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This time they didn’t have to look at each other. Both men shook their heads.
“You’d be the first,” said Jace.
“I’d be fine if I wasn’t,” I added quickly, although the honordidfeel admittedly special. “It’s just obvious by how familiar everything is for you.”
The sun had vanished entirely, but a faint violet haze in the sky still remained. I stared into it wistfully, waiting for the piece of chicken at the end of my skewer to finally stop steaming.
“It’s nice having someone here who appreciates this the way you do,” said Jace.
“It’s December,” I chuckled. “This is paradise compared to what it’s like in Minnesota right now.”
“Or Boston,” added Merrick casually.
I crooked an eyebrow. “Is that where you’re from?”
The big pilot nodded. “Originally, yes. We lived a little too close to Hanscom Air Force Base. I was always watching the jets fly overhead, and that’s how I got bit by the pilot bug.”
“That’s cool,” I shrugged.
“Not according to my father,” Merrick smirked. “He hated the idea of me joining the service. Forbid me to even apply. Of course I did anyway, and signed on with a recruiter after just one semester of college.”
“What did you study?”
“Beer and women,” laughed Jace.
“I didn’t even get the chance to dothat,” Merrick lamented. “My father is a surgeon — has been all his life. Apparently I was supposed to follow in his footsteps. He had a whole path laid out for me, with friends and contacts that would get me to wherever I needed to be.”
“And so you took off for the Air Force,” I smiled, reaching for the bottle again.
“Yes.”
I poured another half glass. I did it slowly too, hoping it would help him relax.
“Did your father disown you?”
“For a while he did,” said Merrick. “He told me I was wasting my talent rather than using my ‘gifts’ to their fullest potential. What he wanted was a carbon copy of himself. Instead, he got a Rescue Flight Officer with six commendation’s worth of combat experience.”
Merrick picked up a stick and threw it into the fire. He wasn’t even looking at us anymore.
“In the end, who’s the asshole, though?” he continued. “He’s sitting at home with my ice cold mother, and I’m here in Hawaii drinking whiskey with my best friends on a moonlit beach.”
I raised my glass and he toasted with me, and together the pair of us drank. Jace was resting back on his two big arms, just soaking everything in.
“I’ll never push my kids to do anything,” Merrick added at the end. “They can be whatever the hell they want to be.”
“Kids, huh?” I smiled coyly. “Just how many are you having?”
The question forced both men to look at me, then turn toward each other. Merrick stayed silent while Jace only shrugged.
“Depends on the kind of woman we end up with,” Jace said. “After all, she’s going to have a pretty big say in it.”
I tried to picture this woman; the fantasy unicorn they’d been searching for all this time. Depending upon how many kids they’d want, she’d be pregnant an awful lot. At least one time by each of them, if I knew anything about how competitive these men were.
“You guys reallydowant to share one wife, don’t you?” I asked casually. “I mean, you’ve totally thought this out?”
“Yes.”
The answer was simultaneous. Unhesitant. Entirely genuine. Their determination intrigued me even more.
