daisy

you’ve been really stressed out with work, with back-to-back meetings all day, and even then, still work late until the night to prepare for a big client pitch. and nothing has been helping you sleep. you've barely had any time for yourself, let alone spend any time with your boyfriend. you can't even remember the last time you had sex with him, and by the time you get into bed, he's already asleep.

you're constantly on edge, ready to snap at any moment. and poor ryland has been the victim of your attitude. anytime he asks you a question, whether it's what you want for dinner, how your week is going, or if you've seen the tie he's misplaced, he's met with a smart remark leaving your mouth.

he's been giving you grace (lol) for the last couple of weeks, understanding work has been eating you alive, but he hates seeing you like this. he knows you haven't been sleeping well, and he wants to take care of you and take your mind off of things, if only you would let him.

but one night, ryland woke up from an unexpected after-work nap, that had lasted way too long. he looks at the clock on his bedside table: it's 1:27 am. he's about to roll over and just go back to sleep when he hears you. the clacking of your keyboard, and the quiet voices of the tv in the living room. he gets up and opens the door of his room and sees you hunched over your laptop, your hair semi-wet from your shower, glasses perched up on your face.

"sweetheart, what are you still doing up?" ryland grumbles, making his way over to the couch. he stands behind you, hands resting on his hips, a disapproving look on his face. you sigh, "because i have work to do, ryland." your voice is stern. you never call him by his first name. you don't look up from your laptop as you keep making edits to your presentation.

"honey, it's 1:30. it's late. you gotta get some sleep," you can tell in his voice he's growing impatient. you don't mean to snap at him. but with the deadline approaching, the mix of anxiety and frustration bubbling in your body, it just happens. you turn to look at him and scoff, "ryland, i really don't have time for the concerned teacher act. go back to bed, and leave me alone." the words come out harsher and louder than you expected, but your growing annoyance at everything has boiled over.

maybe he's still disoriented from his nap, or a combination of your unwarranted attitude and how he's tired of seeing you kill yourself over the last couple of weeks because of this project, but the look in your eyes as the words spill out of you pushes him over the edge.

he makes his way around the couch, standing in front of you. he takes your laptop from you and places it on the coffee table. he cages you in between his arms and leans in. his face is inches away from yours. the air in the room feels heavy and charged as you cross your arms, staring at him.

"i know you're annoyed with work, but that doesn't give you an excuse to be a brat," he scolds you, and it only edges you on more. "i wouldn't be such a brat, if people knew how to do their fucking job." there something in his proximity to you that is making you dizzy. you've missed him and the way he is towering over you and is making heat pool between your legs.

"language, missy," he warns, and you roll your eyes. "you need to watch your attitude."

"fucking make me," you sit up, your lips ghosting over ryland's. and before you even know it, his lips are on yours. you melt into his kiss. it's messy and desperate. your hands reach to the back of his head, trying to pull him closer towards you. you pull away from him, breathless, and he starts kissing down your jaw to your neck.

"is this what you want? someone to take your mind off of things?" he finds the spot that makes you whimper, and he nips at it before soothing it with his tongue. one his hands runs down your body to your waist, squeezing you. "ry, please," you voice softer than two minutes ago.

ryland chuckles against your neck, "oh, now you're being nice. why is there something you need, baby?" his rubbing circles on your hips, teasing you.

"ryland, i swear to god, i need you to fucking touch me," you're growing impatient, and ryland is kissing down your chest. you're very grateful for the skimpy little tank top you are wearing, leaving much of your chest exposed for him to kiss.

"you know better than to talk to me like that?" he's lowering himself in front of the couch, your legs spreading instinctively, and his hand begins rubbing up your thighs. you're breathing heavily, the anticipation of ryland about to touch you is killing you.

ryland takes a second to take in the sight of you needy for him on the couch. the ratty and thin white tank top you're wearing is doing nothing to hide your hardened nipples underneath. your tiny little shorts like a second skin on you, and ryland sess arousal seeping through the material. he whines, you're not wearing any underwear.

he looks up at you from his position on the couch, eyes locking with yours, his pupils blown. "i'm sorry, ryland. please." you sound like you could cry, and ryland swears he's never heard anything so beautiful, making his cock twitch. he brings his mouth close to your pussy, and the feeling of his breath against your clothed cunt is enough to get you to buck your hips up towards his face.

"mmm, someone's needy," he teases, and he licks the wet patch on your shorts. he applies pressure with his tongue, circling your pussy, and you moan out, hands going to his hair. he pulls your shorts down, revealing your bare pussy to him. no matter how many times he's seen you like this, he can never get enough of you. he licks a stripe on your cunt, collecting your arousal on his tongue, and he moans into you.

"such a perfect pussy baby. taste so sweet." you could cry from the contact and pull on his hair. his nose bumps your clit, and you cry out. his lips begin kissing back up your body and makes his way to your lips.

"as much as i want to take my time with you. i need to be inside you," he pressed himself into you, and you can feel how hard he his. he grinds his pajama pants-clad dick onto your pussy, and friction feels amazing.

your hands reach down to pull his pants down, freeing his cock. he's big and thick, the tip pink and leaking with precum. you graze your fingers along the underside of his cock, and he bucks into your hands.

"i've missed you, baby," you say, taking your thumb teasing his slit, spreading this precum around. he whimpers and grabs your wrist, halting your actions.

"i've missed you too." he grabs both your hands and brings them around his neck. he kisses you, softly, while he moves you, laying you down on the couch. he grabs one of your legs and brings it up to lie on the back of the couch. he takes his shirt off, and you bite your lip watching him. he's so beautiful, and you don't know how you got so lucky with him.

he takes his cock in his hand and drags it through your folds. your eyes fill with tears as he teases you. but just as you're about to say something to him, he slips inside of you, leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss.

he begins thrusting his hips at a delicious pace. not too fast or slow, but he's making sure you feel every inch of him. it burns a little getting used to his size, but he stretches you out perfectly. ryland whines in your ear as he bottoms out in you. "you feel so perfect around me, baby. pussy fucking made for me,"

you let out a loud moan, and ryland quickly covers your mouth with one hand. “it’s too late to give our neighbors a show,” he laughs, continuing to fuck you. you wrap your leg around his waist, pulling him closer, tilting your hips. he hits the spot inside of you that makes you see stars, and you clench around him.

“there it is. that’s the spot, isn’t it, honey?” ryland always has a mouth on him when he’s buried deep inside of you, and it drives you insane. you’re babbling mess, a string of moans and profanities, slipping out.  

he picks up the pace, continuously hitting that spot. his hand runs down your body, squeezing your boobs before running down to rub your clit. your grind down on his fingers, the overstimulation pushing you towards the edge. his cock twitches as he watches your face contort in pleasure.

you can feel the coil building in you, and you scratch ryland’s back. your squeezing around his cock, and ryland knows by the sounds you’re making that you're close to cumming for him.

“i got you baby. just let go for me,” his thrusts are speeding up, getting sloppier and harder. he places his lips onto your clavicle, sucking and biting down, for sure leaving you with a mark. your orgasm washes over you, taking over your body. you push off the couch, squeezing around him. that pushes ryland over the edge, cumming deep inside of you.

he slips out of you, and watches as his cum drips out of you. he takes his fingers and stuffs it back into you. you whine at how sensitive you still are, but bite your lip watching him look completely mesmerized. he pulls his fingers out and you grab his hand, pulling it down to your mouth. ryland moans as you suck on his fingers, tongue swirling around them.

he pulls your fingers out and brings you into another kiss, both of you smiling like idiots.

“you’re perfect, did you know that?” ryland says against your lips. he quickly kisses you again, and you laugh. “so i’ve been told,” you giggle. your hair is messy, fanning out below you, and ryland thinks you’ve never looked prettier.

“thank you, for taking care of me. i’m sorry i’ve been a mess,” you whisper, running your fingers through the front pieces of his hair. he looks at you with so much adoration.

“anytime, honey. you ready to come to bed with me?” he ask, his hands rubbing up and down your sides. you pretend to consider it for a second, tapping your finger against your chin.

“hmm, i don’t know,” he can tell you're starting to get sleepy, your eyelids getting heavy. he lays down on top of you, kissing all around your face gently.

“what if i promise to wake you up in a way that has been proven to be very popular in the past?” he places a kiss on your nose. he looks shy, cheeks turning pink like he wasn’t balls deep inside of you earlier.

“well i can’t say no to that.” you smile, and he kisses you deeply.

“c’mon let’s get you to bed.” ryland picks you up, bridal style, carrying you into the room. you fall asleep instantly, tangled in his arms.

A breathy moan is rung from your throat as Ryland licks through your sensitive folds. He’s been down there for what feels like hours—kneeled at the foot of your bed, one hand pressing on your pelvis to steady your twitching body still while the other grips the upper part of your thigh, fingers twisted into the soft lace of your panties.

You can feel his facial hair rubbing against your skin in a way that’s bound to leave a more pleasant version of carpet burn.

This isn’t a completely unfamiliar position. Your professor often finds himself pressing his face between your legs. He’d whisper about it being his favorite place in the world in a way that felt entirely truthful. Whenever you brought it up he’d get this shy tint of red on his face and pretends like he didn’t know what you were talking about.

He just continues to prove how honest he was when he said it.

It’s never happened here, in your apartment—he’s been here a total of once, on a night you’d gotten a little too drunk and forgotten by your friends. Him having you in such an intimate position in such a vulnerable place made each hot press of his tongue against you stronger.

When he replaces his tongue with his thumb, lightly brushing the pad against your clit, the pleasure it causes makes you blank. You twitch so hard it makes Ryland chuckle, the sound deep and breathless. When he pulls away you’re unsure if the cry is from relief or missing him.

“I can’t get what I want out of you if you keep moving, angel,” his words are thickly sweet but entirely lustful. He shifts, deciding to pull your panties fully off before wrapping his toned arm around your leg, laying his other arm fully across your hips. “Let me work.”

His mouth returns to you with a new sense of passion—one that makes him groan into your folds when you moan his name, the sound wet and choked. Before he was slow, savoring you like he’d never get a taste of you again. Now he’s drinking you up like you’re a fountain of youth, and he’s a greedy mortal who found you after years of searching.

When he pushes you over the edge, you swear you’re on cloud nine. He takes you through it, not letting up until he feels your trembling hand push at his head. You barely manage to catch a glimpse of his face as his tongue darts out from his lips, licking the remaints of you off them.

Ryland quickly climbs over you, hands starting at your hips before he glides them up your slick skin until it reaches the fabric of your shirt that’s bunched around your ribs. He pulls the fabric down and presses a kiss to your cheek. “Shower?”

You don’t process his question at first, your response breathless and endearingly late. “I need to wash my bedding.”

“Let me.”

You laugh, turning to face where he’s laying beside you. You ignore how warm his gaze makes you. “You don’t know where the laundry machines are in my apartment.”

“I can find them.”

“You also don’t know where my laundry detergent is.”

“You have little faith in my detective skills. I put Sherlock to shame.”

You roll your eyes as you sit up, your heart calmer than it was. “I would need the entire student body to count the number of times you’ve lost your glasses.”

Ryland is unaware that a big reason he can never find them is because you’ve hidden them. You like seeing the frustration on his features when he can’t figure out where he misplaced them, partly because it put you on the receiving end of some pretty amazing sex. “That doesn’t count! Just let me do this for you. Please.”

His plea is compelling. You give in quicker than you should. When you guide him to the small closet beside your bathroom where you keep all of your cleaning supplies, he gives you a tender kiss that almost masks the way his hand grazes your ass.

He looks a little too smug when he retreats back to your bedroom. There’s a distant sound of running water as he strips your mattress of its blanket, then the comforter and sheets. They all lie in a pile on the floor right beside your discarded panties.

Ryland has seen similar pairs on you in a variety of colors. Some he liked a little more than others. He doesn’t think twice when he picks them up and stuffs them into his back pocket.

By the time your shower is done and you’ve changed into something that isn’t drenched with sweat, Ryland is returning from transferring your bedding from washer to dryer. Your shower was much longer than you intended.

The rest of your afternoon starts in the kitchen as he assists in making something to eat, which is more of you cooking and him offering words of encouragement and cleaning the dishes when you finish with them, then continues with you two on your couch. Your socked feet rest in his lap while the two of you watch New Girl.

It’s more of him watching New Girl as you admire him.

He pretends to be less into the show than he is, eyes glued to the screen despite his glasses dangling off his ears. Ryland’s hands have been softly massaging your foot the entire time; the gesture is domestic and ventures outside of the lust-filled box you two have built around yourselves. It makes you wonder what’ll happen when you graduate—if this will even last that long.

The sense of dread that brings is all consuming, but is washed away when he turns to look at you.

Neither of you say anything, the space filled with the sound of the tv and your rotating fan that sits in the corner of your living room. He slowly moves on of your feet so he can twist himself onto his knees, slowly crawling between them until he’s hovering over you. You’re caged beneath him as he stops, one hand on the armrest of your couch while the other cradles your face.

The kiss you share is instinct, almost. His lips are soft against your own, before he trails them all across your face, using his warm palm against your cheek as some kind of leverage to keep you from moving even when you're laughing at the tickle of his stubble against your skin. Ryland doesn’t bother to hide the way he’s smiling before he’s diving back in, kissing you with want.

He rests his body weight on you, letting go of the armrest so he can pull your leg over his hip, grinding his crotch into your own with slow rolls of his hips. When he makes you gasp he doesn’t hesitate to push his tongue into your mouth. He can taste a hint of mint from when you brushed your teeth after eating.

He suddenly misses the taste of you he’d gotten earlier.

When he pulls away, you’re trying to catch your breath. In the process of grinding and sucking in his tongue, you managed to pull off his Periodic Table of Elements shirt that fits him a little too snug.

The sight of him leaning back so he can shuffle further down your couch, shirtless with low hanging sweats, makes your core feel like molten lava. Part of you wonders if he can sense it with how desperately he’s trying to tug your pants and underwear off—which he manages to do at once.

You’re filled with a sense of disbelief as you sit up, watching him lie down between your legs. “Ryland, you were down there not that long ago.”

He doesn’t respond right away, preoccupied with tossing one of your legs over his shoulder as he guides himself closer, kissing along your groin. “I’m going back for seconds.”

The embarrassed shiver his words send through you is short-lived. He doesn’t let you process them a second longer before he’s kissing your folds, taking a long, slow drag of his tongue through them that makes you lie back down.

you feel the distance between you and abbot close as he presses his chest against your shoulder, ducking down near your ear whispering. “seems like you don’t know your own body anymore than those boys do.” he leans forward to get a read on your expression, and you’re there standing still like an embarrassed pup that doesn’t know what to do which makes him smile.

“no need to feel embarrassed.” he reassures, throwing a hand on top of your head, “let me give you hand, help you learn the difference between incapability and never having learned.”

and that’s how you found yourself breaking your own code of ethics. splayed out on jack abbot’s mattress, hugging a pillow against your chest as his tongue worked at your pussy.

he’s on his stomach, his arms hooked underneath your thighs to pull you closer on his mouth. “j—jack …” a moan falls from your lips, the way his tongue glides through your folds. how he angles the tip of his tongue to flex the muscle just before he meets your clit to flick at it.

“focus on the feeling, you gotta relax.” he murmurs, pulling off for just a mili-second before latching back onto the sensitive nub. flattening his tongue as his rocks his mouth against you, he’s hallowing his cheeks causing you to grab at his the roots of his hair in attempt to tug him off.

though he’s swatting your hand away, digging his face deeper — in between your thighs with a low, drawn out groan as your toes curl at the anticipating increase of pleasure making your core tighten.

“oh m— i’m gonna cum, jack- i’m gonna—“

he’s pulling his lips away from your pussy with a wet pop, soaked and glistening by his saliva mixed with your slick — as the tightness in your tummy slowly loosens. “that was damn, close.” jack breathes, wiping his mouth off with the backside of his hand before propping himself up in a position comfortable for his right amputee.

he reaches out, hands wrapping around your hips to drag you towards him. you don’t even resist, not when your own pleasure was stripped from you — you needed anything that could bring back that euphoric feeling.

your hips grind upwards, grinding against nothing but atoms. “see, that’s it— now you know what your body’s wantin’.” his slides a hand from your hips to below your navel, before slowly dragging the pads of his rough fingers down near the mound of your pussy.

carefully grazing over swollen pearl as you whine to the almost there sensation. jack watches the way your body reacts to his touch — pressing his index and middle finger into your slick folds, soaking his fingers in your mess. “‘s a good sign. you’re fuckin’ drenched, sweetheart .” he groans, dragging his digits further down to meet your entrance.

you claw your nails into the pillow your clutching as the tips of his fingers prod at your hole. he’s teasing, intoxicated by the way your hips are still rolling against his hand while you let out little moans as he gently presses his thick fingers inside you.

“m—mngh fuck, jack…” you sighs, tilting your chin up to the ceiling, “yeah? that feels good doesn’t it, kid?” he cooed, flicking his eyes up to trace your expression only to be met with one of his pillows before he’s tugging it away from your chest. “there we goo.” he sings, glossing over sweets features with your bottom lip caught between your teeth, making him click his tongue.

“uh-uh, it feels better when you let it out.” he shakes his head, stuffing your hole with his fingers until he’s knuckles deep — angling his fingers in an upward direction that rips a moan from your throat as he curls his digits inside of you.

and the action shoots right through the nerves within your sensitive bud. “i can f—feel it in my clit.” you stammer, brows furrowed as indescribable pressure builds against your badder and swells your nub. “mhmm, that’s right.” he hums, pressing the pads of fingers deeper against that spongy wall inside of you, as your toes curl.

“the g-spot, you’re jackpot, baby.” he rasps with a lopsided grin — shifting his position to lie down on his side, right besides you as his nose presses into the side of your cheek. “the more pressure you add…” he murmurs as his breath warms your skin, pressing with cruel precision that makes the place between your legs run warm.

“j— jack.” you mewl, eyes shut tight with a hand reach at his. “the more you get that peeing feeling.” he demonstrates, feeling your soft walls close in around his fingers.

you can feel the way your bladder fills with each nudge of his movements — like he’s milking the sensation out of you. as if he’s adding fuel to the sensitive nerves bundle inside you as your clit twitches to the repetitive motion.

“and if i press my thumb righttt against this pretty fuckin’ clit.” he groans, darting his thumb upward before pressing the pad flush against your clit. “nnnnmg-my god!” you gasp, back arching off the mattress while squeezing your thighs around his hand.

his fingers and thumb stimulating both pleasurable points at once has your mind blanking. eyes rolling to the back of your skull as you’re choking on a plethora of moans.

“‘m gonna cum— m’gonna cum, i’m—” you can feel a surge of warmth flood your nerves as you slur your words. “theree you go, melt into that feeling for me.” he groans, as your walls choke around his digits stuffing your pussy full with his thumb working circles against your overstimulated clit.

you feel your tummy tighten, vision flash white as the sensation completely overrides your body. “cummmingg!” you inhale breathlessly, holding your breath as your clit throbs with a dangerous amount of pleasure before you’re gushing everywhere.

“atta girl.” jack whistles with satisfaction — and you can’t even respond, still too busy making a mess all over yourself and jack’s arm. you’re body’s tenses against his chest as he continues milking you dry, letting you ride the feeling out while pressing his mouth against your ear. “gotta few more things ‘m sure your body’s never done.” he murmurs.

you’re closer now, arm to arm with your body turned into his. his brows furrow, rubbing at the growing stubble on his cheek. Jack wraps his arm around you now, palming at your hip lovingly and allowing you to lie on his chest. “and toys don’t..i mean is that still on the table for you?” “i use them..but it just..gets boring after a while. tiring. i wanna have sex, not just..play with myself all the time.”

the image of you with your legs spread, using a dildo or wand on yourself is front and center of his mind. he sees you whining with frustration, bucking your hips needily. jesus. “i mean is it me? did i do something, am i just not sexy anymore? you’d tell me if he told you that, right, Jack?” you’re looking at him with big, tear brimming eyes while you paw at his chest. Jack is a weak man, sweetie.

“of course i’d tell you sweetheart, he’s..Robby’s somewhere else right now. don’t blame yourself you’re..you’re so sexy. sexiest girl i know, that’s for sure.” he gives you a gentle smile, but you’ve still got that pouty, needy look on your face. “really?” “yes really honey, robby’s bein’ real stupid…”

he’s gazing into your eyes, mind racing as he licks at his lips. “he’s being mean too.” “real mean. i’d..never be mean to you.” he can’t help himself when he closes the gap between you two, pushing his lips onto yours. you moan upon impact, fisting his shirt as he grabs at your body, rubbing down your hips before hoisting you fully onto his lap.

he feels how much you need this in the kiss, pushing your tongue in his mouth, your hands snaking up his neck and into his hair, yanking it slightly. the way your body arches into his, legs raising slightly to kiss him harder, pushing him deeper into the couch. you moan when you feel your clothed cunt drag along his bulge, brows furrowing hard before grinding down, getting a sound out of him.

“fuck.” he whispers, still messily kissing you, hands now grabbing at your warming love hands under your big shirt. your ring twists into his curls, making him wince, which makes you pull away. “are you ok??” you pull your hand away, letting him take it softly in his. “your-your ring, got my hair.” your ring. your wedding ring.

“oh my god. Jack i..” you put your hands on his chest, scooting down off his lap, though still straddling his thighs. “i can’t do this with you, oh my god..” you rub your hands down your face, the cold metal against your hot skin feels like a zap. “wha..why not?” he breaths, brows pinched with confusion as he pulls your hands away from your face.

“Robby, Jack. i..he’s my husband i can’t do that to him! i’m so terrible!” you scoff, eyes wide with fear. “you’re not terrible, what’re you scared of? betraying him?? what the fuck has he been doing to you, then?” he pulls you back closer, so close your hands roughly land on his chest.

you pull your head from his gaze, keeping your hands down for distance, but he doesn’t let you. “that’s different Jack, he’s..disembodied right now he’s just distant..” “that’s still neglecting his wife. shutting you out, which is the last person he should be doing that to. i never once shut out my wife. you said it yourself. he’s being mean.”

you pout, whining at the words that sting to your heart. Robby is being mean. he’s being mean to everyone, but you especially. “Jack i..” you scoff, you can’t even find the words, “it’s not right, i mean i love him too much.” “you can still love him, it’s not like im some guy. you know me, sweetheart..” you don’t fight when he kisses down the shell of your ear, trialing slowly down your neck in a way that makes you shiver.

your arms end up at his shoulders, eyes shutting in his touch. “i just wanna help you. been so long for you.” his stubble tickles your neck as he speaks low, almost a whisper. you’ve only heard this sugary tone once before. “been wanting this, right? to be touched like this? kissed like this?” he moves slowly down your comfy shorts, cupping your ass as the cotton slides off at the knuckles of his huge hands.

“yeah..” it comes out more pathetic than you could control, but your heart was pounding out your chest. “yeah..” he nods, kissing back up your jaw and taking your lips in his. “i know. let me do this for you.” you raise up to let him pull off your shorts, and the heat turns up in an instant. the kiss turning passionate, moans and groans trading under tongues as you lift his shirt over his shoulder, “can’t..” you pant, eyes hooded.

“cant happen again,” your hands move faster than you can think, untying and pulling down his scrub bottoms. “only one time. this time.” “this time.” he repeats, and you squeak when his big hand cups your pussy over your underwear, a throaty hum exiting him as he feels how fucking wet you were.

you can’t remember the last time you were so fired up to fuck. grabbing at whatever you could while he fingered you open, accidentally scratching at his biceps as your hips move greedily against him. “you’re so fuckin’ wet sweetheart, want this real bad.” he pants, eyes locked in you as you moan into the air. “please just…Jack please.. need it.” it almost comes as a sob, and he couldn’t ever refuse you. not like this, especially.

“lemme take it out. gonna get it sweetie, promise. gonna give it to you.” there’s that sugary tone again, and you find yourself moving at his command without a second thought, throwing your shirt off your sweaty body and reaching for his leg. you help him pull off his boxers and then his prosthetic, hearing a sigh of relief above him as you set it down.

he moves you back over him, and your eyes widen slightly at the sight of his hung, veiny dick. “jesus you’re..so big,” and he wants to say something cocky. he really does. but he just thumbs at your hip, nodding with a small smirk. “you can handle it.”

your eyes are big on his as you lift yourself over his cock, letting him guide you onto his tip, then his girth. he goes slow, gripping your hips as he rocks you lower and lower, drinking in the little gasps and squeals you let out. “Jack you’re-fuck you’re so big, you’re so fucking big,,” you whine, shaky breaths as you squeeze your eyes shut.

“you’re taking it.” his voice is rasped, quiet watching your pussy engulf him. “you’re taking it baby i promise, you’re fuckin’ takin’ it. so good too, holy shit.” he wants to let all his greedy, jealousy induced thoughts out. can’t believe robby’s missing out on this, fuck. should’ve bagged this pussy forever ago, clearly Robby wasn’t putting it to good use. but it doesn’t exit his mind, not wanting you to feel worse about it all.

“oh yes, oh my god yes,” you moan out, head thrown back as your hips take over, his hands guiding you ever so gently as you bounce on his cock. “fuck you’re..fuck Jack it’s so good,” he moans under you, your pleasure making the butterflies dancing in his stomach as you fuck yourself on him.

“that’s it sweetheart, there you fuckin’ go. y’like that? yeahhh baby, feels soo good.” his eyes roll back, hands grabbing at every curve he could before the moment was over. pawing at your tits, smacking at your ass, squeezing at your belly. you’re everything to him, sweetie.

he can’t help but let himself submit to you in this time of need, in this sweet notion of helping his friend. because that what it really was. just helping his friend blow some steam, she’s just pent up. losing the same amount of calories as if he took you boxing. nothing wrong with it. “yeah sweetie, let it all out. just like thaat, fucking god,” he feels dizzy watching you hump him. your body’s consumed with greed, with a mission in mind.

latching onto him, filling your house with high shaky moans. and he was doing so much for you, and more. grabbing you, holding you lovingly close to him as you ride him into the couch cushion he was leaning his back into you. letting out sweet words to you, praise, helping you through riding him. groaning loudly into the room, the sounds alone coming from him fueling you, swelling your head.

sounds Robby never made. never talked you through it unless it’d been a long time, or till he was close. barely made noise either, no matter how many times youve told him you liked it. you were jelly in Jacks touch. he was pushing you steadily over your edge, whether he touched you or not. he filled you completely, inside and out.

his left hand started shoving you down on his cock, your moans coming out in sharp, quick gasps of air, eyes wide watching yourself slam on his dick and feeling his tip kiss that sponges spot in you. his right hand sucks on his thumb, getting it nice and wet before bringing it to your puffy clit, flicking it in a way that makes you suck in a harsh breath, dragging your nails down his shoulder, a high moan exiting you as you throw your head back.

“fuck ohmygo-Jack!” your moans are bordering on pornographic. and you look fucking delicious. hips bucking up to his touch all jittery, sweat gleaming your tits as they bounce with every move. your nose is scrunched slightly as the side of your mouth sneers upturned, and your brows sitting hard and tightly pinched, so overturned with pleasure you can’t control how loud you are. and Jack is straight up drinking it in.

“you’re so good, you’re fucking me so good Jack, better than i’ve ever fuckin’ felt..!” your words come up high, it’s music to his ears. to get that out of you, to know you’ve been with Robby almost half a decade, and Jack barely moving his hips is the best you’ve felt in that long?

“you’re fucking me, sweetie, and you’re doin’ so good. look at you, takin’ it from me..” his eyes are hooded over your body, his soft puppy eyes working over you in your vulnerable state. “keep using me baby, just fuckin’ take it. haven’t gotten dick like this before, haven’t had this in so long, right? you deserve this. say it.”

it’s barely getting through your ears honestly. your stomach is heaving, your ears are almost ringing, eyes rolling back as you fuck yourself on his thick cock like a toy. “i deserve it..” you slur in heavy pants, eyes rolling back as you feel your heated orgasm approach. “yeah you do. yeah you fuckin’ do sweetheart,” he’s quick to hold you in his grasp when you collapse into him, mushing into his shoulder while you grind lazily.

his arm wraps around you, turning in his place to keep you close, keeping his pace on your throbbing clit as you shudder against him. “there we fuckin’ go, cmon you can do it. been talkin’ about gettin’ fucked for weeks i know you can do it. use me sweetie, use me like you fuckin’ mean it,” there’s a rough, almost degrading tone in his words, and your body submits to him at the impact.

he fucks into you from the side, your leg coming up immediately to let him in deeper, and as he groans in your ear, your dam breaks. “ohhh Jack, oh god, Jack!” it’s one big breath before you’re gasping out again, shrinking into him as your pussy flutters around his dick, stomach so tight as you practically burst under him.

“don’t stop, please don’t stop im..im—” you can’t even finish your words, and Jack doesn’t mind a bit. nodding to your words, his mouth echoing yours, agape with his own groans as his eyes roll back. “let it alll out baby, take it fr’me it’s all yours..” you feel you leg cramp up from how hard your orgasm had hit you, your body falling limp on Jack as he continues fucking into you, removing his hand from your shaking pussy to hold your leg up.

his lashes feel weighted, glittering as he takes in the sight of you, your fucked out face as your eyes rest, down your sweaty body, to where you two met, the creamy ring around his cock glistening and cresting rather nasty strings of cum as he thrusts into you. heat builds in his chest, his cock twitches inside of you and his hips stutter. that cold sweat rolls over him, and he looks to the ceiling with an oh god before back at you.

“that’s it baby, that’s it, that’s fucking it,” his praises to you turn into revelations of the immense pleasure weighing on him. hunching over you and pushing you on your back on the couch, finding the balance to slam into you. you moan in tandem at the new position, the way he lays all his unbalanced weight on your thighs he’s keeping up, slamming into you like it’s beyond his control.

with your back arched off the cushion and your hands fisting st it from the side, you watch his face as he loses his composure, bitting his lip before letting groans spill from him like a music box, eyes rolled to the ceiling as his brows flex to the hairline. “oh my god, can’t even..aghh can’t fucking believe you gave this pussy to Robby,” he rolls his eyes, “did so fucking good, scratching me up and shit you-you’re fuckin’ everything..”

his mouth moves faster than his mind. poor guys lost in the sauce, chest heavy as it turns that familiar red you’ve only seen a few times in the sun. “god you’re so good, gimme a kiss sweetie, so prouda’ you,” you practically yank him down onto you, kissing so sloppily you think drool is getting everywhere because of how over the moon you guys are.

you gasp sharply, feeling his tip kiss at your cervix. you dig your nails into his neck, a high, almost pained moan exiting you through his lips. “Jack you’re—Jack hold on,” you mewl, though feeling him shake his head frantically. “i know sweetie i-im sorry i just-fuck i can’t, icanticanticant,” he moans, and his following groans come up higher, weaker as if he’d been yelling all night (which..he probably has).

“can’t stop, fuck you’re so good, m’gonna cum, baby m’gonna cum,” he doesn’t even try to kiss you anymore, “you’re so good, doin’ so fucking good baby i..” you hear the slapping of skin from between you, feeling impossibly split open as he slams into you, groaning like he couldn’t breath.

with a final loud groan he grabs at the cushion next to your head, eyes tightly screwed as his hips come to a halt, and you feel his dick twitch into you as he finishes hard, the following groans coming out as weak whines. Jack lets his body collapse over you, reaching behind himself to caress at your shaking legs, still panting into each other’s mouths.

“did i..hurt you?” he whispers, you feel his lashes against your crows feet. “no, no. just..was a lot. is your leg ok..?” look at you. all the more worrying. all the more caring, loving. it makes Jack chuckled breathily, shaking his head as he kisses at your cheek. “i’m ok, sweetheart. been through worse.”

he pushes himself off you, giving you a once over for any damage before pulling out, sitting upright next your body. speeding your pussy with his thumb and pointer, in the blink of an eye he’s watching his cum seep out of you and onto your ass, and almost onto the couch cushion had he not cupped his hand under the leakage, stuffing it back in you. “fuck i..i didn’t mean to uh..just got carried away.” he gives you a remorseful look, that he also looks away from to gaze at your beat, puffy pussy.

“are you on birth control?” “no..i stopped a few months ago. we wanted to try for a baby.” your cheek quirked to the side before you pout a little, and Jack feels his heart break a little. “ok. i’ll get you plan b, then.” you nod and lift on, crawling into his lap once again, but this time, you give him a slow, gentle kiss.

“thank you..Jack..” you sigh, feeling him wrap his arms around you. “don’t gotta thank me. just wanted to help you, sweet thing. s’what friends are for.” he joked, making you scoff a chuckle. you nod, “yeah. what friends are for.” for fucking so hard you see stars. of course. “lemme get my foot awake, then we’ll clean up.”

With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.

“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”

“Why does she always know everything?”

Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.

“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”

There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.

“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”

“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”

“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”

There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.

Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.

“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”

They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.

Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.

Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.

Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.

Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.

He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”

“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”

“Because I know they’re your favorite,”

The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.

Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.

“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”

“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”

“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”

“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”

There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.

“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”

He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.

“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”

The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.

“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”

Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.

There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.

“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”

The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.

“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”

“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”

“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”

If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.

“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”

With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”

“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”

You shot him a skeptical look.

“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”

Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.

“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”

“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.

“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”

“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”

“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”

“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”

Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.

“...oh,”

“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”

“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”

“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”

Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.

“...does anyone not die in these old books?”

The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.

“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”

What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.

❤︎

“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”

“Evelyn!”

Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.

She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.

“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”

“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”

It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.

“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”

“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”

Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.

“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”

“It’s usually just something random-”

“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”

Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.

Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.

“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”

You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.

“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”

“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”

“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”

Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.

A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.

All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.

“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”

Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.

“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.

“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”

Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.

The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.

“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.

“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.

“How could she possibly think that?”

“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”

“Jesus, that many?”

“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”

Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.

Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.

“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”

“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”

You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.

“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”

“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”

There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.

“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”

Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.

“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”

A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.

“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”

Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.

Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.

Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.

It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.

And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.

❤︎

“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”

Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.

“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”

“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”

Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.

When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.

The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.

“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”

“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.

“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”

“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”

Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.

“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”

Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.

“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”

You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”

“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”

“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”

Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.

“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”

Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.

“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”

The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.

“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”

Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.

“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”

You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.

It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.

“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”

Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.

By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.

“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”

“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”

You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.

“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”

A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.

“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”

Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.

“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”

“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”

Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.

“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”

Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.

“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”

The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.

“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”

“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”

“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”

Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.

“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”

Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.

“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”

There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.

“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”

“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”

Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.

Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.

“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”

You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.

“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”

“Yeah, well, what’s new?”

When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.

❤︎

Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.

Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.

Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.

Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.

And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent. 

Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.

“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”

Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.

“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”

He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.

“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”

Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.

“I can’t let you-”

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”

There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.

Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.

“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”

“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.

“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”

“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”

Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.

Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.

None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.

He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.

The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.

Then the laughter resumed.

He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.

“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”

Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.

Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.

There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”

“You calling me old, Ryland?”

“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”

“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”

“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”

Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.

“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”

Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.

“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”

If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work. 

Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.

“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.

You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.

The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.

He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.

Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.

Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.

“I should probably get home-”

“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”

You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.

“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”

He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.

“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”

Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.

Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.

“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.

The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.

It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.

“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”

He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.

His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.

Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.

“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”

You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.

“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”

“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”

If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.

He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.

Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.

“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”

Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.

From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.

He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.

It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.

Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-

Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.

“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”

He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.

Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.

“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”

His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.

“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”

The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.

“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”

“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”

Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.

“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”

“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”

Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.

Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.

Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-

Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.

“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”

“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”

“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”

Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.

He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.

Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.

Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.

His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.

“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”

The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you. 

The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.

Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.

Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.

The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.

“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”

Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.

“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”

“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”

Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.

“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”

He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.

“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”

Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.

Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.

“For you? Totally,”

Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.

And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.

❤︎

The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.

As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.

“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”

“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”

The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.

“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”

“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”

If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.

Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.

Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-

The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.

He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.

Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.

For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.

Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.

Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.

You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.

Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.

Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.

You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.

“I need your help,”

The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.

“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.

“I…I like Olivia,”

Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.

“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”

“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”

“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”

“I do,”

You held your hand out toward him with a smile.

“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”

With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.

“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”

The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.

“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”

Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.

“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”

“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”

“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”

That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.

“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”

“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”

Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.

“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”

“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”

“You could’ve,”

“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”

You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.

“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”

Ryland laughed beside you.

“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”

You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.

Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.

“Stay here,”

There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.

“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”

As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars

“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”

Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.

It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.

Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.

In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.

"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"

"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"

"No, really, you look-"

"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"

He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.

"...like the sun,"

You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.

Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?

"Ryland-"

"I wasn't lying,"

You cocked your head.

"...about what?"

"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"

That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.

"Right, you were just distracted,"

"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"

In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.

You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.

“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”

The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.

Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.

“Come with me,”

“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”

“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”

“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.

Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.

“Worth it,”

Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.

The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.

The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.

“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.

“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”

“Then stop thinking,”

No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.

Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.

Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.

The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.

His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.

The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.

“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”

You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.

“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”

The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.

The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.

So now, food eaten, movie playing, Ryland plugging away at his laptop, your eyes wandered. The tour he gave you was as short as the one you gave him of your place: here’s the living room, the kitchen is five feet away, there’s the bedroom and a small bathroom. It was simple, but that made sense for him.

He had art on the walls, paintings of scenery, photos of landscapes, very nature-inspired for someone who spent most of their time inside. Your eyes flickered across the room, pausing briefly on the diploma hanging in a far corner. Several diplomas, actually. Stacked from bottom to top: undergrad, masters and PHD, the last of which had the fanciest frame. 

You nudge him with your toe, your spot on the couch putting you slightly behind his hunched form on the floor. He looks at you, paper hanging from his mouth as his fingers fly over the keyboard. “Dr. Grace?” You raise your brows in question, pointing to the diplomas. He chokes on a breath, face turning red. 

“You didn’t tell me you have a doctorate,” you push, wondering why he would hide something so big. His eyes dart between the frames on the wall and your face, like he’s embarrassed by his own success. “I didn’t - uh.. It didn’t really come up, no one calls me that,” he stammers, folding his hands in his lap. “You don’t talk about it?” You ask noncommittally, leaving room for him to be vague if he chose to. 

He shakes his head, knowing that you won’t push. “Still, it’s impressive,” you smile at him, poking him with your toe again. He grabs your foot, placing a soft kiss to your ankle, and leans back against the couch with a sigh. “You think so?” He’s quiet, like your response is important to him. You hum, “of course. What’s it in?”

“Molecular biology,” he’s still whispering. You make him say it again louder, wanting to make sure you heard him right. “Ryland, that’s insanely impressive, you don’t think that’s impressive?” You’re incredulous, he leans his arm on the couch and rests his head against his hand with a smile on his face. “Well, I’m using it to teach twelve year olds about tectonic plates and sound waves, so…” he trails off, trying to deflect a little. 

You shrug, biting your lip in thought. “I don’t know, still feels impressive to me,” your smile has him ducking his head, trying to dodge the praise. 

By the time the movie ended, Ryland had finished his work, having flopped down on the couch next to you and pulled your legs over his. Gentle fingers massaged your calves, his head thrown back against the cushion and his eyes closed. “You tired?” You ask quietly, flexing your feet when he presses a thumb down a little too hard. 

“M’ always tired,” he mumbles, rolling his head to look at you. He looks so soft like this, weight fully relaxed into the sofa, glasses long discarded so he can rub his eyes with no barrier. And that was it for a few more weeks. You didn’t push, didn’t bring it up, didn’t say anything at all. Until he cornered you in your kitchen one evening.

Big hands settled on your waist, his chest pressing into your back and his breath in your ear. He’d been teasing you all afternoon, sending texts about how much he missed you, how much he wanted you, how hard you made him all the time. It was new from him but you loved that he was coming out of his shell, it made your patience so worth it. 

“I’m just saying, I think the honey carrots you made last time were better, sweeter or something,” his grin is obvious in his words, “thought you valued honesty in relationships.” He nips at your ear, laughing when you spin around in his hold and point a finger in his face. “You listen here, Dr. Grace,” you jab, not missing how his breath hitches, “the carrots were fine, you’re just addicted to sugar!” 

He looks at you with heavy lids, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Maybe I am,” he murmurs, pulling you in for a lingering kiss. His hands slide down to your ass, pressing you against him while he licks into your mouth. When you finally have a moment to breathe, you take in his flushed appearance. You were used to him blushing when you flirted, but this was something different. You knew it was the title, knew it was doing something for him that he’d never admit out loud. 

He’s not trying to hide how turned on he is, all but grinding his half hard length against your body. It clicks for you then, and you run a hand along his throat, feeling the way he swallows harshly. “You like when I call you that, doctor?” You’re teasing, but he did it the whole day so you don’t feel bad. 

He drops his head forward with a choked groan, nodding against your shoulder and pressing kisses to your neck. You tilt your head to give him more access, smiling when you feel his dick twitch between you. With a quick turn, you pin him against the counter, waiting until he makes eye contact before you sink to your knees. 

His eyes go wide, hand flying to your hair before you even reach for his pants. “Fuck, sweetheart,” he whimpers, mouth falling open when you free his length and give him a few slow strokes. “This okay?” You’re so close, your breath fans across his skin and he swears he could come right there. He nods quickly, “yes, yeah, of course,” and his free hand flies to the counter, looking for something to keep himself upright. 

You lick the vein running along the underside of his cock, letting your tongue swipe over the tip before you open your jaw and take him in. The moan that falls from his lips is broken, his eyes locked on yours as you bob up and down. Your nails scratch his thighs, digging in when you suck him lower and swallow around him. 

He throws his head back, breath coming out in heavy pants. “B-baby, oh my god,” he whines, fingers pulling your hair until you release him, twitching when he sees the string of saliva connecting his tip to your lips. You smile up at him, “too much?” You make to stand but his hand on your shoulder stops you.

“I’m good,” he pants, “keep going.” And he feeds his cock back into your mouth, both hands tangling in your hair as he gives a little testing thrust. You moan around him, relaxing your throat as much as you can and letting him take control. He’d never been this forward with what he wanted, you wonder if you accidentally woke up a side of him that even he didn’t know about. 

He’s a little reckless above you, using your mouth however feels best, until you gag around him. “Sorry, sorry!” He pulls out and wipes your tears, checking that he didn’t hurt you. “Sorry, I got a little excited," he mumbles, helping you stand. “I can keep going,” you start, “I’m not so delicate, you know.” 

His hands smooth down your hair, his teeth sinking into his lip as he looks at you. “Mm, I was about to come,” he laughs softly, “wanna come in you.” It doesn’t take any more convincing for you to lean up and kiss him. He moans at his taste on your tongue, sucking in a breath when you give him a few more pumps for good measure. “Where do you want me?” 

He moves fast, grabbing your hand and rounding the kitchen counter. But he moves too fast, because of course he does, and slips, landing on the rug in the living room. He’s bright red but he pulls you down on top of him, trying to pretend it was on purpose. “How about right here?” And he kisses you deeply, hands roaming your thighs and ass. You can’t help the laugh that tumbles out, sinking into his kiss and resting on his lap. “Yeah, here works,” you grind down on him, eating the moan he lets out at the friction.

“Need to feel you, baby, please,” he tugs your shirt up, letting you yank at his until you’re both free of the fabric. Everything feels frantic, suddenly. Like he couldn’t possibly wait to be inside you, to fuck you how he knows you like. You think he wants you to ride him, so you roll to the side and start working your pants down, trying to allow him access. 

He pulls you against his chest and flips you to the floor, his hand cushioning your head as your back lands on the rug. Hurried hands pull your pants off, not wasting any time before he’s slotting himself between your legs. You watch him pause, see the conflict on his face, and then he’s shifting back a little, letting his fingers slip through your folds with a low moan. 

“I can take you, Ry,” you try to convince him, but he just shakes his head. “Want you wetter, sweetheart, you’re gonna need it.” He winks up at you, biting his lip when he adds, “you can’t call me that and not pay for it a little.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to ask what he means before he pushes two fingers in, scissoring them to stretch you open. You scratch down his arm, gasping at the intrusion. He leans down and sucks your clit into his mouth, grinning when you roll your hips into him. “So what do you like to be called?” He asks, looking up from between your legs with raised brows. 

“What?” You can’t quite keep up with a conversation when he’s rubbing that spot inside you, making your legs twitch. “You’ve gotta have something,” he flattens his tongue and licks a broad stripe, “I’m gonna find it.” 

He brings you right to the edge, feeling how you clench on his fingers and pulling out just before you reach your peak. He drinks down your grumbles, promising that he’ll make the wait worth it with a laugh against your lips. A shudder rolls through you when he lines himself up again, moans pulling from both of you when he presses in. He drops his head to your shoulder, letting you hear all of the quiet noises he can’t keep back. 

You hook your legs over his back to encourage him, feeling how your walls make room as he pulls almost all the way out and pushes back in. He whispers praise against your ear, gauging your reaction to each new nickname he throws out. “Baby,” he gets a small moan from you, “sweetheart,” he gets a smaller moan. 

“So fuckin’ sexy,” he groans, brows furrowing when you clench around him a little. He lifts your leg to his shoulder, cock hitting a spot so deep inside you it makes your eyes roll. “What about pretty girl?” He asks, smirking when your nails scratch down his back. “Mm, that’s the winner so far,” he murmurs into your cheek. 

You feel him suck in a breath, feel him hesitate before his next words. “Good girl,” he whispers it almost as a question, pulling back to see your face. Your nose scrunches and you shake your head, earning a laugh from him and a kiss as an apology. “Noted,” he grins, picking up his pace. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the room, you can tell that he’s thinking of more names to try. You wonder if he multitasks like this to keep from coming too soon, but you won’t ask him that yet. 

“I jumped right over the basics,” he pants, hand sliding down to palm your breast. “Honey, darling, beautiful,” he lists each with enough time in between to see if there’s any reaction. He huffs and whispers, “mama,” in your ear, laughing when your hand flies to his mouth to shut him up. 

“Ryland, please, I’m close,” you choke out, fighting your own grin at his antics. His face goes serious, eyes boring into yours. “Yeah? You gonna come?” His stare is intense enough to make you flush, heat rising to your cheeks. “You can, baby,” he starts, “just say it one more time for me.” His voice is strained, like he’s holding back his own orgasm too. 

It takes a second for you to realize what he’s asking for, fighting against the building pleasure to form a coherent thought. The coil in your core tightens, your moans flowing freely while he pounds you into the floor. “Please, Dr. Grace,” you whisper, groaning when he abandons your breast to rub tight circles on your clit. He lets out a broken whimper, nodding his head and breathing against your cheek. 

Your orgasm rips through you, starting from your center and working out in waves. You clench down and his movements stutter, he slams home one final time and tenses above you. The moan he lets out is wrecked, his face pressed to yours while you catch your breath. When the fog clears, he shifts so he’s hovering above you. “You sure mama didn’t do it for you?” 

You scrunch up your face again, biting back a laugh, “no, god.” You push his face away, giggling when he kisses your palm and moves your hand to his hair. You ruffle the strands, admiring how he melts into your touch. “What about, like… sunshine?” He flashes you a bright smile, “or bunny?”

“Ry, they’re getting worse,” you gag, pulling a laugh from deep in his chest. He leans back, taking you in, naked and satisfied on the floor of your living room. “Pretty girl got the biggest reaction,” he runs his hands up and down your legs, “but that strikes me as something you wouldn’t like outside of sex…” Oh, he’s trying to find a nickname for you now? Something for everyday use? 

“I don’t mind ‘baby,’” you say as he helps you up and follows you to the bathroom. “Or my name,” you smile at him sweetly. He kisses you, landing a small slap to your ass, “no, I’m gonna find the right one, just give me time.” He nods resolutely, like he’s devoting himself to the experiment.

---------------

You wake to the sensation of soft kisses brushed against your skin—your forehead, your cheek, and your chin. It's the best sleep you've had in months, muscles warm and at ease. The feeling grows with each kiss as you're reminded of the fact that last night was real.

Jack loves you.

It wasn't just a vivid dream; the tender kisses he places on your skin confirm that. You're tempted to pretend to stay asleep just to enjoy more of this, but you instinctively scrunch your nose as his lips land on it, his scruff tickling you gently.

"Morning," he murmurs warmly, his voice husky with sleep, as he breathes against your cheek. You can feel his smile before your eyes fully open as he presses another soft kiss to your face.

Jack rests on one elbow, his hair tousled, with the soft morning light catching the strands that are more white than grey. God, he's handsome.

Yesterday, you might have convinced yourself that this look of adoration he’s giving you is just a figment of your imagination, but today, you know it’s real. He’s actually gazing at you like this, as if nothing else matters—not your messy morning hair nor yesterday’s mascara remnants around your eyes. He simply looks like he’s glad you’re here with him.

"Morning," you grin back, stifling a yawn into your hand.

His smile broadens. "Hi."

You chuckle softly. "Hi."

He keeps staring at you with a smile on his face. His other hand finds your waist, and your cheeks flush in response as he drags you closer. Although his touch isn’t new, the familiarity feels different now—seeing as you now know the intent behind it means what you want it to.

"What?" you ask, a bit self-conscious, rubbing your eyes in hopes of wiping away the stubborn mascara stains.

"Nothing," he shrugs, yet the grin on his face suggests otherwise.

"Jack." You pout at him and watch as his gaze drops down to your lips.

"I just..." he laughs lightly and shakes his head. "I can’t believe this is real."

You know exactly how he feels, and you hope he's able to see it in your eyes. If he doesn't, then you hope he feels it as your hand brushes through his wild strands. His eyes flutter shut under your touch, and when he opens them again, you’re convinced he does.

You both lock eyes for a moment before he leans forward. At the last moment, you turn your head, and his kiss lands on your cheek instead. He makes a comically disgruntled noise.

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," you lament, though unable to suppress your laughter at his pouty face.

"I don't care," Jack says, placing a kiss against your jaw.

"Jack," you giggle louder. "I’m serious. My breath stinks."

"I've wanted to do this for months," he says, pressing another kiss to your cheek. "A little morning breath won’t stop me. Honestly, you could have rotten teeth, and I’d still kiss you."

"Ew," you grimace, but he just laughs and plants another kiss at the corner of your mouth.

You debate it for a second, then your cringe morphs into a grin as you lean in, stealing a quick kiss from his lips.

When you pull back, Jack stares at you with wide eyes. You can see when realisation hits him; his eyes darken, and he leans in quickly, giving you no chance to dodge him again. His mouth meets yours, soft yet persistent, each kiss lingering a bit longer than the last. He swallows your giggles with his lips, but he can't help but laugh, too.

Eventually, he presses his forehead against yours, and you stay there for a little while, wrapped up in each other, letting the reality of last night fully settle. The room is quiet except for your breathing, and for the first time since yesterday, the silence feels comfortable.

"I missed waking up next to you," Jack confesses, his voice low in your ear.

You press a kiss to his cheek before resting your head against his shoulder. "Me too."

You breathe in, nose buried deep in the crook of his throat, and his arms tighten around you when he realises what you're doing—breathing in the scent that's purely him. You've never been able to do this freely, and it feels surreal to be able to be this close with no excuses needed.

The moment's broken when your alarm rings softly. Jack shifts to turn it off while still holding you close, and makes no move to let you go or get up.

"We need to get up," you say after a minute, trying to pull back.

"Says who?" he answers cheekily, pulling you in even closer.

"Check-out, for one," you reply, pushing gently against his chest. "And I’d like to shower before we have to sit in an enclosed space for two hours."

"What if I like the way you smell?" he says, and usually, your stomach would be fluttering at a sentence like that, but you know him too well—

"—Fritos are my favourite chips," he continues. His chest bounces a bit as you playfully swat him.

"Rude," you grin, and this time he allows you to slip out of his grasp. "And you’re a liar. I know your favourite isn’t Fritos."

"Says who?" he repeats with a grin as he watches you sit up. You move to the edge of the bed, and he sits up to be able to see you better.

"Says the several bags of Doritos in your cabinets," you counter with a raised eyebrow. You move to slide off the bed, but he catches your arm, pulling you back over to him.

"Ja-ack," you laugh as you land against his chest.

"Those are for Robby," Jack says, and before you can argue, his mouth captures yours again. He keeps you there for another five minutes before your alarm blares again.

"Fine," he concedes when you pull back again. "Just leave me all alone here."

You shuffle forward, but pause at the doorway to the bathroom, meeting his eyes with a mischievous smile. "You could always join me."

Jack freezes, and you can see him process the offer—the way his eyes darken and the slight swallow as his gaze trails over you.

"Or not," you shrug, stifling a grin as you turn away.

He's got his crutches in his hands before your sentence finishes.

The checkout line is ridiculously long, and under normal circumstances, you’d complain about it—after all, how hard can it be to hand over a keycard and walk out? But with Jack’s arm wrapped around your waist and soft kisses peppered onto your hairline, you just can’t find the energy to care.

Even as Jack offers to give you his car keys, so you can wait in the car, you shake your head. You want to stay close to him despite the line barely moving. The lobby is crowded, and it really makes no sense for both of you to be standing here. Still, after spending weeks keeping your distance, torturing yourself, the thought of being apart now feels absurd.

Jack doesn’t push the issue; he simply nods and pulls you closer again. You're plastered to his side for the ten minutes it takes before you finally reach the desk.

"Hey," a warm voice greets you just as Jack hands over the keycard. Jeremy stands off to the side, a bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.

"Hi," you respond with a smile, stepping out of the queue to approach him.

He returns your smile. "I’m glad I caught you—you left before I could tell you how nice it was to see you again yesterday."

"Oh, sorry about that," you start, embarrassment flaring at the reminder of your jealous outburst. "I had—"

"We had some stuff to do," Jack interjects, slipping an arm around your waist again. He gives Jeremy a tight smile.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Jeremy responds. "Warren was asking about you, but honestly, I’m not sure she even remembers anything now." He leans in a little closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I had to extend her hotel room for her—she got pretty wasted after you left. The ushers had to escort her to her room after she threw up in the plants in the hallway."

"What? Really?" Laughter bubbles out of you. "Well, that's very professional."

Jack squeezes your waist admonishingly but still huffs an amused breath.

Jeremy grins. "Anyway, it was great to see you again. You’ve really done well for yourself, Sleepy." He nods at you, then glances at Jack, offering him a nod as well.

"You too," you say, and you mean it. Jeremy was a great guy in med school, even if he wasn't the best at relationships back then, but you're sure he's grown up more. You certainly have.

You're more certain of what you want, more certain of what you deserve, and somehow, that has landed you with Jack.

"Maybe we'll see you around," you finish. Presby isn't that far from PTMC after all.

"Yeah, I hope so," Jeremy replies, pulling his sunglasses down. He smiles at you one last time before he walks off. "Get home safe."

Jack grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like 'yeah, I hope so' as he steers you towards the exit. He keeps a neutral face until you're outside, where it turns sullen. A laugh escapes you the moment you’re near the car, and away from prying eyes.

Jack narrows his eyes at you as he pops open the trunk. "What’s so funny?"

Another laugh leaves you. "You're just a silly, jealous man."

"I'm not silly," he replies immediately as he places your bags inside the trunk before shutting it again.

"That's the part you focus on?"

"I'm not jealous," he insists, crossing his arms.

You tilt your head, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not."

"Hey," you say, stepping closer. His arms drop the moment you gently press down on them. You curl your fingers into the front of his t-shirt. "You have nothing to be jealous of."

Jack huffs, staring at your hands.

"Jack."

His eyes lift to yours.

"I love you." The words still feel new in your mouth, but no less right.

His eyes search yours, still checking after everything revealed yesterday that you mean it. The tight line of his mouth softens when he finds a satisfying answer.

You draw him in closer. "Okay?"

"Okay." His hand slides to your cheek and you meet him halfway, your lips pressing together in a tender kiss.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when he pulls back. "Let's go home."

Coming home feels strange.

Not in a bad way, but it feels different than it did when you left. The air has shifted inside, the furniture moved without being an inch out of place, and the smell is different, and yet everything is exactly the same.

Jack's sweater still hangs over the back of the dining room chair. Your blanket is still draped across the couch, unfolded in that way Jack always grumbles over, but never does anything about.

Everything feels new and somehow the exact same. The only different thing is you and Jack. There's finally nothing unspoken between you, with all cards on the table. No uncertainty, no wondering, no pretending.

There's still the question of what this means for you, but it doesn't feel pressing. It's just there in the background, waiting until the moment feels right. There's no rush to speak.

You're free to enjoy this moment for what it is. The pleasantness from the drive, where Jack spent the entire trip with his hand firmly planted on your thigh, carries into the house.

The bags get unpacked together, clothes thrown into the washer by four hands rather than two. You follow Jack to the bedroom when he puts the bags away; he follows you into the bathroom when you put your toiletries back. You make lunch together, hips nudging, shoulders brushing—a task that normally takes ten stretches into thirty because neither of you can stop talking and laughing.

He keeps looking at you like he still can't believe it's real. You can keep leaning in close to prove to him that it is.

The day settles eventually as you both curl up on the couch with books. The laundry tumbles quietly in the background as warm sunlight spills in through the living room windows.

You're leaning against his chest, reading, but more focused on the hand that's trailing slowly up and down your arm. Every so often, you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, catching the scruff on his jaw that's slightly longer than usual, the way he scrunches his nose at passages in his book, and how his face is relaxed in a way you haven't seen before.

As if sensing you, he glances over at you. His mouth immediately curves into a smile when he catches you swiftly looking away. He huffs a little cute sound, squeezing your shoulder.

You grin into your book, nudging his leg with your hand. You try to refocus on the pages, but it doesn't take long before you're blinking heavily. Without even really thinking about it, you slide down until your head is resting on his lap instead.

Jack's hand follows soundly, petting your head softly and lulling you to sleep.

By evening, neither of you has spent more than a few minutes apart.

Dinner comes and goes. The dishes get washed. The laundry gets folded. Around you, the house gradually darkens, shadows stretching across familiar rooms. You try to stay awake as long as possible, hoping to drag your sleeping schedule back toward something resembling normal before your next shift. By the seventh yawn in under a minute, Jack gives you a look.

"Okay," he says with an amused huff. "Time for bed."

You grumble half-heartedly but still let him steer you toward the bedroom. Blearily, you grab at clothes in the closet. Jack doesn't comment on the fact that you grab one of his shirts, just glances at it with a pleased smile before he heads into the bathroom.

When he's done, you brush past him in just his shirt and underwear that he can't see, biting back a smile at when he swallows harshly. You don't fight the grin once you're alone in the bathroom, letting the giddy feeling take over.

Your phone vibrates against the counter, just as you've put your toothbrush into your mouth.

>> Hello??? Are you alive?!

It's Olivia. Fuck. She's already texted you three times earlier today, and you'd ignored her, unsure of what to say that won't reveal everything immediately.

<< Yes

>> That's it??

<< Yes, I'm fine <3

You add the heart, toothbrush hanging loosely from your mouth as you try to act normal.

>> Uh huh. How did it go?

You can picture her narrowed eyes when you read it. Your thumbs hover over the screen for a minute, thinking of what to say.

<< It was fine. Nothing worth mentioning.

You can see her typing, deleting, then typing again several times.

>> And what about Jack?

<< He's fine, too.

You pause before adding:

<< We're fine. Things are okay again.

>> What does that mean??

You take too long to answer her, but her following text shows that it doesn't really matter anyway—she knows you too well.

>> oh😏

When you reemerge, you've decided to keep this to yourself until the morning. No need to reveal to Jack that the plan has failed immediately. This can still be just yours tonight.

He sits against the headboard, prosthetic off, and duvet covering his lap. He looks nervous. "Are you gonna—?" He gestures vaguely toward the empty side of the bed before clearing his throat. "I mean..."

The uncertainty in his voice surprises you. You'd just spent the entire day together, and he's unsure if you want to share the bed. It's kinda cute.

"Yeah," you say softly. "If that's okay?"

His answer comes fast. "Of course it's okay." He pauses. "I just didn't know if—" he shrugs, trailing off.

You climb into bed, into the arm that was waiting for you. You both sink down until your head settles against his chest, listening to the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat.

You guess this is as good a moment as any other to finally have the conversation.

"I...uh—" you start. "I have the divorce papers printed on my desk."

Jack goes very still.

"I also still have that apartment viewing on Thursday." You stare at a loose thread on his shirt. "I know we've done this in a weird order. Getting married, moving in together, and then confessing."

You force out a laugh. "If you want to do this properly, we can."

The room goes quiet. Jack's arm tightens around you. "Properly?"

"You know." You shrug. "Dating. Separate places. Normal people stuff."

For a moment, he doesn't say anything; then, he says: "Do you want that?"

The question catches you off guard. You hesitate but answer truthfully. "No."

Jack lets out a breath. Just a small exhale that sounds suspiciously like relief. "Oh."

You lift your head. "Oh?"

Jack's mouth twitches. "I don't either." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I don't want you staying because you think you have to."

Your chest squeezes. "Jack."

"You've spent months trying to make decisions based on what you thought I wanted." His fingers trace idle patterns against your arm. "I'd rather know what you want."

You stare at him for a second. "I want to stay. I want to stay here."

His eyes soften immediately. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "We don't have to rush to figure things out. I like having you here. We can't figure the rest out later."

"Yeah?"

"Mm," he hums, his grip tightening around you. "I slept like shit when you weren't here. I'd prefer not to do that again."

You huff a breath. "Me too."

Even though the apartment had been nicer than the others you'd looked at, you really didn't want to move. You're happy he feels the same as you do. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do this in an order that doesn't make the most sense—as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters.

The room quiets again until Jack speaks again. "Can I ask you something?"

Your chest tightens, but you still nod.

"Why Lily?"

You knew he was going to ask eventually, but it doesn't make it any less embarrassing. You sigh into his chest. "That day—" you don't have to specify which, he already knows. "The way you ran inside looking terrified—"

You swallow. "And how you yelled at me after..." The memory of it still stings now, even after his countless apologies. "It was the difference in how you treated me and her."

"I'm sorry," he says again.

"I know."

"No." His voice is quiet. "I need you to understand what happened."

You lift your head enough to look at him.

"I got there seconds after—" His jaw tightens. "I barely managed to pull you away. I was already petrified when I heard the code being called. I could only imagine you—" he stops, breathing heavily. "...I can't explain what that felt like."

He continues, "When I realised it wasn't you, I was relieved. And then I felt guilty for being relieved because someone had still gotten hurt, but all I could think about was how happy I was that it wasn't you."

The confession lands heavily between you.

"I was scared out of my mind. Angry at the patient. Relieved that you weren't hurt. Guilty that I was relieved. All at once. And I took it out on you. I'm sorry."

You squeeze his hand.

His eyes find yours. "It was never about Lily."

You believe him. Now, you do. But back then? Back then, you'd been drowning in uncertainty.

You shrug helplessly, revealing more of how you felt. "After that, I started noticing every little thing. The way you talked to her. The way she made you laugh."

"You make me laugh," he says firmly.

You roll your eyes at him, a slight smile tugging on your lips. "I think I was trying to make peace with losing you. If I wasn't the one for you, then she could be. She could be better for you. Kinder than me. Easier than me."

Jack's face falls. "Sweetheart..."

Your mouth twitches sadly, looking down at his shirt again.

"You genuinely thought that?"

You nod.

His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, lifting your gaze back to his. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent wishing you'd look at me the way I looked at you?" His thumb brushes across your skin. "It was always you."

You close your eyes, leaning into his touch. You sigh. "We wasted so much time."

"Yeah."

Moments stolen by fear and assumptions and bad timing. You think about every dinner that could have been a date. Every movie night spent pretending not to notice how close he sat. Every almost-confession. Every chance that slipped away.

But now, everything's finally out in the open. The conversation drifts after that. You talk about everything. The first dinner. The first kiss. The kiss cam. The bar. Every misunderstanding. Every moment one of you had walked away convinced the other didn't feel the same.

Sometimes you laugh until your stomach hurts. Sometimes you bury your face in a pillow because neither of you can believe how oblivious you've been. Sometimes there's silence while you mourn all the things that could have been.

By the time the conversation finally slows, pale morning light is spilling through the curtains. Your eyes burn with exhaustion, but your chest feels lighter than it has in months.

You don't know what happens next.

You don't know what being married and newly confessed and hopelessly in love is supposed to look like. But for the first time, that uncertainty doesn't scare you. You'll figure it out together.

Beside you, Jack shifts closer beneath the blankets until there's barely any space left between you.

His lips brush your hair. "I love you."

You smile immediately. The confession still feels unreal. "I love you too."

The smile you feel against your forehead is warm and content. And wrapped in his arms, with the future still unwritten and endless possibilities stretching ahead of you, sleep finally finds you both.

The next evening finds you faster than you'd like.

As you step in through the door to the hospital, side by side, it reminds you of the first time you walked in carrying a secret on your shoulders—only this time, your shoulders are light, and your stomach is fluttering with happy jitters.

Somehow, you manage to make your way to the lockers without meeting anyone. With your bags dropped, you sneak a brief kiss against the door before you reenter the Pitt. Jack's hand brushes yours, your pinky catching his for a second, before you take a step apart.

You try to bite back the smile that threatens to break through. If you want this work, you need to stop acting like a lovestruck teenager. It's incredibly hard, though.

Robby stands at the hub, tablet in hand and a frown on his face.

"Rough day?" Jack says, clapping his back. He leans against the counter as you trail closer.

"Yeah... Good luck." Robby rubs his face, dropping the tablet on the counter. When his eyes open, they narrow in on the space between you and Jack—or rather the lack of it.

You shift to the side, trying to act nonchalant, but Robby's a hound. His eyes follow the movement immediately, nose twitching as he tries to sniff out everything you're trying to keep quiet.

"How was the conference?"

"Fine," Jack replies, glancing up at the board. He taps his fingers rhythmically on the counter.

"It was?" Robby raises an eyebrow, staring at him. Jack nods at him, shifting his gaze away quickly. Robby watches him for a moment, then turns to you.

"Mm," you nod, offering a tight smile. "The usual."

Robby stays silent, shifting his gaze from Jack to you, and then he grins widely. He chuckles, "If you so."

"Yeah," Jack nods with an awkward smile.

"Well, that's good." Robby keeps grinning as he pats the counter twice. "I'll see you later." He salutes you, still smiling, then walks off without any further questions.

You stare at his disappearing figure with a sense of dread. With a hand around Jack's wrist, you pull him into a quiet corner, hissing: "He knows."

Jack frowns. "How could he? We were acting normal."

You stare at him. "Normal? If you call 'you not looking at him at all' normal, then yes. Very normal."

"I did look at him."

"For two seconds. Normally, you don't look away at all," you counter.

Jack crosses his arms. "Well...You gave it away to Olivia."

"I didn't—I told her nothing."

"Exactly!" Jack points out. "That's not normal for you."

You stare at him with pinched eyebrows and then sigh. "...Yeah, okay. Maybe I did."

Jack sighs, too. "I guess I did, too." He shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips as he leans closer. "But to be fair, I think we forgot that they've spent months dealing with our sorry asses. Of course, they know. They knew we were in love before we did."

"—Abbot, there you are! Stop hiding in corners with your missus—trauma incoming," Lena interrupts with a wink. She doesn't even look back as she disappears down the hallway.

Jack squeezes your hand briefly on the way out, sending you a soft smile. "See you on the other side."

You watch him disappear around the corner before you head after him. The familiar knot of anxiety never comes. For weeks, every shift had felt like walking a tightrope. Every glance from Jack had meant something, and every action had been dissected. Now, the uncertainty is gone.

The Pitt is still loud. Still chaotic. The same as it always was. It's you who is different.

Across the department, Jack glances back. Just for a second, but long enough to catch your eye. Long enough to smile, and then he's gone into a trauma room.

You’re crouched by the rocks, thinking (maybe overthinking, definitely overthinking) about how tides are basically nature’s very slow, very patient way of rearranging furniture, nudging the shoreline grain by grain. Erosion as decoration, oceanic feng shui.

Your toes, lacking imagination or enthusiasm for your existential oceanic musings, wriggle unhappily in gritty sand, damp and insistent, like the world’s least appealing exfoliation treatment. 

But you’re stubborn, and stubborn means you’ll ignore discomfort if there’s something captivating enough to distract you. And just ahead, caught in the safe anonymity of shadow, is a small crab. It skitters sideways, freezes mid-motion, as though playing the world’s tensest, tiniest game of red light, green light. 

You’ve never really gotten the hang of “enjoying” the beach like a normal person, have you?

Even as a kid, your beach trips meant scraped knees and awkward contortions above tiny tide pools. Scientist postures adopted decades too early. Your mind always running away from you, darting through an endless maze of questions that refused resolution.

Once you tried to smuggle an entire jar of seawater home, insisting it was important, vital even, despite overwhelming visual evidence that it was just… salty water with a few grains of drifting sand. 

“Brachyura,” a voice says from behind you, abrupt and far too close to your ear to belong to a stranger. Your breath hitches and your foot slides ineptly in the damp sand.

Gravity lurches enthusiastically toward public embarrassment, already whispering promises of sandy humiliation, but a pair of hands find your shoulders, tugging you gently upright like an oversized marionette whose strings they’ve begrudgingly learned to untangle.

You crane your neck up, blinking upward through eyelashes clumped from salt air.

Langdon. 

Fresh from the water, apparently. Incarnation of stern practicality wrapped in saltwater shine. Hair dripping small rivulets of ocean down his neck, skin glistening damply, sunlight skittering over his features as if it, too, is uncertain it will find a kinder place to rest. 

“I — uh, well yes, that’s — technically that’s just the infraorder,”  you stumble hurriedly, words tumbling like dominoes, trying desperately not to acknowledge the persistent warmth of his hands still bracing your shoulders. You straighten your spine, awkwardly graceful (okay, mostly awkward), as your mouth rushes ahead without permission from your brain — “Which is good, infraorders are perfectly good places to start, broad strokes and all that, but, if you want specificity, which I assume you do, since you’re you and everything, accuracy-wise, I’d guess Grapsidae? Because of, um, the carapace? Although I realize that’s probably not visible from your angle, which makes this an educated guess — or maybe an overly ambitious one? Anyway, I might be wrong — though, honestly, I don’t really think I am.”

Langdon’s eyebrows lift fractionally, and without explicitly calling out your obvious spiral into nervousness (small mercies), he simply crouches next to you, hands moving from your shoulders to his knees, leaning forward into your shared fixation on the tiny creature.

“Carpace shape would definitely clarify,” he agrees softly, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Of course, if accuracy’s our goal — and you’re right, that’s very much my thing — we could always catch it and verify. Or is speculation more your comfort zone?”

“Catch it?” You practically squeak, eyes wide, picturing your clumsy human hands accidentally crushing something so small and helpless, immediately spiraling into guilty imagined apologies and crab funerals (poorly attended, perhaps only yourself, a few baffled seagulls, and the soundless waves). “No, no, speculation is good. Excellent, actually. Much safer for everyone involved, particularly tiny, defenseless beach residents.”

“Probably wise,” he murmurs, his voice barely louder than the tide hushing at your feet. “Better not to risk it. I suppose some things are best left unconfirmed.”

You shift infinitesimally closer, almost involuntarily, and find your voice tumbling out again before you can reconsider, earnestness coloring each syllable: “I'm still inclined to think it's Grapsidae, though.”

Langdon hums in soft acknowledgment, a small sound that vibrates through him into you, startlingly intimate in its resonance.

“Confidence is appealing, even misplaced confidence,” he remarks casually. “Though I’d argue it looks more Portunidae.”

“No — no, see, Portunidae is — well, not impossible exactly, but definitely unlikely, because the back legs on Portunidae are paddle-shaped, distinctly modified for swimming, right? And this crab, if you look closely, has pointy, ordinary walking legs, which —” Your eyes flicker upward, catching the small, barely-there curve of his mouth. “Oh. You’re… you're totally messing with me right now, aren’t you?”

Langdon’s smile broadens just enough to confirm your suspicion, eyes glinting. He lifts one shoulder in a lazy half-shrug, lightly apologetic in theory, not remotely in reality.

“Guilty. Sorry,” he admits. “I have this innate desire to contradict you. Consider it a character flaw.”

You tilt your head slightly, making an unsuccessful attempt at hiding your grin, cheeks undeniably warm. Purely sun-induced warmth, naturally (or at least that’s what you tell yourself).

“That explains everything,” you say, affecting an exaggerated, mock-serious air. “Honestly, this puts your whole personality into clearer perspective.”

Langdon chuckles quietly under his breath, the sound rare and low enough to draw your eyes back to his face. “Well, now you know. Incurably flawed, I'm afraid.”

“Deeply incurable.”

He holds your gaze for a second longer, a quiet smile playing softly at the corners of his mouth, before turning toward the distant line of waves. 

“Come on,” he says, voice gentle, almost affectionate. “Let's walk. We'll leave our mysterious friend to its existential privacy.”

You follow, still smiling, sand soft beneath your feet and heart inexplicably lighter.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

FIND YOUR SUITCASE HERE!

“Deep thoughts?” Jack drawls, resting an ankle across his knee.

He watches as you blink back to reality. Your cheek is smushed against your palm, eyes glassy and distant, maybe seeing galaxies or shopping lists, Jack’s never quite sure.

The sun slips golden fingers through your damp curls, threading droplets like tears down your shoulders, staining the pale fabric of your sundress in fading watercolor trails.

“Only the deepest,” you assure him, offering a pout. More theater than truth. You lift your head. “Mostly about what kind of ice cream we’re getting later. You have important input here, Jack, don’t disappoint me.”

“You trust me with a choice like that?” Jack teases, eyes glinting.

But his palms go slick with something like anxiety beneath your expectant gaze.

He’s aware of every tiny sensation now, like the fresh scratch he’s nursing on the roof of his mouth.

Where did that come from, anyway? 

His tongue pushes at the raw little wound compulsively, over and over, sabotaging his already precious facade of laid-back, casual disinterest.

Cool and detached is apparently harder than advertised; imagine that.

“I trust you with everything, silly,” you tell him earnestly, eyes sparkling in the last slivers of the sun’s dying glow sprinkling freckles of warmth across your skin.

He nudges you with his shoulder. “Everything’s a big word. Care to elaborate?”

You nudge him back, giggling, blissfully unaware of the slow dread pooling through his chest, or the faint pressure of obligation suddenly crowding his throat.

“Oh, you know, the big, meaningful stuff. Restaurant decisions, purse-holding emergencies, spinach-in-teeth protocol. Seriously important matters. You’re at peak trustworthiness now, Jack. Consider yourself honored.”

He gives a low whistle. “Wow, purse-holding status already? I didn’t realize we’d gotten that far. Next you’ll be asking me to meet your parents.”

“That’s actually a really good idea! My parents love meeting my friends — my mom always does that embarrassing baby picture thing, but you’d totally survive.”

Friends. 

He turns the word over mentally, sour and mocking like spoiled milk, bitter on the tongue. It feels painfully inadequate, wildly inaccurate.

Friends don’t stumble bleary-eyed out the door at midnight, half-dressed, heart thudding with adrenaline because you thought you heard an intruder outside your window — only to discover a raccoon rummaging through your garbage.

Friends don't obsessively check menus for allergens, driven by irrational visions of accidentally killing you at dinner, or carry spare hair ties like some reluctant, lovesick Boy Scout prepared for oddly specific emergencies.

Jack's running out of ways to make himself clearer.

“Kid, you really make it hard to flirt with you.”

For a second, your face becomes an open book, cycling rapidly through shock, amusement, disbelief, realization, puzzlement, wonder, mild panic, bashfulness, hopefulness, and then back to sheer confusion. 

It's like a rapid-fire slideshow of everything he finds endearing and frustrating about you, distilled down into a few frantic heartbeats.

Finally, you settle on a stunned blink, eyes wide and brows knitted.

“Wait, what? You mean...right now? Or before now?”

Jack chuckles under his breath, something strained in it, hand dragging over the back of his neck like he can physically scrub away the corner he’s just backed himself into.

“Always. Constantly. I basically live in a perpetual state of flirtation-induced existential crisis with you. Frankly, it’s wearing me out.”

You hesitate, searching his face like the answer might be written there if you just look hard enough.

“Why?”

Jack nearly groans aloud, hand pressing harder against his neck, feeling an embarrassment akin to adolescence flooding his chest.

“Why?” he repeats, incredulous and mildly despairing. “Because I like you, okay? Because apparently my sense of self-preservation is broken, and being around you turns me into a masochist who enjoys embarrassment and rejection. Because you're the only person who's ever made me genuinely nervous, and I've survived literal explosions.”

He mentally braces himself, prepared for confusion at best, rejection at worst, anxiety drumming through him like a high schooler waiting for a prom date’s answer.

Instead, you crash into him, all vibrant disbelief, knocking him mentally, and somewhat physically, off balance.

“Jack!” you squeak, body pressed close enough that he can feel the flutter of your heartbeat. “Are you serious right now? You’ve liked me this whole time? Why wouldn’t you just say something? We could’ve been kissing — like, a lot.”

“Whoa, easy there,” Jack laughs, hands quickly finding your waist to stabilize the pandemonium of your limbs, half-laughing and half-alarmed by the tidal wave of enthusiasm colliding against him. “Believe me, if I’d known that kissing was on the table, I would’ve spoken up months ago.”

“So many missed opportunities,”  you lament, tipping your head to consider him, eyes wide.

Jack grins despite himself, gently teasing, “To be fair, I tried repeatedly. You're remarkably hard to communicate romantic interest to.”

"Guess I'll have to make it up to you, then.”

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

"Like this," you whisper softly, closing the distance with careful deliberation, your mouth touching his so sweetly that it mends every fractured moment of miscommunication.

And perhaps all his fumbling signals and hesitant gestures weren't really missed opportunities after all, but merely necessary stepping-stones, quietly guiding him home to exactly this moment, to exactly you.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Robby decides this entire trip was a poorly conceived idea. A massive misstep. A lapse in sanity. The ER provided more than enough mandatory proximity to his coworkers within a carefully designated bubble of sterility and professionalism. Everyone fully clothed, protected by the sturdy layers of scrubs that render everyone nearly anonymous.

Here, anonymity is laughably. Especially yours, a certain intern whose bikini could probably be folded up and stashed comfortably in his wallet. It does nothing but give him heart palpitations and guilt.

Guilt because tries not to look, he swears he tries, but you’ve made yourself impossible to avoid, stretched out obliviously in his direct line of sight.

He feels like a creep. He is a creep.

Watching you, counting the number of hours you’ve been roasting under a Mediterranean sun despite twelve explicit, detailed warnings about UV exposure.

Usually, you practically hang onto his every word like gospel, eyes wide with an adoration that inflates his ego more than he'd ever admit.

Now he’s suddenly irrelevant, and your bikini strings are distressingly thin, and he’s certain this must constitute workplace harassment somehow.

But he’s not entirely sure who’s harassing whom.

Robby rolls his head slowly to one side, neck cracking in a futile attempt at releasing the growing tension gathering behind his eyes.

It worsens considerably when you choose that instant to lift yourself onto your forearms, your bikini top predictably ill-suited for its one simple job.

Robby’s gaze snaps down to the patio concrete, determinedly studying the cracks and imperfections. 

He hears your voice drift toward Javadi: “Should I reapply sunscreen, do you think?”

Javadi offers a halfhearted, distracted “maybe?” in return.

Robby presses two fingers against his temples, ignoring the urge to snap, Yes of course you fucking should.

From somewhere off to the side, Mateo perks up at your question, practically spring-loaded in his chair, face lit like a puppy hearing his leash rattle. “I can help —”

You blink slowly, lips parted slightly as you start to agree, but Robby’s mouth moves entirely without his permission: “I’ve got it covered.”

He’s already moving toward you, steps quick and decisive, not entirely sure when his limbs became independent of his brain.

Mateo pauses, halfway risen, looking baffled but fortunately silent, and Robby ignores the little stab of satisfaction that gives him.

You tilt your head up at him, eyes soft, confused in that way that usually leads to more questions, more talking, more things he’ll have to justify.

So Robby doesn’t give you the chance. He just plucks the sunscreen from your outstretched fingers, heart hammering unpleasantly against his chest.

He’ll justify this later. Maybe. Realistically, he’s going to gaslight everyone into thinking it made perfect sense and move on.

“Oh, thank you — um, I didn’t even realize you were still out here,” you murmur, ducking your head a little. “I mean, not in a bad way! I just thought you might’ve gone inside to — um, cool off, or something.”

“I considered it,” Robby says dryly, rubbing sunscreen briskly between his palms as you sit up fully. “But I figured if I left you unattended, you’d somehow manage to get sun poisoning.”

He tries very hard to not stare as you sweep your hair forward over your shoulder, exposing the curve of your neck and the slope of your shoulders, skin warm from the afternoon sun. But the image is already burned into his retinas.

“Sun poisoning is an inflammatory reaction,” you say quickly, tone climbing in mild protest, “and I don’t think —”

Your voice stutters sharply into silence as Robby’s palms press firmly onto your back, smoothing sunscreen into your skin.

“Whether you think so or not isn’t particularly relevant,” Robby says as his hands move in steady, overlapping strokes, making sure there isn’t a single missed spot. “Your skin is already overheated.” His fingers spread at your sides, thumbs dragging slightly upward as he reworks an area he already covered. “And if you’re going to insist on ignoring basic preventative care,” he adds, almost under this breath, “then I’m going to compensate for it.”

“I genuinely didn’t mean to be out this long. I was actually planning to come find you — eventually — just to, um, avoid this conversation. But clearly you got to me first, so… thank you.”

“You know, one ‘thank you’ per application is probably sufficient,” Robby says dryly, fingers deftly slipping beneath the delicate strings of your bikini. “But I won’t discourage you if you’re after extra credit.”

The thin fabric barely provides resistance, slipping easily against his knuckles as he spreads sunscreen across the untouched strip of skin it had been covering. His movements slow with conscious intention, thumb brushing along the sensitive hollow just between your shoulder blade.

He finds himself aware of every shift of your breath beneath his touch. The slight tremor that ripples through you, the almost imperceptible arch into his palm. 

“I’m very susceptible to extra credit opportunities,” you say, warmth brightening your voice as you glance back over your shoulder at him. 

His hand tightens without permission at your waist, fingers pressing into the soft curve before he catches himself, pulling away, flexing his hands like he’s shaking something off. A slow breath in, out.

“I’m giving you thirty more minutes,” he orders firmly. “Then I’ll drag you inside myself, if necessary.”

You tilt your head back. “Yes, sir.”

Jesus.

He turns on his heel before that can show anywhere on his face, heat climbing fast up his neck.

Robby stalks toward the house. As he passes Abbot, lounging casually near the sliding doors, he hears a low, sarcastic chuckle.

“Don’t suppose you’re offering sunscreen services across the board, Robby,” Abbot murmurs lazily, smirk evident in his voice. “Or is it a one-patient-only special?”

Robby pauses just long enough to extend one decisive middle finger over his shoulder, not bothering to turn or slow his stride.

“Not covered by your insurance,” Robby mutters flatly, disappearing inside.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

“I feel like we should’ve given her a time limit,” you’re saying, elbows hooked over the railing while the boat rocks slow and easy beneath you. Music drifts across the deck behind you both, something bright and beachy, but you’re too busy squinting into the water where Garcia has vanished again. Third time in ten minutes. “Like if she’s under there longer than five minutes we have to assume she’s joined the fish.”

Abbot follows your gaze out to the flat, empty stretch of sea before looking back at your face.

“Did you just make a joke?”

You glance back over at him over your shoulder, sunlight catching in the loose strands of your hair. Your sunglasses have slid halfway down your nose, and you peer over them at him like a teacher catching a student talking.

“I know, shocking,” you say, nudging them back into place with one finger. “It’s rare, but it happens.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You shrug one shoulder.

“That’s because you only see work-me,” you quip. “I have a reputation to maintain. Vacation-me is far more interesting.”

It’s a good reputation, to be fair. He’d back it without hesitation, and so would anyone else on the team. Dedicated. Reliable. Someone who cares more than the situation probably requires and does it anyway, every time.

That’s also the problem, though. You hold yourself to a standard nobody set for you, always running a little too hot, a little too eager to prove something.

High-strung is probably the honest description. 

So this relaxed, humor-prone version of you appearing in small flashes out here on the sparkling water is new. To say the very least.

Jack finds he likes it quite a bit.

“I’m aware.” He leans one shoulder against the railing beside you. “You’ve worked pretty hard for that image.” 

You wrinkle your nose. “Yeah, well, please don’t ruin it.”

“Secret’s safe with me.”

You smile at that. You have a really pretty smile, he realizes. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t noticed before.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

He looks sideways at you.

“I can think of a couple other reasons,” he says. “Top of the list being I hold a position of authority over you.”

You reach for your water bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a long sip, staring determinedly out on the horizon.

Jack recognizes the move.

It’s the same one you use in meetings when someone says something that makes you flustered. Keeps your mouth occupied so you don’t say something that might implicate you further. Buys you a second to recover.

The heat climbing up your neck suggests you need one.

The towel slips off your shoulder as you tip forward, just enough to flash a strip of bright blue bikini strap and the cleavage that comes with it.

Jack does the respectable thing and averts his gaze to the back of the boat instead, landing on Langdon and the admin assistant standing closer than strictly necessary.

He's maybe not in a position to judge.

You clear your throat, finally lowering the bottle. “First of all, that’s not — that’s not true.”

“Of course not,” he agrees. 

He’d enjoy poking at it further, given the evidence written all over your face, but he reins it in. He’s not about to spook you back into the version of yourself that triple checks charts and apologizes for things that aren’t your fault.

You tip your head at him.

“See, this is why I don’t give compliments,” you say. “People start getting ideas.”

He opens his mouth. The ocean beats him to it.

Garcia erupts from the surface in a burst of white water, seashell first, triumphant.

“Trinity! Come see this one!”

He watches as Garcia splashes her way towards Santos.

“Crisis averted,” you say.

“Was there ever really a crisis?”

“With me there’s always a crisis.”

“Good thing vacation-you is better at handling them.”

You smile once again, small and a little pleased, trying to smother it into your shoulder, turning back toward the water.

Six days of this might not be enough.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

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Robby is capable of admitting that he is not, has never been, and probably never will be an easy man to love. Or like. Or spend more than ten minutes with on a bad day.

For a long time, he preferred a more flattering explanation for himself, one where his sharp edges meant he was discerning, where the distance meant he was disciplined, where every nasty impulse came dressed as practicality. 

Easier to live with that version. Shame it was complete bullshit.

The truth simply isn’t as nice.

He can be mean when he feels cornered, petty when his pride gets nicked, suspicious of people who haven’t earned his trust and sometimes even of those who have. He can take the worst parts of himself and hang them around someone else’s neck like they belong there instead. 

Jealousy sits near the top of that list. Primitive, embarrassing, unbecoming of a man of his age, and currently burning neon-green behind his eyes as he watches you in the water with Whitaker.

You are all moonlight and sparkling skin out there, laughing when his fresh resident splashes you hard enough to catch you straight across the chest, and then you are laughing harder, shoving him back with both hands. 

Careless and so fucking pretty Robby has half a mind to grind his teeth down to dust.

Everyone is a little drunk. Loose, noisy, stupid. At some point one of them had the bright idea to turn the evening into a midnight swim, and Robby, in a moment of weakness, did not object strongly enough. 

He honestly can’t recall who suggested it, which is lucky, because right now he’d be tempted to hold them underwater. 

He considers doing himself the favor of going back inside. There’s a whole house behind him. Walls. Doors. Actual barriers between him and whatever the hell this is.

He could pour another drink. Claim exhaustion. Remove himself like an adult. 

But then you duck under again, vanish for a second into the black-silver water, and when you resurface it’s closer to shore, hair slicked back, shoulders gleaming, water streaming down your body in thin shining paths as you make your way out of the surf.

You hurry toward him, arms crossed over your chest, shivering, and you smile so warmly when your eyes meet his that Robby feels an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. It isn’t deserved.

He gives you a slight smile back, because anything else would be unnecessarily mean, and he’s trying, at least in this moment, not to be. 

“You didn’t come in,” you say, stopping in front of him while water drips from your calves into the sand. 

There’s mascara smudged under your eyes, and instantly he’s back in last night whether he wants to be or not.

Back to you kneeling between his legs, tears and mascara mixed together in inky tracks down your cheeks, mouth doing a number on his cock that he still hasn’t fully recovered from. 

You had appeared at his door after everyone else was asleep, slipping inside the second he cracked it open as if there had ever been any real chance he was going to stop you. Even with his best friend and your brother sleeping in the room next door.

He rubs a hand over his jaw, as if friction alone could scour the image out of his memory. It can’t.

“Figured someone had to play lifeguard.” 

“Lifeguard,” you echo, teeth catching on your lower lip as your eyes narrow in exaggerated appreciation. “That’s hot. Do you wanna practice mouth-to-mouth now?” 

He should laugh. He should say something easy. Instead: “You seemed to be doing just fine with Whitaker out there. Maybe let him handle it.” 

He hates the sound of it. That needless little cut.

Robby has always been talented at that particular failure mode, lash out first, feel bad second, act like remorse counts as repair. It’s another one of the worst things about him, the way the venom always seems to land on the people closest.

You most of all. You, over and over. 

But you don’t look bothered in the slightest, stepping closer until you’re nearly between his feet, close enough that he can feel the chill lifting off your skin and the heat of his own body reaching for it. 

You smell like coconut sunscreen and salty ocean air, and he catches himself breathing in deeper. 

“Oh, wow, are you jealous right now?” you ask, laughing under your breath. “That’s adorable. Kind of bitchy, but adorable. Do you want me to go flirt a little more with Whitaker until you fully process these complicated emotions, or have you punished yourself enough?” 

Robby doesn't bother denying it — wouldn't insult either of you like that. He just shakes his head, a reluctant half-smile tugging at his lips. 

“Think I've punished myself plenty tonight.” He pauses, voice softening. “Stay here?” He tacks on, a little more earnest, “please.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” you tease, the words nearly catching between your teeth. 

Robby doesn’t pause to consider the wisdom (or lack thereof) of taking off his jacket and draping it across your chilled skin. Not with half the group still probably watching. But you’re clearly cold and there is a clear and obvious solution to that.

You give a soft, satisfied sigh, holding the fabric snug against your chest. 

“Look at you, Robinavitch, all gentlemanly.” 

“Don’t get used to it.” 

That only makes you smile wider.

“What if I already am?” 

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

His hands linger on your shoulders just a second too long, fingertips hesitating against the fabric before finally letting go.

He knows better. He should move back, redraw a line, remind himself that the house behind him is crowded, that your brother is inside that same crowded house, a dangerous fact he’s becoming increasingly careless about.

“Well, if you’re done being mean for tonight, maybe you can start making it up to me. Preferably inside.”

And he does. Until jealousy is replaced entirely by the taste of you. Over and over again, until neither of you remembers what he was supposed to be making up for. 

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Sometimes Frank thinks he should put you on a leash.

Get one of those toddler backpack rigs with the little animal character on it and clip you in. Maybe that would preserve what remains of his peace.

Morifying for you, humiliating for him, definitely probably a terrible look in public, but at least you’d stay within a five-foot radius and he could stop living in this permanent state of low-grade vigilance you seem to provoke as casually as breathing. 

And he loves you. Deeply. Completely.

That’s the problem. Love, with you, is surveillance. It is anticipatory. It is watching for the exact point at which your glittering, social, I’m-fine performance starts to come apart at the seams while you insist it isn’t happening.

You just never seem to know when to stop. 

And tonight you are all over the pool patio with a mojito slicking one hand cold and damp, dribbling little sacrificial offerings of rum and mint over the stone, while the other hand keeps straying to the bikini strap at your hip. 

Restless. Fidgety. Smiling at everyone. Talking too loudly. 

A little drunk, a little sleepy, and, as ever, too stubborn to concede either.

The moment you glance his way, Frank tilts his chin and crooks two fingers in a come here.

A gesture that should not, by any reasonable standard, contain so much possession in it, and yet your expression changes all at once, brightening with buzzed delight as you cross toward him.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite person to be bossed around by,” you say when you reach him, voice dipped in honey. You stop beside his lounger, smiling down at him. It’s such a pretty smile. “Did you miss me terribly?”

“I usually do.” 

There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

That gets you. 

“Yeah?” You tip forward a little, closing the distance with shameless interest. “Can I get a kiss, then?”

Frank’s mouth twitches. “You can get whatever you want, sweetheart.”

He lifts a hand to your jaw and draws you down, sealing his mouth over yours in a kiss that has to be brief by sheer circumstance, though not so brief he misses the cool, fizzy ghost of lime on your lips. 

Sugary and faintly effervescent, the taste of it lingering for one extra second after he pulls back, temptation rendered in citrus. 

Frank has never been especially talented at self-control where you are concerned.

It’s why he’s not a fan of PDA. Public affection is never only that. It is a beginning. A permission slip.

One kiss and suddenly he is keenly aware of all the ones he is not having, all the ways he would rather be kissing you if the two of you were alone.

So he stops there, because he has to, and leaves your hand at your jaw instead, thumb brushing once over your cheek.

“What do you say we go find you something to eat?”

You make a face immediately, lower lip pushing out in a sulky little pout. “‘M not hungry.”

“That’s fascinating, because you look like you’re about two minutes from falling asleep standing up.”

“You make everything sound so dire.”

Frank snorts. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Then, in a flawless little proof-of-concept, you sway backward with all the structural integrity of a wilting palm tree. 

Frank moves before the thought fully forms, hands shooting out to catch the back of your thigh, fingers splaying over the soft curve just beneath your ass as he drags your forward. One quick tug and there you are, neatly slotted between his legs. 

Your hands land on his shoulders and you giggle, as if nearly toppling over into a concussion is somehow charming rather than precisely the kind of thing that keeps shaving years off his life.

He squeezes once, firm and corrective. 

“Okay, well, what do you say you keep me company for a while?”

He could tell you to sit down. You might even listen, eventually, but not without first delivering a brief theatrical monologue on authoritarianism and oppression and how cruel it is to stifle your sparkle.

So. Better not make it about obedience. Frank has learned this the hard way, or at least the repetitive way.

There are only so many reliable methods of keeping you where he can see you, and most of them depend on reframing the situation until it no longer sounds like containment.

You resent being managed. You respond beautifully to being needed. Especially by him. 

“Mm, okay,” you murmur at once, whatever resistance you had dissolving on contact. 

Before Frank can offer any further guidance, you’re already hauling yourself into his lap with spectacularly poor mechanics, all grabby hands and misfiring limbs, nudging him backward against the lounger.

And after a moment of awkward shifting and a fair amount of readjusting, you finally settle into him in a drowsy little heap, half draped across his lap and half tucked into his side. 

Frank extracts the mojito from your hand just before the remainder can go down the front of his shirt, though not before a bright cold splash hits his chest anyway.

He puts the glass aside and looks back at you.

Brushes your hair off your face. Once, twice, again, until there you are properly visible beneath it.

You blink up at him, visibly straining to keep your eyes open, lashes heavy with the effort. “You know what Parker told me earlier?”

“Hmm?”

“That you’re not supposed to compliment the moon here.”

Frank’s fingers drift through your hair again. “And why’s that?”

“Apparently,” you say, lowering your voice, “it’s bad luck. Like if you say it’s pretty, then something in your life gets ruined out of jealousy.”

Your finger wanders over his shirt, drawing something looping into the cotton, your nail a shiny petal-pink that matches the sparkle dusted over your eyes. 

He asks, “Should I be concerned you’ve already told it how pretty it is?” 

A tiny crease appears between your brows. 

“Maybe a little.” Your nail catches on his shift before drifting on again. “But it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? Because Selene is the moon, and Helios is the sun, and they’re siblings, I think, so maybe he gets weird about it… because if everyone keeps talking about how beautiful the moon is, and nobody’s complimenting the sun, that could create resentment. Familial resentment. Which is, like, one of the oldest forces in mythology.”

Frank opens his mouth, halfway to saying that while the ancient Greeks certainly contained enough familial instability to support the theory, he strongly suspects Parker is still just screwing with you, and then he looks down. 

You are asleep. 

He huffs a laugh through his nose, quiet enough not to disturb you, and shifts his hand higher along your back, settling you more securely against him. 

This, too, is part of loving you, he thinks. The rare and fragile privilege of being where you land when the night catches up to you.

Around you, the patio goes on glowing. Voices blur. Glass clinks somewhere in the distance. Water shifts blue-black under the moonlight. 

He leans his head back against the lounger and lets himself look out at it for a second. It is a pretty moon.

If Selene is listening, she can be flattered. He’ll take the risk.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!