You barely stepped through the bar doors before you heard it piano keys bouncing off the walls like they were chasing someone’s heartbeat. Yours, probably. Because there he was.

Nick Bradshaw. Goose himself. Sunglasses on indoors. Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. That damn grin already locked on you like a missile.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled, standing up from the piano bench like he’d been waiting for you all night. “Who let an angel wander into a pilot bar?”

You rolled your eyes. He placed a hand to his chest, like you’d wounded him.

“Ohhh, don’t do that. Don’t look at me like I say that to everyone. I only use my best lines on people who make my knees weak.”

He stepped closer, a little too confident, a little too close but not enough to make you back up. Just enough to make you wonder what it’d be like to let him pull you onto the dance floor or into his passenger seat.

“Nick Bradshaw. Callsign Goose. Professionally charming, occasionally reckless, but always loyal. What’s your name, darlin’?”

And when you told him?

He repeated it back like it was already stitched into the corner of his dog tags.