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“You gotta talk to him about this shit,” Lilley says as he slams on the brakes again. Garza swears down at him, and Lilley takes one hand off the wheel to flip him off. “Fucker, you can see the tail lights as well as me, don’t aim that fucking shit down here.”
“I am not talking to Person about his variation on a teenage girl stomping to her goddamn room,” Poke replies. He slams his hands on the dash when Lilley brakes hard again. It’s been like this for five minutes. Poke would be on the comms ordering Brad to apologize so Ray would fucking quit starting and stopping like a goddamn nervous grandma driver, but Pappy’s already on the line, sounding like he doesn’t have a care in the world as they stop-start-stop in the middle of a goddamn warzone.
“Then talk to Colbert about how maybe he should just suck Ray off already and get it over with,” Lilley says.
“Careful!” Poke shouts, and Lilley slams on the brakes again. “Jesus fuck me Christ,” Poke mutters. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll do what I can. Fucking white boys.”
*
Here’s the thing: Poke is pretty fucking sure Brad Colbert would bend Ray Person over the nearest flat surface if Brad did things like recognize emotions or sexual urges he did not pay to release. And Poke is also certain that Ray would bend Brad over the nearest flat surface and return the favor if Ray did not have the kind of blind spot reserved for SUVs.
Or so Gina told Poke after meeting them exactly once and noting how very much in each other’s back pockets they were.
“I don’t want to think about them fucking,” Poke had said.
“Level,” Gina had whispered to remind him his voice naturally carried and the girls might hear his language.
“Sorry, honey.”
“It’s okay.” She had leaned across the kitchen table and kissed him on the top of the head. “But it’s not about that, Tony. It’s about how they’re clearly good for each other.”
“All they do is aggravate each other.”
“Gee, who does that remind me of?” she'd said with a smile, and it made him smile in return.
“We don’t aggravate each other,” he said. “We inspire one another.”
“And they don’t?”
Since then, Poke hasn’t been able to ignore the way they are with each other. They shit talk as much as any other two buddies. They sing like everyone else. They make the same jokes and have the same complaints, but, yeah, there’s something about how they are that feels a little different if you know where to look for it.
“I need my RTO,” Brad says, and Ray immediately hops to. Brad making a claim on anything that isn’t his bike or a hot piece of electronic ass is fucking rare in Poke’s experience, and to refer to Ray like that? There's some shit there.
Ray’s no better once Poke pays attention. He’s up in Brad’s face more than anyone, pushing him to smile, to laugh, to sing along. Poke hadn’t even known the Iceman was a South Park fan until Ray had goaded Brad into his Big Gay Al impersonation during a barbecue in Tony’s backyard.
“What the fu—hell was that?” Poke had asked, Gina patting him on the leg in thanks for curbing his language into something she had no problem with the girls repeating.
“What?” Brad had asked. “It’s a classic episode. George Clooney was the dog.”
“Yeah, it’s great,” Ray had agreed like that was the goddamn point.
*
“Dawg, we gotta talk about some shit,” Poke says the day after the great brakening when he comes up to Brad and Ray under their cammie netting. They’re both cleaning their weapons, not talking but sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and splitting a canteen between them.
“Right now?” Brad asks, squinting up at Poke.
“Right now,” Poke says. He appreciates that Brad sets aside his gun, covers all the loose parts with half of the blanket it’s all laid out on, and immediately follows Poke to a vaguely more secluded spot next to a berm.
“What is it?” Brad asks. “You look like something’s double-FUBAR.”
“It is, kind of,” Poke says. “And it’s under your fucking cammie netting.”
“What?” Brad glances back over his shoulder. “My weapon’s fine.”
“Jesus,” Poke mutters. He wants to slap Brad across the face, but he holds himself back. The words will do the trick anyway. “Brad, seriously, how much longer you gonna drag Ray’s dick through the dirt before you just fuck him and get him to stop being an asshole?”
Brad blinks. He blinks again. “What the fuck sort of shit are you talking, Espera?”
“I’m talking about your goddamn driver hitting his brakes when you make him pout, fucker. I’m talking about how you fucking let him even though you outrank his scrawny ass. I’m talking about how me and my boys don’t have any goddamn airbags in our piece of shit Victors, and we’d rather get our injuries getting shot by Hajis than bouncing off the fucking dashboard.”
Brad shakes his head. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Poke. You think I haven’t tried to talk him out of being a redneck, water-on-the-brain, half-dicked fuckshit?”
“This is the worst love story in the history of all time,” Poke says. “And I’m counting Pocahontas and that Rolfe fucker.”
“You know, I still don’t know that I believe you’re Native American.”
“I will fucking scalp your Aryan ass.”
Brad grins, and Poke shakes his head and can’t believe, for the hundredth time, that this giant, goofball, stone-cold killer is his friend. “It’s not love, Poke. He’s just a jackass.”
“He’s not,” Poke says. “Not even close, dude. He’s smarter than half the goddamn platoon on his worst day, andhe could choose which team to ride with, and he chose yours. And you have Trombley.”
Brad sighs the sigh of a man who wants to defend his team member but knows better. “The fuck are you even saying, Poke?”
“I’m saying you’re fucking married, Iceman. You thought you weren’t because she up and left your ass for your best friend, but you’re fucking married to that scrawny-ass motherfucker who sings fucking Tainted Love in your direction in fucking front of people.”
“We’re not—“
“I am married. I know married. Congratulations, you are in a sexless goddamn marriage, and while you are not telling and I'm not really asking--I'm more schooling you--let me just say, you could probably be getting laid on the regular even while having no emotions if you would just fucking go for it.”
Brad blinks. “He’s my RTO.”
“I want you to seriously consider the fact that you’re an actual person with a penis,” Poke replies. “Just. Keep that in the back of your mind.” He thumps Brad on the arm with the side of his fist and says, "I never wanna talk about this again. Unfuck yourself." He walks away from Brad, shaking his head.
Weeks later, as they all get shit-faced stupid on Iraqi gin, Poke wanders around the soccer complex, turns a corner, and discovers Brad and Ray leaned in close together, clearly in the middle of an argument that ends when Ray grabs Brad, yanks him down, and kisses him.
White people, Poke thinks with a shake of his head. Fucking white people.