northern lights in a southern town

it isn't often that he actually sits in front of the camera. he seems almost shy about showing his face, fiercely private about his life and his lands. he prefers to narrate over footage or remain firmly behind the lens with a body cam, leaving only the growl of his voice to explain what he's seeing and doing. so whenever he uploads one of his 'fireside chats', the numbers spike. as the kids would say, the videos break containment.

people are drawn to the combination of his expertise and restraint. he's a no frills kind of man. you will not find exaggerated reactions or jump cuts. he’s never even raised his voice. he's the genuine article. he plants himself dead center in frame and uses whatever natural light's out that day. there's hardly any editing. no brands or logos in sight.

in the comments, he answers very few questions. when he does, his replies are concise. he'll point you in the right direction, but never lets anyone pretend there's some kind of shortcut or cheat in the great outdoors.

the fireside chats are almost always about some specimen he's taken on a hunt or pulled from a trap. he speaks over their still forms with great reverence, showing unique markings or how to age them. one of his most-watched videos is on a hefty buck: its antlers, the conditions of its silvery-brown coat, its scars and old injuries, its musculature, and how much meat he expects to get from it. he talks about how he watched it for months, waiting until the timing felt right to take it.

among his niche audience, the channel is considered a hidden gem. the subscriber count climbs steadily, but he never seems to truly blow up. there are persistent rumors that he simply ignores sponsorship offers and deals. apart from uploading every few weeks, it's as though he doesn't exist online at all.

but if you know where to look—

his fireside chats look very different on the invitation-only website that actually earns him a living.

they're always filmed at night, beneath a single month-swarmed floodlight bolted to a corrugated metal wall. another light sits off camera, spotlighting him in a harsh white. sometimes there's a deer hoist or gambrel posted behind him, or a tarp-covered slab table laid out with a field dressing kit.

the focus is always on the subject itself, pinned or posed or trussed up so that it's forced to stare directly into the camera, unable to turn its head when he steps into frame. his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth, fastening a leather and waxed canvas apron around his waist and neck before he begins. demonstrative and exploratory. ever a guide and teacher. slow and careful for those who may be watching and learning.

and once in a blue moon, the prey is something special.

the lighting and camera angle do not change, but the tarp moves to the ground, nailed in all four corners with a rail spike driven through the top. fastened to it—both wrists above the head. these unlucky souls, he lets them squirm. it's all part of the show.

fifteen, twenty minutes of them waking up, whimpering in confusion, and writhing the best they can in their bindings. chests heaving with aborted and failed attempts to scream and cry for help.

the reactions surge as their eyes widen in horror when he finally joins them.

he kneels beside their naked bodies, petting slowly over their trembling stomachs and chests, their quivering, shivery flanks. if they got some spunk and kick, he settles his weight on their legs. he takes his time. stroking their tear-streaked cheeks and checking the o-ring secured in their mouths. he runs his fingers over their teeth and tongue. tests how far ‘til he gets a gag out of them.

the whole time, he talks to them. at them and about them.

where he found them. how long he plans to keep them, comparing them openly to their predecessors. he uses their drool to paint their nipples to a shine. licks up their tears before spitting on their cunts and holes. describes how tight they are and how wet and shaky they get with each added finger.

he'll spend hours spinning them up, shepherding them ruthlessly through the stages of grief over their situation. he even goads and cheers them on when they hopelessly pull at the paracord keeping them in place. all the better if they exhaust themselves.

but across both genres, when he announces it's time for the final act—everyone but his highest tier viewers get kicked. the ending is always paywalled.

“You’re hangin’ on by the skin of your teeth, Gaz. It’s not like you.”

Six months’ deployment will do that to a man. ‘Course, it didn’t do that to Soap or Ghost or Cap—but him. It reeks of failure. A lapse he should’ve been able to muscle through, and could, if he had a little more time. Kyle said as much, but the way Price regarded him said that the call had already been made. Paperwork stamped and filed away out of reach.

“Eight weeks leave. Approved, starting tomorrow. Go home, Gaz. Rest. Relax. Do not let me see or hear from you before your eight weeks are up, understood?” 

Kyle had nodded, molars almost dust. What sticks out now as he plays it back is how Price rubbed at his ring and the faraway look in his eye as he added—

“Find a girl to pass the time with.”

Everything after that blurs. He couldn’t say how the meeting ended, only that two days later, he stood in the doorway of the cold, barely-lived-in city flat with a chip on his shoulder and no idea of how to grind it down.

Typically, when he has nothing better to do, Kyle runs.

He runs himself ragged outside, on the track or at the gym, at all hours. Sleep eludes him. It’s no good to lay in the dark, watching the ceiling and the headlights that sneak in through the curtains. The silence gets to him. There’s no chatter or stomping outside his door. No one telling him when to get up, where to go, what to do to fill the hours of the day. So running is how he copes.

He doesn’t track the time or distance. He goes by feel, specifically, the burn. How long before it blooms in his calves and then migrates to his lungs and throat, until it feels like they’re lined with fiberglass. He runs until all he can hear is the stock algo playlist du jour in his ears.

When he finally stops, it’s because his body at last turns on him and he doesn’t want to limp home. He folds over on the pavement, hands braced on his knees, hamstrings snarling at how close he came to ruining them anyway.

It’s never enough.

He drags himself home, taking the long way to wear down what’s left, but the rest of the day is there when he gets back. Long, idle hours with nothing to fill them. He needs a mission. He needs a boost.

So, he takes his Captain’s advice. He finds a girl.

Well. He finds girls.

The first is all nerves, with mile-long legs in heels.

Her arms wrap around him in the hallway of her building. She makes a small sound when he gathers her up against her door. Surprise, then ardor. Giggly when he bends her over the plaswood kitchen table. Afterward, she prattles on about going for breakfast in the morning, and insistently paws at him while he dresses. He gets her name wrong on the way out and she corrects him instantly, lips puckered around a pouty scowl of regret. He forgets it by the time he reaches the station.

The second is louder and five times needier. She clings to his bicep, afraid he’ll vanish if she lets go. He works her up in the last cubicle of the men’s toilet, her head tipped back against the marked-up wall while he marks up her neck in return. When he pauses, hand up her skirt, he sees hearts in her eyes. It extinguishes what he wants then and there. He unlatches the door before it can go any further, and she asks if they’re leaving. The wounded look she gives him rolls off his shoulders as she follows him out, all but sprinting back to her friends.

Objectively, he has fun, all this messing around, but it doesn’t stick.

By morning, it’s gone. In its place, the sense that he’s mislaid something important without ever knowing where he set it down or what it was, exactly. But by the end of the week, he’s got matches aplenty on different apps. Proof, as if he needs it, that he draws the eye.

That if he really wanted to, he could.

He takes to ending his morning runs with coffee.

Same spot, same order. Back to the wall, earbuds out, watching throngs of people stream past on their way to work. He itches for more, but no. This is what he’s been ordered to do.

Across the way, a couple lifts a pram in tandem over the curb, working effortlessly as partners. A two-person team. The wife bends to check on the kid, her full arse on display. He sips without thinking and scalds the roof of his mouth, nearly pitching the steaming cup into the street on reflex.

He hisses through his teeth and reaches for his phone instead.

For the first time in ages, he opens Instagram. The account he made a decade ago and never used. His work is not exactly conducive to having a life, much less documenting one. He scrolls anyway, checking in on old classmates and cousins. Spying their engagements, promotions, and toddling children in coordinated outfits. Milestones, one after another. Evidence of forward motion.

He pauses on a photo of a former footie teammate—arm slung around his wife, both glowing and smiling on a beach somewhere. His ringed hand rests on the curve of her belly.

He lingers on that detail long enough for the screen to go black.

Eight weeks is long enough to fuck off somewhere warm. Book a flight, find a beach. Find a bird and pretend he could be a man who belongs in pictures like that. The sun warming his back, an arm curled around him like he’s the center of a world.

The thought fizzles. He’s seen the inside of enough planes this year alone.

He’s stuck on the blank screen when a pair of shoes steps into his line of sight.

Polished burgundy leather. Fancy.

His gaze tracks upward to stockinged legs that disappear beneath a skirt. The rest is wrapped in a buttoned coat.

Then he reaches the face, and it catches him off guard. Open and welcoming. Your cheeks lift in a tentative smile, lips stained a shade of red that suits you perfectly. Your eyes are warm and bright with an energy he burned through several streets back.

You hesitate, indecision writ plain in your drawn-up shoulders. The worry of your fingers pinching a card.

“Excuse me, hi. I don’t mean to bother you, but do you have a minute?”

You’re younger than him. Not by a decade, maybe, but in his line of work, even four or five years is a gulf of experience. You don’t read as especially confident. He reckons you’re breaking it in like those expensive shoes on your feet. Your manicured fingers tremble as you offer your card, and his attention snags on the tiny, intricate designs decorating them.

You give him a name. It burrows right in.

“—I run a boutique matchmaking service, well, not run, as in by myself, exactly, but, well, I’m building my client base—”

He takes the card, and your relief is immediate, as if you’d cleared the highest hurdle. The cardstock is thin. A cheap, creamy white, with a heart and arrow logo that looks like it came free with the template. Your name and a website sit below the words Made to Last Matchmaking.

He blinks, attention snapping back, realizing he’s missed the meat of your pitch while he was busy deciding exactly what, if anything, to do with you.

“—dating can be so difficult in this day and age, and I’m working to revitalize the old fashioned way of meeting people face-to-face, outside of those lousy, impersonal apps. Now, obviously, I don’t know if you’re single, but, well, do you have any trouble meeting people? I’m offering steep discounts—”

His mouth twists with delayed offense. One look and you decided he’s lacking. That he has another problem to fix.

He looks from the card back to your face, brow furrowing. “I don’t need help.”

Your smile falters, but you recover quickly and snap back into place. “Of course. I just thought I’d ask.”

“What about me gave you the idea?”

That gives you pause. You must know you’ve stepped in it.

“You seem like someone who might be too busy to find someone, or…particular.”

Particular. He scoffs.

Kyle reclines, hooking one arm over the back of the café chair, and catches them—your eyes. The quick dart from the sweat cooling on his biceps to where his thighs strain the hems of his shorts, then away again. Kyle doesn’t call you out, but a thoroughly smug pleasure unfurls in his chest. He isn’t ignorant of his looks, never has been.

Pretty eyes, pretty hair, and a smile he knows how to use. Down to the scar on his cheek, which he lets do some of the talking when he flirts and talks around what he does for a living. Beyond what God saw fit to give him, he has a spendy vintage watch on his wrist and the activewear he’s in now is performance-grade. He can’t afford cheap on his salary.

And maybe that’s the real reason you approached. So he could be the feather in your cap.

He can see it: his face splashed on the front page of your website, in a carousel of success stories. Handsome, young, reasonably well-to-do. His first name above a tidy testimonial he’d be required to supply as a satisfied client. Exaggerated enough to sell and proof of concept.

He knows he’s a catch by any metric that matters.

But particular? That, he won’t touch.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve got a date this weekend.”

You press your pretty lips together and rub. He wants to know what kind of lipstick holds that well. You give him a tight smile in a look that says you’ve realized the conversation’s a dead end, but have to back out of it politely.

“Really? Lucky girl.” You adjust the strap of your purse, puffing up a touch, birdlike. A vexed dove. One small, dismissive flutter of your hand toward his cup of coffee. “Sorry for taking up some of your busy morning.”

Then you’re gone with a crisp turn on heel, pumps practically thundering as you rejoin the crowds. He watches until you meld into the mob completely, then reads your card again. He glares at the embossed letters and bends it between two fingers, shoving it into his pocket.

Only then does he tip back to prop up his feet on the empty chair across from him. His sprawl bumps the café table, and his cup wobbles in slow motion before it dumps straight into his lap.

The coffee’s cooled enough, but it drenches him completely. A half-second later, the cup hits the pavement and shatters, and a dozen passerby turn in his direction.

Perfect.

At home, he texts and inveigles the girl from the cubicle into a date.

It doesn’t stop his surveying at the gym, tracking the pretty birds that flit past his stations. No one holds his attention.

On his way out, he stops for an overpriced juice. As the cashier hands it over, he catches her nails—painted a plain, forgettable milky white.

Just like that, his thoughts veer off where they don’t belong.

He wonders if you’ve found any takers yet.

Cubicle Girl cancels minutes after he sits down. A wall of text along the lines of I talked to my friends and you’re stringing along a nice girl.

It puts him back at square one, but he won’t stay there for long. He’s got a phone and bar full of options.

There’s no rush. It’s Friday. The place is packed, bar to dance floor. The air is thick with body spray and perfumes, the souring musk of sweat, liquor, and vape pens. The seat beside him will remain empty as long as he wants it to.

By drink two, he’s attracted a warm-blooded stray who has wandered off from her group. One compliment about her smile, and she’s more than happy to join him. She’s in town for a conference and wouldn’t you know it, she’d love recommendations from a local. Never mind he’s only home a handful weeks out of the year, and doesn’t recognize half the block anymore. He plays along, chatting her up until he’s certain she’s about to invite him back to her hotel.

Until she drops she’s sharing lodgings with her colleagues.

He thinks of Soap, who doesn’t mind an audience. Kyle has never understood the appeal.

His place is out of the question. When he spends months at a time sharing close quarters with Soap and Ghost, he keeps his space his.

Kyle doesn’t push it when she announces her party is moving on, or when she stalls, suggesting they meet up next time she’s in town. He dismisses the idea, and tells her to enjoy the rest of her trip. He does not give her his number.

Alone again, he reclaims his spot at the bar, ignoring the peals of high-pitched laughter and cheery voices all around him. It all eats at him more than it should, especially when his thoughts drift back to the girl on the street and the cheap business card.

He thinks about the way you saw him and decided he needed help. Him.

If the matches and messages blowing up his phone aren’t enough proof that he knows what he’s doing, what is? He hasn’t needed help in this department since he enlisted. No wingman, certainly no coaching. He knows exactly what he brings to the table. It’s not arrogance if it’s true, and for him, it usually is.

Still. He has to give you this, if only in the privacy of his own head. A reluctant and begrudging concession—there is more that he wants, that until recently, he’d had little patience for, and no interest in entertaining beyond the abstract.

It’s Price’s fault, the greedy bastard. Cap had only shared the one picture of his new missus, and even that had been heavily influenced by drink. Stupefying, really, how Price swore him to secrecy with all that color in his puffed-up cheeks. He’d herded Kyle out onto the pavement beyond that dingy pub, one bear-like mitt locked tight around his phone while the other cupped protectively over the screen to shield it from prying eyes, cigar pinched between his teeth like he was guarding yet another state secret instead of showing off a pretty woman.

“Beautiful, isn’t she? Skittish. Got some bad habits we’re still tryin’ t’break, but toothache sweet.”

The photo itself had been nothing, mundane and domestic, yet it’s burned into his skull.

Price with his arm around her shoulders, his hand fisted in the chain of a small heart necklace at her throat. Her shy face. And the look on Price’s? Kyle’s never seen him smile like that—never thought Price could make a woman smile like that, either. That’s what stuck.

Because he wants it for himself.

And if a man like Price—irascible, immovable, inflexible—can lasso a piece of heaven and pin it down long enough to plant a flag in it, then there’s no reason he can’t do the same.

He knocks back the rest of his drink and resentfully writes the night off as a wash. He signals to the bartender for his tab, and a hand lands on the bar beside him.

The nails are a familiar vibrant shade he remembers admiring. His cheek twitches with a smile, but he squashes it. Good thing, too, because the first thing out of your mouth is,

“Your date running late?”

Fucking hell.

You hover, angled toward the bar, one hip cocked slightly while you peer down at him. The slope of your face sits half in shadow while the lighting catches on the brownish-mauve stain of your lips and the smears of glitter on your eyelids.

Then you turn to flag the bartender down and neon spills across you, filling in the rest. Greens, blues, and pinks—refracted color sliding over your skin like the inside of a kaleidoscope. A strobe light from the dance floor lights up your face, three concentric circles pulse over your features. Your eyes shine, glossy with however long you’ve been drinking, as you set an empty glass on the bar.

Kyle can’t look away. His heart lurches.

“She canceled. Something came up.”

“Nooo,” You smirk as you fold onto your elbow, cheek settling into the bridge of your curled fingers. “That’s a shame.”

He chuckles under his breath and scratches his brow, using it as cover for another peek.

Tonight you’re in a silk velvet skirt the color of moss, gold where the lights touch it, in a halo for your hips, and a black top that leaves your arms bare and dips low. A thin gold necklace rests against the sheen of sweat gathering at the tops of your breasts, drawing attention exactly where it ought to.

Who exactly are you when you’re not trying to set all the single men and women in the city up for a living?

“Hardly.”

“Clearly. Her loss, I bet.”

“Absolutely.” He leans back in his seat. “You stalking me, by the way? That determined to land me?”

“As if. No, I’m here—thank you,” you pause mid-sentence to accept your cocktail from the bartender. Kyle taps his card against the reader before you can reach for your purse. Your smile turns wry. “Thanks. I’m here for a hen party.”

You take a half-step closer and twist, revealing a garish button pinned to your top. The silhouette of a hot pink hen with swooping lettering Team Bride. He laughs, then he gets a lungful. Juniper gin and jasmine perfume. He’d like to lean in and bury his nose in your neck for another whiff, lick the sweat off from below your ear to see if it tastes the same. Cross-reference it with the sheen on your tits.

“Client’s?”

“In a way. It’s for a friend I set up with an old coworker three years ago.”

“So you’ve always been a meddler?”

“I’ve got a knack for it.”

“Better remember that when I win back your favor.”

“That implies you had it.”

He lays a hand dramatically over his heart. “And here I was thinking paying for your drink might make up for the other day.”

“That’ll take more than one cocktail, I think.”

“Are you trying to guilt me into buying a round for the entire party?”

“Maybe.” You smile coyly behind your glass. “But you were considerably less charming last we met.”

“Yeah, well, I hadn’t realized who I was talking to.”

“Wow.”

“If I get drinks, do you think the bride-to-be would mind if I crashed for a bit?” he grins, surprising even himself, but he can’t help it.

Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead at a hen party. Been there, done that, it’s either too much of a good thing or a bloody hazard—hauling Soap out of a pub before he pounces on some poor, unsuspecting girl. And yet, because it’s you? He’ll make an exception. Play nice, charm your friends, let them interrogate him if it means another hour or two of puzzling you out.

Your nose scrunches with a laugh. “Not this time, stranger.”

You squeeze his shoulder as you say it, as a warm and friendly gesture. All it really does is superheat the alcohol in his bloodstream. Makes him think about what those fingers would feel like clawing at his back.

“It’s Kyle,” he manages, clamping one hand down on his thigh. “My name?”

That earns him a brief once-over.

“Not this time, Kyle.”

It takes effort to keep his arse planted instead of tailing after you when you head back to your friends. A whole flock of women crowded around a table near the back, all wearing that same pink button save for the bride in white.

It’s his turn to drag out his departure, sticking around longer than he should for a man with no drink in hand. And Christ, he should probably just walk up and ask you out properly, like a sane man would.

But he already cocked that up at the café. His ego too busy sneering at your pitch to notice the woman giving it and the opportunity. Now, seeing you again while he’s fresh off back-to-back false starts, it’s difficult to separate how much of this is pure want and how much is pride rearing its head. Because by the looks of it, you might actually be too good for him.

Convenient, that Price’s voice should surface in his head.

“I’m tellin’ you, Gaz. You see something you want, you take it.”

He runs his tongue along his teeth, deciding to get out before he does something stupid just then. He’s perfectly capable of waiting until he gets home for that.

Kyle finds your card beneath a menu for Ola’s and mulls it over for all of three seconds before pulling up the website.

It’s not quite as shameless as he originally imagined, but the site is awash with photos of happy couples. He scrolls past a manifesto on love, an overly romantic mythos about soulmates for the tender-hearted, and for those less-inclined, hard statistics. The reviews he knew would be there encourage visitors like him to Take a chance, tempt Cupid’s aim.

Instagram next. Boutique, just like you said. The company account only has a couple hundred followers. Near the beginning is a photo of you beside another woman who must be your co-founder. It doesn’t take long to find you in the followers list. Your personal account is public. Bold, considering how you’d been earlier.

Curated, but not contrived, and chock full of colorful squares. Stray cats, graffiti, uni throwbacks, plates at restaurants—then he reaches a series of posts from a girl’s trip!!! beach holiday, dated a year ago.

(Where was I? he wonders, Getting shot at, probably.)

The crown jewel of the collection is you.

Stretched out on your stomach on a towel, a book open and tented in front. A beer bottle stuck into the sand within reach. You’re looking back over your shoulder at whoever took the photo, hand lifted to shield your eyes from the sun, smiling wide.

A persimmon silk scarf wraps around your hair. The straps of your swimsuit press into your shoulders, taut over your arse, and dig in enough to flash a crescent of a cheek dusted in sand.

The caption’s simple: beach bum

He exhales through his nose.

Yeah. I’ll say.

He takes you to bed with him like that. Your smile and arse beaming down at him in the dark, his fist working furiously beneath the sheets.

He imagines what kind of internal struggle you’d put up, with him staring you down. Would you be self-loathing? Shy, embarrassed? Would you be in disbelief as you spread your legs, or apologetic that you ever doubted him as his cock slid home in your warm cunt? 

He shudders, cursing into the dark, staring at the pixels of your arse until his retinas fry. He’d take you on your hands and knees, just to watch it bounce.

His orgasm comes quick at the thought, messy strings of cum splashing up his abs. He groans as he squeezes himself on the upstroke, going until there’s nothing left but a puddle on his skin.

If you were here, he’d tell you to lick it up. Gather it on the tip of one of those nails and suck it off.

His cock twitches at that and he groans in discomfort, but he finds himself swiping through your photos again, beginning and end.

You, at your first proper job, a sneaky selfie in the lift. You, holding a friend’s new labrador puppy. You, on holiday in Madrid with your parents. Notably absent from all of it—a partner.

Secondary fantasy follows the first.

You, on that beach towel again, except this time with him stretched out beside you. Him, nudging at your hip until you roll onto your back for a kiss. Sand sticking to warm, sweaty skin. The curve of a pregnant belly beneath his palm.

It should embarrass him, but it does the opposite.

He stays up late combing through the scraps the internet offers up. Your university’s blog to your extended family’s businesses. Abandoned accounts you probably forgot were public. A sprawling Pinterest account from half a decade ago, dated in taste but deliciously informative: places you dreamed of visiting, the wedding aesthetic of the time, and other evidence of the hopelessly romantic life you’ve imagined. All these breadcrumbs left behind without realizing someone might follow them. It’s basic recon.

Once he’s seen enough and the decision’s made, the rest comes easy. Here’s his worthy pursuit. The opposite of Price’s orders, but once the old man learns the details, he’ll understand. Might even be proud.

Twice now, you’ve come within reach. If that isn’t the universe conspiring in his favor, what is? Fate insists upon putting you in his path—he’ll draw Cupid’s bloody bow himself.

“So, Mr. Garrick, what made you change your mind?”

Today you are in plum. Monochrome, the top a shade lighter than the trousers it’s tucked into. Stylish glasses perch atop your nose and he can’t tell if they’re prescription or decorative.

You are far too professional and clothed for his liking.

“Just ‘Kyle’. Our conversation got me thinking, is all.”

“How so?”

“I did some self-reflecting,” Half a lie. He certainly reflected when he wiped his belly in the mirror last night. “And I think you’re right. I’m particular.”

The pinch of your lips when you suppress a smirk nearly takes him.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Being selective is important. Most people just don’t stop to assess themselves honestly, and consider how to engage with or present themselves to other people.”

Kyle filled out the inquiry form in bed, expecting a wait. Instead, you’d carved time out immediately. A casual coffee chat to ensure he knew what he was getting into and more paperwork to formally onboard him into your little operation.

He didn’t know what to fully expect, only that it brought him into your orbit and gave him the opportunity to start luring you down from the sky. He didn’t think you’d be so upfront.

“How I present myself. What, you think I need a new look? New haircut?”

You smile slyly and glance down at your notes. “No, I think we both know that isn’t the problem, but according to you, you haven’t had a serious relationship in years. You listed work as the primary obstacle, which, fair enough, but I know plenty of married soldiers.”

Not many like him, he wants to argue, but you aren’t wrong, either. There are operators who manage to build lives between deployments, but they don’t do what he does. They only play at it.

You tilt your head, and he gets the distinct impression you’ve stopped reading from whatever internal script guides these things.

“And between us? I don’t actually think work is the real problem.”

Defensiveness flares on first instinct. He could shut this down. Deflect and charm you sideways, or turn it all into a joke. Instead, he keeps his face agreeable, because snapping at you would be shortsighted.

“Suppose that’s why I’m here, hm? So, what’s next?”

That restores your smile.

You launch into your explanation of the entire process. Intake and compatibility assessments and vetting.

He mostly listens, but the lion’s share of his attention falls to your mouth. The short pauses you take to collect your thoughts. The shine of your lipstick and how this one leaves a print on your cup.

“I actually have someone in mind for you.”

His brows shoot up mid-sip. “Oh?”

You nod, pleased with yourself. “Potentially. It’ll take one or two days before I can set you up. Background check, first.”

Kyle nearly laughs into his coffee. Kate and her connections scrubbed his records years ago. All you’ll find is the good soldier Kyle Garrick.

The meeting winds down not long after. Your phone buzzes and you frown at the screen.

“Oof,” you wince, gathering your things. “Afraid I need to take this and be on my way.”

He rises as you do, leaning closer when you offer your hand. What do you know, fits perfect.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, Kyle.”

He gives your hand a little squeeze before letting it go. “Likewise.”

He’s approved within days.

You forward the results and his first match. Kyle skims the details while breakfast burns on the stove.

Camille is an orthopedic surgeon, an avid outdoorswoman, and a fellow runner. Ambitious, disciplined, and a good person on paper. In another life, she might’ve suited him. Unfortunately for her, he’s already met you.

He meets her at a restaurant she’s been wanting to try for months, and he tries sabotaging the evening from the start. He arrives fifteen minutes late, shirt visibly wrinkled, and prolongedly whinges about paying nearly thirty quid for grilled octopus.

She takes it all in stride.

She’s unflappable. She gives as good as she gets, too, parrying every attempt he makes to scuttle the date.

Doubt creeps in when their plates are cleared. Maybe he’s overestimated his ability to tank things, and you’re actually good enough at this to make him forget why he signed up in the first place. Then football comes up, and he mentions Liverpool. A side effect of spending months on end with Price.

The warmth drains out of her face. Honestly, it’s comedic. She breaks and saw limbs every day, and this is what disgusts her.

By dessert, she’s monosyllabic. The guilt for having wasted her time is there and gone as he pays, reasoning that now she has something to report-worthy for you. She’ll probably ask that you screen for club loyalties, and the next poor bastard you pair her with can sit beside her nursing United’s losses for the rest of their lives together.

Every date comes with a debrief with feedback from both parties. He rings you while Camille disappears into the back of a taxi alone.

“Well?”

“Sadly,” he says gravely, “We had irreconcilable differences.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“She supports Manchester United.”

“You’re joking.”

“‘Fraid not.”

“Football? Really?”

Kyle smiles to himself, looking toward the ground as he nudges a pebble with his foot. “What can I say?”

Your sigh crackles warmly down the line. “Okay. You’ll try again.”

Dates two, three, and four follow in quick succession.

The women continue to be perfectly pleasant. He continues to kneecap things.

Date two sours when he talks in circles until she gives up trying to pry anything meaningful out of him. Date three doesn’t last when she asks him for his birth time, and he tells her astrology is fake.

Date four is tough, because she’s funny and clever. She works in publishing and takes pride in her tracking her reading. It pains him to lie, especially with the stack of books waiting for him back at his quarters on base, but he tells her he doesn’t read for fun, and doesn’t see the appeal.

When they part for the night, she’s kind enough to tell him they’d work better as friends.

So when you text him the morning after date four, asking if he can pop by for a quick check-in, he knows it’s all on course.

You share your office with your co-founder, your desks side by side and decorated with small tokens. One framed photograph draws his eye. The trip to Istanbul last spring to visit your cousin. Beside it, a photostrip from the bar down the street from your flat. In the corner, a vase with no flowers. He’ll fix that later.

You’re gorgeous, though the puffiness beneath your eyes leaves you looking frazzled, like you’ve slept poorly all week. The sleeves of your cardigan are shoved unevenly to your elbows, the front buttons misaligned. You greet him as you organize a stack of papers.

“So this is more of a progress report.”

You slide the papers across the desk—they’re feedback forms, neatly transcribed in your handwriting. 

He skims. Most of it trends positive.

Attractive. Funny. Intelligent. Easy to talk to. Confident.

Then come the circled sections.

Off-putting comments. A little condescending. It felt like he lost interest halfway through? Hit a wall. Emotionally constipated. Cracks jokes at inappropriate moments.

Kyle bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

You tap the pages. “As you can see, there’s a pattern. You start strong. Your dates like you. Everything’s grand until you either disengage or, frankly, kill the conversation.”

“Maybe I’m just boring.”

“You are not boring, but there’s a difference between being charming and being emotionally available.”

His teeth will leave a permanent indent in his cheek by the time you’re done here. You frown, seemingly mistaking his silence for offense, but truly, he isn’t. Every one of those dates went exactly as he intended. He’d been as unavailable as he needed to be to end up here.

“Kyle, look, I think you–”

Your phone buzzes suddenly on your desk. The name Daniel flashes across the screen.

“For the love of…” you mutter under your breath. Your thumb comes down hard on decline, and you stare at the screen for a beat. You flip it face down, then plow on without apology. “As I was saying…I think you’re throwing the dates.”

There that is—but what was that? Who was that?

“Throwing them? What makes you say that?” he asks innocently.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Your phone lights up with a voicemail notification. It sits upon a stack of countless others, and you ignore those too. Makes him wonder if this Daniel’s why you haven’t slept. Shit landlord, maybe? Another, needier client?

“Maybe I haven’t taken out the right person yet.”

“Mmhm, and not one of those lovely women qualified. Curious. Well,” You clasp your hands atop your desk. “I called you in because I think it’s time we discussed–”

Your phone starts vibrating again. Persistent bastard.

The glare you shoot at your phone is downright venomous. You finally snatch it up, shut it off, and then bury it with a shove into your purse. Both hands come up to your temples and massage circles as you worry your bottom lip between your teeth. A sigh forcefully hisses out. When the irritation ebbs, it leaves behind pure exhaustion in every part of your pretty face.

Kyle leans back into your line of sight. “Unhappy customer?”

“No. That’d be simpler.” You turn fully to him, rubbing at your forehead next. “My boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

The world about falls out from underneath him. Nothing he found suggested a boyfriend. It’s a glaring gap in his intelligence. Ghost would have a field day.

Unless, this Daniel was—

“Sort of. My ex.” Bingo. “It’s complicated.”

The weariness with which you say it stirs up ugly feelings. He imagines the kind of man who keeps calling after being ignored and what he’d look like bleeding from the mouth.

His jaw hurts again.

“Yeah, looks like he’s rung you about a hundred times. He bother you like that often?”

“No, not usually. It’s just, well yesterday, I…” You stop yourself with a light slap to your forehead. “We’re not here to talk about my love life.”

The universe intervenes on your behalf with the swing of the office door.

Your co-founder appears carrying coffees, stopping short when she sees him. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t know we had a guest. I’ll, um….”

You shoot to your feet. “It’s alright. We’re done here. Kyle? I’ll see you out.”

He lets you hustle him out, the two of you nearly knocking shoulders as you hurry down the hall, shrugging into your coats as you go.

Outside, you stand with him at the bottom of the steps, crossing your arms tight across your chest as the wind sends leaves tumbling down the street.

“So, okay, back to what I was saying before that.”

You return to the bullet points of the check-in, as if you can shove the entire Daniel-not-boyfriend situation back into Pandora’s box. You go on about intentionality and all the ways he can supposedly work on himself. He doesn’t interrupt, because this new development with your ex changes things, and he needs to factor it in.

Ten minutes ago, Daniel hadn’t existed. Now the loathsome oaf sits squarely in his path like a dead policeman. Or, more apt, a sinkhole.

Kyle watches you suppress a yawn mid-sentence and he’s irritated all over again.

You’re sweet. Clever. Earnest to a fault. He would wager that you’ve given this man several chances, and what have you got in return? Apparently many sleepless nights and no flowers to show for them.

Fortunately, Kyle is more than capable of changing tack.

“Maybe you could coach me.”

The suggestion derails whatever you were about to say next. You blink, eyebrows lifting up and up and up.

“Coach you?”

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right and I’m rusty.”

You laugh nervously. “Kyle. That’s not—I don’t think—that’s not what I do. I’m not a dating coach, that’s more her thing.” You point a thumb back toward the office windows where your partner’s probably halfway through her latte by now. “I could set up a meeting?”

Kyle tries to look disappointed and your expression breaks a little. A sliver, but that’s all he needs. Once he finds an opening, he knows how to force the rest of himself through it.

“I don’t want her. I want you.”

You let him pick the place and he’s glad you did.

It’s the sort of posh restaurant he’d catch endless hell for if the rest of the 141 ever found out he brought a date to it. Olive tile lines the wall behind the bar, and every table is made from rich sapele wood. Glowing fixtures posted few and far between, while smaller tables like yours make do with candlelight. Smoke and scorched citrus drift out every time the kitchen door swings open, turning hopeful heads when someone in a white apron sweeps past with plates.

Your nails drum while you take the place in with quick, furtive glances. Your attention flocks to the loaded shelves behind the bar then to a waiter balancing a tray full of oysters nested in ice.

You haven’t outright said you’re impressed, but he assumes.

The moment your wine glass is filled, though, you snap right back to attention.

“So, Kyle, is it as awkward for you as it is for me that this was arranged?”

Right. The roleplay. You’d mentioned it in your texts.

It took some cajoling to get you here. Out there on the blustery walk outside your office, imploring you to sit down with him over a nice meal to help him figure out where, oh where, he’s been going wrong. You said three times that this was unofficial, a favor rather than a formal extension of the matchmaking package, and therefore absolutely could not appear in any review.

Kyle agreed to all of it, because he knew it would be worth it.

And now you’re here, pretending this is purely educational while he thinks about how the fuck your ex botched things with you.

He hadn’t spent the intervening days idle. He found the worm lurking on the follower list of a friend. One query led to another, then a brief chat with an old contact still working for the Met, through which he uncovered a nasty little trail. Several small disasters follow Daniel. Nothing dramatic enough to make the evening news, but enough to paint a picture—one he doesn’t want you in.

Multiple CCJs and thousands of pounds in gambling debts. Assault within the last year. Three employers in eighteen months with behavior cited as reason for dismissal.

You spend your days vetting strangers for other people, yet what care do you take for yourself?

“Not at all. We all need a little push sometimes.”

“Really?”

“‘Course. I suspect even you need one from time to time.”

You huff quietly through your nose, but the conversation comes easier after that. 

First comes family.

He gives the broad strokes. That cannot change too soon, even if he has plans for you that stretch farther into the future. With the spotless records you’ve already pulled, you should be satisfied. He talks about his mums, their troupe of rescue cats. About his last trip out of the country, where he fell down a flight of steps in Minsk and walked away only mildly concussed.

(He leaves out how that happened. That his target tried throwing him down them, and how the man ended up going headfirst beneath Kyle’s tumbling weight, and never got back up afterward.)

In return, you tell him about your siblings. Your old job in marketing and how you pivoted. About university, too, and how half your social circle ended up dating because you kept introducing people. You weren’t lying about your aptitude.

The waiter comes and goes. Somewhere between dishes, the conversation loses its scaffolding entirely. You lean across the table, eyes glittering. Laughter sweet as honey and bubbly as champagne.

For a fake date, it certainly feels real.

And for him, it’s as simple as flipping a switch. All that effort spent sabotaging his dates redirected. He doesn’t waste time now that he has you to himself. Every detail goes into the ever-thickening file he’s been compiling on you.

“You know, you’re easier to talk to than anyone else you’ve set me up with.”

You snort. “That’s because this is practice. I’m not trying to impress you.”

“Too late.”

“Mm, I believe ‘joking at inappropriate moments’ was feedback you received.”

Kyle grins. “I’m dead serious. Best date in years.”

Before you can roll your eyes, he reaches and settles his hand over yours. Your gaze drops to where you touch, then returns to his face with an uneasy look.

“This is practice,” you repeat.

“Doesn’t have to be.” He drags his thumb over the back of your knuckles. “See, I’ve been listening to everything you’ve said about chemistry and all that. Think we’ve got it.”

“Kyle.”

“You’ve had a good time, right? Be honest.”

You worry your lip instead of answering. Your gaze bounces from your drink, to the candle, to the dining room beyond his shoulder. Anywhere but his face.

When it finally returns, you admit it with a sigh. “Yes, alright, I’ve had a good time.”

The satisfaction that sparks in his chest is wholly disproportionate in its strength. He has to resist smiling too broadly, galvanized by your concession.

“Right. And if you were your own client?” He gestures between the two of you. “Would you set us up?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Is it? Look, I know you’ve got that ex of yours, or whatever you want to call him,” he adds when your brow furrows. “He’s a piece of work.” The kindest thing he could say after what he’s found. “Walk me through it. One more drink and let’s see if we can’t sort it.”

Your fingers twitch beneath his.

It’s funny, really. In the field, getting answers is often ugly business. Fear, exhaustion, pain, truth serum. Most people who find themselves seated across from him are either terrified civilians trapped in a mess far bigger than themselves, or enemy combatants determined to die before informing.

You are neither. You’re a pretty girl with wine in her belly. Nervous, certainly, but you haven’t tucked tail. You could have fled at any time. Could’ve smacked him and told him to piss off.

Force was never going to work on you. It would’ve driven you off. Not that he minds a chase, but it would be unnecessary. Given enough room, you’ll arrive at the conclusion he wants all on your own. That’s the beauty of it. It’s masterclass. He is, after all, good at what he does. Always has been.

When the waiter sidles up, you ask for a refill.

It all spills out after that. You and Dan have a history. You technically go all the way back to primary school. Thick as thieves for years. You, a shy and bully-prone girl. Him, your pigtail-pulling protector, happy to terrorize everyone else if they left you alone.

In secondary, without much fanfare, he became your boyfriend. In the years that followed, your on-again, off-again man.

When he was good, he was easy to love. He’d stay up until four in the morning to help you study for exams. He knew your coffee order. He’d show up with your favorite takeaway when you were ill. Charmed complete strangers into hour-long chats when you went out. Picked you up all the way in Swindon once when you got a flat. He could be warm and thoughtful in these fleeting moments, enough to make you picture your life together in five, ten years.

Then the tide would inevitably turn.

He’d remember your anniversary but forget your birthday. Borrow your car without telling you and return it empty. Lose job after job because someone else was always the problem. Borrow money and never repay it.

The good and bad came in waves, and you’d become a champion swimmer. You kept hoping he’d grow up, and that the version you fell for would eventually turn up and stick. But the money—the mounting pile of debts and the broken promises attached to them—proved to be the final straw. You couldn’t keep pretending the good outweighed everything else.

Nowadays, your family hates him. His name taboo amongst your friends. Every time the relationship implodes, everyone celebrates. And like clockwork, weeks later, he worms his way back into your life, hat in hand, talking about the good old days.

As if Kyle needed any more reason to loathe the man.

You insist you’ve been better as starting the company changed things. You promised your partner you wouldn’t let Daniel drag you backwards, and for the most part you’ve kept that promise.

It’s just that he keeps testing you.

“He showed up at my flat last week.”

“What’d he want?”

“What do you think?” Fair. “He said he’d had a rough week and needed to talk.”

Daniel didn’t appreciate being told no, and within eight hours, you’d received eighty calls and a hundred plus texts—even after you blocked him. 

The more you talk, the more tired you sound. By the time the bill arrives, you’re quiet.

Neither of you speak much more until you’re outside. Your chin stays tucked, all embarrassed now that your dirty laundry has been aired. You search this way and that for an opportune exit.

He won’t allow it. Every date comes with a debrief, after all.

He steers you toward the corner with a hand on your back. People pass, heads bowed against the wind, and music spills nearby from an open pub door. You stop beside a cut-through and begin fastening the remaining buttons of your coat, staring intently at your fingers.

“I’m sorry for dumping all that on you. Now that I’ve said it out loud, it sounds pathetic.”

“Pathetic?” He scoffs. “No. He’s skint, can’t keep a job, and thinks terrorizing you is a winning strategy. Pretty sure we know who the pathetic one here is.”

Despite yourself, a laugh escapes, but you still won’t look at him. “He wasn’t always like this.”

“Oh, they never are, are they?”

The corner of your mouth quirks. For the first time since Daniel’s name entered the conversation, you look relieved.

Kyle steps closer. “You know, for a matchmaker, you’ve got terrible taste in men.”

You tip your face up at last. “Yeah? What does that make you?”

It is, though you don’t know it, a trick question. He has done terrible things. He will continue to do terrible things. The world keeps providing reasons. The blood on his hands is there to stay.

He’s spent weeks in pursuit. Hunting, if he were being honest, though that hardly seems accurate when you’ve given him only opportunities the whole way. He’s never had to offer you an exit—not that he would. Maybe what he’s done makes him a terrible man, but watching your eyes flit to his mouth and back again, he doesn’t think it matters all that much.

He doesn’t preempt whatever objection is rattling around in your head. All he can think of is closing the space between your mouths.

Your throat clears.

“I should get home.” In a blink, you straighten and step around him, phone already in hand. “This was fun.”

Seven words to take the wind out of his sails. Aren’t you playing hard to get, taking things slow.

He lets you pass. The impulse to pull you into the dark alley to change your mind and speed things along rears its head. Ghost’s influence, most like.

“So you admit it. Does it mean you’d like to do it again?”

You make him wait until your ride is accepted before you look up almost bashfully from underneath your lashes. “It’s probably a wildly stupid decision, but...”

And another seven words for the urge to recede. A few more days won’t kill him.

“I can’t keep your money if I’m the one dating you. I’ll refund it.”

“Nah, keep it. You did exactly what I hired you for,” You walked right into it. “Found me a match.”

A smile tugs at your mouth. “We’ll see.”

“We will.”

Kyle relieves the ache of returning home alone with a long shower.

He finishes with a grunt, stomach and abs twinging with a side-stitch. His spend drips down the tile and swirls into the drain. With it, several options for how to approach his last loose end, most of which would land him in hot water.

(If he was stupid enough to get himself caught.)

Every idea falls short. Daniel’s a parasite who keeps crawling back. A cockroach. He could call in another favor with the Met, pad the man’s colorful file, make life more inconvenient for a while, but that won’t cut it.

He has his address. It would take him less than an hour to knock on the man’s door for a chat.

Yet, for all Daniel’s run-ins with the law, he’s exactly the sort to go crying to the police. Kyle has no desire to explain things to Price, let alone why he’s spent mandated leave paying social calls to a bird’s ex-boyfriend. Worse still, he’d also go crying to you, and that’d squander weeks of work.

He has to outsource.

Price is out, for obvious reasons. Soap would get too involved as he always does. Nik’s disappeared into one of his periods of radio silence. It leaves him with one unsavory choice.

He doesn’t want Ghost to know about you yet. He has a habit for collecting things people would rather keep quiet and saving them for a rainy day. Kyle, far less talkative than Soap, has always been one of his favorite marks. Unfortunately, he’s also the exact man for the job.

He sends the text when he goes to bed, and the reply is there when he wakes.

ETA 36.

Well into his morning run, his phone buzzes.

A selfie. Your co-founder, grinning over a box filled with cardamom buns and chocolatines, thumbs raised in emphatic approval.

Another. You, cradling the bouquet he had delivered to your office. A sunrise-colored bunch of snapdragons, peonies, and paper moons. Your smile peeks out from behind the petals.

Thank you for the treats xx

His runner’s high hits like never before.

One last point of due diligence: a visit to the halfwit.

Kyle tracks him down to a sticky-floored Grosvenor that’s seen better days, an apt comparison to the man himself. Daniel’s as unremarkable in the flesh as he is in his socials and police records, hunched over a poker table with a pint at his elbow and a shrinking stack of chips in front of him.

He only half pays attention to the slot machine he’s claimed. The flashing lights and chirping speakers drown out most of the table talk, but the louder notes of Daniels’s complaints carry.

A bored-looking woman hovers at his shoulder, nursing the dregs of a cocktail, chipped nails tapping idly while her attention wanders. He slaps his cards onto the felt after another losing hand, gesticulating at his companion while the dealer calmly pushes the pot toward the winner. He curses, knocks back his drink, and grudgingly buys back into the game, but not before awkwardly trying and failing to coax the woman down for a kiss. She turns her head without so much as looking at him.

Beyond him, posted beside the cashier’s cage, two broad-shouldered men speak amongst themselves, occasionally nodding toward Daniel’s table.

Kyle watches him unravel all over again when the next hand is dealt.

He decides then and there there’s no need to get any closer or learn anything more. Simply clapping eyes on the lout is enough. He’s not worth the risk.

Besides, Ghost’ll leave a more lasting impression.

Ghost has the rear of the pub to himself.

Last booth, back to the wall, one thick leg swung wide and extended out into the open floor waiting to trip someone. Two empty pint glasses at the edge of the table. He’s probably scared off any wandering staff. Kyle takes him a third.

“Could’ve texted you were here early, LT.”

“Needed the ‘me’ time. Soap’s insufferable without you to throw at ‘im.”

Kyle snorts. “Cap suspect anythin’?”

“‘e knows better than to pry when I take personal time,” he pulls the pint closer. “So, you fuckin’ stir crazy? What’s this about needin’ some bastard’s legs broken?”

That wasn’t what Kyle had sent. He’d mentioned an ‘old friend’ who needed setting straight, that he couldn’t be recognized, and that the job called for Ghost’s brand of finesse. Promised he’d owe Ghost a favor. He sticks to his story, offering no more detail than necessary.

“Mm. Called me ‘ere to do your dirty work. Wonder what Price’d say about his star pupil dishin’ out a little clandestine ‘urt?” Ghost tugs his mask aside for a drink, smirking. “Lemme see ‘er.”

Kyle bristles. “What?”

“The girl.” Ghost jerks his chin. “If I’m gonna get my ‘ands dirty for some bird, I wanna see.”

“This isn’t for—”

“Sure it isn’t. Y’asked me to slip off base, off the books, to rough up some schoolyard bully? Fuck if it ain’t for a woman. So let’s see ‘er.”

There’s no point in arguing. Kyle pulls up the selfie from that morning, and slides his phone over.

A man wandering to the toilet slows, neck craning to eavesdrop and steal a look, and Kyle glares to hurry him on his way.

“This ‘er?”

Kyle looks back at Ghost.

The look in his eyes sends a shiver down Kyle’s spine. Ghost’s pupils have fattened, his thick brow lower in focus. The big man’s gone completely still save for his chest, expanding like bellows in a deep, ragged inhale. His free hand migrates below the table to shamelessly adjust himself.

Kyle glances down at the screen and unclenches his fist with relief. Ghost has swiped one too far. He’s staring at the photo of the co-owner. Poor girl.

“Not her. Go back one.”

Ghost doesn’t do that right away, opting to airdrop himself the photo first, then swiping back. When your face pops up, he doesn’t nod or comment, and Kyle is absolutely fine with that. The last thing either him or you need is his approval. Once his phone is back in hand, he forwards everything he’s compiled on Daniel.

“And that’s him.”

A chuckle rumbles from across the table as Ghost skims the text. He turns the cracked screen to show the unimpressive mugshot that Kyle’s Met contact had forwarded. “S’rare for me to be the more ‘andsome one. She blind?”

“Watch it.”

Ghost just laughs. Kyle could save his life twice over, and he’d still dodge paying a compliment.

The discussion of what to do with Daniel is short. No killing, no permanent damage— physical at least—unless he decides to bother you again.

“Garrick,” Ghost leers down at the ring-shaped crack in his phone’s screen, its epicenter right around your friend’s face. “Favor for a favor.”

Kyle’s gaze slides right off the picture. Plausible deniability.

“‘Course.”

You pick this time. An intimate spot, where you get the best table.

(You know the head chef, you explain. Introduced her to her wife, a former coworker.)

Tonight you’re dressed in that deep burgundy shade again. A full-bodied red to make his mouth water. You’re brighter than you’ve been, though for the first quarter hour, you’re obviously nervous. There’s no pretense of coaching or protocol to fall back on. Knee bouncing, nails drumming.

Over the entrée, you don’t use Daniel’s name, apparently having adopted your friend’s taboo, and add that he never took you to a dinner like this—excluding your practice date. It’s brand new territory, being on the receiving end of effort. An advantage he won’t waste.

Everything he’s learned about you finally earns its keep. This is the home stretch. With only a handful of weeks left before his return to base, he wants to spend as much time as possible with you firmly nailed down.

The conversation threads from travel to music to books. He mentions cities he’s visited because he knows they were on your bucket list at one point. Namedrops authors whose books he’s seen in the background of your posts. Drops seeds he knows will make you bring up your family.

Kyle spends the meal waiting for the other shoe to drop, searching for a sign that you have any inkling of what he’s done, what he’s doing, but it never comes.

By the time you stumble out of the restaurant, you’re warmed by an endless supply of complimentary prosecco. Behind you, the staff have stacked the chairs and stools, all the candles but the one at your table snuffed. You slip both hands around the crook of his arm and lean in, painted lips curling into a smile that tells him you’ve lost complete track of your troubles. That alone would have been enough, but then you ask, slightly slurring—“What d’you say to a nightcap?”

Kyle can’t remember the last time he’s had company. 

He watches you like a hawk from the door, toeing off his shoes and hanging your jacket as you amble further into his flat. Your fingers trail over the table before your attention meanders to the photographs on the wall.

In the periods of limbo such as this, the leaves he spends here as opposed to his mum’s, this place feels fake. Set dressing—sparse and unornamented, what is here are remnants of the man before the task force. Before Piccadilly and Price. Might as well be fossilized in amber or lidded like a time capsule. There’s been no sense in changing much.

You turn, surveying, and he can’t help but wonder what blanks you’re filling in. Whatever picture you’ve painted, he’ll spend the rest of his life speculating how close it is to the real thing. Is Kyle a terrible man? You don’t know. You never will. You’ll never learn that at this very moment, your ex is having the worst night of his life because Kyle arranged it. You won’t know that you’re standing in his home because he spent weeks laying the bricks in the road that led here.

Still, he would like you to know him as a good man. So if you find his space lacking, he will make room. He’ll let you breathe life into every empty corner.

You do the song and dance. Kyle offers the perfunctory drink, the one you ostensibly came back to his for. You turn it down, so instead he meets you at the mouth of the hall.

Though, as he closes the distance, he reckons you could’ve done with one last ounce of liquid courage. You sobered up too much in the car.

His hands land on your hips, bunching up the wine-red linen as he draws you the slightest step closer. Your eyes go big. The first part of the beginning of his name slips out, a soft and uncertain K, as you look utterly at a loss for what comes next now that you’re this close. Your faces hover an inch apart, but he diverts, dipping his head to skip his lips up the line of your neck to the spot beneath your ear. You melt, fingers curling in his shirt, and emboldened, he follows your jaw back down to your mouth, pausing long enough to let you meet him halfway.

He means for the first kiss to be sweet and exploratory, erring on the side of caution given who has had you before. That changes when everything from his navel down twitches at the softness of your lips.

He snakes a hand up to direct your head by the nape, tilting it up further to deepen the kiss almost immediately. His tongue eagerly swipes into your warm and so-far welcoming mouth. He licks behind your teeth and the roof of your mouth, his slow-growing hunger tested by the taste. He hums as you clutch at his shoulders, and when he pulls back, your grip loosens.

“You alright, angel?”

You swallow, smile wobbly. “Yeah.”

“C’mere, then.”

Seconds and thirds of your tongue stretch the time it takes to reach his room. Clothes fall by the wayside, namely your pretty dress, but his shirt goes too. While your hands skim up the carved planes of his stomach and chest, his fiddle with the hook of your bra. It pops open and catches his foot briefly on the descent before he shakes it off. The kissing comes to a pause when your legs hit the edge of his bed. You topple backwards and he lets you.

You land with a quiet oof and rise quick to your elbows, but stop when you see him looming over you.

Your expression flickers. One feeling gets overtaken by the next between blinks. A hint of embarrassment to a swell of delight to an uncharacteristic shyness. Underneath them all is want. Stark enough to survive every passing squirm.

Once upon a time he imagined you maybe hating this. Had he been hasty and pounced too soon, under poorer circumstances, you almost certainly would have. But this way? You’ve been aching for it, haven’t you? Sweet, love-lorn girl. Probably touched yourself after carrying that bouquet home. Did you think of him later, when ducking to smell the peonies, only for your brain to misfire and conjure your scent instead? God, he fucking hopes so.

You track his hands as he works off his belt and trousers, breath hitching when he finally drops a knee to crawl over you. Once he’s in range, you tug him down for a kiss.

Yeah, you’ve been wanting it.

The minutes pass by like this—languid kisses, heavy petting, and sweet nothings. For someone presumably so pent up, you’re savoring.

His fingers pet the skin below your navel then hook over the waistband of your knickers. Your hips buck, jutting against the leg he’s slotted between yours. He chuckles against your lips then moves to mouth at other expanses of skin.

You fidget as he merely holds onto the fabric. He gets caught up in the hills and valleys, leisurely touring your tits and stomach. He waits until you’re distracted by him dragging his teeth over the curve of a breast to twist and push his fingers into your panties.

“Fuck, baby.”

You say his name, but the sound’s pure fuzz before it ever reaches his ears. He drags his fingers through your warmth and shows them to you. Sticky, tacky, wet.

“All worked up, huh? All for me?” He answers his own question with a nod and you echo it a moment later.

He licks his fingers first, then pushes them into your mouth.

“You taste good, don’t you? Sweet girl, sweet pussy. Can’t believe my luck.”

You nod a second time unprompted, and the sight of your kiss-swollen lips wrapped around his fingers makes his cock pulse.

After you suck them clean, he trails them back down.

His fingers slip back between your folds, teasing your entrance every few passes until he feels your thighs jerk. It takes very little for one to sink in and little more to add another. He’s lazy with it, slowly sliding them in and out, the whole of his hand stretching the cotton it’s trapped inside. He’d like to peel your panties off and take a proper look, but he’s glued to your face.

“Kyle, please,” you pant, claws digging in where you can reach. Pinpricks on his forearm and shoulder.

“Yeah? You like that, angel?”

Words fail you when the heel of his hand presses to your clit. Sensitive like the rest of you. He rubs it in tandem with the fingers stuffed inside, rubbing incessantly at a spot that’s got you shivering.

“Think you do, oh, I really think you do—feel that? You needed this, didn’t you?”

He knew it wouldn’t take much, but the speed at which you hurtle to the brink prompts ink-blots to appear at the edges of his vision. He’s drunk on it. Can’t get enough of it—your pitchy and shallow breaths, your needy pussy, all your scratching—and he hasn’t even gotten his cock in you yet.

You come with a cry, a couple tears rolling down your cheeks, cunt pulsing around his knuckles.

Through the aftershocks, you weakly paw at him, but he only lethargically pets between your folds. He kisses your temple and neck, grinning against your jaw when you mumble about his cock. You blindly reach for it, eyes welded shut and beaded with tears. You’re so good to think of him, but he can wait. He can still taste prosecco.

He migrates down the bed, using your lagging coherency to get your ruined panties off and tucked into the mattress. It isn’t until his arms hook under your thighs that you realize what he’s doing. You try to close up, but that’s what his shoulders are for.

“Kyle, wait, it’s too much—”

Yet after one long swipe, he knows it’s not enough. ‘Least not for him.

He kisses with an open mouth, using more spit and pushing it through your already sopping folds tongue-first. He latches on to your crying clit, sucking and rolling his tongue until you’re shaking more violently than before, so worked up neither of you can tell if the hands on his head are pushing him away or pulling him in.

Your hole clenches around his tongue when you come for the second time. The orchard-sweet taste of wine gushes over his tongue again.

He’s slower with his retreat this time, shoving his boxers off and indulging himself. He stamps his nose to the fat and hair above your cunt for a whiff before he climbs up to brush the tears from your cheeks.

You’re stunned, out of breath and words. You jolt some when he leans down to kiss your tear tracks, cock dragging over the crease of your thigh and leaving a trail.

“I, um, wow, I’ve never…” You eke out as you wipe your forehead. “Back-to-back like that.”

“What else haven’t you done?” He lifts your hand to kiss the divot of your wrist, pressing a sly smile to it.

You push at his chin as if shooing him away, but breathlessly laugh.

He is teasing, but your lack of an answer leaves a blank space for his imagination to fill. He’ll find whatever lines you drew for your ex and test them for himself. After all, according to you, these things loop back to compatibility. Sometimes it just takes the right partner.

He smooths his palms up your legs.

You’re primed for him, prepped by hands and mouth, your spit and cum-slick cunt gleaming up at him—a homing beacon calling him in. You watch him in awe like he’s the man with the golden touch. He’s never felt so god-like between a woman’s legs before, and he’s had a few.

He lifts his cock off the warm cradle of your thigh. He brushes the tip of it over your clit and licks his lips at how your whole body shivers.

This is a courtship some might wrinkle their noses at and say it’s too short a runway to be sure. Others’ll politely talk around it and call it a whirlwind romance. Doesn’t matter a whit to him. Not with how easy it is for him to sink inside you. Proof has a wet-hot grip.

He drops over you, leaning down on a forearm to swallow the noises you make as he bottoms out. One soft plea escapes.

“Oh, Kyle, please—”

Somewhere in the world, a starting gun fires.

Like that first kiss, maybe these first seconds inside you ought to unfold slowly. A little more tenderness to cement the fact that this is it for the both of you. That bit of goodwill and sense shrivels when he pulls out a couple inches and sees your pupils dilate.

You see something you want, you take it.

He holds on long enough to give you a sporting chance. A few minutes of gentle rocking and smooth, shallow strokes. All it is a wind-up though, he knows it, and he’s sure you do too when your eyes and mouth open wide when he pulls out. He pushes one of your legs open and toward your chest to watch your skin stretch taut around him.

He drives the breath out of you with that first earnest thrust. You won’t get a lungful until he’s done.

Your hands fly to his biceps, slick palms scrabbling at their swell as he gets going. 

Gorgeous, is all he can think. An angel spread out in his bed, tits bouncing in time with his thrusts. Sweat shines along your neck. He stoops to lap it up, moving from your throat to the tears beading under your eyes, answering another indulgence he seems incapable of denying himself. If providence saw fit to lay you at his feet—it would be a shame to ignore whatever impulses that follow.

His face returns to the junction of your shoulder and neck, eyes shutting so all he hears are the punchy noises he knocks out of you. His thrusts turn shallow, furious. Your hands jump to his back, nails scraping down his skin and setting off a chain of tremors in his spine. He groans and shudders as he pushes up, peeling himself off of you.

His cock slips out as he readjusts. A shiny gloss paints its length, droplets of pre-cum dribbling onto your waiting cunt. It’s a head rush seeing a pretty girl like this. Fucking obscene.

“Fuck, angel,” he rasps as he feeds his cock back into your twitching hole. “You are something else.”

You’re far past coherency. Distilled to needy moans and whimpers that struggle to even make it out around his thrusts. His hands plaster to your hips, pulling you to meet him when it’s clear you’re past keeping up with him, too.

“Kyle,” you gasp as he zeroes in on a spot that makes your nails sink into him. 

“I know—I know—”

You’re both so close, circling each other and racing to the finish. 

You bite your bottom lip, back bowing off his bed, until the whole line of your body draws taut before coming hard. Thought finally abandons him, warm static filling his head and ears, complete tunnel-vision on the cunt strangling his cock and his own release hot on its heels.

He drags your hips up, sweaty palms on sweaty skin, and buries himself in as deep as he can go. A long, hissed-out fuck skating through his teeth as he empties himself into you. 

It’s everything he’s wanted and more, this. Vindication twice over and then some.

He groans as he pulls out, watching his cum leak and pool between your folds. One last weak jerk and a stringy tag of it lays a trail down your crack.

A delirious, half-drunk mumble guides him back up the bed to where he tucks into your side like a good man. A hand ghosting over your quivering stomach to your face, stroking your cheek languorously along until you’re planet-side.

You don’t wake up much after that, not even when he cleans you up. He watches you breathe deeply, body and mind fully relaxed into a prosecco and orgasm-induced sleep. 

Your ex problem, hopefully a hundred kilometers away and moving.

Kyle’s still awake when your phone lights up sometime after two.

Careful not to wake you, he reaches across your warm body and lifts it from the nightstand. It takes two attempts to guess your passcode—your mum’s birthday, very cute—and one new text awaits.

An unknown number with a long, winding apology riddled with typos. More excuses he plainly expects you to believe that boils down to something’s come up, a job opportunity overseas, and don’t expect to hear from him anytime soon.

Kyle considers deleting it, but it’s better if you have some measure of closure. Out of sight, out of mind and all.

He finds a text waiting on his phone as well.

All it is is another photograph. Daniel in a queue outside a coach bound for Dover, black-eyed and snot-faced. A plastic bag stuffed with clothes with a toothbrush protruding from a hole in the bottom. His face turned, looking over his shoulder, but missing the camera completely.

As tempting as it is to keep it as a token, that’s the message he opts to delete. No loose ends.

In the morning, while he’s making breakfast, you tell him you’re going to pop by the chemist on the way home.

You don’t want a baby yet, new business and all, and you want to see where this goes. Fair enough. He’s in no rush because he already knows where this’ll go, but then the thought wells up, dark and thick as oil: the look on the old man’s face if he manages to knock you up before the new Missus Price.

His mind runs with it, beyond the horizon of what exists and into the future.

A strip of coastline, both of you hiding out under an umbrella. Sand sticking to your damp skin. Your hand in his, a ring glittering in the light as you admire it. 

A cold afternoon in the city, him knotting your scarf and buttoning your coat over the bump of your belly.

You, standing in the doorway of your home, puppeting his baby’s arm in a wave, cooing Hi daddy, we missed you, daddy.

He can see it all so clearly. 

But he’s staring down the tail-end of leave, so he simply kisses your cheek and tells you to forward the receipt.