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“Coyote,” Natasha says, sitting down beside him in the otherwise empty rec room.
Coyote looks up from his phone. “Hey. Where’s your shadow?”
She rolls her eyes. “Where’s yours?”
He sighs. “Hopefully not in the same damn place. That was some shit last night, huh?”
Natasha pinches the bridge of her nose. “They’re so fucking stupid. I cannot believe Hangman played Slow Ride to get on Rooster’s nerves.”
“That was cold, I’ll admit. They danced to that song at my wedding, remember? Before they disappeared. In New Orleans. For 12 hours. Without answering their phones,” he says, tapping his phone against his knee to emphasize each layer of stupidity.
“I remember,” Natasha says. “That was what, three years ago?”
“Four.”
“Happy anniversary,” she says flatly.
Coyote laughs. “You missed it by three months, but I’ll pass the sentiment on to Angie. Rooster, though. An early grave? Unnecessary roughness.”
Natasha winces. “That was maybe a little much. Rooster’s still bitter about that blowup right before Hangman left for Lemoore.”
“I’m sorry,” Coyote says incredulously. “That’s the one he’s bitter about? That was like. Six mistakes ago.”
She shrugs. “It was a big one. You weren’t there before. Pensacola, Corpus Christi, Meridian, they were balanced on a fucking knife’s blade the whole time. It had to tip one way or another eventually.”
“Yeah, and Jake wound up getting stabbed in the back,” Coyote says darkly.
Natasha raises her eyebrows. “And when they ran into each other in Virginia Beach a year later, hooked up, and Hangman slipped out in the middle of the night like a fucking coward?”
Coyote shrugs. “I’ll admit, that was a dick move. But I doubt it would have gone any better if he’d stayed.”
“Of course it wouldn’t have,” Natasha says. “They’re fucking hopeless. The two saddest white boys I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Angie said she was gonna pray for ‘em, but I think they’re beyond Jesus. Gotta find a very specific old god to fix their shit,” Coyote says.
Natasha laughs. “I think they scarred my new back seater. Hangman took the pool cue out of his hand to try to impress Rooster, like Rooster hasn’t been watching him make no look shots since 2009.”
“At least it wasn’t darts. The boy almost took my eye out one time,” Coyote says.
“You’re the one who goads him into trick shots. That’s on you,” Natasha points out.
Coyote makes a face. “Now you sound like my mama.”
“You bring that man to your mama’s house?” Natasha asks.
“She fucking loves him,” Coyote groans. “Oh, Jacob, you have such good manners. Oh, what a nice looking young man. Javier, look at how he helps with the dishes, you should be more like him. Like, no, Mama, this man is lying to you, he’s a self-destructive disaster.”
“Who’s a disaster?” Payback asks, walking in and heading for the coffee like a man possessed.
“Hangman,” Natasha and Coyote say at the same time.
Payback fills a mug and takes a long drink.
“Shit, that’s bad.” He takes another swallow. “Yeah, so, what the fuck was that last night?”
Coyote looks at Natasha. “He’s cool,” she says.
“Define cool,” Coyote says, looking from Natasha to Payback and back.
“She means I know queer nonsense when I see it,” Payback says. “As I live and breathe, really? And I know you’re cool, because Phoenix would have told me if you weren’t.”
Coyote shrugs. “You know Rooster?”
Payback nods. “Well enough to know that Hangman got under his skin, which is getting harder to do in his old age.”
Natasha snorts. “Hangman is the Michael Jordan of getting under Rooster’s skin. And in his pants. And then regretting it.”
“To be fair, I don’t think that’s the part he regrets,” Coyote says.
“Can’t blame him,” Payback says. “Rooster’s hot. A stack of issues in a flight suit masquerading as an easygoing himbo, but hot.”
Natasha sighs as she stands up and heads over to get her own coffee. “I would defend him, but I don’t have a lie prepared this early in the morning.”
Payback hands her the creamer. “You’re gonna need this.”
“Good looking out,” she says as she fixes her mug. “Oh, that is not good,” she says after she takes a drink.
“Much like the situation we find ourselves in,” Coyote says.
“Somebody wanna fill me in?” Payback asks.
He takes a seat across from Coyote.
“Rooster and Jake are. Complicated.” Coyote shakes his head.
Payback almost chokes on his coffee. “Jake? Jake?! Phoenix, Hangman is Rooster’s Jake?”
Phoenix laughs. “Their reputation precedes them, I take it?”
“When I was stationed at Oceana, Rooster watched a few football games with me, and he took a call from a Jake during one of them. He was all fucked up after. Killed the rest of my beer and had to sleep it off on my couch,” Payback says. “He snores like a gotdamn chainsaw, in case y’all wondered.”
“We know,” Coyote says.
Natasha nods. “We are well aware. That’s how we’ve known Rooster wasn’t sleeping where he was supposed to be a few times.”
“I would say more like confirmed what we already knew,” Coyote says. “They’re ‘bout as subtle as a brick through a window.”
“How long did they date for?” Payback asks.
“Date? A week, at best. How long have they been doing this will they won’t they hand in unlovable hand shit? What, Phoenix, eight or nine years?” Coyote asks.
“Ten,” Natasha says, long suffering. “I was there when they met. They stressed me the fuck out, how obvious they were. And then once that was finally okay, they couldn’t stand each other with their clothes on anymore.”
“From what Jake says, I’m not even sure they can stand each other with their clothes off,” Coyote says.
“Have y’all tried to talk them out of this whole thing?” Payback asks.
Coyote glares at him. “Is a frog’s ass water tight?”
Natasha blinks. “I think you need to spend less time with Hangman. What the fuck does that mean?”
Payback laughs. “I’m from South Carolina. I know what he means.”
“I would love to be around people who say normal shit. ‘Yes, Payback, we’ve tried, but they won’t listen.’”
Payback nods sagely. “A hard head makes a soft ass.”
Natasha sighs. “I hate you both. I’m going to be somewhere that’s not here. We never had this talk, understand?”
Coyote looks at her, unimpressed. “We never do.”
“Payback?” Natasha asks.
“I said nothing. I heard nothing. Matter of fact, I was never here. But real quick, that’s as bad as they get, right?”
Coyote huffs out a laugh. “No.”
“Absolutely not. They’re just warming up,” Natasha says.
She finishes her terrible coffee. “Pleasure doing business with you, fellas. Let me know if they start throwing punches.
“Do they do that?” Payback asks. “Do I need to be ready to bob and weave?”
“Not yet,” Coyote says. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
“Maybe they’ll get their shit together, then,” Payback says.
“Okay,” Coyote concedes, “Maybe not everything.”
“I’m getting too old for this shit. They’re in their mid 30s,” Natasha says.
Payback nods. “Sounds like they need to fish or cut bait.”
Natasha groans. “I am leaving. I am gone. Goodbye.”
“See you later, Phoenix,” Coyote says as she walks away. “Can’t wait to not do this again.”
She throws her hand up in a half-assed wave. They’ll probably do it again before lunch.