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the light is coming

andrew pope cody x reader ~ word count: 22.4k

when the codys plan a heist for a luxury gentlemen’s club in los angeles, the last thing pope expects is to connect with the club’s most coveted and profitable dancer. right away, he feels there’s something different about you. little does he know, you aren’t working there of your own free will. your father is indebted to the club’s owner, and his life and yours are on the line if you don’t keep bringing in money until the debt is paid.

warnings/tags: canon level violence, strip club/nightclub setting, shitty and abusive men (not pope duh), death (not reader or anyone in the cody family), reader knows how to pole dance, reader is afab and goes by she/her pronouns, love at first sight vibes, reader is kinda a man-hater but it’s justified, some angst and some fluff, pov switches, reader goes by a stage name but her real name is never stated, no use of y/n, possible strip club inaccuracies, kissing, not explicit smut but mdni, pope is protective af, no baz or smurf, takes place after lena gets adopted but pope is still living in baz’s old beach house. flashbacks are italicized!

author’s note: woooo-weeeeee. my longest fic ever. holy shit. i cannot believe it is finally done. thank you endlessly to @fru1t4fr0gs and @thethyri for reading over this for me and letting me talk about it for weeks and weeks. this is by far the most challenging fic i have ever written and at times i wondered if i should just give up on it, but i’m very glad that i kept going and can share it with you all. i hope you love it as much as i do.

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Tonight was supposed to be your first Friday night off in years.

In hindsight, you had been an idiot to not realize that’s too good to be true. Friday and Saturday nights are always Solstice’s busiest nights, and you aren’t exactly in a position to pick and choose your shifts. Weekends are mandatory for anyone who brings in decent money, and you’re no exception.

You should’ve known it was a simple scheduling error, an oversight from whichever manager had been responsible for this week’s schedule, but the thought of getting take-out and spending your Friday night catching up on a few of your favorite shows that you’ve neglected the newest episodes of had been too tempting for you to think about questioning why your name wasn’t listed under Friday, as it usually is.

Then, at 9:15 pm, precisely fifteen minutes after your shift's typical start time, your phone rang. Right away, a ball of nausea wound tight in your stomach. You didn’t even have to look at the screen to know whose name was displayed across it.

You also knew better than to risk not answering.

“Yes?”

“Where the fuck are you?”

Silas is pissed. That’s nothing new. Silas has been in a perpetual state of pissed off since the day you had the misfortune of meeting him. Pissed is his default.

“Not at work.”

A loud, sarcastic guffaw sounds from your speaker. “Yeah, I fuckin’ see that. Why the hell do you think I’m calling you? To ask about your overall wellbeing?”

“Oh, I’d never think that,” you mutter under your breath, too low and quick for him to make out over the roar of R&B music that blares in the background. “I wasn’t on the schedule tonight,” you say more clearly, digging your nails into your palm in an effort to keep your voice level.

“Yeah, and your buddy Trevor is getting his ass chewed out for that, too,” Silas spits. “You always work Friday nights. The only exception was the time you got food poisoning because I didn’t want you shitting on a customer during a dance. You know that.”

Damn it. Trevor is your favorite of all of the floor managers - the only one who talks to you like a human being. Why couldn’t it have been Gregory? That pervert getting in trouble would almost be worth this phone call and whatever punishment Silas has in mind for you not being at work right now.

“It’s not my fault that Trevor fucked up the schedule,” you say, voice still lethally calm. “I show up when I’m told to. Nothing more.”

“I don’t give a rat’s fat ass whose fault it is,” Silas hisses. “And I’m telling you to show up now, so you better get here before ten o’clock or—”

You don’t want to hear whatever he’s about to threaten you with. It could be anything from not letting you perform a solo routine on center stage tonight to taking a bigger cut of the money you make from private rooms…to even worse.

“Okay, okay. Jesus fuck. I’m on my way.”

You hang up before his voice can give you a migraine before you even arrive at the club.

Forty minutes later, after doing your hair and makeup in record time, throwing on the first cute lingerie set you can find that’s clean, and speeding at least ten over the speed limit the entire drive to the club, you show up with less than five minutes to spare.

Luckily, Silas is nowhere to be found when you enter through the back door. You know that he’ll bitch at you some more whenever you see him, but right now, you’re relieved to start your normal rounds while he’s otherwise occupied. Likely smoking himself to death with a hotdog-sized cigar in his office.

You walk the main floor, making small talk with a few regulars that aren’t complete pieces of shit as far as men who frequent strip clubs go. You book your first private room of the night, and Gregory is a little too happy to inform you that Silas will be taking sixty percent of your earnings tonight as opposed to the standard fifty.

As annoying as that is, you can’t help but feel a little relieved. As far as punishments go, a ten percent increase in his cut is mild. Last time you were reprimanded (for not fucking smiling enough), Silas added an additional five grand to the already exorbitant amount of money that your father owes him.

The exorbitant amount of money that just so happens to be the very reason you are working in this shithole in the first place.

Not even two hours into your shift, and you’re already over it. So over it that you offer to take out a bag of trash for the bartenders just as an excuse to get some fresh air for two fucking minutes.

This part of Los Angeles isn’t exactly quaint - there’s a near constant stream of car horns blaring and police sirens wailing but it’s white noise to you at this point. At least the night air is a nice reprieve from the stench of cheap weed and cheaper cologne even for only a moment.

It says a lot that you consider hanging out by literal dumpsters more appealing than being inside.

You should’ve been out of here a long time ago. It wasn’t supposed to take more than a year to clear the debt that isn’t even your debt to clear.

You didn’t even know that your dad was sick. Not until you came home from college on a random weekend, hoping to surprise him, and found him far thinner and more frail than you had ever seen him, hooked up to a dialysis machine to keep himself from dying of kidney failure.

He’d tried his hardest to keep it all from you. He didn’t want you to worry, didn’t want you to drop out of school to take care of him. He tried to handle the medical bills that accumulated rapidly on his own for as long as he could.

And when he accepted that he couldn’t, he got desperate.

He thought Silas was just a lender. Someone who would help him stay afloat long enough to get a transplant, recover, and get back to work. He didn’t realize exactly what kind of man he had borrowed from until Silas showed up at his house, uninvited and unannounced, waltzing right in like he owned the place.

So vividly you can remember the look of shame on your father’s face when Silas revealed the truth, and the panic that quickly bloomed when he looked directly at you and said the words that changed the trajectory of your life.

“You failed to mention that you have a daughter,” Silas purrs. “She sure is pretty. You know, I think she’d do real well working in one of my clubs. Yeah, she’d be popular. Make me a lot of money. How does that sound? You wanna help your poor, sick daddy out?”

Your dad had instantly refused, pleading with Silas to just give him a little more time, but you could tell that Silas wasn’t really asking. He was telling you what you were going to do. And because you were scared, for your own life and your father’s, you agreed.

Here you are, three years later, with no true end in sight.

The club’s back door screeches open, and you know that your ninety seconds of the closest thing you can get to peace around here has come to an end.

“The hell are you doing out here?” Silas booms, interrupting the relative quiet of the alleyway. “It’s almost time for you to go on center stage. You’re lucky that I’m even letting you go on at all tonight. I wasn’t planning on it, but there’s a group of guys in there requesting you.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. The last thing you want is for him to change his mind at the last second and give your solo slot to one of the other girls. “I’m coming. I was just taking out the trash.”

You take a step to walk past him, but he blocks the doorway, his clammy hand shooting out to catch you by the elbow. His grip isn’t quite hard enough to bruise, but still makes bile churn in your gut.

“Don’t get cute with me,” he spits. “You’re already on thin ice tonight.”

You don’t say anything, biting your lip to hold back the overwhelming desire to spit in his face. Silas leans in, his breath foul with the stench of whiskey and cigar smoke.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here.” His fingers tighten just a fraction around your arm. Just enough to make you wince. “Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”

You taste iron from where your teeth break the skin of your lip. “I said I’m coming.”

Silas snorts, satisfied for now. He lets go of your arm with a shove that is more dismissive than violent and turns back toward the door.

“And try not to fuck up your set,” he snaps over his shoulder. “Those guys in there are blowing their money on you. Don’t make me regret doing you any favors.”

And then he’s gone, letting the metal door slam closed behind him before you can follow him inside.

You stand there for a moment, breathing in and then slowly exhaling when movement from your peripheral vision catches your eye.

Great. Just what you fucking need right now. An audience. Men, of course. Two of them. Just close enough to have heard every word.

“What are you looking at, boys?” You call, voice void of emotion as you make direct eye contact with the stocky, curly-haired one.

He’d be cute, you think, if he wasn’t the kind of guy to spend his Friday night outside of a strip club. The sandy blond looks slightly surprised that you’re acknowledging them, but his buddy remains stoic.

You jerk your chin towards the door Silas slammed behind him.

“The show’s inside.”

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Pope all but forced Deran to switch tasks with him at the last second.

Originally, he was supposed to be the one keeping a close eye on Silas Leary, Solstice’s owner, while Deran scopes out the club’s main floor for the heist that Craig, of all people, is orchestrating.

He shouldn’t be surprised. A luxury gentleman’s club based heist is quite possibly the most Craig heist possible.

But now, instead of watching the balding, sweaty jackass who had berated you in the alleyway not even ten minutes ago, he’s watching you on stage.

You’re more pleasant to look at, at least.

He’s never really seen anything quite like it - the way you dance. This isn’t his first time at a strip club. His brothers have coerced him into going to strip clubs before, though every time prior to tonight was for pleasure, not business. Still, he isn’t unfamiliar with the scene. He’s watched women pole dance before, but not like this.

You’re the only thing in the room that he can concentrate on. For the entirety of the five minutes and some change that your set lasts, he forgets that he’s technically here for recon. He and his brothers made this trip to Los Angeles to get a feel for the building’s layout, to see how operations work, to check out the security systems…not watch the strippers.

He tells himself he’s keeping up appearances. It would be weird to not watch you. Everyone in the room is - even the other dancers, though they watch with less enchantment and more disdain than the patrons.

The song comes to an end all too soon, and Pope continues to watch as you make quick work of collecting all of the bills that had been thrown onto the stage. He stands just a few feet away, close enough that he can see the body glitter dusted across your chest sparkle in the glow of the neon stage lights.

When you stand up, thick stack of cash in hand, your gaze locks with his for one tense but fleeting moment. The look in your eyes is the same as when you had made direct eye contact with him outside the club.

Just as fast as you had appeared on the stage, you then disappear, leaving Pope staring after you.

He thinks back to what he and Deran had witnessed in the alley. He had instantly recognized Silas Leary from pictures he’d seen online, so he and Deran hung around to witness the brief interaction, hoping to get some idea as to what Silas is like in person before entering the club.

It came as no shock to Pope that his reputation precedes him. Harsh, volatile, cruel seemingly for the sake of being cruel. That isn’t what made Pope freeze in place in the alley. It’s what Silas had said to you.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here. Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”

And your response. You didn’t agree or disagree. Didn’t fight him on it. You looked Silas dead in the eyes, expression unreadable, and barely flinched. Like you had heard the threat a thousand times before, like you were used to the way he grabbed you by the arm. Like it hardly even phased you.

Pope’s first instinct had been to intervene, but he knew doing so would have tanked the job before it began. He couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself and Deran, and deep down, he also knew that stepping in would have likely made things worse on you, too, in the long run.

So he watched from the sidelines, feeling more at peace than ever at the prospect of stealing loads of money from someone, knowing Silas Leary deserves what’s coming for him.

Deran knew it, too, playing it off with a joke that sparked an idea in Pope’s head.

“Shit. You think she hates the fucker enough to help us rob him?”

Pope had said nothing at the time, but he was unable to shake the thought. The entire time that he watched you on stage, the look of unadulterated hatred on your face kept replaying in his mind.

But for just a few minutes, as you danced on the center stage, you seemed different than you did in the alley. Different than you did when you were collecting the dozens of tens, twenties, and hundred dollar bills off of the stage floor. For a few moments, Pope saw himself in you. The way you seemed to completely dissociate while you performed, like there was no one else in the room but you and nothing else mattered. In his own way, he’s been there. With skateboarding, and with boxing. For him, those things are escapes.

He can’t help but wonder if that’s what dancing is for you. An escape from this place.

He supposes there’s really only one way to find out - if he’s right, and if Deran could possibly be right, too.

Good thing Craig had suggested they all bring plenty of cash with them. To keep up appearances, he had said. If you’re going to a strip club, you should always have cash on you. This is just recon, but you never know.

He’d smirked when he said it, as if he already had plans to spend said cash in ways that weren’t relevant to recon, but he still made a fair point.

Pope’s eyes scan the crowded room, searching through all of the dancers and customers in hopes of finding someone who might be of some help. He notices a short, pudgy, middle-aged man who appears to be scolding another dancer.

Gregory, Pope sees that his name tag reads once he approaches him.

“The dancer that just finished up on stage,” Pope asks him, “What’s her name?”

A creepy, almost unsettling smile grows on Gregory’s face. “Oh, that would be Soleil. Why? You want a room with her?”

What Pope wants is to wipe that perverted look off of his face, but rationally he knows that would be counterproductive right now, so he settles for a curt nod. “Yeah, I do.”

“Half hour? Or a full hour?”

Pope knows that he’s supposed to meet his brothers and nephew where they parked a couple blocks away in less than an hour, so he isn’t really sure why he lets the next words come out of his mouth, but for whatever reason, he does.

“Full hour.”

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Gregory barges into the locker room without so much as knocking.

You’re dressed (as dressed as you possibly can be in a place like this), just counting the money you made from your solo set, but his sudden presence still unnerves you.

“You’ve got a private room,” he barks, not bothering to be subtle with the way his beady little eyes trail up your legs. “Room two. Full hour. This guy asked for you after watching your solo performance, so you better not disappoint him.”

You cram the rest of your money into the locker and snap it shut, trying not to give Gregory the satisfaction of seeing how irritated you are - at the way he thinks he owns this place and can enter a changing room without knocking, and especially at hearing you have to do another private room. For a full hour.

You don’t bother asking who the private room is with. You’re confident it’s one of the men who had convinced Silas to let you go on center stage tonight. A group of four or five sat as close as possible to the front, several familiar faces throwing bills at you every few seconds. Any given one of them looks like the type to drop six hundred dollars on an hour-long private room.

“Oh, I’ll try my hardest,” you breathe sarcastically. “Now can I have a second to freshen up? Alone?”

“Hurry,” Gregory snaps. “He’s waiting for you.”

You wait until the door clicks shut behind him to curse under your breath. Sometimes, you think you might hate Gregory as much as you hate Silas - if that’s even possible.

After reapplying your lipgloss and spritzing on a little more perfume, you reluctantly make your way to the private room where you’ll spend the next hour of your life.

At least once it’s over, it’ll be after midnight, which means the rest of the shift likely won’t be quite as busy, and you’ll be able to go home soon—

“Hi,” you chirp, slipping into the room with a forced smile and your best customer service voice. “I’m Soleil. Thanks so much for booking a room with me tonight. And what’s your na—”

You freeze as soon as you turn around from shutting the door behind you, the question dying on your tongue.

Not one of the men from the eager group that sat right next to the stage. You do recognize him, though. He too had stood close to the stage, by himself.

One of the men from the alley.

“Oh,” you quip, voice rising an octave. “You’re—”

“Pope,” he interrupts, and you’re thankful for it, because you didn’t really even know where you were going with that sentence. “My name is Pope.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Pope,” you smile, taking a tentative step closer to where he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Would you like to sit down?” You ask, gesturing towards the couch behind him.

He nods. You hover for a moment, giving him space as he lowers himself stiffly onto the couch. He looks around with uncertainty, like this entire process is completely unfamiliar to him and he isn’t sure what exactly he is supposed to say or do.

“Let me guess,” he starts, settling into the velvet couch. He runs his palms over jean fabric that conceals his bulky thighs. “Your name isn’t actually Soleil?”

You snort a laugh as you take a seat in the empty space beside him. You tuck your legs beneath you, one arm relaxing across the top of the couch, your hand coming to rest just behind his head. Instinctively, your fingers inch towards the base of his skull to toy with the reddish brown curls there, but you stop yourself at the last second, instead smoothing your fingertips over the soft, velvet material of the couch.

Normally, you wouldn’t hesitate to show physical affection for such high-paying clientele - that is what at least 95% of them are here for, anyway - but something about the way he stiffens at your sudden closeness makes you think twice before touching him.

“That depends,” you counter. “Is Pope actually your name?”

He turns his neck to look you in the eye - now close enough that you’re able to see his hazel irises and the light dusting of freckles across his skin.

Pretty, you think - even if he is the kind of man to spend an asinine amount of money on a nearly naked and complete stranger’s attention, you can’t deny that he’s pretty.

“No,” he says lowly. He pauses, swallowing. “Pope’s just a childhood nickname. My real name is Andrew.”

“Andrew,” you repeat with a slow nod. “And which would you prefer that I call you?”

A slight blush appears on the apples of his cheeks. “You can call me whatever you want to.”

It doesn’t really make a difference to you, considering you’ll likely never see him again after the hour he paid for comes to an end, but you can’t help but think the way he blushed when you said Andrew was oddly endearing.

“Well, Andrew,” you hum, “you are correct in assuming that my name is not really Soleil. That’s just the stage name I chose to go by.” You nod towards the sign on the opposite wall that spells Solstice in neon, cursive lettering. You give a small shrug. “I thought it pairs well with the name of the club. Soleil at Solstice.”

There’s something close to a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m sure you’re already aware that soleil means sun in French.”

Yes, you are aware of that, but you’re slightly surprised that he knows that. Most men that come here don’t know their left from their right.

“That it does,” you agree. “Kind of ironic, actually.”

His eyebrows pinch together a bit. “How so?”

Because there isn’t actually any sun in a place like this. A dark, dystopian fucking hellscape.

But you can’t say that, of course. God forbid you say anything even slightly negative about this place and word somehow gets back to Silas. That would be your third strike of the night, and he’d likely tack on an additional twenty grand to your father’s outstanding balance for the hell of it.

You instantly regret saying anything at all.

“Oh, nothing.” You shake your head in dismissal. “Just meant the only thing that’s bright here is the strobe lights.”

He stares at you for an extended moment before responding, his gaze heavy on you. “I wouldn’t say the only thing.”

You exhale a breathy laugh, your cheeks warming more than they should at the sentiment. It fills you with a bit of shame, really - the fact that you’d feel even slightly flustered over a vague compliment from a stranger paying for your company.

“So, Andrew…” you say, breaking the brief but loaded silence that had settled between you. “You paid for this room. What would you like to do in it?”

You dread what comes next. You always do. The kind of “dancing” that you hardly even consider dancing. The stripping, the touching. There’s supposed to be boundaries, of course, but most men think that if they’re paying then that gives them a right to cross them.

But private rooms are part of the job. Silas has made that clear from day one. He lets you perform your solo routines because they generate too much revenue to deny you the one part of the night that you don’t absolutely despise - but your sets last five, maybe ten minutes at most. Your shifts run about six hours. That leaves five hours and fifty minutes to keep the money flowing if you want to keep Silas appeased, which means doing every soul-sucking part of the job you hate: the floor dances, the private rooms, the mandatory mingling and endless flirting.

Every now and then, though, someone will book a private room and pleasantly surprise you.

“I just wanna talk,” Andrew says simply. “If that’s alright with you.”

You have to hold back the urge to sigh in relief. Talking you can do. And the fact that Andrew doesn’t reek of body odor and stout liquor like the majority of your customers makes the thought of conversing with him for the remainder of the next hour even less painful.

Six hundred dollars (well, significantly less once Silas takes his sixty percent cut…) and all you have to do is sit and talk to a decent looking man who isn’t belligerently drunk? You’ve had far worse nights.

“Of course,” you smile, and for once it isn’t completely forced. “You’re paying. If you want to talk, then we talk.”

Andrew is silent for a moment, as if he’s considering what to say next. His stare is unyielding, but not in the way that would normally make you cringe so hard that you risk breaking a tooth. Instead, it feels like he’s really looking at you. Not Soleil, but you.

“I watched your set earlier,” he says when he finally speaks. “That was very impressive. How long have you been dancing?”

Ah. Yes, you had noticed him towards the very front of the crowd when you finished your routine. He’d looked every bit as serious and solemn as he had when you first saw him in the alleyway earlier tonight.

“Dancing? Since I was four. Ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical…” You list off all of the weekly classes you remember taking throughout your childhood. “Pole dancing, though? About three years.”

Andrew looks surprised by the answer, his brows lifting slightly and hazel eyes widening. “Only three years? I would’ve thought a lot longer than that. Is that how long you’ve worked here, then?”

You nod, retracting your arm from where it had been resting behind his head now that it’s clear that - for whatever reason - Andrew is only interested in conversation. You let yourself relax a bit, relieved that you don’t have to put up the usual facade that makes most men swoon.

“Yeah, right at three years now. I practice a lot at home, though. I even got a pole for my apartment. If you work here, you’ve really gotta know your way around a pole, so…I’ve put in the hours.”

He looks impressed at that - or maybe surprised. Or maybe something else entirely. You aren’t sure. You can’t read his facial expressions or his body language nearly as easily as most of the men that enter this room.

“Wow,” Andrew hums with what appears to be a nod of approval. “That’s dedication. You must have really wanted to work here to put so much effort into learning such a specific skill.”

You barely manage to hold back a cackle at that. If he only fucking knew.

You give a half shrug, playing it off. “What can I say?” You sigh. “Guess I really needed the money.”

It’s the truth. Not the whole, disgusting, gritty truth, but it is accurate. As accurate as you can be without trauma dumping and jeopardizing your life…and your father’s.

Andrew nods, looking down at his hands splayed across the tops of his thighs. “Yeah. I get that. I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t made money in some unconventional ways.”

That piques your interest. “Oh? Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

He exhales a small laugh before bringing his eyes back to yours again. “As long as you promise not to tell anyone. If I tell you, it can’t leave this room.”

You make a motion with a hand across your mouth as if you’re zipping your lips and throwing away the key. “My lips are sealed. Pinky promise.” Then, for good measure, you hold out your pinky finger to him in offering.

He stares at your littlest finger for a long moment, the slightest hint of a smirk beginning to tug at the corners of his lips again before he finally lifts a hand of his own, pinky finger upright. He wraps the digit around yours, giving it a firm squeeze before slowly pulling away.

“Years ago,” Andrew starts, “I robbed a bank. It didn’t go as planned, and I spent a few years in prison for it.”

You blink, and wait for him to laugh, or say that he’s kidding. But then five, ten, fifteen seconds pass, and he’s still looking at you with the exact same unreadable expression.

“You robbed a bank?” You ask incredulously. “Jesus, I thought you were going to say that you sold pictures of your feet online or something.”

He doesn’t smile or flinch, just holds your gaze for a second longer. “Yeah,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of it, but I did.”

You know that your face must give away your surprise. His revelation should freak you out - if he’s capable of bank robbery, what else is this stranger capable of?

Maybe you’ve become somewhat desensitized to the concept of people going to extremes for money. Your dad. Silas. Even you. A few years ago, you never would have imagined that you’d be here right now. But you have your reasons, and you are. Even though it isn’t your first choice, you wouldn’t want anyone to judge you too harshly for doing what you feel you have to do.

You don’t know Andrew’s past. You have no idea what happened in his life that led him to make the decision to rob a bank. It probably wasn’t because he woke up bored one morning and decided that it sounded like a fun thing to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and you know that all too well.

“Well,” you huff a laugh, “I can’t say that I really blame you. I mean, I’d never be able to execute something like that, but it’s fun to fantasize about on occasion.”

“On occasion?” Andrew repeats in a low, curious tone. His brows lift in question. “Like when you’re here?”

You snort, shaking your head. “Please, if I was planning a bank robbery every time that I’m here, I would’ve been locked up years ago. But this place…” You trail off, searching for the right words for what you want to say but know you shouldn’t, “this place can get to you sometimes. Makes stupid ideas sound less stupid. No offense.”

Andrew makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a hum. “No offense taken.”

The rest of the hour drifts by far easier than you expect. Andrew tells you some stories from his time in prison, and about how he grew up not too far from here, in Oceanside. He talks about his siblings, looking down at his lap when he reveals that he’s a twin, but his twin sister, Julia, passed away somewhat recently. You try not to talk too much about yourself, but when he asks you questions, you answer as honestly as you can - telling him that you had been in your third year of college when you started working here, and that one day, when the time is right, you’d like to finish your degree.

By the time a knock sounds at the door signaling that the hour is up, you’re almost startled. It barely feels as if sixty minutes have passed.

“Huh,” you muse, rising from the couch as he does. “That went by a lot quicker than time usually does here.”

Andrew is silent for a moment, his gaze lingering on your face, still as serious as when you had first made eye contact with him in the alley. Then, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small envelope.

“Here,” he says quietly, holding out the envelope for you to take. “This is for you.” He pauses. “Just you. Not your boss.”

Your eyes shoot up to his in surprise. Not at the fact that he’s offering what you presume to be a tip, but at the last three words. Not your boss.

When your brain catches up, you accept the envelope, clutching it in both hands. “Thank you,” you murmur, trying to keep an even, neutral tone, though you’re sure your face betrays you. “It was, uh…it was nice to meet you, Andrew.”

He gives a small, polite smile as he takes a step towards the door. “It was nice to meet you, Soleil.”

Only when he reaches for the doorknob do you stop him by uttering a single word. He looks back over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

You repeat yourself once more. “That’s my name,” you clarify. “My real name.”

He says your name softly. Barely audible. As if just testing how it feels to say it. Then, with a slow nod, he turns the doorknob and exits the room without another word, leaving you staring after him.

Only after his footsteps fade down the hallway do you open the envelope and find that he has given you a thousand dollars.

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“You’re joking, right?”

Jay’s voice fills the silence that had settled over Smurf’s living room following Pope’s suggestion.

“No,” Pope says, trying not to let impatience slip into his tone. “I’m not joking. I really think she would be willing to help us.”

The three men take turns looking at each other before turning their stares back to Pope.

“The stripper?” Craig snorts. “That’s your big idea? I mean, I love strippers as much as the next guy, but you can’t be serious right now.”

“It was technically Deran’s idea.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Deran pipes up.

“When we saw her in the alley,” Pope says, like it’s obvious. “You asked me if I think she hates her boss enough to help us rob him. The answer is yes. I think she does hate him that much. I think she hates that whole place that much.”

No, you hadn’t blatantly said so, but you didn’t need to. He could see it in your eyes, and hear it in your tone. It may as well have been written across your forehead.

“Jesus Christ, man, I wasn’t being serious.”

“Still,” Pope implores, “I spent an hour talking to her. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be there. And after what we witnessed in the alley? It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.”

His brothers and nephew are silent again, exchanging glances amongst each other.

“She’s been there for three years,” Pope continues. “She knows the layout. She knows when Silas comes and goes. And I’m willing to bet she knows exactly where that safe is and how to get to it, too.”

“So she hates her job,” Craig shrugs. “Doesn’t mean she’s cool with risking a felony charge.”

Pope shakes his head. “She didn’t seem too put off when I told her that I’ve done time for armed robbery.”

All three voices erupt at once.

“You told her what?”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“Dude, are you insane?”

“I wanted her to know that she can trust me,” Pope says simply. “And she reacted fine. More than fine. She seemed to understand.”

Jay clears his throat. “Look, if we do this, she can’t be a liability. She needs to know what she’s doing, and she needs to keep her mouth shut.”

“She will,” Pope says instantly. “I know she will.”

Deran squints. “How? You spent one hour with her. You don’t actually know her.”

Pope meets his eyes with an unblinking stare. “You think I’d risk all of our asses if I wasn’t sure? I know enough to know that I’m not wrong.”

Pope’s stare is locked on Craig. It’s his operation and therefore he gets the final say. If it were solely up to Jay, or even Deran, he wouldn’t think there’s a chance of getting them to agree. But Craig’s a little riskier than they are. If he thinks there’s even a slight chance that it’ll increase the odds of the job being a success, he’s likely to agree.

“Fuck it,” Craig finally mutters, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll try it your way. But we aren’t sharing our cut with her. If she gets anything, it’s coming out of your share. I’m not sacrificing my payday because you have a crush on the stripper.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope knows a guy who knows a guy who somehow knows everything about everyone. And if that guy doesn’t know, he has ways of finding out.

Well, technically Smurf knew him, but Pope uses that connection to his advantage.

The information doesn’t come cheap, but Pope needed to know with absolute certainty before waltzing back into Solstice and asking you to help him rob your boss.

Except now he isn’t just asking for help pulling off the heist. He’s going to ask for help pulling off an execution, because he doesn’t just want Silas Leary’s money, he wants him dead.

It may have cost him three grand, but Pope now has confirmation that his suspicions were correct and somehow worse than he had thought. Not only are you essentially being trafficked, but you’re doing so because your life and your father’s are on the line.

Now he knows, without a doubt, just how desperate you must be for a way out. And even though he’s only met you one time, Pope wants to give you that way out.

If only you’ll be willing to take it.

Pope makes the hour and a half long drive from Oceanside to Los Angeles again the very next night without any confirmation that you would even be working, but it’s a chance he’s willing to take. Craig and the others want to get on with the job, and Pope wants to get you away from the likes of Silas Leary as quickly as possible.

He goes over it all in his head the entire drive to the club. Everything he knows about you, from what he had witnessed the moment he first saw you in the alley, to every word you said to him in the private room, to what the private investigator informed him of.

But that’s not all he thinks about. He also thinks about the way your pinky finger felt wrapped around his when you offered the symbolic gesture to keep his secret, and the intoxicating smell of your perfume that he had to fight the urge to inhale the entire hour that you sat beside him on that tiny couch. He thinks about how sweet it sounded to hear you say his name, his real name, and how it sounded even sweeter when you told him your real name.

Maybe Craig is right. Maybe he does have a crush. That’s the most logical explanation for why Pope suddenly no longer cares how much money he pulls from this job. There will always be another job - if he wanted to, he could rob another bank by himself next week. He cares more about getting you out of the unfortunate predicament you’re in, and ensuring that Silas can never bring harm to you or anyone else ever again.

When he arrives, it’s close to midnight and the club is packed. He can barely get through the dense crowd of dancers and patrons that occupy the main floor, his eyes carefully scanning the crowd as he makes his way to the bar, where he orders a beer to keep up appearances until he’s able to spot you.

He waits for over half an hour. He doesn’t move from his seat at the bar, where he has the perfect view of center stage, the main floor, and the doorway to the hallway that leads to the private room he shared with you last night.

Just observing it all is overstimulating. From the loud music that pulsates through Pope’s barstool, to the neon strobe lights that make his eyes throb, to the smell of bodies and liquor that hangs heavy in hot club air, he doesn’t know how you have done it for three years without losing your sanity. Even just sitting here, all Pope can think about are all of the germs on every surface of this place.

When you finally appear at the mouth of the small hallway that leads to the private rooms wearing a pale pink, ruffled bodysuit that looks like it was custom made for you, Pope momentarily forgets why he’s here.

He watches as your eyes flicker around the main floor of the club, as if you’re dreading stepping back into the chaos of it all. When you finally glance towards the bar, your gaze locks with his and Pope’s skin warms at the way your face lights up with surprise. He offers you a small smile and wave of his hand, and that’s all you need to walk the short distance to where he sits.

“Andrew,” you breathe, coming to stand next to where he sits. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Soleil,” he greets, a teasing edge to his tone. He almost lets your real name slip out, but thinks better of it at the last second. He isn’t sure why you trusted him enough to let him know your real name after only an hour together, but he gets the feeling that isn’t something that you tell just anyone.

“I didn’t expect to be back so soon, but…” He trails off momentarily, glancing around the crowded room. There’s too many people. He has to speak too loudly in order for you to hear him over all of the voices and loud music, and he doesn’t want to risk anyone overhearing. “Are you busy right now?”

You shake your head. “No. I just finished up a private room. I’ve already done my solo set for the night. I was just going to walk around, make conversation with some regulars. Why? Are you…wanting a room?”

Pope can’t help but think you sound a little hopeful. But maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part. You are doing your job, after all.

“Yeah, I am,” he says, standing up beside you. “If you have time.”

You nod with a smile that reaches your eyes. “Of course.”

He follows as you lead him down the hallway, straight to the exact room that the two of you occupied last night. As he does, a terrifying thought occurs: you might say no. You might get scared, and deny everything, and refuse to help. You might tell him to get lost, and he doesn’t know where the hell that would leave him. But as he walks into the room after you, he swallows that thought down, and focuses on what he does know: you want to be here even less than he does.

“I’m really glad to see you,” you say as you shut the door behind him. “And I’m not just saying that because you tipped me a thousand dollars. Thank you, by the way. That was very generous of you.”

Pope takes a seat on the couch, the exact same spot he sat twenty-four hours ago, though he feels significantly more nervous now than he did then. “No need to thank me,” he murmurs. “I really enjoyed talking to you.”

You take a seat beside him, relaxing against the couch. “Is that why you came back? To talk more?”

He nods. “It is. If that’s okay with you.”

“More than okay with me. Is there anything in particular that you’d like to talk about tonight, Andrew?”

He hesitates for a second. He spent half the drive here rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to you to ensure that this would go as smoothly as possible, but now that he’s sitting beside you, he has forgotten how to string two words together.

He clears his throat slightly. “Can I ask you something?”

Your eyebrows twitch in curiosity. “Sure.”

“If you could walk out of this place tonight and never come back, would you?”

A small laugh escapes you, and you instantly drop his gaze, looking down at your hands in your lap instead. “That’s a hell of a question. You know, most people that get me alone in this room just ask me if I have a boyfriend or what my favorite position is.”

Pope watches you for a moment. “Well, I’m not most people.”

You look back up, your lips pursed. “No,” you agree quietly. “You’re definitely not.” You pause just long enough to make Pope wonder if you’re going to say anything else at all. “Yeah. I would. What makes you ask?”

He exhales slowly, only mildly surprised by your honesty. “I heard what happened in the alley yesterday.”

You’re visibly taken aback, your body going rigid and your eyes going wide, and he can understand why. In the entire hour you spent together last night, he didn’t bring up the incident in the alley. You probably assumed he hadn’t been able to hear what Silas had said, or that he at least hadn’t thought anything of it, but now here he is, bringing it up unprompted.

“Oh,” you start, your voice unnaturally high, “that was just—”

He cuts you off by shaking his head. “I’m not asking you to explain anything to me,” says lowly. “But I know who Silas is. That’s why me and my brothers came here last night. We were supposed to come here, get information, and leave.”

You don’t move as you stare at him in silence, either too stunned or too scared to speak. He continues so you don’t have to.

“But then I met you. And now I can’t just pretend I didn’t see that.”

You study him for a long moment. “What kind of information?”

“Remember when I told you that I did time in prison?”

Your eyebrows scrunch together before realization blooms across your face a fraction of a second later. Instinctively, you change your position on the small sofa, putting more space between the two of you. “Jesus,” you hiss. “You were going to rob—”

You don’t finish your sentence, looking from Pope, to the door just a few feet away, to a security camera in the corner of the room.

“You’re lucky that thing doesn’t have audio,” you spit under your breath.

Pope holds back a laugh. “I know it doesn’t have audio. I know what I’m doing.” He pauses, then offers a small, almost shy smile. “Most of the time.”

“Oh, most of the time?”

Pope shrugs. “Most of the time.”

You sigh, running a hand down your face as you look around the room again.

“Look,” you whisper, “I don’t care what you and your brothers do to Silas, but I can’t get involved.”

Pope doesn’t respond right away. He was expecting you to say something along those lines. But you aren’t screaming at him to get out, or running away to find a security guard, so he still feels hope.

He murmurs your real name for the first time since you had first told him what it is last night. It causes your expression to soften the tiniest bit, a glimpse of vulnerability appearing in your eyes.

“I know that he’s got something over you. And I swear I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

You purse your lips as you stare at him, as if searching for any sign that he could be lying to you.

“I know you don’t know me,” Pope adds delicately. “I wouldn’t blame you for not trusting me. I’m just asking you to hear me out.”

Another beat of loaded silence. “Okay,” you say, barely audible. “But we can’t talk about this here. It’s too risky.” You nod towards the door. “I don’t get off until three.”

“That’s okay,” Pope says, and he hopes that his relief isn’t too evident in his tone. “I can wait.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

When you first noticed Andrew sitting at the bar, grinning as if just waiting for you to walk in the room, you would’ve assumed that would be the most surprising thing to happen to you tonight.

That assumption proved to be dead wrong, because five minutes later, he revealed that he’s planning to rob your boss.

(Correction: he’s planning to rob him, and knows that he’s a huge piece of shit who is blackmailing you).

The surprises don’t stop there, though. Next, you surprise yourself by inviting a practical stranger into your home.

Your self-preservation skills have always been lacking. That was evident the day that you willingly agreed to work for Silas to help pay off your dad’s debt instead of fleeing the state of California and never looking back.

But this might just break the record for most reckless and foolhardy thing you’ve ever done.

Andrew waits for you in the parking garage down the block from the club until you get off just after three o’clock in the morning. Your body is exhausted, but your mind has never been more awake as you drive back to your apartment with him tailing you in his truck.

Your thoughts reel with all of the ways that this could go disastrously wrong.

You do not actually know this man. You’ve spent less than a collective two hours with him. Your gut tells you that he’s being honest, but is it worth the risk? He’s a bank robber. A convicted felon, who apparently comes from a crime family. Is it possible that you could just be trading one Silas for another? Andrew claims he can help you, but how? And at what cost?

Moments after you arrive at your apartment, Andrew pulls into the parking spot directly next to yours and then follows you wordlessly to your unit.

You have every intention of telling him to make himself comfortable on your couch and offering him fresh coffee. It is well after three o’clock in the morning - most people who don’t work the nightshift would be asleep at this time. But as soon as your front door clicks shut, you suddenly forget all pleasantries.

“You said that you know he’s got something over me.” You stand before Andrew in your small kitchen, looking him dead in the eye. “How much do you know, exactly?”

He meets your gaze with an equally level stare. It isn’t harsh, but it is hard for you to read. You’re quickly learning that to be the norm with Andrew. Difficult to read.

“I know enough,” Andrew says calmly. “I know Silas is a loan shark. I know you’re working for him to pay back money that you didn’t borrow.”

You nod slowly, dropping your gaze to the floor as you lean against your kitchen counter. “And how do you think you can help me with that, exactly?” You glance back up. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to believe you, but I just don’t see how you and your brothers robbing the guy magically frees me of him. I mean, if he were to find out that it was you, and that I’ve even talked you outside of the club, he would—”

“He wouldn’t find out,” Andrew cuts you off, voice even and low. “I would make sure of that.”

“How?” You take a step towards him without thinking, your hands clasped in front of you. “How would you make sure of that? If you know why I’m working for Silas, then I’m assuming you know about my father. It isn’t just my life on the line here, Andrew.”

His hazel eyes soften at that. “I do know about your father. I also know there’s a lot of people stuck in situations like you and your father, because of Silas. A lot of people who would all be better off if Silas…wasn’t around anymore.”

Your eyebrows lift halfway up your forehead. “Wasn’t around anymore?” You echo. As soon as they leave your lips, the implication becomes clear.

Wasn’t around anymore. Gone. Deleted. Erased.

Andrew doesn’t verbalize a response. He just watches you from where he stands an arm’s length away and waits for you to process what he’s telling you.

That he’s offering to kill Silas. Or have him killed. You don’t really know. There’s a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears that’s making it impossible to think clearly.

You finally manage to get two words out. “You’re serious.”

It isn’t posed as a question.

“I am,” Andrew says simply. “If you want me to be.”

You snort at that, because what the fuck are you supposed to say? “Yeah, off with his head!” and “oh no, please don’t hurt him!” somehow feel equally wrong.

You look to the floor again. And then around the room. To your houseplants that need watered, and then to last night’s dishes that still need to be put in the dishwasher. Anywhere but Andrew’s intense, unyielding honey colored stare that you could probably get lost in if it weren’t for the bizarre circumstances for which he is in your apartment right now.

Finally, you exhale. “I think…I want some coffee.” You turn to the espresso machine behind you, and then glance at Andrew over your shoulder. “What about you?”

He looks surprised for a split-second, then nods. “Yeah. Coffee sounds good.”

Upon your invitation, Andrew takes a stiff seat on your couch while you use the few minutes that it takes you to brew and prepare the drinks to attempt to process what the fuck has transpired since the two of you entered your apartment.

It does little good. You still have just as many questions as you did on the drive home. Even more now. Andrew is offering to kill for you? Has he killed before? Was he really in prison for bank robbery? Or was it something else? Should you be trying to secretly dial 911 on your watch right now?

Probably. If you were smart. But you’re not smart. You’re desperate, and Andrew might just be offering you a way out on a silver platter.

Although it could come back to bite you in the ass, right now, you’re willing to be an open book. You meant what you had said to Andrew at the club tonight - you don’t care what he and his brothers do to Silas. Rob him, or worse…he deserves it. And after the hell he has put you, and your father, through these last three years, you have very little hesitation helping Silas get his karma.

“Hypothetically,” you start, sitting down on your small loveseat directly across the table from him. “Let’s say I agree to this…walk me through it. How would you and your brothers…go about this? What would you need from me? And what about…afterwards? What would I owe you?”

The questions pour out of you faster than you can stop them.

Andrew’s brows scrunch together. “You wouldn’t owe me anything,” he says, like it’s obvious. “I’m not Silas. I just want to help you. And if you have any information that could potentially help us, then that would be great, but if not…I still want to do whatever I can to get you out of this mess.”

He says every word so sincerely that it makes you feel silly for even thinking otherwise.

Of course he isn’t Silas. You might not know Andrew very well, but you know that he isn’t Silas. Silas takes what he wants with zero regard for anyone but himself. Andrew has given you every opportunity to express discomfort, to change your mind, to tell him to fuck off. Even now, if you told him to get lost and never contact you again, you don’t doubt that he’d honor your wishes.

Andrew stares so heavy that you swear he can see right through you. His voice is low and steady when he speaks again. “You don’t deserve what Silas is doing to you. But he does deserve what’s coming to him.”

You don’t know if the next words out of your mouth mean that you’re crazy, or just desperate.

“What kind of information do you need?”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope didn’t want to leave you in Los Angeles, but he had to come back home to Oceanside to work out all of the details of the heist with his brothers.

He knows you’re capable of taking care of yourself. You’ve been doing it for years. You don’t need a man that you met two days ago playing bodyguard. But he’d be lying if he said that the thought of you working even one more shift at Solstice, or the thought of you being in close proximity to Silas, or the thought of a random sleazebag laying so much as a finger on you in that place doesn’t make his blood burn white-hot.

He takes comfort in knowing that after tonight, you only have to step foot into that place one more time. And that time, he will be there, too.

Still, he hates knowing that as he sits on his couch in Oceanside, you’re at the club in LA. Pope had suggested that you call out tonight, but you had shot that idea down quickly. You explained that you always work Sunday nights, and you didn’t want to risk drawing any negative attention to yourself before the heist that is now planned for this upcoming Friday night.

Currently, it is 3:46 in the morning, and Pope is wide awake, even though he shouldn’t be, and thinking of you, even though he probably shouldn’t be doing that, either. He wonders if you’ve made it home from work yet, and if your shift went okay or if Silas was there tonight…and he subconsciously grits his teeth at the thought of that.

He manages to hold out until 3:58 before he finds your name in the recently added section of his contacts and presses call.

You answer just after the first ring.

“Andrew,” Your voice pours from his speaker softly, slightly hoarse. “Is everything okay?”

Right away, he’s relieved at the lack of background noise. No music blasting and no drunk frat guys yelling over it. No car horns honking or sirens wailing. It’s safe to assume that you have made it home already.

“Everything’s fine,” he answers. “I just wanted to make sure you got home safely. See how your shift went.”

You exhale a hum of soft laughter. “Just walked through the door a few minutes ago. Work was busy. Really busy for a Sunday night. I’m glad it’s over. Almost.”

“Almost,” he agrees. “At least you’re off for the next few days. The next time you step foot in that place, it’ll be the last.”

There’s a brief pause before you speak. “As long as everything goes according to plan,” you murmur, and Pope can hear the nerves in your voice.

“It will,” he assures you. “Let us worry about that, alright? You just try to relax in the meantime.”

You snort. “Easier said than done.”

“Keep yourself busy so you don’t think about it too much,” Pope suggests lightly. “Do you have any plans this week?”

“Not really,” you grumble. “Los Angeles isn’t really my scene. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for…” You trail off momentarily. You don’t have to finish the sentence. “Anyway. I go to work, I go home, and sometimes I go to the beach. That’s about it.”

“You like the beach?”

“I do,” you hum. “It’s one of the very few things I like about living here. My apartment is only about a twenty minute drive from Venice Beach. Well, really more like forty with all of the traffic…”

Pope is silent for a moment. During those few seconds of silence, he can hear waves crash against the shore just beyond the front door of the small beachfront house. If he were to step outside and walk mere yards, his feet would touch sand. He can glance out of the window in front of him and see moonlight dance across the water. There’s nothing separating him from the ocean but the walls of the house.

“I live right on the beach, you know,” Pope says, going for casual but probably failing. “The beach is my front yard.”

“Really?” You chirp. “God, that must be nice. I mean, you saw where I live in LA. Just about anywhere beats this shitty apartment, and the shitty traffic, and all of the endless noise, but living on the beach? I can only imagine how peaceful that is.”

There’s an idea forming in Pope’s mind, and he knows it’s irrational and naive, but he has already offered to kill for you after knowing you for one day, so how crazy could anything else really be?

“You ever been to Oceanside?”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Against your better judgment, later that day you drive to Oceanside with the address Andrew sent you typed into your GPS.

You almost turn around at least a dozen times.

You don’t want to turn around, but what little common sense you possess nearly convinces you to do so. What would you say if one of your coworkers told you that they have packed a bag and are going to stay with a mysterious man who booked a private room with them only forty-eight hours ago, tipped them a thousand dollars, came back the very next night, and revealed that he’s planning to both rob and kill your boss?

You would tell them that the next time you see them, it’s going to be on a missing person’s poster or a Dateline episode.

Yet here you are. Doing exactly that. Because for reasons you do not fully understand, Andrew makes you feel safe. Maybe you’re just so used to feeling unsafe that true safety has become a foreign concept to you. Maybe your judgment is clouded. But when he told you that he has a spare room and offered it to you for the days leading up to the heist, it hardly took any convincing for you to say yes.

Now, less than twelve hours later, with only a duffel bag in your passenger seat stuffed full of beach attire and toiletries, you’re driving to him.

Andrew had offered to come get you, too. And even though you ultimately insisted that you were fine with driving yourself to Oceanside, you can’t deny that the offer made your whole body feel irrationally warm and fuzzy - the fact that he’d be willing to make a third trip to Los Angeles in the last three days because you had made an off handed comment about your distaste for LA traffic.

You’re excited. Not only to get away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles for a few days, but also to see Andrew again. This time not inside a private room at Solstice or in your tiny apartment at four o’clock in the morning. You’re eager to get a feel for who he really is outside of the club environment, to see how he is when he’s somewhere that he’s comfortable, to learn about the man who has done nothing but surprise you time and time again since you met him only days ago.

When your car’s GPS announces your arrival, you don’t have to question whether or not you’re at the right place. He’s waiting for you on the front porch.

Like every time that you have seen him so far, he wears a short sleeve button-up shirt and a grave expression that would make you question if he’s actually glad to see you if it weren’t for the fact that he wastes no time trotting down the porch steps to greet you at your car.

He opens your door for you before you have the chance.

“You weren’t exaggerating when you said that the beach is your front yard,” you laugh, grabbing your duffel bag from your passenger seat that Andrew immediately reaches to take from you. “If you were any closer, you’d be in the water.”

When you stand up, Andrew shuts your door behind you and then rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, his cheeks flushing slightly. It dawns on you that this is the first time that you’ve seen him in the daylight. Before now, you’ve only seen him in the neon fluorescents of the club and the low lighting of your apartment in the middle of the night. But now, in broad daylight without so much as a cloud in the sky, you feel like you’re really seeing him for the first time.

You already knew he has freckles, but now you could count every single one, if you wanted to. You knew that his eyes were hazel, but now you can see the tiny flecks of gold around his irises. And you thought that he was pretty the very first time you saw him in the alley, but you can’t help but think he’s even prettier in the sunlight.

“I may have said that to make you want to come,” he admits sheepishly. “But it wasn’t a lie.”

Your own face warms at the admission. “Well, clearly it worked. I came.”

Andrew’s mouth upturns slightly at the corners, his eyes crinkling around them. “Come on,” he nods towards the house. “I’ll show you around.”

The place is relatively small - a single story two bedroom, but in comparison to your studio apartment, it feels like a castle. And it’s clean. Spotless, actually. You hadn’t been expecting a pigsty by any means, but the exceptional tidiness is still a pleasant surprise. There’s not a decorative pillow out of place or so much as a dirty dish in the sink.

He carries your bag to the doorway of the first bedroom and lets you enter before him.

“This is the, uh…” Andrew trails off for a fraction of a second, searching for words, “This is the guest room. All yours while you’re here.”

You take in the appearance of the small room. Like the common areas of the house, it’s clean, but there’s certain characteristics that stand out to you. A pastel pink, floral comforter. A stack of children’s books on the dresser. A handful of small clothes hangers in an otherwise empty closet, and a ladder of pencil markings on the wall right beside it. At first, they look like random scratches in the paint, but as you take a step closer, you realize that they are height measurements. Each spaced a few inches apart, with dates scribbled next to each line. Some of the handwriting appears more feminine, whereas the more recent markings seem childlike.

You glance at Andrew over your shoulder, where he still stands in the doorway, watching you. “Do you…have children?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.

His gaze shifts past you, to the pencil markings in the far corner of the room. “No, I don’t,” he answers, a hint of melancholy in the words. “This room was my niece’s, but she doesn’t live here anymore. I just…can’t bring myself to erase it.”

Judging by his tone and dejected expression, he doesn’t seem particularly eager to talk about the subject, so you don’t press it any further, instead locking the information away with everything else you’ve learned about him in the last few days.

His childhood nickname is Pope. He had a twin sister named Julia. He drinks his coffee black. He has a niece, and as of last summer, she was approximately 45 inches tall. He did time in prison for armed robbery, and he’s prepared to kill someone for a woman he barely knows.

You offer a small nod. “Well, it’s a really nice place. Thank you, again. For inviting me. You have no idea how glad I am to be away from LA, even for a few days.”

Andrew’s expression softens. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, voice calm in a way that you’re quickly growing to find very comforting. “I’m happy that you’re here.”

You plop down on the edge of the mattress and grin up at him. “So, what’s the plan for today? You gonna show me around Oceanside?”

“I was planning on it.” He leans against the doorframe, his thumbs in his pockets as he smirks at you. “We can do whatever you want. Go to the beach, the pier, just ride around. We do need to go to the grocery store at some point so I can grab some things for dinner.”

Your eyebrows lift in surprise. “We can do whatever I want and you’re going to make me dinner? You’re quite the host, Andrew.”

He blushes at that, the apples of his cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. The thought crosses your mind right then and there - you would never in a million years guess that he’s capable of doing what he plans to do later this week just by looking at him. This blushing, thoughtful man who has been nothing but respectful and considerate of you since the moment you met. He’s going to put a permanent end to the problem that has plagued you for years?

There’s more than one side to people, clearly. But that doesn’t bother you. Not in the slightest. In fact, you’re interested in getting to know every side of Andrew Cody. The soft-spoken version of him standing before you, and the version of him capable of the kind of violence you’ve only ever let yourself fantasize about.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Oceanside is - quite literally - a breath of fresh air compared to Los Angeles.

It isn’t exactly a small town, but it feels like one by comparison. There’s less people, less noise, less traffic, less smells. The ocean is five minutes away no matter where you go.

Los Angeles may be less than a two hour drive from Oceanside, but it feels like it’s worlds away. You feel like you can actually fucking breathe here.

By the end of your very first day here, you dread ever returning to LA. To Solstice (even for just one more shift). To your cramped, overpriced studio apartment that you’ve tried your hardest to make feel like home but never really has.

But here? Oceanside? Even just a few hours after your arrival, you can tell that this is a place that could easily start to feel like home to you. Partially due to the relaxed nature of the beach town, and partially due to the curly-haired man who is currently cooking you dinner as you watch from across the kitchen bar.

“Whatcha gonna make for dinner?” You ask as Andrew pulls into the grocery store parking lot.

He puts the truck in park and unbuckles his seatbelt before turning slightly to face you. “That depends entirely on what you’d like to eat.”

You had tried to insist that you were fine with whatever, but Andrew is quite convincing when he wants to be. He had refused to leave the grocery store until you told him what to make for dinner. Not wanting to be an inconvenience, or high maintenance, or too picky, you suggested the first relatively simple and inexpensive meal that you could think of on the spot.

Now, you sit across the counter from him, watching as he cooks fettuccine alfredo for the both of you.

As hard as you try not to let your eyes wander, you can’t stop yourself. Andrew seems oblivious, and if he notices he doesn’t say anything, but your eyes are drawn to his broad shoulders, thick arms, and bulky chest. His curls are wind-blown and skin sun-kissed from an afternoon spent walking on the beach near his house, making his freckles more visible than ever.

He catches you smirking at him as he’s plating up the food. A bashful grin appears on his face. “What is it?”

You shake your head with a small shrug. “Nothing. You’re just…not at all what I thought you’d be when we first met.”

Andrew’s eyebrows arch slightly. “You mean the kind of guy that normally books private rooms with you at the club?”

You snort a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.” You pause, grinning. “I mean, obviously most of them don’t recruit me to help them rob my boss…” Andrew chuckles lowly at that. “But they also don’t cook me Italian food and let me stay at their beach house.”

“What can I say?” Andrew slides your plate across the counter. “I’m full of surprises.”

You can’t disagree with that.

Andrew takes a seat beside you and the meal is eaten in companionable silence for the most part, giving your thoughts time to stray to all of the things that you have tried your hardest not to dwell on too much since you arrived here today.

You’ve tried not to think about what’s to come at the end of the week, and all of the ways that it could go disastrously wrong. As hard as you try to think positively, you can’t help but worry about someone getting hurt. Andrew, or one of his brothers, or a random dancer at the club who somehow gets caught in the crosshairs, or even yourself. Your brain conjures worst case scenarios, causing visions of anyone other than Silas dying to replay on a loop until you snap yourself out of it.

But with Andrew sitting next to you, it’s a little easier to silence those scary thoughts and replace them with better ones. Like maybe, just maybe, if this whole operation doesn’t go to shit, there could be more moments like this.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Pope isn’t particularly eager for you to meet his family, but he knows it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Especially if he hopes to maintain a regular presence in your life once this week is over.

He doesn’t expect you to want the same, but he does hope.

So, on your second day in Oceanside, he bites the bullet and drives you both to the family home after asking his brothers and nephew to meet there to go over everything for the heist a final time.

You assure him you don’t mind, but you’ve never met his family before. He’s slightly comforted by the fact that he never has to worry about you meeting Smurf, but there’s still Deran and Craig, who act like teenagers more than half the time.

“Look,” Pope stops you with a gentle hand on your arm before he reaches for the front door, “If they say anything inappropriate, or weird, just ignore them. They’re children. We’re just here to go over the plan and then we’ll leave, I promise.”

You exhale a laugh. “I can assure you that I’m used to inappropriate and weird, Andrew. They cannot possibly be any worse than the men that I have dealt with on a regular basis the last three years.”

He hesitates a moment, his hand still on your arm as he watches for any sign of reluctance, but you give none. Grudgingly, Pope opens the door and lets you enter before him.

Inside, there’s less noise than Pope expects, and it gives him the tiniest bit of hope that everyone will be on their best behavior. He leads you through the house, where the two of you find Craig, Deran, and Jay already gathered in the living room.

All three pairs of eyes immediately land on you as soon as you and Pope enter the room.

“Holy shit,” Craig laughs. “She actually exists.”

Deran snorts. “I told you she does.”

“Still,” Craig shrugs. “I didn’t believe that she would actually be willing to hear Pope out and not immediately run screaming to the cops.” He stands then, walking the short distance to where you stand beside Pope, extending a hand to you in offering. “Craig, by the way.”

“Ah,” you sigh, briefly shaking his hand. “The mastermind behind this operation, I hear.”

Craig winks, clicking his tongue. “You’ve heard correctly.”

Jay and Deran then introduce themselves, clarity blooming on your face as you recognize Deran from the brief encounter in the alley. You’re perfectly friendly, but the tension in your shoulders and the way that you clasp your hands in front of you doesn’t go unnoticed by Pope.

He can’t blame you for being nervous. You are in a room full of criminals, all of whom are strangers to you - himself included - to plot not only the financial but also physical demise of the man who has made your life hell for years.

Anyone sane would be nervous. But it speaks volume to Pope how much trust you’re putting in him (and how desperate you must be for any chance at freedom, no matter how risky it may be).

With a featherlight hand on the small of your back, Pope nods to an empty section on the couch for you to take a seat. He sits directly beside you, just close enough for the side of your thigh to brush against his.

Craig immediately launches into the logistics of the plan for Friday night. Jay is to disable all security cameras inside and around the perimeter of the club, and then waits with the getaway car. After the cameras have been disabled, Craig, Deran, and Pope will all enter through the basement. Once they are in the safe room, Pope is to signal to you through a discreet communication device that you’ll wear in your ear.

“…and then you’ll tell your creepy floor manager…”

“Gregory.”

“Gregory,” Craig repeats, “that you saw a customer open the basement door and go downstairs. But only if you know that Silas is distracted at the time. We don’t want Silas coming down before we make Gregory open the safe.”

“Right,” you nod. “So then Gregory opens the safe, Deran takes the money and leaves, you and Andrew make Gregory call for Silas to come downstairs, and then…?”

“And then Craig and I take care of the rest,” Pope answers simply. He doesn’t want you worrying about the specifics as to what happens once Silas enters the basement. The less you know at that point, the better. “Whatever you do, you stay upstairs. Finish your shift just like you would any other night. By the time you get off, it’ll all be finished.”

You’re silent for a moment, glancing around at each of the men in the room before you turn your head just enough to look Pope in the eyes. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do to help? Kinda feel like I’m not really pulling my weight here.”

“We’re sure,” Pope says before any of the others have a chance to speak up, his tone final, leaving no room for objection. “Between the information you’ve given us and what you’ll say to Gregory, you’ve done more than enough.”

You glance down to where your hands are interlocked in your lap. Then, in a smaller voice with a humorless laugh, “Enough for you to kill a man for me? To risk going back to prison?”

The question makes him forget that the two of you are in a room with three other men. He instinctively reaches out, placing a hand on top of both of yours. Your eyes dart down in surprise to where his hand rests on yours and a thick silence settles over the room before Pope slowly retracts his hand before answering you with absolute resolution.

“Yes,” he implores. “I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again. You don’t have to do anything to earn this. I’m offering. Because I want to.”

He wants to for you. Since the moment he first saw you in that alley and he stood and watched as Silas grabbed you by the arm, a part of him has wanted to ensure that Silas never touches you again. That desire has only grown stronger since meeting you, talking to you, and getting to know you these last few days. The only thing that could possibly stop him from sending Silas to an early grave is if you personally begged him not to, and even then, Pope would still want to with every fiber of his being.

You stare at Pope, pursing your lips, and he halfway expects you to argue. But he doesn’t drop your gaze, doesn’t even blink, and eventually you exhale a shaky breath.

“Let’s do this, then.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“You nervous about tomorrow?”

You’re hardly able to make out the words over the crashing of waves against the shore and the squawking of a seagull just a few yards away from where you and Andrew sit on the beach.

You turn your gaze away from the sun that has started to set over the Pacific Ocean to find that Andrew is already looking at you.

“Of course,” you admit with a breathy laugh. “Are you nervous?”

Andrew lifts his shoulders in a small shrug, looking back out to the water. “We’ve pulled off more complicated jobs than this before. Not too long ago we infiltrated a military base. A strip club is nothing compared to that.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, as they tend to do anytime you’re learning new information about the man sitting beside you. “A military base?” You echo in disbelief. “Jesus. How exactly did you guys even get into this kind of thing, anyway?”

Robbing banks. Offering to kill a man for a woman he’s only just met. And apparently, infiltrating military bases. That kind of thing. The kind of thing that should send you running in the opposite direction but for some reason makes you want to lean in closer.

Andrew shakes his head, a quick snort of laughter escaping him. “Our mother,” he answers. “She taught us everything we know. I’ve been doing this since Craig and Deran were still in diapers.”

“Jesus,” you mumble. You don’t know the exact age difference between Andrew and his brothers, but he can’t possibly be all that much older than them. He was just a kid. “And you…enjoy it?”

Andrew thinks about it for a moment, leaning back with his palms pressed into the sand. “I wouldn’t say that enjoy is the right word. It’s just all that I’ve ever known.”

You nod slowly, contemplating the words. This lifestyle is his baseline for normal. If you struggle to remember what life was like before you got dragged into working at Solstice only a few years ago, you can only imagine the complex feelings that come with being groomed into an entire lifetime of crime.

“Have you ever thought about what else you would do?” You ask hesitantly. “If you weren’t doing this?”

Again, he doesn’t answer right away. You watch as his eyes narrow in thought, his stare locked on the pink and orange horizon ahead of you. “I’ve thought about it,” he murmurs, a hint of restrained emotion in his tone. “Never for long enough to act on it, but…maybe I’d open a skatepark. Eventually settle down, start a family of my own.”

“Really?” You can’t hide the surprise from your voice. You aren’t quite sure why the answer surprises you as much as it does - you did literally just meet this man less than a week ago, but you didn’t exactly peg him to be the chasing toddlers, Pee-wee soccer game on a Saturday morning kind of guy. “You want to have kids?”

“Maybe one or two,” he shrugs. “I probably won’t, though. It’s just something I like to think about sometimes.” He pauses. “What about you? What are you gonna do when this is all over?”

That’s a question that you’ve been asking yourself for years. Up until now, it has only felt like a distant fantasy. Even now, you’re trying not to get your hopes up too high for fear that it won’t work out. That things will take a turn for the worst. That someone will get hurt, that Silas will somehow get away and find out what you’ve tried to do. Even with freedom almost close enough to touch, you won’t let yourself believe it’s yours until you’re actually holding it in your hand…and until you are, it’s difficult to imagine what life could possibly look like.

You exhale. “I’ll probably start by visiting my dad. I haven’t seen him in a while. I wanna let him know that me and him are gonna be okay. And then…” You trail off momentarily, “and then I’m gonna get the fuck out of LA. Maybe go back to school eventually,” you shrug. “I guess I haven’t let myself think about it too much either.”

Andrew hums in thought at the response. Then, he sits up straight, pulling his knees awkwardly to his chest and looking at you with the same serious expression that you’re no closer to being able to read than you were the night you first met him.

“You’re always welcome here. If you need a place to stay while you figure out what you wanna do.”

The offer warms you more than the evening California sun. Not only the words, but the way you can’t help but think he sounds nervous, and maybe a little hopeful, when he speaks them.

And because you don’t know how to express your gratitude in words, you place your head on his shoulder, instead. He tenses in surprise for a fraction of a second, then relaxes into the embrace, nuzzling the side of his cheek against the top of your head.

“I do like it here,” you hum. I like you, too, you think to yourself. “I might have to take you up on that.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“Cameras are officially offline. Soleil, if you can hear me, cough two times.”

Jay’s voice pours through the tiny communication device that Andrew had helped place in your ear only an hour ago. You’re able to make out Jay’s words, but they’re muffled, as the club is already extremely busy tonight - which you’re far more grateful for than you usually would be. Tonight, the more noise, the better. Boisterous laughs and obnoxiously loud music means that patrons and dancers are less likely to hear anything out of the ordinary.

As inconspicuously as possible, you raise your arm and cough twice into your elbow.

“Good,” Jay replies. “Everyone keep to the plan. Pope, let us know when you guys are in.”

The line then goes silent, leaving you to attempt to act calm, cool and collected for however long it takes Andrew, Craig and Deran to get into the basement and then the safe room without being caught.

You haven’t even been here for an hour yet, and you already feel the need to reapply deodorant due to the intense nervous sweats that you’re currently experiencing. You’ve already been to the bathroom twice because your stomach is so tied in knots that you are convinced you’re going to get sick.

Maybe you should have listened to Andrew and called out tonight. He had tried to assure that they would find a way to make everything work without you there, but you stubbornly insisted on helping.

What if your anxiety gets the best of you and you get sick on center stage tonight? What if someone notices how antsy you are? What if your earpiece falls out while dancing?

Oh, that’s just a hearing aid. I somehow went partially deaf in the last few days.

It doesn’t help that Silas is exceptionally irritable tonight, barking at every dancer and employee for every little thing. You spend the first part of the night maintaining as much distance between yourself and him as you possibly can while also keeping a careful eye on him. It’s sheer dumb luck that no one requests a private room with you during the first hour of the night so you’re able to monitor both Silas and Gregory from a reasonable distance while simultaneously conversing with customers.

And, if you were having any second thoughts about playing a part in Silas’ demise, those go out the window the minute that he approaches you that night.

You’re standing at the bar, waiting on some drinks for a table you have been entertaining, when he eases up beside you. Call it a sixth sense, but the way that your skin crawls at the sudden presence tells you it’s him before you even glance over.

“Enjoy your days off?” Silas asks, voice low enough for only you to hear. You cut your eyes in his direction to find him smirking at you, the look in his eyes making it clear that he isn’t just making friendly conversation.

“I did,” you answer shortly, eyeing the bartender to see where she’s at with the Jack and cokes. Not that it’s any of your concern, you bite back.

Silas hums, swirling the ice in his glass. “I’m glad to see you tonight, you know. I was starting to worry that maybe you skipped town.”

Your hands clutch the edge of the bar to steady yourself, your stomach sinking. He doesn’t know. There’s no way that he knows. How would he know?

“Am I not allowed to go out of town for a few days when I’m not working?” You snort, trying to play it off, hoping your horror isn’t displayed across your face. You don’t deny it, because if he’s bringing it up, then he already knows. You just don’t know how much he knows. “I have to run my vacation plans by you now?”

A low chuckle escapes him as he takes a slow sip of his drink. “What’s in Oceanside, anyway?”

Fucking hell.

Just as the last word leaves his lips, and the room around you seems to freeze, the bartender slides the tray of drinks across the counter to you. Your hands are shaking, but you force yourself to pick it up. You’re vaguely aware of Andrew whispering your name in your ear, his voice panicked, but you can’t respond yet.

“The ocean,” you spit, turning around and walking away with the drinks before Silas can say another word.

When you’re halfway across the room, Andrew’s voice pours through the communication device again.

“Are you okay? What the hell was that?”

You still don’t risk responding. You drop the drinks off at the table with exaggerated pleasantries and quickly excuse yourself before the men have a chance to drag you into whatever it is they’re now animatedly conversing about. A fleeting glance in the direction of the bar lets you know that Silas is now occupied by a customer, and only after confirming that his attention is no longer on you, do you take off in the direction of the employee bathroom and lock the door behind you.

“Andrew?” You hiss under your breath. “How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it,” Andrew answers right away. “How the hell does he know?”

“I have no idea,” you whisper, sitting down on the closed toilet. Now that you’re alone and can begin to process what the hell just happened, your heart is racing and your body is shaking and you’ll be lucky to walk back out of this room without collapsing. “I haven’t told anyone about my trip to Oceanside. He must have someone keeping tabs on me when I’m not here.”

The realization makes bile churn in your gut. He’s watching you. Even when you’re not here, he’s watching. He knows when you come and when you go, and he knows where you go. Who fucking knows how many times he’s had someone spying on you when you were just buying groceries or getting your nails done or—

“Breathe,” Andrew says, somehow able to detect your panic without even seeing you. “He’s just trying to scare you. He might know that you went to Oceanside, but he doesn’t know our plan. This doesn’t change anything, okay? We’re already in. We’re doing this. And you won’t have to worry about him anymore after tonight.”

You inhale, then exhale, then repeat, trying your hardest to convince yourself that what he’s saying is true. You know he believes it, and you trust that he wouldn’t lie to you, but right now the small amount of self-preservation that you possess is screaming at you to abandon ship.

But then you think of Andrew, in the basement, only one floor separating you from him. You think of all he’s risking by what he’ll do for you tonight. You think of your time spent together in Oceanside, and how you long for more, and how that isn’t a possibility unless you leave this bathroom and do what you came here to do.

One more deep breath. “Okay,” you exhale. “Okay, I’m okay.” It sounds like you’re trying to assure yourself as much as you are him.

“Good,” Andrew encourages softly. “We’re in the safe room now. No sign of anyone down here. I need you to get Gregory to come downstairs now, okay? Remember the plan?”

Even though he can’t see you, you nod. “I remember.”

Just in case someone is standing outside the door, you flush the toilet and turn the sink on momentarily for the sake of keeping up appearances as you take in your own appearance. Your makeup is slightly patchy from beads of sweat that have gathered on your forehead, but all things considered, you look normal enough.

You pause with your hand on the bathroom doorknob, taking one last, steadying breath before reentering the main floor of the club. A large group of men are huddled around center stage as another popular dancer performs her solo set, and sensuous music blasts loudly through the room.

Silas has moved from his seat at the bar, relocating to a far corner where he sits conversing with a table of regulars with his back to you. Good. And as for Gregory….

Gregory stands next to one of the newest dancers, who currently looks as if she’s being held hostage by whatever Gregory is saying to her.

Now or never, you suppose, forcing one foot in front of the other as you walk across the room.

“Hey, Angel,” you greet her with a cheerful voice and smile, hoping it sounds genuine. “There’s a guy at the bar asking for a private dance with you. I told him I’d send you over.”

Right away, she looks relieved to be freed from her conversation with Gregory. “Thanks,” she breathes before heading in the direction of the bar.

Gregory starts to walk off - knowing that you won’t engage in casual conversation with him like the newer hires who feel obligated to - when you speak up.

“Hey, I saw a guy trying to open the basement door just a minute ago,” you tell him, relieved when the words come out with just the right amount of faux concern. Gregory immediately looks in that general direction, beady eyes narrowing as he tries to find who you could be referring to.

“He was jiggling the handle,” you continue, hoping it prompts him in that direction.

“A guy?” He repeats. “What guy? What did he look like?”

You shrug. “Never seen him before. He was about your height, middle aged, short black hair.”

Gregory’s eyes dart between you and the hallway behind you. “Okay,” he huffs, taking a step away from you. “I’ll tell Silas—”

“I already told him,” you blurt without thinking. “He’s busy. He told me to tell you to check it out.”

To both your surprise and relief, he doesn’t question you further. He just huffs in annoyance, muttering something under his breath about having to do fucking everything around here and storms in the direction of the basement stairway.

For the briefest of moments, you almost feel bad for him. Then, you remember all of the times he has walked in on you and other dancers in the changing room, or tattled on you to Silas for not smiling enough, or stared directly at your tits with zero shame, and then your guilt disappears just as quickly as it had appeared.

You aren’t quite sure what Andrew and his brothers plan to do with Gregory. You didn’t ask, and you aren’t going to. You figured that Andrew would likely give you the same answer he has to the majority of questions you’ve asked over the last few days: the less you know, the better.

You do your best to appear subtle as you watch Gregory approach the door that leads to the basement of the club. He glances around, seemingly looking for the mystery man that you had made up a description of on the spot. When he sees no one that looks as you had described (because of course he doesn’t), he jiggles the handle to find it still locked. Your stomach sinks as you worry that Gregory will chalk that up to good enough and turn around to report to Silas, but then he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a set of keys, still visibly muttering under his breath and shaking his head.

You breathe an audible sigh of relief when he opens the door and he slips into the stairwell without drawing any attention from Silas, who still has his back to the entire incident on the other side of the room.

“He’s coming,” you murmur under your breath, “Gregory is coming downstairs now.”

There’s a quick whisper of confirmation, so fast and low that you aren’t even sure whose voice it was, and then the line goes silent. Your part of the job is over, and you’re left to wait. Wait until you see Silas walk to the stairs when Andrew makes Gregory call for him. Wait as you hope that he never walks back up those stairs. Wait until you hear from Andrew, wait until your shift is over.

And waiting might just be the hardest part of it all.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

“I’m gonna ask you one more time to open this fucking safe.”

Like a rat after a piece of cheese, Gregory had walked right into the trap. He clearly had not actually expected anyone to be down here, because he walked right inside the safe room, muttering to himself about not getting paid enough, where Craig and Deran snuck up behind him, overpowering him within seconds. He didn’t even have a chance to yell before a handkerchief was crammed into his mouth.

Popes gotta hand it to Gregory, though. He fully expected the cowering, sniveling little shit to open the safe the very first time the three masked men demand he do so. But so far, he has yet to cave. Even with the barrel of Pope’s gun pressed to his temple.

He’s trembling, and whimpering, and he has definitely pissed himself, but he is also refusing to put the code in the fucking vault. He’s loyal to Silas, even if he’s nothing else, and that makes Pope feel the slightest bit better about what he plans to do with Gregory whenever they no longer have any use for him.

Pope and his brothers like to avoid casualties if at all possible. But after all you’ve told him about Gregory and now how stubborn he’s being? Pope has a hard time feeling bad.

“I don’t fucking have time for this,” Pope grunts, pulling the Glock away from Gregory’s forehead and instead aiming it towards the lower half of his body. He tries to shout, tries to protest, but the cloth crammed inside his mouth makes it all sound like muffled gibberish.

Pope doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, sending Gregory crumpling to the floor with a shot to the thigh that has him screeching around the gag; a high-pitched, animalistic sound. Upstairs, the music continues to blast, the bass vibrating through the floor. Even if Pope’s gun didn’t have a suppressor, he doubts anyone would have heard the shot over all the noise in the club.

Craig and Deran yank Gregory back upright despite his cries of pain. “The next shot won’t be to your leg. You think we’re bluffing?” Craig bellows. “You’re gonna find out if you don’t open that fucking safe right now.”

Gregory frantically nods. Craig and Deran haul him forward, and he raises his bound wrists to the safe’s keypad and begins typing with shaking hands. After a few seconds, the safe door clicks open. Deran pulls Gregory out of the way, allowing Pope to open the door.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Craig laughs in relief at the sight inside. “This has gotta be even more than I thought.”

It is a lot - too much for Pope to take an accurate guess as to exactly how much, but it has to be in the hundreds of thousands. He can’t get too excited yet, though. Not when Gregory here is bleeding through his pants and you’re still upstairs with Silas.

Pope and Craig make quick work of emptying the safe, shoving the stacks of cash into backpacks that Deran and a soon to be masked Gregory will wear out of here to where Jay awaits with the getaway car while Pope and Craig deal with Silas. But first…

“You got your phone on you?” Pope asks Gregory.

Gregory nods with an unintelligible noise of confirmation through the handkerchief still in his mouth.

“Good,” Pope lifts a hand to remove the gag, pausing before pulling it out. “I’m gonna take this out now. You scream, you die. Understand?”

Gregory nods, eyes wide with fear. Pope then yanks the cloth out of Gregory’s mouth, and he immediately begins to hyperventilate.

“Where’s your phone?” Craig demands.

“Back - back pocket,” Gregory pants.

Deran reaches into the back pocket of Gregory’s pants, retrieving the cell phone and tosses it to Pope. Pope holds the phone up to Gregory’s face, letting Face ID unlock the screen. He goes through Gregory's call history and quickly finds Silas’ name.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Pope says coolly, looking Gregory dead in the eye. “You’re going to give your boss upstairs a call. You’re gonna stay calm, and tell him that you need him to come down here right now. When he asks why, you tell him there’s an issue with the safe. If he tries to question you, you pretend you can’t hear him over the music and reiterate for him to come down here. Am I clear?”

Craig speaks up before Gregory has a chance to agree or disagree. “If you try to warn him, you’ll be bleeding from your other leg, too. Or worse. Got it?”

Gregory nods with a panicked sound of agreement, and Pope presses Silas’ name. He answers after the second ring, pop music pouring through the phone’s speaker.

“What?” Silas barks.

Gregory doesn’t speak right away. He opens his mouth like he’s going to, but then closes it, his eyes darting between Pope, Craig, and Deran. Pope wiggles the phone in his face, giving Gregory a look that dares him to test his luck.

“Hey,” he squeaks. “I - uh - I need you to come downstairs for a minute.”

“What?” Silas snaps. “Why? What are you doing downstairs right now?”

“I…I…uhm—” Gregory stutters, his voice unnaturally shrill and shaky. He looks between Pope and his brothers again in hesitation, unable to force the next words out. Deran nudges Gregory’s ribcage with his gun in a reminder of what’s at stake.

There’s one last, loaded second of silence before Gregory opens his mouth and seals his fate…and yours.

“Soleil told me she saw a man going to the basement, I’m sorry Silas, they made me do it—”

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

You watch Silas from across the room the moment that he raises his cell phone to his ear.

It could be someone else calling him. Maybe it isn’t Gregory, yet. But it only takes about ten seconds for any doubt to fade away, because Silas looks over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the room until they lock with yours.

You try to look away, to play it off, to pretend you weren’t just watching him like a hawk, but it’s too late. He noticed. He definitely fucking noticed. And whatever was said to him during that short phone call, makes him stand up and head directly towards you.

“Why don’t we take a little walk?” Silas says, low enough for only you to hear. “There’s some things that we need to talk about.”

Your knees buckle and the room around you begins to spin. “I…have a private room in a few minutes. Can’t it wait?”

That’s a lie, but you’re trying to do whatever it takes to do what Andrew had asked of you. Stay upstairs.

“Nah, it can’t.” Silas glances around briefly before sliding a hand into his coat pocket. The movement looks innocent enough but then the unmistakable outline of a gun straining against the material catches your eye. You look back up, your blood running cold, and he’s smirking at you. “And I’m not asking.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to object before he grabs you by the arm and starts hauling you across the overcrowded dance floor, everyone too drunk and distracted to pay any mind to either of you.

“Where are we going?” You ask, trying to play dumb. You say the words loudly enough that Andrew, or anyone listening downstairs, will be able to hear.

He vibrates with low, chesty laughter. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

It takes every ounce of concentration just to put one foot in front of the other and keep yourself upright. Your thoughts are reeling with worst case scenarios. What will you find when you enter the basement? Did Andrew and the others get caught? Did Gregory have a gun on him? Is someone hurt? Once you walk down these stairs, will you ever walk back up?

Neither of you speak again until Silas opens the stairwell door, pushes you inside, and pulls it closed behind him.

“I’ve always known that you’re a flight risk,” Silas grumbles, steering you down the stairs with one hand gripping you by the shoulder and the barrel of his gun now pressed to the small of your back. You couldn’t escape even if you tried. “You really think I wouldn’t notice if you left town for four days? To fuck off to Oceanside?”

You don’t answer. His grip on your shoulder tightens enough that you’ll still feel the imprint of his hand hours later.

“The tracker that I put on your car sure came in handy,” he chuckles low, the sound sending chills down your spine. “Led me right to the Cody residence. I had to do a little digging after that, but imagine my surprise to learn that the Codys have quite the reputation.”

You reach the bottom of the stairs, and he shoves you up against the concrete wall and brings the gun to the side of your temple. You can’t stop the whimper that escapes your lips.

“I just didn’t think you would risk your dad’s life trying to pull some bullshit like this. Clearly I underestimated just how stupid and naive you really fuckin’ are.” He’s close enough that spit sprays across your face with nearly every word that he says.

“So this is what you are going to do if you want your sweet old daddy to live to see another day,” he murmurs, voice lethally calm in a way that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight.

Your dad’s face the night Silas first showed up at his house to collect flashes through your mind. The night that would eventually butterfly effect into you standing right here, right now.

“We’re going to walk in there exactly like this.” He presses the gun harder against your temple for emphasis. “And you’re going to tell whoever is in that room to put my money back where they found it. After they’ve done that, you’re going to tell them to get the fuck out of here unless they want to clean your brains off of my floor. And then I’ll deal with you after.”

He pulls the gun away, and the small device in your left ear suddenly feels impossibly loud despite the silence on the other end.

You can only hope that Andrew has heard every word and knows what is coming.

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

The door to the safe room is wide open, and you see Gregory’s motionless body crumpled on the floor before you even step foot inside, a bullet wound dead-center of his forehead.

The second thing you notice is that Craig and Deran begin to lower their weapons as soon as you, and Silas directly behind you with his gun still aimed at your head, come into view.

The third, and most concerning thing? Andrew is nowhere to be seen.

After you get over the initial shock of realizing that Gregory is dead, presumably killed by one of the boys after saying whatever the hell he said that made it click in Silas’ head that you have very much played a part in all of this, the realization that you have no idea where Andrew is and that Craig and Deran are surrendering their weapons hits you like a brick.

You were so, so stupid to have ever thought this would work. To have actually believed that things wouldn’t go to shit, that everything would go according to plan, that this would end in your freedom. Now it’ll be a miracle if you and every member of the Cody family makes it out of this building alive.

Where the hell is Andrew?

He wouldn’t leave his brothers behind. He wouldn’t leave you behind. You’re sure enough of that. Not if there were any other way.

“Well?” Silas barks, pressing the muzzle of the gun into your temple. “Tell them.”

But your mouth has gone bone dry. Andrew. Andrew. Where is Andrew—

Craig and Deran exchange a look that lasts a mere second before Craig opens his mouth to speak. “Look, man, we don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Let her go and we’ll leave. Just take it easy.”

“Easy?” Silas repeats incredulously. “You conspire against me, break into my club, kill one of my employees…” He tips his head in the direction of Gregory’s lifeless body. “…and you want me to take it easy?”

Craig and Deran are both silent.

“Kick the bags over,” Silas sighs, his patience already wearing thin.

“Do what he asks, guys,” you manage to force out. “He’ll let you go. Just give back the money.”

Another second of hesitation, another glance between themselves, and then they nudge the backpacks across the floor.

Silas laughs quietly from behind you. “Smart choice.”

It’s then that you notice Craig’s eyes shift past Silas, the movement too quick and minute for Silas to even register as he starts to reach down for one of the backpacks.

Then all hell breaks loose, and the following thirty seconds feel like something out of a fever dream.

One second, Silas’ gun is pressed against your head, and the next, it’s flying across the room with a shot that goes right through the wall. Your body gets propelled forward by a blunt force from behind you, and you go tumbling to the floor with a sharp cry.

When you look up, there’s chaos all around you, but most importantly, there’s Andrew.

The door to the safe room, which had been wide open just seconds ago, is now nearly shut. He had been here the whole damn time, just waiting for the perfect moment to pop out and strike Silas from behind.

Andrew drives into him like a freight train, wrapping both arms around Silas’ torso and carrying him into a metal shelving unit. The entire thing rattles violently on impact, random boxes and loose paperwork falling from the shelves and scattering across the floor. Silas lets out a startled, animalistic grunt, but he recovers surprisingly fast for a man pushing sixty.

Then Craig and Deran jump in, and the four men crash together in an aggressive tangle of limbs and curses. It all happens so fast that it’s impossible to tell who throws which punch and whose blood is dripping onto the concrete.

All you know is that you’re the reason that they called Silas down here in the first place, and you see someone’s gun on the ground, no more than an arm’s length away from you.

Before you can give it a second thought, you grab the gun and force yourself to your feet.

Your hands are shaking so hard that it looks as if you have Parkinson’s disease, and you’re terrified to take the shot for fear that you’ll hit anyone other than Silas, but every horrible thing he has said and done in the last three years is suddenly replaying in your mind as your finger dances over the trigger and you know without a doubt that you have to do what you’re most scared to do.

You yell. A deep, guttural sound that tears through you, loud enough to get the attention of all four men in front of you. Deran, who’s positioned slightly in front of a beaten and bloodied Silas, instantly moves out of the way, giving you a clear shot.

You hear Andrew say your name, you see Silas start to attempt to lunge towards you, but you don’t let either of those things stop you from squeezing the trigger.

Time slows down. Despite the fact that the gunshot hadn’t been very loud thanks to the suppressor attached to it, there’s still a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears.

For only a fraction of a second, you wonder if you hit him at all. Then, your question is answered when dark crimson begins blooming across the fabric of his cream colored button-down, just over his heart.

Silas opens his mouth to speak, but only blood comes out, and then he falls forward, collapsing on the ground beside Gregory.

You’re still aiming the gun right where Silas had been standing with shaking hands when Andrew takes a tentative step towards you.

“I killed him,” you whisper, voice trembling. “I killed him.”

Andrew slowly and carefully peels your hands away from the gun and takes it from you. You’re still glued to the spot, both your mind and body in shock from what just happened. From what you just did.

You killed him. You killed Silas. You killed someone. Murdered them. And yes, they deserved it, but you still fucking pulled the trigger and shot them in the chest.

“No, you didn’t,” Andrew murmurs, giving Silas a kick to the shoulder with his foot. Silas lets out a weak groan that makes you instinctively jump back. “He’s still alive.” Then, before you can spiral any further, Andrew aims the gun directly at the man lying on the floor and fires it again, hitting Silas in the head.

He turns to face you, holstering the gun. “See? You didn’t kill him. I killed him.”

“So much for not shooting him in front of her,” Deran grumbles as he picks up one of the backpacks and slides it on. Him and Craig begin to move around the room, but you aren’t paying attention to what they are doing, because your eyes are locked on the body on the floor in front of you.

Bodies. Plural. Two of them. Silas, and Gregory. And blood. A lot of it.

Andrew steps in front of you, blocking your view of it all.

“We need to clean all of this up now,” Andrew tells you gently. He raises his hands as if he’s going to place them on your shoulders, but stops himself at the last second, his hands hovering awkwardly for a moment before dropping them back to his sides. “I need you to do one last thing for me, and then this will all be okay. Okay?”

His voice is steady and calm, but his hazel eyes are serious and pleading, like it’s taking every ounce of his willpower to maintain composure for your sake.

You give him a shaky nod to confirm that you heard him.

“I need you to go back upstairs. I need you to keep watch and make sure that no one tries to come down here, and warn us if they do.”

You’re shaking your head before he finishes speaking. “What? No, no. I can’t go back up there. I can’t. I won’t be able to keep it together. I can’t pretend like—”

“You can,” Andrew interjects, voice firm. “It’s for your own safety, too. People will be suspicious if you disappear at the same time as Silas. You need an alibi. Go upstairs, show your face, book a private room or two, and pretend like everything is normal. Just for a few more hours.”

You swallow, inhaling and exhaling. What he says makes sense. All of the individual words make sense. But how the fuck are you supposed to walk back upstairs and act like everything is normal when you just killed a man?

Okay, Andrew technically killed him. But you still shot him in the lung. He would have eventually died from that alone even if Andrew hadn’t taken the gun from you and put a bullet in his brain.

“Just stay until the end of your shift to cover your own ass. Do you know if anyone noticed you come down here?”

“Uh—” you stutter, trying to remember everything that led up to this moment. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. The club’s really crowded tonight, everyone seemed busy and distracted.”

“Good,” Andrew nods. “You were never down here, okay? The cameras are offline, so you were never here.”

You nod, still unsure of how you’re going to will your legs to carry you back up those stairs, or how you’re going to keep the utter shock of what has transpired in this basement off of your face for the next few hours.

“What - what about you guys?” You ask him. “How are you going to get rid of all of this?”

Andrew shakes his head in dismissal. “You don’t need to worry about any of that. We’ll handle it. The bodies, the blood, the money, we’ll take care of all of it. Just go upstairs and keep an eye out for us.” He pauses, his eyes scanning your face. “You’ve trusted me so far, yeah? I just need you to trust me again for a few more hours.”

You have. You do. You don’t know if you trust yourself to not have a full blown panic attack in the middle of the club, but you do know that you trust Andrew.

You can’t quite bring yourself to verbally agree, but you nod.

Andrew takes a step closer and raises a tentative hand to your face, gently tilting your head to the side. “Earpiece is still in place,” he murmurs.

You expect him to pull away once he’s satisfied with his inspection, but he doesn’t. Instead, the soft pad of his thumb sweeps beneath your eye, wiping away a streak of smudged mascara. The touch is so tender that under different circumstances, you might have leaned into it. Might have closed the distance between you entirely. But right now, with blood still drying on the floor, all you can do is stand there and let him.

It gives you the much needed inspiration to get through the next few hours without completely falling apart, at least.

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

It takes every single last ounce of Pope’s self-restraint to not abandon Craig, Deran, and Jay to deal with the aftermath of the heist by themselves while he whisks you far the hell away from the city of Los Angeles in the middle of the night.

Truthfully, the only reason he doesn't do just that is because he doesn’t want it to come back to bite you in the ass.

He has to make sure everything is cleaned up. Everything. Every last drop of blood, every fingerprint, every strand of hair that could have fallen from your person to the floor of that safe room has to be eradicated before he feels comfortable leaving the club’s premises, and he sure as fuck doesn’t trust Craig or Deran to be as thorough as him. Deran lets his dish sponges get filthy and he doesn’t trust Craig to properly wash his own ass.

Finally, in the early hours of morning just before dawn, Pope can confidently say that the job is finished. Through the combined efforts of Craig, Deran, Jay, and himself, the safe room is cleaned spotless, the bodies of Silas and Gregory are disposed of, and the haul of cash makes it back to Oceanside.

Getting both bodies out wasn’t exactly easy, but Pope had planned for shit to go sideways. Jay was on standby in the getaway truck with an appliance dolly in case they were unable to retrieve the money from the safe while inside the club.

It was Craig’s idea, actually, to cram both bodies inside the safe and haul the entire thing offsite…to the middle of the fucking desert where all four men spent several hours digging a hole big enough for a six hundred pound safe.

No, things didn’t go according to plan, but they rarely do. It all proved to be worth it when the cash count ended up being just shy of half a million.

And if Pope’s share of more than a hundred grand wasn't enough to make the entire ordeal feel worthwhile, the relief on your face and the way you fling your arms around his neck when he shows up at your apartment later that day sure as hell does.

Maybe it’s a combination of everything that has happened in the last twelve hours and sleep deprivation, but it takes Pope a moment to register that you’re hugging him in your doorway. When he does, he wraps his arms around your torso and hugs you back, pulling you tight against his chest without a word.

“Sorry,” you breathe when you pull back, just far enough to look up at him. “I’m sorry, I…I’ve been so worried.”

He instantly feels guilty. He had sent you a singular text to let you know that they had left the city when they were on their way to the desert, but after that, he had been so preoccupied with disposing of Silas and Gregory’s corpses that he hadn’t provided you any further updates. He had been operating on autopilot, going through the motions of shoveling dirt, driving his brothers and nephew back to Oceanside, and then driving all the way back to Los Angeles after only a shower and two shots of espresso.

“No, I’m sorry,” Pope murmurs, reluctantly dropping his arms back down to his sides. “I should’ve texted, or called, I just…” He glances around to make sure that none of your neighbors are lingering around outside. You notice his hesitation and move to motion him into your apartment. He steps inside, only continuing once you pull the door closed behind him. “Just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.”

“And?” You ask, biting your bottom lip in the way Pope has noticed that you tend to do when you are especially nervous about something. “Is it? Taken care of?” You add in a smaller voice.

Pope nods. “Yeah. Everything has been taken care of. There’s nothing that you need to worry about now. No one will ever find them.”

You audibly exhale in relief, your shoulders visibly relaxing as you lean against your kitchen counter and cross your arms over your chest. “Andrew, I…I don’t even know how to say thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me at all,” he says simply.

He’s told you already, but he’ll tell you again, he did this because he wanted to.

He saw you in that alleyway and knew you didn’t belong in that place. He saw you dance on that stage and knew that he had to talk to you. He had one conversation with you and knew that he would be willing to kill for you.

And he would do it all over again, even if he didn’t gain a penny from it all.

Which reminds him…

He pulls out a large, thick envelope tucked beneath the waistband of his jeans and holds it out to you. “Actually,” he clears his throat, “you can thank me by taking this.”

Your eyebrows scrunch together as you accept it from him. “What’s this?”

“It’s your cut.”

You pause before starting to open it. “My cut?”

“Yeah,” Pope shrugs. “Your cut from the money we pulled last night.”

You don’t even look inside before you’re trying to hand it back to him. “Andrew, no. I can’t take this. You killed a man - two men - for me, and then cleaned up the mess and dumped their bodies in the middle of the ocean—”

“Desert, actually,” he corrects softly, and your mouth snaps shut into a tight line, but he can tell by your eyes that you’re fighting a smirk.

“Still,” you implore. “You have done more than enough for me. Taking your money wouldn’t feel right. Not when you’ve already given me a second chance at life. That’s worth more than any amount of money ever could be, Andrew.”

God, he needs to go to sleep, because the last thing he should be thinking about right now is how much he likes to hear you call him by his name.

He hums a laugh, reluctantly accepting the envelope that you’re practically shoving against his chest, then takes a slow step towards you that leaves very little space between you. You’re slotted between him in front of you and your kitchen counter behind you, but you don’t appear the least bit put off by the tight space.

“Thought you said that you wanna get out of LA?” He murmurs. He reaches beside you, placing the envelope on the counter behind you. Then, instead of dropping his hand back to his side, it hovers for an awkward moment before falling to the edge of the counter, right next to your hip. He isn’t quite touching you, but if he moved his hand over a quarter of an inch, he would be. “Go back to school eventually? Start a new life?”

You’re smirking up at him now. “I did say that.”

He quirks a brow. “Then you’ll need money to do that.”

You’re silent for a moment, your eyes trailing over his face. You raise a tentative hand to his jaw, the soft pad of your thumb brushing a featherlight touch over a bruise that he had sustained in the brief but intense scuffle with Silas. Without thinking, he leans into the touch. The bruise is tender, but the feeling of your skin against his outweighs any discomfort.

“I thought you said that I’m always welcome at yours,” you hum. He opens his eyes to find you grinning slyly. It makes the back of his neck warm.

“You are,” he answers automatically. “Always. Is that…something you think you would want?”

You don’t answer with a yes, or a no, or even a nonchalant shrug. You just stare at him with that same soft, teasing expression as your eyes flicker between his eyes and his mouth, your hand still caressing his face.

There’s barely enough time for him to wonder if you’re thinking of doing what he has wanted but held back from doing since you pulled into his driveway in Oceanside before you lift onto your toes and press your lips to his.

His breath catches in his chest as your lips, tentative and impossibly soft, brush over his and every coherent thought leaves his mind at once. One moment, he’s standing in your kitchen trying to convince you to take sixty thousand dollars in cash, and the next he can’t remember how to breathe because the feel and smell and taste of you is overtaking his senses.

You linger just long enough for him to pull away if he wants to.

He does not. Of course he doesn’t.

His hand moves from the counter to your waist, and yours still resting on his jaw shifts to the back of his neck where your fingertips toy with the hair at the base of his skull. He leans down into the kiss, angling himself closer until there’s barely any space left between the two of you.

It’s soft, and hesitant, as if you’re both worried that if you move too fast, the moment will end all too soon. Warm lips move tenderly against his, your tongue sweeping lightly against his in permission that he eagerly grants.

It’s probably the last thing he should be thinking about in this particular moment, but he’s glad that he didn’t talk Craig out of his idea for a gentleman’s club based heist. Really, really fucking glad.

When you pull away, you release a small, breathless laugh that ghosts across his lips.

“Don’t worry,” you breathe, “that wasn’t me trying to say thank you or anything. I just wanted to do that.”

“Yeah?” He murmurs, brushing his lips over yours a final time. It isn’t quite a kiss, but it sends goosebumps down his spine nonetheless. “I take that as a yes, then? You’ll come to Oceanside with me?”

You nod, the tip of your nose nudging his. “I think Oceanside with you is exactly where I need to be.”

｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡ three months later ｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡

“Are you sure you can’t see anything?”

Your eyes are wide open, and all you see is pitch darkness. Andrew is apparently as meticulous at securing bandannas around a person’s forehead as he is everything else he does in life.

No surprise there.

“Honey, I’m positive,” you laugh, repeating yourself for the third time since you got home from class no more than five minutes ago. Andrew had been waiting to greet you, as he usually is, with a blindfold in hand. That part was unexpected, but you have quickly learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to Andrew. He never disappoints.

He had asked if you trust him (he knows that you do) and proceeded to secure the black cloth around your eyes before guiding you down the hallway to the spare room of yours and his new place, which he recently set up as a study room for you.

“Ready?” He murmurs, one hand on your lower back as the door creaks open.

You step into the room. “I don’t know. Am I?”

He chuckles softly, bringing his hands to where the cloth is tied behind your head and then pauses. “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it down.”

“Take it down?” You echo, brows scrunching beneath the fabric.

He answers by letting the cloth fall away from eyes.

What you see is the very last thing you expect.

Right in the very center of the room, directly in front of where you stand, is a dance pole. Damn near identical to the one you had in your Los Angeles apartment. The one you hadn’t bothered to bring with you to Oceanside, because you had been so eager to leave everything about your life there behind. Everything.

Or so you had thought, until very recently when you began to find yourself missing one, and only one, thing. Dancing.

Not dancing for money, not dancing for men, but just dancing. By yourself, for yourself.

You had mentioned it to Andrew in passing only yesterday, that you wish you had kept your dance pole when you packed your entire life into your car and happily drove from Los Angeles to Oceanside to be with him.

Now, not even a full twenty-four hours later, he has both acquired and installed one since you left for class this morning.

You don’t even realize that you’re just staring at the pole, wordlessly, until Andrew clears his throat.

“Like I said, I can take it back down. It isn’t a big deal.”

“What?” Your gaze snaps to him. “No, it’s not…it’s perfect. I was just thinking,” you murmur.

His eyebrows lift slightly. “What are you thinking about?”

Since you came to Oceanside three months ago, you and Andrew have taken things relatively slow in your relationship, aside from the obvious of living under the same roof.

Things started in such an unexpected and unconventional way, but once you got here, your newfound dynamic was able to settle with a sense of normalcy. You may have met in a strip club, killed your boss together, and had your first kiss all in a week’s time, but Andrew still took you out on a proper first date and has been nothing but patient with letting the relationship progress at a pace that you’re comfortable with - physically, mentally, and emotionally - while processing everything that you’ve been through in the last few years and starting your life over at the same time.

Never, in a million years, would you have expected such beauty to come from such trauma, but it did. Because of him, it did. He was the light waiting for you on the other side of the darkness.

You shrug, grinning softly. “About how much I love you.”

Andrew’s hazel eyes widen in surprise. It’s the first time you have said those three words aloud. It’s not the first time you have thought them, but it is the first time you have verbalized them.

After the initial shock fades from his face, it’s replaced with the grin that you’ve fallen in love with waking up to every morning. He takes a step toward you, closing the distance between you by taking your face in his hands and slotting his lips against yours. Your arms instinctively wrap around his thick torso, melting into his embrace as he kisses you in a way that is both familiar and takes your breath away.

He murmurs the next words out of his mouth against yours in between kisses, his voice low and sincere.

“I love you very much.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

thank you SOOOO much if you read to the end of this!!! as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated and will make me love you forever.

also, if anyone reading has watched season 2 of the punisher, i’m sure you caught the reference in the heist scene 😉

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