I Party Like A Rockstar, Choirboy.

Good sex was what you expected from anybody decent enough to make it that far with you. It was the kind people talked about casually with their friends, the kind that came up over drinks after someone asked, “So, was he good?” Good sex happened on Tuesdays after work with the guy from Hinge who insisted on taking you out somewhere too expensive for a second date. You split a basket of fries, drank half a beer because you still had work in the morning, drove home with exhaustion sitting heavy behind your eyes, then let him fuck you well enough to sleep for four uninterrupted hours. 

Good sex was practical and predictable. It convinced your body you were living a normal life.

Great sex was different. Great sex happened after work parties when your mascara was already smudged and your heels were in your hand by midnight. It happened on weekends with nowhere to be the next morning. You never talked about great sex because it sounded exaggerated the second you said it out loud, like you were overselling a man nobody else would understand. Great sex made you cum or at least brought you close enough that your stomach tightened every time you remembered it afterward. You thought about great sex while driving long stretches of empty highway, your hands steady on the wheel while your mind wandered somewhere warmer. 

Great sex stayed in your body for days. You caught yourself replaying parts of it absentmindedly while standing in line for coffee or brushing your teeth before bed.

Then there was getting fucked…

There was no cleaner way to define it. It lived somewhere between fantasy and urban legend, passed around between women in half-serious conversations that always dissolved into laughter. Everybody claimed to know someone who’d experienced it but nobody could explain it properly. Getting fucked was the kind of sex that distracted you in the middle of the day badly enough to make you stop what you were doing and change your underwear. It sat dangerously close to the limits of what sex could actually be before the whole thing collapsed under its own weight. 

If a guy treated you too much like an object, it fell apart immediately. 

If you didn’t orgasm, it didn’t count. 

If you weren’t still thinking about him six months later at red lights and in grocery store aisles and during lonely hotel nights, then it wasn’t that either. 

Getting fucked sat at the very top of the scale, lit up like something obvious and somehow most men still missed it completely.

Being made love to was worse and more dangerous, honestly.

For somebody like you, it could become embarrassing fast. Storm season kept you on the road for months at a time, bouncing between states, sleeping in motels with stiff sheets and weak air conditioning. Off-season meant office buildings, weather models glowing across multiple monitors, long meetings about funding, new equipment and data collection. Your life moved constantly and men liked that at first. A woman who was smart, busy, gone half the year, financially stable and difficult to pin down. 

Men loved the idea of you because it excused the fact they never had to give very much. Most of them thought they were in love but really, they just liked access to somebody they found impressive.

Before all of that, you used to think being made love to meant passion…intimacy. That it was slow sex with somebody who knew your body so well they could pull an orgasm out of you patiently and confidently, like it mattered to them as much as breathing did. You imagined hands lingering at your waist, sleepy conversation afterward, somebody brushing your hair away from your face before kissing you again.

Instead, you ended up underneath men who mistook enthusiasm for intimacy. You stared at ceilings while they grunted above you, listened to them breathe your name like they were performing something instead of feeling it. Sometimes you felt your stomach turn from the boredom alone, your body rocking mechanically with theirs while your mind drifted somewhere else entirely to storm reports, grocery lists and whether you needed to change your oil before the next drive west.

You never let them finish once you realized you hated it, that was the one thing you refused to fake. You pushed them off, sat up and reached for your clothes while they blinked at you in confusion. You told them it wasn’t going to work, sometimes you said it gently and other times you just didn’t bother. Either way, you watched realization settle over them while they sat there flushed and humiliated, their ego bruised worse than their feelings ever were but somehow your harsh words still made them cum…

Needless to say, after a while, you stopped having sex altogether.

You were in your rental house after a long day spent staring at storm data and listening to Javi ramble about whatever breakthrough he thought he’d made this time. It was late, the entire house felt heavy and warm, every light dimmer than usual and lately, you weren’t alone nearly as often as you used to be.

Scott sat at your dining table with your laptop open, shoulders slightly hunched, completely absorbed in columns of numbers and radar models. You’d known him for two years and he’d been your partner for one of them. 

People were right about him. He was direct to the point of rudeness, arrogant enough to make most people defensive within five minutes and mean when he thought someone deserved it but unlike most men in your field, Scott had learned how to admit when he was wrong, far from gracefully or happily but still, he did it.

The two of you were impossibly stubborn in almost identical ways, so sharing space with him sometimes felt like being trapped in a room with a sharper version of yourself. Separately, you were both good at what you did but together, you were nearly impossible to beat.

You couldn’t pinpoint when “coworkers” had turned into Scott walking into your house without knocking, helping himself to your fridge and sitting at your table like he paid rent.

“Best orgasm you’ve had during sex?” His voice came from across the room, casual and flat, like he’d asked you about rainfall percentages. He didn’t even look away from the laptop while he said it.

You’d forgotten he was meeting you there before the two of you drove to the bar together, which was why you were still walking around in sleep shorts and a bra, trying to find something decent enough to wear without looking like you’d spent an hour trying.

You took a sip from the beer he’d already pulled out of your fridge and nearly snorted into the bottle. “You think men do that?” you asked as you disappeared into your bedroom.

“To you?” Scott finally looked up. His eyes tracked your movement automatically while he reached for the beer the two of you were apparently sharing now. “I hope so.”

He took a drink as his eyes followed your movement.

You walked back into view holding two dresses on mismatched hangers. “You’re a fucking idiot,” you said plainly. “And maybe a pervert.”

Scott pointed at you immediately. “You’re changing in front of me. I could probably keep count of your bras at this point and I don’t. That actually makes me less of a pervert.”

You disappeared back into your room. He could hear hangers scraping against the closet rod while you searched through clothes with growing irritation.

“Just because it doesn’t make you hard doesn’t make you not a pervert,” you called back, your voice muffled through the wall.

“How do you know I’m not?” he shot back instantly, sounding almost offended by the assumption.

Silence followed but about a minute later, you walked back out wearing a dress he’d never seen before. It was simple, fitted enough to make his eyes stop for a second before continuing downward automatically. You crossed the room toward him, letting your heels drop onto the hardwood before slipping them on one at a time.

“You’re not attracted to me, Scott,” you said flatly.

He looked up slowly then, his eyes dragging over the length of the dress with enough attention to make most people nervous. On you, it just made you impatient.

“You seem awfully confident about that.”

“I am.” You adjusted the strap on your shoulder before glancing toward his laptop screen. “So don’t say shit that makes me sound stupid.”

Scott looked back at the laptop fast enough to make the movement obvious. He pretended to scroll through data he’d stopped reading the second you started undressing in the next room.

“I’m ready,” you said. “Good to go?”

“Need five minutes,” he muttered.

You walked behind him toward the front door, tapping his shoulder as you passed. “The data will still be there tomorrow. C’mon, Scotty.”

The teasing grin in your voice made something in his jaw tighten. You disappeared outside before he could even think of an answer.

Scott closed the laptop harder than necessary and stood, quietly adjusting himself through his jeans with the irritation of a man betrayed by his own body. He shut off the lights one by one and grabbed your keys from the counter before locking the door behind him.

The porch light was off so you couldn’t see the tent in his jeans. Thank fuck for that.

“Scotty was an eight-year-old with chubby cheeks,” he muttered while locking the deadbolt. He glanced over at you waiting by the passenger side of his truck. “It’s Scott.”

“It’s whatever I decide it is,” you replied easily.

He rolled his eyes and walked down the porch steps, unlocking the truck with a sharp click.

“Come open my door.”

“Since when do you need me to do that?” he complained, already circling the hood anyway.

“Since you got comfortable commenting on my bras.”

Scott stopped in front of you to stare before reaching around your waist to pull the handle open. The movement brought him close enough to smell your perfume underneath detergent and beer.

You smiled to yourself while climbing into the passenger seat because for once, Scott didn’t have anything smart to say.

Talking about sex with your coworkers was probably the least professional habit you could develop but professionalism stopped mattering after twelve-hour drives, shared motel rooms, gas station dinners at midnight and enough close calls together to make normal boundaries feel unnecessary. There were barely any women in the field to begin with, which meant the few of you that existed clung together fast and Scott, despite being deeply irritating most of the time, was easier to talk to than most people. 

Brutally honest people usually were.

At some point, conversations that started as jokes during long drives turned into real discussions about relationships, sex, exes and every disappointing person either of you had ever slept with. It happened slowly enough neither of you noticed the line moving until it was already somewhere far behind you.

HR would’ve had a heart attack.

That night, you learned Scott Miller did not do good sex. If good sex existed to him at all, it involved two people fully clothed and standing on opposite ends of a room.

The bar was more crowded than you expected, packed wall to wall with storm chasers, meteorologists, researchers and people who somehow always smelled faintly like dust and gasoline no matter how clean they looked. Whenever women in the field found each other, there was an unspoken tendency to group together immediately, so you spent most of the night at the bar talking with another researcher from Oklahoma while music pounded so loud you felt it vibrate through the floor beneath your heels.

Eventually Javi appeared beside you carrying drinks you absolutely weren’t going to refuse. He handed one over before leaning closer, lowering his voice.

“What’s wrong with Scott?”

You blinked at him. The question caught you off guard enough to make your brows pull together immediately because nobody ever asked about Scott. People either tolerated him, argued with him or avoided him entirely. Whatever problem Scott had, he usually fixed it himself before anyone could notice it existed.

Your eyes scanned the crowd automatically until you found him near the back corner of the bar with a soda in his hand. Of course he wasn’t drinking, he stood half-shadowed against the wall looking deeply unimpressed by the concept of social interaction…and staring directly at you.

Your eyes narrowed slightly until Scott finally got the message and looked away first.

You turned back to Javi. “Do you mean tonight or in general?” you asked dryly. “Because I’m pretty sure he was dropped as a child, but you’d have to ask his mother for confirmation.”

Javi frowned harder. “I mean tonight. He looks tense and it’s making me uneasy.”

“It’s Scott. He always looks tense.”

“More than usual.” Javi glanced over his shoulder carefully. “Tell him to relax for once…and to make some friends. That’s literally why we came here.”

You pointed at yourself immediately. “Why am I responsible for that?”

Javi shrugged like the answer was obvious. “Because you speak ‘Scott’ fluently. Translate what I just said into something he’ll actually understand.”

Your gaze dropped to the drink in your hand. “You’re bribing me.”

“And that drink cost me twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “So yes. Go.”

You snorted into the rim of your glass. “Pretty sure stress is what’s making you bald, by the way…not Scott’s burning gaze.”

Javi adjusted his baseball cap defensively. “Just go talk to him.”

You shook your head, already grinning despite yourself and pushed through the crowd toward the back of the bar, which Scott noticed immediately. 

The music got louder the closer you got to him, voices bleeding together into useless noise, so instead of trying to shout over it, you reached forward and hooked one finger through the belt loop of his jeans.

“Outside,” you said simply, tugging once as you moved toward the exit.

Scott followed without argument, that alone should’ve concerned you more than it did.

The plan was for him to ask what you wanted once you got outside. Instead, somewhere between the crowded bar and the exit door, he got distracted watching you walk ahead of him. Your dress moved against your hips every few steps, exposing flashes of leg skin under the low bar lights and the muscles in your bare back moved subtly every time you pushed through another cluster of people.

Inevitably, Scott’s eyes dropped lower before he caught himself.

By the time the two of you stepped outside into the cooler night air, he still hadn’t said a word.

You finally let go of his belt loop once the two of you were far enough from the entrance that the music had dulled into muffled bass behind you. You turned to face him properly, folding your arms across your chest as you looked up at him.

“What’s your current issue?” you asked.

“Current?” Scott repeated, brows pulling together.

You nodded once like the question made perfect sense.

“When’s the last time you had sex?”

A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged carelessly, shoving one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “What? Are you the only one allowed to ask those questions?”

You laughed again, this time shaking your head as you pointed at him. “Yes. Obviously.”

Scott snorted.

“And those are long-drive questions,” you continued, motioning vaguely toward his truck behind you before pointing back toward the crowded bar. “Not ‘parking lot outside a packed bar’ questions.”

“You still need to answer.” He shrugged again. “Those are the rules.”

“Have I ever told you how stupid those rules are?”

“First time I’m hearing complaints since you’re the one who made them,” he replied with a grin.

“You’re insufferable,” you muttered under your breath before taking another sip of your drink.

Scott stayed quiet as he just watched you over the rim of his own soda, patient and expectant in a way that immediately irritated you because he clearly thought he was getting an answer eventually.

“Are you seriously gonna make me answer?”

“I can’t make you do anything,” he said calmly. “But I can wait. I still have to drive you home.”

You looked up toward the entrance of the bar. Through the windows you could still see people packed together under neon lights, laughing too loud, talking over each other about work, storm patterns and equipment failures. You’d already reached the point of the night where conversations started blending together into white noise.

“Can we leave now?” you asked.

Scott didn’t answer verbally. He just pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the truck with a click, then held his hand out toward your drink.

“Get in and lock the doors,” he said as he took the glass from you and turned back toward the bar to return it.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you called after him while walking directly to the passenger side and doing exactly that.

Honestly, you didn’t mind answering the question. The problem was that once you actually thought about it, you realized you weren’t entirely sure how long it had been. It had been long enough that you had to start considering technicalities and long enough that the answer became embarrassing and unfortunately, thinking about sex while sitting alone in Scott’s truck immediately led your brain somewhere unhelpful…

Scott eventually climbed back into the truck and shut the door behind him. He didn’t start driving right away, he just sat there in the dark, one hand resting on the wheel while the dashboard lights cut sharp shadows across his face…waiting, because the thing about car questions was that silence usually came first.

“A year and a half,” you blurted out finally. “Give or take.”

Scott’s head turned toward you so fast it almost looked painful. “No,” he said immediately. “I don’t believe that.”

You laughed in disbelief and looked toward him. “Believe whatever you want, Scott. I answered the fucking question. That’s the game.”

“A year and a half?” he repeated, staring at you like you’d confessed to murder. “What the hell do you even do on weekends?”

“Currently?” you replied dryly. “Sit in your truck while you annoy me.”

“No,” he said, already turning the key in the ignition. “You’re irritated because you’re sexually frustrated.”

You barked out another incredulous laugh. 

“And you’ve been sexually frustrated since I met you,” he continued as he shifted the truck into reverse. “Which explains why you piss me off every single fucking day.”

“Excuse you?” You turned toward him fully now, half laughing from sheer disbelief. “First the bra comments and now this? What’s next? Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?”

“Put your seatbelt on.” The command came out flat and automatic.

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do, Scott. I’m not drunk enough to–”

The words died in your throat the second he reached across you.

His arm slid in front of your chest while the truck reversed smoothly with his other hand still turning the wheel. His forearm brushed against the underside of your breasts accidentally…or maybe not so accidentally and your breath caught hard at the sudden closeness. Scott grabbed the seatbelt beside your shoulder, pulled it across your body in one sharp movement, then clicked it into place at your hip without looking away from the rear window once.

You drove home in complete silence.

No radio or conversation, just the steady sound of tires against asphalt and the occasional flick of the blinker while Scott kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. You’d heard every version of his voice over the last two years, sarcastic, irritated or sharp enough to make grown men defensive in meetings but hearing him tell you to put your seatbelt on while his arm pressed across your breasts had done something deeply unfortunate to your brain.

This was entirely your fault. You were the one who made sex an acceptable topic between the two of you, you were the one who turned it into a game, into background conversation during long drives and late nights. Somewhere along the way home, your definition of good sex had rewritten itself around that precise moment. 

For most people, that probably counted as foreplay, but for you? It counted as a serious fucking problem.

By the time Scott parked outside your house, your thoughts had spiraled so badly that you barely registered the truck stopping. You stayed seated even after he cut the engine, staring forward blankly while the silence settled heavier around you.

Scott got out first without saying anything and walked around the front of the truck toward your side.

The passenger door opened. You looked up just in time to feel him lean in and reach across you again, fingers brushing lightly against the fabric stretched over your waist as he unclipped the seatbelt. The contact lasted maybe a second but that was already too long.

Only then did you finally move. You climbed out quickly, making an effort to keep close to the truck instead of brushing against him, then headed straight for your front door while digging through your purse for your keys even if it was practically empty and somehow that made it worse. You found lip balm…receipts…some loose cash, everything except what you actually needed.

Scott followed behind you quietly.

You still hadn’t found the keys when his arm appeared beside you, reaching around your body with frustrating familiarity. He’d had your keys the entire night, he usually did whenever the two of you went out together because you constantly lost track of them.

The metal clicked softly as he unlocked the door for you.

Your breath stalled as Scott stood so close behind you that you could feel the heat coming off him through the thin fabric of your dress. His chest nearly touched your back, one arm still braced near your shoulder while he turned the lock. It boxed you in completely, your body caught between the door and him and the worst part was that it felt good.

The sharp heat low in your stomach made that painfully obvious.

Good sex, apparently, was standing fully clothed on your own porch while your coworker unlocked your front door…all while standing right behind you.

The lock finally clicked open. You pushed the door open and stepped inside fast to put distance between you before turning back toward him. 

Determination sat stiffly in your chest now…You were staying dressed. Whatever this weird tension was had to be alcohol-fueled, temporary, deeply stupid or preferably all three and gone by morning.

Unfortunately, Scott looked unfairly good standing on your porch under weak yellow light.

At some point he’d taken off his cap, you didn’t know when and hadn’t realized until now. Why did he look dreamy!? His hair was messy from running his hands through it all night and the expression on his face had settled back into that unreadable calm that somehow made things worse.

“Night, Scott,” you said quickly, then shut the door directly in his face…very determined to remain dressed.

“Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?” That sentence replayed in your head later for one humiliating reason: Scott Miller had never been the kind of man to hand off work he could do himself.

You’d been wrong earlier, completely wrong.

Great sex didn’t happen on weekends or after parties or during long-awaited moments with somebody you trusted. Sometimes it happened five minutes after you slammed your front door in a man’s face and tried convincing yourself you still had common sense.

You stayed standing by the door after closing it, palms warm against the wood, waiting to hear his truck start. You expected the familiar sound of the driver’s side door opening, shutting and the low rumble of the engine before he pulled away but nothing happened.

At first you told yourself you were imagining the silence because you were still too aware of him…then a full minute passed…followed by another and then three more.

Five long, miserable minutes where your brain refused to focus on anything except the fact Scott was still outside your house.

You opened the door expecting embarrassment or maybe annoyance, maybe him realizing he forgot something. Instead, he was still standing there in the same position with that same unreadable expression, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans like you hadn’t just shut the door on him…five minutes ago.

You stared at each other for a second too long.

You never figured out what exactly snapped first. Pride, self-control or curiosity…maybe all of it at once again.

One second he was standing on your porch and the next you were grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him forward hard enough to make him stumble into you as your mouth crashed against his.

The moment the door clicked shut behind you, the fragile determination to stay dressed shattered. You didn't just invite Scott in, you practically hauled him across the threshold, pulling him into a kiss that tasted of alcohol and months of suppressed frustration. It was messy and desperate, a collision of teeth and tongues that left you both breathless.

You stumbled backward, the friction of your bodies fueling a fire that had been simmering for far too long. As you navigated the space, your heels clicked erratically against the floor until you kicked them off with frantic movements, one flying toward the wall and the other sliding away as you backed into the dining area.

You hit the edge of the heavy wooden table and Scott didn't miss a beat. He gripped your waist with bruising force and hoisted you up, the sudden elevation making you gasp into his mouth. He didn't stop kissing you but his path shifted, lips sliding down your jawline to your neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. His hands were everywhere, frantic and demanding, sliding up the fabric of your dress and bunching it up around your waist until your thighs were bare and shivering against the cool wood.

You felt his fingers hook into the elastic of your panties, tugging them down with a sharp, decisive motion until you could kick them off, exposing you to the air. As he lowered himself, his mouth found the swell of your breasts through your dress, biting lightly against the fabric on his way down between your legs.

"You don't need to do that," you managed to moan, your voice trembling as he moved your weight, sliding you toward the edge of the table until you were perched precariously, your legs naturally falling open.

"Shut up," Scott muttered against your skin, his voice a low, arrogant growl that sent a jolt of electricity straight to your clit as he finally settled himself firmly between your thighs, the heat of his body radiating against your wetness. 

Then, he dipped his head. The first touch of his tongue was a shock of heat, it was wet and precise. He dove right in, tongue licking upward from your perineum to your clit in one long, sweeping stroke. You arched your back as a loud moan escaped you since it had been so long since you’d felt anything this raw, this focused. You were starving for it and Scott was feeding off of you with a primal intensity that blurred everything else out.

He used his hands to grip your hips, pulling you closer to the edge so he could bury his face in you as he kneeled. He began to lap at you with a rhythmic, punishing speed, his tongue flattening out to cover as much surface area as possible before narrowing into a sharp point to flick relentlessly against your clit.

The sensation was overwhelming. You began to squirm, hips jerking instinctively against his mouth as your fingernails clawed at the tabletop. You weren't just enjoying it, you were unraveling.

"Fuck…Scott...please," you whimpered, though you didn't know what you were asking for.

He responded by changing your position. He pushed you flat onto your back on the table, the hard wood pressing into your spine and hauled your legs up, draping them over his broad shoulders. The position left you completely exposed, your pussy flared open and glistening in the dark room.

He didn't stop the oral but added more by sliding two fingers deep inside you, stretching you open while his tongue continued to hammer away at your clit. The combination of the internal pressure and the external friction was too much. You were shaking, breath coming in short, jagged gasps as your feet drummed against his back.

He could tell you were close, encouraging him to increase the pressure, fingers curling inside you to hit your G-spot while his tongue sucked your clit into his mouth, creating a vacuum of pleasure that felt like it was pulling your entire soul out through your cunt.

“Holy s-shit!” Your head thrashed from side to side, a loud, unrestrained scream tearing from your throat as the orgasm hit you like a freight train. It was violent and all-consuming, your internal muscles clamping down hard on his fingers as waves of intense pleasure crashed over you, leaving you whimpering and twitching on the table.

As the peak slowly subsided, Scott didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there, his breath hot against your sensitive skin, slowly lapping the remaining juices from your pussy. He cleaned you thoroughly, his tongue lingering on every inch of your swollen cunt until you were completely spent, lying limp and shivering on the table, finally satisfied.

He straightened slowly from between your legs, chest rising hard with uneven breaths that matched your own. His mouth was swollen and wet when he licked across his lips absentmindedly, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made heat crawl back under your skin even while your body still twitched from the orgasm.

From your place sprawled across the dining table, you stared up at him in stunned silence. Your thighs were still trembling now against his sides and you were almost certain your expression looked ridiculous, wide-eyed and dazed in a way you hadn’t allowed yourself to look around another person in years.

Scott held a hand out toward you and you took it automatically.

He helped you sit up first before guiding you carefully off the table, one hand steady on your waist while your legs struggled to cooperate beneath you. The second your feet touched the floor, your knees nearly gave out entirely.

Scott wiped his mouth with his palm. “Goodnight,” he said and the gentleness of it caught you off guard more than anything else that night had.

His hand slipped away from your waist and the two of you just stood there for a second, staring at each other while trying and failing to breathe normally again.

Then Scott turned and walked toward the front door.

You stayed frozen in place while he opened it and left your house without another word. A few seconds later you finally heard the sounds you’d been waiting for earlier, the truck door opening, shutting and the engine starting before he drove off into the night.

You tried walking toward your bedroom afterward and immediately realized your legs barely worked. You ended up half stumbling down the hallway, one hand dragging along the wall for balance because your entire lower body still felt weak and oversensitive.

Great sex…that had been unbelievably, painfully great sex.

You thought about it constantly afterward. In the shower, during calls and meetings, while sitting in traffic or lying awake at night staring at the ceiling with your thighs pressed together. You didn’t mention it to your friends or talked to Scott about it, even during the long stretches of silence that filled the truck during drives. The two of you understood what happened without discussing it directly, you’d crossed a line and both of you seemed aware that talking about it too much would probably drag you over it again.

The following mornings, you waited for him outside on your porch instead of letting him walk into your house like usual. Mostly because you’d spent the entire week masturbating to the memory of him between your legs on your dining table before getting ready for the day and you didn’t trust yourself to survive seeing him inside your kitchen before sunrise.

For one solid week, you slept perfectly. No insomnia or late-night work spirals, no pacing around rooms or answering emails at one in the morning just to keep your brain occupied. Whatever tension usually sat under your skin had disappeared completely and now it sat between you both instead.

Every drive felt heavier, the silence stretched longer and every sharp inhale from him made your stomach tighten unexpectedly until eventually you got sick of pretending neither of you noticed it.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you interrupted suddenly.

Scott glanced toward you briefly, eyes leaving the road for barely a second before returning forward. “Do you want to?” he asked.

“I don’t,” you admitted. “I feel like you do though.”

“You’re right.”

You snorted quietly and looked back down at the laptop balanced across your knees. 

“I thought you liked being right.” Scott added.

“Fucking love it,” you replied automatically before grimacing. “Usually.”

Silence settled again until you broke it. “Okay,” you sighed eventually. “Maybe one thing.” You turned to him properly this time. “I wasn’t that drunk that night. Actually, I wasn’t drunk at all. I had that one beer before we left my place and the rest were mocktails.”

Scott turned his head enough to study your face for a second. “I wouldn’t have touched you if you were drunk,” he said flatly. “I’m an asshole, not fucking stupid.”

You leaned back against the seat slowly. “Even that’s changed.”

His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

“The coffee for starters,” you said. “The lunches, too. You stopped buying disgusting gas station sandwiches and now we actually eat dinner out like normal people.” You gestured vaguely toward him. “You used to hand me coffee with five sugar packets on the side because you couldn’t remember how I took it. Now it’s magically perfect every fucking morning.”

Scott adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.

“I thought eating around other people would make this less weird,” he admitted. “And I got tired of sugar packets all over my truck.”

“Our truck,” you corrected automatically before pointing at him accusingly. “And nothing about this is normal, Scott! You ate me out on my dining table!”

“Stop yelling at me.” His tone stayed frustratingly calm.

“Why?” you shot back. “Is it making you hard?”

Scott shifted in his seat hard enough that you noticed instantly. Both his hands locked tighter around the steering wheel while he stared straight ahead at the road. The tension in his jaw became visible because unfortunately for him, you weren’t wrong.

The last week had changed things. You looked less exhausted and less tightly wound. You hadn’t snapped at him once during work and he hadn’t gotten a single unhinged one a.m. email from you all week because for the first time since he’d met you, you were actually sleeping.

“So when are we doing it again?” he asked finally, against every ounce of common sense he had left.

NEVER…that should’ve been the answer. It was the logical answer, the responsible one, the answer two coworkers with already questionable boundaries should’ve landed on immediately.

It just wasn’t the truth.

You had always maintained that getting fucked couldn’t happen in motel rooms. It didn't matter how good the sex was, the second cheap carpet, bad lighting and a rattling air conditioner got involved, the whole thing dropped several levels automatically. 

Motel sex could be great, sometimes even memorable but it couldn’t be that, so the next time it happened definitely wasn’t in a motel room.

The weather that day had turned bad enough to keep everyone grounded but not dangerous enough to send your team chasing storms through three different counties. There was heavy rain, low visibility and too much lightning for comfort but not enough rotation to justify going out.

At some point, without either of you actually saying it outright, waiting the storm out in Scott’s apartment became the plan instead of sitting cramped inside the truck for hours pretending the tension between you didn’t exist.

You still couldn’t pinpoint who made the first move once the elevator doors closed behind you.

One second you were standing beside him soaked at the edges from the rain, listening to distant thunder through the concrete parking garage and the next, Scott’s hand was inside your pants like it belonged there.

You gasped hard into his mouth as his fingers slid against you immediately, already somewhat familiar with exactly what made your hips jerk forward. The kiss that came after barely counted as one, it was messy and distracted, interrupted constantly by your breathing and the quiet sounds you kept failing to swallow down.

The elevator ride lasted less than a minute but by the time the doors opened onto his floor, your orgasm was already hitting you in sharp waves around his fingers while your forehead pressed against his shoulder to keep yourself standing.

If you weren’t already fucked, you were about to be.

You’d been inside Scott’s apartment before. A handful of times after late nights working or when weather reports needed reviewing somewhere quieter than a crowded diner. You remembered the big windows first, stretching across the living room area with a full view of the skyline in the distance. Tonight they framed heavy gray clouds and rain pouring so hard that it blurred the city lights into smears of white and yellow.

Scott barely gave you time to look around because the second the apartment door shut behind you, his hands were on you again. He walked you toward the living room with rough impatience, pulling your pants down from behind while you stumbled against the edge of an armchair. Your underwear followed immediately after, dragged down together in one quick motion before pooling around your ankles.

The air in Scott’s apartment was heavy, charged with the static of the storm raging outside. The gray light of the overcast sky filtered through the windows but the atmosphere inside was scorching.

"Kneel," he commanded as he pointed toward the armchair, his voice a low, authoritative rumble.

You didn't hesitate. The tension that had been building between you for weeks, the unspoken glances and lingering touches, had finally snapped. You sank to your knees on the plush seat, your heart hammering against your ribs. You leaned forward, gripping the headrest with both hands, body already trembling in anticipation. You were completely exposed to him, your ass tilted back and waiting.

Scott disappeared for a moment, leaving you in a silence broken only by the distant roll of thunder. When he returned, the sound of a foil packet tearing echoed in the room. You heard the metallic click of his belt unbuckling and the slide of a zipper.

The anticipation was agonizing. You heard him roll the condom on, followed by the wet sound of him spitting on the head of his cock to make the entry smoother.

He stepped up behind you, heat radiating against your backside. He lined himself up and then, with one powerful, decisive surge, he thrust deep inside you.

You let out a sharp, strangled whine, your fingers digging into the fabric of the headrest. It had been so long since you’d felt a man inside you and Scott was massive. The initial stretch was borderline painful, a blunt force that filled every millimeter of your tight, starving pussy. You blinked rapidly, tears pricking your eyes as your body struggled to accommodate his size, your breath hitching in your throat.

Scott didn't give you time to adjust. He reached forward, his large hands clamping onto your hips with bruising force and yanked you backward, pulling you deeper onto his cock until there was no space left between you.

"I wanna see you," you moaned, your voice broken and desperate, trying to twist your torso around to look at him.

He didn't let you. Instead, he leaned in and sank his teeth into the skin of your shoulder, a sharp bite that made you moan despite your best efforts. His hand moved from your hip to your jaw, gripping it firmly to keep your head pinned forward.

"Just focus," he rasped calmly against your skin, the contrast of his steady voice and his firm grip sending a shiver of submission down your spine.

He let go of your jaw and began to thrust. He didn't start slowly, he hit you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity. The apartment was suddenly filled with the sound of your sudden, loud moans and frantic curses. You collapsed forward, your chest pressed against the headrest, your body jarring with every hit.

As he hammered into you, Scott reached around, his hands finding your breasts. He didn't bother undressing you further, he grabbed your boobs firmly over your clothes, squeezing and kneading them with a rough, possessive grip that matched the violence of his hips.

"I'm gonna fuck you on every surface of this apartment," he growled. "You'll be seeing a lot of me."

The sex quickly became raw and primal and so, so fucking good. The sound of skin slapping against skin, mixed with the wet, rhythmic thud of his pelvis hitting your ass filled the room, competing with the roar of the thunder outside. Every thrust shook your entire frame, quaking your body from your head to your toes. You were whimpering loudly now, the pain of the initial stretch having completely melted into an overwhelming, white-hot pleasure you never thought you could feel.

Your eyes watered, staring out into the distance of the room, the world blurring as the friction built. It was fast, harsh and so perfect that you found yourself wanting to bite the armchair, your teeth sinking into the fabric as your back arched violently. You were unraveling, the long period of abstinence making you hypersensitive to every inch of him.

"I'm right there, keep going! Scott, please! Don’t fuckin’ stop." you whined, voice echoing through the apartment.

He didn't, he instead increased the pace, his thrusts becoming shorter and more frantic, drilling into you with an obsession that felt like he wanted to merge his body with yours. The thunder peaked with a deafening crash that seemed to trigger something inside you.

Suddenly, your internal muscles spasmed. A wave of heat exploded from your core and you felt a sudden, uncontrollable gush of fluid. You were squirting, something that had never happened to you before, the hot spray soaking the armchair and your own thighs. You began to shake uncontrollably, your legs giving out as you sobbed out of pure pleasure into the headrest.

Scott let out a guttural groan, the feeling of you flooding around him driving him over the edge. He loved it, hell, he was obsessed with the way you were falling apart under him. He kept going, ignoring your tremors, continuously driving himself into you as you peaked into a mind-blowing, screaming orgasm that left you completely breathless.

With a final, deep thrust, he groaned loudly, coming hard into the condom.

The momentum stopped abruptly. He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, both of you frozen, chests heaving in unison.

Slowly, he withdrew, the wet sound of his exit punctuating the silence with an obscene pop.

You both watch the rain lash against the glass, the gray light illuminating the wreckage of your passion. You took a long, shuddering breath, body still twitching from the aftershocks as your pussy twitched around nothing, back arching further needily, earning a smack from him.

"Holy fuck," you both breathed simultaneously, the weight of the encounter settling over you in the heavy, humid air.

There was no going back after that day. Not to abstinence, not to disappointing hookups or to pretending sex was something casual and forgettable that fit neatly between work schedules and storm reports.

Once Scott got his hands on you, everything else lost appeal embarrassingly fast.

What started as isolated incidents quickly turned into a pattern neither of you seriously attempted to stop. It was a terrible idea professionally, obviously, but somehow the two of you functioned better afterward. Meetings became easier, long drives felt lighter and you argued less viciously because the tension always had somewhere to go now instead of festering under your skin for weeks.

You started going home together most nights under the excuse of saving gas money. Then showering together afterward became another practical decision because apparently water bills mattered too now. Somewhere between shared coffee in the mornings and him keeping spare clothes for you at his apartment, things moved quietly into something neither of you had planned for and the worst part was that it worked.

The sex stayed incredible. Sometimes rough enough to leave hickeys along your skin and fingerprints fading across your thighs and hips by morning, or other times slow enough that you ended up tangled together for hours afterward while thunderstorms rolled outside the windows. Every now and then he fucked you hard enough to leave you shaking afterward, staring blankly at the ceiling while he stood in the kitchen making you food like that was a normal sequence of events but eventually you realized it wasn’t just about that anymore.

You started having actual dates without calling them dates, it was dinner after work that lasted until restaurants closed around you. You went grocery shopping together because both of you were too exhausted to go separately and you began falling asleep on opposite ends of his couch while weather models played quietly on television screens neither of you were really watching.

Off-season made it worse.

Without constant travel, motel rooms and adrenaline keeping you both distracted, there was finally time to explore whatever this thing between you had become. You drifted naturally between your house and his apartment depending on whose place seemed closer to the office that day. Half your belongings somehow ended up at his place and vice versa. You texted each other constantly during meetings despite sitting twenty feet apart, phones hidden beneath desks while coworkers talked around you.

Scott started bringing your coffee to your desk already made exactly how you liked it before you even decided you needed one. You started buying his preferred cereal without asking if he wanted any. He slept better with you in his bed and you stopped grinding your teeth in your sleep when he stayed over.

So naturally, being made love to finally happened exactly the way you once thought it would and it wasn’t some exaggerated version of romance men convinced themselves they were capable of after two drinks and mediocre conversation.

It sort of snuck up on you. It was Scott pulling you into his lap while both of you were exhausted after work, kissing your shoulder absentmindedly while you read through data on his laptop. It was him waking you up slowly on Sunday mornings with his hand sliding under your shirt and nowhere either of you needed to be. It was sex that lasted forever because he knew your body well enough to take his time with it, knew exactly what made you gasp, what made your legs tense and what made you hide your face against his neck when the pleasure became too much.

He paid attention and it made all of the difference. Scott learned your body like he learned storm patterns, thoroughly and obsessively, until touching you became instinct to him and it showed…

The morning light filtered through the curtains of your bedroom in soft, golden slats, painting the sheets in hues of amber and cream. The house was silent, save for the rhythmic sound of your shared breathing and the distant chirp of birds welcoming the dawn. You were tangled together, skin on skin, the warmth of the duvet trapping the heat of your bodies in a private, humid cocoon.

There was no rush, no storm to outrun and no urgency born of desperation. There was only the heavy, sweet weight of Scott pressing you into the mattress. You were both fully naked, your limbs entwined in a lazy, possessive knot.

Scott began slowly, his lips tracing a path of fire across your collarbone. He wasn't just kissing you, he was tasting you, tongue swirling against your skin in slow circles that made you shiver. He moved lower, mouth finding the sensitive curve of your breast as you let out a soft, airy moan. He took your nipple into his mouth, sucking firmly while his thumb and forefinger pinched the other peak, twisting it just enough to send a jolt of electricity straight to your core.

You arched your back, your fingers sliding into the thick hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. The friction of his chest against your breasts was intoxicating, the rough hair of his torso grazing your sensitive skin.

He shifted, sliding his body up so he could look into your eyes. His gaze was dark, filled with an intensity that felt more overwhelming than any of the rougher encounters you'd had. He didn't move to flip you or push you into a different position, instead, he settled between your thighs in a classic missionary stance and pushed inside. There was no latex barrier this time, no clinical snap of a condom. It was raw, wet and absolute. 

The sensation of his bare skin sliding against yours was a revelation. You gasped, your eyes fluttering shut as you felt the full, throbbing heat of him filling you completely. It felt different, more intimate and permanent. The lack of a barrier made every ridge of his cock feel amplified, every pulse of his blood echoing against your own internal walls.

He didn't start with the punishing pace of the past. Instead, he began to rock, his movements slow and agonizingly deep. He pressed his palm flat against your stomach, pushing down firmly to tilt your pelvis, ensuring that every thrust hit the deepest part of you.

"Gripping me like a fucking vise…so perfect." he groaned, his voice a gravelly morning rumble that vibrated through your chest.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, locking your ankles to pull him even deeper. You were lost in the rhythm, the slow, sliding friction creating a build-up of tension that felt like a tightening coil in your belly. You ran your hands through his hair, your nails lightly scratching his scalp as you moaned into the first rays of the morning sun.

The intimacy was suffocating in the best way possible. As he continued to rock, his movements grew slightly more urgent, the slow glide turning into a passionate, driving force. He leaned down, his lips brushing against yours, tasting the salt and sweetness of your skin while he continued to pinch and tease your nipples, hand roaming your curves with a familiarity that spoke of a deep, obsessive knowledge of your body.

It didn’t take long for your breath to become shallow, chest heaving as the pleasure began to peak. You could feel the walls of your pussy clenching around him, milking him with every deep stroke. Your body tensed, toes curling into the sheets as a wave of heat crashed over you. You cried out, a long, melodic sound of surrender, as your orgasm ripped through you in slow, pulsing waves that left you shaking beneath him.

Scott didn’t slow his pace as his forehead rested against yours, both of you breathing heavily. He continued moving, the intimacy of the connection almost too much to bear.

"Want to be done?" he whispered, his voice strained, muscles trembling with the effort of holding back.

You looked up at him, eyes hazy with pleasure and affection. The thought of him pulling away felt wrong because you wanted everything. You wanted the weight, the heat and the mark of him.

You shook your head with an escaped whimper, pulling his face down to yours. "Don’t you dare pull out…’want you to come inside." You breathed.

The request broke the last of his restraint. Scott let out a guttural sound, a mix of a groan and a sob and began to drive into you with a renewed, primal intensity. It was a desperate, loving hunger. He hammered into you, movements strong and deep, each thrust a claim and a promise.

As he reached his limit, his grip on your hip tightened, fingers digging into your skin. He thrust one last time, burying himself as deep as physically possible and you felt the hot, thick bursts of his cum flooding into you. The sensation of him filling you from the inside out was the most intense feeling you had ever experienced, a physical manifestation of the bond that had grown between you.

In the height of his release, as his body shuddered violently against yours, he gasped out the words he had been holding back.

"I love you," he choked out, the confession raw and unplanned.

The world seemed to stop for a heartbeat. You felt a surge of emotion that rivaled the intensity of the orgasm, a warmth that started in your chest and radiated to your fingertips. You tightened your hold on him, pulling him down for a deep, searing kiss.

"I love you too," you whispered against his lips.

He collapsed onto you, heart drumming a frantic rhythm against your own, both of you spent and glowing in the morning light, finally and completely entwined.

A few years ago, you would’ve hated the idea that Scott Miller of all people would end up teaching you everything worth knowing about sex. It would’ve bruised your ego badly, especially considering how seriously you once took those stupid categories and scales in your head before Scott showed up and ruined all of them completely.

Good sex stopped mattering. 

Great sex became expected.

Getting fucked became routine enough that you lost count somewhere along the line, usually around the third orgasm of the day and definitely before he started dragging you into his lap halfway through work calls just because he felt like bothering you…with his hands and dick.

But somehow, even after all the rough sex and ruined schedules, Scott still managed to make love to you exactly the way you once imagined it should feel.

So if somebody offered you the chance to go back and do it all over again, you would without hesitation.

You were an absolute HR nightmare now and what a fucking delight that was!

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!

Look at him just chewing the FAWK out of that gum 😭 (wait chew me next)

It’s like a cheesy romcom. The moment you get inside your apartment, his lips are on yours. Desperate and in a frenzy. Like he can’t get enough of you. 

Like he never will.

“Jack…” You whisper softly against his lips, like a prayer, running your hands up his chest.

“God, I love you.” He blurts, and he freezes, almost like he didn’t mean to say it. 

You look up at him with wide eyes, like a doe in headlights, and kiss swollen parted lips. His hazel eyes soften when he looks down at you. You can’t help but grin up at him as he leads you over to your big comfy couch. He sits at the end and then pulls you into his lap, like he just has to have you as close as possible. 

“My wife, Erin… she died of pancreatic cancer… Before she passed… she told me it was okay for me to find love again.” He’s quiet for a moment and you let him gather his thoughts. “I told her that it would never be possible. How could it be? She was my first love. High school sweethearts and all.” He looks down at your hands entangled together with his and your heart breaks for him. “I was floating through life just… existing… and then you walked into Eds in that lavender skirt and flower clip and I thought I was looking at a real life fairy. And then my next thought was ‘This… ethereal being cannot be my best pal’s daughter’... From the first time I saw you smile, I was completely gone. I tried hard to not feel this way… but… I’m so tired of fighting it.”

You chuckle and let go of his hands with one hand and run it through his graying curls like you’ve been dying to do for the last six years. He leans into your touch, closing his eyes, letting out a soft content sigh.

“I’m so sorry about Erin, Jack… I had no idea. My dad didn’t tell me.” You murmur softly. 

He gives you a soft smile when he opens his eyes again, looking up at you. “We had a good life. I moved here a year after she died. I had to get away from the town we had lived in.”

“Where was that?” 

“A small town in California.” He plays with the hem of your pink sweatshirt.

“Oh, you moved away as far as possible.” You muse softly.

He lets out a soft breathless laugh, nodding in agreement. 

“You’re sure you’re ready?” You ask, just wanting to make sure.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I’m ready. You have no idea how happy you make me. How much I look forward to seeing you. How hard I try to not sound too hopeful or strange when asking Robby about you.” 

“I make you happy?” You grin.

“God, yes.” His lips are on yours again and you move quickly so that you’re straddling him. 

You once told Jack, with the backup of your dad’s teasing, that he’d be great at doing audiobooks. His voice is so… smooth and soft. 

He groans softly into the kiss and you let out your own soft whimper. His hands are firm against your back, holding you to him. Like he’s terrified you’ll disappear again. 

“I love you too, you know.” You whisper against his lips. 

He pulls away to look up into your eyes and you can’t help but grin.

“Yeah?” The way his eyebrows draw upwards, hopeful, makes your chest tighten.

“Yeah.” You murmur, leaning in a little slower to kiss him again, savoring it. 

Jack’s hands roam down to your ass again, squeezing just right to get a needy whine out of you as you wrap your arms around his neck, grinding down against his hardening cock. He gasps softly and grinds you down against him. 

“Wanna finish what we started this morning?” You whisper against his lips, really hoping he says yes. 

He grins, caressing your cheek sweetly and you lean into his touch the way he leaned into yours. “‘Course I do, sweetheart. You sure, though?”

You nod, getting up off his lap and then holding your hand out to him, a quiet but confident smile on your lips. He gets up with a groan and you bite your lip, trying not to tease him. He notices right away, because of course he does.

“Don’t even.” He swats your ass playfully and nods for you to lead the way to your bedroom.

You let out a soft giggle on your way, taking his hand and guiding him to your bedroom. He looks around at the soft lighting of your bedroom. The soft warm glow of your bedside lamp and the light shining through the sheer curtains of your bedroom. In the distance you can see the city of Pittsburgh but it’s nothing compared to the sight of Jack Abbot taking his shirt off and dropping it to your bedroom floor. 

“Lotta pink in here.” He teases. 

You roll your eyes with a breathless huff of a laugh. “I brought it with me from college. I put all my money into my shop so I haven’t bothered with new bedding.” 

You watch, mesmerized, as he unbuckles his belt and then unbutton his khakis, his hands expertly moving in the way an ER doctor would. You’ve never been able to decide if you want to see him at work or not. He’s probably the most detail oriented person you’ve ever met and yet there was a reason you weren’t cut out for medicine. 

Jack sits on the edge of your bed and then pushes his pants down to the floor, reaching down to pull them off and dropping them with his shirt. 

“I’ll buy you new bedding if you want.” He offers softly. “Buy you whatever you want.”

You step closer to him, dropping down in front of him just as he goes to take his prosthetic off. You’ve watched him do it countless times. 

“Let me.” You murmur softly, giving him a smile that lets him know that he’s safe with you just as you are with him.

The look on his face lets you know that this is all new to him and it simultaneously breaks and warms your heart. 

“You sure?” He asks, for a second time tonight.

“Yeah, baby, I’m sure.” You press a kiss to his knee and then unlatch it with ease, as if you’d done it a thousand times. 

Jack watches you with parted lips, a soft relieving sigh escaping between them. His gaze sets your entire being on fire and you swear to god it would be enough to burn down the entire apartment building. The ache between your legs hasn’t left you since you saw him this morning. When you look back up at him, he surges forward slightly to kiss you. It's desperate and hungry and you wouldn’t change a thing about it. 

Or him.

“You’re way too clothed.” He complains, raspily. 

“Fix it, then.” You smirk against his lips and he lets out a soft growl that goes straight down to your very core.

With the upper body strength of a former soldier, he pulls you up onto your queen sized bed with him and then pulls your cashmere sweater off, tossing it to the floor with his own clothes. His eyes rake over your breasts, covered by your sports bra that you didn’t think would be seen today. And yet, he clearly doesn’t mind because he expertly helps you out of it as well. 

“God, you’re perfect.” He whispers before kissing you again, his hand ghosting over your breast. “You called me baby and I thought I was gonna cum in my boxers like a teenage boy.”

You let out a breathless giggle and curl your fingers in his hair as his hand travels down to help you out of your leggings, causing your underwear and socks to gracelessly go down with them, making you laugh again. 

“Sorry.” You murmur, which makes him grin at you in a way that makes you think he must think you’re the most endearing thing he’s ever seen. 

Your chest tightens again at the realization that this man truly loves you. 

As you settle up against the pillows, he follows you, but hovers over you, his eyes raking over your body, almost like he can’t believe you’re real. His fingers trace over your lips and you part them for him, making him smirk. He trails them down your chest, over your sternum and then your stomach, dropping lower and lower, making your legs part like the Red Sea for him instantly. 

“Fuck… So good for me.” He whispers against your ear before kissing your jaw. “So fucking pretty.” 

“Jack…” A soft whimper escapes your lips for him. 

“Can’t believe you’re all mine.” He hums softly as his fingers slide closer to where you need them.

You bite your lip, looking down at his hand between your legs. 

“Go on, babygirl. Tell me you’re mine.” He nudges his nose against your jaw as he watches his own fingers tease you until you feel like you might die. “I’ll give you whatever you want if you promise me you’re mine.” 

“Fuck, you know I am. I always have been.” You grip his freckled forearm, your nails biting into his warm skin. 

He groans softly and finally lets his fingers slide down to your soaked folds. A soft gasp leaves your lips and he grins. 

“Christ.” He whispers, feeling how soaked you are just for him and you buck into his hand as if this is exactly where you’re meant to be. 

You pull his fingers up to your mouth, sucking them in between your lips, keeping your eyes on his. His hazel eyes darken and without another word, he slides down in between your legs, pulling your legs over his shoulders, a shit eating grin on his face.

“I’ve been dying to do this.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to your inner thigh. 

Carding your fingers through his graying curls, you can’t seem to look away from him. 

“Please.” Is all you can manage to whisper.

At that word, he seems to break and dives right into your pussy, his tongue finding your clit like he already knows your body better than you know it yourself. He groans at the taste of you and you feel like you might combust. It amazes and scares you how one person has such an effect on you. Now that you’ve had this… you don’t know how you could give it up. Or him. 

“Fuck… Jack-” You whine, spreading your legs even more for him.

“That’s it baby, give it all to me.” He murmurs between licking and sucking like he was born to do this. “Tastes just as sweet as I knew you would.”

Your moans turn more and more desperate as he gets you closer to your edge. Which only eggs him on. The moment he presses his middle finger into you, you groan.

“Fuck… she’s tight.” He whispers more to himself as he works you open. “Gotta get you nice and ready for me, don’t I? Don’t wanna hurt you.”

You’re not sure you’d complain even if he did at this point. 

You can start to hear how absolutely soaked you are after a moment, gripping his curls tighter, making him groan and lean into your touch. 

“Gonna add another finger. You think you can take it?” He murmurs in that voice of his and you feel like you could cum right then.

You nod, a soft whine escaping your lips again.

“Words, sweetheart.” He grins up at you, still thrusting his finger into you. 

“Fuck… Yes, Jack. More. Please.” You arch into him, eagerly. 

“Atta girl.” He kisses your hip and then adds another finger, his mouth finding your clit again. 

“God.” You gasp, gripping his curls, writhing above him. 

Your voice sounds wrecked already. 

“You’re already so close aren’t you, baby?” He teases softly. “Bet you’d cum right now if I told you to, huh?” 

You nod, unable to get anything but a desperate whine out. 

“You want to, don’t you? You wanna cum for me?” He asks and you nod again. “Go on then, baby. Cum for me.” 

You instantly get thrown over your edge, calling out for Jack, gripping his curls tightly, writhing your lower half against his face and hand, the soaked sounds filling the room as you tremble. 

“That’s it. Just like that.” He praises you sweetly, mesmerized as you cum just for him.

Wave after wave washes over you until you’re a panting mess. You throw your arm over your eyes, catching your breath, missing the show of him licking his fingers clean. But he’s doing it more for himself than anything, already addicted to the taste of you. 

When you finally feel the pulsing throughout your entire body settle down, you look down at him with his head resting on your thigh. He’s staring up at you with a loving smile and the most beautiful warm hazel eyes, and you swear if you weren’t completely naked, you’d take a photo to remember him just like this. 

“You’re incredible.” He finally moves back up beside you, pulling you to him. 

“Me?” You let out a soft laugh.

“Yes, you.” He kisses you fully, unable to stop himself, making you taste yourself on his lips… his tongue. 

And you couldn’t care less. 

You moan softly against him and his arm around your lower back tightens, drawing you as close as possible to him. His cock, hard and flushed, presses up against you when you throw a leg over his thigh. He groans softly when you slip your hand down between the two of you, stroking deeply.

“Sweetheart-” He starts but you cut him off by pushing him onto his back, hovering over his length.

“Can I?” You murmur.

He looks up at you with lust blown eyes and nods, lips parted as he watches you. “Fuck… yes please.” 

You smile at his plea, reaching down to kiss him as you sink down onto his thick cock. Both of you gasp into the kiss, against each other. It’s desperate, somehow romantic, and feels just right as he anchors you to himself.

“Jack…” You whimper softly.

“You feel so…” He murmurs and you hum in agreement. 

For once in his life, Jack seems to be at a loss for words. It’s a new feeling for him. 

His hands travel down to your hips, giving you support if you need it. When you sit up, your knees on both sides of him he looks up at you with a wild look. Like he’s experiencing divinity for the first time in his life. 

And he can’t get enough.

“Go on. Take what you want, sweetheart.” He nods, the hazel of his eyes nearly black in the warm glow of your room. 

With the permission that you seem to crave from him, you start riding him, one of your hands finding his freckled chest, the other behind you, on his thick strong thigh. 

You start slow. Deep. Like you’re savoring the feel of his cock inside you like this. 

One of his hands travels up to your breast, groping you tightly and you let out a needy whine. 

“Sound so fucking beautiful.” He babbles. “Look even more beautiful like this. Like a fucking angel.”  

Your speed quickens, a little more desperate, like you're chasing another high while that heat blooms deep inside you. You start to think that you’ll never get enough of this.

No… you know you’ll never get enough of this. 

“Just like that, sweetheart.” He nods, both of his hands gripping your hips again.

He’s guiding you back and forth and you think you’re about to see stars.

“Oh fuck-” You gasp, closer to your edge again. 

“Gonna cum again for me, huh?” He smirks. “Go on then, angel. Let me feel this sweet pussy choke my cock.” 

The pure filth of his words sends you spiraling into another orgasm and you collapse onto his chest, burying your face in his neck as you cry out, gripping his hair. His hands trace up your back as he thrusts up into you roughly.

“Let it all out, yeah?” He whispers in your ear. “Give it all to me.”

The soaked sounds fill your room again and you know that you’ve never been so wet in your life. Jesus Christ. 

“Jack…” You whine. “Cum in me.”

He groans. “I shouldn’t-”

“Safe.” Is all that you can get out and with that, he spills into you, like he can’t stop himself. 

“Fuuuck-” He groans roughly but you cut him off by kissing him again. 

His strong hands tug at your hair, holding you against his warm chest. Like he’s scared that you could disappear at any second.

You both breathe deeply against each other for a while. But when he pulls away to look you in the eyes, he grins at you and then starts kissing you sweetly all over your face. It turns your heart into a puddle and you can’t help the giggle that escapes your lips. He manages to find your lips again and then you lay that for another long moment. Kissing each other languidly, like you have all the time in the world. 

“I’m never gonna get tired of this.” You murmur. 

“You sure?” He grins. “I’m sure you could find a younger guy that could-”

“Don’t do that.” You immediately cut him off. Again. 

You give him a serious look, letting him know that you’re not kidding. 

“I love you. I want you.” You murmur. “Okay?” 

He smiles softly, nodding. “Okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” You shrug, kissing him again. 

He sighs contentedly into the kiss, wrapping his strong arms even tighter around you, making you feel warm and loved. Safe. You rest your head on his chest, feeling him going soft inside you and then you suddenly realize you’re both going to need a shower. 

And then the panic sets in that you don’t have any sort of accessible accommodations for him here in your apartment. 

“Shower?” He murmurs. 

You hum in agreement. “Yes absolutely. But give me a second?” 

He looks at you curiously but nods, watching you as you slide off of him and then run to your kitchen closet where you have a pink stepstool that’s about three feet high and collapsable. You set it in the shower after popping it open and then start the shower. It’s definitely not perfect, but it’ll do until you can get something better, hopefully tomorrow. 

When you come back to the bedroom, you find him already sitting up, putting his prosthetic back on.

“What are you doing?” You ask, softly.

“I didn’t want you to have to help me to the shower.” He smiles as he finishes latching it back into place. 

You sigh. “I don’t mind, though.”

He looks at you for a long moment, like he’s arguing with himself about whether to accept your help or not. This is clearly new for the both of you. You can learn together, though. 

“Look… I want to be able to help you. I love you and I’m not going anywhere. So you can go ahead and start getting used to it.” You take his hand and he stands back up, still naked. “I know what I’m signing up for, Jack, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I want you for you. All of you.” 

You don’t know it, but he’s avoiding your gaze so you can’t see his eyes go red from fighting back the lump in his throat. 

You guide him to the bathroom and the moment he sees the stepstool through the glass shower door, he looks down at you, speechless for a second time tonight. 

“Tomorrow, you and I can go to Home Depot and get things to make my apartment more accessible.” You smile up at him, like it’s no big deal. 

Because to you, it’s not. It makes sense. Especially since you plan on making this a long term thing.  

And to Jack… it’s everything. He immediately backs you up against the sink counter, crushing his lips to yours. He sees right in this moment that he’s everything to you just as you are to him. And he truly can’t imagine letting you go. 

“Your dad will see if you suddenly have a shower seat and a grab bar and start asking questions.” He murmurs against your lips with a smirk.

You shrug, wrapping your arms around his neck. “I’ll put up a new cute curtain in front of the shower door to hide them and say it’s a new look for the bathroom.”  

“Thought of everything, have you?” He smirks. You shrug. “It’s just until we’re ready to tell him.” 

He nods in agreement, unable to help but wonder just when that would be. Not that Jack’s in a rush to tell Robby that he’s in love with his daughter. He knows that won’t end well right now.

He also can’t fathom blowing up your relationship with your dad. Especially with how close the two of you are. God, the thought makes him nauseous. 

But he pushes it down. 

An hour later, after showing you how he showers at home so that you can learn how to help, and after learning each other’s bodies in a new way, Jack is laying in your bed, watching you dry your hair at your vanity, completely content. 

“Sorry, I sleep better with dry hair.” You laugh when you finally crawl into bed next to him.

He grins, opening his arms for you. “Don’t be sorry. I love getting to see this side of you.” 

You rest your head on his strong bicep, looking up at him. “Really?”

He kisses you again. “Definitely.” 

You lean into the kiss, running your fingers up into his slightly damp curls, tugging softly so that he groans against your mouth. Your tongues tangle together for a moment before you pull away for air. 

“Are you going to sleep tonight?” You ask, knowing he’s on his night shift schedule and probably doesn’t wanna mess it up.

“I’ll probably get up at some point in the night so I don’t fall asleep, read a book or something.” He tells you and you can’t help the relieving sigh that escapes your lips that he’s not going to leave. “I won’t bother you, though.” 

“Make yourself at home.” You grin. “You can help yourself to the fridge or t.v. or whatever.” 

He hums out a ‘thank you’, letting you get comfortable against him the way you did earlier in the day when you napped together. The feeling of safety and comfort completely envelops you and it takes no time at all to fall asleep. 

Jack watches you sleep for a long time, trying not to feel like a creep. He also can’t help but think about Robby. How he feels like he’s probably betraying his best friend. 

There’s no probably about it. He’s definitely betraying his best friend. 

Fuck… 

Ch. 1: Early Mornings

Ch. 2: Nervous Afternoons

Ch. 3: Late Night Talking

Ch. 4: Jealous Type

Ch. 5: Playing Hooky

Ch. 6: Merry Christmas I Guess

“If this is all it takes to rile you up, wait until something actually goes wrong,” Dr. Park had scolded. “Now do you want me to go easy on you, or do you wanna get better, Crybaby?”

You stayed. And he made you better. But the nickname stuck.

Crybaby became a term of endearment, a symbol of how far you’d come since your interning days, and was shortened to Baby somewhere down the line. “Baby, take this patient down to CT for me, will you?” and “Cut me an ET tube, Baby, six millimeters,” and—

“Good luck getting that consult, baby,” Jack Abbot says from the opposite side of the exam room, with his strong arms crossed over his chest. The nickname sounds different spilling from his lips. It always has. “The OR’s backed up with Westbridge patients. It could be hours before we get a room booked.”

“She doesn’t have hours…” you murmur under your breath, squeezing past Whitaker and Ogilvie as you part from your unconscious patient. “Excuse me…”

“W-What are you doing?” the former boy stammers.

“Getting us a consult…” you say, half-distracted, as you reach for the red telephone on the wall. You press the cool plastic to your ear and dial the ortho extension.

Jack watches attentively from the sidelines as you make the call upstairs. 

“You already sound like you’re gonna say no, so I’m just gonna ask quickly,” you say. “I know, I know— Terrible timing. But we both know I’m your favorite, so just hear me out.”

“Favorite…?” Ogilvie murmurs. “Wait— Who is she calling?”

“Park the Shark,” Whitaker answers solemnly.

“Or as I like to call him— Doctor Dick,” Jack says with a cynical smile. “On account of him being a dick.”

Whitaker nods in concurrence. “To everyone but her.” 

You hang up the phone and return to your spot at the patient’s bedside. “Ortho consult’s on its way,” you tell them, half-distracted, as you check the ketamine levels in her IV drip.

“How’d you do that?” Ogilivie squints.

“I asked nicely,” you shrug.

Brendon Park comes into the emergency department barely five minutes later, and brings a tense air in with him that matches the unsmiling look on his narrow face. The way his dark blue eyes lock on you the second he walks in can only be described as sharklike. 

“What do we got, Baby?” he asks you, and only you, utterly ignoring the other bodies in the room as he makes a beeline to your side. He smells of sea salt and sandalwood when he towers just behind you, standing several inches taller.

Jack swallows down the anger that swells suddenly in his throat like bile.

“Ten-foot fall onto a metal fence,” you tell him. “Tib-fib amputation— Pretty clean cut.”

“Sliced right through the bone like a guillotine,” Whitaker adds.

Park turns slowly, dark eyes zeroing in on the mulleted boy. “Was I talking to you?”

The boy’s cheeks flare red. He clears his throat. “Uh— No. No, sir.” 

“Let me see the X-ray,” the attending says to you, much softer in comparison, and follows you the short distance to the bulky machine in the corner.

“See?” you hum. “Not too bad, right?”

His eyes flit from the x-ray to your hopeful gaze. The corner of his mouth flickers faintly upward as he nods once in response. “Yeah. Should be pretty fun— Where’s the leg?”

“Double bagged on ice.” You motion across the room. 

Whitaker watches the older man walk past him with an unblinking gaze. “I didn’t know he smiled…” he whispers incredulously under his breath.

“Yeah, me neither, kid,” Jack mumbles, swaying softly in place, as he keeps his eyes locked on the two of you. 

His jealousy is misplaced, but inevitable. Everyone had a certain soft spot for you, but he couldn’t quite stand it from Park — the man who didn’t seem to like anyone or anything but his work and you. Jack knows it makes a part of you feel special, you are special, but he wants to be the only one making you feel that way.

“Tell him how we prepped the limb, Ogilivie,” you tell the MS3.

“Oh, please, not me,” the curly-haired boy mumbles under his breath, looking instinctively to Whitaker for assistance. He swallows hard when Brendon’s dark eyes snap to his. “Uh— Sterile saline in the inner bag, ice water in the outer bag. No direct ice to skin contact.”

Park nods and turns away, unwrapping the severed leg on the table below. “Good…”

“Thank you.”

“I wasn’t talking about you,” the attending snaps. His eyes soften the second he turns to you. “Let me guess— You wrapped this?”

“How’d you know?” you grin.

“Because it’s neat,” Park quips drily as he pulls the bluing limb from the plastic. “And I don’t think Abbot suddenly developed fine motor skills.”

“Stop flirting with me, Shark,” Jack monotones.

“Antibiotics?” the man squints.

“Cefazolin and gent,” you answer. “And we’re already cleared her chest, abdomen, and pelvis.”

Park nods to himself, examining the severed leg with his gloved hands. “Clean wound… No rush injury… Rapid transport time…” he mumbles to himself, visibly pleased in a way that makes your stomach do a backflip. “Replantation is a go. I’ll go ahead and book an OR, get it taken care of for you.”

“Thanks…” you say, smiling a little wider than you realize. Because ever since the day he embarrassed you in front of all your coworkers, you’ve made it your personal mission to impress him.

“What’s the catch?” Jack quips from across the room. “You already got a packed OR so… What? You’re just doing us a favor out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Hell, no,” Brendon scoffs. “Baby’s gonna scrub in with me.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. You’re not sure whether to be happy or horrified, ‘cause you haven’t done a surgery with him since you were an intern.

“Holy shit— Really?”

“Yeah. As long as you promise not to fuck up again,” Park deadpans, though there’s something distinctly soft in his eyes as he quips, “And if you can keep your guard dog on a leash for a few hours.”

Your eyes turn instinctively to Jack. You find his features slightly hardened but mostly emotionless. He shrugs despite the distant searing in his chest.

“She doesn’t need my permission.”

“Then why are you glaring like I’m about to steal your favorite toy, old man?” Brendon scoffs.

Jack’s eyes widen. His head swivels slowly over his shoulder, as if he were looking for someone standing behind him. “I know you’re not talking about me,” he quips drily.

“I would love the opportunity to scrub in, Dr. Shark— I mean, Park,” you stammer.

“Alright, then. Let’s go,” he nods, pulling off his gloves with a low pop as he storms back towards the door. “The rest of you, irrigate the hell out of this with three liters.”

“Wait— three liters?” Whitaker blurts.

Park glares. “Of saline, genius.”

“I… I knew you meant saline…”

You stop short in the doorway with Jack at your side, right before you turn to follow Park into the elevator. You flash him a wide-eyed look full of hope and distant worry, “You’re not mad at me, are you? For doing this with Shark?”

“I couldn’t be,” Jack scoffs.

“Well, then, I’ll let you know how it goes later?” you murmur sheepishly, shifting on your feet like a shy child. “Over dinner?”

“Sure,” he nods. “I’ll take you somewhere nice. You know, to celebrate.”

He gives you a soft smile that fades the second you’ve turned the corner. He feels the weight of his own insecurity sitting heavy on his chest. The notion that he’s much too old for you tends to follow him like a shadow, but it rears its mean, green, ugly head a little extra now. 

“Hey…” Robby greets, then slows his stride when he walks past the tree men leaving the exam room. “What’s the long faces for?”

Abbot flashes him an unamused gaze. “Shark attack,” he deadpans.

Robby nods sympathetically. “Yeah, that’ll do it…”

The familiar chaos of the ED wraps around you like a blanket when you come down from the OR — the beeping monitors, the rolling stretchers, the hundred different conversations. It feels welcoming, in a strange sort of way; it fuels you in a way it hasn’t in a long, long time. It feels less like you’re surviving your shift now, and more like you could solve every medical inquiry in this hospital if someone asked you to. 

You feel ten feet tall and lighter than air as you weave your way through the crowded emergency department. Jack can see it from where he watches you at the workstation with an eagle-eyed stare. Your scrubs are creased from your hours in the OR; your eyes are as wild as the distant smile sitting crooked on the very edges of your mouth. 

You plant yourself at the computer next to his, and Abbot pretends like he hasn’t been waiting for you this whole time.

“How’d it go?” he asks distantly, trying to be casual.

“Great,” you nod with a proud smile. “Like really great. There was a twisted artery, and I was the only one who caught it. I got to reroute it all on my own— It was crazy.”

Jack feels himself smiling despite himself, basking in the rays of your sunshine disposition.

“Really?” he hums, nodding once. “Good job, baby.”

You couldn’t possibly count how many times you hear that nickname on a daily basis, but it’s different coming from Jack. It’s warmer, more familiar — makes your stomach do backflips like it’s the first time you’re hearing the word from his mouth. You go dizzy accordingly, as your fingers flit across the keyboard below.

“I’m just glad I didn’t make a total fool of myself like I did the first time,” you scoff.

“Yeah, me too,” a familiar voice quips from behind you.

You glance over your shoulder and catch a glimpse of Dr. Park as he appears suddenly behind you, dropping a file on the desk next to you mid-stride. His sea salt cologne pervades your senses instantly, clashing with Jack’s softer, muskier scent.

“I thought I heard the Jaws theme playing…” the older man quips in a dry monotone.

“You should be proud, Abbot— Your resident was a star in surgery today,” Park says with a knowing smirk hinting at the very corners of his mouth, so subtle it’s barely there. “Can’t wait for her to be my protégé in the OR someday.”

Jack’s frown deepens when the man claps him hard on the shoulder as he walks back for the elevator, though not without tossing a “let me know when you need a letter of rec for that fellowship, Baby,” over his shoulder as he goes. 

He watches the younger attending until he turns the corner, and looks back at you with his jaw clenched a little tighter than before. His chest sears at the distant smile on your face, as the flames of his jealousy burn white-hot behind his ribcage 

“Well,” Jack hums drily after a beat of silence. “You guys are getting awfully close, aren’t you?”

You scoff like it’s funny to you, because the thought of Park the Shark liking anyone is funny to you.

“What? No,” you laugh, then shrug at the unconvinced look Jack gives you in response. “He’s just nice to me. That’s all.”

Jack lets out a sharp exhale through his nose in place of a laugh. He turns back to his computer and deadpans, “Yeah. Because he likes you.”

You open your mouth to argue.

Jack beats you to the punch. 

“And I don’t blame him, either. I think it’d make me a hypocrite if I did.”

Your face flares as a red-hot heat crawls up your neck. Your adrenaline-induced confidence fades into something softer as you struggle suddenly to meet the older man’s gaze. You glance down at the chart Park left, unable to hide the small smile on your mouth when you peer at Jack again from beneath your lashes.

“Where are we going for dinner after this again?” you wonder, half-sheepish.

The expression on his scruffy face shifts slightly, less tense but mischievous still. “We aren’t,” he says and logs out of the computer.

Your eyes narrow into a suspicious squint as you watch the man round the front desk. “What happened to ‘I’ll take you somewhere nice?’”

“Yeah…” Jack nods slowly, huffing sympathetically, as his hands curl around either end of his stethoscope. “I think we’re gonna miss that reservation, baby.”

Your stomach does a backflip.

By the time you make it to Jack’s place, the adrenaline has worn off just enough to leave you pleasantly exhausted. 

He can feel it in your kiss, as you straddle him on his sunken couch in the middle of his dim living room — so quiet compared to the ER that it feels like stepping into a completely different world. You prop yourself over his lap with your palms cradling his silver scruff and lick into his parted mouth in slow, languid motions. 

You’ve been at it for a while now. So long that Jack can feel your spit down to his chin. You could kiss him for hours and hours and never get bored — a testament to your youth, perhaps, because Jack doesn’t think he’s made out with someone this long since he was in college.

But, for you, he keeps his head tipped back against the sofa and his mouth obediently parted, letting you kiss him however you want — for however long you want. His wide hands fidget with anticipation on either side of your bare thighs, from where your shirt rides up to your hips. 

You’d changed immediately into one of his old tees when you arrived, after a shower your body had been craving all day. You smell like his body wash and lotion as you sit on his lap, running your hands down his clothed chest like soft drops of summer rain. 

Your fingers brush the tie in his dark navy sweatpants, and he tenses on instinct. You don’t seem to notice, though, as you leave a trail of wet kisses down his scruffy neck.

“Are you gonna fuck me tonight?” you mumble into his pulse. “’S why we didn’t go out for dinner tonight, isn’t it? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking about it all day…”

Jack goes dizzy at your words — at the otherwise innocent mouth they spill from. His stomach warms, and he jerks back from you before he means to; his mouth wet and rosy from the intensity of your kisses.

“Yeah, fuck— Yeah, I just…” he trails off, though it’s more of a dismissal than a true affirmative. “I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick, yeah?”

“Okay,” you smile politely, unaware of his subdued panic that he’s learned to keep well-hidden. You slide off his lap and onto the other side of the couch. “Sure.”

Jack rises from the sunken sofa with a low grunt in the back of his throat. There’s a slight limp in his step from where the long day has taken a toll on his prosthetic. “Feel free to make yourself at home while I’m gone,” he tosses mindlessly over his shoulder, before he disappears down the dim hallway, making an immediate beeline for his lamplit bedroom.

There’s a bottle of sildenafil in his nightstand drawer, with only one pill taken out of it — which he thinks is somehow even more embarrassing. He’d only taken it to masturbate once, after his SSRIs plummeted his libido and he was itching for a release after a long day. 

The small orange bottle feels strangely heavy in his hands now, as he tips his head back to shake one of the tiny blue pills into his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows it dry. The pills rattle faintly when he sets the bottle down beside him again. 

He drops onto the edge of his bed, mattress squeaking under his weight. He rests his elbows on his knees and hunches over to dig his palms into his eyes. He tries to will himself hard for you, even though he knows that isn’t exactly how that works.

He thinks of you — all young and pretty and waiting for him out there — wasting your youth on an old man who can’t get hard to save his life. It leads to a cycle of self-hatred that prevents him from getting turned on at all. And it’s maddening.  

The ajar door creaks quietly as you push it open without knocking.

You slink inside the dim bedroom and freeze at the sight of the man on the bed, like you weren’t expecting to find him there. Jack’s head whips to your form across the room and spins when he finds your underwear peeking out from the bottom of his shirt — a soft orange color patterned with dark black bats, several months out of season.

“What are you doing?” he squints teasingly, blanketed half by shadow and half by golden lamplight.

“What are you doing?” you retort. “I’ve been waiting out there forever.”

“It’s only been five minutes,” Jack scoffs.

“Yeah, tell me about it…”

You’re all but skipping to his side then, bare feet padding along the thin carpet as you go. The thin fabric of his shirt swishes around your thighs when you walk to stand between his. When you wrap your arms loosely around his neck and duck down to kiss him, Jack tips his chin back and opens his mouth to welcome you — until the open drawer beside you catches your attention, as well as the orange pill bottle sitting on the corner of the nightstand, as if he’d just pulled it out of there.

“What’s that—?”

“Nothing,” Jack answers, a little too quickly, and reaches less than casually around you to chuck the bottle into the drawer again. The pills rattle loudly in the quiet bedroom when he shoves it shut a second later.

He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’ve already gotten a glimpse of the label. Your gaze is soft with sympathy and glittering with something wild that he can’t quite place.

Jack says nothing for several long moments, and instead waits for your response.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed…” you murmur when you catch his scruffy cheeks flaring a soft pink.

“I’m not embarrassed,” he blurts, less than convincingly, eyes shifting away and back again. “I’m just… selectively unthrilled with this timing…”

Your nose scrunches at the shy smile you give him. His warm hands settle again on your waist while your fingers twist in the silver curls at the nape of his neck. Your eyes soften with something tender when you wonder shyly, “Is that why… Is that why you haven’t wanted to… you know?”

“No,” Jack answers instantly, then tilts his head to think for a moment. “Well, I mean— a little, I guess, but… I only take ‘em ‘cause of my SSRIs, you know? It’s not… It’s not because of you or anything.”

“Okay…” you nod and struggle to meet his gaze when you ask, “Do you know, like, how long it takes to kick in… or whatever?”

“Last time I tried, it took about twenty minutes—”

“Last time?” you echo with raised brows.

“I was just trying it out!” Jack defends with a crooked smile, slightly egged on by your misplaced jealousy after stewing in his own all day. “I was by myself when I took it, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does make me feel better, actually…”

Jack’s light eyes narrow. “What’s that look for, huh?”

“Nothin’…” you lilt quietly, with a poorly hidden smile. “I just… I think it’s kinda hot… That’s all…”

His expression flickers in an instant — surprise first, suspicion second, then something darker third. A white-hot desire threads through the distant embarrassment still swimming in his stomach.

“Yeah?” he presses lowly, with a voice like honey.

“Yeah…” you nod once, unable to take your eyes off his prying stare. 

He studies you for another beat, before huffing a quiet laugh of disbelief. 

“You’re somethin’ else, baby, you know that?” he mumbles with a shake of his head, smoothing his calloused palms slowly up your bare thighs until they disappear under his shirt.

“I know…” you mutter on bated breath, trying and failing to be casual when you ask, “What do you wanna do then, huh? You know, for the next twenty minutes, anyway?”

You fight back a shiver when his thumb brushes over the center of the delicate mound peeking beneath the hem of your t-shirt, concealed by the thin cotton panties you wear. 

Jack hears your breath catch in his throat. His darkened gaze flits from your Halloween-patterned underwear to your heavy eyes, now glazed over with a layer of honeyed desire. 

A sly smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

“I think I have a few ideas…”

He’s far too familiar with the faces here for anything else. Sonny’s had been standing for longer than he has, to be fair — he had his first drink here, back when no one cared how old you really were, so long as you weren’t totally stupid about it; he had his first kiss here, too, by the dumpster in an alley from a woman much older than he was, who he revered as some sort of god until he got to med school. 

Sonny’s had given him a lot over the years, so Jack figured it was only right that he give back in return. 

He’d gotten several of its patrons out of a number of sticky situations over the years. Everyone knew to call him if someone had gotten themselves into trouble — whether that be bathroom overdoses, bar fight aftermaths, or kids with fake IDs who’d drunk their weight in whiskey. They knew Jack Abbot would fix them right up. No questions asked, no money needed, no judgment at all.

Except for today, he hadn’t gotten a single call, nor had he heard a murmur of anything medical-related on the police scanner all afternoon. His day off had been exceptionally quiet, which he thinks is why he struggles to sleep tonight, without the adrenaline crash from a long day forcing him into slumber.

That’s why he comes into Sonny’s for an actual drink, for the first time in a long time — to escape the loneliness of his home for a while, and to down a few beers that’ll hopefully put him to sleep when he inevitably has to return to its emptiness. That’s why he welcomes the racing heart he gets, too, when you glance at him over your shoulder at the sound of his voice.

“Didn’t ya hear?” a familiar voice calls from the booth nearest to the door. “We’re celebrating!”

Jack turns his head to find Louie sitting in the cracked vinyl booth, ahead of two men who seem to be around his age. He nurses a sweaty pint in his sun-kissed hand, with two more empty ones sitting at his side. 

If Jack knows anything about Mr. Cloverfield, it’s that he’s already had much, much more than that tonight alone. ‘Cause the last time he saw Louie, he had a BAC of .420, and was walking and talking just fine — aside from the shakes he couldn’t quite get rid of.

“Weren’t you supposed to be taking it easy, Louie?” Jack squints.

“I was,” the older man assures with a lopsided smile that says otherwise. “But now we’re celebrating.”

“Oh, yeah?” he scoffs and walks further inside, ignoring the way his shoes threaten to stick to his hardwood with every step. “And what’s that?”

Louie motions to you with his half-gone beer. “That one’s starting a new job tomorrow.”

Jack’s eyes cut back to you. 

You duck away on instinct when his gaze locks with yours, only then realizing how long you’d been staring. You keep your head bowed like a shy child when he slides into the bar stool next to yours, replacing the scent of an ancient bar with the warmer scent of expensive cologne.

“Oh, really?” the stranger hums. “Where at?”

“Nowhere special. Just retail,” you say with a lazy shrug, struggling to find the courage to meet his unwavering stare. “But I just moved into town, so… I figured I’d buy a round for the house.”

You reach for the shot rack ahead of you, where three narrow glasses filled with clear liquid sit in a row. You go to pass one over to the strange man beside you, but he dismisses you with a shake of his head — made of greying curls that match the silver scruff on his jaw.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t have a pretty girl buyin’ my drinks.”

A laugh sputters from your mouth, rolling off your half-numb tongue. “Pretty girl? What— Are you flirting with me, or is this just… your usual level of arrogance?”

“Neither. I’m just… stating the obvious,” Jack says with a cheeky half-smile, shifting on the squeaking leather stool to reach for the wallet in the back pocket of his jeans. He turns to the bartender and wonders aloud, “What’s her tab, Johnny?”

You burn red-hot almost instantly. “Don’t tell him—”

“$94.57—” the older man answers before you can get the words out, then cuts himself off with a weathered look of apology. “—Oh. Sorry.”

You grimace and hide your burning face behind your hands. “God, that’s so embarrassing…” you whine, muffled into your palms.

“Hey. You’re celebrating,” Jack shrugs. “I get it.”

You hear the man’s leather wallet flip open. You peek through your fingers to find him pulling out a heavy credit card. Your features flood with horror when he hands it off to the bartender.

“Oh, no— I can’t let you do that.”

“You’re not letting me do anything,” the older man scoffs, folding his freckled arms along the counter’s edge. “I want to. ‘Cause we’re celebrating, remember?”

You meet his smug smile with an unsure wince.

Jack caves with a sigh. “Okay, you can make it up to me by drinking with me tonight. How about that?”

Your chest warms with a funny feeling that you’d rather blame on the alcohol. You purse your lips to the side of your mouth before he catches you smiling too wide and nod slowly in response.

“Sure…” you shrug, feigning an air of nonchalance you lost the moment the pretty stranger caught you staring. “I guess I can handle that…”

The stranger — he hasn’t yet given you his name, nor do you bother to ask for it — buys you two more drinks after the fact. 

You sip slowly at the first one, then forget to taste the second, too busy catching his gaze every time he looks your way. Lingering eye contact had always perturbed you, but not his. You liked it when he held your stare whenever you turned to face him; you liked it even more when you could feel his eyes on you whenever you looked away again.

You give him this smile from time to time, a barely-there sort of smirk that glittered mostly in your eyes, whenever you tilted your chin to peer at him through your lashes. It was as sweet as it was heavy, honeyed and full of gravity, like you knew something about him that he didn’t — like you were searching somewhere deep in his soul.

Really, though, you were just wildly skeptical of him — eyeing him in silence and trying to figure out if he was real, if this was real. How many times have you played this game, old man? you’d ask him if you had the courage. How many hearts have you already broken? Am I gonna regret it when mine breaks next?

You’re not sure, but you let him walk you to your place anyway, and talk him into letting you buy him a donut from the shop across from your apartment building on the way. He tells you it’ll sober you up, even though you aren’t all that drunk anymore; you tell him that he’ll never want anything else once he’s tasted this one, and he fights the urge to make a sex joke.

“Thanks for walking me home,” you tell him through the wad of donut still stuck in your cheek, standing a step above him on the stony stairs to your building. “And for turning out not to be a serial killer.”

Jack balls his napkin of crumbs into his fist. “Well, there’s still time— You know, if you’re disappointed.”

“Eh,” you hum playfully, swallowing through the mouthful. “Maybe just a little.”

“Then I’ll see myself out, I guess…” the man huffs, feigning a morose disposition, and distantly praying you’ll stop him. “It’s getting pretty late.”

Your eyes narrow into thin slits, and it feels like his heart has stopped — like you’re using some sort of secret superpower to steal his breath.

You shake your head and tell him, “It’s not that late.”

So Jack follows you up to your apartment despite his better judgment, drawn to a siren song that he knows is bound to kill him sooner or later.

Your apartment is mostly empty, he finds, considering you had only just moved into it. 

There’s a couch, an air mattress, and a small television on a plastic bin shoved into the quaint living room. There’s one chair at the kitchen island, and a sea of boxes on the counter. You apologize profusely for the mess as you weave through the maze of cardboard for the refrigerator. You bring him a chilled bottle of white wine on the way back.

“I’d pour it into a fancy glass or something, but… I don’t have any,” you confess as you plop down onto the couch beside him, which still smells like the house you just bought it from. “I don’t even have cups. Or silverware. I barely even have a kitchen.”

Jack laughs. “You just moved here, and the first thing you thought to buy was wine?”

“Well, yeah,” you shrug like it’s obvious. “I had to get the essentials, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he echoes with a scoff.

The wine is bad. Almost comically bad. He nearly chokes on it when he takes his first sip, like he’s a teenager again, taking his very first ever drink of alcohol. It’s bitter with an extremely sweet aftertaste that coats his tongue long after he’s swallowed it down. But you don’t seem to mind it, though — you drink it like it’s some sort of delicacy, which he knows it must be for you, ‘cause he was young and broke once, too.

He takes slow sips every time you pass the sweaty bottle his way, if only because doing so means putting his lips where yours once kissed.

“So…” Jack starts after you’ve run out of things to say, sitting with his thighs spread and his heavy head tilted against the couch. He licks the sheen of alcohol from his mouth, passes you the wine, and wonders aloud, “What’s your story, huh?”

“My story?” you laugh into the lip of the bottle, curling your legs beneath you to face him better as you take a short sip. “Why do I have to have a story?”

“Everyone has a story,” Jack scoffs. “Think about it— There was something that led you to that bar tonight, right?”

“Most people would call that fate.”

“What about you?” he asks, then follows at the look you give him. “Would you call it fate?”

You think for a moment, then nod your head against your fist. “Yeah… I guess so.”

Jack nods slowly, scruffy cheek brushing the cushion beneath him. “So if I… I don’t know… If I kissed you right now… Would you call that fate, too?”

Your laugh washes over him like drops of summer rain. 

“Real smooth…” you croon drily.

“It’s just a hypothetical.” 

“Then, no. I wouldn’t call that fate.” You huff and lean forward to set the bottle onto the box you’re using as a makeshift table. “I think I’d call that taking what I want.”

Despite his own forwardness, Jack is still slightly surprised when you close the distance between you, rather than sit back into place across from him. You rest your knees on the sunken cushions instead, and rest your fist on the space between his spread thighs as you lean in closer. 

Jack gets a whiff of the perfume on your skin, then the bittersweet alcohol on your tongue, right before your wine-slick mouth catches his own.

He tenses on instinct at the feeling of you, then relaxes with a heavy breath through his nose a second later, when you lick into his parted mouth. It takes him a moment to kiss you back, because he doesn’t realize until that very second that he hasn’t made out with someone in years. 

He reaches for you with trembling hands, curling one around your arm and the other around the back of your neck to cradle you closer to him. 

You kiss him lazy and slow. You touch him lazy and slow, too, trailing your palms from his scruffy jaw to his broad chest as you straddle his lap. He wonders if you can feel his heart pounding beneath the thin t-shirt he wears — or his cock growing slowly stiff in the confines of his jeans. 

He tries to touch you with a similar confidence, with his wide hands resting on your hips, but he can’t seem to stop shaking.

You kiss and lick the thoughts from his brain. He thinks of nothing but the way you feel against him — feels nothing but your warm weight on top of him. He doesn’t realize he’s grinding you over his lap until he feels you moan into his mouth. Then he pulls away with a quiet smack, wearing your spit down to his chin and something honeyed in his eyes.

“We really doin’ this?” he wonders through panted breaths.

You smile with kiss-bitten lips, twirling your fingers in the silver curls at the nape of his neck. “Depends… Do you wanna do this?”

“Depends,” he echoes. “Are you too drunk for this?”

“I’m not drunk,” you scoff. “I’m a big girl— I can hold my liquor.”

Something dark flickers in his heavy eyes.

Your smile widens.

“What about you, huh? Do you think you got drunk off a few sips of wine? Or can you handle your alcohol… big boy?” 

Jack feels his chest flare with a white-hot feeling. He forces himself to breathe through it as he jokes back, “Big boy, huh? Are you flirting with me or is this just— what was it you said— your usual level of arrogance?”

“Neither,” you hum with a cheeky grin. “This is me very humbly, and only slightly embarrassingly, asking if you wanna fuck me on that air mattress over there?”

He’s fleetingly stunned by your forwardness but recovers even quicker. He thinks he’d do just about anything you asked of him in this moment, without question or second thought. It frightens him almost as much as it excites him.

“Yeah…” Jack sighs, half-breathless. “Want me to prove it to you?”

You nod until the words catch up to you. 

“Yes, please.”

You’re a pair of anxious limbs on the cheap air mattress across the room. Jack can’t seem to stop apologizing — first when his pants are off and you see his prosthetic for the first time — “Sorry,” he’d said, only because it felt like he should, “For what?” you shrugged back, with your bra strap slipping off your shoulder. 

He apologized a second time when the flimsy mattress shifted under his weight and sent him toppling gracelessly on top of you; and then a third when he pierced you for the first time, a little rougher than he intended to.

“Sorry. Are you okay?” he wonders, half-strangled, ‘cause you’re gripping his cock like a vice. “Is this too much— Do you need me to—?”

“No, no. It’s okay,” you assured through labored breaths. He had prepped you with his fingers beforehand, to be fair. The orgasm he’d given you with them had you slicker than honey, but hadn’t totally prepared you for the girth of his cock. “It feels good, I promise.”

“You don’t want me to stop?” he presses, just to be sure.

“I’m already close, and you haven’t even moved yet,” you confess through a breathless chuckle. “So, no… I don’t want you to stop…”

The only way he can fuck you properly is on your side. The air mattress gives less under your weight in that position, with you wrapped in his arms and with your leg thrown over his hip. He curls one hand under and over your back while his other digs bruises onto the plush skin of your ass, pulling you into him every time he thrusts inside of you.

Your strangled whines and his grunted moans echo through the expanse of your empty apartment.

“Tell me it feels good,” he pants against you — warm breath fanning over your jaw, nose bumping against your own. “Tell me you want me.”

You obey without thinking, babbling brainlessly. 

“Feels so good…” you whine through gritted teeth, digging crescent shapes into the skin of his freckled shoulders. “Want you so bad— Want you to make me cum— Fuck, I want you—”

Want you, want you, want you.

You repeat it like a mantra.

You cum on his cock a second later, and it feels like praying.

The pretty stranger is not next to you when you wake up on the half-deflated air mattress the next morning. 

Golden sunlight peeks through the blinds in flaxen streams from where you’d forgotten to close them the night before. You squint your eyes and blink rapidly to clear the haze of sleep, trying to place when the stranger must’ve left. You hadn’t felt him get up, so you figure it must’ve been pretty early — right after he fucked you so good it put you to sleep, maybe. 

His clothes are gone. The only trace of him ever being there is the imprint of his body in the tousled sheets beside you, and in the soreness in the very pit of your stomach where you can still feel him inside of you. 

A distant part of you misses the stranger, but a bigger part of you is thankful — because the only thing worse than a one-night stand with a stranger you just met, is having to share awkward goodbyes the morning after with a stranger you just met.

“Thank god…” you grumble as you stretch your tired limbs, plucking your phone from its charger on the floor before trudging down the hall for the bathroom. You only vaguely notice that the door is shut, and that there’s a thin strip of light peeking out from underneath it before you swing it open.

“Morning,” a familiar voice greets, gruff and half-muffled.

Your head snaps up from your phone. Your tired eyes go wide when you’re faced suddenly with the pretty stranger from last night — already dressed for the day and brushing his teeth by the sink. Your feet stumble backward on instinct. Your back hits the doorframe as your free hand flies to your pounding chest.

“Oh, my god—”

“Shit. Sorry,” the older man laughs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He bends at the waist to spit into the sink.

You try to catch your breath.

“I… I didn’t know you were still here… Sorry…”

He scoffs like he’s half-offended by the notion. “I wasn’t just gonna leave. I’m not that big of an asshole…”

Your brows furrow as you tilt your head to the side in a confused sort of look. Because that was sort of the point of one-night stands, after all — the leaving. 

“Oh, and I, uh— I found a pack of toothbrushes under the sink,” he tells you. “I hope that’s okay.”

“No, yeah, that’s… That’s fine,” you shrug and cross your arms over your chest. You slouch slightly in place, trying to keep the hem of your sweatshirt from rising and revealing that you’re naked underneath it — ‘cause it still feels a bit weird, even though he got pretty well acquainted with your naked body barely six hours ago. “But, um… I do have to leave for work. Like, super soon, so…”

“You wanna ride?” the man wonders through the orange toothbrush in his mouth. “I can walk back down to Sonny’s. Bring my truck back around.”

“No, that’s— that’s okay.” You shake your head and laugh before you mean to, because so much kindness from a one-night stand feels nothing short of alien to you. “You know, we don’t… We don’t have to do… all this…”

Jack plucks the toothbrush from his mouth. The look of confusion that contorts his scruffy face matches your own as he echoes, “…All what?”

“You know…” you trail off with an awkward laugh. “The whole… song and dance of it all… The pretending we care…”

“I do care.”

“Right. Yeah. But… We’re never gonna see each other after this, right? So… Does it really even matter?”

Jack only then seems to remember that he had only just met you, not even twelve hours ago, and that the night before would very likely be the last time he ever got to touch you. He forgot that very important fact somewhere along the line, and tricked himself into thinking you really wanted this, wanted him. The realization hits him like a fist to the stomach.

“Oh… Right…”

He turns away again, half-mournful, and runs the toothbrush under the faucet. Your bleary eyes dart wildly over the weathered edges of his profile, right before you face twists with mortification.

“Oh, god…” you murmur to yourself. “I didn’t take your one-night stand virginity, did I?”

Jack manages a quiet laugh as he wipes his hands on a nearby towel. 

“No. Not— Not really,” he tells you. “I think I’m just a little out of practice, you know? I haven’t been with anyone since I got married.”

“Oh, my god— You’re married?!”

“No!” he shouts, laughing louder at the horrified look on your face. “I mean, I haven’t had a one-night stand since before I was married. And definitely not since my wife died, so…”

“Oh, jeez…” you wince, shifting awkwardly on your bare feet. “Sorry…”

The sorrowful look you give him is the same look he’d been trying to avoid this whole time. It finds him very suddenly wanting to get out of here as quickly as he can. 

“I’ll, uh… I’ll see myself out, I guess,” he tells you.

“Okay,” you nod with a wavering smile. “Thanks…”

He pauses mid-stride in the doorway, towering over you as he flashes you an amused look — all furrow-browed and smiling. “For what?” the man scoffs.

“I don’t know, actually…” you laugh. “I don’t know what I said that, I just… I felt like I should, you know? I had a pretty good time last night…”

You trail off, and only then realize that you hadn’t yet gotten his name.

“…Jack,” he finishes for you.

“Jack,” you repeat with a firm nod and a shy smile.

And he’s heard his own name a million times, but something about the way you say it sounds different — like everyone else has been saying his name wrong his whole life; like he’s spent years hearing it in a foreign language, and yours is the only one he really understands. 

When he leaves your apartment, it’s with the knowledge that he’ll probably never hear his name the right way ever again.

You make it three hours on your first shift at the PTMC before all hell breaks loose — or, rather, a rollercoaster. 

Several carts derail from the tracks at a nearby theme park, injuring everyone on board and many more on the ground below. It sends a sudden influx of patients straight to your emergency department. You do more in an hour than you did in weeks at your small-town hospital back home, where you interned and did the bulk of your residency, which now feels rather lackluster in comparison.

You’re still wearing the bright crimson blood from the emergency thoracotomy you did in the ambulance bay, when the heart of a young boy with a steel rebar through his chest gave out before he could be wheeled inside. You were forced to work quickly to cut through his chest cavity and reach through his ribs for his heart. You knelt on the gurney and pumped manually at the artery while the EMTs wheeled you to the nearest trauma room. 

You’re only just finishing the transfusion on the patient when another trauma is called in.

You can still feel the boy’s heart in your hand when you peel off the bloodied PPE, replacing it with a fresher set of gown and gloves, as you follow Dr. Robby to the ambulance bay. You struggle to keep up with the man’s longer strides as he passes through the automatic doors, where the fresh air outside smacks you in the face with its sudden reminder to breathe.

“Holy shit…” you hear yourself huff, still half-dazed from the previous operation. “Is it always this bad? Please tell me it’s not always this bad.”

“It’s not always this bad,” the older man affirms without looking back at you. “But I have seen a whole lot worse than this, R3, trust me— Alright, what do we got?”

Robby peers through the back of an open ambulance parked crooked in the bay. He grits his teeth to help lower the gurney to the ground, and an older man comes into view. He’s bloodied and unconscious, and his camo uniform has been cut down the middle to accommodate intubation. 

As you rush to Robby’s side, a familiar voice fills your ears: “My buddy, Officer Hiro, high-velocity GSW— He’s getting harder to bag.”

Another camo-wearing officer steps out when the gurney hits the ground. He stands at the head of the narrow bed, squeezing rhythmically at the intubation bag in his fist. His hand is stained with dark red blood. He’s immediately familiar to you, though in your daze, it’s hard to place from where. 

You blink once and realize it’s the stranger from the night before — the one you all but kicked out of your apartment this morning. The man from Sonny’s who cleared your tab, who you shared a bottle of cheap wine with on your secondhand couch, who fucked you dizzy in the center of your flimsy air mattress barely twelve hours ago. 

You’re filled with an immediate horror at the sight of him. You think death would be a kinder fate when his gaze locks suddenly with yours. 

Jack’s eyes squint the same way yours did, like he’s not sure if it’s really you he’s seeing. They widen with realization a second later, but he turns away without a word, continuing to brief Robby on the man’s sustained injuries while you rush him to the nearest trauma room. 

“Help me cut down a 6-0 ET tube,” he tells you without glancing your way. 

You’re grateful for his apathy, feeling like you’ve been spared from the awkwardness of being faced with a stranger you were never supposed to see again. You wouldn’t have let him into your empty apartment at all if you knew, much less fucked him on an air mattress. And you maybe would’ve practiced a little more humility before kicking him out this morning if you realized he was gonna be your goddamn attending.

You’re only able to breathe again when you leave his side to cut the tube. The exhale gets knocked out of your legs all over again when you turn to face him once more, finding him wearing a smile that you already know means trouble.

“Fancy meeting you here, by the way,” he squints behind his safety glasses.

“Likewise,” you nod once, gaze averted, as you pass him the clear tube in your gloved fingers.

Jack works with deft hands, utterly concentrated, even despite his nonstop teasing. “That retail gig didn’t work out for you, I take it?”

“Retail?” you hear Robby murmur from somewhere behind you.

Your face burns hot.

“I was let go this morning, actually,” you try to joke, though your wavering voice gives your timidity away. “And I realized I always wanted to be a doctor anyway, so I just… Snuck in here, threw on a coat, and nobody was the wiser.”

You flash him a playful grin, which fades when you get a weird look from the nurses standing just behind him.

“I’m kidding!” you blurt with an awkward chuckle. “I-I’m totally kidding. I’m in R3— I just moved here from—” 

“Hey,” Jack blurts, peering up at you from the glasses sitting low on his nose, and saving you from yourself. “Help me out with this ET tube, please?”

“Yes, sir…” you nod and don’t miss the smug grin he gives you in response.

You somehow manage to make it through the rest of the endotracheal intubation without making a total fool of yourself — until Robby catches you on the way out, that is, once Hiro is finally stabilized. He chucks his gown and gloves into the biohazard bin beside the door and asks how you and Dr. Abbot know each other.

Jack answers honestly before you can think to make up a lie.

“We met last night, actually,” he’d said. “At Sonny’s.”

“The bar, huh?” Robby nodded slowly. “Hope you didn’t come in hungover, R3.”

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, until you were finally able to stammer out a measly, “O-Of course not, sir!”

Robby only laughed. “I’m joking, kid. I watched you keep a boy’s heart going with your hand shoved in his chest cavity… If you’re hungover, I can’t wait to see what you can do sober.”  

He claps you on the shoulder before he walks away. You feel an overwhelming sense of relief at his words. Jack’s praise, on the other hand, makes you feel a little like dying.

“Good work back there,” he says, pulling off his gloves with a dull pop.

“Thanks…” you say with a wavering smile that you hardly mean. “But I, uh— I should probably get going, Dr. Abbot. Dr. Al said she needed me for—”

“Dr. Abbot, huh?” the older man scoffs. “This morning I was Jack.”

“Yeah, well, this morning you were a stranger and notmy attending, so…”

Your gaze is stern but glittering still. You tilt your chin to keep his stare when he towers over you — feet spread shoulder length apart, hands crossed behind his back, light eyes peering at you from the bridge of his nose. 

Even despite his strong stature, something playful swims in his squinted stare as he jokes, “Would you have taken advantage of me, then? You know, if you knew I was gonna be your boss?”

You shove him hard by the shoulder, arguing in a sharp whisper. “I did not take advantage of you, Dr. Abbot.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jack shrugs. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

You meet his smug smile with a pair of narrowed eyes that dart back and forth between his softer ones — all squishy around the edges with a look that makes your chest feel warm.

“Don’t look at me like that…” you deadpan.

“Like what?” 

“Like you’ve seen me naked,” you scold under your breath, brushing his shoulder with yours as you storm past him down the hallway. “It’s not appropriate, Dr. Abbot.”

Jack watches you with a smile, anyway, while you walk away from him with something swift in your step. He can’t help but eye the way your scrubs cradle your body, which he had held in his hands only last night. He can still remember how your ass felt in his palms; how the sweat on your neck tasted on his tongue; how your features crumpled together right before you came for him.

He goes half-dizzy at the memory.

Not appropriate, indeed.

You’re about an hour away from finishing your shift when you nearly lose your first patient. 

Everything that came before ceases to exist in that moment.

You had seen death. A lot of it. You had scrubbed in on numerous surgeries where patients flat-lined on the operating table. You’d seen illnesses eat a person from the inside out. You’d seen children try and fail to fight off infections that their tiny bodies just couldn’t handle. 

But this time was different — because this time felt like your fault.

Amara was a six-year-old girl who was rushed in, barely conscious, with a fever of 105. By all accounts, she should’ve been your easiest patient of the day — considering the shitshow that preceded her arrival. And you did everything right. Everything that med school taught you. 

You wrapped her in ice packs along her major arteries, gave her a cold IV to cool her internally, and did every test in the book to determine the cause of her raging fever.

“I just don’t understand why her fever isn’t slowing down,” you’d rambled to Jack in the break room, where he’d insisted you take a breather, when he saw the moment getting to you. “I’ve done everything right. It should be going down by now, right?”

He’d stopped your pacing with a firm but gentle hand along the outside of your elbow. 

“Fevers can be stubborn. You know that,” Jack had told you, ducking down to catch your gaze when you tried to look away. “This isn’t about you missing something, alright? It’s just her body taking time. We can reassess when the tests come back. We’re not out of options yet.”

But then she started seizing, and it triggered an arrhythmia in her heart, and the organ started to fail altogether. She’s flat-lining before you can blink. 

You quickly lose count of the minutes you spend doing compressions. You vaguely hear Jack from behind you, telling you to switch positions like you’re supposed to, but you keep on going.

“I got it,” you’d spat through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.”

Your arms grow slowly numb from the strong, never-ending rhythm. Beads of sweat begin to pearl along your forehead, rolling slowly down your temples. You can feel your hair tie slipping from its place, already loose from the long day, before it hits the ground somewhere by your feet. The wild strands fall around your face, billowing with every punched breath from your mouth.

When you feel Jack standing behind you, gathering your hair into his gentle fist, you don’t think about how he was a stranger to you barely a day ago. 

You don’t think about what he did to you with the hand he uses to pull your hair back. You don’t think about the awkward exchange from that morning, or the constant teasing all afternoon, or the way you haven’t been able to think without running into thoughts of him.

You think only of saving this girl.

It takes three rounds of epi to get her heart back into a shockable rhythm, and 40 joules to reset it to its natural beat.

Jack helps you off the bed with two firm hands around your arms — because your legs had all but locked into position from the lengthy compressions — and tells Langdon to take over the remainder of the young girl’s care.

“You alright?” you hear the man ask, while you blink the haze of adrenaline from your eyes. He pats you gently on the back, in a silent reminder to breathe. You nod slowly through a wavering inhale, and he smiles at the wordless affirmation. “You ever thought about going into cardiology?”

“That’s not funny,” you deadpan.

“I’m not joking,” Jack scoffs. “I think you might be the heart whisperer, Doc.”

The nickname catches on by nightfall.

Robby tells you to clock out early, that you deserve it, and you don’t push him on the matter. 

You don’t say a word, actually, as you trudge to the locker room for your bag and leave through the waiting room doors. The cool night air rushes over your burning skin like silk. Your tired body migrates on autopilot to the park across the street, where two benches sit facing each other, lit only by a single amber streetlamp.

You don’t know how long you sit there by yourself — only that you’ve counted nearly a hundred bricks in the pavement by the time Jack Abbot finds you. 

“You’re not thinking about quitting, are you?” he wonders aloud, shattering your train of not-quite thought.

“Hm?” you perk on instinct as your head whips to face him. “Oh. No. Of course not… No one else would take me.”

Jack exhales a quiet laugh at your quip and slides his camo bag from his shoulder. He huffs as he plops down onto the creaking bench beside you, leaving an aching inch or more of space between your bodies. 

Though he’s out of the tactical gear he’d arrived in — left now in his baggy pants and a form-fitting undershirt — the scent of blood still lingers on his skin. It’s only partially drowned out by his cologne; the smell of musky leather reminds you instantly of Sonny’s Tavern.

“Well, I’m sure Common Thread around the corner is probably hiring,” he jokes.

You feel yourself laugh for the first time all day.

“I don’t think Common Thread has been around since the 90s.”

“Really?” the older man huffs, crossing his strong arms over his chest and exhaling a punched-out breath. “Jesus… I need to get out more.”

Your eyes dart over the edges of his profile when he turns away. Your gaze grows soft and wet with the apology you’ve been thinking about all day, which rises to the tip of your tongue just now. 

“I’m sorry, by the way,” you blurt. “For lying to you last night.”

Jack shrugs. “Who cares? We didn’t even know each other.”

“Yeah, but now we do— And now the rest of our relationship is gonna be built on the foundation of a stupid lie.”

Jack arches a greying brow in your direction. “Our relationship, huh?”

“Our working relationship,” you squint. “I’m not going out with you again, Dr. Abbot.”

“I didn’t even ask if you wanted to go out with me!”

“Well, no, but—”

“So do you wanna go out with me?” he blurts with a smug grin.

“No!” you shout, giggling despite yourself. “It’s not appropriate. We have to draw the line somewhere.”

“Oh, yeah?” he hums. “Where?”

“Here!”

“Right here?” 

Jack glances down at where you motion to the space between your bodies. You nod with a poorly held back laugh, and he slides to close the distance between you. You feel almost suffocated by the warmth of his body heat. Your head spins when his thigh brushes the outside of yours. 

“So, by your assessment, would you say that I am now crossing that imaginary line?” the older man jokes drily.

“I’d say you’re crossing several lines, Dr. Abbot.”

He meets your smiling eyes with something more serious glimmering in his. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

You know that you could say yes and that all of this would be over with. All the teasing, all the lingering touches, all of the everything that came before. You could start over. Clean state. You’d be the R3, and he’d be the attending, and that’d be that. Only now that sounds like a total fucking nightmare. The thought of having any less of him now feels like ripping your own heart out through your chest.

You swallow hard and shake your head. “No… I don’t want you to stop.”

“Good,” he nods.

“Good,” you echo with a firm nod and stupid smile.

“We are clocked out now, you know?” Jack tells you, feigning an air of nonchalance. “I technically wasn’t even working in the first place, so… You know, if we kissed right now, I don’t think it’d violate that many HR policies.”

He catches your eyes flitting somewhere over his shoulder before you quip, “No, but your friends might look at us a little funny…”

Jack glances behind him and finds the rest of the day shift crossing the street together. Their distant chatter draws nearer, and you fight back a laugh when the older man slides slowly away from you — before any of them could catch how close the two of you had been. Donnie arrives first, and places his square cooler in the space between you.

“Dr. Abbot and The Heart Whisperer…” the man croons in place of a greeting. “Here. Take the first beer. You deserve it.” 

“Thanks…” you murmur shyly and take the chilled can he motions to you. It opens with a heavy click and a faint hiss. You take a slow sip from it, and nearly forget how to swallow when you feel Jack’s eyes still on you. “Do you… Do you guys do this after every shift?”

“Not always,” Robby answers from the bench across from yours, popping open his own beer with an expert hand. “Usually it’s a lot more lively than this, but…”

“So it’s not always that crazy in there?” 

“No, it’s always a little crazy,” Santos quips from where she stands between Mohan and Whitaker. “But today, Heart Whisperer, is what we call baptism by fire.” 

“Yeah,” Samira scoffs. “Our first shift was the Pittfest shooting.”

“Oh, shit…” you grimace.

“But the good thing is, I can pretty much guarantee that the next shift will be easier.”

You meet Mohan’s kind smile with a wavering one. “Yeah… I hope so.”

“So, what do ya say, R3?” Robby asks with a smile that’s mostly concealed behind his greying beard. “Think you’ll stick around after today’s shitshow?”

You ponder for a long moment, glancing down at the can you nurse in your lap. You trace the circular edge of the aluminum with your free hand as a smile curls slowly at your mouth.

“Yeah, I think I will…” you hum with a slow nod. “If only because I live right across the street from this really nice donut shop— like the best you’ll ever have, so...”

“So now you have to like it here, huh?” Jack finishes for you, with a knowing squint in his light eyes — because he can still taste your mouth the same way he can still taste the late-night pastry he’d shared with you the night before.

“Yeah,” you smile back. “And it’s crazy because I really wasn’t planning on liking it here…”

“Well, donuts tend to have that effect on people, I’ve found,” he squints behind the beer he brings up to his mouth

“Oh, do they?” you wonder sarcastically.

Jack nods slowly, licking the sheen of alcohol from his mouth. “Yeah, actually.”

“Oh, please, tell me more, Dr. Abbot,” you say, giggling despite yourself.

While you watch Jack talk out of his ass about a statistic he totally made up, you vaguely hear Santos turn to Whitaker and mumble, “Okay, so is ‘donuts,’ like, a euphemism for something, or did this shift make us all ten times dumber?”