jill

"So I ran into Olivia Tucker — you remember her, right? From church? She had a son named John," she said, not looking at the camera.

You had learned years ago that it was easier to say yes, of course than to endure five minutes of your mom describing a person like she was giving a statement to the police.

"Yeah, of course. I remember Mrs. Tucker."

"She mentioned her son John is attending the same college as you." She said it like she was reading off a notecard. Matter of fact. "She said he's playing hockey now."

Oh. That John Tucker.

"Yeah, I know who he is," you said, cleaning up the mess on your middle finger.

"Isn't that a big coincidence?"

"I mean, not really — he's like a year younger than me, right?"

"Yes, but you two used to play together when you were kids. At church, remember?" You did not remember. Your family went to church maybe twice a year. "Anyway, I gave her your number so she could pass it along to him. So you two could talk."

"Mom — what, that's not really —"

"She's probably not even going to use it."

She used it. Mrs. Tucker called three days later, and with the grace of a good Southern woman, she asked you to keep an eye on John — not in so many words, of course. She said he'd moved into a house with some of the other players and she just wanted to know he was taking care of himself. She didn't want you to do much. Just stop by, take a look around, report back. She'd handle the rest by phone.

What she did not tell you was that Tucker already knew about her plan.

He opened the door looking completely unsurprised to see you, leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin that said nice try. He was, it turned out, perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, annoyingly, other people too.

Which is how you ended up here, almost a year later, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island in the off campus house, crying into an onion.

"I'm just saying, get a dicer," you said, keeping your eyes on the knife because you had to. "This is inhumane."

"A real chef doesn't use those kinds of things," Tucker said from across the kitchen, doing significantly less chopping than you were.

"Well, good thing you're not a real chef then."

He turned around, visibly offended. "What did you just say?"

You opened your mouth to repeat it — and then Garrett wandered in from the living room, grabbed an apple from the counter, looked at Tucker's side of the kitchen and then at yours, and pointed at you. "She's doing all the work," he said, to no one in particular, and wandered back out.

"He's right," you said.

"He's a traitor," Tucker said.

You opened your mouth to agree and then the sound of footsteps came down the hallway, and Dean came around the corner fresh out of the shower, towel low on his hips and water still tracking down his chest.

You sniffed, eyes watering, nose red.

Dean stopped. Looked at you. And then let out a slow, deeply entertained laugh.

"Well," he said, "I've heard a lot of reactions from girls seeing me like this. But crying might be a first." He tilted his head. "You alright there, sweet pea?"

"It's the onion," you said flatly. "Tucker's making me cut it."

"Sure." He was already turning toward the stairs, completely unbothered. "Whatever floats your boat."

He winked at you over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.

You looked back down at the onion.

Tucker was very pointedly not looking at you.

"Not a word," you said.

"I didn't say anything," he said, in the tone of someone who was saying everything.

The party invitation from Tucker arrived as a single text on a Thursday night.

party saturday, be here, i made a playlist

You were in the middle of your readings and you looked at the message for a moment before typing back: do I need to bring anything?

yourself and good energy

You put your phone face down and went back to your reading. Then picked it up again.

what time

nine but come at eight so we can hang before it gets loud

That was Tucker's way of saying he wanted to cook with you beforehand, which you appreciated more than you would ever tell him out loud because he would absolutely use it against you. You sent back a thumbs up and returned to your notes, and you did not think about the fact that Dean would be there, because that was not a relevant consideration.

You thought about it the entire rest of the week.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet, persistent way of something you kept putting down and finding in your hand again. You were honest with yourself about Dean, had been from the beginning. You knew what he was. Charming in a way that looked effortless because it mostly was, easy with people, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. You'd watched him for almost a year. You knew the way he talked to people, the way he leaned in when something was funny, the way he'd come into the kitchen sometimes when you were there and open the fridge and just stand there for a full thirty seconds like the answer to whatever he was looking for might eventually appear.

You knew that he'd noticed you too. That wasn't ego, just observation. The way his eyes would find you first when he walked into a room where you already were. The way he'd aim a comment at you specifically when he had a whole group to choose from. The way he'd said I've heard a lot of reactions like your reaction was the one that mattered.

You'd been sensible about it for a year. You'd made the choice, every single time, to not do anything about it. And you were fine. You were genuinely fine with that. You knew what Dean was, knew what it would be, and you'd decided the math didn't work out in your favor so you'd left it alone.

It was just that sometimes, quietly, in the back of your head, a voice said but what if you didn't.

You got dressed Saturday night and told that voice to shut up, and went to the party anyway.

Tucker met you at the door at eight on the dot, already in a good mood, which meant either the playlist was really good or he'd already had a drink.

"You look great," he said, holding the door open.

"You say that every time."

"Because it's true every time." He handed you a beer from the counter as you came into the kitchen, already comfortable, already home in the easy way the house had started to feel over the past year. "I was thinking we do something with the leftover rice from yesterday, I got peppers —"

"Tucker."

"What."

"We're not cooking. There are already people here."

He looked genuinely confused. "So?"

You took the beer from him and looked around the kitchen. Logan was leaning against the far counter talking to someone from the team, and Garrett was already in the living room, and the house had that particular pre-party hum to it, not yet loud, still settling into itself.

Dean wasn't in the kitchen.

You noted this the way you noted a lot of things quietly, without making anything of it.

Logan glanced over when Tucker handed you the beer. "You're here early."

"She's basically a resident," Tucker said, like this was a fact.

"I'm a guest," you said.

"Guests don't know where we keep the good knives," Logan said and winked, and went back to his conversation.

You spent the next hour in that easy pre-party mode, moving between the kitchen and the living room, talking to people you knew by name now, accepting a second drink from someone who was mixing them near the back. Tucker orbited you loosely the way he always did at these things, appearing at your elbow every twenty minutes or so to say something that made you laugh and then disappearing again. This was one of your favorite things about him, he was never clingy, never needed to keep you close, just checked in like punctuation.

Dean appeared sometime around ten.

He came down the stairs and into the living room and you saw him before he saw you, which felt important. He was wearing a dark green shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he had that easy unhurried way of moving through a room like it had already arranged itself around him. He said something to Garrett near the bottom of the stairs and laughed, and you looked away before he could look up.

So. He was here. That was fine. That was completely normal and fine.

You went to find Tucker.

The next hour you spent being very deliberate about not being obvious. You talked to people on the back porch when Dean was in the living room. You came inside when he drifted toward the kitchen. You were not proud of it exactly, but you were not going to stand around waiting for him to decide whether tonight was a night he felt like paying attention to you. You'd done a lot of things in your life. That was not going to be one of them.

Your friend Anna, a sorority sister, texted at eleven: how's the party

You typed back: fine. dean's here.

Three seconds.

oh. OH. okay. call me tomorrow.

maybe

that means yes. don't do anything I wouldn't do

You locked your phone and put it in your pocket and thought about the specific, limited list of things Anna wouldn't do and found it unhelpfully short.

The thing was, and you'd been over this, you'd been reasonable about this, you knew what it would be. A night, maybe a few nights, comfortable and uncomplicated and then done. Dean DiLaurentis didn't do anything that looked like what came after. You'd watched him long enough to know that too. And you'd decided that wasn't what you wanted, so you'd kept your distance, and that had been the right call, and it remained the right call.

You were in college at a party on a Friday night and you had been sensible about this for almost an entire calendar year.

The voice in the back of your head said but you knew that going in and it doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to mean.

You told it to shut up.

It had a point though.

You refilled your drink. Stood near the back door where the air was a little cooler and the noise slightly less consuming. Watched the party happen around you. Thought, very clearly and deliberately: you know what it is. you've always known. that doesn't have to be the reason not to.

You were still working through the logic of that when you felt someone come to stand beside you.

"(Y/N). You've been avoiding me."

Dean. Not accusing, just observing, the same way he did most things, like he was simply noting a fact about the universe. He had a drink in one hand and he wasn't looking at you yet, eyes scanning the room like he'd just happened to end up here beside you, which you both understood wasn't true.

"I've been talking to people," you said.

"You've been talking to people on the opposite side of every room I was in."

"Maybe I just like that side of the room."

He looked at you then. Really looked, in that direct way of his that felt like being assessed and appreciated at the same time. The music was loud enough that the conversation existed in its own small space, just between you.

"You've been doing that for a year," he said.

"Has it been a year?" You kept your voice light.

"Almost." He took a drink. "I've been patient."

The word landed simply, without performance. Patient. Like he'd been waiting. Like the last year had been something he'd noticed too, kept track of, decided to let run its course.

You looked at him for a long moment. The party moved around you, loud and warm, and you stood in it and made the decision clearly, with both eyes open, which felt like the important part.

"Bathroom's upstairs," you said.

Something shifted in his expression, not surprise, just confirmation. Like he'd known, and now he knew for certain.

"Yeah," he said.

He followed you up the stairs without touching you, which felt somehow more loaded than if he had. You could feel him behind you the whole way, that particular awareness of someone close, and by the time you reached the top of the stairs your heart was doing something inconvenient.

The upstairs bathroom was at the end of the hall. You went in, he came in behind you, and you turned to click the lock and found him already there, close enough that turning around put you nearly chest to chest with him, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him before he'd laid a hand on you.

He didn't kiss you right away.

That was the first thing. You'd expected him to, he'd been patient for a year, you'd just told him where the bathroom was, you'd expected him to close the distance immediately. Instead he just looked at you, and the looking was its own thing, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time now that he finally had you here and he wanted you to know it.

"You made me wait a long time," he said.

"You could have said something sooner," you said.

"I said something tonight."

"Barely."

Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, more like he'd just decided something. He reached up slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers grazing your jaw, and the touch was so light it was almost nothing, which somehow made it worse.

"You're going to be like that," he said. Quiet. Certain.

"I don't know what you mean," you said, which was a lie and you both knew it.

He tilted your chin up with two fingers, not roughly, just — directing. Making you look at him. "Yeah you do," he said, and then he kissed you.

It wasn't tentative. It was a kiss from someone who had thought about this specifically, who knew what he wanted and had decided tonight was when he was going to have it, and you kissed him back and felt a year's worth of deliberate distance dissolve somewhere at the back of your mind.

He walked you backward until your hips met the bathroom counter and left you there, stepped back just enough to look at you again with that same unhurried attention, and you understood then that he wasn't in a hurry. That he'd waited this long and now he was going to enjoy it, and you were going to have to let him.

"Take your jacket off," he said.

You did.

He watched you do it. That was all — just watched, arms loosely crossed, completely at ease, like this was exactly where he'd planned to be tonight. You set the jacket on the counter and looked at him and he looked back.

"Good," he said, like that meant something.

Your heart was doing the inconvenient thing again.

He came back to you slowly, hands finding your waist, and kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding into your hair and gripping, not painfully, just holding you exactly where he wanted you. You made a small sound against his mouth and felt him smile.

"There it is," he murmured.

"Shut up," you said.

"Make me," he said against your jaw, and then his mouth was on your throat and the option to respond coherently became briefly unavailable.

He took his time with your throat, your collarbone, the soft place below your ear that made your fingers curl into his shirt without your permission, and every time you moved to pull him closer he'd ease back just enough to remind you that he was running this. Not mean about it. Just clear.

"Dean —"

"I've got you," he said, against your skin. "I'm not going anywhere."

His hands moved to the hem of your top, pulling it up slowly, and he stepped back to pull it over your head and dropped it somewhere on the floor and looked at you again with that particular focus, and you had to actively resist the urge to cover yourself, because that was not what you did, but the way he was looking at you made you feel like you were already coming apart.

"You have no idea," he said quietly, more to himself than you, and then his mouth was on your collarbone and his hands were at your waist and you gave up on dignity entirely.

His hands moved to the button of your jeans, unhurried, and he looked up at you first — not asking exactly, just checking — and you nodded and he undid it and crouched down to pull the fabric down your legs with a thoroughness that felt like a point being made. He looked up at you from there, and whatever was on your face made him look deeply, quietly satisfied.

"You've been thinking about this," he said. Not a question.

"Don't," you said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't be smug about it."

"I'm not being smug." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, which short-circuited something. "I'm just paying attention."

He stood back up slowly, hands trailing up the outside of your thighs, and lifted you onto the counter like it was nothing, stepping between your knees. You pulled him back in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him harder than you'd meant to and he made a low sound and kissed you back the same way, one hand flat against the small of your back pulling you closer.

"Tell me what you want," he said, against your mouth.

"You know what I want."

"I want to hear you say it."

You pulled back and looked at him. He looked back, completely unbothered, and you understood that he meant it, that he was going to stand here all night if he had to, patient as anything, until you said it out loud.

"Dean."

"I'm right here," he said pleasantly.

"You're so —"

"Tell me."

You told him.

"Please"

The expression that crossed his face was worth it. He kissed you once, hard, like a reward, and said good against your mouth, and then his hand moved and all the words you'd been planning to say next went somewhere inaccessible.

He knew what he was doing in a way that felt almost unfair, thorough, attentive, like he'd already decided exactly how this was going to go and was now simply executing. When you tried to rush it he slowed down. When you made a sound he filed it away and came back to it. The tile was cold at your back and his hands were warm on your thighs and his mouth was at your cunt and the things he said there were quiet and precise and designed specifically to ruin you.

"You've been driving me crazy," he said. Low, unhurried. "All year. You know that."

"Dean —"

"Every time you walked into a room." His hand didn't stop. "Every time you looked at Tucker instead of me. Every single time."

"That's your fault," you managed.

"I know," he said. "I know it is." Something almost rueful in it. "Doesn't change the fact."

When you finally came it was with your head hitting the mirror behind you and holding his shoulder and his name somewhere in the middle of it, and he stayed with you through the whole thing, unhurried, like he had nothing else in the world to do.

He gave you a moment. Then he pulled back and looked at you with an expression that you could only describe as thoroughly pleased with himself, which should have been annoying and wasn't.

"Don't," you said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was going to ask if you were okay," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed, and the laugh broke something open in the room, and he grinned, a real one, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen before, and kissed you again before it could turn into a whole thing.

You worked his belt with hands that weren't entirely steady and he helped without comment, and then his hands were at your hips and he pressed his forehead to yours for just a second.

You watched him look for a condom on his backpocket.

"Yeah?" he said quietly. All the performance gone.

"Yeah," you said.

He pushed into you slow and you exhaled against his jaw, fingers gripping his shoulders, adjusting to the feeling of him. He gave you a moment, forehead still to yours, patient, present, and then he moved and everything else became temporarily beside the point.

It was charged the way it only gets when two people have been waiting too long. Not frantic but urgent, with a focused intensity that felt like something being resolved. His grip was firm and deliberate and you pulled him closer when he slowed down and he got the message and didn't slow down again. The mirror was fogging and somewhere below you the party was still happening and it was completely irrelevant.

"Look at me," he said.

You did. He held your gaze and something passed between you that neither of you named, and you felt it in your chest more than anywhere else.

"Months," he said again. Quieter now.

"I know," you said. "I know."

When he came he buried his face in your neck and went quiet and still, one hand flat against the small of your back holding you against him, and you held onto him too because it seemed like the thing to do, and because you wanted to, and those were the same thing tonight.

You stayed like that for a moment longer than necessary.

Then you both exhaled at roughly the same time, which broke the tension, and Dean huffed a quiet laugh into your shoulder.

You untangled carefully, straightened yourselves out. You hopped off the counter and turned to the mirror, fixing your hair, smoothing your top back into place. He leaned against the wall watching you do it, arms crossed loosely, shirt back on. His hair was a mess and he didn't appear concerned about it.

You met his eyes in the mirror.

"This doesn't have to be a thing," you said. Even, matter of fact. Not cold, just clear. You were giving him an out because you'd rather give it than have him feel like he needed to take it badly.

Something moved across his face. He pushed off the wall slightly. "What if I want it to be a thing?"

You turned around. "What kind of thing?"

He held your gaze. Didn't answer right away, which was an answer, and you'd known it would be, you'd known before you came upstairs, and still it took a small quiet moment to settle.

"Right," you said simply.

Not angry. Not hurt, or at least not visibly. You'd gone in with both eyes open and you'd meant it, and the math was what you'd always known it was. That was fine. You were fine.

You unlocked the door.

"Hey," Dean said.

You looked back.

He opened his mouth, closed it. Something in his expression that you couldn't entirely read. "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind."

You nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.

Downstairs, the party had peaked without you. The music was louder and the living room was full and Tucker was in the kitchen, which is where Tucker always ended up at some point. He took one look at your face when you appeared in the doorway and turned to open the fridge and produced a beer, which he held out without a word.

You took it.

"Having fun?" he asked, very casually, eyes on the fridge.

"Yeah," you said. "Party's good."

"Cool." He closed the fridge. "I made queso."

"Tucker."

"It's in the pot on the back burner."

You looked at him for a second. He looked back, perfectly neutral, perfectly unbothered, and completely full of information he was choosing not to say.

"Thank you," you said.

"Don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation."

You laughed despite yourself, and some of the tightness in your chest loosened, just a little.

Tucker handed you a chip.

You both stood at the stove and ate queso and said nothing about any of it, and that was, genuinely, one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a while.

Dean came downstairs eleven minutes later, you weren't counting, you just noticed, and grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter across from you, and the three of you stood in that kitchen like nothing had happened at all.

Dean looked at the pot on the stove. "Is that queso?"

"Made it myself," Tucker said.

"You absolutely did not."

Tucker looked at you. You said nothing, scooping queso onto another chip. Dean's eyes moved between you both and landed on you with something unreadable in them.

"Can I have some?" he asked.

"It's your house," you said.

He got a chip. Ate it. Looked at the pot. "That's really good."

"I know," you said.

Tucker stared directly at the wall and smiled at absolutely nothing.

It didn't have a name. That was the thing , it never got one, and neither of you tried to give it one, and somehow that made it easier to just let it exist.

It started simply enough. A week after the party, Dean texted you at eleven on a Tuesday night. Just: you up?

The second text was a trailer link. No context, no explanation, just: this.

You watched it once. Typed back: that looks pretentious.

i know. yes or no.

fine.

The house was quiet when you got there , Garrett's door closed, Tucker apparently out, and Dean was on the couch with a beer and the energy of someone who had been waiting without admitting to waiting.

You sat in the middle of the couch.

He pulled up the movie without comment.

It was pretentious and it was also actually good, and you told him so twenty minutes in when he glanced over to see what you thought. He said told you without looking back at the screen. You said you said it looked pretentious, which is not the same as saying it wasn't good. He said that's a very specific distinction. You said I'm a specific person. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then said: yeah.

Somewhere around the third act the distance between you closed. You weren't sure who moved, maybe both of you, gradually. His arm along the back of the couch and your shoulder under it and neither of you addressed it.

The movie ended and neither of you moved.

He found something else. A documentary, shorter, that turned out to be genuinely interesting. You watched most of it. Somewhere in the second half you were closer still his arm properly around you now, your feet tucked up beside you — and the lamp in the corner was the only light, and in here it was warm, and you were paying attention to about thirty percent of the documentary.

You woke up at two in the morning with a blanket over you that hadn't been there before. Dean was asleep at the other end of the couch, head back, completely unconscious. The TV was still on. You looked at him in the blue light of the screensaver, the line of his jaw, the stillness of someone actually asleep and felt the quiet weight of something you were not going to examine.

Then you got up, folded the blanket, left it on the cushion, and walked home.

You didn't text him about it. He didn't text you about it. Two days later he sent: you around tonight? and you said depends and he said on what and you said what's the plan and he said no plan and you said okay.

That was how it started.

By November it had a shape, even if it didn't have a name.

You came over two or three times a week. Sometimes it was a movie, sometimes it was just you in the kitchen making something with whatever was in the fridge while Dean sat at the counter with his phone and ate everything you put in front of him without comment except occasionally this is really good in a tone that suggested he was a little annoyed about it. Sometimes the whole house was there, Tucker loud and cheerful, Garrett and Logan drifting in and out, the TV on in the background and sometimes it was just the two of you and the house was quiet and those evenings had a quality to them that you tried not to examine too closely.

He texted you things that weren't questions. A link to an article about something you'd both argued about in passing. A photo of a sunset he'd apparently seen from the library roof, no caption. A voice memo once, at midnight, that was just him reading something in the flat unimpressed tone he used when something was genuinely getting on his nerves — listen to this, the message said, and you did, and you laughed, and he sent back a single: right?

You sent him things back. A recipe you thought he'd actually like. A clip of something that reminded you of a conversation you'd had. He always answered. Not immediately, not performatively, just he answered.

Garrett had noticed, in his way. He'd stopped doing double-takes when you were in the kitchen on a Tuesday night, had started just saying hey and opening the fridge like your presence was a given. Logan was less subtle, he'd caught your eye once across the living room when Dean laughed at something you'd said, and raised an eyebrow, and you'd looked away and he'd had the decency not to push it.

You talked to Anna about it on a Sunday afternoon in November, feet up on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she did her readings across from you.

"So it's a situationship," she said, not looking up.

"I didn't say that."

"You described a situationship."

"I described two people who spend time together."

"With benefits."

"Occasionally."

She finally looked up. "How often is occasionally?"

You said nothing.

"That's what I thought." She went back to her reading. "Are you okay with it?"

You thought about it honestly, the way you tried to think about most things. "Yeah," you said. "I went in knowing what it was."

"That's not what I asked."

You looked at the ceiling. "I'm fine," you said. "It's fine. I know what it is."

Anna made a small noncommittal sound that you chose not to interpret.

The physical part of it was easy in a way you hadn't entirely expected. Comfortable in a way that felt like it should have taken longer to get to. He knew what you liked with an attentiveness that might have been alarming if you'd let yourself think about it, and you knew what worked for him, and there was none of the awkwardness of newness anymore.

The only thing you were consistent about was the condom. Every time, without exception. Until one night in late November when Dean caught your wrist gently before you could reach for the nightstand.

"Why do you always —" He stopped. Nodded toward it. "Every time."

"Because I'm not stupid," you said. "You were getting around a lot before this and I don't know what this is and I'm not asking but I'm also not —"

"I haven't," he said. "Since the party. I haven't slept with anyone else."

The room went quiet.

"Oh," you said. A beat. "Me neither."

Something moved across his face that he didn't entirely manage to control. His thumb traced a slow absent line against the inside of your wrist.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"Okay," you said.

The air in the room changed into something neither of you was going to name. Then he kissed you, and it was different, slower, more careful, like something had been confirmed that he hadn't known he was waiting to confirm, and you let yourself feel it without examining it too closely, because that felt fair.

The first sign was the texts.

Not that they stopped completely, that would have been obvious, and Dean was too smart for obvious. They just slowed. A reply that came four hours later instead of forty minutes. A shorter answer where there used to be a real one. The voice memos stopped. The links stopped. You'd send something and get back a single word where there used to be a sentence, and you'd look at it and feel the shape of what was happening without being able to name it yet.

You told yourself it was school. Exams were coming, everyone was disappearing into the library, that was normal. You told yourself he was busy, stressed, in his head about the end of semester and the hockey team. You were busy too. You had your own readings, your own papers, your own life that existed completely separately from the off campus house and always had.

You kept coming over. Tucker needed someone to watch the game with and you'd promised him a recipe you'd been meaning to show him and you were not going to rearrange your life over a shift in text frequency.

But you noticed.

You noticed the way Dean would come into the kitchen when you were there and open the fridge and not look at you the way he used to. Not hostile, just absent. Like you were furniture. Like the awareness he'd always had of you in a room had been switched off at a source you couldn't locate. He ate the food you made without commenting on it. He answered direct questions. He didn't start anything.

You didn't push. That wasn't who you were.

But by the second week of December you were lying in your room at night doing the math and the math was not coming out well, and you were tired of pretending it wasn't.

You went over on a Thursday.

Tucker was at a class. You'd known that, you'd checked, because you wanted the house quiet, because you wanted five minutes of honesty without an audience. Garrett's truck wasn't in the driveway either. You knocked on Dean's door and he opened it in sweats and a Briar hoodie, textbook open on his desk, and the look on his face when he saw you was almost nothing, which was its own answer.

"Hey," you said.

"Hey." He stepped back to let you in, which you took as an invitation, and you came in and stood in the middle of his room and he closed the door and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Not aggressive. Just closed.

You looked at him for a moment.

"What's going on with you?" you asked. Quiet, direct. No accusation in it, just the question.

He shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. Finals."

"Okay," you said. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

A beat. Something moved behind his eyes and then went still.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he said.

"I want you to say what's actually happening."

He looked at you. Then he looked away, jaw tightening slightly, and you recognized the particular quality of someone deciding something, not discovering it, deciding it, and some quiet part of you braced.

"I think this has run its course," he said. Flat. Careful.

You kept your face even. "Okay. What does that mean."

"It means —" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want this anymore. Whatever this is. I don't want it."

"Okay," you said.

He looked at you, and something in your steadiness seemed to irritate him, which you hadn't expected, and that was maybe the thing that cracked something open in him that should have stayed closed.

"I don't know what you thought this was," he said, and his voice had an edge now, "but it wasn't — I wasn't —" He made a short, almost contemptuous gesture. "You've been coming over here for months like you live here. Cooking, watching movies, acting like this is some kind of —"

"I never called it anything," you said.

"No, but you acted like it was something. You act like everything is fine and nothing bothers you and you're so —" He stopped, and the word he landed on was quiet and precise and clearly chosen to land: "You're so comfortable here. Like you belong here. And you don't."

The room was very quiet.

You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the moment he heard what he'd just said, saw something flicker across his face that might have been regret but came too late to matter.

"You're right," you said. Your voice was completely level. "I don't."

He opened his mouth.

"I'm not going to make this into something," you said. "You don't want it, that's fine. I went in knowing what it was." You picked up your jacket from where you'd set it on the edge of his bed. "I hope finals go okay."

"Hey —"

"Good night, Dean."

You left. You closed the door behind you, not hard, just closed, and you walked down the stairs and through the front door and out into the December cold and you kept your shoulders straight the whole way home.

You didn't cry until you were in your own room with the door locked, and even then it wasn't for very long, because you'd known, you'd always known, and knowing didn't make it nothing but it made it survivable.

You texted Anna: you were right.

She called immediately. You let it ring twice, then picked up.

"I'm okay," you said, before she could ask.

"I know you are," she said. "Tell me anyway."

The hard part came later, at midnight.

You were lying in bed and you saw a link, a restaurant that had just opened, a tasting menu you'd been meaning to mention and you had his name pulled up in your contacts before you caught yourself. Thumb over send. The restaurant unremarkable and the gesture everything.

You put your phone face down on the mattress and looked at the ceiling for a while.

You'd known. You'd always known. That didn't make it nothing. It made it survivable, which was what you'd agreed to, and you were keeping that agreement.

The next afternoon you went to the off campus house.

Not because of Dean. Tucker had texted you at noon — i made something and i think i made it wrong, come look at it — and you'd said what did you make and he'd sent a photo that made you genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and you'd said I'm coming over because that was what you did.

You showed up at three in the afternoon in your good boots and your coat, hair done, bag over your shoulder, because you had a study session after and you were not rearranging your life. You walked into the kitchen and Tucker was standing over something on the stove that smelled questionable and turned around with the expression of a man who needed saving.

"What is that," you said.

"I was trying to do the thing you showed me with the —"

"Tucker."

"I know."

You put your bag down and took your coat off and hung it over the stool and rolled up your sleeves and looked at whatever was happening in the pot, and Tucker stood next to you like a man watching a surgeon assess a patient.

"It's salvageable," you said.

He exhaled. "I knew it."

"Get me the garlic."

You cooked. Tucker hovered and passed things when you asked and made commentary that you ignored selectively and the kitchen filled up with something that smelled the way the kitchen was supposed to smell, and it was normal. It was completely normal. You were fine.

Logan came through at some point, stopped in the doorway, looked at the pot. "That smells good." Then he looked at Tucker. "Did you make that?"

"We're collaborating," Tucker said.

Logan looked at you. You said nothing. He grabbed a water from the fridge and left, which was exactly the right thing to do.

Dean came downstairs at some point, and you heard him stop at the bottom of the stairs, and you stirred the pot and didn't turn around.

"Hey," Tucker said, in the careful voice of someone being very casual.

"Hey." Dean's voice from the doorway. A pause. "What are you making?"

"She's fixing what I made," Tucker said.

You felt Dean's eyes on your back. You reached past the stove for the spice rack.

"Smells good," Dean said.

You said nothing. Not pointedly — just nothing. Tucker handed you the paprika.

Dean didn't leave. You could feel him still standing there, which told you something you set aside for later. You plated what you'd made, put Tucker's portion in front of him, put the extra in a container that you labeled with a piece of tape and a marker the way you always did, and started washing the pan.

"There's extra," Tucker said, to the room.

"I can see that," Dean said.

Tucker ate a bite. Made a sound of profound relief. "You're genuinely talented, you know that?"

"I know," you said, drying the pan.

You stayed another forty minutes, finishing your tea, going over the recipe with Tucker so he could try again, answering a text from Anna. Normal. Easy. The house the same as it had always been, Tucker the same as he'd always been, you the same as you'd always been.

When you left you said, "Bye Tuck, don't touch the leftovers until tomorrow, they're better the next day."

"Noted," Tucker said.

You pulled on your coat. Picked up your bag. "Later," you said, generally, to the room, and you walked out.

Dean stood in the kitchen after the front door closed.

Tucker was eating. Not looking at him. The kitchen smelled incredible and there was a labeled container in the fridge and the pan you'd used was clean and back on the rack like you'd never been there.

"She labeled it," Dean said.

"She always labels it," Tucker said.

Dean looked at the fridge. "For who."

"I don't know, Dean." Tucker turned a page in whatever he was reading. "Whoever wants it, I guess."

He couldn't focus in class the next morning.

The professor was talking and Dean had his laptop open and his notes half-started and none of it was going in because he kept coming back to the same thing, the same image, which was you standing at his stove with your back to him like nothing had happened.

Not performing like nothing had happened. Actually fine. The difference between those two things was something he understood logically and couldn't reconcile emotionally and it was making him insane.

He'd expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. Something. Some sign that what he'd said had mattered, that he had mattered, that the months of you being in his space and in his kitchen and in his bed and knowing how he took his coffee and showing up when Tucker texted you and falling asleep on his couch and leaving your chapstick on his nightstand —

You'd taken the chapstick. He'd noticed.

You'd taken it and labeled the leftovers and said later to the room and walked out and that was it, apparently. That was the whole thing. He'd said you don't belong here and you'd said you're right and you'd meant it, and that was the part he couldn't get past. You'd meant it not because you believed it but because you weren't going to fight him on it. Because you didn't need to.

You act like you belong here. And you don't.

He'd said that. He'd actually said that.

He stared at his laptop screen.

You'd been coming to that house since before he'd ever spoken a full sentence to you. Tucker's mom had called you, you'd shown up, you'd been folded into the house slowly and completely the way only people who actually fit somewhere ever are, Tucker texting you unprompted, Garrett knowing your coffee order, Logan moving over on the couch without being asked, and Dean had stood in his own room and told you that you didn't belong there and you'd looked at him like you were giving him the chance to hear what he was saying and he hadn't taken it and you'd left.

And then you'd come back the next day and cooked Tucker's disaster and labeled the leftovers and said later.

Later. Like you'd see them around. Like the house was still just a place you came to, unconnected to Dean, existing independently of whatever he'd decided.

Because it was. Because Tucker was your friend. Because you'd built something there that had nothing to do with Dean DiLaurentis and apparently had no intention of dismantling it on his account.

He wrote something down without reading it.

The thing was and this was the part that was sitting in his chest like something he couldn't shift, he'd ended it because it was getting too real. That was the honest answer, the one he hadn't said out loud to anyone including himself until approximately right now, which was not ideal timing. He'd felt it getting heavier and closer and more like something that had a name and he'd panicked, and when Dean DiLaurentis panicked he went cold, and when he went cold long enough he said things he couldn't take back.

You don't belong here.

He closed his laptop. Opened it again.

You hadn't fought for it. He'd said something genuinely cruel and you'd said you're right and you'd left, and the version of events he'd been running in his head where you'd be upset, where you'd pull back from the house, where he'd see the evidence of having mattered somewhere in your behavior, none of that had happened. You'd come back with your boots and your coat and your labeled container and your later and you were fine.

He was not fine.

That felt deeply, profoundly unfair, and he was self-aware enough to recognize that he had no one to blame for it but himself, which made it worse.

Wait, said something in the back of his head, quiet and inconvenient.

He picked up his pen. Put it down.

Wait.

He didn't finish the thought. He stared at his notes until they stopped meaning anything, and outside the window the Briar campus went on being cold and grey and completely indifferent to the fact that Dean DiLaurentis was sitting in class slowly understanding something he wasn't ready to understand yet.

The problem with ending things, Dean was discovering, was that it only worked if the other person let it end.

You hadn't made a scene. Hadn't texted him anything he had to respond to, hadn't shown up at his door, hadn't done a single thing that gave him something to push against. You'd just continued. Existing in the house, in the kitchen, in Tucker's orbit, completely unchanged, like Dean's opinion of the situation was one data point you'd received and filed appropriately and moved on from.

He ate everything you made. That was the humiliating part. Every single time you left something in the fridge he ate it, sometimes within the hour, standing at the counter in the kitchen alone like some kind of punishment he was administering to himself. Tucker never commented on this. Tucker never commented on anything, which was its own form of commentary.

You'd left soup once. Labeled, like always — back burner, twenty minutes, don't let Tucker have more than one bowl he'll eat the whole thing. Dean had read the label four times. Eaten two bowls. Stood at the sink washing the pot afterward feeling like a man losing an argument he wasn't allowed to be having.

Garrett had found him standing there once, staring at nothing, and said "you good?" and Dean had said "yeah" and Garrett had looked at the labeled container still on the counter and said nothing further, which somehow made it worse.

He started noticing everything.

The way you'd laugh at something on your phone and not share it with the room, just smile to yourself and put it face down. The way you always took your shoes off at the door and lined them up neatly to the left, always the left, and he'd started checking for them when he came downstairs, the presence or absence of your boots telling him things about the afternoon before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. The way you said Tucker's name — comfortable, fond, like a shorthand — and the way you had, at some point, stopped saying Dean's name at all. Not pointedly. Just it didn't come up. He wasn't who you were talking to.

He'd done that. He understood that he'd done that.

He just hadn't understood what it would feel like to have done it.

He tried, for a while, to be reasonable about it.

He made a list, mentally, of all the reasons this was fine. He didn't do relationships. He'd never done relationships. He had a plan for his life that had been in place since he was sixteen, and that plan had no room in it for whatever you were. Whatever you'd been. The comfortable weight of your presence, the evenings when you were in the house versus evenings when you weren't, the way he'd started coming across things during the week and thinking you'd have something to say about this —

That was the problem right there. That was the thing he kept running into.

He'd been having conversations with you in his head for weeks. Full conversations, with your actual responses, because he knew how you thought well enough to fill both sides, and that was, that was not the behavior of someone who was fine.

He talked to Garrett on a Tuesday night, which he never did, and talked around the subject for twenty minutes before Garrett said, flatly: "Just tell me what she did."

"She didn't do anything," Dean said.

A pause. "Then tell me what you did."

Dean stared at his ceiling. "I ended it."

"And?"

"And she's fine."

"That's it? She's fine and you are like this?"

"She's too fine," Dean said, and hated how that sounded.

Garrett was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dean."

"What."

"You absolute idiot."

January settled over Briar cold and grey and Dean settled into a particular kind of misery that he was too proud to name properly. He went to class. He did his readings. He played well enough at practice that Coach didn't get on him, which required more effort than it should have because his head was not where it was supposed to be.

You came over on Saturdays, usually. Sometimes Thursdays. Tucker had apparently taken to texting you about things that had nothing to do with cooking, Dean had seen the thread once, accidentally, and it was just the two of you sending each other increasingly unhinged videos with no context, a friendship that existed completely on its own terms, owed nothing to Dean, and was apparently thriving.

Logan had said, once, carefully, over breakfast: "She was here yesterday."

"I know," Dean said.

Logan looked at him. "Just saying."

"I know," Dean said again.

Logan went back to his cereal and didn't push it, which was the right call, and Dean appreciated it and resented it in equal measure.

He watched you from across rooms and told himself he wasn't doing that.

You never looked uncomfortable. That was the thing that was going to actually kill him. You'd come in, take your boots off, left side of the door, say hey to whoever was around, drift toward the kitchen with the ease of someone in a place they belonged, and it would be normal. Warm. Real. And Dean would be somewhere in the same house eating himself alive and you would be completely, genuinely fine.

He thought about the things he'd said. You act like you belong here. And you don't.

He thought about those words with a frequency that was becoming a problem.

It was a random Wednesday in late January.

Dean came home from a late class tired and cold and in the specific bad mood that came from hours with a professor who seemed to find his suffering amusing. The house was lit up when he got there, which meant people were home, and he could hear voices from the kitchen before he'd gotten his coat off.

Tucker's laugh. And then yours.

He stood in the hallway for a second with his coat half off.

"—absolutely not, that's not how that works—" Tucker, indignant.

"I'm telling you, Tucker, I watched you do it, that's exactly how you did it—"

"I was recovering, there's a difference—"

"There is no difference, the result was the same—"

Tucker said something Dean didn't catch and you laughed, full and real, the kind of laugh that meant you'd actually been caught off guard by it, and the sound of it hit Dean somewhere undefended and just stayed there.

He finished taking his coat off. Hung it up. Walked to the kitchen doorway.

You were at the island, Tucker leaning on his elbows across from you, some kind of card game between you that Dean didn't recognize. You had a mug of something and your hair was down and you were still smiling from whatever Tucker had just said, and Tucker was looking at you with the expression of someone who had won a point. Garrett was on the couch in the next room, feet up, barely paying attention, the way Garrett existed in the house like ambient weather.

"Dean," Tucker said. "Tell her that recovering from a bad move is a valid strategy."

"Depends on the move," Dean said, automatically.

"See," Tucker said to you.

"That's not what he said," you said, and glanced at Dean briefly,not long, not loaded, just a glance, the kind you'd give anyone and looked back at Tucker. "Your move."

Dean got a glass of water. Stood at the counter. The card game continued. Tucker accused you of cheating, you denied it with the specific serenity of someone who was absolutely cheating, Dean watched and said nothing and felt the sensation of standing outside something warm.

An hour later you started putting your coat on.

"Okay," you said, gathering your things. "Tucker. Rematch Thursday."

"Thursday," Tucker confirmed. "I'll win."

"You won't." You pulled your bag onto your shoulder. Looked at Tucker with something genuine and warm. "Bye, Tuck."

"Bye." Tucker was already looking back at his phone.

"Later, Garrett," you called toward the living room.

"Later," Garrett called back, not looking up.

You walked toward the door. Past Dean, close enough that he could have said something, close enough that the window was right there, and he stood at the counter with his glass of water and said nothing, and you pulled the door open and walked out, and the door closed, and that was it.

Tucker looked up from his phone.

The two of them sat in the quiet kitchen, the card game still spread out on the island, your mug still on the counter.

"She forgot her mug," Dean said.

"She'll get it Thursday," Tucker said.

Dean put his glass down. Picked it back up.

"She said bye to you first," he said.

Tucker looked at him for a long moment. Set his phone down. "Yeah," he said. "She did."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"Tucker —"

"I'm not doing this, Dean."

"I'm not asking you to do anything."

"Good." Tucker picked his phone back up. "Because I really, genuinely, am not getting involved."

From the living room, Garrett said nothing, which meant he was listening to every word.

Dean looked at the door.

"She left her mug," he said again, quieter, to no one in particular.

Tucker said nothing. Which was, as always, its own kind of answer.

He lasted four days.

Four days of your mug on the counter — Tucker had washed it and left it there — four days of picking up his phone and putting it down, four days of being a reasonable adult who had made a decision and was living with it, and then on Sunday night at eleven p.m. he put on his shoes and his coat and walked across campus to the Kappa house like a man who had exhausted every other option.

He stood outside in the cold and looked up at the second floor windows and felt genuinely insane.

He found a handful of small rocks from the landscaping border. Looked at them. Looked up at the windows.

He threw one.

It hit the wrong window. A light came on and someone looked out — not you, someone he didn't recognize — and he stepped back into the shadow of the tree until the light went off again.

He tried the next window. Nothing. The one after that.

The window opened.

You leaned out, hair messy, clearly pulled from sleep or close to it, and looked down at him in the dark with an expression that moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief. Before settling on something that was almost exasperated and almost amused and fully of course.

"Dean," you said, not loud. "What are you doing."

"I need to talk to you."

"It's eleven o'clock."

"I know. You weren't answering my texts."

You stared at him. "You texted me twenty minutes ago."

"You didn't answer."

"I was asleep."

"Can I come up?"

The expression on your face did something complicated. "You want to climb the sorority house."

"There's a trellis."

You looked to the left, apparently confirming the existence of the trellis, then looked back down at him. "Dean."

"Five minutes," he said. "I just — five minutes. Then I'll go."

You looked at him for a long moment, and he stood in the cold and let you look, because he'd run out of ways to manage how this went. You could close the window. That was a real option and he'd accept it.

You didn't close the window.

"The trellis is on the left," you said. "Don't break anything."

He made it up without incident, which he felt was frankly more than he deserved. You'd stepped back from the window to let him climb through, and he came in trying not to knock anything over and stood in the middle of your room feeling the full absurdity of the situation settle over him.

Your room was small and warm. Books on every surface, a desk lamp on low, a quilt on the bed that looked like it had been in your family for a while. It smelled like you, something warm, something that had been living in the back of his brain for months without his permission.

You sat on the edge of your bed and looked at him with your arms loosely crossed, not hostile, just waiting. Giving him the floor.

"I need to say something," he said.

"Okay."

"And I need you to let me say it without — I need to actually get through it."

"I'm not stopping you," you said.

He looked at you. You looked back, and there was something in your expression: patient, steady, not giving him anything, and he understood suddenly that you were going to make him do this himself. All the way. No half measures.

He took a breath.

"I said things to you that I can't take back," he started. "That night in my room. And I knew when I said them that they weren't — I knew they weren't true. I said them because I was scared and I was trying to make you leave and I wanted it to work so I made it as —" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted you gone and I made sure you'd go and then you went and I've been —" He stopped again.

You waited.

"I've been losing my mind," he said. "For weeks. You keep coming over and cooking Tucker's food and laughing at his jokes and you left your mug on the counter and you said bye, Tuck and walked out like I wasn't standing right there and I —" He stopped. The words that needed to come next were the ones he'd been circling for weeks and he was done circling. "I'm in love with you."

The room was quiet.

"I'm in love with you," he said again, because it had come out steadier the second time and it was true and he was done with it living only in his head. "I have been for a while. I didn't know what to do with it so I — I did what I did. And I know that's not an excuse. I know what I said. But I needed you to know that it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you mattered too much and I didn't know how to —"

"Dean," you said.

He stopped.

You looked at him for a long moment. Something in your expression that was careful and real and not entirely closed.

"I know," you said quietly.

He blinked. "You —"

"I knew." You said it simply, without cruelty. "I've known for a while. I needed you to know it too." A pause. "And I needed you to say it. Out loud. To me. Without me making it easy for you."

He held your gaze. "Because you're not going to make it easy for me."

"No," you said. Not meanly. Just honestly. "I'm not."

He nodded slowly. That was fair. That was completely fair.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said. You don't belong here — I knew that wasn't true when I said it. That's the worst part. I knew and I said it anyway."

You looked at him. And he watched something in your expression shift, not all the way, but enough, a small careful opening.

"I know," you said again. Softer this time.

"Can we —" He stopped. Tried to find the right shape for the question. "Is there a way back from this. Is that something that exists."

You were quiet for a moment that felt very long.

"Come here," you said.

He crossed the room and you stood from the bed to meet him and he kissed you carefully, like he was asking, and you kissed him back like you were answering, and it was nothing like the first time and nothing like any of the times in between, because those had all been about desire and this was about something that didn't have the same kind of ceiling.

His hands came to your face, gentle, and you let him, and he kissed you like he was trying to say the things that words hadn't been sufficient for the weeks of watching you from across rooms, the soup, the mug, the way your boots on the left side of the door had started to feel like something he needed, all of it, moving through the kiss like it had somewhere to go now.

You pulled back after a moment and looked at him.

"Say it again," you said quietly. Not a test. Just you wanted to hear it again.

"I'm in love with you," he said, without hesitating.

You looked at him for one more second. Then you kissed him again and this time you meant it differently, your hands in his collar pulling him in, and the tenor of the whole thing shifted from careful to something warmer and more certain.

He walked you back to the bed gently, and you sat and pulled him down with you, and he went willingly, propping himself above you, and looked at you for a moment. Your hair on the pillow, your expression open in a way he hadn't been allowed to see in weeks.

"Hi," he said, quietly.

The corner of your mouth moved. "Hi."

He kissed you again, slower this time, and his hands moved over you with a deliberateness that was different from anything before not performing, not proving anything, just present. Your shirt came off and his followed, and he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, your shoulder, the soft curve of your throat, taking his time in the way of someone who wasn't going anywhere.

"Dean," you said softly, fingers in his hair.

"I know," he said, against your skin. "I've got you."

You exhaled like something releasing.

It was slow and close and almost unbearably tender, the kind of thing that didn't have anything to hide anymore. He was attentive in a way that felt different now not just knowing what worked but wanting you to feel it, wanting you to know he was there, all the way there, not halfway out the door. You made soft sounds against his jaw and pulled him closer and he went, and you moved together in the small warm room with the desk lamp still on low and neither of you suggested turning it off.

When you came it was quiet and deep and you said his name and he held you through it with his face pressed to your temple, and afterward he stayed close, closer than strictly necessary, and you didn't move away.

When he followed he was holding your hand, fingers laced, which hadn't been planned and was completely true, and you held on.

Afterward you lay in the small bed in the quiet and the lamp was still on.

Your head was on his chest. He had his arm around you. Neither of you had suggested otherwise.

"You really threw rocks at my window," you said, to the ceiling.

"Small rocks."

"You hit Anna's window first."

"She didn't see me."

"She definitely saw you." A pause. "She texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I had a 'nighttime visitor.'"

Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Great."

You laughed, quiet, against his chest, and he felt it more than heard it and thought: there it is. there's the thing I've been missing.

He pressed his mouth to your hair.

"For the record," he said, "you do belong there. In the house. That was — I need you to know that was the opposite of true."

You were quiet for a moment. "I know," you said. "I always knew."

"You're annoyingly self-possessed, you know that?"

"You've mentioned it."

"Not a complaint."

You tilted your head to look up at him. Something in your expression that was warm and a little careful still, not closed, just real. This was going to take time, he knew that. He'd put something between you that didn't disappear overnight and you weren't going to pretend it had, because you didn't do that.

"Tucker's going to be insufferable about this," you said.

Dean thought about Tucker, who had said absolutely nothing for weeks and washed your mug and left it on the counter. "He already knows," Dean said.

"He's known for months."

"I know."

"He texted me two weeks ago," you said, "and said 'just for the record I think he's an idiot.' I asked who and he said 'you know who.'"

Dean stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to kill him."

"You're not."

"No," he agreed. "I'm not."

A beat.

"Garrett's going to say I told you so," you said.

Dean closed his eyes. "Did he tell you so?"

"He texted me a single thumbs up the morning after the speech. No context."

"I'm going to kill Garrett too."

"You're really not."

"No," he said. "I'm really not."

You settled back against him and the room was quiet and warm and your hand was resting on his chest and outside the world was doing whatever the world was doing and in here it was just this, finally, with a name on it.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," you said.

The line between a harmless night out and total, unadulterated chaos was usually measured in fluid ounces.

When you had officially called time of death on your most recent casual fling earlier that afternoon, you had full intentions of handling the rejection like a mature, well-adjusted university student. You were going to go to your room, listen to a melancholy playlist, and perhaps treat yourself to a massive iced matcha. But a broken heart apparently did not care about rational blueprints. By the time the clock struck nine in the evening, your roommates had successfully dragged you to Blackout, the absolute loudest, most suffocatingly crowded basement bar near the Briar University campus.

The bass was rattling the cheap neon signs on the brick walls, the air smelled heavily of spilled vodka and sticky floors, and you were currently nursing your third glass of what the bartender called the house special juice. It was a neon pink concoction that tasted exactly like melted popsicles and pure octane, and it had completely erased your ability to make sound executive decisions.

A girl who knew her liquor was almost always a girl who had just been dumped. As you sat in a cramped booth while your friends tore up the crowded dance floor, you pulled your phone out of your pocket. The whole week had been brutal. You were entirely done sitting around waiting for a text back from a guy who couldn't commit, and a sudden, manic wave of liquid courage told you that it was time to find a distraction. You weren't trying to go to a club or wait for a party invitation. You were quite literally just drinking to call someone.

Your thumb hovered over your contact list, your vision doubling slightly as the pink juice did its work. Ain't nobody safe when you were a little bit drunk. It could be John, it could be Larry, gosh, who was to say? Or maybe you were feeling a little bit toxic, ready to scroll straight down to the names that caused a little bit of trouble.

You clicked on the first name that made your chest twist with a familiar, dangerous thrill: Dean Di Laurentis.

Your previous arrangement with Dean had been a masterclass in sharp wit and heavy friction, a whirlwind of late-night visits and intense soccer-style banter that had ended entirely because both of you were too stubborn to admit you were falling. You pressed the call button, leaning your head back against the sticky vinyl cushion of the booth, waiting.

"Hello?" Dean’s voice cut through the line after two rings, instantly sounding sharp, alert, and thoroughly suspicious. He was clearly sitting in his quiet off-campus house. "Why are you calling me at eleven on a Friday? Are you okay?"

"Deany," you cooed into the microphone, a giant, sloppy smile spreading across your face. "How have you been? What's up? I miss you and I think about you every single minute. Do you still love me?"

There was a long, stunned pause on the other end of the line, followed by the distinct sound of Dean sitting up fast in his bed, the sheets rustling loudly. "Are you slurring your words? Where the hell are you right now? It sounds like you're standing inside a jet engine."

"I am sipping on my go go juice, Dean, I cannot be blamed," you giggled, waving a hand in the air to an invisible audience. "Should we hook up? If you are still disinterested in me, well, whatever. I am just having some good old-fashioned fun to numb the pain."

"Give me your exact location right now," Dean demanded, his voice dropping into that lower, commanding register that usually made your knees weak. "I am coming to get you."

"No way, Deany!" you laughed, already scrolling through your contacts with a blurry thumb. "I am a free bird. Bye!"

Before he could protest, you hung up the phone and immediately tapped the next name that promised a beautiful distraction: Beau Maxwell. Beau was the star quarterback of the Briar football team, a towering force on the field who had been Dean's absolute best friend since their childhood days growing up together in Connecticut. He briefly turned your life upside down last semester with his easy, athletic charm and a fiercely protective streak that ran just as deep as his loyalty to Dean.

You pressed call, bouncing on the vinyl seat as the phone rang.

"What's going on?" Beau’s deep, confident voice echoed through the speaker, instantly recognizable. "Who is this?"

"Beau baby!" you cheered, leaning into the microphone with a conspiratorial whisper. "Answer me, baby, are you in town? I miss you. You're the best quarterback in the country, and I just think we should hook up again. What do you think?"

"Are you drunk?" Beau asked, his tone shifting instantly from relaxed to heavily alert. He could clearly hear the booming bass of the bar through the line. "Where are you? Who are you with?"

"I am at Blackout, sipping on the juice," you told him proudly. "But don't worry about it. I am just trying different numbers, didn't think that you'd pick up."

"Stay exactly where you are," Beau snapped, the sound of his car keys jingling loudly over the speaker as he clearly bolted out the door. "I am ten minutes away. I am coming to get you right now."

"Absolutely not!" you shouted cheerfully. "You guys are entirely too bossy."

A stroke of absolute drunk genius suddenly hit your brain. Instead of letting them come after you separately, you decided it was time for a masterclass in efficiency. You pulled the phone away from your face, hit the button to add a call, and successfully initiated a three-way group call, patching Dean directly back into the line with Beau.

"What is happening now?" Dean’s sharp voice cut back in, his tone instantly dropping into an icy, competitive register the second he recognized the line was active again. "Who else is on this call?"

"Di Laurentis?" Beau barked, his confusion instantly softening into an easy, synchronized understanding as he realized exactly who was on the line. "What are you doing on her phone? Is she with you?"

"No, she's at Blackout," Dean intercepted quickly, completely bypassing any hesitation. They both knew your history, and quite frankly, neither of them minded sharing your attention when it came to the other guy. "She's completely hammered, Beau. I am already out the door. I know exactly what bar she's at."

"Alright, I am already heading down the street," Beau shot back, the sound of his engine roaring to life over the speaker. "I will meet you at the entrance. Don't let her wander off."

"Listen to me," you said, suddenly feeling very brave as you held the phone up high. "I said no. Both of you are being way too serious. I don't need a babysitter, I need to dance. Bye, it's me, love you, hang up!"

You slammed the red button on your screen, cutting off the coordinated instructions of both boys, and slid the phone securely into your back pocket. If Dean and Beau thought they could just swoop in and ruin your night of self-medication, they were entirely mistaken. You finished the last sugary drop of your neon pink drink, stood up from the booth with a slightly wobbly posture, and marched straight onto the packed dance floor.

The crowd was a shifting, sweating mass of bodies moving to a heavy electronic beat. You pushed your way into the center, throwing your hands in the air, letting the music wash over your thoughts until the lingering ache of your recent breakup was entirely buried under the noise.

But the safety of the crowd vanished a few minutes later.

You were moving to the rhythm, your eyes closed, when you suddenly felt a heavy, unwanted pair of hands grip your hips from behind. You snapped your eyes open, stumbling slightly as a guy you had never seen before pulled himself flush against your back, his breath smelling heavily of stale beer as he leaned down toward your ear.

"You're dancing all by yourself, beautiful," he muttered, his grip tightening on your waist as he tried to force you to move with him. "Why don't we get out of here and find somewhere quieter?"

"No, thank you," you said, your drunk brain suddenly flooded with a sharp wave of discomfort. You tried to pull away, but the dance floor was too packed, and his hands remained firmly locked onto your hips, anchoring you in place. "Let go of me, please."

"Come on, don't be like that," the guy smirked, entirely ignoring your protest as he pulled you closer, his posture aggressive and entirely too suffocating. "You were having a good time a second ago."

Before you could scream over the music or push him away with your full weight, the atmosphere on the dance floor completely fractured.

A massive, leather-jacketed arm materialized out of the neon fog, grabbing the creepy guy by the front of his shirt and violently ripping him backward away from you. The guy stumbled over his own feet, crashing into a group of nearby students as Dean Di Laurentis stepped into the clearance, his broad shoulders squared, his face twisted into an expression of absolute, terrifying rage. His dark eyes were burning, a dangerous, volatile energy radiating off his frame as he stood guard directly in front of you.

"She told you to let go of her," Dean growled, his voice carrying over the booming bass with a lethal clarity that made the surrounding crowd immediately back away to create a wide circle.

Before the creepy guy could even recover his balance or mount a defense, Beau Maxwell materialized from the opposite side of the crowd. Beau’s massive football frame completely blocked the guy's exit path, his jaw set in a hard, dangerous scowl as he stepped up right beside his childhood best friend, looking down at the stranger like he was a minor inconvenience on the field.

"If you even look in her direction again, I am going to personally throw you through that brick wall," Beau muttered, his deep voice entirely devoid of warmth.

The creepy guy took one look at the two towering varsity athletes flanking him, turned completely pale, and instantly vanished into the shadows of the exit corridor without saying a single word.

The immediate danger was gone, but the heavy, protective tension in the air didn't dissipate. Dean turned around slowly, his chest rising and falling with heavy, ragged breaths as his dark eyes locked onto your face. The unbothered, arrogant mask he usually wore for the campus was entirely gone, replaced by a raw, furious worry that made him look completely unhinged.

"Are you out of your mind?" Dean demanded, stepping right into your personal space, his large hands coming out of his pockets to firmly grasp your elbows. He pulled you up against his chest, checking you over for any signs of harm with a frantic, desperate intensity. "We told you on the phone we were coming to get you. Why the hell did you walk onto the dance floor alone?"

"Deany," you mumbled, your adrenaline suddenly fading and leaving your knees feeling like absolute jelly. You slid right against his chest, your hands automatically tangling in the fabric of his jacket for balance. "And Beau. You both made it. You look so handsome when you're playing the hero."

"Relax, Dean, she's alright now," Beau said smoothly, stepping in close and wrapping a large, comforting hand around the nape of your neck, his thumb caressing your skin with total ease. He didn't care at all that you were flush against Dean; in fact, the shared proximity felt incredibly natural for both of them. "Come here, sweet girl. Let's get you out of this crowd."

"She is an absolute menace when she's like this," Dean muttered, though the anger completely bled out of his voice, replaced by a rare, soft warmth as he looked down at your messy hair. He effortlessly slotted his fingers through yours, anchoring you between his chest and Beau's massive frame.

"Wait, wait," you giggled, your head swinging back and forth between them like you were watching a movie. The go go juice was still swirling in your system, making the entire dramatic rescue feel incredibly funny. You reached out with a shaky finger, poking Beau directly in the center of his chest. "Beau is the quarterback. He has a very big arm. We should all go together. We can get more juice."

"Absolutely not," both boys murmured in unison, though this time it was accompanied by a pair of fond, knowing smiles.

"See? You're bonding," you cheered, completely entertained by the sheer comfort of the situation. You leaned your full weight back against Dean’s sturdy frame, your fingers idly messing with the collar of his jacket, while your other hand remained securely held in Beau's broad palm. "You both care about my safety so much. I love it."

Beau let out a low, breathless laugh, sharing a lingering, amused look with his best friend over your head. "We're taking her back to your place, right?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded, his chest vibrating against your back as he adjusted his hold. Without a single hint of hesitation, he easily swept his broad arms under your knees and lifted you entirely off the ground in a classic bridal carry.

You let out a loud, delighted shriek, instantly wrapping your arms tightly around his neck as he held you against his chest. "I am flying!"

"I've got her phone and her keys," Beau said easily, grabbing your dropped plastic cup to toss it in a nearby bin before falling into step right beside Dean. He kept a protective hand resting on your lower back as Dean carried you toward the heavy exit doors, ensuring the crowded bar parted for the three of you like the Red Sea.

"You're not going to puke on me, right, baby?" Dean asked, looking down at you with a sudden, worried squint as he pushed through the exit doors into the cool night air.

"I am going to sing," you announced proudly, burying your face in the crook of his neck, completely safe and content.

As the cool wind hit your face, you let out a long, happy sigh. The heartbreak from earlier that afternoon was entirely gone, completely numbed by some good old-fashioned fun and the chaotic, fierce, and entirely united protection of the two best guys from Connecticut. You turned your head slightly, kissing Dean’s jawline lazily, before looking up to flash Beau a bright, sleepy smile.

"You're both so vain," you mumbled into Dean's skin, your eyes finally fluttering shut as the go go juice victory lap came to a peaceful end. "You probably think this night is about you."

Dean just shook his head, a real, breathless laugh leaving his chest as Beau opened the passenger side door of the car for him. "Just go to sleep, you absolute lunatic."

Notes - Heyy I have more Beau stuff coming soon I swear!! Anyways I hope you enjoy 💖💖

The video opens with one of the reporters asking: “So much of your life has changed this year. The pressure, the travel, the attention, your everyday relationships…have you had to sacrifice anything personal to stay this focused on hockey?”

Macklin shrugged lightly, thinking of his answer. “I mean…yeah, definitely. Hockey’s the priority right now, it kind of has to be," he says, and then the video stops.

Had his whole answer been included you would've also heard, “There are a lot of things in my life—most things—that come second to it sometimes, and the people close to me know that.” But you didn't see that part. You didn't know that there was more to it. From what you saw, he said something that made it seem like your relationship was a burden that he tolerated around hockey.

People ran with it immediately, no one cared enough to see what the context was, or even look into if there was more to his answer.

You made the mistake of immediately opening the comments on the video. They were flooded with: 

his poor girlfriend ☹️

She deserves better..

NHL players neverrrr prioritize relationships 😭

He basically just admitted she comes second, wow

You should’ve ignored it, because you know that social media twists anything and everything into something that it isn’t, and you know Macklin would never say that. 

But the problem is that some part of you understood what they meant. Not because he didn’t love you, you knew he did, but because hockey really was his whole life sometimes. 

During the season there were missed dinners and canceled plans. Calls are often cut short because team meetings run late or he has to do something last minute. There are nights he falls asleep mid-conversation from exhaustion, and weeks where his schedule barely leaves room for himself, let alone anybody else.

Usually you handle it fine, you're endlessly proud of him and everything he's doing. But something about hearing it said out loud, especially when he's the one saying it, lodges itself in your chest and you haven't been able to get rid of that feeling of suddenly being unwanted. 

It hasn't helped that he's on a long road trip through western Canada, then moving on to the central US, you haven't even been able to talk to him properly for almost a week. 

You decided immediately that you didn’t want to have this conversation through bad hotel Wi-Fi and an exhausted late-night phone call, that’s just a recipe for bad communication and no good chance to actually talk about it properly. 

It doesn’t occur to you that keeping your feelings from him and letting them stir more wouldn’t be any better, so against your better judgement, you say nothing. Which turned out to be worse. 

⊰══════════════════════⊱

Macklin knows something is off almost immediately. The first few days he figured you were just busy with school, stressed out, tired, something simple that would get better shortly. 

But after about four days, he knows something is really wrong. Not because you’re mean, you’re never mean. You still answer all his texts, ask for details about all his games, tell him good morning and goodnight, but for some reason it all feels thinner. It's like you aren’t asking things with intention anymore, but rather asking and answering like you’re on autopilot. 

Soon enough the calls get shorter, you stop sending him random pictures and updates throughout the day, and worst of all you stop telling him things. 

Usually he knows everything about your day before it even ends. The lecture that dragged on, the girl in your class who helps you with notes you don’t quite understand, what coffee you got that morning, what song came on and reminded you of him. 

Now conversations feel careful, like you’re unconsciously pulling yourself away from him slowly, and it starts driving him insane. 

⊰══════════════════════⊱

“Mack, you’re staring,” Will says as he drops into the seat beside Macklin on the team plane.

Macklin blinks, realizing he’s been looking at the same unopened text thread for probably ten minutes.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Macklin sighs and locks his phone.

Will watches him for a second. “Did you guys fight or something?”

“No, God no, we aren't fighting.”

“Then why do you look like somebody kicked your dog?”

Macklin leans back in his seat, rubbing a hand over his face, “She’s just acting weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “Different.”

Will snorts, “That clears things up.”

Macklin ignores him. “She keeps saying she’s fine,” he says quietly. “But she’s not, I can tell she's not fine. She’s been really short with me lately and I don’t know why.”

Will studies him for a second before realization flickers across his face, “Ohhh.”

“What?”

“This is about that interview thing, isn’t it?”

Mack’s head snaps up immediately, “What interview thing?”

Will gives him a look. “The clip? It was all over TikTok.”

Mack feels his stomach drop. “What clip?”

Will pulls it up on his phone and hands it to Macklin, who watches it in silence. Three times all the way through. 

By the fourth time, he looks genuinely sick. “Are you kidding me?” he mutters.

Because now he understands. God, no wonder you’ve been distant. The clip makes him sound awful and cold. Like you’re some obstacle in the way of hockey instead of the person holding him together through it all. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he says immediately, "that's not even all of what I said!” 

Will shrugs sympathetically, “Internet doesn’t care.”

Macklin grabs his phone out of his pocket so fast he nearly drops it. He unlocks it and immediately texts you. 

Mack: Baby that clip is taken out of context. That’s not even the whole thing

Your answer a few minutes later.

You: i know

Somehow that feels worse, because if you know, why does it still feel like he’s losing you by the second? Why does it still feel like you’re upset with him? 

⊰══════════════════════⊱

The road trip suddenly becomes unbearable for Macklin. Every city feels way too far away from you, every hotel room feels empty, and every win feels completely dull because the person he wants to talk to first after they’re over isn’t answering his calls and she’s barely responding to his texts with more than three words. 

One night after a game in Calgary, he calls you immediately, and surprisingly you answer on the fourth ring. Lately you’d been letting it go to voicemail and then making up some excuse about going to bed early whenever he asked why you didn't pick up. 

“Hey,” your voice is soft, he thinks it sounds too soft, like if you talked too loudly something might break. 

So he returns the energy. “Hey,” he says carefully.

“How was the game?” you ask, even though you watched every second, you still always ask because you want to hear about it from him.

“It was alright. You watched?”

“Yeah, I watched. Good goal in the second.”

“Thanks.” 

Macklin closes his eyes, he hates this with every fiber of his being, everything about it is wrong. Short conversations, talking about dull things, it all feels like the bare minimum.

“I miss you,” he says finally.

You pause for way too long, that’s how he knows something is still wrong. 

“I miss you too,” you say, but it sounds forced, like something you think you should say instead of something you want to say. Like it isn’t necessarily something you feel. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, ripping the band-aid off, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t do that,” he says, frustrated. 

“I’m not doing anything,” you defend.

“Yes you are.”

You sigh softly, “Mack…”

“No,” he interrupts. “You’ve barely talked to me for almost a week and every conversation feels weird and careful and I know it’s because of that stupid interview everyone's focused on.”

You go silent, and that’s all the confirmation he needs. 

Finally you say, “Macklin, I really don’t want to do this over the phone.”

His stomach drops immediately at the exhaustion in your voice, “So there is something.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

You rub a hand over your face, “I just think this is a conversation we should have in person.”

“Mhm.” His voice goes quieter, “That usually means something bad.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

You can’t. You think that he probably thinks you want to break up with him or something, which isn’t true at all, and you don’t want him to think that. You’re just hurt, and you don’t fully know what to do with that yet, because you’re still processing. 

The silence from your end from both ends of the call stretches too long.

“Mackie,” you say softly, “I know you didn’t mean it the way people online made it sound.”

“But?”

You shut your eyes, trying to keep the emotion out of your voice so he doesn’t feel worse, “But hearing it still sucked.”

He exhales shakily, just waiting for you to continue. 

“I know hockey comes first sometimes,” you continue quietly. “I’ve always known that. I think hearing you actually say it just made me realize how easy it would be for me to become…secondary or something.”

“Mhm,” he hums. He sounds devastated at what you've just told him, and he doesn't really know how to respond.

“And I know that’s not fair because you’ve never actually treated me badly, but—”

“But now it’s in your head.”

“Yeah,” you exhale. 

He goes quiet for a second. Then quietly, “I wish I was there.”

Your throat tightens immediately, because you miss him, you really do. Saying it might come off otherwise but you just want him here so you can talk everything out and make sure everything is still okay. “Me too,” you say, completely honest this time, and it sounds like it. 

Neither of you say anything after that, because what else is there to say?

Eventually he manages a quiet, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We’ll talk when I get home.”

You nod even though he can’t see it, but he gets the memo that the conversation is over. 

When the call ends, both of you stare at your phones feeling ten times worse than before.

⊰══════════════════════⊱

The next three days crawl by. You hate every second of it. The distance, the weirdness of it all. Every interaction feels so fragile, like you can’t let the conversation get too deep, because you’re both waiting to have the conversation when he gets home.

Macklin hates it too. You can tell from how he’s reaching for you anyway. He texts asking if you ate dinner, he sends you pictures from airports, random team updates in hopes to make you laugh. Light things.

One night he sends: Saw a dog that looked like the one you always send me tiktoks about

Then immediately after: Not relevant, just thought you should know. It was cute, made me think of you

You stare at the messages for a long time before smiling despite yourself, because even now, even in the middle of a situation that you don’t know the ending of, his instinct is still to talk to you, check on you, be there for you. 

⊰══════════════════════⊱

When he finally gets home, you’ve become terrified, because this conversation matters so much. 

You’re sitting on the couch when you hear the door of the apartment unlock, and your stomach churns instantly. 

You get up cautiously, and walk over to the entryway. The second you seem him you notice how tired he looks. He has his bag slung over his shoulder, baseball cap sitting backwards on his head, and circles underneath his eyes.

The second his eyes land on you, his whole expression softens into something exhausted and relieved. “Hi,” he says quietly.

You barely get the word out before he’s pulling you into him. Hard. The hug feels like he’s been holding himself together for days and finally doesn’t have to anymore. If you’re being honest with yourself, you feel the same, and you melt into him completely. 

His arms wrap around your back so tightly it almost hurts. He just stands there, holding you, breathing you in like nothing is wrong, just like he’s missed you. 

He pulls back after a second, hands still on your waist. “You wanna talk now?”

You nod, “Yeah, please.”

So he drops his bag next to the door, takes his hat off and tosses it onto his bag, and follows you further into the apartment. For the first time all week it finally feels like you’re on the same page instead of separated by screens and miles and what feels like a million misunderstandings. 

Suddenly you feel awkward standing there. He’s not a stranger, he’s the most familiar thing in your life, so you think that odd feeling must be because everything between you feels so tense right now. Usually when he comes home you’re immediately wrapped around each other, talking over one another, smiling. Kissing him before he can even fully step through the door.

Now you’re both standing there like you’re trying not to break something.

“You want tea or something?” you ask finally, mostly because the silence is making your chest feel tight, an anxious feeling clawing at you. Macklin looks at you for a second before shaking his head softly.

“No, c’mere first.”

Your heart aches immediately at the exhaustion in his voice. You let him pull you toward the couch, and the second you sit down he’s not letting go of your hand. His thumb brushes over your knuckles, then he exhales, “I’m sorry.”

You look up immediately. “Mack—”

“No, let me say it first.” His eyes stay fixed on your intertwined hands. “I’m sorry I said it like that.”

“You didn’t know they’d twist it.”

“I still said it weird. The whole answer to the question was weird and it wasn’t right”

A tiny laugh escapes you before you can stop it. His mouth twitches slightly, relieved you don’t look like you’re about to cry.

“I just…” He drags a hand through his hair. “I didn’t realize how bad it sounded until Will showed me the clip.”

You blink, “Will showed you?”

“Mhm.”

“What did he say?” you ask. 

Macklin groans softly, dropping his head onto the back of the couch, “Basically called me an idiot.”

“That sounds like Will.”

“Yeah.”

You smile faintly, but the smile fades again. “I know you didn’t mean it the way people online made it sound,” you admit quietly, “That’s what makes me feel stupid about this.”

“You are not stupid.”

“I kind of am,” you insist. 

“You’re not.”

Your eyes drop to your lap, “It just really got in my head.”

Macklin goes quiet for a second before asking carefully, “What part?”

You hesitate, not wanting to hurt him anymore, then decide there’s no point holding back now. “The ‘things come second’ part.”

His face falls immediately, “Baby.”

“I know hockey matters,” you rush out. “I’ve always known that. I knew what your life looked like when we got together. I knew even before that, your life has always been like this.”

“But?”

You swallow hard, trying to keep yourself together, “But sometimes it already feels like I only get whatever’s left of you.”

The words hurt to say out loud, and judging by his expression, they hurt to hear too.

“Mhm,” he hums quietly.

“And then hearing you say hockey has to come first…” You shake your head weakly, “I don’t know. I think I just started wondering if one day there wouldn’t be room for me anymore.”

Macklin stares at you like you’ve just said something genuinely terrifying, “What?”

You immediately regret saying it, “I know it sounds dramatic—”

“No.” His voice is firm now, “No, don’t do that.”

You just look at him, because you don’t know what to say.

“You really think I’d outgrow you?” he asks. 

Your throat tightens instantly because the hurt in his voice is so obvious, and he’s just articulated exactly how you felt.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” you say. 

“Then how did you mean it?”

You look down again, “I don’t know.”

His fingers brush across the back of your hand again, “Yes you do.”

You sigh shakily. “I think…” You pause, “I think your life got really big really fast.”

His expression softens slightly. He gets what you’re saying, but he doesn’t want to interrupt your thoughts so he stays quiet. 

“And sometimes I still feel like the same person I was before all of this happened,” you continue quietly. “Like eventually you’re going to realize I don’t fit into all the new stuff. That I don’t fit into your life anymore.”

The second the words leave your mouth, Macklin’s entire face crumples, “Jesus Christ.”

You instantly feel worse, “I know that sounds insane—”

“It sounds sad,” he interrupts. 

Your eyes sting immediately, “Macklin—”

“No, because you’ve just been sitting here thinking this all week?” He looks genuinely devastated now, “By yourself?”

You shrug weakly. “I didn’t know how to explain it,” you acknowledge. 

“You should’ve told me, I would've done my best to figure it out. To understand.”

“I didn’t want to start a fight.”

“I would rather fight with you than have you sit here convincing yourself I don’t want you anymore.” The raw honesty in his voice makes your chest ache even more, the knot of emotion in your throat becoming tighter.

He shifts closer suddenly, both hands wrapping around yours fully now, “Look at me.”

You do, and the expression on his face breaks your heart, because he looks scared. There’s not an ounce of annoyance or defensiveness on his face. He just looks scared. 

“You are the best part of my life,” he says quietly.

Your eyes immediately burn.

“I mean it.”

His thumbs brush across your knuckles again and again, reminding you he’s right there. “Hockey is my job,” he says carefully. “It’s my dream and it’s demanding and sometimes it takes everything out of me, but you are not competing with hockey. Ever.”

You stay quiet, your eyes not straying away from his.

“You know what I meant when I said people close to me understand?” he asks softly.

You shake your head a little, willing him to continue.

“I meant that you understand when I’m exhausted after games. Or when I have road trips for two weeks straight. Or when I miss things because my schedule’s insane.” His jaw tightens. “Not that you matter less.”

A tear slips down your cheek before you can stop it, and Macklin notices immediately. “Hey,” he says softly, leaning closer, “No, c’mon.”

His hand comes up carefully, brushing beneath your eye, catching your tears.

“I need you to really hear me, 'kay? There is no version of my life where you become secondary to me,” he says. “I don’t care how big hockey gets,” he continues. “You’re still the person I want after everything.”

You close your eyes briefly.

“After good games, I want you. After bad games, I want you. After interviews and flights and media and practices and all the loud parts that get to be too much…” His voice softens further, “I want nothing but to come home to you.”

“I know,” you whisper miserably, “I know that now.”

The tears come harder now, and you feel him moving to pull you into him. Your face ends up tucked against his chest while his arms wrap around your shoulders tightly.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble against his sweatshirt.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“For making this week all weird, and for making you worry about all this, that wasn’t fair.”

“You were hurt.”

You shake your head slightly, “I still should’ve talked to you.”

Macklin exhales softly into your hair. “Maybe,” he admits. “But honestly? I think I get why you didn’t. I probably would’ve spiraled too if I saw a clip of you saying I came second to something.”

A watery laugh escapes you, “Yeah?”

“Oh absolutely. You handled it better than I would’ve.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not, I promise.”

You smile weakly. Then your expression softens again when you pull back to really look at him, “You look tired.”

He lets out a dramatic groan immediately and drops his forehead onto your shoulder. “I’m exhausted. I couldn’t do another night of this,” he admits quietly, “I hated it.”

Your arms tighten around him.

“I hated it too,” you say. 

He turns his head slightly, lips brushing absentmindedly against your shoulder, just to feel you more.

“You know what the worst part was?” he asks, his voice muffled against you.

“What?”

“You hesitating when you said you missed me.”

“You caught that?”

You feel him smile, “Immediately.”

You groan softly and hide your face in his neck, “That’s humiliating.”

“It made me feel insane,” he says, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your head. 

You laugh weakly against his skin, “I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

His other hand moves to slide slowly up and down your back. “But again,” he murmurs, “you never have to question whether I love you more than hockey.”

“That’s not really fair. Hockey’s been your whole life forever.”

“Well now it's you.”

The words hit so hard and so suddenly that your chest physically aches, and you tear up again. Macklin’s expression softens immediately when he sees your face crumple again, “Oh no,” he says softly. “Baby, c’mon.”

“You can’t just say things like that,” you say through your tears. 

A small smile tugs at his mouth, “Why?”

“Because I’m already emotional.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” he retorts. 

You stare at him for a second before laughing through tears. “There you are,” he says softly the second he hears the real laugh, smiling at you. And there he is too, your Macklin.

No clipped-up interview version, not the version for the headlines, not the public image; just the boy who flew home as fast as he could and came immediately to you, worried, because he couldn’t stand feeling distant from you for another day.

You lean forward first this time, kissing him softly. Immediately his hand slides to the side of your face. The kiss is slow, full of relief, and a little more emotional than usual. 

When you pull back, he rests his forehead against yours with a quiet exhale. Always that, his forehead against yours.

“I missed you so much,” he murmurs.

You smile shakily, “I’m sorry I spiraled.”

“I’m sorry I accidentally started the spiral.”

“That’s true, actually, this is mostly your fault.”

He gasps softly, “Mostly?”

You grin for the first time all week, and the relief on his face is immediate. “I missed you too,” you say. 

Macklin exhales like those were the only words he needed to hear, and his shoulders physically relax for the first time since he walked through the door.

“Okay,” he mumbles after a second, voice quieter now. “Can we go to bed?”

You blink at him, smiling softly, “That’s your big conclusion after all that?”

“Yes,” he insists immediately, already sounding half-asleep. “I’ve been on planes and buses for like eight days and emotionally tortured almost the entire time.”

You laugh quietly while he shifts closer again, practically folding himself against you. You shake your head fondly while his arms tighten around your waist again. “You’re needy,” you say.

“Mhm,” he hums, completely unashamed. “And tired. C’mon.”

He stands first, then immediately reaches for your hand. You let him pull you up from the couch, and before you can even fully steady yourself he’s tugging you against his chest again, burying his face into your neck with a long exhausted sigh.

“You smell like home,” he mumbles, peppering kisses onto your skin. 

Your heart squeezes painfully, “You’re being very sweet right now.”

“I know,” he says sleepily. “'Cause I love you.”

You laugh again, quieter this time, and press a kiss to his cheek before letting him guide you toward the bedroom.

The second you both finally get under the blankets, Macklin immediately reaches for you, pulling you against him until your head is tucked underneath his chin and his arm is wrapped tightly around your waist. There’s still exhaustion lingering in both of you, but the tension is finally gone. No distance, no bad connection, no overthinking. Just him.

His fingers drift lazily against your back for a few moments before stilling. “I love you,” he murmurs again, already sounding half asleep.

You tilt your head up just enough to kiss his jaw softly. “I love you too, Mackie.”

Even exhausted, you feel the tiny smile against your hair before he finally falls asleep.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes at the assumption, more so annoyed by the fact that she may be right, even if you don't want to admit it. 

You've been tutoring Dean for the past two months, and what starts off as a horrible agreement that you regretted with your entire being turned into an anticipated two hours study that you now look forward to. 

Ironic. 

At first, you did it for the extra cash. It's easy money, you couldn't refuse the tempting offer when you were already struggling to get by with a part time job. Not only did it pay better, but it consumed less of your time. 

It's a good deal, you couldn't pass it down when Dean was practically begging on his knees for you to accept it. He once sent over his hockey teammates just to cozy you up into accepting his offer, causing a whole humiliation ritual in the cafeteria while he watched from the side with puppy eyes and a pout formed across his lips. 

It was a ridiculous sight, made you fume for days before finally calming down and eventually agreeing to help him. You regretted it in an instant, watching as a cocky, taunting smile smears all over his face, screaming at you to get away and avoid trouble. 

But you didn't. Instead, you showed up, even if you dreaded it, and considered it the worst part of your day. In your defense, Dean is very annoying, and wouldn't take you seriously unless you flashed him a life-threatening glare that would end him in the spot. 

He'd pretend not to understand things just to rile you up and make you scold him, almost as if he enjoyed it, amused by the way your face twists into a sour expression. Then comes apologizing, where his voice lowers into a whisper, and you'd fight the urge not to fold over the hushed apologies he mutters to you while tracing soothing patterns to your hand. 

You don't know when, or how it starts, but the dreaded sessions suddenly turn into something you look forward to. Two hours oscillate into three then eventually four, until you both lose track of time, and forget the entire reason to you being there. 

You hate it, how easy going he is, and how his dimples form when he flashes you a smile, or chuckles at a stupid joke you make just to earn a reaction out of him. Or how your stomach flutters with butterflies when he sits too close, or teases you with that taunting tone that makes you melt. 

You hate how easy it is for him to be near you, when you're short of breath half of the time he's around. It's absurd how the compliments he gives you roll off the tongue, like it's natural for him, like he doesn't flirt with half of the girls on campus. 

He probably thinks it's some joke, something that started and now you can't seem to get away from  it. You know you shouldn't, this is Dean Di Laurentis, everyone knows he's trouble, and you shouldn't have let him cross your boundaries, or get to you with a few flirtatious comments, but somehow he did, and now you're in too deep to end things. 

So the least you can do right now is deny it. Deny anything even happened, even though your friends can see right through your lies. 

"Like I said," you start, "Nothing's going on between us, I'm simply tutoring him."

"Oh, for fuck' sake." Allie shoots back, "The whole campus thinks you're dating. You know how serious that is for Dean Di Laurentis?" 

"It's just rumors, nothing more. People thinking we're together doesn't mean that we are." You mumble, rolling your eyes with offense. "You wouldn't catch me with Dean Di Laurentis even if my life depends on it." 

"I call bullshit." Hannah chants from the side, shifting the attention to her. 

"Hannah!" You shout, as Allie perks from her seat in agreement. "You're supposed to take my side, why are you feeding into her delusion?!" 

"It's not delusion if everyone sees it," Hannah shrugs her shoulders, approaching your bed. "C'mon, I'm dating his best friend, that man never stops talking about you." 

"You're lying," Allie gasps, scooting close to Hannah as she throws herself next to her. Her gaze shifts back to you, eyebrows pinching with frustration. "She never tells me stuff!"

"That's because nothing happens." You reason, exhaling with fake annoyance. "We're barely even friends, I doubt he thinks of me like that." 

"Calling bullshit again," Hannah's head tilts towards you, not believing a word you muttered. "Have you seen the way that man speaks about you?" 

"Stop it!" Allie slaps Hannah's side, excitment visible on her face. "Tell me about it! he mentioned her often?"

"She's all he talks about," Hannah turns back to Allie, ignoring your presence and pretending you're not even there. "Once he stayed by my side for an entire party just to ask about her interests."

"He did that?" You mutter, feigning oblivion to the teasing smile Hannah flashes you. "Okay, why are you talking as if I'm not even here?" 

"Oh, come on you have to admit, he likes you." Allie chimes in, "I've never not seen Dean Di Laurentis not have sex at a party. What do you mean he gave that up just to talk about you?"

"Okay," you mumble, slightly convinced. You settle for shaking off that feeling, "That doesn't mean anything, he can, not have sex if he wants, how does that involve me?" 

"I need to knock some sense into her," Allie huffs, falling back into the bed. "Do something, Hannah." 

"I tried," Hannah pouts, joining Allie's side with disappointment. "She's such an idiot." 

"Hey!" Your brows pinch with annoyance, as you sling your backpack over your shoulder. "Anyways, I'm leaving. Do you guys need anything?" 

"Where are you going?" Hannah questions, sitting up along with Allie. 

"I have a tutoring session with Dean." You reply. 

"Oh my God." Allie says under her breath. 

"Wait, I'm coming with." Hannah gets up, heading towards her room to grab her stuff. 

"Are you going in that?" Allie questions, gaze flickering to the baggy shirt covering all your curves. 

"What's wrong with it?" You ask, glancing down as you grab into the hems of it. 

"Dress up a little, will you?" Allie groans, grabbing into you as she walks towards her closet. 

"You're acting as if I'm going to a party." You mumble, face scrunching with confusion when she throws a pink, spaghetti strapped top over to you. 

"Wear this." She orders, observing you with anticipation.

You don't argue, because doing so will only lead to more arguing, and Allie won't give up unless you admit defeat. Instead, you sigh, taking off your shirt and throw the soft material over your head. 

It... complements you. Definitely not appropriate for a tutoring session, but you know exactly what Allie intents when she handed it over to you. It scrunches around your chest, showing a bit of cleavage, and it displays all your curves, curling at your waist, and showing the sliver of skin around your stomach. 

Then, before you can argue, she throws a denim skirt in your direction, lips pressing into a a thin line as she waits for you to take off your pants. 

You do. It's not like you really have a choice. 

Your pants slide off your legs easily, soon replaced by the skirt she handed you, which complements the top well. It rests comfortably around your hips, the length of it reaching just below your inner thighs, covering enough for you to not pick a fight. 

"I still don't think this is appropriate for a tutoring session." You start, admiring yourself in the mirror. 

"Oh, shut it." She huffs, grabbing a necklace and a few bracelets for you to wear. "Here, put these on, I'll find you a pair of sneakers that match with your outfit." 

"That's not needed!" You shout, but she ignores it as she digs deep into her closet, only coming back up when she pulls out a white pair of shoes, decorated with a bit of pink. 

"Here." She offers them to you, waiting for you to put them on. 

"What's taking you so–" Hannah's sentence cuts short as she stills in her spot, taking a moment to admire your outfit. "Oh." 

"It's too much, isn't it?" You complain, ready to slide off your top. 

But before you can proceed with your action, Hannah perks up again. "No wait!" she says, approaching you. "You look amazing." 

"Hannah." Your lips form into a pout, shoulders relaxing with defeat. 

"I'm not sure Dean can handle all that." Allie murmurs, checking you out with an amused expression spread all over her face. "You look so sexy, holy shit." 

"You did your big one, Al." Hannah shoots back, fist bumping Allie with her attention still glued to you. 

"So dramatic," you roll your eyes, failing to hide the smile smothered across your lips. "Should we leave?" 

"Oh, yeah." Hannah nods, "We definitely should."

"Is it too late to go back home?" You anxiously look back at Hannah, who's a moment away from knocking on the door. 

"Probably," Hannah shrugs her shoulders, glimpsing between you and the door. "Dean's expecting you any second now, Garrett said he's camping by the door for you."

"But–" You start, cutting your sentence short when Hannah sends you a death glare. 

With no hesitation, Hannah knocks on the door, barely giving you time to process the gesture before the door's wide open. 

Your eyes widen with shock at how quickly the door unlatches, gaze instantly shifting to Dean, whos eyes land on Hannah with a tight-lipped smile that displays his dimples. 

"Wellsy!" He leans against the door, feighning surprise, as if he hasn't been waiting for your arrival for the past hour. His attention lands on you, breath cutting short when his eyes lock with yours. He mutters your name, deliberate, quiet, if you weren't paying such close attention, you would've missed it. "Hi." 

"Hey." 

Tension seeps into the air, and you're sure it's obvious in the way your body tenses, stilling in your spot as Dean's eyes travel from your head, all the way down your legs, then back up again. You fight the urge to come up with an excuse as to why you're dressed up today, but settled on silence when Dean huffs out a ragged breath, one he didn't know he was holding. 

"I was waiting for you." He doesn't think when he speaks, mouth moving faster than his brain could process. He clears his throat, cheeks flushing a deep shade of red as he realizes what he said, quickly correcting himself. "Since you're tutoring me. I wasn't sure if you wanted it to take place here, or maybe in the library, since–" 

"You don't have to explain yourself," You nervously scratch the back of your neck, an awkward chuckle tumbling past your lips. "I'll make up for it, since I'm a bit late today, sorry."

"Oh, it's totally fine." He emphasizes the 'totally', nodding his head with comprehension. "Should we..." he trails off, stepping to the side. "Come on in." 

"About time," Hannah rolls her eyes, walking past Dean into the house. He almost chuckles, face growing serious when you follow behind your friend, nervously fidgeting with yours fingers. 

Logan perks up from the couch at the sight of you, tilting his head back as a sigh of relief escapes his throat. "Ugh, finally." 

"Hi," you wave, chuckling even though you're confused. Dean closes the door, following behind you as you step up the stairs. 

"I'm glad you're here." Logan states before you can disappear, continuing when your eyebrows pinch with confusion. "I've never seen someone this excited to study, he's mentioned you like a million times in the past hour alone." 

"John Logan." Dean's tone laces with embarrassment, the threat barely heard through his gritted teeth. 

"Oh, be nice to him," you joke, glancing towards Dean from over your shoulder, who's far too busy observing the way your hips sway back and forth to pay your gaze the attention. 

The walk up the stairs feels like an eternity, but you eventually get to Dean's room, door instantly clicking shut once you're both inside. 

Dean leans against the door, taking a moment to admire as you throw yourself on the bed, making yourself comfortable as you grab out your school stuff. Your head shoots up with confusion once you take notice, lips jutting into a slight pout as you utter your next words. 

"Are you not sitting down?" 

You ignore the tension cutting through when he flashes you a lazy smile, taunting, yet teasing, tugging at the strings of your heart and making your stomach flutter with butterflies. Your gaze flickers back to your supplies, taking a deep breath to get a hold of yourself. 

Why's it so difficult to control yourself?

Dean doesn't say a word, simply walking over to you before he positions himself next to you. He sits close, too close you can smell his musky cologne that impales all your senses, and feel his breath as it lightly fans over your exposed arms. 

You cut to the chase, starting your tutoring session like you normally do. Everything's going smoothly, and you're nearing the end of it, but something else is weighing down your chest. 

You can clearly feel Dean's gaze on you, burning holes through your skin and flustering you into a mess. Your words stammer past your lips, and a deep breath drags out before you're fed up, finally looking up from the textbook. Your eyes shift to Dean, who's propped against his elbows, too comfortable to move, or take his eyes off of you. 

"Someone's paying close attention." You tilt your head, tone filling with sarcasm. Dean laughs at the abrupt change of atmosphere, head leaning back for a moment before his eyes are on you again. 

"For sure." He goes along with the 'joke', entertained by the sassiness laced in your voice. 

"What did I just say?" You question, your words more of a challenge. 

"Don't put me in the spot." He cooes, and if not for how annoyed you are, you would've folded in the spot. 

"You're not paying attention!" You state, causing the boy to scrunch his nose with defeat. 

"Alright, I'm sorry." He admits, barely earning a smile out of you. "I'll try to pay attention." 

"And what's got your attention, Di Laurentis?" 

"Something." He says, as he fidgets with the sheets covering the bed. 

"And what would that something be?" 

His gaze flickers to your cleavage, and it's swift, you would've missed it if you aren't paying such close attention. It's not on purpose. his face turns pale as soon as it happens, and he fight the urge to come up with an excuse as to why he looked, and why he did it right as you asked. 

But you know. Deep down you know what's distracting him, and keeping him from paying attention. 

"Oh." You mumble. It's barely coherent, but Dean still hears it, cursing under his breath in reaction. 

"I'm..." His eyes force shut, head dipping with shame. "I'm trying really hard not to look."

"Wow," you chuckle, entertained by how guilty he seems. "Aren't you the gentleman?" 

At that, Dean laughs, tension off his shoulder as his eyes travel back to you. "Trying to be," he reasons, voice lowering into a whisper. "But it's really hard when you look this pretty." 

Your breath gets caught in your throat, and it's difficult to control the corners of your lips, tugging into a smile, barely visible, but it's there, enough for Dean to take it as a sign. 

He inches close to you, leaning his head down as he traces small circles to your hand, ticklish, and making goosebumps breakout across your arms. You take his action as a challenge, leaning forward so there's barely any distance separating you. 

He whispers your name, exhaling through his nose. Like your mere presence is tempting him, pulling at his strings. His gaze flickers down to your lips, keeping contact for a brief second before his eyes lock with yours again. 

"You should probably tell me to stop." He states, forehead brushing against yours. His fingers trail up your arms, deliberate, yet casual, halting around the spaghetti strings of your top. He toys with the material, breath shuddering when his knuckles make contact with your bare skin. 

"Probably," you repeat, fingers finding the curve of Dean's jaw. Your tone drops to match his, breath shaking as you mutter your next words. "But what if I don't want you to?" 

That's the only sign Dean needs. 

Dean ceases the distance separating you, capturing your lips in a chaste kiss, needy, and so desperate, it knocks a breath out of you. Your hands move to the back of his neck, grasping onto his hair as he kisses you numb, tugging and nibbling at your lips. 

He bites down hard enough, the pressure of the action making you whimper, giving him the opportunity to slide his tongue into your mouth. His tongue meets yours halfway, the warmness of his mouth engulfing the inside of yours in an instant. 

Dean's hands trail wherever he can get them, traveling from your waist to your stomach, to your back, and back on your hips when you moan into the kiss. His fingernails dig into the skin, applying enough pressure for it to leave a mark, and the mere thought of that turns you on. 

Your body leans into the touch, back arching as he rolls your hips against his knee. The fraction makes you feel funny, tingly all over, he doesn't give you a chance to process it before he does it again, entertained by the mess he creates out of you. 

You mewl into the kiss, crying out in pleasure when he disconnects the kiss, not giving you a chance to complain before his lips are back on your skin again. Only this time, he kisses down your throat, licking and nipping at the curve of your jaw, then slowly kissing his way down your neck, where his teeth graze the delicate skin with so much want, you can feel the desperation in his action. 

Dean groans against your skin, pressing slick, open-mouthed kisses to your collarbones, while one of his hands messages the exposed flesh of your cleavage. He kisses his way down, taking a mouthful of your chest the moment he has the chance to. 

The kisses he litters to your chest are soft, the sensation like feathers on your skin. He presses another kiss, grazing his teeth over the flesh, licking the same spot to soothe any pain away. 

"Dean," You whimper, head falling back as you press his face into your chest, chasing after the pleasure he's making you feel. "Please." 

"Please what?" He mumbles, kissing your chest once more before he straightens again, sitting up as one of his knees separate your legs, giving him enough space to stand in between. 

His hand caresses soft circles to your cheek, now hovering over you, with his legs dipping into the mattress. Then, with a thumb to your chin, he forces your mouth open, pressing a kiss to your lips, licking a stripe of your mouth before he repeats it again. 

"God, you know how much I wanted this?" He says in between kisses, gaze growing hazy. "Wanted," another kiss, "you."

You don't say anything, simply letting him tilt your head as he presses open-mouthed kisses to your lips, licking into your mouth and savoring every bit you're offering him. He kisses you like a starved man, like he's never done this before, like he's been dying to feel your lips on his. 

"So fucking pretty for me." He says, slowly kissing down your jaw, this time lingering when he sucks on the skin, to mark you for everyone else to see. "You dress up for me, darling? Dolled up all for me." 

You whine out in embarrassment, but that doesn't stop the pleasure surging through your body, traveling to in between your legs when Dean's hands reach under your top, massaging the plush skin and pressing you closer than you already are. 

He kisses you again, this time deepening it to savor the taste on his tongue. He tilts his head to the side, taking your upper lip between his, fingers occupied with the clip of your bra. 

And just as he's about to unclip it the door clicks open. 

"Tucker told me to bring over some–" in front of the door stands Logan, with a bunch of snacks scattered on a tray. He almost drops the stuff in his hold, mouth gaping to speak, but falling into utter silence instead. 

Your attention shifts to Logan in an instant, and you have to process the situation for a second before realization takes over.  

Fuck. 

You don't think as you push Dean off of you, causing the boy to lose his balance and fall off the bed. You try to grab onto his shirt, but it happens too fast, he lands on the ground with a thud. 

A gasp escapes your throat, attention shifting  from Logan to the now stretched out shirt in your grasp, with Dean, a mess on the ground. 

Dean's eyes follow yours, flashing his friend a guilty look that tells Logan all he needs to know. 

As for Logan, he's awkwardly standing by the door, gaze flickering from Dean to you. His head tilts, and he's contemplating whether right now is a good time to speak, maybe confront you both?

And just as you thought things couldn't get any worse, they do. 

Hannah's giggles bounce off the walls as she approaches Dean's room with a plate Logan seemingly forgot. 

"You forgot the–" Hannah starts, words dying in her throat when she's met with the awkward position you and Dean are in. "Cashews." 

"Fuck." You mumble under your breath, falling into the bed with defeat. 

"Are we..." Logan trails off, pointing between you two. "Are we interrupting something?"

"Huh?" Dean starts, too hazed by what just happened to answer. "I–"

"No," you beat him to replying, violently shaking your head. "We were just studying." 

"Mhm, just studying." Dean agrees, reaching for the hand you offered him earlier, for the mere purpose of balancing. It doesn't help your situation, causing you to instantly pull back your arm when both Hannah and Logan glance down. "I'll just, stay on the floor." 

"Yeah, right." Hannah says, not convinced whatsoever. 

"We should probably leave," Logan turns to Hannah, nudging her side as he continue. "We'll leave you to it."

"You are explaining yourself as soon as we're home." Hannah whisper-yells to you, as if the two boys aren't still listening. 

"Explain what?" You whisper back. 

"This." Hannah points to you, eyes traveling down to your chest, and Dean on the floor, a total mess, he can't even pick himself back up. 

You fix your shirt, covering Dean's face with your palm. "Don't look at him." 

Hannah's lips tug into a smile, amused by how much you're trying to prove a point. 

"He's all yours." Hannah's eyebrows raise with intrigue, giving Logan the signal to leave. 

"It's not what it looks like!" You shout, but they don't give you a chance to justify yourself, shutting the door before you can continue. 

And through the walls, you can hear Hannah yelling "Guess what we just fucking saw?" 

Right, so now everyone will know that happened, no matter how hard you try to deny it. 

Isn't this great?

"They left without giving us the snacks." Dean's lips jut into a pout, growing serious when you flash him a death glare. 

"Dean Di Laurentis." 

"That would be me." He scratches his chin, avoiding your gaze. 

"What are we going to do?" 

―It's true!― Allie exclaimed, stepping out of the kitchen alongside Hannah, both wearing massive smiles upon seeing you. ―We missed you at lunch. These idiots wouldn't let us talk in peace because of how wired they were over the game.―

―They were insufferable,― Hannah agreed, sitting on the arm of the couch next to you. ―Garrett wouldn't stop repeating that he scored the third goal because you were watching him from section 10. His ego is through the roof.―

―Because it's true,― Garrett interjected with absolute seriousness, looking at you with unwavering devotion. ―If she isn't in the front row of section 10, the puck simply doesn't go in. It's science, Wells. It's not up for debate.―

Laughter filled the space, a warm and familiar sound that wrapped around the room. You felt safe, protected by those four walls of muscle and loyalty that would have burned the whole world down if you had asked them to. Communication flowed effortlessly; they knew each other so well that Tucker knew exactly when you were stressed about your grades just by watching how you moved your fingers, and Logan knew when you needed a silent bear hug after a difficult shift in the ER. They were an unbreakable family.

The noise of the party continued outside, but in that corner of the house, surrounded by Hannah, Allie, and the four boys, time seemed to stand still. Dean reached out his arm to grab one of the wings Tucker had just placed on the coffee table, earning an immediate smack from Garrett.

―Wait for her to serve herself first, you animal,― Garrett grumbled at him. ―Where did your rich Connecticut boy manners go?―

―My manners died in the second period when the Huskies defenseman slammed me into the boards, Graham,― Dean replied, rolling his eyes, though he ended up smiling at you with that lazy warmth he reserved only for the group. ―Come on, babe, save my life and share one with me before Garrett puts me on impeachment trial.―

―Here, Dean, don't cry,― you said laughing, passing him the plate while settling deeper under Garrett’s arm. ―Though Tucker is right, the sauce turned out amazing today, Tuck. I really needed it after dealing with the health department's admission reports all day.―

Tucker smiled from the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a dishtowel, his eyes shining with domestic pride.

―I know, beautiful. That's why I made it. I knew your week was looking heavy with the clinical simulations. Logan wanted us to buy frozen pizza, but I told him not to even think about it. If you come to this house, we eat real food.―

―Hey! The frozen pizza from the corner isn't that bad,― Logan defended himself with his mouth half-full, earning a look of absolute disgust from Hannah.

―Logan, that pizza tastes like wet cardboard and you know it,― Hannah declared, crossing her legs. ―Be grateful you have Tucker in the house or you would have died of scurvy your freshman year. Anyway... changing the subject, tomorrow afternoon we have to go to the mall to check out the dresses for the end-of-term gala. Will you be able to come with us, or is the hospital going to kidnap you again?―

You looked at Hannah and then at Allie, feeling that warmth in your chest from knowing that they always included you in everything, despite your chaotic schedule.

―I have Saturday afternoon off,― you assured them, taking a sip of the drink Garrett had prepared for you. ―I promise not to make excuses. I urgently need a break from textbooks and lab coats.―

―Perfect!― Allie clapped enthusiastically. ―Because I saw a spectacular blue dress in the main store window that is going to look amazing on you. If these idiots behave, maybe we'll let them match with us.―

―I’ll wear blue if she asks me to,― Garrett declared without a second thought, gently squeezing your shoulder. ―I have absolutely no problem matching the team boss.―

―You are so whipped, Graham,― Logan mocked, throwing a crumpled napkin at him. ―We all know that if she asks you to wear a pink tutu for the next game against Harvard, you’ll put it on without a peep.―

―And I’d score three goals wearing it, Logan,― Garrett fired back with an arrogant smirk, making the whole room burst into laughter once again.

The night went on like that, between light jokes, promises of weekend trips, plans for the upcoming summer, and the absolute certainty that nothing in the world could break the bond they shared. You were their light, the girl they would give their lives for without a second thought, and they were your protectors, the hockey boys who made the demanding, cold world of college medicine much easier to bear. Nothing could go wrong when they were all together in that old fraternity living room.

The change did not happen gradually; it was a clean, sharp, and heartbreaking cut that left the entire fraternity house in absolute bewilderment. Two weeks after that perfect night of laughter, chicken wings, and promises of blue dresses, Briar was facing their rival university's team in one of the most tense, loud, and decisive games of the season. The atmosphere inside the hockey stadium was a cauldron about to boil over: the raw, white lights reflecting off the freshly polished ice, the deafening roars of the home crowd making the wooden bleachers shake, and pure adrenaline floating like an invisible mist inside the locker room.

Garrett Graham adjusted his heavy shoulder pads with mechanical movements, but his eyes were not fixed on the coach's strategy board. Dean Di Laurentis was checking the tape on his hockey stick for the third consecutive time, an unmistakable sign that his usual aristocratic indifference was being eaten away by nerves. Logan and Tucker came running into the preparation area after the final warm-up on the ice, ready for the final pep talk before jumping into the tunnel.

However, before crossing the metal gate that led to the rink, as they had done in every damn game since their freshman year of college, the four of them looked up at the same time toward section 10, the VIP row located right behind the home bench.

The seat was completely empty.

There was no blue Briar sweatshirt adorning the backrest, no encouraging smile waiting for their eyes to meet, no makeshift signs or medical notebooks resting on anyone's knees. Nothing. Only the cold, gray plastic of the uninhabited chair under the stadium spotlights. Hannah Wells and Allie Hayes were sitting a couple of rows higher, but their faces did not reflect the usual excitement of the game; they shared looks of deep concern, checking their cell phones every thirty seconds.

―Where the hell is she?― Logan asked, stopping dead in his tracks right at the threshold of the tunnel, adjusting his helmet with a trembling hand while his brow furrowed tightly. ―She told me Thursday morning she’d come. She promised me she was leaving early from her simulation shift at the health department.―

―She probably got delayed with some last-minute clinical report at the hospital,― Tucker replied, trying to force a pragmatic and calm tone of voice, although the pang of bad omen in his chest was so obvious that he couldn't even look Logan in the eye. ―Come on, boys, the referee's whistle is about to blow and we can't let the coach see us distracted. We'll celebrate with her at the house as soon as she gets there.―

But she didn't get there. Playing that game for the Briar captains was the closest thing to skating completely blind in the middle of a blizzard. Garrett, whose instinct on the rink was usually infallible, missed a clean pass in the neutral zone that cost the team a dangerous counterattack. Dean, consumed by a dull frustration he didn't know how to channel, received a two-minute penalty on the bench for excessive aggressiveness after slamming an opposing forward into the boards unnecessarily. Logan was on the verge of sparking a massive brawl in the second period just because an opposing defenseman skated too close to the empty bench. When the game ended, with a bitter and hard-fought victory barely secured in the last minute thanks to an individual play by Tucker, the boys didn't even celebrate on the ice. They walked into the locker room in silence, ripped the helmets off their heads, and pulled their phones out of their lockers immediately.

There were no missed calls. There were no text messages. The chat screen was completely static.

The next day, the majestic and noisy fraternity house felt unusually cold, as if the soul of the place had evaporated with the start of the weekend. Worried to the limit, Garrett and Dean decided to put aside the text messages that jumped straight to voicemail and went to look for you in person at your shared dorm on Sunday afternoon. They walked with firm steps along the campus path, hands shoved into the pockets of their varsity jackets, their jaws tense. When they knocked on the door, it was Allie who opened it, revealing an expression of total bewilderment, exhaustion, and an obvious sadness in her features.

―Hey, boys...― Allie said in a very low voice, taking a step back and glancing toward the inside of the long hallway that led to the rooms. ―It’s good that you're here.―

―Is she inside, Allie?― Garrett asked bluntly, trying to crane his neck to look over her shoulder into the common room. ―She didn't go to the game on Friday, she didn't even give a heads-up. She isn't answering Tucker's messages or Dean's calls. What the hell happened?―

Hannah approached from the dorm's small kitchen, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and a frown of absolute frustration etched on her lips.

―The truth is, we don't have the slightest idea what's wrong with her, boys. We are just as scared as you are,― Hannah confessed, letting out a heavy sigh. ―She came back very late Friday night, long after the game ended. She didn't even turn on the living room lights. She locked herself straight in her room, and yesterday, Saturday, she barely crossed the threshold to grab a glass of water. She told us through the wood that she had a brutal academic workload with the hospital reports and that she needed to sleep for twenty-four hours straight. But today she got up before dawn, packed all her books into her backpack, and ran off to the medical library before either of us could make her breakfast. She’s... weird. Extremely distant. She’s avoiding us.―

―Distant with the two of you?― Dean asked, his hazel eyes gleaming with a dangerous mix of confusion and restrained annoyance. ―She never does that. If her third year of med school had her this stressed, she would have told us on Friday in the kitchen. Tucker would have brought containers of food for the whole week to the hospital. I'm going to the library right now.―

―No, Dean, wait a second, don't go,― Allie begged him, placing a firm hand on his forearm to stop his advance. ―Hannah and I already went to look for her a couple of hours ago. We tried to sit next to her, we brought her a coffee, but she put up an invisible wall immediately. She gave us a perfectly fabricated excuse about a clinical simulation exam she has tomorrow morning and asked us please to leave her alone because she needed absolute concentration. She actively avoided us, boys. She didn't even hold our gaze for more than two seconds. It was like we were talking to a complete stranger.―

The four boys spent the next few days of the week trying with all their might to break that damn glass wall you had raised overnight around yourself. However, every time they managed to intercept you in the hallways of the faculty of health sciences or near the campus laboratories, your body language changed completely, turning into a painful declaration of rejection. You no longer stopped to laugh with them, nor did you allow them to take the heavy backpack off your shoulders; you pressed your books against your chest as if they were a protective shield, took an involuntary step back if any of them tried to wrap an arm around you, and always, with an icy precision, you had a flawless excuse ready on the tip of your tongue.

―I have a double shift in the emergency room, Logan, I really can't go to dinner at the house today,― you said on Tuesday morning, when he politely blocked your path near the faculty's coffee machines. ―I'm so sorry. Say hello to Tucker and Garrett for me.―

―But beautiful... Tucker made the beef lasagna just because he knows perfectly well it's your favorite food in the world,― Logan insisted, his voice laced with a tenderness so genuine it hurt to hear. He took a step forward and tried to touch your shoulder with the tips of his fingers to give you one of his usual bear hugs, but you flinched on the spot, dodging the physical contact with an almost violent speed, as if his hand were going to burn your skin. ―Hey... what's going on? Did we do something wrong? If it's because of the idiot joke I made at the party about the frozen pizza, I swear on my career it was just a joke...―

―It's nothing like that, Logan, really, nothing is wrong. It's not because of you, or the boys,― you cut him off abruptly, feeling a suffocating knot tighten in your throat as you took a step back. ―It's just the hospital. I'm... really deep in my own world lately, too tired with the clinical simulation practices. I have to go now, I'm extremely late for the lab. See you later.―

You walked away at a hurried pace down the old hallway, your eyes fixed on the gray floor tiles and your heart beating wildly against your ribs, forcing yourself not to look back even once. You couldn't allow yourself to see the expression of absolute pain and bewilderment you had left etched on Logan's face.

What none of the four Briar captains could even imagine at that moment was that your sudden distance was not born from academic fatigue or hospital stress. It was born from the purest, most paralyzing, dark, and destructive fear that a person could harbor in their soul. Behind your dull gaze, your marked dark circles, and your milimetrically structured excuses, hid the atrocious memory of that Friday night. The vivid memory of the deserted alley behind the hockey stadium, of rough and violent hands wearing the rival team's uniform, and of a cruel voice that had stripped away your innocence and peace in a second, whispering venomous words into your ear that had shattered you inside: ―This is what you really wanted, bitch. You spend your life surrounded by men like Tucker, Logan, Garrett, and Dean... you've been begging for this since the first day you stepped onto Briar.―

Guilt was eating you alive, settling into your chest like a black parasite. You felt dirty, completely broken, and the mere thought that your four unconditional protectors would find out that your closeness to them, that the pure love you had for them, and your constant presence in their world had been used by a monster as the perfect argument to hurt you, filled you with a terror so sharp that you preferred to turn off your own light forever before allowing them to see your bloody pieces.

By Thursday afternoon of that same week, the situation inside the Briar fraternity house had become completely unsustainable. The cheerful, competitive, and loud atmosphere that normally defined the athletes' home had vanished, replaced by a thick, tense silence heavy with a dull frustration. The team was losing its footing on the rink; Garrett Graham barked at the defensemen during morning practices over millimeter-wide mistakes, Dean Di Laurentis ignored the coach's instructions with a dangerous coldness, and Tucker had burned dinner twice in a row because his mind was floating far away from the kitchen, lost in the mystery of your disappearance. Logan, for his part, spent the dead hours sitting on the couch, staring blankly at his phone screen, waiting for a text from you that never arrived.

However, what finally set off all the group's alarms and transformed their worry into a desperate urgency was a chance discovery that Dean made around three in the afternoon, while heavy-footing his way toward the faculty of health sciences to fulfill a mandatory tutoring session.

As he crossed the faculty’s old hallway—a long corridor lined with colonial stone arches and large glass windows that looked into the clinical simulation laboratories where med students usually held their practices—Dean stopped dead in his tracks. His massive frame tensed completely beneath his dark Briar jacket. Through the glass, fogged up by the afternoon cold, he saw you.

You were sitting on a worn-out wooden bench at the end of the deserted corridor, where the sunlight barely managed to filter through. But you weren't alone.

Beau Maxwell was sitting right next to you.

Beau, the junior who was also part of the football team—he was the captain but had always maintained a low, quiet profile away from the campus spotlights, so to speak—was the only man you hadn't driven away with your perfect excuses. Dean watched in absolute silence, feeling a violent pang of territorial jealousy mixed with a suffocating anguish, as Beau maintained a highly respectful distance, holding a glass of mineral water for you with both hands while your shoulders remained completely slumped, your gaze fixed on the gray floor tiles and your body wrapped in a fragility they had never seen you possess. There was no laughter, none of the overwhelming and loud energy of the fraternity; there was only a sepulchral silence, a dead calm that you seemed to be using as a human shield to protect yourself from the rest of the world.

Dean didn't think twice. He pulled his phone from his pocket and sent a direct message to the group chat of the four captains: ―Old hallway at the health faculty. Right now. Bring Tucker and Logan. She’s here with Maxwell.―

Less than ten minutes later, the four massive silhouettes of the Briar captains advanced in single file, with fast, firm, and determined steps through the stone corridor. They were ready to confront you once and for all, to demand a real explanation for your distance, to break that damn glass wall by force if necessary, and to brush Beau aside with the implacable authority granted to them by being the owners of the territory.

However, the four of them stopped dead in their tracks just before turning the corner that led to the practice locker room of the simulated hospital. The heavy, old oak door was slightly ajar, just a few inches, and the voices coming from inside resonated with terrifying clarity in the emptiness of the deserted hallway.

―You have to talk to them once and for all... please,― Beau’s voice was heard, soft, measured, laced with a compassion and concern so legitimate it was painful to listen to. ―I was with Garrett on the rink today during morning practice, and I swear to you he is completely losing his mind. He missed three free shots. Tucker isn't sleeping at all, he spends the whole night pacing around the kitchen. The boys are dying of worry for you, beautiful. They feel in their souls that they are losing you piece by piece, and they're going crazy because they don't understand what the hell they did wrong for you to shut them out of your life like this.―

A stifled sob, a broken, sharp sound full of suffering that the four boys instantly recognized as your voice, froze the blood right in their veins. Logan felt the air escape his lungs. The four of them immediately pressed themselves against the stone wall next to the door, holding their breath, their fists clenched so tightly inside their pockets that their knuckles turned completely white.

―I can't, Beau... I really can't look them in the face,― you replied through tears, and your voice sounded so devoid of all the strength, neatness, and analytical authority you usually assumed at the hospital that it sounded like the lament of a frightened little girl. ―Every time I see their blue sweatshirts on campus, every time I smell their cologne in the distance or hear their loud voices in the cafeteria, my brain just disconnects. I’m right back in that damn dark alley behind the stadium. I’m hearing that miserable guy from the rival team repeating every single one of his words to me while he pinned me against the wall.―

The silence that settled in the hallway for the next two seconds was purely electric, charged with the density of a blizzard about to erupt. Garrett's eyes widened, feeling the university floor vanish completely from beneath his feet. Dean rested the back of his head against the cold stone of the wall, his jaw so tight that a spasm of pure violence rippled through his neck.

―What exactly did that fucking monster tell you, beautiful?― Beau asked inside the room, his own voice trembling with pain. ―Tell me. You need to get it out of your head.―

―He told me... he told me this was what I really wanted,― you confessed in a choked cry that completely shattered the hearts of the four men listening outside. ―He grabbed me by my hair and whispered in my ear that I had asked for it by always living surrounded by men. He mentioned their names, Beau. He mentioned Tucker, Logan, Garrett, Dean... He told me with horrible contempt that since I always hung around the Briar captains, a bitch like me was just begging for a real hockey player to take her by force in the dark. He used my boys to destroy me! I feel like it's my fault... I feel like if I hadn't been so close to them at parties, if I hadn't gone to their games in section 10, that monster wouldn't have chosen me. I pushed them away because I can't let them see me broken because of them... I don't want them to carry that burden.―

On the other side of the door, the whole world of the four Briar captains ground to a halt, plunging into the abyss. A wave of remorse, brutal guilt, and heartbreaking pain hit them directly in the center of their chests as they understood the magnitude of the tragedy: their unconditional love, their constant protection, their loud hugs, and their territorial presence in your life had been manipulated and used by a psychopath from the rival team to subdue you, to strip away your peace, and to make you believe you were responsible for your own hell.

But the remorse and guilt lasted for barely a miserable second in their systems. Instantly, their blood boiled again, replaced by a fury so blind, so pure, so lethal, and so coordinated that the air in the health faculty seemed to freeze entirely. The unconditional love they had for you ―to the death― transformed into a dark instinct of possession, absolute protection, and relentless vengeance.

There were no medical excuses that mattered anymore. There was no academic distance they were going to respect. Their light was bleeding inside that room, and the four gods of Briar were ready to tear down the door and claim what was theirs.

The sound of the last sob that leaked through the crack of the simulated locker room's oak door didn't just travel through the thick air of the old hallway of the faculty of health sciences; it embedded itself directly into the center of the chests of the four men waiting outside, shattering the last barrier of their civilized restraint. The revelation of the truth—the cruel words of the rival team player, the weight of the unjustified guilt you were carrying in absolute solitude, and the perverse use of their own names as a psychological weapon to subdue you—transformed the initial remorse of the hockey captains into a unified, cold, and lethal force.

Garrett Graham didn't wait for anyone to give an order. His fingers, long and trained for the firmness of a hockey stick, closed around the brass knob of the half-open door. With a sharp, direct push devoid of all subtlety, the heavy wooden structure struck against the inner wall of the simulated classroom, cutting off the echo of the crying and Beau Maxwell’s comforting murmur.

The impact of the door resonated like a gunshot in the confined space. Looking up with red, swollen eyes from the tears, your breath hitching, you were met with the sight of the four massive silhouettes completely blocking the only exit from the room. Dean Di Laurentis entered first, his shoulders tense beneath his dark jacket, his jaw so tight that the veins in his neck stood out like steel wires, and a fixity in his hazel eyes that was genuinely terrifying. Behind him, Garrett, Logan, and Tucker fanned out, closing the space, transforming the practice room into a territory under absolute military control.

Beau Maxwell stood up from the wooden bench immediately. The massive football captain, carrying his imposing physical presence, instinctively placed himself half a step between you and the oncoming fury of the newcomers. His hands were open in a gesture of truce, but his feet were firmly planted, proving that he would not be easily intimidated, not even by the best friend he considered a brother.

―Boys, pump your goddamn brakes right now,― Beau said, his deep voice dropping in tone to try and dampen the static in the room, looking directly at Dean. ―I know what you heard from the hallway. I know you're furious, but this is not the time or the place for you to come in here like a goddamn Briar wrecking ball. She doesn't need your noise right now. She needs some fucking air.―

Dean took a step forward, completely ignoring Beau’s physical size, though his eyes scanned your figure curled up on the bench, locking onto how your hands trembled around the water glass and how you tried to hide your face behind your medical books as if you wanted to vanish from the face of the earth.

―Step aside, Beau,― Dean ordered, and his voice wasn't a shout, but a low, raspy murmur, heavy with an authority so icy it made the air in the simulated classroom seem to drop several degrees below zero. ―You're my best friend, Maxwell. I consider you my brother, and I respect more than anyone on this campus that you were here taking care of her this week when we were too stupid to see what was happening. But your shift is over. Move out of her goddamn way before I forget who you are.―

―I’m not moving if you're going to overwhelm her, Di Laurentis,― Beau shot back, holding his gaze with the same steel stubbornness he used to lead his own team on the football field. ―She’s terrified. Can’t you see that? Look at her. The last thing she needs is four goddamn six-foot-four apes starting to yell about witch hunts and vengeance in the middle of the health faculty.―

Garrett took a lateral step, placing himself right next to Beau. Resting a massive hand on the football captain's shoulder, he applied a downward pressure, firm but controlled, conveying an unmistakable warning.

―Beau, seriously, don't play shield with us today,― Garrett intervened, his dark eyes fixed on yours, devouring every trace of pain in your features. ―We appreciate what you did. You're a good guy, and you look out for your own. But she is our constant. She is our light. And if you think for a single second that we're going to stand on the other side of that door after hearing that some miserable fuck destroyed her peace using our names, then you don't know us at all. Give us some space. Now.―

Tucker, maintaining a remnant of the pragmatic sanity that characterized him, walked over to Beau and placed a hand on his opposite arm, guiding him gently but with an immovable force toward the classroom exit.

―Go to the cafeteria, Beau. Please,― Tucker asked in a thread of a voice that trembled with pure, restrained rage. ―Make sure nobody walks down this hallway for the next hour. Do us that favor as Dean’s friend. We’ve got her. We've got everything from this goddamn second on.―

Beau looked at Tucker, then at Logan, who remained by the door threshold with his arms crossed and an expression of pain so deep he seemed to be holding back the urge to punch the wall. Finally, Beau turned toward you, seeking your approval with his eyes. You, your chest rising and falling in silent spasms, nodded slightly, letting him know you were safe with them. Beau let out a long sigh, looked at the four hockey captains with one last silent warning in his eyes, gave Dean a firm slap on the shoulder in support, and walked out into the hallway, closing the heavy door behind him and leaving you all in a silence that felt eternal.

As soon as the lock clicked, the wall of containment you had maintained all week in front of your friends collapsed entirely. You shrank even further into the wooden bench, lowering your head, feeling the shame, the fear, and the dirty sensation of guilt choking your throat. You expected demands, you expected technical hockey questions, you expected the loud indignation that always characterized the Briar athletes.

But there was none of that.

Logan was the first to move. He crossed the distance between you with slow, almost floating steps, stripped of all the roughness of his usual movements on the hockey rink. He knelt directly on the gray tiled floor, right in front of your knees, forcing himself to stay below your line of sight so as not to be intimidating in the slightest. His large hands, scarred from games, extended with infinite slowness, not touching you just yet, silently asking for permission.

―Beautiful... look at me,― Logan asked, and his voice, usually cheerful, loud, and full of jokes, sounded broken, torn by a restrained crying he refused to let out in front of you. ―Please, beautiful, look at me. Don't hide from us. Not from us. I’m begging you.―

With a supreme effort that hurt your very soul, you raised your head slowly, letting your books drop onto the bench. Your eyes, flooded with fresh tears, met Logan's. The big Briar defenseman, the guy who leveled two-hundred-pound opponents on the ice without blinking, had eyes full of tears that rolled freely down his cheeks.

―It's not your fault,― Logan said in a desperate whisper, clenching his fists against his own thighs to restrain the urge to wrap his arms around you. ―Listen to me carefully. I don't give a fuck what that miserable monster told you in that alley to try and take away your peace. We don't care what he put in your head. You didn't ask for anything. Being close to us, laughing with us in the kitchen, coming to our games... that is the only pure and clean thing we have at this goddamn university. Don't let that piece of shit stain what you mean to us. I won't allow it.―

Tucker approached from the side, sitting on the edge of the wooden bench, leaving a respectful distance but close enough so you could feel the comforting warmth of his body. He took off his varsity jacket and, with extreme gentleness, draped it over your shoulders, covering your medical practice uniform, enveloping you in the familiar scent of fabric softener, coffee, and the home-like warmth that always emanated from him.

―I am so sorry I wasn't there,― Tucker said, resting his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hands for a second before looking at you with absolute seriousness. ―I’m sorry you had to spend this week alone in the hospital, inventing excuses to protect us from the pain. Thinking that you were suffering through this while I was cooking lasagna and complaining about exams... it turns my stomach, beautiful. You broke our hearts by pulling away, but now we understand. We understand everything. You are not going to carry this alone for another second.―

Dean, who had kept his distance a few paces away, staring out the window to try and control the tide of destructive violence that threatened to push him over the edge, turned slowly. He walked over to the bench and sat down on the other side of you, letting his massive shoulder brush yours through Tucker’s jacket. His hand slid along the wood of the bench until it touched your freezing fingers, wrapping them in a warm firmness that brought your pulse back.

―That coward will pay for every single one of his words, babe,― Dean whispered, his voice vibrating with a feline, dark, and purely territorial intensity. ―He used our names because he fears us. He used our place in your life because he knew the only way to weaken the strongest girl at Briar was to make her doubt her own family. But he made the worst mistake of his goddamn life. He touched you. Choose whether you want us to destroy him today or tomorrow, because one way or another, he’s going down. From today on, we are your shadow. You are not going to hide in the library anymore. You are not going to spend a shift alone at the hospital ever again.―

Garrett knelt beside Logan, completing the perfect circle around you. He took both of your hands in his, feeling the residual trembling of your body, and leaned in until his forehead rested against your fingers.

―You are our light, beautiful,― Garrett said, with a solemnity that felt like a sacred oath. ―Don't let the shadows of an alley blow out who you are. We’re getting you out of here, we’re going to the house, and we’re going to make sure you smile in section 10 again if it's the last thing we do on this campus. Hannah and Allie are already on their way to the fraternity. The whole group is closing ranks for you. You are not alone. Never again.―

The tears continued to fall down your cheeks, but this time, the suffocating weight of guilt began to dissolve under the impact of their words, replaced by the absolute certainty that, no matter how broken you felt at that moment, you had four unbreakable walls and a football captain watching your back outside, all willing to hold you up until you were back on your feet.

The journey from the faculty of health sciences to the Briar fraternity house was nothing like the group's usual walks. There was no loud laughter, no Logan shoving Dean, no Garrett arguing about game stats. The boys escorted you, forming an impassable physical barrier: Garrett walked to your left, his shoulder brushing yours; Dean positioned himself to your right, keeping his hand firmly intertwined with yours inside the pocket of Tucker's jacket; while Tucker himself and Logan covered the rear, scanning the campus with glances so sharp that any student attempting to approach and say hello immediately crossed the street.

When they arrived at the large wooden house, the front door opened before Garrett could even pull out his keys. Hannah Wells and Allie Hayes appeared on the threshold. The moment their eyes met yours, seeing your swollen cheeks and how you came wrapped in Tucker's massive varsity jacket, their expressions of frustration instantly transformed into pure female protective instinct.

―Oh, sweetheart!― Allie exclaimed, running down the porch steps to wrap you in a soft embrace, taking care not to press too hard against you. ―Come here. You're home now. Leave her to us, boys.―

Hannah stepped between you and the four players, placing a hand firmly on Garrett’s and Dean’s chests with absolute authority.

―We’re going up to her room,― Hannah sentenced, looking at the captains with a seriousness that admitted no replication. ―We’re giving her a hot shower, making her some tea, and making her feel clean and safe. You four stay down here. I don't want to hear shouting, I don't want to hear punching against the walls, and I don't want you going up there to overwhelm her with your testosterone questions until she is ready. Is that clear?―

―Hannah, we want to be with her,― Logan replied in a choked voice, clenching his jaw. ―I don't want to leave her alone for a single second.―

―She’s not going to be alone, Logan, she’s going to be with us,― Allie replied sweetly but with unwavering determination from your side. ―Trust us. Make her something light to eat and keep the house locked. We need this place to be a fortress right now.―

Dean let out a heavy sigh, releasing your hand with clear reluctance, but he leaned toward you and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead.

―We're right downstairs, babe,― he whispered in your ear. ―Literally glued to the stairs. If you need anything at all, just call my name.―

You let Hannah and Allie guide you toward the upper floor, leading you away from the heavy atmosphere of the living room. As you entered your bedroom, the scent of lavender, your neatly arranged books, and the dim light of your nightstand lamp welcomed you like a balm. Allie locked the door and turned toward you with glistening eyes.

Those girls removed your dirty hospital clothes with infinite gentleness, set the shower to the perfect temperature, and helped you sit on the bed wrapped in your coziest, fluffiest pajamas. They didn't pressure you to talk; Hannah simply sat beside you, brushing your damp hair with rhythmic, soothing strokes, while Allie prepared a cup of chamomile tea with honey.

―Beau called us the second you guys stepped out of the old hallway,― Hannah confessed in a low voice, gently running the brush through your strands. ―He told us roughly what he heard. Beautiful... I am so sorry you kept that pain to yourself all week out of fear that these idiots would react badly. You know they're loud and possessive, but they love you to death. They would never, ever think this was your fault.―

―I was so scared, Hannah...― you managed to articulate, your voice barely a fragile thread as you held the warm cup between your hands. ―The guy from the rival team... he said it with such certainty. He said that since I always hang around the hockey captains, I was just looking to get men's attention. I thought that if Garrett and the others found out, they would feel like their friendship was the reason my life was ruined.―

―That is complete, misogynistic, disgusting garbage!― Allie exclaimed with restrained anger, sitting at the foot of the bed and taking hold of your ankles. ―That miserable fuck used the oldest, most cowardly tactic in the world to try and silence you. He wanted you to feel guilty so you wouldn't talk. But he made the worst mistake of his miserable existence by underestimating what you mean to this house. You are not the cause of anything bad. You are the victim of a monster, and you have an entire army ready to burn this university down for you.―

―That’s right,― Hannah agreed, setting the brush aside to wrap her arms around your shoulders. ―The boys downstairs look like caged lions, but they are coordinating. Dean already called his father to get the best specialist lawyers and psychologists in the state, and Garrett is gathering the stadium security footage with the coach’s help. You are not going to go through this alone—not in a courtroom, not on campus, and not in your mind. We are here, and they are downstairs ready to be your warriors.―

Meanwhile, on the ground floor, the fraternity kitchen had been transformed into a strategic command center. Tucker chopped vegetables for a broth with mechanical speed, discharging his fury onto the wooden cutting board, while Logan paced back and forth, destroying a tennis ball with his bare hands from the pure tension. Dean and Garrett sat at the table with a laptop open, their faces illuminated by the raw light of the screen, reviewing the rosters of the rival team players who had been at the stadium on the night of the assault.

―It has to be one of the defensemen from the second line,― Garrett growled, pointing at a photograph with his index finger. ―Beau said she mentioned he wore the Huskies uniform. On Friday night, the guys from the second line stayed celebrating at the bar on the corner of the stadium until late.―

―I don't give a fuck who it is, Garrett,― Dean sentenced, a sociopathic coldness settling into his hazel features. ―My dad is already pulling strings with the university dean to get the medical logs from that night and the security footage from the commercial zone in the alley. We are going to destroy him legally—we'll get him expelled, sent to prison, and if the law takes too long... well, Logan and I know exactly where their team stays when they come to town.―

―We’ll do both, Dean,― Tucker intervened, turning off the stove and looking at them with an absolute seriousness that curdled the blood. ―But first, the beautiful's food is ready. Logan, drop that damn ball and help me take this upstairs. Hannah said not to make any noise, so we’ll go in quietly. She needs us sane, not acting like goddamn savages.―

The type of relationship you and Dean Di Laurentis have is…interesting, to say the least.

You’d been unlikely friends since the beginning of college. He went to you with all his problems regarding hockey, and you enjoyed the company he brought.

Eventually, things began to shift between the two of you. You’d often catch him staring at you, unmistakable heat and lust in his eyes, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you tingle with need. The friends with benefits arrangement that inevitably followed was easy and fun.

Until you caught feelings, that was. Now, you stayed for the sex and good times in bed, but your heart yearned for something else. Something more. You wanted all of the lovey dovey stuff that came with a relationship.

You wanted it all with Dean.

You laid flat on your back on Hannah’s bed, ranting about yet another failed opportunity to tell Dean how you truly felt.

“I was going to tell him I loved him last night, but I got choked up when he did that thing with his tongue and I totally forgot all sense of rational thought!”

She grimaced. “Yeah, that’ll do it to you. So what’s your game plan now?”

“I don’t know, Han. I just can’t ever seem to find the words to say how I really feel.”

She sat back against her headboard, pondering how you could tell Dean your feelings without making a fool of yourself. An idea flashed in her head, and she sat up suddenly with a gasp.

“Hey! We’re all meeting up for lunch at the quad later. Why don’t you stop by after classes? He’s out of his class first, so you’ll be able to catch him alone and tell him then.”

“Alright, that may work.” You seemed to genuinely appreciate the suggestion. “That way, if he rejects me, I have an easy exit after.”

“That’s the spirit! I’ll be there too to have your back either way, and regardless of what happens, you’re still the best person I know. Dean, or any other guy on campus, would be super lucky to have you as their girlfriend.”

You gave a small smile, mumbling a small, “Yeah, I sure hope so.”

You clutched your notebook tightly to your chest, scanning the quad for the sixth time in the last two minutes. Still no sign of Dean. Your anxiety grew with each passing moment, feeling a lump forming in your throat and the notebook starting to slip from your slippery palms.

Just as you were about to chicken out and head in the other direction, you saw a tall, muscular blond man enter from the opposite end of the courtyard, immediately knowing it was him.

As he approached the meeting spot Hannah had told you about, you took a deep breath to steady yourself and headed in his direction.

Instead of the warm welcome you were expecting, you were met with a panicked look on Dean’s face and a hushed, “What are you doing here?”

You met his nervous stare with a confused smile. “I’m here to see you, silly. Wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

His eyes darted around, checking to see if anyone had been watching the two of you.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The smile on your face fell as quickly as it had appeared. “What?”

“Y/N, we had a deal. I offered you a good time in private if we spared the public from all the gross romantic shit. I’m supposed to be a good time, not a long time, remember? If people see us together too often, they’ll think we’re locked down or something.”

“Well, what if I decided I wanted more? What if I told you I wanted the ‘gross romantic shit’?”

“Then I’d say you’re looking at the wrong guy.”

“God, Dean, you make it sound like I’m the least desirable girl on campus. Would being with me for real really be so bad?”

He sighed, looking down and pinching the bridge of his nose before bringing his gaze back up to yours.

“Yeah, it would be.”

You gasped, breath getting caught as you felt your heart breaking. You could see the rest of your joint friend group approaching from behind Dean, only having it in you to squeak out an “Oh.”

Tears welled in your eyes, threatening to fall at any given moment. You spun on your heel right after catching Hannah’s confused stare, taking off in the opposite direction toward your dorm.

From behind you, you could hear Dean’s “Y/N, hey, wait, we need to talk about this!”, followed by Logan’s “What the hell did you do, man?”, but their words didn’t deter you. In fact, they only made you run faster.

Your lungs burned once you made it to your dorm room, collapsing on your bed in a heap and finally letting your tears fall in silent sobs. 

You were a fool for thinking Dean could ever love you like that. You were a good fuck and a place to vent; that was all you’d ever be.

In the days following the incident, Dean tried to reach you in any way he could. It started with phone calls, leaving long voicemails begging you to pick up and talk to him. After that came the texts.

DUMB EVIL ASSHOLE NONUTS: hey, can we talk?

I’m so, so sorry baby

I didn’t mean any of what I said

I was stupid and scared, but I’m not scared anymore

just pick up the phone when you get the chance, ok?

The new contact name had been Allie’s idea, and you couldn’t help but smile slightly whenever you saw it. Regardless, his texts and calls remained unanswered.

When both of those methods failed him, Dean tried sending his buddies to talk to you in the hopes of creating a peace offering.

“Hey, Y/N, funny seeing you here.” Tucker greeted you, speed walking to catch up to your pace.

“Respectfully, Tucker, cut the shit. I take this path to class every single day. What are you here for?”

“I’m asking you to hear Dean out.” He winced at your immediate scoff. “He’s really sorry for what he did and regrets it daily. All he talks about is you.”

“Yeah, well he can keep talking about me all he wants. He made it very clear that he’s only in it for a hookup.”

Tucker went to say something else, but you cut him off before he could continue pleading Dean’s case.

“Listen, I’ve gotta get to class. It’s great you guys want us back together, but I honestly don’t see it happening again. Hope to see you around- take care.” With that, you began your walk to the last morning class on your schedule, also known as the only one you shared with Dean.

As you settled into your seat and pulled your journal to scan through your notes, you saw someone sit in the seat directly next to yours in your peripheral vision. Upon one whiff of the familiar cologne, you sighed, not daring to raise your gaze at the unwelcomed man.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“Hello to you too, sunshine. Just wanted to see my favorite girl on this fine morning. I brought your favorite, too.” Your favorite drink slid across the table to you.

“I don’t feel like talking to you right now. Or ever, for that matter.”

He sighed, turning in his seat to face you completely. “I know what I did was incredibly shitty. I regret every second of that interaction, believe me. I’ve never been in a serious relationship before, but for you, I’m ready to try. I was a coward and don’t deserve your forgiveness in the slightest. There’s one thing I know for certain, though.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to trust me again. If it takes a day, a month, hell, even a year, I’m still going to be here. Say the word and I’m yours completely.”

You glanced sideways at him questioningly. “And what if I’m never ready?”

He paused, looking taken aback by your question.

“Then I don’t get you back and live with the fact that I’ve ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. But I’ll still always be grateful for the time I was almost yours.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, fuck no.” Dean’s lips fell into a deep frown. “I’ll regret it the rest of my life and be always wish for what could’ve been between us. But I’d rather you be happy, regardless of whether that’s with or without me.”

You closed your notebook, turning so you were face to face. “Look, I’m really glad you had a change of heart and realized you fucked up, but I don’t think I’m ready to entertain the idea of us being together for real yet. I deserve time to find who I am as a person and think about where my future could go.”

“That’s completely understandable. Just do me a favor, if or when you’re ready, give me a call. I’ll be right here waiting.”

As the lesson began and you ceased your conversation, a small flutter began in your heart once more that became impossible to ignore.

Something that felt a lot like hope.

When Dean promised you he’d let you find yourself, that didn’t mean stopping the gestures and acts of love to prove he was still thinking about you.

He knocked on your dorm door twice a week, handing you flowers with a bright smile before turning and walking right back down the hall without a word. Some had notes on them; nothing crazy, just sayings like a simple have an amazing week, gorgeous or thinking of you.

He still went to parties with his friends but didn’t engage with the many women throwing themselves at him like he used to. That, of course, brought a buzz amongst students, many of them questioning who the mystery woman could be stealing his attention away.

“Did you hear about Dean?” You overheard a sophomore gossiping with her friend in hushed whispers. “He hasn’t had sex with anyone in weeks. Months, even. Lisa told me she wore her shortest skirt that made him fold last time and he didn’t even look twice at her!”

“Damn, he’s a changed man.” Her friend responded. “I really wonder what, or who, managed to take his attention away from the playboy life.”

“Must be someone really important to him. If only it could’ve been me, right?.”

Their conversation devolved into giggles from there, but you couldn’t find it in you to see anything humorous about the situation.

He’d given up sex? For you? That wasn’t a point of conversation or a rule set when your fling ended. Both of you had come to a mutual agreement that you could see other people…or so you thought.

You caught Dean later on his way to practice, gear slung over his shoulder as he headed for the doors of the rink.

“Hey, wait up!”

He turned, confused look giving way to a smile when he saw it was you approaching him.

“Oh, hey, baby, didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping with other women?”

“Woah, getting straight to the point, I see.” His chuckle that followed only angered you more.

“I’m serious here, Dean! Why is everyone on campus buzzing about how you haven’t slept with a girl in ages?”

“That’s easy, it’s because I haven’t.”

“But why?”

“Look,” he stepped closer, dropping his bag onto the ground beside him. “I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to tell you, baby: you’re the only one for me. I’m not interested in sleeping with other women because they’re not you. There’s no situation, no scenario, where you’re not my happy ending.”

Dean closed the distance between the two of you, cupping the side of your face in one hand and gripping your waist in the other. He leaned down so you were eye level, faces dangerously close.

“Say you don’t want me too. Tell me you’re not mine like I’m wholeheartedly yours, and I’ll back off forever.”

Your breath hitched, scrambling to sort your racing thoughts.

“I-I… you know I can’t.”

He backed off with that stupid grin of his, having caught you right where he wanted.

“Whenever you’re ready, sweetheart. It’s your call.” With that, he picked his bag back up, turning and finally heading through the doors and into his practice.

That night, you tossed and turned in bed, restless at the thought of him. You went back and forth, alternating between hating his guts and wanting to see him for the rest of your days right by your side.

Around 3 AM, you had a moment of clarity. You were tired of denying yourself the opportunity to be happy.

You were ready to be with Dean for real, once and for all.

The day had come at last- the finals of the Frozen Four. Also known as the Olympic gold medal game equivalent of college hockey.

You had limited contact with Dean after your interaction a week ago, sending each other small smiles in the halls and occasionally bumping into each other on campus or in your joint class; the time for your own gesture of love grew near. What better time to tell the love of your life that they’re it for you too than at the biggest game of their season?

Hannah squealed as you exited your bedroom, noticing the blue #66 jersey you were wearing.

“Oh, that man is going to flip out.”

You’d never worn anything of his in public before, choosing to respect his wishes of wanting to remain private. The jersey had been an accidental keepsake, something you wore after a particularly passionate night together that you’d forgotten to return. It sat hidden in the back of your closet until now.

“You think?” Your nerves shone through your voice. “I just don’t know if this is too much or not.”

“Y/N/N, it’s clear as day that the two of you are completely head over heels for each other. You, cheering him on, wearing his jersey, at the most important game of his college career is only going to make him love you more.”

“Alright, Han, if you say so.” You took a deep, steady breath, smoothing your hands down the front of the jersey. “I think it’s about time we head out, don’t you agree? I’ve got a hockey player to confess to.”

You sat on one of the bleachers a few rows behind the ice, sandwiched between Allie and Hannah. Beau sat to Hannah’s left, shooting you a smirk every now and then as he watched you fidget with your hands.

“It’s almost tiiiiime…”

“Oh, shut it, Maxwell.” Allie snipped. “She’s nervous enough as is.”

Beau opened his mouth to retort, but the lights dimmed, signaling the introduction of the players.

As the announcer introduced the Briar University Hawks, the arena erupted in enthusiastic cheers. The players took the ice one by one, and as Dean skated forward, you swore you could feel your heart stop.

He waved, scanning the crowd before ultimately spotting you. His demeanor shifted entirely, stopping in his tracks momentarily.

You sent him a shy smile, and it was if a switch flipped. He immediately became twice as pumped, pointing in your direction and sending you a wide smile before entering their starting lineup.

When he pointed to you, you couldn’t care less about the hundreds of people now staring directly at you. The only thing that truly mattered was being here, supporting your favorite guy, and watching Briar U take the championship.

As the game progressed, Dean was on fire. His assists were all perfect, and he managed to score two goals of his own. After each one, he’d point right back at you as you jumped up and down and dedicated each goal to you.

The final buzzer sounded- Briar won 6-4.

The team rushed to the ice, cheering and hollering as they huddled in the middle. As you walked to the end of the row where the gate was that led out, you saw Dean standing still at the corner of the rink.

He seemed to hesitate for a brief moment, tossing his hockey stick at Tucker and setting his helmet on the ground before skating with a purpose toward the connecting gate.

“Hey, man, don’t you wanna celebrate?” Garrett called from the center of the ice.

“I got my girl, dude. That’s all the celebration I need.”

As if you could read his mind, the two of you reached the gate at the same moment. Instead of pushing it open like you thought he would, he grabbed your waist instead, hoisting you up and into his arms.

“You did it!” You grabbed his face in both hands, smiling up at him.

“You’re wearing my jersey.”

“Yes, very observant of you, Dean.”

“Does this mean-“

“I think you’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

He smiled, but instead of going to kiss you like you thought he would, he brought his forehead to yours instead.

“If we do this, just know that this is it. You and I, forever. Nobody else. Until we’re old and wrinkled.”

You laughed. “Yes, until we’re old and wrinkled. I choose you, Dean.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath the entire time you were talking, muttering an, “I love you so fucking much.” Before finally, finally bringing your lips together.

The remaining crowd around you, including your friends, cheered at the scene. Jules caught the whole thing on camera, the rest of the hockey team whistling and hollering behind you.

As you broke apart, you stayed close together, cocooned in your own little bubble. He twirled you on the ice as both of you giggled uncontrollably, finally able to just be in love and proud of it.

The fling, the breakup, the championship, all of it led to where you were now.

Your story with Dean is only just beginning, and you can’t wait to see what’s next.

<3

he walks you over to his soft bed. the one you lay in almost everyday. you immediately melt into a sleepy puddle of limbs. “give me a kiss first, johnny.”

you tip yourself up on your elbows, glossy lips puckered up. logan is too down bad for you, because he immediately indulges in your request and pushes his soft lips to yours.

the kiss is dramatic. you dramatically moan into his mouth, your lips smacking against his. it’s not a fluid kiss, it’s mouthy and swirly, but logan makes it work with a stable hand cupping your chin to coordinate you.

“happy now?” logan questions, pulling back. you let yourself fall back on the duvet, his smell lingering on the sheets. your eyes flutter shut.

“yes,” you reply, “you’re a really good kisser. now we can sleep. maybe i can sleep with you.” you giggle, mischievous grin on your face.

“oh— does your boyfriend know?” logan pulls back, plucking the micellair water from the night stand, faux-shocked expression on his face.

you burst out a laugh, hoisting your legs up from laughing too hard: “you are my boyfriend, silly!”

logan laughs that gentle laugh when he lightly traces the cotton pads over your skin. he hums in approval. “i’m a lucky guy, my love.”

he continues to clean your pretty face up. sleep is at the verge of conquering you, but before it pulls you under, you ask: “can i wear your shirt to bed?”

“of course, honey. of course you can.”

eventually you and logan end up tangled under the sheets. you’re wearing one of his old training shirts, his name and number on your back. and some old, oversized basketball shorts.

logan doesn’t really sleep with you like that. of course not. instead, your face is pushed into his neck. you’re knocked-out cold, softly snoring as logan presses a kiss to your knuckles. slowly intertwining your hands before placing them on top the duvet.