el

I grew up pretendin' sticks were little guns

I would point 'em at my dad, and he'd get mad

Cause God forbid I hurt someone

I'd hurt anyone I could

Anyone who got too close, and anyone who wouldn't look

But the problem with John Tucker is that you can’t stay away from him. No matter how many times you tell yourself this is the last time, no matter how many walls you build during the day, the moment the sun goes down, the magnetic pull between you becomes a physical ache. It’s an addiction you both share, a mutual gravity that constantly drags you back into his orbit. You find reasons to cross his path, and he always, always stops to look at you.

And slowly, without permission, things start being more than just sex.

It happens first at a crowded house party. The air is thick with beer, loud music, and sweaty bodies, and you’re trying to navigate the narrow hallway to the kitchen when a hand grips your wrist. Before you can gasp, you're pulled into the shadow of the linen closet, and Tucker is there, towering over you. You expect the usual routine. You expect him to mutter a low, dirty suggestion, to tell you to meet him upstairs in the bathroom in ten minutes, or to feel his heavy hands immediately sliding up your skirt to find your naked thighs.

Instead, he just places his palms flat against the wall on either side of your head. He looks down at you, his chest rising and falling, his eyes burning with a desperate sort of hunger that has nothing to do with a quick thrill. He leans in and kisses you. It’s deep, slow, and breathtakingly thorough. His tongue tangles with yours in a way that feels like a quiet conversation, his lips soft and demanding all at once. He tastes like basil and warmth. He doesn't touch the rest of your body—he keeps his hands flat on the wall, entirely focused on your mouth, breathing you in like he's trying to memorize the taste of you before you can slip away again. When he finally pulls back, his breath is shallow. He doesn't say a word. He just looks at you, lets out a soft, breathtakingly sweet smile and walks back out into the party, continuing with his night. You’re left leaning against the wall, your knees shaking, realizing with a spike of terror that he is rewriting the rules without your permission.

The shift bleeds into his bedroom, mutating every touch into something holy, something that threatens to break you wide open. A week later, you’re on your stomach, the sheets bunched beneath your knuckles as he takes you from behind. His weight is heavy and grounding over your back, his fingers wrapped firmly around your throat in a tight, possessive chokehold that makes your vision blur with heat and yielding submission. He’s driving into you, deep and relentless, but there is no cruelty in it—only a desperate need to be as close to you as humanly possible. With every thrust, a low, ragged moan tears from his chest, and he keeps saying your name. Over and over. Your name. On his lips, it doesn't sound like a dirty word muttered in the dark. It sounds sacred. The reverence in his voice makes your throat tight and your chest ache with a violent, beautiful agony. You feel the tears leaking into the pillowcase, because you know that if he says your name like that just one more time, you will completely melt. All your locked doors will fly open, and he’ll see the wreckage inside.

I was born into a one-hundred-year storm

Foot of ice across Vermont

And in that dark, and in that frost, a heart was formed

Malcontented and unwarm

The breaking point comes on a sunday afternoon when he coaxes you into the bath. The water is steaming, smelling faintly of the expensive soap he keeps just for you. Tucker is leaning back against the porcelain, his long legs framing yours, and you are sitting between them, your back pressed flush against his chest. The water laps at your collarbones, warm and enveloping. It’s supposed to be casual, but it’s entirely too sensual.

His right hand slides beneath the surface, his fingers moving inside you with an agonizingly slow, rhythmic pressure that makes you whimper, your head dropping back against his shoulder. He’s reading every shudder of your body, mastering your pleasure with a quiet confidence. But it’s his other hand that ruins you. His left hand rests on your wet thigh, his thumb absentmindedly tracing small, gentle shapes against your skin. You track the movement through the clear water, and your heart stops when you realize what he's doing.

He’s drawing little hearts. Over and over, tracing the shape against your skin without even realizing he’s doing it, a subconscious manifestation of what he’s actually feeling.

A cold wave of absolute panic cuts through the heat of the water. He’s getting too close. He’s slipping beneath the armor, finding the softest parts of you, and if you let him stay there, the fall will kill you when he inevitably realizes you aren't enough. So you push his hands away, scrambling out of the tub onto the cold bath mat, ignoring the confused look that crosses his face. You wrap a towel around yourself tightly, your teeth chattering from the sudden drop in temperature—and the sudden realization that you have to end this before it destroys you.

You were unsuspecting, not unwarned

That I'm the trouble ahead, that I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gеts harder to see me the closеr you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

Which brings you back to tonight. The aftermath of another night where you tried to use his body to forget your soul, and failed. You’re almost fully dressed now, your hand resting on your bag, while Tucker stands by the bed, his chest bare.

He reaches out, his hand hovering over the empty side of the mattress for a second before he shifts, patting the soft fabric. He looks up at you through his eyelashes, his voice soft, trying to make it sound casual, like a joke he doesn't entirely mean. "There's still room for two in this bed, you know."

You look down at your feet, your voice completely flat, detached. "I can't, Tuck. We talked about this. I don't do sleepovers."

The lack of warmth in your tone makes something shift inside him. The softness drains from his face entirely, replaced by a sharp, stung look that makes his jaw tighten until the bone shows. He steps out of bed, blocking your path to your clothes, his bare chest heaving.

"Stop doing that," he whispers, frustrated, his voice cutting through the peaceful silence of the room. "Stop putting the wall up the second you get out of bed."

You force yourself to look up, hardening your expression into a mask of pure indifference, though your heart is hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. "We agreed on this. No strings, no expectations. You can't get mad at me for sticking to it."

"We agreed, yeah," Tucker steps closer, a desperate, angry heat rolling off him. "But don't look me in the eye and tell me you don't feel what's happening every time we're in this room together."

You do. Of course you do. It’s a terrifying, living thing that sits in the space between your chests every single time his skin hits yours. It’s there in the way his breath catches when he touches you, and the way you completely lose your bearings the second he pulls you close. You feel it so acutely that it makes you feel naked even when your clothes are still on, a heavy, unshakeable truth that you are completely powerless against. You feel it, and it scares the hell out of you.

"Believe me," you say, your voice dropping to a harsh, skin-crawling whisper, desperately trying to save him from yourself. "You don't want this. You think you do, but you don't."

Tucker’s gaze drops, his jaw tightening as he absorbs the dismissal, the quiet exhaustion in his posture mimicking your own. He doesn't yell, he doesn't press closer. He just stands there, a heavy, suffocating silence settling between you as the distance feels more like an ocean than a few feet of floorboards.

Have you ever stared directly at the sun?

Have you ever shared some closeness, so exposed

To have it spit back by someone?

So, forgive me if I jump

At the rattle of your keys

"Oh, are you leaving?," "No, babe, I'm just waking up"

And now what?

I'm left staring at the ceiling, listing reasons you should pack all your shit up

History had taught you that letting someone beneath your skin was a guarantee of definite, absolute ruin. Every time you had dropped your guard, if only by a fraction, it had merely offered a roadmap to your undoing for the person walking away. You couldn't handle the fallout of another ending. Not from him, and not when the reverent, terrifying way he looked at you meant the fall would be fatal.

So you protect yourself by bracing for the impact of the end before it can even start, counting down every flaw, every hesitation, every single reason why you shouldn't let this happen. You convince yourself that staying away is the only way to survive, turning his kindness into a deadline you have to beat.

"You're already gone, aren't you?" Tucker's voice shatters the silence, sharp and bleeding with a new kind of realization. He looks at you, seeing the way your eyes have gone totally distant. "You're standing right here, but you're already gone."

You don't say anything. The silence between you stretches, heavy and agonizing, as you pull your jacket over your shoulders. You reach down and lift your bag, your knuckles white against the strap, your jaw locked so hard it aches.

He looks at you—really looks at the rigid line of your shoulders, the frantic, defensive look in your eyes—and a quiet, crushing realization washes over him. He can't make you stay when you’ve already decided to leave.

His hands drop slowly to his sides. The silence that follows is deafening, heavy enough to crush the air right out of your lungs. His chest heaves, a profound, exhausting hurt settling into his features. The fierce, fighting light in his eyes slowly dulls, leaving him looking entirely hollow, entirely defeated.

"Fine," he says quietly, his voice flat, completely stripped of all the southern warmth you’ve grown so used to leaning on. "Just leave then." He walks past you, stopping at the bathroom door to look back at you one last time. There is no anger in his eyes, just a heavy, hollow exhaustion as he throws a tired line over his shoulder. "You know where the door is."

The click of the lock feels like a physical blow to your chest.

I'm the trouble ahead, and I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gets harder to see me the closer you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

The moment the door closes, your knees give out. You collapse onto the edge of his bed, the sheets still smelling like him, and a violent, silent sob tears through your chest. You have to clamp both hands over your mouth to stifle the sound, terrified he’ll hear you through the thin bathroom wall, terrified he’ll come out and see the absolute disaster you are. You shake so violently you can barely pull your jeans up, your fingers fumbling uselessly with the button. Blinded by a steady stream of hot tears, you gather your things, shove your shoes on, and practically flee the room.

Days blur into a week. Then two.

Every single second is a slow, agonizing torture. Without the distraction of his touch, the truth you’ve been running from settles into your bones like lead. You do love him. You love him so much it physically hurts to breathe, a constant, dull throb in the center of your chest. But when you think of Tucker, you see the sun—something bright, pure, and life-giving, and if you go back, you’ll just choke out his light. You can't bear the thought of becoming the reason he loses his warmth. So, you starve yourself of him. You stay in your room, ignoring the ache, choosing to bleed out in silence rather than drag him down with you.

Meanwhile, Tucker is a ghost of himself. He doesn't joke around in the locker room anymore. At home, he sits in the quiet of his room, staring at his phone, his thumb hovering over your name, waiting for a text that never comes. He’s furious at you for quitting, furious at you for deciding his limits for him, and furious at himself for letting you walk out into the dark.

By midnight on the fourteenth day, the guilt becomes too heavy to carry. You can't keep his spare key on your nightstand anymore; it feels like a physical brand, a constant reminder of the safety you threw away because you were too terrified to hold it. You decide to get rid of it when you know he won't be around to stop you.

The university ice rink is a tomb at midnight, the massive building shrouded in shadows and the smell of damp leather and pulverized ice. You slip through the side door, your sneakers making no sound on the rubber mats. The plan is simple: drop the silver key into his hockey locker through the metal vents and vanish back into the dark before the winter can catch you.

The heavy door clicks shut behind you, the latch locking into place with a definitive, echoey thud.

You take three steps inside, and your entire body locks. The air leaves your lungs as if you’ve been punched. He’s there.

Tucker is sitting on the wooden bench at the very end of the row, his massive frame hunched over, a roll of black stick tape clutched in his large hands. He’s still half-dressed in his gear, his heavy nylon hockey pants on, but his chest is bare, his skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat from an extra hours-long practice he clearly used to beat himself into exhaustion. He doesn't look up, but his voice stops you dead.

"You really thought you could just disappear, didn't you?"

He lifts his head, his eyes locking onto yours and you feel the floor vanishing beneath your feet. He stands up slowly, the movement languid and predatory. He doesn't look like the resigned boy who let you walk out of his bedroom two weeks ago. He walks toward you, his heavy steps unhurried, until he’s standing directly in your space, radiating a suffocating heat that cuts through the metallic chill of the rink.

“It was the only way I knew how to handle this," you whisper, clutching the key so hard it bites into your palm. 

Tucker stops. He looks at your hand, then slowly up to your eyes, his expression stripping away everything but a tired, raw frustration. He reaches out, his fingers wrapping firmly around your wrist, his grip burning. He doesn't pull you in; he just holds you there, forcing you to face him.

"Handle this?" he asks, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "You think cutting me off and ghosting me for two weeks is handling it?" You look at him, really look at him, and see the exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes. "You don't get to decide that you’re not worth the risk."

I'm the trouble ahead, and I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gets harder to see me the closer you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

He gently pries the key from your hand, letting it clatter to the concrete. He takes a half-step closer, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing over your lower lip. You can feel the air between you charging, the silence stretching until it feels like a physical weight, thick with the scent of cedar, sweat, and something inevitable.

"I got scared," you admit, your voice cracking. "I'm still scared."

"Yeah," he mutters. "I noticed."

He leans down, his mouth hovering just a breath away, and you can feel the heat radiating off him like a furnace. You bring your hands up, your fingers trembling as they find the damp skin of his shoulders, and the stupid, desperate reality of how much you missed him just collapses the rest of the distance.

When his mouth finally hits yours, it isn't an invitation—it’s the frantic, starving wreck of fourteen days of silence, a collision that tastes like copper and desperate, long-overdue relief. He tears your coat aside, and his hands, burning hot, move with ruthless speed—shoving your sweater up and over your head, his fingers catching on the fabric in his hurry. He doesn't stop, his palms dragging down your skin, tugging your jeans down until you’re shivering and exposed in the cold, dim air of the locker room. He lifts you, your legs locking instinctively around his waist as his heavy hockey pants drop to the bench with a heavy thud.

He steadies you against the steel lockers, the metal biting into your back as he guides himself to you.

The first push feels like a homecoming and an invasion all at once—he is thick and searingly hot, stretching you until the air leaves your lungs in a sharp, broken gasp. You claw at his shoulders, your eyes blown wide as he fills you completely, the cold room turning irrelevant against the crushing, rhythmic weight of his body.

Your bodies align with terrifying, natural precision—two halves of a broken whole finally finding their center. You move with an urgent, ravenous hunger, a primal need that transcends speech. With no space remaining between you, there is only the friction of skin against skin, the frantic hitch in your breathing, and the profound, overwhelming sense that this—being joined like this—is the only way to silence the noise in your heads.

Your hips collide in a chaotic, beautiful symphony of desperation. You ache for his weight, for the way he fills the void and anchors you to reality. As he drives into you, the brittle walls of your self-doubt crumble, replaced by the jarring, exquisite reality of his presence. You aren't just being taken, you are being reclaimed. He is here, he is real, and he is entirely yours to hold. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him down until you are flush, heartbeat against heartbeat, skin against skin, until you can no longer tell where you end and he begins.

He pushes into you with a steady, bruising rhythm, crowding his weight down until his mouth is pressed against your throat, swearing softly under his breath.

"I'm not leaving," he grunts against your skin, his hips slamming into yours.

He pulls back to look you in the eyes, his face flushed, his breath coming in broken hitches. "I'm not leaving," he repeats, his voice vibrating through the hollow steel at your back.

He drives into you again, slower now, with a terrifying, agonizing control that forces you to realize that this—this weight, this heat, this absolute refusal to let go—is exactly what you needed all along. He leans in, his forehead pressed against yours, his movements syncing with the frantic, newfound rhythm of your own heart. He moves with a purpose that is almost holy, a slow erosion of your defenses until the panic is gone, replaced by a clarity so sharp it hurts.

"I'm not leaving," he whispers, his breath hot against your ear.

He grinds his hips against yours, hitting that sweet, devastating spot that forces a sob from your throat. He doesn't let you look away—he captures your gaze, locking it to his, even as he drives into you one last time.

"I'm not leaving," he vows, his voice a final, breathless promise that settles deep in your bones.

I just live here, babe, but you're the one

I just live here, babe, but you're the one

I just live here, babe, but you're the one

I grew up pretendin' sticks were little guns

I would point 'em at my dad, and he'd get mad

Cause God forbid I hurt someone

I'd hurt anyone I could

Anyone who got too close, and anyone who wouldn't look

But the problem with John Tucker is that you can’t stay away from him. No matter how many times you tell yourself this is the last time, no matter how many walls you build during the day, the moment the sun goes down, the magnetic pull between you becomes a physical ache. It’s an addiction you both share, a mutual gravity that constantly drags you back into his orbit. You find reasons to cross his path, and he always, always stops to look at you.

And slowly, without permission, things start being more than just sex.

It happens first at a crowded house party. The air is thick with beer, loud music, and sweaty bodies, and you’re trying to navigate the narrow hallway to the kitchen when a hand grips your wrist. Before you can gasp, you're pulled into the shadow of the linen closet, and Tucker is there, towering over you. You expect the usual routine. You expect him to mutter a low, dirty suggestion, to tell you to meet him upstairs in the bathroom in ten minutes, or to feel his heavy hands immediately sliding up your skirt to find your naked thighs.

Instead, he just places his palms flat against the wall on either side of your head. He looks down at you, his chest rising and falling, his eyes burning with a desperate sort of hunger that has nothing to do with a quick thrill. He leans in and kisses you. It’s deep, slow, and breathtakingly thorough. His tongue tangles with yours in a way that feels like a quiet conversation, his lips soft and demanding all at once. He tastes like basil and warmth. He doesn't touch the rest of your body—he keeps his hands flat on the wall, entirely focused on your mouth, breathing you in like he's trying to memorize the taste of you before you can slip away again. When he finally pulls back, his breath is shallow. He doesn't say a word. He just looks at you, lets out a soft, breathtakingly sweet smile and walks back out into the party, continuing with his night. You’re left leaning against the wall, your knees shaking, realizing with a spike of terror that he is rewriting the rules without your permission.

The shift bleeds into his bedroom, mutating every touch into something holy, something that threatens to break you wide open. A week later, you’re on your stomach, the sheets bunched beneath your knuckles as he takes you from behind. His weight is heavy and grounding over your back, his fingers wrapped firmly around your throat in a tight, possessive chokehold that makes your vision blur with heat and yielding submission. He’s driving into you, deep and relentless, but there is no cruelty in it—only a desperate need to be as close to you as humanly possible. With every thrust, a low, ragged moan tears from his chest, and he keeps saying your name. Over and over. Your name. On his lips, it doesn't sound like a dirty word muttered in the dark. It sounds sacred. The reverence in his voice makes your throat tight and your chest ache with a violent, beautiful agony. You feel the tears leaking into the pillowcase, because you know that if he says your name like that just one more time, you will completely melt. All your locked doors will fly open, and he’ll see the wreckage inside.

I was born into a one-hundred-year storm

Foot of ice across Vermont

And in that dark, and in that frost, a heart was formed

Malcontented and unwarm

The breaking point comes on a sunday afternoon when he coaxes you into the bath. The water is steaming, smelling faintly of the expensive soap he keeps just for you. Tucker is leaning back against the porcelain, his long legs framing yours, and you are sitting between them, your back pressed flush against his chest. The water laps at your collarbones, warm and enveloping. It’s supposed to be casual, but it’s entirely too sensual.

His right hand slides beneath the surface, his fingers moving inside you with an agonizingly slow, rhythmic pressure that makes you whimper, your head dropping back against his shoulder. He’s reading every shudder of your body, mastering your pleasure with a quiet confidence. But it’s his other hand that ruins you. His left hand rests on your wet thigh, his thumb absentmindedly tracing small, gentle shapes against your skin. You track the movement through the clear water, and your heart stops when you realize what he's doing.

He’s drawing little hearts. Over and over, tracing the shape against your skin without even realizing he’s doing it, a subconscious manifestation of what he’s actually feeling.

A cold wave of absolute panic cuts through the heat of the water. He’s getting too close. He’s slipping beneath the armor, finding the softest parts of you, and if you let him stay there, the fall will kill you when he inevitably realizes you aren't enough. So you push his hands away, scrambling out of the tub onto the cold bath mat, ignoring the confused look that crosses his face. You wrap a towel around yourself tightly, your teeth chattering from the sudden drop in temperature—and the sudden realization that you have to end this before it destroys you.

You were unsuspecting, not unwarned

That I'm the trouble ahead, that I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gеts harder to see me the closеr you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

Which brings you back to tonight. The aftermath of another night where you tried to use his body to forget your soul, and failed. You’re almost fully dressed now, your hand resting on your bag, while Tucker stands by the bed, his chest bare.

He reaches out, his hand hovering over the empty side of the mattress for a second before he shifts, patting the soft fabric. He looks up at you through his eyelashes, his voice soft, trying to make it sound casual, like a joke he doesn't entirely mean. "There's still room for two in this bed, you know."

You look down at your feet, your voice completely flat, detached. "I can't, Tuck. We talked about this. I don't do sleepovers."

The lack of warmth in your tone makes something shift inside him. The softness drains from his face entirely, replaced by a sharp, stung look that makes his jaw tighten until the bone shows. He steps out of bed, blocking your path to your clothes, his bare chest heaving.

"Stop doing that," he whispers, frustrated, his voice cutting through the peaceful silence of the room. "Stop putting the wall up the second you get out of bed."

You force yourself to look up, hardening your expression into a mask of pure indifference, though your heart is hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. "We agreed on this. No strings, no expectations. You can't get mad at me for sticking to it."

"We agreed, yeah," Tucker steps closer, a desperate, angry heat rolling off him. "But don't look me in the eye and tell me you don't feel what's happening every time we're in this room together."

You do. Of course you do. It’s a terrifying, living thing that sits in the space between your chests every single time his skin hits yours. It’s there in the way his breath catches when he touches you, and the way you completely lose your bearings the second he pulls you close. You feel it so acutely that it makes you feel naked even when your clothes are still on, a heavy, unshakeable truth that you are completely powerless against. You feel it, and it scares the hell out of you.

"Believe me," you say, your voice dropping to a harsh, skin-crawling whisper, desperately trying to save him from yourself. "You don't want this. You think you do, but you don't."

Tucker’s gaze drops, his jaw tightening as he absorbs the dismissal, the quiet exhaustion in his posture mimicking your own. He doesn't yell, he doesn't press closer. He just stands there, a heavy, suffocating silence settling between you as the distance feels more like an ocean than a few feet of floorboards.

Have you ever stared directly at the sun?

Have you ever shared some closeness, so exposed

To have it spit back by someone?

So, forgive me if I jump

At the rattle of your keys

"Oh, are you leaving?," "No, babe, I'm just waking up"

And now what?

I'm left staring at the ceiling, listing reasons you should pack all your shit up

History had taught you that letting someone beneath your skin was a guarantee of definite, absolute ruin. Every time you had dropped your guard, if only by a fraction, it had merely offered a roadmap to your undoing for the person walking away. You couldn't handle the fallout of another ending. Not from him, and not when the reverent, terrifying way he looked at you meant the fall would be fatal.

So you protect yourself by bracing for the impact of the end before it can even start, counting down every flaw, every hesitation, every single reason why you shouldn't let this happen. You convince yourself that staying away is the only way to survive, turning his kindness into a deadline you have to beat.

"You're already gone, aren't you?" Tucker's voice shatters the silence, sharp and bleeding with a new kind of realization. He looks at you, seeing the way your eyes have gone totally distant. "You're standing right here, but you're already gone."

You don't say anything. The silence between you stretches, heavy and agonizing, as you pull your jacket over your shoulders. You reach down and lift your bag, your knuckles white against the strap, your jaw locked so hard it aches.

He looks at you—really looks at the rigid line of your shoulders, the frantic, defensive look in your eyes—and a quiet, crushing realization washes over him. He can't make you stay when you’ve already decided to leave.

His hands drop slowly to his sides. The silence that follows is deafening, heavy enough to crush the air right out of your lungs. His chest heaves, a profound, exhausting hurt settling into his features. The fierce, fighting light in his eyes slowly dulls, leaving him looking entirely hollow, entirely defeated.

"Fine," he says quietly, his voice flat, completely stripped of all the southern warmth you’ve grown so used to leaning on. "Just leave then." He walks past you, stopping at the bathroom door to look back at you one last time. There is no anger in his eyes, just a heavy, hollow exhaustion as he throws a tired line over his shoulder. "You know where the door is."

The click of the lock feels like a physical blow to your chest.

I'm the trouble ahead, and I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gets harder to see me the closer you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

The moment the door closes, your knees give out. You collapse onto the edge of his bed, the sheets still smelling like him, and a violent, silent sob tears through your chest. You have to clamp both hands over your mouth to stifle the sound, terrified he’ll hear you through the thin bathroom wall, terrified he’ll come out and see the absolute disaster you are. You shake so violently you can barely pull your jeans up, your fingers fumbling uselessly with the button. Blinded by a steady stream of hot tears, you gather your things, shove your shoes on, and practically flee the room.

Days blur into a week. Then two.

Every single second is a slow, agonizing torture. Without the distraction of his touch, the truth you’ve been running from settles into your bones like lead. You do love him. You love him so much it physically hurts to breathe, a constant, dull throb in the center of your chest. But when you think of Tucker, you see the sun—something bright, pure, and life-giving, and if you go back, you’ll just choke out his light. You can't bear the thought of becoming the reason he loses his warmth. So, you starve yourself of him. You stay in your room, ignoring the ache, choosing to bleed out in silence rather than drag him down with you.

Meanwhile, Tucker is a ghost of himself. He doesn't joke around in the locker room anymore. At home, he sits in the quiet of his room, staring at his phone, his thumb hovering over your name, waiting for a text that never comes. He’s furious at you for quitting, furious at you for deciding his limits for him, and furious at himself for letting you walk out into the dark.

By midnight on the fourteenth day, the guilt becomes too heavy to carry. You can't keep his spare key on your nightstand anymore; it feels like a physical brand, a constant reminder of the safety you threw away because you were too terrified to hold it. You decide to get rid of it when you know he won't be around to stop you.

The university ice rink is a tomb at midnight, the massive building shrouded in shadows and the smell of damp leather and pulverized ice. You slip through the side door, your sneakers making no sound on the rubber mats. The plan is simple: drop the silver key into his hockey locker through the metal vents and vanish back into the dark before the winter can catch you.

The heavy door clicks shut behind you, the latch locking into place with a definitive, echoey thud.

You take three steps inside, and your entire body locks. The air leaves your lungs as if you’ve been punched. He’s there.

Tucker is sitting on the wooden bench at the very end of the row, his massive frame hunched over, a roll of black stick tape clutched in his large hands. He’s still half-dressed in his gear, his heavy nylon hockey pants on, but his chest is bare, his skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat from an extra hours-long practice he clearly used to beat himself into exhaustion. He doesn't look up, but his voice stops you dead.

"You really thought you could just disappear, didn't you?"

He lifts his head, his eyes locking onto yours and you feel the floor vanishing beneath your feet. He stands up slowly, the movement languid and predatory. He doesn't look like the resigned boy who let you walk out of his bedroom two weeks ago. He walks toward you, his heavy steps unhurried, until he’s standing directly in your space, radiating a suffocating heat that cuts through the metallic chill of the rink.

“It was the only way I knew how to handle this," you whisper, clutching the key so hard it bites into your palm. 

Tucker stops. He looks at your hand, then slowly up to your eyes, his expression stripping away everything but a tired, raw frustration. He reaches out, his fingers wrapping firmly around your wrist, his grip burning. He doesn't pull you in; he just holds you there, forcing you to face him.

"Handle this?" he asks, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "You think cutting me off and ghosting me for two weeks is handling it?" You look at him, really look at him, and see the exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes. "You don't get to decide that you’re not worth the risk."

I'm the trouble ahead, and I scream in my sleep

You're putting money on red, I'm a sure bet at a losing streak

I keep showing you doors, but you can't open them up

Cause it gets harder to see me the closer you try to look

I just live here, babe, but you're the one who decided to knock

You knocked

He gently pries the key from your hand, letting it clatter to the concrete. He takes a half-step closer, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing over your lower lip. You can feel the air between you charging, the silence stretching until it feels like a physical weight, thick with the scent of cedar, sweat, and something inevitable.

"I got scared," you admit, your voice cracking. "I'm still scared."

"Yeah," he mutters. "I noticed."

He leans down, his mouth hovering just a breath away, and you can feel the heat radiating off him like a furnace. You bring your hands up, your fingers trembling as they find the damp skin of his shoulders, and the stupid, desperate reality of how much you missed him just collapses the rest of the distance.

When his mouth finally hits yours, it isn't an invitation—it’s the frantic, starving wreck of fourteen days of silence, a collision that tastes like copper and desperate, long-overdue relief. He tears your coat aside, and his hands, burning hot, move with ruthless speed—shoving your sweater up and over your head, his fingers catching on the fabric in his hurry. He doesn't stop, his palms dragging down your skin, tugging your jeans down until you’re shivering and exposed in the cold, dim air of the locker room. He lifts you, your legs locking instinctively around his waist as his heavy hockey pants drop to the bench with a heavy thud.

He steadies you against the steel lockers, the metal biting into your back as he guides himself to you.

The first push feels like a homecoming and an invasion all at once—he is thick and searingly hot, stretching you until the air leaves your lungs in a sharp, broken gasp. You claw at his shoulders, your eyes blown wide as he fills you completely, the cold room turning irrelevant against the crushing, rhythmic weight of his body.

Your bodies align with terrifying, natural precision—two halves of a broken whole finally finding their center. You move with an urgent, ravenous hunger, a primal need that transcends speech. With no space remaining between you, there is only the friction of skin against skin, the frantic hitch in your breathing, and the profound, overwhelming sense that this—being joined like this—is the only way to silence the noise in your heads.

Your hips collide in a chaotic, beautiful symphony of desperation. You ache for his weight, for the way he fills the void and anchors you to reality. As he drives into you, the brittle walls of your self-doubt crumble, replaced by the jarring, exquisite reality of his presence. You aren't just being taken, you are being reclaimed. He is here, he is real, and he is entirely yours to hold. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him down until you are flush, heartbeat against heartbeat, skin against skin, until you can no longer tell where you end and he begins.

He pushes into you with a steady, bruising rhythm, crowding his weight down until his mouth is pressed against your throat, swearing softly under his breath.

"I'm not leaving," he grunts against your skin, his hips slamming into yours.

He pulls back to look you in the eyes, his face flushed, his breath coming in broken hitches. "I'm not leaving," he repeats, his voice vibrating through the hollow steel at your back.

He drives into you again, slower now, with a terrifying, agonizing control that forces you to realize that this—this weight, this heat, this absolute refusal to let go—is exactly what you needed all along. He leans in, his forehead pressed against yours, his movements syncing with the frantic, newfound rhythm of your own heart. He moves with a purpose that is almost holy, a slow erosion of your defenses until the panic is gone, replaced by a clarity so sharp it hurts.

"I'm not leaving," he whispers, his breath hot against your ear.

He grinds his hips against yours, hitting that sweet, devastating spot that forces a sob from your throat. He doesn't let you look away—he captures your gaze, locking it to his, even as he drives into you one last time.

"I'm not leaving," he vows, his voice a final, breathless promise that settles deep in your bones.

I just live here, babe, but you're the one

I just live here, babe, but you're the one

I just live here, babe, but you're the one