𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧

The semester ended in a blur of final exams and a desperate need to escape. With the first-place grant completely covering your research expenses for the upcoming semester, the savings you’d painstakingly scraped together were suddenly yours to spend. It probably wasn’t the most responsible choice, but you were reeling from a devastating friendship breakup, suffocating under the weight of the Briar campus. So, you booked a holiday with a friend from your major and left the country.

That entire winter break, you went completely off the grid. You didn't speak to Allie, Hannah, Dean, or Garrett. You didn't even speak to Tucker, though you made sure he knew you were grateful about him berating Logan on your behalf after being told by Allie that he’d done that.

They all understood without you having to say it—you needed a total detox from their entire world. And it worked. Away from them all, you actually had fun. You laughed until your stomach hurt, drank too much wine on sun-drenched balconies, and breathed in air that didn’t smell like ice rinks. For the first time in a long time, the relentless urge to check in on John Logan completely vanished.

By the time the new semester rolled around, you had officially decided your life was better without him. Frankly, you didn’t entirely believe it—at least not when it came to the version of Logan before he changed—but you repeated the words like a mantra until they started to feel like truth.

Over the next three months, you learned how to coexist with the rest of the group again. You’d catch Allie and Hannah on the quad and chat, grab a drink with the boys, or occasionally sit with all of them at Malone’s. But through some miracle of scheduling and hyper-vigilance, you managed to never see Logan. The guys tried to bring him up at first, telling you how completely wrecked he was, how he wasn't the same guy on or off the ice. You shut it down every time. You refused to make his misery your problem.

If he was hurting? Good. He earned every bit of it.

You narrowly avoided him for the majority of the spring. Sometimes you’d end up at the same massive rowdy party, and across a crowded, red-cup-littered room, your eyes would accidentally lock with his. A familiar ache would flare in your chest, and you’d immediately break the contact, turning your back even as you felt his gaze burning a hole straight through you.

You didn't miss him.

You didn't miss his stupid jokes. You didn't miss how absurdly observant he could be, or the terrifying comfort of being known so deeply by another human being. You didn't miss having someone who knew exactly what you needed before you even had to ask.

You didn't miss him at all.

Except, you couldn't convince yourself of that lie when it was three in the morning and the silence in your dorm room was too loud. In those rare, weak moments when the loneliness crept in, your thumb would hover over his contact card, considering unblocking his number just to hear the phone ring. But the night would always end the same way—you shutting your phone off completely, forcing yourself to sleep before you could do something stupid.

Minutes away, in the hockey house, John Logan was doing the exact same thing.

He took long, aimless walks across campus late at night, his boots slowing down instinctively every time he passed your residence hall. It was a muscle-memory habit; he used to walk you back here almost everyday, making sure you reached the doors safely. Now, every time something exciting happened in his life—a great game, a funny incident, a good grade—his first instinct was to text you, only for reality to hit him moments later. He’d sit on the edge of his bed, staring down at the friendship bracelet still tied tightly around his own wrist. He’d then glance at the one you’d left on the floor the night you left his life. He picked it up and kept it in his room, ending his night by staring at it. It was torturous, staring at the one piece of jewelry that reminded him that he was the sole architect of his own ruin. He couldn't believe he’d fucked up this royally.

And to make it worse, you looked happy. Happier without him. You were absolutely glowing.

The first time he’d caught sight of you after winter break, laughing with Allie near the campus cafe, Logan realized that maybe the best thing he could do for you was to just leave you alone. He would have to live with a permanent ache in his chest, knowing you were still hanging out at the house, still going to Malone's, still breathing the same air—just never when he was around. He had caused you so much pain that you had actively rewritten your life to exclude him. He had no right to fight against your peace.

But leaving you alone didn't stop him from cheering you on from the shadows.

When the end-of-year STEM banquet arrived—the prestigious ceremony where you were officially recognized for winning the showcase—Logan made sure he was there. He didn't sit with your friend group despite everyone telling him that he should come. He’d ruin your night. He allowed them to leave the house without him, instead showing up on his own so he wouldn’t be the plague that prevents you from walking up to everyone and thanking them for coming.

Instead, when he arrived, John stood all the way in the back of the auditorium, blending into the shadows by the exit doors.

When your name was called and you walked up to the podium, you scanned the crowd and found him. He looked visibly worn, a subtle pain etching his features, but his eyes were wide and filled with a profound gratitude just to watch you succeed. You didn't smile at him. You didn't offer a nod. But in the space that existed between you, he knew you saw him, and he knew you understood why he was there.

When it ended, you found your friends—Allie being the first to pull you into a hug and Tucker forcing you to take solo pictures. Dean and Garrett wore grim expressions, thinking you’d be disappointed that Logan hadn’t shown his face.

You chose not to tell them that he came.

He hadn't shown up hoping for forgiveness. He hadn't done it to beg. He’d done it because Tucker had been right all those months ago. He needed to bask in the wreckage of what he’d done. He needed to let the weight of his failure truly sink in, to think about you, and to feel exactly what he had forced you to feel on the night of your presentation: the agony of being completely alone in a crowded room.

John Logan had spent three long months doing exactly that.

And when he watched you walk off the stage with your award, the truth finally broke through his chest, clear and devastating. He realized it wasn't just a best friend he had lost.

He realized it was a soulmate.

Yeah, Logan realized that he might’ve been in love with you.

No, he was. Totally and completely in love with you, and perhaps too late.

It was a cruel, cosmic sort of joke, Logan realized. The universe had waited until the exact moment you erased him from your life to finally open his eyes. He was meant to discover he loved you only after he lost you—a lifetime of yearning as a penance for his stupidity.

Lately, he found himself utterly at a loss for words whenever you crossed his path. He’d catch sight of you in the campus hallways, effortlessly beautiful, and the breath would leave his lungs. He’d hear your laugh echoing in the distance at Malone's, a sharp pang hitting his chest because he knew he hadn't been the cause of that sound in months. And through it all, you paid him absolutely no mind. You looked right through him, paying him dust as if he were nothing more than a stranger occupying the same air.

It was fitting, he thought.

He wasn’t really okay with it—the hollowness in his ribs bled every single day—but he was content to accept it. He figured he was blessed just to be capable of loving someone like you, even if those feelings were a heavy cross he’d have to bear alone for the rest of his life.

Until St. Patrick’s Day.

Beau had thrown a massive party at his summer house. Nobody actually cared about the holiday itself, but the team had just clinched a brutal away game, and Briar students never turned down an excuse to drink.

You had dressed up for the occasion, looking striking in a white cropped tank with an oversized, unbuttoned green flannel draped over your shoulders and a light-wash denim skirt. You’d leaned into the theme, tying a green ribbon through one of your belt loops and layering two gold coin necklaces with a green clover one. You felt good, you looked incredible, and as the night wore on, you accidentally drank far too much.

The pounding bass from the speakers downstairs had eventually become too much, making your head throb with a vicious rhythm. Looking for an escape, you stumbled upstairs, pushed open the door to a random, dark bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress. You told yourself you just needed a minute to let the room stop spinning.

A minute turned into two hours.

When your eyes finally flutter open, the heavy vibration of the music is gone. The house is dead silent. A quick check of your phone reveals a barrage of missed calls and frantic texts from Hannah, Allie, and your other friends. Your thumbs move sluggishly across the screen, typing out a quick “i’m fine, fell asleep upstairs” to let them know you hadn't vanished into the night. Since the boys were all staying at Beau's for the night, you figured Allie and Hannah were in their boyfriend’s rooms. You decide to just head down to the living room and crash on the couch so you don’t disturb anyone. You don’t know whose room this was meant to be and prefer not to wake up next to a stranger because of it.

You notice that your throat feels like sandpaper when you sit up. You’re thirsty.

Stepping out into the hallway, you quickly realize the alcohol hasn’t entirely left your system. Your balance sways, forcing you to grip the wooden railing tightly as you navigate the stairs. The house was is absolute wasteland of red plastic cups, crushed cans, and stray green beads. You can see the faint remnants of a cleanup effort that had clearly been abandoned halfway through when everyone succumbed to exhaustion.

The only illumination in the entire house was the low glow coming from the kitchen.

Holding your flannel shut against the chill of the house, your bare legs shivering slightly in your denim skirt, you pad quietly toward the light. You round the corner, your eyes blinking against the brightness, and freeze.

Standing by the sink, a glass of water halfway to his lips, is John Logan.

You suddenly grow intensely conscious of how insane you probably look. Your hair is a bird’s nest, your eyeliner is almost certainly smudged beneath your lower lashes, and stray green glitter clings stubbornly to your collarbones and cheeks.

Funny enough, you can’t be more beautiful to him right now. Logan stands entirely paralyzed, his eyes tracking the slight sway of your shoulders, the oversized green flannel slipping off one side of your white tank. You find yourself staring directly back into his brown eyes for longer than five seconds. A new record in months.

He stays still, unsure of whether he should speak first, or if he should grant you the right to decide your own boundaries—whether he is going to be an invisible ghost in this kitchen, or someone actually worth your breath.

He knows he isn’t the latter. But right now, with the fog of sleep and alcohol muddling your brain, he isn’t entirely the former either.

You clear your dry throat. "Hi."

Logan blinks, his chest heaving as he swallows hard. He looks utterly terrified and entirely shattered at the same time, like a man waiting for a blow he knows he deserves.

“Hi," he replies, his voice a reluctant whisper.

The sheer absurdity of the tension finally gets to you. You let out a soft, raspy giggle, making your way past him toward the upper cabinets. "You can breathe, Logan. I’m not armed."

A sudden, breathless laugh escapes him, his shoulders visibly relaxing at your surprisingly calm demeanor.

He watches you approach the cupboards, quickly realizing you’re searching for a cup, and clears his throat again. "Beau moved them," he mutters softly, pointing a finger toward the absolute highest shelf. "To keep people from smashing them tonight."

You stop, staring up at the ridiculously high shelf. For a fleeting second, you silently contemplate climbing straight onto the counter, but you’re wearing a denim skirt and you have absolutely no intention of flashing the guy you’re supposed to hate.

Logan shifts his weight, his brown hues searching your face. "Do you. . . do you want some help?"

You cut your eyes at him, letting out a defeated sigh. "Yeah."

He steps into your space, the scent of him—soap and cedar mixed with alcohol—wrapping around you instantly. He reaches up, his large hand grabbing a clean glass from the top shelf. As he brings it down, you make absolutely no effort to step back. You stay right there, your shoulder nearly brushing his chest.

Logan’s brow furrows in surprise at your proximity, but the second he tries to hand you the glass, your fingers tremble against the heavy glass. Your balance wavers, just a fraction.

The realization that you’re still drunk hits him at once. Of course you’re tolerating his presence; you aren’t thinking straight.

"Hey, I've got it," he murmurs, his fingers gently brushing yours as he takes the glass back, completely ignoring your quiet grunt of protest. He turns to the fridge, filling it with crisp, cold water before turning back and pressing the smooth glass into your palm.

Logan hooks his boot around the leg of a nearby stool, pulling it out for you. "Sit down. Drink all of it."

You glare at him over the rim of the glass, the alcohol making you bold. "Don't tell me what to do, John."

A faint, melancholic smile touches his stupidly kissable lips. "You already hate me. It's not like it can get any worse."

You take a long, desperate gulp of the water, the cold liquid soothing your burning throat. You set the glass down on the counter with a soft clink, looking up at him through smudged lashes. "I don't hate you."

Logan blinks, the words striking him right in the center of his chest. He doesn’t know how true that actually is, and as much as his heart flares with desperate, pathetic hope, he refuses to push you for answers in this state. It feels invasive. It feels wrong to take advantage of the liquor softening your edges.

"How much did you have tonight?" he asks quietly, trying to redirect the conversation.

A clumsy giggle bubbles out of your throat. You lift your hands, trying to recount the tally of green jello shots and mixed drinks on your fingers, stumbling over the mental math until you just shake your head. Logan can’t help the genuine laugh that rumbles in his chest at the sight of you, his eyes crinkling.

"Right," he smiles softly, checking his watch. "Do you need help getting back upstairs?"

"I'm just gonna crash on the couch," you mumble, gesturing vaguely to the trashed living room.

"The couch is covered in stale beer and God-knows-what bodily substances," Logan counters gently. "Go back upstairs. The room you were sleeping in is mine. I came down here because I didn't want to wake you up."

You let out a soft oh, a sleepy smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth. "Look at you. A gentleman."

"I try," he says, the old banter sending a bittersweet jolt throughout his body. He steps closer, his voice turning into something protective. "Come on. I’m gonna help you get back up there, and then I’m gonna help you get that makeup off. I know you hate waking up with your face feeling gross."

Your defense mechanisms flare, a sudden prickle of irritation cutting through the alcohol-ridden haze. "I don't need your help, Logan. I haven't needed it for the past three months."

The words cut deep, a sharp reminder of the reality he’d built for himself. The pain flits across his features, but he just nods, taking the blow without a fight.

"I know," he says softly, his voice thick with regret. "I know you don't. But just let me do this. Come on."

You grumble under your breath, throwing a half-hearted complaint into the air, but you don’t fight him when his large hand settles gently against the small of your back. He guides you back up the stairs, his palm a grounding anchor as you stumble on the top step.

He walks you into his room, gently guiding your shoulders until you sit down on the edge of the mattress. You don’t protest. You just watch him with sleepy eyes as he murmurs, "I'll be right back."

Logan slips down the hall to the bathroom Allie and Hannah had used to get ready, quickly rummaging through the counter until he finds what he’s looking for. A minute later, he walks back into the bedroom, carrying a bottle of Micellar Water and a handful of cotton pads.

He sits down on the mattress right in front of you, his knees nearly touching yours, and pours a few drops of the liquid onto the cotton. His hands, usually so rough and aggressive on the ice, are entirely weightless as he raises the pad to your face, gently wiping away the first layer of smudged makeup.

You watch him observantly as he works, your eyes tracking the pure focus in his expression. The alcohol has completely stripped away your internal filter, and before your muddled brain can stop them, the words stumble out of your mouth. “You're pretty, John."

Logan stops for a fraction of a second, a soft laugh huffing out of him as he keeps his eyes on your forehead. "So are you."

"Yeah, I know," you mutter, your attempt at displaying an attitude failing due to your slurring of words.

A genuine smile breaks across his face at your bluntness, his shoulders shaking with a soft chuckle. He shifts his hand, bringing a fresh cotton pad to your other cheek to wipe away the stray glitter and blush. As his arm moves, his sleeve pulls back, and your eyes lock onto his left wrist.

The blue and purple friendship bracelet is still there. It looks like it’s being held together by a prayer, but it’s still securely tied.

"Why are you still wearing that?" you ask, your voice dropping its playful edge.

Logan blinks, not entirely sure what you’re referring to at first. He follows your gaze down to his wrist. His expression softens into something melancholy, a look of guilt taking over his features. "It’s the least I could do.”

He doesn't expand on it, moving the cotton pad down to the makeup and glitter on your neck and collarbone. You internally curse your own biology because, despite everything, your body is still completely conditioned to his presence. Without meaning to, you find yourself leaning slightly into his touch, letting your head tilt back to give him access. At least tomorrow you can blame the pathetic display on the alcohol.

Your filterless brain jumps straight to the next burning question. "Do you still like Hannah?"

You had never told Logan that you knew about his crush. Even during your massive blowout three months ago, you had kept that specific detail to yourself, refusing to out his feelings in front of the entire living room. The pure surprise on his face is clear as day. He halts entirely, his hand hovering over your collarbone before he slowly pulls back.

He doesn't answer right away. He stands up in silence, tossing the used, makeup-stained cotton pads into the small trash can by the desk, buying himself time. When he comes back to sit on the mattress in front of you, his gaze is serious.

"I don't know what you mean," he lies.

You let out a dry laugh, shaking your head. "I'm not stupid, Logan. That’s what ruined us, anyway. Your feelings for her."

Logan stares at you, seeing the certainty in your muddled eyes, and decides there is absolutely no use in denying it anymore. The truth is, he had long gotten over whatever infatuation he’d harbored. It had actually been Hannah herself who helped him realize the reality of his feelings months ago—that he hadn't been pining for her, but rather envying the effortless, ironclad bond she shared with Garrett. He had been looking for what you two used to have.

"I don't like her anymore," Logan says, his voice level, entirely devoid of the old longing. You’re too drunk to observe that detail. "Honestly. . . I'm not sure if I ever really did."

You let out another sleepy, cynical chuckle, looking down at your lap. "It’s okay that if you do. I know you did. I saw the way you looked at her." You pause, swallowing the sudden lump in your throat as the alcohol forces the ultimate truth to the surface. "It was the way I wanted you to look at me."

Logan’s features change so violently you wonder if it’s possible to get facial whiplash. His chest heaves, eyes widening as the breath is completely knocked out of him.

"What do you mean by that?" he whispers, his voice trembling, practically begging you to elaborate.

But you don't reply. The sudden emotional confession, paired with the strength of the liquor, sends a massive wave of exhaustion crashing through your veins. Your eyelids flutter, growing impossibly heavy.

"I'm tired, Logan," you mumble, your head slumping slightly.

He stares at you, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, but he forces himself to take a breath. He chooses not to pry. As desperately as he wants to get answers, he knows this is absolutely not a conversation to be had when you can barely keep your eyes open.

"You wanna change into something else?" he asks softly, glancing at your denim skirt. "I can get you some sweatpants."

"No," you groan tiredly, already shifting your body to crawl beneath the heavy duvet. "Too tired."

Knowing how stubborn you get when you're sleepy, he doesn't argue. He gently grabs the edge of the comforter, pulling it up over your shoulders and tucking you in against. Once your head securely hits the plush pillow, Logan crouches down to your eye level, lingering for a moment to ensure you're completely comfortable.

Your eyes are shut tight, your breathing slowing into a steady pattern. Thinking you’ve already drifted off, Logan places his palms on his knees, preparing to stand up and leave the room.

Before he can move, your hand shoots out from beneath the blankets, your fingers wrapping tightly around his wrist—right over the threads of his friendship bracelet.

"Thank you," you whisper into the dark room, your eyes still closed.

Logan’s throat tightens, a wave of affection and ache washing over him. "Don't thank me," he murmurs. He leans forward, his movement entirely natural and devoid of malice as he presses a soft, kiss to your forehead. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," you mumble back, your grip on his wrist loosening as you sink deeper into the mattress. "This doesn't mean we're cool again, by the way."

An honest laugh escapes Logan, the familiar sharpness of your tongue bringing a bittersweet comfort to his heart. "I know," he whispers, his voice full of a quiet promise to earn every single inch of your trust back. "I know it doesn't."

He reaches over, gently clicking off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into warm, quiet shadows before slipping out to the living room, leaving you to finally sleep.

The morning sun slices through the blinds with a blinding brightness that makes your head immediately throb. You groan, rolling over, only to realize your skin doesn’t feel tight and clogged. Your face is clean.

Sitting on the dresser is a folded pile of oversized sweats and a sticky note from Hannah letting you know there’s a spare, unopened toothbrush in the bathroom. You let out a breath, extremely grateful for your friends. When you glance at the nightstand, you find a bottle of blue Gatorade and two ibuprofen tablets waiting for you. You assume those are from Hannah, too, and swallow the pills quickly, chasing it down with the blue liquid.

Once you’re changed, showered, and finally dragging your feet downstairs, you realize you are officially the last one awake.

Dean sees you step into the kitchen and immediately bellows, "There she is! The life of the party!"

You wince, pressing a hand to your temple. "Why are you yelling? Please don't yell."

Tucker lets out a low laugh from the kitchen counter and slides a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito toward you. “We ordered takeout. The bus leaves in thirty minutes so we’ve gotta head out in twenty.”

You take a bite, look over at Hannah and Allie, and offer a soft smile. "Hey, thanks for the clothes and the stuff on the nightstand."

They both nod, but Hannah frowns slightly. "No problem for the clothes, but what stuff on the nightstand?"

You pause, a sudden twist in your stomach cutting through the hangover. "The ibuprofen? The Gatorade?"

"Wasn't us," Allie says, popping a piece of toast into her mouth.

You quickly brush it off, and walk over to the kitchen island where Tucker is leaning. You figure it must have been his doing—the classic protective older brother move despite him being younger.

"Thanks, Tuck," you murmur.

Tucker just looks at you, a knowing, amused glint in his eyes as he takes a sip of his coffee. "Don't thank me. It was your lover boy."

Your heart does a violent flip-flop. Logan.

You glance around the room, but he’s nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the reality of last night crashes over you in a wave of mortification. Now that you’re sober, you don't even know how to approach it. You’re grateful he helped you, sure, but the baseline anger from the last three months is still burning in your chest. Worse, the unfiltered things you said start echoing in your mind.

It was the way I wanted you to look at me.

The memory makes you want to literally shrivel up and die on the kitchen tile. But since spontaneous combustion isn't an option, you clear your throat and look back at Tucker. "I'm, uh. . . I'm gonna go upstairs and finish packing my tote bag so I'm ready to walk out when you guys leave."

Tucker nods steadily, and you beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs. You figure Tucker would have warned you if Logan was up there, but you quickly realize your assumption is entirely incorrect.

The exact moment you pass the upstairs bathroom, the door swings open. You nearly collision-course right into a solid chest. You gasp, taking a sharp step back, and find yourself staring right into Logan’s eyes.

"Sorry," he says quickly, his hands instinctively twitching as if he wants to catch your elbows before he remembers he doesn't have the right to touch you anymore. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," you say, your voice restrained.

An awkward silence stretches between you in the narrow hallway. He looks exhausted, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, his hair damp from his own shower.

You clear your throat, forcing the words out. "Thank you. For the ibuprofen. And for. . . everything else last night."

Logan’s expression softens. “I told you last night, you don't have to thank me."

You offer a quick nod, shifting your weight to walk right past him and end the interaction. You can practically feel the desperate urge radiating off him; he clearly wants to talk to you, but he doesn't think you want to speak to him. And truthfully, you don't.

But for some stupid, inexplicable reason, you still do.

You stop, your sandals gluing themselves to the ground. Slowly, you turn back around to face him. "I meant it, you know. When I said I don't hate you. I could never hate you, Logan." You look down at your shoes, your voice dropping. "I was just hurt. Honestly, I still am."

Logan takes a tentative step forward, closing a fraction of the distance between you. "I know," he says, "You have every single right to be."

He swallows hard, his gaze locking onto yours with such a focus that it makes you furrow your eyebrows.

"I'm not going to give you some pathetic excuse about the charity event," Logan says, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. "The truth is, I was selfish. I got so caught up in trying to chase something new that I completely blinded myself to the person who actually mattered. I took years of your loyalty and I treated it like it was a given. Like no matter how careless I was, you’d just. . . always be there."

He takes another small step, and you can tell he’s been wanting to say this for some time.

"When Tucker told me what happened—how you kept looking for me at the back of that auditorium, thinking that I was hurt because you couldn't conceive of a world where I'd just let you down. . . it made me physically sick. I have never hated myself more than I did that night. I broke a sacred promise to my best friend because I wanted to play the hero for someone else, and I left you to stand on that stage alone. You don’t deserve that, you have never deserved that.”

A painful silence falls over over the narrow hallway, the sincerity in his voice cutting right through your caged heart.

"I'm so sorry," Logan whispers, his eyes glossy. "I'm sorry I made you feel invisible. I'm sorry I ruined what should have been the greatest night of your life. I don't expect you to just forget it, and I know I don't deserve it, but I need you to know that I am so deeply, truly sorry. Even if you choose to never speak to me again, it’s well within your rights.”

Hearing it now, spoken with the emotion of a guy who has spent three months drowning in his own regret, feels like the exact piece of closure you’ve been suffocating without. You can see it in his eyes—how utterly desperate he is for just a sliver of another chance.

He’d done what you’d wanted him to, he basked in the actions of what he’d done. He sat with them, made them about you instead of him, and suffered in it.

"It's exhausting," you admit, a weary sigh escaping your lips. "Trying to avoid you all the time. It takes so much energy."

"I know," Logan whispers, his eyes swimming with guilt. "I'm so sorry I made you feel like that was your only option. I miss you. God, I miss you in my life so much."

You lean your shoulder against the wall, crossing your arms over your chest. You aren't going to let him entirely off the hook. "It won't be that easy, Logan."

"I know it won't," he says instantly, a determined certainty lighting up his gaze. "I don't expect it to be. But I am willing to work for it. Seriously. Whatever it takes. Throw it at me."

A sudden, wicked spark of mischief makes you perk up. You look him up and down. "Okay. You have to do my laundry for the rest of the semester and the next school year.”

Logan doesn't even blink. His jaw sets, and he nods with absolute dedication. "Done. I'll pick it up every Monday."

The seriousness on his face pulls a laugh out of you before you can stop yourself, the sound echoing in the hallway. "I'm kidding, dude! Oh my gosh, your face."

A massive, relieved smile breaks across Logan's features, his own laugh mingling with yours. It’s the first time you’ve shared a real, sober laugh in months, and the warmth of it temporarily banishes the void in your chest.

As the laughter dies down, Logan steps just a bit closer, his expression turning serious again, though the panic is gone. "Look, I know we’ll probably never be exactly how we were before. I know things changed. But. . . I'm willing to try, if you'll let me."

You take a good look at him and realize that the fortress you built over the winter break has officially been breached. You swallow the lingering nerves, offering a small nod.

"Yeah," you say softly. "We can be friends again."

Friends.

The word echoes in Logan’s head. It feels like a lifeline thrown to a dying man. It isn't everything his newly realized, aching heart wants—not after what you drunkenly confessed last night—but as he looks at your relaxed shoulders and the slight smile on your face, he thinks to himself—Friends.

I can do friends.

John Logan can’t do friends.

He’s learned that the hard way over the last two months.

Honestly, he doesn’t even understand how he was able to do it before. He looks back at the last ten years and wonders how he was ever blind enough to categorize what he felt for you as just a friendship. Especially considering how casually touchy the two of you used to be when you were closer. It had been second nature for you to be leaning your entire weight against his side on the couch, or mindlessly picking at a stray thread on his shirt, or tangling your fingers in his hair while you talked about your classes.

He had taken every single touch for granted. Now, he’d do absolutely anything just to have a fraction of that effortless closeness back.

But he has your friendship again, and he forces himself to remember that a thin slice of you is a million times better than nothing at all.

So, he sucks it up. He swallows the bitter lump in his throat when you ask Tucker or Beau to help you hold your heavy research bag, knowing damn well he used to be your automatic go-to for things like that. He forces a tight smile when you ask Allie or Hannah to go on a late-night walk with you, sitting on the porch and watching you walk away, aware of the fact that he’s the one being replaced.

And he especially sucks it up when he sees you laughing with another guy at a party. Logan will stand across the room, gripping his red plastic cup so tight his knuckles turn white, pretending he isn't completely sizing the guy up from a distance. He’ll stare at the stranger, a dark, possessive pettiness roaring in his chest as he wonders if the guy even knows your middle name or what your favorite flavor of chips is.

But then, there are the fleeting moments that make the torture entirely worth it.

Like when you’re standing in the entryway of the boys’ house, losing your balance for a split second, and you mindlessly drop your hand onto his firm shoulder to steady yourself while you adjust the heel strap of your shoe. Or when he makes one of his classic yet stupid jokes and without thinking, you roll your eyes, press your bare palm directly against his face, and tell him to shut up—just like old times. In those brief, beautiful seconds, the warmth of your skin completely blinds him, making him forget the crushing reality that he’ll never actually have you in the way he truly wants.

What you don't know is that Logan fixed your broken friendship bracelet.

He did it the very night after you agreed to rekindle things at Beau's summer house. He’d arrived at the house, gathered the ruined heap of strings from his dresser, and spent hours knotting them back together. It took him a long time, and he had to constantly switch through a multitude of YouTube tutorials, but it was worth it.

He’ll never tell you about it; he’s too terrified of what your reaction would be, afraid you'll think he's crossing a line. But every single night before he goes to sleep, he pulls that restored bracelet out and looks at it, reminding himself of the new beginning he’s been granted.

Maybe you really did love him at some point. Maybe you loved him in the exact same consuming, terrifying way he loves you now, your filterless words from St. Patrick’s Day echoing in his mind like a beautiful haunting.

But as he watches you navigate your life with a bright, independent glow, it’s brutally clear to him that you’ve passed that chapter. You don't look at him with longing anymore. You don't feel that way about him.

John Logan missed his window, and he’s just going to have to find a way to live with the view.

It’s ironic that the next time the two of you are truly alone again is in a kitchen. Only this time, it’s his, not Beau’s. And you’re not downstairs, stumbling around and reeling from a muddled, drunken nap. You are wide awake, the house is relatively dark, save for the moonlight peeking through the windows, and you are currently remembering that Tucker always keeps a tub of cookies n' cream ice cream from your favorite brand tucked away in the back of the freezer. He used to pretend to get mad whenever you’d eat his stash, but lately, you have a strong suspicion he buys it solely for you.

Malone’s had hosted a karaoke night, and Hannah had placed her dorm keys into Allie’s purse—which Allie had unfortunately forgotten at the bar. You hadn't seen the point in making everyone take a massive detour to campus just to drop you off alone, so you’d decided it would be perfectly fine to sleep on the boys’ couch. Garrett had continuously asked if you were sure about it, over and over, until you finally told him that if he asked one more time, you’d shove a car tire down his throat. He’d complied instantly.

Which takes you to now. It's one in the morning, and you're awake because the living room is freezing, but you didn't want to wake anyone up just to beg for a blanket. Eating ice cream when you’re already shivering isn’t exactly the brightest choice, but it’s easily the tastiest.

You are sharply reminded of just how cold the house is when you hop up to sit on the kitchen counter, your bare thighs making direct contact with the freezing tile. You’d been lent an oversized spare t-shirt to sleep in, but your brown ruffled shorts were surprisingly comfortable, so you’d decided to keep them on.

A floorboard creaks on the staircase, making you pause. Seconds later, John Logan enters the kitchen.

He stops, surprised to see you sitting there in the dark with a spoon in your hand. But funny enough, there is no awkwardness this time. The thick, suffocating tension that used to define your interactions has completely melted away over the last few weeks—even if things still aren't exactly back to old times.

Logan rubs a hand over his face, his voice groggy. "What are you doing still up?"

"Making myself significantly colder by eating ice cream," you reply easily, lifting your spoon. "I couldn't sleep because I'm freezing."

Logan frowns slightly, leaning against the counter a few feet away. "Why didn’t you wake one of us up and ask for a blanket?"

"I was going to," you admit, digging the spoon back into the tub. "But it was late, and I swear I could hear the cookies n' cream in the freezer literally begging to be eaten."

He laughs, the sound warming the kitchen. You remember, suddenly, that he loves this exact flavor just as much as you do.

You’re sitting right above the drawer where the utensils are kept. Leaning down slightly, you pull the drawer open, grab a clean spoon, and hold it out toward him. It’s an offering. An olive branch, if you will.

Logan stares at the spoon in your hand for a full minute, blinking before he slowly reaches out and takes it. You hold the tub of ice cream out between you. He steps in closer, scooping a bite directly from the container, and mindlessly cleans off the spoon with his lips.

As he does, you realize just how close he’s standing. For some reason, watching the slow, casual movement of his jaw makes a traitorous heat bloom, starting from your neck and spreading to your face. He’s standing right between your parted knees as you sit on the counter, close enough that his body heat is radiating against your cold skin, completely overriding the chill of the room. You internally hate yourself for the way your pulse immediately kicks up.

To make matters worse, he tilts the tub back toward you so you can take another bite.

Because you’re elevated on the counter, Logan is forced to look slightly up at you, his glimmering eyes wide and dark in the shadows. He shifts his weight, and his other hand—completely absentmindedly, just out of old, deep-seated habit—rests lightly against the edge of the counter, his knuckles slightly brushing against the bare skin of your thigh.

You don’t think he’s thinking much of it. To him, it’s probably just the casual, comfortable contact that used to be the norm between you two. But to you, it is absolutely terrible. You had managed to successfully drown out all of those impulsive, agonizingly loving thoughts for months, burying them deep beneath your anger. But they only ever seem to come roaring back to life during quiet, hyper-intimate moments just like this.

And that is exactly why you spent the last few weeks avoiding being alone with him like this.

You pray he can’t hear the way your heart is slamming against your ribs. Desperate to break the suffocating spell of his proximity, you hop off the counter, your bare feet hitting the cold floorboards with a soft thud.

"We should go get that blanket," you say, your voice sounding a little too quick, a little too breathless.

Logan studies your face for a lingering moment, his doe eyes searching yours before he gives a quiet nod. "Yeah. It's upstairs in my room."

You follow him up the stairs, the quiet of the house wrapping around you. But when you step into his bedroom, Logan stops by his closet, a sheepish look crossing his face as he remembers. "Ah, actually, I forgot. I threw it in the wash earlier. It’s probably still in the dryer downstairs." He offers an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."

"It's fine," you say, leaning against his doorframe. "At least it'll be fresh out of the heat."

He lets out a soft laugh. "Wait in here, I'll go grab it."

Once his footsteps fade down the hallway, you step fully into his room. It hits you all at once that you haven't been in this space in months. It looks the same—the rumpled sheets, the hockey gear tucked into the corner—but it feels entirely different.

Your eyes drift over to his desk, and you freeze.

Resting right on top of a stack of textbooks is a colorful weave of embroidery string. Your breath hitches. You know it’s not the one Logan wears, because you just saw his on his wrist seconds ago. You take a step closer, your fingers trembling slightly as you reach out and pick it up.

It’s fixed. Every single thread that had snapped apart on the night of your presentation has been carefully knotted back together. You had assumed it was thrown in the garbage. He never brought it up, never mentioned keeping it.

You lean back against the edge of his desk, staring down at the neat knots, completely lost in thought.

The door clicks, and you jump slightly as Logan returns, a warm, fluffy blanket cradled in his arms. He has an easy, happy smile on his face—one that drops instantly the second his eyes land on what is dangling from your fingertips.

“You still have it,” you observe quietly.

Logan’s movements turn hesitant. He walks toward you like he's stepping onto thin ice, gently dropping the warm blanket onto the edge of his unmade bed. Over the last few weeks, you’ve gotten so good at masking your emotions that he genuinely can’t read you right now. The unreadable expression is making him visibly nervous.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice dropping. "I didn't realize I left that out."

You ignore his apology, your eyes still locked on the tightly woven strings. "When did you fix it?"

"The day we rekindled things," he confesses softly.

Your chest tightens. "Why did you never show it to me?"

"I didn't think you’d want to see it." Logan swallows hard. "I didn't want to push you."

"Why did you fix it, Logan?"

There is a sudden, fragile falter in your voice—one you didn't even realize was coming until the words left your mouth.

Logan stares at you, completely at a loss. He doesn't know how to answer that honestly without entirely blowing his cover and confessing that he is desperately, entirely in love with you. So, he falls back on the safest truth he has. "Because it was important to me. You're important to me."

Silence stretches over the bedroom. You quickly avert your gaze, looking down at the floor, and Logan’s stomach drops through the floorboards. He thinks he’s done it. He thinks he’s finally fucked up for the last time. All those weeks of careful groveling, of trying to respect your boundaries, and he ruined it because he was an idiot who forgot to hide a fucking bracelet.

But then, a soft, ragged sniffle breaks the silence.

"Hey," Logan calls your name softly.

Instinctively, your head snaps up to meet his gaze. The moment he sees the watery sheen glossing over your eyes, any hesitation he had vanishes. He rushes across the small gap between you, his large hands immediately reaching out.

He gently takes the bracelet from your fingers, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Before you can blink, his thumb reaches up, tenderly wiping away the single tear you allowed to escape down your cheek. His large palm doesn't leave your face; instead, his hand settles gently against your jawline, his fingers anchoring you, prompting you to look directly into the depths of his honey eyes.

The sudden proximity sinks into you. You are completely trapped between the solid breadth of his chest and the hard edge of his desk. And looking up at him, you can tell he is thinking the exact same thing you are.

Your gaze helplessly drops to his lips. When you snap your eyes back up to his, you realize with a jolt that he had just been doing the exact same thing to you.

"Tell me to stop," Logan whispers, his breath warm against your lips, his voice raw and begging.

You want to. You know you should. You know you’re supposed to be just friends, that you’re supposed to be protecting your heart. But the logic completely dissolves, and the moment his lips finally touch yours, you don't pull away.

You kiss him back.

The kiss is slow and absolutely intoxicating. You have never felt more utterly vulnerable in your entire life. Logan lets out a low, ragged sound against your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs, effortlessly lifting you up so you're sitting securely on the edge of the desk. He doesn't break the contact for a single second. His hands shift, his large palms wrapping firmly around your waist, holding onto you with a distinct desperation—like you’re a buoy in the middle of a crashing ocean and he’s a drowning man.

The familiar warmth of him fills you up, once again erasing the chill of the house. You almost entirely forget who you are, where you are, and what exactly you’re doing—until the kiss deepens, and a soft, involuntary moan of pure pleasure escapes your throat.

The sound shocks you right back to reality.

Panicking, you put your hands against his chest and break away from him immediately, sliding off the desk and backing up until your spine hits the wall. Your breathing is shallow and erratic, your lips tingling.

Logan stands there, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and completely dark with a mixture of shock and terror. "I'm sorry. I—“

"No, it's—it's fine," you stammer, your hands flying up to touch your face, your mind spinning into complete overdrive. "I just—can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Before he can even utter another word, you dart past him, tearing open the bedroom door and sprinting down the hallway, leaving him standing alone in the center of the room.

Logan closes his eyes, a frustrated huff escaping his lips as he rubs his hands over his face. He’s certain. He is absolutely, one hundred percent certain that he just blew everything. He just ruined the fragile friendship you’ve spent ages building.

Slowly, he reopens his eyes, his shoulders slumped in utter defeat as he looks over at his bed.

At least you took the blanket with you.

note: i may or may not do a part two, my motivation fluctuates! hope you enjoy because this was super sad to write.

He’s looking at her.

His arm rests along the back of the couch, the sensation of it familiar enough that you barely notice it anymore. Every few minutes, when someone says something particularly funny, his hand shifts and his fingers brush against the exposed skin of your shoulder blade. It’s casual, absent-minded contact. It means nothing to him and everything to you.

Around you, the boys’ house is lively. Tucker is arguing with Birdie about the game they’ve been at for hours on the TV. Every once in a while, someone tells them to shut up. They do that for a total of five minutes before someone inevitably raises their voice, leading the other to do the same.

You should be finishing up your story. It was a stupid tale, one about falling asleep during a lecture.

Instead, you’re watching him.

Or rather, you’re watching where he’s looking.

His gaze drifts across the room so often that you’ve begun anticipating it, finding yourself following the path before he’s even finished turning his head. It happens during conversations. During periods of silence. During moments when he’s supposed to be paying attention you.

His eyes always find the same person.

You wonder if anyone else notices.

Maybe they don’t. Maybe they haven’t spent nearly ten years studying every version of John Logan.

Ten years.

Long enough to remember the cracked sidewalks of your hometown and the suffocating certainty that neither of you belonged there. Long enough to remember sitting on the roof of his garage at thirteen years old, passing back and forth what was always bag of Hot Cheetos while making promises far too big for kids your age.

You had been determined to leave.

And somehow, against every odd stacked against two middle-schoolers with seemingly unattainable dreams and no real plan, you did.

You earned your place through a STEM scholarship that had consumed countless nights and enough caffeine to raise alerts towards your cardiovascular system. He earned his through hockey, through early mornings and bruises and a relentless dedication that you supported him all throughout.

Different roads, same destination.

For nearly a decade, the two of you had existed side by side.

And for six of those years, you’ve loved him.

You weren’t sure when you realized it, but once you did, it felt as though things finally clicked into place. There had always been that speculation from others that you two were something beyond a mere friendship—but there was no weight to it. Not while it wasn’t true, anyway.

You thought it may have been the puberty. John was no longer a scrawny kid who you hovered over. He’d grown into himself as the years passed—taller, stronger, more confident. It was a simple crush that came as a result of change, you told yourself.

But you had began to think it was more than that, that it always had been. Once the feeling arrived, it made no effort to fade—settling into the empty spaces between inside jokes and late-night phone calls, between shared victories and devastating failures. It lodged itself so deeply within your bond that you stopped looking for where friendship ended and something else began.

Maybe that was your mistake.

Across the room, Hannah laughs.

The sound is soft enough that most people would miss it beneath the chatter, but John hears it.

Of course he does.

Hannah Wells has a way of drawing attention effortlessly. Her smile comes easily, brightening her entire face like a Christmas tree. Honey-brown hair spills over one shoulder as she speaks. Her deep cerulean eyes crinkle when she laughs. Hearing her sing for the first time made it no better.

And she is so kind.

She remembers your birthday, she asks you questions on a subject you think had long been over. She makes you feel seen.

It’s impossible to blame him for looking.

The problem is that lately, he hasn’t seemed capable of looking anywhere else.

His fingers brush your shoulder again, mindlessly.

Across the room, Hannah says something to Allie that you can’t quite make out.

Logan smiles.

And suddenly, despite his arm around you and his knee pressed lightly against yours and nearly ten years of friendship sitting comfortably between the two of you, you’ve never felt further away from him.

Tucker notices your shift in mood before Logan does. You like Tuck the most out of all of Logan’s friends. He’s a year below the rest of you, though you like to say he’s the most mature out of all of them. He’s observant, you learned.

He tilts his head at you, silently asking if you’re okay. You send him a half-hearted thumbs up. Something clicks for him and he accepts your answer, redirecting his attention to the game.

You think Tucker knows about your crush on John. A part of you hopes he doesn’t, but another part of you knows that he does.

At some point, Logan notices you’ve stopped talking. By the time he has, you’re fiddling with your bracelet. He frowns, glancing at his own matching one on his left wrist. You were both surprised they had never broken. Logan enjoyed referring to it as a testament to your long-standing friendship. The blue and purple embroidery of both your bracelets have become a halo of fuzz, but they remain intact nonetheless.

Logan glances back at you, studying you once again—knit eyebrows, lip tucked between your teeth. You’re upset.

“What’s wrong?”

You meet his doe eyed gaze and hate yourself for thinking about drowning in them. He knows you as well as you know him. So much so that you can’t lie and pretend you’re okay. He’s read you and he’s decided that you’re not.

So you do the next best thing.

“It’s just stuffy in here,” you reply passively, maintaining a poker face when you push off the couch and his fingertips leave your shoulder blades. “I’m gonna get some air.”

The cool evening air hits you the second the front door clicks shut, but it does nothing to clear the sudden suffocating weight in your chest. You walk over to the edge of the porch, gripping the wooden railing just to have something solid to hold onto.

Behind you, the front door opens and shuts. Familiar footsteps thud against the wood. You don’t need to turn around to know it’s him, you’d know the specific cadence of his stride anywhere.

"Hey," Logan says softly, stepping up beside you, jacket in his hand. He leans his forearms against the railing, his large frame blocking out the slight breeze. "You left your jacket inside. It’s freezing out here."

You make no effort to retrieve the coat from his grasp. You don’t look even at him. Instead, your eyes fixate on a tiny, industrious spider crawling across the top of a plastic patio chair a few feet away. It is small, frantic, and entirely unaware of the shifting plates of your universe, completely consumed by the monumental task of weaving a web between two cheap slats of faux-wicker. You envy it. You want to be anything else—a spider, a piece of dust, a thread on your frayed bracelet—anything but the girl standing under the porch light, slowly unraveling.

"I'm fine," you tell him, the words slipping out easily, rehearsed from a decade of practice.

"You're not fine," he insists softly. It’s not an accusation. It’s a statement of fact.

"I am fine," you repeat, but your voice is uneven.

You always are, somehow. It’s a reflex by now. Burn the midnight oil until your vision blurs, crash through exams on three hours of sleep, watch the boy you’ve loved for six years slip through your fingers like water—the answer is always the same: I’m fine.

"Don't do that," Logan mutters, turning his head to look at you. His eyes are swimming with an earnest yet frustrating concern that always makes you want to spill your guts. "We don't do that. Talk to me. Did someone say something inside? Did I do something?"

You let out a breath that cuts like a laugh, though there’s no humor in it. You look out at the dark front yard, at the dead leaves scattering across the pavement.

You finally turn your head to look at him. You note the exact way the yellow porch light catches the bridge of his nose, the slight shadow of stubble along his jawline. You know every iteration of this face. You know the childhood version, the teenage version, and this current, devastatingly handsome collegiate version.

And yet, looking at him right now, he feels like a stranger wearing your best friend's skin.

"That's just it, Logan. You haven't done anything." Your voice drops, stripped of its usual warmth. "You haven't been doing anything. Not with me, anyway."

He blinks, a small, defensive crease forming between his eyebrows. "I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” you murmur.

“Then explain it to me.”

"It means you’re pulling away," you say directly, the words tasting like copper in your mouth, but you force them out anyway. You don't mention Hannah. You don't have to bring up the way his eyes track her, or the way his laugh sounds higher when she’s in the room. This isn't about her. This is about him. This is about the space where your best friend used to be. "You’re always somewhere else. I talk to you, and it’s like I’m throwing words into an empty room. You look right through me lately. You’re right here, and it feels like there’s a thousand miles between us."

Logan stiffens. For a second, his mouth opens to deny it, the knee-jerk reaction of a guy who prides himself on being loyal. But as he looks at you—at the tight line of your jaw, at the way you're holding onto your own arm like you’re trying to keep yourself from falling apart—you can see the fight slowly leave him.

The silence stretches, punctuated only by the joyous yells of your friends inside.

"I didn't. . .” Logan starts, his voice dropping an octave. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes. "I didn't realize I was making you feel like that. I swear to God, I didn't."

"Well, you are." Your voice trembles just a fraction, and you hate yourself for it, pulling your shoulders back to overcompensate. "I know that friends drift. But I don’t wanna be background noise in your life.”

Logan steps closer, closing the small physical gap between you. He reaches out, his large hand wrapping around your forearm—right over the frayed threads of your bracelet. You pray he doesn’t notice the hitching of your breath.

"You're not background noise," he says sincerely, his desperate eyes searching yours. "You could never be. I'm sorry. Seriously. I've had. . . I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve been distracted. I’ve been a shitty best friend, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m so sorry."

You look at his hand on your arm. You look at the genuine regret pulling at the corners of his eyes. He doesn't know that the distraction is killing you for an entirely different reason. He just knows he hurt his person, and he wants to fix it.

You swallow the ache in your throat, nodding slowly. You let the anger go, because holding onto it hurts worse than forgiving him does.

"It’s okay," you assure him. "Just don’t forget about me, dork.”

"Never," he promises, squeezing your arm before letting go. A small, relieved smile tugs at his lips, the tension leaving his shoulders. He makes no effort to back away from you. It’s all the more suffocating. "I promise. Hey, you still have that big winter showcase coming up in two weeks, right? For your department?"

"Yeah," you say, a genuine spark of nervousness lighting up your stomach. "It’s the Friday after this upcoming one."

"I'll be there," Logan says instantly, his voice full of the certainty that usually makes you feel safe. "Front row. I'll even wear a stupid button-down shirt so your professors think I'm respectable. Deal?"

You look at him, wanting so badly to trust the boy who used to share bags of Hot Cheetos on a garage roof.

"Deal," you agree.

The fluorescent lights of the auditorium are blinding. It is 5:30PM. The STEM showcase had officially kicked off at five, the culmination of sleepless semesters, data sheets that blurred into meaningless code by three in the morning, and enough stress to permanently alter your brain chemistry.

Your phone sits completely dark and powered down in the bottom of your tote bag. You hadn't sent Logan a reminder text today. You hadn’t wanted to seem needy, and besides, you figured he’d remember.

He knew what this meant to you. He’d been the one to hold you on the floor of your bedroom a week ago ago when the overthinking caught up to you, his large hands rubbing slow circles into your back while you sobbed into his chest, terrified that it wouldn’t be enough. He’d promised then, just like he’d promised on the porch, that he’d be here.

Last night, you had even swung by the hockey house, your presentation slides printed out and shaking in your hands, just looking for a final bit of reassurance to quiet the jitters. But Logan wasn't there. He’d been at Malone’s, helping Hannah setup tables and banners for the upcoming weekend showcase she offered to host for music majors.

It was fine, you told yourself. It really was. He was trying to be better, and you could see the effort. The crush was still a persistent ache in your ribs, but he hadn't let it bleed into your friendship the way he had before. You understood what it was like to be at someone’s beck and call—hell, you’d been at his for six years. You couldn't blame him for falling under Hannah’s gravitational pull.

Logan hadn't been there last night, but Tucker had.

Tucker had stopped chopping vegetables, wiped his hands on a dish towel, and sat you down at the kitchen island. He listened to you stumble through your abstract, giving you a supportive nod when you finished. When you told Tucker he didn't have to worry about coming tomorrow since it was so last minute and Logan would be there anyway, Tucker had just given you an easy smile.

“Then you’ll have two of us cheering you on," he’d promised.

Now, standing by your trifold and your laptop, the nerves are a sickening weight in your stomach. You’ve just finished presenting to the final round of judges. Your mouth is dry, your throat tight, but you’d gotten through it just fine.

Tucker had slipped into the back of the room right before your time slot, his broad shoulders cutting a reassuring silhouette against the crowded aisle. Seeing his familiar face had kept your knees from buckling.

But Logan’s seat in the front row—the one he’d promised to occupy in a stupid button-down shirt—remained completely empty.

It hurts. A sharp, localized sting right beneath your breastbone. You hadn't told anyone else in your life about the showcase because public speaking made you feel entirely naked, meaning Logan and Tucker were your only safety nets.

Everyone else would most likely be at Malone’s. You didn’t want them to choose between you and Hannah, because you knew they’d try to compromise, complicating things. You didn’t want a whole crowd, you were okay with just one person being there.

But you swallow the lump in your throat and smooth down the fabric of your slacks. It’s fine. Logan probably just got caught in campus traffic, or he had a handyman gig that kept him late. He missed the actual presentation, yeah, but there’s still time. The showcase goes until eight.

As long as he shows up before the winners are announced, it’ll be fine. He’ll still be there to celebrate with you. He has to be.

Two hours later, the auditorium is a blur of echoing applause and bright flashing cameras.

When the department head speaks your name into the microphone, announcing you as the first-place recipient of the showcase, the room erupts. Your peers are cheering, clapping you on the back as you walk up the stage, but the sound feels like it’s happening underwater.

Even the heavy glass they hang around your neck and the oversized novelty check—grant money that will entirely fund your next semester of research—do nothing to lift the leaden weight in your chest.

Tucker maneuvers through the crowd as soon as you’ve left the stage, a massive, proud smile lighting up his face as he pulls you into a bone-crushing hug. He hoists you slightly off your feet, laughing, telling you he always knew you had it in the bag.

But when he pulls back, his smile falters. He looks at your eyes, watery and strained, and the pride in his expression softens into a deep concern. He knows. He can tell exactly how badly you're hurting.

But even now, with a first-place medal heavy against your sternum, you find yourself building a fortress of excuses for John Logan.

You give him the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is unendurable. He’d never do this intentionally. Not after last week. Not to you. Something had to have happened. A family emergency with his mom. Something with Jules. Maybe he’d taken a brutal hit at practice and was sitting in the training room with a concussion, his phone locked away. He had to be hurt. He had to be incapacitated.

"Let's get you out of here," Tucker says softly, his hand settling on the small of your back, shielding you from the lingering crowds as you pack up your laptop. "I can walk you back to your dorm."

"Actually," you say, your voice tight as you zip your tote bag, "can you take me back to the house? Honestly, after the day I’ve had, I’m dying for a home-cooked Tucker special. I need some real comfort food."

You try to make it sound like a casual request, but Tucker’s hand goes entirely still against your back. He doesn't laugh it off. Instead, an uncomfortable hesitation washes over his features. He looks away, his jaw tightening as he stares out at the emptying auditorium.

In that single beat of silence, a cold and sickening realization dawns on you.

Perhaps Logan isn't sick. Perhaps he isn't hurt. He isn't in a hospital or dealing with a family crisis. Tucker knows exactly where he is.

He forgot.

The thought devastates you, a physical blow that leaves you in theoretical agony, but right on the heels of the sadness comes a sharp, blistering wave of fury. You’re a winner. You just secured your future for the next semester. This should be one of the greatest nights of your life, and yet Logan has latched himself so deeply into the fabric of your existence that he can still ruin it without even being in the room. You hate yourself for letting him have that much power over you.

"You sure you want to go to the house right now?" Tucker asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, laced with a warning he isn't entirely voicing.

You stop, staring at him. Your chest heaves. "Why? Is he there?"

Tucker looks at you, his brown eyes full of a grim, reluctant pity. He stays silent. He doesn't say a word, but his silence tells you everything you need to know. He's there. He's perfectly fine, at the hockey house while you were standing on a stage alone.

A hot, dangerous spark ignites in your blood.

"Take me there," you say, your voice dropping all the compliance, hard as flint. He begins to say your name, but you don’t allow him to. "Tucker. Take me to the house."

The ride to the hockey house is quick, though you believe that’s a product of the heavy thrum of your own pulse. Tuck keeps one hand on the steering wheel, your grim mood proving itself to be contagious.

Every few minutes, his voice breaks through the quiet of the truck, telling you to take a breath, telling you to try to calm down. But you can hear the sharp undercurrent of his own anger fueling the engine. He’s pissed on your behalf, but you don't have the capacity to appreciate it right now. You just stare straight ahead.

When the truck comes to a stop in the driveway, you don't wait for Tucker to kill the ignition. You throw the door open and march up the steps, completely ignoring him as he calls your name.

You push the door open, not so much that it was disruptive, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

The warmth of the house hits you first, along with the loud, easy cacophony of a Friday night wind-down. The TV is on, and everyone is scattered across the living room. Allie, Garrett, Dean, and Hannah.

And Logan.

The sheer normalcy of the scene feels like a slap to the face. You stand in the entryway, the first-place medal swinging slightly against your chest, dressed in the gray slacks and blouse you’d picked out so carefully. For a fraction of a second, looking at their relaxed posture and happy faces, you feel entirely microscopic. Like an ant on the back of someone’s boot, completely insignificant to the world revolving around them.

Then, the room goes quiet.

Dean is the first one to look up from the couch. His eyes take in your sharp posture, the formal attire, and finally, the heavy piece hung around your neck catching the ambient light. A grin breaks across his face, completely ignorant of the storm cloud rolling off your shoulders.

"Look at that," Dean announces, raising his cup in a mock toast. "The prodigal daughter returns!"

He’s trying to be supportive. Under any other circumstance, you’d smile, you’d thank him through narrowed eyes. You know he doesn't know. He has no idea what Logan promised, or what it cost you to stand on that stage alone.

But you don't look at Dean. You don't look at Garrett or Allie or Hannah.

Your eyes lock onto Logan.

He’s sitting on the edge of the cushions, and the exact moment your gaze finds his, the color drains completely from his face. It’s like watching a man realize he’s stepped off a cliff. His eyes drop to the medal on your chest, then snap back up to your face, wide and absolutely crushed. The realization of what he’s done hits him in a ton of bricks.

Usually, that look on his face would undo you. Usually, seeing John Logan look that miserable would trigger every protective instinct you’ve harbored for him, making you want to soften the blow, to tell him it’s fine, to smooth it over.

But tonight, you feel absolutely nothing.

The reservoir of sympathy has completely dried up, replaced by a fury that has been bubbling beneath the surface for months.

He hadn't just missed a presentation. He had broken a promise. He had lied to your face on the porch, sworn he was back, and then willfully chose to be somewhere else.

You stare at him, the silence in the room turning suffocatingly loud as the others finally catch onto the tension, and the only thought roaring through your mind is how completely invisible you’ve been to him.

That look of shame is enough gratification for you. If he can feel only a fraction of the pain you’d allowed yourself to endure these past few years, that was good for you. You couldn’t stand staring into the eyes of the man you once thought you knew anymore.

You turn your heel against the floorboards, every instinct screaming at you to walk out that door, to erase John Logan from your life, and to leave him standing in the wreckage of a ten-year friendship.

"Wait," his voice cracks through the silence of the room as he calls your name. "Please wait. I’m sorry. Just—please, just wait!”

You halt entirely. Your flats glue themselves to the floor, the medallion thudding against your chest like a pendulum swinging into a dead stop.

Sorry?

The word tastes rancid just hearing it bounce off the walls of the hockey house. You hadn't known what you wanted him to say when you walked through that door.

You hadn't known if there was a combination of vowels and consonants in the English language that could possibly fix this. But hearing his apology serves as nothing other than gasoline thrown directly onto a grease fire.

Slowly, you turn back around.

Your friends look horrified. You almost feel bad that they’re forced to witness this. You almost want to turn around and leave, leaving this argument for when you’re less heated, less hurt.

But you can’t. He needs to hear you. If not last week or the week before that, now.

Logan takes a step toward you, his hands raised slightly as if approaching a wild animal. "I lost track of time. The showcase at Malone’s—"

"Shut up," you say quietly.

The words aren't screamed. They are quiet, sharp, and dripping with an edge that makes Logan freeze in his tracks.

"Just. . . shut the hell up, Logan." You take a step forward, your shoes clicking against the hardwood. "Don't you dare use that as an excuse for being a pathetic, spineless coward."

He glances at the group that has gone dead silent. You don’t know if what he says next is for your sake or his, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Let’s go outside,” he offers, his tone resembling something of a plea. “We can—“

“No!” you spat harshly. “You’re gonna listen to me.”

You’d never spoken to him this way. Not in such a venomous tone, stripped from all warmth. For once, Logan does exactly what you’ve asked of him—to listen. His lips part but no words escape them.

"You sat on the porch two weeks ago," you continue, your voice rising now, the heat finally breaking through the ice. "You held my arm, and you looked me in the eyes and promised me you’d change. Do you have any idea what today was?"

Logan swallows hard, his brown hues welling with a desperate, pathetic panic. "It was the department showcase."

"It was the biggest night of my academic career!" you explode, the anger tearing out of your throat. "I have spent months working on this! I broke down sobbing over this because of how tired I was, and you were the one who held me! You knew exactly how terrified I was. You knew I didn't invite anyone else! What would’ve happened if Tuck wasn’t there?"

You gesture wildly to the medal around your neck.

"I stood on that stage alone, John. I scanned that auditorium for two hours, giving you the benefit of the doubt. I thought something had happened. I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere or bleeding out in a hospital, because that is the only reason the John Logan I grew up with would ever miss this!"

A tear escapes his eye, rolling down his tanned cheek. "I messed up. Fuck, I know I messed up. Let me make it up to you, please—"

"You didn't mess up, you chose!" you hiss, stepping right into his space, forcing him to look down at the fury burning in your eyes. "You’ve made it perfectly clear where I rank on your list of priorities."

"I am wearing a first-place medal," you continue, your voice trembling with a devastating mix of triumph and agony. "I just won enough grant money to pay for my entire next semester of research. This should be the happiest night of my life. But all I can think about is how my best friend couldn’t show up when I needed him.”

"Please," Logan chokes out, reaching a trembling hand toward your shoulder, his fingers twitching to make that familiar, absent-minded contact. "Just—“

You snap your shoulder back, avoiding his touch as if his hand were coated in acid.

But as you jerk away, the zipper of his jacket catches on the frayed, fuzzy threads of your embroidered bracelet. There is a sudden rip. The threads give out all at once, unraveling in a split second as the broken token of your childhood slips from your wrist and flutters uselessly to the floor.

Logan freezes, his eyes dropping to the colorful, ruined heap of strings resting on the hardwood between you two.

It’s symbolic, you think.

"Don't touch me," you say, your voice dropping into a flat, dead register. You stare at him, washing away every ounce of the six years of love, every ounce of the ten years of friendship, until there is absolutely nothing left between you but a void.

"Don't talk to me. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You’re dead to me, John."

You turn on your heel and march straight out the front door into the freezing night air.

Logan doesn’t even think before stepping forward to follow after you, but Tucker shuts the door, preventing him from doing so.

He doesn't yell. Instead, he steps into Logan’s space, grabs a fistful of his shirt right at the collar, and shoves him backward into the hallway leading toward the bedrooms. Logan doesn't even try to fight it—he stumbles back, his eyes wide and vacant, completely numb from the fallout.

Tucker slams the door of his room shut, but he doesn't bother locking it. He doesn't need to.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Tucker demands, his voice a growl that vibrates through the walls. He isn’t screaming, but he’s not exactly whispering. “Because right now, I’m having a hard time recognizing one of my best friends.”

“Tuck, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen—”

“You made her a promise, man!” Tucker cuts in sharply. “You told her you’d be there. You looked her dead in the eye and gave her your word. Do you have any idea what today was like for her?”

“I lost track of time. Hannah—”

“Don’t do that,” Tucker says, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t make this about Hannah. This is about you. You screwed up. You’ve been taking that girl for granted for long enough, and she’s been in your corner through every stupid decision you’ve made. Last night, I was the one sitting with her while she practiced that presentation because you were too busy being handyman.”

“She stood on that stage tonight. Every time those judges walked up to her, she checked those doors. Every damn time. She thought something happened to you, because that’s the only reason she could come up with for why you’d break your word to her. And the whole time, you’re moving tables at Malone’s? That’s your excuse?”

“I know I messed up,” Logan chokes out. “I know. I’ll fix it. I’ll talk to her—”

“No, you won’t,” Tucker says immediately. “Not today. Not anytime soon.”

He takes a step back, folding his arms across his chest.

“She told you to stay away. So for once, stop thinking about what you want and listen to what she asked for. You made this mess. If you actually want a shot at fixing it, give her some space and hope she decides you’re worth talking to when she’s ready.”

“Tuck—”

“I’m serious, Logan. Leave her alone. The last thing she needs right now is you showing up trying to make yourself feel better.“

You hadn’t actually been introduced to him yet, but you’d felt his suffocating vibe the moment he walked through the door. He looked like absolute thunder. Briar had dropped a frustrating, tight game that evening, and while Garrett was channeling his nervous energy into playing the charismatic host, Logan was wearing his irritation like armor. Leaning against the kitchen counter with a dark scowl that practically screamed at people to stay away, his knuckles were white around his glass, his eyes scanning the room as if looking for a reason to snap.

​Navigating that crowded, chaotic kitchen with a brim-filled, sticky mixed drink was your first mistake. Your second was catching the rubber toe of your sneaker on the lifting edge of a rogue anti-fatigue mat near the sink.

​You stumbled forward, your arms flailing wildly in a desperate, ungraceful bid for balance. You didn’t fall, but your cup did a violent, mid-air flip, slipping from your fingers. A torrential wave of sticky, dark rum and cola splashed directly across the pristine gray fabric of Logan’s Henley shirt, soaking through the chest, darkening the material instantly and dripping down the front of his dark jeans.

​​Logan froze. His head snapped down slowly, looking at the huge, dark stain spreading across his clothes, and then his gaze lifted to yours. His eyes were blazing, a dangerous brown, entirely unamused and dripping with venom. "Oh, fuck!" he snapped, his voice cutting right through the ambient noise like a knife. He pulled the wet, heavy fabric away from his skin with two fingers, a look of pure annoyance twisting his features. "Are you serious right now? Watch where the hell you're going."

​The sheer aggression in his tone caught you completely off guard, instantly sparking your own deeply ingrained, stubborn nature. You had been about to apologize profusely, the words of remorse already forming on your tongue, but the bite in his words choked them right out of your throat. You squared your shoulders, refusing to back down under his glare. "It was an accident," you retorted, pulling a few crumpled, napkins from the counter and shoving them toward his chest. "You don't have to be a complete dick about it. It’s just a shirt, I'm pretty sure you'll survive."

​"It's a wet, sticky shirt at the end of a terrible, exhausting fucking day," he growled, his voice dropping an octave as he batted your hand away with a harsh flick of his wrist. He didn't take the napkins; they fluttered uselessly to the floor. Instead, he leaned down slightly, giving you a long, icy glare that made you feel about two inches tall, his jaw clenching so hard you could see the muscle tick. "Next time, look up from your feet." Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and storming down the hallway toward the stairs, muttering curses under his breath.

​You stood there rooted to the spot, your cheeks burning with a toxic mixture of intense embarrassment and sudden, deep-seated dislike. Garrett materialized at your side a split second later, a sympathetic, slightly apologetic grimace on his face as he patted your shoulder gently. "Hey, don't sweat it," Garrett reassured you quietly, glancing warily toward the stairs where Logan had disappeared. "Logan’s just in a brutal mood because of the game, and he hates losing more than anyone. He's usually a great guy, I swear. He’ll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow morning."

​You forced a tight, fake smile and nodded, but as you looked down at your empty, sticky hands, a bitter taste lingered in your mouth. Spoiler alert: he wouldn't forget. and neither would you.

Two — "Fuck you"

A few weeks later, the initial friction hadn’t dissolved; it had hardened into a permanent, icy chill. You tried your best to play nice for the sake of Hannah and Allie, but Logan made it incredibly difficult. You saw how he was with the rest of their circle—fiercely loyal, easygoing, and warm. He was the kind of guy who quietly made sure Allie and Hannah got home safe from their late shifts and spent his free afternoons helping Jules with media stuff. He was patient with the entire world. But the exact millisecond you walked into a room, his posture stiffened and his jaw set. You hated being the sole exception to his good nature, so you simply stayed out of his way.

​The breaking point came on a gray, rainy Tuesday afternoon. You and Hannah had walked over to the hockey house to help Tucker untangle a massive, soul-crushing history assignment he was drowning in. The three of you were spread across the dining table, surrounded by a chaotic mess of highlighters, laptop cords, and heavy library textbooks.

​The back door clicked open, and Logan walked in. He was wearing his Briar athletic gear, a damp towel slung over his shoulders from a post-practice shower, his hair messy and wet. He looked exhausted, his shoulders tense, carrying the unmistakable hangover of a brutal morning practice. Instead of walking past to the kitchen, he paused by the table, leaning over Tucker’s shoulder to scan the open pages. He let out a heavy, deliberate sigh. ​"You’re using the wrong primary sources for that era, Tuck," Logan said, his voice dropping into that effortless, uninvited authority. "You need the economic logs from the eastern front, not these political manifestos. You’re going to tank your thesis statement with those."

​Tucker blinked up, looking miserable. "Wait, really? I thought—"

​"We checked those, Logan," you interrupted, keeping your voice level and calm as you kept your eyes on your notebook. "We've got it handled," you smiled, trying to remain polite.

​Logan didn't move. His eyes slid slowly down to the side of your face, unamused. "Right. Because you're an expert on 20th-century economic trade?"

​"No," you said, your pen pausing on the page. "But I can read a syllabus. If you're so worried about Tucker's academic results, you could have sat down and helped him yourself already."

​Logan’s jaw tightened, a sharp spike of tension instantly replacing his usual easygoing demeanor. He took his hands out of his pockets and leaned forward, bracing his palms on the edge of the table, firmly invading your space. Tucker shot Hannah a wide-eyed, panicked look across the textbooks, both of them suddenly bracing for impact.

​"I gave him my old notes weeks ago," Logan shot back, his voice dropping into something smaller, tighter. "But sure, ignore the guy who actually passed the class because you're too stubborn to take a note from me."

​"I'm not being stubborn, you're just being a patronizing prick," you retorted, leaning back in your chair. "You’ve been hovering over this table for five minutes just looking for a problem because you had a bad day and want to take it out on someone."

​Logan let out a harsh, dry laugh, though there was a flicker of genuine frustration in his eyes—the look of a good guy who couldn't understand why he kept letting you bait him. "Take it out on someone? Trust me, if I wanted to take anything out on someone, I wouldn't waste my time on you. I'm trying to keep my friend from bombing a midterm because he made the mistake of letting you organize his thoughts."

​"My thoughts are perfectly fine, Logan," Tucker muttered quietly under his breath, his eyes glued to his laptop screen, desperately trying to dissolve into the background.

​"They're fine when you're left alone, Tuck," Logan said, keeping his eyes locked onto yours, completely ignoring his teammate's plea. "Not when you're letting someone drag their own contrarian agenda into your coursework."

​"A contrarian agenda?" You stood up, your chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. Hannah flinched at the sharp noise, withdrawing her hands from the table and motioning for Tucker to leave the potential future crime scene. They both complied quickly, knowing you both well enough to understand that trying to reason with you in that moment would be pointless. "Are you actually insane? I'm sorry that anyone else having a brain in this house threatens your need to micromanage every single thing that happens under this roof."

​"It doesn't threaten me at all," Logan said, standing up straight and towering over you, using his height to crowd your space until his shadow completely blocked out the light from the window. The sheer, uncharacteristic anger rolling off him was suffocating; Tucker actually slid his chair back a few inches, completely done with trying to intervene at this point. "It annoys me. You annoy me, actually. I'm not going to walk on eggshells in my own dining room because you can't handle a basic correction."

​"I can handle a correction if it's respectful," you shot back, your heart hammering against your ribs, but you refused to take a step away from him. "You don't want to help Tucker. You just want to feel like the smartest guy in the room and that is annoying."

​"I dont—," Logan started, a nervous scoff escaping his lips. "You don't know anything about me. Please let's keep it this way, since you clearly can't stand me anyway."

​"You're the one who treats me like an absolute inconvenience the second I breathe in your direction!" you yelled, the weeks of being ignored, brushed off, and glared at finally boiling over into raw, unadulterated anger. "If you hate me being here so much, just say it. But stop acting like I'm the one bringing the venom into this house when you're the one dripping it."

​The air between you turned completely volatile, thick enough to choke on. A strange, angry electricity snapped between you, the argument completely detached from history or homework now, exposed and raw. Logan stared down at you, his breathing heavy and uneven as he tried to swallow down the sheer frustration rolling off him in waves. ​He leaned down slightly, bringing his face inches from yours, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle violently ticked in his cheek.

"Fuck you," he whispered.

​The words hit with a cold, deliberate weight that vibrated in the dead-silent room. ​Before you could fire back, Tucker's voice boomed from the kitchen archway, stern and completely done with both of you. "Enough! Both of you, cut it the hell out."

​But the damage was done. The look in Logan's eyes made something tight and painful twist in your chest. You refused to sit there and breathe the same air as him for another second. Blindly turning around, you grabbed your laptop and notebook, shoving them into your backpack with rigid, uncooperative hands.

​"I'm leaving," you muttered, keeping your eyes glued firmly to the floor as you pushed past Hannah’s reaching hand on the way out. You grabbed your jacket from the hook and left through the front door, slamming it hard enough to rattle the frame, stepping out into the pouring, cold rain with the echo of his voice looping in your head like a curse.

Three — "Fuck off"

​For the next month, you became an absolute expert at avoiding John Logan. You turned it into an art form. If he was at a crowded house party, you stayed firmly in the kitchen or on the opposite porch. If the entire group gathered at Malone's, you ensured you sat on the exact opposite end of the long table, hidden behind Dean's loud gestures.

Because of this, you never saw the way his eyes silently followed you when you entered a room, or the almost guilty look that crossed his face whenever your name came up in conversation. He knew he'd crossed a line by cursing at you like that—but your unbreakable silence gave him absolutely no room to apologize, and his own stubborn pride kept him from forcing the issue.

​There were small signs of his guilt, though. One random Thursday afternoon, he showed up at the place you shared with Hannah and Allie, claiming he was just dropping off a spare hockey hoodie Garrett had left in his truck. You had stayed in your room with the door cracked just an inch, watching through the tiny gap as he lingered by the entrance, his eyes constantly drifting toward your door,  silently checking to see if you'd come out. You hadn't moved an inch, holding your breath until he finally left.

​Eventually, Hannah and Allie staged a full-blown intervention. A brand-new club had opened downtown, and they absolutely refused to let you stay home and rot in your room, even though they openly admitted the boys were all coming along. You finally relented, numbing your spiking anxiety by pouring yourself two heavy pre-game vodka crans before leaving the house.

​The club was a massive sensory overload—flashing neon lights, artificial fog, and heavy, chest-thumping bass that made communication impossible. By midnight, everyone was comfortably, heavily drunk. You were leaning your back against the sticky mahogany bar, sipping a gin and tonic, when you finally caught sight of him through the pulsing crowd.

​Logan was laughing at something Beau said, a dark red bandana tied tightly around his messy hair, looking effortlessly, devastatingly handsome in a black fitted t-shirt. As if sensing the weight of your gaze, his head turned. His dark eyes locked directly onto yours across the smoky crowded room. He didn’t look away. He held your stare for a second, then two, then three — a strange, intense, unreadable heat settling over his features before a group of dancers blocked your view.

A few minutes later, a guy from one of the campus fraternities slithered up next to you on the edge of the dance floor. He was loud, sweaty, and smelled entirely too much like cheap cologne and whiskey — but a little bit of dancing could help taking your mind off of a certain hockey player, you thought. You enjoyed it at first, moving along, focusing on the music, the stranger getting closer and closer as the playlist progressed. But then, just as you started to feel good - just the right amount of alcohol in your veins to feel lighter and relaxed - he tried to grind his hips against yours. You tried to step back, laughing it off politely at first, pushing his hands away, but he didn't take the hint. His hands came down on your waist, his fingers digging into your hips, pulling you flush against him with a grip that was far too tight and aggressive.

​Before you could even raise your hands to shove his chest, a massive shadow loomed over both of you.

​A now familiar hand gripped the frat guy’s shoulder, spinning him around with enough force to make his sneakers squeak on the floor.

​"Fuck off," Logan snarled, his voice a low, lethal vibration that cut right through the heavy bass of the music. He leaned in until he was nose-to-nose with the guy. "Get your fucking hands off her and fuck off right now."

​The guy looked at Logan and wisely raised his hands in surrender, backing away rapidly into the foggy crowd without throwing a single punch.

​Logan’s breathing was heavy, his chest heaving, his fists still clenched tightly at his sides as his eyes scanned the immediate area like a wild animal looking for another threat. He looked ready to tear the entire club apart with his bare hands. Anxious that he might actually chase the guy down for a fight, you stepped directly into his line of sight, capturing his attention.

​"Logan," you breathed, your voice soft and entirely stripped of its usual sarcasm. Without thinking about the consequences, you reached out, your bare fingers wrapping around his forearm.

​The exact millisecond your skin met the warm, rock-hard muscle of his arm, Logan froze entirely. It was the first time the two of you had ever willingly, gently touched, and the effect was instantaneous. The blinding anger seemed to drain out of him in a single breath, replaced by a sudden, sharp intake of air. He looked down at your small hand resting on his arm, his skin tingling where you touched him, and then he slowly, deliberately lifted his gaze to your eyes.

​The noisy club, the flashing strobe lights, the roaring bass, the alcohol—it all faded into irrelevant background noise. You stood face-to-face on the crowded dance floor, completely motionless, just looking into each other's eyes. Your heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs, not from fear of the frat guy, but from a sudden, dizzying, terrifying realization. Looking into his wide, intensely focused eyes, you realized you didn't hate him. Not even close. And from the soft, almost vulnerable parting of his lips, he didn't hate you either. You weren't close to being friends yet, but the ice had officially shattered into a million pieces. 

Four — "What the fuck"

The shift between you was subtle, but it was absolutely undeniable. The sharp hostility was gone, completely replaced by a quiet, lingering, heavy awareness that neither of you knew quite what to do with.

​A week later, you were sitting in a sunlit corner booth at Malone’s. You were completely, entirely absorbed in a brutal, multi-chapter study session for your finals, a pair of heavy over-ear headphones clamped securely over your ears. The sweet, nostalgic melody of American Pie was playing through the speakers, and without even realizing it, you were softly humming along to the chorus, tapping the cap of your yellow highlighter rhythmically against the open pages of your textbook.

​You were so deeply focused on your notes that you didn't hear the diner's front door chime, nor did you see Logan walk in. He was there to finalize the last-minute details for the upcoming Hockey Fundraiser with Hannah and Della. But the exact moment his eyes scanned the room and spotted you sitting alone in the corner booth, he stopped dead in his tracks.

​He didn’t approach right away. He just stood near the counter, watching you. A soft, genuine smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he listened to your faint, slightly off-key humming.

​Prickled by the sudden, distinct sensation of eyes on you, you blinked and lifted your head from your textbook. Logan instantly wiped the smile from his face, clearing his throat roughly and pretending to read a missing cat flyer on the bulletin board.

​You pulled your headphones down, a small smirk playing on your lips. "You know, if you stare any harder, you're going to burn a hole right through my skull, Logan."

​Instead of snapping back with a sarcastic, biting retort like he used to, Logan let out a soft chuckle. He walked over to your booth and, to your surprise, slid into the bench by your side, his knee almost touching yours.

​"Just making sure you weren't torturing the rest of the innocent customers with your singing," he teased gently, his shoulder brushing against yours in the tight space.

​You rolled your eyes, but there was no spite left in your expression. "I happen to have the voice of a literal angel, thank you very much. You're just jealous."

​The playful banter slowly subsided into a comfortable silence. Logan looked at you, his expression turning a little more serious, his eyes softening as his voice dropped to a much quieter register. "Hey… are you doing okay?" Since what happened the other night, obviously implied by the way he looked at you right now, concern written all over his face.

You felt a warm flush creep up your neck and settle into your cheeks. "I'm okay, thank you" you smiled and he nodded, both silently agreeing not to discuss this unpleasant event anymore. You paused, looking down at his large hands resting on the table before forcing yourself to look back up. "How are you doing ? With the fundraiser and everything, I mean. You look like you haven't slept in a week."

​He seemed genuinely surprised that you were asking about him. Really, truly asking. He leaned back against the vinyl booth, a soft sigh escaping his lips as he completely opened up to you. He talked about the immense stress of managing the team's high expectations, his constant worries about Jules’ upcoming exams, and the suffocating pressure of the NHL scouts attending the next three games. You listened intently, never interrupting, offering gentle encouragement and a few dry, sarcastic jokes that had him laughing quietly into his palms. For a full hour, the two most stubborn, argumentative people at Briar University just… talked.

​"Well," you finally said, checking the diner clock and reluctantly packing your laptop into your bag. "I have to get to my shift at the library. Don't let Della bully you into paying extra for the tableware."

​"I won't," Logan said, his eyes tracking your every movement, lingering on your face. "See you around?"

​"See you around." You gave him a small, genuine smile—the first real one he'd ever received from you—and walked out into the crisp afternoon air, your heart feeling lighter than it had in weeks.

​Inside the booth, Logan sat completely still for a long, agonizing moment. He watched your retreating figure through the glass window until you turned the corner and disappeared from view. Slowly, he let out a shaky exhale, burying his face entirely in his hands. He rubbed his palms over his eyes, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

​"What the fuck," he whispered into the empty diner booth, his voice laced with a mixture of absolute awe and sheer, unadulterated panic. He was screwed. He was completely, utterly, hopelessly screwed, and he knew there was no turning back.

Five — "Well, fuck"

​The night of the Briar Hockey Fundraiser at Malone’s was a chaotic, high-energy, glittering success. The entire diner had been completely transformed for the evening—the regular tables had been pushed to the far perimeter to create a makeshift dance floor, strings of warm fairy lights hung across the ceiling, and a massive turnout of wealthy alumni, boosters, and students kept the bar utterly slammed.

​You had dressed up significantly for the occasion, wearing a form-fitting, emerald green silk dress that Allie let you borrow from her closet - of course. You spent the first half of the night talking to Hannah near the punch bowl, but your eyes kept unconsciously tracking a certain someone across the room.

Logan was entirely in his element—charming the older donors, laughing easily with his teammates, and looking entirely too edible for your own good.

​Around midnight, the formal event finally dissolved into a proper, rowdy college party. The DJ cranked up a heavy, slow, rhythmic pop song, the bass echoing through the floor, and the dance floor filled up with couples. You were navigating the edge of the sweaty crowd, trying to find Allie when a sudden, firm, yet gentle pull on your wrist guided you backward.

​You spun around on your heels, your chest bumping right into Logan’s broad torso. "You've been actively dodging me all night," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating right against your skin as his large hand settled naturally around yours. The casual, unhesitating intimacy of the gesture sent a fierce, blinding jolt of electricity straight down your spine.

​"I wasn't dodging you, I was letting you do your official host duties," you shot back, a wicked, playful smile spreading across your lips. The alcohol gave you a surge of confidence, and you looped your arms slowly around his neck, stepping closer into his personal space until there was absolutely no air left between you. "Besides, I didn't think you could actually handle me dancing with you."

​Logan’s dark eyes lit up instantly, a dangerous, competitive challenge flaring in his pupils. He pulled you a fraction of an inch closer. "Oh, really? Try me, sweetheart."

​You didn't hesitate. As the heavy beat of the music dropped, you shifted your weight, rolling your hips slowly, deliberately, and sinfully against his. You leaned in close, your lips brushing the warm shell of his ear as you whispered, "You're all talk, John Logan. Let's see if you can actually keep up with me."

​You pulled back just enough to look at him, your hands sliding down his chest to grip the crisp fabric of his shirt, tugging him rhythmically, tightly against your body. The friction was immediate, heavy, and intoxicating. Logan’s breath hitched audibly in his throat. A dark, intense flush crept up his neck, coloring his sharp cheekbones as his hands settled on your waist, his fingers digging firmly into your skin through the thin fabric of your dress. He swallowed hard, his eyes dropping helplessly to your parted lips, entirely overwhelmed and undone by the sudden confidence of your movements. He could feel exactly how much you were affecting him, his body reacting instantly to the touch of your hips.

A breathless, desperate laugh escaped him. He jerked his head back for a split second, fighting a losing battle for self-control. "Well, fuck," he muttered, his voice raw, completely devoid of its usual composure.

​"Did I break the big, tough hockey player already?" you cooed, tilting your chin up tauntingly, your noses almost touching as you continued to sway against him.

​"You wish," he groaned, his thumbs stroking the bare skin of your lower back where your dress dipped low. He didn't pull away. Instead, he pulled you even tighter against his lower body, matching your sinful rhythm perfectly, his dark eyes locked onto yours with a burning intensity that made it very clear the playful teasing was rapidly turning into something much more dangerous and inevitable. When the night finally forced you apart, it didn't feel like a goodbye — it was a promise.

Six — "Fuck"

Some things are bound to reach a breaking point, and the agonizing tension building between you for months was no exception. Three nights later, Briar won a massive game and the ensuing after-party at the boys' house was pure chaotic madness. The house was packed to maximum capacity, a sweaty, pulsing mass of drunken celebration, loud music, and screaming students.

​But you and Logan weren't paying any attention to the party. For the past two hours, you had been moving around the house like two high-powered magnets — constantly drawing closer, stealing long, heated glances across the crowded rooms, the unspoken, heavy weight of the fundraiser hanging between you.

​Seeking a brief moment of quiet to cool down your flushed skin, you headed down the dark back hallway toward the upstairs bathroom. Just as you reached out for the brass doorknob, the door swung open from the inside.

​Logan stepped out.

You nearly crashed straight into his chest, cutting your breath short as you ground to a halt mere inches from him. The hallway was swallowed by shadows, save for the frantic strobe lights bleeding in from the living room. Logan stared down at you, wide-eyed, his chest rising and falling in sync with the thick, suffocating heat pulsing through the house.

​Neither of you said a single word. The months of toxic banter, the vicious, screaming arguments, the desperate avoidance, and the agonizing teasing all converged into a single, breathless, breaking second.

​Logan reached out with lightning speed, his large hand wrapping around your waist, and shoved you backward into the bathroom, slamming the heavy wooden door shut behind you and twisting the lock with a sharp, echoing click.

​Before the sound of the lock could even fade, his mouth crashed onto yours.

​It was an absolute explosion. The kiss was passionate, borderline feral, a violent release of pure, pent-up, crazy frustration. You let out a muffled gasp against his lips, your hands flying up to rip into his dark hair, pulling him down toward you out of sheer desperation. He groaned deep in his throat, a sound of pure hunger, pinning your body flat against the heavy wooden door, his thick thighs crowding tightly between yours. His hands were absolutely everywhere—clutching your face, tracing the line of your throat, gripping your hips with a bruising, desperate force that felt incredibly, entirely right.

​"Logan," you whimpered against his mouth as he tore his lips away to kiss your jawline, your neck - his hands sliding down to frantically bunch up the silk fabric of your dress.

​With a sudden burst of strengh, he hooked his large hands under your thighs and lifted you effortlessly into the air. You wrapped your legs tightly around his waist as he deposited you onto the cold marble edge of the bathroom sink counter. He didn't waste a single second. His hands slid all the way up the bare, warm skin of your thighs, finding the edge of your underwear. His fingers quickly found your slick, burning, over-sensitized core, rubbing against you through the damp fabric with a rhythm that made your head tilt back and earned a large grin from him.

​You arched your back off the counter, a loud sob escaping your lips, your fingers digging deep into his shoulders.

​"You like that?" Logan growled against your neck, his voice dripping with lust. His fingers moved faster, driving you up a steep, agonizing cliff. "Tell me you want it."

​"Logan," you breathed out, "please," you cried out, your head tossing back against the large bathroom mirror. Your hands flew down to his waist, frantically, blindly fumbling with the button of his jeans. You shoved the denim down his hips until his length snapped free—thick, heavy, and pulsing with heat. The moment your fingers wrapped tightly around him, moving in a fast, desperate stroke, Logan’s eyes rolled back.

His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked violently in his neck. He couldn't endure the exquisite torture for long, his quiet moans matching your own, before his large hand clamped over yours, freezing your movement. "Stop, stop," he panted, his chest wild, his forehead pressing against yours. "I'm going to come right now if you keep doing that. I need to feel you, right now."

With trembling, frantic hands, he reached into the small drawer next to the sink—Dean’s emergency stash—and ripped open a foil condom wrapper, spitting the plastic away and rolling it onto himself in one fluid, desperate motion.

Then he stepped back between your open thighs. His hands gripped your hips with an iron hold, dragging you to the very edge of the marble counter. He aligned himself against you, waiting just long enough for your frantic nod of approval. With one heavy, unyielding, possessive thrust, he buried himself completely inside you.

The sheer, overwhelming pleasure of that sudden fullness hit you both at once, fracturing the quiet of the bathroom with a sharp, mutual gasp. Instead of slowing down, the friction only stoked the fire, drawing a long, ragged, shattered exhale from deep in Logan's chest. His pupils were completely dilated, dark and wild with pure lust as his forehead dropped heavily against your shoulder.

"Fuck," he groaned into the crook of your neck, his voice a raw, visceral prayer vibrating against your collarbone.

His hands tightened on your hips, his fingers digging into your skin like an anchor as he immediately established a rhythm. The restraint dissolved into pure instinct. He pulled you flush against him, his thrusts becoming powerful, deep, and utterly relentless from the very start. Every heavy drive forced a breathless cry from your lips, the sound echoing off the tiled walls. You rocked together on the cold edge of the marble sink, your bodies generating a feverish heat that defied the chilly stone beneath you.

The bass from the after-party still thudded through the floorboards, a distant, muffled reminder of the chaotic world outside, but within the locked walls of the bathroom, that world was entirely forgotten. There was only the slick, friction-heavy slide of skin against skin, the frantic tangle of your fingers in his hair, and the hot, primal rhythm consuming you both.

The friction was dizzying, driving you both toward a precipice that neither of you could fight anymore. Logan’s pace turned frantic, his breath coming in harsh, ragged stabs against your ear as his hips slammed against yours with an undoing, desperate urgency. Every stroke sent a white-hot wave of pleasure straight to your core, tightening the coil inside you until it was agonizing.

You choked out a breathless, broken sound, your hands clamping onto his biceps as your head thrashed back against the mirror once more.

He didn't need words to know you were right there. He buried his face in your hair, his teeth grazing your shoulder as he delivered three more devastatingly deep, relentless thrusts.

That was the final breaking point. Your walls clamped down around him tight and pulsing, fracturing your breath into a loud, ruined cry as your entire body shattered into a blinding, head-to-toe release.

Hearing you break completely ruined him. Logan let out a guttural, unhinged groan that vibrated deep in his chest. His jaw locked, his body rigid and trembling as he gave one last, deeply possessive shove, throwing his weight into you as he came violently inside the condom. He held himself deep within you, his hips shuddering against yours as he rode out the waves of his own release, the two of you panting heavily in the quiet aftermath, entirely spent.

Seven — "Fuck it"

Roughly thirty minutes later, the two of you finally emerged from the bathroom. You had tried your absolute best to fix your chaotic appearance in the mirror—re-applying a bit of smudge-proof lip gloss, smoothing down the wrinkled fabric of your dress, and trying to tame your wildly tangled hair with your fingers—but the physical evidence of what had just occurred was written all over your faces. Your skin was flushed a deep unmistakable pink, your lips were incredibly swollen and red, and Logan was walking with a loose, stupidly contented, proud stride, his hair completely disheveled and sticking up in directions where your fingers had repeatedly torn through it.

​The exact moment you stepped back onto the floor of the crowded living room, a loud, piercing whistle cut through the air.

Dean was leaning against the back of the sofa, a beer dangling from his fingers and a knowing smirk plastered across his face. His eyes darted from you to Logan, zeroing in instantly on the faint trace of your lip gloss smeared along Logan’s jawline.

​"Well, well, well," he said, loud enough to be heard over the music. "Must have been a pretty intense plumbing emergency in there. Either that, or you two just went ten rounds with a blender. You might want to wipe your face, Logan."

Your cheeks instantly burned. You took a step back. "Dean, shut up, we were just—"

But Logan didn't let you finish the lie. He looked down at you, catching the slight panic in your eyes, and then looked over at Dean, who was practically vibrating with smug satisfaction.

Instead of getting defensive, Logan just let out a short, quiet laugh. The stubbornness, the secrecy, the remnants of your old feud—it all suddenly felt completely irrelevant. He was tired of hiding it.

"You know what? Fuck it," Logan muttered.

Before you could process the words, his hand slid around the back of your neck, his thumb resting against your jaw as he pulled you flush against his chest. Right there by the sofa, he leaned down and kissed you.

Dean threw his arms up in a dramatic, sweeping gesture. "About damn fucking time! Graham, you owe me twenty bucks!"

When Logan finally pulled back, his eyes were bright, a relaxed, genuinely happy smile playing on his lips as his thumb brushed your cheek. You looked up at him, the noise of the party fading into the background, finally realizing that the long, argumentative journey of seven dirty words had brought you exactly where you were supposed to be.

just posted a new John Logan fic <3

Just as Steve deepens the kiss—his large hands on either side of your neck gently titling your head back to coax your lips apart with his tongue—the sound of someone gasping in surprise rips the two of you apart.

Please don’t let it be Dustin. Please don’t let it be Dustin.

But as you pull away from Steve, your face burning and Steve looking a little dazed, you quickly realise that it wasn’t Dustin who had caught you—it was Lucas.

“Um, hi Sinclair,” Steve says by way of greeting, trying to act casual and as though you hadn’t been making out merely seconds ago.

Lucas’ eyes dart from Steve, to you and back again.

“Oh, Dustin is gonna flip—”

“—you can’t tell Henderson!” Steve insists, eyes widening in slight panic. “He’ll kill me—”

“—maybe you should have thought about it before you started making out with his sister—”

“—it was just a kiss—”

“—that’s a bunch of bull—”

“—Lucas, please don’t tell Dustin,” you plead with Lucas, cutting him off mid sentence so you didn’t have to hear him and Steve bicker back and forth a moment longer.

“Why not?” Lucas asks. “He deserves to know, this isn’t fair on him, you know? Besides, the party doesn’t keep secrets from each other. I have to tell him.”

The guilt stirs in your gut because you knew Lucas was right. You knew not being honest with Dustin wasn’t fair on him but you were trying to be sensitive around your brother’s current state.

Steve glances at you, seeing the torn expression on your face and his hand twitches, as though he was desperate to reach for yours.

“Just give us a few days, yeah?” Steve asks Lucas. “We’ll tell him. We just need to figure out how to do it gently.”

Lucas looks unconvinced and you decide to plead with him instead.

“Please Lucas?” You press him gently before he could open his mouth to tell you no. “Th—this isn’t a bit of fun for us and we want to tell Dustin properly.”

Your eyes are on Lucas but you could feel Steve looking at you at your words. You try not to think too much about it.

“Wait—you guys are like…serious?” Lucas asks.

You feel your face warming and you force yourself not to look at Steve at that moment.

“Yeah,” Steve says, his hand finding yours, thumb gently rubbing over your skin and making it hard for you to hold back a smile. “We are.”

Lucas looks at Steve for a long moment before finally, he nods. “Okay,” he says, somewhat reluctantly. “Okay, okay. I won’t tell him. But you two should probably stop making out in the basement if you don’t want him to catch you.”

You learned a day later that Lucas Sinclair could not keep a secret.

You were back in the basement of the radio station, planning the next crawl. The basement was full with the entirety of the party present as well as the older kids, Joyce and Hooper. You stand beside Steve, trying to keep a straight face as you listen to Nancy but it was proving difficult when Steve kept nudging his foot against yours.

You hear your name being said and you look up to see Nancy looking at you expectantly.

“What?” You ask, your mind half on the conversation and half on Steve’s arm that was brushing against yours. “Sorry. What did you say, Nance?”

Nancy looks at you, slightly suspicious of the distracted look on your face before she glances back down at the map. “I asked if you and Steve were okay to take the van tonight? We need Dustin to stay here to cover—”

Lucas snorts with laughter and you don’t even have time to send him a warning look before he bursts out, “Oh, they’ll be just fine. They’re just gonna make out the whole time.”

His words were met with complete and utter silence.

Your face was burning and Steve was almost completely lost for words. Lucas seems to realise two seconds too late what he had just let slip and attempts to laugh it off.

“I was kidding! It was just a—”

But nothing gets past Dustin Henderson.

“What are you talking about?” Dustin asks, brows furrowed in confusion as he looks from you to Steve and back again. “Is there something I don’t know about going here or?”

“I um,” Steve begins, looking at you while Robin—who was the only person who knew about you and Steve—struggles to keep a straight face. “I mean he was probably jo—”

“—no, don’t try and bullshit me man, what is Lucas talking about?”

You look up your brother then and you almost see the way he’s putting two and two together. At the way Steve’s body was turned towards yours, how he was looking at you with a soft look of concern on his face. 

“Dustin, I swear we were going to tell you—” You begin but Dustin is quick to cut you off.

“—we?” Dustin asks, nostrils flaring as he looks at Steve. “There’s a we?”

“Can we please focus?” Hopper’s gruff voice cuts in before you or Steve could respond. “There’s more important things that we need to—”

“—you can’t be serious,” Dustin interrupts, clearly no longer caring about the crawl as he glares at both you and Steve. “You and Steve? Seriously?”

“Dustin, could you just—”

But Dustin is already shaking his head, curls bouncing as he walks away from the table without another word to either you or Steve.

Everyone in the room seems to hold their breath as Dustin practically stomps up the basement stairs while you and Steve look at each other. You vaguely register Lucas profusely apologising for running his mouth but you weren’t listening.

“I’ll go after him,” you say to Steve. “I can talk to him and—”

“—no, I’ll go,” Steve insists with a shake of his head. You open your mouth to protest but Steve is already leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek before he follows Dustin up the basement stairs.

“So you and Steve, huh?” Robin asks, trying and failing to seem surprised. “I had no idea! That’s such a surprise!”

Both Nancy and Jonathan laugh in a disbelieving sort of way and even you manage to crack a smile, despite the way your heart was pounding in your chest as you can’t help but imagine the conversation that Steve and your brother were having.

“Alright! Can we focus up now, please?” Hopper calls out, trying to wrangle everyone’s attention back to the mission at hand. “Alright—Wheeler—no Mike, not you—I need you and Buckley to—”

“—I’m just gonna go and check Steve and Dustin are okay,” you interrupt Hopper, ignoring the audible groan of frustration from him as you slip past the group and race up the basement stairs.

You follow the sound of Steve and Dustin’s voices, all the way up the basement stairs and out of the maintenance room where the entrance to the basement was hidden. You’re about to round the corner to head into the kitchen when the sound of Steve’s voices stops you.

“—I promise you man, I’m not just fooling around with her. I wouldn’t do that, especially not to her.”

“Then why would you not tell me? If you were that serious about her—”

“—I was scared, okay? I was—I was scared you wouldn’t handle it well and honestly? I was scared because I hadn’t felt this way about anyone before.”

Your breath hitches and even Dustin is taken aback by Steve’s words.

“Not even Nancy?”

A beat and then—

“Yeah. Not even Nance. With Nance it was—it was constantly worrying if I was doing the right thing, if I was enough. But with your sister—” Steve begins and though you can’t see him, you can hear the smile in his voice. “—she’s the real deal. She’s my favourite person and I was scared that telling everyone about our relationship would burst that bubble or something.”

You bit back a smile as you lean against the wall, your heart feeling fuller at Steve’s admission.

“She’s your favourite person?” Dustin repeats, his voice a little softer now.

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly. “She is.”

You almost step out and into the kitchen but what Dustin asks Steve next keeps you rooted to the spot.

“Do you love her?”

You swallow because three months together meant that you hadn’t yet breached the L word yet with Steve. You knew you loved him—you had known since the very first kiss if you were honest with yourself. But you had never told him that and you couldn’t be sure that Steve was actually in love with you too.

You almost leave, so that you don’t have to hear Steve’s response. In fact, you started to do just that—stepping back towards the stairs that lead back down to the basement when—

“Yeah,” Steve breathes. “I do. I love her.”

Your heart was doing funny things in your chest, things that surely defied science and all because Steve Harrington admitted that he loved you. He loved you, he loved you, he loved you.

“Wow,” you hear Dustin say a few seconds later, after he had digested Steve’s words. “Love. That’s um, that’s big, Steve.”

“It’s kind of hard not to fall in love with her.”

The smile that was beginning to tug on your lips almost hurt at Steve’s words. You had to fight the urge to run toward your boyfriend and kiss him stupid.

“You know if you break her heart that I’ll get Jonathan to beat you up again—”

“—oh c’mon, that was one time, I could totally take Byers again if I—”

“—so as long as you don’t do anything too stupid then—then I guess…I guess I forgive you for keeping it from me.”

“I promise you I won’t,” Steve reassures Dustin. “I’m gonna keep her for as long as she’ll have me. You never know, I might be your brother in law one day—”

“—nevermind, take everything I said back—”

“—too late, I can already see it now. A spring wedding, you can be the ring bearer and—”

You don’t see it but you hear a thumping sound which could only mean Dustin had smacked your boyfriend’s arm to shut him up. And you can’t help yourself, you let out a laugh.

There was silence from the kitchen and your heart thumps as you realise that both Steve and Dustin had heard you. 

Dustin calls out your name and asks, “is that you?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, silently cursing yourself before you respond. “Yeah. It’s me.”

You step out then, heading towards the kitchen where Dustin and Steve were watching you step over the threshold. Dustin looked incredibly amused while Steve had a look of apprehension on his face, likely worried about just how much you had overheard.

“You’re so like mom, you know that? She’s always eavesdropping on my conversations—”

Your face burns at that and you glance quickly at Steve before looking away, “—I wasn’t eavesdropping, Dustin—”

“—you totally were. But whatever, I’m glad you two are happy. Just don’t make out in front of me. I don’t want anymore reasons to go to therapy at my age.”

You let out a choked out sound while the tips of Steve’s ears turn red. Dustin pays no mind to it, slipping past you as he heads towards the basement door with a slight spring in his step.

You don’t speak and neither does Steve. You begin to fiddle with a button on your cardigan while Steve seems suddenly interested in looking out of the kitchen window. 

“So, do you wanna head back down before Hoppers kills us or—”

“—how much did you hear?”

You flex your fingers, the button slipping from your hand as you look over at Steve. He has a carefully measured expression on his face, as though he was bracing himself for the worst.

For a moment, you debate whether or not to lie to him. Whether you should tell him you hadn’t heard much at all but one look in those big, hazel eyes that you loved so much and you couldn’t find it in yourself to lie to him.

“You said I’m your favourite person,” you say finally with a faint smile. “That was sweet.”

Steve swallows nervously, a pink flush creeping up his neck as he looks back at you. “It’s true, you are.” He takes a tentative step closer, his eyes not leaving yours as he asks, “what else did you hear?”

You pretend to think, finding it near impossible to not smile as Steve stands right in front of you, his hands planting themselves on your waist and squeezing affectionately.

“I heard you say that you love me,” you say softly, your eyes flickering over his face.

“Yeah?” Steve murmurs, leaning in until his lips ghosted over your cheek, his breath hot against your skin. “And what did you think about that, baby?”

You exhale a shuddering breath, Steve’s lips placing a tender kiss to your cheek, then another to your forehead, then your nose and finally the very corner of your mouth. The contact makes your entire body shudder.

“I think,” you breathe out, head tilting back instinctively so as to look back at him. “I think it’s a good thing that I love you too.”

You feel Steve’s breathing slow, his hands grip you that little bit tighter and there was a look in his face that you hadn’t seen before.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, barely able to contain the smile on his face, “I love you. I love you so much. I can’t believe—”

He doesn’t even finish his own sentence, his lips sealing over yours in a kiss that leaves you breathless. Your hands find their way into his hair and his pull you flush against him, your mouths moving against each other as though you had all the time in the world.

It was you who had the sense to pull away first—Steve chasing your lips and pressing kiss after kiss there until you were laughing against him.

“Later,” you promise him, placing a finger to his lips to stop him. “We’ve got a crawl to plan.”

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It should be a good night. It is a good night, technically. They won. He scored. The whole left side of his body aches in a familiar, satisfying way from a hit in the second period that would probably look worse tomorrow and feel better never, and he has no morning skate, which means there’s no rational reason he should be standing here grinding his molars into powder because some guy in a clean sweater and very serious watch is making her laugh near the dining room doorway.

A real laugh. The kind where her head tips slightly back and her hand comes up like she’s trying to stop herself from being too loud, even though Garrett knows for a fact she’s capable of being much louder than that and has several recent memories his brain really doesn’t need to supply right now while Dean is standing two feet away.

The guy says something else. She grins. She’s talking with her hands, one of them wrapped around a beer, the other moving as she explains something to him with the sort of focused, lively expression she gets when she’s discussing hospital drama or some disgusting ward story Garrett’s ninety percent sure he doesn’t want to hear but always asks about anyway because she lights up when she knows what she’s talking about.

The guy leans in. Garrett’s fingers tighten around the neck of his bottle.

“Careful,” Tucker says mildly. “You paid for that.”

Garrett doesn’t look at him. “I’m holding it normally.”

Logan snorts. “Yeah, man. Super normal. Real relaxed grip you’ve got there. Like a man seconds away from inventing glass dust.”

Dean, delighted, shifts closer. “What are we looking at? Oh, wait. Are we looking at the doctor?”

“He’s not a doctor,” Garrett says automatically.

All three of them go quiet for half a second.

Then Dean’s face does something horrible. “Oh.”

Logan makes a sound. “Oh, he knows lore.”

“I don’t know lore.”

“You absolutely know lore,” Tucker says. “That was immediate.”

Garrett finally drags his eyes away from the dining room doorway to glare at him. “She said he’s a med student.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says, nodding with grotesque sympathy. “And when did she say that, buddy?”

Garrett hates them. All of them. Deeply. With history and texture.

He looks back across the room before he can stop himself. She’s still there. Still smiling. Her hair is loose over her shoulders, a little messy from the cold outside and the party heat inside, and she’s wearing the top she wore last night under his hands when he had her pressed into his mattress with her thighs shaking around his hips. A different pair of jeans. Same mouth. Same mouth currently curving at Jeremiah or Jason or whatever the fuck his name is like he’s said something worth the amount of teeth she’s showing.

Which is fine. It is.

Garrett’s not stupid. He knows what this is. He knows what they are. They’ve been extremely clear. Painfully clear. Repeatedly clear, usually while naked or half-asleep or in the aftermath of some situation that makes clarity feel less like emotional maturity and more like both of them holding up a cardboard sign that says this is casual while standing in the ashes of casual’s house.

She’s not his girlfriend. She’s said this. He’s said this. The whole thing works because of it. She’s busy. He’s busy. 

She has clinicals and labs and exams and shifts that wreck her enough that sometimes she sits on the edge of his bed in silence for five full minutes after taking off her shoes. He has hockey and captain shit and games and classes and the kind of schedule that turns eating lunch into an event if he manages it before three. They don’t need complicated.

Except he picked her up from the hospital two nights ago because she’d texted him something like might fall asleep in the elevator lol, and the thought of her taking the bus half-dead at midnight had made his body move before his brain finished pretending not to care. 

He drove her home, got her into bed, put a glass of water on her nightstand, and told her to stop trying to answer her group chat because none of those people could force her to discuss wound care at 12:46 a.m. 

Then this morning he drove her to clinic because it was raining and she had looked at the weather app and whined softly under her breath and because he’d wanted an excuse to see her in scrubs with her hair claw-clipped up and sleep still sitting sweet and heavy in her face.

So, who the fuck is this dickhead?

Who’s this future-doctor douchebag with his neat hair and his clean shoes and his little hospital-placement proximity, making her laugh at a party Garrett’s hosting in a house Garrett pays rent in, near a kitchen where she’s eaten his leftover pizza at one in the morning while wearing his hoodie and his boxers and complaining that Dean keeps buying the wrong orange juice.

Not his girl. Sure.

She was his girl last night when he had his mouth against her stomach and her hands in his hair, when he’d made her come twice before they even got under the covers properly because she'd arrived stressed and sharp and vibrating out of her own skin. 

She was definitely his girl around the third time, when she got so loud Dean had thumped on the wall and yelled, “Some of us are trying to fucking sleep!” which had made her hide her face in Garrett’s shoulder and shake with laughter while Garrett, saint that he is, hadn’t gone across the hall and murdered him. 

She was his girl when she fell asleep with one bare knee hooked over his thigh, hair in his mouth, one hand flat on his ribs like she needed to keep him there even unconscious.

But now, apparently, she’s standing by the dining room doorway with Doctor Sweater, laughing like he isn’t two comments away from making Garrett do something that will require an apology to the whole hockey program.

“Thought she wasn’t your girlfriend,” Logan says, because Logan has chosen death.

Garrett’s jaw tightens. “She’s not.”

Dean hums. “Right.”

“She’s not,” Garrett repeats, and hears how bad it sounds the second it leaves his mouth. Too fast. Too defensive. Like a man denying a crime while holding the stolen TV.

Tucker takes a sip of his beer, eyes on the scene across the room. “You look like you might kill him.”

“Not impossible,” Garrett says. “Still might.”

Dean’s laugh is immediate and bright. “Oh, he’s gone. He’s fully gone. Look at him.”

“I’m standing right here.”

“Physically, sure. Emotionally, you’re over there lifting your leg on her like a golden retriever,” Dean beams. 

Garrett turns his head slowly. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“A lot,” Logan says, nodding. “But he’s not wrong.”

“He is wrong.”

“Then why do you look like that?” Tucker asks.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to decide how much shit you’d be in if you body checked him right now.”

Garrett looks back at her again, because suffering is a hobby now. Jason is saying something with his hand raised slightly, like he’s making a point. Probably some hospital thing. Probably something about rounds or a consultant or whatever the fuck people who wear badges and make too much eye contact in break rooms talk about. 

She’s listening with her face all open and interested, nodding along, and Garrett knows that face too. The one she gets when someone’s saying something actually worth hearing. The one she wore in the library when she was explaining veins on his forearm, all focus and warmth and that little crease between her brows.

His stomach twists, because that guy gets that version of her in the hospital. That guy gets her in scrubs, gets her tired and competent, gets to know the ward stories before Garrett does, gets to stand beside her at the nurses’ station or wherever they’re placed and watch her do the thing she’s good at in real time. 

Garrett gets the after. The crash. The bad-day texts. The tears in his room. The pizza. The sex. The way she curls into him after pretending she isn’t sleepy. He likes the after. He likes it too much, probably. 

But the thought of some other guy existing in the middle of her actual day, in the part where she’s bright and capable and not half-dead against Garrett’s pillow, makes something ugly and hot move in his chest.

Which is stupid. He talks to women. Women talk to him. She’s never once made a thing about it. Well. She’s made faces, maybe. Little ones. But she’s never walked across a room and performed some caveman territorial bullshit because a girl laughed at one of his jokes.

Garrett’s bigger than that. He is 100%, completely and totally, bigger than that.

However, Garrett’s, unfortunately, not bigger than that.

“I’m gonna get another beer,” he says.

Logan looks at the bottle in his hand. “You have one.”

“This one’s annoying me.”

“The beer?” Dean asks.

Garrett gives him a look.

Dean puts both hands up. “Right. My bad. Totally the beer.”

He lasts another eight seconds. Eight. Which is honestly generous, considering Jackson laughs at something she says and then puts his hand briefly on her upper arm.

Briefly. A normal person’s touch. Barely contact. Probably nothing. It’s there and gone in less than a second, and still Garrett sees it so clearly that the whole room seems to sharpen around it. 

The guy’s fingers on her sleeve. Her not flinching. Her not even noticing, maybe. Her just smiling, still mid-sentence, because she’s comfortable enough around him that he can touch her arm and she doesn’t immediately step back. Garrett sets his beer down on the nearest surface with more force than necessary.

“Oh, here we go,” Logan says softly, like he’s narrating wildlife footage.

Garrett cracks his neck. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Dean’s practically glowing. “G, remember, she’s not your girlfriend.”

Garrett points at him without looking back. “One more word and I’m putting your mattress in the front yard.”

“You did that last semester.”

“And I’ll do it better this time.”

He crosses the room before anyone can answer. The party shifts around him automatically, people making room because Garrett is Garrett and because he’s moving with enough purpose that even drunk freshmen understand basic survival instincts. 

He grabs his letterman jacket off the back of a chair on the way, the one he’d thrown there an hour ago because the house was too hot and because he had not, at that stage of the night, known he was about to need a visual aid.

She sees him when he’s a few steps away. Her eyes flick over from Joseph’s face and land on Garrett, and something changes in her expression so fast most people would miss it. A tiny catch at the corner of her mouth. Amusement, like she knows. Like she’s known for at least five minutes that he’s across the room slowly losing his mind and has chosen, with incredible cruelty, not to rescue him from himself.

Garrett’s blood pressure becomes a team concern.

“Hey,” she says as he reaches them, voice light, eyes bright. Too bright. Oh, she’s absolutely going to be insufferable later.

“Hey, baby.” He says it easily. His own mouth hears the possessive little curve in it and decides to double down because shame has taken the night off. He swings the jacket around her shoulders, warm from the room and heavy enough that it covers most of her top at once. “Told you to bring a jacket.”

Her lips press together. Not a smile, not yet, but close enough that he wants to bite her.

“I wasn’t cold,” she says.

“You were going to be.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Was I?”

“Mhm.”

She looks up at him with that almost-smile still sitting there, and for a second the room behind her drops away. Just the two of them. His jacket on her shoulders. Her eyes on his face. The last memory of last night alive and well between them, horribly unhelpful and very smug.

Then James clears his throat. Garrett looks over at him.

The guy isn’t ugly, which is offensive. He has that med-student look, clean and tired and self-important in the socially acceptable way, like he could diagnose a cough and then use the word actually before explaining why everyone else in the room is wrong. He’s holding a beer he’s barely touched. 

Garrett hates him immediately and with some nuance.

“Hey, man,” Garrett says, making his voice pleasant enough to be legally admissible. “I’m–”

“Garrett Graham,” the guy says, his face brightening with recognition. “No, yeah, I know who you are. Big hockey fan.”

That should help. It does not.

“Oh,” Garrett says, nodding once. “Cool.”

She shifts beside him, and Garrett feels her trying not to laugh more than he sees it.

Jacob holds out a hand. “Joshua.”

Garrett takes it. Firmly. Not too firmly. Probably. “Justin?”

The guy blinks. “No– uh. Joshua.”

Garrett nods like this is brand-new and very important information. “Right. Totally. Joshua.”

Her shoulders shake once under his jacket.

Garrett looks down at her. “You good?”

She bites the inside of her cheek. “Mhm.”

His hand, which has somehow ended up at the edge of the jacket near her shoulder, tugs it more securely around her. It’s a stupid, small thing. A nothing thing. Except she lets him do it. She doesn’t shrug him off. Doesn’t roll her eyes in front of John. 

Doesn’t make some cutting little joke about him being ridiculous even though he is being ridiculous, spectacularly so, at a level that may require group review.

She just looks up at him and says, “Hold this?”

Then she hands him her beer, like he’s the sort of person who stands there holding her drink while she slides her arms into his letterman jacket. Garrett takes the beer because he’s domesticated now.

She slips one arm into the sleeve, then the other, the jacket swallowing her in the shoulders and falling too big over her hands. The sight of it does something so abrupt inside him that he almost forgets Joel is present and breathing. 

She looks like she belongs in it. That’s the problem. Worse, she looks like she knows what it does to him. She tugs one sleeve down, fingers appearing just past the cuff, then reaches for her drink again.

“Thanks,” she says, all sweet and casual and deadly.

Garrett hands it back. “Don’t mention it.”

She lifts the beer to her mouth, and her eyes stay on his for half a second over the rim.

Oh, she is evil. Beautiful, evil woman.

Jayden says something about the game, and Garrett answers. He thinks he answers normally. There are words involved. Something about the third period. Something about special teams. 

He’s only half aware of it because she’s turned slightly back toward Joshua but is still close enough that Garrett can feel the edge of his jacket brushing his knuckles when she moves. Close enough that when she laughs softly at something Jasper says, she glances up at Garrett first, like she wants to see what it does to him.

It does plenty.

He drops his hand to the back of her shoulder, thumb pressing once through the thick jacket fabric. It could pass as absent. It’s not. She knows it too, because her eyes flicker for one fraction of a second, and then she looks back at Jared with her smile still intact.

Garrett bends and kisses her temple. He doesn’t plan it, it just happens. One second he’s standing there trying to participate in a conversation with a man whose name he’s already intentionally fumbled, and the next his mouth is at the side of her head, pressing a quick, warm kiss into her hair like he’s done it a hundred times before in front of people.

She goes still for half a breath, then her fingers tighten around the bottle.

Garrett feels something in him settle, low and pleased and stupidly male. It proves that Garrett is losing his grip on a situation he keeps insisting is casual. But she doesn’t move away. She doesn’t correct him. She just stands there in his jacket with his kiss still warm near her temple and says, “Anyway, the ward coordinator was being insane,” like her voice hasn’t gone just slightly softer around the edge.

Garrett isn’t proud of the fact that he enjoys this. But he enjoys it a lot.

He lasts maybe another minute before the satisfaction starts to curdle into the awareness that if he stands here any longer, he’s going to either keep touching her or start asking Joe invasive questions about his placement schedule. Neither option is ideal. One of them may violate several social norms and possibly university policy.

So he squeezes her shoulder once and says, “I’ll be over there.”

She looks up at him. The grin finally breaks properly, tiny and private, tucked into the corner of her mouth like she’s saving it for later. “Okay.”

“Come find me if you get cold.”

She looks down at his jacket, then back up. “Sure.”

Garrett can feel Joshua watching the exchange with the stiff politeness of a man who’s just realised he’s wandered into a situation with no clean label and a lot of territory already claimed by someone who refuses to call it territory. Good. Let him wonder. 

Garrett gives him one last nod. “Jeremy.”

“Joshua,” the guy says weakly.

“Right.”

He turns before she can laugh in his face.

He makes it back to the boys and immediately regrets every friendship he’s ever formed.

Dean’s bent almost in half, one hand over his mouth, shaking with silent laughter. Logan has both eyebrows raised so high they’re basically in his hairline. Tucker looks like he’s trying to be kinder than the other two and failing because his mouth is twitching too hard.

“No,” Garrett says, pointing at all of them. “Absolutely not.”

Tucker takes a sip of beer, eyes still on Garrett. “Subtle jacket move.”

“That wasn’t subtle,” Logan says. “That was a billboard.”

“She was cold,” Garrett says.

Dean wheezes. “She’s indoors!”

“It’s drafty.”

“The thermostat is set to seventy-two and there are ninety people in here,” Tucker says.

“Drafty,” Garrett repeats.

Dean presses both hands together in front of his mouth like he’s praying for strength he doesn’t intend to use. “Baby, I told you to bring a jacket,” he says, pitching his voice lower in an atrocious impression that makes Logan immediately choke on his drink.

Garrett’s eyes narrow. “I will end you.”

“No, no, it was good.” Dean nods earnestly, fighting a grin so hard he looks pained. “Very casual. Extremely platonic. I actually put my varsity jacket on all my non-girlfriends before intimidating their male classmates.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

The words are automatic. They also, judging by the faces in front of him, are not helping.

Logan pats his shoulder. “Yeah, man. We know. You’ve said it a lot. Usually while looking like you’re going to put someone through the wall.”

Garrett looks away, which is a mistake because he sees her across the room, still in his jacket. She’s talking to whatever-his-name-is, but her body has shifted slightly, angled more toward Garrett than before. 

The jacket sleeves hang over her hands. She lifts her beer, says something, laughs again, and this time her eyes flick over to him like she knows exactly where he is. Like she’s known the whole time.

His stomach does that stupid little swoop again. A quick drop, like missing the bottom stair. Because she’s wearing his jacket without complaint, because she let him kiss her temple in front of some guy from her hospital placement, because she’s going to tease him later and he already knows he will let her. 

Worse, he’ll probably enjoy it. He’ll probably stand in his room while she shrugs the jacket off and says something sweetly evil like were you marking your territory, Graham? and he’ll tell her to shut up and kiss her against the door because the answer is yes and he’s not ready to put that in words.

“Look at him,” Dean says softly, with the reverence of someone witnessing art. “He’s doing it again.”

Garrett does not turn. “Doing what?”

“Staring at your not-girlfriend in your jacket.”

“She looks cold.”

“She looks smug,” Tucker says.

“She looks like she knows she owns you,” Logan adds.

“She doesn’t own me.”

All three of them stare at him. Garrett drinks from his beer and discovers it’s empty. This is disappointing because he was hoping it would give his mouth something to do besides continue lying.

Dean leans closer, voice bright. “Hey, G?”

“No.”

“You gonna ask the future doctor to leave or just silently audition for a jealous boyfriend role all night?”

Garrett gives him a look. “You really want your mattress on the lawn.”

“I’m serious. I need to know how far the delusion goes. Like, she’s not your girlfriend, but you pick her up from clinical, right?”

Logan starts counting on his fingers, because apparently he has prepared evidence. “Drives her places. Makes her eat. Lets her sleep in his bed. Gets weird if she doesn’t text back.”

“I don’t get weird.”

“You once came downstairs and asked if the Wi-Fi was working because she hadn’t replied in fifteen minutes,” Tucker says.

Garrett points at him. “That was a reasonable question.”

“It was raining,” Logan adds. “You said maybe the weather was messing with reception.”

Garrett shrugs once. “I was making conversation.”

“You were pacing.”

Dean looks toward the dining room doorway, then back at Garrett, his grin sharpening. “And now you’re about to fight a med student because he made her laugh.”

“I’m not about to fight him.”

“Because you already gave her your jacket and kissed her head, so you think the point’s been made?”

Garrett opens his mouth. Nothing useful comes out.

Dean’s smile widens with the slow horror of a man being proven right in real time. “Oh my God.”

“Shut up.”

“You do think the point’s been made!”

Garrett drags a hand over his jaw. It hurts because his jaw has been clenched for at least ten uninterrupted minutes. “I hate all of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Logan says cheerfully. “You need us. Who else is gonna tell you you’re acting insane?”

“I’m not acting insane.”

Tucker’s eyes move across the room again, and his expression softens slightly. “She doesn’t look mad, for what it’s worth.”

Garrett follows his gaze before he can pretend not to. She’s still talking, still smiling, still doing that animated hand thing, but now his jacket has slipped off one shoulder a little. 

She reaches up absently and pulls it back into place without looking down, like keeping it on matters. Like it’s not just fabric. Like she’s decided, for whatever reason, to let him have this.

Garrett’s chest tightens in a way that is harder to turn into anger. “No,” he says after a second, quieter despite himself. “She doesn’t.”

Dean, because he has a soul only in theory, immediately ruins the softness. “That’s because she likes seeing you suffer.”

Garrett exhales through his nose. “Yeah, probably.”

“She picked a med student on purpose,” Logan says.

“She didn’t pick him.”

“She’s wearing your jacket and making eye contact across the room while another guy talks about hospital stuff,” Dean says. “That girl is conducting research.”

Tucker nods solemnly. “Clinical trial.”

Garrett gives them all a flat look. “You’re done.”

“Double blind study,” Dean continues. “Except everyone can see it except you.”

Logan laughs hard enough to fold into Tucker’s shoulder. Garrett’s very seriously considering the mattress thing. Possibly not just Dean’s. Possibly all of them. A clean sweep. Character building.

Across the room, she looks over again. This time, she smiles at him properly. Just for him, small and pleased and warm under the edges of his jacket. The kind of smile that says she knows exactly how stupid he’s being and, worse, that she’s not entirely against it.

Garrett’s hand tightens around the empty bottle.

Dean makes a soft, wounded noise beside him. “Oh, buddy.”

Garrett turns his head slowly. “What now?”

“You’re so fucked.”

For once, Garrett doesn’t immediately argue. Because she’s not his girlfriend. He knows that. He has the words memorised. He’s said them enough times that they should mean something by now. 

She’s not his girlfriend, and he’s not her boyfriend, and Joshua can laugh at her hospital stories if he wants because she’s allowed to have classmates and friends and whatever other normal people things Garrett has decided are personal attacks.

But she’s standing in his living room wearing his jacket. She had let him put it on her in front of another guy. She had let him kiss her temple. She’d handed him her beer like his hands were a natural place to put things while she settled into his clothes. 

She’s looking at him now like she knows exactly how jealous he is and has chosen, for reasons that are going to ruin his life, to be gentle with it until she can make fun of him somewhere private.

Garrett lifts the empty bottle to his mouth, realises again there’s nothing in it, and lowers it with a muttered, “Fuck.”

Logan claps him on the back. “There it is.”

“I’m getting another beer.”

“Sure,” Dean says. “Beer.”

Garrett ignores them and heads for the kitchen, taking the route that passes her, because he’s fully given up on pretending to be a rational person tonight.

As he passes, his hand brushes the small of her back through the jacket. Brief. Warm. Deliberate enough that she feels it, subtle enough that Jacob probably has to stand there and wonder if he imagined it. She turns her head slightly, eyes lifting to him.

Garrett bends just enough to murmur near her ear, “Still good?”

Her smile tugs again, private and dangerous. “Mhm.”

His fingers press once at her waist, hidden in the thick fabric. “Find me later.”

It comes out lower than he means it to. More instruction than request. A little too much of last night in it. A little too much of his hands, his bed, her voice muffled in his pillow, Dean banging on the wall. He hears it. She hears it too.

Her eyes flick to his mouth, then back up. “Maybe,” she says.

Garrett’s jaw tightens, but this time it’s not jealousy that does it. Or not only jealousy.

“Maybe,” he repeats.

She lifts her beer to her lips. “Don’t make me say it twice.”

Garrett stares at her for one second too long.

Then Joshua says, “Sorry, am I missing something?”

She looks back at him, sweet as anything. “Nope.”

Garrett almost laughs. Instead he gives Doctor Asshole one more polite nod. “Good seeing you, Jason.”

“Joshua,” the guy says, a little helplessly now.

“Right.”

He walks away before she can fully lose the smile. The boys are watching from the couch with expressions that make Garrett want to leave the country.

Dean lifts both hands in surrender before Garrett even reaches them. “Don’t worry, man. Super normal.”

Logan nods. “Barely possessive at all.”

Tucker, traitorously calm, adds, “Very not-girlfriend.”

Garrett drops onto the couch beside them, beerless, jacketless, pride in critical condition, and looks across the room one more time. She’s still laughing. Still in his jacket. Still not his girlfriend.

Garrett leans back, drags a hand down his face, and mutters, “Shut the fuck up.”

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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She doesn’t turn around at first. That’s one of the first things the ED teaches you, in its harsh little way. People are always coming in. Doors open, wheels roll, voices sharpen, and the floor somehow makes room for whatever crisis has just arrived like it had been expecting it. 

Around her, everyone moves with that strange, practiced calm that still feels a bit like witchcraft to her, panic folded neatly into tasks, fear clipped down to the edge of a pen, hands already reaching for gloves and monitors and charts before the person on the stretcher has even fully crossed the threshold.

“What’ve we got?” Dr. Patel asks, already stepping toward the paramedics.

The stretcher rolls past the nursing station behind her, and one of the paramedics starts talking in that clipped, efficient rhythm that makes every sentence sound both ordinary and terrifying. “This is John Logan, twenty-one. He’s come in from Briar hockey training after a hit during drills. He’s taken contact to the face, gone down, and coach thinks he may have hit the back of his head on the ice. No loss of consciousness that anyone saw, but he’s been asking the same questions and can’t really tell us what happened. He’s got a headache, feels dizzy, bit nauseous. Nosebleed was active when we got there but it’s settled now, and he’s got a decent split to the inside of his lower lip. No neck pain, no vomiting. Obs have been stable.”

Her pen stops moving. For a second, the whole department seems to keep going without her. The wheels keep squeaking. The monitor keeps beeping. Someone laughs at the far end of the nurses’ station in that brittle way people do when the shift has already started to get weird.

But all she can hear is John Logan sitting in the middle of that handover like a puck dropped clean at her feet.

“Logan?” she says, too loud and too immediate, before she can smooth it into anything professional.

The paramedic glances back. Dr. Patel glances back. Maria, her charge nurse, gives her a look from beside the stretcher that manages, somehow, to say several things at once, the main one being whatever this is, please do not make it my problem.

She’s already pushing away from the counter, notes abandoned, Red Bull sweating a bright silver ring onto the desk behind her. “Sorry. I– sorry. I know him.”

Logan gets wheeled into bay four looking, frankly, far too pleased with himself for someone with dried blood crusted under one nostril and a split lower lip swelling on one side.

His hair’s damp from melted ice and sweat, sticking up in the back in a way that would be funny if his eyes weren’t doing that slightly unfocused thing she’s been trained to notice before she’s allowed to react to it. 

He blinks up at the ceiling like the tiles are being rude to him. She follows Maria in, pulling gloves on with fingers that only shake for half a second before she makes them stop, heart thudding once, hard, and then settling into the lower, steadier part of her body where she keeps all the useful things.

Logan turns his head when she comes into his line of sight. His brow creases, slow and dramatic, like recognition is having to fight its way through several layers of fog and hockey equipment. “I know you.”

“Hi, Logan,” she says, leaning in just enough that he doesn’t have to search for her face. Her voice comes out softer than she expects, but steady. Good. She’ll take steady. “You okay?”

His eyes narrow with the heroic concentration of a man trying to remember his own Netflix password under medical supervision. Then his face clears, delighted and bloody. “Garrett’s girlfriend! Hi!”

Every person in the room hears it. There are things a person could whisper in the ED and nobody would catch them over the phones and monitors and general human misery, but Garrett’s girlfriend has the acoustic reach of a trauma alarm.

Heat climbs straight up her throat. “I’m not–” she starts, because some stupid reflex in her still thinks this is the hill worth dying on, even though Logan is lying there with a possible concussion and blood on his teeth. She stops herself and reaches for the rail instead, lowering it so Maria can get in closer. “Okay. Lean back for me, yeah? Let them have a look at you.”

“Garrett’s gonna be so mad,” Logan mumbles, letting his head fall back against the pillow with the loose obedience of someone who has temporarily lost access to all his usual objections.

“Probably,” she says, gently turning his wrist so Maria can clip the pulse ox on properly. “But that’s more of a personality defect than a medical concern.”

Maria’s mouth twitches.

Logan looks at her with genuine, hazy admiration. “You’re funny.”

“You’ve told me that before.”

They get him settled with the strange, controlled choreography of people who know exactly where to put their bodies in a small room. Dr. Patel checks him over, asks the kind of questions that sound simple until the answers come back wrong. Name. Age. Where are you? What happened? Does your neck hurt? Any vomiting? Any vision changes? 

Maria repeats a few in a softer tone when Logan’s gaze drifts toward the curtain and his attention starts to slip off the edge of the room. He knows who he is. He knows he’s at the hospital. He doesn’t know what drill they were running, or why his mouth tastes like pennies, or why his coach apparently went full soccer mom and called an ambulance.

When she checks his temperature, he gives her a slow, solemn thumbs-up like she’s just done something worthy of ESPN coverage.

“Thanks, bud,” she says, fighting a smile.

“Professional,” he tells her, thickly, through the swelling.

“I’m a student.”

“Close enough.”

Dr. Patel orders more monitoring, meds for the headache and nausea, and imaging if he doesn’t settle the way they want.

The room thins out by degrees, people peeling away toward other beds and other problems, and she’s just reaching for the blood pressure cuff when a familiar voice cuts across the main department, too loud and too panicked and much too Garrett to be anyone else.

“Where is he?”

Her eyes close. Another voice follows, higher with stress and irritation. “Bro, you can’t just walk back there.”

Then Tucker, sounding like he’s trying to be polite while actively losing his mind. “Sorry– sorry, we’re with the idiot who got concussed.”

“Fuck,” she mutters.

Logan perks up immediately, which is not ideal. “Guys?”

She strips off her gloves and steps out before the entire Briar hockey team can commit a privacy violation in front of God, Maria, and three irritated nurses who have already had enough of today. 

Dean’s craning his neck over a privacy screen like he’s trying to spot someone across a party instead of an emergency department, Tucker has both hands shoved into his hair, and Garrett’s standing between them in his hoodie and sweats, curls flattened on one side like he’s dragged a hand through them too many times, face set in that awful careful way that means he’s much closer to freaking out than he wants anyone to know.

His eyes find hers, and something under her ribs does one bright, stupid little flip before she can stop it. “Oh, thank God,” Garrett says, already moving toward her. “Is he okay?”

“He’s okay,” she says quickly, putting a hand out before he can walk straight past her and into a bay he absolutely hasn’t been invited into. Her palm lands against the front of his hoodie, solid heat and hard chest and the faint outdoor cold still clinging to him. “He’s in there. Stop yelling.”

“I’m not yelling.”

Dean points at him immediately. “You were absolutely yelling.”

Garrett doesn’t even look at him. His eyes stay on her face, scanning it like she might accidentally give away something worse than her words. “Is he conscious? Did he know where he was? He couldn’t remember what happened.”

“He’s awake, he’s talking, he’s annoying, so all his major personality functions are intact.” She lowers her voice a little when the sharpness in his jaw doesn’t move. “Garrett. He’s okay. They’re assessing him properly.”

The tension in his face shifts, dragged out of panic and pushed into something he can carry without making it everyone else’s problem. He nods once, quick and tight. “Can I see him?”

“For two minutes,” she says. Then, because Dean’s already angling his body toward the curtain with the unearned confidence of a man who has never met a boundary he didn’t consider negotiable, she adds, “And if any of you crowd him, I’m kicking you out.”

Dean blinks at her. “Wow.”

Tucker, still pale under his tan, nods once like this has genuinely done something for him. “That was kind of hot.”

Garrett shoots him a look. “Shut up.”

She leads them in anyway, and Logan’s whole face lights up the second he sees them, like he hasn’t just been scraped off the ice and transported here in an ambulance. “Guys!”

The room immediately becomes too full in that specific way rooms become too full when hockey players enter them. Dean swears under his breath and leans over the bed, Tucker lets out a rough little laugh that sounds more like relief than humour and grabs Logan’s ankle through the blanket, and Garrett goes quiet. 

That’s the thing she notices most, he doesn’t crowd, doesn’t start talking over everyone, doesn’t perform the worry into something loud enough to hide behind.

He steps to the side of the bed and looks at Logan’s face, really looks, taking in the dried blood, the split lip, the unfocused eyes, the way Logan is smiling too widely because his brain has temporarily filed this whole morning under weird but fine.

“You scared the shit out of us, dude,” Garrett says.

Logan frowns. “Why?”

Dean makes a strangled sound. “Because you got bodied and then asked what day it was four times.”

“Oh.” Logan thinks about that, then looks at her. “What day is it?”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean says, dragging both hands down his face.

“Okay,” she cuts in, stepping between Dean and the monitor before he manages to trip over something expensive and attached to the wall. “Everyone back. Back, please. I actually have to work.”

Garrett moves first. He catches Tucker lightly by the sleeve, nudges Dean back with his shoulder, and somehow gets both of them away from the bed without making it a whole production. 

His gaze stays on her, though. She can feel the attention of him, steady and warm and much too direct, following her hands as she wraps the cuff around Logan’s arm, clips the pulse ox back onto his finger, asks him to rate his headache out of ten, asks whether the nausea is better or worse, checks the bleeding at his lip with gauze and the lightest pressure she can manage.

She knows she’s not doing anything extraordinary. It’s observations and questions and documenting what she’s told to document. It’s the kind of thing she’s been practicing for weeks, the kind of thing that still sometimes makes her feel like she’s wearing someone else’s competence and hoping it fits long enough to pass. 

But Garrett watches her like she’s doing magic. Like the girl who steals his hoodies and falls asleep with her anatomy notes open on her chest has been briefly replaced by someone sharper and calmer and terrifyingly capable, and he has no idea what to do with the fact that both versions are her.

Maria comes in a minute later with the meds, her eyes flicking once to the three enormous boys lined up against the wall in various states of poorly hidden distress. “Doctor put in orders for acetaminophen and Zofran,” she says, holding the chart out a little. “You want to give them? I’ll cosign and watch.”

Her mouth goes a little dry for reasons that have very little to do with the Red Bull still abandoned at the nursing station. She nods. “Yeah. Yep.”

Logan eyes the tablets suspiciously. “Am I dying?”

“No,” she says, scanning what Maria tells her to scan, double-checking the dose because Garrett’s watching and Maria’s watching and, more importantly, because Logan is a real patient and not just an idiot she’s seen drunk in Garrett’s kitchen eating cereal out of a mixing bowl. “This one’s for the headache, and this one should help with the nausea. Small sip of water, okay? Don’t sit up too fast.”

Logan takes the cup with exaggerated seriousness, like she’s handed him an ancient goblet. “Yes, nurse.”

“Student nurse.”

“Future nurse,” Tucker says from the wall, earnest enough that she has to keep her eyes on the chart or she’ll smile.

She points at him without looking up. “Waiting room.”

Maria gives a soft, approving hum from beside her. “Actually, honey, these boys do need to wait outside.”

“Yeah,” she says, peeling her gloves off. “I’ll walk them out.” She turns back to Logan, whose eyelids are drooping a little now that the initial excitement of having visitors has started to wear off. “Logan, say bye to your friends.”

He lifts one hand in a loose, tragic wave. “Bye, friends.”

Dean looks genuinely affected. “Why did that make me sad?”

“Head injury makes him nicer,” Tucker says. “Maybe we should keep him like this.”

Garrett doesn’t laugh, but his mouth twitches. That tiny break in him is enough to make the room feel a fraction less tight. He lets her guide them out, walking last, still glancing back through the curtain like Logan might vanish if he stops looking. 

When they reach the hallway, she turns and plants both hands on Garrett’s chest before he can hover there indefinitely and slowly turn into hospital furniture.

“I’ve got him,” she says, softer now, because Dean and Tucker are a few steps ahead and because Garrett’s face has gone quiet again. “It’s okay.”

His hands hover for half a second before settling at her waist, careful and brief, the way he touches her when he remembers there are people around and he’s trying very hard to be normal about it. 

His thumb moves once against the side of her scrub top, a small restless stroke that gives him away completely. “You’ll come tell me?”

“Yeah. When the doctor comes back and they know more, I’ll come out.”

His eyes search her face like he wants to argue and knows she’ll win, which is maybe one of the more satisfying developments of the morning. Finally, he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoes, then gives his chest a gentle push. “Go wait. And keep Dean from charming his way into a restricted area.”

Dean, already halfway down the hall, calls back, “I heard that.”

“You were meant to.”

Garrett’s mouth curves then, small and tired and stupidly soft at the edges. For one second, with the ED moving around them and Logan concussed behind a curtain and her Red Bull still sitting open somewhere going warm, he looks at her like she’s done something much more impressive than take a blood pressure and bully his friends into behaving. Like the competence of her has hit him somewhere inconvenient and he’s trying not to make it her problem.

Then he leans down just enough to murmur, “You’re really good at this.”

The compliment lands too warm and too directly in her chest, especially with her badge clipped crookedly to her pocket and dried coffee on one sleeve and the faint medicinal smell of the room still clinging to her. 

She looks away first, because there are some things she can handle in front of three hockey players and a charge nurse, and Garrett Graham looking proud of her is not one of them.

“Waiting room, Graham.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and backs away with both hands raised, smiling like an idiot.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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Garrett’s leaning against his Jeep under the car park light, arms folded. His hair’s messy from a shower, dark curls still damp at the ends, and he has that whole Garrett Graham thing going on. Broad shoulders. Stupidly easy confidence. Mouth already curving like he knows exactly what she’s thinking and has decided to be annoying about it.

Her stomach does something small and embarrassing. Very professional. Very composed. Very student nurse of her.

He pushes off the car when he spots her, and his grin pulls wider, warm and smug all at once. “Hey.”

“Hey, you,” she says, and hates a little bit how soft it comes out.

His eyes move over her face, then down to her scrubs, her badge, her shoes. Quick enough to pass as casual if she didn’t already know him too well.

“You look like the hospital won.”

She huffs, but it turns into a smile because she’s missed him, which is humiliating. “That’s just what clinical excellence looks like.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Back pain. Emotional damage. Mild dehydration.”

“Sounds prestigious.”

“It is. Very competitive.”

His mouth twitches as he reaches past her for the passenger door and opens it before she can. He stands there holding it, eyebrows lifted like he’s daring her to say something.

She looks at him. “I can open a car door.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.” His eyes flick briefly to her mouth. “I’m being impressive.”

“With doors?”

“I’m starting small.”

She laughs despite herself and slides into the passenger seat, immediately hissing when the cold leather touches the backs of her thighs through her scrub pants. “Oh my god.”

Garrett leans one forearm on the top of the door. “You good?”

“No. I’ve died.”

“You’re still talking.”

“Final reflex.”

He laughs, shuts the door, and rounds the front of the Jeep. She watches him through the windshield, the loose, easy way he moves, one hand dragging through his hair as he comes around to the driver’s side. 

They’ve texted constantly over the last two weeks. Stupid things. Tired things. Her half-delirious updates from placement. His pictures of Dean passed out on the couch or Tucker making dinner like a man personally betrayed by vegetables. 

But it hasn’t been this. Him in the same space as her. His car smelling like clean laundry and cold air and whatever body wash he uses that she has absolutely no business recognising this quickly.

He gets in and starts the car, immediately blasting the heat. She holds both hands in front of the vents like she’s trying to resurrect herself.

“It’s so cold,” she says.

“It’s November.”

She turns her head slowly. “Thank you. That helped.”

“Anytime.” He shifts toward her instead of putting the car into reverse, one hand coming up to her jaw with that easy, devastating confidence of his. His fingers are warm against her skin, thumb settling just below her cheekbone. “C’mere.”

She goes torward him easily. His mouth is warm, familiar, faintly minty, and the kiss is supposed to be quick until she smiles into it and he makes that low, pleased sound in the back of his throat like he’s won something. His thumb presses a little firmer at her jaw. The hospital car park drops away for a second.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. “How was it?”

She hums, because words take a moment. “Okay. Busy. Fun, kind of. My brain’s not really working. Like, I think if you asked me my birthday right now, I’d need a minute.”

“Good to know. I’ll keep it simple.” His thumb strokes once over her cheek. “You eat?”

She makes a face.

Garrett’s expression flattens. “That’s a no.”

“I had coffee.”

“Babe.”

“And half a granola bar.”

“Babe.”

The word lands too easily. Warm. Exasperated. Like he has any right to sound that domestic when Garrett Graham doesn’t do girlfriends. 

He only picks her up from hospital placements at eleven at night, texts her to make sure she isn’t walking out alone, remembers her schedule better than she does, and looks personally offended when she hasn’t eaten dinner. Completely different thing.

She lifts her brows. “Don’t babe me in your disappointed captain voice.”

“My disappointed captain voice works.”

“It’s bossy.”

He finally leans back, hand dropping to the gearshift. “You wanna go to yours? I can drop you. The guys are throwing something at the house.”

“Something?”

“Dean said low-key.”

“So loud.”

“Probably.”

“And sticky.”

“Almost definitely.”

She scrunches her nose, already imagining the music, the yelling, Logan saying something insane across the kitchen while Tucker tries to make sure no one breaks a lamp. Usually, she likes the hockey house. Tonight, the thought of it makes her want to climb into bed fully clothed and become unavailable to the public.

“No party,” she says. “I’d fall asleep standing up and someone would draw on me.”

Garrett nods. “Dean would.”

“Tucker would stop him.”

“Tucker would try.”

“Logan would take a picture.”

She grins, nodding very seriously. “Unsafe environment.”

Garrett smiles, softer this time. “Home, then.”

She nods, but instead of sitting back like a normal person, she leans over the console and kisses him again. Slower this time. Less hello, more something she’s not going to name because he’ll get unbearable about it and also because she’s tired enough to be honest by accident.

His mouth curves against hers. 

“You staying over?” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” he says, too quick to pretend he had to think about it. Then, quieter, “If you want me to.”

She rolls her eyes before her face can do something stupid. “You’re very easy.”

“For you?” His grin turns lazy. “Yeah. Little bit.”

That shouldn’t make her stomach flip. It does anyway. To recover, she slides a hand into his hair and tugs lightly at the curls near the nape of his neck. His breath catches, barely, but she hears it.

She smiles. “Interesting.”

“Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

His hand lands on her thigh over her scrubs, big and warm and far too comfortable there. “You’re supposed to be exhausted.”

“I am.”

He huffs a breath through his nose. “You’re harassing me for sport.”

“I can multitask.”

He laughs under his breath and kisses her again, and this one gets away from them fast. Two weeks of missed schedules and half-asleep phone calls and pretending none of it counts as missing each other. 

His hand slides a little higher on her thigh. Hers tightens in his hair. The heat blasts over her knees, and she leans closer over the console, smiling into his mouth when he makes another low sound that’s going to be a problem for her later.

Then someone walks past the front of the Jeep. Close enough that when her eyes open, she catches the white coat, the badge, the tired doctor face, and the unmistakable glance into the car before he looks away with the grim professionalism of a man choosing not to involve himself.

She freezes. Garrett starts laughing.

“Oh my god.” She drops her forehead into his shoulder. “No.”

His chest shakes under her cheek. “Was that one of your doctors?”

“Don’t.”

“I’m just asking.”

“That is so unprofessional.”

“You’re off the clock.”

“I’m in the hospital car park!”

He shrugs. “Completely different.”

She lifts her head to glare at him, but his face is bright and smug and delighted, and it only makes her want to laugh too, which is frankly rude of him. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. That man watched me miss an IV yesterday.”

Garrett’s grin gets worse. “Good. New association.”

“What?”

He gestures with one hand. “Now he won’t think about the IV.”

“He’ll think about me making out with you in your Jeep.”

“Exactly.” He looks deeply pleased with himself. “Rebrand.”

She stares at him, then smacks his chest. “Drive.”

“Okay, okay.” He catches her hand before she can pull it back and kisses her knuckles, still smiling like an idiot.

She groans dropping her head back against the headrest. “I’m transferring schools.”

“No, you’re not.”

She points at the windshield. “Drive, Graham.”

He pulls out of the car park still grinning, one hand on the wheel, the other finding its way back to her thigh as soon as they hit the road. 

Outside, the hospital drops behind them in glass and light, the streets stretching dark and quiet toward campus. The heat keeps blowing over her legs. Garrett’s thumb moves slowly over her scrubs like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

She tips her head against the seat and watches him in the passing streetlights, the curve of his mouth still there, stupid and pleased and familiar.

“What?” he asks without looking over.

She shakes her head softly. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

She turns her hand palm-up on her thigh, and after half a second, his fingers slide between hers like they were headed there anyway.

“Just drive.”

His hand tightens around hers. “Yes, ma’am.”

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

For one stupid second, her body responds before the rest of her has the energy to argue with it. Something loosens under her ribs. A small, pathetic little lift, because sometimes after a bad shift, seeing him is exactly what she wants. 

Sometimes she wants the noise of the hockey house and Garrett’s mouth on hers and his hands at her waist under her t-shirt and the particular smug, warm attention he gives her when he’s trying not to make it obvious that he’s been waiting for her. 

Sometimes it takes the edge off. Sometimes it lets her climb out of her own head for a while, which is useful, considering her head has spent the last twelve hours being a truly miserable place to live.

But tonight the thought of going over there and having to be funny, or pretty, or easy, or whatever version of herself Garrett usually gets, makes her chest tighten until it almost hurts.

She isn’t in the mood to hook up. She’s not even in the mood to be perceived.

She wants to put on the oldest, softest clothes she owns, eat something with too much salt, lie horizontally under three blankets, and not have anyone ask her anything that requires a real answer. 

She wants to stop feeling the ghost of a stranger’s fingers around her forearm. She wants to stop hearing that doctor’s voice clipping sharp across the nurses’ station like embarrassment is best when it has an audience. 

She wants to forget the little boy on the bed with his cheeks flushed from fever and dehydration, his arm so small under her gloved hand, the cannula not threading properly once, then again, his mother’s face tightening with every second, his father saying, “Can we get someone who knows what they’re doing?” in a tone that’s taken up permanent residence behind her sternum.

She has no idea what to do with that in Garrett’s room. She has no idea what to do if she sees him and cries. The worst part is that she wants to see him anyway, and that feels like a personal failing.

She stares at the message until the screen starts to dim, then taps it awake with her thumb, not tonight. sorry.

She sends it before she can start rewriting the tone of it like a psychopath. Then she drops the phone onto the bed and stands there in her towel, wet hair cold on her shoulders, stomach aching with a hunger she’s ignored so thoroughly it’s  started to feel like nausea.

The phone lights up again almost immediately.

Garrett: You okay? Thought you were off tonight?

Her mouth pulls, not quite a smile and not quite anything else. He remembers stupid things when it serves him. Her placement roster. The type of coffee she buys when she has an early shift. The fact that she likes the corner of his bed closest to the wall because the room feels less open there. 

He remembers all of that and then still has the nerve to act like whatever this is between them is completely casual. Like men routinely keep mental calendars of girls they’re just sleeping with. 

She exhales through her nose and picks hers back up. She types, yeah. just not in the mood tonight. sorry. Sends it, then adds, bad day.

The three little dots appear, disappear, appear again. She hates that she watches them.

Garrett: Did you want to come watch a movie or something?

The room makes a small sound around her, or maybe that’s the building, or maybe it’s just the leftover rush in her ears from crying in the shower earlier, even though she was pretending she hadn’t. 

Her thumb hovers over the keyboard. Because that’s worse, somehow. That’s so much worse.

If he had sent something flirty back, she could have stayed home and felt sad and righteous about it. She could have filed him where he insists on being filed: Garrett Graham, hockey captain, extremely hot mistake, not boyfriend material, not soft, not hers. 

But he doesn’t. He offers a movie. Like that’s fucking allowed. Like he can just make room for a version of her that doesn’t want to be touched like that tonight, and the room will still count.

She presses her tongue behind her teeth until the pressure stings a little. She taps her thumb on her screen, you don’t have to do that.

His reply comes fast enough to make her throat tighten.

Garrett: I want to see you. Garrett: Please?

She looks at it for too long. It’s ridiculous. One word shouldn’t do anything to her. It’s not a confession. It’s not a promise. It’s barely punctuation. 

But Garrett doesn’t say please often, unless he’s teasing, and this doesn’t read like teasing. This reads like him sitting in his room, hair damp from a shower, probably shirtless, phone in hand, asking to see her without dressing the request up as something he can pretend is less honest later.

She closes her eyes for one second. Then she types. i’ll be there soon.

By the time she gets to the hockey house, the cold has climbed under her hoodie sleeves and settled into her wrists. She’s put on leggings and an oversized sweatshirt because anything tighter felt like one more demand on her body, and UGG boots because tying laces would have required optimism she doesn’t currently possess. 

Her hair’s still damp, pulled back badly, little pieces escaping around her face. She has mascara under one eye despite washing her face twice. 

There’s a bruise blooming faintly around her forearm where the patient had grabbed her, which wasn’t even really worth mentioning if she’s being sensible, except her body keeps remembering the sharp surprise of it. 

The grip. The way she had frozen for half a second before the nurse beside her stepped in. The shame of that half-second, like fear is something she should’ve trained out of herself by now.

The hockey house is already loud before she knocks.

There are voices inside, a game on TV, somebody laughing too hard in the living room. The whole place glows yellow through the front windows, warm and messy and aggressively lived-in. 

Usually that makes her feel better before she even gets inside. Usually the clutter and noise and boyish chaos of it all feels like a relief after hospital floors and fluorescent lights and the sterile bite of hand sanitiser. Tonight it mostly makes her aware of how tired she is.

The door opens before she has to knock twice. Logan stands there with a beer in one hand and a hoodie half-zipped over his bare chest, his hair flattened weirdly on one side like he’s either napped recently or lost a fight with the couch. 

His face brightens when he sees her, easy and genuinely pleased. “Hey,” he says. “You here for G?”

She nods, forcing her mouth into something close to normal. “Yeah. Is he upstairs?”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s in his room.” Logan steps back to let her in, then tilts his head slightly, eyes flicking over her face just long enough to make her worry he can tell. “You good?”

The question hits too close to the bruise. She nods again, too quickly. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Fair.” He lets it go and shuts the door behind her and nods toward the stairs. “He’s been weirdly annoying for, like, twenty minutes, by the way.”

Despite herself, something twitches near her mouth. “Only twenty?”

“Yeah, no, my bad. Since birth, probably. But specifically about his phone for twenty.”

She huffs the smallest laugh, and Logan grins like he’ll take it.

Then she goes upstairs. The staircase creaks under her boots. Someone calls something from the living room, followed by Tucker’s voice saying, “Absolutely not,” in a tone that suggests whatever it is will happen anyway. 

The hallway upstairs is dimmer, quieter, the party noise blunted to a lower hum. By the time she reaches Garrett’s door, the laugh Logan pulled out of her has already gone thin again.

She knocks once and opens it before she can change her mind. Garrett’s on his bed, sitting with his back against the headboard, phone loose in one hand, sweatpants low on his hips, no shirt on. The lamp beside his bed is on, softening the room into warm corners. 

There’s a textbook open beside him, facedown and abandoned, which feels optimistic. His hair is a little damp. There’s a fading bruise near his ribs from the game last week that she had checked twice and threatened to re-check if he kept pretending it didn’t hurt.

He looks up the second the door opens, and his face changes. The lazy, pleased curve of his mouth softens into something more alert, his phone already dropping onto the blanket beside him as he sits up properly.

“Hey,” he says. “How was your day?”

She opens her mouth. Nothing comes out.

For one stupid second she just stands inside his room with one hand still on the doorknob, looking at him in the lamp light, at the familiar mess of his bed and the hoodie on his chair and the half-full water bottle by his knee, and all the pressure she’s been holding in her body since the doctor raised his voice seems to find the exact seam where she is weakest.

Her face crumples before she can stop it.

“Oh–” Garrett is off the bed immediately. “Uh, fuck. Okay. Okay, c’mere.”

That makes it worse, the way he doesn’t stand there looking alarmed and useless. He moves like it’s instinct, like a whistle has gone off somewhere in him. 

One second he’s across the room, the next his arms are around her, one hand at the back of her head and the other reaching past her shoulder to push the door shut with a soft click behind her.

She collapses into him, there’s not really another word for it. Her forehead drops against his bare chest, her hands curling weakly near his waist, the sob catching in her throat before it can become anything elegant. 

He’s warm from the shower or from the bed or just from being Garrett, solid in a way that makes her knees feel less trustworthy, and the smell of him hits so hard she has to press her face in closer. 

“Sorry,” she gets out, the word half-muffled against him. “Sorry, this is so lame. It was just really–”

“Hey.” His hand moves over her back, slow and wide, then up again. “You don’t have to explain. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry.” His voice is low, a little rough with the quickness of the shift. Party downstairs, phone in his hand, girl in his room. Then this, her crying into his chest like she’s lost the ability to be normal in front of him. “Shit day, huh?”

She nods against him, which drags her cheek over his skin and makes her feel even more pathetic because it feels good. Being held by him feels good. 

It’s not awkward, it’s not too much. His arms are tight enough to keep her there without trapping her, one hand still moving steadily over the back of her sweatshirt like he’s trying to smooth the whole day out through fabric.

Garrett rests his cheek on top of her head. “We can just hang out, yeah?” he murmurs. “Don’t have to do anything.”

Her throat closes around the relief so fast it hurts. She nods again.

His hand pauses between her shoulders, then starts moving once more. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she whispers.

“Okay.” He presses his mouth to the top of her head. It's quick, almost absent, the kind of touch he could probably pretend meant nothing if anyone walked in. “What happened?”

She inhales, but it catches badly. The first words come out wet and uneven, dragged up from somewhere below her ribs. “A doctor yelled at me.”

Garrett goes still in the particular way men do when they’ve not yet been told who to be angry at, but are already preparing several options. “A doctor.”

“Yeah.” She lets out a shaky breath and makes herself pull back enough to talk, though she doesn’t get far because his hands come up to her face almost immediately, thumbs brushing under her eyes with clumsy, careful attention. “I made a mistake on the chart. Not– not a dangerous one, just– it was stupid, and I should’ve caught it, and he just snapped at me in front of everyone and I felt like such an idiot.”

Garrett’s thumbs move again, wiping tears from her cheeks before they can reach her jaw. His expression’s gone tight in the way it does when he’s trying to behave like a civilised person and not like someone who solves problems by body-checking them into boards. “Okay.”

“And then this patient grabbed my arm.” Her voice thins on that part before she can stop it. She looks down between them, at the place where his chest rises and falls, because his face is too much. “Not hard, actually, I mean, kind of hard, but he was confused and upset and I know he didn’t mean it, it just–” Her hand lifts uselessly toward her own forearm. “It freaked me out.”

Garrett’s gaze drops at once. She sees the moment he spots the mark. The faint half-moon pressure, the little shadow of bruising starting under the skin.

His jaw tightens. “Baby,” he says, and the word is soft enough to ruin her all over again.

“It’s fine.”

“Don’t do that.”

She lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh and almost another sob. “Do what?”

“Tell me it’s fine when you’re crying in my room.”

She wipes at her own face with the heel of her hand, even though he has already done it. “And then I tried to do an IV on this little kid. He was so dehydrated, so his veins were shit, and I missed twice.” Her voice cracks around the last word, which is ridiculous, because people miss IVs. Actual nurses miss IVs. It happens. It happens all the time. She knows that. She knows that with the rational part of her brain that’s currently standing several metres away with its arms folded, being absolutely no help at all. “And he was crying and his parents were so mad, and the dad was like, can someone else do it, and I know that’s fair because it’s their kid and they were scared, but my charge nurse just sent me out of the room and she didn’t even– she didn’t say anything. She didn’t defend me. She just looked at me like I’d made everything worse.”

Her mouth wobbles around the end of it, and she hates that so much she presses her lips together until they hurt.

Garrett cups her face more fully, thumbs at her cheeks, fingers warm near her ears. He looks at her like the room has narrowed down to the exact size of her face and everything else can wait its turn.

“You’re normally good at those, right?” he asks.

It’s such a Garrett question. So practical and blunt and weirdly helpful that another tear slips free before she can stop it.

She nods. “Usually. On– on a hydrated adult, but–”

“Yeah, well.” His mouth pulls to one side, eyes flicking over her face while he wipes the tear away. “That seems like an important difference.”

She gives a wet little laugh. “A little bit.”

“A very dehydrated kid sounds like the hard mode version.”

“It is, but I should’ve–”

“Hey.” His voice firms just enough to stop the sentence before it gets anywhere useful. “You had a bad day. Doesn’t mean you’re bad at it.”

She looks at him. Garrett Graham, shirtless in his bedroom, hair damp, thumb under her eye, saying something kind and sensible with the slightly uncomfortable expression of a man who’s discovered tenderness in his own hand and is hoping no one brings too much attention to it.

It makes her want to cry harder. Instead she presses her lips together and nods, because if she speaks immediately, she’s going to become completely unbearable.

His face shifts then, something sparking faintly under the concern. “You wanna practice on me?” he asks.

She blinks. “What?”

“IVs.” Garrett’s hands are still on her face, but his mouth’s curving now. “You can practice on me.”

A laugh breaks out of her before she can stop it, startled and rough. “Garrett.”

“On the whole team, if you want. I’ll make ’em.”

She stares at him through tears. “What?”

“I’m captain.” His grin widens, smug and gorgeous and absolutely not the point. “Can do what I want.”

“You cannot force your team to become IV practice dummies.”

“Sure I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Baby, I’ve made those guys do suicides hungover. IVs would be nothing.”

She laughs properly then, one hand coming up to cover her mouth because it’s wet and ridiculous and coming from somewhere in the wreckage of the day. 

Garrett’s expression changes when he sees it, going pleased in that way he tries to hide too late.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s okay. I don’t need to practice IVs on your team.”

He sucks at his teeth, pretending to consider this a serious lost opportunity. “You sure? Logan’s got good veins.”

“Oh my God.”

“Tucker too, probably. He drinks water like a fucking freak.”

“I’m not stabbing your roommates.”

“Dean deserves it.”

“Dean definitely deserves it,” she murmurs, and immediately laughs again when Garrett points at her like the admission has strengthened his case. “No. Stop. I’m sure.”

“Fine.” He sighs like she’s being unreasonable, then lets his hands fall from her face to her shoulders, squeezing lightly through the hoodie. “Movie?”

She nods, then wipes under her nose with her sleeve before she can remember she’s in front of him and should maybe have some shame. “Yeah.” Her stomach chooses that moment to ache meanly, empty and sour. “And food. I’m starving.”

Garrett looks genuinely offended. “You haven’t eaten?”

“I had crackers.”

“When?”

She frowns, a small pout forming on her lips. “Don’t interrogate me.”

“When?”

She narrows her damp eyes at him. “Like… four?”

“Jesus Christ.” He takes her by the hands and walks her backward toward the bed with the same careful authority she uses when he gets stubborn about injuries, which is deeply annoying given that she’s meant to be the healthcare-adjacent one here. “Sit down.”

She sits. Mostly because the backs of her knees hit the mattress and her body, traitorous and exhausted, decides that sitting is an excellent idea. 

The bed dips under her. Garrett crouches in front of her, all bare shoulders and concerned eyes and stupidly attractive forearms resting lightly on his knees. 

He looks up at her from the floor, and the angle’s so unfair after the day she’s had that she almost tells him to put a shirt on for medical ethics reasons.

“How about pizza?” he asks.

She nods immediately. “That’d be good.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

His smile comes softer this time. “Okay.”

Then he pushes up and kisses the tip of her nose. It’s so quick and so casual and so devastatingly not sexual that she forgets how to react for half a second.

Garrett, of course, doesn’t appear to understand the damage he’s doing. He only reaches for one of her boots, fingers wrapping around the heel with practical focus. “These coming off?”

She looks down at him. “Are you taking my UGGs off?”

“Unless you’re wearing them in bed.”

“I might be.”

He tugs one off gently and sets it beside the bed, then reaches for the other. “I’m not sleeping next to outside shoes.”

She stares at him. “Who said I’m sleeping here?”

Garrett glances up without pausing. “You wanna go home?”

Her answer doesn’t come fast enough. That’s its own answer.

His expression shifts only slightly, smugness held back by something quieter. He pulls the second boot off and sets it neatly beside the first. “Didn’t think so.”

“You’re very full of yourself.”

“You came over to cry in my room.”

Her mouth drops open. “Wow. You’re so annoying.”

“Yeah.” He rises and sits beside her on the bed, reaching for his phone. “But I’m ordering pizza, so you’re stuck with me.”

She groans and flops backward onto his bed, one arm over her eyes. The mattress smells faintly like his detergent and him and some other boyish thing she refuses to catalogue too closely because she already feels emotionally compromised enough. “Fuck. I can’t believe I cried in front of you.”

Garrett’s weight shifts beside her. “Very cute.”

She moves her arm just enough to glare at him. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious.”

She groans. “That makes it worse.”

“You did the little sad hiccup thing.”

“I’m going to leave.”

“You're not. You have no shoes on.” He taps something into his phone, then pauses. “Pepperoni?”

“Please.”

“Garlic bread?”

She lowers her arm fully. “Obviously.”

“Wasn’t sure if you were in medical mode and about to tell me garlic bread has no nutritional value.”

“I’m in emotional support carbs mode.”

“Hot.”

“Garrett.”

“What? I’m being supportive.”

She turns her face into his pillow to hide the smile because it arrives before she’s given it permission. 

Her body still feels wrung out. The day hasn’t vanished. The doctor’s voice is still there if she listens for it, and the little boy’s crying, and the humiliation of standing in the hallway after being sent out of the room with her hands shaking inside her pockets. 

None of that is magically gone because Garrett made a joke about Logan’s veins and took off her boots. But the room has changed the volume of it.

The lamp is soft. His bed is warm. The party downstairs exists, but distantly, like weather outside a window. Garrett’s beside her ordering pizza, and one of his hands has settled on her forearm where it rests near his thigh, his thumb moving once over the bone there like he’s forgotten he’s doing it.

He orders the pizza, then tosses his phone onto the comforter and lies back beside her. For a minute, neither of them says anything. She keeps her cheek pressed to his pillow and looks at him from there, at the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the little crease between his brows that hasn’t fully gone away.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he says, eyes still on the ceiling.

She blinks. “You’re not even looking at me.”

“I can feel it. It’s very loud. Nurse anxiety has a specific frequency.”

She huffs. “I’m not a nurse.”

“Yet.”

The word lands softly. Yet. Like a fact. Like he’s already decided the end of the sentence for her.

She looks down toward his hand on her ankle. “I felt really stupid today.”

Garrett turns his head then. She wishes he hadn’t, almost, because the attention is harder when she can see it. She can make jokes at his ceiling. His face is different. His face asks things without asking.

“I know everyone has bad days,” she says, the words coming slower now, less broken than before but somehow more embarrassing. “I know people miss IVs and get yelled at and have patients lash out. Like, I know that. I know it logically. But it just felt like all day I kept being one step behind, and every time I tried to fix it, I made something else worse.”

Garrett watches her for a moment. “You ever yell at me when I fuck up?”

She frowns. “What?”

“In hockey.” He shifts onto his side, propping his head on one hand. “If I miss a pass or blow coverage or whatever.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Because I know what I’m doing?”

“You do know what you’re doing.”

“Not always.” His thumb resumes that absent movement against her forearm. “Sometimes I miss shit I normally don’t. Sometimes the play’s weird, or the guy’s faster than I thought, or I’m tired, or my head’s not where it should be. Doesn’t mean I suddenly forgot how to play hockey.”

She looks at him, and something uncomfortable and warm presses against the back of her throat.

Garrett’s mouth lifts faintly, but his voice stays easy. “I know. Sports metaphor. Very shocking from me.”

Despite herself, she smiles. “Groundbreaking.”

“Yeah, I’m deep.” His gaze drops briefly to her forearm again, to the bruise half-hidden by her sleeve. “But I’m right.”

She looks away first because that’s easier than letting him be right while shirtless and kind. “That doctor was still a dick.”

“Oh, for sure.” Garrett’s answer comes immediate enough to pull a laugh out of her. “I hate him.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Don’t need to. Strong instincts.”

“He’s like fifty.”

“I can hate old people.”

“You’re so brave.”

“And the dad too,” Garrett adds, warming to it now. “I get that his kid was sick, but he can catch a little hate. As a treat.”

Her emotions are humiliatingly close together tonight, stacked badly, like someone’s thrown all her insides into a cupboard and is now opening the door just to watch what falls out.

She groans, rubbing her hands over her eyes. “Fuck, I’m so tired,” she mutters.

Garrett catches one of her wrists and pulls her hand gently away from her face. “Hey.”

“I’m fine.”

He gives her a look.

She exhales, the lie collapsing immediately. “I’m not, like, not fine. I’m just… tired. And embarrassed.”

“About crying?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t be.”

She snorts. “Wow. Cured.”

“I’m serious.” His fingers slide from her wrist to her palm, fitting there with an ease that makes her stomach dip. “You think I haven’t cried in front of people?”

She turns her head, brows lifting. “Have you?”

Garrett’s mouth twitches. “No.” She swats at his arm with her free hand, and he laughs, catching that wrist too before she can do any damage. “Ow, okay, violent.”

“You deserved that.”

“Probably.” His grin settles, but his hands stay around hers. “I meant you don’t have to be embarrassed in front of me.”

She looks at him for a second that stretches. “Garrett.”

“What?”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m being nice.”

She smiles because he looks offended, and because if she doesn’t smile, she might do the stupid thing again where her eyes fill and her mouth twists and she becomes a girl crying in a boy’s bed over a day that’s already over.

Garrett studies her face, then leans forward and kisses her forehead. Warm and lingering, just long enough that her eyes close on instinct.

When he pulls back, he says, “Stay tonight.”

Her heart does something stupid.

He must see it, because he adds quickly, “To sleep. Relax. Whatever. No funny business.”

“No funny business?”

He winces. “I panicked.”

“That was awful.”

“I know. I heard it.”

The laugh comes out of her small and shaky, but real. “You sure?”

Garrett rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“I just mean–”

“I know what you mean.” He squeezes her hands once, then lets one go so he can brush a damp piece of hair back from her cheek. “I wanted to see you. That was all.”

There’s absolutely no way her face survives that. She feels it happen. The warmth. The giveaway softness. The way her mouth parts slightly because all the clever, reasonable parts of her have left the room in disgust. Garrett watches it, and something in his own expression shifts before he hides it under a little smirk.

“Don’t make it weird,” he says.

She laughs, startled. “Me?”

“Yeah. You’re looking at me all… grateful.”

“I am not!”

“You are.”

Her eyes practically roll into the back of her head. “You’re so emotionally stunted.”

“And yet you came over.”

“Barely. I nearly stayed home.”

“Glad you didn’t.”

She stares at him. He looks like he regrets the honesty about half a second after it leaves his mouth, but only because it’s too plain, not because it’s untrue. His eyes flick down to her mouth, then away, then back to her face with that familiar Garrett confidence trying to reassemble itself over something much less tidy underneath.

She saves him, because she’s generous even on the brink of collapse. “Pizza better get here fast.”

Relief and amusement cross his face together. “Starving?”

“Like, angry starving.”

“Oh, shit. Serious.” He reaches for his phone. “I’ll track it.”

She rolls onto her side again while he checks the order status, and this time when his hand finds her arm, she lets herself enjoy the warmth of it without immediately putting it under cross-examination. 

The day is still sitting in her somewhere, ugly and sore. Tomorrow she’ll probably replay the IVs again in the shower. She’ll probably hear the doctor’s voice while brushing her teeth. She’ll probably wake up and remember the patient grabbing her before she remembers where she is.

But right now Garrett is beside her, shirtless and stupid and careful in ways he would absolutely deny under oath, and the room smells like his laundry and soon, hopefully, pizza.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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She’s a nursing student. She has clinical placement at seven on Monday morning and three half-finished flashcards on cardiac meds shoved into her bag and a lab partner who keeps texting her about their assessment. 

She understands symptoms. She understands pattern recognition. She understands that if a man who doesn’t do girlfriends makes you feel like a girlfriend for three to six hours a week, and then smiles at you after like he hasn’t just rearranged your entire nervous system, that’s not necessarily pathology. Sometimes that’s just Garrett.

His hand is warm around hers, and she’s a little drunk, and the game had been brutal, and he’d scored twice, and there are girls downstairs wearing Briar colours and looking at him like he’s something they could win if they stood in the right place long enough. And she’s the one he’s taking upstairs.

So. Normal. Definitely. Totally. 

Garrett pushes his bedroom door open with his shoulder, tugging her inside after him, and the noise of the party drops at once to a muffled, bass-heavy pulse through the floorboards.

His room smells like clean laundry, cold air from the cracked window, and him underneath it, that warm boyish mix of soap and deodorant and whatever he uses in his hair when he pretends he doesn’t use anything. 

There are textbooks stacked badly on the desk, a hoodie thrown over the chair, tape and a half-empty Gatorade bottle on the dresser. Evidence of a life being lived at full speed and cleaned only when Tucker threatens violence.

She gets half a second to take it in before Garrett closes the door behind her. Then he turns, catches her by the waist, and backs her against it.

The breath leaves her in a soft, embarrassing little rush. Garrett, for all his size and all the speed he carries on the ice, is annoyingly good at knowing exactly where someone’s body is in space.

He presses her back into the door with just enough weight, one hand braced near her head and the other sliding to her hip, his mouth already curving like he knows the sound she just made has ruined any chance of her acting composed.

“Hi,” he says, close enough that the word brushes her lips.

She looks up at him. “Hi.”

His grin deepens. “You’ve said that, like, six times tonight.”

“You keep appearing near me.”

“I live here.”

She tilts her head. “That’s probably part of the problem.”

He laughs under his breath, and then he kisses her before she can decide whether that was too honest to have been funny.

It starts the way it always starts, like he’s going to be patient just to prove he can. His mouth settles over hers slowly, warm and confident, one hand still at her waist, thumb slipping over the soft fabric of her dress.

She can taste beer on him, faint and bitter, and the peppermint gum he’d been chewing earlier because Dean had made some deeply unnecessary comment about post-game mouth and Garrett had thrown a bottle cap at his head. 

His lips are soft in a way that always feels vaguely unfair, especially against the rest of him, the broadness of his shoulders and the hard line of his body still wired from the game, and when she opens for him he makes a small sound in his throat that goes straight through her like heat.

Her fingers climb into his hair before she can pretend restraint was ever on the table. His curls are a little damp at the roots from the party, from the shower he must have taken after the game, from whatever warmth still clings to him after the crush of bodies downstairs. She tugs, just lightly, and Garrett’s hand tightens at her waist.

“There she is,” he murmurs against her mouth.

She would like to say something clever to that. Something dry and immune. Instead she sucks his bottom lip between hers and feels him go briefly still. Then he groans. It lands low and rough in the small space between them, and something in her stomach tips clean over.

Garrett’s hand slides from her waist to her back and pulls her in harder, until there’s very little room left between the door and him and her body has to make several immediate decisions about survival. Her hands stay in his hair. His mouth opens over hers, deeper now, less patient, and the kiss turns messy in that private familiar way it gets when they are both pretending this is simple.

His tongue against hers. His thumb at her jaw. The scrape of his teeth, quick and careful, when she nips at his lip again because he’s rewarded it once already and she likes the sounds he makes against her mouth.

He kisses down her jaw, and her head tips back into the door before she can help it. His mouth moves warm over the hinge of it, then lower, to the line of her throat where her pulse is doing something medically ridiculous. He finds it with the kind of precision that feels almost insulting. His lips press there once, then again, open-mouthed and slow enough that her fingers tighten in his hair.

“Garrett,” she breathes, and immediately hates herself a little for sounding like that.

He hums against her skin, smugness practically vibrating off him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be annoying.”

His smile touches her throat. “Be patient.”

She laughs, which comes out unstable because he chooses that exact second to kiss back up her neck, along her jaw, to the corner of her mouth. He catches her there before she can fully get the breath back, and this kiss is less patient from the start. His hand moves up to her jaw, fingers gentle but sure, thumb resting near the corner of her mouth in a way that makes it very hard to remember that she has bones.

She thinks he likes her.

It arrives abruptly, in the middle of his mouth on hers and his hand spread over her back and his knee sliding between her thighs like he already knows where she’ll make that soft sound for him. She thinks it, and then the thought sits there glowing, horrible and warm.

Garrett Graham does not do girlfriends. Everybody knows that.

It’s practically public information. He has hockey, classes, training, games, and the kind of attention that follows him around campus like bad weather. He’s just been made captain, which means half his life now belongs to the team in a more official capacity than it already did. He spends mornings on the ice, afternoons in class, nights pretending he’s not exhausted while some girl in a mini dress lets him drag her upstairs by the hand and tries not to care when he looks at her like this.

And she’s busy too. She is. She has lectures and placement and exams that make her want to peel her own face off. She has care plans to write and competencies to get signed and older nurses who can destroy a person with one look if they prime an IV line too slowly. She’s not wandering around with free time and delusion looking for somewhere to put both.

But Garrett’s hand’s at her throat, careful and warm, and his mouth is on hers like he has nowhere else to be, and she likes him so much that for a second it’s genuinely inconvenient to breathe.

His knee shifts higher between her thighs. The feeling catches before she can stop it. A little drag of pressure through the thin fabric of her dress and the heat already sitting low in her body, and her hips move once, almost by accident, chasing it.

Garrett’s response is immediate. His breath breaks against her mouth, not quite a laugh and not quite a groan, his fingers flexing at her jaw. “Fuck.”

The word should make her feel powerful. And it does. Unfortunately, it also makes her stupid.

She does it again, on purpose this time, and Garrett kisses her harder, his free hand sliding down her side, over the curve of her hip, to pull her closer against his thigh. The door is cool at her back. His body is hot everywhere else.

The party downstairs has become a distant, irrelevant animal. She can feel the dull beat of music through the wood, the pressure of his hand at her waist, the soft roughness of his lips when he drags his mouth from hers just long enough to breathe and comes right back like leaving was a mistake.

He turns them without really breaking the kiss, one hand moving to her back, walking her backward across the room. It’s smooth for approximately three steps, and then her knees hit the edge of the bed. She drops onto it with a soft, inelegant oof.

Garrett pulls back just enough to look at her. For one second, neither of them says anything. She’s sitting on the edge of his bed with her dress riding higher than she left the house intending, boots planted on his carpet, hair probably already a mess from his hands. Garrett stands between her knees, flushed and grinning down at her like this night has gone exactly where he wanted it to.

God help her, she grins back.

“Smooth,” he says.

“You shoved me.”

“I guided you.”

She has just enough time to roll her eyes before he pulls his shirt over his head, and then the entire mood changes.

The heat’s still there, because Garrett Graham shirtless is, objectively, not a situation a girl can be expected to process with clinical detachment.

His shoulders are broad and strong and his chest is exactly as unfair as she remembers from the other times she’s had the opportunity to lose her mind about it. There are abs. Obviously there are abs. Annoying, well-defined, deeply unnecessary abs that make some extremely unhelpful part of her brain go momentarily blank.

But over all of that, dark and yellowing and fresh and ugly, are bruises. A lot of them. Across his ribs. One spreading along his side in a purple smear that disappears toward his back. Another near his shoulder. Smaller marks scattered over his chest and stomach, some fading green at the edges, some new enough that the skin around them still looks angry. There’s a cut near his collarbone she hadn’t noticed downstairs and another thin scrape along his ribs, red, but not bleeding now.

She knew the game had been rough. Everyone had known. The hits had been loud enough from the stands that one of her friends had flinched into her shoulder and muttered, “Jesus, is that legal?” 

She had watched Garrett get slammed into the boards and get back up like irritation was the only possible consequence. She had seen him grin through blood on his lip after the second period and had thought, with equal parts lust and alarm, that hockey players were not right in the head. But seeing it like this, close enough to touch, is different.

“Whoa,” she says, before she can soften it. Her hands come up instinctively but stop short of his skin. “Garrett. Hey. Hold on a second.”

He glances down like he has forgotten his own torso exists, then gives a small frown. “Oh. That.” His gaze lifts back to her, careless in a way that would be more convincing if she hadn’t spent half her week learning exactly how many bad decisions people described as nothing right before they became triage paperwork. “Yeah, you get used to it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Because that looks insane.”

“It’s fine.” He bends toward her, one hand already coming to her jaw, under the impression that his very stupid body can simply be kissed out of the conversation. “C’mere.”

He kisses her, and she lets him for about two seconds because she’s only human and his mouth is still his mouth. Then she makes a small, involuntary squeak of disapproval against his lips.

Garrett pulls back, forehead dropping to hers, jaw tight with the particular frustration of a man who can feel the night slipping out of his control and doesn’t appreciate the medical profession’s role in it. “What?”

She blinks up at him. “Can I at least look at them?”

His eyes narrow. “At what?”

“At your ribs, Garrett.”

“Jeez. They’re ribs. They’re still there.”

“Are we sure?”

That gets the corner of his mouth, barely. “Pretty sure.”

“Are you sure you didn’t break one or some shit?”

He lets out a groan and then, with all the theatrical suffering of a man denied his constitutional rights, flops backward onto the bed beside her. The mattress bounces under his weight. “We’re not gonna fuck, are we?”

She stares at him. Garrett looks over with the aggrieved expression of someone who believes he’s asked a very fair question.

She rolls her eyes so hard it almost hurts. “Can I just look? Please?”

“This feels like a trap.”

“You took your shirt off and revealed a fucking crime scene.”

He gives her a look so flat she nearly laughs at his stupidity. “It’s hockey.”

“It’s bruising over your ribs.”

He sighs, long and dramatic, then lifts one hand and gestures vaguely down at himself like a monarch granting access to disputed land. “Fine. Nurse me.”

“I’m not a nurse yet.”

“Great. So this is amateur hour.”

She shoots him a look, eyes narrowing. “Oh. Would you like me to stop touching you?”

“No,” he says too quickly, and then has the audacity to look slightly offended when she smiles.

She shifts onto the bed properly, one knee tucked under her, trying very hard to keep her attention on the task and not on the fact that Garrett is lying shirtless under her hands with his jeans still slung low on his hips and his hair a mess from her fingers. 

The bedside lamp is on, yellowing the room softly, catching over the bruises and the lines of his stomach. Downstairs, someone yells, followed by laughter and a dull thud that neither of them bothers to investigate.

She presses two fingers gently along his lower ribs first. “How’s this?”

“Fine.”

She moves slightly higher. “Here?”

“Fine.”

She pulls her hands back and looks at him. “Garrett.”

“What?”

“Use a word that isn’t fine.”

He looks at the ceiling like she’s placed an enormous burden on him. “Manageable.”

“Wow. Thank you for your courage.” She presses again, lighter this time, watching his face. “Here?”

His mouth tightens before he can stop it.

She catches it immediately. “That hurt.”

“No.”

“Your entire face just did a thing.”

“My face does a lot of things. Girls usually love it.”

“Garrett.”

He exhales through his nose, then gives in by about one inch. “It’s… tender.”

“Tender like sore, or tender like don’t touch me there again unless I’m dying?”

He rolls his eyes. 

“Answer.”

“Sore,” he says, then adds, because he’s incapable of letting her have anything cleanly, “but if you wanna touch me there again under different circumstances, I’m totally open-minded.”

She presses her lips together, trying not to laugh, and fails. “You’re actually the worst patient I’ve ever had.”

“I’m your hottest patient.”

She tilts her head. “Mm. Unfortunately.”

His grin flashes, quick and pleased, before she moves her hand higher and finds another spot that makes the muscles in his stomach tense under her fingertips.

Her brain, horribly unprofessional, registers the abs again. A full, useless, warm-body register of the hard give of him under her hand, the smooth heat of his skin, the fact that his stomach jumps a little when her fingers pass too close to the waistband of his jeans. 

She’s touched him plenty of times. In significantly less educational contexts. But this feels different because she’s trying to be careful, and careful, with Garrett, is its own kind of intimacy.

“You’re staring,” he says.

She looks up and finds him watching her with one brow raised. “I’m assessing.”

“You’re assessing my abs?”

“They’re in the way of the bruises.”

He grins, head pressing back into the mattress as he adjusts his hips. “Tragic for you.”

“Deeply.” She drags her gaze back to the bruising near his side because if she keeps looking at his face while touching his stomach, she’s going to become useless to both medicine and feminism. “This one’s ugly.”

“Yeah, that guy was huge.”

She glares at him, one eyebrow raising in disapproval.

Garrett huffs. “What? I didn’t just let him hit me.”

“Sorry. I forgot he was supposed to ask for approval first.”

He laughs, then winces, one hand coming toward his ribs before he stops himself. “Ow. Jesus. Don’t make me laugh.”

Her face changes at once. “See?”

“I’m fine.”

She clicks her tongue once in frustration. “You just winced.”

“Because you’re funny.”

“Because your ribs hurt when you laugh,” she runs her hand across his chest again, genuinely concentrating on the damage now.

“Could be both.”

She gives him a look and reaches up to brush his hair back from his forehead, more because she wants to than because it serves any medical purpose.

His curls slip through her fingers, soft and warm, and his eyes do something quieter for half a second. Eyelids dropping halfway. Then the usual Garrett comes back over it, but not quite fast enough.

Her hand lingers. “I’m gonna get you some meds, okay?” she says, voice lower now.

He groans. “Can I get head first, or…?”

She huffs and smacks him lightly on the chest before she thinks. Garrett winces.

“Oh shit.” She jerks her hand back immediately, horror punching through the laugh. “Sorry. Sorry, my bad. My bad.”

He turns his head on the pillow and gives her a look of grave betrayal. “Jesus. Some nurse you are.”

“I said I wasn’t a nurse yet!”

“Yeah, and thank God. Accreditation board dodged a bullet.”

“I hate you.” But she’s smiling when she says it, which rather ruins the effect. She climbs off the bed, tugging her dress down as she stands because it’s migrated during the assessment with absolutely no respect for her professionalism. “Stay here.”

Garrett lifts his head slightly. “Where else would I go?”

“Knowing you? Back onto the ice to get punched again for sport.”

He opens his mouth to object. She points at him from the doorway. “Stay.”

His grin turns slow and irritating. “Bossy.”

“You like it.”

His mouth opens again, probably to say something dirty, but she slips out before he can.

The hallway is louder than his room by several degrees, music and shouting rushing back in around her. She shuts his door behind her and stands there for a second with her hand on the knob, blinking herself back into the party version of the house. Two girls come up the stairs laughing into each other, one of them barefoot, both of them carrying cups. A guy she vaguely recognises from one of Garrett’s classes is sitting on the floor by the wall, looking solemnly into a bag of chips like it might answer something for him.

The bathroom is blessedly empty when she gets there. She flips on the light and starts opening cabinets.

Condoms. More condoms. A suspiciously ancient bottle of hair gel.

“Ew,” she mutters, pushing aside something at the back of the cabinet that may once have been a protein shaker lid and may now qualify as a biohazard. “Men should not be allowed storage.”

More condoms, because this house is prepared for everything except basic first aid. A packet of painkillers finally appears behind a half-used tube of toothpaste, and then antiseptic wipes in a box that looks like it has survived three tenants and a small war. She checks the date, then grabs them along with a clean washcloth from the stack under the sink.

When she gets back, Garrett is still on the bed, thank God, though he’s propped himself against the pillows now and is holding his phone above his face. He looks up when she comes in, and the expression on him changes in a way she wishes she hadn’t noticed. 

The grin comes first, of course. It always does. But underneath it, there’s something softer. Something almost pleased. “You robbed our bathroom?”

“You own, like, ninety-three condoms and one bottle of painkillers.”

“Sounds balanced.”

“One of the condoms was in the medicine cabinet stuck to expired hair gel.”

He frowns. “That’s probably Dean’s.”

“Everything disgusting in this house cannot be Dean’s.”

“It actually can.”

She shuts the door with her hip and comes back to the bed, setting the supplies on his nightstand. “Sit up.”

He obeys, but makes it look like he’s doing her a personal favour. She hands him two tablets and the Gatorade from his dresser because hydration is hydration, even if blue sports drink feels questionable as medicine. Garrett takes them, eyes on her the whole time, then swallows with a grimace.

“See?” she says. “So brave.”

“I’ve been through a lot tonight.”

“You almost got laid and instead got ibuprofen. Devastating.”

He presses his lips together in an attempt not to laugh. “Finally, someone understands.”

She sits beside him, half-turned toward him, and tears open an antiseptic wipe. “This might sting.”

“Baby, I play hockey.”

She presses the wipe lightly to the cut near his collarbone.

Garrett hisses. “Fuck.”

She pauses, looking at him. He stares back, offended.

She smiles sweetly. “Baby, you play hockey.”

“Yeah, well, hockey doesn’t usually come in… little wet napkin form.”

She laughs despite herself and keeps going, careful now, dabbing around the scrape rather than dragging across it. He watches her while she works. She can feel it. The weight of his attention moving over her face, the line of her mouth, the way her hair keeps falling forward no matter how many times she tucks it back. The room feels warmer than it did before she left. Smaller, too, with him propped against the pillows and her sitting close enough that her knee presses against his thigh.

For a while, the party fills the places where neither of them speaks. Bass downstairs. Footsteps in the hall. A sudden burst of Dean’s voice somewhere below them, unmistakable even through the floor, followed by what sounds like Logan yelling, No, absolutely not, in a tone suggesting absolutely yes.

Garrett’s fingers touch her hair before she realises he’s lifted his hand. He brushes it back from her cheek, slow and absent, tucking it behind her ear with more care than the gesture needs. His hand doesn’t leave right away. His thumb grazes once near her temple, barely there, and when she looks at him, the grin is gone.

“You’re so pretty,” he murmurs.

The words are quiet enough that the party almost swallows them. Almost.

Heat rises immediately under her skin, stupid and quick. She looks down at the antiseptic wipe in her hand like it’s become fascinating. “You’re concussed, I think.”

Garrett shakes his head. “Mm-mm.”

“Garrett.”

“Was thinkin’ it before the game too.”

That makes something in her chest go inconveniently soft. She tries very hard not to let it show. She really does. Unfortunately, her face has chosen this exact moment to resign from service. Her mouth wants to smile. Her skin is warm. Her hands, which were perfectly capable five seconds ago, are suddenly very interested in folding the used wipe into a tiny, useless square.

“That’s probably still, like, concussion-adjacent,” she says.

He laughs, softer this time so it doesn’t hurt as much. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make a joke when I say something nice.”

She looks up at him then. Her mouth opens, then closes.

Garrett’s expression shifts, not smug now. Curious, maybe. Careful in a way that sits strangely on him because he wears confidence so easily that it’s easy to forget he can be gentle without making a performance of it.

“I don’t know,” she says finally, because it’s the most honest answer she has and still only half of one.

His thumb moves once over the strand of hair between his fingers. “Okay.”

She huffs a small laugh. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” His mouth curves faintly. “I can work with I don’t know.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“I’m a generous guy.”

“You asked for head while actively bruised.”

The smile comes back properly then, and the room unclenches around them.

She reaches for another wipe, but Garrett catches her wrist before she can open it. “Hey.”

Her pulse gives a small, irritating kick. “What?”

He doesn’t say it immediately. That’s unlike him enough that she notices. His fingers stay around her wrist. “You looked good at the game. You were… you were wearing that little Briar sweatshirt.”

She narrows her eyes. “Are you making fun of my sweatshirt?”

“No.” His eyes flicker across her face. “I liked it.”

The warmth under her skin gets worse.

“You scored twice,” she says, because deflection is now a survival tool.

His grin tilts. “I know.”

“Cocky.”

“You brought it up.”

She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away again. 

His fingers slide from her wrist to her hand. “You looked pretty in my colours.”

Her heart does one of those hard, stupid beats that feels less like romance and more like a medical event.

She looks down at their hands because his are big and warm and bruised at the knuckles, and because looking at his face suddenly feels like stepping too close to the edge of something. “You can’t just say things like that when I’m trying to, like, provide healthcare.”

“Why not?”

“Um, boundary confusion.”

“You’re sitting on my bed in a tiny dress.”

“And administering antiseptic.”

“Mixed signals all around.”

She laughs, and Garrett smiles at her like he meant to make that happen, like getting laughter out of her is its own private stat he’s keeping somewhere in his head.

For a second, she lets herself stay there. Lets herself sit with the warmth of his hand around hers, the lamp light over his bruised chest, the ridiculous intimacy of painkillers and antiseptic wipes and his hair still messy from her fingers. 

The whole night has gone sideways. From heat to something softer without losing the heat completely. From his knee between her thighs to her thumb brushing lightly near a bruise on his ribs. From fuck me to don’t make me laugh, it hurts.

Maybe this is what makes her like him so much. Not the obvious things, though the obvious things are doing their best. It’s that Garrett, who has every reason to stay easy and shallow and wanted by everyone, keeps accidentally becoming specific with her. Specific in rooms. Specific with his hands. Specific in the way he remembers what she wore to his game and says she looked pretty like it’s been sitting in him all night, waiting for somewhere to go.

She clears her throat and reaches for the last wipe. “I still need to clean that cut.”

Garrett’s eyes flick down to her mouth, lifting onto his elbow. “Mhm. After?”

She pushes him back down. “No, before.”

“So strict.”

“Alive men get privileges.”

He sighs and leans his head back against the pillows, exposing the line of his throat like he’s submitting to the terrible injustice of being cared for by a girl in a mini dress. “Fine. Do your worst.”

She shifts closer, half in his lap now because it’s the only angle that makes sense and absolutely not because her body has been looking for excuses since the hallway.

His hand lands at her thigh automatically, warm over the hem of her dress. He doesn’t move it higher. He doesn’t make a joke. He just rests it there, thumb slow against her skin while she dabs antiseptic over the scrape near his collarbone.

This time he doesn’t hiss.

“Good boy,” she murmurs before she can stop herself.

Garrett’s eyes open. The air changes instantly. Her hand stills. His mouth curves slowly, and the bruises, the ibuprofen, the entire attempted medical intervention lose significant ground against the expression on his face.

“Oh yeah?” he says, positively beaming.

She points the wipe at him. “Do not.”

His hand tightens lightly on her thigh, amusement low in his voice. “You’re blushing.”

“I’m warm.”

“And you’re in my lap.”

“For medical purposes.”

“Right.”

She gives him a look, but it’s hard to make it stick when he’s smiling like that and when she is, in fact, half in his lap, one hand on his chest, the other holding antiseptic.

Garrett’s gaze softens again, almost unfairly fast. “C’mere.”

“I’m right here.”

“Closer.”

She should say no on principle. She doesn’t. She lets him pull her in carefully, mindful of his ribs even when he clearly isn’t, until her forehead rests against his. The party moves under them, distant and messy and young. Someone bangs on a door down the hall. Somebody else laughs too loudly. Garrett’s room stays dim and warm around them.

His thumb brushes once over her thigh.

“Are you gonna sleep here?” he asks, quiet enough to make it sound casual and not at all like the question has changed shape in his mouth.

She pulls back a little to look at him. “What?”

He shrugs, but it’s a bad shrug. Too careful. “I mean, you can. If you want. Since you’ve already ruined the original plan.”

She stares at him.

Garrett’s brows lift. “What?”

“The original plan being sex?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes narrow. “And now your backup plan is… a sleepover?”

“Don’t make it sound lame.”

“It’s incredibly lame.”

His eyes move over her face. “You wanna leave?”

She doesn’t. The answer is immediate and sits in her before she can make it sound prettier.

“No,” she says.

His face shifts again, the smallest flicker of satisfaction moving through it before he reins it in. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

For a moment, they just look at each other. She’s waiting for him to make a joke. He’s probably waiting for her to make one. Between them, the thing neither of them has named sits warm and too close, wearing all the shapes of what this is supposed to be and none of them fitting quite right.

Then Garrett leans in and kisses her. Softer this time. Still warm, still him, still enough to make the room narrow, but without the frantic press from the door, without the urgent slide of his knee between her thighs. 

His mouth moves over hers slowly, his hand rising to her jaw, thumb touching the corner of her face. The sweetness of it makes her chest ache in a way that’s frankly rude after everything else he’s already done to her tonight.

When he pulls back, he stays close. “You gonna keep nursing me,” he murmurs, “or am I cleared for kissing?”

She looks down at his bruised ribs, then back at his face. “Light kissing.”

He runs his thumb over her bottom lip. “Define light.”

“Um. No additional injuries.”

“So that rules out Dean joining.”

She laughs, louder now, and he smiles against her mouth before kissing her again, like the laugh is something he can catch if he moves fast enough.

Downstairs, the party gets louder. Upstairs, Garrett Graham lets her press one more cautious hand to his ribs and pretends not to notice when she leaves it there longer than she needs to.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎