Garrett catches the side of her face in one hand and leans over the console with all the clumsy urgency of a man who has spent the last two hours imagining increasingly horrifying reasons his not-girlfriend might not be answering her phone, then asked her to become his actual girlfriend beside a security booth while all his friends provided live commentary.

Her surprised laugh disappears against his mouth. Then her body catches up. She twists toward him as far as the seatbelt allows, fingers sliding into the front of his tracksuit jacket, dragging him closer across the console until the gearshift presses awkwardly into her hip and someone in the back makes a noise of immediate disgust.

“Oh, come on,” Dean says. “We’re still in the vehicle.”

Garrett’s mouth moves over hers again, warmer and deeper, his thumb sliding under her jaw as her fingers find the damp curls at the back of his neck. 

The kiss tastes faintly like the fries he’d bought her and the mint gum he’d been chewing in the hospital car park, and something about that – something about Garrett’s mouth, his hand holding her steady, the boys complaining behind them, the word boyfriend now sitting legally and emotionally between them – sends a bright, unreasonable heat down the centre of her body.

Her boyfriend. Garrett Graham is her boyfriend.

She makes a small sound into his mouth before she can decide whether it’s dignified. Garrett answers with a rough inhale, his hand tightening at her jaw.

“Jesus Christ,” Logan mutters.

Tucker, wedged in the middle with Garrett’s gear bag between his knees and the exhaustion of a man who predicted this exact outcome before they left the hospital, reaches forward and taps Garrett’s shoulder. “Can you unlock the doors before you guys start a family?”

Garrett pulls back just far enough to glare at him over the seat. His mouth is pink from hers. His curls are a mess. He looks deeply, genuinely offended by the interruption.

“Get out,” he says.

“The doors are locked,” Tucker points out.

Garrett hits the button without looking. All the locks snap up at once.

“Thank you,” Tucker says, gathering his dignity and Garrett’s bag. “We’ll be downstairs, I guess.”

“Way downstairs,” Dean adds as he opens the door and cold air floods into the car. “Like, structurally as far from Graham’s bedroom as this house permits.”

Logan climbs out after him, muttering something about noise-cancelling headphones and tenant rights. Tucker follows with both bags because he is the only person in the group who can be trusted to remember objects while Garrett’s attempting to crawl through the centre console.

She reaches for her seatbelt. Garrett does too, fumbling with the release at her hip while she laughs into his mouth because he’s kissing her again before the belt has even fully retracted. 

It catches briefly against her puffer jacket, then snaps away hard enough to smack the side of the seat.

“Smooth,” she murmurs.

“Shut up.” His hand slides around the back of her neck, pulling her in again. “You’re my girlfriend.”

The words hit differently now that there isn’t a security guard nearby looking actively burdened by them. They settle low in her stomach, warm and heavy and strange enough that she smiles against his lips like an idiot.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I heard.”

Garrett kisses her once, quick and hard. Then again, slower because he needs to confirm it by mouth. “My girlfriend.”

“You’re going to become unbearable about this.”

“Become?”

She laughs, and Garrett grins against her mouth, bright and relieved and so painfully pleased with himself that she has to kiss him again just to stop looking at it.

By the time they get out of the car, the boys have already reached the front door. Dean holds it open from inside with one hand and shields his eyes dramatically with the other when Garrett comes around the bonnet and catches her by the waist before she’s taken two proper steps.

“Oh, good,” Dean says. “They made it twelve feet.”

“Go away,” Garrett tells him.

“I live here.”

“That’s fixable.”

She barely has time to laugh before Garrett bends and kisses her again, walking her backward toward the porch with one hand spread over her lower back and the other gripping her hip beneath the puffer jacket. 

Her sneakers scrape over the path. Garrett nearly clips the edge of the first step because neither of them is paying enough attention to architecture, and she catches his shoulder with both hands while he steadies them.

“Captain,” she breathes against his mouth. “Excellent spatial awareness.”

“You’re distracting.”

He gets them onto the porch with only one further collision, this time her bag knocking against the railing because Tucker has decided it’s no longer his responsibility. 

Garrett takes it from her shoulder without breaking the kiss, drops it somewhere just inside the door, then presses her back briefly against the wall beside the entryway.

The whole house is warm after the cold. Hockey-house warm, thick with radiator heat and laundry detergent and the leftover smell of whatever Tucker had reheated before they left, a pair of damp gloves drying near the vent and somebody’s shaker bottle abandoned on the hall table. 

The familiar mess of it should make her settle. Instead, Garrett’s mouth drags over hers, his thigh fitting between her legs, and her body seems to interpret the fact that they are indoors as formal permission to lose whatever remained of its judgement.

Her hands slide beneath his tracksuit jacket and over the hard warmth of his stomach. Garrett groans softly into her mouth, one palm flattening against the wall beside her head while the other pulls her hips closer against his. 

The pressure lands exactly where the entire drive home has been collecting, and she breathes his name before she can stop it.

“Okay,” Logan says from the living room. “That’s worse somehow.”

She breaks into a laugh against Garrett’s jaw. He doesn’t move away. His mouth only shifts to her neck, warm and open beneath her ear, while he raises one hand over his shoulder and gives the room behind them the finger.

“Very mature,” Tucker calls.

“I’m having a significant evening,” Garrett answers into her skin.

Dean appears briefly in the archway, looks at the two of them pinned against the hall wall, then turns around at once. “Yeah, no. We’ll be down here, I guess. Please shut at least one door between us and whatever this becomes.”

“Two,” Logan says.

“Every door,” Tucker adds.

Her whole face feels hot, but not enough to stop. Becoming Garrett’s girlfriend has removed the small final portion of her brain that once cared whether his roommates knew they had sex. 

They already knew. The house knew. His headboard knew with more certainty than anyone.

Garrett lifts his mouth from her neck, eyes dark and warm and fixed entirely on her face. “Upstairs?”

She nods before he finishes the word. His grin flashes. He catches her hand and starts toward the staircase, but she only makes it to the third step before he turns and kisses her again, walking backward now, one hand braced on the bannister and the other hooked around her waist. 

She follows badly, half laughing, half trying to stay attached to his mouth while her shift-heavy legs object to being asked for speed after eleven hours under fluorescent lighting.

Garrett’s heel catches one stair. He stumbles backward just enough that she grabs at his shoulders, their mouths separating on a startled breath.

“Holy shit,” she laughs. “Are you trying to kill us?”

“No.” His hands close around her hips, holding her still one step beneath him. “You’re slow.”

“I’ve been at work all day.”

“You had a great shift.”

“I did.”

“Congratulations.” He kisses her hard enough to make the sarcasm irrelevant, then pulls back with his breathing already rough. “Jump, baby.”

Her stomach drops pleasantly. “Now?”

“Jump.” Garrett bends slightly, hands already sliding lower to the backs of her thighs, eyes on hers with that particular easy confidence that makes reasonable thought feel like a hobby for other people. “Get up here.”

She does. There isn’t any deliberation. One second her shoes are on the staircase, the next she pushes up and wraps her legs around his waist, arms locking over his shoulders while Garrett catches her beneath her thighs as though the whole arrangement has been rehearsed. 

His body absorbs her easily, solid and warm between her legs, and the quick lift presses her against him in a way that makes the breath leave her mouth.

Garrett grins. “There.”

“Go,” she says, already kissing him again. “Get me upstairs.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He takes the stairs with her wrapped around him, one hand beneath her ass and the other sliding along the bannister when he needs the balance. 

It should feel precarious. It probably is precarious, considering Garrett’s mouth is open over hers and her fingers are buried in his curls and neither of them can see more than half the staircase at any given time. She doesn’t care.

Every step moves her against the hard line of him beneath his track pants. Her body is already too warm from the coat and the house and the way his tongue slides into her mouth, but she presses closer anyway, thighs tightening around his hips when Garrett kisses her deeper. 

A soft moan escapes before she can swallow it. Garrett’s grip flexes under her. “Fuck,” he says against her lips.

She smiles, breathless. “Stairs.”

“I know where the stairs are.”

“You nearly died on them thirty seconds ago.”

“You were on the ground then.” He takes another step, lifting her higher with a small adjustment that makes her breath hitch. “Different centre of gravity.”

“That’s not science.”

“You’re not a science major.”

“I’m a nursing student.”

“Exactly. You’re medically hot, not physics hot.”

She laughs into his mouth, which becomes another moan when he sucks gently at her bottom lip and keeps climbing. 

Somewhere downstairs, Dean shouts, “We can hear you doing staircase foreplay,” followed by a dull thump and Tucker saying something about leaving people alone.

Garrett reaches the landing and turns into the hallway with no visible intention of putting her down. His mouth has moved to her throat now, kissing the skin above the collar of her puffer jacket while she tries, unsuccessfully, to help him navigate.

“Your room,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“You just passed it.”

Garrett stops. Looks over his shoulder. He has, in fact, walked straight past his own bedroom door. She starts laughing so hard her forehead drops onto his shoulder.

“Don’t,” he warns, though his own mouth is twitching.

“You live here.”

“I was distracted.”

“By your girlfriend?”

His eyes come back to hers. The expression that moves over his face is so openly affected – heat and amusement and something warm enough to ache – that the laugh catches in her throat. 

Garrett adjusts his hold beneath her thighs, turns them around, and kisses her again before carrying her back the four feet he’d overshot.

“Yeah,” he murmurs into her mouth. “By my girlfriend.”

He gets the door open with his shoulder and walks her inside. The room is dim except for the little lamp beside his bed, left on from earlier, throwing warm light across the rumpled navy sheets and the open textbook near his pillow and the hoodie hooked over the back of his desk chair. 

His window is cracked slightly despite the cold, letting in a thin line of night air that moves the curtain and cuts through the close, familiar smell of detergent, hockey tape, shampoo, and him.

Garrett kicks the door shut behind them. For half a second, neither of them stops. He walks her farther into the room with his mouth still on hers, and she tightens her legs around him, already reaching for the zip of his jacket.

Then she catches sight of herself in the mirror over his dresser. Scrubs. Puffer jacket. Hair flattened slightly from being tied back all shift. Hospital badge still clipped near her chest with her deeply unflattering ID photo facing outward like a tiny laminated witness to several workplace violations.

She pulls her mouth away.

Garrett follows for another inch before realising she’s stopped. “What?”

“I’m in my scrubs.”

He looks down between them like this is new information. Her navy scrub pants are bunched slightly where her legs wrap around his waist, the fabric smelling faintly of hospital laundry, antiseptic wipes, vending-machine coffee and an entire day spent in rooms where people had been bleeding, coughing or loudly discussing their bowels.

Garrett frowns. “Yeah.”

“I need to shower.”

His frown deepens in genuine confusion. “Baby, I’m about to get you out of them.”

She laughs, and he kisses her in the middle of it, one hand sliding higher under her thigh. “That’s not–” Kiss. “The point.” Another kiss, deeper this time, enough that she almost loses the argument. “I feel gross.”

“You don’t look gross.”

“You haven’t worked in an emergency department.”

“I’ve been in one.”

“As a visitor.”

“As a frequent flyer.”

“That’s not better.” She kisses him again because his mouth is right there and because they can no longer complete a sentence without physical punctuation. “Let me shower.”

Garrett makes a dissatisfied sound when she tries to pull away. His arms stay locked under her, holding her against the hard front of his body. “How long?”

“Five minutes.”

“That’s not a shower.”

“It is when you’re motivated.”

He kisses her jaw. “Three.”

“Garrett.”

“Four.”

“I need to wash my face.”

“Fine. Five.” His mouth drags lower to the side of her neck, lips warm over her pulse. “But be quick.”

She nods, though the movement only presses her throat closer to his mouth. “I’ll be quick.”

Garrett lowers her slowly. Her legs unwrap from his waist, shoes finding the floor, but he keeps one arm around her middle as she slides down the front of him, the pressure making both of them breathe differently by the time she’s standing. 

He kisses her again immediately, one hand sliding into her hair and the other pulling her flush against his chest like putting her down was an administrative necessity he deeply resents.

“Quick,” he repeats against her mouth.

“I know.”

He kisses her once more. She reaches behind herself for the towel hanging from the hook on the back of his door.

Garrett kisses her again. She laughs, pressing one hand to his chest to get enough room to breathe. “You’re actively delaying me.”

“Last one.”

“That was the last one.”

“No, that was before I said last one.”

“That’s not legally binding.”

“I’m your boyfriend. It’s my law.”

She rolls her eyes, grabs the towel, then gives in when he catches her face and kisses her one final time, slow and thorough enough to make leaving the room feel like an act of personal sacrifice.

When she steps into the hallway, Garrett stays by the door watching her go. She can feel it between her shoulder blades, the fixed heat of his attention following the scrub pants, the puffer jacket she’s still wearing, the towel bundled under one arm.

She glances back. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded now, mouth curved. “Five minutes.”

“Stop timing me.”

“I started when you left my mouth.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“Four fifty-three.”

She flips him off and slips into the bathroom before his grin can do anything else to her. The lock clicks behind her. For one second she stands there in the yellow bathroom light with her back against the door, towel clutched to her chest, heart beating too hard for a woman who’s had sex with Garrett Graham enough times to know the exact look he gets before he puts his mouth between her thighs.

Her boyfriend.

The thought moves through her again, physical enough to make her stomach dip. Her boyfriend is in the next room waiting for her. 

Garrett Graham – the boy who once put his name into her phone for emergencies, who arrived at her dorm in fifteen minutes after a terrible text and then had the audacity to be freshly showered, who let her poke at his bruised ribs while complaining they weren’t going to fuck, who stood beside the hospital bed while Logan asked what day it was, who took off her shoes after bad shifts and held ice to her face after worse ones and disappeared for nine days because wanting her frightened him more than losing her had.

Garrett, who had stood outside a locked hospital asking a security guard whether calling her his girlfriend would get him more information.

Her boyfriend.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispers to her own reflection.

The girl in the mirror looks exactly like someone who has spent eleven hours in an emergency department and the last ten minutes being carried upstairs by a hockey player. 

Hair coming loose around her face. Lips swollen. Cheeks flushed beneath the tiredness. Badge still clipped to her chest with enough accidental professionalism to make the whole image feel deeply inappropriate.

She strips fast. Puffer jacket first, dropped over the closed toilet lid. Badge unclipped and set near the sink where it cannot watch. Scrub top pulled over her head with the faint hospital smell trapped in the fabric, then bra, scrub pants, underwear. 

The relief of getting out of the clothes hits immediately, cool bathroom air moving over skin that has spent the whole day compressed beneath waistbands and practical cotton.

She catches sight of her legs while stepping into the shower and experiences one sharp, private moment of gratitude that she shaved yesterday.

It’s not that Garrett cares. Garrett has never shown any evidence of believing body hair is an issue, mostly because he’s generally too busy trying to get his face into whatever region of her body she’s worrying about.

Still. Thank God.

The shower turns hot fast, old pipes groaning briefly inside the wall before water rushes over her shoulders. She gets beneath it and exhales, the whole day loosening from her skin at once. 

Fluorescent light. Hand sanitiser. The faint tack of old sweat beneath her bra line. The particular hospital-film feeling that follows a long shift home no matter how many times she cleans her hands.

She washes quickly but properly, soap worked over her arms, stomach, breasts, between her thighs, down her legs. Shampoo would take too long and require negotiations with wet hair afterwards, so she settles for pulling her hair up higher and washing around her neck, her face, behind her ears with the concentrated efficiency of someone whose extremely impatient boyfriend is probably staring at the bathroom door like it’s personally wronged him.

Boyfriend.

Her mouth keeps curling every time she thinks it. It’s embarrassing. Nobody can see her, and it’s still embarrassing.

She turns the water off before the five minutes can become six. The sudden quiet makes the bathroom feel smaller, water dripping from the showerhead and running in warm lines down her body while the radiator clicks near the wall. 

She steps out onto the bathmat, dries herself quickly, then wraps the towel around her chest and tucks the corner securely between her breasts.

The mirror has fogged around the edges. She clears a patch with her palm. Her reflection looks softer now. Clean skin, damp at the shoulders. Hair pulled up badly, little pieces curling near her ears. The towel covers her from chest to upper thigh, and somehow that feels more exposing than being naked in Garrett’s bed has ever felt.

Her stomach tightens. Why the fuck is she nervous? This is Garrett.

Her Garrett, apparently. Officially. A title hasn’t altered his anatomy. He doesn’t suddenly have a new penis because they used the word girlfriend. Nothing practical has changed. 

She knows his body. Knows the little scar near his ribs and the sensitive place beneath his jaw and the exact amount of pressure it takes with her mouth before his breathing goes rough.

Garrett knows hers too, probably better than anyone has, not just sexually but in all the tiny humiliating places surrounding it. 

He knows she gets anxious when she’s too tired. Knows she wants food after placement even when she claims she doesn’t. Knows how to tell when her laugh is real and when she’s using it to move a conversation away from something sore.

If anything, it should be better. The thought settles hot and persuasive between her legs.

“Okay,” she whispers at the mirror. “Normal.”

Her reflection looks unconvinced.

She unlocks the bathroom and steps into the hallway. The house has gone quieter downstairs, voices muted under the low sound of the television. She can smell popcorn now, which means Tucker has decided the appropriate response to his best friend becoming official is to provide the other boys with snacks while they wait out the vibrations.

Garrett’s bedroom door is still partly open. She slips inside and closes it behind her, then turns the lock with one decisive click.

Garrett’s sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s shed the tracksuit jacket while she was gone. He’s in a grey Briar hoodie and dark sweats, forearms braced loosely over his thighs, damp curls falling over his forehead. 

His phone is beside him on the comforter, untouched. The way he looks up at the sound of the lock sends a slow, dragging warmth over every inch of skin the towel leaves bare.

His eyes drop. They move from her face to the towel, down the length of her legs, then back up slightly slower. His mouth curves.

“My girl,” he says. “C’mere.”

Oh, fuck.

Her feet move before the rest of her catches up. She crosses the room and stops between his spread knees, the towel held by nothing but friction and optimism, Garrett’s hands finding the backs of her thighs immediately. 

He looks up at her from there, dark eyes warm and bright beneath his curls, and the angle does something frankly unacceptable to her pulse. His mouth presses to her stomach over the towel.

It’s gentle. Warm. A slow kiss just above her navel through the soft fabric, then another beside it while his hands slide upward along the backs of her legs. She puts her fingers into his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, and Garrett hums against her.

“You good?” he asks.

The question is quiet enough that it changes something in the room. Something steadier clicks into place, the familiar open door between them. A real chance to say stop, slow down, not tonight, I’m tired, I changed my mind.

She runs her fingers through his curls again. “I’m fine, baby.”

Garrett lifts his face. His eyes search hers for a second beyond the answer, then he nods, satisfied enough to kiss her stomach again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He kisses higher, mouth dragging over the towel along her ribs, then the centre of her chest as he stands. His hands move with him, sliding from her thighs to her waist, holding her steady when she takes one small step backward to make room for all of him.

Garrett follows. His mouth catches hers, soft at first, and she can feel him smiling for one second before the kiss deepens. Her hands find the hem of his hoodie, tugging impatiently until he pulls back just enough to drag it over his head. 

His shirt comes with it, bunched inside the heavier fabric, leaving his hair standing up messily and his chest bare in the warm lamplight. She laughs.

Garrett drops the clothes onto the floor. “What?”

“Your hair.”

He frowns. “Fix it.”

She wraps both arms around his shoulders instead and pulls him down, kissing him while her fingers work through the disordered curls at the back of his head. Garrett’s hands settle on her waist over the towel. One finds the tucked corner between her breasts.

His mouth pauses against hers. His eyes open, looking down at the place his fingers have caught. He pulls. The towel loosens and falls between them, dragging briefly over her hips before pooling around her feet. 

Cool air touches her damp skin for half a second. Then she presses closer, bare breasts against his chest, arms tightening around his shoulders as Garrett’s breath leaves him in a rough, quiet exhale.

His palms spread over her back. “Fuck,” he murmurs into her mouth.

The sound goes through her like it has somewhere specific to be. She kisses him harder, one hand sliding down the strong line of his back, then lower to the waistband of his sweats. Garrett catches her waist and turns them, walking her backward toward the bed while his mouth moves from hers to her jaw.

Her knees touch the mattress. Garrett lowers her carefully. One hand supports the back of her head. The other stays firm at her waist as he eases her onto the sheets, his body following without dropping its full weight over her. 

His mouth kisses the corner of hers, then her cheek, her jaw, the side of her throat. Slow. Measured. Still carrying the softness he’s been handling her with ever since the concussion, the nine days, the hospital lockdown, every moment where wanting her has made him afraid of getting something wrong.

She understands it. She loves it, probably, which is its own administrative nightmare. She doesn’t want it tonight. Not like this.

She doesn’t want to be handled like something newly official means newly breakable. She wants Garrett. Her Garrett. Smug and attentive and filthy enough to make her forget what floor the room is on. 

She wants to wake up tomorrow with his fingerprints warm in her skin and her body carrying the private evidence that her boyfriend spent the night making extremely enthusiastic use of the title.

Garrett kisses down the centre of her chest. His mouth closes briefly over one nipple, tongue moving slow, and her back arches before she can make a point.

He smiles against her skin. “That good?”

“Yes.” She threads her fingers through his hair as he moves lower, kissing beneath her breast, then down her stomach. “But you’re being careful.”

Garrett lifts his head. “You worked all day.”

“I know.”

“You’re tired.”

“I’m also naked in your bed.”

His mouth twitches. “I noticed.”

She gives his curls a small tug. “Garrett.”

His eyes narrow slightly, warmth darkening toward something sharper. “What?”

She holds his gaze. “I don’t want gentle.”

Garrett’s hand is spread over her hip, thumb still against her skin. His mouth rests near her stomach, his whole body stretched between her thighs and over the mattress, suspended for one quiet second while he makes sure he has heard her properly.

“No?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No.”

His grip on her hip firms, but he doesn’t move yet. Something thoughtful passes through the heat in his expression.

“I wanna try something,” he says.

Her stomach tightens. “What?”

“Overstimulation.” Garrett watches her face carefully as he says it, all the smugness briefly stripped away by the seriousness beneath it. “I want to make you come, then keep going. See how many you can take before you’re completely done.” His thumb strokes once over her hip. “But you tell me to slow down, I slow down. You tell me to stop, I stop. No questions.”

Heat spreads low and immediate between her thighs. “Yes.”

Garrett’s eyes darken. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” She gives his curls a small tug, pulling him closer. “I want that.”

His gaze drops slowly over her body, then comes back to her face with his mouth curving just enough to make her pulse jump.

“Okay,” he says. “Then you’re gonna give me every single one I ask for.”

He kisses down her stomach again, but the softness has changed. There’s intention under it now, the slow drag of his lips no longer cautious so much as controlled, each kiss placed like he’s deciding exactly how long she’ll have to wait before he gives her what she asked for.

Her thighs part wider around him. Garrett’s mouth reaches the soft skin above her hip. He kisses there, then across to the other side, hands sliding beneath her thighs. She raises her legs before he can ask and settles them over his shoulders, ankles crossing loosely behind his back as his palms move up to her hips.

His grin flashes from between her legs. “Helpful.”

“Shut up.”

He hooks his hands under her thighs and drags her toward the edge of the bed in one quick pull. Her breath catches. The sheets slide warm beneath her back, body moving several inches toward him until her hips are lifted slightly into the angle of his waiting mouth.

“There,” Garrett murmurs.

Then he kisses her. The first touch lands just above where she needs him, mouth warm against the inside of her thigh. Then the other side. His tongue drags once over the crease near her hip, slow and wet enough to make her stomach tighten while his hands hold her open.

She pushes her fingers into his hair. “Garrett.”

He hums against her skin. His mouth moves closer, lips pressing softly over her, then his tongue follows, gentle at first. One long, slow lick through her that pulls a sound from the back of her throat and makes her heels press into the muscles of his back. 

Garrett does it again, unhurried, tongue flattening against her clit before circling lightly around it. The pleasure is immediate but maddeningly measured. 

Warm little waves spreading through her body while he kisses and licks like he has all night to prove he can still be patient even after she explicitly told him not to.

Her head presses deeper into the pillow. She tries to follow his mouth, hips lifting, but Garrett’s hands tighten and keep her exactly where he wants her.

“Baby,” she breathes.

He hums again, lips closing gently over her clit, drawing it into his mouth with a slow suction that makes her thighs tense around his head. Then he eases off. Kisses her once, soft enough that her body jolts anyway. Licks again, light and teasing, and something irritated begins to mix with the heat.

Garrett Graham has always had a deeply annoying relationship with restraint. Mostly, he enjoys proving he has it right before making it everyone else’s problem.

She tugs at his hair. Garrett groans into her, but he doesn’t speed up. She tugs harder and lets a soft, frustrated whine slip out.

His eyes lift to hers from between her thighs. Dark, amused, and no longer pretending he doesn’t know exactly what she wants.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

Then his mouth seals over her properly. The change knocks the breath out of her. Garrett’s tongue moves with all the careful focus stripped out of the pace, licking hard and slick over her clit before dragging down, pressing into her, coming back up with enough pressure that her hips buck uselessly against the grip of his hands.

“Oh, fuck.” Her fingers twist into his curls. “Garrett.”

He groans, the vibration landing directly against her, then does it again. Mouth open. Tongue wet and relentless. He kisses her like he kisses her mouth when he’s forgotten anyone else exists, deep and hungry and listening to every little shift her body gives him.

Her legs tighten around his shoulders. Garrett forces them wider with his forearms, one hand leaving her hip to slide between them. His fingers move through the wetness his mouth has spread, stroking over her once before two press at her entrance.

Garrett pushes both fingers inside her. The stretch pulls a loud, broken sound from her. Her head tips back, throat exposed to the warm room while his fingers curl slowly, finding the place that makes her stomach draw tight beneath his arm.

Garrett smiles against her.

“Any louder, baby?” he asks, mouth close enough that the words brush over her clit.

A laugh escapes her, thin and breathless and already half ruined. “Jesus– oh my God–”

“Thought so.”

He lowers his mouth again before she can insult him. There’s no gentleness left to complain about now. Only control, which is worse in the best possible way. 

Garrett works two fingers in and out of her at a pace that builds with horrible accuracy, curling them each time his mouth sucks over her clit, then easing the pressure only when her thighs start shaking hard enough to tell him she’s close.

She doesn’t know when her free hand moves to the sheet. One second it’s in his hair, the next it’s gripping a fistful of navy cotton beside her hip while Garrett’s tongue circles fast and firm and his fingers drag over that spot again.

Pleasure gathers low and tight, too much of it fitting into too small a place. Her breathing loses any sensible rhythm. Soft moans turn rougher, spilling into his room without any attempt to keep them from travelling through the walls.

The boys know. The whole fucking house knows. Her boyfriend is eating her out after she got home from an emergency-department lockdown and signed up for the official position beside a hospital security desk. 

There are worse reputations to have.

“Garrett,” she gasps. “Fuck, baby, I’m–”

His free hand slides over her lower stomach, pinning her gently but firmly to the mattress when her hips try to lift. His mouth doesn’t stop. His fingers don’t stop. 

He only groans against her as if the warning has made him hungrier, tongue working over her with the exact pressure that makes the heat pull painfully tight. Her orgasm breaks hard.

She cries out, body arching beneath the weight of his arm, legs locking around his shoulders as pleasure rips through her in bright, shuddering waves. 

Her hand pulls his hair. Her thighs shake against the sides of his face. Garrett stays there through all of it, fingers curling slower now, mouth easing from hard suction into soft, wet licks that stretch every pulse until she’s squirming beneath him and making small, helpless sounds she will absolutely deny later.

“Fuck,” she breathes. “Oh my– Garrett.”

He doesn’t stop. His fingers slide out slowly. His tongue takes their place for one lazy, filthy stroke that makes her jolt so hard her knee nearly clips his ear.

“Garrett?”

He kisses the inside of her thigh, mouth wet, breathing rough. Then the other side. His hands smooth over the muscles still trembling around him like he’s calming a frightened animal he chased into traffic.

“One more,” he says.

Her chest is moving too fast. She looks down at him through the soft blur of the aftermath, his curls crushed beneath her hands, cheeks slightly flushed, mouth shining in a way that sends fresh heat through a body that should have filed for medical leave.

Garrett presses a gentle kiss directly over her clit. Her whole body jerks. A broken sound catches between a laugh and a whine, legs trying to close around him on instinct. 

He holds them apart and does it again, barely any pressure, only the warm brush of his mouth over oversensitive skin.

“One more,” he repeats, smiling now. Another kiss. Her hips twitch.

She swallows, tries to gather one functioning thought, and nods.

“Words?” he asks.

“Yes.” Her voice comes out rough. 

Garrett’s smile goes warm for half a second. Proud, almost. Then he lowers his mouth.

The second one starts differently because her body is already too open, too sensitive, every touch arriving sharpened by what came before. 

The first slow drag of his tongue makes her thighs tense. The second makes her gasp. By the time he seals his mouth over her clit again, she’s gripping the sheet with both hands because putting them in his hair feels unsafe.

Garrett crosses his fingers, and then slides them inside her, changing the angle before curling them upward.

“Oh.” Her whole stomach tightens. “Oh, fuck.”

He watches her face while he moves them, slow at first, testing the angle. The next curl makes her mouth fall open. Garrett’s eyes darken. “Right there?”

She nods frantically. “Yes.”

His mouth comes back down. It’s too much immediately. Too much and nowhere near enough, her body caught between trying to squirm away from the overwhelming pressure and chasing it harder every time he eases up. 

Garrett holds her hips through both impulses, fingers pumping steadily inside her while his tongue moves fast over her clit.

She loses track of her hands. One catches the pillow behind her head. The other reaches blindly toward him, finding his wrist, his forearm, then his hair again because pain is worth the structural support.

Her mouth won’t stop either. Little pieces of words fall out without order. His name. Baby. Please. Fuck. Yes. Something that might be don’t stop, except the sentence breaks when his fingers curl and his mouth sucks and her entire body lifts uselessly beneath his hold.

Garrett groans against her like the noise is feeding something in him.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, the words wet and low against her before his tongue returns. “Let me hear you.”

She does. There’s no dignified way through the second orgasm he’s building. No quiet path. The pleasure keeps climbing with nowhere to disperse, stacking over itself until her thighs are trembling against his shoulders and her breathing comes in small, sharp pulls that make her chest ache.

The room has reduced itself to scattered details. Lamplight through her lashes. The rough-soft twist of his curls between her fingers. His forearm across her lower stomach. The slick sound of his fingers moving inside her. His mouth, warm and focused and absolutely determined to make his girlfriend wake everyone in the building.

“G-Garrett–” Her voice catches. “I’m– oh! I’m gonna– ba-baby–”

His fingers curl hard. His tongue flattens over her clit. The second orgasm tears through her before she can finish warning him, deeper and sharper than the first, body locking so tightly around his fingers that Garrett groans into her. 

She cries out, head pressing back into the bed, legs shaking uncontrollably against his shoulders while pulse after pulse drags through her.

Garrett licks her through it. Slower when the intensity starts tipping toward pain, mouth softening into kisses as his fingers ease their pace. He slips them out carefully, then presses his lips to the inside of one thigh, the other, her hip, letting the last spasms pass without abandoning her to them.

Her legs feel completely detached from all normal motor function. Garrett lowers them one at a time from his shoulders, palms moving gently down her calves before settling them onto the mattress. Then he kisses his way up her body.

Her stomach. Ribs. The underside of one breast, then the other. Each kiss warm and slightly damp, his curls brushing over her skin while she lies there breathing like she’s recently ran a marathon.

By the time he reaches her face, she’s giggling. She can’t help it. The sound bubbles out small and dazed, every part of her loose and warm and absurdly happy, Garrett’s body settling above hers while his mouth curves in response.

“Oh,” she whispers, then laughs again. “My–”

Garrett kisses her cheek. “Good?”

She nods quickly. “Uh-huh.”

His laugh is soft and unbearably pleased. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be smug.” She reaches up and pushes the curls back from his forehead, though her hand is still shaking enough that she mostly makes them worse. “I hate you.”

“Sure.” Garrett brushes her damp hair away from her temple, eyes moving over her flushed face with a satisfaction so warm it barely qualifies as arrogance. 

She catches the back of his neck and pulls him down. The kiss starts slow, mostly because her body has temporarily forgotten speed. She tastes herself on his tongue, salt and heat and Garrett beneath it, and something about the intimacy of it – the way he kisses her without hesitation, mouth opening over hers, hand cupping the side of her face – sparks want through the pleasant wreckage all over again.

She rolls him. Garrett lets out a startled laugh when her weight shifts, one hand grabbing her waist as she pushes him onto his back and follows him over. 

The mattress moves beneath them. His head hits the pillow, curls spreading messily, eyes bright as she settles over his thighs.

“Well,” he says. “Recovered fast.”

“Shut up.” She kisses him once, hard, then reaches for the waistband of his sweats.

Her hands are not functioning at full clinical capacity. The first tug catches fabric awkwardly around his hips. The second gets one side lower than the other. 

Garrett watches her struggle for approximately four seconds before his mouth starts twitching. “Need help?”

“No.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I wonder why.”

“Could be fatigue.”

“Could be your ego about to cause a medical emergency.”

He laughs and lifts his hips, helping her drag the sweats down. His boxers go with them after a small, graceless fight around his thighs, and then he’s bare beneath her, hard enough that her mouth goes dry despite everything he’s just done.

Garrett notices the look. His hand slides around the back of her neck, thumb resting lightly against the side of her throat as he pulls her down into another kiss. 

She hums into his mouth, thighs tightening around one of his legs when his palm settles there with just enough pressure to make her aware of her own pulse.

“Still good?” he murmurs.

She nods against him. “Very.”

“Good.”

She kisses along his jaw. The faint stubble there scratches pleasantly against her lips, then the side of his throat, where his pulse is already beating fast beneath the skin. Garrett tips his head back to give her room, fingers threading into her hair as her mouth moves lower.

His chest. The shallow dip between his ribs. The hard line of his stomach tightening beneath each kiss.

Garrett Graham. Her boyfriend.

She smiles against his skin.

“What?” he asks, already sounding suspicious.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not a nothing smile.”

She kisses just below his navel. “Boyfriend.”

Garrett’s stomach tightens under her mouth. “Yeah,” he says, voice roughening.

She glances up at him. “You like that?”

His eyes are dark down the length of his body. “You know I do.”

Good. She’s going to give her boyfriend the best head of his life.

Not that she hasn’t tried before. She has standards. But there’s something newly satisfying about the idea tonight, something bright and possessive sitting beneath her ribs as she wraps one hand around the base of him and watches Garrett’s breath catch.

She starts slowly. One soft kiss to the head, barely any pressure. Then another, lips parting around him while her tongue moves over the sensitive underside with a familiarity she’s earned. Garrett’s fingers flex in her hair.

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

She smiles and takes him into her mouth. Only enough to wet him properly, tongue moving in a slow circle before she eases back and lets spit gather over her lower lip. 

Her hand follows the slick she leaves behind, stroking the length she hasn’t taken while Garrett watches with his jaw tight and his free hand fisted into the sheet near his hip.

She knows what he likes now. Knows that teasing works for roughly thirty seconds before Garrett starts breathing through his mouth. Knows he likes when she looks up at him, when she lets the mess happen instead of trying to keep the whole thing neat, when her tongue presses flat beneath him and her hand twists slightly on the way down.

She gives him all of it. Slow, wet strokes of her mouth. Tongue dragging along the underside. Her lips tightening around him before sliding back, leaving spit shining over his skin and her hand. 

The soft, obscene sounds fill the space around them, mixed with Garrett’s breathing and the occasional rough curse when she takes him deeper.

His hand in her hair stays careful despite the tension in his arm. Gathering it away from her face, guiding lightly when she finds the rhythm he likes.

“There you go,” he breathes. “Good girl.”

The praise moves through her like a touch. She moans around him.

Garrett’s hips twitch before he controls them. His eyes sharpen. “Yeah? You like that?”

She looks up.

He smiles, but it’s strained now, mouth parted and cheeks faintly flushed, the smugness held together by effort. “That’s my girl.”

Her thighs press together. Garrett sees that too. His free hand leaves the sheet and slides down her shoulder, along her side, over the curve of her ass before reaching between her legs. 

She makes a questioning sound around him, but his thumb only brushes gently over her clit, barely enough pressure to hurt through the sensitivity. Her whole body shivers.

“Keep going,” he murmurs.

She does, though the next slide of her mouth is less controlled when his thumb circles again. Slow. Gentle. A soft counterpoint to the way she takes him deeper, saliva gathering at the corners of her mouth while Garrett’s hand moves in her hair.

“Fuck, baby.” His head falls back against the pillow. “So good.”

She moans again. His thumb presses slightly firmer. Her hips rock into his hand on instinct, thighs widening over the mattress while she keeps the pace slow and sloppy, drawing back far enough to breathe before taking him down again.

Garrett’s praise keeps coming, each one pulling another response from her body. “Good girl.” Her tongue flattens under him. “That’s it.” She takes him deeper, eyes watering slightly at the pressure. “My girl. Fuck, look at you.”

Her hand moves faster at the base while her mouth slows, letting him feel every wet drag of her lips. Spit slips over her fingers, down the length of him, and Garrett makes a low, wrecked sound that vibrates through his chest.

His thumb keeps circling her. Keeping her there in the heat with him, every gentle stroke making her clench around nothing while she works her mouth over him.

She pulls back briefly, lips swollen and wet, one hand still moving. “You like that, boyfriend?”

Garrett looks at her. For half a second he seems almost offended by how much the word affects him. Then his hand tightens in her hair and his mouth curves. “Put your mouth back on me, girlfriend.”

Heat burns across her face. She laughs once, breathlessly, then obeys.

The sound Garrett makes when her lips close around him again is worth every bad decision that has led her here. Rough and low, pulled out of him before he can make it prettier. 

She takes him deeper this time, relaxing around the pressure until her nose brushes the dark hair at the base, then pulls back with a wet gasp.

“Jesus Christ.” Garrett’s thumb loses its rhythm for half a second. “Baby.”

She does it again. His hips lift carefully into her mouth, following when she gives it, and she lets him. Her hand rests against his thigh now, nails pressing into the hard muscle while his fingers tighten through her hair and his thumb moves fast enough over her clit to make her own breath break around him.

“Fuck,” he says. “That’s it. Just like that.”

She keeps going until her jaw aches lightly and saliva is everywhere, shining over her lips and chin and hand, Garrett’s stomach tensing hard above her with every stroke. His praise turns rougher, phrases breaking apart under the strain.

“So fucking good.” Her thighs shake. “My good girl.” She whimpers around him. “Fuck, baby, I’m close.”

Her mouth doesn’t slow. 

Garrett looks down at her, breathing hard, his thumb still working between her thighs even while the muscles in his stomach tighten. “You want me to–”

She gives the base of him a small squeeze and takes him deep again.

The question disappears. Garrett comes with a broken curse, hips lifting once beneath her as his hand tightens in her hair. She feels the first pulse against her tongue, then another, warm and thick as she swallows around him. 

His head drops back, eyes closing, mouth open on her name while she keeps her lips sealed around him and takes all of it.

His thumb stops moving only when his whole body goes tense. Then it resumes, slower now, stroking her gently while she draws back and licks the last of him clean with one lazy pass of her tongue.

“Holy fuck,” Garrett breathes.

She presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh.

His hand falls out of her hair and drags over his face. “You’re insane.”

She smiles, kissing up the hard plane of his stomach while his body softens beneath her. Her thighs are trembling again from the steady work of his thumb, clit swollen and sensitive, every small movement dragging a faint spark through her. “You liked it.”

Garrett uncovers his face. “That’s what you got from that?”

She reaches his chest. “I’m observant.”

“You’re evil.”

“I’m clinically trained.”

He catches her waist and pulls her the rest of the way up. Their mouths meet messily. There’s no careful entry into the kiss. Garrett licks into her mouth, one hand at her throat and the other sliding around her back, rolling her beneath him until his body covers hers again. 

She can taste him faintly beneath the mint and herself still lingering on his tongue, all of it mixed into something filthy and intimate enough that she moans and tangles both hands into his curls.

Garrett kisses like he’s still coming down. Loose and hungry and smiling every few seconds because neither of them seems able to stop. Their noses bump. She laughs into his mouth. He pulls back just far enough to look at her, eyes bright and soft, then rubs his nose against hers until she makes a disgusted sound and kisses him again.

“You’re being cute,” she murmurs.

“Don’t ruin it.”

“You’re rubbing noses.”

“Very masculine.”

“Extremely.”

Garrett grins. He kisses her once, then pulls back. Looks at her face. Smiles wider, like he’s remembered something. Then dives back in.

It keeps happening. Kiss, breathe, look. His fingers tracing the edge of her jaw. Her hand pushing his curls back. Mouths meeting again because the small distance becomes intolerable almost immediately.

There’s something absurdly happy under the heat now. Garrett laughing softly when their teeth knock. Her smiling so hard into one kiss that he has to move to her cheek. His nose brushing hers, his forehead resting against her own while their breathing gradually settles.

Her boyfriend. 

She tests the word silently while looking at him this close. Garrett’s mouth pink, curls wrecked, a faint scratch near his shoulder from her nails. He looks exactly like Garrett. Nothing has changed and everything has shifted half an inch into place.

She wraps one leg around his hip and pulls him closer. Garrett’s breath catches. He’s getting hard again against her thigh, enough that she can feel the heat and weight of him returning where their bodies press together.

Her mouth curves. “Fast recovery.”

“Shut up.”

“Sports medicine should study you.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“You’re smug.”

“You’re naked.”

She kisses the corner of his mouth. “Excellent assessment.”

Garrett kisses her again, slower now, and she realises after another minute that he’s giving her time. Letting her body settle after two orgasms and the relentless touch of his thumb during his own. 

Letting the tremors leave her legs while he works himself back up with kisses and hands rather than immediately turning the whole thing into the rough, mattress-ruining sex she told him she wanted.

It’s thoughtful. It’s also ominous. Good.

Garrett sits up slightly, leaning across her toward the bedside table. His body stretches warm over hers as he pulls the drawer open and reaches inside.

She catches his wrist. “Mm-mm.”

Garrett looks back at her, condom packet already between his fingers. “Oh.” His brows draw together. “You don’t–?”

“No.” She pulls his arm back toward her and kisses him once before he can misunderstand. “No, I want to have sex.”

His expression clears slightly, though the frown stays. “Okay.”

“But no condom.”

Garrett goes very still, like every part of his body has received the sentence independently and is holding an emergency meeting about it. “Baby?”

She feels suddenly, stupidly shy again. Her fingers slide down from his wrist and rest against his forearm. “I’m on birth control.”

Garrett looks confused. “I thought the pill made you feel weird.”

“It did.”

“Like, really weird.”

“Yes, thank you for remembering my emotional collapse.”

Garrett’s mouth twitches, but his gaze stays searching. “So what birth control?”

She lifts her left arm between them and turns it slightly, showing him the faint little mark high along the inside, mostly healed now. “Look.”

Garrett bends closer, squinting at her skin. His fingers slide carefully beneath her arm, thumb moving near the tiny insertion site without pressing it. “What the fuck is that?”

“Implant.” She guides his fingertips lightly over the thin shape beneath her skin. Garrett’s face changes when he feels it, interest and faint horror combining into something deeply male. “I got it the other week. It lasts a few years.”

“There’s a stick in your arm.”

“It’s not a stick.”

“It feels like a stick.”

“It’s flexible.”

“That is not helping.”

She laughs, lowering her arm and bringing both hands to the sides of his face. “It’s birth control, Garrett.”

His eyes return to hers. The humour fades back enough for the real question to show. “And you’re sure?”

She nods. “I’m sure.”

“Like, sure sure?”

“Yes.”

He studies her face. “And you’re good with… everything?”

“We’ve both been tested. I got it inserted. I’m covered.” She brushes her thumb over his cheek, suddenly warm all over for a completely different reason. “So, I don’t want to use one. If you don’t.”

Garrett stares at her for one long second. Then his grin starts. Slow at first, spreading across his face with such naked, disbelieving delight that she begins laughing before he says anything. 

He shoves the drawer closed with one hand, and comes down over her again, catching her mouth in a kiss that’s already rougher than everything before it.

“Oh,” he says against her lips, voice low and wrecked and very, very pleased. “Fuck yeah.”

There’s no careful easing back into it, no last sensible conversation about efficacy percentages or insertion dates or whether either of them should maybe take one full breath before making an extremely enthusiastic decision. 

Garrett’s mouth catches hers hard enough to press her head into the pillow, one hand sliding beneath her jaw while the other grips her thigh and pulls it higher over his hip. 

The grin is still there for the first second, warm and disbelieving against her lips, and then she rolls her hips up beneath him and it disappears into a groan.

The bare length of him drags between her thighs. Every part of her body seems to notice at once. The heat of his skin. The slick mess Garrett left between her legs. The absence of latex where there’s always been latex before, even through the frantic, half-dressed hookups and the planned experiments and the nights where neither of them had managed to get their shoes fully off before reaching the bed. 

It should be a tiny distinction. A clinical one, almost. A material change measured in fractions of a millimetre. Her nervous system receives it like breaking news.

“Oh,” she breathes into his mouth.

Garrett stills for half a beat, forehead brushing hers. “Okay?”

“Yes.” She catches his curls at the back of his head and pulls him down before he can turn this into a risk-assessment interview. “Yeah, baby.”

His mouth opens over hers again, deeper now, tongue sliding against hers while his hips move. It starts slow, the hard line of him grinding through the slick heat between her thighs, catching over her clit on each forward roll and making her breath hitch embarrassingly fast. 

Garrett’s hand tightens beneath her thigh. His other thumb presses into the soft place under her jaw, holding her where he wants her.

She tugs his hair. Garrett bites gently at her lower lip, then along her jaw when she tips her face away to breathe, teeth catching lightly over skin before his mouth soothes the place. The scrape sends something hot through her stomach. She makes a soft, helpless sound and feels him smile against her cheek.

“There?” he murmurs.

She answers by dragging her nails through his curls and rolling her hips harder.

Garrett’s breath catches. “Yeah. Okay.”

He kisses her with more force, all the restraint from earlier finally burning off. His mouth gets sloppy over hers, lips sliding, tongues meeting without anything tidy about it. 

She can taste mint and heat and the faint trace of herself still on him, and the knowledge should be too much after everything that has already happened, but it only makes her thighs tighten around his hips.

Garrett grinds against her again. She whimpers. The sound goes through him visibly, his shoulders tensing beneath her hands, jaw tightening as he drags himself over her once more. 

The head of him catches at her entrance, pressing there for half a second before slipping away through the slick mess between them.

“Fuck,” he says into her mouth.

She tries to tilt her hips higher. Garrett’s hand slides beneath her ass to help, lifting her into the angle he wants, and the next slow grind catches differently. He slips inside.

There’s no warning beyond the sudden hot pressure and the sharp, full stretch of him entering her in one smooth, accidental push. Her cry breaks directly into his mouth, fingers locking at his shoulders while Garrett groans so deeply she feels it through his chest.

They freeze, barely a breath, both of them held in the shock of it, Garrett partway inside her and looking down at her with his eyes gone wide and dark.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

She can’t answer properly. Her whole body has gone tight around him, every nerve turned toward the place they’re joined, the bare heat of him so immediate and different that her mouth only opens around a small, wrecked sound.

Garrett kisses her. She kisses him back with the same frantic need, one hand sliding into his hair while the other claws lightly at his shoulder. He pushes deeper beneath the kiss, slowly enough to let her body open around him, but there’s nothing gentle about the sound he makes when his hips finally meet hers.

“Oh my God.” Her head tips back. “Garrett.”

“Baby.” His voice is rough against her throat, almost unrecognisable beneath the strain of holding still. “Fuck, you feel–”

She clenches around him before he finishes. Garrett swears, head dropping into the curve of her neck. His mouth finds her pulse and bites softly, one hand gripping her hip hard enough that she knows she’ll feel the shape of it tomorrow.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

She laughs breathlessly. “Why?”

“Because I’m trying not to embarrass myself in the first thirty seconds.”

“Damn. My boyfriend has no stamina?”

Garrett lifts his head. The look on his face should probably concern her. Instead it sends a fresh pulse of heat through her.

“Okay,” he says, very quietly. “You wanna be like that?”

She smiles up at him, flushed and already shaking slightly despite how recently he’d made her come. “Maybe.”

Garrett pulls almost all the way out. The sudden emptiness makes her inhale sharply. Then he drives back inside her hard enough that the mattress shifts beneath her body and the headboard knocks once against the wall.

Her mouth falls open.

“There,” he says, voice low and pleased. “That better?”

She gets halfway through nodding before he does it again. The second thrust drags a moan out of her. The third turns it louder. 

Garrett plants one forearm beside her head and catches her hip with the other hand, holding her steady as the pace sharpens almost immediately, each stroke deep and hard enough to send her sliding upward over the sheets.

This is what she asked for. Not careless. Garrett is never careless with her, not really, even when he’s being rough. There’s still control under every movement, his hand bracing her body, his eyes cutting over her face between kisses, his rhythm adjusting whenever her breathing changes. 

But there’s nothing cautious about it either. Nothing fragile. He fucks her like she belongs in his bed. Like she asked him to stop holding back and he intends to honour the request thoroughly enough that she regrets ever accusing him of gentleness.

The mattress gives beneath each thrust. Her breasts move against his chest. Garrett’s curls fall into his eyes, sweat beginning to gather along his hairline while he drives into her with a rhythm that keeps knocking little broken noises out of her.

“Oh– fuck, baby.” Her nails scrape over his biceps, then his shoulders when she can’t find anywhere else to hold. “That’s– Garrett, that’s so–”

“Yeah?” His mouth catches hers, swallowing the next moan as he thrusts deeper. “Like that?”

She nods frantically against him.

“Words.”

“Yes.” The answer tears out of her. “Yes, fuck, like that.”

Garrett kisses her hard enough that their teeth knock. His tongue slides over hers, messy and hungry, while his hand grips beneath her thigh and pushes it higher along his side. The change opens her further, and the next stroke hits so deep her whole body arches.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

She hates when he says that. She loves when he says that. She scratches down his shoulder in retaliation, and Garrett groans into her mouth, hips driving forward hard enough to move her another inch toward the headboard.

The sheets are bunching beneath her. Every thrust pushes her farther up the bed, until her head nearly meets the pillow wedged against the wall. Garrett notices only when his next movement sends her shoulder into it.

“Shit.” He pulls back just enough to catch both her hips and drags her bodily down the mattress.

She yelps, then laughs because the movement is so bluntly practical and so deeply hot that her brain cannot select one reaction.

Garrett settles himself back between her thighs. “Stop running away.”

“I’m not running anywhere.”

“You’re halfway up the wall.”

“You’re doing that!”

He kisses her once, grinning against her mouth, then pushes back inside with a slow, hard stroke that wipes the laughter out of her. “Stay there.”

She tries. She really does. Unfortunately, Garrett resumes fucking her with enough force that the bed begins shifting again almost immediately.

The headboard knocks. The lamp on his bedside table trembles faintly. Somewhere downstairs, there’s a burst of laughter from the television followed by Dean yelling something that might be, “For fuck’s sake,” though the words are swallowed by Garrett’s mouth and the wet, relentless drag of his body into hers.

She stops caring. Her whole body is wound too tight, pleasure building over the oversensitive ache Garrett left behind earlier. It’s different this time, not the sharp, focused pressure of his mouth and fingers but something deeper and heavier, every hard stroke dragging over the exact place inside her that makes her vision go slightly soft.

Garrett knows she’s getting close before she says it. His hand slides between them, thumb finding her clit in the limited space where their bodies meet. The first circle makes her gasp. The second makes her legs tighten around his waist hard enough to pull him closer.

“Baby,” she says, voice splintering.

“I know.” Garrett kisses beneath her eye, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth while keeping the same brutal pace. “Come on. I’ve got you.”

The praise hits harder than it should. Her nails dig into his shoulders. Garrett’s thumb presses firmer.

The orgasm catches her almost by surprise, rising out of the deep pressure between her hips and tearing through her before she can shape the warning properly. 

Her body locks beneath him. A cry catches high in her throat, legs clamping around his waist as she comes hard around him.

Garrett’s rhythm stutters. “Fuck,” he groans. “That’s it. Jesus, baby.”

He keeps moving through it, slower for the first few pulses, letting her body grip and release around him while his thumb eases off before she can get too sensitive. 

The pleasure spreads through her in heavy, shaking waves. Her fingers lose their hold on his shoulders. Her head rolls sideways into the pillow.

Garrett kisses her cheek, breathing hard. “Good?”

She laughs weakly. “Are you kidding?”

His grin flashes, smug and wrecked. “Just checking.”

He gives her approximately five seconds. Then he pulls out. The loss makes her whimper before she can stop it. Garrett sits back on his knees, one hand still gripping her thigh, chest heaving while he looks down at her flushed, shaking body.

“What–” she starts.

Garrett turns her over. There’s no inelegant scramble where she has to work out what he wants. One hand catches her hip, the other her shoulder, and he rolls her onto her stomach before sliding both palms beneath her pelvis and dragging her hips up.

She goes willingly. Enthusiastically, actually. Her knees find the mattress. Her chest stays pressed to the sheets, cheek against Garrett’s pillow while she lifts her ass into his hands and tries to recover enough breath to say something devastatingly clever.

What comes out is, “Oh my God.”

Garrett’s palm smooths over one cheek. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Still want rough?”

She turns her face enough to look back at him. Garrett is kneeling behind her, flushed and damp and painfully hard, one hand wrapped around himself while the other holds her hip. The sight makes her stomach clench.

“Yes,” she says again.

His eyes darken. “Good girl.”

He pushes back inside her. The angle is completely different and immediately obscene. Her mouth opens against the pillow, a broken moan muffled into Garrett’s sheets while he fills her in one deep stroke and settles his hips flush against her.

“Fuck,” he breathes behind her. “Baby.”

She arches instinctively, pressing back toward him. Garrett’s hand slides up her spine, between her shoulder blades, then into her hair just enough to gather it away from her face. He holds it, keeps her head turned safely to the side while he begins moving again.

The first thrust is slow. The second is harder. By the third, the bed is shifting beneath them all over again. She moans directly into the mattress, fingers clawing at the sheets beside her head. 

Garrett’s hand leaves her hair and reaches forward, finding one of hers. His fingers slide through hers and press their joined hands into the pillow.

Something about it almost undoes her more than the sex. Her hand trapped gently beneath his. His body hard over the back of hers without crushing her. His mouth finding her shoulder while he drives into her from behind with enough force to make her breath break into stupid, helpless little sounds.

Boyfriend. Her boyfriend is fucking her like this while holding her hand.

The thought is so deranged and tender and filthy that she starts laughing, except the next thrust turns the laugh into a moan.

Garrett’s mouth brushes the back of her shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re laughing at me?”

“No.” She arches harder into him. “I’m– fuck– I’m having a great time.”

Garrett laughs once, low and rough. “Yeah? Great shift, great night?”

“Excellent service.”

“Five stars?”

He pulls almost all the way out and slams back into her. Her answer becomes a cry.

“Thought so,” he says.

She presses her face deeper into the pillow. Saliva gathers at the corner of her mouth because she cannot keep her lips closed long enough to swallow, and the tiny humiliation of it only seems to make the heat worse. 

Garrett’s everywhere behind her: thighs against hers, hand interlocked with her own, other palm gripping her hip, chest brushing her back whenever he leans over to kiss her shoulder.

His rhythm grows harder. She pushes back to meet him, desperate for the deep drag of each thrust even as her legs begin to shake again. 

The pleasure from the last orgasm hasn’t fully faded, leaving her body open and sensitised, every movement landing over nerves already rubbed raw in the best possible way.

“Garrett,” she moans into the mattress. “Baby, I–”

His free hand slides beneath her. The first touch to her clit makes her whole body jolt.

“Shh,” he murmurs against her shoulder, though there’s no real attempt to quiet her in the way his fingers begin moving. “I know.”

She makes a desperate sound. “Too much.”

His lips press to her shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“Slow.” She squeezes his hand beside her head. “There. Slow.”

“Got you.”

His fingers adjust, circles turning gentler, almost maddening against her swollen clit while his hips stay hard and steady behind her. The contrast tears her apart by degrees. Deep, forceful strokes inside her. Soft pressure outside. Garrett’s praise low against her skin whenever her body tightens.

“That’s my girl.” She moans. “So good for me.” Her thighs tremble. “Look at you. Fuck.”

She can’t look at anything. Her eyes have fallen shut, mouth still open against the pillow while pleasure builds until there’s no room left inside her for embarrassment or thought or anything but Garrett’s body and Garrett’s voice and Garrett’s fingers entwined tightly with hers.

The orgasm starts low and spreads outward. Her legs shake first. Then her stomach pulls tight. The sound that comes out of her is muffled and raw, half his name and half something without language, as the pleasure breaks through her all over again.

Garrett slows his hips but doesn’t stop. His fingers keep the same gentle rhythm, dragging the orgasm out while her body clenches hard around him.

“Fuck, baby.” His forehead drops between her shoulder blades. “Yeah. That’s it.”

She comes until her arms feel weak. Until her knees threaten to slide apart. Until Garrett has to catch her hip and hold her up because the muscles in her legs have become jelly.

When he finally eases his hand away, her body slumps forward into the mattress. Their fingers stay tangled beside her face.

Garrett kisses her shoulder, then the back of her neck. “You with me?”

“Mhm.”

“That sounded convincing.”

She tries to lift her head and succeeds only in turning her cheek to the other side. “I’m alive.”

“Barely.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Garrett’s laugh warms her skin. “You said no gentle.”

“I didn’t say murder.”

“You’re very dramatic for someone pushing back on me thirty seconds ago.”

She would argue if Garrett weren’t still inside her and if her brain had retained access to verbs.

Instead she breathes, “Shut up.”

He kisses her shoulder again. “Want to stop?”

The question drags her slightly back into herself. Enough to notice the shaking in her thighs, the pleasant soreness gathering through her hips, the overstimulated pulse between her legs that makes every tiny movement register.

Garrett waits. She turns her head, trying to find him over her shoulder. “No.”

His hand smooths over her hip. “Sure?”

“Yes.” She swallows, voice coming out softer. “Just– turn me over.”

Garrett goes still for half a second, then he withdraws carefully. She whimpers at the emptiness, hips twitching before her body can pretend it didn’t want to follow him. 

Garrett makes a soothing sound and kisses her lower back, one palm moving over the curve of her ass while he gives her a second to breathe.

Then he rolls her onto her back. Her legs fall open with no real assistance from her. Garrett settles between them, one hand braced beside her head while the other cups her cheek.

He looks wrecked. Hair damp and crushed in every direction. Mouth swollen from kissing her. Chest flushed, breathing heavy, eyes darker than she has ever seen them and still impossibly focused on her face.

“Hi,” he says.

She starts laughing.

Garrett’s mouth twitches. “What?”

“You said hi.”

“Seemed polite.”

“We’re a little past polite.”

“I’m your boyfriend now. I have standards.”

Her heart does something soft and stupid beneath the exhaustion. “Right.”

Garrett kisses her. Slow this time. Mouth warm and deep without urgency, tongue brushing hers while he strokes his thumb beneath her eye.

Then he pushes back inside. She gasps against his lips. There’s no part of her that isn’t sensitive now. The stretch burns pleasantly for the first second, her body swollen and thoroughly used, and Garrett notices the faint tension immediately.

He stills once he’s fully seated. “Okay?”

She nods, breathing around it. “Yeah.”

His gaze searches hers. “Too much?”

“No.” She wraps both arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer until his forehead rests against hers. 

Garrett nods. The first thrust is deep enough to make her eyes close. No force behind it now, only the full drag of him leaving and filling her again. 

He keeps the pace measured, rolling his hips rather than slamming forward, one hand sliding beneath her thigh to open her to the angle.

The gentleness should be a relief. Instead, it gets under her skin. Every slow stroke makes her feel the bare length of him, every inch, every shift of pressure. 

There’s nowhere for the sensation to blur into speed. No hard rhythm to climb above. Only Garrett moving inside her while he looks directly at her face.

Her eyes sting. It isn’t sadness. It isn’t pain. It’s too much sensation and too little distance, her body exhausted enough that the pleasure has begun spilling over into everything else. One tear slips from the corner of her eye before she notices it.

Garrett does. His thumb catches the tear before it can disappear into her hairline, his gaze moving over her face with an attention that feels almost indecent while he’s still buried inside her.

“My girl,” he murmurs.

The words make her clench around him. Garrett’s mouth parts on a rough breath, his hips pressing forward instinctively before he catches himself. 

For one second he stays there, deep enough that the pressure makes her thighs twitch, thumb stroking once beneath her eye while another tear slips free from nothing more dramatic than her body being completely, spectacularly overwhelmed.

“So pretty,” he says, and kisses the wet track from her cheek. “You know that?”

She gasps when he rolls his hips, the movement slow but deep enough to drag over everything already swollen and sensitised. “I–”

“I know.” His mouth brushes hers. “I know, baby.”

She doesn’t think he does. She doesn’t think anyone could know what her body feels like right now, pleasure humming painfully beneath her skin, legs too weak to close properly around him, every nerve between her thighs stripped down to something raw and bright. 

She should be finished. Her body has been given several perfectly reasonable opportunities to declare the evening complete.

Instead, when Garrett pulls almost all the way out and pushes back inside her, she arches beneath him and makes a helpless sound directly into his mouth.

His eyes sharpen. “There?” he asks.

She nods too quickly.

Garrett does it again, harder this time. The mattress shifts beneath her. Her breath punches out in a broken gasp, fingers tightening in his curls while the deep impact sends pleasure rolling through the sore, overworked muscles of her stomach.

Garrett watches her face. What moves through his expression is darker, hotter, satisfaction settling beneath the careful attention because he knows her. 

Knows the difference between her body pulling away and her body losing control. Knows she’s exhausted and overstimulated and still lifting her hips to meet him every time he drives forward.

“One more for me?” he asks.

She has no idea which number this is anymore. One more has stopped functioning as mathematics. It’s simply Garrett’s mouth near hers, his body heavy and warm between her legs, his cock filling her so deeply that the possibility feels less like a request and more like something her body has already begun agreeing to.

She nods. Garrett’s hand closes around her jaw to hold her attention. “Words.”

“Yes,” she whispers.

His eyes move over hers. “You sure?”

She drags him down until their mouths almost touch. “Garrett, please.”

Something in him gives. His mouth crashes into hers as he pulls out and drives back inside with enough force to shove her body up the sheets. She cries out into the kiss.

Garrett swallows the sound, tongue sliding hard against hers while his hand drops from her face to her hip. He catches her there and drags her back down the mattress before thrusting again, keeping her exactly where he wants her when the force tries to move her away.

There’s nothing slow about it now. He fucks her hard, hips driving into hers in a rhythm that turns every breath into noise. The bed knocks against the wall. Her breasts move beneath him. 

The soreness between her legs sharpens every stroke into something almost unbearable, the pleasure no longer smooth enough to sink into but rough-edged, overwhelming, dragging through her body faster than she can absorb it.

Her nails scrape over his shoulders. “Fuck– baby–”

“I’ve got you.” Garrett’s voice is rough against her mouth, his own breathing coming hard now. “Take it.”

The words make her whole body tighten. Garrett feels it. His head drops briefly, a strangled groan pushed into the side of her neck as she clenches around him. Then he grips her hips with both hands, pulls her down the bed again, and pounds into her hard enough that her mouth opens around a scream that doesn’t quite arrive.

“That’s it,” he says. “Just like that.”

She cannot decide where to hold him. Her hands move from his shoulders to his biceps, nails digging into the hard muscle there when another thrust knocks the air from her lungs. 

Garrett’s body is slick beneath her palms, chest flushed, curls damp at his temples, every line of him strained with the effort of giving her exactly what she asked for without losing control completely.

The headboard strikes the wall again. Some distant, surviving part of her brain notes that the boys are absolutely awake. Then Garrett changes the angle, lifting one of her thighs higher against his side, and the thought is obliterated.

“Oh!” Her head falls back into the pillow. “Oh my God– Garrett–”

His hand presses beneath her thigh, holding her open as he drives deeper. Each thrust lands in the same devastating place, pleasure striking through her with enough force that her eyes water again.

Garrett kisses the new tears from beneath one eye without slowing. “My girl,” he breathes. “Look at you.”

Her eyes open only halfway, heavy and unfocused, but Garrett is there above her, face tight with need and attention, staring at her like the sight of her coming apart beneath him is doing something violent to his self-control.

“So fucking good for me,” he says.

Her praise kink, already abused beyond reasonable limits tonight, rises from the dead. She moans and clamps around him.

Garrett’s mouth curves, pleased and breathless. “Yeah? You like that?”

She nods frantically, the motion lost when he kisses her hard.

“Good girl,” he says against her lips.

The sound she makes is humiliating. Garrett groans like he loves it. His hand slips between their bodies. There’s no room, barely any space between his stomach and hers, but he finds her clit anyway, thumb pressing down with enough confidence that her whole body bucks.

“Fuck!” Her hand flies to his wrist.

Garrett stills his thumb but not his hips. “Too much?”

She can barely breathe around the hard rhythm of him. “It’s– fuck– it’s so much.”

“Want me to stop touching you?”

She shakes her head at once.

“Slower?”

“No.”

His eyes darken. “No?”

“No.” She tightens her fingers around his wrist, holding it there. “Make me come.”

For half a second Garrett only stares at her. Then his grin appears, small and wrecked and almost mean in the way she desperately wants.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay, baby.”

His thumb starts moving. The first hard circle over her clit makes her cry out and arch off the mattress. Garrett catches her hip with his other hand and holds her down, continuing to fuck her through the jolt, hips striking deep while his thumb works fast and firm over nerves already so sensitive she can feel the pleasure everywhere – behind her knees, in her stomach, along the trembling line of her spine.

She tries to twist away from it. Garrett follows. Her body shifts up the bed. He catches her hips and yanks her back beneath him, thrusting into her the second she returns to the angle.

“Garrett!”

“No, no.” He kisses her jaw, teeth grazing lightly before his mouth soothes the place. “You asked me.”

“I know.” The words dissolve into a sobbing moan when his thumb circles again. “I know, I know–”

“Then stay with me.”

She has nowhere else to go. His body brackets hers completely. His forearm beside her head. His hand gripping her hip. His mouth moving over her cheek and jaw between rough breaths while he pounds her into the mattress, every stroke pushing her closer to a limit she can no longer see.

The pleasure is too sharp to feel good in any ordinary way. It feels incredible. Her legs shake violently around his waist. Her fingers scratch down his biceps, then grip him again when his thrusts make her bounce beneath him. 

Saliva gathers beneath her tongue because she cannot close her mouth long enough to swallow. She’s babbling now, scraps of sound and language torn loose without permission.

“Baby– fuck– Garrett, I can’t– oh, God– I’m–”

“Yes, you can.” His voice is low and relentless, praise threaded through every hard snap of his hips. “You’re doing it.”

She shakes her head even while her body arches toward him.

Garrett kisses her, mouth wet and rough. “Such a good girl.” Her clit pulses beneath his thumb. “That’s it.”

The orgasm begins gathering so hard and fast it frightens her. Her stomach locks. Her thighs clamp uselessly around him, muscles seizing while the pressure climbs far beyond anything she can control. 

Garrett feels the change and fucks her harder, losing some of the clean rhythm now, hips driving forward with a rough desperation that makes the bed slam repeatedly into the wall.

“There,” he groans. “Fuck, there you go.”

“Garrett–” She cries out, but it isn’t enough to release anything. 

The pressure keeps building, suspended at an impossible height while Garrett’s thumb moves faster.

“I can’t,” she gasps.

“You can.”

“It’s too–”

“I know.” He kisses the tears from her cheek without softening anything else. “Give it to me anyway.”

Her eyes roll back. Garrett catches her mouth before the scream fully escapes. The orgasm tears through her with enough force that her whole body lifts beneath him. 

Her legs shake uncontrollably, heels digging into his back, hands clawing at his shoulders while she screams into his kiss. Garrett groans against her, swallowing every broken sound as her body clamps down around him in violent, pulsing waves.

He doesn’t stop fucking her. He drives into her through the first brutal contractions, hips snapping hard while his thumb keeps rubbing her clit until the pleasure tips so far over the edge she makes a desperate noise and grabs his wrist.

“Garrett– Garrett! Fuck–”

He eases the pressure at once. His thumb slides away, but his hips stay deep and rough for another few strokes, dragging out the orgasm while her body convulses beneath him. 

She cannot breathe properly. Cannot hear anything beyond the blood rushing through her ears and Garrett’s voice breaking against her mouth.

“That’s it.” Her thighs tremble. “Good girl.” She whimpers. “Fuck, baby. Look at you.”

Another pulse rolls through her, weaker but still sharp enough to make her whole body jerk.

Garrett finally slows. Changing from the hard pounding rhythm into deep, uneven thrusts while he fights for control. His forehead presses against hers, jaw clenched, breath shaking from his chest.

She lies beneath him completely wrecked. Eyes wet and unfocused. Mouth swollen. Legs still twitching around his hips. Every part of her feels loose except where her body continues to pulse around him, tiny aftershocks dragging rough sounds from Garrett each time they hit.

His mouth moves over hers once. Twice. Softer now, though his hips still push deep enough to make her gasp.

“Baby,” he breathes. She makes a small sound. “Baby, where?”

The question reaches her through layers of static. She knows what he’s asking. She does. But her body is still trapped in the fading waves of the orgasm, brain floating somewhere above the bed while Garrett’s face blurs and sharpens above her. Her lips part, but no answer arrives quickly enough.

Garrett watches her for one beat. Then another. “Okay,” he says roughly. “I’ve got it.”

He pulls out. The sudden emptiness makes her whine, but Garrett’s hand presses warmly against her hip while he wraps the other around himself. He barely manages two hard strokes before he comes across her stomach, head dropping with a broken groan as warmth spills over her skin.

For several seconds, they only breathe. Garrett kneeling between her shaking legs, chest rising hard. Her body sunk bonelessly into the wrecked sheets, every muscle still trembling from the force of the orgasm he’d dragged out of her.

Then Garrett looks at her, and everything in his face changes. He comes down over her carefully, avoiding the mess on her stomach, and kisses her forehead. Her eyelids. The wet skin beneath both eyes. Her cheeks and nose and mouth, every touch so soft it feels almost absurd after the way he had just driven her into the mattress.

“Hey,” he murmurs, brushing her hair back. “My girl.”

She blinks at him.

Garrett kisses her again, slow and warm. “You with me?”

Her mouth moves into a sleepy smile. “Barely.”

He laughs softly, relief loosening his face. “Yeah. I can see that.”

She nods. “Legs are broken.”

He laughs quietly and kisses her forehead once more. “I noticed.”

She makes a sleepy sound when he starts to shift away. Her arms tighten weakly around his shoulders before she can stop them.

Garrett freezes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You moved,” she whines. 

“I need to clean you up.”

She frowns at him like this is a betrayal of the highest order.

His thumb strokes her cheek. “Let me get a washcloth, yeah? Nice and warm.”

She doesn’t want him to leave the bed. The idea of the space cooling where his body has been feels suddenly unacceptable, but there’s sweat drying on her skin and warmth across her stomach and between her thighs, and the practical part of her still has enough life left to admit a washcloth would be useful. She nods.

“Okay.” Garrett kisses her softly. “I’ll be right back.”

He pries himself out of her arms with a patience that would be insulting if she had more energy. Then he reaches for his boxers, pulling them on while she watches through heavy eyelids and tries not to fall asleep in the forty seconds he’s gone.

The bedroom door unlocks. She hears Garrett step into the hallway, then the bathroom door open. Pipes run briefly inside the wall. Somewhere downstairs, Dean calls, “You alive, Graham?”

Garrett answers, “Shut the fuck up,” in a voice so calm it makes her giggle into the pillow.

The bathroom door closes. Footsteps return. His bedroom lock clicks again behind him. Garrett comes back carrying a warm, damp washcloth and a glass of water. 

He sets the water on the bedside table first, then sits carefully beside her hip. “This might be cool.”

She squints at him. “You said warm.”

“It’s warm. Your skin’s hot.”

“Flattery.”

“That wasn’t–” Garrett laughs under his breath. “Okay.”

He cleans her stomach first. Gentle strokes of the cloth over her skin, wiping away the cooling mess without any awkwardness or haste. Then he folds the washcloth over and moves between her legs.

She flinches at the first touch, thighs trying to close on instinct. Garrett’s hand settles warmly over one knee. “Sensitive?”

“Very.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Her mouth curls sleepily. “Worth it.”

His grin comes back, smaller and softer now. “Yeah?”

She hums. He cleans her carefully, warm cloth moving over the slick soreness between her thighs while she trembles every time he gets too close to her clit. 

Garrett watches her face, adjusting pressure without needing to be told, one hand rubbing lightly over her knee the whole time. “Almost done.”

She nods, eyes falling shut.

“There.” He kisses the inside of her thigh after the cloth moves away, because apparently he cannot complete a practical task without adding one emotionally devastating flourish. “All clean.”

Garrett drops the washcloth into the laundry basket with a shot that would have earned applause under different circumstances, then pulls the comforter over her body.

The warmth settles around her at once. He slides beneath it beside her, and she moves into him before he’s fully positioned, curling against his chest with one leg draped over his and her face pressed beneath his chin. 

Garrett catches her easily, one arm winding around her waist while the other cups the back of her head.

Her body is still trembling. Small aftershocks moving through her thighs and stomach every few seconds, muscles releasing in confused little increments after being held tight for too long.

She starts giggling.

Garrett’s chest moves beneath her cheek. “What?”

“Oh my God.” She presses her face closer into him. “My legs won’t stop shaking.”

His hand moves down her back to her hip, then along the outside of her thigh, rubbing slow and warm over the twitching muscle. “That sounds serious.”

“Medical emergency.”

“You know anyone medically qualified?”

“I know one student nurse. She’s unavailable.”

“Why?”

“She’s been absolutely destroyed by her boyfriend.”

The laugh that leaves him is so pleased and boyish that it shakes both of them beneath the blanket. He kisses the top of her head, arm tightening around her.

“Yeah?” he asks.

She tips her face up just enough to look at him. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Garrett’s smile changes. It softens at the edges, something bright and almost shy moving beneath the cockiness before he leans down and rubs his nose against hers.

She makes a tired, disgusted sound. “You’re doing that again.”

“You like it.”

“I tolerate it.”

“Liar.”

He kisses her before she can argue, slow and sweet and completely removed from the filthy mess of their mouths fifteen minutes earlier. She lets him, one hand sliding sleepily into his curls, fingertips scratching lightly over his scalp.

Garrett hums and settles deeper into the pillow. “You need water,” he murmurs against her lips.

She groans.

“Baby.”

“I’m horizontal.”

“I can see that.” Garrett reaches back without letting go of her and finds the glass on the bedside table. Some of the water nearly spills when he brings it over because she refuses to sit up properly, so he tucks one arm behind her shoulders and lifts her just enough to hold it to her mouth.

She takes three obedient sips.

“More.”

She glares at him over the rim. Garrett raises his eyebrows. She drinks more.

“Good girl.”

Her thighs clench weakly on reflex. Garrett feels it. His mouth twitches.

She points one exhausted finger at his chest. “Don’t you dare.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You used the voice.”

“What voice?”

“The horrible one.”

“The one that made you come five times?”

She stares at him. “Five?”

Garrett takes the glass away and puts it back on the table. “I counted.”

“Oh my God.”

“Very responsible boyfriend. You’re shaking.”

“That is not a defence.”

“It’s pretty compelling evidence.”

She hides her face in his chest because arguing requires more support than she currently possesses. Garrett laughs softly and draws the blanket higher around her shoulders, then starts rubbing his palm over her back in long, slow passes.

The room feels different now. His clothes are still on the floor. Her discarded towel is still pooled near the foot of the bed. The headboard has shifted slightly away from the wall, and tomorrow someone will absolutely make a comment about it over breakfast because privacy in this house is more of an aspirational concept than an enforceable condition.

But Garrett’s arm is around her. Her cheek is against his chest. The word boyfriend no longer feels like a question they’re both pretending not to hear.

She traces one lazy finger over the centre of his sternum. “Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hm?”

“You really thought I was trapped in some kind of hospital hostage situation.”

Garrett’s hand pauses against her back. “It was a lockdown.”

“I wrote two pages of an assignment.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You asked security if calling me your girlfriend would help.”

“I was under pressure.”

She smiles against his skin. “And now look at you.”

Garrett glances down. “Naked?”

“In boxers.”

“Basically naked.”

“Officially attached.”

His hand resumes its slow movement over her back. “That too.”

She lifts her head. Garrett’s already looking at her, expression softer than it has been all night, curls falling across his forehead and the last of the adrenaline finally leaving his face.

She brushes them back. “You good?”

He turns his mouth into her palm and kisses it. “Yeah,” he says. “Really good.”

Her eyes start closing again before she means them to.

Garrett tucks her closer, one hand spreading warm over the back of her thigh as another small tremor moves through it.

“Sleep,” he murmurs.

“I need clothes.”

His nose scrunches. “You absolutely do not.”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“I’ll carry you.”

“You nearly fell on the stairs earlier.”

“I was distracted.”

She smiles, eyes closed now. “By your girlfriend?”

Garrett presses a kiss to her forehead, mouth lingering there while his arm tightens around her beneath the blanket.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “By my girlfriend.”

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The music could be heard from half a block away. The hockey house was already overflowing by the time Hannah and Y/N arrived, laughter spilling out the open front door along with the bass that rattled the porch railings. People crowded every room, cups clinked together, someone was yelling about beer pong in the kitchen, and the living room had already turned into a sea of strangers dancing shoulder to shoulder.

Hannah sighed dramatically, "I swear they invite the entire campus."

"They probably do," Y/N replied, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from her dress.

She hadn't wanted to come. Not because she disliked parties. Because Dean Di Laurentis would be here. And Dean Di Laurentis possessed an almost supernatural ability to ruin perfectly good evenings.

Hannah nudged her shoulder. "Relax."

"I am relaxed."

"You've been glaring at the front door for thirty seconds."

"I'm mentally preparing."

"For Dean?"

Y/N rolled her eyes. "I'm mentally preparing for his ego."

Hannah laughed as they stepped inside.

Almost immediately, someone called Hannah's name from across the room. It was Garrett. He was standing near the kitchen island, waving her over with an easy grin.

"Go," Y/N said.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, girl, go talk to your boyfriend. I'm not going to spontaneously combust because you're talking to your boyfriend."

"You might if Dean starts talking."

"I'll survive."

"I sure hope you do."

Y/N shoved her lightly.

"Go."

Hannah laughed and disappeared into the crowd.

Y/N made her way toward the drink table, weaving through clusters of people she vaguely recognized from campus. She could feel eyes on her. Not in an uncomfortable way. Just... noticing.

She'd spent longer getting ready than she wanted to admit. Her hair fell in soft waves over one shoulder, and the dark emerald dress she wore hugged her just enough to make her feel confident without trying too hard. It was simple. Elegant and comfortable.

"You look hot," Hannah had declared.

"I look dressed."

"You look hot."

"I look like someone attending a party."

"You look like Dean's going to choke on his own tongue."

Y/N had snorted. "As if Dean Di Laurentis has ever been speechless in his life."

Apparently... Tonight might've been close. Across the room, Dean had been halfway through a conversation with one of his teammates when Logan abruptly stopped listening.

"Dude."

Dean barely looked at him.

"What?"

Logan nodded toward the front hall.

Dean followed his gaze and forgot what he'd been about to say.

"...Oh."

Logan smirked.

"Oh?"

Dean recovered almost instantly.

"So?"

"So…?" Logan echoed.

Dean shrugged.

"She cleans up okay."

Logan barked out a laugh. "Cleans up okay?"

"Yeah."

"You've been staring for like fifteen seconds."

"I absolutely have not."

"You absolutely have."

Dean tore his eyes away.

"I was observing."

Logan’s grin widened.

"Observing."

"Shut up."

He grabbed his drink and headed toward the kitchen before Logan could say anything else.

It was a coincidence. Entirely a coincidence that Y/N reached the drink table at the exact same time. She noticed him immediately. Of course she did. Dean Di Laurentis stood out in any room he walked into, whether she liked it or not. He leaned casually against the counter in a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, laughing at something one of the hockey guys said.

Then his eyes landed on her. The laughter stopped. For just a second. His gaze traveled from her heels... To the dress... To her face.

There was the briefest flicker of something she couldn't quite read. It disappeared so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

Then the familiar smirk returned. "There she is."

Y/N sighed. "Hello to you too."

"I almost didn't recognize you."

"No?"

"Nah."

He tilted his head.

"Didn't think you owned anything that wasn't a sweater."

She smiled sweetly.

"And I didn't think you owned a shirt with sleeves."

A couple of people nearby chuckled.

Dean nodded once.

"Fair."

Y/N reached for a cup. "I'll cherish the compliment."

"I wasn't complimenting you."

"I know." She looked at him over the rim of the cup. "That would've been very out of character."

Dean laughed quietly. "You really think you're funny."

"I know I am."

"Hm."

He folded his arms.

"I think the dress is trying a little too hard."

The words landed harder than either of them expected. Y/N's smile faltered. Only for a heartbeat. She recovered so quickly that most people wouldn't have noticed.

Dean did.

"So does your personality," she replied evenly.

He smiled again.

"If I wanted my personality judged, I'd have dated an English major."

She stared at him.

"You know, for someone who's supposed to be good with teamwork, you're remarkably insufferable."

"And yet," Dean said with a shrug, "people still invite me places."

"So do people invite me."

He looked around theatrically.

"Really? I assumed Hannah brought you as emotional support."

There it was. The one that actually stung. Y/N's fingers tightened around her cup. She and Hannah had been inseparable since freshman year, and Dean knew it. He knew exactly which remarks would hit where they hurt.

She forced a laugh. "Don't flatter yourself."

"I'm not."

"You've clearly spent all week thinking of that one."

Dean smiled lazily. "Took me about three seconds."

"Must've been exhausting."

He stepped just a little closer.

"Not nearly as exhausting as pretending you're above everyone in this room."

Her eyebrows lifted. "I don't pretend. I just have standards."

Someone behind Dean let out an audible, "Damn."

Dean chuckled.

"There she is."

"What?"

"The real you. The one that thinks she's smarter than everyone."

Y/N held his gaze.

"I don't think I'm smarter than everyone."

"No?"

She smiled.

"Just you."

The surrounding group burst into laughter.

Dean's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He laughed too. But this time it didn't quite reach his eyes.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The air between them felt strangely charged. Like the room had grown quieter despite the music still shaking the walls. Dean looked at her again. Really looked. The dress. The way she'd done her hair. The confidence she'd walked in with. She looked... beautiful. Annoyingly, unfairly beautiful. Which irritated him more than it should have.

So instead of saying the one thing that had unexpectedly crossed his mind: You look nice, He smiled that infuriating smile and said, "You know..." His voice was light. Almost conversational. "I guess if you were trying to distract everyone from your personality..." His eyes flicked down her dress once before meeting hers again. "...it almost worked.”

Silence.

This time, she couldn't hide it: the hurt. Dean continued, “I just wish Hannah wouldn’t bring you along; it’s just a waste of space, you know. And it’s not like you’re gonna have fun,” he scoffed, “as if anyone would go for that,” he eyed her down, “I sure wouldn’t, and you know damn well I’m all over gorgeous girls all the time.”

The hurt flashed across her face before she buried it beneath a practiced smile. As much confidence as she carried, some words did take her back to high school, where everyone would just shatter and break her heart all around.

"So that's your best one tonight?" she asked quietly. "I expected more."

She stepped around him before he could answer. "Enjoy your party, Di Laurentis."

She walked away without looking back. Dean watched her disappear into the crowd.

Logan appeared beside him a second later. "What the hell was that?"

Dean didn't answer. Logan looked toward where Y/N had gone. Then back at Dean.

"You know..." he said slowly, "I think you just can’t take your eyes off that dress.”

Dean frowned.

"What?"

Logan shook his head. "You looked at her like you forgot how to breathe. And then you immediately acted like an ass."

Dean scoffed.

"I always act like an ass."

Logan smirked, "Yeah, but usually it's because you think someone's annoying."

He looked toward the crowd where Y/N had disappeared.

"This time..." Logan clapped him on the shoulder. "I think it's because you're in trouble."

—

To forget the snarky comment, Y/n went in for a drink. Of course she looked gorgeous: her hair, her dress… everything was just breathtaking, but Dean’s words awakened some hidden insecurity that was resurfacing from high school.

Y/n was making her way to Hannah to ask her to leave the party, but she saw her and Garrett walk upstairs to Garrett’s room.

Shit…

What kind of friend would she be if she interrupted their special time? She needed her friend’s support, but not at the cost of inconveniencing her. So she sighed and went back for yet another drink. There was no point in going home alone and suffocating in bed with resurfacing bitter memories. Y/n chose to drown those with more alcohol.

Y/N lasted exactly twenty-three minutes before she needed another drink.

Not because she'd had that much to drink. Because she needed something to do with her hands. Something to wash away the lingering sting of Dean's words.

She slipped into the kitchen, grateful to find it momentarily less crowded than the living room. She reached for a clean plastic cup. Ice. Lemonade. A splash of vodka.

She stared down into the drink for a second, hoping it’ll help to stop thinking. Dean Di Laurentis had spent the better part of two years insulting her. She should've been immune by now.

So why had that one landed?

She let out a slow breath. Because this one remark hadn't been clever. It hadn't even been funny.

It had just been... Mean.

Then her racing thoughts were interrupted by a stupid comment: "You look like you're making a chemistry experiment."

She closed her eyes. Of course.

Without turning around, she said flatly, “Don't you have girls waiting in line for your attention?"

Dean walked up beside her anyway, grabbing an empty cup. "They'll survive."

He poured himself a drink, leaning casually against the counter.

Silence settled between them. It felt... different this time. Less like a game.

Y/N focused on dropping ice into her cup. Dean watched her from the corner of his eye.

She hadn't looked at him once. Not after earlier.

For reasons he couldn't explain, that bothered him.

"You know," he said, swirling his drink, "Logan thinks I was too hard on you."

She gave a small shrug.

"Good for Logan."

"So you're not gonna defend yourself?"

"I've learned it's usually a waste of energy."

That wasn't the answer he'd expected. He frowned.

"What?"

She finally looked at him. Her smile was polite. Almost painfully so.

"You've already decided who I am." Her voice was calm. "So why bother changing your mind?"

Dean looked away first. Something about that answer sat wrong. He covered it the only way he knew how.

"You know what your problem is?"

She sighed.

"Please. Enlighten me."

"You walk around acting like you're too good for everyone."

A tiny laugh escaped her.

"No."

"No?"

"I walk around trying not to care what people think."

He scoffed.

"That's adorable."

"It works most days."

"Clearly not tonight."

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

He saw it immediately. The way her shoulders stiffened. The tiny inhale she took.

He should've left it there. Instead….

"I mean..." he said lightly, "you spent all that time getting dressed up." His eyes drifted over her outfit again. "And for what?"

She said nothing. Dean smiled, though it felt forced now.

"You really thought tonight was going to be different?"

The kitchen suddenly felt very quiet.

"You thought someone was finally going to notice you?" He laughed once. “I hate to break it to you..." His voice dropped just enough to make every word sharper. "But people are looking because they don't recognize you." He held her gaze. "Not because they're interested."

For a long moment, Y/N didn't move. Dean waited for the comeback.

She always had one. Always.

Instead she looked down into her cup. "Are you done?" Her voice was so quiet that it almost didn't sound like her.

Dean blinked. "What?"

"I asked..." She swallowed. "...if you're done."

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

She gave one small nod, as though answering herself.

"Okay."

No sarcastic remark. No eye roll. No smug smile. She simply picked up her drink.

"I hope, one day," she said softly, "someone speaks to you the way you speak to other people."

Dean's chest tightened. She looked at him one last time. Not angry. Not even upset. Just disappointed. Then she turned and walked away. Dean watched her disappear into the hallway. For some reason, he felt awful.

Y/n was so consumed in her thoughts and a need to get away that she shoved through a crowded hallway just to get outside. She didn’t even notice the small splash... a splash that was made when someone dropped something into her drink.

Some guy tossed a pill into her cup with an easy flick of his wrist. It landed with a tiny splash before sinking beneath the ice.

"There." He snorted. "Let's see how long it takes…"

A couple of people laughed.

Y/n was already outside, sitting on an empty chair she found. Still replaying Dean's words in her head, she wrapped her fingers around the cup.

Y/N looked down at the cup for only a second. Then, she took a sip of the drink and then another one, unaware of what happened nearly thirty seconds ago.

—

Dean had never hidden from one of his own parties. Usually, he was the reason they stayed alive. If the music got louder, it was because Dean wanted it louder. If another game started in the kitchen, it was because Dean had convinced everyone to play. If people were laughing, chances were he was somewhere in the middle of it. He thrived in rooms like this. Crowded. Loud. Chaotic. Easy.

Tonight everything felt just a little off. He wandered back into the living room, weaving through people who greeted him with pats on the shoulder and shouted greetings over the music.

"Dean!" Someone shoved a red cup into his hand. He accepted it automatically.

Another guy pulled him into a conversation about next week's game. Dean answered. Mostly he just nodded in the right places, made the occasional sarcastic comment, and even laughed once.

But his attention kept drifting. His eyes searched the room without meaning to. Not looking for anyone in particular. Just... looking.

He caught himself glancing toward the hallway. Then toward the kitchen. Then the staircase. His eyebrows pulled together. What was he doing? He took a long drink instead.

"Dean." A familiar voice.

He turned. A blonde girl smiled up at him, already standing much closer than necessary.

"I've been trying to find you."

"Have you?"

"Mhm."

She reached up, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from the front of his shirt.

"I thought maybe you disappeared."

Dean looked down at her hand.

Then back up.

"Huh."

She laughed.

"I was wondering if you wanted to dance."

Normally? He would've said yes without thinking.

She was pretty and confident. Exactly the kind of girl who usually made parties more interesting.

Instead his answer caught in his throat. "I..."

For some reason, the image that popped into his head wasn't the blonde standing in front of him.

It was emerald green, the color of Y/n’s dress.

A quiet voice that never seemed to leave his thoughts got louder, “I hope, one day, someone speaks to you the way you speak to other people.”

He blinked. "Maybe later."

The girl looked surprised.

"Oh." She recovered quickly. "Okay."

She disappeared back into the crowd.

Dean watched her go.

That was… weird.

He took another sip.

Someone cranked the music even louder. The living room erupted into cheers. Someone started chanting his name from across the room. Usually, he'd be over there already. Instead, he stayed exactly where he was.

"Dean!" Another voice.

This time, a brunette. She slipped easily into his space, smiling like they'd known each other forever.

"You owe me a rematch in pong."

"Do I?"

"You destroyed me last weekend."

"I probably did."

She laughed, looping an arm through his.

"You sound thrilled to see me."

Dean looked at her.

She was gorgeous. Dark hair. Bright smile.

One of the girls who always seemed to show up whenever there was a hockey party.

She squeezed his arm playfully.

"So?"

"So?"

"The rematch."

Dean looked toward the dining room where everyone was gathered around the table.

Then looked back at her.

"I think I'll pass."

Her smile faltered.

"You... don't want to play beer pong?"

"Not really."

She laughed like he was joking. When he didn't laugh back, she slowly let go of his arm.

"Okay..."

She walked away looking thoroughly confused.

Dean was, too.

What the hell?

He never turned down beer pong.

He frowned into his cup. Something was wrong with him. He wandered onto the back deck. Fresh air. That would help. Except it didn't.

He saw Y/n. After the past two encounters, he didn’t feel like going at it again. He couldn’t even ignore her and go on about his day and enjoy the party.

He wandered back inside, weaving through strangers who moved aside automatically when they recognized him.

Someone called after him. "Dean! Take a shot!"

He waved without looking.

Another voice.

"Dean, come dance!"

He ignored it.

A hand caught his wrist.

He turned. Another girl. She smiled brightly.

"You've been avoiding me all night."

"Sorry."

She stepped closer. "You can make it up to me."

Usually, he'd flirt back. Usually, this part was effortless. She reached up, fingers brushing lightly over the back of his neck. Dean felt... nothing.

Not even annoyance.

Just... Nothing.

"I'm actually heading upstairs."

Her smile slipped.

"Oh."

He gently untangled her hand from his arm before continuing toward the staircase.

Halfway up, he stopped.

He looked down.

The entire house stretched beneath him.

Music. Laughter. People dancing. Friends shouting across rooms. Girls smiling at him every time he looked their way. It was everything he'd always enjoyed. Everything that had always been enough.

Tonight it wasn't.

He ran a hand through his hair. "What the hell..." The words came out barely above a whisper. No answer came.

He climbed the rest of the stairs. His bedroom door clicked shut behind him, muffling the music until it became nothing more than a dull pulse through the walls.

Silence.

Dean leaned back against the door.

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Then laughed once. A humorless sound.

"If anyone ever finds out I'm hiding in my room during my own party..." He shook his head. "They'll never let me live it down."

He tossed his phone onto the bed before sitting beside it. For the first time in years, the party downstairs held absolutely no appeal.

He couldn't explain it. Couldn't fix it. Couldn't even name it.

All he knew was that every laugh downstairs sounded too far away. And every time he closed his eyes, he saw a pair of hurt eyes and heard a quiet voice asking, "Are you done?"

—

Outside, the party only seemed to get louder.

Someone had turned the music up again. Cheers erupted from the living room, followed by the unmistakable crash of something breaking and a chorus of laughter that suggested nobody particularly cared.

Y/N stood in the middle of it all.

She couldn't hear herself think.

At first, she assumed it was the music.

Then she realized the room itself had started to move.

She frowned.

The people around her blurred together for half a second before snapping back into focus.

"Weird." She blinked hard.

Maybe she'd stood up too fast.

She lifted her cup to take another sip, but stopped halfway. Her stomach rolled unpleasantly.

No.

Something wasn't right. She lowered the cup.

The bass thudded through the floor beneath her feet, each vibration making the dizziness worse.

Someone bumped her shoulder as they squeezed past.

Normally, she would've stumbled a step and laughed it off. Instead, her knees almost gave out. She caught herself on the edge of a nearby table.

"Oh..." A whisper .Barely audible. "...Oh, no."

Another wave hit. The room tilted sharply to the left before correcting itself.

Y/N squeezed her eyes shut.

Okay.

Okay, breathe.

When she opened them again, the crowd seemed even bigger somehow.

Too many people.

Too much noise.

Too little air.

Her fingers tightened around the plastic cup until it crumpled.

"Oh, shit."

Her voice trembled.

"Oh, shit..."

She looked down at the drink in her hand.

Without another thought, she walked to the nearest trash can and dumped the rest of it out before tossing the cup after it.

She needed Hannah.

That thought came immediately.

Hannah.

She'd know what to do.

Y/N turned toward the hallway.

Then remembered.

Garrett had quietly stolen Hannah away almost twenty minutes ago.

Garrett had simply grinned, taken Hannah's hand, and led her upstairs.

Privacy.

Right.

Y/N swallowed.

She couldn't exactly burst into Garrett's room.

Absolutely not.

Her breathing grew uneven.

The hallway stretched farther than she remembered.

Another wave of dizziness crashed over her so suddenly she reached for the wall. Her palm slapped against it. Her fingers trembled against the old drywall.

Think.

Who else?

Her parents? No way, she was far away in college, what would her parents even do? Fuck.

An ambulance?

No.

That sounded more stupid. Who calls an ambulance to a party?

No, no...

She wasn't even sure what was wrong.

She just... She just needed someone.

Someone she knew.

Her thoughts landed on a name she never would've expected.

Dean.

She almost laughed.

It would've been funny under different circumstances.

Dean Di Laurentis.

The same Dean who'd spent the entire evening trying to make her miserable. The same Dean who'd looked her dead in the eye and told her no one would ever be interested in her.

She hated him.

He was an ass.

Cocky.

Infuriating.

Meaner than he realized.

But...

He would never hurt her in a way bunch of guys in this party would if they found her in this state.

Her drink has been spiked, she thought, and whoever it was was bound to show up sooner or later. She needed to get away.

She knew that with complete certainty.

Her feet were already moving.

The staircase looked impossibly steep. By the third step, her legs felt strangely disconnected from the rest of her body.

Come on.

One more.

She gripped the railing so tightly her knuckles turned white. The music downstairs faded with every step upward, replaced by the pounding of her own heartbeat.

Halfway up, her vision blurred again. She stopped. The stairs shifted beneath her.

"No..."

She squeezed the railing harder.

"You are not passing out." As if scolding herself would be any help.

Another breath.

Another step.

Then another.

By the time she reached the second floor, she was breathing like she'd run a marathon.

Dean's door.

End of the hallway.

So close.

She took one step. Then another.

Her foot caught slightly against the carpet.

She stumbled, catching herself against the wall.

The hallway spun. "Oh, God..."

Everything suddenly felt so far away.

She finally reached Dean's door, raised her hand and knocked.

—

Inside, Dean didn't move.

He stared absently at the ceiling from where he sat on the edge of his bed.

The music downstairs had become little more than a dull vibration through the walls.

A knock sounded.

Dean sighed.

Without getting up, he called toward the door.

"Occupied."

Silence.

Good.

Probably another couple looking for somewhere quiet.

Not happening.

He leaned back against the headboard again.

Another knock.

More insistent this time.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I said go away."

Nothing.

Then…. a heavy thud. Like something, or someone had fallen.

Dean's head snapped toward the door. Every trace of annoyance disappeared. He was on his feet before he'd even realized he'd stood.

He yanked the door open. And froze.

Y/N laid crumpled just outside his room. One hand still stretched weakly toward the doorframe. Her hair had fallen across part of her face. She looked frighteningly pale.

"What the…" Dean dropped to his knees instantly. "Y/N?"

She stirred. Barely. Her eyelids fluttered open just enough to find him. For a second, she simply looked at him. Like she was trying to make sure she'd found the right room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, the question coming out much sharper than he'd intended.

Was he angry? No.

Panicked? Confused? Terrified? Yes.

"I..." she whispered. Her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. "I know..." She swallowed with visible effort. "I know you hate me enough not to try anything…”

Her eyes began slipping shut.

Dean's expression shattered.

Her arm gave out beneath her. Her body pitched sideways.

"Y/N!"

He caught her before she could hit her head.

Dean held her; one arm around her shoulders, the other catching her legs awkwardly before lowering her carefully against him.

"Hey, hey, hey." His voice had changed completely. Every ounce of sarcasm was gone. Every trace of arrogance vanished. Raw panic replaced all of it.

"Look at me." Her head lolled weakly against his shoulder. "Y/N."

Nothing.

"Come on."

Her eyes opened halfway. Just enough.

"There you are."

His hand came up instinctively, brushing loose strands of hair away from her face. She looked exhausted. Not sleepy. Drained. Like staying conscious required more effort than she had left.

"What happened?"

She blinked slowly and closed her eyes.

Dean's heart slammed painfully against his ribs. He tried to control his shaking hands.

"What did you have to drink?"

She frowned.

"...just..." Another slow blink. "...not much..."

"Did you hit your head?"

A tiny shake. "No."

"Did somebody…" His voice caught. He couldn't even finish the question. Y/N looked at him, and nodded.

"I think so..." Her breathing hitched. And she fully closed her eyes.

Dean’s eyes widened. He was trying to hide his panic.

"Okay." He nodded quickly. "Okay."

He wasn't okay. Not even close. But she needed him calm.

"I've got you."

He slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back. She was lighter than he'd expected. Too light.

She instinctively curled toward his chest as he lifted her. Her forehead rested weakly against his shoulder. Dean carried her inside as though she might break.

The bedroom door swung shut behind them. He crossed to the bed immediately. He lowered her carefully onto the mattress, supporting her head until it rested against the pillow.

She shivered. Without thinking, Dean tugged the comforter over her. He crouched beside the bed.

"Stay with me." He shook her slighly so she’d stay conscious. Y/N looked at him through half-lidded eyes.

"I'm trying."

"I know." His voice cracked. "I know."

She reached for him without really meaning to. Her fingers brushed weakly against his wrist. Dean took her hand immediately. Firm. Steady.

"I'm here."

Her grip was almost nonexistent. She still didn't let go as she closed her eyes one last time to sleep off the drug’s effect.

Dean looked at her. Really looked at her. She was unconscious and laying in his bed. A dark thought crossed his mind. She could have not made it to his room and right now… God knows what would have happened.

She'd climbed the stairs. Walked through an entire house full of people. Passed countless rooms. And somehow she'd come here, to him. And out of all people he chose him not because she trusted him, but because she thought he hated her enough not to try anything another filthy guy would.

A lump settled painfully in his throat.

Y/n’s eyes opened slowly, she was in and out of consciousness.

"I'm here." Dean whispered.

Her breathing slowed again. Her eyelids drooped lower.

"No, no."

Dean gently squeezed her hand.

"Don't fall asleep again, not yet."

"Tired."

"I know."

"Just..." Her words were fading.

He leaned closer. "Stay awake a little longer for me."

She tried.

God, she tried.

He could see it.

The effort it took just to keep her eyes open.

Eventually she looked at him one last time. Really looked. Like she wanted to make sure he was still there. Then, satisfied, her fingers loosened around his hand. Her breathing evened out. Her face relaxed for the first time since he'd opened the door.

"Y/N?"

No answer.

Just the quiet rhythm of sleep.

Dean stayed exactly where he was.

Still holding her hand. Still watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. As if looking away, even for a second, might somehow let something happen to her.

Downstairs, the party raged on. People laughed. Music shook the walls. Someone cheered loud enough for the sound to carry upstairs. Dean didn't hear any of it. His entire world had narrowed to the girl asleep in his bed and the sickening realization that she chose him to be her safe place due to every cruel thing he said to her, because in y/n’s eyes Dean hated her.

When your brain was being rational, it told you that Dean was with you because he loved every part of you. And when you struggled to love yourself, he was always there to remind you why you should.

Dean was a very vocal advocate of women. He was a proud, unapologetic, ladies’ man and he knew, with a label like that, he had a responsibility to treat women well. Priding himself on the deep, unshakeable respect he had for women, he made it his mission to understand that womanhood was a beautiful, but complicated, experience that left its mark. It meant that women came in all shapes, and all sizes. It meant that boobs wouldn’t always be perfectly perky or that parts of the body could be darker than the rest of the body. He knew about chafing, stretch marks, and how the skin could jiggle. He loved every part of womanhood, and you knew that.

Logically, you knew there’d be no benefit to Dean being with you if he didn’t want to be.

However, at times like these, logic didn’t mean a damn thing.

You didn’t always feel this way about yourself. Sometimes you just existed, going about your day as any other person. But then, there would be times when you’d get a harsh, unsolicited, reminder that society wasn’t built for people who were bigger. People like you.

You’d go shopping with your friends and try on a pair of jeans, only for the largest size on the rack to barely pass your thighs. You’d notice people looking uncomfortable when you squeezed into the empty seat next to them on the train. You’d worry about what you ordered at restaurant, terrified someone would judge you for eating too much.

It was exhausting.

You couldn’t get away from it at home either. You’d rifle through your closet, looking for something to wear, you’d pick up clothes and think to yourself ‘that’s so big, there’s no way it fits me.’ Only for it to be a perfect fit. Or, even worse, too small.

You really didn’t feel like this all the time. You had worked on yourself and your self-esteem. There were times where you’d wear a crop top because it looked cute, telling yourself that others wore crop tops, so why couldn’t you. Sometimes you’d wear a tight dress because it showed off your curves.

It wasn’t easy to get there, and you weren’t fully there all the time, your mind was a prison sometimes. And society didn’t help. But that’s why you loved Dean. He was so carefree and couldn’t give a toss about societal standards.

That morning had started out fine. You had excitedly put on the form hugging outfit that you were wearing for that reason. However, as you watched the scene in front of you, it all came flooding back.

Dean was leaning against the kitchen counter, laughing at something Allie Hayes, his ex-girlfriend, was saying.

And, as if a magician had snapped their fingers, the mental gymnastics began.

Allie was gorgeous, fitting effortlessly into the swimsuit-model category. She could wear his oversized hockey jersey and look like a delicate dream, rather than looking like she was a defenseman on the team. And, to top it off, she was a lovely person. She had done everything she could to make you feel welcome when you had first started to date Dean, never once made you feel like it was her territory you were stepping into. You honestly couldn’t understand why they had even broken up.

Your brain started to calculate the maths that made sense to nobody but you. You wondered if people looked at the two of you together and couldn’t add the pieces together. The golden-haired hockey god with the sculpted physique and you, a woman who took up space in a society that expected women to shrink. How did that add up?

They wouldn’t do that with Allie. Those pieces made sense together; the maths was simply 2+2 = 4 there.

Your mind, venomous and sharp, kept spinning out of control. Does he look at her and remember how easy it was? Are they laughing together about how he traded down? Is he pleading with her to take him back?

Suddenly, you became very aware of your outfit. The fabric felt suffocatingly tight in all the wrong places. Your curves felt like they were drawing the eyes of everyone in the room as they protruded out over your high-waisted jeans.

At times like these, your brain was a masterclass in self-sabotage.

It didn’t matter that Dean had spent hours tracing your stetch marks like they were roads to heaven.

It didn’t matter that he publicly looked at you with a hunger that made your knees weak.

It didn’t matter that he gently coaxed you into being comfortable sleeping together with the lights on and that he hadn’t run away when he finally saw all of you.

None of that mattered. Your brain was screaming over the bass of the music, over every rational thought you’d ever had, drowning it all out. He wants to get back with Allie. She is everything, and I’m nothing.

It was a horrible, ugly thought that was entirely unfair to yourself and to Dean, who had never given you a single reason to doubt his love and loyalty. But, your insecurities didn’t care about fairness.

You took a shallow, shaky breath, your chest tightening as you watched them. The way everything she did looked effortlessly charming and feminine.

A suffocating, bitter, knot rose in your throat, choking your breath. You had to get out of there before anyone could see the tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.

Dean’s head snapped up, his eyes scanning the room until they locked directly onto yours, as if he had a red alert that signalled to him that you needed him. The easy smile he had been sharing with Allie shifted into something deeper, something warmer, as he looked at you.

He put his cup down on the counter, murmured a quick goodbye to Allie, and began sliding his way through the sea of drunk college students, heading straight for you.

You were standing with two of your friends, desperately trying to signal to them with your eyes that you all should go. Your heart was hammering against your ribs. You felt like you couldn’t move because you knew he would follow. Then you’d have to face him.

Within seconds, Dean arrived and threw a possessive arm around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest. The familiar scent of his expensive cologne, usually a smell that provided you with comfort, suffocated you. He leaned down to press a kiss to your lips.

“Hey, beautiful,” he murmured against your lips, pressing another kiss on you. “I missed you.”

Your friends immediately giggled and exchanged knowing glances. “Okay, so that’s our cue to leave!” one of them teased.

“Yup, see you in class tomorrow girlie,” the other said.

They vanished into the crowd before you could even protest, leaving you feeling alone in Dean’s arms.

You forced yourself to tilt your head up, pressing a quick peck to his jaw.

“I missed you too,” you managed out, forcing a smile to hide how you felt.

But Dean knew you better than that, your smiles always reached your eyes. His eyebrows furrow in slight confusion. His eyes scanned your face with an intense scrutiny and he saw the slight glassiness in your eyes.

“Hey,” he said. He dropped his arm to cup your cheeks in both hands. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

The concern in his eyes almost broke you. It would be so easy to tell him, but the shame of your own insecurity felt too heavy, especially with Allie still in the room.

“Nothing,” you lied, voice tight. Your heart thudded painfully in your chest, you didn’t like to lie, especially to Dean. He was big on trust.

You gently pulled away from his touch, his hands dropping from your face. “I’m just… really tired, Dean. I think I need to go.”

“Okay,” Dean said easily. “I’ll come upstairs with you.”

“No,” you rushed out too quickly and too loudly. “I need some space; I need to go… home.”

Dean blinked, looking genuinely confused. “Home? But I thought you were staying here tonight? Your bag is upstairs.”

He was panicked now, eyes searching yours again for some sort of understanding of what was happening. A rare flash of sadness crossed his features and you wanted so desperately to kiss it away but your brain couldn’t stop telling you that this was the right move. That it would be better for him if you left. If you pushed him to want you gone.

“Talk to me, babe. Did I do something wrong? Let’s just go upstairs, just you and me.” The panic in his voice sent a painful pang straight through your chest.

“No, it’s not that,” you choked out, unable to look him in the eye. The sound of voice was enough to make you cry, if you combined that with the look on his face, you were done for. “I just need to be in my own bed tonight. Please.”

Dean felt completely helpless. He hated to let you go, but he also respected your boundaries too much to keep pushing for you to stay when he knew you didn’t want to.

He reached into his pocket, his jaw clenching. “Okay. Okay, yeah. If that’s what you need. I’ve had a few beers, so I can’t drive you.” He sounded incredibly mad at himself for that, as if he could have known he needed to stay sober. “I’m ordering you an Uber.”

You didn’t bother to say goodbye to anyone, or pick up your bag from upstairs, as you weaved your way outside. Dean followed you, keeping a protective hand on the small of your back the entire way.

He waited on the porch with you in the chilly air. There were a few couples out here, cuddling together and giggling as they whispered into each other’s ears. Dean so desperately felt the urge to pull you in and not let go.

After a few long minutes of standing in the heavy silence, the car finally pulled up. He opened the door for you. When you slipped inside, you expected him to shut it immediately, but he didn’t. He kept a tight hold on the handle, leaning down as he pleaded, “text me the second you get in. Please.”

Blue eyes trembled as they watched for your response. Dean looked devastated as he chewed his bottom lip. Unable to bear it, you put on another fake smile and nodded. Anything to get him to go. He closed the door gently, but, to you, it felt like that was the door closing on your entire relationship.

As the Uber pulled away, the tears finally fell. You looked back to see Dean still standing there, watching your car until it disappeared around the corner.

He didn’t wait for you to get home to start texting you.

Dean (22:10): I don’t know what I did, but I’m so sorry. Please let me fix it. Dean (22:10): I love you. So much. Dean (22:11): Just tell me what you need from me.

By the time you unlocked your front door twenty minutes later, your chat history with him looked like a wall of messages.

You stared at your phone screen, the words blurring together through another wave of tears. You wanted to reply. You were going to reply. But how could you? What could you say that would make any sense? That would justify this?

You crawled into bed and immediately pressed your face into the pillow to muffle the sounds of your sobs. Your body convulsed as you cried harder, the weight of everything hitting you at once.

You cried until exhaustion finally took over your body. You cried yourself to sleep without even realising it.  

The next morning, you woke up with a splitting headache and dry throat. Memories of last night came flooding back to you. You were supposed to respond to Dean’s messages, at least to let him know you’d gotten back safely. Instead, he would have seen that you left him on read.

You hurriedly reached for your phone, your heart dropping into your stomach as you saw he had continued to send messages throughout the night.

Dean (02:14): Still haven’t heard from you. Getting worried. Please just let me know you’re safe.

Dean (03:45): I know you asked for space but I cannot sleep until I know you’re okay.

Dean (06:11): I’m coming over.

The last message was sent barely half an hour ago. You jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to brush your teeth and try to make yourself look presentable. Your eyes were bloodshot from the tears; you hadn’t even washed the make-up from your face last night.

A heavy, frantic, pounding echoed from your front door. Your mind raced again, given the timing of his texts, you doubted if he had even slept. He should not have been behind the wheel. And how fast did he have to drive to get to you in this time?

You hurriedly wrapped your dressing gown around yourself and padded down the hallway. When you opened the door, the sight of Dean stopped the breath in your lungs.

He looked completely wrecked. He had changed from since the party; but his clothes were already wrinkled. His usually stupidly perfect hair was sticking up in all directions, as if he’d spent all night running his fingers through it. There were dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes. He really hadn’t slept.

A shuddering breath escaped his lips as he saw you. “Thank God.”

Before you could say a word, he stepped across the threshold, closed the door, and pulled you into his arms. He held you so tightly against his chest that you could feel the frantic thumping of his heart. He was trembling.

“You terrified me,” he muttered, his grip tightening. “You told me you needed space from me, didn’t text or answer my calls. I thought you got into an accident, I thought someone hurt you. But then I saw you were reading my messages and… I thought… I thought you were leaving me.”

The rational part of your brain roared back to life, screaming at you to see how much he loved you. He wasn’t thinking about Allie or anyone else. He was falling apart because he thought he had lost you.

“Dean, I’m so sorry,” you whispered, your own voice cracking as you wrapped your arms around his neck. “I’m soso sorry, I’m okay.”

He pulled back just enough to look at your face, his hands moving up to cup your cheeks. His thumbs gentle wiped away a stray tear that you hadn’t even noticed had fallen.

“Are you leaving me?” he asked, voice fragile.

“No,” you sighed, leaning into his touch. “Not if you don’t want to leave me.”

“Of course I don’t, babe. But can you please just talk to me?” he pleaded, his blue eyes searching yours with pure desperation. “Please, I’m losing my mind here.”

He would never admit it to anyone else, but he was a deeply emotional man. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders while acting like nothing fazed him. But, in front of you, that act was dropped.

You looked down, unable to hold the weight of the guilt you felt. Swallowing hard, the truth came tumbling out of you, tasting bitter and heavy on your tongue.

“I… I saw you talking to Allie and my brain just… it just went haywire. It’s great that you have a healthy relationship with your ex, it just speaks to the kind of man you are but…I… I just...” Your fingers bunched into the fabric of his top as your words trailed off.

He stayed silent, patiently giving you the time you needed to collect your thoughts.  

“She’s amazing and she looks better than I do… physically.” Your voice lowered, it was so embarrassing admitting this out loud to him. No matter how much you trusted him with your feelings. “I just worry that you’re going to wake up one day and realise what you lost.”

Dean let out a sharp, pained, breath, his jaw tightening. Before he could interrupt, you pressed a hand to his chest. “Let me finish, please.”

He gave you a tight, silent nod, urging you continue.

“I know it’s stupid, I know it isn’t a problem that you created, Dean. It’s an insecurity inside of me. I just… yeah, I guess I just have more of a mountain to climb than I thought. I don’t want to leave you, but I’d understand if you wanted to leave me so you don’t have to deal with all of this.”

Dean was quiet for a long moment. When you looked up at him, he didn’t look angry at your explanation or relieved that you had given him an out from this relationship.

“Okay,” he said finally. His voice was steady. “Let me be clear. There is no comparison between you and Allie. She’s my past, which I cherish, but you are my present, and my future. Understand?”

You nod your head, you needed to hear that.

“I have no reason to leave you. No desire to leave you,” he continued. “I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan of the radio silence last night, but I love you. I love us. Part of that love means that we go through some tougher times together, and you are completely insane if you think that I’m leaving you to climb any part of a mountain alone.”

You didn’t know what to say, a thick knot of emotion blocking your throat. Instead of trying to speak, you wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him down to you. Dean didn’t hesitate; he met you halfway as you pressed your lips to his in a kiss. The softness of the kiss showed all the words you wanted to say.

“Thank you,” you mumbled against his mouth before kissing him again.

“I mean it, we’ll work through anything together,” he vowed, his hands sliding down over your curves to rest securely on your hips. “What do you need from me? How can I be better at supporting you?”

You let out the breath that you felt like you’d been holding since last night, the tension finally melting out of your muscles. “Just… please be patient with me while I fight my way back to reality, I guess.”

Dean nodded instantly, his expression serious. “Done.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, leaning up to press a kiss to his jaw. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“Never. Now,” he murmured, a lazy grin spreading across his face as he looked at you. “Seeing as neither of us slept well last night, I highly suggest we go catch up on some lost sleep.”

He leaned in close, his lips brushing against your ear as he dropped his voice to a suggestive whisper. “And once we’re rested, I am going to show you, very slowly, exactly how obsessed I am with you and your beautiful body. Does that sound good?”

You nodded, a genuine smile finally breaking across your face.

“Good,” he said. Without another word, he hooked his arms under your thighs, picking you up effortlessly and carrying you down the hall into your bedroom.

It was also around that time you became obsessed with ballet. Something about the raw emotion in every performance moved you, offering an escape to a world where feelings were beautiful no matter how messy.

You walked into Briar University with that statistic about meeting the love of your life at university in your mind. For the first few weeks, you kept waiting for that meet cute, kept thinking you’d be swept off of your feet.  

But college men proved to be so much worse than high school boys, as if men regressed instead of growing up. You had learnt to keep your heart under triple lock and key at Briar. You’d learnt the hard way that, to the college crowd, you were just a trophy to try and win. Eventually, books became your only sanctuary to feel the love you craved. They were a place where you could disappear, the only place where passion was treated as something sacred, where a look across the crowded ballroom meant everything, and love letters were the norm.

You kept your circle small, consisting of just a few girls from the ballet classes you took for fun. College life for you mostly consisted of the library, the ballet studio, and the off-campus coffee shop where you worked.

The latter of which was where you were now. it was late and your feet were throbbing from the three-hour rehearsal. You were resting on the counter, your nose buried deep in a worn-out paperback. You were so invested in your book, that you’d already read multiple times mind you, that you didn’t hear the sound of the front door chime, or notice the approach of a customer.

“One large dark roast, black,” a voice rumbled. “...Please.” it added.

You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Garrett Graham was a regular at this hour. He’d introduced himself the first few times he came and, when your response wasn’t throwing yourself at him like he was probably used to, he’d stopped. That didn’t stop him from coming in nearly every shift you were on though.

Truthfully, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Your problem wasn’t really with him; it was more with the other arrogant jerks on campus that you assumed him to be.

Wordlessly, you made him the coffee and set it on the counter, not bothering to tell him the total. He’d been here enough to know it. “Cream and sugar are on the condiment bar, Graham,” you deadpanned, turning back to your book.

“Thanks,” Garrett said, though he didn’t walk away. He leant over the counter, trying to peer over your shoulder to the book you were reading. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing that interests you.”

You sighed, body tensing as you waited for the unsolicited advance.

Garrett let out a dry laugh, as if he found you funny but not enough to really laugh. “You really have a glowing opinion of me, don’t you?”

You finally snapped your book shut and turned to glare at him. It was the perfect, frosty look you'd perfected to keep guys from asking you to parties. Garrett didn't flinch, but he didn't look you up and down with that predatory gleam you were so used to either.

“I don’t know you, so I have no opinion of you,” you lied tightly. “Now, do you want your coffee or are you just trying to get a rise out of me?”

“Yes, I want my coffee and no, I am not trying to get a rise out of you.” If his words didn’t convince you he was being genuine, the look on his face did. “I’m genuinely interested; you’ve made about six different faces in the time I’ve watched you read. I’m curious about the book.”

You blinked, caught completely off guard. “You... want to talk about Jane Eyre?”

“Sure,” Garrett shrugged, “tell me why you’re scowling at it.”

So, you did. Against your better judgement, you explained the complexities of 19th-century romance. And for the first time since your freshman year, a guy wasn't staring blindly at your lips as you spoke or feigning interest just to get your number. Garrett actually listened. He leant his elbow on the counter, challenging you on a plot point, and when you defended it fiercely, he threw his head back and laughed.

“I’m going to find a way to use that in my philosophy class,” he laughed.

“Go ahead, but if you get an A, I expect like 70% of the credit,” you countered, crossing your arms but unable to stop a small smile from tugging at your lips. “And if you fail, then that’s what you deserve for trying to plagiarise a barista.”

“Hey, I take source citation very seriously,” he joked.

You didn’t respond but you did smile at him, a genuine one.

“We should hang out some time,” Garrett said suddenly, hand nervously scratching the back of his head. “If you’d like to, of course.”

Your smile immediately dropped, the defensive walls standing to attention.

“Why?” You snapped, louder than you meant to.

“Because the whole two times you’ve actually spoken to me, I enjoyed our conversation.”

“I’ve only actually spoken to you once,” you muttered.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Garrett’s eyes were gleaming with something you couldn’t quite place. You also couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not.

“You clearly don’t remember,” he continued, looking at your confused face. “But I think you’re one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, and I'd be an idiot to let an opportunity to get to know you better pass me by.”

“And that’s the only reason?” You asked carefully.

“Are you finishing for another compliment?” He teased.

You sighed and rolled your eyes. You were about to answer when another customer stepped up to the counter. Garrett stepped aside, giving you the space to work whilst waiting for your answer.

You focused on the new customer, glad for the brief distraction to calm the sudden erratic drumming of your heart. As you punched in the order and handed over the change, you could feel Garrett’s eyes on you from the side of the counter. He wasn't crowding you, and he wasn't trying to slickly slide his phone across the counter to get your number. He was just waiting.

As the customer walked away with their drink, the quiet of the shop settled between you both again. You looked down at your hands, your mind racing. Your brain was screaming at you to keep those walls up, to tell him you were too busy with ballet and classes. But your romantic heart, the part of you that still secretly believed in ballroom glances and grand gestures, was pushing back. Garrett hadn't looked at you like you were a trophy. He had looked at you like he actually wanted to get to know you.

Before your defensive walls could slam shut completely, the words escaped your lips.

“Dim sum,” you blurted out suddenly.

Garrett blinked. “Excuse me?”

“If we hang out, you have to bring me dim sum.”

The smile on Garrett’s face made your chest tighten in the most terrifyingly beautiful way, the way you’d been dreaming about.

“Deal,” he murmured.

By the time he knocks on her dorm room door, it’s raining hard enough that the glass has gone blurry. She’s sitting on the floor with her back against the bed, laptop open on the duvet, notes spread around her in a half-circle like evidence of a nervous breakdown. 

Her hair’s still damp from the shower she took two hours ago and never properly dried, the sleeves of her sweatshirt pushed up past her elbows, a pen mark running along the side of her hand from where she’d written something down in the library and then used herself as stationery like a woman doing Very Well.

The knock comes once, and her whole body reacts, stupidly, before her brain has time to be angry. She goes still, pen paused over a half-written drug class, pulse kicking once in her throat.

Then he says, “It’s me,” through the door, like there’s anyone else she’d recognise by the sound of silence after knocking.

She gets up too fast and almost steps on a highlighter. “Shit.” The word comes out under her breath, thin and furious, and by the time she opens the door, the anger has caught up enough to keep her face from doing something embarrassing.

Garrett stands in the hall with his hoodie darkened at the shoulders from rain, curls damp and messy, one hand shoved into his pocket. He looks awful. He’s still broad and handsome and annoyingly solid in the doorway, but there’s something hollowed out behind his eyes. 

His mouth is set like he’s been holding it that way for hours. His jaw has that tight, overused look she’s started to recognise from games where he’s taken too many hits and refused to admit any of them landed.

“Hey,” he says.

She stares at him. “Hey?”

His brows flicker. “Can I come in?”

She almost laughs, but it would come out wrong. “Sure. Yeah. Why not.”

She sees the small flinch he tries to turn into nothing as he steps past her. The room shrinks around him immediately. Garrett in her dorm room always makes everything look smaller and more temporary. 

Her bed, her desk, the stack of scrubs folded badly on the chair, the mug on her nightstand with tea gone cold inside it. He smells like rain and rink air and that clean soap she hates knowing so well.

He looks at the mess on the floor. “Studying?”

“No, I just like decorating with cardiovascular medications.”

His mouth twitches out of habit, but it doesn’t make it all the way to a smile. “Right.”

She shuts the door. The click sounds too loud. For a second, neither of them says anything, and that makes it worse, because Garrett’s never quiet in her room. Garrett talks. Garrett sprawls on her bed and steals her pens and says things like baby, I’m begging you to explain this diagram to me. Garrett gets under her duvet with his socks still on until she yells at him. Garrett makes himself fit.

Tonight he stands near her desk like a guest. Something in her chest pulls tight enough to hurt. “So are we doing this now?”

His eyes come back to her. “Doing what?”

She blinks at him, and the anger, which had felt clean in her head for about four seconds, immediately starts getting messy. “Don’t. Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re here to do.”

“What? I’m not doing anything.”

“That’s kind of the point, Garrett.”

He exhales through his nose and looks toward the window. “I came over, didn’t I?”

“Oh, wow.” She nods, folding her arms because if she doesn’t, her hands might shake, and she would rather walk into traffic. “Sorry. My mistake. Nine days of acting like I’m some random girl annoying you, but you showed up in person, so obviously I should be grateful.”

His face tightens. “That’s not fair.”

“No, what’s not fair is me trying to work out if you’re alive between twelve-hour shifts while you send me texts that sound like you Googled how to politely ghost someone.”

His eyes cut back to her, startled despite everything, and she would normally enjoy landing a line like that. She doesn’t. It sits there between them, sharp and stupid.

“I’m not ghosting you,” he says.

“You’re doing an incredible impression.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Bullshit.”

Garrett’s jaw flexes. “You don’t know what’s going on.”

“No, Garrett, I don’t!” Her voice lifts before she can stop it, stripped thin enough that the words scrape on the way out. “Because you won’t tell me. You don’t answer. You don’t call. You don’t come over. You look at me like you’re already halfway out the door and I’m supposed to just stand here and be cool about it because technically I’m not your girlfriend, right?”

That one hits harder. His eyes go dark, a quick flash of something wounded and defensive. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Use that against me.”

She laughs once, and it sounds horrible. “I’m not using anything. I’m trying to figure out what rules I’m allowed to be upset under.”

His mouth opens, then closes. Outside, rain clicks hard against the window, a frantic little sound against the glass. Down the hall, someone laughs too loudly, then a door shuts, and her room feels even smaller after it.

Garrett drags a hand through his wet curls. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“Well, you’re doing it by accident, then. Congratulations on being naturally gifted.”

His face goes colder, and she hates that she recognises it. The shutters coming down. The golden-boy expression flattening into something controlled and distant, like if he can get the muscles in his face to behave, the rest of him might follow. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

Her stomach drops. Just like that. The floor going missing under her feet.

“Yeah,” she says, and her voice has changed now, quieter in a way that makes his face shift too. “That’s what I thought.”

Garrett looks at her, confused and angry and exhausted all at once. “What?”

“You want to leave.” She nods, like saying it first might make it hurt less. It doesn’t. Her eyes burn immediately, humiliating and hot, and she looks down at the notes by her feet because the generic beta-blocker chart has never devastated her like this. “You’ve been trying to leave for over a week, and I’m the idiot standing here asking for something I’m not going to get.”

“Baby–”

“No, don’t.” The word cracks in the middle. She presses her fingers hard against her own elbow, digging into the sweatshirt fabric. “Don’t baby me if you’re about to– Seriously, Garrett, I can’t–” She stops because her throat has closed around the rest of it.

His anger is gone so fast it almost frightens her. “About to do what?”

She looks up, and the first tear falls before she can do anything about it. She hates it. Hates how quickly his face breaks open when he sees it, hates that even now, even furious and hurt, some desperate little part of her wants to step into him because he looks like Garrett again. Her Garrett, except he isn’t hers, which is sort of the whole stupid problem.

“It’s me, right?” she says, and the words come out smaller than she wanted. Smaller than anything in this room should be allowed to sound. “I did something.”

Garrett goes very still.

The second tear is worse because she can feel it tracking hot down her cheek while he just stares at her, like she’s reached across the room and put her hand directly into the worst part of him. “I don’t know what it was,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady and failing in tiny, embarrassing ways. “And I’ve been thinking about it like an insane person. Like, was I too much after clinical? Did I ask too many questions about your dad? Was it the stuff with Nathan? Did I make it weird? Did I–”

“No.” He crosses the room so fast she barely has time to breathe. “No, baby, no.”

His hands come up to her face, warm and sure and shaking just slightly when his palms settle along her jaw. She freezes under the touch, because her body wants to melt into it and her pride wants to bite him.

Garrett’s thumbs move under her eyes, catching tears with an expression so wrecked it makes her chest ache. “It’s not you. Fuck, it’s not you. I promise.”

She tries to look away, but he holds her there gently, asking without words. His face is too close now. She can see the exhaustion under his eyes, the rain caught in his lashes, the muscle jumping in his cheek.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he says, and it comes out rough, almost angry, but not at her, at the sentence, at having to make it real. “Everything feels–” He stops, breathes through his nose, starts again. “Coach is on my ass about leading better. Bruins people keep calling, telling me what they expect, what kind of player I need to be, what kind of man I need to be, and my dad’s in my head all the time. Every game. Every practice. Every time I get pissed off, every time I snap at someone, every time I want to put my fist through a wall, I just–” His voice drops. “I hear him.”

Her hands come up around his wrists. She doesn’t pull him away. She just holds on.

Garrett swallows hard. “And then I look at you.”

She barely gets the words out. “And what?”

His eyes flash with pain. “And I want you so much it scares the shit out of me.”

The room goes quiet, and her breathing feels too loud.

Garrett’s thumb brushes once near the corner of her mouth, so careful now it almost hurts worse than anything else. “Because if I’m like him, if there’s even a part of me that’s like him, then I don’t get to put that near you.”

Something in her face must change, because his does too, panic moving through the exhaustion.

“I know,” he says quickly. “I know that sounds fucked up. I know. But I keep thinking maybe pushing you away is the only decent thing I’ve done all week.”

Her mouth trembles before she can stop it. “It didn’t feel decent.”

His eyes close for half a second. “I know.”

“It felt like you left me with… with no instructions.” Her voice is wet now, miserable, but at least the anger is still there somewhere, keeping the bones in it. “Like one day I knew where I stood with you, even if we weren’t saying it properly, and then suddenly you were gone, and I was just supposed to guess whether I mattered enough to be told why.”

Garrett’s face crumples in this tiny, controlled way. “You matter.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” His answer is immediate. Fierce enough that her breath catches. “Yes. Jesus, yes.”

“Then stop making me feel stupid for acting like it.”

He takes that like a hit. His hands slide from her face down to her shoulders, then back up again, like he doesn’t know where he’s allowed to touch and can’t stop needing to. “I’m sorry.”

She nods, but the tears keep coming, which is annoying because she had wanted to be more composed for this. She had imagined this argument in the shower four times and, in all versions, she had been devastatingly articulate and wearing mascara that didn’t run. 

“I don’t need you to be fine all the time,” she says. “I really don’t. I’m not asking you to turn into some emotionally fluent therapy boyfriend overnight. Like, that would be horrifying. You’d start saying things like holding space and I’d have to transfer schools.”

A broken laugh catches in his chest, barely there, but real enough to make her ache.

She grips his wrists a little tighter. “I just need you not to decide for me. You don’t get to disappear and say you’re protecting me.”

His gaze drops. “I didn’t know how to say it.”

“Say that, then.”

“What?”

“Say, I don’t know how to say it. Say, I’m being weird and awful but it’s not you. Say, I need a minute. Say literally anything that doesn’t make me sit in pharmacology wondering if you stopped wanting me because I cried in your bed and then my stupid ex ruined everything.”

Garrett looks up sharply. “That was not–”

“I know.” Her voice softens despite herself. “I know now. But I didn’t.”

For a second, he just stands there with his hands on her face and the rain-dark hoodie clinging to his shoulders, and she can see it all moving under his skin. The apology, the fear, the old shame with his father’s fingerprints all over it, the ugly little belief that if he leaves first, he can’t become the thing that hurts her. 

Garrett has always been good at taking a hit. Maybe too good. Maybe somewhere along the way he learned to call it strength when he let something keep hurting him because admitting it mattered would be worse.

He leans forward until his forehead rests against hers. His breath is shaky when it touches her mouth. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Her eyes close.

The words are not what either of them has been careful enough to say. They’re too close to the thing. Too honest for two people who keep hiding behind schedules and labels and sex and jokes about garlic bread. But they’re there now, pressed between them in her too-messy dorm room with her notes on the floor and her laptop asleep on the bed.

She whispers, “Then don’t.”

Garrett’s arms come around her so fast it knocks a small, breathless sound out of her. He holds her tightly, one hand at the back of her head, the other across her spine, folding himself around her like he can make up for nine days by sheer force.

She lets herself go into it because she’s too tired not to, because being angry at him hasn’t made her stop wanting this, because his hoodie is cold from the rain but his body underneath is warm and familiar and here.

“I’m sorry,” he says into her hair. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

She presses her face into his chest. “You’re an asshole.”

“I know.”

“I was going to make a chart.”

His laugh comes out rough and watery against the top of her head. “Of my asshole symptoms?”

“Differential diagnosis.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It is. Treatment plan was unclear.”

His hand moves slowly over her back. “Can I start with not leaving?”

She exhales into him, and it shakes. “Yeah.” Then, because she’s still herself and because softness feels safer when it has teeth around it, she mutters, “Strong clinical evidence for that intervention.”

Garrett kisses the top of her head. He doesn’t make a joke. That’s how she knows he’s still close to breaking.

They end up on her bed because standing becomes too much.

Garrett looks down at her scattered notes and says, “Can I move these?” in a voice like he’s afraid a highlighter might be load-bearing, and her nodding while wiping her face with her sleeve. 

He gathers the papers carefully, almost reverently, stacking beta-blockers with cranial nerves, exam rubrics with half-finished flashcards, the messy evidence of her life treated with more care than his own.

Then he sits with his back against the wall and she sits beside him, shoulder pressed to his chest, his arm around her. For a while they talk in pieces. He tells her Coach pulled him aside after practice and said leadership meant control, not just talent, and the word control had gone sour in his head. 

He tells her a Bruins development guy called him intense in a way that sounded like praise and warning at the same time. He tells her he snapped at a freshman for blowing a drill and heard Phil’s voice come out of his own mouth, or thought he did, and spent the rest of practice feeling like his skin didn’t fit.

She listens until her body starts to sag against him, the adrenaline draining out and leaving behind clinical exhaustion, argument exhaustion, Garrett exhaustion. Her eyes burn. Her head hurts from crying. Garrett’s voice goes lower as he talks, then stops altogether when he notices her blinking too slowly.

“Sleep,” he murmurs.

She huffs faintly. “I have to finish my assignment.”

“What’s it on?”

“Reflective practice.”

His arm tightens. “Great. Reflect on how you need sleep.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“It is tonight.”

She wants to argue. She makes a brave attempt by inhaling like she might say something. Unfortunately, her body mistakes the inhale for giving up and leans more fully into him.

Garrett shifts them down with careful awkwardness, pulling the blanket over her first, then himself, like he’s earned exactly one corner of it and is prepared to accept that. She fixes it by tugging him closer with the last of her strength until his chest is against her back and his arm settles over her waist.

For a minute, neither of them sleeps. She can tell by the way his breathing stays a little too deliberate against the back of her neck. Her own eyes are closed, but her mind keeps bumping into the argument in softened pieces. You matter. I don’t want to leave you. Then don’t.

His hand flexes once against her stomach. “You still mad at me?”

“Yes,” she murmurs.

His breath catches in something that might be a laugh. “Okay.”

“But less.”

“Okay.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know, baby.”

The words land warm at the base of her skull. She lets them. His mouth brushes the back of her head, barely a kiss, more like an apology that’s run out of language. She finds his hand under the blanket and threads her fingers through his.

When she wakes hours later, the room is dark except for the faint blue glow of her laptop screen gone idle and the dull silver wash of rain-streetlight through the blinds. Her neck is stiff. Her mouth tastes like crying and sleep. The assignment is absolutely not done.

Garrett’s still there. For a second, that’s all her half-awake brain can hold. Garrett, curled around her in the narrow bed like leaving was never a serious option, one knee tucked behind hers, arm heavy over her waist, breath slow and warm against the back of her neck. Sometime in the night, he’s pulled her closer. Or she’s moved back. It’s hard to tell where one decision ended and the other began.

His fingers are still tangled loosely with hers beneath the blanket. She lies there very still, listening to the rain, to the soft hum of the room, to Garrett breathing like sleep has finally dragged him under despite everything clawing around inside his chest. He feels heavy and real behind her. 

Her throat tightens again, but this time it doesn’t hurt the same way. She shifts carefully, easing back into him by an inch. Garrett stirs immediately, even asleep, his arm tightening around her waist, nose brushing into her hair. A low, rough sound leaves him, not quite a word.

“Mm,” he murmurs. “Stay.”

Her eyes close. She doesn’t think he means to say it. Maybe he’s not even awake enough to know he has. But the word settles into the dark little room anyway, soft and clumsy and honest, and she lets herself fit into the space he’s made around her.

“I am,” she whispers, though he’s probably already gone again.

Garrett’s hand tightens once around hers.

Outside, the rain keeps going. Her notes stay scattered in a neat, useless pile on the desk. The world doesn’t fix itself. His father doesn’t vanish from his head. Her assignment doesn’t write itself.

Morning will come with swollen eyes and hard conversations and probably some horrible email from her clinical instructor about professionalism in reflective writing.

But not yet. For now, Garrett’s warm behind her, breathing slow into her hair, holding on like his body knows the answer even when the rest of him forgets.

She tucks his hand closer against her chest, lets herself sink back into him, and goes back to sleep.

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She closes her eyes and immediately sees the bed rail, which is rude, because she’s been extremely clear with her brain that they’re not doing this tonight. 

She opens them again. The room is dark except for the line of streetlight slipping through the blinds, pale across the ceiling, cutting over the corner of her desk and the stack of makeup hours paperwork she has to bring to the ward tomorrow.

Across the room, her roommate snorts, rolls over, and keeps sleeping.

“Fuck this,” she whispers, very quietly, to nobody useful.

It takes less than five minutes to get dressed because her body has been waiting for permission. Hoodie over sleep shorts. Socks. UGGs. Keys off the desk. Phone, charger, badge. 

She moves carefully, making herself quiet, like sneaking out of her own dorm room is a criminal act and not just a deeply pathetic return to the one place where her chest might stop doing that tight, stupid thing.

The drive to the hockey house is ugly and empty and too cold. The heater takes forever to kick in, and she keeps one hand curled too hard around the steering wheel, thumb rubbing over the same tiny spot of plastic until the skin starts to feel raw. 

By the time she parks down the street, the house is dark in the way it only gets after everyone’s finally run out of noise. One lamp still glowing somewhere downstairs.

She lets herself in with the key Garrett had pressed into her palm two days ago like it wasn’t a thing. Like he hadn’t gone, “For emergencies,” with his mouth all casual and his eyes absolutely not casual, and she hadn’t said, “What kind of emergencies?” and he hadn’t looked at her for half a second too long before saying, “I dunno. You wanting cereal at three in the morning.”

The lock clicks too loudly. She freezes in the entryway, one hand still on the door, listening. Nothing.

The house smells like old laundry, boy deodorant, cold pizza, and the faint lemon cleaner Tucker keeps pretending nobody notices he uses. 

She toes off her UGGs at the bottom of the stairs, then immediately picks them up again because Dean once tripped over one shoe and accused it of attempted murder for three days. 

The stairs creak under her no matter where she steps. By the time she reaches Garrett’s door, her pulse has climbed into her throat.

His room is dark, the window cracked, winter air slipping in just enough to cool the mess of blankets at the end of his bed. Garrett’s dead asleep, shirtless and sprawled diagonally across the mattress. One arm is flung above his head, the other half-buried under the pillow, curls a dark mess against the sheets. 

He looks unfairly peaceful for a man whose house she has just broken into with hospital-related emotional damage and footwear.

She stands there for a second, UGGs in one hand, keys in the other, and feels something in her chest loosen so suddenly it almost hurts worse.

Then Garrett shifts, barely, and mumbles something into the pillow.

“Hi,” she whispers. “Just me. Sorry.”

His brows pull together before his eyes open. Not all the way. Barely enough to count. “Hm?”

“Go back to sleep.”

He makes a rough, sleepy sound of disagreement, then lifts his arm without even looking properly, blindly making space for her with the kind of instinctive confidence that makes her throat do something embarrassing. “C’mere.”

She puts her boots by the dresser, drops her keys as quietly as possible on his desk, and climbs into bed beside him. The mattress dips. 

Garrett’s arm comes around her immediately, heavy and warm, dragging her in until her cheek is against his chest and her cold feet are tucked carefully away from his legs because she has some decency left.

“Jesus,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “You’re freezing.”

“I drove here.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Technically, one-fifty-something.”

“That’s worse.” His hand slides up her back, slow and absent, under the hem of her hoodie just enough for his palm to find the warm cotton of the shirt beneath. He smells like sleep and detergent and whatever body wash lives permanently in his skin now. “Hi, baby.”

Her eyes close. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

She nods into him, then stops, because the lie is too big for the quiet. “Mhm. Just… nervous about tomorrow. Couldn’t sleep.”

Garrett goes still for half a second. Enough that she feels his body register it, the words sinking through the sleep and finding the part of him that keeps track of her even when the rest of him is gone.

“What time?” he asks.

“Seven.”

His hand moves up to the back of her head, fingers sliding into her hair, holding her there without pressing. “I’ll drive you.”

It comes out immediate. Flat with sleep, but not uncertain. Like there are some things his brain doesn’t need to wake up to answer.

Her fingers curl against his ribs. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He shifts, dragging the blanket higher over her shoulder, then tucking it around her with clumsy seriousness. “What time we leaving?”

“Six-thirty.”

“Okay.” A pause. Then, even sleepier, “Six-twenty. You get annoying about coffee.”

Her mouth twitches against his chest. “I don’t get annoying.”

“Mm. You get tragic. Different thing.”

She lets out a tiny laugh, and it lands wrong for half a second, catching behind her sore throat like it doesn’t know what to do with itself. Garrett’s thumb strokes once behind her ear.

“And pick me up?” she asks, softer.

His answer is already there. “Yeah, baby.”

“I might finish late. I have make-up hours and they said they might keep me if it’s busy, but not, like, keep me hostage. Legally. Probably.”

Garrett hums, the sound low in his chest under her cheek. “Text me.”

“I don’t know when I’ll get a break.”

“Then call when you’re done.”

“What if you have practice?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

She opens her eyes in the dark. The words are small. Normal, maybe. Nothing that would look impressive written down. But they sit under her skin like warmth spreading back into cold fingers.

“Garrett.”

“Mm?”

“You’re mostly asleep.”

“Still smarter than Dean.”

“That’s not the standard.”

“Should be.” His mouth brushes her hair, not quite a kiss, too tired to aim properly and somehow worse for it. “I’ll get you. Okay?”

Her hand flattens over his side, carefully avoiding the fading bruise she knows is there without needing to see it. “Okay.”

The room settles around them. His breathing starts to slow again, chest rising under her cheek, his arm still locked around her waist like even unconscious he has opinions about where she should be. 

Downstairs, the house creaks once. Somewhere across the hall, someone coughs. The whole world keeps existing in small, stupid ways.

She thinks about tomorrow. The badge. The doors. The fluorescent lights. The smell of sanitizer. The moment she’ll have to step back into the place that kept going after she left it bleeding.

Her stomach turns once, but Garrett’s hand shifts over her back, warm and broad and sleep-heavy, and the turn doesn’t finish.

“Baby,” he murmurs, almost gone.

“Yeah?”

“You’re gonna be good.”

Her eyes sting before she can talk them out of it. “You don’t know that.”

“Do.” His fingers flex once in her hoodie. “You’re you.”

She lies very still, because moving might make the words settle somewhere too obvious. Then Garrett, apparently satisfied with devastating her at two in the morning and calling it a sentence, falls asleep again.

She stays awake a little longer, tucked under his arm with her face against his chest and her cold feet slowly warming under the blanket, listening to his heartbeat thud steady beneath her ear like something boring and alive and reliable.

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She did love it, though. She loved the stupid cold and the blue Briar hoodie under her padded black jacket and the little laminated media pass swinging against her chest and half the team calling her boss. She loved the smell of the rink, all ice and rubber and stale coffee and the faint metallic bite of the Zamboni that never quite left the air. 

She loved the way the guys got loose once they forgot she was filming, the way Logan turned every drill into some kind of competition against gravity, the way Tucker kept glancing toward the camera with that sweet, easy grin like he’d been born knowing exactly how to be liked by strangers on the internet, the way Dean did one decent turn and immediately looked over as if waiting to see whether the National Archives had preserved it.

Garrett was the worst part of her job and also, objectively, the best angle in the entire rink.

He was at centre ice now in a black practice jersey, helmet pushed low over those stupid dark curls where they’d started escaping at the edges, mouthguard hanging half out while Coach explained the next sequence with a whiteboard marker that looked like it was being held together by spite. 

Garrett listened with his stick braced loosely in both gloves, head tipped down slightly, eyes on Jensen like he was absorbing every single detail and filing it somewhere in his body before the rest of them had finished blinking. 

Captain mode sat on him cleanly. Sharper than his usual grin, quieter than the smug thing he did when he knew she was watching him. It was in the stillness. The attention. The way the younger guys kept cutting their eyes toward him to check their own posture like Garrett had somehow become both person and weather system.

She lifted the camera and zoomed in because, frankly, the student body deserved journalism.

Beside her, Dean skated past the bench on one foot, because walking the line between athleticism and attention-seeking was a calling. “You getting my good side?”

She kept the lens on Garrett. “I’ve been informed by several reputable sources that you don’t have one.”

Dean made a wounded sound so dramatic it bounced off the glass. “That’s insane. Graham, control your girlfriend.”

Garrett didn’t even look over, but the corner of his mouth moved around the mouthguard. “She’s at work.”

“Thank you,” she called, still filming. “Somebody here respects women in media.”

Logan, coasting by with his stick tucked under one arm and absolutely no business being involved, said, “I respect women in media. I liked that video where you made Hollis look short.”

“That wasn’t me making him look short. That was Hollis being short.”

“Defamation,” Dean said.

“Statistics,” Tucker corrected mildly, and Garrett finally laughed, quick and bright, eyes flicking to her for half a second before Coach’s whistle split the air and pulled all of them back into motion.

The drill started fast. It was one of those breakout patterns that looked clean when Garrett did it and like a small controlled fire when half the freshmen tried to copy him. Two lines, puck retrieval, hard rim around the boards, winger picks it up, quick pass through the neutral zone. 

She had filmed it enough times to know the rhythm: scrape, turn, stick on puck, the slap of rubber along the dasher, someone yelling, Coach’s whistle ready to murder any boy who got cute with the timing.

She moved along the bench for a better angle, one hand adjusting the strap of the camera, the other already cold despite the gloves with the fingertips cut off because a full glove made it impossible to work the buttons.

“Careful down there,” Tucker said from the end of the bench as he waited his turn, voice warm with that big brotherish concern he tried to disguise as casual. “Pucks are flying today.”

She glanced up from the camera screen. “Thanks, Dad.”

He put one glove dramatically over his heart. “I care about staff safety.”

“Then tell your teammates to stop shooting like they’ve never met a direction before.”

Tucker grinned and pushed off just as the next group went. Garrett took the puck first, smooth as anything, skating backward for half a beat before turning hard and sending it clean to Logan. It looked effortless in that deeply irritating way great athletes always made difficult things look like they’d simply been asked politely by physics and had agreed. 

She tracked him through the lens, catching the angle of his shoulders, the quick communication between him and Logan, the exact second he glanced over again because he knew she was following him.

She was smiling when it happened.

It was such a stupid sound at first. A clipped, ugly little ricochet that made her look up half a second too late. One of the freshmen – Benson, maybe, or Bell, she was ninety percent sure he had a B name – had tried to rim the puck hard around the boards and somehow lifted it instead. 

It skipped off the top lip of the dasher at a mean little angle, black blur jumping where black blur was very much not meant to jump.

There was no time to move properly. Her body did the useless thing bodies did when impact arrived faster than thought; shoulders tightening, arm lifting, breath disappearing. 

The puck slammed into the outside of her upper arm with a flat, brutal thud that went through the padding of her jacket like the padding had been decorative. Pain burst hot and immediate under the fabric, so bright it turned the whole rink white at the edges for half a second.

“OW! Fuck!”

Everything stopped. The rink went still in one horrible, immediate cut, skates scraping down from speed, sticks lowering, Coach’s whistle half-raised and then forgotten. Her camera swung against her chest where she’d grabbed her arm with her other hand, fingers clamping uselessly over the place because touching it made it worse and not touching it somehow made it worse too. 

Her breath came out thin through her teeth. She could feel the pulse of it already, deep and nasty, spreading down toward her elbow in waves that made her eyes sting before she had any interest in crying.

“Jesus Christ,” she hissed, bending slightly over the arm. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Garrett was already moving. He crossed the ice so fast it almost looked violent, a clean, hard burst of speed that sent shaved ice kicking behind his skates. Benson – Bell, whatever, the boy could have been named Fence Post for all she cared right now – had frozen near the boards with his stick still out, face gone completely bloodless under his helmet. 

Garrett hit the brakes in front of him and shoved him once in the chest with a gloved hand. Hard enough to make the freshman stumble back half a skate and understand, instantly and spiritually, that his captain was no longer operating in a developmentally supportive leadership capacity.

“What the fuck was that?” Garrett snapped.

The freshman’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “I–”

“You got eyes, or are those just for decoration?”

“Graham,” Coach Jensen warned, but even Jensen sounded like he was deciding how committed he was to discipline when the captain’s girlfriend was standing on the bench clutching her arm and trying not to swear loudly enough for the athletic director to hear from his office.

Garrett didn’t wait for the answer. He turned away from the kid like the kid had temporarily lost human privileges and skated straight to the bench, one hand reaching for the boards as he came in.

His face changed before he even got to her. The captain expression didn’t vanish, but it cracked open around something sharper and warmer and much less interested in the team’s breakout structure. 

His eyes moved over her arm, her face, the way she was holding herself too still, and then he was there, close enough that the cold coming off him mixed with the heat still climbing under her skin.

“Hi,” he said, voice lower now, quick but steady. “You okay?”

She stared at him because her arm was throbbing like someone had installed a second heart in her bicep and because his idea of a greeting after witnessing blunt force trauma was apparently hi. “Do I look okay?”

His mouth pressed together for half a second. Not amused, though it wanted to be. “No.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

“Can you move your fingers?”

“I can move my fingers. I can also use one of them to communicate with your freshman if you want.”

Behind him, someone made the mistake of laughing. It was probably Dean, because Dean had a survival instinct that worked only when God intervened.

Garrett shot a look over his shoulder so lethal the sound died at once. Then he turned back and lifted one hand, stopping just short of touching her jacket sleeve. “Lemme see.”

She took a breath through her nose, then another, because the first one didn’t do anything. The pain had settled into a thick, nauseating ache now, less lightning and more pressure, heavy under the jacket in a way that made her not particularly excited to look at it. “It’s fine.”

“Baby.”

“It’s my arm, Garrett, not my skull.”

“Great. Then you can let me look at your arm before I make it a team rule that freshmen aren’t allowed near pucks without adult supervision.”

She huffed because she was trying very hard not to laugh and also trying very hard not to cry, and both efforts seemed to be meeting in the middle as pure rage. “You’re not making that a rule.”

“I might.”

“You can’t bully a freshman because he accidentally hit me.”

Garrett’s eyes flicked toward the boy again. “Watch me.”

The freshman had skated closer in that terrible way people approached accident sites, all guilt and fear and the faint hope that apologising enough times might reverse physics. He stopped a few feet away, helmet still on, stick tucked under his arm like he no longer trusted himself to hold objects. 

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to– I didn’t mean to lift it. I was aiming for the boards and it just– I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She looked at him over Garrett’s shoulder. He genuinely looked like he might throw up into his cage. It took some of the clean edge off her anger, which was rude, because she had been enjoying the simplicity of hating him for about twelve seconds. “You could’ve just said you were trying to kill me. Would’ve been less embarrassing for both of us.”

His face went even worse. “I wasn’t.”

“I know,” she said, still breathing carefully. “That was a joke. Bad time for you not to have range, bud.”

Dean muttered, “Jesus,” in a tone of deep admiration.

Garrett’s hand found her jacket zipper. “Okay, comedy hour’s done. Arm.”

She let him because arguing with Garrett when he had gone this still was usually a waste of everyone’s morning. He climbed over the boards instead of going around, which was unnecessary and dramatic and very him, skates hitting the rubber mat with a heavy clack. 

Up close he smelled like cold air and sweat and the faint plastic bite of hockey gear, his helmet still on, cheeks flushed from practice, dark eyes narrowed at her sleeve. He was careful with the zipper, though. Too careful. His gloved fingers looked ridiculous trying to handle it, so she knocked his hand away and did it herself with the offended dignity of someone who had already lost enough to this rink today.

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“I know.”

“You were hovering.”

“I am hovering. Those are different things.”

She rolled her eyes, but the movement loosened something in her chest. She got the jacket open and shrugged one shoulder down, then regretted it immediately when fabric dragged over the sore place and the pain flared bright enough to make her inhale sharply.

Garrett saw it. His jaw tightened, a muscle kicking once beside his mouth, and his hand came up to hold the jacket away from her skin while she eased her arm out of the sleeve. The hoodie underneath had taken less of the impact, soft navy fabric clinging slightly where her hand had been pressed over it. 

Garrett lifted the cuff of the sleeve, then paused. “Can I?”

She looked at him. At the way he’d gone from threatening homicide to asking before moving her sleeve past the sore place. Her throat did something stupid and warm that she immediately blamed on pain.

“Yeah,” she said.

He pushed the sleeve up gently, exposing the outside of her arm. The bruise was already coming up. The shape of it sat there under the skin, ugly and blooming, red-dark at the centre with a purple shadow starting around it like her body had taken one look at the puck and decided to create modern art. 

Garrett stared at it for one second too long. His face shut down in a way she knew too well, all the warmth pulled behind his eyes and something cold taking its place.

She looked at the bruise. Then at the freshman. “Thanks a lot. Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, smaller.

“Okay,” she said, because he was starting to look like a kicked puppy and she didn’t have the energy to carry guilt on top of blunt trauma. “I believe you. Stop looking like that. You’re making me feel like I hit you.”

Garrett didn’t look away from her arm. “Medic.”

“I can walk myself to the medic.”

“No.”

“Garrett.”

He finally looked up, and the expression on his face was so flat it would have been funny if her arm didn’t feel like it was being inflated with hot water. “I’m taking you to the fucking medic.”

“I work here.”

“You work for social media.”

“Which is part of athletics.”

“Great. Then athletics can survive without Instagram stories for ten minutes.”

Logan, from the ice, said, “Honestly, the stories are the only reason people think we’re likable.”

“Not helping,” Tucker told him.

She exhaled, long and thin, staring at Garrett because if she let him carry her off like she’d been hit by a bus she would never survive the team group chat. “Babe, it’s a bruise. A very rude bruise, but still a bruise.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know my arm is still attached.”

His hand moved lightly around the back of her elbow, not gripping, just there. “And I’m thrilled. Let’s have the medic celebrate with us.”

She glanced past him to Coach Jensen, who had finally skated over with that tired adult expression people got when they supervised twenty-one boys whose prefrontal cortices were still in beta testing. “Coach, tell him I can go by myself.”

Jensen looked at her arm, then at Garrett, then at the freshman, then up at the ceiling as if asking the rink lights why this was his life. “Graham, take her to the medic. Everyone else, water break. Benson, you’re on puck collection for the rest of practice.”

“Benson,” she said, pointing at him weakly with her good hand. “I knew it was a B name.”

Benson looked like he might cry again.

Garrett slid his helmet off and shoved it onto the bench, curls springing damp and messy around his forehead. “C’mon.”

“You still have skates on.”

“I’m aware.”

“You can’t walk me there in skates, baby. That’s not romantic. That’s a workplace incident.”

He gave her a look, then sat down hard on the bench and started unlacing like the concept of wasted time had personally betrayed him. His movements were fast, jerky with leftover adrenaline, tape and laces and pads shifting around him. 

She stood there with her jacket half off and her sleeve pushed up, arm held awkwardly away from her body, watching him strip down to socks and sneakers like he was about to perform emergency surgery in the hallway.

The boys were pretending not to watch. Badly.

Dean leaned his forearms on top of his stick, eyes bright. “This is beautiful. Really. Captaincy. Love. Workplace violence.”

Garrett didn’t look up. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, if she ever needs a new hype man for the TikTok captions, I feel like I have the range.”

She looked at Dean. “You don’t.”

“I have enormous range.”

“You once suggested we caption a win ‘puck yeah.’”

Dean frowned. “That was good.”

“That was a cry for help.”

Logan nodded solemnly. “It tested poorly with women.”

“It tested poorly with everyone,” she said.

Garrett finished with the second skate and stood, now in socks and sneakers, still in half his gear, looking broad and pissed and so intensely focused on her that the whole rink seemed to tilt around it. 

He took her jacket from where it hung off her shoulder and folded it carefully over his arm, then grabbed her camera strap before it could slide wrong against the bruise. “I’ve got it.”

“I can carry my camera.”

“Yeah. I can also carry your camera.”

“You’re being annoying.”

“I’m being calm.”

“Are you?”

“No.” He put one hand at her lower back, steering without shoving, warm through the hoodie. “Walk.”

The medic’s room sat down the hall past the locker rooms, between an equipment storage closet that smelled like damp tape and whatever corner of hell old shoulder pads came from, and a small office where someone had taped a motivational quote crookedly to the door. 

Garrett kept his hand at her back the whole way, even though she was walking fine, and every time she shifted her arm he glanced down like the bruise might change shape if he didn’t personally supervise it.

“I’m okay,” she said after the third glance, softer this time because the hallway was quieter and because anger had started draining out of her, leaving the shaky after-feeling behind. 

The pain was still there, heavy and hot, but underneath it something else had started to bloom too. It made her want to crawl inside his chest a little, which was inconvenient because she still had a job and a bruise and at least one scheduled post to make before noon.

“I know,” he said.

“You don’t look like you know.”

“I know you’re okay. I’m still allowed to be pissed.”

“At Benson?”

“At Benson. At the puck. At whoever invented rubber. I’m flexible.”

She laughed then, small and surprised, and it jostled her arm enough that she immediately winced. Garrett stopped walking.

“Don’t stop every time I make a face,” she said.

“Don’t make faces.”

“Oh, great advice. Why didn’t I think of that?”

His mouth twitched despite himself, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders. He looked down at her, eyes searching her face now instead of the injury. “It scared me.”

Her fingers found the front of his practice jersey. Holding the fabric for a second, the same way she sometimes did when he was half-dressed in his room and about to leave too early for morning skate. 

“I know,” she said. Then, because the softness felt too exposed and her arm hurt and both of them were standing there with too much feeling in a hallway that smelled like old hockey gloves, she added, “Very embarrassing for you, honestly. I was incredibly brave.”

He stared at her for half a second, and then the laugh came out of him. Quiet, rough, still edged with all the adrenaline he hadn’t put down yet. “Yeah?”

“Heroic, actually.”

“My mistake.”

“You should tell the team.”

“I’ll make an announcement.”

“Good.”

The medic, a woman named Paula who had been dealing with Briar athletes long enough to develop the emotional range of a war general and the patience of a kindergarten teacher, looked up from her desk when Garrett opened the door without knocking. 

Her eyes went to him first, then to his gear, then to the camera around his neck, then to the way his hand was still hovering near the small of her back.

“Oh, good,” Paula said dryly. “A Graham emergency. My favourite kind.”

“She got hit with a puck,” Garrett said.

“I can see that, Captain Panic.”

Garrett frowned. “I’m not panicking.”

Paula looked at him over the top of her glasses. “You’re wearing one skate sock and you have a camera on you.”

She looked down. Garrett did, too. One of his sneakers was tied properly. The other was shoved on over a white skate sock with the edge bunched weirdly above the heel. His jaw shifted, and for one glorious second he looked annoyed at his own feet.

She started laughing. “Oh my God.”

Garrett pointed at her gently, betrayed. “You’re injured. Don’t laugh at me.”

“You look insane.”

Paula gestured to the chair beside the exam table. “Sit down, sweetheart, before he starts foaming at the mouth.”

Garrett muttered something under his breath but helped her out of the hoodie anyway, slow around the sore arm, his fingers careful at the cuff.

Paula examined the bruise with competent, unfussy hands, pressing lightly around the edges while she clenched her teeth and tried not to kick Garrett in the shin when he made a low, unhappy noise from beside her.

“Graham,” Paula said without looking up. “Do that again and I’ll send you back to practice.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Paula hummed, prodded once more, asked her to bend and straighten her elbow, rotate her wrist, squeeze her fingers. The movement pulled at the bruise and made the pain throb harder, but nothing felt wrong in the deep, frightening way. 

“Deep contusion,” Paula said finally, reaching for an ice pack. “No obvious signs of fracture. You’ll bruise like hell. Ice it today, anti-inflammatory if you need it, come back if the pain gets worse, if you get numbness, tingling, trouble moving the arm, anything weird.”

Garrett took the ice pack before Paula had fully held it out.

Paula looked at him. “Sure. Do my job.”

“I’ve got it.”

“I can hold ice on my own arm,” she said.

Garrett placed it carefully against the bruise anyway, his hand beneath hers, cold biting through the thin towel wrapped around it. “Humour me.”

She looked at him, at the stubborn set of his mouth, at the little crease still sitting between his brows, at his ridiculous half-dressed practice gear and one messed-up sock and the camera strap cutting diagonally across his chest.

There was something deeply unfair about being hurt and wanting to make fun of him and wanting to kiss him all at once.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said.

His eyes lifted to hers, and some of the captain loosened out of his face at last, replaced by the Garrett grin that had ruined several parts of her life and improved most of them. “Cute?”

“Very.”

His thumb moved once along the safe skin beneath her elbow, small and absent and steady. She could feel his adrenaline leaving him now, not all at once, but by degrees. In the way his hand stopped hovering and settled. In the way his breathing changed. In the way his eyes stayed on her face instead of the bruise, like he was finally letting himself believe her body wasn’t about to betray him with some delayed consequence he should have prevented.

From somewhere down the hall, the rink door banged open and the guys’ voices spilled out, loud and echoing. Dean was saying something about OSHA. Logan was laughing. Tucker, probably, was trying to make sure Benson hadn’t actually changed his major out of shame.

She sighed. “I should go back. I still need B-roll.”

Garrett’s face went flat again. “No.”

“Garrett.”

“You got hit by a puck and you want B-roll?”

She shot him a look. “I have a content calendar.”

“You have a bruise the size of Vermont.”

She bit the inside of her cheek because smiling made him think he was winning, and he was already insufferable enough without encouragement. “I need to finish practice footage.”

“I’ll get you footage.”

That did it. She stared at him, then at the camera still around his neck, then back at him. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“You think you can shoot usable social content?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “I know angles.”

“You know your angles.”

“Those are the important ones.”

She laughed, and he smiled properly this time, proud of himself for getting it out of her even though she immediately winced again. His free hand came up to steady the ice pack when it shifted.

“Baby,” he said, softer. “Let Logan film if you want. Or Dean. Or one of the media interns. You’re done for the morning.”

“I’m your social media manager.”

“You’re my girlfriend with a big ass bruise.”

“I’m both.”

His eyes held hers, the humour still there, but something steadier under it. “The girlfriend part wins today.”

The fight had gone out of her in the medic’s chair, drained by pain and cold and the warmth of his hand still careful beneath her elbow. She looked down at the ice pack, then at the purple-red edge of the bruise peeking around it, and let out a breath.

“One story,” she said.

Garrett’s mouth twitched. “What?”

“I’m posting one story. A workplace injury story. For transparency.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

She reached for the camera strap around his chest, tugging lightly until he leaned down because he thought she wanted the camera back. Instead she kissed the corner of his mouth, quick and warm and just enough to make his expression soften before he could stop it.

“One story,” she repeated against his skin.

His eyes narrowed. “You’re using affection as a negotiation tactic.”

“Yes.”

“That’s manipulative.”

“I learned from the best.”

Paula, from the desk, said, “I’m begging you both to leave.”

So Garrett took her back down the hall with the ice pack held to her arm and the camera still around his neck like some absurd badge of temporary employment.

The team was clustered near the bench when they returned, all of them looking over with varying degrees of guilt, concern, and barely contained entertainment. Benson stood in the middle of them holding a bucket of pucks like a penitent farmhand.

“How are you?” Tucker asked first, because Tucker had been raised correctly.

“Bruised,” she said before Garrett could make it sound like she’d narrowly survived combat. “Not dying. Everyone can unclench.”

Dean’s eyes dropped to Garrett’s camera. “Oh, this is incredible.”

“Don’t,” Garrett warned.

“No, no, I love it. Graham’s in his influencer era.”

Logan grinned. “Get ready with me: captain abandons practice to yell at freshman.”

Benson swallowed. “I really am sorry.”

She looked at him for a second, then sighed and held out her good hand for the puck bucket. He gave it to her automatically, confused. She took one puck from the top, turned it in her fingers, then held it up beside her bruised arm with the ice pack balanced awkwardly against her.

“Garrett,” she said. “Story.”

“No.”

“Take the picture.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Take the picture or I’m letting Dean do it, and he’ll use portrait mode.”

Dean’s hand shot up. “I would.”

Garrett looked between her, Dean, the puck, the bruise, and Benson’s devastated face. Then he muttered, “Fuck’s sake,” lifted the camera, and took the picture.

She checked it afterward with the professional severity of a woman who had been struck by a projectile and still refused to post ugly content. It was good.

Garrett might have been annoying and overprotective and entirely too pleased with himself half the time, but he had still managed to get the composition right. Ice pack, puck, edge of the bruise, Briar logo blurred faintly behind her shoulder. Ridiculous. Perfect.

She uploaded it to the story with one hand while Garrett watched over her shoulder like a suspicious parent. When the caption went live, half the bench erupted.

Dean read it aloud, delighted. “Hazard pay when?”

Logan leaned over his stick, laughing. “That’s fair.”

Tucker shook his head, smiling. “You’re never getting approved for rinkside access again.”

Coach Jensen blew the whistle once, sharp enough to make all of them jump. “Practice. Now. Graham, if you’re done running a hospital wing, join us.”

Garrett looked at her instead of moving. “You staying here?”

“I’m sitting on the bench with my ice like a brave little soldier.”

“Don’t film.”

“I might film.”

“Baby.”

She smiled up at him, all innocence and bruised arm and absolutely no intention of being easy about any of this. “Go do your job, Captain.”

He leaned down, kissed her once on the forehead because he’d decided to embarrass both of them in front of the entire team, then pulled back just enough to look at her properly. “You need anything, you tell me.”

“I need you to go skate before Coach kills you.”

“Anything else.”

She lifted the ice pack slightly. “Maybe ask Benson not to assassinate any more staff members.”

“I heard that,” Benson said weakly.

“Good,” Garrett said, and put his helmet back on.

He climbed over the boards and dropped onto the ice with that easy, athletic movement. Before he pushed off, he looked back once. She was still on the bench, jacket around her shoulders, ice pressed to her arm, camera in her lap, pain pulsing ugly but manageable beneath the cold.

She gave him a tiny thumbs up with her good hand.

Garrett shook his head like she was a problem, but he was smiling when he turned back to the drill.Something small and private, still caught at the corner of his mouth as he skated toward centre ice, captain again by the time he reached the line.

Dean coasted beside him and said something she couldn’t hear. Garrett shoved him lightly without looking. She lifted the camera with one hand and filmed it anyway.

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You’ve been best friends with Garrett for years, he’s one of the first people you met when you were a freshman at Briar U. You clicked, connected, had a lot of the same classes and circles of friends. It’s always been something easy—like wearing your favorite sweater, or falling asleep. Something expected and automatic. Garrett is someone who’s been warm, dependable, loyal and there. He’s the person you turn to when you need advice or a shoulder to cry on, there’s no one better to dance with, to jump around and sing too loud, to join a drinking game with because you know you’re going to win with him by your side. You’d choose him time and time again; a whispered promise, a hand in the dark. 

Every single time. 

And yet—

“Not my business?” He asks, raising his eyebrows, “It became my business when we sat in there with that dumbfuck,” He points to the large windows of Malone’s, “and he didn’t know when your birthday was.” 

You swallow, wrapping your arms around yourself. You try to convince yourself that it’s cold, that there’s a breeze scraping by and getting through the thin layer of the puffy sweater you have on, but you know better. Unease skitters through your bloodstream like spiders. You hate that Garrett is bringing this up again. 

And you hate that he’s right. 

Tonight was supposed to be a chill night, hanging out with some of Garrett’s teammates who are your friends too, their girlfriends, your other friends and the guy you’ve been seeing for a month, Mark. Mark, who Garrett can’t stand and has been very clear on this fact ever since he met him. Which you just…you don’t understand. Yeah, Mark has his moments, but he’s…he’s a decent guy? 

One of the topics that had been brought up at dinner was your birthday. You had a huge party last year and Dean was wondering if it was business as usual for the weekend. Mark had asked if it was this upcoming weekend and Garrett had looked like he was ready to throw a napkin dispenser at his head. 

“Okay so—what, you’re the only person who hasn’t forgotten anything?” 

Garrett sighs impatiently from his nose, “Don’t,” He says after a moment, “C’mon, sunshine, Mark didn’t forget, he never knew when your birthday was. I bet you he still doesn’t know.” 

Sunshine. A nickname you’re so used to hearing coming from Garrett’s mouth. Something he’s called you for years now, ever since he teased you about always having a sunny disposition—it, for whatever reason, is making the bridge of your nose sting. 

“What are you doing?” Garrett asks, taking a step forward. His voice is strained; a frustrated hand winding through his curls, “Why are you wasting your time with this guy?” 

That same heat you felt before prickles underneath your skin. You know that Garrett is asking from a place of concern, even though his stance is unyielding and his voice is sharp. He cares about you and he’s frustrated because of it. But you hate the feeling of existing underneath a microscope, like you’re the only person in the history of ever to be in a relationship with someone where there was a hint of imbalance. As if everyone Garrett’s ever been with, which aren’t many if we’re being honest, were somehow perfect. 

“Okay,” You shake your head, a wet laugh falling from your lips. You can’t look at him, a thin vibration of an emotion you can’t name causing a slight tremble in your voice, “Just because Mark isn’t some sort of Briar U hockey legend doesn’t mean I’m wasting my time.” 

The argument lacks evidence and purpose and you know it. Garrett knows it. You know that Garrett knows it. You can feel him walk closer to you even though you’re not looking at him. Your bodies are like magnets, you can sense him even when far away. 

He reaches out and touches the pink fluffiness of your sweater, playing with the fabric between his fingers. You close your eyes when his fingers brush along your chin, knowing he wants you to look at him. You steel yourself, biting down so hard you swear you hear your molars crack. 

But your eyes find his hazel ones. A port in the storm, even now. 

“You know I don’t give a shit if he plays hockey,” Garrett replies quietly, voice and gaze softer than before. “I give a shit about you.” 

A breath skitters out of your lungs, your heartbeat hammering against your ribcage. And despite the fact that you know this, that it’s no different than things he’s said to you before, it feels too real, too sharp against your body. His words are like a knife sliding into all of your soft parts. 

“Well don’t,” You snap, pulling back from him. You wrap your sweater further around your body, turning on your heel, “I can take care of myself.” You walk away, keeping your gaze forward and your feet moving so that you don’t do something stupid—like allowing Garrett to hug you, like changing your mind. 

—

There’s radio silence from Garrett for the next two days. Which is…which is fine. That’s what you wanted, right? That’s what you asked for? When you put your phone down for the third time, it lands with a noisy clatter. You’re annoyed with yourself that you can’t just be the bigger person and reach out to him. Soft shame licks against your nerve endings —I can take care of myself. 

Fuck. 

“Where’s your head at?” Mark asks, turning your attention towards him. 

You’re at a bar, supposed to be on a date, but you’re definitely not the best company right now. And he can sense it. You swallow and turn your body to face him on the stool, a tight smile spreading across your face. 

“Sorry I’m here. Just some stuff on my mind.” 

“For your birthday?” He has another onion ring, wiping his mouth with a napkin. For some reason the act of him eating food, his attention wholeheartedly on the appetizer instead of you digs under your skin. You clear your throat, tapping your fingers against the bar. 

“Yeah, sort of.” 

He smiles, his hand coming down on your thigh. You try not to flinch. “I was thinking babe, forget some sort of big thing. You know? We could have a romantic getaway. Just the two of us.” 

You blink at him, your mouth opening but no words spilling out. Then, “I can’t do that to my friends.” 

He has another onion ring, raising his eyebrows, “I mean, it’s your birthday. It’s your decision—you don’t have to throw a ridiculous party just for them.” 

A pain pings in your chest at the word ridiculous. The thing is, it’s not like your friends just want another excuse to party (though you’re not going to pretend that some of them definitely enjoy the prospect), at the end of the day, they want to celebrate you. 

Emotion clogs the back of your throat and you struggle to speak for a moment, licking your lips. Your thoughts wander back to last year, the party you had, the cake Garrett went out of his way to make sure he got for you from that bakery a town over. 

You can’t imagine having your birthday without him. 

The audacity of Mark who— “Mhm,” You hum, pausing, then— “And when’s my birthday?” 

Mark crumples the napkin in his hand, “What do you mean?” You stare at him. Oh my god. “It’s this weekend.” 

No, it’s not. It’s Friday. As in tomorrow. You’re just planning the bulk of the celebration for the weekend. 

Something akin to disappointment swirls in your chest, though you’re not sure why. Why would Mark remember your birthday when you just brought it up at Malone’s? The thought that all of this caused a stupid fight between you and Garrett swirls like acid behind your chest, dipping into your stomach, making you nauseous. 

You shake your head, pulling back from the bar, “I have to go.” You slide off the stool. 

Mark frowns, “Wait, what?” 

You draw in a breath, trying to keep yourself from shaking, “I’m breaking up with you. I should have done it sooner.” 

Before you can slip away from the bar, Mark’s hand comes down on your forearm, yanking you back into place. You wince, trying to pull your arm out of his grasp. You open your mouth to say something but he talks over you, gaze suddenly blazing—apparently he did not see this coming, “Don’t be a fucking brat.” 

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” You snap. 

“Let her go.” The bartender’s voice sounds, causing Mark to immediately drop your arm. He continues to ask if you need a ride called but you don’t stick around long enough to reply. 

Mark can pick up the tab; it’ll keep him inside a little longer as you begin walking down the street, just wanting to put distance in-between you and your ex. You debate calling a ride to head back to your place but…distantly, you know there’s only one place you want to be. Only one person you want to see. 

Tugging out your phone, you tap on Garrett’s message thread, 

y/n: are you home? 

—

It’s late by the time you’re walking up the steps of the off-campus house that Garrett and a few other of his teammates live in, but he’s already opening the door. In a pair of black sweatpants and t-shirt to match, he doesn’t ask questions as you walk over the threshold. The fact that he doesn’t say a word, that he just guides you into the kitchen with a gentle hand on your back, has to be chipping away at his well-practiced control. 

Garrett sits you at the island counter, moving towards the fridge. There’s a pint of ice cream in his hands a second later and two spoons, setting them down in front of you. His movements are calm and gentle, the only thing giving away the storm brewing inside is the occasional flexing of the muscle in his jaw and the flaring of his nostrils. 

But still he doesn’t ask. He just pulls a stool up beside you. And waits. 

You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve him up at a ridiculous hour when he was probably sleeping, giving you ice cream and caring about you after the last thing you said to him. Tears sting the back of your eyelids and with trembling fingers, you reach for the ice cream container. 

“Just have this on hand, do you?” You ask, voice cracking. 

Garrett lets out a slow breath, peeling it open when your hands keep fumbling. “I think we both know emergency ice cream is a must.” He picks up a spoon, scraping it over the chocolate to spoonful a bite into his mouth, “Pretty sure it was in the bylaws of the friendship contract we signed.” 

Your lips twitch, “I must have missed that page.” 

He scoffs, “It was on the same page that mentioned you being unable to sleep without an extra pillow against your back and that you consider chocolate ice cream to be the only acceptable dessert…otherwise you’d rather have mozz sticks from Malone’s. You didn’t miss it.” 

A sudden swell of emotion crashes into you like a physical wave, your hand coming up to cover your face. Fuck. Fuck. Garrett knows you well, he knows you so well and—and the fact that you’d been so angry at him for calling out something you should have been brave enough to say to Mark yourself…

You hate that your anger was so misplaced. You lashed out at Garrett not because he knew you, but because he knew you better than someone you were dating. 

How fucking embarrasing. 

“Hey no,” Garrett says gently, putting the spoon down, “Don’t do that.” His stool skids along the floor as he stands, moving to shift right beside you. When he pulls your hand away from your face, a shuddered sob slips out of your mouth. 

“Come here.” He whispers, tugging you against his chest. Because of the height difference, your head tucks itself underneath his collarbone, his firm arms wrapping around your back. He keeps you close, an open palm up and down your spine while the other tucks itself against your hair. 

You can feel his nose and lips press into your temple, his breath hot as he lets out a long sigh from his nose. Your fingers dig into his t-shirt, grounding yourself in his presence, the familiar scent of his cologne mixing with laundry detergent and something purely Garrett reaching into the branches of your lungs. 

This is not the first time you’ve cried so openly in front of Garrett and you know it won’t be the last, either, but some part of you hates knowing that this never would have happened in the first place if you just would have listened to what your friend was trying to tell you. 

Garrett only pulls back when he senses you’re ready, tipping his chin down to try and catch your gaze. 

You shake your head, his thumb dragging across your cheek to catch a tear track, “I’m sorry.” 

His eyebrows draw together and he reaches for a napkin on the counter to hand you, “You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

A small laugh escapes, the back of your neck heating along with your cheeks because really? “I kinda do.” 

His voice is firm, fingers on your chin again so your gaze meets his, “You really don’t.” 

Garrett pulls your stool closer to his own with his foot before he sits down again, handing you the extra spoon on the counter. His body is angled to face yours, his knee bumping into your leg. He does a playful cheers motion by tapping his spoon into the one you have, making a small smile pull into your face. 

“You gonna tell me what happened? Cause using my imagination isn’t helping.” 

You use the napkin on your face, tucking it into one of your pockets before spooning some chocolate ice cream into your mouth. Part of you really doesn’t want to tell him. You know that in all aspects of things that could have happened, it could have been worse. But…that same sort of sensation of shame wraps around you like barbed wire as you recall the interaction between you and Mark. Garrett is not the type of person to say I told you so; at least not about this. But you can still feel that ugly sentiment pressing against your throat at having to tell him what happened. 

“You don’t have to,” Garrett adds when you remain silent, “If it’s—” 

“No,” You interrupt, shaking your head. “I’m just…” You let out a long sigh, curling your hair around your ear, “I’m just embarrassed, that’s all. I should have listened to you.” 

“And if this were any other situation, I would ask you to repeat that sentence.” 

You roll your eyes, encouraging a soft laugh to leave his chest. The sound warms you from the inside out. 

“But,” He continues, “That’s not what this is.” He bumps you with his knee, drawing your attention to his face. When your gaze meets his, he offers you a small smile, “You can talk to me, sunshine. You know that.” 

You do know that. So you tell him about being at the bar. About Mark wanting the birthday celebration to just be you and him, how he was insistent on leaving your friends out. And then about how it got worse—about how, even after all of this, he still didn’t know what day your birthday was, and how when you tried to break up with him—

“He was just being a dick, almost wouldn’t let me leave the bar.” Your fingers rub absently at your wrist. 

Garrett clocks the movement, slowly setting his spoon down near the carton, “Do we think he’s still there? At the bar?” 

Your hand comes down on Garrett’s arm before he can stand up, “It doesn’t matter if he is, don’t even think about it.” 

He purses his lips, standing as if his intention was always to put his spoon in the sink, “No idea what you’re talking about.” 

You have one more scoop of ice cream before putting the lid on it, carrying it over to the freezer to put away, “Mark isn’t worth it.” 

Garrett catches your hand, gently smoothing his fingers over the red marks on your forearm. His nostrils flare again as he draws in a breath but his eyes are calm and warm. “No,” He agrees, “He’s not.” 

The air feels filled with static electricity connecting both of your bodies and for a second you…your gaze finds Garrett’s mouth. There’s this moment where you think about how Garrett never liked Mark, about that argument outside of Malone’s, how maybe it had nothing to do with your ex not remembering your birthday and everything to do with something else. Something that’s clearly simmering for you both directly under the surface, that’s been there the whole time and you didn’t see it until now. 

Your stomach flips. It’d be so easy to close the distance, to lean and kiss him.

“Sunshine,” Garrett says gently, his hand falling onto your shoulder to stop you from—

“Oh my god,” You take a step back, your hand covering your mouth, “I’m sorry, I don’t know…” 

“No,” Garrett says quickly, reaching for you before you can do something drastic like…rush out of the house. Heat gathers along the back of your neck and flutters your pulse as Garrett hooks his hand behind your elbow. “We’re very much on the same page,” He promises, “I just don’t want to kiss you while you’re upset over another guy.” 

It’s not the worst let-down you’ve ever heard and besides…Garrett’s right. Tonight might have unlocked something in you but it wouldn’t be fair to take time to decompress, to push everything into these wee hours of the morning.

Garrett leans down and plants a kiss to your cheekbone, “C’mon, I’ll get you settled upstairs.” 

He offers you a hand that you take; one of the easiest things you’ve ever done. 

—

You sleep in Garrett’s bed, which isn’t completely out of the ordinary. What is different, however, is how you’re woken up. 

Sunlight streams in through the curtains and there’s quiet shuffling before a weight sinks in beside your knee. It takes you a moment to fully wake up, to realize what’s going on. You drag a hand over your face, squinting before Garrett slowly comes into focus. 

He’s dressed comfortably, a t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair slightly damp like he recently showered. Drowsiness lingers before you realize he’s holding a chocolate cupcake in his hand, a skinny green candle sticking out of it. 

He smiles, “Morning sunshine.” 

Shifting in bed, you lean back against a small stack of pillows. “What’s this?” You raise your eyebrows. 

“This?” He asks, pursing his lips, “Birthday cupcake.” 

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip and you touch the tip of the unlit candle, “Tucker?” 

Garrett’s mouth opens in mock offense before he laughs, the sound making your stomach flutter, “Okay, contrary to having a chef in the house, I can make things without burning the kitchen down.” 

A breath catches in your throat, your eyes falling to the chocolate cupcake with white icing and tiny pink sprinkles, “You got up and made these?” There’s a sensation building in your chest like a rolling wave, utterly touched that Garrett would do something like this. Especially when you showed up last night out of the blue, freshly broken up with fucking Mark. 

Garrett remembers things easily—things that matter to you. Things that remind you that you’re not difficult to love. 

“Well…” He trails off, “If you don’t want it…” He pretends he’s going to get up. 

You quickly gather his shirt in your hands, pulling him close. His smile is wide again, eyes warm, “I want it.” You insist, then, “Guess what my wish is.” 

Wearing a silky black slip dress and a jean jacket, paired with your favorite high-top Converse, you head through the open front door of where your brother stays with some of his hockey teammates. You smile when you spot Dean and Logan playing an intense game of air hockey, moving towards the kitchen to see if you can find your brother or anyone else you might recognize. The place is packed, bodies shuffling through various states of being drunk. There’s too loud laughter and conversation and the utter, familiar chaos pulls the corners of your lips up in amusement. 

Shifting past a couple that won’t stop making out against the fridge, you peruse the open bottles of liquor, grabbing a random red cup to look in. Seems clean…ish. Before you can pour something inside of it, a hand comes from your right and yanks it right out of your hand. 

“I wouldn’t, ribbit.” 

You roll your eyes towards the ceiling at the familiar nickname that’s been yours for the past three years. Turning, you lean your body against the counter, face to face with Garrett Graham.

Hockey legend. Your brother’s best friend. Your utter pain in the ass—and completely off limits (and probably out of your league). 

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” 

Garrett purses his lips, pretending to think about it, “You ever going to stop rescuing frogs roadside?” 

Your cheeks flush, “That was one time.” 

He smiles, something warm and affectionate that reaches directly between your ribs and threatens to tug them apart. You’ve known Garrett as long as you’ve had the nickname, as long as your brother’s been going to school here. They’re both on the same hockey team and became close friends. Garrett has been to family dinners, he’s been to holidays, he’s gotten you birthday and Christmas gifts, he’s comforted you over ex boyfriends who didn’t deserve your attention, he’s walked you to your car on late nights at Malone’s, he’s bought you coffee with that sixth sense that knows when you need a pick-me-up, he’s shared inside jokes and driven you home when you were too drunk to get there yourself. Hence the frog nickname. 

One ride a few years ago, one frog in the middle of the road rescued, one nickname tied loosely to your entire being forever. 

You can pretend you hate it. But you don’t. 

You glance down at the closed can of alcoholic seltzer as it’s placed into your hand, “I saved you a grape one.” 

You really hate that, however. How thoughtful Garrett is, how kind and silly and funny he can be. It’s truly unfair. That you’re friends with someone your brother considers his bestie and that he…he can’t be anything else to you. You’re pretty sure your brother wouldn’t care but Garrett doesn’t see you like that. Why would he? 

It’s a bad day to have eyes. You trail them over his form, trying not to be obvious. He’s wearing something that shouldn't be so groundbreaking, and yet the black jeans paired with a simple black tee somehow makes your entire body throb. Heat skitters right through your veins like liquid honey, gaze snagging on the gold chain he’s always got on resting on his sternum and tight curls brushing against his forehead. 

Your fingers itch to tuck them out of the way. You instead pop the seltzer can open; much safer. “Thanks. Have you seen my brother?” 

Garrett inclines his head down the hallway, “Think he’s outside losing in a game of flip-cup.” 

“Amateur.” 

His chest rumbles with a laugh and he reaches to tug the end of your jean jacket, pulling you closer. You convince yourself it’s so that you can hear him over the loud music, “You want to be on my team then? We’ll crush him.” 

“Oh so you want an easy win, captain?” You tease, “That doesn’t sound like you.” 

Garrett scoffs, leaning his head down, eliminating the height difference that he has over you. You draw a breath into your lungs, ignoring how the cologne mixed with familiar laundry detergent slips straight up your nose, 

“Just one time won’t hurt, will it ribbit?” 

Despite your better judgement, you find yourself smiling.

—

As suspected, you absolutely dominate flip-cup. There’s three rounds and a lot of laughter and when you get to the finish line (again, utterly victorious), you tip the contents of the red cup (which you’ve filled with the grape seltzer that Garrett gave you) past your lips. There’s obnoxious cheering and arms over your shoulders and you’re giggling at your brother gaping at you from his third cup (two behind). 

“You didn’t tell me that’s what you were going to college for,” He tosses out but he’s laughing. “Professor of Flip-cup.” 

“Shut up,” You laugh at the play-on words for the teaching degree you’re going after, shaking your head as you set the cup down. 

You feel a gaze tied to you, like the pull on some sort of invisible string, glancing up to the other end of the table where Garrett is watching with a fond smile. He crinkles his nose, making a soft laugh flutter out of your chest before your attention has to go back to your brother—who is stumbling towards you and placing both of his hands on your shoulders. 

“I’d say you cheated but I feel like that goes against sibling comradery." 

You shake your head, “You’re the only person I know who can use ‘comradery’ in a sentence while fucked up.” It’s practically been straight liquor in the other cups he was playing with, “How bout some water?” 

He shakes his head, taking a step back and nearly drawing you over with him, “Don’t kill my buzz.” 

Another laugh spills out, “What about enjoying your buzz horizontally?” You look over your shoulder to call for Garrett but he’s already there, a warm weight behind you, reaching for your brother’s one arm. 

“C’mon, let’s get you to your room, champ.” 

You skirt under Garrett’s grasp, letting him step forward to support your brother’s weight by guiding his arm around his shoulders. Tucker, nearby, steps in on the other side to help. You smile gratefully at them, following them inside as your brother rambles about the unfairness of his younger sister beating him in flip-cup. 

“Has to be against the rules somehow.” He grumbles. 

“She’s like a year younger than you, dude.” Garrett defends your honor with a laugh before you can step in. He tosses you a wink and then helps your brother maneuver the steps towards the upstairs bedrooms. 

A soft hum leaves your chest, wanting to follow them but then realizing it’d probably be best if you got your brother some aspirin. There really is nothing worse than a hangover. You wander towards the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water and the bottle of pills before heading upstairs. When you get to the doorway of your brother’s room, you can hear him talking to Garrett, which is somehow him thanking his bed for not spinning like the entire room is. 

But then you catch the tailend of another comment— “Keep an eye on her. Please? She’s—” 

Garrett is quiet a moment before you can picture him nodding, “Yeah, you know I will.” 

You swallow over something familiar that curls up from your stomach, something that gets caught in your throat and tastes too much like acid. You try to blame it on the amount of alcoholic seltzers you’ve had but you know it’s not that. The thing is, comments like that between your brother and Garrett shouldn’t bother you. Your brother has always been protective of you; you’re incredibly close, you look out for one another. You’ve got matching feather tattoos on your arms because ‘birds of a feather flock together’. 

It’s not what he says, exactly. It’s moreso…it’s Garrett’s reply. 

Garrett, who’s always been your friend too in a lot of ways. Him keeping an eye on you shouldn’t dig under your skin either. There’s nothing wrong with that, with Garrett having your back. But it’s…it’s because your brother asks, because you’re the ‘little sister’ in this situation, because Garrett is unwillingly making you sound like some sort of responsibility he has to take on—

It feels like bugs crawling under your skin. It feels like disappointment and guilt. It feels like feelings never reciprocated sagging like a heavy load. 

Turning to head back downstairs, you disappear into the havoc of the downstairs party before Garrett and Tucker come out of the bedroom. 

—

Despite the sourness sitting in the bottom of your belly, you spend the night with other friends. There are plenty of girls that also go to Briar U that you’ve interacted with over the years, a solid three faces that you wish you saw a lot more often than you did. Going to a different school usually doesn’t bother you, even though you feel like you have a lot more connections here than your own college. It’s not too far from Briar U, but the small distance is probably a blessing in disguise …otherwise it’d probably be way more obvious that you have a crush on someone you can never have. 

You’re not saying you don’t believe you’re a catch for anyone who might want you, it’s not that at all. You consider yourself someone who’s pretty and smart and capable of standing up for themselves. You don’t take shit from anyone, you laugh freely, you enjoy what you enjoy without apologizing for it. But…

Sometimes it feels like Garrett is so far out of your league, someone who fills up an entire room without trying, who smiles easily and flirts and makes jokes that shouldn’t be funny but somehow are. He’s gorgeous—dark bedroom eyes, tall with broad shoulders, someone filled out athletically thanks to years of training his body, and curly hair that is somehow never styled yet always attractively a mess. Unfair really. Because it’s not just his looks, which somehow makes it worse. He’s a gentleman; he’s thoughtful and actually listens to you when you talk; he remembers things, things you’d never think were important but are. He’s kind and soft and incredibly loyal. 

And…

And he’ll probably never see you as someone other than your brother’s younger sister. 

Your smile is pulled into a full grin when your friend, Mya, tugs your arm above your head to spin you on the dance floor. A laugh leaves your chest, the bass of the music pulsing and living under your skin. You close your eyes to it, moving along with the beat, taking a shot from your other friend Stella when she hands them out. 

You tip it back, a cough following, shaking your head as you set the small cup down. The liquor sits like a weight in your belly and you know you should balance it out with water, not wanting to be completely trashed at this party. The last thing you want to do is have to spend the night by sleeping on the couch (questionable) or on the floor in your brother’s room (uncomfortable). 

You pull yourself away from your friends, slipping into the kitchen. You’ve lost your jean jacket a while ago, just the slip dress clinging to the curves of your body. You hum, running a hand along the side of your neck, reaching for a clean cup in the cabinet to grab yourself some cold water from the fridge. 

A body comes up behind you, too close, almost pressing into your spine. You turn a little, frowning at the unfamiliar guy that’s standing near you like he knows you. You blink, sipping on your water, leaning your back into the counter, 

“Sorry, did you need in the fridge?” You ask. 

He shakes his head, his gaze slipping down your body. He’s handsome in that sort of cookie-cutter way—short brunette hair, glazed blue eyes, full lips. He’s drunk or high, or a combination of the two, grinning lazily at you in a suggestiveness that makes your stomach clench. 

Clearing your throat, you’re intent on moving but he sidesteps you, his body blocking your own. He’s much taller than you, towering in a way that’s supposed to make you feel small. And you hate that it does. “I saw you dancing. Those moves are something else.” 

Your eyebrows draw together, not bothering thanking this guy for a terrible pick-up line, “Yeah,” You clear your throat, “Well, if you’ll excuse me.” 

“Wait, I was thinking you could teach me some moves—” His hand comes down onto the counter, boxing you in. 

“No,” You cut him off.  A full sentence. You don’t owe him an explanation. 

Which he clearly doesn’t like; his entire demeanor changes. His eyebrows draw together, his hand wrapping around your wrist, “Don’t be fucking rude.” 

You open your mouth to say something else, trying to pull your arm out of his grasp but Garrett comes up behind him, seemingly out of nowhere. He clamps a hand down on his shoulder, yanking him backwards. He’s at least a head taller than this guy, manhandling him like a ragdoll. 

“Are you deaf?” His voice is as cold and unforgiving as ice, “Because she was pretty clear with the word ‘no’.” 

You draw in a breath, your heartbeat in your ears because despite holding your ground, you hate that you were beginning to feel panicked. Even though the party is packed, even though you know people here, no one enjoys the feeling of being ignored, of being backed into a corner. Claustrophobia unwinds from your ribs as Garrett creates that distance again between you and this asshole. He steps closer as silent support, yet doesn’t invade your space. 

The guy stumbles back, annoyed and scoffing in your direction, “Maybe tell your girlfriend not to wear a dress that’s an open invitation next time.” 

You can tell the exact moment that Garrett sees red. His nostrils flare, his shoulders straighten, the muscle in his jaw flexes and even though you’re reaching for him, even though you’re saying his name, Garrett turns in a quick snap. His fist goes flying, connecting with this dick’s nose. You wince, hearing the crunch of bone, the guy folding like a cheap shirt. He crumples into the island counter, whining about his face and you reach out to gently wrap your arm around Garrett’s forearm to keep him in place. 

“Fucking bitch.” The jerk spits, though you’re not sure if it’s directed at you or Garrett. You hold onto him just in case, not wanting things to get worse. 

Garrett’s chest is heaving, barely controlled anger once again fizzling directly underneath the surface, “Get the fuck out of my house.” 

Nearby, Dean and Logan hear the commotion and what Garrett says. They reach for the idiot who’s moaning about his nose and hustle him towards the front door. Swallowing over an emotion in your throat, you tug on the bottom of Garrett’s shirt. 

“Garrett.” 

But he won’t stop watching the guy getting kicked out of his house, like he needs to see it in order for it to be true. You reach up on your toes, touching his jawline. His gaze instantly comes back to you, softening when he realizes how shaken up you are. Putting on a tough front is one thing but…you can’t hide the after effects of adrenaline crackling underneath your skin. 

Your fingers tremble as you trail them along his cheek, eyeing his knuckles, “You’re bleeding.” 

He flexes his fingers, shrugging his one shoulder. He doesn’t talk for a moment and you wonder if that’s because he’s still too angry. You’ve seen him like this a handful of times on the ice, the way a shadow passes over his eyes, the way it lives on his face, like it’s somehow sucking the life out of him. You know about the relationship with his dad, the broken pieces that his parents have left behind, the way Garrett thinks that no one will be able to handle those shards with their bare hands. 

You guide his chin between your fingers, forcing him to look at you, “Come with me.” 

“I’m fine.” He manages to say. 

“Did I make it sound like it was a choice?” 

A flutter of a smile pulls the corners of Garrett’s mouth, the tension in his shoulders dissipating as he nods and follows you towards the bathroom. You step to the side so that he enters first and once you’re inside, you close the door behind you. 

Motioning him to lean against the sink, you draw in a breath that centers your nerves, trying to ignore how massive Garrett feels tucked into this space with you. His tall and lean body rests against the sink, flexing his fingers again as he looks at his bloody knuckles. You tap his leg so he shifts and you’re able to look under the sink for washcloths—perfect. 

“You’re okay?” He asks. 

A small smile at your success lives on your features as you wet the washcloth in warm water. You can feel Garrett’s gaze on your face, tracing over your form. It’s intimate in a way you wish it wasn’t. You clear your throat, moving to stand in front of him, gently picking up his large hand in yours to look at his knuckles. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You assure him, the shaking from before mostly disappearing. “You didn’t need to do that.” 

A scoff leaves his throat, “Don’t, ribbit.” 

“I’m serious. I can take care of myself.” 

And you don’t think Garrett is somehow questioning that? Maybe it’s not about that at all. His eyebrows draw together and he winces as you begin cleaning his knuckles, “I’m not gonna let any asshole talk to you like that. I’m just not.” 

Distantly, you know that’s not what set Garrett off in the first place; that this guy put his hands on you and wouldn’t take ‘no’ as an answer. Could you have handled it? Probably. Was it good that Garrett stepped in? 

You nod softly, letting out a slow breath, “Would hate for you to do something stupid like break your fingers on an asshole’s face, lose your prince of hockey reputation.” 

A laugh slips out of his mouth, seeming to wrap around your entire body with warmth, “Oh so you think I’m a prince.” 

Your cheeks flush and you really hope that the blush isn’t visible in this dim-lit bathroom which, once again, feels far too small. You can feel the heat of Garrett’s body along your own like an intimate caress. 

“I think you’re an idiot,” You mumble, chewing your lower lip. You’re satisfied that his knuckles don’t look too bad, setting the washcloth aside.

“Am I gonna make it, doc?” 

A small smile twitches at your mouth, “Might have to amputate the whole arm, just to be safe.” 

He raises his eyebrows, a laugh stumbling out, “Probably best you’re not going to college to be a doctor.” 

You hum, your chest feeling warm. Your gaze snags onto his for a long moment and you can’t stop yourself from lifting your hand and touching some of the curls near his forehead, “You don’t have to throw your fist at anyone just because my brother said to keep an eye on me.” 

Garrett’s eyebrows arch, “You think that’s why I did that?” 

You shrug your one shoulder, unaware of what other reason there could be. Your gaze averts down to your wrist, red marks on your skin from that dick grabbing you. You run your fingers over the touch, clearing your throat in the silence. 

Garrett shifts, reaching out and touching your chin. He clasps it between his fingers, tipping it up, forcing your eyes to meet his. His thumb draws a shape along your jaw, his mouth parting as he looks at you, really looks at you. 

“You think the reason I do anything is because you’re my friend’s younger sister?” 

For once, you find yourself sort of blinking at him, words caught somewhere hiding behind your teeth and under your tongue. You think about moments you’ve had with Garrett, things over the years that have felt insignificant but…maybe they’re not. The way he’s constantly giving you his jacket when you forget your own, or picking food up from Malone's when he knows you’ve got a big test to study for, the way he’s tucked you into into his chest when you’re biting your lip hard, trying not to cry, the way he’s danced with you to ridiculous songs, or has always had your favorite snack on hand at his place, how he’s taken you to horror movies your friends won’t see with you, how he’s held your hand, a lazy intertwining of fingers, for no point other than to just have that contact between the two of you. 

–all these things you thought Garrett might be doing because you’re his friend’s sister, because you and him are friends too–

And yet, he seems to be telling you that…

Garrett smiles a little; can see the moment where the spark of a thought catches fire, his thumb tracing over your lower lip. 

“Just one time I wish your thoughts weren’t so loud in your head,” He teases, both of his hands cupping your face. 

Well he’s finally got his wish. There are zero thoughts spinning around in your brain, just a warm static, like the grayish snow that falls over the TV when a channel is lost. A roaring of flames. A washing machine spinning sounds between your ears, a wave crashing over a shore. Absolutely nothing other than the heartbeat on your tongue, the warmth of Garrett’s hands covering your skin, and the way your fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt to pull him close. 

The way you kiss him. 

There’s the tiniest moment of hesitation before Garrett is standing to his full height from where he was leaning against the sink, his arms wrapping around your waist. Your body molds to his, your fingers threading through his hair. There’s a full bodied shudder when Garrett’s tongue slips into your mouth, when he rolls it against his own, when he lifts you up and turns to place you onto the sink. 

The entire thing creaks under your weight and soft squeak leaves your throat as you think it might come crashing down underneath you. A laugh slips out, joining with Garrett’s, his hands on your hips to keep you in place. 

“Bad idea.” You mumble. 

Garrett steps between your legs, his nose brushing yours in a bunny kiss, “The sink or the kiss?” 

You chew on your lower lip, shrugging your one shoulder, “I dunno, I’ve probably had better kisses than that one.” 

He scoffs out a laugh, running a hand through his curls, pursing his lips, “Damn alright,” His gaze falls back to yours as he leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “Guess I’ll just have to try harder.” 

“I guess you will.” You smile, the words barely out of your mouth before he’s kissing you again. 

—

You try to convince yourself that kissing Garrett will just be the one time. This one night. 

He’s given you a t-shirt to wear to sleep in, he’s given you his bed, insisting he’ll sleep on the floor (he won’t—you pull him to the other side where he sprawls out on top of the covers). You stare at the ceiling and count the glow in the dark stars that are stuck to paint, a small smile pulling at your mouth. Your lips are buzzing with the sensation of his kiss, skin warm with where his hands were lingering. 

His hand rests along your hip, trailing to rest on your stomach until you turn and tuck yourself back against him. He molds himself along your body, his chin resting on your shoulder, planting kisses on your neck that tickle but the last thing you want him to do is stop. 

And it’s then you know that it’ll never be just this one time. 

—

The morning comes slow and the house is quiet. You head downstairs while Garrett is still sleeping, intent on making coffee. Tucker has already made a pot and is wandering around the living room and kitchen collecting trash from the party. It’s not as bad as you’ve seen it before but still, you wince. There’s nothing worse than waking up to a mess left behind by a bunch of strangers. 

You grab a trashbag in solidarity after adding cream and sugar to your mug. While you take a few sips from your coffee cup, Tucker offers you a small smile when you go to pick up forgotten red cups and empty bottles. You fill up one trash bag, moving to take it outside. Garrett intercepts, coming down from upstairs. He’s in a pair of gray sweatpants, no shirt, and half asleep. He rubs his one eye before reaching for the trash bag, 

“Don’t worry about it, ribbit.” His voice is gruff from sleep, stoking heat in your lower belly. 

 Pushing that aside, you insist, “I want to help,” and look over your shoulder at what’s left. They could easily crank out a clean house in like…two hours, if they all pitched in. 

He smiles, stepping down all the way to where you’re standing. His fingers brush through your hair, pushing it over your shoulder, “I got you, go see if Tucker is into making pancakes this morning.” 

You purse your lips, Garrett’s gaze snagging on your mouth. He leans down and presses a soft kiss there; seems like something he’s unable to stop himself from doing. He pulls away, going to take the trash to the back to toss it out—

And your brother stands there on the steps, raising his eyebrows at the soft interaction he’s caught. 

Your heart hammers in your chest, your mouth opening and ready to…explain somehow. Not to apologize, because you’re not sorry for this fading line in the sand completely disappearing. He shakes his head, raising his hand to stop you,

“I thought it would have been sooner.” 

You blink at him because what? That’s…really the last thing you expected him to say. “Are you fucking kidding me?” You let out a laugh, your hand settling on your chest, resting over your fluttering heart. 

Your brother shrugs, glancing down the hallway to where Garrett is coming back inside, “Just seems like something’s been going on for a while, I was just trying to see who made the first move.” 

You chew on the inside of your cheek, “Me, I guess. Or…I dunno. It was a joint effort.” 

He makes a face, “Damn. I owe Dean fifty bucks.” 

Your mouth falls open even though a scoff of a laugh tumbles forth. Garrett slides up beside you, hooking his arm around your shoulders, taking a long look at your brother, “You look like shit.” 

“Fuck you, Graham.” There’s warmth as he speaks, an amused eyeroll following as he passes you both to head into the kitchen, “Tuck, please tell there will be pancakes.” 

You can hear Tucker chuckle and you turn underneath Garrett’s arm to face him. He looks down at you with a small smile, leaning until his nose brushes yours. You can’t stop yourself from threading some of your fingers through the curls near his forehead, pushing them back even though you know they’re not going to stay. 

“Apparently there was a bet going on,” You say wryly. 

“Unsurprising.” He comments, glancing into the kitchen as your brother helps Tucker with breakfast, “Though disappointing I couldn’t put money towards it.” 

You smack his chest, a laugh bubbling out of his lungs as his fingers hook around your wrist, bringing your hand to his lips. He presses a kiss to your knuckles, keeping you close. A slow breath leaves your chest, your arm loosely wrapped around his waist, thumb tracing up and down his spine along his lower back. It’s like you both were waiting for this moment, a wave of everything that was unspoken settling against your skin. Something that somehow has always been there yet tucked behind uncertainties and doubt. 

“I guess we’re kinda bad at this.” You joke, watching Garrett resting your shared hands against his chest. Your stomach flutters when you feel the beat of his heart underneath your fingertips.  He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “I dunno, I think I’d rather be bad at this together than good at it with anyone else.” 

A smile threatens to split your face in half at his ridiculous promise, shaking your head, “That is—”