Chapter Text
Rooster is already shivering when the car pulls into arrivals at Indianapolis International Airport, after standing outside for barely eight minutes. Phoenix knows then, that despite the unseasonably warm winter Indiana is having, this is going to be a long five days.
“You are so fucked.”
Rooster shoves his hands into the pockets of the wool jacket he bought just for this trip. “Fuck off.”
The jacket was picked out by Phoenix, after she invited him to spend the Christmas leave they both got with her family in Indiana. From Oceana, it’s not that far away, at least not compared to Florida, and she’s fairly certain Bradley doesn’t have anyone else to spend the holidays with if she’s not around. Her WSO, Silver, offered to take custody of him for the holidays with her fiancé, but it felt like charity and Phoenix knew Rooster would bristle under it. Besides, Rooster knows most of her family, either from meeting them or from her stories. Once he adjusts to the weather, he’ll be just fine.
“It’s not even that cold,” Phoenix says smartly, wiggling her fingers in her own pockets to ward off the chill. Annapolis got winter briefly and Pensacola was a dream and now Oceana’s attempt at winter has made her soft. Her sisters are going to have a field day.
“The air is so thin I might as well be at 30,000 feet,” Rooster scoffs and Phoenix laughs, curling her arms around his elbow.
“You’ll get used to it, I promise.”
“You are a fucking liar, Trace,” he smiles down at her, gently shaking her off so he can lift the collar of his coat against the back of his neck.
He cuts a figure in the coat like he does in dress uniform, the sharp lines working in favour of his lean muscle. Tailored black wool is a far cry from his usual Hawaiian shirts and the battered leather jacket he pulls out on occasion. Phoenix is fully prepared to admit she thought he was hot when he tried it on and the crush she thought she’d stamped out during flight school reared its ugly head and forced him to buy it. “Smart winter attire” wasn’t on her Makes Bradley Attractive bingo card but there are few things sexier than a man in a coat that fits, as she has unfortunately come to realize.
“Come on.” She slides the handle of her suitcase up, the snow creaking underfoot as she starts walking. Rooster follows a few steps behind her, duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.
The Trace’s car is halfway down the pickup line, stuck behind a van that emitted an entire baseball team of kids into the arms of a harried woman with a carry-on suitcase. It’s easier for Rooster and Phoenix to brave the swarm than to wait for the car to come to them. By the time they reach it, the trunk is popped and her mom is standing beside it, beaming.
“Natasha, sweetie, it’s so good to see you!” Sonya Trace pulls her into a hard hug, more of a squeeze than anything. Phoenix blinks back the tears before anyone sees them— it’s been a moment since anyone called her Natasha. Even Rooster switched mainly to Phoenix once her call sign was set, Trace if he’s teasing. She does the same for him.
“Hi, Ma,” she pulls back but her mom is already moving on to Rooster.
“Bradley, how are you?” Her mom doesn’t hesitate, forcing Rooster to fold around her hug. “We’re so happy you could come.”
Rooster blinks several times in a row, so Phoenix knows the name thing affected him too. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Of course. We’re just excited Natasha brought her young man home.”
Rooster blinks again at Phoenix, this time owlishly. Over her mom’s shoulder he mouths, Cover?
“Mom,” Phoenix huffs, shaking her head at Rooster. This is not a dive bar where she’s getting hit on by some guy that won’t take no for an answer and Rooster pretends to be her boyfriend. Or that one time at the Army-Navy game they ran into that Marine Corps bitch she has hated since her junior year and Phoenix wanted to one up her in more than her career. “We’ve been over this. Rooster is just my best friend.”
Sonya pulls away from Rooster, disheartened. She pats his chest like she’s consoling him.
“You know, my friends all thought you were a couple in that photo you sent. You looked very handsome, Bradley. And I love this coat.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Trace.”
Phoenix fights against rolling her eyes. The aforementioned picture was from dressing up for Silver’s engagement party and they did look great, Phoenix in a black satin cocktail dress and Rooster in a steel grey button down and black jeans. Despite the glamour, or maybe because if it, the night had ended with Phoenix rubbing his back as he puked in the gutter from too much vodka, along with half their squadron. She’d only been exempt because she’d been the moron judging the contest rather than partaking. “Mom.”
“You two just look so lovely together. A natural fit,” Sonya insists.
Rooster’s lips are pressed together like he’s trying not to laugh. However, Phoenix would bet that the back of his neck is turning an embarrassed shade of red under the popped coat collar. Somehow, it makes the idiot she knows cries at the Budweiser puppy commercials look downright fucking suave.
Damn him and this stupid coat.
“Yes, Mom. Because he’s my wingman. If you want grandkids, bug Elena and Connor. Who are married.”
Sonya huffs and ushers them both towards the trunk, her hands waving in the air as if to brush away Phoenix’s rebuttal. “Everyone’s waiting for you two at home. Flying in on the twenty-second, my god, everything is so rushed. Hurry up, its cold.” She returns herself into the front passenger seat and leaves them to stow their own luggage.
“I’m so sorry,” Phoenix rushes to get the words out as the car door closes. “We’re going to get this a lot, from everyone.”
“It’s okay, Tash,” he shrugs, and even that looks good in this godforsaken coat. It also doesn’t help that he’s reverting back to flight school nicknames; she hasn’t heard Tash in a while and the happiness bubbling in her chest must mean she misses it. “Nothing we don’t get all the time.”
Natasha scoffs as he takes her suitcase, setting it with his duffle and closing the trunk. “Snitch’s assumptions have nothing on nosy Midwesterners. My abuelos are going to ask you when you’re proposing at least a half dozen times.”
“What if I say I’m just waiting for the right moment?” Rooster grins at her.
“Do not even try, Bradshaw!” She squawks as she shoves him. He slips a little, arms wind-milling until his hand clamps onto the roof of the car and Phoenix laughs at the near miss. She calls it cosmic retribution.
“Surprise!” Anya squeals front the driver’s side as Phoenix slides into the backseat, Bradley following behind her. Her laugh cuts off while his continues.
“Anya! You’re driving?” Phoenix tries to match her baby sister’s excitement but it doesn’t work.
“Mom,” Anya whines, “she’s already judging me and I haven’t even shifted gears.”
“I sure hope not,” Phoenix counters, “you’re not wearing a seatbelt and this is an automatic.”
“Hi Anya,” Rooster leans forward to give Anya an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder in greeting. “Don’t mind Phoenix, she’s been grumpy since the flight attendant gave her pretzels instead of a cookie.”
Phoenix shoves his shoulder again, playful this time. “I’m grumpy because she gave you two cookies because you smiled at her and then she had the audacity to tell me she was out. And you didn’t share!”
“I was the one who smiled. It's not my fault you weren’t her type!”
“I share my family with you and you can’t share a measly little cookie?”
“Exactly! They’re mini!”
“This is why Mom let her knitting circle believe you two are dating,” Anya sing-songs, hitting the blinker to turn onto the highway. They were so busy arguing that Natasha didn’t notice her pulling away from the curb. From the victory glinting in his eyes, Phoenix gathers that was Rooster’s point; to make her relax about her flighty little sister driving on winter highways with a newly minted license.
“Mom!”
“You’re knitting now, Mrs. Trace? I thought it was crocheting?” Rooster intercedes, pressing against Phoenix’s shoulder with his own, comforting. Anya’s driving isn’t the only thing she needs to relax about. Trace Family Christmases are high pressure affairs and it has been several years since she spent one with her family— having Rooster to buffer is as much for her sanity as it was the solution for his loneliness.
“It is, actually, thank you for noticing Bradley.”
They settle in for the long drive, Sonya chatting about her newest hobby and the going’s on in Bolton with Anya adding in bits about people under the age of 25. Phoenix tries to follow along, leaning into Rooster as he makes her mom and sister laugh. He drapes an arm over her shoulders and her mom gives her a look Phoenix ignores.
It’s going to be a long five days.
“For someone who really wants us to be dating, you’d think your mom would have better sleeping arrangements.”
Phoenix snorts, dragging her suitcase across the old wood floor to the twin-sized bed she has had all her life. Across the room is Elena’s old bed, identical in every way except for the light blue quilt. Phoenix’s is scarlet.
“Don’t imply Connor and Elena had premarital sex in front of any of the older generation.”
Rooster’s eyebrows raise and he seemingly bites his tongue before he asks, “I thought they were together for, like, seven years before they got married? Didn’t they live together?”
“Nope,” Phoenix shimmies out of her grey wool coat, tossing it onto her old desk chair. She opens her suitcase at the foot of the bed, digging around until she finds a hoodie. The old farmhouse is just as drafty as she remembers. “She’s a good Catholic girl who snuck him in through our bedroom window then kicked me out of our room. I’m the heathen, remember?”
She’s told him enough stories of her abuela knotting her hands together with a rosary so she would stop squirming during Mass and of sneaking out of First Communion practice that Rooster laughs before sitting hesitantly on Elena’s old bed.
“You going to be okay? You haven’t seen Elena since her wedding and you can’t hang up on her in person.”
The wedding, a wonderful affair, which would only have been made more wonderful if Elena hadn’t taken out her anxiety on Phoenix like a verbal punching bag for the entire weekend. In over a year she has yet to apologize.
“It is definitely possible to hang up on someone in person. It’s called slamming a door in their face. Super satisfying.” Her sister has always been the high maintenance one and birth order dictates Phoenix has always been the one who has to share a room with her fragile ego. “Your only child is showing, B.”
She pulls the hoodie over her head and lets the worn fabric wrap around her. It was Rooster’s, once upon a time, but they have an ongoing battle for it, poaching it from the others laundry. Rooster opens his mouth like he has something to say but the squeaking bedroom door beats him too it.
Anya pops in, long dark hair swirling around her as she sways in the doorway supported by a hand on the doorframe and the doorknob. “Elena and Connor are here and supper’s almost ready.”
“It’s not like they live on the other side of the barns or anything,” Phoenix grumbles. “We’ll be down in a few.”
Anya nods, smiling brightly. “Want me to take your coat to the closet, Bradley?”
Rooster jolts, like he does any time anyone offers to do something for him. Phoenix is proud to say she’s the only one he accepts assistance from without thinking.
“I’m good, thank you for offering, Anya,” he says slowly, looking down as if realizing he’s still wearing it. At this rate, Phoenix is going to have to concede and give him back the hoodie to avoid Rooster getting sick and then inevitably getting her sick.
“You’re welcome,” Anya rocks on her heels, swaying dangerously forward. “Oh, and Cat broke up with her boyfriend a few days ago so don’t bring him up.”
“Right,” Phoenix racks her brain, “Don’t bring up … Wyatt?”
“Wesley,” Rooster corrects and Anya smiles even brighter. Phoenix gives him a questioning look to which he shrugs. “Almost like The Princess Bride. I made you watch it after Anya called to gossip, remember?”
Phoenix does remember, but she mostly remembers watching him mouth along to the lines and his heartbreakingly beautiful smile when he told her it was one of his all-time favourites because Buttercup and Westley reminded him of his parents.
“Let’s all pretend I do remember Cat’s most recent boyfriend to fall the way of the Four Month Rule, to keep the peace.”
Anya visibly dims. “Please don’t fight with them! It’s Christmas! And you haven’t been home in ages.”
“I’m pretty sure Wendy is more excited to see me than Cat or Elena,” Phoenix rolls her eyes at Anya. Wendigo, her poor horse, is in the barn waiting for a ride and instead she has to limp through dinner with her sisters.
“Don’t say that,” Anya whines and sways. “We’ve been excited since you told us!”
“And how much did Elena grumble about not having enough notice? And how pissed is Cat that she’s back sharing your room because I brought Rooster?” Phoenix raises a knowing eyebrow. Cat’s favourite thing about her sisters was them moving out so she could claim Elena and Natasha’s room, even if she’d only really shuffled around some of Elena’s stuff before it was her turn to leave for college.
Anya stops swaying to curl around the doorway, rolling her dark eyes. “You don’t need to be a know it all, Cat is bad enough.”
“I thought it was a Trace sister thing?” Bradley smirks at Anya, teasing, but Phoenix knows it’s meant for her. She has waved off a few of her less palatable habits as “sisters things” in the years he has known her.
Anya puts a dramatically offended hand to her chest, making good use of her high school theatre experience. They were a week too late to see her in the Christmas play. “I know you’re new here but I can assure you that kind of behaviour is just the oldest three. I’m exempt as the light of my parents’ life.”
“Accident baby,” Phoenix coughs. Anya is the light of all their lives, more kindhearted than her sisters combined, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be nice to her about it.
“And to think, I almost missed her.” Anya gives Rooster a long-suffering look she normally reserves for Connor. Rooster smiles at her, a gentle one, full of commiseration Phoenix isn’t quite sure he’s earned. Bradley has met her parents and Anya multiple times and Cat once, but he has yet to experience Elena.
“We’ll see you downstairs, Anya,” Phoenix dismisses her. Anya shares another look with Rooster before peeling herself off the doorframe and wandering down the hallway to the stairs.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You and Anya. You seem… comfortable.”
“She’s sweet.”
“She’s a walking cavity, but you’re never that comfortable around people you don’t know unless there’s half a bottle of vodka thrown into the mix. Spill.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bradley.”
He sighs and shrugs the coat off. Phoenix can’t help but watch the way the fabric slips over his shoulders and down his arms.
“She’s lonely,” Rooster folds the coat in his hands, fiddling with it before placing it on top of Phoenix’s. “Living here without all of you.”
“Elena and Connor literally live on the other side of the barns,” Phoenix points out again. Their house was finished in June, a beautiful ranch-style house Elena poured her heart into.
“They were living at Connor’s parents for a while, then renting that place in town. She was lonely, Tash, and I get that. She calls me sometimes to talk about stuff she thinks y’all will make fun of her for.”
Bradley Bradshaw should have had a half dozen sibling, Phoenix thinks, not for the first time. He has older brother ironed into his edges.
“Like what?” She’s curious now.
“Her driver’s test, how empty the house is, how hard plays are compared to musicals, college applications-”
“Why is she worried about college apps? Anya’s brilliant.”
Like all her sisters, Anya was a math and science prodigy. She had a love for theoretical physics that only matched Elena’s for pure math, Phoenix’s for flight, and Cat’s for making money. Universities should be lining up to accept her.
“And she’s well-rounded and has checked every box on the application checklist from volunteer hours to extracurriculars, I know,” Rooster opens his duffle bag and sifts through it. The hair on the back of his arms is starting to stand up in the cold room. “I told her that. And that she’s got plenty of time. She’s just struggling with the idea of living up to all of you. She’s worried she’ll disappoint everyone, especially you.”
“Oh.” Phoenix vows to be more patient with her sister. “I didn’t know my opinion mattered to her so much.”
“She idolizes you.” Rooster keeps searching his bag and Phoenix pulls the hoodie back over her head and tosses it at him. He catches it, smile wry. “Does this mean I win?”
“It means if you catch hypothermia inside the house I get to make fun of you for the rest of our lives,” Phoenix pulls on a navy and red plaid flannel over her t-shirt. “The battle starts again in Oceana. Now, we’ve got to face Elena.”
“So that’s the infamous Bradley.”
Connor leans against the door of the stall Phoenix is hiding in, swatting at Wendy’s nose when the bad-tempered mare pins her ears at him. She clucks her tongue at the horse she’s had since 14-year old Natasha decided she needed her own Flicka moment. The original, not the remake— though she loved that one too— when she fell in love with red mares with killer instincts. Wendigo is aptly named: a man-eating monster who only behaves for Natasha because of hard-earned affection, respect, and a healthy dose of bribery. The bitch tried to kick her when she went into the stall, a massive Fuck You for being gone for so long.
“Yep.” Phoenix runs the dandy brush along Wendy’s haunches, her left hand following over the thick winter coat. In the summer, Wendy shines like a copper penny; in winter, she’s fuzzy like a fox.
“He handled it well.”
“Shouldn’t have had to.”
Dinner was, for lack of a better word, a fucking disaster. Elena had been in a mood to pick a fight; Cat had asked all the wrong questions on purpose and Sonya had pushed her own agenda. Anya had whined and Phoenix had told them all to back off when Rooster’s leg had started a rapid beat under the table.
“Baptism by fire,” Connor says lightly. “The Trace women never disappoint.”
“That was all Elena,” Phoenix says darkly, squatting to run careful hands over Wendy’s hocks and cannons, around her fetlocks. Satisfied, she rises and ducks carelessly under Wendy’s neck to start the process on her other side. Long, smooth brush strokes down her neck and over her withers. She presses hard enough that Wendy cants her neck to look at her accusingly.
“Sorry, baby,” Phoenix whispers, reaching to scratch Wendy’s chest, pressing her face against the mare’s warm side. Connor doesn’t say anything. He never apologizes for Elena, but he also doesn’t make excuses for her.
Connor Evers is a personable man. He’s popular in town, a shining golden boy despite his black Irish good looks of striking blue eyes, black hair, and skin so white Cat used to joke they’d lose him in the snow. He gets along with everyone, has a gift for making people feel seen and heard. Easygoing but in a different way from Rooster— he lets everyone in with welcome mats rolled out and never judges when someone chooses to leave without a goodbye. People have raved about Connor’s kindness since elementary school, that a guy who is so talented and wonderful and popular has always been the first person to include the loner and treat everyone like equals. His kind heart and humble smile are what convinced Natasha to tell him to ask out her big sister.
He and Elena are a cliché born again: high school quarterback that won state and head cheerleader high school sweethearts, married young and settling down in their hometown to take over a family business. They do have deviations: Connor studied agricultural science for a year before dropping out of college and pursuing welding at trade school and Elena has a pure math degree which sees most of its use in taking over the operations side of the Trace family farm. They don’t have kids, yet, and Phoenix knows it’s probably where half of Elena’s ire is from. She’s been waiting on a honeymoon baby for over a year now.
“I brought Rooster home because I thought he deserved more than getting day drunk in a dive bar on Christmas with a bunch of guys from base that couldn’t get leave and avoiding phone calls from the mysterious family friends he doesn’t want to talk about. I didn’t bring him home so Elena could fucking court martial him half an hour after meeting him.”
“I will agree, she crossed a line,” Connor concedes.
“All I did was pet the dog! Her dog!”
That was when it had all started to go downhill, when instead of hugging her sister, Phoenix had dropped to her knees to scoop up Elena’s crotchety old chihuahua, Polly Pocket the pocket dog. Polly, blind as a bat, had started barking and frantically licking her face once she smelled that it was her second favourite human in the world, Natasha. Rooster had laughed and said he was pretty sure Phoenix was more excited to see the animals than she was the people.
Strike fucking one, in Elena’s eyes. Phoenix had watched her sister’s smile turn to plastic as she scrambled to introduce Rooster to Elena and Connor. Rooster had sensed it too, wisely shutting his mouth unless spoken to for the duration of dinner, letting Phoenix answer for him most of the time by pretending to be chewing.
Then Elena had the audacity to bring up Rooster’s family, asking why he wasn’t spending the break with them as if she hadn’t known. Rooster had shot Phoenix a sideways glance and slowly said the Navy was his family these days but he was very grateful to have been invited. In any other situation, it would have been a perfectly diplomatic answer. But the Trace sisters didn’t give in that easy.
“You weren’t invited. Tasha said she was bringing you and if any of us had a problem with it then she wasn’t coming.” Elena had swirled her wine around her glass a little too viciously. Phoenix’s grip on her cutlery had increased exponentially at Elena bending the truth. “Basically blackmailed us.”
Rooster had set his fork down, calm but firm. “Anya said something different when she called Phoenix to beg us both to come.”
“Who?” Cat had inquired, mouth pinched impertinently, like she was trying to hide her amusement. Her dyed blonde hair and contrasting brows made her look even more like a bitch than her disinterested gaze.
“Don’t be stupid,” Phoenix had hissed at her sister, a grave insult in their house. “It’s a nickname.”
“It’s a work thing, and work doesn’t belong at the table,” Sonya had said primly. “But Bradley knows he’s always welcome here.”
“The Navy gets her all the god damn time and the one time it doesn’t, she brings work home with her,” Elena insisted. The NAVY emblazoned across Rooster’s chest in silk-screen letters didn’t help with that.
“I brought my friend home with me.”
“Christmas is for family.” Elena had said, deliberately obtuse, and Phoenix had almost seen fucking red.
Now, in the dim light of the barn, Phoenix sees a different kind of red as she buries herself in Wendy’s hide. To Connor, she says, “He’s family to me, does she not get that?”
“You know Elena doesn’t like to share.”
“Bradley is my best friend.”
“Exactly.” Connor leans his chin on arms crossed on the door. “I remember when Elena used to be your best friend.”
“Lola is my other best friend.” Phoenix argues in favour of her cousin but Connor’s point has already landed. Elena didn’t want to have to split Natasha’s time with someone who got to see her every day when the rest of her family hadn’t seen her in over a year. “I brought Bradley home so Elena could meet him. And you, so you could have a buddy to complain about us with. This was supposed to be a good thing.”
“Watch your step before you get shit on your boots, Elena,” Phoenix had picked up her own wine glass, trying for the same bitterly passive-aggressive tone she’d never been able to copy from her sister. It came out too sharp.
“Please don’t argue!” Anya had whined over her pasta. “You promised.”
“I didn’t start it,” Phoenix had said. More importantly, she’d never promised any such thing. She didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.
“You started it when you brought a stray home for Christmas,” Elena had insisted.
“No girlfriend, Bradley?” Cat had asked, dark eyes glinting with darker humour. “How much older than Natasha are you again?”
Rooster had glanced at Phoenix, a silent message of when do we punch out?
“Bradley and I are both building our careers, dating isn’t exactly a priority for either of us,” Natasha had tried to answer evenly. It had been too long since she had to mediate between her sisters and she was a little rusty.
Her mom had looked at her again like she had in the car, when Natasha had been tucked comfortably under Bradley’s arm. Knowing dark eyes she passed onto all of her daughters even as they all took after her husband. “You never know when you’ll find the right person.”
Phil had patted his wife on the hand in a sweet gesture also intended to remind her to stop meddling.
“Natasha mentioned your parents had passed, but I find it hard to believe there really is no one else you could spend the holidays with,” Elena had insisted. Connor had shifted beside her, ever so slightly, so his shoulder pressed a warning into his wife’s.
“Elena!” Anya had gasped.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Phoenix had rushed to assure Rooster as his leg started to bounce under the table. His face was relaxed, calm, and that worried her in itself. She could feel him withdrawing back into his shell. “Elena, stop being a fucking bitch. I invited Bradley because I want him here and nobody else has a problem with it. Eat your fucking penne and move on.”
“Language,” Sonya had tried to berate. Phoenix was pretty sure that she was just mad she brought her arrabbiata sauce into it.
“I mean, Elena makes a good point. You don’t have, like, cousins or anything?” Cat had asked, more curious than before but still stirring the pot.
“Cat, seriously, shut the fuck up.”
“Natasha! Language!”
“My parents were only children,” Bradly says calmly. “It was just me and my mom after my dad passed, for the most part.”
“The most part?” Cat had perked up. Rooster’s leg bounced faster. Phoenix knew what that meant: the mysterious godfather that made him clam up every time.
“Leave it,” Phoenix had warned.
“It’s okay,” Rooster had said to her, despite the fact it clearly was not. His whole chair was shaking as his knee bounced. “I grew up with a lot of my parents’ friends around. They had me young, so I was the only kid for a long time and most of them are Navy or adjacent, so they’re used to people being gone during holidays. A couple of them reached out this year but Tash had already asked if I wanted to come and I’d accepted. You all were so welcoming when you visited.”
That had been news to Phoenix. The invites part, not the Navy family friends part. He’d told her during flight school it was why Warthog, their flight instructor, hated him— bad blood between Rooster’s dad and his old pilot and Warthog’s entire old squadron. Phoenix wanted to know how two people could inspire such lingering resentment.
“That’s very sweet of you to come see us, Bradley,” Sonya had said. Anya had tentatively been smiling again and Cat had seemed satisfied with the answer.
“I appreciate you thinking of me,” Connor says, voice carrying in the barn and tinged with humour. “I think he’s great.”
“I thought you would.”
Phoenix starts brushing Wendy again, muscle memory taking over even as her hands start to ache with the unfamiliar pressure of the brush in her palm. It’s a shame, that her hands have become more accustomed to a joystick than the smooth handle of a brush. New tools of a new trade. Phoenix can remember when she dreamed of being a rodeo star. She’s always loved to go fast.
“This isn’t a soft launch, right? You bringing him home as a friend when maybe there’s something more going on?” Connor eases into the gossip. He and Natasha have always been good friends, and she spent years before the wedding thinking of him as a brother.
“Who are you snooping for, Mom or El?”
“Anny.” He smiles indulgently. Anya was six when Connor and Elena started dating and he was goo in her hands from their first meeting. “She’s rooting for it too, but she has the decorum to keep it to herself.”
Phoenix rolls her eyes and switches out her brush for a mane comb. Wendy’s flaxen mane is shot through with gold and red, like fireworks exploding on New Year’s Eve.
“Holidays must always be so hard for you, without any family.” Elena had dropped the bomb, an explosion she had been determined to set off.
“Fucking back off, Elena!” Phoenix had slammed her hand onto the table, her cutlery clattering in warning. Beside her, Rooster had gone deathly still.
“El,” Connor had said, so quiet Phoenix could only hear it because she was sitting right across from him.
“Elena, that’s too far. And Natasha, you are not on a ship, watch your language,” Phil had finally intervened after an urgent look from his wife. “Bradley, why don’t you and Connor go get dessert from the kitchen? Take your time.”
Rooster had gratefully followed the suggestion, Connor leading the way. The Trace family had sat in silence until they returned nearly ten minutes later with the devil’s food cake Cat had spent most of the afternoon on. It had tasted like cardboard but Natasha ate her entire slice, daring Elena to speak while she pushed her own cake around her plate. The rest of the evening had been politely stilted. Elena hadn’t apologized.
“I don’t need to poll the family to know Elena hates him,” Phoenix mutters, the comb catching on a snarl in Wendy’s mane.
“She’ll come around,” Connor assures her. “She’s just worried you’re never going to come home again if you’ve got someone like Bradley around.”
“What is that supposed to mean, someone like Bradley?”
Connor simply shrugs. “We did a shotgun in the front yard when we were supposed to be getting cake. He’s got a good sense of humour and he didn’t tell me my wife is a bitch.”
Elena is a bitch and Phoenix warned Rooster about it for years, yet he still chose to come. He also has a tendency to laugh in people’s faces when they tell him Phoenix is a bitch, so it was always unlikely he’d say anything to Connor.
“You did a shotgun without me? Rude.”
Phoenix slides the comb through Wendy’s mane one last time before nudging the horse back a few steps to reach her forelock hanging over intelligent eyes. Phoenix gives her a good scratch before continuing with the comb.
Two clinks of metal on metal cause her to turn, smile already growing on her face. Connor balances the PBRs on top of the stall door in offering.
“You’re my second favourite person in this family, just so you know.” It’s not an exaggeration on her part by any means.
Phoenix strokes Wendy’s cheek and presses a kiss to her nose, soft as velvet, before letting herself out of the stall. Connor snatches the cans back before they fall.
“It’s not a soft launch,” Phoenix insists, as they walk towards the front of the barn. She firmly ignores the images of Bradley’s shoulders in new wool that comes to mind. “He’s just a really good friend. I trust him with my life on a daily basis, it’s hard to explain that kind of… I don’t know, bond?”
Connor hums impartially, opening and closing the man door behind them. Phoenix takes one of the beer cans from him, and Connor offers her a hoof pick from his pocket.
“That’s disgusting. Don’t you still have the thing I got you?”
Connor laughs, digging the hoof pick into the aluminum side of his can until it breaks open like an egg. “Elena made me take it off my keys after the wedding. Said we’re too mature for that, but I think it’s because she’s never been able to shotgun a day in her life. And this is my drinking hoof pick, thank you. Bought it special, perfectly clean and better than a bottle opener. I bet I could use it as a corkscrew in a pinch too.”
Phoenix can’t help but laugh too. Since he married Elena, no one would never be able to tell Connor grew up in town. “Pass the hoof pick, cowboy.”
“Cheers.”
One day down, four to go.