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scarletmika · 1 month ago

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Speak Now : ̗̀➛ Robert "Bob" Floyd x Reader

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Reader

Summary: Bob Floyd is madly in love with you, and you're in love with him. The problem? You're getting married...and it's not to Bob.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY (I am not responsible for the media you choose to consume), some angst, some fluff, insane amounts of pining, idiots in love, language, female reader, maybe some incorrect descriptions of the Navy, suggestive and steamy but no actual smut, drunken confessions/moves, moment of cheating, miscommunication, happy ending!

Word Count: 16,268 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

You were twenty-two when you first met Bob Floyd.

Wide-eyed, naïve to the world, you had arrived at Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island with a bright smile, prepared for the future you had chosen for yourself. Your great-grandfather was in the Navy, your grandfather, your father, and now you. But you were determined to be special, to be the first of your family to become a fighter pilot.

It was that thought running through your head that distracted you, causing you to trip over your own two feet when you’d just barely made it inside the doors of the main building. Luckily for you, someone was there to catch your fall.

“Whoa-! Are you good?”

Baby-faced, sandy blonde hair, and glasses that you, frankly, found adorable were staring back at you when you’d finally straightened yourself out. Those blue eyes behind said glasses never left you as you dusted yourself off, taking hold of your suitcase again and giving the guy in front of you a kind smile.

“Just peachy. Lost in my own head,” you couldn’t help but giggle at yourself, the smile on the guy’s face growing as you stuck your hand out and gave your name. “Thanks for the save, there. Can’t already be bumbling around like an idiot before we’ve even gotten started.”

“Bob Floyd, and d-don’t worry, you weren’t,” he paused for a second, tilting his head slightly with a teasing grin this time as he let go of your hand. “W-Well, I can’t lie and say I didn’t see you swatting at that bee outside. Bumblebees and bumbling through doors…sounds like the makings of a pretty good call-”

“If I’ve managed to get a callsign this early on in my career, I’m never letting you forget it,” he only laughed at your pointed look and fell into step beside you.

“Noted, just a personal nickname for now, then. So, uh, where’d you graduate from?”

“Boston University, Bachelor's in Physics. You?”

You both thanked the woman at the front desk who gave you your assignments for your bunks for the rest of the multi-week course.

“University of Montana, Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering,”

The two of you came to a stop in front of the hallway before you; your barracks down to the left, and his down to the right.

“Want to grab dinner tonight after we settle in?”

“Yeah, I-I’d love that,” that smile on Bob’s face turned shy as he looked down at his feet for a moment. “I’ll grab you a coffee, how do you like it?”

“Two sugars, a dash of cream,”

“Perfect,”

“Well, Bob Floyd, I guess this is it for now. See you at dinner?”

“See you there, Bumble,”

It was meant to be just a nickname; he was meant to be the only person ever to call you that. But after graduating from officer training together, then attending and graduating flight training in Florida, you’d been shipped off to your different squadrons. Bob was off to Naval Air Station Lemoore in California, and you had been assigned to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida.

The man who had become your best friend, your rock throughout training, was being shipped to the other side of the country. Approximately 2,546 miles away from you, and three hours behind you. That didn’t stop the constant texts or late-night calls to keep one another updated in the way you used to when you lived in the same barracks; if anything, they became a constant in both of your lives.

And when you’d stumbled through the doors of the base on your first day, your squadron was quick to try to give you your callsign for your clumsiness. But you smiled, and said you already had one: Bumble.

It was at Top Gun training where you finally had Bob Floyd back in your life consistently; that is, at least for the duration of your 13-week training. And you’d never forget the smile on his face when he’d pulled away from the first hug you’d shared in years and gotten his first look at your helmet, adorned with your callsign that you had somehow managed to keep a secret for so long.

“Bumble,” he’d said it so adoringly, in a way that had you trying to ignore the strange feeling that bubbled up in your chest at the way he smiled and admired the yellow and black stripes along your helmet. “I really did give you your callsign, didn’t I? Bet they think it’s actually because of the bee and not the tripping.”

“Eh, let them decide. We know where it really came from. But I think we should focus on how the hell ‘Bob’ became not just your name, but your callsign, too,”

Leaving the program was hard, because leaving your best friend was hard. So, when just a few years later you had been called back to Top Gun for a specialized mission that took the best of the best, you couldn’t have been happier to be back with Bob. Then, with how quickly your new squad had taken to each other, it didn’t take any of you long to say ‘yes’ when you’d been offered a permanent position in San Diego as an elite squadron.

That’s how you found yourself here, seated in the same back-corner table of the Hard Deck on a Friday night as you always were, surrounded by the team that had become your family just a year-and-a-half after that special detachment became permanent.

Natasha laughed at your side, recounting some story for Fanboy and Payback about how Rooster had hit on a woman while the two of them were seeing a show downtown the night before. Hangman is instantly arguing back that Rooster ‘isn’t slick enough’ to pull that off, and Coyote is backing him up as he typically is. Maverick is at the other end of the table, simply shaking his head at you all as he thanks Penny for his next beer with a kiss on her cheek, something that quirks the corners of your lips up just slightly.

Bob sat right across from you, at the far end of the table from Maverick, and you can’t help but find yourself watching him. He’s dressed down, as you all are for once besides Mav, in a white t-shirt clinging to his skin with a blue flannel hanging haphazardly around him. You recognize it, since you’d bought it for him for his birthday three years ago. He’s laughing at Hangman and Rooster’s petty argument, sipping gingerly on a Diet Coke. You’d only ever seen him drink three times over the decade you had known him, so it wasn’t surprising. Neither was the cup of peanuts he was snacking on.

His eyes drifted to meet yours, and his smile grew wider the second he did. You swallowed the lump in your throat, shoving that flutter in your chest away into the locked compartment you always kept it in, and smiled back at him. Your best friend, your rock. One of the only people you could never imagine life without, and you never wanted to find out what life without him would be like. You weren’t even sure at this point how you’d survived your entire childhood without him by your side, because life didn’t make sense without Bob Floyd.

Lips suddenly pressed into the right side of your head, your body instinctively shifting over as the body next to you finally sat down, arm thrown around the back of your chair and fingertips ghosting over your bare shoulder for just a moment.

“Sorry, couldn’t decide on a drink! Figured you’d want another vodka cranberry, babe,”

Your reply was quiet, just a simple thank you, as you took the drink from your fiancée’s outstretched hand.

Austin Fletcher was what some called the perfect man. At least, that’s how your old squadmates back in Jacksonville described him. A Senior Financial Analyst in the company named for his own family, working his way within the next 5 years to take over as CEO from his father after his retirement. Chocolate brown eyes, perfect vision that he could thank his laser-eye surgery from 5 years ago for, forever tanned skin from too many days spent in the San Diego sun, and jet black hair that always seemed to be perfectly combed back. Combined with the expensive taste in outfits, given the watches that would cost an entire month of your Naval salary, he always looked like he walked straight off a magazine cover.

And he was yours, and you were his. And in just a month and a half’s time, now, you’d be Mrs. Fletcher. The wife of who was once considered San Diego’s most eligible bachelor.

Active, ambitious, efficient, a true entrepreneur. Everyone’s dream man.

“Couldn’t even bring us some refills, Austy?” Hangman teased the man from down the table. There were light snickers from your team at the comment, everyone knowing how much he hated that nickname. You could feel him tense slightly beside you, and didn’t hesitate to send Hangman a pleading look, begging him to stop.

“You’ve got the barmaid at your beck and call, didn’t think I had to!” Austin had joked, gesturing in the direction of Penny with his own beer bottle as he laughed at his own comment. No one else laughed, though, not that he seemed to care. Penny’s glare was obvious from down the table, as you averted your eyes to take a larger swig of your drink than necessary.

Austin…definitely had his faults. Callous was probably the best way to describe it when he made comments like that. Conceited might even be a good word for it. If you thought too long about it, there were probably a hundred other synonyms that you could dream up.

Your eyes caught Bob’s, already looking at you, and that easy smile he wore before was pitched down now. It was easy to track the movement of his eyes, the way they flickered to the hand holding your drink, to the shining silver diamond ring on your finger that would cost you at least six months of your salary, before they flicked away. That hand was quickly back below the table, lying in your lap where no one could see it before you even had a chance to really think about it.

“What we should really be focusing on is that drill from earlier today, and that insane move that you pulled off, Bumble,” it was Coyote speaking up, pointing down the table to you with a smirk as your friends whistled, getting a small laugh out of you. “Pulling off a fucking Herbst maneuver? I may have to finally concede and call you the best damn pilot I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, let’s not go that far,” Hangman cut in, as he usually did, with a wink sent your way that had you rolling your eyes playfully. “Still no confirmed air-to-air kills like me, so I think I still have an edge.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know. I bet those two kills are what you use to entice the ladies every night, instead of those two inches downstairs,” Natasha practically choked on her drink at your comment, a smirk etched into your lips. Payback and Fanboy were slamming on the table in laughter while you watched Bob shake his head with a grin out of the corner of your eye. “Wasn’t that hard of a maneuver, Mav has been trying to teach us it for weeks-”

“Sometimes I don’t fully understand what it is you guys get paid to do,” Austin had cut in, cutting you off mid-sentence with another laugh and swig of his beer. “I mean, if you aren’t out there fighting any wars, then what are our tax dollars paying you guys to do? Play around in the air?”

Apathetic. Yeah, that was another word you could use for Austin. He never cared to hear about work, or really anything that happened between you and the rest of the squad. Apathetic, hedonistic, ignorant…yeah, that list really did go on.

“Non sibi sed patriae…means not for self, but for country,” it was Maverick who spoke up this time, and just the sound of his voice had each member of his team sitting up just the slightest bit straighter. When Mav put on his serious voice, you listened, even at the Hard Deck. “Means we spend our days preparing to protect this country at a moment’s notice…I’m sure you do something similar as a financial analyst, though.”

Another snicker ran through the entire team, and Rooster was the one this time having trouble keeping his laughter in. Even you were trying not to shake with laughter. Austin bristled next to you again before he recovered, shifting the conversation elsewhere. You caught Mav’s eye, though, mouthing a quick ‘thank you’ in his direction. His only response was a cool smile and a wink.

There were only so many of Austin’s stories from work, from meetings with clients, that you could stand, and you quickly found yourself grabbing your drink and leaving the table for the bar.

Many of the locals up around the bar nodded in your direction, knowing you and the squad from your usual nights out here, sliding off to the side to let you walk up and place your drink on the bar. Penny was on you in a second, an eyebrow raised.

“Let me guess; he started talking about market data and economic indicators again?”

“Just like he does every night,” you shot back with a laugh, though Penny looked less than impressed. You simply refilled your glass again, this time going heavier on the vodka than the cranberry without you even having to ask. “You’re the best, Pen.”

She’s left you alone in your thoughts, which, granted, was the last place you wanted to be. Your eyes simply stayed locked on your drink, staring down into the reddish-pink liquid, and every once in a while glancing back at that diamond that weighed heavily on your hand.

“Looks like you’re thinking hard over here, bee,”

Even if you hadn’t recognized the voice, you’d recognize the nickname anywhere. The Navy had stolen the nickname of Bumble from Bob Floyd, so he’d made it his mission to find another one. It wasn’t that hard to settle on bee, given that first conversation you had together.

You glanced over to him. He was leaning against the bar, giving you a tiny smile as Penny passed by and passed him another Diet Coke without a word.

“Well, I’m not thinking about market data, if that’s what you mean,” he’d laughed at that, and you held your glass out to clink against his Diet Coke can. “Here’s to the longest month and a half I’m about to have.”

You watched him, like you always did, even when you didn’t mean to. It wasn’t hard to see the way his smile dropped just slightly as he turned, leaning back against the bartop and looking in the direction of your table in the distance. You mirrored his actions.

“The future Mrs. Fletcher,” he’d let out a sigh, but you kept your eyes trained on your friends instead of looking at him. “I-I know Rooster was pestering you the other day, and you refused to say, but I have to know…how much did that damn venue in Del Mar cost?”

“After vendors…somewhere close to $70 grand, if I remember correctly,” Bob’s cough that sounded a lot like choking got you to finally look over at him, laughing lightly as you patted him on the back. The second he found his breath, his wide eyes turned to look at you, and you could only nod embarrassingly, your hand never straying from his back. “Trust me, I’m not happy about it. I wanted 50 guests, now it’s somewhere near 200. I wanted a vanilla cake, now it’s red velvet–hell, did you know my dress was fucking $8 thousand dollars?”

Bob, still wide-eyed, shook his head with a tiny smile back on his lips.

“$8 thousand for fabric i-is…insane. I hope you plan to wear it every day for the rest of your life,”

With a quick shove to his shoulder and a roll of your eyes, Bob laughed, and you couldn’t help but laugh with him.

“No, trust me, I know. Almost an entire month’s salary for me, just so it can sit in my closet until the end of time,”

There was silence between you both for a moment as you really thought it all over. A venue you didn’t want, a guest count way too high for what you wanted, a cake you didn’t want, a dress you were terrified to wear given the price tag…it was, in fact, insane. It was just making this month and a half until you walked down the aisle even more exhausting. You just wanted it all to be over.

“You always wanted to get married at that country club, that one back home in Boston. Never near the beach,” Bob’s voice was soft when he spoke up again, just barely able to be heard in the rowdiness of the Hard Deck. But you heard him loud and clear, and you were listening. “Indoor or outdoor, whatever you preferred or whatever the New England weather allowed at the time. The perfect mix of rustic and modern. Perfect view of the city skyline in the distance. The fall, too, not the summer. You wanted to make sure you could see the changing colors in the leaves in the photos, and because you just love fall.”

When he finished speaking and turned to look at you, you were already looking at him. Your jaw was slack, lips just barely parted, and eyes wide as you stared at him in what you could only describe as wonder. Marveling at the way Bob Floyd, out of thin air, had just described to you everything you’d ever dreamt of for your wedding since you were a little girl.

“The same place my aunt got remarried when I was eight,” your head tilted as you spoke, a smile creeping up your lips. “I told you that, like, once back in officer training, when we were both on night duty. You…you remembered all that?”

“I remember everything about you,” was the only answer he gave back, combined with a tiny shrug of his shoulders. “You…you deserve the wedding you’ve always dreamed of.”

There it was again: that tug. That tug on your heart, on your very soul, that had happened sporadically throughout the last decade of knowing Bob Floyd. That tug that sent your stomach into your throat, as if you’d just been tossed over the hump of a roller coaster. It didn’t help when he looked at you like that, like the moon itself was forged by the very breath that left your chest.

He was the first to look away, clearing his throat as a flush crawled its way up his neck. You weren’t any better, tugging at the neckline of the halter top you wore to give yourself room to breathe, as if it was suffocating you.

“So, uh…you’re coming with Nat and me tomorrow, right? To my final dress fitting?”

“...wouldn’t miss it for the world,”

He didn’t. You knew where he was that next afternoon, standing out by that little black couch with Natasha, waiting for you to emerge from the boutique dressing room and stand on the platform before them. To twirl, to don your veil, to smile…like the perfect bride they’d dressed you to be.

The worker with you, Sasha, finished lacing off the back of your dress, exclaiming in excitement as she clapped her hands. You wanted her from the mirror in front of you as she fussed over the dress.

“Oh, you are just the most perfect bride!” Sasha exclaimed, swinging the door open and holding out her hand for you to take. “Most people might say that you’re a lucky woman to bag Austin Fletcher, but I’d say it’s the other way around!”

You’d laughed at her comment, taking her hand, but even you knew it was a pitiful laugh, your smile not meeting your eyes.

She’d paraded you out into the showroom, and you kept your eyes on the floor in front of you as she announced your presence to Natasha and Bob, placing you up on the little platform in front of the full-length mirror. You still didn’t look up as she bent you down to her slightly, draping the extravagant veil picked out by your future mother-in-law over your head. Only then did you finally look up.

Your eyes skipped right over Natasha and settled on Bob.

He wore a tiny smile, and even through the mirror, you could see the red blush to his skin, from his neck to his cheeks, dipping right under where his glasses lay. His hands were both in the pockets of his jeans as his foot tapped on the ground, a telltale sign that he was anxious. You knew him, you knew him too well. You knew that smile didn’t reach his eyes. You knew that little twinkle in his eyes wasn’t as bright as it could be.

“You are…” you could tell Natasha was trying not to get choked up, gladly taking a tissue from Sasha as you giggled lightly at her actions. “God, Bumble, you’re truly the most beautiful bride.”

“Well, let’s let our bride fully take it all in for a moment,” Sasha placed a hand on Natasha’s shoulder, guiding her off toward the room adjacent to your own. “The bridesmaid dresses just came in, and I think you’re going to love the way they look after those alterations.”

It wasn’t until they had fully left the room that you’d spun around on the platform to face Bob, throwing out your hands to the side gently with a little shrug of your shoulders.

“Well…what’s the verdict here, baby-on-board?”

He seemed to swallow most of his laugh and shook his head, taking a few steps toward you until he stood just a few feet from you. His eyes trailed from the veil, down to the edges of the skirt, and back up to the veil.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this dress definitely wasn’t your mother’s pick,”

That had gotten a hearty laugh out of you and a genuine smile, as you spun back to the mirror. Bob had met your family plenty of times over the years, at every graduation event, just as you had met his. They adored him, thought of him as part of the family, like his own family thought of you as one of their own, too. Of course, he could clock that your mother hated this dress.

The skirts of the dress billowed with the movements, swinging with you as you examined your own reflection. A full princess ball gown, adorned with lace from head to toe. The fabric was heavy, the skirts thick, and the lace continued down the sleeves that came to rest at your wrists. The veil itself was more of that same lace, its length trailing down the train of the dress that was much too long for your liking.

“No, not at all,” was your response after a moment, your hands gliding over the lace of the dress. “This was a Mrs. Fletcher pick. With the way she cried, and his sister Melissa cried, it…was hard to say no. It really is a beautiful dress.”

“It's kind of hideous,” Bob put bluntly, taking another step toward you, but there was a tiny smile playing at his lips, a hint of teasing laced through his voice. “I think you’re the only thing saving it.”

You rolled your eyes at his comment, but couldn’t deny the smile that quirked up on your lips, or that tug in your chest once again. You eyed the dress again, eyes trailing over the lace along the sleeves.

“It’s not hideous, it's just… It's not-”

“It’s not you,”

In the mirror, your eyes found him again. The second he said it, that statement that you’d been begging someone to say since you’d first tried on the dress, had a weight visibly lifting off your shoulders as you let out a sigh.

“No…no, it's not me,”

You could see it, the way Bob hesitated for just a second, before he stepped up beside you at the platform. Even with that extra inch the platform gave, he was still taller than you, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him in the mirror.

“I’ve seen it, y-your dream dress. You showed it to me before,” his voice was light, not a whisper, but just light. As if the moment itself was delicate, and he wasn’t sure how to navigate it without shattering the glass. “A-line, not a ball gown. You always hated having too much fabric, found it too heavy. You wanted something freeing, flowy…something that reminded you of the feeling of flying your F-18, your favorite thing in the world to do. The lace is good, but…too much. Same with the veil, you always hated those things.”

There was another brief moment of hesitation, behind his hand came up, fingertips just barely ghosting over your arm. Your breath caught, eyes following him, as his followed the length of your arm.

“Sleeves…you hated these, too, at least like this. You wanted them shorter, flowy again. A v-neck neckline, too, not these sweetheart ones. You always said the sweetheart necklines made you think of your high school prom dress, which made you think of your asshole ex-boyfriend, which in turn landed them on your ‘banned forever’ list.”

A breathy laugh managed to escape you at the memory, your eyes still following him in the mirror.

“You describe my dream dress as if you’ve pictured me in it before…”

His eyes finally found yours again in the mirror. You weren’t sure what emotion it was you saw, what was crawling in his gaze as he looked at you, mouth slightly parted and tongue dipping out to wet his lips in a way that brought that tug back in full force. Whatever it was in his eyes, it was heavy, like it was holding the weight of a thousand words never said before.

And suddenly, when you pictured yourself walking down the aisle, you were in the dress that Bob had described. Flowy, light, and walking down the aisle in that rustic country club overlooking the skyline of the city you’d called home for so many years. But when you were handed off to the groom, your hand placed in his, it wasn’t Austin you were standing across from, that you were about to become the wife of. You weren’t standing there to become Mrs. Fletcher…you were standing there to become Mrs. Floyd.

“Hey…” you and Bob jumped away from one another, as if you were both suddenly a blazing fire that the other was trying to run from. Natasha was leaning in the doorway of the other room. Her eyes flickered back and forth between you both for just a moment before she nodded her head toward the room she’d just left. “Come on, Sasha wants you to take another look at these bridesmaid dresses before I give the okay on them.”

Wordlessly, you nodded and followed after her, never once glancing back at Bob. You refused to meet Nat’s eyes, even as they followed and watched you.

They kept watching you, too. You knew Natasha; she was observant. If she caught wind of something, she wasn’t going to let it go.

You were three weeks out from the wedding. Your dress was hung carefully in the spare bedroom of your apartment, alongside the bridesmaid dresses in their own bags. Everything was confirmed, vendors were a go, and everyone on the guest list on both sides had RSVP’d. Your mother and brother were in town for the month, staying in a hotel right on North Island. Austin’s family and extended family were all in town. You were in the homestretch, the finish line of what had become the most stressful time of your life in sight.

While Nat was your maid of honor, Austin’s sister Melissa had taken it upon herself to plan your entire bachelorette. Given the hectic work schedules that both you and Nat had, neither of you objected. Truthfully, she’d done well. An Airbnb, a gorgeous cabin, nestled right outside of Lake Isabella, north of Los Angeles, for the weekend. Relaxation, nature, and no stress of being in the city, just as you knew Austin was doing for his bachelor party with his friends.

Melissa and Terri, or ‘Dove’ as you knew her during your time in Jacksonville, were swimming together in the little alcove of the lake you’d all found during your hike after lunch. You and Natasha had taken to the man-made hot springs right on the edge of the lake, relaxing in the water and just watching the two women swim and converse from a distance.

“I can’t believe you convinced Maverick to walk you down the aisle and give you away,”

You laughed wholeheartedly at Nat’s comment. With your head thrown back against the rocks, you maneuvered your sunglasses to the top of your head to fully look at her.

“The second I told him that my dad has been out of the picture for me since I was 16 when he divorced my mom and remarried his comically young new wife, he didn’t hesitate. Besides, he knows he practically adopted us all as kids when he took us on as his full-time squadron,”

“True, I think he secretly loves it,” you hummed in agreement, turning your head back to the sky to soak in the sun. Nat was quiet for only a moment before speaking again. “I’ve been meaning to ask…how have you been, with everything?”

A complicated question. A loaded one, honestly.

“Doing the best I can,” you answered honestly, shifting in the warm pool of water surrounding you. “It’s just…stressful. Can’t wait until it’s all over.”

“Mhm…and you’re having no second thoughts?”

You hesitated for just a moment.

“Might have some issues with the fundamentals of the venue, my dress, and such, but…no, not at all,”

“Really? So the fact that you’re madly in love with Bob Floyd isn’t making you second-guess your wedding?”

Even in the warmth of the hot spring, your blood went cold. The water splashed as you fully sat up, now leaning back against the rocks. Your nervous gaze shot out to Melissa and Dove, but neither seemed to have heard the comment. Your gaze drifted back to Natasha, but all you found was an easy smile on her face. Not a single ounce of judgment.

That alone was enough to pull a simple sigh from you. There was no use in lying.

“How’d you put it together?”

“Always had a hunch,” she answered easily, sitting up as well and tossing her own sunglasses off to the side. “A few weeks ago, in the dress shop. I don’t know…I could just finally see it. More importantly, how long have you felt like this?”

“I’m not sure when it happened. He was just my best friend for a long time, even if I could always admit to myself that he was objectively attractive,” you shook your head with a slight laugh. Truthfully, you couldn’t believe you were finally admitting this out loud. “I hadn’t seen him for years, it was just texts and calls. Then, we both got into Top Gun, and the second I was back with him…there was this tug in my chest, and it’s just never gone away. I’ve…never told anyone this before.”

Natasha moved, the water around you both jostling, as she turned fully on the stone seating to look at you. You kept your eyes trained on the two in the water, terrified that one of them would overhear you.

“Bumble…why did you never tell him?”

“God, I tried to. Once,” you laughed incredulously at yourself, shaking your head as you willed the tears not to appear at the mere thought of the memory. “After we had become a permanent squad, we were at Hangman’s celebrating his new apartment. Somehow, we started talking about dating, and then we just went around in a circle giving an update on our dating lives.”

You tore your gaze from the girls in the lake, turning to Natasha now as those tears threatened to spill despite your push to keep them at bay.

“You spoke, and then it was my turn. And I looked at him, sitting beside me, and I thought…fuck it, what do I have to lose? You guys had put a few drinks in me, and lord knows I get a confidence kick when I’m drunk. So I confessed that I had a crush on a guy. Bradley asked if you guys knew him, and I said yes. I talked about how he was kind of nerdy, a little shy, but once you got to know him he was a sarcastic little shit just like they all were. That he was the perfect gentleman, the most chivalrous man I’d ever met, and objectively the most attractive man I’d ever laid eyes on. Mickey asked how long I’d known him for, and I said it felt like I’d known him my entire life. Even asked how often I would see him, and I said every damn day.”

“Oh god,” realization seemed to finally dawn on Natasha’s face, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as it dropped open. “Oh god, we were all too drunk to realize…you were talking about Bob.”

“Yup. Maybe I was just too drunk, but I thought I was being painfully obvious. So then it’s Bob’s turn, and what does he say?” you scoffed, furiously wiping at your cheek to rid yourself of the tears that managed to escape. “He says he’s been talking to some girl, and met her on an app. All this time–I’d spent years overanalyzing every moment between us–thinking there was a chance he felt the same. Instead, I laid my heart on the line to find out that my love had always been unrequited. So, while you were all passed out that night, I decided that I needed to move on. I downloaded those apps for myself, and a week later, I was on a date with Austin.”

The first time you had let yourself cry over Bob Floyd had been that night, when everyone was drunk and passed out around the living room. This moment, in a fucking hot spring on your bachelorette trip, you finally let yourself cry again over the man you’d been in love with for years.

Natasha let you, didn’t say a word. She only scooted in close, curling up into your side and letting your head rest on her shoulder, holding you as you finally cried, keeping her eyes on the other two girls, blissfully unaware of what was occurring on the edges of the lake. She didn’t speak up again until minutes later, when your silent sobs had finally subsided.

“Bumble…if you’re crying, then you still love him. Why are you getting married?”

“Because I have to,” your voice was broken, thick and hoarse from your own tears. “You know what my mother said when I told her I was engaged? ‘Good, your biological clock is ticking.’ And, fuck, I know she meant it as a joke, but she wasn’t wrong. We’re not getting any younger. Then, Dove and the rest of my fucking old squad, I told them and all they could do was make comments about how I ‘can’t fumble this man’ or how I’m ‘the luckiest girl in the world.’ Everyone just…expects this of me, and I can’t disappoint them. Plus...I can’t spend my entire life in love with someone who will only ever love me as his best friend.”

“What if you’re wrong, though?” Nat’s voice was gentle, reassuring, her arms squeezing you in the most comforting hug she could muster. “Babe, I see the way he looks at you. There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t see it. He looks at you like you’re the sun, the moon, and every star in the damn sky combined. You got on those apps, you met Austin, to get over him. What if he was just doing the same?”

“He had plenty of time to tell me, then, if he felt the same, which I guarantee he doesn’t. He kept his secrets, just like I did,” was all the answer you could muster. You drew in a deep breath, trying to steel your nerves and bring a semblance of calm back to your inner self. “Maybe I don’t love Austin the way I love Bob, maybe I never will…I don’t think I’ll ever love someone the way I love him. Maybe he’s not my soulmate, not Mr. Right, but he’s safe. He has a job, he has goals, he has plans for the future…I can’t keep living in a world of what-ifs, Nattie, I can’t keep loving someone who doesn’t love me back. I need stability, I need someone sure of me. He put a ring on my finger; he wouldn’t do that if he weren’t sure of it.”

There was silence for a few moments after that, and you weren’t sure if you were trying to convince Natasha of this marriage…or yourself. Finally, you felt her sigh, and she just wrapped you up in an even tighter hug.

“I love you, Bumble, and I will always support you. We all will, no matter what you do, because it’s your life and in the end, it’s your choice. But, in the interest of being honest…you aren’t yourself when you’re with Austin. This entire wedding…it isn’t you. I don’t want to see you lose yourself to be with someone you feel you have to be with. If you marry the wrong person, the man you don’t love…you’re going to kill yourself trying to be the right person.”

Natasha couldn’t see it, nor could you, but you could feel it; the weight of those words, as they settled into your heart, and sowed the seeds of doubt into your brain.

❤︎

“Look, I’m just going to be the one to say it…we all fucking hate Austin, right?”

There was a chorus of laughter throughout Hangman’s apartment from each of the men sitting around, multiple boxes of pizza and cases of beer littering the coffee table of the living room. The ‘Real Bachelor’ party, as Hangman called it, since none of them had been invited to Austin Fletcher’s bachelor party in Las Vegas…not that any of them would’ve said yes.

“Hate him? More like loathe, detest, despise…must I go on?” there was a chorus of agreement around the room to Rooster’s comment, the man taking another swig of his beer. The Padres game was playing on TV, the volume so low you could barely hear anything, but no one was paying attention. “If he makes another comment about how he ‘doesn’t know what we do all day’ or ‘this is what my tax dollars pay for?’ I’m going to strap him to the wing of my fucking jet and do a couple hundred barrel rolls.”

Bob couldn’t fight his smirk, hiding it behind the neck of his own beer bottle from his place at the island counter overlooking Hangman’s living room. It wasn’t often that he drank, but being a month out from your wedding…yeah, he deserved at least one beer.

“You know, my cousin did some digging months ago when they flew home for my birthday,” it was Elijah who spoke up, your older brother. Already in town for the month for his baby sister’s wedding, he’d known Bob for years because of you, so it was natural for him to become friendly with the rest of the Dagger Squad and to be invited to the fake bachelor party. “That little degree he got, the prestigious one from Yale? Yeah…apparently daddy made a nice donation to the library, and by nice, I mean a heavily substantial one.”

There was another chorus of laughter from the men in the room. Payback laughed so hard Fanboy was beating him on the back, trying to keep him from choking on the bite of pizza he’d just inhaled.

“I’d say I’m surprised, but I’m not,” Coyote chimed in, shaking his head at the thought. “Dad’s company, I think we all knew he wasn’t earning the position of CEO in a few years, it was being given to him. No surprise there that a hefty check managed to get him through college.”

“You know, Eli, we might not know one another well,” Fanboy gestured toward your brother. “But honestly…I’m shocked that you’re okay with this whole marriage, given that you seem to hate the guy as much as we do.”

Bob swung off his seat, rounding himself into the kitchen to look out through the window into the living room, grabbing another cold beer for himself after finishing off the final swig of his. The night literally revolved around talking about your wedding after all; he was going to need some alcohol in his system to fight his way through it.

“I’m not okay with it, but you guys know my sister. Once she’s made up her mind, it would take a lot to talk her out of something,” Elijah shrugged, groans echoing throughout the boys in the room. “She talks about Maverick, your Captain, if I remember right, like some surrogate father-figure for our own. Why not ask him to talk to her?”

“Maverick once got busted in his early days for taking Penny Benjamin on a joyride in a fighter jet, and struck out with the ladies plenty of times before reuniting with Pen,” Rooster chimed in with a scoff of his own, a smirk on his lips. “That man should be the last person giving relationship advice.”

“Fair enough. Honestly, I’m surprised Robert over there didn’t put a stop to this before it got this far,”

Bob’s head shot up, and every eye in the living room was on him. And not a single man wasn’t slightly smirking in his direction, Hangman was even tilting his beer toward him in agreement with your brother. The WSO only shook his head with a short, clipped laugh, nerves already dancing through him.

“W-Why would I do that?”

Elijah cocked an eyebrow in his direction, casting a glance around the room, before his gaze settled back on him.

“Uh, because you’ve been in love with my sister since Rhode Island?”

Bob Floyd was caught, frozen like a deer in headlights, in the kitchen. Eyes wide, glasses almost slipping off the bridge of his nose, and he wasn’t sure if the beer bottle in his hand was just slippery from condensation or because he was suddenly sweating.

“You know, I have been wondering the same thing, too,” Hangman spoke up, taking a glance around at the group of men. “I mean, he only worships the ground that she walks on. How do you fumble a woman like Bumble?”

There was a chorus of agreement to Hangman’s statement, as Bob found himself back on the other side of the island counter and seated on his barstool once again. His eyes were trained on the beer bottle in his hands, fingers gliding over the glass and tracing patterns in the built-up condensation. After a moment, he looked back at your brother, who was just watching him with a tiny, almost knowing smile.

Bob let out a deep sigh.

“...was I that obvious?”

“Dude, when you guys graduated Officer Candidate School, your parents and sisters rushed up to hug you,” Elijah was laughing fondly at the memory, pointing his index finger in Bob’s direction. “But you? You never once stopped looking at her. This sea of Navy men and women, and you couldn’t stop looking at her. I remember watching you. You’d just graduated and officially joined the Navy; the rest of your life was about to begin with that graduation…but you were looking at her as if she were the rest of your life. If that wasn’t the most blatant depiction of love, then I don’t believe in it.”

“That look never left him, just so you know,” Fanboy hopped in, speaking straight to Elijah as if Bob wasn’t in the room. “The second we all got here and they saw each other at the Hard Deck, this man was out of his shell in seconds. The quiet, reserved Bob we’d been talking to was gone as he, like, lifted her and spun her around the room. It looked like a scene out of a damn Hallmark movie, we all legit thought they were already together.”

A tiny smile made its way to Bob’s face, his eyes just staring out into the corner of the living room as he relived those moments. Decked out in your Navy dress blues, greeting your mother and brother with tears in your eyes, laughing at something your brother had said. His mother was hugging him, talking about how proud she was, his father comforting his sisters who cried over how proud they were, but…he never looked away from you. It was the first time he’d seen you in dress blues, and the only thing he could think was how the color navy must’ve been designed specifically for you.

That day at the Hard Deck, his first time meeting his new team for the special detachment mission. He’d been so quiet, reserved, stumbling over his words as his friends had asked for his callsign, as he’d met his new front-seater. He was never good at meeting new people…and then, you walked in. Every nerve in his body dissipated in seconds, and he’d never shot up so fast to tug you into a hug, afraid if he let go, you’d be back in Florida before he could blink, and he’d lose you all over again.

“Bob,” it was Rooster who broke him out of his daze, his gaze trailing back over the expectant looks of all his friends, before settling on the man he considered one of his best friends. “Why did you never tell her?”

“Because how are you supposed to tell your best friend you’re in love with her? Especially after a decade?” Bob laughed at himself, adjusting his glasses and rubbing his jaw. “I-I don’t know what life looks like without her, and I didn’t want to get rejected. I’d rather have her in my life than push her away because I ruined it all.”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself there, Bob,” Payback jumped in, and Fanboy nodded along with him. “You never even tried. How can you just assume she doesn’t feel the same?”

“I tried to. Once…I was going to tell her, once,”

The room looked at him expectantly as Bob sighed to himself, resigning to finally getting all of this weight off his chest. Hangman and Rooster immediately moved the pizza boxes off the coffee table, giving Bob room to plop himself down on top so that he sat right in the middle of all his friends.

“We’d just moved you into this apartment,” Bob pointed at Hangman, then to the couch he, Rooster, and Elijah were sitting on. “We were sitting right here: me, my bee, and then Nat. You guys got drunk, it was a long day of moving, and somehow we started talking about dating. We were trying to update one another on our dating lives, little ‘team bonding’ I think Coyote called it. A-And I thought to myself…okay, I’m going to do it. We’re having fun, we’re a permanent squad now, and she’s not going to get ripped away from me and sent back to Florida, so I’m going to tell her. Then it got to her…and she started gushing about Austin. With every little compliment she gave him, I realized that if I ever had a chance, I’d lost it. So when it got to me, I said I was talking to a girl off an app, and I told myself I’d just never tell her. It could be my little secret, forever.”

The weight was finally off Bob’s shoulders, and it felt like he could finally breathe again. Everything he’d ever felt, he’d kept bottled up inside for so long, and it was finally out in the open.

But every face around the room looked confused. Payback and Fanboy were quietly conversing to themselves, faces twisted in confusion. Coyote and Rooster were having a short, staggered conversation that Bob could barely make out as they tried to loop Elijah in on everything. Hangman? He just stared at Bob as if he had three heads.

“Hold up,” Rooster finally spoke up, drawing the attention of the room, as he pointed down to Jake at the far end of the couch. “Didn’t we move you in here the day after your birthday?”

“Yeah, because we were kicking ourselves for staying out all night at the restaurant downtown the next morning because of the move,” Jake snapped his fingers, eyes going wide as Rooster nodded along with him, both boys seeming to be on the same wavelength in seconds. “Shit! That’s right, we ran into that girl–Megan–the one I hooked up with on Tinder, like, a month before.”

“Bingo, bagman,”

Both men turned to look at Bob, smiling like they’d just guessed the winning lottery numbers on a whim. Bob, though, was more confused than he thought he ever had been.

“I’m sorry…w-what does that have to do with anything?”

“Because Bumble was complaining about Jake being a manwhore,” Mickey jumped in with the explanation, and Hangman snapped in his direction in agreement. “Hangman then made a stupid comment about how maybe he should try the app named after her callsign, and she told him not to use ANY of the apps because they’re dumb.”

“I remember asking if she was ever tempted to download the apps, and she said no. Even showed me her phone, she didn’t have them,” Coyote tacked on.

Bob was…so utterly confused by the direction that this conversation had gone, he didn’t know what to do with it.

“Again, what does this-?”

“Bob, your little bee hated those apps; she’d never had them, and proved it to us, and that was just a night before you thought about confessing,” Rooster explained to him, trying to lay it out for him as simply as he could. “When she first introduced us to Austin, she said they’d met on Hinge…so whoever she was talking about that night, it couldn’t have been him.”

Once again, Bob was frozen in place, trying to fully comprehend what the guys were all explaining to him at that moment.

“Bob, we were all plastered that night. Hell, I barely remember setting this place up that day,” Hangman leaned forward toward him, elbows resting on his knees, and his intense gaze never straying from Bob. “Tell us exactly what she’d said that night.”

Truthfully, Bob wished he didn’t know what you had said. He wanted to forget it, the way you gushed with that love-struck look on your face for a man who wasn’t him. But unfortunately for him, he remembered every word.

“S-She had a crush, said it was someone you guys knew,” Bob explained, eyes cast down to the beer bottle in his hands once again. “He was kinda nerdy, a smart dude. Shy at first, but once you got to know him, he was sarcastic. A gentleman, chivalrous, and it felt like she had known him her entire life. She…she said h-he was the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on, and that she spent almost every day with him.”

There was a beat of silence. Every man in the room seemed to look around at one another, before all chaos let loose.

Payback and Fanboy practically threw themselves off the loveseat, jumping around and high-fiving, fist bumping, chest bumping with yells that could be considered victory screeches. Hangman had gotten off the couch, grabbing himself another beer and almost chugging half of it as he paced around the room behind the couch, muttering ‘wow’ to himself over and over again. Rooster was almost in total hysterics, along with Coyote, while Elijah sat among the chaos, simply shaking his head with a smile.

Bob? He sat on top of that coffee table in pure disbelief of whatever the fuck was happening around him.

“Could she have been more obvious-?”

“No, honestly! How did we not clock it?”

“I FEEL LIKE WE JUST WON THE LOTTERY!”

“Maybe we all need to borrow Bob’s glasses, I think we all might be blind-”

“Baby-on-board, I’m so sorry,” Hangman was the one to apologize, running a hand through his hair with an incredulous laugh as he looked at the WSO sitting in the middle of the room. “I think we should all be banned from drinking after this information. If we hadn’t been drunk, we would’ve realized what she said–maybe we could’ve saved this disaster. My god, she poured her heart out, and you lied about a girl on a dating app and probably broke her heart! Bobby boy…she was talking about you.”

That alone was enough to stop Bob’s heart, to make him pause, to drop his jaw open and pop his eyes open a fraction wider than they had been.

That…that wasn’t possible. This was you they were talking about; his bee. His Bumble, who’d stumbled through the doors like the adorable idiot you sometimes were. The girl who’d stuck to his side like glue, who had been there for every major moment in his life. You were the girl who’d flown home with him for his older sister’s wedding, who spent a week with his family on a ranch in Montana as if you belonged there. The person who held him for hours, for days, after the bird strike, who had listened to every fear he’d voiced about what it felt like knowing he was going down, not knowing if he and Nat would make it.

This was you. Vivacious, patient, dependable, graceful, utterly perfect…you. Everything he could ever want, ever dream of, wrapped up into the human being he couldn’t dare live without. You couldn’t, there was no way-

“You’re wrong,” was what Bob finally said, his voice low and quiet. The noise of the room settled, and everyone noticed the shift in Bob. It was written clearly on his face, his own insecurities that were creeping in and eating away at him. “S-She…she’d never think of me like that. Maybe it wasn’t Austin she was talking about, but it couldn’t have been me.”

“It was,” Bradley chimed in, but Bob only shook his head immediately,

“No, it can’t be, because I’m me. She was top of the class, and everyone loved her everywhere we went. She was the light in every room, the best part of everyone’s day…and I-I was her shadow. My bee…she deserves better than me, she deserves everything that Austin can give her-”

“Austin’s pretentious self can go fuck off,” Fanboy practically shouted out from across the room, cutting Bob’s sentence off. “He’ll never amount to half the man you are, Bob. Bumble loves you, we all know you know that.”

“She loves me because I’m her best friend, and I always will be,” Bob choked out a laugh. His throat was constricting, and he could feel the pool of tears welling up behind his eyes. “If she loved me in any other way…she would’ve told me.”

“Unless she was scared, just like you,”

It was the first thing Elijah had said in a while, and Bob’s eyes drifted back to the older man. He leaned forward, with the softest smile on his face, and it brought a smile to Bob’s for just a moment; it looked so much like your smile.

“She once called you the best thing in her life to me, made me swear to never tell you that. It became pretty obvious to me that you were the one thing in this world she was terrified to lose. So…take the leap, because it’s going to have to be you, Bob. Forget Austin, forget the ring, forget the wedding, and tell her. If we’re wrong, so be it, but at least you won’t spend the rest of your life wondering what might’ve happened if you had just tried. Tell her before you lose the chance to, before you spend the rest of your life regretting it.”

❤︎

Natasha’s words hadn’t left your head, but you kept silent. You let them sit, marinate, stir up your emotions in the back of your head, deep within your heart. Each time they managed to flicker back to the front of your mind, invade your thoughts, you wanted to throw up.

You’re going to kill yourself trying to be the right person.

That simple phrase had taken hold of you again, that little timer in your head slowly counting down: two weeks. Two weeks until you’d be married, until you’d be Mrs. Fletcher. Those thoughts wouldn’t leave even as Maverick stood at the end of the Hard Deck table, raising his beer in toast to you where you sat at the other end.

“To our Bumble…you stumbled through the doors of North Island into our lives, and now you get to stumble through life’s next greatest challenge: marriage. They say love comes easy when you choose to love your best friend…and I’m happy that the pilot I consider my own kid has found that kind of love,”

The rest of the table raised their drinks in toast to you. Your entire squad, Penny and Amelia, your mother, your brother, even your old squadmates from Florida. Everyone who would sit on your side of the aisle, to marry you off, huddled together in the closed Hard Deck for a special, intimate celebration in your honor, moving tables throughout the bar all together to sit with one another. All for you.

Maverick held your eyes for a moment after his words, even as the rest of the group devolved into laughter and stories, or moved off to play pool or darts. You held his gaze. Your Captain’s eyes were intense, but soft, as if he was trying to instill something into you that he hadn’t quite spoken aloud. A moment later, he finally broke away, and that queasy feeling deep in your stomach was back in full force.

“Another glass?”

It was Natasha who asked, holding out another glass of wine to you, your first having been downed before Maverick had even given his speech. You could see it in her eyes, the concern floating there, like she was waiting for you to break. Honestly, you were waiting for yourself to break, too. You eyed the glass for just a second before your eyes found Bob sitting right next to her, and you were back in your head once again.

You were back in the moment you realized you’d fallen in love with Bob Floyd.

“How in the world did you get the callsign of Bumble?”

You groaned, shaking your head as the rest of your Top Gun classmates laughed at the question from Diver, another new classmate of yours now that you were officially in Top Gun. Bob laughed from beside you, too, his arm resting over the back of your chair in the mess hall of Naval Air Station North Island.

“She was swatting at a bee back when we first got to officer training in Rhode Island, then stumbled straight through the door past me,” Bob was grinning as you lightly slapped him on the chest, shaking your head with a grin of your own as you thought back on that day. “She called herself a-a bumbling idiot, so…it wasn’t hard to figure it out.”

“Oh, so you got your callsign a long time ago,” it was Rogue, another aviator, who laughed with a shake of her head. “Damn, so you guys have been friends for years then?”

“Since that day,” your reply came easily, leaning into Bob’s side more than you realized you were. “Officer training, flight school, even stayed in contact when we got assigned to different squadrons.”

“She’s my bee, can’t go anywhere without my bee,”

Then, he looked down at you with that grin. That little smile, full of warmth and fondness that had just grown over the years, and that underlying mirth that was always present in him since you’d worked your way past that awkward exterior. And there it was–the tug–pulling at your heart and your soul like it had been for years.

“Bee? Might have to steal that nickname-”

“Nope,” Bob jumped in, an air of confidence to him that wasn’t typically present around people he didn’t know, shaking his head. “That nickname belongs to me only.”

And that tug just got more intense as you looked at him. His smile, his blue eyes, those smile lines that creased around his nose and mouth every time he smiled, those glasses that only made him more and more adorable every time you looked at him-

Then, it finally hit you. That feeling sank in, the feeling that little tug on your heart had been trying to tell you for years: love. You were in love with Bob Floyd.

It terrified you to look at Bob now, after all that had happened, after all that you knew lay on the

horizon, and know that you still loved him. That you never stopped, and that every fiber of your being was sure that it was truly never going to go away.

So, you took that glass of wine and downed it faster than you’d ever drunk alcohol before. Then, you stalked off to the bar to pour another glass, ignoring the look of concern that Natasha sent your way, or the one she shot Bob as he chugged his own beer.

Without even realizing it, you had managed to avoid Bob for most of the night, as if your body was forcing you to avoid him. Every time you locked eyes across the bar, that queasy feeling was back, and you forced yourself to down yet another glass of red wine.

You weren’t sure of the time, but you knew you were on your fifth glass of wine; a desperate ploy on your part to keep the thoughts swirling around your head out of the way. Rooster was engaged in a game of pool with your brother Elijah, both conversing with your mother as she stood at the opposite end of the table from you.

“Thank you for always keeping my girl safe in the skies,” your mother directed her comment toward Rooster, who shot her that award-winning smile.

“Your girl doesn’t need anyone to keep her safe; she’s one hell of a pilot on her own. Though she does some of her best flying with Bob and Phoenix with her,” Rooster shot you a wink, and you responded with a playful roll of your eyes.

“No way, my sister loves flying with Bob?” Elijah quickly avoided the swift kick you attempted to land to his shins, bumping his shoulder with Rooster’s as they laughed together, as if they knew something you didn’t. “That’s only been, like, common knowledge for well over a decade.”

“Alright, there’s no need-”

“Well, I’m just glad she’s found someone she can depend on in life the way she can with Bob in the sky,” your words were cut off by your mother, her laughter light as she sipped on her champagne. “Now I’ve just got to wait around with my fingers crossed for some grandbabies!”

She laughed, but neither Rooster nor Elijah did. Their concerned looks turned to you, and you were frozen once again.

The air felt heavy, as if all the oxygen in the room was tugged out of the room, and pure panic settled deep within your bones. Your hands started to shake, the little bit of your wine left in your glass swirling around the cup. With a small ‘I need some air,’ you were out the door onto the back deck of the bar, shoes discarded on the wood as you took the stairs two at a time and stepped into the cool, nighttime sand.

Even in the cool of the night, that sea breeze carrying that salty scent straight to your nose and your feet dug into the sand, you still felt you couldn’t breathe. Your back hit the wooden post that stood over ten feet tall, from the sand and up over the deck of the Hard Deck to hold up the string of warm yellow lights that illuminated the seating. The second your back rested against something solid, your breath rushed back into your lungs, the wine glass fell from your hands, and you finally cried.

Honestly, you weren’t sure why you were crying at this point. Maybe you were crying over the fact that you hated your wedding venue, or that you hated your dress, or now that Natasha had brought it up, you realized that you did, in fact, act like a different person around Austin. A person you didn’t recognize.

Or, maybe you were crying because you were drunk on a beach, at a party meant to celebrate your wedding in two weeks, and you were still hopelessly in love with your best friend. The man you were not marrying.

Speak of the devil: there Bob Floyd was, in all his glory. Stumbling off the steps of the deck, clearly drunk. His skin flushed red, that same stupid blue flannel billowing around him in the nighttime breeze, and you were cursing the fact that he looked gorgeous like this: drunk, a hazy look in his eyes, glasses barely hanging onto his face, illuminated by the light of the moon that shone down on him and the ocean.

“I-I thought I saw you stumble out here-” he was giggling, the most adorable thing you’d ever heard in your life, as he turned to look at you. Even in his drunken state, you could almost see him sober up just slightly the second he caught sight of you. “Bee- Bee, baby, w-what’s wrong?”

You knew you looked like a mess. Tears were still streaming down your face, makeup running down your cheeks, which you knew had to be splotched red from your sobs. There was a stain of red wine against the edge of your white sundress, the liquid splashing against you when you dropped the glass to the ground.

It only took looking at him for a second for your sobs to resurface. You took two steps forward before Bob was on you, tugging you into his arms as you buried your head into his shoulder and just cried your heart out.

Bob did nothing but quiet you, whispering ‘you’re okay’ into your ear. His fingers tangled through your hair, nails scratching at your scalp in his own comforting way. And he just held you, just let you cry in the dead of night. The only sounds were your own crying, the rolling of the waves in the distance against the shore, and the faint sound of the music inside the bar reverberating through the walls.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bob whispered after a few minutes, when your tears had finally subsided. You shook your head, backing away just slightly as you wiped at your eyes to rid yourself of the stray tears and running makeup.

“No,” your voice was hoarse from the crying, and when you finally looked at those concerned blue eyes watching you intently, that stupid fucking tug was back, and the copious amounts of alcohol surging through your body weren’t helping keep the filter on your mouth. “I…I just want to be here with you.”

He smiled, that shy boy-ish smile, the one that reminded you of the day you had first met and asked him to dinner, and you couldn’t help the little smile that crossed your own lips at the sight of it.

“No arguments from me,” he’d laughed, his hands still ghosting over your elbows and fingers lightly tracing patterns into your skin, a shiver running up your spine at the slightest touch. “Last time I saw you cry was my sister’s wedding.”

You laughed, leaning toward him just the slightest bit as his hands fully enveloped your arms, properly holding you as fire almost spread through your skin at the slight touch.

“It’s not my fault they had the sweetest vows!” you’d managed through your hazy laughter, hiccuping as the full weight of the alcohol in your system hit you.

“Don’t forget my brother-in-law’s best man,” Bob shot back with a wide, teasing grin, the grip he had on your arms tugging you just a bit closer in his own hazy, drunk state. “I remember you calling him hot.”

“He was, but he wasn’t you,” you commented unfiltered, and Bob gave another one of those shy shakes of his head.

“You don’t have to flatter me, bee,”

That tug was back, and the words were flowing out of your mouth before your brain could fully catch up with what you were saying.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Bob Floyd…you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever laid eyes on,”

The most innocent little statement, such a little off-handed comment, but the effect it had on Bob was visible in an instant.

He paused, his smile dropped, and he hesitated for just a moment, as if those words had ignited something deep within his soul. An unknown emotion was swimming around in his eyes before he shoved you back against the wooden pole behind you, cupped your cheeks in his hands, and kissed the breath straight out of your lungs.

Bob Floyd didn’t kiss like the sweet, innocent, awkward boy that everyone chalked him up to be. At least, not when he was kissing you. The gasp in your throat died in his own mouth, swallowed by his lips and replaced with a groan, and there wasn’t a single moment of hesitation in you as your hands ran their way up his arms, his broad shoulders, and into that sandy blonde hair that was always so perfectly styled. The intensity could be felt in your bones, the heat trickling through your skin.

The large, way too large, calloused hands slid down your neck from where they cradled your face. Another gasp left your throat as his fingers ghosted down your collarbones, right over the curve of your breasts, before wrapping around your body. One hand pressed between your shoulders, the other to the small of your back, as Bob brought you as close to his body as humanly possible, molding your body to his own until it felt as if you were one and the same.

You weren’t sure whose tongue dipped in first, but they met together in the middle in a dance. You could taste the hints of the bitter beer he’d been drinking the entire night along his tongue, throughout his entire mouth, as you let yourself explore. His kiss became harder, more desperate, more heated, his mouth almost completely devouring and overpowering your own as his hips pressed forward into your own, the presence of the bulge outlining his jeans so prevalent against you that yet another delicious moan spilt through your lips and into his own, swallowed by his kiss.

The second your hips pressed back against his own, Bob didn’t waste a second. His hands trailed down, cupping your ass in those large hands of his as he lifted you up with ease, your body aching with need at the pure show of strength he showed in that move. The edges of your dress slid up your thighs, bunching up around your waist as your legs locked around his back as lust blinded you, your body almost begging for the touch you’d been dreaming of for years as he grinded himself into you absentmindedly.

His lips left yours, allowing you a breath, finally, until they found themselves attached to your neck. His tongue dipped out, swiping along your skin as his lips followed the same trail/ From your jaw, down your neck and over your pulse, to your collarbone and below. The softest moan slipped back your lips, your hands still curled into his hair, and nails scratched at his scalp. One of those stupid sexy hands left your ass, but just as quickly as it had left it was curled around your breast, squeezing in a way that shot both a bolt of pain of pleasure through your body as his lips ghosted right over the swell of your breasts. His hips dipped into yours again, the little lacy panties that were the only barrier left on your body, positively soaked from just this moment alone.

With a single tug, you brought his lips back to yours, this kiss softer, sweeter, but still just as heated and passionate as it had been since the start. That tug in your heart, on your soul, was gone, as if it was an ailment you lived with your entire life, and this kiss was the sole antidote.

“Bob…” his name was the first word out of your mouth since he’d kissed you. It was the only word you could say, the only name you cared to have falling from your lips. He looked at you finally, those blue eyes that you loved so much.

The second that your eyes met, it was like the world finally came rushing back to you both, and the bubble you’d been existing in shattered in an instant as you both sobered up to a certain degree.

His hands dropped from you like you were heated metal, and yours left his in a second. Your legs dropped back to the ground, toes digging into the sand as if to ground yourself, your hands folded over your abdomen as you wrung your fingers together. Eyes blown wide, lips puffy and red, and every ounce of breath in your body gone as you stared at Bob.

He’d taken a few steps back, his own eyes blown wide before those glasses that were slanted across his face now. That sandy blonde hair was tussled, sticking up in different directions, and his white t-shirt was ruffled up on his chest, flannel barely hanging onto his shoulders. You tried not to look at his pants, at the wet spot clearly left behind against the bulge that was still ever present.

The weight of it all came crashing down on you as you brought your trembling hand to your lips, covering your mouth, as you tried not to look at that shimmering diamond glinting in the moonlight.

“I…I’m sorry,” Bob’s voice broke you. He sounded broken, he looked broken, like he’d just taken something so precious and fragile and thrown it on the ground and shattered it into a thousand pieces. “I’m…fuck, bee, I-I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you managed to barely get out, your voice barely above a whisper as the wind whistled around you, picking up slightly in the nighttime air. “Bob, i-it’s okay-”

“It’s not,” he quickly shook his head, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. “It’s not okay. I-I shouldn’t have done that, that…that wasn’t fair to you.”

“Bob-”

“I wish I hadn’t done that,” his voice broke as he said it, and your heart broke with it.

Wish. That one single word had tears stinging your eyes once more.

“So you…you regret it?”

“No–I just–I meant…” he stumbled over his words, before he simply stopped. Time almost stopped for a moment as you both just looked at one another, that salty sea breeze flowing past you both, tears in both of your eyes. “...I’m sorry, bee. I’m so sorry.”

Then, he was gone, through the sand and up onto the deck and back into the bar before you could say another word. And when minutes later Natasha came outside and found you pressed against that wooden pole still, silent tears streaming down your cheeks as you stared out over the ocean, you shook your head and told her it was nothing. You were just drunk and emotional, that’s all.

You were on autopilot, and everything felt numb.

It continued to feel that way for days. Every day at work, when you avoided his gaze, that was, if he was even looking at you. The silence on the comms when you were in the air, when typically you’d both be jesting back and forth while in the air every chance you’d get. The team saw it, Maverick saw it, hell, you were all sure Cyclone even saw it.

Austin? He never noticed a thing. To him, you were fine, you were your usual self. He never even questioned it when you sat down for dinner together, 72 hours on the clock, and he informed you that Bob had sent him a text and said he could no longer attend.

You covered for him, simply saying there had been a family emergency back in Montana he needed to attend to, and Austin didn’t bat an eye. He broke your heart, and you were still covering for him, still defending him, still protecting him.

Because that’s what he had done that night on the beach, under the light of the moon: Bob Floyd had broken your heart without even realizing he held it in the palm of his hand. He’d always held it, long before even you realized it.

“Alright people, look alive! We are on the clock, and pretty soon I’m about to have a sister-in-law!”

There were cheers in the bridal suite, somewhere behind you, but your eyes were locked on your reflection. The makeup was too heavy, and your hair was too hardened by the hairspray, your dress was all wrong and was too heavy, the lace was itching at your skin-

Wrong. It was all wrong.

Your gaze flickered to Natasha in the mirror behind you, donning that soft pink bridesmaid dress just like Melissa and Dove were–god, even the bridesmaid dress color wasn’t what you wanted–and understanding seemed to pass through her eyes in an instant.

“Hey, let’s celebrate after the ceremony. Why don’t you two go find Maverick for me so we can get this rolling?”

The pair didn’t argue, simply left the room, still laughing and conversing. The second the door of the suite shut, Natasha stepped up to your side as a shaky breath fell from your lips.

“Nat, I can’t do this,” you were already shaking your head in the mirror as Nat’s hand came to rest on your back.

“Bumble, it’s okay-”

“Bob kissed me,” the words tumbled out of your mouth before you could stop them, spinning to face Nat with a wild look in your eyes as you continued to spew everything out to her before she could respond. “O-Or I kissed him, I don’t even know. But we kissed that night, on the beach behind the Hard Deck–fuck, I think I was seconds from fucking him in the sand, I was so drunk. And so was he.”

Natasha just watched you for a moment in silence as you finally took in a deep breath, the words hanging heavy in the air.

“Bumble…I know,”

Your eyes shot open wider, if it was even possible.

“You…you know?”

“Bradley and I came outside to find you, he said you’d looked kind of spooked after something your mom had said. We saw you. We just…went back inside,” she laughed lightly to herself, reaching out to take your hand in hers. You let out a shaky breath.

“He…he said he wished it didn’t happen, Nat. He regretted it. He’s not even coming anymore,”

“I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to watch the woman I love get married either. He’s scared,” Nat tried to reason with you. “Drunk words and actions are sober thoughts and wishes. Honey, he wouldn’t have kissed you if he didn’t love you too. You can still walk away from this…I will unlace this dress right now, and you can walk out those doors. You don’t have to do this.”

You wanted to believe her; every part of you was screaming to run. But your family was out there, Austin’s entire family was out there, and they were waiting. There was a ring on your finger…you’d made a promise, you’d said yes. People expected this.

“I do, though,” was all you could say, as a single tear managed to drip down your cheek.

There was a knock at the door, and there Maverick stood in his dress blues.

It was time.

Natasha gave you one last pleading look, but your eyes shifted away to hide your tears. Her hand gave yours one last squeeze before she was out the door, leaving you alone with Maverick.

You took in a few deep breaths, trying to find it in yourself, and finally moved toward the door. Maverick didn’t say a word, simply took out a little tissue from his pocket and wiped the tears from your eyes as you gave him a watery smile. Then, he held out his arm, and you looped yours through his.

The walk through the hallway was silent for a bit, a heavy silence that hung in the air, before Maverick broke it.

“I hear tears are typical before a wedding, the wedding jitters and whatnot…but this doesn’t seem like that,”

You laughed, but there was really no amusement in your tone.

“It’s not,”

Melissa, Dove, and Natasha were lined up outside the doors, prepared to walk as you and Maverick arrived, taking your places. Two of them were smiling, but Natasha couldn’t bring herself to smile. You gave them a wordless nod, and they opened the doors. The music kicked in, and they walked.

“The other night, at the Hard Deck,” your breath caught at the mention of that night, those moments on the beach playing out in your head like a movie on repeat. The doors shut behind the final bridesmaid, and you and Maverick took your places behind them. “I told you that love comes easy when you choose to love your best friend…”

The music began to change, and the staff were mumbling around you, preparing to open the doors so that you could walk.

“...I wasn’t talking about Austin,”

Your head turned to him, eyes wide. Maverick only looked at you with a tiny smile, the kind a father would give to comfort their daughter.

“You don’t have to choose all of them. You can choose yourself…you can choose him,”

Then, the doors opened, and the music kicked in.

❤︎

Bob Floyd was pacing. Honestly, he was surprised he hadn’t burned a pathway into his bedroom carpet from the pacing he had been doing back and forth for the last hour.

His dress blues hung on the door of his closet, mocking him. The invitation to your wedding lay on the dresser right beside it, that same wedding he’d texted days ago to cancel on, even though there had been a pit in his stomach as he did it. A nagging voice was in the back of his head screaming at him that this wasn’t right.

He should be wearing those dress blues. He should be sitting in the stupid, uncomfortable chair laid out in that fancy resort. He should be watching you walk down the aisle, watching Maverick hand you away, and watching you, his best friend, marry your new husband.

Instead, he was in the same t-shirt and flannel from that night at the Hard Deck, the flannel you’d bought him so long ago. It still held a hint of the scent of your red wine that had spilled against your dress and pressed into his own clothing. Your perfume, sweet like cherries, lingered on the fabric. He had to wear it; he had to relive those moments with you wrapped around him, pressed against him, where you felt like his.

Bob Floyd wasn’t at the wedding, sitting in the chair reserved for him, because he was selfish.

He couldn’t watch you get married. Not when he wanted–no, needed–to be the one you were marrying.

The clock on his bedside table read 6:42 p.m.; barely 20 minutes until you’d walk down that aisle at 7 on the dot and become Mrs. Fletcher, wearing the fancy lace ballgown that you hated, in the venue that you hated, with the man you shouldn’t be marrying.

His feet were itching to run, so instead he grabbed his phone and dialed the number he knew by heart, shakily bringing it to his ear. It only rang for a moment but his call was picked up.

“Bob-?”

“Mom, I-I need you to talk me out of getting in my truck, speeding down the highway, and interrupting a wedding right now,”

Bob’s mother was silent for just a moment before she laughed lightly. Not mockingly, but almost knowingly, on the other end of the call.

“Mhm, so you’ve finally accepted that you’re in love with her, huh?”

“Mom, I really just need you to stop me from doing something really stupid right now,”

“It’s not stupid, Robbie. It’s fighting for the woman you love,” there was a shuffle on the other end, before his mother let out a sigh. Bob was still pacing the room. “I remember meeting her at every graduation, seeing how happy you were with her. I remember when you brought her home for your sister’s wedding. I got to spend a week with the girl you called your best friend, and the only thing I could think was…wow, I can’t wait until the day she’s my daughter-in-law.”

Bob paused for a second before letting out a laugh of disbelief.

“I-I never told you I loved her,”

“You didn’t have to, Robbie, I could see it. And if you can’t see that she loves you too, then we need to up the prescription on those glasses of yours,” there was another shared laugh, before silence fell again. Bob finally stopped pacing. “I don’t know what has all gone down, but if you feel the need to stop this wedding, then somewhere inside you, you know she loves you too. Go get your girl before you spend the rest of your life wishing you had.”

You know what they say: mothers know best.

The only time Bob Floyd was speeding was when he was in a jet, pulling g’s in the air with Natasha that no normal person was doing. But the second he was behind the wheel of his truck, caution was to the wind, and he was speeding up the highway toward Del Mar without a care in the world.

Nothing mattered but you.

He’d haphazardly parked his truck in some spot outside of the resort, pushing past the workers who shouted out for him to ‘stop running’ or that this was a ‘private event’ as he raced down the halls of the resort. None of that matters.

He skidded to a stop right between the open doors, right in the middle of the aisle still lined with petals. There were people still inside, huddled together in groups. There was one group, closer to the altar, huddled up in a group. But workers were prevalent, moving throughout the room, bunching up linens or grabbing empty chairs and carting them away. He pushed the sleeve of his flannel up, not even changing before he rushed out the door, to look at his watch: 7:34 p.m.

“I missed it,” he mumbled to himself. Disbelief, pain, anger, Bob wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He was too late.

“Bob?”

He glanced up to his right, and there the squad was. All dressed in their dress blues, standing together with Maverick and Penny. It was Bradley who questioned him, Natasha standing at his side in her bridesmaid dress.

“...I’m too late, aren’t I?”

There was silence for a moment before everyone looked around at one another with small smiles. His gaze flickered to Elijah, who wore a smirk, leaning down to whisper to your mother as realization seemed to cross the older woman’s face.

“She didn’t walk down the aisle, baby-on-board,” Hangman spoke up.

Bob’s breath seemed to catch as he looked around at his friends, before he glanced back to the altar area. And there he was: Austin Fletcher, in the flesh. He was surrounded by his friends, and what looked to be his father and mother, and Bob couldn’t tell if he was pissed or upset, where his feelings ended or began as his family and friends tried to calm him down. Austin’s eyes met Bob’s for just a moment, and realization seemed to pass through every feature of his face. His glare hardened as he simply shook his head, shrugging off his friends and family and stalking out of the room without another word.

“She…she didn’t get married?”

“Never even made it down the aisle,” Nat spoke up, giving her best friend the brightest of smiles. “We’ve all waited a long time for this, Bob. Better late than never. She’s in the bridal suite…go get your girl.”

❤︎

They’d tried to stop you, tried to talk to you, tried to talk you back into it. Austin’s sister, your old squad from Florida, Austin’s family, and even Austin himself. But there was no changing your mind. Your squad knew that, your brother knew that.

Maverick was right. You wanted to choose yourself…you wanted to choose Bob. You needed to.

You’d wiped off every ounce of makeup piled on your face. It had taken way too long to brush out every single ounce of hairspray sticking to your hair. It was almost impossible to unlace your dress yourself, but you had managed, tossing it onto the floor in a heap and leaving it there. The sight of it made you sick.

The second you were back in your robe, standing on the balcony of the suite and watching the sun set out over the horizon on the ocean just two streets away, the weight of everything finally felt like it was off your shoulders. You felt free, and for the first time in weeks, you didn’t feel sick to your stomach.

“Hey bee…”

That voice sent a shock down your spine, and you spun on your heels. And there Bob Floyd stood, like he’d just blown in from a hurricane, standing in the sliding glass doorway to the balcony. That stupid white shirt, that stupid flannel, an exact image of the man who’d ruined you forever that night on the beach.

“Well…” your voice broke just slightly, tone low and soft, as you pulled your robe tighter around you. “I bet I look like a mess.”

He’d laughed, and it was enough to make you smile, something you hadn’t done since that night. Since the last time you were with him.

“Maybe…” his own voice was soft, his eyes trailing up and down you with a sincerity and a genuine adoration in them that you had never once seen in Austin’s eyes. “Most attractive mess that I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

You’d laughed this time, your hand resting on your lips to shield your smile, and those tears burned hot behind your eyes. He was here, he was really here.

“Bob…what are you doing here?”

“Well…I came here to tell you not to get married,”

You hummed, jutting your thumb in the direction of your wedding dress, thrown haphazardly into a pile in the corner of the room.

“I beat you to it,”

“Yeah, I see that now,”

He took a step out onto the balcony, leaning against the railing. Your eyes danced over his features, lit up in shades of red, pink, and orange in the setting sun. You turned to face him.

“I don’t know when it really happened, or started, maybe when we met…but I know when I realized I was in love with you,” you could see his breath catch as you laughed lightly at yourself. “And it’s terrified me, for years, because I didn’t want to confess and lose you. I couldn’t lose you. Life without you doesn’t make sense. But we moved Jake into his apartment, we all talked about dating, and I decided it was time to confess…and you said you were talking to some girl. You broke my heart.”

“I know,” was his answer immediately. Bob sighed, glancing at his shoes as he pushed his glasses back up his face, before looking back at you. “I was scared. I hated the thought of you liking someone else-”

“I was talking about you-”

“I know that now,” he was quick to interject, taking in a deep breath. “I’m late…but I know that now.”

“Then you kissed me…you finally kissed me. Then you said you wished it didn’t happen,”

“I know,”

“You broke my heart again,”

“I know,” his words came out in a whisper. He took another step toward you, his hands cupping your cheeks, and you leaned into the feeling on instinct. “I know I did. So I came here today to selfishly ask you not to marry that prick. Not just because you shouldn’t…but because I love you, too.”

It was all you’d ever wanted to hear, and having those words spoken was like the missing piece of a puzzle that had gone unsolved for years. You shut your eyes, letting a tear slip, as you turned your head and pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand.

“Selfish, huh?”

“Yeah, because I’m so incredibly late,” Bob laughed at himself, and you laughed at him too. You finally understood what that was shining in his eyes, that emotion you could never quite decipher: love. “I have loved you since Rhode Island. I tried to be happy for you and Austin, I wanted you to be in love and be happy, but you weren’t with him. He’d never be able to love you like me. So, yeah, I came here to be selfish and ask if I-I’m not too late…and if I can have the chance to love you the way I’ve dreamed about for the last ten years.”

The smile that crossed your lips as you spoke was the most genuine smile you’d worn in weeks. It was stitched to your lips, and you weren’t sure it would ever leave.

“And how would you love me?” you responded, taking just another step closer to him, closing that distance as he still cradled you in his hands. “How has Bob Floyd dreamed of loving me?”

“Catching you every time you stumble, whether it’s on the tarmac walking to our jets or on a sidewalk or beach. Getting you your coffee every morning, just the way you’ve always loved it: two sugars, and just a dash of cream,” you laughed, and his thumb swiped away the tear that slipped down your cheek. “Waking you up every morning, tangled in my sheets, wearing my old University of Montana t-shirt that you stole the night before after you tore it off me. Holding your hand, your waist, just holding you close to me in every moment that I possibly can, because I never want to not be around you. Kissing you, every inch of you, like I do in the dreams that have plagued me night after night for a decade. Holding you when you cry. Having your back in the sky. Buying you flowers. Staying up late at night, talking about anything and everything, like we did all through our lives in training. Fucking you–lord knows I’ve dreamed about that enough. Then…proposing to you, with the ring I know is saved on your wedding Pinterest board. Marrying you, in the venue you’ve always dreamed of, while you’re wearing the dress of your dreams-”

You didn’t let him say another word. Your hand bunched up in his t-shirt, tugging him in, and kissing him with all the love and passion that had been sitting dormant in you both for years. And with every moment that his lips moved against yours, that his hands slid down your body like they had that night on the beach and rested against your hips like they were meant to be there, everything fell into place. For the first time, life felt like it made sense because your heart had only ever belonged to Bob Floyd.

“You have me. I’m all yours, I’m only yours. I’ve been yours since the day we met,”

The next time you walk down an aisle, it will be the fall. The leaves will be changing colors, and the air will be crisp. You’ll be wearing a light and loose dress that billows in the fall wind, and Bob Floyd will be waiting for you at the end of the aisle. It was only ever going to be Bob Floyd waiting for you at the altar.

You were twenty-two when you first met Bob Floyd, but you were also twenty-two when you fell in love with Bob Floyd. There was never going to be anyone else for you but him.

Taglist: @venuslayla23-blog @bluegardenn @fandomxo

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cowboybeepboop · 11 months ago

Text

Addicted

"But you're different. You've got me on my damn knees here, and I don't even care."

“On your knees? Now that's something I’d like to see.”

Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin x fem! Reader

Genre: Smut, romantic

Word count: 5.4k

Summary: A one night stand with Hangman leaves him desperate and begging for more.

Warnings: Public sex, making Jake beg, p in v sex, riding him, oral fem receiving, unprotected sex.

a/n: Not really much to say other than I hope you enjoy <3 Also send any requests my way, could be for anything :)

The sun dipped low in the sky, casting a warm glow over the airstrip as the jets roared by, their engines a deafening symphony that seemed to shake the very earth beneath your feet. You had always loved this time of day, the way the light painted everything in hues of gold and red, making even the most mundane tasks feel like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster. But today, the sight of the planes brought with it a feeling of anxiety rather than excitement. Training with Maverick was intense, and as one of the few women in the program, you knew you had to be twice as good to be considered half as good.

The bar was dimly lit, the kind of place where pilots went to unwind after a long day of pushing the limits of gravity. You scanned the room, spotting the familiar faces of your colleagues, all of them men. The only other woman present was Nat, known as Phoenix, a fellow Top Gun graduate who had become your closest ally in this male-dominated world. She sat at the bar, her eyes lighting up as she saw you, offering a nod that seemed to say, "You can handle this."

Bob, with his boyish grin and easy-going demeanor, was the first to stand up and greet you. He pulled out a chair, offering it with a gallant flourish. "You're looking as sharp as ever, Y/N," he said, his voice carrying a hint of admiration that made your cheeks warm. You sat down, grateful for the respite from the catcalls and lewd comments that had been thrown your way since you walked in.

As you chatted with Bob and Phoenix, you couldn't help but notice the blond man across the room, his eyes locked on you like a homing missile. You had heard rumors about him—Hangman, they called him—a cocky pilot with a reputation for leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. His stare was unnerving, a silent challenge that seemed to say, "I'm going to make you mine." You ignored him, focusing on the conversation and the cold beer in your hand, but the heat of his gaze was impossible to ignore.

As you’re sitting with the two, talking, the man starts walking over towards you, coming to a stop next to Phoenix with a smirk on his handsome face. You look up at him curiously while Nat gives him a stern glare. “What do you want, Bagman?” she questions him with an accusatory tone.

He chuckles and rolls his eyes, standing beside her, leaning his hip against the bar. "Can't a guy say hello without getting into trouble?" He joked, his eyes flickering over to you.

He looked you up and down slowly, a cocky grin on his lips. "I don't think we've met before." He muses, extending his hand out. "I'm Hangman, but you can call me Jake."

“I’m Y/N.” you ignore his extended hand, leaning closer to Bob to add distance between you and Hangman.

He raised an eyebrow as you ignored his hand, a smirk playing at his lips. "Playing hard to get, huh?" He teased, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's cute."

He glanced over at Bob for a moment, taking his hand back and stuffing it in his pocket. "You two a thing?" He asked casually, his eyes flickering over to you again.

Bob opens his mouth to deny being with you. “Actually, yes we are.” you grin, taking Bob’s hand in your own. Right now you were relying on him to take the hint and play along with you.

Hangman's smirk faded slightly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at you and Bob holding hands. He couldn't deny that he was a little surprised, he assumed you were friends. He tried to brush it off, but a hint of jealousy stirred inside him.

Unfortunately your plan to get Hangman to back off by pretending to date Bob, was going less than swimmingly. It seems he doesn’t care whether you're already spoken for or not. The evening drags on with him still sending heated glances full of desire your way.

Eventually, you decide to call it a night, as you say your goodbyes and start to head out of the bar, Hangman's attention is immediately caught by your departure. He watches you exit, his eyes following you as you make your way to your jeep.

He debates for a moment, contemplating whether or not to follow you. His desire wins out, and he makes up his mind to follow you. He says his own goodbyes to the group and discreetly follows you outside, keeping a couple of paces behind you.

“Are you going to say something? Or are you just planning to keep following me like some creep?” you lean against the hood of your car, arms crossing under your chest, eyes narrowing at him.

Hangman freezes as you turn around and call him out. He hadn't expected you to notice him so quickly.

He smirks and steps closer, closing the distance between you both. "Just admiring the view," he drawls, his eyes roaming over your form shamelessly.

“Oh is that so?” you hum, gazing up at him with an unreadable expression.

"Absolutely." He nods and leans against the jeep beside you, standing so close that your bodies nearly touch.

He looks down at you, his eyes darkening slightly. "You and Bob, huh?" He comments casually, a hint of a taunt in his tone.

“Are you jealous?” you reply with a teasing smile.

He lets out a scoff, pretending not to be affected. "Me? Jealous? Please." He rolls his eyes, but there's a flicker of something in his gaze that gives him away.

He turns to face you fully, his arm resting on the jeep behind you, trapping you in. "I just don’t get why you're settling for Bob." He says, lowering his voice. "What's so special about him, hm?"

“I’m not *settling* for Bob,” you hop up on the car, sitting on the hood with your legs crossed. “He’s a gentleman, very sweet, and damn cute.”

Hangman's eyes flicker over your body for a moment, watching as you hop onto the hood and cross your legs.

He grumbles under his breath, slightly annoyed that you didn’t seem to get his point.

"Yeah, Yeah, he’s sweet and cute, whatever. I can be sweet and cute too, you know. Sometimes." He counters, trying to sound casual and nonchalant.

“So you are jealous.” you giggle, leaning back on your palms, uncrossing your legs. “And what makes you so special?”

He glares at you, his jealousy bubbling to the surface. "I'm Hangman, sweetheart. I’m the best, hottest, and most talented pilot there is." He says confidently, his ego on full display.

He steps even closer to you, his body slotting between your legs now. He gazes down at you, his hand resting near your hip. "I could show you a good time, unlike Bob."

You flick your tongue out, licking your bottom lip. “A good time hm?” you wrap your legs around his hips pulling him against you.

A small gasp leaves Hangman's lips as you pull him closer, his body automatically responding to your touch. He places his hands on your hips, his grip firm but not rough. He looks at you through hooded eyes, his gaze dark and full of desire.

"You have no idea." He practically growls, his body pressed against yours.

“Sounds inviting,” you murmur, with a small smirk. “But I don’t make a habit of sleeping with coworkers… especially when I have a boyfriend.” your tone is teasing.

Hangman's eyes narrow as you remind him of your supposed relationship with Bob. He leans closer, his nose nearly touching yours.

"Please," he retorts, his breath lightly tickling your skin. "We both know you're not actually dating him. I saw the way he looked at Phoenix earlier. He's got it bad for her, not you."

“While that may be true,” you let go of his waist, pushing his chest with your hand. “My point still stands. I don’t sleep with my coworkers.”

Hangman stumbles back a step, a mix of disappointment and frustration on his face. "Oh come on," he runs a hand through his hair, "We're both adults here. Don't tell me you don't feel the chemistry between us."

He steps closer to you again, his hand reaching out to gently grip your chin, tilting your head up towards him. "One night, no strings attached. It can be our little secret."

“A one night stand..” you bite down on your bottom lip, “Are you sure you’ll be able to walk away after one night?”

He chuckles, his hand moving from your chin to cup your cheek. "Sweetheart, one night with me and you'll be the one struggling to walk." He says with a cocky smirk, his tone confident and full of male arrogance.

He leans in closer, his lips hovering just above yours. "I guarantee you'll be begging for more."

“I guarantee you’ll be the one doing the begging.” your hand goes to the back of his head, pulling him in for a passionate kiss. Hangman's smug expression quickly vanishes as you pull him in, his lips crashing against yours in a kiss filled with fire and desire.

He lets out a low growl, his hands grabbing your hips and pressing you even tighter against him. He devours the kiss, his tongue exploring your mouth with a possessive fervor. As he finally breaks the kiss, his breathing heavy, he looks at you with feral eyes. "Don't underestimate me, sweetheart. I never beg."

“Get in the car,” you brush your hand down his chest, fingers ghosting over his erection. “Let’s go somewhere a little more comfortable.” Hangman's breath hitches as your fingers brush against his bulge, the touch sending a shiver through his body. He nods eagerly, a mix of impatience and anticipation on his face.

"Alright, alright. You lead the way." He steps back, letting you get off the hood and move around to the driver's side. He opens the passenger door and gets in, his eyes on you watching your every move.

The drive to the apartment is filled with tension, Hangman's hands occasionally drifting to your thigh or hip, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

As you enter the apartment and make your way towards the bedroom, Hangman's hands remain on your waist, his grip firm and possessive. He's practically glued to your back, the scent of his cologne filling your nose.

"You're driving me crazy, you know that?" He mutters into your ear, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin of your neck. You turn around in his grasp, pressing a heated kiss to his lips, your own hands sliding down his body.

He groans into the kiss, his arms wrapping around your middle and pulling you as close as possible. He returns the kiss with equal fervor, his tongue exploring your mouth with a possessive intensity.

His hands roam over your body, sliding down your curves and gripping your hips. His touch is almost bruising, his need for you evident in every move he makes. He walks you backwards towards the bed, his lips trailing down your neck, leaving small kisses and bites in their wake.

The back of your legs hit the edge of the bed, and Hangman guides you to sit down, his hands never leaving your body. He stands between your legs, looking down at you with dark, hungry eyes.

Hangman's hands, strong and insistent, began to pull away the fabric that separated your bodies, his movements quick and sure. Your shirt was the first to go, lifted over your head and tossed aside with the ease of a man used to getting what he wanted.

His eyes roamed over your bare torso, drinking in the sight of your firm breasts, the peaks of your nipples pebbled with desire. He reached for the clasp of your bra, his fingers deftly unhooking it before sliding the straps down your arms, leaving it to fall away and expose you fully to his heated gaze.

With a smirk, he went for the button of your jeans, his eyes never leaving yours. As the zipper lowered, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband and tugged, pulling them down your hips and over your thighs. You helped him, lifting your legs one by one, allowing him to remove your shoes and socks as well, leaving you in only your underwear.

His own clothes followed suit, the sound of fabric rustling and buttons popping filling the room as he stripped away his shirt, revealing the taut muscles of his chest and abs. His jeans were next, the leather belt unbuckling with a snap before the denim hit the floor, leaving him in his boxers.

He stepped closer, his hands sliding up your bare legs to the band of your underwear. With a single, fluid motion, he hooked his fingers in the fabric and dragged it down, leaving you completely bare before him.

You felt a rush of cool air against your skin as he stepped back to appreciate the view, his eyes dark with lust as they traveled over your body. You sat on the edge of the bed, watching him as he removed his own boxers, his erection springing free and bobbing slightly with his every movement.

Your heart raced in your chest, the anticipation of what was to come making your stomach flip-flop. His hand reached for yours, pulling you to stand and bringing your bodies flush together. His erection pressed against your stomach, hot and demanding.

You felt his breath on your neck as he kissed along your collarbone, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin. Your hand found its way to the back of his neck, holding him closer as he continued to kiss and nibble his way down your body.

The feel of his bare chest against yours was electric, sending waves of heat through you. His hands were everywhere, touching, caressing, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. You felt his thumbs brush over your hardened nipples, and a moan escaped your lips as he rolled them gently, teasing and pinching just enough to make you arch into his touch.

He was methodical in his exploration, as if he were memorizing every inch of your body. With a sudden surge of confidence, you pushed him against the mattress, surprising him with your strength.

He chuckled, his eyes flashing with excitement as you slid on top of him, straddling his hips. You lined his hardness up with your wet heat, feeling the tip of him nudge against your entrance. The sensation made you gasp, your eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment.

Opening them again, you stared down at him, a challenge in your gaze. Without a word, you began to ride him, your hips moving in a rhythm that was both agonizingly slow and incredibly sensual.

He watched you, his eyes hooded with desire as he felt your wetness envelop him. His hands gripped your hips tightly, his fingers digging into your skin as he held on for dear life, letting you set the pace.

His breath was ragged in your ear, his voice a low murmur of encouragement as you rocked against him. You felt him swell inside you, his length filling you completely, and you knew he was close to the edge.

You leaned forward, pressing your chest to his, your breasts smashing against his skin. The friction was maddening, and you couldn’t help but increase your pace, chasing your own release.

His hands slid up your back, gripping your shoulders as he pulled you down for a deep, claiming kiss. His tongue danced with yours as his hips began to meet your movements, the two of you moving in perfect sync.

The bed creaked beneath you, the only sound in the room aside from the ragged breaths and soft moans that filled the space. The tension grew, a coil tightening in your stomach, signaling the approaching climax.

You felt his muscles tense underneath you, his grip on your hips tightening, and you knew he was close. You leaned back, letting him take over, his hands guiding your hips as he drove into you with a ferocity that had you seeing stars.

Each thrust was a declaration of dominance, a claim of what was his. You threw your head back, crying out his name as the orgasm washed over you, your body convulsing with pleasure.

The world around you faded away, leaving only the feeling of his skin against yours, the sound of your mingled breaths, and the exquisite sensation of his cock buried deep inside you. As the waves of pleasure subsided, you collapsed against him, your chest heaving with exertion.

His arms wrapped around you, holding you tight as your bodies remained connected, both of you lost in the aftermath of the passionate encounter. For a moment, there was only silence, only the sound of your hearts beating in sync.

Then, with a soft chuckle, Hangman leaned his forehead against yours. "You're something else, Y/N." He whispered, his voice filled with a mix of awe and satisfaction.

You couldn’t help but smile, your breath still coming in short gasps. "I aim to please," you murmured, before pressing a gentle kiss to his neck.

He rolled you over onto your back, his body still inside of yours, and began to move again, slower this time, more deliberate. He wanted to savor this moment, to make it last as long as possible. He kissed along your collarbone, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin as he thrust into you, his eyes never leaving yours.

The kisses grew more intense, his teeth sinking into your skin, leaving small marks. You didn’t protest, instead, you arched into the pain, your nails digging into his back as he claimed you once again.

This time, the passion was more intense, more raw, as if the first time was just the beginning of something much more powerful.

The room was bathed in the soft glow of the moonlight, casting shadows across the wall as your bodies moved together. The bed rocked beneath you, the headboard thumping rhythmically against the wall, a silent testament to the passion that had overtaken you both.

As the second climax approached, you felt yourself tighten around him, your body begging for release. He groaned, his movements growing erratic, his need for you consuming him. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing your skin as he reached his peak, filling you with his warmth.

Finally, with one last, powerful thrust, he stilled, his body collapsing next to yours. You both lay there, panting and trembling, the sweat from your bodies mingling on the cool sheets. His arms wrapped around you, holding you close as if he never wanted to let go.

__________

The next few weeks are filled with tension between you and Jake. Where you are seemingly unaffected by the night you shared, Jake can't shake the memory of the night he shared with you.

He replays every moment in his head, relishing every touch, every kiss, every sound you made. He tries to ignore the way his heart skips a beat whenever he sees you, the way his eyes keep finding you in a room, and the way his body responds to your mere presence.

You’re back at the bar, hanging out with the other pilots while playing pool. Jake can't tear his eyes away from you as you lean over the pool table, lining up your shot. He watches intently as your body moves, the way your hips sway, and the way the pool cue rests in your grasp.

He takes a sip of his drink, attempting to appear nonchalant, but his eyes never leave you, drinking in your every movement.

You notice his lingering gaze and shoot him a questioning look, feeling Bob’s hand snake around your waist as he pulls you into a hug. You lean into his embrace as he whispers a soft goodnight before he leaves.

Jake's jaw clenches at the sight of Bob's arm around you, a flash of anger and jealousy passing through his eyes. It takes all his self-control not to stride over and pull you away from the hug.

He watches as Bob leans in, whispers something in your ear, and then leaves. Jake's hands ball into fist, his knuckles turning white as he forces himself to stay seated. You walk over to Hangman, arms crossed.

“Jake, we need to talk.” your tone is firm. You’ve been noticing his lingering stares, the way he seeks out your touch and attention. It’s been a frustrating couple weeks.

Hangman looks up at you as you approach, his expression guarded. He knows exactly what you're talking about. The tension between the two of you since that night has been unbearable, and he knows he can't keep up the act much longer.

He tries to feign nonchalance as he responds, a cocky smirk on his face. "What's there to talk about? We had our fun, right?"

“Come on, outside.” you practically demand, glaring at him before leaving the bar. Hangman's cocky smile falters a little under your demanding tone, but he quickly recovers, grabbing his jacket and following after you.

Once outside, he turns to face you, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Alright, we're out here. What do you want to talk about?" His voice is casual, but there's a hint of wariness in his eyes. He knows this conversation is not going to go the way he wants it to.

“What’s your deal?” the two of you are off in a dark corner, hidden behind the bar. “You’re the one who said *just* one night, yet you can't seem to stay away.”

Hangman's jaw clenches, his carefree demeanor slipping for a moment. He runs a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated.

"I don't know, alright?" He snaps, his voice carrying a hint of defensiveness. "I didn't think it would be so damn hard to just walk away from you."

He starts pacing back and forth in the small corner, his body tense, like a caged animal ready to pounce.

You scoff, “You’re not the commitment type, so what exactly is this all about?” your gaze is hardened as you lean against the wall.

Hangman stops pacing, his back to you as he takes a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts.

"It's not about commitment, alright?" He says, turning back around to face you, his eyes meeting yours. "It's about you. I can't get you out of my goddamn head." His voice is hoarse, and there's a hint of vulnerability in his eyes that you've never seen before.

You look at him, eyebrows furrowed, expression full of confusion. Hangman steps closer to you, eyes searching your face.

"Don't look at me like that," he mutters, his voice gruff. "I...I don't know what I'm doing. I don't do this. I don't get attached, I don't get possessive. But I can't stop thinking about you, I can't stop wanting *you*..."

He reaches for you, taking a strand of your hair between his fingers, his touch gentle. "Please..." His voice is barely above a whisper, a plea. "Please don't make me stop." your gaze softens as he moves closer, desperate for you.

Hangman's plea hangs in the air, his voice revealing more vulnerability than he's ever shown before. He's practically shaking from the effort of resisting his growing desire for you.

He leans in, mere inches from your face, his breath hot on your skin. His eyes lock with yours, a mix of need and desperation swirling in their depths.

"I *need* you, Y/N," he says, his voice thick with emotion. "I've never *needed* anyone like this before. You're driving me damn crazy."

“And here I thought you weren't the begging type.” You hum, hands going to his muscular waist. Hangman's breath hitches at your touch, his body responding immediately to your proximity. His hands find your hips, pulling you closer to him.

"I'm not. Usually." He answers, his voice a low rumble. "But you're different. You've got me on my damn knees here, and I don't even care." His body presses against yours, his grip on your hips tightening as if he’s afraid you'll pull away.

“On your knees? Now that's something I’d like to see.” you tease, enjoying the feel of his body against yours.

Hangman's eyes widen for a moment as he registers your words, then his smirk returns, a challenge in his gaze.

“Is that right?” He drops to his knees, his hands gripping your thighs. He runs his fingers up and down your skin, leaving trails of fire in their wake.

“I’d do just about anything for you, sweetheart,” he murmured, his lips hovering just above your hip. You gasp, legs spreading for him.

“Yeah?” you guide his hand under your skirt, back pressing against the wall. Hangman's eyes darken as his hand moves underneath your skirt, his touch sending shivers up your spine. His breathing is ragged, his gaze hungry as he looks up at you.

"Yeah," he whispered, his voice thick with desire. "Anything, sweetheart. Just tell me what you want." His hand moves higher, his fingers tracing the hem of your underwear. His tongue slips out, running along his lower lip as he watches your reaction.

“Jake,” you whine his name, “I need you,” your fingers move to his hair, pulling him close. Hangman lets out a low moan as you pull on his hair, your words making his chest tighten with desire.

"Yeah, that's it. Say my name," he practically growls, his nose brushing against your inner thigh as he presses closer to you.

"I'm goin' crazy here, darling. Tell me what you want." His hands grip your thighs, his mouth trailing soft kisses along your skin, moving higher and higher until he reaches the edge of your underwear.

“I want you..” you gasp. Hangman's lips move against you, his breath hot against your clothed skin. He pulls you closer, his grip tight on your ass, as if he can't get close enough to you.

"Do you taste as sweet as you look, sweetheart?" He murmurs, his teeth nibbling at the fabric separated you, you gasp in response desperate for more. "I'm dyin' to find out." The bulge in his jeans is now apparent, his desire for you straining against the fabric.

Hangman looks up at you through his lashes, his eyes filled with a combination of need and heat. He pulls gently on the fabric of your underwear, his voice rough as he speaks.

"Can I take these off, sweetheart?" His hand moves up your thigh, his touch gentle. "I need to taste you, every inch of you."

Jake's gaze is intense, his eyes locked on yours as he slides your underwear down, revealing your glistening core. You nod the cool night air that kisses your exposed skin, causing goosebumps to rise along your legs.

He kisses your thighs, working his way closer to your center, his breath hot and his mouth watering. As he licks you, you bite down on your bottom lip to keep from screaming out in pleasure.

His tongue moves in a slow, deliberate circle around your clit, teasing and taunting you until you can't help but whimper. He smirks, knowing he has you on the edge, and continues his sweet torture, his hands gripping your hips to keep you in place.

You lean back against the wall, supporting yourself as his mouth works magic on your body. Your legs tremble, and your hands find their way into his hair, pulling him closer as you feel the orgasm building deep within you.

His tongue slides into you, stroking you deep and slow, and you can't hold back anymore. You moan out his name, your body convulsing as the climax crashes over you like a tidal wave.

Hangman doesn't stop, even as your legs give out and you slide down the wall. He holds you up with one hand, his mouth still working tirelessly. You're lost in the sensation, your mind a whirlwind of pleasure as he devours you.

Finally, you manage to push him away, gasping for air. "Jake, enough," you murmur, your voice shaky. He chuckles, standing up and pulling you into a standing position.

"I'm not done with you yet," he says, his voice low and full of promise. He kisses you deeply, his tongue tasting the sweetness of your orgasm on his lips. You melt into the kiss, your body craving more of him.

Hangman's hands move to the button of his jeans, fumbling slightly with the zipper. His desperation is palpable, his breathing heavy as he works to free his erection. He pulls out his cock, thick and hard, the moonlight casting shadows over it.

You moan into his mouth as he lifts you off the ground, your legs wrapping around his waist. He presses you against the wall, your hands holding onto his shoulders for balance. His tip teases your entrance, coated in your juices from earlier.

With a gentle nudge, he slides into you, filling you up. Your walls clench around him, trying to keep him inside. He groans into your mouth, his hips moving in a slow, sensual rhythm that has your toes curling in your boots.

You're both lost in the moment, the cool night air surrounding you as he fucks you in the alleyway. His movements are deliberate, each thrust a declaration of his need for you.

Your hands move from his shoulders to his face, your fingers tracing the contours of his jaw, feeling the stubble that's grown in since the morning. You break the kiss, panting for air as you stare into his eyes.

"I need you," you whisper, your voice filled with passion. Hangman's eyes flare with desire, his hips moving faster, his strokes deeper.

The bricks of the alleyway press into your back, but you don't care. All that matters is the feeling of him inside you, the way your bodies move together in a dance as old as time.

You can feel the tension building in his body, his muscles tensing as he fights for control. But you want more, need more. You rock your hips against him, urging him to go harder.

He obliges, his thrusts becoming more forceful, his hands gripping your ass tightly. You throw your head back, your moans echoing through the deserted alley as you reach for your own release.

Your orgasm hits you like a ton of bricks, your body spasming around his cock. Hangman groans, his own climax following quickly behind, filling you with his warmth.

He holds you there, his body shaking with the aftershocks of pleasure. His eyes never leave yours, the intensity of the moment etched into every line of his face.

Slowly, he lowers you to the ground, his cock slipping out of you with a wet sound. You lean against the wall, trying to catch your breath.

He tucks himself back into his pants, his gaze never leaving yours. "I can't get enough of you," he says, his voice gruff.

You laugh, the sound a little shaky from the intensity of the encounter. "Is that so?"

Hangman's eyes never leave your face, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. His hands grip your hips, his touch both possessive and gentle at the same time. He leans in, his lips hovering just above yours.

"Damn right it is," he murmurs, his voice low. "I'm addicted to you, sweetheart. Can't get enough." he kisses your shoulder, pulling your waist as he presses you to him.

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