offer me that deathless death

Eight months in and you still hadn't figured out what to do with being someone's favorite thing.

Garrett wasn't subtle about it. That was the thing, he had absolutely no interest in being subtle about it. He'd find you across a dining hall full of people and his whole face would do something embarrassing. He'd mention you to his teammates with the casual frequency of someone who didn't realize he was doing it, which, according to Dean, he wasn't. He'd show up at your dorm with soup when you were sick, uninvited, unashamed, completely certain he was welcome. He was always welcome. That was the other thing.

Eight months. Long enough that his hoodie had more or less permanently become part of your wardrobe. Long enough that you knew exactly which toothpaste brand he preferred, and that he took his coffee wrong, and that he looked up at the stands exactly once per game - same moment every time, right after warm-ups - just to find you.

You were, by every reasonable metric, fine. Good, even. Happy.

You were also, quietly and without telling anyone, coming apart at the seams.

It hadn't started with anything dramatic. That was the part that made it hard to explain. There was no single thing to point to, no moment where it all went wrong. Just a bad exam grade, then another. Readings piling up in two classes, then three. A cold that moved into your chest three weeks ago and apparently liked it there, the kind of tired that sleep didn't touch.

You'd cancelled plans with Garrett twice. Both times he'd said it's okay, babe, seriously, without missing a beat, and both times something in you had gone slightly sideways, because of course he had. Of course he was fine about it. He was always fine about it, which somehow made it worse, because it meant he was noticing, and adjusting around you, and that meant you were someone who needed adjusting around.

He'd started checking in more. Texts a little more often. Soup you hadn't asked for, dropped off with a knock and a smile like it was nothing.

It was nothing. That was the problem. To him it was nothing, and to you it was accumulating into something you didn't have a word for yet.

Too much, something in the back of your head had started saying. Quietly at first. Then less quietly. You're too much right now.

You were good at ignoring things. You'd been ignoring this for three weeks. You were, it turned out, not as good at it as you'd thought.

The party was Garrett's idea. Well, it was everyone's idea. Briar had won the game 4-1, and the hockey house was the kind of loud that rattled inside your skull pleasantly, all bass and laughter and the clatter of the boys being celebratory and stupid. The living room smelled like beer and Axe and the particular chaos of hockey players who were very pleased with themselves.

You'd smiled through most of it. You were good at that, too.

Garrett had kept you close the whole first hour, arm slung around your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your temple every time someone stopped to talk to him, like punctuation. Hannah had found you at some point and the two of you had ended up in the kitchen with drinks you weren't really finishing, talking about nothing, which was nice.

But Garrett had gotten pulled away - something about Dean needing him, something about the highlight reel someone had pulled up on the TV - and you'd drifted. Which was fine. You were fine.

You'd ended up on the back porch without fully meaning to.

The night air was cold as you leaned against the railing, tipped your head back, and breathed.

You're okay. You're fine. You're at a party celebrating your boyfriend's win and everything is fine.

You heard them before you saw them. Two girls tucked into the corner of the porch, half-hidden by the shadows. You hadn't noticed them when you came out.

You recognized one of them.

Kendall. You'd heard the name in the careful, neutral way girls mentioned names when they meant something. She and Garrett had hooked up before. Before you. It wasn't a big deal. You knew it wasn't a big deal.

You turned slightly away, meaning to go back inside, meaning to just not be here for whatever this was.

But her voice carried.

"-no, I just mean, look at her. She's been off all night."

A murmur from the other girl. You went very still.

"I'm not being mean, I'm just - Garrett has a lot going on. He's got scouts looking at him, he's got finals coming up, and now he's got-" a pause, something that wasn't quite a laugh, "-one more thing to manage."

One more thing to manage.

The words landed somewhere below your sternum and just sat there.

"She seems kind of high maintenance," Kendall continued, quieter now. "I heard she's been sick, like, for weeks, and he's been running over there constantly. He doesn't have time for that. He doesn't have time for someone like- I mean, it's Garrett Graham. He could have-"

You stopped hearing the rest.

Not because they stopped talking, you just stopped being able to take anything in. The world narrowed down to the railing under your hands and the cold air in your lungs and the feeling of something fracturing very quietly behind your eyes.

One more thing to manage.

High maintenance.

He doesn't have time for someone like-

You turned around and went inside.

You went for the kitchen.

There was a handle of something on the counter - vodka, cheap, the kind that came in a plastic bottle - and you poured it into whatever cup was closest without really looking at what was already in it. You drank it faster than you should have. Poured another.

This was not something you did. You were not, by nature, a drink-until-it-goes-away person. You'd watched enough people use that particular coping mechanism to know better. You knew better.

You poured a third.

The thing was, and you understood this even as you were doing it, which somehow made it worse, that the words were just sitting there. One more thing to manage. Right in the center of your chest, perfectly placed, like Kendall had known exactly where to aim. And you needed them to move. You needed them to blur, or soften, or stop feeling so much like the thing you'd already been thinking at three in the morning for the past three weeks.

So you drank.

Hannah found you twenty minutes later, laughing too loudly at something a guy from the lacrosse team had said. She gave you a look, the kind that meant how many is that, and you smiled wide enough that she let it go. Or seemed to. You slipped away before she could ask a follow-up question.

The party had taken on that particular underwater quality that meant the alcohol was working. The edges of everything softened. The bass felt further away. You moved through the living room with the careful precision of someone who knew they were drunk and was trying very hard not to show it, which probably meant you were showing it completely.

Garrett was somewhere in this room. You could feel it the way you always could, that low awareness, like a compass needle swinging north. Normally you'd find him without thinking.

Tonight you turned the other direction.

You grabbed someone's abandoned drink off the end table. You didn't know whose, you didn't care, which was so unlike you that some distant sober part of your brain flinched, and made your way to the other side of the room. Someone pulled you into a conversation about something. You nodded. You laughed when they laughed. You were very good at performing fine, even now, even like this.

But Garrett kept appearing at the edges of things. You'd see his shoulder, the back of his head, catch a flash of his smile across the room, and something in your chest would do that terrible thing it always did.

So you kept moving.

You ended up in the hallway. Then near the stairs. Then, without fully deciding to, on the stairs themselves, sitting halfway up with your cup.

You sat for a while.

The alcohol had moved past the useful stage and into something messier, the kind of drunk where everything felt slightly too large and slightly too true at the same time. Your eyes were doing something embarrassing. You pressed the back of your wrist to them, hard.

You're fine. You're not going to do this here.

You stood up. Gripped the railing. Made it to the top of the stairs on the second try.

The upstairs hallway was dark enough that it felt like breathing room. You leaned against the wall and closed your eyes for a second, just long enough to get your legs back under you. Your dorm key was in your jacket pocket. Your jacket was downstairs. You needed to find it and leave before Garrett realized you'd been avoiding him for an hour, because if he looked at you right now with that face - the one he made when he was worried - you were going to fall apart in the middle of his own party, and you would not do that to him, you refused to do that to him tonight...

You pushed off the wall.

Misjudged the distance to the opposite side of the hallway by about four inches.

The door swung open before you could knock properly, or maybe you knocked wrong, and suddenly there was light and Dean Di Laurentis was right there, some girl half visible behind him, and all three of you stared at each other.

"Bathroom," you said, except it came out slightly sideways.

Dean blinked. Looked at you. Looked at the cup in your hand, mostly empty. Looked back at your face.

Something shifted in his expression, fast and uncharacteristically serious.

"Babe." Not to you. He was already half-turning to the girl, his voice dropped low. "I need a minute."

"You're kidding-"

"I'm really not." A beat. Something in his tone that left no room for argument. "Please."

The girl left in the precise way people left when they were furious and had decided to be graceful about it anyway. You watched her go down the hallway and felt vaguely guilty about it.

Dean stepped back from the doorway. "Get in here."

"I don't need-"

"You just walked into my door."

"I knocked."

"With your face, a little bit." He looked at you levelly. "Get in here."

You got in there.

He closed the door. The noise from downstairs dropped to a murmur.

"How much have you had to drink?"

"That's a weird opener."

"It's a normal question for someone who just almost fell through my door." He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, "How much."

You thought about lying. Decided it wasn't worth the effort. "Enough."

"Enough," he repeated, in the tone of someone doing math. His eyes moved over you, assessing. Quick and thorough the way athletes were sometimes, used to reading situations fast. "You don't drink like this."

"People drink at parties."

"Not you. Not like-" he gestured vaguely at the cup still in your hand, "-whatever this is." A pause. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I'm fine."

"Okay."

You stared at him. He stared back. He did not appear to be in any rush whatsoever.

You hated that. You hated the waiting.

"I overheard something," you said, and the words came out a little slurred at the edges. "On the porch. Kendall - you know who that is?"

Something crossed his face. "Yeah. I know who that is."

"She was talking about me." The cup in your hand felt very heavy suddenly. You set it down on the nearest surface. "She said I was one more thing Garrett had to manage." The words tasted exactly as bad coming out as they had going in. Worse, maybe, because you were saying them out loud now, making them real. "That I was high maintenance. That he didn't have time for someone like me."

Dean was quiet for exactly two seconds.

"She said that."

"She's not wrong, that's the thing." You laughed, and it came out wrong, too bright and too brittle. "I've been sick for like three weeks, and stressed, and he keeps showing up for it, and I keep letting him, and he has scouts and he has finals and I just-" You stopped. The room was doing something slightly unsteady. You pressed your fingertips to the dresser behind you. "I just didn't want to feel it. I didn't want to stand there in the middle of his party and feel like that, so I-" You gestured at nothing. At the cup. At yourself.

"So you drank a stranger's leftovers."

"I don't know whose cup it was."

"Yeah, that's the part I'm stuck on." Dean pushed off the wall and grabbed the desk chair, set it down in front of you, and sat in it backwards, arms folded over the top, looking up at you with an expression that was not quite his usual one. "Sit down before you fall down."

"I'm not going to fall-"

"You're leaning."

You looked down. You were, in fact, leaning slightly. You sat on the edge of his bed.

Dean watched you with the particular patience of someone who had decided they weren't going anywhere.

"She's not-" You exhaled, stared at your hands. "She's not some villain. She just said the thing I've already been thinking. And I couldn't-" Your throat tightened. "I couldn't stand there and keep smiling, so I thought if I just-"

"Drank enough that it blurred out?"

"I wasn't going to phrase it like that."

"But yeah?"

A beat.

"Yeah," you said, very quietly.

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. Looked at the ceiling. Then back at you, and something in his face shifted into something more serious, more deliberate, the version of him he mostly kept underneath all the noise he usually made.

"Can I tell you something without you getting weird about it?"

You made a helpless gesture.

"Garrett talked about you at practice last week," he said. "Full cringe, by the way, I'm doing you a public service by telling you this. Tucker asked how you were doing - just like, making conversation - and Garrett stopped mid-drill to answer. Like, stopped skating. Coach blew the whistle. Garrett didn't even flinch, just full-on answeredTucker like they were at brunch." He paused. "It was genuinely awful. The guys made fun of him for four days."

You stared at him.

"He said - and I am going to say this exactly once and then never again - that being with you was the first time in his life that coming home from a game felt better than the game itself." Dean's expression was the one people made when they'd eaten something sour. "Verbatim. He said that. To the whole team. In the locker room. While wearing his pads."

Your eyes were burning again, for a completely different reason.

"He talks about you like-" Dean exhaled through his nose. "Look, I've lived with that guy for three years. I have never, not once, seen him like this. And I mean the whole team. We all, okay, this is going to sound really weird-"

"Just say it."

"We all kind of think of you as ours too. Like, you're around all the time, and you're funny, and you ate nachos with us during the game and didn't complain about the TV volume once-" A pause. "That matters more than you think."

A noise came out of you that was almost a laugh. Wasn't quite.

"Kendall doesn't know what she's talking about," Dean said, and his voice had gone flat again. "She's not a bad person, she's just... she wanted something she didn't get, and that makes people say stupid things. It doesn't make the stupid things true."

Your eyes burned. You pressed the heel of your hand against one of them, hard, like you could physically hold it back, and for a second you almost managed it. Then your breath hitched and you didn't.

You hated it. You hated this, you hated that you were sitting in Dean Di Laurentis' room at your boyfriend's party with someone else's alcohol in your bloodstream, falling apart. This was not you. This was so profoundly, embarrassingly not you - and yet here you were, doing it anyway.

"I hate this," you said, rough.

"The crying or the drinking?"

"Both." You dragged your wrist across your face. "I don't do this. Either of this. I keep it together, and I've been keeping it together for weeks, and then one person says one thing and I'm-" You gestured at yourself. At the whole situation. The cup on his dresser. Your face. "This."

"You can't hold it together forever and then wonder why it comes out somewhere inconvenient." Dean's voice was even. "That's not strength. That's just pressure building."

You looked at him.

"Real talk," he said. "You've been running on empty, you've been pretending you're fine, and tonight cracked it open. And instead of letting yourself feel it, you drank half a mystery cup and were about to walk home alone in the cold." He raised an eyebrow. "Which we are going to circle back to."

"I wasn't going to walk home."

"You were absolutely going to walk home."

You didn't answer.

"Also," he said, and the sarcasm slid back in like he genuinely couldn't help it, "if you tell anyone I said any of this, I will deny it completely. I have a reputation and I'd like to keep it."

A sound came out of you that was almost a laugh. Wasn't quite. But almost.

"Drink some water," he said, standing, already moving to the mini fridge in the corner. He tossed you a bottle without looking. "And hey-"

You looked up.

"He's been looking for you for twenty minutes. Downstairs, increasingly frantic. You should talk to him."

You found Garrett's room because it was the only one with the light on.

The door was cracked. You pushed it open and stood in the doorway for a second, holding onto the frame slightly. The water Dean had given you was helping. A little. The edges of things were still slightly wrong.

You made it to the bed. Sat down. Put your face in your hands.

You heard him on the stairs before the door opened - that particular weight and rhythm, two at a time the way he always took them. And then Garrett was there, filling the doorway, and he stopped.

Just for a second.

Long enough for you to see it, the relief flooding in so fast it almost looked like something else. And underneath it, the residue of the twenty minutes before. He'd been worried. Not panicked, not Garrett, but worried. You could see it in the set of his jaw, the way he exhaled.

Then his eyes moved over you and his expression shifted into something different.

"Hey," he said carefully. "How much did you drink?"

You laughed, and it came out wrong. "Dean already asked me that."

"Dean texted me that you'd had a lot and that you were upset and to be..." he paused, "gentle. His word."

"Dean used the word gentle?"

"I was also surprised." He crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of you, and it was such a Garrett thing to do - not sitting beside you, not keeping distance, just immediately down to your level, hands finding yours - that your throat tightened all over again. "Look at me."

You did.

He looked back, and he didn't rush it. Just looked at you the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention. His thumb rubbed circles on your knuckles.

"I'm okay," you said. Force of habit.

"I know you're not." Not a judgment, just a fact. "Talk to me."

Your jaw worked. "I don't want to..." The words snagged. "I don't want to be something you have to manage, Garrett."

He went very still.

"I heard something tonight." Your voice came out thinner than you wanted, and you couldn't tell anymore how much of it was the alcohol and how much was just you: exhausted, hollowed out, finally out of room to hold it. "Someone saying I was... that I'm a lot right now. That you're running yourself into the ground for me, and you don't have time for someone like..." You stopped. "I've been thinking it for weeks. She just said it out loud."

"Who."

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"Garrett." You shook your head, and the room moved slightly with it. "That's not the point. The point is that I believed it. That I heard it and something in me just - yes, obviously, correct. And I hated that. So instead of finding you and telling you I was upset like a normal person, I-" You gestured vaguely at yourself. At the state of you. "This."

He looked at you for a long moment.

"You've been carrying this for weeks," he said. Not a question.

"I didn't want to make it your problem."

Something crossed his face. "You are not a problem."

"You have scouts. You have finals. You've been coming to my dorm every other day with food I didn't ask for-"

"Because I wanted to."

"-and I keep letting you, and I feel like I'm taking something, like I'm-"

"Stop." His hands tightened around yours. "Listen to me. I come over because I want to be there. I text you because I want to know how you are. That's not- it's not labor, it's not obligation, it's not me managing anything. It's me." He exhaled slowly. "You're it for me. You know that."

"You can't just say that."

"I say it constantly. The guys are sick of hearing it."

"Dean told me about the locker room thing."

"Of course he did." No heat in it. Just resignation, and something softer underneath. "It was embarrassing. I meant every word."

You looked at him, and your eyes were burning again, and this time you let them. You were too tired and too drunk and too emptied out to hold that back too.

Garrett rose off his knees and sat beside you on the bed and pulled you into him without any hesitation.

You leaned.

That was the hardest part, always. The leaning. Letting someone else take some of the weight.

You were so tired of holding yourself upright.

"You're not too much," he said, into your hair. "You have never been too much."

You didn't answer.

"I mean it."

"I know you do," you said, very quietly.

He held you tighter. The party carried on below, muffled and oblivious, bass thumping through the floor, and up here it was just this. His arms. The familiar smell of him. The particular exhaustion of something finally, finally spilling over after being held too long.

You didn't feel better.

Not exactly. Not the way you'd maybe hoped. The shame of the drinking wasn't gone - that would probably be worse in the morning, honestly.

But Garrett didn't let go.

He kept one hand moving, slow and steady, through your hair, the way he did when you were half-asleep and he thought you weren't noticing. Like this was something he wanted to do. Like you were something worth being careful with.

You didn't know how to explain what that did to you.

You weren't sure you had to. At least not tonight. Not to Garrett.

Tonight, you closed your eyes and let him hold you, and tried to remember how to just be here. Without managing, without performing.

He was on the couch in the far corner, one long leg stretched out, the other bent, beer bottle loose in one hand, shoulders relaxed beneath a faded Briar Hockey hoodie because he had a game tomorrow and one beer was the tragic little line between responsible captain and washed-up campus cautionary tale. 

His hair was still damp from whatever shower he’d taken after practice, curls drying messy over his forehead, and he had that clean, warm, unfair look on his face that made girls drift toward him like someone had put out a bowl of candy.

One of them had drifted. She was perched on the arm of the couch beside him, angled in with her knees turned toward him, laughing at something Garrett said like he’d invented humour personally for her benefit. 

She had glossy hair and a tiny top and the kind of pretty, easy confidence that came from never having to wonder if people wanted you in a room. Her hand landed on Garrett’s arm once, light and quick. Then again, longer this time, fingers curling around his bicep like she was testing the merchandise.

The red cup crinkled slightly in her hand.

Garrett laughed. A low huff through his nose, mouth tilting, eyes dropping briefly before coming back up. It was the kind of laugh that looked private from across the room even if it wasn’t. The kind of laugh that made something hot and awful crawl up the back of her neck and settle behind her ears.

She took one sip from her cup and tasted nothing but melted ice and bad decisions.

“Careful, Kitty,” Dean said beside her. “Clench your jaw any harder and you’ll crack a tooth.”

She didn’t look at him. “Don’t call me that.”

Dean hummed into the rim of his beer. He’d appeared at her side sometime in the last five minutes, because rich boys had stealth settings when there was drama nearby. 

He wore a white t-shirt that probably cost more than her whole outfit and looked entirely too comfortable watching her quietly consider homicide. “It’s a cute nickname.”

“It’s not my name.”

“Yeah, but nicknames usually aren’t.”

She finally turned her head just enough to glare at him. Dean looked delighted, which made her want to shove him and also, unfortunately, made her feel a little less insane. 

He had that big, bright, nosy expression on his face, the one that said he had absolutely no intention of helping and every intention of narrating the crash if she drove herself into a wall.

“Mm,” she said flatly. “Whatever.”

Dean followed her gaze back to the couch. The girl was laughing again, leaning so far into Garrett’s space that her hair brushed his shoulder.

Garrett didn’t move away. He didn’t lean in either, which was probably supposed to mean something mature and rational, except her body was not currently accepting evidence from the defence. 

Her stomach had gone tight. Her tongue sat sharp behind her teeth. Every inch of her skin felt stupidly aware of how many times Garrett’s hands had been on her that week alone.

His fingers on the back of her neck while he kissed her in the kitchen. His mouth against her ear upstairs. His hoodie shoved into her arms when she’d complained about being cold, like he hadn’t cared, like he hadn’t watched her pull it on and then gone a little quiet around the eyes.

Casual. That was the word he liked so much.

Casual, apparently, meant making space for her at the counter without being asked. It meant texting her u up? and then getting pissy when she said no because she had an early class. 

It meant his hand sliding under the back of her shirt while they watched a movie with the guys and him acting like that was somehow normal. It meant his mouth on her throat and his stupid voice saying baby like he’d been born knowing it would make her softer, then turning around two days later and saying, very calmly, very publicly, that they weren’t dating.

Which was true. Technically.

Unfortunately, technically did not stop her from wanting to throw her drink at the girl’s stupid shiny little head.

Dean’s shoulder bumped hers, barely. “You could go over there.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Bite her?”

She gave him a look.

“What?” Dean said, lifting both hands. “I’m workshopping.”

“I’m not jealous.”

Dean blinked at her. Then he looked back at Garrett, then at her again, slow and theatrical. “Oh, okay.”

“I’m not.”

“Right.”

“I just think it’s tacky.”

“Her?”

“Both of them.”

Dean nodded, deeply solemn. “Of course. This is an etiquette issue.”

“It is.”

“Very Miss Manners of you.”

She made a soft, mean little sound and looked away, because if she kept watching him smile at that girl, something was going to snap clean through her. The party kept moving around her like nobody else could feel the pressure building in the walls. 

Logan was somewhere near the dining room yelling, “No, no, house rules, you drink on a bounce,” like he was presiding over the Supreme Court. 

Tucker walked past with a plate of burnt pizza rolls and paused just long enough to assess her face, then Dean’s face, then Garrett’s corner of the couch.

“Oh,” Tucker said.

Dean nodded. “Yeah.”

Tucker looked back at her, kind but not soft enough to be annoying. “You good?”

“I’m amazing,” she said.

Tucker’s mouth twitched. “That sounded convincing.”

“I’m having the best night of my life,” she snapped. 

“Cool.” Tucker took one pizza roll off the plate, bit into it, immediately regretted it, and still swallowed because he was committed to dignity. “Just checking.”

She watched him go, jaw working.

Dean leaned closer, lowering his voice. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s doing anything.”

That made something in her chest pull tight, because Dean wasn’t joking now, and that was worse. She could handle him being an idiot. She had built up a tolerance to Dean’s particular strain of idiocy. But concern made the whole thing embarrassing in a way she could feel under her skin.

She kept her eyes on the opposite wall. “He can do whatever he wants.”

“Sure.”

“He’s single.”

He shrugged, lips turning down. “Technically.”

She turned on him. “Don’t do that.”

Dean’s brows lifted. “Do what?”

“That little voice.”

“My voice is beautiful.”

“The thing where you all act like I’m his girlfriend when he’s the one walking around with a public service announcement that I’m not.”

Dean’s face shifted, amusement easing out at the corners. He looked over at Garrett again, and she hated how much she wanted him to tell her she was wrong. 

How much she wanted anyone to say Garrett was just being stupid, that everybody could see it, that she wasn’t standing there making herself sick over a guy who would go upstairs with someone else while she was still in the room.

Dean took a slow drink. “Yeah,” he said finally. “He’s an idiot.”

“That wasn’t helpful.”

“Wasn’t trying to be helpful. Just accurate.”

Across the room, Garrett stood, and the girl stood too.

For one second the party muffled itself around her, all the music and laughter and clattering cups dulling under the sudden hard rush of blood in her ears. 

Garrett said something to the girl, head tipped down so she could hear him over the noise. The girl smiled up at him, bright and satisfied, then touched his arm again. A small stroke of her thumb over the sleeve of his hoodie.

Her stomach dropped so sharply it almost felt physical, like missing a step in the dark.

Garrett started toward the stairs and the girl followed.

“Oh,” Dean said under his breath, and there was no humour in it this time.

She didn’t move at first. Her hand was still wrapped around the cup. Her mouth felt dry. The room had tilted a little, or maybe she had. She could see Garrett clearly as he cut through the living room, tall and easy and completely unaware that she was standing there with something vicious crawling around inside her ribs. 

Or maybe he did know. Maybe that was worse. Maybe he knew exactly where she was and had still decided to walk past her with another girl trailing after him toward the stairs that led to his room.

Casual. Cool. Fine.

She lifted her cup to her mouth and realised it was empty.

Garrett noticed her when he was close enough that it was too late to pretend she hadn’t seen. His gaze flicked from her face to Dean, then back again, and something changed in his expression. Confusion first. A little crease between his brows, mouth settling, shoulders still loose but no longer careless.

The girl came up beside him, close enough that her arm brushed his. Garrett looked at her, nodded toward the stairs, and said, “I’ll meet you up there.”

She nodded, smiling, then slipped around him and went upstairs.

Dean made a noise into his beer that sounded like a man trying very hard not to choke on stupidity.

Garrett watched the girl disappear, then turned back. “What’s wrong?”

Dean coughed. “Brother.”

Garrett’s eyes cut to him. “What?”

Dean shook his head and took one step back. “Nothing. I just love when you’re dumb.”

Garrett ignored him, attention coming back to her. “What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him. He was close now. Close enough that she could see the little damp curls around his hairline, the faint bruise yellowing near his jaw from last weekend’s game, the stupid dark sweep of his lashes when he blinked down at her like she was the one being difficult. 

Like he hadn’t just sent another girl upstairs to wait in his room. Like her body wasn’t reacting to the whole thing with an ugly, nauseous twist that made her want to either laugh in his face or claw her way out of her own skin.

“What’s wrong?” she repeated.

Garrett’s brows drew tighter. “Yeah.”

She smiled. It didn’t feel nice on her face. “Don’t be stupid.”

His jaw shifted. “Okay. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dean took another tiny step away, then immediately stopped because his survival instinct was at war with his need to witness the entire thing.

She set her empty cup on the nearest bookshelf with such careful precision that Garrett’s eyes followed the movement. Then she looked back at him and kept her voice light. Sweet, almost. “If you fuck her, you’re never touching me again.”

Garrett blinked. Dean inhaled so sharply he almost whistled. 

For a second, no one said anything. Someone screamed with laughter in the kitchen. A bass-heavy song rattled through the floorboards. 

Garrett’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “What?”

She tipped her head, widening her eyes in a cruel little imitation of him. “What?”

His face hardened by degrees. That familiar Garrett switch where something got too close to an exposed nerve and he decided arrogance was quicker than honesty. “We’re not dating.”

Dean made a strangled sound. “Oh, man.”

Garrett pointed at him without looking away from her. “Stay out of it.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Dean said, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m incapable. You don’t fuck someone else in front of her, dude.”

Garrett glared at him. “I said stay out of it.”

She laughed once, sharp enough to make Garrett’s eyes snap back to hers. “No, no. Let him talk. He’s making sense for once.”

Dean pressed a hand to his chest. “That felt backhanded, but I’ll take it.”

Garrett’s nostrils flared slightly. “I wasn’t–” He cut himself off, dragging a hand over his mouth, then looked down at her again. “You don’t get to make rules for me.”

That landed worse than she wanted it to, because every part of this was built on nothing solid enough to hold. No title. No promise. No soft, stupid conversation in daylight where either of them admitted what they were doing. 

She kept smiling anyway.

“I’m not making any rules.” Her voice was calm enough that even Dean looked at her twice. “You can do whatever you want, Garrett. I’m not your girlfriend. You’ve made that incredibly fucking clear. So go upstairs. Have fun. I’m not going to tackle her in the hallway.”

His face flickered. Just once.

She stepped in a fraction closer, because if she stopped now, she might actually start shaking, and she would rather die in the hallway with Dean watching than give Garrett that. 

She tipped her chin up, all teeth around the edges of her smile. “But it’s simple, baby. Stick your dick in her, and you never get to stick it in me ever again. Okay?”

Dean stared at the ceiling like he had just seen God. Garrett went very still.

His eyes dropped to her mouth, then came back up. His hand tightened around the neck of his beer bottle. For all his cocky, golden-boy bullshit, for all the easy girls and easy smiles and campus-wide Garrett Graham mythos, he looked briefly like she’d shoved him hard enough to make him feel where the edge was.

“Okay,” he said. It came out low.

She blinked. “Okay?”

His jaw worked once. “Yeah. Okay.”

Dean’s head whipped toward him. “Wow. Love personal growth.”

Garrett shot him a look that should have melted paint off the wall. “Dean.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Dean lifted both hands and backed up another step, but not before looking at her with open admiration. “For the record, Kitty, that was terrifying.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yeah, no, for sure.” He nodded, still backing away. “Very scary. Loved it.”

He disappeared toward the kitchen, probably to tell Logan and Tucker immediately.

Garrett looked at her for another second, then glanced toward the stairs. Something in her body tightened again, bracing. Waiting for him to go up anyway. Waiting for him to prove the whole thing meant less to him than it did to her.

Instead, he turned and shoved his beer onto the bookshelf beside her cup. “Stay here.”

Her laugh came out before she could stop it. “Excuse me?”

“Just–” Garrett stopped, visibly swallowed the first version of whatever he wanted to say, and tried again. “Don’t leave.”

It was a little rough around the edges, a little too quick, like the thought of her walking out had gotten under his skin before he could pretend otherwise.

She crossed her arms. “Why?”

Garrett looked at her like she was exhausting, which might have been more effective if he hadn’t just made a girl wait in his room and then told the girl he wasn’t dating not to leave. “Because I’m going upstairs to tell her to go.”

She hated how much that loosened something in her chest. She crossed her arms tighter, because if she didn’t, she might do something embarrassing, like believe him too quickly. “Fine.”

Garrett’s eyes stayed on hers. “Fine?”

“Go.”

He nodded once, then hesitated, hand flexing at his side like he wanted to touch her and knew better. “She’s leaving,” he said.

“She better.”

His mouth twitched despite everything. “Yeah, Kitty.”

“Don’t call me that.”

But this time, she didn’t sound nearly mean enough.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was enough.

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

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

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

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

“Logan.”

Nothing.

“Baby—”

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

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

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

“You don’t have to be,” you murmured.

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

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

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

“You’re sober?” He asked.

“Mhm.”

“You’re sure?”

“100%. Are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You gulped.

+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” you confirmed.

“Was it expensive?” He asked.

“Not…really…”

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

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

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

You nodded without thinking. “Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Logan, please…”

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

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

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

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

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

That had your hole clenching around nothing.

“Got that?” He asked.

You nodded right away, “Mhm.”

“Words,” he demanded.

“Yes. Got it.” You responded quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He held the small foil up in his fingers.

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

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

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

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

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

“Tease,” he muttered and you grinned.

“Thought you wanted a show,” you remarked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He scoffed. “I wasn’t jealous.”

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

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

You smiled, “I am.”

“I know you are.”

He raised an amused brow, “Chocolate?”

You nodded, sipping your beer. “Chocolate.” You confirmed, then pointed across the room to where Kendall was busy making out with one of the hockey players. “She’s vanilla. We’re chocolate and vanilla swirl.”

The football player nodded in understanding. “Ah. I see,” he said before looking over at Kendall. “Though vanilla isn’t very vanilla.”

You laughed at his witty joke, both of you watching Kendall as she did a body shot off of the hockey player she was kissing two seconds ago. She was dressed in the same tube top and bubble skirt set you were wearing, complete with the knee-high boots and matching headpiece; hers a whipped white color, yours a cocoa brown.

From the other side of the room, Tucker and Logan were talking when the former spotted you chatting with the tall football player.

Tucker nudged Logan, “Yo, is that your girl?”

Logan followed his line of sight and it landed on you, leaning against the kitchen counter and speaking to the good-looking stranger with an easy smile on your lips.

Logan looked away and gulped down his beverage. “She’s a big girl.”

Logan wasn’t one of those insecure, pompous boyfriends. He didn’t do jealousy. He’s convinced jealousy was invented by a short dick man with an easily bruised ego. Logan was secure enough in his relationship with you to never have any reason to feel jealous.

You turned to the jock and gave his costume a once-over. Knitting your brows together, you racked your brain’s storage full of pop culture references and iconic fictional characters.

“Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name?” You tried.

He let out a huff of laughter, “Close. I’m Luca from the Disney-Pixar movie.”

“Ahh,” you nodded. “Practically the same.”

He flashed a charming smile, dragging a sip from his bottle. He extended his hand to you, “James.”

You shook his hand and told him your name.

“Pretty name,” he responded. “Though…” he leaned in closer, “…cupcake fits better, don’t you think?”

Ah. At that, you picked up that he was attempting to flirt with you. Forever loyal to your boyfriend, you opened your mouth to turn his advances down. But before you could, you felt an arm wrap around your waist from behind and find purchase on your hipbone. You knew who it was without even looking.

“Hey, got you a refill,” Logan said, taking the half empty can from your hands and replacing it with a new one.

“Thanks,” you said. As your hand moved to pop the can open, Logan’s deft fingers beat you to it and he cracked the tab for you.

The football player, James, eyed the two of you, biting his lip whilst reconfiguring his whole plan. “You’re both…?”

“Air signs,” Logan teasingly remarked with a straight face, casually drinking from his red solo cup. You elbowed him with a small smirk.

“No,” James shook his head. “I mean—”

“Together,” Logan told him, putting his now empty plastic cup down on the counter. His newly freed hand joined the other by holding onto your other hip and giving it a squeeze.

James nodded to himself. “Got it.” And away he went. Probably off to find his Alberto.

Logan’s eyes followed his retreating figure, not easing up until he was out of sight. Only then did he drop his hands off your body.

You turned around and looked up at your boyfriend with a wide smile. “What was that?”

“What was what?” He returned, pouring himself a new drink.

“That whole thing,” you responded.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” You repeated.

Logan shrugged. “A normal interaction, no?”

“He was flirting with me before that.”

“Oh so you’re aware.”

Your expression dropped. Oh, is that why—

“Logan.”

“Hm.”

“Logan.”

“Hm?”

You tilted his face down to look at him. “I wasn’t going to entertain it.”

“I know,” he replied.

“I was going to shut it down right before you showed up.”

“I know.”

“I want to make sure you know that.”

“And I know that.”

You squinted your eyes. This was suspiciously too easy. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

You stared at one another for a beat longer than necessary.

“You’re still upset,” you observed.

“I’m not upset,” he answered.

“So what are you feeling?” You asked.

“I don’t like how he called you cupcake,” Logan told you.

“Me neither. Not when I’m so clearly chocolate.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

“Y/n.”

You sighed softly, “Okay, sorry. I thought humor would make it better.”

Your fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck, hoping to relieve some of his tension. It worked. A little.

“It was a shitty pickup line,” you said. “Wouldn’t work on me even if I was single.”

“I hope so.”

“Oh, please, Logan. Take me out the back and shoot me if you ever see me falling for that,” you commented. He let out a small laugh. That’s progress

His hands returned to your hips and he pulled you closer. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. His large hands rested just above your ass.

“What if I called you that?” Logan said lowly.

“Wanna give it a try?” You offered.

He leaned in, his lips hovering right by your ear. You could feel his warm breath fanning over your sensitive flesh. “Would you be into that, cupcake?” He whispered, ending it with a gentle nibble on your earlobe.

You shivered, feeling goosebumps crawl over your skin. “Fuck, I guess you have to take me out back with a gun, Logan.”

He pulled back with a hearty chuckle. You gave a matching smile and he held your face, brushing his thumb across your cheekbone.

As he looked at you, his face turned thoughtful for a moment. You squeezed his hand reassuringly.

He leaned in again. “I didn’t like how he looked at you.”

“How’d he look at me?” You wondered.

“Like how I look at you.”

You stared up at him, biting your lip. “And how do you look at me?” You whispered.

He brought his forehead against yours, gazing deep into your eyes. “Like I want you.”

Oh screw your sexy boyfriend and his even sexier responses. And that’s exactly what you wanted to do now—if only you weren’t in the middle of Beau and Dean’s birthday bash.

You had enough of this game. You raised yourself up and pressed your lips to his. Logan was hungry; he seemed to devour your kiss, swallowing every soft sound you made. His hand strayed down to grip your ass, the other held your waist comfortably. His tongue was already begging to enter your mouth, and you obliged without hesitation.

When you pulled away several moments later, Logan chased your lips with eagerness, gently biting your bottom lip as you separated.

“Mine,” he breathed out under his breath.

You bared a dazed smile, “I only want you.” You mouthed silently.

Logan let out a soft sound of amusement, nodding more to himself than to you. Satisfied and high off your impromptu makeout session, he pressed one last kiss to your forehead before rejoining his friends, this time with a protective hand on the small of your back.

Logan’s older brother Jeff was leaning against the workshop desk and sipping on a can of Coke when he saw you strut in. He sighed, “Here comes Lottie.”

The nickname was a running joke between the brothers. Jeff had muttered it under his breath when you first visited the shop and asked a question about diesel gas. He took one look at you and knew you were a clueless, rich girl who shouldn’t be visiting garages such as theirs.

Logan hadn’t entertained the nickname so much. He thought it was unnecessarily mean. Besides, Lottie was always a sweetheart in Princess and the Frog.

Jeff turned on his heels and disappeared into the garage’s office, leaving Logan to deal with you on his own.

Logan put down a spare part he was working on and turned around, leaning back against the counter.

You waved excitedly with a cheerful grin. “Hi, Logan!”

He smiled politely, “Hey…”

“Did you save my girl?” You asked, batting your lashes.

Logan nodded, “She’s all fixed up for you,” he said, walking over to the wall of car keys hung on hooks to retrieve yours.

You clapped your hands, “Yay!”

He chuckled whilst shaking his head. You got happy over the simplest of things. He thought it was endearing.

You walked over to your car. Nebula, as you called her. A fitting name for a sleek, black convertible with dark purple leather upholstery and shiny silver rims.

Logan came over and handed you your keys. “You wanna try her out?”

You nodded and unlocked your car before opening the driver’s side door. No beeping. Perfect.

You beamed at Logan. “You did it!”

He smiled with an easy laugh, feeling proud of his work. In reality, your car issue was a minor one; the door sensor just needed a replacement. Nothing about it required a lick of rocket science, and yet you looked at him as if he hung the stars in your galaxy.

You put your designer bag into your car and bent over to fish out your wallet. Logan stared at your body for a second before he caught himself, clearing his throat and looking away respectfully.

You stood up straight, holding your leather wallet between both hands, looking at him with a doe-eyed expression.

He scratched the back of his neck and gestured for you to follow him to the counter. The gritty sounds of his boots crunching the gravel below and the rhythmic click click click of your heels echoed through the garage.

Logan went around the counter and pulled out a receipt and wrote down the service you needed with the price. He slid the piece of paper to you but you just kept looking at his face with a smile. He blinked before realizing you didn’t care for the price. Right, he thought. Rich girls don’t worry about those things.

“Cash or card?” He asked.

You held up your metal black credit card.

Logan pursed his lips and nodded as he pulled out a card reader. You tapped your card without even glancing at the screen and clapped your hands when the machine beeped in satisfaction.

“Thank you, Logan,” you told him kindly.

He shrugged politely, “It’s no problem.”

You smiled at him. He returned it, “Do you want your recei—“

Before he could even hand you your proof of service, you were walking back to your car. He nodded to himself and stuffed the receipt into the cash register.

He watched as you exited the garage, waving at him enthusiastically as you drove by. He gave a small wave back.

+

A week later, your BMW pulled into the garage whilst Logan was working under a car.

He didn’t hear the sound of your heels this time as he had headphones in, blasting a classic rock song. He felt a shadow looming nearby so he turned and saw your heels appear. He paused and rolled out from under the car, meeting the sight of your broad smile peering down at him.

“Hi, Logan!”

“Hey…” He sounded confused. His eyebrows furrowed and he glanced around, “Didn’t you pick up your car last week?”

You nodded. “Yep. But my AC is broken now…” You pouted.

Hm, Logan thought. He sat up, “Oh, I didn’t see that when I did the diagnostic last week—“

“Must be a new issue, then. These foreign cars are all funny,” you replied, tilting your head.

He cleaned his hands with a rag before standing up. He had oil stains on his shirt and just a little smudge on his face. You thought he looked so ruggedly handsome.

“Let me take a look,” he said and you stepped out the way for him to crank open your hood and inspect the situation.

As he got to work, you leaned against your car and watched. After a moment, you asked, “How was your weekend?”

People don’t usually talk to Logan when he repairs their cars. Especially not pretty, rich girls like you.

“It was good, played hockey, worked here in the shop,” he responded casually.

You nodded along even though he couldn’t see you.

“Did you win?” You asked.

He laughed, an amused sound. “Yeah…yeah, we won.”

You clapped your hands, “Yay!”

Logan laughed again. It was cute, he thought, how you always clapped at good news.

“You like hockey?” He asked, looking over your hood to meet your eyes.

You hummed, “I only recently got into it. My family prefers watching polo, golf, or tennis.”

Rich people sports, he wanted to say. That made sense.

“Recently, huh?” He said instead, ducking his head to keep working. “Who should I thank for putting you onto hockey?” He joked.

You smiled shyly and said, “You…”

His hand paused. The parts of your car suddenly looking like alphabet soup moving in jumbled letters. He lifted his head to meet your gaze again. But before he could manage a reply, you changed the subject. “Is it broken beyond repair?” You asked, turning your attention to your car parts.

He snapped out of his daze and shook his head. “Uhh, no. No, you just need AC coolant.”

“Is that an easy fix?” You asked.

He nodded, “Yeah, the easiest.” He said.

You smiled in relief. “Thank goodness I have you fixing my car,” you told him.

He smiled at that.

He fixed your car, you chirped out a “Thank you, Logan!”, you paid without looking at the bill, and waved goodbye as you left.

“That the BMW girl again?” Logan’s dad asked as he stepped out the office.

“Yeah,” Logan replied, wiping his hands.

“Lottie back again so soon?” Jeff teased. Logan rolled his eyes at the jab.

“You overcharge her?” His dad asked.

Logan looked at him, “Why would I do that?”

His dad shrugged, “Luxurious car fee?”

Logan squinted his eyes, “We don’t do that.”

Jeff piped in, “We could. She doesn’t even check her receipts.”

Logan looked between his dad and brother, “So what? We charge her fair and square.”

His dad shared a looked with Jeff before he went back inside the office.

+

Week after week, you came by to the garage. First it was an oil change, then a rim replacement, then a loose window ribbon, then a tire with low air, and so on.

By week 7, Logan had had enough. It’s not that he didn’t like seeing you, no. Far from it. He actually enjoyed your company. He often looked forward to when you’d come by and say Hi, Logan! in that sing-song voice of yours, your joyful smile, and innocent questions.

But now he was noticing a pattern.

So when you rolled in that Thursday night like clockwork, he didn’t go up to you. He stayed by the workshop desk and watched you with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hi, Logan!” You beamed with a gleeful wave.

But upon meeting his stern expression, your smile faltered and your hand slowly dropped back to your side. You looked around the empty garage before walking over to him in hesitant steps. The sound of your heels filled the space between the two of you. You stopped in front of him and flattened down your skirt, a nervous tic of yours that you never noticed before.

“Y/n,” he said, his tone serious. “This is the seventh time you’ve come to the garage.”

You nodded, “Nebula keeps acting up—“

“No, she doesn’t.”

You looked at your feet. No smile, no lively clapping.

His arms uncrossed and he stepped closer. He wasn’t angry. No, it wasn’t that. Logan isn’t an idiot. He knew. He knew you had a crush on him, knew the only reason you showed up time and time again was just to spend time with him. Why else would you come? He knew families like yours had their own repairmen at fancy dealerships who could fix any problem. You didn’t need to come into his family’s garage.

Yet, you did.

Logan figured it out by week 4. But truth be told, he never mentioned it because a part of him liked being around you too. He liked hearing your upbeat voice, the familiar tap of your heels, the sound of your laugh. So he stayed quiet, he fixed your tires, and refilled your car’s oil. He went along with it. Because he liked your company just as much as you liked his.

Unable to lie to him, you lifted your head and met his eyes. “I did those things to my car on purpose.” You confessed quietly.

Logan blinked. His stance eased at your admission and he looked at you with soft eyes.

“I watched a YouTube video on how to drain AC coolant,” you added. “And drove around until my tires lost some of its pressure, and—”

“Y/n,” he held your chin with his hand. “You didn’t have to do all that to see me.”

Your eyes widened as you stared at him. He smiled gently, “I…like seeing you. With or without Nebula.”

“You do?” You asked.

He nodded, “I do.”

He leaned in slowly, giving you the chance to pull away. But you stayed. His lips met yours in a gentle kiss. Not hungry or desperate, just a soft sealing; a mutual understanding—I like you and you like me.

When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours. You looked at him with a honeyed, dazed expression. He smiled down at you and pecked your lips once more. You weren’t a spoiled, rich girl to him. Not clueless or ditzy. You were just…you. A sweetheart with a crush on a cute guy who would do anything to see him. You were Lottie.

He glanced behind you at your car. He pulled away with a reluctant sigh, “What did you do to her this time?”

You smiled sheepishly, “I jammed my gearshift…”

He chuckled softly, both amused and fondly exasperated by you. “Okay…let me take a look.” He said, lacing his hand with yours and bringing it up to his lips to press a kiss.

You'd been pretending to watch the movie for at least fifteen minutes.

Dean had been doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn't staring at you for just as long.

It was a terrible performance on both sides, especially considering the laptop was still playing some action movie at the end of his bed, and neither of you could've named one thing that'd happened in the last ten minutes. You were tucked under his sheets in one of his old Briar shirts, the hem brushing soft against your thighs because your underwear was the only thing you'd bothered putting on after your shower, and Dean was lying beside you with one hand behind his head and the other low on your hip like he was trying very hard to act like a gentleman.

He was trying to behave, which was sweet, really, but not exactly successful.

"You're staring again," you murmured, not even bothering to look away from the screen.

Dean's thumb moved in a slow circle over your hip. "You're in my bed wearing my shirt. You can't really blame me."

"You gave it to me," you pointed out, like that was supposed to make him less smug about it.

"I know." Dean's mouth curved like he'd been waiting for you to say exactly that. "Great decision, honestly."

You rolled your eyes, but the smile breaking through kind of ruined the effect. "You're impossible."

"Yeah." Dean leaned in, his lips brushing your shoulder through the fabric of his shirt. "But you like me anyway."

"Sometimes," you said, though your smile made it sound a lot less convincing.

"Right now?" he asked, his voice dropping just enough to make your stomach flip.

You turned your head to answer, which was apparently all the invitation Dean needed, because then he was kissing you, slow and warm, one hand sliding up your side beneath the fabric like he'd planned the whole thing. It was easy to melt into Dean like that, a lot easier than you'd ever admit out loud. Dean kissed you like he knew exactly how much time he had, which apparently meant he had no problem spending it dragging every little sound out of you to see how much trouble it got him into.

His fingers slipped beneath the hem of the shirt, warm against your waist in a way that shouldn't have made you gasp as quickly as it did.

Dean smiled against your mouth, entirely too pleased with himself. "There she is."

"Don't start."

"I didn't even say anything."

"You were about to, and we both know it."

He laughed, low and entirely too pleased with himself, before rolling onto his back and tugging you over him like he already knew you'd follow. And you did, because apparently thinking was no longer part of the plan, one knee sliding across his hips until you were straddling his lap.

Then you froze beneath his hands, and Dean felt the change in you immediately.

His hands settled on your waist, thumbs brushing over your sides in a way that was soft enough to make your chest ache a little. "Hey."

You swallowed, suddenly very aware of the fact that you were in his lap with your thighs spread around his hips, his hard length pressing up beneath his sweatpants, and somehow his shirt still covering you didn't make you feel any less exposed.

"This feels like a lot of responsibility," you said, aiming for a joke and landing somewhere embarrassingly close to panic.

Dean's brow lifted like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or be concerned. "Responsibility?"

"I just..." You looked down, your fingers curling into the front of his shirt like that'd somehow make the words easier to get out. "I've never really done this before."

His expression softened, though that amused little spark in his eyes didn't go anywhere. "Been on top?"

Your cheeks warmed, which was annoying because Dean absolutely noticed. "Not really."

"Not really?" Dean repeated, thumbs still brushing over your waist like he was trying very hard not to look too pleased about that.

"Dean," you said, dragging his name out like a warning, even though the warmth in your cheeks made it pretty hard to sound threatening.

He smiled a little, his hands giving your hips a gentle squeeze like he'd decided to behave for once. "Okay. Not really."

"It's not a big deal," you said quickly, which was unfortunate because saying it that fast made it sound like it was definitely a big deal. "I just feel like I'd look stupid, or I wouldn't know what I was doing, and then you'd have to pretend it was hot, which is a very nice boyfriend thing to do, but also something I'd never emotionally recover from."

Dean stared at you for a beat, then laughed in this soft, disbelieving way that only made your face feel warmer. "Baby, I'm hard because you're sitting on my lap in my shirt. You could sneeze right now, and I'd find a way to be into it."

You blinked because, annoyingly enough, it had worked. "That was weirdly comforting."

"I'm great at comfort."

"You're absolutely not."

"I am when you're half-naked on top of me."

You tried to bite back a laugh, but it came out as this breathy little sound instead when Dean's hands guided your hips down, showing you exactly how slowly he wanted you to move over him. The pressure caught against your clit through your underwear, warm and steady enough to make your thighs tense before you could stop them.

Dean's eyes darkened like he'd felt the way your body reacted. "Does that feel good?"

You nodded, your thighs still tense beneath his hands.

His mouth curved. "Words, sweetheart."

"Yes," you breathed, because apparently that was the only word your brain had left to offer.

"There you go," Dean murmured, his voice soft enough to make your stomach flip.

The next kiss was messier, mostly because Dean kept guiding your hips over him like he had all the patience in the world, dragging it out until your underwear was damp, clinging to you, and making it pretty impossible to pretend you weren't affected. At first, the sounds you made were small and half-swallowed against his mouth, but Dean noticed every single one like he'd been waiting for them.

"Don't do that," he murmured.

You blinked at him. "Do what?"

"Hold back." His fingers tightened on your hips like he was making sure you couldn't pretend you didn't know what he meant. "I like hearing you."

Your stomach flipped, which was annoying because Dean absolutely felt it, and then he kissed you again until the friction dragged a moan out of you that you finally let him hear.

Dean groaned, as if he'd heard you'd done something terrible to his self-control.

That helped more than anything else could have.

By the time Dean had pushed his sweatpants down and rolled on a condom, your underwear was shoved to the side, your hands were planted on his chest, and the shirt was still hanging over you like a very pathetic attempt at feeling covered. Dean didn't try to take it off, which somehow made your chest feel tighter. He just held your hips, eyes fixed on your face as he guided himself through your wetness.

"Slow," he murmured. "Take your time."

You lowered yourself carefully, trying to take your time like he'd told you to, but your mouth still fell open the second the head of his cock pressed inside you. The stretch was familiar and different all at once, deeper like this, more intense because you were the one in control, which sounded nice in theory and felt a lot more terrifying with Dean watching your face like that. You sank inch by inch, trying very hard to look like you had any control over yourself, but the second he filled you, your fingers curled against his chest, and a shaky whimper slipped out before you could stop it.

Dean's jaw tightened. "Fuck."

You froze immediately. "Bad?"

His eyes snapped to yours as you'd just said something insane. "Are you joking?"

"You made a face."

"Yeah, baby, because you feel so good, I'm trying not to embarrass myself."

Your cheeks warmed, which was embarrassing enough on its own, but the praise still settled low in your stomach like your body had decided to enjoy it before you could overthink it.

"You're not just saying that?"

Dean's hands slid up your thighs, grounding you in a way that made it annoyingly hard to spiral. "Move once, sweetheart, and see if I sound like I'm lying."

So you did, moving slowly at first.

Your hips lifted, then sank back down, and Dean's head tipped against the pillow with this rough, helpless groan that made it pretty hard to believe he'd been lying about any of it.

"Oh," you breathed, and the second you moved again, it turned into something closer to a moan.

Dean's eyes opened, heavy and dark, like he'd been waiting for exactly that. "Yeah?"

"Feels good," you said, already sounding a little wrecked.

His hands squeezed your thighs. "Then keep going, sweetheart."

Your movements were awkward at first, mostly because your brain wouldn't shut up long enough to let your body figure it out, too busy worrying about the rhythm, whether you were doing enough, and whether you looked ridiculous hovering over him in his shirt with your thighs trembling.

Then Dean's hands tightened on your hips like he could feel you spiraling. "Stop thinking."

"I'm trying."

"No." His voice dropped, rough around the edges but still gentle. "You're trying to look good, which is insane, because you already do. Just move how you want."

The words hit harder than you'd expected, mostly because Dean sounded like he meant them, so you tried to believe him.

You rolled your hips instead of lifting so high, chasing the angle that made your clit catch against him every time you sank back down, and the moan that left you was loud enough to make Dean's cock twitch inside you like he was having a very hard time staying calm about it.

Your eyes flicked to his face, and Dean looked so wrecked that it made it pretty hard to keep worrying about whether you were doing it right.

His lips parted, jaw tense, and his hands kept flexing on your hips like Dean was having the world's hardest time remembering he'd told you to move how you wanted.

"You like this?" you asked, and even though your voice shook, it still came out bolder than before.

Dean laughed once, rough and breathless, as the question had actually offended him. "Like it?" His hips jerked up into you, dragging a gasp out of your mouth. "Baby, I'm trying not to lose my fucking mind."

That did something to you, mostly because Dean sounded like he meant it, and apparently, your body liked knowing you could mess him up that badly.

Your next movement was smoother, more confident, and the moan that came out of you wasn't even close to quiet, which Dean clearly noticed because his hands tightened on your hips immediately.

"Dean—fuck," you moaned, and the way his eyes darkened made it pretty clear he'd liked hearing his name like that.

"That's it," he murmured. "Let me hear you."

You rode him slowly at first, then a little faster once you realized your body had apparently figured out what your brain kept trying to overthink, your hands sliding up his chest as his shirt rode higher over your thighs. Your cunt was soaked around him, every movement making it easier, wetter, and a lot harder to feel shy about, especially when Dean looked down to watch where you were taking him and groaned as he'd just lost whatever was left of his self-control.

"God," he muttered, hands tightening on your hips. "You were worried about this?"

You tried to laugh, but it came out closer to a whimper when he helped you grind down harder. "Maybe."

Dean looked like that answer personally offended him. "You're killing me."

His fingers tugged at the hem of the shirt, and you slowed immediately, like your body had decided to panic before your brain could tell it not to.

Dean noticed immediately, because, of course, he did, his eyes lifting back to yours, as if taking the shirt off suddenly mattered a whole lot less than making sure you were okay. "Can I see you?"

Your stomach fluttered.

His hands rubbed up your thighs, warm and steady. "You can keep it on if you want."

You hesitated for only a second before lifting your arms, which felt a lot braver than it probably looked.

Dean pulled the shirt over your head and tossed it aside, leaving you in your bra and still moving over him like your body hadn't quite figured out whether to be nervous or proud. His eyes dragged over you slowly, and for once, Dean Di Laurentis had absolutely nothing to say.

That made your chest tighten, mostly because Dean looking at you like that was a lot harder to handle than any stupid comment he could've made. "What?"

His hands slid up your waist, warm and certain. "You're so fucking pretty."

Your breath caught the second his palms covered your breasts through your bra, thumbs brushing over your nipples beneath the thin fabric, and your rhythm faltered immediately, because apparently, Dean touching you there made moving and thinking at the same time impossible.

"Oh—Dean."

His mouth curved, entirely too pleased with himself. "No, don't stop."

"You're distracting me."

"Good." His thumbs circled again, making you clench around him like your body had decided to prove his point. "Keep riding me anyway."

You moaned louder this time, hips rolling as his hands played with your tits through your bra, and every touch made you stutter in a way Dean very clearly noticed. Every bit of praise made you wetter, every look on his face made you a little bolder, until the embarrassment started slipping away as your body had finally decided to stop fighting him.

"Tell me," he said, voice rough. "Tell me what feels good."

You swallowed, still moving over him because apparently stopping would've been the worst idea. "Your hands."

"Yeah?"

"And your cock." Your voice was breathless enough to be embarrassing, but you said it anyway, and Dean's eyes went so dark that it made the embarrassment feel worth it. "Feels good when I move like this."

You rolled your hips harder to show him, and Dean's head dropped back as you'd just ruined him on purpose.

"Fuck," he groaned. "Don't stop doing that."

Hearing Dean sound like that ruined something dangerous to your confidence, mostly because it was a lot harder to feel embarrassed when he sounded like he was the one barely holding it together.

Your hands moved behind your back, unclasping your bra before your brain could show up and ruin the moment. It slipped down your arms and fell somewhere between you, and Dean stared as you'd just done something genuinely unfair to his ability to breathe.

"Look at you," he breathed, and the way he said it made your whole body feel warm.

The words made your chest warm in a way you weren't sure what to do with.

Then his mouth was on you, lips closing around one nipple while his hand covered your other breast, and you cried out so quickly it would've been embarrassing if Dean hadn't groaned like it'd done something to him. Your fingers slid into his hair, hips moving faster now as pleasure started building low in your stomach.

"Dean, I'm—" Your voice fell apart into a whimper when his thumb found your clit, because apparently your body had no interest in letting you finish a sentence. "Oh my god, right there."

"There?" he asked, smug in a way that would've been annoying if he didn't sound so wrecked.

"Yes. Fuck, yes."

He rubbed slow circles over your clit while you rode him, his other hand on your hip and his mouth moving from your breast to your throat like he wasn't already making it impossible to focus. You were close, so close your thighs had started shaking, but the rhythm was getting harder to keep, your moans turning messier and needier as frustration tangled with the pleasure your body kept trying to chase.

Dean caught it instantly, like every little shift in your body was something he'd been waiting for.

"Come here," he murmured.

Before you could even think about arguing, Dean rolled you beneath him and pulled the sheets over both of you, settling between your thighs without slipping out like he'd decided you'd done enough thinking for one night. The new angle made you gasp, your legs wrapping around his waist as he pressed deeper.

Then Dean caught both your hands and laced your fingers together, pinning them above your head so gently it made your chest ache a little.

Dean kissed you, slow and messy, like he had every intention of making good on that promise. "Let me finish what you started."

"Please," you whispered, and it came out a lot needier than planned, which Dean absolutely noticed.

Dean's expression flickered. Then his hips started moving. Slow, deep, steady thrusts that had you moaning into the space between you, thighs locked around his waist, your hands crossed with his over your head. The sheets tangled around your legs, heat building under the blanket, his body heavy and warm over yours.

"You did so well," he murmured, his mouth brushing your jaw like he knew exactly how badly the praise was getting to you. "Looked so fucking good on top of me."

"Dean," you whimpered.

"I know." His hips rolled deeper, pulling your back into an arch. "I've got you."

His hand slipped between your bodies again, thumb finding your clit like he already knew exactly what you needed, and your whole body tightened around him.

"Oh—fuck, don't stop," you gasped, which was probably unnecessary considering Dean looked like stopping would've killed him.

He groaned anyway. "Wasn't planning on it."

The pleasure snapped through you suddenly, hot and sharp, and your moan broke against Dean's mouth as you came around him. Your thighs locked around his waist, fingers tightening in his above your head like you needed something to hold onto while your body shook beneath him.

Dean followed right after, his thrusts going uneven as he'd finally lost the last of his control, face buried in your neck as a rough groan broke out of him while he held you close and came.

For a while, neither of you moved, both of you too warm and tangled beneath the sheets to do anything other than breathe.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "Yeah."

His grin appeared slowly, which was never a good sign. "So."

"No."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was just gonna say you're definitely not bad at being on top."

Your face warmed, and you turned it into the pillow like that might somehow save you. "You're so annoying."

"And you were so loud."

"Dean."

"I liked it," he said, kissing your cheek like he hadn't just made you want to disappear into the mattress. "A lot."

You tried to glare, but it came out pretty weak, especially when he slipped out carefully and disappeared to clean up like he hadn't just ruined your ability to function. When he came back, he helped clean you with a warm towel, gentle when your thighs twitched, before pulling his shirt back over your head as it belonged there.

"Putting me back in this?" you asked, glancing down at the shirt.

"Obviously." Dean climbed into bed beside you and pulled you into his chest, looking far too pleased with himself. "It's my new favorite thing now."

You laughed softly, settling against him while his arm wrapped around you like he had no plans of letting you go anytime soon.

For a minute, Dean only rubbed slow circles over your back like he was trying to make sure you'd fully melted into him. Then his voice came again, softer this time, though obviously still teasing because it was Dean.

"So..." His mouth brushed your hair, and you could hear the grin in his voice before he even finished. "You wanna do that again sometime?"

You pinched his side, which only made him laugh because apparently even that wasn't enough to make him less pleased with himself.

Dean laughed and pulled you closer, sounding far too pleased with himself for someone who'd just been pinched. "I'll take that as a yes."

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

💌lmk if you want to be added to my taglist

“Huh?”

“Allie. I found her on Hinge.”

“Like the dating app?” Dean pretended to look confused as he put down his phone to look at yours.

You subtly looked at Garrett from across the room, who you could tell was actively listening but still paying close attention to his phone.

“Yeah, look.” You fully handed Dean your phone.

“The fuck?” Dean spluttered. “I literally took this photo of her.”

“That’s seriously what you’re focusing on right now?” You gaped.

“But look…”

“Yes, I’ve seen, Dean.”

“What are you two freaking out about?” Garrett piped up.

He was peering over his phone at you two like he was absolutely done with whatever nonsense was ensuing. He had told you multiple times about the day he regretted introducing you to Dean.

“My girlfriend has Hinge, G!”

“Oh.” His brows furrowed and you wondered whether he had already sussed out the situation. “Let’s see.”

You tried to hold back a laugh as your boyfriend walked over to your side of the sofa, sandwiching you between him and Dean as he sat next to you.

Garrett looked over your shoulder to your phone in Dean’s hand.

Dean gave you the side eye as Garrett intensely looked at the fake Allie profile. Both of you wanted to laugh so bad, but you were in too deep to stop the prank now.

“God.” Garrett tutted. “Why would she do that?”

“Fuck if I know.” Dean answered.

He scrolled down Allie’s profile, past the pictures and prompts. It was made to look like she’d really taken building a profile seriously.

Then Garrett pulled away from you really fast.

You pursed your lips to keep you from laughing as Dean looked at his best friend with teasing eyes.

“Hold the fuck up a minute.”

“What?” Dean played.

“Who’s Hinge are we looking at this on?” Garrett asked.

Hook, line and sinker.

The crux of the prank.

“I dunno. Y/N passed me her phone.” Dean shrugged.

Your chin was cupped by Garrett’s hand. He twisted your face so you were looking at him, his eyes wild and eyebrows raised.

“Yes?” You teased.

Garrett just raised his eyebrows further.

“Why do you have Hinge?” He looked at you, assessing every micro-movement.

Dean returned your phone to your lap and scooted an inch away from you, clearly very disturbed by whatever was happening between you and Garrett.

“I don’t know.” You shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Garrett challenged, dropping his hand from your chin now that he knew he had your attention.

“She doesn’t know.” Dean chimed in, causing Garrett to momentarily shoot dagger eyes at him.

“Shut up Dean.”

Garrett didn’t look angry or upset.

He just genuinely looked confused at what was going on - like he was missing a central piece of information.

“You download it by accident?” He asked.

“Maybe.” You shrugged again.

You chanced a look at Dean, who was way too focused on his lap to be acting normal. He clearly felt your gaze on him because the next minute he was trying to hold back a grin, causing you to bite the inside of your cheek to do the same.

“You know what I think?” Garrett asked, and you turned back to look at him.

“Hm?”

“I think you’re both idiots.”

You broke by letting out a burst of laughter, whilst Dean already began to protest.

“Uh - What? So you don’t think your girlfriend’s cheating?”

Garrett looked at Dean like he’d just said the most ridiculous thing ever.

“No.” He said matter of factly. No hesitation.

The simple word made your laughter dry up.

You saw the sparkle come back to life in his eyes when he looked at you. He was clearly beginning to understand the lack of seriousness in this situation.

Your hand moved to link through his and you squeezed tight for reassurance.

“But seriously, why do you have Hinge?”

“It was a TikTok prank, I’m sorry.” You said.

“So the joke was that I had to notice you had Hinge, not that Allie was cheating on Dean?”

“Woah - no-one’s cheating on anyone, buddy. It’s a fake profile. My girlfriend is very much obsessed with me.”

“You two are exhausting.”

“You love us really.” Dean said.

Your boyfriend sighed and fell back flat on the sofa, covering his eyes with his hands.

You decided to lay down with him - or, on top of him - before he could escape. His hand automatically moved down to cup against your back, despite the complaint he’d made moments before.

“See?” Dean tried.

“Don’t start.”

“But that’s love. Right there.”

“Dean.”

“I’m just saying…”

“Dean!”

“How am I the one in trouble? Your girlfriend’s the one with a fake Hinge profile.”

“And she will be in trouble later.” You buried yourself into the crux of Garrett’s neck as he spoke, trying to hide the rising blush.

You two were never the kind of twins people expected. No matching outfits, no finishing each other's sentences, no eerie identical habits. From the very beginning you were sorted into different boxes. Garrett's box had ice skates and early morning practices. Your box had dolls and tea sets and the vague, uncomfortable feeling of being dressed up for something you hadn't agreed to.

It was a common complaint "why does Garrett get to do something while I just sit here?" Your mother would smooth your hair and change the subject. Your father never even registered the question. It took years before you understood that Phil Graham simply operated in a world where the answer was obvious. Garrett got to play hockey because Garrett was his son. You got the dolls because you were his daughter. Feminist icon was not a title Phil Graham was ever in the running for.

Growing up, you and Garrett were close in the way that kids who share a wall and a last name and a particular kind of household tend to get close,out of necessity as much as love. It was a good closeness, mostly. Until high school, when it curdled into something more complicated.

The prom thing was the first real incident. Aaron Michaels showed up at your door junior year with his hair combed and his hands in his pockets, and before he even finished the sentence you said yes. Not because you were swept away by him, you barely knew him, honestly. But you had caught Garrett watching from the top of the stairs with that particular expression on his face, the one that meant he was calculating something, and the thought of letting him anywhere near your prom night was enough to make you say yes to virtually anyone.

You think about that sometimes. How early it started.

In college, things loosened. Distance helped. You found your place in a sorority a house full of girls who were loud and warm and didn't ask you to be anything specific. Garrett found his place off campus, in a house with three teammates that quickly became something closer to family.

You were glad for him. You meant that sincerely. He had always been the kind of person who needed people around him, and for a long time the only person around had been you.

What you were less glad for was the way his protectiveness followed you across town like a second shadow. He knew your schedule. He knew your friends. He had a habit of appearing places whenever a boy seemed too interested. You had once watched him dismantle an entire almost-relationship simply by being in the same room, asking questions that were technically friendly and somehow completely lethal.

The thing was, and this was the part that made it complicated, you understood where it came from.

Growing up, Garrett's protectiveness hadn't been suffocating. It had been necessary. Your father's anger was the kind that lived in the walls of the house, that changed the air pressure in a room when he walked in. For a long time you were almost oblivious to it, the way children learn to not see things that are too large and too frightening to look at directly. But then you got old enough that it became impossible to pretend.

What you remember most is not the sounds. It's Garrett, how he would find you, and sit with you, and press your head gently against his chest without saying anything, his hands patient and steady, turning himself into a wall between you and whatever was happening on the other side of it.

He never talked about it. Neither did you. You're not sure you ever will.

Your mother died when you were young. After that, there was just you and Garrett and your father and a house that felt too big and too quiet. Garrett stayed close to you that whole year in a way that asked for nothing and gave everything, and you never once had to ask him to.

So no you didn't resent the protectiveness, not really, not at its root. You understood it.

You just wished it wasn't currently ruining your love life.

It's college, you thought, more than once, lying on your sorority house bed staring at the ceiling. Why can't I get some?

When Garrett moved into the house off campus at the end of freshman year, the relief was quiet and immediate and guilty enough that you didn't mention it to anyone. You visited often it was an easy excuse to get out of the sorority house, and Dean and Tucker were genuinely funny, the kind of company that required nothing from you.

But there was something about Logan that was different from the start. Something you noticed before you had the language for it.

The first time you really registered him was after the team's first game of the season. You had gone to the arena with Rowan, more out of obligation than enthusiasm, expecting to do your dutiful twin sister routine and leave. You found Garrett near the locker room, already mid-conversation with Logan, still in half his gear, laughing at something.

Logan turned when Garrett said your name. That's what you remember: the turn, the way his attention moved to you. He reached out to shake your hand and said something, something normal, something you have completely forgotten because you stopped processing words the moment his hand closed around yours.

His hands were warm. That's what you thought. Just warm. And large. And you were aware of them in a way that made the rest of the sentence disappear entirely.

You let go. You said something back. You moved through the rest of the conversation on autopilot, smiling at the right moments, and the whole time you were thinking about his hands.

On the drive back, Rowan looked at you sideways and said, you have about five seconds to tell me what that was.

You told her.

She was quiet for a moment. Then: make a move before they get any closer. Because once Logan becomes one of Garrett's people, you're done.

You had laughed at the time. But Rowan was right.

That was two years ago. Logan and Garrett were now the kind of friends that finished each other's sentences and covered for each other without being asked. Which meant that every time you let yourself think about Logan, really think about him, about his hands and his voice and the way he looked at you sometimes when he thought you weren't paying attention ,Garrett materialized in your mind immediately, like a warning, like a wall.

Two years. And you were no closer to doing anything about it.

This morning Logan had texted, and the moment his name appeared on your screen that feeling arrived with it the one that lived somewhere between your ribs and your stomach and had no polite name. You had stopped calling it a crush a long time ago. Crushes were light things, easy things. This was two years old and had roots.

He needed help with an assignment. A professor, a deadline, the usual disaster.

You had started tutoring at the beginning of sophomore year, a natural extension of the waitressing you'd picked up at Malone's when you first realized college was expensive and pride was not a payment method. Tutoring paid better and smelled less like fried food. Logan was the one client you had never once considered charging. You weren't sure what that said about you. Probably something embarrassing.

You got a ride to the house and let yourself in without knocking, everyone did, that was just how it worked here, and followed the stairs up to Logan's room, where you found him on his bed with his laptop open and his reading glasses on.

You took a moment.

"Hey, you," you said, walking in and knocking on the door after the fact, in the way you had trained yourself to do ever since a series of unfortunate incidents involving Dean that you were never going to think about again.

Logan looked up and smiled.

"Hey." He moved to make room. "I was waiting for you."

The assignment was for his sports management elective and it was, structurally speaking, a crime scene.

"Walk me through what you're trying to argue," you said, pulling the laptop toward you.

"That collegiate athletic programs need better mental health infrastructure."

"Say that in the paper."

"I did."

You turned the screen to face him. He read it. He had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

"...that's not what that says."

"No. It really isn't."

You started from the top. Logan sat beside you and explained himself in sentences that were clear and direct and completely unlike anything on the page, which was its own kind of frustrating because it meant the ideas were good. They were just trapped under writing that was trying too hard to sound like writing.

"Stop trying to sound smart," you told him. "You already are. Just say the thing."

He looked at you. "You're kind of mean when you tutor."

"You're paying forty dollars an hour for this."

"You're not charging me."

"Then you're getting exactly what you paid for. Keep going."

He kept going. You kept pushing. Somewhere in the middle of restructuring his third paragraph he had migrated from the desk chair to the bed beside you, and at some point after that the laptop had ended up in your lap, and the space between you had gradually, unremarkably, ceased to exist. His arm was against yours. His knee was against yours. He smelled like cedar and something warmer underneath it, which you were actively choosing not to think about.

Once, leaning over to point at something on the screen, he turned his head and found you already looking at him. Neither of you said anything. You looked back at the screen.

By the time you finished it was late afternoon, the light in the room had gone gold and low, and Logan was leaning against the headboard with his legs stretched out and you were beside him, close enough that moving away would have required a decision neither of you had made.

"Thank you," Logan said, and the way he said it was quieter than his regular voice. "Genuinely. You didn't have to do this."

"I know," you said.

"You're kind of incredible, you know that?"

You laughed, which was the only safe response available to you.

"You are very welcome, Johnny," you said, shaking your head, which brought you even closer than you already were.

The room was very quiet.

You had thought about this moment approximately four hundred times over the past two years. You had imagined it in detail. Talked yourself out of it and back into it and out of it again, and every single time Garrett had materialized in your head like a stop sign and that had been enough.

But Garrett was not here. And Logan was looking at you like that, his eyes dropping, just briefly, to your mouth, and coming back up. And two years was a very long time to wait for a moment that kept almost arriving.

You closed the distance.

The seconds that followed were the slowest of your life. You were aware of everything the warmth of him, the sound of your own pulse, the fact that his eyes had closed, which meant something, that had to mean something..

His eyes opened.

He pulled back, just slightly, and looked at you with an expression you had never seen on him before and couldn't name.

"Oh," he said. "Are we finished?"

The words landed like a door closing.

You heard yourself say yes. You heard yourself say something about studying, about being busy, about having to go. You were already reaching for your bag. You were already standing.

Every embarrassing moment you had ever lived through, every misdirected wave, every bon appétit thrown at a waiter who had not asked for it, every autocorrected text sent to the wrong person, shrank to nothing. Microscopic. Irrelevant. Amateur hour.

This was the real thing.

There should be a world record for how fast you left that house. You would have broken it.

Arriving home, there was only one thing on your mind.

The almost-kiss.

You prayed on the entire walk back. Prayed that something would take you lightning, a sinkhole, the apocalypse, anything. Because there could not be a world in which you had just tried to kiss John Logan and he had literally swerved. This could not be happening. You felt like you couldn't breathe, and yes, it was dramatic, but how, how could something like this happen to you?

I have to hide forever, you thought.

So hide was what you did. Three days of pretending to be too busy to check your phone, sending texts that said busy, call later to everyone who tried to reach you and yes, that included Logan. He had texted to thank you for the tutoring session and ask how your day was going, which was its own specific kind of torture. It was genuinely difficult to decide which was worse: him not mentioning the almost-kiss, or him not mentioning the almost-kiss.

Your sorority friends decided not to let you sulk indefinitely. You hadn't told them the truth, it was too embarrassing,but they had collectively decided that you needed to go out. Luckily, Dean and Beau's birthday bash was happening that weekend. Rowan had appointed herself costume director. You and her were going as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in New York Minute — which was a generous description of what amounted to tiny red shorts and an I ♥ NYC shirt.

Walking into the party, you spotted your brother almost immediately. He was standing with a girl: Hannah, you realized after a second. You had heard the rumors that Garrett was seeing someone but hadn't paid much attention. Garrett with a girl was like rain in the Amazon. Unremarkable. Constant. A feature of the landscape.

You already knew Hannah from Malone's. She was sweet, genuinely, almost confusingly sweet, and you had always had a hard time understanding why a girl like her would give the time of day to someone like your brother. You grabbed a drink and kept glancing at them, and spotted the exact moment Garrett stepped away and Jules moved in with that particular look on their face that meant they were about to conduct a full background check.

Time to intervene.

"Hi, Hannah," you said, inserting yourself smoothly. You turned to Jules with a look of mock severity. "Jules. This is a party. Stop the questionnaire."

They both laughed, because that was exactly what Jules had been doing. Jules threw her hands up and wandered off.

"Hey, (y/n)!" Hannah said cheerfully. "I haven't seen you at Malone's in a while — how have you been?"

"Busy. Tutoring." You shrugged. "How about you? I heard you were dating my brother."

Hannah looked startled. "Oh, not dating. Just a fling."

"Nice. A fling is nice." You tilted your head. "But since when do you do flings?"

"It's new. Experimenting." She seemed to run out of words.

"You can tell me the truth, you know," you said, softening your voice. "I'm not going to say anything. I thought you had a thing for that guy Justin,the one with the band?"

"I did," Hannah said, and then lowered her voice. "If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone."

You made the motion of zipping your mouth shut, locking it, and throwing away the key.

"Garrett is helping me," she said. "He said guys aren't interested in girls who are too available. So he's helping me seem less available so Justin will come around."

You stared at her. "He's fake-dating you to make another guy jealous."

Hannah nodded.

"That's—" you started, then stopped. Actually not the worst plan. "Okay. Solid strategy."

As if summoned, Garrett appeared carrying a can of beer for Hannah, which was objectively cute even if you would never tell him that.

"Hey, (y/n)." He pulled you into a side hug. "Why have you gone MIA? I was getting worried."

Because I tried to kiss your best friend and he dodged me like I was a pothole in the middle of the road.

"Just busy," you said pleasantly. "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone." You winked at Hannah, who turned pink, and made a beeline for the kitchen.

The thing was, you couldn't stop turning it over. What Garrett had said to Hannah guys aren't interested in girls who are too available. Was that it? Was that why Logan had pulled back? Had you made it too obvious, been too present, too easy to read?

It was the kind of question that only one person at this party could answer.

Dean was in the kitchen taking shots with Tucker, Beau, and,of course, Logan. He was dressed as Maverick from Top Gun, which was doing entirely too much for everyone in the vicinity. The navy jumpsuit was one deep breath away from falling off his shoulders entirely, to the visible appreciation of roughly half the party.

Your heels announced you before you got there. All four of them looked up.

"Dean." You used your most businesslike voice. "I need to talk to you."

Logan, who until that moment had been carefully avoiding looking at you, looked at you.

"In private," you added.

Beau and Tucker made a coordinated oooooh sound. You took Dean by the hand and led him to a quieter corner, and from the edge of your vision you could feel Logan watching the whole way there.

"Do you think guys go for girls who aren't available?" you asked, skipping any kind of introduction.

Dean blinked. "What?"

"Just answer it. Do guys prefer women who are harder to reach?"

He studied you for a moment with the particular expression of someone who was not fooled even slightly.

"(y/n)."

"Dean."

"It's Logan."

"It's not…"

"It is literally Logan." He glanced over his shoulder and back at you. "He's been staring at this corner since you dragged me away from the shots he was pouring, by the way. So I hope this is worth it."

You opened your mouth. Closed it.

"He swerved me," you said finally, quietly, in the tone of someone confessing a crime.

Dean's eyes went wide. "He what—"

"Don't make it a thing."

"I'm not making it a thing, I'm just" He stopped, visibly recalibrating. Then something shifted in his face. The confused expression dissolved into something far more dangerous. A Dean I have an idea smile. "Okay. I know exactly what to do."

"That face terrifies me."

"Let me make him jealous."

You stared at him. "What."

"Think about it." He leaned against the wall, warming to the plan in real time. "You and me, rest of the night, very cozy, very close. Logan spends the whole party watching. By midnight he either says something or he implodes. Either way you get your answer."

"That is insane."

"That is genius and you know it." He held out his hand. "What do you say, Graham?"

You looked at his hand. You looked across the room at Logan, who was very deliberately not looking in your direction, which meant he was absolutely looking in your direction.

You took Dean's hand.

"If this blows up," you said, "I'm telling everyone it was your idea."

"It is my idea." Dean grinned and pulled you back toward the party. "Come on. Let's go be very convincing."

Dean was, it turned out, an excellent co-conspirator.

He had led you back into the main room with his hand on the small of your back, a small gesture, casual enough to be deniable, obvious enough to be noticed, and steered you toward the couch where Tucker and Beau had set up camp. You settled in close to him, closer than you normally would, and let the conversation wash over you while you tracked Logan from the corner of your eye.

It took approximately four minutes.

Logan had migrated from the kitchen to the edge of the living room, arms crossed, drink in hand, wearing an expression you had never seen on him before. Not angry exactly. Something tighter than that. Something controlled, but only barely.

Dean said something in your ear something about Tucker's costume, and you laughed and leaned into him, and across the room Logan's jaw tightened.

Good, you thought, and then immediately felt terrible about it, and then thought good again.

The night continued like that. Dean was committed to the bit in the way that only someone who was genuinely enjoying himself could be his arm around your shoulders, finding excuses to tuck your hair back, laughing at everything you said like you were the most interesting person in the room. It wasn't entirely unpleasant. Dean was funny and warm and completely unthreatening, which made it easy.

What was not easy was Logan.

He didn't leave. That was the first thing you noticed he had every opportunity to drift to another room, another conversation, and he didn't take a single one. He stayed in the periphery of wherever you were, a fixed point, his drink barely touched. He had stopped pretending to talk to people. At some point Tucker said something to him and he responded without looking away from you, which Tucker clearly clocked because he glanced between the two of you with an expression of dawning comprehension and wisely said nothing.

Once, you made direct eye contact with Logan across the room. Neither of you looked away for a long moment. Then Dean said your name and you turned, and when you looked back Logan had moved closer.

He was close enough now that you could hear him when he spoke, which he had started doing small insertions into the group conversation, technically friendly, with an edge underneath them that you recognized because you had never heard it from him before.

When Dean refilled your drink, Logan was suddenly beside him. "I'll get it."

"I've got it," Dean said pleasantly.

"I said I'll get it."

Dean looked at him. Logan looked back. The silence lasted exactly long enough to be uncomfortable.

"She likes more ice than you think," Logan said finally, which was such a specific and unguarded thing to say that Dean had to look away to keep from smiling.

He brought you the drink himself. Set it down in front of you without a word and went back to his position across the room, jaw tight, arms crossed, watching.

You picked up the drink. You took a sip. You did not look at him, which cost you more than you were prepared to admit.

Okay, you thought. So it's working.

The makeout was a decision.

You made it around midnight, when the party had gotten louder and the lights had gotten lower and Dean had pulled you onto the makeshift dancefloor with the easy confidence of someone who had committed fully to a plan and intended to see it through. You were dancing close, and it was working you could feel Logan's attention like a hand on the back of your neck and then you looked up at Dean and he raised an eyebrow, a question, and you thought about Logan swerving you on a quiet October afternoon and something in you made a decision.

You kissed Dean.

He kissed you back, because he was Dean and he was committed to the bit, and for a moment it was just that a kiss, warm and uncomplicated, Dean's hands steady on your waist.

You didn't hear Garrett coming. Nobody ever did.

"What the fuck?" His voice came from directly behind you, loud enough to cut through the music. You pulled back from Dean and turned around.

Garrett was standing there looking like he had just witnessed something that had personally offended him on a cellular level. Behind him, a few feet back, standing very still, was Logan.

"(y/n)." Garrett's voice had dropped into that register the one that meant he was trying very hard to be calm. "What is happening right now."

"I'm at a party, Garrett."

"You're…" He gestured at Dean, who had the presence of mind to take a small step back. "That's Dean."

"I'm aware of who it is."

"He lives in my house."

"Also aware."

"(y/n)"

"Garrett." You crossed your arms. "I am an adult at a college party. I don't need your commentary right now."

"I'm not — I'm just—" He stopped. Dragged a hand through his hair. Then, with the particular tone of someone who had not thought through what they were about to say before saying it: "Thank God. Logan went to get me — I thought something was actually wrong—"

The sentence landed in the middle of the room like something dropped from a height.

You went very still.

Logan went to get him.

Logan, who had been standing across the room all night with his arms crossed and his drink untouched and his jaw tight, had watched you kiss Dean and gone to get your brother instead of coming over himself.

You turned, slowly, and looked at Logan. He was looking back at you with an expression that was carefully, completely neutral, which was somehow the most infuriating thing you had ever seen on a human face.

"Garrett." Your voice came out quieter than you intended. "You want to talk about boundaries? Let's talk about boundaries. Let's talk about the fact that you have spent the last three years treating me like I'm something that needs to be managed. Like I'm a problem to be solved. I am your sister, not your assignment."

"I know that—"

"Do you?" You were properly angry now, the kind of angry that had been looking for a door for a long time and had finally found one. "Because from where I'm standing it looks a lot like you don't trust me to make a single decision about my own life without you swooping in to fix it. I kissed someone, Garrett. At a party. Like a normal person."

"I just—"

"You sent Logan to get you." Your voice cracked slightly on his name, which you hated, and pushed past. "Like I was a child who had wandered too close to the street. I'm twenty years old."

Garrett opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked, for the first time in the conversation, genuinely uncertain.

"I need some air," you said, and turned and walked toward the door.

You made it to the front porch before you heard footsteps behind you.

"(y/n)."

Logan's voice. Of course.

You kept walking down the porch steps, arms wrapped around yourself against the cold, and didn't turn around.

"Hey." He was closer now. "Can we—"

"Logan." You stopped walking but didn't turn. "Please don't."

"I just want to—"

"I said please." Your voice was steady, which surprised you. "I can't do this right now. I need you to leave me alone."

A long pause. The sounds of the party filtered out through the walls of the house, muffled and distant.

"Okay," Logan said quietly.

You heard him stop. Heard him not follow you. Stood there in the cold for a moment with your eyes closed, and then kept walking.

The week after the party, you became a ghost.

Not dramatically, you didn't make an announcement, didn't post anything, didn't give anyone the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten to you. You just quietly became unavailable. Texts went unanswered for hours, then days. You skipped the house visits. You stopped showing up to things you normally showed up to.

Garrett called twice. You let it ring both times and sent a voice memo that said I'm fine, just busy in a tone that made it very clear you were not interested in discussing it further. He texted after that, a long one, full of run-on sentences and no punctuation, and you read it three times and didn't respond.

Logan texted once. Just your name. A single word, no punctuation, no follow-up. You stared at it for a long time, lying on your bed in the dark, and said none of it. You set your phone face-down on the desk and went to sleep.

Or tried to.

The only people you talked to with any regularity were Hannah and Dean. Hannah because she never pushed, never pried, just showed up with iced coffee and terrible reality television and the quiet uncomplicated warmth of someone who liked you without needing anything from you. Dean because he was the only person who knew the full story and had the decency not to turn it into a conversation every time he saw you.

He did try, once.

"You can't hide forever," he said, sitting on the edge of your bed one afternoon while you stared at the ceiling.

"Watch me," you said.

He watched you for approximately eleven more days before he stopped saying anything about it at all.

The car situation came to a head on a Tuesday, which felt appropriate. Tuesdays had always had a particular talent for making things worse.

You had always known, in a vague and carefully unexamined way, that the car thing was unfair. Garrett had gotten one junior year of high school a practical, slightly dented Honda Civic that Phil Graham had handed over with a clap on the shoulder and a speech about responsibility that lasted four minutes. You had gotten a lecture about how young women didn't need to be driving alone at night, delivered in the measured, reasonable tone your father used when what he actually meant was something he knew better than to say out loud.

In college it hadn't mattered much. Campus was walkable, rideshares existed, and you had quietly become very skilled at organizing your life around other people's cars without ever quite admitting that was what you were doing.

And then the interview came up and the system collapsed.

The position was tutoring coordinator at a learning center in Boston — real money, flexible hours, the kind of thing that could genuinely change the shape of your year. Friday at nine. Boston. Forty minutes away on a good day.

You needed a car.

Which meant you needed to call your father.

Phil Graham suggested lunch, because Phil Graham always suggested lunch. It was his preferred format for any interaction he wanted to feel like generosity rather than transaction, a restaurant, a table, the performance of a normal family.

You took Dean with you without asking permission, which your father noticed immediately and acknowledged with a slight tightening around the eyes that lasted less than a second before his public face reassembled itself. He shook Dean's hand with the particular warmth he reserved for audiences and said it was nice to see one of Garrett's friends, and Dean smiled and you watched them take the measure of each other across the table.

Dean was good at this. You had not known, before today, exactly how good. He had a way of being present without inserting himself filling silences before they became uncomfortable, asking your father questions that were just interested enough to be flattering without being so specific that they required anything real. He ordered the second cheapest thing on the menu, sat up straight, and spent the meal being quietly, almost imperceptibly perfect, and you watched your father recalibrate in real time.

"I need a car," you said, when the food arrived. Straight to it.

Your father looked up from his plate. "A car."

"I have an interview in Boston on Friday morning. I need reliable transportation."

"You could take the train."

"The timing doesn't work for the train."

A pause. Your father cut into his steak with the precise unhurried movements of a man deciding how much something was going to cost him versus how it would look to say no in front of company.

"I'll look into it," he said.

"I'd prefer to sort it out today."

Dean took a sip of his water and looked pleasantly at the middle distance, which was exactly right.

Your father bought you a car three days later. A white Subaru, two years old, clean interior. He texted you the details with no preamble and no sentiment, and you picked it up from the dealership with Dean in the passenger seat reading the car manual out loud in a documentary narrator voice until you were laughing so hard you had to pull over.

It was, all things considered, one of the better days you'd had recently.

The tire went two weeks after the party, on a Friday morning, on a stretch of road so unremarkable it felt like an insult.

You heard it first a dull, percussive thud that traveled up through the wheel and into your hands, followed immediately by the lurch of the car pulling hard to the right. You steered onto the shoulder and sat there for a moment with both hands still on the wheel and the hazards blinking orange into the grey morning air.

Boston was forty minutes away. The interview was in just under two hours. You were wearing your good blazer.

You got out and looked at the tire. Flat. Completely, aggressively, unapologetically flat.

You got back in the car and called Dean.

"Tell me you know how to change a tire," you said, when he picked up.

"Good morning to you too."

"Dean. I have a flat tire and an interview in Boston in less than two hours."

A pause. The sound of someone sitting up. "Where are you?"

You told him. There was a longer pause the kind that meant he was deciding something you weren't privy to yet.

"I can't come," he said finally. "I'm on the other side of town and I don't have the truck. But I'm going to fix this. Give me ten minutes."

"If you send Garrett—"

"I'm not sending Garrett." His voice had gone careful. Deliberate. "Ten minutes. Stay put."

He hung up before you could argue.

You sat on the hood of your car in your good blazer and watched the morning traffic pass and tried very hard not to think about who else Dean might send. You had a short list. The list had one name on it.

Fourteen minutes later, a familiar dark truck pulled onto the shoulder behind you.

You closed your eyes briefly.

Dean, you thought. I am going to kill you.

Logan got out without hurrying, because he never hurried. He was in a worn grey shirt with the sleeves pushed up and dark jeans, carrying a jack and a spare tire with the easy competence of someone who had done this many times before, and the morning light was doing something completely unreasonable to the line of his jaw.

You crossed your arms.

"I didn't ask for you," you said, before he reached you.

"Dean called me." He crouched beside your tire and assessed the damage.

"I know Dean called you. I'm saying I didn't ask for you."

"I know." He ran his hand along the tire. "You've got a nail in the sidewall. It's not patchable."

"Logan—"

"You can be angry at me the whole time." He looked up at you briefly, and there was something in his expression that wasn't quite an apology and wasn't quite a plea but sat somewhere in between. "But you have an interview in an hour and forty minutes, so let me do this."

You looked at the road instead.

He worked quickly and without commentary loosening the bolts, positioning the jack, the methodical progression of someone who understood machines in a way that was almost meditative to watch. You tried not to watch. You watched anyway.

Once he glanced up and found you looking. You looked away first.

"This is a temporary spare," he said, after a while. "It'll get you around town but not highway speeds. Not safely." He stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. Then he reached into his pocket. "Take my truck."

"Absolutely not."

"Your interview—"

"I'm not taking your truck, Logan."

"Why not?"

Because taking his truck meant owing him something, and owing him something meant having a reason to come back, and coming back meant another conversation where you said something you couldn't take back and he looked at you with that expression and didn't say anything.

"Because it's your truck," you said.

"And your interview is in less than two hours." He held out the keys. "Take it. I'll stay here. Come by the house when you're done and we'll swap back."

"I can call a rideshare—"

"(y/n)." Just your name. Just that, quiet on the side of the road, and something about the way he said it made all the arguments feel very small. "Please."

You looked at him. He looked back, steady and patient, keys extended, and you were so tired of fighting things that weren't worth fighting anymore.

You took the keys.

"I'm paying for the tire," you said.

"You're not."

"Logan—"

"Go." The corner of his mouth moved, almost. "You're going to be late."

The interview went well. You thought about Logan the entire time.

You drove back in his truck, which smelled like cedar and old coffee and something else you couldn't name, and you sat in the driveway of the house for a moment before going in.

Logan was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a glass of water, and he looked up when you came in.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Good. Really good, actually." You set his keys on the counter. "Thank you. For the truck."

"Of course."

A silence settled. The television murmured from somewhere in the house. Tucker's laugh, distant and easy.

You should leave. You had told yourself on the drive over that you were going to return the keys and go clean and simple, no openings.

But you were so tired.

Tired of the almost-conversations and the loaded silences and the two years of carrying something that got heavier every time he looked at you like that and said nothing.

"I like you," you said.

The words came out quieter than you intended. Steadier than you expected. You watched them land.

Logan went very still.

"I know that's complicated," you continued. "I know about Garrett. I know that's why. I'm not asking you to do anything about it." You paused. "I just needed to say it out loud. I've been carrying it for two years and I needed to put it down somewhere."

Logan looked at you with an expression you had never seen on him before — open and unguarded and almost pained. His mouth opened.

"(y/n)—" he started, and his voice was different, lower

The back door opened.

Garrett came through it pulling off his jacket, mid-sentence about something to Tucker, and nearly walked into you before he registered you were there.

He stopped. For a moment he just looked at you. Then something cracked open in his expression relief and guilt and two weeks of missed calls all arriving at once.

"(y/n)." His voice was careful. "Hey. I didn't know you were here."

"Just returning the truck," you said. Perfectly normal. You were getting very good at it.

"Okay." He nodded slowly. Then, quieter: "Can we talk? It's been weeks and I—"

"I'm kind of in the middle of something," you said.

Behind you, almost inaudible, Logan said: "It's okay. Go."

You turned.

He was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed and his expression carefully arranged into something neutral, and he met your eyes for exactly one second before he looked at the floor.

"Logan—"

"Go talk to your brother." His voice was even. Controlled. "It's fine."

You stared at him. The word sat in the kitchen between you like something neither of you wanted to pick up.

Fine.

"Okay," you said. And turned away.

The conversation with Garrett lasted longer than ten minutes. They always did.

He sat across from you on the couch with his elbows on his knees and said: "I'm sorry about the party."

"Okay," you said.

"I didn't mean to embarrass you. I was worried."

"I know."

"I know you're an adult. I know you don't need me to—"

"Garrett." You looked at him. "I know you know. That's never been the question."

He was quiet. In the kitchen, the low sound of Tucker and Logan talking, the refrigerator opening and closing.

"Then what's the question?" he asked.

You thought about it. About his hands pressing your head against his chest in the dark. About the house that felt too big after your mother left. About the whole year he had stayed close without ever being asked.

"I think you learned to protect me at a time when I really needed it," you said carefully. "And I think you don't know how to stop. And I think—" your voice went slightly unsteady "—I'm always going to love you for the first part. I just need you to work on the second part."

Garrett looked at the floor. His jaw worked.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, okay."

It wasn't a resolution. It wasn't a fix. But it was the most honest thing you'd said to each other in years, and when you stood up to leave he pulled you into a hug that lasted long enough to mean something.

Logan was in the hallway when you came out.

Not waiting, exactly leaning against the wall with his phone in his hand, doing the convincing impression of someone who just happened to be there. He looked up when he heard you.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey." You picked up your bag. "I should go."

"(y/n)—"

"I meant what I said." Your voice came out gentler than you intended. "I'm not asking you for anything. You don't have to—"

"I know." He said it quickly. "I know you're not. I just—" He stopped. Something moved across his face. He pressed his mouth closed and looked at the ceiling briefly. "I heard you. What you said in the kitchen. I need you to know that I heard you."

You stood there with your hand on the door and the cold night air coming in.

"Okay," you said quietly.

And you left.

The guy's name was Eric.

He was in your economics lecture tall, easy smile, the kind of person who made friends without trying. He had asked to borrow a pen three weeks ago and somehow that had turned into sitting together, and sitting together had turned into coffee after class, and coffee after class had turned into texts that had nothing to do with economics.

You liked him well enough. He was uncomplicated in a way that felt, after everything, like something you might need.

You mentioned him to Hannah on a Thursday. Hannah mentioned him to Garrett on a Friday. Garrett mentioned him to the house on a Saturday, in the way Garrett mentioned things casually, as information, with the studied neutrality of someone who had learned to deliver news without editorializing.

Dean watched Logan's face when Garrett said the name.

Later, he would describe it as watching someone step on a piece of glass they hadn't seen coming.

Logan lasted four days.

Four days of being completely normal. Of practice and class and the house and dinner and conversations that had nothing to do with you. Four days of his phone on the table, not checking it, of going to bed at a reasonable hour and lying there for a long time.

On the fifth day, Dean knocked on his door.

"You have about forty eight hours," Dean said.

Logan looked up from the bed. "What?"

"Before she decides Eric is actually a good idea." Dean leaned against the doorframe. "She's not in love with him. She's barely interested. But she's trying, and she's good at trying, and if you wait much longer she's going to try herself right into actually meaning it."

"She deserves to be happy—"

"She deserves to be with someone who's been in love with her for two years, actually." He said it simply, without drama, the way you said things that were just true. "But that's just my opinion."

The word landed in the room and sat there.

In love.

Logan didn't correct him.

"Garrett—" he started.

"Talk to Garrett first if you need to," Dean said. "But do it tonight. Because forty eight hours is generous and I'm not known for being generous."

He left the door open when he walked out.

Logan found Garrett in the kitchen an hour later.

It was the conversation he had been avoiding for two years the one that lived in the back of his head every time you walked into a room, every time he had talked himself back from the edge of doing something about it.

"I need to talk to you about (y/n)," he said.

Garrett turned from the refrigerator. His expression moved through several things quickly before settling into something careful and still.

"Okay," he said.

"I like her." Logan held his gaze. "I've liked her for a long time. I should have said something to you before now and I'm sorry I didn't. But I'm saying it now because I can't not anymore."

The kitchen was very quiet.

Garrett looked at him for a long moment. Long enough that Logan had time to fully contemplate what losing his best friend would feel like, to turn it over, to decide that he was going to say it anyway.

"I know," Garrett said finally.

Logan blinked. "What?"

"I've known for a while." Garrett set his drink down. "I was waiting to see if you'd do something about it or if it would just go away."

"It didn't go away."

"No," Garrett said. "I can see that." He was quiet for a moment. "She's not easy to know. You know that."

"I know."

"And if you do this and it goes badly—"

"It won't."

"Logan—"

"It won't." He held Garrett's gaze. "I promise you it won't."

Garrett looked at him for one more long moment. Then he picked his drink back up and said, in the tone of someone changing the subject entirely: "She's probably at the sorority house."

You were on the porch when he pulled up.

You had come outside for air, just that, and you were sitting on the steps with a mug of tea going cold in your hands when you heard the truck. You knew the sound of that engine. Your stomach did the thing it always did.

He got out. Crossed the front path. Stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at you with an expression that had nothing careful about it — no composure, no distance. Just Logan, standing there looking like he had driven over without thinking it all the way through and wasn't sorry about it.

"There's a guy," he said. "Eric."

"I know who Eric is," you said slowly. "He's in my economics class."

"I know." His jaw worked. "I know, and I have no right to say anything about it. But I've been sitting in that house for four days and I can't—" He stopped. Tried again. "I can't watch you choose someone else because I was too much of a coward to say something."

You were very still.

"I talked to Garrett," he said.

"You—" You stared at him. "When?"

"Tonight." He took a step up, closing some of the distance. "I should have done it a long time ago. I should have done a lot of things a long time ago." He looked at you with an openness that was almost difficult to look at directly no walls, no distance, just the thing underneath all of it, which was apparently enormous. "I like you. I have liked you since the first time Garrett introduced us and you shook my hand and looked at me like you were trying to figure out what I was. And I have been handling it badly ever since and I'm sorry."

The street was quiet. The mug in your hands had gone completely cold.

"Eric is fine," you said. Your voice was slightly unsteady. "He's a perfectly nice person."

"I know."

"I'm not in love with him."

"I know that too." Logan's voice dropped slightly. "Is it too late? Because Dean said—"

"What did Dean say?"

"That I had forty eight hours."

You looked at him.

"Dean gave you forty eight hours," you said.

"He said it was generous."

"He's right, it was." You stood, which put you on the same level as him, close enough that you didn't have to look up anymore. "I was going to give you until the end of the month."

Something broke open in his expression. "Yeah?"

"Don't make it a thing," you said, and kissed him.

He kissed you back immediately, no hesitation, one hand coming up to the back of your neck and the other finding your waist, and it was nothing like October — none of the uncertainty, none of the held breath. This was certain. This was two years of accumulated patience finally running out, from both directions at once.

When you pulled back he was smiling — a real one, unguarded, the one you had always liked best on him.

"For the record," he said, "the first time you shook my hand I thought about it for three days."

"I know," you said. "I could tell."

Finals week had reduced you to a concerning version of yourself. An intense, borderline doped up version of you that scared your roommates into hiding. 

At some point over the last ten days, you had consecutively survived almost exclusively on iced coffee and protein bars, cried in the library stairwell over a statistics quiz worth five percent of your grade, accidentally highlighted an entire textbook chapter because you stopped processing colour properly around three in the morning, and fallen asleep sitting upright against Logan’s shoulder while trying to explain some bullshit economic theory to him.

Which meant two things.

One: You were exhausted and so ready to finally dedicate more than ten minutes to washing your hair.

And two:

The entire hockey team had collectively decided about three days into you bear grylls level study marathon, that you would have to be, as they liked to call it, “reintroduced into society” the second said exams ended. 

Which was how you ended up tipsy for the first time in months, tucked against Logan’s side in the middle of some overcrowded off-campus party while music rattled the walls hard enough to make the floor vibrate beneath your shoes.

“You alive over there?” Logan asked, leaning closer so you could hear him properly.

You looked up from where your cheek was half pressed against his shoulder.

“Barely.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“You know,” you informed him seriously, “I think I deserve financial compensation for finals week.”

Logan snorted softly.

“I’ll let the university know.”

“You should.”

His hand stayed warm at your waist while people moved around you in loud, blurry motion. The house smelled faintly like cheap alcohol and somebody’s burnt pizza rolls, humid from too many people crammed into too small a space, but tucked into the corner of the couch beside Logan, everything felt strangely soft around the edges instead of overwhelming.

Mostly because he kept checking on you every five seconds. In a quintessential John Logan way, that made you feel unreasonably fuzzy inside.

Especially when he remembered how much water you’d had, quietly traded your vodka mixer for a weaker one halfway through the night without making a thing of it, and kept rubbing his thumb against your hip absentmindedly every time he noticed your eyes drifting shut.

“You tired?” he asked eventually.

“A little.”

“You wanna head back?”

You considered it seriously for approximately half a second before nodding.

“Can we order cheesy fries on the way home?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“How coherent you are right now.”

You gasped softly. “I’m incredibly coherent.”

“You tried to unlock the bathroom with your student ID .”

“That was one time.”

“It was four times.”

You laughed hard enough your forehead dropped briefly against his shoulder, and Logan’s mouth twitched immediately at the sound.

By the time Logan was steering you carefully out of the crowded basement party with one warm hand settled at your lower back, your brain felt pleasantly untangled for the first time in weeks, limbs loose and warm beneath your coat while cold night air hit your cheeks hard enough to make you laugh.

The walk back to the hockey house wasn’t far, cold night air cutting through the leftover warmth of the party enough to sober you steadily with every block. Logan kept his arm around your shoulders the entire time anyway, occasionally glancing down at you like he was recalculating your risk assessment every few minutes.

“You good?” he asked immediately, glancing down at you as you stumbled slightly against him on the sidewalk.

You grinned up at him.

“Perfect.”

“That sounded ominous.”

“It’s because I’m whimsical now.”

“You’re tipsy.”

“I’m whimsical and tipsy.”

“Mm.”

“And for the record,” you continued, poking lightly at his chest through his sweatshirt, “you also drank.”

“I had like two beers over four hours.”

“So you admit it.”

“I admit nothing.”

Logan tightened his arm around you automatically when you leaned more of your weight into him. The walk back blurred pleasantly around the edges, campus quieter now except for distant music and occasional bursts of laughter drifting from frat houses further down the street.

By the time the hockey house came into view, your head felt clearer than it had left the party, comfortably warm instead of blurry, thoughts slower around the edges but still fully there.

Your heels clicked unevenly against the pavement.

Logan slowed instinctively to match you, that stupid fond warmth settled in your chest again.

You stared at him for a second too long.

“What?” he asked.

“You’re very large.”

His eyebrows lifted immediately.

“…Thank you?”

“No like,” you continued seriously, squeezing his bicep, “you’re just kind of everywhere.”

He tapped your nose, “That’s usually how being six foot two works babe.”

“Crazy.”

The house itself was quieter than expected when you stepped inside, only faint light spilling from the kitchen and distant noise from somewhere upstairs, but most of the team had either passed out already or vanished with hookups hours ago. The bitterness of the alcohol had already started to fade, leaving a sweet taste in its wake. You weren’t dizzy anymore, just floaty in that magical post-party way that made everything feel so comforting.

“Miracle,” Logan muttered while gripping your wrist. Watching you carefully as you undid the straps of your heels while leaning on his shoulder for stability, “Nobody’s screaming.”

“Garrett’s probably dead.”

“One can hope.”

You laughed softly. Nudging your shoes, if they could be called that, into a semi-convenient space next to the door, but shrugged once they got stuck in the tangle of a thousand sports trainers.

You stayed over enough that nobody even questioned it anymore.

There were hair ties in Logan’s bathroom drawer. A skincare bottle next to his sink. Dean had once walked into the kitchen at eight in the morning, seen you wearing Logan’s shirt while making coffee, and simply said,

“Oh thank god, you live here now. Maybe you’ll stop him eating dry cereal for dinner.”

You’d stayed over enough times by now that his room already half-felt like yours anyway. 

Logan guided you up the stairs and into his room, the quiet settled differently when the door clicked closed, the comforting kind of silence that greets you after a weeks long holiday away from home.

He tossed his keys onto the desk before turning toward you immediately.

“You need water.”

“You sound like my doctor.”

“You’ll thank me tomorrow morning.” 

You smiled slightly while he crossed the room, “You’re really pretty tonight,” you murmur.

Logan laughs softly under his breath while digging through his dresser for one of his shirts to replace the dress you had on currently.

“Tonight specifically?”

“Mhm.”

“Good to know.”

“No, like-” your voice catches slightly around another laugh as you crawl onto the mattress behind him and grab one of his pillows, you bury into the clean scented cotton and angle your face towards him, moreso speaking to his back. “I mean it.”

He turns then, still holding the shirt loosely in one hand.

And something about the way you’re looking at him makes his expression shift. He had tugged his sweatshirt off sometime upstairs, leaving him in a dark grey t-shirt that stretched distractingly across his shoulders, curls messy from the cold outside air, cheeks still faintly flushed from alcohol and laughter.

Your chest squeezed unexpectedly.

“What?” he asked immediately.

“You’re just.. so pretty.” You breathe out, a tangled mix of a gasp and sigh, pushing yourself up slowly, hair messy and strewn across your face.

The corner of his mouth lifted automatically.

“Yeah?”

You crawled to the edge of the bed closest to him. “Like… genuinely.”

You could practically see the exact moment he realised you weren’t teasing him.

“You’re pretty all the time,” you continued quietly, reaching out toward him- fingertips outstretched and ghosting over the belt loop of his jeans. “I just don’t think I say it enough.”

He steps between your knees where you’re sitting, shirt still hanging forgotten from one hand while your palms slide slowly up his thighs.

“Pretty hands,” you whisper, mainly to yourself, tracing the calluses on his palm and the soft cuticles of his nails. You travel higher to his forearms, beckoning him to bend closer towards you- his knee coming up onto the comforter. Logan watches, his eyes still playful and face flushed.

“Pretty arms,” fingertips tracing over the veins in his forearms before guiding his large palms to lay flat on your hips, he exhales heavily, a crack in his breath punctuating the shift in his gaze from loving to lustfully curious. 

“Baby,” he said softly, “How tipsy are you right now?”

You looked up at him properly, “Enough to say this,” then smiled slightly, “But not enough to not mean it.”

You watched his throat move when he swallowed, eyes flicking down to your parted lips.

“Promise?” he asked quietly.

You nodded immediately.

“Promise.”

The tension in his shoulders eased after that.

And then you touched his face again.

“Pretty eyes,” you murmured softly, fingertips barely grazing the edge of his lashes in a way that makes his breath stall for half a second before he steadies it again.

“Pretty cheeks.”

Your hand cups his face now properly, softer than your words sound, thumb resting near his jaw like you’re holding him still just to admire. Your fingers graze his stubble and you itch to rub your face against his, like a cat, arching for attention.

He exhales again, slower this time, eyes fixed on yours- watching as your mind filters through every possibility, a dark, dirty loop. 

You can feel the shift before anything else changes - the room, the air, the space between you narrowing without either of you daring to move away, too transfixed on your next move. 

“And pretty hair.” You almost moan out, the memories of how you’d bury your hands in his hair and tug and scratch appreciatively in response to his actions. 

Your fingers slid into his curls, nails dragging lightly against his scalp.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered quietly

You bit your lip, teasing it between your teeth to hide the way your mouth watered at the blush that stained his cheeks. 

“Are you done?” he asks, somehow leaning even closer to you whilst not brushing his lips against yours. You almost snicker at the wrecked expression he has, but instead you let out a shaky breath when he uses his thumb to pry your bottom lip out from the grips of your teeth. 

“No,” you say immediately, you gulp thickly and continue your appreciation, “m'taking my time baby.” 

A shiver travels down your spine when his fingers move, dangerously slow to the hem of your dress that is already so far up your thighs that you aren’t sure there's a point in still having it on. But you lose most of your coherent thought train when his fingertips breach below the tight sequined fabric. 

You quickly stand, twist Logan into your space and push him down on the bed. He wipes a hand down his face and lets out a growl from the bottom of his throat, eyes raking up your debauched appearance,

“Is this how you feel when I manhandle you?” 

“Little bit, but you normally do that after I’ve come twice, so I’m not complaining." 

You take one of his wrists and pull him up so you can climb into his lap, knees settling carefully on either side of his thighs while Logan looks up at you like he couldn’t decide whether he’s overwhelmed or completely gone already.

Probably both.

“You know what your problem is?” you asked softly, wrapping his arms around you as you shuffle further up against him.

“What?”

“You don’t realise how hot you are.”

That finally got a real laugh out of him, breathless around the edges.

“Baby, I play hockey. Unfortunately that’s like ninety percent of my personality.”

“No,” you insisted, leaning closer. “I mean it.”

Your fingers drifted down his throat slowly, tracing the shape of his Adam's apple, before you brush your mouth against his jaw, he groaned at your featherlight touch, eyes screwed shut and control fraying at the edges.

“You’re stupidly pretty.”

Logan’s hands flexed harder against your waist, fingers digging into the swell of your hips.

“You cannot say shit like that and then not kiss me,” he muttered.

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to behave.” That made you scoff out a chuckle against the corner of his lips.

“Baby,” he whispers, his voice serious as he holds your face in his hands, prying you away from his neck, “You’re not tipsy right now, right?”

You pull away and look at him carefully for a second, eyes softening as he studies your face. 

“Positive,” The hand that you had resting on his neck comes up to spread against his jaw, guiding his gaze to focus on yours, “I'm completely sober right now.” 

Logan’s silent for what seems like hours, watching, analysing you. How your once slightly tangy breath is now coming out in fresh puffs against his nose and the tipsy giddiness in your eyes is replaced with something calmer. 

“Okay.” He finally whispers, threading his fingers into your hair and pressing your forehead against his.

“I love you,” You whisper, giggling when he scoffs and kisses your cheek, “Where was I?”

He lets out a small breath when his hands finally slide up your back properly, warm palms flattening on your ass while he tips his head back to let you kiss along his throat. 

You grip the bottom of his shirt, “Can I take this off?” 

Logan nods, moving back so he can remove it in one fluid tug. You lean into his hands when they return to your back, pushing your weight into him so you can take in his bare skin, the healed over hockey scars and bruises hidden in the shadows of the room, the dips and slants of his muscles contracting which each deep breath- clearly visible in the glow of his lamp. 

“Really pretty shoulders,” You grip the thick muscle in question, nails digging in slightly as you grind down experimentally, “And chest, god, I really hit the jackpot here.”

You ignore the flustered heat radiating off of him and begin to kiss down his neck, wet open mouth kisses that leave glistening stamps on his tanned skin. They make a path of their own, winding around his throat and down to his clavicle, where you begin to lose composure, sucking and biting the skin, whimpers bleeding out in between each new lovebite; they continue to twist onto his chest, spiralling each pec until you can’t comfortably continue. That’s when you push him down and adjust his hands on your body, pulling up your dress to your waist so he can grip you harder. 

“Are you still behaving?” you whispered, punctuating the question with a bite to his abs. 

“Barely.”

You smile against his stomach, your lips meeting the line of brown hair that starts as a splattering at his abdomen. 

Logan swallowed hard from above you, one arm resting on his forehead- his hand balled into a loose fist, the other rested on your head, lightly scratching your scalp, fingers buried into your hair. 

His thighs flex beneath you and you sit up once again, “And your thighs baby, you have such pretty thighs”. You grind against the prominent bulge in his jeans, “So strong too.” You press your palms behind into his legs, arching your back into his chest as he sat up once more. 

“Baby-” He gasped, “You can’t just- shit” You ripped off your dress, or whatever rolled up and wrinkled version you had on, “You can’t just say shit like that.”

“But it's true Logan.” You let him pull down the cups of your bra, mouthing messily at your breasts as he slowly guides your hips against him. 

At this point, Logan’s lips were swollen and spit-slick from biting them and wetting them with his tongue. They were warm against your nipples, teeth a dull ache against the hardening buds as he rolled them, alternating between gentle kisses and tugs with his fingers to sharp sucks and pinches. 

You moan out loudly, pulling at his hair as your hips begin to quicken. Your hands shake from the pleasure coursing through your entire body, but your grip on his jaw is steady as you kiss him. Mouth engulfing him in an open mouth kiss, tongue plunging into his mouth slowly, he matches your desire, his own tongue tangling with yours, hot puffs of air bursting from each millisecond you take to breathe. 

Logan made this sound low in his throat that went straight through you, and suddenly you wanted more of it.

Your fingers tightened in his curls.

His grip on your waist sharpened.

The room felt warmer now, heavier somehow, every breath pulling slower than before while his mouth moved against yours with growing urgency.

“Baby,” he breathed quietly when you shifted in his lap without thinking.

“Your’e so pretty baby,” you whimpered softly before you could stop yourself, a mix of your saliva dripping from your lips.

Logan exhaled sharply against your mouth.

“fuck,” he panted, “What has gotten into you”

You shrug, thighs burning as he picks up the pace of the messy grinds against you, hands digging into your waist, “Just wanna appreciate my beautiful boyfriend, hah, my hot,” You kiss his neck and roughly thrust your hips, “sexy,” You switch sides, “amazing boyfriend.” 

His head tips back as he laughs.

“Jesus Christ.”

His mouth crashed back into yours harder this time, one hand diving into your underwear to press your clit whilst the other ran his nails up your spine, fingertips pressing into soft skin hard enough to make your breath catch.

“You’re killing me,” he muttered roughly against your mouth, “You’re so fucki-”

You kissed him again before he could finish the sentence, desperate to feel his lips against yours, to feel his tongue slip into your mouth and invade your taste buds. 

Your fingers gripped his neck, digging into the sensitive skin as you whimpered, “I forgot,” You lifted up suddenly, looking down to where your bodies were feverishly rubbing, his fingers still teasing your folds and rolling your clit beneath his thumb, “Your cock,” the lewd words were breathed against his ear, as your briefly slowed to press your fingers against the spot where his dick seemed to be straining against the zipper of his jeans, you were met with a damp patch, fingertips tracing the exact area, feeling it out since the darkness of the room wasn’t helpful in identifying just how badly he wanted you, “Your cock is so pretty baby.” 

Logan shuddered against you and you gasp coyly, “yeah? I knew you had a praise kink. You are really liking this.” 

You begin rolling your hips once more, this time directly on the mound that is throbbing against your cunt, warmth radiating through your ruined panties. Logan kisses you and smiles against your mouth, “Good thing I know just what you like,”

His fingers shifted, two digits now circling your hole, in response you arch your chest into him, “So pretty baby.” He snickers against your chest, slowly entering you, mouth parting in parallel with yours whilst a broken moan escapes your throat as he curls his fingers messily. 

The irony isn’t lost on you, his cheeky smile makes you slow your hips, rocking deeply instead of short and snappy movements- languidly drawing out low moans from your boyfriend, who is heavily groaning into your parted mouth. 

Both of you breathing into one another, wetness slipping down from your tongues into a messy, filthy mix against your chins. 

His eyes roll back, as do yours when you find the perfect angle at which his fingers can firmly plunge against the spongy place inside of you whilst you catch the tip of his bulge with each slow rock. 

You know he’s about to cum when short, barely audible whimpers leave his lips, his dark eyebrows pulled together in concentration as his mouth puckers to a shaky pout,

“You gonna cum baby?” You tease the coils of hair at the nape of his neck and watch him bite his lip hard, glancing down to where his hand disappears beneath the waistband of your panties, his fingers mutilating the soft lace in an obscene way. 

Logan shook his head sharply, “Need- fuck- need you to cum first.” His other hand that had been kneading your ass, now went to your waist, guiding your hips in tandem with his fingers that now grinded into you, the heel of his palm pressing into your pubic hair with enough pressure to make your body jerk.

“Oh,” you bit into his shoulder, teeth digging into the muscle, surely going to leave a mark, “I will, Logan, i’m cumming, fuck oh my god.”

The way you moan his name made his hips buck and chest seize up, stuttering whilst you felt the denim beneath you warm considerably. You cup his face, thumb just below his bottom lip as you kiss him slowly, perversely, all slow strokes of your tongue and drool smacking against both of your teeth.

When Logan is able to control his body once again, he kisses you back, his fingers that never stopped, only slowed- picked up the pace. Making you jump, and gasp, “Logan,” you babble out obscenities:

“Yes, fuck right there, please dont stop.”

“So good, baby- need it so bad.”

His chest heaves when you do break around his digits, spasming wildly as wetness coats his knuckles and dribbles down into his palm, he croons at your blissed out expression, face glowing with sweat. He pushes your hips back slightly to pull out his hand, an empty feeling replacing them but soon it disappears when you watch him through hooded eyes, lips parting to welcome his glistening fingers into his mouth. 

fainting had always been a little bit inconvenient.

not dramatic enough to be cinematic, not predictable enough to properly prepare for - just inconvenient in the kind of way that slowly embeds itself into every aspect of your life until you stop noticing how abnormal it actually is. It all started in high school, the first time it happened was arguably horrifying- 3rd period math class, and your crush had just offered you a pen and flashed you a crooked smile. Your heart raced, like a hummingbird wild and erratic and before you knew it, one minute you were bashfully giggling at his jokes about quadratic equations- the next you were face first in your notebook. The doctors told you Vasovagal Syncope, which in your opinion sounded like a hard metal rock band, but you took their blood pressure medicines from that day onwards. 

Over time, you learnt how to live with it. Sometimes it was manageable. Sometimes it was just dizziness and blurry vision making you sit down on the nearest surface before your body decided to humble you publicly. Sometimes it was waking up to panicked faces hovering over you while you tried to convince everyone around you that no, seriously, this happened all the time.

which, unfortunately, was true.

Allie and Hannah learned the quickest, being roommates would do that to you. The boys learned soon after. By junior year, there was practically a system in place for it - water bottles shoved into your hands, someone grabbing your bag before you hit the floor, Garrett texting Logan before you were even fully conscious again.

Logan, however, never quite adjusted to it the way everyone else did.

he tried to.

God, he tried.

but there was something uniquely horrifying about loving someone whose body could go slack in your arms without warning. Something deeply unsettling about the way you always laughed it off afterwards, brushing it aside with flushed cheeks and a quiet, "I'm okay,” while his heart was still somewhere near his throat.

because to you, fainting was normal.

to John Logan, it never would be.

But here are the two times he dealt with it..somewhat normally. And the one time he didn’t

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟏

The library at Briar had a very specific kind of silence.

Not actual silence - that would’ve been impossible considering half the student population seemed physically incapable of existing without aggressively whispering every thought that crossed their mind - but the sort of hushed atmosphere that made every dropped pen sound like a gunshot.

You were currently trying very hard not to contribute to that atmosphere by murdering John Logan with a highlighter.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Logan muttered from across the table, long legs nudging yours beneath it.

You didn’t look up from your notes, underlining a sentence in your physiology textbook hard enough to nearly tear the page. “Because,” You whispered sharply, “you’ve tapped your foot against mine for the last fifteen minutes.”

“That’s because my feet are freezing.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“It became my problem when you shoved your icy ass converse under my legs.”

A snort came from beside you. Hannah quickly disguised it as a cough when you glared at her over your laptop screen.

Across from her, Garrett looked deeply unbothered by the entire interaction, lazily flipping a page in his philosophy textbook while Hannah slowly collapsed into silent laughter against his shoulder.

“You two are disgusting,” Allie informed you quietly from the end of the table.

You blinked. “We’re literally studying.”

Logan hummed, not even pretending to pay attention to the stats worksheet in front of him anymore, “Yeah baby, real filthy behaviour.”

Heat crawled up your neck instantly.

The word baby wasn’t exactly new. Logan had been throwing it around for months now, slipping it into conversations with such casual ease that you’d stopped reacting outwardly somewhere around week three, despite the fact every single time still felt like someone plugging your nervous system directly into a live wire.

“You’re staring again,” You muttered.

“I’m allowed to stare at my girlfriend.”

Allie gagged dramatically.

“Oh my god,” She whispered loudly, “he’s gotten even more annoying.”

“Impossible,” Hannah replied solemnly.

Garrett barely glanced up from his book. “Give it a week. They’ll become one organism.”

“We already basically are,” Logan said casually.

You finally looked up at him then.

That was the problem with Logan. The reason you’d fallen for him so spectacularly despite your better judgement.

He said things like that so easily. Like it was obvious.

obviously he’d started keeping protein bars in his backpack because you forgot to eat when you were stressed. obviously he waited outside your exam halls even when he had practice. obviously your legs ended up over his lap every time you sat together for longer than ten minutes.

Your chest tightened softly.

And because apparently the universe enjoyed humiliating you whenever you got too emotionally comfortable, your vision blurred slightly at the exact same moment.

You frowned. That was… inconvenient timing.

The words on your laptop screen swam for half a second before sharpening again. Your heartbeat fluttered unpleasantly.

Not enough to panic over yet. You subtly shifted in your seat, rolling your neck and readjusting your posture- hoping to god that it would be enough, trying to ignore the familiar lightheadedness curling at the edges of your body.

“Hey.”

Logan’s voice dropped quieter instantly.

You looked over.

His brows had pulled together slightly, eyes scanning your face with terrifying precision.

“How long?” He asked softly.

Damn him.

Most people didn’t notice until you were actively halfway unconscious.

“I’m okay,” You whispered automatically.

A look crossed his face. Because he knew that tone. Knew what it meant when you said I’m okay in that specific careful voice. Your boyfriend leaned back slightly in his chair, completely ignoring the fact that Garrett was now openly watching the interaction over the top of his textbook.

“When was the last time you ate?”

You blinked once.

Logan sighed immediately. “Baby.”

“I had coffee?”

Allie dropped her pen onto the table. “Oh my god.”

“You can’t survive on caffeine and academic validation,” Hannah hissed.

“I literally can though.”

“No,” Logan said flatly, “you literally cannot. That’s the whole issue.”

Despite yourself, you laughed quietly.

Wrong decision.

The movement sent dizziness crashing through you harder this time, your stomach dipping sharply as black spots burst across your vision. Logan was moving before you could even process it properly. One second you were upright, the next his hand was wrapped around your wrist while the other steadied your shoulder.

“Hey,” He said immediately, voice calm enough that someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice the tension underneath it, “look at me.”

Your body felt frustratingly floaty all of a sudden.

“I’m fine,” You murmured weakly.

“Yeah, sweetheart, that sentence is losing credibility.”

Garrett was already standing.

“I’ll get water.”

Hannah reached for your bag without needing to ask while Allie shoved your laptop aside to make room.

The horrifying thing was how practised everyone looked doing it.

Like this had become routine.

Which, unfortunately, it kind of had.

“I hate all of you,” You mumbled as Logan carefully crouched in front of your chair.

“You love us deeply,” Allie corrected.

“Stockholm syndrome maybe.”

“You literally chose to date one of them,” Hannah pointed out.

“That weakens your argument significantly,” Garrett called over his shoulder.

Logan ignored all of them.

His thumb pressed lightly against your pulse point while he watched your face with that same concentrated expression he got before hockey games. Like he could somehow prevent your body from betraying you if he paid enough attention.

Your chest ached.

“Hey,” You whispered softly once your vision finally started stabilising again.

Logan looked up immediately.

You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing against the crease between his eyebrows. The tension sitting there.

“I’m okay.”

He closed his eyes for half a second. Then he turned his head slightly and pressed a quick kiss into the centre of your palm before standing back up.

The library collectively chose that exact moment to become aware of the fact that the hockey team’s second line centre was looking at you like you personally held his heart hostage.

“Oh my god,” Allie whispered dramatically.

Hannah looked emotional.

Garrett looked disgusted.

“Suddenly we’re all trapped in a Nicholas Sparks novel,” he muttered.

Logan didn’t even glance away from you.

“Shut up,” He said absentmindedly, still watching your face carefully, “she almost passed out.”

“I did not almost pass out.”

“That’s not medically valid.” Logan shot.

You flicked his forehead, “You’re not medically valid,” 

You stared at him for two seconds before bursting into startled laughter.

And just like that, some of the fear eased out of his shoulders.

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐

The thing about the hockey house was that it never really felt like anyone was visiting it.

It felt like everyone was always a part of this little ecosystem, even if half of them technically still had their own places and the other half only owned two plates and a concerning number of energy drinks that nobody could fully account for.

Tonight was one of those nights where everything blurred into something almost domestic in a way you loved. Garrett and Hannah were folded into each other on the armchair in the corner, Hannah scrolling absently while Garrett spoke over her shoulder in low, easy comments about something on his screen that she kept pretending not to care about but clearly did. 

Dean and Allie were on the floor near the coffee table, Allie leaning against him in that casual way that somehow always ended with her stealing his hoodies and Dean acting like he was personally offended by affection while still adjusting her position when she shifted too much.

And then there was Tucker, occupying the remaining space , talking at a volume that suggested he had forgotten walls existed.

You were on the couch.

Logan was on the couch too, your legs resting across his lap, your head resting on the back of the couch. His hand had found your ankle at some point during the evening and had simply stayed there, like it had decided that was where it belonged and saw no reason to reconsider.

“Have you eaten today?,” Logan murmured into your ear, not looking up from his phone.

You didn’t look away from the conversation Dean was having with Allie about whether cereal could be classified as a personality trait. “Hmm?”

“Did you eat today baby?” He dropped his phone into his lap and caressed your hair.

“I think so.”

A pause.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It does if you really think about it.”

Hannah glanced over from the armchair. “She’s lying.”

“I am not lying.”

Garrett didn’t look up. “You had toast and emotional distress.”

“I had toast and a very normal amount of stress.”

Logan’s thumb pressed lightly against your ankle once, absent and automatic, but his attention had shifted to you properly now. Not fully concerned yet, but already recalibrating the room around your answer the way he always did when he thought something might be off.

“Baby,” he said quietly, like it was a habit more than a warning.

You finally turned your head slightly toward him. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything.”

“You’re absolutely starting something.”

Across the room, Allie made a sound of exaggerated disgust without even looking up. “I can feel the health lecture forming.”

Dean nodded. “It’s in the air.”

Logan ignored them completely. “You said you had toast this morning.”

“I did.”

“And then what.”

You hesitated.

Which was apparently answered enough.

Hannah sighed. “Oh my god.”

“I had coffee,” you admitted finally, because there was no point pretending anymore.

Garrett closed his eyes briefly like he was praying for patience. “That’s not food.”

“It has beans in it.”

“That’s not how nutrition works,” Logan said, though his voice was still calm, still even, like he was trying very hard not to make it into a bigger thing than it already was.

You shifted your legs slightly on his lap, rolling your eyes. “You’re all obsessed with me.”

“Yes,” Allie said immediately.

“That’s not-”

“Yes,” Dean repeated, “we are.”

You opened your mouth to concede and hop to the kitchen, go grab whatever tucker had made and stored in the fridge, but the words didn’t come out as smoothly as they should have.

It wasn’t immediate. It never was, much to your annoyance. It was subtle in the way your body always was about these things, like it preferred to give you enough time to be pissed before it betrayed you properly.

A slight softening at the edges of your vision first, like the room had decided to lose definition without informing you. The low hum of conversation didn’t change, but it felt slightly further away, like you were listening to it through water.

You frowned. This was inconvenient.

You shifted your weight on the couch instinctively, trying to ground yourself without drawing attention to it, but Logan noticed anyway. Of course he did.

His hand tightened slightly around your ankle.

“You good?” he asked, quieter now.

You nodded automatically. “Yea,” pushing off the sofa, hoping the movement would reboot your brain,”... yeah im fine.”

It came out too fast. Logan’s expression changed imperceptibly, the way it always did when he didn’t believe you but hadn’t yet decided whether to challenge it in front of everyone.

“Hey,” he said again, softer, his hand wrapped around your wrist- following you away from your seat.

You tried to laugh it off, but it didn’t quite land properly even in your own ears. “I’m finally listening to you guys, just going to grab something to eat.”

You pushed yourself to step away.

That was when it hit properly. Your body simply decided that it was no longer participating in the conversation. The room loosened, like the edges stopped agreeing with each other and in between the gaps your brain filled with black spots.

You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the back of the couch as your knees went weak in a way that didn’t feel like anything at first, until it did.

“Hey-”

Logan’s voice cut through immediately, sharper now, closer than it had been a second ago, but it was already too late for clarity.

There was so much movement all at once.

Someone swearing.

A water bottle being cracked open.

The shuffling of sneakers and socks against the floor.

Coming back was always the worst part.

Because there was always a moment where you could hear everything before you could properly exist inside it again. Voices layered over each other, closer this time, less casual.

“I’ve got her,” Logan’s voice said, low and controlled in a way that didn’t quite match the tension underneath it.

“She’s out cold?” Dean asked, like he was trying not to panic but also deeply failing.

“She’s not- don’t say it like that,” Allie snapped immediately.

“Water,” Garrett said somewhere to the side, already moving.

And then your vision finally returned in pieces.

Ceiling first.

Then faces.

Then Logan.

He was closest.

Crouched in front of you, one hand steadying your shoulder, the other still holding your wrist like he hadn’t fully decided whether letting go was allowed yet. His expression wasn’t dramatic in the way people expected panic to be.

He was focussed on you, in a way that made your chest tighten before you even fully remembered why. You blinked slowly.

“Oh,” you muttered. “That was annoying.”

Relief flickered across Allie’s face instantly. “She’s alive.”

“Barely,” Dean said.

“I heard that,” you murmured.

Logan didn’t smile, “you scared me,” he said finally. You swallowed, trying to sit up, but his hand immediately steadied you again, firmer now.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

“I’m fine,” you replied automatically, accepting the water from garrett with a smile, you reach over to your bag and search for an energy bar. You hated the nutty torture snacks, but Logan insisted on you carrying them around for emergencies.

Everyone around you had relaxed, Hannah, Garrett and Tucker went to the kitchen, animatedly chatting about dinner whereas Allie and Dean went back to their places on the floor, already scrolling through her phone. 

Logan hadn’t moved, his fingers drumming against your knee. Your fingers moved without thinking, brushing lightly against his sleeve.

“I’m okay,” you said again, softer this time, like it might mean something more if you said it gently enough.

Logan exhaled through his nose, eyes flicking briefly shut like he was trying to steady something in himself. He shook his head, as if the movie had been unpaused and he had momentarily lost the plot. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟑

Logan got the message in the middle of something he would not later be able to reconstruct properly, not because it wasn’t important, but because everything that happened immediately after replaced it so completely that the original context never stood a chance of surviving in his memory.

His phone buzzed incessantly on his desk breaking his concentration from whatever his professor was droning about ,to the group chat notifications exploding on his phone screen. It was Hannah’s name first, then Garrett’s, then Allie’s, all stacked on top of each other in a way  that made him unlock his phone and scroll through hurriedly. 

you fainted. properly. you're awake now. come back.

He read it once without reacting in any visible way, which was what made it worse in hindsight, everything else that he had been doing was irrelevant, as though the idea of continuing it belonged to someone else entirely, and he was no longer that person.

By the time he got back to the house, his hoodie was half-zipped because he had started putting it on properly and then stopped halfway through, his cap still backwards and slightly uneven like he had forgotten it was there at all and his hair underneath it flattened in places that suggested his hand had been through it more times than he had noticed.

Logan shut off his ignition and ran up the stairs, two at a time until he was bursting through the front door- his bag hanging from one shoulder as he scanned the scene in front of him. Garrett stood near the kitchen counter with a glass of water he had clearly forgotten to drink from, Hannah sat on the couch angled slightly forward in a posture that suggested she had not yet decided whether she was allowed to relax, Allie hovered somewhere between the hallway and the living room in a way that made it clear she had been going back and forth between checking on you and giving you space, and Dean existed in that familiar state of pretending not to be paying attention while absolutely paying attention.

And you were on the couch. Your eyes were open but not fully anchored yet, blinking slowly in that delayed way that made it clear your body was still catching up to where you were. Your shoulders were slightly hunched forward as if you were trying to find the correct posture for being awake again and your hands were loosely folded in your lap before you noticed him properly.

The moment you did, everything in you shifted in a way that was immediate and familiar, like muscle memory rather than thought. You sat up, twisting over the couch to meet his eyes and smile with your hand outstretched- that was when the collective inhale happened, like even the house was waiting to see what he would do.

His eyes stayed on you without breaking, taking in the fact that you were sitting there, awake, conscious, present, and yet his brain still hadn’t stopped running like a hamster on a wheel, rotating again and again through all the scenarios he had plagued himself with on the drive over- a broken movie reel that fluttered between bad, worse and catastrophic.

You saw him, the way his eyes darted all over your face, how his hand was tightening and loosening against his bag strap. 

“Hey,” you said, your voice slightly rough, but it jumpstarted him to begin slowly approaching you, like a wounded animal. Your first instinct whenever he looked like that, as if you could smooth the edges of his expression back into something manageable by making yourself smaller within it, which was something you did without hesitation, like it was part of a pattern you had both already agreed to without ever discussing it.

He let you. 

Let you intertwine your fingers with him and pull him closer next to you. Let you kiss his hands, then knuckles and then the side of his wrist. He let you ground him before he could process anything.

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, already aware of how the room was still holding itself slightly tense, and your voice tilted into something apologetic without fully meaning to, “I’m sorry guys, I must not have realised how stressed I was. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, I just didn’t eat properly and I got a bit dizzy and I didn’t realise it would turn into anything, it won’t happen again, I promise.”

Around you, the room began to release itself in pieces.

Garrett exhaled and shifted his weight like he had been waiting for permission to stop bracing, Hannah leaned back into the couch again as her shoulders loosened, Allie moved a step closer to you and immediately started talking in that half-joking, half-relieved tone about electrolytes and how she was “putting you on a schedule if this ever happens again,” and Dean, finally, contributed something about how he shouldn’t have asked about how your paper went, and he’ll let you run him over with his car to relieve stress next time, which was unhelpful but normal in a way that helped everyone else reset.

You leaned into Logan without thinking, still holding his hand, your body molding into his as you rubbed circles on his knuckles and pressed your hand into his thigh

You looked up at him, already softer, already slipping back into the version of the evening where everything was normal again. But what you couldn’t see was the way his emotions swirled thunderously in his mind, how he couldn’t begin to relax like everyone else did- in fact he was baffled they were so normal so quickly. He barely heard you ask about his class, or notice when you peppered soft kisses to his jaw and say that you missed him- how boring it was when he wasn’t there. As though the structure of his day mattered more than anything.

He tried to answer at first, his words bubbling to the tip of his tongue, but it didn’t take long for him to realise they wouldn’t come out in a smooth, caramelised way that would flow into the calm atmosphere of the room. He gently let go of your hand, in a decisive way that made you furrow your brows and scan his face.

“Logan?” you said, quieter now, not fully alarmed but already sensing the direction this was going.

He rubbed his hands together, throat working thickly as his adams apple bobbed. Everyone else had noticed the shift, conversations slowed. Dean stopped mid-sentence. Allie’s expression changed slightly as she looked between the two of you. Hannah went still in a way that suggested she was no longer sure whether to intervene or wait.

Logan turned to you, his hair falling in specks along his forehead, “I need a minute.” He got up and went upstairs, footsteps heavy along the ceiling of where you all stayed frozen until his bedroom door clicked closed; you blinked a few times, looking at your friends who met you with confused, concerned shrugs and shakes of their heads.

Your expression tightened and you pushed yourself up to follow him, ignoring whatever advice your friends were half-heartedly giving you. 

When the door creaked open under your hand, you found him sitting on the edge of his bed, hands braced on his knees and holding his head, as though he needed something solid to hold the weight of his thoughts. His cap lay discarded on the floor, shoulders slightly lifted in tension that he was not releasing, and when you entered the doorway he did not look immediately, as if he already knew what would happen if he looked at you too quickly.

When he did meet your eyes, it was not anger that you saw first, but something more difficult to place because it did not sit cleanly in any single emotion. It looked like a strain held in place for too long.

“You shouldn’t apologise like that,” he said, and you frowned slightly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind you. Trapping whatever conversation you were about to have within these four walls.

“I wasn’t- I just didn’t want everyone worrying,” you said, still trying to smooth it over in the same way you had in the other room, still trying to keep it within something manageable. The bedframe creaked under you, as if warning you from crossing your legs and sinking into this situation.

But he shook his head once, not dismissive but overwhelmed, and when he spoke again his voice had shifted into something quieter but sharper at the edges, “You were apologising for being unconscious.”

That made you stop, properly stop, because it didn’t match the version of the moment you had been holding onto, and he saw that in your face immediately.

“I wasn’t here,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it that made it clear that time had not been abstract for him in the same way it was for you. “You were just gone, and I found out from my phone blowing up, messages that had sat there for god knows how long because…” He grit his teeth, “I just had to turn it on silent for class. And I get back to everyone telling me it was fine, that you’re fine, like that changes anything.”

You try to re-anchor him in proximity the same way you always did, your hand finding his again, your voice softening as you said, “You can’t always be there Logan, I don’t want you to always be on edge. I’m okay.”

But when he looked at you this time, there was something in his expression that did not settle with that reassurance.

“I know,” he said quietly, and it came out with more restraint than anything he had said earlier, like it was something he had been holding back for a long time and could no longer keep contained in the same shape. “I just don’t know how to stop thinking about what it looked like when you weren’t.”

You cup his cheek, turning him towards you, “I’m right here baby,” You kiss him, imprinting the taste of you onto his mouth, the feel of your lips together as a way to tell him that you’re still there with him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Logan held your wrists, his fingers shaking against your skin, “I..” his eyes were wide, pupils flicking between yours, “I never know when you aren’t going to be here.”

He tugged at your hands and you let him, nails digging into the bedsheet uselessly next to you. Your breath caught in your throat, face quaking and crumbling at the edges, eyelashes fluttering- beating away the bubbling tears forming on your lashline. 

“I think I’ll sleep at the dorm tonight,” you said eventually, and your voice was softer than it had been before, tired in a way that didn’t fully belong to the moment.

Logan looked up at that, but he didn’t stop you, just watched with a shattered look in his eyes, his lips pursed and pressed against his hands that were clasped together. You collected your things as seamlessly as possible, and given that you’d stayed over for the entire weekend, it was proving to be harder than you thought. But you huffed and puffed with each new article that got shoved into the shoulder bag until the room looked as if you’d never stepped foot in there. 

You’d already begun to calculate how many trips it would take to empty out the clothes from his dresser and toiletries from his bathroom. 

Logan still hadn’t said anything, his eyes widening by a fraction when he realised just how much you had erased from his space, but he stayed silent when your fingers hesitated against the door handle and didn’t dare to say anything when you turned back to him- eyes begging him to stop you, to cradle you in his arms and work it out. He ignored it all, looking through you and barely flinching when you shut the door harder than necessary. 

You adjusted your bag strap over your shoulder with careful hands, stilling when you realised everyone was staring at you as you emerged from the stairwell, “I’m heading home guys..” 

Your throat tightened but you shook your head and forced a smile onto your face, it felt plasticy and fake to force the expression over your eyebrows that tightened together and nose that burned with each deep breath you took. 

You added lightly, “I’ve got that test tomorrow anyway, and it’s probably better if I just- yeah. I’ll head back.”

Allie and Hannah both turned slightly, breaking out of the pitying trance when you grabbed your keys and headed for the door. 

Neither of them said anything at first, because there was a specific kind of silence that settles when two people are trying very hard to behave like nothing irreversible has happened only a floor above them.

“Okay,” Allie said finally, careful but not pushing, “Text us when you get in?”

You nodded quickly.

“Yeah, of course.”

Hannah’s eyes lingered on you a little longer, not interrogating, just observing, like she was storing away the way you were holding yourself more tightly than usual, the way Logan wasn’t following you to the door, barely letting you out of his hold with attacks of kisses and whispers in your ear. 

But neither of them asked.

Because to everyone else in the house, it still looked like something that could be explained away by stress and timing and too much noise and not enough food.

You said goodbye in a way that was deliberately light, stepping out with your usual version of composure stitched back together over something slightly less stable underneath it.

Back in the living room, the energy eventually returned in fragments, Logan had rejoined the group nearly an hour after the girls had left. 

Allie and Hannah left together not long after you, mumbled goodbyes were exchanged and worried whispers about Logan along with promises to update them over text had gotten them out the door, and back to you .

And once the door closed behind them, the house settled into a quieter version of itself.

Dean was the first to fully break the tension, dropping onto the couch with the kind of exaggerated movement that only made sense when someone was actively trying to remind a room how normal they were allowed to be. Tucker followed soon after, already halfway into a joke about how “Briar parties are medically unsafe environments” that no one really responded to but still helped reset the tone anyway.

Logan stayed silent for a moment too long in the doorway before eventually sitting down on the arm of the couch, not fully joining the group, just occupying space near it without integrating into it. The others kept talking for a while, but their volume softened slightly in the way it does when people unconsciously recognise that something heavier is still present in the room.

Eventually, Dean stretched and yawned in an overly theatrical way.

“Right,” he said, pushing himself up. “I’m calling it before I start thinking about my own mortality again.”

Tucker followed immediately, clapping Logan on the shoulder on his way past like nothing meaningful had just been discussed at all. “Don’t overthink it, man,” he added lightly, already heading upstairs. “She’s been doing that since high school apparently. She’s fine.”

Garrett didn’t follow them right away.

Logan just exhaled once, slow, like something had tightened in his chest at the phrasing.

Once the footsteps disappeared upstairs and the house settled properly, Garrett stayed behind in the spot next to Logan, leaning against the couch and pretended not to be boring holes into the side of his best friend's face. Logan was still on the arm, staring somewhere that wasn’t really the room.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

“I can’t imagine it,” Garrett broke the silence, voice quieter now, stripped of the earlier group energy, “loving someone and knowing that at any point they might just not respond.”

Logan’s jaw tightened slightly at that, but he didn’t interrupt.

Garrett looked down at his hands briefly before continuing, “I know everyone’s saying she’s used to it and it’s normal for her or whatever, but… that’s not really the part that sticks, is it?”

That landed differently.

Logan looked down finally, his hands loosely clasped together, and when he spoke his voice came out lower than before, less controlled in the way it had been earlier.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and there was no performance left in it now, no attempt to hold anything in place. “I love her so much it actually hurts, and I can’t… I can’t keep doing that thing where I pretend I’m okay when she’s-”

He stopped. Swallowed slightly and pressed his fingers to his eyes. Logan exhaled again, slower this time, like the words were physically difficult to keep forming.

“But I also can’t go on like this,” he finished, quieter.

That silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable in the way earlier ones had been. It was just heavy with the absence of an answer. Garrett nodded once, slowly, like he understood that there wasn’t a clean solution sitting anywhere in reach.

“I think,” Garrett said carefully after a moment, choosing each word like he was placing it somewhere fragile, “it might actually be harder to let her go than it is to keep reminding yourself she wakes up every time.”

Logan turned to Garrett, and nodded slowly- a row of tears fell from his chin and onto the soft cashmere beneath him, “I just don’t know how many times I can do it.”