"You get your purse back yet?" Hangman asks from inside the cockpit. He's suited up and meandering through his preflight checklist. Take-off is in half an hour. Rooster's got both feet on the bottom rung of the boarding ladder, forearms resting on the edge. "You still look like shit by the way," he adds.

Bradley grunts, taking a swig from his water bottle. He doesn't want to talk about it. Despite Ms. Blake's assurances, the nagging feeling that this could still all blow up in his face hasn't gone away. They never recovered his wallet, so he's spent the morning bouncing from office to office getting all his IDs and keycards reissued.

"When're they letting you back up?"

He shrugs. "Couple more days? They're making me get a fucking physical first." He's told Jake about the mugging but not anything else, hasn't said 'food poisoning' but hasn't corrected anyone who has. Turns out withdrawal does a number on you. Ecstasy, Ms. Blake had confirmed the day after.

"Sucks to suck." Jake grins up at Rooster, basking in his own good fortune. "Better to let the A-team work anyways."

"Oh, you're part of a team now?" But there's no bite to it. They both know who saved whose ass that day.

"Hey Hangboy!" Doc waves from across the hangar, out of breath like she sprinted here. Her hair is pink today, like cotton candy, bouncing side-to-side with each step.

"Hangman," Jake corrects automatically, but only to himself. It's a losing battle.

Doc hops up on the ladder next to Rooster, who makes what room he can, and leans over to talk to Hangman. "Yo, change of plans. They want another speed test."

"The hell for? We already finished all that." Hangman caresses the throttle. "It's time for baby to show daddy what she's made of."

"Ew. Also, you do realize you're giving the joystick a hand job right now."

Hangman slowly rolls the wad of gum in his mouth from one side to the other with his tongue. "I've taken her for enough rides to know exactly what kind of girl she is."

Doc raises her eyebrows with a tired sigh and doesn't respond except to steer the conversation back to her original purpose. "Speed test. The data for the left engine was weird last time. I want to make sure there's not something hinky."

"There's nothing hinky about the left engine," he insists.

"Roosty," she sighs, "can you tell dufus here that if he doesn't get his ass to Offutt today, he doesn't get to fly at all?"

"You're sending me to Nebraska?"

"Oh, calm down. You'll be in by this afternoon, fast as you can, and then back tomorrow morning."

"The fuck I will. I'd rather suck start a shotgun than go to Nebraska."

"Then you go do that, and Roosty can do the speed test."

"Roosty can't fly."

"Then I guess you're going to Nebraska."

"Doc, there is literally nothing good in the Midwest. Not one. Everything west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies oughta be carpet bombed."

"I grew up in the Midwest."

"So did I, and I never want to go back."

"I hear there's a good Neapolitan pizza place just outside base."

"You grew up in the Midwest. Do you even know what good pizza tastes like?"

"Hey, I did a semester abroad in Italy," she sniffs, irked. "Of course I know."

Hangman heaves a dramatic sigh, resigned. "Well, I am a slut for good pizza." Then he grins. "You know what else I'm a slut for –"

"And I'm out." Doc jumps backwards off the ladder, cheeks a bright, blotchy red.

"Man," Rooster says after she runs away, "If that's your strategy for getting more flight hours, keep it up. I think it's working."

"Hey, I'm delightful." Not even a trace of irony.

"I'm sure HR will agree."

Jake reaches up to give Rooster's cheek a pat. "Be a good boy and run along now. Daddy's gotta work."

Rooster slaps his hand away before dropping down to the concrete. "Enjoy Nebraska, Hangboy."

o.O.o

"Eleanor?" Dr. Rouhani taps her knuckles on the doorframe, a fluttery limp-wristed gesture that Eleanor finds instantly annoying. She's already in a foul mood. They've only spoken a handful of times, but everything about Shireen Rouhani reeks of a calculated grab for attention – from her cutesy oh-my-god-I'm-so-quirky mermaid hair all the way down to her over-bubbly demeanor that Eleanor can't help but find fake.

"What's up?" Eleanor plasters on a bland, friendly expression – if she can do it for Bradshaw and Seresin, she can do it for anyone – but purposefully does not invite her in. Nevertheless, the other woman walks right up to Eleanor's desk and makes herself at home fiddling with some loose pens.

"I wanted to ask you about the upcoming Rota trip." Oh for the love of – if another 'I-don't-need-protection' little shit… As a full-time program manager Dr. Rouhani is normally exempt from babysitting, but no one goes without a detail overseas.

"What about it?"

"I don't mean to be an inconvenience, but –" She is definitely about to be an inconvenience. Eleanor waits for her to explain exactly how, but she dithers, nervously tucking a lock of cotton-candy pink hair behind each ear.

"But?" Eleanor prods when the silence drags unnecessarily, careful to hide her impatience. Christ, she does not have time for this shit. Her eyes are crossed from hours of pouring over still shots of club security footage, every frame Silas could isolate with semi-identifiable faces, and there are reams more to go. He was right. Most of it's garbage. Eleanor mentioned to the manager they might want to upgrade their cameras. Unsurprisingly, he said they were 'more for deterrence than anything else.'

"It's just that I usually have a, uh, female, um, detail. I really promise I'm not trying to be difficult or anything…"

"Oh." Eleanor blinks, relieved. "Yeah, I'll have it changed." This, at least, is easily done, and she scribbles herself a note to take care of it later.

Eleanor had chosen the male detail because she thought Rouhani would be more comfortable with men and therefore more cooperative. Afterall, she's been real chummy with all the soldiers on base. Some people just can't help themselves around a uniform, and Rouhani is clearly one of those people. Always simpering and batting her eyelashes, giving one of the pilots a flirtatious elbow or smack on the shoulder. An educated, professional woman should have more self-respect.

"Oh my god, thank you." The immediate naked relief is frankly a bit over-the-top, and Eleanor wonders if Rouhani has history with the men she originally assigned. "Sorry, I'm sure the first two were really lovely, and I don't want them to think there's something wrong…"

"No worries," Eleanor says quickly, eager to get our out of the office so she can get back to work. "Happens all the time." Actually, it's usually the other way 'round. Most people tend to prefer men. Bulky muscles make people feel safe.

"Great. Thanks. Really." She backs out the door and nearly runs into the wall. "Whoops, sorry!" She catches herself with a giggle and gives Eleanor a self-effacing grin before running off. Like it's just another cute quirk that she nearly face-pancaked and gave herself a bloody nose. Eugh. "Thanks again!"

Eleanor looks down to find her pens in neat, color-coded rows. She scoops them all up and dumps them in the drawer where they belong.

Overseas travel was part of how they sold this gig, but what a pain in the ass. Coordination with embassy staff, coordination with base security, all the dick-wagging because the embassy and the base think they should have the lead on a Special Projects Team, all the accompanying paperwork, which is enough to kill a rainforest, not to mention it's Spain, and Eleanor just knows everyone is going to act like they're on vacation instead of there to work, which will mean going hat in hand to base or embassy security every time Bradshaw and Seresin fancy a night out on the town and she needs extra people. The list goes on.

Eleanor stews, continuing to click through the hundreds of too-dark stills from the piano bar. Fuzzy, dark, fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy and dark… It was too crowded anyways. Click. Click…click. Oh…

Hey there.

The security footage might suck, but the piano bar has an aggressive social media team, and the twitter feed is already full of new photos, some from this past Friday. An amused huff escapes her. Chek managed to find one of her and Reilly standing together up on the balcony. The next few are highlights featuring yours truly, grinning wildly behind sunglasses and crooning into a microphone. His dog tags have fallen out of his shirt in this frame, the metallic gleam now an artificially enhanced starburst, like some middle school glamor shot. Eleanor almost keeps scrolling, but the woman behind him catches her eye. While most of the club was dimly lit, the stage was blindingly bright, bright enough that she easily makes out a waitress replacing Bradshaw's still-full drink with a fresh one. No one just takes away a full drink.

Eleanor chucks her computer into the top drawer of her desk and gathers her phone and keys. After a moment of consideration she decides to take her gun as well, and a protein bar just in case, and heads downtown.

o.O.o

"Lieutenant."

Rooster looks up at Ms. Blake, wet hair plastered flat, dark blue windbreaker dripping onto the grey concrete. The cuffs of her pants are soaked to the knees. She unzips the windbreaker to wipe both hands dry on her shirt and pulls two photos out of an inside pocket, which she sets on the desk in front of him. One is a photocopy of a driver's license and the other is what looks like a promotional pamphlet from a club.

"Do you recognize anyone from either of these?" After a moment it clicks that the pamphlet is from the piano bar. The driver's license belongs to a woman – pretty in a forgettable, girl-next-door sort of way.

The night is still fuzzy around the edges, but Rooster tries, he really fucking tries.

"No," he finally says, frustrated with himself, frustrated with spending all day at a desk instead of in the air, with all of it.

"Not even a little familiar?"

"Nope." Rooster shakes his head and pushes the photos back across the desk. "Hell, I didn't even recognize you in a wig when you were right in front of me."

The clock above her head catches his eye. Fuck it's late. He straightens, neck and shoulders stiff from being hunched over a desk all afternoon, and the ache in his lower spine is back, a stubborn leftover he's never fully shaken after ejecting to avoid that SAM. Rooster flips the Trident manual closed, sticking a pencil between the pages to keep his place.

"To be fair," she gathers up the photos and repockets them, "I also had on about a pound of make-up."

"Why did you do that?" He rocks backwards in his chair, one foot braced against the desk, and stretches both arms out behind him as far as they'll go. His spine gives a series of loud, satisfying pops. "The disguise thing."

"A couple reasons. If you can't see us, it feels less like you're being watched. It's less intrusive. Also," she gives a little one-shoulder shrug, "if you can't tell who we are, you can't stare at us and give us away."

"What does that matter?"

"Can't have anyone tailing the tail. Harder to watch your back if I have to watch mine."

"What if we need to know where you are?"

The corner of her mouth gives a rueful twitch. "That's what the panic button is for."

Rooster's not at all amused. "Uh huh."

Despite the inexplicable shame that surfaces with the memory, he refuses to shoulder the blame for what happened. Maybe if she weren't trying to be James Bond with all that bullshit about "tailing the tail" she would have done her job better and he wouldn't have a muzzle-shaped bruise under his jaw.

"In your defense," she hurries to say – and for a split second he's terrified she'll slip and say it out loud. You were high as a kite. Maybe accidentally, maybe out of spite, but definitely loud enough for someone to overhear. It doesn't matter that they're the only two people in the empty hangar – "you had a gun to your head."

Rooster lets out the breath he'd been holding. "There was that, yeah." It feels like a cage, her having something to hold over him like this.

"It's normal," she says gently and with so much genuine sympathy – like she understands – that he wants to hurl the entire five-pound manual across the room and into a wall. Like standing behind Chek while he talked some crackhead down off a ledge somehow means she went through the same shit? The last thing he needs is to be fucking handled by a mall cop.

Rooster lets the chair fall back onto all fours with a clang.

Ms. Blake puffs out a breath into the awkward silence, "Welp. May as well get home. You gonna be good to go soon?"

He gives a single curt nod, leaves the manual where it is and grabs his jacket, pulling it on over his flight suit. He can change at home.

The upside to leaving late is avoiding the slog of rush hour traffic. Usually there's a line of cars a mile long clogging the base gates, but tonight they sail through and onto the highway in minutes. Out of habit, Bradley looks back over his shoulder as Ms. Blake merges onto the 64.

"The road is empty," she gripes.

"I didn't say anything."

"Seriously," she demands, voice tight, "what is your problem with my driving?"

"Nothing," he mutters, staring straight ahead. He's not going to waste breath explaining that his discomfort with someone else in the driver's seat isn't personal when it won't change anything. Knowing his history won't end with her letting him drive.

"Who were the people in the photos?" He doesn't actually give a shit, but if they have to talk, he'd rather it be about something else.

"Staff at the piano bar. The one in the license photo was new."

"What about the guy who tried to rob me?"

"He only wanted cash. Whoever took your wallet didn't want your money."

"Uh huh." Cause no one robs people for money. Really great detective work there. If the derision shows in his tone, it's because he didn't put much effort into hiding it.

She sighs. "No one tried to use your credit cards. People who steal credit cards use them as fast as possible because they know you'll cancel them the moment you notice they're gone."

"Then what was the point?" he asks. "It's not like I was carrying top secret plans in my wallet. Maybe they just didn't have time to use them."

"They had plenty of time," she insists. "You didn't cancel any of your cards until the next morning.

They pull off the highway, and this time Ms. Blake doesn't comment when he checks their blind spot moving into the exit lane.

"This isn't our exit."

"Yeah, I know." Before he can ask what the fuck she's doing, she continues, "The new waitress – the one in the photo – never showed up for her next shift. That driver's license is also a fake. The license number is for an 82-year-old woman in some nursing home in Arkansas."

He grunts. It's a college town. Half the people in the club that night were probably there on a fake ID.

"Luckily, you never got a new license, so your address isn't on there. Then again…" Instead of turning, Ms. Blake drives straight through back onto the highway, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. "There was also your base ID and your special access card for the hangar."

"You disabled those," he argues. "And they had my picture on them." Some chick isn't going to use his photo ID to get anywhere.

She looks from the rearview back to the road, much to Bradley's relief. "I know. But if they didn't know what you did before, they do now." This time she takes their normal exit.

"What's next then?"

Ms. Blake shrugs. "I keep digging." She says it casually, but the pause before her reply makes it obvious that she's leaving something out. He didn't care about the answer before, but he sure as shit cares now.

Bradley faces her, arms crossed. "That's vague."

She says nothing, eyes fixed on the red light above them. His jaw clenches. It's his goddamn life, but once again, she's decided she knows better, that he needs to be managed. He has every fucking right

"Look –" he warns at the same time she says, "I'm going to put a tap on your old landlord's phone."

That brings him up short. "What?"

Ms. Blake looks back at him now, but at least they've turned off the main road and into the neighborhood. "Your driver's license had your old address on it. If I were trying to figure out where you live now, I'd call up your landlord, pretend to be your ex-wife or something looking for child support, and ask for your forwarding address."

The anger is still petering away when a thought pops into his head. "Can you just tap someone's phone? Is that legal?"

She snorts softly. "I'm with the U.S. government. The Patriot Act covers pretty much whatever I want it to cover."

A darker thought occurs to him. "Are you tapping my phone?"

He expects her to be squirrely about that, but she answers, "Yes," bluntly and without hesitation. "Well, I mean I'm not; someone else is, and I don't have access to it." As if that should make him feel any fucking better. "And it's passive monitoring, not like someone's actively listening in. Hey," she says at the look on his face, "this is the military. We signed up for this shit." She clears her throat. "I mean you literally signed up for this shit a couple months ago when you came here."

Bradley stays silent, thinking back to the binders of paperwork he signed without reading. Not that he wouldn't sign it all over again, but it would have been nice to know. Actually, he wishes he didn't know at all.

"I will have access to the tap on your landlord's phone though." She looks over at him, serious. "So if you try to warn him, I'll know."

"I'm not an idiot."

"I didn't say you were."

The fact that she warned him at all means she did, and the moment she pulls up to the curb outside his house, he's halfway out the door before she even kills the engine.

"Lieutenant." For fuck's sake.

Bradley sits back down with a thump, hand still on the latch. Ms. Blake passes him an envelope.

"What's this?"

"The results from yesterday's drug test. Make sure you give them to medical when you go in for your physical tomorrow."

Bradley's eyes narrow. "I didn't have a drug test yesterday."

"Then I guess your memory sucks."

That night might have been muddled, but he wasn't so out of it that he forgot her looking him in the eye and promising he wouldn't have to take a drug test. Bradley reminds her of just that. "You said I wouldn't have a drug test."

"And you just told me you didn't have one, so I guess we're still square." She starts the car, but Bradley stays seated, turning the envelope over in his hand. It's sealed.

"You passed," she says impatiently, as if it's obvious.

Taking him to a non-navy hospital is one thing. Faking the results of a federal drug test is a whole other ball game and, it occurs to him, one that's likely to backfire massively at his expense if she fucked it up by being sloppy.

"How exactly did you –"

"With effort," she interrupts pointedly. This time the matter is not open for discussion.

With the envelope already in his hands, he's got no choice but to go along with this. She should've at least talked to him first. Hell, she should have just taken him back to base that night and told them he was drugged. That she saw someone spike his drink. His mind swirls with the could haves and should haves, with all the disaster scenarios leading to one conclusion – a dishonorable discharge. But the longer he stews, the more it dawns on him – he's a guy; no one is going to believe someone spiked his drink. As this realization sinks in, so does shame.

With effort.

"Thanks."

She nods and puts the car in gear, and Bradley finally makes his escape, sprinting through the pouring rain up to the door. The wet keys slip out of his hands, and he's conscious of her eyes on him – he's never turned around, but the engine always idles in place until he's inside with the door closed and locked. Sure enough, the moment he slips in, the engine roars to life and then fades, leaving him quietly and blissfully alone.

o.O.o

Eleanor was wrong. Close enough for satisfaction, but still wrong.

They called the landlord pretending to be a lawyer looking to serve papers. But either Bradshaw made a good impression or his ex-landlord hates lawyers (with all his bluster about 'knowing his rights' her money is solidly on the latter) because he told them they could figure it out themselves and not to bother him again.

She still doesn't know who 'they' are. It was a man who called, but it was a woman who drugged him at the bar.

Tracing the call failed since it was brief, and the trace bottomed out at some random copy-print shop in Ohio. On a gut feeling she orders a U.S. Marshal stationed at the landlord's place, but it's been days and so far the guy is getting paid to sit around with his thumb up his ass.

The driver's license is an impressive fake, impressive because it's real, done in an official DMV office but with fake information. She put a request into Arkansas law enforcement for anyone running a sophisticated counterfeit operation.

A Tupperware container plunks down beside her, and Eleanor jumps. "Here, try this." Silas waits expectantly for her to take a bite of chicken. It smells heavenly, broiled and glistening under a rich orange sauce. She pushes it away.

"Uh uh, I am not falling for that again." When Silas misses home, he cooks for home, and South Africa is spicy.

"It's not that bad."

"Did Patrick eat it?"

"Reilly said it wasn't that bad."

"Hard pass." God may have molded Iowans from margarine and wonder bread, but she's seen Reilly eat a ghost pepper and live.

"Hey, what's that?" Patrick pokes his head around the corner.

"Piri piri. Have some," Silas offers.

"Aw hell naw. That was like a shittin' fire. Give it to Reilly." Patrick pulls his own lunch out of the fridge, a roast beef sandwich – plain bread, meat, no condiments – with a tapioca pudding cup for dessert.

"You'd rather eat that?" Silas asks, affronted. "How?"

"How do you eat that?" Patrick counters.

"It's Imani's favorite food," Eleanor answers from her computer. The woman must have the stomach of a dragon.

Her phone rings.

"Hello?"

A strong Kentucky drawl greets her on the other end of the line. "Hi, this is Deputy Marshal Gutterson. Eleanor Blake?"

"Yeah, that's me." Eleanor quickly googles the area code of the number he's calling from. Sure enough, Lexington. "Can I get your badge number?"

"They said y'all were paranoid." He sounds bored. "Sure, got a pen?"

"Yes," she answers, even though she's still scrabbling through her desk drawer for that and a piece of paper. "Just give me…"

Shit, where the hell are the post-its? Eleanor finally locates a pad in the back of the drawer and slams it shut. "Ow, shit!" she hisses. Her thumb caught in the drawer, scraping about three layers of skin off in the process. "Sorry, one sec."

Eleanor sticks her thumb in her mouth to suck off the blood. She glances back over her shoulder to make sure Patrick and Silas are still arguing about the chicken then surreptitiously wipes the small smear of red off the wood with her uninjured hand. After a few seconds the pain is gone and when she takes her thumb out, there's only a small pink mark that fades away completely even as she's looking at it. "Ok, whenever you're ready."

"USM643756." After a quick database search, the number comes back as real and for a Tim Gutterson out of the Lexington Marshal's office. She's still suspicious about that last part.

"Alright, what can I do for you, Deputy?"

"Your guy's gone," he says without preamble.

"Gone?"

"Yup, never came back from work last night and isn't answering his phone."

"Weren't you people supposed to be watching him?"

"They were watching the house," he replies evenly.

"Why only the house?"

"They were told to watch the house. Seems they took that literally. Unimaginative, I know," he drawls, "but we have a different team tracking him down now." Gutterson, she imagines, is part of this 'different team.'

"I'll be sending a guy out tonight. Is this the best number to reach you at?"

"Yup." His unflustered drawl gives her zero clue as to how he feels about her sending oversight, but at least he doesn't argue.

"Great, someone will be in touch." Eleanor hangs up the phone and turns around. "Who wants to go to Nevada?"

Patrick jumps on it like white on rice. "Fuck yeah, Vegas baby."

"Perfect, call this number," Eleanor scribbles down Gutterson's cell, "and get on the first flight you can."

He takes the paper.

"Also, it's not Vegas."

"God you suck."

o.O.o

The day is blisteringly hot, and the tarmac nearly melts the bottom of his boots. Rooster's undershirt is uncomfortably damp between the shoulders before he even reaches the plane, but the stickiness is worth it for the bright, cloudless sky and perfect visibility.

Shoving the throttle forward, Rooster feels the crushing pressure of 6 Gs bearing down on his chest as the Trident shoots up and back in a tight arc, rolling through a low yo-yo. It's not as smooth as it could be – they're not used to each other yet – but it's electrifying, and if he had the breath in his lungs, he'd whoop when she sails seamlessly into a high-g barrel roll. This, this is freedom.

Medical cleared Rooster to return to duty the morning after Jake got back from Offutt, giving him the first go at maneuver testing. Jake had tried to bribe Doc for the honor with a Neapolitan pizza he'd flown all the way back from Nebraska, but Doc can't be bribed. The rule is 24 hours between flights.

By the time Rooster glides in for a landing he feels like a new man, relaxed, the weight of terrestrial life lifted from his shoulders. There's no room up in the air for mall cops or phone taps or anything else except staying airborne.

"Holy shit, that was so cool!" Doc is grinning at the bottom of the ladder, bouncing up and down on her toes and peppering him with rapid-fire questions before his feet can touch the ground. How did it handle going through tight turns? Was there too much altitude loss during the cobra maneuver? What's your definition of too much altitude loss? Rooster answers each as best he can in the moment before she skips off to bug the techs for the flight data.

"I'll see you back in the planning room in an hour!" she yells happily back over her shoulder. "Go eat!"

Hangman stares after her a moment before stepping forward to knock him lightly on the shoulder. He turns the gesture into a theatrical nose wrinkle and sniffs the air around Rooster's face. "And maybe a change of clothes. You smell like ass, Bradshaw."

"Get bent, Seresin." Hangman's just jealous he wasn't in the cockpit today. Rooster might feel for him if the first flight hadn't gone down like it did. He gives the other pilot a mostly friendly shoulder-shove on his way out of the hangar.

The heat being what it is, Rooster ambles his way to the dining hall. He doesn't get far before noticing a short figure striding perpendicularly to his own path, towards the admin building, plain brown ponytail swinging behind her.

With effort.

Only half thinking, Rooster lifts his helmet in a wave.

They're only fifty yards apart, give or take, so she definitely sees him, but Ms. Blake doesn't wave back. Instead, she looks around behind her in the baffled assumption that he was waving at someone else. Once she realizes it's just them and the grass outside, she switches course and turns towards him.

They meet in the dusty dirt at the edge of the concrete pad between the hangar and the taxiway, and a gusty breeze blows up the back of his neck, cool but too short-lived to make up for the southern heat. Ms. Blake's nose twitches, and Rooster suddenly feels self-conscious, wondering if Jake was telling the truth about him needing to change. He holds his helmet in front of him, hugging both arms tightly to his side. She squints up at him from under the manila folder she's carrying.

"What's up?" From her expectant tone, he realizes she thinks he beckoned her over. He didn't and, all too aware of the stretching silence, spits out the first thing that comes to mind.

"Everything went fine with the papers." He could kick himself as he's saying it. Pretty obvious it's fine given that he just flew. Medical wouldn't have cleared him otherwise.

"Good." Ms. Blake shifts her weight to the other foot, adjusting her hold on the folder.

Rooster takes a half step to the side to block the sun on her face.

"Was there something else you needed?"

"No, I just…" He has a chance now to thank her more sincerely than the other evening, but the words sound awkward in his head. Trite. Warm sweat soaks his collar, and Rooster swipes a hand across the back of his neck. It's not like he didn't already say thank you. No need to rehash the past.

Ms. Blake shifts again, crossing her arms.

"If you wanted to know about the investigation, I can't really say anything right now." Oh thank fuck.

"Nah, yeah, I understand," he says quickly, playing along with her assumption.

"Oh. Good." She takes a step back then pauses. "I just don't like to speculate without something concrete."

"Yeah." A bead of sweat tickles his eyebrow, and he wipes it away. "Yeah, of course. Absolutely."

"Alright." Another step back. "Let me know when you're ready to head home then."

"Yup, sure."

Rooster watches her go. With effort. He still doesn't know what that means.