Chapter Text
— 1 —
When Are You Going To Land?
I don’t mind you comin’ here
Wastin’ all my time
– from ‘Just What I Needed’, by The Cars
Maverick walked towards his assigned classroom at TOPGUN, an hour before sun-up. His boots hit the concrete with a stride as large as he could manage.
It was his second week as an instructor, class of ’01. He shifted a folder under his arm, his shoulders thrown back. A smile danced across his face.
The board of evaluators had steamrolled his materials and presentations for months until they were smoother than his service dress whites. (Maverick had contemplated introducing a few more wrinkles each time, just to give them something to complain about.)
Prior to that, he’d been run through the mangle of the staff training program for over a year — barring a very small, very negligible, very Maverick incident where, sure, he ticked off some instructors and got himself temporarily dismissed for a month or two. Big deal. The point was, he was back in the seat now and ready for action.
In fact, Maverick was excited. Excited at the challenge offered by the next-gen talent — almost as excited as he would be to get his hands on an experimental jet. (Which was in the back of his mind as definitely something he planned on doing.)
Maverick stopped outside the classroom. He craned his neck to peer into the narrow glass door panel. His students sat at their plastic chairs and rickety desks, still in their flight suits after the early morning combat drill.
He ran his eyes over the class, assessing them. Isaac “Aladdin” Sane was definitely buzzing. Maverick had passed him earlier in the mess. Seven shots of expresso every morning couldn’t be healthy... yet here Isaac was, rosy-cheeked through his olive tan and spilling energy all over his desk. Another instructor described him as having ‘a high-powered turbine for a brain’ under his glossy dark curls. He defied nature.
Near Aladdin sat his RIO, David “Casanova” Lucas. He had his eyes trained on a book, and his lips moved in a subdued murmur. Top grades. Brilliant pilot, but fatally afflicted with a terror of female company. Was reputed to never have spoken to a woman in his life.
Maverick would have to keep an eye on that one. Maybe show him the ropes. The kid evidently needed a leg up.
He immediately dismissed the idea — he was returning as an instructor now, not a student — but seeing them all made him feel like he was back in class again on that first day with Goose.
There was Elias Davatzes, callsign “Faker”, with his usual resemblance to a deflated souffle. He was a dark-headed Greek-American who showed good promise. Beside him sat Hector “Goblin” Cosgrove, hunched over a book of crosswords. Goblin was a smart, funny little RIO with glasses, Faker’s backseater.
Many of them had a chronic fear they wouldn’t be good enough, that they couldn’t make it. Maverick could see it haunting them. Young men and women itching to prove themselves. He permitted himself a small, rueful grin. He’d underestimated the colossal task that Viper and Jester had had on their hands fifteen years ago.
Nevertheless, it was a task he was proud to take in hand. Two weeks in and already the students were showing fine mettle.
Maverick laid a hand on the door.
He thrust it open.
“Good morning, AVIATORS!”
Maverick always liked to yell that last part, accompanied by an ear-splintering clap that ricocheted down the classroom. An effective tactic for waking up any students who hadn’t drunk enough coffee yet to shake off the stupor of the previous night.
The Top Gun class of ’01 sat up straight.
Maverick set his folder down on the instructor’s desk and stood in front of the class. He began the morning briefing with a series of questions. He sounded each student’s knowledge and tested their application of theory.
One particular scenario jarred with Robert “FOY” T. Walker, who had an unfortunate habit of thinking he knew best.
“Respectfully, sir: how is that possible?”
“I’ve seen it,” said Maverick, simply, and called on a different student to answer in FOY’s place.
With the morning briefing concluded, Maverick leaned back on the edge of the instructor’s desk.
“Before we cover the rest of today’s material…”
He folded his arms.
“Why are you here at Top Gun? Rhetorical question, Gobs.” He shook his head at Goblin, who had already opened his mouth. “I know why you’re all here. You know why you’re here. The Navy knows why you’re here. You’re dedicated, high-achieving, and you’re exceptionally good aviators. But I want you to ask yourself: what is the primary purpose behind you being here?”
(“Hey, Ice,” Maverick had asked Kazansky a few weeks ago, “I’m writing a speech for the students. Y’know, the kind of thing to boost morale. Tell me what you think.”
Kazansky had sat and listened, with a hand spread thoughtfully on his cheek. He suggested phrases and made corrections to Maverick’s grammar and wording. Sometimes they argued over the latter, and Ice would sit back with a quiet remark to the effect of, ‘Do as you please, Mitchell, I’m not the one making a fool of himself in front of the nation’s brightest young aviators’.
Maverick, grumbling, would amend the wording.
“Better,” Ice would say, and smile.
“I still think it should be the other way,” Maverick would insist, but without any real conviction, simply for the sake of keeping up appearances.)
“As our Commanding Instructor told us, at Top Gun, it’s about combat. But I’ve come to realise it’s more than that. It’s about not taking ‘good enough’ for an answer.”
He paused, a forefinger raised to emphasize points in each sentence.
“You’ve all seen the plaque of names in the orientation room. If you look at that list, you’ll see two names: Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky and his RIO, Ron ‘Slider’ Kerner. They were in my class in ’86. We all emerged the best we could be and the best at what we do. Tom Kazansky was my wingman after Top Gun. He’s now Admiral Kazansky.”
(Ice’s most recent promotion was something Maverick had yet to bug his old wingman about. Of course Kazansky was an Admiral. He was textbook material, to an exasperating degree.
In Maverick’s private opinion, moving from aviator to any form of cake-eater was a total downgrade. He’d rather be flying. He had enough paperwork-induced grey hairs as it was.)
“We had opposite styles, but fighting together, we outshone anything we ever did alone.” (It was a lesson that had taken Maverick some years to swallow.) “I expect you to learn from your fellow students as well as your instructors.”
Having reached the heart of his speech, Maverick took a moment to observe his students. Some of them listened with bowed heads. Others leaned forward, fully absorbed. Blake “Mordred” Shelby sat stroking the waxed ends of his whiskers, a half-glazed expression on his face.
Maverick narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Shelby. He let his gaze broaden again to the rest of the class.
“Every Top Gun graduate goes back to their squadron not only a better aviator, but an aviator that betters others. You’re not at Top Gun for yourself. You’re here for everyone else out there fighting on the ground, in the air, at sea. You are going to strengthen your squad, the fleet, and those you return to fly with. This is why you’re at Top Gun. We’re going to make you strategists. Specialists. Teachers. Leaders.”
His hand swept in a broad circle towards the classroom whiteboard. The volume of his voice went up, charged with sudden intensity:
“All of this. All of this has been done before. We’ll push you to your current limits, we will push you beyond, until you find what you’re really made of, up there.”
For a moment, his breathing quickened with adrenaline at the memory of flying against five MiGs on the day he graduated Top Gun. He was pulled back to 1986, reliving it all in a split second. Sweating and shaking. Finding out if he could really fly without Goose.
Maverick ran a hand over his flight suit, folded on the desk. The fabric was softened with age.
“In combat, there’s no room for second-best. You know what it takes. You apply yourself. You work hard. You listen, learn, practice. Repeat. At the end, in eleven weeks’ time…” He lifted the flight suit. The Fighter Weapons School patch stood out red on the shoulder. “You might walk out with one of these.”
The students digested this in silence, giving one or two nods.
Maverick turned back to the whiteboard. There was the click of a marker lid and the soft squeak of a pen tip as he began to sketch.
“RIOs. This week you’ll start practicing with the F-14’s targeting pod system.”
“LANTIRN?” ventured Goblin.
“Correct. You’ll be training for ground-attack operations between twenty to forty thousand feet, with the LANTIRN 40K.”
The eyes of every pilot in the room widened. Aladdin leaned over and whispered something to his backseater. Casanova shifted uncomfortably and nodded.
For the next half hour, with the marker in hand, Maverick detailed the mission plan that they’d be simulating on the day’s first hop.
***
Performance evaluations followed their final hop. Sweaty and tired, the students lined up in their baggy flight suits.
Maverick handed out creamy-yellow sheets of instructor notes to each pair.
“Faker and Goblin, good work, but I want you to tighten those turns.”
“FOY. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but listen to your RIO! You’re dead in the water if you don’t.”
He reviewed a few more: Sloppy, Rabbit, Hammer, and their RIOs, all highly talented, enthusiastic aviators. Maverick glanced up at the next student and pressed his lips together.
“Brighty.”
Gordon “Bright Eyes” Díaz stepped up. He walked with a purposeful stride, the steady lines of a cougar in his shoulders and his feet. He hadn’t removed his helmet yet. It was something of a notorious joke that he never took his sunglasses off, either. No one knew if it was intentional or simply forgetfulness. He was a deadly dogfighter, even-handed and reliable on the controls, and the nimblest at getting in and out of the jets.
“You went up with Commander Rosenfeld today. Is your RIO still in medical?”
“Yes, sir.” He had a heavy, weary voice, like someone carrying within them an eternally mourning heart. “Food-poisoning, I think. Three days.”
Maverick hesitated. “I hate to say it, Lieutenant, but if your RIO isn’t up again soon, it doesn’t look good for your chances at Top Gun.”
“No, sir,” said Díaz. His lips tightened.
“It would be a shame to lose an aviator with your potential.” He doubted if he had enough influence in the school to make any promises, but he’d try his luck with the Head Instructor and the other CIs. He tried to reassure Díaz with a smile. “We’ll figure something out.”
Díaz ducked his head and left, clutching the yellow sheet of paper.
“Aladdin, Casanova.”
The two students stood to attention, their dark hair scruffy and damp. Maverick shook his head.
“You two gave the best performance today. Real sharp. Every manoeuvre — textbook perfect. But you’re like a pair of squabbling monkeys up there! What are you hoping to do, confuse the enemy by yelling? The only thing you’re doing is distracting everyone else. Next time, don’t make such a racket over comms. Got that? O.K.”
The last student in line for evaluation stepped up.
He was blond and bronze-eyed, with tight curly hair. The burnish on his boots winked and gleamed. By some accounts, he spent an hour in front of the washroom mirrors on a daily basis.
Blake “Mordred” Shelby. The student who had found his moustache more inspiring than Maverick’s speech.
Not that Maverick would hold that against him. But perhaps Shelby needed a little something to keep him in line.
“Mordred.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Great flying.” There was the faintest suggestion of mischief in Maverick’s expression. “One question: are those whiskers within regulation standards?”
Mordred blinked. “N-no, sir.”
“Didn’t think so,” said Maverick. “Dismissed.”
***
After the last wave of missions, Maverick had an hour spare. He headed down to a nearby bar, one that had a payphone outside.
He was planning to call Tanya, an old girlfriend from Australia who had moved to the States. A chance meeting, Tim-Tams over a cup of coffee, and here they were: Pete, the boy who loved fireworks, and Tanya, the girl who’d never forgotten the lightshow he gave her, oh-so-casually heading into what might well be the longest relationship of Maverick’s career.
With a beer in one hand and a grubby slip of paper in the other, he dialled the number written on the paper. He cradled the phone on his shoulder while he slipped the paper back into his wallet.
“Hello?”
“Tanya. It’s Maverick.”
Maverick leaned against the phone booth, smiling down at his boots.
They slipped into easy chitchat. It was just like old times — better, in fact, for they were nearly forty now, hitting their stride and comfortable in themselves.
“How’s it going over there?”
“Intense. Working my tail off, and theirs, too. Nearly got smashed by Aladdin today…” Maverick launched into an account of his week, glossing over any details considered ‘classified’. He sketched lively stories of the pilots, their personalities, and the dogfights, sprinkled with comedic exaggeration wherever possible.
In turn, Tanya recounted a malware incident at her workplace that had cost the company thousands of dollars before the computer team managed to shut it down. Maverick whistled and shook his head.
“Now, Maverick. Have you given thought to our ‘agreement’?”
Maverick straightened his back and set his palm against the frame of the phone box. “Yes, ma’am, I have.”
(Both he and Tanya had a wildly spontaneous streak and a shared love of new experiences. Thus, a pact had been formed: each weekend they spent together, they’d try something new that they’d never done before.)
“Ready for it?” he asked.
“Fire away.” Tanya’s voice shifted during the sentence. Maverick guessed she was now lying down. Probably on the yellow couch in her living room.
He pushed the toe of his boot against a crack in the concrete. “You free in a couple of weeks to fly over to South Carolina?”
Tanya took a moment to process this. “South Carolina. Sure, why not?”
“I want you to meet my godson, Bradley, and his mom, Carole. Brad has a Varsity semi-final that Saturday. I promised I’d go. We can fly out on Friday night and get there by mid-morning.”
Tanya went into delighted exclamations over finally getting to meet THE Bradley Bradshaw.
“I’ll book a ticket—”
“Already done. Also, Carole offered for us to stay the night so I got return fares.”
“Oh! You were very sure of yourself.”
He could hear her smile, weaving itself like a ribbon through her words.
“S’pose I am.” Maverick leaned over to set his finished beer bottle on the ground and added, jovially: “You should know me by now, Taze; that’s one of my defining qualities.”
She hummed in merry agreement. “I’ll ask Gloria to drop us at the airport, I’m sure she’d be happy to.”
“Great! I’ll ride up on my bike.” He glanced at his watch to check the time. “I gotta wrap up but hey, before I go…are you doing anything this weekend?”
“Don’t you have that pool party at the Kazanskys?”
Maverick rubbed a hand over his face. “Oh, shoot. I forgot.”
Tanya laughed softly. “One of these days I’m buying you a wall calendar, Maverick.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got you now, so…”
“Hey, that’s not how this works, mister!”
“Haha, sure. Wanna come with? Ice and Sarah wouldn’t mind.” He attempted an Australian accent that sent Tanya into peals of laughter. “We’ll put some shrimps on the barbie.”
“Prawns, Maverick, we don’t call them shrimps…!”
“They’re shrimps.”
“Prawns.”
They bickered over it.
“I’m going to start calling you ‘Shrimpy’ from now on, you know that? It can be your new callsign.”
Tanya let out a squeak. “Don’t you dare!”
Maverick tsked, as though sympathetic for her plight. “You don’t choose your callsign, the callsign chooses you. — Are you sure you don’t want to come? I can pick you up if you need a lift.”
“No, no. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Take care of yourself in those planes, okay?”
“Alright. See you, Shrimpy.”
Maverick hung up. He leaned back against a wall and let out a sigh of dismay.
He’d been perilously close to an accidental ‘love you’ at the end there. Only just managed to catch himself before the words slipped out.
Risky business, Pete Mitchell.
***
‘Shrimpy’…! The audacity of him.
Tanya hung up, smiling far too widely for an overworked computer technician on an ordinary Thursday evening.
Her two housemates, Connie and Gloria, appeared at opposite ends of the hallway as if summoned by magic.
“Who dat?” Gloria enquired, lazily.
“Pete Mitchell.”
Connie let out an ‘ohhh’ of enlightenment. Tanya pushed herself away from the phone and went into the living room. Her housemates trailed after her.
“Is he hot?” said Gloria, poking Tanya’s back.
Tanya flung out her arms and laid herself out on the couch. “Alright, I submit to being grilled. Not that I have a choice. Ye-e-es he’s hot.”
Connie and Gloria made knowing eyes at her.
“We’re taking it slow.” Tanya drew out the word. “For my sanity.”
“I feel you, honey,” said Connie, shaking her head. She pulled her workbasket from a cabinet and sat down to detangle the mess of yarn inside. She was a gently energetic soul; the paper sunflowers and stars on the walls showcased her most recent attempt at room decor.
“When do we get to meet him?” said Gloria, in wheedling tones.
“Oo-o.” Connie made a muffled, amused sound. She tapped a crochet needle against her cherry-red lips. “Glor hasn’t seen the famous Captain-Pete-Maverick-Mitchell!” She uttered the name in a martial manner and flourished a half-finished doily like a flag.
“Why, when did you?” said Gloria, with a gasp.
“Before you arrived and made messes everywhere so Tanya couldn’t invite nice people over anymore,” said Connie. Gloria half-heartedly shoved her with her foot.
“No, it’s the snakes,” said Tanya. “He won’t come inside anymore; I think he’s terrified they’ll get out. Particularly Jeffrey.”
This was in reference to Gloria’s ball python, Jeffrey, who resided in a glass tank in a corner of the living room. Jeffrey shared his living quarters with a cranky tortoise and a pink-haired troll doll. In a neighbouring tank roamed Kermit Cornelius Mannschaffen, a slender green tree snake belonging to Tanya.
“That’s it — dump him,” said Gloria, ruthlessly. “Like so many of my boyfriends, if he’s not worthy of Jeffrey, he’s not worth keeping.”
Connie shook her head as she bent over her crocheting. “Oh, Glor, he’s quite something,” she said, with a sagacious air. She twirled her hand. “Hence… the sanity.”
Gloria hooted. She rolled onto the carpet and hugged a pillow to herself. “Tanya, I expect a full report of everything you’ve been up to in the last twelve months.”
“I haven’t been up to anything,” said Tanya, primly.
Connie lifted her head, a dimple skipping from cheek to cheek. “She met him in ’89, you see. An o-o-o-ld fla-a-ame.” She wobbled her voice on the words ‘old flame’, making it sound as decrepit as she could.
Gloria flung out her arms and lay flat on her back. Her brown hair splayed out, mingling with the rainbow blocks on her wool cardigan. “Gosh,” was all she could say.
Tanya covered her face. Her cheeks showed bright pink through her fingers. “He’s very nice and I like him.”
“You sure that’s all you’re feeling right now?” Gloria fluttered her eyes.
“Shut up, Glor,” said Tanya, and threw a pillow at her.
Had Florence Hartley been consulted at the time of writing ‘The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness’, she would have expressed vehement disapproval of a 39-year-old woman having a wrestling match with her housemate, but Tanya did it anyway.
Ultimately, Gloria prevailed. She whooped and put her fists in the air. She sniffed. “Connie! Your cookies are burning,” she said.
Her housemate dashed madly to the kitchen.
“Anyway.” Tanya righted herself, getting up from the carpet. Bits of fluff clung to her skirt. “You’ll get to see him soon, I promise.”
“Good!” said Gloria. She ambled across the floor on her hands and knees. The living room had a glass sliding door that led to their small yard. However, the door was entirely blocked by Gloria’s vast collection of potted plants. (Her housemates had long since learned to use the front door for any backyard access, rather than navigate Gloria’s ‘jungle’.)
Tanya started to take the bobby pins out of her mussed-up hair and put them back in properly. “I have a big favour to ask you, Glor.”
“Ask away!” Gloria’s victory had put her in an amicable mood. She fussed over her plants, rotating them so they’d get the sun on their best sides come morning, and so on.
“Mav and I are visiting his family in South Carolina, weekend after next.” Tanya bent to recover a stray pin from under the couch. “Would you mind driving us to and from the airport and keeping his bike in the garage? We’ll be gone for a day or so.”
Gloria lifted her brows. “An up-close-and-personal inspection of your boyfriend? I’d be mad to pass up the opportunity. Yes, of course I’ll take you.”
“You may scrutinise him to your heart’s content,” said Tanya, laughing. “Thanks, Glor, that’s extremely good of you.”
“Anything for you, chérie,” said Gloria, fanning the carpet burns on her elbows.
***
On Sunday, Maverick stood beside the Kazanskys’ enormous courtyard pool, enjoying a chilled beer as he watched the commotion of the other guests in the pool. It was a large party; Iceman knew a lot of people.
Tom Kazansky, aka Iceman, manned the helm at the barbeque. Burnished and tanned, he looked the model image of flyboy summer fashion (for all his being a Rear Admiral now). He had a white apron tied over cargo shorts and a baggy pale blue shirt. Everyone else went barefoot or in flip-flops, but Ice wore white sneakers like some kind of athlete. His blond hair had more length to it these days, a few inches short of a classic curtain hair look.
Ice finished turning over the sausages. Beer in hand, he strolled over to Maverick and greeted him.
“Mitchell!”
“Kazansky. Good to see you.”
“You too, man.”
They shook hands.
“Congratulations on making Admiral.”
“Yeah,” said Ice, jokingly drawing himself up all of his five inches taller than Maverick, “you’ll have to stand to attention when you address me, Captain.”
“How many stars is that?”
His smile grew almost bashful, for Ice. “Just the one,” he said. He leaned back on his heels and raised his eyebrows in an arch look. “What’s this I hear about you getting mixed up with some Australian girl?”
Maverick’s eyebrows briefly went up. He took a swig of beer to hide the smile that came unbidden to his face.
Ice elbowed him. “Gee, Mav, you’re actually going red. I can’t believe this. Who is she? C’mon, man.”
Maverick gave him a look of half-exasperation, half-embarrassment. “We’re dating.”
Ice grinned. “How long?”
“Since February.”
“N’aww.” Iceman tilted his head to one side with an expression of mock commiseration. (Except for the smile, which was 100 percent pure equine excrement.) “First time being in a committed relationship? Didn’t think you knew how to keep a girl past the sixth date.”
“Kazansky, I swear—” Maverick launched at Ice to shove him into the pool. Ice resisted and pushed back. They wrangled on the pool’s edge for a few seconds.
Maverick lost. He got launched into the water like a mini torpedo. Iceman staggered back to avoid the splash, laughing fit to spill his beer.
“Pete!” Sarah Kazansky came over. “Are you alright?”
Maverick waded to the shallow end and crawled out, spluttering and dripping. “I’m fine.”
Sarah handed him a towel.
“He’s fine,” said Ice, grinning hugely. He gave Maverick a jovial shake.
“Yeah, I, uh, got hit by an iceberg,” Maverick told Sarah, with a pointed look at Ice.
“Went down like the Titanic, baby,” was Ice’s retort.
Maverick scrubbed his face and hair briskly with the towel. He looked ruefully at the pool where his Bud Light was bobbing along in its koozie lifejacket. “You owe me another beer.”
Ice obliged.
“She’s pretty good then, huh?”
“Yeah. She’s great. It’s so strange... You remember when I got posted to Australia, just before Op Desert Storm?”
Ice nodded.
“Well, that’s her. The girl from Q.L.D.”
“No way, man.”
“I ran into her in town. She moved over here six years ago or something. We got talking and—” Maverick lifted his hands in a shrug. He looked like a very happy dog, with damp hair plastered across his forehead, and likewise around his ears so that they stuck out. His eyes were big, touched with glee.
Ice, the married man, nodded sagely. “So you’re going steady.”
“Something like that.”
“Bring her round sometime.”
“I will.”
Ice tipped his beer at Maverick and went to move along, but Maverick blurted out: “Hey, Ice.”
Iceman turned back.
Maverick squared his shoulders and looked at his old wingman. “Thanks for putting in a good word at Top Gun. Didn’t think I’d be allowed back in there after Viper left.”
“Looks like I’m always going to be sticking my neck out for you, huh?”
Maverick smiled, but his eyes were dead serious. “I appreciate it.”
“I hope you’re living up to the recommendation I gave you. You’d better, Captain.”
Maverick’s back straightened. They looked at one another very much as they had done fifteen years before on an aircraft carrier, in the flush of victory. Wingmen with newly-forged trust and understanding.
“Yes, sir.”
“I know you can show them something worthwhile.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good.” Ice paused like he’d just remembered something. “Did you give your speech?”
“I did.”
“Bet that made you the most popular instructor in the school, huh.” Ice’s voice was loaded with sarcasm.
“Go figure. But hey, they had to eat my dust all afternoon, so it worked out.”
“Stick to flying, not speeches, Mav.”
Maverick waved him away. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll think about it.”
***
A few weeks later, Maverick rolled up to Tanya’s little suburban flat. It was half-past midnight and the sound of his motorcycle engine was loud and harsh in the silent street. A few miles away, the outer edges of Los Angeles sprawled like a glittering enchantress.
Gloria answered the door, backlit by an orange-yellow glow from inside. The orange lent a sharp edge to her floaty, voluminous clothing and the scrawny boldness of her shoulders and legs. Her hair stuck up in a huge, frizzy updo, a dappled headscarf wrapped around it.
“Hi. No, we don’t accept pamphlets here, sorry.”
“I’m—”
“Maverick,” Gloria filled in. “Bit late, ain’tcha?” She leaned back on her heels, gripping the door frame for balance. “Tanya! Your boyfriend’s here.” She turned back to give Maverick a once-over. “I’m driving you two birdies to the airport. Name’s Gloria Higgins.”
“Pete Mitchell.”
Gloria folded her arms, a wolfish twist to her mouth. “Huh. You wanna wait inside, Pete Mitchell?”
Maverick jerked a thumb towards the curb. “I’m fine out here. Is there anywhere I can park my bike?”
“In the garage.”
Suddenly, the thick headscarf around Gloria’s updo moved. A glossy, diamond-shaped head slid forward over her hair.
Maverick cursed and backed up violently, nearly falling over. He cast a wide-eyed look at the snake — not a headscarf — nestled round Gloria’s updo.
“What—what in the—” He swallowed, hard. “Is that a snake?”
“This,” said Gloria, putting a hand up to stroke her living adornment, “is Jeffrey.”
Maverick swore again, apparently finding it some relief for his feelings. “Please. Please tell me that thing’s not coming in the car with us.”
“No,” said Tanya, firmly, as she pushed past Gloria with her luggage; “Jeffrey is staying home.”
“Great, thank you,” muttered Maverick, with a shudder. He grabbed Tanya’s suitcase and hastened to put as much space as possible between Jeffrey and himself.
Connie appeared beside Gloria and flapped at her like a scolding hen. “Glor, we have RULES about doing this to guests.” She shouted over Gloria’s shoulder: “I’m so sorry, Pete! It’s nice to see you again. If you want a cup of tea next time, I promise the kitchen is a snake-free zone!”
***
Carole Bradshaw said the weather in South Carolina had put on its best show for the baseball game. Drifting clouds across a baby-blue sky, an intermittent breeze taking the edge off the heat.
Carole sat near Tanya, dressed in faded khaki shorts and a forest green t-shirt bearing the Varsity team’s yellow ‘BP’ logo. Maverick had gone off to fetch a drink, leaving a Maverick-sized gap between them on the bench. (Which is to say, it wasn’t a very large gap.)
Carole rocked side to side like a contented kindergartener and patted out a little rhythm on her knees. Her eyes, bright as a woodpecker’s, were fixed on her son. Bradley stood at third base, rolling his shoulders. He settled into a confident stance, chin pushed forward, his entire focus on the game.
Tanya leaned back with her hands on the wooden grandstand seats. The yellow paint was flaky and knobby. Little bits peeled off and stuck to her fingertips.
She ran her tongue over her lips, tasting peanuts and salt. The crowd had subsided to a general conversational hubbub, with the occasional spate of yelling whenever the pitcher wound up. People fidgeted and shifted in their camping chairs, making the canvas creak and whine. Behind her in the stands, a father and child were play-fighting over the last precious drops of a soda.
Carole gave a soft grunt and wrinkled her nose, straining to get the lid off a drink bottle.
Tanya’s head lolled back and she shut her eyes. The sun warmed her through and through, melting her to a happy, indolent state. Crack! went bat on ball. An uproar. A woman screeched one of the player’s names (likely her son), sounding like a parrot with bad congestion. Feet thudded on dirt. The announcer rattled on with his own brand of peculiar and over-cheerful commentary.
It was all very noisy, very human. The air was an extraordinary, elusive thing, deciding one moment to fill the nose with buttered popcorn, the next, hotdogs, or unpleasant bodily odours, and just when you thought you couldn’t bear the latter, a waft of cinnamon donuts or sticky spilled soda.
Tanya exhaled and let it all wash over her.
Maverick’s yell jolted through her system. Tanya sat up, eyes flying open. She quickly spied Maverick near the fence. He had a can of soda raised in one hand, hollering with the crowd.
Two players pelted madly across the field. One went for the catch. The ball slipped out of his mitt and rolled away. The crowd staggered back with a disappointed clamour.
Maverick shook his head and hiked up the grandstand. He thumped down beside Tanya. “Want some?” He held out a paper bag of popcorn to the girls.
“You know it!” Carole put out her hands and cupped them together. Her giant sunhat flopped and nodded sociably at Maverick while he poured popcorn into her hands.
“I’m good.” Tanya pushed her hat a little more firmly onto her head. Maverick turned back to the game. He leaned forward, forearms resting on his legs. The lines of his face and back were keen, intent on Bradley’s form.
Tanya kept throwing glances at Mav. Watching him was as good as watching the game itself. She’d never been a baseball enthusiast and much preferred to simply drink in his excitement, as was her way. She traced with amusement the reactions that rippled through his face and shoulders, and listened as the crowd’s would shortly follow, like the report of thunder after a flash of lightning.
And oh, that grin of his was bright as lightning. From the moment Maverick had seen Bradley and Carole waving them down at the airport, it had hardly left his face. Tanya basked in it; couldn’t stop thinking about it; couldn’t stop checking if it was still there. These people really meant something to Maverick. Something huge.
“Did you see that? Sloppy play, very sloppy.”
Tanya sat forward. She supposed she’d better start paying attention.
Near the end of the second innings, Bradshaw stepped up to the plate. The scores were tied; neither team could get an advantage.
Chanting rose from the home team dugout: “BRAD-SHAW! BRAD-SHAW! BRAD-SHAW!”
The ball flew up and out — a perfect fly ball.
Bradley Bradshaw sprinted through two bases. The ball hit the ground. An outfielder snapped it up and lobbed it away to a waiting glove.
The chanting burst into a disorderly roar as Bradley stole third.
Bradshaw lunged forward and slid into the home plate seconds ahead of the ball.
The crowd hollered and dipped, electrified. Bradley Bradshaw swept his arms high, neck and cheeks flushed. His inside-the-parker had assured the home team’s victory.
In the stands, Carole and Maverick and Tanya jumped up and down and yelled their excitement at each other and at everyone else. With a sudden, terrific energy, Maverick caught Tanya about the waist. He tipped her back. He kissed her.
Laughter and playful ‘oooh’s rippled through the audience in the surrounding seats.
It was a crushing, exuberant kiss, salty and sweet. Heat flooded Tanya’s face, fireworks exploding in her chest. His sturdy shoulders were an anchor for her trembling hands. Oh, she could die from the way it felt to be held!
“Your cap!” Tanya exclaimed, as soon as she could breathe.
Maverick patted his hair in a bewildered manner. His cap had fallen off and tumbled two rows down. Someone handed it up, winking at Tanya.
Carole had a hand wrapped over her mouth in shock. Her eyes were starry and wet. She sank onto the bench, staring at them both. Maverick looked away with a suddenly bashful grin, his cheeks round and rosy as he bent his head and fitted the cap on. Tanya brushed her sweating palms on her skirt.
Down below, Bradley lay stretched out on the field after his glory run, running sweaty hands through his curly hair, out of breath and smiling like he’d won the WBC.
***
Carole drove them all home in her little ’93 Honda Accord. The passing trees cast long shadows, between which the golden afternoon flickered out and touched the car with its glow.
Tanya rode shotgun. Maverick and Bradley had been delegated to the back. The radio was playing Whitney Houston’s beloved ballad, ‘I Will Always Love You’, and it was impossible to resist singing along. The men boomed from the back seats and the ladies trilled in the front, all of them blithely off-tempo and yelling the chorus with enough gusto for a whole choir.
The song faded off, into a less memorable release from Boyz II Men. Carole and Tanya began an enthusiastic discussion of The Bodyguard.
With his mother preoccupied, Bradley leaned towards Maverick and, in a low, conversational tone, started asking questions. Questions about Top Gun, planes, flying…
Maverick answered cautiously at first. There was only so much that he could say that wasn’t classified. Problem was, half his mind was elsewhere; at some point, he stopped paying attention to his answers.
The grandstand kiss kept popping up in his head. It rewound and replayed like a forensics team analysing VHS footage.
Each replay brought the feeling back. It slammed into his chest, pinned him against the leather seat. For a fraction of a second he would hang, weightless. Then it dropped him back, and there he was, explaining to Bradley about trimming an aircraft. As though the world hadn’t gone and dizzily inverted itself around him half a second ago…!
Maverick had pulled negative g’s, positive g’s, performed stomach-turning aerobatics. He couldn’t remember any of it rattling his head quite so badly as this.
What in blue blazes was wrong…
He batted his cap lightly against his knee and talked about closure rate and drift and lateral separation. The words poured out with mechanical precision.
Wildly, he thought of apologising to Tanya. Wait, what for? Stupid thing to do. The apology, or the kiss?
Both.
Suddenly, Tanya poked her head round the seat. A smile spread across her lips, before she vanished again.
Maverick’s head fizzed with a happy rush. He almost laughed aloud.
He completely forgot what he was saying to Bradley and had to end with a feeble “…anyway, enough of planes”. (An absurd thing to say, under any circumstances.)
Carole craned her neck to peer into the rear-view mirror. Her eyes fixed on Maverick through the mirrored reflection. Only her side profile was visible, the chin pointing up, but there was a distinctly puckish look to both it and her eyes.
“Where’d you learn to kiss like that, Mav?” Carole asked. “I thought you’d both go plunging off the stand, you went about it so suddenly.”
It was a little too on point; in a brief moment of panic, Maverick wondered if he’d voiced some of his thoughts aloud.
His eyebrows went up, forehead wrinkling. He smiled. “You’re never going to stop embarrassing me, huh, Carole.”
“Don’t be silly, everybody thought it was real cute. B’sides, seems you do enough of that yourself.” A blue eye peeped around the headrest and laughed at him.
The La’s hit, ‘There She Goes’, came on the radio. Carole removed a hand from the wheel to give Tanya’s shoulder a playful tap. “Did Maverick pick you up with that song routine of his, too?”
Maverick stopped fiddling with his hat. The hurricane of thoughts in his head, the VHS replay… everything quieted to velvet blackness.
He flashed one of his bright grins. “Nah, that was Goose’s move.” His voice sounded too loud in his own ears. “I could never pull it off.”
Can’t do it without my wingman, he thought.
A hazy, tired calmness settled over the car. The entire home team was coming round for dinner that night. Carole talked herself through the last of the meal prep required (“—potatoes, gravy, the lasagna’s already made—”), all the little things to do when she got home.
Over the radio, a news presenter rattled off a broadcast of current events. Proposed oil drillings in the Gulf of Mexico, gas prices, Taliban sanctions a cause for concern…
“…The dismantled U.S. EP-3 spy plane held on China’s Hainan Island since April was flown out to the United States today, the U.S. Pacific Command said…”
Maverick’s dark brows knitted in sudden interest. Ice must’ve known about this. Detained since April? The Navy would be hopping mad over it.
Tanya reached around the back of the seat, her arm bent a little awkwardly, her fingertips outstretched. Automatically, Maverick leaned forward and took hold of her hand.
“Hey,” Tanya murmured. Her thumb brushed over his knuckles. “I’m glad you’re at Top Gun.”
This elicited a low, thoughtful ‘mmm’ in response.
“For now,” Maverick said.
Their hands clung to one another a moment longer before Tanya withdrew.
“China held the 24-member EP-3 crew for eleven days after the collision”, the radio solemnly droned, “in a standoff that roiled U.S.-China relations in the first months of the Bush administration—”
Carole turned the radio off. “That’s enough of THAT, thank you.” She turned to Tanya. Her voice held a note of forced liveliness. “We’ll be home in ten minutes. Can you help me with the lasagna? All it needs is reheating…”
Bradley tilted his head towards Maverick — a tiny, subtle movement. His manner was so casual that Maverick thought they were about to discuss the ball game. Instead, it came as something of a shock when his godson said, in a barely audible rumble:
“I want to go to flight school after Senior year. Join the Navy and fly, like dad did.”
All of Bradley’s questions on flying…
Oh. OH.
Maverick chewed on this information for a bit. “What does your mother think about all this?” He kept his voice low.
Bradley shrugged. “Does it matter?” he said.
His heavy eyelids gave his face a deceptively sleepy, almost dopey look, but there was a bold, rebellious stare in the dark brown eyes underneath. Bradley Bradshaw had a temper that festered steadily inside him like a slow-burning fuse. A spark of it flashed out now: a warning.
Maverick raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
Bradley crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned away from Maverick, shifting to sit taller in his seat. He stared at the back of his mother’s headrest. “Nah. Can’t tell her.”
***
It had been quite a while since the Bradshaw house held such a crowd. The team piled into the house with a hearty chorus of “evening, Mrs Bradshaw”, and occasionally, “we sure do appreciate you having us, Mrs Bradshaw”.
Spirits were high after the day’s win. Carole bustled around making sure everyone had a seat at the table. Two whopping trays of lasagna steamed in the middle of the table, oozing a tang of tomato richness. Velvety scalloped potatoes that softly fell apart and melted in one’s mouth. Garlic butter rolls, chicken wings, and cucumber salad. The aroma of smoked bacon billowed up from sloppy messes of collard greens and peppers, to be shovelled in and devoured with hot sauce and cornbread.
“Say, Brad, pass me the gravy wouldja?”
“Oh boy, Mrs Bradshaw, you make the best scalloped potatoes.”
“Bradshaw, that was an outrageous shot out there—”
“Ha, ha, outrageous good luck, you mean!”
“You jealous, Taylor?” (This, from Bradley.)
“I’m just saying, if that outfielder had’a kept his mind in the game ‘stead of mooning after Sally Pruitt, you were done for.”
Conversation flew fast and furious. The coach and Maverick debated The Braves’ and The Padres’ player positions with the common man’s irrational superiority and disdain for the captains and coaches of elite sporting teams.
Maverick also had an unspoken, years-old rivalry going on with Bradley to see who could put away the biggest helping of food. They exchanged calculating stares over the food remaining on both their plates. Bradley lifted an eyebrow and grinned.
Maverick eased back in his chair. He had tackled his plate manfully, but Bradley had gained several inches in height since Maverick’s last visit and Maverick was forced to concede (at least to himself) that a forty-year-old man doesn’t really stand a chance against the appetite of a seventeen-year-old who has spent all day on a baseball field.
He slung an elbow over the top of his chair and looked at Tanya and Carole, who sat across from one another. Carole rested one elbow on the table, a hand to her head, keeping an attentive eye on the guests while she chatted with Tanya.
Tanya stood up to fill her plate with a second helping of chicken and collard greens. She tipped the gravy boat over the meal. A pitifully small dollop of gravy sludged out.
“Oh!” Carole said, in dismay. “There’s more on the stove, come here.” She got to her feet and bobbed off.
Maverick quickly rose and extended a hand for Tanya’s plate. “Allow me.”
Tanya’s head turned, her dark hair sweeping across her shoulders. She flushed, smiling her approval very prettily, like a girl asked out to the prom. Something awoke in Maverick’s chest, an electrifying whisper that tugged at his mouth and hands.
“You’d better take this and refill it, too.” Tanya handed him the gravy boat.
“Right, right,” mumbled Maverick.
He tore himself away and headed for the kitchen. It was a cosy little affair, with knotty pine wood cupboards and a chrome-edged Formica countertop. An assortment of photographs and magnets covered the white fridge.
Carole pointed him to the stove. “Over there.” She busied herself washing up a few things at the sink.
Maverick brought the plate to the pot on the stove. He kept taking quick glances back at the table; the whisper danced on his tongue and raced round his heart.
His hands, left to their own devices, fumbled for the ladle and tipped a potato off the plate. Maverick let out a startled “hey!” and looked about wildly for the runaway vegetable.
Carole laughed softly. “Look at you.” She put her hands on the countertop and leaned back against it. “That woman,” she added, exaggerating her drawl, “has got you hyp-no-tized!”
Maverick picked up the potato and slid it back onto the plate. Carole made a horrified face and plucked it off, tossing it into the garbage.
Maverick was silent for a moment, pouring a slow drizzle of gravy over Tanya’s meal. Finally he remarked, in that oblique way he often had of answering a question: “Well, she has a pet snake, so that checks out.”
***
“Doesn’t Brad know how to do this?”
Maverick balanced on a stepladder, fitting a screw onto a screwdriver. One of Carole’s overhead cabinets had come off its hinges.
Bradley was outside saying goodbye to his teammates while Tanya and Carole busied themselves with the clean-up and Maverick tackled the cabinet.
Carole looked up from washing the dishes. She lifted her chin and said, brightly: “Well, you see-e-ee, I tried to fix it but it kept coming off. Brad’s always busy with school and ball practice, and he doesn’t like it when I ask him things at the moment. And, you know… sixteen-year-old boys…” she trailed off.
The boys could be heard mucking around in the dark, hollering and hooting to one another. From the sound of it, someone had brought out a football to stretch out the fun as long as possible.
Maverick frowned. He pushed a hollow wall anchor into the empty cabinet hinge hole, and twisted the first screw in. “Brad’s seventeen now, isn’t he?”
Carole touched her forehead, bemused and weary. “Of course. I forgot.”
Tanya stood quietly wiping the dishes with a dish towel, following this little exchange with interest. The majority of her life alone had been spent alone, so the close-knit feel of the Bradshaws and Maverick was something to both long for and envy. The comfortable interactions, the little tensions, the undisputed trust…
Tanya pondered it all, trying to untangle this close family unit.
Maverick must have been involved a lot with them. At times, he appeared to almost retreat into himself when he was around the Bradshaws. Or, maybe it was more that the intense, hot-headed side of him withdrew, and a more playful, relaxed, goofy Maverick came to the fore.
Tanya considered Carole to be an absolute darling, the perfect hostess. She looked fragile, but she was hardy in spirit, radiating kindness.
Bradley was tougher for Tanya to get a read on. Nice kid, self-assured, very polite. He probably worked hard to be the ‘cool guy’, but unlike most guys, Bradley actually pulled it off, which would explain his popularity amongst the baseball team, as well as the way he flushed deep red when Carole made a few jokes at dinner.
Earlier, Tanya had gone over the photos attached to the fridge. She had studied two pictures in particular: one of Maverick and Goose in flight gear, giving the camera a ‘thumbs up’, and a fuzzy polaroid of Carole lifting baby Bradley out of a high chair. Carole was looking up, her shaggy blonde hair falling over her eyes. Tanya had guessed, from the bright laughter and love in her expression, that Goose was the one behind the camera.
Carole, Bradley, Maverick — they were all close. But they moved around each other like they were still making room for someone missing.
Tanya watched now as Carole wandered over to the dining table and began sweeping crumbs off into her palm. It was the second time she’d done that in the last ten minutes.
Tanya cleared her throat and held up a Dutch oven. “Carole, where does this go?”
Carole blinked. Her brow knotted as with some internal strain. She touched her forehead again. She snapped her fingers, her expression clearing. “Bottom cabinet to your left, honey. Thanks.”
“Gotcha.” Tanya put the dish away. “I must confess, despite living in the States for seven years now, I’ve never tried collard greens. They were amazing!”
“Oh, I’ll give you the recipe.” Carole beamed and hurried back into the kitchen. She rifled through the recipes pasted in her cookbook, suddenly animated again. “You should try it sometime!”
Maverick looked down at Tanya, standing on tiptoe as he reached up to fix the last screw. “There are a lot of, uh, very charcoal-flavoured reasons why she shouldn’t.”
Tanya gasped. She flicked his behind with the dish towel. “Pete Mitchell! That was over twelve years ago!”
Maverick’s grin showed he wasn’t likely to forget it for another twelve years, either.
Giggling, Carole nudged Tanya’s arm. “Reminds me of the first time I tried to cook a whole chicken. I turned the oven setting on far too high and that poor chicken came out blacker’n black. I near cried over it.”
Maverick laughed softly as he dismounted from the stepladder. “Yeah, I remember.”
Carole’s nose scrunched up in thought. “Were you there?”
“Goose took a photo.”
“Ohhh.” For a moment, Carole’s smile grew brilliant, like a lost star that had found its way home. “He was always doing that.”
The last car outside drove off. Bradley padded inside, his feet clad in white socks and still in his sweaty, dirt-streaked uniform. He went to the fridge and poured himself two glasses of milk, gulping them down one after the other in less than thirty seconds.
He crossed over to the sink in a few strides, the tallest person in Carole’s little kitchen. “Thanks for dinner, Mom. It was great, everyone loved it.” He kissed her briskly, and she messed with his hair.
He whistled as he slopped around in the sink with his cup.
“Brad…” Carole stood for a moment, irresolute. She wiped her already-dry hands on a dishrag limply tucked into her apron strings. “Play us something, won’t you? Tanya loves piano.”
“Aw, Mom…”
Carole swiftly administered a stern dose of The Mom Look™.
“Yeah. Sure.” Much-chastened, but still reluctant, her son led the way into the living room. Carole settled into a roomy pink armchair with doilies draped over the plush arms. She plucked a half-darned sock out of a workbasket.
Just outside the living room, Maverick put a hand against the small of Tanya’s back and leaned forward to murmur something in her ear about “heading out for some air”.
“Everything alright?”
Mav rubbed a hand down his cheek. “Oh, it’s just… Carole’s been having trouble with the Honda; thought I’d take a look.”
“It’s pretty late,” Tanya ventured.
Maverick glanced towards the front door, leaning away and shifting his feet. “I won’t get a chance otherwise.”
“Want me to come hold a light for you or something?”
“No, you stay and keep Carole company.” He gestured to Carole as he spoke, indicating he was going out. Her face fell, but she nodded in understanding.
Bradley warmed up on the piano keys. Tanya went into the living room.
The dark blue-green rug creased as she walked over its scattered golden hibiscus pattern, slightly threadbare. The room was simply furnished, with cabinets and bookshelves of warm, yellowy-orange wood. A framed poster of Elvis hung on the wall above the piano. There were stacks of records everywhere.
Tanya stood near the piano. It was fascinating to watch someone’s fingers create music as they moved across an instrument, and she never tired of it.
Bradley opened with a rendition of ‘Drops of Jupiter’. He bopped his head in time with the music. Tanya jived along, grinning happily. A few minutes in, he stopped short and blushed. “I forgot the rest. Got any requests?”
“Can you play Elvis?”
The young man lifted his head to smile at the Elvis poster. “I should think so…” He played the opening chords of ‘Love Me Tender’, and began to sing:
Love me tender, love me sweet
Never let me go
You have made my life complete
And I love you so
Tanya joined him on the chorus and they sang the rest as a duet. Her voice vibrated with a husky warmth as she lost herself in the music, in the stirrings of her heart.
Carole’s mending sat unattended in her lap. Her face was soft in the lamplight, steeped in a peaceful look of remembering…
For, my darling, I love you
And I always will
A couple of songs later, Tanya excused herself, telling Carole she was going to check on Mav.
She slipped outside, expecting to find him bent under the car hood, tinkering away.
But he wasn’t. He sat on the porch steps, hands loosely crossed over his knees. His fingers hadn’t a spot of oil or grease on them.
The slope of his back and shoulders sent a tremor of longing through Tanya.
“Hey.”
Maverick briefly turned his head. “Hey.”
Tanya looped her fingers through the ends of her knitted cardigan and swung her arms for a moment. She stared at the leafy silhouettes of the trees lining the Bradshaw’s driveway. The night hung around them, quiet and still, save for the piano tinkling away.
“Heard you singing.”
Tanya sat down beside him. “You did, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding gentle and contented.
She leaned her head on Maverick’s shoulder. “They’ve been so nice to me,” she said, meaning Carole and Bradley.
“The Bradshaws are like that,” said Maverick. He added, with a crooked smile: “Goose took me in. Gave me somewhere to hang, someplace to be. And Carole after that. Closest thing I’ve got to family.”
Tanya tucked her arms round her chest, hunching over. “I ran away from home at eighteen so… family is a strange notion to me, I guess.”
Maverick nodded. His mouth briefly contorted into a funny, sad little shape. “I know what that’s like. Growing up in foster care…you never really find a place to settle.” Maverick’s hand lightly clenched, then uncurled. He rubbed finger and thumb together. “What were your folks like?”
Tanya’s shoulders rose and fell in a noiseless, tightly-controlled exhalation. “I tell myself they did the best they could.”
Maverick nodded, voicing a terse, almost breathless agreement. Silence stretched out between them.
“Brad’s a sweet kid,” said Tanya. “I think he really admires you.”
Maverick made a doubtful sound and knitted his brow. “I wish he’d listen to Carole.”
Another silence. Tanya could feel the tension building in Maverick, in the way his back bunched up and the ribcage muscles tightened. She slid an arm around his back.
“Is he much like his dad?”
“I dunno.” Mav paused for a moment. “He’s got bits and pieces of both of them, I suppose. And then there’s that stubbornness — that’s allllll Bradley.”
“Or Maverick.” She jostled him lightly, and they both laughed.
He brandished a forefinger in protest. “I’m not stubborn; I’m determined.”
“Sure, sure.”
“If I see a better way of doing something, I’ll take it.” His eyebrows and mouth lifted in a grin. “Usually that means doing it my way.”
“You’re all that and a bag of chips,” said Tanya, sleepily sarcastic. She nestled into his side. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Thanks for coming.” He kissed the side of her head and put an arm around her.
At the piano, Bradley jangled out another song. Tanya felt Maverick’s jaw move against her forehead, a small, tight movement, and his back tensed again.
“You doing okay?” she asked.
He turned his head to smile at her and his nose almost brushed hers. “Sure.” They huddled together, cosy, close. “Never better.”
Tanya hummed drowsily. “‘Never’, huh?” Her hand curled a little tighter around him. “That’s a big word, Pete Mitchell.”
Maverick looked up, at the deep, cobalt-blue evening sky above them. “It’s been a good day.”
“It has.”
They yawned simultaneously. Tanya lifted Maverick’s wrist so she could check his watch under the porch light.
“Our flight is at 0500, isn’t it? Carole made up the guest room. I’ll say goodnight and head up there now.”
“I’ll be on the couch if you need anything. D’you want me to wake you up?”
Tanya kissed his cheek. “Yes, please, Mister Military.”
His sudden laugh startled the night. “Where did that come from?”
Tanya sleepily got to her feet. She made a face at him, swaying as she covered another yawn. “Sorry. Naval aviator.”
“Ha, ha. Goodnight, Shrimpy.”
“Night-night.”