"Why did you tell him?" I ask Bradley as soon as we get into his truck. We drove to school together today since our classes were in the same place.
"I don't know. It kinda just slipped out. I got tired of lying." He murmurs as he drives out of the empty parking lot.
"So you just wanna come completely clean? About everything?" I ask, not sure where he's coming from.
"Maybe not...everything. But most of it, yeah. He's already pissed at us, might as well give him a reason to be." He shrugs.
"I guess that makes sense. But I am not telling my dad I slept in the same bed as you." I think of all the rules we've broken.
"Oh absolutely not." He agrees.
Five short minutes later, we're back home. We decided to all meet at the apartment and look at the list together. So much fun.
"Nice apartment." My dad looks around as we walk in.
"Mhm." I nod.
"Okay, here it is." Bradley re-appears with the laminated paper. "What now?"
"Why did you show her? Is it cause you were mad at me?" Maverick asks him.
"No. I showed her because she asked me to." He gives a very brief description of what happened.
"How many have you broken?" He asks Bradley. This is gonna be just great.
"None." He lies. "Just the last one." It kinda surprised me that he lied after saying he didn't want to. I guess having Maverick actually ask him in person changed his mind. I don't mind telling the truth though. Pissing my dad off is kinda fun.
"I don't believe that." Mav disagrees.
"And how would you know?" I ask.
"Because I know you, and I know that the fact that I made a list of rules will make you want to break every single one of them." He knows me too well.
"You're right." I get in his face. "And I will." I grin.
"No no no, wait." Brad interjects, one hand holding the paper and one in the air.
"Don't bail on me now, Bradshaw." He hands me the list.
"Some of these we shouldn't break thought, like if you're having a panic attack I'm supposed to just...not do anything? That's messed up. And like rule number twelve? You don't want me to be there for you? Some of these just won't work out." He explains.
"That's why they're on the list! And you are not breaking any of these." Maverick looks at the list and then at us. I don't know what expression is on my face, but I'm sure it's not good.
"Brad, kiss me." I say with a smirk just to piss off my dad a little more.
"No! No no no. Absolutely not." Maverick protests.
"Well I at least gotta admit my feelings for you first." He jokes. We're both laughing, but Mav doesn't find it funny. Bradley puts an arm around me as we stand in the kitchen, but my dad quickly separates us.
"Which ones have you broken? And don't say just the last one, cause I know it's bullshit." He's getting frustrated with us. I don't blame him.
"Uh well, I set her up with Jacob." He admits. "I bought her alcohol, and I let her get too crazy at a party. I walked in her room when Taylor Swift was playing too. One time she moved her inhaler and I didn't know. That one was her idea though." He comes completely clean. Well...almost completely. I'm glad we agreed to leave out the bed sharing part, Mav would flip.
"Which of these were your idea?" Mav turns to me.
"Alcohol, Taylor, party, inhaler." I list them on my fingers. That could be a poem. I hear my dad sigh.
"I'm taking away the list." He announces.
"Why?" Brad asks.
"So you don't break any more rules. I don't trust that you'll stop now-"
"No rules!" I shout.
"I wouldn't say-"
"No rules!" Brad cheers with me.
"This also means you have to be a responsible adult, Shelby." My dad tells me. Boooooo.
"I am." I defend.
"Are you?" Brad questions.
"Who's side are you on?
"Yours. I'm being realistic though." He shrugs.
"I need to show you my room! I decorated it myself!" I grab my dad's arm and pull him. I lead him towards my room but stop at the door. Brad stays in the kitchen.
"One second." I hold a finger up and go inside my room, shutting the door and leaving them in the hallway, just in case I had anything to hide. I turn on the light and pick some clothes off the floor, shoving them into my closet. I see the two empty bottles of wine from me and Nat's study night and put them in a random cabinet. "All clear." I open the door.
"What are you hiding?" Dad immediately asks me.
"Just a few bodies. Look! Here's a picture of us don't we look so cool?"
"Mav, someone's calling you!" We hear Bradley shout from the other room.
"Who?" He shouts back.
"Uh. Penny!" He answers. My eyes go wide and my jaw drops.
"Penny?" I shout and run the the kitchen. Bradley looks concerned as my dad chases me and grabs his phone.
"Don't!" He shouts at me.
"Are you guys back together?" I ask. Might as well be straightforward.
"N-no. We're just reconnecting. As friends, in a friend way." He stutters.
"Is this Penny Benjamin?" Bradley asks. "Didn't you like fuck up her entire life? You seem to do that a lot."
"Yeah, honestly why would she take you back?" I agree with Bradley. Mav broke her heart, he knows that. We all know that.
"Okay I wouldn't say her entire life. And she's not taking me back. She's married now, and she has a daughter. Her husband is an admiral, he's moving all over the place so she's got to basically raise this kid on her own. She calls for advice sometimes." He fully explains. "We're just mending our friendship."
"Oh yeah, Amelia right? When I went up to San Diego I visited them." I reveal.
"When you were staying with me?" Brad asks. When Maverick pulled Bradley's papers, I went and stayed with him for a few weeks in his parents old house. Mav wasn't too fond of me going by myself at sixteen, but I was mad at him.
"Yeah. She was like four years old then." I say.
"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Maverick asks.
"I don't know if you remember, but I wasn't really speaking to you at the time. Neither was Bradley, and neither was Penny." Silence.
"Well it looks like I've improved since then. Not everyone hates my guts anymore." Maverick shrugs.
"I still do." Bradley raises his hand. He's bold for that one.
"I'll win you back one day. At least we're speaking."
"We're not speaking about that, though." Bradley is quick to reject.
"No, but we really need to."
"No we don't." He shakes his head.
"Are you gonna call her back, or..." I change the subject.
"Yeah yeah." Mav nods. I can tell the whole Bradley situation is bothering him. He knows that what he did was wrong, and he is sorry. But that doesn't change the fact that Brad could've already been officially flying the Navy right now. All I know is that I'm gonna get them to heal the relationship one day, no matter how tired I get of being the mediator. It might take a year or ten, though.
YOU ARE READING
Through The Fire
Fanfiction"You said 'through the fire'" "And I meant it." Shelby "Mustang" Mitchell never knew what to think of her father pulling Bradley Bradshaw's papers from the Naval Academy. The two of them had been best friends their whole lives despite him being two...
