~~~~

He also kept a heavy hand on the small of your back any moment his hand was free. You put on a good act, pretending it didn’t get to you every time his fingers drew small shapes over your top, or whenever his digits slipped beneath the fabric when the boys were too busy laughing, leaving you with a hitched breath and a warm feeling between your legs.

When the other half to your dynamic duo, Kendall, stepped between the two of you and grabbed your hand, spluttering something about dancing to her favorite song, Logan’s grip tightened on you for a moment before he loosened up and plastered a pursed smile on his face.

“As long as you bring her back to me,” he said. Kendall laughed at his joke as she dragged you away. But one look between you and Logan and you knew he wasn’t trying to be funny.

“He’s so down bad for you, it’s hilarious,” Kendall giggled to you with a roll of her eyes. “He needs to lighten up.”

The pair of you danced to an ABBA song, laughing and belting out the lyrics. You closed your eyes and let loose, submitting to the tingle of whatever alcohol remained in your system.

John watched like a hawk. The irony wasn’t lost on him considering his bird costume. You looked so good. He wanted to hold you from behind and make you feel how heavy his—

“Any more staring and she’ll burst into flames.”

Logan snapped out of it and turned to Garrett, who wore a knowing smirk and offered him another can of Sprite.

“Thanks, man,” Logan said gratefully, taking the refill.

Garrett looked at your dancing figure. “Freshmen on the team were asking about her.”

“Yeah? What’d they say?” Logan replied almost absentmindedly, sipping his drink and staring at you.

Garrett sighed. “Rather not say. I’m supposed to be Hannah’s ‘boyfriend’ and all.”

Logan peered at him from the corner of his eyes, feeling his protective instincts start to wake. Garrett noticed and gently bumped their shoulders together.

“Not like that. Wasn’t bad. Just…” Garrett hummed into his red solo cup. “Horny.” He settled on that word.

That was enough.

Logan chugged down whatever was left in the can of soda before making his way over to you. He crossed the room in quick strides, ignoring Kendall’s amused voice when she cooed, “Uh oh, return to sender already?”

Logan took your hand and pulled you away; away from the dance floor, away from the party, and most importantly—away from the lingering gazes so many guys sent your way.

“Logan?” You queried as he brought you up the stairs.

He didn’t respond, just kept tugging you along.

“Logan.”

Nothing.

“Baby—”

He finally stopped and turned to look at you. His stature towered over you and you suddenly felt small with the way he was staring down at your face.

He exhaled a heavy breath. “Fuck, baby, I’m trying really hard to be respectful.”

You cupped his cheek. His skin was hot to the touch. He subconsciously burrowed closer into the palm of your hand.

“You don’t have to be,” you murmured.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “How many drinks have you had?”

“A can and a half of beer,” you answered.

He opened his eyes to make sure you were being honest. You stood unwavering.

“You’re sober?” He asked.

“Mhm.”

“You’re sure?”

“100%. Are you?”

He sighed, turning away. “Yeah. Yeah, I made sure not to…” his words trailed off.

You smiled. “You made sure not to drink too much so we could fuck?”

He looked at you again. “Don’t say it like that.”

You giggled, pushing away a strand of fallen hair from his forehead. “I’m saying it as it is.”

“I made sure not to drink too much to be responsible,” he corrected.

You nodded along, “Oh, yeah. Responsible. My responsible and respectful boyfriend.” You teased. He did not appreciate that.

“Okay,” he let out an amused sound as if he were faced with a challenge. He leaned in and whispered, “Let’s see who’s laughing when I stop respecting you and start doing all the things I plan to do to you.”

You gulped.

+

He led you to the nearest vacant bedroom in the Maxwell family home before pushing you inside and locking the door behind him. You thought he’d pin you against the door and makeout with you.

Instead, he said, “Sit on the bed,” in that husky voice you rarely hear so you knew you had to listen.

You sat down. The covers were soft and cool. You watched and waited for his next words, but Logan was too busy pacing in front of the door and running his hands through his hair. He looked so yummy.

“Take your clothes off. Let me see you.”

You blinked. You weren’t used to Logan being like this. He usually did all the work. But this new side of him was hot, so very hot.

You slowly unzipped your boots and kicked them off along with your socks. Next, your headpiece with the sprinkles. Then, your tube top, revealing your bare breasts, and lastly, your skirt, leaving you in nothing but underwear.

You felt exposed, just sitting there on the bed as Logan stared at you without a word. His eyes were nearly black from how blown out his pupils were, his bottom lip chewed and slightly pink from how much he dragged it beneath his teeth.

“Pretty,” he finally commented. “That’s new.”

You glanced down to where he gestured, looking at the lace thong you wore. He was right; it was new. You and Kendall bought matching ones for the costumes, but you didn’t need to tell him that bit right now.

“Yeah,” you confirmed.

“Was it expensive?” He asked.

“Not…really…”

“Good,” he nodded to himself. He pushed off the wings he wore for his costume and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it aside.

He knelt down in front of you and spread your legs apart. “So I can ruin it, right?”

That shot up your spine. Your thighs wanted to rub against one another at his remark, but he held your knees firmly. “Answer.”

You nodded without thinking. “Yes.”

He smiled at your obedience and nodded. “Yeah, we’ll get to that. But for now…” his words died down as his lips attached to yours.

It was all tongue and messy. Logan pinned your wrists to the mattress as he kissed you. He grunted against your lips every time you bit his lip teasingly. Eventually, his kisses trailed downwards. To your neck, your shoulder, your collarbone. He made sure to give all your sensitive spots an abundance of attention.

Then? His favorite bit. Your tits. John Logan was a tits guy, through and through. Doesn’t matter what size or shape, he was enamored with them.

“Missed my girls,” he murmured before he took one of your breasts into his mouth, swirling his tongue over your pebbled nipple and sucking softly, then switching to the other boob and giving it the same treatment.

Your head tilted back and let out soft sighs. The comfort of him mouthing at your breasts left you aching and squirming on the bed. “Oh, baby…”

He pulled away at your voice and left a sloppy kiss between your tits. He peppered a few more kisses on your abdomen—nipping an especially ticklish spot below your rib—before diving in and licking you over the fabric of your lace thong. You gasped, your hand flying to his hair like second instinct.

He groaned against you, the sound muffled but the vibrations sending sparks to your core. “Already so wet for me. I hardly did anything.”

“Logan, please…”

He kept licking up your slit through your panties. He could feel your juices seep through the delicate material. The friction was doing wonders for your pleasure, but you grew impatient. “Logan…”

He finally pulled your thong to the side and resumed his ministrations with extra fervor. The direct contact had you jumping in your seat, but Logan’s strong arms held your hips down.

He groaned again, pulling away just to mutter, “Fuck, gorgeous, maybe he was right to call you cupcake. You taste so fucking sweet.”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion before his words fully registered in your head. “James?” You asked, breathlessly.

He pulled away and looked at you with a deadpan expression. He crawled up your body until he was face-to-face with you and said, “Please don’t ever say another man’s name when my tongue is inside you.”

That had your hole clenching around nothing.

“Got that?” He asked.

You nodded right away, “Mhm.”

“Words,” he demanded.

“Yes. Got it.” You responded quietly.

“Good,” he murmured before smoothing your hair down and admiring you for a moment. Then, his head was back between your thighs.

“Ah, Logan!” You breathed out, digging your nails into his scalp.

He raised up two fingers to your lips without stopping. You blinked back bleary eyed at that. “Open,” he said.

Immediately, you parted your lips. He shoved his ring and middle fingers inside your mouth and you sucked on them diligently, running your tongue over his calluses earned from hockey and various handyman jobs. Once they were appropriately wet, he pulled his fingers out and into your pussy.

You keeled over with a loud cry, “John!”

He raised his head up, letting his fingers do all the work now. “You like that? Yeah?”

You bobbed your head up and down, unable to find any words left in you from how nicely Logan scissored his fingers inside you, all whilst keeping his thumb on your clit in steady motions.

“Look at you. So pretty and whiny for me,” he murmured, voice smooth as honey. “Letting me wreck you like this and I haven’t even used my cock yet.”

You whimpered, hand gripping onto his bicep. You were sure you’d see nail marks on his skin even tomorrow morning.

“Oh, you like that?” He asked, tilting his head. “You want me to fuck you stupid with my cock?” The pace of his fingers increased.

Your eyes screwed shut. “Yes! Please, I want that.” You tugged him closer so you could bury your face in his neck, feeling so overwhelmed by pleasure.

He let out an airy chuckle. “Such a good girl. Just for that? I’ll reward you.”

He made you cum on his fingers. The heel of his hand applied pressure on your sensitive bundle of nerves until you seized and melted against him with a moan.

“Shhh, that’s it. Come down from it, you’re okay,” he kissed the top of your head.

You mumbled incoherent sentences into his neck and he merely smiled and rubbed your back.

After a minute of breathing, he pulled back slightly to look at your face. “You okay?” He asked, pushing a lock of hair away from your face.

You nodded, still buzzing from what had happened. “Yeah,” you exhaled.

He nodded, watching you carefully in the vulnerable afterglow. Your hands trailed down to his jeans, tugging at his belt, silently asking for it to come off.

Logan chuckled softly before helping you remove his belt and jeans. He reached into the pocket then chucked them on the floor and you instantly started palming his eager boner through his boxers.

He hissed, tossing his head back. “Fuck, baby.”

“Please tell me you have a condom,” you said.

He held the small foil up in his fingers.

At that, you rid him of his boxers and watched in tense awe as he teared the packet open with his teeth and rolled the condom on. You settled back against the bed pillows as you waited in hot anticipation.

“Uh uh,” he wagged his finger before curling it in a come hither gesture.

You sat up, letting out a surprised squeal when he lifted you by your thighs and settled on the bed before placing you above him. Your hands scrambled until they settled on his abs.

He looked up at you with hooded eyes, “Look good for me, gorgeous. I want a show.”

You leaned down and peppered kisses over his face. He let out a relaxed sigh and rubbed up and down your sides lazily. You nibbled on a spot right below his ear, earning you a delicious whimper from him.

“Tease,” he muttered and you grinned.

“Thought you wanted a show,” you remarked.

He hummed, “Mm, yeah. But just for me. No one else.”

You looked down at him, realizing he’s still a bit hung up from the incident earlier that night. Your finger slid sensually from his adam’s apple to his naval. “No one else. Only you.”

“Yeah?” His voice got deeper. “Show me.”

Sir, yes, sir. You held his dick from the base and slowly sank down on him. Logan groaned, his grip on your hips tightening. The stretch of him filling you up was deliriously good. You bit your lip as you took him in, inch by inch.

Finally, you both let out a sigh in unison. You planted your palms flat on his abdomen and started rocking back and forth.

The room succumbed to the sounds of soft moans and the subtle creak from the bed. The party downstairs was long forgotten. Here, it was just you and Logan.

“Just like that, baby, hah,” he breathed out, moving you back and forth. Even if he put you on top, Logan would always end up doing the work for you. You were his pampered princess.

You threw your head back, feeling the pleasure build up in your tummy once again. You took one of Logan’s hands and guided him through rubbing circles on your clit.

“Do you like that, sweetheart?” He asked.

You nodded fervently. “Yes. Fuck, yes, Logan. Keep doing that, baby, I’m so close.”

He held you firmly and started bucking up into you. You cried out, slumping against his chest as he thrusted in and out of you, reaching so deep inside, hitting that spongy part that left you seeing stars.

“Cum for me, baby. I know you can do it,” he said.

The coil snapped and you released, letting out a long moan. Your body shook, the pleasure and adrenaline rushing through you like a live wire meeting water. You collapsed against him, your bones feeling like putty.

He took your chin in his hand and tilted your head up to meet his face. He was still rocking into you. “Need to see you, baby. Need to see your pretty face when I cum.”

You were so out of it, barely processing his words. You simply nodded and chewed on your bottom lip. He looked so hot all sweaty and breathing heavily.

His eyes squeezed shut when he came, letting out a guttural groan. You felt his hips falter as he bucked up into you, rhythm sloppy and erratic. He let out a shuddering breath and dropped his head back onto the pillow.

The room was quiet now. The hum of electrical circuits and the distant noise of the party below filling up the space. You traced shapes onto his ribs, your touch barely skimming his skin. His hands caressed your back slowly, giving a small squeeze every now and then.

“Not jealous anymore?” You murmured, looking at him with an amused smirk.

He scoffed. “I wasn’t jealous.”

You hummed, “Ohhh, okay. Not jealous. Just possessive.”

He rolled his eyes fondly, a smile threatening to tear his lips wide. “Just…want you to be mine. All the time.”

You smiled, “I am.”

“I know you are.”

You knew the real Garrett. You knew that beneath the arrogant, untouchable exterior there was a guy who harbored a vicious resentment for the expectations his father, Phil Graham, placed on his shoulders.

And you knew exactly how to bite the inside of your cheek and look the other way when a starry-eyed puck bunny did the walk of shame down his stairs.

Garrett had made his boundaries crystal clear long ago: he didn't do relationships. Hockey was his entire life, and casual, no-strings hookups were his only speed. You were the sole exception to his rule about letting girls stick around, but only because you were safely, immovably boxed into the friend category.

Tonight, however, the walls of that box felt like they were shrinking.

The hockey house was currently vibrating with the force of way too many drunk college students, the air thick with the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and cheap cologne. You had retreated to the kitchen for a momentary breather, hoisting yourself onto the counter next to the sink.

"Here you go, darlin'." Tucker slid a freshly poured red plastic cup into your hand. He leaned against the counter beside you, watching the chaos of the living room with an amused smirk. "You look like you'd rather be anywhere else."

"I love being shoved into drywall by sweaty frat boys," you replied dryly, taking a sip. "It's my favorite Saturday night activity."

"Hey, Y/N/N," Dean drawled as he wandered into the kitchen. His green eyes scanning the room before locking onto a blonde hovering near the fridge. Dean was an unapologetic slut, and he treated the house like his own personal playground. He shot you a lazy, devastating wink before zeroing in on his target. "Looking good. Try not to let G scare off every guy in a ten-foot radius tonight."

You rolled your eyes, but the knot in your stomach tightened. Dean wasn't wrong.

Speak of the devil.

Garrett pushed through the swinging kitchen door a second later, his broad shoulders easily clearing a path through the throng of bodies. He was nursing a single Bud Light, strictly adhering to his self-imposed, one-drink limit for the hockey season.

He crossed the room and planted himself right between your knees, boxing you in against the counter. He smelled like his familiar, woodsy aftershave, and the sheer heat radiating off his large frame made your pulse betray you.

"I still don't get why you're insisting on mingling downstairs," Garrett muttered, running a hand through his short, dark hair. "We could be upstairs watching season two right now."

"I wanted to be social," you sighed, trying to ignore how naturally his hand rested on the denim of your thigh. "And I actually wanted to talk to some people tonight."

"Talk to who? That pretentious guy from your psych seminar?" Garrett scoffed, his jaw ticking. "I’m telling you, Y/N, the guy is a walking disaster. I saw him in the quad yesterday and he looks like he showers in liquid arrogance."

"His name is Harry, and he asked me to come find him tonight," you snapped, exhaustion seeping into your bones. "And for the record, you said the exact same bullshit about the last three guys I tried to date."

"Because they were all walking red flags!" Garrett argued.

It was an exhausting, toxic cycle. He didn't want you, but the second you tried to scrape together a dating life of your own, his fiercely protective streak mutated into full-blown sabotage. He actively blocked every attempt you made at moving on, hovering like a giant, muscle-bound guard dog while offering you absolutely nothing but friendship in return.

"Stop fucking hovering, Garrett," you fired back. You hopped off the counter, forcing him to take a step back to avoid a collision. "I'm going to go find Harry. Alone."

You didn't wait for his response, pushing your way out of the kitchen and into the sweaty bodies to escape the heavy weight of his stare. You just wanted five minutes to breathe, five minutes to pretend your chest didn't ache every time he touched you.

But as you stepped into the living room, your night was about to collide with a very different kind of disaster.

You scanned the room, looking for Harry. You had met him in your advanced literature seminar, and he was exactly the kind of guy you should be focusing on—smart, ambitious, and completely disconnected from the hockey ecosystem. He was supposed to be the guy who finally helped you pry Garrett Graham out of your heart.

You finally spotted him near the makeshift beer pong table set up over the dining room table. He was holding a plastic cup, laughing with two guys you recognized from the honors program. 

You took a breath, pasting on a smile, and started to weave your way toward him. But as you closed the distance, the loud thump of the music dipped between songs, and Harry's voice carried over the ambient noise of the crowd.

"...yeah, I told her to come find me tonight," Harry was saying, taking a casual sip of his beer.

"Isn't she in your advanced lit seminar?" one of the other guys asked with a laugh. "I heard that class is brutal."

Harry scoffed, a cruel, dismissive sound that made you freeze in your tracks. "It is, and she is completely drowning in it. Honestly, it's painful to watch her try to keep up with the rest of us. I basically had to explain the entire reading list to her on Tuesday."

"So why'd you tell her to meet you?"

"Are you blind? Look at her," Harry chuckled, a slick, arrogant sound. "She's hot. And she's so desperate for help with her midterm, it’s basically a guaranteed hookup. All I have to do is pretend her thesis isn't completely pathetic, tutor her a little, and she'll be all over me. It's almost too easy."

The words hit you with the force of a physical blow.

Your lungs seized. A hot, suffocating wave of humiliation crawled up your neck, burning your cheeks. It was your darkest, most deeply buried imposter syndrome dragged out into the open and weaponized. You spent countless sleepless nights agonizing over your writing, terrified you weren't smart enough to be at Briar, and Harry had seen that vulnerability and decided to use it as leverage to get you into bed.

Tears prickled the back of your eyes, hot and sharp. A strangled breath escaped your throat, and before Harry or his friends could turn around and see you standing there, you spun on your heel and bolted.

You veered into the hallway leading to the front door, moving so fast you didn't even see the two silhouettes pressed against the wall until you collided hard with a solid back.

"Whoa, hey—" a familiar voice muttered.

You blinked the tears away just enough to realize you had crashed right into Dean, who was in the middle of hooking up with the blonde from the kitchen. Because of course he was. Dean had a notorious habit of hooking up everywhere but his bedroom. 

"I'm so sorry," you choked out, your voice cracking pathetically.

Dean pulled back from the girl, his light-green eyes widening as he registered the tears spilling over your lashes. "Y/N/N? Hey, what's wrong? Wait—" 

"I'm fine, sorry," you gasped out, pushing past him and shoving the heavy front door open.

The crisp October air hit you like a bucket of ice water, but it didn't numb the stinging humiliation. You stumbled down the porch steps and pulled your phone out of your pocket with shaking hands, swiping furiously at your screen to pull up the number for the campus taxi service. 

Before it even began to ring, the front door burst open behind you.

"Y/N!"

Garrett’s voice was sharp with panic. He marched down the porch steps, his heavy black boots thudding against the wood. He grabbed your elbow, spinning you around to face him.

"Dean said you ran out of here crying. What the hell—" Garrett froze, the rest of his sentence dying in his throat as he took in your wet cheeks and trembling bottom lip.

The annoyance that usually shadowed his features when you fought was instantly wiped away, replaced by a raw, terrifying protectiveness. His large hands moved to cup your face, his thumbs gently brushing the tears from your skin.

"What happened?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "Did he touch you?"

You shook your head violently, squeezing your eyes shut because looking at him only made the shame burn hotter.

"Nothing," you choked out, pulling out of his grip. You wrapped your arms around yourself, fighting a losing battle against your own tears. "I'm not telling you what happened just so you can give me the whole 'I told you so' speech. You were right about him, okay? Can we just leave it at that?"

Garrett stared at you for one long, suffocating second. You could practically see the gears turning in his head, putting two and two together. The silence that stretched between you was terrifying. His eyes darkened to the color of a storm, and the muscle in his jaw ticked furiously. 

He just turned on his heel and stalked back up the porch steps.

"Garrett!" Panic seized your chest. "Garrett, no!"

You scrambled up the steps, chasing him through the front door, but he was moving with the blinding, aggressive speed he usually saved for the ice.

"Garrett!" You yelled his name, pushing past confused partygoers, but he was an unstoppable force. "Garrett, stop!"

He found Harry exactly where you had left him, still leaning against the beer pong table.

Garrett grabbed the back of Harry's shirt, spun him around, and swung.

His fist connected with Harry's face with a sickening, bone-jarring crack. The guy didn't even have time to scream before Garrett hit him again, the sheer force of it lifting Harry off his feet and sending him crashing backward into the beer pong table. Red plastic cups and cheap beer went flying in every direction as the table buckled beneath them.

The crowd erupted into shrieks, scattering backward to form a wide circle.

Harry hit the floor, groaning, but Garrett wasn't finished. He dropped to his knees, grabbing Harry by the collar of his shirt, pulling his fist back to deliver another devastating blow.

"Garrett, stop!" you screamed, finally breaking through the circle of onlookers.

You lunged at him, grabbing his thick bicep and trying to haul him backward. But he was two hundred pounds of pure, sculpted muscle fueled by blind rage. You couldn't even budge him. Your fingernails dug into his arm, but he didn't even flinch. 

"Graham, enough!"

Suddenly, Logan and Tucker burst through the crowd. Logan, a bruiser of a defenseman, wrapped his massive arms around Garrett's chest from behind, hauling him backward. Tucker grabbed Garrett’s other arm, digging his heels into the sticky floor to help drag their captain away from the bleeding guy on the floor. 

"Get the fuck off me!" Garrett roared, thrashing against his teammates, his chest heaving wildly.

"Cool it, man!" Logan shouted, straining to hold him back. 

You planted yourself right in Garrett's line of sight, placing both your hands flat against his chest. His heart was hammering violently against your palms.

"G. Look at me," you commanded, your voice shaking.

His wild, silver eyes finally locked onto yours. The lethal fury in his gaze flickered, the fight slowly draining out of his posture as he registered the sheer panic on your face. He stopped fighting Logan and Tucker, his heavy, ragged breathing filling the tense silence of the room. His knuckles were already turning a vicious shade of purple. 

"We are going upstairs," you said, your tone leaving absolutely no room for argument. "Now."

You didn't wait for him to agree. You grabbed his wrist and turned, dragging him away from the wreckage, up the narrow staircase, and straight into his master bedroom. 

You slammed the door shut, leaning your back against the heavy wood as if it could keep the rest of the world out. The chaotic bass of the party was instantly muted, leaving only the sound of Garrett’s ragged, heavy breathing.

He stood in the center of the room, staring blindly at his split knuckles. The skin was already swelling and bleeding, identical to the brutal bruises he brought home after playing dirty teams like St. Anthony's.

"Are you insane?" you choked out. Your voice trembled, the adrenaline crash finally hitting you and leaving you hollowed out. "You could get suspended for that! Coach Jensen will bench you, Garrett!"

"I don't give a fuck about Coach Jensen right now," he snarled, spinning around to face you. His gray eyes were stormy, flashing with a volatile, untamed fury. "He was using you, Y/N. He was standing there laughing with his buddies about manipulating you."

"And you think I don't know that?" Your voice broke. "You think I didn't hear him? God, G, you didn't have to throw a punch to prove how pathetic I am. I already knew!"

Garrett flinched as if you'd struck him. "What are you talking about? You aren't pathetic."

"I am!" you yelled, pushing off the door. The humiliation from downstairs was a living, breathing thing inside your chest. "I'm the idiot who thought a guy actually liked me for me. I'm the idiot who's failing her seminar, who trails after you like a lapdog, exactly like he said! And you charging in there to fight my battles like I'm incapable of defending myself only proved him right!"

"He's a piece of shit who felt threatened by you," Garrett argued, closing the distance between you in two long strides. "He knows you're brilliant."

"Stop it!" You shoved both hands against his solid chest, trying to push him away, but it was like trying to move a brick wall. "Stop pitying me! I can handle the fact that you don't want me. I can handle sitting on the sidelines watching you bring home a different girl every weekend. But I cannot handle you treating me like some fragile charity case you have to protect!"

Garrett didn't move. He absorbed your shove, his jaw tightening so hard the muscle ticked visibly beneath his skin.

"Pity?" he repeated, the word tearing out of him in a harsh, jagged exhale. "You think I pity you?"

"Garrett—"

"You think I sit up at night, listening to you talk about other guys, watching you dress up for dates with assholes who don't deserve to breathe the same air as you, out of pity?" He grabbed your wrists—not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to pull your hands off his chest so he could step directly into your space.

His heat surrounded you, smelling of sweat, adrenaline, and his familiar woodsy aftershave.

"I don't defend you because I pity you, Y/N," he said, his voice dropping to a rough, desperate rasp. "I do it because I am completely, out of my fucking mind for you."

The air vanished from the room.

You stared up at him, your heart slamming violently against your ribs. "What?"

Garrett released your wrists, bringing his hands up to cup your face. His thumbs gently swept over your wet cheeks, his bruised knuckles resting warm and rough against your skin. The arrogance and swagger he wore like armor were completely gone, leaving behind a raw, agonizing vulnerability.

"I have been in love with you for years," he confessed, the words pouring out of him like a dam breaking. "I told everyone I didn't want a girlfriend because the only girl I wanted was my best friend, and I was too terrified of ruining it. So I kept my mouth shut. I watched you look for someone else, and it tore me apart."

"Garrett," you breathed, a fresh tear slipping down your face.

"You are the smartest, most beautiful person I know," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your lips with heavy, agonizing intent. "And if you want me to back off, I will. I'll walk away right now. But don't you ever, ever think I pity you."

Your brain was short-circuiting. The secret you had buried so deep, the ache you had carried for years, was suddenly reflected right back at you in his intense gray eyes.

"You're the biggest idiot on this entire campus," you whispered, a shaky, breathless laugh escaping your throat.

He froze, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face. "Y/N—"

"I've been in love with you since high school," you interrupted, sliding your hands up his chest to tangle in his short dark hair.

Garrett’s breath hitched audibly. "Are you serious?"

"You really think I hung around all this time just for the free pizza and your terrible taste in TV?" you asked, a blinding smile breaking through your tears.

A slow, devastating smirk spread across his lips, the dimples you loved so much finally making an appearance. "Well, damn," he breathed.

The hesitation vanished. Garrett’s hands slid to your waist, gripping you firmly and pulling you flush against his body. He crashed his mouth down on yours, and it was a messy, desperate collision of everything you had both held back for years.

He kissed you like he was starving. His lips were demanding, his tongue sliding against yours with a hungry, possessive heat that sent a shockwave of electricity straight down your spine. Your fingers gripped his hair, anchoring him to you as he backed you up against the door, his large frame pressing you into the wood.

When he finally pulled away, you were both breathless, his forehead resting heavily against yours.

"So," Garrett murmured, his thumb stroking your hip. "I guess this means I don't have to share you anymore."

You understood this in the first week. The girl who came before you, Liana, had walked you through everything: cameras, angles, schedules, the way the athletics department liked their content formatted. But had failed to mention that the players would not look at you so much as look through you at first. Like you were part of the furniture. A tripod with a heartbeat.

In a way, that was fine. Being invisible was a perfectly good way to do the job. Players acted more naturally when they forgot the camera was there, and natural content was always better than posed content. This was something you had understood instinctively from the beginning.

You had been doing this job since the beginning of fall semester. It had come to you not accidentally but not exactly sought either, you had always followed the team, always been a genuine fan. Liana, the former social media girl, was a friend from a very boring Thursday morning class you had both suffered through together. When she came close to graduating she recommended you for the job. You had been working the library circulation desk before that. When the athletics department called it had seemed like a no-brainer.

A few months in, you knew the inner workings of the team the way you knew the layout of your own apartment. Their training schedule, their game schedule, the subtle social architecture of a group of people who spent most of their waking hours together. You knew which players were camera shy and which ones had a natural appeal and actively enjoyed being filmed — cough Dean cough — and by now you knew everyone's best angle, best light, best moment.

Which brought you to Logan.

You were also, which was a separate and entirely unrelated issue, completely down bad for one of the players.

It had not happened all at once.

You had known who John Logan was before you got the job, everyone who followed Briar hockey knew who he was, which was most of the campus, but knowing of someone and being in the same building as them four times a week were different things entirely.

You had known about his escapades too. His romantic history was the kind of thing that Olivia, your friend and a woman of genuinely exceptional gossip quality, had mentioned more than once with the relish of someone who considered this information a public service. Before the job, you had laughed about it the way you laughed about things that had nothing to do with you.

Now that you actually knew him, not knew knew him, but saw him daily, which was its own specific category, you thought about his former, and hopefully past, escapades and felt something uncomfortably close to jealousy.

The crush had consolidated gradually and against your will, the way water finds its way through things. A practice here. A post-game there. The specific way he looked when he was focused on something, the way he talked to his teammates, the way he sometimes looked directly into your camera with an expression that suggested he had briefly forgotten it was there and was just looking.

And then there was the other thing, which was honestly the worst part: he was so unfairly polite. He said good morning and good afternoon. He smiled when he caught you filming something. He said goodbye when he left and apologized if the puck flew in your direction, which it occasionally did, and each time he said sorry about that with the specific sincerity of someone who actually meant it.

You knew you had a crush on him. Obviously. That part was not new information.

What was new information was the following Tuesday, late after practice, the rink mostly empty, you sitting in the stands with your laptop open and the tiredness of someone who had been on their feet for three hours. The players were filtering out through the doors and you were reviewing footage on autopilot, not really watching, when you looked up without thinking about it.

You were looking for Logan before you had decided to look for him.

When you found him, he was at the boards, removing his helmet and pushing a hand through his hair.

Fuck me, you thought.

And then it seemed like he had heard you, because he lifted his eyes and looked straight at you across the empty rink and smiled.

You smiled back and closed your laptop.

Time to go home and think about John Logan in bed.

You reached for your camera on the tripod — force of habit, you always checked the last few shots before packing up — and opened the gallery.

Logan drinking water. Logan laughing at something Garrett said. Logan tying his skates. Logan high-fiving Tucker after a good drill. Logan making a face directly at the camera, having clearly just noticed you filming him, looking entirely unbothered about it.

You stared at the screen.

Oh.

Oh no.

The real problem came later.

The game was at Harvard, which meant the bus, which meant a situation you had been successfully avoiding for six months. You never took the team bus, too much male energy, too many large people occupying space in a way that made you feel like you had accidentally wandered into someone else's environment. You usually went with the student bus, which was fine, which was your preferred option.

The student bus had a mechanical issue and couldn't make the drive in time.

So you, along with the other team staff, boarded the team bus with approximately forty hockey players and the quiet resignation of someone who had lost a negotiation they hadn't known they were in.

The game itself went fine, nothing groundbreaking, but Briar won, which was all that mattered. You packed up your equipment and joined the line filing back onto the bus, looking for the same seat you'd had on the way there.

You were making your way down the aisle when you spotted Logan sitting alone.

You slowed down. Made the calculation. Gave yourself approximately four seconds of internal encouragement.

A freshman defenseman sat down next to him before you could finish the thought.

You did not pout. You were a professional.

"Aw, look who it is." Dean's voice came from the seat directly behind Logan. He was sitting in the aisle seat, legs stretched out, watching you with the expression of someone who had seen everything. "You can sit with me."

"Sure," you said.

"Geez, don't look so happy about it." He pulled his legs in so you could slide past. "I even let you have the window."

"What a gentleman," you said, settling in and pulling your laptop from your bag.

"Are we watching a movie?" Dean pointed at the laptop.

"No. I'm working."

"Bummer," he said, shifting in his seat to get comfortable. Dean was a broad person and the seats were not designed with broad people in mind, which meant that when you sat down you were immediately, unavoidably in contact, arms pressed together, shoulders touching. You had briefly considered putting the armrest down for some personal space, but Dean seemed completely unbothered by the proximity, which somehow made it easier to be unbothered yourself.

This was the thing about Dean that had surprised you most when you first started the job: there had never been an awkward phase. No stiff introductions, no careful professional distance, no period of working out who you were to each other. He had simply decided you were friends and proceeded accordingly, and somehow six months had passed and it felt like you had known each other much longer than that.

You connected your camera to the laptop and started pulling up photos from the game. Selected the best ones. Started uploading them to the shared drive.

"Uh oh," Dean said, leaning over. "That's not my best angle."

You looked at the photo. He was facing almost entirely away from the camera.

"Shut up," you said, lightly slapping his hand away from the screen. "What do you mean not your best angle? Are you not proud of your very nice backside?"

This was a callback, and Dean knew it. He had said something similarly direct about you at a party two months ago in the shameless way that Dean said most things, and you had decided that the only appropriate response was to give the same energy back.

 "I am," he said, "but the front is much better. You should check it out sometime."

"Are you referring to your face as the front of your backside?"

Dean repeated the question back to you in a mocking tone.

You opened the photos and started scrolling through them, and approximately three seconds later you noticed the pattern and began praying, quietly and sincerely, that Dean would not notice it too.

Too late.

"Why do you have so many pictures of Logan?" He was looking at the screen with his eyebrows raised. "There are like ten Logan pictures for every one of anyone else."

"Logan just photographs well."

"He photographs well."

"Yes."

"That's your explanation."

"That's my explanation."

Dean looked at you with the expression of someone assembling a conclusion. "You have the hots for Logan."

"The hots? Dean, what is this, a Disney Channel movie? And no. I don't."

"Yeah? Explain the hundred photos of him drinking water. Sorry, but you can't use those for Instagram." He paused. "Unless you're using them for something else. Like, I don't know. Your spank bank."

You gasped and punched his arm. "Shut up."

"Admit it."

"I plead the fifth."

"That's not how that works."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You have to. I'm your best friend."

"No you're not. It's Olivia."

"On the team, I meant."

"It's probably Tucker."

"Tucker?" Dean looked genuinely wounded. "Tucker? Don't try to change the subject."

You closed the laptop.

"Go to sleep, Dean."

"This conversation is not over."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not," he said, adjusting himself against the seat with the decisive energy of someone settling in for a nap. You let your head fall back against the window. A moment later his head dropped onto your shoulder with the comfortable weight of someone who had decided this was acceptable.

"Do not drool on me," you said.

"I bet if it was Logan you wouldn't mind," he said, eyes already closed. Of course not.

"Don't be disgusting."

"And by the way —" he opened one eye "— he has the hots for you too."

"Oh my god," you said. "Stop talking like this is iCarly."

He closed his eye again.

The bus moved through the dark and you sat there with Dean's head on your shoulder and the laptop closed on your knees and tried very hard not to look at the back of Logan's head in the row in front of you.

Oh no, you thought, again, for the second time that week.

A couple of weeks later, Dean found you setting up the tripod in the corner of the film room before pre-game interviews.

"So," he said, appearing at your elbow with the energy of someone who had been waiting for the right moment. "I saw that you didn't RSVP to the invitation for mine and Beau's birthday bash. And it's tomorrow."

You winced. You had been avoiding this topic.

"I have a thing," you said, very casually, adjusting the tripod height without looking at him.

"A thing." He repeated it back with the tone of someone who found this deeply insufficient. "What thing could possibly be more important than my birthday?"

"They painted a new wall in the hallway of my apartment so —"

"Shut up," he said, moving closer. "You're coming. Also —" he said it with the specific energy of someone deploying their strongest argument "— Logan is going to be there."

You kept your eyes on the tripod. "I would assume so. Since you live together."

"You know what I mean."

"I really don't."

"Yes you do."

"I'm working tomorrow night," you said.

"It's a Saturday."

"Content doesn't take weekends off."

"You literally schedule everything in advance and you know it." Dean leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. "Come to the party. Talk to him. He's going to be right there."

"I talk to him all the time. It's my job."

"Yeah, but when you talk to Logan you do the thing."

You looked up for the first time. "What thing."

"The thing." He gestured vaguely at your face. "The thing where you forget to be normal."

"I am always normal."

"You called his assist last Tuesday 'genuinely cinematic.'"

"It was a good play."

"To his face."

"As a professional observation —"

"He smiled about it for the rest of practice." Dean looked at you steadily. "Come to the party."

You turned back to the tripod.

"I don't think Logan has the hots for me, you know," you said. "He's like a hot athlete. And I'm like the social media nerd."

Dean stared at you with the expression of someone who had just heard something that offended him on multiple levels simultaneously.

"Geez," he said. "You're not the girl in every romcom who doesn't know she's pretty." He paused. "Also you may be a nerd but — with all due respect to you and to my buddy Logan — you're pretty hot."

You pushed his shoulder and muttered a low stop.

"I'm being sincere!" He caught himself on the wall, laughing. "Party. Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. Logan will be there." He pointed at you one more time. "You will also be there."

He walked away before you could respond.

You looked at the camera. The camera looked back at you.

Genuinely cinematic, you thought, mortified.

You were definitely not going to that party.

The thing about watching two people be completely oblivious to each other was that it was, at first, entertaining.

Dean had found it genuinely funny in the beginning, the way you would track Logan across a room without realizing you were doing it, the way Logan would find reasons to be wherever you were without announcing that was what he was doing. It was like watching a nature documentary.

It had been funny for approximately three weeks.

It was now week seven and Dean was losing his mind.

It was a Thursday practice, nothing special about it. Dean was on the ice going through drills with Tucker when he caught it, the peripheral awareness of someone who had been watching a situation develop for too long.

You were in your usual spot in the stands, laptop open, camera on the tripod, doing the thing you always did where you looked like you were reviewing footage but were actually, if you knew what to look for, tracking Logan across the ice without moving your head.

Logan, for his part, was doing the thing he always did where he skated past your section of the stands more than was strictly necessary for any drill that had been assigned.

"He's done that four times," Tucker said, appearing at Dean's elbow.

"Five," Dean said. "You missed one while you were talking to the coach."

Tucker watched Logan complete another unnecessary loop near the boards. "Are they ever going to do something about that?"

"Apparently not," Dean said.

On the ice Logan slowed near the boards not stopping, that would have been too obvious, just slowing and said something up toward the stands. You looked up from your laptop and said something back. Logan smiled. You looked back at your laptop immediately, in the specific way of someone using a screen as a shield.

Logan skated away looking slightly more cheerful than he had thirty seconds ago.

"It's painful," Tucker said.

"It's excruciating," Dean agreed.

"Wow, that's a big word" Tucker said mocking Dean and skating away.

After practice Dean was still thinking about it in the locker room.

He was unwrapping his tape when Garrett sat down across from him.

"You have a face," Garrett said.

"I'm thinking."

"About what."

"Logan and the social media girl, or as I call her, (Y/N)"

"So her name—" Garrett replied.

Garrett looked at him with the mild, steady expression he used when he was waiting for someone to either say something sensible or stop talking. "And?"

"And they've been doing this for like seven weeks and nothing is happening and I'm tired of watching it."

"So tell him to do something about it."

"I've told him." Dean had, in fact, told Logan approximately six times in varying tones of directness. "Telling doesn't work. Logan needs a push."

"A push," Garrett repeated.

"A significant push."

Garrett looked at him for a long moment. "What kind of push."

"A financial one," he said.

"Dean —"

"Hear me out."

"I don't think I want to."

"A thousand dollars," Dean said. "I bet him a thousand dollars that he won't ask her out. He needs the money, he likes her, this solves both problems simultaneously. It's elegant."

Garrett stared at him. "It's really not."

"It gets him to do the thing he already wants to do."

"By paying him."

"By incentivizing him."

"Those are the same thing."

"Garrett," Dean said, in the tone of someone who had considered the counterarguments and dismissed them. "They have been doing this for weeks. At this rate they'll still be doing it at graduation. I'm helping."

Garrett looked at the ceiling briefly. "You shouldn't do this," he said finally.

"Noted," Dean said.

He did not change his mind.

Logan came in from the showers to find Dean sitting on the bench across from his locker with an expression that meant something was coming.

Tucker was in the corner pretending to check his phone. Garrett was lacing his shoes with more focus than the task required.

"What," Logan said.

"I have a proposition," Dean said.

Logan looked at Tucker. Tucker looked at his phone. Logan looked at Garrett. Garrett looked at his shoes.

"What kind of proposition," Logan said.

"A thousand dollars," Dean said. "All you have to do is ask her out."

He didnt't have to specify who the her was.

The locker room was quiet.

Logan opened his locker. Got his jacket. "No."

"Logan —"

"No, Dean."

"You like her."

"That's not —"

"You've skated past her section of the stands five times today during drills that don't require you anywhere near the boards." Dean's voice was completely even. "I counted."

Logan said nothing.

"You check her posts before anyone else on the team," Dean continued. "You know her schedule better than your own. You said sorry to her last Tuesday when the puck went near her even though it didn't come close to actually hitting her." A pause. "You apologized preemptively."

"I was being polite."

"You were being in love with her," Dean said, simply. "Which is fine. Great, actually. And fixable. With one conversation and a thousand dollars."

Tucker made a small sound that was not quite disapproval and not quite agreement.

Garrett said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.

Logan looked at his jacket in his hands. He thought about the time that had passed, the practices and bus rides and the specific way you closed your laptop when you were trying to hide something. He thought about his bank account, which was having a difficult semester. He thought about the rent that was due. The equipment he needed.

He thought about asking you out, which he had been meaning to do, which he had been telling himself he was going to do, which he had not done.

I was going to do it anyway, he told himself. The money doesn't change what I was going to do anyway.

"Fine," he said.

Tucker made the sound again, slightly louder.

Garrett looked up from his shoes for the first time. His expression was not angry, not exactly. More like a person watching a decision being made and knowing already how it was going to cost someone.

Dean produced a check from somewhere — written on the back of a receipt, which was so Dean that Logan almost laughed — and held it out.

Logan took it.

He folded it once and put it in his jacket pocket and did not look at Garrett again.

I was going to do it anyway, he thought.

He almost believed it.

The subject of the party was a sore one.

Part of you wanted to go and part of you didn't, and the two parts had been arguing since Dean walked away from the tripod, and by the time you got back to your apartment you had resolved nothing except that you needed to talk to Olivia about it.

Olivia listened to the full recap of the Dean conversation with the focused attention of someone taking notes. When you finished she was quiet for approximately three seconds.

"We're going," she said.

"I said I wasn't sure —"

"I've made up my mind. You were invited so you need to go, and I'm coming with you because—." She looked at you with the expression of someone who had already decided the fun they were going to have and was simply waiting for logistics to catch up. "What's the theme?"

"Dynamic duo."

"Perfect for us." She was already opening her laptop. "I know exactly what we're wearing."

"I don't even know what to wear," you breathed out, dropping flat onto your bed and staring at the ceiling. "What kind of theme even is that? Dynamic duo? That's so vague."

"It's not vague, it's versatile." She turned the screen to face you. "Clueless. Cher and Dionne. The plaid."

You looked at the screen. You looked at Olivia.

"Obviously," you said.

You walked into the party in matching plaid ,short skirt, blazer, the whole thing and felt immediately, objectively, like you had made the right costume choice. Olivia walked in beside you with the confident energy of someone who had never had a bad entrance in her life.

The house was full and warm and smelled like every college party you had ever been to. You did a quick scan of the room in the completely professional way of someone who was not looking for anyone specific.

You found him in approximately four seconds.

Logan was in the kitchen with Dean, drink in hand, laughing at something. He was wearing a sleveless gray shirt with a pair of wings.

You gave a small wave in their direction. Dean spotted you first and his face did something immediately, and then he clapped a hand on Logan's back and pushed him in your direction with the subtlety of a person who had never heard the word subtle.

Logan crossed the room.

"Hey —" His eyes moved over you and something in his expression shifted slightly. "Clueless?"

"Yeah," you said, nodding perhaps a few more times than necessary.

Beside you, Olivia made a sound that she converted, barely, into a cough. She had been documenting your inability to form complete sentences in Logan's presence for approximately three months and found it genuinely hilarious.

"You look very pretty," Logan said.

"Oh — thanks." The blush arrived before you could do anything about it. Compose yourself.

Logan seemed to remember that you were not alone. "You too, Olivia."

"Yeah, right," Olivia laughed. "I'll go get a drink."

She disappeared into the crowd. As she passed behind Logan she turned to face you and mouthed make a move with the enormous unsubtle energy of someone who had been waiting three months to say it.

You looked back at Logan.

"I'm glad you came," he said. "Dean mentioned you weren't sure."

"I had some content to edit," you said.

"This is more important," he said, lightly, like a joke, but with something underneath it that wasn't entirely a joke.

"Yeah," you said.

And then you were both just standing there. Drinks in hand, the party moving around you, talking the way you had discovered you talked when you were alone together, which was easily, which was the specific ease of two people who had been in the same orbit long enough to have figured out each other's rhythms without officially acknowledging it.

"So what are you supposed to be anyway?" you asked, taking the opportunity to look at him properly. The gray shirt. The wings. The arms, which were — you looked at his face instead. "Jacob Elordi in Saltburn?"

Logan laughed — a real one, surprised and warm. "Bird and the bee. I'm the bird. Tuck's the bee."

"Oh," you said. "That tracks."

"Does it."

"The bee has better energy," you said. "No offense to you."

"I'll tell Tucker you said that."

"Please don't."

Dean chose this exact moment to appear between you.

"Hello, you two." He looked between you with barely concealed delight. "What are we talking about?"

"The birds and the bees," you said, and watched Dean's eyebrow go up in real time.

"Oh, I like where this is headed."

"No — I mean his costume," you said quickly. "What are you supposed to be?"

"Maverick." He pointed across the room to where Beau was talking to a very beautiful brunette. "Beau's Goose."

You considered this. "Was there not a dynamic duo where one of them didn't have a tragic ending? You could have been Ice."

"Ice and Maverick hated each other," Dean said.

"No they didn't! In your own words they had the hots for each other."

Dean opened his mouth. Closed it. Pointed at you. "That is actually a fair point."

"Thank you."

"You're insufferable," he said, smiling. He looked between you and Logan one more time. "I'm going to go find Beau. You two —" he gestured vaguely at the space between you "— continue."

He disappeared back into the crowd.

You looked at Logan. Logan looked at you.

"He's not subtle," you said.

"No," Logan agreed. "He really isn't."

The party continued around you. At some point you had moved slightly closer together. Neither of you had announced it. At some point his hand had found the small of your back, briefly, when someone pushed past in the crowd. It had stayed there a moment longer than strictly necessary. You had not moved away.

At some point Olivia had caught your eye from across the room and given you a look of such unrestrained triumph that you had been forced to look at the floor to keep from laughing.

"So —" Logan started. He stopped. Tried again. "I've been thinking. For a while actually." He looked at you with the expression of someone abandoning a rehearsed script entirely in favor of just saying the thing. "Would you like to go out? With me. On a date."

Inside your chest, something that had been very carefully managed for months made a sound like:

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES —

"Yes," you said, with great composure. "I'd like that."

Something settled in his expression warm and certain. "Good. I was hoping you were going to say that."

"I was hoping you were going to ask," you said.

He smiled. Not the polite one, not the team-photo one the real one, the one you had forty-seven saved clips of and only eleven of them were for work.

Across the room, completely uninvited into this moment, Dean let out a noise of triumph loud enough that Tucker turned around to look.

You and Logan both looked at Dean.

Dean pointed at both of you, then at himself, then gave two thumbs up with the energy of a man who had absolutely no shame about any of this.

"He planned this," you said.

"Obviously," Logan said.

You looked at Dean, who was now saying something to Beau that was making Beau look confused and Dean look extremely pleased with himself.

"I'm going to delete all his content," you said.

"Probably," Logan said. "But maybe tomorrow."

You looked back at him.

"Yeah," you said. "Maybe tomorrow."

What you did not know — what you would not know for three months — was what had happened two hours before that conversation.

The first date was a Tuesday.

Logan had asked on a Saturday and then spent the intervening three days being completely normal about it, which meant he had checked his phone approximately forty times and suggested three different restaurants to Dean who had not asked for his opinion and had given it anyway.

He picked you up at seven. You had worn something simple and he had looked at you the way he sometimes looked into the camera, direct, unhurried, like you were something worth paying attention t, and said you look great in the specific voice he used when he meant things, and you had said thanks, so do you and meant it, and the evening had been easy in the way that things were easy when they had been building for a long time and had finally found the right outlet.

You talked for three hours. Not about anything important about the team, about your job, about the things you had noticed about each other without ever saying so. He told you about the preemptive puck apology before you could bring it up and looked slightly embarrassed about it, which you found endearing in a way you did not make him aware of. You told him about the forty-seven saved clips and watched his expression do something warm and complicated.

He walked you back to your dorm. He kissed you at the door — soft and unhurried, the specific patience of someone who had been waiting a while and had decided that arriving was enough for now.

You went inside and stood in the hallway for a moment.

Oh, you thought. Not oh no this time. Just — oh.

What followed was three months that assembled themselves quietly and completely, the way good things tended to do when you stopped trying to manage them.

You learned the specific rhythm of being with Logan, which was different from the rhythm of being near Logan, which you had spent seven months memorizing from behind a camera. Being with him was easier. Less careful. The things you had noticed from a professional distance — the way he focused, the way he was with his teammates, the particular quality of his attention when he was genuinely listening were the same up close, just without the glass between you.

He remembered things. That was the detail that accumulated the most weight over three months small things you had said once, in passing, that he filed away and produced later in the specific way of someone who had been listening more carefully than you knew. The coffee order. The fact that you hated the overhead lights in the film room. The name of the professor whose class you had shared with Liana.

You told Olivia about the coffee order detail on a Thursday night and she looked at you with an expression that said everything she was choosing not to say out loud.

"Don't," you said.

"I'm not saying anything," she said.

"You have a face."

"I have my normal face."

"Olivia."

"I'm just glad," she said simply, and went back to whatever she was doing, and you sat with that for a moment and found that you were too.

Logan was also, three months in, still thinking about the check.

Not constantly. Not the way he had in the beginning, when it had surfaced at inconvenient moments, the first dinner, the first time you laughed at something he said, the first time you fell asleep on his shoulder watching something neither of you were paying attention to. Those early weeks it had been a persistent background noise, a low-level static of something he should have said and hadn't.

But the weeks had passed and the static had gotten quieter, the way noise does when you choose not to listen to it long enough. He had paid his rent. He had replaced the equipment. He had told himself, again and again, that he had been going to ask you out anyway, that the money had been incidental, that what they had built in the three months since was real regardless of how it started.

All of that was true.

The part that was also true, the part he didn't let himself look at too directly, was that you didn't know. And not knowing was its own kind of thing, a thing that existed in the space between you without you being aware of it, that he was aware of every time you said something honest to him, every time you looked at him the way you looked at him.

He had meant to tell you. In the beginning. There had been a window, early on, when it would have been a small thing — by the way, Dean made a bet, it's a whole thing, I was going to ask you anyway—. He had rehearsed it. He had not said it. The window had closed, and then it had been a week, and then a month, and then three months, and now saying it felt like dropping something large into a quiet room.

So he didn't say it.

He told himself it didn't matter because it hadn't changed anything real.

He was getting better at believing that.

It was a Saturday afternoon in February, the specific grey-white quality of a winter afternoon that had given up pretending it was going to improve, and you were in Logan's room doing nothing in particular.

This had become one of your favorite things — the doing nothing in particular. You had a tendency, left to your own devices, to fill time with productivity, with scheduled content and edited footage and the general sense that unoccupied time was time being wasted. Logan had, over three months, introduced you to the concept of lying on a bed on a Saturday afternoon and simply existing, which you had resisted and then accepted and now found genuinely necessary.

He was on his back, one arm behind his head, reading something on his phone. You were beside him, legs tangled, working your way through a Cosmopolitan from 2003 that you had found at the thrift store the previous weekend when you had gone with Allie. It had a younger Jennifer Lopez on the cover and approximately forty pages of advertisements for perfumes that no longer existed, and you had bought it for fifty cents because something about it felt like an artifact.

"Listen to this," you said.

"Mm."

"It's a quiz." You held up the magazine. "Is your relationship ready for the next level? I feel like we should take it."

"I feel like that magazine is older than some of our teammates."

"That's what makes it valuable." You turned back to the page. "Okay. Question one. When you picture your future, does your partner feature prominently? Options are: always, sometimes, or only when I'm feeling optimistic."

"Always," Logan said, without looking up from his phone.

You looked at him sideways. He was still reading, expression neutral, like he had answered a question about the weather.

"Okay," you said, and looked back at the magazine, and did not make anything of it, because making something of it would have required acknowledging that it had landed somewhere specific and stayed there.

You worked through several more questions — about communication, about conflict, about shared values — Logan answering in the same unhurried, matter-of-fact way, like the answers had already been decided and he was simply reporting them.

And then you got to the last one.

"Okay, last question." You shifted onto your side to face him. "If your partner made a serious mistake — something that hurt you — what would it take to make things right? Option A: a heartfelt conversation and genuine apology. Option B: time, space, and proof of change. Option C —" you paused, because option C was very 2003 "— a grand romantic gesture. Flowers, candlelight, the whole thing."

You said it like it was funny. You said it with the lightness of someone reading from an old magazine on a Saturday afternoon.

Logan put his phone down.

He looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then he turned his head and looked at you with an expression that was doing something complicated underneath the surface.

"What would you pick?" he said.

You considered it. "Honestly? C, but private. Like not in front of everyone. Just — showing up. With flowers, or peonies, they are my favorite. And meaning it." You paused. "The meaning it is the important part."

Logan looked at the ceiling again.

"Many flowers," he said. His voice was even. Carefully even.

"Like an unreasonable amount," you said. "Like someone made a decision about it."

"Right," he said.

He was quiet for a moment. You looked at him — at the careful evenness of his expression, the specific stillness of someone sitting with something — and almost asked what he was thinking about.

Then he turned back to you with the warm unhurried expression you knew, and kissed your temple.

"Good to know," he said.

You looked back at the magazine. Jennifer Lopez looked back at you, unbothered.

You did not know, lying there on a grey February Saturday, that you had just handed him the exact shape of something he was going to need.

Logan knew.

He stared at the ceiling after you looked away and thought about a check written on the back of a receipt and a conversation in a locker room and the specific, settling weight of something that had been waiting a long time to be said.

Too many flowers, he thought. Private. Meaning it.

He closed his eyes.

I have to tell her, he thought.

He did not tell her.

Allie had not been looking for information.

She had been in the kitchen at the off campus house on a Wednesday evening, waiting for Dean to finish getting ready so they could go to dinner, scrolling through her phone with the patience of someone accustomed to waiting for Dean to finish getting ready. She was not listening. She was not paying attention to anything except the particular injustice of being told seven-fifteen and it being seven-thirty-two.

And then Dean's phone rang on the counter.

She glanced at it automatically. Logan.

Dean came out of the bathroom still pulling on his jacket and picked it up. "Hey. What's up."

Allie went back to her phone.

"What do you mean you need to tell her." Dean's voice had shifted into something lower, more careful. "What's — Logan. Logan, have you not told her yet?"

Allie looked up.

Dean had his back to her, one hand pressed to the counter, the specific posture of someone having a conversation they hadn't prepared for. "It's been three months, man. How have you — okay. Okay, calm down. Just — tell me what happened."

A pause. Dean listening.

"So tell her," Dean said. "Just — tonight. Call her and tell her. It's been long enough, she'll —" another pause "— Logan, I know it's not going to be easy but you can't just — yes I know you actually love her, that's not the — okay, listen —"

Allie set her phone down on the counter very carefully.

"What," she said.

Dean turned around.

The expression on his face moved through several things in quick succession — surprise, recalibration, and then the specific, flattening look of someone who understood exactly what had just happened.

"Allie —"

"What did you do," she said. Not a question.

Dean lowered his phone slowly. On the other end Logan was saying something, unaware.

"Dean." Her voice was very even. "What did you do."

He told her.

He told her all of it — the bet, the thousand dollars, the locker room — and Allie stood in the kitchen and listened with the stillness of someone who was getting progressively more furious in a way that had not yet found its exit.

When he finished she said nothing for a moment.

"She's my friend," she said finally.

"I know —"

"She is my friend and you let her date him for three months without telling her."

"It wasn't supposed to —"

"Dean." She picked up her keys from the counter. "Do not follow me."

"Allie, please just —"

"I have to tell her," she said. "She's my friend. I'm not going to —"

"Please," Dean said, and his voice had lost all its usual confidence, stripped down to something that was just — asking. "Please just give me a chance to fix it. I'll tell Logan to tell her tonight. Just give me —"

"You had your chance to fix it three months ago," Allie said. "And two months ago. And last month." She looked at him for a long moment. "I love you. And you did something really wrong. And she needs to know."

She left.

Dean stood in the kitchen alone and listened to Logan's voice still coming from the phone in his hand.

He put the phone to his ear.

"She already knows," he said.

You were in your aparment when Allie knocked.

She told you everything standing in your doorway, quickly and directly, the way Allie did things — no preamble, no softening, just the facts arranged in order. The bet. The thousand dollars. The locker room. Three months.

You stood very still while she talked.

When she finished you said nothing for a long moment.

"Get your keys," you said.

"(Y/N) —"

"Get your keys, Allie."

The drive to the off campus house took four minutes. You did not speak. Allie drove and you looked at the road ahead and felt cold clarity of someone who had moved past the part where things hurt and into the part where they simply had to be dealt with.

The lights were on when you pulled up. Of course they were.

You didn't knock.

You walked in and Logan was already in the hallway, like he had heard the car, like some part of him had known — and the expression on his face when he saw you was the expression of someone who had been waiting for this and was still not ready for it.

Dean was behind him. Tucker and Garrett further back, in the doorway of the living room, with the expressions of people who understood the room and had decided to stay very still.

"Hey —" Logan started.

"Did you take a bet," you said, "to ask me out."

The hallway was very quiet.

"Yes," Logan said.

The word landed.

"How much," you said.

"A thousand dollars."

You looked at him. This person. This person whose coffee order you knew, whose preemptive apologies you had found endearing, whose smile you had forty-seven saved clips of and only eleven of them were for work.

"You had to be paid," you said. Your voice was very quiet. "Someone had to pay you. To ask me out."

"It wasn't —"

"A thousand dollars," you said. "That's what it cost. That's what asking me out was worth to you. A thousand dollars and someone else's idea."

"That's not —"

"I told you I loved you." The words came out steadier than you expected. "Three weeks ago. In your room. I told you I loved you and you said it back and the whole time —" you stopped. Started again. "The whole time there was a check. There was a check and you knew and you said it back anyway."

"I meant it," Logan said. "I mean it. I love you, that has nothing to do with —"

"It has everything to do with it." Your voice cracked slightly and you pushed past it. "Because maybe you do. Maybe you actually do love me. But I will never know that now. Do you understand that? I will never know which part was real and which part was a thousand dollars because you didn't tell me. You had three months to tell me and you didn't."

"I was going to —"

"When?" you said. "When were you going to tell me? After another month? After a year? Were you ever actually going to tell me or were you just going to keep it and hope I never found out?"

He said nothing.

"That's what I thought," you said.

You turned to Dean.

Dean was standing very still with an expression that had none of his usual ease in it, stripped down, uncomfortable, genuinely ashamed in a way that you recognized as real and that made it worse rather than better.

"I thought you were my friend," you said. Your voice was different now, not cold, something more broken than cold. "I thought — you were supposed to be my friend. I told you things. I told you how I felt about him and you used it. You turned it into a transaction and then you watched me fall in love with him and you said nothing."

"I know," Dean said. His voice was very quiet. "I know."

"I taught you how to use the camera," you said, which was not what you meant to say but came out anyway, and somehow it was the most honest thing — the small specific intimacy of it, the way you had shown him the angles and the settings and he had been genuinely interested and you had thought this is what a friend looks like. "I showed you everything. I thought you were —"

"I was," Dean said. "I am. I'm so sorry."

"Don't." You picked up your bag. "Don't apologize right now. I can't — I need you to not talk to me right now."

You looked at Logan one more time. He was standing in the hallway with his hands at his sides and the open, devastated expression of someone who had run out of words and knew it.

"Please," he said. Just that. Just the word, quiet and without any of the composure he usually wore like a second skin.

"I have to go," you said.

"Please just let me —"

"Logan." Your voice broke on his name, just slightly, and you steadied it. "I have to go."

You walked to the door. Behind you you heard him take a step.

You opened the door.

"You two fucking suck," you said, to the hallway, to both of them, to the three months of Tuesday practices and bus rides and magazine quizzes and I love you said and meant and received by someone who was keeping a check in his jacket pocket the whole time. "Never talk to me again."

You walked out.

Allie was waiting by the car. She took one look at your face and said nothing, just unlocked the doors, and you got in, and she drove, and the campus moved past the windows dark and quiet and entirely indifferent.

You did not cry until you got back to your aparment.

And then you did, for a while, with Olivia sitting beside you saying nothing because there was nothing to say, just being there the way people who actually loved you were there when things went wrong.

You had to be paid, you thought, in the dark.

A thousand dollars.

The house was very quiet after you left.

Tucker and Garrett had retreated to the living room. Nobody was saying anything.

Dean sat on the bottom step of the stairs and put his head in his hands.

Logan stood in the hallway where you had left him and looked at the closed door and thought about everything — the check, the locker room, the first dinner, the magazine quiz on a grey February Saturday, too many flowers, private, meaning it — and underneath all of it, constant and quiet, the thing he had known for three months and had managed to convince himself didn't matter:

You had deserved to know.

You had deserved to know from the beginning and he had chosen not to tell you and you stood in his hallway and said I will never know which part was real and he had had no answer because there was no answer that fixed that.

Garrett appeared in the doorway of the living room. He looked at Logan for a long moment.

"I told you not to," he said. Not unkindly. Just said.

"I know," Logan said.

"From the beginning. I told you."

"I know, Garrett."

Garrett looked at him for another moment. Then he went back to the living room without saying anything else, which was somehow the most devastating response available.

Logan sat down on the floor of the hallway with his back against the wall and stared at nothing.

I have to fix this, he thought.

He had absolutely no idea how.

The email to the athletics department went out the following morning.

It was professional and brief — you cited personal reasons, thanked them for the opportunity, offered to train your replacement, gave two weeks notice. You sent it before you could think about it too hard, before the part of you that loved the job could talk the other part out of it.

You were not going to sit in that rink anymore. You were not going to film those practices or those games or stand in that corridor outside the locker room with your tripod and your equipment bag and pretend that everything was the same as it had been before.

Your phone had messages from Logan and Dean by noon. You read none of them.

The football team's social media coordinator reached back out by the end of the day.

You started the following Monday.

The football team was different from the hockey team in ways that were both obvious and unexpected. Louder, in some ways. Different rhythms, different energy. The guys were nice and the work was interesting and you were good at it, because you were good at this, that had never been in question.

You were fine.

You were getting finer by the day, which was either progress or a very convincing impression of it.

Allie texted. Garrett texted — I'm sorry, for what it's worth I told him not to — which you appreciated more than you could say. Tucker sent a single text that just said I tried to talk him out of it and you believed him and told him so.

You did not respond to Logan.

Logan's days had a new shape to them and he hated it.

Practice was the same, same drills, same ice, same team, but the stands were wrong. The spot where you always sat, third row back on the left side, was empty now, and he knew it was empty without lookin. He looked anyway. Every practice, every morning skate, every film session, he looked, and the spot was empty, and he looked away.

Logan texted you every three days. Not long messages, just checking in, just your name sometimes, just I know you don't want to hear from me right now but I'm sorry. He did not expect responses. He sent them anyway because not sending them felt worse.

He watched your football content. Every post, every reel, every behind-the-scenes clip. He watched the way you filmed the new team — the same eye, the same instinct for the right moment, the same ability to make something look like something worth watching — and felt the specific, particular ache of someone who understood what they had lost because they had been paying attention to it the whole time.

He had always been paying attention.

That was the thing that made it so much worse.

Three weeks after you left, the hockey team got a new social media person.

Her name was Jade. She was a sophomore, enthusiastic, slightly overwhelmed, and she had asked you to walk her through the setup on a Tuesday morning when the team had a late practice, which meant you were in the rink, with your old equipment, showing someone else how to use the angles you had spent seven months learning, when the team came off the ice.

You had not planned for this. You had assumed they would be gone by the time you were done.

They were not gone.

You heard them before you saw them, he familiar noise of the team coming out of the locker room corridor and then Tucker saw you first and stopped walking so abruptly that Garrett walked into him.

"What —" Garrett looked up. Saw you. His expression did something complicated.

The rest of the team filtered out around them, and then Dean, and then Logan, and the corridor went through a specific collective recalibration.

You kept your face completely neutral. "Hey," you said, to the general group. "This is Jade. She's taking over the social media. I'm just showing her the setup."

Jade waved cheerfully, unaware of the atmospheric pressure of the corridor.

"Taking over?" Tucker said slowly.

"Yes," you said. "I moved to football." You said it simply, like it was information and not anything else. "Jade is great, she's going to do a really good job."

The team was looking at you with various expressions. Tucker looked pained. Garrett looked like he was doing math.

Dean was looking at the floor.

Logan was looking at you with the expression of someone watching something leave that they had already lost and were only now understanding the full shape of. You could feel it without looking directly at him. You had spent seven months learning the specific weight of his attention.

"You're actually leaving," Tucker said. "Like permanently."

"I already left," you said. "This is just the handover."

"But —" Tucker started.

"Tuck," you said, gently. "It's fine. Jade is great."

Jade smiled again.

"We kind of made you leave," Tucker said, in the specific tone of someone who had been holding something for three weeks and had finally said it out loud.

"Tucker —"

"No, like —" he stopped. Looked at Dean. Looked at Logan. Looked back at you. "We made you leave. That's what happened. And I just — I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry."

The corridor was very quiet.

"You didn't make me leave," you said carefully. "You tried to talk him out of it. I know that."

Tucker nodded. Still pained.

"Right," Garrett said finally, in the tone of someone deciding to be graceful about something painful. "Good luck with football."

"Thanks," you said.

You turned back to Jade and kept going with the walkthrough, and the team filed past, and you did not look at Logan as he walked by even though you could feel him slowing down, even though you could feel him wanting to say something.

"Hey," Logan said. Very quietly. Just that.

You kept your eyes on the camera settings you were showing Jade.

He stood there for a moment. Then his footsteps continued down the corridor.

You exhaled very quietly and kept talking to Jade about angles.

Behind you, fading, you heard Dean say something low and urgent to Logan that you couldn't make out. And Logan's response, quieter still:

"I know."

Logan started showing up.

Not to you, he respected the never talk to me again enough not to push himself into your space. But he started showing up in the ways that were available to him.

He fixed the tripod mount in the storage room that had been broken since October — the one you had mentioned once, months ago, in passing, because it made the camera angle slightly off and you had learned to compensate for it. He left a note on it that said finally fixed it. sorry it took so long. No signature. He didn't need one.

He started showing up to the football team's games.

Not every game. Not in a way that was dramatic or obvious. Just there, in the stands, with the quiet patience of someone who had decided that if the mountain wouldn't come to him he would go to the mountain and sit in the stands and watch from a respectful distance.

Olivia told you the second time it happened.

"He was there again," she said carefully.

You said nothing.

"He's not doing anything," she said. "He's just — there. Watching."

You said nothing.

"I thought you should know," she said.

You knew.

You knew because you had clocked him the first time — third row back, left side,— and you had kept filming and not said anything and thought about it for three days.

He texted you after the third game.

logan: you got a good shot of the QB in the third quarter. the one right before the play call. it was good.

You stared at the message for a long time.

yn: how would you know

logan: i was there

A long pause.

logan: i'll keep coming if that's okay. i won't bother you. i just want to be there.

You put your phone down.

You picked it up.

yn: it's okay

Dean did not sleep the night you found out.

He lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the specific expression on your face when you said I thought you were my friend — not angry, which would have been easier, but broken, which was not easier at all.

At four in the morning he picked up his phone.

dean: allie

allie: i'm awake

dean: i know i really messed up

allie: yes

dean: i don't know how to fix it

A long pause.

allie: you start by not trying to fix it. you start by just being sorry.

dean: i am

allie: i know. she needs to hear it from you. not a text. not through anyone else. you.

dean: she said never talk to her again

allie: i know what she said. give her time. and then go.

Dean put his phone down.

He stared at the ceiling until it got light outside.

You took your own sweet time.

Not to feel better, you were not operating under the illusion that time fixed everything, but to feel what you needed to feel without an audience. You went to classes. You went to work. You filmed the football team's Tuesday practice and focused on the angles and the light and the professional satisfaction of a job done well, and you did not think about hockey, and you did not look at your phone when certain names appeared on the screen, and you let Olivia bring you food and watch bad television with you without making you talk about it.

On the fourteenth day Dean was waiting outside your lecture hall.

He looked terrible. Not dramatically terrible — Dean was constitutionally incapable of looking terrible — but tired.

You stopped when you saw him.

He held up both hands. "I'm not here to make excuses," he said. "I know you said never talk to me again. I know. I just — five minutes. And then I'll go and I won't bother you again if that's what you want."

You looked at him for a long moment.

You stepped to the side of the path, out of the flow of people. He followed.

"Say what you have to say," you said.

Dean looked at you with the expression you had never seen on him before, no performance, no charm deployed at the right moment, nothing managed. Just a person who had done something wrong and knew it and was standing in front of the person he had done it to.

"I've never had a friend like you before," he said. "Like — actually. I have guy friends. I have girls I've hooked up, almost dated or whatever. But I've never had a girl who was just — a friend. Who I talked to and who talked to me and who I could be around without it being anything else." He paused. "And I took that and I made it into a scheme. And I told myself I was helping and maybe part of me was but part of me just — didn't think far enough ahead. Didn't think about what it would mean to you if you found out. Didn't think about you at all, honestly, which is the thing I'm most sorry about." He held your gaze. "I thought about Logan being in love with you and I thought about the bet being clever and I didn't think about you being a person who deserved to know the truth. And I should have. You should have been the first thing I thought about."

The path had mostly emptied. A bird somewhere was doing something aggressively cheerful.

"I miss my friend," Dean said. "I know I don't get to just say that. I know. I just needed you to know that it's real. You are actually my friend and I actually miss you and I'm actually sorry, not sorry like I feel bad, sorry like I understand what I did."

You looked at him.

You thought about the bus and his head on your shoulder and on the team, I meant and the way he had looked genuinely wounded when you said Tucker was probably your better friend on the team.

"It's going to take time," you said finally.

Something in his expression shifted — careful, not quite hope yet.

"I know," he said.

"You don't get to just be normal yet. We have to rebuild that."

"I know."

"And you have to actually be different," you said. "Not just sorry. Different."

"I will be," he said. "I already am. Or I'm trying to be." He paused. "Is that enough to start with?"

You looked at him for a long moment.

"It's enough to start with," you said.

The careful-not-quite-hope became something more than that.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Don't thank me yet," you said. "We have a long way to go."

"I know," he said. "I'll go as slow as you need."

You looked at the path ahead.

"I have class," you said.

"I know. Go."

You went.

It was a start.

Logan was harder.

Not because you were angrier at him — you were, if you were being honest, angry at both of them in equal measure, just differently. Dean had betrayed a friendship. Logan had betrayed something larger, something that had your name on it, something you had handed him on a grey February Saturday when you said I love you and meant it with everything you had.

You saw him at the football games. Third row back, left side, every time. Not looking at you directly, just there, present, with the quiet patience of someone who had decided that showing up was the only thing available to him and had committed to it without reservation.

He sent you a text after every game. Not about him, not about them, about your work. Good shot in the second half. The one where you caught the receiver right before the snap. The slow motion reel you posted was really good. The timing was perfect. Small specific things that said I was paying attention without saying anything else.

You read them all.

You responded to some of them.

Small things. Thanks. I almost didn't post that one. Nothing that opened a door, just acknowledgment. The acknowledgment of someone who was not ready and was not pretending to be and was also not entirely gone.

He was not pushing. That was the thing you noticed most. He had shown up to three football games and fixed a broken tripod mount and sent careful specific texts about your work and he had not once asked for anything in return. Had not once said I think we should talk or please give me a chance or any of the things that would have made it easier to keep the door closed.

He was just — there.

Being different.

The grand gesture arrived on a Thursday, five weeks after the fight.

You were in the football team's equipment room going through footage on your laptop when someone knocked on the door. One of the managers looked in.

"There's someone outside asking for you," he said, with the specific expression of someone who had seen something and found it notable.

You went outside.

The path outside the athletics building was where you found him — Logan, in the cold, with flowers. Not a bunch. Not a normal amount. An amount that represented a decision — sunflowers and peonies and something small and white, wrapped loosely in paper, assembled with the specific intention of being too many, more than one person could reasonably carry, held in both arms with the careful energy of someone who had thought about this and decided it was not enough and added more anyway.

You looked at the flowers. You looked at him.

He looked tired in the same way he had looked tired since the night you left — not dramatic, not performing it, just genuinely worn down in the way of someone who had been carrying something for five weeks without putting it down.

"You said private," he said. "Too many flowers. Someone made a decision." He paused. "I made a decision."

Your throat did something inconvenient.

"Logan —"

"I'm not asking you to forgive me today," he said. "I just you said meaning it was the important part. And I needed you to see that I mean it. That's all. I'm not asking for anything."

You looked at the flowers. Peonies. He had gotten peonies specifically.

"You remembered the peonies," you said.

"You mentioned them once," he said. "A long time ago."

"You were paying attention," you said.

"I was always paying attention," he said quietly. "That was never the problem."

You stood there in the cold outside the athletics building and thought about I will never know which part was real and the third row left side and the texts about your work and five weeks of him being different without being asked to prove it.

"This isn't enough," you said.

Something flickered in his expression.

"I know," he said.

"I need more than flowers."

"I know," he said again, steadily. "Tell me what you need. Whatever it is. I'll do it."

You looked at him for a long moment.

"I need time," you said. "Real time. Not rushing. Not us going back to how things were because it was comfortable and we missed each other. Actually starting over and doing it right."

"Okay," he said.

"I need you to keep showing up," you said. "Not just when it's easy. When it's hard and uncertain and you don't know if it's working. You keep showing up anyway."

"I will," he said.

"And I need you to understand that I might get angry again," you said. "Even after I've forgiven you. It might come back and I might need to say something and you have to let me say it without shutting down."

"I will," he said. "I'll listen. Every time."

You looked at him.

"The texts," you said. "About my work."

"Yeah."

"You were at every game."

"Yeah."

"Third row back. Left side."

He looked at you quietly.

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

Something in his expression shifted.

"I was always going to ask you out," he said. "I need you to know that. Not as an excuse. Just as a true thing. The money didn't change what I felt. It just — it gave me a reason I shouldn't have needed and I took it and I'm sorry. But what happened between us was real. Every single part of it was real."

"I know," you said, which surprised you slightly, because you hadn't known you knew until you said it. "I know it was real. That's what made it hurt so much."

He nodded.

"Give me the peonies," you said.

He carefully extracted the peonies from the arrangement and held them out. You took them.

"The rest you can take home," you said.

"Okay."

"And Logan —" you paused. "The showing up. Don't stop."

Something broke open in his expression — not dramatically, not loudly, just quietly and completely, the expression of someone who had been holding something for five weeks and had finally been given a place to put it down.

"I won't," he said. "I promise."

You looked at him for one more moment.

"Slow," you said.

"As slow as you need," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

You went back inside.

You stood in the equipment room with the peonies and thought about everything — the check and the bet and the fight and five weeks of third row left side and too many flowers on a Thursday afternoon in the cold.

You were not okay yet.

But you were standing with peonies, which was somewhere.

It was enough to start with.

The getting back together did not happen all at once.

It happened the way the crush had happened — gradually, against nobody's will this time, the way things did when they had been building for a long time and had finally found the right conditions.

The first time you went back to the rink it was not for work.

It was a Saturday game, mid-March, the kind that mattered for standings, and you had told yourself you were going because Allie and Hannah were going and Olivia was going and it was a group thing and had nothing to do with anything else.

You brought your camera.

Not the work camera your personal one, the smaller one you used when you were filming for yourself rather than for a content schedule. You told yourself it was habit. You told yourself you just liked having it.

You sat third row left side.

The thing about watching hockey when you actually knew what you were looking at was that it was a completely different experience from watching hockey when you were just there for the atmosphere. You knew the plays. You knew the patterns. You knew which moments were about to become something before they became something, the specific pre-motion stillness that preceded a good play, the way certain players telegraphed their intentions without knowing they were doing it.

You knew Logan's tells better than anyone.

Which was why you had your camera up and ready when he got the puck in the second period the slight shift of his weight, the way his head came up a half second before anyone else's, and then the play unfolding exactly the way you had known it would, clean and fast and entirely worth watching.

You got the shot.

Forty-three seconds of it, actually.

You lowered the camera and looked at what you had captured and felt something settle in your chest that was warm and quiet and entirely familiar.

Genuinely cinematic, you thought, and smiled at the ice.

Briar won.

The team filtered out of the locker room in the usual way in ones and twos, loud and post-game, spilling into the corridor where the usual group had gathered. Allie found Dean. Hannah found Garrett. Tucker found someone to complain to about a call in the third period.

You were reviewing footage on your camera when you felt someone stop beside you.

You looked up.

Logan was still in half his gear, hair damp, and he was looking at you with the expression you had forty-seven saved clips of — the real one, the one that had nothing managed about it — except that now you were allowed to look at it directly, which was still something you were getting used to.

"You came," he said.

"I came," you confirmed.

"You brought your camera."

"I brought my camera."

He looked at it. He looked at you. "Did you get anything good?"

You turned the camera around and hit play. The second period play unfolded on the small screen — the weight shift, the half second of stillness, the clean fast movement of something that knew exactly where it was going.

Forty-three seconds of it.

Logan watched it. Something in his expression went soft in the specific way it did when he was actually feeling something and had decided not to manage it.

"That's —" he started.

"Genuinely cinematic," you said.

He looked at you.

You looked back at him.

And then he kissed you right there in the corridor.

It was warm and certain and tasted like relief of something that had been a long time coming and had finally, simply, arrived.

When you pulled back he was smiling the real one, the one you had been filming without quite admitting why for seven months.

"So," he said.

"Yeah," you said. "We're back together." You pointed at him. "Don't fuck up."

Logan laughed a real one, surprised and warm, the kind that carried down the corridor and made Tucker laugh too without knowing why.

"I won't," he said.

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it."

"Good." You tucked your camera back into your bag. "Buy me food. I've been at a hockey game for two hours and I'm starving."

"Done," he said immediately.

You started walking and everything was different from before, which was the whole point, which was exactly what you had asked for.

Better. Not the same. Better.

Behind you, fading, you heard Tucker say something to Garrett.

"Called it," Tucker said.

"You called nothing," Garrett said.

"I said they'd get back together —"

"You said that last week —"

"Which was a call —"

"Tucker —"

You and Logan kept walking.

"Do they ever stop?" you said.

"No," Logan said.

"Good," you said. "I missed it."

He looked at you sideways. That expression.

Tucker was the undisputed anchor of the Briar hockey house. He firmly believed that being a team player was just as critical off the ice as it was on it. By default, he was the resident cook, the guy who cleaned up the post-party messes, and the one who quietly kept his three massive, hyperactive roommates from burning their townhouse to the ground.

You fell into step beside him so naturally it felt predestined. When he was fixing a broken railing on the porch, you were sitting on the steps handing him the screws. When he was cooking his legendary, carb-heavy meals for the guys, you were perched on the kitchen island, chopping vegetables.

You became the "Mom" to his "Dad." At first, playing house was a massive turn-on. There was something undeniably hot about domesticity when it was mixed with the raw, adrenaline-fueled energy of a D1 athlete. You’d help him organize the pantry, and he’d reward you by backing you against the wall, his callused hands gripping your thighs to lift you against his chest the second Garrett, Logan, and Dean left for gym. You loved him, and because you loved him, you took on his burdens.

But as the brutal New England winter thawed into spring, that shared weight stopped feeling like a partnership. It started feeling like a noose.

Senior year was a meat grinder. Tucker was quietly suffocating under the anxiety of his future, agonizing over whether to move back to Texas to take care of his mother, or risk his dad's insurance money to start a business in Boston. You were buried under the crushing, soul-sucking pressure of your final exams and post-grad panic.

You were both running on fumes, completely depleted. Instead of leaning on each other for comfort, you started treating each other like just another exhausting obligation on a never-ending to-do list.

The casual touches stopped. The sex evaporated, replaced by the sheer necessity of sleep. You were two ghosts haunting the same kitchen.

Tucker was standing at the stove, aggressively stirring a pot of marinara sauce. The muscles in his broad back were visibly knotted beneath his gray t-shirt. You were sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at your laptop screen, a dull, throbbing headache pounding behind your eyes from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. The silence between you was so thick it felt toxic.

"Can you hand me the garlic powder?" Tucker asked. His signature southern drawl, usually so warm and rich, was clipped and hollowed out.

You blinked, dragging your burning eyes away from your thesis paper, and blindly reached across the counter for the spice rack. Your sleeve caught the edge of a glass olive oil bottle. It tipped, fell, and shattered against the tile floor, sending a slick puddle of oil and jagged shards of glass across the grout.

You squeezed your eyes shut, letting out a ragged, trembling breath. "Shit. I'm sorry."

"Jesus Christ, Y/N," Tucker groaned. He dropped his wooden spoon against the stove with a loud clatter and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just... leave it. I'll clean it up. Like I clean up everything else."

The profound unfairness of the comment felt like a physical slap to the face. Your eyes snapped open, a hot, defensive spark of rage overriding your exhaustion.

"Excuse me?" you snapped, pushing your chair back so hard it screeched against the floor. "I spent three hours this morning doing the laundry you and Logan left piled in the hallway. I scrubbed the bathrooms yesterday so you wouldn't have to. Don't stand there and act like you're the only one keeping this place afloat."

Tucker whipped around, his brown eyes suddenly flashing with a raw, desperate anger. "I'm the only one holding us afloat! I am fucking exhausted, Y/N. I'm trying to figure out my entire goddamn future, I'm trying to keep this house from falling apart, and every time I look at you lately, you're a million miles away. It's like you don't even want to be here anymore!"

"Because I'm fucking tired, Tuck!" you yelled, your voice breaking as hot tears of sheer frustration flooded your vision. "I am so damn tired of being the caretaker! I'm tired of pouring everything I have into you and your friends and getting absolutely nothing back! If looking at me is so exhausting for you, then why am I even here?"

Tucker stared at you. His broad chest heaved with heavy, labored breaths. And then, the most terrifying thing happened.

The anger completely drained out of his face.

It was replaced by a hollow, devastating emptiness. The fight just left his body. He leaned back against the counter, looking at you like he was staring at a stranger.

"I don't know anymore," he whispered. His voice was completely broken. "I don't have anything left to give you. I'm empty. Maybe you shouldn't be here."

The words paralyzed you. He wasn't yelling. He wasn't fighting for you. He was just... letting you go. He was too tired to hold on.

A cold, protective numbness washed over your shattering heart. You closed your laptop, shoved it into your tote bag, and grabbed your coat off the back of the chair.

You walked down the hallway, your vision swimming.

Just as you reached the entryway, the front door swung open. Dean and Logan ambled inside, laughing loudly about something Coach had said at practice. Dean kicked off his sneakers, taking a deep, appreciative breath of the air.

"Oh, thank God. Smells like chicken parm," Dean said, his signature cocky grin spreading across his face as he dropped his heavy hockey bag to the floor. "Hey, Y/N/N. What time is dinner?"

You pulled your coat on, refusing to wipe your eyes. You looked dead at him, your voice dripping with cold, bitter heartbreak.

"Ask Tucker," you rasped. "I quit."

You walked out into the freezing night air, letting the heavy front door slam shut behind you.

Dean blinked, his grin slowly fading as he turned his head to look at Logan.

"Did she just..." Dean trailed off, the reality of your shattered voice finally cutting through his oblivion.

Logan winced, staring at the closed door. "Yeah, dude. I think Mom and Dad just called it."

For five days, the fallout of the breakup played out in two different apartments, mirroring each other in a devastating, silent tragedy. You and Tucker hadn't just broken up—you had both completely flatlined.

At Hannah and Allie’s dorm room, you had become a ghost haunting their hand-me-down couch. You hadn't showered in three days. You wore an oversized Briar Hockey hoodie that still faintly smelled of sandalwood and citrus, pulling it up over your nose every time your chest seized with another panic attack. You dragged your heavy textbooks onto the cushions with you, but you hadn't turned a single page.

Hannah tried everything. She brewed endless cups of tea and gently rubbed your back while you stared blankly at the wall. Allie took a fiercer approach, bringing over tequila and loudly threatening to march over to the guys' house and slash Tucker's truck tires.

But neither tactic worked. If you spoke the words out loud—if you admitted that the safest, most solid guy you had ever known had looked at you with utter defeat and let you walk away—it would make it real. And you weren't ready to live in a reality where John Tucker didn't want to be with you anymore.

Across campus, the house was suffering an identical, agonizing death.

Without Tucker functioning as the beating heart of the house, the ecosystem had violently collapsed. But it wasn't the towering stack of pizza boxes on the coffee table or the unwashed laundry spilling into the hallway that had Garrett, Logan, and Dean on edge. It was the absolute, hollowed-out shell of their best friend.

Tucker was drowning, and he was taking himself down quietly. He hadn't turned on the stove since the night you walked out. His bed felt massive and freezing without you curled against his chest. To escape the suffocating silence of his room, he punished himself at the rink. He woke up before dawn to run brutal suicide sprints, hit the boards with an aggression that had Coach Jensen screaming at him, and then came home just to stare at the spot on the kitchen tile where the olive oil bottle had shattered.

He had failed you. That thought looped in his head like a sick, twisted mantra. He was supposed to ease your load, and instead, he had been the one to finally break you.

By day five, your friends decided they had seen enough collateral damage. A secret meeting was called to order in a back booth at Malone's.

Garrett, Logan, and Dean were crammed into one side of the sticky vinyl booth. Hannah and Allie sat opposite them.

Dean was aggressively eating a stack of pancakes, inhaling them like a man who had been wandering the desert for forty days.

"Slow down, Dean, you're going to choke," Allie muttered, sliding her coffee cup out of the splash zone.

"I can't," Dean mumbled around a massive mouthful of syrup and carbs. "Tuck hasn't cooked a single meal since Thursday. We've been living on dry Cheerios and protein powder. My body is cannibalizing its own muscles, Allie-Cat. I'm wasting away."

"You're fine," Garrett sighed, unapologetically stealing a piece of bacon right off Dean's plate. Garrett looked across the table at Hannah, his dark eyes dead serious. "What's the status on Y/N? Because if I have to watch Tucker stare blankly at the wall for one more day, I'm going to lose my fucking mind. He's a ghost, Wellsy."

"Y/N isn't any better," Hannah reported quietly, wrapping her hands around her warm mug. "She's practically fused to our couch. She won't talk about what happened. If Allie or I even say his name, she just pulls the blanket over her head and pretends to sleep."

"We tried to get Tuck to talk, too," Logan chimed in, leaning forward. "He just told us to drop it. They're both completely shut down."

"Because they're both too damn stubborn," Allie said, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked between the three massive hockey players. "If we confront them, they'll just get defensive and dig their heels in. We have to be sneaky about this."

Garrett leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Allie's right. An intervention won't work. We can't force them to talk to us. We have to force them to talk to each other."

"How?" Logan asked, raising an eyebrow. "They're actively avoiding each other. Y/N even changed her route to class so she wouldn't have to walk past the ice arena."

"Think about it," Hannah said, a slow, wicked smile spreading across her face as she looked at Garrett. "What is the core issue here? They're both caretakers. They spent the entire year playing Mom and Dad to you guys. When things got hard, they stopped taking care of each other."

Dean swallowed his pancakes, his green eyes lighting up with realization. "So... we give them something to take care of."

Garrett grinned, tapping his knuckles against the diner table. "Exactly. We manufacture a crisis. Something so chaotic that their instincts override their stubbornness, and they have to team up to fix it."

The plan was executed with military precision.

Tucker was at the gym, violently punishing a heavy bag until his knuckles were bruised and aching beneath his wraps. He was trying to outrun the suffocating emptiness that had swallowed him whole, but it wasn't working. Without you to take care of, he had no idea what to do with his hands. 

His phone vibrated furiously in his gym bag. He ignored it. Ten seconds later, it aggressively buzzed again. Then again. Cursing under his breath, he finally tore his gloves off and swiped the screen open to see three frantic texts from Logan.

Logan: WE HAVE A SITUATION.

Logan: DEAN TRIED TO USE THE STOVE. THE KITCHEN IS LITERALLY SMOKING.

Logan: GET HOME NOW.

Tucker’s heart plummeted straight into his stomach. Dean was a disaster in the kitchen on a good day. Tucker grabbed his keys and sprinted out to his truck, breaking at least three speed limits on the drive back to the house.

Meanwhile, across campus, you were buried under your fleece blanket on Allie’s couch, staring blankly at the wall, when your phone started ringing.

"Hello?" you answered, your voice thick and raspy from disuse.

"Y/N, thank God!" Allie yelled through the speaker. She sounded completely out of breath and bordering on hysterical. "You have to get to the house right now!"

You sat up so fast your head spun, the protective numbness instantly vaporizing. "Allie, what's wrong? Is someone hurt?"

"Dean decided he was tired of starving and tried to cook dinner!" Allie shouted, the shrill, piercing sound of a beeping smoke detector echoing faintly in the background. "There is smoke everywhere! Logan is panicking, Garrett can't find the fire extinguisher, and Tucker isn't answering his phone! You have to come help us!"

"I'm on my way!" you yelled, throwing the blanket off and shoving your bare feet into your boots. Your "Mom" instincts completely overrode your heartbreak. You didn't even bother grabbing a real coat, sprinting out the door in your oversized Briar Hockey sweatshirt.

Ten minutes later you slammed your car into park, ran up the front steps, and shoved the heavy wooden door open.

"Allie?!" you yelled, coughing as a faint, bitter haze of smoke drifted down the hallway.

You rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped dead in your tracks.

The room was an absolute biohazard. A thick layer of white flour was dusted over every visible surface like snow. A pot was boiling over on the stove, hissing aggressively as starchy water hit the hot coils. The smoke detector had been ripped off the ceiling and was sitting on the island, its battery completely removed.

But there was no Allie. No Dean. No Garrett or Logan.

The only person in the kitchen was John Tucker.

He was standing in the center of the chaos, still wearing his sweaty gym clothes, staring at the boiling pot with utter, unfiltered confusion. He whipped his head around when he heard you gasp.

"Y/N?" Tucker breathed, his bloodshot brown eyes going wide.

"Where are they?" you demanded, your heart hammering violently against your ribs as you scanned the empty room. "Allie called me, she said there was a fire—"

"Logan texted me," Tucker interrupted, taking a cautious step toward you. His deep southern drawl was rough and entirely bewildered. "He said Dean was burning the house down."

You both froze.

You looked at the empty kitchen. You looked at the perfectly dismantled smoke detector. You listened to the absolute, unnatural silence radiating from the rest of the house.

"Those motherfuckers," Tucker breathed, dragging a heavy hand down his face as the realization hit him.

You let out a shaky, jagged exhale, leaning back against the doorframe as the adrenaline violently crashed out of your system. You had been set up. The boys weren't starving, the house wasn't burning down, and there was no emergency. Your friends had orchestrated a highly coordinated, incredibly cruel trap.

Tucker walked over to the stove, his broad back stiff as he clicked the burner off and dragged the hissing pot to a cool coil. The kitchen fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

For the first time in six agonizing days, you were really looking at him.

He looked terrible. The shadows under his eyes were bruised and purple, his auburn hair was a sweaty mess, and he carried a rigid, defensive posture that absolutely shattered your heart. He looked like a man who had lost everything.

He grabbed a dish towel, keeping his eyes glued to the flour-covered counter. "I'll clean this up," he muttered, his voice sounding hollow and completely defeated. "You can go back to Allie's."

"Tuck..." you whispered.

"I mean it, Y/N," he rasped, aggressively wiping at the flour. His knuckles were turning stark white. He wouldn't look at you. "I know you don't want to be here. You don't have to stay just because they tricked you."

You watched him frantically scrub the counter, your chest physically aching. The anger and resentment that had fueled you for the past week completely evaporated, leaving only a profound, desperate sadness. You realized then what Hannah and Garrett had figured out days ago. You both had hard exteriors, but inside you were soft. You were both so damn busy trying to hold the house together for everyone else that you let yourselves fall apart. 

You walked forward, your boots stepping over a stray piece of burnt pasta on the floor, reaching for the roll of paper towels sitting on the kitchen island. You tore off a handful, wet them under the faucet, and stepped right up beside him.

In absolute, suffocating silence, you started wiping the flour off the counter next to where he was frantically scrubbing.

Tucker went completely rigid. The aggressive motion of his hands stopped instantly. He stared at your smaller hand moving in sync with his, his broad chest rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths.

The silence stretched, heavy and agonizing, broken only by the hiss of the cooling stove.

"I love you."

The words were so quiet, so raw, they almost didn't register. Your hand froze on the counter. You slowly turned your head to look at him, your heart completely dropping into your stomach.

He had never said those words to you before.

Tucker finally looked up.

"I love you," he repeated, his signature southern drawl thick and trembling. "I realized it a couple of weeks ago. And it terrified the absolute shit out of me."

"Tuck..." you whispered, your throat painfully tight.

"I'm supposed to have a plan, Y/N," he choked out, swiping a shaky hand across his jaw. "I've been saving my dad's insurance money for years. But graduation is right there, and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. If I move back to Patterson to take care of my mom, I lose you. If I stay in Boston and try to start a business, I have no idea if it's going to fail. I felt like I was drowning in all this uncertainty, and I..."

He swallowed hard, looking at you with complete, heartbreaking defeat.

"I didn't know how to integrate you into a future I hadn't even figured out yet. You work so hard, and you have all these goals, and I was so scared of dragging you down into my mess that I panicked. I pushed you away."

"You idiot," you cried softly, the hot tears you had been holding back for six days finally spilling over your lashes. You dropped the paper towels and turned fully toward him. "You don't have to have it all figured out. Nobody has it figured out."

"I'm supposed to be the one who fixes things," he rasped, his voice breaking. "And I was so terrified I was failing you."

"You never failed me," you whispered, stepping into his space and resting your trembling hands flat against his broad, tense chest. "And you aren't dragging me down. I don't care if we're in Boston or Texas. I don't care if your business plan takes years to figure out. I don't need a perfect plan, Tuck. I just need you."

A jagged, shuddering breath tore out of Tucker's chest.

He closed the distance between you in a heartbeat, wrapping his massive arms around your waist and burying his face deep into the crook of your neck. He held you so tight it bruised, lifting you slightly off your feet as his large frame collapsed against you.

"I can't breathe without you," he confessed, the words vibrating fiercely against your skin. "Don't leave me again. Please, darlin', don't walk out that door again."

"I'm right here," you promised, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your tear-stained cheek against his temple. You buried your fingers in his auburn hair, holding him just as desperately. "I'm not going anywhere."

samira.mo has posted

liked by jackabbotmd, frecklesandflour and 453 others

samira.mo: I missed Pittsburgh more than I’ll ever admit 🖤

frecklesandflour: MY GIRL IS HOME

dennis.whitaker: favorite picture of us btw.

⤷ samira.mo: because you look tall and pretty

⤷dennis.whitaker: exactly

mateodiaz: why does that picture of Y/n feel threatening

⤷samira.mo: because she was staring into your soul

⤷frecklesandflour: it was supposed to be

shenanigans: slide 3 is the face of a man watching his best friend flirt with two people at once

⤷mateodiaz: delete this

⤷trin_santos: nah let him cook

————————————————————————

thank you jalen’s insta and off campus for these pictures.

“When I came down here, I did so to see my cute boyfriend get all sweaty..” You begin shamelessly as you slip effortlessly next to a flustered Mateo. He gives you a playful look before going back to scanning the one of four x-rays in his grasp at this moment.

“Not enjoying the sweat?” He breathes out tiredly.

“Oh, no. I’m enjoying the sweat.” You snort, playing along. “But uh… I’m not the only one.” You point out as your eyes find a certain dark brown pair that are wide and focused.

On your man.

You smile politely at Dr. Javadi as she quickly realizes she’s been caught. She turns her back fast to face Dr. McKay instead.

“Who else would be looking?” He snorts as he finally looks at you, always the clueless type.

Mateo has always been a good guy, but his goofball attitude is constantly being mistaken for flirting, and he’s a naturally born gentleman.

Those two traits alone is what got you.

“It’s… Nothing.” You sigh, wanting to keep things casual.

Today was hell enough without adding your schoolgirl insecurities into the mix. You grab at the other two x-rays in his hand to examine yourself, making him smile gratefully your way before getting back to work.

*

*

*

Your feet throbbed in a way that warned you.

If you sit down now, you won’t be getting back up.

You took note of it, using it as motivation to keep moving. You step out of room 12, knowing what’s next on the list.

Check in with curtain 7.

As you move down the hallway, dodging stretchers and doctors, you catch a sight from the corner of your eye. Mateo and Javadi, talking by the hand sanitizer on the wall by rooms 18 and 19. He says something that makes her laugh in a way that hunches her body over, hand coming up to touch his bicep.

Before it clicks to you, you’re already moving over to them.

“Hey. What’s the cooler talk?” You ask, acting pleasant as Javadi sheepishly backs away.

“Just selling my pitch to Doctor J here. The dark side could use her.” Mateo smirks at a bashful Javadi and you side eye him before holding yourself as a physical restraint so you don’t step right at his side and break the only rule you two held sacred: keep this away from work.

“Still haven’t decided your path?” You ask instead, keeping that smile on your face that makes Mateo glance at you a bit longer than normal before he looks back at the stammering resident in front of them.

“It’s… A lot of opinions in front of me.” She finally says.

“You mean options?” Mateo asks and she shifts on her feet.

“No..” She sighs heavily.

You and Mateo share a glance before he softly touches her shoulder. “Hey. It’s your choice at the end of the day.” He says assuringly, making her smile up at the taller man, moving close to try and hug him.

You don’t think. You just move.

You get between the two of them so you can be the one hugging her instead. She’s thrown off by the suddenness, but slowly hugs you back.

“Thank… You…” She says slowly as you two pull away. You smile at her and say nothing until she finally gets the hint and walks off, waving a silent goodbye to Mateo who stands put off behind you.

“You’re a hugger now?” He raises an eyebrow.

“The girl needed comfort.” You defend with a shrug. He chuckles and shakes his head at you.

“What?” You ask flatly as you turn fully to face a now amused looking Mateo.

“You didn’t want me to hug her.” He accuses lightheartedly, making you send a dirty look his way.

“Uh.. Yeah. Because you’re sweaty. I’m saving the poor girl.” You state with a shrug like it’s not that deep. Mateo crosses his arms, leaning his shoulder against the wall as he smiles at you.

“Uh-Uh. Not buying it. You’re jealous.” He laughs and you feel your face heat up, giving you away. You stomp your foot though, not wanting to admit to it.

“Am not!” You state. “Just think you should get back to work.” You add before turning swiftly away to walk off.

“Got it, Nurse Y/N!” Mateo calls jokingly, definitely enjoying making you squirm like this…

*

*

*

“You’re my favorite, you know that?” Dana sighs as you drop off the stack of MRI Scans from the fourth floor.

“Mmm… That’s why I really do this, D. Your praise..” You joke as she playfully winks your way.

“You really want praise? Run up to floor five for those damn Labs.” Monica Peters says roughly as she makes a pile of files. “I’ll give you praise so good, your damn head will spin.” She states simply as you snort a bit.

“On it.” You assure softly.

It’s almost 7pm, yet nothing had gotten easier. Well, actually, the heat wasn’t an issue anymore. Outside was a crisp 70, and with the drop in temperature came a calmness from all residents, doctors, and nurses. No one was ready and willing to throw hands anymore, which definitely made working together a bit easier…

You tiredly head towards the staircase double doors, pausing as you see Javadi and Mateo sitting on a bottom step together. She rests her head on his shoulder and you instantly feel your heart drop.

Stepping into the stairwell, Mateo looks up and makes eye contact with you. “Y/N. Hey-“ You cut him off, no filter on and an edge to your voice.

“Why aren’t you working?” You bluntly ask.

“You’re right. It’s my fault. I.. I just needed a minute.” Javadi sighs as she stands up fast.

“You need a minute? Stay out the ER.” You say unapologetically before walking past them both.

As you storm up the stairs, you hear quick footsteps behind you. “Y/N.” You ignore it as best you can.

“That wasn’t very mentor of you.” Mateo tries a different angle, and you laugh in stunned way.

“Mentor? Never signed up for that. Didn’t know you did.” You state, still not turning to look at him as he follows you upstairs. When you reach the third floor landing, he grabs your arm gently to stop you.

“What’s going on? Talk to me? You’re really jealous?” He asks, concern clear on his face. As if he’s just now realizing this is no laughing matter.

“No, I’m perfectly cool with a girl who looks at you like you hung the moon, confiding in you in the stairway at work.” You blurt out.

“Okay… Firstly, I didn’t hang the moon. And secondly, if I did… It’d be for you.” He says quietly as he steps a bit closer. “You know that, Y/N..” He says, as if he shouldn’t have to ever assure you of his feelings towards you.

And usually he doesn’t have to.

“She gets to do… Things I can’t.” You finally admit quietly as you look at Mateo, feeling embarrassed that this is the main topic of your anger. He shakes his head a bit, not understanding.

“When she’s upset… She gets to confide in you. When she’s bored, she gets to joke around with you. When she needs a laugh or a hug or just you, she… Easily gets you.” You complain.

“She gets ‘Mateo at the Pitt’. Y/N, you get ‘Mateo all the time’.” He points out.

“There’s a difference?” You mutter, not buying it..

“I’d say. Like.. ‘Work Mateo’? He keeps his head down, gets the task done. ‘Free Mateo’? You know he loves to go out. Listen to some nice music, have a good time…” He shimmies a bit as he grabs your hands, reminding you of your nights out dancing. You try to ignore the flutter it gives you. You wanted to stay mad…

“Oh?” You mutter quietly as you make yourself stay still. He chuckles.

“Yeah. ‘Work Mateo’ tries to keep the joking to a minimum. Not ‘Free Mateo’, he’s a clown…” He shrugs casually.

You grumble out something about him not being that funny and he clenches his chest like he’s been shot from that one comment.

“Well.. ‘Work Mateo’… He stays professional. But…” He slowly leans in closer. “‘Free Mateo‘? He really really likes kissing you.” He says softly before his lips ever so softly peck yours. You try to halfheartedly kiss back, but you melt into his lips before you know it. You two slowly pull away and you pout a bit as you let yourself relax against him more.

“It sucks. Not having ‘Work Mateo’ too..” You sigh against his lips. He rests his forehead against yours.

“Why? That guy sounds like he sucks…” He jokes and you playfully swat at his chest, making him laugh softly.

“Seriously, Y/N. You have ‘Free Mateo’..” He states. “Not everyone can say they have that. Because I don’t trust that side to just anyone..” He says softly as you absentmindedly mess with his nurse badge that hangs from his scrubs.

“You have to trust that..” He says quietly as he watches you with those soft brown eyes that you finally look up into.

“I’m sorry.” You finally sigh. He smiles a bit.

“You never have to apologize to me. I’m sorry if I gave you anything to worry about.” He says patiently. It makes you feel more silly for even being mad in the first place…

“But.” He continues with a hopeful smile. “I’m not the only one you should apologize to..” He points out and you sigh heavily as it clicks…

After helping you gather the labs from the fifth floor, Mateo and you head back downstairs so you can go find Javadi. She’s at her locker, packing up for the evening.

“Javadi.” You say as you walk over. She turns fast and sighs as she sees it’s just you. She smiles sheepishly.

“I’m calling it.” She admits. You nod at that, showing there’s no judgement coming from you about that.

“I uh… I wanted to apologize. For how I… Must’ve come off today. I… I just.. Let the heat get to me.” You say softly, making her smile politely.

“No hard feelings…” She assures fast, grabbing her backpack and shutting her locker.

You sigh in relief and wish her a goodnight, turning to leave until she calls out for you. You turn back to her. “Yeah?” You ask.

“I… This might be in my head, but… I think Nurse Mateo… Likes you.” She finally admits with a slight grin of excitement on your behalf. It makes you lightly chuckle without meaning to.

“I sure hope so.” Is all you say, voice tender and playfully before you leave the locker room…

"That glare," Hannah clarified, bumping her shoulder against yours. "The one where you look at this party like it's something worth writing a thesis on. Relax, babe. It's Friday. Your debate briefs are done, just have fun."

"I am having fun," you said midly. "I just watched a guy try to open a beer bottle with his teeth and fail."

Hannah sighed, shaking her head, though a fond smile played on her lips. At the age of twenty, Hannah Wells was one of the few people at Briar you genuinely liked.

She was grounded, observant, and possessed the patience of a saint—which she needed, considering she was dating Garrett Graham, a man who took up entire too much oxygen in any given room.

Speaking of, your eyes tracked Garrett as he navigated through the sea of drunk undergraduates, making a beeline straight for Hannah.

"Hey, beautiful," Garrett said, sliding an arm around Hannah's waist and pressing a kiss to her temple that was too domestic for a frat party.

He looked over her head at you. "Thrilled as always to see you radiating sunshine."

"I try to keep the moral high, Graham," you replied dryly.

"Where's the rest of your circus?" Hannah asked, leaning comfortably against Garrett's chest.

"Dean is currently trying to convince two freshmen that he's investigating the economics of the campus weed supply for school purposes," Garrett said, sounding entirely unbothered.

"Tucker's in the kitchen making a charcuterie board out of Ritz crackers. And Logan's somewhere. Probably flirting his way into a girl's pants."

Logan.

That name alone felt like a minor inconvenience. He was perpetually restless, hiding an objective sharp mind beneath layers of obnoxious frat-boy humor.

He was the kind of guy who couldn't stop moving—tapping cups, spinning cups, drumming his fingers against tables. His main flaw, as far as you could tell, was his absolute refusal to be genuine for more than three seconds.

"Don't tell me he's right behind me," you said, detecting a sudden shift in the air behind your back.

"He's right behind you," a voice drawled near your ear.

The heat radiating off his chest was immediate, creeping through the thin fabric of your top. You turn slowly, tilting your head back to meet Logan's eyes.

He was tall, his broad shoulders practically blocking the strobe lights from the makeshift dance floor.

"Sweetheart," Logan said, a lazy, infuriating smirk curving his mouth. "You're at my house. Drinking my cheap beer. Looking aggressively judgmental. It's like my birthday came early."

"If it were your birthday, I would've brought a gift," you shot back. "Like a dictionary. Or perhaps a book on basic social etiquette."

Garrett snorted loudly, burrying his face in Hannah's neck to muffle his laughter.

Logan didn't flinch. Instead, he took half a step closer. He did this all the time—invaded personal space, trying to rattle people with his presence. He smelled like beer and an underlying male musk that was very distracting.

"A dictionary?" Logan feigned hurt, placing a hand over his heart. "I passed my comms paper last week. Got a B-plus. Care to issue an apology for implying I'm illiterate?"

"A B-plus?" You arched an eyebrow. "Let me guess. The prompt was a three-page analysis of team dynamics, and you just described the plot of The Mighty Ducks."

Logan's eyes darkened, a flash of genuine amusement sparking in the dim light. "First of all, it was Miracle. Have some respect for the classics. Second of all, my work was flawless. You're just mad because you actually study for that class and I can bullshit my way into the same bracket."

"You don't bullshit, Logan, you distract," you corrected, your voice dropping an octave as you leaned in just a fraction. Two could play this game.

"Your arguments have zero structural integrity. You win debates by being loud and charming, forcing the opposition to give up out of sheer exhaustion. It's a cheap tactic."

"If it works, it's not cheap," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your mouth for a split second before returning to your eyes. "It's effective. You'd know that if you didn't argue like a politician who hates people."

"I don't hate people," you replied smoothly. "I just set high standards."

"Oh, snap!" A new voice interjected cheerfully.

You glanced sideways to see Dean materializing out of nowhere, dragging a very tired-looking Tucker behind him.

"Look who it is," Dean grinned, tossing an arm around Logan's shoulders and gesturing wildly at you with a solo cup. "Briar's premier academic terror."

"Hello, Dean. Did you solve the economic crisis of the campus weed supply?"

Dean blinked, genuinely taken aback, before pointing a finger at Garrett. "You told her? That was supposed to be a covert op, Graham!"

"You were shouting it at two freshmen in the kitchen!" Tucker sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked at you apologetically. "Good to see you. Sorry about... all of this."

Logan let out a low huff of laughter, stepping closer again. His arms brushed yours, sending an unbidden, sharp thrill of heat straight up your spine.

"So what are we aggressively debating tonight?" Dean asked eagerly, looking back and forth between Logan and you like you were a tennis match.

"Last week it was the geopolitical implications of Batman. Which for the record, you won. Logan sounded like an idiot."

"I was making a valid point about vigilante infrastructure," Logan protested loudly. "And I'm not doing this again. I was just pointing out that she hates fun. She thinks sports superstitions are dumb."

"I didn't say they were dumb," you corrected, turning your body fully toward Logan. "I said they were pathetic. Tapping a hockey stick against the post does not appease the 'hockey gods.' It's just you, a grown man, relying on magic because you can't shoulder the burden of a random outcome."

The entire circle went dead silent.

Even the thumping bass of the track seemed to fade into the background as Garrett, Dean, and Tucker all stared at you in horror. Superstitions in a hockey house were effectively a religion.

You had basically just walked into the Vatican and insulted the Pope.

Hannah covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God."

Logan didn't look mad. If anything, the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth grew sharper.

"Say that again," he dared you, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sent a flush of heat creeping up your neck.

"I don't repeat myself for the stubbornly ignorant," you whispered back, holding his gaze fiercely.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. Logan was overwhelming up close, the scent of his cologne curling into your lungs. He was staring at you like you were a puzzle he firmly intended to break apart.

The physical awareness between you was suddenly deafening. The rise and fall of his chest, the slight flex of his jaw, the way his thumb rubbed absently against the seam of his jeans.

It was heavy, heated, and entirely inappropriate considering you were fundamentally incompatible.

"You guys flirt like divorced parents," Dean announced loudly, shattering the tension.

You stepped back instantly. "I'd rather die, Di Laurentis."

"Seriously," Garrett chimed in, leaning against the wall with a delighted grin. "The sexual tension is ruining my high. Just make out already so Logan stops acting like a rabid dog every time you walk into a room."

"I do not act like a rabid dog," Logan snapped. He glanced at Garrett before shooting a defensive look at you. "And for the record, I don't flirt with her. Having a civil conversation with her is like trying to pet a cactus."

"A cactus?" You crossed your arms. "Your metaphors are weak as shit."

Logan stepped into your space again. "My metaphors are elite. You couldn't handle dating me anyway. I'm exhausting."

"Please," you scoffed. "I'd win."

Logan blinked, momentarily thrown off-balance. "You'd... win dating me? That doesn't even make sense."

"It means," you said, stepping right up into his space. "That if we dated, I would be completely unbothered. You, on the other hand, would crack in a week. You need vaildation too much. The moment I didn't laugh at your stupid jokes, your ego would implode."

"Is that right?" he asked, his voice dropping into a dangerously smooth register.

"That's a hypothesis," you whispered, holding his stare. "Backed by evidence."

"Alright, that's it," Garrett shouted, clapping his hands together like a referee ending a play. "Bet."

You tore your eyes away from Logan to look at Garrett. "What?"

"I'm calling the bluff," Garrett announced, stepping into the center of the circle. "Two months."

"Garrett, no," Hannah warned, grabbing his arm. "This is such a bad idea. They'll kill each other."

"No, let him speak," Logan interrupted, his eyes never leaving your face. There was a reckless, arrogant light in his gaze now. "What are you proposing, G?"

"A fake relationship," Garrett declared grandly. "Two months. Exclusive. Here are the terms: You two have to publicly pretended to be wildly, obnoxiously in love. You go to parties together. You sit in the cafeteria. You do all the gross couple shit."

"Absolutely not. You're the one to talk about fake relationships, Graham," you said immediately.

"Let him finish," Dean rubbed his hands together like a villain. "This is getting good."

"If you quit early, you lose," Garrett continued, counting on his fingers. "If you make it obvious to anyone outside this circle that it's fake, you lose. And the most important rule: whoever catches feelings first, loses."

Logan let out a bark of laughter. "Catch feelings? For her? I'd rather drink bleach."

"The feeling is mutual," you shot back smoothly.

"Excellent," Tucker said mildly, folding his arms. "Then this should be effortless for the both of you."

"If you both survive two months without losing," Dean added hastily, clearly inventing the stakes on the spot, "the three of us will cover Logan's share of the rent for the semester. And for the lady... we'll pay for your prep courses for the LSAT."

You froze. LSAT prep courses were expensive. You had been working extra shifts at the campus library just to save up for the basic packages.

Your secret, the one you closely guarded beneath your tailored clothes and sharp remarks, was that you constantly, exhaustingly stressed about money. Your parents weren't footing your tuition like the rest of the kids in this house.

You glanced at Logan.

He looked entirely unbothered, practically vibrating with the arrogant certainty that he could beat you. He probably thought it would be easy money. He probably thought he could charm his way through two months of fake dates, annoy you into quitting, and walk away victorious.

"Two months," you verified. "Exclusive public dating. Must appear convincing. Catching feelings results to an automatic forfeit."

"Those are the terms," Garrett confirmed, looking far too pleased with himself.

"Babe," Hannah whispered, leaning into your ear. "Do not do this. Logan is an idiot, but he's a very aggressively charming idiot. You're voluntarily putting yourself in the line of fire."

"Hannah," you murmured back, eyes fixed on Logan. "I'm going to ruin his life."

You stepped forward, extending your hand toward Logan.

"Deal."

Logan looked at your outstretched hand for a moment. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Then, slowly, he reached out and wrapped his calloused hand around yours. His palm was warm, rough from years of handling a hockey stick, and the sheer size of his grip swallowed your hand completely.

The moment your skin made contact, a violent, unexpected jolt of heat shot straight up your arm, setting low and heavy in your stomach. Logan's eyes snapped up to yours, widening just a fraction as if he had felt the same shock.

"Two months," Logan murmured, his voice suddenly sounding lower, rougher than it had a moment ago. "Try not to fall in love with me."

"Don't worry, Logan," you said, stepping back, desperately ignoring the tingling warmth still radiating across your skin. "I prefer men with actual reading comprehension skills."

As you turned away, dragging Hannah toward the kitchen to refill your beer, your mind was racing. You had a 3.9 GPA. You had destroyed professors in debates. You were composed, rational, and immune to college boy bullshit.

What are you doing with your life?

What happens after you agree to a fake-dating bet with John Logan is not a smooth, cinematic transition into romance. It is a controlled massacre of your entire existence.

By Monday morning, Briar University had done what Briar always did with total campus chaos: it weaponized it into gossip.

The exact moment you knew your carefully, ordered, highly academic life had collapsed was when you walked into your first class. Three people you had never seen before in your life turned in perfect, horrifying unision said, "Hey, Logan's girlfriend."

You didn't correct them. Not because it was true, but because correcting them would imply that you cared enough to use your vocal cords. And you absolutely refused to give the entire hockey house the satisfaction of knowing they've got you riled up.

Logan was waiting outside the lecture hall. As soon as he saw you, he pushed the wall with a lazy smirk. "Morning, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that in daylight. I feel like I'm being slaughtered."

"That's the whole point," he replied easily, not missing a beat.

Before you could step past him, he moved directly into your personal space. Logan didn't understand the concept of a normal human boundary.

Or, more accurately, he understood it perfectly and just liked seeing you try to calculate the physics of how much trouble you'd get into for shoving him into the nearest trash can.

He held out a coffee cup. You paused. "...Is that for me?"

"No, it's an experiment. I'm conducting a study on what happens when your cold, robotic, cynical heart accepts a basic act of human kindess. Do you melt? Do you hiss? I need to know."

You snatched it from his hand with a glare. You took a sip, fully prepared to criticize his taste, but stopped mid-swallow. It was exactly how you liked it.

You hated that he knew that. You hated that he had apparently paid attention to your order exactly once three weeks ago and cataloged it away.

By noon, your little arrangement has entered phase two.

When you sat down in the crowded dining hall with your laptop open, ready to get some actual work done, Logan didn't take the empty seat across from you.

He slid right onto the bench next to you. His thigh pressed casually against yours, the heat of his body radiating through his jacket. He acted like it was completely accidental, totally ignoring the fact that your entire nervous system was actively trying to exit your body through your ears.

Dean slid into the seat across from you a second later, immediately grinning like a hyena. "Oh, this absolute disgusting. Look at you two. You're doing the couple lean already. My stomach is turning, I love it."

"We're not leaning," you said, stiffening your posture until you were straight as an ironing board.

Logan immediately leaned his entire upper body weight into your shoulder, resting his chin almost directly on your collarbone to look at your laptop screen.

"What are we studying, baby?"

You shifted away, your face burning.

He followed.

You shifted back toward the edge of the bench.

He followed again, nudging his shoulder against yours with a quiet chuckle that vibrated right against your side.

"If you don't move three inches to the left," you whispered to Logan, "I'm going to stick this fork in your knee."

"Threatening me with bodily harm?" Logan beamed, completely unbothered. "Write that down, G. It's out one-week anniversary."

By the second week, the cracks in your defense strategy started small. Annoyingly, frustratingly small.

The real issue was Logan remembering things. Not grand, cinematic, romantic things. That would've been easy to ignore. It was worse. It was the mundane, everyday things.

On Tuesday, a freak afternoon thunderstorm hit right as your statistics seminar let out. You stood in the lobby of the building, staring gloomily at the pouring rain, fully prepared to ruin your favorite shoes and your mood.

Then the heavy glass doors swung open, bringing in a gust of cold air, and there was Logan. He was soaking wet, his hair blasted blasted by the wind, holding out a massive umbrella.

"What are you doing here?" you asked. "Don't you have practice?"

"Canceled," he lied smoothly, though you knew for a fact hockey practice was never canceled unless the arena literally froze over from the outside.

"C'mon, I'm not letting your stuff get damaged. I'd never hear the end of it."

On Thursday, after you spent six straight hours in the computer lab and forgot that human beings require food to stay alive, he casually walked past your desk.

Without saying a word, he dropped a bag of chips, a sandwich, and a protein bar right on top of your keyboard. He didn't even linger for a thank you; he just flashed you a smile and kept walking.

Then he started walking you home from the campus library. Every single night.

"You don't have to do this, you know," you told him one chilly night. "I'm perfectly capable of walking without security."

"I know," he replied simply, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

That was it. No cocky comeback. No punchline to ease the tension. Just complete, unbothered certainty. And that was the exact problem. John Logan didn't do anything without intent.

Later that weekend, the hockey house threw a massive party that you were forced to attend to 'keep up the act.' You were standing with Logan by the crowded kitchen island when Dean loudly announced to a group of girls.

"Just so you all know, Logan hasn't even looked at anyone's way ever since she came. The man is practically a monk."

The girls laughed, looking at Logan expectantly, waiting for him to play along or make a joke.

Logan didn't deny it. He didn't even laugh. He just took a slow sip of his cup and said, "No time. I've been busy."

And he looked directly, intensely at you when he said it.

The heat in his gaze made your face feel like it was on fire. You came very, very close to throwing your cup of beer straight at his beautiful, stupid forehead. Almost.

By week three, the rest of the house began to notice that something was seriously off with the atmosphere.

It wasn't that you were acting like a couple in public (That was the literal objective of the bet). The actual problem was much worse: it was starting to look real when absolutely no one was watching.

Hannah cornered you in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon while you were trying to make tea.

"You're aware you're softening, right?" she asked, leaning her hip against the counter and eyeing you.

"I am not softening," you said keeping your voice entirely flat and monotone.

Hannah gave you a long, knowing look that made you want to crawl under the floor. "You're not losing the bet," she said quietly, her tone softening. "But something's happening."

She patted your shoulder in a way that felt entirely too sympathetic and walked away before you could come up with a brilliant counterargument to save face.

The following week was the week everything completely shifted, because Logan stopped performing.

The flirting didn't disappear, but it changed into something unrecognizable. There was less showmanship, less playing to the crowd. He stopped making the rest of the campus his audience.

Instead, he started making you his sole focus.

One chilly Friday night, he walked you back to your dorm after a grueling study session that had left you wishing for a quick death.

"You don't have to come up to the door," you said. "I have my keys anyway."

"I know."

But he didn't move. He just stood there, his breath turning to white mist in the cold night air. His dark hair was slightly messy from the wind, and he looked incredibly human.

The silence stretched between you, growing longer and heavier by the second. Usually, this was the part where he'd make a sarcastic comment, flash his signature grin, or try to steal a fake kiss to get a reaction out of you so he could tease you about it.

But he just looked at you.

Then quieter than you'd ever heard him speak, Logan said, "You ever think about what happens after this?"

You frowned, "We win. Obviously. You and I get the satisfaction of annoying the boys and not pay for anything. Life continues exactly as it did before we started this."

"That's not what I meant."

You studied his face. The streetlights threw sharp shadows across his jawline. He wasn't smirking, or teasing, he looked incredibly still. It made your stomach tighten in a way that you really, really did not appreciate.

"I don't think about the after," you said carefully, your voice barely above a whisper.

Logan nodded once. Like that was a completely acceptable answer. Like it was for now.

"Goodnight," he said softly, turning to walk down the path toward his car.

Naturally, the first real breakdown happened during a completely stupid, unromantic moment.

It was a Thursday night in the absolute deepest basement of the campus library. It was past 2:00 AM. Your notes looked like ancient hieroglyphics, your brain felt like wet cement, and your very last remaining nerve was hanging on by a single, fraying thread of caffeine.

Out of nowhere, a familiar shadow fell over your messy desk. Logan slid into the wooden chair directly across from you. He looked entirely too awake for two in the morning.

“You look like you’re about to commit a felony,” he said, eye-level with your massive stack of textbooks.

“I am studying.”

“That’s worse.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, feeling a massive headache blooming behind your eyes. “Why are you even here, Logan? Don't you sleep?”

He reached out and lightly tapped the edge of your open laptop. “Because Hannah told me you haven’t eaten anything since lunch. And because you’re stubborn.”

“I’m fine.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

“I’m just highly focused. It’s an adrenaline rush.”

“You’re going to pass out on a public desk and some freshman is going to steal your notes.”

“I said I’m—”

The words caught in your throat. Logan reached across the table, his large hand wrapping around the top edge of your laptop, and gently but firmly closed it shut.

“Come on,” he said.

It wasn't a command. He wasn't teasing your or trying to be funny. His voice was just filled with a quiet, undeniable certainty that completely disarmed me.

You stared at him, your stubbornness trying to flare up one last time. “I’m not done.”

“You are for tonight,” he said. He paused, looking at you with an expression that was so soft, so genuinely sweet, it scared me more than any test ever could. Quieter, he added, “I’m not asking.”

And for some horrific reason, that was what broke you. It wasn't him trying to control the situation; it was the fact that he was disguising genuine, protective care as control. My throat felt tight.

Once you got outside into the cool, crisp night air, he pulled a warm, wrapped breakfast sandwich out of his jacket pocket—he must have gone to the 24-hour diner down the street—and handed it to you.

“You’re really not supposed to be good at this,” you whispered, your voice cracking slightly.

“At what?”

“Whatever this is. Being nice. Taking care of me. It’s messing with everything”

Logan leaned his back against the brick wall of the library, looking down at you with a soft, steady expression. “I’m not trying.”

And that, right there, was the ultimate problem. He wasn't trying to act like a good boyfriend for the bet. He just was.

By week six, Garrett called an emergency house meeting. In the hockey house, a formal house meeting meant disaster was not just imminent—it had already arrived, unpacked its bags, and moved into the guest room.

“You guys are failing,” Garrett announced, pointing a finger at you and Logan from across the living room coffee table like a disappointed coach.

“We are literally not failing,” you shot back instantly, crossing your arms defensively. “Everyone on campus thinks we’ve been dating for a month and a half. The dean literally asked me how Logan was doing yesterday.”

“You’re not winning, though,” Dean corrected, leaning over the back of the couch with a piece of leftover pizza in his hand.

Tucker nodded from the armchair, not looking up from his phone. “There is a distinct difference between surviving and winning.”

Logan leaned back in his seat, looking completely unbothered as he stretched his long legs out across the rug. “We’re fine. The bet is intact. No one doubts us.”

Hannah didn’t speak at all. She just sat in the corner armchair, watching the two of you with a look that made you incredibly nervous.

Garrett stood up and started pacing, pointing between the two of you. “You’re supposed to be acting. That was the deal. Fake dating. But right now, Logan looks like he’s thinking way too much about what he's doing, and she looks like she’s actively trying not to look at him. It’s weird. The vibe is off.”

“I don’t think,” Logan scoffed, rolling his eyes. “It’s against my brand.”

Without thinking, your brain completely bypassing your filters, you blurted out, “He absolutely thinks. He thinks more than all of you combined. He’s incredibly observant, and just because he doesn't shout his thoughts doesn't mean he's empty-headed.”

The entire room went dead silent. Garrett stopped mid-pace. Dean froze with the pizza halfway to his mouth.

They all stared at you. Then you realized what you had just done: you had just fiercely, reflexively, passionately defended Logan John’s honor in front of his best friends.

That was entirely new. That was not in the script. You hated myself a little bit in that moment, your cheeks burning a bright, undeniable crimson.

It was exactly eleven forty-five on a Friday night, which meant there were fifteen minutes left on the clock.

Fifteen minutes until the wager expired. Sixty days of holding hands in public corridors, sixty days of leaning close enough to share breath but never a kiss, and sixty days of you telling yourself you were fundamentally immune to John Logan.

The bass of the off-campus house party rattled through the worn wooden floorboards, vibrating against the soles of your boots. Red and purple strobe lights sliced through the humid, crowded room, illuminating the exact moment Logan broke through the throng of sweaty bodies.

He moved with that infuriating, effortless grace he always possessed—broad shoulders easily parting the crowd, his dark leather jacket slipping past red plastic cups and uninhibited dancers.

His eyes were locked on you from across the room. There was no trademark smirk tonight. No lazy, arrogant tilt to his jaw. He looked deadly serious.

Your heart did a violent, terrifying stutter against your ribs. Don't lose your nerve. 

The bet had been simple: fake date for two months to get your respective meddling friends off your backs, and whoever caught feelings—whoever tapped out first—lost. It was an exercise in ego. A test of pure, stubborn willpower.

He knew exactly where to touch your lower back to make your breath hitch. You knew exactly how to angle your neck when he whispered in your ear so that he would lose his train of thought. It was mutually assured destruction disguised as a joke.

But as he stopped right in front of you, the joke was violently dead.

He took your hand, wrapping his large, warm fingers around your wrist, and pulled you out of the kitchen. You followed blindly, letting him navigate you down a narrow, shadowed hallway away from the crush of the party. The noise muffled slightly, swallowed by the heavy coats piled on a nearby bench.

Logan turned to face you. The shadows carved sharp angles into his cheekbones. His chest was rising and falling a little too fast, his dark eyes entirely devoid of their usual playful challenge. He took a single step into your space, trapping the air between you.

"Time's almost up," he murmured, his voice a low, rough scrape against the thrumming music from the other room.

"I know," you breathed. Your throat felt incredibly dry. You fought the urge to step back, but the wall was already pressing against my shoulder blades. "You ready to concede?"

"No," he said flatly. Then, his gaze dragged down to your mouth, heavy and dark and starving. "I'm ready to change the rules."

Your logical brain told you that you should find a flaw in this plan. Your old survival instinct told you to run away before you got hurt.

But instead, you looked up into his eyes and said, “This is probably going to ruin our entire reputation for being sensible.”

Logan smiled, that beautiful, real smile that didn't have a hint of a smirk in it, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. “Probably.”

He squeezed your hand tightly, pulling you just an inch closer until your chest was pressed against his jacket. “Worth it?”

You looked at him. Really, truly looked at him—the boy who brought you umbrellas in the rain and remembered how you took your coffee.

You ignored the loud music behind him, the crazy bet behind you, and all the overthinking in your own head. For the first time in two solid months of calculating every move, you didn’t care about the outcome.

“…Yeah,” you whispered, reaching your free hand up to grip the lapel of his jacket. “Definitely worth it.”

Logan exhaled a massive breath, like he’d been holding it underwater for weeks, a look of pure relief washing over his face. “Good,” he said.

And this time, when he stepped closer and leaned his head down, you didn’t move away at all—you reached up to meet him halfway.

The second your lips touched, a violent, desperate shockwave tore through you. It wasn’t a soft, exploratory first kiss. It was an absolute collision.

Logan groaned, a deep, helpless sound in the back of his throat, and immediately dropped his hands to your hips, hauling you flush against his hard body.

He kissed you like he was starving. Like the last two months had been a physical torture he was finally allowed to end. His tongue swept into your mouth, possessive and hot, tasting every corner while his hands gripped your waist tight enough to bruise.

"Baby," he breathed raggedly against your lips, peppering hot, frantic kisses down the corner of your mouth to your jaw. "Christ, I've wanted to do this since week one."

"Then why didn't you?" you gasped, letting your head fall back against the wall as his lips dragged down your neck, his stubble scraping deliciously against your sensitive skin.

"Because you're stubborn as hell," he growled, biting lightly at your collarbone. "And I needed you to be sure. Let's get out of here. Now."

There was no conversation. No goodbye to your friends. You practically sprinted out the back door, stumbling into the sharp chill of the autumn night. His hand was locked in yours, pulling you toward his car parked down the block.

The entire drive to your apartment was a blur of thick, agonizing tension. Logan kept one hand on the steering wheel, his knuckles white, while his right hand rested heavily on your thigh.

His thumb dragged slow, torturous circles against the denim of your jeans, sending jolts of heat pooling directly between your legs.

By the time you shoved your way through your front door, the final remnants of restraint shattered.

The heavy wooden door hadn't even clicked shut before Logan pinned you against it. His mouth crashed down on yours again, deeper and dirtier this time.

He tasted like desperation. Your hands scrambled at the zipper of his jacket, shoving the cool leather off his broad shoulders so it dropped uselessly to the floor.

"Fuck, baby," he mumbled roughly, his hands already sliding up under the hem of your sweater. His large, warm palms met the bare skin of your stomach, and you threw your head back with a sharp gasp. "Tell me to stop if this is just the adrenaline."

"Logan," you said, your voice shaking with pure need. "If you stop right now, I'll never forgive you."

He let out a low, feral sound that sent a shiver straight down your spine. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the hem of your sweater and pulled it over your head, tossing it aside.

You stood before him in a bra, chest heaving, entirely exposed to the searing heat of his gaze. Every muscle in his jaw feathered as his eyes took you in.

"You have no idea," he whispered, his voice thick, his hands trailing down your sides. "You have no fucking idea what it's been like. Pretending I wasn't obsessing over you. Holding your hand and having to let it go."

"Show me, then," you challenged softly, your fingers reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

He didn't need to be told twice. He stripped off his shirt with brutal efficiency, revealing a broad chest and a torso cut with hard lines of muscle.

You barely had a second to appreciate the view before he was backing you down the short hallway into yout bedroom. The mattress hit the backs of your knees, and you tumbled down into the comforter, Logan following you down instantly.

His weight settled over you, caging you in, heavily masculine and exquisitely overwhelming. He kissed you again, his thigh parting your legs as his hips pressed flush against you.

Even through the layers of denim between you, you could feel exactly how hard and thick he was for.

A desperate, wet heat flooded your panties. You arched blindly against him, seeking friction, and he groaned into your mouth.

"Fuck, you feel so good," he rasped, his warm breath fanning over your collarbone.

His hands moved with practiced, urgent purpose. He unclasped your bra in a single deft motion, sweeping the lace aside to expose you.

The cool air hit your flushed skin for only a second before Logan lowered his head. His mouth closed over one hard peak, hot and wet, his tongue laving the sensitive center while his teeth scraped lightly.

A loud, embarrassing whimper tore out of your throat. Your hands dove into his hair, gripping tightly as a heavy, twisting coil of pleasure tightened deep in your belly.

He suckled you unapologetically, drawing hard enough to make stars burst behind your eyes, while his hand moved lower, fumbling with the button of your jeans.

You tore at each other’s remaining clothes. It wasn't graceful; it was chaotic, driven by two solid months of pent-up starvation.

"You're perfect," he breathed, tracing a path down your stomach with one long finger. He followed the trail with a string of open-mouthed kisses, lower and lower, until he reached the juncture of your thighs.

Before you could brace yourself, he settled between your legs, hooking your knees over his shoulders.

"Logan—" you gasped, reaching for him, but he just smirked—a dark, wicked version of his usual smile.

"I have two months of making up to do," he murmured against you. "Keep your hands in the sheets, baby.”

And then his mouth was on you. He found my clit instantly, his tongue sweeping over the sensitive bundle of nerves in a long, relentless drag.

Your back arched completely off the mattress. You screamed his name, your fingers twisting violently into the heavy fabric of the sheets as he devoured you.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He was thorough, patient, and ruinously skilled. He alternated between deep, rhythmic laps and tight, focused flicks of his tongue, teasing you right to the edge and then backing off just enough to make you beg.

"Please," you sobbed out, thrashing helplessly against his mouth. "Logan, please baby, I need—"

"I know," he soothed, sliding two thick fingers deep inside you while his mouth continued its assault.

you were completely dripping for him, embarrassingly slick, but he only seemed emboldened by how wrecked you were.

The orgasm hit you like a freight train. It ripped through your body in violent, shivering waves. You cried out, legs clamped tightly over his shoulders as you broke apart under his mouth.

You were still gasping for breath, chest heaving, when Logan rose over you. His face was flushed, his jaw tight, his dark eyes dilated with pure, predatory need.

He settled his weight back between your thighs, propping himself up on his forearms. He nudged the blunt, hot head of his length against your heat, stopping right on the verge.

He looked down at you, his expression softening into an aching vulnerability that made your heart hammer in your throat.

"I need you to know," he said, his voice entirely wrecked in the quiet room. "Before I do this. You have to know it wasn't a game to me. Not for a single goddamn second."

Tears stung the corners of your eyes at the raw sincerity in his tone. "I know. It wasn't a game to me either."

He let out a broken breath, leaning down to press a deep, bruising kiss to your mouth. As your lips locked, he drove his hips forward, burying himself fully inside you.

You both cried out. He was massive, thick and blazingly hot, stretching you open and filling every empty ache you hadn't let yourself acknowledge.

"Okay?" he whispered, his hips instinctively trembling against yours.

"Don't wait," you begged him, wrapping your legs tightly around his waist to lock his hips to you. “Don't hold back anymore."

That was the only permission he needed. Logan began to move, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in to the hilt with a heavy, wet slap of skin on skin.

He established a deep, punishing rhythm. Every thrust was accompanied by a harsh grunt, his hips snapping forward to hit the deepest, sweetest spot inside you over and over.

Your nails dug half-moons into his back, your hips rising off the mattress to meet him halfway, desperate for deeper friction.

"Fuck," he ground out, the pace accelerating. The bed frame let out a heavy rhythmic squeak, echoing the wet sounds of your bodies colliding. "You feel—god, you feel better than I imagined."

"John… baby…” you whimpered, the syllables falling from your lips entirely broken.

He shifted his grip, sliding one hand under your hips to angle you perfectly against him, while his other hand reached between your bodies. His thick thumb found your swollen clit, pressing down right as he drove deep inside.

The pleasure was too dense, too sudden. You let out a sharp cry, your head thrashing on the pillows as the second orgasm rushed up your spine.

"That's it," he praised hoarsely, his grip tightening violently on your hips. "Come for me. Let go."

You shattered around him, your walls clenching tightly over his cock. The sensation tipped him right over his own edge.

Logan let out a deep, guttural shout, burying his face in the crook of your neck as he drove completely to the hilt. His entire body went rigid, cording with strain as he pulsed deep inside you.

For a long time, the only sound in the room was the ragged tear of your breathing. Your heart was pounding so hard you could feel the vibration echoing in his chest, pressed completely flush against yours.

Slowly, the adrenaline ebbed, leaving a sprawling warmth in its wake. Logan pressed a soft, damp kiss to the side of your neck before gently rolling to the side, pulling me flush against his side.

He wrapped a thick arm around your waist, tucking your head securely under his chin. His hand smoothed down the messy tangle of your hair, his thumb beginning a slow, possessive stroke along your spine.

"So," he murmured, his voice rumbling pleasantly beneath your ear. The tension was gone from his shoulders, replaced by a profound, immovable contentment. "I tap out. You win."

You tilted your head up, resting your chin on his bare chest to look at him. His dark hair was a ruined mess, his lips were swollen, and his eyes were soft and incredibly bright in the dim light of the bedroom.

The smug arrogance of his fake dating persona was completely burned away, leaving only the real boy underneath. The one you were hopelessly, irrevocably in love with.

"I don't think either of us actually lost, Logan," you said softly, tracing the line of his jaw.

A lazy, brilliant smile finally spread across his face, lighting up the corners of his eyes. "Yeah," he whispered, pressing his lips firmly against your forehead. "I think you're right."

You lay there in the quiet aftermath of the storm, the neon digits on his nightstand clock finally flipping past midnight.

Day sixty was officially over. The wager was dead and buried. And as his fingers gently laced with yours in the dark, tying your hand to his, you realized the terrifying truth.

The fake romance was easy. Now you had to wake up tomorrow, walk out into the real world, and start playing for keeps.

"hey," you murmured, stepping up beside him at the island.

you were leaning against the counter, a peeler in your hand, feeling the exhaustion of trying to salvage friendsgiving settling deep into your bones.

you had tried to dress up a little for the holiday, wearing an oversized, off-the-shoulder cream sweater that kept slipping down your arm, paired with dark fitted jeans.

now, you had the sleeves pushed up past your elbows, trying desperately to keep the knit out of the turkey grease.

"logan just walked in with like three guys from the junior varsity line. i don't think we have enough stuffing for this at all."

tucker let out a low, rough sigh, not looking up from the turkey he was meticulously basting.

the tension in his broad shoulders was palpable, a rare sight for a guy who usually let everything roll off his back. "we'll make it work," he said, his voice a little tighter and deeper than usual. "i just don't understand how a dinner for eight turned into a buffet for twenty, with zero notice. i planned this out to the ounce."

he stared down at the roasting pan, his knuckles gripping the handle of baster. "my mom gave me her exact timeline," he admitted, his voice dropping into a rare, vulnerable register. "down to the minute. i called her three times yesterday just to make sure i had the seasoning right. it's... it's the first time i haven't been home for it. i just wanted it to be right."

the irritation you had been feeling about the chaotic house evaporated instantly, replaced by a sharp pang of sympathy. tucker was always everyone else's rock, but right now, he was just a guy missing his mom's kitchen.

you tossed a peeled potato into the pot with a little more force than necessary, your own irritation flaring turning into gentle reassurance. "it will be perfect but i'm about two minutes away from locking the front door, turning off the oven, and letting everyone fight over the raw cranberries."

a faint, genuine smile finally broke through tucker's frustrated expression. the hard line of his jaw softened, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at you.

he set the baster down, wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, and stepped directly into your space, cutting off the rest of the chaotic kitchen from view.

before you could say anything else, he leaned down. his lips pressed warmly against your cheek, lingering just long enough to make the noise of the crowded house fade into static.

he slid his hand down to find yours, his large, calloused fingers intertwining with yours, his thumb rubbing soothing, slow circles over the back of your knuckles.

"thank you," he whispered near your ear, his breath warm against your skin. "i would be losing my mind right now if you weren't here."

"you are losing your mind," you teased softly, turning your head just enough so your nose brushed against his jawline. "but i've got your back. always have."

"always have," he repeated, his voice softening with an undercurrent of fierce affection.

that was the thing about the two of you. anyone in your orbit knew that you and tucker were the blueprint.

you had been together since middle school, navigating the messy transition from kids to adults.

out of all the chaotic, fast-moving couples in your friend group, you and tucker were the stable foundation.

the absolute constants.

you had had your ups and downs, of course.

a couple of explosive, passionate arguments over the years that led to "breaks" that never actually lasted more than a week because neither of you could stand being away from each other.

looking at him now, you couldn't help but think about how far you had come.

your mind drifted back to the seventh grade, when a scrawny, blushing tucker had cornered you by the middle school lockers.

he had practically choked on his own spit asking you to go to the movies with him, shoved a crumpled pack of your favorite candy into your hand, and bolted before you could even say yes.

you had had to chase him down the hallway just to tell him you would have to ask your mom.

then there was the time you both turned sixteen.

after a brief, dramatic three-day breakup over something so stupid neither of you could even remember it now, he had showed up on your porch in the pouring rain.

he didn't just ask for you back.

he had asked you out properly. he had held a bouquet of actual flowers, his curls soaking wet and flattened to his forehead, and looked you dead in the eye with a seriousness that took your breath away.

"i don't want to just be your middle school boyfriend anymore," he had said, his voice steady and completely sure. "i want to be your real boyfriend."

and he meant it.

and to this day the love between you was an unspoken and unshakeable law.

tucker gave your hand one last squeeze before releasing it, the frustration completely melting out of his posture. "alright. let's execute a new game plan."

instead of letting the evening devolve into a disaster, the two of you shifted into a seamless, practiced rhythm born from years of knowing how the other worked.

you grabbed the potato pot and walked out into the living room to recruit some actual help.

your friends were currently being completely useless.

mila was sitting on the armchair with her legs tucked under her, scrolling through her phone, while her girlfriend aoife was standing by the window chatting with a couple of the cheerleaders.

across the room, your other friend rowan was sitting on the coffee table, looking thoroughly amused but completely lost as logan attempted to explain a hockey play to him.

they were all hanging out, but you knew they would step up the second you asked.

"i need you guys," you said, intercepting the room's separate pockets of energy.

aoife looked over immediately, offering a sympathetic smile as she stepped away from the conversation by the window. "is tucker finally cracking?"

"he's running his hands through his hair, so yes, we are at code red," you joked, setting the pot down on the counter by the pass-through window. "can you two take over peeling the rest of the potatoes? we have an army to feed now."

"on it," mila said, tossing her phone onto the chair and stretching as she stood up. "we'll save tucker from himself."

you turned to rowan, who was already raising his hands in mock surrender. "and what's my mission, captain?"

"you are in charge of muscle," you told him, pointing toward logan and the junior varsity players who were hovering by the tv.

"take logan and the freshmen downstairs and drag up every folding chair we own. we're going to be packed in like sardines."

"consider it done," rowan said, giving your shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he passed. "don't stress. the food smells amazing, you guys got this."

with your friends successfully deployed, the chaotic house turned into a well-oiled machine.

mila and aoife kept up a steady stream of banter in the kitchen, keeping the mood light while they helped tucker finish the sides, and devon successfully organized a makeshift seating arrangement that somehow fit everyone.

by the time everyone finally sat down, the table was packed shoulder-to-shoulder.

the noise level was deafening, filled with loud laughter, clinking glasses, and the chaotic, booming energy of a hockey team left to their own devices, mixed with the sharp wit of your own friends.

but against all odds, the food was absolutely perfect.

tucker sat beside you, finally completely relaxed. underneath the cover of the heavy, holiday tablecloth, his hand found your thigh.

his fingers squeezed gently, a heavy, warm weight that grounded you instantly.

it was a silent, private thank-you that only you could feel.

across the table, rowan was loading up his plate while aoife laughed at something jules said, and mila chuckled at one of logan's ridiculous stories.

everyone was mingling perfectly.

you caught tucker looking at you, his brown eyes soft.

while logan was distracted yelling across the table to rowan about a play from last week's game, tucker leaned in close.

his shoulder pressed firmly against yours, his scent of cedar and warm spices enveloping you as he stole a quick, quiet kiss from the side of your neck, his lips lingering against your skin.

it wasn't the quiet, perfectly orchestrated friendsgiving he had meticulously planned in his head.

but looking around at the full plates, all your laughing friends, and feeling tucker's hand steady against your leg, it was exactly what it was supposed to be.

stable and entirely yours.

hours later, the house was finally silent. the last of the guests had stumbled out, rowan had helped carry the heavy trash bags to the curb, and mila and aoife had kissed your cheeks goodbye after helping load the dishwasher.

upstairs in tucker's bedroom, the frantic energy of the day completely dissolved.

the door was locked, leaving the remnants of the party far behind.

you stood by the edge of the bed, finally tugging your sweater over your head, leaving you in just a soft lace bralette and your jeans.

before you could reach for one of tucker's oversized t-shirts, a pair of strong arms wrapped around your waist from behind.

tucker pulled you back against his chest, burying his face into the crook of your neck. he had already changed into low-slung sweatpants, his bare skin warm against your back. he let out a long, heavy exhale, the last of his residual tension melting away as he held you.

"i mean it," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rumble against your skin that sent a shiver straight down your spine.

his lips pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to your shoulder, his hands sliding up your ribs, fingers lightly trailing over the exposed skin of your waist. "i don't know what i would've done today without you."

you turned around in his embrace, looping your arms around his neck, your fingers immediately tangling into his damp, post-shower hair. "you would have fed them raw cranberries and stared blankly at the oven."

tucker chuckled, the vibration thrumming through his chest against yours. his eyes darkened, softening with a deep, familiar heat that was reserved entirely for you. "probably," he admitted softly.

he leaned down, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that was a stark contrast to the quick, stolen touches from earlier.

this one was slow, deep, and heavy with years of unspoken promises.

his hands moved down to the small of your back, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left between you.

the intensity of it made your breath hitch, your heart hammering against your ribs as his tongue slid past your lips, claiming you completely.

when he finally pulled back, just an inch, his forehead rested against yours. his thumb traced the line of your lower lip, his gaze dropping to watch the movement before rising back to meet your eyes.

"middle school, high school, college," tucker whispered, his voice thick with emotion as he guided you backward onto the mattress, his body following yours until he was hovering over you, his weight a comforting, familiar presence.

"i'm never letting you go. you know that, right?"

you smiled up at him, your hands sliding down his broad shoulders, feeling the solid, unshakeable reality of him. "i count on it."

John Tucker, Briar U's laidback forward was the kind of guy who took everything in stride. He had a heart of gold, infinite patience, and a Texas drawl that could melt the panties off a saint. But his life had recently become a massive, tangled wreck. Earlier in the year, a brief hookup with Sabrina James had resulted in an unexpected pregnancy. Tucker, being the thoroughly decent, stand-up guy he was, stepped up immediately, vowing to support Sabrina and the baby every step of the way.

But then, he fell in love with you.

Because of the fragile situation with Sabrina, you and Tucker had decided to keep your relationship off the radar. You didn’t want to add to her panic, nor did you want to deal with the relentless, vicious gossip of the Briar campus. But what started as a temporary protective measure had morphed into a heavy, suffocating weight. You were sick of hiding. Sick of slipping out the back door of the hockey house before his roommates could catch you doing the walk of shame. You were tired of feeling like a dirty little secret, and the brutal strain had caused a constant, underlying friction between you two.

Which led to the explosive argument in his bedroom just hours before the team’s victory party.

You were pacing the length of his floor, your arms crossed tightly over your chest, while he sat on the edge of his neatly made bed. He was watching you with those heavy-lidded, deep brown eyes, his large hands resting loosely on his spread knees. His unnatural stillness only fueled the anxious, clawing fire burning in your chest.

"I can't do this anymore, Tuck," you said, your voice trembling as you snatched your jacket off his desk chair. "I'm fucking done. We're done."

He went utterly, terrifyingly still.

"Come here, darlin'," Tucker commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that usually turned your knees to absolute water.

"No." You zipped up your jacket with shaking fingers, refusing to look at him because you knew if you met his gaze, your resolve would snap in half. "I mean it this time. I am so fucking exhausted. I feel like a ghost in my own relationship."

Tucker pushed himself off the bed. His massive, muscular frame seemed to swallow the small space of the room as he stepped directly in front of his closed door, effectively trapping you inside. His dark auburn hair was a messy halo, and beneath his calm exterior, his warm brown eyes were flashing with a dangerous mix of panic and pure, unadulterated male stubbornness.

"We are not doing this, Y/N," he said slowly, his Texas drawl thick with absolute refusal. "We are not breaking up."

"I am the goddamn side piece in my own relationship!" you yelled, the frustration boiling over as hot tears finally spilled down your cheeks. "I know you have to be there for Sabrina and the baby. I want you to be there for them. You're a good man, Tuck, the best I know. But I can't be your hidden fuck-buddy anymore. I can't watch you rush out of the room to take her calls, or drop my hand the second we step outside because someone might see us. It hurts too much. It's tearing me apart."

A muscle feathered in his tight jaw. Tucker closed the distance between you in two long strides. You tried to step back, but his large, callused hands gripped your shoulders, hauling you gently but firmly against the hard wall of his chest. You were instantly grounded in his signature scent of sandalwood and citrus, a scent that felt so much like home it made a broken sob rip from your throat.

"You listen to me," he rasped, his voice vibrating against your collarbone as he lowered his head to look you dead in the eye. "You are not second place. You are never second place. You are everything to me."

"Tuck, please—"

"No, you're going to let me speak." He brought one of his large hands up to cup your cheek, his rough thumb catching a tear before it could fall. "I know it's hard. I know I'm asking a hell of a lot of you to wait for me to sort this mess out. I hate that I'm the goddamn reason you're crying right now. But I am a patient man, Y/N. I will wait out any storm to keep you."

You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head as you pressed your hands against his chest, trying to physically push away the one thing you wanted most in the world. Beneath your palms, his heart was hammering wildly against his ribs.

"You have to," you whispered, your voice cracking. "Go figure out your life. Be a dad. Do what you have to do without worrying about keeping me happy in the shadows."

You pulled out of his grip, intentionally ignoring the raw, devastated look that flashed across his handsome face. You reached around him, your hand wrapping tightly around the cool metal of the doorknob.

"I'm going to be at Malone's tonight," you said, your voice remarkably steady despite the fact that your heart was breaking into a million jagged pieces. "I promised Allie and Hannah I'd celebrate the win with them. But don't look for me, I need space."

You slipped past him, yanking the door open. You left him standing there in the middle of his bedroom, his jaw clenched tight and his broad chest heaving, his heart full of absolute, uncompromising refusal to accept that this was the end.

By the time you pushed your way into Malone's, your hands were still shaking.

And the absolute worst part of being best friends with Allie and Hannah? It meant you were automatically dragged into the Briar hockey team's inner circle.

They had commandeered the massive, wraparound leather booth in the back corner, and you were squished right into the middle of the loud, rowdy chaos. Garrett, Dean, Logan, and Fitzy were practically shouting over the music, toasting their shutout win and passing around pitchers of beer.

And sitting directly across the wooden table from you was John Tucker.

He hadn't said a single word since you sat down. He just sat rigidly on the cracked vinyl cushion, a half-empty bottle of Miller gripped in his large hand. For Tucker, the booming bass of the jukebox and the chaotic crowd seemed to fade entirely into white noise. The only thing in sharp focus was you. Every time you dared to glance up, those heavy-lidded, dark brown eyes were already locked on you, burning with a heavy, volatile intensity that made it impossible for you to draw a full breath.

You felt like you were bleeding out invisibly. You’d done it. You’d looked him in the eye, told him you were done being his dirty little secret, and walked away. Now, forced to sit so close to him, it felt like you’d carved out your own heart with a dull knife.

Hannah nudged your shoulder, shoving a shot of cheap tequila into your hand. "Drink up! You look like you're at a funeral, Y/N/N, not a party."

Allie leaned in over Dean's shoulder, her blonde hair catching the harsh neon light. "Seriously, what's going on with you? You've been miserable all week."

You forced a smile that didn't reach your eyes and downed the shot. The liquor clawed down your throat, "Just tired. Let's go dance."

You dragged them out of the booth and shoved your way onto the small, packed dance floor near the jukebox. The music was deafening, the heavy bass vibrating through the soles of your shoes and rattling your ribs. You squeezed your eyes shut, letting yourself get lost in the chaotic, grinding rhythm of the crowd. You laughed loudly with Allie and Hannah, desperately trying to project the image of a girl having the time of her life. But all you were really doing was trying to ignore the heavy, scorching gaze you could feel burning into your skin from across the room.

Tucker was watching you.

Usually, he was the anchor of his friend group—observant, laidback, the quiet guy who kept his head and his temper when everyone else lost theirs. Tonight, he felt like a coiled spring pulled back so tight it was about to snap.

Every breath he took felt like inhaling broken glass. You’d told him you were done. You’d looked at him with tears in your beautiful eyes and told him you couldn't be his second-place secret anymore. And the worst, most agonizing part? He knew you were absolutely right.

His eyes tracked your every movement through the strobe lights. You looked fucking breathtaking—flushed, wild, and utterly out of his reach—and he wasn't the only one who noticed.

A tall guy from the lacrosse team slid up behind you on the dance floor, his hands hovering dangerously close to your hips. Another guy, some frat bro in a backward cap, was trying to catch your eye, shouting some garbage pickup line over the loud music.

Tucker’s jaw locked so hard his teeth ground together. A dark, ugly possessiveness flared in his chest, incinerating every ounce of his southern patience.

They saw a beautiful, single girl looking to get wrecked and have a good time. They didn't know you belonged to him. They didn't know the soft, needy sounds you made when he sucked marks into your neck, or how perfectly your body bowed up to meet his. And it was his own damn fault they didn't know. He had kept you in the shadows to protect Sabrina's privacy and manage the baby drama, but in doing so, he had left you completely unprotected. He’d made you feel like you didn't matter. He'd practically served you up on a silver platter to every thirsty dirtbag in Malone's.

He watched, every thick muscle in his massive frame going violently tense, as the lacrosse player leaned in, his mouth entirely too close to your ear. Tucker saw you politely step back, your posture stiffening in clear discomfort, but the guy persisted. The asshole actually closed the distance again, flashing a cocky grin and reaching out to boldly wrap a hand around your waist.

That was it. Patience was officially dead.

Tucker’s grip on his beer bottle tightened until his knuckles turned stark white, the thick glass groaning dangerously under the pressure. With a harsh, ragged exhale, he slammed the bottle down on the sticky wooden table so hard the remaining liquid foamed over the top.

"Whoa, Tuck, where are you going?" Garrett asked, looking completely startled by the sudden, aggressive movement from the calmest guy on the roster.

Tucker didn't answer. He didn't even look at his captain. He was already moving, his broad shoulders cutting through the crowded bar, his dark eyes locked dead on the man touching what was his.

He parted the sweaty, grinding crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea, his massive frame shoving through the bodies without a single apology. The rational, endlessly patient part of his brain—the part that always played the long game, the part that had agreed to keep this relationship off the radar to deal with Sabrina's baby drama—was dead and buried.

Fuck the secret. Fuck the gossip. Tucker didn't care about the whispers, the rumors, or the stares that were bound to follow. He only cared about the fact that the woman he was completely, irrevocably in love with was slipping through his fingers, and half the bar was trying to swoop in and take his place.

You spun around, desperate to step away from the persistent lacrosse player whose hands were getting way too bold, but before you could tell the guy to back off, a blur of black and silver stepped into your line of vision.

You gasped as the lacrosse player was suddenly violently ripped away from you.

Tucker’s massive, callused hand was fisted in the collar of the guy’s shirt, lifting him nearly off his feet.

"Hey, what the hell, man?" the lacrosse player sputtered, throwing his hands up. He puffed out his chest, trying to look tough.

The words had barely left the guy's mouth before Tucker’s fist cracked across his jaw.

The sickening thud cut through the immediate vicinity of the dance floor. The lacrosse player stumbled backward, crashing into a nearby table and taking a couple of empty beer bottles down with him. The crowd gasped, forming an immediate, wide circle around you, but Tucker didn't even flinch. He stood over the groaning guy, his broad chest heaving, his fists clenched tight at his sides.

"Stay the fuck away from my girl," Tucker growled, his voice dropping to a low, lethal vibration.

The guy scrambled back, holding his bleeding jaw, and frantically nodded before disappearing into the crowd.

Tucker didn't spare him a second glance. He turned to you, the violence in his frame immediately shifting into a raw, desperate need. Large, familiar hands instantly gripped your hips, hauling you flush against his hard chest.

"Tuck—" you breathed, your heart doing a wild, violent somersault against your ribs.

"Mine," he murmured fiercely.

He pulled you seamlessly into the heavy rhythm of the music. His hands slid from your hips to trail possessively up your spine, sending a shiver of blistering heat straight to your core. He spun you around, pressing your back flat against his broad chest, his thick arms wrapping securely around your waist as he swayed with you.

He could feel you trembling, feel the exact moment the adrenaline bled out of your muscles and you melted against him. This was where you belonged. Not hiding in the shadows. Not sneaking out the back door of the hockey house. It was an undeniably intimate, blatantly sexual claim, loud and clear for the entire fucking bar to see.

Over by the booths, the reaction was instantaneous. Dean’s jaw practically unhinged, his drink freezing halfway to his mouth. Garrett actually choked on his beer, coughing violently while Logan thumped him on the back. Hannah and Allie exchanged wide-eyed, completely stunned looks. John Tucker, the quietest, most reserved guy on the roster, had just knocked a guy out and put on a very public, very unapologetic show.

Tucker spun you back around to face him, completely oblivious to the shocked stares of his teammates. He brought one hand up to cup your cheek, his rough thumb brushing over your trembling bottom lip, parting it slightly.

"I don't care who sees," Tucker said, his voice fierce, unwavering, and laced with absolute certainty. "I don't care how complicated it is. I am not hiding you anymore, Y/N. And I am sure as hell not letting you break up with me."

Before you could formulate a response—before your brain could even process the magnitude of what he had just done—he dipped his head and captured your lips in a searing, breathless kiss.

It wasn't a gentle, hidden kiss in the dark. It was a bold, desperate, world-stopping declaration. He kissed you like a starving man, his tongue parting your lips and claiming your mouth with a consuming, dominant heat that made your knees buckle. He caught your weight effortlessly, pulling your hips flush against the hard ridge of his arousal, showing his teammates, your friends, and everyone else in Malone's exactly who you belonged to.

When he finally pulled back, you were both breathless, your chests heaving together in the smoky air.