Chapter One (Quid Pro Quo)

Missy had an ice pack on her elbow, she'd overdone it a little yesterday showing off with her skateboard for Jackson. It had been worth it though, the interest in his eyes, that...spark. It had been kind of cool to realize they had that in common, if she was honest with herself. He'd walked in on her wrapping the icepack on her arm with an Ace bandage and his brow lifted just a bit - enough for her to feel she should say something. "Just an old... eh. When I was sixteen, broke my arm in three places doing a stupid ass rail trick. Done it a hundred times, just freaking perfect but this guy challenged me, you know. Stupid kid shit. No way a girl could, all that and I was just so damn... sure I could. Did it twice and then showing off went for the trifecta and well ...heh. So now sometimes, it aches. The doctor thinks there's a pinched nerve or some shit, but I'm stuck with it."

She paused, fingers going to the ballcap she'd jammed over her hair, fiddling with it as she watched him and something about that sort of focused attention on her made her start talking. He hadn't asked, hadn't...pried, or tried to make her. Maybe that was it. "Fucked up more than I thought at the time." There was a long pause where Missy gathered her words, then she watched him with a sidelong look as she spoke. "Dad was an Air Force Master Sergeant. A real flyboy, F-16 pilot. Man I thought he was the fucking coolest when I was a kid. I wanted to do it too. Get up there and be free, I guess? I wasn't a dumbass about it though..." Missy felt a defensive tone start, and she shook herself. "I took the ASVAB early, and I barely met the height requirement to join let alone be a pilot but I thought since I scored so good they'd make an exception."

She took her hat off, winging it across the room. "Dad said he could pull some strings and like a fucking fool I bought into that like it was fate. But when I took the simulator tests?" She made a fist with her right hand, and there was the tiniest hint of a tremor visible. "I started skating because I didn't want to hang out with the other brats drinking, doing drugs, and fuck up my life. So, if that isn't the definition of goddamn irony I don't know what is."

Missy turned away, adjusting the ice pack. "I can still see the look on his face, like he knew, but didn't know what to say. Telling me I could still do something, I'd scored so good they'd figure it out. But if I couldn't fly? What the fuck was the point? So... there it is, dream in ashes and I had no idea what I was going to do, going to be. And I just couldn't stand how it felt, like they pitied me or some bullshit. So I made some choices, and threw everything I had in me to getting good...better than good... at that. So here we are."

Missy pushed herself up out of the chair she'd been sitting in, giving Jackson a wry smile - her armor, pretending things weren't bothering her. "Used to be... I'd have legit shanked someone for a second chance at what I wanted. Now... I kinda think, maybe I'm where I need to be. Is that fucked up, or what?"

She shrugged, moving to walk past him into the next room. Jackson watched her go, and then followed simply because there had been something to that little confession of sorts that had struck a chord in him. Leaning against the doorway, he folded his arms across his chest. "You ever compete?" The question was simple enough, out of all the things he could have asked her or the parallels he could have drawn about disappointment and pipe dreams bursting, that was the thing he grabbed onto because it was the most neutral. "Like those X-Games or whatever that shit's called where Tony Hawk made a name for himself?"

She stopped when he started talking, and if she was surprised he'd ask that didn't show. "Well nothing professional, but you know how kids get. If it can be jumped off of, or over, or... you remember." A little pause, while Missy considered something. "I probably should have. Just to say I did. What about you?"

"No." He shrugged, "just by that time it was all about the SAT's and college; I was varsity football and lacrosse that last year - extracurriculars were good for a guy like me. More places to focus, less need for Ritalin. Then, there was the wrestling, too. Early acceptance at Florida State and Pops was happier than a pig in shit because that was all piling up on the resume, extra brownie points so I'd be the legacy headed out on that bus to Parris Island." There was a flash of a rueful smile on Jackson's lips for a second as he shook his head. "Should tell people you did. Nobody will bother to check and it makes for a good story as long as you don't have to elaborate."

Missy tipped her head a little to the left as she listened to Jackson tell her a little about his past, it didn't surprise her that a guy like him had been that athletic in the least though the Ritalin crack made her wonder if it had been something he really needed or just a crutch for parents too busy to pay the attention needed to a really bright and easily distracted boy. She filed the question away though, maybe later she'd feel comfortable enough to poke at what might could be a full can of worms. "Lacrosse guys... I heard rumors about lacrosse guys where I went but you know how things like that start. One maybe incident somewhere and the media want to stir the pot to see what floats to the surface." That little wry smile was back though. "Hey, maybe I will. Just to see if I could get it past someone." A pause, and she thought about how he'd had that rueful smile. "Did you? I mean, did you serve that is?"

Tight-lipped, he shook his head, slowly cracking his knuckles while he watched her. Nervous twitch. What he wanted was to slip a cigarette between his lips and goddamn, he could almost taste it. Sucking his teeth, he paused before replying. "Nope. Unlike you, never really had any patriotic aspirations like that. You know that movie Full Metal Jacket? That drill sergeant?"

Missy nodded. "The one the guy snapped and shot - reminded me a lot of my uncle." She shivered, but if she noticed she had, she didn't say anything.

"Strip the personality and add a mean streak a mile wide. You'd be in the ballpark of my dear ol' dad. Needless to say, following in his footsteps was the last damn thing I wanted to do. Take one look at the guy and that..." he sighed, lifting a hand up to rub the back of his neck, trying to pretend he couldn't feel it shaking. "No offense, of course... but I never really saw myself as another cog in the American war machine - Pops called me a faggot and a pacifist for that. I wanted to do something better, be something more. Instead... well, I guess I'm something."

"None taken..." She murmured that, then her eyes narrowed. "Look, your dad? Fucking dick." She paused after blurting that out, and paced a little. Back and forth, over the same bit of floor. "You don't call your kid... that's... fuck that." Her dark brows drew down, then eased up. "I wanted, well... I wanted to fly. That's not the same, I guess as somebody right down in the shit. Like I had no problem back then, knowing I might have to use the guns because it wasn't like I had to look at the target and that's kind of fucked up isn't it? At least, it should be." She paused, considering. "Still kind of fucked up though. Because now, I think if I had to, well." She adjusted the bandage on her arm, poking at the ice. "Hard to explain that, I guess. But that's that."

"Nah, I get it." He pushed off from the doorway, moving a little closer to her, "when you're eighteen... twenty... whatever, the whole world seems... different, I guess is the best word. Big. Huge. Like, this mountain that you can climb and they spent all that time telling us in school that we could be anything we wanted. Astronaut. President. Nobody looks at the world and decides on being the dude changing the fry grease at Burger King. They never prepared us for what it was like to wash out. They never taught us how to do taxes or make contingency plans or how to cope with real life. But I can calculate the force involved in that car wreck that closed down the I-80 for a couple hours last week - where's the fucking point in useless junk like that?"

"That's still kind of ...cool. That you can do math in your head like that. We were lucky they taught us how to balance a checkbook, I guess." That little wry smile, and she winked at him. "Really though, thinking about it there's only one mountain I'm ever interested in climbing..." She let that trail off, he'd get it. That was something she really liked about him. "But you know, it kind of makes sense. Fill kid's heads with useless stuff and maybe they won't figure out how bad it really can be out there. Shit. I look at how I was, you know... I was so fucking sure I knew exactly what I'd be doing and I never thought for a second it wouldn't happen, then it just didn't. But I made up my mind I could feel sorry for myself, or do something stupid, or I could find something else. And well, it's worked out better than I ever thought it would when I started. That's something."

"It's something." He nodded in agreement, "and the gym... I'm gonna make that work. Before, I dabbled in clubs. Had this place in New York called Paradox. Bought a place in Reno, too... but it wasn't me and quite frankly, the thought of being around all that booze once I'm not hitting the road weekly seems like letting the fox loose in the henhouse and expecting nothing to go wrong." Jackson stuffed his hands in the pockets of his black workout shorts, shaking his head. "Well, somewhere along the line, that stupid kid with the stars in his eyes got fucking old and realized that the dream was probably a nightmare the whole time."

Missy took a couple of steps closer to him, and looked up at him like she was reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book and wasn't quite sure if A or B was the best choice before she answered firmly. "We. We are going to make that gym work, it's going to be a thing. Just watch." Then that saucier smile crept up to her lips. "Old. Please. I have to keep my protein intake up you know, so I don't fall behind." Her hands went up in a kind of shrugging gesture and she feigned off the wince from her elbow when she did it. "Old he says, after the other day? Come on."

He smirked, basking in the compliment. "Yeah, well. Nothing wrong with that part of me. Which you know, quid pro quo and all, maybe I should see if these magic fingers can do anything for that pesky elbow of yours?"

"There's no denying they're magic... would you mind? It's a bitch trying to massage it myself, can't ever get the angle just right." Her eyes had actually lit up a bit, that deep brown looking more like melted chocolate. Being herself though, that saucy tone was back. "Make it worth your while...."

Another night spent in her company in the little apartment above the gym was preferable to heading across town to an empty house far too big for just one person. He let out that deep, low chuckle that was more just a rumble in his throat as that smirk of his grew into a bit of a lascivious leer. "You've got yourself a deal, babe."