𝓛𝒊𝒍𝒂𝒉 ✶ . ˙ ⋆ 𖦹

By the second period you were unsure if you were simply aching or if either side had given up on sportsmanship and were playing with much more vicious grit. Preferring a rigorous spectacle despite it ending in some sort of punishment from the referee. You moved with seamless rhythm after the colliding of sticks, the puck remained in your grasp as you weaved through the neutral zone and managed to dodge some of the defenders.

The pain had reached you long after the initial reaction.

One of Briar's Falcon's shoved with less sensibility and more fury into the glass as the puck left your control. Attempting to swerve away from the previous collision, one of your teammates managed to pass to you. Guiding the puck with your heel and blade, you managed to shoot with the last amount of energy you had in the second period.

Your teammates were colliding into you before you managed to watch the lights flash red. The feeling of your side throbbing with pain, and the distant ambience of the crowd's eruption of pride dispersed into a mild murmur as you blocked out the atmosphere of sound. Once you became absorbed by the game, there was no way of pulling you out.

The score board hung the names of Briar and Harvard, measly flickering the numbers 3-4 as it too attempted to keep up with the game. The competition proving to have such tension that each time you looked back at the scores you were losing track of who was in the lead - despite your recent addition to the tally.

Logan wasn't failing to keep track.

He knew that with every score for Harvard, the puck was bruised with the strength of your shots. Logan couldn't determine when he first had his eyes on you, but ever since they did he had no chance of stopping. His perception of you was analytical at first, noting the quickness to your movements, and the conscious decisions of where to exert your force and where to maintain energy throughout the game. Slowly, he found himself simply in awe of your capabilities, unable to refrain from observing how you darted from each zone with such ease. The aggressive undertones of your play, the recklessness of your shoves, the gracefulness of your skating. Almost as though it was bubbling down into some feeling of pride.

"Fuck she's pretty good" Dean murmured, a hand brushed upon his bottom lip as he held himself forward in his chair, eagerly noting the nature of your game to Garrett seated to the right of him. "I mean Briar's definitely got one to beat, we're practically rooting for the wrong team here G".

But Logan wasn't rooting for Briar, unbeknownst to him, he was rooting for you.

It was then that Dean turned to face Logan, noticing his inability to conjure his usual quick response in return. "You good Logan?" he queried, he moved his face to reside beside Logan's, a knowing smile enveloping his appearance.

"Yeah, nah I'm fine", his eyes remained transfixed. He spoke up quickly, his arms resting upon his spread legs as his hands were clasped. "Have you guys seen her play before?"

"I mean maybe, but I don't remember these games being that vicious", Tucker responded as he raked his hand through his hair, his eyes meeting with Dean's to note if he was sharing that same knowing look.

"She's fucking incredible".

He watched you with the subconscious hope that somewhere along the changing lines, in the exposure of the arena lights, that somehow you would see how much he was consumed by you even in the far back seating.

The boys had found it humorous that you and your team managed to take up such a fraction of much of their time. Initially intending to sit in on one period of tonight's game as a tasteful distraction from their own upcoming one against the men's team the day after. Instead they became drilled to their seats as wholly absorbed by the match. It was Tucker that had suggested it as a mere possibility under his breath, and Dean found no better idea than to allow Logan to have some time away from his own head. Rather than being caged behind his own presumptions of how Briar's winning strike may suddenly falter - especially as his position as captain - Logan felt now as though he was a onlooker to your own cage, housing a predator who knew how to toy with its prey.

But now, you looked less animalistic to Logan when you skated to the sides of the rink, amused with something one of your teammates had said that had allowed a slight smile to kiss your features. Your hair was stuck to the rest of your skin, adrenaline drenching your face in a thrilling high. Your eyes were lit with a subtle fire that he never wished to put out, only wanting to find home in the flame. He had only known of you for a total of about 45 minutes - it was pathetic.

You were quick to resume position once the 15 minutes of rest haltered, eager to finish the game with a potential win. Your captain had given you a firm pat on the back before you faced the Falcon's centre forward, the playful snarl on her face became more noticeable as the game proceeded. You cautiously watched the puck in referee's hand, a stillness that would have you ambushing the moment it dropped into play.

You held your breath as the puck dropped, quick to have it under your hold. You passed to your teammate once a spot reopened from the opposition's right defensemen, quick to move yourself away from the potential pileup. Your teammate passed onto the team's left forward, the contact of sticks ringing in your ears as the puck scampered to each zone of the rink. You were trying to keep up with the amount of time you had left in the third period, of ' 4 more minutes ', more than you were of your position within the space.

Your ribs found home again on the walls of the rink yet again, shoved mercilessly into the side as you knew your skin would blossom into a gruesome bruise in the upcoming days. Briar's centre forward surely had it out for you in the game, her snarl now contorting to some form of fury. You could hear a muffle of dissatisfaction from your team resting on the benches, and the onlookers alike, slamming her back into the wall yourself as you resumed to the oncoming game. Logan could appreciate your restlessness.

The defence managed to haul off for majority of the game, your left forward operating with the right forward as if clockwork, both of your teammates managing to assist in a final score. The arena lights imbued in a crimson haze over the rink, simultaneous to the eruption of the crowd. The score board flickered a humble 4 second countdown as your team collided in the middle of the ice. The boys were quick to stand, their hands cupping together in a reckless uproar, chanting out to Harvard despite the blue and red decor that hung on from Tucker's and Dean's jerseys.

"Fuck, the girls put on a good fight but Harvard's got it," Garrett muttered, a hand meeting Logan's shoulder as he leaned closer, an attempt to be made clear amidst the chaos of cheering.

"She's got it" he uttered in returned. His eyes opened in awe and triggered his crooked smile, he didn't even have to say who you were to know which player he was talking about. A smirk captured Garrett's face before he knew how to make sense of what he was seeing.

"I mean you should talk to her, maybe you can mention how well she plays" he teased.

Logan continued to fix his vision of only you, planning how he would talk to you already in his head.

"I don't think she needs me to remind her, she knows it".

The adrenaline was still making home within your system as you were unable to shake the smile that had glossed over you, washing you with a warm essence that cut through the violence of your play. You were one of the last to leave the rink having been a little while since the match had ended - determining whether it was time to finally leave the wash of arena lights and to commemorate with the rest of the team. In the mean time you lazily traced figure 8's in the ice; the same patterns you would scratch softly into the back of your palm before a game.

You hadn't looked up in a while before you heard someone clear their throat.

"Fuck how long have you been staring for?" you jabbed, curiosity poised your reaction as your eyes remained fixed on auburn irises.

They darkened when he scoffed a smirk towards the floor away from the illumination of lights; a crooked smile enabling his eyes to crease with a gentleness. You would be lying if you said the guy standing before you wasn't handsome; noting the few loose curls of his unruly hair that fell to frame his face, an effortlessness that subdued his boyish charm. You noted his broad shoulders that coupled with his height, managing to stand above you despite the additional height of your skates. His hands were nested in the pockets of his leather bomber.

"Long enough to say you're pretty good"

The smile met your eyes before you could be subtle. You could notice him analysing you too, his eyes raking over you as he shyly bit his lip, a smirk forming.

"Hey, aren't you the captain for Briar? I've seen you guys play a few times, I admit you're one to watch", you skated towards the edge of the ice, the gate of the rink sitting as a humble middle ground between you both.

"You think I'm one to watch?" he grinned as his cockiness was diluted with his charm, he extended a hand before you, "Logan".

He addresses you by the name on the back of your jersey, hesitant to be invading your territory despite it being within Briar University's own rink. You grinned in return, you thought it was thoughtful that he had taken notice.

You corrected him with your first name. He repeated it back to you, it sounded like such a sweet sound as it made home in his voice - almost as if he too was reminding himself in fear of forgetting the name of the girl who had his chest tightening for the entire match.

"I'll see you for tomorrow's game?"

"What makes you so certain that I'll be there?"

"I know you will".

For once you appreciated the arrogance of a man, amused by his boldness to assure that you too would be watching him as fervidly amidst a sea of onlookers for his upcoming game, as you are in the proximity you both now.

"In fact. If I win, I want you at the party tomorrow where I might see you, like this, again". Your eyebrows furrowed and yet still the smile hadn't left your face. He continued.

"And if you win—"

"I did fucking win. I don't know if you've managed to score anything before, but that was a good fucking win", you somehow managed to get closer to him, the front of your body resting upon the gate.

"I know you did," he murmured in a softer tone, his head lowering to be in closer proximity to yours, satisfied he could get right under your skin. "I mean since you won, I guess you'll just have to see if we manage to score something too."

"I'll be shocked"

"You will be," he moved closer, his eyes never leaving yours, "I'll make sure".

He had walked backwards a few steps, with a sly smile linking with the slight wave he gave you, turning away from the rink. Suddenly you were more piqued for the game tomorrow than you were a few moments ago.

The coolness of the rink failed to provide any lasting relief from the flush of heat that you felt upon your entire body. You managed to find a spot to watch that gave you enough access to see the Briar Hawk's entrance into the game, eager to see what sort of expression or nature Logan would emulate within today's match. Eastwood, much alike the Briar Falcon's the day prior were proving to be notable threats to the reign of both of your successes - but now that you were away from the vicious exposure of the rink, you could keep yourself entertained by Logan's request.

The atmosphere was thickened with the crowd's desire to watch a fair fight, you noticed the myriad of onlookers who had round up for the competition, some adorned in the same blue and red colours and university hoodies. From the echos of the audience and the adrenaline that would rampantly kick in a few minutes before the match, you were keen to see Logan's drive more intimately.

The crowd had introduced you to them before you noticed their arrival. The screams cascading down from the top of the seating all the way to the ones closest to the ring, as you watched the ensemble of Briar Hawk's entering. Number 66, whose cocky smile seemed to run deep within his bones, cheered loudly at the sight of the fans, 'Tucker' skating shortly behind as he seemed eager to have the game over and done with, with how assured he was of a win. More had slotted through that you had quickly washed over, watching them slot into their line positions before you finally caught sight of him.

His gaze was lowered, and you admired how he felt wholly consumed by the game before it had even begun. The Eastwood team skated onto the scene, lining themselves up as the referee prepared for the start. 'Graham' had skated towards the centre the rink and you noticed how Logan's eye line had lifted, not to onlookers his competitors but to subtly onlookers who was sitting in on the match.

The puck was in Briar's grasp before Eastwood even had a moment to spare.

The time of the clock followed the pacing of the match as Graham passed to Tucker, nimbly avoiding the aggression of Eastwood's defence as the puck was shortly sent to Logan, finding a short gap against the defence to manage the first score. The crowd erupted just as you did, hands clasping together as a full smile enveloped your expression - so he could score.

You found his ease most amusing, the ability to find himself at full force and no hesitation throughout the match. Darting from either side of the rink, you noticed how more and more he found himself attempting to 'carelessly' funnel through the onlookers - his teammates noticed his unusual hesitation, calling out to him amidst the collision of bodies against the glass. Both your matches in the past few days were pretty gruesome. It wasn't that Logan was falling behind, in fact he was playing much more efficiently than prior, but they wondered what had triggered the change.

It was now the second period and Briar were standing in favour of a 4-2. Garrett's managed the puck in his control, moving swiftly in the neutral zone. His attempt to pass the puck onto Logan fell short when Eastwood's right forward managed to snipe it from him.

"You're good G!" Logan beckoned, quick to follow the forward as Dean managed to retrieve the puck, swiftly landing back in Logan's line of sight.

A loud shove shuddered against the wall, Logan found himself no longer in control of the ice but landing squarely against the edge of the rink. The crowd raged at the contact. Unfortunately acting before he had time to think, Logan's fist came in contact with the cheek of Eastwood's left forward, a slight cut now evident on Logan's lip. As much as violence was nothing to be admired, you did admit it was hot to see how clean the blow was.

Eastwood managed to score whilst Logan's back was turned, the lights imbuing a deep crimson over the arena much like the one that was trickling down Logan's chin. The scoreboard shoved the numbers of 4-3 down Briar's throat as the second period came to a close. The teams returned back for their rest break. Logan's jersey clung to his back as you watched him return back to the wall, holding your breath when he lifted his arm to brush the curls from sticking to his forehead, a gap of his toned torso became expose. He was a sight for sore eyes when he resided back with Dean and Tucker, Logan's eyes were trained on the floor as Dean playfully punched the latter in the arm.

Auburn eyes seemed to remain home in yours.

John Logan had finally spotted you after yet another attempt to frivolously scan through the people, his gaze softened when he had found that you had actually shown. You both shared a knowing smile, unable to determine if it was something sweeter or a playful smirk between the pair. Despite being exhausted from the violent shoves, the cutting through ice, and the strength of the scoring, Logan managed to regain much more of his strength in the final sector of the match.

There were only a few minutes remaining on the clock, Eastwood still being able to possibly manage a tie if they found a way to tear against the tension of Briar. The third sector became a drawn out match of the puck moving between the teams, never finding enough lead to gain either side a score for the period's entirety. Briar was slowly finding a rhythm to their play, working with the quickened pacing of the match. Garrett regained the puck from Eastwood's forward, finding a spot that the left forward and right defence had left exposed for him to send off to Logan. Moving with a sort of effortlessness, you couldn't help but encourage him under your breath.

'Fuck Logan, come on'

Avoiding the final left defence of Eastwood's team, he sent the puck straight into the goal as if a bullseye on a dart board. The crowd erupted in a final applaud, and amongst the moving of bodies and the collision of Briar's team coming to boost Logan's ego for the 5-3 win, he mannered his arms to as if an archer ready to shoot an arrow.

Right directly at you.

You knew what he was thinking. He would get to see you tonight.

He didn't need any pregaming to put him in the mood. The boy's house was a bustling nonsense of hockey players and any one else who was driven by the allure of alcohol and late nights, the scent of musk and liquor carried throughout the house. The music permeated the walls of the house, a makeshift floor inhabiting the bustling bodies that moved in a shameless wonder. Logan found himself at home amidst people, no longer absorbed in fair-weather conversation, or friendly smiles between puck bunnies and mere enthusiasts of the sport, but instead hoping to exchange in more intimate discussion with someone who he was expecting to meet.

His thoughts were disrupted by Dean, making out with Allie on the kitchen counter.

"Logan, isn't she your girl?" he snickered as Allie began giggling beside him, Dean tilting his head to motion towards the living room floor.

Logan let out a slight chuckle before facing himself towards where he was pointing.

He found you from the other side of the room, dancing to the cadence of the music Garrett had rummaged through earlier. There was a natural ease to your movement, much alike how you played on the ice he could see how the music felt home in your bones and percolated grace throughout you. The student bodies around you moving with a similar pulse.

You had felt eyes upon you, moving your gaze to land on the same guy who remained poised in your mind for the past 24 hours. It wasn’t a tipsiness, but enough liquid courage to have yourself staring into his eyes before your knees weakened. The remnants of your drink remained in your hand, you took a sip of the beverage as the taste of liquor fell down your throat, analysing how he moved pass the bodies of people and meeting you in the middle.

You thought he would say something in response. Instead he had looked at the can in your hand, pausing before taking it into his grasp and taking a sip; involuntarily kissing where your lips had fallen earlier and not moving his gaze from yours. Your eyes both coaxing the other to see who might give in first to temptation.

He began to move behind you, his calloused hands resting on your hips and swaying with you gently, he leaned down to fit within the crook of your neck.

"Is this where you want me?" he whispered, you could feel the heat of his breath on your neck. You could feel himself getting harder beneath you.

You turned around to face him, his hands still remaining at your side.

"What's wrong Logan, all bark for the game and no actual bite?"

You didn't know if the alcohol was buzzing within your veins or if the adrenaline was having a hard time wearing off but you couldn't help the feeling that subsided in your core. He managed to get even closer now, his smile something that had you weaker in the knees. His eyebrows playfully furrowed before he spoke.

"You want me to show you?"

He smiled against your lips before kissing you, the taste of liquor still sweet upon his tongue. You moved against one another with a tenderness, something even better than you found yourself imagining in the lead up to finding him here. Logan was the craving you were desiring, holding him with both palms by his jaw as he exhibited a low grunt from you.

He was the first to pull away, you watched as a slight smile developed at how eager you both were. His eyes elicited something more sultry, lowering his speech.

"Not here," he beckoned, his hand clasping your own as he lead you through the house, looking back at you each time you entered a new hallway.

You didn't need long before you resumed, already knowing what to do as he used his back to slam his bedroom door behind him, having you pin onto him in a matter of moments. The kiss was able to become everything you both wanted it to be, manically operating against another with a pure frustration you were not upon each other sooner. His hands gripped your hips as you nimbly moved against him, a moan escaping your lips that earned a slight grunt to bellow from his mouth in return.

He titled his head slightly, enabling you to deepen the kiss as your hands gripped the nape of his hair, fingers desirably raking through his curls. You let out a soft whimper under your breath as he cupped your jaw, pulling away slightly to kiss the corners of your mouth and cascade down from your neck and sternum.

You were responsive to the way he would slightly bite on your tender skin, marking what would surely become love bites in the coming days. A roughened look adorned his features as you spoke.

"Fuck, Logan I've been wanting this", you muttered smiling as Logan came back up to kiss you.

"Tell me what you want baby"

"I want you"

He smiled against your mouth, his hair in such a state that his curls fell to frame his features so gently. He looked so fucking hot. He pushed himself off the door and moved you backwards towards his desk, shoving what remained to fall on the floor as he picked you up slightly to sit upon the table. He worked with you to take off your top, allowing him access to litter kisses down your stomach. Adoring the body that you occupied, he eventually lowered himself to be level with your thighs.

His hands gripped softly at your skin, opening your legs slightly he peppered a kiss on your inner thigh, pulling down your skirt as he moved closer. His fingers moved your panties slightly to the side, slowly allowing two fingers to enter the slick of your core. Praying at the altar that was your hips.

"Fuck" you moaned, your eyes watching fervently as your mouth remained agape.

He began to quicken his pace as he watched you, "you like it?"

You nodded quickly as a smirk painted his expression, he began to hook his fingers as lust dripped from each time he spoke, "use your words".

"Fuck, yes Logan I do", your head tilted back in pleasure, his fingers hitting your spot as your arousal deepened with the contact.

"Eyes on me baby, I wanna see you",

You lifted your gaze to fall back onto him, "I need to feel you". A sudden strength spurred from you as you moved forward to take off his shirt, a slight chuckle escaping his lips as he went to help you remove it. Deep crimson bruises permeated his skin as your nails raked over his toned torso. Your fingers moved slightly further south to his jeans, quickly working to undo the buttons, he stopped you quickly.

"Get on the bed"

You moved slowly to the mattress, slowly removing each remaining garment that was on you as Logan's eyes trekked over your curves, you watched as he did the same, his biceps flexing as he pulled his pants down his thick thighs to be in nothing but his boxers. You sat down on the mattress, moving backwards to lie down as Logan crawled towards you, pinning you down and boxing you in as your lips met once more.

You toyed at the fabric of his boxers, his member hard against your palm as you pulled his undergarments down. Your fingers wrapped around him and began to stroke down his length, his lips escaping a shudder as he closed his eyes.

"Baby, hang on. I want to feel you," he coaxed, waiting for your nod to grab a packet next to his bedside table, using his teeth to pull the condom from its back and slide it down onto himself.

His thigh sat between your own before he aligned himself against you, the initial thrust sending you both into a need for desperate carnality. You both elicited whimpers against one another, your legs moving to hook around his torso and deepen his access, as your nails racked down his back. He quickened his pace against you, overwhelmed by a need to pleasure you as much as himself. He groaned against you, the headboard of his bed colliding with the walls as your cries polluted the room with a neediness that he shared.

"You're so fucking perfect" he murmured into the crook of your neck, placing kisses against your shoulder and collarbone.

His eyes were thickened with lust as your pupils shared the same dilated appearance. The sensation of Logan inside of you became overwhelmingly needed, his thrusts moving to a restless rhythm as you began to move against him. The world beyond the walls of his bedroom subsiding into a careless afterthought of the action between you two. The movement of your bodies felt as though you could hardly determine where one ended and the other began, your hands remaining back in Logan's hair as you kissed him once again, your tongues moving together with the same ease of his thrusts.

Logan exhibited a sense of urgency as his breaths staggered, your pants becoming louder as you were both enclosing on your climaxes. The feeling was drawn out as his hips slammed against you, you felt yourself tightening around him. You gripped onto his shoulders as you removed yourself from his lips, your head falling back onto the pillow as you moaned in pure ecstasy - you were getting close now.

You could feel Logan getting closer too, pushing a few final thrusts as he felt you inclosing in on him, a final cry loosening from your lips as you felt yourself covered in a feeling of complete lust. Your eyes were coated in complete ecstasy as he watched you completely undo before him, shuddering himself as his head landed between the crook of your neck.

The two of you breathed onto each other softly, a short laugh bouncing between you from how content you were. The room returned to a quiet ease, the air sweet with musk and the scent of sex that sent you both into a subdued state. Moving to lie beside you, resting an arm behind the small of your back, Logan spoke gently.

"There was something about you, I just couldn't keep my eyes off of you."

You turned subtly towards him, kissing against his jaw in gratitude. You sat up in the bed, taking the blanket to cover up your lap.

"Logan, I should get going."

He looked at you puzzlingly, "stay for the night".

He sat up slowly too beside you, kissing slowly from your shoulder to the crook of your neck. You couldn't help but smile to yourself.

"I have practice tomorrow"

"I'll drop you off in the morning, promise".

Despite not drinking much the night before, you were glad the River Lethe hadn't poisoned your memory of the night before. The memories of needy movement against one another, the rhythm of bodies, kissing the smile off of John Logan.

You hadn't imagined it would escalate to that point. Then again it was a good way to subside the aches you were feeling in your ribs, and where you were shoved mid game a few nights before. The adrenaline however would not falter, either the high was ecstasy or the man lying beside you, a muscular bicep engulfing you within its frame. 

You found that he too was slowly allowing the dew of the morning to wake him from slumber, a smile kissing his features as he noticed the weight in his arms was still you. Almost fearful that somehow you were a dream that had somehow slipped beneath the cracks. Logan didn't know what drug you were, but he knew he was high on the feeling.

It began to make sense considering how he had responded to your tone.

"Logan, I just want to say. I don't want this to mean anything".

His eyebrows furrowed as he couldn't help but feel a tinge of pain subside in his ribs. More than anything he experienced in last night's match.

"Was it something I did?"

"No, of course not you were, incredible," you giggled beneath your breath. You eventually found the words that were attempting to make sense in your head. "I just think we both can't afford to lose anything. I mean we hardly know each other, we don't need such a distraction."

Logan shook his head beside you, "I mean I'd be willing to do anything to see you again."

You found yourself also willing to do anything to see him again as well, only, you found yourself managing your self control more than the other person who occupied the bed. Your stubbornness would have to get the better of you.

"Give me your phone," you beckoned. Quickly opening his contacts to put in your number and name, "if you ever need anything, or want anything you can text".

He grabbed his phone back and began to type a message. Hearing the notification output softly on your phone you foraged for it, hidden beneath your pile of clothes from the night prior. You opened to find a new message from him.

Unknown Number: when can i see you again? Unknown Number: please.

You looked back at him, a cocky smile returned back to his face as his pupils remained dilated.

"How much time before practise?"

Though to be fair, things with Logan are not bad. That's the thing people don't understand when they hear situationship from hell. On the contrary, things with Logan are very good. Too good. Too good to look at directly without feeling something inconvenient shift behind your ribs, which is precisely why it's bad. Because he had been so genuinely, almost aggressively nice about the whole thing. He had found you at the edge of that party and sat next to you and talked to you for hours like you were the most interesting thing in the room, and he had made a real effort not to look at your boobs while you were talking, which in that particular environment was either extremely respectful or a sign that he was raised correctly, and either way it had done something to you.

And then you had woken up on his chest the next morning. His warm skin and steady heartbeat, the sort of light that meant it was too early to be awake, and done the awkward post-hookup shuffle of words, and heard: I'm not really looking for anything serious.

A bucket of cold water dropped directly on your head would have been less effective. More merciful, probably.

What else could you have done except agree? For god's sake, he was sitting there in black boxers holding a cup of coffee, extending it toward you like a peace offering, brown eyes looking at you with an expression that was genuinely, unfairly soft for seven in the morning. You took the cup. He readjusted against the headboard and looked at you with those eyes and said, simply: "So?"

So. So what? What were you supposed to say?

"Sure," you heard yourself say. "I'm interested in that too."

Sure. I'm interested in that too. Your internal voice repeated it back to you with the tone of a younger sibling trying to get a rise out of you. That was, objectively, the least true thing you had ever said out loud. You had been raised on Bridget Jones and every famous rom-com ever committed to film. You believed in love, in its inconvenience and its necessity and its complete refusal to be reasoned with. Casual did not cut it for you. It never had.

But god. If Bridget could have seen John Logan in that particular light, with that particular bed head, she would have understood completely.

So you agreed. And after that came the encounters.

At first they were private, almost secretive, you telling your friends you were going for a run and then actually running, just in the wrong direction entirely. Logan telling his that he was going to study somewhere, which was technically true, depending on your definition of anatomy. It gave everything a specific kind of thrill, the pleasant urgency of something that existed slightly outside the normal rules, and for a while that was enough.

But time has a way of dissolving things like that. Gradually, without either of you deciding to, you stopped hiding. And that was when the real problem arrived.

You and Logan became friends.

Not the convenient, surface-level kind, the real kind, the kind that builds without you noticing until one day you look around and realize that this person has become load-bearing in your life. You were always at the house. You knew the full taxonomy of Dean's recent romantic encounters, the specificity of Garrett's current problems, the ongoing narrative of Tucker's various endeavors. You didn't just know about them, you helped. You were involved. You had opinions and history and context, and they knew it, and they came to you with things.

And it went the other way too. Logan had gotten so close to your friends that he would voluntarily drive Marissa to her therapy appointments in Boston without being asked, would send Benny reels about topics they'd talked about the week before, remembered details that even you sometimes forgot. He had threaded himself into the fabric of your life so completely and so quietly that you could no longer locate the seam.

And finally, finally, things had started to feel like they were moving in the right direction. The direction they probably should have been heading since the morning after Halloween. Maybe the casual arrangement had just been a detour — a scenic route to the same destination. All's well that ends well.

And then you and Logan would go to Malone's, and a waitress would glance between you with a smile and say what a nice couple you made, and Logan would laugh in that easy, noncommittal way of his and say: we're just friends.

And there it was. Bucket of cold water. Every time, without fail, like a reset button neither of you had agreed to keep pressing.

Every single time.

Which brings you to now.

You are sitting on Logan's couch, draped over him, legs intertwined, peppering kisses down his neck while he makes a valiant and increasingly unsuccessful effort to tell you about the new episode of some reality show he has gotten inexplicably invested in. Something about traitors in a castle. Who cares. Not you. Not when Logan smelled like that and the house was quiet and his hands were doing that thing where they moved without him seeming to notice.

You sank further into him. The kisses started to linger. His words got sparse.

"Are you even listening to me?" Logan murmured, his voice coming out considerably less steady than he had probably intended.

You hummed against his pulse point by way of answer.

The front door opened.

You both startled, pulling apart with the practiced efficiency of people who had been interrupted before, but the moment you registered it was Dean you settled back into exactly the position you'd been in. Dean didn't care about PDA. He actively encouraged it.

He dropped onto the opposite couch, looked at the ceiling briefly, then at you.

"Okay, I have a question," he said. "Logan, dude, this is for science, please don't be weird about it."

At this point you were sitting upright, Logan's arms still looped around you, his chin finding your shoulder, using you as a very comfortable shield against whatever Dean was about to say.

"Shoot," you said.

Dean took a breath with the energy of someone preparing to say something they had already decided to say regardless of the response. "Do you think I should buy a vibrator for a friend of mine?"

Logan laughed against your neck. You shivered slightly at the warmth of his breath.

"Are you the friend?" you asked. "Are you buying a vibrator for yourself?"

"What? No. I'm a man."

"That doesn't mean anything. Men are allowed to have vibrators."

"I know that. It's not for me."

"I really think you should get one though. For yourself. If you want to be the Samantha of the group you have to commit to the bit."

"I am the Samantha," Dean said, with genuine offense. "And it's not for me."

"Have you even watched Sex and the City?"

"Yes. I'm from New York, for god's sake and you're being such a Carrie right now."

You settled back against Logan's chest, his arms tightening around you automatically, like a reflex, like something he did without thinking about it anymore.

Yes, you thought. And my own Mr. Big is currently holding me on this couch.

Garrett and Hannah came down the stairs in what you assumed were their stay-at-home outfits: sweatpants, hockey jersey, the specific comfort of two people who had stopped performing around each other. The moment they came into view you felt Logan's hand still. Not move away just still. And then he shifted from behind you to sitting beside you, technically still touching but the warmth of it had changed completely. It was less person you are tangled up with and more person you happen to be sitting next to on public transport.

You knew that shift. You had felt it before.

The first time, you had told yourself you were imagining things.

It was a Tuesday, nothing special about it, the kind of evening that had become completely ordinary, you at the house, Logan beside you on the couch, his thumb making absent circles on your knee while Dean argued with Tucker about something that didn't matter. Hannah had stopped by to pick up something she'd left there the week before, and the moment the door opened Logan's hand had stilled. Not moved away. Just stilled. Like an animal that had heard something.

You hadn't said anything. You'd filed it away in the part of your brain reserved for things you weren't ready to look at yet.

The second time was at one of Garrett's games. You had been standing with Logan at the edge of the rink afterward, his jacket half around your shoulders the way it always ended up, and Hannah had appeared through the crowd. Logan had straightened. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, but you felt it the slight shift in his posture, the way his jacket had slipped back off your shoulders without him seeming to notice he'd let it go.

You'd picked it up off the floor and handed it back to him without a word.

The third time you stopped counting.

Malone's on a Friday night had a particular energy loud enough to feel festive, familiar enough to feel like home. Your usual table was in the corner, the big one that fit all of you without anyone having to pull up an extra chair, and the evening had been good. Genuinely good, the kind that reminded you why you had agreed to this arrangement in the first place, Logan's knee against yours under the table, his arm finding the back of your chair sometime around the second round of drinks, the easy warmth of being somewhere you belonged.

You were mid-story , a good one, the kind that had the whole table leaning in and you could feel it landing, the timing was right, and Garrett was already laughing before you got to the punchline and Dean had that look on his face that meant he was going to steal this story and tell it as his own later, and Tucker was—

You glanced at Logan.

He wasn't laughing.

He was looking across the table at Hannah with an expression you recognized because you had spent the better part of a year learning every single detail of his face, and what was on it right now was something soft and slightly helpless the expression of someone watching something they had decided they couldn't have.

The story finished without you. Somewhere far away, the table laughed.

You picked up your drink. Set it down. Picked it up again.

"I'm going to step outside," you said. "Just — smoke a bit."

"You don't even smoke, (Y/N)!" Tucker replied, laughing, and it killed you because all of Logan's friends had come to know you so well.

"You okay?" Garrett asked.

"Fine. Just air."

You were already standing. Already reaching for your jacket. Logan was on his feet before you made it two steps.

"I'll come with you," he said.

The parking lot outside Malone's was cold and poorly lit. You got about twenty feet from the door before you stopped walking. The noise from inside filtered out muffled and distant, everyone still laughing, completely unaware.

Logan stopped beside you. Waited. He had always been good at waiting, which was one of the things you had loved about him and one of the things that had slowly, quietly driven you insane.

"Don't," you said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't do the thing where you stand there and wait for me to calm down." You turned to face him. The cold air hit your face and you were glad for it. "I'm not going to calm down. So just talk to me. Tell me the truth. Please. Don't bullshit me right now, Logan, I am asking you to not bullshit me right now."

"Baby—"

"Don't baby me, Logan. Not right now"

He looked at you with that steady, unhurried patience of his, which tonight felt less like a quality and more like a weapon.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"I want you to tell me if you have a crush on Hannah." The word crush felt absurdly small for the moment but you couldn't bear the weight of the more accurate alternatives.

Something shifted in his face. Not guilt exactly, something deeper than that. The specific expression of someone who had been quietly hoping a question wouldn't arrive and had known, somewhere underneath the hoping, that it always was going to.

"It's not—" he started.

"Logan."

He exhaled. Looked at the ground briefly. Looked back at you.

"It's not serious," he said. "It's nothing. She's with Garrett. It's not like I would ever—"

"Oh my god." The laugh that came out of you had nothing to do with anything being funny. "Oh my god, you actually do. You actually have a crush on her."

"It's not a big deal—"

"You have a crush on your best friend's girlfriend and it's not a big deal." You repeated it back to him slowly. "I have been right here, Logan. For almost a year I have been right here, and you have a crush on Hannah."

"It's just a feeling. It doesn't mean anything." His voice had an edge to it now, something defensive sharpening underneath the calm. "And you don't get to be mad at me for it."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't get to be mad at me for having feelings." The words were coming faster now, the composure cracking in a way you almost never saw from him. "We said casual. That was the agreement. I can't be accountable to you for things I feel when you are not my girlfriend."

The word landed like a slap.

Girlfriend.

"Right," you said. Your voice had gone very quiet. "I'm not your girlfriend."

"That's not what I—"

"No, you're right. I'm not." You looked at him. Really looked at him — this person whose coffee order you knew by heart, whose nightmares you had talked him through at two in the morning, whose hand had reached for yours in his sleep so many times you had stopped counting. "Can I ask you something? And I need you to actually answer me. Not just wait until I stop talking."

He said nothing, which you took as a yes.

"What did you think this was?" Your voice was still quiet. Controlled. "Not what we agreed on in the beginning. What did you think it was last week? Last month? What did you think it was tonight when you had your arm around me at that table? When you picked me up from my house and kissed me in your truck?" You took a breath. "Because I need to understand how you look at what we have been doing and see something casual. I genuinely need you to explain that to me."

"It's complicated—"

"It's not complicated. It's actually very simple. I just need you to say it out loud."

"You knew what this was when we started—"

"I know what it was when we started. I'm asking what it is now." You crossed your arms against the cold. "Because from where I'm standing it looks a lot like a relationship. It looks like you drive my friends places and remember things about them they never told you twice, and I know every single thing about your life, and we spend more nights together than apart, and you reach for me when you're asleep like I'm something you don't want to lose." Your voice cracked slightly and you pushed past it. "So you'll have to forgive me for being confused about the casual part."

"I can't—" He stopped. Started again. "It's not about not wanting to. It's about what I can actually give right now. Hockey takes everything. My family, my mother, I don't have money, I don't have stability, I don't have any of the things that—"

"I'm not asking you for stability. I'm not asking you for money." Something in your chest had cracked open and you were past the point of closing it. "I'm asking you to admit what this already is. That's all."

"I am being honest—"

"Then be more honest." Your voice broke on the last word and you kept going anyway. "Because I'm in love with you."

The parking lot went completely silent.

Logan stared at you. The words sat between you in the cold air like something that had changed the temperature.

"What?" His voice came out barely above a breath.

"I'm in love with you." Steadier the second time. "I have been for a long time. And I know that's not what we agreed on. But I can't stand here and pretend I don't while you tell me it's not a big deal that you have feelings for someone else." You looked at him. "We are already a couple, Logan. In every single way that actually matters, we already are. The only thing missing is you admitting it."

Something moved across his face — something large and unguarded and almost frightened.

"It's not that simple," he said, quieter now, the defensiveness gone out of it.

"I know it's not simple. I know about hockey. I know about your mom. I know all of it, Logan, because you told me, because that's what we do. But none of that changes what I just said." You took a breath. "So just tell me. Do you have feelings for me? Yes or no. That's all I'm asking."

Logan looked at you.

And said nothing.

The silence stretched between you, long and terrible. His jaw was tight. His eyes moved across your face like he was looking for something he either couldn't find or couldn't say, and the longer the silence went on the more clearly you understood that the silence was itself an answer.

"Wow," you said finally. Very quietly. "Okay."

You picked up your bag. Straightened your jacket. Looked at him one more time this person you had spent 338 days loving in whatever form he would accept.

"Don't follow me," you said.

He didn't.

You walked back toward the warm light spilling out of Malone's windows, past your friends still laughing, past the table that an hour ago had felt like home, and you kept walking. Past the door, past the window, down the street, into the cold.

Too angry to cry. Too tired to pretend. Too done to look back.

Behind you, in the parking lot, Logan stood very still and said nothing which was the thing he was best at, and the thing that had finally cost him everything.

It had been a hard couple of days. But the upside of a not-breakup in college was that you didn't get to wallow, no watching rom-coms until the wee hours, no doing the Bella, watching the months pass from your bedroom window. Life was as it had always been, minus the space Logan had occupied in your weekly schedule. Not a metaphysical space, a literal one. When you opened your Google Calendar you found his game days still blocked out in blue, his training days still marked, everything still there like a calendar that hadn't gotten the news yet.

Pathetic, you thought, and deleted them.

Your days now belonged entirely to yourself, which should have felt like freedom and mostly felt like a lot of unscheduled Tuesday afternoons. No more disappearing in the middle of the day, no more make-out sessions in the library during lunch break. Just you and your own company and the slow, unglamorous work of being fine.

You weren't fine. You were something adjacent to fine that required daily maintenance and the careful avoidance of certain songs.

Marissa had noticed, she called it being under the weather, which was such a specific and old-fashioned way of putting it that in the beginning you had found it strange and now found it completely endearing. Your own personal nanna, showing up with iced coffee and terrible ideas at exactly the right moments.

The terrible idea this time was an underground bar in Boston she had found, which was a surprise since Marissa was fundamentally a sports bar person. You had a strong suspicion the entire excursion was engineered entirely for your benefit and the benefit of your appetite for expensive, colorful drinks, and you loved her for it and didn't say so.

The drive took exactly long enough to hype yourself up.

I'm pretty. I'm smart. I'm a catch.

The bar was dimly lit in a way that felt intentional rather than neglected, all low ceilings and good music and the general atmosphere of a place that didn't need to try. You, Marissa and Benny settled into a corner booth and approximately ninety seconds later Benny's elbow was in your ribs.

"Cute guy. Nine o'clock," he said, in what he apparently believed was a whisper.

You glanced toward the bar. Tall, white jacket, the kind of easy posture that meant he wasn't thinking about his posture at all.

"I'm not really looking for anything," you said.

"You're single. He's cute. The bar has drinks. What exactly is the problem?" Benny tilted his head. "Go order our drinks and make some poor decisions. You've earned it."

"I didn't bring my ID."

Benny stared at you. "You came to a bar without your ID?"

"I forgot." You shrugged.

"(Y/N)." His voice had the specific tone of someone choosing their words carefully. "What is wrong with you. Go. Drinks. Now. The ID thing is a you problem, figure it out."

You slid out of the booth before he could say anything else.

The guy at the bar was, up close, even more irritatingly attractive than he had been from across the room. He glanced over when you appeared beside him, and then glanced again in a way that was not subtle and didn't try to be.

"You look like you're deciding something," he said.

"Whether to admit I forgot my ID at a bar."

He looked at you for a moment. Then he smiled easy and genuine. "Hunter," he said, and held out his hand.

"((Y/N))."

"I'll vouch for you," he said. "If you tell me what you're drinking."

You told him. He ordered both without being asked, which was either presumptuous or exactly right, and you decided it was exactly right.

By the time you made it back to the booth with four drinks and Hunter's number in your phone, Benny was looking at you with the expression of someone who had orchestrated something and was very pleased about it.

You didn't tell him he was right. But you didn't have to.

The thing about Hunter Davenport was that he was genuinely, irritatingly likeable.

You had not been thinking about Logan when you said yes to Hunter's suggestion of getting coffee. You had not been thinking about Logan when the coffee turned into a walk, and the walk turned into two hours of easy conversation that asked nothing from you and gave something back.

That was the point.

You had gotten very good at not thinking about Logan in the weeks since Malone's. It was a skill, like any other, it required practice and the occasional forcible redirection of your own brain, but you were nothing if not disciplined when the situation called for it. You had been showing up to things. Laughing at the right moments. Sleeping through the night, mostly.

You were fine. You were getting finer by the day, which was either progress or a very convincing impression of it, and right now you weren't examining the difference too closely.

Hunter was easy. That was the thing about him. He was warm and uncomplicated and he looked at you like you were worth looking at, which was something you had apparently needed more than you realized.

It was nothing serious. You had been very clear about that with yourself. You were not ready for serious. But his hand was warm when it found yours walking back from the coffee place, and you let it stay there.

You were almost believing it.

The team was at the rink for an open practice, one of the informal ones that sometimes drew a small crowd of friends and the generally affiliated. You had come with Marissa, which gave you plausible deniability about why you were there, and you had sat in the third row and watched without watching, which was a skill you had also been practicing.

Hunter had waved at you from the ice. You had waved back.

You had not looked at Logan. You had been extremely disciplined about not looking at Logan, which meant you were also extremely aware of exactly where he was at every moment without technically looking at him, which was its own kind of exhausting.

After practice, Hunter had come off the ice still in half his gear and found you immediately, easy and unhurried, and said something that made you laugh. Your hand had gone to his arm the way hands do when you're laughing at something someone said, and it had stayed there for approximately four seconds.

Four seconds.

You knew it was four seconds because you had counted them, which meant some part of you had been paying attention to something you were pretending not to pay attention to.

The locker room door swung shut behind Logan without him looking back.

You found a quiet corner of the rink lobby while Hunter went to get his bag. You were looking at your phone, not reading anything on it, when you heard footsteps and looked up.

Logan.

He had changed out of his gear. His jaw was doing the thing: the tight, controlled thing that meant something was happening underneath the composure that the composure was working very hard to contain. His eyes moved from your face to the door Hunter had gone through and back.

"Hey," you said carefully.

"You and Hunter," he said. Not a question.

"That's not really your business."

"You're spending a lot of time with him."

"Logan—"

"I'm just making an observation." His voice was very even. The voice he used when he was the least controlled.

"Make it somewhere else."

He laughed short and humorless. "Right. Okay." He looked at the floor. Looked back at you. "I just didn't think you were the type."

You went very still. "The type to?"

"To go after a guy because of who he plays for." Quiet. Measured. Like he had chosen this version of the sentence carefully. "I didn't think that was your thing."

The lobby was very quiet.

You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to make sure you had heard what you thought you'd heard. Long enough to see something flicker in his expression, the immediate, unmistakable recognition that he had gone too far.

"Say that again," you said softly.

"I didn't mean—"

"No." Your voice was calm in a way that had nothing to do with being calm. "Say it again. I want to make sure I understood you. Are you calling me a puck bunny?"

Logan said nothing. The flicker had become something closer to horror.

"Because that's what you just said." You tilted your head slightly. "After everything. That's what you went with."

"I didn't — that's not what I meant—"

"Then what did you mean?" You took a step toward him. "Because I have been patient, Logan. I have been so patient with you. I said the most honest thing I have ever said to anyone in that parking lot and you said nothing back, which I am trying. I am actively trying to make my peace with. But you do not get to say that to me. You don't get to do that."

"I know." His voice had lost all its evenness. "I shouldn't have—"

"Why did you say it?"

He looked at you.

"Tell me why." Your voice cracked slightly and you kept going. "Because it wasn't an observation. So tell me why."

Something moved across his face the composure fracturing in a way you had only seen once or twice in all the time you had known him.

"Because I can't—" He stopped.

"Can't what?"

"Because I can't watch you with him and not—" He stopped again. Pressed his mouth shut. Looked at the ceiling briefly.

"Not what?" Your voice was barely above a whisper.

He looked at you. Right at you. And for one unguarded, terrible second you could see everything, all of it, the whole enormous weight of everything he hadn't said in the parking lot outside Malone's, sitting right there on his face with nowhere left to hide.

And then he looked away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was wrong."

You looked at him for a long moment.

"Yeah," you said. "It was."

You picked up your bag. Hunter had reappeared at the far end of the lobby, jacket on, easy smile, completely unaware of the wreckage he had wandered back into. You walked toward him and did not look back at Logan.

But you heard him the sharp exhale of someone who had just watched something leave that they weren't sure was coming back.

Good, you thought.

And hated that you thought it.

Here was the thing about being called a puck bunny: it wasn't the word itself that got to you.

Puck bunnies weren't the worst thing a person could be.

Men were allowed their types, allowed to prefer blondes or brunettes or redheads, to only date younger women, to have a thing for accents, to announce their type to anyone who will listen like it’s a personality trait, to want someone tall or short or with a specific laugh, or say things like "I have never been with a Brazilian before". They were allowed to say these things out loud, to Tinder-filter by height, and if it was possible they would do by weight too, to have opinions about bodies that they shared freely and without apology.

But god forbid a woman had a type. God forbid a woman found hockey players attractive or musicians, or academics, or anyone with a specific quality she was drawn to. Then she was something to be named and categorized and looked down upon. Then she was a bunny.

You were not offended by the word.

You were offended that Logan, who had been silent while you poured your heart out in a cold parking lot, who had said nothing when you asked him the most direct question you had ever asked another human being , had found his voice again specifically to say that. That of all the things he could have finally said to you, after all the silence, this was the one he chose.

That was what got to you.

Not the word. The timing. The source. The specific, devastating irony of a man who couldn't say I have feelings for you finding it very easy to say something that small.

You didn't tell anyone what he said.

That was the first decision you made, walking out of that rink lobby with Hunter's hand in yours and Logan's exhale still somewhere in your chest. You were not going to tell Dean, who would say something devastatingly accurate about it. You were not going to tell Marissa, who would want to talk about it for three hours. You were not going to tell anyone, because telling someone meant turning it over, examining it, and you were not ready to examine the specific shape of what Logan had said to you and what it meant that he had said it.

You knew what it meant. That was the problem.

You had known the moment you saw his face, that flicker of something before the composure reassembled itself, the way his eyes had moved to Hunter and back to you with an expression that had nothing casual about it. You had spent 338 days learning the map of Logan's face and you knew exactly what that look was. You had just also heard what came out of his mouth immediately afterward, which meant that what Logan felt and what Logan was willing to do about it were, as always, two completely different countries.

You were done trying to travel between them.

The week that followed was quiet and it felt different from the other times you had gone quiet. Before, the silence had always been temporary, a held breath. This felt more like an exhale. Like something had finally, after a very long time, finished.

You went to class. You had coffee with Hunter on Tuesday, which was easy and warm and asked nothing from you. You went to Marissa's on Thursday and watched something forgettable on her laptop and fell asleep on her couch, and she put a blanket over you without waking you up, which was the kindest thing anyone had done for you in recent memory.

You did not go to the house off campus. You did not text Logan. You did not check if he had texted you, which required leaving your phone face-down on your desk for approximately four days straight, which was its own kind of discipline.

You were fine. You were getting finer.

You were also absolutely not fine.

Dean found you on a Wednesday.

Not dramatically, he just appeared at the coffee shop near your building where you went on Wednesday mornings, which you had mentioned to him exactly once four months ago, which meant he had remembered it and filed it away and was now using it, which was such a Dean thing to do that you almost smiled.

He sat down across from you without asking if it was okay and stole a sip of your coffee before saying anything.

"He told me what he said," Dean said, without preamble.

You looked at your coffee. "Okay."

"He feels terrible."

"Good."

"I mean genuinely terrible. Like, I've known Logan for three years and I've never seen him—" Dean stopped. Seemed to decide something. "He's not sleeping. He's barely eating. He showed up to practice yesterday and coach pulled him aside after because his head wasn't in it, which has never happened, not once in three years."

"Dean." You looked up at him. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you deserve to know that it cost him something." His voice was straightforward, without manipulation. "I'm not asking you to forgive him. What he said was awful and he knows it. I'm just, you spent a long time showing up for him and I don't want you to think that none of it landed. It all landed. It's landing right now. It's just landing a little late."

You were quiet for a moment.

"A little late," you repeated.

"Okay, very late."

"Dean." You wrapped your hands around your cup. "He called me a puck bunny."

"I know." Dean had the grace to look genuinely pained. "He said it because he was jealous and scared and he handled it in the worst possible way and there is no defense for it. I'm not here to defend it."

"Then what are you here for?"

Dean looked at you across the table, this person who had been in your corner since before you had any idea how much you would need someone in your corner, and his expression was very honest.

"I'm here because he's my best friend and he's falling apart," he said. "And you're also my friend. And I hate watching both of you be miserable when I know exactly why you're miserable." He paused. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted you to know."

You looked out the window. The street outside was grey and unremarkable, the specific flatness of a Wednesday in November.

"How long has he known?" you asked quietly. "That he has feelings for me. How long has he actually known?"

Dean was quiet for a moment.

"A while," he said carefully.

"How long is a while, Dean."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Since pretty much the beginning," he said.

You closed your eyes briefly. Opened them.

"Okay," you said.

"(Y/N)—"

"I'm not angry." And you weren't, which was almost surprising. You were something quieter and more tired than angry. "I just needed to know." You picked up your coffee. "Tell him I said he needs to sleep."

Dean looked at you. "That's it?"

"That's it." You met his eyes. "I'm not ready for anything else right now. But tell him to sleep."

Dean nodded slowly. He finished stealing your coffee and stood up and put his jacket on, and then he stopped with his hand on the back of the chair.

"For what it's worth," he said. "The Hannah thing. It was never real. He told me that too. He said he thinks he latched onto it because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening."

You didn't say anything.

"Okay," Dean said. "I'll see you around."

He left. You sat there with your cold coffee and the grey Wednesday street outside and the specific, exhausting weight of loving someone who had known the whole time and chosen, over and over, to say nothing.

Since pretty much the beginning.

338 days. And he had known since pretty much the beginning.

You sat with that for a long time.

It had been raining since noon.

Not the dramatic, cinematic kind of rain that arrived with thunder and purpose, just the steady, grey, unrelenting kind that soaked through your jacket in the first thirty seconds and didn't apologize for it.

You were on your way back from the library, hood up, head down, thinking about nothing in particular, which you had gotten very good at recently. The art of thinking about nothing. Occupying your own brain with the immediate and the logistical the paper due Thursday, the coffee you were going to make when you got home, the question of whether you had remembered to charge your phone.

You had not been thinking about Logan.

You were almost at your building when you heard him.

"(Y/N)."

You stopped walking.

He was standing at the bottom of your building's front steps, which meant he had been waiting in the rain for some amount of time, which was evident from the state of him soaked through, hair flat, jacket dark with water. He looked like someone who had arrived with a plan and abandoned it somewhere on the walk over and was now operating on something more basic and less manageable.

He looked, for the first time in all the time you had known him, completely unguarded.

"Logan." Your voice came out carefully. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"It's raining."

"I know."

"You're soaked."

"I know." He took a step toward you. "I've been standing here for forty minutes trying to figure out what to say and I still don't know, so I'm just going to say it badly and hope that counts for something."

You looked at him. The rain came down steadily between you.

"You have two minutes," you said.

He exhaled. Ran a hand through his wet hair. Looked at you with the expression of someone stepping off a ledge they had been standing on for a very long time.

"I have been in love with you," he said, "since pretty much the beginning."

The rain was very loud suddenly.

"I knew it when we agreed to casual. I knew it when we stopped hiding. I knew it every time I reached for you in my sleep and every time a stranger called us a couple and I laughed it off, and I knew it in that parking lot outside Malone's when you told me the truth and I stood there and said nothing back." His voice was steady but only barely, the steadiness of someone gripping something very hard. "I said nothing because I was terrified. Not of you. Never of you. Of what it meant. Of what I would owe you if I said it out loud. Hockey takes everything I have and my family situation is a disaster and I don't have money or stability or any of the things that a person is supposed to have before they ask someone to—" He stopped. "But Dean said something to me last week. He said that I was losing you anyway. That all my careful management of the situation had achieved was losing you slowly instead of all at once, and somehow I had convinced myself that was the better outcome."

You said nothing. The rain soaked through your hood and you didn't move.

"And then I said what I said to you at the rink." His jaw tightened. "I have replayed that moment every day since it happened. There is no version of it that I can make okay. I said it because I saw you with Hunter and something in me just broke. Not a good break. Not the kind that leads anywhere useful. Just — I broke, and I said the cruelest thing I could think of, and I aimed it at you, and I have hated myself for it every single day since." He looked at you. "I'm not telling you that to make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you because you deserve to know that it was never about you. It was never about who you are. It was about me being terrified and handling it in the worst possible way, and I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

The rain fell between you, steady and indifferent.

"You knew since the beginning," you said finally. Your voice came out quieter than you intended.

"Yes."

"A year."

"Yes."

"And you said nothing."

"Yes." He didn't flinch from it. "I said nothing, and I let you carry it alone, and I told myself I was protecting you from the complications of my life, but I think I was just protecting myself. From having to be as brave as you were in that parking lot." Something moved across his face. "You were so brave. You said the true thing and I just stood there. And I have thought about that every day since. About what it cost you to say it and what it cost me to say nothing back."

You looked at him. This person. Soaked through and unguarded and finally, finally saying the thing he had been not saying for 338 days.

"The Hannah thing," you said.

"Wasn't real." Immediate. Certain. "I think I needed it to be real because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening. She has what you and I have, what you and I were and I think I confused wanting that with wanting her. It was never her." He held your gaze. "It was always you. It has only ever been you."

The rain had soaked through your jacket completely now. You were cold in a way that had stopped being uncomfortable and become simply the condition of the moment.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight," Logan said. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just needed you to know that I heard you in that parking lot. I heard every word. And I should have said this then, and I'm sorry that I didn't, and I'm saying it now because Dean was right, I am losing you anyway, and I would rather lose you having finally told the truth than keep you at a distance by staying silent." He paused. "I love you. I have loved you for a long time. And I'm sorry it took me this long to be brave enough to say it."

The street was very quiet under the rain.

You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to turn it over. Long enough to feel the full weight of 338 days, of every almost-conversation and loaded silence and reset button and bucket of cold water. Long enough to remember his hand going still when Hannah walked in, and the parking lot, and the rink lobby, and the specific sound of his exhale when you walked away.

Long enough to remember, underneath all of it, a Halloween party and a wall and two people waiting out the night from the edges of it, talking like they had nothing to prove to each other.

The beginning, before it got complicated. Before it got careful.

"You're an idiot," you said.

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite hope. Something more tentative than hope.

"I know," he said.

"You made everything so much harder than it needed to be."

"I know."

"I carried that alone for a very long time, Logan."

"I know." His voice broke slightly on it. "I know you did. I'm sorry."

The rain came down. You looked at him this soaked, unguarded, finally honest person standing at the bottom of your steps and felt something in your chest that had been braced for a very long time slowly, carefully release.

"You should have just said it," you said. "In the beginning. You should have just said it."

"I know." He took a step closer. Close enough that you could see the rain on his face, the wet dark of his hair, the expression underneath all the composure that had finally run out of places to hide. "I know. I'm saying it now."

You looked at him.

"Say it again," you said quietly.

"I love you." No hesitation. No composure. Just Logan, standing in the rain, finally saying the true thing. "I love you. I have loved you since pretty much the beginning and I am done pretending I don't."

The rain fell between you and neither of you moved and the street was quiet and everything was very still.

Then you closed the distance.

You kissed him in the rain, which was cold and slightly impractical and nothing like the careful, managed version of Logan you had spent 338 days trying to navigate. This was different. This was him kissing you back with both hands and no hesitation and none of the holding back, and it felt finally, finally like the true thing. Like the version of this that had been waiting underneath all the other versions the whole time.

When you pulled back you were both soaked and breathing slightly unsteadily and his forehead dropped to yours in the rain.

"I'm still mad at you," you said.

"I know." His arms tightened around you. "I know you are."

"The puck bunny thing is going to take a while."

"I know. Whatever it takes."

"And you have to tell me things." Your voice was muffled against his jacket. "When you're scared, when it gets complicated, when your brain does the thing where it decides silence is the safe option. You have to tell me instead."

"I will." He said it simply, without qualification, which was how you knew he meant it. "I will."

You stood there in the rain outside your building, soaked through and slightly ridiculous, and you thought about Halloween and 338 days and parking lots and rink lobbies and all the long, complicated distance between the beginning and right now.

Worth it, you thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two — "Fuck you"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fuck you," he whispered.

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

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

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

Three — "Fuck off"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four — "What the fuck"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five — "Well, fuck"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Six — "Fuck"

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

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

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

​Logan stepped out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seven — "Fuck it"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rink smelled like cold air, sweat, and freshly resurfaced ice, the familiar combination settling heavily into your lungs every time you pushed off the bench and stepped back onto the surface.

Your legs already ached.

The game had turned aggressive halfway through the second period after one shitty call spiraled into another, and now every shift felt sharper around the edges. Faster. Meaner. The kind of game where players stopped caring about penalties and started caring about pride instead.

You preferred games like that, if you had to be honest.

Your ponytail stuck damply to the back of your neck beneath your helmet while you skated toward center ice, adjusting your grip against your stick as the referee dropped the puck between you and the opposing center.

The collision happened almost immediately after that.

Sticks clashed. Skates carved violently against the ice. Somebody shouted from the bench behind you while bodies slammed together hard enough to rattle the boards, but your focus narrowed the way it always did during games until the rest of the rink became background noise.

You stole the puck cleanly and pushed forward.

A defender cut toward you from the left.

You dipped your shoulder, trying to slip around her.

Instead, she drove straight into your side.

The impact sent you hard against the glass with a crack loud enough to echo through the arena, pain blooming sharply along your ribs as the boards shook beneath you.

The crowd reacted instantly, and so did your teammates.

But you barely had time to register any of it before irritation outweighed the pain completely.

You shoved off the glass immediately, stealing the puck back before the defender could recover properly, and skated straight down the ice with enough force behind your strides to make your thighs burn.

Somewhere behind the opposing bench, somebody yelled, “Holy shit.”

The puck left your stick seconds later, and the goal light flashed red.

You barely had time to breathe before gloves slammed against your helmet and arms wrapped around your shoulders, the team crowding around you near the bench while the arena noise swelled louder overhead.

“You’re insane,” your captain laughed breathlessly against the side of your helmet.

You grinned despite yourself, adrenaline still racing violently through your system.

The celebration around you lasted only a few seconds before the line changed again and everybody scattered back into position, skates carving sharply across the ice while the energy in the rink climbed even higher after the goal.

You pushed a hand briefly against your ribs while skating backward toward center, testing the ache already beginning to settle beneath your padding.

It hurt.. not enough to matter, yet.

Across the arena, Logan still had not looked away from you.

He sat forward in his seat slowly, forearms resting against his knees while the rest of the crowd blurred into noise around him. The game continued moving at full speed beneath the arena lights, players shouting over one another while the referees reset the faceoff, but his attention stayed fixed entirely on you.

Dean noticed first, because of course he did.

“You good, bro?” he asked, glancing sideways from his seat beside him.

Logan barely blinked. “Who is that?”

Dean followed his line of sight toward the ice where you were circling near center.

“The defenseman?”

“The one that just got launched into the glass.”

Tucker snorted from Logan’s other side. “That doesn't narrow it down at all. They've been nasty tonight.”

Logan ignored him completely.

You pushed your helmet back slightly while talking to one of your teammates, visibly unfazed by the hit you had taken less than a minute earlier, and something about that seemed to irritate Logan further.

He wasn't irritated with you.

At the fact that nobody else on the ice appeared nearly as bothered by it as he was.

“She’s fine,” Dean said casually, mid bite of his overpriced arena pretzel. “Women’s team plays mean as hell.”

“That wasn’t a casual hit.”

Dean shrugged. “She got back up.”

“Not the point.” Logan groaned, leaning back in his seat and letting his legs spread a bit.

Tucker looked over slowly then, eyebrows lifting slightly as realization started creeping into his expression.

“Oh my God,” he muttered. “You’re obsessed with her.”

Logan finally tore his eyes away from the ice long enough to glare at him.

“I’m not obsessed.”

“You looked ready to fight somebody for checking her.”

“She hit the glass hard.”

“She also scored immediately after.” Dean piped up with a shrug and a wink.

Logan’s jaw tightened slightly.

The game resumed again before Dean could say anything else, but Logan’s attention kept drifting back toward you no matter how hard he tried to focus elsewhere. Every shift you played seemed sharper than everyone else’s. Faster. More aggressive.

You didn’t hesitate.

Most players slowed right before impact without even realizing they were doing it, bodies instinctively bracing against pain before collisions happened.

You didn’t.

You kept driving forward like fear genuinely never occurred to you.

Halfway through the third period, you slammed another player into the boards hard enough that Tucker actually winced.

“Jesus Christ,” he laughed. “She’s terrifying.”

Logan said nothing.

Your helmet turned slightly while backing away from the boards afterward, and for a brief second the arena lights caught the side of your jersey clearly enough for him to see the number stretched across your back.

Twelve.

Before he could make out the name above it, you skated off toward the bench again.

Logan leaned forward immediately.

“Twelve,” he repeated.

Dean stared at him. “What?”

“Her number.”

Dean burst out laughing. “You’re actually trying to identify her right now?”

Logan reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled his phone out without answering.

“Oh, this is bad,” Tucker said, grinning openly now. “He’s gone.”

Dean leaned over slightly while Logan opened the Briar women’s hockey roster, scrolling quickly with his thumb while the game continued in the background.

“Twelve,” Logan muttered quietly to himself.

The roster loaded slowly.

Tucker watched him with open amusement. “You don’t even know this girl.”

Logan’s eyes stayed fixed on his phone. “Working on it.”

Dean laughed under his breath. “You got all this from one hit into the boards?”

Logan finally looked back toward the ice.

You were standing near the bench listening to your coach, one glove hanging loosely from your hand while you nodded along absently, cheeks flushed from exertion and baby hairs sticking damply to your forehead beneath your helmet.

Then you smiled at something one of your teammates said.

Five minutes ago you had looked vicious enough to start a fight in the middle of the rink. Now you looked warm and relaxed. The contrast was something that Logan understood and admired.. something that was also making him constantly reconnect his wifi in the hopes that it would load faster.

Logan looked back down at the roster immediately.

“There,” Dean pointed suddenly, leaning closer. “Number twelve.”

Logan’s thumb stopped scrolling.

Your name sat there on the screen beneath your player photo.

Defense. Junior. The same number stitched across your jersey.

For some reason, finally knowing your name only made the strange tight feeling in his chest worse.

Tucker looked between Logan and the phone before laughing again.

“You’re done for, bro.”

Logan barely heard him.

Down on the ice, you stepped back into play again, completely unaware that a man several rows above the rink had just memorized your name like it was something important.

By the final stretch of the third period, Boston College had stopped looking organized and started looking frustrated.

Every pass they attempted felt rushed, every hit carried just a little too much irritation behind it, and Briar only seemed to feed off the shift in energy. The game had become brutal in the way rivalry games always did once pride got involved, fast and physical and loud enough that the sound of skates carving into the ice blended together with the roar of the crowd overhead.

Your lungs burned every time you pushed off into another sprint, exhaustion settling heavily into your legs beneath the adrenaline, but it barely registered anymore. The ache in your ribs from earlier pulsed every time you twisted too sharply, yet even that felt distant compared to the rush of momentum building around your team.

The scoreboard hanging above the rink read 5–1.

Boston looked furious about it.

You stole another pass near center ice before one of their forwards could recover properly, intercepting it so cleanly that she nearly lost her footing trying to turn around after you. The crowd reacted immediately, noise erupting through the arena while you accelerated down the ice with one of your teammates racing alongside you.

A defender moved toward you.

You waited until the very last second before sliding the puck across the ice.

Your teammate buried it immediately.

The red goal light flashed, and before you fully registered it, the arena exploded.

By the time you reached the boards again, your teammates were already swarming you, gloves smacking against your helmet and shoulders while somebody nearly crashed hard enough into your back to knock you forward.

You were laughing before you realized it, adrenaline making everything feel sharp and electric beneath your skin while the Boston goalie snapped her stick against the post in frustration somewhere behind you.

Several rows above the glass, Tucker stood abruptly from his seat with the kind of dramatic excitement only hockey players seemed capable of.

His hands coming together with immense force as his claps echoed alongside the rest of the cheers in the arena.

Dean laughed immediately beside him, though his attention shifted toward Logan a second later once he realized there had been absolutely no reaction.

Logan had not looked away from the ice.

Not once.

His forearms rested against his knees while his eyes tracked you, a small grin tugging at his lips despite the intent behind his eyes.

Dean noticed it first.

Or maybe he had noticed earlier and only now found it entertaining enough to comment on.

“Y'know,” he said slowly, “most people blink occasionally.”

Logan barely reacted.

“You’re staring at her like you’re scouting for the NHL,” Tucker added, dropping back into his seat.

“She’s good,” Logan answered simply.

It came out quieter than either of them expected.

Not dismissive. Not casual. He was just certain.

Dean glanced sideways at him then before looking back toward the ice again where you were circling near the bench waiting for the next line change.

“That is not a normal amount of interest for someone you’ve watched exactly one game of.”

Logan didn’t answer immediately.

The truth was he had stopped paying attention to the rest of the game almost twenty minutes ago. Every time you stepped onto the ice, his focus shifted toward you without thinking. The speed, the aggression, the complete lack of hesitation every time another player came near you. You played like somebody who trusted herself completely, and there was something about that confidence that had rooted itself beneath his skin almost instantly.

The final buzzer sounded not long after.

Briar won 7–1.

The entire team spilled onto the ice immediately afterward while music blasted through the arena speakers and students crowded harder against the glass cheering. Your helmet disappeared during the celebration at some point, leaving your hair flattened messily around your face while one of your teammates jumped against your side hard enough to throw both of you off balance.

You caught her automatically, laughing hard enough that Logan could see it even from the stands.

Dean leaned back in his seat slowly.

“Oh, you are fucked,” he muttered.

Logan finally dragged his attention away from the rink long enough to frown at him slightly. “Fuck off." He shoved Dean's shoulder while the two of them laughed as Logan's eyes wandered back to the ice.

You were standing near the bench now talking to your coach, your gloves tucked beneath one arm while you nodded along absently. The arena lights reflected faintly against the sweat still shining along your forehead, and even exhausted, you still looked completely awake somehow. Alive in a way that made it difficult to stop looking at you once he started.

After a short victory lap, the team slowly started disappearing through the tunnel beneath the stands while the energy in the arena softened into postgame noise. You lingered near the ice longer than most of your teammates, still talking to someone through the glass while tossing a puck over for a kid with a little Briar hockey jersey on.

Then your head turned slightly toward the stands.

Toward him.

Logan went still.

Even from this far away, he could see the brief flicker of awareness cross your expression as your eyes passed over the crowd and paused for half a second too long in his direction.

It wasn't recognition, despite the fact that he wanted it to be. It was really just awareness.. like you had felt someone watching you.

Before either of you could hold the moment long enough for it to become anything real, one of your teammates grabbed your arm and dragged your attention away again, pulling you toward the tunnel with the rest of the team.

Logan kept looking toward the empty space you had left behind long after you disappeared from sight.

The next morning felt painfully slow after the energy of the game the night before.

Campus had settled back into its usual rhythm by the time Logan crossed the quad toward his lecture hall, students moving in uneven streams through the cold while coffee cups steamed between gloved hands and backpacks bumped against shoulders in crowded walkways.

He barely noticed any of it, all he could think about was crawling back into his bed after his classes wrapped up.

Not because anything was wrong, which honestly only irritated him more, but because every time he closed his eyes he kept replaying flashes from the game in frustratingly vivid detail. The sound of skates against the ice. Your laugh during the postgame celebration. The way you kept getting back up after every hit like it genuinely offended you to stay down.

Dean had called him pathetic three separate times already that morning.

Logan still wasn’t entirely convinced he was wrong.

He pushed open the door to the lecture hall a few minutes before class started, stepping into the familiar low buzz of conversation and keyboards tapping. The room smelled faintly like coffee and winter air dragged in from outside, students already settling into seats while the projector glowed dimly against the front wall.

Logan started down the steps automatically, his hands settled in his pockets while he made his way towards the usual row he sat in.

Then, his steps came to a screeching halt.

Three rows from the front sat a navy blue Briar athlete backpack slouched beside one of the seats.

Women’s hockey was embroidered, and small along the top of the front pocket.

His eyes caught on the small keychain hanging from the zipper almost instantly.

#12.

For a second, he just stared at it. Then his gaze lifted higher.

You sat half turned in your seat talking quietly to the girl beside you, one sleeve pulled over your hand while you absentmindedly highlighted something in your notebook with the other. Your hair was perfect, and despite being beneath a helmet earlier that morning for practice, he was sure it smelled like vanilla.

Without all the gear and arena lights around you, you looked softer somehow. Still pretty enough to make his chest tighten annoyingly hard. Just… real now. Close enough to touch.

Logan stood there long enough that somebody behind him had to awkwardly step around him to get down the stairs.

He moved automatically after that, though his attention stayed fixed on you the entire way down the aisle.

You still had not noticed him.

Part of him almost preferred it that way, because now that he was actually standing in the same room as you instead of watching from the stands, he realized he had absolutely no idea what to say.

Which was new.

Logan was not usually nervous around women. Confident, relaxed, occasionally arrogant if Dean was being honest, but never nervous.

Yet suddenly he was hyperaware of everything. The sound of his shoes against the lecture hall floor. The fact that his heartbeat felt stupidly loud. The way your fingers tapped absently against your pen while reading over your notes.

He passed your row. Kept walking. Then, immediately regretted it and pretended to take a phone call to abort back up a few rows.

By the time he dropped into a seat a few rows higher, Dean — who had walked in behind him at some point — looked close to losing his mind laughing.

“Holy shit,” he whispered while sitting beside him. “You panicked.”

“I didn’t fucking panic.”

“You literally walked past her like a Victorian dude seeing an ankle.”

Logan stared straight ahead. “Shut up.”

Dean leaned back in his chair, visibly delighted. “You’re down horrendous.”

Logan ignored him, though not very successfully considering his attention had already drifted back toward you again.

You were still focused on your notebook completely unaware of the crisis currently happening several rows behind you.

Then, as if sensing it somehow, you glanced over your shoulder.

Your eyes landed on him immediately with a flicker of recognition swiping across your face almost instantly.

Logan watched the exact second you noticed him noticing you. You looked away first, and that was enough to make warmth crawl unexpectedly up the back of his neck.

Dean saw the entire interaction and looked ready to combust.

“You made eye contact,” he whispered dramatically, his eyelashes batting in a playful fashion.

“Please be quiet.”

“Are you in love?”

Logan rubbed a hand slowly over his face.

Class started before Dean could keep talking, though that honestly did not help much, considering Logan spent the first twenty minutes hearing absolutely none of the lecture.

His focus kept drifting. He noticed how you chewed lightly on the end of your pen while reading. The way you fidgeted with your necklace while listening to the professor. You wrote quickly, confidently, barely ever crossing things out or hesitating before moving onto the next line.

At one point, you stretched slightly in your seat and winced.

Subtle and quick. But Logan noticed immediately, of course he did, he was noticing everything you had done for the past 30 minutes.

Your ribs.

The hit from yesterday had clearly bruised you worse than you’d acted like it did. The thought of that was enough to bother him for the rest of class.

When the lecture finally ended, students started gathering their things immediately, backpacks zipping loudly while conversations picked up around the room.

Logan watched you zip your backpack shut carefully before standing. Then he watched two different guys notice you at exactly the same time.

One of them moved before he was able to finish fumbling to put his laptop away.

Of course he did.

Tall, confident-looking business major type. The kind of guy that was probably in a frat with a snap score of at least 2 million.

Logan felt irritation spark instantly.

The guy smiled at you while adjusting the strap of his backpack. “Hey, you’re on the hockey team, right? You played last night?”

You looked up politely. “Oh-.. uh, Yeah.”

“You were really good.”

Logan hated how genuine the compliment sounded, he was expecting this douche to be superficial and just ask for your snap to add to his roster.

You smiled softly anyway. “Thank you.”

The guy opened his mouth again, clearly gearing up to continue the conversation.

Then Logan stood.

Dean looked up immediately with the kind of excitement usually reserved for live sporting events.

“Ho-ly shit,” he muttered.

Logan ignored him completely before heading down the stairs.

He wasn’t entirely sure what his plan was, only that the idea of walking out of this room without talking to you suddenly felt impossible.

The guy was still talking by the time Logan reached the bottom of the stairs.

Something about study groups, or maybe coffee. Logan honestly was not listening closely enough to tell the difference.

Your attention stayed politely fixed on him while you adjusted the strap of your backpack higher onto your shoulder, though there was something slightly distracted about your expression, like your mind was already somewhere else entirely. Exhaustion lingered faintly beneath your eyes from the game the night before, softened only slightly by the fact that you still looked unfairly pretty standing there in your Briar hockey sweatshirt and sweatpants.

The small keychain hanging from your backpack zipper knocked lightly against the fabric every time you moved.

#12.

Logan’s eyes caught on it again before he could stop himself.

“You play unbelievable, by the way,” the guy continued. “That goal in the third period was insane.”

You smiled politely, surprised that this guy actually had gone to the game, and wasn't just using it as an excuse to hit on you. “Thanks, Boston's never an easy opponent.”

The conversation should have ended there.

You clearly wanted to end it there.

But the guy kept standing in front of you anyway, lingering just enough that Logan recognized the strategy immediately. Stretch the interaction out long enough and eventually it becomes something else.

Normally he wouldn’t have cared.

Except now he did, annoyingly so, at that.

Before he could overthink it, he stepped closer.

“You should probably ice your ribs.” The words came out naturally, low and calm, though the moment they left his mouth, you turned toward him immediately.

Recognition crossed your face faster, and it wasn't just vague familiarity, but rather memory this time.

You had seen him in the stands last night, and Logan got to watch the exact second it clicked for you.

“The guy from the game,” you smiled before seeming to realize you had spoken out loud.

Your voice sounded rougher than he expected, slightly worn at the edges from yelling over rink noise the night before.

Something about it settled heavily in his chest.

“Yeah,” Logan answered quietly.

For a brief second, the other guy still standing beside you looked deeply confused by the interaction happening in front of him.

“You know each other?” he asked.

“No,” both of you answered at the exact same time.

That seemed to catch you off guard a little because your mouth twitched faintly afterward, like you were trying not to laugh.

Logan felt warmth spread unexpectedly through his chest at the sight of it.

The other guy looked between the two of you again before apparently deciding he was suddenly no longer part of the conversation.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, adjusting his backpack strap, “I’ll see you around.”

You smiled politely again. “See you.”

The second he disappeared into the crowd of students leaving the lecture hall, silence settled briefly between you and Logan.

Up close, he noticed details he hadn’t been able to see clearly from the stands. A faint bruise near your jaw partially hidden beneath your hair. The exhaustion lingering beneath your eyes. The slight stiffness in your posture every time you shifted your weight too quickly.

You were definitely hurting more than you wanted people to notice.

“You really should ice those ribs,” he repeated more quietly this time.

Your eyebrows lifted slightly. “You could tell?”

“You flinched during class.” The answer seemed to surprise you, no one besides your roommate paid enough attention to notice when you had an injury you were insistent on downplaying.

Heat crawled faintly into your expression before you looked away for half a second, adjusting the sleeve pulled over your hand.

“It’s fine,” you murmured. “Just bruised, at least nothing's broken. ”

Logan frowned slightly. “That hit looked bad.”

“It was bad.”

“Yet, you got right back up. Scoring after nearly breaking the glass is some insane shit.”

Something softer flickered briefly across your face then.

“Kind of have to in hockey.” You shrugged in amusement, a smile tugging at your lips that was much more genuine than with the frat guy from a few moments ago.

And Logan was taking that as a win.

Students continued filtering loudly around the two of you while the lecture hall slowly emptied, but Logan barely registered any of it anymore. His attention stayed fixed entirely on you, on the way you shifted your backpack higher against your shoulder or how your fingers tapped absently against the strap while thinking.

“So, you came to the game? There was more turnout than usual for our game's last night, it was fun.” you asked after a second.

The question sounded casual, though curiosity lingered beneath it.

Logan nodded once. “Yeah, I went with some of my roommates, we decided last minute because one of them wanted a fucking pretzel.”

“And now you’re giving medical advice to strangers?”

A smile tugged unexpectedly at his mouth. “You don’t really feel like a stranger.” The sentence slipped out before he could stop it, and immediately his eyes squinted a bit in regret, and his brows furrowed.

Your eyes lifted back to his immediately.

For one horrible second, Logan considered the possibility that he had just sounded insane, but your expression softened instead in a very subtle way.

“Well,” you hummed quietly, “you still don’t know me.”

“I know your name.”

The moment he said it, your eyebrows lifted again.

“I-... uh, looked up the roster.” Logan had the decency to look slightly guilty as the words left his mouth.

You stared at him for half a second longer before laughing softly under your breath, and the sound hit him with the same force it had the night before in the arena.

It was soft and warm, to anyone else it would be like music to their ears, but to Logan? It was dangerous.

“That’s a little insane,” you told him, playfully putting on a disapproving face that quickly dissolved into a smile.

“Yeah, no, for sure.”

The honesty of the answer seemed to catch you off guard enough that you laughed again, shaking your head while starting toward the aisle leading out of the lecture hall.

Logan naturally fell into step beside you without thinking about it. From across the aisle, Dean held up two thumbs-ups and mouthed 'Fuck yeah,' which Logan was happy to drown out with the conversation that was slowly building between the two of you.

← MLIST. ᝰ.ᐟ edawgz 2026.

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“lady violet bridgerton herself is in full agreement — she wants her second son to settle down, and your mother—” she gestured to herself primly, “—wants her daughter well-married. it is an arrangement most convenient and beneficial to both parties. social standing, family ties, even property — all perfectly aligned.”

you could practically hear the unspoken words: you will not find a better match.

so you made a plan. a terribly reckless, utterly improper plan.

at an hour when respectable young ladies were still fast asleep, you were instead in the garden, your skirts gathered ungracefully in your fists as you scrambled up the low stone wall that separated your family’s estate from the quiet road beyond. the wall was colder and much taller than you expected, but you managed to get halfway up.

suddenly, you heard a man clear his throat from somewhere below.

“hello, my lady. are you in need of assistance of any kind?”

startled, you looked down to see a tall man standing at the base of the wall, his brow slightly raised, his tone polite but edged with amusement.

“uh— i am quite fine, thank you,” you said quickly. “you may return to wherever it is you came from.”

“i will,” he said easily, “but first, i am quite curious… what exactly are you doing?”

“nothing,” you replied far too fast.

“you are,” he countered.

“i am not.”

“you are.”

you groaned in frustration. “if you must know, i am trying to find my way over this wall.”

“whatever for?”

you hesitated, then muttered, “to ensure the man i am getting married to isn’t a beast… or the kind of gentleman that likes to hurt animals.”

his lips twitched as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. “i see. a noble cause, certainly. and have you found any evidence of his cruelty toward animals so far?”

you frowned down at him. “no, i have not met him, so the possibility remains…are you going to stand there? or simply help me?”

“do you always greet your betrothed like this?”

you froze.

slowly, you turned your head, and there he was.

you took this time to examine him fully. he was nothing like you’d imagined. tall, with dark hair in soft curls that framed a face far too handsome for your own peace of mind, dressed in a casual but well-cut coat that made him look annoyingly at ease for a man who had just caught his fiancée attempting an escape. his eyes sparkled with amusement, the corners of his mouth lifted into a knowing smile.

he leaned a little closer, voice dropping in mock secrecy. “perhaps i should introduce myself and put your mind at ease. i am benedict bridgerton. and i have never harmed a rabbit, cat, or otherwise.”

“you— you’re benedict bridgerton?” your voice came out much higher than you intended.

“guilty,” he said, stepping closer until he stood at the base of the wall, looking up at you as if you were the most interesting thing he’d seen all week. “and unless i’m mistaken, you are my intended bride… attempting to flee?”

heat flooded your cheeks. “i didn’t— i didn’t know what you looked like,” you stammered, “or who you really were, or if you were… terrible. i thought i might avoid whatever disaster this might turn out to be.”

he tilted his head, still smiling. “and yet here i am, in the flesh, not terrible at all — i hope.”

you scowled despite the way your stomach fluttered. “you might still be. appearances aren’t everything.”

he laughed, the sound warm and unoffended. “very true. though if it makes you feel any better, i can assure you i am equally nervous about marrying someone i’ve never met. but running away before we’ve even had tea feels a little premature, don’t you think?”

you huffed, suddenly aware of how absurd you must look, half-straddling a wall in the early light. “well, it seemed like a sound plan at the time.”

“i can help you down,” he offered, holding out his hand.

you hesitated. “how do i know you won’t just drag me inside and lock the door?”

“you don’t,” he said cheerfully. “but i promise not to — unless you give me good reason.”

rolling your eyes, you took his hand. his grip was warm and steady, and in one smooth movement, he guided you down from the wall, his other hand instinctively settling at your waist to keep you from stumbling. the contact sent an unexpected shiver up your spine, and you hated how easily he noticed it.

“there,” he said softly, eyes glinting. “see? no monsters here. unless you count my tendency to talk too much when i’m nervous.”

you looked at him properly now, the morning light catching in his eyes, and thought, perhaps, this wouldn’t be the disaster you feared.

“so,” he continued with a mischievous grin, “shall we give this a try? who knows — perhaps we could even beat her majesty’s record for children. i believe she’s at fifteen?”

your mouth fell open. “absolutely not.”

“ah, but imagine the glory,” he teased. “the queen, positively fuming as we waltz in with our nineteenth child—”

“nineteen?” you choked. “you’re mad.”

he only smiled wider.

you did marry him, of course. and somewhere between shared sketches in his studio and stolen kisses in the garden (on your side of the wall this time), his ridiculous joke became a ridiculous reality — nineteen children, each one a perfect blend of the two of you, the queen herself shaking her head every time you visited mayfair.

you hope he isn’t.

not because the idea is unwelcome—but because it terrifies you in a quiet, breathless way. 

you’ve never been particularly good at that sort of thing, at reading signals or knowing what to say when someone looks at you too long, too softly. 

especially when it’s clark. that sweet, focused kind of attention short-circuits your brain. it’s not sharp like a spotlight or teasing like a smirk—it lingers. gentle and intentional. like he just… likes you. and you don’t know what to do with that.

you weren’t built for being liked that way. you’re not good with words unless they’re typed on a screen. not good at holding someone’s gaze for more than a second without overthinking every blink, every breath. your smiles are usually delayed reactions—polite, practiced, easy to forget. you chew on your sleeves. you answer questions like they’re quizzes. you apologize when people bump into you. and when clark kent stands close enough that you can smell his cologne—warm linen and sunlight—you feel like a glitch in the system.

clark is like someone dipped a daydream in golden hour and gave it a name.

he’s warm all the time. like—literally, you’re pretty sure he runs hot. his smiles are easy, and his voice is low in the kind of way that feels like a secret meant only for you, and it flutters somewhere behind your ribs in a place you don’t have the courage to name. 

everyone at the daily planet seems to gravitate toward him—jimmy calls him the nicest guy in the building, lois rolls her eyes when she says he’s a dork, and perry’s always grumbling about how he’s the only one who turns things in early. he’s dependable in a way people notice. in a way people love.

and you? you mostly say things like “thanks” and “cool” and hope he doesn’t notice how you stare at the floor when he talks to you. you keep your hands busy, your thoughts quiet, and your heart on lockdown.

but clark always talks to you.

like he doesn’t mind when you fumble. like he doesn’t care that your voice shakes a little or that you’re not quite sure how to be looked at so gently. 

“hey,” he says one morning, stepping into the elevator just before the doors seal shut. the overhead lights flicker once above him—just enough to catch the faint glint in his glasses, the raindrops still clinging to his collar. his tie’s a little crooked like he got dressed in a hurry, and his hair is soft and damp, curling faintly at the edges from the drizzle outside. he’s holding two coffees, again. one in each hand, fingers careful, familiar. “i got an extra.”

you blink. glance at the cup, then at him.

“…you didn’t have to.”

“i know,” he says easily, voice dipped in something warm. “but i wanted to.”

the elevator hums around you, a quiet mechanical hush. you stare at him a second too long, long enough that it starts to ache a little behind your ribs. then you nod and reach out for the cup, fingers brushing against his by accident.

your stomach flips—sharp and sudden, like the beginning of a fall.

he smiles like it’s nothing. like it didn’t just change your whole morning.

“careful,” he murmurs, gentle. “still warm.”

you take the cup with both hands, like it’s something delicate, and try to disappear behind the rim.

the coffee smells like cinnamon today. a little sweet, a little bitter. just the way you like it.

you’ve worked here for four months now. long enough to memorize the floor numbers by feel, long enough to stop getting lost on your way back from the printer. but still—clark kent makes everything feel new. like every day is a question you don’t know how to answer.

for at least three of those months, he’s been trying to get you to like him.

and for at least two of them, you have—you just haven’t figured out what to do with it yet. it’s not the kind of crush that fizzes in your chest or leaves you giggling in the stairwell. it’s quieter than that. like something that curled up behind your lungs when you weren’t paying attention.

you’ve never liked someone like this before. not someone who sees you; not someone who waits, without needing you to perform or perfect or pretend; not someone who’s kind for the sake of it—who remembers the way you take your coffee, who always holds the elevator even when you’re still halfway down the hall, who never lets your silence feel like an inconvenience.

and always, always—smiles when you walk into the bullpen like it’s the best part of his day.

which is insane.

because you’re just—you.

and clark kent is…

well—he’s clark kent.

he stops by your desk around noon.

you’re eating lunch, sort of—picking at a half-warm sandwich you forgot to toast, one hand scrolling through the headlines, the other wrapped limply around the crust like it might make the day move faster. you’re not really reading, not really chewing, just going through the motions. the office is soft around the edges—phones ringing somewhere far off, the hum of conversation low and constant like the inside of a seashell.

suddenly—“hey.”

you glance up too quickly, nearly dropping your sandwich. clark is leaning on the edge of your desk like he belongs there, arms crossed, his sleeves rolled past the elbows. his forearms are tan and solid, scattered with freckles. 

you blink. “hey.”

“you doing okay today?”

“yeah,” you say, too fast, too bright. “fine. just… work.”

he smiles like he knows exactly what that means. “same.”

but he doesn’t leave. he stays propped there, casual, like gravity doesn’t quite apply to him. like your desk is the most natural place in the world to be. your heart skips, then stumbles. you look back at your sandwich like it holds the answers.

he shifts a little, rubbing the back of his neck. his gaze flicks briefly to your screen, then back to you. “you, uh… you doing anything after work?”

you look up, a little slower this time.

“no,” you say. then—too quick again—“why?”

“oh. no reason.” his voice dips a little, softer now. “just wondering.”

your mouth opens, then closes. you nod, like that’s a normal thing to do when someone maybe-almost-asks-you-out.

he waits a second longer, then pushes off the desk, casual but careful. like he’s testing a door to see if it might open. “well… let me know if you ever wanna grab dinner or something. y’know. just—just putting it out there.”

you blink twice.

“…cool.”

and then he’s gone, just like that. no flourish, no teasing smile over his shoulder. just the scent of rain still clinging to his shirt and the sound of your pulse roaring in your ears.

you sit with it—the idea of it, the weight of it. the fact that he asked if you were free and said the word dinner like it didn’t mean everything. like it didn’t tilt your entire world an inch to the left.

your stomach swirls—too many feelings, not enough space. you’re not even sure it was a date, or if he meant it like one. but god, something inside you aches anyway. aches in that soft, frightened way you only feel when you want something badly enough to ruin it.

and you do want it.

you want him.

but you’ve never been good at wanting things. you’ve always been better at hoping silently, better at folding your feelings into neat little corners where no one can see them.

so you hope he doesn’t stop trying.

he doesn’t.

a few more days pass. he still brings you coffee—always says it like it’s an accident, like it’s nothing, like he didn’t rehearse it in his head on the way over. he still smiles when you pass his desk, still waves during meetings like the two of you share a secret language. like you’re the only one in the room that matters.

and slowly—so slowly—you start smiling back.

you start hovering near his desk when you have a question, even when you already know the answer. you start remembering how he takes his coffee—black, no sugar, but a little too hot to drink right away.

and one morning, before you can second-guess it, you beat him to it.

you show up at his desk with two cups, your hands trembling just enough to spill a little on the lid. your pulse flutters in your throat, and your mouth feels too full.

he looks up, and his eyes go wide.

“oh,” he says, breath catching like he wasn’t expecting it. “you didn’t have to—”

“i know,” you cut in gently. and this time, you smile. “but i wanted to.”

his face changes then—goes soft at the edges, flushed with something warm and quiet and real. he takes the cup from you carefully, like it means something. like you mean something.

his fingers brush yours. neither of you moves away.

the silence hangs for a moment. not awkward, not empty,  just full.

“it’s still warm,” you murmur.

and that’s the moment.

because clark kent—who’s always a little clumsy around you, who stutters when he’s nervous and laughs too loud and never stops fidgeting—goes still.

he looks at you like you’ve just solved something.

like the world just clicked into place.

“so are you,” he says softly.

and you look away, face burning, heart thudding against your ribs.

but you don’t stop smiling.

you’re not even sure when he asked you. 

it didn’t happen in a way you could mark on a calendar or replay in your head like a movie—it was quieter than that, smaller. not some grand gesture, no dramatic pause, no flicker of violin music swelling in the background. 

just clark, leaning over the side of your desk on a lazy thursday afternoon, sleeves of his shirt rolled high enough to show the faint line where his watch sometimes rests. his hair was a little messy, soft and wind-tousled like he’d walked fast to get here or maybe spent the better part of the morning running his hands through it while thinking. the light from your monitor threw a soft glow across his cheekbone, caught in the edge of his glasses. he looked casual—tired, maybe—but still impossibly kind.

“hey,” he said, voice lowered to something just above a whisper. “you feel like dinner next friday? i know a place.”

you remember blinking up at him, heartbeat slowing in that way it does when the world suddenly starts paying too much attention. you remember the tight catch of breath in your chest, the throb of heat in your ears. you remember asking, carefully, “… like a date?”

and then he smiled. that crooked, too-soft smile that always looked like it snuck up on him. the one that made your stomach knot in this warm, fluttering way. “yeah,” he said, nodding. “like a date.”

you had to swallow before answering, throat bone-dry like you hadn’t drunk anything in hours. “okay,” you said. “sure.”

he grinned, full and boyish and easy, like you’d just made his entire day. “yeah?”

you nodded again, more like a reflex than a decision, and watched him walk off down the row of desks—hands stuffed in his pockets, hair still mussed, whistling under his breath like he didn’t just knock the wind out of your lungs and rearrange your entire week.

now it’s friday. and you’re dressed—probably.

you’ve changed shirts at least three times, possibly more. they’re all slung across the end of your bed now in crumpled piles that look like the aftermath of a storm. 

you keep sitting down, then standing up again. your stomach won’t stop twisting. nothing in your closet feels right—not cute enough, not subtle enough, not something he’ll like, or maybe too much of something he will. 

the mirror hasn’t helped. every time you look, your eyes dart to different flaws. maybe your makeup is off. maybe you should’ve tied your hair differently. maybe you shouldn’t be trying at all. you keep asking yourself if this is too much. or worse, if it’s not enough.

your phone buzzes softly where it rests beside the lamp, a little heartbeat in the stillness. you reach for it without thinking, palms already clammy.

clark : outside when you’re ready :) 

you stare at the text. the smiley face makes your chest ache. not in a bad way. in the kind of way that feels like cracking open. 

he’s outside—waiting. for you.

your hands shake when you reach for your coat. you fumble with the zipper, check your reflection one last time—not to change anything, just to ground yourself. and when you turn out the light and step out the door, your heart is thudding so hard you think it might echo down the hallway.

you go anyway.

he’s waiting outside.

standing just beneath the soft spill of the streetlamp, arms loose at his sides, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat. 

his foot taps a quiet rhythm against the sidewalk, not impatient, just something for the nerves to do while he waits. he’s dressed in a navy button-up, sleeves rolled to his forearms, and dark slacks that fit a little too well, like someone helped him pick them out. but it isn’t the clothes that get you. it never is.

it’s the way his shoulders ease the second he sees you step out. like he’d been holding his breath and didn’t know it. like you, just appearing, was enough to settle something in him.

“hey,” he says, voice catching faintly at the edges. “you look—wow. you look great.”

your brain short-circuits on the spot. you stop just past the doorframe, heart tripping awkwardly through your ribs, and scramble for a response you haven’t already rehearsed. “you… too,” you manage, already cringing. “i mean—you look nice. really nice.”

his grin slips out before he can stop it, slow and crooked, like it’s blooming against his will. you want to melt straight through the pavement.

the restaurant he takes you to is warm and quiet, tucked into the far corner of a block you’ve probably passed a dozen times without ever really noticing. the windows are fogged a little from the heat inside, the soft clink of silverware and low conversation spilling gently into the street as he opens the door and steps aside to let you in first. 

it smells like roasted garlic and something sweet you can’t quite name. the lighting is soft, gold and flickering like it’s coming from candles even though it isn’t. jazz hums low through unseen speakers, just enough to paint the air between tables.

he pulls out your chair before you can think to touch it. he takes your coat and doesn’t just drape it over the back of your seat—he folds it over his arm and brings it to the front where the hostess is waiting. 

when he comes back, he doesn’t sit right away. just smiles at you, gentle and warm, like he’s checking to make sure you’re real. then, without needing to ask, he orders sparkling water for both of you, voice casual but kind. you don’t realize until a few seconds later that it’s because he remembers you once said too many drink choices stress you out.

clark doesn’t stop smiling. not once.

he keeps glancing at you between words, between bites, like he’s making sure you’re still here, still with him. like he can’t quite believe it. his knee bumps yours once under the table and he doesn’t pull back right away. he just blushes faintly, then grins again, eyes wide and happy behind his glasses.

you pick at the bread, more for something to do with your hands than anything else. you fidget with the edge of your napkin until it starts to wrinkle, try to sit still, try to act like you belong here. like this is something you’ve done before. but your thoughts won’t stop spiraling—what if you say the wrong thing? what if you mess this up? what if you already have?

about halfway through the starters, he sets his fork down and leans forward just slightly. his voice stays soft. careful. “you okay? you’re quiet.”

you blink, startled. “i’m always quiet.”

he lets out a laugh, low and sweet. “true. but tonight it feels like you’re thinking quiet. not comfortable quiet.”

you look down, heart tightening. “sorry.”

his face shifts fast, all concern and softness. “no—don’t apologize. i didn’t mean it like that. i just meant… if there’s anything i can do to make this easier, i want to.”

you chew the inside of your cheek, eyes still on your plate. the warmth of his voice lingers in the air like steam. then, after a long breath, you shrug.

“…i’ve never really done this before.”

his brows draw in, just a little. “what? dates?”

you nod. “yeah. or, like… letting someone know i like them.”

he goes still—not startled, not smug, just quiet. like you touched something inside him without meaning to.

“…you like me?” he asks, and it’s not a joke. it’s not playful. it’s barely even a question. it sounds like a hope he’s been carrying around in his mouth, waiting for permission to say out loud.

your heart lurches. “i didn’t—I mean—”

“hey,” he says, voice even gentler now, and reaches across the table to brush his fingers against yours. not a full touch, just enough to feel like contact. “i’m glad. i like you too. obviously.”

you stare at his fingers. then at his face. he’s looking at you like you just gave him the answer to something he’s been wondering about for weeks.

“…really?”

“really,” he says, smiling so softly you feel your throat close. “so much it’s kind of embarrassing.”

you let out a laugh without meaning to—small and startled and real. it escapes before you can contain it. his whole face lights up at the sound, so bright you swear he might float right out of his chair.

by the time dinner ends, something in you has shifted. the tightness in your shoulders is gone, melted somewhere between the second course and the third time he made you laugh so hard you forgot to be nervous. your body angles a little closer to his now, unconsciously drawn in by the way he listens—like every word you say is something worth holding. your answers are longer, fuller. less rehearsed. your eyes find his more often, and you don’t always look away first.

it’s still a little awkward. still full of pauses that hang like half-finished thoughts, full of small, twitchy movements and fidgeting fingers on your napkin. but it’s quieter now, that awkwardness. it doesn’t buzz so loudly in your head. it feels like room—space to breathe, to figure it out. because you’re learning, and he’s waiting. and somehow, even with all the static and silence, you meet somewhere in the middle.

outside, the night has settled deep into the corners of the city. the air is cooler, crisper than it was when you arrived. the restaurant behind you glows faintly from its windows—warm gold spilling across the sidewalk like it wants to hold onto you just a little longer. the street is mostly empty, just the occasional shuffle of a car in the distance, the whisper of wind nudging past your ankles.

clark walks beside you, his pace easy, his hands tucked into his coat pockets as the two of you make your way down the mostly empty sidewalk. 

when you reach your building, he slows, then stops just a few steps from the front door. he doesn’t say anything right away. doesn’t fill the silence with anything unnecessary. he just turns toward you slightly, his shoulder brushing yours in a way that feels intentional. his eyes meet yours in the low light, uncertain and warm all at once.

you pause, lingering just beneath the glow of the nearest lamp, fingers twitching at your sides. you’re standing close. close enough to feel the warmth of his coat radiating into your sleeve, close enough to notice the way his breath clouds faintly in the air. your hand shifts—only slightly—but it’s enough that your knuckles brush his.

he looks at you like he’s trying to read something between the lines. like he’s not sure if this is the end of the night or the beginning of something else. there’s a flicker in his eyes, a held breath in the space between you—uncertain. should he lean in? should he back away? should he ask?

so you do it for him.

“… can we do this again?” you ask. your voice is small, but clear. not loud enough to echo, but enough to feel brave.

he lets out a soft laugh, something disbelieving in the way it escapes him. “yeah,” he says. his voice breaks just a little on the word. “god, yeah. please.”

you nod, heart stammering like it wants to jump straight out of your chest. and before you can lose your nerve, before you can overthink it—you lean in, fast and awkward, and press a kiss to his cheek. it’s clumsy. too quick. your lips barely brush his skin before you’re pulling back like you touched something too hot.

“sorry,” you blurt. “that was stupid—”

“no, no—” his hand catches yours before it can retreat, warm and sure. “it wasn’t. i just didn’t expect it.”

you look up.

he’s close now, closer than he’s ever been. the air between you feels thinner. he’s warmer than the night, than the streetlamp humming above you. his cheeks are a little pink, and he’s looking at you like you’re something good.

he clears his throat, voice low and careful. “... can i kiss you?”

your stomach does a full somersault.

you nod.

and clark—clark kisses you like he’s afraid of getting it wrong. like this is the kind of thing you only get to do once, and he wants to make sure it’s perfect. his hand shifts to your cheek, not forceful, just there, a grounding touch as he leans in. 

the kiss is slow, soft. just enough pressure to make your knees go a little weak. just enough warmth to make you forget what month it is. he kisses you like he means it. like he’s wanted to for a long time and still can’t believe he gets to.

when he pulls back, he’s smiling again.

not like someone caught in a daydream.

like someone who finally got to wake up beside one.