Getsway Car Fic Recs

She sets the cup down before she drops it, which feels like excellent planning from a brain currently buffering, and looks toward the living room. Garrett’s beside the couch with Logan and Beau, laughing at something Dean’s performing with both hands and no dignity.

He looks unfairly solid from here. Grey Briar hoodie, one hand around a beer, feet planted like the floor has personally promised not to move for him.

She leaves Blair with, “One second,” and crosses carefully, brushing past warm bodies and somebody wearing enough cologne to qualify as chemical warfare.

Garrett sees her before she reaches him. His smile stays, but his attention leaves the conversation so completely Dean could probably set himself on fire without winning it back.

“Hey, baby.” Garrett’s hand finds her waist. “You good?”

She presses her fingers into his hoodie. “Don’t feel good.”

That’s all it takes. No panic, no loud questions, no Garrett Graham Medical Emergency Spectacular for Beau’s entire fraternity. He puts his beer into Logan’s hand and bends slightly, bringing his face closer. “Low?”

“Think so.” She rubs at her forehead. The music seems to be arriving from far away now, each beat landing late. “Feel weird.”

“Okay.” His thumb moves against her side. “Phone?”

“Kitchen. Coats.”

Blair’s already there, holding it and her bag. The Dexcom graph glows when Garrett checks it, his mouth flattening at the number and arrow.

“Alright,” he says, still maddeningly calm. “Couch first.”

“I can stand.”

“Thrilling. Sit anyway.”

She might argue if the couch weren’t suddenly beautiful. Garrett guides her over with his palm firm at her back, waits while Beau evicts two freshmen, then lowers her onto the cushions and crouches in front of her. His knees bracket her shoes while he searches her bag.

“You have juice?”

“Side pocket.”

He finds the little carton, stabs the straw through the foil with more aggression than the juice has earned, and passes it over. “Drink.”

She takes three pulls, then lets the straw fall from her mouth. “It’s warm.”

“Yeah, Beau’s frat house failed its Michelin inspection. Keep going.”

A laugh catches weakly in her throat. Garrett’s eyes lift to hers, steady, checking more than her number without making her feel inspected. She finishes it while he stays crouched there, thumb moving over the inside of her wrist where her pulse is quick beneath the skin.

By the time the room stops slipping sideways, tiredness has moved in behind it, thick and immediate. She sinks into the couch and presses her hand to her forehead. “I’m gonna go home.”

Garrett nods like she has suggested something ordinary. “I’ll take you, baby. We’ll go to mine, yeah? Get you something proper to eat.”

“I’m so tired, baby.”

“I know.” He sits beside her, tugging her gently into his side while they wait for the next reading. “Come on. We’ll go.”

She tips her face into his shoulder. He smells like detergent, beer he barely drank, and cold air caught in his hoodie. “I don’t wanna ruin your night.”

“You’re not ruining anything.” His mouth brushes her hair. “Dean was explaining cryptocurrency. You saved me.”

From behind them, Dean says, offended, “I was not.”

Garrett does not turn around. “See? Already feeling better.”

Her mouth twitches against his shoulder. When the number begins nudging upward, Garrett hands her crackers from her bag, then stands and pulls her carefully with him, taking her coat from Blair and slinging her bag over his own shoulder.

“I can walk,” she murmurs.

“I know.”

“I’m not dying.”

“Also know that.”

“You’re being bossy.”

He tucks her coat around her and kisses her temple, warm and absent-minded, as though caring for her isn’t an interruption but simply the next thing his hands were always going to do. “Yeah, baby. Terrible character flaw. Let’s go home.”

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It was a messy jumble of words, ink stains obvious on the fading paper, the emotions spilling out before you could even register what you were writing. All you knew was that you needed the whole thing out of your system and onto the only thing you knew what to do and that was to write. 

Before you could stop, or be smart about it, everything was poured on the paper. Lengthy, descriptive, and full of the things you wanted to say, and things you know you can’t say, because even at that age, you knew that liking John Logan was a beautiful terrible idea. 

Because he was your best friend. And you aren’t supposed to like your best friend. At least, in your head. Who are you to ruin the friendship, you know?

You remember folding it in half. Then again, then for a third time, like you were trying to make it as small as possible. Like diminishing it physically would diminish what the words on the paper meant. 

You'd been looking for somewhere to put it. The trash felt too final, too much like admitting it had existed, and you were halfway on just stuffing it under your pillow  when you'd found the box. Your grandmother's, handed down at the end of summer with a kiss on your forehead and the words for letters you mean to send someday. Wooden, old-smelling, with a brass latch that stuck a little if you didn't press it just right.

You'd tucked the letter in and shut the latch.

That was the beginning of it.

-

It had been a random tuesday, back in junior year of high school.

John – he had always been John to you before he became Logan – had after school hockey practice. You'd been draped over the boards for the past ten minutes, watching from the bleachers the way you always did when you had nowhere better to be, which was most days— something you'd never quite admitted to yourself until recently. Because the walk home was shorter from this direction. You had a whole catalogue of reasons, and not one of them was true.

John had been the last one off the ice.

That in itself was not unusual. John Logan was always the last one off the ice. The coach was nice enough to lend him that extra time, considering that he had always been the kid that loved hockey more than anything else. 

And you would always wait in the bleachers. Sometimes on your phone, most times watching him as he skated. You count the amount of times he circled it, especially when you felt bored but didn’t have the strength to look away. Because something about him was magnetic to you. You wondered what it was, every time you stay that extra ten minutes in the rink.

Then after his usual rounds (at most, seven rounds), he looked up, and caught your gaze.

John grinned. The stupid, lopsided grin that suddenly made your heart skip. Then he skated all the way over to the boards, where you were, and leaned on them as he grinned. His helmet was tucked under his arm, hair damp at the temples, “You just got here?”

“Yep. Passed by after practice.” You tried to keep your tone as casual as possible, like the sight of him didn't make your heart skip. 

“You really didn’t have to come by, you know. It’s late.”

“I wanted to.” You smiled. You didn’t say anything else as follow up. Because adding something else after that would mean that you were admitting something that you weren’t ready to admit. And you would have to explain everything else that you didn’t name yet.

He looked at you for a second, searching for something in your face, and then he looked down and smiled again. It was softer this time, private, the one that felt like it wasn't for anyone else, the one he wore when something surprised him in a way he found pleasant, and tilted his head. 

"Sure. Thanks for that.”

You just shrugged.

John nods over at the locker rooms. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll get you hot chocolate at the cafe nearby.”

You huffed, lips curling in amusement. “There? Really? Last time we went there, you said you didn't like the hot chocolate they made.” 

John just grinned at you. “Yeah. But you like it.” 

He skated away after that. Like those words didn’t make you freeze, your eyes trailing after him, heart stuttering and your brain finally naming that warmth that spread on your cheeks. 

And that was it. That was the whole thing. That was the moment that broke you open.

You'd gone home that day and picked up the closest paper and pen, and the words just started coming, because they didn't have anywhere else to go. You wrote about how his smile was the most disarming thing he could have. You wrote about the way he'd leaned on the boards and looked at you like looking at you was just a natural extension of breathing. You wrote about how his curls fell perfectly on his face.

You wrote about how the hot chocolate from the machine in the convenience store nearby had been terrible, watery and too sweet for him, and even when you told him he didn't have to drink it, he'd laughed and drank it anyway and said that it was fine with all the cheerfulness of someone who genuinely didn't mind, and how that had somehow made everything worse.

You wrote, hesitantly, but filled with everything in your chest— I like him. 

You folded the paper into thirds, tucked it into your grandmother's box, and pressed the brass latch shut.

You didn't open the box for three weeks after that. Not because you were over it, but because you were hoping, very determinedly, that if you didn't look at it, the feeling would dissolve on its own.

It didn't.

-

The letters accumulated the way all things do when you are trying not to notice them: gradually, and then all at once. 

By the end of junior year, there were ten. By senior year of high school, fifteen.

They were not all long. Some were barely a paragraph, dashed out on notebook paper in the middle of class when something happened that you had no one to tell except him, which was the problem, because he was the person that you would usually go to about these things… so you tell the paper instead.

Junior year, you wrote about how naturally John seemed to do things for you. Carrying your bag, buying things in the cafeteria when you didn't want to get up from the bench. But at the same time, it was always the question if he liked you, or if he was being nice

You remembered I hate raisins in things. You picked them out of the muffin before you gave it to me. You've been doing that since seventh grade and I only just noticed today that it's something you do on purpose.

Jealousy would often seep into your letters, as well. Because you knew he was well liked. That John had a future of having girls that would throw themselves at him, and he would always entertain it with his smile and pretty curls and— 

— but you act like I’m special, and that they don't matter. But I don't have the right to even stop them from liking you, so all I could do is watch and wish that you would instead look at me.

You kept those folded five times. 

--

Senior year, anger would sometimes seep into them.

I should tell you. I should tell you that I lie in bed until 3 am wondering if anything would happen between us. I should— but you are so unfair. You act like you care, and then I'm left hanging again. I still have your jacket. That stupid, gray jacket that you gave me. The damn gray jacket that was your favorite and you don't let anyone wear but you handed it to me when I was cold. And at the same time, you turned and smiled at Kaia like she mattered and. I hate that I like you and I hate that it feels like you do too— but then you turn around and act like you don't.

Some were the soft, bewildered variety, written in the margins of homework you’d never turn in, about something small he'd done that shouldn't have meant as much as it did.

You know how everyone else talks over me when I'm telling a story and moves on before I'm done? You always wait. You just… wait. You wait until I'm finished, and then you respond to what I actually said, not what you were going to say next. I don't know if you know you do that. I don't know how to tell you that it matters.

When you both got into Briar University, John on a hockey scholarship, you on a Merit Scholarship— you celebrated together in the parking lot of the ice rink, his arms around you, lifting you a full two inches off the ground, and you laughed and said “John, put me down!” even if you knew that deep down, you didn’t mean any of it, wanting him to keep his arms around you longer. 

You'd gone home that night and written four pages.

I keep telling myself I'm not following you. And I'm not. I worked for this, I studied late into the night and doubled my efforts whenever I would fail because I wanted Briar before you got in.  But some part of me is terrified that the reason I want it so badly is mixed up with the reason you're going, and I can't separate them cleanly, and that scares me.  What if I didn't want Briar so much as I wanted to be wherever you were going to be? What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that? I don't have an answer. I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to not think about it. I'm going to go to Briar, even if I can't solidify why I am.

You went to Briar.

You don’t address it after the long four page letter, and somewhere between orientation week and prelims, the box had gone from a strange habit to a necessity, a pressure valve that kept everything from building to critical mass.

You'd gotten good at it. At the translation of feeling into ink, at the sealing away of things that had no business existing in the open air. The box lived under your bed, behind your extra blankets and a stack of Intro to Lit anthologies you kept meaning to donate. The latch, temperamental from the start, had gotten worse with age. 

You'd meant to fix it.

You kept meaning to do a lot of things.

The letters still ranged from two lines to four pages, even when you entered Freshman Year in Briar. They still kept the same amount of yearning and thoughts you would never find the courage to say, or even send to Logan– and soon after, you started signing them too.

John – or maybe Logan?  You started being called Logan after you teamed up with Tucker and the rest. So maybe I should change it up to. Adapt and change, you know. Though it would be weird to start calling you by your last name.  – With love, and judgement.

You tried to call him Logan. He looked at you then with such offense that you back tracked and went back to calling him John. He said it made him feel better. Special, because John was a name only you could use. 

You wrote another letter that night, trying to reason out the butterflies and the implications of what he meant. Because rationalizing it away makes it easier than admitting it out loud.

They kept piling up. Letter after letter.

This sucks. You remembered my coffee order even after I changed it three times in two months. I can’t blame you for how well you treat me. It’s just how you are.  I should just stop putting meaning into things, but the other part of me just wants to believe that maybe it did mean something. UGH. John Logan you fucking suck. I hope you trip on the ice during practice. Actually, no. That was a joke. Maybe. – With love.

You called the longest ones your pathetic, yearning lovergirl letters. Late-night things, written when the distance between what you felt and what you were allowed to say felt too wide to sleep across. Those ones you sometimes read back in the morning with a kind of horrified tenderness, like finding a diary from a younger self. 

They were overwrought. 

They were honest in ways you couldn't quite access in daylight.

John, I've been thinking about the thing you said last week, that you don't know what you'd do without me. You said it so easily. Like it was just true, just a fact of your life, the way you'd say it's cold out or practice got cancelled. I don't know what to do with that. I've been turning it over and over in my head trying to figure out what it means and I think the honest answer is that it means exactly what it sounds like and nothing more and I need to learn to be okay with that. I'm working on it. – With love. P.S. You should stop handing me your hoodies when I get cold and letting me keep them. It messes with me and my late night 3 am delusional thoughts.

John, You have this thing you do when you're listening to someone — you get very still. Most people, when they listen, they nod, they mm-hm, they start formulating their response and you can see the moment they stop actually hearing you. You don't do that. You just go still and you look at the person and you listen, like it costs you nothing, like you have all the time in the world. I don't think you realize you do it. I don't think you realize what it does to people. What it does to me. I'm going to stop writing now. Before I start turning into the 3 am yearner I was last night. Again. — With love.

By freshman year of college, there were thirty letters.

Sophomore year is when it all cracked.

Classes started to weigh on you in a way freshman year hadn't warned you about. Rehearsals that ran until midnight, choreography notes bleeding red ink across marked-up scores, tech week for the department showcase bleeding into finals week, the constant ache in your calves and the tape on your feet that never seemed to come off in time — a dance major was not a degree that let up, and you were running harder than you ever had, barely sleeping, more often than not with Logan being the one thing keeping you sane, showing up with food you hadn't asked for and quiet company at your desk — or in the studio doorway — at midnight, watching you run the same eight counts until your body finally understood what your brain already knew. 

And then there was the puck bunny thing.

You didn't have the right to say anything about it, not really. You understood why. John Logan was hot. He was charming, easy to talk to, easy to fall for — and there was always a rotating cast of girls finding excuses to linger near him after games. You watched it happen the way you'd always watched it happen, except now you were closer to it, in his dorm, at his games, in the middle of the aftermath. And you had no claim to any of it. He wasn't yours. He'd never been yours. You just got to watch, the way you always had.

So you stopped writing. You shoved the box into the dark crevice under your bed and didn't take it out again. You prayed it would stay there. You told yourself you were moving on.

Meeting Davis was almost spontaneous — a late night out at Malone's, small talk with a guy from your gen-ed class that turned into something steadier. He was easy. Uncomplicated. He didn't make your chest hurt the way John did, and for a while, that felt like a relief instead of a warning sign. The letters stayed buried. Things between you and Logan went back to what looked, on the surface, like normal. Friends. Best friends. 

Because that was all it was going to be.

-

"So how are things with Davis?" Logan asked, leaning against the kitchen counter while you hunched over a marked-up piece of choreography notation, notes scattered across the counter in purple and yellow highlighter, counts and spacing diagrams bleeding into the margins. Gen ed notes scatter on top of them, but you seemed more preoccupied with the scrawls of markings for your major.

"Things are fine." You tried to keep the annoyance out of your voice, but Logan had always been perceptive, and it showed in the way his brows drew together.

"Yeah? Then why do you sound like that?"

Your pen dug a little deeper into the page. "Sound like what?"

"Like things aren't fine."

Your head snapped up, an evident frown pulling at your mouth. "It's none of your business, John."

Your voice came out sharper than you meant it to, and you winced, immediately regretting it. "Sorry. That was — sorry."

He didn't push on the apology. Just crossed his arms and softened his voice instead. "What's wrong?"

You hesitated, pen hovering over your notes, and then you let out a long groan and dropped your forehead against your textbook. "I don't want to start venting."

"Vent anyway."

"He keeps asking when I'm free. Wants to hang out constantly, and I get it, I do, but callbacks are in two weeks and I have a showcase piece I'm not off-book for yet, and I told him that, and he just —" You sat up, dragging a hand down your face. "He said it's kind of pathetic that I care this much about a theater degree. That I don’t have a future in this and that I’m only wasting my time."

Logan's jaw went tight. He would also do that when something pissed him off, and you knew him enough to know that he was also pissed off at what you said. "He said that?"

"Basically."

"That's not — " He stopped himself, exhaled through his nose, clearly working to keep his voice level. "You've wanted this since we were sixteen. You used to run your combinations for me in your driveway at eleven at night in the middle of winter because you couldn't get the phrase to feel right, and I stood there freezing my hands off holding your phone so you could film it."

That got a small, watery laugh out of you. "You always came outside, though. Even when it was that cold."

"Because it mattered to you." He said it so plainly, like it wasn't even a decision he'd had to make. "Anyone who makes you feel stupid for caring about the thing you've wanted since we were in high school doesn't get to also get your time. That's not — that's not how it should work."

You didn't have an answer for that. You just nodded at your notes, throat tight, and went back to studying, and Logan stayed leaning against the counter a while longer before he finally pushed off it and went to make you tea you hadn't asked for, the same way he always did.

-

Things ended with Davis not long after that — quietly, without a scene (an irony you did clock, even mid-breakup), the kind of ending that comes less from a single fight and more from a slow accumulation of moments where you'd chosen your scripts, your late rehearsals, your friendship with Logan, over him, and he'd finally said out loud what he'd clearly been thinking for weeks. You didn't wallow in it. It hadn't felt like losing something so much as setting something down.

Allie, your dorm neighbor across the hall, caught you in the laundry room a few days later, sorting a basket of mismatched socks.

"Wait, so you and Davis are actually done?" Allie asked, propping her hip against the dryer.

"Yeah." You shrugged, feeding a quarter into the slot. "It didn't work out." She knew about what he said, and she made the same face as you the moment you told her. She was the friend you made in one of the early collaborations your major did with hers, and she was the one who knew well how taxing it would be on your body and to have someone just brush it off? She had also pushed for you re-evaluating your whole relationship before you even talked to John about it.

"Huh." Allie studied you for a second too long. "You don't seem that broken up about it."

"I'm fine," you said, and mostly meant it, which felt strange enough that you didn't examine it too closely.

Allie didn't push, but she gave you a look on her way out that said she'd clocked something you hadn't said out loud.

Your roommate and best friend in all things best friend, Jai, was less subtle about it. She came in that night to find you cross-legged on your bed, not doing anything in particular, just sort of staring at the wall.

"Okay, what's actually going on with you?" Jai said, dropping her bag and sitting across from you. "You broke up with Davis, which you knew most of us had been telling you to, but usually break ups have the whole grieving process. And right now,  you look like you're thinking about a math problem, not a breakup."

"I don't know. I think I just — I didn't care as much as I should have. The whole time. I feel bad about that." You fiddle with your fingers. “That maybe I feel this apathetic because I didn’t care as much in the beginning.”

Jai considered you for a moment, tilting her head the way she did when she was about to say something you weren't going to like. "You know what I think?” 

You looked up at Jai, who nodded over at the space under your bed. “You never wrote about him.”

You blinked. "What?"

"The letters." Jai said it like it was obvious, like she'd noticed the box's absence the same way she'd notice if you'd rearranged the furniture. "You've had that thing since I've known you — you disappear into it when something's actually gotten to you. You didn't write a single letter about Davis. Not one, in like four months."

You opened your mouth to argue and found you didn't have anything to argue with.

You hadn't written about Davis. Not once. Every single letter in that box, every one you'd ever written, had one name on it, and it wasn't his.

The realization hit you like cold water. 

You hadn't moved on. Not even a little.

That night you pulled the box out from under the bed — dusty, a stray cobweb clinging to one corner — wiped it down, and wrote the first letter in months. You didn't let yourself think too hard about what it meant that your hand knew exactly how to start again, like it had never really stopped.

I dated someone in hopes of getting over you– only to realize that every time I sit across from him, I imagine its you. It’s not fair on him. Or myself. But though he did deserve the break-up… he didn’t deserve someone who is still hung over a guy she liked since high school, It’s stupid. Terribly so, but I had four months of thinking that dealing with him was much easier than dealing with the constant ache in my chest every time I see you.  Maybe it’s more stupid of me to get back to writing to you and acknowledging the constant hurt i feel. — With love, reluctantly, again, and always.

By Junior year, the letters slowed but never stopped completely. The program was, if anything, worse than sophomore year — a full-length ensemble piece now, not just technique classes, and you were buried in rehearsal schedules and rep notes, and the only thing that made any of it bearable was Logan, constant as ever, still showing up with food, still sitting on the studio floor with you at 1 a.m. while you both pretended you weren't exhausted, still somehow always exactly where you needed him to be. 

Jai, who had appointed herself the unofficial keeper of your feelings since the Davis revelation, was relentless about it.

"You have to tell him," she said one night, apropos of nothing, while you were both supposed to be doing readings for your gen ed classes. "Junior year of high school, senior year, all of freshman and now half of junior year of college. That's — I did the math, that's four years, and you're going to keep writing it down instead of just saying it?"

"It's not that simple."

"It kind of is, though."

You'd relented eventually, worn down by her insistence and your own exhaustion at holding the same shape for four years straight. You told her you'd do it. You'd tell him. Maybe at the house party that weekend, when everything felt looser and easier and less like something you had to plan for.

You didn't get the chance.

You found him in the kitchen of the party, laughing with a girl whose name you didn't know, and before you could process anything, she'd leaned in and he hadn't leaned away.

You didn't wait to see more than that. You turned around and left before he ever noticed you'd been there, walked back to your dorm in the cold without your jacket, and didn't cry, exactly — just sat on your floor and wrote until your hand cramped.

I stopped hoping tonight. I think I needed to see it to actually believe it, because apparently telling myself wasn't enough. I'm not writing this one for you to ever read. I'm writing it so I stop lying to myself about what almost happened this weekend, and didn't, and isn't going to.

I keep thinking about how badly I wanted to walk over there and how I didn't, and how that's the whole story of us, isn't it. Me, standing a few feet away, wanting, and staying exactly where I am.

You told Jai it hadn't worked out. She didn't push for details, just sat with you until you didn't feel like crying anymore.

Things between you and Logan, in the weeks after, went quiet in a way that wasn't quite a fight and wasn't quite normal either — some instinctive retreat on your end that you dressed up as being busy. Eventually it faded, the way most things did when you were both incapable of staying upset at each other for long, and by the second half of the semester you'd settled back into something that looked, from the outside, exactly like it always had. You told yourself that was enough. You tried, in your quiet, determined way, to move on.

There was one more letter before the long silence, written the week after, when he'd shown up at your studio with soup because Jai had mentioned you were sick, and stayed on the floor doing his own reading while you slept on and off on the yoga mats, and woken you gently every hour to make sure you drank water.

You have no idea what you do to me by being like this. You have no idea, or you do, and you just don't care, because it's easier to be kind to me than to explain why you keep being kind to me. Either way, I am so tired of this constant wishing and wanting. I’ll move on. I have to. Or I’ll never get out of this stupid hole.  I love you. But it hurts to keep loving you.

By the second semester of junior year, there were forty-three letters. You left it at forty-three letters.

Ever since that night, where your anger and everything about you spilled into paper and ink– you didn't slip in another letter. It stayed at forty-three.

Forty-three letters, across four years, across the span of a friendship that had become the most important thing in your life and the most carefully guarded secret you kept. Forty-three letters that were supposed to go with you to the grave while you plan out your whole moving on shtick.

That was the plan. That had always been the plan.

The plan, it turned out, was not consulted before Thursday afternoon.

—

It was a fire drill that turned out not to be a drill.

You'd been on the floor beside your bed, hunting for your phone charger, having pulled the mattress out from the wall and tangled yourself in the extra blankets you kept stuffed behind it, when the alarm split the air — sudden, violent, the particular shriek of the Briar dorms that had never once not startled you no matter how many times you'd heard it.

Your elbow caught the edge of the blanket stack. The box, which you'd shoved back into place after re-reading that last letter just the other day, teetered on the edge of the mattress frame. You grabbed for it, fingers catching the corner.

The latch — that brass, temperamental, long-suffering latch you'd always meant to fix and never had — gave.

The box opened.

Forty-three letters, across the floor of your dorm room.

You were still on the ground, staring at them, trying to process the scope of the disaster, when you heard Logan's familiar voice, your name, followed by a quick, "It's me, don't freak out —"

You looked up. Panic set in immediately, your heart dropping to your feet.

John Logan stood in the doorway, your dorm key in his hand — the one you'd given him freshman year for emergencies and never asked back — the opening words dying in his throat as he watched the letters settle.

The alarm was still going. Someone in the hall was shouting about everyone needing to get out. The late-afternoon light came through the window, gold and slanted, landing on the scattered envelopes and the stunned expression on his face and every single letter that bore, in your own handwriting, his name.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then you hit the floor on both knees, grabbing at the letters with both hands, stacking them against your chest with no particular order, your mind repeating the same panicked loop — collect them, get them back in the box, get them away from his line of sight.

"These are nothing — they're old, they're just — don't look at those—" You scrambled, but the panic made the ones in your hand slip loose again, and you nearly wanted to just sprawl over the envelopes and pretend they'd never fallen at all.

But John was crouching too. He wasn't reading them. He was just looking at the envelopes scattered across your floor, and you could see the exact moment he registered what they all had in common.

All of them. Every single one.

John Logan.

Your handwriting. His name. Over and over, in blue ink and black ink, and once in green, junior year of high school, when you'd been out of everything else.

His name on the front of forty-three letters you never sent.

He picked one up. He did it with the careful hands he used for things he wasn't sure about — the same way he picked up injured birds on his way to practice, the same way he handled other people's textbooks, and, twice, your feelings, on the two occasions you'd broken down in front of him and he'd gently cradled your face and helped you through the tears. Those were among the ten thousand other things written in your letters. Things you loved him for.

"These are addressed to me," he said. His voice was quiet. Unsure, tentative, like if he spoke louder he'd scare you off entirely.

"They're not —" you stammered. "I didn't send them. That's the whole —" You pressed the stack still in your hand to your sternum. "Please. Just — pretend you didn't see them."

"How many are there?"

His voice was doing something you couldn't quite pinpoint. Low. Careful. Something heavy underneath it, if you read between the lines.

You looked at him over the letters clutched to your chest, not sure what expression was on your face that made him soften even further. Maybe it was the pure panic. Maybe it was something else.

"Twenty — wait, uhm." You paused, blinked. "Thirty-four."

He lifted a brow. "You hesitated."

"...Forty-three."

The silence after that had weight. The alarm had stopped — someone had pulled it, or the drill was over, or building staff had caught up to whatever triggered it — and the sudden absence of noise made everything feel louder. Your heartbeat. His breathing. The soft scratch of the envelope he was turning over in his hands, not opening, just turning.

"How long?" he asked.

You didn't want to answer that. The answer was the part that would make it real. The part that would say out loud what had only ever existed on paper.

"Since junior year of high school," you said quietly.

You watched him absorb it.

He sat back on his heels, and you could see him doing the math. Junior year of high school. The end of the letter stack. The date on whatever letter he was holding. The span of years between then and now.

"You've been writing me letters," he said slowly, like he was learning the sentence as he spoke it, "for four years. That you never sent."

"It's not — it's a journaling thing. It's not —"

"Your journals have my name on them."

You winced and closed your eyes. "Yes."

"Why didn't you send them?"

You opened your eyes. He was watching you with an expression that made it very hard to think clearly, and you needed to think clearly to get through this conversation without losing something you couldn't afford to lose. Carefully, you thought. Be careful. He is your best friend and he is looking at you and you are not allowed to ruin this.

"Because I didn't want things to change," you said, which was the truest and most incomplete answer you had.

"What things?"

"Us." The word landed between you, bare, nothing around it to soften it. "The way things are. The way things have always been. I didn't — I wasn't willing to risk it. So I wrote it down instead, and I kept it, and I was going to keep it forever, and this was a mistake, Logan —"

"John." He interrupted quietly. You ignored the correction.

"— you were not supposed to see these."

"What are they?" he asked. "Just — tell me what they are. In plain English."

You looked at him. Then at the forty-three letters — the ones against your chest, the ones still sprawled on the floor, the one in his hands, the stupid brass-latched box open between you. You thought about every 2 a.m., every bleacher, every game, every borrowed hoodie you'd never given back. You thought about how long you'd been careful not to say a single thing. How much energy you'd spent on the not-saying, and how completely, catastrophically exhausted you were from it.

"They're everything," you said, "that I didn't know how to say to your face."

—

He was quiet for a long time after that.

You spent most of it looking at the floor, cataloguing the letters you could see from where you sat — the corner of the very first one, faded and ink-stained, from that Tuesday in junior year. The familiar blue pen of the one from a few months ago, the night of the game where he'd scored the tying goal in the final minute and looked up into the bleachers and found you immediately, like he'd known exactly where to look, like he always knew where to look, and you'd gone home and written four pages you didn't remember most of the next morning.

Then right by your knees was the latest letter. The one that was lengthy and full of hurt and anger and everything else that you poured out after seeing him make out with another girl– You push down the memory. 

The afternoon light had shifted. It was later than you'd realized.

"I want to ask you something," Logan said, "and I need you to answer honestly."

"Okay."

"Is it —" He exhaled through his nose, tried again. You watched the struggle on his face — that particular Logan expression of someone who had something to say and was working out how to say it without saying too much or too little. You'd seen it a thousand times. You'd written about it. Letter fourteen, sophomore year of high school. The way he gets quiet before he says something he means.

"Is it the same thing I think it is?"

"Probably," you said, to the floor. "Unless you think it's a grocery list, in which case, no."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh — hoarse, surprised out of him.

"You've liked me," he said, still careful, "since junior year."

"Yes."

"And you didn't say anything because you didn't want to lose the friendship."

"Yes."

"And you wrote — forty-three letters. Instead."

"I was going to say forty-three seemed excessive, but honestly, given the timeline, I think it's fairly restrained."

"Hey." His voice changed. That made you look at him. He was watching you with something so open on his face it hit you square in the sternum. "Don't do that. Don't make it a joke right now."

You swallowed. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry either." He set the letter down between you, gently, the way he set down things he didn't want to damage, and ran a hand through his hair — the thing he did when he was thinking hard, when something had knocked him somewhere he hadn't planned to go. "I just need a second."

You gave him the second.

Outside, someone on the quad was playing music, drifting up through your open window without any particular hurry. Late afternoon light cut across the room at the angle it only ever hit in March — long and gold and slanted, the kind that made everything look like it was happening in the last good hour of something. The last hour before whatever came next.

He abruptly brings up Davis. "What about Davis?"

Your brows furrow. "What about him?"

"You dated him last year."

You hesitate. "It was a half-hearted attempt to try and get over you."

"Did it work?"

You deadpan. "Well, I broke up with him, didn't I?"

John laughs through his nose. "Yeah. Yeah that makes sense."

Another beat passes, quieter this time, before he asks if you know why he's shown up to every single one of your performances since freshman year. Not just the winter and spring showcases. The studio showings nobody came to, the ten-minute improvisation pieces you took for the sake of getting better, performed to an audience of six, the Tuesday afternoon rehearsal run-throughs that overlapped with his lift block, when he'd shown up, hair damp, sitting cross-legged in the back corner of the studio so he could leave before anyone noticed a hockey player watching a modern dance rehearsal like it was the only thing happening in the building.

"That's practice, though," you say. "You're always busy."

"Not always." He says it like it's nothing, like it was never a real sacrifice, just a matter of arranging things around each other the way you'd both always done. "I never missed a lift block or a mandatory practice for it, if that's what you're asking. Coach would've had my head, and there goes the scholarship. I'm not that much of an idiot."

"So how—"

"I just used the time I actually had. Free blocks. The hour after morning skate before class. You'd be in Studio B until midnight running the same eight counts over and over, and I'd come sit in the corner with a granola bar and my laundry, because doing laundry at the machines by the dance building was somehow always more urgent than doing it in my own dorm."

You protest anyway, because your brain is still catching up, still trying to file this under good friend the way you have filed every other thing he's ever done for four years running. "You're just — that's just you being supportive. You did that for Summer-"

"I went to Summer's event once, and that was because Dean wanted us to. I have sat through you running the same eight counts eleven times in a row at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday because you couldn't get the turn right, and I have watched you mark a whole solo with a busted ankle because you didn't want to fall behind, and I still came."

"That was one time."

"I know. I counted the limps."

That gets you. Something in your chest cracks open a little wider.

He tells you about the incidents, then — the small things you never clocked because you were always mid-combination or too deep in your own head to notice him in the doorway, or slumped against the wall outside the studio with his bag still packed from practice. The night your partner dropped you a beat early in a lift and you both recovered it so smoothly the audience never noticed, and how he'd told Tucker after, unprompted, that he'd never seen anyone save a mistake like that mid-air, like it mattered to him the way his own game footage mattered.

The way he'd show up straight from morning skate, hair still wet, to walk you back to your dorm after a late rehearsal because he didn't like the idea of you crossing the quad alone at midnight, ice pack pressed to your shin, making conversation about nothing in particular just so you wouldn't have to walk in silence. The stretch of a week during tech for the fall showcase, when you barely left the studio, and he started just bringing his own homework to do on the floor during your five-minute breaks, so you'd have someone there without either of you having to say why that mattered.

"You did that the whole week," you say slowly.

"I did that the whole week."

"You never told me you had a physics midterm that same week."

"Didn't want you to feel bad about it." He shrugs, like this is a reasonable thing to have kept from you for two years. "It wasn't your fault. I wanted to be there."

You're quiet for a second, turning that over, and something about the quiet must give you away, because he tilts his head at you. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You've got a face on. That's not nothing."

"It's just—" You stop. Start again. "If you wanted to be there that badly. If you were doing all of that. Then what was with the girls?"

He blinks. "What girls?"

"You know what girls, Logan." Your voice comes out sharper than you mean it to, two years of swallowed irritation finally finding a door. "The ones after games. Hanging off the boards. The ones who got to walk up to you, because they didn't have some — some rule in their head about not ruining anything."

"That's what this is about?"

"I'm asking."

He drags a hand down his face, and for the first time all night, he looks ashamed instead of careful. "Those weren't anything," he says. "You know that, right? They were never anything."

"They looked like something."

Logan lets out a hoarse laugh — short, not really about anything funny. It's the sound of a person getting cornered by their own bad decisions. "Yeah," he says. "I bet they did."

There's something almost shameful in the way his jaw works before he goes on.

"They were a distraction." He says it plainly, no dressing it up. "You didn't — I thought you didn't feel the same way. I thought I was the only one carrying this, and I didn't know what to do with that, so I did the dumbest possible thing, which was try to feel something for anyone else so I'd stop feeling this much for you. It never worked. Not once. I always ended up back at your door with food you didn't ask for, like an idiot."

"I did care," you say, and it comes out smaller than you mean it to, four years of carefulness still clinging to your voice even now. "I thought you didn't."

"I know that now."

You stare at each other for a second, and it lands on both of you at once — the sheer, staggering waste of it. Four years of two people orbiting the same unspoken thing, each one certain the other didn't want it, each one building elaborate, private monuments to a feeling neither of you would say out loud. You almost want to laugh. You almost want to be furious. Mostly you just want to sit in the wreckage of it with him and not move for a while.

That's when he tells you about the texts.

"There's something you should probably know, since, well– I just accidentally saw your very personal letters." he says, and something in his voice makes you go still before he even finishes the thought. "I've been deleting texts to you since October of junior year."

"What texts?" you said.

"The ones I wasn't going to send." A muscle in his jaw moved. "Different medium. Same problem."

You stared at him.

"You," you said carefully, "have also been —"

"Yeah."

"Since —"

"Junior year." He kept his eyes on you. "You did that solo — the contemporary piece, the one set to that stripped-down piano track, for the fall showcase. I only went because you asked me to come, and also promised to buy me free snacks right after. So I came. I sat in the back row not expecting to care, and then the lights came up on you and you just — you weren't you anymore, you were something else entirely, and I remember thinking, very clearly, that I had never seen anything move like that. Not the piece. You. I didn't say anything to anyone. I definitely didn't say anything to you. I just knew, sitting in that folding chair, that something in me had rearranged itself and it wasn't going back." He stopped. Shook his head. "I thought you knew, later, that something had shifted for me. I thought it was obvious. I thought you didn't feel the same way, and I figured I could live with that — be your friend, be fine. And I was mostly fine. I was fine until you and Davis started whatever that was, and I wasn't fine anymore, and that's when I knew I was a lost cause."

"There was nothing with Davis," you said. "It was just — a gen-ed class, and I thought it was something—" The words died on your tongue.

"I know that now."

"John." Something enormous was rising in your chest — too big for any letter, too loud for that box. "We've been — we've both been —"

"Catastrophically stupid," he said, with a short, helpless laugh. "Yeah. I'm aware."

"Four years."

"I know."

"I have forty-three letters —"

"I know, I can see them —"

You laughed, and it came out slightly broken, and he laughed too, and for a moment it was just that — the two of you on your dorm room floor, surrounded by four years of everything you hadn't said, laughing at the sheer, impossible absurdity of it. At how close you'd been the whole time. At how completely you'd managed to miss each other while never once being apart.

Then the laughter faded.

He was looking at you. The gold light had shifted, fallen across him, and he looked the way he always looked when he was done thinking and had arrived somewhere decided. You knew that look. You'd written about it. Letter twenty-one. The way he looks when he's made up his mind about something and nothing in the world is going to unmake it.

"What do we do now?" you asked.

John reached out slowly, giving you every chance to move away if you wanted to. He tucked a loose strand of hair back from your face, hand staying at your jaw, careful. His thumb traced, barely, along your cheekbone.

"I have a practice slot tomorrow morning," he said. "Early. Six a.m., the rink's usually empty." He paused. "You could come. Sit in the bleachers, like you always do. And after — I could buy you hot chocolate. And maybe this time I could actually say what I haven't been saying for four years."

You looked at him. His hand was warm at your jaw, and the room smelled like old paper and cedar and whatever that specific thing was that his jacket always smelled like, because of course he was wearing the jacket you knew best.

"And we're doing it at the rink," you said slowly, "because —"

"Because that's where it started," he said, shrugging. "It should start there too. Not the ratty ice rink back home, but it still counts."

The feeling in your chest crested, enormous and warm, nothing like the quiet ache you'd carried for four years. That ache had been private and careful, kept deliberately small so it wouldn't take up too much room, wouldn't crowd out anything else. This was not small. This was taking up every room you had. This was refusing, loudly and completely, to fit inside a box.

"Okay," you said.

He smiled — the full one, the private one, the one that had always felt like it was only for you. Maybe it had been. Maybe you'd just been too busy cataloguing reasons not to believe it.

"Okay," he echoed.

He let go of your jaw slowly, like he was in no hurry about it, then stood and started helping you gather the letters off the floor, stacking them with surprising care, not reading them, just collecting. You watched him do it and didn't say anything. There was something strange and sweet about watching his hands handle these things that had existed in secret for so long.

He asked a few questions. Simple ones. The things you could admit to. Small rants you'd written. How you didn't read back on some of them, out of fear of what you'd find. You mentioned the one where you'd hoped he tripped, and how the very next day, he actually had.

Logan laughed at that — bright, curls settling around his face. You had to stop yourself from staring too long.

"Which one's your favorite?" he asked, holding the stack against his chest the way you'd been holding it minutes ago.

"I'm not telling you that."

"Come on."

"Absolutely not."

"I'll find it eventually."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It's a promise." He looked entirely too pleased with himself. "I have forty-three letters and the rest of my life. I'll get there."

When all the letters were back in the box, he set it on your desk and looked at it for a moment.

"You're going to have to let me read them eventually," he said.

"I really am not."

"The 'I hope you trip' one. I want to find that one."

"Absolutely not."

"I'm going to find it."

"Get out of my room, Logan."

"I thought I said you could call me John?"

You rolled your eyes. "I'm adapting to Briar. You're either Logan or John. Now get out of my room."

He grinned, the lopsided, lethal one, and you felt it the same way you always had — right in the sternum, like a bell being struck — and went, unhurried, toward the door.

"Six a.m.," he said from the doorway.

"Six a.m.," you agreed.

He left.

You stood in your room surrounded by the afterimage of all of it, then sat on the edge of your bed and put your face in your hands, staying that way for a while — not crying exactly, just feeling the full, enormous weight of something shifting into a new configuration, four years of tectonic plates rearranging themselves into something that finally made sense.

After a while, you got up, took the box from the desk, and put it back under your bed.

You set your alarm for five-thirty.

Hockey rinks always smelled and looked the same, no matter where you would go. It would always smell like ice and rubber and something underneath, though it didn't have the same ratty smell from the old hockey rink at home.

You climbed to your usual spot in the bleachers. Third row, center. You'd been sitting here since the first time you ever came to watch him practice. Even when you moved closer to Briar, you always gravitated to the same spot, before you'd known it was your spot, before you'd known you'd keep coming back. You'd just sat where the sight line was clear and the draft from the ventilation didn't hit as hard. You'd sat there every time after that, out of habit, out of something you'd told yourself was just habit.

John stepped onto the ice.

He didn't look up at the bleachers right away. That wasn't unusual. He rarely did, at first. He had a routine — you knew the routine, had watched it enough times to know it by heart — where he'd take a lap or two before he settled into the actual work of it, like he was reacquainting himself with the ice, reminding himself of the particular quality of this rink on this morning. Then he'd pick up speed. Then he'd look like himself.

You watched him. You were done pretending you weren't.

He skated the way he always skated — like it required nothing, like it was breathing, like the rink was just another place he lived and the ice was simply the ground beneath him. He did a lap, and then another, and then he started working through something, crossovers into a long sweep across the length of the rink, and you watched the way he held his weight, the clean economy of every movement, and felt the thing you always felt watching him, which you'd spent four years filing under aesthetic appreciation, nothing more, and which you were now allowed to call by its actual name.

After a while he came to the boards and looked up at you.

"You're in your spot," he said.

"I'm always in my spot." 

"I know." He leaned on the boards, the same way he had the first time, junior year, helmet under his arm, and he looked up at you with that look you were done misreading. "I skate better when you're here. I don't know if you knew that."

"I didn't."

"I didn't either, for a while. I thought it was just that the bleachers were less empty, which helps. But then I figured out it was specifically you." He said it matter-of-factly, like it was just a thing that was true. Like it was weather. Like it was temperature. "Third row, center. Every time."

"You knew the seat."

"I always knew the seat."

You looked at him, and the rink was cold, and the light was just beginning to come in through the high windows, pale and early and new, and forty-three unsent letters sat in a box under your bed, and standing at the boards in front of you — in his skates, in his gear, on his ice — was the person they were all addressed to. 

With a smile, you got up and headed down from your seat. The second you stopped in front of Logan, the only thing separating you being the rink’s wall, you smiled wider. "Hi," you said.

"Hi," he said back.

He reached for you, and you reached back, and when his hand found yours over the boards it was easy, the easiest thing, like something that had been waiting a long time to finally happen and was not going to make a fuss about it now that it had. His hand was cold from the ice, and you held it anyway, and neither of you said anything for a moment, because there wasn't anything that needed saying.

You got the hot chocolate from the machine in the convenience store. Different store, same franchise. It was, as promised, terrible. Watery and too sweet, dispensed in a thin paper cup that was already going soggy at the base.

He handed it to you and watched you take a sip and pull a face.

"Still bad," you reported. “It’s surprising how consistent the store is.”

"Still bad," he agreed, leaning against the wall, holding his own cup, looking entirely unbothered. He'd never minded the terrible hot chocolate. You'd written about that once. Letter seven. The way you seem genuinely content with things that aren't good. Like the contentment is the point, not the quality of the thing.

"You said you were going to say what you hadn't said."

"I was getting to it."

"It's been twenty minutes."

"I was working up to it," he said, and there was something almost shy in the way he said it, which was not a quality you'd had many opportunities to observe in him, and which was doing things to you that you weren't prepared for. "I've been working up to it for four years, give me another thirty seconds."

You giggled, but you still waited.

He looked at his terrible hot chocolate. Then he looked at you.

"I love you," he said. "I've loved you since I saw you performing on stage and I thought — I thought, that's her. That's the person. And I didn't say anything because you didn't, and I figured I was misreading it, and I kept not saying anything for four years and I had a phone full of deleted texts and a very long mental list of things I was not going to tell you, and then yesterday I walked into your room and saw my name on forty-three envelopes on your floor and I thought—" He stopped. Something moved across his face, somewhere between wrecked and grateful. "I thought: we are both absolute idiots."

"We really are," you said.

"We really are." He pushed off the wall and set his cup down on the machine and took yours out of your hands and set it next to his, and then he looked at you the way he had yesterday, with that decided, arrived quality, and said, "I'm done not saying it. I love you. Okay? I just — I love you."

You looked at him. This person you'd known since before you knew what it meant to know someone. This person who remembered your coffee order and picked raisins out of muffins and drove forty minutes in the rain and kept nine of your hoodies and showed up to every meet in every kind of weather and had, apparently, been composing and deleting texts to you since junior year of high school.

"I love you," you said. "I have loved you for a very long time."

He exhaled, slow, like something he'd been holding finally let go, and then he smiled — the private one, the full one, the one that had always felt like it was only for you because, you understood now, it had always only been for you — and said, "Yeah. We're definitely idiots."

"Monumental idiots."

"Historically unprecedented idiots."

"There should be a word for it."

"There probably is, in some language we don't speak." He reached out, and you let him pull you in, and he held you the way he'd held you before, the same arms, the same warmth, but with something different in it now, something that had been allowed to be what it was instead of being carefully kept at a certain size. You pressed your face against his shoulder. His chin dropped to the top of your head.

"We wasted four years," you said into his shoulder.

"Nah." His voice rumbled against your ear. "We just took the long way."

You thought about that. About the letters, and the bleachers, and the hot chocolate, and the forty-minute drives in rain,  the deleted texts, and the space between what you feel and what you're brave enough to say. About all the things that had happened in the gap.

"The long way," you agreed.

Outside the rink, the morning was getting started. Inside, it smelled like ice and rubber and cedar and something new.

—

The forty-fourth letter was the last one. Written that night, because some habits deserve a proper ending.

John. Logan. Or whatever name you want to be called–  The hot chocolate was terrible. The one near our old school was better (I’m lying, but you know that), but it’s not like you would drive an hour just to get there. Still, you know hot chocolate is always terrible from that machine. You bought it anyway because I said I wanted it and you cannot help yourself. I've been writing these since high school. I don't think I'm going to write another one. Not because I have nothing left to say — I think I'm going to have a lot to say, for a very long time — but because I'm going to say it to you from now on. Out loud. In real time. Without a box to put it in afterward. You told me today that you skate better when I'm in the stands. I wanted you to know that I run better when you're at the end of the finish line. I have never told you that. I'm telling you now. I love you. I have loved you since a Tuesday in junior year in High school when you offered me bad hot chocolate on an empty rink and smiled at me like I was someone worth skating across the ice for.I loved you through every year after that, through every letter I wrote and sealed and tucked away, through every moment I talked myself out of saying something because I was afraid of what it would cost. It turns out it didn't cost anything. It turns out you were over there deleting texts. We were both such idiots. Though I guess it does make sense with our track record. I'm done keeping it in a box, and I'll say it to your face from now on, and I'm sorry it took me four years and a broken latch and forty-three embarrassing letters, some of which you are never going to read, to get here. But I'm here. And so are you. That's enough. That's more than enough. — With love.

Garrett catches the side of her face in one hand and leans over the console with all the clumsy urgency of a man who has spent the last two hours imagining increasingly horrifying reasons his not-girlfriend might not be answering her phone, then asked her to become his actual girlfriend beside a security booth while all his friends provided live commentary.

Her surprised laugh disappears against his mouth. Then her body catches up. She twists toward him as far as the seatbelt allows, fingers sliding into the front of his tracksuit jacket, dragging him closer across the console until the gearshift presses awkwardly into her hip and someone in the back makes a noise of immediate disgust.

“Oh, come on,” Dean says. “We’re still in the vehicle.”

Garrett’s mouth moves over hers again, warmer and deeper, his thumb sliding under her jaw as her fingers find the damp curls at the back of his neck. 

The kiss tastes faintly like the fries he’d bought her and the mint gum he’d been chewing in the hospital car park, and something about that – something about Garrett’s mouth, his hand holding her steady, the boys complaining behind them, the word boyfriend now sitting legally and emotionally between them – sends a bright, unreasonable heat down the centre of her body.

Her boyfriend. Garrett Graham is her boyfriend.

She makes a small sound into his mouth before she can decide whether it’s dignified. Garrett answers with a rough inhale, his hand tightening at her jaw.

“Jesus Christ,” Logan mutters.

Tucker, wedged in the middle with Garrett’s gear bag between his knees and the exhaustion of a man who predicted this exact outcome before they left the hospital, reaches forward and taps Garrett’s shoulder. “Can you unlock the doors before you guys start a family?”

Garrett pulls back just far enough to glare at him over the seat. His mouth is pink from hers. His curls are a mess. He looks deeply, genuinely offended by the interruption.

“Get out,” he says.

“The doors are locked,” Tucker points out.

Garrett hits the button without looking. All the locks snap up at once.

“Thank you,” Tucker says, gathering his dignity and Garrett’s bag. “We’ll be downstairs, I guess.”

“Way downstairs,” Dean adds as he opens the door and cold air floods into the car. “Like, structurally as far from Graham’s bedroom as this house permits.”

Logan climbs out after him, muttering something about noise-cancelling headphones and tenant rights. Tucker follows with both bags because he is the only person in the group who can be trusted to remember objects while Garrett’s attempting to crawl through the centre console.

She reaches for her seatbelt. Garrett does too, fumbling with the release at her hip while she laughs into his mouth because he’s kissing her again before the belt has even fully retracted. 

It catches briefly against her puffer jacket, then snaps away hard enough to smack the side of the seat.

“Smooth,” she murmurs.

“Shut up.” His hand slides around the back of her neck, pulling her in again. “You’re my girlfriend.”

The words hit differently now that there isn’t a security guard nearby looking actively burdened by them. They settle low in her stomach, warm and heavy and strange enough that she smiles against his lips like an idiot.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I heard.”

Garrett kisses her once, quick and hard. Then again, slower because he needs to confirm it by mouth. “My girlfriend.”

“You’re going to become unbearable about this.”

“Become?”

She laughs, and Garrett grins against her mouth, bright and relieved and so painfully pleased with himself that she has to kiss him again just to stop looking at it.

By the time they get out of the car, the boys have already reached the front door. Dean holds it open from inside with one hand and shields his eyes dramatically with the other when Garrett comes around the bonnet and catches her by the waist before she’s taken two proper steps.

“Oh, good,” Dean says. “They made it twelve feet.”

“Go away,” Garrett tells him.

“I live here.”

“That’s fixable.”

She barely has time to laugh before Garrett bends and kisses her again, walking her backward toward the porch with one hand spread over her lower back and the other gripping her hip beneath the puffer jacket. 

Her sneakers scrape over the path. Garrett nearly clips the edge of the first step because neither of them is paying enough attention to architecture, and she catches his shoulder with both hands while he steadies them.

“Captain,” she breathes against his mouth. “Excellent spatial awareness.”

“You’re distracting.”

He gets them onto the porch with only one further collision, this time her bag knocking against the railing because Tucker has decided it’s no longer his responsibility. 

Garrett takes it from her shoulder without breaking the kiss, drops it somewhere just inside the door, then presses her back briefly against the wall beside the entryway.

The whole house is warm after the cold. Hockey-house warm, thick with radiator heat and laundry detergent and the leftover smell of whatever Tucker had reheated before they left, a pair of damp gloves drying near the vent and somebody’s shaker bottle abandoned on the hall table. 

The familiar mess of it should make her settle. Instead, Garrett’s mouth drags over hers, his thigh fitting between her legs, and her body seems to interpret the fact that they are indoors as formal permission to lose whatever remained of its judgement.

Her hands slide beneath his tracksuit jacket and over the hard warmth of his stomach. Garrett groans softly into her mouth, one palm flattening against the wall beside her head while the other pulls her hips closer against his. 

The pressure lands exactly where the entire drive home has been collecting, and she breathes his name before she can stop it.

“Okay,” Logan says from the living room. “That’s worse somehow.”

She breaks into a laugh against Garrett’s jaw. He doesn’t move away. His mouth only shifts to her neck, warm and open beneath her ear, while he raises one hand over his shoulder and gives the room behind them the finger.

“Very mature,” Tucker calls.

“I’m having a significant evening,” Garrett answers into her skin.

Dean appears briefly in the archway, looks at the two of them pinned against the hall wall, then turns around at once. “Yeah, no. We’ll be down here, I guess. Please shut at least one door between us and whatever this becomes.”

“Two,” Logan says.

“Every door,” Tucker adds.

Her whole face feels hot, but not enough to stop. Becoming Garrett’s girlfriend has removed the small final portion of her brain that once cared whether his roommates knew they had sex. 

They already knew. The house knew. His headboard knew with more certainty than anyone.

Garrett lifts his mouth from her neck, eyes dark and warm and fixed entirely on her face. “Upstairs?”

She nods before he finishes the word. His grin flashes. He catches her hand and starts toward the staircase, but she only makes it to the third step before he turns and kisses her again, walking backward now, one hand braced on the bannister and the other hooked around her waist. 

She follows badly, half laughing, half trying to stay attached to his mouth while her shift-heavy legs object to being asked for speed after eleven hours under fluorescent lighting.

Garrett’s heel catches one stair. He stumbles backward just enough that she grabs at his shoulders, their mouths separating on a startled breath.

“Holy shit,” she laughs. “Are you trying to kill us?”

“No.” His hands close around her hips, holding her still one step beneath him. “You’re slow.”

“I’ve been at work all day.”

“You had a great shift.”

“I did.”

“Congratulations.” He kisses her hard enough to make the sarcasm irrelevant, then pulls back with his breathing already rough. “Jump, baby.”

Her stomach drops pleasantly. “Now?”

“Jump.” Garrett bends slightly, hands already sliding lower to the backs of her thighs, eyes on hers with that particular easy confidence that makes reasonable thought feel like a hobby for other people. “Get up here.”

She does. There isn’t any deliberation. One second her shoes are on the staircase, the next she pushes up and wraps her legs around his waist, arms locking over his shoulders while Garrett catches her beneath her thighs as though the whole arrangement has been rehearsed. 

His body absorbs her easily, solid and warm between her legs, and the quick lift presses her against him in a way that makes the breath leave her mouth.

Garrett grins. “There.”

“Go,” she says, already kissing him again. “Get me upstairs.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He takes the stairs with her wrapped around him, one hand beneath her ass and the other sliding along the bannister when he needs the balance. 

It should feel precarious. It probably is precarious, considering Garrett’s mouth is open over hers and her fingers are buried in his curls and neither of them can see more than half the staircase at any given time. She doesn’t care.

Every step moves her against the hard line of him beneath his track pants. Her body is already too warm from the coat and the house and the way his tongue slides into her mouth, but she presses closer anyway, thighs tightening around his hips when Garrett kisses her deeper. 

A soft moan escapes before she can swallow it. Garrett’s grip flexes under her. “Fuck,” he says against her lips.

She smiles, breathless. “Stairs.”

“I know where the stairs are.”

“You nearly died on them thirty seconds ago.”

“You were on the ground then.” He takes another step, lifting her higher with a small adjustment that makes her breath hitch. “Different centre of gravity.”

“That’s not science.”

“You’re not a science major.”

“I’m a nursing student.”

“Exactly. You’re medically hot, not physics hot.”

She laughs into his mouth, which becomes another moan when he sucks gently at her bottom lip and keeps climbing. 

Somewhere downstairs, Dean shouts, “We can hear you doing staircase foreplay,” followed by a dull thump and Tucker saying something about leaving people alone.

Garrett reaches the landing and turns into the hallway with no visible intention of putting her down. His mouth has moved to her throat now, kissing the skin above the collar of her puffer jacket while she tries, unsuccessfully, to help him navigate.

“Your room,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“You just passed it.”

Garrett stops. Looks over his shoulder. He has, in fact, walked straight past his own bedroom door. She starts laughing so hard her forehead drops onto his shoulder.

“Don’t,” he warns, though his own mouth is twitching.

“You live here.”

“I was distracted.”

“By your girlfriend?”

His eyes come back to hers. The expression that moves over his face is so openly affected – heat and amusement and something warm enough to ache – that the laugh catches in her throat. 

Garrett adjusts his hold beneath her thighs, turns them around, and kisses her again before carrying her back the four feet he’d overshot.

“Yeah,” he murmurs into her mouth. “By my girlfriend.”

He gets the door open with his shoulder and walks her inside. The room is dim except for the little lamp beside his bed, left on from earlier, throwing warm light across the rumpled navy sheets and the open textbook near his pillow and the hoodie hooked over the back of his desk chair. 

His window is cracked slightly despite the cold, letting in a thin line of night air that moves the curtain and cuts through the close, familiar smell of detergent, hockey tape, shampoo, and him.

Garrett kicks the door shut behind them. For half a second, neither of them stops. He walks her farther into the room with his mouth still on hers, and she tightens her legs around him, already reaching for the zip of his jacket.

Then she catches sight of herself in the mirror over his dresser. Scrubs. Puffer jacket. Hair flattened slightly from being tied back all shift. Hospital badge still clipped near her chest with her deeply unflattering ID photo facing outward like a tiny laminated witness to several workplace violations.

She pulls her mouth away.

Garrett follows for another inch before realising she’s stopped. “What?”

“I’m in my scrubs.”

He looks down between them like this is new information. Her navy scrub pants are bunched slightly where her legs wrap around his waist, the fabric smelling faintly of hospital laundry, antiseptic wipes, vending-machine coffee and an entire day spent in rooms where people had been bleeding, coughing or loudly discussing their bowels.

Garrett frowns. “Yeah.”

“I need to shower.”

His frown deepens in genuine confusion. “Baby, I’m about to get you out of them.”

She laughs, and he kisses her in the middle of it, one hand sliding higher under her thigh. “That’s not–” Kiss. “The point.” Another kiss, deeper this time, enough that she almost loses the argument. “I feel gross.”

“You don’t look gross.”

“You haven’t worked in an emergency department.”

“I’ve been in one.”

“As a visitor.”

“As a frequent flyer.”

“That’s not better.” She kisses him again because his mouth is right there and because they can no longer complete a sentence without physical punctuation. “Let me shower.”

Garrett makes a dissatisfied sound when she tries to pull away. His arms stay locked under her, holding her against the hard front of his body. “How long?”

“Five minutes.”

“That’s not a shower.”

“It is when you’re motivated.”

He kisses her jaw. “Three.”

“Garrett.”

“Four.”

“I need to wash my face.”

“Fine. Five.” His mouth drags lower to the side of her neck, lips warm over her pulse. “But be quick.”

She nods, though the movement only presses her throat closer to his mouth. “I’ll be quick.”

Garrett lowers her slowly. Her legs unwrap from his waist, shoes finding the floor, but he keeps one arm around her middle as she slides down the front of him, the pressure making both of them breathe differently by the time she’s standing. 

He kisses her again immediately, one hand sliding into her hair and the other pulling her flush against his chest like putting her down was an administrative necessity he deeply resents.

“Quick,” he repeats against her mouth.

“I know.”

He kisses her once more. She reaches behind herself for the towel hanging from the hook on the back of his door.

Garrett kisses her again. She laughs, pressing one hand to his chest to get enough room to breathe. “You’re actively delaying me.”

“Last one.”

“That was the last one.”

“No, that was before I said last one.”

“That’s not legally binding.”

“I’m your boyfriend. It’s my law.”

She rolls her eyes, grabs the towel, then gives in when he catches her face and kisses her one final time, slow and thorough enough to make leaving the room feel like an act of personal sacrifice.

When she steps into the hallway, Garrett stays by the door watching her go. She can feel it between her shoulder blades, the fixed heat of his attention following the scrub pants, the puffer jacket she’s still wearing, the towel bundled under one arm.

She glances back. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded now, mouth curved. “Five minutes.”

“Stop timing me.”

“I started when you left my mouth.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“Four fifty-three.”

She flips him off and slips into the bathroom before his grin can do anything else to her. The lock clicks behind her. For one second she stands there in the yellow bathroom light with her back against the door, towel clutched to her chest, heart beating too hard for a woman who’s had sex with Garrett Graham enough times to know the exact look he gets before he puts his mouth between her thighs.

Her boyfriend.

The thought moves through her again, physical enough to make her stomach dip. Her boyfriend is in the next room waiting for her. 

Garrett Graham – the boy who once put his name into her phone for emergencies, who arrived at her dorm in fifteen minutes after a terrible text and then had the audacity to be freshly showered, who let her poke at his bruised ribs while complaining they weren’t going to fuck, who stood beside the hospital bed while Logan asked what day it was, who took off her shoes after bad shifts and held ice to her face after worse ones and disappeared for nine days because wanting her frightened him more than losing her had.

Garrett, who had stood outside a locked hospital asking a security guard whether calling her his girlfriend would get him more information.

Her boyfriend.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispers to her own reflection.

The girl in the mirror looks exactly like someone who has spent eleven hours in an emergency department and the last ten minutes being carried upstairs by a hockey player. 

Hair coming loose around her face. Lips swollen. Cheeks flushed beneath the tiredness. Badge still clipped to her chest with enough accidental professionalism to make the whole image feel deeply inappropriate.

She strips fast. Puffer jacket first, dropped over the closed toilet lid. Badge unclipped and set near the sink where it cannot watch. Scrub top pulled over her head with the faint hospital smell trapped in the fabric, then bra, scrub pants, underwear. 

The relief of getting out of the clothes hits immediately, cool bathroom air moving over skin that has spent the whole day compressed beneath waistbands and practical cotton.

She catches sight of her legs while stepping into the shower and experiences one sharp, private moment of gratitude that she shaved yesterday.

It’s not that Garrett cares. Garrett has never shown any evidence of believing body hair is an issue, mostly because he’s generally too busy trying to get his face into whatever region of her body she’s worrying about.

Still. Thank God.

The shower turns hot fast, old pipes groaning briefly inside the wall before water rushes over her shoulders. She gets beneath it and exhales, the whole day loosening from her skin at once. 

Fluorescent light. Hand sanitiser. The faint tack of old sweat beneath her bra line. The particular hospital-film feeling that follows a long shift home no matter how many times she cleans her hands.

She washes quickly but properly, soap worked over her arms, stomach, breasts, between her thighs, down her legs. Shampoo would take too long and require negotiations with wet hair afterwards, so she settles for pulling her hair up higher and washing around her neck, her face, behind her ears with the concentrated efficiency of someone whose extremely impatient boyfriend is probably staring at the bathroom door like it’s personally wronged him.

Boyfriend.

Her mouth keeps curling every time she thinks it. It’s embarrassing. Nobody can see her, and it’s still embarrassing.

She turns the water off before the five minutes can become six. The sudden quiet makes the bathroom feel smaller, water dripping from the showerhead and running in warm lines down her body while the radiator clicks near the wall. 

She steps out onto the bathmat, dries herself quickly, then wraps the towel around her chest and tucks the corner securely between her breasts.

The mirror has fogged around the edges. She clears a patch with her palm. Her reflection looks softer now. Clean skin, damp at the shoulders. Hair pulled up badly, little pieces curling near her ears. The towel covers her from chest to upper thigh, and somehow that feels more exposing than being naked in Garrett’s bed has ever felt.

Her stomach tightens. Why the fuck is she nervous? This is Garrett.

Her Garrett, apparently. Officially. A title hasn’t altered his anatomy. He doesn’t suddenly have a new penis because they used the word girlfriend. Nothing practical has changed. 

She knows his body. Knows the little scar near his ribs and the sensitive place beneath his jaw and the exact amount of pressure it takes with her mouth before his breathing goes rough.

Garrett knows hers too, probably better than anyone has, not just sexually but in all the tiny humiliating places surrounding it. 

He knows she gets anxious when she’s too tired. Knows she wants food after placement even when she claims she doesn’t. Knows how to tell when her laugh is real and when she’s using it to move a conversation away from something sore.

If anything, it should be better. The thought settles hot and persuasive between her legs.

“Okay,” she whispers at the mirror. “Normal.”

Her reflection looks unconvinced.

She unlocks the bathroom and steps into the hallway. The house has gone quieter downstairs, voices muted under the low sound of the television. She can smell popcorn now, which means Tucker has decided the appropriate response to his best friend becoming official is to provide the other boys with snacks while they wait out the vibrations.

Garrett’s bedroom door is still partly open. She slips inside and closes it behind her, then turns the lock with one decisive click.

Garrett’s sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s shed the tracksuit jacket while she was gone. He’s in a grey Briar hoodie and dark sweats, forearms braced loosely over his thighs, damp curls falling over his forehead. 

His phone is beside him on the comforter, untouched. The way he looks up at the sound of the lock sends a slow, dragging warmth over every inch of skin the towel leaves bare.

His eyes drop. They move from her face to the towel, down the length of her legs, then back up slightly slower. His mouth curves.

“My girl,” he says. “C’mere.”

Oh, fuck.

Her feet move before the rest of her catches up. She crosses the room and stops between his spread knees, the towel held by nothing but friction and optimism, Garrett’s hands finding the backs of her thighs immediately. 

He looks up at her from there, dark eyes warm and bright beneath his curls, and the angle does something frankly unacceptable to her pulse. His mouth presses to her stomach over the towel.

It’s gentle. Warm. A slow kiss just above her navel through the soft fabric, then another beside it while his hands slide upward along the backs of her legs. She puts her fingers into his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, and Garrett hums against her.

“You good?” he asks.

The question is quiet enough that it changes something in the room. Something steadier clicks into place, the familiar open door between them. A real chance to say stop, slow down, not tonight, I’m tired, I changed my mind.

She runs her fingers through his curls again. “I’m fine, baby.”

Garrett lifts his face. His eyes search hers for a second beyond the answer, then he nods, satisfied enough to kiss her stomach again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He kisses higher, mouth dragging over the towel along her ribs, then the centre of her chest as he stands. His hands move with him, sliding from her thighs to her waist, holding her steady when she takes one small step backward to make room for all of him.

Garrett follows. His mouth catches hers, soft at first, and she can feel him smiling for one second before the kiss deepens. Her hands find the hem of his hoodie, tugging impatiently until he pulls back just enough to drag it over his head. 

His shirt comes with it, bunched inside the heavier fabric, leaving his hair standing up messily and his chest bare in the warm lamplight. She laughs.

Garrett drops the clothes onto the floor. “What?”

“Your hair.”

He frowns. “Fix it.”

She wraps both arms around his shoulders instead and pulls him down, kissing him while her fingers work through the disordered curls at the back of his head. Garrett’s hands settle on her waist over the towel. One finds the tucked corner between her breasts.

His mouth pauses against hers. His eyes open, looking down at the place his fingers have caught. He pulls. The towel loosens and falls between them, dragging briefly over her hips before pooling around her feet. 

Cool air touches her damp skin for half a second. Then she presses closer, bare breasts against his chest, arms tightening around his shoulders as Garrett’s breath leaves him in a rough, quiet exhale.

His palms spread over her back. “Fuck,” he murmurs into her mouth.

The sound goes through her like it has somewhere specific to be. She kisses him harder, one hand sliding down the strong line of his back, then lower to the waistband of his sweats. Garrett catches her waist and turns them, walking her backward toward the bed while his mouth moves from hers to her jaw.

Her knees touch the mattress. Garrett lowers her carefully. One hand supports the back of her head. The other stays firm at her waist as he eases her onto the sheets, his body following without dropping its full weight over her. 

His mouth kisses the corner of hers, then her cheek, her jaw, the side of her throat. Slow. Measured. Still carrying the softness he’s been handling her with ever since the concussion, the nine days, the hospital lockdown, every moment where wanting her has made him afraid of getting something wrong.

She understands it. She loves it, probably, which is its own administrative nightmare. She doesn’t want it tonight. Not like this.

She doesn’t want to be handled like something newly official means newly breakable. She wants Garrett. Her Garrett. Smug and attentive and filthy enough to make her forget what floor the room is on. 

She wants to wake up tomorrow with his fingerprints warm in her skin and her body carrying the private evidence that her boyfriend spent the night making extremely enthusiastic use of the title.

Garrett kisses down the centre of her chest. His mouth closes briefly over one nipple, tongue moving slow, and her back arches before she can make a point.

He smiles against her skin. “That good?”

“Yes.” She threads her fingers through his hair as he moves lower, kissing beneath her breast, then down her stomach. “But you’re being careful.”

Garrett lifts his head. “You worked all day.”

“I know.”

“You’re tired.”

“I’m also naked in your bed.”

His mouth twitches. “I noticed.”

She gives his curls a small tug. “Garrett.”

His eyes narrow slightly, warmth darkening toward something sharper. “What?”

She holds his gaze. “I don’t want gentle.”

Garrett’s hand is spread over her hip, thumb still against her skin. His mouth rests near her stomach, his whole body stretched between her thighs and over the mattress, suspended for one quiet second while he makes sure he has heard her properly.

“No?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No.”

His grip on her hip firms, but he doesn’t move yet. Something thoughtful passes through the heat in his expression.

“I wanna try something,” he says.

Her stomach tightens. “What?”

“Overstimulation.” Garrett watches her face carefully as he says it, all the smugness briefly stripped away by the seriousness beneath it. “I want to make you come, then keep going. See how many you can take before you’re completely done.” His thumb strokes once over her hip. “But you tell me to slow down, I slow down. You tell me to stop, I stop. No questions.”

Heat spreads low and immediate between her thighs. “Yes.”

Garrett’s eyes darken. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” She gives his curls a small tug, pulling him closer. “I want that.”

His gaze drops slowly over her body, then comes back to her face with his mouth curving just enough to make her pulse jump.

“Okay,” he says. “Then you’re gonna give me every single one I ask for.”

He kisses down her stomach again, but the softness has changed. There’s intention under it now, the slow drag of his lips no longer cautious so much as controlled, each kiss placed like he’s deciding exactly how long she’ll have to wait before he gives her what she asked for.

Her thighs part wider around him. Garrett’s mouth reaches the soft skin above her hip. He kisses there, then across to the other side, hands sliding beneath her thighs. She raises her legs before he can ask and settles them over his shoulders, ankles crossing loosely behind his back as his palms move up to her hips.

His grin flashes from between her legs. “Helpful.”

“Shut up.”

He hooks his hands under her thighs and drags her toward the edge of the bed in one quick pull. Her breath catches. The sheets slide warm beneath her back, body moving several inches toward him until her hips are lifted slightly into the angle of his waiting mouth.

“There,” Garrett murmurs.

Then he kisses her. The first touch lands just above where she needs him, mouth warm against the inside of her thigh. Then the other side. His tongue drags once over the crease near her hip, slow and wet enough to make her stomach tighten while his hands hold her open.

She pushes her fingers into his hair. “Garrett.”

He hums against her skin. His mouth moves closer, lips pressing softly over her, then his tongue follows, gentle at first. One long, slow lick through her that pulls a sound from the back of her throat and makes her heels press into the muscles of his back. 

Garrett does it again, unhurried, tongue flattening against her clit before circling lightly around it. The pleasure is immediate but maddeningly measured. 

Warm little waves spreading through her body while he kisses and licks like he has all night to prove he can still be patient even after she explicitly told him not to.

Her head presses deeper into the pillow. She tries to follow his mouth, hips lifting, but Garrett’s hands tighten and keep her exactly where he wants her.

“Baby,” she breathes.

He hums again, lips closing gently over her clit, drawing it into his mouth with a slow suction that makes her thighs tense around his head. Then he eases off. Kisses her once, soft enough that her body jolts anyway. Licks again, light and teasing, and something irritated begins to mix with the heat.

Garrett Graham has always had a deeply annoying relationship with restraint. Mostly, he enjoys proving he has it right before making it everyone else’s problem.

She tugs at his hair. Garrett groans into her, but he doesn’t speed up. She tugs harder and lets a soft, frustrated whine slip out.

His eyes lift to hers from between her thighs. Dark, amused, and no longer pretending he doesn’t know exactly what she wants.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

Then his mouth seals over her properly. The change knocks the breath out of her. Garrett’s tongue moves with all the careful focus stripped out of the pace, licking hard and slick over her clit before dragging down, pressing into her, coming back up with enough pressure that her hips buck uselessly against the grip of his hands.

“Oh, fuck.” Her fingers twist into his curls. “Garrett.”

He groans, the vibration landing directly against her, then does it again. Mouth open. Tongue wet and relentless. He kisses her like he kisses her mouth when he’s forgotten anyone else exists, deep and hungry and listening to every little shift her body gives him.

Her legs tighten around his shoulders. Garrett forces them wider with his forearms, one hand leaving her hip to slide between them. His fingers move through the wetness his mouth has spread, stroking over her once before two press at her entrance.

Garrett pushes both fingers inside her. The stretch pulls a loud, broken sound from her. Her head tips back, throat exposed to the warm room while his fingers curl slowly, finding the place that makes her stomach draw tight beneath his arm.

Garrett smiles against her.

“Any louder, baby?” he asks, mouth close enough that the words brush over her clit.

A laugh escapes her, thin and breathless and already half ruined. “Jesus– oh my God–”

“Thought so.”

He lowers his mouth again before she can insult him. There’s no gentleness left to complain about now. Only control, which is worse in the best possible way. 

Garrett works two fingers in and out of her at a pace that builds with horrible accuracy, curling them each time his mouth sucks over her clit, then easing the pressure only when her thighs start shaking hard enough to tell him she’s close.

She doesn’t know when her free hand moves to the sheet. One second it’s in his hair, the next it’s gripping a fistful of navy cotton beside her hip while Garrett’s tongue circles fast and firm and his fingers drag over that spot again.

Pleasure gathers low and tight, too much of it fitting into too small a place. Her breathing loses any sensible rhythm. Soft moans turn rougher, spilling into his room without any attempt to keep them from travelling through the walls.

The boys know. The whole fucking house knows. Her boyfriend is eating her out after she got home from an emergency-department lockdown and signed up for the official position beside a hospital security desk. 

There are worse reputations to have.

“Garrett,” she gasps. “Fuck, baby, I’m–”

His free hand slides over her lower stomach, pinning her gently but firmly to the mattress when her hips try to lift. His mouth doesn’t stop. His fingers don’t stop. 

He only groans against her as if the warning has made him hungrier, tongue working over her with the exact pressure that makes the heat pull painfully tight. Her orgasm breaks hard.

She cries out, body arching beneath the weight of his arm, legs locking around his shoulders as pleasure rips through her in bright, shuddering waves. 

Her hand pulls his hair. Her thighs shake against the sides of his face. Garrett stays there through all of it, fingers curling slower now, mouth easing from hard suction into soft, wet licks that stretch every pulse until she’s squirming beneath him and making small, helpless sounds she will absolutely deny later.

“Fuck,” she breathes. “Oh my– Garrett.”

He doesn’t stop. His fingers slide out slowly. His tongue takes their place for one lazy, filthy stroke that makes her jolt so hard her knee nearly clips his ear.

“Garrett?”

He kisses the inside of her thigh, mouth wet, breathing rough. Then the other side. His hands smooth over the muscles still trembling around him like he’s calming a frightened animal he chased into traffic.

“One more,” he says.

Her chest is moving too fast. She looks down at him through the soft blur of the aftermath, his curls crushed beneath her hands, cheeks slightly flushed, mouth shining in a way that sends fresh heat through a body that should have filed for medical leave.

Garrett presses a gentle kiss directly over her clit. Her whole body jerks. A broken sound catches between a laugh and a whine, legs trying to close around him on instinct. 

He holds them apart and does it again, barely any pressure, only the warm brush of his mouth over oversensitive skin.

“One more,” he repeats, smiling now. Another kiss. Her hips twitch.

She swallows, tries to gather one functioning thought, and nods.

“Words?” he asks.

“Yes.” Her voice comes out rough. 

Garrett’s smile goes warm for half a second. Proud, almost. Then he lowers his mouth.

The second one starts differently because her body is already too open, too sensitive, every touch arriving sharpened by what came before. 

The first slow drag of his tongue makes her thighs tense. The second makes her gasp. By the time he seals his mouth over her clit again, she’s gripping the sheet with both hands because putting them in his hair feels unsafe.

Garrett crosses his fingers, and then slides them inside her, changing the angle before curling them upward.

“Oh.” Her whole stomach tightens. “Oh, fuck.”

He watches her face while he moves them, slow at first, testing the angle. The next curl makes her mouth fall open. Garrett’s eyes darken. “Right there?”

She nods frantically. “Yes.”

His mouth comes back down. It’s too much immediately. Too much and nowhere near enough, her body caught between trying to squirm away from the overwhelming pressure and chasing it harder every time he eases up. 

Garrett holds her hips through both impulses, fingers pumping steadily inside her while his tongue moves fast over her clit.

She loses track of her hands. One catches the pillow behind her head. The other reaches blindly toward him, finding his wrist, his forearm, then his hair again because pain is worth the structural support.

Her mouth won’t stop either. Little pieces of words fall out without order. His name. Baby. Please. Fuck. Yes. Something that might be don’t stop, except the sentence breaks when his fingers curl and his mouth sucks and her entire body lifts uselessly beneath his hold.

Garrett groans against her like the noise is feeding something in him.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, the words wet and low against her before his tongue returns. “Let me hear you.”

She does. There’s no dignified way through the second orgasm he’s building. No quiet path. The pleasure keeps climbing with nowhere to disperse, stacking over itself until her thighs are trembling against his shoulders and her breathing comes in small, sharp pulls that make her chest ache.

The room has reduced itself to scattered details. Lamplight through her lashes. The rough-soft twist of his curls between her fingers. His forearm across her lower stomach. The slick sound of his fingers moving inside her. His mouth, warm and focused and absolutely determined to make his girlfriend wake everyone in the building.

“G-Garrett–” Her voice catches. “I’m– oh! I’m gonna– ba-baby–”

His fingers curl hard. His tongue flattens over her clit. The second orgasm tears through her before she can finish warning him, deeper and sharper than the first, body locking so tightly around his fingers that Garrett groans into her. 

She cries out, head pressing back into the bed, legs shaking uncontrollably against his shoulders while pulse after pulse drags through her.

Garrett licks her through it. Slower when the intensity starts tipping toward pain, mouth softening into kisses as his fingers ease their pace. He slips them out carefully, then presses his lips to the inside of one thigh, the other, her hip, letting the last spasms pass without abandoning her to them.

Her legs feel completely detached from all normal motor function. Garrett lowers them one at a time from his shoulders, palms moving gently down her calves before settling them onto the mattress. Then he kisses his way up her body.

Her stomach. Ribs. The underside of one breast, then the other. Each kiss warm and slightly damp, his curls brushing over her skin while she lies there breathing like she’s recently ran a marathon.

By the time he reaches her face, she’s giggling. She can’t help it. The sound bubbles out small and dazed, every part of her loose and warm and absurdly happy, Garrett’s body settling above hers while his mouth curves in response.

“Oh,” she whispers, then laughs again. “My–”

Garrett kisses her cheek. “Good?”

She nods quickly. “Uh-huh.”

His laugh is soft and unbearably pleased. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be smug.” She reaches up and pushes the curls back from his forehead, though her hand is still shaking enough that she mostly makes them worse. “I hate you.”

“Sure.” Garrett brushes her damp hair away from her temple, eyes moving over her flushed face with a satisfaction so warm it barely qualifies as arrogance. 

She catches the back of his neck and pulls him down. The kiss starts slow, mostly because her body has temporarily forgotten speed. She tastes herself on his tongue, salt and heat and Garrett beneath it, and something about the intimacy of it – the way he kisses her without hesitation, mouth opening over hers, hand cupping the side of her face – sparks want through the pleasant wreckage all over again.

She rolls him. Garrett lets out a startled laugh when her weight shifts, one hand grabbing her waist as she pushes him onto his back and follows him over. 

The mattress moves beneath them. His head hits the pillow, curls spreading messily, eyes bright as she settles over his thighs.

“Well,” he says. “Recovered fast.”

“Shut up.” She kisses him once, hard, then reaches for the waistband of his sweats.

Her hands are not functioning at full clinical capacity. The first tug catches fabric awkwardly around his hips. The second gets one side lower than the other. 

Garrett watches her struggle for approximately four seconds before his mouth starts twitching. “Need help?”

“No.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I wonder why.”

“Could be fatigue.”

“Could be your ego about to cause a medical emergency.”

He laughs and lifts his hips, helping her drag the sweats down. His boxers go with them after a small, graceless fight around his thighs, and then he’s bare beneath her, hard enough that her mouth goes dry despite everything he’s just done.

Garrett notices the look. His hand slides around the back of her neck, thumb resting lightly against the side of her throat as he pulls her down into another kiss. 

She hums into his mouth, thighs tightening around one of his legs when his palm settles there with just enough pressure to make her aware of her own pulse.

“Still good?” he murmurs.

She nods against him. “Very.”

“Good.”

She kisses along his jaw. The faint stubble there scratches pleasantly against her lips, then the side of his throat, where his pulse is already beating fast beneath the skin. Garrett tips his head back to give her room, fingers threading into her hair as her mouth moves lower.

His chest. The shallow dip between his ribs. The hard line of his stomach tightening beneath each kiss.

Garrett Graham. Her boyfriend.

She smiles against his skin.

“What?” he asks, already sounding suspicious.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not a nothing smile.”

She kisses just below his navel. “Boyfriend.”

Garrett’s stomach tightens under her mouth. “Yeah,” he says, voice roughening.

She glances up at him. “You like that?”

His eyes are dark down the length of his body. “You know I do.”

Good. She’s going to give her boyfriend the best head of his life.

Not that she hasn’t tried before. She has standards. But there’s something newly satisfying about the idea tonight, something bright and possessive sitting beneath her ribs as she wraps one hand around the base of him and watches Garrett’s breath catch.

She starts slowly. One soft kiss to the head, barely any pressure. Then another, lips parting around him while her tongue moves over the sensitive underside with a familiarity she’s earned. Garrett’s fingers flex in her hair.

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

She smiles and takes him into her mouth. Only enough to wet him properly, tongue moving in a slow circle before she eases back and lets spit gather over her lower lip. 

Her hand follows the slick she leaves behind, stroking the length she hasn’t taken while Garrett watches with his jaw tight and his free hand fisted into the sheet near his hip.

She knows what he likes now. Knows that teasing works for roughly thirty seconds before Garrett starts breathing through his mouth. Knows he likes when she looks up at him, when she lets the mess happen instead of trying to keep the whole thing neat, when her tongue presses flat beneath him and her hand twists slightly on the way down.

She gives him all of it. Slow, wet strokes of her mouth. Tongue dragging along the underside. Her lips tightening around him before sliding back, leaving spit shining over his skin and her hand. 

The soft, obscene sounds fill the space around them, mixed with Garrett’s breathing and the occasional rough curse when she takes him deeper.

His hand in her hair stays careful despite the tension in his arm. Gathering it away from her face, guiding lightly when she finds the rhythm he likes.

“There you go,” he breathes. “Good girl.”

The praise moves through her like a touch. She moans around him.

Garrett’s hips twitch before he controls them. His eyes sharpen. “Yeah? You like that?”

She looks up.

He smiles, but it’s strained now, mouth parted and cheeks faintly flushed, the smugness held together by effort. “That’s my girl.”

Her thighs press together. Garrett sees that too. His free hand leaves the sheet and slides down her shoulder, along her side, over the curve of her ass before reaching between her legs. 

She makes a questioning sound around him, but his thumb only brushes gently over her clit, barely enough pressure to hurt through the sensitivity. Her whole body shivers.

“Keep going,” he murmurs.

She does, though the next slide of her mouth is less controlled when his thumb circles again. Slow. Gentle. A soft counterpoint to the way she takes him deeper, saliva gathering at the corners of her mouth while Garrett’s hand moves in her hair.

“Fuck, baby.” His head falls back against the pillow. “So good.”

She moans again. His thumb presses slightly firmer. Her hips rock into his hand on instinct, thighs widening over the mattress while she keeps the pace slow and sloppy, drawing back far enough to breathe before taking him down again.

Garrett’s praise keeps coming, each one pulling another response from her body. “Good girl.” Her tongue flattens under him. “That’s it.” She takes him deeper, eyes watering slightly at the pressure. “My girl. Fuck, look at you.”

Her hand moves faster at the base while her mouth slows, letting him feel every wet drag of her lips. Spit slips over her fingers, down the length of him, and Garrett makes a low, wrecked sound that vibrates through his chest.

His thumb keeps circling her. Keeping her there in the heat with him, every gentle stroke making her clench around nothing while she works her mouth over him.

She pulls back briefly, lips swollen and wet, one hand still moving. “You like that, boyfriend?”

Garrett looks at her. For half a second he seems almost offended by how much the word affects him. Then his hand tightens in her hair and his mouth curves. “Put your mouth back on me, girlfriend.”

Heat burns across her face. She laughs once, breathlessly, then obeys.

The sound Garrett makes when her lips close around him again is worth every bad decision that has led her here. Rough and low, pulled out of him before he can make it prettier. 

She takes him deeper this time, relaxing around the pressure until her nose brushes the dark hair at the base, then pulls back with a wet gasp.

“Jesus Christ.” Garrett’s thumb loses its rhythm for half a second. “Baby.”

She does it again. His hips lift carefully into her mouth, following when she gives it, and she lets him. Her hand rests against his thigh now, nails pressing into the hard muscle while his fingers tighten through her hair and his thumb moves fast enough over her clit to make her own breath break around him.

“Fuck,” he says. “That’s it. Just like that.”

She keeps going until her jaw aches lightly and saliva is everywhere, shining over her lips and chin and hand, Garrett’s stomach tensing hard above her with every stroke. His praise turns rougher, phrases breaking apart under the strain.

“So fucking good.” Her thighs shake. “My good girl.” She whimpers around him. “Fuck, baby, I’m close.”

Her mouth doesn’t slow. 

Garrett looks down at her, breathing hard, his thumb still working between her thighs even while the muscles in his stomach tighten. “You want me to–”

She gives the base of him a small squeeze and takes him deep again.

The question disappears. Garrett comes with a broken curse, hips lifting once beneath her as his hand tightens in her hair. She feels the first pulse against her tongue, then another, warm and thick as she swallows around him. 

His head drops back, eyes closing, mouth open on her name while she keeps her lips sealed around him and takes all of it.

His thumb stops moving only when his whole body goes tense. Then it resumes, slower now, stroking her gently while she draws back and licks the last of him clean with one lazy pass of her tongue.

“Holy fuck,” Garrett breathes.

She presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh.

His hand falls out of her hair and drags over his face. “You’re insane.”

She smiles, kissing up the hard plane of his stomach while his body softens beneath her. Her thighs are trembling again from the steady work of his thumb, clit swollen and sensitive, every small movement dragging a faint spark through her. “You liked it.”

Garrett uncovers his face. “That’s what you got from that?”

She reaches his chest. “I’m observant.”

“You’re evil.”

“I’m clinically trained.”

He catches her waist and pulls her the rest of the way up. Their mouths meet messily. There’s no careful entry into the kiss. Garrett licks into her mouth, one hand at her throat and the other sliding around her back, rolling her beneath him until his body covers hers again. 

She can taste him faintly beneath the mint and herself still lingering on his tongue, all of it mixed into something filthy and intimate enough that she moans and tangles both hands into his curls.

Garrett kisses like he’s still coming down. Loose and hungry and smiling every few seconds because neither of them seems able to stop. Their noses bump. She laughs into his mouth. He pulls back just far enough to look at her, eyes bright and soft, then rubs his nose against hers until she makes a disgusted sound and kisses him again.

“You’re being cute,” she murmurs.

“Don’t ruin it.”

“You’re rubbing noses.”

“Very masculine.”

“Extremely.”

Garrett grins. He kisses her once, then pulls back. Looks at her face. Smiles wider, like he’s remembered something. Then dives back in.

It keeps happening. Kiss, breathe, look. His fingers tracing the edge of her jaw. Her hand pushing his curls back. Mouths meeting again because the small distance becomes intolerable almost immediately.

There’s something absurdly happy under the heat now. Garrett laughing softly when their teeth knock. Her smiling so hard into one kiss that he has to move to her cheek. His nose brushing hers, his forehead resting against her own while their breathing gradually settles.

Her boyfriend. 

She tests the word silently while looking at him this close. Garrett’s mouth pink, curls wrecked, a faint scratch near his shoulder from her nails. He looks exactly like Garrett. Nothing has changed and everything has shifted half an inch into place.

She wraps one leg around his hip and pulls him closer. Garrett’s breath catches. He’s getting hard again against her thigh, enough that she can feel the heat and weight of him returning where their bodies press together.

Her mouth curves. “Fast recovery.”

“Shut up.”

“Sports medicine should study you.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“You’re smug.”

“You’re naked.”

She kisses the corner of his mouth. “Excellent assessment.”

Garrett kisses her again, slower now, and she realises after another minute that he’s giving her time. Letting her body settle after two orgasms and the relentless touch of his thumb during his own. 

Letting the tremors leave her legs while he works himself back up with kisses and hands rather than immediately turning the whole thing into the rough, mattress-ruining sex she told him she wanted.

It’s thoughtful. It’s also ominous. Good.

Garrett sits up slightly, leaning across her toward the bedside table. His body stretches warm over hers as he pulls the drawer open and reaches inside.

She catches his wrist. “Mm-mm.”

Garrett looks back at her, condom packet already between his fingers. “Oh.” His brows draw together. “You don’t–?”

“No.” She pulls his arm back toward her and kisses him once before he can misunderstand. “No, I want to have sex.”

His expression clears slightly, though the frown stays. “Okay.”

“But no condom.”

Garrett goes very still, like every part of his body has received the sentence independently and is holding an emergency meeting about it. “Baby?”

She feels suddenly, stupidly shy again. Her fingers slide down from his wrist and rest against his forearm. “I’m on birth control.”

Garrett looks confused. “I thought the pill made you feel weird.”

“It did.”

“Like, really weird.”

“Yes, thank you for remembering my emotional collapse.”

Garrett’s mouth twitches, but his gaze stays searching. “So what birth control?”

She lifts her left arm between them and turns it slightly, showing him the faint little mark high along the inside, mostly healed now. “Look.”

Garrett bends closer, squinting at her skin. His fingers slide carefully beneath her arm, thumb moving near the tiny insertion site without pressing it. “What the fuck is that?”

“Implant.” She guides his fingertips lightly over the thin shape beneath her skin. Garrett’s face changes when he feels it, interest and faint horror combining into something deeply male. “I got it the other week. It lasts a few years.”

“There’s a stick in your arm.”

“It’s not a stick.”

“It feels like a stick.”

“It’s flexible.”

“That is not helping.”

She laughs, lowering her arm and bringing both hands to the sides of his face. “It’s birth control, Garrett.”

His eyes return to hers. The humour fades back enough for the real question to show. “And you’re sure?”

She nods. “I’m sure.”

“Like, sure sure?”

“Yes.”

He studies her face. “And you’re good with… everything?”

“We’ve both been tested. I got it inserted. I’m covered.” She brushes her thumb over his cheek, suddenly warm all over for a completely different reason. “So, I don’t want to use one. If you don’t.”

Garrett stares at her for one long second. Then his grin starts. Slow at first, spreading across his face with such naked, disbelieving delight that she begins laughing before he says anything. 

He shoves the drawer closed with one hand, and comes down over her again, catching her mouth in a kiss that’s already rougher than everything before it.

“Oh,” he says against her lips, voice low and wrecked and very, very pleased. “Fuck yeah.”

There’s no careful easing back into it, no last sensible conversation about efficacy percentages or insertion dates or whether either of them should maybe take one full breath before making an extremely enthusiastic decision. 

Garrett’s mouth catches hers hard enough to press her head into the pillow, one hand sliding beneath her jaw while the other grips her thigh and pulls it higher over his hip. 

The grin is still there for the first second, warm and disbelieving against her lips, and then she rolls her hips up beneath him and it disappears into a groan.

The bare length of him drags between her thighs. Every part of her body seems to notice at once. The heat of his skin. The slick mess Garrett left between her legs. The absence of latex where there’s always been latex before, even through the frantic, half-dressed hookups and the planned experiments and the nights where neither of them had managed to get their shoes fully off before reaching the bed. 

It should be a tiny distinction. A clinical one, almost. A material change measured in fractions of a millimetre. Her nervous system receives it like breaking news.

“Oh,” she breathes into his mouth.

Garrett stills for half a beat, forehead brushing hers. “Okay?”

“Yes.” She catches his curls at the back of his head and pulls him down before he can turn this into a risk-assessment interview. “Yeah, baby.”

His mouth opens over hers again, deeper now, tongue sliding against hers while his hips move. It starts slow, the hard line of him grinding through the slick heat between her thighs, catching over her clit on each forward roll and making her breath hitch embarrassingly fast. 

Garrett’s hand tightens beneath her thigh. His other thumb presses into the soft place under her jaw, holding her where he wants her.

She tugs his hair. Garrett bites gently at her lower lip, then along her jaw when she tips her face away to breathe, teeth catching lightly over skin before his mouth soothes the place. The scrape sends something hot through her stomach. She makes a soft, helpless sound and feels him smile against her cheek.

“There?” he murmurs.

She answers by dragging her nails through his curls and rolling her hips harder.

Garrett’s breath catches. “Yeah. Okay.”

He kisses her with more force, all the restraint from earlier finally burning off. His mouth gets sloppy over hers, lips sliding, tongues meeting without anything tidy about it. 

She can taste mint and heat and the faint trace of herself still on him, and the knowledge should be too much after everything that has already happened, but it only makes her thighs tighten around his hips.

Garrett grinds against her again. She whimpers. The sound goes through him visibly, his shoulders tensing beneath her hands, jaw tightening as he drags himself over her once more. 

The head of him catches at her entrance, pressing there for half a second before slipping away through the slick mess between them.

“Fuck,” he says into her mouth.

She tries to tilt her hips higher. Garrett’s hand slides beneath her ass to help, lifting her into the angle he wants, and the next slow grind catches differently. He slips inside.

There’s no warning beyond the sudden hot pressure and the sharp, full stretch of him entering her in one smooth, accidental push. Her cry breaks directly into his mouth, fingers locking at his shoulders while Garrett groans so deeply she feels it through his chest.

They freeze, barely a breath, both of them held in the shock of it, Garrett partway inside her and looking down at her with his eyes gone wide and dark.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

She can’t answer properly. Her whole body has gone tight around him, every nerve turned toward the place they’re joined, the bare heat of him so immediate and different that her mouth only opens around a small, wrecked sound.

Garrett kisses her. She kisses him back with the same frantic need, one hand sliding into his hair while the other claws lightly at his shoulder. He pushes deeper beneath the kiss, slowly enough to let her body open around him, but there’s nothing gentle about the sound he makes when his hips finally meet hers.

“Oh my God.” Her head tips back. “Garrett.”

“Baby.” His voice is rough against her throat, almost unrecognisable beneath the strain of holding still. “Fuck, you feel–”

She clenches around him before he finishes. Garrett swears, head dropping into the curve of her neck. His mouth finds her pulse and bites softly, one hand gripping her hip hard enough that she knows she’ll feel the shape of it tomorrow.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

She laughs breathlessly. “Why?”

“Because I’m trying not to embarrass myself in the first thirty seconds.”

“Damn. My boyfriend has no stamina?”

Garrett lifts his head. The look on his face should probably concern her. Instead it sends a fresh pulse of heat through her.

“Okay,” he says, very quietly. “You wanna be like that?”

She smiles up at him, flushed and already shaking slightly despite how recently he’d made her come. “Maybe.”

Garrett pulls almost all the way out. The sudden emptiness makes her inhale sharply. Then he drives back inside her hard enough that the mattress shifts beneath her body and the headboard knocks once against the wall.

Her mouth falls open.

“There,” he says, voice low and pleased. “That better?”

She gets halfway through nodding before he does it again. The second thrust drags a moan out of her. The third turns it louder. 

Garrett plants one forearm beside her head and catches her hip with the other hand, holding her steady as the pace sharpens almost immediately, each stroke deep and hard enough to send her sliding upward over the sheets.

This is what she asked for. Not careless. Garrett is never careless with her, not really, even when he’s being rough. There’s still control under every movement, his hand bracing her body, his eyes cutting over her face between kisses, his rhythm adjusting whenever her breathing changes. 

But there’s nothing cautious about it either. Nothing fragile. He fucks her like she belongs in his bed. Like she asked him to stop holding back and he intends to honour the request thoroughly enough that she regrets ever accusing him of gentleness.

The mattress gives beneath each thrust. Her breasts move against his chest. Garrett’s curls fall into his eyes, sweat beginning to gather along his hairline while he drives into her with a rhythm that keeps knocking little broken noises out of her.

“Oh– fuck, baby.” Her nails scrape over his biceps, then his shoulders when she can’t find anywhere else to hold. “That’s– Garrett, that’s so–”

“Yeah?” His mouth catches hers, swallowing the next moan as he thrusts deeper. “Like that?”

She nods frantically against him.

“Words.”

“Yes.” The answer tears out of her. “Yes, fuck, like that.”

Garrett kisses her hard enough that their teeth knock. His tongue slides over hers, messy and hungry, while his hand grips beneath her thigh and pushes it higher along his side. The change opens her further, and the next stroke hits so deep her whole body arches.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

She hates when he says that. She loves when he says that. She scratches down his shoulder in retaliation, and Garrett groans into her mouth, hips driving forward hard enough to move her another inch toward the headboard.

The sheets are bunching beneath her. Every thrust pushes her farther up the bed, until her head nearly meets the pillow wedged against the wall. Garrett notices only when his next movement sends her shoulder into it.

“Shit.” He pulls back just enough to catch both her hips and drags her bodily down the mattress.

She yelps, then laughs because the movement is so bluntly practical and so deeply hot that her brain cannot select one reaction.

Garrett settles himself back between her thighs. “Stop running away.”

“I’m not running anywhere.”

“You’re halfway up the wall.”

“You’re doing that!”

He kisses her once, grinning against her mouth, then pushes back inside with a slow, hard stroke that wipes the laughter out of her. “Stay there.”

She tries. She really does. Unfortunately, Garrett resumes fucking her with enough force that the bed begins shifting again almost immediately.

The headboard knocks. The lamp on his bedside table trembles faintly. Somewhere downstairs, there’s a burst of laughter from the television followed by Dean yelling something that might be, “For fuck’s sake,” though the words are swallowed by Garrett’s mouth and the wet, relentless drag of his body into hers.

She stops caring. Her whole body is wound too tight, pleasure building over the oversensitive ache Garrett left behind earlier. It’s different this time, not the sharp, focused pressure of his mouth and fingers but something deeper and heavier, every hard stroke dragging over the exact place inside her that makes her vision go slightly soft.

Garrett knows she’s getting close before she says it. His hand slides between them, thumb finding her clit in the limited space where their bodies meet. The first circle makes her gasp. The second makes her legs tighten around his waist hard enough to pull him closer.

“Baby,” she says, voice splintering.

“I know.” Garrett kisses beneath her eye, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth while keeping the same brutal pace. “Come on. I’ve got you.”

The praise hits harder than it should. Her nails dig into his shoulders. Garrett’s thumb presses firmer.

The orgasm catches her almost by surprise, rising out of the deep pressure between her hips and tearing through her before she can shape the warning properly. 

Her body locks beneath him. A cry catches high in her throat, legs clamping around his waist as she comes hard around him.

Garrett’s rhythm stutters. “Fuck,” he groans. “That’s it. Jesus, baby.”

He keeps moving through it, slower for the first few pulses, letting her body grip and release around him while his thumb eases off before she can get too sensitive. 

The pleasure spreads through her in heavy, shaking waves. Her fingers lose their hold on his shoulders. Her head rolls sideways into the pillow.

Garrett kisses her cheek, breathing hard. “Good?”

She laughs weakly. “Are you kidding?”

His grin flashes, smug and wrecked. “Just checking.”

He gives her approximately five seconds. Then he pulls out. The loss makes her whimper before she can stop it. Garrett sits back on his knees, one hand still gripping her thigh, chest heaving while he looks down at her flushed, shaking body.

“What–” she starts.

Garrett turns her over. There’s no inelegant scramble where she has to work out what he wants. One hand catches her hip, the other her shoulder, and he rolls her onto her stomach before sliding both palms beneath her pelvis and dragging her hips up.

She goes willingly. Enthusiastically, actually. Her knees find the mattress. Her chest stays pressed to the sheets, cheek against Garrett’s pillow while she lifts her ass into his hands and tries to recover enough breath to say something devastatingly clever.

What comes out is, “Oh my God.”

Garrett’s palm smooths over one cheek. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Still want rough?”

She turns her face enough to look back at him. Garrett is kneeling behind her, flushed and damp and painfully hard, one hand wrapped around himself while the other holds her hip. The sight makes her stomach clench.

“Yes,” she says again.

His eyes darken. “Good girl.”

He pushes back inside her. The angle is completely different and immediately obscene. Her mouth opens against the pillow, a broken moan muffled into Garrett’s sheets while he fills her in one deep stroke and settles his hips flush against her.

“Fuck,” he breathes behind her. “Baby.”

She arches instinctively, pressing back toward him. Garrett’s hand slides up her spine, between her shoulder blades, then into her hair just enough to gather it away from her face. He holds it, keeps her head turned safely to the side while he begins moving again.

The first thrust is slow. The second is harder. By the third, the bed is shifting beneath them all over again. She moans directly into the mattress, fingers clawing at the sheets beside her head. 

Garrett’s hand leaves her hair and reaches forward, finding one of hers. His fingers slide through hers and press their joined hands into the pillow.

Something about it almost undoes her more than the sex. Her hand trapped gently beneath his. His body hard over the back of hers without crushing her. His mouth finding her shoulder while he drives into her from behind with enough force to make her breath break into stupid, helpless little sounds.

Boyfriend. Her boyfriend is fucking her like this while holding her hand.

The thought is so deranged and tender and filthy that she starts laughing, except the next thrust turns the laugh into a moan.

Garrett’s mouth brushes the back of her shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re laughing at me?”

“No.” She arches harder into him. “I’m– fuck– I’m having a great time.”

Garrett laughs once, low and rough. “Yeah? Great shift, great night?”

“Excellent service.”

“Five stars?”

He pulls almost all the way out and slams back into her. Her answer becomes a cry.

“Thought so,” he says.

She presses her face deeper into the pillow. Saliva gathers at the corner of her mouth because she cannot keep her lips closed long enough to swallow, and the tiny humiliation of it only seems to make the heat worse. 

Garrett’s everywhere behind her: thighs against hers, hand interlocked with her own, other palm gripping her hip, chest brushing her back whenever he leans over to kiss her shoulder.

His rhythm grows harder. She pushes back to meet him, desperate for the deep drag of each thrust even as her legs begin to shake again. 

The pleasure from the last orgasm hasn’t fully faded, leaving her body open and sensitised, every movement landing over nerves already rubbed raw in the best possible way.

“Garrett,” she moans into the mattress. “Baby, I–”

His free hand slides beneath her. The first touch to her clit makes her whole body jolt.

“Shh,” he murmurs against her shoulder, though there’s no real attempt to quiet her in the way his fingers begin moving. “I know.”

She makes a desperate sound. “Too much.”

His lips press to her shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“Slow.” She squeezes his hand beside her head. “There. Slow.”

“Got you.”

His fingers adjust, circles turning gentler, almost maddening against her swollen clit while his hips stay hard and steady behind her. The contrast tears her apart by degrees. Deep, forceful strokes inside her. Soft pressure outside. Garrett’s praise low against her skin whenever her body tightens.

“That’s my girl.” She moans. “So good for me.” Her thighs tremble. “Look at you. Fuck.”

She can’t look at anything. Her eyes have fallen shut, mouth still open against the pillow while pleasure builds until there’s no room left inside her for embarrassment or thought or anything but Garrett’s body and Garrett’s voice and Garrett’s fingers entwined tightly with hers.

The orgasm starts low and spreads outward. Her legs shake first. Then her stomach pulls tight. The sound that comes out of her is muffled and raw, half his name and half something without language, as the pleasure breaks through her all over again.

Garrett slows his hips but doesn’t stop. His fingers keep the same gentle rhythm, dragging the orgasm out while her body clenches hard around him.

“Fuck, baby.” His forehead drops between her shoulder blades. “Yeah. That’s it.”

She comes until her arms feel weak. Until her knees threaten to slide apart. Until Garrett has to catch her hip and hold her up because the muscles in her legs have become jelly.

When he finally eases his hand away, her body slumps forward into the mattress. Their fingers stay tangled beside her face.

Garrett kisses her shoulder, then the back of her neck. “You with me?”

“Mhm.”

“That sounded convincing.”

She tries to lift her head and succeeds only in turning her cheek to the other side. “I’m alive.”

“Barely.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Garrett’s laugh warms her skin. “You said no gentle.”

“I didn’t say murder.”

“You’re very dramatic for someone pushing back on me thirty seconds ago.”

She would argue if Garrett weren’t still inside her and if her brain had retained access to verbs.

Instead she breathes, “Shut up.”

He kisses her shoulder again. “Want to stop?”

The question drags her slightly back into herself. Enough to notice the shaking in her thighs, the pleasant soreness gathering through her hips, the overstimulated pulse between her legs that makes every tiny movement register.

Garrett waits. She turns her head, trying to find him over her shoulder. “No.”

His hand smooths over her hip. “Sure?”

“Yes.” She swallows, voice coming out softer. “Just– turn me over.”

Garrett goes still for half a second, then he withdraws carefully. She whimpers at the emptiness, hips twitching before her body can pretend it didn’t want to follow him. 

Garrett makes a soothing sound and kisses her lower back, one palm moving over the curve of her ass while he gives her a second to breathe.

Then he rolls her onto her back. Her legs fall open with no real assistance from her. Garrett settles between them, one hand braced beside her head while the other cups her cheek.

He looks wrecked. Hair damp and crushed in every direction. Mouth swollen from kissing her. Chest flushed, breathing heavy, eyes darker than she has ever seen them and still impossibly focused on her face.

“Hi,” he says.

She starts laughing.

Garrett’s mouth twitches. “What?”

“You said hi.”

“Seemed polite.”

“We’re a little past polite.”

“I’m your boyfriend now. I have standards.”

Her heart does something soft and stupid beneath the exhaustion. “Right.”

Garrett kisses her. Slow this time. Mouth warm and deep without urgency, tongue brushing hers while he strokes his thumb beneath her eye.

Then he pushes back inside. She gasps against his lips. There’s no part of her that isn’t sensitive now. The stretch burns pleasantly for the first second, her body swollen and thoroughly used, and Garrett notices the faint tension immediately.

He stills once he’s fully seated. “Okay?”

She nods, breathing around it. “Yeah.”

His gaze searches hers. “Too much?”

“No.” She wraps both arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer until his forehead rests against hers. 

Garrett nods. The first thrust is deep enough to make her eyes close. No force behind it now, only the full drag of him leaving and filling her again. 

He keeps the pace measured, rolling his hips rather than slamming forward, one hand sliding beneath her thigh to open her to the angle.

The gentleness should be a relief. Instead, it gets under her skin. Every slow stroke makes her feel the bare length of him, every inch, every shift of pressure. 

There’s nowhere for the sensation to blur into speed. No hard rhythm to climb above. Only Garrett moving inside her while he looks directly at her face.

Her eyes sting. It isn’t sadness. It isn’t pain. It’s too much sensation and too little distance, her body exhausted enough that the pleasure has begun spilling over into everything else. One tear slips from the corner of her eye before she notices it.

Garrett does. His thumb catches the tear before it can disappear into her hairline, his gaze moving over her face with an attention that feels almost indecent while he’s still buried inside her.

“My girl,” he murmurs.

The words make her clench around him. Garrett’s mouth parts on a rough breath, his hips pressing forward instinctively before he catches himself. 

For one second he stays there, deep enough that the pressure makes her thighs twitch, thumb stroking once beneath her eye while another tear slips free from nothing more dramatic than her body being completely, spectacularly overwhelmed.

“So pretty,” he says, and kisses the wet track from her cheek. “You know that?”

She gasps when he rolls his hips, the movement slow but deep enough to drag over everything already swollen and sensitised. “I–”

“I know.” His mouth brushes hers. “I know, baby.”

She doesn’t think he does. She doesn’t think anyone could know what her body feels like right now, pleasure humming painfully beneath her skin, legs too weak to close properly around him, every nerve between her thighs stripped down to something raw and bright. 

She should be finished. Her body has been given several perfectly reasonable opportunities to declare the evening complete.

Instead, when Garrett pulls almost all the way out and pushes back inside her, she arches beneath him and makes a helpless sound directly into his mouth.

His eyes sharpen. “There?” he asks.

She nods too quickly.

Garrett does it again, harder this time. The mattress shifts beneath her. Her breath punches out in a broken gasp, fingers tightening in his curls while the deep impact sends pleasure rolling through the sore, overworked muscles of her stomach.

Garrett watches her face. What moves through his expression is darker, hotter, satisfaction settling beneath the careful attention because he knows her. 

Knows the difference between her body pulling away and her body losing control. Knows she’s exhausted and overstimulated and still lifting her hips to meet him every time he drives forward.

“One more for me?” he asks.

She has no idea which number this is anymore. One more has stopped functioning as mathematics. It’s simply Garrett’s mouth near hers, his body heavy and warm between her legs, his cock filling her so deeply that the possibility feels less like a request and more like something her body has already begun agreeing to.

She nods. Garrett’s hand closes around her jaw to hold her attention. “Words.”

“Yes,” she whispers.

His eyes move over hers. “You sure?”

She drags him down until their mouths almost touch. “Garrett, please.”

Something in him gives. His mouth crashes into hers as he pulls out and drives back inside with enough force to shove her body up the sheets. She cries out into the kiss.

Garrett swallows the sound, tongue sliding hard against hers while his hand drops from her face to her hip. He catches her there and drags her back down the mattress before thrusting again, keeping her exactly where he wants her when the force tries to move her away.

There’s nothing slow about it now. He fucks her hard, hips driving into hers in a rhythm that turns every breath into noise. The bed knocks against the wall. Her breasts move beneath him. 

The soreness between her legs sharpens every stroke into something almost unbearable, the pleasure no longer smooth enough to sink into but rough-edged, overwhelming, dragging through her body faster than she can absorb it.

Her nails scrape over his shoulders. “Fuck– baby–”

“I’ve got you.” Garrett’s voice is rough against her mouth, his own breathing coming hard now. “Take it.”

The words make her whole body tighten. Garrett feels it. His head drops briefly, a strangled groan pushed into the side of her neck as she clenches around him. Then he grips her hips with both hands, pulls her down the bed again, and pounds into her hard enough that her mouth opens around a scream that doesn’t quite arrive.

“That’s it,” he says. “Just like that.”

She cannot decide where to hold him. Her hands move from his shoulders to his biceps, nails digging into the hard muscle there when another thrust knocks the air from her lungs. 

Garrett’s body is slick beneath her palms, chest flushed, curls damp at his temples, every line of him strained with the effort of giving her exactly what she asked for without losing control completely.

The headboard strikes the wall again. Some distant, surviving part of her brain notes that the boys are absolutely awake. Then Garrett changes the angle, lifting one of her thighs higher against his side, and the thought is obliterated.

“Oh!” Her head falls back into the pillow. “Oh my God– Garrett–”

His hand presses beneath her thigh, holding her open as he drives deeper. Each thrust lands in the same devastating place, pleasure striking through her with enough force that her eyes water again.

Garrett kisses the new tears from beneath one eye without slowing. “My girl,” he breathes. “Look at you.”

Her eyes open only halfway, heavy and unfocused, but Garrett is there above her, face tight with need and attention, staring at her like the sight of her coming apart beneath him is doing something violent to his self-control.

“So fucking good for me,” he says.

Her praise kink, already abused beyond reasonable limits tonight, rises from the dead. She moans and clamps around him.

Garrett’s mouth curves, pleased and breathless. “Yeah? You like that?”

She nods frantically, the motion lost when he kisses her hard.

“Good girl,” he says against her lips.

The sound she makes is humiliating. Garrett groans like he loves it. His hand slips between their bodies. There’s no room, barely any space between his stomach and hers, but he finds her clit anyway, thumb pressing down with enough confidence that her whole body bucks.

“Fuck!” Her hand flies to his wrist.

Garrett stills his thumb but not his hips. “Too much?”

She can barely breathe around the hard rhythm of him. “It’s– fuck– it’s so much.”

“Want me to stop touching you?”

She shakes her head at once.

“Slower?”

“No.”

His eyes darken. “No?”

“No.” She tightens her fingers around his wrist, holding it there. “Make me come.”

For half a second Garrett only stares at her. Then his grin appears, small and wrecked and almost mean in the way she desperately wants.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay, baby.”

His thumb starts moving. The first hard circle over her clit makes her cry out and arch off the mattress. Garrett catches her hip with his other hand and holds her down, continuing to fuck her through the jolt, hips striking deep while his thumb works fast and firm over nerves already so sensitive she can feel the pleasure everywhere – behind her knees, in her stomach, along the trembling line of her spine.

She tries to twist away from it. Garrett follows. Her body shifts up the bed. He catches her hips and yanks her back beneath him, thrusting into her the second she returns to the angle.

“Garrett!”

“No, no.” He kisses her jaw, teeth grazing lightly before his mouth soothes the place. “You asked me.”

“I know.” The words dissolve into a sobbing moan when his thumb circles again. “I know, I know–”

“Then stay with me.”

She has nowhere else to go. His body brackets hers completely. His forearm beside her head. His hand gripping her hip. His mouth moving over her cheek and jaw between rough breaths while he pounds her into the mattress, every stroke pushing her closer to a limit she can no longer see.

The pleasure is too sharp to feel good in any ordinary way. It feels incredible. Her legs shake violently around his waist. Her fingers scratch down his biceps, then grip him again when his thrusts make her bounce beneath him. 

Saliva gathers beneath her tongue because she cannot close her mouth long enough to swallow. She’s babbling now, scraps of sound and language torn loose without permission.

“Baby– fuck– Garrett, I can’t– oh, God– I’m–”

“Yes, you can.” His voice is low and relentless, praise threaded through every hard snap of his hips. “You’re doing it.”

She shakes her head even while her body arches toward him.

Garrett kisses her, mouth wet and rough. “Such a good girl.” Her clit pulses beneath his thumb. “That’s it.”

The orgasm begins gathering so hard and fast it frightens her. Her stomach locks. Her thighs clamp uselessly around him, muscles seizing while the pressure climbs far beyond anything she can control. 

Garrett feels the change and fucks her harder, losing some of the clean rhythm now, hips driving forward with a rough desperation that makes the bed slam repeatedly into the wall.

“There,” he groans. “Fuck, there you go.”

“Garrett–” She cries out, but it isn’t enough to release anything. 

The pressure keeps building, suspended at an impossible height while Garrett’s thumb moves faster.

“I can’t,” she gasps.

“You can.”

“It’s too–”

“I know.” He kisses the tears from her cheek without softening anything else. “Give it to me anyway.”

Her eyes roll back. Garrett catches her mouth before the scream fully escapes. The orgasm tears through her with enough force that her whole body lifts beneath him. 

Her legs shake uncontrollably, heels digging into his back, hands clawing at his shoulders while she screams into his kiss. Garrett groans against her, swallowing every broken sound as her body clamps down around him in violent, pulsing waves.

He doesn’t stop fucking her. He drives into her through the first brutal contractions, hips snapping hard while his thumb keeps rubbing her clit until the pleasure tips so far over the edge she makes a desperate noise and grabs his wrist.

“Garrett– Garrett! Fuck–”

He eases the pressure at once. His thumb slides away, but his hips stay deep and rough for another few strokes, dragging out the orgasm while her body convulses beneath him. 

She cannot breathe properly. Cannot hear anything beyond the blood rushing through her ears and Garrett’s voice breaking against her mouth.

“That’s it.” Her thighs tremble. “Good girl.” She whimpers. “Fuck, baby. Look at you.”

Another pulse rolls through her, weaker but still sharp enough to make her whole body jerk.

Garrett finally slows. Changing from the hard pounding rhythm into deep, uneven thrusts while he fights for control. His forehead presses against hers, jaw clenched, breath shaking from his chest.

She lies beneath him completely wrecked. Eyes wet and unfocused. Mouth swollen. Legs still twitching around his hips. Every part of her feels loose except where her body continues to pulse around him, tiny aftershocks dragging rough sounds from Garrett each time they hit.

His mouth moves over hers once. Twice. Softer now, though his hips still push deep enough to make her gasp.

“Baby,” he breathes. She makes a small sound. “Baby, where?”

The question reaches her through layers of static. She knows what he’s asking. She does. But her body is still trapped in the fading waves of the orgasm, brain floating somewhere above the bed while Garrett’s face blurs and sharpens above her. Her lips part, but no answer arrives quickly enough.

Garrett watches her for one beat. Then another. “Okay,” he says roughly. “I’ve got it.”

He pulls out. The sudden emptiness makes her whine, but Garrett’s hand presses warmly against her hip while he wraps the other around himself. He barely manages two hard strokes before he comes across her stomach, head dropping with a broken groan as warmth spills over her skin.

For several seconds, they only breathe. Garrett kneeling between her shaking legs, chest rising hard. Her body sunk bonelessly into the wrecked sheets, every muscle still trembling from the force of the orgasm he’d dragged out of her.

Then Garrett looks at her, and everything in his face changes. He comes down over her carefully, avoiding the mess on her stomach, and kisses her forehead. Her eyelids. The wet skin beneath both eyes. Her cheeks and nose and mouth, every touch so soft it feels almost absurd after the way he had just driven her into the mattress.

“Hey,” he murmurs, brushing her hair back. “My girl.”

She blinks at him.

Garrett kisses her again, slow and warm. “You with me?”

Her mouth moves into a sleepy smile. “Barely.”

He laughs softly, relief loosening his face. “Yeah. I can see that.”

She nods. “Legs are broken.”

He laughs quietly and kisses her forehead once more. “I noticed.”

She makes a sleepy sound when he starts to shift away. Her arms tighten weakly around his shoulders before she can stop them.

Garrett freezes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You moved,” she whines. 

“I need to clean you up.”

She frowns at him like this is a betrayal of the highest order.

His thumb strokes her cheek. “Let me get a washcloth, yeah? Nice and warm.”

She doesn’t want him to leave the bed. The idea of the space cooling where his body has been feels suddenly unacceptable, but there’s sweat drying on her skin and warmth across her stomach and between her thighs, and the practical part of her still has enough life left to admit a washcloth would be useful. She nods.

“Okay.” Garrett kisses her softly. “I’ll be right back.”

He pries himself out of her arms with a patience that would be insulting if she had more energy. Then he reaches for his boxers, pulling them on while she watches through heavy eyelids and tries not to fall asleep in the forty seconds he’s gone.

The bedroom door unlocks. She hears Garrett step into the hallway, then the bathroom door open. Pipes run briefly inside the wall. Somewhere downstairs, Dean calls, “You alive, Graham?”

Garrett answers, “Shut the fuck up,” in a voice so calm it makes her giggle into the pillow.

The bathroom door closes. Footsteps return. His bedroom lock clicks again behind him. Garrett comes back carrying a warm, damp washcloth and a glass of water. 

He sets the water on the bedside table first, then sits carefully beside her hip. “This might be cool.”

She squints at him. “You said warm.”

“It’s warm. Your skin’s hot.”

“Flattery.”

“That wasn’t–” Garrett laughs under his breath. “Okay.”

He cleans her stomach first. Gentle strokes of the cloth over her skin, wiping away the cooling mess without any awkwardness or haste. Then he folds the washcloth over and moves between her legs.

She flinches at the first touch, thighs trying to close on instinct. Garrett’s hand settles warmly over one knee. “Sensitive?”

“Very.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Her mouth curls sleepily. “Worth it.”

His grin comes back, smaller and softer now. “Yeah?”

She hums. He cleans her carefully, warm cloth moving over the slick soreness between her thighs while she trembles every time he gets too close to her clit. 

Garrett watches her face, adjusting pressure without needing to be told, one hand rubbing lightly over her knee the whole time. “Almost done.”

She nods, eyes falling shut.

“There.” He kisses the inside of her thigh after the cloth moves away, because apparently he cannot complete a practical task without adding one emotionally devastating flourish. “All clean.”

Garrett drops the washcloth into the laundry basket with a shot that would have earned applause under different circumstances, then pulls the comforter over her body.

The warmth settles around her at once. He slides beneath it beside her, and she moves into him before he’s fully positioned, curling against his chest with one leg draped over his and her face pressed beneath his chin. 

Garrett catches her easily, one arm winding around her waist while the other cups the back of her head.

Her body is still trembling. Small aftershocks moving through her thighs and stomach every few seconds, muscles releasing in confused little increments after being held tight for too long.

She starts giggling.

Garrett’s chest moves beneath her cheek. “What?”

“Oh my God.” She presses her face closer into him. “My legs won’t stop shaking.”

His hand moves down her back to her hip, then along the outside of her thigh, rubbing slow and warm over the twitching muscle. “That sounds serious.”

“Medical emergency.”

“You know anyone medically qualified?”

“I know one student nurse. She’s unavailable.”

“Why?”

“She’s been absolutely destroyed by her boyfriend.”

The laugh that leaves him is so pleased and boyish that it shakes both of them beneath the blanket. He kisses the top of her head, arm tightening around her.

“Yeah?” he asks.

She tips her face up just enough to look at him. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Garrett’s smile changes. It softens at the edges, something bright and almost shy moving beneath the cockiness before he leans down and rubs his nose against hers.

She makes a tired, disgusted sound. “You’re doing that again.”

“You like it.”

“I tolerate it.”

“Liar.”

He kisses her before she can argue, slow and sweet and completely removed from the filthy mess of their mouths fifteen minutes earlier. She lets him, one hand sliding sleepily into his curls, fingertips scratching lightly over his scalp.

Garrett hums and settles deeper into the pillow. “You need water,” he murmurs against her lips.

She groans.

“Baby.”

“I’m horizontal.”

“I can see that.” Garrett reaches back without letting go of her and finds the glass on the bedside table. Some of the water nearly spills when he brings it over because she refuses to sit up properly, so he tucks one arm behind her shoulders and lifts her just enough to hold it to her mouth.

She takes three obedient sips.

“More.”

She glares at him over the rim. Garrett raises his eyebrows. She drinks more.

“Good girl.”

Her thighs clench weakly on reflex. Garrett feels it. His mouth twitches.

She points one exhausted finger at his chest. “Don’t you dare.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You used the voice.”

“What voice?”

“The horrible one.”

“The one that made you come five times?”

She stares at him. “Five?”

Garrett takes the glass away and puts it back on the table. “I counted.”

“Oh my God.”

“Very responsible boyfriend. You’re shaking.”

“That is not a defence.”

“It’s pretty compelling evidence.”

She hides her face in his chest because arguing requires more support than she currently possesses. Garrett laughs softly and draws the blanket higher around her shoulders, then starts rubbing his palm over her back in long, slow passes.

The room feels different now. His clothes are still on the floor. Her discarded towel is still pooled near the foot of the bed. The headboard has shifted slightly away from the wall, and tomorrow someone will absolutely make a comment about it over breakfast because privacy in this house is more of an aspirational concept than an enforceable condition.

But Garrett’s arm is around her. Her cheek is against his chest. The word boyfriend no longer feels like a question they’re both pretending not to hear.

She traces one lazy finger over the centre of his sternum. “Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hm?”

“You really thought I was trapped in some kind of hospital hostage situation.”

Garrett’s hand pauses against her back. “It was a lockdown.”

“I wrote two pages of an assignment.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You asked security if calling me your girlfriend would help.”

“I was under pressure.”

She smiles against his skin. “And now look at you.”

Garrett glances down. “Naked?”

“In boxers.”

“Basically naked.”

“Officially attached.”

His hand resumes its slow movement over her back. “That too.”

She lifts her head. Garrett’s already looking at her, expression softer than it has been all night, curls falling across his forehead and the last of the adrenaline finally leaving his face.

She brushes them back. “You good?”

He turns his mouth into her palm and kisses it. “Yeah,” he says. “Really good.”

Her eyes start closing again before she means them to.

Garrett tucks her closer, one hand spreading warm over the back of her thigh as another small tremor moves through it.

“Sleep,” he murmurs.

“I need clothes.”

His nose scrunches. “You absolutely do not.”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“I’ll carry you.”

“You nearly fell on the stairs earlier.”

“I was distracted.”

She smiles, eyes closed now. “By your girlfriend?”

Garrett presses a kiss to her forehead, mouth lingering there while his arm tightens around her beneath the blanket.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “By my girlfriend.”

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He gave her the kind of look that would have been more effective if his thumb hadn’t moved automatically over the knob of her ankle again, warm and steady through the soft cotton of her sock. “Baby, I let you post a photo of me holding a latte with the caption ‘hockey boy enrichment activity.’”

“And the people loved you.”

“The people thought I was stupid.”

“The people were moved by your range.”

He snorted, turning back toward the television like the conversation had ended. It had not. The conversation had been going on, in some variation, for three weeks. She had brought it up in his car, at the rink, in his bed with his hand under her hoodie, once while he was eating cereal directly from the mixing bowl Tucker claimed was for shared use only. 

Every time, Garrett had made the same face: amused, suspicious, too handsome to be allowed, and deeply aware that agreeing to anything involving her personal TikTok was how men ended up edited to Sabrina Carpenter and mocked in the group chat.

Fine. She had been patient. She had been respectful. She had been, by most accounts, a saint. She opened her mouth and said, “I’ll ask Dean.”

Garrett’s head turned so fast she heard his neck crack. There it was. “No.”

She blinked at him sweetly. “No?”

“No.”

“Dean likes content.”

“Dean likes attention. Different disease.”

“He’d do it.”

“That’s exactly why he’s not doing it.”

“He’d probably be really committed, actually.”

Garrett sat up properly, the couch shifting under the weight of him, broad shoulders rolling forward as he reached for her phone with the resigned aggression of a man accepting a prison sentence. “Set it up.”

Her smile spread before she could stop it.

“Don’t look that proud of yourself,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“You’re literally glowing.”

“That’s my personal brand.”

He muttered something about social media ruining society, but he stayed where she put him: in the middle cushion, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his forearms, hair still a little damp from the shower he’d taken after practice, mouth curved like he was trying very hard not to let her see how much he liked being wanted for ridiculous things. 

The living room around them was its usual hockey-house disaster, half-clean in the way men considered acceptable if the sticky things had been wiped and the visible socks had been kicked under furniture. 

A controller sat abandoned on the coffee table beside two water bottles, a roll of athletic tape, and a bowl Logan had absolutely eaten ramen from hours ago and decided was now part of the architecture.

She propped her phone against a stack of textbooks Dean definitely wasn’t reading and checked the frame. Garrett watched her with the wary focus he usually reserved for penalty shots and any text from his father.

“So I just talk?” he asked once she slid back onto the couch beside him.

“Yeah, babe.”

“To who?”

“The camera.”

He looked into the lens, then back at her. “Right. Normal.”

She pressed record, settled beside him with one knee tucked under her, and nodded encouragingly.

Garrett cleared his throat. “Uh. Hi, TikTok.” His eyes cut to her immediately, already embarrassed. “I’m Garrett. This is my girlfriend.” He paused, brow creasing. “Wait– what am I doing, baby?”

She bit the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t ruin it too early. “Just tell them the story of how we met.”

“Right. Okay. Um, well.” He leaned back a little, one hand landing on her thigh because he couldn’t narrate their relationship without touching proof of it. “She worked for Briar media, and I played hockey, obviously. I mean, I still play hockey. That made it sound like I retired at twenty-two, which would be embarrassing.” His mouth twitched when she laughed silently beside him. “Anyway, she used to come to practice with the camera and act like she wasn’t judging all of us, even though she was definitely judging all of us.”

She began shifting closer.

Garrett didn’t look down. “And I thought she was cute, but she was also, like, terrifyingly unimpressed by me.”

She slid one knee over his thigh.

“She once told me my ‘good side’ was whichever one was facing away from her deadline.”

She climbed fully into his lap.

“Which was rude,” he continued, one hand automatically moving to her waist like she had simply changed seating arrangements and not started crawling over him mid-sentence. “But, uh, accurate, because I was being annoying on purpose.”

She braced a hand on his shoulder and started climbing behind him, biting down on a grin so hard her cheeks hurt.

Garrett adjusted. That was it. No blink, no curse, no startled what the fuck for the camera. His arm hooked behind her knee before she could wobble, palm spreading firm over the outside of her thigh, and he kept talking like this was an entirely normal development in the story of their meet-cute.

“She kept asking me to redo this stupid intro clip because I wouldn’t answer the question normally.”

“It was not stupid,” she said from somewhere near his ear, hauling herself up with very little dignity.

“It was ‘what’s your pregame ritual’ and I said ‘winning.’”

“Because you’re annoying.”

“Because I’m honest.” He ducked slightly when her leg came over his shoulder, then straightened with her perched across the back of him, thighs bracketing him, his hands holding her calves like she weighed less than his hockey bag. “So, yeah, I had a crush on her for a while. Logan knew. Tucker knew. Dean knew because he’s nosy and unemployed.”

From the kitchen, Dean yelled, “I heard that.”

Garrett didn’t even turn. “Good.”

She had one hand planted in his hair now, the other gripping the couch for balance, laughter fizzing through her ribs, warm and bright and impossible to hold neatly in her chest. 

The whole point was that he was meant to react. The whole point was that the boyfriend looked increasingly alarmed while the girlfriend climbed him like unsafe playground equipment. 

Instead, Garrett was sitting there broad and steady beneath her, voice only slightly amused, like this was lower on the list of strange things she did than rearranging his kitchen cabinet for better morning light.

“So eventually,” he said, glancing up at her for half a second with that smug little curve of his mouth, “I asked her out. She pretended she had to think about it, which was bullshit.”

“I did think about it.”

“You texted yes in eleven seconds.”

“I think fast.”

“Sure.” His thumbs rubbed once over her shins, easy and unconscious. “And now she makes me do TikToks on my own couch under threat of Dean. There you go. That’s, uh… that’s how we met.” He looked up again, eyes warm and pleased with himself. “Was that okay, baby?”

She stared down at him. “Why didn’t you react to me climbing on your shoulders?”

Garrett blinked. “Was I supposed to?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” He thought about it, then shrugged carefully beneath her. “You do a lot of weird shit, baby. Sorry. Didn’t really notice.”

She lasted one second before she broke, laughing so hard she folded over the top of his head. “Garrett.”

“What? You climbed into my laundry basket last week because you said you wanted to know if you could fit.”

“That was research.”

“That was weird.”

She slid down off him in a graceless heap, landing back on the couch with her legs over his lap and her hand still caught in the front of his hoodie. Garrett caught her before she could knock the coffee table, tugging her into his side with a grin pressed against her temple.

“Can we film another kind of video now?” he murmured, low enough that the phone probably wouldn’t catch it, but close enough that the warmth of it moved across her skin.

Her laugh changed shape in her throat. “You’re disgusting.”

“You threatened me with Dean. I’m healing.”

She grabbed her phone and ended the recording, watching the final frame freeze on Garrett looking stupidly handsome with her half-draped over him like a victorious cat.

From the kitchen, Dean called, “For the record, I’m available for content.”

Garrett stood, hauling her up with him by the hand before she could answer. “No, you’re not.”

She tucked the phone against her chest, smiling as he pulled her toward the stairs. “Where are we going?”

Garrett glanced back at her, all dark curls and smug mouth and trouble sitting easy in his shoulders. “Upstairs.”

She let him tug her along, already laughing. “For content?”

“For my personal brand,” he said.

And then he closed his bedroom door before Dean could offer notes.

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Of course you didn’t mind talking with Garrett when you found out that Hannah had gone home with Justin. 

But deep down inside you wanted to just find your man.

And Beau couldn’t help it when he laughed seeing you walk towards him “feel like you’ve been hiding away all night.” He watched how your hands rubbed against your arms trying to create some warmth.

He didn’t think twice as he wrapped his jacket around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him “as I recall you put me on that stage.” You mumbled looking up at him. 

His eyes were soft as he grinned “sue me for wanting to watch my girl.” Beau dropped his head to let his lips graze over yours “don’t need a reason for that silly.” 

Your heart throbbed as you nodded “think I deserve it in a bit more of a private space.” The boy proposed making you laugh against his mouth. 

You shook your head “you’re the one who made me get up there you ass.” You grumbled as he frowned “c’mon baby.” He whined as he tucked your hair behind your ear. 

You smiled as you licked your lips “god you’re lucky you’re cute.” Your words made him grin.

His fingers hooked into your belt hoops pulling you closer “you just think I’m cute huh?” Beau let his lips nip at the skin of your jaw. 

The words you wanted to say felt trapped in your throat as the boy smirked “I think you’re gonna get us killed in fact.” The sound of people laughing from down the alleyway pulled your attention away from the boy.

Beau pressed a kiss against your cheek “relax, he went home with some girl.” You didn’t have much of a chance to simmer on it when your phone vibrated in your back pocket. 

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀 💃

Allie💜: don’t expect me home tonight x

Han💙: you have the place to bring B home then 😏 

You🤍: I am expecting updates in the morning then! 

Beau laughed as he looked over your shoulder “you gonna bring me home then?” He asked as he cocked his head. 

A smirked was laced on his face as you let your teeth catch your lower lip “ask me nicely and I’ll even give you that show you want.” In the alley your laugh echoed as Beau didn’t have to be told twice about it. 

His hand placed into yours as he didn’t let go until the uber got you both back to your dorm “when did I give you that?” Your brows furrowed as you watched Beau pull out your keys for the building. 

It made him furrow his eyebrows “baby how much have you drunk tonight?” He wrapped his arm around your waist as he now felt the need to steady you. 

You giggled as your hand cupped his jaw “are we counting the margaritas?” Beau let out a low whistle as he made the mental note to curse Allie the next time he saw her. 

Because if there was a direct path to getting you drunk, it was that shaken drink. 

But as you stood there in front of him with a stupid smile, Beau realised that he couldn’t be mad for long “c’mon pretty girl.” He sighed as he pecked your forehead. 

You giggled at the feeling “you think I’m pretty?” Your words slurred as Beau looked back at you. 

He nodded, running his fingers through the ends of your hair “you know I think you’re beautiful.” You pushed onto your tippy toes as you wanted to kiss him. 

Your lips formed a pout, making him laugh “happy baby?” He asked as he pecked your lips “kiss me properly.”

You frowned making him laugh harder as he shook his head “we are in the door of your dorm hall.” Beau pointed out making you scoff as he guided you in.

Your hands ended up on your hips

When you rolled your eyes “so!” Your whine made the boy grin as he opened the door to the staircase. 

Beau motioned to you to follow him as his hands locked into yours “I will kiss you like I mean it in your dorm.” The boy grumbled making you stop as you grinned. 

“What?”

He had to admit that he was a little amused watching you find this all funny “you’re hot when you’re bossy.” As you patted his cheek Beau decided that he wasn’t going to behave anymore.

He was usually the one who wanted kisses in public, so it was suffice to say that when you got all handsy.

Beau enjoyed the change. 

So he didn’t think life was too bad when you tried to kiss him “I better be hot all the time.” He grumbled when he finally kissed you.

Beau sucked at your lower lip before his tongue slipped into your mouth. You frowned when he pulled away “c’mon let’s get you upstairs.” His voice was soft as his hand rested on your hips. 

And you didn’t argue with your boyfriend as you opted to instead continue to babble about how hot he was. Quietly giggling whenever you heard someone else on the staircase. 

By the time Beau had gotten you into your room, he swore you were insufferable “you fucking brat.” He grumbled as he pushed you against your door. 

You grinned as you harshly swallowed “and what are you gonna do about it?” You wriggled your eyebrows as the boy sighed. 

He let his head fall back “don’t make me get out of this alone.” Those were the words that cemented it for Beau.

Before you knew it your clothes were a messy pile on your floor and your boyfriend was pressing your back against your mattress as your legs were thrown over his shoulders. 

Across campus love was being shown. Garrett kissed Hannah in the ice rink, Allie and Dean had sex for the first time. And Beau had you moaning so hard that you may as well have forgotten your own.

By the time you woke up the next morning, the sun was peeking through your half drawn curtains. 

Beau had opened your door when he went to the bathroom once you fell asleep so you assumed that he hadn’t shut it properly. 

Because right now the sound of someone knocking at the front door was echoing in your ears. 

A groan escaped from your lips as you rolled out of bed. 

Reaching for Beau’s Briar Footballer shirt that hung over your chair. 

You pulled the black fabric over your body, letting it drown you out “I’m gonna fucking kill him.” You grumbled seeing Beau peacefully still sleeping.

That man had the ability to sleep anywhere, and not even a stampede would wake him up. 

With the sounds of knocking not showing any signs of stopping, you sighed as you pushed out of your room. Dragging your feet to the door “someone better be-Garrett?” Your eyes went wide as you saw him stood at the door. 

Part of you wanted to shut the door on him, but you didn’t have the chance as he pushed into the apartment “why haven’t you been answering your phone?” His hands were on his hips as he paced around your living room. 

You tried to slowly move towards your door, wanting to shut it before Garrett could notice “because I have been sleeping like a normal human being!” You whisper yelled as your arms crossed. 

Garrett’s eyes glazed over your shirt “now what on earth has you in here at this hour?” Your question made him sigh as his mind went back into the topic he came to speak to you about “I needed to talk about Hannah.” 

The announcement made you frown as you looked at her door seeing that it was shut and Allies was wide open, meaning that at least one of the girls didn’t come home last night “don’t worry she left already.” Garrett’s words made you furrow your eyebrows as you cocked your head. 

He realised how creepy he probably sounds in that moment “I was waiting for you to respond downstairs and saw her heading out with her music case.” You nodded as it was what she liked to do after a big night, you often heard her singing to herself as she would play different notes. 

You went to speak but the deep groan coming from your apartment cut you off “is there a man here?” Garrett’s eyebrows raised as his mouth fell open. 

“Nope?”

You didn’t even have the chance come up with an argument as Beau started talking “baby come back to bed!” He grumbled as he walked out of your room in nothing but his boxers. 

In his half asleep state he heard a man’s voice and thought you got distracted watching TikTok’s “there’s no way mystery man is Beau!” Garrett slapped his hand over his mouth muffling back his laughter. 

Your gaze sharpened over your boyfriend who awkwardly smiled when he saw who was in the living room “god you better fucking do better than this when Dean finds out.” Garrett was now no longer hiding his amusement about all of this. 

He wished that he had gotten a photo of your face because it would have been priceless “wait does anyone else know about this?” Garrett motioned between the two of you. 

You shook your head “Hannah and Allie found out too.” Part of you was willing to really ban activities between you and Beau in the living room as that’s where everyone seemed to find out about you. 

The hockey captain laughed again “I was coming here to tell you that I kissed Hannah but-” his words made you gasp. 

You hit his arm with your hand “you kissed Hannah!” You squealed making Beau smile as he pulled on a pair of shorts that he had left at yours.

Garrett raised his hand to stop you “no no no let’s first acknowledge that you are dating this man and Dean doesn’t know!” That was honestly impressive to Garrett that you had kept it a secret from so many for so long. 

You sucked at your teeth “can I at least get some coffee or something before we give him the full rundown?” Beau pleaded, pinching the bridge of his nose as he didn’t know if he was tired or hungover. 

Garrett’s stomach grumbled as the boy asked the question “I could eat,” they both looked at you, now awating an answer. 

You nodded as you sighed “just let me get dressed first.” You mumbled as you walked back into your room. 

Now forced to accept that you couldn’t go back to your bed anytime soon.

An hour later and the three of you were sat in a booth at Malone’s where you had gone over all of the details of how you two started seeing each other to how sneaking around became when you started dating each other. 

Garrett practically ate all of it up, finding out how wrong all of the guys from the house’s theories had been on who you were seeing.

Logan had joked about putting Beau into the betting pool and Dean chased Logan around the house for like thirty minutes because of how bad the joke was.

And for Logan’s sake, it was probably for the best that Dean hadn’t learnt about you and Beau yet. 

Because Dean would have made good on the threats of killing Logan for even bringing it up. 

The hockey captain also walked the two of you through how his feelings for Hannah came during their tutoring sessions. 

And as he told you all about the kiss, it was clear that you and Beau were madly in love. 

The way Beau stole glances at you, and your cheeks grew hot without even looking at him.

If Garrett didn’t think that he loved Hannah, he would have found the two of you utterly sickening.

Garrett laughed loudly enough that a couple of people nearby glanced over "I'm just saying," he continued as he sipped his coffee.

His finger moved between the two of you “you actually look good together." Garrett couldn’t put his finger on it but there was something about the two of you that just looked right together. 

Beau reached under the table, lazily intertwining his fingers with yours "I've been saying that." He nodded in agreement as he turned his head to you.

"You've also been saying she's obsessed with you."

In one of the many questioning sessions that the boys had with Beau, he always made sure to talk about how much you liked him if you were in the room, “she is." Beau smirked as you furrowed your eyebrows.

You squeezed his hand hard enough to make him wince “ouch." Beau groaned as he pulled his hand away from you as you sent him a glare.

"Keep talking."

He only grinned wider, “worth it,” he mouthed to Garrett, who shook his head fondly.

You looked at your phone, feeling it vibrate in your pocket, and a smile immediately spread across your face.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀 💃

Allie💜: wya??

Han💙: did you end up going to Beau’s?

Allie💜: we have updates!!!

You clasped your hands together “I am required in my apartment boys.” You announced as Beau pretended to boo.

Garrett laughed as you stood up “okay sue me for now wanting her opinion!” You raised your hands in surrender as you stuck your tongue out at him. 

Beau smiled when you placed your hand on his shoulder “see you later?” You asked him as you pressed a kiss on his cheek. 

The boy nodded as he squeezed your hand “love you,” the hockey captain sent you a salute as you walked off. 

As you walked through the front door of Malones Dean was on the other side “hey D.” You smiled at your older brother who ruffled his hand through your hair again. 

You groaned as you hit his hand away “where are you off to?” He asked as he cocked his head. 

Your eyes looked back to where Beau and Garrett where “I am heading home.” You nodded as your eyes settled back on your brother. 

Dean nodded as he looked at his phone before he put it back into his pocket “you wanna come over for dinner sometime?” That was his way of saying he missed you. 

So you internally smiled as you agreed “count me in, see you later?” He waved you off before he turned his attention back into the restaurant. 

It didn’t take Dean long to find the certain brunette that he was looking for. 

But he didn’t see how Beau was still in yesterday’s clothes when he stood in front of the boys “can I talk to you about something?” Garrett and Beau both tensed at the blondes question. 

It was as if they both feared that Dean had caught on “I mean you can join too Graham if you want.” Okay so clearly Beau wasn’t dead meat yet. 

Because Dean certainly wouldn’t have invited any viewers to it. 

Garrett answered for the other boy “yeah c’mon I will get another round of coffee.” As the captain slipped out of the booth, your brother slipped into it.

The blonde remained blissfully unaware of what went on 

As you spent them at your brother’s place soaking up the sun from the backyard. 

Dean didn’t mind it as he enjoyed the freshly cut fruit you brought with you, and the rest of the boys occasionally joined you. 

So today you didn’t think twice when Garrett came out. You flipped your phone over hiding the message from Beau, inevitably talking about how he wished he wasn’t heading to practice because he could have gotten you at his place in that little orange bikini “you got a sec?” Garrett asked as he sat on the fold out chair that was in front of you. 

You nodded as you sat up, reaching for your water bottle “what’s up?” You cocked your head as you looked at him. 

The Graham boy tugged his fingers through his hair “I think that I like Hannah.” His confession surprised you as you knew all about their fake dating scheme. 

But your nerves got the best of you “I mean I’d hope so.” You let out a snort as you slapped your hand over your mouth as your eyes went wide. 

Your cheeks reddened as you mentally cursed yourself “I mean- I think you are coming to ask me how to tell her?” You scratched your jaw as he nodded. 

Garrett had known you since your senior year of High School after you came along to a preseason camp after you were dropped off a week early. The two of you then had a class together and somehow the newfound friendship. 

It obviously helped that you were seeing him at least once a week because of hockey related events “I don’t want to look like an idiot.” His words made your heart break. 

The Garrett you knew had never cared about how a girl made him look, so to have him holding himself back was a lot “for the right girl you’re never gonna look like an idiot.” You shook your head as you sighed. 

It made the boy smile “how’d you do it with your mystery man?” Garrett had been teasing you about it ever since he started realising that you had a cycle of bouquets in your room. 

And when you blushed at a question it became Garretts new favourite joke as he continued to tease you about it “well I made a move when I was drunk so that’s not really a good rule of thumb.” You laughed thinking back to that day. 

You really didn’t know what you would have done, because changing your name and moving to Mexico wasn’t an option “but I think that love is meant to be complex and sometimes a little scary.” You shrugged as you fiddled with your bracelet.

Garrett couldn’t help but smile “when did your lover boy get you all sweet?” His words made your nose scrunch in disgust. 

You gagged “my boyfriend did not make me some love sick puppy you ass!” You whined as you shook your head. 

It made the boy laugh as he threw his head back “and when do we get to meet him?” The boys had met every guy just about that you had dated, you almost felt that Garrett was just as intimidating as your brother. 

So it was suffice to say that you preferred holding them all off for as long as they could handle. 

You shook your head “I think the answer would actually surprise you.” You smiled as you remembered back to how Beau and Garrett sat behind you and Hannah in one of your classes this year. 

Part of you was looking forward to when the boys formally found out about who your boyfriend was. Because you knew you’d be able to laugh once the boys were doing plotting the ways to kill Beau. 

Dean walked out as he grinned “you still mooching off our WiFi?” He teased as he ruffled his fingers through your hair making you groan as you reached up to hit him. 

The blonde laughed sat down next to you “I have been mooching off your backyard space.” You corrected him as Garrett watched the interaction between the two of you. 

Sometimes he had to admit that you two made him envious that you had siblings, and other times you were the very reason why he was glad he didn’t have siblings “what’s going on out here?” Dean asked as he pointed between the two of you. 

Garretts eyes went wide “we were-” “just talking about tonight!” You cut the boy off not trusting what he’d say to your brother. 

Both boys cocked their heads wondering what you were talking about.

Your cheeks turned a warm shade of red “it’s drunken Shakespeare.” You began as Dean cut you off with a laugh. 

The blonde shook his head “we are not going to that.” He announced as Garrett hit the back of his head “c’mon I’m sure it’d be fun.” Garrett nodded in agreement. 

The captain ran his fingers through his hair “and I’m sure Beau would be down for it.” The mention of your boyfriend was purely because he was your brothers favourite drinking buddy. 

But Garrett didn’t miss how your lips formed a smile when you thought about the football player. Of course he wasn’t going to ask about it with Dean stood feet away from him. 

Sure Garrett enjoyed pushing your buttons but if he wasn’t right that Beau was your mystery man, he wasn’t going to announce it to Dean. Especially when your brother would personally see to your death if he found out about the boy in your bed. 

Dean remained oblivious to the silent conversation “fine if Beau goes.” Dean let out a sigh “I will come too.” 

What Dean didn’t know was that Beau was coming along after Allie decided that his attendance was the price of her being the captain of your unfortunately named Di Well ship. 

You nodded as you looked at your watch “shoot I gotta go before Allie kills me.” Since her break up with Sean, you and Hannah had fallen into the position of being her cheerleaders. 

Which also meant that you had eaten your body weight in hot Cheetos, not that you cared that much anyways. 

Dean sighed as you patted the top of his head “bye boys I better be seeing you two tonight!” You cheered as you kissed your hand to the air as you grinned before they waved you off, watching you head back inside.

By the time you got back to your room it felt like a tornado had gone through the apartment “you have to come tonight!” Allie pleaded as you dropped your bag on the floor as you let the door shut behind you.

Hannah’s room appeared to be mainly Allie’s clothing tossed around the floor “I have just had a really stressful day and just want to watch a movie.” You leaned against her doorframe as the drama student scoffed. 

Her eyes brightened when she saw you “tell her that you both have to come tonight!” She pleaded with you as she clenched her fists. 

Hannah wanted to argue but you shook your head “we are best friends.” You announced as you stepped into her room “and that means we are gonna be sat in the front row where we will be once we’ve drank our feelings away.” You motioned to the new bottle of vodka that you had bought for your pregame. 

Allie nodded in agreement “c’mon you guys have eaten through my feelings so now is the time that we gotta drink through them too.” She smiled as Hannah collapsed onto her bed with a huff. 

You cracked a grin as you made eye contact with her “the boys will be there.” You knew over the last few days that Hannah had been mentioning Garrett more but you didn’t want to seem like you were meddling. 

Especially after Beau warned you that it could end up thrown back in your face if you pushed for her to date Garrett if she ended up with Justin. 

You stepped into her room “and besides who is gonna sit and laugh with me when we have to remind this one of her lines.” Allie responded with throwing a pillow at you as you grinned.

It made Hannah laugh as she nodded “we are like your best line buddies like ever.” She looked at Allie as you joined her on her bed.

Allie groaned as she looked between the two of you “you two sit here while I go make us some margaritas!” She clasped her hands together as she realised that she now had the perfect excuse to come along to make her favourite drink.

Hannah turned her attention to you when Allie walked out to the bedroom “you really think Justin is gonna be there?” Hannah cocked her head as you nodded.

Your fingers ran through your hair “Beau got him to help with the whole fruit snatching thing they’ve got going on with Tucker.” You had been the one to eat the kiwi and of course your brother eating his banana was the reason why Tucker was now on an orange. 

It was also the reason why you had somehow been instructed to bring a coconut with you tonight.

Hannah let out a laugh “and Garrett?” You had to mask the fact that you were mentally cheering at the thought of Hannah thinking about him “he is coming because the boys are all coming.” 

Allies voice cut through the walls “I’m hearing a lot of talking and not about what you are wearing tonight!” Her complaint made you giggle “I thought I looked cute!” You shot back in a teasing tone. 

The brunette walked back with a lime in one hand and a knife in the other “you could wear a bin bag and still look cute.” She announced as she ran her tongue over her teeth.

Her eyes landed on this red top she had been trying to convince you to wear for months. Allie was convinced that it was actually made for your body “but I would be able to remember my lines a lot better if this was in the crowd.” 

Her smirk was almost dangerous “don’t make me pull the sad card because you know I will.” You pinched the bridge of your nose as you looked at Hannah. 

Somehow this was turning into a thing between all three of you “you gonna wear those boots then?” You had these knee high boots that you had been trying to get onto Hannah for weeks. 

Hannah got up as she nodded “now are we gonna play a little music or just stand here in silence?” Her playlist was always hooked up on her laptop as she pressed play. 

The sounds of the mixed playlist that all of you had created deciding that the perfect tunes list for your apartment had to come from all three of you. 

As Madonna echoed against the walls of the apartment, the three of you were almost done getting ready for the night “you know you’re gonna smash it tonight.” You placed your hands on Allies shoulders as you gave them a squeeze. 

The comforting gesture made her smile as she nodded “you too Han.” You grinned as the girl scoffed “she’s the one getting on stage tonight.” 

Allie put down her blush brush as she pointed at Hannah “we are all gonna have the night of our lives.” She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively to the two of you. 

You shook your head “oh please you have two boys fighting for your attention.” Allie began by talking to Hannah before she turned her attention to you “and you have a boyfriend who just about worships the ground you walk on.” 

She finished by looking back in the mirror “and I am about to complete my first show with no Sean proving that he was wrong about me!” You raised your glass to that one as you pulled both girls into a hug. 

They were quick to return the gesture “we gonna do a girls night before thanksgiving?” The words slipped from your lips as you looked to your calendar seeing that the break was merely three weeks away. 

It earned an immediate nod from the girls “you think you can keep your boy away from ya for that long?” Allie teased as your cheeks turned red. 

You playfully rolled your eyes “I’ll tell him Dean is here and he won’t say nothing.” You joked back not noticing how Allie tensed at the mention of your brother. 

So the real question was, how long was it going to be until Hannah found out that you had a favourite between the two guys she liked? You found out that Allie and Dean were starting to find a connection of their own that didn’t involve you? And Dean finding out that Beau and you were dating?

Despite the fact that the apartment felt so strong, it seemed like it could only last so long with all of this bubbling beneath the surface. 

Because in his current one he was experiencing a level of torture that he thought nobody was possible of inflicting on another person “you are going to get me killed.” Beau grumbled against your mouth as his hands rested on your waist. 

It made you grin “I’m just a girl chilling on her bed.” You played defensively as you gasped feeling his hips grind against you. 

The boy laughed “you say that like you aren’t in my shirt.” Beau pointed out as he looked down at the football training shirt. 

The grey fabric practically drowned you, reminding him out that day you were in his jersey “hey finders keepers losers weepers.” You stuck your tongue out at him earning an immediate laugh. 

Beau tucked your hair behind your ear “you’re lucky that it looks better on you anyways.” He murmured leaning in to kiss your neck.  

You shook your head as you let your hands cup his cheeks before you pulled his attentions back to your eyes “you know what looks better on me?” You batted your eyelashes at the boy who swore he melted into your bed at that moment. 

You had this way of looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered. Sure he looked at you like that too. 

It was funny how time had a way of stopping when you shut your bedroom door. The apartment had become your safe haven once the girls found out about you two, it became a place where you didn’t have to hide “what does baby?” Beau asked as he cocked his head. 

You ran your tongue along your teeth “if it’s off of me.” Your words were met with an immediate groan as his head fell onto your shoulder. 

It made you laugh which was only made louder when the door burst open “absolutely not!” Allie shook her head. 

She was stood with Hannah who grinned when you looked past the boy on top of you “you need to get ready.” Allie pointed her finger in your direction “and you need to go finish helping set up your stupid house for this.” She moved her attention to Beau. 

It made the boy groan “I hate your roommates.” He grumbled when he finally sat up. 

You mocked him with a pout “they’re my roommates.” You reminded him as you giggled “and we’re also the ones who keep your asses safe.” Hannah reminded you of remembering when Garrett had an impromptu drop in and Beau was left being forced into your room. 

In a way it was almost ironic that Beau dropped in on girls night, just for Garrett to do the same thing thirty minutes later. That’s how you ended up being forced to fake a cold for a week after you had to hide in your bedroom too. 

Beau sighed as he knew that the girls were right “what is it that you want from us?” He asked as he let his hand snake around your waist once more. 

Allie rolled her eyes “for you to go away so that we can get her dressed.” Beau looked down to what you were in. 

What was just his t-shirt “well I think she looks perfect.” He confessed making both girls pretend to gag “nice try.” Allie crossed her arms. 

Beau grinned “now go away.” She added making the boy frown. 

He reached for your hand “no don’t look at her she can’t help you.” Hannah stopped him making you laugh. 

The boy looked at you like you had just gone to the dark side “I will see you later.” He went to kiss you but your roommates remained strong “go!” 

You toyed with your necklace as you laughed seeing them shove him out “you know your boyfriend is obsessed with you right?” Allie shook her head and you couldn’t even argue. 

Because the feeling was right, and listening to people still calling him your boyfriend made your stomach feel funny. 

It came when the rain was pouring outside. 

Beau came over after he finished a late class and practically slipped into your bed with you the moment he got a chance as you had complained that you were too cold to practically do anything. 

That’s how the two of you ended up watching Mamma Mia on your laptop together “so just so we’re clear Sam’s the dad right?” His words made you pause your laptop, leaning up from his chest. 

You turned to Beau and let out the harshest sigh you possibly could have “it’s a good thing you’re pretty cause you my friend are wrong.” You shook your head as you felt his hand on your back. 

Beau cocked his head “it’s so clearly Bill!” You whined not realising that the boy in front of you had gone strangely quiet. 

His fingers brushed up your arm absentmindedly. His fingers were slower as if his mind had drifted somewhere else entirely “you’re staring.” Your voice was soft as it pulled him back to you. 

He smiled when his eyes flicked back to yours “no I’m not.” 

“Oh yes you are.” 

And then he paused as he let out a hard exhale “I’m just thinking.” He shrugged as he leaned on his arm “that’s dangerous.” You grinned as your eyes shone this glimmer of mischief. 

He rolled his eyes as he huffed out a laugh “do you ever think about how this started?” He asked quietly as his arm tightened around your waist. 

You blinked as you cocked your head “how you’re wrong about a piece of cultural history?” You spoke so simply that it almost made him laugh. 

Beau shook his head “I mean us.” You turned to be fully in his arms “I think about it all the time.” 

It made you smile “what about us?” You furrowed your brows. 

His thumb brushed against your waist, almost nervous in a way you weren’t really used to seeing him in “I don’t want to just be your friend.” His words made you grow confused. 

“I’m not tracking with you Maxwell.”

He frowned, trying to figure out how he was meant to say it “what are we?” His hand reached up to cup your cheek. 

You chewed at the inside of your lip “I mean.” You couldn’t find the words to articulate it “we’re serious.” You remembered that night when the girls found out about him when you confessed that. 

Beau nodded “they called me your boyfriend.” He reminded you as if it wasn’t something that you were already thinking about. 

You licked your lips “I liked it when they did that.” His confession made you melt as he sat up talk as if it was about to make what he said more proper than when he was laying down “I want you like that.” 

He ran his fingers through his hair “you do have me like that Beau.” You nodded as he shook his head “not officially.” 

That made you nervous “what about Dean-” his hands cupped your cheeks “I know I can’t have you in public.” 

It should have stung. It should have made your heart break “but I want you in all the ways that matter to us.” Beau forced his lips into a smile when you grinned “who would have thought I’d get Beau Maxwell getting all cute?” 

He pecked your lips “your boyfriend Beau Maxwell actually.” 

It lingered in your mind as you walked into the house “Dean might kill me in this.” You shook your head at the two girls who laughed “well then aren’t we glad that you dressed up for your boyfriend.” Allie took a cup one of the guys who smiled at her before she gave it to you. 

You downed it without thinking twice as you nodded “remember if you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Hannah patted your lower back when you guys finally spotted Beau. 

He was stood in some black shirt and a backwards hat that made him look dangerously good “I-I,” You cut yourself off as your throat felt dry. 

Now you were learning how the world felt as it was so unfair. 

And then he looked up and finally saw you.

Before he completely stopped moving.

It was almost funny how obvious he was when he wasn’t meant to. 

But somehow it felt like something only you guys were meant to know.

Like his body forgot how to function for a second every time you walked into a room “oh my god,” Allie whispered beside you, delighted “look at his face.”

Hannah snorted looking at the boy “he’s gone.” Beau really was, his drink lowered slowly in his hand as his eyes dragged down your body.

The dress.

Your legs.

The way the black fabric hugged you in all the places he already knew too well.

It was something that Allie found in her closet, and she knew the moment you put it on that it was practically made for you. 

And Beau knew it by the way his eyes looked back up at yours.

And the look on his face made heat crawl up your neck instantly.

Because that wasn’t secretive.

That wasn’t subtle.

That was him reminding you that he was yours.

You swallowed as Allie grinned wickedly, “mission accomplished.” Across the room, Garrett said something to Beau that clearly went unheard.

Beau forced himself to nod as you smiled “think your man is thinking the same thing.” You winked at Hannah, who turned the same colour of red you swore your cheeks were. 

Beau was the first one to make his way over “I’ll meet him there.” Hannah squeezed your hand as she walked to Garrett before he had the chance to unintentionally cockblock you. 

Allie squeezed your arm “oh that boy looks sick!” She giggled like a kid in a candy store “try keep him breathing after midnight.” She teased as she gave you one last twirl.

You barely got a chance to respond before he was stood right in front of you. The boy made sure that there was enough space for it not to be overwhelmingly noticable, but he was close enough that you could still smell his cologne.

His eyes dropped again, straight to the dress. Then your legs. 

And to round off the trip they went back to your eyes, and the look that he gave you was enough to make your stomach flip “hi there, handsome.” You smiled sweetly. 

Beau exhaled through his nose as his eyes sharpened “you are doing this on purpose.” His words were directed at Allie but his eyes never left you. 

He let out a low whistle “c’mon baby I mean.” He reached out to put his hands on your waist but he quickly stopped himself. 

It was the part that you hated, the fact that he couldn’t just reach out and touch you, it almost made you feel jealous of Hannah and Garrett behind you, who got to be real in front of everyone when Hannah was still crushing on Justin two weeks ago, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say that she was still crushing on the singer. 

Sure you knew it was wrong to not be 100% happy for your friend, but you craved the publicity that her relationship got, “you look like trouble.” Beau finally found the words as he made you smile. 

Of course, he’d notice when his compliments made your heart soar, but you’d do everything in your power to hide the effect they had on you “that’s not very nice.” You lightly teased him as he shook his head. 

Beau decided to step forward again, this time allowing his mouth to drop to your ear “last time I checked, I wasn’t trying to be fucking nice.” He grumbled as he let his hand run along your waist. 

Honestly, that moment had done more to you than anything else. The thought of him peeling you out of your dress was something that seemed to be on both of your minds. 

Which was a dangerous look to have on a man in a room full of people “you are going to be the death of me.” He mumbled as he leaned back to take a look at you in full again. 

His jaw flexed as his eyes darkened. Beau was really weighing up the consequences of throwing you over his shoulder and bringing you upstairs

But then it happened, “Beau!” Dean’s voice called out, making your boyfriend step back. 

The boy groaned while you instead laughed “hey Deano.” You smiled seeing your very drunk and very oblivious brother sling his arm around Beau’s shoulders. 

Dean let his eyes linger over your body “you clean up nicely.” He announced as you tried your best not to look nervous. 

“Thanks?”

Your brother ignored you as he saw how Beau smiled at you “see this is why I have rules.” Dean slurred as he pointed his finger accusingly at his best friend. 

It made Beau’s eyes widen, “what rules?” He asked as he tried his hardest to act like you weren’t there and you tried the same thing with him. 

Dean continued, “you can’t hook up with any of my friends.” You had to force a laugh out of your lips “oh please, I’d never.” You scratched your arm nervously as if your brother knew everything. 

Thankfully he stumbled shortly after, making Beau practically catch him “you are drunk.” Dean shook his head “I am having a better time than the two of you it seems.” He corrected his friend as you smiled. 

It was nice seeing the boys together, you had to admit it “c’mon lets get you some water.” Beau’s suggestion fell onto deaf ears “we are doing shots.” 

Dean looked at you “without her.” That was what your brother was always like so you really weren’t annoyed. 

Beau frowned as he really didn’t want to leave you “have fun boys.” You sent Beau a salute as he got pulled back into the crowd, disappearing into the sea of people.

Before you knew it, the party had gotten louder. 

Hotter and somehow more crowded even. 

Allie disappeared outside to answer a call from Shawn while Hannah was talking to Justin in some corner as Garrett was in the bathroom. 

Which left you alone as you got a drink in the kitchen “you’re Dean’s sister right?” You looked up to see a guy that you vaugly remembered as one of the lowerclassmen on the football team. 

You nodded as you watched him smile too widely “that’s sick.” He reeked of alcohol, and it made your nose scrunch in disgust. 

The boy didn’t leave “you got a boyfriend?” He stepped closer to you instead.

Your heart skipped “why?” You knew you should have just said yes but you stopped yourself from having to explain this to Dean “because I think we should fix that.” 

He reached for your hand as you shook your head, “I’m good,” the boy didn’t stop “c’mon don’t shut me down that fast.” He made you cringe when you stepped back realising that you were now against the counter. 

Before you even had the chance to panic you heard him “pretty sure she’s good.” Beau clenched his fists as he stood behind you both. 

“Can’t you take a hint?” 

It made the other boy laugh “we are just taking.” You took the chance to wriggle out of his space. 

Opting to slot into Beau’s side instead “no she was trying to get away from you.” Beau wrapped his arm around your shoulder. 

He squeezed his arm making the other guy snarl, “why do you care?” Beau tensed against you “because she isn’t up for the taking.” 

Beau spoke so simply, unaware of the fact that you were just about ready to make out with your boyfriend in the middle of party, without caring who saw you “whatever.” The boy raised his hands in surrender as he walked off. 

The brunette turned his attention to you “you okay?” His expression softened as he made you smile. 

You softly laughed “a lot better now that you’re here.” Your words made him almost melt. 

His hand cupped your cheek as his eyes stared at your lips “fuck you’re gorgeous.” He murmured doing everything in his power to not kiss you. 

His words were sweet as you nodded “you’re not too bad yourself pretty boy.” You shook your head, as you leaned closer to him. Your lips mere inches away from him. 

And just like last time the moment was cut before it had a chance to begin “Beau c’mon someone is sick on our couch!” One of his roommates groaned making you sigh.

Beau was ready to stay with you and leave the mess for someone else to deal with “no talking to strange men.” Beau grumbled as it made you let out a low laugh “is that your takeaway from this?”

He wanted to plant his feet in the ground and never leave you “I’ll behave.” He didn’t believe that you would, but still he couldn’t stay.

Not when he was literally being pulled away “I’m serious!” Was the last thing that he said as he got pulled back into the crowd. 

Allie appeared beside you as you grinned “y’know he was ready to like actually fight that guy.” She squeezed your hand, making your cheeks turn red. 

You licked your lips “that guy was weird.” It sent a shiver down your spine. 

She gasped dramatically “no way, your secret boyfriend who is obsessed with you, got jealous?” She teased you as she let out a laugh when you rolled your eyes. 

The girl looped her arm into yours, leaning her head against your shoulder “I am literally living for this.” You snorted as you shook your head “you are enjoying this way too much.” 

Allie nodded as if it was the most honest thing that you could have said “because it took you two so damn long to let us in!”

She remembered how awkward you and Beau were when you first started sneaking around “y’know he used to look at you like a lost puppy.” Hannah reappeared next to you as you shook your head. “No he didn’t.”

Your defensiveness made them laugh “you love him.” Hannah elbowed your side as she slipped her arm into yours. 

You chewed at the inside of your cheek “yeah I do.” You nodded as you realised that you really meant it. 

Both girls squealed as they jumped up and down, seeing your eyes land on Beau’s. You did always managed to find him in the crowd. 

And like always, Beau was looking at you too. 

Allie stood in front of you as she grabbed your face “this is like the best day of my life.” Her words made you groan.

You shook your head “Allie!” You whined as you hated how well the girls could read you.

Hannah watched as you scrunched your nose “I hate you both.” You grumbled making her stick her tongue out at you.

Allie grinned as she let out a laugh “but we are still the ones helping you two sneak around.” She poked your nose as Hannah giggled.

And they were right.

Because when you couldn’t find Beau anymore. Rather than going home with the girls, you opted to slip up to his room to get some quiet and hopeful company “was wondering how long it would take you to come here.” Beau smiled as he toyed with his watch. 

The door shut behind you “I was waiting for you to come and get me.” You smirked as the boy stood up from his bed.

His steps towards you were painfully slow “was trying to do that most of the night.” His hand reached for yours as he smiled. 

His calloused fingers were rough against your skin “seemed like you didn’t do a very good job.” You let out a breathy laugh when he walked you back into the door. 

Beau licked his lips “you enjoy breaking the rules?” Your lips hovered over his as you smiled. 

He grinned “last I checked Dean said his friends couldn’t hook up with you.” He recounted the conversation as if you weren’t there when it happened. 

You finally scoffed as you sent him a confused look “and what are we doing?”

Beau brushed his nose against yours “I am dating you.” His lips engulfed yours when you started walking him backwards against his bed. 

The boy grunted when he pulled you down with him “do you enjoy wearing something trying to kill me?” Beau asked as his thigh drew these tiny circles against your inner thigh. 

You smiled sweetly, “you look pretty alive to me.” You batted your eyelashes, almost making the boy’s heart stop. 

Beau nodded “that’s cause I have been planning on getting you out of this from the moment you got here.” Your body squirmed as you clenched your thighs against him. 

“So what are we waiting for?”

Which honestly made sense considering the entire thing was one giant mistake. 

But the frat party was a mistake before Beau got involved. 

You hadn’t even wanted to go originally, but Hannah helped do your hair while Allie dug through her closet for something that was ‘slutty but classy’ which directly translated into tight jeans and some white top that now clung to your skin after some drunk idiot slammed directly into you with a cup full of whatever he had too much of “yo sorry girl!” He called out as he continued walking. 

But you stood there staring in horror. Because that once white fabric was see-through now, and that meant that your red bra had to be on full display for everyone to see “shit.” Hannah’s eyes went wide as you let out a huff “I need a drink if I’m meant to deal with this.” You grumbled as both girls followed you. 

They swore you would have gone home right when that happened, but instead you opted to fill your cup up again.

Then again. 

And again. 

Which is how you ended up upstairs half an hour later, annoyed, tipsy and actively trying to find a quieter space after you disappeared from the girls. 

You weren’t thinking when you opened the door to the first semi-empty room that you saw. Until you realised it wasn’t empty. 

Beau was stood there, leaning against his dresser as he looked for a new shirt for himself to wear, as he too was covered in someone’s drink. 

If you had to put your money on it, it was probably your brother’s doing.

His eyes flicked to you immediately, then dropped before they snapped right back up “you okay?” His voice was soft, like it always was when he spoke to you. 

You let out a dry laugh “do I look okay?” You asked as you shook your head. 

Beau’s jaw tightened slightly. Because he was looking again. 

Too long.

Too obvious. 

You crossed your arms out of reflex and that almost made it worse pushing your boobs up. So the boy looked away as if it would quickly reset his mind “what happened?” He asked as he scratched the side of his arm. 

“Some guy happened.” 

His expression immediately darkened “relax.” You saod even though your stomach still felt irritated, “he just spilled his drink on me.” You ran your fingers through your hair. 

Beau’s eyes flicked to your shirt again, the fabric clinging and the outline too visible. His throat moved as he swallowed “I can see that.” His voice was rougher; something about it made your stomach flip. 

Without thinking, you stepped further into his room. Which was a bad idea, as you were now closer to him.

Close enough to smell him properly, beer, laundry detergent and something sharp yet masculine underneath it all. 

Beau shifted slightly as he was suddenly aware of every inch between the two of you “here.” He reached for the Nike hoodie that was behind you “you should probably get out of that shirt so guys don’t look.” His words made your ears turn pink. 

Because not once had you ever thought that Beau cared about what other guys did when it came to you.

You stared at him for a second too long “why?” You asked quietly as Beau blinked, “why what?”

“Why do you care?” 

Silence. 

The music downstairs thumped faintly through the walls. Someone laughed too loudly in the hallway. 

Beau’s grip tightened on the hoodie “I just-” He stopped himself as he licked his lips “it’s just annoying, that’s all.” He said it like it was an answer that made so much sense.

You tilted your head as neither one of you moved, the hoodie was between you and Beau already regretted every second of this conversation “you’re drunk.” He gave you this look, as if it explained everything.

You shot back “so are you.“ And that got him.

A faint helpless nod came from the boy before a pause. It was longer this time.

The tension in the room shifted, never disappeared, just changed shape as if it was keeping up with the times.

You stepped closer without thinking.

Beau didn’t move away. 

That was the problem. 

He never moved away from you “you’re staring again.” You pointed out softly 

The boy dropped his hands “you’re in my room in a see-through shirt. What do you want from me?” His question made you quietly laugh. 

Because he was right, “fair,” but then you went quieter, “is it bothering you?” 

Beau looked at you properly this time, no pretending, “yes” he said immediately. 

Your breath caught slightly “because of the shirt?” You teased, voice no longer as steady as you wished it was. 

He shook his head once “no.” That word changed everything as your stomach dropped “oh.” 

Beau stepped forward without warning, it was just one step but ut closed the gap between the two of you.

His voice dropped, “you shouldn’t look at me like that.” His eyes hovered dangerously over your lips. 

Your voice was barely a whisper, “like what?” You always thought he was cute, but you knew your brother would kill you if you ever vocalised it.

“Like you don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

Your heartbeat skipped. 

That was it. The moment that everything snapped. The floodgates of emotion and desire flew open and everything was about to come tumbling out. 

You didn’t think. You just grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down slightly. Beau froze for like half a second like he needed to reboot.

Then he kissed you. It was powerful.

Like he had been holding it back since he knew you and stopped pretending he could win.

His hand came to your waist, firm as it pulled you closer, making your back hit the dresser behind you. 

You moaned against his mouth, and that only made him kiss you harder. 

It was warm, dizzy, and completely unfair.

You didn’t even notice when he dropped the hoodie, or when your arms slid around his neck. All you knew was that Beau kissed you like he’d wanted it for longer than either of you was willing to admit. 

When he finally pulled back, it was so he could take in the sight of you, how your lips were now swollen “this is such a bad idea.” He muttered, making you smile, “yeah it is.” Neither of you pulled away. 

So when Beau kissed you again, he brought your legs around his waist before he used his foot to shut his bedroom door.

Because this was definitely going to be a case of night one and not one night.

The two of you had been sneaking around for a while now, and you made it through the summer, sneaking around the house in Cape Cod. You made it through sneaking into each other’s rooms as if Dean wasn’t feet away. And honestly, you were both feeling like you were on top of the world. 

Because it was getting too easy, which meant soon that you’d both start playing recklessly.

That’s how you ended up in his car at 2 am after a late-night snack run that you practically had to beg the boy to go on. 

You were sat in the passenger seat, one of his hoodies swallowing you whole. Beau was in the drivers seat, turned slightly towards you with his forearm resting on the steering wheel like he needed something to anchor himself to. 

The windows were fogging up a little and neither of you acknowledged it “we need rules.” You announced as you sat up straight. 

Beau quietly laughed “rules?” He cocked his head as you nodded. 

Dean had asked you if you wanted to hang out with him tonight and you didn’t know what you were meant to say when you turned him down “because this is going to get messy.” You insisted even though your voice didn’t sound sure of it. 

Beau’s eyes flicked to your mouth for half a second before snapping back up “it’s already messy.” He pointed out as the only thing going through his mind was how he really wanted to kiss you in that moment.

You sighed as you fiddled with your rings “okay what are you thinking?” Beau shifted in his seat to give you his full attention. 

You nodded like you were in control of your entire life and not currently sat in his car after sneaking out of your dorm.

One rule should have been obvious: Don’t do this.

But neither of you said it, instead opting for “no public stuff.” You said it carefully as if you were testing the waters. 

Beau nodded in agreement and your heart did something stupid because he didn’t even hesitate, “no kissing at parties or touching were people can see.” You continued knowing that it would be the first thing to blow the two of you up if it happened.

Beau’s jaw tightened at the second one but he nodded again “no Dean.” He added, making you laugh.

It earned a smile from him “yeah none of him.” He was the one you were trying to hide this from after all.

The first two felt manageable, the third was where things were going to get tricky ‘no telling anyone.” You knew that this was something he’d tell Joanna, and before you knew it, everyone would know. 

Beau didn’t respond and that made you look at him properly.

His expression had shifted to something less joking and more serious, like he was actually thinking about the weight of it all “yeah,” he said eventually, “no telling anyone.” Your stomach dipped as you nodded.

Because telling nobody meant hidden, and hidden meant fragile.

Beau seemed to notice your face changed, his voice softened a little “we’re not doing this because we’re ashamed.” His words lingered in the air. 

You licked your lips slightly “then why are we doing it?” Silence filled the car for too long. 

Beau’s hand left the steering wheel and rested on your thigh like he was forcing himself not to reach for your hand “because I can’t stop thinking about you.” He said those words so simply. 

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t rehearsed and it wasn’t said as if it just made your stomach do flips.

You swallowed “that’s not a rule.” You pointed it out as your brows furrowed.

“No,” he agreed quietly “that’s the problem.”

The air between you both changed. It was thicker now; it was less about the rules you set to make.

More about everything you were trying not to say out loud. You shifted in your seat slightly, facing him fully, “Beau…” You trailed off as he looked a you immediately.

Always immediate. Always like you were the only thing in the room (or in this case, car) that mattered “are we okay with this?” You asked softly “like actually okay or are we just-“

“Already in it?” The boy finished your sentence as if he had been thinking the same thing. 

You nodded, Beau exhaled through his nose, almost like he was annoyed at how true the statement was. 

Then he leaned over the centre console, not fast, not rushed, just inevitable. 

Your breath stuttered before he even touched you “yeah.” He said quietly as his eyes flickered between yours, “we’re in it.” That was all the warning you got before he kissed you.

Slower this time. Less frantic than before. But deeper in a way that made your entire body go warm instantly, like it had been waiting for him to do exactly that.

Your hand slid into his shirt without thinking, pulling him closer as his hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek like he still couldn’t believe that you were real. 

The console dug into your thigh as your seatbelt clicked when you shifted. 

None of it mattered. 

Because Beau Maxwell kissed you like he meant it every time. 

When he finally pulled back it was only slightly, resting his forehead against yours like he needed a break “rule four.” You whispered.

It made him laugh against your mouth, “theres more?” He asked as you nodded, “just one.” 

He hummed against your lips “go on.”

You looked at him properly, your fingers still hooked into his shirt, “if this goes bad ever.” You said, trying to sound casual and failing completely, “we don’t ever talk about it.” Beau’s expression softened instantly.

He paused, “but it’s not going to go bad.” You gave him a look “you don’t know that.”

Beau smiled “I do.” That made your stomach flip again.

You held your pinky out and Beau stared at it for half a second before he laughed and did the same thing “taking this to the grave.” You said. 

Beau squeezed your hand gently “to the grave.” He nodded. 

You should’ve let go after that.

You really should’ve. But instead, you pulled him back by his shirt.

And Beau met you halfway, like he always would. Like there was never really going to be a rule strong enough to stop him.

But it was funny how that last rule really didn’t last long. 

Because the girls were the ones who found out by accident.

Mainly because Beau was a football player and that meant that stealth didn’t come to him naturally.

It was nearly one in the morning when he showed up at your dorm wearing a dark hoodie and a baseball cap pulled low, “okay Stevie Wonder.” You let out a snort, seeing his sunglasses on him too. 

He rolled his eyes “if you didn’t take so long to come get me I wouldn’t need a disguise.” He grumbled pecking your lips. 

You grinned as you curled the string of his hoodie between your fingers “hey now I could leave you out here.” You taunted him, licking your lips in the process. 

He let out a low whistle “now where would the fun be in making me go home?” His hands rested on your waist as your cheeks turned red “you’re lucky you’re cute.” You grumbled as you grabbed his hand. 

It made him grin, “you think I’m cute.” He looked as if he had just been told he was the best looking man in the world “yeah so lets not let that change.” 

You got to your floor as you looked around “c’mon be quiet.” You brought your finger to your lips as you had snuck him past the security desk for what felt like the tenth time that week. 

Beau rolled his eyes “I know how sneaking works.” He snorted softly right before he walked into one of the random tables that were out.

It made this loud echo “do you now?” You crossed your arms as he grabbed your waist, shoving the two of you behind some corner before the RA had a chance to appear. 

You bubbled into this silent laughter as you grinned, “you’re enjoying this too much.” Beau muttered as he shook his head “didn’t think you would be this bad at sneaking.” 

“Usually I don’t need to.” 

You were still laughing by the time the two of you got to your dorm suite. 

Where you froze immediately.

Because the once empty living room now had both Hannah and Allie sit on the couch eating cereal. 

With a perfect view of you and the man you were holding hands with “I knew it.” Hannah lowered her spoon as her mouth fell open. 

Your eyes closed “Hannah-” Beau squeezed your hand, reminding him he was there with you. 

“I knew it!” She shrieked louder as Allie clapped her hands, looking genuinely delighted, “oh my god, its Beau!”

Beau looked like he’d rather be taking a tackling drill to the face in that moment “that’s why Garrett said Dean was going on about you having some mystery girlfriend!” Hannah remembered how the hockey captain pointed it out as you were running to a lecture one day as the two studied in your living room. 

Your head snapped “he what now?” Your eyes went wide as Beau groaned from next to you. 

Allie gasped as her hand went over her mouth “you’re the one that give her the hickies!” It was after a party where you were in a low-cut shirt and Beau got a little annoyed seeing all the guys look at you. 

So he made sure you were left forced to wear borderline turtlenecks in the middle of August “this is humiliating.” You groaned as you leaned into Beau. 

Allie scoffed “correction, this is the cutest thing in the world.” She spoke in a duh tone as she placed her bowl on the table. 

Beau slid his arm around your waist as your head buried into his chest, refusing to look at anyone. 

And the girls noticed that immediately. And the worst part? So did you. 

Because the tiny movement said more than either of you had yet “wait are you guys serious?” Her eyes darted between you. 

You finally looked up from the boy’s chest to see his eyes looking right at yours, “yeah.” He nodded making your stomach flip. 

Allie clapped her hands together as she squealed, “you’re dating Beau Maxwell.” It was a massive jump from when you swore you were off of guys last year after another failed hook-up.

You laughed despite yourself, “don’t make it weird.” You groaned, making the girls laugh. 

Hannah shook her head “trust me it’s already weird.” She informed you “your brother literally thinks Beau is in love with some random girl while you’re literally sneaking him into our door.” She pointed out making you look up at Beau who sighed. 

He knew what he was getting into when he started sneaking around with you “Dean’s gonna kill me.” Beau chewed at the inside of his lip. 

Allie shook her head “while you’re probably not wrong.” She trailed off, looking at Hannah, who gasped. 

“Oh my god, we can help keep them a secret!” 

While the girls offer wasn’t something either of you needed to take just yet, it felt like as the weeks continued, something was changing between the two of you.

Somewhere along the way, the sneaking and fun around turned into something serious. 

Beau had texted you all about how he had a bad practice, and that was how you ended up in his room without a second thought. 

He was in his ensuite showering, blissfully unaware of what was sitting on his bed waiting for him. 

You found his jersey and had kicked your jeans off, leaving you in your underwear and his shirt, “holy shit.” His eyes went wide as he took in the sight of you. 

The first went down to your thighs leaving you looking as if you were about to be swallowed whole “hi handsome.” You grinned as you pushed yourself off of his bed. 

Beau felt his brain short-circuit as he dropped his towel to the floor, forgetting what to do with himself “couldn’t you have waited until I got dressed?” He asked quietly as he reached for his boxers from his open drawer. 

You swore you hadn’t seen him get dressed faster in his life “would that have been more polite?” You tilted your head, watching him turn back to face you again. 

He was quick to shake his head, “it would have been a whole lot less distracting.” He countered, making you laugh softly. 

Beau reached you as one hand automatically wrapped your leg around him. It was a move that made your pulse jump. 

His thumb brushed absentmindedly against bare skin while he looked at you like he didn’t know where to focus first “you wore this on purpose.” He mumbled as he licked at his lips, “maybe I missed you.” 

It made his expression soften. Every single time it happened. No matter how teasing the moment started, the second you said something genuine, Beau looked at you like you knocked the air out of him. 

“I saw you this morning.” 

You rolled your eyes, remembering how good he looked in your bed “long time.” Your words made him huff out a laugh before he lay you onto his bed. 

The sight always made you squirm as his chain rested on your chin before he kissed you. 

The kiss always started slow with Beau first. As he enjoyed the build-up far too much to rush anything. 

His hand slid from your thigh to your waist, while your fingers curled into damp hair at the back of his neck. 

He tasted like mint and Gatorade.  

And god you swore you could feel the smile against your mouth when you tugged at his hair “you’re trouble.” He murmured as he looked away to look at you. 

You grinned, “you like it.” He nodded as he caught your lower lip between his teeth “I’m obsessed with it.” Your heart skipped embarrassingly hard at that. 

But Beau kissed you again before you could recover, this time going deeper. One hand pressed into the mattress under you while the other slipped under your shirt letting his palm spread against your bare waist. 

You made this tiny sound into his mouth that made him shudder, “don’t do that.” He grumbled as his knee dipped into the mattress.

You cocked your head feeling a little confused, “don’t make noises like that unless you want me acting insane.” His warning sound have made you squirm but instead you smirked. 

“Maybe I do?” 

That line got the boy as he groaned before he kissed you harder again. 

His body settled on top of you as his fingers traced up your ribs underneath the jersey, making your breath catch in your throat. 

“Beau-“

A loud knock slammed against the door as you both froze “Maxwell!” Dean whined from the other side of the door, making your eyes widen in horror. 

Beau dropped his forehead onto your shoulder “you’ve gotta be kidding me.” He groaned as he wanted to hit your brother in that moment.

Another knock came “c’mon Tucker is downstairs waiting for us!” And just like that you remembered why you weren’t meant to be seeing Beau until tonight. 

He was seeing Dean and Tucker after practice “hide!” Beau whisper hissed as he motioned you to slide under his bed “not your bathroom?” You scoffed, matching his tone. 

The boy panicked, “no time.” He pressed a kiss on your lips before you begrudgingly listened making sure that you hid behind where his practice bag was dropped “why aren’t you dressed?” Dean asked immediately, seeing the lack of clothing that his friend had on. 

Beau looked down as he ran his fingers through his hair “sorry bro, the shower ran long.” It was a stupid excuse, but the first one that he could come up with. 

Dean nodded as he crossed his arms “well just hurry up.” The blonde let out a dramatic huff that almost made you laugh.

Your brother looked at the bed, hearing your hand slap over your mouth “did your bed just make a noise?” He asked, making Beau’s eyes grow wide.

Dean shook his head as he sighed, “ignoring that are you gonna come out with us tonight?” Your brother asked but quickly groaned seeing Beau remain quiet “c’mon man mystery girl can’t be that special.” That was the nickname the boys gave you. The reason why Beau smiled at his phone, left parties early, didn’t attend poker nights if the puck bunnies were coming along, and most importantly, stopped flirting with other girls. For weeks now, Dean had been trying to figure out who was the reason his best friend went soft, blissfully unaware that it was the very sister whom he spent mornings ransacking her snack drawer. 

Everyone was trying to guess who you were and beyond for you, Beau, Hannah and Allie, nobody was going to be successful for as long as you all could help it. 

Beau gripped his hand at his door “look dude I can’t do tonight but give me a sec to get dressed and I’ll be down for Tucker.” He didn’t wait for Dean to answer as he shut his door, making sure he locked it. 

His head dropped as he helped you out from under his bed “next time I’m hiding you under my bed.” You grumbled as Beau sighed. 

The boy pressed a kiss against your lips “sorry princess your brother would have killed me.” He sighed as his hands rested on your hips “wait for me to come back?” He didn’t want to leave you, he really, really didn’t want to leave you in his jersey looking like that. 

But if you both wanted to make it through the night, you really had no other choice in the matter, “you know I will.” You leaned onto your tippy toes to kiss him again. 

“Don’t make me come back up there, Beau!”

--

Your heart is racing.

Allie made some fancy reservation somewhere on the water, and while you should be getting ready, your eyes haven’t pulled off the text message in the last three minutes, even with Allie and Hannah singing loudly from the bathroom. 

The text shouldn’t hit this way. It’s not like you and Garrett haven’t said I love you before. 

This one feels different.

Things have been good over the past few weeks. The distance had been good for you, and good for Garrett, and you loved this feeling too; this co-existing in your own space. Having experiences that you’d seen alone but could still go back and share with him if you wanted. It was refreshing, and it made your time together more special than just an expectation.

Things were good. You weren't mad at him, but you also didn't feel like running back to him full speed. Allie had said it was okay to miss him, and you do, but not in the way you used to. Not in the way where you didn't know how to function until he was back.

“What are you smiling at?” Hannah emerges from the bathroom, gloss on her lips and her cheeks rosy with color. She’s got a pep in her step from your day 

You glance back to see that your phone screen had turned off, hiding the text messages from view. “Uh, nothing, just an edit I was watching. What time do we have to leave?”

Hannah moves to the kitchen area to pour a fresh glass of wine. “Um, soon, I think? Come on, come get ready with us!”

“Yeah, be there in one sec.” You smile in her direction and wait for her to head back into the other room before taking a breath.

It wasn't that you didn't love Garrett because you knew you did. You just didn't know if these things were being said because he felt them, or if he was trying to make up for what happened.

--

Meanwhile, back at the hockey house, the boys are having a much different conversation.

"Dude!"

Garrett groans loudly, burying his face in his hands as Dean reads the conversation out loud for Logan and Tucker to hear.

"You were supposed to leave her alone!"

"I don't know how!" Garrett argues back, frustration winning in his voice.

Logan reads the messages over Dean's shoulder, letting out a low whistle. "Jesus, G. You're really digging in deep now."

"Don't say that shit unless you mean it." Dean's tone is more aggressive than anyone anticipated as he drops the phone back in Garrett's lap. "Seriously, dude. Not cool."

"Who the fuck says I don't mean it?"

"The version of you that stood in the parking lot and told her she was hovering."

Silence falls across the room, Tucker even pausing the video game as they all stare at each other. Because yeah, Dean is right. But Garrett doesn't say shit he doesn't mean, either.

"Dean."

The blond shakes his head. "Don't explain it to me. Explain it to the girl who would've dropped everything to get to you because she cared more about you than she did herself."

Dean takes a breath, rubbing his hands across his face. "Sorry, that was intense. But seriously. Do you like her? Like like her? Or what the fuck is going on?"

"Of course I like her, she's--"

"Graham."

It's Logan that shuts down the sentence. He's got a stern, knowing look in his eye. "You've gotta feel your emotions, dude. This isn't healthy. If you like her, then like her. But quit hiding what you really want because you're confusing everyone. Especially Bug."

"They're right." Tucker shrugs. "I mean, I don't know when the hell you guys got more mature than I did, but color me impressed."

Tucker points a finger in Garrett's direction. "You hide behind walls because that's what your dad taught you to do. Be open about it all, be honest. Yeah, it's gonna be embarrassing and awkward, because that's where the growth is."

Garrett takes a second to sit with their words and tries to understand this teasing game he's been playing with you for so long without realising. Because yeah, he'd been leading you on in his actions, and while he does love you, it's not a phrase to throw around lightly.

In every good memory he has, you're there. In all of the hardest parts of his life, you held him through it. Somewhere along the line, Garrett fell in love with you and didn't ever realise it because he's never really known anything different.

"So, let me ask you again, Garrett Graham. Are you or are you not in love with your best friend?"

Garrett presses the heels of his palms into his eyes before he looks back at all three of them, the most honest he's been in his entire life:

"Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I am."

--

--

Allie convinces you guys to go out after dinner because who doesn’t want to visit a beach bar! So, you find yourself watching said girl twirl her heart out under the string lights while the sunset reflects across the sky.

The ocean breeze is warm, and your skin tingles from the sunshine throughout the day. You’ve always loved the beach. It was one place where things would refresh and give you a clear mind before heading back to reality.

“Is this seat taken?”

You’re met with bright eyes and an unfamiliar face when you look up. There’s a guy standing in front of you with his hand motioned to the open barstool next to you.

You shake your head, motioning toward it politely. “Not at all.”

Hannah’s trying to subtly tap you from her spot on your other side, but it’s definitely obvious to anyone who’s looking. She politely excuses herself, and you take the chance to pull her drink into your palms to hold while she goes to dance with Allie.

“Where are you visiting from?” 

“Oh, uh, we go to Briar University, so just taking a small weekend trip.” You give him a smile, but small talk has never been your forte, so it probably comes off awkward. 

The new guy lights up with the revelation. “Oh, me too. I’m visiting some family this weekend.”

You turn toward him a little further to avoid Allie’s obvious thumbs-up from the other side of the bar. “Do they live here? Everything’s gorgeous, I’m already jealous if so.”

He laughs, “Yeah, yeah, they do. Jackson, by the way.”

The guy, Jackson, offers his hand, so you take it. You expect to shake it, but he pulls it up to place a kiss on your skin instead, and you shiver as you tell him your name in return.

“Beautiful name for a beautiful face. What do you study at Briar then? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

--

"Alright," Hannah begins once the three of you are in pajamas and settled on the couch at the Airbnb. "Spill. What did that guy say!"

"That guy," You repeat teasingly, "Is Jackson. And he also goes to Briar, plays football, and he was visiting family for the weekend."

Allie squeals in excitement, bouncing on her cushion. "He was cute!"

You laugh, hiding in your hands. "Guys, come on. This is so embarrassing!"

Allie pulls at your hands to see your face. "No, this is exciting! You have to hang out with him when we get back."

"Allie!"

"Did you give him your number at least?" Hannah asks as she flips through movie options on the TV.

You open your mouth to answer her, but are cut off when your phone buzzes on the table and provides the answer for you.

your knees are tugged up to your chest as you sit in the bed of logan's truck, watching the sun set over the ocean. there is a silence that settles in the air around you, even if it isn't necessarily actually that quiet. the other sit around a small fire, talking amongst themselves about something that you can't quite hear. it's easy to see that they are laughing about something, and for a moment you wonder what it may be. what could possibly bring laughter bubbling out through them.

"hey," his voice pulls through, and your head moves slowly to watch him climb into the bed of the truck with you. there is a smile, easy smile on your face as you watch him walk up and sit next to you. logan moves to grab the blanket that was sitting behind you, and begins to unfold it before wrapping it around your shoulders, "i could see you shaking," he explains with a shrug before letting his hands fall into his lap.

there is a moment in which your eyes stay glued on him, taking in the way his face looks under the light of setting sun. how it illuminates the curve of his nose and highlights his jawline. he must feel the heat of your gaze on his face, because he turns to look at you in return. there is a hint of a smile on his face as your eyes connect, and it causes you to turn quickly and look back out at the horizon.

you pull the blanket down a bit further around you, wrapping it around chest and finding comfort in the warmth. "it's a beautiful view," you say softly then, head tilting a bit as you take it in.

"yeah," he says then gently, "it is." though you swear, for a moment, that you can still feel his gaze on you. a fact that is confirmed when you look turn your head just enough to see him out of the corner of your eye. he watches you for another moment before turning to look at the horizon as well.

a stretch of silence fills the air between you. one that isn't uncomfortable, but rather something that feels good. it's easy to be in this moment with him, but you figure it always had been easy with him. easy to settle into the lives of the boys that lived with your brother. they had become, the girls too, a family to you. something you cherish more than most of your blood relatives.

his voice cuts through the silence, "can i ask you about him?" the question catches you off guard, and your head turns quickly to meet his gaze. your eyebrows are knit together for a moment as you think it over. the question tugged open, raw wound that lay wholly in your chest. the one that had been tearing each day for the past couple of years of your relationship. the one you feared would never heal.

your hands tug tighter on the blanket, holding it against your chest as you let out a gentle sigh. another moment of silence before your voice comes out quiet and raw, "sure." honestly, you were intending to say no. you were planning to deny him the question and look back out at the ocean. however, when the time came to speak, the "sure" came out without a second thought.

logan hesitates then as if he expected you to say no. his own eyebrows furrow together, the crease between them deeper than you had ever seen before. "was he always..." his voice trails off then, as if he lost confidence in the words. however, you are sure that you can piece together the question. it's the question that you figure most people wonder.

was he always like that?

a hardened expression over takes your face then, and you turn your head back to look out at the ocean. "no," you say quietly, eyes fixed out on the horizon as you speak. his gaze still bores holes into you, as he if he was afraid to look away. "he was sweet, kind, and really charming," you go on to explain, "he looked like everything that my father wasn't, and that drew me in."

the blanket that covers you begins to feel heavy, and it weighs down on you. as if it were pushing you into a dark, deep hole. it takes a few minutes for you to realize that it wasn't the blanket that was heavy. rather, the weight originated in your chest. a weight placed upon your lungs, causing it harder to breathe.

you could have chose to stop speaking then, but once the words had started it was like you couldn't stop.

"phil was like-- he was like luke," you go on to explain, eyebrows creasing deeper as you speak, "i know garrett already told you, but um.. i always told myself i wouldn't end up with someone like phil." it was a promise you had failed to keep. "but luke was-- he was so believable, and things were good until-- until they weren't," you finally turn to look at him and there is a sad sort of hurt that clouds his eyes, "but he sunk his claws in me, and i really thought i could change him."

his hand then reaches out to you, landing on your arm where he squeezes gently. his mouth moves as if he is going to speak, but you cut in first, "i know you're probably thinking 'why didn't you leave'," you say with a harsh, short laugh, "i thought about it, but everytime he would just reel me beack in and i--" your hand reaches up and presses against your cheek, wiping at a stray tear, "i thought i could save him."

the feeling of his thumb rubbing against your cheek catches you off guard. there is a callous on his finger pad, and it's rough against the smooth, wet skin of your face. logan rubs at it once then twice, catching a few tears that fell behind the last one. "i wasn't thinking that," he says at last, head tilting as he takes you in, "thinking that implies that it was your fault or that you had any control." there is a knife that seems to jab in between your ribs then, twisting against your heart as he speaks. "and, trust me, none of this was your fault," the feeling of his calloused hand lights lights the nerves in your hand as he reaches out for it, "you did what you had to, to survive."

his words wash over you, and they settle uneasy in your stomach. it causes this queasy feeling to bubble deep within, and for a moment you could swear that you tasted bile in your throat. there was nothing cruel about his words. rather, the opposite.

the fact was that his words should bring you comfort. they should dull the knife stuck in your chest, and alleviate the pressure on your lungs. for a moment you wonder if there is something wrong with you, because the words only tears the wound in your chest open a little bit wider.

it was as if you felt guilty for trying to survive. guilty for the things you endured, and there was a piece of you that wanted to correct him. to tell him that part of it was your fault, even if the logical side of you knew that he was right.

"hey," he says then, head moving down to force himself back into your sight, "where did you go?" the question is light, and the grip he had on your arm seems to tighten for a moment.

one blink, and then another before another tear seems to fall onto your cheek. the wind blows then, pushing past the blanket and kissing your skin causing a chill that makes your skin form goosebumps. as you tug the blanket tighter around your body, a sigh escapes your lips.

"i did what i had to, to survive," you say it quietly and with intent, the words coming out more like a prayer. they hang heavy in the air between you as john gives you a sad, gentle smile. his hand squeezes your arm again, and takes a moment to just look at you. to simply take you in, and try to read you.

his back straightens then, and it snaps you from this moment back to reality. the sky is darker now, and the sound of the waves mixes with the fireplace in a soothing sort of harmony. "do you want to make smores?," he asks then, quickly change the topic.

a smile takes over your face for a split moment, "will you make it for me? i hate how messy it gets," you ask, shoulders relaxing as you speak. suddenly all that tension feels pointless to carry.

Chapter One. Broke Your Heart, I’ll Put It Back Together.

Garrett waits until the dorm door closes behind her before he lets himself breathe properly. Not that he’s been holding his breath. Technically. 

His lungs have been performing all necessary functions since they left the theatre, through the drive with her hand tucked into his over the centre console, through carrying her bags up the short path while she held the flowers against her chest, through standing beneath the ugly fluorescent light outside her building while she smiled at him with the last of Juliet still clinging around the edges. 

Smudged eyeliner beneath her eyes. Hair only half rescued from its pins. His jacket over the white dress, one sleeve pulled over her fingers because the night had turned cold while they were inside watching everybody die beautifully.

He’s been breathing. Just badly.

“Thank you for tonight,” she’d said at the door, quieter than she’d been in the car, where she’d spent eight full minutes explaining why Micah’s final scene had nearly gone wrong because one of the fake blood capsules had split early and then another four telling Garrett that no, this was not funny, it could have ruined the emotional architecture of the entire ending.

Garrett had understood approximately sixty percent of the explanation and loved every second of it.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he’d said, shifting her tote higher on his shoulder even though they had reached the door and there was nowhere left to carry it.

Her eyes had moved over his face. “I know.”

That had been worse somehow. Better, but worse. Something small and careful sitting between them, because she knew he wasn’t there out of obligation and he knew she had noticed. 

The bouquet had rustled when she adjusted it against her chest, one pink peony brushing the underside of her chin.

Then she had smiled. Soft. Tired. Still a little stunned by the night. “Goodnight, Garrett.”

“Night, baby.”

The word had slipped out without permission, but she hadn’t gone still. Hadn’t looked wounded or warned him back into his lane. Her smile had only shifted at one corner before she took her bags from him, fingers brushing his around the straps.

Now the door catches with a dull institutional click, leaving Garrett alone on the front step with cold air pushing under his collar and the faint rectangle of her shape moving away behind wired glass.

He stands there for longer than a normal person would. Long enough to watch her reach the stairwell. Long enough for the light inside to flatten her into white dress, brown paper, then take her around the corner. 

Long enough that a guy approaching the entrance with a laundry basket looks at Garrett, looks at the shut door, and makes the extremely reasonable decision not to ask why a Briar hockey player is staring into a dorm lobby like it has swallowed someone important.

Garrett finally moves when the guy’s key card gives an impatient little beep beside him.

“Sorry,” he mutters, stepping out of the way.

The guy nods with the careful neutrality of someone who has recognised him and would prefer not to become involved in whatever emotional hostage situation is occurring outside his own residence hall.

Garrett walks back to the Jeep with both hands shoved into his jacket pockets and his entire body still full of her.

It isn’t the old wanting. Or it is, partly, because he isn’t dead, and she had spent the evening in a thin white dress looking like every bad decision he would happily make twice. 

He wants her in his bed. Obviously. He wants her legs tangled through his, her cold feet shoved beneath his calves, her hair covering half his pillow while she complains that he sleeps like an aggressively warm corpse. 

He wants to kiss her without stopping himself after one careful second. He wants to hear the sound she makes when he puts his mouth beneath her ear and feel her fingers catch in his curls with exactly the pressure nobody else had ever got right.

That part is still there. Loud. Healthy. But it isn’t the thing hollowing out the centre of his chest as he climbs into the Jeep.

He wants the rest of it. The parts that don’t end with her naked and happy beneath him. He wants to sit on the edge of her bed while she walks in circles talking about an audition she’s already declared a disaster even though callbacks aren’t posted until Friday. 

He wants her to shove a set of sides into his hands and get progressively more offended while he reads the other character like someone being held at gunpoint by punctuation.

More feeling, Garrett.

I’m giving it feeling.

You’re giving hostage negotiation.

He wants that. He wants her grabbing the pages back and demonstrating the line with her whole body, eyebrows lifted, one hand cutting through the air like the character’s objective is physically located near his desk lamp. 

He wants to know what sides are without needing Dean to explain it. He wants to recognise the difference between being nervous about an audition and being nervous about a specific director. 

He wants to know which flowers belong after which performances and why actors keep saying break a leg even though that feels medically irresponsible.

He wants to be in the third row. First row, maybe, though she’d probably tell him that was annoying and too close. 

He wants to sit wherever she tells him the sightlines are best, shut the fuck up, and watch.

He wants her in the stands too. In his jersey, his name stretched over her back because she put it there willingly, yelling at a ref who can’t hear her and misusing hockey terminology with the confidence of a seasoned analyst. 

He wants to find her after he scores. Not because she’s watching Garrett Graham, Briar’s star forward, the guy half the arena knows by name. Because she’s watching him. Because when he looks through the glass, she’s already looking back.

He wants coffee-shop lines and theatre lobbies and late-night drives and her stealing the fries she swore she didn’t want. He wants arguments about whether a dining chair can have emotional stakes. 

He wants her at the kitchen table with Dean and Allie, rolling her eyes while Logan says something concerning and Tucker quietly removes a knife from his reach.

He wants her back so fucking badly that the wanting feels less like hunger now and more like architecture. Rooms appearing inside him faster than he can furnish them. A whole life making space.

But he doesn’t want to drag her into it. Doesn’t want to stand under another dorm light saying love of my life like the words themselves should outweigh every time he made her feel small.

He wants to be the love of her life. Not because he told her he was. Because, one day, she looks at him and decides he is.

Garrett grips the steering wheel, leather cool beneath his palms, and stares through the windshield at the brick dorm building until one of the upstairs windows flicks on. 

It probably isn’t hers. He doesn’t know which room is hers from this side, which feels like another entry on an increasingly humiliating inventory of things he should know and somehow doesn’t.

The Jeep still smells faintly like her perfume and cold night air. There’s a silver streak of stage glitter across the passenger seatbelt where it rested against her chest, catching dimly whenever the streetlamp hits it. 

Garrett rubs his thumb over it once, which accomplishes nothing except spreading theatre across more of his vehicle.

Great. Excellent. He’s emotionally compromised and sparkly.

His phone buzzes in the cup holder.

Baby: inside. flowers are in water. nobody has been killed by campus furniture yet.

Strong start. Stay vigilant.

Baby: goodnight, graham. thank you for showing up.

Goodnight, baby. Wouldn’t have missed it.

It’s not completely true. An older version of him might have missed it. Might have arrived late, or looked at the schedule and decided the final performance counted just as much as opening night, or assumed she knew he cared even while the seat stayed empty. 

The thought sits badly enough that Garrett doesn’t soften it. He lets it stay sharp. Some things should. Then he starts the car.

The hockey house is lit up. Every downstairs light is on. The kitchen windows glow against the dark, and someone has left the porch light burning even though the porch is currently occupied only by three empty cans, one abandoned sneaker, and a delivery menu plastered damply to the boards.

Garrett parks beside Dean’s car, shuts off the engine, then sits for one more second with both hands resting on the wheel.

He needs to do this right. Properly.

He gets out.

The smell reaches him before the kitchen does: butter, bacon, something starchy and aggressively comforting. Tucker has returned from two hours of Shakespeare-induced emotional violence and responded by feeding everyone, which is the most Tucker thing Garrett can imagine. 

The front hall is crowded with discarded shoes and coats. Dean’s program lies open on the little table by the door, folded back to Allie’s name in the cast list with a dark circle drawn around it and three exclamation points in the margin.

Garrett toes off his shoes and follows the noise.

All three boys are in the kitchen. Tucker stands near the stove in grey sweats and a long-sleeved shirt, dividing some enormous skillet situation between four bowls. 

Potatoes, eggs, chopped bacon, melted cheese. The exact nutritional profile of men who have been emotionally devastated after nine p.m. 

Dean leans against the counter eating directly from his bowl with his eyes still faintly pink, though Garrett knows he would rather claim a rare onion allergy than admit Romeo and Juliet got him. 

Logan sits on the island with one foot hooked around a stool, fork moving with the focus of someone who has survived a cultural experience and needs protein immediately.

All three look up when Garrett walks in. Logan studies him first. His fork pauses halfway to his mouth while his eyes travel from Garrett’s hair to his face and then settle there with the predatory interest of a person who has just discovered fresh material.

“Well,” he says. “Someone looks smitten.”

Garrett tosses his keys into the bowl near the refrigerator. They miss, hit the counter, and skid into a stack of unopened mail. “I’m not smitten.”

Logan turns his head toward the others without taking his eyes off Garrett. “Doesn’t he look smitten?”

Tucker glances over while spooning eggs into the last bowl. His gaze rests briefly on Garrett’s face, calm and assessing. “Looks smitten to me.”

Dean chews, swallows, then nods with the grave authority of a physician confirming a terminal condition. “Definitely smitten.”

Garrett drags a hand over his mouth. The smile is still there. Buried, but not enough. “All of you can go fuck yourselves.”

“See?” Logan points his fork at him. “Smitten. Hostile because he’s overwhelmed.”

“That isn’t a symptom of being smitten.”

“It is for you.”

Tucker slides the fourth bowl across the counter. “Eat.”

Garrett takes it because Tucker has the exact tone of a man who will physically supervise the first bite if challenged. 

The food is hot enough to steam against his face, smelling like salt and butter and bacon, and his stomach tightens with the belated realisation that the handful of sour candy Logan threw at him during intermission doesn’t qualify as dinner.

He carries the bowl to the dining table, pulls out a chair, then turns it around before sitting so he can face the kitchen with his forearms braced over the backrest.

The boys keep looking at him.

Dean’s mouth twitches. “Did you kiss her?”

“No.”

“Did she kiss you?”

“No.”

Logan narrows his eyes. “Did you nearly kiss?”

“No.”

“Did you stare at each other for a significant amount of time?”

Garrett thinks of the dorm light catching on her face. The peonies against her chest. Goodnight, Garrett.

“Shut up.”

Logan nods, pleased. “That’s a yes.”

Garrett digs his fork into the potatoes, then stops before taking a bite. 

The sentence has been sitting behind his teeth since the Jeep, heavy enough now that it feels stupid to keep holding it. “I gotta win her back, man.”

The kitchen goes quiet. Tucker’s spoon scrapes once against the skillet. The refrigerator keeps humming. Dean keeps chewing, though slower now. But something in the room shifts out of teasing and into attention so fast Garrett can feel it.

Logan looks between the other boys, then back at Garrett. “I thought that’s what you were doing.”

“It is.” Garrett looks down at the fork in his hand, turning it once between his fingers. “I mean, I have been. Kind of.”

“Flowers,” Dean says, counting against his bowl with the handle of his fork. “Coffee. Carrying her shit around like a hot bellhop. Publicly threatening me over a jersey.”

“That last one probably lost you points,” Tucker says.

Dean lifts one shoulder. “Depends what she’s into.”

Garrett ignores both of them. “No, but I mean seriously.” He leans back slightly, chair creaking beneath him. The words feel awkward in his mouth, because the boys know him too well for any polished version to survive contact. “Properly. I gotta… I gotta do it properly. I need to do it right.”

Dean’s expression settles first. The humour doesn’t leave completely – it would require medical intervention to remove it from Dean – but it moves aside enough for something sharper. “What changed?”

Garrett looks at him. “Nothing changed.”

Dean lifts his eyebrows.

“Fuck, I don’t know.” Garrett pushes his fork through the melting cheese without eating any of it. “Watching her tonight, I guess. Seeing how fucking good she is at that shit. And how much of it I didn’t know because I never–” His jaw tightens briefly. “I knew she loved theatre. Obviously. I went to shows. But I didn’t know it right. I didn’t understand what it was to her.”

Tucker leans one hip against the counter, arms folding loosely across his chest.

Garrett looks back at his bowl. It’s easier to talk to potatoes. Potatoes have never watched him fuck up a relationship in real time.

“I don’t just want her back because I miss having her around,” he says. “I mean, I do. I miss her all the fucking time. But I want all of it. I want to go to her shows. I want to know when her auditions are. I want her at my games. I want her yelling at me because I’m shit at reading those page things.”

“Sides,” Dean says.

Garrett’s eyes lift. “Yeah. Those.”

Dean gives Tucker a pointed look. “He needs help.”

“I’m aware,” Tucker says.

“I want her to be able to trust me when we’re out somewhere,” Garrett continues, quieter now. “I want her to know I’m not gonna forget she’s standing there the second somebody says my name. I want to be…” He stops, because the sentence catches somewhere rough and embarrassing.

Logan waits. For once, he doesn’t fill the silence.

Garrett rubs his thumb along the fork handle. “I told her she was the love of my life when we broke up.”

The boys know. Not the exact argument, but enough. Logan’s face loses the last of its grin.

“And I said it like it should’ve mattered more than how I was treating her.” Garrett swallows once. “I want to actually be that guy. The one who deserves to say it.”

Tucker unfolds his arms. “We should make a list.”

Logan groans so immediately it sounds rehearsed. “A list?”

Tucker nods. “Yep.”

“A list of what?”

“How to get Garrett’s girl back.”

Dean’s face pinches. “Name’s too long.”

Tucker looks at him. “It’s six words.”

“No punch.” Dean places his bowl on the counter and straightens, visibly activating the part of his brain that thinks naming things is a leadership skill. “Should just be How to Get the Girl.”

Logan shakes his head. “Too presumptuous.”

Dean turns to him. “It’s a plan. Plans are aspirational.”

“Still sounds like she’s an object you win at a carnival.”

Garrett looks between them. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Logan ignores him, fork gesturing through the air. “It should be How You Get The Girl.”

“That is the same title with one different word,” Tucker says.

“No, it’s instructional now.”

Dean’s eyes narrow as he considers this. “Stronger.”

Garrett stares at all three of them. He has trusted these men with his life on the ice. This suddenly seems like an administrative error.

Dean’s already moving. There’s a whiteboard hanging near the pantry, mostly used for grocery lists, practice reminders, and passive-aggressive household communication.