rio

You love him. Every calculated word he speaks and every action he does you love. He spends long days at work, but never fails to come and wrap his arms around you as soon as he sees you for the first time in weeks. 

The relationship is still fairly new. Six months in, and you’ve been over to his house and he’s been over to your apartment both more than once. So many times in fact— you’ve given each other keys to one another’s homes and a personal message to come over whenever feels right. 

You’ve went on dates, you’ve held hands, Robby’s met your siblings and talked to your parents and while iffy at first, they swoon over him just about as much as you do. 

You’ve had sex on practically every surface of both of your homes. It’s great, and it’s amazing. Mind numbing with soft showers after. He never forces you to do anything you don’t want to, and the way he speaks with so much authority but control has you blushing countless times. 

Your relationship is perfect— at least you think Robby thinks so. 

Truth is? You’re aching. When he’s at work you fight yourself not to call, having to busy yourself just to not press on his contact. 

When you do drop by the ER to give him his lunch or bring in files he’s forgotten, you have to force yourself to leave. Without any lingering touches or one too many kisses. 

You don’t want to be the “needy little thing.” Or “youngster’s don’t understand that we’re too busy for false love like that.” You do understand. You understand how he can’t be bothered and how if you want to stay in this grownup relationship with him, you’ll need to act like an adult. 

And being an adult means you can’t put yourself in silly little fairytales. You can’t ask him to come stay with you every weekend, you can’t ask if he can grab a coffee with you right before work, you can’t ask for sex— because you have to be mature.

Sometimes, it feels like you’re just there. Standing on a cloudy platform in the sky waiting for the wind to whisk you away. Other times. When you’re in Robby’s arms, and he’s holding you tight, you soak in as much affection as you can get. 

Because you can’t ask for it. 

But it’s happening again. Robby forgot to pick up his stethoscope and it’s your job to bring it to him on your break. He’s been forgetting things a lot. It might be old age, it might be stress, it might be because he misses you. But you don’t let your mind think too hard on the last one. 

When you park your car, you use the back entrance with all the ambulances near it. You learned a long time ago that you have to act confident and not clueless while walking into the ER. 

You side step some of the EMTs at the entrance and the doors open quickly. You see Dana at the desk sitting quietly and she smiles when she sees you enter. Waving you over. 

“Hey Sweetheart, what do you have this time?” 

“Just something Robby left at home, tell him I brought it by?” 

With a pretty smile you put the stethoscope on the counter. Dana is really nice, yet you still get a little scared to be on her bad side sometimes though. 

“Yeah you can tell him yourself, he should be around here somewhere.” 

“No— no. I know he’s busy, just make sure he gets this.” You’re already stepping back and going for the door hesitantly. 

“you don’t wanna see him? Something going on between you two?” 

“No! No, Robby’s great I just— have to get back to work.” 

You’re about to bolt in the nicest way you know how, if you catch a glimpse of Robby you might get down on your knees and beg to stay. It’s been three days since you saw him last, and late night phone calls and sporadic texts weren’t doing it for you anymore. 

But before you can properly take another step back, you hear his voice before you even see him jogging towards you. 

“Hey! There she is, just the person I wanted to see.” 

Something inside you literally cracks. Like a volcano full of lava spilling into your intestines and making them warm just at the sight of Robby.

There are crows feet near his eyes as he smiles at you, and the way he stands so close like he has no idea what kind of turmoil you’re going through has your knees wanting to buckle. 

“You brought it? Gah you’re an angel.” 

“I know.” 

You smile as he takes your hand. You relish at the simplest touch. It aches to think that at a moments notice, he can just as easily take the touch away. 

“Careful with that one Robby, she was gonna leave without saying hello.” 

If Dana wasn’t one of Robby’s closest coworkers, and the woman who constantly checked in with everyone, you would be silently cursing her for even pointing out such a thing. 

“What? No, you weren’t gonna leave without giving me a kiss right?” His voice is low and just slightly raspy.

Robby does this little thing where he stands up taller when he teases. Gives him a confidence boost just to see you squirm under his gaze just as his hands rub up your arms. 

“No.” You lie softly. It’s a punishment that you won’t get to hear his voice for the next hour, or the hour after that, or maybe even a day. 

You miss him so bad. 

You push up on your tiptoes to press a achingly soft kiss to his lips, one that would be far too easy to pull away from. 

But it’s like the universe has a grudge against you. Because Robby’s hands grab at your waist and pulls you closer against him, deepening the kiss ten fold and enough to where you want to melt like putty in his hands. 

And he doesn’t stop at one, his head tilts to the side and he presses another kiss to your lips. Stealing away all your oxygen till you can’t breathe. But that’s okay, because feeling Robby kiss you, feels just as good as air flow going to your lungs. 

“I need help in here!” 

A door abruptly opens, and just as abruptly as he kissed you, he’s pulling away. When his touch leaves, it feels like ice grows cold on your skin. 

“I’m sorry— I have to go, but thank you! Thank you for bringing the stethoscope over.” 

His hands come together and he bows slightly with a cheeky little smile, like he is your knight and you are the queen. 

“You’re welcome.” 

You know there are people dying around you. People in pain of all different kinds that need help. Robby’s help. No matter how much you want Robby. A broken heart isn’t as important as the entire emergency room. 

With one strong smile to Dana, you start to walk back to your car. Feeling soft, moldable, empty, and undeniably needy. But clingy is not one of the things you can be while dating Robby. 

Work helps, driving and paying attention to the road takes your mind off how much your skin feels lonely without touch. 

The day comes and goes and soon, it’s sunset. You unlock the door to your apartment and there’s a pile of dishes that you’re too tired to do. 

A bundle of blankets not folded from the last time you sat down to watch a movie. Now that you think of it— the vacuuming hasn’t been done in a few days either, and yet, you hit the showers. 

The hot water doesn’t help, instead it makes your mind wonder to when the last time you showered with Robby was. He suggested it. Because you couldn’t ever do something so childish as to ask to shower with him. Afraid you’d get a retort back like, “there’s barely any room in there for us. You tryin’ to break my back?”

But when Robby asks— it’s fine. It’s grown up. It’s domestic. There’s no room to tease, it’s a simple yes or no answer. 

You remember the way Robby’s big hands went down your chest. Water running down your body and it was slick with soap. Both hands mirroring each other while he touched at the curve of your breast. 

You remember exactly how you leaned back into him. How his kisses at your neck were itchy, but now that you don’t have them you’d take itchy kisses any day. 

You missed how his fingers would smooth up and down your cunts lips before thinking about circling your clit, or adding a finger. He added a newfound attention to places you didn’t even know you liked to be touched. There was a lot of soft teasing, but in the end it was worth it. It was always worth it with Robby. 

You turn the shower to as cold as you can stand it for the time being. You shouldn’t be thinking about him in that way. He is your boyfriend, you can think about him however you want but— even the term boyfriend sounded stupid. Like that’s all you were. Just dating. No biggy. Like you might get caught up into some of that drama nonsense on tv if you didn’t just talk to each other. 

You finish the shower quickly after that, picking out your clothes and drying your hair. Leggings were a good choice along with a big shirt. Some kind of national park resort text that’s fading away. You fall onto the bed, and grab at your phone. It’s a good distraction in retrospect. Everything you can possibly imagine is on the internet, you have the whole wide web to look up anything. 

Yet every post you see, every news you hear, every destination you wish you could go to. All you want is to do it with Robby. 

You look at the clock. It’s getting late and he will just be getting out of work now, it’s not a smart choice to reach out. To bother him. It’s foolish to think you could just text “hey! Just thinking about you in the shower and I admire how you touch me and I wish you would come over now so that I could return the favor, please.” 

That’s nonsense. You were always warned that love isn’t like that. That it will be rough and nothing like how you expect it. With Robby it’s easy. At least when he touches you first, and he calls you first, and sends you long voice messages. 

You want to text him so bad there’s a rock sized hole in your heart just uncomfortable enough to feel. You go into the message app anyways, pulling up Robby’s contact. But instead of texting him. You skim over the past week of texts. 

He’s not even your ex and you’re acting like he’s moved to a different state. As long as he didn’t know you were longing for him, you wouldn’t be considered needy. 

There are copious amounts of “I love you’s,” and then there’s random comments about your day and his. Late into the night— if you’re lucky enough— Robby will send a voice message and you’ll send one back. 

For the sake of it, you press on one. Just to hear his voice because it wasn’t enough today when you went to see him. You turn the volume up high and as soon as the raspiness comes out over your speakers, you’re smiling. 

“I know you’re sleeping,” there’s a groan and shifting of blankets like he’s just getting out of bed. “And I don’t expect you to hear this until after I’ve already starting my shift.” 

You remember waking up on the weekend, sleeping in but wishing you hadn’t as soon as you saw the notification for this message. 

“But… I dunno. Just dreaming about you, thought I’d swing by later to see your pretty face. Even if it’s late.” 

He keeps talking and the entire time it feels like your bones are relaxing while your heart gets wound up. You wish for the familiar feeling of him beside you, to touch you just how you like without being asked. You almost wish you could ask. 

You chide yourself for it when he groans again you feel your clit pulse. The shower must have really worked you up because you didn’t realize how needy you really were. And what’s worse is you’re alone. Under your blankets with your legs already spread. 

Blood flowing downward to that little sensitive nub. Now that you think of it— it’s been a while since Robby touched you in this way. He does it so thorough too, his touch is precise in every way you want it. His thumb rubbing over the tight skin of your clit. You ache for him to be touching you. You can’t even remember the last time you initiated sex with him. 

Your hand slides down your body, first just over your clothes. Clit so needy you catch the bud quickly between your fingers. You hear Robby’s voice ring out mindless words, but you like it. You never want him to stop talking. 

You rub over your pussy a few times. The touch shocks you softly and you don’t know if it’s relaxing or tensing yet. 

The message ends with a soft “okay, love you.” From Robby. You huff in annoyance and fumble for your phone with one hand playing the message back that wasn’t even remotely sexy, yet you’re still rubbing off to it. 

You take a deep breath, in and out. Feeling that unmistakable desire in your core that just needs attention, just a little bit. It’s not like anyone is gonna murder you for playing with your pussy for a little while. Some might even argue you need this, just to tie you over until the next time you hang out with Robby. 

Two fingers rub over your clit, with the barrier of the stretchy fabric between your aching clit and your skilled hand making a dull pleasure. There’s only a slight doubt that you shouldn’t be doing this when your hand moves down into your leggings. 

The fabric that’s trying to bounce back— practically pushing your fingers onto that clit— is like forcing you to just give in to this one little fantasy. 

You gather wetness between the two fingers and pull it up to your clit. A soft sigh and a relaxed feeling spreads through your body as soon as you start rubbing at a comfortable pace. 

Now that the ache between your legs is being taken care of rapidly, you can focus on Robby’s voice. Deeper than usual and raspy, it’s like it’s morning and he’s rambling. You think about his neck, how lucky you are to bite hickeys onto his skin. 

His voice has the satisfaction of biting into an apple, it itches that one part of your brain that makes your fingers circle clumsily around your clit. 

You wanna kiss his lips. Thinking about how he grabbed you earlier in the day. Hands on your hips and just pushed softly against him, what if he pushed you against a wall? Could you feel his dick in those scrubs of his?

Your breath hitches when he groans again on the voice message. It’s so close to when you actually have sex, that you pick up your phone and rewind the recording. 

You rub harder, listening to that groan over and over and over. You’re determined to cum at how he groans in the recording. It feels gross at how you’re jerking off to just a regular old voice message. Something that used to be sweet, and now you’re perverting it. 

But it doesn’t matter. Because you’re close, close to getting a high you haven’t had in how long by just your fingers. You’re about to stick them into your neglected pussy, when there’s a sudden door opening.

“Woah— hey—”

To your mortification, Robby walks through the door. He turns his face so he can’t see for only a minute before he must have remembered that your his girlfriend. He’s seen it all already. 

You turn your phone off before anything, hitting that big button on the side so that he doesn’t hear his own voice getting you through an orgasm. After that, then you get your hand out of your leggings and close your legs in a hurry. Orgasm completely shattered and fading away. 

But it doesn’t matter how fast you turned the phone off. The messages keeps going for at least another three seconds. There’s no way he didn’t hear it. 

“Robby—” you breathe, frightened. This is your worst nightmare coming true. You got caught playing with yourself. That’s— the most teenager thing that could happen to you. So much for trying to be an adult. “I can explain.” 

“Oh you can?” 

Your heart drops as you see a smile on his face. You almost want to run for the hills and stick a knife in your heart just for the embarrassment to go away. 

Robby drops his bag by the bedroom door. He’s stepping closer to your bed, and he has his hands in his hoodie pockets. The amusement never fading.

“Then go ahead, tell me.” 

“I...”

It doesn’t matter. anything you say feels like it could be used against you for evil. There’s no way to explain this without giving away your biggest insecurity. 

“No no, I get it. Someone was feeling needy, right?” 

The way he says it a little mockingly doesn’t let you know if that makes you feel any better or worse. 

You swallow hard when he comes to sit down right next to you. Wanting to curl up in his lap like a baby and rub your hips around his thigh at the same time.

“Old man hasn’t been taking care of his girl, huh?” 

“No… that… that’s not it.” A lie. 

You sit up a little on the bed. He raises an eyebrow as if for you to continue but you can’t, there’s a blockage in your throat that won’t let any words pour through. 

When he sees your hesitation he nods. Does a once over your room before his eyes turn back to you, trying to find anything that could help understand why you’re so hesitant. 

“May I?” 

He points to your phone. You have an embarrassing suspicion that he already knows what’s on it, but you nod anyway. He gets close to you as he grabs at it. You can smell the hospital scents that linger on his jacket, but the smell of his sweat mixes in with the hospital scents. 

He unlocks your phone with ease. You trust him enough to share passwords but that doesn’t mean whatever he finds on there is any less embarrassing. 

He squints as he reads over the messages. Wrinkles under his eyes that you wouldn’t mind kissing at the moment until he plays the voice message and his own words ring out through the room. 

“You were listening to me while masturbating?” 

“I know! I know it’s gross I just—” 

You see his chest expand as he laughs. There’s a rush of blood that comes up to your cheeks as he shakes his head in amusement. 

“You didn’t want to call?” 

“I… I didn’t know if that was an option…” 

“You didn’t think you could call your boyfriend to tell him you wanted to have sex?” 

The way he says it, makes you sound silly. Like there wasn’t a whole other layer to unfold from that sentence. 

“You wanna tell me what’s going on here?”

You don’t. You really don’t. But at the same time you’ve been holding in all your needs and desires for him for six months, something has got to give. 

“I… I feel like I can’t ask for things with you because…” you lick at your lower lip, avoiding eye contact at all cost. “You’re so just so much older and more mature, and I don’t want to come off as some childish, young, needy girlfriend.” 

You hear Robby let out a scoffed laugh. You know it’s not meant to be mocking, but it kinda feels that way. 

“You’re crazy, you know that?” His voice is high pitched and it almost makes you want to smile. “I mean— you think you gotta change to act like some woman in her forties while I’m over here getting turned on like a teenage boy.” 

Your breath hitches. “You are?” You look up to meet his gaze, and it feels like cold water running down your throat when you’re parched, satisfied and smiling. 

“Yeah. It feels like I’m going stir crazy over here wondering why my girlfriend never asks for anything. I thought I was laying the love on you too much.” 

“No—” you swallow. “It could never be enough.” 

“Good.” Robby’s hand lays down on your thigh and he gives it a little squeeze, you don’t know if it’s meant to be sexual or not, but it sure feels that way with how he looks like he wants to devour you. 

“The same goes for me. You know you can ask for things. Affection, love, sex. We all need it.” 

“I know.” 

“You know big girls ask for things.” 

That lingering heat on your cheeks that started to feel like it might go away, comes back ten fold. Especially when he leans in closer, like he’s whispering in your ear and telling a secret. 

“Little girls keep things to themselves. You’re not a little girl, are you?” 

“No…” you shake your head softly, and reality comes crashing onto you. It feels like a wet dream coming true. 

“So how about you be a big girl, and tell me what you want right now.” 

His hand slides farther up your thigh and his thumb is reaching close to where your underwear lay under your leggings. You think maybe you know what he wants too. 

“I…” 

“Yeah…?” 

Robby moves closer to you, his hands moving to your sides to slowly pull your leggings down. He’s smiling like this is some inside joke between you two. 

“I want…” 

“Come on. Not that hard to speak, baby.” 

The leggings come off almost all the way, and you flick them off your feet. Robby moves down onto the floor and pulls your hips over the edge of the bed. 

“I want you.” 

You finally breathe. It’s like an elephant has sprouted wings and flown off of your chest. You spoke the three words you’ve been meaning to say for months that you just want him. 

“What part of me, baby? Gotta be more specific. I can’t read minds.” 

You’re pretty sure he can with the way he’s eyeing your clothed core. His hands are making soft patterns up and down the flesh of your thighs, sending rushed tingles to the heat of your belly. 

His touch is mesmerizing, distracting even.  You’re waiting for when he shoves his tongue down onto the fabric of your panties. Wanting your back to arch with every touch, but he seems too patient for that now. 

“Okay so,” his thumb hooks on the outside of your panties and you help by lifting your hip. “I’m gonna voice my opinion on what I wanna do right now.” 

The panties slide down your legs, and then he’s slotting himself between your knees, one thigh over his broad shoulder while he makes heart eyes at your pussy. 

“I really want to eat this fuckin’ cunt. Does that sound childish to you?” 

You shake your head. In fact it sounds sexy when he voices his desires like that, for a moment you think what has he been missing out on with no voicemails first thing in the morning.

“Good, Now be a big girl and say it back.” 

“Robby—”

“No, nuh-uh. Say it back. Come on you know how to take orders, right?” 

With a soft breath out, and an aching wet cunt, you don’t want him to be disappointed by not saying anything. So quick to get embarrassment over you mumbling. 

“I want you to eat me out—”

Before the sentence is even finished, he pulls your panties off and his tongue is drooping into your hole. The sudden intrusion makes your breath hitch, and there’s a warmth quickly flowing over your whole body. 

He sucks at one lip and then the other. It aches a little bit, but not before he starts licking at your clit. His hand comes up your body right above your pussy and he pulls the skin back, getting under the hood of your clit to lick at those sensitive nerves. 

It almost hurts, like fire racing up your legs every time his rough tongue licks at that spot. Your hand automatically comes down and into his hair. There’s not enough to grab onto tightly, so it more of a comfort than a guide. 

“s’what you wanted?” He mumbled while he dives back down into you. Gathering slick that had accumulated while listening to his voice earlier and bringing it up, and sucks softly at your sensitive bud, then goes back to pay attention to your hole. 

“Don’t stop— please.”

You’re breathless. Special attention like this just from him is exactly what you’ve wanted since you met him. It’s not like he hasn’t come to the choice of eating your cunt by himself. But it’s different in a way. Asking for it. Feeling in control. 

Robby’s nose curves down just a little. You don’t know how he breathes, but when your hips twitch, your clit catches on him and it’s a nice place to gain a little extra pleasure. 

Your head falls back and Robby’s other hand is urging the other thigh up on his shoulder. You’re practically suffocating him, but when you look down and his eyes are pinned on your pretty face, it seems he doesn’t care if he’s suffocating or not. 

Robby’s arm extends out and up under your shirt. Touching at your chest, he finds your tit quickly, his thumb gently brushes over your nipple. Pleasure courses through you and it’s like imagining a line connecting your nipple to your cunt with how the pleasure blooms down and throughout your body. 

The way Robby’s so near, or how he’s holding you. Every move he makes, it’s like it’s intended just for you. You feel the heat of your previous orgasm approaching. Low in your pelvis, small whimpers slipping from out your lips. 

“Robby—” you whine. 

He grunts, and it’s like even your ears find it pleasing with the way your pussy clenched softly at his hum. 

“Robby, I’m close...” 

His lips wrap around your clit while the hand that’s not touching your breast comes down under him. Two fingers gather at your hole, but instead of putting them in, he teases at the entrance, gliding up and down your puffy lips. His beard itching just the inside of your thigh making delicious friction. 

“You wanna cum?”

It’s not necessarily dirty talk. He’s just asking a question. But a dirty question none the less. That gets you even more excitedly embarrassed. 

“Yes— please...” 

“You gotta ask for it.”

His two fingers just gently prodding the inside of your hole is turning your brain into mush to which you can hardly speak. Trying to focus more on prolonging your orgasm that’s right there and ready to burst. 

“I… please make me cum. I want to. So bad, need you to make me cum—”

Your hips writhe under his touch, just a little more— just a little more with his warm tongue brushing over your taut bud and his nails exploring just the lips of your pussy, slick like velvet. 

With one harsh suck from his lips, your pussy convulses over the tips of his fingers. It empties your brain like a dam with a flood, head feeling cloudy, pleasure taking over you and blinding your vision as the orgasm you’ve been aching for all day washes over you. 

Robby soothes you as he plays and massages your cunt until you can’t possibly take it anymore. Overstimulated and tense as you try to relax your muscles.

“Feel like a big girl yet? Getting your cunt sucked?” 

The front of Robby’s shirt is drenched as he pulls back, which is slightly humiliating. But he’s taking off his jacket and his scrubs and throwing them on the ground, looking ready for a round two. 

“Yeah.” 

“Good.” He nods. 

You watch in awe as Robby takes off the shirt underneath his scrubs. Hairy chest out on display and his tummy sticking out just slightly over the waist of his pants. You want to nestle into his chest if you didn’t feel another ache in your core when you look down and see the tent in his pants. 

Cock hard and straining against the black of his scrubs, you know he’s needy, but so are you. 

“Robby…?” 

You ask softly. You see he’s about to slide off the scrub pants with his fingers hooked at the band, but he hesitates to look up at you. 

“Yup?”

“Can you… do that again?” 

The right side of his mouth tugs up in an amused smirk. 

“Little girl has found her voice and is using it for evil huh?” 

“Just once more, quick.” 

You climb up further on the bed, back hitting the headboard. Fingers coming down to play with the mess between your legs. 

You know as soon as Robby gets inside you he won’t last one— maybe two rounds. And you want more than that. So asking, talking, communicating that you wanted more before hand isn’t selfish, right?

“I’mmm… not complaining.” 

Robby climbs up onto the bed back between your legs. You watch as he shoves a hand down between his body and the bed before he dives with his tongue into you again.

The next day you really don’t know if it’s an accident or not when Robby leaves his jacket at your place. Right before work you make sure to drive by the hospital thirty minutes early, just feeling a little energetic today. 

You got your fill of Robby last night (literally). He hugged you till you were sweating and it didn’t feel like a crime anymore for you to start kissing fights first. 

In fact, you could get used to this feeling of not being shamed for wanting to be too loving with someone. Giving a smile, you walk past the EMTs at the front door. 

Dana is at the front desk again, hair perfectly up and you almost wonder why Robby doesn’t flirt with her more. 

“What did he forget this time, sweetheart?” 

“Just a jacket.” 

You place the neatly folded fabric on the counter before realizing how misleading that could seem. His jacket at your house meaning he took it off durning some time spent together. And while it doesn’t need to be sexual, that smile Dana has seems to mean she’s guessing the worst option. 

And she would be right. 

“Ah… I see. No wonder Robby’s in a good mood today.” 

“He’s not that moody all the time. Cut him some slack. His testosterone levels are coming down with age.” 

“Ha. That means you two done fighting?” 

“We weren’t—” 

Just when you were about to explain how you two weren’t fighting— it wasn’t even his fault. Just your insecurities whisked away in the wind now. You feel big hands squeeze on your hips. 

Turning quickly, you smile when you see Robby’s face. Those wrinkles on his forehead prominent with confusion.

“What about low testosterone?” 

“Nothing— hi.” 

You smile all pretty and innocent. Placing a hand on his chest, and you can see he likes it by how he relaxes under your touch. It’s almost the first time you’ve willingly touched him first. 

“You’re not racing to leave today.” 

“No I…” you shrug, looking around the ER before returning to his pretty eyes. “I thought I’d stick around for a while. I have thirty minutes before I have to get to work. I’ll Just wait until you have a break.” 

“Sorry in advance. That’s very rare—”

Robby side steps you to get his jacket, but his hand doesn’t leave your hip. For the first time you realize his hairy arms are on display. The soft muscles bulging just enough for you to remember how it felt to scrape lines down them last night. 

You look around. Everyone is entirely too busy doing their own job, which is a little overwhelming. But when you look back at Robby, everything around you calms. 

“No one’s calling you for your immediate attention right now…” 

Robby hears that slight lewd suggestion in your voice. His eyes narrow and he takes his jacket, forgoing putting it on with your suggestion. He knows what you’re hinting at with those bedroom eyes you’re giving him.

“Here? Now?” 

The way he says it has you doubting yourself, maybe this whole new asking thing has you coming off too strong. Showing your neediness too fast.

“No— well I mean— only if you want to.” 

“Uh huh…” 

Robby has the prettiest smile. Big and bright, his cheeks go up so high making crinkles around his eyes. It has butterflies building in your stomach as he takes your hand with his and leads you away.

“I think I can find an empty room.”

Envy claws its way through your chest cavity. It’s searing and suffocating – a slow, arduous death march. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth and a twitch in your eye.

You’re lucky it doesn’t leave a sneer across your lips, too.

Mostly because you’re presently seated at the central desk inside the emergency department, mid-shift, while you watch Noelle Hastings chat with Dr. Robby.

Nurse Noelle. The embodiment of everything you aspire to be. Not professionally-speaking – you’re a senior resident and the rising hot-shot of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, on pace to become another doctor naive enough to believe she can save the world. But your career feels like it’s all you have. 

Noelle is pretty and poised, soft yet sharp. People notice her presence and miss her absence. She carries confidence the same way she commands respect. People like her; she’s never too much yet always more than enough. 

But the main reason you envy Noelle is the most frivolous and embarrassing of all – simply put, she has what you want. At least, according to the latest round of rumors to sweep through the cyclic halls of the hospital. Whisper, rinse, repeat.

“Do you think she’ll make it past the seven-week threshold?” Perlah murmurs quietly as she watches Robby and Noelle. Princess snorts from her seat next to you. 

“Not a chance,” she muses. “No one’s made it that long. Not since Jake’s mom, and we all know how bad that turned out.”

Perlah clucks her tongue. 

“Besides,” Princess continues. “Are we even sure they’re actually together?”

“Define ‘together,’” Perlah quips back, inciting a quiet chuckle between them. Your eyes stay glued to your computer screen, the text of your current patient chart blurring into fuzzy black lines. If you look away, if you look at the pair standing outside C9, you’ll tear up. 

But you can still hear them. Noelle murmurs something, probably flirtatious and demure, and Robby laughs. It’s that genuine belly laugh rarely heard from him. You look for it in every encounter. It’s your favorite sound.

You exhale slowly through your nose in an attempt to collect yourself. You shouldn’t care. You have no business being bothered by two people who pay no attention to you. Robby and Noelle should be none of your concern. 

When Noelle first began lingering around the emergency department, you clocked her intentions immediately. You saw the way she snuck glances at Dr. Robby, the way she’d conjure reasons to stay, the way she’d smile to herself after every interaction with him. 

You noticed because you do the same.

The difference was Robby noticed Noelle in return. He went out of his way to speak to her, brought her coffee, let her believe she had a fighting shot at keeping him around for more than a fleeting few weeks.

It wasn’t your business to speculate if she did. At least she was given a chance. You were lucky if Robby gave you five minutes to discuss patient cases.

Noelle is a wanted and welcome intrusion inside the ER. You’re merely another body passing through – tolerated, assimilated. People like and respect you just enough to keep you around; they couldn’t care less about your coffee order.

You rise and pace toward C12, refusing to glance at Robby and Noelle as you pass. The soles of your sneakers are quiet, like you – unassuming, unremarkable and unfailing. Always moving forward, one step at a time, instead of taking any risk of getting dirty.

—

You don’t like to make a habit of drinking after work. You especially don’t like to make a habit of drinking with your coworkers. Sure, you join Mohan, Whitaker and Santos for the occasional happy hour. You’ll stop by the park every now and then for post-shift beers with the day crew. But you always approach those instances with laid-back frivolity. They’re fun and innocent; light when your days are heavy.

This day is heavy, but you choose to meet it with more weight. It manifests in the form of a wine glass – dark, red, acidic – much like your mood.

Your friendship with Frank Langdon is just as bizarre as one might think. Sure, you’re close in age and he helped you transition into your role as senior resident. You didn’t judge him or speak to him with pity when he returned from rehab. But single women and married men rarely strike up new solo friendships, though you know Frank is barely married at this point. His nuptials are hanging by a thread these days, which is why he ends up next to you on a weathered old bar stool at Gene’s after your shift.

Once he finishes telling you about a particularly fucked up meningitis case he saw that day, he downs the remainder of his soda water and swivels to face you. He bangs the empty glass down on the bar top for dramatic effect, causing you to jump in surprise.

“So, you going to tell me why you’ve looked like you want to fling yourself into oncoming traffic all day?” he asks.

“No.” 

“Real charmer, you are.”

“I’m the spitting image of charisma.”

“It blows my mind that you manage to have the highest patient satisfaction scores in the department,” he muses. “Why can’t your barstool manner be the same as your bedside manner?”

“Because you aren’t sick or dying. At least not anymore.”

Langdon offers a dry laugh. You smirk into your wine glass. 

“Really though, what’s going on with you? You’ve been tense,” he presses gently. 

“Been tense? Langdon, I was born this way.”

“I don’t think that’s what Lady Gaga meant.”

“What’s your point?” you sigh.

“My point is, despite being the darling of the ED, you’re human,” Langdon explains. “And you’re allowed to be distracted and bothered like the rest of us. You don’t have to be perfect all the time.”

“Thank you for the permission,” you say dryly. 

Langdon stares at you in that unsettling manner you’ve come to hate from him. You know he means well. He cares about you. The two of you have developed one of those big brother-little sister workplace relationships that can only stem from years of seeing fucked up shit and trauma together.

It’s purely platonic. Langdon’s not your type and you aren’t much for homewrecking anyway. It’s more of a mutual fondness built on biting remarks and inside jokes; appreciation wrapped in the form of insult. You indulge his dry humor and love for banter, and in return, he’s learned to read you and notice when you seem off. Then he watches you with quiet contemplation, his cobalt eyes waiting patiently for you to fold.

This time, you fold quicker than usual.

“It’s stupid,” you mutter into your glass. “Like, it’s actually so embarrassing, I’ll have to kill myself if I tell you.”

“It can’t be more embarrassing than the time you fell over the gurney and grabbed Dr. Abbot’s crotch.”

“Oh, it’s way worse.”

“Does it have anything to do with Robby?”

You suck your top row of teeth. Bastard.

“What about Robby?” you try.

“So that would be a yes,” Langdon notes. He picked up on your use of performantive ignorance as a masking mechanism ages ago. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you insist. “I’ve got it handled.”

“Clearly you don’t.”

“Clearly inviting you here was a horrible idea.”

“It’s because of Noelle Hastings, isn’t it?”

“Dr. Langdon,” you warn with an edge to your voice.

“You know it’s not anything serious, right?” he continues. “They’re probably just sleeping together.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” You realize you’ve just admitted your feelings for Robby, but Langdon doesn’t even flinch. He’s known all along. 

“It should,” Langdon offers. “It’s just what Robby does. Everyone knows he doesn’t stick around long enough to get serious with anyone. So there’s nothing to worry about. He’ll move on from Noelle soon enough.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” you note. “It’s not like I’m rooting for Robby to be alone forever. I shouldn’t even be rooting for him and Noelle to fail. He deserves to be happy. Maybe she makes him happy.”

“Maybe,” Langdon shrugs. “Or maybe he’s waiting on a certain person to complete their residency.”

You shoot him a pointed stare. “That never stopped him before,” you note. “He dated Dr. Collins.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out,” Langdon notes.

“Robby doesn’t see me like that,” you say decisively. “Hell, I’m lucky if I can get him to check in on me.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that he doesn’t need to check in on you? You don’t need a babysitter.”

“I know, but I barely get attention from him, period.”

“Oh, come on,” Langdon groans. “Everyone knows you’re the golden child.”

“Yeah, only because you fumbled that crown.”

“So you agree,” Langdon muses, choosing to ignore your snide remark. “You do acknowledge you’re Robby’s favorite.”

“I’m his favorite because I’m competent,” you say. “Not because he wants in my pants. And I’d prefer to keep it that way. When all this is said and done, the only opinion of Robby’s that matters to me is his professional opinion. I need him to write recommendations based on my skills, not my tits.”

Langdon shakes his head as if he’s giving up. You can’t help but offer him an apologetic grimace. You understand he’s just trying to help. It’s in his nature. But you also view any romantic future with Robby as a lost cause. There’s no use discussing it, and there’s no use making the day any worse by continuing to do so.

“Just do me a favor,” Langdon says. “Try not to let yourself get too jealous, alright? It’s not a good look on you.”

“Wow, rude,” you say as you huff a laugh. “And I am not jealous, I’m just…” Langdon lifts an eyebrow at you. “Okay fine, maybe I am jealous, but can you blame me?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Noelle’s just so… pretty,” you say. You realize you sound childish and hate yourself for it, but at least you’re being honest, you think. “I mean, she’s fucking stunning. And she’s good at her job. And she’s a much better match for Robby. Closer in age to him, established in her career. She has her shit together. Of course he’s into her.”

“The only reason she’s a better match for Robby is because she’s not his direct report. That’s it,” Langdon says matter-of-factly as he leans in to peer at you with serious eyes. “I like Noelle, she’s great, but you’re selling yourself short if you think she’s got anything over you.”

“She has Robby.”

“For now.” 

“Better than never, which is all I’ll ever have.”

You don’t want to sound so melancholy. Melodrama really isn’t your style. But the sight of Robby and Noelle lingers in your mind in spite of your pride.

“You can do better than him anyway. I say that as a friend to you both.”

Langdon looks at you with sincere sadness. It spikes your guilt and makes you feel silly for whining over an asinine crush on your senior attending. You’re spewing jealousy over another woman while Langdon’s marriage circles the drain, yet he’s reserved this space for you and your woes. 

You pick at the skin of your cuticles. 

Langdon’s posture shifts while you down the rest of your wine glass. You frown at him and he grimaces. “Speak of the devil… devils.”

You swivel to look over your shoulder and wish you hadn’t. In walks Robby and Noelle. You wonder if you can make a run for it. Or you could dive behind the bar and hide. Maybe a sinkhole will open beneath your barstool and you can descend to the depths of Hell where you’d feel much better. 

“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. Langdon heaves a sigh. 

It doesn’t take long for Robby and Noelle to spot you. But while your eyes are determinedly on Langdon, you fail to notice the twitch in Robby’s jaw. 

He’s the first to approach, Noelle following close behind. 

“Dr. Langdon,” he greets, following with a flicker of his eyes toward you. His voice is clipped. He doesn’t say your name; merely nods at you with a smile that feels forced. It makes you feel small. So much for being the golden child.

“Dr. Robby, Noelle,” Langdon says. You offer them a thin smile. You know it probably looks bad, as if you swallowed battery acid. You couldn’t correct it if you tried. 

Of course, Noelle looks flawless. Not a lash out of place. You wonder about her skin care routine. You wish you had a skin care routine. 

“You two alright?” Robby asks. “I didn’t know the day shift was getting together after work.”

“Oh, just us,” Langdon says casually. “Just some post-shift commiseration."

“That bad of a day?” Noelle chimes in. She’s smiling kindly, her eyes resting on you with sympathy. It spikes a nerve. You don’t want this woman feeling sorry for you. 

You want to smash her face into the bar top.

“Nah, just another day in paradise,” you say, forcing a toothy smile that doesn’t suit you one bit. 

Robby’s eyes meet yours and your breath hitches. You can’t read him, but you’re certain you can detect something there; aggravation, perhaps? 

You begin recalling the day’s patients in your mind, wondering if you spent too much time with one or missed something important. Those are the typical culprits when Robby’s irked at you. It’s rare, but something is clearly askew. 

Or maybe he was simply hoping he and Noelle would be alone, free from the curious eyes of any colleagues. 

You hold your breath for as long as you hold Robby’s gaze. It feels like minutes. Finally, he looks away.  

“Ah, well, don’t let us rain on your little paradise,” he says with a brief nod. 

He strides toward a high-top table across the room while Noelle flashes you and Langdon a quick smile before trailing after him. 

A mere beat passes before you’re signaling the bartender for another glass of wine. Langdon sighs. 

“He’s jealous, you know,” he says quietly. “I can tell.” You snort. 

“Langdon, no disrespect, because you are an objectively handsome and good guy, but Robby is not jealous of you right now,” you declare. 

“Thank you, I think,” Langdon says slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion. “But you know what I mean. It doesn’t matter if I’m sitting on this barstool next to you, or if it’s Mateo or Jessie or Dr. Abbot. It’s the mere notion that any man is sitting here while Robby has to sit over there and watch you from a distance.”

“Actually, maybe I should make a pass at Abbot,” you muse thoughtfully. 

“Do you want to force Robby into another mental breakdown?”

“I mean, kinda. Abbot’s a good-looking guy.”

Langdon shakes his head. “Making him even more jealous isn’t going to help. It’s just going to get Abbot killed.”

“Abbot loves me. He’d die for me.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Exactly. Which is why we should talk about literally anything else.”

“Fair enough,” Langdon sighs. “You watch last week’s Severance yet?”

“No, and if you spoil it, I’ll castrate you immediately.”

“Noted.”

You both laugh and slip into chatter about Langdon’s dog. You should probably go home, you think, but the elephant in the room is still there in the form of a 6’1” senior attending with the most mesmerizing brown eyes you’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. 

What you don’t realize is those brown eyes are presently locked on you; not just staring — they’re feeling. Feeling you out, desperately trying to read your thoughts and emotions, sizing you up as if he can diagnose the reasons for your rendezvous with Langdon. 

Robby watches as you chat with Langdon with soft eyes; the kind he’s seen you offer to your patients. He sees the way your eyes widen while Langdon tells the story of how Tanner fell off the back deck. He notices the kind smile you flash the bartender when you order another glass of wine. And he reads your posture – the way your spine stiffens when Langdon says something that annoys you, and the way your shoulders slacken when you laugh at his jokes.

Robby wants all those emotions to himself. He knows it’s greedy, unreasonable, worthy of a slap across the face. He’s never tried to tell you how he feels. He knows better. You’re still young and hopeful. You still look at life as something worthwhile, full of prospect and potential. You’re too good to know better, he thinks.

And there’s also the other woman sitting across from him. He likes Noelle. She’s smart, savvy, beautiful. And she does know better – knows not to ask Robby what exactly it is that they’re doing; knows there’s no fixing a man like him. She knows she deserves better, but chooses to prolong her time on the Michael Robinavitch ride. You’d pity her if you didn’t envy her.

But Robby looks at Noelle like the other women who have darted in and out of his life. He doesn’t want to. He wants to look at her – or anyone else – with a chest full of flammables. But you’re the only spark Robby feels. It’s why he dances around you with caution, close enough to spike his pulse but distant enough to avoid your live wires.

He’s held steadfast for four years without incident. You’ve never caught him staring, never questioned how he can tell it’s you who has entered a room by the sound of your footsteps. You didn’t ask how he remembered your birthday, when he ordered pizza from your favorite spot with the exact toppings you prefer. Perhaps you should have. 

But Robby’s resolve is crumbling. He knows you’re young and sociable. Desired. He’s not delusional enough to think men don’t get to touch you. But the sight of his own protege, his right-hand man, seated next to you while you’re laughing and chatting like he’s the most interesting man in the room, has Robby’s blood igniting from a simmer to a rapid, rolling boil.

He sees the lock of hair that’s fallen from your up-do, framing your face like it’s meant to be there. He seethes at Langdon for not seizing the opportunity to tuck it behind your ear. Nevermind the fact he’d kill Langdon for touching you.

Langdon isn’t good enough for you, Robby thinks. Not because of their past. Not because Robby had to dig deep and forgive Langdon for stealing patient drugs under his watch. Not because Robby secretly blames himself for failing to notice. Robby’s managed to move past all that.

But he doesn’t forget. And now he thinks he’s going to be plagued by the memory of you and Langdon cozied up at that bar. 

The distance between you and Robby is mere feet. Robby envisions himself reaching across the room to strangle Langdon. It’s unfair, he knows, but it’s impossible to remain reasonable when you and Langdon are enjoying each other’s company so casually, yet so cruel for all the sorry losers who merely get to watch from the sidelines.

Robby slams the remainder of his beer and pretends to give a shit about Noelle’s upcoming trip to New York. 

You’re none the wiser to the brooding man behind you. You think he’s immune to you, oblivious to your quiet desperation to be noticed by him. You assume he’s enthralled by the woman across from him; that he’ll take her home tonight and tell her all the things she deserves to hear. 

You think Robby sees you the same way he sees patients — fleeting, momentary characters who serve a brief role in the timeline of his life. You know he appreciates you, respects you even, but you don’t dare believe he actually enjoys your presence. 

And right now, he’s not enjoying your presence. Not because he dislikes you. Not because he doesn’t want to see or talk to you. It’s because he doesn’t get to be the sole reason for your presence in that bar. Or so he thinks. He doesn’t know you see his face at the bottom of every wine glass. 

A sudden eruption of laughter steals Robby’s attention. You and Langdon are both doubled over in shared joy. Robby feels like he’s intruding on an intimate moment. It makes his eye twitch. 

He excuses himself to the bathroom. 

When you do the same, you spot Robby’s empty chair and immediately regret the decision. Noelle catches your eye and smiles. You nod politely; nevermind the visions of tossing your wine glass on her designer dress clouding your thoughts. 

You sigh and head toward the hallway that leads to the restrooms at the back of the bar, silently praying you don’t cross paths with Robby. 

You think you’re safe. But you’re three steps from the women’s door when the men’s swings open and you’re left face-to-face with those cursed brown eyes. Your breath hitches and you wonder what kinds of atrocities you committed in a past life to deserve this. 

“Enjoying your evening?” Robby asks. You notice his terse tone and consider darting into the women’s room to hide. 

“Sure am,” you hear yourself reply. “You?”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” you start in surprise, unsure how to respond to such a blunt answer. 

“Langdon?” Robby continues. “I mean, really?”

“Wha-”

“He’s still married, you know.”

You blink at Robby, unsure how to interpret his words. “I know,” you answer slowly. “He and I are friends.”

“Friends,” Robby repeats blankly. “Does his wife know he spends his evenings alone at dive bars with other women?”

“It’s not like that,” you say, your pulse spiking. “And why the hell do you care?”

“Because I have to sit here and watch one of my attendings flirt with one of my senior residents.”

You force a hollow laugh. “You’re joking,” you hiss. “Langdon and I don’t flirt. Like I said, we’re friends. Some of us can maintain platonic relationships at work. I know it’s hard for you to fathom.”

You’ve struck a nerve. You can see it in the way Robby’s face flushes crimson and his jaw ticks. Your eyes dart down the hallway toward the bar, searching for passerby. You wonder how long you have until Langdon and Noelle notice both their companions have disappeared. You also wonder how long you have until Robby fires you for talking back.

“That’s none of your business,” Robby snaps. 

“Oh, but it’s your business when it involves me?”

“Yes,” Robby rasps. The blunt, short reply catches you off guard and draws a frown. “That’s the entire point,” Robby continues. 

“That’s awfully hypocritical,” you bite back. “Why the fuck do you care about my business, Dr. Robinavitch?”

“Because I care about everything you do.”

You try to compute. You’re desperate to understand. Your mouth fills with cotton and a ringing surges in your ears. 

Robby drags a hand over his face. You can’t tell if he wants to strangle you or kiss you. The answer becomes clear when he looks you in the eye again. 

Pupils blown out. Tired, yet restless. Something to prove and nothing to lose.

“Robby, I-”

He doesn’t give you a chance to fill the space between you with words. Words won’t help you here. He closes the gap and pins you against the wall, your eyes widening before they close with the kiss.

It’s chaos — messy, rushed, unrefined. But it’s anything but amateur. It feels layered and complex; art in its rawest, most vulnerable form. A Jackson Pollock personified.

Robby’s hand is knotted in your hair and his hips are flush with yours. He’s the object of your most clandestine thoughts brought to life. You’re certain your soul has left your body. 

But then he rasps your name and gravity returns you to reality. He rests both hands against the wall on either side of your head as he gazes at you, caging you in. It’s exactly where you wish to be. The air crackles with anxious heat.

He stares at you with enough intensity to make your palms sweat, and you’re certain he can hear your thoughts. 

“Are you ready to get out of here?” he asks. He studies you with boundless bedroom eyes, impossible to tear your own eyes from. This has to be the part where you’ll wake up, you think.

You swallow thickly while Robby waits patiently. 

“I- we… what about the others?” you finally manage, terrified you’ll kill the mood.

“For once in your life, stop thinking about everyone else,” Robby advises. “Think about what you want.”

A fly on the wall would surely laugh at the cliche dramatics of it all, but Robby’s right. Langdon would forgive you for an Irish exit, and to hell with Noelle. 

But still, you can’t simply leave without acknowledging them as you walk past them. And for as envious as you are of Noelle, your moral compass — which you consider to be excruciatingly inconvenient — won’t allow you to do so. 

“Robby, we can’t just leave them. We have to say something.”

Robby blinks, as if he’s just regained consciousness or snapped from an out-of-body experience. The charge in the air around you deflates. 

“Right,” he sighs as he drops one of the hands flanking your head. “Sorry. This was a stupid idea.”

He pulls away and you immediately miss the contact. 

“Sorry,” he says again, averting his eyes as if he’s ashamed. 

“Wait, I didn’t mean-” The ringing in your ears surges with panic. But Robby is already walking away, back to Noelle. Back to the person you wanted to steal from. You’re giving him back to her when he’s been the only thing you’ve wanted. 

You want to drop to your knees, scream, kick, punch the air until someone hauls you away for a psych hold. Instead, you remain against the wall in stunned silence until Langdon comes looking for you. 

You don’t tell him what happened. 

—

The door to your apartment creaks shut, leaving you to fend for yourself in the dark. Your hand fumbles along the wall for the light switch, but you can’t help but regret it when you locate it. The light snaps on with a sharp burst, reminding you how quiet and empty your apartment is. 

You sigh and shoot Langdon a text to confirm you made it home. He responds with a thumbs up, leaving you without any more human interaction for the evening. It’s probably for the best, you decide. Your previous interactions this evening turned disastrous.

The simple task of moving to your couch feels impossible. You linger in place, the kiss with Robby looping on repeat in your head like low-budget cinema. You squeeze your eyes shut in disbelief. 

You blew your chance with the one person you wanted and thought you couldn’t have. Even worse, you regretted your decision the moment it was made for you, yet you still sat in silence as you watched Robby and Noelle walk out of that bar together. 

You only have yourself to blame.

The clock on your kitchen wall ticks. Footsteps creak overhead. Sirens wail in the distance. The world is moving on, but you fear you’re going to be rooted to this momentous fumble for years to come.

You take a shower and tell yourself all the little cliches meant to make yourself feel better; that you’re washing the day away, that you can cleanse yourself of the stupid decisions, that the steam will cloud your intrusive thoughts.

It’s futile.

Robby’s words echo in your skull, which you’re certain is empty given how stupid you’ve been.

For once in your life, stop thinking about everyone else. Think about what you want.

It’s not the first time someone has given you such advice. You’ve spent most of your life toeing the careful tightrope of what you want and what’s expected of you – the overachieving honor student, the pacifist, the fixer. 

Just once, you want to be the breaker. You want to be the person who wedges the divide between Robby and Noelle. You want to be the waves that crash and destroy rather than be the calm undertow that carries people to safety.

You want to do what you want, rather than what’s expected of you. And you want to stop letting others take what you want.

You towel off and heave a sigh as you pick up your phone to text Dr. Abbot.

You: Hey, what’s Dr. Robby’s address?

Abbot: Do I want to know why you’re asking?

You: Honestly? Probably not.

Abbot: You aren’t doing anything illegal, are you? I can’t be liable for any crimes.

You: Illegal? No. Immoral? Perhaps.

Abbot: You aren’t making a very good case for yourself.

You: I’d promise to explain later, but I’m not sure you want an explanation.

Abbot: You’re lucky I trust you. I don’t, however, trust Robby in these kinds of situations. So please be smart, kid.

You send him the saluting emoji and he sends the address. You search it on Google Maps and sigh in disbelief over what you’re about to do. But you know if you stay silent, if you do nothing, if you let Noelle have him, regret will cling to you for life.

You get dressed and grab your car keys.

Robby’s house isn’t what you expect, not that you knew what to expect. It’s a nice, single-family craftsman at the end of a tree-lined street. It feels domesticated. Stable. Safe. 

Not necessarily how you envision Robby.

You park in the street and sit in your car, contemplating your life choices. But you don’t want to give yourself too much time to change your mind, so you inhale deeply before making the trek to Robby’s front door. The clock on your car glows with the midnight hour.

Robby answers the door quicker than you’d anticipated. You also didn’t expect him to be shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants. He’s clearly surprised to see you.

Your eyes drift past him, searching the room behind him for any sign of Noelle.

“Um, hey,” you manage. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Uh, no,” Robby replies. “I was just watching TV.”

“Can we talk?”

Robby studies you for a beat. His gaze makes you feel unsteady and vulnerable. He reads you with ease. “Yeah, come in,” he finally says as he steps aside.

His kitchen is cool and dark, only a dim light on above the sink. You walk carefully and quietly until you’re leaning with your back to the island counter. Robby stands three feet opposite you with curious eyes.

“Where’s Noelle?” you ask.

“She, uh, didn’t feel like coming over,” Robby answers with a sigh. “Said I was acting too distracted and got annoyed with me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

You can hear the quiet murmur of a TV somewhere down the hallway to your right. It fills the silence until you gather the courage to speak.

“About earlier-” you start.

“Don’t worry about it,” Robby interjects gently. “Really. It’s alright.”

“But-”

“Seriously,” he says with the signature serious gaze that makes you feel like you’re about to present a patient case to him. “I’ve been rejected before, it’s not a big deal.”

“I wasn’t rejecting you. Robby, I wanted to go home with you. I just… I mean, you were with Noelle.”

“And you were with Langdon.”

“I’m not with Langdon,” you insist, the heat in your tone rising. “Langdon is married. He has no interest in me. I have no interest in him. We’re friends.”

“So are Noelle and I.”

“Oh?” you muse. “You sleep with all your friends?”

“You ever sleep with Langdon?”

“No,” you answer firmly. “And even if I had, it’d be none of your business.”

“Okay, so you’re not with Langdon.”

“And you’re using Noelle.”

“I’m not using her,” Robby insists. “She knows there’s nothing serious between us. We talked about it before I took my sabbatical earlier this year.”

Oh. You hadn’t realized they’d been seeing each other that long.

“She likes you,” you continue.

“She likes to think she can fix me.”

“Do you need fixing?”

“Don’t we all?”

“Right,” you sigh in an attempt to deescalate the tension.

“Look,” Robby continues. “Yes, I’ve been sleeping with Noelle for a while. But it doesn’t mean anything.”

“So where does that leave me?”

“You’re too good for me,” Robby answers bluntly, drawing a snort from you. 

“Too good? Or too young?”

“Do you think you’re too young?”

“No.”

“Then like I said, too good.”

“Bullshit. That’s a cop out.”

Robby drags a hand through his hair. “Look,” he says again, his voice sounding tired. “If it were up to me, you would have left that bar with me, and right now, I’d be showing you the time of your life. Hell, I would’ve done it in that bathroom if you’d asked for it. But the fact that you were still taking Langdon and Noelle into consideration just reaffirms my belief that you’re too good for me.”

“No I’m not,” you insist. “I hate Noelle.” Robby can’t conceal an amused smirk. “I’ve hated her since I heard the rumors you two were… involved.”

“So you only hate her because you’re jealous of her.”

“...Yes.”

“You have nothing to be jealous of,” Robby notes. “Noelle’s brilliant but you’re… well, you. If I had you, I wouldn’t even glance her way again.”

“Oh, please. Robby, everyone knows you don’t stick around for anyone beyond a few weeks.”

“Not true. I’ve been sleeping with Noelle for months.”

“Congratulations.”

“I mean it. I look at you differently. It’s fucking terrifying, but it’s true. Why else do you think I’ve kept my distance all these years? Every time I look at you, I want you,” Robby reveals.

You swallow thickly at his revelation. It’s far more than you bargained for. You expected to come to Robby’s house tonight, fuck him and leave. You figured it would happen this one time before the two of you would spend your days dodging each other in the ER, every interaction clipped, brief, cautious. You thought you’d have your one night in paradise with Robby before life would force you to move on from your silly crush.

It never occurred to you that your mere presence has been a point of madness for your senior attending since the day you met. You don’t know how many times he’s had to bite his tongue as patients flirt with you, watch colleagues ask you out, and listen to passerby make remarks about your appearance. No one told you how furious Robby was that time a patient elbowed you in the face and drew blood. You were ignorant to the way his eyes always sought you out first in every room. You’re clueless to the number of times Robby’s thought about you on nights like this, filled with illicit visions of how it’d feel to touch you. It’s been agony and ecstasy all at once.

You scramble to gather your own thoughts so you can craft a response. But the only thoughts wafting through your brain involve you launching yourself at Robby and climbing him like a tree. The hum of the refrigerator fills the silence with a whir.

“So what is this that we’re doing, then?” you ask, arms folded across your chest in an effort to appear nonchalant. 

“The ball’s in your court,” Robby replies. “Whatever you want it to be.”

“I don’t want this to be a one night stand,” you admit. “I mean, I came here with that in mind. I was fully prepared for it. But it’s not what I actually want.”

“It’s not what I want either,” Robby says. 

“You can understand why I find that hard to believe, right?” 

“Yes, I can,” Robby admits. “And I can’t predict where this’ll go, but I can promise you I want to try, and I promise I’ll try my hardest.”

It’s enough for you. You weren’t asking for a marriage proposal, or even a vow of exclusivity. You just want to know you’re worth an effort. Maybe that means you have shitty self-esteem or low standards. But that’s an issue for your therapist to unpack.

“Fine,” you say simply. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

Robby studies you with quiet contemplation, as if he’s confirming your certainty. You gaze back at him with confident eyes. It’s enough for him, too.

“So what now?” he asks. You blink at him like the answer is scribbled across your forehead.

“Now I’d like to continue where we left off in the bar.”

Robby moves swiftly, efficiently. Fluid and intentional, much like his movements during an incoming trauma. He cups your face once he closes the distance between you and kisses you, this time with more tact.

You moan against his mouth immediately, a white flag you were willing to wave in submission. You can feel Robby smirk against your lips.

He tangles a hand in your hair, much the same as he did at the bar. But this time, the kiss is slower, deeper, more deliberate. You feel his other hand roam the curve of your waistline until it rests on your hip, one thumb tracing gentle circles against the skin beneath your t-shirt. 

The counter digs into the small of your back and you jut your hips forward. Robby understands. He unfists your hair and uses both hands to hoist you onto the counter without a word. Your surprised gasp is caught off by another long kiss. 

Robby stands between your thighs. One hand rests on the counter beside you, the other presses into the small of your back. He breaks the kiss to meet your eyes. You stare back, your chest rising and falling in sync with his as you catch your breaths. He dips his head to kiss your neck.

Your eyes fall shut as you memorize how it feels to have his lips on your hot skin. Though each kiss is gentle, you wish he’d leave marks.

“Can I take this off?” he murmurs against your neck as he gently tugs at the hem of your shirt. You nod in quiet consent before Robby’s slipping your shirt over your head. He steals another kiss from your lips before you feel a hand unsnap your bra. You let it fall to the floor, your feet gently swaying from the counter’s ledge while Robby eyes your bare chest. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he rasps before pressing a kiss to your collarbone. 

You can feel a hand inching up your thigh, making you regret wearing the track pants you threw on in haste to get to Robby’s house. He hates them too – he proves it when you feel him tugging at your pantlegs until they’re a heap on the floor. The cool quartz counter sends a chill up the backs of your thighs. It’s a stark contrast to the scalding heat between them.

Robby turns his attention to your breasts, cupping one while he takes the other in his mouth. You inhale sharply as his tongue flattens and flicks across your nipple. It’s enough to distract you from Robby’s hand roaming between your thighs, until two fingers drag across the fabric of your thong. You hadn’t realized how wet you were, but Robby groans as he touches the soaked cotton.

He rubs two fingers over your clothed clit, his mouth still sucking gently against your breast. Your core clenches around nothing.

“Fuck,” Robby groans as his fingers inch inside your thong to caress your folds. He strokes them gently, one finger on either side until they’re both coated with your arousal. When he presses his thumb to your clit, you whimper.

It’s enough to make Robby fold – literally. He hooks his arms through your legs and tugs you to the edge of the counter while he bends at the waist to bury his face between your thighs. Your legs are tossed over his shoulders as he pulls your thong to the side to lap at your clit. Your thigh muscles tense instantly.

“Fuck, Robby,” you hiss as his tongue becomes acquainted with your body. He hums in approval at the taste and his tongue rolls and flattens against your clit in rhythmic patterns. You grip the edge of the counter with one hand while the other tangles itself in Robby’s hair. Your knuckles match the white countertop as if it’s the only thing anchoring you to Earth.

“Knew you’d taste so good,” he grunts against your flesh before he dives back in, his tongue prodding past your folds. 

He takes his time. His tongue is fast, then far too slow, frenzied yet deliberate. Even here, Robby thrives for controlled chaos. And even here, he loves being the one in control.

You feel a familiar ache mounting within your lower belly. It tightens at first, making you clench your walls in desperation for a release. 

“Robby,” you moan. You don’t know if it’s a warning or plea. Robby knows it’s both. He sucks on your clit, lips pulling against the pink flesh until he can feel the muscles tensing in your thighs. “Robby, I’m gonna-”

His tongue flattens and holds firm against your clit, triggering your release. You cry out as it folds you in half, one hand fisting his hair tightly as your body pulses. Your release seeps heavily from your core until it trickles onto the countertop. Robby’s tongue darts inside you to savor the aftermath.

Your body slackens into dead weight once your orgasm subsides. You sit back on your elbows, gazing downward at Robby through half-lidded eyes while he straights up, his beard slick and his sweatpants bulging.

Your head is clouded with juxtaposition – satisfied and exhausted from such a searing orgasm, yet hungry and excited for more. The latter emotions surge to the forefront as you slide from the counter to your feet, though you don’t stand for long.

You smirk at Robby as you drop to your knees, tugging his sweatpants downward in the process. He’s wearing nothing beneath them, which makes him even more appealing. But the real surprise is the size of his hard cock. Thoughts of how you’re going to take so much hover in the back of your mind, but you suppress them for the task at hand.

Robby groans as you take him slowly in your mouth. Your tongue glides against his shaft to accommodate as much of him as possible, until you’re gurgling around him. 

“Fuck, sweetheart, you are so fucking good,” he mumbles. His head tips backward and his eyes fall shut. He, too, wants to memorize the feeling of your mouth assaulting his flesh.

Your head bobs as the back of your throat envelops the tip of his cock. You hold it there until your eyes begin to water and your nails leave crescent divots in the backs of Robby’s thighs. His head tilts forward again to gaze at you fondly. 

You hold his gaze and begin to suck, your eyes soft and your cheeks hollowed. Robby balls your hair in his fist into a makeshift ponytail and stares back. You’re nearly jarred by the look in them. You expected to see full-blown pupils in maxed out bedroom eyes. Instead, he’s looking at you like he’s seeing a woman for the first time; you’re enlightenment in the form of femme fatal. It hits you with the realization that here, you’re not merely his subordinate senior resident. Here, you’re the muse this man has looked to for four years. 

You take him all the way in again, lips wrapped around every inch possible, before you release him with a vulgar pop. Spit clings to your lips, keeping you connected to the tip of his cock. You’re the vision of sin Robby hopes to see in the final moment before he dies.

“Come here,” he growls with his fingers wrapped around your wrist. He tugs you to your feet and pulls you into a searing kiss. 

He steps backward to guide you toward the hallway, arms locked around your waist. You make it about 10 feet before Robby’s kissing you even harder, his cock jammed against your stomach in eager agony.

When it’s clear you’re both too impatient to make it to the bedroom, Robby redirects you toward the dining table, which is about three feet away. After he hoists you onto the table, your legs lock around him in a shameless, silent plea.

He kisses your neck as he guides you gently until you’re flat on your back. Before you can vocalize your desperation, Robby is standing over you, the tip of his cock nudging your entrance.

You hold your breath as he slips inside you. Your arousal has made you slick and pliable, but the stretch is still intense. Robby lets out a low hiss once he bottoms out. He holds his cock still as his gaze grazes over your frame, splayed out submissively below him.

“Jesus Christ, you’re fucking perfect,” he growls. You clench your walls in response.

He inhales sharply at the squeeze and juts his hips forward. You moan at the pressure that blooms through your core. Robby infers your response as encouragement and sets a steady pace, guiding his cock through your walls with a rhythm that makes you praise every higher power you don’t believe in.

You’ve got one hand gripping the edge of the table, the other swiping lazily over your clit. Robby knocks your hand away to do it himself, his thumb moving with precision to propel your orgasm. 

“Let me do that,” he orders. 

His eyes are everywhere – taking in the sacred sight of your breasts bouncing with every thrust, to your erotic point of union, where he watches your swollen cunt swallow his thick cock. Your moans fills the house while Robby chimes in with an occasional groan, still in disbelief over the compression of your tight heat.

“Robby, you feel so good,” you whine. Those words alone are damn near enough to make him come. Instead, he grits his teeth and pulls his cock from you, using the tip to slap your clit. It draws a cry from you that makes him smirk in satisfaction.

“Good girl,” he praises. “Taking my cock so fucking well.”

He sinks back inside you and notes the immediate hug of your greedy walls. He studies your expression – teeth gnawing at your lower lip, eyes half-lidded and glassy – and knows you’re teetering on the edge. 

He braces himself, hands clutching your hips firmly as his own snap harder with vulgar smacks. It knocks the wind from your lungs and leaves you whimpering breathlessly. His cock drives upward into your front wall, pushing you closer to the release you’re certain you’ll die without. 

When he returns a thumb to your clit, it triggers your reward. Your back arches off the table and you cry out as your walls throb around Robby’s cock. He grunts at the vision of you falling apart beneath him, your face contorted in focus while your hands clutch your breasts. It’s a masterpiece crafted only for him, a memory he’ll relive every time he sees you. He can only hope to recreate it in the future.

When your orgasm subsides, Robby stops pumping his cock inside you to pause, leaning forward to kiss you. The table beneath you is slick now.

“God, you look so fucking pretty when you come,” Robby murmurs in your ear. “Think you can give me one more?”

You don’t know how to respond. It’s far more than you bargained for, and far better than you even dreamed. You make a mental note to buy Dr. Abbot a round of beers in gratitude for sending you the address you’ll come to frequent in the future.

“I said, think you can give me one more?” Robby rasps, pulling you from your post-orgasm haze. You nod in response, your walls already threatening to pulse again. “Good,” Robby says as he straightens up. 

He resumes his thrusts with quiet focus. You gaze up at him while you have the chance – before his cock inevitably sends you into another searing spasm, incapable of coherent thought. His eyes meet yours but they don’t react. Instead, they seem to make a silent vow to give you whatever it is that you need – now, and in the future.

But in this moment, Robby’s more intent on making your eyes roll back into your head. He tests your waters by placing a gentle hand over your throat while he fucks you harder. You moan in approval.

“Good girl. Like you were made for me,” Robby rasps as he squeezes more pressure.

The table scrapes the hardwood beneath you as the scorching coil returns to your core. It stretches and pulls taut until your toes are curling and your nails are digging into the tabletop. Robby licks his lips and watches you approach your grand finale. 

“Fuck, Robby,” you beg. You’re shouting now, drowning out the obscene sounds of your soaked cunt welcoming Robby’s pistoning cock. He chews the inside of his cheek to ground himself. He’s close but knows you’re closer.

Finally, your walls begin to flutter and you unleash a sharp wail at the deep spasms coursing through you. They draw more slickness from your cunt until you’re breathless and boneless, a fucked-out spectacle that Robby can’t help but worship.

It ignites his own ending and he swears loudly as his cock twitches. He begins to spill inside you before he jerks his cock from your raw cunt to shower your body with the remainder. You moan at the hot ropes of his release clinging to your flushed skin.

Robby slumps over you instantly, exhausted and in awe of the high note on which his night has ended. You both catch your breath before Robby helps you get cleaned up and offers you a glass of water.

The kitchen returns to its previous state. He watches quietly as you stand at the sink and sip from the glass, welcoming its cool relief. A chill peppers your skin with goosebumps. 

When the water’s gone, you set the glass in the sink and turn to look at him. He’s still studying you. You can’t decide if it’s rousing or unsettling.

“I should get going-” you start, but Robby shakes his head, much to your relief. The last thing you want is to be anywhere but here, with the man who has reminded you you’re deserving of something more.

“Stay,” he says. His tone isn’t forceful, isn’t desperate. It’s not an order, nor is it a plea. It’s merely a declaration that Robby wants you by his side, too.

“Okay,” you whisper with the same surety. Robby smiles gently. The fridge stops humming.

You step in beside him anyway.

“Jack—” you start.

“I’m fine—Gauze,” he cuts in without looking at you, and it’s so immediate, so practiced, that it almost makes you laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because it’s Jack. Because he’s always fine, even when everyone else is falling apart.

You swallow the rest of whatever you were going to say.

Work first. Always.

The trauma bay fills. Mohan appears opposite Jack, calm and focused. The SWAT officer groans as the stretcher locks.

“What happened?” Mohan asks.

“Crossfire,” Jack answers, already gloving. “Caught one low. Looks through-and-through.”

The officer clenches his jaw like he’s trying not to show pain. Jack leans closer, voice dropping again into that intimate register.

“You’re alright,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

Your chest does something small and stupid at the sound of it. You push it down immediately. This is not the time. This is never the time.

You move like you’ve rehearsed this with him a hundred times. You hand him gauze before he asks again. You angle the light before he reaches. You already have suction ready because you know the moment he’ll want it. Working with Jack is rhythm. It’s predictability inside a place that offers none. You don’t have to think around him. You just… are.

And that’s part of what makes this so dangerous.

Because three days ago, only three, you were standing in the ambulance bay after shift, the sky paling with morning, and your voice had come out too honest.

“So what are we doing?”

He’d studied you for a long moment, expression unreadable, as if he was weighing something heavy with care. Jack doesn’t do impulsive. Jack doesn’t do reckless. Jack doesn’t do anything unless he means it.

“I’m trying,” he’d said quietly. “If you are.”

“I am,” you’d managed.

He’d stepped closer then, close enough you could feel his warmth, close enough you could smell coffee and antiseptic on his skin.

“Good,” he’d said, like the decision was already made.

And then he’d reached up, slowly, deliberately, and cupped your face as if you were something precious he didn’t want to spook. His thumb had brushed your cheekbone, eyes fixed on yours like he was taking you in, memorising you.

You’d wanted him to kiss you so badly it felt like your ribs might crack.

He didn’t.

He just held your face and looked at you like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to.

At the time, you’d told yourself it was restraint. That it was maturity. That it was him being careful because the age gap mattered more to him than it did to you.

But it also fed the hungry, insecure part of you that lived in the dark corners of your head.

Maybe he’s not sure.

Maybe he’s pacing himself because he’s not committed.

Maybe you’re temporary.

Maybe you’re—

You shove the thought away as the officer’s blood pressure dips and the whole room snaps tighter.

“Pressure’s dropping,” someone says.

“Blood,” Jack says immediately. His voice is calm. Controlled. But you see his eyes, harder now. Protective. This is his friend.

You move faster. Line. Fluids. Your fingers don’t fumble. You are excellent in a crisis because being excellent has always been safer than being seen.

The officer stabilises. The bleeding slows. Mohan begins stitching, and the adrenaline in the room finally starts to drain.

You step back, breathing carefully through your nose like you’ve learned to do when you’re trying not to show anything.

Jack peels off his gloves at the counter, and the smear of blood on his sleeve catches the light again. Your eyes snag on it.

He notices.

Of course he does.

You look away quickly, like you weren’t staring, like you weren’t thinking.

Not his. Not his.

He shifts, and for half a second his sleeve pulls enough that you glimpse skin, his wrist, under the fabric, just a flash. A thin line of red. A graze. Tiny, but sharp enough to look painful. Your focus shifts from the blood on his shoulder. 

Your stomach flips.

Jack’s hand moves automatically to tug the fabric back down.

He thinks you didn’t see.

You pretend you didn’t.

Because you’re careful at work. You have always been careful. Even before the two of you were together, you were careful not to stand too close, not to look too long, not to give anyone a reason to clock what you refused to admit to yourself, that you’d been dancing around him for months.

Robby knows, though. Of course he does.

Robby knows everything.

And Robby, sweet, terrifyingly perceptive Robby, had looked at you last week like he was reading a chart you didn’t realise you’d written.

“You good?” he’d asked casually while you were both sanitising your hands. Grabbing a new chart. 

You’d nodded too fast. “Yeah.”

He’d hummed, unconvinced. “You got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one where you’re trying real hard to convince yourself you don’t want something.”

You’d nearly dropped the chart.

Robby had smiled, soft and knowing. “You’re allowed to want him, you know.”

You’d forced a laugh. “He doesn’t—”

Robby had cut you off gently. “He does. I’ve known him a long time.”

You’d swallowed hard.

Robby had leaned in and lowered his voice. “Jack doesn’t attach to people. Not easily. If he’s looking at you the way he’s looking at you… he’s in.”

The word had made your heart race.

In.

You didn’t feel like you deserved that.

Not at twenty three. Not after what your ex did. Not after months of telling yourself Jack would eventually realise the flirting you two shared were a phase.

The SWAT officer is wheeled upstairs, stable now, and the ER’s chaos shifts to something more routine. You sanitised your hands. You chart. You move through your tasks like a ghost with purpose.

The smear of blood on Jack’s sleeve disappears beneath his jacket, and you force yourself to stop thinking about it.

You have patients. You have meds. You have a job.

You can’t afford to be emotional in the Pitt. Not on nights like this.

Time passes. The board fills and clears. A drunk guy in bed nine tries to flirt with a nurse and gets shut down brutally. A kid with an asthma attack finally starts breathing easier after a neb. A woman sobs quietly in triage, asking if she’s dying, and you hold her hand longer than you should because you remember what it feels like to be terrified and alone.

You work. You breathe. You function.

Then you walk past South eight.

The door is open. The room is quieter. Jack and Mohan are inside near the counter, talking in low voices. You aren’t trying to listen. You’re tired. You’re thinking about your next task, the next vitals, the next chart. But Jack is shirtless. 

But then you catch a snippet of conversation through the doorway.

Jack’s voice soothes out the door, low and calm. You’re unsure of what he said. 

Your steps slow, almost without permission.

Then Mohan laughs softly.

“Our little secret.”

Your feet stop.

The hallway narrows.

The fluorescent light seems suddenly harsher, brighter, like it’s cutting into your eyes.

Our little secret.

The phrase lands in your chest like a bullet.

It shouldn’t. It’s just words. It’s just a sentence. It’s nothing.

But you have a history with those words.

Your ex used to say it with a smile.

Our little secret.

When he’d come home late and you asked where he was and he’d kiss your forehead and tell you to stop being dramatic.

Our little secret.

When you saw a message on his phone and your stomach dropped and he laughed and said you were crazy.

Our little secret.

When you cried and he held your face and told you that if you trusted him you wouldn’t ask, and you apologised through tears for making him feel accused.

Our little secret.

When everyone else already knew.

When you were the last one to find out and it felt like the entire world had been laughing behind your back.

Your throat tightens so quickly you almost choke.

You keep walking.

You have to keep walking.

Because if you stay in front of that door you’ll hear more, and hearing more will make it real, and you can’t handle real right now.

You round the corner and press your hand to the counter, pretending you’re looking for something in the chart rack. Your fingers tremble faintly. You hide them by gripping harder.

No.

No, no, no.

Jack isn’t him.

Jack wouldn’t.

But the dark part of your brain, the part that learned survival through suspicion, whispers anyway.

You’ve been his girlfriend for three days.

You don’t know what he does when you’re not around.

You don’t know what he hides.

You don’t know—

You swallow hard and force your breathing to stay even.

You don’t cry at work.

You do not cry at work.

You were humiliated once. You won’t be humiliated again.

Across the ER, Jack steps out of the trauma room, and the first thing he does is look for you.

He always does.

He doesn’t even think about it. It’s automatic. He scans the station, the hall, the charting computers, looking for the familiar set of your shoulders, the way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you’re focused, the way you always stand slightly angled like you’re ready to move.

He finds you across the station.

But you don’t look up.

Jack’s brow furrows.

That’s odd.

You always look up.

He walks toward you quietly.

“Hey,” he says.

Your stomach flips.

Don’t look. Don’t—

You glance up fast.

“Hey,” you manage.

Your voice sounds normal. Thank God. You cling to that like it’s proof you’re okay.

Jack studies your face.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

It’s quiet. Concerned. The tone he uses when he’s trying not to push too hard.

Your ex used to ask the same thing.

Everything alright?

Like you were always the problem. Like your feelings were always an inconvenience. Like you were crazy for even questioning.

You force a smile that feels too tight.

“Yeah. Busy.”

Jack’s gaze doesn’t move. He looks at you like he’s trying to find something under your words.

Then, because he’s Jack and he’s careful, he nods.

“Okay.”

He walks away.

And you feel immediately sick with guilt.

Because he did nothing wrong—did he?

You don’t know.

That’s the point.

Your ex trained you to doubt yourself until even your instincts felt unreliable.

And now you’re standing in an ER, surrounded by fluorescent light and blood and the man you’ve wanted for months, and one phrase has turned your stomach into a knot.

You spend the next few hours avoiding him with surgical precision.

Not obvious. Not dramatic. You’re still doing your job. You’re still charting, still checking vitals, still moving.

But every time Jack drifts toward you, you drift away.

If he comes to the station, you go to the supply closet. If he turns down your hallway, you step into a room. If you catch sight of him approaching, you pick up a chart and walk in the opposite direction like you suddenly remembered something urgent.

Your heart keeps racing in small spikes.

Your hands keep trembling.

You keep your eyes down.

You keep your voice low.

You do not let anyone see.

Robby sees anyway.

Because Robby is relentless in his kindness.

He catches you at the medication cart, your fingers fumbling with a drawer you’ve opened a hundred times.

“You’re shaking,” he says quietly.

“I’m not,” you lie.

Robby’s eyes soften.

“Okay,” he says, like he’s not going to fight you on it. Like he knows fighting you will make you bolt. “You’re my nurse for today.”

You blink, startled. “What?”

Robby smiles faintly. “Congratulations. You’ve been promoted.”

“Robby—”

He holds up a hand. “I’m serious. You’re with me. We’re running cases together. I want you where I can see you.”

Your throat tightens.

“Why?”

Robby’s gaze flicks briefly, subtly, toward Jack across the station. Then back to you.

“Because something’s off,” he says gently. “And I’m not letting you drown quietly in the middle of my ER.”

The tenderness in his voice nearly undoes you.

You nod once, fast, before you can think too much about it.

“Okay,” you whisper.

Robby keeps you busy on purpose. He pulls you into cases, asks for your help, makes you move. It’s distraction disguised as work. It’s protection disguised as clinical need.

And it helps. A little.

But it doesn’t stop Jack from noticing.

Jack watches you avoid him like a patient with a symptom you refuse to admit. The pattern is too consistent to be coincidence. The distance is too intentional.

He tries again.

He catches you near the nurses’ station and says your name softly.

You pretend you didn’t hear and step away.

He tries in the hallway.

You duck into a room.

He tries once more, and you smile too quickly and tell him you’re fine.

Fine.

The word tastes like ash.

The shift drags toward morning, the ER slowly settling. Jack’s patience thins, not into anger, but into concern. Into that quiet desperation that happens when you want to fix something and you don’t know where it broke.

Finally, you slip toward the stairwell.

It’s instinct.

The stairwell is quiet. The stairwell is away from eyes. The stairwell is where you can breathe without the ER watching.

You push the door open, and the air changes immediately, cooler, echoing faintly, the hum of the hospital muffled behind concrete.

You take three steps down and press your back to the wall, exhaling shakily.

Your eyes burn.

No.

Not here.

Not now.

You wipe at your face with the heel of your hand, furious at yourself.

You don’t cry at work.

You don’t—

The stairwell door opens above you with a soft click.

Footsteps.

Slow.

Controlled.

You know them.

Your whole body tenses.

Jack steps into view, his silhouette framed in the harsh light from the hallway. He closes the door behind him gently, like he doesn’t want to startle you.

He takes a few steps down and stops, keeping distance at first.

“You’re running from me,” he says quietly.

You swallow hard.

“I’m not.”

Jack’s eyes stay on your face. “Don’t lie to me.”

Your throat closes.

You turn your face away, trying to hide the wetness you can’t stop now. Your shoulders shake once, betrayed by your body.

“Hey,” Jack says, and his voice shifts, softens. “Hey, look at me.”

You shake your head, staring at the concrete.

“Please,” he murmurs. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Your breath breaks.

You can’t do this.

You can’t be the girl crying in the stairwell over a misunderstanding. You can’t be the insecure twenty three year old with a history of being humiliated. You can’t—

Jack moves closer.

Not fast.

Not forcing.

But deliberate.

He reaches for you, and you flinch before you can stop yourself, not away from him, but away from the vulnerability.

Jack’s hands settle on your shoulders anyway, firm but gentle, turning you toward him.

You try to cover your face.

Jack catches your wrists softly and pulls them down.

And then his arms wrap around you, pulling you into him before you can decide to resist.

“Tell me what’s wrong, baby,” he says quietly into your hair.

The word baby cracks something inside you.

Because it’s not clinical.

It’s not professional.

It’s Jack.

It’s him choosing you in a way you can’t pretend is just teamwork.

Your throat tightens and the tears spill.

You try to hold them back, and fail.

You hate yourself for it.

Jack holds you tighter.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. Just tell me.”

You sniff, shaking in his arms.

“I heard…” Your voice breaks. You swallow hard. “I heard Mohan.”

Jack goes still.

“What did you hear?”

You can barely say it.

“Our little secret.”

The phrase comes out small and ruined.

Jack’s entire body tenses, like he’s been punched.

He pulls back just enough to see your face.

You keep your eyes down.

“I—I don’t know what it was about,” you whisper. “I just… I heard it. And you came in with your SWAT guy and—”

Jack blinks, then swears under his breath, soft and furious. “God. Baby, no, not like that,”

The guilt hits his expression instantly, so sharp and honest it makes your stomach twist again.

“You think—” He stops. Re starts. “You think I was hiding something from you.”

You wipe your cheeks fast, ashamed.

“I know it’s stupid,” you whisper.

“It’s not,” Jack says immediately.

His hands move to your face, thumbs brushing tears away with a tenderness that hurts. He holds you still, forcing you to meet his eyes.

“You didn’t hear the whole conversation,” he says carefully. “You heard one line and your brain filled in the rest.”

Your lip trembles.

Jack’s jaw tightens. “I should’ve known. I should’ve realised you would have seen it that—”

He stops, breathes, then asks gently, “Why didn’t you walk in?”

You swallow. Your voice comes out shaking.

“My ex used to say that,” you whisper.

Jack goes still.

You force the words out anyway because you’re already bleeding emotionally, and there’s no point pretending.

“When he cheated on me,” you say, voice cracking. “More than once. Everyone knew. I didn’t. And every time I asked him, he—he told me if I trusted him I wouldn’t ask. He told me I was crazy. He told me I was paranoid. My crazy ideas of him being unfaithful was our little secret.”

Jack’s eyes darken, not with anger at you, anger at the memory. At the man. At the way you were treated.

You laugh once, broken. “So when I heard that, I just—” You shake your head, tears spilling again. “I felt stupid. Like I was back there again.”

Jack exhales shakily.

“No,” he says firmly. “No. You’re not back there.”

He draws you closer again, forehead nearly touching yours.

“I’m not him,” Jack says, each word slow, deliberate. “I’m not doing that to you.”

You nod, but your body is still trembling with the aftershock.

Jack closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them, there’s regret written across his face.

“I didn’t chart my own wound,” he says quietly, “because if I do, it becomes a report. Cops. Statements. Questions. And my friend”—his voice tightens—“my guy, my family, was on that bed tonight. I didn’t want to deal with anything except getting him upstairs breathing. Mohan was helping where I couldn’t see.”

Your stomach drops.

“Your graze?” you whisper.

Jack hesitates, then gently pulls back the fabric at his shoulder.

The scrape is small, round, but angry-red. The kind of wound that stings every time you move. The kind of pain you can ignore only because you’ve trained yourself to ignore worse.

Your chest tightens.

“You’re hurt,” you whisper.

Jack huffs a humourless laugh. “I’m fine.”

You look at him sharply.

He softens immediately, like he hears himself.

“Okay,” he corrects. “It hurts. It’s not serious.”

You stare at it, then at him.

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want you worrying,” he says quietly.

Your throat tightens again.

Because that’s the thing, he thinks he’s protecting you by withholding. By slowing down. By keeping distance. By not making this messy.

And you’ve been reading it as doubt. As hesitation. As you being temporary.

“I’m younger,” you whisper suddenly, the confession slipping out before you can stop it. “I know I am. I know you could have anyone. Anyone older, more… stable. More deserving. Someone stronger”

Jack’s expression goes stunned.

“What?”

You laugh shakily, wiping your cheeks again. “You’re Jack Abbot. You could have—anyone. And I’m just… me. Twenty three. Barely—” You swallow hard. “I keep thinking you’re taking it slow because you’re not sure.”

Jack’s eyes soften so much it almost hurts to look at him.

He cups your face again, thumbs brushing the last of your tears away with reverence.

“I’m taking it slow,” he says quietly, “because you told me what your ex, rushed you. Because I do not want to scare you away. Because I’m not going to be another man who takes from you when you’re still learning how to feel safe.”

Your breath catches.

“I’m taking it slow because I want you to trust me,” he continues, voice low and steady. “Not because I’m not sure. Because I am sure.”

Your throat tightens.

Jack leans in closer, his forehead hovering near yours.

“You’re not temporary,” he murmurs. “You’re not a placeholder. You’re not—anything less.”

You shake your head weakly. “But—”

Jack cuts you off, gentle but firm. “No.”

His thumb strokes your cheekbone.

“I’ve wanted you for months,” he admits quietly. “I’ve watched you walk through my ER like you belong here. I’ve watched you pretend you’re not scared of anything. I’ve watched you take care of everyone else and never ask anyone to take care of you.”

Your chest aches.

“And then you stood in the ambulance bay and asked me what we were doing,” he says, voice roughening slightly, “and you looked so damn brave I couldn’t breathe for a second.”

You let out a shaky laugh that turns into a sob.

Jack smiles faintly, soft, rare.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says. “Not to your ex. Not to your head. Not to one stupid line Mohan said.”

He exhales, then adds quietly, “I want to kick my own ass for saying it where you could hear it. Misunderstand it.”

You swallow.

“Jack—”

He leans in before you can finish, and this time he doesn’t stop.

His hand stays at your jaw, fingers warm and sure, and his mouth presses to yours with a gentleness that feels like permission.

The kiss is slow.

Careful.

Not hungry.

It’s the kind of kiss that says, I’m here. I mean it. You’re safe.

Your hands grip his shirt as if you’re anchoring yourself to something real.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours.

“Okay?” he whispers.

You nod, breath shaky. “Okay.”

Jack’s thumb wipes a final tear from your cheek.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s go so you can look at this.”

He guides you up the steps, hand at your back like he refuses to let you drift away again. The ER noise swells as he opens the stairwell door, but it doesn’t feel as sharp now. Not with him beside you.

He leads you to an empty treatment room and sits on the edge of the bed while you pull across the curtain like you’ve done a thousand times for everyone else.

Your gloved hands circle the scrape gently.

Jack hisses once, involuntary.

You glance up. “You’re fine?”

Jack’s mouth twitches. “I’m fine.”

You give him a look.

He exhales. “It stings.”

“Good,” you mutter, and it comes out more affectionate than sharp.

Jack watches you with a softness that makes your chest warm.

“You’re shaking less,” he notes quietly.

You swallow. “Yeah.”

Jack’s hand lifts, hesitates, then settles over your wrist, steadying it.

“You can ask me,” he says. “If something feels wrong, you can ask.”

You nod.

“I won’t make you feel crazy,” he adds, voice low. “Ever.”

Your throat tightens again.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Jack shakes his head.

“No. Don’t apologise for being scared.”

Your satisfied that the wound has been taken care of properly, that he isn’t in too much pain. You finish re-bandaging him, then step back.

Jack stands, adjusting his shirt, and for a second he just looks at you like he’s taking you in again, like he did in the ambulance bay.

Then he reaches for you, fingers brushing your cheek.

“You’re not temporary,” he repeats softly.

And the words settle somewhere deep in you, heavy and warm.

For the first time, in these three days, you believe him.

Because he didn’t get defensive.

He didn’t turn it on you.

He didn’t make you feel crazy.

He came after you. He held you. He asked. He listened. He chose you.

And when the ER doors swing open again and the next wave of chaos threatens to swallow the world whole, Jack’s hand stays at your back like a quiet promise.

With him.

You’re not alone in it anymore.

Tristan Lamothe, your partner, your best friend, the person who has seen you cry over everything from a doubled twizzle to a broken nail to that one devastating episode of Heated Rivalry, is currently spread across your twin bed like he owns it. His skate bag is on the floor. His water bottle is on your nightstand. His phone is balanced on his chest, and he’s scrolling with the particular energy of someone who has absolutely nothing to do and plans to keep doing it indefinitely.

“You should download Hinge,” he says.

You don’t look up from your laptop.

“No.”

“I’m just saying-”

“Tristan.”

“It’s been redesigned. The interface is actually good now.”

“The answer was no in October, it was no in November, it was no when you made me sit through that entire TED Talk about modern dating, and it is no right now, in Milan, at the Olympics, where I am trying to work.”

He rolls onto his side, propping his head up on one hand, and gives you the look. You can feel it without seeing it. Ten years of partnership means you have memorized every single one of his expressions, including Look Number Seven, which is the one that says I love you but you are being genuinely unhinged about this.

“You’re watching practice footage,” he says.

“Yes.”

“We practiced four hours ago.”

“I’m aware.”

“Y/N.” He says your name like it has two extra syllables. A gift he has always had. “We are in Italy. We are at the Olympics. We are surrounded by, and I cannot stress this enough, some of the most genetically blessed athletes on the planet Earth, and you are watching your own twizzle on a laptop screen.”

“It’s not my twizzle, it’s my edge-”

“You are,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “determined to remain celibate for the rest of your natural life. Even my grandma is getting more action than you right now.”

You turn and look at him then. You can’t help it.

“Your grandma,” you say flatly, “is in a nursing home.”

He smirks. It is immediate and devastating and extremely annoying.

“She’s very popular with the male residents.”

You grab your pillow and scream into it.

The sound comes out muffled and long and deeply, genuinely cathartic, and when you lift your head, Tristan is grinning at the ceiling with the satisfaction of a man who has accomplished something meaningful.

“Feel better?”

“Marginally.”

“Good.” He sits up, crossing his legs, facing you properly now. This is his serious face, which means it’s even worse than the smirk. “Can I say the actual thing?”

“You’re going to regardless.”

“After the opening ceremony,” he begins.

“Tristan-”

“There was a Swedish snowboarder-”

“Tristan-”

“Making full bedroom eyes at you.” He holds up a hand to stop your protest. “Not ambiguous eyes. Not friendly eyes. Not ‘I appreciate you as a fellow Olympian’ eyes. Bedroom eyes. The man was basically building IKEA furniture with his stare.”

You close the laptop. Not because you’re giving in, but because this conversation has officially required your full attention and your edge correction can wait twenty minutes.

“I didn’t notice,” you say.

“That’s the problem.”

“That’s not a problem, that’s called being focused.”

“It’s called being willfully oblivious.” He tilts his head. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”

You open your mouth.

“And training dinners with me don’t count,” he adds.

You close your mouth.

He raises both eyebrows.

“Okay,” you say, pointing at him, “first of all, I’ve been busy-”

“You’ve been busy,” he repeats, in the voice he uses when he’s quoting you back to yourself in a way designed to make you feel foolish.

“We’ve been busy. The Grand Prix season, Nationals, Four Continents, and now this — Tristan, we’ve been on the ice six days a week since September, Scott has us on a training schedule that would make a Navy SEAL cry, and you want me to be downloading dating apps in the middle of all that?”

“I downloaded three dating apps during Grand Prix season.”

“And how did that go?”

“Incredibly well, actually, I’m still talking to the guy from Skate Canada-”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Because you’re-” you gesture vaguely, “-you. You’re good at that. You’re charming and you know what you want and you just talk to people like it’s easy.”

Something shifts in his expression. He gets quieter, which for Tristan is significant, because Tristan’s baseline volume is set somewhere around theatrical.

“It’s easy for you too,” he says. “When you let it be.”

You look at him for a moment. Then you look at the closed laptop.

The thing about Tristan — the thing that nobody in the skating world quite understands when they look at your partnership from the outside, when they write their little articles and post their little edits set to whatever song is trending with the caption sorry but they’re OBVIOUSLY in love — is that he has known you longer and better than almost anyone alive. You have been on the ice together since you were nine years old, since you were two kids at the Gadbois Centre in Montreal being shuffled into ice dance because you were too chaotic for singles and too small for pairs, and somewhere in that first year you looked at each other across a spin and decided, wordlessly and permanently, to become the most important person in each other’s lives.

He’s been there for every edge. Every fall. Every silver medal that should have been gold. Every competition where the nerves ate you alive from the inside and you threw up in the bathroom at 5 AM and he sat on the floor next to you and didn’t say anything, just handed you a paper towel and a Werther’s Original from his jacket pocket, which is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you and it came from your gay best friend.

That is the state of your romantic life.

“I just,” you start.

“You just what?”

You rub the back of your neck. “I want the gold medal, Trist. That’s the thing I want. Tessa and Scott won it in 2018 and now Scott coaches us, and I think about that all the time. I think about what it would mean to bring that home. For Canada. For him. For us.” You glance up. “I don’t want to be distracted.”

Tristan is quiet for a beat.

“When Tessa and Scott won the gold medal in 2018, she was fully living her best life-”

“You don’t know that-”

“I’m choosing to believe it.”

“Tristan!”

“I’m just saying!” He holds his hands up. “Love and sport don’t have to be enemies. That’s a false binary that you’ve constructed to protect yourself and I think your therapist would agree with me.”

“My therapist would tell me that’s a projection.”

“Your therapist says everything is a projection.”

“She’s usually right!”

You’re both laughing now, the way you always end up laughing, the laughter arriving before you even fully understand why and dissolving whatever tension had been building. It’s the best thing about him. The most unfair thing about him too — it’s very hard to maintain a righteous position when Tristan Lamothe is in the room.

He flops back against your pillow, dramatically, like he’s been shot.

“Okay,” he says, to the ceiling. “I won’t make you download Hinge.”

“Thank you.”

“I am, however, going to need you to acknowledge that the Swedish snowboarder was real and that he was looking at you.”

“I acknowledge nothing.”

“His name is Erik. I found his Instagram.”

“Tristan, oh my God-”

“Ninety thousand followers, very consistent aesthetic-”

“I don’t care about his Instagram!”

“You should-”

“I’m closing my eyes and counting to ten,” you announce, and you do, pressing your palms over your face, and Tristan, behind your eyelids, makes the specific sound he makes when he’s trying not to laugh and losing badly.

When you open your eyes, he’s sitting up again, and he’s got the softer look now. The real one. The one that doesn’t have a number because you’ve never needed to categorize it — you just know it means I see you and I’m on your side even when I’m annoying you.

“You know I just want you to be happy, right?” He says.

“I know.”

“And you know that being happy and winning are not mutually exclusive things.”

“I know.” You lean back against the wall. “I just think I want to win first. And then be happy.”

He considers this for a long moment.

“That’s extremely backwards,” he says finally.

“I know that too.”

He nods. Accepts it. Lets it be.

That’s the other thing about Tristan — he pushes, but he never forces. He’s been that way since you were nine, when you fell on your first outside edge and cried and he crouched down on the ice next to you and said, with great seriousness, do you wanna try again or do you want to sit here for a minute, and you said sit here, and he sat there with you on the cold ice without complaint until you were ready to stand.

He’s still doing that.

“Scott wants us in by nine tomorrow,” he says, shifting back to logistics the way you both always do, the skating filling back in like water. “He sent a voice memo. He sounded intense.”

“He always sounds intense.”

“He sounded specifically intense. He said something about the Italians fixing the ice and it being slower and he wants to adjust the timing on the step sequence entry.”

You straighten up. “Which step sequence?”

“The midline.”

Your eyes go immediately to the closed laptop.

Tristan gives you a look.

“I’m not going to say it,” he says.

“You were going to say ‘I told you so.’”

“I was absolutely going to say that, yes.” He stands, stretching, reaching his arms above his head until his spine cracks in three separate places, which is a sound you have made peace with after ten years. He grabs his water bottle off your nightstand. “Get some sleep. Ice time’s early.”

“I know.”

He pauses at the door, hand on the frame, glancing back at you with the kind of casual over-the-shoulder look that would send the ice dance fandom into complete cardiac arrest if they could see it.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think we’re going to win.”

Something in your chest goes quiet and warm.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He’s fully serious now, all the theatre dropped. Just Tristan. Your Tristan, who has been your partner through every fall and every spin for a decade, who knows your skating better than he knows his own because he’s that kind of person. “I think we’re the best team here. I think Scott knows it, I think the judges have known it all season, and I think you know it too even when you’re too scared to say it out loud.”

You don’t say anything.

“And,” he adds, the grin coming back as he knocks twice on the doorframe, “I think the Swedish snowboarder thinks so too, but that’s not relevant right now.”

“Tristan-”

“Goodnight!” He’s already gone, the door clicking shut behind him, and his laugh travels down the hallway and disappears.

The room is quiet.

You sit there on the floor for a moment, tennis ball in your hand, the laptop dark, the sounds of the Village muffled through the window — music from somewhere, voices in languages you can pick apart one by one, the particular busy hum of four thousand athletes living in compressed, temporary, electric proximity.

You think about 2018. Tessa and Scott, the ice in Pyeongchang, the gold they brought home. You think about Scott in the rink in Montreal, his voice carrying across the ice, the way he talks about that medal sometimes when he’s really trying to make a point — not like it was the end of something, but like it was the proof of something. That patience was possible. That the work paid off. That you could want a thing for a very long time and still have it arrive.

You think about the midline step sequence. Your left edge. Third rotation.

You open the laptop.

Just for five more minutes.

***

Macklin has been awake for approximately twenty-seven hours, and he is beginning to suspect that his eyeballs are going to fall out of his head.

San Jose to New York was seven hours. New York to Milan was another eight. Add in the time spent in JFK waiting for the rest of Team Canada to assemble — NHL players filtering in from their respective cities, the coaching staff doing headcounts like they’re on a middle school field trip, the equipment managers performing some kind of logistical miracle to get everyone’s gear onto the charter — and Macklin has officially crossed the threshold from “tired” into “possibly no longer a corporeal being.”

He’s wearing the Team Canada-issued Lululemon tracksuit, which is objectively very nice and also makes him feel like a walking advertisement. Red and white, the maple leaf embroidered over his heart, the fabric somehow both technical and cozy in a way that makes him want to sleep standing up. Which he might actually do. It’s hard to say at this point.

“You good, Celly?” Seth Jarvis asks, bumping Macklin’s shoulder as they file through the Olympic Village check-in process.

“Yeah,” Macklin says, which is a lie.

“You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I’m not gonna pass out.”

“You look like a baby giraffe.”

“I don’t-” Macklin starts, and then he catches his reflection in one of the glass doors and realizes Seth is not entirely wrong. His legs feel vaguely theoretical. His spine is a suggestion.

Behind them, Brad Marchand is arguing with one of the volunteer organizers about room assignments, Tom Wilson is taking a selfie with the Olympic rings statue like it’s 2014, and Sidney Crosby is reading through some kind of informational packet with the focus of a man studying game film. The whole scene is deeply surreal, the kind of thing Macklin imagined a thousand times growing up and is now experiencing in real-time while his brain runs on fumes and airplane peanuts.

“They’re gonna put us in rooms soon,” Seth says, scrolling on his phone. “You gonna make it?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re swaying.”

“I’m not-”

“You are definitely swaying.”

Macklin plants his feet more firmly on the ground, which helps for approximately four seconds before his knees remember they’re tired too.

The check-in process is taking forever. There are clipboards. There are lanyards. There are about forty-seven different people in bright blue volunteer jackets saying things in Italian and English and occasionally French, all of which is blending together into a linguistic smoothie that Macklin’s brain is too exhausted to parse.

And then the doors open.

And you walk out.

The thing is, Macklin is genuinely not sure if you’re real.

You’re in a Team Canada jacket — the nice one, the puffer with the red and white colorblocking that all the athletes got — and black leggings and sneakers, your hair pulled back, a gym bag slung over your shoulder. You’re mid-conversation with the guy next to you, laughing at something he just said, your whole face bright with it, and Macklin’s brain, running on zero sleep and sheer force of will, does something it has never done before.

It just … stops.

Full system shutdown.

You’re the most beautiful person he has ever seen in his entire life, and he has been to galas and award shows and played hockey in front of sold-out arenas, and none of that prepared him for whatever is happening to his central nervous system right now.

You’re walking across the courtyard with the guy — tall, athletic, also in Team Canada gear, talking with his hands in that way people do when they’re telling a story they think is very funny. The two of you are completely at ease, the kind of comfortable body language that makes Macklin’s stomach do something complicated and unhappy, because of course you’re with someone, of course you are, why wouldn’t you be-

“Holy shit,” Seth says, very quietly, next to him.

Macklin doesn’t respond. He’s not sure he’s breathing.

Seth reaches over, puts one hand under Macklin’s jaw, and physically closes his mouth.

“You’re drooling,” Seth says.

“I’m not-”

“Definitely drooling.” Seth follows Macklin’s line of sight across the courtyard, to where you and the guy are now stopped near one of the bike racks, still talking. Seth lets out a low whistle. “Okay. I can’t even blame you for that one.”

“What’s happening?” Tom Wilson has appeared, because of course he has, because Macklin’s humiliation needs witnesses.

“Baby Celebrini’s having a moment,” Seth says.

“I’m not-”

“He’s very much having a moment.”

Tom looks. Tom grins. Tom has the specific energy of a man who has just discovered entertainment.

“Oh, this is good,” Tom says.

“It’s not-” Macklin tries.

“That’s a solid choice, kid,” Brad Marchand adds, materializing on Macklin’s other side like a chirping-based teleportation device. “Way out of your league, but solid.”

“I wasn’t-”

“You were absolutely-”

“Can everyone please-”

“Celly’s got a crush!” Tom announces, to approximately no one and everyone.

“I don’t-” Macklin’s face is on fire. His face is absolutely on fire, he can feel it, the red creeping up his neck and into his cheeks, and he’s going to murder his teammates, he’s going to actually commit a crime. “I just—she’s—I’m jet-lagged.”

“Uh-huh,” Seth says.

“I am! I’m hallucinating.”

“You think you’re hallucinating a whole person?”

“It’s possible!”

“It’s not possible,” Brad says. “She’s very real. And very much with that guy, looks like.”

Macklin’s stomach does the complicated thing again.

Across the courtyard, you’ve said something that makes the guy double over laughing, and you shove his shoulder, grinning, and the two of you start walking again, toward one of the other Canadian buildings.

“Yeah,” Macklin says, trying to sound normal and casual and like his entire life hasn’t just been upended by a thirty-second glimpse of a stranger. “Yeah, no, I figured.”

“Macklin.”

It’s Sidney Crosby.

Everyone shuts up immediately, which is what happens when Sidney Crosby says your name, because Sidney Crosby is Sidney Crosby and also the team captain and also possibly the best hockey player alive, and Macklin has spent the last two days trying very hard not to weird him out by staring.

Sid steps into the little circle they’ve formed, hands in the pockets of his Team Canada jacket, expression calm.

“We’re here to win,” Sid says.

“Yes sir,” Macklin says immediately.

“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy the experience.”

Macklin blinks.

Sid nods toward you, across the courtyard, where you’re now stopped again, the guy gesturing animatedly about something.

“You should go introduce yourself,” Sid says.

Macklin’s brain short-circuits for the second time in three minutes.

“I—what?”

“Just go say hi.”

“I can’t-”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s-” Macklin gestures helplessly in your direction. “She’s clearly with that guy.”

There is a pause.

And then, very unfortunately, several of Macklin’s teammates start laughing.

Not all of them. Sid’s not laughing. But Seth is. Tom is. Mitch Marner is actively wheezing. Even some of the guys who’d been focused on check-in have tuned into the conversation and are now grinning in a way that makes Macklin want to sink directly into the Italian pavement.

“What?” Macklin says.

“Oh buddy,” Seth says, clapping him on the shoulder.

“What?”

Tom is actually wiping his eyes. “You’re serious right now.”

“About what?”

“Mack,” Mitch says, trying to pull himself together and failing. “That guy is very gay.”

Macklin looks back across the courtyard.

You and the guy are walking again, his arm looped through yours now in a way that Macklin had interpreted as romantic approximately ninety seconds ago and is now realizing might be something else entirely.

“How do you-” Macklin starts.

“The vibes, kid,” Tom says.

“The vibes?”

“Trust us on this one,” Seth says. “That is not her boyfriend.”

“You don’t know that-”

“I would bet actual money on it.”

“Me too,” Mitch says.

“Me three,” Tom adds.

Macklin looks at Sid, who shrugs.

“They’re probably right,” Sid says.

“You can’t just-” Macklin runs a hand through his hair, which is definitely doing something unhinged right now after twenty-seven hours of travel and zero showers. “You can’t just assume someone’s gay because of vibes.”

“You can when the vibes are that strong,” Tom says.

“Okay but even if-” Macklin takes a breath. Tries to locate a coherent thought. Fails. “Even if he’s not her boyfriend, I can’t just walk over there.”

“Why not?” Sid asks.

“Because I look like-” Macklin gestures at himself. “I’ve been awake for a full day, I’m wearing a tracksuit, I probably smell like airplane-”

“You definitely smell like airplane,” Seth confirms.

“Not helping.”

“Just being honest.”

“And also,” Macklin continues, “I don’t even know who she is. I can’t just walk up to a random person and—what, introduce myself? That’s insane.”

“That’s literally what people do,” Brad says.

“At normal places! Not at the Olympics!”

“Especially at the Olympics,” Tom says. “Do you know how many Olympic Village hookups happen?”

“I don’t want to-” Macklin stops. Regroups. “I’m not trying to hook up with anyone, I’m trying to win a gold medal.”

“You can do both,” Tom says cheerfully.

“I really don’t think-”

“Mack.” Sid again, cutting through the noise with the kind of calm authority that makes Macklin’s spine straighten automatically. “You’re overthinking it.”

“I’m really not-”

“You are.” Sid’s almost smiling now, which is deeply unfair. “It’s the Olympics. Everyone’s nervous. Everyone’s excited. Just go say hi. Worst case, she’s not interested. Best case …” He shrugs. “You make a friend.”

“A friend,” Macklin repeats.

“Or more than a friend,” Seth adds.

“Seth-”

“I’m just saying!”

Macklin looks back across the courtyard, but you’re gone. You and the guy — the maybe-gay guy, according to the vibes council — have disappeared into one of the buildings, and the moment has passed, and Macklin feels a strange combination of relief and disappointment that he doesn’t want to examine too closely.

“She’s gone,” he says.

“She’s in the Village,” Brad points out. “You’ll see her again.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely,” Tom says. “It’s not that big. And you’re both Team Canada. You’ll run into each other.”

“And when you do,” Seth says, grinning, “you’re going to actually talk to her like a normal human person.”

“I talk like a normal human person.”

“You talk like a guy who’s had too much media training.”

“I’ve had no media training-”

“Explains a lot actually,” Brad mutters.

One of the organizers calls for the Canadian hockey team, and the group starts moving toward the check-in desks, the conversation dissolving into the general noise of athletes and luggage and people trying to figure out where they’re supposed to be.

Macklin follows, his brain still approximately three steps behind his body.

He’s not sure what just happened. He saw a girl. A beautiful girl. A girl who made his entire cardiovascular system forget how to function. And now he’s being actively encouraged by Sidney Crosby to introduce himself, which feels like some kind of alternate universe situation that he hasn’t fully processed.

“You good?” Sid asks, falling into step next to him.

“Yeah,” Macklin says. “Just tired.”

“Get some sleep,” Sid says. “We’ve got practice tomorrow morning. And try not to stress about the girl.”

“I’m not-”

Sid gives him a look.

“Okay,” Macklin admits. “Maybe a little.”

“It’s the Olympics,” Sid says. “Everyone’s a little stressed about something.” He pauses. “But for what it’s worth? You really should talk to her. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

There’s something in the way he says it that makes Macklin think Sid is speaking from experience, but before he can ask, they’re at the check-in desk and someone’s handing Macklin a folder with his room assignment and a map of the Village and approximately twelve different informational packets about things he’s too tired to read.

***

His room is small and clean and has two twin beds, which means he has a roommate, which turns out to be Seth because the universe has a sense of humor.

“Don’t worry,” Seth says, dropping his bag on the bed by the window. “I won’t tell the whole team you’re in love.”

“I’m not in love-”

“You’re in something.”

“I saw her for thirty seconds.”

“Powerful thirty seconds.”

Macklin sits down on his bed and puts his head in his hands.

“I’m so tired,” he says.

“Then sleep.”

“I can’t. My brain won’t stop.”

“Thinking about the girl?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He looks up. “Do you actually think that guy was gay?”

Seth considers this. “Yeah, honestly. The arm-loop thing? The energy? I’d put money on it.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s single.”

“It doesn’t mean she’s not.”

Macklin flops backward onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.

The ceiling is white. The ceiling is boring. The ceiling is not a beautiful girl in a Team Canada jacket who smiled like sunlight.

“This is stupid,” he says.

“It’s not stupid.”

“I don’t even know her name.”

“So find out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, ask literally any other Canadian athlete? It’s not a covert operation, Mack. She’s on the team. Someone knows who she is.”

Macklin turns his head to look at Seth, who’s now unpacking his toiletries with the efficiency of someone who has traveled to approximately one million hockey tournaments.

“You think I should actually do this,” Macklin says.

“I think you’d be dumb not to.” Seth tosses a travel-sized shampoo bottle into his bag. “Look, I get it. You’re focused on hockey. That’s good. That’s what you’re supposed to do. But dude, you’re nineteen years old at the Olympics. You’re allowed to talk to a pretty girl.”

“What if she thinks I’m weird?”

“Then she thinks you’re weird. You survive. You move on.”

“What if I completely embarrass myself?”

“Then you completely embarrass yourself. Again — you survive, you move on.”

“You’re very calm about this.”

“I’m very realistic about this.” Seth sits down on his own bed, facing Macklin. “You know what you’re gonna regret? Not trying. You know what you’re not gonna regret? Introducing yourself to someone and it not working out. That’s just data. That’s just life.”

Macklin stares at him.

“When did you become wise?” He asks.

“I’ve always been wise. You’ve just been too busy being a first-overall pick to notice.”

“That’s fair.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Outside, the sounds of the Olympic Village filter through the window — voices in half a dozen languages, someone’s music playing, the particular buzz of a few thousand people living in temporary, concentrated proximity.

“Get some sleep,” Seth says finally. “Practice is early. And if we run into her tomorrow, you’re saying hi.”

“We’re not gonna run into her-”

“It’s the Olympic Village. It’s like a small town. We’re absolutely gonna run into her.”

Macklin closes his eyes.

He’s not sure if Seth is right. But he’s also not sure if Seth is wrong.

And somewhere in the space between those two uncertainties, with the weight of twenty-seven hours of travel pressing down on him and the strange electric possibility of the Olympics humming just outside his window, Macklin falls asleep still wearing his Team Canada tracksuit, and dreams of a girl whose name he doesn’t know.

***

Your favorite program ever was Tessa and Scott’s Moulin Rouge free dance from the 2018 Olympics.

You were eleven years old, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in your parents’ living room in Montreal at some ungodly hour of the morning because of the time difference, and you watched them skate and you cried. Just openly cried, tears running down your face, because it was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. The passion, the storytelling, the way they moved like one person split into two bodies. Your mom came downstairs and found you still sitting there after it was over, the TV on the post-skate commentary, your face wet.

“That,” you said, pointing at the screen, “is what I want to do.”

Your mom smiled. “Then you’ll do it.”

Eight years later, you’re standing at the boards of the Milano Ice Skating Arena, thirty minutes before the free dance event begins, and you think you might throw up.

“You’re not going to throw up,” Tristan says, reading your mind with the precision of someone who has known you for a decade.

“I might.”

“You’re not.”

“I really, genuinely might.”

He reaches over and squeezes your hand. His fingers are cold. Yours are colder.

“We’ve done this a thousand times,” he says quietly.

“Not at the Olympics.”

“Same ice. Same program. Same us.”

You look at him. He’s in his costume already — black pants, a white shirt that will get progressively more torn-looking as the program goes on, the design deliberately distressed. Orpheus, climbing out of the underworld. The poet who looked back.

You’re in black too. A dress that looks simple until you move, and then it catches the light in fragments. Eurydice. The girl who loved him. The girl who died.

The program is Wait for Me from Hadestown, the musical, a cover version that your choreographer found on someone’s YouTube channel and that you immediately knew was perfect. It’s heartbreaking. It doesn’t have a happy ending. Orpheus looks back and Eurydice is lost and the whole thing is devastating and beautiful and when you and Tristan skated it for Scott for the first time, full-out, at the Ice Academy back in September, he cried.

Actually cried.

You’d never seen Scott Moir cry before.

“That’s the one,” he said, wiping his eyes, not embarrassed at all. “That’s your Olympic program.”

And now it’s time to skate it.

“Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron skated clean,” you say, because your brain is spiraling and it needs something to hold onto, even if that something is anxiety. The French team went right before you, and they were good. They’re always good. They also happen to be sexual assault apologists, so fuck them, but they were technically very good.

“We’re better,” Tristan says.

“Are we?”

“Yes.” He turns you to face him, both hands on your shoulders, his expression serious in the way it only gets when he’s about to say something true. “We are better. We’ve been better all season. You know it. I know it. Scott knows it.” He pauses. “And more importantly, this program is ours. It’s not theirs. They can’t skate this story. Only we can.”

You take a breath.

The arena is packed. You can hear the crowd, the particular sound of thousands of people in an enclosed space, the hum of anticipation. There are Canadian flags everywhere. You saw your parents in the stands during warmup, your dad with the flag painted on his face, your mom crying already and you haven’t even skated yet.

Scott is at the boards, headset on, talking to the tech team. He catches your eye and nods once. It’s enough.

“Okay,” you say.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Tristan grins. “Let’s go break some hearts.”

***

The thing about ice dance is that it’s not just skating.

It’s storytelling. It’s acting. It’s taking four minutes of music and turning it into something that makes people feel things, something that stays with them long after you’ve left the ice.

And this program is everything.

The opening notes are quiet. Almost hesitant. You’re standing at center ice, Tristan behind you, his hand on your shoulder. Eurydice and Orpheus, before everything went wrong.

The music builds.

You move.

The first lift is a rotational, Tristan holding you as you spiral above him, and you can feel the ice underneath, the edges sharp and certain, the muscle memory of a thousand practice runs taking over. You land and the twizzles start — synchronized, fast, the kind of technical element that the judges love and that looks effortless but requires every ounce of focus you have.

The step sequence comes at the two-minute mark. The midline sequence, the one you’ve been obsessing over, the one where your left edge kept betraying you in practice. But not now. Now it’s perfect. Now you and Tristan are moving as one, the music swelling, the story unfolding.

Orpheus is leading Eurydice out of the underworld.

He’s not supposed to look back.

The second lift is a straight-line, Tristan carrying you across the ice, and you can see the judges in your peripheral vision, their faces focused, their pens moving. You land and immediately go into the circular step sequence, the hardest one, the one where you’re moving in opposite directions and have to maintain exact spacing and timing and twizzles.

You hit every beat.

The music shifts.

This is the part where it breaks.

Orpheus looks back.

The choreography here is devastating. Tristan reaches for you and you’re just out of reach. You reach back and he’s moving away. It’s a chase that can’t be won, a love that can’t be saved, and you’re skating it like your life depends on it because in this moment, it does.

The final lift is a reverse rotational. You’re above Tristan, spinning, and then you’re sliding down, your hand reaching for his face, and the music is fading and you’re on your knees on the ice and he’s standing above you and the last note ends and- 

Silence.

For one heartbeat, the arena is completely silent.

And then it erupts.

You’re crying before you even stand up.

Tristan pulls you to your feet and you’re both shaking, holding onto each other, and the crowd is on their feet and the noise is deafening and you can see Scott at the boards and he’s crying again, openly, his hands pressed to his face.

“Holy shit,” Tristan says into your ear.

“Did we-”

“We just won the Olympics.”

“We don’t know that-”

“We just won the fucking Olympics.”

You’re still crying. The crowd is still screaming. Someone throws a stuffed animal onto the ice — a beaver wearing a tiny Canadian flag — and Tristan skates over to pick it up, holding it above his head like a trophy.

“Oh my god,” you say.

“I told you,” Tristan says, and he’s crying now too, both of you just standing there sobbing in your costumes while the arena loses its mind around you.

Proud doesn’t even begin to cover it.

***

The actual medal ceremony happens later, but the aftermath is immediate and overwhelming.

The mixed zone is chaos. Every Canadian reporter wants a comment. Someone from CBC is crying. The Olympic Broadcasting Service wants you to describe the program and you can barely speak. Tristan does most of the talking, which is good, because Tristan is good at talking and you are currently a non-verbal puddle of emotions.

“It’s a story about love and loss,” Tristan is saying into a microphone, your hand still gripped in his. “About how sometimes loving someone isn’t enough. And I think that’s something everyone can relate to, whether you’ve been in that situation or not. We wanted to tell that story honestly.”

“And skating it at the Olympics?” The reporter asks.

“It’s unreal,” you manage, finding your voice. “This is everything we’ve worked for. Everything we’ve dreamed about since we were nine years old. To do it here, with this program, with my best friend-” Your voice breaks. “Sorry. I’m going to cry again.”

“Don’t apologize,” the reporter says, and she’s smiling. “Congratulations. Canada is so proud of you both.”

***

By the time you get back to the Village, it’s late afternoon and your phone has approximately six thousand notifications.

You’re still in your Team Canada tracksuit, medal around your neck because you haven’t taken it off, and you’re walking through the Village with Tristan and Scott, who insisted on escorting you back like you might evaporate if he lets you out of his sight.

“I need you both to eat something,” Scott says. It’s possibly the fifteenth time he’s said this in the last hour.

“We will,” Tristan promises.

“Actual food. With protein and vegetables. Not just whatever pizza they’re giving out at the dining hall.”

“The dining hall has actual food-”

“Tristan.”

“Okay, yes, we will eat real food.”

Your phone buzzes. Again. You glance at it.

The program has gone viral.

Not just viral in a skating-fan way. Viral in a everyone on the internet is losing their minds way.

There are clips everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. People are editing it to different angles. People are crying in quote tweets. Someone made a version with the original Hadestown cast recording overlaid and it has four million views.

“This is insane,” you say, scrolling.

“Don’t read the comments,” Scott warns.

“I’m reading the comments.”

“Don’t-”

“Someone said they’ve watched it twenty times and they’re still crying.”

“Okay, that one you can read.”

Tristan leans over your shoulder, reading. “Oh my god, someone made a comparison video with the Moulin Rouge program.”

You stop walking.

“What?”

“Look.” He takes your phone, taps on the link.

It’s a split-screen video. Tessa and Scott on one side, you and Tristan on the other. The caption reads the evolution of Canadian ice dance excellence.

You watch for thirty seconds before you have to stop because you’re crying again.

“They’re comparing us to you,” you say.

“There’s no need to compare,” Scott says quietly. “You’re the next generation. And we’re so proud.”

He’s probably right. Tessa sent you a voice note earlier that you haven’t been able to listen to yet because you know you’ll completely fall apart.

“Come on,” Scott says, steering you both toward your building. “Food. Rest. The media tour continues and I need you both functional.”

***

Three buildings away, Macklin is lying on his bed in his Olympic Village room, scrolling through his phone, when the video appears on his timeline.

He’s supposed to be resting. Canada plays their first preliminary game tomorrow, and Coach wants everyone at 100%, which means naps and hydration and definitely not doom-scrolling social media. But Macklin is nineteen and his brain doesn’t turn off just because someone tells it to, so here he is.

The video autoplays.

Canadian ice dancers win GOLD with heartbreaking Hadestown program.

Macklin almost scrolls past it. He’s never been particularly into figure skating — he respects it, obviously, it’s incredibly athletic, but it’s not something he actively follows.

But then he sees the thumbnail.

It’s you.

Mid-performance, mid-lift, your head thrown back, your partner holding you above him, and even in a frozen frame you look devastating.

Macklin taps on the video.

The program starts.

For four minutes and three seconds, Macklin forgets to breathe.

It’s not just that you’re beautiful, although you are, even more so than you were in the courtyard yesterday. It’s not just that you’re an incredible skater, although that’s obvious within the first ten seconds.

It’s the story.

He’s never seen someone act on ice like that. He’s never seen two people move together with that kind of precision and emotion and trust. The lifts are insane — the technical difficulty is something even he, a non-figure-skater, can recognize — but it’s the way you and your partner tell the story that completely destroys him.

The reaching. The almost-touching. The moment at the end where you’re on your knees and your partner is standing above you and you reach up for his face and the music ends and-

“Fuck,” Macklin says, out loud, to his empty room.

He watches it again.

And then again.

By the fourth watch-through, Seth walks in.

“You good?” Seth asks, dropping his gym bag on the floor.

“Yeah,” Macklin says, not looking up.

“You’ve been watching that video for fifteen minutes.”

“No I haven’t.”

“Sure, and I’m Wayne Gretzky.”

Macklin finally looks up. Seth is grinning.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Seth says. “The girl from yesterday.”

“I don’t-”

“That’s definitely her.”

Macklin closes his phone. Opens it. Looks at the screen again. Your face, frozen mid-performance, is devastating even in stillness.

“She just won a gold medal,” Macklin says.

“I’m aware.”

“In ice dance.”

“Also aware.”

“She’s-” Macklin struggles for words. “Did you watch it?”

“Not yet.”

“Watch it.”

Seth raises an eyebrow but takes his phone out, pulling up the video. Macklin watches Seth’s face as he watches the program. Watches him go from casually interested to genuinely absorbed.

When it’s over, Seth looks up.

“Okay,” Seth says. “That was fucking incredible.”

“Right?”

“Like, genuinely one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.”

“Right?”

“And you’re in love with her.”

“I’m not-” Macklin stops. Regroups. “I don’t know her.”

“You want to know her.”

“That’s different.”

“Not really.” Seth sits on his bed, facing Macklin. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Wrong answer.”

“She just won an Olympic gold medal. I can’t just—what, walk up to her and introduce myself? That’s insane.”

“Why is that insane?”

“Because she’s-” Macklin gestures at his phone, where the video is still paused. “She’s that. And I’m just some hockey player.”

“You’re literally on Team Canada at the Olympics.”

“So are twenty-two other guys.”

“Yeah, but you’re also nineteen, single, and actively losing your mind over her, so I feel like that gives you a unique position.”

Macklin flops backward on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t even know her name,” he says.

“So find out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Google? Instagram? Ask literally any other Canadian athlete?” Seth pauses. “Or you could just, I don’t know, talk to her when you see her.”

“I’m not gonna see her.”

“You saw her yesterday.”

“That was a coincidence.”

“And coincidences can happen twice.”

Seth disappears into the bathroom, and Macklin is left alone with his phone and the video and the steadily growing certainty that his life is about to get very complicated in a way he’s not remotely prepared for.

He watches the program one more time.

At the end, when you’re on your knees and the music fades and the crowd erupts, the camera catches your face for just a second. You’re crying. You’re devastated. You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“I’m so fucked,” Macklin says, to no one.

His phone doesn’t respond, but the video autoplays again, and he lets it.

***

The thing about winning an Olympic gold medal is that no one tells you about the media obligations.

You’d think someone would mention it. You’d think, at some point during the ten years of training and competing and slowly climbing the international ranks, someone would sit you down and say, “Hey, if you win, you’re going to spend the next eighteen hours talking to every single media outlet in Canada and also several from countries you’ve never even been to.”

But no one does.

So you spend the entire day after your free dance doing interviews.

CBC wants you for an hour. TSN wants you for forty-five minutes. The Olympic Broadcasting Service wants a sit-down with both you and Tristan. Someone from Radio-Canada needs a quote. The Toronto Star wants a phone interview. Instagram wants you to film a Reel. TikTok wants you to do a trend. Your agent calls and says that three separate brands want to talk about endorsement deals and can you please just send her a list of times you’re available in the next week, and you very politely tell her that you’re at the Olympics and you’ll get back to her when you’re not actively living in a temporary village in Italy.

By Friday afternoon, you’re exhausted.

You’re also still wearing your gold medal.

You’ve basically only taken it off to shower, and even then you hung it on the bathroom door hook so you could see it the entire time. Tristan has been doing the same thing. You ran into him in the hallway this morning and he was in a bathrobe and slides and his medal, and neither of you acknowledged how insane that was because it didn’t feel insane. It felt correct.

“Okay,” Tristan says, appearing in your doorway at 4 PM with the specific energy of someone who has A Plan. “We’re going to the hockey game.”

You look up from your laptop, where you’ve been attempting to answer emails and mostly just staring at photos of yourself on the podium.

“What hockey game?”

“Canada versus Switzerland. Men’s prelims. Starts at three.”

You blink. “We have tickets?”

“We have credentials. We’re Olympic athletes.” He says this like it’s obvious, which, fair. “We’re Canadians. With a gold medal. We can go wherever we want.”

“That’s not how it works-”

“That’s totally how it works.” He grins. “Come on. When’s the next time we’re going to get to watch Crosby and McDavid and MacKinnon all play together? On the same team? For Canada?”

He has a point.

You’re from London, Ontario, which means you’re a Maple Leafs fan by birth and by curse, which means that most of the players on Team Canada are people you spend the regular season actively rooting against. McDavid’s an Oiler. MacKinnon’s an Av. Crosby’s a Penguin. You love them as Canadian hockey players, but during the season they’re the enemy.

But right now?

Right now they’re all wearing the same maple leaf you are.

“Okay,” you say, closing your laptop. “Let’s go watch some hockey.”

***

The arena is smaller than you expected, which somehow makes it better.

You and Tristan get there early, credentials around your necks, and find seats in the Canadian section about fifteen rows up from the ice. The place is already filling in — a mix of Canadian fans in red and white, Swiss fans in their jerseys, and a general population of Olympics attendees who just want to watch good hockey.

Someone three rows behind you screams when they see you.

“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE THE ICE DANCERS!”

You turn around. It’s a woman, maybe mid-thirties, in a Canada jersey and a toque that says EH in large letters.

“Hi,” you say, smiling.

“Can I get a photo?” She’s already pulling out her phone. “My daughter is eight and she wants to be an ice dancer because of you two. She’s been watching your program on repeat for two days.”

Your chest does something warm and complicated.

“Of course,” Tristan says, and you both lean back so she can get the angle, and she takes about fifteen photos and thanks you profusely and tells you you’re an inspiration and you’re going to cry again, you can feel it building.

“Don’t cry at the hockey game,” Tristan mutters as you sit back down.

“I’m not crying.”

“You’re about to cry.”

“I’m not-”

The woman’s daughter is going to be an ice dancer because of you.

Okay, you’re crying a little.

Tristan hands you a tissue from his jacket pocket without comment, and you love him for approximately the nine-thousandth time.

The teams come out for warmups.

The crowd gets loud.

You watch as Team Canada files onto the ice  —  Crosby, McDavid, MacKinnon, Makar, all of them, the entire ridiculous collection of generational talent that somehow ended up on one roster. It’s absurd. It’s beautiful. It’s the kind of thing that hasn’t happened since 2014 and feels like a miracle.

“This is so cool,” you say.

“Right?” Tristan is grinning, his phone out, taking a video. “I’m sending this to my dad. He’s gonna lose his mind.”

You watch the players warm up. Watch them take shots on the goalie, skate lazy circles, the ease of professional athletes who have done this ten thousand times and somehow make it look effortless.

And then you see him.

Number 17.

Macklin Celebrini.

You know who he is, obviously. You’re a hockey fan. You watched him get drafted first overall to the Sharks. You’ve seen his highlights. You know he’s supposed to be the Next Big Thing, the future of the franchise, all of that.

But knowing who someone is and seeing them in person are two very different things.

He’s young. That’s the first thing you notice. He’s your age, or close to it, and he moves on the ice with the kind of confidence that comes from being very, very good at something from a very young age. He takes a shot. It goes bar-down. He grins at whoever’s in net — you can’t see the number from here — and skates back to the line.

“He’s good,” Tristan says, following your gaze.

“He’s nineteen.”

“So are you.”

“I’m not playing Olympic hockey at nineteen.”

“You just won an Olympic gold medal in ice dance at nineteen, so I’d say it’s a fair trade.”

***

Canada dominates.

It’s not even close.

By the end of the first period it’s 2-1 thanks to McDavid and Harley, who are playing like men possessed. The Swiss are good — they’re Olympic-level athletes, they’re all good — but they’re not this.

You’re on your feet more than you’re sitting.

Tristan keeps elbowing you every time you scream, which is often, because you’ve discovered that watching hockey when you’re allowed to cheer for all the players instead of agonizing over your Leafs’ defensive breakdowns is significantly more fun.

“This is amazing!” You yell over the crowd noise after Canada gets a powerplay a minute into the second period.

“You’re insane!” Tristan yells back, but he’s grinning.

“I’M PATRIOTIC!”

“YOU’RE UNHINGED!”

Less than three minutes later, just after the powerplay ends, MacKinnon sets up the most beautiful breakout pass you’ve ever seen, and it ends up on Celebrini’s stick at the blue line. He cuts inside, dekes around a Swiss defender like the guy isn’t even there, and slides it five-hole on the goalie.

The goal horn sounds.

The crowd erupts.

You scream so loud your throat hurts.

“THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE!” You’re yelling, to no one and everyone. “THAT’S A GOAL! THAT’S A FUCKING GOAL!”

Tristan is laughing so hard he’s doubled over.

“You need to calm down,” he wheezes.

“I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! DID YOU SEE THAT DEKE?”

“Everyone in Milan saw that deke-”

“THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE FIRST OVERALL!”

On the ice, Celebrini is being mobbed by his teammates. He’s grinning, the kind of pure joy that comes from scoring at the Olympics, and even from fifteen rows up you can see how young he looks. How genuinely thrilled.

It’s a good goal.

It’s a great goal.

Canada goes into the third period up 3-1, and you’re hoarse from screaming.

The final score is 5-1.

Canada was never in danger. Switzerland played hard, but this Canadian team is something else — the kind of collection of talent that makes you remember why you love hockey, why you grew up watching it, why you spent your childhood skating on frozen ponds in Ontario and dreaming about moments exactly like this.

The final horn sounds.

The Canadian players celebrate on the ice, the easy confidence of a team that knows they’re going through to the next round and isn’t worried about it.

You’re still standing, cheering, your voice basically gone.

“That was so fun,” you say, or try to say. It comes out as a croak.

“You’ve lost your voice,” Tristan observes.

“Worth it.”

“You screamed for two and a half hours straight.”

“WORTH IT.”

He shakes his head, grinning. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before you lose your vocal cords entirely.”

But the crowd is slow-moving, everyone standing and talking and taking photos, and you’re in no rush. You’ve got nowhere to be. Your part of the Olympics is done. You won. You can stand in an arena in Milan and bask in the fact that you’re an Olympic gold medalist watching your country play hockey.

On the ice, the players are starting to leave, skating toward the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms.

The tunnel isn’t directly connected to the rink, which means they have to skate along the boards and then walk up a slight incline, past the first few rows of seats. A bunch of young fans — kids, mostly, in Canadian jerseys — have pressed up against the railing, and the players are slowing down to high-five them as they pass.

It’s sweet.

Crosby stops to sign something. McDavid ruffles a kid’s hair through the glass. Makar tosses a puck, and a girl who can’t be older than seven catches it and immediately bursts into tears.

You’re watching all of this with the specific warmth of someone who loves sports and loves watching athletes be good to fans, when you notice that one of the players has stopped moving entirely.

Number 17.

Celebrini.

He’s just … standing there.

Staring directly at you.

It takes you a second to realize he’s looking at you specifically.

At first you think maybe he’s looking past you, at someone in the rows behind, but no. His eyes are locked on yours, and he’s not moving, and it’s honestly kind of creepy? But also kind of flattering? But mostly creepy?

You do the only thing you can think to do.

You wave.

Slowly.

Awkwardly.

A little half-wave that you immediately regret because what are you, twelve?

Macklin blinks.

It’s the first time he’s blinked in what feels like a full minute, and the movement seems to reset something in his brain, because his mouth opens like he’s about to say something-

And then one of his teammates — you think it’s Seth Jarvis, based on the number — physically pushes him from behind.

“MOVE, CELLY!” Jarvis yells, loud enough that you can hear it from fifteen rows up.

Macklin stumbles forward, still looking back at you, and nearly trips over his own skates. Another teammate — definitely Crosby, you’d recognize that stride anywhere — grabs his shoulder and steers him toward the tunnel, and the entire group disappears into the corridor.

You’re left standing there, hand still half-raised in a wave, your brain trying to process what just happened.

“What,” Tristan says slowly, “was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did he just … stare at you?”

“I think so?”

“For like a full minute?”

“At least.”

“That was-”

“Creepy?”

“I was going to say intense, but sure, creepy works.”

You lower your hand, which is still frozen in mid-wave like you’re a malfunctioning robot.

In front of you, an elderly woman in a Swiss jersey who you hadn’t particularly noticed before turns around in her seat.

She’s got white hair and glasses and the kind of face that makes you think of grandmothers and warm cookies, and she’s smiling at you with an expression you can’t quite read.

“Excuse me, dear,” she says. Her accent is Swiss-German, her English careful and precise.

“Yes?” You manage.

“That boy,” she says, nodding toward the tunnel where the Canadian team disappeared. “The one who was staring at you.”

“Um. Yes?”

“That’s how my husband looked at me the first time he saw me.” She’s still smiling, and there’s something deeply knowing in her expression. “We’ve been married for sixty-two years.”

You stare at her.

Your brain has officially short-circuited.

“I—what—I don’t-” you stammer.

“Just thought you should know,” the woman says pleasantly, and then she turns back around like she hasn’t just dropped a conversational bomb directly into your lap.

You look at Tristan.

Tristan looks at you.

“Did that just happen?” You ask.

“That absolutely just happened.”

“A Swiss grandmother just told me that a hockey player I’ve never spoken to looked at me the way her husband looked at her.”

“Yep.”

“And they’ve been married for sixty-two years.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do I do with that information?”

“I genuinely have no idea.”

You sit down.

Stand up.

Sit down again.

“Okay,” you say. “Okay. That was—he was probably just—maybe he recognized us? From the ice dance? Maybe he was just, I don’t know, trying to place where he knew us from?”

“Y/N.”

“And the staring was just him thinking, like, ‘oh, those are the ice dancers,’ and he got distracted-”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

Tristan gives you a look. “That man was not thinking about ice dance.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I absolutely know that. That was not a ‘oh, I recognize you from the skating’ stare. That was a ‘I have lost all higher brain function’ stare.”

“That’s-” you start, and then you stop, because you don’t actually have a counterargument.

Because Tristan’s right.

That wasn’t a casual recognition stare.

That was something else entirely.

“This is insane,” you say.

“This is amazing,” Tristan corrects. “This is a romantic comedy happening in real time.”

“This is me having a panic attack in an Olympic hockey arena.”

“Why not both?”

“Tristan!”

He’s grinning now, full-force, the kind of grin that means he’s about to say something that will make your life significantly more complicated.

“Don’t,” you warn.

“I’m just saying-”

“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t say it.”

“He’s very cute.”

“TRISTAN.”

“He is! Objectively! And he just stared at you like you hung the moon!”

“He stared at me like a creep!”

“Potato, potahto.”

You put your face in your hands.

The crowd around you is thinning out, people filing toward the exits, but you’re still sitting there having a crisis while Tristan enjoys himself immensely.

“Okay,” you say finally, looking up. “Okay. Nothing happened. A hockey player looked at me weird. That’s it. That’s the whole story. We’re going to go back to the Village, eat some pasta, sleep for twelve hours, and forget this ever happened.”

“Sure,” Tristan says, in the tone of voice that means he absolutely does not believe you.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are. That’s what makes it so funny.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.” He stands, stretching. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before you spiral any harder.”

You follow him out of the arena, past the crowds and the vendors and the general chaos of a post-game Olympic venue, and the entire time you’re trying very hard not to think about the way Macklin Celebrini looked at you.

Like you were the only person in the arena.

Like he’d forgotten how to blink.

Like — and this is the part that’s really messing with you — like the Swiss grandmother was right.

“This is fine,” you mutter as you walk.

“Totally fine,” Tristan agrees, not even trying to hide his smile.

“Nothing is going to come of this.”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“I’m an Olympic gold medalist. I’m focused. I’m professional.”

“You’re in denial.”

“I’m realistic.”

Tristan doesn’t respond, just links his arm through yours as you walk back toward the Village, and you let him, because he’s your best friend and he’s put up with ten years of your nonsense and if he wants to think a random hockey player’s weird staring means something, you can let him have that.

Even if you’re absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not thinking about it.

At all.

Not even a little bit.

Your phone buzzes.

It’s a text from your mom. Watched the hockey game! Canada looked great! Also someone filmed you in the stands and it’s going viral. You’re very enthusiastic. Love you!

Below it is a link to a TikTok.

You click on it.

It’s you. Screaming at the top of your lungs when Celebrini scored, your gold medal swinging around your neck, your face pure joy.

The caption reads Ice dance gold medalist Y/N Y/L/N is all of us watching Team Canada.

It has 250,000 likes.

“Oh no,” you say.

“What?” Tristan leans over to look.

He sees the video.

He starts laughing so hard he has to stop walking.

“I’m going to kill you,” you tell him.

“Worth it,” he wheezes.

Your phone buzzes again.

Another notification.

This one from Instagram.

You don’t want to look.

You look anyway.

It’s a video from someone in the arena. A different angle.

This one shows Macklin Celebrini stopping in his tracks and staring directly at where you’re sitting in the stands. Why did Celebrini just FREEZE???

The comments are already speculating.

“I’m deleting my social media,” you announce.

“You’re absolutely not,” Tristan says, still laughing.

“I’m moving to a remote cabin in the woods.”

“You hate bugs.”

“I’ll learn to love them.”

Your phone buzzes a third time.

You ignore it.

You’re going to ignore everything for the next twelve hours.

You’re going to go back to the Village, eat pasta, sleep, and when you wake up, this will all have blown over and you’ll be back to being a normal Olympic gold medalist whose biggest concern is whether or not to do a post-Olympic tour.

That’s the plan.

It’s a good plan.

It’s definitely going to work.

Right?

***

Sidney Crosby has won three Stanley Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and approximately every individual hockey award that exists.

He is widely considered one of the greatest players of all time.

He is a leader, a professional, a person who takes his responsibilities seriously and conducts himself with dignity both on and off the ice.

Which is why, when he physically pulls Mitch Marner into a storage closet in the Olympic Village at 9 PM on a Friday night, Mitch is understandably confused.

“Uh,” Mitch says, as Sid closes the door behind them. “Sid? What’s-”

“I need you to do something for me,” Sid says.

The closet is small. There are mops. There’s a bucket. There’s a very strong smell of industrial cleaner. Mitch is pressed up against a shelf of paper towels, and Sid is blocking the door, and this is, objectively, insane.

“Okay,” Mitch says slowly. “Could we do this thing not in a closet?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s sensitive.”

“What’s sensitive?”

“Celebrini.”

Mitch blinks. “What about Celebrini?”

“He saw a girl.”

There is a long pause.

“I’m sorry,” Mitch says. “You pulled me into a closet to tell me that a nineteen-year-old saw a girl?”

“Not just any girl.” Sid is very serious. Too serious. The kind of serious that Mitch usually associates with game seven overtime situations, not whatever this is. “The ice dancer. The one who won gold. Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Okay?”

“He’s in love with her.”

“He doesn’t know her.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Sid-”

“Mitch.” Sid puts both hands on Mitch’s shoulders, which is somehow more alarming than the closet situation. “I watched this kid see her at the hockey game tonight, and he stopped walking. Just completely shut down. Jarvis had to physically push him to get him moving again.”

“So he thinks she’s pretty-”

“It was more than that.” Sid’s eyes are intense. “I’ve been in this sport for twenty years. I know what it looks like when someone gets hit by something they’re not ready for. And that kid got hit.”

Mitch stares at him.

“Are you,” Mitch says carefully, “having a midlife crisis?”

“I’m thirty-eight.”

“That’s literally midlife-”

“I’m trying to help a teammate.”

“By pulling me into a closet.”

“Yes.”

“To talk about his crush.”

“Yes.”

Mitch takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say Mack is, I don’t know, experiencing some kind of Olympic Village rom-com situation. What does that have to do with me?”

“You played for the Leafs.”

“I’m aware.”

“Morgan Rielly is still on the Leafs.”

“Also aware.”

“Morgan Rielly is married to Tessa Virtue.”

“Yes, and-” Mitch stops. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

“Sid, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.”

“You want me to call Morgan so that Morgan can get Tessa to—what, play matchmaker?”

“Not Tessa. Scott.”

“Scott?”

“Scott Moir. He coaches Y/N and her partner. If anyone can get her in a room with Mack, it’s him.”

Mitch stares at Sid for a long moment.

“This is the most insane thing you’ve ever asked me to do,” Mitch says.

“Is it?”

“Yes! We’re Olympic athletes! We’re supposed to be focused on hockey!”

“We won 5-1. We have a day before our next game. We can multitask.”

“This isn’t multitasking, this is-” Mitch stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “Does Mack even know you’re doing this?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Does he want help?”

“He’s nineteen and terrified. Of course he wants help. He just doesn’t know he wants help.”

“That’s not how consent works-”

“Mitch.” Sid’s voice goes softer. “I’m not asking you to force anything. I’m asking you to create an opportunity. That’s it. If they meet and nothing happens, fine. But if they meet and something does happen …” He shrugs. “Don’t you think they deserve that chance?”

Mitch looks at Sid.

Sid looks back, completely earnest.

“You’re genuinely invested in this,” Mitch says.

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because-” Sid pauses, and for a second he looks almost vulnerable, which is deeply weird on Sidney Crosby. “Because we spend our whole lives focused on hockey. On winning. On being the best. And that’s important. That’s what we’re here for. But sometimes-” He stops. Starts again. “Sometimes you meet someone and it matters. And you should at least get the chance to see if it could be something.”

There’s a weight to the way he says it that makes Mitch think Sid is talking about more than just Macklin.

“Okay,” Mitch says finally. “Okay. I’ll call Morgan.”

Sid grins. “Thank you.”

“But if this blows up in our faces, I’m blaming you.”

“Fair.”

They emerge from the closet to find Tom Wilson leaning against the opposite wall, eating an apple.

“You two have a nice chat?” Tom asks innocently.

“Fuck off,” Mitch mutters.

Tom’s laugh follows them down the hallway.

Most would doubt it. But you don’t. Not when you’ve seen it all. The way he positions you at the safer end of everything, a quiet barrier between you and any dangers. The way his hand always finds yours, grounding you, like he’s saying without words that you are part of the things he protects.

He doesn’t need to raise his voice or throw a punch, his presence alone is enough. And it reminds you every time that being his means never having to stand alone. 

Because he’s on your team. Always.

Tonight is different though. Tonight, he’s pissed off. Furious.

Yeah, the team’s getting crushed. But he can handle that. He always can. And sure, the ref’s calls don’t make sense, but that’s nothing new either. He’s been through worse. He can swallow that too.

What he can’t let slide—what’s really making his blood boil—are the comments this one player keeps throwing around. About you.

It started in the penalty box. Unfair, obviously, because he did nothing wrong. He swears it. Maybe he should’ve just started something right there, ended it before it even began. But at first, it just sounded like the usual chirping. The kind that rolls off the back of a player too young, too loud, too cocky for his own good.

“Yeah, well, I could go and get your girl!” the player—Quinn doesn’t even bother remembering his name—calls over the glass, all swagger and no sense.

“Go ahead and fucking try,” Quinn shoots back, the words sharp but his tone controlled, a small smirk tugging at his lips. Because there’s no universe where you’d ever fall for that. And there’s no version of him that would ever let you go.

By the time he’s out of the box and back on the ice for a few minutes, his head’s cleared slightly. There’s no need to worry about some kid. He can let it go. Really, he can. It’s the sportsmanly thing to do.

But then the player appears before him again, grinning like he’s already won something, and Quinn’s restraint begins to crack.

One hard shove against his shoulder. “Your girl watching?”

Quinn ignores it, keeps his eye on the puck, keeps his awareness of the rink clear as he spins and rushes toward the goal.

Another check to his side. “Bet she’d be a blast later tonight. I could show her a real good time if you’re willing to—”

By the time the refs blow the whistle, Quinn’s gloves are off, and he has the kid pinned against the boards, shoving him back with a force no one expects, eyes dark with a warning he’s never delivered to anyone before.

The arena erupts. Chaos spreads like wildfire as a fight breaks out between the teams.

It takes multiple people to pry him off. He’s trembling with a mix of adrenaline and fury, his voice cutting through the noise.

“Don’t you fucking talk about her like that!”

Because chirping in hockey is normal. But bringing family into it? That’s war.

The Canucks lose. The locker room is silent. Coach doesn’t yell. The guys get it. Some of them pat him on the back as Coach talks about weak spots and how to manage them during a game.

He pretends to listen, nodding at the words, but his mind drifts elsewhere. You aren’t a weak spot. You’re the reason he keeps going. And no one was allowed to talk about you like that.

The media spins it as they always do. Commentators call him reckless, say his actions show a lack in discipline.

“You don’t talk about family,” he says when asked during the post-game interview. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t defend himself further. He lets the silence speak for itself.

Later that night, he’s lying in bed, knuckles bruised and body sore, but finally home with you. And you’re safe.

“I don’t need you to start fights for me,” you murmur, tracing circles on his back, feeling the tension leave him little by little.

“He shouldn’t have said any of that,” he replies, turning toward you, wrapping you in his arms like he’s making up for every word said against you.

“I know,” you say softly, pressing a light kiss to his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asks, fingers gently playing with your hair.

“I hate knowing what he said,” you admit. “But I’m lucky you’re willing to start fights with rookies to defend my honor.” You joke, feeling the rumble of his chest as he chuckles. “Just don’t start too many fights, yeah? They might start calling you a fighter instead of a defenceman.”

“I’d wage war for you,” he says, half joking, half earnest, and you feel the weight of both the words and the promise behind it. 

I’m on your corner. I’ve got your back.

You hum against him, letting the words and the quiet settle around you. For the first time all night, the weight lifts, and everything feels right again.

Quinn doesn’t get into fights.

Except tonight.

Because it was you.

“wait, wait!” santos laughs, “drunk vs table top dancing!” that caused more cackling.

whitaker rushes back in then, two purses, two jackets, and one strappy heel in hand.

“and what do we have here?” john asks as he approaches the trio, whitaker frantically trying to get the girls to quiet.

“johnny boy!” you yell on his approach. “i fought gravity and lost!”

whitaker—seemingly deemed designated driver and therefore sober—clarifies nervously, “uh, 27 year old female presents with severe pain in left ankle after falling from…height—“

“i was dancing on the bar!”

“—ankle had rapid swelling and bruising in route. um, and she’s drunk.”

john looks back down at the r2 in the wheelchair—clearly either the adrenaline or your drunkenness has lessened the pain, you once again cackling with santos about some guy in a fedora you saw earlier.

“south 22 is open,” lena calls from the hub.

“alright, let’s get you guys back—“ john is cut off by two emts pushing in a gurney.

“who the hell parked their car in the bay!?” one shouts.

whitaker let’s out a quick shit! before shoving the items from his arms into john’s.

11:23pm and he now had the perfect case to leave abbot.

SHEN $50 THEY JUST FRICK NASTY

———

jack abbot first took real notice of you during your first stretch of night shifts as an ms4.

you were smart, easily keeping up with the intern you’d been assigned to. you were a team-player, willing to step in wherever needed, even if that led you to scut work or covered in bodily fluids. you were kind, volunteering to hold a toddler’s hand while they received stitches instead of clamoring to do them yourself.

and yeah, jack noticed that you were attractive, okay? objectively, clinically—not in any way he would ever entertain, let himself think twice about. that was until he caught a whiff of your perfume at a patient’s bedside.

it was barely there, like you’d put it on that morning hoping it’d wear off before shift. but it was enough. enough for him to catch the faint vanilla sweetness. enough to be familiar.

enough to remind him of the scent his wife used to wear.

———

bridget takes over wheeling you into the pitt, trinity stumbling in her own heeled boots behind you, now holding your bags and coats.

“so, you all havin’ a fun night?” bridget teases as you arrive.

“yeah! girls’ night out!” you reply, precariously hopping into the bed.

“wasn’t dr. whitaker with you two?”

trinity snorts plopping into the now empty wheelchair, “yeah. like she said, girls’ night out.” that sent you both back into your hysterics.

bridget just smiles with a shake of her head as she sets up for your iv, throwing a blanket over your legs for good measure. your short dress continues to inch up in your antics, no need to give the whole er a show—maybe just a certain doctor.

“just couldn’t stay away, could ya?” bridget asks, making quick work of your iv. a hushed ow, shit! escaping you.

before you could, trinity answers. “she wanted t’see her maaaans,” rolling foward.

that catches the nurse’s attention. “oh, her mans, huh?”

you answer with an exaggerated dreamy sigh, “yeah, hal ‘n i got somethin’ special.” hal, the 70 year old, part-time security guard stationed at the metal detectors. hal, who’s been married for 40 years…to a man.

that earns another snort from trinity, you following shortly. bridget wheels trinity out of the room with a heeey! from both drunken doctors.

BRIDGET $20 ACCIDENTAL PREGNANCY

———

trinity santos wasn’t nice. she was tough and sarcastic and brutally honest, quick with a witty response or teasing dig. trinity santos wasn’t nice, but, as much as she liked to deny it, trinity santos was kind.

she befriended you during her second year of residency.

charting at the hub toward the end of a night shift, trinity couldn’t help but notice your phone vibrating on the counter—again.

“you gonna get that?” trinity asked with raised brows.

not looking up from the computer, you replied, “it’s just my landlord. he’ll leave a message if it’s important.”

“your landlord calls you at 4 in the morning for unimportant things?”

after a beat, you rushed to answer your phone and began walking to the break room.

a while later you returned red eyed and jittery, but went back to your charting without a word. if you weren’t going to mention it, trinity wasn’t going to either.

as he came to return a tablet, dr. abbot also noticed your change in demeanor. “you good, kid?”

head jerking up, you plastered on an obviously forced smile, “yeah! just bad news from the landlord. i’ll be—“ your voice caught in your throat.

dr. abbot looked at you, head leaning forward as to tell you to continue.

letting out a shaky breath, you did, “my apartment building flooded and since i’m on the ground floor my unit is trashed and my landlord said there’s no way i can stay there after my shift and that he won’t know how long the repairs will take or if he’ll just break the lease while work is happening and my roommate said she’s gonna stay with her boyfriend but that there’s no extra room so now i’m just out on the curb and i’m freaking out a little—“

you continued to panic at the nurses station, dr. abbot patting at your shoulder as some form of comfort.

as trinity stood to check on a patient, she caught dennis’ eyes from across the hub.

trinity, we have a couch, they seemed to say.

no fucking way, huckleberry, i haven’t gotten rid of you yet, she willed her expression to reply.

c’mon, he gave with a disappointed tilt of his head.

rolling her eyes, trinity turned to you. “hey, huckleberry and i have a pull-out couch. you can crash with us.”

that’s how you became trinity’s second offering from the fourth year medical student distribution system, one she hoped wouldn’t become a foster-fail like the last.

you ended up staying for two months until you found a new place.

SANTOS $20 SHE MARRIES HIM FOR HIS VA BENEFITS THEN HE MYSTERIOUSLY CROAKS

———

jack abbot’s residents were smart. he made sure of it. only the best and brightest able to last under his tutaledge. his residents were smart, but god could they be idiots.

so seeing santos and whitaker after hours, one clearly drunk sitting in a wheelchair, both dressed like they were going out, he knew it couldn’t be good.

“what are you two doing here?” jack asks as he approaches the pair.

“just an little accident at—“ whitaker answers at the same time santos says, “bar fight,” rolling herself back and forth in the wheelchair.

jack looks between the two. neither look injured—one clearly intoxicated, but not injured.

as if reading his thoughts, santos clarifies. “we’re fine, dr. abbot,” a shit-eating grin slowly growing on her face, “can’t say the same for twinkle toes over there.” she nods her head toward south 22.

looking up at the board, jack sees your name: possible ankle break, iv fluids started.

letting out a huff, he calls over to the other r2 at the far end of the nurses station, “javadi, with me.”

———

the first time you fucked jack abbot was in a bar bathroom toward the end of your final year of medical school.

the day shift had gone out to celebrate dana’s birthday, joined by a few night shift friends not scheduled that evening—jack included. a night filled with drinking and stories and shots and celebration.

you sat at a table with dana, cassie, and jack, picking at some over-priced appetizer platter and listening to them recount stories of the birthday girl. you hadn’t expected to be invited out with your colleagues, but dana insisted that everyone was welcome, even wide-eyed ms4s.

and maybe you were edging a little past tipsy, maybe you were just deluding yourself, but you swore you could feel jack continue to lean closer to you, his focus shift more intently on you. maybe it was the fifth drink you’d seen him down that night, maybe it was the months of you following him around like a starstruck idiot, but you swore you saw his eyes flicker down to your mouth more than once.

trinity appeared then, hands full of unnaturally pink shots, squeezing next to you into the chair you already occupied. “for the birthday girl!” she cheered, raising a shot glass in one hand and handing dana another, “and co,” signaling for the table’s other occupants to take one as well.

coughing after shooting down what must have been strawberry scented nail polish remover, you looked to jack. his normally stoic face was twisted into a look of horror, causing you to burst out laughing. his gaze returned to you, the corners of his mouth twitching up—eyes once again darting to your mouth.

before thinking, you quickly stood and announced that you were running to the restroom, shooting jack a look over your shoulder as you walked away.

it took 27 seconds—you counted—for him to join you in the room, clicking the lock shut behind him.

it took another 14—again, you counted—before his mouth crashed into yours, all clacking teeth and bumping noses, desperate and drunk.

pushing you against the sink, jack moved sloppy kisses across your cheek, over your jaw, down your neck.

“y’changed your perfume,” he said nosing behind your ear. not a question, an observation.

as his mouth moved lower to your collarbone, you answered, “gotta couple diff’rent ones. you noticed?”

jack didn’t reply, just let out an mmm as he worked at the button of your pants, swiftly pulling them down, trapped at the ankle by your shoes.

kneeling in front of you, jack lifted your legs to rest over his shoulders before he dove into you. he was sloppy, uncoordinated, moving your panties to the side to lick into your cunt.

he added his fingers after only a moment, a strangled moan ripping from your mouth at the intrusion. he sucked at your clit as he scissored his thick fingers, attempting to prepare you for the stretch of him.

the mix of alcohol and blood rushing from your head had you dizzy, intoxicated in more ways than one.

satisfied with his work, jack stood between your legs, trapped ankles locking around his hips. you both fumbled at his belt, pulling his jeans down only low enough to free his cock—red and angry and leaking and thick.

you let out a shaky breath as jack spit into his hand, giving a few tugs at his length. he again pulled your panties to the side before bringing himself to your entrance.

the thick of his head breaching your walls ripped a loud moan from you, jack moving his free hand up to quickly cover your mouth.

“y’gotta stay quiet. can’t let ‘em know,” he grunted as he continued to slowly thrust into you.

nodding your head behind his hand, he released it, and you brought him in for another desperate kiss, hand fisted in his hair, tongue fighting for entrance to his mouth.

jack began thrusting into you in earnest then, the wet smack of skin on skin echoing in the small room. he moved his hand back to your swollen clit then, fingers moving expertly to bring you closer to your orgasm.

you trade moans and grunts into each other’s mouths, you keening loudly, too loudly, as you’re brought over the edge, walls spasming around his thick cock.

and he didn’t ask. and you didn’t remind him. so when jack’s orgasm hit him, he came buried deep inside your fluttering warmth, mouth pressed tight against your neck.

after a few moments, he pulled out of you, cum leaking from your cunt. slipping off your shoe to allow one leg to go free, jack stepped back to tuck himself back into his pants.

before he could move out of your reach, you grabbed at the hem of his shirt. mind suddenly devoid of everything you’d ever wanted to say to him, you just stared up at jack, willing him to read your thoughts, for him to say something first. instead, he stepped in and placed a lingering kiss to your forehead before exiting back into the bar.

returning to your seat at the table, you didn’t notice that jack had gone to sit at the bar with robby, downing two more drinks since he’d arrived. leaning your head against trinity’s shoulder, you didn’t notice the drunken smile on your lips—you didn’t notice the knowing expressions adorning cassie and dana’s faces. letting your eyes flutter shut, you didn’t notice jack’s cum dripping out of you.

DANA $10 THEY DANCE AROUND IT UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE :(

MCKAY $10 THEY HOOK UP 1.5 TIMES

———

sometimes victoria javadi still can’t believe she decided to match into emergency medicine. most days it’s great—interesting, thrilling, challenging. some days it’s terrible—tragic, depressing, stomach-turning. but every so often, it’s eye roll-inducing, scoff-worthy, second-hand embarrassing—tonight is one of those nights.

walking into south 22 with dr. abbot, she comes face to face with her fellow r2—though gone are the normal black scrubs and bare face, replaced with a tiny going-out dress and the remnants of eye makeup. you currently had the foot of your good leg in your lap, trying to undo the one strappy heel you still wore.

“vicky!” you exclaim with a smile seeing the doctors’ arrival. “help a comrade out?”

before victoria can, dr. abbot steps forward and makes quick work of the heel, setting it next to the discarded one on the chair next to your coat—weird.

tucking your good leg back under the blanket, dr. abbot asks—smiling? “you really did a number on yourself, huh?”

in lieu of a real answer, you grin and lift your injured leg into the air, letting out a ding!, the hospital blanket the only thing keeping you from flashing everyone—jesus, you must be drunk. that gets an actual laugh from dr. abbot—so weird.

you vaguely listen as victoria presents the case, going over the initial treatment plan—pain meds and x-rays—and future possibilities—ortho consult, surgery, resetting, casting—more interested in the other doctor in the room.

“hey there, handsome,” you say to dr. abbot after victoria finishes, drunken smile on your face.

victoria gasps, quickly whispering, “please don’t say that about our boss, oh my god.” she could not be a witness to your hr violation, couldn’t let yourself get fired.

“why not? jackie’s a catch!” you say looking from dr. abbot to victoria.

“yeah, i’m a catch,” dr. abbot mocks. “i get sweet discounts and get to park wherever i want.” he doesn’t seem upset by the comment, so victoria just excuses herself to call x-ray.

so weird.

JAVADI $5 NOTHING (HE’S OLD, YOU GUYS!)

———

michael robinavitch was a good friend, or least he tried to be. his therapist helping him learn to open up to his friends, and in turn, encouraging his friends to open up to him.

but when robby’s closest friend—his brother in arms, his partner in crime, the pain in his ass—drunk in the passenger seat of his truck on the way home from dana’s party, asked, “get ‘er a dose’a levonorgestrel in the mornin’ fer me, yeah?” robby didn’t know how good of a friend he wanted to be.

“what?” he asked, head snapping between jack and the road.

jack murmured out something that sounded a whole lot like your name, then, “the mornin’ af’er pill. getter a dose. ‘m sure she’ll get one, but jus’in case.”

robby was rendered speechless for the rest of the drive to jack’s.

as he fumbled to open the door with his keys, jack poked robby in the chest. “lev’norges’rel,” all he said before swiftly opening and closing the door in robby’s face.

the next morning, robby found you—his med student, for fuck’s sake—at your locker. pulling the brown pharmacy bag from his backpack, he sat it in the open door.

“what’s this?” you asked peering into the bag, the word levonorgestrel staring back at you.

you quickly crumple the bag closed, head whipping to robby, eyes wide. “what!?” you whisper shouted.

robby held his hands in front of him, palms open. “i’m just the messenger.”

“what did jack tell—“ you start, but are interrupted by robby waving his outstretched hands once, before placing them up to his ears as if to cover them if you try to speak.

“i don’t know anything. i don’t want to know anything,” he stated, turning on his heel to walk out of the hallway.

robby decided he was the greatest friend jack would ever know, and that he owed him big for this.

ROBBY $50 HE JUST PINES UNTIL HER RESIDENCY IS OVER

———

lena doesn’t love using the intercom to announce incoming traumas, not at night. with as many boarders in the pitt as there were anymore, the loud tone followed by a bodiless voice echoing the halls could be startling to those who’d actually manage to fall asleep. so when able, when she knew the current location of the attending, she would gladly walk to them to announce the incoming, giving even a moment of peace to the souls with them for the night.

typically when she found jack, he wasn’t hovering at the bedside of his pretty little resident.

jack has both hands on the bed’s side rail, leaning casually against the edge. he smirks down at you, face softer than lena had seen in a long time.

you were laying partially propped up in the bed, smiling up at jack with a big grin, speaking rapidly about something. the index finger of your hand closest to jack was fiddling with the draw string of his scrub pants—not sexual, not even flirtatious, but familiar, like maybe you didn’t even realize you were doing it.

what really did it for lena, though, was when you said something that caused jack to smile—an honest to god, open-mouthed, teeth-showing smile; that was the jack abbot equivalent of twirling his hair and giggling like a school girl.

lena couldn’t even bring herself to be mad she seemed to be out 15 bucks.

“they’re being weird, right?” dr. javadi says as she steps next to lena, tablet in hand. the young doctor looks legitimately concerned.

bumping her shoulder, lena just replies, “come on, kid.”

walking closer to the curtained room, jack notices the two approaching and quickly backs away, stoic expression returning. if he had noticed lena noticing them, he shows no indication.

“jack, we got a level 2 trauma incoming, 7 minutes out,” lena informs. “the v.i.p. will hafta make due with the resident.”

“yeah, v.i.p., learn your acronyms,” you mock as jack moves to leave, him shooting you a look as he does. you just grin big in return.

as dr. javadi makes work explaining your treatment—non-displaced ankle fracture, walking boot, no weight for a minimum of three weeks—lena adds, “dr. whitaker left to take dr. santos home. told him i’d tell you. said to call when you’re getting dispoed and he’d come back up.”

in reply, you give a small, “sounds good, queen,” the night finally catching up to you, sleep tugging at your eyes.

LENA $15 THEY GO ON ONE AWKWARD DATE

———

the second time you fucked jack abbot, it was on the hospital roof part way through your intern year.

ever since that night in the bar, things had changed between you and jack, grown tense. gone were the puppy dog eyes and good works, replaced by impatience and ever increasing criticisms.

“god! you are such a fucking prick, sometimes!” you screamed at him after reaching the roof. the pitt had grown too used to your spats with jack, but that night’s bout was especially hostile, shouldn’t be heard by hovering ears.

“and you’re a whiny fuckin’ brat when you don’t get your way!” he returned.

“i wasn’t whining, jack! i was advocating for my patient!”

the senior resident you’d been assigned to that shift hadn’t taken your proposed diagnosis seriously, said you were just a little intern hunting zebras. when his treatment plan led the patient to crash, you snapped. you seemed to release all the built-up frustration inside you, all the anger from months of being doubted by your attending. and yeah, maybe the resident shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of it, but your diagnosis was correct, and he did belittle you for it—your rage only pausing when jack stepped in with an enough! before leading you to the elevator.

“maybe so, but you’re sure as fuck are whining now,” jack said lowly, if not a little demeaning.

his tone snapped something deeper in you, giving a shove to his solid chest with a shout of “asshole!” you didn’t know why you did it, you were never a violent person. and though the push barely seemed to rock jack, it made his expression darken.

before you could open your mouth to apologize, jack pulled you in by the neck for a bruising kiss. pulling at each others hair and nipping at lips, he slammed your back against the brick wall of the roof, the hand cradling the back of your head the only softness from him.

“you’re such a mouthy fuckin’ brat,” he grunted into your mouth, tugging at his belt, “y’should put it to better use.”

it shouldn’t have turned you on, guys talking down to you like that usually didn’t, but god, something about it coming from jack made your thighs squeeze together.

dropping to your knees, you finish helping him out of his boxers, gripping the base of his leaking cock.

you placed sloppy open-mouthed kisses along his length as you stared back up at him, his brows furrowed and breaths coming harshly from his nose.

when your mouth finally wrapped around the tip, jack’s hand flew to your hair, grabbing it harshly. he set a steady rhythm with the grip on your hair, you hollowing your cheeks and letting him use your mouth to chase his pleasure.

one hand clawed into his firm asscheek, your other snaked down the front of your scrub pants, fingers attempting to give yourself some relief.

noticing the movements, jack yanked you off him forcefully, an involuntary whine leaving your throat.

hoisting you up, jack turned you to face into the brick wall, ripping your scrub bottoms down. he didn’t offer any prep that time, just glided his cock through your slick folds, gathering your wetness, before slamming into you.

you choked out a shout, or maybe a moan, back arching away from the man behind you, strong hands holding you in place.

pounding into you, jack let out only grunts, no words giving away whatever was going through his mind, what he was thinking.

your hands gripped desperately at the brick of the wall, searching for leverage, for something to hold. jack moved one hand from your hip to rest over the back of yours, fingers lacing together. another moment of softness, cut only by the bruising grip at your hip, the nipping at your neck, the slam of hips against yours.

resting your forehead against the back of his hand curled around yours, you once again reached the other between your legs, rubbing tight circles around your clit—this time, jack allows it.

moaning and panting and grunting, your paces quicken, grips tighten. you came with a sob, the head of jack’s cock hitting the perfect spot inside you, your fingers moving deftly between your thighs.

when jack pulled from you, he tugged at his length until he was coming against your ass, ropes of cum hot in the cool pennsylvania air.

his head dropped to your shoulder, your hand reaching to card through the hairs at the nape of his neck, each of you attempting to catch your breath.

for a moment it was peaceful—no shouting, no bickering, no digging critiques—just two people sharing pleasure.

jack pulled a wet wipe from one of his cargo pockets—a soldier’s always prepared, he used to joke—gently swiping it to clean his spend from you, before pulling your scrubs back up around your hips.

you wanted to say something again, as you did when this happened before, but jack just placed a large hand between your shoulder blades, fingers giving the slightest pressure to your skin, before turning and walking back into the hospital.

when the email came the next morning, stating your night shift rotation was ending early and you were to report back on days, you didn’t try to stop the tears from falling from your eyes.

———

it could have been minutes, but must have been hours, when you wake to jack shifting the hospital blanket further up your body.

“‘t time’s it?” you mumble, voice thick with sleep. “‘m i bein’ dispoed?”

“around 3, sweetheart,” he answers. “don’t worry about calling whitaker, robby’s heading in an hour early. i’ll drive you to yours to pack.”

“to pack?” you ask, only slightly more conscious.

“you live in a third story walk-up. if you’re plannin’ on leaving it for the next three weeks, you’ll have to stay somewhere else.”

“any ideas where?” you ask, eyes closing again.

jack just smoothes a hand down the top of your head and tells you to go back to sleep. for once, you listen.

———

the third time you fucked jack abbot is at the end of intern year.

after receiving the email all but banishing you to day shift months prior, you only caught glimpses of jack at turnover, all your future night shifts under shen as attending.

you looked for jack in the early hours of the day, hoping to catch him before he left, but he was always unavailable, preoccupied, gone.

he didn’t bicker or criticize anymore. he didn’t banter. he just ignored, he avoided. the silence that stretched between you two grew palpable, suffocating.

and finally you’d had enough.

it’d taken until then, that night, to work with jack again.

“why do you hate me?” you asked after cornering him in the staff parking lot after your shift, dawn settling over pittsburgh.

that gave jack pause. “excuse me?” he replied, looking at you with furrowed brows and squinted eyes, thick arms crossing over his chest.

the weight of jack’s stare was always heavy, intense, but this was nearly unbearable, drowning you in pools of hazel.

but you’d made the decision to confront him, needed to stand your ground. taking a shaky breath, mirroring his stance, you said again, “you heard me. why do you hate me?”

jack’s brow twitched minutely, a nearly imperceivable crack in his armor. he saw you mirror his stance, but your posture was vulnerable, your eyes sorrowful. it compelled him to start honestly, “i don’t hate you.”

that wasn’t what you were expecting—a dismissal, probably; a confirmation, maybe, but not that.

your stance shifted, weight rocking from one foot to the other, arms wrapping tighter around you. “then why—“ you started, looking away then seemingly forcing your gaze back to jack, steeling yourself.

speaking firmer, you continued, “we were fine until—until dana’s party and then things changed. you changed. not even oh-shit-i-screwed-my-med-student awkward changed—“

“lower your voice—“ jack said stepping forward. that wasn’t something he needed overheard.

“but you got…mean. cruel even. you criticized me harsher than everyone, like suddenly i lost all credibility—“

“that’s not—“

“—like i was suddenly an ms3 on her first day again, trying to impress everyone and feeling like an idiot every step of—“

“i was impressed by you as an ms3.”

“—the way and you’ve been so fucking—wait, what the fuck is that supposed mean?” you finally paused your rant, take aback by jack’s words, the intensity of his stare.

“you’ve always been impressive. and i’ve never hated you, that’s the problem. i let myself slip that night and—“ his hands moved to his hips, his head hanging to look at the ground instead of in your eyes, “and pushing you away with cruelty was easier than staying away in silence,” he finished, head moving to look off to the side.

“jack, what are you—“

his gaze shot back to yours, stepping closer, “but even with the cruelty you came closer, just as fiery, calling out my bullshit because you knew that’s exactly what it was. and that still didn’t fuckin’ stop my mind from slipping again.”

“jack—“

he pushed the heels of his palm into his eyes as he continued, “and now i’m all scrambled in my head and i can’t get myself to keep this up. i can’t fucking tell when i stopped chasing a ghost and started chasing you. i don’t know how to act around you anymore—“

“jack! what are you trying to say?” you had to interrupt him, had to, before your mind spun his words into something they weren’t, into something that lit a spark of hope in your chest.

“i lo—“ he blew out a breath, dropping his hands to his sides, “i like you. care about you. more than i should. not like an attending should a resident. not like a teacher should a student. like how a man cares for a woman, how—“

“have dinner with me.”

“what?”

now you took the step closer, eyes never leaving his. “have dinner with me. like a date.”

he tried turning away as he said, “honey, i’ve been so fucking bad to you—“ but you chased his gaze.

“then make it up to me. have dinner with me.”

and he did. and it goes great, how it should when a man cares for a woman.

he drove you home afterward. and he said yes when you invited him up, holding his hand, smile on your face. and he said yes when you asked him to come inside, fist in his hair, moan in your throat.

the first time jack abbot made love to you was after your first date.

———

six am comes quickly. a pain behind your eyes accompanies the pain in your ankle as you’re shuffled back into a wheelchair by bridget. jacket around your shoulders, booted ankle propped up in the footrest, you’re rolled through the ambulance bay doors once more.

the drive back to your apartment with jack is quiet, peaceful.

“you never answered my question, by the way,” you say, turning to look at him.

“you asked a whole lotta questions last night, baby. gonna have to be more specific,” he says, a hint of humor in his voice.

rolling your eyes and hitting his arm with the back of your hand, you answer, “the one where i asked where i was supposed to stay.”

glancing to you, he smirks, “you’re stayin’ with me ‘til you’re at least able to put weight on that ankle.”

“hmm, just ‘til then?” you ask playfully.

jack just looks back to the road, reaching to curl your hand in his and giving the back of it a kiss, fighting the smile tugging at his lips.

———

dennis whitaker was raised to believe that honesty was the best policy; that lies were sinful and would only lead to ruin, that truth would lead to blessings. but growing older, growing beyond his small nebraska town, dennis grew to know that a white lie to spare someone’s feelings was better than brutal honesty just for honesty’s sake.

maybe that’s why he kept the betting pool a secret from you for so long.

you may have thought it uncomfortable, inappropriate even, if you found out the way your coworkers had bet on whatever the hell was going on with you and dr. abbot. he thought maybe it was a kindness to spare you the theories and guesses regarding your personal life. and maybe he would have never mentioned it, had your attitude toward dr. abbot not again changed recently.

disagreements and debates had replaced curiosity and longing glances over year ago, but now, palpable tension and suppressed smiles where the norm between you too.

“there’s a betting pool, y’know?” dennis asked out of the blue one afternoon.

you turned from your charting, “there usually is. what’s this one on?”

dennis shook his head. “no, there’s a secret betting pool. on you…and dr. abbot,” he ended in a whisper, hoping no one heard him spill the beans.

your face lit up in amusement at that, “oh, is there now? what’re people saying?”

“i don’t think you wanna know.”

you huffed a laugh at his seriousness. “well, then what was your bet? maybe i could help ya win some money, denny.”

dennis just shook his head, “sorry, no influencing. it wouldn’t be fair.”

dennis whitaker was an honest guy. and maybe that honesty helped bless him a whole lot of money.

WHITAKER $20 THEY FALL IN LOVE

———

jack abbot wasn’t a religious man, not anymore. but he liked to think his wife was still out there, somewhere peaceful, watching out for him. maybe she had sent him a gift—someone new to love, and to love him in return. someone who held him accountable, called him on his bullshit. someone warm. someone sent wrapped in the scent of sweet vanilla.

———

“No,” you lied, pretending to pay close attention to the vinyl spinning across from you, “Yes. What’s taking Murray so long?” 

Steve answered with a shrug, glancing around the booth the two of you were currently holed up in. “You’re just like Robin. So antsy.” 

“Well, Robin is currently having a fancy dinner with her girlfriend, while I'm stuck in a stuffy booth with my boyfriend waiting for a psychotic man to smuggle us in intel.” You huffed, body slumping in the chair. “We haven’t been on a date in ages.” 

Your boyfriend’s face softened, pushing himself off the shelf to stalk towards you. “Baby-“ 

“And I know it’s selfish of me to be saying that when the world is basically ending, but-ugh.” You cut yourself off with a groan, watching as he held his hand out for you to grab. You folded your hand in his, letting him spin you out of the chair, pulling your body taut to his. 

“It’s not selfish.” He swore, smiling as your hands wrapped around his neck. The gentle sound of Kim Carnes playing in the background. “Come on, dance with me. We can have our own date here.” 

You didn’t even have time to protest, Steve taking your body against his swaying messily to the music. 

“Okay, okay.” You giggled, doing your best to keep up with each time he tried to spin you in the tiny room. At one point, he kept you latched to his side, leaning over to push the volume control button up. A wide smirk on his face before he spun you around again. Both of your smiles were wide, lost in the joy that radiated off of each other. 

“She’s got Bette Davis eyes.” Steve sang off-key, pulling you back from a spin. His front pressed against your back, the two of you swaying along as the song ended. Both of you are out of breath, bodies wracked with giggles. A sweet reprieve of love, one that neither of you realized you needed. 

“I love you.” He whispered your name, his warm breath against your ear making your body shiver. His hands still gripping your jean-clad hips. 

“I love you. Missed this.” You whispered, feeling his lips trail down your ear, pressing open-mouthed kisses against the skin of your neck. This was something else the end of the world didn’t allocate time for; Steve and you rarely got a moment alone. You loved Robin, but if you weren’t so thankful, she and Vicki finally got together, so it meant you two had a night alone. 

His hands reached up your shirt, cupping your breasts through your bra roughly. You were so caught up in his hands, his lips sucking the skin of your neck, you didn’t even realize you were both still very much at the station. 

“Baby.” You whined, pushing pathetically against him. You didn’t want him to stop, but the two of you had to keep the music going. 

“Hmmm?” He hummed against your skin, one of his hands reaching down your stomach, cupping your clothed cunt. Your stomach turned with want, burning with desire. You repeated the pet name, warning him to stop.

“It’s just us in here. I’ll be fast.” He whispered, his hand popping open your jeans. Fingers pressing against the wet patch that had formed against your panties. He pushed his hips against your ass, his hardening cock pressing against you. You could feel your resolve crumbling with each gentle stroke of your clothed heat.

“You have to be fast.” 

“Fuck yes.” He sighed, speeding up the movement of his hands. You were ready to succumb to his ministrations before the silence of the music ending brought you back to reasonable thinking. 

“Wait, we can’t let the music go to dead air. They’ll panic.” You whimpered, trying to think as rationally as you could while Steve’s hands were all over you. The last thing you needed was the entire crawl squad busting in here while your pants were down, literally. 

“Fuck, fuck what’s the longest song we have?” He reluctantly took his hands off you, rushing to the crates in the back. All you could do was hum in thought, your mind running a thousand miles a minute while Steve threw around records, the bulge in his jeans prominent. If you weren’t so wound up, maybe you would’ve giggled at the sight. 

“Fuck uhh Iron Maiden three years ago? They had like a 10-minute song, right?” You offered up, his eyes shining. 

“God, baby, I’m gonna fuck the hell out of you.” He whistled, holding up the vinyl like a championship trophy. “13 minutes and 39 seconds to be exact.” 

Your cheeks flushed at his words, your underwear getting damper by the minute. “Do you think that’s enough time?” 

He scoffed, plopping himself down in the chair. “Look at you asking silly questions. Is 13 minutes enough time to make you come? I could do it in 5. Ridiculous.” He mumbled the last part under his breath, setting the vinyl up quickly. 

You rolled your eyes, still unbelieving that you agreed to this. He shushed you while the on-air light flickered on, the neon lights buzzing. 

“Alright, Hawkins,” Steve’s radio voice echoed through the microphone. “We are setting sail. This next one is on the longer side, but trust me. It’s gonna be worth every single second.” His eyes were on you, while you made a show of pulling the rough fabric of your pants down your hips. 

“Iron Maiden, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, hold on to your sea legs!” And he put the needle down, the on-air light flickering off. The guitar riffs bleeding through his headphones matched the thump of your heart. 

“Gotta make every second count.” You smiled, keeping your shirt on for the sake of emergencies. Steve wasted no time in pulling you to him, your lips meeting with a feverish passion. His tongue explored your mouth while his hands found your hips again. His fingers dancing along your waistline, dipping inside your panties. He swallowed your shocked gasps, his fingertips sinking into your soaked cunt at last. “Oh, baby. You really needed this.” 

All you could do was nod, your head feeling heavy as you leaned against him. He rubbed lazy circles around your clit before he slid two fingers inside you with little resistance. “S-steve.” You stuttered out, keeping an eye on the vinyl grooves. 

“Shhhhh. Don’t focus on that. Gotta get you ready.” He cooed, coaxing more beautiful moans from your lips. Stretching you out as much as he could, given the circumstances. His cock was aching in his jeans, his other hand abandoned your back, fumbling with his zipper. His jeans fell to his knees, his cock sitting large and pretty in his tighty whities you always teased him about. 

Your cunt was clenching around his fingers, desperately needing him. When his fingers pulled out tears almost sprang to your eyes, the emptiness made your head spin. “Turn round, baby.” His saccharine voice spoke. You listened, elbows finding the table, leaning against the control panel. His fingers hooked themselves in your underwear, pulling them to the floor. 

A strangled moan escaped his lips, “Fuck I wish I had time to taste you.” 

“Steve.” You were dripping for him, clenching around nothing while he pulled his cock out. He spat in his hand, rubbing the spit against your entrance. Not like you needed it, but the sensation had your eyes rolling into the back of your head regardless. 

“Don’t worry, baby. I got you. Good girl, just like that, take this cock.” The moment his cock slid in between your lips, you were a goner, your cunt sucking his tip in greedily. With every inch he pushed in, you suckled around him, the sound already obscene. 

When his hips met yours, he let out a pornographic moan. One that you’d keep in your memory for late nights alone. “So fucking tight. Basically squeezing me to death,” He breathed out, “I’m not going nowhere, baby.” He pulled his cock out halfway, admiring his length dripping in your wetness, before slamming back in. Keeping up a steady pace, hitting the deepest spots inside your cunt from this angle. 

“Feel so s’good. Fuck I needed this.” You whimpered out, the faint reflection of the two of you in the glass only spurring you on more. With one hand on your hip, the other cupped the back of your neck, just enough pressure to keep you still. One thing about Steve Harrington was that he knew how to fuck. He knew your body like the back of his hand, and he played it to his advantage every time. 

“I know you did. Letting me fuck you in here. Where anyone could walk in.” He growled, watching your ass ripple with each thrust. You clenched around him at his words, only making a deep laugh escape his chest. 

“Oh, you like that?” He mocked, your head nodding almost instantly. You couldn’t think, you couldn’t breathe. All you could feel was Steve’s cock splitting you apart. 

“Yeah, of course you do, my dirty little slut.” A harsh slap on your ass punctuated his words. This wasn’t making love; this was dirty. A primal fuck that the two of you needed so desperately. 

He wasn’t taking your moans for an answer, continuing as his dirty mind ran rampant with each squelch of your cunt around him. “Say it. Say it or I stop.” 

You could barely hold yourself up with your elbows, desperately trying to make sure you didn’t hit any buttons. “I’m your dirty little slut. Please don’t stop. Please.” 

Tears were pricking your eyes at how fast and deep his movements were, the sound of skin hitting skin drowning out the still-spinning Iron Maiden song in the background. “Not gonna stop. Not until you’re cumming around my cock.” 

A particularly deep thrust hit a spot that had your legs shaking, your body almost falling into the control board. Only stopped by Steve’s arm pulling you up to his chest, the position making him deeper inside you if that was even possible. 

“You don’t want all of Hawkins hearing you cum around me, do you?” He laughed, pressing sloppy kisses to your shoulder. “Or do you?” 

All you could do was nod mindlessly, your high approaching like a freight train. “I bet you’d love that, huh? Do you want me to turn the mic on? Let everyone hear how good I fuck you?” 

All you could do was wail, “Steve, Steve, I’m gonna cum.” 

“Yeah, you are.” He grunted, his hand reaching down to rub lazy circles on your swollen clit. “Should we let everyone hear how I make this pussy cream? How only I can make you feel this good?” 

That was all it took for you to fall pliant in his arms, your cunt spasming around him. Your vision went dark, legs shaking as the euphoria washed over every nerve in your body. 

When you came to Steve’s hips were stuttering, his own high approaching. He was whispering small praises into your ears, hands holding your body close to his. “That’s my girl. Did so well for me. Gonna make me come, huh? Love you.” 

“Want it so bad.” You sobbed, your nails digging into his forearms while he stilled, cock twitching, his release deep inside you. Steve’s head shoved deep into the crook of your neck, grunting your name over and over. 

The booth was hot, the air humid and sticky with sex. The vinyl crackling next to you two, the song almost over. 

“And you thought 13 minutes wasn’t enough.” Steve laughed, sweat dripping off his brow and onto your own slicked skin. The two of you were a mess. The booth's glass is foggy at the bottom. 

He pressed a soft kiss to your head before slipping his length out of you, hissing at the friction. His cum dribbled out of you, dripping down your inner thighs, making his over-sensitive cock twitch. “Stop ogling me and get me a towel.” You whined, snapping him out of his boyish haze. 

He rifled through your bag using a wet wipe to clean you up, pulling your underwear and pants up for you while you were on shaky legs. You left your pants unbuttoned, content to plop down in the chair. Watching as Steve fumbled around for his own pants. A record scratch brought you out of your own ogling, switching over to another song. Unbothered with an intro this time. 

“I’ll get us some water. Are you okay? I wasn’t too rough, was I?” Steve was still out of breath, leaning down to press soft kisses to your lips. You shook your head, a wicked grin on your lips.

“Not at all, baby. Though I didn’t know you were so into the idea of Hawkins hearing you split me open.” 

His cheeks flushed, opening the door to the booth. “Shut up. You loved it.” 

Your giggles wafted through the building as he walked into the kitchenette to retrieve cold water for the two of you. The moment Steve tossed the chilled bottle to you, you were chugging it down. 

“I love you, sweet girl.” He smiled, smoothing down your frizzy hair for you. “Maybe if we get a break from sudden death, I’ll take you to a nice dinner. How’s that?” 

Nodding, you leaned into his touch, kissing his hand. “Sounds like a plan, Harrington.” 

Your eyes were staring into his; there was no one else you’d rather face death with than him. These last few years have brought the two of you closer with every obstacle. 

“Yoo hoo!” A loud voice yelled, the front door of the station banging open with a thud. The two of you jumped up, both still disheveled. “I’ve been waiting outside for like five minutes.” Murray was standing there, eyes already narrowing in on you two. If it wasn’t your appearance, or the sheer smell alone, then your completely unbuttoned pants would have given light to what the two of you had been doing while he waited outside. 

Steve was about to speak, getting cut off by Murray’s pointed laugh. “Oh my god. You disgusting kids.” He spoke, nothing but humor in his words. “Meet me outside in a few, and I'll hand over everything. Wash your hands.” He pointed at Steve while you turned around to button your pants back up. Steve was red in the face, holding his hands out like they were poisoned. 

“He has a point.” You broke the awkward silence that had been hanging since the door closed. 

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djotime: see you tonight LA! 😎

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newuser728282_: I’m selling 2 premium tickets for the DJO concert in LA, this June. Contact me if you’re interested. Serious.

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@deuxmoi: Y/n Y/l/n seen at Djo (Joe Keery)’s show tonight in LA 📸

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y/nupdates: Y/n posted Djo on her story tonight!

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basicbeingbasic: OH MY GOD

back2chicago: she’s so fuckin real

sourcekeery: is she shooting her shot LMFAOOO

andiesgloom: okay guys this only confirms my theory…. they HAVE to be together i’m not crazy

missdumbnpoetic: we never lost faith in you bae

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@deuxmoi: Y/n Y/l/n and Joe Keery spotted in Central Park today! 📸

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as time went on, school started again, and reality set in that she would be stuck in this coma for who knew how long, he finally started living a life outside of the hospital. still, there were at least 3 times a week that you would leave out of the blue, pressing a kiss to steve's temple and murmuring, "lucas," before heading to pick the boy up and sitting with him or at the least dropping him off when you had other things to do.

once, he'd requested that you fix her hair for her since he didn't know how, so you did, him holding her up for you as you quickly brushed and braided her hair back flat so she'd stay comfortable and as presentable as you would've wanted to be if you were in a coma.

but, then you spent that night sitting on your living room floor in front of lucas trying to coach him how to braid. according to sue, he'd always refused a lesson and said boys didn't need to know how to braid.

but, now that max was involved, he listened carefully.

"so you can fix it for her yourself next time," you'd said with a small smile, steve standing at his side and coaching him through the simple plait.

steve came with you more than half the time, and there were times between shifts or when he was home alone that he went by himself. some days, he'd pick up lucas without asking, just honking and telling him to get in the car.

"what?" lucas would ask, coming to the passenger window with a frown.

"let's go see your girlfriend," steve would always answer, and lucas always got in.

lucas brought music for her, that continuous loop of running up that hill playing anytime he was there. sometimes he tried new songs, showing her his favorite new album or a song el thought she would like. he'd sit in the chair, holding her hand and mumbling the words as he just watched her breathe, silently thankful for even just that.

steve brought books for her. he wasn't a huge reader, but when he was younger he discovered stephen king novels - which he'd learned last summer that max loved just as much as he did. they'd bonded over them before she went under, and when he was in the room alone, he would read them to her aloud, making his own random commentary like she would be able to respond.

you brought stories for her, filling her in on all the gossip between the couples in your groups, and everything you heard from the boys about the kids in her school. robin came out to the boys after vecna's attack, and she didn't know max well enough to visit her much in the hospital, so you got permission to fill her in on that as well. you imagined she would find the chaos that was robin and vickie's relationship very amusing.

so, when you first announced to the kids you were engaged, you quietly pulled lucas aside and told him, "we should tell max."

he softened, breath catching for a moment before he nodded too many times. "yeah. yeah, we should."

you went the next afternoon after your shift, steve promising to meet you there when he finished up at the wsqk. lucas hopped in your car with his backpack, a new tape and some snacks inside as you made your way to the nearest 7/11.

"remember the rules," you hummed as he filled up his big gulp cup. "don't tell the-"

"others unless i want to stop getting drinks, yes, i know," he said, rolling his eyes as he sipped at the top of his soda before turning to slap a lid on it.

you smiled fondly, putting a lid on yours and then grabbing another. "exactly." you began filling this cup with ice and classic coke before moving to the cherry slurpee and putting a dollop in.

lucas made a face, scrunching his nose. "steve still does that?"

"you think he'd stop?" you snorted, sipping the top so it wouldn't overflow before grabbing a lid and popping a straw in. "it's his churpee coke, he could never let it go."

"so stupid," he laughed, but the smile on his lips told you otherwise.

"it's just steve," you answered, grabbing both drinks and heading to the cash register.

he filled you in on the latest school drama on your drive over, talking about dustin's increasing angst and desire for chaos when he intentionally ticks off the jocks and wears his hellfire tshirt. you weren't surprised, you never were.

eddie's death had hit him hard. in so many ways, you didn't blame him for acting out how he did.

but, when you saw the way it was affecting his friends, affecting lucas and steve especially, you just wished he'd listen and let you all help. still, he was dustin, and he was a stubborn little rat who hadn't ever listened to you a day in his life. it was part of his charm, to be honest.

"he'll be okay," you assured lucas, shooting him a smile as he sipped on his coke and avoiding your eyes. you'd said this same thing too many times for it to mean what it once did, but it was almost muscle memory at this point. "we're still here," you reminded then, not just talking about dustin anymore.

the girls at the hospital knew you both now, waving you off with smiles and kind hello's. you knew the route like the back of your hand, walking quickly to the elevator and then to max's room where you took your normal seats on either side of her bed.

you set steve and your drinks on the sidetable, scooting up to max's side and instinctually reaching to fix her hair. you brushed it from her face, lucas staring solemnly forward as he clung to her hand.

you hummed as you adjusted her braid behind her. "this braid looks good."

"thanks," he answered quietly, smiling thinly.

you tucked stray hairs behind her ears, fingers gentle against her skin as you took in the paler hue to her already fair skin. it got worse every time you were here, like the life was slowly being drained from her on the inside and turning her cold, blue, and frail.

it broke your heart.

you sat down, sipping absentmindedly on your soda as lucas turned her music on low. "we have some serious gossip for you today, max. you're gonna be over the moon so excited. we just gotta wait for stevie to get here."

"do we have to?" lucas complained, which just earned a small smile from you.

"it'll only be a couple minutes," you answered, glancing quickly to the clock. "he got off fifteen minutes ago, so he'll be here anytime now. tell her about lydia stevens and bradley jacobsen in your gym class. she'll freak about that."

he sighed. "that's not as exciting."

"no," you agreed fondly. "but, it fills time."

and so he filled the time, muttering about bradley's idiot self trying to convince lydia to go out with him by using her best friend, which just caused all the more drama.

you sat back with a content smile, sipping on your soda and waiting patiently for your fiance to arrive.

it wasn't five minutes until steve walked in, a bit out of breath, stephen king book hidden behind his back like he was embarrassed to be seen with it, and a smile on his lips as lucas looked up at him quickly. steve moved to the chair next to you, pressing a short kiss to your lips in greeting and dropping his book onto the table next to you.

"hey, sweetheart," he murmured, then kissing your forehead as he reached past you for his slushee coke before finally sitting. "hey, max. lucas."

"hi steve," lucas said, smiling small as the older boy took a long drink from his big gulp cup. he leaned back in his seat, nodding to his girlfriend. "we were waiting for you to tell her."

steve sat up quickly, brows raising as he pulled the straw from his mouth. "what? you were? you haven't told her yet?"

"yes," you laughed lightly, tilting your head at your fiance. "you needed to be here too."

he hummed, smiling gently and nodding. his eyes fell to the comatose girl's face, scanning her freckles and taking in the thin look to her skin. he frowned at the sight. "if she can hear us, maybe it'll get her so excited she'll get some color back into her," he murmured, brows knitting slightly. "is this normal? i think i should talk to the-"

"steve," you said, shaking your head. "let's just talk to her, yeah? we can chat with the nurses later if you feel the need."

"right, yeah," he breathed out, nodding once. he let out a heavy breath, tearing his eyes away from her frail figure to glance between you and lucas. "okay. who's gonna tell her?"

"you should tell her," lucas told you, meeting your eyes. "she likes hearing you talk."

you smiled gently, glancing between him and her. "yeah, i'll tell her. okay." you sat up, squeezing max's hand between both of yours and smiling a bit wider. "alright max, i'm just gonna come out and say it because i don't know how else we would tell you, but steve proposed to me, and i said yes. we're engaged, and when you wake up, and all of this shit goes away, we're going to get married."

lucas' breath stuttered as he watched max's eyelids flicker, steve freezing next to you as you all paused.

several moments passed before any of you moved again, you finally letting out a breath to continue. you squeezed her hand twice, childishly hoping for a response. "you and robin and el and nancy are going to be my bridesmaids, okay? you can pick whatever color dress you want, but i've been thinking blue, so if you happen to want blue that would be great. you look so pretty in blue. we'll have so much fun."

"half the town will be there, but you know that the only people we really care about being there is you guys," steve chimed in, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. "we need you to make sure everyone's energies stay high and the boys keep dancing."

"i'm an amazing dancer," lucas said with a grin.

"oh, you're awful," you laughed, shaking your head. "but, your enthusiasm makes up for it. maybe it'll be you getting max to dance instead."

he hummed, shaking his head. "nah. her and el will be going crazy on that dance floor, even if you play that shitty country music."

"hey!" you said, even as you smiled widely. "i like my country music."

"yeah, you're the only one, babe," steve said, shaking his head before letting out a light laugh.

you rolled your eyes, turning max's hand in your hand. "max can appreciate it. even if it isn't her favorite." you pulled her fingers over your left hand, tracing them along your ring. "this is my ring. i don't know if you can really tell from just feeling it, but it's really pretty. steve and murray did a good job getting a pretty one."

"i'm good at what i do," steve said, leaning back in the chair dramatically as lucas rolled his eyes.

"better not have to do it a second time," he told the older boy.

"he won't," you answered, glancing between them with a small smile before turning your attention back to max. "except for the wedding band part. but, i have to get him a band too, you know, so all the girls know that he's completely, officially, legally off the market. i'm gonna need your opinion on it before i buy it though, you have a better sense of jewelry than me."

"you don't want my opinion?" lucas asked, frowning in faux offense. "i'm your favorite."

you raised a finger to your lips, smiling as you shook your head. "stop saying that or everyone's gonna figure out it's true. except for max. you guys are tied." he fist pumped the air and you giggled. "i'll need your help too, but i also want you helping steve with my band. it has to be stylish."

"oh, i can do style," he told you, nodding and grinning wide enough for you and steve to laugh hard.

you spent the rest of the afternoon in that hospital room, sitting around her bed and sipping your sodas as you talked about what you're going to do when she wakes up, all the wedding planning that needs to be done then, how to make your reception the biggest party hawkins has seen in a decade.

steve kept his arm around you, and lucas continually held max's hand, while you just kept gabbing away about anything and everything that came to mind. as strange as it sounded, this was one of the only spaces you felt comfortable enough to do that - if you did it with everyone else around, you'd just get made fun of. steve and lucas and max (of course) just listened. and you listened to them.

lucas was half-asleep as steve read a chapter from his book, your legs tossed over his lap as you smiled gently and listened close. he'd never read aloud with you and lucas in the room, and with lucas' less than exciting reaction, you figured he wasn't likely to again.

but, you liked the smoothness of his voice and the calm in his expression. every so often, he would snort at something written to be scary, and mutter, "that's stupid, i know you think so too," before going back to the story.

and even though he was running his free hand up and down your shin slowly, squeezing your knee every so often, you knew he wasn't talking to you when he said things like that.

it made you smile.

lucas asked you to help him sit her up so he could rebraid her hair, and you were happy to do so, holding her by the shoulders as he carefully undid and redid the same simple braid she'd been in for a year.

when he tied it off, he let out a breath, helping you lay her back down comfortably. "there," he murmured quietly, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear before bending to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

you exchanged a tragic look with steve, squeezing his hand as he let out a low, deep sigh. lucas sat back in his seat, holding max's hand tightly and keeping his eyes on her intently.

when the sun went down and visiting hours closed, you and lucas got back in your car. you eyed his backpack, starting your galaxie up.

"you bring stuff to stay the night?" you hummed, pulling out of the parking lot and noting steve in his beamer following you. "or do we have to stop by your place."

lucas smiled sheepishly, eyes on his bag as he realized he'd gotten caught. "no, i have it."

you looked to him with a smile. "good."

he dropped his things in the spare bedroom, mumbling something about having split custody with dustin before heading back downstairs to crash with you on the couch.

steve picked up some chinese takeout on the way back, you and lucas chilling in the living room with the breakfast club playing on the tv, a tape robin had left last time she was over.

steve dispersed the food accordingly, and you didn't even blink at the way he remembered both your orders without needing to ask. it was steve. of course he remembered.

he settled in next to you as you ate, watching the movie with mild commentary from lucas about how unrealistic their high school life was, to which steve answered that his high school life was also incredibly unrealistic.

"except it's real," lucas deadpanned, knitting his brows. "i'm real. i exist. emilio estevez isn't real."

"emilio is, andrew isn't," you corrected quickly.

he just rolled his eyes, waving you away.

soon enough, the takeout boxes had been tossed on the coffee table, the tape had been switched to alien, and you were tucked into steve's side. lucas watched the way steve's fingers traced gently down your arm, stopping at your hand and twisting your ring absentmindedly.

you watched him as he snuggled into the couch corner, pulling the blanket he'd claimed as his own up to his shoulders, and turning back to the movie.

you imagined a time when max would be here, taking up space as her own, pulling lucas close and staying close as the four of you watched whatever cheesy movie was chosen then.

you'd be married, and they'd be older, maybe seniors, maybe even close to graduation.

steve pressed a kiss to your temple as if he could tell what you were thinking, and murmured a quiet, "she'll be up soon."

you looked back to him, brows knitting slightly as you asked gently, "how do you know?"

"i have a feeling," he told you before pulling you closer and nodding back to the movie.

you settled in, comfortable and snug and content with having your two favorite boys on either end of the couch. all you were missing was your girl.

you prayed steve's feeling was right.

she'd be up soon. she had to be.

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this was simultaneously my most favorite and most tragic fic to write. i love reader and lucas, and steve and max, but it's just so sad. thanks for going through this with me guys haha

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