golden hour

part two - love is a wild thing

"So..my dad knows?" Layla asks him. She tried to ignore the pit in her stomach when he told her, thinking back to how upset he sounded on the phone last night. The way her dad found out couldn't have been good. She knew they should've cooled it with the PDA in front of his friends, people who could've known her father. She was stupid for being so careless with him.

Bradley sighs, rubbing the back of his neck - his nervous twitch that did nothing to calm Layla's anxiety. He looked back at her, meeting her stare. "Yeah..he knows. I'm sorry, I know you wanted one of us to be the ones to tell him." He said, guilt obvious on his face. He truly felt guilty for Maverick finding out the way that he did and he did not want their relationship to be the cause for a rift between Layla and her dad. He may not currently be seeing eye to eye with him, but that doesn't mean he was intentionally trying to hurt Maverick.

There was once a time where Maverick would have been the first person Bradley told about a girl he had feelings for. Back in high school, Maverick was the man he went to when he had his first girlfriend. He had been so excited to talk to him about those things, Maverick really being the only father figure in his life. He had obviously talked to his mother about girlfriends and stuff too, but Maverick was the one who gave him the guy advice, he had even been the one to give the old birds and the bees talk with him.

Layla gave him a pressing look, willing him to go on and tell her more of what happened, since so far he was being kind of vague about the details of how her father knew. "Me and Hangman were having it out in front of everyone..after me and Mav had a small heated discussion during our debrief. Hangman must've seen you with your dad on base and he was trying to get under my skin. He brought up how my dad died flying with Maverick and when i was up out of my chair ready to do something..i dont know what..he dropped the news to Maverick that we were together."

"What did he say to my dad..could it be possible he doesn't really know?" She questioned, being hopeful that he might not know the extent of their relationship. Which didn't make much sense to Bradley since they had just gotten pretty cozy on the beach, in front of him. "Trust me, baby, he knows. Hangman said, and I quote, that I was 'screwing' Maverick's daughter..in front of everyone"

Her response to that was just a groan and to put her head in her hands. He was treading on thin ice at that moment, trying his best not to upset her anymore. "I'm really sorry, angel. You know I didn't want him to find out that way."

She finally looked at him, "so what did you say to him? Because obviously we're doing more than just 'screwing'..I hope you told him we're more serious than that." her tone was accusatory, she had every right to be upset. She couldn't believe that years had gone by without her dad suspecting anything had ever happened between them, her finally having a good conversation with her dad for the first time in a long time and now Hangman probably just set back any progress she had made with her dad.

Bradley felt extreme guilt that he hadn't been man enough to stick around and talk to Maverick for her, he had just left things unsaid because he was too upset to put his emotions aside. He hated that he had to tell Layla that.  "I didn't get the chance to really talk to him.." she scoffs and is about to say something but he continues, "I was ready to kill Hangman, I was so mad I had to get away before I did something that got me kicked out..but I texted Maverick to tell him I'm in love with you and that we wanted to be the ones to tell him and I was sorry. I'm sorry I didn't clear things up right away, but I can still be the one to talk to him. I owe you that"

He looks at her to gauge her reaction, her softening a bit. She had to try and put herself in his shoes, having everything aired out in front of his coworkers, someone doing everything they could to push all the right buttons. She knew how tough it was for him when his dad was brought up.