eliza

“I mean, just look at him,” you muttered, your nose wrinkling as you looked across the makeshift dancefloor. “Who does he think he is?”

Your eyes found him with embarrassing ease, cutting through the blur of moving bodies, sticky floors and the cloud of cherry-scented vape smoke hanging over the living room.

Oscar Piastri. Of course it was Oscar Piastri.

He was leaning against the wall like he hadn't a care in the world, one hand wrapped loosely around a red cup filled with something that almost definitely tasted horrific. His other hand rested against his hip as he laughed at something the girl in front of him had said, his head tipping back ever so slightly.

God, he looked pleased with himself.

She was twirling a strand of hair around her finger, smiling up at him through fluttering eyelashes and leaning in far closer than was remotely necessary.

It wasn't even that loud in here.

“Yeah,” Alex replied dryly from beside you, following your line of sight before looking back at you. “Absolutely criminal. He's talking to a pretty girl who's giving him attention. Someone should call the police.”

You tore your eyes away from Oscar long enough to shoot her a glare.

“Stop trying to make it something it isn't,” you lifted your drink to your lips, taking another sip as the alcohol settled warmly in your chest. It softened the edges of the room, blurred the music into a pleasant hum.

Yet somehow Oscar remained in perfect focus. “I just mean,” you continued, waving your cup vaguely in his direction, “he walks around like he's God's gift to humanity,” Alex raised an eyebrow. “Which is annoying.”

“Mm,” she nodded thoughtfully, though the smile threatening at the corners of her mouth suggested she wasn't taking you remotely seriously.

You huffed. “He's just... so...” you searched for the right word before settling on the only one that really fit. “Oscar.”

Alex barked out a laugh. “You need another shot if you're going to spend the whole night giving us an Oscar report.”

Before you could argue, she'd caught hold of your wrist and started weaving the two of you through the crowd towards the kitchen. “Alex,” you complained, stumbling after her. “I'm not giving anyone an Oscar report.”

“No?” She glanced over her shoulder with a grin. “You've only been staring at him for the last ten minutes.”

“I have not.”

“You've looked at him more than you've looked at me.”

You scoffed, taking another sip of your drink. “I was people watching.”

“Interesting,” Alex hummed. “Considering the only person you've watched all evening has been him.”

Your mouth opened to argue, but the words dissolved the second the two of you passed him.

You felt it before you even looked. His attention shifting. Like he'd sensed you nearby.

Against your better judgement, your eyes flicked towards him. He wasn't looking at the girl anymore. Somewhere between one step and the next, she'd become background noise. His eyes had found yours instead.

His smile widened the second they did. Not smug. Not victorious. Just pleased. Like seeing you was somehow the best thing that had happened to him all evening.

You looked away first. Of course you did.

“See?” Alex murmured quietly as she nudged your shoulder. “He literally stops talking to anyone every time you walk into a room.”

You rolled your eyes so hard they almost hurt. “He's insufferable.”

Alex snorted. “Sure.”

The kitchen island was already crowded by the time Alex pulled you over, littered with abandoned cups, half-empty bottles of pop and enough questionable alcohol to make tomorrow morning thoroughly unpleasant.

The rest of your friends all stood around it in various stages of conversation, none of them paying much attention until Alex announced your arrival.

"Someone get her another shot," she sighed dramatically, dropping her head onto Lily's shoulder. "I'm so bored of hearing about Oscar."

You froze. "I do not talk about him that much."

Seven pairs of eyes landed on you. Then, almost in perfect sync, every single one of them rolled their eyes.

"See?" George said, gesturing lazily towards you. "That's exactly what someone who talks about Oscar too much would say."

"Honestly," Max muttered, taking another sip of his drink, "I don't even think he needs to be here anymore. You'd still find a way to mention him."

"That's not true."

"You mentioned him before you'd even said hello," Charles pointed out with a grin.

You opened your mouth, then closed it again.

Lando laughed under his breath as he reached for the bottle of tequila sitting on the counter. He held an empty cup up to the light, inspected it briefly before deciding it was clean enough, then filled it with a generous amount. "Here," he said, passing it over. "Drink this before you embarrass yourself any further."

You accepted it with a dramatic sigh. "I'm not obsessed with him."

"Didn't say you were," Lando replied innocently.

You narrowed your eyes. "You literally did last week."

He shrugged. "Yeah, maybe I was right."

George snorted into his drink. "The sooner you admit it, the sooner we can all move on with our lives."

"Move on?" you echoed. "You lot are the ones obsessed with this narrative."

"Narrative?" Lily laughed. "It's been two years."

Alex nodded solemnly. "We've accepted you're going to end up together. We're just getting bored waiting."

Laughter erupted around the kitchen. You tipped the tequila back in one go, grimacing as it burned all the way down. "You're all unbelievable."

Lando reached over immediately, replacing your empty shot cup with a fresh drink before you'd even asked.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating anyway?" George asked. "Didn't you absolutely smash your psychology exam?"

You wrapped your fingers around the new cup, grateful for the change in subject.

"Exactly," Alex agreed. "I thought tonight was supposed to be about you."

"It is."

"Yet somehow we've spent ten minutes discussing Oscar."

You looked around the circle in disbelief. "Because you lot keep bringing him up!"

Max blinked. "I literally opened the door to you moaning about him."

Silence. You pointed accusingly around the kitchen. "You're all incredibly annoying."

George grinned. "And yet somehow not as annoying as Oscar."

"Exactly," you exclaimed, grateful that someone had finally made sense.

George's grin widened. "Which is impressive, considering you've spent two years giving him your undivided attention."

You groaned loudly enough that a couple of people turned to look.

They had no idea what they were talking about. Oscar Piastri had simply mastered the art of being irritating.

You'd met him during your third week at university after Lando had dragged you along to one of the cricket team's sports socials, proudly insisting you "needed to meet the idiots I spent all my time with."

He hadn't been exaggerating.

Somewhere in amongst all of that chaos, Lando had introduced you to Oscar.

You'd expected someone easy-going. Humble, maybe. Instead, Oscar had smiled at you like he'd known you forever before announcing, with complete confidence, that you'd definitely like him eventually.

You'd decided almost instantly that he was insufferable.

Unfortunately, he'd never stopped proving you right.

Every conversation ended with him grinning while you rolled your eyes. Every party somehow ended with the two of you arguing about something completely pointless. He'd steal chips off your plate. Sit in your seat whenever you got up. Lean on your shoulder simply because he knew it annoyed you.

You'd even met his sister somewhere along the way, usually whenever she wandered onto campus looking for Oscar or Lando, somehow fitting into the group as naturally as everyone else. It wasn't unusual. Half the time it felt like Oscar and Lando shared a family anyway.

The worst part wasn't even that he was cocky.

It was that he somehow got away with it.

Everyone adored him. He was captain of the cricket team. Clever. Funny. Ridiculously handsome, which was deeply unfortunate.

You hated that you'd noticed the way he'd grown his hair out over the last year. Hated that you'd realised he smiled differently when he was genuinely laughing. Hated that you knew exactly what colour his eyes looked in the sun. Hated that, once, you'd caught yourself wondering what his hair might feel like threaded through your fingers.

You hated all of it.

Obviously.

You felt him before you saw him, as though he'd heard you thinking about him. A familiar warmth settled at your back. Broad shoulders. A chest brushing lightly against you. Then two arms draped comfortably over yours, his forearms resting across your collarbones like they belonged there.

Finally, a firm chin came to rest on the top of your head. "Talking about me again?" Oscar's voice rumbled beside your ear, amusement woven through every word.

A shiver darted down your spine before you could stop it. You blamed the tequila. "You're delirious," you muttered, driving your elbow backwards into his ribs.

It connected with solid muscle. Oscar barely reacted. If anything, he laughed. "That's not a no."

You wriggled free with an exaggerated sigh, smoothing your dress down as though he'd somehow managed to wrinkle your entire evening. "Do you ever get bored of winding me up?"

"Not once."

The answer came so quickly it almost caught you off guard.

You finally looked up at him. Big mistake. He was smiling. Not the cocky grin he flashed at everyone else. Something quieter. Warmer. Like he'd been waiting for you to notice him all evening.

It was deeply irritating.

"You need a new hobby."

Oscar shrugged, slipping one hand into the pocket of his jeans. "I've got one."

You frowned. "Annoying me isn't a hobby."

"Sure it is."

Lando wandered over, reaching straight past Oscar to steal the bottle he'd only just opened. "We've been trying to tell her that for two years," he said before taking a sip.

Oscar frowned. "You know that's mine."

"Our drink," Lando corrected without missing a beat.

"You bought one crate."

"We,” Lando grinned. “Bought one crate."

Oscar barked out a laugh. "That was because you forgot your wallet."

Lando shoved Oscar's shoulder as the two of them laughed, the exchange so practised it felt less like an argument and more like muscle memory.

George watched them with a sigh. "You two are actually exhausting."

"We've heard that before," Lando replied cheerfully.

Oscar finally looked back at you. "It's still my favourite hobby."

Heat climbed stubbornly into your cheeks. "You're unbelievable."

"I've been called worse."

George pinched the bridge of his nose dramatically. "Can one of you just kiss the other so the rest of us can move on?"

Alex nodded immediately. "Please. I'm actually begging."

You looked between your friends in complete disbelief. "You all need psychiatric evaluations."

"You're literally the psychology student," Charles pointed out.

"Great," Max lifted his bottle towards you. "Diagnose yourself."

Laughter rippled around the kitchen. You rolled your eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. "You're all idiots."

Oscar's grin only widened. "You forgot devastatingly handsome."

You groaned loudly. "See?" You gestured wildly in his direction. "This. This is exactly what I mean."

"What?"

"You just..." You waved your hands helplessly. "You think you're God's gift."

Oscar tilted his head thoughtfully, pretending to consider it. "I don't think that."

You folded your arms. "No?"

"No." His smile grew. "But my mum does."

The kitchen erupted into groans.

Lando physically turned away. "For God's sake." George muttered something remarkably similar.

Before you could stop yourself, a laugh escaped your lips.

Oscar's eyes found yours instantly. Like he'd been waiting for it. His smile softened almost imperceptibly.

You stopped laughing immediately. Absolutely not. "You're still annoying."

"Yeah?" Oscar asked, completely unfazed.

"Mm."

"See you on the dancefloor in five?"

You stared at him. "I'd rather walk home barefoot."

"So..." Oscar nodded thoughtfully. "Ten minutes then?"

You threw your hands into the air. "You're impossible."

Without waiting for another response, you grabbed Alex and Lily by their wrists, ignoring both of their protests as you dragged them back towards the living room. "Come on."

Lily barely managed to keep hold of her drink as she stumbled after you. "You know," she called over the music, "for someone who can't stand him, you two have remarkably good chemistry."

"Lily."

"I'm just saying."

"Don't."

She only smiled to herself.

You disappeared back into the crowd, determined to lose yourself amongst the music, flashing lights and bodies packed shoulder to shoulder across the dancefloor.

Determined not to think about Oscar Piastri for the rest of the evening.

Behind you, back in the kitchen, Oscar's eyes followed you until you vanished into the crowd.

Lando caught him watching and let out a long, tired sigh, bumping his shoulder against Oscar's. "Mate," he muttered, "you're never beating the allegations."

Oscar didn't even pretend to deny it. He simply smiled into his drink. "I know.”

By the time you finally let Alex and Lily convince you to take a break from dancing, the alcohol had settled deep into your bloodstream, leaving your limbs pleasantly heavy and your thoughts wrapped in a warm haze.

You stumbled as the three of you pushed through the crowd, laughing as Alex caught you under one arm while Lily steadied you on the other side.

"Careful," Lily laughed, tightening her grip around your waist. "I'd rather not explain to A&E that you broke your ankle attempting to dance to Pitbull."

A giggle bubbled out of you before you could stop it. Somewhere between the dancefloor and your fourth, maybe fifth shot, you'd completely lost count. Your arms had spent most of the evening waving through the air, your voice disappearing into whatever song happened to be playing, and despite every promise you'd made to yourself—

You'd still caught yourself looking for Oscar. Constantly. You knew, without even turning around, that if you looked now, he'd probably be looking straight back.

He always was. It didn't matter how many people packed into a room or how chaotic a party became. Somehow, Oscar always found you.

His eyes would catch yours across the room as though there wasn't another person there. It was infuriating.

Mostly because you could never seem to stop looking back.

You blamed curiosity. Everyone else seemed convinced it was something else entirely.

A groan escaped your lips. You came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hallway, forcing both Alex and Lily to stop with you.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked, turning towards you with a crease between her brows.

You sighed dramatically. "Did I ever tell you about the time Oscar..." a hiccup interrupted your sentence, making you screw your face up. "...Oscar..."

Lily let out the biggest sigh of the evening. "For the love of God," she groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. "If you're still refusing to admit you fancy him, could you at least stop bringing him up every ten minutes?"

Alex dissolved into laughter beside you, the force of it making her stumble into your shoulder. "Congratulations," she managed between giggles. "You nearly made it an hour this time."

You frowned. "I don't bring him up that much."

Lily simply stared at you. "You literally started this conversation."

You opened your mouth to argue. Closed it again. "...That doesn't count."

Neither of them even bothered responding. They just exchanged a look over your head. The traitors.

You couldn't help laughing anyway.

The movement, unfortunately, made the room tilt. Your stomach lurched violently. The smile vanished from your face. "Oh no."

Both girls recognised the look immediately.

"Oh no," Alex echoed, grabbing your arm.

You slapped a hand over your mouth. "Bathroom," you mumbled through your fingers before wrenching yourself free and stumbling through the house.

Thankfully, this wasn't your first party here. You knew exactly where you were going. You shoved the bathroom door open with far more force than necessary, relief washing over you when you found it empty.

Barely making it to the toilet in time, you dropped to your knees. The evening made a swift and rather unpleasant reappearance.

The door burst open moments later. "She's in here," Alex called over the music as she hurried inside.

Lily wasn't far behind. Without a word, she gathered your hair away from your face while Alex crouched beside you, rubbing slow circles across your back.

Neither of them said, I told you so. Which, honestly, felt like real friendship.

By the time the nausea finally eased, every muscle in your body felt heavy. You leaned back against the wall with a tired groan, wiping the back of your hand across your mouth before immediately regretting how disgusting that felt.

"I think," Alex started carefully, glancing towards Lily before looking back at you, "We should probably get you home."

You squeezed your eyes shut. Home sounded incredible. Your own bed sounded even better.

The bass from the living room vibrated through the wall beside you while one of them took your hand, their thumb absently stroking across your knuckles.

For a few minutes, nobody spoke. 

You just sat there, letting the room slowly stop spinning.

"I'm blaming Lando," you mumbled eventually, raking a hand through your hair. "And his stupid tequila."

Lily smiled softly before reaching for a glass waiting beside the sink. "Here," she said, holding it towards you. "Just water. I promise."

You accepted it gratefully, taking careful sips. The room still tilted every now and then. But at least your throat no longer felt like sandpaper.

The bathroom door creaked open again. Footsteps crossed the tiled floor.

"How's she doing?" came a familiar voice. You recognised it immediately. Even through the alcohol. Even with your eyes closed.

"She's exhausted," Alex whispered quietly. "I think she just needs to sleep but apparently Liam’s forgotten his promise."

There was a brief silence. Then—

"I'll sort it."

Oscar.

You frowned faintly but couldn't quite summon the energy to open your eyes.

You felt Alex's arm tighten around your shoulders. "Babe listen, the thing is," she said gently, smoothing your hair back from your forehead, "I've completely lost our designated driver, and an Uber's showing nearly an hour."

You let out a pitiful groan, dropping your forehead against her shoulder. Home suddenly felt impossibly far away.

"But," Lily added quickly, exchanging a glance you couldn’t see with Oscar, "There's a spare bed upstairs. Someone's said you're more than welcome to use it."

If you'd been even remotely sober, alarm bells would've started ringing. Whose bed? Since when? Why?

Instead, your brain simply accepted the information with a sleepy hum. "...Kay."

The glass slipped gently from your fingers before someone carefully took it from you.

A moment later, another pair of hands slid beneath your knees and around your back. 

You barely had time to register what was happening before your feet left the floor.

Instinctively, you curled towards the warmth. Your cheek settled against a broad chest.

Bergamot. Mint. The familiar scent wrapped around you as securely as the arms holding you.

A soft sigh escaped before you could stop it.

Whoever was carrying you adjusted their grip ever so slightly, one hand pressing a little more firmly against the small of your back as though terrified you might slip.

It wasn't possessive. It was careful.

You'd never realised how different those two things could feel.

The music swelled around you as you were carried back through the party before fading again with every step upstairs. Your fingers curled lazily into the soft cotton beneath your palm.

Beneath your cheek, a steady heartbeat pulsed against your skin. Slow. Unhurried. Without even thinking about it, your own breathing seemed to fall into rhythm with it.

You felt a rough thumb brush absentmindedly across the bare skin of your knee, barely more than a reassuring sweep to steady you, yet the touch lingered long after it had gone.

The other hand remained splayed securely across your back. Strong enough that you knew they wouldn't let you fall. Gentle enough that, before you realised what you were doing, you'd tucked your face a little deeper into the warmth of their neck.

The thought should have embarrassed you. Instead, it simply felt safe.

By the time you were lowered onto something soft, the room had stopped spinning quite so violently.

A mattress dipped beneath your weight. A lamp clicked on somewhere nearby, bathing the room in a warm amber glow.

You blinked slowly. Everything remained slightly blurry.

Except… Baby blue. The cotton shirt stretched comfortably across broad shoulders as someone leaned over the bedside table, rummaging through a drawer.

Oscar.

Of course it was Oscar.

"What," you mumbled, your voice thick with sleep. "are you doing here?"

Oscar glanced over his shoulder before letting out a quiet laugh. "Funny," he said, pulling a maroon T-shirt from the drawer. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

You frowned at him. "Not funny."

"Little bit funny," he crossed the room, stopping beside the bed before holding the shirt out towards you. "Here," he said softly. "You'll be more comfortable in this."

You took it obediently, pushing yourself upright. Then immediately reached for the straps of your dress.

Oscar's eyes widened. "Whoa," he spun around so quickly you almost laughed. "Wait until I've turned around first."

You blinked slowly at his back. It was… Very broad. Very, very broad. Drunk-you found this incredibly fascinating.

With an absent-minded shrug, you let your dress slide to the floor before tugging the oversized T-shirt over your head.

The soft cotton settled around your thighs. It smelled exactly like him. Bergamot. Mint. Clean washing powder. Home.

You frowned slightly. Since when had Oscar smelled like home?

"Done," you announced proudly.

Oscar stayed facing the wall for another second. "Promise?"

A giggle escaped you. "Promise."

Only then did he turn back around.

Even now, his eyes only flicked towards you for the briefest second before politely settling somewhere around your shoulder instead. Like he was making a conscious effort not to look.

You weren't entirely sure why that made your chest feel strangely warm.

He crossed the room slowly. Gentle fingers wrapped around the tops of your arms as he guided you back down onto the mattress, careful not to jostle you more than necessary.

"There we go," he murmured.

You let him. Far too willingly, really.

His hands slipped away almost as quickly as they'd arrived before moving to your ankles, lifting your feet one at a time onto the bed.

The duvet had twisted beneath you in your determined effort to get changed. Oscar shook his head with the ghost of a smile before pulling it free and tucking it carefully around your legs, smoothing it over you with absent-minded precision.

Like he'd done this a hundred times before.

You watched him through heavy eyelids. Every brush of his fingertips left warmth lingering beneath your skin long after he'd pulled away.

It was ridiculous. You'd spent two years insisting Oscar was the most infuriating man you'd ever met. So why… Why did every touch feel so gentle?

Your thoughts felt thick. Slow. Something sat stubbornly on the tip of your tongue, battering against the inside of your skull, desperate to be let out.

You couldn't quite catch it.

Not until Oscar looked back up at you.

"Am I..." you asked quietly, tilting your head as you studied him, "not good enough for you to look at naked?"

Oscar blinked. Then laughed. A proper laugh. Not at you. Just surprised.

He crouched beside the bed instead of towering over you, one forearm resting lightly against the mattress as he looked at you with unmistakable fondness. "It's not that."

You waited. So did he. His fingers lingered on the edge of the duvet, absent-mindedly smoothing a crease from the fabric before his eyes dropped to his hands.

"I'd just..." he cleared his throat softly. "I'd always want your permission first."

The room fell strangely quiet. Even in your drunken haze, something about the way he'd said it settled heavily inside your chest. Not rehearsed. Not flirtatious. Just true.

You stared at him. Really stared. His hair had curled slightly from the heat downstairs, brushing softly against the nape of his neck.

You'd wondered before what it might feel like beneath your fingers. You'd always dismissed it as idle curiosity. Looking at him now you weren't quite so sure.

The lamplight caught the sharp line of his jaw. It looked tense. Held carefully in place, as though he was trying very hard not to say something he couldn't take back.

Tiny moles freckled across pale skin. Without meaning to, your eyes traced each one. Like they were a map you'd somehow already memorised.

And then… His eyes. They'd always been brown. You'd never realised how many shades of brown there actually were. Amber where the lamplight caught them. Honey around the edges. Warm enough that looking away suddenly felt impossible.

They weren't teasing you. They weren't laughing at you. They were simply looking. Like you were something precious. Something worth being careful with.

Your chest tightened.

"You know..." you murmured eventually, burrowing a little deeper beneath the duvet. "You've got a serious problem."

One corner of Oscar's mouth twitched. "Do I?"

You nodded solemnly. "You're,” you squinted at him as though trying to solve the world's greatest mystery. "Too handsome," Oscar blinked. You lifted a finger vaguely in his direction. "It's really annoying."

For a second, he simply stared. Then he laughed again. The sound filled the room, rich and warm and completely unguarded. "That's my biggest character flaw?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Yep."

"I'll have to work on that."

You hummed approvingly. "Please do."

"I'll see what I can manage."

Satisfied with that answer, you sank a little further beneath the duvet, your eyes already beginning to drift closed.

Oscar smiled to himself before reaching across to place a bottle of water and two paracetamol carefully on the bedside table. He tapped the wood lightly beside them. "Take those when you wake up."

You answered with something that sounded vaguely like agreement. Whether it actually was, neither of you could really tell.

Your eyelids grew heavier. The room softened around the edges. Just before sleep claimed you completely, you thought you felt gentle fingers brush a loose strand of hair away from your face.

The touch was so light you almost convinced yourself you'd imagined it.

Then, almost too quietly to hear, "Goodnight.”

The bedroom door clicked softly shut. For a moment, Oscar didn't move. He stood with one hand still resting on the handle, listening.

Silence.

Then, your breathing settled into a slow, even rhythm. Only then did he finally let out the breath he'd been holding. He leaned back against the closed door, rubbing both hands over his face before letting his head fall gently against the wood.

A helpless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Too handsome," he muttered to himself, a quiet laugh escaping before he could stop it. "I'll take that."

He stayed there for another second. Just one. As though committing the moment to memory.

Not even a minute later, hurried footsteps echoed up the staircase. Oscar looked up just as a mop of curly hair appeared over the top step. "Cap," the younger boy called, slightly out of breath. "George said you were looking for me?"

Oscar pushed himself away from the door. "Kimi," the first-year student straightened instinctively. "Got a job for you."

Kimi's face lit up immediately. "Is this like my final initiation thing?"

Oscar nodded once. "Something like that."

"I knew it," Kimi grinned. "George said it'd be important."

"It is," Oscar reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet before counting out a few notes. "There'll be fifty quid in it for you as well."

Kimi's eyes widened. "Fifty?" Oscar held the money out. Kimi took it slowly, turning the notes over in his hands like they might disappear. "So," he said carefully. "What's the job?"

Oscar tipped his head towards the closed bedroom door. "No one goes in there, all night."

Kimi looked at the door. Then back at Oscar. "Right."

"No one."

"Okay?"

Oscar pointed downstairs. "Unless it's Alex or Lily, you know them right?"

Kimi frowned. "So," he glanced between Oscar and the bedroom again. "You want me to be a bouncer?"

Oscar ignored him. "If she wakes up, come and find me," Kimi blinked. "If she needs water, there's some on the bedside table," Another blink. "If anyone else tries to go in..."

"They don't."

"Exactly."

A long silence settled between them. Finally, Kimi tucked the money into his pocket. "Cap?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that it?"

Oscar looked at him as though the answer was painfully obvious. "That's it."

Kimi looked at the bedroom door again. Then at the staircase leading back down to the party. "Where do I sleep?"

Oscar had already started walking away. "Here."

Kimi stared after him. "What? On the floor?"

Oscar kept walking. "You wanted to join the team."

"I did."

"You still do?"

"Yes?"

"Good," Oscar reached the top of the stairs before pausing. "Oh," he glanced back over his shoulder. "And Kimi?"

"Yeah?"

"The floor's surprisingly comfortable, don’t worry."

With that, he disappeared downstairs, the music swallowing him almost instantly.

Kimi stood alone in the hallway. He looked at the closed bedroom door. Looked at the fifty pounds in his hand. Looked down at the wooden floor.

"This," he sighed to himself as he slowly lowered himself to sit against the wall, "is the weirdest initiation ever."

He pulled out his phone, made sure the money was tucked safely into his pocket and settled in for the night.

From somewhere downstairs came the roar of another drinking game. Kimi glanced once more at the bedroom door. "Hope you're worth fifty quid."

The hallway fell quiet.

The first thing you became aware of as your eyes reluctantly fluttered open was the dryness coating your mouth.

The second was that your head was pounding so violently you briefly considered closing your eyes again and pretending consciousness had been a terrible mistake.

A groan escaped your lips as you burrowed deeper beneath the duvet, pressing your face into the pillow beneath you.

It smelled… Familiar. Not your washing powder. Not your room. Something cleaner.

Bergamot. Mint.

You frowned. Slowly, painfully, you cracked one eye open. The room that greeted you definitely wasn't yours. "Oh no."

You squeezed your eyes shut again, rubbing both hands over your face as though sheer determination might erase the hangover currently drilling into your skull.

It didn't.

After another minute spent feeling deeply sorry for yourself, you finally forced yourself upright, wincing as the room swayed slightly.

Your gaze drifted slowly around the bedroom.

It was tidy. Suspiciously tidy for a university student.

A cricket bat rested neatly against the wall beside the wardrobe, a couple of medals hanging from one of the bedposts. Textbooks sat in surprisingly organised piles across the desk beside a laptop and a stack of neatly annotated lecture notes. A pale blue hoodie had been tossed over the back of the desk chair, the only real sign that someone actually lived here.

A framed photograph sat tucked into the corner of the desk. You recognised them all immediately. 

Oscar stood in the middle, one arm slung around Lando's shoulders, the other wrapped around his sister as all three of them laughed at something just beyond the camera. You'd met her more times than you could count over the years. The resemblance between the siblings had always been obvious whenever they smiled.

Your lips twitched before you could stop them. It looked comfortably him.

You weren't entirely sure what you'd expected Oscar's room to look like. Clothes strewn across the floor, maybe. Empty bottles shoved under the bed. Some sort of organised chaos.

Instead, it was warm. Orderly. Comfortable. It suited him far more than you wanted to admit.

"Brilliant," you muttered to yourself, although there wasn't nearly as much conviction behind the word as there should have been.

Your phone rested on the bedside table beside a half-empty bottle of water and two untouched paracetamol.

A hazy memory drifted to the surface. Take those when you wake up. His voice. Gentle.

The memory came with flashes rather than anything whole. Strong arms carrying you upstairs. The steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath your cheek. Warm hands tucking the duvet around you. Him turning his back the second you'd reached for the straps of your dress.

Before you realised what you were doing, a small smile had begun to curl at your lips. You caught it almost immediately. Absolutely not.

The smile disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

You swallowed, dragging your eyes away from the bedside table. No. You weren't thinking about that yet.

Instead, you grabbed your phone and unlocked it, squinting against the brightness.

The group chat had several unread messages.

[from: Alex] Let us know when you're alive xx

[from: Lily] Drink water before coffee.

[from: Alex] Actually drink water before anything.

A small smile tugged at your lips despite yourself.

You quickly replied that you were awake before locking your phone again.

Your eyes drifted to the maroon T-shirt you'd slept in. Oscar's. You reached down, catching the soft fabric between your fingers. For just a second, you stared at it.

Then, before your brain could wander somewhere thoroughly unhelpful, you peeled it over your head and carefully folded it.

Only after placing it neatly on the pillow did you realise what you'd done. "Whatever."

You grabbed your dress from the floor instead, pulling it back on before slipping your shoes over aching feet.

Coffee. You needed coffee. And preferably an explanation.

Taking one last look around the room, you quietly opened the bedroom door. You barely managed half a step before nearly tripping over the body stretched across the hallway carpet.

"What the—" A startled yelp escaped you. The mop of curly hair immediately shot upright.

Kimi blinked at you blearily, his face creased from where he'd apparently been sleeping on the floor. "Morning," he mumbled.

You stared. He stared back. "Kimi," your voice cracked painfully, sounding more like sandpaper than words. You cleared your throat before trying again. "What the fuck are you doing?"

He rubbed both hands over his face with an enormous yawn. "Oh," he looked suddenly very awake. "You're up."

"I gathered."

He nodded seriously. "I've got to tell Oscar."

You frowned. "Why?"

"He told me to," Kimi shrugged as though that explained absolutely everything. "If you woke up, I was supposed to find him."

You blinked. "You slept out here all night?"

Another shrug. "Apparently."

Silence. You looked at him. He looked back at you. Neither of you seemed entirely convinced this had been a sensible plan.

"Please don't go and get him," you said eventually, rubbing at your temple.

Kimi hesitated. "He did say—"

"I'm leaving."

"Oh,” he looked genuinely conflicted. “Do you think he’ll still let me keep the fifty quid?"

You stared at him. "The what?"

Kimi's eyes widened. "Nothing."

He very deliberately looked away. Your head hurt far too much to investigate whatever on earth that meant. Instead, you simply stepped over him. "You're all weird."

"I've been told that before," Kimi called after you as you wandered down the hallway.

The house was unusually quiet.

Gone was the music that had rattled the walls only a few hours earlier, replaced instead by the occasional creak of floorboards and the distant hum of someone snoring somewhere upstairs.

Alex and George's bedroom doors remained firmly shut as you padded down the hallway. Still asleep. Charles was probably back at yours by now. Lucky bastard.

The only bedroom door sitting slightly ajar belonged to Lando. You paused outside it. Maybe he was awake. Maybe he had coffee.

You nudged the door open with two fingers. "...Lando?" No answer. Only a loud snore.

Your eyes adjusted to the dim room. Lando was starfished across the mattress, still wearing yesterday's clothes, one arm hanging dramatically off the side of the bed while he'd somehow managed to steal almost the entire duvet.

A smile tugged at your lips. Typical. Then your eyes drifted to the sliver of mattress Lando had graciously left behind.

Oscar was somehow balancing on the very edge of the mattress.

One leg hung halfway off the side, one arm trapped awkwardly beneath his head while Lando monopolised not only the duvet but what appeared to be three quarters of the bed.

He looked uncomfortable.

Your brow furrowed.

The memories returned slowly now, no longer scattered fragments but moments beginning to stitch themselves together. Oscar carrying you upstairs. Oscar turning around the second you'd reached for the straps of your dress. Oscar giving you his shirt.

The water. The paracetamol. The duvet tucked carefully beneath your chin. Kimi. Sleeping outside the bedroom door.

Your gaze flicked between the room behind you and the bed in front of you. He'd given you his room.

The realisation settled quietly somewhere beneath your ribs. Warm. Confusing. Entirely unwelcome.

You'd expected him to tease you relentlessly afterwards. To hold it over your head for the next six months. Instead, he'd quietly slept half off Lando's bed so you could have somewhere comfortable to sleep.

Your eyes lingered on him for another second. It was annoyingly easy to forget, looking at him like this, that he was supposed to be infuriating.

He wasn't smirking. Wasn't making some smart remark that would have you rolling your eyes.

He was just asleep. The morning light spilled through the gap in the curtains, catching the unruly strands of hair that had fallen across his forehead.

He looked younger somehow. Softer.

You thought, fleetingly, about waking him. Just to… You weren't entirely sure. To say thank you. To see if he'd smile like he had the night before. To have a moment that belonged only to the two of you before everyone else woke up.

The thought hit you like a bucket of cold water. Absolutely not.

You frowned at yourself. God, this was exactly why you didn't let yourself think about Oscar for too long. Because every now and then your brain came up with something utterly ridiculous.

Like wanting to watch him wake up.

Gross.

Your phone buzzed against your palm, pulling you sharply back to reality.

[From: Alex] Outside x

You glanced back towards Oscar one last time. He hadn't moved.

One arm was still tucked awkwardly beneath his head, his face half-hidden by the pillow as Lando continued to wage war against the duvet beside him.

For the first time since you'd met him, he didn't look like the confident captain of the cricket team. Or the cocky idiot who somehow always knew exactly which buttons to press.

He just looked peaceful. And, irritatingly kind.

Your chest tightened.

You remembered, suddenly, the first time you'd completely bombed a pop quiz in first year. You'd been convinced nobody had noticed until Oscar had quietly appeared beside you after the seminar, slid a chocolate bar onto your notebook and told you, with the same stupid grin he always wore, that statistically someone had to finish below average and at least you'd increased everyone else's chances.

You'd rolled your eyes so hard they'd nearly fallen out of your head. Then you'd eaten the chocolate anyway.

Maybe… Maybe there had always been moments like that. You'd just never let yourself keep hold of them.

With a quiet shake of your head, you pulled the bedroom door almost closed again. "Thanks," you murmured, the word slipping out before you could stop it.

You weren't entirely sure who you were saying it to.

Oscar. Lando. Kimi. The universe.

Whoever had stopped you spending the night wrapped around a toilet bowl.

It didn't matter.

By the time you reached the front door, you'd already convinced yourself you hadn't meant it at all.

Monday arrived far too quickly.

Thankfully, your hangover had disappeared sometime between Sunday afternoon and collapsing into bed that evening, leaving behind nothing more than a lingering embarrassment every time you remembered whose room you'd woken up in.

Which, annoyingly, was more often than you'd have liked.

By lunchtime, you, Alex and Lily had claimed your usual table outside, half-heartedly picking at your food while Lily filled you in on the lecture she’d thankfully managed not to miss.

You were only half listening.

All morning you'd been catching people looking at you. Every time you glanced up, someone else's head seemed to snap away. Whispers drifted across lecture theatres. People smiled when they walked past. One group by the library had actually laughed before quickly pretending they hadn't.

It was beginning to drive you mad.

You caught another pair of students staring from two tables away. The second they realised you'd noticed, they immediately looked back down at their lunches.

You let your fork clatter onto your tray. "Right."

Alex looked up. "What?"

"What," you repeated, gesturing vaguely around the courtyard, "is everyone's problem?"

Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"

"They keep looking at me."

You leaned back in your chair with a groan. "Have I got something on my face? Did I make a complete idiot of myself on Saturday? Did I throw up on someone?"

Alex and Lily exchanged a glance. It lasted barely a second. Long enough.

"What?" you asked, pointing accusingly between them. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" Alex replied a little too innocently.

"The look."

"What look?"

"The one you just did."

Neither of them answered. Instead, Alex stabbed absentmindedly at her chips before speaking. "Have you not heard?"

Your stomach sank. "Heard what?"

Another look. This time Lily sighed. "There's... kind of a rumour."

"A rumour?" you repeated slowly. "About me?"

Lily nodded. "About you and Oscar."

Your fork slipped from your fingers. "What?"

Alex rushed in before your brain could completely short-circuit. "People saw him carrying you upstairs."

"And into his room," Lily added gently.

"And..." Alex winced, "People have sort of filled in the blanks."

You stared at them. "You're joking," neither of them smiled. "I was wasted."

"I know."

"I could barely stand."

"I know."

"So why would anyone—" you stopped yourself. Actually, university students. Of course they would. Heat rushed into your cheeks anyway.

For one utterly traitorous second, your imagination supplied an image entirely uninvited. 

Oscar. Close enough to touch. One hand resting against your waist. His mouth brushing your neck.

You squeezed your eyes shut. Absolutely not. "What the fuck?" you muttered, although at this point you weren't entirely sure whether you were talking about the rumour or your own brain.

"It's alright," Alex said quickly, reaching across the table to squeeze your wrist. "It's already starting to die down."

You looked up. "Why?"

This time it was Lily who answered. "Because Oscar's been shutting it down."

You blinked. "What?"

"He hasn't let anyone get away with it," she explained. "Someone made a joke after training this morning."

Alex nodded. "George said Oscar shut it down immediately."

"What did he say?"

The two girls exchanged another glance. Lily shrugged. "He told them," she paused, trying to remember the exact words. "'You were drunk. And to leave you alone.'"

Alex picked up where she left off. "And when someone kept laughing, he basically told him to shut his mouth before he said something he'd regret."

"He nearly swung for one of the second years," Lily added. "Apparently George had to drag him away."

Silence settled over the table. You looked down at your lunch, suddenly finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything Alex was saying. He'd done all that? For you?

The thought settled somewhere quietly inside your chest. Warm. Confusing. Entirely unhelpful.

"Why?" you heard yourself ask.

Neither Alex nor Lily answered.

Across the courtyard, laughter carried through the afternoon air. Almost instinctively, your head turned towards the sound.

Oscar. Walking beside Lando, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie as he laughed at something Lando had said.

He looked exactly like he always did. Easy-going. Confident. Completely unaware that your entire opinion of him seemed to be quietly rearranging itself.

As though sensing your eyes on him, his head turned. Of course it did.

Somehow… He always found you.

His gaze met yours across the courtyard. The grin he'd worn a second ago softened. It wasn't the cocky smile he usually flashed after winding you up. Nor the smug one he wore whenever he won an argument.

This one was smaller. Quieter. Gone almost as quickly as it appeared. Then he gave the slightest nod before turning back to Lando, the two of them disappearing towards their afternoon lecture.

You watched him go.

"He's still annoying," you muttered eventually.

Alex smiled into her drink. "Course he is."

Neither of you sounded particularly convinced.

The rest of the week passed in a strange blur.

Oscar hadn't changed. Not really. He was still cocky. Still appeared beside you whenever you least expected him. Still somehow managed to wind you up within thirty seconds of every conversation.

The only difference was… You couldn't quite convince yourself you hated it anymore.

Ever since Saturday, little things kept catching your attention. The way his eyes lit up whenever someone made him laugh. The way he always turned fully towards whoever was speaking, listening as though they were the only person in the room. The way he somehow remembered everyone's deadlines, training schedules and birthdays without anyone ever asking him to.

It was irritating. Deeply irritating. Because it didn't fit the version of Oscar Piastri you'd spent two years building inside your head.

You tried not to think about Saturday. About the water on the bedside table. About the paracetamol. About the fact he'd slept squeezed onto the edge of Lando's bed without mentioning it once.

Most of all, you tried not to think about the rumours.

You'd expected him to tease you relentlessly. Instead, he'd barely mentioned them. He’d barely mentioned anything from that night. If anything, he'd been softer. The usual teasing never quite disappeared, but there was something gentler beneath it now. Every time he nudged your shoulder or stole food from your plate, it almost felt careful.

Which was deeply inconvenient.

Because pretending to hate him had suddenly become much harder.

By Friday evening, your entire group had migrated to the local student bar.

The boys had disappeared almost immediately, lured away by a dartboard and what sounded suspiciously like a tournament none of them had been invited to.

You, Alex and Lily claimed a corner near the bar instead, drinks in hand while the conversation drifted between coursework, weekend plans and George's truly horrific fashion choices.

Charles appeared halfway through, flashing Alex a grin before stealing her away for a game of pool.

"Wish me luck," Alex sighed dramatically as she was dragged backwards across the room.

"You'll need it," you called after her.

She responded by sticking her tongue out. Typical.

You smiled into your drink before turning back towards Lily. Except, your attention never quite made it back to the conversation. Instead, it snagged somewhere across the room.

Oscar. Of course. He was leaning against the old jukebox, a bottle dangling loosely from his fingers while a girl stood beside him.

She was pretty. Very pretty. She laughed at something he'd said, resting a hand lightly against his arm.

The room suddenly felt far too warm. You took a long sip of your vodka, hoping it might somehow wash away the uncomfortable knot tightening beneath your ribs.

It didn't.

Beside you, Lily quietly followed your line of sight. Then she smiled. "You know," she said, nudging your elbow gently with hers, "if you keep glaring at them like that, one of them might actually burst into flames."

You looked away far too quickly. "I wasn't glaring."

"No?"

"No."

Lily took a thoughtful sip of her drink. "Could've fooled me."

You sighed. "I just don't get him."

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"This whole week," you shook your head, searching for the words. "He's been different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know,” you frowned into your drink. "He hasn't been…” you paused. "As annoying."

Lily actually laughed. "That's your compliment?"

"It's not a compliment."

She smiled into her glass. "Sure."

You groaned. "You know what I mean."

"I do,” Lily looked back towards Oscar. "I just don't think you do."

Your eyes followed hers despite yourself. The girl was saying something now, smiling up at him. Oscar smiled politely. But then, almost automatically, his eyes lifted.

Straight to you.

Your stomach flipped. He held your gaze for barely a second before glancing back towards the girl. She was still talking. He wasn't really listening anymore.

"You know what's funny?" Lily asked quietly.

"What?"

"I don't think I've ever seen you jealous before."

You almost choked on your drink. "I'm not jealous," Lily looked at you. Didn't say a word. Just looked. "I'm not."

She laughed softly. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

You opened your mouth to argue again. Nothing came out.

Because the truth had finally forced its way to the surface, lodging itself stubbornly somewhere beneath your ribs.

You weren't angry because Oscar flirted. Oscar flirted with everyone. You were angry because, for the first time in two years, it wasn't with you.

The realisation stole the air from your lungs.

Saturday had cracked something open. Whatever you'd spent the last two years calling annoyance, irritation, hatred… It had never been any of those things.

You'd simply given it a safer name. Something easier to carry. Something that didn't require you to admit why your eyes always found him first in a crowded room. Why every joke he made landed differently when it was aimed at you. Why every party somehow ended with the two of you orbiting each other, pulled together by something neither of you seemed willing to acknowledge.

The box you'd shoved those feelings into had finally split open. Now they were spilling out faster than you could force them back in.

Across the room, the girl stepped closer. Her hand slid easily from Oscar's forearm to his bicep as she leaned up to whisper something into his ear.

Your grip tightened around your glass until your knuckles ached.

Oscar didn't move. He didn't smile. He didn't lean in. Instead his eyes found yours.

Not for a passing glance. Not accidentally. He held your gaze. One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. Almost expectantly. Like he was waiting.

The room seemed to disappear. The music. The conversations. The clatter of glasses behind the bar.

None of it reached you anymore. There was only him. Watching. Waiting.

The girl's lips curved into a smile before she hooked her thumb towards the corridor leading to the toilets. Oscar's eyes flicked in that direction for barely a heartbeat.

Then they were back on you.

Still waiting. Still asking. 

Your pulse thudded painfully against your ribs.

Say something. Walk over. Tell him to stop looking at her. Tell him to come back. Tell him anything.

Instead, you stood rooted to the spot. Pride held your feet where your heart desperately wanted to move.

If he wanted you, he could come to you.

Across the room, Oscar's jaw shifted. Almost imperceptibly. Like he was reaching the exact same conclusion.

His shoulders rose with a slow breath before he gave the faintest nod to himself. A decision. He said something quietly to the girl that you couldn't hear.

She smiled and started towards the corridor. Oscar followed a couple of paces behind.

Once. Just once. He looked back.

Not at the room. Not at the bar. At you. His eyes lingered for the briefest second. Questioning. Almost pleading.

Like he was giving you one last chance to stop him.

You didn't. You couldn't.

"What the fuck..." you whispered, the words barely audible beneath the music. Something inside your chest twisted so sharply it almost hurt. He was really going.

Just walking away. With someone else.

You'd spent two years pretending you wanted Oscar Piastri as far away from you as possible. Now, as you watched him disappear down the corridor, all you wanted was for him to turn around.

To walk back. To look at you the way he always did. Like you were the only person in the room.

And he didn't.

Before you could lose your composure in the middle of a bar full of your peers, you set your glass down on the counter with a little more force than necessary.

"I'll see you later," you muttered.

Whether Lily heard you over the music, you had no idea. Your jacket was already over your shoulders before you'd consciously decided to leave.

Then you walked. Out through the front doors. Away from the music. Away from your friends. Away from him.

The cool night air wrapped around your flushed skin as you stepped outside, filling your lungs with a sharp breath that should have settled the storm inside your chest.

It didn't. If anything, it made everything louder. Your heart. Your thoughts. The ache spreading relentlessly beneath your ribs.

You knew exactly what this feeling was now. You just refused to give it a name. Because the second you admitted it, everything else would unravel with it.

Every eye roll. Every sarcastic comment. Every excuse. Every time you'd told yourself you hated Oscar because it was easier than admitting you wanted every bit of attention he threw your way.

You'd spent two years pretending you wanted him to leave you alone. Now, all you could think about was the fact he'd looked at someone else.

You shoved your hands deep into your jacket pockets and kept walking. The pavement was quiet this far from the bar, broken only by distant laughter spilling through the open doors behind you.

You'd almost reached the narrow alley beside the building when a familiar voice drifted through the darkness. "And where exactly do you think you're going?"

You stopped walking.

Of course.

Slowly, you turned around. Oscar was leaning casually against the brick wall at the mouth of the alley, hands tucked into the pockets of his denim jacket.

Like he'd known you'd come this way. Like he'd been waiting. The sight of him sent your pulse skittering wildly before you ruthlessly shoved it back down.

"I'm going home." You hated how flat your voice sounded.

Oscar tilted his head. "So early?"

"You'll survive without me."

"I wasn't worried about me," he pushed himself away from the wall. One slow step. "I was asking about you."

Your eyes dropped instinctively to the pavement. "I'm just tired."

Another step. "Is that really why you're leaving?"

You let out a slow, frustrated breath. "Oscar..."

"I'm asking."

"I know."

You rubbed a hand over your forehead before finally looking back at him. "I'm really not in the mood tonight."

Something softened across his face. The teasing smile eased into something quieter. "Okay," the single word caught you off guard. He watched you for another moment. Then spoke again, his voice noticeably gentler. "So tell me."

"What?"

"Why are you leaving?"

You laughed once. Short. Humourless. "I don't owe you an explanation."

"No," he nodded immediately. "You don't." Silence settled between you. Somewhere behind you, the bar doors opened and closed again before the sounds disappeared into the night.

Oscar broke the quiet first. "I just don't like seeing you upset."

Your heart stumbled painfully. "I'm not upset."

"You left without saying goodbye."

You blinked. The audacity. You actually laughed. "Are you joking? You've spent the last two years deliberately winding me up every chance you've had," you shook your head, disbelief bubbling beneath every word. "You flirt with me until I don't know whether I want to kiss you or throttle you..." your voice caught. "Then disappear after another girl and you’re saying I didn't say goodbye?."

The words slipped out before you could stop them. Silence. Your eyes widened.

Oh. God. You hadn't meant to say that part.

Oscar stared at you. Not smug. Not victorious. Just looking at you like you'd handed him the final piece of a puzzle he'd been trying to solve for years.

Heat rushed violently into your cheeks. "I..." you looked away immediately. "Forget I said anything," you turned sharply, already starting to walk again. "I just want to go home."

You'd barely made it three steps before his voice reached you once more. "This was about that girl?"

You stopped. Very slowly, you looked back over your shoulder. "What girl?"

Oscar couldn't quite hide the smile threatening at the corner of his mouth. "Don’t act dumb, the one you just mentioned, the one you've been trying to set on fire with your eyes for the last twenty minutes."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"No?" He folded his arms. "I think your face might disagree."

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"You are unbelievable."

"You looked like you were mentally planning her funeral."

Despite yourself, a tiny laugh escaped. It disappeared almost immediately. You sighed, looking away again. "Just go back inside."

Oscar frowned. "Why?"

You swallowed. "She's probably wondering where you've gone."

"Who?"

You hated how quiet your voice became. "Your girl," Oscar blinked. "The one you were about to disappear into the bathroom with."

For a heartbeat he simply stared. Then, very slowly, a smile spread across his face. Not cocky. Not triumphant. Almost wonderstruck. "My girl?" he repeated softly.

Your eyes squeezed shut. "Oh God."

"So you were jealous."

"I wasn't jealous."

"You called her my girl."

You buried your face in your hands. "I know, alright?"

Oscar actually laughed. Not at you. Just with complete, unfiltered delight. Like this was the best thing he'd heard all week. "I don't even know her," he said, still smiling.

You frowned. "What?"

"I asked her where the toilets were."

You blinked. "What?"

Oscar rubbed the back of his neck, another quiet laugh escaping him. "She'd only been in the bar about five minutes," he shook his head, almost in disbelief. "But you thought..." his smile softened. "You thought I was leaving with her."

You folded your arms tightly across your chest, trying desperately to gather what little dignity you still had. "I didn't think anything."

"You stormed out. And you've never voluntarily left before midnight."

"I've matured."

Oscar snorted. "Today?"

You glared at him. "You're still unbelievably annoying."

"There she is,” his smile was impossibly soft now. "I've missed her."

The words settled somewhere deep inside your chest. You looked anywhere but at him. The pavement. The cracked kerb. The sleeve of your jacket. Anywhere except those stupid brown eyes that always seemed to know exactly what you were thinking.

Oscar didn't fill the silence. Didn't tease you. Didn't chase another joke. He simply waited. Patiently. Like he already knew you weren't walking away again.

Your thoughts were a mess. Part of you still wanted to protect yourself. The other part, the louder part, needed to know. Needed him to say it. Needed all of this to mean something.

Oscar took another slow step towards you. Close enough now that you could see the tiny scar beside his eyebrow. Close enough to smell the familiar scent that had lingered in his T-shirt all week. "Do you not want to know why I was out here?" he asked quietly.

Your eyes lifted before you could stop them. "What?"

"I left," he shrugged one shoulder. "The second you did."

Your brow furrowed. "But…” you gestured helplessly back towards the bar. "The girl..."

"What about her?"

"You followed her."

Oscar laughed again. Warm. Disbelieving. "I followed her because she was showing me where the toilets were," he smiled. "I never actually made it to the toilets," your heart skipped. "I saw you leave," his smile faded into something quieter. "So I came after you."

No dramatic declaration. No grand gesture. Just the truth. Like there had never been another option.

You stared at him. "Why?"

Oscar blinked. "Seriously?"

"I'm asking."

He looked at you for a long moment. Then let out a slow breath. "I don't really know how else to say this anymore," another pause. "I've spent two years flirting with you."

You gave a quiet scoff. "You flirt with everyone."

"I do," he nodded easily. "I've only ever meant it with you."

Silence.

The sounds of the town disappeared completely. Your heartbeat seemed impossibly loud.

"Oscar..."

"No," he smiled faintly. "Let me finish."

For the first time since you'd known him, he looked nervous. Not because he doubted himself. Because he cared what your answer would be.

"I'm tired," he laughed quietly at himself. "I'm tired of pretending I'm joking," his eyes never left yours. "I ask where you are before I even say hello to anyone else. I steal chips off your plate because I know you'll tell me off. I sit next to you whenever I get the chance. I know your coffee order. I know Tuesdays are your least favourite day because your timetable's awful. I know you always say you don't want the last chip," a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "You always eat it anyway."

Despite yourself, you smiled.

"I gave you my room," his voice softened. "I paid Kimi fifty quid to sit outside my bedroom all night because I didn't want anyone bothering you. I nearly punched someone because they were talking about you."

He took another step closer. Only one. "But none of that seems to matter,” his voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Because every time I think I've made it obvious..." he gave a tiny shake of his head. "You look at me like you still think I'm joking."

You swallowed hard.

Oscar smiled sadly. "And you're studying psychology," a tiny laugh escaped him. "So," he looked at you with so much fondness it almost hurt. "Either I'm the worst flirt in human history or you're absolutely terrible at reading me."

A watery laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

Oscar's entire face lit up. "There she is."

You looked down at your shoes. "I..." the words tangled somewhere behind your ribs. "I thought..." you took a shaky breath. "I thought you were just..." you laughed quietly at yourself. “Like that."

"Like what?"

"Confident. Cocky. The sort of guy who makes everyone feel special," your voice cracked slightly. "I never thought..." your eyes finally met his again. "That maybe you were only making me feel special."

Oscar didn't hesitate. "I was," the words landed with startling simplicity. No hesitation. No uncertainty. Just certainty. "It was always you."

Your eyes burned. You laughed once, covering your face with your hand. "...God. I've been such an idiot."

"I wasn't going to say it."

"You were thinking it."

"I've been thinking it for about two years."

You groaned. "I've spent all this time convincing myself I hated you."

Oscar tilted his head. "Did it work?"

You looked at him properly. Really looked at him. The answer had been there all along. Slowly, you shook your head. "No."

Oscar smiled. Not the cocky grin you'd spent years pretending to hate. Not the teasing smile he'd thrown across crowded rooms. Just Oscar. "I didn't think so.”

For a moment, neither of you moved. The space between you had never felt so impossibly small. You could hear his breathing. Feel the warmth radiating from him.

One more step and your chest would brush his. One more step and… Neither of you seemed brave enough to take it.

Your eyes caught on his. For the first time in two years, there was nowhere left to hide. No jokes. No sarcasm. No pretending. Just the truth.

You let out a shaky breath. "You're still," you laughed quietly, shaking your head. "The most infuriating person I've ever met."

Oscar's smile widened. "I know."

"And I still want to throttle you most days."

"I'd be worried if you didn't."

You laughed again. It came easier now. "I really hate how right you were."

His eyebrows lifted. "About what?"

You looked at him for a long moment before giving in. "That I'd like you eventually."

Oscar's grin faltered. Not because he was disappointed. Because he suddenly realised you were serious.

You swallowed. "I don't think,” your voice softened. "I don't think I ever hated you."

Something flickered across his face. Disbelief. Relief. Hope. All at once.

"I just,” you laughed at yourself, eyes dropping briefly to the pavement. "I didn't know what else to call it."

Oscar didn't say anything. He simply looked at you. Like he'd waited two years to hear those words.

You looked back up at him. "You are so unbelievably annoying. But..." you stepped towards him. Just one step. "God, I like you."

The grin that broke across Oscar's face was unlike anything you'd ever seen. Bright. Unrestrained. Almost boyish. "Yeah?" he breathed. "No bullshit?"

You smiled. "No bullshit."

That was all it took.

You both moved at exactly the same time. You reached for the front of his denim jacket just as his hands found your waist. The last inch disappeared in a heartbeat.

Your mouths collided more than they met. Messy. Desperate. Two years of almosts crashing together all at once. You kissed him like you'd been trying not to for twenty-four months. He kissed you back with equal desperation, one hand sliding up to cradle your jaw while the other tightened instinctively around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer.

You could feel him smiling. Actually smiling. Into the kiss. The feeling made you laugh against his mouth before he kissed you again, softer this time, smiling so much neither of you seemed capable of kissing properly.

Your fingers slipped into the hair at the nape of his neck. Soft. You'd known it would be.

Oscar let out the smallest, happiest sound you'd ever heard, his forehead dropping gently against yours as the two of you caught your breath. "I cannot believe," he laughed quietly, "That it took you two years."

You nudged his shoulder. "I hate you."

He raised an eyebrow. "No, you don't."

"No," you smiled. "I really don't."

He looked at you for another second. Like he still wasn't entirely convinced this was real. Then he leaned in again.

The second kiss was completely different. Slower. Gentler. No desperation. No proving anything. Just the quiet certainty of finally being exactly where you were supposed to be.

When you eventually pulled apart, neither of you had managed to let go of the other.

"So..." Oscar murmured. "Want to go back inside?"

You snorted. "They've probably started a search party for you."

Oscar held out his hand. "Come on."

You looked down at it. Then back up at him. Without another word, you slipped your fingers through his. They fit surprisingly easily. Like they'd been waiting to do that, too.

The music grew louder as you stepped back inside together.

It took approximately three seconds. George looked up from his drink. Saw your joined hands. Then looked across the table.

"About fucking time."

Lando didn't even look surprised. Instead, he held his hand out towards Max. Max sighed dramatically before fishing a twenty-pound note from his wallet and slapping it into Lando's palm.

"You two were betting on us?" you asked, horrified.

"No," Alex said far too quickly. A beat. "...Well."

Lily burst out laughing. "We were betting on which one of you would crack first."

You looked around the table in complete disbelief before you turned slowly towards Oscar. "You know, I still might change my mind."

Oscar leaned down just enough for only you to hear. "You won't because I know you."

Your eyes rolled instinctively. "You are impossible."

"I know."

You reached up anyway, fisting your hand in the front of his jacket before pulling him down into another kiss.

Around you, the entire table erupted. Someone wolf-whistled. George groaned theatrically. Lando covered his eyes. "Right," he announced to absolutely nobody. "They're unbearable."

You laughed into the kiss. And somewhere between the cheers, the teasing and Oscar smiling so hard his cheeks must have hurt, you realised something.

You hadn't just fallen for Oscar tonight. Or that night. You'd been falling for him all along.

Tonight was simply the first time you'd finally let yourself land.

Most Halloween parties started the same way.

Not with some obscene playlist that was a mixture of aggressively on-the-nose Halloween songs and chart hits somebody had thrown in for good measure. Not with cheap liquor from the corner shop mixed with off-brand pop that almost disguised the taste as it burned its way down your throat. Not even with somebody inevitably being terrified by the fake skeleton hanging behind the upstairs shower curtain, waiting patiently for its next victim.

No, most Halloween parties started with George Russell shouting.

"That," George announced, swinging a plastic pirate sword in Lando's direction with all the authority of a disappointed headmaster, "Is not a scary costume, Norris. Flynn Rider is the least scary thing I have ever seen."

Lando barely looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, attempting to repair the strap of his satchel using masking tape and what felt like the sheer force of his own optimism. "He was on a wanted poster."

George blinked. "That's your defence?"

"It's pretty scary."

"In what world?"

Lando shrugged, pressing another strip of tape around the fraying strap. "The wanted one."

George looked personally offended. Just beside them, Alex let out a snort of laughter from where he was draped across the sofa. Half his Superman cape had become trapped beneath him and a bottle of beer dangled lazily between his fingers. "Oh my God," Alex wheezed. "He's actually serious."

"Halloween is supposed to be scary, Lando," George declared, stealing Alex's beer, taking an unapologetic sip and handing it straight back.

"He went to prison," Lando mumbled, still inspecting his handiwork.

Personally, he thought the costume looked brilliant. Granted, it had required extensive consultation from both of his sisters, three Pinterest boards and far more patience than any Halloween costume deserved.

That wasn't the point. The point was that it worked.

"Leave him alone," Max wandered into the room carrying a family-sized bag of crisps tucked beneath one arm. His vampire makeup made him look vaguely Victorian, vaguely haunted and deeply untrustworthy. "You know what he's like."

Lando looked up, narrowing his eyes. "What does that mean?"

Max shrugged before shoving a handful of crisps into his mouth. "You know exactly what it means."

The room dissolved into laughter. Lando scowled for approximately three seconds before giving up and smiling instead. "You're all just jealous because my costume has actual personality."

George scoffed. "Oh yeah?"

Lando gestured dramatically around the room. "A pirate. A vampire. Superman," his gaze swept theatrically from one friend to the next. "Generic."

"At least they're vaguely scary," George shot back without missing a beat. "The scariest thing about your costume is how long you spent on your hair."

Another wave of laughter rolled through the room. Lando pushed himself to his feet, smoothing down the front of his waistcoat before rescuing an abandoned beer from the coffee table. "Yeah, because Superman is terrifying," he muttered. "You're all mean."

The house had already begun filling around them, mostly with freshers desperate to impress the rugby boys whose reputations seemed to grow larger every year. The front door opened every few minutes, each new arrival dragging a rush of cold October air inside before it disappeared beneath warmth, music and too many bodies squeezed into too little space.

The familiar smell of cheap alcohol already lingered in the air. Music drifted between rooms, interrupted every now and then by bursts of laughter or somebody shouting for a bottle opener. Somewhere in the kitchen, somebody had already broken a glass.

The party technically hadn't started yet. Which meant they were ahead of schedule.

George insisted Halloween was the social event of the year. Every October he declared it with the same unwavering confidence, and somehow every October he managed to prove himself right. The guest list grew a little longer each year. Friends brought course mates. Course mates brought flatmates. People you'd never met somehow knew where the rugby house was and turned up anyway.

It had quietly become one of those university traditions nobody remembered creating.

Lando wasn't entirely sure when it had happened. Perhaps it was because this university revolved around rugby league almost as much as lectures. Or perhaps it was because most of them had spent years travelling the country together before they'd ever arrived here, playing county rugby, chasing academy places and growing up inside muddy changing rooms every weekend.

University hadn't really introduced them to one another. It had simply given them a house big enough to all live in.

Match photographs lined the walls. Framed shirts hung slightly crooked in the hallway. A plastic pumpkin had somehow ended up wearing one of their old training jerseys. Nobody remembered putting it there. Nobody questioned it.

That was the thing about the rugby house. It wasn't really a house anymore. It was a museum dedicated to bad decisions. And Lando loved it. The place was held together by friendship, takeaway boxes and what was probably a deeply concerning number of fire hazards.

It had been home for nearly three years. Long enough that he knew every creak in the floorboards. Long enough that he could identify which of his friends was coming down the stairs simply by the rhythm of their footsteps. Long enough that the chaos had stopped feeling chaotic.

People always talked about university as though it was lectures. Degrees. Career plans. The future. But when Lando thought about university, he thought about this.

The people. The accidental family you built somewhere between freshers' week and final year. The people who quietly became woven into your everyday life until you couldn't quite remember what it had felt like before they were there.

George, who claimed to hate attention while somehow becoming the centre of every room he entered. Alex, who insisted he didn't care about anything before inevitably caring far too much. Max, who appeared physically incapable of behaving normally for longer than three consecutive minutes.

And Charles. Charles, who was currently staring at his phone. Again.

Lando smiled before he could stop himself. The idiot. Unfortunately, George noticed too. The pirate sword immediately swung in Charles' direction. "Just text her."

Charles' head snapped up so quickly his Batman mask slipped sideways. "What?"

"The girl."

"What girl?"

George's grin widened. "The girl."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Charles replied, attempting innocence with all the conviction of a guilty toddler.

George laughed. "You've been staring at your phone for the past hour."

"I'm checking the time."

Alex barked out a laugh. "Oh yeah?"

Charles folded his arms. "Yeah."

Alex pointed towards the clock above the television. "Has it changed dramatically in the last twenty seconds since you last checked?"

George and Alex exchanged a triumphant fist bump, both looking entirely too pleased with themselves. "You are all incredibly annoying," Charles groaned.

"You're the one who threw a party to talk to one person," Max called from his perch on the arm of the sofa.

"That isn't true," Charles protested, though the blush spreading across his cheeks betrayed him long before his words did. “We always throw Halloween parties."

George lifted the pirate sword once more. "Yeah, but this year you actually helped decorate."

The room dissolved into laughter. Charles rolled his eyes so dramatically Lando briefly worried they might genuinely get stuck. 

"Leave him alone," Lando said before he really had the chance to think about it. Four heads turned towards him. Four matching grins appeared. Lando sighed. He knew exactly where this was going.

"Oh no," Max murmured.

"There he is," George said knowingly.

Alex pointed dramatically across the room. "The loverboy."

Lando groaned. "Can we not?"

"No," George answered immediately.

"Absolutely not," Alex agreed, sitting forward now that the conversation had become significantly more entertaining.

"You've brought this on yourself," Max added with theatrical sympathy.

Heat crept into Lando's cheeks. He hated that it did. "I'm just saying I think it's nice."

"Of course you do," George replied, unable to hide the amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Lando ignored him. "He's gone to all this effort because he likes somebody."

Max closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please stop."

"What?"

"The lecture."

"What lecture?" Lando frowned, his lips pulling into the faintest pout. "I don’t lecture."

"You always lecture," Max sighed. "It's either love or destiny."

Lando folded his arms. "I don't believe in destiny."

George didn't even hesitate. "Sure you don't, Romeo."

The room erupted once more. Even Charles laughed. Traitor.

A few minutes later, once the conversation had inevitably circled back to making fun of Charles, Lando slipped away to the kitchen in search of something sweeter than the beer he'd been pretending to enjoy all evening.

He was used to it by now. The teasing. The eye rolls. The inevitable jokes every time he mentioned a book that wasn't attached to one of his modules. Most of the time it didn't bother him. Not really. His friends never meant anything by it. They just didn't understand.

People always seemed surprised that he liked romance. As though rugby and literature belonged on opposite ends of some invisible spectrum. It had never made much sense to him. The best stories were about people. So was rugby. People liked pretending rugby was all aggression and collisions. Big tackles. Bigger egos.

Most of it happened in your head. Patterns. Timing. Observation. Knowing where somebody would be before they got there. Knowing when to pass. Knowing when to hold on. Knowing when to trust somebody with the ball before you'd even looked up.

The game only worked because of people.

Love wasn't all that different. At least not the kind of love Lando believed in. People always assumed romance was the grand stuff. The speeches. The flowers. The dramatic declarations beneath somebody's window.

Lando had never understood that. The romantic part came long before any of it. It was noticing. Remembering.

Learning somebody piece by piece until they no longer felt like a mystery but never stopped feeling interesting. The way they took their coffee. The songs they always skipped. The subjects that made their eyes light up halfway through a conversation. The books they reached for when life became difficult. The tiny details everybody else forgot because they weren't paying enough attention.

Finding somebody worth noticing. Finding somebody who noticed you back.

Maybe that sounded ridiculous. Judging by the expressions he'd just left behind in the living room, it probably did.

But every now and then he found himself wondering when wanting something real had become embarrassing. Somewhere along the way, pretending not to care had become cooler than admitting you did.

People spoke about love like it was something to outgrow. Like cynicism was somehow proof of maturity. Lando had never understood that either. Surely there was something braver about believing another person might know you completely— and choosing to believe it anyway.

Maybe they had a point. At least a little. The truth was, he didn't think love happened the way films made it seem. Not suddenly. Not magically. Not because some invisible force decided two people belonged together.

Life was rarely that simple. People certainly weren't. But he did think there were moments. Rare moments. The sort that changed things.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just enough. Like recognising the first line of a story before you'd reached the end of the page. The strange certainty that something mattered before you'd worked out why.

Maybe Max would call that destiny. Lando would simply call it paying attention. Either way, he'd always thought life would feel a little sad if you stopped believing those moments existed.

He reached into the fridge, surveying the increasingly questionable selection of alcohol before settling on a BuzzBall and topping it up with far too much lemonade. It wasn't exactly sophisticated. But it tasted considerably better than lager.

Good enough.

As he screwed the cap back onto the bottle of pop, the front door swung open once again. Another rush of voices spilled into the house. Laughter. Greetings shouted over music. The unmistakable scrape of shoes against wooden floorboards.

More people arriving. The party was finally beginning.

Lando wandered back towards the living room just in time to see George shove his pirate hat back onto his head with unnecessary determination. "Right," George announced.

Alex looked up from the sofa with a sigh. "What now?"

"If the freshers touch my cider," George declared, pointing his plastic sword towards the kitchen like a general preparing for battle, "Somebody's getting kicked out."

Charles didn't even look up from his phone. "You say that every year."

"And every year I'm right."

Max immediately straightened, adjusting the fake fangs he'd somehow already managed to dislodge. "I'll help."

George looked genuinely horrified. "You'll make it worse."

"I'll make it memorable."

"You'll make us lose our security deposit."

Max considered that for a moment before nodding. "Also true."

George muttered something under his breath before grabbing Alex by the wrist and hauling him unceremoniously off the sofa. "Come on."

"I don't even know where we're going," Alex complained, stumbling after him.

"You'll work it out."

Max followed happily behind, still clutching the family-sized bag of crisps beneath one arm as though it were an essential survival supply. Charles lingered where he was. Still checking his phone. Still pretending he wasn't waiting for a message.

Lando smiled to himself. Hopeless. The lot of them.

The house had grown louder while he'd been gone. Music vibrated through the floorboards now. Voices overlapped until they became little more than a pleasant hum. Laughter drifted between rooms. People he'd never met were already making themselves at home. The familiar chaos of another university party settled around him like something well-worn.

Comfortable. Familiar.

For a moment, he simply stood there. Drink in hand. Watching it all unfold. Watching George disappear into the kitchen on a mission nobody had asked him to undertake. Watching Charles pretend he wasn't smiling every time his phone lit up. Watching Max somehow convince three strangers to help him hang a fake spider from the ceiling.

Happy. Exactly where he was supposed to be. He thought, not for the first time, that if someone asked him what he'd remember most about university, it wouldn't be lectures. Or exams. Or even rugby.

It would be nights like this. The ordinary ones. The ones you never realised would become memories until years later. The ones spent surrounded by people who had somehow become home.

He took another sip of his drink, smiled to himself, and disappeared into the crowd.

"If you check your phone one more time, I'm confiscating it."

Alex's head snapped up immediately. "I wasn't checking it," she insisted, though the blush creeping across her cheeks completely undermined the performance.

Carmen snorted. "You absolutely were."

"I was checking the time."

Lily laughed so hard she nearly tripped over the kerb. "That is literally the exact excuse Charles would use."

Alex gasped in mock offence. "I have absolutely no idea who you're talking about."

You smiled despite yourself. Some things in life were inevitable. The changing of the seasons. University deadlines appearing from nowhere. And Alex pretending she wasn't interested in somebody when she very obviously was.

The four of you continued across campus, following the steady stream of students making their way towards the rugby house on the opposite side of town.

Halloween at university always felt faintly surreal. Everywhere you looked, somebody was dressed as something that made absolutely no sense on its own and somehow perfect sense amongst the chaos. A vampire walked hand in hand with a Teletubby. A cowboy was losing an argument to a fairy. Somewhere behind you, somebody dressed as a banana was singing Mr Brightside with remarkable emotional commitment.

You weren't entirely sure why. You decided not to ask.

October had settled properly now. The trees glowed gold beneath the amber streetlights, their branches shedding leaves that danced across the pavement every time the wind gathered enough courage to lift them. The air smelled cold. Not winter cold. Not yet. The gentler sort of cold that hinted at what was coming.

The sort that made you instinctively pull your sleeves over your hands and breathe a little deeper. You loved autumn. You always had. Maybe because it felt like the beginning of a story. Every October arrived carrying the same quiet promise that something important might happen.

It never really did. Not usually. Most autumns passed exactly like every other season. Assignments. Lectures. Coffee. Days that blurred gently into one another until suddenly Christmas arrived and you found yourself wondering where the term had gone.

And yet— Every year you hoped anyway. You'd always been embarrassingly good at hope.

"You've checked it seven times since we left the flat," you observed.

Alex looked personally wounded. "You counted?"

"You made it very easy."

Carmen burst out laughing. Lily immediately looped her arm through Alex's. "Look at you."

"What?"

"You're nervous."

"I am not nervous," Alex protested, though the colour climbing steadily into her cheeks suggested otherwise.

"You've spent twenty minutes waiting for a text," you added, slipping your own arm through Alex's free one.

"I have not."

"You absolutely have," Carmen chimed in.

Alex let out a theatrical groan that echoed down the quiet pathway. You laughed. Not because it was especially funny. Because it was familiar. The four of you had been friends long enough that your conversations had started repeating themselves. Not in a tired way. In the comforting way favourite books did.

You already knew where this conversation was heading. You knew Carmen would tease until somebody threatened her. You knew Alex would deny everything despite being spectacularly easy to read. You knew Lily would somehow make the entire situation ten times more dramatic than it needed to be.

It never got old. There was something strangely comforting about knowing people so well that they became predictable. 

University had taught you a lot over the last three years. How to survive on very little sleep. How to write two thousand words in a single caffeine-fuelled evening. How to pretend you understood academic articles you absolutely did not. But perhaps the most important thing it had taught you was that home wasn't always a place.

Sometimes it was people. Home was Alex stealing your jumpers and insisting they somehow belonged to her. Home was Carmen threatening bodily harm over stolen leftovers before inevitably giving you half of hers anyway. Home was Lily knowing somebody wherever you went, somehow collecting friends the way other people collected loyalty cards. Home was walking through the dark together after another long day, talking absolute nonsense because nobody was quite ready for the evening to end.

Alex was dressed as Catwoman, her commitment to authenticity mildly concerning. Carmen had fully embraced the zombie nurse aesthetic, covering herself in enough fake blood that strangers kept giving her nervous second glances. Lily, unsurprisingly, had chosen Supergirl.

You strongly suspected that decision had less to do with superheroes and considerably more to do with discovering Alex was dressing as Catwoman. She'd never met a theme she couldn't unnecessarily commit to.

Then there was you. Morticia Addams. A costume your friends had unanimously agreed wasn't actually a costume. Which remained deeply offensive.

"You know what?" Carmen said suddenly.

Alex immediately narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Carmen pointed directly at her. "I think it's cute."

Alex groaned before she'd even finished the sentence. Lily squealed in delight. You already knew exactly where this was going. "Oh my God," Lily laughed, tugging Alex's arm as the four of you continued down the pavement. "You like him."

"I do not."

"You absolutely do."

Alex turned towards you with unmistakable desperation. Help me. You considered it. Then betrayed her immediately. "She's smiling."

"I hate all of you."

Carmen clapped her hands together triumphantly. "There!"

"What?" Alex groaned.

"She's definitely smiling."

Alex buried her face in her hands. You laughed. The sound surprised you. Lately, life had felt busy. Too busy. Assignments stacked on top of lectures. Lectures became dissertation meetings. Applications. Deadlines. The quiet, unsettling awareness that university wasn't going to last forever.

Sometimes it felt as though everybody around you was steadily becoming the person they were going to be, while you were still trying to work out who you already were.

Moments like this felt different. Like pressing pause. Just for a little while. Long enough to forget the future existed. Long enough to simply be twenty-one, dressed as Morticia Addams, walking through autumn with the people who had somehow become your favourite chapter of university.

You suspected, even then, that these would be the moments you'd miss the most one day.

"You know what your issue is?" Lily asked suddenly, turning her attention towards you.

You sighed dramatically. "No, but I'm sure you're about to enlighten me,” you bit down gently on your lip, careful not to smudge your lipstick, though mostly to hide the fact you knew exactly where this conversation was heading. "So go on then, what’s my issue?"

"The romance thing,” Lily said cheerfully.

You groaned. "Oh my God."

Carmen immediately pointed across the little chain you'd all somehow formed. "There it is."

"There what is?" You looked between them, narrowing your eyes.

Carmen laughed. "You react like this every single time."

"Because you're all deeply annoying," you replied, already regretting joining in the teasing of Alex. Apparently karma worked alarmingly quickly.

"No," Lily said, shaking her head. "It's because we're right."

You folded your arms. "About what?"

"You," she answered simply, "are secretly the biggest romantic out of all of us."

You looked genuinely offended. "I am not."

Carmen didn't even hesitate. "You own three copies of Pride and Prejudice. One of them is annotated."

"It was for class."

"You bought it before you even started," Carmen reminded you, tugging lightly on your sleeve.

"That," you declared with as much dignity as you could manage, "is completely irrelevant."

Lily beamed triumphantly. "Case closed."

The problem was— They weren't entirely wrong. Which somehow made the whole thing worse. You'd always loved stories. Not because they were romantic. Because they were about people.

The choices they made. The lives they built. The things they sacrificed. The ways they loved. The ways they failed. History was full of stories, which was probably why you chose it. Literature too. People always dismissed romance as though it was somehow less important than everything else, as though loving another person was frivolous compared to wars or politics or revolutions. You'd never understood that. What could possibly matter more than people?

"What was your essay on again?" Carmen asked.

You sighed. "Women in nineteenth-century literature."

Lily immediately burst into laughter. "You literally study yearning."

"I do not study yearning,” you laughed despite yourself. You'd never quite managed to become cynical about love. Not once. Your parents had ruined any chance of that. Even now, after all these years, they still reached for each other without thinking. Still sat a little too close together on the sofa. Still caught one another's eye across a room and smiled as though they were sharing some private joke nobody else had been invited into.

You'd grown up believing love looked like that. Quiet. Steady. Chosen every single day. Which meant you'd never been interested in settling for anything less. The trouble was people like that seemed increasingly fictional. Like something you'd find in the pages of a novel rather than at a university party fuelled by cheap vodka and bad decisions.

"You want a Mr Darcy," Lily declared.

The group dissolved into laughter. You rolled your eyes so dramatically your neck almost hurt. "I do not. That's not even the point of Pride and Prejudice."

Carmen immediately pointed at you. "Here we go, the lecture."

You ignored her completely. "The point isn't Darcy."

Alex, who had finally slipped her phone back into her pocket, smiled knowingly. "Sure."

"It isn't," you insisted.

"It is a little bit," Lily replied, pinching her fingers together as though demonstrating just how little.

"No," you shoved your hands deeper into the sleeves of your dress. "The point is Elizabeth,” the teasing softened. Not disappearing. Just listening.  "Elizabeth knows exactly who she is," you continued quietly. "She knows what she deserves," nobody interrupted. So you kept  going. "She refuses to settle just because she's lonely. She refuses to choose somebody simply because they're available."

Lily nodded thoughtfully. "Fair."

Your gaze drifted upwards. Clouds obscured most of the stars. Only a handful remained scattered across the night sky. "It's about finding the right person," you said, almost to yourself. Silence settled between the four of you. Not awkward. Just thoughtful.

Then Alex smiled. The small smile. The sincere one. The one she only ever wore when she wasn't pretending. "I think that's nice."

You immediately regretted saying any of it out loud. "I hate all of you."

Carmen laughed. "You love us."

Unfortunately, that was true too.

The rugby house appeared at the end of the road, music spilling through open windows and orange lights glowing behind half-drawn curtains. Students crowded the front garden, drinks already in hand, laughter drifting out into the street before you even reached the gate. The party was well underway.

Carmen sighed theatrically. "Right."

Alex glanced across at her. "What?"

"Time to spend four hours surrounded by rugby players."

You groaned. "A fate worse than death."

Alex rolled her eyes. "You've never even met most of them."

You smiled despite yourself. Maybe it was unfair. Most rugby players seemed perfectly pleasant. But emotional complexity wasn't exactly the first thing that came to mind. The chances of finding the love of your life inside a rugby house felt roughly equivalent to finding Wuthering Heights in the sports science section of the library.

Technically possible. Deeply unlikely.

Which was why you were completely unprepared when you stepped through the front door—

And saw him.

At first all you noticed was movement. A man standing near the sofa. Curly hair. A satchel slung across his chest. Flynn Rider. Your gaze caught on him. Then lingered. Then—

Oh.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost stole the breath from your lungs. The room didn't stop. People kept talking. Music still thundered from somewhere. Carmen was saying something beside you. You had absolutely no idea what it was.

Because there was a man standing across the room who was, quite frankly, offensively beautiful. Not handsome. Not attractive. Not fit. Beautiful. The sort of beautiful that felt deeply inconvenient.

You stared. Immediately looked away. Then, against your better judgement, looked back again. Which was humiliating. Because you didn't do this. You'd never done this. Certainly not over a man. And definitely not over a rugby player.

Yet somehow your eyes found him again. His head tipped back as he laughed at something one of his friends had said. The lights caught the curls falling untidily across his forehead. His smile reached all the way to his eyes.

Something shifted quietly beneath your ribs. Not attraction. That would have been easier. Worse. Recognition. As though some strange, traitorous part of you had singled him out from a room full of strangers and quietly decided he mattered before you'd been given any say in the decision.

Which was absurd. You didn't know him. Had never spoken to him. Didn't even know his name. And yet, your gaze kept finding him anyway. "Oh, for God's sake," you muttered.

"What?" Alex asked, finally dragging her attention away from scanning the room.

You hadn't even realised you'd spoken aloud. You tore your eyes away from him. "Nothing."

It was a lie. Unfortunately, when you looked back a moment later, he was still there. Still laughing. Still smiling. Still unfairly, impossibly gorgeous.

You had the distinct feeling this was going to become a problem.

A very, very big problem.

Lando was halfway through a conversation with George when it happened. Not that he could have told you what the conversation had actually been about afterwards. Something to do with rugby. Or cider. Or George threatening violence against the freshers. The usual.

The living room had filled while they'd been talking. Music rattled through the floorboards, conversations overlapping until they became one constant hum. People squeezed onto sofas, perched on windowsills, drifted between the hallway and kitchen with drinks balanced in their hands.

The house felt alive in the way it only ever did on nights like this. Messy. Loud. Comfortable. Home. Lando let his gaze wander around the room with an easy smile. Then it stopped.

The front door had opened. A group of girls stepped inside, laughing amongst themselves. One was dressed as Catwoman. Another had committed wholeheartedly to the zombie nurse aesthetic. A third wore a superhero costume he couldn't immediately place.

And then— There was you.

The world didn't stop. That would have been ridiculous. Music still played. People still laughed. George was still talking. But something shifted anyway. Something so small it almost escaped notice. Like a compass needle quietly settling north.

You were laughing at something one of your friends had said. Your head tipped back slightly, hair spilling over your shoulders as a smile spread slowly across your face. Lando forgot to blink. "Oh," the word escaped before he realised he'd spoken.

George followed his line of sight. Then grinned. "Interesting."

Lando frowned, dragging his attention away from you. "What?"

George pointed lazily towards the doorway. Lando immediately shook his head but that only made George's grin widened. "You've got that look."

Lando stared blankly. "What are you talking about?"

Unfortunately, Alex chose that exact moment to appear beside them, beer already halfway to his mouth. "What look?"

George pointed again. Alex followed his gaze. Then looked at Lando. Then back at you. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. "...Oh, yeah he's gone."

Heat crept into Lando's cheeks. He rolled his eyes, determined to ignore them. It lasted approximately three seconds. His attention drifted back towards you. You'd moved further into the room now, still surrounded by your friends, your hands moving as you spoke, laughing at something Catwoman had said.

It wasn't just that you were beautiful. Although you were. Painfully so. Distractingly so. The sort of beautiful people spent entire albums trying to describe.

It was everything else. There was something quietly self-assured about you. Not loud confidence. Not the sort that demanded attention. The opposite. You looked as though you belonged entirely to yourself. Comfortable. Certain. Like you knew exactly who you were.

The thought arrived without invitation. Then refused to leave. Who are you? The question settled somewhere beneath his ribs. Not urgently. Not dramatically. Just patiently. Waiting.

Across the room you laughed again. Lando smiled before he could stop himself. George made a noise of genuine disgust. "There it is, the smile."

Lando ignored him. He was trying very hard not to stare. He was failing spectacularly.

Then, as though sensing it, your gaze lifted. Your eyes travelled slowly across the room. For half a heartbeat they landed on him. Then kept moving. Lando's stomach immediately performed something deeply concerning.

George sighed. "Oh, that's tragic."

Before Lando could defend himself, Alex grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on, I'm preventing you from becoming a stalker. We're playing beer pong."

"I don't want to play beer pong."

"You're playing beer pong," Alex dragged him towards the dining table regardless. Lando twisted instinctively to look back over his shoulder. You were still there. Good.

Alex caught him immediately. "Oh my God. You looked again."

George looked positively delighted. "He's obsessed."

Lando opened his mouth to object. Nothing came out. Instead, he stole one last glance towards you. You were talking animatedly with Catwoman now, your hands sketching invisible shapes through the air as you spoke. Whatever story you were telling clearly mattered.

He found himself smiling again.

Beer pong lasted approximately seven minutes. Not because anyone lost. Because every thirty seconds something else demanded his attention. Someone wanted photos. Max somehow started a dance circle. Charles vanished the exact moment Catwoman wandered into his eye line, prompting George to declare him "the least subtle man alive."

And through all of it— Lando kept catching glimpses of you. Across crowded rooms. Between conversations. Over somebody else's shoulder. Every time he thought he might finally get the chance to introduce himself, something got in the way.

At one point he was halfway across the room, almost close enough to speak, when somebody grabbed his arm and pulled him into a group photo. 

Another time he spotted you heading towards the drinks table. Only for Max to appear out of absolutely nowhere demanding immediate assistance with something involving fake fangs, a bottle opener and what Lando suspected would eventually become somebody else's problem.

By the time he'd escaped, you'd disappeared again. It was becoming ridiculous.

"Mate," Lando looked up. George was watching him. "You've scanned this room about fourteen times."

"I have not."

George folded his arms. "Come on Lando," Lando waited. "You’re looking round the room like a lost puppy. I bet you don’t even know her name yet you’re looking for her?"

Lando opened his mouth. Paused. Considered lying. Then decided there wasn't much point. "Yeah," he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Silence. George blinked. Alex blinked. Even Max stopped mid-sentence. "Why?" Max asked.

The answer arrived in his mind immediately.

Because he wanted to hear your laugh properly. Because he wanted to know what you were studying. Because you looked at rooms as though you noticed things other people missed. Because there was something about you that made him feel strangely curious in a way he hadn't experienced before. Because he'd looked at you once— and somehow wanted to know everything. Instead, he shrugged. "I don't know."

George pointed dramatically. "That is somehow worse. You're already making it sound poetic."

The three of them dissolved into laughter. Lando rolled his eyes. Then looked around again. Nothing. No sign of you. Had you gone home? The thought landed with surprising weight. Surely not.

Eventually he gave up looking altogether and escaped to the kitchen instead. The drinks table was blissfully quieter now. He grabbed an empty cup and reached towards one of the bottles.

At exactly the same moment, another hand reached for it too.

Your fingers brushed his. Warm. Soft.

Lando froze. You looked up. "Oh."

For a heartbeat neither of you moved. Then your gaze drifted slowly down to the satchel hanging across his chest. The strip of masking tape holding the strap together. Back to his face. A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. "I think Flynn Rider would be devastated if he saw what you've done to that satchel."

Lando stared at you for half a second. Then laughed. A proper laugh. The kind that escaped before he could stop it. And just like that, every failed attempt to find you suddenly felt entirely worth it.

The problem wasn't that he was attractive. The problem was that he kept being attractive.

You'd noticed that the second you'd walked into the house. Which, admittedly, had been deeply unfortunate. You'd assumed it would pass. A brief lapse in judgement. The sort of thing that happened when somebody was objectively good-looking and happened to be dressed as a Disney prince. Your brain would recover eventually. Surely.

Instead, it seemed determined to make matters considerably worse. Because every time you looked up, there he was. Talking to somebody. Laughing. 

Being dragged into whatever ridiculous activity his friends had decided required his immediate attention. At one point he'd somehow found himself in the middle of a beer pong tournament. At another he'd been pulled into a group photograph against what looked suspiciously like his own will.

Everywhere you looked, there he was. And every single time, your eyes found him before you had consciously decided to look. Like a traitor. You hated it. You genuinely did. Because you didn't know anything about him. Nothing. For all you knew he was exactly what you'd always assumed rugby boys were. Beautiful. Popular. Loud. Living in a house full of other rugby boys who probably considered protein powder a personality trait.

The evidence, frankly, wasn't encouraging.

"You've gone quiet," you blinked. Carmen was watching you over the rim of her cup. 

Immediately, you straightened and narrowed your eyes suspiciously. "I haven't." 

Carmen smiled into her drink. Dangerously. Like she'd noticed something she intended to weaponise later. Thankfully, she merely turned back towards the conversation she'd been having with a pirate, who appeared to be explaining something with an alarming amount of enthusiasm and an unnecessary amount of arm waving.

You looked away. Determinedly. Then immediately spotted Flynn Rider again. For God's sake. He was standing beside the kitchen doorway now, laughing at something a vampire had said. His head tipped back slightly. The lights caught the curls falling across his forehead.

Your stomach performed something deeply unhelpful. No. Absolutely not. This was ridiculous. You wanted romance. Real romance. Not whatever this was. You wanted somebody who knew your favourite book. Somebody who understood why Elizabeth Bennet had always mattered more to you than Mr Darcy. Somebody thoughtful. Somebody observant. Somebody kind enough to notice the little things everybody else overlooked.

Not a rugby player you'd spent approximately forty-five minutes sharing oxygen with. The fact he had absurdly beautiful eyes was entirely irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. Unfortunately, your heart appeared to disagree.

You looked away again. Then looked back. You were becoming embarrassing.

Across the room Flynn Rider glanced up. Your eyes met. Barely a heartbeat. Maybe less. Your stomach dropped anyway. You immediately looked somewhere else. Anywhere else. The ceiling. The fake cobwebs. The increasingly questionable fake spider dangling from the light fitting. Literally anything.

You let out a soft huff and Lily turned to you with a questioning look before she started following your gaze. "...Oh,” she said, immediately grinning.

You pointed at her. "Don't, there is nothing happening."

Lily looked profoundly unconvinced. Fortunately somebody dressed as Superman wandered over and distracted her before she could continue her interrogation.

You exhaled quietly. Then looked around the room. Your eyes landed on Alex. Charles had found her. Or perhaps she'd found him. Either way, they'd drifted instinctively towards one another, standing just a little too close, smiling just a little too easily. Alex tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Charles smiled like he'd somehow won something.

You watched them for another moment. Charles said something. Alex laughed. Not politely. Not because she felt she should. Because she'd forgotten anybody else was in the room.

Something inside your chest tightened unexpectedly. Not because you wanted Charles. Or Alex. Because you wanted— That. Someone who looked at you like they'd quietly decided you were the most interesting person in the room. Someone who wanted to know you before they wanted anything else. Someone who chose you.

The thought arrived so suddenly it almost startled you. You immediately shoved it away. Absolutely not. You were standing in a rugby house. Not inside a Jane Austen novel.

A few minutes later, desperate for another drink and significantly less accidental yearning, you escaped towards the kitchen. The room was quieter. Not quiet. That would have been impossible. But quieter. Enough that your own thoughts became noticeably louder.

Which turned out to be a terrible idea. Because your thoughts immediately wandered back to Flynn Rider. Again.

You reached for a bottle. Another hand reached for it at exactly the same moment. Your fingers brushed. Warm.

You looked up. And there he was. Closer now. Close enough that you could actually see him properly. His eyes were somehow even prettier up close, impossible colours catching beneath the warm kitchen lights. His smile arrived slowly, almost shyly, splitting across his face until it reached his eyes.

Your mouth immediately went dry. Annoying. Very annoying. Then your attention dropped. To the satchel. To the strip of masking tape desperately holding the strap together. A laugh escaped before you could stop it. "I think Flynn Rider would be devastated if he saw what you've done to that."

His eyes widened. He looked down. Then back at you. "I think," he said with complete sincerity, "he'd respect the authenticity."

You laughed. "No."

He placed a dramatic hand over his chest. "That feels judgemental."

"I've known you for five seconds, I feel like that's a perfectly reasonable amount of time to start judging," you teased before you could catch yourself.

He blinked once. "So you've already formed a negative opinion?"

"I've formed several." 

The laugh that escaped him was warm. Easy. Unfiltered. Not loud. Just genuine. The sort of laugh that made you immediately want to say something else purely so you could hear it again. Which felt concerning.

The conversation should have ended there. Instead, somehow, it continued. You spoke about costumes. About the party. About how the pirate, who you now knew was called George, apparently believed volume alone could solve every problem. About the vampire, Max's, fake fangs. About the increasingly questionable decorating decisions happening elsewhere in the house.

And about absolutely nothing. And somehow, everything. The worst part? He was funny. Not in the loud, attention-seeking way you'd expected. Just comfortable. Talking to him felt strangely effortless. Like you'd accidentally wandered into the middle of a conversation you'd already been having for years.

Which was becoming a problem. Because every time you remembered he was a rugby player, he'd say something thoughtful. Every time you expected confidence bordering on arrogance, he stumbled over his own words. Every time you thought you'd worked him out, he quietly became somebody else.

It was infuriating. You liked understanding people. You liked putting them together piece by piece until they made sense.

He refused. Every assumption you made lasted approximately thirty seconds before he accidentally dismantled it himself. You hated that. Almost as much as you hated how much you were enjoying talking to him. Eventually, common sense returned. Briefly. Dangerously.

You took a small step backwards. "Well..." his expression changed. Only slightly. A tiny flicker of disappointment. Gone almost as quickly as it appeared. But you'd seen it. Unfortunately, so had your heart. "I should probably go and find my friends."

"Oh,” he said. The smile remained. But softened. "So should I."

Neither of you moved. One second. Two. Three. Then you smiled despite yourself. "Nice meeting you, Flynn Rider."

His grin returned instantly. "And you, Morticia."

Your stomach betrayed you all over again. You escaped before it had the chance to get any worse. Back into the crowd. Back towards safety.

Unfortunately, safety appeared to have abandoned you. Alex was talking to Charles. Lily had somehow become absorbed in conversation with Superman. Carmen was laughing at something George had said. Everybody seemed to have found somebody. Everybody except you.

Your gaze wandered across the room automatically. Then froze. No. Absolutely not. You were not looking for him. That would be ridiculous. You weren't. You definitely weren't. Unfortunately, when you looked again, you couldn't see him. The disappointment arrived before you could stop it. Sharp. Immediate. Confusing.

You frowned. What? No. That wasn't right. Why would you be disappointed? You'd known him for all of fifteen minutes. You didn't even know his surname. Barely knew his first name. Actually, you didn't know his first name at all.

Which somehow made everything worse.

You were still arguing with yourself when gentle fingers caught your wrist. Not tightly. Not insistently. Just enough to stop you walking away.

You looked up. And there he was again. Flynn Rider. Slightly breathless. Slightly nervous. Looking at you with an expression that made it seem as though he'd been searching the room for you too. "Come with me."

Your first instinct was to laugh. Because absolutely not. That was how people ended up murdered. Or, arguably worse, hooking up with rugby players.

And yet, for reasons you couldn't begin to explain, you found yourself nodding. "Oh," you muttered, falling into step beside him, "This is definitely how I die."

His laugh followed you all the way to the kitchen.

The problem was that after the kitchen, every time Lando managed to get anywhere near you, somebody interrupted. Which felt deeply unfair. He'd waited half the evening to talk to you. Half the evening. And somehow the universe had only granted him fifteen minutes beside a drinks table before deciding that was quite enough happiness for one person.

It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Which was how he'd ended up standing in the middle of his own party watching you from across the room like a complete idiot.

Something warm settled quietly beneath his ribs. It was becoming a problem. A genuine one. Because he'd spent the entire evening trying to work you out. And somehow every answer only led to more questions.

You were funny. Sharp. Observant. Entirely unimpressed by him. Which, was new. Most people either recognised him because of rugby or immediately assumed they already knew everything there was to know because he played rugby.

You hadn't done either. You'd simply looked at him. Really looked. As though you were trying to work him out the same way he'd been trying to work out you. The thought made him smile before he even realised he was doing it.

"You're doing it again."

Lando blinked. "What?"

Max reached over and pressed a finger dramatically into his cheek. "The smiling."

Lando batted his hand away. "I'm always smiling."

"Not like this."

Ignoring him entirely, Lando looked back towards you. And that's when he noticed it. You looked, not unhappy. Just detached. Your friends had drifted apart without either of you noticing. Catwoman was talking quietly with Charles. The superhero had somehow ended up beside Alex. Your zombie friend appeared to be making a determined beeline towards George.

And you, you were standing just slightly outside of all of it. Watching. Listening. Observing. Like you were more interested in people than parties.

Before he'd even realised he'd made the decision, his feet were already moving. Behind him he heard Max groan dramatically before immediately becoming distracted by whatever someone had just said to him.

Lando barely noticed. He crossed the room before he had the chance to overthink it. You didn't notice him immediately. Your attention was fixed on something happening near the front door.

Then he stopped beside you. Your eyes lifted. And for one impossibly long heartbeat, he forgot every single thing he'd intended to say. Because somehow— somehow —you were even prettier than you were before.

Again. It was becoming deeply unreasonable. Without really thinking about it, his fingers closed gently around your wrist. Warm. Soft. "Come with me." The words escaped before he had the chance to question them.

Your eyebrows lifted immediately. "Oh..." you looked down at his hand before looking back up at him. "This is definitely how I die." There was laughter tucked beneath your voice. But you followed him anyway.

Lando immediately winced. "Oh God, it did sound a bit weird."

"A little."

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. You smiled. There it was again. That smile. The one that seemed to dismantle his train of thought with alarming consistency. "I promise," he said, "I'm not trying to kidnap you."

You tilted your head. "That's exactly what somebody trying to kidnap me would say."

Lando laughed so hard he nearly choked on his own spit. And that, that was the moment. Not when he'd first seen you. Not in the kitchen. Now.

Because every single time you opened your mouth, you surprised him. Every joke landed somewhere he hadn't expected. Every sentence made him want to hear another.

"I'm serious," you continued. "This is literally how every horror film starts."

"I thought Flynn Rider was supposed to be charming," he countered.

"You've got masking tape holding your satchel together," you pointed dramatically.

Lando glanced down. "...That's unrelated."

You were both laughing now as you slipped through the crowd, shoulders brushing strangers, squeezing between conversations that neither of you were listening to.

Lando glanced towards the kitchen. Too busy. His eyes drifted further. The back door. Perfect.  He let your wrist go, suddenly aware he'd still been holding it. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he held out his hand instead. Palm open. Slightly shaking. "Come on."

For a moment he genuinely thought you'd refuse. You looked at him. Then at his hand. Then back at him again. Studying him in that thoughtful way that made him feel strangely transparent. Eventually, you nodded. Your fingers slipped into his. Warm. Smaller than his. His heart immediately forgot how to function. He tried very hard not to think about the fact you were holding his hand.

Failed. Completely.

He pushed open the back door and led you outside. The porch was quieter. Not silent. Music still pulsed through the walls. Laughter still drifted from inside the house. But it felt further away out here.

October had settled properly over the evening now, the cold catching against bare skin the second the door closed behind you. Beside him, you shivered. Tiny. Instinctive. Lando noticed before you'd even had the chance to pretend you hadn't. Without thinking, he shrugged off his jacket.

You frowned. "What are you doing?"

"You're cold."

"I'm not."

He looked pointedly at your folded arms. "You are literally shivering."

"I absolutely am not," smiling, he held the jacket out anyway. You looked at it. Then at him. Then back again. Studying him with that same quiet curiosity. Eventually you sighed. “Thanks," the word came reluctantly. Almost cautiously. As though accepting kindness wasn't something you were particularly practised at.

For reasons he couldn't explain, that made something ache quietly inside his chest.

"You know," you said, slipping the jacket over your shoulders, "this is definitely where you murder me."

Lando burst into laughter. Again. You were unbelievable. "No."

"You say that now—"

"I just wanted to talk to you," the words came out softer than he'd intended. Something flickered across your expression. Gone almost immediately. But he'd seen it.

He lowered himself onto the porch steps, patting the space beside him. You hesitated. Only  briefly. Then sat down. Leaving just enough space between you that he found himself irrationally wishing it were smaller. For a moment neither of you spoke. The silence wasn't awkward. Just, new.

Lando looked across at you. Then realised, with dawning horror, he hadn't actually planned this far ahead. He'd spent the entire evening trying to get you alone. Now you were here. And his brain had apparently decided to clock out for the night. "So..." he winced internally. Smooth. Very smooth.

You blinked. Then looked away. The smallest smile tugged at your mouth. For some reason, that felt important. His heart immediately started doing something deeply inconvenient. Lando cleared his throat, trying desperately to remember how conversations normally worked. "Anyway..."

You looked back at him, amusement still dancing in your eyes. "Anyway…”

"I guess I just wanted to get to know you," the honesty surprised even him. It seemed to surprise you too. For a fleeting second your expression softened into something he couldn't quite name.

Surprise. Maybe. Or nerves. Something quieter than either. Lando found himself wondering which it was. Were you nervous because of him? Or simply despite him? He couldn't tell.

Somehow, that only made you more interesting. He wanted to know everything. Not in the shallow way people collected facts about one another. He wanted to know the things that couldn't be asked in a single conversation. What made you laugh when nobody else was around. Which books had quietly rearranged the way you thought about the world. What you looked like when you were properly angry. Whether you always looked at people as though you were trying to understand them.

He wanted to peel back each careful layer, slowly, patiently, until he understood the person beneath them all. The problem was his mouth seemed to have disconnected entirely from the rest of his body. None of that sounded remotely normal. So instead, he reached into his satchel. After a moment of rummaging, he pulled out a slightly crumpled joint.

Your eyebrows lifted. "Interesting," Lando looked across at you. "I didn't realise athletes got away with that."

He laughed softly, fishing around the satchel again until his fingers found a lighter. "We're not exactly in season."

"Hm," your gaze lingered on him. Curious again. Always curious. He liked that.

"Want some?" he asked.

You studied him for another second, as though weighing the decision far more carefully than the offer deserved. Then one shoulder lifted. "Fuck it," a tiny smile tugged at your mouth. "It's Halloween."

Lando laughed. He flicked the lighter beneath the joint, watching the flame dance for a moment before the tip glowed amber. He took a slow drag. Held it. Exhaled. Smoke curled lazily into the cold night air before he offered it across to you.

Your fingers brushed his again. His heart really needed to stop doing that. For a while neither of you spoke. The joint passed quietly between you. Back. Then forth again.

The silence settled surprisingly comfortably. Lando realised, somewhere between the second and third pass, that he wasn't trying to fill it. He knew almost nothing about you. Yet somehow this felt easier than conversations he'd had with people he'd known for years.

Eventually the joint burned down to almost nothing. You flicked the last ash away before settling back against the porch railing beside him.

Conversation arrived naturally after that. Looser. Warmer. The sort of conversation that wandered without either person particularly minding where it ended up. You were telling him a story. Something involving a lecturer. Or perhaps a pigeon. Potentially both. Honestly Lando wasn't entirely sure anymore. Because he'd stopped paying attention to the story itself.

He was too busy paying attention to you. The way your face changed when you became excited about something. The way your hands moved without you seeming to realise. The way your thoughts leapt effortlessly from one idea to the next before somehow circling neatly back to where they'd begun.

You were beautiful. That part had been obvious the second you'd walked through the front door. But this, this was different. This was the part he couldn't stop noticing. The things that actually made somebody memorable.

You stopped mid-sentence. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Lando blinked. "I don't know what you mean."

"You do," your eyes narrowed playfully.

He laughed quietly. Then looked away. Possibly for the first time all evening. Because if he was honest, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted you seeing exactly how much he liked listening to you speak.

After a comfortable silence settled between you again, something occurred to him. He still didn't know your name. "Lando."

You looked across. "Hm?"

"My name."

Recognition crossed your face. Then amusement. "Lando," you repeated softly. His own name somehow sounded entirely different coming from you. Better.

"And yours?" Immediately your expression turned suspicious. Then a grin. Slow. Infuriating. You dragged two fingers dramatically across your lips as though zipping them shut. Lando let out the most theatrical sigh he could manage. "I think that's deeply unfair."

You smiled. "Life usually is."

He laughed again. "You are impossible."

"I've been told."

"So..." he leaned forward slightly. "...what's your name?"

You genuinely seemed to consider it. As though the answer deserved proper thought. Eventually you shook your head. "No."

Lando stared. You smiled wider. Possibly the most infuriating smile he'd ever seen. Which, rather inconveniently, had also become his favourite. Before he could attempt another argument, a voice called from somewhere inside the house. Your head turned instinctively. Then whipped straight back towards him.

Too late. Lando had heard it. Your name. He repeated it silently inside his head. Once. Twice. Again. Carefully committing every syllable to memory as though he were afraid it might disappear.

You pushed yourself to your feet. "I think that's my cue,” your smile softened. "We're probably leaving."

His heart sank. Immediately. Embarrassingly. He stood too, brushing absent-mindedly at his pants. "Right."

Neither of you moved.

"So..." You looked at him.

"So," he echoed. What he wanted to say was embarrassingly simple. Stay. Tell me another story. Tell me what you're studying. Tell me your favourite book. Tell me anything. Just don't leave yet.

Instead, all he managed was a smile. Small. Quiet. Entirely sincere. "I really enjoyed talking to you..." he paused deliberately. "...Morticia."

For the first time all evening, you looked flustered. The colour rose slowly into your cheeks before you could hide it. Small. Subtle. But unmistakable. Lando's heart immediately forgot every basic biological function. 

You looked down for half a second, smiling despite yourself. Then back at him. Then you uttered your name. You told him. This time willingly. This time it wasn’t shouted through a door, it came from your own lips.

Lando repeated it silently before the sound had even finished leaving your lips. He suspected he'd be repeating it for the rest of the night.

"It was nice meeting you, Lando."

You disappeared back through the door before he could think of anything clever to say. The music rushed back in with you. Then the door swung shut. Silence settled over the porch once more. Lando stood exactly where you'd left him. Looking at the closed door. Still smiling.

He'd spent the entire evening hoping to meet the girl dressed as Morticia Addams. Instead, he'd met you. And somehow that felt infinitely better.

He was— he realised with a helpless little laugh to himself —Completely. Utterly. Gone.

The problem wasn't that you just thought Lando was attractive. The problem was that he refused to stay only that.

Three days had passed since the Halloween party. Three entire days. Long enough that any sensible person would have forgotten the annoyingly handsome rugby player they'd spent barely an hour talking to outside a house party.

Instead, Lando had somehow settled into the most inconvenient place imaginable. Your thoughts.

He appeared everywhere. Halfway through lectures. While you were trying to annotate articles. While you were making pasta in your tiny student kitchen. While brushing your teeth. While walking to lectures. While trying very, very hard not to think about him. Which, annoyingly, only seemed to make you think about him more.

It was ridiculous. You barely knew him. One conversation. One porch. One shared joint. That was hardly enough to build an entire person from. Except, you weren't building him from imagination anymore. You were remembering.

The way he'd listened without waiting for his turn to speak. The way every question had sounded genuinely curious instead of politely conversational. The way he'd laughed, not because you were trying to be funny, but because he'd actually found you funny. The way he'd looked almost delighted every time you surprised him.

That part kept replaying. Not his face. His expression. There was a difference. A beautiful man wasn't especially remarkable. University was full of beautiful people. Interesting people, those were considerably rarer.

You were trying very hard not to acknowledge the distinction. It didn't help that someone, presumably with an excellent sense of humour and absolutely no regard for your emotional wellbeing, had created a group chat containing all of you.

Your friends. His friends. Apparently everyone had collectively decided Halloween had been the beginning of something. You wished somebody had asked your permission first.

"You know you're staring at your phone." Alex's voice pulled you back into your bedroom.

You looked up. "What?"

She leaned lazily against the doorframe, arms folded. "You've checked the group chat about six times."

"I have not, I was just reading."

Alex raised one eyebrow. "Sure." She didn't sound convinced. Unfortunately, neither were you.

Before you could defend yourself, your phone buzzed again. George had sent a photo. You opened it automatically. George looked ridiculous. Max looked like he was moments away from committing a minor crime. Charles was looking somewhere just outside the frame. Alex was being Alex. And Lando—

"Oh, for God's sake."

"What?" Alex asked.

You locked your phone. "Nothing." It wasn't nothing. Not even slightly. Because that was where it really started. Not the feelings. The opportunities. The slow accumulation of tiny moments that made forgetting him increasingly impossible.

A week later, Alex and Charles were very obviously dating. Nobody had officially admitted it. Which meant everybody knew. Lily had somehow become equally attached to Alex. Leaving you and Carmen exchanging increasingly dramatic looks whenever the four of them mysteriously wandered off together.

The consequence was unavoidable. You kept ending up beside Lando. Entirely against your will. Obviously. The first time happened during what had supposedly been organised as a study session. You arrived carrying three books and every intention of finishing your essay.

Instead, George was passionately arguing that pirates would absolutely beat vampires in a fight. Max disagreed. Violently. The debate somehow lasted nearly forty minutes. You'd never been so unproductive in your life. 

Lando spent most of it quietly listening. Then, when everyone finally stopped shouting over one another, he calmly explained why Max's argument collapsed under its own logic. The irritating part? He was right. Completely.

You remembered sitting there, blinking at him. Not because he'd won. Because you'd expected confidence. Maybe arrogance. You hadn't expected someone who dismantled arguments so carefully they almost thanked him afterwards.

It stayed with you. More than you wanted it to.

The second time happened over coffee. You'd already decided you were going to keep your distance. An excellent plan. Ruined almost immediately.

"They've made this wrong." You looked up. Lando was staring mournfully into your takeaway cup.

"So?" you said, sharper than intended.

"You asked for almond," he said softly and you frowned. "They've used oat."

You blinked. "You remembered?"

The words escaped before you could stop them. Immediately you wanted them back. Because something softened across his face. Not surprise. Not pride. Just quiet confusion. As though remembering things about people wasn't unusual at all.

"Yeah,” he shrugged lightly. "I remembered." Like— Of course he had. Why wouldn't he?

You hated what that did to your heartbeat.

After that, the moments multiplied. Small enough that none of them meant anything on their own. Big enough that, together, they became impossible to ignore.

You noticed he always stayed behind to help tidy up after everyone else had left. Even when the mess wasn't his. You noticed he remembered details from conversations weeks later. You noticed cereal bars permanently lived inside his bag because one of the boys on the rugby team inevitably forgot breakfast before training. You noticed he texted his sisters constantly. You noticed he physically couldn't walk past a dog without asking if he could say hello.

That one felt particularly unfair. Because how exactly were you supposed to maintain carefully constructed stereotypes about rugby boys when one of them stopped mid-sentence to crouch beside an elderly golden retriever called Barney? It was impossible.

The worst part was that none of it felt performative. He wasn't trying to impress anyone. Half the time he didn't even seem aware anybody had noticed. He was simply kind. In the quietest possible way. Kind because it was woven into him. Not because somebody might applaud him for it.

Without quite realising when it had started, you found yourself watching him. Not because you fancied him. That would have been embarrassing. Because you were trying to understand him. That sounded considerably more academic. At least that was the lie you kept telling yourself.

The trouble was every answer seemed to produce three more questions. Because he refused to stay inside the version of him you'd invented. Every time you thought you'd finally understood him, he quietly became somebody else.

A few days later, Alex somehow convinced you to attend a rugby match. You still weren't entirely sure how. Actually, that wasn't true. Charles had asked. Alex had smiled. And somehow you'd found yourself sitting on freezing metal bleachers wondering what series of poor life choices had delivered you here.

"This is barbaric," you grumbled.

"It's organised violence," the whistle sounded. Twenty-six men sprinted directly towards one another with what looked like genuine enthusiasm. You folded your arms. "See?"

Alex didn't even look at you. "Just watch."

You fully intended not to. Then Lando caught the ball. At first, everything confirmed what you'd expected. The speed. The collisions. The sheer physicality. Then, gradually, you began noticing something else.

He wasn't simply reacting. He was anticipating. Pointing. Directing. Changing angles. Creating space before anybody else seemed aware it existed. Every pass happened because he'd already seen it. Every movement looked deliberate. The game unfolded around him instead of carrying him with it.

Your body leaned forward before you even realised you'd moved.

"See,” Alex sounded amused.

You ignored her. Because Lando was talking to one of his teammates now. Gesturing. Explaining something. Then, seconds later—

Exactly what you assumed he'd described happened. The try came almost effortlessly. The crowd erupted. Lando was already smiling before the ball had even crossed the line. Your stomach dropped.

Not because they'd scored. Because suddenly, you understood. The patience. The observation. The way he listened. The way he remembered. The way he seemed to read people before they'd finished speaking.

It wasn't separate from rugby. It was exactly why he was good at it. Everything you admired outside the pitch, was what made him exceptional on it.

The thought settled somewhere dangerously deep. Lando looked up. Across the field. Straight towards you. Your eyes met. Only for a heartbeat. It was enough. You looked away first. Far too quickly. 

You then watched him disappear beneath a pile of celebrating teammates. Watched him laugh. Watched him throw an arm around Max's shoulders. Watched him grin like winning was somehow less important than celebrating with everyone else.

Your heart answered before your head could stop it. Maybe he wasn’t what you thought he was.

And for the first time, you weren't entirely sure you could keep pretending otherwise.

The thing about liking somebody was that, eventually, you had to make peace with the possibility they might never like you back.

Lando had always known that. It wasn't exactly revolutionary. Most people fell for someone who never fell for them. Most crushes quietly dissolved into friendship, distance, or funny stories you told years later.

That was simply life. He'd just hoped, rather foolishly, that this one might be different. Which was why he was trying very hard to be normal about it.

Unfortunately, he wasn't doing a particularly convincing job.

"You're staring again,” Lando snapped his eyes to the voice and found George was watching him across the Student Union café with the long-suffering expression of somebody who had spent the few weeks witnessing the same crime over and over again.

"What?" George didn't answer. He simply pointed. Across the room. Towards you. Lando's eyes followed automatically. Then immediately snapped away again. Far too late.

George sighed. "Right, I'm confiscating your dignity."

Lando frowned. "I wasn't even looking."

"Lando, you’re smiling at her like somebody had just hung the moon."

"I smile all the time."

George took a slow sip of his coffee. "Not like that."

Lando opened his mouth. Closed it again. Because annoyingly, George wasn't entirely wrong. The problem was that you kept existing. Which made getting over you remarkably difficult. Every time he convinced himself he was making progress, you'd quietly undo it again.

You'd laugh at one of his jokes. Send something ridiculous to the group chat. Appear beside him during a study session and immediately disagree with him over something wonderfully insignificant. Every conversation seemed to end with him liking you a little more than the one before. It was becoming increasingly inconvenient.

The worst part was that it wasn't only the crush anymore. Or perhaps, it had never only been the crush. He simply liked being around you. You made ordinary afternoons feel unexpectedly memorable. You asked questions nobody else thought to ask. You listened. Really listened. You argued because you enjoyed ideas, not because you enjoyed winning.

Even your stubbornness had begun to feel oddly endearing. He found himself collecting tiny things about you without meaning to. The way you wrapped both hands around a hot coffee when you were cold. The way your nose wrinkled whenever George said something particularly stupid. The fact you always tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear whenever you became absorbed in a conversation.

None of it was important. Except somehow it all was. And that was exactly why he needed to stop. Because if you didn't feel the same way, then you deserved the freedom not to.

The thought settled heavily inside his chest. Not because it hurt. Although it did. But because it felt important.

Love, at least the kind Lando believed in, had never been about persuading somebody. It wasn't persistence. It wasn't wearing someone down until they finally said yes. It wasn't waiting so long that they mistook gratitude for affection. If you ever chose him—

He wanted it to be because, somewhere along the way, you'd looked at him and seen what he already saw when he looked at you. He wanted your choice. Not your obligation.

Anything less would feel unfair. To both of you. So maybe, maybe this was simply where the story changed.

Maybe you became one of his closest friends. Maybe he slowly got over whatever impossible thing had happened the second you'd walked through his front door dressed as Morticia Addams. Maybe one day he'd laugh about all this with George. Maybe, eventually, his heart would catch up with the reality his head had accepted weeks ago.

He hoped so. Because the alternative felt exhausting. And yet— When he imagined a future where he no longer looked for you in crowded rooms, something inside him went unexpectedly quiet.

He realised, with a little embarrassment, that what he wanted wasn't really a relationship. Not yet. He wanted more conversations. More walks. More coffees. He wanted to know which books lived permanently on your bedside table because you could never quite bring yourself to return them to the shelf. He wanted to know what had made you choose your degree. Which songs reminded you of home. Whether you cried at films. Whether you were always as brave as you pretended to be. 

He wanted the privilege of knowing you properly. The frightening part was that he wanted those things even if they never belonged to him romantically.

Lando sighed softly into his coffee Then, despite every promise he'd made himself, he looked up. Across the café. You were laughing at something Carmen had just said. Your whole face changed when you laughed. He'd noticed that weeks ago. Your smile wasn't something that simply appeared. It transformed you.

Without thinking, he smiled too. Not because he expected anything. Not because he believed this story ended with some grand confession or miraculous change of heart. 

Simply because you looked happy. And, strangely, that was enough. Or perhaps it would have to become enough.

He wrapped both hands around his coffee cup, letting the warmth seep slowly into his fingers before deliberately lowering his gaze again. He could do this. He could be your friend. He could be grateful for whatever place you chose to give him in your life. Because some people were worth knowing, even if they were never yours.

The thought still ached. He suspected it probably would for a while. But somehow, it also felt like love. The quiet kind. The kind that asked for nothing in return.

The first Wednesday it happened entirely by accident. At least, that was the version of events you preferred.

The truth was, you were early. Which, in itself, should probably have been enough to concern somebody. You were never early. You were the sort of person who arrived exactly when you intended to. Not late enough to be rude. Not early enough to spend unnecessary time standing around outside buildings wondering what to do with yourself.

And yet somehow, here you were. Ten minutes before your lecture. You told yourself it was because you'd walked faster than usual. 

You were halfway up the Humanities steps when you saw him. Lando sat alone on one of the benches outside the building, both hands wrapped around a takeaway coffee. His eyebrows were pulled together. He looked distressed.

You stopped. Then, before you could help yourself, you smiled. Immediately afterwards you frowned. Why were you smiling? For God's sake. You hadn't even spoken to him yet. Still, before your sensible brain could intervene, your feet had already changed direction.

Lando looked up. The moment he recognised you, something shifted across his face. His whole expression brightened. Not politely. Not socially. It was immediate. Open. As though seeing you had genuinely improved his morning.

Your stomach immediately became deeply uncooperative.

"Hey," he said.

"You look like you're about to cry," you replied softly.

He blinked. "I'm not about to cry, I'm having a crisis."

The seriousness with which he said it made you laugh before you could stop yourself. Not the polite kind. A real laugh. The one that escaped without permission. Lando smiled wider. Which somehow made the whole situation considerably more dangerous.

"What sort of crisis?" you asked.

He held up his coffee mournfully. "This one."

You frowned. "What?"

"I ordered my coffee, it was really busy."

"Right..."

"And they gave me the wrong order," he looked genuinely heartbroken. You waited. Surely there was more. "There isn't any more."

You stared. "Lando, you look like somebody's just delivered devastating medical news."

He sighed dramatically. "I don't want to throw it away."

"...Why?"

"It feels wasteful,” his answer arrived so quickly it was obvious he'd already been having this argument with himself. "Somebody made it,” your heart betrayed you immediately. Again. "They've probably been rushed off their feet all morning,” his eyes dropped to the cup. "They worked hard making all those drinks,” another tiny shrug. "I just..." he looked faintly guilty. "...I don't even like black coffee."

You genuinely didn't know what to do with someone like him. It would've been considerably easier if he'd been arrogant. Or irritating. Or exactly the sort of rugby boy you'd spent years convincing yourself existed. Instead, he was mourning a coffee because he didn't want somebody else's effort to go to waste.

It was honestly absurd. "Let me see," he held it out. You peered inside. "I don’t mind black coffee."

His head lifted so quickly it was almost comical. "You do?" You nodded and for a second he simply stared. Then he beamed. Properly beamed. Like you'd just solved an impossible mathematical equation. "Seriously?" You nodded again. Without another thought, he held the cup out towards you. "Here."

Your fingers brushed as you took it. His smile somehow grew. Ridiculous. Entirely ridiculous. You took an experimental sip. Still warm. Still good. "So..." you glanced sideways at him. "What's your actual order?"

Immediately he looked embarrassed. That alone made you curious. "It's not important."

"Lando."

He sighed with theatrical resignation. "Caramel latte."

You waited. "And?"

"...Extra syrup."

You folded your arms. "How much extra syrup?"

He looked away. "Quite a lot."

You stared. “So you're drinking melted sweets."

"It tastes nice."

You laughed again. "I cannot believe we've become friends."

"We're friends?" He sounded so quietly hopeful that your heart skipped before your brain had time to object. You rolled your eyes, trying very hard to ignore the warmth spreading through your chest. He looked far too pleased with himself.

The two of you wandered into the Humanities building together, talking about nothing in particular. George's inability to function before noon. The lecturer who somehow made anything interesting sound like tax law. The weather. Coffee. Nothing important.

Except, somehow it always felt important with him.

Halfway up the stairs, a thought stopped you. "Lando, where are you going?”

He blinked. "...I have class."

You frowned. "Oh, yeah I mean..." you hesitated. "...I just..."

He tilted his head. "What?"

"I don't know what you study."

Silence. Then, a smile. Slowly spreading across his face. "What did you think I studied?"

Your stomach dropped. "No."

His grin widened. "Oh, now I really want to know."

"I'm not telling you."

"You absolutely have to, I bet you judged me right?."

“I haven't, I've just simply made observations," you felt a spark of guilt curl in your gut.

He laughed. "A dangerous sentence," the lecture theatre doors opened before he could continue. Students began filing inside. Lando adjusted the strap of his bag. "I guess I'll see you later."

You nodded. He smiled once. Softly. Then disappeared down another corridor. You stood there for a second longer than necessary. Then looked down. You were still holding the empty coffee cup. 

You didn't throw it away until after your lecture. That felt suspicious. Very suspicious. The following Wednesday, he was already waiting. This time there were two takeaway cups balanced carefully in his hands. He looked up the moment you appeared. 

"There you are,” he held one towards you. "Black coffee,” a tiny smile. "Dash of almond milk." Exactly how you liked it. Your heart quietly surrendered another piece of itself.

Wednesday mornings became something neither of you ever discussed. They simply happened. Coffee. The short walk into the building. Whatever strange conversation happened to find you that morning. Sometimes history. Sometimes dogs. Sometimes his friends. Sometimes absolutely nothing.

Somehow the conversations never felt small anyway. You learned Lando carried spare pens because somebody inevitably forgot theirs. You learned he hated typing and sent voice notes whenever possible. You learned he waved at nearly every dog on campus. Most of them appeared to recognise him.

Somewhere along the way, you stopped arriving early accidentally.

The routine lasted three weeks before another problem appeared.

"This is ridiculous,” you were sat cross-legged on the sofa, staring at your phone.

Carmen looked up from her notes. "What is?"

"He keeps paying, he just buys both coffees.”

A smile spread across her face. "Oh, Lando. Why don’t you buy them then?”

You blinked. That was actually a very sensible solution. Unfortunately, there was one problem.

You had absolutely no idea what his ridiculous coffee order actually contained. Which meant, you needed to text him. Twenty minutes later, you found yourself staring at your phone.

[to: Lando] What exactly is in your diabetes-inducing coffee order?

Three dots appeared almost immediately. Your heart immediately behaved like an idiot.

[from: Lando] Good evening to you too.

You smiled before you realised you were smiling. The conversation never really stopped after that.

One message became another. Breakfast photos. Dog pictures. George doing something ridiculous. Strange historical facts that reminded him of conversations you'd had weeks earlier. Soon enough, texting him slipped quietly into your day.

You'd see something funny. Or strange. Or beautiful. And your first thought became:

Lando would like this.

Weeks drifted by. Until one Wednesday morning, the bench was empty.

You stopped automatically. No Lando. No coffee. No ridiculous smile. The disappointment arrived so quickly it almost startled you.

He probably overslept. You frowned at yourself. Why had your first instinct been to defend him?

The lecture passed in a blur. By the time you arrived back at the flat, you'd checked your phone far more than you cared to admit. Nothing. No messages.

Carmen noticed almost instantly. "You know he likes you, right?"

You nearly dropped your phone. "What?"

"Lando. George told me."

Your heart stumbled. "...Oh."

Carmen watched you carefully. "That's your response?"

You suddenly felt far too warm. "Lando knows I don't like him like that." The sentence came automatically. Safe. Practised. Only… It didn't sound quite as convincing anymore.

Before Carmen could answer, your phone buzzed. Both of you looked down.

[from: Lando] I am so sorry. I'm alive. Some horrible flu thing knocked me out. [from: Lando] I slept through six alarms.

A final message appeared.

[from: Lando] The coffee bench has never known such betrayal.

Relief swept through you before you could stop it. Thank God he's okay.

Beside you, Carmen smiled. Slowly. "Oh."

You looked up. "What?"

She pointed directly at your face. "You like him."

"No."

"You're smiling."

You looked back at your phone. At his messages. At the warmth blooming quietly beneath your ribs. At the way your Wednesdays had somehow become built around one bench, two coffees, and one impossibly inconvenient rugby player. "No," you whispered again.

This time, even you didn't believe it. Carmen only laughed. Unfortunately… So did your heart.

You'd always liked libraries. Not because they were quiet. That was the common misconception.

Libraries weren't really quiet. Not properly. There was always noise. Pages turning. Pens scratching across paper. Someone quietly unwrapping a cereal bar they definitely weren't supposed to be eating. The distant hum of printers. The occasional sigh of somebody discovering they'd cited the wrong edition four hours before a deadline.

Libraries weren't silent. They were alive. Hundreds of people, all trying to understand something. Trying to become something. Trying. 

You'd always liked that.

Tonight, however, the library was proving considerably harder to appreciate. Entirely because of Lando.

Christmas break was only a few days away, which meant the building had taken on the strange atmosphere libraries always seemed to acquire in December. Half panic. Half exhaustion.

Every table was buried beneath laptops and colour-coded notes. Empty coffee cups sat abandoned between stacks of books. The air smelled faintly of paper, highlighters and sleep deprivation.

Somehow, your entire friendship group had ended up occupying two tables tucked into the back corner. At first it had been exactly what every group study session eventually became. George loudly declaring academia a government conspiracy. Max insisting he'd rather fight a bear than finish his essay. Charles attempting to work while Alex distracted him every three minutes simply by existing. Lily wandering off in search of snacks, Alex not far behind. Carmen reminding everybody they were supposed to be studying.

Comfortable. Familiar. The sort of chaos you'd quietly grown to love. Then, little by little, people disappeared. Coffee runs. Phone calls. Finished assignments. One chair emptied. Then another.

Until eventually, there were only the two of you left. The realisation arrived slowly. Then all at once. The library hadn't actually become quieter.

It only felt that way.

You looked back down at your notes. Read the same sentence four times. Understood precisely none of it. Across the table, Lando hadn't noticed.

Or if he had, he wasn't saying anything. He was completely absorbed in whatever he was typing. Head bent. Eyebrows drawn together. His tongue just visible where it pressed absently against the corner of his mouth whenever he concentrated.

You watched him for a second longer than you probably should have. Then immediately looked away. For God's sake. This was becoming absurd. Because nobody ever warned you that liking somebody wasn't dramatic most of the time. It wasn't declarations. Or fireworks. Or aching speeches beneath the rain.

Mostly, it was wanting them to look up. Wanting them to laugh first at your joke. Wanting to tell them something insignificant because somehow it felt important if they knew it. Wanting little pieces of their attention. Little pieces of their day. Little pieces of them.

Lately, you'd wanted those things far more often than was sensible. Which was deeply inconvenient. Because you weren't supposed to like Lando. Not like this. Somewhere between Halloween and Wednesday mornings, between coffee cups and dog photos, between group chats and rugby matches, he'd quietly become your favourite part of the week.

You sighed. Across the table— Nothing. He kept typing. Your heart sank. Immediately afterwards you became irritated with yourself. Honestly. What were you? Some tragic Victorian heroine waiting dramatically beside a window?

Eventually, unable to pretend to read another sentence, you gathered your books and carried them across to the chair beside him. The movement startled him.

He blinked once. Twice. Then looked up. "Oh," his voice sounded rough. Sleepy. Like he'd been thinking so hard he'd temporarily forgotten the rest of the world existed. "Hi."

Your stomach fluttered. Again. "Hi,” you nodded towards his laptop. "What are you working on?"

"My essay," you waited. He looked back at the screen. Then, with a tiny sigh that suggested he knew you weren't going anywhere, "Gothic literature."

Everything inside you stopped. "...What?"

He looked up. "What?"

"You study literature?"

Now he looked genuinely offended. "Yes,” the answer came so quickly you almost laughed. "You thought I didn't?" You opened your mouth. Closed it again. Because, well yes. You had. Of course you had. Another assumption. Another neat little box you'd placed him inside. Lando shook his head, smiling to himself. "You are unbelievable."

The warmth in his voice somehow made it worse. Because he wasn't annoyed. He was amused. Which meant he was, once again, being kinder about your mistakes than you deserved. "What are you writing about?" The question barely left your mouth before something changed.

You watched it happen. It was almost physical. The tiredness didn't disappear completely. But it moved aside. His eyes brightened. His shoulders straightened. His entire face softened into something quietly animated. And then he started talking.

Not chatting. Talking. Really talking. About Gothic fiction. About haunted houses functioning as emotional landscapes. About repression. About fear. About monsters being reflections of the societies that created them. About why people misunderstood the genre completely. Ideas tumbled over one another faster than he could organise them. Every few sentences he'd stop himself. Shake his head. Start again from a different angle. Apologise for rambling.

Then immediately continue anyway. You barely said a word. Because you couldn't. You were too busy watching him. This wasn't the Lando you'd imagined. This wasn't the rugby stereotype you'd spent weeks convincing yourself existed.

This was someone thoughtful. Curious. Passionate. Someone whose excitement made him forget to be self-conscious. Someone whose eyes lit up because he'd been given permission to talk about something he loved.

You realised, with growing alarm, that you were leaning closer. Not consciously. Your body had simply drifted. Drawn in by the cadence of his voice. By the way his hands moved when he explained something. By the way ideas seemed to exist inside him before they became words. Beauty had caught your attention at Halloween. This— This felt infinitely more dangerous.

Because beauty faded. This wouldn't.

"So," Lando smiled suddenly. "What's yours?"

You blinked. "What?"

"Favourite book."

The answer arrived before you'd even considered it. "Pride and Prejudice."

The effect was immediate. His whole face lit up. "Oh my God, really?"

You laughed. "Yes?"

"No way,” his excitement was so genuine it made you smile without meaning to. "Nobody ever says Pride and Prejudice."

You stared. "It is literally one of the most famous novels ever written."

He laughed. "Not when I ask,” he shifted slightly, resting his chin against one hand. Completely abandoning his essay. Completely focused on you. "Why?"

It should have been a simple question. Instead it settled somewhere beneath your ribs. Because suddenly you wanted him to understand. "I think people misunderstand it."

He nodded immediately. "I get that."

Your heart stumbled. "You do?"

"Completely."

Something loosened inside you. Words arrived almost before you'd thought them. About Elizabeth. About self-respect. About refusing to marry simply because everyone expected her to. About how people remembered Darcy while overlooking the fact that Elizabeth had never once compromised who she was. About choosing the right person. Not just choosing someone.

Lando never interrupted. He simply listened. Really listened. Then, quietly— He finished the sentence you'd been trying to reach. "It's not really about finding somebody," you looked at him. "It's about finding somebody who actually sees you."

Silence. Your heartbeat became almost painfully loud. Because somehow he understood. Not just the novel. The reason you loved it. The thing you'd spent years trying to explain whenever people dismissed it as just another romance. He understood it instinctively. 

And suddenly, every assumption you'd ever made about him felt unbearably small. You'd looked at him and seen rugby. Popularity. A pretty face. You'd convinced yourself you already knew him. When all along he'd been quietly becoming everything you'd ever claimed you wanted. 

The thought arrived gently. Almost kindly. As though it had been waiting for you. Oh. You didn't just like looking at him. You liked him. His ridiculous coffee orders. His impossible optimism. The way he noticed people. The way he listened as though every answer mattered. The way he spoke about books like they were living things.

You liked— Him.

The realisation settled heavily inside your chest. Closely followed by another. One that hurt considerably more. How many chances had you wasted? How many times had you dismissed him before giving him the opportunity to prove you wrong? All those weeks he'd been patient. Kind. Interested. While you'd been busy correcting assumptions you'd never should have made in the first place.

And lately, hadn't he stopped looking at you quite so often? Hadn't he started giving you a little more space? Hadn't he quietly settled into friendship? The thought twisted painfully beneath your ribs. Because while you'd been trying to catch up, perhaps he'd already taught himself to move on.

"Hey,” you blinked. Lando was watching you now. Concern softening his face. "You alright?"

God. Even now. Even now he was checking you were okay. You managed a smile. Small. Fragile. "Yeah." The lie sounded thin.

He didn't look convinced. Before he could ask again, his eyes drifted towards the clock. "Oh." You followed his gaze. Almost nine. 

Around you, chairs scraped backwards. Students packed away laptops. The library was quietly emptying. The evening was ending. Lando started closing books. Sliding pens back into his case. Packing away his notes.

You watched every small movement. And realised, with a certainty that almost frightened you, you didn't want this to end. Not tonight. Not yet. You wanted another hour. Another conversation. Another question. Another chance to watch him become animated over something ordinary. Which was probably the clearest answer your heart could have given. 

Lando slung his bag over one shoulder. You stayed exactly where you were. Because suddenly, everything made sense. Halloween. The coffees. The messages. The rugby match. The impossible Wednesdays.

You hadn't been falling all at once. You'd been falling a little every time he quietly showed you who he was. And somewhere along the way— He'd become everything you'd once insisted didn't exist. The man you'd spent years searching for. 

The terrible irony almost made you laugh. You'd wanted your Mr Darcy so desperately, you'd almost overlooked him simply because he'd been wearing a rugby shirt instead of a tailcoat.

For the first time since Halloween, the thought of having missed your chance genuinely frightened you.

The thing about feelings was that eventually they stopped feeling quite so catastrophic.

Lando still liked you. That part hadn't changed. If anything, the feeling had simply settled. Not smaller. Just quieter. Like something he'd stopped trying to outrun.

Eventually he'd accepted something much simpler. He liked you. You didn't like him that way. Life carried on.

Oddly enough, accepting that made everything easier. Because somewhere along the way you'd become more than a crush.

You'd become his friend. Now he knew things. Important things. Like how you rubbed your eyes when you were tired. That every book you owned was highlighted in colours only you understood. That historical facts appeared in his messages at completely random times. That "five minutes" inside a bookshop was never actually five minutes.

The sort of things that quietly became part of his day. Sometimes he'd see something and immediately think, You'd like that. A second-hand bookshop. A ridiculous gargoyle. A dog in a Christmas jumper. Without thinking, he'd reach for his phone.

He smiled to himself as he folded another jumper into his suitcase. Christmas break. Outside, the rugby house was unusually quiet. Suitcases lined the hallway. George was downstairs insisting somebody had stolen his shoe. A beat later came, "Never mind. That's Alex's."

Lando laughed.

His thoughts drifted to you. Again. Some habits, apparently, weren't worth breaking.

Because something had changed after the library. Not dramatically. Just enough. You seemed different. You looked at him more often. Sometimes he'd catch you watching him before your eyes darted away. Other times you'd fall strangely quiet halfway through conversations.

He couldn't work it out. Part of him wondered if he'd done something wrong. The thought sat heavily beneath his ribs. Because he'd rather lose the crush than lose you.

His phone buzzed. He glanced down. Your name.

His heart, apparently unconcerned with the sensible speech he'd spent weeks giving it, lurched anyway. Ridiculous. He opened the message.

[from: you] Want to go for a walk?

Lando read it twice. Nearly ten o'clock. The night before Christmas break. A smile spread slowly across his face. Not because he thought it meant anything.

Simply because it was you. And because he'd discovered that almost any ordinary moment became his favourite if you happened to be standing beside him.

Downstairs, George announced he'd finally found his shoe. Lando barely heard him. His thumbs hovered over the keyboard for all of two seconds.

[to: you] Always.

The reply sent instantly. Perhaps he should have waited. Pretended to think about it.

Instead he smiled to himself. Because if there was one thing he'd never quite managed around you, it was pretending he wanted anything other than more time together.

If somebody had told you three months ago that you'd be voluntarily confessing your feelings to a rugby player, you would have laughed in their face. Actually, no. You would have written a strongly worded essay explaining exactly why they were wrong.

And yet. Here you were. Panicking. Violently.

The December air bit at your cheeks as you crossed campus. Christmas lights glowed warmly behind windows. Suitcases rattled over uneven paving stones. Students drifted between buildings carrying laundry baskets and hastily bought presents, all of them caught in that strange in-between where lectures had ended but nobody had quite left yet.

The whole university felt suspended. Holding its breath before everybody scattered home for the holidays. And somehow, all you could think about was Lando. Again. Always Lando.

It had been four days since the library. Four days of lying awake replaying every conversation you'd ever had with him. Four days of remembering every assumption you'd made. Every judgement. Every quiet moment where he'd smiled and, without ever trying to, proved you wrong.

Lando was everything you'd ever wanted. Not just kind. Not just thoughtful. Not just clever. He understood you. The real you. The parts you usually had to explain. The books that mattered. The tiny observations nobody else noticed. The reasons behind the things you loved instead of simply accepting that you loved them.

Talking to him never felt like translating yourself. It felt like speaking your own language. And now there was a very real possibility you'd realised it too late.

The thought twisted painfully beneath your ribs. Which was exactly why you'd sent the text. Because if he didn't feel that way anymore— Fine. Painful. Embarrassing. Humiliating. But fine.

There were two weeks of Christmas break ahead. Two weeks to recover. Two weeks to mourn your dignity in private. Which, admittedly, felt appropriately gothic. If nothing else.

You spotted him immediately. Walking towards you beneath one of the old campus lamps, hands buried inside his coat pockets, his breath curling into the cold evening air. Your heart forgot how to function. Still. After everything.

His face brightened the instant he saw you. And somehow that made everything worse. “Hey," he called.

"Hey," you replied and his smile softened. The familiar one. The one that always made something inside your chest loosen. Dangerous thought. Very dangerous thought.

The two of you fell into step almost instinctively, wandering without any real destination. Christmas plans. Family traditions. Alex’s increasingly catastrophic packing abilities. Max somehow managing to lose three separate phone chargers in one afternoon. Safe conversations. Comfortable conversations.

The kind the two of you had somehow become frighteningly good at. You answered where appropriate. Laughed when he laughed. Pretended your internal organs weren't staging a full-scale mutiny.

Eventually Lando glanced sideways. "So."

Your stomach immediately dropped. "So."

"Why did you want to meet up?" There it was. The question. The entire reason you'd asked him here. Every carefully rehearsed speech evaporated on the spot. Gone. Destroyed. 

"Oh." Brilliant. A remarkably articulate start. Somebody should probably give you another degree.

Lando laughed softly. "Oh?"

"I just," you hesitated. Coward. Absolute coward. "I just wanted to wish you a good Christmas before everybody disappeared."

He nodded without a second thought. "Yeah," his smile returned, easy and genuine. "That checks out."

You immediately wanted to scream. Because no. It absolutely did not check out. You were trying to confess your feelings. Why was this so impossibly difficult? Elizabeth Bennet would be deeply disappointed in you.

You spent the next several minutes arguing with yourself. Unfortunately, every version of you seemed equally useless. By the time you reached the edge of campus your fingers had gone numb. You rubbed your hands together absently. Trying to create warmth. Trying to manufacture courage. Trying to produce literally anything useful.

"Hey," Lando's voice was gentle enough that you almost missed it. You looked up. His eyes dropped to your hands. Without hesitation, he reached for them. The movement was so instinctive it barely seemed conscious. As though taking care of you wasn't something he'd decided to do. It was simply something he did. Your breath caught. Lando frowned. "You're freezing." Before you could protest he was already pulling off his gloves.

"Lando..."

"No," his voice remained impossibly soft as he slipped them carefully over your fingers, adjusting them until they fit properly. "There."

The gloves were still warm. Still carrying traces of his body heat. Your heart actually hurt. Because standing in front of you was every single thing you'd spent years hoping existed. The kindness. The thoughtfulness. The gentleness. 

The way he noticed things before anyone else did. The way he cared without ever making a performance of it. Without ever expecting anything in return. And suddenly the thought of losing him felt unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.

So you did the only thing you could. You panicked. Completely. Entirely. Catastrophically. "Lando I— I like you."

Silence. Oh God. You'd done it. There was no taking it back now. His eyes widened. You kept talking anyway. Mostly because if you stopped, you were fairly certain you'd never manage to start again. "I know that's probably really unfair because I spent ages judging you and making assumptions about you and being weird and— I was such an idiot."

Lando blinked. Still silent. Still staring. "Oh my God," you covered your face. "This is awful."

"No, it’s just—"

"It really is,” your words tumbled over one another. Fast. Chaotic. Unstoppable. "I thought you were just some rugby player, and then you weren't, and then you were intelligent and thoughtful and kind, and somehow every time I got to know you better you became more annoying because you kept being exactly the sort of person I've always wanted and..." you stopped. Breathless. Mortified. "I just—" your voice cracked into something quieter. Smaller. More honest. "I really like you."

Lando simply stared. Completely still. Entirely silent. The panic began creeping in around the edges. "Please say something," nothing. You looked away, humiliation arriving in slow, inevitable waves. "Forget it."

He still hadn't moved. Which somehow made everything worse. Immediately, instinct took over. The instinct to protect yourself before somebody else could hurt you. "It's fine," you said quickly, forcing a smile that felt painfully thin. "We can still be friends."

His expression changed instantly. "Wait—"

"I'd rather have you in my life as a friend than not at all, and—"

Your name left his mouth. Not loudly. Not sharply. Simply with enough certainty that every other thought disappeared. You stopped talking. His hands rose carefully, almost hesitantly, before settling against your cheeks.

Warm. Steady. As though he couldn't quite believe he was allowed to touch you. The world seemed to narrow all at once. Just him. Just those impossibly bright eyes. Just the warmth of his palms against skin gone cold from December.

"The moment I saw you," his voice barely carried above the winter air. "The second you walked into that party," your heart forgot how to beat. "I was gone," the confession landed somewhere impossibly deep inside you. "I kept trying to talk to you," a quiet, disbelieving laugh escaped him. "I spent the entire night following you around like an idiot." 

Your eyes widened. "What?"

"I was completely obsessed," his smile was almost embarrassed now. Soft around the edges. Entirely helpless. "And every time I got to know you," his thumbs brushed gently beneath your cheekbones. "It just got worse, I thought about you constantly," another small laugh escaped him. "I kept telling myself I'd get over it," he shook his head almost imperceptibly. "I kept falling and falling and falling," his smile turned wonderfully, hopelessly fond. "And I was honestly a little worried I'd never get back up."

Your vision blurred. God. This. This was it. Every novel. Every poem. Every impossible romantic fantasy you'd spent years convincing yourself wasn't real. Standing in front of you. Looking at you as though you'd been worth waiting for all along.

"I can't believe you're real," the words escaped before you could stop them. 

Lando laughed quietly, the sound full of disbelief. "I'm having a very similar problem."

You smiled. Then laughed. Then looked up at him and realised you never wanted to stop. Not if he kept looking at you like this. Not if he kept looking at you as though you were the answer to a question he'd been carrying for months. "I think," you whispered, laughing through the soft tears which fell from your eyes, "You might be my favourite person."

Something inside his expression gave way. His entire face softened until he looked almost overwhelmed by the weight of what you'd just given him. "That's good," his smile grew slowly. Warmly. "Because knowing I'm coming back to you next term might be the only thing that gets me through Christmas."

Your heart simply surrendered. There was no fight left. No doubt. No hesitation. Just him. Just this. You stared at each other. Neither of you moved. Neither of you seemed willing to break whatever fragile, wonderful thing had settled between you.

Lando searched your face as though committing every detail to memory. The tears clinging to your lashes. The smile you kept trying, and failing, to hide. The gloves still hanging slightly too large around your fingers. "You know," he murmured, almost smiling to himself, "I've wanted to kiss you since you laughed at my satchel."

A surprised laugh escaped you. "I thought it looked ridiculous."

"It did."

You laughed again. "So why then?"

"Because," his forehead rested lightly against yours. "You looked at me like you actually saw me."

Your breath caught. You closed the last inch between you.

The kiss was gentle. Almost impossibly so. Like neither of you wanted to risk frightening away something you'd spent months carefully building. His lips were warm despite the cold. Soft. Tentative for barely a heartbeat before certainty settled between you.

Your fingers curled instinctively into the collar of his coat as he stepped closer, one hand slipping carefully from your cheek to the back of your neck, holding you with such impossible tenderness that it made your chest ache. 

The world didn't disappear. You could still hear distant laughter echoing across campus. The wind rustling through bare December branches. Someone wheeling a suitcase somewhere far behind you. 

But none of it mattered. Because for the first time since Halloween, neither of you was wondering anymore. Every lingering glance. Every coffee. Every shared book. Every ridiculous text message. Every conversation that had lasted longer than it should have.

It had all been leading here. 

When you finally pulled apart, neither of you moved very far. Your foreheads still touched. His smile mirrored yours. 

Hopeless. Ridiculous. And completely, utterly in love.

And for the first time since Halloween, neither of you had to wonder.

You already knew.

© piestri. please do not copy/repost/translate my work without asking. thank you for reading, i appreciate all comments/reblogs and likes :-)

“God, I love this song.”

The sound came blasting through the speakers, crackling over the noise of voices as you pressed your palms flat against the sticky wooden table before you, a soft smile curling at your lips as the synth began to build softly through the crowded bar.

You were currently wedged into the corner booth of a smokey bar, your third drink dripping condensation onto the beer mat below and soaking it through. The London heat had settled over the city like something cruel, clinging to your skin and offering no relief indoors or out.

You looked up to find Lando already watching you.

Not just looking. Watching. 

A gleeful grin spread across his face like he’d been waiting for this exact reaction. “Tears for Fears? Really?” he asked, amusement laced through every word as he lifted his lukewarm beer to his lips.

“It’s a classic, the melody is so damn good. You just don’t get it,” you teased, leaning forward over the table and keeping his bright eyes captured in yours. “Some of us have taste, Norris. You don’t need to be so jealous.”

Lando barked out a laugh, his head tipping back as a bead of sweat disappeared beneath the collar of his t-shirt. Your eyes followed before you could stop them. Which felt like something you probably shouldn’t unpack.

“Yeah, because liking eighties tracks means you have taste.”

“You’re just jealous,” you shot back, taking a sip of your vodka cranberry before nodding your head to the rhythm. “I know you don’t get to appreciate music the way I do, you’re too busy being world champion.”

Lando grinned at that and, as always, your own smile widened in response. There had always been something deeply unfair about his smile. Maybe it was how easily it dragged one out of you. Maybe it was because, after all these years, it could still make your pulse skip in a way that felt vaguely concerning.

You chose not to think too hard about either.

Ever since you’d first met back before either of you could properly form a coherent sentence, Lando had been your best friend. You’d met during primary school when he’d accidentally pulled your braid trying to climb to the top of the climbing frame and you’d shoved him off in revenge, fully expecting him to burst into tears.

Instead, he’d looked back up at you from the ground, eyes bright and face split with a grin. He’d pointed right up at you and proudly declared that you were his best friend.

And that had pretty much been it.

Twenty years later and here you still were. Cramped into the corner of a London bar, enduring the first stretch of summer heat after you’d begged him to come out with you before he disappeared back into racing after a short break.

Your other friends had all bailed at the last minute, though that never really bothered you. You loved them, you really did. But no-one got you like Lando did. And, if you were being completely honest, you liked knowing no-one got him quite like you either.

“You and your bloody tunes,” Lando muttered. Before you could ask for another drink, Lando was already sliding your usual towards you after catching the bartender’s eye. “You looked like you wanted another,” he shrugged.

Your chest did that annoying fluttering thing again. You ignored it. Best friends knew each other’s drink orders. That was normal.

Probably.

“I didn’t even know you ordered,” you said softly, your voice catching in your throat.

And Lando just shook his head before launching into a story about what he and Max had apparently gotten up to earlier that week, chaos spilling from every word. You listened the way you always did, entirely invested in whatever nonsense left his mouth.

Halfway through the story, he reached across the table and brushed a strand of hair away from where it had stuck to your lip gloss. The movement was absentminded. Casual. Like he’d done it a thousand times before.

Maybe he had. He didn’t pause. Didn’t seem to realise what he’d done.

You, unfortunately, noticed immediately. Along with the warmth crawling up your neck. You blamed the weather. 

Then he laughed again at his own story and instinctively looked at you first. Like your reaction was his favourite part. It always was. And that felt dangerous enough that you quickly looked away.

Later, you both stumbled out of the bar and dragged yourselves giggling through warm London streets towards the tube station, your hand wrapped tightly around his as you crossed the road.

It stayed there longer than necessary. Neither of you mentioned it. 

You were too busy laughing as he dramatically complained about nearly being recognised by a group of drunk girls outside a kebab shop.

And you didn’t notice when he pulled out his phone. You didn’t notice the soft smile that overtook his face as he looked at you. You didn’t notice him opening a playlist with your name buried in the title.

Or adding the song from the bar carefully alongside years worth of moments he’d never been brave enough to say out loud.

Instead, you kept talking. And Lando kept loving you quietly.

Just as he always had.

You knew surprises weren’t exactly Lando’s thing. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the kind everyone else liked. Surprise parties. Birthday presents. Unexpected wins.

What he hated was being surprised. Which just so happened to be one of your favourite hobbies.

It wasn’t often you managed to sneak up on him. The first time had been after school when he’d invited you over for tea and his mum had cornered you in the living room to show you baby pictures while begging Lando to wash the dishes.

(You ignored the way your twelve-year-old heart had done something embarrassingly dramatic at the sight of his wild curls, chubby cheeks and eyes that somehow looked exactly the same.)

You’d eventually escaped his mum and crept into the kitchen where Lando stood elbow-deep in soap suds. The scream he let out when you grabbed his shoulders had been truly spectacular. You’d laughed so hard you nearly cried.

But what had stuck with you wasn’t the scream. It was how quickly his entire body had relaxed when he realised it was you. How his panic had dissolved into laughter almost instantly.

You’d loved that. Maybe a little too much. And so, naturally, you made it your mission to do it again whenever possible.

Which explained why you’d kicked off your trainers before slipping your key into the door of his Monaco flat. Max had texted to let you know Lando was still in the gym downstairs, giving you plenty of time to execute your masterpiece.

You’d told Lando you couldn’t get time off work to watch him race in Monaco this year. You were still offended he’d believed you so easily.

Your trainers dangled from your fingers as you padded through his flat, your overnight bag heavy against your shoulder as you made your way to the spare room.

Your phone buzzed moments later.

[10:52am] Max F: eagle has left, eta 5 mins.

You bit back a laugh. You quickly shoved your bag and shoes into the wardrobe before making your way into the kitchen, pressing yourself against the wall behind the partition.

He always went straight to the kitchen after the gym. Always. You knew him embarrassingly well.

You heard the key turn in the lock and had to physically stop yourself from laughing. Then came his humming. Soft and absentminded. The sound of shoes being kicked off. Sock-clad footsteps against the floor.

Your stomach fluttered stupidly at how easily you could picture him. Then he appeared.

Sweaty hair. Grey vest clinging to his skin. Back muscles shifting as he bent into the fridge. You stared for slightly too long. And firmly blamed the weather for the sudden heat rushing through your body.

He grabbed a snack before placing his phone on the kitchen counter. Then wandered into the living room.

And suddenly, a truly terrible idea struck you. You slipped from your hiding place and grabbed his phone, unlocking it with the passcode permanently burned into your brain.

His mum’s birthday. Normal best friend information. Entirely normal.

You opened Spotify and searched for the loudest, most obnoxious song you could think of, fully intending to blast it through his headphones. Then your eyes caught something.

A playlist. Your name.

Your breath caught. Before your brain could fully process it, you clicked a heavy metal song and turned the volume all the way up.

A scream erupted from the living room. You clamped a hand over your mouth to stop your laughter as something crashed loudly to the floor.

“I fucking knew Max was being dodgy!” Lando shouted. His footsteps thundered back towards the kitchen.

You darted toward your hiding spot. Too slow.

A hand wrapped around your wrist. His phone was snatched from your hand before your back slammed gently into his chest. You squealed as his arm curled around your waist, locking you against him while you kicked uselessly.

“One day I’m actually going to have a heart attack, you know,” Lando laughed into your ear. “And my death will be entirely your fault.”

The warmth of his chest pressed against your back. The smell of soap and sweat. His breath ghosting your skin. Entirely too much. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have me any other way, would you?” you laughed, still reaching for his phone.

“What are you doing?” Lando asked as you dug your elbow into his side. He yelped, his arm shooting upward as you jumped for his phone.

“I wanted to be nosey.”

“You’re always nosey,” he murmured, tightening his arm around your waist as you wriggled. Your entire nervous system seemed alarmingly aware of where his hand rested.

Then you said it. “I thought I saw a playlist with my name.”

Everything stopped. His arm loosened. His breathing changed. And when you looked up at him, all the laughter had vanished. You jumped once more and managed to grab his phone. You barely made it two steps before his hand wrapped around your wrist again.

Tighter this time.

“Stop,” you froze. Then quieter: “Please.”

The word hit you like cold water. You turned. Lando looked terrified. Actually terrified. His eyes were wide. Jaw tight. Bottom lip caught between his teeth. Like whatever was on that phone mattered far more than you understood.

And suddenly this didn’t feel like a joke anymore. Your smile faded. “I’m sorry,” you said softly. “I didn’t mean to…” you handed him his phone. “I was just taking the piss, Lan.”

He shoved the phone into his pocket far too quickly. Then forced a grin onto his face. “I know, idiot,” he said too fast. Too rehearsed. “I finally got you back,” he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around you. “Now give me a hug and tell me why I shouldn’t rescind your spare key.”

You squealed as his sweaty body crushed into yours while you shoved at him. Everything looked normal again. Everything sounded normal again.

But later that night, curled up in his spare room, your mind kept replaying the same thing. 

The playlist with your name. And the look on his face when you almost opened it.

Like you’d come dangerously close to discovering something he wasn’t ready for you to know.

And for the first time in your life, you found yourself wondering if there were parts of Lando you didn’t know at all.

And strangely— the thought made your chest ache.

Weeks had passed since that day in his flat. And no matter how hard you tried to ignore it, you couldn’t. 

There had been something in Lando’s eyes that day. Fear. Real fear. The kind you’d almost never seen directed at you. And it had lodged itself somewhere beneath your ribs ever since.

Even now, as you stood in the crowd of orange, watching him climb onto the top step at the podium, you couldn’t quite shake it.

His face was split by that blinding smile. His eyes were red with exhaustion and pride. Champagne soaked his race suit. His family stood beside you, screaming themselves hoarse. Your arms were wrapped tightly around one of his sisters as all of you looked up at him like he’d hung the bloody moon. Another home win. Another milestone.

And yet— something still felt wrong.

Lando had never hidden things from you. Never snatched his phone away. Never looked at you like you’d stumbled across something dangerous. You knew his passcode. God, he would regularly throw his phone at you to answer texts when he was driving or too hungover to form a sentence.

So why had a playlist made him panic?

You’d thought about asking him. A hundred times. But every time, you remembered the way his breathing had changed. The way his hand had shaken. The way he’d looked almost cornered.

So you stayed quiet.

You briefly considered asking Max. Then immediately decided that was perhaps the worst idea you’d ever had.

And if you were being honest— this wasn’t even new.

There had been long drives through English countrysides where you’d reached to change whatever painfully generic playlist he had on, only for him to slap your hand away and tell you to stop ruining the vibe.

There was the time at university when you’d asked for his Spotify login while drowning in dissertation stress and he’d told you he refused to become your personal bank account.

At the time, you’d rolled your eyes. Now you wondered if he’d simply panicked.

Your forehead rested against the cool car window as the drive back to the hotel dragged on. Your thoughts were louder than the celebrations happening around you. What was he hiding? And why did it hurt this much?

You knew him. You knew how soft he got at three in the morning. How cruel he could be to himself after bad races. How he always put his family before himself. How much he truly hated fish. How he once admitted, quietly, that if racing hadn’t worked out he thought he might’ve liked photography.

You knew everything. And he knew everything about you. Or at least— you’d always thought he did.

A horrible thought crept in.

What if one day that changed? What if one day you stopped being the first person he called? What if someone else knew him better? What if one day he built a life that didn’t instinctively make space for you?

The thought hit so hard your throat tightened. You’d cried about that exact fear once. Drunk and exhausted and clinging to his shirt while you sobbed that one day he’d outgrow you. 

He’d held your face and promised— never. 

And yet.

You swallowed hard and forced yourself back into the conversation around you. Celebration plans. Dinner reservations. Afterparties. You nodded where appropriate and prayed you were being ridiculous.

Because you didn’t know how to be anything less than what you were to him. And maybe that was its own problem.

Lando opted for a low-key celebration. Which was how you found yourself dressed up and sitting cross-legged on his hotel bed while he got ready.

He’d locked himself in the bathroom. Not before enduring several minutes of you relentlessly mocking his curl routine until he’d practically slammed the door in your face.

Steam curled beneath the bathroom door. You could hear him humming softly to himself. His suitcase lay half-open on the floor. One of his hoodies was tossed across a chair. His aftershave lingered in the room. Everything felt unbearably him.

You’d been ready for over an hour. He hadn’t even needed to ask before texting you his room number and telling you to wait there so you could leave together.

You were halfway through losing a stupid game on your phone when boredom finally won. With a dramatic sigh, you flung yourself backward onto the bed.

And that was when you saw it. His phone.

Sitting on the bedside table. Left completely unattended.

Your stomach dropped. 

Don’t. Your brain screamed at you not to do it. It was invasive. Cruel. Not you. But the ache in your chest had grown too loud to ignore.

Slowly, you sat up. Your hand trembled as you reached for it. Even then, you hesitated. Because if he found out— if this broke whatever existed between you— you weren’t sure you’d survive it.

But you needed to know. 

So you unlocked it. Opened Spotify.

And froze. There it was. A playlist.

The cover photo was from his thirteenth birthday party at Laser Quest. You in blue. Him in red. Your hair in ridiculous pigtails. His curls completely feral. Both of you grinning like your lives depended on it. His arm wrapped around your shoulders. Your hand gripping his waist. 

Your chest tightened. Then your eyes moved upward.

songs that sound like home (your name)

Your breath left you in a shaky exhale. Then you noticed the number beneath it. Dozens of songs. Years worth.

And as your trembling finger pressed play— your entire world tilted.

And the memories came rushing back like a flood.

2013 — Little Things.

“I still don’t understand why we have to learn this stuff. Like, when am I ever going to use algebra in real life?” you whined dramatically, lying on your stomach across your bed with your school skirt wrinkled beneath you and your legs kicking lazily in the air.

You’d been staring at the same equation for nearly ten minutes and were no closer to understanding it.

Lando, meanwhile, was absolutely no help. He sat cross-legged on the floor with his back pressed against your bed, sketching absentmindedly in his English textbook that you were almost certain he was supposed to be writing in.

“If you ever want to be my engineer one day, then you really do need to learn it,” he replied, tipping his head back to grin at you.

You rolled your eyes and leaned over the edge of the bed to flick his forehead. “You’re boring, Norris. I thought you said you were just bringing me with you. I didn’t realise I had to earn my place.”

You rolled onto your back, staring dramatically at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to your ceiling while late afternoon sunlight spilled through your curtains.

“You’re annoying,” Lando shot back. “Why would I keep you around for free?”

“Can’t believe you’d treat your best friend like this,” you snorted. The words came softer this time, your amusement melting into something quieter.

Eventually, the room settled into a comfortable silence. Lando continued doodling in his exercise book while pretending to write something profound. And you stared at your maths worksheet, silently begging it to explain how on earth you were supposed to simplify 4m + 5 + 2m - 1.

Your laptop sat open on your desk, music crackling softly through its poor-quality speakers. Then familiar guitar strings floated through the room. A grin immediately tugged at your lips.

“Oh no,” Lando groaned.

You ignored him entirely and started singing along. Loudly. Slightly off-key. Entirely committed. Lando shook his head, though he was already smiling.

“Oh come on, Lan,” you sang between lyrics. “How can you not love this song?”

“You love every song.”

“I do not,” you gasped dramatically. “I only like the ones with good lyrics.”

“Good?” he scoffed. “I think you mean questionable.”

“Hey,” you leaned over the edge of the bed again and lightly smacked his curls before letting your fingers absentmindedly tangle through them. “You just don’t understand One Direction the way I do.”

Lando let out an exaggerated sigh as the song continued to play. The guitar plucked softly through the room. Your singing gradually became quieter.

Then softer. Then faded completely.

He frowned. The gentle tugging in his hair had stopped. The whispered lyrics had disappeared.

Lando pushed himself up from the floor and turned. You were lying on your back. One hand rested over your chest. The other was still stretched toward where his hair had been moments before.

Your eyes were closed. Your breathing had evened out. Your lips still moved faintly with the lyrics, like your body hadn’t quite realised you were falling asleep yet.

And Lando— stilled. Completely.

The world narrowed to the soft hum of your laptop. The warm afternoon light spilling across your bedroom floor. The rise and fall of your breathing.

He noticed everything. The way the tip of your nose was pink from rubbing at your allergies all afternoon. The tiny crease between your brows that only appeared when you were tired. The way your lips looked impossibly soft as they ghosted the final lyrics.

I’m in love with you and all your little things.

Lando’s breath caught. Because that was it, wasn’t it? It wasn’t one big moment. It was every tiny thing. Every laugh. Every argument. Every song. Every stupid maths worksheet. Every version of you.

And all he could think was— oh fuck.

Later that night, despite loudly maintaining that he hated the song, he still found himself adding it to a playlist. He told himself it was because the song reminded him of that afternoon. Of you singing badly. Of your terrible maths skills. Of your weird obsession with One Direction.

He ignored what it really meant. Even then— he knew he was lying.

2014 — Happy.

You were gripping Lando’s arm hard enough to probably cut off his circulation. Your face was buried firmly in his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut as terrifying sounds blasted through the television speakers.

You had absolutely no idea why you’d convinced yourself this was a good idea. It was a rare free Friday night for Lando. Karting had started taking over his life and weekends like this were becoming rarer and rarer.

He’d begged you to come over. You’d tried to be responsible and told him he needed rest. Then thirty minutes later you’d shown up at his house in your comfiest clothes holding a bag of Kinder chocolate, popcorn, and a horror DVD your older cousin had sworn was “more funny than scary.”

Your cousin was a liar.

Lando had protested immediately. You were both pathetic when it came to horror films and always had been.

He’d suggested literally anything else. But all it had taken was one dramatic pout and your best puppy dog eyes before he gave in with an exhausted sigh.

And now— you were both suffering the consequences.

Another horrifying screech echoed from the television. You practically climbed into his lap.

“Jesus Christ,” Lando yelped.

“Don’t say his name right now,” you whispered frantically. “What if that makes it worse?” 

Lando stared at you for a long moment. Then burst into laughter. You glared. “This is serious Lan.”

“You’re literally shaking.”

“You are too.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Because annoyingly— you were right.

You were pressed so tightly against him that your legs were half tangled with his, one of your hands clutching the fabric of his t-shirt. And Lando was trying very hard not to think about any of that. Particularly not the way your hair smelled like your shampoo. Or how your heartbeat seemed to sync with his every time you clung tighter. Or how he would quite happily sit through ten thousand terrible horror films if it meant you kept holding onto him like this.

He also tried very hard not to think about how fast his own heart was beating.

By the time the film finally ended, you were scrambling for the remote like your life depended on it.

“I don’t understand why you do this to yourself,” Lando groaned from the sofa, throwing the last piece of chocolate into his mouth. “You hate horror films.”

“Because it gives me an adrenaline rush and I always forget how much I hate being scared.”

“That is genuinely one of the stupidest things you’ve ever said.”

“Thank you.”

You flipped through channels desperately. Anything to erase the images now haunting your brain.

Then— music. Your entire face lit up.

“Oh no,” Lando groaned immediately. The opening beats of Happy filled the room. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Lan,” you launched yourself off the sofa and grabbed both of his wrists. “It’s a happy song. You know you secretly love it.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“You’re lying.”

You tugged him upright before he could protest further. Soon you were dancing wildly around his living room. Completely off beat. Sliding in socks across the wooden floor. Nearly knocking over a lamp. Laughing so hard neither of you could breathe properly.

Lando tried resisting for approximately twenty seconds. Then, as always— he gave in.

Because he always gave in to you.

You spun beneath his arm. He nearly dropped you. You both collapsed into hysterical laughter. And for the first time since the film ended— you forgot to be scared.

By the time the song ended, you were breathless. Your cheeks hurt from smiling.

And when his mum entered the room to politely tell you both to stop screaming lyrics at midnight, you dissolved into fresh laughter.

As she walked away shaking her head, you fell straight into Lando’s arms. Still giggling. Still breathless. Your head rested against his shoulder as your breathing slowly steadied. And for a moment— everything felt warm. Safe. Easy.

Lando looked down at you as you melted into him without hesitation. Trusted him without question. And something in his chest tightened painfully.

Later that night, despite loudly declaring Happy was the most irritating song ever written— he still added it to the playlist. Because now all he could hear when it played was your laughter.

And all he could think about was how much he loved being the person who made you feel safe.

2017 - Feel Good.

You had been quiet the entire car ride. Which was deeply unsettling. You were rarely quiet. Usually your words spilled out faster than your brain could catch them.

But tonight— nothing. Lando kept glancing over at you as he drove through quiet streets with no real destination in mind. He was just driving.

Because when you’d called him sobbing so hard he could barely understand you, all coherent thought had abandoned him. He’d thrown on shoes. Forgotten a jacket. And left his house within thirty seconds.

When he pulled up outside yours, his chest had tightened painfully. You were wearing one of his old hoodies. One he’d left at your house months ago. Your shoulders were slumped. Your usual bounce completely gone.

You looked so heartbreakingly small walking toward his car that Lando had to physically stop himself from getting out and pulling you into his arms.

Instead— he unlocked the door. You climbed in. Offered him the smallest smile imaginable. And absolutely shattered him.

Your eyes were red and swollen. Your lips looked raw from chewing at them. Mascara streaked beneath your eyes. Like you’d been crying long before you called him.

And Lando wanted— desperately— to fix it. He wanted to ask who did this. He wanted names. Addresses. Potentially a shovel.

Instead— he started driving.

An hour passed before you finally spoke.

“He broke up with me,” your voice sounded shredded. Like every word hurt to say. Lando’s stomach dropped. He knew exactly who you meant. The older boy from college you’d spent weeks talking about. The one who made your face light up. The one Lando had smiled politely about while quietly dying inside.

You’d spent weeks gushing about how sweet he was. How thoughtful. How funny. And every single time Lando had wanted to scream— I could love you better than this.

Instead, he’d smiled. Because that’s what best friends did. Even when it killed them.

You let out another broken sob. Your face disappeared into the sleeve of his hoodie. There were dark mascara stains smeared across the fabric. And Lando thought they were the most precious thing he’d ever seen.

Because it meant you came to him. Always him.

His grip tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He wanted to reach for your hand. Wanted to wipe your tears away. Wanted to tell you this boy was an idiot. Wanted to tell you he’d spend the rest of his life proving you deserved better.

Instead— he reached forward and turned on the radio.

A familiar beat blasted through the speakers. You looked at him through wet lashes.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re crying too loudly.”

A watery laugh escaped you. And Lando nearly drove into a lamppost because that sound felt like oxygen returning to his lungs.

By the chorus, your fingers were tapping against your knee. By the second verse, you were quietly singing. By the end— you were smiling. Small. Fragile. But real.

And Lando would’ve replayed that song a thousand times if it meant seeing that smile again. After that— you talked. About how he’d broken up with you over text. About how humiliating it felt. About how stupid you felt for not seeing it coming.

And Lando listened. He said all the right things. Soft things. Steady things. The things best friends were supposed to say. Even while every selfish part of him wanted to ask why you kept choosing boys who would never love you properly.

At some point your words slowed. Then stopped entirely. He glanced over. You’d fallen asleep. Your head resting against his shoulder. One hand loosely tangled with his on the centre console.

Like touching him was instinct. Like it was home.

Lando nearly broke right there.

Instead— he kept driving. Long after he should’ve taken you home. Long after the petrol warning light came on. Because he knew the second he dropped you off— you’d wake up heartbroken again.

And if he could give you one more hour of peace— he would. He always would.

Later that night, after helping you inside, past your concerned parents and making sure you drank water and washed your makeup off— he searched the song just to add it to the playlist.

Because it made you smile through heartbreak. Because your laugh had returned. Because your hand had reached for his without thinking. Because for one brief moment— it had almost felt like you were his.

And he was weak enough to treasure even that.

(You never told him your boyfriend had ended things because he said he couldn’t compete with Lando. That secret stayed buried deep inside you. Right next to the terrifying truth that maybe— you hadn’t wanted him to.)

2018 — Yellow.

You’d been there for almost every version of Lando. You were there when he first discovered karting. When he’d come home after watching races with his dad, eyes bright and voice breathless as he talked about how one day that would be him.

You were there through his years in junior formula. Through impossible schedules. Through wins. Through losses. Through exhausted phone calls and rushed airport goodbyes.

You’d attended enough races with his family that people occasionally assumed you were a Norris too. Neither of you ever corrected them.

When he joined McLaren’s young driver programme, you’d cried so hard his sisters laughed at you. When he became a reserve driver, you sent him embarrassing videos of yourself sobbing at your television.

And when he finally got the call— a Formula One seat. A real one. Next year. Alongside Carlos Sainz. You thought your heart might burst from pride. And maybe break a little too.

It wasn’t technically a going-away party. Everyone knew Lando would be home constantly. Mostly because he physically couldn’t stay away from his mum for very long.

But it was still a celebration. A marker. A before and after. You’d helped plan everything with his mum and sisters. 

And now the night had blurred into one long haze of laughter. Fairy lights hanging from the garden fence. Smoke from the barbecue lingering in the summer air. Music drifting from speakers. Too much food. Too many drinks.

Your feet aching from dancing. Your stomach hurting from laughing. And beneath all of it— grief. Quiet. Sharp.

Because everything was changing. And you hated yourself a little for mourning something you should’ve been celebrating.

You were proud. God, you were proud. But you were sad too. And no matter how hard you tried— you couldn’t seem to shake it.

By the time the evening began winding down, most people had retreated inside for warmth. Everyone except you and Lando.

You sat wrapped in a blanket in the garden. Your legs stretched out in front of you. Lando lay beside you with his head in your lap. Your fingers lazily moved through his curls as both of you stared at the sky.

“That one’s definitely Orion.”

You snorted. “That is absolutely not Orion.”

“It is.”

“It’s literally a plane.”

Lando squinted. “That feels unnecessarily embarrassing for me.”

You laughed softly. And he thought again how it was his favourite sound in the world.

Then a song began drifting through the garden speakers. Your entire face lit up.

Lando smiled instantly. “You really love this song.”

“I’m going to get it tattooed one day.”

He tilted his head slightly to look at you. “Oh yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“Where?”

You frowned thoughtfully. “Haven’t really thought that far ahead.”

He laughed quietly. “Of course you haven’t.”

Then— silence. Not awkward. Not uncomfortable. Just full.

Your fingers slowed in his hair. Your eyes drifted downward.

And suddenly you became painfully aware of how close his face was. How soft his expression looked. How his eyes kept flicking to your mouth.

Your breathing faltered. So did his. Your hand moved from his curls to his jaw. Your thumb brushing softly across his skin. Lando stopped breathing entirely.

For one suspended, impossible moment— you leaned down. And Lando genuinely thought his entire life was about to begin. He wondered if this was it. If every year of waiting had somehow led here.

Your lips parted. His eyes fluttered shut. And then— 

“Thank you,” his eyes opened. You were smiling sadly. “For always being there for me,” your fingers still traced his jaw. “I’m really going to miss you, Lan.”

And just like that— the moment shifted.

Lando swallowed the sharp sting of disappointment. Because of course your first instinct was to love him gently. Even when accidentally breaking his heart.

He reached up and covered your hand with his. “I’m not leaving you,” his voice was quiet. Certain. “I could never leave you.”

Your throat tightened. “You promise?”

He sat up slightly. Close enough that your noses almost brushed. “I promise that no matter where I go,” his eyes locked onto yours. “You’ll always have me.”

And maybe that should’ve felt like friendship. Maybe it should’ve felt simple. Instead— it felt like standing too close to something life-changing.

So you did what you always did when things with Lando felt too big. You smiled. He smiled back. And neither of you mentioned how close you’d come to changing everything.

And once again, almost ritualistic, long after you’d gone home, Lando added Yellow to the playlist. Because it sounded like summer. Like promises. Like almosts. Like you.

And if he spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering what would’ve happened if you’d leaned just a little further— well. That stayed between him and the playlist.

2019 - Liability.

You hadn’t even stepped into the hotel room yet and you could already feel his frustration. It clung to the air. Heavy. Sharp.

The race had gone horribly. And you knew him well enough to know exactly what was happening inside his head.

He was brutal with himself. Always had been. He could win and still focus on what went wrong. He could achieve something incredible and immediately tear himself apart over what he should’ve done better. And no matter how many times you reminded him how extraordinary he was— that voice in his head always seemed louder.

You’d spent years trying to quiet it. Tonight was no different. You knocked softly on his hotel door. Then waited. And waited.

Your stomach twisted. Because there was always a chance he wouldn’t let you in. That he’d choose isolation instead. And you’d respect that. Even if it broke your heart.

Then finally— the door opened. Lando stood there in grey sweats and an old t-shirt. His hair was messy. His eyes tired. His jaw tense.

But the second he saw you— something shifted. Not completely. But enough.

You lifted the bag of sweets in your hand like a peace offering. “I come bearing emotional support sweets.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. And he stepped aside.

That tiny movement felt like victory.

You’d learned a long time ago that pushing Lando never worked. He talked when he was ready. Your job was simply to stay.

So that’s what you did. You kicked off your shoes and dramatically launched yourself onto his bed. Sprawling across it like you paid for the room yourself. Lando sat near the headboard, shoulders still rigid with tension.

“Never thought I’d get to see this side of the world,” you said after a while, opening the sweets. “Becoming friends with you was actually a brilliant financial decision.”

A small laugh escaped him. Forced. But present.

You kept going. “You know, I found these bracelets at a market yesterday,” you held yours up proudly. “I was going to get you one but they didn’t have idiot sizes.”

He huffed a real laugh this time. Your chest warmed. Progress. “The dumplings here are incredible by the way. Life-changing, honestly,” he looked at you properly now. “I think I might move here solely for dumplings.”

“That feels dramatic.”

“You know me.”

“I unfortunately do.”

And so it continued. You rambled. About markets. About your flight. About bad tourists. About a waiter who hated you. Anything to pull him out of his own head.

And slowly— his shoulders dropped. His jaw unclenched. His eyes softened.

By the time an hour passed— his smile looked real again. And your heart nearly burst with relief.

“Do you want to listen to some music?” you asked softly. You moved beside him at the headboard, slipping beneath his duvet like you belonged there. Maybe you did.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

Your shoulder brushed his. Then stayed there. Neither of you moved away. Your pulse did something strange. You ignored it.

You pulled out your phone and opened a playlist you’d carefully built for nights exactly like this. Songs for when Lando forgot how incredible he was. Songs for when you didn’t have the right words.

Lorde began playing softly.

The room went quiet. Your fingers found his hand beneath the duvet without thinking. Like muscle memory. Like instinct.

Lando looked down at your intertwined hands. Then at you.

Your head rested against his shoulder now. Your breathing slowly evening out. He could feel every inhale. Every exhale. Every place your body touched his felt electrically alive. His heart stuttered painfully against his ribs.

And then— you fell asleep. Typical. But, you were still holding his hand. Still tucked against his side. Still trusting him with every fragile part of yourself.

Lando looked down when you let out the tiniest snore. And he smiled so hard it almost hurt. Because no one knew how to love him like this. Quietly. Patiently. Without asking for anything in return.

And God— he was so hopelessly in love with you it felt terminal.

Later that night, after carefully untangling himself so he wouldn’t wake you— he added more songs to the playlist. Because it reminded him of your hand finding his in the dark. Of your head on his shoulder. Of how your love always arrived in the exact form he needed.

And how terrifying it was that you still didn’t realise you already owned his entire heart.

2024 - cardigan.

The atmosphere was electric. It buzzed through your veins so violently you thought you might explode from it. The screams. The chanting. The tears. The heat.

Everything blurred into one overwhelming moment. And yet somehow— all you could see was him. Standing on the top step. His first win. Finally.

Your face was soaked with tears. Your cheeks hurt. Your chest physically ached from how hard your heart was pounding. You’d watched the entire race barely breathing as he defended against lap after lap.

And when he crossed that finish line— you’d screamed so loudly that his mum had burst into laughter before pulling you into her arms.

Only then had you realised you were sobbing. Properly sobbing. Completely undignified. You didn’t care.

Your best friend had just won his first Formula One race. And the world finally felt correct.

You’d always known he was destined for this. Even before either of you really understood what racing meant. There had always been something extraordinary about him.

You saw it the day he’d looked up at you from the ground after you shoved him off the climbing frame. That ridiculous grin. That spark in his eyes. That certainty.

Maybe that was why you’d agreed to be his best friend so easily. Because some part of you knew your life would always be brighter with him in it.

You watched him disappear into a sea of orange as the celebrations roared around him. His family clung to him. His team cried. Champagne sprayed everywhere.

And you stayed back. Even though every part of you wanted to launch yourself at him. Wanted to kiss his stupid smiling face. Wanted to tell him you loved him.

That thought hit you so suddenly you almost stopped breathing. You blinked it away. Absolutely not. You were emotional. That was all.

Then he stepped onto the podium. And you forgot how to breathe all over again. Because he looked— beautiful.

There was no other word for it. Sunlight caught in his curls. His jaw sharp beneath the spray of champagne. His smile so bright it bordered on blinding.

As the British anthem played, all you could think was: He belongs there. He always had.

Hours later, once the chaos in the garage had calmed slightly— you ran. Straight at him.

Lando barely had time to react before you launched yourself into his arms. He stumbled backward with a startled laugh before his hands locked around your waist. Lifting you effortlessly.

Your legs instinctively wrapped around him. And suddenly— everything else disappeared. The noise. The team. The cameras. The celebration.

Gone. 

All you could feel was him. Warm. Sweaty. Sticky with champagne. Real. Your face buried into his neck. His breath hot against your skin.

“I’m so fucking proud of you, Lan,” you whispered brokenly. Your voice cracked. “You were incredible today.”

His grip tightened around your waist. And when he spoke, his voice sounded dangerously soft. “I’m just glad you were here.”

Your entire body went still. Your heart stuttered violently. Because he said it like it mattered. Like you mattered.

And that felt far too dangerous to unpack.

So like always, you didn’t.

Later, exhausted and slightly tipsy, you found yourself in the backseat on the drive to the hotel. Your forehead rested against the cool glass. Your headphones played softly. Your entire body hummed with emotional exhaustion.

Then— his hand landed on your bare knee. You physically jolted. Electricity tore through your body so sharply your breath caught. It felt like every nerve ending you possessed had suddenly become aware of him.

You turned sharply. Lando was already watching you. His curls still damp. His cheeks flushed. His eyes impossibly soft. Golden under the streetlights. He looked unfairly beautiful.

He nodded toward your earphones. You pulled one out slowly.

“What’s on the playlist today?” His voice was quiet. His thumb absentmindedly brushed across your knee. Once. Twice. Your brain completely short-circuited.

You forgot every word you’d ever known. Forgot how breathing worked. Forgot your own name, probably.

“I—” Nothing. Your lips parted uselessly.

Lando’s eyes dropped to your mouth. Then flicked back up. And suddenly the air felt dangerously thin.

So instead— you shoved the earbud toward him. Coward.

He took it. Listened for a moment. Then laughed softly. “Taylor Swift?”

You exhaled shakily. “I like her lyrics.”

His hand finally left your knee. And you hated the loss instantly.

Later that night, drunk and still buzzing from victory, Lando added the song to the playlist. Because your legs had wrapped around him like instinct. Because your body reacted to his touch like it meant something. Because you looked at him like he hung the stars.

And for the first time in years— he allowed himself to believe this might actually have a happy ending.

2025 - Everywhere, Everything.

Lando knew it was a terrible idea. Max had certainly told him it was a terrible idea. His mum probably would’ve agreed.

And yet— when you casually suggested spending two weeks with him in Monaco before pre-season testing began— he said yes before his brain could intervene.

Which was objectively idiotic. Two whole weeks. Just you. Just him. Alone. In his flat. Wandering sun-drenched streets. Getting tipsy in tiny restaurants hidden from tourists. Falling asleep on the sofa during films. Talking until three in the morning about childhood memories.

It was a spectacularly terrible idea for someone hopelessly in love with his best friend. Especially after Miami. After the way you’d looked at him. After how your body reacted to his touch.

He’d almost convinced himself you felt it too.

Then two weeks later— you’d tried setting him up with a girl in a bar. And yelled at him when he turned her down.

So clearly— he was an idiot. And this? This was simply him volunteering for emotional torture.

By day seven, being woken by your singing had become routine. Terrible singing. Loud singing. Entirely confident singing. He usually found it deeply annoying.

He secretly adored it.

Dragging himself from bed, hair a mess and sleep still heavy in his bones, Lando expected to find you singing while doing something normal. Brushing your teeth. Doing laundry. Scrolling your phone.

What he didn’t expect— what stopped him dead in the doorway— was you dancing in his kitchen. Morning sunlight spilled through the windows. Your bare feet slid across the floor. Your phone blasted from the counter.

And you— God. You were wearing his clothes. One of his oversized t-shirts which swallowed your frame. A pair of his shorts hung low on your hips. Your hair was messy from sleep. You were singing lyrics that were definitely incorrect while attempting to cook breakfast.

And Lando forgot how to breathe. Completely. Because it looked— dangerously— like home. Like Sunday mornings ten years from now. Like every future he’d quietly imagined but never let himself fully want.

His chest physically ached from it. Because this was everything he wanted. And none of it was actually his. You were still just his best friend. And that felt unbearably cruel.

He stood there far longer than he should have. Just watching. Watching you dance terribly. Watching you smile to yourself. Watching your hips sway off beat. Committing every second to memory.

Then you spun around. And screamed. “Lando!” You clutched your chest dramatically. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

He laughed softly. “Now you know how it feels.”

You narrowed your eyes. Then turned back toward the stove. “Get out.”

“What?”

“I’m making you breakfast.”

“It smells burnt.”

You gasped. “It is caramelised.”

“It smells like smoke.”

“Get out, Norris!”

Lando raised his hands in surrender, laughing as he retreated. And somehow— he fell even harder.

A few minutes later, you appeared balancing two plates. He watched you set breakfast down with an unnecessarily proud expression.

Shockingly— it was edible.

You talked through breakfast. About a bizarre dream you’d had. About a dog you saw yesterday. About absolutely nothing.

And Lando sat there watching morning light hit your face and thought: This is it. This is everything. This is what people write songs about. This is what forever should feel like.

And it was killing him. Because he couldn’t have it.

“So,” you asked brightly, stabbing your fork into your eggs, “what’s the plan today?”

Lando nearly said: Stay exactly here forever.

Instead, he smiled. And let you plan another day he’d replay for the rest of his life.

After breakfast, he insisted on washing up. You bounded around the table. Then— without thinking— pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thanks, Lan.”

And walked away. Just like that. Like you hadn’t completely altered his molecular structure. 

Lando froze. Plate still in hand. Heart pounding so hard it physically hurt. His skin burned where your lips touched him. And for one completely delusional second— he let himself imagine chasing after you.

Pulling you back. Kissing you properly. Telling you everything.

But instead— he stood perfectly still. And accepted the devastating truth. He was going to be in love with you for the rest of his life. Whether you ever loved him back or not.

Once again, after you’d both gone to bed much later than you should have, he added another song to the playlist.

Then lay awake staring at his ceiling until sunrise— wondering how something could feel so much like forever and still not be his.

You couldn’t breathe.

As You Are In Love began to swell through the speakers, it felt like your entire body was shutting down. Your hands trembled violently. Your chest ached. Your face was soaked with tears, mascara dragging down your cheeks as years of memories crashed into you all at once.

Every song. Every moment. Every tiny memory he had treasured enough to save. He had taken the most ordinary moments of your life and turned them into something sacred.

And somehow— every single song had been about you. You felt sick with it. Not disgust. Not fear. Just overwhelming, all-consuming emotion.

Because how had you missed this? How had you missed him?

Before you could gather a coherent thought— the bathroom door opened. Steam spilled into the room.

And there he was.

Lando walked out of the bathroom adjusting the collar of his shirt, curls still damp from his shower. “Before you say anything,” he began lightly, “my mum bought me this shirt and I know it looks slightly divorced dad but—”

He stopped. Completely. His eyes landed on you. Your tear-streaked face. His phone in your trembling hands. The music still quietly filling the room. And all the colour drained from his face so quickly it terrified you.

You watched the exact moment he understood. The exact moment his entire body seemed to lock up. 

“Oh,” the word barely existed. His throat bobbed harshly. “It’s not—” He stopped himself. Because what exactly was the lie? That the playlist wasn’t about you? That he hadn’t spent half his life loving you? That every song didn’t belong to a version of you he had adored? His breathing became uneven. “I can explain.”

“Lando—”

“No,” his voice cracked so sharply it made your heart lurch. “Please— please just let me explain before you say anything.”

And suddenly he looked terrified. Not embarrassed. Not awkward. Terrified. Like this was his worst nightmare unfolding in real time. Like he was watching his entire future collapse. He didn’t come closer. Didn’t dare. Because this— this was the moment he had spent years avoiding.

He was twelve years old when he started that playlist. A stupid little coping mechanism. A place to put feelings that felt too enormous for a twelve-year-old boy to understand. And over time— it became everything. Every version of you. Every memory. Every almost. Every moment he loved you so much it felt unbearable.

And now you knew. And he was certain he was about to lose the most important person in his life. “I know it’s pathetic,” he laughed weakly, though it sounded more like he was breaking apart. “I know it’s insane and creepy and I should’ve deleted it years ago but I—”

His voice broke completely. His eyes squeezed shut. “I didn’t know what to do with how much I love you,” your entire body went still. And Lando mistook your silence for devastation. He nodded to himself like he was bracing for impact. “That’s fair.”

Your face crumpled further. “Lando—”

“No, it’s okay,” he was crying now. Actually crying. And it looked like it was killing him to keep speaking. “I know you don’t feel the same,” that sentence physically hurt to hear. “I know that,” he inhaled shakily. “But I swear to God I never wanted anything from you.”

His voice cracked again. “I was happy just being your best friend,” he laughed bitterly through tears. “Well— not happy. That feels dramatic. But I could live with it,” he looked at you then. Completely wrecked. Because he had nothing left to hide. “I could survive loving you quietly,” your breathing turned ragged. “But I couldn’t survive losing you.”

That shattered something inside you. Because suddenly— everything made sense. 

Every boyfriend you compared to him. Every moment of jealousy you swallowed. Every electric touch. Every almost kiss. Every irrational fear of him falling in love with someone else. Every time your heart had screamed his name while your brain called it friendship. Every version of your future that felt wrong unless he was standing in it.

Oh.

Oh.

You had been in love with him for years. Maybe forever. And you had both wasted so much time being afraid.

A broken laugh escaped through your tears. “You absolute idiot.”

Lando blinked at you. Completely confused. “What?”

And then you moved. Fast enough that he barely had time to react before your hands framed his face. Your thumbs wiped away tears he clearly hadn’t even realised had fallen.

And then— you kissed him.

And the world stopped. Completely. His lips were warm. Soft. Familiar in a way that made no sense and yet felt entirely right. Like your body had been waiting years for this exact moment.

Lando froze for half a second. Then he kissed you back like he’d been starving. One hand buried itself in your hair. The other wrapped around your waist and pulled you impossibly closer. And suddenly there was no space left between either of you.

No room for fear. No room for doubt. Just years of buried love finally spilling free.

The kiss was desperate. Tender. Messy with tears and laughter and disbelief. Every almost. Every longing glance. Every song. Every moment. All of it led here.

When you finally pulled apart, both of you were breathless. Foreheads pressed together. Laughing in stunned disbelief.

“How long?” you whispered.

Lando let out a shaky laugh. “Honestly?” His thumb brushed your cheek. “I think I came out of the womb loving you.”

You laughed through tears. “God,” you collapsed into him again, hiding your face in his neck. “We are such idiots,” his arms tightened around you instantly. “I don’t think I’ve ever known what it feels like not to love you, Lan.”

He went completely still. Like he needed to hear it again to believe it. “You love me?”

You pulled back just enough to look at him. “You made an entire playlist documenting our love story and you’re still asking stupid questions?”

He laughed so hard it broke into a sob. And kissed you again. Softer this time. Reverent.

“I love you,” he whispered against your lips. “So much it’s actually embarrassing.”

“I’m sorry I looked through your phone.”

“I’m sorry I made a secret psycho playlist.”

You snorted. “It’s disgustingly romantic actually.”

His smile nearly blinded you.

Later that night, after hours of talking and kissing and laughing and saying I love you in increasingly ridiculous ways— you fell asleep wrapped in his arms. Your back pressed to his chest. His lips brushing lazy kisses against your shoulder. Like he still couldn’t quite believe you were real. 

At some point during the night— you quietly stole his phone. Opened the playlist. And smiled.

You changed the title.

songs that sound like home (finally mine)

Then you added one final song.

When Lando found it the next morning— the sound of his laughter woke you. Followed very quickly by him kissing you like he planned on doing it for the rest of his life.

And for the first time— forever didn’t feel frightening. 

It felt exactly like home.

The topic of conversation: a recent upsurge in online adulation for your boyfriend, simply because he’d stepped out in longer hair and pants that fit well. Thirst edits of Oscar had even made their way to Alex’s For You Page; when you look back on this moment, that’s where you’ll pin the blame. 

Oscar comes to a cartoonish halt as he’s on his way to the main shoot, limbs frozen mid-gait. “What was that?”

You turn at the sound of his voice and smile warmly at him, a familiar fondness surging through you at the sight of his floppy hair post-helmet fitting. “Oh, hey! All done?”

“Yeah, yeah. What was that? About the, uh, trend in fan interest?” He directs his question at Alex, who looks between the two of you with thinly-veiled amusement before answering. 

“They were really into your new look. Hair, pants, you know. But they’re always into you,” Alex allows. 

Oscar waves him off good-naturedly. “Cheers, mate. And you said it hardly registers to you anymore?” His attention is now fixed on you, intense and single-minded in a way that makes you squirm a bit—he looks like this whenever he’s set his mind to some new challenge, all steel and sinew. 

Still, you laugh, making light of your comment. “That you’re hot? Oh, please. I just meant that I’m used to you, that’s all. I’ve known you for years!”

Oscar spots Lando coming this way and raises his voice slightly to reach the other driver. “Hey, Lando! Do you think I’m hot?”

Lando gives your group a two-fingered salute and replies without even looking up from his phone. “Ask me a serious question.”

Oscar points at him, half triumphant, half accusing. “Lando’s known me for years, too.”

You roll your eyes. “C’mon, Oscar. You were shorter than me when we met, and your sleeves didn’t reach your wrists because your arms were growing faster than your legs. Which was not a deterrent for me, by the way! I had a crush on you even then, way before you had any fans,” you hurry to add. 

“But you don’t have a crush on me anymore?” he presses. 

“Anymore? What are you talking about—Oscar, we’re dating,” you splutter.

Alex—and Lando, drawn in by his nose for drama and general amusement—watches your exchange like a tennis match. 

Oscar narrows his eyes at you, then rolls his shoulders back and nods, having evidently come to a decision. “I bet I can have you swooning like a fan within two weeks,” he declares. 

The statement is so absurd and so unlike him that you burst out laughing. “Sorry, what?”

He doesn’t blink. “You heard me. Two weeks, baby. Winner gets to choose what we do for summer break.”

Oh, this is serious. You straighten and put your hands on your hips, projecting a confidence you don’t quite feel. “Deal.”

He winks—winks!—at you before being ushered away to the photoshoot, and you’re left standing there, heat crawling up the back of your neck. 

Alex and Lando break, hooting and shrieking with laughter. 

“You’re in trouble,” Alex gasps out. 

Your jaw drops. “You guys don’t think I can resist swooning for two weeks? When have you ever known me to swoon?” 

“I don’t think you can resist a competitive, motivated Oscar for two weeks,” Lando corrects. 

As if. You’re a grown woman with a fully developed pre-frontal cortex. You’re made of stronger stuff than that. 

As it turns out, you are not made of stronger stuff than that. 

“This is ridiculous. This is obscene,” you hiss. 

Lily whistles between her teeth. “This is a show, honey. One-man show, sold out just to you.”

The press powers-that-be have decided that the drivers should do individual and group helmet shots this year. Which would be fine, but the photos are being taken in Monaco, on a docked yacht, in full view of the cafe where Oscar had innocently suggested would be good for brunch with the drivers’ partners. 

Not so innocent now, you realize, as you’re watching Oscar lift up his goddamn shirt to wipe at the visor of his helmet for a “candid” shot. 

His shirt, which can only charitably be called such, because it’s a billowy, practically translucent thing; the kind of white button-down guys wear in the Mediterranean to be allowed to order a drink at the bar, but not much else. 

“Where did that shirt even come from? I swear I’ve never seen it in his closet,” you gripe. It’s true—Oscar owns maybe three white button-downs, one-and-a-half of which fit him, all of which are the kind of thick, stiff cotton that needs to be ironed before wear. Nothing approaching the casual elegance of what he’s got now, sea breeze kicking merrily at the hem of his shirt and dancing atop his shoulders.

Alexandra giggles from beside you. “That might be Charles’s fault. Oscar came over last night to borrow a shirt for today’s shoot… and with the way you’re reacting, I’m not sure he’ll want to give it back.”

“I am not reacting—oh my god, Oscar’s going to kill him,” you announce upon seeing Lando douse Oscar thoroughly with a water gun. But instead of grabbing the gun out of Lando’s hands and emptying the whole thing onto his head, as you expect, Oscar just smiles pleasantly and shakes water out of his hair. 

You’re instantly suspicious at his lack of put-out, drowned-cat behavior. And your suspicions are proved correct because Oscar makes sure to look directly at you and shrug in an oh, what can you do? kind of way before starting to unbutton his shirt entirely. 

Lily and Alexandra are downright cackling now. “I think Oscar’s going to kill you, first,” Lily delights in pointing out.

Her words pretty much go in through one ear and out through another for you. You’re transfixed by the steady, methodical work Oscar’s hands are engaged in now, undoing each button on his (Charles's?) shirt with a dexterity he has no reason to show off for such a menial task. You’re vaguely aware that your jaw is slack and you’re blatantly ogling him, but you can’t help it, not really. A faint smirk graces Oscar’s lips as the last button pops loose; he looks like he was born to do nothing but sit around and be handsome on a yacht, cheeks kissed pink by an obliging sun and your even more obliging attention. 

Divine intervention arrives in the form of your waiter, delivering a round of drinks to the table. You thank the waiter far more fervently than is necessary and gulp down half a peach bellini without tasting it. 

Lily takes pity on you and offers you a mini fan from her purse, but you wave it away with the grim determination of a soldier heading off to battle. “Oh no,” you insist, “I’m not going down that easy.”

Alexandra muffles a laugh into her drink. “Are you not already down?” 

You shoot her a dirty look and refuse to dignify that with an answer. 

On the yacht, water drips from Oscar’s hair down the planes of his chest, tracking down terrain you know like gospel. In one smooth movement, he flicks his shirt away from where it’d been sticking to his torso and twists to say something to the photographer, exposing the flex in the obliques along his waist. 

Your willpower whimpers.

“Don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?” Lando remarks, eyeing the cafe where the girls are sitting.

Oscar squints at him and resists the urge to put on sunglasses, which he knows would ruin the show he’s putting on for you. “I think there’s a bet on, and all fair’s in love and war.”

Lando tuts sympathetically in your direction. “Poor girl.”

Oscar scoffs. “You’re lucky she’s here; otherwise, I’d have pushed you overboard for that shit with the water gun.”

“Promises, promises. But who knew you had it in you, huh? Where was this energy when we were doing the merch shoot last week?” Lando gestures at Oscar and all of his slick skin and shameless smirking. 

“Not like this is my normal state of being. This is the hardest I’ve ever worked for a paycheck.” Even now, Oscar has to resist the urge to hunch into his usual posture. 

Charles catches the tail end of his comment and laughs heartily. “Mate, you are so full of it.”

“Sorry, are you seriously talking right now? Guy who’s been voted most handsome on the grid like, every single year?” Oscar grumbles.

Charles clasps a hand to his chest, all aflutter. “Aw, Oscar, I didn’t know you were keeping track like that.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Not really much to keep track of if it’s the same every year.”

Charles drops the ingénue act and starts to look at him more thoughtfully. “I thought you didn’t care about stuff like that.”

“I don’t. I care about…” Oscar coughs and refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. “I care about her. What she thinks.” 

“Uh, I don’t know if you noticed, but she looks like she wants to jump you.” Lando shades his eyes with his hands to get a better look at you. “Violently or sexually, or both—hard to say.” 

“You have such a way with words,” Oscar deadpans, resisting the urge to see for himself. “Anyways, she said she’s used to me.”

Charles shakes his head. “You can’t tell me you actually believe that.”

“Not for a second, but—” Oscar sighs and gives in to the urge to look at you. Even from this distance, he can tell that you’re flustered, and that sends a jolt of self-satisfaction through him. His mouth curls into a grin, boyish and playful as he mouths the words Hi, baby, to you. 

You turn away instantly, and he laughs out loud. No, you have never given Oscar a reason to feel insecure in his relationship or in himself. And he’s glad that you like him—love him—for all the right reasons. His ambition, his level head, the way he treats others, and even his dry-ass sense of humor. Still, level as his head may be, he’s also young and in love, and his pre-frontal cortex is not yet fully developed, so yes, he thinks it’d be nice to hear that you like him for all the superficial reasons, too. 

“—but this is kinda fun, anyways,” he finishes. 

Down at the cafe, your heart is thrumming like a snare drum even as you refuse to look at Oscar. “I cannot believe him,” you say, trying to sound indignant and ending up somewhere near breathy.

Alexandra pats your hand, placating. “Oh, have some mercy. He’s suffering just for you.”

“Suffering? The guy’s on a yacht. In Monaco.”

“Yeah, and do you think he’d ever be caught dead behaving like this for anyone else?” Lily levels you with a knowing look.

“Well… no,” you’re forced to admit. “But that doesn’t excuse his behavior!"

“God forbid your boyfriend tries to seduce you,” Lily agrees archly. 

“He doesn’t need to seduce me—he already has me!” you cry. 

“Right, so… tell him that.” Alexandra, ever the voice of reason.

You whip around and glare at her. “And lose the bet? Absolutely not.”

She sighs and tosses her hands up. “I give up. You guys are made for each other.”

Inexorably, your gaze swings back to Oscar on the yacht, where he’s leaning back against the railing of the top deck, shirt lifted by the wind. A hum of pure delight escapes you at the welcome sight. Yeah, you’re made for each other, alright. You watch appreciatively as Oscar cocks his head to receive an instruction from the photographer, but then he’s tossing his shirt aside and—oh dear god, he’s diving off the boat, one perfect arc slicing through the glittering Mediterranean sea.

You toss back the rest of your drink and slam it down on the table. “We’re leaving,” you grit out.

In the immediate aftermath of Oscar’s… performance on the yacht, he has wisely chosen to ease his foot off of the drive-my-girlfriend-insane pedal. But he’s only human, and his conscious choices must yield to his unconscious instincts, so when he gets a series of dramatic texts from you about severing all of your blood ties (read: you’re helping plan your sister’s wedding, and both her and your mother are being nightmares about it), it’s instinct that pushes his bottom lip out just slightly (a pout by any other name) for your plight.

It’s instinct that drives him to scour the high-brow Monaco grocery aisles for your favorite boxed mac-and-cheese and tomato soup, it’s instinct (and maybe a bit of his own sweet tooth) that stops him in front of a display of chocolate flowers, and it’s instinct that carries him through sniffing approximately thirty candles to find the one he thinks you’ll like most. 

His own desires come into the mix when you arrive home and he kisses you hello, slow and indulgent, but that’s instinct, too; kissing you has always felt like the natural conclusion to where his body should end and yours should begin. And he knows exactly how to kiss you mindless, so he luxuriates in it, draws it out like molasses, a masterclass in heat and sensation. 

When he finally pulls himself back from the trembling pulse in your neck, some indeterminate amount of time later, he’s pleased to see that your eyes have gone hazy and heavy-lidded, all thoughts of cake flavors and tablecloth colors purged by his wandering mouth. 

“Hi,” you breathe out, slightly hoarse. The problem with being so hopelessly in love with your boyfriend is that it really doesn’t take much to set you off. The kiss—all of the kisses—were spectacular, of course, and he’s managed to take you so completely out of your head that you’re surprised to discover you’re still splayed against the door, purse and keys and shopping bags perilously close to dropping from your suddenly loose limbs. 

But it’s really the fact that you’ve caught the scent of some woodsy candle in the air, and you can see a spot of tomato soup at the hem of his shirt and another of cheese powder at the collar, and you can taste chocolate on his tongue—all of that, and the care and devotion it entails, is really what warms your chest and weakens your knees. 

“Hi,” he returns, grin lopsided and arms solid around you, so steady and reliable that you have to reconsider your aversion to swooning.

The worst—best?—part is that he won’t hold you against your bet for finding him so unbelievably attractive right now, because he doesn’t even know. He has no idea that he’s doing anything remarkable; to him, all of this is just instinct. 

“I love you,” you sigh, awash in contentment.

He hums a tuneless agreement into your hair. “Double it and give it to the next person.” 

And then there’s that infamous sense of humor. You pinch his waist lightly in retaliation, but he sees that coming from a mile away and dodges easily to plant a kiss on your forehead instead.

“Silly, you’re the next person,” he tells you, unabashedly fond even as his hand slips up your inner thigh, and yep, that’s it—dinner can wait.

The next time is all premeditated—no instinct, just strategy.

Step 1: Find an event to go to that requires him to wear a suit. This would normally be the opposite of enticing to him, but he knows the cards he can play, and well-fitting formalwear is at the top of the deck.

He tries to be subtle about it, bringing it up one morning when you’re getting ready in the bathroom. He tells you that Hattie’s been bugging him for weeks to take her to this charity gala where one of the K-pop groups she likes will be in attendance. This is all true, but this is also where he makes his first fatal mistake:

“ENHYPEN?!” Your shriek makes him wince.

“Uh, yes, do you know them?”

“Oscar.” You throw him a withering look. “Do I know them? Yes, you idiot. I know them. Honestly, what a question. Of course I’ll go with you! Oh my god, I should text Hattie to see what she’s wearing…” And then you’re bustling away, and he’s left blinking at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. 

Step 2: Acquire aforementioned well-fitting formalwear. This isn’t the kind of thing where he can just go borrow something from Charles, and while Charles would probably still be his first choice for the daunting task of shopping, the man is out of town this weekend.

So, Oscar is left with some knockoff of the Three Musketeers: George, Alex, and Lando. That’s his second fatal mistake. 

“I didn’t actually ask you two to come,” Oscar makes a point of saying to Alex and Lando. 

Lando sniffs. “I take offense to that.”

“Yeah, you were meant to. I’m not about to show up to this thing in a fluorescent bowtie.”

“Not that I have one, but I’d rock a fluorescent bowtie.”

Alex holds up his hands. “I’m just here because I was with George when you called him. Also, my sister wants Niki’s autograph, so do me a solid, yeah?”

“Once you told me what was going on, I knew I needed to call in reinforcements,” George—the only one Oscar had asked for help—explains.

Although, Oscar is now feeling a bit dubious about George’s judgement. “Alex and Lando are your reinforcements?”

“Not for style. Don’t be ridiculous. Just for this—here, make yourself useful.” George grabs five suits from a rack and dumps them in Lando’s arms.

Lando grunts under the sudden weight. “You know there are employees in this very expensive store who get paid absurd amounts of money to do this?” 

George dismisses him with a flick of his wrist. “I made a private styling appointment, without any employees, for a reason.” He grabs Alex’s arm and starts draping ties over it. 

“Actually, why did you ask the employees to leave?” Oscar’s curious, too.

George turns to him with utmost seriousness. “Oscar, I’m a good mate. I’m not about to let more strangers know the exact extent of your sad wardrobe.”

Damn. Oscar really should have waited for Charles to come back to town.

Oscar loses the plot somewhere around Step 3, which was probably going to be something like marvel at how hot your girlfriend is when she asks you to pick a dress.

As it is, he expresses his appreciation into the swell of your chest and the cradle of your hips on the morning of the gala, and you’re more than happy to accommodate.

“This doesn’t count for the bet, by the way,” you remind him. But the words come out on a moan, so it’s not your most convincing effort.

Oscar pulls his head up to huff a tiny laugh into your belly button. “You really wanna argue about that now?”

“Well, opportunities multiply as they’re seized."

He laughs fully at that one. “What?”

With no small degree of smugness, you inform him, “Sun Tzu. All’s fair in love and war, right?”

“Oh my god, did Lando snitch?” Miffed, Oscar pushes himself up on his elbows and frowns at you.

“Obviously. And he told me about your shopping trip, too!”

Oscar blows out a breath and collapses back into you. “Turncoat.”

You smooth down the ruffled hair at the top of his head. “If it’s any consolation, he traded me information for a Sunoo autograph for his sister.”

“Believe it or not, that offers me no consolation whatsoever.” Oscar sighs. “This whole gala thing is kind of backfiring on me, isn’t it?”

“A little, but then again, you get to see me in a dress I look killer in. There are worse fates.”

He presses a kiss into your sternum and smirks at the shiver that goes down your spine. Yeah, there are definitely worse fates.

This is something he has to remind himself of, many hours later, when he’s being coaxed through the motions of a 30-second TikTok dance by Jake Sim, who is displaying an admirable level of patience with him. That had been Oscar’s third fatal mistake: abiding by some vague sense of patriotism and Jake’s promise that the dance would be “easy” and “fun!”

“Sorry, dancing’s not really my thing,” Oscar apologizes for the umpteenth time after stepping on Jake’s foot. 

Jake waves the apology away easily. “Nah, dude, you’re doing great! And I could never do what you do, trust me. Maybe we can try the dance again, at point-two-five speed this time…”

Halfway across the room, you and Hattie watch with rapt fascination as Oscar attempts some kind of body roll, which sets you both off into hysterics.

“This is like Christmas, my birthday, and every other holiday rolled into one,” Hattie chortles.

“He is never going to live this down,” you wheeze. 

Hattie nods sagely. “Many such cases.” 

She continues to giggle as she pulls out her phone to film the whole ordeal, which is just as well because your amusement has turned syrupy sweet for your stiff-limbed boyfriend, whose face is bright red but is still trying so hard to do right by his countryman, his sister, and everyone else counting on him as an autograph conduit. 

This is what gets to you: he will grit his teeth through public humiliation if he has a promise to keep, and he will complete a task with equal parts dorkiness and sincerity, and he will never be anything less than your favorite person. So, yeah, you aren’t swooning, but your heart goes tender at the sight of him putting in the effort, anyways. 

Oscar is appropriately dramatic about his suffering when he returns ten minutes later and drops his head into the crook of your neck. “We should burn down TikTok,” he groans.

You pat the back of his head fondly. “Don’t quit your day job, baby. And don’t make your day job fire you for arson, either.”

“I’m going to play this video at your wedding,” Hattie declares gleefully.

Oscar discreetly points his middle finger at her. “Not if I don’t invite you.” 

The unspoken when—not if—of marriage has long been acknowledged between you and Oscar, but it still sends a little jolt through you every time. This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with, and if you are lucky, there will be many people who have equal longevity in your life, but there is only one Oscar. There is only one person who looks at you like you’ve inspired him to dream new dreams, only one person who has rewritten the rhythm of your heart to beat in time with his, only one person whose guiding star trails after the ones he sees in your eyes.

What is the point of swooning when this is the magnitude of what you feel for him, when you know the magnitude of what he feels for you?

It’s a rhetorical question, but it’s one that you answer for yourself an hour later, when he tosses the car keys to Hattie for the drive back home.

She shrieks, “Really? You’ll let me drive?”

“It’s a rental, obviously. But yes, I know you’ve always wanted to drive in Monaco. Don’t tell Mom,” he tacks on at the end, watching her get in the driver's seat with a shake of his head.

“Wow, somebody call the press! Never thought I’d see the day when you give up the keys,” you joke.

He pulls you close and murmurs the next words against your ear, raising goosebumps along your arms. “Would you believe me if I said I had ulterior motives?”

“What kind of ulterior motives—oh.” The breath gets knocked out of you when he pushes you gently into the backseat of the car, a knowing look in his eye.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you’ve been shifting on your feet all night, baby.” He gets down and starts undoing the intricate laces of your heels. “I thought you were going to get rid of these after how much they bothered you at the FIA ceremony.”

You melt into the seat; he’s so fucking dreamy like this, striking in a sharp suit, all clean lines and expensive tailoring. But more than that, it’s the way he dropped to his knees without a second thought, without regard to the gravel and dirt now rubbing against his multi-thousand-dollar pants, all because your feet hurt, and he noticed. He noticed even before the ache in your soles registered to you. 

One shoe comes off, and then he’s pressing a kiss into your ankle with a wicked smile. “What’s got you so tongue-tied, hm?” 

You release your bottom lip from where you’d been biting it between your teeth, watching him. “Maybe I should keep the shoes, if I get to see you like this.”

The other shoe comes off, punctuated with a kiss to your other ankle. “You know I’d get on my knees for you any time, gorgeous.”

There’s nothing appropriate you can say in response to that, so you just try to trap the whimper in your throat as best as you can.

Your shoes dangle from his fingers when he gets in the car, and then he’s pulling up the privacy divider and kissing you with such intensity that it makes you gasp, tongue sweeping into your mouth like he owns it, teeth catching on your bottom lip and digging in right where yours left a mark earlier. It’s over as quickly as it began (he still has some sense of decorum), but he makes it one of the hottest moments of your life, and you think you could live inside of it forever.

When he pulls away, he rubs his thumb over the wet shine of your mouth and grins smugly at the shudder it elicits from you. “Messy girl,” he coos, sucking his thumb into his own mouth just to see you squirm again.

“Oh, god,” you say finally, with feeling. You'd have swooned if you hadn't already been sitting.

“Nah, just Oscar,” he corrects, cheeky.

The coup de grâce comes a week later.

Frankly, you’d kind of forgotten about the bet in that week, because it’s the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix, and Oscar’s heart has been broken here too many times for you to think about anything else.

He’s a good sport about it and always has been, so you also try to be casual about it throughout the week, like you couldn’t care less how he does on Saturday. In the grand scheme of things, you don’t care; he has been beloved to you long before he ever got into an F1 car, and he will always shine so brightly to you, no matter what he does on track. But you know the enormity of the hunger that hums underneath his skin whenever he’s in Albert Park—the scale of his hope, the reach of his longing.

You want it because he wants it, and even then, you know your want is only a shadow of his. Still, your heart pounds in your ears through all 58 laps, a constant drumbeat of Please, please, please, as if the circuit can hear you. Please be kind to him. Please let me see that once-in-a-lifetime smile again.

The unbelievable, dizzying speed of this sport contradicts itself at the end. When Oscar’s car crosses the finish line in P1, the world goes slow-motion around you as bedlam of the best kind erupts. His sisters are shrieking, jumping up and down, and his parents are crying freely, but all you see is him, getting out of the car and raising his fists to the crowd, which roars its approval back tenfold.

You’re running to him before anyone can stop you, everything other than him fading to background noise. He whoops when you jump into his arms, and though he still has his helmet on, you know there’s that once-in-a-lifetime smile underneath it. And so goes your white flag, waving in defeat. He was right—he’d have you swooning within two weeks. 

Really, it was a losing battle from the start. You’d been naive to think otherwise; after all, you’re so goddamn in love with him. Later, you’ll tell him all of this, and more. But for now…

If you’re going down, you’re going down swinging.

“Oscar,” you begin, all bravado and command. “Get ready to catch me.”

He barely has time to splutter out a muffled What? behind his helmet before you’re pitching yourself backwards. 

Thank god for racing reflexes; he catches you one-handed, just inches from the ground. You pop a leg up for him to hold by his waist, just for the drama of it all, and then you press a kiss to his helmet.

The moment is picture-perfect; indeed, a thousand camera shutters go off around you. But his world has narrowed just to you, dazzling and breathless, so lovely it makes his chest ache, makes his whole body remember that gravity is tethered to wherever you’re standing. 

Oh, he thinks, you are so dear to me. 

He has spent two weeks peacocking and preening, putting on airs designed specifically to get under your skin, tempting you with sin and seduction, turning you molten with a flicker of his gaze, a whisper of his touch. Even after all of that, it only takes a few words from you to bring him to his knees.

And the next words out of your mouth are made for him: “Hi there, hometown hero. I’m so proud of you.”

you  smooth  your  thumb  over  the  letter  in  your  lap,  the  paper  worn  soft  at  the  creases  from  how  many  times  you  have  folded  and  unfolded  it,  traced  the  elegant  loops  of  lady  albon's  handwriting. my  dearest  girl,  she  had  written, it  is  time  you  came  home.

home.  as  though  you  still  have  one.  as  though  the  townhouse  where  you  spent  the  first  twelve  years  of  your  life  has  not  been  shuttered  and  sold,  as  though  your  mother's  name  is  not  still  whispered  in  drawing  rooms  with  that  particular tone  of  half-scandal  and  half-pity  that  makes  you  want  to  crawl  out  of  your  own  skin.

but  lady  albon  had  written,  and  lady  albon  had  insisted,  and  when  the  dowager  viscountess  of  a  family  as  old  and  respectable  as  the  albons  insists  that  you  will  stay  with  them  for  the  season,  that  you  will  have  your  debut  under  her  sponsorship,  that  she  will  not  hear  a  single  word  of  refusal… well.  you  have  learned,  over  the  years,  that  there  are  some  forces  of  nature  one  simply  does  not  argue  with.

the  carriage  turns  onto  a  familiar  street.  familiar,  though  you  have  not  seen  it  in  over  a  decade,  familiar  because  you  have  dreamed  of  it,  because  the  memory  of  these  townhouses  with  their  white  facades  and  wrought-iron  railings  has  lived  behind  your  eyelids  every  night  since  you  were  torn  away.  your  heart  begins  to  pound  so  violently  you  fear  the  driver  must  hear  it,  fear  that  the  whole  of  london  must  hear  it,  this  traitorous  organ  announcing  your  return  with  all  the  subtlety  of  a  herald's  trumpet.

there.  the  albon  residence.  fourth  house  from  the  corner,  distinguished  by  the  climbing  roses  that  lady  albon  has  always  insisted  upon  keeping  despite  the  gardener's  yearly  protestations  that  the  london  air  is  too  foul  for  such  delicate  blooms.  the  roses  are  in  full  flower  now,  a  riot  of  pink  and  cream  spilling  over  the  iron  fence,  and  the  sight  of  them  makes  your  eyes  sting.

you  are  not  going  to  cry.  you  are  three-and-twenty  years  old,  a  woman  grown,  and  you  are  not  going  to  cry  over roses.

the  carriage  slows.  stops.

and  then—

the  blue  door  flies  open  before  your  footman  has  even  lowered  the  steps,  and  there  is  a  sound  like  a  small  stampede,  a  blur  of  muslin  and  ribbons  and  flying  hair,  and  you  hear  your  name—  your christian  name,  propriety  be  damned—  shrieked  across  the  morning  air  in  three  voices  at  once.

“you're  here!”

you  barely  have  time  to  gather  your  skirts  before  the  carriage  door  is  wrenched  open  and  there  is  zoe,  zoe  who  was  eleven  years  old  and  missing  her  two  front  teeth  when  you  left,  zoe  who  is  now  a  woman  grown  with  her  dark  hair  pinned  up  in  a  style  that  is  only  slightly  askew  from  her  sprint  down  the  front  steps.  she  is  reaching  for  you,  laughing  and  crying  all  at  once,  and  behind  her  alicia  is  bouncing  on  her  heels  with  an  expression  of  barely  contained  joy,  and  behind her  is  chloe—  chloe,  who  was  five  years  old  and  still  in  the  nursery  when  you  were  sent  away,  who  you  know  only  from  letters  and  the  miniature  portrait  zoe  sent  you  three  years  ago.

“let  her breathe,  zoe,”  alicia  says,  though  she  is  already  shouldering  past  her  sister  to  grasp  your  hands  the  moment  your  feet  touch  the  pavement,  squeezing  so  tightly  you  fear  for  your  circulation.  “oh,  look  at  you,  look  at you—  you're  so tall—”

“i  am  precisely  the  same  height  i  was  in  my  last  letter,”  you  manage,  “i  believe  i  even  specified—”

“letters  are not  the  same,”  chloe  interrupts,  but  then  zoe  pulls  you  into  an  embrace  so  fierce  it  nearly  knocks  the  breath  from  your  lungs,  and  you  feel  chloe's  hand  on  your  arm,  and  alicia  is  pressed  against  your  side,  and  you  are  surrounded,  you  are held,  and  oh, oh,  you  had  forgotten  what  this  feels  like,  to  be  wanted  somewhere,  to  have  people  who  are  so  fiercely  glad  you  exist.

“mama  is  going  to  be  furious  that  we  did  not  wait  for  you  in  the  drawing  room  like  civilized  ladies,”  zoe  says  into  your  shoulder,  not  sounding  the  least  bit  concerned  about  her  mother's  fury.  “but  i  told  her—  i  said, mama,  i  have  not  seen  her  in  eleven  years,  i  am  not  going  to  stand  about  making  small  talk  when  she  is  right  there—”

“you  wretched  thing!”  alicia’s  voice  overlaps  her  sister’s,  finally  pulling  back  to  look  at  you  properly.  her  eyes  are  bright,  her  cheeks  flushed,  and  she  looks  so  much  like  the  girl  you  remember,  “making  us  wait  so  long,  do  you  have  any  idea  how  many  letters  i  had  mama  write  to  your  grandfather?  the  man  is  utterly  impossible,  i  cannot  believe  he  kept  you  from  us  for  so  many  years—“

“it  was  not  entirely  his  fault,”  you  begin,  but  alicia  waves  a  dismissive  hand.

“i  don't  care  whose  fault  it  was.  you're  here  now,  that's  all  that  matters.”

“oh,  well,”  you  say,  “in  that  case,  i  don't  know  what  all  the  fuss  is  about.”

zoe  laughs,  the  sound  bright  and  startling  and  exactly  the  same  as  you  remember,  and  she  links  her  arm  through  yours,  steering  you  toward  the  house  as  though  you  might  try  to  escape.

“come,”  she  says,  “come  inside,  mama  has  had  cook  prepare  all  your  favorites—  do  you  still  like  lemon  biscuits?  i  told  her  you  did  but  it  has  been so  long  and  people's  tastes change,  apparently,  though  i  cannot  imagine  giving  up  lemon  biscuits  personally—”

“i  still  like  lemon  biscuits,”  you  confirm,  and  you  let  yourself  be  pulled  up  the  steps,  alicia  on  your  other  side,  chloe  trailing  behind.

the  townhouse  is  exactly  as  you  remember  and  not  at  all  the  same—  the  wallpaper  in  the  entrance  hall  is  new,  a  soft  green  that  catches  the  light,  and  there  are  fresh  flowers  on  the  side  table,  and  the  smell  of  beeswax  and  lavender  wraps  around  you  like  an  embrace.  you  stand  there  for  a  moment,  breathing  it  in.

“we  put  you  in  the  room  next  to  mine,”  zoe  is  saying,  already  halfway  up  the  stairs,  “and  chloe  is  across  the  hall,  and  alicia  is—  well,  alicia  is  in  the  attic,  practically—”

“i  am not  in  the  attic,”  alicia  protests,  “i  am  on  the  third  floor,  which  is perfectly  respectable—”

“mama  says  she  will  see  you  for  tea  once  you've  freshened  up,”  chloe  adds.

you  smile  at  her,  and  you  hope  it  does  not  look  as  tremulous  as  it  feels.  “i  look  forward  to  it,”  you  say,  and  you  mean  every  word  of  it.

the room they have given you is lovely, pale blue walls and white linens and a window that overlooks the garden, and there is a pitcher of fresh water on the washstand and a small vase of forget-me-nots on the bedside table.

the maid lady albon has assigned to you— a cheerful, round-faced girl named martha who chatters amiably as she unpacks your trunks— helps you change out of your traveling clothes and into something more suitable for tea. the gown is one of your better ones, a soft blue muslin that your grandfather's housekeeper had insisted you commission before your departure, and you smooth your hands over the fabric as martha arranges your hair, twisting it into something more fashionable than the simple knot you had worn for the journey.

“there now,” martha says, with evident satisfaction, meeting your eyes in the mirror. “right pretty, you are. the young ladies will be so pleased.”

you manage a smile, though your stomach is tight with nerves that have nothing to do with your appearance.

the thing you have not allowed yourself to dwell upon, the thing you have carefully not mentioned in any of your letters, is that the albons have had their own share of scandal in the years since your departure.

you learned of it through zoe's correspondence, though she had been characteristically circumspect in her telling. something regarding money, she had written, something regarding mama and an investment that went rather badly wrong. you know how these things are. papa has retreated to the countryside to manage his health, and alex has taken over the estate matters. we are quite alright, truly. please do not worry.

do not worry, she had said, as though you could do anything else.

the details had come to you in fragments over the following months, both from gossip and from the girls’ letters. the albons, it had seemed, had come across certain financial decisions… investments that had seemed sound at the time but had ultimately proven disastrous. the loss had not been ruinous, not quite, but it had been significant enough to cause a stir among the ton, significant enough that lord albon had retreated to their northern estate in what everyone understood to be shame, unable to bear the whispers and the knowing looks.

he had passed there, three years later, without ever returning to london.

and lady albon, beautiful, gracious lady albon, who had welcomed you into her home when your own mother was too busy with her affairs to notice you existed, had been left to raise her children alone, her reputation tarnished, her husband gone, her eldest son forced to shoulder the burden of the estate at an age when he should have been enjoying his youth.

perhaps that is why she wrote to you. perhaps that is why she has opened her home to you now, when so many others would have turned you away. she understands, in a way that few others can, what it means to be marked by scandal.

you descend the stairs with your heart in your throat, following the sound of the girls’ laughter to the parlour, and when you step through the doorway, lady albon looks up from her seat with a smile that makes your eyes sting all over again.

“my dear girl,” she says, setting aside her embroidery and rising to take your hands in hers, and her grip is firm and warm and exactly as you remember, the hands of a woman who has weathered storms and come out the other side still standing. “let me look at you. oh, let me look at you. you have your mother's eyes— did you know that? i always told her so, though she never believed me—”

“lady albon—” you begin, but she cuts you off with a sound of pure exasperation.

“it is minky to you,” she says, squeezing your hands once before releasing them, “as it has always been, as it will always be, at least in the privacy of our own home. i did not help your mother plan her wedding and hold you as an infant and watch you grow into this remarkable young woman only to have you lady albon me in my own parlour. sit, sit—zoe, stop hovering and pour the tea—”

you sit, because there is nothing else to do when minky albon gives an order, and zoe rolls her eyes, but does as her mother says anyway.

“you look well,” minky muses, “the country air has agreed with you. though i suspect you are glad to be away from it, yes?”

“i am glad to be here,” you say, and you mean it so fiercely the words come out rough-edged. “i cannot thank you enough— the invitation, the sponsorship, all of it—”

minky waves a hand, “nonsense. you are practically family, and it is high time you were given the season you deserve. besides—” and here her eyes glint with something that might be mischief, “— i have three daughters to marry off, and i find the prospect far less tedious with the addition of a fourth.”

“mama,” zoe protests, but she is grinning as she passes you a cup of tea, “you make it sound as though we are horses at auction.”

“the marriage mart is hardly more dignified,” alicia observes, “but at least we are not expected to trot.”

“give it time,” chloe murmurs, and you nearly choke on your tea.

“you are not even out yet, young lady, so i will thank you to keep your cynicism to yourself.” minky turns back to you, and her expression softens. “now. we must discuss the practicalities. the season is already underway, but we have managed to secure you a presentation— lady norris has been kind enough to host a ball tomorrow evening, and the queen herself will be in attendance. it is not a formal drawing room presentation, but it will serve well enough to introduce you to society properly.”

“the norris ball!” alicia exclaims, “oh, it will be such fun— their eldest, oliver, is terribly serious and thinks himself very important because he is heir to an duchy—”

"he is heir to an duchy,” zoe points out.

“—yes, but he does not have to be so boring about it,” alicia continues, undeterred. "and their second son, lando, is an absolute menace. charming, of course, devastatingly so, but absolutely impossible! he flirts with everyone— everyone!— and never seems to mean a word of it, and he and alex are thick as thieves, which means we are constantly subjected to his presence at family dinners, and—”

“he is one of alex's closest friends,” zoe clarifies, noting your confusion. “they met at eton, i believe. lando is... well. you shall see for yourself tomorrow.”

“oh, speaking of alex!” alicia exclaims, sitting up so suddenly that her tea sloshes dangerously in its cup. “is he not due back from the mercer estate tomorrow? i thought he was meant to arrive just in time for the ball.”

“you will finally meet him,” chloe notes, watching you those wide eyes. “is that not strange? that you have known us so long and never met our brother?”

“i have thought of it,” you admit, because there is no point in pretending otherwise. “he was always— elsewhere. school, i believe. so i have not had the pleasure.”

the pleasure. as though you have not spent years constructing an image of him in your mind from the fragments the girls have shared. as though you did not, as a child of eleven, develop a most embarrassing fascination with the portrait of the young heir that hung in the upstairs hallway, a boy of fifteen in that painting, a slight smile on his lips despite the solemness of the painting. as though you did not write his name in the margins of your journal, once, twice, a hundred times, before tearing out the pages in a fit of mortified practicality.

it had seemed so silly, even then. a childhood infatuation with a boy you had never met, constructed entirely from a painted image and the adoring words of his sisters. you had been eleven years old and desperately lonely, and he had been the romantic hero of every novel you had ever read, distant and mysterious and perfect in the way that only imaginary figures can be.

“he is very good at being elsewhere,” alicia says, “but he is also very good at being present, when he chooses to be. you will like him, i think. everyone does.”

“alicia is biased,” chloe says, “because alex taught her to ride and let her borrow his books and generally spoiled her terribly when we were small—”

“as opposed to you, who he also taught to ride and let borrow his books and generally spoiled terribly?”

“i am not biased,” alicia protests, with tremendous dignity. “i am simply stating facts. alex is— alex. you will see.”

“tomorrow, then,” you say, and from the opposite sofa, zoe grins at you, bright and knowing.

“tomorrow,” she agrees. “and oh, it is going to be wonderful.”

the norris estate blazes with light, every window glowing gold against the darkening sky, and you can hear the music spilling out onto the gravel drive before the carriage has even come to a full stop. by the time you actually do step out of the carriage, your heart is already beating too fast, fluttering against your ribs like a caged bird, and you press your gloved hand flat against your stomach as though you might physically still the tremor of your nerves.

“breathe!” alicia whispers, leaning close enough that her breath tickles your ear. “you look positively green, and green does not complement that gown at all.”

"i am not green," you whisper back, though you cannot say with any certainty that this is true. "i am merely... contemplative."

“she is terrified,” zoe observes from your other side, though not unkindly. “which is perfectly reasonable. alicia was sick in the garden before her first ball. twice.”

​​”that was the oysters!” alicia protests.

“it was nerves. the oysters were merely… contributory.”

lady albon, resplendent in deep blue silk, fixes all three of you with a look that somehow manages to convey both fondness and warning. “if the three of you are quite finished,” she says, “we do have a queen to greet and a young lady to present. compose yourselves.”

chloe had been left at home, of course, protesting loudly that it was entirely unfair that she should miss your debut when she had been waiting to meet you for practically her whole life. but she was not yet out, and rules were rules, no matter how one might rail against them. you had promised to tell her everything, every last detail, and she had made you swear on your own dowry (which, admittedly, is not much) that you would not leave out a single dance or gown or whispered gossip.

the ballroom, when you finally enter, is a whirlwind of bodies and candlelight and colour: ladies in silks of every shade imaginable, gentlemen in dark coats and crisp cravats, the glitter of jewels at throats and wrists and ears. the queen herself is holding court at the far end of the room, surrounded by a small constellation of ladies-in-waiting, and even from this distance you can see the knowing tilt of her chin, the way the crowd constantly fixes their eyes on her, despite their total unsublety.

your presentation passes in a blur of curtsies and murmured pleasantries, the queen's sharp eyes assessing you for one endless moment before she nods, and you are released, dismissed, folded into the swirl of the evening like a single drop of water into an ocean. you remember very little of what was said. you think you did not embarrass yourself. that will have to be enough.

“well done,” lady albon says quietly, her hand briefly warm on your elbow. “now, enjoy yourself. that is an order.”

and then she is swept away into conversation with a group of ladies her own age, and you are left with zoe and alicia, who immediately steer you toward a relatively quiet corner where you can observe the proceedings without being directly in the fray.

“right,” zoe starts, “allow me to bring you up to speed on the season's developments, as you have missed the first three weeks and quite a lot has happened.”

“is this strictly necessary?” you ask, but you are smiling, still.

“absolutely essential,” alicia confirms.

“very well.” you acquiesce, moving to lean against the wall, “tell me everything.”

zoe takes a breath. "lord acosta’s daughter— you remember the acostas, yes? the house with the pretty garden? well, she has set her cap for the lord hamilton’s eldest ward, which is ambitious to say the least, given that he has shown absolutely no interest in anyone this season and seems to actively flee whenever a young lady approaches him with that particular gleam in her eye."

“the gleam of matrimonial intent!” alicia supplies with glee.

“precisely! meanwhile, the beaumont twins have both decided they are in love with the same gentleman— a mister chen, who is very handsome, very wealthy, very oblivious— and their mother is at her absolute wit's end trying to keep them from coming to blows over who saw him first.”

“this is absurd!” you exclaim, but you are laughing, your eyes following theirs, “are there no straightforward attachments this season? no simple, uncomplicated courtships?”

zoe and alicia exchange a look.

“no!” they say in unison, and zoe adds, “where would be the entertainment in that?”

the music shifts, the first dance of the evening beginning to form, and you watch as couples take their places on the floor. zoe is claimed almost immediately by a gentleman you do not recognize, and alicia is not far behind, swept onto the floor by a friend of the family whose name you have already forgotten.

and you— well, you remain where you are, pressed against the wall, watching.

it is not unexpected. you are new, unknown, the subject of whispers that have followed you since you walked through the door— that is the one, is it not? her mother's daughter, back from wherever they sent her, the albons have taken her in, how very charitable of them. the ton has a long memory, and your family's scandal is not so old that it has been forgotten. perhaps you will be asked to dance later, once curiosity overcomes caution. perhaps you will not. you have prepared yourself for this possibility, have armored yourself with low expectations.

and yet… it still stings, watching your friends laugh and turn in the arms of partners who sought them out, while you stand alone with your punch and your carefully neutral expression.

you let your gaze drift across the room, cataloging faces, looking for… something, though you are not certain what. a friendly countenance, perhaps. someone who might be willing to speak with you, to break the strange isolation that has settled around you.

and then you see him.

he is standing near one of the tall windows, half-turned away from the room as though he would rather be looking at the gardens than the glittering crowd.he is tall, dark-haired, and handsome, incredibly so, with a face that seems made for smiling even though he is not smiling now. his coat is well-cut and clearly expensive, his cravat tied with a kind of careless precision that suggests either great skill or a very good valet, and he is—

he is looking at you.

your breath catches.

he looks away immediately, almost guiltily, fixing his gaze on some point in the middle distance, but you saw. you saw him watching you across the crowded room, saw the flicker of something in his expression before he schooled it into neutrality, and the thing is—

the thing is you know him.

not personally, no. you have never been in the same room with him before this very moment, but, you know the set of his shoulders from years of studying a portrait that hung in the albons' drawing room, know the shape of his jaw from the miniature zoe sent you three christmases ago.

lord alexander albon.

a silly childhood crush, you had called it then, and you had told yourself you had outgrown it, had left it behind with all the other childish things you had been forced to abandon when your world collapsed. you are a woman now, not a girl, and you do not form attachments to men you have never met based on portraits and secondhand stories and a few kind words in fading ink.

and yet.

and yet.

he glances at you again, quick and furtive, and this time when your eyes meet he does not look away immediately— he holds your gaze for one endless, breathless moment, and you see colour rise in his cheeks, see the way his throat moves as he swallows, and something reckless seizes hold of you, something that feels like the girl you used to be.

you set down your glass of punch, smooth your skirts, swallow the heavy feeling in your throat, and you walk across the ballroom floor toward him, weaving through the crowd with a confidence you believe is entirely fabricated, your heart pounding so loudly you are certain the entire room must be able to hear it.

he watches you approach. he does not flee, though he looks for a moment as though he is considering it, his hand tightening briefly on the glass he is holding before he seems to consciously relax his grip. up close he is even more handsome than he was at a distance, and you notice that there is a warmth to him, a softness around his eyes that the portrait never captured, and when you stop before him you can see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, can see the way his lips part slightly as though he means to speak and then thinks better of it.

“lord albon.” you say, giving a brief curtsy, “i believe we have never been formally introduced, though i feel i know you quite well through your sisters' correspondence. i am—”

“i know who you are,” he interrupts, and then immediately looks mortified, colour flooding his face all the way to the tips of his ears. “that is— i meant— my sisters have spoken of you. frequently. at length. i feel as though i have known you for—” he stops, takes a breath, visibly collects himself. “forgive me. it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. a genuine pleasure. i have heard— that is to say—”

he is flustered. this man, who for all intents and purposes is a viscount, this figure who has loomed so large in your imagination for so long, is flustered, and he is standing before you blushing and stammering like a schoolboy. you are incredibly endeared.

“your sisters told me you would be here tonight,” you say, taking pity on him, offering him an easier thread to grasp, “they were beginning to wonder if you had forgotten the way to london.”

he laughs, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “the tenants' drainage issues were rather more complicated than anticipated,” he admits, “though i confess the journey back was… motivated.” he seems to realize what he has said and immediately looks as though he wishes the floor would swallow him whole. “by the season. by the start of the season. my sisters— they would not have forgiven me if i missed—”

the orchestra begins a new piece. around you, couples are pairing off again, moving toward the dance floor, and you watch his gaze flicker to the swirl of silk and candlelight before returning to your face, and you see the question there, the hesitation, the way he opens his mouth and then closes it again as though he cannot find the words.

eleven years, you think. eleven years of waiting, of wondering, of holding the idea of him like a pressed flower between the pages of your heart.

“lord albon,” you say, and you smile, “are you going to ask me to dance?”

his eyes widen. the flush on his cheeks deepens impossibly further. “i was working up to it,” he admits, “i have been working up to it for—” he stops, shakes his head, and when he meets your eyes again there is a steadiness there that was not present before, “would you do me the honor of this dance, my lady?”

he extends his hand, and you take it. his hand is warm through the thin fabric of your gloves, warm and solid and real, and you let him lead you onto the floor with your heart hammering against your ribs like it is trying to escape the confines of your chest. 

the other dancers are a mere blur around you, a swirl of colour and movement at the edges of your vision, all because you find you cannot look away from his face, at he way his eyes keep darting to yours and then away again.

“you are very quiet,” you observe, after a full eight bars of the dance have passed in silence. “your sisters led me to believe you were rather more talkative.”

he huffs a laugh, soft and surprised, and some of the tension in his shoulders eases. “my sisters,” he says, “have a great deal to answer for. i dread to think what else they have told you.”

"only good things," you assure him,and you cannot help the smile that curves your lips, “well… mostly good things. your sisters are... very thorough in their correspondence.”

something sparks in his eyes, and the tension in his shoulders eases slightly. “they are, aren't they? i shudder to think what they have told you about me. all lies, i assure you.”

“all of it?”

“well.” his mouth twitches, “perhaps not all. but certainly the most embarrassing parts.”

you laugh, “ah, so all of them, then.”

he chuckles, shakes his head, “you are not so inclined towards wit in your letters.”

you raise a brow, “you have read my letters? to your sisters?”

the question slips out before you can stop it, and you watch the colour rise in his cheeks again, that telltale flush that seems to give away every thought in his head.

“not— not all of them,” he says, and he sounds almost defensive now, “only… sometimes they would read passages aloud. at dinner. and i could not exactly leave—”

“of course not,” you nod, fighting to keep your expression serious. “that would be rude.”

“exactly. it would be unconscionably rude to abandon one's family at the dinner table simply because one's sisters have decided to narrate their entire correspondence in excruciating detail—”

“excruciating!” you exclaim, and you let your eyebrows rise, let a hint of teasing creep into your voice. “how flattering, my lord. i had no idea my letters were such a trial to endure.”

“that is not what i—” he starts, and then he sees your expression and stops, “you are enjoying this.”

“oh, immensely.” you confirm, and you do not bother to hide your smile. “you turn the most remarkable shade of red when you are embarrassed, did you know that? it is quite fetching.”

“i–” he begins, but then the music ends. around you, couples are separating, bowing and curtsying, drifting apart to find new partners or refreshments or the relative safety of the room's edges. you should step back. you should curtsy and thank him for the dance and allow him to return you to his sisters like a proper gentleman escorting a proper lady.

you do not move, and neither does he.

“lord albon,” you say, and your voice comes out softer than you intend to, “i find i am rather glad we have finally met.”

“as am i, my lady,” he says, eyes still trained on yours as he bends down to press a kiss to your gloved hand, “as am i.”

the days that follow the norris ball pass in a blur of morning calls and afternoon teas and evening entertainments, a whirlwind of social obligations that leaves you breathless and exhausted and strangely, achingly alive in a way you had forgotten you could feel.

you attend musicales where young ladies of varying talent perform for politely captive audiences, promenades through hyde park where the ton parades itself in all its finery and pretends not to notice who is walking with whom. you smile until your cheeks ache. you make conversation until your voice grows hoarse. you dance with gentlemen whose names you forget almost as soon as they release your hand.

you tell yourself that this is what you came here for, that this is the purpose of the season, this is your one chance to secure a future that does not involve returning to your grandfather's estate, or becoming a governess to a pack of what you assume would be spoiled brats, waiting for the lessons to end so they may cajole around in the sun.

one fact remains, though: alexander albon makes himself scarce.

you see him at breakfast, sometimes, already halfway through his coffee and the morning papers when you come down, and he will look up and nod politely and inquire after your sleep with the distant courtesy of a man addressing a houseguest he barely knows.

you see him in the hallways, passing like ships in the night, and he will murmur good afternoon or pardon me and continue on his way without breaking stride. you see him leaving for the gentlemen’s club or arriving home from some business meeting or another, always in motion, always just out of reach, and you tell yourself it does not matter, you tell yourself you are being foolish, you tell yourself that one dance does not make a courtship and one conversation does not make a connection and you have no claim on his time or his attention or the warmth that had flickered in his eyes when he held you in his arms and told you he was glad to have met you.

very well then. you cannot simply sit around and wait for a man to notice you, no matter how long your infatuation for him might have been. there is a deadline for you, a ticking clock in the back of your head, and you cannot afford to wait. that is the truth of it.

you will just have to be practical.

it  is  a quiet tuesday  afternoon,  which  should  be  noted  as  a  rare  occasion,  given  the  revolving  wheel  of  suitors  and  callers  that  seemingly  appear  at  the  albons’  front  door,  and  you  are  in  the  parlour  with  zoe  and  alicia  and  chloe,  all  four  of  you  crammed  onto  one  settee  in  a  way  that  is  entirely  improper  and  entirely  comfortable,  passing  the  latest  society  papers  back  and  forth  and  reading  the  most  ridiculous  passages  aloud  in  increasingly  dramatic  voices.

“the  society  papers  report  that  a  certain  young  baron  was  seen  leaving  the  beaumont  residence  at  an  hour  most  unbecoming  of  a  gentleman  caller,”  zoe  reads  from  over  your  shoulder,  as  you  are  holding  the  papers  at  the  moment,  her  voice  dripping  with  affected  scandal,  “one  can  only  speculate  as  to  the  nature  of  his  business,  though  this  author  suspects  it  had  rather  more  to  do  with  matters  of  the  heart  than  matters  of  finance.”

“the  beaumont  residence!”  alicia  gasps,  her  eyes  going  wide.  “that  is  where  the  twins  live.  clara  and  catherine!  the  ones  fighting  over  mister  chen.”

“do  you  think  he  has  made  his  choice?”  chloe  asks,  leaning  forward,  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  papers.

“if  he  has  any  sense,  he  will  flee  the  country,”  you  say,  and  the  girls  dissolve  into  giggles,  a  bright  cascade  of  sound  that  fills  the  parlour  like  sunshine.

then,  the  laughter  cuts  abruptly,  ​​and  you  turn  to  see  lord  albon  standing  in  the  doorway,  frozen  mid-step  as  though  he  had  not  expected  to  find  the  parlour  occupied.

“alex,”  zoe  says,  her  voice  bright  with  false  innocence,  “how  lovely  of  you  to  join  us.  we  were  just  catching  up  on  the  latest  gossip.”

he  clears  his  throat.  shifts  his  weight.  he  does  not  quite  meet  your  eyes.  “so  i’ve  heard,”  he  says,  voice  careful,  “i  did  not  mean  to  interrupt.”

“you  are  not  interrupting,”  alicia  says  sweetly,  “we  were  merely  reading  the  society  papers.  nothing  of  consequence.”

“nothing  of  consequence.”  he  repeats.  “i  was  not  aware  that  the  gossip  column  qualified  as  essential  reading.”

“it  is entertaining  reading,”  zoe  corrects.  “there  is  a  difference.”

“is  there?”  he  asks,  moving  into  the  room  properly  now,  crossing  to  the  settee  opposite  yours  his  eyes  flicker  to  you,  once,  quickly,  and  then  away  again,  fixing  on  some  point  on  the  far  wall  as  though  it  contains  information  of  vital  importance.

you  lower  the  paper  just  enough  to  peer  over  its  edge,  meeting  his  gaze,  “surely,”  you  say,  and  you  let  your  voice  curl  around  the  words  like  silk,  “it  is  not  a sin  to  indulge  in  the  society  papers,  my  lord?”

his  cheeks  flood  with  colour,  and  his  mouth  opens  and  closes  twice  before  any  sound  emerges,  and  when  it  does  it  is  not  words  so  much  as  a  strangled  sort  of  noise  that  might  be  protest  or  might  be  surrender  or  might  be  something  else  entirely.

“i— that  is  not—  i  did  not  say  it  was  a sin,”  he  manages,  and  his  voice  has  gone  slightly  higher  than  usual,  slightly  breathless.  “i  merely—  i  only  meant—”

"he  is  flustered!"  chloe  exclaims,  “look,  his  ears  have  gone  red!”

“they  have  not!”  he  protests.

“they  absolutely  have,”  alicia  confirms,  grinning.  “they  always  do  when  he  is  flustered.  it  is  one  of  his  tells.”

“i  do  not  have tells—”

“you  have  many  tells,”  zoe  shrugs,  “you  are,  in  fact,  the  least  subtle  person  in  this  family,  which  is  saying  something  given  that  chloe  once  tried  to  hide  a  squirrel  in  her  wardrobe  for  three  weeks.”

“the  squirrel  was  very  quiet!”  chloe  protests.

“the  squirrel  ate  mother's  favorite  gloves!”

“that  was  never  proven—”

“i  believe  we  were  discussing  lord  albon's  tells,”  you  interrupt,  grinning  at  him  with  a  glint  of  mischief  in  your  eyes,  “please,  do  continue.  i  find  myself  fascinated.”

alexander  drops  his  head  into  his  hands  in  a  gesture  of  defeat.   “you  are  all  impossible,”  he  says,  but  there  is  no  heat  in  it,  no  real  frustration,  only  warmth,  only  the  exasperated  affection  of  a  man  who  loves  his  family  even  when  they  are  determined  to  torment  him,  “every  last  one  of  you.”

“and  yet  you  keep  us!”   zoe  says,  reaching  across  the  space  between  the  settees  to  pat  his  knee  in  a  gesture  that  is  more  mocking  than  comforting.

“i  keep  you,”  he  agrees,  raising  his  head  to  meet  her  eyes,  “because  i  have  no  choice  in  the  matter.  you  are,  unfortunately,  blood  relations.”

“and  her?”  alicia  asks,  nodding  toward  you  with  a  sly  expression  that  makes  your  cheeks  warm.  “she  is  not  a  blood  relation.  will  you  keep  her  too?”

the  parlour  goes  quiet.

“i—”  he  starts,  and  then  stops,  and  then  looks  at  his  sisters  with  an  expression  of  profound  betrayal.  “you  are  all impossible!”

“you  already  said  that,”  chloe  points  out.

“it  bears repeating.”

“but  you  did  not  answer  the  question,”  zoe  presses,  and  she  is  relentless,  she  has  always  been  relentless,  and  you  want  to  kiss  her  and  strangle  her  in  equal  measure,  “will  you  keep  her?  we  have  already  decided  that  we  shall,  so  really  it  is  only  a  matter  of  whether  you  are  in  agreement—”

“zoe.”

“what?  it  is  a  simple  question—”

“nothing  about  this  is  simple,”  he  says,  and  his  voice  is  quieter  now,  more  serious,  and  when  he  looks  at  you  again  there  is  something  in  his  expression  that  makes  you  acutely  aware  of  every  breath  you  take  and  every  beat  of  your  heart.

“we  like  her,”  alicia  adds  softly,  and  the  teasing  has  gone  out  of  her  voice,  “we  have  always  liked  her,  alex.  and  she  is here  now,  finally,  after  all  these  years.  does  that  not  count  for  something?”

he  does  not  answer,  at  least  not  with  words,  but  his  eyes  stay  on  yours.

“i  should—”  he  clears  his  throat,  rises  from  the  settee  with  a  jerky,  graceless  motion,  “i  have  business  to  attend  to.  if  you  will  excuse  me.”

and  then  he  is  gone,  the  door  closing  behind  him  with  a  soft  click,  and  you  are  left  staring  at  the  space  where  he  was  with  your  heart  pounding  and  your  mind  racing  and  the  echo  of  his  almost-answer  ringing  in  your  ears.

one of the things you have come to learn about the albons, in the weeks since your arrival, is that they are not so much a family who keeps pets as they are a family who has been slowly, persistently taken over by animals.

it had started with frooky, or so zoe had explained during your first bewildering morning when you had come down to breakfast and found a large, frowning cat sitting in the center of the dining table like a furry centerpiece, calmly grooming himself while the family ate around him as though this were perfectly normal behavior.

“once you have one cat,” alicia had said, “you somehow end up with eleven. it is simply the way of things.”

"eleven?" you had repeated, certain you had misheard.

“eleven,” chloe had confirmed, ticking them off on her fingers. "frooky, moomoo, hippo, gigi, blue bear, stan, horsey…” and then she had continued to list them off, all with endearingly ridiculous names.

there are also, you have since learned, a dog and two ponies at the family's countryside estate, a fact that chloe had shared with tremendous enthusiasm and alex had confirmed with the weary resignation of a man who has accepted his fate.

you have met most of the cats by now, though you confess you cannot always tell them apart, and you know there are several grey ones who blur together in your memory, but you have grown fond of them regardless, these soft warm bodies that appear on your bed at night and wind around your ankles at meals and generally make themselves at home in every corner of your borrowed life here in london.

this afternoon, you are in the library.

it is a rare moment of solitude; zoe and alicia have gone calling with their mother, and chloe is practicing her pianoforte under the supervision of her governess. you had intended to spend the time reading, had been eyeing the albons' collection for days, and when you had finally found yourself alone you had made your way here with something approaching reverence.

the library is beautiful, all dark wood and tall windows, and the shelves stretch floor to ceiling, stuffed with volumes in no apparent order: philosophical treatises shelved beside gothic novels, scientific journals mixed in with poetry collections, everything jumbled together in a way that suggests the albons read widely and eclectically and do not much care for organization.

the book you want is on the top shelf. of course it is.

you eye the ladder that leans against the far wall, consider fetching it, and then decide that the step stool tucked into the corner will suffice. after all, the book is not that high, and you are not that short, and surely you can manage without going to the trouble of maneuvering a full ladder across the room.

this, as it turns out, is a miscalculation.

you position the step stool beneath the relevant section of shelving, gather your skirts in one hand to keep them from tangling around your feet, and ascend the two steps with what you feel is a feat of admirable grace. the book, a collection of essays on natural philosophy that you have been longing to read since you spotted it three days ago, is just within reach, your fingertips brushing the spine, and you stretch up onto your toes to get a better grip—

—and something moves in the shadows of the upper shelf.

you have approximately half a second to register a pair of gleaming eyes and a flash of grey fur before the cat launches itself directly at your face.

what follows is not, strictly speaking, dignified.

there is a yowl— from the cat or from you, you genuinely cannot say— and a flailing of limbs, and a desperate grab for the shelf that only succeeds in dislodging approximately a dozen books from their places. the step stool tips, and your balance abandons you entirely. and then you are falling, books raining down around you as you you hit the floor with a thump that knocks the breath from your lungs and sends a sharp bolt of pain through your hip and elbow.

for a moment you simply lie there, stunned, staring up at the ceiling while dust swirls in the afternoon light and somewhere above you a cat makes a sound of profound indignation, as though you are the one who has behaved unreasonably.

“what in god’s name—!”

the voice comes from the doorway, and you turn your head to see alexander albon standing frozen at the threshold with an expression of pure horror on his face, his eyes darting from you to the scattered books to the step stool lying on its side.

“‘m fine,” you say, which is perhaps optimistic given that you have not yet attempted to move, but it seems like the right thing to say, “i'm— there was a cat—”

he is across the room before you finish the sentence, dropping to his knees beside you with a complete disregard for his trousers, his hands hovering over you as though he wants to touch but is not certain he is allowed.

“are you hurt?” he demands, “can you move? should i send for a doctor? what happened—”

“a cat,” you repeat, and despite everything, despite the ache in your hip and the embarrassment burning in your cheeks and the fact that you are lying on the floor of his library surrounded by fallen books like some sort of disaster, you find yourself laughing, “a cat jumped at me. from the shelf. i think— i think it might have been moomoo—”

you both look toward the window at the same moment.

moomoo is sitting on the windowsill, one leg extended toward the ceiling as he attends to his… personal grooming with the focused dedication of a creature who has never done anything wrong in his entire life.

“moomoo,” alexander says, and there is a wealth of exasperation in that single word, a lifetime of similar incidents condensed into two syllables, “of course it was moomoo.”

“he came out of nowhere,” you say, and you are still laughing, you cannot seem to stop, the absurdity of the situation finally catching up with you, “i was just— i wanted a book—”

“let me help you up,” he says, and before you can protest his hand is closing around yours, warm even through both your gloves, and his other hand is at your elbow, steadying you as you struggle into a sitting position, “slowly, now. does anything feel broken? sprained?”

you take a moment to assess, wiggling your fingers and toes, rotating your wrists and ankles. everything seems to be in working order, though you suspect you will have some spectacular bruises by dinner, “i am intact,” you report, “merely… dented.”

“dented,” he echoes, and when you look at him his lips are twitching, almost into a smile, “that is one word for it.”

“i prefer to maintain my dignity wherever possible,” you say, with as much primness as you can muster, “even in circumstances that actively conspire against me.”

“here,” he says, reaching a hand out, “let me—”

you take his hand, let him pull you upright. when you stand, you are unsteady for a moment, and he reaches out, places a hand on your waist to balance you. for a moment you are standing very close to him, close enough to see the individual threads of his cravat, close enough to see the way his throat moves when he swallows, the way his eyes flicker down to your mouth and then away again. the hand on your waist sears through like a burn.

“the books,” you say, stepping away from him, from his grasp, because you have to say something, because the silence is becoming unbearable. “we should— i should—”

“yes,” he agrees, and his voice sounds strange, rougher than usual, “yes, we should—”

you both bend down at the same moment, and your fingers close around the spine of a fallen volume at the exact instant his do.

you freeze. he freezes. and then you are both crouched on the library floor with your hands overlapping on a copy of the mysteries of udolpho, your gloved fingers tangled together, your faces inches apart.

“oh,” you breathe.

his eyes meet yours. hold. and you see something flicker behind them, before a shutter seems to fall, some invisible wall slamming into place between one heartbeat and the next.

he pulls his hand back as though burned.

“forgive me,” he says, and his voice has gone strange again, “i should not have— that was—”

“lord albon,” you start, but he is already rising to his feet, already stepping back, already putting distance between you. “lord albon,” you try again, “please, if i have done something to offend—”

“you have done nothing,” he says, though you do not feel any sort of reassurance, “you have been— you are—”

he stops. shakes his head. 

“i should go,” he says, more definitively now, “i have— there is business i must attend to. please excuse me.”

“my lord—”

but he is already gone, the library door closing behind him with a soft click that sounds, in the silence that follows, very much like a period at the end of a sentence.

you stand there for a long moment, and you try very hard not to feel as though something precious has just slipped through your fingers.

from the windowsill, moomoo yawns elaborately and resettles himself in his sunbeam.

the  day  after  next  dawns  bright  and  clear,  and  lady  albon  declares  at  breakfast  that  the  entire  family  will  be  taking  a  turn  about  hyde  park  after  luncheon,  no  exceptions,  no  excuses,  and  she  does  not  want  to  hear  a  single  word  of  protest  from  anyone  at  this  table.

she  is  looking  very  pointedly  at  her  son  when  she  says  this.

alexander,  to  his  credit,  does  not  protest.  he  merely  inclines  his  head  in  acknowledgment  and  returns  his  attention  to  his  coffee  with  the  studied  nonchalance  of  a  man  who  is  very  carefully  not  looking  at  anyone  else  at  the  table,  and  you  tell  yourself  that  the  twist  in  your  chest  is  indigestion,  nothing  more.

the  walk  itself  is  pleasant  enough.  the  weather  holds,  though  it  is  a  bit  crowded;  it  is  easy  to  disappear  with  the  amount  of  people,  easier  to  slide  beneath  the  rush  of  the  crowd.

lady  albon  leads  the  brigade,  with  zoe  and  alicia  are  linked  in  arms,  chattering,  while  you  and  chloe  enjoy  companiable  silence  behind  them.  alexander  is  a  half-step  behind  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back  and  his  gaze  fixed  on  some  middle  distance  that  seems  to  exist  only  for  him.

you  steal  glances  at  him  when  you  think  he  is  not  looking,  cataloging  the  line  of  his  jaw,  the  set  of  his  shoulders,  the  way  the  sunlight  catches  in  his  dark  hair.  he  is  beautiful  in  a  way  that  feels  almost  unfair,  and  you  wish  that  beauty  were  enough.  that  wanting  were  enough.  that  you  could  simply  reach  out  and  touch  him  without  the  whole  complicated  machinery  of  society  grinding  into  motion  around  you.

but  you  cannot.  and  so  you  walk,  and  you  do  not  touch,  and  you  try  to  content  yourself  with  proximity.

ahead  of  you,  zoe  lets  out  a  small  shriek  of  delight.

“lottie!”  she  calls,  dropping  alicia's  arm  and  gathering  her  skirts  to  hurry  toward  a  cluster  of  young  ladies  near  the  serpentine.  “charlotte  liao,  is  that  you?  i  did  not  know  you  were  back  from  bath—”

and  then  all  three  albon  sisters  are  gone,  swept  up  in  the  unexpected  reunion,  and  you  are  left  standing  on  the  path  with  alexander,  watching  them  embrace  and  exclaim  and  generally  behave  as  though  they  have  not  seen  each  other  in  years  rather  than  weeks.

“are  you  not  going  to  join  them?”  alexander  asks,  after  a  moment.

“no,”  you  say,  curtly,  “i  think  not.”

“may  i  ask  why?”

“i  am  wrought  with  scandal  enough,”  you  say  simply.  “miss  liao’s  family  is  well-respected,  well-connected.  the  last  thing  she  needs  is  to  be  seen  associating  with  the  daughter  of—”  you  stop,  swallow.  “well.  you  know  what  they  say  about  my  mother.”

he  is  quiet  for  a  long  moment.  when  you  glance  at  him,  his  expression  is  unreadable.

“the  ton  has  a  long  memory,”  he  says  finally,  “they  remember  what  they  wish  to  remember,  and  they  forget  what  is  convenient  to  forget.”

“your  family's  troubles  seem  to  have  faded  more  quickly  than  mine,”  you  observe,  and  there  is  no  accusation  in  it,  only  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  “your  sisters  are  received  everywhere.  your  mother  is  welcomed  in  the  finest  drawing  rooms.  your  own  prospects  are—”

“my  own  prospects  are  complicated,”  he  interrupts,  not  unkindly,  “our  debts  are  paid,  yes,  and  the  worst  of  the  whispers  have  died  down,  but  the  ton  does  not  truly  forget.  they  simply…  wait.”  his  mouth  twists  into  something  that  is  not  quite  a  smile.  “the  albons  have  survived,  but  survival  is  not  the  same  as  acceptance.  my  sisters  will  make  good  matches  because  they  are  charming  and  beautiful  and will not carry the albon name in marriage, and  my  mother  has  worked  tirelessly  to  repair  our  reputation,  but  there  will  always  be  those  who  remember.”

“at  least  they  whisper  quietly,”  you  say,  and  you  cannot  quite  keep  the  bitterness  from  your  voice,  “my  family's  scandal  is  still  spoken  of  openly.  my  mother's  choices,  my  father's—”  you  break  off,  shaking  your  head,  “it  does  not  matter.  i  did  not  come  to  london  expecting  to  be  embraced  by  society.  i  came  because  your  mother  was  kind  enough  to  offer  me  a  chance,  and  i  intend  to  make  the  most  of  it,  whatever  that  looks  like.”

“and  what  does  that  look  like?”  he  asks.  “to  you?”

you  consider  the  question.  it  is  not  one  you  have  allowed  yourself  to  examine  too  closely,   the  boundaries  of  your  expectations.

“a  respectable  match,”  you  say  eventually,  "a  home  of  my  own.  children,  perhaps.  a  life  that  is…  quiet.  stable,  at  least.  free  from  the  constant  reminder  of  where  i  came  from  and  what  my  parents  did.”  you  pause,  and  then,  “i  do  not  expect  love.  i  am  not  foolish  enough  to  hope  for  it.  but  i  would  like…  contentment.  someone  who  does  not  flinch  when  they  hear  my  family  name.”

he  is  quiet  for  so  long  that  you  begin  to  think  he  will  not  respond  at  all.  when  you  look  at  him,  his  jaw  is  tight,  his  hands  still  clasped  behind  his  back,  his  gaze  fixed  on  the  distant  figures  of  his  sisters.

“that  seems  a  modest  ambition,”  he  says  finally,  and  his  voice  is  strange,  as  though  something  is  caught  in  his  throat,  “for  someone  who  deserves  so  much  more.”

you  have  to  look  away  for  a  moment  to  collect  yourself,  to  press  down  the  sudden  surge  of  emotion  that  threatens  to  spill  over.  “perhaps,”  you  say,  when  you  trust  your  voice  again,  “but  i  have  learned  that  deserving  and  receiving  are  rarely  the  same  thing.  i  will  take  what  i  can  get  and  be  grateful  for  it.”

“you  should  not  have  to—”  he  starts,  and  then  stops,  shaking  his  head  sharply.  “forgive  me.  it  is  not  my  place.”

“no,”  you  agree  softly,  “it  is  not.”

“my  sisters  are  returning,”  he  says,  and  his  voice  is  neutral  again,  “we  should  continue  our  walk.”

you  nod,  because  there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  and  when  zoe  bounds  up  to  take  your  arm  and  demand  to  know  what  you  and  alexander  have  been  discussing  in  such  serious  tones,  you  smile  and  tell  her  nothing  of  consequence,  nothing  at  all.

but  later  that  night,  lying  in  your  bed  with  frooky  curled  warm  and  heavy  on  your  feet,  you  stare  at  the  ceiling  and  think  about  the  look  on  his  face  when  he  said you  deserve  so  much  more,  and  you  allow  yourself,  just  for  a  moment,  just  in  the  privacy  of  your  own  mind,  to  imagine  a  world  in  which deserving  and receiving  might,  somehow,  impossibly,  be  the  same.

and  then  you  close  your  eyes  and  put  the  thought  away,  fold  it  up  small  and  tuck  it  into  the  same  corner  of  your  heart  where  you  keep  all  the  other  things  you  cannot  have,  and  you  tell  yourself  that  friendship  is  enough.  that  if  alexander  albon  cannot  be  a  suitor,  then  you  will  be  content  with  him  as  a  friend.  that  wanting  more  is  foolish  and  futile  and  will  only  lead  to  heartbreak.

you  tell  yourself  many  things.

you  believe  almost  none  of  them.

“you  are  going  to  fall.”

alex's  voice  drifts  up  from  somewhere  below  you,  tinged  with  concern  and  what  might  be  amusement.  you  do  not  look  down—you  are  balanced  on  a  narrow  ledge  of  the  garden  wall,  reaching  for  a  climbing  rose  that  has  wound  itself  around  the  upper  branches  of  a  nearby  trellis,  and  looking  down  seems  like  a  poor  strategic  choice.

“i  am  not  going  to  fall,”  you  say,  with  more  confidence  than  you  feel.  “i  have  excellent  balance.”

“you  have  reckless  balance.  there  is  a  difference.”

“the  rose  is  right  there.  if  i  can  just—”  you  stretch  further,  fingertips  brushing  the  stem,  and  feel  the  ledge  shift  slightly  beneath  your  feet.

“for  god's  sake—”

and  then  his  hands  are  at  your  waist,  steadying  you,  warm  and  solid  through  the  thin  fabric  of  your  dress,  and  you  are  suddenly  very  aware  of  how  close  he  is  standing,  how  easily  he  could  pull  you  down  from  this  ridiculous  perch,  how  your  heart  has  begun  to  beat  in  an  entirely  undignified  rhythm.

“i  had  it  under  control,”  you  say,  slightly  breathless.

“you  were  about  to  plummet  into  the  rose  bushes.”  his  voice  is  dry,  but  his  hands  remain  at  your  waist,  and  he  has  not  stepped  back.  “which  would  have  been  difficult  to  explain  to  my  mother. sorry,  lady  albon,  your  houseguest  has  impaled  herself  on  your  prize-winning  floribundas.”

“it  would  have  made  for  excellent  gossip,  at  least.”

“a  small  comfort  when  you  are  being  extracted  from  shrubbery  by  the  gardening  staff.”  he  pauses.  “why,  exactly,  are  you  attempting  to  scale  the  garden  wall?”

you  point  to  the  rose,  a  perfect  bloom,  deep  crimson,  just  out  of  reach.  “for  chloe.  she  mentioned  at  breakfast  that  red  roses  are  her  favorite,  and  i  noticed  this  one  blooming  earlier.  i  thought—”  you  shrug,  suddenly  self-conscious,  “i  thought  it  might  make  her  smile.  she  has  been  melancholy  lately.  missing  her  friend  who  left  for  the  country.”

his  hands  tighten  almost  imperceptibly  at  your  waist.

“you  noticed  that,”  he  says  quietly,  “that  she  has  been  melancholy.”

“it  is  not  difficult  to  notice,  when  you  pay  attention,”  you  risk  a  glance  down  at  him  and  find  his  expression  soft,  almost  wondering,  “she  tries  to  hide  it,  but  she  has  not  been  herself.  i  know  what  it  is  like  to  miss  someone.  to  feel  left  behind.”

for  a  moment  he  simply  looks  at  you,  and  there  is  something  in  his  eyes  that  makes  your  breath  catch,  something  that  looks  almost  like  recognition,  like  seeing.

“come  down,”  he  says  finally, finally  withdrawing  his  hands  from  your  waist,  “i  will  get  the  rose  for  you.”

“you?”

“i  am  taller.  and  i  am  significantly  less  likely  to  end  up  impaled  on  shrubbery.”  he  holds  out  his  hand,  waiting.  “trust  me?”

you  look  at  his  outstretched  palm,  at  the  steady  certainty  in  his  eyes,  and  you  make  a  decision.

“yes,”  you  say,  and  you  let  him  help  you  down.

he  retrieves  the  rose  with  considerably  more  grace  than  you  would  have  managed—  a  simple  reach,  a  careful  twist  to  avoid  the  thorns,  and  then  the  bloom  is  in  his  hand,  perfect  and  unblemished.

“for  you,”  he  says,  presenting  it  with  a  small  bow,  “to  give  to  chloe.”

“thank  you,”  you  take  it  carefully,  mindful  of  the  thorns,  “though  you  have  now  robbed  me  of  my  dramatic  garden-scaling  narrative.  i  was  planning  to  tell  her  i  risked  life  and  limb.”

“you  can  still  tell  her  that.  i  will  corroborate  your  story.”  his  eyes  crinkle,  “i  will  even  add  embellishments.  a  treacherous  wind.  a  near-death  experience.  perhaps  a  small  fire.”

“a  fire  seems  excessive!”  you  exclaim,  but  when  you  turn  to  look  at  him,  he  is  holding  back  a  laugh.

he  falls  into  step  beside  you  as  you  make  your  way  back  toward  the  house,  and  the  silence  between  you  is  comfortable  in  a  way  that  surprises  you.  “you  are  good  with  them,  you  know.  my  sisters.  they  adore  you.”

“they  are  easy  to  adore  in  return.”

“they  are  terrors,”  he  corrects,  but  there  is  nothing  but  fondness  in  his  voice,  “well-meaning  terrors,  but  terrors  nonetheless.  the  fact  that  you  have  survived  all  these  weeks  in  their  company  without  fleeing  speaks  highly  of  your  fortitude.”

“i  have  practice  with  terrors,  you  do  not  know  what  horrors  i’ve  endured  in  the  countryside.”

“horrors!”

“oh,  yes,”  you  respond,  nodding  solemnly,  though  you  cannot  hide  the  smile  on  your  face,  “the  ghosts,  the  phantoms—”

“you  have  too  much  fun  jesting  at  my  expense—”  he  cuts  himself  off,  almost  saying  your  name,  but  he  clears  his  throat,  corrects  himself,  “my  lady.”

you  glance  at  him,  “well,  i  do  not  jest  entirely.  you  could  say  there  were  other  horrors—  i  mean,  it  was  always  lonely,  and  the  draft  always  did  cause  a  chill,  even  in  the  summer  months.  and  my grandfather—  oh,  when  he  gets  in  a  mood,  he  could  have  such  a  temper!  not  that—  i  mean,  he  is  kind,  on  most  days.”

“he  sounds…  complicated.”

“he  was. is.”  you  consider  how  much  to  share,  “he  took  me  in  when  no  one  else  would.  raised  me,  after  everything  that  happened  with  my  parents.  i  know  he  loves  me,  in  his  way.  but  it  is  a—”  you  search  for  the  word,  “—a  distant  love.  the  kind  that  provides  shelter  and  education  and  expects  gratitude  in  return.  not  the  kind  that—”

you  stop,  embarrassed  by  how  much  you  have  revealed.

“not  the  kind  that  your  sisters  have,”  you  finish  quietly.  “the  easy  kind.  the  kind  that  asks  for  nothing.”

he  is  silent  for  a  long  moment.  when  he  speaks,  his  voice  is  careful.

"my  father's  love  was  not  the  easy  kind  either,"  he  says.  “before  the  scandal,  i  thought  it  was…  i  thought  we  were  close.  but  when  things  fell  apart,  i  realized  that  what  i  had  mistaken  for  closeness  was  actually—”  he  pauses,  “—transaction.  he  loved  me  as  long  as  i  reflected  well  on  him.  as  long  as  i  was  the  son  he  wanted,  rather  than  the  son  i  was.”

you  look  at  him,  and  you  see  something  you  had  not  noticed  before:  a  sadness  beneath  the  composure,  a  loneliness  that  mirrors  your  own.

“what  kind  of  son  were  you?”  you  ask  softly,  “the  son  you  were,  rather  than  the  one  he  wanted?”

“i  do  not  know.”  he  sounds  almost  surprised  by  his  own  answer,  “i  never  had  the  chance  to  find  out.  by  the  time  i  was  old  enough  to  question  it,  he  was  gone.  and  then  i  had  to  become… this.  the  responsible  one.  the  reliable  one.”

“that  sounds  exhausting.”

“it  is.”  he  laughs,  a  little  ruefully,  “but  it  is  also  necessary.  someone  has  to  do  it.  and  i  am  the  eldest.  it  falls  to  me.”

“just  because  something  falls  to  you  does  not  mean  you  have  to  carry  it  alone.”

he  stops  walking.  turns  to  look  at  you.

“no  one  has  ever  said  that  to  me  before,"”he  says  quietly,  “that  i  do  not  have  to  carry  it  alone.”

“then  the  people  around  you  have  not  been  paying  attention,”  you  hold  his  gaze,  refusing  to  look  away,  “you  are  not  atlas,  albon.  the  world  will  not  collapse  if  you  set  down  your  burden  for  a  moment.  and  even  atlas…  even he  had  help,  in  the  end.  hercules  held  the  sky  for  him,  if  only  for  a  little  while.”

“are  you  offering  to  be  my  hercules?”

“i  am  offering  to  be  your friend,”  you  say.  “if  you  will  have  me.”

the  smile  that  spreads  across  his  face  is  slow  and  wondering,  like  sunrise  creeping  over  the  horizon.  “yes,”  he  says.  “i  think  i  would  like  that  very  much.”

mr.  logan  sargeant  arrives  in  your  life  on  a  wednesday,  during  a  musicale  at  the  bearman  residence  that  you  had  been  dreading  for  the  better  part  of  a  week.

you  notice  him  first  because  he  is  standing  alone  near  the  refreshment  table  with  the  particular  expression  of  a  man  who  has  found  himself  at  a  party  where  he  knows  absolutely  no  one  and  is  beginning  to  question  every  decision  that  led  him  to  this  moment.  it  is  an  expression  you  recognize  intimately,  having  worn  it  yourself  at  nearly  every  social  function  since  your  arrival  in  london,  and  perhaps  that  is  why  you  find  yourself  watching  him  instead  of  the  young  lady  currently  murdering  a  sonata  at  the  pianoforte.

he  is  handsome,  clean-cut,  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed,  with  the  kind  of  face  that  looks  like  it  smiles  easily  and  often.  his  coat  is  well-tailored  but  not  egregious,  and  there  is  something  about  the  way  he  holds  himself  that  seems  fundamentally different  from  the  english  gentlemen  around  him,  though  you  cannot  quite  put  your  finger  on  what.

“that,”  zoe  whispers,  leaning  close  enough  that  her  breath  tickles  your  ear,  “is  mr.  logan  sargeant.  from the  americas.”

she  says  the  words the  americas  the  way  one  might  say the  moon,  with  a  mixture  of  fascination  and  disbelief,  as  though  she  cannot  quite  credit  that  such  a  place  exists,  let  alone  that  someone  from  there  might  find  themselves  standing  in  lady  bearman’s  drawing  room  looking  lost  and  slightly  overwhelmed.

“from  the  americas?”  you  repeat,  keeping  your  voice  equally  low,  “what  on  earth  is  he  doing  here?”

“inheriting  a  barony,  apparently,”  alicia  murmurs  from  your  other  side.  “it  is  the  most  delicious  scandal.  well,  not scandal,  precisely,  more  of  a  curiosity.  he  is  some  sort  of  distant  cousin  to  the  late  baron  of  westbrook,  and  when  the  old  man  died  without  a  direct  heir,  the  title  passed  to  mister  sargeant's  branch  of  the  family.  he  arrived  in  england  three  months  ago  to  claim  the  estate  and  has  been  trying  to  establish  himself  in  society  ever  since.”

“with  limited  success,”  zoe  adds,  “the  ton  does  not  quite  know  what  to  make  of  him.  he  is  a  baron  now,  technically,  which  means  he  should  be  of  similar  rank  to  half  the  men  in  this  room,  but  he  is  also american,  which  means—”

“which  means  they  will  never  let  him  forget  it,”  you  finish,  understanding  settling  over  you  like  a  familiar  weight,  “he  is  an  outsider.  no  matter  how  legitimate  his  claim,  he  will  always  be  the  american  who  stumbled  into  a  title  he  was  never  meant  to  have.”

the  sonata  ends,  thankfully,  and  the  room  breaks  into  polite  applause  that  is  perhaps  more  enthusiastic  than  the  performance  warranted,  and  in  the  general  shuffle  that  follows  you  lose  sight  of  mr.  sargeant  among  the  crowd.  you  think  nothing  more  of  it  until  later,  when  you  are  standing  near  the  window  trying  to  catch  a  breath  of  fresh  air  and  a  voice  at  your  side  says:

“forgive  me–  i  do  not  mean  to  intrude,  but  you  looked  as  though  you  might  be  as  desperate  to  escape  as  i  am,  and  i  thought  perhaps  we  could  be  desperate  together.”

you  turn  to  find  mister  sargeant  standing  beside  you,  his  expression  apologetic,  but  also  hopeful.

“that  is  a  rather  forward  introduction.”  you  observe,  but  you  are  smiling  despite  yourself.

“i  apologize,”  he  says,  and  he  does  sound  genuinely  contrite.  “i  am  still  learning  the  rules  here.  in  america,  if  you  see  someone  who  looks  like  they  might  be  a  kindred  spirit,  you  simply  walk  up  and  say  hello.  i  am  beginning  to  understand  that  things  are  more complicated  in  england.”

“everything  is  more  complicated  in  england,”  you  agree,  nodding,  “it  is  something  of  a  national  pastime.”

there  is  no  calculation  in  him,  you  realize.  no  careful  assessment  of  your  worth  and  standing,  no  subtle  cataloging  of  your  family  connections  and  marital  prospects.  he  is  simply  a  man  at  a  party,  talking  to  a  woman  he  hoped  might  be  friendly,  and  the  straightforwardness  of  it  is  so  refreshing  you  almost  do  not  know  how  to  respond.

“logan  sargeant,”  he  says,  offering  a  small  bow.  “baron  of  westbrook,  apparently,  though  i  confess  the  title  still  sounds  strange  when  applied  to  myself.  and  you  are—?”

you  give  him  your  name,  and  you  watch  his  face  carefully  for  the  flicker  of  recognition,  the  slight  tightening  around  the  eyes  that  usually  accompanies  the  realization  of  exactly whose  daughter  you  are.  but  there  is  nothing,  only  polite  interest  and  that  open,  easy  smile.

“a  pleasure  to  meet  you,”  he  says,  and  he  sounds  as  though  he  means  it.

mr. sargeant calls on you the following afternoon.

and the afternoon after that.

and the afternoon after that, until lady albon begins setting an extra place at tea as a matter of course and the servants stop announcing him because everyone already knows who is at the door.

“he likes you,” zoe declares one evening, sprawled across your bed while you attempt to decide between two dinner gowns for the russell ball. “he really likes you. he looks at you like you hung the moon and he cannot quite believe his good fortune in being allowed to stand beneath it.”

“he looks at me like i am the only person in the room who does not make him feel like a complete outsider,” you correct, holding the blue silk up against yourself and frowning at your reflection. “which is not the same thing.”

“it is adjacent to the same thing,” alicia argues from her position by the window. “proximity to the same thing. close enough that the distinction hardly matters.”

“the distinction always matters.”

“does it?” chloe asks, “he makes you laugh. he treats you kindly. he does not care about your family's scandal because he does not know about your family's scandal, and by the time someone bothers to tell him, he will already have formed his own opinion of your character. is that not valuable?”

“it is—” you start, and then stop, because you do not know how to finish the sentence. it is valuable. it is more than i expected. it is not what i want.

but what you want is standing on the other side of a door he refuses to open, and you have spent enough years of your life wanting impossible things. perhaps it is time to accept what is actually being offered.

“mama thinks he would be a good match,” zoe says, more gently now, moving to stand beside you, holding the red dress against your shoulders, “she mentioned it to me this morning. she said that mr. sargeant is new to the ton, which means he needs a wife who understands how society works, how to navigate the complexities of the peerage. and you—”

“and i need a husband who will not hold my family's disgrace against me.” you finish flatly. “yes, i understand the logic.”

“it is not only logic,” alicia protests. “he genuinely seems to enjoy your company. and you seem to enjoy his. would it be so terrible, to build a life with someone who makes you smile?”

no, you think. it would not be terrible. it would be safe, and comfortable, and probably even happy, in its way. it would just not be—

you cut the thought off before it can complete itself.

“the blue,” you say instead, turning back to the mirror. “i will wear the blue.”

you do not mean to discuss mr. sargeant with lord albon. it simply… happens.

you are in the drawing room, reviewing the invitations that have arrived for the coming week, and he is there as well, reading a book though you have not seen him turn a page in the better part of an hour. the fire crackles in the grate. outside, rain streaks the windows in long grey trails. and somehow, in the quiet domesticity of the moment, you find yourself saying:

“your mother believes mister sargeant intends to make an offer.”

the book in alexander's hands goes very still.

“does she…” he says, and his voice is carefully neutral, so carefully neutral that it circles back around to being obvious.

“she thinks it would be a good match,” you continue, watching his profile, trying to read something, anything, in the set of his jaw, the terse line of his shoulders, “he needs someone who understands english society. i need someone who—”

“who what?” alexander interrupts, and there is an edge to his voice now, “who does not know your history? who can be kept ignorant of the truth until it is too late for him to extricate himself?”

the words land like a slap, and you feel the colour drain from your face. “that is unfair,” you say quietly, “and you are being unkind.”

“you are right,” he says. “forgive me, i should not have said that.”

“no,” you agree, your lips pursing into a thin line, “you should not have.”

“mr. sargeant seems a decent man,” he says finally, and each word sounds as though it is being dragged out of him by force, “i am sure he would make you—” he stops, swallows. “i am sure you would be—”

“happy?” you supply, when he does not continue.

“content. i am sure you would be content.”

content. there is that word again, the ceiling of your ambitions, the highest rung of the ladder you are permitted to climb. you remember saying it yourself, that day in the park. i do not expect love. i would settle for contentment. but hearing it from his mouth, in that hollow voice, with that bleak expression… it sounds different. it sounds like a door closing.

“my lord—” you start, but he is already rising to his feet, already setting aside his unread book, already retreating with that familiar efficiency that you have come to recognize as his primary defense mechanism.

“forgive me. i had forgotten i was to meet mr. russell— george— at the gentleman’s club today,” he says, and he does not meet your eyes. “please excuse me.”

and then he is gone, and you are left alone with the fire and the rain and the growing certainty that something is very, very wrong, something you cannot name and he will not explain and neither of you seems capable of addressing directly.

it is raining again.

london, you have come to understand, exists in a perpetual state of dampness, the sky a low grey ceiling that presses down upon the city like a hand, the cobblestones eternally slick, the air carrying that particular smell of wet stone and coal smoke and something green struggling to grow beneath it all. you have been here long enough now that the rain no longer surprises you, no longer sends you rushing for shelter with the desperate urgency of your first weeks. you have learned to move through it, around it, to accept it as simply another facet of this strange new, temporary life.

this afternoon, the rain has driven everyone indoors, and you have retreated to the small conservatory at the back of the house, a glass-walled room filled with potted ferns and trailing ivy and the particular humid warmth of growing things. it is your favorite space in the albon residence, this little pocket of green amid the grey, and you come here often when you need to think, need to breathe, need to remember that there are living things in the world that do not care about scandal or propriety or the elaborate machinery of the marriage mart.

you are repotting a small orchid, one of of the lady albon’s, slightly neglected, its roots outgrowing their current home, when you hear the door open behind you. you do not turn around.

“i did not realize anyone was in here.” alexander says, and there is a hesitation in his voice, a question beneath the statement: should i leave? do you want me to go?

"”he rain.” you say, by way of explanation, still focused on the orchid, “i find it peaceful, watching it from in here. like being inside a terrarium.”

“a terrarium,” he echoes, and you hear him move further into the room, hear the soft click of the door closing behind him, “i had not thought of it that way.”

“your mother's orchid needed repotting,” you add, “i hope she does not mind. i found it looking rather sad on the windowsill in the morning room, and i thought—”

“she will not mind,” he says. “she will be pleased, actually. she loves that orchid but can never remember to care for it properly. she calls it her 'beautiful failure.'”

“that seems an unkind thing to call a living creature.”

“she means it affectionately. or so she claims.”

you smile despite yourself, and you hear him move close enough now that you can see him from the corner of your eye, leaning against one of the plant stands with his arms crossed over his chest. he is in shirtsleeves, you notice, his coat and waistcoat abandoned somewhere, and the informality of it sends a small shock through your system.

“you are good at that,” he observes, watching your hands work the soil, “the plants. you have a gentle touch.”

“my grandfather's estate had extensive gardens,” you find yourself saying, “i spent a great deal of time in them, growing up. it was—” you pause, considering how much to share, “it was the only place that felt truly mine. the house belonged to my grandfather, and the library belonged to my tutors, and even my own room felt borrowed somehow. but the gardens did not care who my parents were or what they had done. they only cared whether i watered them and gave them enough light.”

“that sounds lonely,” he says quietly.

“it was,” you admit. “but it was also peaceful. i knew what the plants needed from me, and i could provide it, and in return they grew and bloomed and asked nothing more.” you lift one shoulder in a small shrug. “there is something to be said for relationships with clear expectations.”

“i am sorry,” he says, “that you had to learn that lesson so young.”

“we all learn our lessons,” you reply softly, “some of us simply learn them earlier than others.”

you return your attention to the orchid, tamping down the fresh soil around its roots, and for a few minutes there is only the sound of the rain against the glass and the quiet rhythm of your work. 

“there,” you say finally, stepping back to survey your work, “she should be much happier now. another few weeks and she may even bloom.”

you reach for the small watering can you had set aside earlier, but your hands are covered in soil, dark earth caught beneath your fingernails and smudged across your palms, and you make a small sound of frustration.

“here,” alex says, and he is beside you suddenly, and he is offering you a handkerchief, plain white cotton, slightly rumpled.

“thank you.” you murmur, and you reach for it without thinking, and your fingers brush against his.

the touch is electric.

you feel it everywhere, sparking up your arm, blooming in your chest. his hand is warm, so warm, and you realize with a start that neither of you are wearing gloves, that this is skin against skin, your soil-stained fingers pressed against his bare palm, and the intimacy of it makes your breath hitch.

you look up. find his eyes already on you.

he is frozen, still as a statue, his lips slightly parted and his pupils blown wide, and you can see the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, can see the way his chest rises and falls with quickened breath. the handkerchief is caught between you, forgotten, and neither of you moves to complete the exchange.

“i—” you start, but you do not know how to finish the sentence, do not know what words could possibly be adequate for this moment.

his thumb moves. just slightly. A barely-there brush against the inside of your wrist, tracing the delicate skin where your pulse beats rapid and frantic, and the sensation is so overwhelming that you actually gasp, a small, soft sound that seems to echo in the humid air of the conservatory.

“forgive me,” he breathes, and his voice is a wreck, raw, barely above a whisper. “i should not— we should not—”

but he does not pull away. and neither do you. you stand there, and you think: this is madness. this is impossible. this is everything i have been trying so hard not to want.

and then a door slams somewhere in the house. voices echo down the corridor, the general commotion of the albon sisters returning from wherever they had been. the spell shatters like glass, reality rushing back in to fill the space between you, and you jerk backward so quickly you nearly knock the freshly potted orchid from its stand.

“i should—” your voice comes out strangled, “i need to— the soil, i should wash—”

“yes,” alex says, and he sounds as shattered as you feel, his hand still extended as though he has forgotten how to lower it. “yes, of course, you should—”

“excuse me,” you manage, and you do not wait for a response, do not look back, simply flee (because there is no other word for it) out of the conservatory and up the stairs and into your room, where you close the door behind you and press your back against it and try very, very hard to remember how to breathe.

your hand is shaking.

you lift it, examine it in the grey afternoon light, the soil still caught beneath your nails, the faint redness where his skin touched yours. you can still feel the ghost of that touch, the warmth of it lingering.

we should not, he had said.

but he had not said i do not want to.

and therein, you think, lies all the difference.

the hamilton ball is a crush.

this is, you have learned, considered a compliment. a crush means the event is successful, well-attended, the sort of gathering that people will speak of for weeks afterward with tones of satisfaction or envy depending on whether they managed to secure an invitation.

you have been at the ball for perhaps an hour, navigating the crowd with zoe and alicia as your guides, making polite conversation with mamas and debutantes, carefully avoiding any corner of the room where alexander might be standing, when mr. sargeant appears at your elbow.

“you look,” he says, and then stops, “forgive me. i had a compliment prepared, something properly poetic, and it has completely fled my mind now that i am actually standing in front of you.”

“that might be the nicest compliment i have ever received,” you tell him honestly, “far better than poetry.”

“then i shall endeavor to remain tongue-tied in your presence,” he says, “may i have the honor of this dance?”

you should hesitate, consider. you should think about what it means, to dance with a man who has been calling on you daily, whose intentions have been made increasingly clear, whose proposal you can feel approaching like a storm on the horizon.

but the music is swelling and his hand is extended and somewhere across the room you can feel alexander's eyes on you like a physical weight, and so you say yes.

you say yes, and you let him lead you onto the floor, and you dance.

and then the dance ends. you curtsy. he bows. and then he looks at you with those clear blue eyes and says: “i know it is forward, and i know it is perhaps more than i should ask, but would you do me the honor of a second dance?”

a second dance?

in the language of the ton, a second dance is not quite a proposal, but close. a second dance says i am serious about you. a second dance says i want everyone in this room to know that my intentions are honorable. 

you should refuse. you should demur, claim fatigue, suggest that he partner someone else lest the gossips begin to talk.

“yes,” you say instead, offering your wrist, as he signs your dance card, “i would be honored.”

and so you dance again.

when it ends, he escorts you from the floor with visible reluctance, fetches you a glass of lemonade, and excuses himself to pay his respects to some acquaintance or another with the promise that he will find you again before the evening is out.

you watch him go, and you think: he is going to propose. soon. perhaps even tonight. you do not know how to feel about that.

“that was quite a display.”

the voice comes from behind you, and you do not need to turn around to know who it belongs to.

"lord albon," you say. "i did not see you there."

“evidently not.” alexander says, moving to stand beside you. his jaw is set, his shoulders rigid, and when you glance at him his eyes are fixed on the point in the crowd where mister sargeant has disappeared. “you seemed rather… occupied.”

“i was dancing,” you retort, “that is generally the purpose of a ball.”

“twice.”

very well, then.

“yes,” you agree, because there is no point in pretending otherwise. “twice.”

he is silent for a long moment. when he speaks again, his voice has lost some of its edge, replaced by something that sounds almost like defeat.

“the next dance is a waltz,” he starts, “would you—” he stops, swallows, forces himself to continue. “would you do me the honor?”

you should refuse, should claim that three dances in a row would be too much, claim anything that would allow you to escape this impossible situation without making it worse.

but it seems you have never been good at refusing alexander albon anything.

“yes,” you say softly, “i would.”

the waltz is nothing like your first dance with him, all those weeks ago at the norris ball—  this dance is something else entirely, his hand pressing warm and firm against your waist, your bodies closer than they should be, closer than propriety allows.

he does not speak. neither do you. there are no words that would be adequate for this moment, no conversation that could possibly address the tangled mess of wanting and denial and impossible longing that stretches between you like a living thing. so you simply move, let him guide you through the steps, let yourself exist in this single stolen moment where you can pretend that wanting is enough.

his thumb traces a small circle against the curve of your waist, and you feel your breath catch, feel the colour rise in your cheeks.

and then the dance ends, and the world rushes back in, and you are left standing in the middle of the hamiltons’ ballroom with your heart pounding and your hands trembling and the absolute certainty that you are in far, far deeper than you ever intended to be.

mr. sargeant calls the next afternoon.

you know, from the moment you see his face, what he has come to say. 

the drawing room feels smaller than usual when he enters, as though the walls have contracted to accommodate the magnitude of what is about to happen. lady albon is seated in her usual chair, her embroidery abandoned in her lap, and the girls are arrayed around the room in various attitudes of forced casualness— zoe by the window, alicia on the settee, chloe curled in the armchair with a book she is very obviously not reading.

alexander is standing by the fireplace.

you do not look at him. you cannot look at him. if you look at him you will lose your nerve entirely, and you cannot afford to lose your nerve right now.

“lady albon,” mr. sargeant says, and his voice is steady despite the slight tremor in his hands,  “ladies. lord albon.” he pauses, takes a breath, visibly steels himself, “i wonder if i might have a moment alone with—” he gestures toward you.

the room goes very still.

“of course,” lady albon says, after a moment, “girls, i believe you were planning to review the menus for the house party. alexander, perhaps you could—”

“yes,” alex says, and his voice sounds hollow, scraped clean of emotion, “yes, of course.”

he does not look at you as he leaves.

you do not watch him go.

and then the door closes, and you are alone with mr. sargeant (although lady albon stands as chaperone), and the weight of what is about to happen comes crashing down on you.

“mr. sargeant—”

“logan.” he corrects gently. “please. i think we have moved past formality, you and i.”

you swallow. you nod. “logan.”

“i am asking you to marry me,” logan says, and his voice is steady, certain, the voice of a man who has rehearsed these words a hundred times and means every one of them. “i know i am not what you expected— an american, an outsider, a man still learning what it means to bear a title he never asked for. but i have heard the whispers about your family, and i find that i do not care. i care about you. your kindness, the way you make me feel like i might actually belong in this impossible, impossible country.”

here is everything you should want. and yet…

“mr. sa— logan.” you say, and your voice catches on his name,  “i am— i am honored, truly. more than i can say. but i—” you stop, take a breath, try to find words that will not wound him. you glance at lady albon, who has a wary expression on her face, “might i have a few days to consider? this is a significant decision, and i want to be certain that my answer is the right one. for both of us.”

“of course,” he says, “of course you should take time. i would not want you to feel rushed, or pressured. this should be your choice, freely made.”

“thank you for understanding,” you whisper.

“might i ask—” he hesitates, then presses on. “might i ask when i might expect an answer? only so i know whether to hope or—” he attempts a smile, though it does not quite reach his eyes, “or begin preparing my heart for disappointment.”

“the albon ball,” you say. "at mercer hall, in a fortnight. i will give you my answer then.”

his face brightens, “the albon ball,” he repeats, “that is— yes. that is perfect. i will be there. i will be waiting.”

“logan—”

"until mercer hall, then," he says.

"until mercer hall," you agree.

and when you are alone in the drawing room with nothing but your thoughts and the crackle of the fire, you sink onto the settee and press your palms against your eyes and try very, very hard not to think about the other man who left this room without looking at you.

the man whose face you cannot seem to stop seeing, no matter how tightly you close your eyes.

the man who has given you no promises, no declarations, no reason to hope, and yet somehow manages to make every other option feel like settling.

the albon ball, you think.

you have a fortnight to decide the rest of your life.

the first few days in mercer hall pass in a blur of activity.

the ball is to be the event of the season, or so the albon girls have declared. every room in the house is being aired and polished, furniture rearranged, flowers ordered from farther out into the countryside, menus planned and replanned until cook threatens to quit in protest. the girls throw themselves into the preparations with enthusiasm, debating colour schemes and seating arrangements and whether the musicians should be placed in the gallery or the alcove, and you try to help where you can, but—

but they do not necessarily need you. not really. you are a guest here, not a daughter of the house, and there are limits to how much you can contribute to an event that is not yours to host.

so you find yourself with time on your hands, long stretches of afternoon where lady albon and the girls are occupied, and you are left to wander the grounds alone, exploring the gardens and the folly and the library that is indeed three times the size of the one in london.

you are not, strictly speaking, alone.

alexander is everywhere.

or perhaps it only feels that way, perhaps you have simply become so attuned to his presence that you notice him the way sailors notice the north star.

he is in the library when you go to select a book, standing by the window with the light catching in his hair. he is in the garden when you walk the paths, picking rose petals with the focused attention of a man who needs something to do with his hands.

he is at breakfast before you come down and at dinner when you retire, and every time your eyes meet across the table something electric passes between you.

you try to avoid him. you truly do.

but mercer hall is not london, and there are only so many rooms in even a house this size, and somehow you keep finding yourselves in the same spaces at the same times, drawn together by some gravity you cannot name and cannot resist.

you are not prepared for the strawberries.

it is an ordinary tuesday morning, the breakfast room flooded with pale sunlight, the sideboard laden with the usual offerings of eggs and toast and fresh fruit from the hothouse. the girls are bickering amiably about something inconsequential, lady albon is reviewing correspondence, and you are attempting to eat your breakfast like a civilized person.

and then alexander reaches for the bowl of strawberries.

it should not be remarkable. it is not remarkable— just a man selecting fruit from a dish, an action performed by thousands of people every morning across england without incident or comment.

but you watch him lift a strawberry to his lips, and you forget how to breathe.

his fingers are long and elegant, dusted with fine dark hair at the knuckles, and they cradle the fruit with a carefulness that seems almost reverent. he bites into it, and juice glistens on his lower lip, red and obscene against the soft pink of his mouth.

lick it, you think wildly. please, god, lick it—

his tongue darts out to catch the droplet.

you make a sound. a small, strangled noise that you disguise hastily as a cough, reaching for your tea with hands that tremble slightly.

“are you quite all right?” zoe asks, concerned, “you have gone rather flushed.”

“i’m fine!” you manage to choke out, “just… swallowed wrong.”

alexander looks up at you across the table, and for a moment your eyes meet. his expression is innocent, but there is something in the depths of his gaze that makes heat pool low in your belly, something that suggests he knows exactly what effect he is having on you.

he cannot possibly know, you tell yourself. you are being ridiculous. he is simply eating breakfast.

he selects another strawberry. brings it to his lips. bites.

you watch the movement of his jaw as he chews, the way his throat works when he swallows. you watch his tongue sweep across his lower lip, collecting the last traces of sweetness. you watch his fingers— oh god, those long, capable fingers— reach for another piece of fruit, and you imagine them touching other things. touching you.

“the strawberries are excellent this morning,” he says, and his voice is perfectly conversational, perfectly innocent, “would you like one?”

he holds one out toward you across the table.

your hand moves before your brain can intervene, reaching out to accept his offering. your fingers brush against his as you take the fruit (and it is the briefest contact, barely a whisper of skin against skin) but the sensation shoots through you like lightning, making your breath catch audibly.

“thank you,” you manage.

“of course,” his voice is mild, but his eyes are intent on your face, “what are friends for?”

you bite into the strawberry. the sweetness bursts across your tongue, and you are acutely aware of his gaze on your mouth, tracking the movement of your lips, watching you the same way you were watching him moments ago.

friends, you remind yourself desperately. we are friends. this is normal. this is fine.

the strawberry tastes like sin itself.

you find him in the library at midnight.

you had not been able to sleep, and you had crept downstairs in search of a book, something dull enough to bore you into unconsciousness. you had not expected to find the library already occupied, a single lamp burning low in the corner and alexander sprawled in one of the leather armchairs with a glass of something amber in his hand and a look of exhaustion on his face.

“oh,” you say, freezing in the doorway. “i did not realize— i can go—”

“stay.” the word is soft, almost slurred with tiredness, “please. i could use the company.”

you hesitate. it is improper, being alone with him at this hour, in this setting. if anyone found you, the gossip would be catastrophic. but he looks so tired. and there is something in his voice… a loneliness that calls to your own.

“one hour,” you say, moving into the room, “and if anyone asks, i was never here.”

“agreed.” he gestures to the chair across from him. "would you like a drink? the brandy is mediocre, but it does the job."

“i should not.”

“neither should i. and yet—” he raises his glass in a small salute. “desperate times.”

you settle into the offered chair, tucking your feet beneath you, “what has driven you to desperate measures at midnight?”

“estate business. tenant disputes. a letter from my father's former solicitor informing me that there may be additional debts we were not previously aware of,” he takes a long sip of his brandy. “the usual.”

“that sounds overwhelming.”

“it is. but i am learning to manage it,” he sets down his glass, runs a hand through his hair, already disheveled, as though he has been doing this repeatedly, “the worst part is not the problems themselves. it is the constant… aloneness of it. knowing that every decision rests on my shoulders, that there is no one i can turn to for advice or reassurance or even just—” he stops, shakes his head. “forgive me. i should not burden you with this.”

"you are not burdening me." you lean forward slightly. "i asked. i wanted to know."

"why?"

"because i care about you." the words slip out before you can stop them, more honest than you intended. "because you are my friend, and friends do not let friends drink mediocre brandy alone at midnight."

he stares at you for a long moment. then, slowly, a smile spreads across his face—small and tired but genuine.

“friends,” he repeats softly, “yes. i suppose we are.”

“you say that as though it surprises you.”

"it does, a little. i do not—" he pauses, considering. "i do not have many friends. well, i have george and lando, but they are the second sons, they do not… understand. the loneliness of it all. but friends— genuine friends, who understand who i am, who just… know—” he shakes his head. “those are rare.”

“that seems very lonely.”

“it is.” he says it simply, without self-pity. “but i am used to it. i have been alone for a long time, in one way or another.”

“you have your sisters, and luca.”

“i do. and i love them fiercely, desperately. but they are also—” he searches for the word. “—my responsibility. i cannot burden them with my worries. they have already carried enough because of our parents’ choices. i will not add to that weight.”

“so you carry it alone instead.”

“someone has to.”

“that is the second time you have said that. and i am going to tell you again—” you hold his gaze steadily, “—that it is not true. you do not have to carry everything alone. that is not strength, lord albon. that is just stubbornness.”

he laughs, surprised. “did you just call me stubborn?”

“if the shoe fits.”

“it fits,” he admits, “rather well, actually.” he is quiet for a moment, swirling the remaining brandy in his glass, “can i tell you something? something i have never told anyone?”

“of course.”

“sometimes—” he pauses, swallows. “sometimes i am so tired of being the responsible one that i fantasize about simply… walking away. leaving everything behind. getting on a ship and sailing somewhere no one knows my name or my family's history or expects anything of me." another pause. “is that terrible?”

“no,” you say softly. “that is human.”

“it feels like failure, even thinking it.”

“it is not failure to want a different life than the one you were given. it is not failure to feel tired, or overwhelmed, or desperate for something more,” you lean forward, willing him to understand. “my lord, you have spent years holding everything together for other people. you are allowed to want something for yourself.”

"and what would that be?" he asks, and there is something raw in his voice now, something unguarded. “what am i allowed to want?”

you think about the question. really think about it.

“i do not know,” you admit. “but i think—” you pause, choosing your words carefully. “i think you are allowed to want to be seen. not as the heir, or the caretaker, or the man holding everything together. just as yourself. whoever that is.”

he sets down his glass. looks at you with an expression you cannot quite read.

“you see me,” he says quietly. "you are the only person who has ever—” he stops, shakes his head. “i do not know how you do it. how you look at me and see past all the– the duty, the weight of expectation. but you do. you see me. and i—” he stops again. swallows hard. “i do not know how to thank you for that,” he finishes, barely above a whisper.

“you do not have to thank me,”  your voice is gentle, “you just have to let me keep doing it.”

the silence between you is different now, and it feels a little like understanding. you should leave. you know you should leave. but you cannot seem to make yourself move.

“tell me something,” he says suddenly, “something about you. something no one else knows.”

you consider. there are so many things you keep hidden: fears and hopes and secret shames that you have never shared with anyone. but here, in the dim light of the library, with this man who has just shown you his own hidden places, it feels safe to offer one of your own. “i am afraid,” you say slowly, “that i am fundamentally unlovable.”

his breath catches.

“not in a dramatic way,” you continue quickly. “not in a– a tragic heroine sort of way. but i think—” you pause, forcing yourself to continue, “i think that everyone who has ever been supposed to love me has found me… lacking, somehow. my parents left me. my grandfather tolerates me. and i have spent so long being the girl with the scandal, the girl who is not quite acceptable, the girl who must be grateful for whatever scraps of affection are thrown her way—” your voice breaks slightly, “i do not know how to believe that anyone could love me for myself. without reservation. without condition.”

“that is—” he stops, shakes his head. “that is the saddest thing i have ever heard.”

“it is not sad. it is just,”  you huff, “true.”

“it is not true.” his voice is fierce, suddenly. “it is a lie you have been told so many times you have started to believe it. but it is not true.”

“how would you know?”

“because i see you,” he says simply, “and what i see is not unlovable. what i see is brave and kind and funny and stubborn and so desperately deserving of love that it makes my chest hurt to think you have never had it.”

you stare at him. the tears are pricking at your eyes now, hot and unwelcome.

“i– my lord—”

“i am not saying this to– to make a declaration, or to complicate things,” he says quickly. “i am just saying. you asked what i see, when i look past the armor. and i am telling you. i see someone extraordinary. someone who has survived things that would have broken most people, and come out the other side still capable of kindness, still capable of hope.” he holds your gaze. “you are not unlovable. you never were.”

the tears spill over. you cannot stop them. “i should go,” you manage, rising from your chair, “it is late, and i—”

"of course." he rises too, concern flickering across his face. “i did not mean to upset you—”

“you did not upset me.” you wipe at your cheeks, embarrassed, “you just.. well, no one has ever said anything like that to me before. and i do not know how to—”

“you do not have to do anything.” his voice is gentle,  “just… remember it. when the voices in your head tell you otherwise. remember that someone sees you. someone thinks you are extraordinary.”

you nod, not trusting yourself to speak.

and when you slip out of the library and make your way back to your room, you carry his words with you like a chant— brave and kind and funny and stubborn and so desperately deserving of love— and for the first time in longer than you can remember, you allow yourself to wonder if they might be true.

it comes to a head the night before the ball.

the whitmores, a family of considerable wealth and considerably less pedigree with a girl around the same age as alicia, had extended an invitation to dinner that the lady albon could not politely refuse. the girls had been delighted, eager for any distraction from the endless preparations that had consumed the household for weeks, and even chloe had been permitted to attend under the watchful eye of her governess, a rare treat that had sent her into raptures of excitement about gowns and hairstyles and whether she might be allowed to stay for the dancing.

you had begged off.

the headache you claimed was not entirely fabricated; your temples had been throbbing for days, a dull persistent ache that you suspected had less to do with physical ailment and more to do with the impossible choice that loomed before you like a cliff edge. tomorrow night, logan sargeant would be waiting for your answer. tomorrow night, you would have to say yes or no, would have to commit yourself to a path that would determine the entire shape of your future.

and you still did not know what to say.

so when zoe had come to your room to help you dress, you had pressed a hand to your forehead and claimed a headache, and she had tutted sympathetically and promised to make your excuses, and you had watched from your window as the carriage pulled away.

the house is quiet now. emptied of its usual chaos, its constant motion.

you cannot bear it any longer.

you rise from your bed, pull a wrapper over your nightgown, and make your way through the darkened corridors toward minky’s chambers. you need to speak with her, need her counsel, her wisdom, her practical perspective on the choice before you. she has been where you are, after all. she married for position and security and built a life from those foundations, and if anyone can tell you whether such a life can also contain happiness, it is her.

you do not realize your mistake until you have already knocked on the door.

the door you knock upon is not the lady albon’s. standing before you, is alexander.

in a robe. and, from what you can tell, very little else.

his hair is damp and disheveled as though he has recently bathed, and you can see the hollow of his throat where the robe gapes open at the chest, the shadow of collarbone, of the old scar there he had said he had gotten on an incident with george on horseback, the suggestion of skin that you have never seen and should not be seeing now.

you make a sound. you are not certain what sound, though you assume it is something between a gasp and a squeak, something deeply undignified that you will be embarrassed about later when you have the capacity for embarrassment, which you currently do not because all of your faculties have been consumed by the sight of alexander albon in a state of undress that you should absolutely not be witnessing.

“i—” you manage, “this is not— i thought this was—”

“my mother's room is two doors down,” he says, and his voice is strangled, “on the other side of the corridor.”

“i was looking for her,” you say lamely, “i needed—” you shake your head, trying to force your thoughts into some semblance of order. “forgive me. i will go—”

“she is not here.”

you pause, halfway through the motion of retreat. “what?”

"my mother. she had decided last minute on chaperoning the girls at the whitmore dinner. she left with them several hours ago."

the implication settles over you slowly. “so there is no one,” you say carefully. “in the house. except—”

“except the servants,” he confirms. “who have retired for the evening. and you. and me.”

you should leave. every instinct you possess, every lesson you have ever been taught about propriety and self-preservation and the dangers that lurk in dark rooms with handsome men, is screaming at you to shut the door in his face and return to your room and pretend this never happened.

you do not leave.

"i could not sleep," you hear yourself say instead, and the words feel distant, as though someone else is speaking them. "i have been— there is something i must decide. tomorrow. and i cannot seem to—"

“sargeant,” alex says, and it is not a question.

you swallow. “he is expecting an answer at the ball. i told him i would give him one.”

“and what answer will you give?”

“yes.” you say, not quite believing yourself, and you watch his expression shatter, “i am going to tell him yes.”

“he is a good man,” you continue, more so trying to convince yourself than anything else, “he will be kind to me. he will give me a home, a life free from—” your voice catches, “free from all of this. the wanting. the not having. the endless, unbearable hoping for something that will never—”

“don’t.” he says.

“don’t what?” you ask, and your own voice sounds foreign to you, thin and trembling.

“don’t marry him,” alexander takes another step toward you, close enough now that you can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath the silk, close enough that you can smell him, clean soap and something else, something that makes your head spin, or maybe it’s just him, “do not— you cannot—”

“give me a reason,” you say, and it comes out like like a desperate plea, like the last throw of a gambler who has already lost everything. “give me one reason why i should not accept the only man who has offered me a future. give me anything, my lord, because i am so tired of—”

“because i am in love with you.”

you stare at him. he stares back. somewhere outside an owl calls into the darkness, and the world narrows down to just this: this hallway, this moment, this man standing before you with his heart laid bare and his eyes reflecting the flames.

“what?” you whisper.

“i love you.” he says it again, stronger this time, as though now that the dam has broken he cannot stop the flood, “i have loved you since— god, i do not even know when it started. since that first dance, perhaps. since you looked at me across that ballroom and asked me if i was going to ask you to dance. since every moment after, every conversation, every accidental touch that was not accidental at all—”

“you have been avoiding me,” you say, and your voice is shaking, “you have been— you left, every time we were alone, you—”

“because i am a coward.” he laughs, but it holds no humor, “because i was afraid that if i stayed, i would do exactly this. i would tell you the truth and ruin everything— your prospects, your reputation, any chance you have at the respectable life you deserve—”

you do not know who moves first.

perhaps it is him, closing the final distance, his hands coming up to cradle your face with a desperation that steals your breath.

perhaps it is you, surging forward to meet him, your fingers fisting in the silk of his robe as though you might drown if you let go.

perhaps you both move at once, drawn together by the same irresistible gravity that has been pulling at you since that first dance, that first touch, that first moment when you looked across a crowded ballroom and saw him looking back.

it does not matter.

what matters is that his mouth finds yours, and the world ends.

the kiss is not gentle.

it is hungry and urgent and consuming, his mouth slanting over yours with a ferocity that steals your breath and replaces it with fire. he tastes like want, his tongue sliding against yours in a rhythm that makes your knees buckle, and when you make a sound— some desperate whimpering noise that you would be mortified by if you had any capacity left for mortification— he swallows it down and gives you back a groan that vibrates through your entire body.

his hands are everywhere. in your hair, scattering pins across the carpet. at your waist, pulling you against him so tightly you can feel every line of his body through the thin silk of his robe. sliding down to grip your hips, your thighs, lifting you as though you weigh nothing at all.

you wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, clinging to him as he walks you further into the hallway, your back hitting the narrow console table that stands against the wall between two portraits of disapproving ancestors. the wood is cold through your wrapper, a sharp contrast to the heat of him pressed against your front, and when he steps between your thighs and pins you there with his body you hear yourself moan, loud and shameless in the empty corridor.

this is not the alexander you thought you knew. the flustered, awkward, blushing man who could barely meet your eyes across the breakfast table has vanished entirely, replaced by someone confident and utterly without hesitation. he kisses you like he is trying to memorize the taste of you, his teeth catching your lower lip, his tongue tracing the seam of your mouth, his breath coming in harsh pants against your skin when he breaks away to trail his lips down your throat.

“alex,” you gasp, and his hips jerk against yours at the sound of his name, a reflexive motion that drags a groan from both of you.

“say it again,” he murmurs against the pulse point beneath your jaw, “god, please, say it again—”

“alex—”

his hand finds the hem of your nightgown. slides beneath it. the touch of his palm against your bare calf makes you shudder, makes your fingers clench in the fabric of his robe, makes you forget every reason why this is madness and remember only the wanting, the endless desperate wanting that has been building in you for months.

his hand drifts higher. past your knee, along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and you feel him hesitate there, feel the tremor in his fingers, the sudden tension in his body. he is waiting, you realize. he is waiting for you to stop him, to come to your senses.

you reach down and find his hand where it rests against your thigh.

and you guide it higher.

his breath catches. his forehead drops to rest against yours, his eyes squeezing shut, and when you shift your hips to press yourself more firmly into his touch, arch forward against his fingers, he makes a sound that is as desperate as a sob, the same time another moan is drawn out from your lips.

“please,” you whimper, and you do not entirely know what you are asking for, only that you need more, need him, need this moment to never end—

the front door opens.

voices flood the entrance hall below, the general commotion of arrival and the removal of wraps and the exchange of evening pleasantries. they are back. they are back early, hours before they should be, and you are sitting on a table in the hallway with alexander's hand under your nightgown and his mouth on your throat and absolutely no way to explain any of this.

alex pulls away from you like he has been burned.

he staggers back, nearly tripping over his own feet, and when you see his face in the dim light of the wall sconces his expression is absolutely horrified.

“forgive me,” he says, and his voice is wrecked, shattered into pieces. “god, forgive me, i should not have— i am a gentleman, i should never have—”

“alex—” you start, sliding off the table on legs that shake so badly you have to grip the edge of it for support.

“this was unconscionable!” he is backing away from you, one hand raised as though to ward you off, his robe askew and his hair wild and his chest heaving with uneven breaths. “you are a guest in my home. under my family's protection. and i— i took advantage—”

“you did not take advantage of anything!” you say fiercely, taking a step toward him. “alex, i wanted—”

“it does not matter what you wanted.” his voice cracks on the words. “it matters what i should have done. what i failed to do. a gentleman does not—” he stops, shakes his head violently. “i am sorry. i am so sorry. this was— there is no excuse. none.”

“will you stop apologizing and listen to me—”

“i cannot.” he has reached his door now, his hand fumbling for the handle behind him. “i cannot— if i stay here, if i listen to you, i will—” another violent shake of his head. “i am sorry. forgive me. please, just forgive me.”

“alex.”

"goodnight," he says with finality, and the door closes between you.

the ballroom is magnificent.

the albons have outdone themselves. the room glows with the light of a thousand candles, flowers cascading from every surface, their perfume mixing with the scent of champagne and celebration. the orchestra plays from the gallery above. by all intents and purposes, it is a crush of a ball.

you stand at the edge of it all and feel nothing.

or perhaps you feel too much. so much so that it has circled back around to numbness. you smile when you are supposed to smile, you make conversation when conversation is required. and—

and you watch alexander across the room, handsome in dark evening clothes, his expression carefully pleasant and his posture carefully relaxed, and you note the way his eyes slide past you without ever quite landing, the way he angles his body away whenever you draw near, the way he has constructed a fortress of social obligation around himself that you could not breach even if you tried.

you do not try.

logan sargeant arrives halfway through the evening, his face bright with anticipation, his eyes finding you across the crowd, eager and hopeful. he makes his way toward where you and lady albon are standing, weaving through the press of bodies, and when he reaches your side his smile is so hopeful, so earnest, so completely unaware of what you are about to do to him that you have to look away.

“lady albon,” he says, his voice carefully steady. “might i request a private audience? i believe there is a sitting room nearby—”

“of course.” lady albon nods, her expression composed, eyes knowing, “this way, mr. sargeant.”

the sitting room is small and quiet, the noise of the ball muffled by thick walls and closed doors. lady albon positions herself near the window, and logan stands before you with his hands clasped behind his back and his jaw set and his eyes still, somehow, full of hope.

“i promised you an answer,” you say, because someone has to speak first, because the silence is unbearable.

“you did.” he swallows. “and i promised i would accept it, whatever it was. i meant that. i still mean it.”

you look at him, look at this good man, this kind man, this man who has offered you everything you once thought you wanted, and you feel your heart break for him, for the hope you are about to crush, for the future you might have had if you were capable of wanting what was wise instead of what was impossible.

“i cannot marry you,” you say.

the entire room stills.

logan does not move. does not speak. simply stands there, absorbing the blow, and you watch the hope drain from his eyes, watch it replaced by confusion, by hurt, by the desperate grasping of a man trying to understand where he went wrong.

“may i ask why?” his voice shakes, “if there is something i have done, something i have failed to do—”

“you have done nothing wrong!” the words come out thick, clogged with the tears you are fighting to hold back, “you have been— god, you have been perfect. kind and patient and everything i should want. but i—” your voice breaks, “i cannot give you what you deserve. i cannot give you a wife whose heart is wholly yours. and you deserve that, logan. you deserve someone who loves you, not someone who is settling for safety because she is too afraid to—” you stop. you cannot finish that sentence. you cannot admit, even now, even to him, what you are too afraid to reach for.

“there is someone else.” he says quietly, and it is not a question.

you do not answer. you do not need to.

“i see.” he is silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on some point past your shoulder. then he takes a breath, squares his shoulders, “then i hope he knows how fortunate he is. and i hope”  his voice wavers, “i hope he deserves you. because you deserve the world, and i would hate to think you gave up something good for someone who cannot see that.”

“logan— mr. sargeant—”

“no, please.” he holds up a hand, “do not apologize. you have done nothing wrong. you were honest with me, and that is— that is all i could ask.” he bows, “i wish you every happiness. truly.”

he leaves.

the door closes behind him, and you stand in the silence of the sitting room with your hands shaking and your eyes burning and the weight of what you have done pressing down on your chest like it’s a physical thing.

“my dear,” lady says softly, crossing to your side, “are you—”

“i need a moment,” you manage. “please. i just need— i need air, i need to—”

you do not wait for her response. you turn and flee out of the sitting room and down the corridor, away from the light and noise of the ballroom, toward the quiet darkness of the residential wing where you might find a moment's peace to fall apart.

you make it perhaps twenty steps before you collide with someone.

the impact sends you stumbling backward, and hands come up to catch your arms, to steady you, and you look up into alexander's face and feel something inside you simply snap.

“let go of me!” you say, and your voice comes out sharp.

“are you—” he starts, and then his eyes find the tears tracking down your cheeks and his expression shifts, “what happened? what is wrong?”

“what is wrong?” you repeat, incredulous, and the laugh that escapes you is jagged and bitter. “what is wrong? you are asking me what is wrong? you?”

“i do not understand—”

“i just refused the only man who was willing to marry me!” you spit, wrenching your arms from his grip, “i just destroyed my only prospect, my only chance at a respectable future, because i was foolish enough to think—” you stop, shake your head violently. “and you dare ask me what is wrong?”

understanding dawns in his eyes, “sargeant. you told him no.”

“yes, i told him no!” your voice is rising, you cannot seem to control it, “i told him no because of you, because you kissed me and told me you loved me and then you left, you apologized and retreated and today you could not even look at me—”

“was trying to give you space,” he reasons,  “i was trying to make it easier for you to—”

“to what? to accept another man's proposal with the taste of you still on my lips?” the tears are falling freely now, hot and angry on your cheeks, “you are a coward, alexander albon. you tell me you love me and then you run away. you kiss me like i am the only thing that matters and then you apologize for it like it was a mistake, like i was a mistake—”

“you were never a mistake,” he says fiercely, “never, not for a single moment—”

“then why?” you demand, “why do you not want to marry me? if you love me as you claim, if i am not a mistake, then why—”

“because i have never intended to marry!” the words seem to tear themselves from his throat against his will, “i cannot marry, do you not understand? there is too much scandal attached to my name, and even if the whispers have quieted, even if the debts have been paid, there is still too much— i am the heir to a family in disgrace, and anyone i marry will inherit that disgrace alongside me. i could not ask that of anyone. i will not ask it of you.”

you stare at him.

“scandal.” you repeat flatly. “you will not marry me because of scandal?”

“it is not that simple—”

“i have scandal too!” the words explode from you, “does that not register to you? my mother ran off with my father's business partner and left me to bear the weight of her shame. i do not– i do not even know where my father is, or if he is even alive! i was sent away at twelve years old, hidden in the countryside like something shameful, and i have spent the last eleven years being whispered about and pitied and judge, and you stand there and tell me that your scandal is too great to overcome?”

"it is different—”

“it is not different!” you are shouting now, you cannot stop yourself, “it is exactly the same. we are both carrying weights we did not choose, both paying for sins we did not commit, and the only difference is that i was willing to take a chance on something more and you are too frightened to even try.”

he flinches as though you have struck him.

“you are a coward," you say, quieter now, the anger draining out of you and leaving only exhaustion in its wake, “a coward, alexander albon. and i was a fool to think you might be brave enough to—”

you stop. shake your head. there is nothing left to say.

“please,” he says, and he reaches for you, his hand hovering near your face like he wants to wipe away your tears, “please, just let me—”

you pull away before he can touch you.

“goodnight, lord albon,” you say, and your voice sounds dead, hollow, “i hope you find peace with your choices. i am sure i will eventually find peace with mine.”

you leave him standing in the corridor and you do not look back.

you wake the next morning with a fever.

at first you think it is simply the aftermath of too much crying, too little sleep, the accumulated stress of the season finally taking its toll. but when you try to rise from your bed your head spins violently, and when zoe comes to check on you she takes one look at your face and immediately calls for the physician.

what follows is a blur of cold compresses and bitter tonics and the concerned faces of the albon sisters swimming in and out of focus above you. you are vaguely aware of hushed conversations happening just outside your door (“she is very ill, the fever will not break, we must send for—”) but you cannot summon the energy to care. the fever wraps around you like a shroud, hot and suffocating, and you drift in and out of consciousness without any clear sense of how much time is passing.

the albon sisters take turns sitting with you, reading to you, pressing a wet rag to your forehead to alleviate the spinning in your head.

they know, you realize dimly. they know about the proposal, about your refusal. they do not know the whole truth, but they know enough. they know that their brother has done something, or failed to do something, and they know that you are paying the price.

they do not speak of it directly. but you hear it in the careful way they avoid mentioning alexander's name, in the pointed silences that fall whenever he is discussed, in the way zoe's jaw tightens and alicia's eyes go hard and even sweet chloe develops a furrow between her brows that speaks to anger suppressed for the sake of your recovery.

days pass. perhaps a week. perhaps more. time loses meaning when you are trapped in the fog of fever, and you stop trying to track it.

when you finally emerge, pale and shaky and thin in a way that makes the girls cluck with concern, the season is about to end.

the families are beginning to retreat from london, or the early ones at least, those who have already done what they were supposed to do, returning to their country estates or departing for the continent, and the social whirl that consumed your life for the past months is winding down to a quiet close. you have missed balls and dinners and the final flurries of matchmaking, have been absent for the announcements of engagements and the whispered gossip about who succeeded and who failed in the great marriage mart of the season.

you have failed. this is clear without anyone needing to say it.

one season. that was all you had. one chance to secure your future, to find a husband who would give you stability and respectability and a life beyond the confines of your grandfather's countryside estate or a governess position. and you squandered it. refused the one man who offered, and for what? for a declaration of love that came with no proposal attached. for a kiss in a hallway that ended in apology and retreat. for a man who could not even bring himself to fight for you.

the girls are gentle with you, in those final days at mercer hall. they do not press you to talk about what happened, do not ask questions you have no answers for. they simply are present and warm in their support, and you love them for it even as you hate yourself for becoming a burden on their family.

“what will you do?” zoe asks quietly, the night before you are all to depart for london, “after the season ends. where will you go?”

the question you have been dreading.

“my grandfather's estate, i suppose,” you say, and your voice sounds hollow even to your own ears,  “for a time. but i cannot stay there forever. i will need to find a position. a governess, perhaps, for some merchant family who does not care about my family's scandal so long as i can teach their children french and etiquette.”

zoe's face crumples. “no,” she says fiercely, “no, you cannot— there must be another way, there must be something—”

“there is nothing.” you take her hand, squeeze it gently, “oh, my darling girl, i had my chance. i made my choice. now i must live with the consequences.”

“the consequences of my brother being a fool—”

“the consequences of my own heart being foolish,” you correct, “i do not blame him, alexander. not entirely. he told me the truth about himself, and i chose to hope for something different. that is not his fault. it is simply—” you pause, searching for the word, “it is simply tragedy.”

zoe pulls you into an embrace so tight it borders on painful, and you let her hold you, let yourself be held, and you try not to think about how few of these moments you have left.

the return to london is subdued.

the carriage ride passes in near-silence, the girls too aware of your fragile state to fill the hours with their usual chatter. you watch the countryside roll past the window, the green fields giving way to the grey sprawl of the city, and you think about endings. about doors closing. about the person you were when you arrived in london all those weeks ago, full of tentative hope and desperate longing, and the person you have become in the aftermath of everything that followed.

you are stronger, perhaps. harder. less willing to believe in fairy tales and happy endings.

you are not sure this is an improvement.

the townhouse feels different now. smaller, somehow, as though it has contracted during your absence to accommodate the diminished scope of your future. you go through the motions of settling back in, unpacking your things, resuming the rhythms of daily life, but everything feels muted, faded.

and you avoid alexander.

this is easier than you expected, because he seems to be avoiding you too. you catch glimpses of him sometimes, a figure disappearing around a corner, a voice in the next room that falls silent when you approach, but you do not seek him out, and he does not seek you. the vast machinery of the albon household continues to turn, and you and he are parallel lines, careful to never collide.

the girls notice. of course they notice. but they do not comment, perhaps sensing that whatever fragile peace you have constructed would shatter at the first pointed question.

the season ends. the announcements are made. and you begin, quietly, to prepare for the life that awaits you— the letters to governesses' agencies, the inquiries about positions, the slow dimming of every dream you once allowed yourself to hold.

this is how it ends, you think.

not with love, but with the memory of love. fading, like everything else, into the grey.

the morning light filters through the glass walls of the conservatory in pale golden streams, catching the dust that drift lazily through the humid air, and you pause in the doorway to breathe it in, the green smell of growing things, the warmth that wraps around you like an embrace, the stillness of it all.

you had not expected to find anyone here.

you had not expected to find him.

alexander stands with his back to you, a watering can in hand, his attention fixed on the orchid that sits on the small table by the window— your orchid, the one you rescued from neglect all those weeks ago, the one whose roots you carefully untangled and repotted and coaxed back toward health. he is pouring water into the pot with a steadiness that might be admirable if it were not so thoroughly, catastrophically wrong.

“stop,” you say, before you can think better of it, “stop, you are drowning it.”

he startles badly enough that water sloshes over the rim of the watering can, and when he turns to face you his expression cycles rapidly through surprise, guilt, and something that looks almost like relief.

“i did not hear you come in,” he says.

“the orchid.” you move into the room despite yourself, despite the voice in your head screaming at you to leave, “you are overwatering it. orchids do not like wet feet. you need to let the soil dry out completely between waterings, or the roots will rot.”

he looks down at the pot, at the water pooling on the surface, and his expression shifts to something almost comically dismayed. “i did not– i was trying to—” he stops, sets down the watering can with exaggerated care, “my mother asked me to tend to the plants while she was out. i thought i was helping.”

“you thought wrong.” you cross to the orchid, assess the damage. it is not too bad, the soil is waterlogged but not yet sour, and if you tip the pot to let the excess drain the roots should survive. “here. tip it gently and let the water run out. then do not touch it again for at least a week.”

he does as instructed, his movements careful, almost reverent, and you watch his hands— those hands that have touched you, held you, mapped the geography of your skin in the darkness of a hallway— and you force yourself to feel nothing.

you have become very good at feeling nothing.

“there,” you say, when the last of the excess water has drained, “it should survive, as long as no one attempts to water it again for at least a week. possibly two.”

“i will inform the household staff,” he says, “perhaps post a sign. do not water the orchid upon pain of death.”

“that seems excessive.”

“you just called me a plant murderer. i feel the punishment should fit the crime.”

something flickers at the corner of your mouth, and it is not quite a smile, but close. you suppress it ruthlessly.

“i should go,” you say, straightening, “i have letters to write.”

“letters?”

“to the governesses' agency,” you say it matter-of-factly, “they have requested references and a list of my accomplishments. apparently there is a merchant family in bristol looking for someone to teach their daughters. the pay is reasonable and the position comes with room and board.”

the silence that follows is so complete you can hear the faint drip of water from the orchid's saucer, the distant tick of a clock somewhere in the house, the soft rustle of leaves in the artificial breeze created by the warmth of the glass walls.

“a governess.” alexander says finally.

“it is respectable work.” you keep your tone light, “and i am not without qualifications. my french is excellent, my italian passable, and i can play the pianoforte well enough to teach the basics. it is not what i imagined for myself, perhaps, but—” you shrug, “one must be practical. the season is ending, and i have no other prospects.”

“because of me.”

“because of circumstances.” you meet his eyes, finally, and you are proud of how steady your gaze remains, “i made my choices, alexander. i do not regret them. i only—” you pause, “i am ready to move forward. that is all. i have made my peace with what happened, and now i would like to begin whatever comes next.”

“and what comes next is… bristol? teaching merchant's daughters to play mozart on the pianoforte?”

“if they will have me. there are other positions, if that one does not work out. i am told there is always demand for governesses with good references.” you smile, and it feels almost natural, “your mother has agreed to write me a letter. she has been very kind throughout all of this. your whole family has been kind.”

“kind.” he repeats.

“yes. kind. generous. more than i had any right to expect, given—” you gesture vaguely, encompassing the conservatory, the house, everything that has passed between you, “given everything.”

another silence. longer this time, weighted with something you cannot name.

“i should go,” you say again, and you turn toward the door.

“wait.” his hand catches your elbow. you go still. “please,” he says, and his voice has changed, become something raw and urgent, “please, just… give me a moment. there is something i need to say, and i have been trying to find the words for days, and if you leave now i am afraid i will never—”

he stops. swallows. his hand falls away from your arm, and when you turn to face him he looks—

he looks wrecked.

there is no other word for it. the careful composure he has worn like armor since mercer hall has cracked, fallen away, leaving something exposed and vulnerable underneath. his eyes are bright, and his hands are trembling slightly at his sides, and he looks at you like you are something irreplaceable, something he is terrified of losing.

“i have been a coward,” he says quietly. “you told me so, the night of the ball, and you were right. i have been a coward my entire life, hiding behind duty and responsibility and the convenient excuse of my family's scandal to avoid ever taking a real risk, ever reaching for something i truly wanted.”

“alexander—”

“let me finish. please.” he pleads, takes a breath, steadies himself, “my father was a coward too. that is the thing i never told you, the thing i have never told anyone. he ran. when things became difficult, when the consequences of bad choices started closing in, he ran to the country and left my mother to face the creditors, the whispers he told himself he was protecting us by staying away, but he was only protecting himself. from shame. from failure. from having to look at the wreckage he had created.”

his voice cracks slightly on the last words, and you see him struggle to compose himself before continuing: “i swore i would never be like him. i swore i would be better, that i would stronger, more reliable, the kind of man who faces his problems instead of fleeing from them. and for years i thought i had succeeded. i managed the estates. i paid the debts. i held our family together through sheer force of will. but then you arrived, and i realized—”

he stops. laughs, a small broken sound, “i realized i had only been brave about things that did not truly matter to me. the estates, the debts, our reputation, those were problems to be solved, challenges to be overcome. i could be strong about them because losing them would not have destroyed me. but you—” his eyes find yours, “the thought of loving you and losing you. the thought of reaching for happiness and watching it slip through my fingers. that terrified me in a way nothing else ever has.”

“so you pushed me away,” you say softly.

“so i pushed you away.” he nods, a jerky motion, “i told myself i was protecting you. from the scandal, from being dragged down into the mess of my life. but i was only protecting myself. from the possibility of not being enough. from the certainty that i would eventually disappoint you, fail you, become the thing you regretted instead of the thing you chose.”

“alex—”

“i watched you dance with sargeant,” he continues, “at the balls. i watched him hold you, look at you, offer you everything i was too frightened to offer myself. and i told myself it was for the best. i told myself you would be happier with him, that he could give you the uncomplicated life you deserved,” his jaw tightens, “and then you refused him. you refused him, and i knew— i knew— it was because of me. because i had made you hope for something i was too cowardly to give.”

“i refused him because i did not love him,” you say quietly, “that is not your fault. that is simply—”

“it is my fault,” he interrupts fiercely, “because if i had been braver, if i had spoken sooner, you would not have had to choose between a man you did not love and a future alone. you would have had a third option.”

“and now?” you ask, “what are you offering now, alex? because i have spent weeks thinking about this. about you, about us, about what might have been, and i cannot do it anymore! i cannot keep hoping for something that you are too afraid to give me!”

“i know,” he moves toward you, “i know, and i am sorry. i am so sorry for every moment of confusion and pain i have caused you. but i am here now, and i am trying to tell you—” he stops, close enough to touch but not touching, “i am trying to tell you that i do not want to be afraid anymore.”

your heart is beating so hard you can feel it in your throat. “what does that mean?”

“it means—” he takes a breath “it means that i have spent the last week thinking about my life without you in it. about watching you leave for bristol, knowing that i let you go because i was too frightened to ask you to stay. about growing old in this house, surrounded by my family's ghosts, always wondering what might have been if i had just been brave enough—”

his voice breaks. he closes his eyes for a moment, composing himself, and when he opens them again they are bright with unshed tears.

“i cannot do it,” he says simply, “i cannot let you go. i have tried to talk myself into it, tried to convince myself that it would be better for you, easier for you, that i would only drag you down— but i cannot. because being without you these past days has been—” he shakes his head. “it has been like living in a world without color. like breathing air that does not quite fill my lungs. like being only half alive and not understanding why until i remember that you are not there.”

"alex—"

“i believe i am my best self when i am with you.” the words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other, “my truest self. the person i always hoped i might become but never quite managed to be on my own. you make me want to be better, to be braver, kinder, more open. you make me want to stop hiding behind walls and actually live. and i know i have given you no reason to believe me, i know i have done everything wrong, but if you could just— if you could give me one more chance—”

“what are you saying?” you whisper, and your voice trembles despite your best efforts. “alex, what does this mean?”

he holds your gaze for a long moment. and then, slowly, deliberately, he sinks to one knee. the breath leaves your body in a rush.

“i am asking you to marry me,” he says, and his voice is steady now, clear and certain, “i do not have a ring— i should have a ring, i know that, this should be done properly with flowers and moonlight and all the romantic trappings, but i cannot wait another moment, i cannot let you walk out that door thinking that you are destined for bristol and merchant's daughters when you could be… when you should be—”

he stops. takes a breath. “i am asking you to be my wife,” he says simply. “i am going down on one knee, in this ridiculous conservatory, surrounded by plants i nearly murdered, and i am asking you properly. because i love you. because i have loved you since the first moment i saw you across that ballroom. because i do not want to be afraid anymore, and being with you makes me feel like i might finally be brave enough to reach for what i want.”

the tears are streaming down your face. you cannot seem to stop them. “this is absurd,” you manage, half-laughing, half-sobbing. “you are absurd. this entire situation is—”

“absurd, yes,” he agrees, and there is a hint of his old humor in his voice, that dry self-deprecating wit that you have come to love. “also terrifying. also the most important thing i have ever done.” he reaches up, takes your hand in his, and his fingers are trembling slightly but his grip is sure, “say yes. please. say yes and let me spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you.”

you look down at him, at this man who has caused you so much pain and so much joy, who has pushed you away and pulled you close, who has been the source of your greatest hope and your deepest despair. you look at his face, open and vulnerable and desperately, achingly hopeful, and you think about all the reasons you should refuse. the scandal, the uncertainty, the months of heartache that led to this moment…

… and then you think about the alternative. bristol. merchants’ daughters. a life of quiet respectability, safe and stable and utterly devoid of this— this feeling that burns in your chest whenever he is near, this sense that you are finally, finally exactly where you are meant to be.

“yes,” you say, and your voice breaks on the word, “yes, you impossible, infuriating, wonderful man. yes, i will marry you.”

the smile that breaks across his face is like sunrise, it bright and warm and so full of joy that it takes your breath away. he rises in a single fluid motion, pulling you into his arms, and when his mouth finds yours it is not like the desperate, hungry kisses of before. it is soft and tender, the kiss of a man who finally has everything he wants and cannot quite believe his good fortune.

“i love you,” he murmurs against your lips. “i have loved you for so long, and i was too afraid to say it, and i am so sorry.”

“say it again,” you demand, pulling back just far enough to see his face, “say it again, and keep saying it, until i believe you mean it.”

“i love you,” he says obediently. “i love you, i love you, i love you—”

and he keeps saying it, between kisses and laughter and the joyful tears that neither of you can seem to stop shedding, until the words blur together and lose their meaning and become simply a sound, a vibration, a truth that hums beneath your skin like music.

in the corner, the orchid stands silent witness to it all— still damp, still slightly waterlogged, but alive. surviving. reaching toward the light.

just like you.