Jack Abbot was normal. He was fine. He was definitely not seething watching you dance with friends. The problem with dating the hottest woman in existence was that he couldn’t exclusively monopolize your time. He barely knew anyone at this wedding, it was your friend’s wedding.

She had too many sisters to have you as a bridesmaid and in the comfort and secrecy of your bedroom you had whispered to him that you just didn’t have it in you to be in so many weddings—most of your twenties had been spent traveling around the country to be in friends’ weddings.

Now, he was watching you in a gorgeous plum dress dancing around barefoot with girls you’ve known for over a decade. Some of their husbands were tolerable. Your best friend and her husband were here. Most of the time Ted was fine. Drunk Ted cared a lot about golf and Jack, drunk or sober, couldn’t give a shit.

When P!nk’s “So What” ended you meandered back over to Jack and to his surprise (and delight), collapsed in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “I’m a little tipsy.”

“So I see,” he replied, lightly pushing your hair back away from your face. Your nice hairdo had long since come unraveled and kept falling in your face.

“I like you so much,” you said leaning into him.

“You don’t love me?” He asked with a smile on his face. You snorted.

“Of course I love you. But I also like you.”

“Thanks?”

“I don’t think all my friends like their husbands,” you whispered a little too wet in his ear. He had to resist the urge to push you away to wipe it off.

“What makes you say that?”

“Take me back to the hotel and I’ll tell you,” you said laying your head on his shoulder. It definitely didn’t look comfortable, largely speaking to your exhaustion. You had been dancing and jumping with your friends for multiple hours.

“C’mon, babe,” he said shifting your legs off his lap.

“Ugh,” you groaned standing again. “I need to tell Claire goodnight.”

“I’ll get our stuff,” he said.

The send off had been a few hours ago, before the elderly relatives had left. Now, it was just a fun party with friends. He loved watching you light up and enjoy being around your people. He loved his people, but they were far more subdued than yours.

Across the dance floor you approached your friend who threw her arms around you with heartfelt but drunken balance and coordination. It made his heart swell, watching how happy you were. Fuck, he loved making you happy. All he wanted in life was to make each day just a little easier; he wanted to do his best to make you happy.

By the time you’d extricated yourself from your friend’s embrace and made your way back to him, Jack had a hold of your purse and coat. He also had already dug your ugly Birkenstocks out of your purse so you didn’t have to put your heels back on.

“Fuck you’re so good to me,” you said, holding onto him while you slipped the shoes on.

“Well if that’s all it takes,” he replied, helping you into your coat.

He kept a hold of your bag when walking out to the parking lot. Just like his mother taught him, he held the door open on the rental car and shut it gently behind you. When he got into the drivers seat, you had dug your water bottle out of your purse.

“Ugh, I’m already sobering up,” you complained.

“So you don’t want drunk fast food?”

You gasped dramatically. “Do you kiss your mother with that dirty mouth?”

Jack laughed and grabbed your hand as he turned out of the parking lot heading back to the hotel.

“What did you mean earlier about your girlfriends not liking their husbands?” He asked pulling into a greasy fast food joint. It rarely mattered which one as the point was disgusting food.

Once the French fries and chicken and burgers had been acquired, Jack pulled into a parking spot towards the back of the lot. One of the first things you both discovered you’d had in common was growing up in small towns. It meant that you both had fond memories of idling car conversations and the occasional makeout. Even now, a long away from your teen years, you both adored your post party ritual.

“So,” you began, curling your legs up. “Abigail, not technically my friend, but she’s a good time. Was talking to me about how glad she was that her husband couldn’t come and that was fucking bonkers to me. Why would you marry someone you don’t like?”

“You would be sad if I couldn’t come?”

“Sure, I like spending time with you. It’s not like it would ruin it for me, I basically barely hung out with you tonight, but it’s fun coming back and kissing you before dancing to Pitbull songs with everyone.”

“I think that’s a compliment,” he laughed.

“But seriously!” You said nudging him. “I like being around you. It’s fun. You’re just as fun as my friends.”

“Even though I can’t dance with the energy of a drunk college girl?”

“Even then,” you laughed. “Hear anything good with the spouses?”

“Ted likes golf,” Jack sighed.

“God he’s so boring,” you laughed. “But she needs boring after the shit head she used to be married to.”

“Do your friends think I’m boring?”

You scoffed. “No, they think you’re a crazy adrenaline junky, not boring. Did you notice the groom’s sister had a fucking weird speech?”

For the next hour you both sat in the car, eating food that would clog your arteries and gossiping about the wedding. It was life giving and comforting in ways you never wanted to lose. You’d had this with friends but Jack was the first man you’d ever dated who wanted to do stupid shit with you. He wanted to go to weddings of people he didn’t know. He wanted to sit in a slightly too heated car talking shit about speeches. He wanted to do nothing and everything with you.

“What’s that look?” Jack asked.

“I dunno,” you sighed. “I just really fucking like you.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I really fucking like you, too,” he said. “Even if you dance like a baby giraffe.”

“Fuck off!”

When you both got back to the hotel, Jack helped you search for the various pins hidden somewhere in your hair.

“You’re so pretty,” he said mouth at your bare shoulder.

“Are you trying to get in my pants, Dr. Abbot?”

“You’re not wearing pants,” he said, bracketing your body against the counter of the bathroom. “You are, however, wearing a gorgeous dress I’ve wanted to peel off with my teeth all night.”

“Your teeth, huh?” You asked making eye contact with him in the mirror.

“God I’ve wanted to touch you so bad all night,” he whispered in your ear, pressing a soft kiss right near your hairline.

“You look so good in that suit,” you grumbled, pushing your ass back against his groin. “Kept coming back to kiss you so everyone knew you were mine.”

Jack’s eyes fluttered closed as he buried his face in your neck. Being wanted by you was intoxicating. Knowing that you coveted him as much as he coveted you was more than enough to turn him on. He could feel the ghost of your cunt clenching around him. It had been two weeks since he last fucked you. Both of your jobs had been hectic.

But now, in the privacy of the too expensive hotel room, he had you at his mercy.

“Look at me baby,” he said softly against your ear, relishing in how you shivered against him. “All mine, right?”

“Only yours,” you breathed. “I’ve missed your hands.”

He ran his hands from your thighs up your dress to cup your tits. The strapless dress was held up by tape and some intricate ties in the back. He pulled the tape off your chest gently and then yanked the fabric down under your tits, bra and all. You looked so good. In the dim light of the bathroom, he drank in your heedy gaze.

“Beautiful,” he said attacking your neck again.

Having you in his bed for so long, meant Jack knew just how to kiss you and play with your chest to make you soaked. It’s like he had a cheat code to turning you on. It helped that most of the night had been subtle foreplay between you both. During dinner his hand was definitely too high on your thigh but he couldn’t bear to move it.

“Fuck, baby, take me to bed. It’s cold as shit in here,” you groaned.

“Anything for you,” he said. “How hard do you want tonight?”

“Rough,” you replied.

He wove his fingers through your hair, close to the roots and pulled. He drug you back into the main room and tossed you on the bed face first. Holding you down with one hand on your upper back, he slowly pulled the zipper of your dress down.

“Look at this sexy body,” he said. “All for me.”

You wiggled a little as he unhooked the strapless bra with one hand. It had taken him nearly a year to master, but it was one of his most used bedroom skills. Letting you go, he pulled off the dress harshly, taking your underwear with it. Then you were face down on the bed, naked and already dripping for him.

You had arched your back, preening under his gaze. With a sharp smack to the meaty part of your glute, he watched you jump and settle back into your skin. A few more spanks and he quickly shoved his fingers inside you making you gasp.

He loved all the noises and movements you made during sex. For the duration of your relationship, he had been making a running catalog of how to get you to do a sound or movement. While he harshly fingered you, enjoying the way you squirmed under him, he began unbuckling his belt and pants.

“Feel good, baby?”

“Fuck me, please,” you panted against the comforter.

Shoving his pants down just low enough let out his dick, he pulled his fingers out of you and rubbed your wetness along his cock. Just the smell of you was sending him over the edge. He made sure to clamp down on your hips tightly, hoping to leave a bruise for you to enjoy, before careening his hips into yours aggressively.

There was a grunt as the air was knocked out of you. For a moment he paused, enjoying how you felt. Your cunt always felt so fucking good against his dick. You were so warm and wet and you clenched so beautifully when he spanked you. As much as he loved to be the one furiously fucking you, he also loved having you in charge.

He always enjoyed feeling your nails rake down his back. He was desperate to feel you closer against his skin, so while he had your hips pinned to the bed, he quickly ripped off his button up and undershirt so he could wrap his arm around your neck and pull you up against his body.

Once he felt you against his chest, he began to thrust ferociously against your cunt. He loved how it fluttered and the grunts and groans you released as he harshly pounded into you.

“Fuck, baby,” Jack growled harshly. “You feel so good. Made for me. Carved for my fucking dick, isn’t that right?”

“Just for you,” you said breathlessly.

You were clutching onto the bicep his had wrapped around your neck (more so your chest than neck, but it had the same effect). He felt you meeting his thrusts sending shockwaves through both of you.

“I love it when you’re rough with me,” you heaved against his assault. “Harder, please.”

Your tone was always so breathy and almost whiny when you got worked up like this.

“Anything for my naughty girl. Do you like this dick pounding into you. Does it feel good to have someone treat you so meanly?”

“Fuuuck,” you groaned arching against his grasp more. “You feel so good inside of me.”

“You make me so fucking crazy, pretty girl,” he hissed against your ear. “Watching you tonight was like my own personal dream. The prettiest girl in the world dancing and jumping but always coming back to me. Can’t be without me can you?”

“No, I can’t,” you whined as one of Jack’s hands roughly kneaded your tits. “Your hands are so good.”

“Rub your clit for me, baby. I want to feel you cum on my dick. I’m going to fuck you so hard you can’t walk tomorrow.”

“Yes please,” you mumbled. He felt one of your hands leave its iron grasp on his arm. “You fill me up so good.”

Jack felt himself getting close so he pulled out and finished taking off his pants. Getting his prosthetic off quickly was a hard fought for skill, but he managed to push you flat on the bed covering your body with his own before slipping back inside of your warmth.

He wrapped his arm around your throat again and grinned at how you moaned wantonly.

“So pretty when you’re being used by me.”

“Please,” you managed.

“Prop your hips up, baby,” he said getting on his knees to allow you room.

The harsh sounds of him slamming into you filled the room while he kept whispering debauched things in your ear:

“You’re made for me and only me.”

“Using you feels so sweet.”

“Are you going to cum on my dick?”

“I’m so fucking deep, baby.”

“I’m going to make you cum so hard.”

He was so focused on making sure you came, he didn’t noticed how you turned your face.

“Please, daddy, harder,” you moaned.

His hips stuttered and to control himself, he bit into the muscle of your shoulder. He almost felt guilty for how hot he found your cry of pain to be.

“Rub your clit and say it again,” he mumbled against your skin.

Your hand snaked underneath your body, and gasping under his assault you said,

“Harder, daddy. I want to feel you cum inside me.”

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned.

He was so close when he felt the tell tale flutters of your cunt against him. He nearly wept with relief you finally were close enough for him to say,

“Cum on my dick, pretty girl. Show me how good I make you feel. Milk me. Milk daddy.”

You cried out as you tensed and gasped underneath him. He made sure to keep moving as you clenched against him until your shaking thighs collapsed. He continued his furious pace until he felt himself orgasm. It felt like he came forever. When he finally collapsed and rolled over next to you, he chest was heaving.

“Daddy, huh?” He asked.

“I don’t know where it came from,” you laughed. “But you clearly liked it.”

“Surprise for me, too,” he huffed. He pulled you against him, reveling in how your naked skin felt against his.

“You’re sweaty and hot,” you grumbled, nuzzling your face against his chest. It was said like a complaint but you weren’t moving away.

“So are you,” he laughed. You tweaked his nipple.

“I’m fresh as a daisy.”

He laughed and kissed the top of your head. “Want to shower first?”

“Yes please,” you said. “Will you keep me company?”

He snorted and nodded.

The accessible bathroom had a removable shower chair that he used while he waited for you. Unlike the shower at home, it wasn’t big enough for Jack, his shower chair, and you. So he watched as you tied your hair up and quickly rinsed off. He noticed your wince when you gently cleaned your vagina.

“Do you want me to check it?” He asked a little concerned.

“Nah, just sensitive. You did a good job.”

“Wow, did I get an A-plus in sex?”

“Fuck off,” you laughed.

While Jack showered, you began working through your nighttime routine. You took off whatever make up hadn’t been sweated off during the wedding or the following sex and washed your face. By the time Jack got out, you were brushing your teeth.

Before leaving the bathroom you kissed him and said, “I love you.”

“Wuv yew,” he said with his toothbrush in his mouth.

Using his crutches, he made his way back to the bed, pulling on a pair of clean boxers before sliding into bed with you. Like you always did, you slept on the side farthest from the door. It was one of the many things that lingered from the war. Jack wanted to be between you and anything unexpected.

He pulled you against him, in the dark, enjoying how warm and soft you were.

“A good night,” he mumbled.

“And good sex,” you said.

He laughed and closed his eyes, feeling so much love and affection for you leaking out of his chest.

“Hey,” you said after a while. “You awake?”

“Hmm?” Jack asked sleepy.

“I just really like you.”

Jack laughed softly. “I really like you, too.”

A/N: first robby story and first fanfic after almost a month of inactivity, kinda nervous 🥹 hope you’ll enjoy! next chapter | series masterlist

Robby has been staring at the glow of his laptop for far longer than necessary. The cursor blinks patiently on an empty screen, indifferent to the quiet war unfolding in front of it.

At last, with the reluctant resolve of a man about to cross a bridge he can’t see the end of, he opens a private browser window. It’s an unnecessary precaution, he knows, there is no one here but him; his apartment is small, comfortably worn, and it only bears the evidence of long shifts and forgotten meals. No nosy friend is going to walk through the front door and go straight for his laptop, no partner is waiting up for him.

The website appears in the search bar before he’s even finished typing the first three letters, something that he indulges in only in nights like these, when exhaustion settles so deep into his bones that it should be enough to knock him unconscious, yet his mind refuses to surrender. Every flutter of his eyes brings back flashes of fluorescent lights and blood-stained gloves, as conversations he should have had differently resound in his mind like distant murmurs. Because the emergency department never really lets him leave when he clocks out, it just follows him quietly like a sad ghost, but no less relentless.

A familiar warmth creeps up the back of his neck as he presses enter. It feels indecent, like being caught hovering over a magazine he wasn’t supposed to read at fourteen, but the silence of the apartment stretches too wide some nights. After all, Pittsburgh can offer any kind of spectacle but little comfort.

After twelve hours deep in the chaos of monitors beeping left and right, the stillness should feel like a relief. But lately, it has begun to feel more like damnation. 

So he exhales slowly and rubs a hand over the salt-and-pepper beard shadowing his jaw, ready to look for a pretty face to jerk off to, which definitely sounds much more exciting in theory than in practice. When the page finally loads, though, his body stills as a subscription prompt blooms across the screen: a sleek black box, impossible to dismiss without making a choice.

Continue with Premium Access.

Monthly Membership.

For a second, Robby just stares. Right, the month-long free trial ended a few days ago, but he was too tired to do something about it and ultimately passed out on the couch, which his back made him pay for dearly the following day.

The language is all teasing confidence, because the site knows exactly why he’s here.

At the very bottom, in text so small it feels almost mocking, runs a single line: you must be over 18.

A dry scoff escapes him. Of course he is of age—embarrassingly, pathetically so, to be lurking on this side of the internet. Still, the cursor hovers uselessly over the button. 

A weary sigh echoes in the dim-lit room, filled with the discomfort of recognizing a routine he’d never intended to develop. Robby has spent enough years telling patients to pay attention to patterns and habits that become dependencies before they realize it. But this isn’t that, he keeps telling himself. No, it’s not. It’s just another way of quieting a mind that has forgotten how to rest on its own.

Sometimes, taking the edge off is enough to trick his body into sleep. 

But tonight, faced with the inescapable choice of creating an account or forgetting the existence of this website forever, Robby feels pathetic enough to hesitate.

The idea of getting himself off to a stranger on the internet has always felt like checking a box rather than satisfying a need: an efficient, predictable matter over in a few minutes—a little depressing when reduced to a chore, yes, but at least it does the trick. Which is probably why his mind keeps traitorously coming back to the same uncomfortable thought. 

It slips through the cracks when he’s tired enough to let his guard down, when a shift has run long, when he catches himself lingering in the hospital parking lot with nowhere in particular to be. 

Sex has never really been the problem, yet somewhere along the way the rest of his life narrowed into work and recovery from work. One shift bleeding into the next, one year folding into another, the hospital full of people who knew him well enough to trust him with their lives, but not to call on a day off just to ask how he was doing. And he makes a conscious effort to ignore the sting. Still, there are moments when the realization catches up to him in brief, unwelcome flashes of clarity. Watching colleagues leave at the end of a shift because someone is waiting at home, passing families in the grocery store… It all makes sitting alone at his kitchen table at three in the morning with nothing but the hum of the refrigerator for company feel like he has somehow failed at life.

Because the truth is that even meticulous, irascible Dr. Robby craves for a connection. 

A partner.

A presence that might soften the long evenings that have become dull routine. Someone to share the silence with after a grueling day in a place where desperation and hope blend together. Someone who wouldn’t mind waiting up when a shift runs late, or falling asleep on the couch while he reheats leftovers neither of them have the energy to eat.

There was a time when Robby assumed the rest would simply happen after finding a stable job, that somewhere between a chest tube insertion and a code gray, he’d stumble into the kind of life everyone else seemed to build without much effort: a marriage, a family, holidays that didn’t have to be traded away to younger colleagues because there was someone expecting him at home.

Instead, medicine kept asking for more, and Robby gave in all the time.

However, he never treated it like a sacrifice, the choice was made gladly at the thought of another patient walking out of the ER because he’d been there to help them. Then the years accumulated without him noticing, marked by new classes of residents, by colleagues retiring and children of coworkers growing old enough to apply to medical school themselves.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, life became something that happened to other people. The losses didn’t help, nor the failed relationships—if he could even call the handful of brief, half-hearted entanglements that followed that. Robby considered them patterns that ended before they had time to become anything real, leaving behind little more than a few shared nights and the uncomfortable irony of having once mistaken convenience for intimacy.

Grief, on the other hand, hollowed out spaces he didn’t even know could be emptied, then quietly settled into them as though it had always belonged there. Some mornings, Robby can almost convince himself he’s learned to live around it. Other days, it feels like thorny branches constricting around his lungs.

Now, when he catches his reflection in the darkened window after another sleepless night, the man looking back seems older than fifty-three: the lines around his eyes have settled too deeply to blame fatigue alone, his beard surrendering to more gray than brown. Proof of the time spent taking care of everyone else that the idea of someone choosing to take care of him feels almost risible.

Perhaps he has simply missed his moment, he finds himself thinking more often than he likes to admit while the city beyond glitters with other people’s lives.

It’s not as though he’s made himself particularly approachable, either. With a temperament that has only grown sharper with age and too many ghosts weighing on his conscience, letting people in has begun to feel like a risk not worth taking. It’s easier to be the brilliant, impatient attending than the man who is haunted by outcomes he couldn’t change. Even if beneath the wrinkles and the barked orders, lies a clear, painful truth: Robby is lonely.

His colleagues have friends, spouses, lovers, children… lives waiting beyond the doors of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room. But what does Robby have? An apartment big enough to fit a nursery that grows impossibly cold and quiet day by day, and a body too exhausted to even rest properly.

It’s a bleak conclusion, and not a particularly useful one. Dana would tell him to stop catastrophizing, Jack would probably remind him that he’s simply “vintage” and then jokingly suggest a cane with his coffee. Langdon, if he caught him in the right mood, would make some smart-ass remark just to get him to roll his eyes.

And maybe they’d all be right. But it doesn’t make the apartment any less empty.

He’s probably romanticizing this more than it deserves. It isn’t as though subscribing to a cam site is some quiet admission of defeat, nor is it a desperate attempt to fill the void in his chest with something they never promised to provide. Robby is grown enough to not expect companionship from a woman whose job is to make strangers feel wanted for an hour. That particular fantasy belongs to younger men, foolish enough to mistake attention for affection.

A humorless chuckle escapes under his breath, he’s really debating whether a monthly subscription to a pornography website is a worthwhile expense. It’s only a distraction.

The tightness in his shoulders eases a little, replaced by the brittle sort of resolve that comes with lowering one’s expectations. The box disappears almost instantly after he sets a quick profile and links his payment information, and the page refreshes again. What replaces it is a familiar mosaic of little squares competing for his attention all at once. Hands concealing intimate body parts, bare legs crossed, backs turned, coy smiles… and then there are more crude images that leave nothing to the imagination, yet Robby’s gaze drifts across them the way he might eye a dessert menu, already knowing he won’t order anything.

By now, the rhythm is always the same: he scrolls for a while, sometimes he sighs when he realizes he has been staring blankly at the same corner of the screen, only to resume scrolling a moment later, before eventually clicking into a room if someone catches his eye. He stays enough to come and then turns off his laptop, trying with varying degrees of success to sleep.

Names blur, faces too. He rarely returns to the same camgirl twice, because this works better when everyone remains a stranger. Coming back would invite the kind of attachment he has neither the time nor the right to indulge. 

His index finger idly rolls the mouse wheel as a faint grimace pulls at his mouth. Objectively, there is nothing wrong with any of them. He really shouldn’t be this picky with his unkempt stubble and wrinkly forehead. Robby should just settle on one, instead he keeps scrolling, until he mindlessly leads the cursor toward the red x, half-considering closing the site altogether.

But then his hand stills when his eyes mindlessly wander across the page. 

A beautiful woman appears in one of the smaller thumbnails, languidly leaning forward with a clear toy glinting in the light. Robby stares at the image for longer than he should, a warm sensation already coiling tight in his lower belly. It’s not just the pose, nor even the suggestive promise of the scene… it’s your eyes.

Even reduced to a thumbnail no larger than a postage stamp, they catch him off guard: bright, unmistakably alive. There is an ease to your expression that doesn’t look rehearsed, a flicker of amusement lingering at the corners of your mouth as though you’re sharing a joke with the people on the other side of the screen. Your eyes twinkle with playful determination, perhaps even a touch of recklessness, the sort that suggests you know exactly what you’re doing… and you’re enjoying it.

Robby has seen enough of this to know that a camera and a few whiny words can manufacture intimacy, making a smile feel personal and a glance deliberate.

This should be no different.

And yet, Robby doesn’t scroll past. 

His gaze inevitably drops to the title of your stream, and he almost chokes on his breath.

“Can Daddy fuck me better than my toy?”

Robby’s jaw tightens. 

The site is littered with titles like that, he’s scrolled past several of them over the past few weeks without a second thought, if not with the occasional roll of his eyes at those who didn’t sound even remotely sexy in this particular context. “Daddy” has been stripped of any real meaning by repetition until it feels almost cartoonish to him.

So why does it feel like he’s just been strapped into a rollercoaster? 

His eyes drift back to your face.

You look impossibly young—but not enough that the word feels like a mere gimmick. 

His first instinct is to scoff at himself. For God’s sake, you’re talking to thousands of anonymous viewers, the title wasn’t written for him any more than it was for anyone else. It’s marketing, a carefully chosen fantasy designated for horny losers like Robby to take the bait.

Yet for the first time, he doesn’t really mind playing that role.

Swallowing thickly, he clicks on the stream with an abrupt motion before he can think himself out of it.

The sound reaches him first, a breathy moan leaking from the speakers.

“Fuck—ah ’s too big.”

Robby immediately fumbles with the volume out of habit more than embarrassment. The quiet feels too fragile tonight and he isn’t in the mood to have it broken all at once.

His ears burn at the sight as his eyes betray him, lingering on the screen despite his hands clumsily looking for his glasses abandoned somewhere on the desk. Your naked form enthusiastically rides the clear dildo beneath you, your body shifting with an easy confidence that makes his breath hitch. Even if your face is drawn tight with pleasure, the warm glow of the ring light softens your features.

The sight sends a strange jolt of heat through him, quickly followed by a prickling sense of discomfort. Despite the entire performance being part of the principle that keeps the site running, for the first time ever the moment feels faintly exploitative to Robby.

And yet, his lips part in awe.

You are... gorgeous, yes. There is something captivating about the way you move, a rhythm that feels spontaneous, though guided by a cheeky familiarity. The sounds that slip past your lips are sweet and breathy, threaded with bliss in a way that sends an unexpected shiver down his spine. It’s a pleasant respite from the loud, tacky sounds that most camgirls put up for show, sometimes they are so irritating he needs to put them on mute. Yours are genuine enough to feel almost intimate, as though Robby has wandered into a moment not entirely meant for him.

Your body responds to pleasure with a fluid grace, from the slow roll of your hips, to the subtle tension that travels through your thigh with each movement. When your back arches, it’s instinctive, unguarded, and it pushes your breasts forward in a way that feels both vulnerable and mesmerizing. For a fleeting second, the pose appears nearly sculptural, the soft light catching along your delicious curves before you relax again with your breath uneven.

Robby shakes his head lightly, suddenly aware of how intently he has been watching you.

It’s not the obvious lewdness of the performance that holds his attention, but that spark of boldness that reveals itself across your expression, and your confident movements in front of the camera’s gaze.

Beautiful, certainly. But more than that, impossible to ignore.

Your giggle at some message in the chat melts into a gasp as you lower yourself until your folds graze the base of the toy. Your hazy eyes roll back in ecstasy as heat coils violently in your lower belly, prompting you to start bouncing up and down like a hopping bunny, your palms flat on the floor to help your hips roll more easily.

Robby didn’t know how much he needed this. Each gesture, each subtle provocation draws out something unfamiliar in him—shame at how much he’s enjoying this, laced with undeniable arousal. His hand tightens briefly at the edge of the desk, and a low, unbidden hum escapes his throat before he can stop it. His pulse hammers in a way that feels almost worrying. It’s disorienting, intoxicating, and entirely new.

And he’s only just begun.

“I wish you were here to feel how wet I am.” You sigh. “Can you hear it?” Your filthy words pull a sharp huff out of Robby as his focus automatically latches onto the subtle soppy noises complimenting your moans.

Your chest heaves, glossy lips opening in a perfect circle as you look up at the camera with an innocence that only heightens the intensity of the moment. “Are you close, Daddy?” 

Robby can’t even remember the last time his sweatpants have been this unbearably tight, so he unties them hastily, lowering them along with his boxers enough to expose his erection. He wants to touch himself, to lose himself in this perverted fantasy against the nagging thought at the back of his mind insisting that you are probably half his age. 

“That’s it, baby.” You cry out, circling your hips so the toy rubs against your walls. “Please, please wanna feel your cum leaking out of me all night.”

Your dirty mouth and sweet manners have him completely dizzy, and Robby can no longer resist the burning urge to grant his cock some sort of relief. Quiet groans fill the space as he gives his hard and throbbing girth a few experimental strokes. Fully erect, Robby’s cock is imposing, longer and thicker than the large dildo you are bouncing on. 

He can’t stop the memory from creeping in: his most recent, humiliating sexual experience. A woman he met at a bar took one look at his dick and promptly looked back into his eyes with disbelief, before climbing out of bed and inventing some poor excuse about not feeling well. The sting of that action lingered far longer than it should have—along with his erection, since his not-so-little friend had apparently decided to take a vacation that day, so Robby was forced to secretly swallow a little blue pill after the woman had expressed her interest to go back to his.

He reckons that you too would be horrified by his size, but for this fleeting moment, he will allow himself to pretend otherwise, wishing to bask into the fantasy of your gaze eyeing him approvingly, your small, teasing smirk meant for him alone. It’s absurd and delusional, and Robby would probably slap himself later, but it feeds a buried, rare warmth in his chest that he ignored for too long. It craves to be seen, for appreciation for the part of himself he is most ashamed of, because even if he had a fair share of good sexual experiences, the difficulties of making it fit and the backhanded compliments were always there.

“See how good I’m taking it? I told you it’d fit!” He almost chokes on his own saliva.

Maybe you could really take him just fine with a little careful preparation.

The tip alert has been going off this whole time, and the doctor thinks he understands now. There is something about you that pulls at his chest; he wants to shower you with everything he has to offer: his focus, his praise, his money, the small gestures that might make you notice him amongst the countless people competing for your attention.

It’s not just lust, or simple curiosity. The thought of being acknowledged and leaving a trace of himself in your world, however fleeting, claws at his chest with dangerous eagerness.

Anticipation churns violently in his belly, urging him closer to the screen. To you.

“Oh God! Daddy, I’m coming, come with me—please, please…” You whimper, your breasts perky and bouncing with every thrust of your hips.

“Shit.” Robby grits out as his orgasm takes him by surprise.

His legs shamelessly part as his cock spurts over the hand he has wrapped around it, lost in the sad illusion that it’s your pussy gripping him so tight. He milks every last drop, soiling part of his belly and pants as well, but his mind is too blinded by pleasure to acknowledge the mess.

Your moans grow louder and higher, and the sight of your cunt stretching so deliciously around the silicone stops Robby from leaving his cock alone. He keeps the strokes going, squirming at the twinge of overstimulation.

“Fuck.” Your hips jerk forward once, body sinking down on the whole length as you curl up on yourself. Your hips twitch and your chest heaves with each gasp while your climax washes over you. Your eyes roll back and Robby’s spent length jerks in interest, it has been far too long since he has felt this good after masturbating.

He should be ashamed of jerking off to a young woman calling him daddy and begging to be filled with his big cock, but frankly he couldn’t care less.

Your eyes squeeze shut at the way your sensitive walls clench around the toy once more, before you tiredly push yourself up on your knees to gently pull it out.

“Look what you’ve done to me.” You sit back on the beige towel you probably laid on the floor before the stream, your legs opening to allow your fingers to spread your folds for the camera. Then you reach for the dildo again, parting your lips enough for your tongue to peek out and give the length a teasing lick. 

“Fucking hell.” Robby mumbles, his eyes jumping back and forth between your stretched lips and your fingers lazily playing with your glistening pussy. You can’t be real.

He frowns at his cock. No, he’s too tired and sensitive for another round; it would require too much time, even if you keep stoking the fire inside him with every little lick.

“Hm, bet you’d love the taste.” Suckling on the tip, you stare directly at the lens, as if to challenge him. 

Robby rubs his stubble, a tired huff escaping his nostrils at the desperate need to wrap his hand back around his length just to come again at the sight of you tasting yourself. You hollow your cheeks one last time, letting the dildo out of your mouth with a resounding pop.

“I had so much fun tonight, guys.” You smile, and Robby swears his heart stutters a little. “I really needed it.”

“Oh!” You perk up. “Look what I got today…” You reach for something off-camera, coming back a few seconds later as you proudly dangle a nipple chain in front of you.

Your eyes flick to the side, presumably reading the chat as texts quickly pour one right after the other. The relentless speed at which they race across the screen is enough to make Robby look away before a headache has the chance to settle in.

You giggle—a refreshing melody that makes him lean back in his chair with a quiet sigh. “Not tonight, you perverts! Your baby girl can only take so much.”

Your baby girl, his mind repeats unhelpfully.

It’s almost impossible to reconcile the two images in his mind: the woman who was eagerly making herself feel good in front of an audience, and the adorable, radiant sweetheart chatting naked with five hundred viewers, as if it were just another Tuesday for you. 

It leaves Robby completely smitten.

“Well, have a good night.” You conclude, offering a casual wave. “See you on Thursday!” A playful blow of a kiss follows, and then the notice that the stream has ended covers the screen, leaving your lovely smile frozen behind it.

Silence abruptly engulfs the room with Robby sitting motionless before the screen where a handful of your recommended videos line the sidebar. He scarcely has time to register the fact that, until now, he has never stayed long enough to watch a stream until the end, before the cursor is already hovering over your username, clicking through to your profile almost on its own accord.

Details about private shows and video requests are listed, along with your regular schedule, so Robby promptly opens the calendar app on his phone and makes a note with careful precision. He perks up once he notices the photo gallery: images of you posing in colorful lingerie that compliments your skin tone, teasingly aware of the camera; a few shots of you naked and on your knees before a full-length mirror, body angled sideways and one arm shielding your chest; and then a picture of you lounging in bed, lips wrapped around a red heart-shaped lollipop.

But there are also videos, which his cardiologist would almost certainly advice against.

Some are very short, like the one where you stand in front of the camera, the only parts visible being your mouth and your torso as you pull your tight top up to let your tits bounce free. Some are a little longer, a taste of what to expect in your streams, like the one where you are in a car—presumably yours—giving a dildo a blowjob. The toy has a suction cup attached to the window on the driver side, and you are enthusiastically sucking it off in the middle of a dark underground parking garage, your chest bare and your hips thrusting desperately into the air to find a bit of stimulation for your pussy. If his breath hitches at the thought of you loving the possibility of getting caught, Robby almost has a heart attack at the next one. Because you are lying on your bed, gasping and writhing as you bully your clit with a pink vibrator, body covered by a long, flimsy cardigan left open, the color suspiciously close to the old Burgh zip-up hoodie he wears at work. 

He decides to close the tab once he realizes he has been looking for familiar signs in the background of the first video.

Without hesitation, Robby subscribes to your account, confirming the payment before his hands hover over the keyboard at the box asking if he wants to send a tip. Money is not something he has in abundance, but decades dedicated to medicine and no one else depending on his paycheck have afforded him a certain comfort. Enough, at least, that the occasional indulgence never requires much deliberation. 

His right palm rests on the desk, fidgeting nervously when his eyes catch the optional box to leave a message alongside the tip.

It would be nothing, just a sentence. But even that feels like a step too far. He could already see how it would unfold: he’d check back later, and then again, pretending not to care, measuring the hours by the absence of a reply. And if you do respond, even briefly, neutral, it would lodge somewhere deep and stubborn inside his chest. Another invisible weight he would carry alone. The thought makes him ache with a stinging, familiar recognition.

Wanting has always been the dangerous part: it turns fleeting moments into promises no one has made.

Shaking his head, Robby lets out a humorless chortle. He can’t believe himself. This is how it starts, isn’t it? Convincing yourself that a few words might change the shape of things, that you can step out of the misery you built your life around just by being sincere enough.

The cursor continues its patient blinking.

Not even an hour ago, you had been another fish in the sea. Another room to wander into before sleep for a quick orgasm. Another name destined to dissolve into the rest by morning. That has always been the appeal of this place: no history, no expectations.

Robby drags a hand down his face.

Christ, in the span of a single night, he’d managed to break every rule he had set for himself.

He stayed until the end. He subscribed. He caught himself searching the screen for scraps of a life that has nothing to do with him. He fucking put the reminder of your next streams in his calendar.

That’s enough.

Robby has spent too many years indulging impulses in the ED, where every instinct tells you to keep going and order one more test, ask one more question, chase one more possibility. Reality, on the other hand, teaches you that there comes a point when doing more isn’t helping anymore, but it’s only delaying the moment you have to let go.

This feels too familiar.

With his jaw clenched, Robby withdraws his hand from the keyboard. The message box disappears with a single click and soon his face is the only thing staring back at him through the black screen.

By Wednesday morning, the startling revelations of the night before have already begun to dissolve beneath the familiar rhythm of the hospital. Ambulances arrive in relentless succession, one of the residents spirals during a thoracotomy and Robby has neither the time nor the gentleness to pull them back together, and Gloria corners him again in the hallway with another quality report tucked beneath her arm, causing Robby to ask whether patient satisfaction might improve if they stopped expecting miracles from a skeleton crew.

He snaps more sharply than he intends to, but then forgets the entire exchange before the end of the shift.

His apartment keeps feeling less like a place to live and more like somewhere to leave his shoes between shifts. Sleep comes reluctantly in fractured stretches interrupted by dreams he never quite remembers and alarms that sound so cheerful it feels almost mocking.

He doesn’t really have the opportunity to think about his stupid slip-up. 

Although the thought of you surfaces once or twice during rare quiet rides in the elevator, the ED has a way of demanding every tiny crumb of his attention. There is always a patient to reassess, another family waiting for answers he can’t always give.

On Thursday night, he is halfway through a documentary about the deep-sea ecosystem—something slow enough that doesn’t require much thinking—when a soft chime causes him to startle.

His phone lights up on the coffee table, a groan rumbling in his ribcage when Robby stretches towards it and his lower back stings. He’s already slipping into the Chief mentality, before he freezes.

It’s not a text desperately asking for his presence at work, nor one of those useless spam emails from random websites he accidentally subscribed to. It’s a calendar alert.

For your stream.

He completely forgot he’d set a reminder.

His thumb hovers over the notification without touching it. 

Deleting it would be the sensible thing to do.

Instead, he lets the documentary continue in the background, the narrator calmly explaining with his British accent the migration patterns of creatures that spend their lives in perpetual darkness while Robby stares at the screen until it goes black again.

He was doing perfectly well. Better, even. The last forty-eight hours returned everything to its rightful order: work, home, sleep—when it came.

Opening that website again would accomplish exactly nothing.

He has spent years building his life around restraint to mistake a passing desire for a reason. Wanting is not the same as needing, curiosity is not permission, and whatever restless pull has taken hold of him tonight is only that, a disturbance. Still, it lingers tightly beneath his breastbone, refusing to ease no matter how deeply he breathes, or how firmly he reminds himself that he has already crossed enough lines as he briefly stood at the edge of something he had no business approaching. That should have been enough to shut down whatever foolish part of him wanted to see you again.

But the ache keeps asking for one more indulgence. He can feel the shape of temptation clearly enough to name it for what it is: pure humiliating desire to feel something other than the dull, disciplined exhaustion that has become part of who he is.

Maybe that’s all this is, of course. The week has been unforgiving: he’s slept poorly, eaten worse, his afternoon spent untangling problems that should have never reached his desk in the first place. For fuck’s sake, he’s over fifty years old, the Chief of one of the busiest emergency departments in the city... He is not the sort of man to be unmoored by a woman he has seen once in his life. You don’t even know of his existence beyond a subscription notification.

And this... well, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Or at least that’s the lie he settles on for tonight. 

Before he has fully decided otherwise, Robby is already reaching for the laptop resting at the other end of the couch.

This time you’re dressed in a snug top and a pair of shorts, looking all pretty and sinful at once as you sit cross-legged on the floor in front of your bed.

There’s a delicate warmth to your presence, that same teasing energy he witnessed two days ago reflecting in the slight tilt of your head. Your effortless grace makes it impossible for Robby to look at you with anything short of admiration dancing in his own eyes.

“Thank you for joining me today.” 

The chat is already alive, and you greet a few viewers whose usernames are marked with colorful emblems. They must be regular donors.

Robby wonders how much they must have spent to earn that kind of attention. For a dangerous moment he considers typing a greeting himself, but the words feel too heavy, still awkward, so he sets on quietly basking a little longer in your presence.

“As I wrote in my Instagram story, tonight I feel like doing a Q&A, nothing too tiring, if you’re all up for it. I’m exhausted.”

You have an Instagram account. Maybe he will follow Santos’ advice and set one too.

The messages slow just enough that Robby can finally make out actual words instead of random blurry spots.

You squint at the screen. “Okay, first of all, whoever keeps spamming the same question in all caps…” Your lips twitch. “I’m not answering it out of principle, just so you know.”

A row of laughing emojis floods the chat.

“See? Actions have consequences.” 

You silently observe the texts for a while.

“Do you actually read all of these messages? Absolutely not. Have you seen yourselves? You type faster than I can think.” You snort. “Which, to be fair, isn’t something I like to do after nine p.m.”

“How am I doing tonight? Thanks for asking, milf_fucker86.” Robby rolls his eyes at the username. “As I mentioned before, I’m drained. It’s one of those weeks where every single day feels like it should’ve been Friday.”

You frown, freezing as you are tucking one leg beneath yourself.

“Actually, tomorrow is Friday.” 

kneel4mommy

Same

real_tom_thanks

girl me too

softboiii69

LMAOOO

“Thank God it’s not just me.” You shake your head with a chuckle before leaning forward to look for more interesting messages.

“What do you do when you’re not streaming?” You sigh. “I recover from streaming.”

A few people protest.

“No, seriously.” You stretch your arms above your head, and Robby tries unsuccessfully to keep his eyes from wandering to your turgid nipples straining against the tight fabric.

“I work, I bother my friends with stupid reels, I spend an embarrassing amount of time convincing myself I’ll start going to the gym next Monday…” A forlorn sigh escapes your nostrils.

kneel4mommy

Which monday?

“Okay, that’s exactly the kind of negativity I don’t need.” You look gravely at the camera, before a small smile brightens your face.

“Favorite book? Oh, don’t do this to me.” You grimace. “I can’t just pick one, it depends on the day. I have, like… categories.” You keep your eyes on the chat as you hum pensively.

“Right now I’m halfway through this novel… It’s about this woman who keeps finding handwritten notes in library books from someone she never meets.” You put your hands in front of you, palms open and pointed at the camera. “Now, I know how that sounds.” Your voice is cautious, but the chat immediately starts teasing anyway.

“Oh my God, it’s not cheesy!” You scoff a laugh, squinting slightly. “Well, okay, no maybe it’s a little cheesy. But the writing is really good! It’s less about romance and more about… hm, I don’t know.”

You look sideways, pursing your lips in thought.

“The weird ways people leave pieces of themselves behind without meaning to.” You speak carefully. “Don’t know if that makes any sense, my brain is too fried to be this profound at this hour.”

“Okay, next question!” You perk up, clapping your hands once, and Robby feels his lips stretch into a smile of his own.

“Dumbest thing you’ve done recently? Oh, that’s easy. I tried baking cookies for my best friend’s birthday party.” The chat fills with hearts.

“Nah, don’t ‘aww’, it was a complete disaster.” You grimace. “I forgot baking soda.” An embarrassing silence fills the room as the chat fills with emojis ranging from confusion to resignation.

“Which apparently is important.”

touched_grass_once

apparently?????

“Listen, they looked fine!” You shrug. “They were just… a little flat.” 

The chat erupts with laughter.

“My apartment smelled like fucking smoke for two days.” You grin sheepishly. “BUT! My best friend still ate one.”

You suddenly burst out laughing. “Yes, froyo_baggings, that’s the same friend who called me crying two months ago because she thought someone had broken into her apartment. For anyone who doesn’t know this story, she rounded the corner, saw a figure standing in the hallway and immediately dialed my number. That person was her. Because she’d bought a full-length mirror that morning.”

You shake your head. “Yes, of course she loved the cookies! It’s the thought that counts after all.”

More questions race past about your job, but you are careful to keep it vague enough to not give out too many details. Though Robby must repeatedly remind himself this is only your online persona, he is hopelessly invested. So much that he completely ignores the small ding from his microwave, where a now cold lasagna sits forgotten. You are so entirely captivating that the impossible thought of meeting someone like you in real life presses against his chest, sharp and tender all at once.

“Where do you live? No.” 

“What’s your real name? Fuck no.”

“Can we see your apartment? The fuck?” Yet you still smile as you say it, enough that it never feels like a full rejection.

“I don’t mind sharing little things about my life, but some things get to stay mine.” Your smile turns tight as you continue, something you decide to hide by biting your bottom lip and focusing back on the questions.

“Dream vacation? You know what’s funny?” You change position, crossing your legs again. “Every time somebody asks me this, they expect me to say something like Greece or the Maldives.” You shake your head.

“Absolutely not.”

The chat explodes with question marks.

“Because if I’m on vacation I don’t want to come back more exhausted than when I left. I can’t stand the heat, and spending an entire week on the beach under the sun would put me directly underground. I prefer somewhere cold.”

byteme

you’re insane

“Am I?” One of your eyebrows lifts skeptically.

No, Robby thinks you are actually one of the sanest people he has ever met.

“You’ve never had tea by the window while it rains outside? You’ve never sat in one of those tiny cafés where you can’t understand a single thing about what everyone around you is saying but somehow that’s the most peaceful place in the world?” 

Your voice softens just a fraction.

“I think I’d like that.” You nod slowly, but the sentimentality does not last for long.

“What’s your favorite organ?” Recoiling, you stare at the camera in horror. “Who raised you people?”

Robby lets out a quiet laugh, an involuntary reaction that he kills on the spot by setting his lips into a thin line. The sound would be ordinary for any other person, but it catches him completely off guard, because he can’t remember the last time he laughed like that, particularly with one one else in the room. 

It’s in that moment that the doctor finally becomes aware of himself and the apartment that continues existing around him without asking anything in return. The clock in the corner of your stream says it’s been almost thirty minutes, and Robby frowns at it as if it has personally offended his whole family. 

It’s not possible. He had meant to stay for ten, fifteen minutes at the absolute most. Again, long enough to let the day loosen its grip from his shoulders, not watching you talk about books and fucking cookies. 

But somewhere along the way he stopped hoping for your clothes to come off. And while his body is no less tense than it was when he opened his laptop, and the stinging behind his eyes lingers as he decided to forgo his glasses this time, the urgency that has driven him here in the first place has receded silently. It’s embarrassing how, instead, Robby has been devouring every single word falling from your lips like a starved man: the detours, the way you gesticulate animatedly when the chat teases you, your soft smiles… 

And now he knows that the same woman whose real name still remains a mystery, whose face is illuminated by a ring light instead of the morning sun, can’t tell a story without accidentally collecting three others along the way. That she loses the thread when something makes her laugh, only to stumble upon it several minutes later. That her fingers play with the little moon-shaped pendant of her necklace whenever she needs to reprimand some of her rowdiest viewers, because there is something about confrontation that evidently makes her nervous—for a second Robby wonders whether anyone else noticed it, or whether it has now become a little secret shared between the two of you. That she wants to visit some cold, faraway place, and Robby realizes he has spent so many years leaving Pittsburgh only for conferences that he’s forgotten people sometimes travel simply because they want to. 

Which destination would you choose? Perhaps somewhere with narrow streets, surrounded by mountains and lush vegetation. The sort of place that holds no expectations.

As though the simple act of looking elsewhere might be enough to dispel the thought, Robby tears his eyes from the screen and looks at the untouched mug on the coffee table. 

His gaze lingers there for a moment too long, before drifting absently to the lone sock lying beneath it, abandoned there when Robby had stretched out on the couch after his shower. Outside, rain has begun tapping softly against the windows, and only when he turns curiously to look at the sky a dull stiffness catches at the base of his neck, making him wince. He rolls one shoulder experimentally, because he’d scarcely moved in the better part of an hour, save for the single time the armrest had begun digging sharply into the bone. 

Lastly, the television. It is now playing a crime documentary about stalkers and obsessions. 

Robby can’t help but feel his stomach churn uncomfortably, because he can’t remember a single thing from the creatures living thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface, but can picture with alarming clarity the way your face lights up when you laugh. Your eyes disappear first, then your head automatically ducks as though you’re trying to hide the shape of your mouth—sometimes it’s a hand that covers it—and Robby asks himself what made you so self-conscious about it. Was it a toxic ex? A middle-school bully? But then you always look back at the camera with the same irrepressible grin still lingering at the corners of your mouth.

“Ah!” Robby startles at your loud exclamation, his brown eyes immediately jumping back to the screen. “vibemike wants to know my favorite role play. Okay chat, let’s see how well you know me.”

“Professor and student? That’s hot but not my favorite.” You nod, before your eyebrows raise in surprise. “Repairman and homeowner? Hm, interesting. What do you think? Me opening the door in a sweater and no panties?” You giggle.

Leaning forward, you squint at the chat again as Robby shakes his head at how human beings can sexualize even the most innocent of interactions.

“Strangers at a bar!” You exclaim, straightening up. “That’s something I’ve always wanted to try but I’m pretty sure I’d end up ruining it. I’m sorry, it’s just so funny that I have to flirt with the other person as if I don’t know what they look like naked.”

“Okay, okay. You gave me a lot of good ideas but it’s something I’ve never actually mentioned before.” Your torso lean forward just a little bit, as if to share an important secret.

“Lately I’ve been really into the doctor kink.” You whisper.

Robby’s heart falls to his feet.

“I know.” You giggle. “I just want to be thrown on an examination table and have my handsome doctor force my legs open while reprimanding me about how important it is to have my pussy inspected once in a while.” A tiny sigh escapes your parted lips as you tuck your legs closer to your chest, resting your chin on top of your knees.

“Maybe I’d let him fuck my mouth, you know, for good luck before he goes off to save his other patients.” You wink, already laughing as Robby swallows dryly. 

You wet your lips, before glancing down between your legs. “Well, would you look at that.”

His gaze instinctively drops to the empty space between his knees, tiredly dragging a hand down his flushed face as his bulge is hot under his sweatpants.

“Jesus Christ.” He mumbles.

“No, I’m not wearing a bra, super_sp3rm.” Chuckling, you get up on your knees to give your viewers a nice close-up of your chest, your nipples erect and begging to be worshipped.

With a knowing grin, you keep chatting leisurely, both of your hands rubbing and squeezing your tits until your breath hitches faintly.

“I wasn’t planning on playing with you tonight.” You gasp as your manicured nails lightly tease your covered nubs. “But my panties are all wet now after thinking about some hot doctor playing with my pussy. What do you think? Should I take care of it?”

The tips have been quite slow... until now. Robby has a feeling this was your wicked plan all along.

A chuckle bursts out of you as you look at the chat. “God, you’re filthy.”

Your teeth chew on your bottom lip as your free hand sinks beneath the fabric of your shorts, starting little circular motions.

“This is all your fault. I just wanted to talk to you guys.” You whine softly. “So this is all you get for tonight.”

Robby is a little disappointed as your pussy stays hidden, but seeing you rubbing yourself under your shorts as your fingers leisurely pull and flick your covered nipples is enough for his heart to pick up its pace in anticipation.

You moan under your breath. “Fuck, ‘s so sensitive.” Your brows furrow in pleasure, before your eyes momentarily fly to the chat. 

“Are you going to come with me, hm?” With your head falling back, your fingers twist your left nipple hard enough for you to cry out. “Oh!” You gasp, back arching and eyes rolling back.

Robby stares in awe at your body shaking, before your hand languidly comes out of your shorts for you to slowly taste your glistening fingers, quietly sucking on each digit as you stare directly at the camera.

“Hm, so good.” Then, with a little impish grin, “Maybe that could be you cleaning me up next time.”

The messages grow increasingly dirtier, but from the way your eyes slowly blink at the camera, Robby knows you must be too tired to continue. A few viewers clearly expected more, so you assure them next week you’ll be back with your usual content.

Robby observes silently, not quite hard but still sated, the promise of more hanging in the air as a faint bitter taste in his mouth lingers at the thought of having to wait four days to see you again.

“Just a little reminder that this week I’ll be available on both Saturday and Sunday for private shows. So hurry up and book your slot!” You wink, completely unaware of how you just undid Robby with a few simple words.

“Just send me an inbox if you’re interested.”

After your stream ends, he quickly opens your profile and decides to type a short, respectful line, easy to ignore, and send a tip.

Thank you for the company.

The moment it’s gone, the action fully settles in. Your inbox must already be crowded with names and small attempts at catching your attention, all blurring together. He is just another stranger passing through, another line you’ll never have the time to read.

The couch creaks softly as he slumps back, wondering why the sole knowledge hadn’t stopped him—that despite knowing how insignificant he might be in a sea of faceless users, he still had let himself indulge in this little attempt at connecting with you.

But when Robby logs in the next day—totally not to check if you had replied—there is a small, red number one sitting at the top of his inbox. His fingers pause over the touchpad, brown eyes blinking once, twice, hardly believing it.

Hey DoctorR! Wow!! Thank you so much for the generous tip 🤍 Were you interested in a private show?

A small smile unconsciously tugs at the corners of his mouth. He is genuinely surprised you answered. Even from behind a screen, your acknowledgment makes his heartbeat flutter dangerously fast, leaving Robby both elated and unnervingly aware of how much he wants to matter to you, despite the stubborn conviction that he is doing this just to entertain himself—and of course to pay you back for the incredible orgasms.

His eyes then flick to the amount he sent, just to make sure he didn’t add too many zeros by mistake. But no, the number is exactly as intended: one hundred dollars. The amount hardly seems like a generous tip; after all, your time is surely worth far more.

His eyes slide over your words again and again, until the weight of your question finally prompts his hands to hastily move against the keyboard at the prospect of a call just between you and him. He sends a quick message confirming his interest in a private show, and caught up in the thrill of what’s to come, sends another twenty dollars.

Before he can log out for tonight, though, your reply appears: another cheerful omg thank you!! followed by another text to let him know your availability for Saturday night. He asks if it’s a problem for you to set the call at eleven—just a precaution since he never actually clocks out at nine—and you reassure him it’s completely fine with you.

Your exchange is straightforward and short, and Robby is oddly comforted by that. He will be paying for your lovely company, so even if he is as dull as the people around him have recently told him, you will at least be compensated.

Perhaps this weekend he won’t be as miserable as usual.

— ⟢ END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🤍 my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist

🏷️ general robby taglist: @obsessed-oops @bikinibottomspeach @verss88 @macbaetwo @dugiioh @the-girl-wh0-cries-w0lf @eliza7up @kittymeowmeow17 @mimi-ro @mmb77 @lrosenblut26

It’s hot as balls outside. You’re covered in sweat, which mingles in a sticky and unpleasant mix with the sunscreen you’ve been dutifully applying since the afternoon to avoid frying like an egg. When the sun finally set, you no longer had to worry about the burgeoning threat of skin cancer, but the heat doesn’t break. In fact, it almost seems to get worse, because more and more people arrive to crowd you as night descends and the bigger names with larger fanbases grace the stage.

You’re waiting for Beth outside of the bathroom facilities. She's been ingesting a steady stream of margaritas since sundown, so she leaves you holding the bag, literally. At least it's a nice excuse to separate yourself from the throng of jumping, sweaty bodies gathered by the stage.

It’s nearly two in the morning. You’re hungry. Your feet are killing you. You have a headache from the festival’s sugary cocktails. You’re sweating through the top Beth lent you. And on top of everything else, your ovulation cramps are kicking in like a motherfucker.

Growing desperate, you dig through Beth's bag, searching for the little Altoid tin that she always keeps her pain meds in. At long last, your hands make contact with the metal tin at the bottom of her tote. Nearly crying with relief, you pop an aspirin in your mouth and wash it down with the tepid bottled water you’ve been clutching for the last hour.

Beth's voice rings out from behind you, talking over the din of the nearby DJ set. “What are you doing?”

You turn towards her, and see Beth staring at the tin in your hand. “I have cramps,” you explain, and just as you’re about to shove the tin back in her bag and hand it to her, she grabs your wrist.

“…please tell me you didn’t just take one of those,” she says urgently.

You raise an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because those are not aspirin, babe.”

Your blood runs cold. Your brain quickly does the math — Beth had told you how much she’s looking forward to meeting up with her rave friends tomorrow for the second night of Pitt Fest. Beth has always been quite the partier. And she often partied with her good friend Molly.

Your eyes widen in horror. “Oh no.”

Pitt Fest, as always, is a huge pain in the ass for the night shift.

Handoff gets messy. There's a shit ton of substance cases, even more of heatstroke. Robby stays longer than he should and snaps at everyone, clearly in his feelings remembering last year’s Pitt Fest. Understandable, yes, but it also makes everyone’s life that much harder when they’re within sniping distance of him.

Needless to say, Jack is already over this shift, and it’s not even halfway done. It doesn't help that his favorite resident happens to have the night off, which deposits his mood firmly in the hospital basement. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the location of the morgue.

Now that Robby has been politely ordered to go the fuck home, Jack feels like he can finally focus on his job instead of doing damage control with the med students. As he walks down the hall, Lena catches his attention from the hub desk.

“We have an ambulance two minutes out with a mid-20s female, collapsed at Pitt Fest,” she informs him. “Probable dehydration, likely drug-related, because, well… Pitt Fest.”

This festival truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Jack cracks his knuckles and eyes the ambulance bay doors. “All right. Let's get ready to receive the party girl.”

A few minutes later, the gurney is wheeled in by two paramedics and received by Lena and Parker. Parker shoots an alarmed and confused look over her shoulder at Jack, who steps forward to supervise.

“Dr. Abbot!"

Of all the things Jack expected to see tonight, this is at the bottom of the list. You're strapped to the gurney, scantily clad and gleaming with sweat, a goofy smile on your face and your pupils blown so wide they nearly swallow your irises.

Jack scrubs a hand through his hair. “You're shitting me.”

This is quite the surprising turn of events.

After Lena sets you up in South 16, Jack discreetly shoos away Parker so he can handle your examination himself. He doubts you would be comfortable with one of your fellow residents seeing you like this, considering your condition and your current state of dress.

Jack closes the door behind him and saunters over to you. His eyes snag on your tight, strappy top, and the strategically placed cutouts baring sections of your midriff and chest. He’s holding onto his professionalism by a thread, especially with the way you’re shifting around on the exam table, causing the hem of your miniskirt to ride up.

He has no choice but to focus up. You need medical attention, not the kind of attention his brain and body really want to give you right now. First, Lena takes your temperature and shows him the number on the display. 100.2 degrees F. It's coming down from what the paramedics recorded in the ambulance, and not so high that he’s still worried about heat stroke. But you’ll need cooling down regardless.

“That’s quite the outfit you got on,” he mutters as he gently raises your chin and shines his penlight into your pupils.

“Do you like it?” you ask, beaming up at him even as you squint. “I borrowed it from my friend. She’s so nice.”

Your pupils are so dilated that your eyes are almost completely black.

“Yup.” Jack clicks off the light and sighs, turning to Lena. “She’s rolling, all right. Let’s get a tox to make sure there’s nothing else to be worried about.”

You don’t seem to even register the pain of the needle prick, but you let out a delighted little hum when Lena smooths a bandage over your arm and adds gentle pressure over top of it.

“That feels good,” you murmur with a lazy smile.

“I bet.” Jack crosses his arms and tries to give you a stern look. “Can I ask what my best resident is doing taking ecstasy at a music festival?”

“I didn’t take it on purpose, I swear,” you protest, your eyes widening in a brief panic. “It was my friend’s. I thought it was aspirin, for my cramps.”

“You’re menstruating?” he asks, picking up his tablet and sitting in the edge of the exam table next to you to amend your chart.

You shake your head and say matter-of-factly, “Ovulation cramps.”

His eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling in surprise. 

You continue babbling, unaware of the grenade you just lobbed at Jack. “She tried to get me to throw it up, but I couldn’t because I don’t really have a gag reflex.”

Jack takes a deep breath to prevent his brain from completely short-circuiting. 

Your face breaks into a sheepish smile, and you giggle, “Oops. Sorry, that was probably too much information.” Leaning forward on the exam table, you bring your face inches away from his and observe with a sigh, “Your eyes are really pretty.”

From behind him, Jack hears Lena snickering under her breath. He clears his throat and straightens up to standing.

Avoiding Lena's eyes, he instructs her, “Let’s, uh, get her some fluids and cooling packs, huh? Maybe a Saf-T-Pop, too. Keep her mouth occupied, so she won’t say any more nonsense she’ll regret in the morning.”

Lena just shoots him an amused look and heads off to gather supplies. Nurses, he thinks ruefully to himself. They see everything.

Movement and sound draw his attention back to you. You're laid back on the exam table, eyes fluttering closed. And you’re running your hands through your hair, letting out a pleased little noise like the sensation is better than sex. 

Jack breathes carefully through his nose. He needs out of this room with you, before this becomes mortifying for everyone involved. His phone buzzes in his pocket, giving him the perfect excuse for escape.

His voice is thin when he speaks, and for a moment, he’s glad you’re too high to notice. “You sit tight, sunshine.” 

As he turns to leave the room, your hand catches the edge of his scrubs.

“You’re leaving?” your mouth turns down into a pout, those huge eyes shining up at him. He very nearly gives in, very nearly reaches out a hand to stroke a thumb across your cheek just to hear the kind of sound it would pull from you. But his phone buzzes insistently, so he briefly pats your knee instead.

“I have other patients to see. But I'll be back before you know it,” he assures you, pulling open the door and diving headfirst back into the glorious chaos.

At least it’ll be a convenient distraction from the thought of you, eagerly waiting in south fifteen for him to return.

He shakes his head in disbelief. Ovulation cramps. You’re gonna be the death of him.

An MVA, a ketamine overdose, and a cardiac event later, the Pitt finally slows down enough for Jack to breathe. Enough to check your tox screen and sigh with relief that the MDMA you mistakenly took wasn’t cut with anything. Alcohol is the only other thing in your system, in levels not high enough to be concerning. Although, combined with the ecstasy, it means you probably won’t remember much of this exciting little escapade.

At long last, he manages to find some time to check on you. 

In his absence, Lena had set you up with a gown to preserve a little more of your modesty. You’re laying on the exam table amongst the cooling packs, an IV attached to your arm and a Saf-T-Pop in your mouth that’s turning your tongue red. 

A smile breaks like sunrise over your face as soon as you see him.

“Hey there, sunshine,” he greets you, approaching you with a little more warmth now that Lena's sharp eyes aren’t here to observe.

“Hi. I missed you,” you sigh.

Jack smirks. “Did you now?”

You nod happily. “Mm-hmm.”

“How are you feeling?” he asks, his gaze attentive, checking you over.

“Cold,” you answer, wrapping your arms around yourself.

He reaches up a hand to feel your forehead. Still warm, but still steadily coming down over time. He’s satisfied enough with your progress. You'll be out of here in no time.

The prospect disappoints him just a little.

“Yeah, your body is having trouble regulating its temperature,” he explains, his thumb stroking delicately along your hairline. “We’ll need to keep these cool packs on you a little while longer.”

Just as his hand retreats, your hand catches his wrist. You press his palm to your cheek, almost nuzzling into it like an affectionate kitten.

“Your hands are so warm,” you murmur, eyelids slipping shut as you revel in the sensation.

The gesture catches him off guard, but he doesn’t pull away. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, and he certainly doesn’t want to.

“Easy there, gorgeous,” he chuckles softly. “I need that hand for doctoring.”

Your eyelids flutter halfway open, and you look up at him with a lazy grin, clearly pleased as punch. “You think I'm gorgeous?”

Jack freezes for a moment. The word had slipped out without him even registering it, familiar and endeared and entirely too revealing. 

“I plead the fifth,” he replies, warmth creeping up his neck.

You giggle again. God, that sound does things to his heart that are medically concerning.

“I think you’re gorgeous,” you mumble dreamily.

Jack blinks in surprise.

He’s been a little too fond of you for a while now, been staring a little too long when you brush past him in the halls. And he’s suspected before that it might not be completely one-sided. He sees how you receive his attention and praise differently than the other attendings, how you look at him with more than just the admiration of a mentor. But suspecting it and having it be confirmed are two different things. Especially since you wouldn’t be saying any of this if you were sober.

He tries to laugh it off before his ego can run away with the compliment. “I think you’re high.”

You shrug. “Maybe. But I always think you’re gorgeous.”

Removing his palm from your cheek, you examine it with fascination, running a finger along the deep set lines. “I think about these,” you say thoughtfully. “All the time.”

Jack is a little ashamed at how quickly that comment goes straight to his cock. His favorite resident, fantasizing about his hands, maybe even touching yourself to the thought of them, wishing your own fingers were his—

He drags his free hand over his face and mutters, "Jesus Christ."

“Can I tell you a secret?” You peer up at him again, that goofy, starstruck smile returning. “I’ve got, like, the biggest crush on you.”

Unfortunately for Jack, there is very little time to process this very interesting information before his phone buzzes again. Just beyond the doors, he can hear the familiar sound of what is likely a high-priority trauma heading into the bay. Voices overlapping in urgent tones, gurney wheels on tile floor, grunts and yelps of pain from a patient.

Jack crosses to the door in two steps, and speaks over his shoulder to you. “Hey, baby, I gotta handle something. Stay out of trouble, okay?”

As the door swings shut behind him, he just manages to catch the sound of you happily mumbling to yourself, “He called me baby.”

Which is how he heads into Trauma 1 with a smile on his face, entirely too cheerful for a man facing down a compound femur fracture. 

The shift that would never fucking end is almost fucking over. And all Jack can think about is you. You and your moony, lovey-dovey eyes and your wide, childlike smile. You gazing up at him and crooning I have the biggest crush on you. You giggling and telling him point-blank that you’re ovulating.

As he rolls out of yet another demanding trauma, Lena updates him on your condition. You’re rehydrated and back to a normal temperature, pretty much ready for discharge if you can be released to someone who will take care of you. He returns to your room, finding you unhooked from your IV and cold-pack-free, happily set up with another lollipop.

“Jack, you’re back!” you exclaim, and then laugh at your accidental rhyme.

Still rolling, he thinks. He checks his watch. According to your best guess of when you took the ‘aspirin’ in your friend’s purse, it’s been about four hours. You'll be due to start coming down anytime in the next two hours or so. He's due to head out, but he can’t bring himself to go home until he knows you’re leaving in capable hands.

“Hey, sunshine.” He offers you a tired but warm smile. “Seems like you’re in pretty good shape here, and you should be tapering off pretty soon. You got anybody to take you home, keep an eye on you?”

A little crease forms between your brows as you think hard. “I don’t know where my friend went when the ambulance came. And I think my phone died,” you add pathetically, gesturing to the device in your lap and its terminally black screen.

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t in good conscience leave you to your own devices, especially when you’ve never taken ecstasy before. At worst, there’s still a chance you could have some kind of reaction. At best, the comedown is sure to knock you on your ass. 

He can only think of one thing to do. It's not the best idea. It might not even be a good idea. But his brain is too addled from the long shift to come up with anything better. And you need someone to take care of you.

“Jesus. Okay,” he mutters to himself, then sits on the edge of the exam table, bringing his face level to yours. “Listen up, sunshine.”

You gaze at him intently, attention vacillating occasionally between his eyes and his mouth. Jack has a feeling that what he’s about to say will go in one ear and right out the other. But there’s a chance you’ll retain it, so he says it anyway.

“You're gonna have a pretty serious crash when you come down. All those happy little chemicals that are making you feel good right now?” He gives you a soft little tap against your temple, and you giggle softly. He continues, “They’re gonna go on vacation for a day or two. I don't want you dealing with that on your own. So I'm gonna take you to my place, just to watch out for you until you’re feeling a little more like yourself.”

You’re quiet for a minute, your brain catching up and computing the meaning of what he just said. When it finishes, the lightbulb goes off behind your eyes, and you ask excitedly, “We’re having a sleepover?”

Of course that would be your takeaway. 

He chuckles as he helps you to your feet. “That's right. You got it.”

When Jack drapes his hoodie over your shoulders and guides you out of the Pitt to his car, he’s reminded of all the reasons that this is probably a terrible idea.

He sees the watchful eyes and the knowing smirks of the nurses. He sees Parker and Crus snickering behind their hands. He sees Shen counting up his winnings from the betting pool, because he wrote down molly and tripsitter Abbot.

And he feels your hand clinging to his bicep, sees how you gaze up at him with a dreamy expression as he walks you out to his car. He’s knows he’s really going to need to behave himself for a few hours, because there’s a very good chance that you won’t, and Jack doesn’t want to accidentally take advantage of your… impaired judgement.

You spend most of the ride with your face by the cracked car window, feeling the wind on your face, eyes blissfully closed. Jack thanks his lucky stars that he thought to give the apartment a once-over before shift, so he isn’t bringing you into a total mess.

He walks you into his bedroom and gestures to the en-suite. “Bathroom’s there, if you want to take a shower. I'll find you something a little more… comfortable to wear,” he adds, peeling his eyes away from your tiny little shirt and how you’re already fussing with the straps.

As he turns to his bureau to find you a t-shirt, he feels arms wrapping around his middle, your body molding to his back as you embrace him with a sigh. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”

Jack swallows and delicately removes your hands, stepping out of your embrace and ushering you in the direction of the bathroom.

“Go on, then,” he instructs you. “While you’re still upright.”

You barely even register it as rejection, heading towards the shower and wiggling out of your top before Jack even has the chance to close the door behind you. Which he does, quickly and with his eyes glued to the floor.

His instincts were right. He will very much need to behave himself while you’re here.

He busies himself while you shower by changing out of his scrubs and assembling a meal. It's a humble offering — just a couple of sandwiches and frozen french fries heated up in the oven, but it’s better than nothing. 

After about twenty minutes, you emerge from the bedroom with damp hair and your face scrubbed clean, clad in one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers, smelling like his soap. You lean on his kitchen island with a contented little sigh. 

Jack repeats it to himself like a mantra — behave yourself.

“Time to eat something,” he says, sliding one of the plates toward you.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know. But I'm trying to set you up for success here, so you don’t feel as awful when this is out of your system. When's the last time you ate?” he asks.

You rest your chin on your hand as you think back. “I had… lunch.”

“Thought so.” He puts the plate into your hands and steers you in the direction of the couch with a hand on your lower back. “You and I are gonna eat these sandwiches, drink some water, and watch Planet Earth.”

You gasp in delight and plop down onto the couch. “I love Planet Earth!”

He knows you do. You'd gushed about it being your favorite docuseries at work, and he’d bragged about owning the box set. It had been the first day you and he had really started to bond.

Once the tv is on, it thankfully keeps you occupied. You chew your food slowly, enraptured with the beautiful imagery on the screen. Managing a decent effort with the meal, you eat half the sandwich and most of the fries before you start to lose a little steam.

You abandon your plate on the coffee table, then take Jack completely by surprise as you lean over to lay your head in his lap.

He goes still for a moment, unsure if he should be allowing this. But he doesn’t have the heart to push you away, so he puts his plate aside and lets a hand come to rest on your shoulder.

You sigh happily and snuggle closer.

It's been so long since Jack has taken care of someone like this that he’d almost forgotten what it feels like. How good it feels to be needed. The easy intimacy of sharing a space, sharing a meal, of letting someone melt against you after a long night.

Affectionately, he brushes a stray lock of hair out of your face, and you practically purr in response, leaning into his hand. So Jack keeps doing it, keeps gently stroking his fingers through your hair, preferring to watch your relaxing form instead of the polar bears on screen.

The two of you spend nearly an hour like that, until your breath starts to take on that even, drowsy quality and Jack’s own brain starts calling for rest. He gently eases you off his lap to sit up, takes you by the hand and leads you to bed, already resigning himself to the aching back that a couch nap is going to earn him.

Jack sets you up with a glass of water and the best blankets in the linen closet. As he turns to head back to the living room, your hand grabs his arm, pulling him back.

“Stay.”

Your voice is low and warm. You're sitting up in his bed, his sheets pooled around your knees. Your eyes are dark, tempting, pleading.

Jack knows dangerous territory when he sees it.

Still, your serotonin is due to start dropping any time now, and hurt feelings are only going to be worsened once it does. Jack sits carefully on the edge of the bed, maintaining a few inches of distance, his other hand gently cradling your cheek.

“Sorry, sunshine. Not a good idea.”

You move closer, your gaze fixed firmly on his mouth. “Why?”

Best behavior, Jack. 

“Because you’re still tapering off. Plus, I just worked a long shift and I need to sleep.” He takes in a deep breath as he feels your hand slide across his shoulders. “And I've got a feeling I won't be getting much rest next to you.”

In a move so surprising that Jack is momentarily powerless to stop it, you rise up onto your knees and shift to straddle one of his thighs.

“What if I promise to be really, really good?” you murmur sweetly.

Jack knows he should stop you, and he almost does. But then you rock your hips on his thigh, the tiniest little life-ruining movement, and you let out the softest, neediest little sound. Suddenly, Jack is hanging onto his sanity and self control-by a thread. And that thread is fraying rapidly.

“Baby,” he whispers, half warning and half plea. His hands come to your hips, torn between stopping you and spurring you on.

Your hips rock again, more purposeful this time. “Please,” you beg quietly, so close now that your lips just barely brush against his.

For a few shameful moments, Jack forgets about his fatigue and the ache in his leg and he wonders… how morally reprehensible would it really be to just let you get off on his thigh? You’d said yourself that you’re ovulating, probably making you even needier. Fuck, he can feel how badly you want it, wetness soaking through the boxers you’re wearing and Jack’s sweatpants. Would it really be so awful of him to sit passively as you hump his leg to get the relief you’re clearly so desperate for? To take pity on you and let you use him for your pleasure? 

But he knows it would be wrong, because he’d be getting off on it even if you didn’t touch him. You're not in your right mind, and he doesn’t want to make you come for the first time when you’re whacked out on MDMA.

Summoning the will from deep inside himself, he stills your hips and eases you off of his thigh, ignoring your whines as he nudges you back onto the pillows.

“It wouldn’t be right. I'm not touching you until you’re sober,” he says firmly.

Jack gets to his feet and tucks the blankets around you. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Wake me if you need anything.” He laughs softly at the pointed pouting look you shoot his way. “Other than that.”

“You’re no fun,” you call after him as he retreats into the living room.

Once the bedroom door is shut behind him, he collapses on the couch and wrestles off his prosthetic, punching a throw pillow a few times to soften it before going horizontal. Even after what felt like the longest shift he’s had in months, he’s unsure how much sleep he’ll actually manage to get knowing you’re in the next room. Probably snuggling one of his pillows as if it’s him, probably squeezing your thighs together until the last of the drugs leave your system.

He groans and rolls over, willing his body and his still half-hard cock to go to sleep.

You wake feeling like death warmed over.

You’re in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, but smells familiar and comforting. Same with your clothes. A few memories make it through the fog, blurry and out of order. Planet Earth. Jack’s hand, warm and pleasant on your cheek. An ambulance ride. Lena ruffling your hair and handing you a lollipop. A shower with a chair and a grab bar and soap that smells like Jack.

You’re at Jack's apartment, you realize with a start.

Checking the time groggily, you observe that you've slept from the early morning until late afternoon. Thank god you’d asked for tonight off as well, anticipating you’d need recovery time after Pitt Fest. 

You can vaguely recall the warm, fuzzy feelings you’d experienced last night. In the abstract, at least. Now, you feel mostly guilt and shame and embarrassment and anxiety. How could you have been so stupid?

Sounds of life echo from the kitchen, which means Jack has woken up ahead of you. Your guilt sharpens. Jack is spending his hard-earned downtime taking care of you, because of your own carelessness.

Fatigue clings to your bones as you shuffle to the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror is less than kind. Dark shadows frame your eyes, worse than the usual bags worn by the night shift crew. Your hair is a mess, and you sigh as you comb your fingers through to tame it.

Time to face the music.

You trudge out into the kitchen, where Jack is wearing an apron over a t-shirt and sweats and cooking an omelette, looking awfully chipper for having slept seven hours on the couch. He looks so good that it briefly makes you angry. Fuck him for looking so good, while you look and feel like utter dogshit.

Of course, that annoyance turns to guilt again when he looks up and smiles.

“Hey, lover girl,” he greets you warmly as you lean on the kitchen island. “How are you feeling?”

You rub your eyes and groan, “Like I got hit by a Mack truck.”

He squeezes your shoulder fondly and grabs a plate from an overhead cabinet. “Let’s get some food and water in you.”

“Thank you,” you mutter sheepishly. “I’m sorry about… all this.”

“Don't even worry about it, sunshine.” 

Jack hands you a glass of water and starts making you a plate. You accept it with a grimace. “I'm not feeling very sunshine-y right about now. I can't remember half of what happened after I went down at the concert.”

“I hope we’ve learned not to go digging for meds in that particular friend’s purse.” He smirks and sets a plate in front of you. A vegetable omelette and buttered toast. Your appetite hasn’t yet returned to its normal levels, but your doctor brain knows that you really need to eat, so you reach for the toast first.

“Never again,” you vow as you take a bite.

In the light of day and out from under the influence of Beth's ‘aspirin,’ you get a good look at Jack's apartment for the first time as he assembles his own plate. It's not spotless, but it’s generally tidy, and it’s a very nice place. Good furniture, great windows with better blackout shades, a nice floor plan. Its niceness only makes you feel smaller.

You poke at your omelette, stewing. “Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Don't take this the wrong way, but…why am I here?”

He plates his own omelette and leans a hip against the kitchen island. “You’d never taken MDMA before, and I knew you’d be in for a hell of a drop. I didn't want you to be on your own.”

You resist the urge to frown. This whole saga is doing nothing to remedy your tragic crush on him. Did he have to be so nice and caring on top of everything else? It feels a little unfair at the moment.

“That’s… very considerate,” you mumble.

“What can I say? I'm a considerate guy.” He pops a bite of omelette into his mouth with a wink.

A thought occurs to you that briefly makes your stomach turn. “Does the whole Pitt know?”

Jack's expression tells you everything you need to know before he even speaks. “There… might have been a betting pool on the subject. Shen cleaned up.”

You drop your face into your hands. “Awesome. That's really awesome.”

Every single one of your coworkers knows that you spent the night rolling. Tears prick at your eyes beneath your palms, which only worsens your humiliation. The last thing you need right now is to cry in front of Jack Abbot. Even if it’s just because the chemicals in your brain are out of whack, it doesn't make it any less embarrassing.

“Hey.” Jack's hand finds your shoulder again. “Don’t worry about it. They're good people, no one is judging you.”

Despite your best efforts, a mortifying little sniffle slips out at the kindness in his voice. 

 “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Come here.”

You can’t bear to look up, but your breath hitches in surprise when Jack pulls you into his arms. Instantly, your brain begins to quiet, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek, the reassuring weight of his arms around you, the slow arc of his thumb rhythmically stroking your shoulder blade.

It's medicine. Oxytocin and dopamine, feel-good chemicals produced by physical touch, bolstering your brain against the sapped well of serotonin the ecstasy left in its wake. It also makes your heart flutter pathetically in your chest.

He holds you for a long moment, his grip tightening when you finally loop your arms around his waist and return the embrace.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” you whisper, allowing the comfort to sink into your skin and fill your lungs. 

“Of course.”

Jack only pulls away when you do, gently swiping a calloused thumb underneath your eye to banish the straggling tear that managed to escape. 

“Let’s get comfortable on the couch,” he says, a hand settling on your back to guide you. “You’re still on the comedown.”

You worry you might be overstaying your welcome. But Jack seems to be in no rush to get you out of his apartment, content to let you rot on his couch as long as you need to. Surely he must have better things to do on his night off than take care of you, but he sits sentry at your side without complaint.

After some consideration, Planet Earth is tabled for the time being — even if you’ve seen it before, animal death is sure to bring back the waterworks in your current state. Flipping through channels, you settle on a cheesy mid-2000s rom-com that you’ve seen before and snuggle back into the couch cushions. 

Through it all, you feel the comfort of his steady presence, his hand rubbing idle circles on your back, like an IV drip of Vitamin Jack straight to your brain. You give into the feeling, too worn out to fight it, curling into his side. Eventually, you feel a gentle graze at your scalp as he idly plays with your hair. It surprises you for a moment, but you’re not complaining in the slightest. You melt into it, eyes fluttering closed until you’re slipping in and out of a light doze.

Afternoon fades to evening, to dinnertime, to nighttime, to bedtime. Even after your intermittent sleep, your fatigue is still bone deep, and Jack insists you can stay the night. You really try to convince him to let you take the couch, but he refuses, insisting that your body needs proper rest to return to baseline. At the end of the night, he sends you off to bed with a smirk.

When you wake up in Jack's bed for the second time, it’s much less disorienting. It helps that you’re much clearer than you were seventeen hours ago. The clock reads 9:05 am — you have the whole day ahead of you to shower, change, and steel yourself for the humiliation ritual that is bound to be your shift tonight.

You stumble into the living room, bleary-eyed. Jack is reclined on the couch with a laptop and readers perched on the end of his nose. Ugh, fuck him again for looking so good.

His eyes find yours over the edge of the screen. “Hey there. You sleep good?”

“Mm-hmm,” you reply, stretching. “I'm feeling much better, I think.”

His mouth curves at the corner. “Good.”

Leaning on the edge of the couch, you sigh and glance at the clock on the wall. “I should probably head home soon, get my life together before shift tonight. Would you be able to drive me home?”

“Sure thing, sunshine.” 

After you eat breakfast and shower off the cast of bedrotting from the day before, you change back into the clothes you arrived in, which Jack took the liberty of washing for you. As much as you appreciate the gesture, you blanch at the idea of Jack handling your underwear, and try very hard not to think about that mental image.

As the quiet car ride progresses, you ponder your looming fate, mentally preparing yourself for the teasing you’ll get from the nurses and other residents. It's disorienting to not know what you’re walking into, to have been mentally absent for most of it.

You can’t resist the urge to ask anymore. “Was I a total mess?”

He nods, amused. “Yes. But a very cute mess.”

“God, this is so embarrassing,” you groan. “What did I say?”

“Are you sure you wanna know?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

That makes you pause, glancing at him warily. “…was it bad?” 

“You got a little fixated on hands for a while.” Jack pauses, like he isn’t sure how much to reveal, if you’re ready to handle it. “Said you think about mine all the time.”

Suddenly, you feel a bit sick, even though the car is headed in a straight line down the road. If that's just where it starts… if that’s not the worst of it, then what is?

“Oh god,” you whisper in horror. 

“You said you think I'm gorgeous,” he continues, voice thick with amusement. “And that you have a big ol’ crush on me. And… you might’ve tried to seduce me a little at bedtime.”

Your cheeks flare hot. This is quite possibly the worst outcome of the situation aside from death. At the moment, death feels preferable.

You stare straight ahead, sinking in your seat and pressing your hands to your forehead to try and keep your brain from exploding. “Excuse me, I'm just gonna open the door and go lay down in traffic.”

He laughs, the sound warm and fond and doing absolutely nothing to temper your embarrassment. “It's okay.”

“It is completely not okay, Jack,” you protest, turning your body away from him and towards the passenger side door, like that will save you from this conversation.

Jack places a hand on your thigh.

All the systems in your brain go down simultaneously.

His palm rests just above your knee, not high enough to be too inappropriate, but it’s intimate. Especially because your choice of garment for Pitt Fest leaves your leg bare and exposed to his touch. Never once does he take his eyes off the road.

“It was flattering,” he says coolly, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over your knee. “And extremely cute.”

He lets the assertion hang in the silence, and he doesn’t move his hand, letting it rest warm and comfortable against the soft skin of your thigh.

After some considerable effort, you remember how to breathe. Once the oxygen makes it to your brain, you manage to peel your hands away from your face and peek sideways at him. 

“…really?” you ask, because you need the confirmation. Does Jack Abbot — your mentor, the object of all your desires, and the man who just babysat you through an unwitting MDMA trip — really think you’re cute?

He gives your thigh a gentle squeeze. “Really.”

There isn’t much else to say for the rest of the car ride. Jack keeps his hand on your thigh until he turns down your street and throws the car in park. You try and fail to suppress a smile the whole way, and allow him to walk you up to your building’s front step, palms tingling with anticipation.

“I’d like to do this again sometime,” he says as you unlock the main entrance. “Minus the party drugs.”

You grin up at him, slightly emboldened by the revelations that occurred in the car. “You wanna have another sleepover?”

“Very much.” His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles back. “See you tonight?”

“See you tonight.”

You turn to head inside, but Jack catches your elbow. “Hey. One last thing.”

Before you have time to register his closeness, a hand slides along your waist, another cupping your jaw, and Jack is kissing you.

A warm, pleasant feeling floods you from top to toe, a high rivalling the chemical one you’d experienced twenty-eight hours ago. He kisses you like he’s been thinking about it that entire twenty-eight hours. It's tender and hungry at the same time. By the time he pulls away, your lips follow after his and you almost stumble forward into his arms.

You open your eyes and blink up at him, feeling a little dazed and starstruck again.

“Had to wait until you were level,” Jack murmurs. He gives you a lingering peck at the corner of your mouth and descends down the front steps to his car.

You beam after him.

You jog over to the rest of the team standing outside the courts. The team manager, Dennis Whitaker, gives you a weak smile as you pace towards the back of the group of girls. 

“Then we’ll pair off and do some volley drills. Just focusing on small steps today. Let’s do this!” Robby’s voice booms as he claps his hands together above his head. 

Your teammates all disperse, light chatter filling the air. You join them in setting their rackets down and filing onto the courts to start conditioning drills, led by Mel, one of the seniors. 

“Did you hear? We’re getting white and blue outfits this year.” 

“Oh finally. I was so sick of last year’s yellow. They looked hideous on me.” 

You smirk listening in on the conversation between Victoria and Trinity.

“I thought yellow was a good color on you,” you chime in, looking at Victoria. Then you look to Trinity.

She narrows her eyes, waiting for you to say the same to her. 

Your smirk stays. “You… not so much.” 

“Hey!” She yells, shoving you a little. “Yellow looks way better on me than you.” 

“I’m kidding, relax. I think we’ll all look better in blue. The yellow outfits made us look like traffic signs.” 

Dennis, following close behind, laughs. The three of you all turn and glare at him.

He immediately stops in his tracks and his smile vanishes. He raises both hands in the air defensively.

“It wasn’t my idea, guys, I promise! How many times have I told you?” He stammers, taking a step back. 

You shake your head. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You could’ve prevented it, and you know it.” 

His shoulders sag, deflating at your comeback. “I’m trying to make it up to you guys. We’re getting you guys new jackets and backpacks too,” he adds quieter. 

Victoria and Trinity perk up. “Really?” 

Dennis nods excitedly. “We got a bigger budget. And Coach Collins is on maternity leave so all of the merch decisions are made by-” he jabs his two thumbs towards his chest, “yours truly.” 

“Alright, let’s get moving!” Robby shouts, cutting off the conversation. 

“You’re the best, Whitaker,” you whisper loudly to him, then join the rest of the team in lunges. 

He gives you a thumbs up and his face reddens. He was so easy to charm. 

“Stop distracting the girls, Dennis,” Coach Robby warns. 

“Yes sir,” he says, nodding and ducking out of the courts. 

Shortly after conditioning, the team lines up on one side of the court, getting ready for the start. 

Coach Robby climbs up to the top of the umpire chair, whistle wedged between his teeth, aviator sunglasses covering his eyes. 

He gives one chirp of the whistle, and the sprints begin. 

Forward and back. Backpedaling both ways. Side stepping. 

The whole team could fill up an Olympic-sized swimming pool with how much sweat runs off foreheads and down backs. 

You’re halfway up the court when some motion by the exit catches your eye. The fence door swings open and a man steps onto the blue court. 

“Ah up-up- hold up team-” Robby shouts, blowing the whistle once to get the girls’ attention. 

You stop, panting, bracing yourself against your knees with sweaty palms, but keep your eyes trained on the newcomer. 

It’s hard to see his face, baseball cap on with sunglasses. Clearly someone closer to Coach Robby’s age, you spot curly grey hair sticking out from behind his cap. 

Your eyes trace down his fitted black shirt past his khaki shorts and stop. A metal contraption sits under his knee and forces him into a stiffer, but usual walking gait. A prosthetic. Something tugs in your chest, a beat of pity mixed with curiosity. 

“Ladies, I’d like you to meet our new coach for this season,” Robby says, descending the ladder and jogging over to the man. They clasp hands in a firm shake that turns into a quick pull, each thumping the other on the back in an easy, familiar half-hug. 

“This is Coach Jack Abbot, my old doubles partner from my competitive years.” 

He takes off his sunglasses and looks around the team, grinning and gives one acknowledging nod. 

You can’t help but stare. Coach Abbot is muscular from what you can tell, his biceps stretch the fabric of his sleeves, his shorts don’t hide his quad’s well either. He’s got grey facial hair, the day-two, forgot-to-shave scruff. His crows feet are more pronounced as he squints his eyes in the sun, trying to look at everyone’s faces on the team, already trying to memorize them. His skin is slightly tanned, like he’s been doing yard work or goes on runs outside, indicated by the farmer's tan peaking out of his collar. 

His eyes land on you as Robby continues. 

It’s not exactly a passing glance. It lingers. His eyes study you, taking in the way you hold yourself, the way you’ve gone still under his attention. 

Your shoulders pull together instinctively, standing a little taller and dart your eyes back to Coach Robby talking. 

Abbot’s gaze remains. His lips tighten. Something about you interests him. He’s picked out a player he wants to test. 

“He is filling in for Coach Collins, who is on maternity leave. He is one of the best tennis players I know, and I hope you all can learn a lot from him.” 

You can’t help but feel subconscious after the new coach caught you staring. 

Coach Abbot speaks up, turning to the other coach. “Thank you, Robby, it’s good to be back on the courts with you,” he says to him, then faces the group. Thankfully he doesn’t look at you now. “I’ve heard only good things about this team, I’m really looking forward to working with you gals.”

His gaze sweeps across the group again, quicker this time. When it passes over you, it stays, just a fraction. Not because you’re drawing attention to yourself, standing near the front. The opposite. You’ve kept to the back, trying not to be noticed.

Something about that catches on him. Familiar. The instinct to stay out of the spotlight, even when you belong there.

“Alright, back to sprints. He’ll be getting to know you all throughout practice today, probably will do some drills with you guys too. He’s got a killer serve that you’re going to want to learn!”

There’s a bit of a buzz in the air, a few girls make a mention that now there's two male coaches, but most fall back into line for the rest of sprints. 

“What do you think?” 

You turn to Trinity who’s looking at you with a raised brow. 

“He seems chill, Coach seems to like him,” you reply. 

“I heard that he’s ex-military too. He’s probably going to give us the worst drills.” She sprints next to you towards the net. 

You huff to catch your breath. “Did you- you knew he was the replacement?” 

She shrugs. “Dennis told me before practice today. Helps to show up on time, you know.” 

She’s already bolting before you can retort. 

Hmph. You didn’t like being out of the loop, but she’s right. 

You glance to the sidelines where the two coaches are chatting. Coach Abbot laughs, they’re probably catching up on old memories. You nearly trip over your laces when you hear the periodic whistle from Coach Robby, who’s giving the signal lazily as he talks with his friend. 

You’re distracted by the curls that flip up behind Abbot’s cap, and the way his jaw flexes every time he chews down on his gum. 

It’s mesmerizing. 

And without you noticing, he catches you. A lull in their conversation. Long enough to confirm it. 

You, watching him. 

───〃⭑

You whack your racket against the net absentmindedly. Coach Robby’s pulled Victoria off to the side.

“And you see, step forward with your right foot and bam!” He punches his own racket forward, explaining the motion of a sharp volley to her. “Right? Much more power.”

You can’t do much, playing tennis with one person, so you wait for him to finish explaining. 

“Hey kid,” a voice comes from behind. 

It startles you and you whip around quickly, to see the new Coach Abbot approaching you. 

“Oh hey,” you say, holding out a fist to him. He returns the gesture and bumps your knuckles lightly. 

“Tell me more about yourself.” His tone is casual, but he plants his feet a little wider than his shoulders and crosses his arms across his broad chest. Like he cares to listen to you.

He had asked for your name when you were in a big group gathered during a water break, but you didn’t get an actual conversation with him. Too much commotion and not enough time to stop and chat. 

But he wanted to know more about you. Wanted to know if you were shy or if there was something else. 

Were you funny? Kind? Sarcastic? Bossy? Competitive?

Why did he care? He’s been with plenty of tennis players over the years. They’re all similar but have their own quirks and personalities. 

He was just filling in for an absent coach. No need to actually get attached to any of these players. 

But it was for his benefit. In order to coach well, you have to get to know the players well. 

Especially a player like you. 

“Well,” you shift your racket into the crook of your arm and cross the other over your chest, subconsciously mirroring his confidence, “I’m a junior singles player. I won the conference title last season. Ranked top ten in last year’s regions.” 

He tips his head back with a quiet, amused huff. “Wow. Glad to finally meet our champion.” 

It confirms his suspicions. How you seemed to hang out towards the back of groups. Never vying for attention. Stayed in your lane. 

You sigh and shake your head. “I don’t know about this year. We’ve moved up divisions so it’s going to be a lot harder. We’ll see if I even rank this year.” 

“You’ve got this.” Abbott reaches out and gives your tricep a quick tap. “We’ll get you ready for the season.”

The touch comes naturally to him, although he never pins himself as someone who’s touchy. Just felt right, with you. You seemed to open up quickly about your worries for this tennis season, so you must not be too reserved, at least with him. 

You smile weakly.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” 

His eyebrow quirks. “We’ll see? You’re not going to rank with that attitude, come on, let’s drill while Coach Robby takes his sweet sweet time,” he says the last part of his sentence loud enough for Robby to look up from his conversation with Victoria, just to shoot daggers back.

Your new coach chuckles. “He’s good. Robby’s one of the best. Show me what you’ve learned from that old man.” He says taking a step away from you and waving his racket in the air. 

You slide your racket into a loose forearm grip, brows lifting. “Old man?”

He smirks. “I’m younger than him,” he says, jerking his chin toward the opposite baseline. “You, on that side.”

You jog across, shoes squeaking as you plant and turn to face him. “By what? A couple days?”

He gives a small shrug. “But still older than you. Which means I’ve played longer, seen more. Experience counts. Don’t worry, I’m not threatened by you.”

He stays light on his feet near the net, ready for your first volley. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here,” he adds. “You know we won Wimbledon doubles together, right?”

You serve the ball, hard. He returns it effortlessly. It’s almost like he’s holding back. 

Damn. 

You reach out and miss the ball with how quickly he smacked it back to you. 

“Ugh!” 

He plants two hands on his hips, still gripping his racket in one. You thought for a moment that maybe his prosthetic leg would give him some mobility issues, and now you’re starting to think it’s given him an unfair advantage. 

“You’ve got this. Let’s try again.” 

You pop another tennis ball from your skirt pocket and serve it again at the baseline. You bounce lightly on the balls of your feet as he rallies it back to you. 

You miss again. 

And again. 

He doesn’t step in right away to correct you. He’s letting it happen. Watching how you react instead of how you play. Coach Robby had a tendency to swoop in and fix problems. This was a new strategy, you were definitely not used to. 

In reality, he’s impressed by even how close you’re getting to his rallies. But he can’t show that, not now. He needs to test your limits. The human body is capable of insane feats, but it’s the mind that gets in the way. 

By the third time, you’re frustrated with yourself. You resist the urge to smack your racket against your left shin, an old habit from high school tennis you’ve been trying to break since. Bruises would bloom across your skin, purple and blue, and would be incredibly painful the next day. 

You turn to chase the ball.

“Hey,” Abbot calls, stopping you in your tracks. 

You glance back.

He’s right at the net, beckoning you forward with his index finger. 

“Come here. Quick tip.” His voice drops slightly, quieter since it’s just the two of you. 

Without thinking you walk right up to the net, panting slightly from exertion. You stop closer than you meant to. Close enough to notice details you shouldn’t be. The light freckles that dust his cheeks and forehead. Silver hairs peeking through his dark eyebrows. Even the way the light reflects off of the court unto his eyes. Hints of green and grey noticeable even through his squinting.  

He gives you a second to steady yourself, watching as you pull in a deeper breath and square your shoulders. Almost subconsciously, he matches your rhythm, then tips his head slightly to the side. The moment your eyes meet his, your heartbeat thrums a bit in your chest. 

Probably from the sprint. Or from the thick, humid heat of an eighty five degree summer afternoon.

Definitely not because you can catch the clean mix of sweat and deodorant from where he stands at the net, his forearms faintly glistening in the sun.

“You’re reaching,” he says. “Too late after the ball leaves my racket. Set up earlier. Split step sooner. Trust your gut.” 

He reaches out and taps your shoulder lightly, repositioning you half a step to the left. “Here. This is where you should be returning the ball.” 

You nod. He nods back.

Without another word, you both pace back into your positions. Like coordinated dancers. Already falling into a familiar rhythm. In sync. 

You feed the ball at him, and he gives that same unpredictable whack with his racket. 

This time, your return comes off the strings fast, landing deep near his baseline. He still gets it back, but with a lot more exertion on his half, a grunt leaving his lips as he lunges forward. 

You see a flicker of approval in his expression now. It’s small, but it feels like you’ve earned something. Respect. 

He lowers his racket and lets out a satisfied breath.

“There it is, champ,” he says. You got it.” 

“Yeah,” you reply breathlessly. “Thanks.” 

He grins at you. “You’re good. Really good. You keep that up and I might have to start trying.”

A laugh slips out of you as you drop your head, shaking it once, still catching your breath.

You miss it, the way his expression changes. The quick swallow. The tightening along his stubbled jaw before he looks away from you and lifts his racket again.

ᯓ★

Santos was right. Coach Abbot was definitely ex military. 

You lift up your head from your plank to avoid a bead of sweat from dripping into your eye. It slides down your cheek and onto the grass. 

The whole team is outside of the courts, holding planks until failure. 

Including Coach Abbot. 

You were not going to be the first to drop. In your mind, you were determined to outlast all the players, and the coach.  

Trinity is right next to you. You glance over. 

She turns her head to you. 

“What?” She hisses through clenched teeth. 

“Nothing,” you say back in a similar manner, your teeth also grit together. “Just seeing how much longer I have to hold the plank.”

She scoffs and groans, clearly in pain from the effort. 

Coach Robby was gone for the day, leaving the team in the hands of Coach Abbot. And he was going full military-style on the warmup. You were not looking forward to the rest of practice. 

Slowly, one by one, players drop onto the grass, breathing hard. It sounds nice to relax, what you would give to be laying down instead of bracing your core until your body gives out.

“Who’s still up?” Coach Abbot shouts. 

A few girls speak up. You included. “Me!” 

“Good. I’m not even tired.” 

This makes the team laugh, causing some still braced up on their forearms to fall down. 

You bite down on your tongue to stop yourself from laughing. 

In your periphery, Trinity is still holding up. 

Maybe you could push her over. She’d shove you right back. Bad plan. 

You hear clapping and cheering. The rest of the team is rooting for you both.

A quick glance reveals that it’s just you three, Coach, Trinity, and you. 

“Come on!” “You got this!” “Beat him!” 

Your shoulders are on fire. And your legs are shaking so badly. You swear you’re going to vomit. 

Trinity collapses. And so do you. 

Coach Abbot pushes himself up to his feet, wiping his hands off on his shorts. 

He walks up to the two of you. 

“Well done, ladies,” he says. 

Trinity’s already rolled over and taking huge gulps of water from a jug Dennis handed her. He’s been going around, making sure nobody’s actually passed out. 

You look up. Coach Abbot stands by your head, sun glaring behind his figure, his shadow cooling your body for a moment. His baseball cap shields his face from the sun. 

He sticks out a hand to you, and you take it, and he pulls you up to your feet. 

“I’m impressed,” he whispers to you in his proximity. “You almost outlasted me.” 

His voice comes out rougher. Your breath hitches slightly at the sound. 

Without warning, you stumble backward. Stars dance in your vision as the blood rushes to your head from rising up too quickly, and from holding a plank for too long. 

“Woah, easy there,” Coach Abbot says, reaching an arm out to steady you, but he doesn’t need to since you barely manage to catch your balance. 

Dennis appears at your side. “Here.” He hands you a bottle of gatorade, which you immediately gulp down. 

Coach Abbot watches you for a moment, then faces the rest of the team. “Please stay hydrated, we don’t want to lose any of you before the season starts.” 

To your surprise, Dennis pipes up. “Yeah, maybe go easy on em. It’s almost 90 degrees outside.”

Abbot gives him a little bit of a side eye, but his lips pull at the edge. He’s not actually offended. 

“Alright, let’s do some dynamic stretches and then get into real practice.” 

Everyone lines up again and follows the coach through some shoulder stretches, warming those muscles that will be used the most. Then as you move down to stretching your legs, you mimic the moves that Coach Abbot does. 

You follow the deep lunges, forcing your body down to get a deep stretch in. Abbot raises his arms up while still holding a lunge, and the team mimics him. 

Yoga poses. 

Arms reach back down and you all lower yourselves to the ground in chaturanga, pushing up and tilting your chin up to the sky. 

He’s surprisingly flexible. Abbot makes these poses look easy, and you’re struggling to stay balanced. 

His eyes remain closed. “Don’t forget to breathe. Inhale…. And exhale.” 

Maybe he does yoga in his spare time. 

Huh.

───〃⭑

“Okay ladies, I’m gonna pair you all up. We’ll do some doubles alley drilling together. Focus on directional control.” 

Coach Abbot begins pointing to your teammates, sometimes apologetically asking for reminders of names, can’t blame him, there’s twelve players on the team, and he’s only been around for a little less a week.

But, of course, he remembered your name the second he heard it. When Trinity called your name across the court the first day of practice he attended. It never left his head. 

He pairs you up with Joy, a senior you’re not super close with. She mostly plays doubles, but she’s really solid.

Good practice, you reassure yourself. 

The court is a mixture of casual conversation between team players across the net, the sound of tennis balls popping off rackets, and the occasional pipe up from Abbot giving some advice or helping someone out. 

You and the senior decide to take a break, tired out from the drill. Next to you, Trinity is up against a freshman, but since the point of the drill isn’t to win, it’s to get better at control, she’s not getting any glory. In fact, the freshman keeps hitting the ball outside of the alley, forcing Trinity to chase after the shots more than usual. 

“What’s up with you two?”

You finish sipping your water out of the bottle and turn towards the voice. Coach Abbot walks up to you, then leans against the fence where you’re standing, watching the two players on the court adjacent to yours. He braces his freckled forearms against the top of the wire and waits for you to put your water bottle down. 

“What do you mean?” You ask, wiping the water off your top lip with the back of your hand. 

His eyes flick down for a moment to your lips then back up at you. Just noticing the motion. That’s all. 

“You and her,” he nods towards the drill between Trinity and the other player. And you know he’s not talking about the freshman. 

“Oh, she’s cool. We were doubles partners our first year. But we weren’t a great fit, skillwise. We both have a good backhand and hang towards the back. Not an ideal pairing for matches,” you ramble. 

He listens, waiting for more. Abbot’s determined to learn you. Figure out what makes you tick. Find out which teammates you like and which ones you despise. 

You pause, glance over your shoulder, then back to your coach. “It’s better now that we play singles. I prefer it.” 

He shifts his weight a little. This feels familiar to him.“Robby and I were the same. We were paired up for the longest time, and it ended up being sort of a tough relationship. Constantly correcting each other. But after we grew out of our college egos, we were able to team up and win in bigger tournaments together.” 

Abbot nudges your arm with his elbow. “Maybe that’ll be you two one day.” 

You laugh then bite your lip. “I don’t know.” 

He pushes off the fence and turns fully to you. “I was watching you earlier.” 

Your heart skips a beat. You don’t know why. Coach Robby watches you all the time. All the players. That’s normal. That’s what a coach does.

But still. Hearing him say that. 

He lifts his chin. “You’re light on your feet. Not dragging them at all. And you had some great rallies. Your coordination is really on.” 

“Oh, thanks. I think I had some extra caffeine today.” 

“Whatever it is, it’s working. Keep it up.” 

You swallow and force a smile. “Thanks.” 

Your face feels hot. It was good to hear the praise. It really was. 

Coach Abbot turns and walks away to talk to some other players. His work here is done. 

And you sigh, letting your shoulders sag down. 

Heavens, were you that tense? You subtly press two fingers into your wrist. 

Your pulse is rapid, like you’ve just run a mile. 

He’s far away now. But you can’t seem to take your eyes off his black shirt and the way it pulls tighter when he’s demonstrating a racket swing to your teammate. 

───〃⭑

“Take a breather, and let’s regroup to end practice!” 

The sun is almost to the horizon. The air is finally cooling off and allows everyone to breathe a little easier. Robby says it's good to train in the heat. Gets your blood flowing faster and provides a more intense workout. No matter how much the team tried to get him to change practices to later at this hour, he never let up. When it came around to tournaments however, Pitt's team always outperformed the other teams. Probably because they were used to cushy practice indoors or in the evenings. 

There were perks. 

You stop mid-conversation with Joy, a newcomer sophomore on the team. You don’t know her super well, so you were making an effort to talk to her and find out more. Right as she was about to tell you about transferring schools, Coach Abbot’s voice echoes across the courts. 

“Tell me later, I’ve heard good things about Florida, I’m surprised you came here.” You kick a tennis ball to the baseline as you turn away from her towards the rest of the team. 

“Hah. Great weather but my team sucked, they were competitive but they wouldn’t let me play doubles,” she says, following you. 

You raise your eyebrows in surprise, but quickly lose focus on Joy to listen to what Abbot has to say. Coach Robby always gave a little pow-wow speech when practices were over, and I guess the new coach was good at picking up on the rituals. 

The rest of the team was gathered outside the courts on the grass adjacent to the parking lot. 

Coach Abbot holds a clipboard in his calloused hands, drawing a line down the paper with his finger, occasionally stopping to read something. 

He looks up when the team is all gathered. “Great practice today! Lots of improvement, but lots of area to grow.” He lifts the clipboard into the air. “We have our first practice matches of the season.”

You squint at the board, but all you can see is lines from a printed out excel sheet. 

“Coach Robby gave this to me today. You’ll be paired up with another player on our team. We are gonna treat this like a real tournament day, so come prepared. Monday, next week. We’ll put it in the group chat so you don’t miss it. I’m putting it on the fence so you can come up and see.” 

He lowers his arm and then looks around the girls. 

Instinctively, you all mirror him, trying to follow his gaze where he was looking. 

“Whitaker!” He yells.

The team manager pops up behind his beat up truck in the parking lot. “Yeah?” 

Dennis hurriedly pops the back of his truck down, then slides out a large box from the back. He hoists it over his shoulder and walks nearly effortlessly to the group and sets it down on the grass. 

“We’ve got a surprise for you all too,” Coach Abbot says as Dennis sits down on the ground, sending the team into an excited chatter.

The girls eagerly lean closer, and most have already correctly guessed what’s inside. Without a word, Dennis pulls the top flaps open, revealing crisp baby blue tennis uniforms with white detailing. 

Some girls squeal in unison. A few bounce on the balls of their feet, craning their necks to get a better look. Dennis holds out a hand at the noise. “Hold up, I have a list with names and the sizes you wrote down. We’ll make sure everyone gets their right size. Line up!” 

There’s a shuffle of sneakers against pavement as a line falls into place, a hum of chatter settling among the group. Everyone is far more excited about uniforms than the practice matches. Victoria in front of you whispers about how cute the pleats in the skirts are. Some depart from the line for a moment to glance at the clipboard Abbot hangs up on the wire fence before returning.

You’re not really in a rush to get anywhere, so you hang towards the back, noticing the style of the outfits as one teammate holds it up to her figure. 

“Hey, champ.” The deep masculine voice knocks you right out of your thoughts. Low and direct. And you recognize that nickname. 

Coach Abbot stands to your left, following the pace of the line with you. His hands are clasped loosely behind his back, leaning towards you ever so slightly. His eyes skim the line before settling on you. Checking to see if anyone else is listening. 

“Hey,” you say, smiling nervously. He looks like he’s about to tell you something serious. His demeanor is more earnest now. Less military but still being deliberate. 

Abbot observes the way you straighten your neck when he approaches. Your quick, polite smile. He’s seen it in players who care too much about getting it right. It’s good for performance, but he knows it can get in the way. 

He then lowers his tone. “Wait around after you get your uniform, ‘kay? Don’t leave practice yet.” 

Your stomach lurches. Did I do something wrong? Flipping through moments of practice, you draw a blank. It makes it worse, you don’t even know what could possibly be needing attention. Your throat goes dry and you swallow to clear the feeling. 

Coach notices that you’ve gone stiff. “Don’t worry, I have a proposition,” he says calmly. 

He follows your reaction closely. There it is again, uncertainty. He exhales quietly through his nose. He forgets that you’re not used to being pushed the way he pushes. He knows that Coach Robby has probably gone soft on a player like you, a winner, who he doesn’t need to focus on to get ready for competition. 

You need someone like Abbot. Someone who can challenge you the way you deserve to be. 

He gives you a firm pat on the shoulder and then leaves you to stand in the line alone. There’s only a few more players in front of you till you reach the end. He’s eager to tell you more, but he knows that you like to keep a low profile, so he doesn’t want to draw more attention to the two of you. 

As you let the last girl walk away with her new uniform, Dennis looks up at you. “Hi!” He reaches into the box and pulls out a top and skirt for you. There’s a few uniforms left, for your teammates that didn’t show up to today’s practice. 

“Here you go! If it doesn’t fit, just let me know and we’ll exchange sizes.” 

“Thanks.” 

Reflexively, you hold it up to yourself like the other girls did and nod to the manager. “I think it’ll work.” You smooth the soft fabric between your fingers, but your mind is still elsewhere, sort of in a half daze. 

Dennis folds up the box and makes his way back to his truck. The tailgate slams shut with a dull thud, the sound carrying across the now quieting court. 

You linger back, watching as slowly the team disperses into the parking lot. Groups peel off in twos and threes, voices fade, cars open and close, engines revving. Energy drains from the space, filling it with background noise from the city of Pittsburg around you. 

When you turn around, Coach Abbot stands there, waiting for you. 

He hasn’t moved much. His weight is shifted slightly on his prosthetic's side. He watches the last car leave the parking lot, then lands on you. 

He beckons you over with his hand. You trot over, intentionally breathing slowly, anticipating the worst. You try to slow your heartbeat, but it feels heavy and loud in your chest, masking everything else around you. 

“What’s up?” You manage, keeping your voice level. You’re not sure why you’re feeling so nervous. You’ve stayed after practice many times. Coach Robby liked to give you tips. Sometimes you stuck around to practice some more. There’s a reason why you were one of the best players on the team. While most left to enjoy their summer nights before school started up, you knew this was the only spare time you had before your classes were fully ramped up and extra time for fine tuning skills was scarce. 

This feels different. Coach Robby was predictable. Easy on you. There’s an intensity to Coach Abbot that you haven’t figured out yet. It makes every interaction feel like there’s something on the line. 

“How are you feeling?” 

The tone of his voice is soft. It catches you off guard. You weren’t expecting a therapy session, or talking about feelings. 

He’s just asking a question. Figuring out where you’re at. 

“I’m fine,” you respond, looking down at your feet. Your shoe nudges at a crack in the pavement. You trace the line absentmindedly. 

“Hey.” 

You look up at him, and he takes a step closer to you, holding eye contact. 

Not invading, but he definitely steps close enough that you can’t avoid him now. His brows scrunch in focus, trying to read you. He’s not trying to intimidate you but it damn well feels like it. 

“You seem nervous. How are you feeling about the upcoming season?”

This is what’s important to him. You can play as well as you want. But if someone’s head is elsewhere, they’ll never handle the pressure. He knows this season is different for you. You might lose the champ title. It’s not guaranteed. 

And it scares you. You fear failure, and even worse, you fear disappointment. 

Disappointment from Coach Robby. 

And now, from Coach Abbot too. 

He’s trying to figure it out. Figure you out. 

But you can’t reveal all that’s on your mind. Because there’s something else invading your mental space. 

And it’s right in front of you. 

You hesitate for a moment, mouth opening, closing, then, “I mean… I’m excited.” Your fingers tighten slightly around the folded uniform in your hands. “Yeah, nervous too. I just want to do well.” 

He nods once, slowly, and smirks. He was expecting that answer. It doesn’t satisfy him. 

“I figured.” He shifts his weight and crosses his arms across his chest. “I’ve been watching you.”

Your hands feel clammy. 

“You’ve got good instincts,” he continues. “Footwork’s solid. You recover fast. And you’re definitely not a quitter,” he says the last part with a chuckle. 

It almost feels like praise and you lift your chin an inch higher. 

“Thanks,” you say, but you’re not sure if that was his intention. 

He studies your body language. You accept it but don’t fully take it in and internalize it. 

“But,” he adds, looking off to the side as if coming up with the right way to say his next line. “You’re playing it safe.” 

There it is. 

There’s always a catch. Your shoulders tense before you can stop it. 

“You hesitate when you’ve got an opening. Second guess shot selection. You’re good at winning points but you don’t control the game. Yet.” 

Abbot takes a step closer, forcing you to crane your neck and look up at him. 

“It's gonna cost you,” he warns. 

You swallow. “Okay.” 

Your mind already replays rallies. Finding moments that confirm what he just said to you. He’s not wrong. It bothers you. 

There. He sees it. That flame igniting behind your eyes. 

“So,” he says, voice leveling out again, his gritty tone leaving. “We’re fixing it.” 

You blink. “We?” 

The corner of his mouth lifts. 

“We,” he repeats. 

He gestures to the courts behind himself, empty, nets still strung, sunset glowing across the sky, casting soft shadows across the surface. 

“You’ve got a practice match coming up. You know that,” he says. 

Your grip tightens on the uniform again. “Yeah, I’m already thinking about it.” 

He lifts a pointed finger to your face and shakes it. “You go in like you played today,” he tilts his head down to look at you more intensely, “you’ll hold your own. You’ll even win.” 

He pauses, letting you tune in more. 

“But you won’t dominate. And you should. You are completely capable.” 

Expectations. Abbot’s holding you to a higher standard. 

“So what do you want me to do?” You huff defensively. 

He doesn’t hesitate, you said exactly what he was laying up for you to say. 

“One-on-one training, you’re staying.” 

It’s not an offer. 

Your eyebrows lift slightly. “You mean, right now?” you stammer when he doesn’t move. 

“Yeah, champ,” he breathes. “Let’s not delay the inevitable.” 

Champ. His champ. 

He nods once towards the court. “Just thirty minutes. Maybe forty.” 

Without another word, he walks towards the fence gate and pushes it open. In a swift movement, he picks up his racket, then turns around to you. 

But you’re already setting your bag down, uniform folded beside it, pulling out your racket you thought you’d finally get to rest this weekend.

Abbot straightens slightly. There’s a quiet satisfaction in it. You didn’t hesitate. Didn’t question him. Just stayed like he wanted.

He watches you for a moment longer than necessary. He wasn’t sure you would. Thought you might push back.

But this, this he can work with. The easier you are to guide now, the sharper you’ll be on the court.

And the closer you’ll stay to him.

Once you’re on the court with him, he taps his temple with two fingers. “You don’t get to think your way through this drill. We’re going to run pressure drills. Fast feeds.”

You let out a small breath. Part nerves, part adrenaline kicking in. “Okay.” 

Coach Abbot sees some hesitation in you, but also he sees what he was looking for in you. Drive. 

“I’m not going easy on you.” He warns. 

“I hope you wouldn’t,” you say with a smirk back. 

Maybe, just maybe if you can even feign confidence, you can keep up with him. 

“Good,” he nods and grabs a ball from a small basket near the net, bouncing it once against the ground. The sharp, hollow pop echoes in the dusk air. 

He takes a moment to pop off his baseball cap now that the sun’s gone down. You see the sweat soaked hair underneath, silver tone now darker. He flips it around and places it back on his head backwards, turning back the clock on his appearance. He has more of a frat boy look than your-friend’s-dad-who-coaches-the-team look now. 

You smirk at his new style. 

It gives you a glimmer of what tennis is all about for you again. Fun. Hard work, but fun.

“I’m going to push your pace past what you’re comfortable doing.” With his racket, he points to the other side of the court. 

You follow where he gestures to, but remain closer to the net to hear if he gives any more instructions, or warnings. 

And he does. “You’re gonna hate me for about twenty minutes." 

You suck in your bottom lip, biting it hard, then shrug. “I can take it.” 

“Atta-girl. If you really can, you’ll walk into that match with an edge that no one else has.” 

You lower your chest to the ground, bending your knees slightly, body automatically locking into practice mode. You backpedal towards the baseline. The way you square up, the way your posture settles, Abbot notices and gives a small, almost imperceptible nod to himself.

He dribbles the ball then grips it in his broad hand. He holds it to the strings of his weapon. 

“Let’s see what you do when you don’t have time to think.” 

ᯓ★

For the past two summers, you’ve worked at a coffee shop just down the street from your apartment. It initially started as just a means to pay rent, and now with your new tennis scholarship, you don’t need to work as much. But free coffee and staying busy during the summer months outside of practice kept you around. You worked enough to get the perks and for an extra buck or two for fun expenses. 

It was a slower morning. You were just beginning your shift, wiping condensation rings and crumbs off a table. The way the condensation glitters on the surface reminds you something that’s now becoming familiar. 

Beads of sweat on Coach Abbot’s freckled arms. Dripping down his temple. Glistening on his upper lip, seeping through his stubble. Your mind often wanders back to that first one-on-one practice. To only the sound of your heartbeat, Abbot’s heavy grunts as he returns your forehand shots, and the cicadas waking up in the summer evening. 

The bell on the door chimes.

The sound of feet shuffling in alerts you to incoming customers, snapping you out of your daze. 

As you turn to greet them, you inhale sharply. 

The last two people you’d expect to show up were your coaches.

Coach Robby walks in first, Coach Abbot close behind. They look around the shop for a minute, taking in the clean and light atmosphere, then in unison their gaze lands on you.

“Hi, welcome in!” You chirp almost automatically. Your brain is still in barista mode, and struggling to switch out. 

“Oh hey kid, I forgot you worked here, thought you would’ve quit by now,” your head coach muses, pausing by the entrance, standing still while you sling your damp cleaning towel over your shoulder casually. 

“Yeah, I could’ve quit but I like free coffee too much,” you smile, eyes fixated only on Robby. 

Coach Abbot stares at you, unaccustomed to seeing you in anything but tennis clothes. Something in his chest thrums, the sight of your hair down instead of in a tight braid or slicked back with a hairstyle disarms him. You’re both equally put together and relaxed in this environment. 

You purposely avoid meeting those hazel eyes. And there’s no baseball cap shielding his face either. Just tousled silver curls, scruff, and his penetrating gaze. He’s wearing camouflage pants that hide his prosthetic and a plain black shirt. 

Just as strange as it is for him to see you like this, it throws him off more than he’d ever admit.

Coach Robby clears his throat. “I’ll get my usual,” he says with a smirk. “If you can remember it.” 

You turn back towards the bar. “Black coffee, no sugar, splash of half-and-half, right?” 

Abbot eyes the small of your back where your apron is tied off in a cute bow. So domestic. 

What the - this is a tennis player. Not a piece of work to admire. 

He misses when Robby taps him on the shoulder, a silent indication for him to tell you his order to. 

Abbot gives him a look, and when he sees you raising an eyebrow, he stutters back to reality. “Oh, um- I’ll also get black coffee. Just two sugars, no cream. Thanks.” 

“You got it, coach.” 

Preparing their coffee in the back allows the unexpected adrenaline to power down. You listen as they find a table by the window, lost in chatter about the latest sports updates, hearing the occasional chuckle from both of them. 

Before too long, you wrap around the counter and present them with their drinks, one in each hand. You set them down on the edge of their table. “Careful, they’re hot.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Robby gives you a short nod without reaching for his cup, practicing advised patience. 

“Yes, thank you,” Abbot says. You look him in the eye, and give him a polite smile.

“Anytime.” 

Coach Robby glances around the vacant shop. “Wanna sit for a second, kid? We’ll let you go if anyone comes in.” 

You shrug. “Sure, though I will say I can’t tell you the slightest about what’s happening in the golf world.” Pulling a chair over nearby, you sit at the head of their table. 

“You’re up against Mel today, right?” Abbot asks, jumping into the only comfortable conversation topic he can muster between you two. 

He doesn’t know you much outside of practice, admittedly. 

Robby shakes his head. “Give the girl a break, she’s off the clock.”

This gets a rusty sigh from Abbot. “Tennis season is never off the clock.” 

You stifle a laugh from their bickering. “Yes, I’m up against Mel,” you answer Abbot’s question. 

Robby’s not having it. “How’s your upcoming semester coming? Are we going to lose you to any serious exams?” He changes the subject from tennis to something worse. School.  

Come to think of it, Abbot has no idea what you’re majoring in college. He’s forgotten that you even are in school. You’re still a student, not just a tennis player. 

It makes him feel, well, old. It’s been years since he was studying for exams. And you’re in the thick of it. 

“Hopefully not. I’m taking the next level of bio-chem, though. I’ve heard it’s hard,” you mutter. 

“Bio-chem, what are you studying?” Abbot says, squinting his eyes, trying to figure it out for himself. 

“I’m pre-med. With a focus in microbiology.” 

There’s a beat where he just looks at you. A second too long.

His eyebrows lift slightly. “You wanna be a doctor?” 

“Oh, definitely not. I’ve actually liked doing research on the side,” you shift to cross your legs, feeling like you don’t know exactly what to do with your body. “So maybe a clinical research assistant?”

“Huh.” He leans back slightly, still watching you.

Robby picks up his cup, which he decides has cooled sufficiently. “She’s smart. Though she might not have to do a career like that if tennis takes off for her.” 

You shake and drop your head. “I love tennis, not sure if I want it to be my primary source of income.” 

“Hmm, you definitely have the potential for it,” Abbot says quietly. 

Robby gives Abbot a questionable glance. Abbot catches it and shrugs it off. 

“What?” he mutters under his breath, almost defensive.

The bell on the door rings and you jump up to your feet, a little too fast, the chair scraping the floor beneath its legs. 

You greet the incoming customers, then look back at your coaches. 

Robby waves a shooing hand in your direction, giving you permission to attend the newcomers. “Don’t forget to tell us how much.” He holds up his coffee. 

“Don’t worry, it's on the house,” you hum back.

You quickly finish up an order at the kiosk, and just as the new customer sits down, your coaches clear their table and make their way to the exit. You’re not sure why you were eager to get back to your awkward conversation with them. It was never like this with Collins and Robby. But something about Abbot’s new presence threw you off… yet drew you in. 

They stand by the door and wave at you, “See you at practice,” Robby says. 

“See you, champ,” Abbot calls out. 

You give them a quick wave as the door swings behind them. 

…───

“Champ?” 

They’re only a few feet away from the entrance, making their way down the sidewalk. Robby slows his pace now.

“What?” Abbot asks, only now realizing he let your nickname slip in front of the other coach. Something that was pretty much only between you and him. 

Coach Robby now fully stops in his tracks. He holds up a finger. 

“You better have not picked a favorite,” Robby’s tone has turned cold. 

Abbot’s shoulders lift. “What? You have yours.” 

“Oh no, brother, we don’t do that around here.” The head coach takes a step closer. “We treat all the players the same.”

“Well, she’s not the same as the other players, is she?”

The words come out too quickly. Too sure. Like he’s already justified it to himself.

Robby scoffs. “The last thing she needs is pressure. Especially from you.” 

Abbot takes a sharp breath in. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not stupid, Jack. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You might have to stop giving her one-on-one training.” 

Abbot’s throat feels suddenly, very dry, and he nurses his drink to drown the feeling. “She wants to perform better this year. She needs pressure. She needs extra training.” 

“Sure, fine,” Coach Robby huffs. They both continue walking down the street, down through a crosswalk. 

There’s a pause in the conversation while he lets it sink in. 

“Just don’t blur the lines,” Robby adds finally. “You know how fast that gets messy.”

Abbot doesn’t answer right away. He could fight back. “What lines?” But he’s already in too deep. Too invested in you. The truth he refuses to face yet is there, rising to the surface. And he doesn’t need Robby involved in this. 

His gaze drifts back toward the building for a split second, toward where you’re still inside, just out of sight.

Then he looks away first.

He decides to leave it here, at least for Robby to back down. 

“…I’ve got it handled,” he says.

But it doesn’t sound as certain as he wants it to.

───〃⭑

Javadi gives you a passing fist bump. “You got this, girl.” 

Even though this should be the hottest part of the day, an overcast day casts welcoming shadows over the Pitt’s courts. You hate having to play with a visor or cap, so this is all to your advantage now. 

You adjust your headband and step into the court where Mel is already dribbling a ball. 

Trinity has opted to sit in the umpire’s chair. Always watching your every move. And you let her. She’s not your competition anymore, not that she should've been anyways. You play for the same team. 

Coach Robby stands on Mel’s side of the court, holding a clipboard against his hip, smacking gum between his molars. 

Coach Abbot lingers by the fence on your end, legs in a wide stance, eyes shielded by his aviators. But you know he’s honed in on you. 

This was typical for practice tournaments. Coaches helping out the teammates on opposing sides, monitoring the matches. Helped avoid drama and messes when one coach was focused on two or four players at the same time.

Other players gather at the fence line to watch. They could always learn a thing or two by watching. 

“Alright, whenever you’re ready,” Robby hollers, and you stand back behind the baseline, sucking in a deep breath, anticipating Mel’s serve. 

Mel pushes up her glasses once on her face. We gotta get her contacts. “Love all,” she shouts. 

The match starts slowly. You hit a few rallies back and forth. Today, you try to stay close at the net. 

Mel smacks a shot to your left corner, it whizzes by before you can catch it with your racket. 

“Nice shot!” Trinity shouts. You shoot her a glare. She shrugs. 

And that gets your blood rushing. 

Coach Abbot pulls his shoulders back slightly. He witnessed all of that, but he’s not eager to cut in yet. He wants to see if this sets you off or if your behavior stays level. 

Mel resets at the baseline. “Fifteen love!” 

Come on, come on!

She hits a solid serve down. And you slam it back, barely getting over the net. She can’t get over in time, and you get the point. 

“Yes!” You hiss to yourself, hand gripping your racket tighter. 

Abbot grins. Attagirl. Trinity might have set you off, but in a good way.

“Fifteen all!” Mel calls, already stepping back into position at the baseline, a new ball in hand.

“Get up to the net,” Abbot’s low voice comes across the court. 

What?

And you miss the serve. You blink in surprise. 

Before you can process what’s happened- “Thirty fifteen!” 

You shake your head for a moment then bounce lightly on your feet. Trying to get back your focus. 

Now all you can think of is Coach Abbot watching you. You were doing fine till he said something. Your pulse pounds in your ears, blood buzzing through your body. 

You manage to return the serve. There’s a few rallies, and listening to Abbot’s unwelcome advice, you hover by the net. 

Mel’s racket reaches up for a lob, and it comes down fast. You let it bounce on the court, running after it, but the neon ball just falls outside of your reach. And you miss it. 

“Ugh!” You scream, as air meets the strings, not the satisfying pop of the tennis ball. 

With one swoop, you swing your racket, the edge hitting your shin with a dull smack. 

A few girls gasp. Must be the freshmen on the team. Your other teammates were used to your court etiquette and behavior.

“Hold up, let’s take a two minute breather.” 

It’s Robby’s voice this time. You turn around and see Mel already jogging over to Robby, ready to listen to whatever tips he had in store for her. 

Coach Abbot’s already at your side. He places one hand firmly on your shoulder, hand dips his head down to your level. “What was that?” 

You focus on the spot on the ground between your feet. “Nothing. It’s fine.” 

He doesn’t let go, and instead gives you a shake.

This startles you and you look up at him. He removes his hand now, and takes off his sunglasses cleanly. 

He's glaring at you. Jaw tight, hazel eyes darker. “You okay, kid?” 

Kid. Not champ. This behavior is childish. 

“I don’t know, I’m just- having trouble-” you say between inhales and exhales. 

Abbot holds up both hands defensively, straightening his posture. “Okay, let’s take some breaths. You are doing good. Just hang in there. Breathe in-” and Abbot takes in his own breath, filling his lungs. 

You inhale. 

In-

“And out,” he whispers, his voice barely audible. 

Okay.

It worked, surprisingly. The breathing, plus your mind latching onto the sound of his husky voice saying “you are doing good”, helps you compose yourself. 

His hand reaches for you again and presses lightly into your shoulder as he leans in, voice dropping softer and more deliberate. “Her forehand’s weak,” he says, breath close against your skin. “Work that side… she won’t last long.”

You turn your head just a hair, eyes locking for a beat. Understood. 

“Yeah. Got it.” You close your eyes and Abbot stands back, giving you breathing room. The heat from the proximity of his body leaves you, and you sidestep away. 

You shift back into position, tapping your toes against the baseline, racket lifting as Mel settles in to serve again.

The noise around you dulls. Trinity, the girls, even Robby’s voice fading into the background.

It’s almost like Abbot’s still there, right beside you. She won’t last long.

Mel tosses the ball high into the air.

You move before you can think. The return comes off your strings straight into her forehand side. It’s sharp, like the taste of blood in the back of your throat from exertion of the match. 

She misjudges it. The ball clips past her racket and bounces out of reach.

A few girls cheer from the sidelines.

You don’t celebrate right away. Just let out a breath, steadying yourself. But a smile tugs at the corner of your lips anyway.

Abbot simply watches. He doesn’t react. It’s all internal.

But in between the pride and satisfaction he feels and doesn’t show, there’s something else. 

Tangled in there is something he shouldn’t be feeling. 

ᯓ★

Hey champ – good work today.

You up for a one-on-one tomorrow evening?

-J.A.

Who signs their messages? 

You stare at the text, screen glowing in the dark as you lay bunched up in your sheets. 

It’s late at night. The time reads 11:48pm. The text had only come through minutes ago, interrupting your lazy pre-bedtime scroll. 

Your imagination wanders to what your coach was doing up so late. 

Was he in bed like you? Under his sheets, probably a navy or a dark grey color. Was he the type to wear old flannel pants to bed and a comfortable t-shirt? Or maybe he just slept in his boxers, shirtless…

You sit up in bed. 

Your heart is racing. 

Thinking about your who-knows-how-old coach, in bed, shirtless. 

You groan and rub your palm into your face. 

This was bad. 

This was very bad. 

You glance at your phone, hoping that by some miracle the text has disappeared and you can forget everything that just flashed in your mind. 

It hasn’t. 

And worse, you’ve accidentally sent a text. 

All it says is:

lkhg m 

You press and hold the text, hoping you can unsend it, but it’s too late.

“Shit!” You hiss, and watch in horror as the thought bubble pops up on the screen. 

What does that mean? Is it a new abbreviation your generation came up with?

You freeze. “Your generation?” You scoff out loud to yourself. 

Sorry!! I didn’t mean to send that

You hit send. 

Somehow, you can still feel your heart pounding in your chest, but the feeling is different. Fear… has a funny way of turning into excitement. 

You wait for him to respond. Then-

Don’t tell me you butt-texted me back. 

The laugh escapes your lips before you can stop it. Your fingers fly across the keyboard. 

Haven’t heard of butt-texting. Is that one of your generation’s abbreviations?

His text comes through at record speed. 

Yeah. It’s new. Get with the program.

Your eyebrow lifts. Sassy.

Across the city of Pittsburg, in a larger apartment than yours, stands Coach Abbot, in front of his mirror, trimming his scruff. This is a ritual for him. Come home after spending some time out at a local bar, getting drinks with other ex-military buds or even Robby, eat some leftover takeout, get out the trimmer, hop in the shower. 

He happened to be thinking of you. 

Maybe he’s had one too many drinks tonight. His head feels a little buzzy, but he’s still conscious, still pretty much there, at least he tells himself. 

But, with a weakened state of mind, his thoughts wandered to you. 

What would you be doing at this hour? Out with friends? Going to a party? Wearing a short dress, couldn’t be shorter than your tennis skirts. Hopefully it would be something sparkly, fun, energetic, like how you were after hitting a winning shot. Arms raised in the air, jumping to obnoxiously loud music, dancing with your whole body-

No, that didn’t seem like you. On a random occasion, maybe. 

Or, you’re more of an introvert and you’re at home, watching TV. A movie you’ve seen a hundred times. The idea feels… cozy to him, he has to admit. Or maybe you’re already asleep. No, there’s not a single college student that should be going to bed before midnight on the weekend in the summer. At least you’d be awake, maybe winding down for the day like him, perhaps you’re wearing one of those silly masks that women always wear that makes them look like a ghost, and maybe you’re wearing comfortable, silky pajamas…

Abbot, flicks his trimmer off, and sets it down under his hand against the sink counter, and it hits the marble with a hard clank. 

He sucks a sharp breath in. 

His reflection in the mirror looks at him with disgust. 

What are you thinkin’? That’s one of your players. Not some woman you’ve taken on a date that you can’t stop fantasizing about. 

He barely knows you. All he knows is that you’re a pre-med student, exceptionally good at tennis, maybe even better than him some days. You’ve got a killer backhand, you knock heads with some of the other players on the team, you work at a coffee shop when you’re not on the courts, and you’re…

Pretty.

Before another second passes, he grabs his phone off the ledge under his mirror, and types a text. 

He hits send, and resumes trimming his grey stubble. He’s almost done, just getting that stubborn area under the jaw. 

The vibration from his phone stops him, and he reaches for his phone faster than he’d like to admit. 

He furrows his brow when he sees your text. 

“Ellll, kah, huhh, guh,” he tries sounding outloud, unsure of what your text meant. 

When you respond, he grins to himself. He’s far too pleased that you’re awake, reading his text, responding to him. Even if you were at the club with friends, you’re still on his mind. 

One text turns into a couple. 

And a few more. 

There’s a pause in the conversation over messages when you don’t respond to him. 

He takes this moment to hop in the shower, deciding that now was probably a good time to stop the conversation. 

Abbot glances once more at his mirror. His cheeks are flushed. 

Oh no.

Your foot caught the edge of the third step. The laundry flew from your grip, sending sheets and towels flying as your weight shifted violently forward.

You launched. Your knee slammed hard against one step, and before you could even register the ache there, the sharp edge another one scraped violently across your cheekbone.

For a second, the world just went completely quiet. You were crumpled on the steps, the breath knocked clear out of your lungs, staring down. The pain in your knee was loud and throbbing, and your face felt… numb.

"Doll, what happened? Are you okay?"

Jack’s voice broke the silence. You looked at him, his gaze sweeping over the scene. Because of his leg, he couldn't just drop to his knees or rush up the stairs to scoop you up; he had to take each step deliberately. The frustration of his own physical limitations was already written in the tight line of his jaw.

"I'm fine!" you managed, your voice sounding small. "Just... dropped the towels. And added another bruise to the collection." You tried to laugh, pulling yourself up to sit straight.

Jack reached the step just below you. "Don't move. Stay exactly where you are."

His tone was rigid. Stripped of all warmth.

"Jack, seriously, it’s just a scrape—"

"I said, don't move," he snapped, his fingers gently but firmly clamping onto your chin to tilt your face upward into the dim stairwell light.

That was when you felt it. A strange trickling sensation creeping down your cheek. Something dripped past your jawline. You reached up to touch it, but Jack caught your wrist mid air, holding it tightly away from your face.

But your fingers were already stained red.

"Oh," you whispered, the adrenaline suddenly spiking. "That's... blood." You tried to deflect with a nervous laugh. "Does the cut matches the bruise on my knee? A matching set for the collection. I'm keeping you in business, Doc."

Jack didn't laugh. He didn't even smile.

"Shut up," he said. "Don't make a joke out of this."

"Jack, I'm just trying to—"

"I don't care what you're trying to do." He snapped, letting go of your chin. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it firmly against your cheek. "Apply pressure. Hold it there."

You took over, pressing the cloth to your face, the sting finally waking up beneath the numbness. "Don't talk to me like that. I just tripped."

"Because you were running! How many times do I have to ask you to slow down?" Jack’s hands were trembling slightly. "You treat your own safety like it’s a punchline. 'Another bruise to the collection.' Do you have any idea what it’s like for me to hear a crash and know I can't run down there to catch you? Do you know what went through my head when I saw you lying here?"

His voice cut through your defense mechanism. You looked at him, he was angry and terrified. And, you knew, he was trapped by a body that wouldn't let him be the protector he desperately wanted to be.

"I wasn't trying to minimize it," you said softly. "I joke because I'm embarrassed, Jack. I'm clumsy, and I hate that I make you worry."

"I don't care about being worried," Jack replied. "I care about you being safe. I spend all day at the hospital patching up people who didn't see the accident coming. And you... you're rushing through our own home like you're invincible. And I can't... if something happens to you, I can't get to you fast enough. You know that."

The silence returned, heavier this time.

Jack gently reached out, taking your hand away from the handkerchief to check the bleeding. The edge of the cut was clean, but it was deep enough that it would probably need a few butterflies, if not a stitch or two.

"It needs to be cleaned properly," he murmured. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah," you whispered, wincing as you shifted your weight onto your bruised knee. "I can stand."

"Good." Jack took a deep breath. Once he was stable on his good leg, he offered you his hand. "Let's go fix you up. No more jokes."

"Okay. No more jokes," you agreed, letting him pull you up into the kitchen.

Jack guided you to a stool by the kitchen island. Without a word, he moved around, pulling a first-aid kit from the cabinet and grabbing a damp washcloth from the sink.

"Keep pressure on it," he ordered softly, setting the kit down.

When he turned back to you, he pulled up another stool, carefully positioning his stiff leg out to the side so he could sit close enough to work.

"Okay, take the cloth away. Let me look."

You pulled the blood soaked handkerchief from your cheek. Almost instantly, a fresh crimson stream welled up from the split in your skin, tracing a rapid path down your jaw and dripping onto your collarbone.

Jack’s brow furrowed. He took the damp washcloth and gently tapped around the wound, trying to clear the area to see the actual depth of the laceration. "Hold still. I know it hurts."

The cold water hit the raw nerves, and you gasped, leaning back instinctively. "It stings—god, Jack."

"I know, I know. Don't pull away from me." His hand was firm on the back of your neck, holding you in place. But as he wiped a fresh layer of blood away, the wound immediately filled again, spilling over. The edge of the step had sliced deep, right over the prominent curve of your cheekbone where the skin was tight.

He waited a beat, pressing a clean piece of sterile gauze against it, counting silently under his breath. One minute. Two minutes. When he pulled it back to check, the blood welled up just as fast. It wasn't clotting. The edge of the cut was jagged, grinning open in a way that made his stomach do a sick flip.

Jack let out a frustrated breath. He didn't say anything, but the professional shift in his posture told you everything.

His ER doctor self had completely taken over.

"I-Is it bad?" you asked, your voice trembling.

"It’s deep," Jack said, his voice felt cold. "It tore right through the dermal layer. It’s too wide for butterflies, and because of the location on your face, it’s going to keep opening every time you talk or blink. I can't close this here. It needs a layered suture, and it won't stop bleeding until it gets one."

He packed a thick stack of sterile gauze against your cheek, taking your hand and forcing your fingers to hold it there with heavy pressure.

"We're going to the hospital," he said, already standing up. The sudden movement made his brace click sharply.

"Jack, can't you just do it? You have a kit, you're a doctor—"

"I don't have a local anesthetic or the proper fine gauge monofilament sutures in the kitchen cabinet," he snapped, his voice cracking with sudden panic. He grabbed his car keys and his and your jacket from the hook by the door. "If I try to patch this up with what I have here, you’re going to end up with a massive scar on your face. We’re going to the hospital. Now."

The drive was quiet. He kept his hand firmly on the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the road, while you sat in the passenger seat, pressing the now heavy gauze to your face.

You looked over at his profile, his jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle was jumping in his cheek.

"Jack," you whispered, the movement pulling painfully at the cut. "I'm sorry."

He didn't look at you, but his grip on the steering wheel tightened. "Just keep pressure on the wound, please. We're almost there."

-

The doors of The Pitt hissed open, swallowing you both into the familiar air of the emergency department.

Tonight, you were the intake.

"Jack? What the hell happened?"

Robby said from behind the central desk, his eyes darting instantly from Jack’s tense face down to you. He saw the blood soaked gauze you were holding tightly against your cheek and the dark stain on your collar.

"She took a fall on the stairs," Jack said, sounding entirely professional, though the tight grip he kept on your elbow betrayed him. "Laceration to the zygomatic arch. It’s deep. It’s been bleeding consistently for minutes. I couldn’t get it to clot at home."

"Alright, let's get her into Room 4, it's empty," Robby said, immediately stepping into gear, stepping beside you. "Can you walk okay? Did you hit your head? Lose consciousness?"

"My knee is a little banged up, but my head is fine," you muttered around the cloth, feeling a flush of embarrassment as a couple of nurses glanced your way. "Just... really clumsy."

Robby guided you onto the examination bed. "Let’s take a look."

You layed down and slowly pulled the gauzes away. Without the constant pressure, a fresh bead of dark blood immediately welled up. Robby leaned in, using a piece of sterile gauze to gently dab the edges of the wound. He winced slightly, assessing the deep split over the bone.

"Yeah, you really did a number on this," Robby murmured. "It’s a clean tear but it’s deep. It’s definitely going to need a few sutures. I'll get the lidocaine and—"

"I'll do it," Jack interrupted.

Robby paused, looking up at Jack, who was standing at the foot of the bed.

"Brother, you know the protocol," Robby said softly. "You don't treat family. Let me handle it. I'll make the lines clean, I promise."

"It’s my wife, Robby." Jack said, he stepped closer to the bedside, his eyes locked on the wound. "I’m doing the stitches. I need to do them."

The two doctors locked eyes for a long moment. Robby knew Jack, he knew his friend's frustrations, he knew how much Jack hated feeling helpless.

Letting Jack treat you wasn't standard, but Robby knew that forcing Jack to stand by and watch someone else patch you up would be worse.

Robby sighed, stepping back. "Fine. But I'm staying in the room to assist. And if your hands shake even a millimeter, I'm taking the needle."

"They won't shake," Jack said.

He moved to the side of the bed, carefully adjusting the stool so his rigid leg could extend comfortably.

Jack snap on a pair of sterile gloves, and when he pulled the tray of instruments closer, where a nurse put all the necessary.

"Look at me," Jack murmured softly. He picked up the syringe of lidocaine. "This is going to burn. A lot. Hold my knee if you need to. My good one."

You reached out, gripping his good knee tightly. He didn't flinch as your fingernails dug into his skin. "Okay, you're going to feel a little pinch."

The needle pierced the edge of the cut, and a sharp burning sensation flared across your cheek. You squeezed your eyes shut, gasping as the medicine flooded the tissue. Jack’s was completely steady as he repositioned the needle to numb the entire perimeter of the wound.

Within a minute, the burning subsided into a heavy weight.

Jack worked in absolute silence. He used a small suction tip to clear the pooling blood, exposing the deep layer of tissue beneath. With a needle driver, he began the meticulous process of closing the deep dermal layer first.

You only could feel the gentle tugging of the thread as he pulled the edges of your skin back together. You watched his face. His brow was furrowed, his eyes entirely locked on the millimeters of flesh he was mending. The anger from the stairwell was gone, completely replaced by an aching tenderness.

Every movement of his hands was incredibly precise, deliberate, and gentle.

Robby stood by, cutting the sutures as Jack tied off each knot. "Nice tension," Robby commented quietly, validating his friend's work. "That's going to heal beautifully."

Jack didn't reply. He just kept sewing, treating your face like the most fragile and precious thing in the world.

By the time he tied off the final knot, the wound was closed, reduced to a thin black line across your cheekbone.

Before Jack could even reach for the dressing supplies, Robby quietly stepped into his line of sight, a non adherent telfa pad and a strip of medical tape already in his gloved hands. "I've got the dressing, Jack. Step back for a second."

Jack blinked, the sharp medical tunnel vision breaking as he looked up at his friend.

He didn't argue.

His hands were just starting to develop a microscopic tremor from the adrenaline crash, and he knew it.

Robby offered you a warm smile as he leaned over the bed. He placed the small protective gauze pad directly over the neat row of black stitches, securing it firmly to your cheek with the clear tape. "There you go. That’ll keep it clean and protected. Excellent handiwork, by the way. You won't even be able to see the scar in a few months."

Jack dropped the instruments onto the tray. He pulled off his gloves, tossing them into the bin, and took a deep breath.

"All done, baby," he said softly. "You're okay."

"Thank you," you murmured, with an uncomfortable feeling in your chest.

The ride back home was calm. The dashboard clock glowed a late hour as Jack pulled the car into the driveway and cut the engine.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

"Let's get you inside," Jack said softly. He had the night off.

He got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door and offered you his hand. As you stood up, your leg wobbled, and Jack immediately caught you. He held you close, bearing your weight as he carefully guided you into the house.

He led you straight to the living room, easing you down onto the couch. He disappeared for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was carrying a plush blanket, a fresh ice pack, and a glass of water.

He carefully lowered his weight onto the couch beside you and draped the blanket over your lap, then gently held the ice pack against your bruised knee.

Looking at him, seeing the dark circles of exhaustion, the faint smear of dried blood on his forearm that he hadn't fully washed off, and his unconditional care, the dam broke.

Tears slipped down your cheeks.

"Hey," Jack murmured, his brow furrowing as he set the ice pack down and instantly reached for your face. "Hey, what’s wrong? Is the local anesthetic wearing off? Is it hurting?"

"No," you choked out, your voice thick and trembling. You shook your head, immediately regretting it as the movement pulled at the tight stitches. "No, it doesn't hurt. Jack, I'm so sorry."

"Sweetheart, you don't need to-"

"I do," you interrupted, a sob catching in your throat. You reached out, taking his hand and squeezing it tightly. "I'm so, so sorry. I know I make a joke out of being clumsy, but I hate that I frightened you. I hate that I made you feel... helpless. I know how much you want to protect me, and I was careless. I didn't think about how it would affect you to hear me fall and not be able to just run down there. I'm so sorry for being reckless with myself."

Jack stared at you, his eyes softening.

He reached out, his thumb gently catching the tears on your cheek, careful not to touch your wound. He pulled you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you and holding you close. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the comforting scent of his cologne.

"Thank you for being honest with me" Jack whispered into your hair, his hand gently stroking your back. "But you don't have to carry that guilt. I was angry because I was terrified. When I'm at work, I can control things. I have a team. But when it’s you... here... Seeing you hurt, and knowing my own body slows me down from getting to you... it scares me, baby."

He pulled back to look into your eyes.

"I know accidents happen," he said softly. "But I just need you to take care of yourself, because you are the most precious thing in my life. Okay?"

"Okay," you sniffled, wiping your nose with the edge of the blanket. "No more running on the stairs. I promise. I'll take them like a snail."

A smirk broke across Jack’s face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. It was the first time he had smiled all night. "A snail might be a bit too slow, but I'll take it."

He leaned in, carefully placing a kiss on the uninjured side of your face, then another on the tip of your nose. "I love you, doll."

"I love you, my Jackie."

"Lay back, you need rest," he commanded gently, helping you settle on the couch. He placed the ice pack back on your knee and tucked the blanket securely around you. He picked up the TV remote and settled back against the cushions next to you.

As the soft sounds of a night time program filled the air, Jack's fingers gently stroked your head, lulling you to relax and close your eyes.

After a few seconds, you drifted off to sleep, feeling completely safe and secure in the tranquility of home.

⋆｡˚☤🩺✧˖°.｡⋆💉

“Honestly, Huckleberry, if there’s a fifty‑fifty chance of disaster, you’ll hit the disaster ninety‑nine percent of the time. It’s a real talent.” Trinity’s jab snapped your attentions back to the group.

Whitaker squinted at her, then nodded with the solemnity of a man accepting his fate.

A laugh escapes you, the kind that comes as naturally as breathing. “Trinity that cant be true.”  

“It is,” she insisted. “I’m pretty sure if he bought a lottery ticket and won, he’d still end up bankrupt.”

“Well don’t worry Whitaker I would help take care of you if that happened.” You pat his hand with a small smile.

Jack would have something to say about that. Probably some dry teasing comment about you wanting to take care of everyone. But you knew he would do it if you asked. He had a hard time saying no after you smiled at him.

And that thought, that soft truth, made the empty space where he should’ve been feel even heavier. Another five minutes passed before you excused yourself with a soft smile and slipped through the crowd, weaving between tables and tipsy strangers. You wanted to go back to Jacks place—curl up in his bed, breathe in the scent of his laundry detergent, and let the world quiet down.

The cool night air washed over you as soon as you pushed the door open. It was a welcome contrast to the suffocating warmth inside. You inhaled deeply, letting the quiet settle around you like a blanket.

Jack wasn’t on the patio like you expected. No familiar silhouette leaning against the railing. No soft glow from his phone screen. No low laugh shared with Robby.

They were at the end of the patio, a streetlight outlining their figures. They didn’t turn toward you. Didn’t notice you at all.

 You froze mid‑step.

Something in their posture told you the conversation wasn’t casual. That it wasn’t light joking. It wasn’t anything you were meant to walk into.

You didn’t mean to eavesdrop. You didn’t even think you could—until Jack’s voice cut through the air, sharp and tired in a way you’d never heard directed at you.

“I can’t do it any more Robby. She talks nonstop all the time.”

Your breath stilled. Completely.

Like your lungs forgot how to work.

Robby exhaled. “Have you tried to tell her?”

“Yes, but I can never get a word in.”

The words hit like a punch you weren’t braced for. They were Clean. Precise. Brutal.

They confirmed every fear you’d ever whispered to yourself at three in the morning, every insecurity you’d tried to smother with optimism, and the hope that love made your quirks endearing instead of exhausting.

You knew you talked a lot. God, you knew.

You’d even gone to therapy hoping someone could teach your brain how to slow down. To be able to survive in normal silence instead of fearing it might swallow you whole. Instead, they handed you an ADHD diagnosis and told you it was okay. A quirk. A part of you. Something that made you you.

But hearing Jack say it like that, like it drained him, felt like someone had taken all your insecurities and carved it into your ribs with deliberate, merciless precision.

Your eyes burned, and throat tightened. You swallowed hard, forcing a breath to stay quiet as you backed away, slipping inside before either of them could see you. Your body was moving on autopilot.  

You knew you couldn’t go back the table. If you sat down, Trinity would take one look at you and know something was wrong. Then Mel would smile at you with some encouraging words, and you would break. You would start crying right then and there. And then she would tell jack. It would become a whole thing.

So, you ducked into the bathroom, pushing the door open with trembling fingers. You leaned against the sink, palms flat on the cool granite, trying to breathe through the sudden ache in your chest. Jacks’ words echoed, and with slinking certainty you realize you were as easy to love as you had hoped.

A cruel laugh escapes you. Your father had warned you—Men don’t like when woman talk a lot. They will leave you. You thought he was cruel, and hated you. But he was right. You talked to much and now jack wanted to leave you.

Fuck. You thought everything was going well.  You had been together just over six months, it had been filled with laughter, feeding him all your baking experiments, of you rambling about everything. He always listened earnestly, whether it was about childhood movies, or the new recipe you were perfecting. Or, you thought he did.

Now you felt small and unwanted. Like every happy moment had been a misunderstanding you’d build a future on.

You wanted to go back to your home, and crawl into bed. Pretend this was all simply a nightmare you could wake up from. Pretend that the man you were irrevocably in love with didn’t secretly resent the way your brain worked.

Another cruel laugh escapes. When the thought occurs to you that he could have told you. That was the part that sung the most. He could have said something—anything—before it became a complaint whispered to his befriend on a street corner.

With a small pep talk and a promise that you could cry as soon as you got out of the building, your forced your legs to move. Each step you took felt like it belonged to someone braver than you.

You plastered on a smile when the group looked up, the expression stretching too tight across your face.

“Hey I can’t find Jack, can you let him know I walked home. I don’t want to take him away from his friends on his one night off.”  You rushed out, desperate to escape before anyone could ask anything that might crack you open.

Trinity’s eyes narrowed, sharp and preceptive. “Are you okay?”

You grabbed your coat, shrugging it on like a piece of armor. You needed to leave before Jack came back and saw the truth written all over your face. Because he would. That man could read you like a book. Every gesture, every shift in your voice, every tiny hesitation—he noticed all of it.

“Yeah,” you lied, voice light. “Just need some sleep, I’ve got to finish a massive order for an engagement party coming up.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look ok.” Mel cut in.

You took a second to breathe then forced your smile to widen. “I promise. I just need sleep or my deserts will suffer.”

“Are you making those triple berry macarons again?” Melissa asked, brightening at the mention of your baking.

Warmth flickered through your chest. Mel adored your treats, and half the time you made extra for her in particular. She was one of the few people who understood you without making you feel like you were too much. Maybe it was because of her sister, maybe it was just who she was, but you adored her even more for it.

“I am,” you said softly. “I’ll send some over.”

You waved, turned, and made your way outside. Purposefully avoiding the are you knew jack and Robby were standing.  

Five minutes in to the walk home, a sob finally rips out of you. It’s loud, ugly and impossible to swallow. A person passing on the street glances over, curious, but keeps walking. You pressed shaking fingers to your lips, trying to hold the next one in, trying to keep yourself from unraveling right there on the street.

God, you hated crying. It felt humiliating between the blotchy skin and the snot that built up slowly suffocating you.  

Your phone vibrated incessantly in your pocket. First two calls. Then a string of messages, one after another.

Jack: I would have driven you home love Let me know when you’re safe Love you  

Love you.  

Those words felt mocking to read. They made your chest cave in, because he didn’t mean them. They were just words coming from him. He tolerated you. He merely put up with you. He must have only been with you because he was lonely and he didn’t have to do much to entertain you. You did most of the work by talking all the time.

Part of you wanted to ignore him. Let him sit with the silence he wanted so much. But you knew Jack, if you didn’t respond, he’d show up at your door, and you couldn’t face him right now. Not with your nose red and your heart cracked open.

So, you typed the shortest message you’d ever sent him.

Got home don’t worry.

No warmth.

No rambling.

No I’m home, going to shower then head to bed. Early morning tomorrow, love you bunches.

If it bothered Jack, he didn’t say a word.

The bakery was already warm by seven a.m., the air was thick with the smell of sugar and butter, wrapping itself around you like a familiar hug. Normally you would fill the space with chatter; updates about your latest recipe experiments, stories about customers, random facts you’d learned at three in the morning. You were the heartbeat of the kitchen, the one who made the early shift feel less like work and more like a cozy, chaotic family.

But today you were silent.

You didn’t hum.

You didn’t ramble. You didn’t even comment on the new shipment of vanilla beans, which was practically a red flag in itself.

Brianna was the first to notice how the quiet clung to you. Like someone turned down the volume on your entire personality. She kept glancing at you at from the mixer, brows pinched waiting for you to speak.

Oliver caught on next, his eyes narrowing as he watched you pipe filling whipped ganache with mechanical precision. He shared a look with Bri.

“Hey,” Bri said finally, wiping her hands on a towel as she approached. “You good?”

You nodded without looking up. “Yeah. Just… focusing.”

It wasn’t convincing. Not in the slightest. The lie hung in the warm bakery air, thin and fragile, and everyone could see straight through it.

Oliver stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You’re never this quiet.”

You kept your eyes on the pastry bag, squeezing out perfect spirals like your life depended on it. “Just tired.”

Brianna exchanged another glance with Oliver, then gently nudged your elbow. “Sweetheart, you’re piping like you’re trying to win a Michelin star. What happened?”

Grant arrived, cheerful as always. “Morning!-“ The moment he saw you, his smile faltered. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

You forced a tiny smile. “Yep.”

You didn’t. But they didn’t need to know that.

Everyone in the kitchen shared a concerned look. The kind of look that meant they were about two seconds from staging an intervention.

“Babes do you want to take a break? You have been here since 5 a.m.” Oliver tried to grab the tray of macrons’ s from you.

“No.” you responded immediately. “I have to keep moving.”

“Okay…” Bri tried a different angle. “What’s the plan for the engagement party? I know the cake bases are prepped.”

You loved talking about recipes. Loved it. It brought you joy to share them with people.

“It’s on the clipboard by the stove.” You mumble.

You wanted to cry again, Jacks words were still at the front of your mind. But you were pretty sure one more tear would dehydrate you completely. Besides cookies with a side of salty tears were not professional. Nor delicious. And absolutely against your brand.

Jack had tried to call you that morning, and you ignored it. Facing him would make everything hit harder, and you weren’t ready for that. You would have to face him sooner or later.

While you weren’t looking, Grant quietly swiped the clipboard and tucked it behind a stack of sheet pans. “It’s not there, chef. So, you gotta tell us what the plan is.”

“It was literally just there.”

Brianna, Grant, Oliver all just stared at you waiting.

With a deep breath, you set the piping bag to the side.

“So the bride mentioned she likes tart flavors. We’re going to make a lemon‑raspberry cake filling and keep the decorating easy, clean.” You didn’t even realize it, but for a moment you felt… okay. “Then the macarons—we’re making strawberry, chocolate, and key lime. I wanted to do triple berry, but maybe it’s too sweet, and I don’t want it to be too much. Which reminds me, we should experiment with a pomegranate flavor in a—”

You stopped.

Mid‑sentence.

Mid‑you.

Your throat closed up. Your stomach dropped. Speaking suddenly felt dangerous. Like you were annoying everyone in the room without meaning too.

“Sorry,” you whispered, stepping back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… talk so much.”

The room went still.

Grant blinked. “Honey…What?”

But you were already moving. You set the tray down, wiped your hands on your apron, and headed straight for the walk‑in freezer.

You slipped inside, letting the heavy door seal shut behind you. The cold air grounding you. You leaned back against the metal shelving, pressing your palms to your eyes as the chill seeped into your bones. You wrapped your arms around yourself, trying to hold in the hurt, trying to keep your thoughts from spiraling back to Jack’s voice, Jack’s words, Jack’s exhaustion.

You’d always talked too much. You had warned him when you first started dating.

Just a minute, you told yourself. Just one minute to fall apart before you had to go back out there and pretend everything was fine.

Your phone vibrated. Jacks name flashing on your screen for what felt like the 50th time.

He knew you were up. You were always at your bakery ridiculously early.  

You hit a button declining it.

A message came through immediately.

Jack: Are you ok sweetheart? Call me back please.

You squeezed your eyes. You would not cry again. You would not let this effect you. Not here. Not in front of your team. Not when you were supposed to be the steady one, the cheerful one, the one who made mornings feel lighter.

You typed out a quick, clipped reply.

I’m ok, just busy making cakes.

No emojis.

No warmth.

You shoved your phone back into your apron pocket and stepped out of the freezer before you were taken to the ED for hypothermia. Then you would really have to face jack.

Midafternoon the bell over the door rang.

You didn’t look up too focused on smoothing frosting over a cake layer. Grant was hired to deal with the customers anyway. You trusted him to charm anyone who walked in.

“Is she in the kitchen? I brought her lunch.”

Your heart lurched. You froze mid‑swipe of your spatula.

Jack was there. With food and probably expecting to see you. Maybe he was here to finally break up with you, which really would be fucked. He knew this order was a big deal.

Oliver caught the panic on your face instantly. He didn’t hesitate to slip out to the front, cutting Grant off mid‑greeting.

“She’s not here.”

“She said you guys were busy?” Jack sounded confused, worried, trying to make sense of something he couldn’t see.

Grant jumped in with a smooth lie. “She came in early, but she wasn’t feeling great. Went home to sleep it off.”

A beat of silence.

You could picture Jack’s face, brows drawn, mouth tight, that worried crease forming between his eyes.

“She didn’t tell me,” Jacks voice softened.

Oliver’s tone softened too, but only slightly. “She probably didn’t want to bother you.”  

That line felt like a bruise being pressed on.

Because it was true.

Because it wasn’t supposed to be true.

“Did he do something?” Brianna whispered, suddenly appearing beside you.

You jumped back.

“It’s… a long story.” you murmured, marking off the delivery checklist with shaky hands.

Brianna didn’t push. She just stepped closer. “Well, We’ve got you whatever is happening, you aren’t alone.”

A burning rose behind your eyelids. This team you built had become a family. You all worked together so well. You loved them more than anything.

“Thank you, Bri,” you whispered. “I think I’m going to take a few days off. I know you three can run things.”

She nodded immediately, no hesitation, no doubt. “We’ve got it.”

You exhaled, shaky but relieved.

For the first time all day, you didn’t feel like you were drowning alone.

Jack texted you shortly after he left your bakery.

Jack: Sweetheart, are you doing ok? Grant just told me you went home sick. Do you need anything?

You didn’t respond just started at the messages, thumb hovering. You couldn’t come up with a response that didn’t feel like a lie or came across as snarky.

Another text came through after about ten minutes of just staring at it.

Jack: Please call me. I am starting to worry. I miss your voice.

You let out a scoff while your stomach twisted so hard you thought you were going to vomit. You knew those words weren’t true. Not after last night.

He doesn’t get to say that after complaining to Robby.

You started typing out a response but stopped deleting the message. It was to mean and you couldn’t bring yourself to be rude to him. He was still a really nice guy who brought lunch to work.

Your phone buzzed again, lighting up the dim kitchen.

Jack: Sweetheart? Please… just tell me you’re okay.

He was probably watching the text chain, waiting for those three little dots to pop up—waiting for proof you were alive, reachable, still his.

You did as he asked and typed:

I’m fine. Just trying to rest.

It wasn’t a complete lie. You were about to head home—Bri had left with the order, and Grant had practically shoved you out the door, telling you to “go find inner peace or whatever chefs do.”

Outside your front door there was a bag neatly placed. It was filled with medicine that would take care of any problem you could possibly have like cold and flu tablets, throat lozenges, electrolyte packets. A container of soup from your favorite café. And a bouquet of flowers soft pink peonies—your favorite.

Your throat tightened.

Because if he didn’t like you, and found you to be exhausting enough to gripe about behind your back then why was he being so nice? Why did he bring flowers?  Why did he bring your favorite soup?

You sank onto your couch. The flowers trembling in your hands as you traced your fingers over the petals. Part of you wanted to throw them straight in the trash and the other part wanted to selfishly hold on to him.

Your phone buzzed again.

Jack: Sweetheart, please call me. I’m really worried. I don’t understand what’s going on. Just… let me hear your voice.

The words blurred and you chewed on the skin by your fingernails. Because now he wanted to hear your voice, not he missed it. When not even twenty-four hours ago he said it never stopped.

You turned the phone face down on the cushion. You would eventually deal with this, but not tonight. You deserved better than another night of tears.

The phone began to go off again. You ignored it. Then it rang again, and again, and again.

You curled up on the couch, flowers pressed to your chest, trying to find a way to breathe through all the self-doubt.

Your phone vibrated once more letting you know he left a voice mail.

You didn’t listen. You couldn’t.

The first morning off felt strange.

There was no alarm dragging you out of bed before dawn. No rush to preheat ovens. No mental checklist of pastries and deliveries. You just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, replaying Jack’s words over and over until they blurred together. Like one of those catchy songs that got stuck in your head.

I can’t do it anymore. She talks nonstop.

Your phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Jack: Morning sweetheart, I hope you slept well. How are you feeling? Do you need anything else?

You stared at the message until the screen dimmed, the glow fading like your ability to pretend everything was fine.

Finally, you typed the smallest truth you could manage:

I just need some space. I will call you when I can.

The moment you hit send; you turned your phone off. Space felt like the only thing you could ask for and the only thing you could control.

You turned onto your side and pulled your comforter up to your chin. Hoping the quiet apartment would let you sleep some more. It didn’t.

Instead, more questions crept in, sharp and unwanted.

What other part of you was Jack choosing to endure? Was there anything to like about you?

The day stretched on, slow and heavy. Every passing second breathing felt like work. You stayed curled in bed, letting the silence settle around you, trying to figure out how to move forward when the person you trusted most had unknowingly broken something fragile inside you.

For the first time since that night, you didn’t cry. You simply were.

You just lay there, letting the space you asked for expand between you and Jack, hoping it would give you clarity.

Hoping the solution, you came up with wouldn’t hurt as much as it did.

You spent the next day off cleaning your apartment. Like aggressively cleaning your apartment. Scrubbing the counters like they had personally offended you. You moved everything off the shelves dusting and taking photos of Jack down. Anything to keep your hands busy while you tried not to spiral.  

This all started after you turned your phone on to make sure your bakery was still in one piece and not up in flames. Grant liked to “help” in kitchen sometimes. It was a whole thing.  

There was a set of messages from Jack.

Jack: Okay. I’ll give you space. But please tell me if you need anything. I’m here. Always.

So here you were attacking your tub with a scrub brush like it owed you money. And as you scrubbed you debated on the future of your relationship. It was the kind of debate that felt like you were pacing inside your own skull.

Should we take a break? Maybe we should end things. I could pretend nothing happened…. because maybe my dad was right, I was hard to love.

The thought felt like it was going to rip your heart out, and leave it right there on your bathroom floor. you paused your scrubbing, gripping the edge of the tub, breath shaking.

You knew you couldn’t avoid Jack forever. He would eventually show up at your door eventually trying to fix this. To fix something he unknowingly broke.

The toxic part of you wanted to ghost him. Pack up and move. Not tell him where you were. Change your number too. He would show up at the bakery though. You could use the whole mess as an excuse to expand your bakery like your team had been talking about—find a new place for you and Brianna to renovate. Start fresh somewhere else.

He would forget about you eventually. 

But you weren’t that person. You had to see things through. So you stood in your bathroom, sponge in hand, wondering how one trivial sentence could unravel you.

Day three you sat on the couch, blanket pulled around your shoulders, staring at the Soft pink peonies he’d left. They were opening beautifully, petals curling like they were reaching for you.

You wished you didn’t love them. You wished you didn’t love him.

It would make everything so much easier if you didn’t love him. Because at four a.m., after hours of tossing and turning, you came to the conclusion that it was time to break up. You just didn’t know how to do it. People usually dumped you. You didn’t have practice in being the one who walked away.

Jack tried to give you space. It took thirty‑six hours before you heard from him again.

Jack: Baby, please… I’m really worried. I don’t know what’s going on.

You stared at the message blinking.

You knew it was shitty to break up with someone over text. Someone had done it to you once with a voice note. A thirty‑second recording that shattered you for weeks.

But the idea of seeing Jack made your stomach burn.

Made your hands shake.

Made you furious.

And now you really wanted to punch him. To make him feel the pain you have been going through. You wouldn’t though, you weren’t a violent person. But the anger was still there, running hot through your veins.

And it wasn’t like he wanted to hear you talk anyway.

Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard, breath shaking, heart pounding so hard it felt like it might bruise your ribs from the inside.

I think we should end things.

You weren’t what part hurt more—losing him, or realizing this was reaching an end for him way before you heard the words.

Your phone rang, and like every time before it, you declined it.

Jack: Can we talk about this please? I cant lose you. I can fix this I promise I can fix this. Sweetheart please let me fix this.

Then another call.

You closed your eyes, letting the tears fall.

Twenty minutes later there was frantic knocking at your door.

“Sweetheart?” His voice cracked on the word. “Please open the door.”

Your throat tightened painfully. But you didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

There was thump at the door—what you assumed was his forehead hitting it in defeat. “Please. I don’t— I don’t understand what’s happening. Just talk to me.”

You scoff at the word talk. Thought I did too much of that for you.

He knocked again, harder this time, panic bleeding into every movement. “Baby, please. I’m begging you. Just let me see you.”

Inside, you sat frozen on the couch, staring at the peonies like they might tell you what to do.

“I love you. I don’t know what I did, but please… please don’t shut me out.”

You squeezed your eyes shut.

Because you loved him too. He sounded so wrecked like he was breaking the same way you were.

His voice came again, barely audible. I’ll stay out here all night if I have to. I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay.”

He wasn’t yelling.

He wasn’t defensive.

He was scared.

And that made everything harder.

You stood slowly, legs trembling, blanket still around your shoulders. You walked toward the door, each step feeling like you were wading through wet cement.

Your hand hovered over the lock. I can do this, I can talk to him. 

You turned the lock. The click echoed through the apartment like a gunshot. You sucked in a breath, reminding yourself again that you could get through this, and then you opened the door.

Jack was only a few feet away. It was the first time you had seen him in days, and he looked like a mess. His curls looked like he’d been running his hands through them for days now.  There was a tenseness in his shoulders like he was being held together by sheer force.  

He stepped forward instinctively, then stopped himself, hands hovering like he wanted to touch you. But he remembered he couldn’t. Not right now.

The two of you stare at each other, wrecked and shaking, neither of you spoke.

Jack stepped forward again, and you took a step back keeping the space between you two. “Sweetheart, please—”

Something inside you snapped.

“Don’t call me that.” Your voice came out sharp, louder than you meant. “You don’t get to call me that.”

Jack flinched as if you slapped him. “Okay. Okay. I won’t. Just—please talk to me.”

“Oh, now you want me to talk?” Your laugh was bitter, broken. “Funny, considering you were bitching about it the other day.”

You started at the wall over his shoulder refusing to look at him.  

Jack moved so you were forced to look at him. His forehead creased, “What are you talking about?”

You scoffed, wiping angrily at your cheeks as tears started falling. “Don’t- don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Jacks hand twitched like he wanted to wipe your tears away and comfort you, but one look at your body language he knew you didn’t want that. You were still shut off to him.

“I don’t know!” Jack’s voice rose.

“You said you couldn’t do it anymore!” you yelled, chest tight, breath shaking. “You said I talk nonstop. You said I exhaust you.”

Jack’s mouth fell open. “I—what? No. No, sweetheart, no, I didn’t—”

There was that nickname again. The one you normally loved to hear but now it filled your stomach with acid.

“Don’t call me that!” you snapped again, voice cracking. “Just tell the truth. Tell me what you really think about me Jack!”

Jack ran his hands through his hair tugging at it hard, pacing the length of you entryway.

“I love you!”

You shook your head frantically, taking three more steps back that he mirrored. He wasn’t letting you escape.

“I heard you Jack,” A sob tore out of you. “I heard you say it!” 

“Whan?” Jack demanded voice cracking. “When did I say something so cruel?”

“The night at the bar. You were talking to Robby.”

Jack froze. Eyes widening, and his breathing stilled. It looked as if the ground had dropped out from under him.

Checkmate you thought bitterly.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh my God, no. No, no, no. Baby, that wasn’t about you.”

“You don’t have to lie to me Jack. I know I am a lot. I told you I talked a lot at our first date. So, I don’t get why you have to be so cruel about it. You could have told me!” You wipe more tears from your face, your bottom lip trembling. “That’s what’s killing me you could have told me. Instead, you have made me feel pathetic. Like I was a burden.”

You collapsed on to your couch, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“You made my dad right. ‘I can’t do it any more Robby. She talks nonstop all the time.’ That’s what you said. And every insecurity I ever had of myself became the only thing I saw Jack. That’s what you did to me. So, we need to break up.”

Jack was kneeling on the floor in front of you now. And because you still cared for him, you worried about his leg.

“I need you to listen to me, please. If you still hate me, I’ll leave. I promise.” Jack’s voice was even despite the tears falling.

Maybe because you needed to hear Jack say he hated you out loud, or because a part of you hoped you two could save this, you nodded.  

“There’s a new resident,” Jack said quietly. “She was switched from day shift for insubordination.” He held up a hand when you opened your mouth. “They ignore everything I try to teach them. They talk over me. They think they know better than everyone. I was venting to Robby about them. I didn’t want to get HR involved.”

You pressed your lips together, shaking your head. You didn’t know what to believe. It seemed too convenient. But then again… you had heard about a know‑it‑all resident from Trinity.

Jack kept going,” I would never say that about you. Never. You’re—God you are my favorite person to talk to. You are the one I want to talk to the one I want to listen to. I love your voice sweetheart. And not hearing it has killed me.”

You shook your head, tears falling harder. “But you said—”

“I said it about them.” Jack’s voice cracked. “I swear to you. I swear on everything. I wasn’t talking about you.”

You covered your mouth with your hand, sobbing. “I thought— Jack I thought you hated me,  that you were just putting up with me.”

“No, never. I love you. I love you so much. I was ready to have Trinity and Whitacker come barge in to get answers.”  

You cried harder, shoulders shaking. “I’m a lot I know. My brain works different than most peoples, so I would get it if you told me to stop.”

Jack reached forward, placing a shaking hand on your knee. Silently begging you to look at him. “You’re not too much. You are never too much. I want to marry you one day. I love everything about you.”

You let out a broken sound, somewhere between a sob and a gasp. “I want to forgive you. But I hurt so much. You may have not meant me, but my brain was convinced you meant me.”

“Then don’t forgive me,” Jack said softly. “Let me grovel. Let me take care of you the way you’re meant to be taken care of, let me buy you a bouquet of flowers every day.”

A tiny smile tugged at your lips

“Theres my pretty girl.” Jack teases. “I will spend every day making sure you know you are not too much, and honestly? You don’t talk enough if I am being honest.”

You snort. “Yeah right.”

“You don’t. I still have time to talk so-“

You grabbed his shirt, pulling him forward, and snot‑nosed, tear‑streaked, you kissed him. It was quick, messy, but enough to tell both of you that you were okay. That you were going to make it through this.

“Shut up and hold me.” You whispered.

And jack didn’t have to be told twice. He got up on the couch and pulled you in to his lap, holding you like he’d been drowning for days and finally reached air. You sighed burying your face in his shirt. You could feel quiet, shaking breaths against your hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered over and over. “I’m so sorry you thought that. I’m so sorry you were hurting alone.”

You shook your head against him. “I should’ve asked. I should’ve talked to you.”

“New rule,” Jack murmured, tightening his arms around you. “We always talk about our problems. No regressing. Both our therapists would be upset with us right now.”

You laugh breathing him in.

His lips press to the top of your head.

You held onto him harder, the weight of the last three days finally breaking open. “I love you, Jack.”

8:21. 

You checked your phone for the millionth time. 

You were supposed to meet him at the restaurant at 7pm, and he was almost an hour and a half late. 

Well, you hoped he was late. You hadn’t yet accepted the probable fact that you’d been stood up. I mean, you were no stranger to chaotic schedules, unplanned overtime, and last minute catastrophes that had to be dealt with. Residency often rendered your social life moot; you could barely keep up with your commitments at the hospital, let alone a vibrant dating life. Maybe he had an equally demanding job; maybe there was a plausible excuse for why he left you stranded in this Italian restaurant without the decency of a “sorry, not interested anymore” text. 

You looked at your phone again–8:26. Okay, you’d give him 4 more minutes before you decide to pack it up. You try to subtly survey the restaurant for any sign of him, but are met only with the pitying looks of the waitstaff, who would, in all likelihood, be the only ones benefitting from this humiliation ritual. The hostess checked in with you at the bar regularly, the bartender had given you a glass of merlot on the house, and a very kind server brought you a charcuterie board to nibble on–had even brought you extra olives when you commented on how they were your favorite. They were all getting fat tips–or at least as fat as you could afford. 

8:31. Despite your best efforts you felt tears pricking at the corners of your eyes and your throat got that tight, achy feeling that precedes a sob. You felt so foolish. 

You looked up at the ceiling, blinking the tears away and tried to even out your breathing. 

You didn’t even want to go on this date. You’d all but sworn off of dating, the ROI not worth the emotional whiplash you were subjected to more often than not. It was becoming harder and harder as you got older to open up to people, expose your vulnerabilities and greatest fears, only to have them spit back in your face when things didn’t go their way. 

So you stopped with the apps, stopped the meaningless dates that were nothing more than a hookup vehicle for most. But your friends had convinced you that you needed to get back out there, that things would be better in Pittsburgh–the proverbial ocean filled with different, better fish than your hometown. And perhaps they were tired of hearing you wax poetic about the hazel-eyed night shift attending that you had no chance with. 

But you did want to find that person. As much as you were an independent, capable woman–doctor, even–the truth was you were lonely. Your days consisted of going to work, where you spent 12+ hours caring for Pittsburgh’s sickest, and coming home to microwave whatever sad frozen meal you had in your freezer. Sometimes you had the energy to join some of the night shift for post-shift breakfast, but that was about it. 

You wanted someone to share your life with, to ask about your day or if you’ve eaten. Someone who knew that your favorite flower was lily of the valley, but since they were too expensive you would settle for a bouquet of peonies; that you loved horror movies even though they scared the daylights out of you; that knew you loved olives but hated pickles. Someone who knew you, inside and out. 

There was a chasm in your chest that ached, that yearned for someone to take care of you–not financially, though you wouldn’t be opposed to that–but emotionally. To tell you that you were good, worthy, that you weren’t too much or too clingy. That wanted you as much as you wanted them. That felt the tension leave their shoulders when they looked at you, because you just being there made things better. 

Was that too much to ask for? 

It’d been so long since someone had even flirted with you, and even longer since you’d hooked up with anybody. Your dry spell was bordering on sahara levels of arid. Hell, at this point, you think you’d cum for the next guy who called you pretty. 

You shake yourself out of your pity party, dabbing your eyes with a napkin and gathering up the courage to ask for the bill, when you hear someone calling your name. Great. You’re halfway to a breakdown over some stupid guy who stood you up, and now you would have to sit through pleasantries with someone when you desperately wanted to go home and cry into a bottle of wine.   

You turned, fake smile plastered on your face.   

The person you least expect to see is the aforementioned hazel-eyed attending. He’s standing by the hostess stand, off to the side, dressed in dark blue jeans and a tight black shirt. It was unfair, really, how good the man could look in the most basic outfit. His shirt was pulled taut across his chest, muscles straining against the fabric and outlining the planes of his pecs. His hands were tucked into his pockets, his strong, freckled arms on display, and sinful thoughts ran through your head at how those arms would feel around you.  

You smiled and waved at him, reluctantly making your way over. It’s not like you can avoid him at this point, though these are less than ideal circumstances to meet him outside of work. 

“Small world,” he joked as you approached, a soft smile gracing his features. 

“I guess so,” you said sullenly, not up to your usual banter.  

“Big plans for the night?” he asked, eyes skating over your form, taking in the pretty red dress you’d donned for the evening, the light coat of makeup you applied, the hairstyle you wrangled your locks into. In any other scenario, you’d be preening under his watchful eye, giddy that he was eyeing you up and down.  

Now, though, you wilted under the attention. The humiliation from the night and the tingly feeling pooling in your gut at his gaze swirled together in some rancid amalgamation of emotions. You didn’t know if you wanted to laugh or cry or both, but ideally not in front of him.  

Your silence, apparently, concerned him. He looked at you seriously now, his eyes getting that clinical, assessing look in them as he took you in, “You okay?” he asked, genuine concern lacing his features.  

It was the one question you did not want to be asked. Because, for some reason, you could keep it all inside, bury the feelings as deep as they’d go, as long as someone didn’t ask if you were okay. The barest expression of concern had your lip trembling, throat tight as you managed to squeak out a meek, “I’m fine!” 

You could feel a tear tracing down your cheek, and you wiped it away furiously. Your eyes focused on a spot over his shoulder, unable to bear the pitying look that was undoubtedly on his face.  

“You don’t look fine,” he said softly, hand coming up to rest lightly on your upper arm.  

You shook your head, powerless to staunch the flow of tears now running down your face. “Sorry, I just, uh, I had a date tonight and he didn’t show, so,” you made a helpless gesture, your shoulders shrugging in feigned nonchalance. You felt ridiculous, crying over being stood up in front of your attending who was just trying to make small talk with you. 

You let out a garbled laugh, “Shit, sorry,” you hiccup, “this isn’t your problem, I don’t wanna interrupt your night any more than I already have. Have a good night,” you said, moving to push past him and scurry out the door.  

He grabbed your wrist, his grip firm but gentle, his body blocking your exit. 

“You’re not interrupting. I was just about to place a to-go order,” he said, a hesitant look crossing his face before he continued, “But, uh… would you like to have dinner with me instead?”

You're taken aback. It’s the last thing you expected him to ask you. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t thought about him in this context. On the contrary, Jack Abbot had been the subject of many a ‘boyfriend’ dream over the past year you’d worked with him. He was kind and generous and funny, his humor as dark as yours. He was steady in the face of chaos, a lighthouse in the foggiest of days–a man you could depend on when shit hit the fan. It’s part of the reason you switched to nights. You always felt calmer in his presence, more assured of your capabilities because he believed in you. 

And he was undeniably gorgeous–his fine wrinkles and graying curls set your body ablaze each time you looked at him, your panties soaking through in record time. You loved especially when he went a day or two longer without shaving, his scruffy cheeks looking like a delectable place to sit. 

Your mind was plagued by obscene fantasies of him, the sinful images assaulting you at the most inopportune times. You knew he’d treat you right, wouldn’t prioritize his pleasure over yours. He was older, experienced, not a kid fumbling around in the dark, searching for your most sensitive spots and coming up empty. You imagined the way his stubble would feel on your skin, his jaw scraping down your neck as he pressed kisses there, moving lower and lower until he was nestled between your thighs, mouth hot against your aching pussy. The way he would stretch you out and fill you up, have you desperate and begging for more. 

You’re snapped out of your lustful daydream when he says your name, an inquiring tone meant to prompt a response. Oh right, he asked you a question. 

You shook your head, not because you didn’t want to have dinner with him, but because you didn’t want to do so under these conditions; you didn’t want to be a charity case. 

“That’s very kind, but you don’t have to have a pity dinner with me. I’m a big girl, I can handle a little rejection.” 

“It wouldn’t be a pity dinner,” he shook his head immediately, “come on, you got all dressed up, let me at least buy you dinner for your trouble.” 

He cleared his throat, “Unless you really don’t want to, obviously, and I’ll let it go,” he said, “but I’d hate to see you go home cryin’.” And he looked so sincere, his pretty eyes so soft and squishy, all but pleading for you to accept his offer.  

You chewed on your lip, considering it. It wouldn’t be the worst way to spend your night. As of now your plans for the rest of the night were getting sadder by the moment. Things could only go up from here, you supposed. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure,” you nodded. 

“I’m positive,” he said, hand coming up to rest on the small of your back, guiding you back up to the hostess stand. “Table for two, please.”

The two of you were sat at a corner booth near the back of the restaurant, the section secluded and not too loud. It was a classic Italian restaurant–warm, dim lighting illuminated the space from antique sconces on the wall, the walls were a beautiful exposed red brick, and the tables were candlelit and laid with red and white checkered cloths. The leather of the booth was soft but worn, the cracks spidering out and indenting into the back of your thighs a sign of how well loved this place was. 

The booth forced you close together, your thighs not quite touching each other, but close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. His scent is intoxicating, all warm amber and oud, mixed with a hint of citrus and his natural musk. It took all your power not to burrow your nose into his neck and inhale deeply. 

You were lucky to have the same waitress that checked on you at the bar, though you did have to assure her that this was not the man who stood you up. You were honestly a little concerned at the death glare she gave him at first–a true girls girl. 

“So, Dr. Abbot, how was your day off?” you asked, fiddling nervously with the hem of your dress. Despite your easy rapport at work, it felt awkward to be sitting here with your attending, especially when you were desperately trying to keep your feelings for him at bay. 

“Oh it was fine, picked up a shift with the SWAT unit and didn’t get shot at, so, you know, all things considered,” he said, then waved his hand dismissively, “and please, call me Jack. We're not at work,” a slight blush spreading across his cheeks. 

“Okay, Jack,” you laughed, the tension easing a bit as you threw formalities out the window.  

“I would ask you how your day off was, but I think I have a pretty good idea,” he said with a teasing lilt.

“Yeah, not my best moment. This is partially why I stopped dating, I hate getting my hopes up,” you said, a little more vulnerable than you intended but you supposed you were past that now. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I think whatever man decided to let you slip through their fingers is a fuckin’ idiot.” 

You sputtered a bit at that, your cheeks heating up. It was a kind platitude, and you wished that it made you feel better, but it did little to alleviate the pit in your stomach that made you feel small; that screamed that you weren’t good enough.

“But enough about that asshole. Do you want to order an appetizer?” he asked, scanning the menu. 

“Oh no, I’m okay, thank you.” 

“You sure? My treat, remember, don’t worry about prices.” he looked up, concerned. 

“I’m fine, really,” you bit your cheek, reluctant to spit it out, “our waitress may or may not have given me a pity charcuterie board at the bar.” 

His face was still for a moment before you saw the edge of his mouth betray him, quirking up in a suppressed smile. 

“Don’t you dare laugh,” you warned, your own resolve already breaking as you took in how pathetic the situation actually was. “It’s not funny!” you laughed, smacking him lightly on the shoulder with the menu. 

“No, no, definitely not,” he intoned, a look of mock-seriousness on his face before he broke out into a laugh, “I’m sorry! But it is objectively a little funny,” he hedged, hands held out defensively to block another menu attack.  

“It is not! It means that the poor waitress had to go talk to her boss and ask if they could comp an appetizer for the miserable sad sack at the bar!” 

“She probably didn’t call you a miserable sad sack. Maybe sad puppy dog girl, but not miserable sad sack,” he teased. 

You gasped exaggeratedly, “I am not a sad puppy dog girl!” 

“Oh yes you are. It’s the eyes. And the general obedient demeanor," he smirked. 

Oh. Your tummy twisted at that, but you quickly filed it under things that I simply do not have enough time to unpack right now. 

“You’re mean,” you pouted, lip jutting out and arms crossed. You weren’t really upset, but it felt fun to play it up a little bit.  

“Aww,” he pouted back at you, his tone just a tad condescending, “let me make it up to you. What do you say to some good wine and garlic knots?” 

You gnawed on your lip, considering his offer, “what the hell, let's do it. It’s not like I’m going to be kissing anybody tonight anyway,” you said, a little bitter, before realizing that was probably not an appropriate joke to make in front of your boss. 

“You never know, we could always pull a Lady and the Tramp,” he joked, not looking up from the wine menu. 

You were a little stunned at that. Was he… flirting? No. Definitely not. This was a strictly platonic date. Right? I mean, the puppy comment you could explain away, but this… this was different, wasn’t it? Who just jokes like that about the most romantic canine kiss in history? A joke, you settled on. Because you’d already gotten your hopes up enough for one night. 

Dinner was nice. Really nice. 

Conversation flowed freely, starting out in neutral territory with updates about patients, work gossip, whatever the fuck was going on with Robby. But you soon moved out of the work realm and into personal matters. You told him about your childhood–where you grew up, your favorite childhood pets, how much trouble you got into as a teen. 

And you learned a lot about Jack. That he came from a military family that moved around a lot, but spent a large chunk of time in North Carolina. He had two sisters, both older than him. One stayed in North Carolina and the other lived in West Virginia. Both married to military men, and both notorious for giving Jack shit about everything. But they were his rocks when he lost his leg, and then again when he lost his wife, and he was endlessly grateful for them. 

You both loved 90s alternative rock, which surprised you because you took Jack to be more of a classic rock fan, to which he merely glared at you and said that he wasn’t that old. You both had childhood crushes on Winona Ryder; his borne from her role in Heathers, and yours from Girl, Interrupted. He surprised you with the fact that he was a good cook, a fact that seemed unfathomable to you based on his general vibe. 

Now, though, you’d moved to med school stories, and Jack was regaling you with stories about him and Robby back in the day.  

“We must have been… god, I must have been a third year med student, and Robby was… an R2? and he had really pissed me off that night. I don’t even remember what he did, I just remember being so annoyed at him,” he laughed, shaking his head at the memory, “It was a quiet night, so he snuck off to the on-call room to catch a few hours of sleep, leaving me to do all the scut. So, I recruited the help of the charge nurse, Carol, and our attending, Mark, and we applied a cast to his right leg while he was knocked out.” 

He’s cackling now, almost unable to finish his story between wheezing gasps of air, “we paged him, like, 10 times until he answered, and next thing we know he’s bursting out of the on-call room and onto his ass before he even realized what happened!” 

You’re laughing hard now, too, trying to picture a younger version of Robby gracelessly tripping over an unnecessary leg cast in his hurry to answer his page. It sounded so unlike the self-assured, stoic version you knew him to be.  

“Oh my god,” you wheezed, “how mad was he?”  

“Oh he was pissed. Not because of the cast, but because 5 minutes after we paged him, a 15-car pile up came in and he got benched until he could get the cast off. He had to wait for it to dry before he could saw it off, and the whole time he just sat there glaring at me.” 

“Did he get you back?” you asked, hungry for more crumbs of their life before you, before the Pitt as it was now.    

“Yeah,” he rolled his eyes, “the fucker taped nails to his shirt, took an x-ray, and switched out the real film for the fake before I noticed. I was freaking out to Mark, yelling about how this patient needed surgery before they perfed. Meanwhile Mark was in on it, and made me feel crazy when he pulled out the perfectly normal x-ray for my patient. He said, ‘I don’t know what they’re teaching you in school these days, but this looks like a perfectly normal x-ray,’” he said, in an impersonation you could only assume was Mark.

“That’s fucking crazy,” you giggled, “can you imagine someone doing something like that in the Pitt? I think Robby’d actually have an aneurysm.” 

“Yeah, the old man’s lost a bit of his whimsy over the years,” he shook his head. 

“Old man, huh? Those are fighting words from a man merely 3 years younger than him,” you teased, “and much grayer,” you added with a wink.  

“Watch it, missy,” he warned, then, quieter, “not too old to teach you some manners.”

Feeling emboldened by the wine, you leaned a little closer, “don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Tracing the rim of your wine glass, you looked up at him. You swear his eyes drifted to your lips, but before you could do anything about it, he cleared his throat, steering the conversation back into safer waters.  

“So, why did you get into emergency medicine?” 

You thought about it for a moment, considering how honest you wanted to be. “I wanted to meet people where they were at, help them in a real, immediate way. The traumas are great and exciting, and there’s nothing like making a pickup that saves someone’s life. But I like the less exciting stuff, too. The mundane care that doesn’t save a life, but makes someone feel better. Helps them get over a cold, or helps soothe a burn; suturing up a lac, or removing foreign objects from patients and not making them feel worse about their predicament. That stuff is just as important as the traumas.

Especially with how fucked healthcare is in this country, people come to us when they’re at their most vulnerable, and usually don’t want to be there. I just hope that I can make things less scary for patients when they come in, make sure they feel like they’re cared about and not being judged for coming to us.” 

It’d been a long time since you’d answered that question honestly. Usually, you had your stock answer that you pulled out, which was a more eloquent version of “I want to save lives!” And that was still true, but there was so much more to working in the emergency department than just saving lives. It was paperwork and insurance and bed shortages and nursing shortages and all the other fucked up shit in the world that inevitably contributed to the cases you saw come through the doors at the Pitt. 

“What about you? Was emergency medicine always it for you, or did you ever consider going into something else?” you asked. 

He shook his head, “Not seriously, no. Considered switching to critical care after my leg. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for the hustle and bustle of the emergency room after that. But it was the only place I wanted to be, so I figured it out, did what I needed to do to get back to where I was before the accident.” 

“Well, for what it's worth, I’m glad you stuck with EM. I couldn’t imagine working at the Pitt without you. I don’t think I’d be half the doctor I am without you,” you said, looking up at him. 

You hadn’t realized how close you’d gotten, his arm slung over the back of the booth and your thighs pressed against each other. 

“Don’t sell yourself short, you’d be amazing with or without me,” he said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind your ear. “You know, I’ve taught a lot of residents in my years, and you… you’re really cut out for this. Not everyone is.” 

The praise made you preen, the proximity of his hand to your face doing nothing to calm your rapidly beating heart. For a brief moment, you think he might lean in, might press those pillowy pink lips to yours, kiss you until you can’t think stra–

“Hi, sorry to interrupt but we’ll be closing in 15 minutes. Here’s your check when you’re ready,” the waitress said, setting the check down and scurrying away. 

You checked the time on your phone: 11:15. Did you really spend almost 3 hours talking to Jack? It certainly didn’t feel like it. 

“I guess we should get out of here before they kick us out,” Jack said, sliding out of the booth and offering you his hand.

You’re giggling at another one of Jack’s jokes as you leave the restaurant, the bill graciously paid by him despite your best efforts to split it. Your limbs were loose from the wine, goosebumps springing up on your arms from the early summer air turned chilly. 

“Thank you for dinner. You salvaged an otherwise shitty night,” you laughed. 

“It was no problem, really. I had a nice time,” he said, leaning against the brick wall, arms crossed.

You mirrored him, shoulder scraping against the gritty brick, and looked up at him. 

“Hold on, I think you have a little sauce on your face,” he said, and before you could grab a tissue from your purse, he reached out. His thumb gathered the sauce at the corner of your lips, going further to brush the pad of it across your bottom lip. The movement dragged your lower lip down slightly, your mouth parting involuntarily with it. You’re not sure why, but your tongue darted out, licked the pad of his thumb and the residual sauce.

Jack’s breath hitched, the sharp intake of air the only thing you could hear despite the sounds of car alarms and drunk party girls on a Friday night in downtown Pittsburgh. 

You looked up at him, tongue still pressed flat against his thumb, and searched his eyes for a sign that the heat building between you is mutual. 

Fuck it, you decided. 

Without thinking about it too much, you leaned up and pressed your lips against his. And god, did they feel nice. They were soft, but firm, and he tasted faintly of the wine you’d shared earlier mixed with the slight acidity of the tomato sauce from his dinner. Your hand tangled in the curls at the base of his neck, and they’re so soft, but also a little stiff. You wondered, briefly, if he uses mousse, or hairspray, or if he’s got a whole curly girl routine down before realizing that oh my god he wasn’t kissing you back. Oh no, oh fuck. 

How did you misread this situation so horrifically? You thought you were getting all the right signals, thought that he liked being with you, that he was flirting with you. But maybe it really was just a courtesy, a pity dinner. 

Your cheeks are hot when you pull away from him, shame sitting thick and heavy in your stomach, numbness prickling up your arms in staticky goosebumps. And Jack is just standing there, the dumbfounded look on his face doing nothing to assuage your embarrassment.  

You backed up, trying to create some distance, to lower the temperature between you that apparently only you felt. 

Looking down at your shoes, unable to make eye contact, you babbled out, “I-I’m so sorry, that was completely inappropriate and I don’t know why I-” your voice cracked and it felt like your lungs weren’t properly inflating with oxygen, “I don’t know how I misread things, but I guess I did so again, I’m so sorry. I’m gonna go home and pretend this never happened,” you said, turning around and starting down the street, despite the fact that you most certainly needed to Uber home, not walk. 

You’re trying not to cry for the umpteenth time that night when you hear him calling your name, “Wait!” 

He caught up with you, only a few strides away from where you were standing, and grasped your arm gently. “Wait, I’m sorry,” he said, a little breathless, “I just… you surprised me.”

“Surprised you?” you laughed, “I damn near sucked your thumb, Jack,” you said, genuinely confused how a man like Jack Abbot could be surprised that a woman would try to kiss him; that the next logical step from erotic thumbsucking would be a kiss. “And you flirted with me all night! You made a Lady and the Tramp joke! How else am I supposed to take that?”  

He rubbed at his jaw anxiously, a slight blush coating his cheeks, “I mean, yeah, I was surprised. I’ve liked you for a while now but then I heard you talking to Santos about how you didn’t want to go out with that cardiology attending and just assumed I didn’t have a shot,” he admitted sheepishly. “And maybe I got a little brazen with my flirting because I thought you didn’t see me like that anyway, figured it couldn’t hurt.” 

It’s your turn to be surprised now. You hadn’t realized he heard that conversation, or that he’d taken the wrong idea from it; the opposite idea, actually.   

You took a step closer to him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, fingers finding his curls again, “Well, if you recall, snoopy, I said that part of the problem was that I just didn’t want to fuck that cardiology attending,” you said, looking up at him and batting your eyelashes, “that isn’t the case with you.” 

He looked shocked, but recovered quickly, his confident air returning to him. “Oh, is that so?” he asked, lips quirking up into a smile as he backed you up against the rough brick wall. His hand rested on the wall next to your head, the other on your hip, stroking you through your dress. 

“In that case, please allow me to make up for my rude behavior,” he said, dipping down to kiss you properly this time. 

You’d pictured this moment countless times before, but nothing compared to the real thing. Jack Abbot is a no nonsense man–a wartorn vet who understands more than most the importance of not wasting time. You expected your first kiss with him to be hungry, maybe a little sloppy, but when his lips meet yours, he’s achingly tender. It wasn’t uncertain–there was no question underlying his kiss–it was deep and languorous, like he was content to take his time up against this brick wall and savor the slide of your lips against his because he knew he had you right where he wanted you, finally. 

He commanded you, his hand cupping your jaw to angle your head back, deepening the kiss. His tongue swept across your bottom lip, and you instinctively opened up for him. The slide of his tongue against yours was delicious, the slick muscle curling around yours before moving back to your lips, sucking at your bottom lip and biting down gently. Your mind felt fuzzy at the way he handled you, guiding and taking you how he saw fit.

Some of his restraint dissipated, your mouths moving feverishly against each other. You couldn’t get enough of him; you pulled him into you and hooked your leg around his waist to draw him as close to you as possible. Pathetic, embarrassing whines and whimpers escaped you involuntarily, your body unable to mask how this man was making a mess of you.

His hand fell to the thigh wrapped around him, calloused fingers sliding up under your dress and gripping the bare flesh. He pulled you close, his pelvis rolling against yours sinfully. You could feel the hard outline of his cock against your cunt, your hips thrusting forward to meet the friction. A frustrated moan fell from your lips at the clothes separating you, at the inability to feel his skin against yours. 

You pulled away only when air was necessary–and because you were very close to being cited for public indecency if things went any further. 

“Sorry, I probably taste like garlic,” you said dumbly, fingers tracing over your spit slick lips, numb and swollen from Jack’s attention. 

He laughed, forehead resting against yours, “you taste incredible,” he said, pressing a kiss to your nose, then your cheek, and then under your ear. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but my place is a couple blocks from here, if you’d like to come home with me.”  

You nodded, a giddy smile breaking out across your face, “I would very much like to go home with you,” you said, already grabbing his hand and dragging him down the street. 

The entryway is dark as you stumbled into Jack’s townhouse, the walk talking longer than it should have due to your need to drag him into searing kiss after searing kiss every dozen or so steps. 

Jack navigated the two of you through the dark, your bodies unceremoniously plopping down on his couch. You fell onto his lap, knees sinking into the leather cushions and thighs stretching over the wide berth of his hips. Your kisses had devolved from slow and deep to fast and hungry, teeth nipping and clashing against one another, your breathing ragged from the exertion.   

He was rock-hard and throbbing under you, the outline of his cock pressing deliciously against your pussy. The only articles of clothing separating you were the thin, lacy excuse for panties you were wearing and his jeans. Your eyes fluttered closed as you ground your hips down on him, the combination of rough denim and the drag of his cock on your aching cunt forcing loud moans and whimpers from your lips. 

Jack was just as loud, his hips canting up to meet your rolling hips. His hand travelled to the back of your dress, fingers playing with the zipper, “this okay, sweetheart?” he asked against your lips. You nodded, too caught up in his lips to give a verbal answer. 

He chuckled as he pulled the zipper down, easing the sleeves down next and pulling away to get a look at you. He let out a sharp breath, the air stolen from his lungs as he took you in, hands gripping your waist tight and rolling his hips hard against you.  

Your pretty tits were held up in an unlined white bra, your hardened nipples peaking through the barely there lace. He threw his head back against the couch, pupils blown wide as they fixated on your chest. ““My pretty, pretty girl. Was this all for him?” he asked, thumbs running in circles around your areolas. You nodded shyly, a bit embarrassed that you’d put on your good lingerie for some random guy. But it wasn’t all for nought, if Jack’s reaction was any indication. 

“What a fuckin’ idiot,” he mumbled before enveloping your nipple between his lips, sucking the bud through the lace. He captured the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tugging and pinching it, then soothing it over in soft circles. The sensation was dizzying. His mouth was hot and wet against your skin, and he knew exactly the right pressure to ride the line between pleasure and pain.

But the lace was getting in the way; you couldn’t feel the scratch of his stubble like you’d dreamed of for so long. You unclasped your bra, tugging on his curls and pulling his face back just enough to let the garment fall down between you. 

A guttural sound left him as he dove back in, lips suctioning onto your nipple and sucking hard, cheeks hollowed out and tongue swirling around the bud. Your hand tightened in his curls, arching your back and pushing your chest against his mouth. He alternated between the two, sucking, licking, and biting at one and kneading, flicking, and pinching the other. You could finally feel the scrape of his stubble against your sensitive skin, your eyes rolling back in your head as your hips doubled their effort, grinding hard against his cock. 

He released your nipple with a wet pop, “you know how hard it’s been keepin’ my hands to myself, pretty girl? and all this time you’ve been hidin’ this pretty set of tits under your scrubs,” he shook his head in disbelief, “don’t think I’ll be able to think about anything other than stuffin’ my face between these tits when I see you at work.”  

His lips returned to your chest while his unoccupied hand moved under your dress, his rough palm gripping the fat of your ass and guiding you over his length faster. Every grind of your hips had your clit bumping up against the head of his cock, the pressure exquisite. Your slick was dripping down your thighs and seeping into his jeans, the schlick schlick schlick steady background noise among your moans and groans.  

You didn’t realize how fast your orgasm was building until you were nearly on the precipice of it, letting out a strangled moan and, “I’m gonna–” before the wave crested. Your thighs trembled, a dull ache forming from keeping them stretched around Jack’s bulk, but it only added to the pleasure that zipped through you. That staticky feeling radiated through you, your pussy contracting and fluttering around nothing. 

You’re panting into the crook of his neck as you ride out the aftershocks, your hips still grinding against his clothed cock, your lips letting out tiny gasps and whines. 

“Did you… did you just cum, sweetheart?” Jack asked, a stunned look on his face. 

You could feel how hot your cheeks were, shame curling through you because yes, you did cum from a little nipple play and grinding on his cock. 

“I-i’m sorry, it’s just been a long time and no one’s touched me in so long and you feel so good, I didn’t think that would happen so quickly,” you said, panicked, “I’m sorry if I ruined things.” 

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay,” he said, thumbs brushing away the embarrassed tears you weren’t even aware had fallen, “you didn’t ruin anything, okay? I was just surprised, is all. I’m sorry if anyone’s made you feel that way, but you don’t ever have to be embarrassed with me. Never,” The sincerity of his words triggered a new bout of tears. You buried your head in the crook of his neck again, his scent a calming balm to your nerves. 

“Plus, do you know how much of an ego boost it is to know I had such a pretty girl cummin’ on lap in under five minutes? That’s the stuff of dreams, baby,” he teased, pulling you out from your hiding spot and pressing kisses to your cheeks.

You laughed, still sniffling a bit, “gosh, I’m sorry I’ve been such a crybaby tonight.” 

“It’s okay, honey,” he said, then, teasing, “but I can think of much better reasons for you to be cryin’, and none of them have anything to do with you being sad or embarrassed,” he said, kissing you properly now, tongue licking deep into your mouth. 

You moaned into his mouth, then squealed as he hoisted you up, carrying you to his bedroom. He set you down at the edge of the bed, then properly removed your dress from where it was awkwardly gathered at your waist.

He didn’t waste any time, dropping to his knees and parting your legs, pushing them up toward your chest. “Hold 'em there for me, baby, wanna take a good look at you,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the damp fabric between your legs. You did as he told you, hooking your hands under your knees and spreading yourself open for him. You felt exposed, but the awestruck look in his eye as he examined your pussy sent shockwaves through your body. 

“This all because of me?” he asked, thumbing at your center over the fabric, pressing lightly against your clit with each stroke. Your panties were soaked through, the tiny scrap of fabric doing nothing to obscure your puffy folds that were sticky with a mix of your slick and cum. “What a mess you made, honey. Guess I’m gonna have to clean you up,” he said, pulling your panties to the side and licking a broad stripe from your hole to your clit.

You moaned, hips lifting off the bed and chasing his mouth. The contrast of his hot tongue on your cool flesh was blistering. His hands grabbed the back of your thighs, his fingers digging into the soft skin there and stopping any movement of your hips. You whined at the restriction, your hands fisting in the soft sheets instead.

“Waited so long for this honey, shit, fuckin’ dreamed about how you’d taste,” he moaned into your pussy, mouth lapping and sucking at your folds, gathering all the spend and slick and swallowing it down like nectar. His face was nestled deep into your cunt, tongue exploring every crease and crevice your cunt had to offer, licking, sucking, biting–and taking note of what made you scream. 

And once he discovered it, he didn’t just eat you, he devoured you. He was a man possessed, with no regard for his own need for air. His tongue assaulted your clit, alternating between rubbing tight circles around it, short kitten licks, and long, languorous licks that had him shaking his head between your thighs. Every now and again he wrapped his lips around your clit and suckled it, the light leaving your body every time. Your hips rocked against his mouth despite his hold on you, wrecked moans falling from your lips.  

“Fuck, jack, please–r-right there!” 

“That’s it, baby, let me hear you, tell me how good I’m makin’ you feel,” he said, pulling back just far enough to spit onto your cunt before running two fingers up your slit, pushing them in without preamble. The stretch was delicious, his thick fingers curling deep into your wet heat and finding that sweet spot in no time. He exploited it mercilessly, massaging it with the pads of his fingers. His lips returned to your clit, sucking harshly now, giving you no reprieve from his ministrations. 

“Feels so good Jack! Never felt this good before!” you cried. 

The slurping and squelching was lewd, your moans and breathless cries of his name intermingled to create an obscene symphony that you’re sure the entire population of Pittsburgh could hear. 

“You gonna cum on my face, honey? Gonna give me another one?” he asked, fingers massaging your g-spot. “Wanna–fuck–wanna feel this tight cunt squeeze my fingers when she cums.” 

“Y-yes, please Jack, ‘m gonna cum, feels sosososo good” you cried out, your second orgasm crashing over you. Stars burst behind your eyes, back arching uncomfortably off the bed and walls clenching so hard around his fingers you’re not sure how he hasn’t lost circulation. Your legs clamped around his head, trapping him there as you rode out your orgasm, hips rutting against his mouth and fingers. He didn’t mind, licking and sucking you through it, his fingers keeping pressure on your g-spot until you were pushing him away.

He peppered your body with kisses as you came down, starting at your thighs and making his way up over your tummy, ribs, and breasts. He came to rest above you, a dopey smile on your face as you pulled him in for a lazy kiss. His face was soaked with your spend and you could taste the tang on his tongue when he kissed you. 

“You’re stupidly good at that,” you whispered, body still boneless and floaty. 

“Yeah? Want me to show you want else I’m stupidly good at?” he asked while finally shucking his shirt off. 

“Yeah?” you said absentmindedly, eyes glazed over at the majesty that was Jack Abbot’s chest. You immediately began pressing kisses across the newly exposed skin–to his neck, collarbone, pecs, and tummy. You’re even able to scrape your teeth across a nipple before he holds you back at arms length, laughing.   

“Yeah, honey,” he laughed between your frantic kisses, “but you gotta let me breathe for a sec, gotta take care of my leg.” 

“Let me,” you said, slipping down to the floor and sitting back on your heels. You ran your palms up his thighs, hands coming to rest on his belt before going any further.

“You don’t have to do that, honey.” 

“I know,” you said softly, “but I want to. If you’re okay with that.” 

He cradled your face in his hand, thumb stroking your cheekbone. You turned into it, kissing the palm of his hand to assure him that you wanted to do this. 

“I care about you Jack, and this is part of you. I just wanna help you, wanna make you feel good,” you said earnestly, giving him your puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah. Okay, honey, go ahead,” he nodded, sitting back on his elbows to watch you. You grasped his belt again, unfastening the buckle and pulling the belt through the loops, discarding it somewhere behind you. You moved to the button of his jeans, deftly popping it open and hooking your fingers into the waistband, tugging them down with Jack’s help. 

Your breath hitched at the sight of his dark gray boxers, a wet spot front and center that made your mouth water. You learned forward and kissed the damp fabric, moaning at the slight taste of precum that danced across your lips. 

“Careful, sweetheart…” he warned, but there wasn’t much heat behind his words. 

You just grinned up at him before getting back to the task at hand. Your fingers travelled down to the sleek metal attached to him, getting a feel for the mechanism before unlocking and twisting it off. The liner came next, tossed to the side before you pressed your fingertips into his skin, massaging the skin to get some blood flow back into the residual limb. You pressed sweet kisses to his flesh, from the front of his knee to the scarred flesh of his leg, tongue dipping out to trace the prominent scar just above his amputation site. 

Jack breathed heavily above you, tiny groans escaping him unbidden. A look flickered across his face, and you think, briefly, that this may be the first time you’ve seen him truly vulnerable. It wasn’t a secret that he’d lost the lower portion of his leg in the war, but he didn’t flaunt it either. You wondered if there was an insecurity that lay deep within him, despite his overt confidence; if other women had reacted differently, cruelly even to the sight of his prosthesis. It made your heart ache to think about it, to think of someone doing anything but worshipping his beautiful body the way he deserved.  

“So pretty, Jack,” you whispered, kisses inching higher up his thigh now, “wanna taste you now.” 

When you’re met with the sight of Jack’s cock, you’re well and truly speechless. You knew he was big from your time on the couch, but seeing it was different. He was thick and veiny, the tip flushed a deep red and leaking precum furiously. It rested against his belly, curving slightly to the left. And did you mention that he was thick? Mouth agape, you wondered how you were going to fit him in your mouth. Or pussy. 

You’re not sure how long you’ve been sitting there, hands perched against his thighs, just staring at his cock, until Jack tilts your head back, fingers tightening in the strands of hair at the nape of your neck. 

“Thought you wanted a taste, honey. You just gonna sit there and stare at it all night?” he asked, a smug smile on his lips. 

“Maybe,” you mumbled, tongue darting out to wet your lips. 

Before you can do anything of your own accord, his hand is guiding your head forward, the head of his cock pushing gently against the seam of your lips. You take over from there, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his tip, the precum gathered there salty and sticky against your lips. Your tongue dipped out to caress the spot just below his head, running the flat of your tongue along it before moving back to his head, spitting a glob of spit onto him and wrapping a hand around his base. You started with long, slow strokes, squeezing and twisting on the upstroke, your hand meeting your lips where they suckled at his tip. 

You moaned at the steady stream of precum invading your mouth, “taste so good Jack,” you said before taking more of him into your mouth. You're only about halfway down and your lips are already stretched tight around him, spit leaking from the corners of your mouth in filthy waterfalls. You hollowed your cheeks out, bobbing your head up and down his shaft, your tongue massaging the underside of his cock. 

“Fuck, baby, who knew you had such a filthy fuckin’ mouth on you,” he groaned, hips rutting up slightly. 

His tip occasionally hits the back of your throat, causing you to gag and tears to prick behind your eyes, but you don’t care; the feeling of him weighing heavy on your tongue is reward enough. 

You feel a light pressure applied to the back of your head, “deeper, baby, know you can take it,” he groaned. You obliged, breathing deep through your nose and sinking down further onto his cock until you felt him hit the back of your throat and your nose was nestled in the trimmed grey curls at his base. Your hand grappled for his where it was perched on your head, using it to push harder against your head, trying to convey to him that you wanted him to take over; to fuck your face. 

He groaned, hips jerking involuntarily as he realized what you wanted. He gathered your hair in his hands, hips shallowly trusting into the wet heat of your mouth. His mouth was slack, grunts and groans loud as he fucked your face. His pace builds, his cock roughly pistoning in and out of your mouth. Tears are falling freely now, your mouth stretched to capacity and throat being used and abused by his fat cock. 

“See? These tears are much prettier, baby,” he huffed out, thumbs brushing the trails where they fell. “So fuckin’ pretty, crying with my cock in your mouth.” 

You moaned around him at that, the praise and shame swirling in your tummy. Your hand came up to cup his balls, massaging and squeezing them gently between your fingers. 

You’re suddenly pulled up off his cock and into his lap, spit stringing from your shiny, swollen lips. You whined at the loss of him, your mouth feeling uncomfortably empty now. 

“Fuck–you feel too good, honey,” he grunted, setting you back against his pillows, “can’t cum in that pretty little mouth tonight, need to be inside you.” 

He grabbed a condom out of his drawer before moving back to you, sitting back on his knees and rolling the condom on. You let out an annoyed whine. You’ve never hated the more rational side of your brain more than you do right now. You craved to feel him bare inside you–to feel him cum deep inside you, the hot white ropes painting your walls. And while you trusted him implicitly, you knew safety was of the utmost importance, so condom it was. 

“Don’t worry, baby, soon as we get tested, you won’t be able to stop me from fuckin’ this pussy raw,” he groaned, settling between your spread thighs. His body was a soothing weight above you, the warmth he emanated relieving any anxiety you had. 

He gripped the base of his cock and ran it through your sopping folds a few times, the tip catching slightly on your entrance on each pass. “Please, Jack, need to feel you,” you moaned, wrapping your legs around his waist and pulling him close. 

He cursed before giving in, notching the head of his cock against your entrance and entering you slowly, letting you feel and adjust to every inch on its own. Your head fell back into his plush pillows as he sank fully into you, your mouth open in a silent scream. Your walls were tight around him, clenching viciously at the intrusion–you’d never been stretched so wide, or filled so thoroughly. It felt like the air had been punched out of your lungs and replaced by his cock. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, your short nails biting at his skin. 

You were still for a moment, both your chests heaving as you adjusted to the feeling of one another. Then, once Jack composed himself, he started to move–slow, shallow thrusts at first, your pussy still clenching tight around him, sucking him in greedily with each thrust. 

“Relax for me, honey, that’s it, doin’ so good for me,” he grunted, eyes closed, “pussy feels so good.” 

You willed your body to relax, for your muscles to go lax around him. You shifted your legs up higher, the heels of your feet digging into the soft flesh of his ass. 

“There you go, so good for me,” he moaned, “knew you’d be so good for me.” 

He pulled out again, easier this time, until only the tip remained inside you, then snapped his hips forward. His thrusts were slow but hard, his hips slamming against you each time he bottomed out. The drag of his cock against your walls felt so good, his thick, throbbing length rubbing up against every sensitive spot. You felt every thick vein and ridge, as if they were imprinting into your walls, making a home there. You moaned at the thought of eternity, of Jack making your pussy his again and again and again. 

He was watching you with a wondrous look on his face, his eyes flitting between your blissed out face and bouncing tits. “So fuckin’ sexy, baby, you don’t even understand how fuckin’ gorgeous you are,” he groaned, hips picking up speed, fucking you faster and harder. 

The adrenaline and emotions from the night came crashing down around you. The feeling of his cock dragging through your walls mixed with the sweet words he was whispering into your ear had you feeling exposed and vulnerable, made you feel seen. Your hands were frantic, running over every bit of skin you could get your hands on, needing to feel his skin against yours. You pulled him impossibly closer, his chest now flush against yours, the friction it provided to your nipples dizzying.  

You didn’t notice the tears until Jack was kissing away the salty tracks, his tongue sneaking out to lick up the length of your cheek. “You’re my little crybaby, aren’t you?” he asked, a sweet hint of condescension in his tone, “just can’t help babbling over my cock, huh, baby?” 

You could only whimper at that. The words should feel shameful, degrading, even, but the fondness on his face, the constant reassurance he’d been giving you all night only made you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Because you weren’t a crybaby, you were his crybaby. 

The coil in your stomach tightened, your orgasm fast approaching. He was fucking you hard and fast now, his balls slapping against your ass with a wet smack. “Jaack, I’m gonna–fffuck–I need–” you gasped at a particularly hard thrust, your eyes rolling into the back of your head. 

But Jack knew what you needed before you did, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing tight circles against it, and you were done for. Your toes curled, heels pressing harder into his ass as you came, white-hot sparks shooting through your body. Your walls spasmed wildly, your orgasm crashing through you in waves. You were absolutely drenched, your pussy gushing around his cock, leaking down your ass and onto the bed. 

Jack wasn’t far behind, his hips stuttering as your walls seized his cock in a vise grip. “F-fuck, baby, you’re squeezin’ me so tight, so fuckin’ good,” he grunted, his hips going into overdrive now, chasing his climax and fucking you hard and deep.

"Cum for me, Jack, wanna make you feel good," you cried.

He ground his hips into one last time, cumming with a loud moan, cock buried deep inside you and hips pressed flush against yours. 

He collapsed on top of you, head resting on your chest. He pressed lazy kisses to your sternum, collarbone, the soft flesh of your breasts–whatever he could get his lips on from this angle. Your fingers carded through his curls, the motion soothing as you tried to catch your breath. 

Eventually, though, you had to part. 

You whined as he pulled out, your cunt empty and cold now that he’d taken his warmth away. He grabbed his arm crutches, disposing of the condom and retreating to the bathroom. He returned with a warm washcloth and began cleaning you up, gently wiping at your swollen pussy and sticky thighs, making sure you were comfortable before tossing the rag in the hamper.  

He slid back into bed when he was finished, laying on his side and pulling you close against his chest. Your head was cushioned by this arm as you curled into him, your sweat slick bodies cool to the touch now that the heat had dissipated. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to kiss you,” he said, fingers brushing up and down your ribs, the touch featherlight.  

“Mmm probably as long as I have,” you said, snuggling closer to him.

“Really? When did you realize you wanted to kiss me?”

You didn’t have to think about it at all. “My birthday, on the roof. I gave you a cupcake and you got frosting all over you,” you giggled at the memory, “and all I could think about was how bad I wanted to kiss it all off of your stupidly handsome face.” 

He laughed with you, the creases around his eyes deepening as he did. He was so pretty, you thought for the thousandth time that night. 

 “I remember that,” he smiled, “I remember being so proud that I made you laugh that night.” 

“What about you?” you asked. 

He thought about it for a minute. “I think the need to kiss you has been simmering in me since I met you, but the first time I had the conscious thought was when you patched me up after that patient clocked me in the head,” he said, his hand now on your cheek, stroking the bone there, “you were standin’ between my legs, stitchin’ up my forehead, and all I could think about was pulling you close and kissing you until I couldn’t breathe.” 

“Why didn’t you?”

He sighed, “I’m your superior and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable if you didn't feel the same way.” You knew he didn’t want to delve into the ‘superior’ thing right now, didn’t want to have the long, complicated conversation that was sure to come in the following days. 

“And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself once I started,” he said, lightening the mood a bit. 

You giggled at that, rolling your eyes affectionately. But something nagged in your head about what he said. 

“Wait…” you said, piecing together a timeline, “that was nearly a year ago! You’re telling me we could have been doing this for a year!?” you exclaimed, slapping him on the chest lightly. 

He shook his head at you, a sheepish look on his face. You were both idiots. 

“Well, I guess we have a lot of lost time to make up for, then, don’t we?” he said cheekily, capturing your lips again and pushing you onto your back, determined to make you a very happy woman.

a/n: thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it <33

“Cefazolin and gent,” you say with the same affect, “we've cleared her chest, abdomen, and pelvis.”

“Clean wound, no crush injury, rapid transport time. Replantation is a go. I'll book an OR. Irrigate the hell out of this with 3 liters.” Shark nods at you, as if you had done the entire case alone.

“3 liters?” Whitaker confirms, confused by the large quantity.

“Of saline, genius.” Shark says, voice flat.

“Thanks, Shark.” Robby says.

“Bye doctor,” Park nods at you. 

“Ok,” you say, not bothering to look up at him as he leaves. 

“I knew he meant saline,” Whitaker looks between you and Robby asking for confirmation that you know he’s not an idiot.

“Ignore him,” you say, still sounding agitated at the whole interaction.

“Yeah, Shark doesn’t really like anyone,” Robby offers the two, slightly shaken, young doctors sitting in front of him.

“He seems to like her just fine,” Ogilvie points a gloved finger to you and you scoff.

“That’s just because he wants to f-” you cut yourself of realizing your chief attending is standing right next to you, “I think I hear someone calling my name out there, yeah no, I gotta-” you push out the door, everyone in the room knowing that no one was calling you.

“She was going to say fuck her,” Ogilvie says.

“Thank you for clarifying Ogilvie,” Robby says, giving a curt nod.

You don’t usually work the day shift but after McKay got a call from Harrison’s school she had to bow out for the day. Robby is certainly excited to work with you and get to know you a little better, you are his best friend's favorite resident, in more ways than one. Robby knows that Jack is seeing you, however the exact parameters of your relationship are unclear to the chief attending. He’s tried to spot slip ups between the two of you during hand-offs, any indication that you two are anything more than co-workers, but you are entirely unflappable and Jack is the same. He assumes the secrecy is because you and Jack want to keep things in your private lives private but the truth is Jack himself is unsure of the exact nature of your relationship.

The two of you are having sex, hot, passionate sex, on a regular basis. He feels like a teenager again, desperate to have his mouth on yours, his hands on your body, his cock in your tight pussy. The first shift after the two of you hooked up Jack could barely look at you, his ears flushing red every time he saw you, thinking of the day before when you were panting and whimpering beneath him, squeezing him like a vice, letting him come inside you... Over time he got better at staying composed. No one at the hospital had suspected anything, he maintained his cool outer shell without an issue, but for those first couple of weeks he had felt like he was melting inside. More recently the two of you started getting breakfast together after a shift, staying at each other’s places, lingering near one another in the ER…

“Your little resident is fiery, I like her for you,” Robby smirks as Jack stands next to him at the hub, the senior attendings preparing to start hand-offs.

“Oh yeah? What’d she do to get you so wound up?” The corner of Jack’s mouth curves up ever so slightly.

“Just put Shark in his place this afternoon,” Robby says, pushing his glasses up to rest on his head.

“Park? Why? Was he bothering her?” Jack’s mouth drops, imperceptible to a passerby but Robby notices. Shit. He had just meant to tease his friend a little, not wind him up before a shift.

“Nah he’s just- he just seems to be uh, interested, but she shut him down,” Jack gives him a look, waiting for Robby to elaborate, “no he just- he just asked her what she was doing later,”

“Well, what did she say?” Jack crosses his arms over his broad chest.

“Man, you should just talk to her,” Robby sighs, regretting saying anything.

“Robby,” Jack looks at him with a hard stare.

“She said ‘not you,’” Robby shrugs, “‘what are you doing later?’ ‘not you,’ that was it- it was funnier when she said it.”

Jack’s mouth is in a firm line.

“Fuckin’ ortho surgeons,” Jack mumbles.

“I mean… glass houses, brother.” Robby says, again without thinking.

Jack raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest, silently prompting Robby to explain himself.

“You, you have been known to try to charm the odd patient… or nurse… or doctor…” Robby tries to placate him.

“That's different.” Jack’s head pulls back slightly.

“Why?” Robby scrunches his eyebrows.

“Because- because I'm seeing her.” Jack says, dropping his voice low.

“You weren’t always seeing her.” Robby pauses, looking in the distance, “actually now that I think about it she’s the only person I haven’t seen you make eyes at."

“What do you mean? You don’t think she’s charmed by me?” Jack cocks an eyebrow.

“Yeah but you don’t do the whole Dr.-Jack-Abbot-thing with her, there’s no smoke or mirrors, you’re just… being Jack.”

“Hey,” you slide next to Jack where he stands at the hub, resting your hands on the desk dangerously close to his, “heard you’re taking Dr. Al for a beer, can you put in a good word for me?”

“With Al-Hashimi? Why?” Jack turns away from you, starting to walk towards the ambulance bay.

“Uh, because she’s a smart, assertive attending with a cool, humanitarian background? I mean the AI shit is lame but I don't know, I feel like I could learn some stuff from her,” you chatter away, following him closely, not entirely picking up on his foul mood. “Not that I don’t love to learn from you but- I don't know, men have been in charge of me my whole life, it would be nice to have another woman be a mentor figure. And I wanna do a slash trach.”

“Why don’t you ask Shark to teach you?” Jack says with a little bite once the two of you step outside.

“Shark? Yeah I’ll ask him for help if I ever need to use a hammer,” you breathe out a laugh, “He’s… how do i say this professionally….” you purse your lips and tap your chin, pretending to think, “he’s the worst.”

“Yeah well he thinks very highly of you,” Jack mutters.

“Oh my god. Has Robby been whispering in your ear? Jack, it was a non-event. He does it all the time. I’m used to brushing him off.” You say sympathetically.

“He does it all the time?” Jack head snaps to you.

“Not literally,” you sigh, “you have no reason to worry about Shark, I can't stand him, there’s nothing to be jealous about,”

“Maybe you’re the one who’s jealous,” Jack turns away from you slightly, his comment prompting you to let out a sharp breath as a laugh.

“Who am I supposed to be jealous of?” You say incredulously.

“I’m not having this conversation right now,” Jack rubs his hands over his face.

“Oh my god.” you let out a breathy laugh, “you want me to be jealous. Why?”

“You’re acting like a child.” He turns to you.

“Me? Are you serious right now?” You cross your arms, staring at him with your eyebrows raised. Jack says nothing, starting to turn back into the hospital.

“Jack,” you grab onto his arm, keeping him from walking inside, “talk. It's just me.”

“Yeah that’s the problem," Jack snaps, "you’re the problem."

Your face falls at his words.

“Wh-what did I do?” You say suddenly seeming very small. 

“No- you didn’t-” Jack lets out a frustrated breath, rubbing his hands down his face, “look- you’re young- god- you’re so young, and I know dating has changed since I was doing it twenty years ago but I don’t know how to do this with you- I don’t know how to see more than one person-”

“I’m not seeing more than one person-” you cut Jack off from his spiral. 

“What?” He looks at you blankly.

“I’m not seeing more than one person,” you say again, sounding a little more bold, a little more like yourself, “I'm only seeing you. I only want to see you. You thought I was seeing other people? Are you?”

“No- I don’t- I don’t know-” Jack stammers.

“You don’t know if you’re seeing other people?” You raise an eyebrow.

“No- of course I’m not- I just didn’t know if-” Jack struggles to articulate himself.

“Why didn’t you just talk to me?” You say gently.

“You seriously need to ask me that?” Jack finally turns to look at you, “I’m a widower, I’m a vet, I’m an amputee. I’m a night shift ER doctor, you should know what that says about me, better than most people. I’m twenty years older than you… I’m punching above my weight here… I- I figured I’d take what I could get.”

You don’t say anything. You can’t think of anything to say. That’s how he thinks of himself? Damaged goods? He is the most confident, borderline arrogant, doctor you know and he ought to be, he really is that good. And he’s just as good of a person. Sure, he had some walls up but slowly he was letting you in, showing you his entire self, something you felt privileged to have access to...

“Come with me,” you take his arm pulling him back towards the hospital. He pauses slightly, not exactly sure what you’re about to do, “Jack, can you just- please?” 

He follows you silently to the elevator which takes the pair of you to the third floor where the orthopedics department is located. The ride up is silent as you tap your foot, arms crossed tightly across your chest. The elevator dings and you step out with a determined stride, scanning the floor. You spot Park standing with two other ortho surgeons.

“Park!” you shout across the room, “we need to talk.”

Park smirks as you beeline towards him. The poor sucker, Jack thinks, slowly following you at a safe distance, stopping at the nurses station, resting his elbows on the counter, not even bothering trying to hide his interest in this interaction. The other two surgeons skulk away, god, Jack wishes he could see your face right now

“Stop smiling,” you say as you stand in front of him and his smile immediately drops, “you need to stop asking me out. First, I’m with someone, and I’m not sure he’d like it if he knew you were bothering me every time you’re in the ER. Second, even if I was single it would never happen with you and me. If we were the last two people alive it wouldn’t happen. And third, it’s fucking unprofessional. I’m a doctor, not your groupie. Am I making myself clear?”

He swallows hard, then nods.

“Say: yes doctor,” you say, looking him right in the eyes.

“Yes, doctor, it won’t happen again,” Park looks almost sheepish. Jack can’t think of a time he’s seen him look like this… ever. Despite his imposing frame, Park seems so small right now.

“Good,” you smile and turn on your heels walking back towards the elevator where Jack stands with his mouth agape. You take his hand pulling him towards the stairwell, the door dropping shut behind you. 

“Can I get in trouble for that?” You turn to Jack with a slightly anxious expression.

“I was with you for the last hour and didn’t even see you go up to Ortho.” Jack smirks at you.

“Hm,” you smirk back, grabbing the back of his neck, placing a quick kiss on his lips. He keeps leaning towards you as you pull back.

“Jack,” you smile, pushing him away lightly, stepping down one stair so he towers over you. 

“So who’s this mysterious person you’re ‘with’?” He gazes down at you with his hands in his pockets as you bite your lip.

“Mm,” you hum, toying with his ID that sits against his hip, “he’s just this older guy, really fuckin’ smart, measured, competent…” you pull his badge toward you examining the photo, “he’s sexy, even when he gets a little jealous,” you let go of his ID badge letting it snap against him sharply, he winces slightly at the stinging sensation but keeps gazing down at you with adoration. Your eyes flick up to his. 

“And I really like him,” you finish, a small smile on the corner of your lips. Jack takes a step down so you’re eye to eye. 

“Am I allowed to just say we’re dating? All these code words ‘seeing,’ ‘with,’ ‘exclusive…’ I just-” Jack cuts himself off with a shake of his head.

“Mm it depends,” you hum, a playful grin on your face, “are we dating?” 

“Yes,” he squeezes your hip.

“Then you’re allowed to say it,” you say, looking up and then down the stairs, seeing that you’re still alone, placing another more lingering kiss on his mouth, your lips soft against his. You pull back and see the tips of his ears turn bright red, making you blush as well.

“But we’re not telling anyone down there,” you clarify. 

You were at the gurney in an instance, Robby joining the herd in the pushing of the bed. It took you less than a second to see through the bag in the neck and the blood and the uniform to recognise the one on the gurney. “Hiro? What happened?”

“Warehouse robbery gone wrong,” said Jack with almost absent of mind. He said the words and promptly seemed to realise who he was talking to and looked up- at you- again. “You're working today?”

“Oh no, I just hang around in hopes of seeing you in unfiorm.”

Next to you, Robby chuckled and beyond Jack you gave quick greeting to your laughing buddies, clad in SWAT uniform.

You were what could be called, a floater.

By all educational means you were a doctor and a damn good one too. You had every certificate you needed and all the flying colours you could get. You just didn't have a permanent job. You were a sub. You worked mainly at PTMC and on the field but had been known to go to the dark side, a.k.a, Presby.

“Okay, on my count,” you begin. “One, two, three-”

You helped lift him over to the bed.

“Did you intubate him?” you asked,

“Yeah, under active fire,” said Jack.

You looked at Jack. Sweat on his forehead, flecks of grey hair sticking to him and the shirt under his army vest hung lose. He was dishevelled in away romance characters presented on books covers. To lure you in. “You were shot?”

“Shot at.”

“You need to be looked at?”

“No. I'm fine.” His lips were pursed, focus on Hiro.

“Did you see the chords when you intubated?” asked Robby, floating around the two of you as Jack refused to leave Hiro's side and you stayed by Abbot. He'd seen it a dozen times before. A disaster where there was one, there was the other.

There was the occasions he'd hand over to Jack, go home, sleep and come back to find Jack had called in you. You who was always ready to go at the first buzz of your pager. Wherever it was, whatever you had to do. And Robby would look through the patients that night, check the board and understand they hadn't really needed your help all that much.

Jack had.

Now, Robby saw the way you looked at Jack and had seen the gap that existed between the two of you.

“Yeah, I did but it was hard to miss when I cleared them.”

Jack reached and you watched as he stretched, wincing at the pull in his shoulder.

“You should get that looked at,” you told him.

“I'm fine.”

“No, you're not.”

There was a small roll of the eyes as Jack's gaze rose to meet yours through his goggles. There was almost a tiny hint of a smirk- your favourite kind but it disappeared as soon as it appeared.

“Yeah, c'mon Abbot!” said Charlie, calling from the back of his room where he stood with Diaz, two of the SWAT officers you were most frequent with. “Let doc work you up.”

You chuckled low to yourself, trying to catch Jack's eyes to share the joke but he looked away, his jaw clenching.

So, he wasn't in the joking mood.

“Alright, fellas, out!” leaving the wounded's side you ushered them out in spite of their protests and their giddy, hopeful optimism that Officer Hiro would pull through. “We'll let you know any changes, out!”

You pulled on a gown and cleared a way over.

“Demanding,” said Robby.

“You should hear me in the bedroom,” you teased with a wink.

Over on the other side you caught a small click from Jack's tongue. A disapproval voiced loud enough for others to hear.

You grasped the ultrasound wand from the nurse, circling it around the wound at Hiro's neck while Jack pulled away the gauze he'd packed, carefully minding you. “Good lung sliding, no pneumo-”

The last gauze peeled away in a bloody mess and a rope of blood shot out directly at you for vengeance.

“Geez- woah!”

“Pumper!” you announced, clamping your hand over the wound.

The streak of red cut through the skin on your neck, your gown and the doctors coat you liked to wear just like they did in tv shows. You had a draw full of them at home for instances like that.

“Hey, hey,” Jack was at your side quick as you loomed over the body. “Move back, get yourself cleaned up.”

“I can handle a little blood, Abbot.”

“I know that but-”

“- this is a transected trachea now-”

There was little else time to worry about blood on your gown and coat when the intubation was pulled out, the hole in his throat open.

There was a lot people said about you, with words and looks alike but none of which passed you or bothered you. You knew some thought you abrash and loud, you were, you knew it true. On the field the teams you worked with always thought you as one of them, 'one of the guys' but damn it- you were a good doctor.

You ordered everything correctly, you took them and worked them without so much as a blink and Robby stood behind you approving of everything you did.

It was one of the reasons he always called you in.

“Well done, good breaths sounds, stats are up: in the nineties,” approved Robby.

Jack hummed, pulling off his gloves as you all backed away. “Not bad.”

Your carried your smirk with you and over to him. “Is that the great Jack Abbot stamp of approval?”

“You know I think you're good at you're job,” he said, plainly.

You did know that. You knew that Jack admired your skills. He was one of the only ones who'd seen your skills on the field when sometimes all you had left in your kit was the dregs from other procedures or in the hospital when everything was pristine. He'd worked closest to you, probably out of everyone in either one of your jobs.

But there was always something about Jack that kept him far away. He was always a man that was so calm, which in the the face of conflict wasn't a bad call. Yet, it was the quiet moments in between- the way his footfall would slow to match yours, or the glances he'd steal at you half way across the ward, or the extra snacks he'd pack that had you searching rooms for him, checking shifts to see if you'd be around him.

Then when you were, Jack pursed his lips, clenched his jaw, acted like he wanted to be anywhere else sometimes than at your side.

He was a complicated man. Annoyingly that's what added to your attraction- and everyone knew it.

Once the two of you told Officer Charlie and Diaz that Hiro was stable enough to be taken to surgery you followed after Jack.

“You sure you don't want me to look at that shoulder for you?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, it's fine,” he excused.

“Don't want the paperwork?”

“Something like that,” said Jack, still shifting around in pain as he tried to roll his shoulder out.

“Okay, okay, but get it looked at!” you called off, ready to shed your coat or at least try and rub off some of Hiro's blood.

There was a mutter from Jack before he went another way.

You looked back to him once, watching as he walked off with a small limp that probably wasn't detectable to anyone that didn't analyse him like you did. It was a brutal sort of thing, SWAT, and with Abbot's sleep schedule you knew it was only worse. Eight- maybe ten hour shifts for so little sleep to get thrown back into the fire- literally. You wondered how he did it.

And, why.

Jack flexed out his shoulder at the press of the q-tip to his back.

He meant it, the wound really wasn't that bad. It had grazed through his clothes and vest but still hit just enough to leave an angry welt and bruising. He was content to hide away and sort it himself if it weren't for the fact he couldn't reach.

Then Samira Mohan walked by and offered her help. He was already tired, annoyed that those punks had thought it a good idea to rob a warehouse in the middle of the day, already worried about Hiro and his recovery. Then- there was you, with your snarky comments while saving his life, not batting a lash at the blood that got splattered on you in the mean time and still having time to flirt with Robby.

And prancing around in this scrub pants that were surely just a bit too tight.

Jack was wound up, which was why he admitted surrender and allowed Mohan to clean out his wound.

“Why do you do this?” she'd asked.

Jack had folded his arms over his chest, suddenly very aware he was shirtless in front of her. “My therapist says I need a hobby. I suck at golf.”

She hummed. “Funny.”

“Thank you.”

He made conversation to be polite, asking about the fellowships he knew others were already applying for. Crus had been telling him about them and he knew Mohan was searching to.

They were chatting was all when Robby walked by, looking in to check.

He frowned when he saw Mohan and Abbot, pausing in his fly by with a hand in the door way.

Jack watched as Robby looked around again at the ward, undoubtedly searching for you.

“We're almost finished up here,” said Mohan.

Robby held up his hands. “I didn't say anything,” he said, leaning in the doorway. He passed Jack a nod. “You good?”

“Getting there, thanks to Doctor Mohan's capable hands.” Jack kept his eyes averted from Robby as if he'd done something wrong. He hadn't. He'd told you the wound didn't need looking at because he was going to handle it.

Robby looked at him the sort of way he looked at patients when he knew they were lying about their scale of pain. “Can you give us a second?”

Just as Jack was about to push himself up Samira moved behind him.

“Er, yeah, sure. No problem,” she said, pulling off her gloves and listing off post-care instructions from instinct. “Keep it clean and the dressing fresh.”

“Can do, Doctor Mohan. Thank you.”

Robby stepped out of the way for Mohan before walking in, staring at Jack with his hands in his pockets.

Jack found his shirt discarded on the floor and pulled it over him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Clearly,” said Jack.

“Are you avoiding her, now?”

Jack didn't need to ask who he was talking about and Robby didn't need to specify. “Course not.”

“Did she do something?”

“No.”

“So what was all that? Back in trauma?” asked Robby. His eyes were beady, waiting to pick up on any shift in Jack or anything that might betray him. But Robby wore his heart on his sleeve. He might think he doesn't or thinks he's good at hiding such emotions away but Jack and everyone else sees them anyhow.

Jack had his heart buried deep down. “I dunno, man,” he huffed, ignoring the burning sensation as he pulled his shirt back over him. “Maybe I just didn't feel like joking around when my buddy was bleeding out on the table.”

Robby shook his head, eyes creasing. “People bleed out all the time.”

Jacks lips pursed as he worked on tucking his shirt back into his pants. Anything to keep him occupied and averted from Robby’s knowing gaze.

“I haven’t seen you this worked up since you first met her,” he teased.

“Now I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Abbot grumbled.

Robby chuckled low in his throat, leaning back on the wall comfortable like he was watching his favourite show. “When two consenting adults like each other very much-”

“I don’t,” said Jack, abrupt. “I don’t… like her.”

“Jack, c’mon-”

Jack turned to Robby. He considered his confusion. Sure, you were a great doctor and even better on the field. Something about the chaos seemed to focus you, bringing out your best self. You were funny, even at the worse times.

“She’s not it for me,” he said, trying to mean those words.

Your smile first thing in the morning didn’t warm him. The fact you knew his coffee order after only two days of working together didn’t make him feel special. You were incredibly intelligent. Beautiful.

Jack twisted and turned around his wedding band.

Robby watched, heaving a sigh. “Brother…”

Jack couldn’t keep you in his heart when his dead wife still held a place there. It wasn’t fair to you.

“She’s not it, Robby.”

“And why not?” He asked, pushing and prodding against his bag of lies like he knew he was carrying it.

“She’s different- we’re two different. You know with my- with my wife we worked. She wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t throw her life away on field missions. She wasn’t… she wasn’t ruthless, she was soft. Perfect for me.”

He pressed down against the metal band branding him.

“You’re not gonna give yourself a chance to be happy because she’s not like your wife?” Asked Robby.

Jack glanced back at him. “I know what works for me. I can’t be with someone as loud or… bash. She’s-she’s brutal, you know.”

Robby nodded but there was a furrow between his brows. “We all have our own ways of dealing with things.”

“Her way is drinking every weekend, out with the guys, there’s no healthy habits there,” argued Jack. Why he was arguing about you with Robby he didn’t know. Why he was defending himself with words that fell like led on his tongue he had no idea.

“Okay,” said Robby in a way that marked defeat.

But Jack didn’t believe what he was saying. He heard himself and frowned. “And I don’t even think she’s a person who could settle down. Hmm, I mean look at her job? She’s constantly in between them.”

“She’s a sub, that’s what she does-”

“- scared of commitment,” corrected Jack.

Robby scoffed out a laugh of disbelief. “Okay, you’re in a mood or something.” He pushed himself from the wall.

“No, I’m not,” he argued a little too quick and a little too harsh to be okay with what he was saying. “She’s a good person she’s just not my person. You know she-she doesn’t even like flowers, who doesn’t like flowers?”

“She’s more than a good person, Jack,” said Robby with an air of defeat about him. With one last look back to Jack he left, closing the door gently behind him.

In the seconds the door was open Jack sort a peek out. You were at the nurses desk, leaning over a tablet, the blue glow illuminating you. There was a troubled look to your face, scrunching your brows and marring your usual unflappable gaze. Jack almost wanted to see the chart himself and ask what was bothering you, but he knew you never told him, only ever let it be yourself that saw your problems.

Another thing he couldn’t stand. You’d never ask for help.

Even if, Jack couldn’t admit it out loud, he’d help without an invitation too.

You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised, yet doctors ran on hope. Without hope trauma rooms became morgues and body’s became empty vessels. You’d built hope into your system, kept somewhere between your heart and stomach.

That’s why you felt it plummet.

She’s not it for me.

There was no intention to listen in on a conversation that clearly you weren’t supposed to know about. You'd just been passing by when you heard your name from Jacks mouth. That was enough to stop you in place. If your feet weren't frozen you would have moved, made yourself busy or call up to surgery to check on Hiro.

But as Jack went on your heart plummeted.

She's brutal.

It wasn't until you heard Robby defend you that you moved away, hiding with your back to the exam room and hunching over a tablet that held no chart.

You'd always assumed Jack was just harder to crack then some of the other SWAT guys. You could read most of them within days, know their moods from a glance. You'd never been able to read Jack and maybe it was because he didn't want to be known by you.

You thought seeing Hiro with a hole in his neck would be the worst thing of the day but you caught your reflection in the black screen of the tablet and resented the way things blurred around you.

She's not it for me.

“Hey-” Robby was behind you and you tucked your head into your chest. His hand squeezed your shoulder. “Central twelve when you have a chance.”

“You got it, boss.” Luckily your voice remained steady despite the waver in your throat.

Robby gave a nod and left you to it.

Had Jack had hatred for you since you knew him and just never said a word? Did you do something for him to harbour these feelings?

Besides from not being his wife.

The door closed again and on instinct you looked over your shoulder, catching Jack adjusting his belt. He looked up and found your gaze, offering you a pulled smile.

It was like every other smile he'd ever given you.

You'd been so blind with affection to not see it. What a fool.

You couldn't even pull your lips back up, you just walked away.

Weeks went by in flashes of sleepless nights and lonely days.

The sick and injured didn't wait for you to get over yourself, instead they helped.

You offered yourself like a lamb to the slaughter in Presby and even Westbridge. You pulled doubles, catching small naps in any empty exam room or on-call room you could find. You started to learn staff names when you'd never cared before.

A group of nurses at Westbridge even invited you out for drinks.

“Drinking every weekend, out with the guys, there's no healthy habits there” you remembered Jack's voice and declined their invitation.

When SWAT called you had an excuse. A plumber was coming around... you were re-modelling; suddenly your apartment was going through half a dozen makeovers and all your childhood friends were visiting.

“You know you're not a very good liar,” Diaz had said when he called you for a drink and you declined. That day you were taking your mom's dog to the vet (your mom was a cat person and in another state)

Your apartment became a cave and you became a shell of yourself, un-ironically listening to the high school musical soundtrack and crying.

And still you couldn't find it in yourself to be angry at Jack. Of course he wouldn't want you- he had a wife. And a memory of that wife to keep him walm. What could he do with you? If you weren't his type, you weren't his type. If it was just that maybe you could have moved on.

But he didn't like you as a person and that stung more.

You didn't know how long it had been since you were last at PTMC, only long enough that you started to scramble corridors in your mind and forget what some of the nurses sounded like.

“We have a mass casualty event,” said Robby on the phone one Sunday morning. His voice sounded different, but you supposed time played tricks on your memory. “School bus incident. You in?”

You were in pyjamas at home, some crappy tv on low. “I'll have to check, Presby might need me.”

Robby scoffed down the line. “Have they called yet?”

“Well, no-”

“Then get your ass over here.”

“Robby-”

“Please, please get your ass over here,” he said down the line, sighing heavily. “I.... I could really use another set of hands.”

Robby didn't say please. Ever. So how could you say no.

Within the hour you were dressed an,d thrown into the anarchy.

You got through the ambulance doors, was thrown a gown and got to work. You didn't even see Robby to let him know you were there, you just found Langdon and worked beside him.

“I need some help over here!” yelled out a paramedic.

At once you and Langdon were at her side, pushing along the gurney.

“Kid, fracted tib-fib, pupils mid range and sluggish- couldn't get a line we had to intubate.”

“Dana what's open?” called out Langdon.

“Room in trauma one!”

Mass casualty meant trauma rooms doubled up, pushed up against either wall. Mass casualty meant extra hands called in- like you. Still, when you pushed through the door and found Jack's eyes look up you spared half a second in apprehension.

“You're here,” was all he said.

You didn't know what to say. There was some snarky comment on the tip of your tongue as you settled the boy in the corner but you remembered you weren't supposed to be that person.

Jack didn't like that person.

“Yeah, in the flesh,” replied Frank instead.

“Chest trauma on the right!” you assessed. “We need an X-ray in here.”

“X-ray's backed up,” Jack called from where he hovered over another patient.

“Then get me an ultrasound!” you called out. “Push five migs of epi down the tube and hang a unit of O-neg on the rapid infuser.”

“BP'S eighty over fifty, pulse is at one-twelve!” called out Princess.

You felt someone bump in your shoulder and knew by inhale it was Jack. He was close at your side, pulling off and on another pair of gloves.

“What have you got?” he asked.

It wasn't instinct to move away from him. It was practised control that had you swapping sides with Frank, practically pushing him into Jack.

“Chest trauma to the right, he's tacky,” he explained quickly.

You pulled out your stethoscope, listening closely. “His breathing's stridor, I need a thoracotomy tray!”

“A thoracotomy?” asked Jack, voice oddly quiet in the trauma as if it was whispered just next to you. “You sure you can handle that?”

“I'm a good doctor, if I'm nothing else,” you bit out, swinging your stethoscope back around your neck. You weren't going to allow yourself to fall back into old habits, of questioning what Jack didn't like so much about you. You focused on the un-conscious boy under the mercy of your hands. You ordered the right tools, made the cut neat and precise, pushing more pain relief.

“Any tamponade?” asked Jack.

You checked the boys blood pressure. “No, pericardium's dry.”

“Okay, start an-”

“- start an internal massage-”

You and Jack said at the same time.

Frank seemed stuck in headlights before he reached through the incision in the boys chest and slowly started to work the heart.

“Pulse?”

“Barely.”

Jack frowned, looking over at your work. “Cross clamp the aorta, and push another mig of antropine.”

“I need suction!”

“Got anything for surgery?” asked a new voice, Doctor Walsh checking between the patients in the room.

“Oh no, we've brought the OR down to us,” said Jack.

Doctor Walsh rounded, catching the suction and the message of the heart. “Are you doing a thoracotomy right now?”

“Don't look at me,” said Jack, surrendering.

Before anyone could argue with you, question your capability you snapped out. “I know what I'm doing!”

Jack was silent, Frank smirked and Walsh rose a brow.

“Clamped,” said Princess.

“Someone push in another of antropine and get another unit of blood in,” you ordered.

There was a sudden buzzing as all eyes averted to the monitor.

“He's going into V-fib!”

You wiped your bloody and gloved hands down your gown. “Okay, I need internal panels!”

They were handed to you and Jack rushed to your side.

“You want me to-” he started but you already had the panels in hand and were ordering their charge.

“Charge to thirty! Clear!”

Like you were cupping the heart with your own hands you nudged the panels on either side and shocked. There were little miracles sometimes in the ED and with a bus full of school children you needed miracles.

“There! He's stable!” said Princess.

“We've got a girl coming in, needs stabalising and an ortho consult!” said Lena, throwing the door open. It seemed everyone had been called in.

“I'll take this guy, don't want you getting all the credit,” smirked Walsh as she and the team wheeled out the boy. She looked back at you, almost waiting for you to say more- some funny joke or flirtatious tease.

You only waved past her to get the young girl into the room.

Everyone in the room looked at you as you honed in on the next casualty, ignoring the pang in your heart at Jack's gaze.

When the girl for ortho came in you could only work on stabilising her before Park the Shark descended and took her up, assuring the bag was on ice. He gave you a less ten friendly look. Seemingly Jack wasn't the only one who couldn't stand you.

The hours ticked by in bodies of different kids, in shades of blood and traumas. By the time you got outside for some fresh air it was night and one lonely ambulance sat with you.

You were catching your breath when you heard the doors slide open and shut again. You imagined it was someone else wanting some peace and air, or a paramedic heading back out on the road.

“You were impressive in there,” said Jack, coming to stand next to you. There was a large enough gap that another body could have fit there.

“Thank you.”

He gave one short nod. “Robby call you in?”

“Yeah.”

“Same here,” he said, not that you'd asked. “You know, Hiro's doing well.”

You paled in the night. Lost in your own self-loathing you hadn't even asked about Hiro, or gone to see him. You'd heard he was okay when he dropped a message from the ICU but that was as far as it got. “Oh yeah, I know, I heard.”

“What, from the guys?”

You nodded, lips pursing as you crossed your arms over your chest in the light chill.

“You know they told me you haven't been around much,” said Abbot. “I've noticed it too. We all went to Larry's the other night, your invitation get lost?”

Was it a test? Was it a joke to him?

“No, I just didn't want to drink. Trying to cut down, it's not so healthy,” you said, kicking one foot in front of the other.

“One or two's not bad,” he said. “Couple of us are gonna grab a beer once this is all over. You joining us? Usual spot.”

She's brutal, you know.

You looked to him first. He was already looking at you, eyes creased like he was trying to see through you. It was real and earnest and making his words from weeks ago hurt even more.

“No thanks, Jack.” You almost reached to his shoulder but thought better of it.

Heading back in seemed the safer option.

Jack turned when you did. “Noody's seen you for weeks-”

“- I've been busy-”

“- except those nurses in Presby, they see you all the time apparently-”

“- they've been busy, they've called me in-”

“- I called you three times last week, you didn't answer-”

“- I didn't think you'd want me.” It was about the only honest thing you'd said in weeks. Your trainers squeaked on the ground just before the hospital, the automatic doors ready to welcome you back.

Jack was at your side, close enough you could see the lines of confusion in his face. “Why would you think that?”

You tried to think of a quick excuse but every word died prematurely in your throat. You chocked on them.

“Hey-hey-” Jacks hand fell to your back, soothing it in calming rubs.

You allowed yourself to bask in one circular motion of his hand and your back before you stepped away, backing up from the doors that slid shut again on instant.

“What’s going on?” Asked Jack, following in your steps.

“Nothing, nothing.”

Jack made a disgruntled noise. “C’mon, talk to me.”

He let you think about what to say, stewing in silence where your mind became alive with everything he’d said, with every terrible thing you’d already thought about yourself. You imagined every time you’d cracked a joke that was maybe too perverse. You tried to picture Jacks face but came out blank. Was it loathing? Contempt?

Your voice betrayed you with a shake as you spoke again. “I do like flowers.”

“Huh?”

You wiped at your eyes and turned to him. “I like flowers,” you said, stronger. “Nobody’s ever brought me flowers but I- I like them.”

For anyone else it would’ve took time to click. They’d have stood there, looking at you like you’d gone mad, spewing out words that out of context meant nothing.

But Jack was not just any other clueless guy. He was the guy who always packed left overs and left them in the fridge, he always cooked enough to make sure he’d have left overs. He was the sort that always checked in on pedes patients and made sure they had enough colourful bandages for them.

Jack knew what you were saying immediately. His jaw tensed. “I- I shouldn't have said that.”

“You said a lot of things,” you said, holding yourself tighter. “Sounded like you meant them.”

He gulped. “I didn't mean-”

“-what, for me to hear it?”

“No, I didn't mean for what I said to come out as- as bad,” he said.

“Well it didn't come out as shining praise either.” You turned from him, looking out to the building and lights. Somewhere n the distance a siren wailed.

“Robby- Robby was saying things, teasing, I just waned to shut him up.”

You chuckled with loathing. “No you didn't. It's okay, Jack, you don't have to like me, I just wish you didn't make it seem like you did.”

“Hey!” he said, coming to stand in front of you. He was without a scrub top and his t-shirt clad to his biceps, his muscles flexing as his jaw worked. “I do like you.”

You rolled your eyes. “No you don't.”

“I do-I do-” Jack grabbed the top of your arms, stopping you from walking away. His grip was tight, not enough to bruise but enough to beg you not to leave. “I do like you.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does, it does.” Jack crouched enough in his knees to get a look at your face that you kept trying to turn away from him.

“You know the worst thing is? It's that I know,” you uttered, voice quiet. You didn't trust yourself to shout- even if you really wanted to- in fear your voice cracked, humiliatingly.

Jack's eyes softened, his thumb drawing up and down in comfort. “Know what?”

“I know that I can be a lot. I go out with the guys, I drink, I make jokes when things get bad because what else am I supposed to do? Cry? Let the grief of the job swallow me up?”

“No. No, of course not,” he said, lips pulled down.

You hated that you still wanted to make him smile. “I could keep a job if I wanted to but I like meeting the people-”

“- I know, I know you do-”

“- and now I'm here defending myself to a guy who probably doesn't even want to hear it!” Trying to turn in Jack's hold was feeble, his grip was strong and he moved with you.

“You don't have to defend yourself, you have nothing to defend!”

“You know what the worst part is?”

Jack shook his head, waiting.

“It's the guy you liked and admired the most seeing everything you hate about yourself and hating you for it too.”

Jack flinched as of you'd slapped him. The chill in the air grew colder around you and all the light from the dim glow of the lamps shrunk away, leaving you and Jack in a self-made darkness. You felt his grip weaken and savoured the feel of him a moment longer.

It was only when you couldn't stomach it anymore that you retreated back into work.

Jack had fucked up.

There was no easy way of putting it. There was no clinical way of looking at it, no diagnosis to give other than he had fucked up.

He'd never heard himself speak and hated the sound of his own voice. Never caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror with tired eyes and a pale expression and loath to see the sight. When he looked at himself, all he saw was your own face heart-broken. When he heard himself talking he remembered everything he'd said.

He could have blamed it on the pain in his shoulder, the worry over Hiro, the lack of sleep he'd been struggling with for days but he had a therapist for all that. You didn't deserve that burden.

He was un-focused the following week in work. Patient satisfaction was at an all time low with him. He'd opened up to his SWAT buddies over a self-pitying pint and had been shunned.

“What's your problem?” Charlie had said, two beers deep and a haze over his eyes. “She's a fucking saint. She'd lay down her life for any one of us- what the fuck man?”

“She won't return my calls,” Jack told them. “Can you just... just call her?”

They'd refused, with good reason.

He'd tried texting his apology. He'd tried calling you in but he found from a contact at Westbridge you'd been covering nights while their attending was on holiday.

It was a brash decision to call in to PTMC and tell them he'd be late, he was running an errand. Nobody questioned him.

Westbridge was darker than the hospital he was used t, built up on top of each other but they were no less busy than himself. Patients were lined up in corridors and there was hardly a seat left in chairs when he walked through.

“Can I help you?” asked the nurse at reception, eyeing Jack and the bouquet of flowers he held.

He said he was looking for you.

“She's in a trauma right now, can I take a message?”

“Can you tell her Ja-Jack's here.” For a moment he debated lying, saying it was Robby wanting to see you, or maybe you didn't want to see Robby either. Deceit wasn't going to be his friend.

Jack waited and tried not to look around, tried not to let himself get caught in the heavy bustle of another hospital as he waited for you. He ignored the coughing from the waiting room that definitely sounded like it would require a chest CT.

There was a crash of doors and he caught sight of you rushing out, protective goggles over your eyes and bloodied gown clad to you.

“Jack, what is it? Are you okay?” your eyes were frantic, searching him.

Ah. Of course you'd think something had happened. When you hear someone's in the hospital it's very rarely to just say hi. “I realise I should've specified,” said Jack, rubbing the back of his knuckle against his brow. “I just- I wanted to see you. And give you these.”

Sensing this was a conversation she definitely wanted to be around for yet probably wouldn't be allowed to, the nurse at reception left the two of you to it and Jack sat the flowers down on the counter in-between you.

You eyed the shades of red roses, of yellow tulips, the violet of the iris and the pink of the peony.

“I didn't know what you liked so, I kind of got one of everything,” he said, sighing to himself. He should have got two of every flower the florist had on hand. “I didn't get Lilies, the lady at the shop said it's a show of death and sunflowers aren't in season, apparently.”

“They're very nice, thank you,” you said.

“They come with an I'm sorry:” said Jack. “I'm sorry.”

You wet your lips and pursed them, nodding slowly. “Okay.”

Jack looked down to his boots. “It's not, I know it's not, nothing I said is okay and I didn't mean it.”

You didn't say anything at that, only taking in a quivering breath.

He ignored the irritation in his prosthetic as he crouched to catch your gaze. Jack wasn't used to having to search for your gaze, usually he always found it already on him. He only realised how much he valued finding you in the middle of the storm when you wouldn't look at him.

“I didn't mean it,” he enunciated every word, begging you to hear them.

Your gaze studied around Westbridge, hoping for a distraction.

“I messed up, it's on me. It's not you.”

“The classic it's not you, it's me?” you dismissed.

Jack winced. It was cliché, damn him. “Yeah, I guess so.”

He watched as your fingers brushed over a flower petal, picking it off like plucking a string on a guitar. He felt his heart pound in his chest.

“Can I get back to work now?” you asked, gently.

What was he thinking? Turning up to where you were tying to do some good. Where you were doing good- it was what you did. Did he expect the flowers to fix everything? No. Only he could. But he'd grovel, he'd beg, he'd crawl after you for the rest of his miserable life and do it all while building you a rose garden.

He'd do all of that for one minute of your eyes on his.

“Just promise you'll come back. To the Pitt. Whole place is going to crap without you.” He tried to joke but it was a pathetic thing.

“Okay. Yeah.” Your shoulders lifted in in-difference.

“And don't ignore the guys. They're going out for drinks tomorrow night. I won't be there. They all pretty much think I'm a dick anyway.”

There was a glimpse of a smile.

Jack played on. “I'm a total, total dick, a jerk!”

An elderly lady being escorted by with a nurse and an IV trailing her paused and glanced his way.

“Sorry,” he uttered.

You hid your chuckled behind your mouth but he caught a second of it.

It was enough for now.

Your name was called down the corridor.

“He's in V-tach!” a nurse announced before disappearing again.

“Go,” said Jack, taking himself out of the equation. “Just, please. Don't be a stranger.”

Jack wasn't lying when he said the place was going to crap without you. How they managed on shifts without your charm to work fretting family and friends down, or your terrible singing in between exams he didn't know.

Walking through the ambulance doors for his shift there was already paramedics pushing an empty and slightly blood stained gurney back into their rig. There was a crowd of elderly patients in beds and gowns left at the side and phones were ringing, drilling into his eardrums.

“Where the hell is she?” barked Robby, spotting Jack and no you.

Jack dumped his bag at the counter. “What happened here?”

“Nursing home caught fire, now where is she? We're swamped her, I thought you were going to get her and bring her back?”

Jack grumbled, frowning at the counter. “She's busy at West.”

“West? God-” Robby groaned, looking around the place and cursing. “Listen, I don't care what you have to do to make it up to her, buy her a florist, give her a ring, get down on your knees, I don't fucking care- I need her here.”

“You think I don't?” Jack snapped.

Robby eyed him, hand clenched on the counter. “Tell her the truth-”

“-Robby-”

“-no, you tell her you didn't mean a damn thing you said. That you were scared loving someone that isn't your wife.”

Glass. Jack was made of glass. If Robby could see through him so clearly why couldn't you? Why couldn't you see the truth? That Jack liked you, liked you more than he'd liked anyone. That loving you meant leaving the life he lived with his wife behind, yet carrying a part of her with him always. He didn't want to do that to you. He didn't want to make you live with a ghost or carry his grief. There were days where it was too hard for him to handle.

Robby sighed. “You think she'd want you to be happy?”

A muscle in Jack's neck tensed as he went to nod but was held back by himself.

“Talk to her,” said Robby clamping him on the shoulder quickly before disappearing.

Hiding away wasn't going to solve anything. That's what Robby said to you in a desperate plea to get you back to helping him out with shifts.

Truth was you weren't hiding away... as much.

Drinks with the guys had been hours of them telling you Jack was wrong, after Jack had exposed himself to them, laying the situation on the table. As promised, he wasn't there but every conversation revolved around him so much so it felt like he was at your side. You defended Jack when they argued against him. You told them you knew you were loud at times, maybe you shouldn't joke around as much as you did.

They'd laughed, thinking it was a joke itself.

They told you not to change.

It was hard not to. Every time you heard yourself get loud or get a look from people at the other table your instinct was to shrink. When Diaz tripped on the curb out the bar you laughed instead of helping him and was left with your own guilt when you got home.

Un-learning habits was hard. Learning to live with them was harder.

You started with baby steps. A day shift here, a day shift there, by hand-offs you were always gone. Yet, in the staff lounge there sat a fresh bouquet of flowers every morning. As soon as they started to wilt another fresh bunch was placed over night.

Nothing was said. Nothing ever had to be.

“Shen's out, food poisoning,” said Robby over the phone another day. “You know I wouldn't ask if there was no otherway.”

Which was how you ended up working a night shift. The first in months.

Jack's eyes lit up as you walked in, it was impossible not to notice. The only eyes to rival his sparkle was Lena's when she saw you.

It was the sort of night that held your attention. That roped you in and demanded you listened. Not overly busy but not quiet enough to cause you and Jack to be held captive in the same room. Only seconds passed in hallways when he looked like he was going to say something before being called away, taunt in the neck and gripping his stethoscope for the life of him.

“Am I going to need surgery?” asked the young boy in five who you were examining. A nasty accident in his dad's garage ended up with a laceration to the foot.

“Not surgery but a couple stitches to bring the skin back together, and you're gonna have to stay off your feet for a while,” you said.

The boys eyes grew wide in joy. “So, no school?”

You chuckled as his mom pinched his shoulder playfully. “Well, I can't be the deciding factor on that, I'm afraid.”

You put in the orders for stitches.

“Is it gonna hurt?” asked the boy, shrinking back in his bed.

“We're gonna numb you up so you don't feel anything,” you assured. “Tell you what, I have a secret stash of candy that I only share with my favourite patients, how's that sound, you want something?”

The boy tried not to be too eager in his nodding but it took less than two second for him to grin.

You didn't expect anyone in the lounge when you went in search for candy usually lying around.

Jack was hunched over the table, pulling out the dying flowers and arranging fresh ones. He stopped when you walked in, the door closing gently behind you. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“I was just... maintenance,” he mumbled.

You nodded along, a thick awkwardness engulfing the two of you. “Maintenance... yeah... sure...”

You moved around him, keeping a good distance around the space of him like he was a poisonous snake. The cabinet was high up, the tin an old sewing one where you hid your most precious protein bars and sugar packed candy.

“Here, I can-”

His body was sturdy against the back of you as he reached up for the tin. Few select people were allowed to know about its contents and Jack was on of the first ones you trusted. He raised his arm and you watched the freckles along his arm move and ripple. Upon inhale you took a deep breath of lingering cologne, mixed with the hearty sterile hand wash of the ED.

Jack's own head tilted down and your heard him inhale, deeply.

The tin fell into your hand.

Jack stared down. “Oh- er, there.”

“Thanks.”

It was about all the conversation you got with Jack your shift was over. The morning was just breaking through the clouds at six, bringing with it a down pour. You'd already punched out, handed off your patients to McKay and was left standing under the small awning of the ambulance bay, trying to out wait the rain.

It took ten minutes for Jack to follow you out.

“You heading out?” he asked, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Yeah. I'm just waiting for my uber.”

Jack frowned. “What happened to your car?”

“It's in the garage.”

“Well... I can give you a lift,” he suggested.

The rain hammered down harder above you, steady streams falling from the awning to at your feet. As discreet as possible you checked the location on you uber. Just around the corner. In the rain it had taken longer.

“No, it's okay, you don't have to.”

“I'd like to,” said Jack, stepping closer. “I'd like a chance to talk to you. To tell you everything that I meant by my words.”

You'd almost hoped you could carry on as you were: extremely avoidant.

“You don't have to, Jack.”

“I do- I do!” he insisted, hands out in front of him as if desperate to grasp you. He held himself back. “Please let me.”

Stomaching more of his words, whether it be excuses as to what he meant to say or just doubling down and insisting what he said was true. You didn't think you were strong enough for either.

Your phone buzzed in hand as a slick back black car pulled up, window rolling down and calling your name.

“No, wait-wait!” said Jack, holding a hand up to you with all the authority of an attending still on duty.

“Jack, what are you-” You were struck in place, watching him lean through the window, rain dampening his shirt as he un-folded a few bills and handed them to the driver.

“We don't need you know, sorry man,” Jack mumbled.

Your jaw hung open as you stepped out into the rain, bottom of your scrub pants dampening at once. “What?”

The driver tutted. “I still want me five star review!” He drove off quickly, splashing the two of you as he went.

“Oh- serious?” Jack gritted. “Now I wish I hadn't given him such a tip.”

The puddles of rain were seeping into your trainers as you walked off, out of the way of ambulances and cars, pulling your jacket tighter around you.

“Wait! Wait!” Jack called after you, boots slapping in the water. He all but jumped in front of you, stumbling lightly at the shift in his bad leg. “Wait.”

“I don't know what else you want to say to me, Jack?”

“Nothing I say can excuse what I said-”

“-so why try?”

“Because it's killing me being like this!” he snapped. The rain was pouring down, falling down his cheeks and nose. “It's killing me to look for your smile and not see it. It's killing me to hear a joke and you not laugh. Everything I said, it-it re-plays in my head and I'm sorry.”

“I know you are, Jack, I just need time!”

“I'll give you time,” he said. “I'll give you anything you need. But just let me say one thing. You owe me nothing, I'm begging you.”

To prove a point Jack crouched, starting to get down on his knees, hands already clenched together. To spare you the embarrassment and him the ache in his leg you tugged him back up.

He stared at you, breathless. He was as drenched as you, the both of your scrubs stuck to you.

“I haven't loved anyone since my wife,” said Jack. “I haven't tried, I didn't want to try. I was... not happy, but content to just carry on with her here-” he curled a fist at his chest. “And then you... and I couldn't not feel anything for you. I tried- I really tried.”

“Okay. You tried. I get it,” you mumbled.

“But I started to love you and I hated myself for it. It felt like I was betraying her by wanting someone else. By wanting you. And I did- I do want you. Every terrible joke you made, Jesus, I couldn't laugh in front of patients and their families. When you go out drinking with us and the guys in our team and you sing karaoke badly-”

“Excuse me?”

Jack winced. “I mean great, great karaoke.”

You chuckled.

“I can't take back the fact you're different from my wife, you are, but I don't think that's a bad thing- it's not. Because I still love you. I love that you're loud, I love that you draw attention to yourself as soon as you walk into a room, my attention is always on you anyway,” he smiled, sadly. It was the kind of smile a lover would give as they watched the love of their life leave them. “I shouldn't have made my grief your problem. I shouldn't have hated myself for feeling love again and I shouldn't have tried to convince myself hating you. I mean, that was just- just impossible.”

You looked down to your trainers, seeing the darkening colour where the water soaked in. “I've loved you for so long now, Jack.”

He waited, catching his breath, for more.

You looked up at him. “I'm sorry. About your wife. I can't imagine how hard it is for you. But I don't want to fall in love with a man who constantly advertises me next to his wife.”

Jack nodded, looking down.

The rain was probably helpful, hiding any tears you'd give away.

“I love you, separate to how I love my wife. And I loved her, I did. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life dead inside. Be on my death bed when I'm eighty looking back at all the times I should've kissed you.”

His words pulled at your heart, your feelings that you'd been burying deep inside clashing together inside of you.

“By the time you're eighty, I'll be like, in my sixties?” you said.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“And looking to settle down.”

Jack laughed, and you laughed and for a second that was almost enough. The rain had made the grey in his hair darker, almost making him look younger. “I'm not saying I won't fuck up, I probably will, I have a therapist for a reason.”

“Therapy is good,” you said.

Jack's eyes were lighting up slowly with every teasing comment you made. Something akin to hope flickered between the two of you. “But I will never draw comparison to you and my wife. I'll never make you feel like second choice. I'll never dump my grief onto you. If you just give me one chance, just one chance at making this right.”

As sorry's went... as love confessions went.

“I'm scared what it means to love you, Jack,” you said, slowly, feeling the words around your mouth.

“I know, I know,” Jack reached over, clumsily brushing back your damp hair from your cheeks. In spite of the rain, his skin was still soft and hot on you. “I am too.”

You searched his eyes before whispering. “Can I kiss you?”

He smirked a little. “No.”

Your heart dropped.

Jack's hands tilted your head back before you could tuck yourself away. “Can I kiss you?”

His lips were slick and wet from rain but no less sort after from you. He didn't push or prod for more, he just laid his lips against yours with enough pressure for you to know he was there. For you to always remember he was there.

You could have stayed like that for hours, practically standing on each others toes as your own hands came up to clutch his biceps, fingertips digging into his freckles.

You pulled away only when you needed to catch your breath.

Jack's lips chased yours, body tumbling into you slightly as his eyes took seconds to open like coming out from a dream.

You ran your hands up his shoulders. “I love you.”

He closed his eyes and soaked in the words.

“Will you let me?” you asked.

“Always,” he promised.

When you’ve finished your consultation, you scan the ED until your eyes land on the head of tousled gray curls you’ve been seeking out. You swish across the floor, thankful you don’t have to wear the frumpy scrubs all the doctors do down here, and tap him twice on the shoulder. “Hi, Dr. Abbot, could I talk to you for a second?”

He turns to you and his eyes widen. It takes a second to manually narrow them back to normal again. You’re definitely not dressed inappropriately for the workplace in a vertical-striped buttondown and high-waisted slacks – hell, you’ve even got your white coat on, unlike the doctors in the Pitt – but the way you’ve accentuated your waist with a belt and your hips with nice tailoring and- Fuck, he’s making eye contact with your tits, isn’t he? Too many of those damn buttons undone. He snaps his eyes up to yours quickly, hoping you didn’t notice when you undeniably did. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Oh, right!” You laugh at yourself as you tug your badge away from its reel on your waist, presenting it to him. He reads your name and title carefully, mostly shocked to see that anyone at the hospital has managed to get a good staff ID picture. “I’m the chief attending in OB/GYN. Started six or so months ago over the summer. I’ve been down here a handful of times for consults, but I think we’ve always just missed each other.”

He can’t even stop the inappropriate remark from tumbling out before he asks, “Aren’t you a little young to be a chief attending? Ours is ancient. I mean, Jesus, are you even thirty?”

You aren’t taken aback by it, though. Clearly it’s a question you’ve answered plenty of times in your life.  “Skipped two grades as a kid, took all APs in high school, finished undergrad in two years, did an accelerated MD at Rutgers, residency and then attending at Presby in New York. Montgomery retired here and I got the call.” With a giggle he definitely doesn’t mind the sound of, you add, “And Dr. Robinavitch isn’t ancient. He’s keeping it tight. Half my nurses have a crush on him.”

Right on cue, Robby whizzes through the hub to grab another chart and claps his eyes on you. “Pretty sure I've told you to call me Robby a hundred times now.” He smiles as soon as your gazes lock, which makes Jack even more curious about you; Robby isn’t exactly quick to warm up to doctors in other departments. “Doc Prodigy, it’s good to see you. Here with the commoners for a consult?”

You give him a friendly, practiced smile to disguise how your heart rate jumps at his attention, and reply, “Dr. King wanted some guidance on an adnexal torsion. She’s all over it, though, as always.”

“Probably just looking for an excuse to call you.” Robby chuckles and teases good-naturedly, “She loves you. Some sort of neurodivergent mind meld thing.”

Not quite sure how you’re supposed to respond to that, you just shrug and say, “You’re lucky to have her. She’s a quick study.”

“Absolutely,” he replies as he picks up the chart Dana points to for his attention. Before ducking out, Robby gives you a pat on the arm and says, “Hope we see you again soon.”

As his memory jogs, Abbot gives you something close to a smile and whistles, “So you’re the famous Doc Prodigy. I’ve heard plenty of good things from just about everyone down here.”

That’s part’s true. Everyone does have good things to say about you. There’s definitely no need to mention that about a third of those ‘good things’ include comments about your tight little ass from Langdon and your perky tits from Santos. Now he’s got definite confirmation of the ‘hot young new OB doctor.’ The vast majority of the comments, though, have been about your big juicy mind. So that’s what he tries to focus on even when he’s close enough to smell your shampoo and notice how your eyeliner frames out your irises.

“I’m glad to hear that; I try to be helpful whenever you heroes down here need anything.” You lower your voice and ask, “Is there somewhere we could chat in private?”

His brows furrow. “You need a consult or something?”

“Or something.”

Curiosity piqued, he nods and offers, “Alright, sure, I’ve got an office down here, if you’d believe it.”

Jack’s office is clearly very rarely touched, dust covering the surfaces and no personal details in sight. He leans against his desk as you close the door behind yourself. “What can I do for you?” 

Trying to keep your voice steady, you tell him, “I’ve heard you’re a man who appreciates bluntness.”

He tilts his head slightly as he notices the slight blush in your cheeks and the way your fingers tremble at your side. “That’s definitely true. Go ahead.”

“You may know that my department has one of the more, um, forward nurses in the hospital.”

A tinge of blush goes to Jack’s cheeks, too, which makes you feel a bit better. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and confirms, “Are we talking about, ah, Valerie?”

“That’s the one.” You swallow hard and explain, “Basically, the situation is that we got to talking, she found out I’m still a virgin, I told her I want to get it over with because I hate being a highly skilled professional in gynecology with no sexual experience, and she said she could help.”

You reach into the pocket of your white coat and remove a folded-up sheet of notebook paper. Biting your lip in a way that draws Jack’s eyes straight to your mouth, you read over the list Valerie made you again and then hand it over. His eyes scrape it with surgical precision, cheeks going redder and redder by the second.

“She made me a list of people she’s both slept with and trusts in the hospital who would be good candidates for my first time, ranking them based on a cross-section of sexual ability and niceness.” Out of breath from talking so quickly, you slow down, point at the piece of paper, and tell him, “As you can see, you made the top spot.”

Jack blinks hard a few times. Processing. So many different thoughts crash around his head at once, but one thing sticks out first and foremost: “‘Niceness’? She said I’m nice?” He scoffs, shakes his head in disbelief, and mutters under his breath, “I definitely wouldn’t categorize the things we did together as ‘nice.’”

You let out a nervous giggle. “She said you were careful and thorough and kind.”

A few more blinks. He’s still staring at the list with wide eyes, surprised both by the length and by the company. His brain hasn’t even gotten around to the ‘you’re a virgin’ part of the conversation, much less the following implication. He had no idea Valerie had also hooked up with Shen, Santos, and Whitaker. And Whitaker’s higher on the list than both of the others. After a minute, he folds it back up, tucks it in his scrub top for safekeeping and future amusement, and offers, “Well, I suppose I’m glad to hear the rumor about me upstairs is that I’m kind and good in bed. Could be a hell of a lot worse.”

You nod and tell him, clear and respectful even as you rush it out, “I’m sure you can understand that, given the pace of my education and career, I haven’t exactly made sex a priority in my life, nor has there been much interest from peers and coworkers who largely saw me as either uptight or intimidating. But that doesn’t mean I’m uninterested. Actually, I’d very much like the experience not only for pleasure beyond masturbation but from a gynecological interest perspective as well since-” Snapping your hand over your mouth, you groan, “Oh god, Valerie told me very specifically not to say that.”

Jack’s still reeling as he listens to you, his brain not really allowing him to consider where this might be going because it’s too tantalizing, but at least you’ve given him something to smile about. He chuckles, “Don’t worry; the gynecological interest perspective has always been a significant factor in my desire to have sex. Lot of gynecological interest over here.”

“Right. Of course. Valerie said you’re not judgmental. That’s good.” You suck in a deep breath and continue on with your serious posture and forward momentum that Jack can’t help finding charming, “As you can imagine and probably relate to, I’m a very busy person. Definitely no time for dating apps. And, if I were going to agree to be set up by a friend or go on a date with someone I met organically, I would rather have some sexual experience to go off of first. Which leads me here. Beyond Valerie’s recommendation and your being generally very handsome, I think you would be an excellent choice to take my virginity because we’re equals in terms of hospital hierarchy, which should help us remain professional and avoid potential HR entanglements.”

After the surprise subsides, a smile flirts with the corner of Abbot’s lip as he tries hard to stop his pants from getting too tight right in front of you. It’s been a long time since a woman as gorgeous and smart as you has offered him sex on a silver platter. He’s a strange but delightful mix of flattered and shocked. “I believe that, as a chief attending, you’re technically above me, so this could be construed as you taking advantage of your position of power to get a poor old man into bed.”

Your eyes widen and you immediately stammer out, “Dr. Abbot, I definitely did not mean to offend you in any way or suggest that-”

“I’m teasing, sweetheart,” he interrupts, giving you a soft, affirming touch to your forearm. God, his hands are nice. He runs his fingers through his lovely hair and then takes a deep breath that he lets out as a long sigh. He crosses his arms over his chest and you have to swallow hard because the position emphasizes just how strong and broad he is. Still not believing how it sounds, he clarifies, “Just to be clear here, you’re asking me to have sex with you for the sake of having sex with you? One time, no strings, just sex, so that you can have some experience under your belt?”

“That’s correct.” You slip your hands in your pockets and make sure to add, “And I completely respect if this is too odd of a request for you or if you object for any reason, of course, and I would be happy to remain strictly professional moving forward if that’s the case. No need to even explain a rejection.”

“And send you right into Whitaker’s scrawny but surprisingly effective arms?” Jack shakes his head and laughs, “Not a chance. You’ve come to the right man for the job.”

You practically squeal and break into a beaming smile. “Really?”

He gives a light shrug – which, to you, is the perfect response. “I mean, sure, why not? I get it; dating is hell these days, even for sexy young people like you. You want someone you can trust, someone respectful, someone who’s not going to be a dick or ghost you after. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable, get you off a couple times, and cuddle the appropriate amount after. You’re hot, I’m hot. It makes sense. I like helping out practical women.”

“Great!” You take out your prescription pad and scribble down your phone number and address. “Come by around seven and text me when you’re on your way.”

He grins as his eyebrows fly upward. “You mean tonight?”

“Well, yeah,” you reply easily. Simply. “The whole point is getting it done. But if that doesn’t work for you, I can-”

“No, that, ah, that works for me.”

You squeeze his firm bicep. “Good, see you tonight.”

With another warm smile, you follow him out of his office and back onto the floor, where he’s whisked away into a trauma before you can even say goodbye. He still flashes you a hunky smile on his way across the ED.

As you approach the Pitt’s staff exit, you hear familiar heavy footsteps hustling behind you and then feel a large hand on your elbow. You’re already smiling as you turn to Dr. Robby. “Something I can help you with? I was just on my way out, but I can always spare a minute for you if you need one.”

His eyebrows wrinkle at your hand hovering on the glass door’s push bar. “Smoke break?”

“I don’t smoke,” you reply quickly, almost offended by the idea. “Grabbing a late lunch. I just like to eat outside.”

“Getting pretty cold for that.”

“I don’t mind the cold if there isn’t too much snow.”

After a second of internal debate, he asks, “Any chance you wouldn’t mind a tag-along? I’ve got a case I wanted to pick your brain about.”

By the time Robby’s walked and talked your ear off down the block to his favorite Mexican street food spot, though, you’ve completely forgotten he even mentioned a case. It was a weak excuse on his part, anyway, since he was just going to say something vague about ectopic pregnancies as a foot in the door to talk to you. He’s still operating under the assumption that he does need an excuse to talk to you. Usually, he can pop into any conversation he wants because he’s the boss in the ED, so everyone is looking for him all the time anyway. But you’re in an equal position, in charge of your own department, and you’re brilliant and beautiful, so he’s unsure exactly how to approach you about anything besides medicine. It’s been six months of trying to figure out how to get your attention, but something about seeing you talking so closely with Jack made Robby tired of pussyfooting around.

You’re not the kind of person who would easily admit it, but Robby definitely doesn’t need an excuse to join you for lunch, to linger for conversations, to talk with you about anything, any time. He’s the one person at the hospital who’s consistently tried to make you feel welcome. Ever since you started, he always stops to talk to you when you overlap in the halls or the parking garage, even when it makes him late to meetings. Your conversations are still mainly about work and medicine, yes, but there have been more and more moments over your last few encounters where he’s asked about your personal life, allowing himself to steal away little details one at a time.

“You’ve really never been to a hockey game?” Robby shakes his head as he finishes off his second taco, washing it down with some ridiculously sweet horchata that you also have a giant cup of alongside your elote. The two of you have ended up on a cast-iron bench by the road, watching the cars whiz by as you get a brief break from the hospital. “Pittsburgh’s a hockey town; that’s ridiculous.”

“And I’m not from Pittsburgh,” you remind him with a playful nudge. “I guess I just don’t really get the appeal. More of a baseball girl.”

“Unfortunately, the Pirates suck,” he tells you with a sigh. “The Penguins are good, though, even by non-Pittsburgh standards.”

You shrug and tell him, “I don’t really care about the sports; I just like eating soft serve out of those novelty helmet bowls. I have one from every city I’ve lived in.”

“Okay, I have two questions from that.”

“Does that mean I can ask two back?”

He snickers and sips his drink. “Yeah, sure, if you can come up with anything even remotely interesting about me to ask about.”

“I’m sure I can.”

“It’s a deal, then.” He drops his trash into the bin next to the bench and turns his attention to you seriously. “One: What’s your soft serve order? Two: Do you have any team loyalties or are you purely a hat-bowl-based opportunist?”

“One is easy. Chocolate vanilla swirl. With rainbow sprinkles if I can get them. No cherries ever, whipped cream only occasionally if I feel a little frisky.” You try to toss your trash in an arc over him but miss desperately. Robby laughs and takes pity on you by clearing the trash on your behalf. “Second, the only team I even remotely care about is the Phillies, but, even then, it’s mostly about the Phanatic.”

He nods, impressed by the choice. “I get that; he’s a charismatic guy.”

“I got a belly bump on my eighth birthday.” You give him a sideways smile. “Life changing.”

“So green feathers and a beer gut are your thing.” He smirks and stands up, helping you to your feet so you don’t slip on the ice. “I’m halfway there.”

As you two make your way back toward the hospital, you say, “My turn now. One: Why is there so much fighting in hockey anyway? Two: Did you ever play as a kid? You’re from here, right?”

“That’s three questions, doc,” he lilts, “but I’m feeling generous. Yes, I’m from here, although I left as soon as I turned 18 and did my schooling all over the place from there. But I came back for my fellowship in emergency medicine and I’ve been at PTMC ever since. Which is to say, yes, I played hockey as a kid, just like every other tall-ish boy under the age of 13 who grew up here. Now I’m more of a ‘basketball with Jack’ guy. Less shoving that way.” Then he gives you a curious glance and tests, “And how much can I talk your ear off about hockey before you get bored? I could go on about it all day.”

“I collect dictionaries, Robby, I’m very difficult to bore.”

“I have about a thousand questions about that.”

“You can ask two.”

Jack texts you when he gets off work: Condoms? I can stop by a drug store on my way over.

The next text is a screenshot of a clean STI panel from that day, results likely unethically rushed by the lab at his request. That makes you giggle as you look it over, knowing exactly what he’s asking.

You text him back, No need. I got a Nexplanon implant to stop my periods.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Your breath catches in your lungs. Eventually just one word: Great.

By the time Jack knocks firmly on your door a few hours later – right on time – you’ve got your skin exfoliated and moisturized, your apartment spotless but warm, and your appearance exactly as you’d wanted. You’d opted for utterly cute and sexy; it’s not like there’s any pretense about why he’s coming over. Skimpy satin camisole and tiny fluttery shorts. Petal pink with black lace edges. The bunny slippers might mess with the allure a little, but you don’t like walking around barefoot.

You open up the door and find Jack in a black tee and gray sweats. You can see the imprint of his dick, half hard just at the knowledge of what he’s here for, against the fabric. Fuck, he looks good.

And Jack’s thinking the exact same thing as he takes you in. He hisses in a sharp breath and shakes his head. “Holy shit.”

You give him a bashful smile and open the door wider, gesturing for him to come in. “Something wrong?”

He steps into your apartment and keeps his eyes locked on you. “No, not at all, just, ah, well, you look hot as fuck.” With a shrug and a chuckle, he admits, “No other way to say it.”

You point your toe and tease, “The slippers are working for you?”

That makes him grin as he glances around the small space, taking in the few details of you to be found in the neat and tidy decor. “Weirdly, yeah. They’re cute, like you.”

“I was going more for sexy, but that’ll do.”

With a cocky little smirk, he replies, voice low and gruff, “Trust me: You’re pulling off both.”

“Thank you.” It’s impossible not to blush under Jack’s attentive gaze. “Can I grab you something to drink? I thought maybe we could talk a bit so I can, um, relax, if that would be alright.”

“You’re in charge, gorgeous,” he says casually, as if that isn’t the most reassuring thing he could’ve said. “I’d kill for a beer after the shift I had today, if you’ve got it.”

You grab one from the fridge and a wine cooler for yourself, popping off both the caps against the counter in a gesture that makes Jack’s cock twitch. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Hell no,” he sighs, only half light-hearted, as he takes the beer and makes himself comfortable on your couch. You sit down next to him, close enough for your legs to touch, and he turns toward you. “I want you to tell me about you.”

“There isn’t all that much to tell,” you reply with a modest shrug.

“Yeah, right.” Jack pushes with intense eyes you hadn’t noticed the golden flecks in before. “Senior attending physician by thirty; I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say even if nobody’s ever listened.”

And the night shifts. You start to talk gradually, tentatively, meandering through points in your life you think are worth mentioning, but Jack’s earnest interest has you careening into different special interests and things you don’t get to talk about very often. He really likes listening to you and you like pushing back to hear about him and his life, too. It’s easy, like you’d hoped.

As you talk, both of you start to touch each other. It’s natural. Simple. Your fingers on Jack’s bicep when he makes you laugh. His hand on your thigh when you fall into a deep discussion, snaking closer as he turns to you, his other arm slung around you behind the couch. Every time he smiles, you think about kissing it off him.

And he must notice you glancing at his lips because he tucks some of your hair behind your ear, fingers trailing down your neck, and asks, “Have you kissed anyone?”

Your heart jumps into your throat and you tell it to calm the fuck down and be normal. Slowly, you shake your head and admit, “No.”

He toys with a lock of your hair and asks, “Ever gotten close?”

A nervous laugh escapes your lips as you tell him, “I was always the freaky genius girl. Even the other chess team kids thought I was a loser.”

Thankfully, he seems to find your laugh endearing instead of embarrassing. After a moment to steady himself, he lowers his gravelly voice, leans in, and asks, “Can I kiss you now?”

You answer by closing the space between your bodies, tugging him toward you by his shirt with an urgency that makes him laugh. You can feel him grinning against your lips, the smile fading only when he meets your hunger with his own. Jack’s lips are softer than you’d expected somehow, like rose petals against yours. He doesn’t even give you time to overthink the way your mouth tastes or the way your lips feel or anything because he’s holding you close all of a sudden, one hand on your waist and travelling around toward your ass and the other winding in your loose hair.

Jack finally breaks the kiss, giving you a few more soft ones, and gives you a moment to breathe.

Feeling a little drunk, you look down at your hand on his chest and giggle, “I can definitely see why people like that.”

“And that’s just about the least enjoyable thing I plan on doing to you tonight,” Jack flirts as his thumb rubs the divot of your waist and hip. “But, just to be clear, if you decide you don’t wanna do anything, you’ve got carte blanche to send me home. Zero pressure, zero expectations.”

“I want this, Jack.” You kiss him again, fingers knotted up in his tee, and breathe out, “I really want this.”

“Me too.” He puts on a teasing smirk and adds, “Just don’t go falling in love with me or anything, alright? I’m too busy, too old, and too grumpy for a girlfriend.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Abbot,” you tease back. “I’ve heard you’re a good lay, not a good person.”

He snorts out a laugh and grips his chest. “Oof, I’m wounded.” Downing the last sip of his beer, he stands up, extends a hand with a grin, and offers, “Shall we?”

You let him help you to your feet and then tug him over toward your bedroom, where he shoves the door open, pulls you into another heated kiss, and starts to tug at your camisole. Breath hitching a bit, you lift your arms and help him guide the shirt off your body. For the first time, someone besides the mirror or a doctor is looking at your bare chest.

Jack sucks in a sharp breath that has your heart skipping. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

Then he leads you toward your bed. When the backs of your thighs hit the familiar fabric, it all gets very real. You don’t want to stop – definitely not – but you start to get in your own head. Even as Jack’s kisses turn greedier and you meet them with full enthusiasm, anxiety starts to creep in on every avenue, your thoughts twisting to what your body looks like, what sounds you’re making or not making, what you might be doing right or wrong.

“Stop thinking,” Jack rasps against your ear, reading your thoughts in your half-stiff posture and sheepish whimpers. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. You don’t have anything to worry about.” As he guides you onto your back, he soothes, “Unless you want me to stop or slow down, I want you to leave the thinking up to me and just enjoy yourself. Can Doc Prodigy follow that instruction?”

You’re trying not to gasp as he lavishes kisses over the tops of your breasts, only occasionally barely grazing your nipples. Your chest is burning with blush and you know it has to go all the way to your hairline and back to the tips of your ears. “Historically I’m not great at turning my brain off, but I’ll try.”

“Then how about this,” Jack suggests in between kisses that trail down your stomach toward the waistband of your sleep shorts, “I want you to focus all that big old brain power really, really hard on telling me when something feels fucking amazing.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

The bastard gives you a cocky smirk that makes you swoon. He hooks his fingers beneath your shorts and tugs them down your legs, taking in the fact that you’re bare underneath them. And you’re wet. Shiny and slick and looking absolutely delicious just for him. As he zeroes in on you, positioning himself to devour you, he looks up and replies, “I’ve got a good feeling about this, sweetheart.”

Then he descends on your untouched pussy. The moment his tongue makes content with your clit, you release a moan that ripples out of your throat embarrassingly loud. When you clap your hand over your mouth, though, Jack pulls off and gruffly jokes, “Sex lesson one: Don’t ever stop yourself from making noise. Everyone loves it when they’re partner’s loud.”

“I’m sure not everyone-”

He groans around your clit and the sound gets you to shut up. The vibration rumbles your cunt and the sound of him enjoying himself itches your brain. Yeah, that’s hot as fuck. Jack gives you a pointed good girl when you let out your next whimper, trying hard not to be ashamed of your honest reactions.

You’d figured that it would be hard to cum your first time with another person, but Jack spends so much time making you comfortable and working you up that it becomes inevitable. His mouth is slow, no rush at all to his tongue, and that lets your brain shut off so your body can take charge of things. Your thighs tighten up around his head and his eyes close with ecstasy, clearly pleased to feel you getting closer and letting go. He doesn’t draw attention to it, doesn’t push you, doesn’t change anything. Like at work, he stays steady and sure, tongue firm and sweet and just right.

When your orgasm does thrum out of you, it’s gasping and bright. You swear you can feel every nerve ending in your body singing in a technicolor chorus all at once, from the bead of sweat trailing down your hairline to your heels digging into Jack’s skin as he grinds against the bed beneath you. It’s obvious just how much getting you off makes him tick.

In the aftershocks of pleasure, you start to move away from him, to make space for him to fuck you already, but he grunts in disapproval and only tightens his grip around your waist. “C’mon, hotshot, you can give me one more,” Jack growls into your pussy as you whimper and squirm. “One more and then I’ll fuck you, alright? Can you do that for me, baby?”

You nod weakly, unable to come up with anything to verbalize as you writhe in Jack’s strong arms.

He praises, planting a kiss to your inner thigh, “That’s a good girl.”

And he gets back to it. Knowing you’re still overstimulated and breathless, he keeps his tongue light as a feather, each touch focused and soft but feeling like a lightning bolt. But he adds his fingers and that sets you on fire. First just one, testing, knowing you’ve never had anything inside of you before. You tense up slightly at the newness of the sensation but then let out a relaxed, satisfied groan as he curls the pad of his finger back toward himself. There’s immense cocky self-satisfaction in his next moan as he adds another finger, knowing you’re ready to have it parting your wetness.

You’d known from your friend that Jack’s experienced and observant, but you hadn’t expected him to read your body like he’s planning to be top of his class. Every tiny breath, every grasp of your fingers in his hair, every twitch of your fluttering walls is painstakingly catalogued to intensify the experience. He studies you. His fingers work you open and his tongue gets stronger as you slide down into pleasure, far enough from your first orgasm to enjoy chasing the second on his lips.

Jack’s groans turn near constant and you start to watch the way he’s responding to you responding to him. Your bodies are in conversation. Jack’s gorgeous shoulders tense as his fingers work your g spot and you can see him instinctively, thoughtlessly rubbing his clothed cock over your mattress, lost in his own lust as he worships you. That’s the sight to push you up to the plateau again: A man so committed to eating you out that he’s humping your covers just at the thought of making you cum again.

When he feels you starting to tighten up around his fingers, his eyes open and lift to meet yours, thrilled and amused to see you gazing down at him with a hazy expression. The overwhelming wash of your orgasm forces you to break the charged eye contact, lashes fluttering shut as your back arches from the bed. You can’t stop yourself from grinding down on his tongue and he moans through it, encouraging you to take everything you can handle from him.

Jack’s lips move from your overwhelmed clit to your plush thighs, leaving cooling kisses with soft breaths as his fingers slow down inside of you, never leaving but keeping you ready. He trails his mouth over your hips, up along your stomach, and across your chest and neck again until he’s back at your mouth. That next kiss is uncompromisingly hot. You can taste your own tartness on his tongue and it sends a shiver through you.

“Are you ready?” His breath ghosts over your cheekbones and he explores your body gently with the hand that isn’t still working your pussy. “Don’t forget it’s okay if you-”

“I’m ready,” you cut him off, tugging him back up by his hair into a harsh, needy kiss. Against his lips, you breathe out a careful admission: “I feel incredible.”

He grins and nips you with one more kiss. “That’s all I want for you.”

You reach down between your bodies and, before you can even make contact, Jack’s tugging off his sweats, his need matching yours. Neither of you make a thing about his prosthetic leg; he chooses to keep it on and you don’t care either way. When he fists his cock slowly, on his knees, making sure you can get a long look, your head tilts to the side almost academically. Like you’re fascinated by the sight of seeing a completely naked man in person for the first time.

Jack gives you a smirk as he spreads your legs. “I hope that’s a good look and not a bad one. What are you thinking?”

You wrap your fingers around him and try a few tentative strokes, biting your lip when he hisses in a sharp breath. Taking in the rosy pink head and thick veins and slight curve that make your mouth water in earnest, all you can manage to say is, “It’s…pretty. Your dick, I mean.”

A laugh punches out of Jack’s gut and the sound fills your small room so comfortably. “That’s a new one, but thank you, I think.”

“Sorry, I just-” You shake your head bashfully as his cock rests on your mons, looking for all the world like it’s meant to slip inside of you, and try to explain, “You see all these different ones in porn and practicing medicine but then it’s like- God, I overthink everything. I just want you inside of me way more than I thought I would, okay? I thought it’d be more neutral, so guess, but I really, really want to know what you fucking me feels like.”

“Glad you have a healthy urological interest in addition to the gynecological one.” He chuckles, shakes his head, and lines his cock up with your wet entrance, toying the head along your clit for a second just to see you squirm. “You’re something else, hotshot.”

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“I definitely don’t.”

There’s a beat of silence, warm and safe and intense, and then Jack slowly thrusts inside of you. He’s agonizingly careful, so much so that you want to grab his hips and snatch them forward, but you appreciate his sensitivity. The stretch is easy and natural, no discomfort or pain to speak of. Only pleasure. Only desire. Only more.

Studying your features with warm hazel eyes, Jack keeps his hips still as you adjust to his girth, holds your hand above your head with his, and checks in, “Feeling okay? Not too much?”

Eyebrows pinched together and cheeks pink, you whimper, “Really good.” When he pulls back slightly and pushes in again slowly, you release a needy, throaty groan, “Fuck me.”

Jack cages you between his arms and grins like the confident bastard he is. “Yes, ma’am.” He touches his forehead to yours and growls, “You feel so fucking good.”

You gasp and wrap your fingers up in his sweat-damp curls as he starts to move properly, still measured but with more and more certainty, “Feeling’s mutual.”

And then it’s all just rhythm. He sets the tempo and you meet it with ease, your hips meeting his in a way that must definitely be working for him based on the animalistic moans he’s letting loose against your ear. His hot breath tickling the fine hairs on your neck sends you to the stratosphere; he was absolutely right when he said being loud is a turn-on. Jack is so serious and so gruff, but the way he fucks you is the exact opposite. It’s free and it’s human. No holding back.

You’ve never even cum more than once in a day before – you’re much more of a ‘one and done’ type on your own – but suddenly Jack’s working a third out of you without a second of doubt. You can tell it wouldn’t be hard for him to turn three into four or five if he had more time to learn the exact quirks of your body. His thumb is light but insistent, the pace matching his thrusts, and it becomes too effervescent to hold back a second longer. You’re moaning his name into his mouth and he’s sweating and grunting and it’s primal and intimate at once, the way you cum together, falling apart with and into and around one another.

When Jack’s finally soft and still, he leans down and kisses you gently, slowly, for a long time. He keeps you so wrapped up in affection that you barely notice how he maneuvers both of you onto your sides so he’s rubbing up and down your waist, quietly worshipping you with sweetness, tugging a blanket around you when he catches you shivering from your sweat evaporating.

In between kissing you lazily, Jack brushes some hair behind your ear and asks in a low murmur, “How are you feeling? Can I get you some water or anything?”

“Very relaxed,” you hum back. “My water is just on the bedside table if you can hand it to me.”

He reaches behind himself and presents it for you to sip on. “Your wish is my command.”

After drinking some, you stretch your arms above your head and realize just how sleepy you’ve gotten after Jack fucking your brain off. Half-heatedly sitting up and eyeing your bathroom, knowing you need to get up and pee or you’ll lose all credibility with patients, you groan, “I’m exhausted.”

“That’s the Jack Abbot effect,” he chuckles, sounding beyond self-satisfied. He stands up and helps you to your feet. “I promise you’ll sleep like a rock, though.”

“Mmm. I could definitely use that.”

He snickers as he pulls his sweats on and drinks some of your water. He’s mostly joking as he says, “My dick is yours to use any time you need some rest.”

“You can stay over, by the way,” you say as you go back into the bedroom, tug on pajamas, and yawn, “if you want to, I mean. No pressure or anything; I just know I hate driving home late at night.”

“Yeah,” he replies quietly, smiling to himself in the bathroom, “that would be really nice.”

The moment your lunch break starts, Trinity yanks you into an on-call room, where Mel, Victoria, Samira, and Whitaker have all also been dragged during a rare moment during the day when you can all leave the floor at once. It’s dark inside and it feels suspiciously like a gathering of cult members. Ever since you found out the six of you lived in the same building (which, yes, half the staff lives in because it’s the cheapest spot close to the hospital), you’ve been a group, even now that Samira’s off living with her knight in shining scrubs.

Trinity looks between you seriously, her phone screen illuminating her face from below like a horror movie villain about to give you the rules for a torture game. She announces seriously, “Guys, I have crucial intel.”

“Alright, get on with it,” Samira sighs. “Some of us have work to do and waiting in here has already taken up half my break.”

Trinity draws a deep breath and holds up her phone, showing off the screen in an arc to let everyone get a good look. “Dennis’ and my other roommate sent us these screenshots last night. I guess Robby has his settings so nobody who has his number can see it, but she did.”

You huddle around the phone as she swipes through a series of pictures, each one of your attending (and your best friend), Robby. A Tinder profile. As her thumb swipes across the screen, all of you ask questions over each other: He owns a motorcycle? And a real suit? Oh my god, is he shirtless there? Wait, he plays basketball?

While they gawk and laugh, you’re stuck on the bio that makes you smile: I’m a doctor. Not in a hot way. In an ‘I’m in therapy and you probably should be too if you want to date me’ way. Soft spot for puppies, babies, and good beer. My best friend forced me to make this when he got a girlfriend so that I wouldn’t be a third wheel. Guess I’m looking for my fourth wheel. Someone to stabilize me.

Victoria’s been standing there slack-jawed for the longest. As the baby of the group, she’s always surprised by everything. “I just can’t believe Dr. Robby is on dating apps.”

Trying not to get pathetically jealous at the idea, you reason, “I mean, he’s single. He’s attractive.”

Samira snickers, “Don’t they have an age limit on that app to protect seniors or something?”

You roll your eyes. “He’s not that old.”

“And you’re one to talk,” Dennis points out. “Dr. Abbot isn’t exactly young.”

“He’s a decade younger than Robby,” she replies. “Robby’s so old I didn’t think he could even download an app without help. He asked me to convert something to a PDF for him the other day. I find the idea that he’d meet someone from an app…charming. The way a cat trapped in a tree is cute.”

Mel crosses her arms over her chest and physically turns away from Trinity’s phone. She huffs out, “Guys, this is so inappropriate.”

Trinity glares. “You’re no fun.”

“That’s sort of my whole thing,” she cuts back. Then she nudges you and asks for backup, “C’mon, you know this is wrong.”

But you’re way too intrigued to agree with your roommate. You shrug and say, “It’s a public profile. Someone was bound to find it eventually, right?”

Mel scoffs and shakes her head. “Et tu?”

Trinity groans and makes Mel turn back around with a pointed look. She goes on, “Guys, the intel isn’t that he has a Tinder.” She zooms in on the picture of him with Dr. Abbot on a basketball court, Robby jumping to dunk the ball. You want to lick the sweat from his hairy chest. Trinity shoves her finger at the screen. “Look at this hog he’s packing. Dr. Robby has a giant dick.”

You take a closer look at the outline visible in his slinky athletic shorts. No way. You scoff and shake your head; the idea that a human man could have a dick that big seems outright ridiculous. In years of practicing medicine and being a sexually active adult, you’ve never seen one that would compare. So you shrug your shoulders up and awkwardly rush out, “That could be a water bottle or something.”

Victoria, wide eyes locked to the screen, chimes in, “Or- or just a shadow. The lighting.”

“Yeah, sure, or a massive fucking cock.”

Dennis, the reddest of everyone (he once told you about an absolutely mortifying sex dream he had about topping Robby), hisses, “Trinity, he’s our boss!”

“So?”

You step in, too. “So what are we even supposed to do with this information?”

“Well we all know what you’re going to do with it,” she says to you with a knowing, wicked grin. “You’re going to fantasize about how it would feel to take such a-”

“Trinity!” You slap your hand over her mouth. “If you bring up my crush on him one more time, I’m going to start paging you on every single bowel disimpaction that comes into the ER for the next six months. I’m working on getting over it!”

“Here’s what I’m proposing,” Trinity says seriously. She’s such a ringleader it’s not even funny. This is her circus and the rest of you are definitely her monkeys. “I say we all put in some money and the first person to get definitive proof that Dr. Robby’s packing gets the whole pool.”

“Absolutely not,” Mel says right away. She’s so serious that she shoves out of the on-call room and back to work. She never wants to play in the circus.

The rest of you stay put, though. Dennis mutters, “How much money?”

“This is high stakes,” Samira reasons. “A hundred each.”

“You’re only saying that because you have the best chances,” Victoria cuts in. “Dr. Abbot probably sees his dick every time they go to the gym together.”

“No outside interference,” Trinity adds immediately. “I like the sound of $100 each. That’s a pool of $500. Sounds pretty fair for the task at hand.”

Dennis wrinkles his eyebrows. “What if nobody does it?”

“Then we all lose out on $500.”

To a group of poor twenty-somethings, that’s pretty damn convincing.

“I’m definitely in,” Samira starts. If Trinity is the ringleader, Mohan’s the strongman. “Even if Jack can’t help, I’m smarter than the rest of you.”

Dennis punches her on the arm; he’s the group’s contortionist, always able to bend himself into ridiculous situations somehow. “Me too. I’m the only one with access to the men’s showers.”

You argue, “Then you should put up $150. That’s an unfair home field advantage.”

There’s a murmur of agreement from the other girls that makes Whitaker balk.

“Okay, yeah, I may also have a penis, but I have the distinct disadvantage of being scared shitless of Robby, unlike Samira and Santos.” Then he shoves an accusatory finger in your direction. “If anything, you have an advantage because Robby already wants to fuck you.”

You shove him in the chest. “He does not!”

“Ow, first of all.” He shakes his head and says, “How about we go no-holds-barred? Samira can use Abbot, I can use my Y chromosome, you can use your powers of seduction. Whatever.”

Victoria pouts. She’s the tightrope walker, always trying to balance the line of appropriate and otherwise. “And what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Psychological warfare,” Trinity suggests. “That’s what I’m planning.”

Samira offers, “Maybe just beg?”

“Jesus, fine,” Victoria sighs. “I’m in, I guess.”

All eyes turn in your direction. “How about you, Mrs. Robinavitch?”

And your role in this circus of idiot doctors? Well, you’re just the clown who’s been nursing a big fat crush on her attending for two years. The idea of seeing Dr. Robby naked is too appealing for you to resist. So you present your hand to the center of the circle and sigh, “I’m in.”

The bet gets out of hand right away, not that this sort of thing could ever be under control. The six of you – Mel’s invited mostly because she’s your roommate and already knows, though she’s made her disapproval patently clear – meet for beers after a long shift the following Friday. Samira clears her throat and breaks the silence, “Do any of you sure-to-be losers have anything to announce to the group?”

Trinity pulls out her phone and dramatically sighs. “Well, I really thought I had it. I made a Tinder profile of a very respectable, almost-age-appropriate lady and matched with him. Paid for the goddamn Super Like and everything.”

Victoria’s jaw detaches from her maxilla. “You catfished him?”

Trinity looks honestly offended. “Only a little!”

Dennis gawks. “Whose pictures did you use?”

“My mom’s.”

“Seriously?!” Even Samira’s in disbelief over that. “Did you at least tell her?”

“It’s not like she’ll ever find out,” Trinity reasons. “Her and my dad have been together since the Dark Ages. They’d never be on Tinder. And I used a fake name. She’s just the prettiest woman over 40 I know.”

“You’re fucked up for that,” Dennis says with an admonishing shake of his head. Then he sips his beer and presses, “So how did it go between Robby and your not mom? No luck?”

“Obvioulsy not,” she explains. “He told me in, like, the third message that he’s looking for something serious and would only have sex with someone he loves. Like, apropos of nothing. Old people are weird; I don’t get him at all.”

You swallow hard. “That’s sweet, though.”

She scrunches her nose. “Is it?”

Victoria giggles, about one cocktail too deep, “Would you rather find out our boss is a total man whore?”

“Actually, yeah,” Trinity laughs. “It’s kind of sad someone his age is still looking to settle down.”

“Hey,” you stop her, “that’s actually mean, Trin. Robby’s a good man and he deserves to be happy.”

“Sorry, forgot it’s rude to insult someone’s boyfriend right in front of them.”

Samira shakes her head and tuts then, feeling merciful on your behalf, “Poor showing, Santos. I expected better from our leader.”

“Give me another week.”

“Not if I beat you to it,” she replies with a grin. Then she nudges you with her elbow and says, “C’mon, Jack wants us to go to dinner with Robby.”

It’s not an unusual invitation – the four of you get dinner a few times a month – but tonight it catches the attention of everyone else. 

Dennis protests, only half joking, “Woah, woah, you can’t bring her if it’s going to turn into an orgy thing where she gets a quick shot at the win.”

As your cheeks turn pink, you argue, “I thought it was a no-holds-barred game, Whitaker. Your idea, remember?”

Samira gives you a conspiratorial look. “What do you say, babe, wanna go ask our boys to drop their pants in the middle of the restaurant?”

Pretending not to be as embarrassed as you are, you giggle, “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“This is so unfair,” Dennis pouts.

“Start following him into the shower, then.” Samira smiles and links her arm with yours as you get ready to walk away. “Calm down; she’s always our go-to fourth wheel. No special advantage tonight.”

“Tonight, he did that thing where he touched my lower back when he opened the door for me,” you bemoan to Mel late that night, both sitting on her bed as you stare at your laptops. “Have you ever noticed how big his hands are?”

“Can’t say I have.”

You shut your laptop dramatically. “Seriously, how am I supposed to recover from that?”

Mel shrugs like she always does. “Ask him out.”

“I can’t. He’s my boss.”

“He’s probably waiting for you to do it,” she reasons. “It would be inappropriate for him to ask you, but not necessarily the other way around. Provided you aren’t asking in exchange for any benefits in the workplace.” Then she gives you a little mischievous grin that only you and Langon are ever privy to. “Benefits besides making out in on-call rooms, of course.”

The next series of attempts comes from Samira. She decides to use her one trump card, enlisting Jack’s help. He finds the whole thing hysterical because he’s a feral child just like his girlfriend, so he agrees. Trinity insists on adding a caveat to the rules: The picture has to be on the better’s phone, taken by the better, explicitly ruling out Jack’s involvement beyond being a co-conspirator. Samira agrees and insists it’ll be no problem.

So, for two weeks, every time Robby and Jack hang out, Samira comes up with excuses to tag along and shoot her shots. She goes to the gym with them and ‘accidentally’ walks into the men’s locker room on two separate occasions, both times catching Robby after the shower but with his towel already on.

On a Thursday night all have off, you’re unfortunate enough to witness one of the efforts firsthand. Samira invited you over to watch the Penguins game with her and Robby (since the two of you hate sports and she’ll be bored out of her mind otherwise).

After three beers, Robby excuses himself to the bathroom. Only fifteen seconds later, Samira stands up, gives a salute to you both, and whispers, “Wish me luck.”

Jack grins like the dumbass he is. “Good luck, honey.”

As she walks away, you shake your head and turn to him. “It doesn’t bother you that your girlfriend is obsessed with taking a picture of your best friend’s dick?”

“Nope,” he replies confidently. There’s a cool, clear ‘she knows what she has at home’ energy to the reply. Then he puts on a meddling smirk and akss, “Does it bother you that she’s going to see Robby’s dick before you get to when she wins?”

“Jack!” You toss a pillow at him hard, causing him to spill his beer slightly as he laughs. “Y’know, it’s hard enough dealing with the teasing from the other residents. I don’t need it from you.”

“Hey, I have to listen to Robby going on and on about you all the time; it’s not easy for me, either.”

Your eyes widen into planets, but before you can ask the million clarifying questions you need to, Samira’s back, wearing a disappointed grimace. Looking solemn, she glances between you and Jack and shakes her head. “No dice.”

She tucks under Jack’s arm and he kisses her forehead. “You’ll get him next time, slugger.”

Robby emerges from the bathroom two minutes later with his face tomato red, unable to look Samira in the eyes as he takes his spot next to you once more. He mutters, “I miss anything important?”

“I wouldn’t know,” you reply honestly. Pitying his blush, you touch his thigh and ask, “Can I get you another beer?”

“Please.”

Trinity shakes her head in disappointment once Samira recounts her latest attempt in a line of failures. The three of you and Javadi are at the nurse’s station during shift change, making sure charts are in order as the night shift begins to filter in. Trinity sighs, “Maybe I should just pants him. Say it’s a prank or something.”

You snicker, “That would definitely get you sent straight to HR.”

Victoria puts her head in her hands; she hasn’t even come up with a plan yet and it’s getting to her. “This whole thing is going to get us all sent to HR.”

“Not if you never try anything,” Trinity replies.

Victoria glares. “You’re just trying to get me to back down so you get the money.”

Trinity raises her hands and laughs. “Guilty.”

Out of the corner of your eye, Robby’s tugging off his trauma gown with a frown on his lips. He’s splatterned in blood, enough that it’s gone between his mask and gloves and gown. He’ll need a shower. From across the ED, the four of you watch as Dennis rushes through a patient handover and hustles down the hall. Shooting a knowing look over his shoulder at the four of you, Dennis follows Robby into the showers.

You whisper, “Oh, god.”

“I’m gonna miss the little guy,” Trinity says seriously, shaking her head, “especially his share of the rent.”

Victoria sighs, “He made the best coffee.”

When you’re all finished and ready to leave, you and the other girls wait for Dennis by the Pitt’s doors, trying to be inconspicuous as you await his status report.

Dennis emerges, walking fast, expecting you all to meet his brisk pace. You have to practically jog to keep up until you’re a block from the hospital, well out of ear shot of anyone else. Finally, he stops abruptly and swings around to scan his periphery. His eyes are trained on his shoes. He hisses, “Rumor confirmed. Huge.”

Your cheeks burn; blush is becoming a constant state for you thanks to this stupid bet. Trinity’s mouth falls open and she shoves his shoulder hard. “Show us!”

“I didn’t get a picture.”

The whole group groans in disappointment (besides Mel, who sounds relieved). Victoria puts her hand on her hips. “Then you didn’t confirm anything. You could be lying.”

“No way I went through that mortification for nothing. I saw it.”

“Doesn’t count, Dennis,” Trinity replies with an unsympathetic shrug. “We’re talking about $500 here. Hard proof you can share with the class or nothing.”

He frowns and offers, “I can tell you that it’s the size of my goddamn forearm and he has a birthmark the size of a quarter on his hip; that doesn’t count for anything?”

Samira claps him on the back and suppresses her laugh. “You’ll have to try again, Whitaker.”

You aren’t really planning on participating. No matter how much you get annoyed at the amount of crap you get for it, you really do like Robby. In fact, it’s a lot past ‘like.’ It’s love. He’s the person you go to for advice, for jokes, for reassurance. For silence. He’s the first person you text in the morning and the last at night. You don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but you gradually went from ‘Robby’s favorite resident’ to ‘Robby’s favorite person’ over the last few years. And that relationship, whatever it is, matters a hell of a lot to you. You don’t want to damage it, even over that much money.

And then your bank account goes into the negative.

You’d run the numbers wrong on your budget for the month, a handful of bills come through at once, and suddenly you’re staring back at a deficit of more than a hundred dollars. All of a sudden, the $500 your stupid-ass friends have been dangling like a carrot in front of your nose has some real appeal.

You know that, for you, there’s really only one option. You could never, in a million years, get away with any of the sneakiness the rest of them are trying. And, yeah, sure, maybe you could go for seduction the way that everyone is prodding for you to. But you’re way too ashamed to do that for a whole host of reasons.

All you can possibly do is beg.

So you spend the whole day screwing up your courage to nut up and ask. You can’t even look at Robby while you work, terrified of the possible outcomes that could roll out in front of you. Of course, there’s the obvious: A visit to HR, fired, tarred and feathered, stripped of your medical future. Most likely, he’ll be mortified and your friendship will be ruined. Possibly, he’ll be flustered and embarrassed and never speak to you again.

Then, worst of all, there’s the idea that this might start something between the two of you. Something you’ve been dancing around for a very, very long time. Something hot and true and real.

What the hell would you do then?

Robby notices. Because of course he notices. He leaves you alone at first, hoping you’ll just corner him and ask whatever it is you’re stewing on. Then he starts avoiding you, too, because he’s wracking his brain for what he must’ve done wrong for you to be like this. He’d made a joke about pandas that hadn’t landed yesterday, but that couldn’t be it. Could it? Maybe it was how he corrected you when you set that broken nose first thing this morning. He hadn’t had his coffee yet. No. You never made a thing about work stuff.

Finally, when he sees you slip into the locker room at the end of your shift, he can’t take it anymore. After a deep breath, he closes the space between you, touches your lower back, and leans in close. “Can we talk for a second?”

You jolt back from him and stare up into his eyes. Shit, you always forget how tall he is when he isn’t doing that thing where he shrinks down to make others more comfortable. “Um, yeah. Is- What’s, ah, what’s up, Robinavitch?”

Robby scowls. “‘Robinavitch’? I don’t think you’ve ever called me that before.”

“First time for everything.” You grimace, shifting from foot to foot, and snatch your backpack from your locker. “Can we, ah, go somewhere else?”

There are a ton of emotions flashing through his eyes. Concern, curiosity, nerves. But all he says is, “Yeah, of course.”

Robby leads you across the Pitt to his office, which is totally barren except for a stack of paperwork on the desk that he clearly has no intention of doing. He flips on the light, draws the blinds, and turns to you seriously. “Alright, sweetheart, what the hell is going on? You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

You stick close to the door and stare up at the ceiling tiles, wringing your hands. “Look. Okay. This is gonna be so horrifying, alright? So just…just don’t make fun of me too much. You can make fun of me a little, but not that much, because if you make too much of a thing of it I’m never gonna be able to look you in the eye again and-”

“Woah, hey, it’s alright.” Robby reaches out and touches your elbow, stepping closer to you until you look up at him. He cups your face with one of his agonizingly large hands and you’re so embarrassed it’s unbelievable. “Whatever it is, you can trust me.”

“God, please don’t be sincere,” you whine. “You can’t be sweet, sincere, cow-eyed, gorgeous Robby right now, okay? Because I’ll have to go jump off the roof if you look like you care about me when I’m about to say something as stupid as what I’m about to say.”

Carefully, he replies, “But I do care about you.”

“Okay. Fuck. Here goes.” You duck your head, lower your voice, and absolutely ramble out, “Trinity found your Tinder profile a few weeks ago and in one of the pictures it sort of looks like we can see the outline of your dick and she said it looked really big so then we all made a bet to see who could get a picture of it to prove that you’re, um, well-endowed, and we all put in a hundred dollars as a pool for the winner and I know- I know it’s so stupid and so, so wrong, but I could really use that kind of money but more importantly I definitely can’t afford to lose a hundred dollars right now because my bank account is overdrafted which is also mortifying in and of itself to tell you because you really shouldn’t be concerned with my financial wellbeing but the fact of the matter is that I-”

“Wait, wait,” he cuts you off, “you’re telling me that’s what’s been going on the past few weeks? My subordinates have been conspiring to see my dick?”

Reaching a new shade of effervescent pink as yet undiscovered by man, you squeak out, “Yes.”

And then he starts laughing. As you blush so hard that your entire body is burning, he absolutely cracks up – to the point that he’s hiccuping, tears falling, grabbing his stomach. Doubled over, Robby wheezes, “Christ, I was starting to worry I’d have to give Whitaker a talk about how nobody will judge him if he’s gay because he keeps ending up in the shower the same time as me and then running away when he realizes I’m naked. And I’ve been terrified that Jack and Mohan might be planning to invite me for a threesome the way she’s been loitering around me. Thank god.”

Shaky relief floods your body and you mutter. “That…wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I actually don’t know.”

After wiping an amused tear from his cheek, Robby reaches out his hand and commands, “Alright, slugger, give me your phone.”

Shocked out of your mind, you reach into your pocket and present it wordlessly. When you see that he’s going for his waistband, you turn around and cover your eyes like his dick might bite you.

Robby laughs again, this time at your obvious nerves. Not discomfort, though. Nerves. He chuckles, “You don’t get extra money for seeing it in person?”

Gnawing off your lower lip, you whimper, forgetting about the rules in the heat of the moment, “Nope.”

“I’m decent now.” When you turn back, he hands off the phone, screen still open. “Go get your money. Buy me a drink or something as my share of the spoils.”

Then you look at your phone. The syllable falls out before you can stop it. Shocked, breathless. Undeniably turned on. “Oh.”

You stare down at the picture with wide eyes. Your pupils dilate, your throat goes dry, and you can’t deny that heat and wetness collecting between your legs. Yeah, that’s a big fucking cock. Even soft, it has to be eight inches – but, like, real inches, not fantasy porn inches. And thick. Dennis may not have been far off base with his forearm comparison, given that he’s beanbole skinny. That whole ‘thick as a beer can’ thing you’ve read in tons of smut suddenly seems possible if Robby can get even thicker than that when he’s hard.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, your dildo definitely doesn’t compare to the real thing, no matter how much you’ve fantasized about it while using your toys.

Robby’s amused voice is a little rougher when he asks, “What was that, sweetheart?”

Your head snaps upward hard enough that you hope your neck will break and kill you. “Please don’t tell me I just said that out loud.”

Robby cages you against the door between his forearms. “You definitely did.”

Your eyes fall to his lips. “Robby, I-”

He presses your bodies together. Your chest on his chest. Your thigh slotted between his. The smirk he’s wearing is so hot you start to melt underneath it. You might have a picture of his dick, but he’s holding all the cards. Shit, you can feel his cock through his scrubs against your thigh. He’s not even hard and you can feel how big he is. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You’re done. You’re through. Stop the timer, pull the plug, call in the guard.

He takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing you to make eye contact. With you unable to speak, Robby teases, “You what? C’mon, gorgeous, use your words.”

All you can do is whimper.

The sound you make is downright pathetic, but it only encourages Robby. His breath brushes your lips and it feels like he can see your heart beating in your neck. Then he presses his lips to the curve of your ear and murmurs, “God, I’m gonna have so much fun wrecking you.”

It takes you forty five seconds to breathe again. Finally, with Robby pulling back enough to allow you to think, you mutter, “Mel’s outside waiting for me to walk home with her.”

“Of course.” He pulls back the rest of the way, taking a deep breath. When he shakes his head, it’s almost in disbelief – and you realize he wants you. He presses a soft, knowing kiss to your forehead, strokes your cheek with his thumb, and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

And he unlocks the door behind you with his arm still around you, the sound shaking you from the stupor of his presence.

After practically sprinting to the hospital exit, you find Mel waiting in your usual spot under an overgrown oak. Gripping her arm hard, you whisper, “I’ve got the picture.”

Her eyes pop out of her head. “What?! Seriously?”

“Yes.”

You start walking, harsh and fast, toward your neighborhood, needing to do something to get this crazy energy out of your body.

She hustles to keep up with your pace. “How?!”

“I told him the truth.”

She squeals like a gossipping cheerleader. “And he took his…manhood out for you?”

“I turned around. He took the picture.”

“Wow. He must really be into you.” Then, catching your elbow to slow your walking, she lowers her voice and asks, “Are you going to send it to everyone?”

“I- I’m not sure.” You roll your eyes and groan, “He was going to kiss me. After I told him. After he took the picture. He said- he basically said that he thinks about me, y’know, like that. So now sending it to the group chat feels like sending  – god dammit – it feels like sending my boyfriend’s nudes, okay? You were right.”

She gives a self-satisfied smirk. “I usually am.”

“But I really need that money, Mel. Like ‘won’t be able to pay my share of the rent’ need it.”

“Ask Dr. Robby for it.” She needles with a cute grin, “Clearly he’ll do anything for you.” At the entrance to your building, she pauses. “Seriously, though, you shouldn’t.”

“He told me I could.”

“Still.”

“I have to think about it.”

“Okay, I guess.”

The six of you sit side-by-side like kids in the principal’s office, cramped into the small office high up in the hospital’s tower. There’s an HR rep across the desk. Robby and Jack are standing behind her, trying really hard not to laugh at your dejected expressions. You can’t blame Mel for snitching about the bet, not when you’d ended up mortified and crying and confused in her arms after the whatever the hell that was with Robby last night. The moment you’d reached your apartment, it all washed over you and turned into a full breakdown of ‘what the fuck.’

When the rep finishes going through what feels like a prosecutorial rundown of charges, she asks over her shoulder, “Dr. Robinavitch, do you feel safe continuing to work with them?”

He outright laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. To him, this whole thing is a ridiculous inconvenience. “Yes. God knows I’ve participated in my fair share of similar betting pools downstairs.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she groans, already having nightmares about an avalanche of paperwork. She turns back to look at the rest of you. “Doctors, do you understand this was a massive violation of Dr. Robinavitch’s privacy?”

You nod solemnly, tears biting at your eyes. You’ve never been in trouble like this before and you absolutely hate the feeling of it in your gut. “I completely understand. I’m so, so sorry.”

Everyone echoes something similar – except Trinity.

The HR rep picks up on it. She presses, “Dr. Santos?”

It’s not her first time getting a talking to about a bet placed with colleagues. So she scoffs. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s not like Robby hasn’t done the same kind of shit.”

“Again, pretending we didn’t say that.” The rep pinches the bridge of her nose and shuts her eyes, breathing deeply for a minute. “Obviously, there will have to be consequences. We can’t send the message that this hospital doesn’t care about sexual harassment.”

Dr. Abbot lets out a harsh laugh. “Sexual harassment?”

She turns around and glares. “How else would you describe coworkers trying to take naked pictures of someone?”

“Well, yeah, I guess, but the ED always has this kind of thing happ-”

She cuts him off with a raised hand. “I am begging you all to stop talking before I have to call in Gloria to deal with this mess.”

That shuts everyone up.

For organizing the whole thing, Trinity gets placed on administrative leave without pay for a week, which she grumbles about before realizing she can go on an impromptu vacation. Because of the whole locker room incident, Dennis gets three days without pay. After the gym situation, Samira and Jack earn the same, which doesn’t really seem like a punishment considering they’re shacked up together. Since you at least asked for his consent, you have two days without pay. Because Victoria was too scared to even try, she gets sent home early with a warning. Mel, of course, gets off home free – although she gets put on night shift since they’ll be down Dr. Abbot.

“Are you mad at me?”

After shoving another handful of chocolate into your mouth, you shush Mel and turn up the volume on Bridget Jones Diary. “For the last time, no.”

Not convinced, she reminds you, “The only reason I told HR is because I didn’t want you showing your future boyfriend’s dick off to everyone in the hospital. You’d regret it.”

“I know, Mel,” you reply. It’s been 24 hours and you’ve had sufficient time to fight with her about the whole situation. “Seriously, I’m not mad. I get you, okay? I know you were trying to protect me in your own way. But I will be mad if you talk over the tarts and vicars party. We need to finish this before you leave for your shift.”

Accepting it (you know she’ll ask again soon), Mel reaches into your shared snack bowl and relents, “Okay, okay.”

Right when Colin Firth is about to announce that he likes Renée Zellweger just as she is, there’s a knock on your apartment door. You both ignore it, assuming it’s a package delivery, but a second knock a minute later takes you by surprise. Cutting a look over to Mel, you ask, “Did you get food or something?”

Her eyebrows knit together. “I figured you did.”

“I’ll check it,” you say, unfurling from the blankets and setting the snacks on the coffee table. In your knee-high socks, skimpy pajama shorts, and bralette, you joke, “Hopefully it’s the Mormons again and seeing my exposed skin will send them into a crisis of faith.”

Mel’s laughing until you open the door. Then she mutters something like ‘please Jesus no’ and looks like she’s debating taking the fire escape.

Robby looks really good in casual clothes. The jeans make his thighs look gigantic and, fuck, have his shoulders always been that goddamn broad? The white tee and – Jesus Christ, really? – leather jacket have him looking like a greaser, like one curl should be on his forehead, like you should be dropping to your knees and-

“Hey, sweetheart.”

You try to return your eye contact to an appropriate area and can’t find it in you. You’re obsessed with his arms. The way he’s leaning in your door frame, one hand above his head, elbow against the wood, has his trap bulging into his bicep and then down toward his veiny forearm and- Fuck. And his chest. His chest. Christ alive. His pecs. It’s only when you shut your eyes that you’re able to stammer out, “What are you- I’m, ah- Hi, Robby.”

He touches your cheek to get you to open your eyes. “I’d like it if you started calling me Michael.”

You try out the taste of that on your tongue. “Michael. Alright.”

He smiles at that. You love the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Mind if I come in? Or did you want to keep ogling my tits for a while?”

You startle backwards a few steps and awkwardly gesture to the apartment. “Sorry, ah, yes, of course, come on in.”

When he sees Mel on the couch, he bristles. It’s comforting to see his ridiculous confidence waver for even a second. “You live with Dr. King.”

“I do.”

“Right. I knew that.” He puts on an almost-professional smile and waves, “Hi, Mel.”

She holds the blanket tight around her neck like she’s naked underneath. “Hello, Dr. Robinavitch.”

You give her a wide-eyed, impatient look at her to break her bewilderment and hiss, “Mel, don’t you need to get ready for your shift?”

She scrambles upward, still clinging to the blanket. “Yes, yeah, ah, right, yeah. I’ll, um, I’ll leave you two alone. Out here. And then I’ll be leaving. For the night. Yup.”

Mel disappears into her bedroom, careful to cover her body every step of the way as if Robby would be phased by seeing her in sweats and a sports bra. As if his attention isn’t fixed squarely on you.

Robby’s eyes skate over your body and you’re suddenly agonizingly aware of how little you’re wearing. He smirks again. Fuck that smirk. “I’m a big fan of your outfit.”

You cross your arms over your chest and then stretch your arms out to cover your stomach and then realize that makes your cleavage worse and cross your arms again. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

Robby takes your hands in his to stop you trying to hide from him. He kisses your hand and you’re swooning. You didn’t even know what that felt like until now. “I told you I’d see you, didn’t I?”

“That was before our collective scolding.”

“Well, I’m a man of my word.” His hand goes to your neck, holding the back of your head and pressing his thumb over your pulse at once. His hands are so big. Your brain is cloudy with desire and then he makes it so much worse by saying, “I said I wanted to wreck you. I’m here to make good on that.”

Mel emerges from her bedroom in her scrubs and fleece jacket, eyes trained on the floor and cheeks red. She rushes past Robby, who takes half a step back from you. Snatching her keys from the hall table, she announces in an unnaturally high pitch, “Well, it’s time for my shift. See you both, um, later!”

Then she’s gone – forty five minutes early. And there’s a locked door between you, Robby, and the rest of the world.

You’re frozen and Robby thinks it’s too adorable not to take advantage of. He jumps right in, stepping close to put his hands on the slope of your waist, thumb on ribcage and pinkies on your hips, and asks, “So, what’d all your friends think about my dick pic? Sufficiently impressed?”

You bite your lower lip, not yet able to look at him, and admit in a hushed tone, “I didn’t send it to them.”

Robby tilts your chin up and searches your face. “Why not?”

“You know already.”

He leans in close, breath mixing with yours, foreheads touching, and replies, “I need to hear you say it.”

Your lip twitches up into a smirk. He’s as desperate for you as you are for him. That feels fucking good. Finally, you make eye contact – and he’s shocked by the intensity in your expression. He’s never seen you looking possessive. Blood rushes to his cock. You press a hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat drum against your palm, and say, “I didn’t send it because you’re mine, Michael. And I don’t want anyone else seeing what’s mine.”

The grin that spreads over Robby’s features is heart-fluttering, slow and certain and reaching the corners of his eyes. “I’m yours, huh?”

A tiny bit tentative, you whisper, “If you want me.”

Robby laughs, “If I want you?”

You’d expected your first kiss with Robby to be hungry. For your mutual, long-suffering want to explode over each other and turn into shedding clothes and falling into something frantic and intense, chasing pleasure and needing like nothing else.

But it’s not.

Robby takes a deep breath first, like he needs to gather up his courage to actually press his lips to yours despite all his bravado. Then he gives his head a little shake, laughs softly, and leans in. Both of you are gentle, even as you step up onto your toes to deepen it, even as his slightly shaking hand presses up into the curve of your spine to pull you up closer, even as you let out a breathy moan. It’s a caress more than a claim, an exploration more than an ecstasy, a feather more than a fire.

“I want you the way I want oxygen,” Robby breathes into the wide quiet space after your lips part. He kisses you so softly again and, like he might cry, whispers, “I love you.”

It’s your turn to smile – slow, disbelieving, adoring. “You love me? Really?”

He scoffs and holds you close, eye contact so sweet, “I love you so much I can’t think straight when you’re not on shift with me. I love you so much it makes me outright stupid. It would embarrass me, how much I love you, but it doesn’t because every once in a while you look at me like you might love me too and those moments make my whole life worth living.”

Knees weak and heart thudding, you whimper, “Michael.”

This time, the kiss is what you’d expected. You’re biting his lip and rucking up his shirt and shoving him toward your bedroom while he’s chuckling into your mouth at your obvious and unashamed desire, keeping you balanced, matching your energy as he opens up the door and lets himself be shoved back onto your bed. You situate yourself in his lap and practically rip his jacket off so you can finally sink your teeth into his ridiculously gorgeous arms.

Robby pulls in a sharp breath when you suck a harsh mark into the sensitive hollow of his collarbone, dragging the bruise up his neck with unrelenting suction. “Planning on getting me sent to HR our first day back as a couple?”

You pull off of him and catch your breath. Carefully, you run your thumb over his hand and reply, “Yeah, actually. I wanna do this right. HR, paperwork, the whole thing.”

Robby, smiling a tiny bit, asks, “You’re not worried about what everyone’s going to think?”

“Who cares?” You shrug and tell him, “All the other residents have been telling me to ask you out since we started. Even Jack wants us to get together. We’ve been working together while eye-fucking for two years; I don’t think much’ll change.”

“Except how close the administration’s gonna be watching you,” he replies. “I don’t want you to regret-”

You cross your arms over your chest and say, “Michael David Robinavitch, if you’re seriously interrupting our first time together to talk about the boring logistical details of our relationship, I’m going to break up with you.”

“Right, priorities,” he agrees, hands travelling up to your bralette. “Let’s focus on getting you naked.”

“That’s more like it, cap.”

“First, though,” he says softly, pleading, “I want you to say it back.”

It’s as easy as a heartbeat. You kiss him again and murmur against his lips, “I love you.” You drag your bralette up and over your body, leaving you bare-chested and blushing. As Michael’s black eyes devour the sight, you repeat, “I love you.” Then you slip off his lap, lay back on the bed, and coax him to come with, caging you between his strong arms. Before he can descend and devour, you tilt your face upward, kiss him gently, and say one more time, “I love you.”

Robby shoves his hand into your pajama shorts with no hesitation or pretense, wanting to feel you so bad he doesn’t even bother taking the clothes off first. As his fingers part your lips, dragging slickness up to your clit, he groans delightedly, “Fuck, you’re soaked.”

With a soft moan, you explain, “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

You shimmy to push your shorts off, kicking them away. Robby roughly shoves your legs apart right away. He’s reluctant to remove his fingers, but he’s devastatingly hungry for your pussy on his tongue. He moves to the end of your bed and, just to make you shriek out a laugh, grabs you by the ankles and yanks you down, the fabric of your comforter turning into a sled toward his body. Then he smiles wide, shakes his head in disbelief, and praises, “You’re so gorgeous it’s almost offensive.”

You roll your eyes and fail to suppress a sweet, shy smile. “Thank you.”

Then he drops to his knees, muttering something about getting down to business. Reverently, he kisses and licks your inner thighs, going between sucking marks on your skin and soothing them with his tongue. Once he’s got you squirming and silently begging, he inhales your scent deeply, hovers close to your drenched sex, and groans, “I’ve been wondering how you taste for years. Can’t believe I finally get to find out.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He grins and ghosts the breath of his words across your clit, “And I bet you taste like heaven.”

The moment his tongue makes contact, you both moan. His vibrates up your spine, turning yours into more of a breathy gasp. He latches onto your clit, then, refusing to tease when he finally has exactly what he wants. Propped up on your elbows, you watch as he greedily devours you, eyes closed and face relaxed with rapture. You’ve never seen him look so stress-free. Like your pussy’s the one thing in the world that can silence his racing mind.

He might not admit it out loud, but that’s the truth. Your tartness on his tongue has his cock leaking through his boxers. He’s rutting against your mattress like a horny dog, imagining how ridiculously good it’s going to be to finally slip his cock inside of you. That dizzying goal combined with the perfection of your taste has him dialed in, focused on your pleasure more than he focuses on most procedures.

He curls one finger slowly inside of you, thrilled out of his fucking mind when you groan louder and buck your hips against his mouth for more. His hands are huge and they’ve always been an object of your secret lust. When he adds a second finger, there’s a slight sting, but it’s quickly eased by his tongue lapping at your clit, flat and confident and accompanied by rhythmic gentle sucking. The pace he sets is indulgent, the first course in a long meal he wants to savor every morsel of.

When Robby feels your orgasm starting to tighten, he slows down. Teases it out. His fingers turn from curling to massaging, firm and insistent against your G-spot like only a doctor could. He makes sure to spread them wide, scissoring them, letting your muscles clamp and stretch. When your wetness soaks into his beard, he finally pulls off, just lightly kissing your inner thighs and breathing you in.

Orgasm-hazy and needy, you manage to stammer out, “I have an IUD, by the way.”

He looks up from between your legs with a mischievously raised eyebrow. Fuck, hes so handsome with his lips all shiny from spit and wetness. “Are you trying to tell me to fuck you raw?”

After a second, you nod bashfully.

“That’s very good to know, kitten,” he praises warmly. Then he pushes his fingers back inside you and moves his mouth down toward your clit again.

Sounding whinier than you’ve ever heard yourself, you demand, “Michael, please, just fuck me. Need you.”

He kisses your clit tenderly, like he’s greeting an old friend, and tells you, sternly and with no room for debate, “I’ll fuck you when I’ve got you taking three of my fingers. You’ve gotta cum one more time.”

You thrash against his hand and groan, “Christ, I want you so bad. I can take it. I swear I can.”

Still curling his first two fingers back toward himself, he gives you a look so perfectly condescending it makes you clench around him. “Trust me, baby, I love your enthusiasm, and it’s taking a hell of a lot of effort to resist you, but I’ve had this dick long enough to know you need to be good and ready.” He kisses your inner thigh and presses his thumb to your clit, which starts to make your thoughts evaporate again. Then he assures you, “I promise I’m gonna fuck you so hard and so deep that you’re gonna forget anyone else has ever fucked you before. Got it?”

You stretch your arms up behind your head and sigh dreamily, “I guess I shouldn’t complain about having a boyfriend who insists on making me cum twice before he puts his dick in me.”

“Twice when I’m feeling selfish,” he corrects seriously. “This is me rushing to get inside of you. When I’m taking my time, I’ll get four or five out of you first – bring out some toys when my fingers get tired – so you’ll be gushing wet and making the dumbest little noises for me. Turn off that big beautiful brain of yours.”

“You say that like it’s a promise.”

“It is.”

And then he’s back to eating your pussy. You’re still so sensitive from your last orgasm that he goes agonizingly gently, just using the tip of his tongue light as a feather to tease you. He holds you tight to his face by the hips so you can’t squirm away, no matter how much the overwhelming pleasure makes you thrash against the mattress. It’s his fingers that keep you grounded to reality, sloppy wet and firm and knowing. It’s like the beginning of your residency when he guided you through everything slow and steady, paying special attention to you and your potential. He holds your pleasure in his hands with expert precision.

Your orgasm slams through you as soon as he adds the third finger, stretching you comfortably open and pushing you forward. He’s holding you up now, your legs on his shoulders as your back arches away from him and your hands try to find anywhere they can get purchase, tugging his hair and beard and scratching his shoulders as your thighs spasm and ache. Your moans are high and stupid, thoughtless as ecstasy spreads out in front of you.

But Robby doesn’t let up, fingers branding into your hips as his other hand keeps working you open through the brutal aftershocks. The brush of his beard against your sensitive flesh has you seeing stars. Tears sting at your waterline and his lips wrap around your clit harder than ever, refusing to give you any relief from the lingering orgasm that’s bordering on painful now. It’s only when your moans turn to gasps and your tears actually crest over onto your cheeks that he detaches.

Robby blows cool air on your pussy and rubs his thumbs tenderly over your outer thigh as he slowly withdraws his fingers. Your whole body shudders from the stimulation and you feel so fucking good it’s like you’re high on the drug of your newly minted boyfriend.

He gradually kisses up your hip, over your stomach, between your breasts, and then finally along your neck to your lips, where he softly sucks your lower lip and praises, “Good job, angel. You ready or can I bring you water or something?”

You kiss him back for a minute, lapping up the taste of yourself on his mouth. He still has his pants on but you can feel that his cock is agonizingly hard and straining against them. So you press your forehead to his, take a deep breath, and nod seriously. “I need you to fuck me.”

Robby grins, pupils dilating and heart slamming. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you saying that.”

“Probably about as many times as I’ve used a dildo and been disappointed it’s not your cock.” At your response, Robby laughs as he steps off the bed, rummaging through his discarded jacket. He pulls a small bottle of lube from one of the pockets and it makes you snicker. “You were that certain I’d fuck you?”

“Yeah, pretty damn sure.” Then he ditches the small talk, moving back to the edge of the bed like a lion and shoving your legs apart again. He uncaps the bottle and trains his gaze between your thighs. “There’s my greedy pussy. So pretty for me clenching around nothing. Fucking begging.” He squirts cold lube on your hot, overstimulated cunt and you hiss in a sharp breath that makes him chuckle darkly with arousal. “So sensitive, too. Fuck, you’re perfect. Need my cock, don’t you?”

You’re such a sniveling mess that you can’t even respond, just chasing your hips toward his cock to silently beg.

“Shh, shh,” he soothes, stilling your hip with his hand and spreading your legs as wide as they can possibly go. He lines up the head of his cock with your weeping entrance, taking a second to memorize the image as he murmurs,  “Gonna take care of you, sweet girl. Don’t you worry. Just breathe for me.”

No amount of preparation could prepare you for the size of his cock. It doesn’t hurt because you’re ridiculously wet and he took his damn time, but the stretch is immense. Like sinking deeper into a yoga pose that makes you groan and curl your toes. A release. Your head snaps backwards and sweat beads on your forehead as he slowly, carefully, lovingly thrusts inside.

Robby touches your cheek and makes sure, “Is this okay? Not too much?”

You gaze up at him with eyes so full of love and lust Robby’s half-sheathed cock twitches inside the heat of your body. Unable to come up with anything else, you just whisper, “Perfect.”

Robby smirks and nods. He’d tell you how you fit him like a glove, how your wetness and tightness has him on the edge already, how you’re everything, but if he opened his mouth right now the string of high-pitched moans would be absolutely pathetic. So he leans down to kiss you, pushing your legs further back and up so he can fit himself between your hips. As his lips meet yours, you moan into the kiss, toes curling as his cock finally reaches into you as deep as he can, maybe three quarters of him piercing you.

Robby gradually draws his cock back and pushes forward again. With a trembling breath and a burning kiss, he groans, “God, you feel fucking incredible.”

Breathing hard, you grip his hair and nestle into the crook of his neck and cry, “So good, Michael. Your cock’s amazing. Like you were made for me. Feels incredible.”

His whole body shudders with pleasure and delight. “You can’t say things like that, baby.”

“Why not?”

He scoffs, one hand going down to play with your pebbled nipple. “I’d like to fuck you more than thirty seconds before I cum prematurely.”

That makes you bite your lower lip and eye him carefully. You file away ‘Robby totally has a praise kink’ for another day because you can’t put any coherent thoughts together as he manages to get deeper and deeper inside of you with every thrust. You didn’t even know your body could feel like this – loose, warm, brilliantly full. If he pulled out, you’d feel incomplete somehow. He’s christening a new version of you to the point that you’re starting to understand that whole ‘ruining you for other men’ thing. His cock is everything. It’s divine and electric at once, a symphony strumming from your cunt up your abdomen, rooted by his greedy hands on your tits and his mouth worshipping along your neck and collarbones.

Then he drops his thumb down to your clit.

You’re sparking toward another orgasm before you can even process the gesture. He grins into your neck as your back arches and your cunt clamps down. With your walls stretched so taut, each pulse of your pussy is sharp as a rubber band snapping, intense and vibrant. When you cum, you lose any control over your body, becoming something primal and raw and animal. Fingers digging into his flesh. Teeth sharp and violent over his shoulders. Legs locked around his ass. There aren’t any thoughts but the drunkenness of his touch, his body pressing down on yours, his claiming grasp everywhere. 

As you shatter into aftershocks, overstimulating and delicious, you’re being so loud, moans and slapping skin and gushing cunt, that Robby probably should slow his fucking or muffle your mouth, but he’s addicted to the sounds. It’s the litany of music from your body that has his balls tightening and him grunting, “Where do you want it?”

All you can do is tighten your thighs around him and stare up with lust-ridden eyes, whining almost constantly, a silent plea for what you want.

Robby holds your face by the jaw, keeping you trained forward to look right at him despite how glassy and dazed your expression is. “If you want me to cum inside of you, you’re gonna have to ask nicely.”

You nod slowly, trying to come up with words when your thoughts are sex-fueled molasses. It takes another few seconds for you to come up with one idea that rings true enough to break through the fog: “I’m yours, Michael. Please.”

“That’s right,” he growls, hands around your ankles to keep you in the mating press as he shoves deep inside of you, cum bursting forward. You watch, rapt, as his mouth falls open into a precious little O and his eyes pinch tight and his right hand smashes back onto the wall to keep him upright. “Fuck. Fuck.” He falls forward and kisses you like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance: Desperate and owning. His voice is broken and raspy. “God, I love you. I can’t believe you’re finally mine.”

You just whimper into his neck, wrapping your arms around him and easing your legs down as much as they can with his body still between them. Not so subtly kissing and licking his sweat, you murmur sweetly, “Love you, Michael. Will you stay the night?”

“Of course,” he replies easily. “Stay here; let me get you cleaned up and comfortable. Is it alright if I rummage around to get you something to drink too?”

You nod and hum happily, “You’re an angel.”

After pressing a few more kisses to your lips and cheeks and forehead, Robby stands up, stretches out his arms, chuckles to himself, and disappears into your kitchen and then your adjacent bathroom. You drift contentedly in the blissed-out cloud of your brain, eyes gently closed and limbs heavy, until he returns. You barely notice his presence until you feel a cool washcloth wiping the beading sweat from your forehead and chest and then trailing down between your legs. Robby listens to your heavy, even, satisfied breaths as he works, switching to massaging the bruises his rough hands have left over your hips and his greedy mouth left along your thighs.

Finally, he sits next to you on the bed and softly rubs your shoulder. “Drink some of this for me.”

“Mmm.”

You barely open your eyes as you take the chilled blue Gatorade from him, chugging down half of it before offering it back so that he can drink it too. Then he gives you a tangy bright kiss and says, “C’mon, I’m pretty sure it’s bedtime.”

With a big stretch of your arms over your head, you swing your legs off the bed, kiss him hard, and stand. He slips back into the bathroom as you grab a pair of shorts and tank top to put on after you’ve showered or at least cleaned up some.

“Jesus, sweetheart, you’ve got me looking like I went ten rounds with a boxer,” he whistles low from the bathroom. “You’re awfully cute for a vampire, you know that?”

“I’m sure the marks aren’t that bad,” you reply with an eye roll, joining him through the doorway. Under the real lights, though, you realize with horror that you’ve not only given him hickeys and bruises but you’ve broken his skin in more than one place – both with your teeth and with your nails. There are mean bites all around his neck and down his shoulders, scratches over his arms and upper back, beads of blood mingling among the marks. Tears spring up into your eyes when you realize you’ve caused him pain that he’s going to be carrying around for a week or more. “Oh my god, Michael, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Sorry?” He turns toward you with an adorably furrowed brow. “What in the ever living fuck are you sorry about?”

You rummage around the bathroom drawers for your first aid kit and sniffle, “I really hurt you.”

“Baby, baby, stop.” Robby snatches you back by the hips and pulls you up. “I’m gonna wear these as a badge of honor. You have any idea how good it feels to fuck a good girl so well she turns feral?”

You pout your lip as you try to suppress your smile. “At least let me look them over. Apply some topical antibiotics and bandaids.”

“I can take care of myself, sweetheart, they gave me a whole degree in topical antibiotics and bandaids,” he chuckles. “And you’re gonna have to get used to it. Now that I know how crazy you get, I fully expect to get these marks touched up more nights than not.”

“Michael,” you protest half-heartedly as he kisses you deeply, “the human mouth is a hotbed for for infections.”

He doesn’t stop smiling, though, tugging you into his body by the waist, his cock debating coming to light against your thigh. “Yeah, baby, I noticed your mouth is fucking filthy.”

“Robby, I’m serious, we need to clean the wound sites or-”

“Ohohoh,” he teases, “if you wanted to shower together, you could’ve just said that.”

You hum as you flip pancakes, pajamas hanging loosely from your body, Robby standing behind you lavishing kisses along the tops of your shoulder. The warmth of his shirtless body has kept you feeling so safe and cozy all night. When the door handle turns nearby, you startle slightly from the intrusion to your peace but don’t move.

Robby doesn’t either. He just shifts his weight so he can look over his shoulder at your roommate coming home. No point in pretending this won’t be a regular occurrence. He offers, trying sound kind and nonthreatening so she won’t get spooked like a rabbit again? “Morning, Dr. King, how was your shift?”

Mel stares at the two of you for about thirty seconds, computing and calibrating, before she just shrugs off her jacket, hangs it on the small coat rack, and replies, “Um, hi, Dr. Robby, it- it was good; finally checked off an emergent birth.”

“Good work,” he tells her earnestly; the first time delivering a baby on the ED floor is nothing short of terrifying. “Congratulations, kid.”

“Looks like I have some congratulating to do, too.” She beams and joins you both in the kitchen. “You two are finally happening? For real?”

“For real,” he confirms with a laugh as he realizes how much you must’ve vented to Mel over the years. “Took us long enough, I’d say.”

With Robby blocking the coffee maker, Mel just presents a mug to him. He fills it with a surprised nod, pleased to see her slightly more comfortable with his presence. She sighs out like she’s getting a massage, “God, this is such a relief for me. You have no clue how annoying she is about you, like, every night. Robby breathed on my neck and I almost passed out. Robby reached for the same suture kit as me. I had that sex dream about Robby again. It’ll be nice to go to bed earlier.”

You glare at Mel over your shoulder as you plate up a stack of pancakes. “You don’t have to make me look bad in front of my brand new boyfriend.”

“Trust me, baby,” he replies, turning to catch you in a quick kiss, “I’m twice as bad. I’m pretty sure Jack was getting ready to file a cease and desist because of how often I complained about not having you. Him and Samira are going to have to come up with a new couple to meddle with; I almost feel bad for them.”

Mel nervously asks, “Dr. Robinavitch, would you grab me the French vanilla creamer?”

“You can call me Michael, if you want.” He opens up the fridge, searches a second, and hands over the half-empty bottle. “Figure I should be on a first-name basis with my future wife’s maid of honor.”

You pour your own mug of coffee and give him a smirk. “Future wife, huh?”

“Mohan shared your ring Pinterest board with me when I left Jack’s to come here last night.” He kisses your cheek, beard scratchy and lovely, and murmurs, “The title being ‘Mrs. Robinavitch’ didn’t leave much to the imagination in terms of your intentions with me.”

Mel, absolutely grinning now as her happiness for her best friend bubbles over, giggles,  “Maybe I’ll start a betting pool for how long it’ll take.”

Robby gives her a conspiratorial wink that makes your heart sing. “Cut me in for half and I’ll help you cheat.”

‘missed you,’ you say, sort of, more a muffled collection of consonants pressed against his throat, his short stubble scratching over your mouth as it opens, closes.

‘yeah?’ jack asks, dry and amused as he shuffles you awkwardly back into the kitchen, your feet balanced on the toes of his boots.

he drops the keys onto the table, his bag landing heavy next.

‘yeah,’ you confirm, maybe whine.

you’re next to go. lifted up bodily onto the kitchen table, your knees opening on instinct, creating space between your legs that jack immediately takes up, hooking your ankles behind his thighs.

‘you miss me?’ you ask, looking up at him through your lashes, mouth curling up at the corners.

jack hums like he’s not quite sure, mock debating, before tilting his head down and kissing you stupid. the kiss is long and sweet, and perfectly wet, his tongue sliding in to taste you for just a second before it retreats.

when you try to follow, hungry, tugging on his curls as you press yourself against him, he tilts his head, kissing your jaw instead, that little spot below your ear that always drives you crazy. the scrape of his stubble makes your toes curl in your socks.

another kiss and then he abruptly interrupts the spell he’s put you under, huffs a self-deprecating laugh, says, ‘i had a long night and i smell like hospital.’ there’s a pause as your brain struggles to comprehend the sudden loss, then the next words are exhaled quietly into the space between your neck and shoulder. ‘i’m gonna shower.’

‘what? no,’ you complain as jack pulls back, managing to dislodge your hands from his hair, and if the protest is a little too loud, a little too petulant for a full-grown woman, well, everyone is allowed their small moments of weakness you suppose.

and can’t he see you’re horny? that you need him to take care of you?

you pout. ‘i like the way you smell.’

it’s not a total lie. he smells stale and a little metallic, like the sweat and blood have accumulated in thin layers beneath his scrubs. that and also the cigarette he most definitely snuck during hour four or five. but underneath it all, it’s still jack. still your favorite person in the world.

jack’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘i think you need your head checked.’

you pout some more.

he rolls his eyes, extricating himself from between your legs to sit heavily in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. he bends down, starts undoing his boot laces.

‘you eat anything today?’ he asks.

it’s your turn to roll your eyes, annoyed at the very un-sexy turn this conversation has taken. ‘yes.’

he lifts his head to pin you with a look. ‘with protein?’

you lean back on your hands, legs swinging. ‘not everything requires protein, jack.’

‘you do,’ he says, pulling off his left boot. ‘your brain does.’

you sniff. ‘my brain is just fine, thank you very much.’

right boot next, foot of his prosthesis slipping free. jack just shakes his head. ‘hand me those, will you?’

you slide off the table, walking to grab his crutches from where they were leant against the far wall, prosthesis expertly doffed by the time you return. the bare skin of his residual limb is a little red and irritated, but no more than usual after twelve grueling hours on his feet.

you worm your way back into his space before he can push himself to standing, fit yourself between his legs in a mirror of your earlier position, hand sliding into his hair, watching the grey curls slip through your fingers.

‘i missed you,’ you say again but with more intention this time, more need, a small furrow appearing between your brows.

‘i missed you too,’ he says, blinking up at you, but there’s no heat behind it, just a tired air, exhaustion set deep into the lines around his eyes.

you lean down to kiss him and he turns his head, your nose and mouth meeting scruffy cheek.

‘baby,’ he says, and the endearment is fond but also so exasperated it makes your ears flush hot with embarrassment. ‘you gotta give me some space.’

you can’t help the frustration that bubbles up in response to his rejection, your stomach twisting itself into knots as you step back. the logical part of your brain that knows he’s well within his rights to ask for space warring with the much louder, much less logical part of your brain that wants to sink your teeth into his trap muscle until he cries out.

and really, it’s his own fault anyway, you think, annoyed, the way he’s got you trained—pavlovian response, like a damn dog—to expect his undivided attention as soon as he walks through the front door. sweet kisses and sweet words; much, much less sweet words also, but you love those just the same, and maybe even more so, coming from him. from jack, from his filthy mouth and his big hands all over you, pulling you close, pulling your hair, wanting you. wanting you so much sometimes, like he can’t breathe if he doesn’t have you. the type of wanting that’s intoxicating, overwhelming. the type that’s more than easy for a girl to get used to.

throw a dog a bone enough times and the dog comes to expect the bone. flash an empty hand, the dog still bites. it’s just learned behavior.

‘i don’t want to give you space,’ you snipe, as he stands, forearms and hands braced on his crutches. ‘i want you to bend me over this table.’

jack raises an eyebrow at you. ‘good to know it’s only what you want that matters in this relationship.’

you flush even hotter, the skin on the back of your neck prickling. ‘that’s not what i’m saying.’

‘no?’ he says, beginning to navigate his way through the kitchen and out into the hall. you follow after him. ‘then what are you saying?’

you struggle for words, good words, convincing words, but come up empty. all you manage is a childish, ‘it’s not fair.’ like you’re a toddler who doesn’t want to share her favorite toy, one second away from throwing a tear-filled tantrum.

‘life’s not fair,’ jack snorts, infuriatingly so, back muscles shifting beneath his scrub top with each careful step. ‘if it was, then i’d still have two whole legs. but that’s not how any of this stupid shit works.’

maybe you’re ovulating, you haven’t checked the app in at least a week. too busy with work and endless emails and the podcast you remember to tune into just enough per episode to follow whatever tangent the hosts have gone off on this time. or maybe jack’s just turned you into the type of depraved person who sees her boyfriend come home and can’t stop imagining humping his leg long enough to have a single, intelligent thought. such as, not bratting a man who was in the military for six long years.

‘yeah, well,’ you say hotly, stupid and brazen, ‘that IED might as well’ve blown your dick off too, for all the good it’s currently doing me.’

he pauses, actually pauses with his left foot just past the threshold of the master bedroom, whole body going unnaturally still before his head turns to give you an incredulous stare. it pins you in place, socked feet to the hardwood, freezing you like a deer in headlights.

jack’s silent for a long moment, long enough that you can hear the way your pulse has quickened beneath your skin, jumping and skipping at your carotid. the clock on the wall, too, suddenly audible in the room, the thin hand, the tick, tick, tick as the seconds pass.

finally he says, low and clear, ‘for your sake, i’m going to pretend i didn’t hear that. i’m going to take a shower and when i get out, if you haven’t fixed your attitude, i’m going to fix it for you.’

he disappears into the bedroom, leaving you to chew on his parting words, standing alone now in the hallway. you, the clock, the sound of the birds chirping happily in the magnolia outside the window. and there’s something deeply wrong with you, possibly on a fundamental level, molecular, because the warning just makes you shudder, makes your cunt messy between your legs.

while jack showers, you cook him breakfast. you’ve never been particularly good at cooking, but eggs have always liked you, flipped right in the pan, yolks intact before you plate. eggs, toast, some sausage that gets an uneven color but will taste just fine regardless. you debate for a few uncertain seconds if you should bother cutting up the strawberries gone soft in the fridge when the water pipes groan to completion.

you shut the fridge door, anticipation zipping up and down your spine in unsteady bursts. you can’t keep still. you open the fridge door again and grab the pitcher of water, fill up a glass and chug it. then you put the used glass in the sink, lip down, return the pitcher, and shut the fridge door again.

you’re standing next to the table where you’ve set everything down when jack reenters the kitchen. he’s damp and clean, and somehow better looking than when he last left it. which is, by all standards, deeply unfair, you think. a drop of water clinging to the curl beneath his right ear falls to his shoulder, blooming on the fabric.

you avert your gaze, teeth sinking into your bottom lip, and focus instead on the tops of your pink and white socks where your toes are once again curling, this time against the floor.

‘wow. this all for me?’ jack says, settling himself down in the empty seat.

you nod at your toes. they’re very interesting. all ten of them. big toe, pinky toe, the ones in between.

‘baby,’ jack says.

you look up at him. he’s peering intently at your face.

‘this all for me?’ he repeats.

you blink, momentarily confused, before you realize he wants you to speak. ‘yes, sir.’

jack continues to scan your face for a few more seconds then, seemingly satisfied, he pulls out the seat next to him. ‘that’s very sweet. you want to sit with me?’

you glance towards the empty chair and a vivid memory, in fine detail, flashes across your vision. wrists tied securely behind your back, stomach settled in his lap, large hand tracing the hot skin of your ass cheek, his voice going, ‘oh, that’s a really pretty color, sweetheart.’

you swallow, throat dry. ‘no, sir.’

he quirks an eyebrow and you fiddle with the hem of your sleep shirt, thighs squeezing together.

‘yes, sir, no, sir,’ he mocks softly, ‘being so polite, someone might get the impression you want something.’

your whole body warms. it’s such a casually cruel comment. it makes your cunt throb.

god, you just want him to touch you.

you open your mouth. nothing comes out. you swallow and try again. ‘can i sit at your feet?’

‘sit or kneel?’ jack clarifies.

you bite your lip. ‘kneel.’

he nods his head toward the living room. ‘get a pillow.’

you scurry off and grab the closest one off the couch, bringing it back with you. you set it down next to his bare foot on the tile and begin to crouch down.

jack reaches out and takes you by the chin, stilling you. you blink owlishly up at him.

‘hands,’ he reminds you.

you clasp your hands behind your back, maintaining eye contact with jack as you slowly settle down, knees on top of pillow, ass on top of heels, head level with his left thigh.

‘good,’ jack says, tapping once beneath your chin before he draws his hand back.

he picks up his fork and knife and starts to eat.

you’ve kneeled many times for jack over the course of your two-year relationship. you’ve kneeled in costume, in heels so high they’ve questioned your ability to walk, completely bare, after work, before work, on christmas, on his birthday, on your birthday (three times), and, of course, like now, whenever you’re feeling absolutely desperate to receive a single crumb of his measured affection.

in relation to jack, it’s one of your favorite places to be. second only to being folded up like a pretzel and made to take his cock as slow as he wants to torture you with that day, your knees bracketing your ears. his face hovering above your face, watching every tense and subsequent relaxation of your expression, the lines that smooth out as your eyes go glassy, your mouth slipping open, a little wet, a little dumb. for him, always for him. but it’s a close second, that’s for certain.

he smells good, clean like his body wash and the fabric softener he picks up on the way home when you tell him the container’s running low. dye-free, for sensitive skin, for yours, the way it’s always acting up in the winter time. brutal and dry pittsburgh january’s. something beneath that too, that’s innately jack, a scent you could find blindfolded, upside down, spun in circles until you were sick.

you feel yourself tilting forward but do nothing to prevent it. it feels inevitable, magnetic, this tilting. and when your forehead settles against the solid bulk of his thigh, thin fabric of his sweatpants bleeding warmth, you let out a tiny sigh of relief.

he doesn’t chastise you, just settles his big hand on the back of your neck, slots his thumb into that space behind your ear. grounding you so you don’t float away on him, up to the ceiling like a balloon. by nature, you’re not overly-romantic, but it is something you’ve always appreciated. his weight, the configuration of his body in its relation to yours. as though you were two pieces from different puzzles that impossibly fit together.

after some time, you feel his hand start to smooth over the back of your head, stroking your hair. you keep count of the number, reveling in it as it ticks ever higher. jack pets you like you’re a sweet animal nuzzled up against his leg. like you’re something he collared and brought home. his to keep, his to play with. the thought has your cunt clenching down around nothing, disappointingly empty as it was.

you let out a quiet moan and his hand pauses.

no, no, no, no, no, you think as you suddenly freeze, breath held tight in your chest, don’t stop.

after a tense moment, jack’s hand resumes its soothing repetition, delicious pressure over your hair, the back of your head, your nape if you get lucky with his pinky.

you exhale, your shoulders dropping, press your forehead firmer into his thigh in silent gratitude.

minutes pass. you can tell from the way the birds have gone mostly quiet outside the window. tinkling bird call replaced with the soft sound of your breathing, the shifting and settling of the kitchen chair as jack adjusts his weight, never perfectly still. it’s a minute thing, a tiny ephemeral space in a big, complicated world that could blink out in a moment’s notice or less, but selfishly you think you could live down here, on your knees with jack’s hands on you, turning your brain syrupy and slow.

his hands are just so damn big, is the thing. you don’t know how anyone could have a taste and not become addicted. addicted to the feeling of them holding you, caressing you, tracing the dimples at the small of your back. the feeling of them prying open your mouth, your legs, the hot, slick mess of your cunt when you’re needy for him. you are, if translated into a perfectly divided piechart, much more often than you’re not. data doesn’t lie, not about your feelings, or the unshakable truth that you’re obsessed with jack abbot’s hands in a way that would be concerning, if you cared to consider truths like that. but there have always been much worse obsessions, when it comes to him, such as his voice, or how far his cock reaches down your throat if you’re eager enough to try, so you won’t worry too much about this one just yet.

times stretches, first long and then short. like a rubber band that’s reached its limit, snapping back, reminding you of your physical existence in space, on the floor, in your touch-deprived body. you tilt your head so the next pass of jack’s hand sweeps over the sensitive skin of your ear, callused palm cupping and warming it. a light shiver courses down your spine, makes your belly momentarily tense and then release. you can feel him in there, a familiar background noise that crisps and clarifies when he’s close enough to hear, to swallow in through your mouth and hold in your stomach. this phantom tug at your core, reminding you of the coiled tight desire that’s scratching at the walls, rabid, for release.

you want him badly enough that the want is creeping in at the edges of your vision, tunneling it. a focus that sharpens as much as it dulls, diverts your attention exactly where it needs without distraction. one simple line from point a to point b. you see him in your mind’s eye and he’s sitting there above you still, but he’s now looking down at you, tilting your head back; his hand’s wrapping around your throat and he’s telling you to open, to take what he wants to give and drooling straight into your open mouth, making you swallow his spit; calling you his filthy little girl, his perfect wet hole, shoving his thumb in directly after.

oh, god, please. yes, please please please.

you tilt your head further to the side, temple to thigh, so the next pass of his hand grazes your face. his fingers barely pause, thumb brushing along your cheekbone, stroking back and forth. and you’re pushing your luck here, you know that, but you need direct contact, as much skin on skin as possible because otherwise you’re going to lose your damn mind.

he can tell, right? he can tell you’re teetering on the edge of disaster? nervous system collapse, or worse. a black hole swallowing you up from the inside. and he’ll take pity on you. he’s never done it before, of course, but this time will be different. this time he’ll take one look at your big, wet eyes and the shameful mess you’ve made between your legs and he’ll give you exactly what you need. he’ll take care of his sweet baby. you need him to take care of his baby.

you take his thumb into your mouth the next time it’s swept too close, like an untrained, nippy dog who’s just been brought home from the pound. your head turning and your mouth sucking it warm and deep, cheeks hollowing out in your naked enthusiasm. his finger is now exactly where it should be. inside you. there should always be part of him inside you. you know this. you know. you suck his thumb like you want it to be something else because you do. you want jack to push the waistband of his sweatpants down and fill your mouth up with his cock instead, pull you forward until your nose meets his pubic bone, the length pushing past your gag reflex and into your throat.

you moan, around it, around the soft salt taste of his skin, more than familiar on your tongue, your knees shifting restless beneath you on the pillow. maybe he’ll really do it, maybe he’ll let you suck him off. hold your head as he grunts and comes straight down your throat, into your tummy. you’re good at it. you’re really, really good at it. he’s told you so a hundred times or more. sweet baby and her sweet mouth, almost as sweet as her cute little pussy when it winks at him, so desperate for his tongue to be shoved deep inside.

jack suddenly grips the bottom of your chin and jerks it upward, meeting your startled gaze.

‘i didn’t say you could do that,’ he says.

the whiplash makes you whimper, the hard split between reality and dream, like a bucket of cold water turned over your head, making you tremble and shiver on your knees.

you’re caught between jack’s fingers and he’s currently looking at you like you’re a gasping fish he’s not sure if he wants to keep or throw back, dangling you off the edge of his boat.

he presses his thumb down into the muscle of your tongue and makes sure you feel it.

‘what happened to my polite little girl, hm?’ he says, thick condescension in his voice. ‘where’d she go? i liked her.’

you blink at him, uncomprehending, your brain processing on a slight delay, yanked from your fantasy and fuzzy with denial.

jack clicks his tongue. ‘i forgot. your cunt gets wet and you stop thinking.’

he drops your chin, thumb slipping from your mouth, and picks up his phone instead, like he’s done touching you. like he’s regarded you and found you entirely unworthy of further consideration.

no!

‘please,’ you beg, scrambling for some sort of excuse that doesn’t exist, not really. ‘i didn’t mean to, sir, i just—,’

‘just what?’ jack says, sounding deeply unamused, ‘thought you could take what you want without asking? that’s not polite. that’s greedy.’

‘i’m sorry,’ you plead and your voice is quickly rising in pitch, edging toward the upper limits of its range. ‘i won’t do it again. i promise.’

when jack doesn’t spare you a glance, you rub your face against his thigh, whining high and pathetic. begging him to pay attention to you.

‘please, daddy, i promise! i’ll be so good for you. a perfect angel.’

he snorts, scrolling through his phone. ‘i don’t believe you, baby.’

a frustrated noise escapes past your teeth and if you could stomp your foot while kneeling, you would. he’s just being so mean, so unfair. it’s not like you’re asking for very much. just a tiny bit of attention, a tiny bit of pressure. he could give you his leg, you could rub your pussy against it, hump it until you orgasm, get his pant leg all wet. fuck it, at this point, your own fingers would suffice, you should just—

you move to slide your hand between your thighs and jack says, flatly, ‘touch that cunt and regret it.’

you freeze, your fingers a hair’s breadth away from your waistband, close enough that you can feel your clit pulse in proximity to the heat.

your vision zooms out, and you find yourself standing on the top of a familiar, grassy hill. you’ve been here before, agonized about the exact same decision, devil and angel sitting atop your shoulders like old friends and debating whether you should take that final step forward, uncertain of the consequences that lie below at the bottom, the one you can’t quite see from here, from all the way at the top. whether your feet will out last the journey or fold beneath you, ankles twisting, flimsy ligaments that send you sprawling, face first, to compacted earth. the promise of how good it will feel before that, if it even happens, how regardless of anything, of the fall, of the bruised scraped shins, flimsy ankles, the exhilaration is guaranteed, is a kite that lifts up, suspended wind below your hair and body.

the devil wins, as usual, the house always wins, and you step. you step forward, down. your thoughts and you both running, or half running, half falling, legs carrying you faster down the familiar hill than the rest of you can keep pace—relentless, fearless, this symbolic equivalent of a wheel that picks up speed the longer it rolls, gains traction and blurs to nothing.

touch yourself and daddy will be mad. he's already mad but if you touch yourself he'll be really, really mad. if you touch yourself, daddy will punish you. if you don't touch yourself, he won't punish you. but if daddy doesn't punish you, he's not going to touch you. and you need him to touch you. you need him to touch you or you’re going to combust. you’re going to lose your mind. if he punishes you, he'll definitely touch you. he won’t be nice and he might make you cry but he'll touch you. daddy will touch you. daddy will touch you. daddy will—

your feet fail beneath you, knees buckling, and you slide your hand beneath your waistband.

jack pushes his chair back and the sound of wood on tile is so loud it startles you sideways off your pillow, out of your head. you throw out your free hand to catch yourself before you topple over and brain yourself on the table leg.

‘stand up,’ jack says, voice clipped.

your heart is thumping in your chest, hair wild in your face as you stare up at him. at where he’s carved space between himself and the kitchen table.

a small muscle twitches beneath his left eye, and it looks involuntary. ‘don’t make me repeat myself.’

you scramble to your feet.

jack surveys you for a long, agonizing moment as you stand there. scans you from head to toe and back up again, taking stock of your body like it belongs to him, like he’s making sure his things are in working order. you shift nervously beneath his scrutiny, heart going a mile a minute. the weight of his gaze is as heavy as fingers where it lands, dragging along your skin, speeding up your breathing and making you pant. when it catches on the space between your legs, where you’ve darkened the cotton fabric of your panties, you squirm, a phantom hand between your legs knuckling your clit, teasing you. you can’t help but squeeze your thighs together, think about how you dressed this morning thinking only of him, of jack in the wake of your intense, erotic dream, in the hopes he would pull your panties to the side and have his wicked way with you.

he tilts his chin down. ‘strip.’

you hook your thumbs into your ruined panties and tug them down your legs, shivering a little when they pool at your ankles, revealing your pussy to the room, to jack. jack, who's just sitting there and watching you, appearing totally unaffected as you step out of the leg holes. like you’re the world’s least enticing stripper. like he’d rather be doing anything else.

you bite your lip, your stomach swooping, then tug your shirt off as well, your nipples immediately pebbling in the cool air. though you would be convinced it was just as equally, if not more, from the weight of jack's eyes on them, on you. your bare tits moving in time with your rib cage, the short, rapid breaths of a prey animal. then you’re standing in the kitchen in nothing but your birthday suit and your pink and white frilly socks.

you bend to remove those too and jack stops you. ‘leave them.’

you pause, bent naked at the waist. in your mind's eye you can already see it, your body laid out across his lap, little socked-feet kicking in the air as his palm cracks down on your ass, like a little girl punished for not doing her chores, for letting her room get too messy, for not making her bed. the sound of his hand on your ass almost as loud as the sounds coming from your mouth, your begging and your pleading. it’s sick. it’s disgusting. it makes your cunt so fucking wet.

jack motions to the gap between his legs. ‘come here.’

you straighten, stepping forward into his space and moving to get into the proper position, stomach to thighs, when he stops you again.

‘oh no, sweetheart,' he says, mouth turning up at the corner, ‘not this time.’

you blink, and jack twirls his finger in the air.

‘turn around.’

you do as your told, confused, and face away from him. you jump a little when he grabs a palmful of your thigh, his big thumb pressing in at the bottom curve of your ass cheek, pushing it open to expose your twitching hole, your wet pussy from the back.

jack huffs a quiet laugh, like the view of your drooling cunt amuses him a great deal. unfortunately, for you, this just makes it drool all the more. you’re not sure if it’s pavlov or stockholm you should be thanking for that reaction.

‘cute,’ he says, digging his thumb into the line where your ass meets your thigh before letting go. ‘sit down.’

you gage the distance and sit carefully down in his lap, knees touching, and jack immediately wedges his hand between your legs to yank them apart.

you fall back against his chest, your precious balance disrupted, and gasp as he props each of your legs over his thighs so you’re spread wide. cool air kisses your wet cunt as it’s exposed, puffy clit visible now between your folds, peeking out from behind its hood.

‘there we go,’ jack says, dragging a warm hand up and down the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. ‘comfortable?’

‘i—,’ you say, nonsensically.

you're so confused as to what's happening, and momentarily distracted by the sensation of jack touching you so close to where you need it. his big hands on your body, teasing you, callused fingers catching a little with each pass. has he been planning on... edging you this whole time? that would certainly be unexpected.

you swallow, and say, much clearer, ‘yes, sir.’

jack takes his free hand and slides it over your chest to wrap around your throat, holds you with his fingers pressed in right under your jaw, making sure not to cut off your air supply. it’s an oddly safe feeling, being held like this, by jack.

‘good, that’s really good, sweetheart,’ jack says, nosing at your temple, hot breath ghosting over your ear, ‘'cause we’re gonna be here for a minute.’

holy shit, he’s really going to edge you. you squeeze your eyes shut, shuddering. your mind is miles ahead of you, already feeling him there, fingers sliding through your slick folds to press at your hole, remind you of where he’s about to put them.

mmffuck, please touch my clit, please please please touch my clit, daddy.

his intense body heat slowly seeps through the layers of his clothing and warms all the naked skin it touches, in utter contrast to the temperature of the room, your hard nipples pushing out, begging for attention, begging for his mouth. the dichotomy makes your head spin, makes your pussy gently weep between your legs.

you need him. you need him to touch you there. you lift up your hips, hopeful.

then jack says, direct and low, nipping at your earlobe, ‘i’m gonna spank this disobedient cunt until you’ve learned your lesson.’

you suck in a sharp breath, eyes flying open. your heartrate immediately skyrockets, jackrabbiting in your chest. oh fuck, oh jesus fucking christ. you have completely misread the situation. a risk calculation so terrible, so far outside the estimated score window, that it's actually embarrassing. you feel so fucking dumb.

‘how many do you think it will take?’ jack muses, his fingers walking up and down the crease of your inner thigh, like he's talking about something inconsequential. the weather, a baseball game. ‘ten? twenty?’

yeah, nope. no, thank you. you start to struggle in his hold, knees drawing up in an attempt to get your feet under you and run, but you have no leverage. when this doesn’t work, you try and use your core to barrel forward out of his lap.

‘wow, you’re so right,’ jack says, winding his thick arm around your waist and locking you into place, imprisoning you back against his chest. ‘thirty is a much better estimate for a petulant brat like you.’

‘no!’ you exclaim, trying to find somewhere for your palms to push against, to dig your nails into until he lets you go, but jack just squeezes your throat in warning and huffs a derisive laugh against your ear.

‘you want to keep fighting me? go ahead,’ he says, ‘i personally cannot wait to learn how high you can count.’

you freeze, horror setting in at the implication, then go utterly limp in his arms. ‘no, wait, i’ll be good. i’ll be good. please.’

‘yeah?’ jack coos. ‘you’re sure?’

you frantically nod.

‘you’re gonna take your punishment like a good girl?’

you nod again.

jack hums against your temple. ‘what’s your safeword?’

‘pringles,’ you murmur.

he pinches your side. ‘what was that?’

‘pringles,’ you say louder, cheeks heating, embarassed as you always were that your under-developed brain had chosen the stupidest safeword on the planet and it had stuck like glue.

jack unwinds his arm around your waist to hover his hand an inch above your pussy. and despite all logic, your fear hasn't dampened the impact of the last thirty minutes. your clit is still more than eager to be touched, perking up at the heat radiating from jack's palm.

‘every time i spank this bratty cunt, i want you to thank me,’ jack tells you.

your teeth sink into your bottom lip, muffling a whimper.

jack meanly pinches your thigh. ‘do you understand?’

you wince, shifting your weight in his lap as much as you can.

‘yes, sir,’ you quickly say.

'good,’ he says and spanks your cunt.

there’s no warning, no advice to take a slow, deep breath or to count down from three. he just spanks your pussy like it’s the ending punctuation to his sentence.

your eyes blow wide at the sting and you squeak. fuck!

jack laughs. ‘what a cute sound, baby.’

he smooths his palm along the inside of your thigh and you try and swallow the pool of saliva that’s collected in your mouth.

‘let’s try some real words next time, okay?’

he spanks your cunt again, harder.

fucking fuck! you squeeze your eyes shut against the pain, trying to block it out, and barely manage the shaky, tight ‘thank you’ he requested.

jack rubs your inner thigh.

‘oh, you’re so welcome,’ he says, like you’re having a normal conversation.

he spanks your cunt again, barely pausing, and it hurts just as much, if not more, as the last. your pussy is getting sensitive, his big hand evenly distributing the sting from clit to hole, making the entire area hot and angry.

‘thank you,’ you repeat, between gritted teeth, pain sweat gathering at your palms, beneath your arms.

your stomach tenses in anticipation as jack raises his hand between your legs again and then rains down three hard spanks in quick succession. you can't stop the cry that tears itself from your throat, your hips trying to scoop inward and away from his hand, belly and thighs shaking.

jack makes a cooing noise in your ear, ‘aw, sweetheart, does that hurt?’

the cruelty of the question combined with the burning, aching skin of your cunt makes your eyes well up with tears.

‘yes,' you choke out, your voice thick with emotion.

jack hums, sounding pleased. ‘what do you say to daddy when it hurts?’

you swallow around the lump in your throat, a tear slipping down your cheek. ‘thank you.’

jack spanks your cunt again. ‘that's right. disobedient brats say thank you when they’re punished.’

between this spank and the next one, the rest of the tears spill over, flow without interruption down your cheeks and over the hand jack has wrapped around your throat. you whine and sniffle the entire time he’s spanking you, like once you un-stoppered the emotion, it turned out to be bottomless.

after the twentieth time his hand comes down between your legs, your thighs automatically close on reflex, a survival defense, knees drawing up to protect you against the pain, the stinging blows.

jack tuts, tapping your knee. ‘open your legs, little girl.’

a pathetic sob bursts from your chest. you don’t want to. it hurts so bad, he’s making you hurt so bad. he’s being so mean to you. you hate it. you hate it even as you listen, as you open your trembling legs to reveal your abused cunt, the blood that’s risen to the surface, lips all puffy and swollen.

you can feel your clit pulse with each heartbeat, a metronome between your legs.

‘ouch,’ jack says, in faux-concern, and then starts spanking your cunt again.

there is a point that's reached during your punishment where the required ‘thank you’s dissolve into mindless apologies, where instead of thanking him, you start blubbering and asking for forgiveness. barely comprehensible ‘i’m sorry’s chanted each time his hand comes down.

you’re an utter mess, inside and out. you feel raw in every way a human being can possibly feel raw. it's horrible and painful and humiliating but it also functions as a successful release of all your pent-up emotion. by the end of it, you feel like a wet rag jack has diligently wrung out with both hands.

jack lets go of his hold on your throat and drags his blunt nails up the inside of both your thighs, making your belly twitch.

‘mm all done, baby,’ he says, inhaling a slow, deep breath at the crown of your head. ‘punishment's over.’

you sniffle, coming down, your heart still pattering in your chest like hummingbird wings, quick and flighty.

jack rubs the stretch of skin just below your navel. ‘say, thank you, daddy, for teaching my bratty cunt a lesson.’

‘th-thank you, daddy, for teaching my bratty cunt a lesson.’

jack kisses the top of your head, and then your temple, wraps both his arms around you in a bear hug. ‘see? you can be a good girl, baby. daddy just has to remind you sometimes.’

you make a rather pitiful noise at this that has jack shifting you, arm sliding beneath your knees to settle you sideways in his lap. he returns his mouth to the top of your head and rocks you gently.

‘okay, baby,’ he says, ‘shh, it’s alright. you’re okay.’

‘i’m sorry,’ you whine, sniffling, rubbing your tear-stained face against his collar, wishing you could climb underneath it, hide inside his shirt.

‘hey, none of that now. no more apologies,’ jack says, ‘you did good. took your punishment so well for me.’

the praise sinks warm into your skin and you nuzzle closer into his chest. ‘i did?’

jack gives your head another kiss. ‘yeah, you did. you were so brave, and you listened the entire time. i’m really proud of you.’

i’m really proud of you. the words make you glow and you can’t help the smile that stretches across your face, so you adjust in his lap a little and tuck your face into the crook of his neck to hide it. jack lets you, running a hand up and down your spine.

‘you’re daddy’s favorite girl, you know that?’ he says. ‘no one drives me up the wall quite like you do.’

a surprised laugh bubbles out of your throat and you hiccup into his neck.

Ellis makes a dramatic vomiting noise as you both head out the door, her keys jingling as she turns to lock it.

“I thought Deran was your usual Thursday morning appointment,” she says.

You shrug. “Scheduling conflict.”

She turns and starts down the hall, glancing at you from the corner of her eye. “You are the schedule.”