Hard Landing Ch. 04

*** This series was awarded Best Lesbian Story, as well as Most Literary/Genre Transcending Story in the 2019 Reader's Choice Awards. Thank you to all who voted. ***

Welcome friend, to Chapter 4. If you haven't read Chapters 1-3, you'll be lost. So very lost.

As usual, I've updated the Spotify playlist found in the contact tab of my author page with the songs from this chapter. Shout out to those who've given me a "like" on that.

Many thanks to my editor, ThisNameIsntTakenYet, whose excellent work made it possible for me to get this up with far fewer typos.

~~ Ocean City, Maryland ~~

JO

She woke to the cry of a seagull outside. Opening her eyes, she saw the curtains gently swaying in the breeze coming through the window they'd left open last night. Blue was behind her with one arm thrown over her waist, and she could feel warm breath on the back of her neck.

True to her word, Blue had taken her to bed last night and simply held her and stroked her hair until she'd fallen asleep. Jo hadn't even thought about doing more. She'd needed exactly what Blue had given her. She didn't cry last night, she never cried, but the way she had curled up and held onto Blue last night... she sighed.

I really gotta get a handle on what the fuck is going on with me and this chick, she thought. Is it some kind of pheromone thing? I mean she always smells like vanilla, maybe that's it. Why do you keep splitting open like an old melon and letting all your rotten shit fall out, Collins? She grimaced at the visual in her head.

She reached out and picked up her running watch from the nightstand. "After eight, Collins. You're getting fucking soft," Little Voice chided her.Carefully, she eased out from under Blue's arm, gathered her running gear from the pile of clothes in the corner and slipped into the bathroom that separated the two bedrooms to get dressed. Not wanting to wake her, she exited to the living room through Blue's door. Looking up she saw Larry, Suzanne and Jack in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

"Hey Jo, morning," Suzanne said as her eyebrows tried to crawl up her forehead into her hair.

"Morning." Jo said, closing the door behind her. Oops. "Going for a run, anybody up?" No one would say yes. No one ever did. She got impatient and left anyone behind who tried to keep up after a mile or two.

"Uh, no..." said Jack. "Listen Jo, hang on a minute. Look, I'm... I'm really sorry about last night." He looked a little green, and Jo guessed he was sporting a whale of a hangover. "I know I was..."

"It's okay, Vance," Jo said. "You were drunk, I'm uptight. Sorry I shoved you into the beach, I was out of line. Today's a new day, so let's try and forget about it. We cool?"

She held out a fist and bumped Jack's on the way by as he stammered, "S-sure, cool Jo...'

"See you guys in an hour or so." She slid the patio door shut behind her and trotted barefoot across the deck and down the steps to the beach. There were several seconds of silence.

"What," Larry said, conversationally, "the fuck?" He'd frozen like a statue with his mug halfway to his lips the moment Jo had emerged from Jill's room and hadn't moved.

Suzanne looked over at Jill's door. "I think maybe someone is a good influence on our girl. After last night I expected her not to talk to you the rest of the trip, Jack." She took a sip of her coffee.

Jack swallowed, looking less green and not just a little relieved. "Did you guys know about..." He tilted his head towards Jill's room.

"Nope," Larry said, "Seems like the potential for drama on this trip has gone up a bit, don't you think babe?"

Suzanne tilted her head, looking out back out towards Jo as she reached the hard-packed sand on the shoreline and started running south. "I'm not sure," she mused. "Five minutes ago, I would have said yes, but after that unusual display of equanimity from our little powder keg..." She looked back at Jill's door again. "I wouldn't have put money on Jill coming back in one piece after she chased after Jo last night either. I think it's going to be interesting to watch."

~~ En Route to Virginia Beach, Virginia ~~

JO

The band had done a small show at the national park in Chincoteague, Virginia, then camped in the bus that night. Jack had made noises about setting up his hammock outside, but the mosquitoes seemed thick enough to carry away the small wild horses that lived on the island. Steve and Sara had claimed the bedroom this time. Larry and Suzanne grumped, but they had gotten the first shot on Friday night. Larry had asked Suzanne if she wanted to climb into a twin bunk with him, but she had just looked up and down her husband's six-four frame and laughed at him.

Jo knew she and Blue would have fit just fine in a twin together. The two times they'd slept in the same bed, they had curled up tight şişli bayan escort next to each other all night. But she didn't think Blue would've wanted it to be so obvious that something was going on, so she'd said "I'll take the couch," completely missing the look Blue shot at her.

The next day as they drove leisurely down Route 13, Jo was sitting at the kitchen table on the bus, working on her mandolin. After the beach jam, someone had picked it up off the sand for her, shaken it and put it back in the case. She'd remembered that she probably should clean it and was working on it with a toothbrush and soft cloth. It was kind of amazing how much sand she'd dislodged so far. "Stupid fuck," she mumbled to herself.

"What?" Steve asked. He was sitting across from her, reading.

"Nothing."

"Huh, 'cause it sounded like you think dropping a fine hand-crafted instrument into the sand wasn't a good idea." He was grinning at her.

"Dude. Get off me."

"I'm not on you Sis, just poking the bear."

"Well this bear isn't up for poking. That couch is lumpy." She had a stiff neck from sleeping on it.

"You know..." he trailed off.

"What?" Jo continued brushing out sand.

Steve looked around. Larry and Suzanne were in the bedroom watching a movie, while Sara was up in the passenger seat talking to Jack. Blue was in one of the bunks napping.

He lowered his voice "No one's going to care if you and Jill want to bunk up."

"What? What are you talking about?" She looked up with a panicked expression on her face.

"Jo, c'mon, it's obvious. You two have been thick as thieves all week and it's not like I don't know about you coming out of her room yesterday morning. You think Larry wouldn't tell me about that?"

Jo flushed bright red. "Keep your voice down!" she whispered.

"My voice is down, Jo. It's just us talking. I'm just telling you, it's cool. You're an adult, she's an adult and you guys are obviously getting along great."

Jo looked around to make sure there was no one else paying attention.

"I don't know what's going on Bro." Jo whispered, hunching her shoulders and looking down at her mandolin. "I have no fucking idea what's going on. I just... I..."

"Jo, unclench. You like her. She clearly likes you. Roll with it, Sis."

Jo looked over her shoulder at the bunk area. "But I'm deploying at the end of October. You know what that means."

"Oh, for fuck's sake Sis, are you still on about your stupid 'rule'? You've got to let that go, it was years ago. You and I both know that the problem wasn't you having a girlfriend while you were over there. The problem was that Amy was a crazy bitch."

"That's what Blue said."

"My god Jo, you told her about Amy? You don't do that! You have a pet name for her! I can't remember the last person you didn't call by their last name besides dad or me. It's obvious this is a thing!"

"I can't, Steve. I just can't and I already told her that."

"Fine. Whatever, I take it all back." He looked over his shoulder to see that Jack was pulling off the road for a pit stop. "If you're gonna get all Jo Collins on her, then you probably should back off. Because she's a nice girl and if you pull your typical moves where you get scared and run, you'll hurt her."

"I don't get fucking scared!" Jo hissed furiously.

Steve leaned in and looked her in the eye. "Maybe you can get away with that bullshit with everyone else on the bus, Big Sister," he whispered. "But I see through you. You're scared. So, are you going to be the bad-ass-basic-training-bitch who kicks the ever-loving shit out of anything they put in your way when they tell you that you'll never fly the Blackhawk? Or are you going to be scared, little Jo who runs away to hide in a war when she's afraid of getting hurt?"

Jo just stared at him, seething, as Larry and Suzanne emerged from the bedroom.

"Your call, Sis." Steve got up, gathered Sara from the front and they went out with Larry, Suzanne and Jack to check out the tourist trap they'd pulled into. Jo sat there, staring out the window.

"Hey, want to go check this place out?" Blue said from behind her. Jo turned. Blue was standing there in one of her usual sundresses rubbing one eye. She started putting her blue hair back into a braid. She leaned down to look out the window. "It says three t-shirts for $5. I want to see what kind of treasures we can get for that.

Jo forced a smile. "Sure."

"You ok?"

"I'm fine Blue. Let's go."

JILL

Jo seemed off for some reason I couldn't figure out. I had dragged her around the tourist trap shop looking at all the little tchotchkes and terrible t-shirts that could be had but she wasn't joking around with me like I'd come to expect.

"What do you think?" I asked, holding up a knock-off My Little Pony t-shirt in front of me.

"I'd go with something more like that," she said, şişli escort pointing to an obvious bootleg Wonder Woman shirt.

"So, you think I'm more of an Amazon than a pony girl? I mean I have the mane." I flicked my blue braid with my hand.

She looked up at me. "You're tall enough for an Amazon."

"What's your shirt size? Medium?" I said rummaging through a rack.

"Yes. Are you buying me clothes now?" she asked.

"Yes, in fact, I am. I like this but the color doesn't work with my hair." I pulled an olive colored t-shirt of the rack that said "CHIPS