In the summer, Commander Mike Metcalf's home is always enveloped in chaos. Laughter and shrill screams. Toys littering the floor of the den. Slamming screen doors, and the sound of waves lapping against the shoreline of the nearby beach. It would be a lie to pretend it is easy for someone unaccustomed to it all to wrap their minds around it after stepping through the door, but Josephine Carter is an old hand at this.

And the chaos?

She loves every single minute.

As an only child, she never knew this sort of chaos in her own home, and a part of her had always wondered what it might have been like to have someone other than herself to confide in. To play with. A lack of siblings led her to informally take many of the other children in her parents' neighborhood under her wing, and even if her father had complained that they certainly didn't have the funds to feed and entertain every child on the block, Josephine's mother never truly had the heart to tell her daughter no.

Jo never fully grew out of those sorts of habits, and it did not take much before the longing for siblings turned to a longing for children of her own, instead. But now that she is closer to twenty-four than twenty-three, a part of her is starting to think maybe some of her dreams will simply have to remain—unachieved.

She remembers growing up on stories of how her parents met. Her mother had only been sixteen, then. She married Jo's father two years later, at eighteen. And even knowing that certain standards are shifting when it comes to such things, saying anything other than that Jo's overly romanticized ideals of what a real relationship should look like may actually be hindering her progress would be a lie.

A frown almost pulls at her lips, but before it can fully take root in her expression, Jo finds herself emitting a startled laugh as something small collides with, and winds thin arms around her legs…

By the time the man most of the Navy knows as Viper walks through the door behind her with her bags in tow, Jo has her cousin hoisted up onto her hip, all thought of anything outside of spending time with her uncle and his family all but forgotten.

"That didn't take long."

"What didn't take long?"

"You, getting a kid in your arms," Her uncle teases, sidling past his niece, and shutting the front door with a gentle tap from the toe of his boot, "I'm starting to think you came here to see the kids, and not me."

"Please. You know you're my favorite uncle."

"I'm your only uncle, kid."

"True," Jo admits, shifting her cousin's weight just a bit on her hip, until the sight of another of his siblings streaking by on her left causes him to wriggle just enough until she puts him down, "Here, let me get the bags—"

"Are you kidding? Your aunt'll have my head if she finds out I let you lift a finger. Get in the kitchen and let her know you survived your flight."

After the directive, Josephine's uncle begins the task of taking her bags upstairs on his own, and she turns not long after to make her way through the small hallway that will lead into the kitchen as a result. But before she can completely make the journey, he is calling out to her again, effectively stalling her in her tracks in next to no time at all.

"Hey, Jos?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm really glad you're here."

Smiling, Josephine realizes that her uncle is already halfway out of sight on the stairwell before she can reply, leaving her with no other choice but to complete the trek to the kitchen as a result. And even if she isn't entirely certain that a summer here will allow her the reprieve she wants from continued evidence of how nearly all of her friends are involved with someone—marrying someone, or having babies, or something in between, and she is not—Jo is absolutely determined to remember what this place is to her, at the end of the day.

A home away from home.

Really, that is the only thing that should matter to her at all.

…

"Oh you have got to be kidding me."

Halfway to a table in the far corner of the club, at least until she spotted a familiar face sitting at the bar, Josephine slows to a stop, aware of her aunt's curious gaze turning to her in seconds flat. The man hasn't taken notice of her yet, and Jo finds herself torn between whether or not she should simply ignore him for now, or excuse herself to say hello.

He is standing with another man—another fellow pilot, after all—clearly looking for someone to spend the remainder of the evening with. And Jo is about as interested in getting dragged into that particular mess as she would be in getting a root canal.

It's nothing she isn't familiar with. Spending summers with her uncle meant being around pilots, too. Men like that were the sort who tended to see women as conquests. Nothing more, nothing less. And if nothing else, as much as she adores the man at the bar—one Pete Mitchell—if for no other reason than that they grew up together, Jo is more than a little determined to avoid giving the impression to any of his fellow pilots that she is interested becoming just another notch on a bedpost.

"You okay, honey?"

"I—yeah. Yeah, Aunt Linda, I'm fine," Jo assures, offering the older woman a faint smile, and preparing to explain her sudden stop, only to find the effort delayed when the reason for it seems to take notice of her after all.

"Jojo! That you?"

Well, there goes her hoped-for anonymity.

Turning to manage a wave, Josephine is almost immediately aware of how the act draws a bit more attention her way than she truly hoped for, and she does her best to take it in stride, her aunt's next words at her side giving her something to focus on aside from the slight flush spreading across her cheeks.

"Looks like someone's happy to see you."

"I'm not here with him. I'm here with you."

"Oh go on. At least let him or his friend buy you a drink," Linda encourages, giving Jo's shoulder a little nudge to propel her off in the right direction, and laughing at the almost predictable feigned scowl the act earns her as a result, "Get yourself out there, before you sit down to dinner with the old folks."

"You're not that old, Aunt Linda."

"Tell that to my back, honey. Go."

Jo is familiar enough with her aunt's sometimes mischievous tendencies to know there really is no winning this one. At least not right now. And so, in spite of her own misgivings, she weaves her way through the crowd gathering around the bar until she reaches Pete's side, her lips curving into a grin regardless of how much a part of her wishes she could at least act a little exasperated to save face.

"Pete."

"If I didn't know any better, Jojo, I'd say you were following me."

"My uncle lives here, Mav. What's your excuse?"

"Top Gun."

"Top—seriously?"

"Your uncle didn't tell you?" Pete quips, Josephine's almost immediate shake of the head provoking a grin, "Goose and I are coming out first."

"Funny. I always thought that didn't get decided until graduation."

"Don't listen to him. He likes to talk a big game even when he doesn't know the outcome," The man standing beside Pete interjects, shifting to lean an elbow against the bar, the half-empty beer he's been nursing switching to his left hand while he offers Josephine a smile, "Nick Bradshaw."

"Also known as—Goose?"

"Guilty as charged."

"Josephine Carter. You can call me Jo."

"Not Jojo?"

"That's usually reserved for my cousins," Jo says, already noticing the way Goose's brow lifts, and moving to head him off before he can come to the wrong conclusion, "Mav's not—he's not my cousin."

"Not cousins."

"We went to prom together," Pete supplies, unable to fully suppress a smirk, particularly when he notices the slight narrowing of Jo's eyes as she looks his way, clearly recognizing where he is going with this even before he says another word, "Had a hell of a night, right Jojo?"

"Jesus, Mav, your brain was living between your legs all the way back to high school?"

"Okay, that? That did not happen!"

"It didn't?"

"No," Jo replies, somewhat amused by Goose's apparent intrigue over this whole thing, even in spite of hardly knowing him at all, "Pete, here, decided to over-indulge in the spiked punch, so I took his car."

"She man-handled me."

"I got your keys out of your jacket pocket."

"Felt like the same thing," Pete shrugs, knowing the answer will almost immediately serve its purpose in getting under Jo's skin, and taking no small amount of satisfaction in how she seems to flush even with her apparent desire to hold her own.

"Trust me, Pete. It wasn't."

"I got a feeling if a girl this good lookin' man-handles you, you won't mistake it for something else."

Jo blinks back surprise at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and the sensation of something solid brushing against her shoulder, and her attention shifts from Pete, to the taller pilot now standing at her side instead. He's not exactly difficult on the eyes, at least objectively, but something about the way he eyes her gives Jo every reason to believe that he isn't exactly looking for engaging conversation.

Something that has her nothing short of prepared to retort, at least until Goose steps in to take the moment out of her hands entirely.

"Hey, Slider. Thought you wanted to be a pilot, man, what happened?"

"Goose, you're such a dickhead," The newcomer—Slider, apparently—retorts, his gaze spending another moment or two lingering on Jo before turning back to the man addressing him, instead, "Whose butt did you kiss to get in here, anyway?"

"The list is long, but distinguished."

"Yeah, well so is my Johnson."

It takes absolutely everything Jo has to resist the urge to roll her eyes, her teeth chewing the inside of her cheek as she realizes the pilot's attention is once again swiveling back towards her. It is more than a little obvious that he's going for shock, at this point. Trying to either impress her with his bravado, or knock her off her game with innuendo and embarrassment.

Josephine isn't entirely unappreciative of Pete's move to stand just a bit closer to her side. And it would be a lie for her to pretend she doesn't feel the slightest hints of relief over how he clearly doesn't feel the need to tease her like she's nothing more than a conquest anymore. But this new pilot clearly does.

Something that is made even clearer than it is already by the wink Slider sends her before his next words.

"How about you and I get free of these clowns and I can show you a real good time?"

"Actually I think I'll pass."

"Thinkin' isn't the same as knowin', sweetheart."

"You know, you're right. And now I know my answer," Jo muses, the smile that pulls at her lips only halfway feigned, because she can tell the man standing in front of her clearly thinks she is preparing to change her mind, "It's a hard pass, soldier."

"Well something's har—"

"And that's my cue to go."

"That's a kill, ladies and gentleman," Goose declares, lifting his beer in a toast to Jo, and eliciting a small nod from her in response, before she turns away entirely, "Guess you're losin' your charm, Sli."

"Shut the hell up, Goose."

Content to leave Pete and Goose to their amusement at Slider's expense, Jo weaves her way back through the crowd, resignation provoking another laugh at the thought of how year after year, the pilots here—everywhere, really—never seem to change. And even if she knows it is entirely likely that she may find her way back to the bar in search of a drink before the night is through, it certainly doesn't mean she has to fall for any overly obvious attempts at charm along the way.

Or at least, so she thinks.

…

Well, there we have it! The end of chapter two! I didn't change all that much in this one, because I thought it kind of eased us into things after the first introductory chapter rather nicely on its own. Hopefully everyone else agrees? As I said before, I am beyond excited to be working on this story again, and I appreciate all of you so very much for being patient enough to give it a chance! Next time around, we'll see Ice! (*screams in Kazansky*)

Until next time, darlings…

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