Page 6 of Barefoot Dreams
“Because you’re secretly in love with me and want to make all my dreams come true.”
“Oh, baby, there’s no secrets here.” I grin into my mic. “You have my whole bleeding heart. But please, do remind me not to drink with you like that ever again.”
Caleb answers with his own chuckle.
“Hey, vodka bonded us, don’t hate.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now, shut up. Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Exactly. It’s too quiet. I don’t like it.” In fact, my every instinct was sending out blazing alarms. We planned this mission to perfection as usual, but there was no such thing as perfection in our world.
Someone always paid the price, the only thing we could hope for every time was that it wasn’t too steep and not on our side.
“Hey! Did you have to go and jinx us? Jesus, dude. Not cool. So not cool.”
“You are way too old to believe in such crap.”
“Look who’s talking,” he mocked. “Didn’t you just say you had afeeling?”
“Because my feelings are a proven natural phenomenon while your jinxes are old wives’ tales.”
“You did not just mock my jinxes! That’s pretty much like jinxing us twice with a fucking cherry on top! That’s it! You are in the doghouse tonight,” Caleb deadpanned, and I shook my head at him. He couldn’t see me, obviously, but after this manyyears serving together, he knew what I was doing perfectly well.
“Divorce?” I played along.
“That eager to pay me alimony?”
“Who saysI’dbe the one payingyou?”
“Psh, I’m clearly the wife in our relationship. So I get the alimony. And child support.”
“For what kids?”
“Don’t you worry your pretty head about it, just pay up.”
“I’ll admit you do have the whole nagging and sucking my soul out thing down to the T. Maybe you are the wife in here.”
“Are you two done bickering or do you need marriage counseling?” The unamused voice of our captain filtered through the headset. “I swear I’m never sending you two together again.”
“Sure you won’t,” Caleb teased, and I snickered in agreement. Cap always says that, yet in my sixteen years of service I rarely flew with anyone else.
Caleb and I were the best team he had, and we worked like a Swiss clock together.
“Two minutes out,” I warned, and somber fell upon us.
We could play and joke all day long until it was go-time. Then we turned into killing machines.
“One minute out. Restless Timon, keep your wits sharp. Something is off.”
“Untwist your knickers, Bleeding Heart. Watch the pros do it right!”
“Restless Timon! Don’t you fucking dare! Get back in formation!”
“Jesus, someone really needs to relax. We’ve done this run a million times. I’ll be right back.”
“That was not the plan. Get back!”
