood silent for a couple of seconds before shoving a piece of paper in his hands and walking away.
Bradley opened it up to see a simple phone number written in black ink. He shoved the paper into his back pocket as he heard Lillian’s screams and her footsteps approaching him.
Onto his knees, his arms immediately wrapped around her as he took in the feeling of someone he knew would bring him joy.
So there he was, trapped back in his love maze with his daughter by his side, just the two of them.
Rooster spends only a few months with Lillian before he is shipped off again. With no sight of the blonde pilot, he let out a small sigh. He grows to like the people on base with him from the crew to his fellow aviators, especially a freshly Top Gun graduated female pilot named Phoenix. Rooster never gets too personal with them, even if he favored Phoenix’s blunt attitude over the others.
It slowly comes into his head that his love maze is evolving before his eyes. No longer were its tall walls the only looming factor: its size grew. A new maze was forming right beside it and Rooster was inside with some of his fellow aviators.
Lillian would be safely tucked into Bradley’s love maze, while his coworkers would stay in Rooster’s love maze.
The paper in his back pocket never left and Rooster had done a good job at forgetting Hangman since their deployment together.
His name only came up in passing with Phoenix during their second deployment together before he left for Japan.
“Some naval aviator got a confirmed kill,” Phoenix grumbled as the two of them walked in the halls together. “Fucking Hangman.”
Rooster bit his lip as he imagined the smirk on the blonde’s face the second he returned from that flight. “How do you know Hangman?”
“A deployment a while back,” Phoenix looked straight ahead, not seeing the furrowed eyebrows on his face. “Egotistic asshole.”
Rooster hummed but his mind reeled back a bit to their time together in the carrier a couple of years back- No, that was a dangerous thought and Bradley decided it wasn’t time to decode that before he and Phoenix were getting ready to fly. He ended up not decoding it after the flight nor after the announcement that DADT was repealed.
His mind tingled at the memory of hushed whispers on the carrier and Bradley willed them all just go away. He would run further away and get more lost in his love maze.
Then, he was called back to Top Gun.
Lillian was officially nine years old and growing up before Bradley’s eyes far quicker than he wanted. Being able to see her was a bonus to this detachment.
After dropping by his parents’ house to change, he immediately set off to the Hard Deck.
The second he pulled into the bar and parked his truck right in front, Bradley was hit by the booming atmosphere. With his aviators on, he sauntered into the bar with the crowd of pilots and civilians who all looked ready to have a good night.
“Bradshaw! Is that you?” The sound of a familiar female pilot puts a small smile on Rooster’s face. He walked past the bar and into the pool room where Phoenix stalked around the table. “This is how I find out you’re stateside?”
“Yeah,” Rooster could see both familiar and unfamiliar faces in the room but focused on the brunette who was leaning down to position her pool cue, “I just thought I’d surprise you.”
A hit by that same pool cue caused Rooster to clutch his stomach at the mild pain. “Oh,” Phoenix turned back to look him in the eye with a twinkle of mischief and relief, “I guess I surprised you back.”
It was good to see Phoenix here, but Rooster felt that wave was slowly dying at the arrival of a blonde pilot he hadn’t seen for years.
“Bradshaw,” the southern drawl was exactly how Bradley remembered it and its effects only doubled with time, “as I live and breathe.”
“Hangman,” Rooster stumbled back into the love maze far away from his daughter the second the blonde showed up. “You look-” It felt like time was rewinding to when he was five years younger. Bradley couldn’t decide if he was seeing the woman who gave him his daughter or the cocky pilot who his heart skipped for, “-good.”
Rooster didn’t want to know how long of a pause that possibly was.
“Well, I am good, Rooster, I’m very good” the stare that he was given as Hangman hit the ball right into place without looking made Bradley shake his head. He should have seen it all coming. That time allowed broken walls to rebuild and clearly, Hangman had done his work. “In fact, I’m too good to be true.”
Rooster looked over at Phoenix who shook her head as Payback attempted to divert the conversation. A valiant effort for him, but Hangman isn’t one to let things go, something that Bradley was relearning now.
He felt like the weight of the paper shoved into his pocket since his eyes last met Hangman’s doubled. The maze was becoming even darker and Rooster could feel himself crawling desperately to find some guidance. In the end, he stumbled into a trap.
“Hangman, the only place you’ll lead anyone is an early grave.”
Desperation crawled through Rooster’s veins. It was like he needed a reaction, a signal that Jake was still there waiting for him.
The blonde stood up and Bradley could see a crack in his face, but it was like the walls were repairing faster than he remembered. It was almost like it was in slow motion as Hangman moved from across the table to right in front of Rooster.
“Well, anyone that follows you’s just gonna run out of fuel.” Rooster could remember the last time that they were close like this, but this wasn’t the same section of the maze. There was no cheat sheet so there they stood in front of each other. “But that’s just you, ain’t it, Rooster?” Backtracking can only get you so far and Rooster felt himself watching the blonde lean back against the table. “You’re snug on that perch, waiting for just the right moment,” Rooster could feel Hangman’s breath at the proximity the two were tangled in. So much for thinking that Hangman wasn’t going to bring up their last night together, “that never comes.”
It’s a staring match, daring one of them to jump the gun and do something. It is almost worse than the words they exchanged previously.
In the end, Hangman gets the last words, “I love this song.”
Rooster has no heart to try and follow whatever Hangman was saying, but he does know a good idea for a middle finger.
There was a small piece of his parents in both Rooster and Bradley’s love maze. His finger grasped around the junk box cord and tugged it off the wall, much to some people’s despair.
A smirk came to his face as he walked over to the brown piano and sat on its bench. The smallest piece of his love maze is on display the second his fingers hit the piano. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Hangman looking over questioningly at Phoenix, who abandoned their game of pool.
If Jake wants to play with bitterness, you sure as hell Bradley is gonna fight with fire, ironically.
Rooster barely registered that someone was being thrown overboard as he began to sing. The earliest memories of sitting on a piano with his dad and Mav singing in front of him felt like the foundation of his love maze. The bar singing along to the chants at the end filled Rooster with all the joy to smirk right at Hangman’s face the second he emerged back into Rooster’s line of sight.
In traditional Bradley Bradshaw fashion, good things don’t last.
Rooster laid eyes on Maverick in the hangar the following day and immediately looked away. His body was being split between his two love mazes.
The man that Bradley has tried too hard to lose in his maze only appeared again, just the same time as Jake stumbled back in too.
It only made it worse when he was paired with Hangman on the final hop of the day. Then, he and Maverick just had to spiral down so much that Hangman had to remind him of his altitude.
Rooster just wanted to shut down.
The push-up challenge might help him get that way.
Hondo walked away as Rooster sat down on the concrete with his knees pulled up. A shadow was slowly looming over him.
“Breaking the hard deck?” Phoenix’s words cut through the air like how she flies. “Insubordination? Are you trying to get kicked out?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rooster stared at the ground, hoping that the walls wouldn’t crack under the fire of the female pilot above him.
“Look,” out of the corner of his eye, he sees Phoenix come eye level with him, “I’m going on this mission. But if you get kicked out, you leave us flying with Hangman.” Rooster resisted the flinch at the sound of his name. “Talk to me! What the hell was that?”
“He pulled my papers,” Bradley could see the crack in the fortress he tried so hard to build, but there was this itch inside of him. Phoenix trusted him to be on the mission. How could he not return the favor?
“What?” Phoenix pulled him out of his headspace.
“Maverick,” he finally looked at her and it was like a hand extended in, telling him that he could trust her with anything. “He pulled my application into the Naval Academy. Set me back 4 years.”
Phoenix looked at him like she was trying to solve the puzzle of his life, “Why would he do that?”
That felt like the ultimate question in Bradley’s mind.
He looked out into the sunset as Phoenix lowered down so she was sitting right next to him. “I don’t know why,” he admitted as he played with his fingers, “But it hurts when the one who has always been by your side suddenly leaves.”
The hand Maverick held that led Bradley down the path was long gone. So much had changed since the rejection, yet everything still felt the same when he saw Maverick staring back at him in the cockpit.
Bradley kept Lillian away from the chaos of his life, but the past years had been hard on him. Something about finally letting the truth tumble out of his mouth took some of the weight off his shoulders.
So he continued.
Nat and Bradley lay on the tarmac as he let her glimpse at the maze he had gotten lost in. It became second nature to dodge the topic of Lillian. His heart wanted to brag about her, how similar she looked to him and how she was growing up to be a ray of sun. Bradley knew better than that
When the two of them finally got up and Bradley was in the locker room by himself, his hand wandered down to a pocket he hadn’t touched in years. The paper was crumpled up, but the handwriting and numbers were burned into his memory. His fist clenched as the paper balled up before shoving it back down.
Bradley picked up Lillian from her grandparents and took her back home. Lillian chatted the night away as she sat on the countertop far from where he was cooking some pasta for them.
“Dad,” Lillian kicked her legs a bit, “Can I not go to grandma and grandpa’s tomorrow?”
“You know I can’t-”
“Why not?” Lillian pouted, “I just want to see where you work. All the kids at school talk about how their parents have a ‘bring a child to work day,’ so why can’t I?”
Bradley cursed whatever school that the Bekert’s enrolled Lillian in. There was no way he taught her how to do puppy dog eyes like that.
The following morning, Lillian was half-asleep when he got her into jeans and a shirt along with packing a green dress for their dinner with her grandparents later. She fell asleep the moment she was buckled up in her car seat. Bradley got to base so early that even the guards were shocked to see someone coming in.
Once his car was parked in the empty lot, he quickly went to the front desk with Lillian holding his hand.
“Dad, I wanna go home,” Lillian pouted into his arm.
Bradley seriously needed another cup of coffee as soon as possible. The lady at the front gave him a small smile and then looked down at his daughter.
“Do you need someone to-”
“Yeah, I can take her to the ready room before anyone goes in to get her something to drink and breakfast, but once I am in session, I’ll need someone to look over her,” Bradley rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand as Lillian played with his fingers and swung her hips. “It would be best if she didn’t stay so close to me-”
“But I want to see you fly, Dad,” Lillian tugged his hand.
“Maybe another time,” Bradley gave her a sad smile.
As promised, he walked Lillian to the ready room where there were some small packaged muffins that Lillian was content on eating with a carton of milk that Bradley grabbed from the fridge out of reflex. She ate quickly before collecting her crumbs on a napkin and throwing it in the trash.
The sun was slowly starting to rise and Bradley knew that his fellow detachment members were going to filter in soon. Quickly, he picked Lillian up and dropped her off with the receptionist who had gotten some paper and highlighters out with another chair.
“It isn’t much but I hope it keeps you entertained for a bit.”
Lillian hummed before giving a small hug at Bradley’s legs, “Fly crazy.”
“You know I will,” Bradley combed her brown locks with a small smile. He gave one last look at the lady who ushered Lillian over to her side and spoke to her gently.
Bradley flew exactly how he typically does, but kept his head down. He briefly listened to the comms with half of his mind on the girl who was waiting for him. The second he heard they were done for the day, Bradley was out of his chair and took off toward the front desk.
When he arrived, Lillian was out of her chair and ran to her with her green dress on.
“Dad, did you even shower?” Lillian whined as she pulled away from his grasp.
“No, I was too excited to see you,” Bradley smiled down at her as the lady at the front desk handed him Lillian’s bag. With her hand on his, the two of them took the long way back to the locker room.
He stopped to comment on pictures on the wall and Lillian soaked it all in like a sponge. She excitedly repeated the information back and gave her opinions on each person she saw. By the time they made it back to the locker room, it had been about half an hour, and Bradley was pretty sure everyone had left.
“Now,” Bradley kneeled to Lillian’s level, “I have to take a shower and change out of these.” He took a fist full of his flight suit and Lillian nodded. “You do not move from here. I don’t want you getting lost. I will just be behind this door, okay?”
“Yep!”
Bradley raised an eyebrow, but got up and went inside the locker room. He made quick work cleaning himself so Lillian wouldn’t be waiting outside for long. With a towel around his waist, he started to hang up his flight suit before a paper flew out of the pocket.
The familiar crumple dared Bradley to go into the depths of a new path that his maze carved out. His eyes diverted from the paper in favor of changing into his green Hawaiian shirt, that he somehow was able to match with Lillian’s dress and a pair of jeans.
His hand scooped up the paper at the bottom and opened it to find the numbers Bradley could recite perfectly. He grabbed his bags in his other hands and stopped at a trash can near the exit.
The paper flew into the trash bag and Bradley sighed in relief as he put his aviators on.
There was nothing to worry about, he thought as he opened the door-
“Dad”’ Lillian cried out, but Bradley wasn’t seeing her now.
Jake Seresin turned around to look at him with wide eyes that made his eyes greener. Bradley felt the air sucked out of his chest. His body might have reacted instinctively to hug his daughter but he felt frozen.
He was caught switching between his two love mazes and Jake Seresin took a peak in with the help of his daughter.
Lillian pushed his sunglasses off his eyes and Bradley was trapped in Jake’s gaze. It wasn’t the same as their nights in the carrier. Jake was looking at him like he was a puzzle. Bradley wanted to shrink under, but his eyes went back to his daughter.
“Hey there, little chick.” The two of them exchanged smiles and Bradley hoped he wasn’t clinging to Lillian too harshly as he looked at Jake.
“Bradshaw,” the southern voice made him want to shake, “you got a kid?” Jake’s arms crossed with his traditional smirk and Bradley wanted him gone, away from his daughter and vulnerability.
His eyes went to Lillian who looked pure as his fingers slowly raised to a familiar place. He could remember a time when those small baby hands would play with his facial hair and it still stuck all these years later.
Bradley stood up straighter and grabbed a hold of Lillian’s hands. With his strength, he dangled his daughter slightly above the ground as she pouted and kicked her feet, “No, I adopted this alien from outer space-”
“I wanna meet an alien!” Lillian interjected and Bradley could laugh at Jake’s face with the amount of confusion and disbelief pouring out of him. The last of his strength pulled Lillian back up to his arms. “Are you an alien?” Bradley wanted to correct Lillian that pointing was rude, but- “Because I don’t wanna meet one if they smell that bad.”
-Jake was probably going to be entertained. Their eyes connected and Bradley’s heart skipped. The blonde pilot looked half-offended and half-amused, which was a win in Bradley’s book.
The other pilot walked closer and Bradley could feel Jake peering into his love maze a bit more, noticing what damage he had yet to uncover. Lillian, however, kicked him out, physically and mentally, leaving Jake gasping for air.
“Would an alien help you find your dad?” The dangerous glint in Jake’s eyes played along with Lillian’s smug expression too well.
“You barely helped.” Bradley couldn’t hide the smile of his daughter defending both herself and him.
“If you say that, I guess I’m not telling you my real name.”
Before Bradley could warn Jake, Lillian shouted, “Booo, you loserman! You’re just petty over the fact I found my dad without you.”
Rooster’s body shook with laughter at the furrowed eyebrows and toothpick stalling in Jake’s mouth. Bradley looked at the young girl to see a smile that he only saw when Lillian got something she wanted.
“That’s a great nickname!” Bradley pushed the thoughts deeper into his maze to be explored later.
“Well, I’m gonna take a shower since someone told me to,” Jake looked at Lillian expectedly. The man walked closer and it slowly dawned on Bradley that he had been hogging the doorway the whole time. They were lucky to not be caught.
“See ya around, Rooster.”
Bradley’s heart stilled as his body went into shock. He barely registered them exchanging nods to each other. Jake moved right at Lillian’s face, who smirked right back at him.
“And a pleasure to meet your little alien.” That southern drawl came back with full force.
Something was tugging Jake back into his love maze and Bradley didn’t know if he should extend a hand to help or run deeper in. He shifted out of the door with a quick, “Bye, loserman.”
“Bye-bye!” Lillian waved at Jake who closed the door just when Lillian hit Bradley in the face. “Dad! He works with you?”
Bradley felt a tug in his heart. Maybe, it wasn’t just “work” that he and Jake had. It was as if he turned the corner and found Jake there once again. When Bradley tried to run away, there was a dead end and his daughter was pulling him closer.
Maybe, Bradley let him in too soon. This might bring down everything he tried so hard to build up, but why was Lillian so insistent on bringing Jake back into his life?
“Yeah,” Bradley set the girl down and shook his head. He watched as Lillian quickly held her bag up for him to grab. “Why do you ask?”
“Now, I can say I had the best ‘Bring Your Child to Work’ Day since I got to meet another naval aviator!”
If only Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin was just another naval aviator…