Chapter Text
Jake’s head was pounding when he woke up. Hangovers sucked in general, but this was the first time in a long while he had gotten drunk enough to blackout like he had last night.
Everything sucked and he hated the world.
His eyes fluttered open on instinct and then immediately screwed shut again as he let out a muffled whimper. The flash of sunlight he caught from where he had left the blinds open was enough to make him regret just about every single choice which had brought him to this moment.
It felt like a whole goddamn mariachi band had set up right behind his eyelids and didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
Jake was busy bargaining for his life, wishing he could slip off to sleep again, when he heard a soft groan beside him. The sudden realisation that he wasn’t alone in bed hit him like a freight truck. Whoever it was shifted in their sleep. The movement pulled the sheets they were sharing further off of Jake, startling him into a much more awake state than he had been before.
Checking his surroundings with more than enough squinting to make him worry about frown lines, Jake was relieved to see that they were in his hotel room. He basked in the glow of that small win for a quiet moment before bigger concerns started occurring to him.
What the hell happened last night?
Who was this person?
How had they gotten back here? What had they done together? Why had they drunk so much?
It wasn’t like he had gone out hoping to hook-up with anyone. The plan had been to have a chilled night with the Dagger squad.
Jake started to roll to his side to take a proper look at his unexpected bed mate, wondering if that might unlock some memories for him, but the movement made his stomach churn with a wave of nausea. Instinct took control. He was running for the bathroom before the realisation that he was going to throw up had fully materialised in his mind.
Vegas was kicking his ass and he hated every second of it.
By the time Jake finished heaving up his insides his outlook seemed worlds better. The minty fresh taste of his toothpaste worked wonders for making him feel human again, so much that he almost forgot about the person he had left in his bed.
Almost.
When he returned to the main room, the guy – Jake was drawing a complete blank on what his name was, to the point that he wondered whether he had even been told it – was sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, looking even closer to death than Jake had just been.
Taking pity on him, Jake ducked back into the bathroom to grab a glass of water and dig the packet of aspirin out of his washbag again. He nudged the guy’s foot with his own to get his attention and held out his offerings with a sympathetic smile. The guy grunted his thanks, downing the water so fast that some ran down his chin in a way that would have had Jake’s blood rushing south if all of his focus wasn’t being spent on staying upright at the moment. Once done, Jake snagged the glass to fill it a second time. He grinned when the guy rolled his eyes at the effort and sipped at it much more carefully before placing it on the bedside table and giving Jake some real attention.
“You okay?” He asked before clearing his throat. The roughness of his voice was enough to make Jake’s knees weak. “I was gonna come check on you, but the room won’t stop spinning.”
Jake snorted, mentally applauding drunk him for his impeccable taste. This guy seemed downright adorable, and as he braved actually meeting Jake’s eye in spite of the dizziness he was so obviously feeling, it occurred to Jake that he was goddamn attractive too. As in, so-far-out-of-his-league-he-was-left-wracking-his-brains-wondering-what-exactly-he-had-done-to-catch-his-interest attractive. His mind had already been struggling to connect the dots over last night. This revelation was far from helping. While hungover him was very grateful, he was also kind of disappointed that they were both too fragile right now to do anything about his growing interest in the man before him.
“Yeah,” Jake replied with a quick smile, aiming for suave and probably failing thanks to the bedhead he was sporting. “I’m good. Better than you look to be at least.”
“I blame you. Pretty sure I’m not the one who thought tequila shots were the best way to celebrate winning big on the slot machines.”
Oh.
The words unlocked something in the back of Jake’s mind. Hazy memories started filtering in. Not enough to make sense of the entire night, but at least now he could picture meeting the guy and flirting with him whilst their friends were preoccupied at the roulette table. They had wandered off together, used the slot machines as some weird form of foreplay, and then… the threads of what came after that slipped through Jake’s fingers, ever elusive and mysteriously hazy thanks to the apparent emergence of Tequila Jake. He only ever caused problems when he came out to play.
“I haven’t drunk that shit since fucking college,” the guy said, oblivious to the onslaught of memories Jake was pawing through as he pouted in an unfairly attractive way. “I’m too goddamn old for this.”
He looked near enough the same age as Jake, at the more pleasant end of thirty, so that seemed overly dramatic at best.
“Alright, grampa.” Jake barked a laugh as he was given the finger and made himself more comfortable against the bathroom’s doorjamb, intending to solve the puzzle of last night in earnest. “Do you remember anything else?”
The guy hummed and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palms, “no, not really? Uh, I think we were outside at one point? But I’m not sure why? Or where we went, or whatever… you?”
“Nada.” Jake shifted on his feet, reluctant to ask this next question no matter how necessary it was. “Did we, um, you know…” his words failed him as the guy met his gaze again with a suggestive grin. He seemed to be enjoying Jake’s floundering as he waved his hands in front of him in a vague gesture that was nowhere near crude enough to insinuate fucking.
“No.”
Huh.
“You seem pretty certain about that for a guy who allegedly doesn’t remember anything?” There was a salacious edge to the guy’s expression that set butterflies off in Jake’s gut. He couldn’t be held responsible for the cocky way he added, “especially since you’re covered in hickeys.”
The guy frowned for a fraction of a second before glancing down at his chest to see what Jake had been gallantly trying not to get distracted by for the entirety of this conversation. There were marks of varying degrees all over him, undeniably mouth shaped in nature. Part of Jake was desperate to fit his teeth against a particular bruise near his collarbone, just to prove that it matched. That it was his doing. That he was the one who had staked a claim over this guy last night, whether it was his right to do so or not. The possessive side of him had clearly had a field day no matter what else had happened between them.
It was taking literally every single ounce of restraint Jake had to not to get all up in the guy’s personal space so that he could map them out in greater detail than just looking gave him.
“So,” the guy mused as he fiddled with the dog tags around his neck, squinting at them with an air of confusion, “you’re a biter?”
“Can you blame me?”
Jake winked when the guy glanced up at him, enjoying the flush of red that was seeping across his cheeks as their eyes met. He cleared his throat in a pointed way that left Jake with the satisfying impression that their thoughts were very much on the same wavelength.
“I’ve been told before that I’m pretty strict about consent when I’ve been drinking, so I’d be surprised if that didn’t hold true last night considering how out of it we must have been… And besides,” Jake preened under the onceover the guy subjected him to as he paused in his explanation, “I like to think I would remember fucking you, Jake, seems like it’d be pretty goddamn spectacular.”
Jake tried not to choke on his own tongue.
“Likewise…”
“Bradley,” he supplied, snorting at whatever look had crossed Jake’s face at being caught out for not remembering his name. “You shouldn’t feel bad, I had help,” he added as he plucked at the tags around his neck.
Jake noticed only then that he wasn’t wearing his. The lack of that familiar weight around his neck made him feel more exposed than he would have standing there stark naked. He spared a brief thought for why he would have taken them off and where he would have put them before his brain stopped lagging and he realised what he was being told.
“Oh, shit,” he grimaced at how slow his hangover was making him. Why on earth he had thought it would be a good idea to give a stranger his tags was beyond him. He could only be grateful Bradley hadn’t made a faster exit that morning without returning them. “Could I get that back?”
Bradley chuckled and nodded, all smiles as he pulled them over his head, but he froze as Jake reached out to take them. A stricken look passed over his face. He shot upright with a surprising amount of energy, snatching Jake’s hand to pull towards him.
“Why are you wearing my dad’s ring?” He sounded far too careful and controlled for that not to have been a big deal.
“Uh,” Jake’s voice faltered, useless and confused. He wanted to say that he didn’t know, but something about standing in front of Bradley like this triggered another wave of memories. Only in them Bradley’s hands were sliding the ring onto his finger rather than twitching like he wanted to rip it off of him. “Oh, shit.”
Bradley looked up to meet his eyes again, paling a little at whatever he saw. Jake felt his mouth open to explain the horrifying trail down memory lane his thoughts had taken, and yet for the first time in his life he was at a complete loss for words.
There was a far too long pause of silence between the two of them as they stared at one another, each waiting for the other to take initiative and acknowledge the very large and unavoidable elephant that had just entered the room.
Jake’s phone ringing felt like an act of god for the escape it gave him. He all but leapt away from Bradley, trying not to feel too relieved at the breathing room, and snagged his jeans from the floor to fish in his pockets for where the sound was coming from.
“Why the fuck did I wake up to a video of you and some random guy saying you got married?” Javy asked before Jake could even say hello, he sounded very much sleep-addled but there was an edge of wariness to his tone like he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to that question.
Jake blew out a long breath, looking back to where Bradley was still stood half frozen with panic. “Because I have a bad feeling we did something really stupid last night,” he said, wishing he sounded far less scared and uncertain than he did.
“What the fuck?”
“Um.”
“Jake,” Javy chuckled in what sounded like a very disbelieving way, “what the fuck?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, man. I’m working with very limited information right now.”
Bradley’s gaze had snagged on Jake’s left hand again. He looked close to tears in a way Jake felt awful for, even though in any reality he could only take about half the blame for this situation, and that prompted him to trap his phone between his ear and shoulder so that he could tug the ring off and hand it back to him. Bradley sucked in a ragged breath as he edged closer and traded Jake’s tags for it, but he didn’t move away again, and he didn’t leave, so Jake took that reaction as a win.
“-get dressed,” Javy was saying, reminding Jake that he was supposed to be in the middle of a conversation. “I’ll be with you in a sec.”
That was good.
Javy was the smart one; he would know what to do next.
“Okay,” Jake said, but it was to empty air as Javy had already hung up on him. He dropped his phone onto the bed and dragged a hand through his hair before putting his tags back on and snatching his hoodie off the floor to wear. “Uh, Javy’s gonna come help us figure this out.”
“Did we really do this?” Bradley asked. It was the first thing he had said since Jake’s brainwave and Jake was not a fan of how upset he sounded. “Are we- did we get married?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Oh my god.” Bradley looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown. “Marco’s gonna kill me.”
The words flashed shockingly cold down Jake’s spine like ice water as he wondered who the fuck Marco was.
Though the knock at the door prevented him from either questioning Bradley or offering him any comfort, Jake did grab a t-shirt off the floor for him to wear before he answered it, figuring that they would all benefit from Bradley not being topless for this.
“Phoenix literally gave us a lecture about not doing this exact thing yesterday,” Javy said, barging past Jake. He was frowning at his phone, looking a mixture of concerned and exasperated as he typed something before arching an eyebrow at Jake as he usually did when he was disappointed. “How is it that you’re the only goddamn idiot who didn’t listen?”
Jake didn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know, just look at him.”
Bradley’s face flushed scarlet as Javy did just that and then laughed. He had no idea what Bradley would think of that reaction but Jake knew it was only because Javy knew Bradley was the literal definition of Jake’s type come to life and that there was no way Jake could pretend that he had had any deeper reasoning than being ridiculously attracted to him.
“Bradley Javy, Javy Bradley,” he said pointing between the two of them, figuring the least he could do was facilitate introductions.
Javy grinned at the weak wave Bradley gave him before looking back to Jake, “she’s never gonna let you live this down.”
“Pretty sure I’ll deserve it,” Jake slumped down onto the bed, feeling both sorry for himself and awkward about the way the three of them had just been stood around staring at one another.
“I’m never gonna let you live this down.”
“Are you here to help? Or just to laugh at my misery?”
“Don’t be a bitch, I’m already helping,” Javy waved his phone. “There’s only a couple chapels relatively near here, so we can stop by when they open later and find out if you actually went through with the legal bit, or if you were just so drunk that you think you did. Hopefully it’s the latter because otherwise we have an actual problem to deal with.”
Praise literally everything in the world for Javy and his ability to think straight even after a night of drinking. He was right. There was every chance they would have been way too out of it to stand through an entire ceremony let alone coherent enough for it to have made sense. Maybe, hopefully, they just went through the motions of a wedding and all of this panicking would be for nothing.
“I’m glad it’s you here and not any of my friends,” Bradley said with a relieved smile, surprising Jake because of how quiet he had been until then. “That’s actually a really good idea.”
Javy smiled to acknowledge the compliment just as both his and Jake’s phones pinged a few times in quick succession.
“The squad’s headed out for breakfast,” Javy said checking the messages that must have come through on their group chat. “You guys wanna join them? We have a couple hours before we can do anything.”
“Fuck yes,” Bradley said as Jake pulled a face. The idea of food right now made him want to throw up again, not that the other two seemed to care. Javy threw jeans at Jake, taking the choice away from him, while Bradley moved to finish getting dressed himself. “I need some goddamn coffee.”
When they entered the diner that the others had chosen it was to a series of wolf whistles and cheers that Jake wished was enough to get them kicked out just to punish them for being assholes. Bradley looked surprised and a little daunted by the welcome, but entertained nonetheless, so Jake was forced to suffer through it. That is until money started changing hands. Then all he wanted to do was kill each of them, slowly, with his bare hands. Most of it was going in Phoenix’s direction, which was the worst part, because he knew she was also the one who would give him the most shit for his current predicament when she found out about it. She started fanning herself with the cash, preening as Jake rolled his eyes and told Bradley to ignore her.
The squad had shoved a few tables together in the back corner of the diner so that there was enough room for them to all sit together, but as they hadn’t been expecting Jake to bring company, there were only two free chairs waiting to be claimed. Jake had good manners, so what would have been his chair went to Bradley whilst he charmed one off of a nearby table.
“Who’s your friend, Bagman?” She asked in a singsong voice.
Jake groaned at the ceiling and then graced the group with a warning smile as he went through the process of introductions again. “Guys this is Bradley, Bradley these’re the assholes I work with.”
“We’re also his bestest friends in the whole wide world,” Fanboy chimed in, slinging an arm around Jake where he had flopped down next to him.
Jake shoved him off as he grumbled, “not if you keep up with that shit.”
Bradley smiled at the display, but his expression was pinched like he was feeling nervous. He glanced around at the rest of the group, “nice to meet you all.”
There was a long moment where no one said anything. While Jake cursed the squad internally for acting like they had never interacted with another human being before, he couldn’t call them out on it because that would earn him too much unwanted attention. Phoenix stared across the table with a suspicious look in her eye as he tried his best to act like everything was completely normal and fine and there were no problems for him to deal with.
Surely he could get through one breakfast without his potential marriage becoming a topic of discussion?
Jake cleared his throat and grabbed a menu from the table, willing himself not to blush as he avoided her gaze, “y’all ordered yet?”
He sensed more than saw her eyes narrow as the squad’s silence lengthened, “what are you not telling us?”
“Nothing,” Jake winced, knowing he had answered way too quickly to get away with it. He caught Bradley’s growing blush in the corner of his eye from where he was peering over Jake’s shoulder and lamented over how bad they were at this. “Why would you think I’m not telling you something?”
“You’re acting squirrely.” Jake scoffed like that might help him deny the accusation, but even he knew that was just proving her point. “This isn’t how you usually act with your hook-ups.”
Jesus.
Fucking thank you for that Phoenix.
“We were too drunk to hook-up,” he said before glaring at his lap as he cursed himself for thinking it was necessary to say that.
Bradley snorted, which wasn’t in the least bit helpful, while the rest of the squad stared at him like he had grown a second head, started laughing, clamoured to get their money back from Phoenix, or a mixture of all the above.
She waved for quiet, a disconcertingly excited look coming over her face, “so what did happen, Bagman? You know you can’t lie to me.”
“We went to sleep.”
“Before that, dickhead.”
“I-”
Whatever excuse Jake was going to have come up with was cut off by Javy’s phone landing in the middle of the table. He heard the start of a video playing and scrambled to grab it before any of them could see anything, but Fanboy grabbed his arm to stall him while Phoenix snatched it out of his reach. The squad gathered around her to watch as drunk Jake slurred out an introduction for Javy to his new husband.
Javy shrugged at the betrayed stare Jake levelled in his direction, “they were gonna find out eventually and that was getting painful to watch.”
“Yeah,” Bradley agreed, evidently finding his voice again now that the cat was out of the bag. “You weren’t exactly being subtle.”
“Oh, I’m so fucking sorry I’m not working at full capacity just yet.” Though Jake wanted to sound outraged, he was too heavy on the sarcasm for it to seem genuine. “When were you gonna help?”
Bradley shrugged with a guileless expression, but his chance to respond was lost as the squad slowly started to recover from the shock. Jake was subjected to another lecture about his bad decision making from Phoenix before an absolute tidal wave of teasing crashed over them. Resigning himself to it, Jake apologised to Bradley under his breath and they leaned back in their chairs as one to wait the squad out. Their combined lack of reaction made the general incredulity of the group peter out sooner than he would have thought, and thankfully, the waitress appearing to take their order cut short the rest of the interrogation.
In all, it could have been a lot worse.
“This is why we had the buddy system,” Halo said after their food had arrived. “Who was on Hangman duty?”
“I remember being told we had to sneak off while someone was distracted,” Bradley said in a loud aside to Jake, his voice tentative like he thought this was helping. “I don’t know who, but you were pretty insistent about it.”
“Yeah, I think in the end we literally just walked off when Javy was at the bar though.”
“You did!” Javy threw a balled-up napkin at him. “Remember, Fritz? I said we had to go look for him but then some seats opened up at one of the craps tables and we got distracted.” When Fritz nodded, Jake risked a cheeky grin at Javy but he received a warning look in response. “If you blame me, I’m not helping anymore.”
That shut Jake up very quickly and he looked down again, acting suitably chastened as he nursed his coffee and tried not to barf at the overlapping smells of breakfast foods surrounding him.
They managed to finish eating without much more fanfare. It seemed like the squad had chosen to be much more magnanimous about the situation than Jake ever would have expected. If anything, they were verging on sympathetic.
Jake started to feel more settled, reassured by the unspoken reminder that they would have his back no matter what, until Bradley’s phone started buzzing from where he had dropped it on the table.
Jake saw the name Marco flash up on the screen.
Shit.
It had fallen down his list of priorities in the wake of Javy’s arrival, but Jake was suddenly reminded of how upset Bradley had seemed at the hotel as he made a fast exit to answer the call outside with nothing more than a parting backwards glance at their table.
The overall guilt Jake had been feeling resurfaced, stronger now than ever.
He had made some assumptions, sure. There was the most obvious answer for who Marco was, and yet Jake refused to entertain it. He may not actually know the guy all that well, so he was relying on his gut to steer him in the right direction, but he was convinced Bradley would have already said something if he was in a relationship with someone else. He seemed like a pretty straightforward person, not the type to go to Vegas and cheat to such a colossally disastrous extent.
“You know if you were gonna do this shit with anyone, at least you lucked out with a fucking model of an accidental husband,” Yale said, breaking Jake out of his introspection over the finer qualities of Bradley’s character.
Harvard elbowed him with what they all knew was fake annoyance, “d’you think you could save the drooling for when you don’t literally have your arm around me?”
“Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t even consummate the marriage,” Omaha chimed in, “what a wasted opportunity.”
Jake had to laugh as he admitted, “yeah, yeah. Lots of regrets but that’s definitely a big one.”
As his eyes were trained on where he could see Bradley on the phone outside the window, Jake missed the squad’s reaction to his words. Bradley turned at one point to look in at where Jake was sitting and winked when their eyes met. It made Jake flush hot and cold as he struggled to rein in his hope that Marco wasn’t someone he had to worry about.
“Oh my god, you like him,” the dawning realisation in Phoenix’s voice dragged his attention back to the table.
Jake frowned at her, unsure what exactly she was getting at. “Obviously?”
“No, I mean, like I said earlier, I’ve seen you around hook-ups before. This is different. You like him.”
Jake tried to fight back the blush he could feel blazing across his cheeks as he saw her point. This whole thing was so far from Jake’s remit he didn’t know what to do with himself.
He didn’t do this.
Commitment was something Jake ran from, and yet here he was having made the biggest one of all to a literal stranger. Plus, as if that wasn’t enough, not only had he not freaked out about it, but he was leaning into it so much that he was starting to feel jealous over Bradley paying Marco so much more attention than him.
Like it was his right to.
It made no sense.
Jake shrugged, unsure how to put any of that into words.
“You don’t even know anything about him,” Phoenix said, with so much wonder it would have felt insulting if they hadn’t known each other for as long as they had.
“I know things.”
“Besides his name?” Jake ducked his head with a scowl, ignoring the series of chuckles around him as the others listened in. “Jake,” the fact that she was using his real name was terrifying enough for him to look up at her again. “You’re allowed to like him. Hey, maybe this is a sign? You suck at dating, now you’ve just cut out the middle steps.”
“There is no way he would ever want to stay married to me, Nat. This ain’t a fuckin’ rom-com.”
Oh boy.
Jake winced as he realised he had said that with way too much weight and emotion for it to be passed off as joking.
Sympathetic looks ran through the group as they tried to placate him. Jake was pretty sure he heard Fritz call him a catch in between other compliments before they snapped into a uniform silence when Bradley returned to his seat. Jake couldn’t decide whether he would rather the ground open up and swallow him whole out of sheer mortification or shake each and every one of his friends for their utter inability to act casual.
“Um,” Bradley faltered as he blinked at them, looking a lot like he was making the conscious decision not to call anyone out on the awkward atmosphere currently draped over the table. Jake could have kissed him out of gratitude, but he was distracted by the apologetic look he levelled his way as he went on to explain what his phone call had been about.
“My buddy also wanted to give us some shit for this, they’re just a couple blocks over so he’ll be here in a sec, but uh,” Bradley scratched at the back of his head as he paused and looked down at his hands. “He’s pissed ‘cause we have this deal set up based on whoever got married first, and we’re literally here for his bachelor party, so he’s convinced I wasn’t actually drunk and did this on purpose.”
The part of Jake that wasn’t celebrating at the words buddy and bachelor party was mightily concerned about pretty much everything else Bradley had said.
“This where I find out you were really drinking water all evening?”
Bradley laughed and scuffed a hand down his face, “I wish I was that smart.”
“What’s the deal?” Payback asked, because of course he had to.
“Oh, uh,” Bradley huffed, the tips of his ears reddening as he was subjected to the squad’s undivided attention. “It’s so dumb. We-” he sighed, “when we were kids we caught this foul ball at a Padres game and we fought over who got to keep it so much that my uncle confiscated it. Long story short, whoever gets hitched first gets the ball.”
Bradley wilted at the stumped way everyone was staring at him, but honestly even Jake couldn’t come to his defence right now.
“It’s more of a symbolic thing at this point…” he added with a hesitant tone, like that was supposed to justify it.
Jake tried to stifle his laugh, more at the look on Bradley’s face than anything else, but once started, he found it very difficult to keep control over himself. Bradley glared at him for a fraction of a second before he joined in, and then it was just the two of them bracing against one another as they tried to catch their breaths.
“Which one’s the schmuck you tricked down the aisle, Bradshaw?”
The sound of a new voice approaching helped sober Jake up and he looked around in time to see a lanky, tanned man approaching their table with an unimpressed look on his face. He had a full, immaculately trimmed beard, in direct contrast to the close-cropped shave on his head, indicating that the bald look was one he had chosen rather than it being forced upon him by his genetics as it was for most men. Like Bradley, he pulled off the facial hair in a way that Jake hated to admit was attractive.
Bradley clapped a hand on Jake’s shoulder and shook it a little as the guy stopped just behind where Halo and Omaha were sitting.
“My blushing bride,” he said by way of introduction. The heat Jake could feel in his cheeks told him that comment was more accurate than he would have liked it to be. “Jake, this is Marco.”
Jake nodded at him in greeting, “sorry to hijack your weekend like this, man. I’d say it wasn’t intentional but I have no idea what he told me last night, so for all I know this really was just a big ruse to trick you out of winning.”
While Bradley looked at him with no small amount of outrage, the whole pissed off look melted off of Marco as he barked out a laugh and said, “dammit, why couldn’t you be an asshole?”
“You haven’t gotten to know him yet,” Phoenix replied, as they made space on that side of the table to accommodate another chair, “just wait.”
All the squad needed was some popcorn to show off just how entertaining they were finding this. It was surprising, really. Jake hadn’t ever seen them this quiet as a group before, but other than a few asides they were making to one another, they seemed content to sit back and watch as the drama unfolded.
“I texted Amy,” Marco said to Bradley once he was seated, “she’s dying to call just to laugh at you.” Bradley hummed like he hadn’t been expecting anything else. “You don’t look that worried though? What’s happening?”
“Uh, we don’t have all that much info yet, so Javy,” Bradley pointed him out for Marco’s benefit, “suggested we find the chapel we went to and go from there.”
“Amazing. This is gonna be way better than whatever shit Cody had planned for today.”
Bradley grimaced and his gaze flickered to Jake before settling on his friend again, “dude, you don’t have to-”
“Shut the fuck up, Bradshaw, course I’m helping.” A defiant look came over Marco as he stared Bradley down like he was daring him to say he shouldn’t be here. “Besides, you’re shit at this, you didn’t even give him a ring.”
As Bradley scoffed at that, Jake was reminded of the horrified way Bradley had grabbed him when they first discovered this mess earlier that morning. His eyes dropped to Bradley’s hand, watching the way he wiggled his fingers at Marco when he said, “yeah I did,” with a sinking feeling which was only made worse by Marco’s inability to hide his shock at that revelation.
That Bradley had parted with that ring, however briefly, was turning out to be a pretty big deal.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, I know-”
“Your dad’s-”
“Marc, I know. Just let it go, okay?”
Marco held his hands up in a defensive position as if to show he would do just that and turned to address Javy, “when do these chapels open?”
“‘Bout an hour or so, first one’s only like ten ish minutes from here.”
“Awesome,” Marco clapped his hands together before addressing the squad as one. “So, what brought you guys to Vegas?”
After the mission from hell, the consensus was for the squad to use the leave they had been given to celebrate still having all their parts intact as a mismatched family that didn’t even exist less than a month ago. Trauma bonding doing its job, they hadn’t felt safe separating too soon. All twelve of them had needed to be here for their victory to mean something. To rationalise that decision, they had soon determined that the few days they had wasn’t enough time to head home or plan anything bigger than a long weekend trip. Left spit-balling ideas in between back-to-back debriefings, they had eventually settled on Vegas.
Because where else in the world would be better for celebrating?
Of course, they didn’t make things sound quite that bleak as they all chimed in to offer details of the story to Bradley and Marco. By unspoken agreement they left out the part where none of them had thought they would all be sitting here today, and that they had needed this time together to reorientate themselves into accepting what had once been such an impossible reality.
In fact, considering that Jake just shrugged and said “we’re military,” as explanation for why they had suddenly been left with time to fuck about in Vegas for no apparent reason, he guessed this was the longest any of them had ever gone without bragging about their chosen profession. It was usually built into the territory, being proud and loud about the navy. None of them had been feeling all that patriotic since the mission though, so Jake wasn’t surprised when no one elaborated on his blatant side stepping of that particular question.
It was a good enough explanation for Bradley and Marco anyway, and led nicely into them talking in more detail about Marco’s upcoming wedding.
Jake felt even worse for how things had turned out when Marco finally admitted that coming to Vegas hadn’t even been his idea. Instead of the nice, chilled plans he had made with Bradley, Cody (his fiancée, Amy’s, younger brother and golden child of their family) had ended up steamrolling over their weekend. An intervention they resigned themselves to, for the sake of keeping the peace.
They were both really good guys.
Normal.
Far too easy to get along with.
Jake’s emotions were pinging all over the place as he struggled to work out how that was supposed to make him feel about this whole situation.
He had to keep reminding himself that a potential drunken marriage to a stranger did not in any way, shape, or form constitute a real relationship. However this went, Jake knew he would most likely have to accept the fact that he and Bradley were going to walk away at the end owing absolutely nothing to one another.
Trying to stop himself from getting too introspective when they still didn’t know anything, Jake participated in the conversation as much as he could. If Bradley kept giving him assessing looks whenever he revealed something new about himself… well, he did his best not to read into it.
False hope could be such a dangerous thing.
It all unravelled when Marco brought up an anecdote related to his teaching job.
Jake felt bad that he wasn’t listening as he finished up the story, but his brain was going a little haywire acting casual about figuring out what Bradley did. If the guy worked with kids too, Jake might just spontaneously combust. The thought of him spending his time with a bunch of snot-nosed brats was far too endearing considering that Jake had never warmed up to the general concept of children.
Phoenix came in with the save, winking at Jake (because apparently she could see right through him) as she asked, “so what do you do Bradley? Are you a teacher too?”
“God no. Don’t get me wrong, kids are great and everything, but I could not spend every day with them.”
Okay, that was good.
Jake could breathe again.
He reached for his mug, sighing around the sip of coffee he took with relief, “no, I’m a pilot,” and promptly choked because, yeah, that was even more alluring than the teacher thing.
Bradley looked at him with a mixture of amusement and concern as Jake waved off the attention, trying to regain control of himself.
“No shit,” Fritz stepped in for him, “us too.” Jake clicked his fingers with a point at Fritz like that was enough to explain this trainwreck of an overreaction.
“Yeah?” Bradley asked.
Jake nodded once he had control of himself, slapping away Fanboy’s arm as he tried to keep hitting him on the back to clear his airway, “what do you fly?”
“Commercial.”
Oh, Jake decided his brain could fuck right off there and then.
His thoughts tunnel visioned around the single thought of seeing Bradley in his uniform and he was pretty sure everyone here could tell.
“You?”
“We’re fighter pilots,” Halo answered for him. “Naval aviators.”
While Bradley’s jaw dropped, there was a beat of silence before Marco started laughing. Hard enough to have to brace himself against the table. It snapped Jake back from his fantasising and he locked eyes with a few of the others, wondering whether they were supposed to be offended by this reaction.
“Of fucking course,” Marco eventually said in between residual chuckling. “The one guy you show any interest in is a goddamn fighter pilot.”
Okay.
Weird, but not necessarily bad.
Jake frowned and nudged at Bradley’s thigh with his knee, prompting him for answers while Marco hung his head between his legs as if that might help him regain his composure.
“I’m a navy brat,” he explained with a sheepish smile. Which… made a lot of sense now that Jake thought about it with the way he carried himself. “My uncle’s a fighter pilot too. He’s always had mixed feelings about my career choices.”
“Well, I don’t want to judge…” Jake said, shrugging as he accepted that both Bradley and Marco’s reactions had been pretty justified given the circumstances.
“Oh, fuck off, you sound just like him.”
“What’s his callsign?” Bob asked. “Maybe we know him.”
Some of them would probably have heard of him at the very least. Naval aviation tended to be quite a small world. Jake was beyond curious to find out what more this might reveal about Bradley’s past.
“Maverick.”
The squad froze as one.
Blood rushed through Jake’s ears.
It felt like his brain was shutting down.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
This couldn’t be happening.
Jake sensed as Bradley and Marco, who had both been perfectly relaxed before that, picked up on the newfound tension zinging through the group, and glanced around themselves in confusion. Bradley seemed to do a double take at the look that had come over Jake’s face, paling a little at whatever he saw there.
Fanboy leant forwards to place a hand on Jake’s arm, murmuring his name in quiet solidarity as he offered the kind of support Jake just couldn’t accept right now.
“I need a minute,” he choked out, hating how weak his voice sounded even to his own ears.
This was too much to handle.
He couldn’t say anything else but he hoped it was clear no one should follow him as he stood, fast, wincing against the harsh squeak of his chair against the floor, and escaped outside to the freedom of the parking lot.