there's just a lot of 🍋

『••✎••』

His face changed in an instant.

The easy, half-apologetic smile Peter had been wearing—sorry, my bad, let me help—froze, then cracked. His brown eyes widened, pupils blowing out like he’d been hit with a flashbang. The color drained from his already pale cheeks, leaving the faint acne scars and the sheen of nervous sweat stark against his skin. His mouth parted, lips forming a silent what? before any sound could escape.

You blinked up at him, crouched on the grimy New York sidewalk, one hand steadying your precariously tall stack of books, the other hovering over the scattered ones at your feet. The world kept moving—the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement, the wail of a distant siren, the shuffle of pedestrians flowing around the two of you like water around stones. But in the sudden, suffocating vacuum between you and him, all of that noise simply dissolved.

"Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry," he’d been saying just a second ago, a familiar, breathless rush. He’d bumped into you—a classic traffic jam on the sidewalk—and your world had tipped sideways. Physics took over. Textbooks on organic chemistry and literary theory splayed out across the concrete like a fan.

He remembered you. He was sure of it. You sat two rows ahead and one to the left in Mr. Harrison’s history class. You never spoke, but he knew you were one of the smartest kids in the room, your hand perpetually in the air while he was usually trying to calculate if he had enough web fluid for patrol later that night. He’d seen you in the halls—a quiet, focused presence that never seemed to intersect with the chaotic orbit of himself, MJ, and Ned.

You smiled, a small, polite curve of your lips as you both reached for the same copy of The Great Gatsby. Your fingers had brushed.

"It’s okay, happens all the time." You had said, gathering the last book and tucking it into your stack. Then you looked him in the eye, a brief, friendly glance of acknowledgment, and said the words that had just short-circuited his entire nervous system.

"See you around, Peter."

And just like that, the universe tilted on its axis.

You’d pushed yourself to your feet, adjusting your bag, giving him another polite smile before turning to merge back into the river of people on the sidewalk. The moment was over—a simple, forgettable bump with a vague acquaintance from high school.

Except it wasn’t.

Wait.

His lungs seized. The name echoed in the hollow of his chest, a ghost of a sound, but it was the most real thing he’d heard in an eternity. Peter. Not "hey, kid" or "that guy" or the frustrated sigh of a landlord who never knew his renter’s name. Peter. Said with the casual familiarity of someone who had always known it.

A frantic, desperate energy seized him. He couldn’t let you go. He couldn’t let you walk away and vanish back into the faceless crowd, leaving him to wonder if he’d finally, truly lost it.

"Wait!"

He shot forward, a burst of speed that felt more like a spider’s leap than a human’s jog. He caught your arm just above the elbow. It was a gentle touch, barely any pressure, but you stopped instantly, turning back to him with a look of surprise, your brow furrowed. Your books wobbled in your arms.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat in a silent room. He leaned in, not caring that he was blocking the flow of foot traffic, that a businessman had to sidestep him with an annoyed grunt. All that mattered was your face, your confused eyes, and the five letters he needed to hear again.

"Wait," he repeated, his voice raspy, thin. "What… what did you say?"

Your confusion deepened, a small line creasing between your brows. You glanced from his wild-eyed face down to where he was still touching your sleeve, then back up again.

"Uh…" you hesitated, clearly thrown by the intensity of his reaction. "I just said, ‘see you around’?"

"No, before that. The… the last part." He could barely breathe the words out. Please. Please say it again. Let him know he wasn’t hallucinating, that the loneliness hadn’t finally cracked him open.

You blinked, slow and deliberate, as if trying to decipher a foreign language. A flicker of something like concern crossed your features.

"Peter?" you said, his name a soft, questioning thing in the city noise. "Are you okay?"

The world shattered around him.

It wasn’t a question of how. He didn’t care how. Not yet. The sheer, overwhelming fact of it crashed over him like a tidal wave. The weight of a year’s worth of invisibility, of nonexistence, suddenly lifted. Air rushed into lungs that had been starved for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe. A tremor ran through his entire body—a violent, shuddering release of tension he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

He didn’t answer your question. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare, his grip on your sleeve slackening until his fingers just brushed the fabric of your jacket. He was looking at you, but he wasn’t seeing a college student with a stack of books anymore. He was seeing an anchor. A lighthouse in a fog that had swallowed him whole.

A shaky, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips—a broken sound that held the ghost of a sob. He stared at you as if you’d just handed him the entire universe, piece by precious piece.

You, completely unaware of the magnitude of the moment—of the dam you’d just broken—just stood there. You took in the dazed look, the trembling hands, the way he was looking at you like you were a miracle.

And you just looked… concerned. Worried for the weird guy from your old high school who was currently having some kind of meltdown on a public sidewalk.

"Peter," you said again, a little firmer this time, reaching out a hesitant hand. "Seriously. Are you alright?"

And he was. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was more than alright.

Ი𐑼 yeah so it’s short , just a little thought and concept but I will definitely write a longer fic about this <3 I’m not prepared for the person I’m going to become when the movie is out … I’m already freaking out from the trailer 🤓

you're probably the only 'true' friend that deran has anymore. meeting in kindergarten, you were the only one who offered your paint when the whole class was making christmas cards. and as a sign of gratitude, he bullied the boys who would tug at your hair or talk shit about the clothes that you wore from the thrift store. after that, the two of you became thick as thieves. wherever one went, the other was sure to follow.

this made you a recurring guest in the cody household. that and the fact that you didn't have the most stable home life. which was hard to believe, considering how deran and all his brothers were raised. deran tried letting smurf to give you a room of your own. it's not like they had three extra bedrooms for you to choose from. but no amount convincing would make smurf change her mind. so most of the time you stayed in deran's room, sharing his bed or the floor. sometimes, when you and deran would get into a fight, days like today, you stay on the couch. if the fight was super bad, then you'd go back to the shitty apartment that your dad lives in.

thankfully, this fight is not one of the bad ones. it's honestly really stupid now that you're thinking about it. deran had smoked your last gram of weed. he then proceeded to not even clean out your bong which he smoked it in. but both of you are too proud to apologize first. all morning you've been avoiding each other. even now, as the three boys and you are by the pool, you're not near deran. "come on, can't you just talk to him? he's been a dick all day," craig asks, sitting on the edge of the pool beside you.

"nope," you respond, popping the 'p'. "i didn't do anything wrong. he did."

"is this still about the weed? berry, if weed is what you want, i can get you weed. hell, i can get you coke."

"first, you know i don't do coke. and second, i don't want my weed from you, craig. i want it from deran. and an apology for being an ass."

craig sighs, running his fingers through his tangled hair. "yeah, alright. but don't say i didn't try to help," he says, before diving back into the pool with his brothers. there's the sound of the sliding door opening and closing, and then smurf's voice saying, "jay, there's some people i'd like you to meet." all four of you look towards her and the unfamiliar boy standing beside her. she forces the brothers to awkwardly introduce themselves one by one. "this is jay, i'm sure you remember him. he's julia's son. he's gonna be staying with us now that she's gone."

what? what does smurf mean by gone? "julia's dead?" you ask, finally finding your voice. smurf looks over at you. "nobody told you, honey? she passed away early this morning. jay, you remember-?"

"berry," he cuts in. you're the only one he recognizes. mainly because of your hair. he always had vague memories of a girl with bright colored hair, but could never put a face to the name. standing up, you quickly dry yourself with your towel, and hug him. you pull back to take a look at him. it's been at least ten years since you last saw him, but now that you're closer, you can see that he's almost the spitting image of his mother.

"it's good to see you, kid. i'm sorry about your mom. she was nice," you say softly. and you mean it. you were young when smurf kicked her out, no older than seven. but you remember her braiding your hair and teaching you how to do makeup for the first time.

"thanks, that means a lot. she... she would talk about you sometimes," he says. hearing that makes you smile. wherever she is now, you hope she knows how much you admired her. smurf doesn't like too much talk about the daughter she disowned, because she quickly ends the conversation and drags jay away to his new room. pope's old room.

"so what do we think of the kid?" baz asks once the sliding door clicks shut.

"i think it's a risky move. he's basically an outsider," craig replies.

"yeah, i agree. who knows what shit julia put in his head," deran chimes in. "what about you, berry?"

even now, in the middle of a fight, deran still wants your opinion on family business. to him, you're still family. "he can't be that bad. smurf used to bring him here and we would all babysit him, remember? he's just a kid. i think we should give him a chance."

the day passes by with all of you following smurf's every command in welcoming jay into the cody household. you clean up his room for him and make him lunch, even though he insists you don't have to. "nah, it's alright. your grandma can be a bitch when i don't do what she wants. no offense," you tell him. the boys find an unused, but nice, tv in the garage to give him. baz even gives him a couple hundreds to buy himself some new shoes and clothes.

now, it's night and you're sat on the couch, lazily flipping through tv channels. deran has warmed up a bit more to you throughout the day, but still hasn't apologized. stubborn assholes, that's what you both are. speak of the devil, deran enters the living room, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. even without looking at him, you can tell it's him from your peripheral. he sits down beside you on the couch, tossing a baggie of weed in your lap. "that's should be a gram," is all he says.

you pick it up, holding it between your index and middle finger. it's a little more than a gram based on the weight of it. "next time you take my shit, just let me know. i only got pissed because you lied," you say, finally looking over at him.

"yeah, alright. i will."

a few seconds of silence pass by. "why didn't you tell me about julia?"

he shrugs. "i didn't know if you remembered her. we were so young when she left."

"she didn't leave. she was kicked out," you correct. "either way, i would've preferred to find out from you rather than smurf."

finally, he looks at you. and you can tell he's remorseful. "you can come back to the room if you want."

"promise not to kick me in the shin or hog the blanket?" you ask.

"scout's honor, berry."

"fine, alright. since you're practically begging to hang with me," you tease. deran quickly stands, tugging you into his side and rubbing a noogie on your blue head. "seriously, dude! what are we, ten?" you complain, struggling to shove him off. he just laughs.

by the next morning, it's as if you and deran never fought. there's still some minor tension between jay and the rest of the boys, but you hope that it soon subsides. it can't be that bad anyways, since craig and deran are hosting a party as a sort of initiation for jay. the three of you have been setting it up all day. getting beer and booze, drugs, food, anything that will guarantee a cody rager. baz comes back to the house later, catherine and lena in tow.

you're out by the pool with craig and deran, putting some beers in a cooler when the young girl calls your name. "hey, lena!" you exclaim, kneeling down to catch her running body. "you excited for the party?" she just hums and nods. "guess what? i got you some of that unicorn ice cream you love. is it okay if she has some?" you ask, looking towards cath.

"only a little. i don't want her spoiling her dinner."

the young girl practically drags you away into the house when she hears that it's okay. it makes you laugh. catherine follows, leaving baz behind to talk about whatever with his brothers. she sits down at the kitchen island, saying, "baz told me that julia passed. that jay's now living here."

"uh, yeah, he is. he's staying in pope's old room," you reply, pulling out a bowl and spoon for lena, setting it down on the counter beside her ice cream.

"is she still giving you a hard time?" she asks softly.

you slide the bowl across the island to lena, where she sits beside her mom. she mutters a soft 'thank you'. "when is she not?" you joke weakly. "i'm just trying to stay on her good side. just like i always have since becoming a part of this family. i'm sure you understand."

that makes her laugh. "trust me, i do. listen, if things ever go sideways between you and her, my house is always open. you don't have to go back to your dad's place." you like catherine. just like you, she was an outsider in the cody house. and being the only girl around after julia was kicked out, she understanded you in ways not even deran could.

"i appreciate the offer, really, but i'm okay. half the time i go over there he's too drunk and/or high to even know i'm around."

she nods, understanding. "well, the offer always stands if you change your mind."

the party goes by a lot faster than you expect. you do a couple shots, smoke a joint, talk to some the people you know. which isn't a lot if you're being honest. the boys jump off the roof and into the pool. craig pushes you off the roof and into the pool. the fucking asshole. now the sun is starting to set and all the partygoers are gone. catherine's left with lena to put her to bed, leaving baz to hang around. you wouldn't be surprised if it was because he said some stupid shit.

you hover in the pool, resting your arms along the edge. deran and craig are talking about whatever, while a joint gets passed around between the three of you. meanwhile baz sits on the edge of a pool chair, smurf sitting behind him, rubbing his back. it's weird as fuck, if you're being completely honest. she's been this way with her boys for as long as you can remember. it never gets any less unsettling.

"gotta take a piss, i'll be back," you say to craig, handing him the joint. when you pull yourself out of the pool, he wolf whistles. "always love to watch you leave, berry." you flip him off as you walk away.

water drips off of you and onto the floor. you make a mental note to clean it all up so smurf doesn't get on your ass. quickly you finish up your business and head back in the direction of the pool when you hear something break in jay's room. it's really not any of your business, but a small part of you is concerned. he drank a couple of shots because of peer pressure from craig so you worry that he fell over and busted his head open. you walk over to his room, knocking on the door. "jay? you all good?" he doesn't respond. that worries you even more. "alright, i'm coming in. be decent."

you slowly push open the door, peeking your head in. everything looks fine, minus the knocked over lamp in the corner. that's what must've fell. "you alright, kid?" you step into the room, jay standing on one side. and on the other stands a familiar face. one you haven't seen in three years. "andrew?" you whisper.

"you ruined my surprise," pope deadpans, glancing over at jay. you cross the room in three, maybe even two, strides before pulling pope into a tight hug. his arms wrap around your waist, and he rests his head in your neck, breathing you in. you still smell the same, he thinks to himself. like vanilla and lavender. it's a familiar scent that makes him feel calmer than he has in the past three years.

as if sensing the tension between you two, jay awkwardly says, "i'll, uh, i'll head out. back to the pool." pope pulls his head out of your neck, but doesn't let go of you. "don't tell them i'm here," he commands.

"y-yeah, of course."

"nobody knows you're here? not even smurf?" you question once jay's gone.

he shakes his head. "wanted to surprise you but found the kid in my room. she gave him my room?"

"yeah, she did. did jay tell you about julia?" pope doesn't cry, but you can tell that he's close to it. the whites of his hazel eyes are red, rimmed with tears. that's the only answer you need. "oh, andy. i'm so sorry," you whisper, brushing the sides of his face. "you changed your hair," he remarks, fingers lightly tugging at the wet strands. you pick up on the non direct cue that he wants to change the conversation. so you do.

"i changed it shortly after you went to prison. kinda got sick of the red." that's what you tell him. you don't tell him that you changed it because it reminded you too much of him. of the night you shared together on your birthday.

"i like it. suits you," he croaks.

you smile softly. "yeah? i'm glad you do... c'mon, let's go show everyone who's back in town."

if smurf didn't hate you before, which she definitely did, she sure as shit hates you now. first it was you finding out pope got released before she did. then it was him choosing to sit next to you last night when you were all catching up. and now, two days later, you're the one he chose to take with him to do apartment hunting. not smurf. you.

currently, you two are finished. now eating greasy fast food. "i just don't understand. why isn't she letting you stay in one of the spare rooms at the house?" you ask, picking one of the fries off his tray.

"said she doesn't need my parole officer stopping by for piss tests every week. and apparently baz sold my house. are you still sleeping in deran's room?" you hum. "why don't you just move into one of the spare rooms?"

"and have smurf kick me out onto the street when she finds out? no thanks, andy. i'd rather share a bed with deran." you thumb through the open house flyers that sit on the table. "i think the first place was really nice. it's close to the house. but if you don't want one by the house, there was the fourth one we looked at. this one's by the beach."

"did you like any of them?" he asks.

you swallow down the bite you just took off your burger. "you mean the houses?"

"yeah."

"we're buying for you, andy. it matters whether you like them or not."

"i care about you're opinion. you always wanted a house by the beach, right?"

you're surprised he remembers. you must've been only seventeen when you told him. "you remember that?" you question softly. he shrugs likes it's no big deal. "i remember everything you tell me."

"y-yeah, i always have. still do."

"then it's settled i'll buy the fourth one."

by the time you two get home, dinner is ready and the table's set. everyone was just waiting for you and pope to arrive. "dude, finally, you guys took forever. been starving my ass off," deran groans, digging into his pasta. "shut up, asshole," you say, lightly knocking him in the head. "you two settle down," smurf chides. then she looks at pope. "you find a house, baby?" he nods. "is it close by?"

"it's about thirty minutes away. it came furnished so i'll head over there tonight."

smurf purses her lips, putting on a plastic smile. "i'm happy for you, baby." she's not. not really. because pope is making progress. and he's doing it without her. after dinner, everyone splits off to do their own thing. smurf to bed, jay to do homework, baz back home, and craig... doing whatever the fuck craig does. deran sits in the living room, ripping a bong and watching 'rick and morty'. pope hangs in the kitchen, washing dishes. he won't let you help him, but he likes the company. especially because it's you.

"what do you think of, jay?" he asks, hand drying the last set of utensils.

"he seems like a smart kid. has a good head on his shoulders."

"do you think we can trust him?"

you shrug from where you sit on the counter beside the sink. "i think so, yeah. why do you ask?"

"smurf won't let me do any jobs. baz is driving craig to mexico tomorrow morning so he can see a doctor for his chest. i was thinking we could pull a job while they're away. maybe get the help of jay."

"i don't do jobs, andy, you know that." the most you ever do for them is keeping lookout or playing gateway driver. that was as close pope ever let you to being in their world. "besides, i thought you didn't want me doing them."

done with the dishes, pope dries his hands and moves his body to stand between your swinging legs. he doesn't touch you, but his hands rest on each side of your thighs. close enough that when his fingers twitch, they brush bare skin. "i'm not asking you to join us on the job. all i'll need you to do is stay at the house, make sure smurf doesn't come home. and if she does, feed her whatever bullshit lie you think she'll believe."

"i can do that."

"i know you can. you're a smart girl, i trust you. now all we have to do is convince jay and deran."

convincing deran wasn't hard to do. he's been waiting for any opportunity to prove himself as a grown up. not the kid that baz and smurf still see him as. it takes a little more convincing for jay, however. like you told pope, he's a smart kid. and he's not gonna do anything stupid that might risk him getting kicked out of the cody home. but pope promises money, and a chance to show the family that he's one of them. so he agrees.

now, it's the next day, and the three boys are all dressed in black from head to toe. deran and jay are busy loading up the car with supplies, while you and pope stay back in the garage. polishing out all the final details.

"and if smurf comes home while we're gone, you say...?"

"i say that you all went to the beach to teach jay how to surf. you guys haven't been out long, and i don't know when you'll be back."

"good girl," pope praises.

this job is an easy one. you shouldn't feel as anxious as you do right now. but a small part of you is still worried that something will go wrong. jay is young and what if he makes a rookie mistake? that's normal and acceptable in other jobs, but in the jobs that his uncles do? that means time in jail. and you don't want pope to do another second. "are you sure about this? you don't think vin was just yapping in prison?" you ask, nerves getting the better of you.

"i'm sure. he was only telling me about this job because he wanted to pull it with me. he wouldn't lie if that was the case," pope assures. one of his hands reach out to pull your hands away from each other. oh, you hadn't even realized you were picking at the skin around your nails. nervous habit you never really dropped. "everything is gonna be fine, berry. i promise. i'll be back before you know it." the same hand he used to stop your skin peeling is the one he cups the back of your head with. bringing you closer and kissing your hairline.

"be safe," you whisper, fingers curling against the front of his black zip up.

"always, berry."

near the truck, jay stops loading to look at you and his uncle. "are they, uh, together?" deran follows jay's gaze, a small smile on his face when he sees. "it's complicated with them."

"complicated how?" jay asks, but he doesn't get answer now that pope is walking towards the truck. he bangs on the side, catching their attention. "let's head out. we're wasting daylight."

you spend the rest of the day on the couch, watching tv, and worrying. a whole lot of worrying. every five minutes you check your phone, making sure you don't miss a single phone call or text. it's nothing but radio silence every single time. guess that's a good thing, though. no news is good news. the sun is already starting to set once the boys arrive back. it's not a phone call that lets you know that they're here. no, it's the yelling coming from the garage.

pushing the blanket off you, you stand and start walking towards the voices. the tile floor is cold against your bare feet, making you shiver. jay passes by as you head out there. you grab his arm before he can leave. "everything go okay?" you whisper.

"yeah, they're just fighting in there now." you nod, letting him go and saying a soft thanks. jay was right. pope and deran are in the middle of a screaming match. they haven't even noticed that you're in the room with them. "i just don't understand why we had to take him with us!" deran exclaims.

"what's the big deal, huh? you got your money. we all got our fair share, so quit your whining," pope snaps, shrugging off his jacket.

"it's bullshit. he's barely been in the family for what? a week? now he's doing jobs with us?"

"you know, if you're gonna keep complaining, i'll just take your share and split with jay."

"fuck off!" deran yells, shoving pope. that's when you finally step in. you grab pope by the back of his shirt, pulling him away from deran before he can take a swing at him.

"what has gotten into you two? you were perfectly fine this morning, now you come home and you're acting like a bunch of teenagers!"

"tell your little boyfriend that he's being an asshole!" deran says, pointing at pope.

"oh, real mature. if i remember right, you were the one who wanted to stop sucking smurf's tit and do your own jobs. i chose to bring you along on this job. you got this money because of me."

"like you're any better? i'm not the one who's been stuck at berry's side since getting out of prison. going from sucking one tit to the next, huh, pope?"

if it weren't for the tight hold you had on his shirt, popw definitely would've crossed the room and decked deran right there. "don't you fucking talk about her like that," pope barks.

"andy, it's fine," you whisper. then you look at deran. "can you stop picking a fight with him? he did you a favor, de. he just got out of prison and took a risk by doing this job. i think you can cut him a little slack."

"seriously? you're taking his side? after everything that i've done for you..."

"i'm not trying to take anyone's side. i understand why you're frustrated right now, but the last thing that anyone needs is for us to be fighting with each other," you reason. you're silently pleading with him to understand. the worst part, is he does. he understands completely what you're trying to say. but adrenaline and emotions are still high. and sometimes that makes people say the wrong thing.

"yeah, whatever. go ahead and jump onto the next cody boy dick that'll want you," he scoffs, stomping out of the room. but not before harshly bumping your shoulder with his.

pope doesn't ask you if you're okay. he knows you're not. he's not an idiot. "want me to take you home?" he asks, voice gruff but soft. "i-i don't... i don't have anywhere else to go," you whisper. "that's okay. i'll take you home with me, c'mon."

once at his house, pope gives you an old shirt for you to change into. he gives you prviacy to change in his bedroom, hovering right outside the door. you strip down to your bra and panties, pulling his shirt over your head. "i'm done," you announce. a second passes. he opens the door to see you sitting on the bed, back pressed against the headboard. pope digs in his back pocket, pulling out a wad of cash and holding it out to you. "what's this for?"

"it's for keeping lookout for smurf. that's half of my share so deran won't keep whining," he explains.

"andy, you don't have to. keep your money." you attempt to give it back, but he just closes your fist around the money. "keep the money. get some sleep, we've all had a long day," he orders. he turns on his heel, ready to lend you his bed as he stays on the couch. not like he sleeps much anyways. but your hand catches his wrist before he can leave. "can you stay? please? i don't wanna be alone," you whisper. and he can't deny you when you look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours.

he swallows down the nerves and nods. you scoot over to make space for him. he slowly sits, back straight and as tight as coil when he leans against the headboard. heart beating even faster when you lay your head on his chest. the bare skin of your knee brushes against his arm when you bring them to your chest. this position is so familiar to him. he remembers sitting in his old room with you like this the night before he did the bank robbery. when it was too cold or lonely in prison, which it was almost every night, he replayed that memory in his head to keep him warm.

"are we ever gonna talk about it?" you ask.

"talk about what?"

"about the night of my birthday."

that night. pope remembers that night too. but he only thought about that night when he committed acts that he is far too ashamed to admit. "what about that night?"

"...do you regret it?" you whisper.

his response is almost immediate. "no. i don't. why would you ask that?"

he feels you shrug. "i don't know. i just thought that's why you never wanted me to visit you in prison."

"that's not why i didn't want you visiting, berry. folsom was a shitty place. and i didn't want you in there, even if it was just to visit me. i didn't want you to see what it turned me into," he admits softly. it breaks your heart. "what was it like in there?" you sit up just enough to look at him. sitting your chin where your head just rested.

it takes him a minute to gather his thoughts. "they used to drug me and keep me locked in my cell. always said it was for my protection but i hated how numb i felt. and there was this guard who would strip me down and tie me to a chair in the middle of the room. he'd keep all the lights on, music blasting so loud i thought my head would burst. then he would take me outside and parade me around. humiliate me while i was covered in drool and shit. when i thought it was done? he'd do it all over again."

once he's done talking he won't look at you. you're not even sure what to say. 'i'm sorry' isn't appropiate. what do you have to be sorry for? you didn't do that shit to him. and sorry won't take away the trauma he experienced. "does anybody else know?" is the best thing you come up with. pope shakes his head. "only you."

"it's safe with me, andy. i promise."

finally, he looks at you again. "i know. i trust you." and coming from him? that means a lot. "i missed you," he says first. "i missed you too," you say without missing a beat. you lay your head back on his chest. his heart beats slower now. "i'm sorry i couldn't be there for you then. but i'm here now. i'll look after you."

"it's nasty work," he retorts.

"not to me. not if it's you." your breath slowly begins to even out. body going slack against his. you've fallen asleep. pope slowly wraps his arms around your waist, tugging you closer. he rests his cheek atop your head, breathing you in. "i'll look after you, too," he whispers into the dark.

you end up staying at pope's house for a lot longer than intended. not that he minded one bit. but you felt bad for free loading. every attempt you would make to pay him with your paycheck from the record store was shot down. every time you would try to help clean or do laundry, he would lightly shove you away from wherever you were trying to work and take over. "just let me take care of you," he would say. pope liked having you around. so much so that he began to fill the fridge with your favorite foods and drinks. even bought you a whole new wardrobe. he started treating this less like a short time arrangement and more like you had moved in permanently.

about a week has gone by, and you still haven't spoken to deran since the fight. even now, as you lounge by the cody pool, with deran only a couple feet away, neither of you will make eye contact with one another. you're attempting to peel the orange you grabbed on your way outside. but with your freshly manicured nails (which pope also paid for), you can't dig your fingernails in deep enough to get a good peel. after your second annoyed sigh, pope looks over his shoulder from where he's crouched by the fountain he's building. "you okay?" he asks.

"i can't peel my stupid orange," you complain, tossing it down in your lap. he dusts his hands off on his pants, moving to sit at the edge of the pool chair you've been lounging on for the past hour. "here, let me do it for you," he says. you drop it in his outstretched hand. his thick fingers dig into the orange, pulling it apart in large chunks. even once it's stripped of its peel, he doesn't stop until the whole thing is separated into individual slices. "there you go."

"thanks, andy." you sit up, grabbing the slices from him. he nods, doing his best to avoid dropping his gaze towards your exposed cleavage in your bikini. "you talk to deran yet?" he asks, looking over at the mentioned man who's yelling in the pool with craig. "no, i haven't. you?" pope shakes his head. "think he'll ever talk to us again?" your words are teasing, but pope can hear the genuine sadness that peeks through. he's ashamed at the bubble of jealousy that grows in the pit of his belly.

he knows that deran is your best friend. and that he was the only one who was there for you when pope got sent to jail. he should be grateful for that. and he is. but still, pope can't help but feel envy at the relationship you have with his brother. it's closer than the one he has with you. maybe that has to do with the age gap, or the fact that he was gone for three fucking years. he prays that that'll change. "everything will be fine," he assures. "deran will come around. he always does."

smurf then comes outside, calling pope's name. "baby, you staying for dinner?" she asks. he doesn't answer her right away, though. he looks at you, tilting his head. a silent way of him asking if you want to stay. when you nod, that's when he replies. "yeah, we're gonna stay." the inclusion of you ruffles smurf's feathers. you can tell it does. "berry, honey? come help me in the kitchen." an order. not a suggestion.

pope's eyes watch you the whole way as you walk into the house until you're out of sight. there's an uneasy feeling that grows in the pit of his stomach. the thought of you and smurf alone doesn't bode well with him. she wouldn't be dumb enough to do anything to you with him or any of the cody boys, in fact, around. but he still keeps his attention on you the whole time. "you and deran talking yet, honey?" smurf asks, setting down food, plates, and silverware in front of you. without argument, you plate up dinner for you and the family. "no, we haven't."

"what happened?" you know you can't tell her about the job that pope just pulled with his brother and nephew, so instead you lie and say, "it was just a bullshit argument. i said some stuff, he said some stuff. the usual." either she believes you, or just doesn't care to pull the truth out of you. which is rare, but it happens. "so hard headed, the both of you. just like siblings. do you remember when the two of you were seven and started going around telling everyone that you were twins?" that pulls an actual smile out of you. of course you remembered. you and deran would wear similar outfits to try and convince people. no one ever believed you, obviously, because neither of you looked alike one bit. but you had twin souls, or whatever the fuck it's called. "yeah, i remember."

she carries half the plates to the table, and you carry the other half. "how's your dad then? i'm assuming you're staying at his place?"

"uh, i wouldn't know. i haven't seen him in about two months. i'm actually staying at pope's for the time being."

smurf falters for just a second. you notice it from the corner of your eye. but she recovers quickly. "well, that's nice of him, honey. go tell the boys that dinner is ready." you nod, going back outside. it silently makes you proud how much you've gotten under her skin recently. maybe she's finally realizing how little control she has on her boys now. that they're not the same kids she once knew. but when you think you have a hold on her, she shows that she's two steps ahead. if only you had realized that sooner.

the next day, pope heads out to smurf's earlier than usual. he says something about the fountain and a few other things that you can't really remember because you were half asleep when he told you. he kisses you on your temple, tucks you under the covers tightly, and leaves. you wake up about an hour later. deciding to clean around the house, do the laundry. there's not much to do since pope has always been someone who keeps their space tidy and neat, but it's the least you can do. he has let you stay at his home for the past two weeks.

you've just finished folding and putting away your clothes when you hear the front door open and shut. but it's not the gentle sound it usually is. it's rough, nearly shaking the whole house. something bad must've happened to have him acting like this. your socked feet pad softly on the tile floor as you head towards the front of the house. "andy?" you call out softly, looking around every corner to find him. he's standing in the kitchen, back turned to you. his body language is tight, but his breathing is erratic. "andy?" you say again. "what happened?"

"did you know?" pope snaps, disregarding your question. he's angry, that much is clear. but he's angry at... you? "did i know what?" you ask, genuinely confused. "about the pills! don't play dumb with me, berry!" finally, he turns to look at you. this isn't the pope you know. you've seen this side of him before, sure. directed at the scumbags who go in and out of the cody household. sometimes at his brothers when they piss him, or at smurf when she pushes him too far. but never at you. "andy, what pills are you talking about? you don't take-"

you don't get the chance to finish your sentence when he throws the pill bottle at the wall behind you. the orange container breaks on impact, causing all the white pills to shoot out in different directions. it doesn't hit you, pope made sure that it wouldn't before throwing it. but the sound is so loud and reminds you of your father's drunken outbursts that you can't help but flinch. there's a flicker of guilt in his eyes at his actions, but it's quickly masked with anger all over again. not just anger. hurt. that someone, maybe the only person he truly trusts, lied to him. or so he believes.

"you knew that she was slipping that shit in my food." not a question. a statement. like he's already decided you're guilty before hearing your case. "i swear to god, i had no idea she was doing that shit to you! you don't think that if i would have known, i wouldn't tell you immediately?" you retort. "you're telling me that you didn't see her mix a crushed up pill in my plate of food?" he questions.

fuck. fuck fuck fuck.

of course that's why she asked you to help her in the kitchen yesterday. panic begins to rise in your chest. consuming you from the inside out. whatever bullshit smurf planted in him this morning while you weren't there has already taken root. the odds truly are stacked up against you in this moment. nothing you say will convince him. so you just stick to the truth. "i didn't see her do it, andy. you gotta believe me. i didn't know that she was doing that to you," you beg. you mover closer to him, attempt to grab his hand, but he pulls away from you. the first time he's ever done that.

"don't touch me. i trusted you. i trusted you," he repeats, slowly backing away from you. "and i shouldn't have." he turns on his heel and locks himself in his bedroom in a matter of seconds. so fast that you don't even have the chance to do anything but watch him walk away. the second you hear that click, your chest caves in. you feel stupid. you should've known that smurf would do something so cruel to you. the walls of the house feel as if they're closing in on you. your breaths are rapid and uneven, making you feel lightheaded.

i can't stay here is the conclusion you come to. thankfully, you're phone is still charging on the counter from where you left it last night. and your purse beside it. you hold the phone in one hand, and the purse in the other. slipping on whatever shoes are by the door, probably your beat up vans from senior year, and hurry out of the house without a second thought. you walk for what feels like hours. by this point, your feet ache and legs burn. you don't even realize where you're now at until you blink away the tears you've been keeping at bay.

your dad's house.

you look down at your phone. it's nearing one pm. you've walked for almost two hours. no missed calls or texts from pope. you open your contacts, hovering on cath's name. if you called, you know she would answer. but the last thing you wanted was to be a burden on her. she practically has to raise lena all by herself, and you know that there's no room for you at her house. not even half a scroll down is deran's contact. you're not even sure if he would pick up if you called. on top of that, you don't think you could calmly live in smurf's house before punching her lights out. beside, deran would probably take pope's side when he inevitably finds out about the falling out between you and his brother.

at this moment, it sinks in that you don't have that many people in your life. you had more until the record store you worked at closed for good, leaving you and all your old coworkers to slowly drift apart. there's no other choice but to dig out that old key and enter back into your childhood home.

three days have passed, and pope's starting to get worried. the second he heard the front door shut he immediately regretted how angry he got with you. he couldn't bring himself to call or text you that same day. so then he waited until the next day. but then you didn't pick up. he called the day after that. still no reply. he stops by smurf's place because obviously if you weren't with him you would be with deran, right? but pope finds the youngest cody brother alone in his room.

"where is she?" pope asks, not even bothering to knock as he barges into the room. "who? berry?" deran questions, setting down his bong. "yes, berry. she hasn't picked up her phone."

"i don't know, man. she hasn't called me. she's been living with you for these past few weeks, not me. why? something happen?"

pope shifts from one foot to the other. fingers twitching at his side. "we got into a fight a few days ago. i found out that she knew about these antipyschotics smurf was putting in my food-"

"hold on, smurf was drugging you up?" deran interrupts.

"you didn't know?"

"fuck no, man. and you think berry knew? who told you that shit?"

"it was smurf-"

deran cuts pope off with a snort. "smurf told you that berry knew about the pills? if i didn't know about the pills, berry sure as shit didn't know. because i would've told her. meaning she would've eventually told you. smurf played you like a fucking fool."

pope can't believe it. he should've known that smurf would pull some manipulative shit like this. and he fell for it like a kid. just like he always has. naively he believed that you broke his trust. only to realize that you were on his side this whole time. you truly had no idea about the pills. you were telling the truth.

you were telling the truth.

"fuck," pope mutters, running his hands over his buzzed hair. "so if she's not with me or you, where else would she go?"

deran sighs, shaking his head. "only one place i can think of: her dad's."

the house is as dirty and rundown as pope remembers. he's been here a handful of times. most of the time it was because you had run away from the house after a fight with deran or craig. he never saw himself returning.

it smells like cigarette smoke and cheap beer. all the blinds are drawn shut, leaving no light in the house. except for the light coming from the tv. it highlights your dad's passed out frame on his recliner. pope doubts that the older man even knows you've been staying in his house for the past three days. he walks past your dad to peek his head into the kitchen. you're not in there. then he stalks down the hall to the room at the end of the hall. your old bedroom.

slowly, pope pushes the door open, a quiet creak echoing in the otherwise quiet house. you're laying on the bed, back turned to the door. he knows that you're not actually sleeping. your body language is too tight. "berry?" he whispers softly, awkwardly standing at the foot of the bed. you stir, but don't respond. "berry?" he says again. "just let me talk to you, please."

finally, you give up the sleeping act and sit up against the bedframe. "what do you want?" you ask. "i just wanna talk," pope repeats. "talk about what? you wanna throw some more accusations at me?" pope drops his head in shame. "deran told me the truth. that you really didn't know about the pills."

"it's almost as if i tried telling you that," you snap. "but you chose not to believe me."

"...are you mad at me?"

"what do you think, pope?"

he flinches. actually flinches at the name that falls from your lips. he can't remember the last time you've called him that name. but all he knows it that he hates it. "andy. don't call me that, berry, please." he sways from side to side, like he's not sure where to go. he wants to move closer to you, but fears the rejection that you will undoubtedly give him. "i know i messed up, okay? i said trusted i you and went back on that statement because i got scared. you were the only person who never seemed scared of me. you treated me like i was normal. you... you made me feel normal." pope watches as you stand up from the bed, slowly walking towards him. he barely moves an inch as you stop right in front of him. from up close, he can see the dark circles you've gained from lack of sleep. but even now, you look as pretty as ever in his eyes.

"i'm not that mad at you, andy. if anything, i'm hurt. i'm hurt that after all this time, you truly believed that i would've done something like that to you. you say that you trust me, and i believe that you do, but you clearly don't trust me enough if you're just ready to believe smurf the second she tells you anything. i'm on your side, andy, and she's trying to ruin that."

you don't hesitate to pull pope into a hug when you notice the tears beginning to well in his eyes. deep down, you knew that this wasn't really his fault. it was just the way he grew up. the way smurf rotted his brain and made it seem like she was a saint no matter what she did. he'd snap out of it eventually. even now, he was slowly pulling himself away from her and the mind games she constantly played.

"i'm sorry. i'm so sorry, berry. it won't happen again, please. i promise. i'll be so good to you," pope whispers into your neck. you pull away just enough to look at him, making him whine. "it's okay. we're okay," you reassure, pressing a kiss on his cheek. "let's just go, yeah? i don't wanna be here anymore." he listens without a second thought, carrying your purse even though you don't ask him to. he keeps a guiding hand on the small of your back towards the front door. you leave just as quietly as you entered, with your dad completely unaware that you were ever there.

you're surprised to see deran leaning against his green jeep, which is parked next to pope's truck. pope looks at you, giving you a silent look that asks, 'are you good with him here?' when you nod, he nods, and heads into his truck. "what are you doing?" you ask softly. "i followed pope here just in case you needed help beating his ass after the stupid shit he said," deran jokes. "but i'm also here to say i'm sorry for how i acted the other day. i was a fucking dick to you when i shouldn't have been. and i was an even shittier friend by pushing you away."

"it's okay, de. i forgive you," you reply. deran opens his arms. "awkward hug?" you laugh softly. "yeah, awkward hug." he pulls you in tight, squeezing you until you have to punch him to let go. "you sure you don't want me to beat pope's ass? the offer still stands if you want."

"i think i'm okay for now, but i'll let you know next time."

"alright, i'll see you later, yeah?" deran asks. you nod, waving goodbye as you walk towards pope's truck, hopping into the truck as he holds the passenger door open for you. once inside, pope walks across the front of the car and into the driver's side. "you hungry? you want me to get you something?" pope questions. "no, i'm okay. i think i'd rather just go home with you."

home with you.

he plants small kisses to your cheeks before he even says anything, laying down so his thighs cage in yours and his bare chest presses to your back. you sniffle when you realize he is in his boxers and you feel the warmth you missed so badly. pope freezes. "hey sweetheart. 'm so sorry about earlier." he brings a palm to rub at your side while he continues to whisper apologies in your ear. "shouldn't 've left you like i did-." his words have you shaking your head into your pillow as your bottom lip wobbles.

he sucks in a sharp breath. "fuck- 'm so so sorry honey. i ruined our night, i know. will you lemme make you feel better? p-please sweetheart?" you're half asleep and so gloomy. and even though you're still hurt, all you want to do is let your boyfriend make love to you.

pope kisses at your damp cheek when you nod. "gonna make it all better. promise." his gentle words and his even more gentle movement to slide your t-shirt up over your butt has more tears spilling from your waterline. you never see him this sweet, only when you fight.

he kisses your shoulder while his hand dips down between your legs. your gasp is watery and you shudder when he carefully circles your clit with two calloused fingers. he whispers sweet words the whole time he gets you ready for him. tracing your weepy hole so softly and sweetly. "yer so perfect for me." he slides one thick finger into you and you buck your hips back. "never leavin' you again honey. promise." you cry out when he adds another. "you're my everything sweetheart. love you so much."

the last sentence has you coming on his fingers when he curls them just right. you whimper and squirm underneath his hold while he kisses your hairline the whole way through. "andy..." you voice cracks on the first word you've said to him since he's been back. he shoves down his boxers and nudges your legs apart. "i know. i know. god 'm so sorry. fuck- can i sweet girl? can i please?" you arch ever so slightly as a yes and he immediately shoves his hard cock inside of you. you moan at the stretch his thickness provides every time no matter how nicely he preps you.

popes forehead falls to the nape of your neck. he slowly starts to thrust into you, still whispering. "missed you. hate when we fight. love you so- hnnhg- love you so much."

you're blinking back tears and nodding at his words. you can't form your own right now due to the mix of pleasure and something much deeper you can't quite name. pope rests all his weight atop you, bringing one strong arm to hook underneath your neck. he lightly tilts your head sideways so he can press his lips to yours. you whimper when he ruts his hips until he bottoms out then pauses, letting both of you feel how deep he is.

"didn't mean what i said." you barley hear his quiet, shaky words over your own sniffles and the pulse of his length stilled against your warm walls. "you're not clingy or needy, honey. thats me. i-i need you. god, i love you so much- need you always. wanna stay just like this forever."

its exactly what you needed to hear. tears threaten to spill due to the fact that he knows you so well. you love him so much. you’re choking through your words. " 'm sorry andy-." he cuts you off with a tender "shh shh- jus breathe sweetheart- mhm jus like that." then starts to grind his hips again. pope's heavy weight above you and his thickness dragging inside you only adds to the warmth you feel from his words.

"was my fault. should've stayed. god honey, 'm so sorry i made you upset." you're full on crying now, whimpering his name over and over while he does the same but with " 'm sorry." he's panting soothing words in your ear, muscular forearm tightening around your throat. you feel his thighs twitch on the backs of yours in restraint. you can tell he is trying to keep the slow and sensual pace to match the apology he's giving you.

but you don't want slow. not when you've missed him all night and just want him to make you feel as good as he always does. you push your ass back to fuck yourself onto him a few times as hard as you can with all 200 plus pounds of him on top of you. he complies, instantly knowing what you want, and pressing his cheek to yours and starting to thrust relentlessly. your wet eyes roll into your head as his hips slap harshly against your butt. you feel his fat tip kiss your cervix while the weight of his chest stays glued to your back. a spark starts in your lower belly and tingles start dancing behind your eyes.

a small bit of liquid drops onto your cheekbone and you blink up enough top see pope crying too. it's the first time you've been able to focus on his face. your eyes trace his freckled face thats laced with devastation and his auburn curls that are all messy as if he'd been running his hands through them all night. "t-tell me y'love me sweetheart. please -mmhf fuck- please 'm so sorry. needa hear it."

his small and pathetic words are a stark contrast to the way he's pounding into you. your big strong boyfriend is now sniffling and whimpering just like you had been all night. you comply because it's truly all you feel in this moment. there is nothing else in your euphoria-blanked brain besides the words. "love you andy- loveyouloveyouloveyou-!" he's moaning unashamedly above you as you flutter around his cock. he uses his free hand thats not balancing him to intertwine his fingers with yours that clutching at the sheets.

the tangible pleasure grows and grows till it locks tight behind where your eyes are pouring tears. pope smashes his damp lips to yours once more before starting to beg you. "hnnhg fuck honey- come for me. please. give itta me- i'll keep it safe. promise. come with me please."

he's taken over all of your senses. his words are in the air you breathe, his body is creating the heat you feel, and his throaty groans are taking over the noises you hear.

you can barely move your lips against his as you cry out when you shatter. you're clenching around him so tightly that you're about to push his hefty cock out, but it's all pope needs to come too. your releases are a mix of tears, moans and repeated "iloveyou"s. it's warm and intimate and has your vision blowing white as your hearing fades in and out due to the intensity. when you come down, your body is still shaky and pope is still moving inside of you, even though he's soft and you feel his come warming your insides.

he hasn't stopped whispering sweet nothings to you. "love you. love you so much. yer perfect. don't deserve you." you shake your head in disagreement, brain too fuzzy and body too tired to use words. when he moves to pull out, all you can manage is a raspy whine in protest. pope settles back instantly as if he never actually wanted to move in the first place.

Pope is driving down Oceanside Boulevard from a potential job site back to Smurfs when a green truck catches his eye pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Well, not so much the truck, but the young woman yanking the flat tire off the truck all by herself. Pope slows as he passes her, noticing the huge buckets of flowers in the back of the truck. He pulls off the road parking in front of her before stepping out of his own truck and walking back towards her. 

As he gets closer he notices the flush of your cheeks, his step stutters briefly the closer he gets to you. You’re beautiful. Then it dawns on him, he recognizes you, maybe that subconsciously made him pull over. He bought flowers from you for Smurf, for mothers day, after she had thrown a fit about not being appreciated enough by her boys. He tries to slow his heart as he clears his throat, trying to get your attention.

“Need some help?” He says, and your head snaps over to him.

“Oh,” you sigh, “that’s so nice of you. I mean… if you have a minute…”

“Yeah, no, I do,” Pope wipes his palms on his jeans, god you’re hot… no, he thinks it’s hot, that’s what he means, it’s hot out and he’s just helping someone who needs it. He’s looking at your car and something about the angle that it’s sitting on the jack just doesn’t seem right. 

“I don’t know if the tire is your only problem,” he says, crouching down.

“What? What do you mean?” You crouch down next to him. 

“It’s just…” he rests his palms on the ground, looking underneath your truck. 

“Yeah,” he says, pushing back up, resting on his knees, “your axle is cracked,”

“Fuck,” you huff, rubbing your hand over your face. “God, this cannot be happening.”

“Do you have AAA?” Pope offers, trying not to be distracted by your flustered state.

“Yeah,” you sigh, “they can’t get here for two hours but I need to get these flowers inside like ten minutes ago.”

You stand with your hands on your hips looking back at the bed of your truck.

“That’s, uh, not your problem though,” you say, sounding resigned, “thank you for stopping, that was really generous,”

You turn to acknowledge him for the first time really, so focused on your truck that you hadn’t even properly looked at him yet. 

“No worries,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Wait, I recognize you,” you say, pointing at him, “you bought flowers for mothers day… oranges lilies, right?”

“Yeah,” Pope’s head recoils back the tiniest bit, surprised that you remember him at all, nevermind so specifically, “they were orange… I don’t remember what kind,”

“I do… yeah… you’re orange lilies,” you smile, “I remember,”

“That’s… impressive,” Pope bites back a smile.

 “Sorry, I know it’s weird,” you scrunch your nose, Pope tries to ignore how cute that is, “I have this memory thing…”

“It’s ok,” He says, kneading the toe of his book into the ground.

“Bad flower for mothers day…” you roll your eyes at yourself, “orange lilies symbolize hatred and pride…”

Jesus, Pope thinks, you nailed it.

“They’re beautiful though,” you try and correct yourself, “that’s- that’s not what I had in mind when I made the bouquet,”

“No, they were nice,” Pope bites back a smile, “she loved them,”

“Oh, I’m glad,” you smile at him, before glancing towards your truck and then back at him, “well, I won’t keep you, um, thank you for stopping, but I gotta figure out how to get all these back to my house before the heat kills them.”

“I can take you,” Pope says without thinking.

“Sorry?” You look at in disbelief and he feels a twinge of guilt, did he just freak you out?

“I just,” Pope scratches the back of his neck trying not to blush, “I have nowhere to be for a while, if you need to move them…” 

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to get in a car with a stranger?” You tuck a piece of hair behind your ear.

“No- I didn’t mean,” he starts, fumbling over his words. 

“Are you being serious?” You ask. Pope takes a beat to look over your face. Your cheeks flushed, the glimmer of sweat on your forehead, and the looks in your eye like he’s about to save you… how could he say anything but-

“Yes,” he says.

“Oh my god,” you clap your hands together, “oh my god, you’re a life saver, I- I can pay you, or you can have free flowers- for life, I- thank you-”

Pope only smiles at you, trying not to feel too giddy at your reaction.

“I’ll, uh, back my truck up a little closer,” he points over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Ok, amazing,” you say, “I can move all the buckets myself, I don’t- you’re already doing me a huge solid.”

“Nah,” he says, backing towards his truck, “give me a minute,”

Despite his little protest you start moving the buckets of flowers around to the front of your truck as he backs up towards you. When he gets out again you pause to introduce yourself, feeling a little silly for not having done so before.

“I’m Andrew,” he says, grabbing the bucket you just set down and placing it in the bed of his truck. Your eyes wander down his arms, tracing the vein that runs down his bicep before you blink hard, trying to snap yourself out of it. The two of you move the nine buckets and two large crates quickly before climbing into his truck.

“I really- I don’t even know what to say-” you look at him from the passenger seat. 

“I think my mom would be horrified if I left a pretty girl stranded on the side of the road like that-” he says before his grip tightens on the steering wheel. You see a pink blush spread across his cheeks. You let out a small laugh.

“That is… really sweet,” you say, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. 

The rest of the drive is relatively quiet, the silence interspersed with your directions to your house. You’re guessing Andrew is feeling shy after his little confession but you try and play it off as no big deal, just a slip of the tongue. In about ten minutes he’s pulling into your short driveway. The two of you step out of the car and start unloading the flowers on your front stoop. After he sets the last crate down you speak.

“I- I’d really like to repay you,” you say, “I have cash inside,”

“No,” Andrew shrugs, “really, I- I don’t need anything,”

“Are you sure? That’s really- that’s too nice,” you say, twisting your fingers together.  

“I’m sure,” he says, trying not to smile.

“Well, if you ever change your mind… you know where the shop is,” you smile. “Come by any time, really, no expiration on- uh- a reward for your heroism,”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says.

“Ok,” you say, slowly backing towards your door, almost kicking over one of the buckets of flowers, “shit, I- uh- thank you again, Andrew. I’ll see you around maybe?” 

“Yeah, I- uh- yeah,” he says, opening the door to his truck, sliding inside, and pulling away. 

That evening as you sit on your floor making bouquets and center pieces you can’t stop thinking about Andrew. You’re kicking yourself for not getting his phone number. You could have taken him to get a coffee or a drink as a thank you… Ok, so you thought he was gorgeous, that was definitely impacting your thought process but he had done something incredibly generous and got you out of a really tough spot. As you arrange the flowers in the vase you can’t help but hope you’ll see him again.

The next day Andrew is driving downtown heading towards the flower shop. He circles the block maybe five times, passing your storefront, wondering if you’ll think it’s weird that he’s showing up out of the blue. You had said he could come by anytime, and isn’t now anytime? He parks across the street and crosses, pushing open the door to your store. A small bell chimes, announcing his arrival but he doesn't see you.

“I’ll be with you in a second!” He hears you call from somewhere in the back. He turns to examine the buckets of flowers lined up on the small risers, the smell is delightful. He’d never really been one to appreciate flowers before but here, standing in your store, he couldn’t help but enjoy being surrounded by them, it was almost as if he was being surrounded by you…

“Andrew!” He hears from behind him. He turns to see you in a dark green florist apron, a pair of sheers in one hand, a bouquet in the other.

“Hi,” you smile at him, walking behind the counter, setting the sheers down. 

“Hi,” he smiles at you, you look at him expectantly as if you’re waiting for him to explain why he’s there, “I, uh, just wanted to see if your truck is… ok,”

“Oh my truck is fucked,” you roll your eyes but keep a small smile on your face, “gonna cost a small fortune to get it fixed but it’s fine. Are you here to cash in your reward?”

“No, I- I really just wanted to see if everything was ok,” He says, looking down at his feet.

“That is… incredibly sweet,” you say.

“How did it go with the flowers yesterday?” He says, eyes flicking up to you.

“Good!” you smile, seeming delighted that he asked you about it, “the bride and groom were really happy with how it all turned out, do you want to see?”

“Yeah,” Andrew says, trying not to get too excited that you want to show him. You’re probably this nice with everyone who walks into your store. You lean forward, resting your elbows on the counter, and pull up pictures on your phone, swiping through them, making little commentary about the wedding and the venue. 

“It looks really good,” he says, staring down at the photos, “you’re really talented,”

You look up at him with a smile.

“Thank you,” you stand, and slip your phone back in your pocket, “but you can’t just come here and complement me, I’m still at a huge favor deficit,” 

“I really don’t need anything,” Andrew blushes.

“Mmm,” you hum, squinting your eyes, “I’ll figure out how to get you back somehow,”

He could think of a few ways he’d like to be repaid, his eyes trail over your lips which look so soft… he tries not to let his mind wander too far.

“Are those for a wedding too?” He asks, looking down at the bouquet you just set down on the counter, trying to regulate his thoughts.

“No, these are for a favorite customer of mine,” you smile, starting to wrap the flowers in thick, brown paper. Favorite customer? Andrew thinks. He’ll have to start coming here more, he’ll have to become your favorite… just as he starts to internally spiral, your words pull him back, “he’s this really sweet old man, he buys a bouquet for his wife at the beginning of every week, it’s so precious.”

“Yeah,” Andrew agrees, feeling relieved that your favorite customer is an old married man, “that’s nice,”

“He’s gotta be at least eighty but he does it every week,” you sigh, wrapping twin around the middle of the bouquet, “I wanna be in love like that when I’m old,”

God, wouldn’t Andrew be a lucky man if he could be the one bringing you flowers when you’re eighty. As if on cue, an old gentleman wearing a houndstooth flat cap walks into the store.

“Harrold!” You smile as he walks towards the counter slowly. Harrold says your name with just as much enthusiasm. Andrew steps to the side.

“How is Sybil doing?” You say, ringing him up.

“Oh, she’s a getting better everyday,” Harrold smiles, “getting old isn’t for the weak,”

“Well I’m sure she’ll be up and at ‘em in no time,” you tilt your head to the side, handing him the bouquet, and resting your hands on the counter.

“What do we have this week?” Harrold looks down into the bouquet, taking a deep breath. 

“This week we have some daffodils for rebirth, renewal, orange poppies for vitality and health, chamomile for gentle healing, and wax flowers for enduring love,” you point to each of the flowers in the bouquet as you say the name and meaning. Andrew’s heart flutters. “I wrote it down for you just in case,” 

You slide a small card across the counter with your slanting handwriting on it, each flower and meaning listed.

“You are just the loveliest thing,” Harrold takes your hand in his, squeezing it. Slowly he looks at Andrew then back to you, “is this gentleman with you?” 

“This is Andrew,” you say taking a slight pause, “he’s a friend,”

“Andrew,” Harrold turns to him with his hand outstretched to shake, “you’re not going to meet another young lady like this one,”

“Harrold,” you blush and bring your hands up, dropping your head into them.

“Let an old man speak,” Harrold says to you before turning back to Andrew, “when I met my wife, I knew, I just knew it in my bones that I was supposed to be with her. So you have to keep a sharp eye, look out for that feeling,”

“Harrold,” you whine, crouching down behind the counter, leaving only your fingers gripping the edge visible. Andrew can’t help but blush at this advice and smile at your reaction. 

“She’s very beautiful,” Harrold points to where you’re hiding, “but she’s beautiful on the inside too,”

“Get out of my store!” You say from behind the counter. 

“Alright, alright, lecture over,” Harrold says, picking up the bouquet and walking towards the door, “I’ll see you next week, darling,”

“You’re not allowed to come here anymore,” you say teasingly.

“She’s single!” Harrold calls as the door swings shut behind him.

“Harrold!” You stand, hands on your hips. You bury your face in your hands again, “oh my god,”

“He’s great,” Andrew grins at you.

“Oh you enjoyed that?” You cross your arms with a smile on your face.

“Very much,” Andrew says. You shake your head at him. The pair of you just stand looking at each other for a moment.

“Do those flowers really mean all those things you said?” Andrew rests his hands on the counter. Your eyebrows raise a little.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s not set in stone or anything, you can kind of interpret them,” you shrug, “you know like, daffodils can mean new beginnings but they can also mean good fortune,”

“Which one is a daffodil?” Andrew asks. 

“Uh, this one,” you grab a stem out of one of the buckets behind you, twirling the yellow flower in your fingers. 

“Alright I’ll take one of those,” he says.

“You want just one?” Your eyebrows knit together. 

“Just one,” he nods, pulling out his wallet.

“Oh, come on I’m not gonna make you pay for one flower,” you say, resting a hand on your hip, “not after what you did for me,”

He puts a five dollar bill on the counter sliding it towards you. You slide it back.

“If you leave this five dollar bill here I will use it as compost,” you say. He sighs and slides the bill back in his wallet. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to make you something?” You tilt your head to the side, holding out the flower.

“Nah,” he says, taking it from your hand, fingertips brushing against each other for just a moment, “this is perfect,” 

“Well if you change your mind you know where to find me,” you smile at him, biting your bottom lips.

“Yeah,” he smiles back at you, backing towards the door.

“Bye,” you say, but it comes out much quieter than you expected.

“Bye,” he nods, and the door closes behind him.

That evening you’re taking the bus home. Your car is still in the shop but you’re happy to be able to just sit and daydream for a while. Andrew hadn’t left your head since he left the store. Everything about him intrigued you. The fact that he went so out of his way to help you, a stranger, when it would have been one hundred percent easier to just drive by you. The fact that he came by to check on you after the fact. The fact that he was extremely handsome… his dark curls, the curve of his cupid’s bow, his intense eyes, his freckles, his arms… You almost miss your stop letting your mind wander to him for so long. You hop off the bus and walk the rest of the way to your house. Maybe Harrold had been pushing the two of you in the right direction. Andrew is handsome and caring and engaged… but you don’t even know if he thinks of you in that way. You turn up your driveway, pulling your keys out of your bag, and your heart nearly stops when you get to your front door. A single daffodil is resting across the top of your mailbox with a small white card tucked underneath. You pick the card up turning it over, it simply reads:

New beginnings 

-A

The crowd there was the worst he’d stood in front of, and he’d grown up in Smurf’s living room, so that was a measurement that meant something. Men who bet money they needed and meant to take the loss of someone’s skin. The air thick enough to chew, smoke and sweat and the bitterness of a room full of people who’d collectively decided this was the night their luck was going to turn. 

Pope wanted to lose just so they’d fuck off. 

It was run by a guy named Leo who’d met Craig at a party, late, both of them lit and certain they were about to make each other rich. Leo had the basement, the crowd, the connections that made cops uninterested, and a way of talking that made one-track-minded guys like Craig feel like they were cut in on something even as he was lifting your wallet. Pope didn’t trust him. Pope didn’t trust anybody, but he distrusted Leo with a specificity that felt like respect. 

Leo ran the place like a man who’d thought about every cent in a dollar twice. Nothing in that basement was there by accident, which was how Pope knew, eventually, that you weren’t either. 

The first night he didn’t put it together. He came up out of the third round with his ears ringing and his knuckles screaming and somebody pressed a wet rag to the back of his neck, and his body did what it always did. He came around with his elbow up and the words already out of his mouth. “Get the fuck off me.” 

You went still. You were crouched down close enough that he could see you’d done your eyes earlier in the night and they’d worn through, smudged soft at the corners, and that should have made you look tired and instead made you look like you’d been left out in the weather, gentled by it. There was a smear of someone else’s blood drying brown along your jaw—not yours, you didn’t have a mark on you, you were the only clean thing in a room built for ruining people—and you hadn’t wiped it off because your hands had been busy all night being careful with men who were far from deserving it. 

“Okay,” you said, and that was all. You stayed crouched in front of him, an arm’s length back now, holding the rag out where he could take it himself if he wanted it. 

He felt like garbage. It all arrived once, the way it did with him, fine one second and then sick with it. You couldn’t have been much more than a bucket and tape to anybody else in that room, just the girl who patched them up, and he’d snapped at you like you were one of the men in the room baying for his blood. 

He took the rag off your hands. 

And you just went back to it. You pulled his hand into both of yours like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just shown you the worst of himself in the first ten seconds of knowing you, and started cleaning the wreck of his knuckles with a little furrow between your brows. Devotional, almost. Like his hand had been lent to you and you were supposed to return it in good condition. 

It was then he realized Leo had gotten way too lucky with you. He was sure you were used as nothing but a front. You were something soft to put at the edge of all that ugliness so men had a reason to keep their money in the room a little longer. A girl who patched up fighters, sure, but mostly a thing for them to look at, to crowd, to reach for between rounds. 

Pope wouldn’t admit it to Craig, or any of his brothers, ever, that the only reason he came back the next time was to see you again. He knew his words and then his sudden muteness probably made you read him as one more man to be careful around. He’d handed you that impression himself, and now he had to live inside it. 

The second night, you didn’t tend to him. There was another girl near the bucket—older, harder, a cigarette tucked behind her ear and no softness in her hands at all—and she did his corner between rounds like she was wiping off a dusty counter. Pope sat there and let her and looked for you over her shoulder the whole time, which was how he found you across the room, working the cash, the cigar box against your chest as your lips moved over the count. 

Pope hardly believed in coincidences. He was sure he’d snapped and you’d adjusted by putting a body between yourself and the man who’d shown his teeth. It was the smart thing. It was exactly what he’d have told you to do if he were anyone other than the man it was being done to. It sat in his chest all night like a swallowed stone, the understanding that he’d gotten precisely what he deserved and hated every second of it. 

He won. He always did; that was the whole problem with him, the thing that made his Craig rich now and him useful to Smurf and left Pope standing in basements full of people who wanted to watch him hurt somebody. The crowd howled, money changed hands, and Pope barely heard whatever Leo was saying because he was watching you seal the night’s take into a zip bag and press the air out of it with the flat of your hand carefully. 

He found you after, by the stairs, when the room had thinned to the stragglers and the smell of it had gone stale. He came up slow, hands where you could see them. 

“You drew the short straw last week,” he said, the words coming out of him too rehearsed, because that’s what he’d been doing since he noticed you and while getting his guts punched. “Patching me up.”

You looked up at him. Up close, your worn-soft eyes were tired. “I just asked Kate to take your corner tonight.”

So, not a coincidence. He’d already known, yet it did something ugly to him. He already had people who he’d known his entire life scared of him—brothers who were career criminals—and he’d made peace with it, like he had to with everything he couldn’t change. But it landed differently from you, because you didn’t have the years to back the wariness up. 

“Right,” he said, because what else was there to say?

You tilted your head, just slightly, and scanned his face like you were checking it for swelling. He knew there was none, not today. He still held still. He realized he’d have held still for anything you wanted to do to his face.

Whatever you were looking for, it seemed like you hadn’t found it. Or maybe you had. Your gaze caught on his mouth, under his jaw, and you clicked your tongue. 

“You’re not —” You shook your head faintly. “It’s easier,” you said finally, “to not get in the way of guys like you. That’s all. It’s nothing personal.” 

Guys like you. Jesus. He wanted to ask you what that meant, even though he knew. He was guys like him. He’d spent thirty-some years being exactly that. But he wanted, with an intensity that made no sense, to be not that to you. 

Any other guy would have let it go. A smarter man, a less stupid one, would’ve said that was a fair enough explanation and left you to your transparent zip bags and never come back to you unless you did to him. 

“It is though,” Pope said, voice too rough. “Personal. I wasn’t—right, after the third round.” The words, his voice, everything came out clumsy, and he briefly wondered if his eyes had dropped down his face and his nose had turned upside down. “You don’t have to put Kate—or whoever there. I’m not gonna—” He wasn’t sure how he wanted to end the sentence. “I’d rather it was you.” 

He suddenly felt like a complete idiot all over again when he watched your brows furrow slightly and your lips press together as you looked at him almost sadly. Then you let out a disbelieving chuckle as you shook your head as you twisted your neck slightly to look around. 

“Is this gonna be a problem?” you said, lowering your voice, glancing off to the side. Checking, he realized, who was still on the stairs, who might be close enough to hear. 

That was its own answer to a question he hadn’t been able to ask yet. It told him there were people you didn’t want knowing this, even though there was hardly a ‘this.’

“What?” Pope asked, playing dumb just so he could hear the words from you.

“You.” You brought your eyes back to him, and he felt slightly shaken as you pinned him with a glare that seemed almost gentle. “Saying things like that.” Your voice stayed even, but there was an edge working into it now. “I do my job here. I keep my head down—that’s better for me, okay?”

He didn’t get that. Not really. But he heard the need in it. 

“Nobody’s gonna bother you,” he said roughly. It came out flat and certain, it always did when he was truly sure of himself. “Not while I’m here.” 

You just looked at him like that again. “Go home, Pope—”

“Andrew,” he said, and he didn’t even know why he did. 

He hated that name just as much as Pope. It was just another thing Smurf had handed him that never fit anywhere in his growing life. To the room he was Pope. On the cards he counted, he was Pope. He’d been Pope so long he sometimes forgot there was anything under it. But he didn’t want to be Pope to you. Pope was guys like him. Pope was the thing on the cards coked-up wishful men put their money on. He had no clean self to offer you—God knew he didn’t—but he had the name hardly anybody used often, and so he gave you that, stupidly, like it’d be worth something to you. 

His pulse climbed into his throat. He had the sick, racing feeling he got right before things went sideways, the one that had been wrong about as often as it was right and that he'd never once been able to switch off. 

“Andrew,” you said, testing it quietly in your mouth, where Pope felt everything landed differently for some reason. And then you looked at him again, and said, “Go home, Andrew.” 

Thankfully, by some grace of God, Pope realized he may not have done it all wrong when you came to patch him up after the first round the following week. You dropped down onto the concrete in front of him with the bucket and the brown bottle and a roll of tape gone soft at the edges from your thumb. 

You took his hand like nothing had been said, as though the conversation on the stairs had been filed somewhere and this was the conclusion you’d come to on your own time, and Pope felt that he should let that be, instead of pointing it out. He’d learned that much, and tamped down the feeling like his entire week had paid off. 

“You lead with right too much,” you said, looking at his hands. “When you’re tired. You drop the left and lead with the right. That’s how they got your eyebrow.” 

Pope parted his lips and blinked. “You watch me?” 

“I watch the cash.” You pressed the tape down over his knuckle. “Fights are what make them move, but yeah.” You shrugged, and it was stiff. “You drop your left.”

Pope stayed silent for a moment, then asked, dumbly, “You a fighter?” 

It was meant to land as dry, a joke, but it never quite did with him. 

You let out the smallest of chuckles. “I watch men get hit everyday.” 

Pope swallowed, not sure how to respond to that. So he watched the top of your head instead, the part in your hair, the concentration you put into doing a job that probably paid no extra if you did it well. You wrapped him efficiently, all business now, and Pope felt that you’d closed a door he hadn’t realized you’d opened. 

It should have frustrated him. Instead, it made him want to earn that inch back slow, the way you’d coax anything that didn’t trust easy. He knew that wanting. He had it about a dog once, a half-feral thing that lived in the corners of the Cody Compound for a summer, that he’d fed in silence for weeks before it let him near. He’d never told anyone about that dog. He thought about it now, crouched-down you and careful tape, and didn’t enjoy what it told him about himself. 

“You’re done,” you said, and stood briskly. 

“Hey,” he said, the word coming out before he could think it. “Thanks.” 

You looked at him a second, and whatever you found in him, it earned him the corner of a smile. You must not have been used to being thanked very often. Pope flexed his wrapped hand, feeling something close to proudness. He wasn’t sure for what, exactly, but it felt good for the moment.

For three weeks, you rationed out small jokes that he was almost sure you didn’t realize were jokes, taped him up, and left Pope driving home with whatever you’d given him that night turning over in his chest. 

His fight hadn’t started yet. He leaned up against the support post by the stairs, hood up, trying to do everything he could to make himself look very still and very boring so the crowd would forget to look at him. From there, he had a clean line of the cash table, which meant he had a clean line on you, which was the actual reason he’d stood there. 

There was a man at your table. Big, going soft in the middle, a Lakers cap on backward and loose, oozing the sleazy confidence of someone past four beers and good judgement. He’d been talking to you a while, Pope noticed. You were wearing a smile aimed past his shoulder—a small, pleasant, and all around absent thing—and Pope watched you do it with a protective switch under his thumb. 

The man reached over and tucked a bill into your bra, slowly, like it was funny. Two fingers folded the bill below your collarbone, and you went rigid, smile staying in place while everything behind it moving.

You went somewhere way back behind your own eyes the way Pope had watched you go a dozen times, and the man laughed at his own joke and left his hand there a beat too long. 

The trouble with Pope was that most of the time, he never decided. One second he was against the post and the next he had the man’s wrist in his hand and he was bending it back off you, almost politely.

“Wrong,” Pope drawled, plucking the bill out of your collar with his free hand and pressed it to the man’s palm. He closed the man’s fingers over them. “Cash goes in the box.”

“The hell’re you —” The man turned to get a real look at him, and got the whole of him. The hood and the wrapped hands and Pope’s uncanny stillness, and Pope watched the recognition arrive, and the bluster went out of him like the air on your sealed bags. “Pope—hey, man. No harm. No harm.”

“Sure.” Pope let go of the wrist and the guy immediately melted back into the crowd. The whole thing had taken maybe nine seconds and Pope’s pulse hadn’t even climbed, which it should’ve, but some animal thing under him had considered this easy. 

“Why would you do that?” you said, voice quieting. 

“He had his hands on you.” His voice came out defensive, which he hated, because it made him understand that he’d done something wrong before he could even process it. “I’m not standing here watching some creep—”

“That was Reyes,” you said, like it meant something. It didn’t, not to Pope, and your face did something between fury and despair as he realized this. “He runs paper for Leo. You just—” You pressed your lips together and looked around quickly, the same way you’d done on the stairs except this time he could see real fear attached in it. “I don’t—I don’t need people thinking a Cody’s got a thing for me,” you finished, quieter. “You don’t.” 

“What if I—”

“You don’t, okay?” It came out sharper than you’d intended, and he saw how you caught it. “It’s fine. It’s no big deal.” You were already looking away, gathering the cash box against your chest, busying yourself. “I really am better when people don’t worry about me, Andrew.” 

You tucked a piece of hair back, gave him a quick, tired ghost of a smile that didn't reach anything, and stepped back into the crowd with your box like the last nine seconds could be put away with everything else you put away.

There was that horrible feeling tightening in his stomach again. He knew he’d done the right thing, but there was a frustration in him of being right about the wrong thing. The thing he’d done to help you had immediately become another thing for you to be frightened of, clean up, another man’s decision landing on your plate.

You’d probably spent your entire life cleaning up after other people’s choices and he’d just handed you one more.

He fought ugly and won ugly, which was somehow worse than losing altogether. The crowd got what it paid for and then some, and Pope walked out with a rib that clicked when he breathed and a cut over the eye he’d earned by leading with the right all night like the idiot you’d warned him not to be. 

He collected off Leo without a word. Pope wasn’t even sure why the guy even bothered to grin and laugh and talk to him while he counted the money; Pope had said around two words to him and won him more than two grand.

He didn’t bother hearing the compliments—the fake, complimenting bit to make sure he came back—and took his roll of cash and shoved it inside his pocket and left out the back. 

He went up the concrete steps, into the lot behind the building where the air was at least air instead of four hundred people breathing the same lungful. 

He leaned against the cinderblock wall in the dark, in the orange wash of one working lot light, and pressed the heel of his hand under the bad rib and breathed shallow and concentrated on not being anywhere, on going behind his own eyes the way he'd watched you do it, somewhere the night couldn't reach him.

The door opened and shut carefully, and the latter action made him not need to look to know. 

“You walked out without letting anybody look at that,” you said. 

“I’m fine.”

“No, I can tell,” you said drily, almost amused. Your footsteps came across the lot and stopped a few feet off, not crowding him—you never crowded him—and giving him the room he hadn’t asked for and needed anyway. “I basically heard your ribs.”

He huffed something close to a laugh. It pulled at the rib and he stopped. 

Your hands hovered around his body, like you were asking for permission to take a look without saying the words.

“Are you okay?” he asked, forcing the words out roughly. Because he needed to, it’d been gnawing at him for too long. “Is he hurting you?”

Your hands when still where they hovered. You took the rag instead, wet it from the bottle, and reached up to the cut over his eye as though he’d never asked the question. 

“Hold still,” you said. 

“That’s not—” He caught your wrist, palm loose around it, but he caught it. “I asked you something.” 

In the orange light, Pope could see the smudge of your makeup, dark and worn through around your eyes, and the rings on your fingers catching the light each time your hand moved. You let him hold your wrist without pulling away, your eyes dropping to his chest like you’d decided against looking at his face.

He could feel your pulse under his thumb, thrumming. He let go of your wrist with a sigh, and you stepped back into the work, dabbing at the cut, close enough he could feel the warmth coming off you. 

You said, after a moment, evenly, “Don’t try to help me.”

“Don’t try to help me.” 

“I didn’t say—”

“It’s written all over your face.” 

You pressed the rag a little harder than the cut needed and let you, kept his face still, watching yours. You narrowed your eyes at him when he didn’t react to the pressure, as though his stillness annoyed you. Pope didn’t know how you hadn’t realized he’d let you do anything. He’d let you press the rag as hard as you wanted and he’d sit there and take it. He’d stopped having a choice about it a while ago.

That, and the fact that your hands, so small compared to the enormity of him, were the furthest things from the worst he’d taken. 

“Are you trying to hurt me?” he asked, amused despite it all. 

“If I were, you’d know.” But the corner of your mouth tugged, just barely, before you caught it and put it away. You eased up on the rag. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be.”

For a second, it felt easier between you two again. Then, you remembered yourself, and he watched as your lips pursed. 

“I mean it, though,” you said. “Don’t. Whatever you’re sitting there cooking up.”

“You don’t know what I’m cooking up.” 

“Andrew,” you said his name flatly, and he felt like a dog at how quickly it got his neck to tilt up to meet your eyes. You hadn’t even spoke and he was looking at you like you’d asked him a question he wanted to get correct. 

“You’re not the first one to try this,” you said softly. “It always goes the same way.” 

“Yeah?” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Tell me, then.” 

“Either he gets in over his head and screws up.” You wiped the last streak of blood from his brow, your hand coming to rest light against his face to hold him still. He leaned into your palm, the warmth of your hand and him moving into it like it was the most natural thing he’d ever done. 

One of your rings sat cool against his cheekbone and he felt that, too, the small contrast of it, cool metal and warm palm, and he was very aware you were still talking and he was having trouble with that. 

“ —or he sticks around for long enough to figure out it’s too much trouble, gets bored, and quits. He leaves, and either way I’m standing here worse than before,” you said, conversationally, and he did believe it was a tale as old as time for you. 

“I won’t get bored,” he managed to say. “I’m good at what I do.” 

“They all say that, too.” You smiled that sad, soft smile again. 

You took your hand back off his face and he felt the loss of it like air. He was already thinking about how to get you to put it back, which was probably the most pathetic thought he’d ever had, and he’d had some bad ones.

“When do you fight next? You shouldn’t, for a while. For your ribs.” 

He let you change the topic. He noticed you did that often.

“Next week, probably,” he said. “My brother’s already running his mouth about it.”

“Tell your brother your ribs are hurt.” You crouched to gather the bottle, the rag, the soft-edged tape, packing them back into the bucket.

“Where do you go? After this,” he asked.

He watched the careful machinery turn—watched you weigh whether it was a real question or a way in—and then something in you must've been too tired to keep the door shut, because you let it swing.

“Home. My mom’s,” you said. “She’s around, just—not a lot.” You gathered the bucket against your hip. “So it’s me and my brother mostly. He’s eleven.”

The whole shape of you tilted and resettled in the space of the word. Why you watched every dollar like it held something up. You weren't just keeping your own head down. You had a kid behind you, in the blind spot, where the room couldn't reach him.

“He know you’re here?” Pope asked.

“He thinks I wait tables.” The corner of your mouth went up, rueful. “Thinks I’m terrible at it. The tips are all over the place, so.” You shrugged. 

Pope cleared his throat. “Are they?” 

“This week, yeah,” you said. 

“Do you want to?” Pope found himself asking, “Wait tables.” 

You looked at him for a long moment that he almost thought you wouldn’t answer. “It’d be nice, I guess. To have steady cashflow and all that.” 

“Leo pays you enough?”

You shifted the bucket against your hips. “He doesn’t really—” You stopped yourself, then started again. “The tips are what they are.”

Pope hummed. “That cover everything?”

You looked at him sideways, catching what he was doing. “Most weeks,” you said hesitantly.

“This week?”

You looked off past him, and he watched you decide whether to say it. “My brother’s shoes split,” you said finally, and it’d come out in a small voice. “Bottom’s gone right through it, so.” You shrugged, making a small face as you pinched your eyes shut, like you hated saying it.  

Pope took the roll out of the jacket, thumbed off a fold of it without counting and held it out.

You looked at it, then at him. “No.” 

“For the kid.”

“Andrew.” 

“Take it.” He kept his hand out. “It’s shoes.” 

“That’s not—” You stopped. Your jaw worked. He could see all of it going on behind your face, the pride and the rule and the thing you'd spent the last few minutes telling him. “That’s just what I told you not to do.” 

“You said not to help you.” He pushed his hand further toward you. “This is shoes for a kid I never met.”

He watched your eyes rise to look at the sky and you shook your head. “You’re making this really hard.” 

He tipped his chin down. “Just take it. I don’t need it.”

You took it slow, your fingers closing over his for a second before they took the bills, and you didn't say thank you—he was glad, thanking him would’ve made it a transaction—you just held on to his hand a beat longer than you needed to, and breathed out, shaky, and let it go.

“Please don’t make this a thing,” you said, voice thick. “I can’t—I can’t say no to the money. I wish I could.” You looked at the bills in your hand. “I don’t wanna take things from you.” 

He felt himself shrug, eyeing the top of your head as you looked down. “I’d let you.” 

He’d meant to keep that to himself. Or he hadn’t. He didn’t really care, though. The money itself was nothing; what he’d just handed you was a rounding error, less than what his brothers dropped in a single night without blinking. It was the kind of number that moved in the Cody household without anyone thinking to count it; money they’d find between the cushions from five years ago. 

He had more coming in than he knew what to do with and nowhere clean to put it. You had a kid to help out with and yourself to take care of, and the situation was so simple it almost made him angry. 

It became a thing without either of you calling it one. It was a thing, in Pope’s mind, obviously, but he was sure that telling you would’ve spooked you and he wasn’t ready for that. 

You’d started taping him differently. Early on you’d wrapped him all brisk and businesslike, done before he’d thought of anything to say. He had to watch his words in general, but he had to try even harder with you, for he never wanted to say the wrong thing. Somewhere in those weeks, you slowed. You took longer than the wrap needed—smoothing the tape down twice when once would’ve held just fine, turning his hand over in both of yours to check the knuckles you’d already checked—and Pope started to pretend he didn’t notice. 

He’d sit on the folding chair with his hand lent out to you and watch the top of your head and feel his pulse come down out of his throat, slow, the dog talked off the thing. One night, he let his thumb find the inside of your wrist while you worked, resting there against the thrum of you.

He started taking on more fights and ending them earlier. He told himself it was because of his ribs, the cash, any of the reasons a man might want a thing over with. All of it when the reason was that when the basement emptied after, it was just the two of you, and Pope had started living for the after the same way men lived for the fight.

You started watching the fights now—not the cash, him—and he knew because one night he had a bad one, a hook he missed that snapped his head around. He looked for your face before he looked for anything else, and found you already wincing. 

Your hand had come up halfway to your mouth. You caught yourself and dropped it. But he’d seen it and carried it home for a week, a proof of what, he didn’t know.

Pope really, really hated asking Craig anything. He knew that he’d make him pay the toll one way or another. Sometimes by talking for forty minutes about something nobody asked about, or remembering the question to bring it up at the worst possible time. So Pope sat on it for a week; he iced the rib, didn’t fight, and drove past the ring twice without going in. He knew it was fucking pathetic.

Pope found Craig by the pool, sunburnt and shirtless and rolling something on a paper plate. 

“You know the girl,” Pope started, “at the ring, the one who does the cash?” 

He found that he wanted to keep your name to himself, in case Craig hadn’t already caught onto it. 

“Which one?” Craig asked without looking up.

“The one that does the cash, man.”

“There’s like three girls.” He licked the paper and twisted the end. “You gotta be more specific. There’s the older chick, the mean—”

“Younger. Quiet.” Pope forced his voice to stay even. “Patches people up.”

Craig looked up at him then, a slow grin spreading. “Ohhhh.” 

“Don’t.”

“No. No.” Craig held his hands up, waving them slightly, delighted. “Can’t believe you’re asking me about a girl, man.” 

“Forget it.” Pope turned to go.

“Hey—hey,” Craig said, standing from the lounger. “I’m messin’ with you. C’mon. What do you wanna know about her?” 

“Why’s she there?” 

Craig shrugged. “Pretty sure she owes Leo.”

“She owes Leo?” Pope asked, letting the surprise show in his voice. “For what?”

“Pretty sure she’s collateral.” Craig lit the thing, talking around it. “Some guy that was around. Dad. Stepdad. Who knows?” He waved the smoke out of his face. “Pretty sure she’s just workin’ the square until it pays itself off.”

“How much?” Pope asked immediately.

Craig rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t be stupid, man.”

“Just say it.”

“I’m not his accountant,” Craig said. “And she’s not worth it. It won’t work, and I’m pretty sure she’s been working there longer than she hasn’t.” 

Pope ignored that. “It’s not even hers,” he said, quietly, almost to himself. “She’s down there holding it for a guy who took off. Kid at home, no money, and she’s—”

He stopped talking once he noticed the amused and incredulous expression on Craig’s face. 

Craig’s hand moved to the side, waving vaguely in confusion. “She’s got a kid?”

“It’s her brother.”

“Jesus—how much have you talked to this chick?” Craig dragged a hand down his face. “Real talk. You go pay the guy off—say you even can, say he gives you a number and it’s a real one, which it won’t be—you know what happens? He realizes Pope Cody just dropped twenty grand on a girl who pours drinks and puts bandages on people.” He spread his hands. “Best case. Best case, man. We don’t know what else the guy’s got her doing. She’s been there a long time. Girls don’t stay in places like that just counting cash.” 

Pope felt his teeth grind. “She counts cash and she patches people up,” he said, tipping his chin down slightly to pin Craig with a glare. “That’s what she does.” 

Craig looked at him for a moment and shrugged. “Alright, man.” 

“And even if she—she doesn’t just do that. It doesn’t—” 

Pope’s jaw worked, and he had to look away from Craig. He had no words for it. It didn’t matter what you did in the basement, what Leo had you doing or what Craig was implying. You were still you, and Pope knew that. 

If the situation was larger, then Pope saw it as more of a reason to get you out, not less. That was the thing Craig wouldn’t understand. 

“It doesn’t change anything. For me,” Pope said flatly. “She shouldn’t be there, that’s all.” 

Craig’s lips opened like he wanted to say something, then caught the look on Pope’s face, and said, “Yeah, man. She probably shouldn’t.”

He’d hoped that Craig would never have to meet you, at least not in the way he did. 

It happened on a night Craig hadn’t wanted him there at all. Craig had come for the first few of Pope’s fight, and realized he actually didn’t have to see his older brother take down a man twice to know the money was good. He could simply hand over the bet and go do anything else with his night. So most weeks, he dropped his cash with people and disappeared upstairs and reappeared only to collect. 

This week, he hung around the edge of the ring, three beers in, restless, and that was how he was standing right there when Pope took a cut over the cheekbone bad enough you came down to the corner with your supplies before the round was properly called.

Craig noticed it. The dumb piece of shit. One second Pope had your hands on his face, turned away from the crowd so nobody would notice your closeness, and the next he could feel the exact attention of his brother sharpening as he moved down to catch the interaction.

You were too deep in the work to notice Craig, lips pressed flat, that furrow between your brows, going fast because the round was coming. “This one’s gonna scar if you keep splitting it open,” you murmured, tipping his head toward the light. “You’re doing it on purpose at this point. You’re gonna ruin this face.” 

“What do you think about this face?” Pope said before he could think the words through. 

You rolled your eyes, lifting a hand off his face just to smack his shoulder lightly before it went right back to the cut.

“You talk too much when you’re losing blood,” you lied, but the corner of your mouth had gone soft. “Hold still.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“You’re fishing.” You pressed the butterfly closed over his cheekbone, your thumb lingering there a half-second past the job, warm against his face, and you dropped your voice even though there was nobody close enough to hear. “Ask me again when you’re not bleeding on me and I’ll think about it.” 

He felt his mouth want to move closer to yours then, and he tamped down the urge. But he must’ve let something through because when his eyes flicked up over your shoulder, there was Craig, beer halfway to his mouth, forgotten. 

You followed his eyes, found Craig, and Craig found you. Your hand came off his face and your spine went straight. “You know him?” you asked, quietly, gathering your bottle and tape as you stepped back to a safe distance. 

Pope caught your wrist. “My brother. He’s nobody. He’s dumb.”

Your eyes went over the crowd that was distracted. “You tell him anything?”

“There somethin’ to say?” he asked, raising a brow that made him wince. 

You gave him a flat look, unimpressed by the deflection. “Don’t try to be cute.”

Pope generally blamed his anger on a rage that had been planted in him from a tender age. Smurf had put it there the way you put a seed in dirt—patient, deliberate, knowing exactly what it’d grow into—and then spent thirty years acting surprised at the sheer size of it. He never thought about it. Thinking about it wouldn’t beat it away. It was just there—low and perpetual—like a pilot light he’d learned to turn down because the alternative was what happened in the ring when he forgot to. 

He forgot to that night. It had nothing to do with the guy across from him. The guy was a nobody—some gym rat Leo had matched him with, all shoulders and bad footwork—and Pope would, on any other day, put him down clean in two rounds because there was no reason to make it ugly. But Pope had spent a week with a number he didn’t own and a plan he couldn’t run with yours and Craig’s voice saying ‘don’t.’ The whole impossibility of you had stacked up in his sternum with nowhere to go, and when the guy clipped him, caught him good across the mouth first, something in Pope just opened the valve. 

He didn’t remember most of it after, and that was how he knew it was bad. The parts that came back later were wrong-angled and too bright (the kid’s head snapping, the wet sound, the way the crowd’s noise changed, going from hungry to something quieter, pulled back). Crowds like this roared throughout all of it unless they were watching a man go somewhere they wanted to stay back from. 

Somebody got between them. There were hands on his chest and a referee he had no idea even existed shouting something and the guy on the concrete not getting up the way he was supposed to. Pope was standing over it with his chest heaving and knuckles split open through the wrap and no memory of the ninety seconds at all.

The crowd parted for him when he started walking and that should’ve told him something, the way grown men stepped out of his way. He'd looked for you on the way through.

He'd looked for you the way he always did, automatically, and he'd found you at the edge of the cash table with the box held up against your chest, and you'd been looking right back at him.

Pope was distantly and too closely—both at the same time, two things too large for him—able to register you hadn’t looked at him the way you usually did.

You'd looked at him the way the crowd had. You’d gone still and careful, your eyes wide and fixed on him like he was the thing in the room, the dangerous thing, and you'd held that box to your chest like it could go between you and him. Just for a second. Just one. Then you'd caught yourself and your face had closed over it, gone professional. 

He went upstairs, and into the gap behind the stairs where there was a cot and a mop sink. It smelled like bleach. He put his head against the cinderblock and slid down it to the floor and tried to get his breathing under whatever was happening in his chest. 

Pope let himself sit on the floor with his hands ruined, the pilot light still guttering too high, and he let the worst story about himself tell itself all the way through. You’d finally seen the actual thing. You’d patched him up and made jokes and told him things about yourself, and then you had to watch him nearly kill somebody over nothing, and now you knew. Now you looked at him the way everybody did, just the way his mother had intended. 

He heard the door open, and he had to shake his head even though he wasn’t sure you could see it. 

“Don’t,” he said, and his voice came out wrecked. “You don’t have to help me or anything. Go help the guy.”

“Andrew—”

“I mean it.” His hands hung between his knees, split and shaking, and he kept his eyes on them. “Go check on him. I don’t—I don’t need it.”

He heard the door shut behind you, and then your footsteps came across the little room. “He’s up,” you said. “He’s fine. He’s got people. Concussed, probably, but he’ll be fine.” You paused, then added, “I came back here for you.” 

That made his chest pull tighter. “Shouldn’t have.” 

You set the bucket down by his feet, and then you were crouching in front of him, and he could see the toes of those wrong gray shoes in the edge of his vision and still couldn't make himself look higher. “Can I have your hands?” 

“No.”

“They’re split to the bone. Andrew, give ‘em here.” 

He didn’t. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he sat there, and before he could stop himself, he asked, “Are you scared of me?”

You stayed silent for a second, and he felt his chest seize. Then, he felt your hand—cold to the touch—against his face, turning it gently so he’d look at you. He kept his eyes trained to the ground. 

“Look at me,” you said quietly. When he refused again, your thumb slid against his cheekbone. “I’m not.”

When he said nothing, you continued, “You scared me a little out there. But look at you, you’re hiding behind the stairs. C’mon. Scariest man alive.” 

He huffed and let his eyes come up anyway, finally, and you were just looking at him. “You mean that?” 

Your bottom lip pushed the top, and you looked at him as you tilted your head. “Yeah. I mean it.” 

The plainness of the words got him. You said that as though it cost you nothing to mean it when it was the most expensive thing anyone had handed him in years. You had no idea the things he’d done so many times they stopped feeling like anything at all. You’d seen one bad night. And he wanted to tell you that maybe you should have been scared.

He kept his mouth shut. He looked at you looking at him and decided, quietly and completely, that he was going to spend whatever time he had making sure you never had a reason to find out you were wrong.

You were close. You’d been close the entire time, crouched between his knees with your hand cold on his face, and he’d been waiting for you to flinch that he hadn’t realized how close you were.

He felt it now. Like always, he didn’t decide. The same broken wiring in him was pointing somewhere new, because one second he was looking at your mouth and the next his hand had come up, ruined knuckles and all, and curved around the back of your neck. 

He stopped a breath short to give you an inch, some last careful piece left in him left it up to you, hung there close enough that he could feel your breath go uneven, waiting to see if you’d close it. 

You did, soft, slower than he’d expected. He’d always been waiting for quickness and hardness, things that got over with, and instead your mouth settled against his and stayed. Your hand came up light along his jaw, and the split in his lip stung but he didn’t move away from it. He was sure he couldn’t have this without paying for it. 

His hand was still at the back of your neck, knuckles wrecked, and he held you there carefully, just keeping you close. His thumb moved once behind your ear. You made a small sound against his mouth and he felt it more than heard it, felt it go down through his chest.

Your fingers curling at the collar of his shirt, your breath warm and uneven against his cheek between kisses.

His rib ached when he leaned into you. He leaned in anyway. He could feel the warmth of you all down his front, your weight tipped against his knees, your other hand finding his ruined one where it sat between you and holding it. 

It felt like such a stark difference to how you usually held his hand, to clean it, Pope distantly thought.

You broke off to breathe, but neither of you went far. Your forehead hovered over his, and your breath stayed uneven against his mouth. He let his hands hesitantly drift down to your waist, letting his palms run over the shape of you. 

You let them, your waist, the dip of it, the warmth coming up through your shirt, and you watched him do it with your bottom lip caught between your teeth.

“Do you like this?” Pope asked, hesitance creeping into his voice despite how hard he tried to push it out. He hated how it came out, like he had no trust in himself. But he had to know—had to hear it—because he’d just spent too long thinking you’d seen the worst of him, and now you were warm in his hands and he couldn’t quite square the two.

Your mouth curved, soft, and you tipped your forehead down against his. 

“Yeah, Andrew,” you said, like it was obvious. “I like it.” 

Your thumb moved along his cheekbone, and he let his lashes flutter slightly at the feel of your skin against so many parts of him all at once. 

“Been liking you a while,” you added, lower, a little dry, a little shy. “If you wanna know.”

Pope’s hand tightened at your waist. “How long?” 

“Not saying,” you said, smiling when you kissed him again, and he felt it against his mouth, and that was better than the answer would've been anyway.

He kissed you slow at first and then not slow, his hand sliding up your spine to press you closer, the other still spread wide and certain at your hip. 

You shifted down into him and he broke off with a rough breath, forehead dropping to your shoulder, his grip going tight to hold you still.

“Hang on,” he managed to say, low against your collarbone. All the wanting you stacked up behind his ribs with nowhere left to go, and you were so warm and so real on his lap, and he was trying not to be what he always was, too much, too fast. 

“We don’t have to—” you started.

“I know,” he said, voice rough. He lifted his head to look at you. “I wanna. I just—” He pushed his lips around, trying to find the right words. “I don’t want you doing anything back here. In this building.” His thumb moved at your hip. “You’re better than this place.” 

Your hands pressed against his chest, and he registered the smallness of them against his broad frame, and you pulled yourself back slightly and let out a staggered breath. For a second, you looked at him. Stunned, almost, like the words hadn’t landed anywhere familiar, like nobody’d ever told you that before. He watched it cross your face quickly.

One of your hands left his chest and slid up, slid back, fingers pushing slow into the short hair at the nape of his neck, your nails digging light against his scalp. Your fingers worked through his hair and curled at the base of it, and the newness of the touch—the pure uselessness of it, a touch that wasn’t for anything—went through him like a current. 

It got a low and rough sound out of him and his eyes slid shut. His face went hot at the helplessness of it, a man his size coming apart under fingers in his hair, but he couldn't stop it and he didn't pull away. He pressed back into your hand instead, into the slow drag of your nails, chasing it.

“So are you,” you said quietly after a moment.

He fluttered his eyes open halfway. 

“Better than this place,” you clarified.

Pope’s mouth twitched, wanting to tell you he wasn’t. He wanted to tell you every single bad thing he’d ever done. He wanted to lay all of it down between you so you'd see he didn't belong anywhere clean, least of all up against you, you who had never chosen to work in this shithole, you who’d probably never hurt a goddamn fly. 

The words stayed sealed, because he had a feeling you’d hand them all back if he tried. 

“Come on,” he said instead. He shifted under you, wanting to ease into the position while having to force himself to move. “Get your stuff and clock out. I’ll drive you.”

You blinked. “Where?” 

He let out a short-lived laugh. “Wherever you want to go.”

You looked at him like he’d just done a trick. “I have to be home,” you said slowly. “My brother waits up.” 

“Alright.” Pope eased you off his lap, and got a hand against the cinderblock. “So I’ll take you home.”

“You don’t have to—” You were saying from the ground.

“C’mon.” 

He held a hand out to you, then you took it and let him pull you up.

Pope was uncomfortable about everything. His entire life, he’d been uncomfortable, whether it was in his own skin, in his house, in rooms full of people. So it came as no surprise when he had no fucking clue what to do with you. He hadn’t thought this far; he’d wanted to get you the hell out, not get you. And now you were here—or as here as you could’ve been—and he didn’t have the next part. Nobody had ever handed him a good thing and let him keep it. He kept waiting for the catch, turning his pockets out for the cost of it, and the cost wasn’t coming. And that was uncomfortable, waiting for a hit that never landed. 

So he did the only thing he thought he could’ve done, which was keep it quiet and keep it close. 

The cab of his truck. The back room after the basement emptied. Your mouth on his, his hands learning you slow, because he wanted to—Pope wanted to learn you the way other men wanted to win. It was the only ambition he’d ever had that belonged all to him. He wanted the map of you. He wanted to remember the exact spot in your ear that made your breath catch, that he’d found once on accident and gone back to like a man returning to the one warm room in a house that was freezing. The way you said his name, the real one—Andrew—that fit in nobody else’s mouth but yours. 

Pope had to be clear with himself about the fact that it was nothing like a life, even in his own head, because hoping for more than the thing in front of him was how you got hurt. 

When the basement ran late and your house was a long quiet drive, sometimes you’d let him take you back to his place instead, and you’d sleep there. You would actually sleep, hard and deep, in a way you’d once told him you couldn’t at your own home. 

He watched you sleep. He knew it was a strange thing to do but he did it anyway; propped on an elbow in the gray lights off the blinds, because it was the only time your face went all soft. Awake, even with him, you kept some of it back, the watching, the careful, the part of you that—like him—was always waiting for the next bad thing. 

Asleep, you let it all go. You looked younger, and Pope thought this was how you would’ve looked all the time had the world dealt you a different house. 

He must’ve shifted, or his breathing must’ve changed, because your eyes cracked open. You found him in the dark, found him watching you, and your mouth curved, slow and sleep-heavy.

“Creep,” you mumbled into the pillow. 

“Yeah,” Pope said in a whisper. 

You shifted toward him, unhurried, still half in sleep, and your hand came up to his jaw as your fingers traced the line of it. 

“You don’t sleep,” you murmured. You’d noticed it weeks ago.

“No.”

“C’mere, then,” you said, rough, tugging lightly at his jaw, and he came. 

He kissed you slow.

He always started slow—it was the only speed he trusted himself at—and you let him have it slow for a minute, warm and half-asleep against his mouth. Then you weren’t half-asleep anymore, he felt the change in you as your hand slid back into his hair and curled and pulled. The sound that the pull had dragged out of him was embarrassing.

“Quiet,” you breathed against his mouth, throwing his own word back at him—I can be quiet, he’d said once—and he huffed a rough laugh into the crook of your neck and got a hand spread wide and certain against the small of your back to pull you flush against him. 

Your leg hooked over his and your breath went uneven against his ear, and Pope allowed himself to stop thinking.

He dragged his mouth down your throat, slow, to the soft place that made your breath catch, the spot he'd mapped weeks ago and gone back to since like the one warm room in a freezing house. Got there. He felt you go boneless and then not boneless, your fingers tightening in his hair, your hips shifting against his, and he made a low sound into your skin and pressed you down into the mattress with the careful weight of him.

“Andrew,” you said, rough against his collarbone. 

“Yes?” He lifted his head to look at you, and found you already looking at him. 

Your hair was loose around your face and your lips were swollen and your eyes were dark. Pope felt a sort of satisfaction he’d never felt before knowing he’d done that, that you’d come to his bed neat and composed and he’d taken you apart this much already.

Your hand still in his hair tugged him down to your ear. “Take my shirt off.” 

He went still for a second, eyes closing at the words, then he regained himself and pulled back enough to look at you. 

You lifted your arms. He got it over your head and dropped it somewhere and then he just stopped, brain short-circuiting as his body immediately reacted, shifting underneath you. His hand came up and hovered over your bare waist, not quite touching, just close. Deciding where to start.

His hand settled finally, warm and certain against your ribs, thumb brushing the underside of your breasts. He let out a shaky breath. “You’re so pretty,” he murmured. 

You let out a soft breath, and he let his thumb move, again, slow, up and he rubbed over the swell of your breasts through the bra, watching your face with his whole attention.

He pushed himself up onto one elbow to get a better look at you and you let him, lying there with your hair spread out and your eyes on his face. He took his time, and he could tell it made you want to squirm, and his free hand settled on your hip, holding you still. 

“Come here,” you said softly, reaching for him. 

“In a minute.” His thumb traced the underwire of your bra, following the curve of it. His eyes followed his own hand and his jaw was tight the way it got when he was concentrating. 

“Andrew.” 

“Give me a minute.” His mouth came down on your sternum and pressed there, warm, just breathing for a second, his hand still moving over your ribs, your waist, the dip of it. His lips moved to the curve of your breast, the soft skin at the edge of the fabric, and you felt his breath go unsteady against you.

“Can I—” he started.

“Yes.”

He reached around you, unclipped it with one hand—slightly clumsy, which was so unlike him—and drew it off you slowly, and then he just stopped again, forgetting how to move when he looked at you.

His mouth found you properly then, warm and slow, and you let your head tip back and your hand tighten in his hair and he made a low sound against you.

He worked his way back up to your throat, your jaw, found your mouth again, and kissed you slow until your hands were pulling at him and your hips were shifting and you’d stopped being patient entirely. 

You pressed at his chest. He went, rolling onto his back and taking you with him, and you sat up over him in the gray light and watched his face as you settled your weight down against him, and his hands went to your thighs and gripped and his eyes went briefly shut.

You leaned down and kissed him once, soft. Then his jaw, his throat, the way he'd done to you, finding the places that changed his breathing.

His hands moved up your back, down again, restless, unable to settle. You felt him swallow when your mouth reached his collarbone.

You moved lower. His stomach tightened under your mouth and his hand came up to your hair, resting there, heavy and warm, the way he did everything when he was trying to hold himself back. You looked up at him from where you were and found him already looking down at you, jaw tight, throat working.

“Are you—”

“Mhm.” 

You got his briefs off and he lifted his hips to help you without being asked, which made you press your lips together against a smile. You settled between his thighs and took him inside your hand first, and he let out a shaky, breathless sound as your fingers tightened around his length, small fingers tugging slightly. 

You shifted down, and pressed your lips to the inside of his thigh first, just to feel him react, Pope understood. His whole leg went rigid under your lips. You stayed there a moment, and his fingers curled in your hair out of impatience he wasn’t proud of at all.

“C’mon, hey—”

You did it again, the other side, taking your time, and heard him exhale hard through his nose.

Then, you started from the bottom, tongue gliding over him, base to tip, and Pope’s jaw dropped open and stopped pretending he wanted any sort of control in this situation. 

His hands fisted in your hair. Not pushing—he wasn’t going to do that—but holding on, because he really, really needed something to hold onto and you were it, you were all of it, had been all of it for months, and now you had your mouth on him and your small hand wrapped around the base of him while looking through your lashes at him like you knew exactly what you were doing to him—you absolutely did—and he wanted to do nothing about it except lie there and take it.

You took him into your mouth properly and his hips came off the mattress before he caught them, hand pressing down against his own stomach, jaw locked.

“Christ—” It came out mangled, just sound.

You set a pace that was sure to kill him, so deliberate with everything and focused attention on him entirely, and he had the distant thought that he’d never been on the receiving end of attention like this. His thighs tensed around you and his free hand found the sheets.

You pulled off just enough to say ‘don’t’ when his forearm moved toward his face, and he dropped it back, exposed, staring at the ceiling, throat working. Your hand worked what your mouth couldn’t, and he felt his vision go slightly sideways, hand in your hair tightening involuntarily, fingers curling against your scalp. 

“Let me—” He stopped when he noticed how wrecked he sounded, barely his own voice. His grip tugged you up. “Can you—Can I—”

He stumbled over the words, but you still moved up. 

You settled over him, knees either sides of his hips, and he got his hands on your waist immediately. His chest was heaving and he was sure he looked completely undone.

“Can I—” he tried again. His thumb moved against your hip, pleadingly. “I need to—” He tried again. “Will you—”

You looked down at him. “Are you asking me something?” 

“Yeah.” His jaw tightened. “Trying to.” 

“So ask.” 

He took in a sharp breath, fingers digging into the flesh of your ass. “Can I be inside you?” 

You held his eyes a second. “Yeah,” you said. “Yeah.”

The sound he let out at that was quiet and involuntary and you felt it in your sternum. His eyes closed for just a second, like he needed that, you saying it had done something to him before anything had even happened yet.

You reached between you and his breath caught audibly, hands tightening on your hips, feeling it happen, needing to feel it happen somewhere in his palms.

You sank down onto him slow and his head went back and his throat worked and his hands on your hips pulled you down the last inch with a low, helpless sound that he clearly hadn't planned on making.

He’d never felt this way before, so all-encompassed. You were so warm and close in way the months of wanting had never prepared him for, your hands braced on his chest, your weight settled on his lap, and he could feel your pulse where you were joined and his own pulse and everywhere else.

He stayed there a second, both hands spread wide on your hips, breathing. 

“You okay?” you asked, quiet.

“One second.”

You gave him the second. He sat up after that, and his arm banded around your waist and pulled you flush against him and that made you gasp, hands grabbing at his shoulders, his neck.

He was so much bigger than you like this, your knees hardly finding the mattress either side of him, and he held you there, mouth finding your throat.

“Do you like this?” he asked into your skin.

“Yes—yeah,” you said, slightly breathless. 

He bit down lightly at your pulse point, just enough, and your nails raked down his back in response, and the sound that got out of him was dark and satisfied, his hips rolling up into you slow and deliberate.

His hips set a pace after that, one hand spread flat against your lower back holding you exactly where he wanted you, the other gripping your hip, guiding you down to meet each roll of his hips. You could feel everything. He made sure of it, and he knew by the way your walls clamped down on him.

“Andrew—”

“Feels so good,” he said through a groan, mouth set on your throat. “You feel so good.” 

Your nails found his back again and he groaned into your neck and his hips stuttered, losing the rhythm for just a second before he found it again, deeper this time, and you made a sound against his shoulder that you felt him collect, felt him file away, his arm tightening around you in response.

“That good?” he murmured.

“It’s—” you started, breath catching. 

“Yeah?” His hand moved from your hip to the small of your back, adjusting the angle, pressing you down onto him, and whatever you'd been trying to say dissolved entirely into something that wasn't words at all. “There?” 

“Jesus, Andrew—” you said, a punch in your words as he pushed you down onto him. “Where’d you learn this?”

He pulled back to look at your face, and the look on his was almost amused, almost, underneath all the want. “Just wanna make you feel good,” he said, “with me.” 

Your hands coming up to his face without deciding to, cupping his jaw, and he turned into it immediately, that same helpless lean he always did when you put your hands on his face, like he couldn't help it, like you'd found the one soft spot in him nobody else had ever found.

You kissed him then, different from the others — slower, more deliberate, saying something you didn't have words for yet, and he kissed you back the same way, his pace going slow and deep and unhurried, like the night had gotten longer suddenly, like neither of you were going anywhere.

His forehead dropped to yours when you broke off, both of you breathing uneven, his hand moving up your spine, vertebra by vertebra, just feeling you.

“You with me?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” you said. “I am.”

His hand pressed you further into him, like there was any space. “Promise me.” 

It came out rougher than he meant, needier than he'd have liked, and he felt it land between you in the dark and couldn't take it back and didn't try.

You looked up at him. Whatever you found in his face made yours go soft. “Promise,” you said.

He exhaled against your mouth and his hips rolled forward and you made a small sound and your hands slid up into his hair, pulling, and whatever had gone tender between you tipped back into heat, his pace picking up, deeper now, one hand gripping the headboard above you and the other finding your hip, holding you where he wanted you.

Pope had come to the basement earlier, before his fight. He had no good reason for it—the fight was in an hour, the place was half-empty, the crowd still trickling in—but he’d gotten restless at the apartment and figured he’d find you early, steal a few minutes before the room filled up. 

He came down the concrete stairs and heard Leo’s voice before he saw anything, and the sound of it stopped Pope three steps from the bottom. Pope had never once in his life heard the guy yell, lose control, and the voice coming up was low and almost patient, like you’d talk to a child or a dog. 

“ —count it again,” Leo was saying. “‘Cause I counted it, and I’m coming up short. That’s a problem, you know that, right?”

“I counted it three times,” you said, your voice flat and so, so careful it gnawed at him. “It’s all here. I swear, it’s all—”

“Don’t swear to me, sweetheart. Count.” 

Pope came down the last steps quiet. You were at the cash table with the box open in front of you and your hands unsteady on the bills. Leo was standing close to you, like that was the point—looming, using the size of himself—as he crowded you back against the table. He was making you do the math all out in a flat, dead voice, your shoulders up around your ears, and Pope watched you flinch when Leo shifted his weight even though the guy hadn’t done anything.

“You’re light,” Leo said, soft. “You’re light and you’re trying to swear. You know what happens to my count when one of my girls gets light.” He let his words hang, tilting his head. “It comes out of the square. Adds to it. You’re going backwards, sweetheart, after all this time. Going the wrong direction.”

Leo reached and took your jaw in his hand—almost gently, tipping your face up out of the count—and your body went still, and that was the second you saw Pope behind Leo’s shoulder. 

“Don’t touch her,” Pope said, without thinking about it. 

Leo turned, unhurried, his hand still loose at your jaw before he let it drop, on his own time. He was making a point of it, Pope realized. “It’s off.” He spread the hand, easy, showing him. “See? We’re just talking. Business.” 

Then, he turned to look at you, chin tipping down. “You really messing around with this guy? I thought it was just people making shit up.” 

“People talk—” you started to say.

“You were just waitin’ around for some rich guy to come along?” He looked at you, shaking his head. “That it?” Then, he turned to Pope. “She could’ve gotten out a lot earlier—you know that right?” He shook his head, like he was disappointed. “Could’ve taken the back room, cut the number down to nothing in a couple months. Easy. Plenty of guys asking. But no, she just wanted to do it the long way.” He tipped his chin at Pope, lazy. “—And then go and give it away to you. For free.”

Pope’s pulse should’ve been climbing. It had gone flat and slow and cold. “Watch your mouth.”

“Or what?” He asked, almost fond. “You gonna—”

The gun was out before he decided to pull it. His hand went to the small of his back and came around and then the thing was there, level, steady, muzzle a few inches off Leo’s forehead. 

The guy stopped smiling. He didn’t flinch—Pope gave him that—but he went very slow, very careful, his hands drifting up off his sides. His palms were loose and open.

“Okay,” Leo said, quiet now. “Okay. Easy.”

“Are you kidding me?” Pope muttered, shaking his head. “You don’t have a damn gun on you?” 

“I don’t need a gun in my own place,” he said through gritted teeth. His eyes flicked to the stairs, then back to the muzzle. “You wanna put that down before you get stupid over nothing?”

He’d half-hoped that Leo would’ve been carrying, show any sign that he felt afraid. “Her number. Say it.”

“That’s not—” He huffed, almost a laugh, disbelieving. “That’s not how—there’s a process to this, there’s people I gotta answer to.”

Pope’s lips flattened, eyes flicking to the ceiling, annoyed. “You know I’ll do it, man. I don’t care enough not to.” 

Leo’s smile dropped then. “Half the room’s had their hands on her, you know that? She’s not somebody’s girlfriend, man. The second she doesn’t need either of us, she’s not looking back at you any more than she’s looking back at me.” 

Pope let out a short chuckle. “Now you’re getting whatever I’ve got in my pocket or I’m shooting. Your call.” 

“You’re making a mistake,” the guy said, his last call, Pope realized. “You can’t pull a gun on me and —”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem.” Pope’s hand stayed still. “Right now, you take the money, she’s square, she walks.” His head tipped, slight. “Say yes, man. You’re a smart guy. Say yes.” Pope nudged the gun slightly further into his head. He leaned his head closer to the guy’s ear, voice dropping into a register that would’ve been too low for you to hear. “I’ve put people down for less than this. You know that.”

Leo took a beat. “Fine.” The word came out flat, bitten-off. “Fine. The money. She’s square. Get it out slow, I don’t want your fucking hand movin’ fast near me.”

Pope reached into his jacket with his off hand—the gun never leaving Leo's face—and pulled the roll, the whole fight roll, thick and rubber-banded, and tossed it onto the table by the box. It landed heavy. Leo didn't look at it. He kept his eyes on Pope, and his hands stayed up, and the deal sat there in the dead air between them, made.

Leo looked at it, and a long moment passed. He let out a short, disbelieving breath through his nose. “That’s it?” 

“You should’ve said yes the first time. You knew I was good for it,” Pope said. “Say it,” he added. “She’s good. Tell her so she hears it.” 

“You’re square,” he said to you, the words ugly. “You don’t owe me shit. Don’t come back.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Either of you.” 

Pope held the gun where it was a beat longer than he had to—long enough to make it clear the leaving was his idea, not Leo's permission—and then he lowered it, slow, and stepped back, and reached out without looking and found your wrist.

“Let’s go,” Pope said roughly to you. 

You didn’t move at first. He had to tug your forearm once, and then you came, stumbling off the spot you’d been rooted to, and he put himself between you and Leo and walked you up the concrete stairs and out the side door into the lot, into the air that was finally air, with the gun cooling against his back and your pulse hammering under his fingers where he still had your wrist.

Pope let out a shaky breath as he tipped his neck back to look at the sky. He’d assumed that one day, he would’ve figured it out, how to help you—it would have been cleaner, probably, and wouldn’t have happened right in front of you—and he hadn’t thought it’d be fucking today. 

He still had your wrist. He made himself let it go, and turned to look at you. You were looking at nothing, at the chain-link past the lot, your arms coming to wrap around yourself, holding your elbows.

“Get in the car,” he said to you. 

You stayed still.

Pope shook his head once, pressing his lips together. He nodded at the truck. “C’mon. Just get in the truck.”

You stayed rooted there in the orange light, arms folded over yourself, shaking your head faintly—not at him, not a no exactly, just somewhere else, somewhere he couldn't reach you. He felt the impatience climb in him, the adrenaline still draining, the gun still warm against his back and the tomorrow-problem already stacking up behind his ribs, and it came out rougher than he meant.

“Just—get in the damn car.” He dragged his palm down his face and exhaled. 

You went around to the passenger side and shut the door. He got in beside you, and for a second, neither of you said anything. He pulled out the lot and drove the way he always did with you, to his apartment. You sat against the window with your knees pulled up and your arms still around yourself, and he kept glancing over, waiting for it, the thing he could feel build up.

“You mad at me?” he asked, the words coming out choked, almost like he was forcing them out. 

You took in a breath and looked out the window. “Are you gonna be fine?”

He snorted. “Yeah. Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’m safe.” 

You nodded, even though he could tell you didn’t believe it. He wanted to tell you that he was probably the most safe guy in Oceanside, part of a family that would make sure nothing happened to anyone in it, even if they all may hate each other deep down. 

“I didn’t want it to happen like this,” you said a moment later. “I wanted to do it myself.” 

Pope knew what you meant, but he wanted you to talk more, just so he could justify it. “Yeah?”

“I was gonna work it down to nothing,” you continued. “And one day it’d just be done, and I’d—walk out. And it’d be cause I did it. Me. The one thing that was gonna be mine.” 

“You weren’t getting out.” When you snapped your head to look at him, eyebrows furrowed, he forced to keep himself looking at the road. “I’m sorry, but you were never getting out. Don’t be dumb. I know you wanted to.” 

“Don’t call me dumb.”

“Then don’t be.” He shook his head. “You’re paying off a debt that’s not even yours when you could be—what? Working anywhere that gives you an actual paycheck. He wasn’t gonna let you have that. There’s no fucking contract making sure he lets you out.” 

You looked back at the window, jaw tight. “I didn’t want you buying me,” you said quietly. “That’s exactly the thing I didn’t want. Now I’m—I don’t want to owe you, Andrew. I like you.”

“You don’t owe me,” he said, voice rough, trying to ignore what the words did to his chest.

“That’s not how—”

“It’s how it works with me,” he said flatly. “I didn’t buy you. Don’t say shit like that. I bought you out.” His hands tightened on the wheel. “There’s nothing you owe me.”

“I wanted it to be clean,” you said, and Pope almost wanted to shut you up. “Us. I wanted to get out and just be—someone you liked. Not somebody you had to save or something like that.”

“Well, that’s too bad, then,” he rasped. “You can come with me. You can go wherever you want. You’re out, you can choose.” He killed the engine as the car reached his apartment. “You are someone I like already. I never liked who you had to be, but I like you—this, whatever it is. Alright?”

A part of Pope knew he shouldn’t have taken the job. Robberies were always a mess, but Baz had a fondness for them. And Baz had a kid and a whole life balanced on not going inside, and Pope had a girl who he wasn’t even sure was his girl, and no good reason in the world to be holding the bag when it went wrong.

So now there was a phone bolted to a cinderblock wall and a line of men behind him and a number he’d memorized. Thank God he’d memorized. 

It rang twice. 

“Hello?” 

The sound of your voice did something itchy to his sternum. He’d last heard it three weeks ago, before the job, when you’d been half-asleep against his shoulder in the truck outside your place. You’d told him to call you when he got home. 

“Andrew?” you asked immediately, like just an exhalation of his breath, you could recognize. “You’re in jail?” 

He forced out a dry chuckle, because the opposite would’ve gotten him kicked. “Folsom County.” 

“Jesus—why?”

“Robbery. It was a—a family thing—” He kept it short. The line was recorded; half of what he wanted to say, he couldn’t, and the other half, he wouldn’t. Especially not to you, not like this, with a guard at his back and a clock ticking somewhere. 

“Can I visit you?” you asked immediately. The hope in your words tightened something in his chest so hard he had to close his eyes to loosen it even a fraction. “How long are you in there for?” 

“No—don’t. Hey, listen,” he said, voice shaking and he hated it. “You—you gotta be safe, okay? If anything happens, I need you to look for—”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t take care of you from here,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need to make sure you’ll be okay.”

“How long are you in for?” you asked, weary, like you’d read somewhere between the lines and realized that you were going to hate the answer.

“Six years,” he said, letting out another sigh. Then, because he couldn’t help himself when he heard you go silent on the other end, he said, “I’m sorry.” He pressed the phone harder against his ear, as if that did anything. 

“Fuck—fuck, Andrew. Six years—?” you said, voice so sharp he could feel it cut through him. He heard you breath, trying to collect yourself. “Okay. Okay—I can come there, to you. Visit you and stuff, alright?”

“You’re not living the next six years meeting me behind a glass, alright?” 

“I don’t care about that.” 

“I do.” It came out rougher than he’d intended. He pressed his forehead to the cold block, eyes shut as his free hand came up to tug at his hair. The line of men and the guards and the whole gray space fell away from him for a second, and it was just your voice in his ear and him trying, failing, to do one right thing for you. “You just got out—I’m not putting you back in. You got out, and you—you can do whatever you want.”

“I don’t want it without you,” you said, voice breaking clean down the middle, and it about took him out at the knees, standing there in his county blues with a telephone crushed to his ear. 

“You’re not thinking right,” he said, trying to get the words out slowly, like saying it that way would make you believe them. “You’re not waiting for me for six years. You know how long that is?” 

Pope was at a loss in this; he’d never had to push someone away before. Every person he’d needed gone, before he even knew he did, he’d made himself ugly enough to push it out. He didn’t have the ugly to use on you; he’d used up every bad thing in front of you already and you’d stayed anyway, and now he had nothing left to drive you away with except the truth, which was that Pope loved you too much to let you do this to yourself.

He couldn’t say that either because maybe then you’d really never leave.

You only breathed on the other end, and he could hear the hitch of your voice when you started to try saying something, then stopped. 

“I won’t like it,” he said, quieter now, “if you wait for me.”

It was a lie and you both heard it. He didn’t try to sell it harder and let it sit there, all wrong, and moved on before you could call him out from it, because he had something he needed you to have more than he needed to win the argument.

“Listen,” he said, forcing his voice to steady. “You got something to write with? Or open something on your phone to get it.” 

“Andrew—”

“Please.” 

Something in his voice must’ve reached you, because he heard you shift. 

“Okay,” you said, voice thick. “Okay.”

He recited the number, slow and twice, so you’d have it right. “That’s Baz. Alright? Barry Blackwell—write that down, too. My brother.” His teeth gritted. “You don’t ever have to call it, but you keep it. And if anything ever—” His jaw worked, and he pinched his eyes shut at the horrible thoughts. “If money gets tight or if people come sniffing around even though they shouldn’t. If you get caught up in anything—somebody gives you trouble, or anything, the car dies, whatever it is. You call him. You say you’re mine, say Pope said to call. He’ll help.” 

“I don’t want your brother to—”

He didn’t want his brother to, either. Baz had a bad track record with people Pope considered his, people Pope loved. He pressed his molars together at the thought of Baz with you, of all people. Despite how much love he held for his brother, he didn’t like the thought. Six years was a long, long time. 

Six years was long enough to forget a voice, long enough for the thing you’d been holding in your hands to shift without noticing, long enough for a warm and present man to become more real than a memory behind a glass. Baz wouldn’t. But he can’t imagine Baz ever meeting you and not seeing what Pope loved about you, what everyone could love about you. 

“It’s the only way I can do anything for you,” he said quickly, making sure you’d understand. “It’ll make me happy.”

He heard you choke slightly on the other end. “Can you call me, then? If I can’t visit you.” 

He wanted to say yes. It would've cost him nothing in the moment and it would've ruined you slow, six years of you living from phone call to phone call, your whole life arranged around fifteen minutes of a recorded line, waiting on a man in a cage. And he knew he’d rightfully deserved to be caged. He’d seen what waiting did to you. He’d pulled a gun to get you out from under exactly that.

“No,” he said. “You stay out. You got out. Stay out of all of it, including me.”

And a part of him believed he was doing you a favor, despite it all. He’d never quite gotten you all the way like he’d wanted—merged your life into his and his yours—and maybe that was for the better. As long as you were wrapped up with him, you would’ve been wrapped up with his family, the jobs, the heists, the next county lockup waiting for him somewhere down the line. 

Your little brother deserved a sister who could come home clean, someone who didn’t have a Cody-shaped problem following her through the door. He’d been told he was the worst of them; he was built up for a purpose and it wasn’t the kind of thing you brought home. Pope cared about you enough to know that; it was hard not to realize it, standing in prison. 

He heard you say a jumble of words in one breath, and he couldn’t quite catch any over the ringing in his own ears. The guard said he had sixty seconds left.

“I’d do it again, I swear,” he said, fast, before your voice cut off. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—it was short.”

Your breath stopped for a second, then you asked, forcing an even voice, “How will I know you’re okay?” 

“I’ll be fine. I got people watching my back, I swear.” 

“Please, just—”

“Bye,” he said, forcing his voice gentle. “Take care of yourself, okay? And the kid.” 

The sound you made—wet and broken, landing like a wound he’d probably carry for six years—was the last of you he let himself take. He set the receiver down slow, like slow made it kinder, before you could say his name again. Because he never would've managed it if you'd said his name again.

The line went dead under his palm.

You still go about your day. You go to the farmer’s market every Wednesday morning. You still work at the hospital.

But you haven’t texted, called, or stopped by.

You’ve “ghosted him” as Deran had put it.

He tries to rack through his brain, thinking back to the last interaction he had with you. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

He just had you meet his new girlfriend, Amy. He thinks it went well. You and Amy seemed to get along, and yet…you’ve completely slipped from his fingers.

He thought that spending all of his time with Amy would fill the void you left, but he was wrong. He just wants to know why you left…

________________

Meeting Amy was a complete shock to you. You didn’t even know that Andrew was dating someone. So for him to show up at your usual meeting place with a woman beside him was a shock to your system.

Your heart dropped when he introduced her to you as his girlfriend and you as just his best friend.

You mentally scolded yourself for ever thinking things could be more.

But you remained friendly with Amy. You asked her how she and Andrew met, what she does for work, her family.

She was actually a really sweet and kind person. You couldn’t hate her, but you still wished it was you in her place.

This you began to distance yourself from Andrew.

No more random calls or texts. You started making up excuses as to why you couldn’t meet up at your usual spot anymore.

You just simply slipped out of his life.

Then received a call from Craig.

Deran got a bullet graze to his side and you, being an emergency department nurse, were ordered to patch him up.

He was dragged into your home, Craig holding him up. Andrew and Baz stomping in after them.

Craig brought him into your office where he plopped Deran onto your office couch.

You paid no mind to the three concerned men, only to your patient before you.

“Looks like you made it out by the skin of your teeth. Literally,” you murmured to Deran who snorted and then hissed as you began to clean the room.

Baz and Craig stood in one corner, mumbling about the aftermath of their latest heist. Andrew stood in another corner, the one closest to you. His arms crossed over his chest, eyes completely focused on you.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

You let out a deep breath, “I haven’t. I’ve been busy. There’s been a staff shortage so I’ve been working more shifts.”

“You could at least call or text me. Let me know you’re alive.”

“Again, I’ve been busy and, again, this isn’t the time!”

“Pope, just let her fucking work!” Deran berates his older brother.

Baz and Craig turn back to their brother. Baz walks over to Andrew, “C’mon, man,” he grabs Andrew’s arm, but he shoves him away.

He storms out of the room and you pay him no mind.

Patching up Deran is the priority right now.

_______________

As soon as Deran is bandaged up, you exit your office to find Andrew sitting on your couch, drinking one of the beers you kept in the fridge for him.

His eyes are focused on the tv that’s playing some nature documentary.

You stand in front of it, arms defensively crossed over your chest, “You wanna talk. So talk.”

He glares at you as he takes another sip from his beer. His brothers exit the office with curious eyes and Andrew immediately stands.

“We’ll talk outside.”

“Fine,” you grit and turn to the remaining men, “There’s beers and leftover pizza in the fridge,” you don’t say anything else as you follow Andrew out into your small backyard.

Once you’re outside, Andrew lets it all out.

“I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know why you’re mad at me. Just-Just tell what I did so I can fix it!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh fuck off with that bullshit excuse! You don’t reach out, you keep cancelling on me.” He lets out a frustrated sigh, “Are you in trouble or something? Is that why-“

You run a hand down your face, “Andrew, please. I promise I’m telling you the truth that I haven’t been avoiding you.” Lie. “Nothing is wrong.” Lie. “I’m fine.” Big lie. “I’ve just been exhausted from work. Haven’t had the energy to do much.”

“But I still see you at the farmer’s market.”

Your brows raise in confusion, “You’ve been watching me?”

“I was worried.”

You give out a slow deep breath, “Andrew, I’m sorry I’ve been…distant. There’s just a it going on and I’m sorry I haven’t been checking in. I didn’t think it’d matter.”

Andrew’s brows furrow, “Of course it matters. You matter to me.”

You mentally berate yourself for the fluttering you feel when he says that. He only means it as friends.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sure Amy managed to fill the void though. How’s that going?”

“Fine, but…it’s different with you.”

You’re sure he doesn’t mean it in the way you interpret it, but you can’t help but feel some sort of pride.

“Things will go back to normal soon, just-just give it some time.”

“Sure, just no more disappearing on me. Please. I need to know you’re okay.”

“I’ll check in. Promise.”

Andrew pulls you in for a hug, his arms wrapping around you. You relish in his warmth, his scent.

He takes in the smell of your shampoo and how more at ease he feels in your presence.

And yet, there’s still an unspoken feeling surrounding you two. One you don’t want to acknowledge.

Not yet.

Or maybe ever.

You met Andrew six months ago.

It was just another long shift at the bar. The kind where you were pouring drinks, keeping an eye on the chaos, trying not to lose your patience.

Then some guy at the end of the bar, loud and drunk, started throwing insults your way when you cut him off. You didn’t take kindly to that shit, so you told him to shut up and leave, but he kept going.

Called you a fucking cunt.

That’s when a man stepped in. Without a word, he grabbed the guy by the collar, dragged him out of the bar, and you could hear the scuffle outside. When the man came back, you noticed his hands—they were bruised, and he dropped a crumpled twenty-dollar bill on the table, which was an outrageous tip for a $7 beer, and then he left the bar.

He started coming back, more and more. You would see him sit at the same corner, watching, listening. Every time your eyes met, you found yourself offering a smile. Yet, he would simply nod or look away. One night, you finally decided to break the silence. You walked over to his booth, your heart pounding a little in your chest. As you approached, you saw him look up from his drink, eyes cautious but curious. You introduced yourself and thanked him for his help the other night. He nodded back, and simply replied, "No problem."

From that moment, things started to change. You learned that his name was Andrew, and you began to exchange words more often—small talk that gradually grew into something more. You let him know you were a marine biologist, explaining how you had taken up bartending on the side a couple nights a week because, honestly, marine biology paid shit, and you needed the extra cash to keep your head above water.

He told you he was a property manager. One night, you were venting to the other bartender about your apartment’s AC acting up and your landlord dragging his feet to fix it. You were frustrated, and you guess he overheard because he offered to help. The next day, he showed up at your place—not alone. He brought his niece along, a beautiful little girl with a toothy smile. He was picking her up from school, but he swung by to fix your AC before dropping her off home since you didn’t live too far from his brother’s place.

It was unexpected, but honestly, it meant a lot—someone willing to go out of their way just to help you.

The more you got to know him and Lena, the more you felt drawn to him.

However, Andrew was still guarded. He was quick to listen but slow to share. He had a knack for asking questions that drew you in, making you feel seen and heard, but he rarely reciprocated.

So, you were shocked when last week he admitted to you that he had slept with his brother’s wife, a little after Lena had been born.

The words had hung in the air like smoke—thick, choking, impossible to ignore.

Andrew hadn’t sugarcoated it. He just said it. One of those quiet, matter-of-fact truths.

He and Cath.

They were drunk.

It was stupid.

It was a mistake.

Baz didn’t know.

Blah-fucking-blah.

You didn’t even fucking like Baz, but that wasn’t the point. You wanted to probe, to ask questions, but you didn’t.

You couldn’t.

You just managed a cool nod, struggling to keep your reaction measured.

Why the fuck was he telling you this?

Was he in love with her or something?

And…why did you care so much?

Your phone chirped, breaking your thoughts.

Andrew: Are you still coming tomorrow?

Fuck.

You had ignored his last text and his last phone call, so you realized you couldn’t ignore this. Usually, you were the one who double texted. He rarely called, never really initiated texts either. Most of the time, you would have to start the conversation, and you didn’t mind. You knew he was shy.

You had been avoiding him all week, picking up shifts at the bar that clashed with his schedule, trying to dodge him. You told yourself you would skip Lena’s birthday party. But now, you couldn’t ignore it.

Without overthinking, you replied: Yeah, I’ll be there.

Later, as you tried to distract yourself, youscrolled through Instagram, Catherine’s page catching your eye. Pictures of her and Baz, Lena’s tiny face smiling in a few, her little giggles frozen in time. You paused on a birthday post with just her and Andrew—a throwback from a few years ago. Catherine’s caption read: "Can’t believe just yesterday we were in high school."

It all hit you unexpectedly.

How comfortable they seemed together.

How fucking beautiful she was.

How Andrew was fucking smiling in this picture.

You dragged yourself to the bathroom to brush your teeth. You caught a glimpse of your face in the mirror. You reminded yourself over and over: Andrew is your friend. Just your friend.

Yet, here you were, obsessing over him and Catherine.

You shouldn’t care.

And yet, you did.

Pope leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyeing the chaos of Lena’s birthday. As usual, Smurf’s idea of celebration was a marathon of loud music, overflowing bottles, and an endless stream of people spilling into the house. There were more strangers than Lena’s friends, and the air reeked of booze and something sharper that Pope didn’t want to think about. The kids, at least, were mostly kept in check, but it was clear this wasn’t a party for them. It was Smurf’s way of playing the 'doting grandmother' and all that bullshit.

He knew Cath hated these gatherings too. She was standing on the sidelines, exchanging polite nods with Smurf and others while desperately wishing she was anywhere else. Baz, on the other hand, seemed indifferent—either oblivious or he simply didn’t fucking care. Pope watched him laugh at something. Baz was clearly unworried.

Then, out of nowhere, Cath came over, her brow furrowed as she glanced around the patio and pool. "Is your girlfriend coming?"

The question made him flinch.

"She’s not my girlfriend," he said.

"Oh," she said softly. "I just thought… you know, with her being around so much lately. That maybe you two were…"

That was all it took. Craig and Deran, nearby, overheard the exchange and immediately turned their teasing smirks toward him.

"Who is Cath talking about?" Craig drawled, nudging Deran with a grin.

Pope’s jaw tightened at the teasing, and he shot a quick glare toward Craig and Deran, the kind that told them to back off without words. "No one," he muttered, voice low and edged with a hint of warning. His eyes flicked away from his brothers.

Suddenly, his attention snapped to the sound of Lena’s voice. "Y-you’re here," she said softly, her small face lighting up when he saw her sprinting across the patio, her little legs pumping fast. And then, amidst the noise and chaos, Andrew’s gaze found you.

You were standing trying to keep your focus on Lena, wearing a form-fitting striped maxi dress. The soft fabric hugged your curves, and the dress flowed effortlessly around your legs, swaying gently as you moved.

You were looking so stunning, he almost couldn’t breathe.

Pope’s eyes lingered on you longer than they should have—his mind racing with the fact that he hadn’t seen you in a full week. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seconds. Not that he was counting or anything. But it felt like forever.

His heart clenched—this was the longest he’d gone without seeing you since he met you. Usually, he saw you on Tuesdays and Thursdays during your shifts at the bar, sometimes more when you hung out at your place.

In your hands, you clutched a giant sea lion stuffed animal—its plush body nearly as big as Lena herself.

As Lena reached you, her tiny face lit up, and she squealed softly. You knelt down, opening your arms wide, and she rushed into your embrace with a giggle. You bent down to meet her at her level, wrapping her up in a big, warm hug. Her little arms squeezed around your neck, and her giggles bubbled up as she clung to you, her tiny face pressed into your shoulder.

Deran leaned casually against his chair, as he watched you with Lena. His lips curled into a low whistle. Without missing a beat, Craig blurted. "Damn, she’s fucking hot, Pope. Where did you find this one?"

"Don’t talk about her like that. Just shut the fuck up, alright?" Pope growled. His tone was cold enough to make Craig and Deran pause, their smirks fading into surprised silence. The brothers instinctively knew better than to push further.

Lena’s tiny face lit up with pride as she tugged gently on your hand, leading you toward Cath, Pope, and his brothers. "Look what I got, Mommy!" she squealed, clutching the enormous plush sea lion. Her eyes shimmered with excitement, and she beamed up at you as she proudly presented her gift. Cath thanked you.

You waved your hand at her to show her that it wasn’t a big deal.

His gaze lingered on you and Cath as you exchanged words, the small smile Cath offered trying to be friendly. You, on the other hand, looked tense and stiff. Your shoulders were squared, your jaw tight, and your eyes kept flicking away from Cath’s, as if you were counting down the seconds until you could leave.

Pope had memorized every single thing about you. So, he could tell the difference between your real smile and the one you would put on to be polite.

He could tell something was off. But before he could say anything, Baz called out loudly, breaking the moment. "Hey, Cath! Lena! Come over here!" he shouted, gesturing toward the other side of the backyard. They headed off together.

Pope was about to say something, but then his brothers stepped in, their annoying fucking smirks in place. Without hesitation, they introduced themselves and then asked if you wanted a beer. You nodded, and they grinned mischievously as they headed toward the cooler to fetch drinks. Behind your back, they made obscene gestures and dry humped the air—it made Pope’s blood boil.

Fucking assholes.

He watched them walk away, fists clenched at his sides.

"Are you okay?" you asked, concern evident in your voice.

He ignored your question.

"Where have you been all week?" His tone was rough but not unkind.

You offered a small shrug. "It’s been a busier week at the aquarium. Lots of new arrivals."

He studied you for a moment, the tension easing just slightly from his shoulders. "Yeah. I figured. I uh…missed you," the words slipped out before he could catch himself.

You blinked at him, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip.

Fuck. He had said too much.

Craig and Deran made their way back toward you two, holding a tray of shot glasses. Craig’s grin was wide as he handed one to you, while Deran set his down next to Pope with a smirk.

"Shots," Craig announced

"What happened to her beer?" Pope’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at the shot in Craig’s hand.

"Don’t worry, Pope. She’ll get her beer. Just relax."

"It’s fine." You replied, lifting the shot to your lips, and looked at Deran. "What is it?"

"Tequila," he replied plainly.

You cringed at the word. "Ugh," you muttered, scrunching your nose.

Deran handed Pope his shot.

Pope shook his head. "Nah, I’m not feeling it,"

Craig chuckled. "Come on, man. Live a little."

Pope’s eyes flicked back to the shot glass in Deran’s hand. For a moment, he hesitated, then let out a sigh. "Not tonight." He crossed his arms, watching as Craig and Deran exchanged amused glances.

Craig’s grin grew even wider. "No worries, more for us," he paused. "To new friends." He winked at you, then nodded to Deran, who lifted his glass in a silent toast.

Without further hesitation, the three of you tipped back your shots. Craig and Deran both let out exaggerated whoops. Your face twisted into a grimace, eyes watering slightly as you swallowed. The painful expression lingered, and you quickly looked away, trying to hide it. But, Pope caught your reaction.

He knew how much you hated liquor.

It was ironic considering you were a part-time bartender, but you were more of a wine drinker.

White wine. Chilled.

Pope’s eyes narrowed as he watched you then reach for his untouched shot glass, your hand trembling just slightly. You hesitated for a split second, then brought it to your lips and downed it in one swift motion. As you forced the shot down, a hush fell over the small group.

For a moment, the only sound was the faint 'clink' of the glass as you set it down.

Then, with a rough breath and a slight shake of your head, you finally spoke.

"It's been a fucking week."

You were drunk.

He could tell. You were talking to some fucking asshole. One of Craig's friends.

He didn’t fucking like it.

The guy—Craig’s friend—was leaning closer, looking down your dress, but you were too drunk to notice.

"So, how do you know the birthday girl?" he overheard the pest ask you.

"I met her through Pope—"

All he could do was stand there, frozen, as your voice drifted on.

His stomach clenched at the way you said Pope.

You’d always called him Andrew. To everyone else, sure… he was Pope. But to you? He’d never heard you say that before. Always, he was Andrew. That was what you’d called him, what he’d called himself in his head when he thought of you.

Something sharp twist inside him. Or maybe it was just the ache of realizing how much he cared about what you called him.

What you thought of him.

He felt a strange heat rising. It was as if hearing you say Pope touched on something he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself—that he cared more about how you saw him than he’d ever let on. It made him aware of how far he was from being the person he wanted to be for you.

His eyes darted between you and Craig’s friend, who was leaning in way too close, his hand sneaking behind your back. Pope’s jaw clenched hard as he caught the moment when the guy’s hand slid lower, fingers brushing against your ass despite your stiffening posture. You jerked away from his touch. The man’s grin widened, oblivious—or maybe just fucking uncaring—about your discomfort.

Pope’s instinct was immediate. His muscles tensed as he crossed the patio, his voice dropping low and dangerous. "Hey," he said sharply, voice like a whip crack. The guy’s hand froze, eyes flicking up to meet Pope’s icy stare.

"You wanna back the fuck off?" Pope’s eyes darkened further, warning clear as hell. A silent threat. He put his arm around your waist and pulled you in close, protectively.

The man hesitated, then finally took a step back, raising his hands in a half-hearted shrug. But Pope knew the damage was done. The man then swallowed hard and looked between you both before walking away.

"You know I could have handled that guy myself," you slurred.

He rolled his eyes.

"You always know how to stand up for me when someone crosses the line," you looked at him with a faint, teasing smile, eyes a little glassy from the alcohol. Then, with a playful grin, you added, "my protector, huh?"

The words hung in the air for a moment, and you giggled softly, swaying slightly on your feet.

An unexpected flush creeped up his neck and spread across his cheeks.

He said your name with a sigh. "I think you’ve had enough for tonight."

"What are you talking about? I’m fine," you hiccupped, almost losing your balance.

Pope caught you by the arm and glared at you. "Sure you are."

"Andrew, I’m fine—I’m—" you sounded riled up and angry. "I’m fine," you repeated.

"You can barely stand right," he huffed out.

You opened your mouth to argue, but Pope was already reaching for your hand. Before you could resist much, he gently but firmly grabbed your wrist, guiding you away from the chaos of the party, his eyes focused and concerned. You tried to pull away, protesting with slurred words and half-hearted pushes, but he was insistent, not letting you go.

He gently steered you toward his car, opening the passenger door and easing you into the seat with care. Once you were settled, he reached over to buckle your seatbelt, his fingers brushing your shoulder briefly as he secured it.

Pope then hopped in the car on his side and carefully started the engine. The drive was quiet, the only sounds were the hum of the car and your uneven breathing. He kept a close eye on you, occasionally glancing over to check on you, his brow furrowing with concern.

When he finally arrived at your apartment complex, Pope gently slowed the car and pulled into a parking spot. He stepped out and opened your door, offering you his hand to help steady yourself as you stepped out.

You paused, a flicker of panic crossing your face. "My car…" you mumbled, eyes wide with worry.

"It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring it back for you in the morning," he said calmly, his tone soothing. He gently closed the car door behind you, and kept a careful eye on your unsteady movements. "Give me your keys."

You nodded—too tired and drunk to argue and handed them to him. He kept a steady hand on your waist to prevent you from stumbling.

Once inside your place, Andrew immediately went to the kitchen. He grabbed a clean glass, filled it with cold water from your Brita filter in your fridge, and brought it over to you, holding it as you took a few sips. He forced you to finish the glass.

"Alright," Pope said softly, voice commanding but gentle. "Go take a shower. Now."

 "Come on, I—" you tried to protest, raising a hand.

“No,” he interrupted. “Shower, wash off, and sober up.”

"You’re bossy," you muttered, attempting a smirk, despite your wobbling stance.

 "Go."

Without waiting for another word, you leaned in and pressed a quick, tipsy kiss to his cheek. "Okay," you mumbled, voice thick with alcohol, then turned toward the bathroom.

Pope watched you go, then hesitated for a moment. As you disappeared behind the door, he reached out and gently placed his hand on the spot where you’d just kissed him—his fingers resting lightly on his cheek, feeling the warmth of your lips. 

After 15 minutes, you stepped out of the bathroom, and Pope was sitting on your couch, eyes fixed on his phone. He then looked up sharply, his eyes widening in surprise. For a split second, he was sputtering, caught off guard. You stood there, topless, only in your underwear.

"Jesus," he managed, voice cracking, eyes darting away quickly. His cheeks colored as he fumbled, trying to look anywhere but at you.

You couldn’t help but giggle. "Relax. My tits are practically non-existent. It’s not like these," you pointed at your chest, "are the reason I’m getting any tips at the bar."

Your words made him stare at the ground, and he caught sight of a T-shirt draped over your dining table. Without a word, he stood up, walked over, and reached out to hand it to you.

You shook your head and slipped inside your bedroom. A few moments later, you sank into your bed, pulling the covers over yourself. You let out a soft whine, voice muffled by the blankets.

"Ugh, it’s so fucking hot," you muttered, kicking the covers aside just a little.

Pope flicked the switch on your AC unit to lower the temperature. He paused for a moment, before stepping into your bedroom and watching you settle into the bed.

"Better?" he mumbled.

You nodded into your pillow, a small, tired smile curling your lips. "Much. Thanks, Andrew."

"I should probably head out," he murmured. "It’s getting late."

Your eyes widened in panic. Without thinking, you pushed yourself up from the bed, the blanket slipping down, exposing your chest.

Your perfect fucking breasts on display for him again.

He was painfully hard.

His eyes lingered on your breasts, then your face, watching the way your eyelids fluttered with exhaustion.  

It was clear you were still drunk.

He reminded himself sharply: You’re not yourself right now. 

Andrew’s gaze flicked away instinctively.

He suppressed the urge to let his gaze drift lower again.

You were vulnerable, intoxicated, and not fully aware.

His instincts were to protect you.

To keep you safe.

He carefully avoided looking at your chest again, instead focusing on your face, the soft rise and fall of your breath. So, he gently, almost instinctively, pulled the blanket back up to your shoulders, covering you up again.

But you didn’t seem to notice—or maybe you didn’t care. "You’re not actually leaving, right?" you pouted. "Please stay,"

"You want me to stay?"

You nodded.

He hesitated, torn between what he knew was right and the pull he felt toward you. "I can stay if you want," he finally said quietly, his voice low and cautious.

"I do."

You’re not sober, he kept telling himself. You don’t actually want that.

"Get into bed," you instructed.

Pope paused, hesitation flickering across his face. Then, slowly, he moved toward the edge of the bed.

"Please," you begged, your voice sounding so fucking small.

He looked at you for a moment longer, then carefully, and respectfully, slipped next to you, staying on top of the blanket to give you space. His eyes lingered on you, searching your face for any sign of discomfort.

You reached out, your hand brushing his arm reassuringly. "Goodnight," you whispered. "I like having you here," you said, before closing your beautiful eyes and dozing off.

He sighed.

"I like being here," he replied to the ceiling.

You woke up with a pretty big hangover.

The clock made no noise, but it felt like it was screaming 8:12 AM at you with the red digits. It wasn’t the worst hangover of your life, but it was one that would make working today feel impossible. You remembered that Andrew had brought you back home last night.

You noticed he had set two Advils near the bed, on the nightstand, with a glass of water and a note that said, "Take me ASAP." You ran your hands over the note and smiled, seeing his terrible scribble. You did as told and took the pills with the water.

You immediately took your phone out and set your work email with an "Out of Office" message and texted your boss at the aquarium, saying that you had a terrible case of food poisoning. He seemed to believe you.

Standing up, you almost tripped over your own two feet. You took in your appearance in the mirror near the dresser, realizing you looked like something out of a horror movie—your mascara was smudged everywhere, and your foundation was beginning to look flaky on your skin. You were developing a zit on your neck.

Ugh.

You quickly went into the bathroom to wash your face, and quickly threw on a T-shirt and sleep shorts on. It wasn’t like you to sleep practically naked, but you realized you must have just been fucking smashed last night.

This was why Tequila was your fucking enemy.

Your brain was still catching up, fragments of last night slowly started piecing themselves together. Had Andrew stayed the night? You could have sworn you had felt him settle into bed after you passed the fuck out. The memory was hazy, like a half-remembered dream, but it felt so real.

Your mind was clearly playing tricks on you. It was probably the lingering alcohol still messing with your head.

Still, you wondered if he’d gotten home safely, if he’d made it back okay after dropping you off. 

You pushed open your bedroom door and made your way toward the kitchen to reach for the coffee pot, fumbling for the switch, flicking it on with a dull click. The familiar gurgling sound signaled it was beginning to brew. You took a deep breath, trying to shake off the residual tiredness, and reached into the cabinet for the filter. As you set it up, your fingers brushed against the familiar weight of the jar of coffee grounds, and you hesitated for a moment before scooping a generous amount into the filter.

While the coffee brewed, you leaned against the counter, rubbing your temples and trying to clear your foggy mind.

"Good morning", a male voice said from your couch, scaring the living shit out of you.

You screeched into a total panic, your heart racing a mile a minute.

"It’s just me," Andrew said, standing up.

You let out a sharp gasp, clutching at your chest as your heart hammered against your ribs, and your hand trembled as you pressed it over your pounding heart, trying to steady your breathing.

Andrew stepped forward slowly, hands raised in a non-threatening gesture.

"I didn’t mean to startle you,"

"No, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting anybody else in here."

"I'm sorry. You asked me to stay last night… so I did."

You felt your jaw go slack.

"I… I did?" you managed to whisper with mortification.

He bit his lip softly, a hint of a sheepish smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah. You asked me to stay. I stayed in bed with you for a bit, but then I just moved to the couch."

A flood of images burst into your mind—hazy pieces of last night rushing back in a jumbled, humiliating rush. You remembered the way you had been so drunk you couldn’t stand straight, how you flopped onto the bed shirtless, and then—oh my God—you’d flashed him. Your tits, fully exposed, in your drunken state, without even realizing it. The sheer mortification made your cheeks burn hotter.

"Oh my God," you whispered, voice cracking. "I—fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—"

"It’s okay. Really. We’ve all had those nights."

"I can’t believe I did that," you muttered, covering your face with your hands for a moment. "God, I’m such a fucking idiot."

"No big deal."

"I owe you breakfast," you finally said, lowering your hands from your face. "And coffee."

"You don’t owe me anything."

His hazel eyes locked onto your eyes.

Looking at Andrew in your living room this morning made you forget about everything.

How you made an ass of yourself last night.

How terrible you probably looked right now.

You were even starting to forget that you had a headache.

He stayed because you had asked.

"Take a seat," you said, turning around to open a drawer. You grabbed a pan and placed it on the stove, then glanced over your shoulder.

"How do you like your eggs?" you asked.

He tilted his head slightly, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Sunny side up,"

You nodded, a little smile tugging at your own lips.

"Me too," you said softly.

You two finished breakfast, and you started clearing up the table. As you set the dishes in the sink, he stood up slowly, reaching out to help you, but you shook your head gently.

"Relax," you said softly, rubbing the back of your neck. "Just sit down on the couch. I got this."

He hesitated for a moment, but then did as told. You took a couple minutes before joining him, settling next to him.

Your headache was going away.

Thank fuck.

He looked over at you, eyes searching.

"Are you mad at me?"

You took a deep breath, considering how honest you wanted to be.

"Not mad. Just… confused."

He didn’t respond immediately. You could tell he was waiting, almost expecting you to say more. So, you pushed yourself to speak honestly.

"This whole Cath situation. Look, I won’t lie, it really threw me off. I guess, I’m shocked that it happened. That you hooked up with her. If you’re looking for advice or whatever… I don’t really have any advice on how you can get with her. Honestly, even if I don’t like Baz, she’s still his wife. This whole thing feels messy, and I don’t know what—"

"Get with Cath?" he cut you off, running a hand through his hair before he continued. "That’s not why I told you about what happened with her. That’s not what it was about."

You narrowed your eyes, waiting for him to clarify.

"So then,” you pressed softly, “why did you tell me?"

Andrew's face tightened, and he sighed heavily. His eyes flickered with something unreadable before he finally spoke.

"There’s this really good Thai place in Chula Vista. I’ve a made a dinner reservation there three times. And each time, I’ve cancelled after about an hour."

You looked at him confused.

Andrew took a deep breath, his gaze drifting downward for a moment as if gathering his thoughts.

"I’ve canceled because I’ve been too scared to actually ask you out. Every time I think about it, I freeze up.... because I’ve been to jail before. I’ve done bad things. I've made mistakes I can’t take back. And I slept with someone I shouldn’t have. I’m not a good man."

He paused, as if the words tasted bitter on his tongue. "Maybe I told you all that because I wanted to see your reaction. I don’t know. I’m probably selfish. I guess I was hoping that if I told you the truth, you’d see me for what I really am—and maybe decide to stay anyway. Or maybe you’d run the other way, I don’t know. But I wanted to be honest. I don’t want to lie to you. Not about this, not about anything."

He looked up finally, his eyes meeting yours—a vulnerability there you’d never seen before. It was the longest he had ever spoken. Silence stretched between you both for a moment before he added softly, "I just… I want you to know all the facts. And if you’re still interested in that Thai place, or anything else…" he trailed off. "I’ll be there. If you want."

Andrew didn’t let himself want things.

But he wanted this.

He wanted you.

You took a slow breath, feeling the weight of his words settle over you. The tears in Andrew’s eyes made your heart ache. It was a lot to process, but it also showed a level of honesty that was rare. After a moment, you reached out gently, placing your hand over his. 

"I’ve been thinking about it, and I realize… we've already been on a ton of dates together. Like that night we went out for dinner at that little Mexican place downtown. Or the time we went hiking up near the cliffs, and Lena was so excited to find those tiny crabs by the tide pools. You remember how she kept trying to catch them, and we ended up getting soaked trying to help her? That trip a couple weeks ago to the beach, too. Standing there on the shore, letting the waves wash over our feet, talking about random shit."

You looked away for a moment.

"Honestly, the idea of you with Cath—made me sick to my stomach. Not because of who she is, but because… because the thought of you with anybody else makes me so fucking crazy."

His head jerked forward. "It does?"

"It does," you admitted.

"I don’t care about her like that anymore. I swear—"

"I know. I know that now. And I’m not going to pretend that I understand why you slept with her, but I do believe people can change. And I believe in giving people a chance, especially when they’re willing to be open about their past. So, yes—I still want to go to that Thai place with you. I like you, Andrew. I think I’ve liked you for longer than I would like to admit."

"I like you too. You’re all I think about."

Andrew’s hand circled yours, bringing it so that it pressed against his heart.

You wanted to cry at the gesture.

It was sweet.

He was sweet.

Without thinking, you leaned forward, and he flinched.

You could see the hesitation in him—his breath was slow, almost trembling.

Your heart pounded louder in your ears, the silence stretching longer than you'd expected.

He was watching you intently.

You leaned in again, and slowly placed a delicate kiss on the right corner of his mouth. Then another on the left corner. Then finally, you placed a tender, kiss on his lips.

He pulled back enough to look at you.

Andrew then propped up your chin, his thumb gently caressing your cheek. His lips brushed against yours softly at first, tentatively, and you could tell he was still testing the waters with you. You pressed a little more, deepening the kiss, your hand reaching to gently cradle his cheek. His hesitation melted away as he responded, savoring how you chased his mouth with yours. His hand instinctively found your waist, pulling you just a little closer.

He kept kissing you.

All he could focus on was you.

The way you tasted.

The softness of your lips.

The way your body melted against his.

How right this all felt.

Suddenly, he grabbed your face with both hands, and kissed you with even more hunger. His kiss was demanding, like a man possessed, as he shoved his tongue in your mouth with urgency and need. His body felt impossibly hard, and you pulled your mouth off of his for a moment. You stared at him, panting and wide-eyed.

You desperately climbed into his lap, your clothed cunt resting perfectly on top of his erection.

Andrew gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, trying to find a way to string together a coherent sentence. Since he couldn’t speak, he brought his lips back on yours, his tongue invading your mouth for another searing kiss. You gasped for air when he finally tore his lips away to start placing butterfly kisses on your neck. His hands dug into your ass, and he pulled you closer towards him, while you grinded yourself against him.

He groaned, when you continued to shove yourself against him, sinking yourself deeper and deeper into his lap. You felt the bulge in his pants even more firmly, and he let out an absolutely wrecked moan, slumping his head into your shoulder.

You grabbed his hand and put it under your sleep shorts so that he could feel how wet your panties were. "I want you to touch me," you said boldly.

His eyes became intense.

"Fuck…" he whispered, silently cursing himself over his shallow breathing.

You whimpered when you felt him touch you over your panties.

Finally, his fingers slid between your legs, deftly hooking the material of your panties aside as he plunged two fingers inside you. Your head fell back, and you struggled to keep quiet with all your panting and moaning.

"Fuck, A-Andrew," your voice cracked. He pressed a soft kiss to your jaw, inhaling your scent greedily. You buried your face into his shoulder, dragging your fingernails around the back of his neck.

He wanted to hear you scream his name, to know that you were completely his in this moment. He continued to bring you mindless pleasure as his fingers worked inside of you. His thumb brushed against your clit and your hips bucked against his seeking fingers.

"Oh, god yes!" you gasped breathlessly.

He brought his lips to your ear and nipped on your earlobe. "Yeah? That feel good?"

You desperately nodded.

Scrunching his face in concentration, he curled his fingers upward hitting a spot so deep inside of you while he used his thumb to rub circles on your clit. Maybe it was the fact that you had been waiting for this moment for a long time, or the fact that you hadn’t been with someone in a long time, but you realized your body was responding faster than you had anticipated when you felt the pressure building in your belly.

"Andrew, I’m so fucking close," you cried out tangling your fingers in his hair and twisting his curls as you desperately moved against him. You tried to stifle out the embarrassing moans that were coming out of you, but you couldn’t.

Andrew watched you, the way your body responded to his touch, every gasp and moan escaping your lips making him feel like a fucking man. He loved the way your face was contorting in pleasure, how your eyes were fluttering shut because of him. Each sigh… each whimper was like music to his ears. He wanted to etch this moment into his memory, to brand himself into your very essence.

"You’re doing so good. Such a good fucking girl," he coaxed as you continued to sob.

He was never one for saying much in bed, but he could tell it was doing something for you.

So, he would say and do anything to make you feel good.

Your pleasure was his pleasure.

"Andrew…" was all you were able to say, and you were shaking feeling your orgasm coming.

He was getting worked up at the sight of how needy you were for him, every thrust of his fingers making you let out high-pitched whines. He felt like his cock was going to break through his pants. "C’mon beautiful. Let me fucking hear you. Give it to me,"

Then, suddenly, you were there, clenching around his fingers so tightly, your head thrown back and fingers clutching at his shoulders, the sound of his name on your tongue.

"Look at that, that’s it, take it. You’re so fucking perfect," he marveled as you came hard for him, his praise sending you into a wave of aftershocks.

The pleasure was so intense, and he continued to work you through it, too a point where you felt overstimulated, so you grabbed his hand to stop him. He pulled his fingers out of you, glistening with your slick, and you watched him lift them to his mouth to clean them off, while he groaned at the taste.

"That felt so good," you mumbled, completely blissed out. "My headache is definitely gone now."

Andrew chuckled softly, his lips trailing up to your ear, where he planted a teasing kiss. "I’ll make the reservation for 8 PM tomorrow at the Thai place."

graphics by @saradika-graphics

You should’ve known it was a simple scheduling error, an oversight from whichever manager had been responsible for this week’s schedule, but the thought of getting take-out and spending your Friday night catching up on a few of your favorite shows that you’ve neglected the newest episodes of had been too tempting for you to think about questioning why your name wasn’t listed under Friday, as it usually is.

Then, at 9:15 pm, precisely fifteen minutes after your shift's typical start time, your phone rang. Right away, a ball of nausea wound tight in your stomach. You didn’t even have to look at the screen to know whose name was displayed across it.

You also knew better than to risk not answering.

“Yes?”

“Where the fuck are you?”

Silas is pissed. That’s nothing new. Silas has been in a perpetual state of pissed off since the day you had the misfortune of meeting him. Pissed is his default.

“Not at work.”

A loud, sarcastic guffaw sounds from your speaker. “Yeah, I fuckin’ see that. Why the hell do you think I’m calling you? To ask about your overall wellbeing?”

“Oh, I’d never think that,” you mutter under your breath, too low and quick for him to make out over the roar of R&B music that blares in the background. “I wasn’t on the schedule tonight,” you say more clearly, digging your nails into your palm in an effort to keep your voice level.

“Yeah, and your buddy Trevor is getting his ass chewed out for that, too,” Silas spits. “You always work Friday nights. The only exception was the time you got food poisoning because I didn’t want you shitting on a customer during a dance. You know that.”

Damn it. Trevor is your favorite of all of the floor managers - the only one who talks to you like a human being. Why couldn’t it have been Gregory? That pervert getting in trouble would almost be worth this phone call and whatever punishment Silas has in mind for you not being at work right now.

“It’s not my fault that Trevor fucked up the schedule,” you say, voice still lethally calm. “I show up when I’m told to. Nothing more.”

“I don’t give a rat’s fat ass whose fault it is,” Silas hisses. “And I’m telling you to show up now, so you better get here before ten o’clock or—”

You don’t want to hear whatever he’s about to threaten you with. It could be anything from not letting you perform a solo routine on center stage tonight to taking a bigger cut of the money you make from private rooms…to even worse.

“Okay, okay. Jesus fuck. I’m on my way.”

You hang up before his voice can give you a migraine before you even arrive at the club.

Forty minutes later, after doing your hair and makeup in record time, throwing on the first cute lingerie set you can find that’s clean, and speeding at least ten over the speed limit the entire drive to the club, you show up with less than five minutes to spare.

Luckily, Silas is nowhere to be found when you enter through the back door. You know that he’ll bitch at you some more whenever you see him, but right now, you’re relieved to start your normal rounds while he’s otherwise occupied. Likely smoking himself to death with a hotdog-sized cigar in his office.

You walk the main floor, making small talk with a few regulars that aren’t complete pieces of shit as far as men who frequent strip clubs go. You book your first private room of the night, and Gregory is a little too happy to inform you that Silas will be taking sixty percent of your earnings tonight as opposed to the standard fifty.

As annoying as that is, you can’t help but feel a little relieved. As far as punishments go, a ten percent increase in his cut is mild. Last time you were reprimanded (for not fucking smiling enough), Silas added an additional five grand to the already exorbitant amount of money that your father owes him.

The exorbitant amount of money that just so happens to be the very reason you are working in this shithole in the first place.

Not even two hours into your shift, and you’re already over it. So over it that you offer to take out a bag of trash for the bartenders just as an excuse to get some fresh air for two fucking minutes.

This part of Los Angeles isn’t exactly quaint - there’s a near constant stream of car horns blaring and police sirens wailing but it’s white noise to you at this point. At least the night air is a nice reprieve from the stench of cheap weed and cheaper cologne even for only a moment.

It says a lot that you consider hanging out by literal dumpsters more appealing than being inside.

You should’ve been out of here a long time ago. It wasn’t supposed to take more than a year to clear the debt that isn’t even your debt to clear.

You didn’t even know that your dad was sick. Not until you came home from college on a random weekend, hoping to surprise him, and found him far thinner and more frail than you had ever seen him, hooked up to a dialysis machine to keep himself from dying of kidney failure.

He’d tried his hardest to keep it all from you. He didn’t want you to worry, didn’t want you to drop out of school to take care of him. He tried to handle the medical bills that accumulated rapidly on his own for as long as he could.

And when he accepted that he couldn’t, he got desperate.

He thought Silas was just a lender. Someone who would help him stay afloat long enough to get a transplant, recover, and get back to work. He didn’t realize exactly what kind of man he had borrowed from until Silas showed up at his house, uninvited and unannounced, waltzing right in like he owned the place.

So vividly you can remember the look of shame on your father’s face when Silas revealed the truth, and the panic that quickly bloomed when he looked directly at you and said the words that changed the trajectory of your life.

“You failed to mention that you have a daughter,” Silas purrs. “She sure is pretty. You know, I think she’d do real well working in one of my clubs. Yeah, she’d be popular. Make me a lot of money. How does that sound? You wanna help your poor, sick daddy out?”

Your dad had instantly refused, pleading with Silas to just give him a little more time, but you could tell that Silas wasn’t really asking. He was telling you what you were going to do. And because you were scared, for your own life and your father’s, you agreed.

Here you are, three years later, with no true end in sight.

The club’s back door screeches open, and you know that your ninety seconds of the closest thing you can get to peace around here has come to an end.

“The hell are you doing out here?” Silas booms, interrupting the relative quiet of the alleyway. “It’s almost time for you to go on center stage. You’re lucky that I’m even letting you go on at all tonight. I wasn’t planning on it, but there’s a group of guys in there requesting you.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. The last thing you want is for him to change his mind at the last second and give your solo slot to one of the other girls. “I’m coming. I was just taking out the trash.”

You take a step to walk past him, but he blocks the doorway, his clammy hand shooting out to catch you by the elbow. His grip isn’t quite hard enough to bruise, but still makes bile churn in your gut.

“Don’t get cute with me,” he spits. “You’re already on thin ice tonight.”

You don’t say anything, biting your lip to hold back the overwhelming desire to spit in his face. Silas leans in, his breath foul with the stench of whiskey and cigar smoke.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here.” His fingers tighten just a fraction around your arm. Just enough to make you wince. “Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”

You taste iron from where your teeth break the skin of your lip. “I said I’m coming.”

Silas snorts, satisfied for now. He lets go of your arm with a shove that is more dismissive than violent and turns back toward the door.

“And try not to fuck up your set,” he snaps over his shoulder. “Those guys in there are blowing their money on you. Don’t make me regret doing you any favors.”

And then he’s gone, letting the metal door slam closed behind him before you can follow him inside.

You stand there for a moment, breathing in and then slowly exhaling when movement from your peripheral vision catches your eye.

Great. Just what you fucking need right now. An audience. Men, of course. Two of them. Just close enough to have heard every word.

“What are you looking at, boys?” You call, voice void of emotion as you make direct eye contact with the stocky, curly-haired one.

He’d be cute, you think, if he wasn’t the kind of guy to spend his Friday night outside of a strip club. The sandy blond looks slightly surprised that you’re acknowledging them, but his buddy remains stoic.

You jerk your chin towards the door Silas slammed behind him.

“The show’s inside.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope all but forced Deran to switch tasks with him at the last second.

Originally, he was supposed to be the one keeping a close eye on Silas Leary, Solstice’s owner, while Deran scopes out the club’s main floor for the heist that Craig, of all people, is orchestrating.

He shouldn’t be surprised. A luxury gentleman’s club based heist is quite possibly the most Craig heist possible.

But now, instead of watching the balding, sweaty jackass who had berated you in the alleyway not even ten minutes ago, he’s watching you on stage.

You’re more pleasant to look at, at least.

He’s never really seen anything quite like it - the way you dance. This isn’t his first time at a strip club. His brothers have coerced him into going to strip clubs before, though every time prior to tonight was for pleasure, not business. Still, he isn’t unfamiliar with the scene. He’s watched women pole dance before, but not like this.

You’re the only thing in the room that he can concentrate on. For the entirety of the five minutes and some change that your set lasts, he forgets that he’s technically here for recon. He and his brothers made this trip to Los Angeles to get a feel for the building’s layout, to see how operations work, to check out the security systems…not watch the strippers.

He tells himself he’s keeping up appearances. It would be weird to not watch you. Everyone in the room is - even the other dancers, though they watch with less enchantment and more disdain than the patrons.

The song comes to an end all too soon, and Pope continues to watch as you make quick work of collecting all of the bills that had been thrown onto the stage. He stands just a few feet away, close enough that he can see the body glitter dusted across your chest sparkle in the glow of the neon stage lights.

When you stand up, thick stack of cash in hand, your gaze locks with his for one tense but fleeting moment. The look in your eyes is the same as when you had made direct eye contact with him outside the club.

Just as fast as you had appeared on the stage, you then disappear, leaving Pope staring after you.

He thinks back to what he and Deran had witnessed in the alley. He had instantly recognized Silas Leary from pictures he’d seen online, so he and Deran hung around to witness the brief interaction, hoping to get some idea as to what Silas is like in person before entering the club.

It came as no shock to Pope that his reputation precedes him. Harsh, volatile, cruel seemingly for the sake of being cruel. That isn’t what made Pope freeze in place in the alley. It’s what Silas had said to you.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here. Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”

And your response. You didn’t agree or disagree. Didn’t fight him on it. You looked Silas dead in the eyes, expression unreadable, and barely flinched. Like you had heard the threat a thousand times before, like you were used to the way he grabbed you by the arm. Like it hardly even phased you.

Pope’s first instinct had been to intervene, but he knew doing so would have tanked the job before it began. He couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself and Deran, and deep down, he also knew that stepping in would have likely made things worse on you, too, in the long run.

So he watched from the sidelines, feeling more at peace than ever at the prospect of stealing loads of money from someone, knowing Silas Leary deserves what’s coming for him.

Deran knew it, too, playing it off with a joke that sparked an idea in Pope’s head.

“Shit. You think she hates the fucker enough to help us rob him?”

Pope had said nothing at the time, but he was unable to shake the thought. The entire time that he watched you on stage, the look of unadulterated hatred on your face kept replaying in his mind.

But for just a few minutes, as you danced on the center stage, you seemed different than you did in the alley. Different than you did when you were collecting the dozens of tens, twenties, and hundred dollar bills off of the stage floor. For a few moments, Pope saw himself in you. The way you seemed to completely dissociate while you performed, like there was no one else in the room but you and nothing else mattered. In his own way, he’s been there. With skateboarding, and with boxing. For him, those things are escapes.

He can’t help but wonder if that’s what dancing is for you. An escape from this place.

He supposes there’s really only one way to find out - if he’s right, and if Deran could possibly be right, too.

Good thing Craig had suggested they all bring plenty of cash with them. To keep up appearances, he had said. If you’re going to a strip club, you should always have cash on you. This is just recon, but you never know.

He’d smirked when he said it, as if he already had plans to spend said cash in ways that weren’t relevant to recon, but he still made a fair point.

Pope’s eyes scan the crowded room, searching through all of the dancers and customers in hopes of finding someone who might be of some help. He notices a short, pudgy, middle-aged man who appears to be scolding another dancer.

Gregory, Pope sees that his name tag reads once he approaches him.

“The dancer that just finished up on stage,” Pope asks him, “What’s her name?”

A creepy, almost unsettling smile grows on Gregory’s face. “Oh, that would be Soleil. Why? You want a room with her?”

What Pope wants is to wipe that perverted look off of his face, but rationally he knows that would be counterproductive right now, so he settles for a curt nod. “Yeah, I do.”

“Half hour? Or a full hour?”

Pope knows that he’s supposed to meet his brothers and nephew where they parked a couple blocks away in less than an hour, so he isn’t really sure why he lets the next words come out of his mouth, but for whatever reason, he does.

“Full hour.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Gregory barges into the locker room without so much as knocking.

You’re dressed (as dressed as you possibly can be in a place like this), just counting the money you made from your solo set, but his sudden presence still unnerves you.

“You’ve got a private room,” he barks, not bothering to be subtle with the way his beady little eyes trail up your legs. “Room two. Full hour. This guy asked for you after watching your solo performance, so you better not disappoint him.”

You cram the rest of your money into the locker and snap it shut, trying not to give Gregory the satisfaction of seeing how irritated you are - at the way he thinks he owns this place and can enter a changing room without knocking, and especially at hearing you have to do another private room. For a full hour.

You don’t bother asking who the private room is with. You’re confident it’s one of the men who had convinced Silas to let you go on center stage tonight. A group of four or five sat as close as possible to the front, several familiar faces throwing bills at you every few seconds. Any given one of them looks like the type to drop six hundred dollars on an hour-long private room.

“Oh, I’ll try my hardest,” you breathe sarcastically. “Now can I have a second to freshen up? Alone?”

“Hurry,” Gregory snaps. “He’s waiting for you.”

You wait until the door clicks shut behind him to curse under your breath. Sometimes, you think you might hate Gregory as much as you hate Silas - if that’s even possible.

After reapplying your lipgloss and spritzing on a little more perfume, you reluctantly make your way to the private room where you’ll spend the next hour of your life.

At least once it’s over, it’ll be after midnight, which means the rest of the shift likely won’t be quite as busy, and you’ll be able to go home soon—

“Hi,” you chirp, slipping into the room with a forced smile and your best customer service voice. “I’m Soleil. Thanks so much for booking a room with me tonight. And what’s your na—”

You freeze as soon as you turn around from shutting the door behind you, the question dying on your tongue.

Not one of the men from the eager group that sat right next to the stage. You do recognize him, though. He too had stood close to the stage, by himself.

One of the men from the alley.

“Oh,” you quip, voice rising an octave. “You’re—”

“Pope,” he interrupts, and you’re thankful for it, because you didn’t really even know where you were going with that sentence. “My name is Pope.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Pope,” you smile, taking a tentative step closer to where he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Would you like to sit down?” You ask, gesturing towards the couch behind him.

He nods. You hover for a moment, giving him space as he lowers himself stiffly onto the couch. He looks around with uncertainty, like this entire process is completely unfamiliar to him and he isn’t sure what exactly he is supposed to say or do.

“Let me guess,” he starts, settling into the velvet couch. He runs his palms over jean fabric that conceals his bulky thighs. “Your name isn’t actually Soleil?”

You snort a laugh as you take a seat in the empty space beside him. You tuck your legs beneath you, one arm relaxing across the top of the couch, your hand coming to rest just behind his head. Instinctively, your fingers inch towards the base of his skull to toy with the reddish brown curls there, but you stop yourself at the last second, instead smoothing your fingertips over the soft, velvet material of the couch.

Normally, you wouldn’t hesitate to show physical affection for such high-paying clientele - that is what at least 95% of them are here for, anyway - but something about the way he stiffens at your sudden closeness makes you think twice before touching him.

“That depends,” you counter. “Is Pope actually your name?”

He turns his neck to look you in the eye - now close enough that you’re able to see his hazel irises and the light dusting of freckles across his skin.

Pretty, you think - even if he is the kind of man to spend an asinine amount of money on a nearly naked and complete stranger’s attention, you can’t deny that he’s pretty.

“No,” he says lowly. He pauses, swallowing. “Pope’s just a childhood nickname. My real name is Andrew.”

“Andrew,” you repeat with a slow nod. “And which would you prefer that I call you?”

A slight blush appears on the apples of his cheeks. “You can call me whatever you want to.”

It doesn’t really make a difference to you, considering you’ll likely never see him again after the hour he paid for comes to an end, but you can’t help but think the way he blushed when you said Andrew was oddly endearing.

“Well, Andrew,” you hum, “you are correct in assuming that my name is not really Soleil. That’s just the stage name I chose to go by.” You nod towards the sign on the opposite wall that spells Solstice in neon, cursive lettering. You give a small shrug. “I thought it pairs well with the name of the club. Soleil at Solstice.”

There’s something close to a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m sure you’re already aware that soleil means sun in French.”

Yes, you are aware of that, but you’re slightly surprised that he knows that. Most men that come here don’t know their left from their right.

“That it does,” you agree. “Kind of ironic, actually.”

His eyebrows pinch together a bit. “How so?”

Because there isn’t actually any sun in a place like this. A dark, dystopian fucking hellscape.

But you can’t say that, of course. God forbid you say anything even slightly negative about this place and word somehow gets back to Silas. That would be your third strike of the night, and he’d likely tack on an additional twenty grand to your father’s outstanding balance for the hell of it.

You instantly regret saying anything at all.

“Oh, nothing.” You shake your head in dismissal. “Just meant the only thing that’s bright here is the strobe lights.”

He stares at you for an extended moment before responding, his gaze heavy on you. “I wouldn’t say the only thing.”

You exhale a breathy laugh, your cheeks warming more than they should at the sentiment. It fills you with a bit of shame, really - the fact that you’d feel even slightly flustered over a vague compliment from a stranger paying for your company.

“So, Andrew…” you say, breaking the brief but loaded silence that had settled between you. “You paid for this room. What would you like to do in it?”

You dread what comes next. You always do. The kind of “dancing” that you hardly even consider dancing. The stripping, the touching. There’s supposed to be boundaries, of course, but most men think that if they’re paying then that gives them a right to cross them.

But private rooms are part of the job. Silas has made that clear from day one. He lets you perform your solo routines because they generate too much revenue to deny you the one part of the night that you don’t absolutely despise - but your sets last five, maybe ten minutes at most. Your shifts run about six hours. That leaves five hours and fifty minutes to keep the money flowing if you want to keep Silas appeased, which means doing every soul-sucking part of the job you hate: the floor dances, the private rooms, the mandatory mingling and endless flirting.

Every now and then, though, someone will book a private room and pleasantly surprise you.

“I just wanna talk,” Andrew says simply. “If that’s alright with you.”

You have to hold back the urge to sigh in relief. Talking you can do. And the fact that Andrew doesn’t reek of body odor and stout liquor like the majority of your customers makes the thought of conversing with him for the remainder of the next hour even less painful.

Six hundred dollars (well, significantly less once Silas takes his sixty percent cut…) and all you have to do is sit and talk to a decent looking man who isn’t belligerently drunk? You’ve had far worse nights.

“Of course,” you smile, and for once it isn’t completely forced. “You’re paying. If you want to talk, then we talk.”

Andrew is silent for a moment, as if he’s considering what to say next. His stare is unyielding, but not in the way that would normally make you cringe so hard that you risk breaking a tooth. Instead, it feels like he’s really looking at you. Not Soleil, but you.

“I watched your set earlier,” he says when he finally speaks. “That was very impressive. How long have you been dancing?”

Ah. Yes, you had noticed him towards the very front of the crowd when you finished your routine. He’d looked every bit as serious and solemn as he had when you first saw him in the alleyway earlier tonight.

“Dancing? Since I was four. Ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical…” You list off all of the weekly classes you remember taking throughout your childhood. “Pole dancing, though? About three years.”

Andrew looks surprised by the answer, his brows lifting slightly and hazel eyes widening. “Only three years? I would’ve thought a lot longer than that. Is that how long you’ve worked here, then?”

You nod, retracting your arm from where it had been resting behind his head now that it’s clear that - for whatever reason - Andrew is only interested in conversation. You let yourself relax a bit, relieved that you don’t have to put up the usual facade that makes most men swoon.

“Yeah, right at three years now. I practice a lot at home, though. I even got a pole for my apartment. If you work here, you’ve really gotta know your way around a pole, so…I’ve put in the hours.”

He looks impressed at that - or maybe surprised. Or maybe something else entirely. You aren’t sure. You can’t read his facial expressions or his body language nearly as easily as most of the men that enter this room.

“Wow,” Andrew hums with what appears to be a nod of approval. “That’s dedication. You must have really wanted to work here to put so much effort into learning such a specific skill.”

You barely manage to hold back a cackle at that. If he only fucking knew.

You give a half shrug, playing it off. “What can I say?” You sigh. “Guess I really needed the money.”

It’s the truth. Not the whole, disgusting, gritty truth, but it is accurate. As accurate as you can be without trauma dumping and jeopardizing your life…and your father’s.

Andrew nods, looking down at his hands splayed across the tops of his thighs. “Yeah. I get that. I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t made money in some unconventional ways.”

That piques your interest. “Oh? Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

He exhales a small laugh before bringing his eyes back to yours again. “As long as you promise not to tell anyone. If I tell you, it can’t leave this room.”

You make a motion with a hand across your mouth as if you’re zipping your lips and throwing away the key. “My lips are sealed. Pinky promise.” Then, for good measure, you hold out your pinky finger to him in offering.

He stares at your littlest finger for a long moment, the slightest hint of a smirk beginning to tug at the corners of his lips again before he finally lifts a hand of his own, pinky finger upright. He wraps the digit around yours, giving it a firm squeeze before slowly pulling away.

“Years ago,” Andrew starts, “I robbed a bank. It didn’t go as planned, and I spent a few years in prison for it.”

You blink, and wait for him to laugh, or say that he’s kidding. But then five, ten, fifteen seconds pass, and he’s still looking at you with the exact same unreadable expression.

“You robbed a bank?” You ask incredulously. “Jesus, I thought you were going to say that you sold pictures of your feet online or something.”

He doesn’t smile or flinch, just holds your gaze for a second longer. “Yeah,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of it, but I did.”

You know that your face must give away your surprise. His revelation should freak you out - if he’s capable of bank robbery, what else is this stranger capable of?

Maybe you’ve become somewhat desensitized to the concept of people going to extremes for money. Your dad. Silas. Even you. A few years ago, you never would have imagined that you’d be here right now. But you have your reasons, and you are. Even though it isn’t your first choice, you wouldn’t want anyone to judge you too harshly for doing what you feel you have to do.

You don’t know Andrew’s past. You have no idea what happened in his life that led him to make the decision to rob a bank. It probably wasn’t because he woke up bored one morning and decided that it sounded like a fun thing to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and you know that all too well.

“Well,” you huff a laugh, “I can’t say that I really blame you. I mean, I’d never be able to execute something like that, but it’s fun to fantasize about on occasion.”

“On occasion?” Andrew repeats in a low, curious tone. His brows lift in question. “Like when you’re here?”

You snort, shaking your head. “Please, if I was planning a bank robbery every time that I’m here, I would’ve been locked up years ago. But this place…” You trail off, searching for the right words for what you want to say but know you shouldn’t, “this place can get to you sometimes. Makes stupid ideas sound less stupid. No offense.”

Andrew makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a hum. “No offense taken.”

The rest of the hour drifts by far easier than you expect. Andrew tells you some stories from his time in prison, and about how he grew up not too far from here, in Oceanside. He talks about his siblings, looking down at his lap when he reveals that he’s a twin, but his twin sister, Julia, passed away somewhat recently. You try not to talk too much about yourself, but when he asks you questions, you answer as honestly as you can - telling him that you had been in your third year of college when you started working here, and that one day, when the time is right, you’d like to finish your degree.

By the time a knock sounds at the door signaling that the hour is up, you’re almost startled. It barely feels as if sixty minutes have passed.

“Huh,” you muse, rising from the couch as he does. “That went by a lot quicker than time usually does here.”

Andrew is silent for a moment, his gaze lingering on your face, still as serious as when you had first made eye contact with him in the alley. Then, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small envelope.

“Here,” he says quietly, holding out the envelope for you to take. “This is for you.” He pauses. “Just you. Not your boss.”

Your eyes shoot up to his in surprise. Not at the fact that he’s offering what you presume to be a tip, but at the last three words. Not your boss.

When your brain catches up, you accept the envelope, clutching it in both hands. “Thank you,” you murmur, trying to keep an even, neutral tone, though you’re sure your face betrays you. “It was, uh…it was nice to meet you, Andrew.”

He gives a small, polite smile as he takes a step towards the door. “It was nice to meet you, Soleil.”

Only when he reaches for the doorknob do you stop him by uttering a single word. He looks back over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

You repeat yourself once more. “That’s my name,” you clarify. “My real name.”

He says your name softly. Barely audible. As if just testing how it feels to say it. Then, with a slow nod, he turns the doorknob and exits the room without another word, leaving you staring after him.

Only after his footsteps fade down the hallway do you open the envelope and find that he has given you a thousand dollars.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“You’re joking, right?”

Jay’s voice fills the silence that had settled over Smurf’s living room following Pope’s suggestion.

“No,” Pope says, trying not to let impatience slip into his tone. “I’m not joking. I really think she would be willing to help us.”

The three men take turns looking at each other before turning their stares back to Pope.

“The stripper?” Craig snorts. “That’s your big idea? I mean, I love strippers as much as the next guy, but you can’t be serious right now.”

“It was technically Deran’s idea.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Deran pipes up.

“When we saw her in the alley,” Pope says, like it’s obvious. “You asked me if I think she hates her boss enough to help us rob him. The answer is yes. I think she does hate him that much. I think she hates that whole place that much.”

No, you hadn’t blatantly said so, but you didn’t need to. He could see it in your eyes, and hear it in your tone. It may as well have been written across your forehead.

“Jesus Christ, man, I wasn’t being serious.”

“Still,” Pope implores, “I spent an hour talking to her. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be there. And after what we witnessed in the alley? It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.”

His brothers and nephew are silent again, exchanging glances amongst each other.

“She’s been there for three years,” Pope continues. “She knows the layout. She knows when Silas comes and goes. And I’m willing to bet she knows exactly where that safe is and how to get to it, too.”

“So she hates her job,” Craig shrugs. “Doesn’t mean she’s cool with risking a felony charge.”

Pope shakes his head. “She didn’t seem too put off when I told her that I’ve done time for armed robbery.”

All three voices erupt at once.

“You told her what?”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“Dude, are you insane?”

“I wanted her to know that she can trust me,” Pope says simply. “And she reacted fine. More than fine. She seemed to understand.”

Jay clears his throat. “Look, if we do this, she can’t be a liability. She needs to know what she’s doing, and she needs to keep her mouth shut.”

“She will,” Pope says instantly. “I know she will.”

Deran squints. “How? You spent one hour with her. You don’t actually know her.”

Pope meets his eyes with an unblinking stare. “You think I’d risk all of our asses if I wasn’t sure? I know enough to know that I’m not wrong.”

Pope’s stare is locked on Craig. It’s his operation and therefore he gets the final say. If it were solely up to Jay, or even Deran, he wouldn’t think there’s a chance of getting them to agree. But Craig’s a little riskier than they are. If he thinks there’s even a slight chance that it’ll increase the odds of the job being a success, he’s likely to agree.

“Fuck it,” Craig finally mutters, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll try it your way. But we aren’t sharing our cut with her. If she gets anything, it’s coming out of your share. I’m not sacrificing my payday because you have a crush on the stripper.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope knows a guy who knows a guy who somehow knows everything about everyone. And if that guy doesn’t know, he has ways of finding out.

Well, technically Smurf knew him, but Pope uses that connection to his advantage.

The information doesn’t come cheap, but Pope needed to know with absolute certainty before waltzing back into Solstice and asking you to help him rob your boss.

Except now he isn’t just asking for help pulling off the heist. He’s going to ask for help pulling off an execution, because he doesn’t just want Silas Leary’s money, he wants him dead.

It may have cost him three grand, but Pope now has confirmation that his suspicions were correct and somehow worse than he had thought. Not only are you essentially being trafficked, but you’re doing so because your life and your father’s are on the line.

Now he knows, without a doubt, just how desperate you must be for a way out. And even though he’s only met you one time, Pope wants to give you that way out.

If only you’ll be willing to take it.

Pope makes the hour and a half long drive from Oceanside to Los Angeles again the very next night without any confirmation that you would even be working, but it’s a chance he’s willing to take. Craig and the others want to get on with the job, and Pope wants to get you away from the likes of Silas Leary as quickly as possible.

He goes over it all in his head the entire drive to the club. Everything he knows about you, from what he had witnessed the moment he first saw you in the alley, to every word you said to him in the private room, to what the private investigator informed him of.

But that’s not all he thinks about. He also thinks about the way your pinky finger felt wrapped around his when you offered the symbolic gesture to keep his secret, and the intoxicating smell of your perfume that he had to fight the urge to inhale the entire hour that you sat beside him on that tiny couch. He thinks about how sweet it sounded to hear you say his name, his real name, and how it sounded even sweeter when you told him your real name.

Maybe Craig is right. Maybe he does have a crush. That’s the most logical explanation for why Pope suddenly no longer cares how much money he pulls from this job. There will always be another job - if he wanted to, he could rob another bank by himself next week. He cares more about getting you out of the unfortunate predicament you’re in, and ensuring that Silas can never bring harm to you or anyone else ever again.

When he arrives, it’s close to midnight and the club is packed. He can barely get through the dense crowd of dancers and patrons that occupy the main floor, his eyes carefully scanning the crowd as he makes his way to the bar, where he orders a beer to keep up appearances until he’s able to spot you.

He waits for over half an hour. He doesn’t move from his seat at the bar, where he has the perfect view of center stage, the main floor, and the doorway to the hallway that leads to the private room he shared with you last night.

Just observing it all is overstimulating. From the loud music that pulsates through Pope’s barstool, to the neon strobe lights that make his eyes throb, to the smell of bodies and liquor that hangs heavy in hot club air, he doesn’t know how you have done it for three years without losing your sanity. Even just sitting here, all Pope can think about are all of the germs on every surface of this place.

When you finally appear at the mouth of the small hallway that leads to the private rooms wearing a pale pink, ruffled bodysuit that looks like it was custom made for you, Pope momentarily forgets why he’s here.

He watches as your eyes flicker around the main floor of the club, as if you’re dreading stepping back into the chaos of it all. When you finally glance towards the bar, your gaze locks with his and Pope’s skin warms at the way your face lights up with surprise. He offers you a small smile and wave of his hand, and that’s all you need to walk the short distance to where he sits.

“Andrew,” you breathe, coming to stand next to where he sits. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Soleil,” he greets, a teasing edge to his tone. He almost lets your real name slip out, but thinks better of it at the last second. He isn’t sure why you trusted him enough to let him know your real name after only an hour together, but he gets the feeling that isn’t something that you tell just anyone.

“I didn’t expect to be back so soon, but…” He trails off momentarily, glancing around the crowded room. There’s too many people. He has to speak too loudly in order for you to hear him over all of the voices and loud music, and he doesn’t want to risk anyone overhearing. “Are you busy right now?”

You shake your head. “No. I just finished up a private room. I’ve already done my solo set for the night. I was just going to walk around, make conversation with some regulars. Why? Are you…wanting a room?”

Pope can’t help but think you sound a little hopeful. But maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part. You are doing your job, after all.

“Yeah, I am,” he says, standing up beside you. “If you have time.”

You nod with a smile that reaches your eyes. “Of course.”

He follows as you lead him down the hallway, straight to the exact room that the two of you occupied last night. As he does, a terrifying thought occurs: you might say no. You might get scared, and deny everything, and refuse to help. You might tell him to get lost, and he doesn’t know where the hell that would leave him. But as he walks into the room after you, he swallows that thought down, and focuses on what he does know: you want to be here even less than he does.

“I’m really glad to see you,” you say as you shut the door behind him. “And I’m not just saying that because you tipped me a thousand dollars. Thank you, by the way. That was very generous of you.”

Pope takes a seat on the couch, the exact same spot he sat twenty-four hours ago, though he feels significantly more nervous now than he did then. “No need to thank me,” he murmurs. “I really enjoyed talking to you.”

You take a seat beside him, relaxing against the couch. “Is that why you came back? To talk more?”

He nods. “It is. If that’s okay with you.”

“More than okay with me. Is there anything in particular that you’d like to talk about tonight, Andrew?”

He hesitates for a second. He spent half the drive here rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to you to ensure that this would go as smoothly as possible, but now that he’s sitting beside you, he has forgotten how to string two words together.

He clears his throat slightly. “Can I ask you something?”

Your eyebrows twitch in curiosity. “Sure.”

“If you could walk out of this place tonight and never come back, would you?”

A small laugh escapes you, and you instantly drop his gaze, looking down at your hands in your lap instead. “That’s a hell of a question. You know, most people that get me alone in this room just ask me if I have a boyfriend or what my favorite position is.”

Pope watches you for a moment. “Well, I’m not most people.”

You look back up, your lips pursed. “No,” you agree quietly. “You’re definitely not.” You pause just long enough to make Pope wonder if you’re going to say anything else at all. “Yeah. I would. What makes you ask?”

He exhales slowly, only mildly surprised by your honesty. “I heard what happened in the alley yesterday.”

You’re visibly taken aback, your body going rigid and your eyes going wide, and he can understand why. In the entire hour you spent together last night, he didn’t bring up the incident in the alley. You probably assumed he hadn’t been able to hear what Silas had said, or that he at least hadn’t thought anything of it, but now here he is, bringing it up unprompted.

“Oh,” you start, your voice unnaturally high, “that was just—”

He cuts you off by shaking his head. “I’m not asking you to explain anything to me,” says lowly. “But I know who Silas is. That’s why me and my brothers came here last night. We were supposed to come here, get information, and leave.”

You don’t move as you stare at him in silence, either too stunned or too scared to speak. He continues so you don’t have to.

“But then I met you. And now I can’t just pretend I didn’t see that.”

You study him for a long moment. “What kind of information?”

“Remember when I told you that I did time in prison?”

Your eyebrows scrunch together before realization blooms across your face a fraction of a second later. Instinctively, you change your position on the small sofa, putting more space between the two of you. “Jesus,” you hiss. “You were going to rob—”

You don’t finish your sentence, looking from Pope, to the door just a few feet away, to a security camera in the corner of the room.

“You’re lucky that thing doesn’t have audio,” you spit under your breath.

Pope holds back a laugh. “I know it doesn’t have audio. I know what I’m doing.” He pauses, then offers a small, almost shy smile. “Most of the time.”

“Oh, most of the time?”

Pope shrugs. “Most of the time.”

You sigh, running a hand down your face as you look around the room again.

“Look,” you whisper, “I don’t care what you and your brothers do to Silas, but I can’t get involved.”

Pope doesn’t respond right away. He was expecting you to say something along those lines. But you aren’t screaming at him to get out, or running away to find a security guard, so he still feels hope.

He murmurs your real name for the first time since you had first told him what it is last night. It causes your expression to soften the tiniest bit, a glimpse of vulnerability appearing in your eyes.

“I know that he’s got something over you. And I swear I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

You purse your lips as you stare at him, as if searching for any sign that he could be lying to you.

“I know you don’t know me,” Pope adds delicately. “I wouldn’t blame you for not trusting me. I’m just asking you to hear me out.”

Another beat of loaded silence. “Okay,” you say, barely audible. “But we can’t talk about this here. It’s too risky.” You nod towards the door. “I don’t get off until three.”

“That’s okay,” Pope says, and he hopes that his relief isn’t too evident in his tone. “I can wait.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

When you first noticed Andrew sitting at the bar, grinning as if just waiting for you to walk in the room, you would’ve assumed that would be the most surprising thing to happen to you tonight.

That assumption proved to be dead wrong, because five minutes later, he revealed that he’s planning to rob your boss.

(Correction: he’s planning to rob him, and knows that he’s a huge piece of shit who is blackmailing you).

The surprises don’t stop there, though. Next, you surprise yourself by inviting a practical stranger into your home.

Your self-preservation skills have always been lacking. That was evident the day that you willingly agreed to work for Silas to help pay off your dad’s debt instead of fleeing the state of California and never looking back.

But this might just break the record for most reckless and foolhardy thing you’ve ever done.

Andrew waits for you in the parking garage down the block from the club until you get off just after three o’clock in the morning. Your body is exhausted, but your mind has never been more awake as you drive back to your apartment with him tailing you in his truck.

Your thoughts reel with all of the ways that this could go disastrously wrong.

You do not actually know this man. You’ve spent less than a collective two hours with him. Your gut tells you that he’s being honest, but is it worth the risk? He’s a bank robber. A convicted felon, who apparently comes from a crime family. Is it possible that you could just be trading one Silas for another? Andrew claims he can help you, but how? And at what cost?

Moments after you arrive at your apartment, Andrew pulls into the parking spot directly next to yours and then follows you wordlessly to your unit.

You have every intention of telling him to make himself comfortable on your couch and offering him fresh coffee. It is well after three o’clock in the morning - most people who don’t work the nightshift would be asleep at this time. But as soon as your front door clicks shut, you suddenly forget all pleasantries.

“You said that you know he’s got something over me.” You stand before Andrew in your small kitchen, looking him dead in the eye. “How much do you know, exactly?”

He meets your gaze with an equally level stare. It isn’t harsh, but it is hard for you to read. You’re quickly learning that to be the norm with Andrew. Difficult to read.

“I know enough,” Andrew says calmly. “I know Silas is a loan shark. I know you’re working for him to pay back money that you didn’t borrow.”

You nod slowly, dropping your gaze to the floor as you lean against your kitchen counter. “And how do you think you can help me with that, exactly?” You glance back up. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to believe you, but I just don’t see how you and your brothers robbing the guy magically frees me of him. I mean, if he were to find out that it was you, and that I’ve even talked you outside of the club, he would—”

“He wouldn’t find out,” Andrew cuts you off, voice even and low. “I would make sure of that.”

“How?” You take a step towards him without thinking, your hands clasped in front of you. “How would you make sure of that? If you know why I’m working for Silas, then I’m assuming you know about my father. It isn’t just my life on the line here, Andrew.”

His hazel eyes soften at that. “I do know about your father. I also know there’s a lot of people stuck in situations like you and your father, because of Silas. A lot of people who would all be better off if Silas…wasn’t around anymore.”

Your eyebrows lift halfway up your forehead. “Wasn’t around anymore?” You echo. As soon as they leave your lips, the implication becomes clear.

Wasn’t around anymore. Gone. Deleted. Erased.

Andrew doesn’t verbalize a response. He just watches you from where he stands an arm’s length away and waits for you to process what he’s telling you.

That he’s offering to kill Silas. Or have him killed. You don’t really know. There’s a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears that’s making it impossible to think clearly.

You finally manage to get two words out. “You’re serious.”

It isn’t posed as a question.

“I am,” Andrew says simply. “If you want me to be.”

You snort at that, because what the fuck are you supposed to say? “Yeah, off with his head!” and “oh no, please don’t hurt him!” somehow feel equally wrong.

You look to the floor again. And then around the room. To your houseplants that need watered, and then to last night’s dishes that still need to be put in the dishwasher. Anywhere but Andrew’s intense, unyielding honey colored stare that you could probably get lost in if it weren’t for the bizarre circumstances for which he is in your apartment right now.

Finally, you exhale. “I think…I want some coffee.” You turn to the espresso machine behind you, and then glance at Andrew over your shoulder. “What about you?”

He looks surprised for a split-second, then nods. “Yeah. Coffee sounds good.”

Upon your invitation, Andrew takes a stiff seat on your couch while you use the few minutes that it takes you to brew and prepare the drinks to attempt to process what the fuck has transpired since the two of you entered your apartment.

It does little good. You still have just as many questions as you did on the drive home. Even more now. Andrew is offering to kill for you? Has he killed before? Was he really in prison for bank robbery? Or was it something else? Should you be trying to secretly dial 911 on your watch right now?

Probably. If you were smart. But you’re not smart. You’re desperate, and Andrew might just be offering you a way out on a silver platter.

Although it could come back to bite you in the ass, right now, you’re willing to be an open book. You meant what you had said to Andrew at the club tonight - you don’t care what he and his brothers do to Silas. Rob him, or worse…he deserves it. And after the hell he has put you, and your father, through these last three years, you have very little hesitation helping Silas get his karma.

“Hypothetically,” you start, sitting down on your small loveseat directly across the table from him. “Let’s say I agree to this…walk me through it. How would you and your brothers…go about this? What would you need from me? And what about…afterwards? What would I owe you?”

The questions pour out of you faster than you can stop them.

Andrew’s brows scrunch together. “You wouldn’t owe me anything,” he says, like it’s obvious. “I’m not Silas. I just want to help you. And if you have any information that could potentially help us, then that would be great, but if not…I still want to do whatever I can to get you out of this mess.”

He says every word so sincerely that it makes you feel silly for even thinking otherwise.

Of course he isn’t Silas. You might not know Andrew very well, but you know that he isn’t Silas. Silas takes what he wants with zero regard for anyone but himself. Andrew has given you every opportunity to express discomfort, to change your mind, to tell him to fuck off. Even now, if you told him to get lost and never contact you again, you don’t doubt that he’d honor your wishes.

Andrew stares so heavy that you swear he can see right through you. His voice is low and steady when he speaks again. “You don’t deserve what Silas is doing to you. But he does deserve what’s coming to him.”

You don’t know if the next words out of your mouth mean that you’re crazy, or just desperate.

“What kind of information do you need?”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope didn’t want to leave you in Los Angeles, but he had to come back home to Oceanside to work out all of the details of the heist with his brothers.

He knows you’re capable of taking care of yourself. You’ve been doing it for years. You don’t need a man that you met two days ago playing bodyguard. But he’d be lying if he said that the thought of you working even one more shift at Solstice, or the thought of you being in close proximity to Silas, or the thought of a random sleazebag laying so much as a finger on you in that place doesn’t make his blood burn white-hot.

He takes comfort in knowing that after tonight, you only have to step foot into that place one more time. And that time, he will be there, too.

Still, he hates knowing that as he sits on his couch in Oceanside, you’re at the club in LA. Pope had suggested that you call out tonight, but you had shot that idea down quickly. You explained that you always work Sunday nights, and you didn’t want to risk drawing any negative attention to yourself before the heist that is now planned for this upcoming Friday night.

Currently, it is 3:46 in the morning, and Pope is wide awake, even though he shouldn’t be, and thinking of you, even though he probably shouldn’t be doing that, either. He wonders if you’ve made it home from work yet, and if your shift went okay or if Silas was there tonight…and he subconsciously grits his teeth at the thought of that.

He manages to hold out until 3:58 before he finds your name in the recently added section of his contacts and presses call.

You answer just after the first ring.

“Andrew,” Your voice pours from his speaker softly, slightly hoarse. “Is everything okay?”

Right away, he’s relieved at the lack of background noise. No music blasting and no drunk frat guys yelling over it. No car horns honking or sirens wailing. It’s safe to assume that you have made it home already.

“Everything’s fine,” he answers. “I just wanted to make sure you got home safely. See how your shift went.”

You exhale a hum of soft laughter. “Just walked through the door a few minutes ago. Work was busy. Really busy for a Sunday night. I’m glad it’s over. Almost.”

“Almost,” he agrees. “At least you’re off for the next few days. The next time you step foot in that place, it’ll be the last.”

There’s a brief pause before you speak. “As long as everything goes according to plan,” you murmur, and Pope can hear the nerves in your voice.

“It will,” he assures you. “Let us worry about that, alright? You just try to relax in the meantime.”

You snort. “Easier said than done.”

“Keep yourself busy so you don’t think about it too much,” Pope suggests lightly. “Do you have any plans this week?”

“Not really,” you grumble. “Los Angeles isn’t really my scene. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for…” You trail off momentarily. You don’t have to finish the sentence. “Anyway. I go to work, I go home, and sometimes I go to the beach. That’s about it.”

“You like the beach?”

“I do,” you hum. “It’s one of the very few things I like about living here. My apartment is only about a twenty minute drive from Venice Beach. Well, really more like forty with all of the traffic…”

Pope is silent for a moment. During those few seconds of silence, he can hear waves crash against the shore just beyond the front door of the small beachfront house. If he were to step outside and walk mere yards, his feet would touch sand. He can glance out of the window in front of him and see moonlight dance across the water. There’s nothing separating him from the ocean but the walls of the house.

“I live right on the beach, you know,” Pope says, going for casual but probably failing. “The beach is my front yard.”

“Really?” You chirp. “God, that must be nice. I mean, you saw where I live in LA. Just about anywhere beats this shitty apartment, and the shitty traffic, and all of the endless noise, but living on the beach? I can only imagine how peaceful that is.”

There’s an idea forming in Pope’s mind, and he knows it’s irrational and naive, but he has already offered to kill for you after knowing you for one day, so how crazy could anything else really be?

“You ever been to Oceanside?”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Against your better judgment, later that day you drive to Oceanside with the address Andrew sent you typed into your GPS.

You almost turn around at least a dozen times.

You don’t want to turn around, but what little common sense you possess nearly convinces you to do so. What would you say if one of your coworkers told you that they have packed a bag and are going to stay with a mysterious man who booked a private room with them only forty-eight hours ago, tipped them a thousand dollars, came back the very next night, and revealed that he’s planning to both rob and kill your boss?

You would tell them that the next time you see them, it’s going to be on a missing person’s poster or a Dateline episode.

Yet here you are. Doing exactly that. Because for reasons you do not fully understand, Andrew makes you feel safe. Maybe you’re just so used to feeling unsafe that true safety has become a foreign concept to you. Maybe your judgment is clouded. But when he told you that he has a spare room and offered it to you for the days leading up to the heist, it hardly took any convincing for you to say yes.

Now, less than twelve hours later, with only a duffel bag in your passenger seat stuffed full of beach attire and toiletries, you’re driving to him.

Andrew had offered to come get you, too. And even though you ultimately insisted that you were fine with driving yourself to Oceanside, you can’t deny that the offer made your whole body feel irrationally warm and fuzzy - the fact that he’d be willing to make a third trip to Los Angeles in the last three days because you had made an off handed comment about your distaste for LA traffic.

You’re excited. Not only to get away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles for a few days, but also to see Andrew again. This time not inside a private room at Solstice or in your tiny apartment at four o’clock in the morning. You’re eager to get a feel for who he really is outside of the club environment, to see how he is when he’s somewhere that he’s comfortable, to learn about the man who has done nothing but surprise you time and time again since you met him only days ago.

When your car’s GPS announces your arrival, you don’t have to question whether or not you’re at the right place. He’s waiting for you on the front porch.

Like every time that you have seen him so far, he wears a short sleeve button-up shirt and a grave expression that would make you question if he’s actually glad to see you if it weren’t for the fact that he wastes no time trotting down the porch steps to greet you at your car.

He opens your door for you before you have the chance.

“You weren’t exaggerating when you said that the beach is your front yard,” you laugh, grabbing your duffel bag from your passenger seat that Andrew immediately reaches to take from you. “If you were any closer, you’d be in the water.”

When you stand up, Andrew shuts your door behind you and then rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, his cheeks flushing slightly. It dawns on you that this is the first time that you’ve seen him in the daylight. Before now, you’ve only seen him in the neon fluorescents of the club and the low lighting of your apartment in the middle of the night. But now, in broad daylight without so much as a cloud in the sky, you feel like you’re really seeing him for the first time.

You already knew he has freckles, but now you could count every single one, if you wanted to. You knew that his eyes were hazel, but now you can see the tiny flecks of gold around his irises. And you thought that he was pretty the very first time you saw him in the alley, but you can’t help but think he’s even prettier in the sunlight.

“I may have said that to make you want to come,” he admits sheepishly. “But it wasn’t a lie.”

Your own face warms at the admission. “Well, clearly it worked. I came.”

Andrew’s mouth upturns slightly at the corners, his eyes crinkling around them. “Come on,” he nods towards the house. “I’ll show you around.”

The place is relatively small - a single story two bedroom, but in comparison to your studio apartment, it feels like a castle. And it’s clean. Spotless, actually. You hadn’t been expecting a pigsty by any means, but the exceptional tidiness is still a pleasant surprise. There’s not a decorative pillow out of place or so much as a dirty dish in the sink.

He carries your bag to the doorway of the first bedroom and lets you enter before him.

“This is the, uh…” Andrew trails off for a fraction of a second, searching for words, “This is the guest room. All yours while you’re here.”

You take in the appearance of the small room. Like the common areas of the house, it’s clean, but there’s certain characteristics that stand out to you. A pastel pink, floral comforter. A stack of children’s books on the dresser. A handful of small clothes hangers in an otherwise empty closet, and a ladder of pencil markings on the wall right beside it. At first, they look like random scratches in the paint, but as you take a step closer, you realize that they are height measurements. Each spaced a few inches apart, with dates scribbled next to each line. Some of the handwriting appears more feminine, whereas the more recent markings seem childlike.

You glance at Andrew over your shoulder, where he still stands in the doorway, watching you. “Do you…have children?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.

His gaze shifts past you, to the pencil markings in the far corner of the room. “No, I don’t,” he answers, a hint of melancholy in the words. “This room was my niece’s, but she doesn’t live here anymore. I just…can’t bring myself to erase it.”

Judging by his tone and dejected expression, he doesn’t seem particularly eager to talk about the subject, so you don’t press it any further, instead locking the information away with everything else you’ve learned about him in the last few days.

His childhood nickname is Pope. He had a twin sister named Julia. He drinks his coffee black. He has a niece, and as of last summer, she was approximately 45 inches tall. He did time in prison for armed robbery, and he’s prepared to kill someone for a woman he barely knows.

You offer a small nod. “Well, it’s a really nice place. Thank you, again. For inviting me. You have no idea how glad I am to be away from LA, even for a few days.”

Andrew’s expression softens. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, voice calm in a way that you’re quickly growing to find very comforting. “I’m happy that you’re here.”

You plop down on the edge of the mattress and grin up at him. “So, what’s the plan for today? You gonna show me around Oceanside?”

“I was planning on it.” He leans against the doorframe, his thumbs in his pockets as he smirks at you. “We can do whatever you want. Go to the beach, the pier, just ride around. We do need to go to the grocery store at some point so I can grab some things for dinner.”

Your eyebrows lift in surprise. “We can do whatever I want and you’re going to make me dinner? You’re quite the host, Andrew.”

He blushes at that, the apples of his cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. The thought crosses your mind right then and there - you would never in a million years guess that he’s capable of doing what he plans to do later this week just by looking at him. This blushing, thoughtful man who has been nothing but respectful and considerate of you since the moment you met. He’s going to put a permanent end to the problem that has plagued you for years?

There’s more than one side to people, clearly. But that doesn’t bother you. Not in the slightest. In fact, you’re interested in getting to know every side of Andrew Cody. The soft-spoken version of him standing before you, and the version of him capable of the kind of violence you’ve only ever let yourself fantasize about.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Oceanside is - quite literally - a breath of fresh air compared to Los Angeles.

It isn’t exactly a small town, but it feels like one by comparison. There’s less people, less noise, less traffic, less smells. The ocean is five minutes away no matter where you go.

Los Angeles may be less than a two hour drive from Oceanside, but it feels like it’s worlds away. You feel like you can actually fucking breathe here.

By the end of your very first day here, you dread ever returning to LA. To Solstice (even for just one more shift). To your cramped, overpriced studio apartment that you’ve tried your hardest to make feel like home but never really has.

But here? Oceanside? Even just a few hours after your arrival, you can tell that this is a place that could easily start to feel like home to you. Partially due to the relaxed nature of the beach town, and partially due to the curly-haired man who is currently cooking you dinner as you watch from across the kitchen bar.

“Whatcha gonna make for dinner?” You ask as Andrew pulls into the grocery store parking lot.

He puts the truck in park and unbuckles his seatbelt before turning slightly to face you. “That depends entirely on what you’d like to eat.”

You had tried to insist that you were fine with whatever, but Andrew is quite convincing when he wants to be. He had refused to leave the grocery store until you told him what to make for dinner. Not wanting to be an inconvenience, or high maintenance, or too picky, you suggested the first relatively simple and inexpensive meal that you could think of on the spot.

Now, you sit across the counter from him, watching as he cooks fettuccine alfredo for the both of you.

As hard as you try not to let your eyes wander, you can’t stop yourself. Andrew seems oblivious, and if he notices he doesn’t say anything, but your eyes are drawn to his broad shoulders, thick arms, and bulky chest. His curls are wind-blown and skin sun-kissed from an afternoon spent walking on the beach near his house, making his freckles more visible than ever.

He catches you smirking at him as he’s plating up the food. A bashful grin appears on his face. “What is it?”

You shake your head with a small shrug. “Nothing. You’re just…not at all what I thought you’d be when we first met.”

Andrew’s eyebrows arch slightly. “You mean the kind of guy that normally books private rooms with you at the club?”

You snort a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.” You pause, grinning. “I mean, obviously most of them don’t recruit me to help them rob my boss…” Andrew chuckles lowly at that. “But they also don’t cook me Italian food and let me stay at their beach house.”

“What can I say?” Andrew slides your plate across the counter. “I’m full of surprises.”

You can’t disagree with that.

Andrew takes a seat beside you and the meal is eaten in companionable silence for the most part, giving your thoughts time to stray to all of the things that you have tried your hardest not to dwell on too much since you arrived here today.

You’ve tried not to think about what’s to come at the end of the week, and all of the ways that it could go disastrously wrong. As hard as you try to think positively, you can’t help but worry about someone getting hurt. Andrew, or one of his brothers, or a random dancer at the club who somehow gets caught in the crosshairs, or even yourself. Your brain conjures worst case scenarios, causing visions of anyone other than Silas dying to replay on a loop until you snap yourself out of it.

But with Andrew sitting next to you, it’s a little easier to silence those scary thoughts and replace them with better ones. Like maybe, just maybe, if this whole operation doesn’t go to shit, there could be more moments like this.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope isn’t particularly eager for you to meet his family, but he knows it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Especially if he hopes to maintain a regular presence in your life once this week is over.

He doesn’t expect you to want the same, but he does hope.

So, on your second day in Oceanside, he bites the bullet and drives you both to the family home after asking his brothers and nephew to meet there to go over everything for the heist a final time.

You assure him you don’t mind, but you’ve never met his family before. He’s slightly comforted by the fact that he never has to worry about you meeting Smurf, but there’s still Deran and Craig, who act like teenagers more than half the time.

“Look,” Pope stops you with a gentle hand on your arm before he reaches for the front door, “If they say anything inappropriate, or weird, just ignore them. They’re children. We’re just here to go over the plan and then we’ll leave, I promise.”

You exhale a laugh. “I can assure you that I’m used to inappropriate and weird, Andrew. They cannot possibly be any worse than the men that I have dealt with on a regular basis the last three years.”

He hesitates a moment, his hand still on your arm as he watches for any sign of reluctance, but you give none. Grudgingly, Pope opens the door and lets you enter before him.

Inside, there’s less noise than Pope expects, and it gives him the tiniest bit of hope that everyone will be on their best behavior. He leads you through the house, where the two of you find Craig, Deran, and Jay already gathered in the living room.

All three pairs of eyes immediately land on you as soon as you and Pope enter the room.

“Holy shit,” Craig laughs. “She actually exists.”

Deran snorts. “I told you she does.”

“Still,” Craig shrugs. “I didn’t believe that she would actually be willing to hear Pope out and not immediately run screaming to the cops.” He stands then, walking the short distance to where you stand beside Pope, extending a hand to you in offering. “Craig, by the way.”

“Ah,” you sigh, briefly shaking his hand. “The mastermind behind this operation, I hear.”

Craig winks, clicking his tongue. “You’ve heard correctly.”

Jay and Deran then introduce themselves, clarity blooming on your face as you recognize Deran from the brief encounter in the alley. You’re perfectly friendly, but the tension in your shoulders and the way that you clasp your hands in front of you doesn’t go unnoticed by Pope.

He can’t blame you for being nervous. You are in a room full of criminals, all of whom are strangers to you - himself included - to plot not only the financial but also physical demise of the man who has made your life hell for years.

Anyone sane would be nervous. But it speaks volume to Pope how much trust you’re putting in him (and how desperate you must be for any chance at freedom, no matter how risky it may be).

With a featherlight hand on the small of your back, Pope nods to an empty section on the couch for you to take a seat. He sits directly beside you, just close enough for the side of your thigh to brush against his.

Craig immediately launches into the logistics of the plan for Friday night. Jay is to disable all security cameras inside and around the perimeter of the club, and then waits with the getaway car. After the cameras have been disabled, Craig, Deran, and Pope will all enter through the basement. Once they are in the safe room, Pope is to signal to you through a discreet communication device that you’ll wear in your ear.

“…and then you’ll tell your creepy floor manager…”

“Gregory.”

“Gregory,” Craig repeats, “that you saw a customer open the basement door and go downstairs. But only if you know that Silas is distracted at the time. We don’t want Silas coming down before we make Gregory open the safe.”

“Right,” you nod. “So then Gregory opens the safe, Deran takes the money and leaves, you and Andrew make Gregory call for Silas to come downstairs, and then…?”

“And then Craig and I take care of the rest,” Pope answers simply. He doesn’t want you worrying about the specifics as to what happens once Silas enters the basement. The less you know at that point, the better. “Whatever you do, you stay upstairs. Finish your shift just like you would any other night. By the time you get off, it’ll all be finished.”

You’re silent for a moment, glancing around at each of the men in the room before you turn your head just enough to look Pope in the eyes. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do to help? Kinda feel like I’m not really pulling my weight here.”

“We’re sure,” Pope says before any of the others have a chance to speak up, his tone final, leaving no room for objection. “Between the information you’ve given us and what you’ll say to Gregory, you’ve done more than enough.”

You glance down to where your hands are interlocked in your lap. Then, in a smaller voice with a humorless laugh, “Enough for you to kill a man for me? To risk going back to prison?”

The question makes him forget that the two of you are in a room with three other men. He instinctively reaches out, placing a hand on top of both of yours. Your eyes dart down in surprise to where his hand rests on yours and a thick silence settles over the room before Pope slowly retracts his hand before answering you with absolute resolution.

“Yes,” he implores. “I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again. You don’t have to do anything to earn this. I’m offering. Because I want to.”

He wants to for you. Since the moment he first saw you in that alley and he stood and watched as Silas grabbed you by the arm, a part of him has wanted to ensure that Silas never touches you again. That desire has only grown stronger since meeting you, talking to you, and getting to know you these last few days. The only thing that could possibly stop him from sending Silas to an early grave is if you personally begged him not to, and even then, Pope would still want to with every fiber of his being.

You stare at Pope, pursing your lips, and he halfway expects you to argue. But he doesn’t drop your gaze, doesn’t even blink, and eventually you exhale a shaky breath.

“Let’s do this, then.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“You nervous about tomorrow?”

You’re hardly able to make out the words over the crashing of waves against the shore and the squawking of a seagull just a few yards away from where you and Andrew sit on the beach.

You turn your gaze away from the sun that has started to set over the Pacific Ocean to find that Andrew is already looking at you.

“Of course,” you admit with a breathy laugh. “Are you nervous?”

Andrew lifts his shoulders in a small shrug, looking back out to the water. “We’ve pulled off more complicated jobs than this before. Not too long ago we infiltrated a military base. A strip club is nothing compared to that.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, as they tend to do anytime you’re learning new information about the man sitting beside you. “A military base?” You echo in disbelief. “Jesus. How exactly did you guys even get into this kind of thing, anyway?”

Robbing banks. Offering to kill a man for a woman he’s only just met. And apparently, infiltrating military bases. That kind of thing. The kind of thing that should send you running in the opposite direction but for some reason makes you want to lean in closer.

Andrew shakes his head, a quick snort of laughter escaping him. “Our mother,” he answers. “She taught us everything we know. I’ve been doing this since Craig and Deran were still in diapers.”

“Jesus,” you mumble. You don’t know the exact age difference between Andrew and his brothers, but he can’t possibly be all that much older than them. He was just a kid. “And you…enjoy it?”

Andrew thinks about it for a moment, leaning back with his palms pressed into the sand. “I wouldn’t say that enjoy is the right word. It’s just all that I’ve ever known.”

You nod slowly, contemplating the words. This lifestyle is his baseline for normal. If you struggle to remember what life was like before you got dragged into working at Solstice only a few years ago, you can only imagine the complex feelings that come with being groomed into an entire lifetime of crime.

“Have you ever thought about what else you would do?” You ask hesitantly. “If you weren’t doing this?”

Again, he doesn’t answer right away. You watch as his eyes narrow in thought, his stare locked on the pink and orange horizon ahead of you. “I’ve thought about it,” he murmurs, a hint of restrained emotion in his tone. “Never for long enough to act on it, but…maybe I’d open a skatepark. Eventually settle down, start a family of my own.”

“Really?” You can’t hide the surprise from your voice. You aren’t quite sure why the answer surprises you as much as it does - you did literally just meet this man less than a week ago, but you didn’t exactly peg him to be the chasing toddlers, Pee-wee soccer game on a Saturday morning kind of guy. “You want to have kids?”

“Maybe one or two,” he shrugs. “I probably won’t, though. It’s just something I like to think about sometimes.” He pauses. “What about you? What are you gonna do when this is all over?”

That’s a question that you’ve been asking yourself for years. Up until now, it has only felt like a distant fantasy. Even now, you’re trying not to get your hopes up too high for fear that it won’t work out. That things will take a turn for the worst. That someone will get hurt, that Silas will somehow get away and find out what you’ve tried to do. Even with freedom almost close enough to touch, you won’t let yourself believe it’s yours until you’re actually holding it in your hand…and until you are, it’s difficult to imagine what life could possibly look like.

You exhale. “I’ll probably start by visiting my dad. I haven’t seen him in a while. I wanna let him know that me and him are gonna be okay. And then…” You trail off momentarily, “and then I’m gonna get the fuck out of LA. Maybe go back to school eventually,” you shrug. “I guess I haven’t let myself think about it too much either.”

Andrew hums in thought at the response. Then, he sits up straight, pulling his knees awkwardly to his chest and looking at you with the same serious expression that you’re no closer to being able to read than you were the night you first met him.

“You’re always welcome here. If you need a place to stay while you figure out what you wanna do.”

The offer warms you more than the evening California sun. Not only the words, but the way you can’t help but think he sounds nervous, and maybe a little hopeful, when he speaks them.

And because you don’t know how to express your gratitude in words, you place your head on his shoulder, instead. He tenses in surprise for a fraction of a second, then relaxes into the embrace, nuzzling the side of his cheek against the top of your head.

“I do like it here,” you hum. I like you, too, you think to yourself. “I might have to take you up on that.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“Cameras are officially offline. Soleil, if you can hear me, cough two times.”

Jay’s voice pours through the tiny communication device that Andrew had helped place in your ear only an hour ago. You’re able to make out Jay’s words, but they’re muffled, as the club is already extremely busy tonight - which you’re far more grateful for than you usually would be. Tonight, the more noise, the better. Boisterous laughs and obnoxiously loud music means that patrons and dancers are less likely to hear anything out of the ordinary.

As inconspicuously as possible, you raise your arm and cough twice into your elbow.

“Good,” Jay replies. “Everyone keep to the plan. Pope, let us know when you guys are in.”

The line then goes silent, leaving you to attempt to act calm, cool and collected for however long it takes Andrew, Craig and Deran to get into the basement and then the safe room without being caught.

You haven’t even been here for an hour yet, and you already feel the need to reapply deodorant due to the intense nervous sweats that you’re currently experiencing. You’ve already been to the bathroom twice because your stomach is so tied in knots that you are convinced you’re going to get sick.

Maybe you should have listened to Andrew and called out tonight. He had tried to assure that they would find a way to make everything work without you there, but you stubbornly insisted on helping.

What if your anxiety gets the best of you and you get sick on center stage tonight? What if someone notices how antsy you are? What if your earpiece falls out while dancing?

Oh, that’s just a hearing aid. I somehow went partially deaf in the last few days.

It doesn’t help that Silas is exceptionally irritable tonight, barking at every dancer and employee for every little thing. You spend the first part of the night maintaining as much distance between yourself and him as you possibly can while also keeping a careful eye on him. It’s sheer dumb luck that no one requests a private room with you during the first hour of the night so you’re able to monitor both Silas and Gregory from a reasonable distance while simultaneously conversing with customers.

And, if you were having any second thoughts about playing a part in Silas’ demise, those go out the window the minute that he approaches you that night.

You’re standing at the bar, waiting on some drinks for a table you have been entertaining, when he eases up beside you. Call it a sixth sense, but the way that your skin crawls at the sudden presence tells you it’s him before you even glance over.

“Enjoy your days off?” Silas asks, voice low enough for only you to hear. You cut your eyes in his direction to find him smirking at you, the look in his eyes making it clear that he isn’t just making friendly conversation.

“I did,” you answer shortly, eyeing the bartender to see where she’s at with the Jack and cokes. Not that it’s any of your concern, you bite back.

Silas hums, swirling the ice in his glass. “I’m glad to see you tonight, you know. I was starting to worry that maybe you skipped town.”

Your hands clutch the edge of the bar to steady yourself, your stomach sinking. He doesn’t know. There’s no way that he knows. How would he know?

“Am I not allowed to go out of town for a few days when I’m not working?” You snort, trying to play it off, hoping your horror isn’t displayed across your face. You don’t deny it, because if he’s bringing it up, then he already knows. You just don’t know how much he knows. “I have to run my vacation plans by you now?”

A low chuckle escapes him as he takes a slow sip of his drink. “What’s in Oceanside, anyway?”

Fucking hell.

Just as the last word leaves his lips, and the room around you seems to freeze, the bartender slides the tray of drinks across the counter to you. Your hands are shaking, but you force yourself to pick it up. You’re vaguely aware of Andrew whispering your name in your ear, his voice panicked, but you can’t respond yet.

“The ocean,” you spit, turning around and walking away with the drinks before Silas can say another word.

When you’re halfway across the room, Andrew’s voice pours through the communication device again.

“Are you okay? What the hell was that?”

You still don’t risk responding. You drop the drinks off at the table with exaggerated pleasantries and quickly excuse yourself before the men have a chance to drag you into whatever it is they’re now animatedly conversing about. A fleeting glance in the direction of the bar lets you know that Silas is now occupied by a customer, and only after confirming that his attention is no longer on you, do you take off in the direction of the employee bathroom and lock the door behind you.

“Andrew?” You hiss under your breath. “How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it,” Andrew answers right away. “How the hell does he know?”

“I have no idea,” you whisper, sitting down on the closed toilet. Now that you’re alone and can begin to process what the hell just happened, your heart is racing and your body is shaking and you’ll be lucky to walk back out of this room without collapsing. “I haven’t told anyone about my trip to Oceanside. He must have someone keeping tabs on me when I’m not here.”

The realization makes bile churn in your gut. He’s watching you. Even when you’re not here, he’s watching. He knows when you come and when you go, and he knows where you go. Who fucking knows how many times he’s had someone spying on you when you were just buying groceries or getting your nails done or—

“Breathe,” Andrew says, somehow able to detect your panic without even seeing you. “He’s just trying to scare you. He might know that you went to Oceanside, but he doesn’t know our plan. This doesn’t change anything, okay? We’re already in. We’re doing this. And you won’t have to worry about him anymore after tonight.”

You inhale, then exhale, then repeat, trying your hardest to convince yourself that what he’s saying is true. You know he believes it, and you trust that he wouldn’t lie to you, but right now the small amount of self-preservation that you possess is screaming at you to abandon ship.

But then you think of Andrew, in the basement, only one floor separating you from him. You think of all he’s risking by what he’ll do for you tonight. You think of your time spent together in Oceanside, and how you long for more, and how that isn’t a possibility unless you leave this bathroom and do what you came here to do.

One more deep breath. “Okay,” you exhale. “Okay, I’m okay.” It sounds like you’re trying to assure yourself as much as you are him.

“Good,” Andrew encourages softly. “We’re in the safe room now. No sign of anyone down here. I need you to get Gregory to come downstairs now, okay? Remember the plan?”

Even though he can’t see you, you nod. “I remember.”

Just in case someone is standing outside the door, you flush the toilet and turn the sink on momentarily for the sake of keeping up appearances as you take in your own appearance. Your makeup is slightly patchy from beads of sweat that have gathered on your forehead, but all things considered, you look normal enough.

You pause with your hand on the bathroom doorknob, taking one last, steadying breath before reentering the main floor of the club. A large group of men are huddled around center stage as another popular dancer performs her solo set, and sensuous music blasts loudly through the room.

Silas has moved from his seat at the bar, relocating to a far corner where he sits conversing with a table of regulars with his back to you. Good. And as for Gregory….

Gregory stands next to one of the newest dancers, who currently looks as if she’s being held hostage by whatever Gregory is saying to her.

Now or never, you suppose, forcing one foot in front of the other as you walk across the room.

“Hey, Angel,” you greet her with a cheerful voice and smile, hoping it sounds genuine. “There’s a guy at the bar asking for a private dance with you. I told him I’d send you over.”

Right away, she looks relieved to be freed from her conversation with Gregory. “Thanks,” she breathes before heading in the direction of the bar.

Gregory starts to walk off - knowing that you won’t engage in casual conversation with him like the newer hires who feel obligated to - when you speak up.

“Hey, I saw a guy trying to open the basement door just a minute ago,” you tell him, relieved when the words come out with just the right amount of faux concern. Gregory immediately looks in that general direction, beady eyes narrowing as he tries to find who you could be referring to.

“He was jiggling the handle,” you continue, hoping it prompts him in that direction.

“A guy?” He repeats. “What guy? What did he look like?”

You shrug. “Never seen him before. He was about your height, middle aged, short black hair.”

Gregory’s eyes dart between you and the hallway behind you. “Okay,” he huffs, taking a step away from you. “I’ll tell Silas—”

“I already told him,” you blurt without thinking. “He’s busy. He told me to tell you to check it out.”

To both your surprise and relief, he doesn’t question you further. He just huffs in annoyance, muttering something under his breath about having to do fucking everything around here and storms in the direction of the basement stairway.

For the briefest of moments, you almost feel bad for him. Then, you remember all of the times he has walked in on you and other dancers in the changing room, or tattled on you to Silas for not smiling enough, or stared directly at your tits with zero shame, and then your guilt disappears just as quickly as it had appeared.

You aren’t quite sure what Andrew and his brothers plan to do with Gregory. You didn’t ask, and you aren’t going to. You figured that Andrew would likely give you the same answer he has to the majority of questions you’ve asked over the last few days: the less you know, the better.

You do your best to appear subtle as you watch Gregory approach the door that leads to the basement of the club. He glances around, seemingly looking for the mystery man that you had made up a description of on the spot. When he sees no one that looks as you had described (because of course he doesn’t), he jiggles the handle to find it still locked. Your stomach sinks as you worry that Gregory will chalk that up to good enough and turn around to report to Silas, but then he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a set of keys, still visibly muttering under his breath and shaking his head.

You breathe an audible sigh of relief when he opens the door and he slips into the stairwell without drawing any attention from Silas, who still has his back to the entire incident on the other side of the room.

“He’s coming,” you murmur under your breath, “Gregory is coming downstairs now.”

There’s a quick whisper of confirmation, so fast and low that you aren’t even sure whose voice it was, and then the line goes silent. Your part of the job is over, and you’re left to wait. Wait until you see Silas walk to the stairs when Andrew makes Gregory call for him. Wait as you hope that he never walks back up those stairs. Wait until you hear from Andrew, wait until your shift is over.

And waiting might just be the hardest part of it all.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“I’m gonna ask you one more time to open this fucking safe.”

Like a rat after a piece of cheese, Gregory had walked right into the trap. He clearly had not actually expected anyone to be down here, because he walked right inside the safe room, muttering to himself about not getting paid enough, where Craig and Deran snuck up behind him, overpowering him within seconds. He didn’t even have a chance to yell before a handkerchief was crammed into his mouth.

Popes gotta hand it to Gregory, though. He fully expected the cowering, sniveling little shit to open the safe the very first time the three masked men demand he do so. But so far, he has yet to cave. Even with the barrel of Pope’s gun pressed to his temple.

He’s trembling, and whimpering, and he has definitely pissed himself, but he is also refusing to put the code in the fucking vault. He’s loyal to Silas, even if he’s nothing else, and that makes Pope feel the slightest bit better about what he plans to do with Gregory whenever they no longer have any use for him.

Pope and his brothers like to avoid casualties if at all possible. But after all you’ve told him about Gregory and now how stubborn he’s being? Pope has a hard time feeling bad.

“I don’t fucking have time for this,” Pope grunts, pulling the Glock away from Gregory’s forehead and instead aiming it towards the lower half of his body. He tries to shout, tries to protest, but the cloth crammed inside his mouth makes it all sound like muffled gibberish.

Pope doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, sending Gregory crumpling to the floor with a shot to the thigh that has him screeching around the gag; a high-pitched, animalistic sound. Upstairs, the music continues to blast, the bass vibrating through the floor. Even if Pope’s gun didn’t have a suppressor, he doubts anyone would have heard the shot over all the noise in the club.

Craig and Deran yank Gregory back upright despite his cries of pain. “The next shot won’t be to your leg. You think we’re bluffing?” Craig bellows. “You’re gonna find out if you don’t open that fucking safe right now.”

Gregory frantically nods. Craig and Deran haul him forward, and he raises his bound wrists to the safe’s keypad and begins typing with shaking hands. After a few seconds, the safe door clicks open. Deran pulls Gregory out of the way, allowing Pope to open the door.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Craig laughs in relief at the sight inside. “This has gotta be even more than I thought.”

It is a lot - too much for Pope to take an accurate guess as to exactly how much, but it has to be in the hundreds of thousands. He can’t get too excited yet, though. Not when Gregory here is bleeding through his pants and you’re still upstairs with Silas.

Pope and Craig make quick work of emptying the safe, shoving the stacks of cash into backpacks that Deran and a soon to be masked Gregory will wear out of here to where Jay awaits with the getaway car while Pope and Craig deal with Silas. But first…

“You got your phone on you?” Pope asks Gregory.

Gregory nods with an unintelligible noise of confirmation through the handkerchief still in his mouth.

“Good,” Pope lifts a hand to remove the gag, pausing before pulling it out. “I’m gonna take this out now. You scream, you die. Understand?”

Gregory nods, eyes wide with fear. Pope then yanks the cloth out of Gregory’s mouth, and he immediately begins to hyperventilate.

“Where’s your phone?” Craig demands.

“Back - back pocket,” Gregory pants.

Deran reaches into the back pocket of Gregory’s pants, retrieving the cell phone and tosses it to Pope. Pope holds the phone up to Gregory’s face, letting Face ID unlock the screen. He goes through Gregory's call history and quickly finds Silas’ name.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Pope says coolly, looking Gregory dead in the eye. “You’re going to give your boss upstairs a call. You’re gonna stay calm, and tell him that you need him to come down here right now. When he asks why, you tell him there’s an issue with the safe. If he tries to question you, you pretend you can’t hear him over the music and reiterate for him to come down here. Am I clear?”

Craig speaks up before Gregory has a chance to agree or disagree. “If you try to warn him, you’ll be bleeding from your other leg, too. Or worse. Got it?”

Gregory nods with a panicked sound of agreement, and Pope presses Silas’ name. He answers after the second ring, pop music pouring through the phone’s speaker.

“What?” Silas barks.

Gregory doesn’t speak right away. He opens his mouth like he’s going to, but then closes it, his eyes darting between Pope, Craig, and Deran. Pope wiggles the phone in his face, giving Gregory a look that dares him to test his luck.

“Hey,” he squeaks. “I - uh - I need you to come downstairs for a minute.”

“What?” Silas snaps. “Why? What are you doing downstairs right now?”

“I…I…uhm—” Gregory stutters, his voice unnaturally shrill and shaky. He looks between Pope and his brothers again in hesitation, unable to force the next words out. Deran nudges Gregory’s ribcage with his gun in a reminder of what’s at stake.

There’s one last, loaded second of silence before Gregory opens his mouth and seals his fate…and yours.

“Soleil told me she saw a man going to the basement, I’m sorry Silas, they made me do it—”

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

You watch Silas from across the room the moment that he raises his cell phone to his ear.

It could be someone else calling him. Maybe it isn’t Gregory, yet. But it only takes about ten seconds for any doubt to fade away, because Silas looks over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the room until they lock with yours.

You try to look away, to play it off, to pretend you weren’t just watching him like a hawk, but it’s too late. He noticed. He definitely fucking noticed. And whatever was said to him during that short phone call, makes him stand up and head directly towards you.

“Why don’t we take a little walk?” Silas says, low enough for only you to hear. “There’s some things that we need to talk about.”

Your knees buckle and the room around you begins to spin. “I…have a private room in a few minutes. Can’t it wait?”

That’s a lie, but you’re trying to do whatever it takes to do what Andrew had asked of you. Stay upstairs.

“Nah, it can’t.” Silas glances around briefly before sliding a hand into his coat pocket. The movement looks innocent enough but then the unmistakable outline of a gun straining against the material catches your eye. You look back up, your blood running cold, and he’s smirking at you. “And I’m not asking.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to object before he grabs you by the arm and starts hauling you across the overcrowded dance floor, everyone too drunk and distracted to pay any mind to either of you.

“Where are we going?” You ask, trying to play dumb. You say the words loudly enough that Andrew, or anyone listening downstairs, will be able to hear.

He vibrates with low, chesty laughter. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

It takes every ounce of concentration just to put one foot in front of the other and keep yourself upright. Your thoughts are reeling with worst case scenarios. What will you find when you enter the basement? Did Andrew and the others get caught? Did Gregory have a gun on him? Is someone hurt? Once you walk down these stairs, will you ever walk back up?

Neither of you speak again until Silas opens the stairwell door, pushes you inside, and pulls it closed behind him.

“I’ve always known that you’re a flight risk,” Silas grumbles, steering you down the stairs with one hand gripping you by the shoulder and the barrel of his gun now pressed to the small of your back. You couldn’t escape even if you tried. “You really think I wouldn’t notice if you left town for four days? To fuck off to Oceanside?”

You don’t answer. His grip on your shoulder tightens enough that you’ll still feel the imprint of his hand hours later.

“The tracker that I put on your car sure came in handy,” he chuckles low, the sound sending chills down your spine. “Led me right to the Cody residence. I had to do a little digging after that, but imagine my surprise to learn that the Codys have quite the reputation.”

You reach the bottom of the stairs, and he shoves you up against the concrete wall and brings the gun to the side of your temple. You can’t stop the whimper that escapes your lips.

“I just didn’t think you would risk your dad’s life trying to pull some bullshit like this. Clearly I underestimated just how stupid and naive you really fuckin’ are.” He’s close enough that spit sprays across your face with nearly every word that he says.

“So this is what you are going to do if you want your sweet old daddy to live to see another day,” he murmurs, voice lethally calm in a way that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight.

Your dad’s face the night Silas first showed up at his house to collect flashes through your mind. The night that would eventually butterfly effect into you standing right here, right now.

“We’re going to walk in there exactly like this.” He presses the gun harder against your temple for emphasis. “And you’re going to tell whoever is in that room to put my money back where they found it. After they’ve done that, you’re going to tell them to get the fuck out of here unless they want to clean your brains off of my floor. And then I’ll deal with you after.”

He pulls the gun away, and the small device in your left ear suddenly feels impossibly loud despite the silence on the other end.

You can only hope that Andrew has heard every word and knows what is coming.

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

The door to the safe room is wide open, and you see Gregory’s motionless body crumpled on the floor before you even step foot inside, a bullet wound dead-center of his forehead.

The second thing you notice is that Craig and Deran begin to lower their weapons as soon as you, and Silas directly behind you with his gun still aimed at your head, come into view.

The third, and most concerning thing? Andrew is nowhere to be seen.

After you get over the initial shock of realizing that Gregory is dead, presumably killed by one of the boys after saying whatever the hell he said that made it click in Silas’ head that you have very much played a part in all of this, the realization that you have no idea where Andrew is and that Craig and Deran are surrendering their weapons hits you like a brick.

You were so, so stupid to have ever thought this would work. To have actually believed that things wouldn’t go to shit, that everything would go according to plan, that this would end in your freedom. Now it’ll be a miracle if you and every member of the Cody family makes it out of this building alive.

Where the hell is Andrew?

He wouldn’t leave his brothers behind. He wouldn’t leave you behind. You’re sure enough of that. Not if there were any other way.

“Well?” Silas barks, pressing the muzzle of the gun into your temple. “Tell them.”

But your mouth has gone bone dry. Andrew. Andrew. Where is Andrew—

Craig and Deran exchange a look that lasts a mere second before Craig opens his mouth to speak. “Look, man, we don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Let her go and we’ll leave. Just take it easy.”

“Easy?” Silas repeats incredulously. “You conspire against me, break into my club, kill one of my employees…” He tips his head in the direction of Gregory’s lifeless body. “…and you want me to take it easy?”

Craig and Deran are both silent.

“Kick the bags over,” Silas sighs, his patience already wearing thin.

“Do what he asks, guys,” you manage to force out. “He’ll let you go. Just give back the money.”

Another second of hesitation, another glance between themselves, and then they nudge the backpacks across the floor.

Silas laughs quietly from behind you. “Smart choice.”

It’s then that you notice Craig’s eyes shift past Silas, the movement too quick and minute for Silas to even register as he starts to reach down for one of the backpacks.

Then all hell breaks loose, and the following thirty seconds feel like something out of a fever dream.

One second, Silas’ gun is pressed against your head, and the next, it’s flying across the room with a shot that goes right through the wall. Your body gets propelled forward by a blunt force from behind you, and you go tumbling to the floor with a sharp cry.

When you look up, there’s chaos all around you, but most importantly, there’s Andrew.

The door to the safe room, which had been wide open just seconds ago, is now nearly shut. He had been here the whole damn time, just waiting for the perfect moment to pop out and strike Silas from behind.

Andrew drives into him like a freight train, wrapping both arms around Silas’ torso and carrying him into a metal shelving unit. The entire thing rattles violently on impact, random boxes and loose paperwork falling from the shelves and scattering across the floor. Silas lets out a startled, animalistic grunt, but he recovers surprisingly fast for a man pushing sixty.

Then Craig and Deran jump in, and the four men crash together in an aggressive tangle of limbs and curses. It all happens so fast that it’s impossible to tell who throws which punch and whose blood is dripping onto the concrete.

All you know is that you’re the reason that they called Silas down here in the first place, and you see someone’s gun on the ground, no more than an arm’s length away from you.

Before you can give it a second thought, you grab the gun and force yourself to your feet.

Your hands are shaking so hard that it looks as if you have Parkinson’s disease, and you’re terrified to take the shot for fear that you’ll hit anyone other than Silas, but every horrible thing he has said and done in the last three years is suddenly replaying in your mind as your finger dances over the trigger and you know without a doubt that you have to do what you’re most scared to do.

You yell. A deep, guttural sound that tears through you, loud enough to get the attention of all four men in front of you. Deran, who’s positioned slightly in front of a beaten and bloodied Silas, instantly moves out of the way, giving you a clear shot.

You hear Andrew say your name, you see Silas start to attempt to lunge towards you, but you don’t let either of those things stop you from squeezing the trigger.

Time slows down. Despite the fact that the gunshot hadn’t been very loud thanks to the suppressor attached to it, there’s still a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears.

For only a fraction of a second, you wonder if you hit him at all. Then, your question is answered when dark crimson begins blooming across the fabric of his cream colored button-down, just over his heart.

Silas opens his mouth to speak, but only blood comes out, and then he falls forward, collapsing on the ground beside Gregory.

You’re still aiming the gun right where Silas had been standing with shaking hands when Andrew takes a tentative step towards you.

“I killed him,” you whisper, voice trembling. “I killed him.”

Andrew slowly and carefully peels your hands away from the gun and takes it from you. You’re still glued to the spot, both your mind and body in shock from what just happened. From what you just did.

You killed him. You killed Silas. You killed someone. Murdered them. And yes, they deserved it, but you still fucking pulled the trigger and shot them in the chest.

“No, you didn’t,” Andrew murmurs, giving Silas a kick to the shoulder with his foot. Silas lets out a weak groan that makes you instinctively jump back. “He’s still alive.” Then, before you can spiral any further, Andrew aims the gun directly at the man lying on the floor and fires it again, hitting Silas in the head.

He turns to face you, holstering the gun. “See? You didn’t kill him. I killed him.”

“So much for not shooting him in front of her,” Deran grumbles as he picks up one of the backpacks and slides it on. Him and Craig begin to move around the room, but you aren’t paying attention to what they are doing, because your eyes are locked on the body on the floor in front of you.

Bodies. Plural. Two of them. Silas, and Gregory. And blood. A lot of it.

Andrew steps in front of you, blocking your view of it all.

“We need to clean all of this up now,” Andrew tells you gently. He raises his hands as if he’s going to place them on your shoulders, but stops himself at the last second, his hands hovering awkwardly for a moment before dropping them back to his sides. “I need you to do one last thing for me, and then this will all be okay. Okay?”

His voice is steady and calm, but his hazel eyes are serious and pleading, like it’s taking every ounce of his willpower to maintain composure for your sake.

You give him a shaky nod to confirm that you heard him.

“I need you to go back upstairs. I need you to keep watch and make sure that no one tries to come down here, and warn us if they do.”

You’re shaking your head before he finishes speaking. “What? No, no. I can’t go back up there. I can’t. I won’t be able to keep it together. I can’t pretend like—”

“You can,” Andrew interjects, voice firm. “It’s for your own safety, too. People will be suspicious if you disappear at the same time as Silas. You need an alibi. Go upstairs, show your face, book a private room or two, and pretend like everything is normal. Just for a few more hours.”

You swallow, inhaling and exhaling. What he says makes sense. All of the individual words make sense. But how the fuck are you supposed to walk back upstairs and act like everything is normal when you just killed a man?

Okay, Andrew technically killed him. But you still shot him in the lung. He would have eventually died from that alone even if Andrew hadn’t taken the gun from you and put a bullet in his brain.

“Just stay until the end of your shift to cover your own ass. Do you know if anyone noticed you come down here?”

“Uh—” you stutter, trying to remember everything that led up to this moment. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. The club’s really crowded tonight, everyone seemed busy and distracted.”

“Good,” Andrew nods. “You were never down here, okay? The cameras are offline, so you were never here.”

You nod, still unsure of how you’re going to will your legs to carry you back up those stairs, or how you’re going to keep the utter shock of what has transpired in this basement off of your face for the next few hours.

“What - what about you guys?” You ask him. “How are you going to get rid of all of this?”

Andrew shakes his head in dismissal. “You don’t need to worry about any of that. We’ll handle it. The bodies, the blood, the money, we’ll take care of all of it. Just go upstairs and keep an eye out for us.” He pauses, his eyes scanning your face. “You’ve trusted me so far, yeah? I just need you to trust me again for a few more hours.”

You have. You do. You don’t know if you trust yourself to not have a full blown panic attack in the middle of the club, but you do know that you trust Andrew.

You can’t quite bring yourself to verbally agree, but you nod.

Andrew takes a step closer and raises a tentative hand to your face, gently tilting your head to the side. “Earpiece is still in place,” he murmurs.

You expect him to pull away once he’s satisfied with his inspection, but he doesn’t. Instead, the soft pad of his thumb sweeps beneath your eye, wiping away a streak of smudged mascara. The touch is so tender that under different circumstances, you might have leaned into it. Might have closed the distance between you entirely. But right now, with blood still drying on the floor, all you can do is stand there and let him.

It gives you the much needed inspiration to get through the next few hours without completely falling apart, at least.

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

It takes every single last ounce of Pope’s self-restraint to not abandon Craig, Deran, and Jay to deal with the aftermath of the heist by themselves while he whisks you far the hell away from the city of Los Angeles in the middle of the night.

Truthfully, the only reason he doesn't do just that is because he doesn’t want it to come back to bite you in the ass.

He has to make sure everything is cleaned up. Everything. Every last drop of blood, every fingerprint, every strand of hair that could have fallen from your person to the floor of that safe room has to be eradicated before he feels comfortable leaving the club’s premises, and he sure as fuck doesn’t trust Craig or Deran to be as thorough as him. Deran lets his dish sponges get filthy and he doesn’t trust Craig to properly wash his own ass.

Finally, in the early hours of morning just before dawn, Pope can confidently say that the job is finished. Through the combined efforts of Craig, Deran, Jay, and himself, the safe room is cleaned spotless, the bodies of Silas and Gregory are disposed of, and the haul of cash makes it back to Oceanside.

Getting both bodies out wasn’t exactly easy, but Pope had planned for shit to go sideways. Jay was on standby in the getaway truck with an appliance dolly in case they were unable to retrieve the money from the safe while inside the club.

It was Craig’s idea, actually, to cram both bodies inside the safe and haul the entire thing offsite…to the middle of the fucking desert where all four men spent several hours digging a hole big enough for a six hundred pound safe.

No, things didn’t go according to plan, but they rarely do. It all proved to be worth it when the cash count ended up being just shy of half a million.

And if Pope’s share of more than a hundred grand wasn't enough to make the entire ordeal feel worthwhile, the relief on your face and the way you fling your arms around his neck when he shows up at your apartment later that day sure as hell does.

Maybe it’s a combination of everything that has happened in the last twelve hours and sleep deprivation, but it takes Pope a moment to register that you’re hugging him in your doorway. When he does, he wraps his arms around your torso and hugs you back, pulling you tight against his chest without a word.

“Sorry,” you breathe when you pull back, just far enough to look up at him. “I’m sorry, I…I’ve been so worried.”

He instantly feels guilty. He had sent you a singular text to let you know that they had left the city when they were on their way to the desert, but after that, he had been so preoccupied with disposing of Silas and Gregory’s corpses that he hadn’t provided you any further updates. He had been operating on autopilot, going through the motions of shoveling dirt, driving his brothers and nephew back to Oceanside, and then driving all the way back to Los Angeles after only a shower and two shots of espresso.

“No, I’m sorry,” Pope murmurs, reluctantly dropping his arms back down to his sides. “I should’ve texted, or called, I just…” He glances around to make sure that none of your neighbors are lingering around outside. You notice his hesitation and move to motion him into your apartment. He steps inside, only continuing once you pull the door closed behind him. “Just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.”

“And?” You ask, biting your bottom lip in the way Pope has noticed that you tend to do when you are especially nervous about something. “Is it? Taken care of?” You add in a smaller voice.

Pope nods. “Yeah. Everything has been taken care of. There’s nothing that you need to worry about now. No one will ever find them.”

You audibly exhale in relief, your shoulders visibly relaxing as you lean against your kitchen counter and cross your arms over your chest. “Andrew, I…I don’t even know how to say thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me at all,” he says simply.

He’s told you already, but he’ll tell you again, he did this because he wanted to.

He saw you in that alleyway and knew you didn’t belong in that place. He saw you dance on that stage and knew that he had to talk to you. He had one conversation with you and knew that he would be willing to kill for you.

And he would do it all over again, even if he didn’t gain a penny from it all.

Which reminds him…

He pulls out a large, thick envelope tucked beneath the waistband of his jeans and holds it out to you. “Actually,” he clears his throat, “you can thank me by taking this.”

Your eyebrows scrunch together as you accept it from him. “What’s this?”

“It’s your cut.”

You pause before starting to open it. “My cut?”

“Yeah,” Pope shrugs. “Your cut from the money we pulled last night.”

You don’t even look inside before you’re trying to hand it back to him. “Andrew, no. I can’t take this. You killed a man - two men - for me, and then cleaned up the mess and dumped their bodies in the middle of the ocean—”

“Desert, actually,” he corrects softly, and your mouth snaps shut into a tight line, but he can tell by your eyes that you’re fighting a smirk.

“Still,” you implore. “You have done more than enough for me. Taking your money wouldn’t feel right. Not when you’ve already given me a second chance at life. That’s worth more than any amount of money ever could be, Andrew.”

God, he needs to go to sleep, because the last thing he should be thinking about right now is how much he likes to hear you call him by his name.

He hums a laugh, reluctantly accepting the envelope that you’re practically shoving against his chest, then takes a slow step towards you that leaves very little space between you. You’re slotted between him in front of you and your kitchen counter behind you, but you don’t appear the least bit put off by the tight space.

“Thought you said that you wanna get out of LA?” He murmurs. He reaches beside you, placing the envelope on the counter behind you. Then, instead of dropping his hand back to his side, it hovers for an awkward moment before falling to the edge of the counter, right next to your hip. He isn’t quite touching you, but if he moved his hand over a quarter of an inch, he would be. “Go back to school eventually? Start a new life?”

You’re smirking up at him now. “I did say that.”

He quirks a brow. “Then you’ll need money to do that.”

You’re silent for a moment, your eyes trailing over his face. You raise a tentative hand to his jaw, the soft pad of your thumb brushing a featherlight touch over a bruise that he had sustained in the brief but intense scuffle with Silas. Without thinking, he leans into the touch. The bruise is tender, but the feeling of your skin against his outweighs any discomfort.

“I thought you said that I’m always welcome at yours,” you hum. He opens his eyes to find you grinning slyly. It makes the back of his neck warm.

“You are,” he answers automatically. “Always. Is that…something you think you would want?”

You don’t answer with a yes, or a no, or even a nonchalant shrug. You just stare at him with that same soft, teasing expression as your eyes flicker between his eyes and his mouth, your hand still caressing his face.

There’s barely enough time for him to wonder if you’re thinking of doing what he has wanted but held back from doing since you pulled into his driveway in Oceanside before you lift onto your toes and press your lips to his.

His breath catches in his chest as your lips, tentative and impossibly soft, brush over his and every coherent thought leaves his mind at once. One moment, he’s standing in your kitchen trying to convince you to take sixty thousand dollars in cash, and the next he can’t remember how to breathe because the feel and smell and taste of you is overtaking his senses.

You linger just long enough for him to pull away if he wants to.

He does not. Of course he doesn’t.

His hand moves from the counter to your waist, and yours still resting on his jaw shifts to the back of his neck where your fingertips toy with the hair at the base of his skull. He leans down into the kiss, angling himself closer until there’s barely any space left between the two of you.

It’s soft, and hesitant, as if you’re both worried that if you move too fast, the moment will end all too soon. Warm lips move tenderly against his, your tongue sweeping lightly against his in permission that he eagerly grants.

It’s probably the last thing he should be thinking about in this particular moment, but he’s glad that he didn’t talk Craig out of his idea for a gentleman’s club based heist. Really, really fucking glad.

When you pull away, you release a small, breathless laugh that ghosts across his lips.

“Don’t worry,” you breathe, “that wasn’t me trying to say thank you or anything. I just wanted to do that.”

“Yeah?” He murmurs, brushing his lips over yours a final time. It isn’t quite a kiss, but it sends goosebumps down his spine nonetheless. “I take that as a yes, then? You’ll come to Oceanside with me?”

You nod, the tip of your nose nudging his. “I think Oceanside with you is exactly where I need to be.”

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡ three months later ｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

“Are you sure you can’t see anything?”

Your eyes are wide open, and all you see is pitch darkness. Andrew is apparently as meticulous at securing bandannas around a person’s forehead as he is everything else he does in life.

No surprise there.

“Honey, I’m positive,” you laugh, repeating yourself for the third time since you got home from class no more than five minutes ago. Andrew had been waiting to greet you, as he usually is, with a blindfold in hand. That part was unexpected, but you have quickly learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to Andrew. He never disappoints.

He had asked if you trust him (he knows that you do) and proceeded to secure the black cloth around your eyes before guiding you down the hallway to the spare room of yours and his new place, which he recently set up as a study room for you.

“Ready?” He murmurs, one hand on your lower back as the door creaks open.

You step into the room. “I don’t know. Am I?”

He chuckles softly, bringing his hands to where the cloth is tied behind your head and then pauses. “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it down.”

“Take it down?” You echo, brows scrunching beneath the fabric.

He answers by letting the cloth fall away from eyes.

What you see is the very last thing you expect.

Right in the very center of the room, directly in front of where you stand, is a dance pole. Damn near identical to the one you had in your Los Angeles apartment. The one you hadn’t bothered to bring with you to Oceanside, because you had been so eager to leave everything about your life there behind. Everything.

Or so you had thought, until very recently when you began to find yourself missing one, and only one, thing. Dancing.

Not dancing for money, not dancing for men, but just dancing. By yourself, for yourself.

You had mentioned it to Andrew in passing only yesterday, that you wish you had kept your dance pole when you packed your entire life into your car and happily drove from Los Angeles to Oceanside to be with him.

Now, not even a full twenty-four hours later, he has both acquired and installed one since you left for class this morning.

You don’t even realize that you’re just staring at the pole, wordlessly, until Andrew clears his throat.

“Like I said, I can take it back down. It isn’t a big deal.”

“What?” Your gaze snaps to him. “No, it’s not…it’s perfect. I was just thinking,” you murmur.

His eyebrows lift slightly. “What are you thinking about?”

Since you came to Oceanside three months ago, you and Andrew have taken things relatively slow in your relationship, aside from the obvious of living under the same roof.

Things started in such an unexpected and unconventional way, but once you got here, your newfound dynamic was able to settle with a sense of normalcy. You may have met in a strip club, killed your boss together, and had your first kiss all in a week’s time, but Andrew still took you out on a proper first date and has been nothing but patient with letting the relationship progress at a pace that you’re comfortable with - physically, mentally, and emotionally - while processing everything that you’ve been through in the last few years and starting your life over at the same time.

Never, in a million years, would you have expected such beauty to come from such trauma, but it did. Because of him, it did. He was the light waiting for you on the other side of the darkness.

You shrug, grinning softly. “About how much I love you.”

Andrew’s hazel eyes widen in surprise. It’s the first time you have said those three words aloud. It’s not the first time you have thought them, but it is the first time you have verbalized them.

After the initial shock fades from his face, it’s replaced with the grin that you’ve fallen in love with waking up to every morning. He takes a step toward you, closing the distance between you by taking your face in his hands and slotting his lips against yours. Your arms instinctively wrap around his thick torso, melting into his embrace as he kisses you in a way that is both familiar and takes your breath away.

He murmurs the next words out of his mouth against yours in between kisses, his voice low and sincere.

“I love you very much.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

thank you SOOOO much if you read to the end of this!!! as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated and will make me love you forever.

overprotective husband!aizawa is a provider through and through, never letting you pay for a single thing. he's covered rent, food and bills and spoils you rotten with high end cosmetics, luxury sex toys, fine dining experiences and virtually everything under the sun. "sho, there's this really cute lingerie set online." you show the $250 set to your husband, who's half asleep on the bed beside you. "you have my credit card number," he murmurs with a sly grin. "but are you sure? it's kind of-" he interrupts you immediately, snatching the phone out of your hand. "babe, you have my credit card number. you want it? you buy it. you know this."

overprotective husband!aizawa genuinely hates it when you mention any of your exes, regardless of the context. he's well aware that they're are significantly below him, but it offends him that they once had the luxury of being with you and fucked it up. "i ate here once with my ex," you point out the italian restaurant he suggested. "alright, well now we aren't going." he grumbles and grabs your wrist, turning onto another street. "there's other pasta places around here." if you need a reminder that you're married to him, best believe he'll wine and dine you every single night. after the meal? he's still hungry, and he'll devour your pussy (his dessert) the moment you're behind closed doors.

overprotective husband!aizawa becomes your full time caretaker the minute you get your period. it's comical how quickly he rushes to the store for pads, tampons, chocolates and any other item of comfort you asked for. in truth, he did so in preparation for when he'd finally get you pregnant. spoiling his knocked up wife was a dream of his, especially when he has the honor of becoming a father. "let me get you a hot pad," he moves from underneath the bedsheets. "no, stay with me sho. i'm okay, just some sharp pains." the stubborn man is torn between easing your physical state and suffocating you with his body heat. "alright, a few more minutes of cuddling. then, you're getting the heating pad."

overprotective husband!aizawa buys you the most glorious lingerie that compliments your figure. there's a fancy lingerie shop downtown that you always love to visit, especially if shouta is at work. he'll toss you his credit card without hesitation, "buy yourself something pretty, angel." one time, you purchased a white silk babydoll that left nothing to the imagination. the piece of clothing exposed your body in the most flattering and sultry ways, leaving shouta speechless. "fuck, babygirl. you knew what this would do to me." he made a valiant effort not to tear the expensive fabric, but pounding into your wet cunt in that skimpy outfit stripped him of his self control.

overprotective husband!aizawa learns you accidentally cut yourself shaving down there. "oh no, angel. want me to kiss it better?" it's barely even a knick, let alone a superficial cut. but shouta will take any excuse he can get to bury his tongue in your pussy. "where is it? is it here?" he flicks your clit with the tip of his tongue, drinking the essence as it pours from you. "or, maybe on your lips?" his fingers spread your folds, revealing how they glisten with arousal. "let's find out shall we." the overstimulation of his mouth ultimately distracts you from any twinge of pain caused by that dull razor. going forward, he advised you to purchase a high quality electric one.

overprotective husband!aizawa hates sleeping alone, though wouldn't admit it. it puts him at peace to know where you are at all times, not in a toxic way but for your own safety. late nights with your girlfriends trigger his anxiety, so it's expected to get more than one concerned voicemail, text or facetime audio request. "you're overthinking it, sho. you're off patrol. i'm fine, just out with the girls." shouta knew you'd never be unfaithful, but danger lurked around every corner. he knew and understood the underground criminal routes, which were adjacent to the main downtown area. "just get home. it's like, 10pm." your husband hangs up, one of the girls redirecting your attention. [text from sho: i mean it]

overprotective husband!aizawa knows his cock is the only one who could satisfy you. your sexual compatibility was off the charts from day one, and he could never forget the pride that swelled within him the moment you saw his cock. "ha, yeah. i'm pretty well endowed." you thought he was hard even when it was soft. now, his huge cock was standing tall and proud before you. "you're more than well endowed, sho." a part of him felt nervous, since past partners had trouble with his impressive size. you were so determined to please him, wanting to see how big of a load he'd produce for you. "i cum a lot, by the way." the first night you slept together, shouta emptied himself until he was shooting blanks. his cum painted your face, dribbled between your thighs, leaked from your pussy and the corners of your mouth. "you... weren't lying."