regan

He spends a lot of time on his phone these days. Scrolling through his camera roll and letting the corner of his lips twitch in amusement at the numerous photos he keeps of Tanner and Penny, flicking through social media and slowly feeling his brain rot away, whatever it takes to keep his mind busy and away from his situation.

Tonight, he lays on the couch, Petunia tucked into the crook between his outstretched legs despite how large she has gotten in the past year. The weight of her against his body is reassuring – a reminder that he’s still loved despite it all, even if it was mainly by his spur-of-the-moment dog. One hand drags a soothing line along the crease between her eyes while the other scrolls through social media, half-lidded in that weird liminal space between boredom and mildly entertained.

Just as he’s about to finally set the device down and let his brain wash away with Survivor re-runs, his phone buzzes with a singular text, peaking his interest again. The name on the message is what has him sitting up so fast that it startles the golden retriever on his lap.

If he looked back on any time in his past, Frank would find you. He had been great friends with your older brother, especially since your family had lived next door for as long as he could remember. He had spent a lot of time at your house or at social mixers that your parents tended to throw for the neighborhood, smiling at the side of your brother as you had bickered as siblings do.

It wasn’t like you had spent a lot of alone time together. A quick conversation in the kitchen as he came down for a snack, a playful taunt from his lips when you had tried a new outfit or hairstyle, splashing you with the hose when you were just watching them gallivant outside during the hot summers.

One of the last times Frank saw you, you were still a teenager. Wide-eyed and yet still believing that the entire world was against you, friendship bracelets littering your wrists and a streak of red in your hair from when your mother had finally allowed you to add just one color.

You had sat behind the shoulder of your brother, arms crossed over your chest as both of your families and numerous friends from the neighborhood crooned their sadness that he was leaving for college. The entire day of his going away party, you had stayed quiet and compliant, although you had never attempted to leave.

That night, as the crowd dwindled and everyone started cleaning up, you had curled one arm around his waist like you were afraid to touch him and murmured an “i’ll miss you” into his ribcage. He had simply pulled you closer until you were forced to add your other arm around him, squeezing you closer and whispering the secret right back into your hair. You’ve talked every now and then since he left. Your parents are still close to his own, which means he tends to see you every time he visits his family, although the two of you never mention the night he left. Sometimes, you’ll send him a quick text asking a medical question. 

How do you know if your sunburn is sun poisoning? 

What’s an emergency-room level fever? 

My finger is swollen but I can move it. Is it broken?

He always entertained the small bits of conversation he could grab from you, even when he had been with Abby. When she had asked about you, he had just called you his childhood friend’s younger sister, even if it made something churn in his stomach.

And now, after a few months of no medical inquiries hitting his inbox, there you are.

YOU: i have a question FRANK: you always do YOU: this isn’t about my health FRANK: didn’t know you could ask questions that weren’t about your health YOU: ha ha YOU: listen YOU: hold on. can i call you?

Frank sits up a little taller, passing an apologetic glance towards Petunia when she lets out an annoyed groan at how much he’s fidgeting. He looks around his apartment like you’re going to be able to see his cluttered living room through the phone before responding with the most nonchalant yes he can muster.

His phone rings only a few moments later, a young photo of you filling his screen from your contact. He answers after letting it vibrate once against his palm, clearing his throat before the microphone turns on. “Hello?”

“Frank!” His name comes out in a squeak. “Uh, hey. How are you?”

He can’t help the small smile that blooms, looking around his empty apartment. You weren’t filled in on his divorce yet, he assumed. “Peachy,” he lies easily. “What’s up?”

There’s rustling on your side of the line before a heavy sigh. “Hey, I need to ask you a favor. It’s big, and it’s okay if you don’t have an answer right now, but I just… I don’t know.” Your words are rushed, nervousness seeping through every word.

“Hey,” he coos calmly. “Stop freaking out or you’re gonna make me think you need help hiding a body.”

“Ha-ha.” A sarcastic response just like the one you had texted him. He grins again at the thought. “Okay. I’ll cut to it.”

Another heavy sigh seeps through the speaker, crackling in his ear. “Is there any way I can stay with you for a week? I know that you have Tanner and Penny, plus I don’t know how Abby will feel about it, but I’m waiting for my new place in Pittsburgh to open up, but my new job needs me to start this week and it won’t be available until Tuesday at the latest and I don’t really know how many nights at a hotel I can afford or mentally stand.”

Frank’s eyebrows raise so high on his forehead that he’s sure they’ve integrated themself into his hairline. His lips part, then close, then part again as he runs your rushed words through his head over and over. Then, he swallows, shaking his head. “You’re moving to Pittsburgh? I thought you were living with a boyfriend or something, a few minutes from home.”

“Uh, yeah.” You laugh, although it sounds strained. He can imagine you now, twirling a strand of hair around your pointer finger as you paced. He saw it a lot during the teenage years, watching you try to convince your parents through the phone that you really wanted to go to a friend’s sleepover, even though you were actually trying to sneak out to some house party. “No boyfriend anymore. No boyfriend, no home. Bye-bye. To Pittsburgh, I go, seeking employment opportunities.”

He’s quiet again for another moment, mulling it over. His thoughts run so fast that he finally peels himself off of his couch, taking a page out of your book and pacing along the line of his rug. 

He must’ve been quiet for way too long, because you speak again. “You can take your time to give me an answer. I’ll drive down there at the end of this weekend, so there’s a few days to think it over. I just wanted to ask in advance rather than show up on your doorstep.”

And thank God you didn’t. You’d find your way to “his” house and be greeted by his ex-wife, who still says his name with a slice of distaste. You’d find out from her about everything that’s happened in the past two years of his life – drug addiction, rehab, divorce, custody agreements, consistent loneliness minus man’s best friend, Petunia.

“Uh,” he says stupidly.

Everything he could say turns into dust on his tongue, unable to get out a single word. How does he explain all of this? That the charming teenager you once knew, who was consistently surrounded by good friends that were always willing to celebrate him, had lost his college sweetheart in a messy divorce after throwing his back out, getting addicted to benzos and almost losing his job?

Lord knows Frank has lost all of his ego at this point in his life, other than his promise of being a good doctor, but he can almost ensure that you liked who he was as a teenager. His childhood and teenage years were filled with your wide eyes, asking him to open jars for you or to drive you to some friend’s house. When your first boyfriend had broken up with you, he had been the one who had picked you up from his house, ignoring the squeeze in his chest at the sight of your red eyes as he promised not to tell your brother.

“Can we talk about it? When you come in on Sunday?” He asks. 

Three days. Three days is all he has to figure out what exactly he’s going to tell you. Three days to come to terms with the fact that you may never see him the same ever again.

He isn’t sure why he cares so much. His parents knew of his divorce, of his ten-month stint in rehab. It’d been hard enough to tell them, and he had survived, but telling you feels like an entire weight sitting on his chest.

Your next words come out too hopeful. “Yeah! Okay!” Then, with a grin so wide he can hear it without seeing your face, you make a last minute addition. “At least I get to see you once, even if Abby ends up saying no to me staying.”

Abby, Abby, Abby. Why did you feel the incessant need to bring her up? Even if he was still married to her, he had known you way before she had even existed, had had numerous conversations about topics that didn’t include her.

Instead of being annoyed about it, he chooses to instead stick to the happy feelings that you being excited to see him gave him. “Yeah. It’ll be good to hang out again,” he responds. “Can update me on what Adrian did to have you runnin’ from him.”

“Adam,” you correct. He knew that, of course, but he feels warm at the laugh that shortly follows. “I’ll happily get into that. My brother doesn’t allow me to talk about him much anymore, so I have a lifetime worth of bad stories and ruined memories and icks to rant about.”

Now, it’s Frank’s turn to laugh. “Noted. I will happily listen.”

“I know you will. You always did.” Your voice gets softer as you trail off. 

Warning bells go off in his head at the first fluttering beat of his heart. Oh, this is wrong. So, so wrong. 

Before you can say anything else and mess with his head more, he lets out a heavy sigh. “Alrighty, sunshine, I have to get to bed so I can get to my shift in time tomorrow. Text me on Saturday and we can figure out a place to meet, okay?”

You let out a soft groan into the phone, probably evidence of a late-night stretch. “Okay, Frank. Talk to you Saturday.”

“See you Sunday,” he responds in a murmur.

He’s not the one that hangs up.

For all of Friday, your name does not grace his phone. He checks every free moment that he gets during his shift, but each time he is met with a blank notification screen.  If it wasn’t for the fact that you sat at the top of his messages and call log, he’d be able to convince himself that he made the whole situation up. You weren’t moving to Pittsburgh, you weren’t asking to stay at his apartment, he didn’t have to finally owe up to all of his transgressions.

Every time Frank reminds himself of the fact, an uncomfortable feeling crawls up his spine until it settles in his chest, pressing down on his lungs until he is aware of every heartbeat. He feels foolish for the way he digs the heel of his palm into his sternum, pressing his eyes closed and trying to will his body to stop punishing him for his brain’s doing.

He’s never been good at being vulnerable. As a child, he’d split his knee open falling off of his bike just to get up a moment later, laughing until he wheezed despite the dull ache in his leg and the blood trickling down his calf. As a teenager, he’d met heartbreak and hard times with a persistent need to show how well he was doing despite it all, even if he was just proving it to himself.

And now, as an adult, he goes the route of just ignoring it. Letting himself indulge in the things that he knows he shouldn’t, not allowing anyone to see past the mirage he has set up. He’s Frank Langdon, MD, an excellent emergency medicine resident with a confidence big enough to outweigh any Olympic athlete.

Unfortunately, with you, he cannot act like everything is okay. He knows that the second he looks into your wide eyes, staring into a memory of what he used to have and what he used to be, everything will fizzle up like the spark at the end of a detonating cord. You’ve always brought out his honesty, a personal truth serum in the form of billowy hair and flavored lipgloss.

Saturday morning, it rains in Pittsburgh. He doesn’t get to see it much due to being in the hospital all day, but the smell of petrichor seeps in the ambulance bay and water droplets cling to the hair of everyone who comes through the doors. Whenever he gets a free chance, he sits in the bay, listening to the rain hit the concrete and letting his mind dull for a moment.

It’s late, moonlight filtering through dark clouds to barely illuminate the flooded street. The thunderstorm that’s been threatening to arrive all week has finally decided to make its dramatic entrance, just in time to add upon Frank’s soured mood.

His mother would throw a fit if she saw what he was doing now. Clothes soaked and stuck to his skin, his hoodie doing absolutely nothing to keep the cold out, perched on his family’s roof. It’d been too easy to climb out of the window in his bedroom, especially with everything in his head screaming at him to just get out of the house.

Now, he sits in the rain, arms wrapped around his knees as he watches the raindrops glide down the shingles and into the gutter. All the collected water pours out into his yard, creating a larger and larger puddle as the night goes on.

He’s not sure how long he’s been out here, listening to the soft patter of the rain and the frequent booms of thunder. His mind has been more occupied by other things, such as the heavy scolding he had gotten from his coach after tonight’s game, or the passive-aggressive brush-off he had gotten from his girlfriend when he had tried to invite her out to the diner afterwards.

It was stupid, how much the sport controlled every aspect of his life. He had no intention of becoming a D1 athlete, and the only reason he had committed to the team in the first place was due to the need for a social life and perhaps the chance at a scholarship. Instead, it had affected everything else in his life. His classmates and teachers opinion of him, his father’s pride, his schedule, his own self-esteem.

“You’re gonna catch a cold! Or get struck by lightning!”

Frank barely hears the yell over the downpour, head turning and eyes squinting to try and look through the mist. Your bedroom light sticks out like a lighthouse on the shore, backlighting your silhouette from where you lean out your window.

His brow furrows. “It is way past your bedtime!” he calls back. It’s all an assumption. He has absolutely no idea what time it is.

Rather than respond, you disappear away from the window. He’s just about to turn around and pretend you had never been there when your outline appears again, now in a thick coat. Before he can even think about what you may be doing, your foot peeks out of your window, finding the thick branch of the tree that stretches between your houses.

“Hey! No!” He scolds. Either his voice is carried away by the storm or you choose to ignore him, because a few minutes later, your boot-covered feet are atop his roof.

As soon as you find solid footing, you unfurl an umbrella that he hadn’t been able to see before. You clutch something to your chest as you slide over to where he sits, thigh pressing against his as you settle.

“Here,” you say. “I brought you a new sweatshirt so you don’t turn into an ice cube. It’s one of my brother’s, I think.”

You hold the umbrella up and pass the hoodie over to him. He palms it for a moment, stealing the warmth before glancing at you in his peripheral. “How am I supposed to change into this?”

“I won’t look, if that’s what you’re worried about. But, just a fair warning, I’ve already seen your bare torso plenty of times in the last years we’ve known each other.” The remark is deadpan, but even in the dark, he can see the amusement in your eyes.

He rolls his eyes, reaching over to gently nudge you in the side. Without another word, he reaches down to pull off his drenched hoodie, setting it beside him. His chest is bare for just a moment before he tugs the new hoodie on, arranging his body so that he doesn’t accidentally stick his now-dry sleeve back into the rain.

After he has it situated, Frank turns back to you. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

You squirm to make sure the both of you fit comfortably beneath the umbrella, pressing closer to Frank. If you notice the way you’re practically tucked into his side, you don’t give any inclination, and he’s not exactly itching to bring it up. 

“Don’t mention it,” you reply sheepishly. “You look sad enough without the wet dog look.”

A cold wind breezes over the two of you, a shudder wracking your body. Without thinking about it too hard, he raises his arm to drape it over your shoulders, fingers pressing into your bicep as he rubs up and down to create friction. Rather than fight, you sink into the touch, relaxing beneath his touch.

This was fine. This is what friends did, he lies.

“Why are you choosing to torture yourself with this weather?” You ask, forehead leaning against his chest. “We could be cozy in bed right now.”

You pause, then quickly add, “Our own beds. In our separate houses.”

He laughs, giving you a soft squeeze. The sound fades out slowly as he thinks more about your question, eyes looking out upon the neighborhood again. “Had a hard day.”

A knowing hum is your answer, plucking at the ends of your sleeves to keep your hands busy. “Because of the game?” You guess.

Now that you’re not shivering anymore, he drops his arm, palm flattening on the roof behind your hips. He’s not exactly ready to uncurl himself from you, but there had to be a bit of distance, for his sake. “Something like that.”

Your lips twitch in dissatisfaction at the answer, brow furrowing as you look up at him. As soon as he finally catches your eye, your palm covers his knee, ignoring the way his jeans stick to his skin. “You can talk about it if you want, Frank. Or even if you don’t want to and it’s just that it’ll help.”

A smile unfurls on his lips before he can stop it, a fond look eclipsing over his face. He wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you in for a hug and letting out a relieved sigh when you prop your chin on his shoulder. “I don’t need to but thank you, sunshine. I‘m glad you came out here.”

Your nose presses into his skin, breath brushing against the side of his neck. “Of course. Couldn’t let you catch a cold all on your own, you’d get lonely.”

After a moment, you finally pull back, lips spreading into a grin. “Wanna come over? We can watch a movie if you’re still not able to sleep.”

“I am not climbing across a tree into your room,” he immediately responds. Your face falls and he scrambles to add, “but you can come over to mine?”

Immediately, that grin is back, making him laugh. He pats at your arm playfully before grabbing the umbrella from you, gesturing towards his window. “Go ahead. I’ll keep you dry.”

Frank’s interrupted from his reminiscing by a few buzzes in his pocket, pulling out his phone with a hefty sigh. Almost like he’s summoned you, his screen is littered with multiple texts from you.

YOU: it is saturday YOU: we need to plan a place to meet tomorrow YOU: and by we, i mean you. i don’t live there YOU: what do you suggest?

He responds quickly with the location of some diner he used to frequent when he just got out of rehab, his second text a simple thumb’s up emoji and a question mark. The less words he used, the better, especially with the way all of his emotions tend to go on overdrive talking to you.

You respond quickly. It’s simple, an agreement and a note about how you were excited to see him, but it still makes his chest tighten.

That night, alone in his apartment yet again, Frank sits down on his couch with a journal on his lap. It’s still wrapped in the plastic, purchased brand new on his way home from work alongside the pack of pens resting next to his thigh. He glances down at Petunia, who’s draped herself over his feet in the exhaustion lingering from her nap, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought.

Finally, he presses his thumbnail into the plastic until it gives way, ripping the rest of it off soon after. He cracks open the pens next, curling his fingers around one and leaving the rest in the package.

He had journaled a lot during his time in rehab. His therapist had brought it up after he’d stonewalled her during his first few appointments, retreating into an invisible shell as he went through withdrawal and felt the dull pain in his back for the first time in what felt like ages. She’d ran the pad of her finger over the outside of the journal as she explained to him that it’d be good for him to get all of his feelings out, even if he continued to ignore her in person.

At first, he thought it was stupid. Writing until his hand cramped wouldn’t take back the fact that he was an addict, or that he craved these stupid pills that he thought he was only taking for a persistent pinched nerve, or that his wife had looked at him like some kind of criminal as she tucked a crying Tanner behind her back when he said goodbye. The cramps wouldn’t cover up the persistent ache in his chest that everything he had ever worked so hard to have and to keep had been wiped away by a stupid mistake, something that he could’ve controlled if he was even an ounce of a better man.

It started as letters to Abby. She never answered the ones that he actually sent, so he decided to stop embarrassing or restraining himself. He filled up page after page with his crimes and confessions, writing about their good memories in hopes of trying to push away the present. At the end of each letter, he’d tally up how many times he had written out an apology and try to push to add more the next time he wrote, as if any condolences would be enough to cover up what he had done.

Then, he branched out. He wrote to Dana and Robby and his parents, keeping all of the words hidden and safe and locked in his journal. Within the pages he could confirm that none of his words would be twisted by those who already thought negatively of him. He could just be the Frank Langdon he knew himself to be, even if his opinion got a bit shaky sometimes.

He wrote to you. After he had scrawled your name on the page in his doctor handwriting, he stared at it for a while, wondering what had possessed him to think of you in a time like this. Admittedly, he hadn’t remembered the last time you had crossed his mind and it wasn’t because you had shown up at a family event with a new boyfriend and a new hair color.

Rather than stop himself, he let himself write whatever came to mind. He wrote about all the times he had helped you out and you had said “I’m sorry,” until he pinky-promised you that he didn’t mind. A subconscious smile pulled at his lips when he wrote about the time his father had burnt the hot dogs on his grill for the fourth of July and you had still eaten the entire thing, even if he could see the grimace on your face with every bite. 

He talked about how it was now his turn to apologize to you. For not thinking of you as often now that he had moved away and gotten out of medical school. For all the times he had secretly judged you for all of your vices, such as your need for constant change or your inability to find your boyfriends interesting after a few months. For not being the perfect guy you always saw him as.

Frank’s newly eighteen. He sits on his roof, the same spot he’s gone to every single time he finds his mind to become a bit too much. It’s become a sanctuary without walls since that night you had crawled out here and sat with him, even if it ended in the both of you waking up with a cold when the morning light came in. Some nights, you still come out and join him, limbs pressed together as you both acted like they weren’t.

Like clockwork, you join him about ten minutes after he’s settled onto the shingles. You don’t even grace him with a greeting. You just sit down, pulling your knees to your chest and trying to find what his eyes have decided to focus on.

“The cardinal over there?” You guess.

He nods without looking at you. He doesn’t need to look at you, not when the wind brings your perfume to him like an offering and your body heat seeps through his clothes despite how cold your hands always tend to be. 

The both of you are quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of the cars driving through the neighborhood or the planes flying overhead. Every once in a while, he catches you trying to find what he’s looking at, like a curious child.

You break the silence with a heavy sigh, head turning to look at him. He finally allows himself the grace to look at you, giving you a soft smile to show that he’s okay. 

“I’m going to miss you,” you confess. “While you’re away at school.”

Frank nods again, even though it’s not really a rebuttal to what you had said. Realizing his lack of response, he reaches out to wrap his fingers around your forearm, giving it a soft reassuring squeeze. “I’ll come back,” he promises. “I’m not gonna leave this place in the rearview mirror.”

Now it’s your turn to smile, eyes following his hand as he returns it back to his lap. “Good,” you reply. “Who else is gonna pick me up from bad dates and sneak me cigarettes?” That mischievous grin that you wear like a second skin, or like an armor depending on the conversation, pops up. 

“Some other sucker,” he retorts. 

That silence returns when your giggle ends, hanging over the both of you. Unable to sit in the silence, you break it with another confession.

“I always thought you were too cool for anything when I first met you.” Your thumb brushes over your kneecap, wrinkling and smoothening the fabric of your jeans. “Even as young as we were, you seemed like you didn’t want to hear anything from anyone. Always your way or the highway. And then you became friends with my brother and you were everywhere and you were such a nerd.”

You laugh at his eye roll, passing him a look that tells him to wait for your point and not say anything. “I realized you weren’t too cool very quickly. Your limbs were too lanky and you fumbled over your words and you overcompensated by holding onto that same oozing confidence I had seen the minute we had moved in.”

Your teeth dig into your bottom lip for a moment before you continue. “But even if you’re not as untouchable as I thought you once were, I still think you’re perfect, Frank.” Despite the raw way the words come out, you say them louder than your murmured confessions, sporting a wide grin. “I hope you remember that when you’re becoming a big hotshot doctor.”

Frank sighs as he runs his fingers over the fresh pages of his brand new notebook, listening to the sound of paper fluttering. He grips the pen in his hand tighter, finally cracking the spine of the journal as he peels it open on his lap.

For the first time since he left rehab, he writes.

On Sunday morning, Frank arrives at the diner half an hour early. As he settles into the booth, his fingers tighten around the bag he carries, glancing around like you’d pop up out of nowhere.

While he waits, regretting his decision to have come in early in order to avoid the awkwardness of an introduction, he finishes two glasses of water and asks for another refill. His body feels unbelievably hot and he feels fidgety, adjusting his position in his seat multiple times and squirming at the crack of leather that follows every time he moves.

Five minutes after the time the both of you had agreed upon, the bell above the door chimes. His head turns so fast that a tendon pops, eyes landing upon you.

He wasn’t expecting you to look the same. Every time he sees you, no matter how long or short your time apart has been, there’s something different about you. A new color added to your hair or a complete change, a new style of outfits, another decorative piercing. A new tattoo if you were feeling extra adventurous in some foreign country.

Even knowing that, his breath catches at the sight of you. His blue eyes are wide when you finally look at him, your face brightening while he looks like a deer in headlights. He tries to match your smile, but it’s very obviously shaky.

When you get closer, he finally stands up, hand propped on the back of the booth as he greets you. “Hey, stranger.”

He can not find a single trace of anxiety on your features as you grin, reaching out to jab your finger into his chest. “Says you,” you tease. You slip into the opposite side of the booth, palms flattening on the table. “You’re the one who’s too busy to come home these days. It’s been, what, two years or so?”

Frank’s chest tightens again. He sits down to hide the tremble in his knees, exhaling so hard that a napkin flutters. “It’s been, uh, a busy two years,” he responds. “Would’ve come out if I could.”

You grab a menu, already feeling at home in this diner you’ve never been to. “With what? Saving lives? Or is Abby keeping you busy?”

There’s her name again, falling off her lips as if you get a dollar for every time that she’s mentioned. He grabs his own menu to try and hide the shaking of his hands, holding it up to hide his face.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

“Abby and I aren’t together anymore,” he admits. He lets the words drop off of his tongue rather than trying to say them gently. He had tried the gentle approach with everyone else he has told and it had only ended up one of two ways – they either pitied him until he couldn’t take it anymore or felt disgusted by the fact that he let himself cave into his addiction.

He spares a glance at you again once there’s enough quiet to suffocate him. You stare at him, your menu now laying flat on the table, and he decides to just keep going while you’re stunned already to rip off the bandaid. “We divorced after I went to rehab.”

You physically recoil in surprise, blinking your eyes as you try to put together all of the information. “Okay.” You draw out the word, trying to fill the space as if you were afraid he’d suddenly drop another bomb. “That’s not what I was expecting out of this catch-up. I thought you were just going to tell me fun stories about working in an emergency room.”

To his surprise, you thread your fingers together, resting both of your elbows on the table and holding his eyes. “Do you want to explain, or leave it at that?”

Frank’s shoulders lower more and more as he spills it all. Now that the harsh facts are out there, it’s easier for him to let everything else spill out. The back injury, the benzos addiction, the fallout at work, the rehab and the divorce. He tries not to let the emotions of them seep through, tries to stick to just the facts, but there’s a few things that slip through the cracks.

It’s easy to spill his guts to you. His own personal truth serum.

When he finishes, he clears his throat, suddenly bashful. “And there’s one more thing.”

He finally reaches into the bag he brought along, fingers closing around the journals inside and pulling them out. Before he can second guess it, he slides them across the table, watching as your hands move to keep them from falling off. 

“Diaries?” you guess lightheartedly.

“Kind of.” Frank chuckles, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. “I wrote a lot in rehab. My therapist recommended it. There’s a, uh, letter in there. For you. It’s where the tab is.” 

His fingers flick at the sticky note that’s just peeking out from the pages, glancing up at you through his eyelashes. “I trust that you won’t dig through the entire thing, but it’s okay if you do. Just know you’ll probably know more about me than you want to.”

You beam up at him before rifling quickly through the pages, taking brief glances at the scrawlings on the pages before letting it shut again. “Are you sure, Frank? This seems really personal.” 

He shrugs, leaning back in the booth and crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, you’re about to stay with me, aren’t you? You’ll see enough of my bad moments this week, so we might as well start now.”

His flaws are completely forgotten as you lean forward, somehow brightening more. The glow of the sunlight through the window is nothing compared to the way you look right now. “Really? You’ll let me stay with you.”

A laugh bubbles out of him before he can stop it, shaking his head. “You’ve bugged me for most of my life, we can’t ruin the tradition now.”

With a huff, you grab the wadded up piece of paper from his straw before tossing it at his forehead, grinning like a madwoman. “Jerk.”

For the rest of the day, Frank helps you move whatever you need into the spare bedroom of his apartment. The both of you pick up where you left off the last time he saw you, bickering over who gets to pick up the larger items and bigger boxes – you because of Frank’s bad back or Frank because he wants to be a gentleman.

After a shared dinner of takeout and him watching you coo over Petunia for half an hour, he finally admits to you that he needs to sleep for work the next day and retreats to his bedroom. With a pep in his step from finally spending a night socializing instead of staring at meaningless social media posts, he showers and gets ready for bed, forcing his dog to roll over onto her side of the bed before settling beneath the duvet.

He’s halfway asleep when there’s a couple knocks at his door. Fatherly instincts have him immediately shooting up, startling Petunia awake. “Yeah?” He calls out tiredly as he runs his fingers through the dog’s fur, soothing her back to sleep.

The door opens to reveal you, donned in soft pajamas and hair pulled up out of your face. The sight of his journal in your hands has him leaning over to click on his bedside lamp, illuminating his room and you in a warm glow. “What’s wrong?”

You hover in the doorway for a moment, lips parted when no words come out. Your mouth closes as you step closer, sitting down on the edge of his bed near his legs. He doesn’t move.

“You didn’t need to apologize,” you finally say. “For all of it.”

Frank runs a hand through his hair, the other still petting Petunia to try and calm the heavy beating of his heart. “I felt… feel like I needed to,” he admits sheepishly.

You prop one knee up on the mattress, somehow getting even closer to him. He tries not to squirm at the familiarity of it all. “None of what you’ve gone through the last couple of years has been your fault, Frank,” you murmur. “Addiction is a disease, not something someone willingly puts themselves through. You did the work through rehab and therapy, which is an apology enough for me.”

Your fingers brush against his duvet, tracing shapes next to his covered knee. “Your letter was sweet.” You continue, watching your fingers. “I’d forgotten about a couple of those things. It was nice to be reminded. I’m surprised you remembered.”

“I’ve been known to have a freakishly good memory,” he muses awkwardly.

That makes you finally look at him, giving him a soft grin. Your hand moves to curve over his knee, a shiver moving down his spine at the contact. “Imagine my surprise when I get to the end, my eyes hurting from squinting at your doctor handwriting, and I find out that –”

“ – that I wanted to kiss you.” He finishes the sentence before you can say the words. “The night of my going away party, when you told me that you were going to miss me again. I wanted to kiss you, because most people hadn’t even told me once and you had told me three times. I wanted to kiss you that night because I had wanted to kiss you many nights before that and never had.”

Frank sits up, hand finally leaving Petunia to grab yours and pull it away from his knee. His other hand moves to cup your cheek, giving a small smile when you lean into his palm. Your cheeks are warm beneath his touch, like only your hands are destined to be cold. Maybe it’s because they’re meant to be held by him, he thinks.

He leans forward until his nose brushes against your cheek. “No boyfriend?” He whispers against your skin. Just checking.

“No boyfriend,” you breathe out.

As soon as the last syllable leaves your tongue, he kisses you, seizing the opportunity of your lips still being parted. He kisses you like he’s trying to steal the air from your lungs, hand curling around the back of your neck to pull your lips closer.

He only pulls away when Petunia nudges at his elbow, jealous of the attention not being on her anymore, laughing breathlessly. He presses his forehead against yours. “You’re wrong to say that I didn’t need to apologize. I have to apologize for not kissing you sooner.”

You copy his breathless laugh, leaning back to breathe some of your own air. “I’ll take that apology,” you respond. You press your lips together to try and hide your giddy smile, staring at him for just a moment.

This is everything he’s ever wanted, he thinks. You’re beautiful like this, freshly kissed by him and euphoric, bathed in the aureate light of his lamp. Being here with you won’t fix any problem that he’s created, but it is the first thing that’s felt right in a very long time.

Then, in the blink of an eye, you stand, still clutching his journal in your hand. “Okay. I’m going to bed.”

Frank scrambles at your sudden pull away, sitting up further, much to the chagrin of the dog laying her head on his thigh. “You’re going to bed? Your bed?”

You stop at the doorway, turning to grin at him. “I’ve bugged you all of your life. We can’t ruin the tradition now,” you mock. 

With that, you give him a small wave, closing his bedroom door behind you.

He lets out an amused scoff at the click of his door, staring at it for a few moments to make sure you were serious and not just pulling his leg. When he faintly hears the sound of your bedroom door shutting, he groans, falling back onto his pillow and letting Petunia drape herself back over his torso. Then, he laughs, raising his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

the car was new. well, not new but unfamiliar. it was a station wagon, reminiscent of what your dad had driven around in the ‘80s, you didn’t even know they still made those. the puppy’s new too, sprinting out of the open car door before the engine had even turned off, all floppy ears and wagging tail. so was the man chasing her, with muttered curse words and failed grabs with veiny arms. the stubble, you noted, was definitely new and you swallowed, hard. 

the only familiar part of the chaotic scene was the two kids, penny and tanner, dashing out of the car and onto the soccer pitch, joining nora, your daughter in a flurry of giggles. 

the weary man had wrangled the overexcited puppy onto the leash and although the animal was still nipping at his ankles, he was too busy scanning the crowd of parents. following his eyeline, you recognised the judgemental looks and whispers behind hands, you knew what it felt like to be the social pariah. however, when his gaze falls on you, you make a point to look neutral, no indication of welcoming. shamefully, you’d worked hard to climb the ranks to a somewhat average position, break away from the single mother stereotype. 

for better or worse, the man chooses to stand next to you, puppy jumping up wildly. 

‘just ignore him.’ he says with a quick shake of his head, ‘apparently it’s just a phase.’ 

the puppy tilts it’s head as if to say this will definitely not be a phase. 

you nod politely but he merely takes it as signal to continue. 

‘it was supposed to be a surprise, you see?’ he clicks his tongue, ‘tanner was so insistent he’d take care of the poor animal.’ 

with a shake of your head, you reply wryly. ‘kids always say stuff like that, trick is not to give in.’ 

‘i’ll… remember that for next time.’ he laughs with a smirk, looking down at the puppy, who was now pushing it’s fluffy head against his shoes, begging for cuddles. 

you look down too, and your jaded heart melts at the adorable sight and with a nod from the man, you’re crouching down to pet him and the puppy immediately bumps his face into your hand, licking your fingers excitedly. 

it’s only when you stand back up, feeling weirdly warmed by the whole interaction that he introduces himself. 

‘i’m frank, by the way.’ he presses his hand to his chest, ‘frank langdon.’ 

you’re at a loss for words, trying to keep your expression polite whilst your brain fires at a million miles per minute. abby had talked at length about her husband, his time as a doctor, his time in rehab, his lack of time for his kids. by the end, you’d envisioned some sort of monster who was jacked up on pills and only appeared in the depths of nighttime. 

that is nothing like the fairly normal man stood beside you. he’s dressed a plain shirt that hugs his upper body, showing faint muscles and regular jeans that aren’t too baggy and aren’t too tight. his dark brown hair is flopping in his face slightly, obscuring his piercing blue eyes. his jawline is set but you’re drawn to the stubble covering it once again and the way his sturdy fingers stroke it as if it still needed some getting used to. 

your eyes betrayed you, widening impossibly as you made the connection. he’d never brought the kids to soccer practice before, he was no longer clean shaven and he had a demented puppy with him. abby had finally divorced him. 

thankfully, frank hadn’t seemed to take notice of your blatant shock so when you finally answered him, it was as casual as you could muster. 

‘oh! well it’s good to finally meet you.’ your smile is strained, not quite meeting your eyes as you try to quell your surprise. ‘i’ve heard so much about you!’ 

he seemed a little embarrassed by this, looking away slightly. ‘yeah… um… can’t’ve been good.’

you wave your hands rapidly, ‘no, no. trust me, all the moms here complain about their husbands, it’s standard.’ 

it’s a lie of course, and a bad one at that. there’s complaining about your husband not doing the dishes and there’s complaining about your husband almost losing his job for stealing painkillers. 

despite this, it seems to appease frank and he looks back at you with a soft expression. it’s real, almost too real and as you hold his warm gaze, you feel your heart rate slowly increase and the sound of a plastic ball being bounced across the grass and screaming children start to fade into the background. 

the moment is interrupted by three children running up to you. 

‘mom! mom! mommy! mom!’ came the repeated cry, you’d barely had time to swivel your head to look at nora.

you take a deep regulating breath, ‘yes, sweetheart?’ 

‘can i stay at tanner and penny’s new house? pleaseeee?’ she whined, making her eyes wide with a grin stretching across half her little face. 

‘well…’ you glance at frank’s kids, who were riling their new puppy up to no end and then to frank who was doing his best to keep it all under control. 

at your non reply, your daughter doubled down. ‘please, please, please, please, please, please.’ 

‘okay, okay!’ you hold your hands up in defeat, ‘i just have to ask their dad first.’ 

nora erupted into cheers and immediately dove into the throng of child and puppy at your feet. 

turning to frank with an apologetic face, you ask the question. ‘in case you hadn’t heard, nora wants to have a playdate at your house today.’ 

you’re half expecting him to say no, come up with some excuse about how there’s no space or he’s hardly unpacked but instead he brightens. 

‘oh sure! they’d love that. here…’ he fumbles around in his jean pocket to pull out his phone and you notice the friendship bracelets adorning his wrist, a children’s creation that makes your heart swell. ‘i’ll give you my number in case anything happens.’

you smile slightly, it’s the most considerate a dad has ever been around here. ‘great, thanks.’ you say as you type his digits into your phone. ‘does 6 sound good? i’ll give her dinner at home.’ 

‘6 is perfect.’ frank replies with a warm smile, and once again his gaze is lingering just a beat too long. 

you blink and look away first, ‘okay, nora. come say bye to your mom!’ you call. 

‘bye!’ she squeals into your legs, little arms wrapped around them in a hug. 

‘bye, honey. have fun.’ you whisper into her hair, pressing a kiss to her scalp before handing her her backpack. 

‘be good!’ comes your final cry as she tears off with penny and tanner towards frank’s car. 

as you trudged back to your own beat up sedan, you couldn’t help but stare at his contact open on your phone. even as you drove home, blasting music, you found yourself wishing that he’d call or even text. not that you wanted anything bad to happen to nora, far from it, you just wanted to hear his smooth voice again, read his words. 

this was wrong, you thought as the key turned in the lock and you came home to an empty house. you weren’t exactly abby’s friend but you were friendly, she was friendly and everyone knew what went down over the last couple of years between her and frank. 

and yet, you hadn’t been with someone since you’d given birth to nora, no time to balance a job, a kid and a man. nor did you have time for hookups either, lost track of how long it had been since you’d even had sex. 

you were just pent up, you concluded, you saw an attractive man out in the wild and didn’t know how to act. there was no way you could possibly be interested in your friend’s freshly ex husband. 

sitting down to watch tv to pass the endless hours, every channel was showing some sort of romance. whether it was cheesy romantic comedies or cringe reality dating shows, it didn’t matter. you were being haunted by your own conflicting feelings.

5:30 couldn’t come fast enough and you practically jumped in the car, surprised you didn’t get a speeding ticket as you pulled up outside frank’s address, your heart had skipped a beat when he’d texted it to you hours earlier. 

although you’d convinced yourself you couldn’t possibly be attracted to him, you did reapply your lipstick and check your mascara before getting out of the car. the house was modest, small in a series of ramshackle houses on a street just outside pittsburgh. he clearly wasn’t short of money, so the divorce must not have come as a surprise. 

even as you stood on his creaky wooden porch, you could hear the cacophony of chaos from behind the door. as you knocked, you heard shrill barking and the door opened just as golden fur dove at you only to be grabbed by the scruff of it’s neck and yanked back. 

‘sorry, sorry.’ frank mutters quickly as he shooed the poor creature away, ‘like i said, still a lot of training to go.’ 

you blink, bewildered. ‘no it’s fine, really.’ you smile politely, suddenly at a loss for words just from the sight of him. 

‘it’s um- nora!’ he shouts upstairs, ‘your mom’s here!’

there’s the sound of giggles and definitely no footsteps on the stairs. 

frank pulls a face and runs his fingers through his hair, ‘they might be a while, do you want to come in?’ he gestures behind him. 

before you can even think, you’re stepping past the threshold. 

‘sure, thanks.’ you smile. 

the interior is a mess, the furniture is simple, recent store items but it’s all draped in piles of laundry and children’s toys. everything has puppy height bites in it and you can barely see the living room rug, filled with torn up teddies. 

‘i apologise for the mess, my job doesn’t give me a whole lot of time for housekeeping.’ he shrugs, it’s an excuse but a genuine one. even so, nora didn’t make half as much mess as this. 

‘i understand, you’re a doctor right?’ comes your warm reply. 

he brightens, corner of his lips quirking up. ‘yeah. emergency medicine.’ 

‘brave.’ you say wryly. 

‘you said it not me.’ he joked as he opened the fridge door. ‘drink?’ 

you slide onto the dining table bench, flicking a transformers toy aside and adjust your outfit, which you admit was not your typical picking up your daughter get up but you couldn’t help yourself. 

‘well if you’re-’ you regret the words as soon as they came out of your mouth. 

his expressions hardens slightly, but it’s not directed at you, rather the portrayal of a million guilty memories. 

his response is blunt, ‘i don’t.’ 

‘right- of course-’ you say quickly, swallowing down your embarrassment. ‘me neither.’ 

frank doesn’t say any more and you don’t want to push so you’re now stuck in this agonising silence, sipping respective glasses of water. 

‘so-’ you both start at the same time, before he laughs and shakes his head. 

‘you go.’ he nods, earnest. 

you press your lips together, ‘it’s a nice house.’ you sidestep, not wanting to say what was actually on your mind when he was being so hospitable.

frank looked around, as if seeing it himself for the first time. ‘yeah… my parents helped me out a bit.’ 

‘that’s good.’ you reply, awkward and a little too fast and he eyes you slightly. 

with a sly smirk, he puts you on the spot. ‘why? what’s your house like then?’ 

almost choking on your water, ‘it’s not that much different if you must know. just a lot…’ your eyes twinkle with mischief as you add the last word, ‘cleaner.’ 

the laugh erupts from frank, a broad smile stretching across his face as he watches you with mock surprise. 

‘oh yeah? well i suppose you’ve got half the kids and…’ he tilts his head to the side, ‘what do you do? for work i mean.’ 

‘right. i’m a consultant, it’s boring, trust me.’ you shrug. 

‘so half the kids and half the hours then.’ frank jokes and you feel your cheeks grow hot. 

‘alright, alright.’ you shake your head, staring down into your glass. 

‘hey.’ he murmured quietly, ‘i was joking.’ 

‘i know.’ you retort but as you look up, you can see the way his piercing eyes had softened. 

his gaze was lingering again, that beat too long that made your breath quicken. you didn’t want to look away until your phone screen lit up and it jolted you out of the moment. 

‘shit is that the time already? it’s almost…’ 

frank was already standing, opening the fridge. ‘dinnertime?’ 

you move to follow immediately, ‘you don’t have to. i can take her home and feed her, honestly.’ 

he didn’t miss a beat, ‘stay. i want you to.’ 

his tone was gentle but authoritative, the words simple but they struck a chord anyway, your heart swelling as you leaned against the kitchen counter. 

‘god i can’t see why abby divorced you.’ you mutter under your breath, your tone is joking but his head snaps up regardless, he heard you. 

frank freezes, and you can see his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he processes what you just said. you can’t apologise, it’s too late, the words hanging in the air 

‘i messed up, bad.’ comes his stoic reply, though his voice was wavering. ‘i worked really hard to atone for what i did, but it wasn’t enough for her.’ 

‘i know i-’ you cut in, swallowing. 

he shakes his head, ‘and that’s okay. i’m just grateful she lets me see my kids.’ 

you sigh, following his sorrowful gaze upstairs, ‘frank i-’ 

he turns to look at you then, eyes hard but again, he’s not mad at you but rather himself. ‘i let a lot of people down, abby included and i’m not asking for forgiveness from anyone, i just want to prove that i can get better, be better.’ 

it was the most honest thing you’d heard about the whole situation and it made your heart ache. you couldn’t hate abby for how she felt, far from it but there was something in frank’s expression that meant you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him too, whether he wanted it or not. 

‘do you want a hug?’ comes your quiet sympathy. 

he doesn’t say anything so you step closer, arms enveloping him warmly. frank is broad, not outwardly muscular with bulging arms but his chest is rock solid, sinewy arms working their way around your waist. the hug stretches from seconds into minutes, neither of you want to pull away and his chin starts to rest atop your head. 

eventually, you step apart but his arms move to slide on top of yours, each of your hands gripping the others elbows. frank licks his lips and you think it’s going to happen, that he’ll lean in and- 

‘can you get the plates out of the cupboard, please? on the left above the microwave.’ he whispers, tone almost too casual and you nod, pulling away. 

you don’t notice how he watches you, ass bending over slightly to reach up and grab a stack of porcelain. 

as you start to lay the table, frank calls. ‘don’t worry about that, the kids can eat outside, it’s nice out. penny and tanner are always begging me to let them.’ 

your brow furrows, ‘you sure?’ 

he’s already piling fries on each plate, ‘yeah, i’m sure.’ 

doing your best to suppress your smile, you nod in agreement.

‘kids!’ frank bellows, ‘dinner!’ 

they all come barrelling down the stairs, crowding the kitchen like feral creatures, the puppy attempting to climb the counters to get to the chicken nuggets. 

‘come on, go eat outside please.’ he shooed them away. 

penny and tanner’s faces lit up before scrambling to open the backdoor and tumble into the fenced in grass, puppy running laps. nora hung back, holding her plate but looking at you expectantly. 

‘go on, honey. it’s okay, frank and i are having dinner too.’ comes your gentle confirmation and she brightens once more. 

‘sweet!’ she cheers before dashing out after them and plopping herself down with her plate. 

‘now…’ frank slides the door shut and the kitchen falls quiet again, a soft domestic quiet that you could certainly get used to. ‘where were we?’ 

you don’t miss the flirty undertones in his words, so your reply is equally salacious, ‘i believe we were about to have dinner… together.’ 

he smirks and sits down opposite you, fork stabbing a forlorn fry. ‘so, what’s your story?’ 

you tilt your head to the side, ‘oh i don’t have one.’ comes your quick, polite response. 

‘sure you don’t.’ frank retorts, staring at you so intently that you can’t avert your gaze. 

shrugging, you exhale. ‘i picked the wrong guy to be the father of my child.’ 

frank doesn’t push, but he doesn’t say anything either, just continuing to study you. 

‘he didn’t- he wasn’t… abusive like that.’ you shake your head quickly, focusing on cutting a chicken nugget into tinier and tinier bites. ‘he wasn’t ready, even though he told me it was what he wanted.’ 

‘so he ran? took off?’ frank prompted, though his words were barely audible. 

your neck snapped up then, ‘oh yeah, he was long gone before she was even born. ran off with the girl he’d been cheating on me with for the last nine months.’ your tone is wry, joking even but there’s an undercurrent of hurt that still lingers. 

he deflated slightly but his hand enclosed your own across the table.

‘i’m sorry.’ was all frank said but something inside you split open. 

‘it’s fine, he doesn’t deserve to know her anyway.’ you suck your teeth, gazing out the window at nora laughing with penny and tanner, that laugh where she snorts so loud it only makes her laugh harder and your eyes fill with tears all of a sudden. ‘although… sometimes i wonder if she knows what she doesn’t have, whether she misses having a father despite everything. i do my best to provide for her but- it’ll never be the same.’ 

he falls quiet, watching you watching her for what feels like an eternity. the tears are flowing now, irregular and small but there, so when frank finally does speak, the first thing he does is wipe a wobbling tear from your cheek with a calloused thumb. 

‘the fact that you think that tells me you’re better than two parents combined.’ he whispers sincerely, brow furrowing as he looks you over gently. 

‘you mean that?’ you whimper, it’s almost childish how your bottom lip starts to wobble. 

he seemed amused by that, ‘wouldn’t say it if i didn’t.’ 

swallowing down your tears, your answer is soft, broken. ‘thank you.’ 

maybe it was your heightened emotional state, or the childhood food in front of you both, but you found yourself leaning in. frank didn’t pull away and when your lips finally met, all your heartfelt confessions faded into the background. it was hard to get closer with the table in the way, but it didn’t matter, the kisses were rapid, barely time to breathe between lips crashing into each other. 

when you do break away, you giggle in embarrassment as frank’s whole face reddens, right to the tips of his ears. 

‘i’m sorry.’ frank grins as he repeats those two words, meaning so different from just a few moments ago. 

‘no you’re not.’ you retort with narrowed eyes and a chuckle. 

‘no i’m not.’ he concedes, grin only widening. 

his hand is still in yours, and now he turns it, so your palm is facing upwards. your fingers interlock with his own and you both just watch it, the connection forming between you. 

‘it’s been so long since i-’ you start, wide eyes finding his sure ones. 

‘i don’t care.’ frank shrugs, tone breathy and light. 

you press your lips together and slide out of your chair. ‘fuck it.’ 

frank follows you as you open the backdoor, curiosity written all over his expression. 

‘nora!’ you shout across the yard and her head swivels, ‘do you want to sleep over?’ 

she jumps up immediately, ‘yes please!’ 

none of the kids notice frank’s muscular arm snaking around your waist but you do. the unfamiliar warmth of his chest pressed against your back and his chin fitting perfectly into the crook of your shoulder. 

so?’ you whisper in his ear with raised eyebrows. 

frank shut the backdoor with ease, one handed so he didn’t have to be separated from you.  

sprinting up the stairs like children, you didn’t even make it to his bed before he was all over you. pressed up against the door, frank’s kisses were passionate and fast, hands roaming all over you. your hands slid down to his ass, resting there and your tongue prodded his bottom lip, encouraging him to go slow and savour this as his tongue slid over yours. 

as the kisses grow longer, stretching into minutes since you’d come up for air, your hands snake round from his ass to the zipper on his jeans, tugging it down and feeling the bulge hiding behind, spring forward. 

frank groans into your mouth, before pulling away to break for breathless panting. 

‘fuck.’ his face screws up as he tries to calm his body that’s thrumming with desire. 

without warning, he grips your hips and turns you around so your stomach is pressed against the door, back arched and he laughs deliciously. 

‘please… oh god.’ you whimper, grateful you wore your shortest and tightest skirt for the occasion. 

frank wastes no time in pulling it down over your ass till it falls to your ankles. you can hear the sound of his belt unbuckling and denim kicked across the floor. he plants his hands on either side of your head against the door frame and torturously starts to rub his clothed bulge against your clothed pussy. 

‘frank…’ you plead shakily, already aching with need. 

‘yeah? you want this?’ he growls, right in your ear and your whole body shivers. 

‘so bad. so- so bad.’ you reply with a sharp moan as he presses right against you. 

his fingers dip into your panty line, and the skin there comes up in goosebumps instantaneously, just from the briefest of touches. he slowly pulls them down to reveal your hungry pussy. 

‘holy…’ he breathes, running his finger along one of your folds teasingly, making you clench. 

‘frank!’ you gasp, as cold breeze hits your hole. 

‘okay… okay…’ he mutters, pulling down his own underwear. 

you feel his throbbing erection brush up against your cunt, but he doesn’t enter, not yet. the teasing is killing you and it’s hardly been that long. 

a large hand taps your inner thigh, ‘further apart, come on.’ 

you comply immediately, shuffling your legs out as far as they can go without you toppling over and that’s when his sensitive tip breaches you. 

it’s slow at first, barely inside before he’s pulling it out again, only to re-enter with an extra inch. your breath catches in your throat as he continues this game of in, out, in, out. 

‘for fuck’s sake!’ you groan, forehead slamming against the word. 

‘easy, i don’t want to hurt you.’ he mutters, kissing at your neck. 

‘i’ve pushed a whole child out of there, just fuck me already.’ you whine and frank’s startled by your forwardness. 

happy to oblige, he starts slamming into you like a mad man, balls slapping against your ass. frank’s hands are digging into your hips like he’s kneading dough, and you relish the thought of the bruises there in the morning. 

‘oh yes- yes- god-’ you moan, eyes rolling into the back of your head. 

‘we gotta be- ngh.. quiet.’ frank grunts as his dick slides in and out of your soaked hole. 

you can barely hear him over the sloppy sounds your pussy is making, it’s obscene the way the spongy walls grip every vein of his girth, even when the tip brushes that sweet spot inside you that makes you see stars. 

‘fuck- please- please!’ you gasp and cry, trying to grind into his dick but you're sandwiched between him and the door so it’s near impossible to move, apart from your shaking legs. 

‘i said-’ frank panted, ‘quiet.’ 

as he speaks, his fingers slide into your open mouth and you almost finish on the spot. the combination of his digits inside your drooling mouth, pressing against your teeth and tongue and his cock plunging in and out of your pussy is too much, too overwhelming in the best way. 

‘ugh- close-’ you garble and frank doesn’t even pause, increasing his pace. 

your orgasm comes just seconds later, crashing over you like a tidal wave. everything is blurry, except his hand in your face and his length buried somewhere deep in your cunt. you’re certain your juices are soaking the carpeted floor, spraying out and lining his dick like a sheath. garbled moans and sordid cries, it’s just as you’re coming down from your high that frank reaches his pinnacle. 

perhaps it was the sight of you, shaking and writhing that made his load squirt directly into your pussy, or perhaps it was the feeling of you drooling over his fingers and coating his dick in your cum. regardless, frank was now shuddering just as intensely as you, forced to lean his whole body weight on you just so he could stay upright. his moans are filthy, whispered directly into your ear along with broken variations of your name. 

eventually, frank removes his cock from inside you and it falls flaccid between his legs. swallowing, you right yourself and dust yourself off, licking your lips. 

‘go pee.’ he urges, pushing his floppy brown hair out of his face in a way that is utterly endearing. ‘i’ll give you one of my shirts to sleep in. 

he stayed true to his word. even though you contemplated what on earth you were doing as you sat on the toilet, the moment you slipped on his shirt, everything felt right. sliding into the warmed sheets beside him, frank’s arm fell over yours and you dozed off almost immediately, feeling a sense of safety you hadn’t realised you’d missed with all those years alone in bed. 

the next morning, nora’s too sleep deprived to realise you stayed over too, and penny and tanner are also too exhausted to notice their dad looks a lot more chipper this morning, not scolding the puppy as much, rather sneaking a lot more glances at you as you sip coffee in his shirt. 

you could bathe in the domesticity of it all, the kids amicably chatting mixed with puppy chowing down on food as background noise to you and frank washing up together, talking about everything and nothing and kissing between each dried dish. 

Right now, that rhythm was being tested to its absolute limit on a patient crammed into the makeshift overflow area near the ambulance bay. The man on the gurney was large, aggressive, and reeked of cheap bourbon and woodsmoke, his upper thigh torn open by a jagged piece of shrapnel or a ricochet from the festival grounds. He was thrashing, his eyes rolling back in his head as he roared obscenities, fighting the very hands trying to save his life.

Frank was leaning over him, his broad shoulders tensed as he applied heavy, two-handed pressure to the femoral artery, his face a mask of fierce, locked-in concentration. You were positioned just opposite him, your fingers deftly trying to establish a secondary IV in the man’s uninjured arm while the chaos of the ER swirled madly around you.

Just a few feet away, Dr. Abbot was shouting orders, his voice cracked with exhaustion as he directed a trauma team toward a crashing teenager. Dana was somewhere down the corridor, her authoritative tone echoing as she managed the triage nightmare at the front doors. Everyone was stretched to their absolute breaking point, operating on instinct and sheer willpower.

"I need that line running now!" Frank barked, not out of anger toward you, but to be heard over the deafening noise of a nearby heart monitor screaming and the desperate sobbing of a girl two bays down. "He's losing his pressure. We don't have time for him to be fighting us."

You nodded quickly, your voice calm and steady as you spoke to the thrashing man. You told him he was safe, told him that he was at the hospital and that Frank was going to fix his leg, but the words didn't seem to penetrate the thick fog of his intoxication and terror. The man gave a sudden, violent heave, his free arm flailing out wildly. His fingers clawed frantically at the heavy tactical waistband of his cargo trousers, diving beneath the blood-stained fabric of his shirt.

It happened in a terrifying, fragmented blur that defied the frantic speed of the room. You saw the dark glint of steel before your brain fully processed what it was, a compact handgun snagging on his belt as he yanked it free in a blind, paranoid reflex.

"Gun! He’s got a gun!" someone screamed from the corridor. It sounded like Robby, his voice cracking with a raw, primal panic that instantly silenced the immediate vicinity.

Time seemed to violently liquefy. Frank’s eyes widened, a sudden, horrifying comprehension dawning on his features as he instantly let go of the wound, lunging across the gurney in a desperate, instinctive attempt to smother the weapon or shield you. The patient fired blindly into the air, the deafening roar of the gunshot exploding inside the enclosed space, shattering a nearby fluorescent light fixture in a shower of sparks and white dust.

From down the hall, the immediate, instinctual response was instantaneous; voices shouted to get down, and a chorus of bodies hit the linoleum floor as medical staff and ambulatory patients dropped to seek whatever cover the flimsy privacy curtains and stainless-steel carts could provide.

But the man’s wrist snapped sideways as he recoiled, the weapon discharging a second time before Frank could pin his arm to the mattress.

There was no grand explosion of pain, just a sudden, violent impact against your ribs that felt like being struck full-force by a swinging baseball bat, knocking the breath entirely out of your lungs. The momentum threw you backward, your feet tangling in the stool behind you, and you went down hard against the cold, hard floor, the bag of saline you had been holding bursting against the metal leg of the gurney.

For a second, the world went completely silent, the ringing in your ears drowning out the screams, the shouting, and the heavy thud of security guards finally tackling the gunman to the ground just inches away from where you lay. You stared up at the cracked ceiling tiles, wondering vaguely why the air felt so thick, why it was suddenly so incredibly difficult to draw a single breath.

Then the silence shattered, and the world rushed back in with a terrifying, agonizing roar. Frank was on his knees beside you before you could even register that you were on the floor, his hands trembling in a way you had never seen before as they hovered over your chest. His face was entirely drained of colour, his lips parted in a silent gasp of horror that quickly transformed into a frantic, breathless plea. "No, no, no, please, God, no," he muttered, his voice stripped of all its usual authority, sounding entirely small and broken.

His palms came down hard against the left side of your upper abdomen, just beneath your ribs, and the sudden, searing agony that ripped through your torso made your back arch off the floor, a choked, ragged scream tearing from your throat. The fabric of your scrubs was already turning a deep, heavy crimson, the warmth of your own blood soaking through his fingers as he pressed down with everything he had.

The immediate area exploded into a frenzied, chaotic scrum of activity, but this time, the emergency was you. Robby was there in an instant, his face pale and eyes wide with shock as he dropped to his knees on your other side, "I’ve got the back, Frank, I’ve got the exit wound, keep pressing!" Robby yelled, his voice shaking as he tried to stabilize your writhing frame.

Jack appeared above you, his authoritative calm momentarily cracking as he took in the sight of one of his own nurses bleeding out on the floor. "Get a gurney over here now! Someone get me a chest tube tray and two units of O-negative!" Jack roared, his commands snapping the stunned onlookers into motion.

Samira was right behind him, her hands steady despite the visible tremor in her jaw as she ripped open a pack of trauma dressings, quickly tucking them under Frank’s straining hands. Dana was on the radio, her voice cutting through the hospital page with a sharp, trembling urgency, calling for an immediate surgical consult and clearing a path straight to the operating theatres.

You tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet, shallow gasp and the sound of it seemed to fracture something deep within him. "Stay with me, do you hear me? Look at me, sweetheart," he begged, leaning down so close that his sweat-dampened hair brushed against your forehead. His eyes were wild, swimming with tears that he refused to let fall. "Don't you dare close your eyes. You breathe for me, come on, just keep breathing."

The vulnerability in his voice was terrifying; this was a man who stared down death every single day without flinching, but looking at you, he looked utterly defeated, stripped entirely of his medical armor.

With a coordinated heave, Frank, Robby, and Jack lifted you off the blood-slicked floor and onto a clearing gurney, the sudden movement causing the agony in your chest to flare into a blinding, white-hot sheet of pain that threatened to turn the world completely black.

You gasped, your fingers clawing blindly at the air, and Frank instantly caught your hand in his own, his grip incredibly tight, almost crushing, yet it was the most comforting thing you had ever felt. He didn't let go, not even as Jack began cutting away the remnants of your ruined scrubs, exposing the neat, horrific puncture wound where the bullet had torn through your muscle and bone.

“Shit, this doesn’t sound good," Jack muttered, his stethoscope pressed firmly against your skin, his expression grim. "Dr. Mohan, give me that scalpel, we need to drop a tube now before they arrest."

"Frank," you whimpered, the word barely a whisper, your vision beginning to tunnel, the bright fluorescent lights of the ER fading into a hazy, shimmering blur.

"I'm right here, I’m not leaving you, I swear to God I’m right here," Frank cried, his voice breaking completely as he used his free hand to wipe the blood from your lip, his thumb caressing your cheek. He looked up at Jack, his eyes blazing with a mixture of terror and fury. "Do it fast, Jack, please, just do it fast."

You felt the sharp, sudden sting of the local anesthetic, followed almost immediately by the heavy, suffocating pressure of the chest tube being inserted between your ribs. It was an invasive, brutal sensation, a choked sob tearing from your throat as you tried to pull away from the pain.

Frank held you steady, his strong arm wrapping around your shoulders to keep you pinned to the mattress, his face pressed against the side of your neck as he whispered frantic, broken promises into your skin. "You're okay, you're doing so well, just hold onto me, sweetheart. I've got you."

As the tube found its mark, a dark, heavy rush of blood and trapped air hissed into the collection chamber, and suddenly, a massive, cooling relief washed through your lungs. You could breathe again, the suffocating weight lifted from your chest, even as the profound exhaustion of blood loss began to pull you down into the dark.

The gurney was suddenly in motion, rattling violently as it was pushed out of the trauma bay and down the long corridor toward the elevators. Dana was there at the doors, holding them open, her face pale as she reached out to briefly touch your leg, her voice fierce as she looked at the surgical team waiting for you. "Take care of them," she ordered, her tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.

Frank walked alongside the moving bed, his hand still locked in yours, his eyes on you, his thumb tracing endless, soothing circles against the back of your hand.

When they finally reached the double doors of the surgical suite, the anesthesia resident stepped in front of him, gently but firmly placing a hand on Frank's chest. "Frank, you need to stay here. We've got them, we're going to take care of them, I promise."

Frank stopped, his sneakers skidding slightly on the polished floor, his chest heaving as he fought the urge to push past the man. He looked down at you, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with a profound, terrifying helplessness, his grip loosening only when the momentum of the gurney forced your fingers to slide apart.

"I'll be right here," he called out, his voice echoing down the sterile hallway as the heavy doors began to swing shut, separating you from his sight. "Right here when you wake up. I love you, do you hear me? I love you!"

As the darkness finally took you, the smell of antiseptic and the bright, shadowless lights of the operating room fading into nothingness, the last thing you felt was the lingering warmth of his hand against your skin, and the steady, unbreakable promise of his voice.

Everything felt incredibly heavy, as though your limbs had been poured full of wet sand, and your throat was dry and parched, tasting of stale plastic from the oxygen cannula resting beneath your nose. For a long moment, you simply drifted in that twilight space, aware of a dull, throbbing ache radiating across the entire left side of your chest, a deep-seated soreness that flared into a sharp pinch every time you tried to take a deep breath.

But beneath that pain, and the overwhelming exhaustion pulling at your eyelids, there was a profound, grounding warmth enveloping your right hand.

Slowly, with an effort that felt almost monumental, you forced your eyes open. The harsh, chaotic glare of the emergency department was gone, replaced by the soft, dimmed shadows of a private recovery room in the intensive care unit. The blinds were drawn against the morning light, casting long, quiet bars of grey across the linoleum floor. And sitting right beside your mattress, his frame uncomfortably curled into a stiff hospital armchair, was Frank.

He looked entirely shattered. He was still wearing his scrub trousers, though he had swapped his blood-stained top for a faded, oversized grey university sweatshirt that looked as though it had been pulled from the bottom of his locker. His elbows were resting on the edge of your mattress, his face buried in the crook of his arm, his fingers tightly, desperately interlaced with yours.

As you shifted your weight slightly, trying to ease the pressure on your chest tube site, a soft, involuntary whimper escaped your lips. The sound was barely audible, but it acted like an electric shock to Frank. His head snapped up instantly, his eyes bloodshot, dark shadows bruising the skin beneath them. For a fraction of a second, his expression was blank with a raw, lingering terror, but as his gaze focused on your open eyes, his face cracked, a look of profound, overwhelming relief washing over his features.

"Hey," he whispered, his voice incredibly thick and hoarse, rough from hours of silence and unshed tears. He shifted instantly, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone with a tenderness that made your chest ache for reasons completely unrelated to the bullet wound. "Hey, beautiful. Don't try to move too much, alright? You're okay. You're safe."

"Frank," you croaked, the word catching in your throat, sounding small and entirely broken.

"I'm here. I'm right here," he murmured, his touch lingering against your skin as if he needed the physical contact to completely convince himself that you were truly alive. He reached for a small plastic cup on the bedside table, dipping a pink foam swab into some ice water before gently pressing it against your cracked lips. "Just a little bit, sweetheart. Your throat's going to be sore from the ventilator, just let it sit there."

The cool moisture was an absolute blessing, and you closed your eyes for a moment, letting the relief wash over you. When you opened them again, you looked down at the heavy, white dressings taping the chest tube firmly to your ribs. The memory of the gunshot, the sudden, violent impact, and the terrifying sight of Frank kneeling over you in a pool of your own blood came rushing back with a vividness that caused your heart rate to spike on the monitor.

Frank noticed the rhythmic acceleration of the beeping instantly. "Hey, look at me, honey," he commanded softly, squeezing your hand a little tighter. "The guy's gone. Security took him down, police have him. The hospital is secure. You are out of danger, I promise you."

"You... you look terrible," you managed to whisper, a faint, weak attempt at a smile touching the corners of your lips.

A ragged, wet laugh spilled from his chest, his shoulders dropping as he leaned his forehead gently against your shoulder, his breathing heavy and uneven. "I have never been so terrified in my entire life," he confessed into the fabric of your hospital gown, his voice trembling in a way that made your throat tighten. "I’ve seen a lot of things in that department. A lot of blood, a lot of close calls. But when you went down... when I saw what that bastard did... I froze. My brain just stopped working because the only thing that mattered was that it was you."

You squeezed his hand back with what little strength you had, your heart swelling at the raw vulnerability in his tone. "You didn't freeze," you murmured softly. "You caught me. You held me."

"Because I couldn't let you go," he said, pulling back to look down at you, a single tear finally escaping and tracking down the rugged line of his jaw. "Robby, Jack, Samira... they all practically had to drag me out of the operating theatre doors. Dana sat with me in the hallway for four hours while you were under. She kept telling me to go home, to wash the blood off my clothes, but I couldn't leave this building knowing you were in there. Collins kept checking the surgical log every fifteen minutes just to give me updates. Everyone's been by, sweetheart. They’re all terrified for you, but they're all waiting to see you."

"Tell them thank you," you whispered, the exhaustion beginning to pull at your consciousness again, your eyelids growing heavier by the second as the hospital pain medication kept you drifting.

"I will. I'll tell them all," Frank murmured. He leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead. "You just rest now. I'm not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you wake up again, and I’ll be here when we finally get to go home. I love you so much."

As the darkness drifted back in to claim you, softer this time, devoid of the terror and the pain of the ER, you let yourself sink into the mattress, completely enveloped by the steady, protective warmth of his presence and the quiet, reassuring beat of his heart right beside you.

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In fact, the first hour of your shared shift had been fine - enjoyable even. You both cracked jokes, sharing stories about peculiar mentors that you had encountered in the past. Frank even offered you some of his hard-earned wisdom; things that he wished he had known as an MS3.

Then he had led you into various operating rooms, detailing the cases and procedures to you with a hand on the small of your back. It made your skin flush, but he didn't notice, taking your silence for rapt attention - something that was rare in students these days.

Throughout his residency, Frank had met countless students that were simply jumping hoops and leaping hurdles, just going through the motions to reach that fabled paycheck at the end of their placements. (He took small pleasure in knowing that the wages would most likely disappoint them; residents were always the ones to get underpaid.) Hell, he had even seen doctors that were entirely the same: only in it for the money.

However, it was quickly apparent that you were different.

There was something in the way you spoke to patients, how you advocated for their best interests. It was clear that you had a passion for helping people, and that you were seeking fulfilment from this career, rather than a hefty sum of money. Frank thought it was an admirable quality, but in spite of this, he still found himself at his wit's end by midday - barely able to tolerate you.

As reflected by hundreds of studies, it has been proven that asking questions is an important part of the learning process. However, it would seem that none of these researchers had ever met you, with your endless stream of inquiries. Seriously, Frank felt like he was being interrogated.

He would be elbow-deep in someone's body cavity and you would pipe up from beside him, sickly sweet voice asking something about the technique he was using. They weren't even stupid questions, too, that's what really bothered him.

The first time, Frank had foolishly tried to offer a response. You watched as his incisors sank deep into his lower lip, gaze never faltering as he struggled to conjure an answer. He had stammered uselessly until Robby stepped in to (semi)-end his suffering, heckling him from the corner of the room, "Focus on the patient Langdon - there'll be plenty of time to look confused later."

There had been a resounding laughter at that remark, so Frank decided it was best to ignore your queries from there on out to avoid any further humiliation. Still, he couldn't understand what was causing these vacancies in his mind. It could possibly be attributed to the focus that each procedure demanded from him, or the way that you stood too close, letting your perfume dizzy him.

Nonetheless, you continue asking questions. It shouldn't bother him, (you're here to learn, after all) but it does, because now you direct them at Robby instead.

Robby, who explains concepts to you with a lot more warmth and patience than he ever had with Frank - or anyone for that matter. Despite his best efforts to shake off any lingering jealousy, he couldn't help but wonder why you received such special treatment.

That wasn't his breaking point, though.

No, that came about two weeks in.

In Frank's defence, it had already been an exhausting day: the shift was running over by at least an hour; he hadn't found an opportunity to eat since that morning; and you had just decided to revive an annoying habit that Frank thought you had finally moved past.

Evidently not, as you begin every contribution to the case with a “Well, my dad said that…” or a “My dad showed me a journal that said…”

It wasn't to say that he doubted your dad's knowledge - whoever he was - but Frank wanted to hear from you. He wasn’t just asking these questions because he felt like it, he genuinely wanted your input. Although it wasn’t something he would admit easily, you had offered him a different perspective on more than one occasion. Your advice was valuable to him.

So maybe, just maybe, when you opened your mouth to say, “I think I remember my dad telling me about this,” he snapped, looking up at you from where he stood bent over the patient.

“If I wanted your dad’s opinion, don’t you think I would be asking him instead?” he begins, leaning towards you on his forearms. You tried to hold his gaze, not letting him intimidate you as his eyes darkened, becoming more pointed and accusatory as his voice rose, “All day you’ve been leaning on him like a crutch. I don’t know who he is - fuck, I don’t even care - but if you want to be a doctor, you have to think for yourself.”

The nurses had immediately gone silent, busying themselves with trivial distractions. You could hear Princess fiddling with her gloves from across the room, and Langdon’s ragged breath breaking through the silence. You thought he was finished, but a vein fired off in his neck as if to prove you wrong.

“Have you ever heard a resident quoting their dad as a source of medical information?” he paused, watching as you shook your head, letting his hair fall into his eyes as he mimicked your movement, “No, of course you haven’t. We’ve spent years attending lectures and studying medical journals, you know, the reliable, legitimate resources?”

Frank sucked in a deep breath as he prepared to continue, but the vitals monitor began to beep, interrupting him. Instead, he just threw you a look, one that said ‘do better,’ before turning his attention back to the patient.

Fortunately, this altercation hadn’t been mentioned again. He still felt guilty about it, taking a bad day and pent up desire out on you. The divorce hadn’t been easy, especially when you were tormenting him every day; you must have been the only person to look so good in scrubs.

The thought had been weighing on Frank's mind - a constant thrum since you were assigned to his watchful eye. 

Who were you? What was it that seemed to make everyone fawn around you?

He had seen it on multiple occasions: Dana insisting you take a lunch break, even when the ER was hectic and you were decidedly not hungry; Perlah bringing back all sorts of souvenirs for you whenever she went abroad; but most obviously, the way Robby nurtured you. It was shameless favouritism, and Frank wanted to know what was causing it.

So, one night when sleep refused to find him, he turned to Instagram. 

Truthfully, he was shocked that he fought the urge for so long. A little impressed, actually. Nonetheless, he has always been an inquisitive soul, and the curiosity mixed with the jealousy (although Frank wouldn't call it that - perhaps just a healthy bit of competitive spirt among peers?) had become too much to bear.

The mattress squealed as he rolled to face his end table, arm reaching out and guided to his phone by the moonlight. It laid in a bed of its own - one of those electromagnetic chargers, a useless purchase born from a 20% discount - but it was in a far deeper slumber than Frank had any hope of finding. It was selfish, but if Frank couldn’t sleep, then neither could his phone. He yanked it from the bay and shuffled up against his pillows.

His touch woke the device, a photo of his dog coming to fill the screen, and the brightness filling his room. He winced, hurriedly stabbing at the control centre to dim the display. 

God, this would wreak havoc on his eyes.

After he gave himself a moment to push away the optical static, he headed straight to Instagram. The home page showed a woman wielding a giant bowl of salad, the subtitles flaunting her nutritious recipe. He stared aimlessly as she began chopping up various vegetables, unsure of where to begin his search. 

Look, cyber stalking - or any type of stalking - was new territory for him. Besides, Frank had really boxed himself into a corner here. 

For the entirety of your placement, he had deliberately avoided any small talk with you. It was a strange form of self-preservation, because Frank hated nothing more than being wrong. He knew that if he spoke to you, his dislike would quickly feel unjustified, and that was something he just couldn’t handle. The logic was primitive, but it had served him fairly well until then, as he realised that he didn’t know your surname.

Nonetheless, he remained hopeful and decided to start his search in the most obvious place, fingers typing your name into the search bar. The results began appearing, but a quick skim told him that he would need to wisen up, as the list only showed him a handful of random influencers who happened to share your name.

He readjusted himself on his bed, bringing the screen closer to his face as he pondered his next move. He felt like a detective as he compiled a mental web of everyone you know, plotting a route to your account.

Frank also felt like a total creep.

Well, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, he reasoned, exiling the guilt like had so many thoughts over the past month. Some of them - like how he wondered what your mouth might feel like - were persistent, and he had to pushing them away in some strange Sisyphean feat. 

He shook his head, resetting himself. Then he was back into action, fingers taking him to his profile and sifting through his followers to find Mel. He recognised her account immediately, the colorful profile picture of her and Becca catching his eye. Clicking on it, a strange sort of flow seemed to consume him, and he suddenly found himself on a roll. Frank scrolled through her page to find Whitaker, and from there, Trinity – your close friend.

Whenever he saw the two of you whispering at work, it felt like a conspiracy against him. He was always worried that he would open his locker to find rotting food in there, or gum plastered to the inside, but deep down he knew you were too nice to do something like that. He couldn’t fathom why, but even after he had shouted at you, you remained friendly with him. Everyone knew that he couldn’t say the same for Trinity.

Ready to continue the search, a digit remained hovering over the screen, but it instinctively tucked itself away as he found what he needed: a photo of the pair of you on a girls’ night out. You’re both leant on a sticky bar giggling to one another, and even Frank could admit that it was a cute photo - he wasn’t blind.

So, he sent out a silent prayer that you were tagged, then pressed tentatively on the thumbnail. 

It almost felt like fate as the little grey widget popped up, and he didn’t even read your username, thumb eclipsing it as he pressed with desperate haste. If there was a God, he was looking down on Frank kindly because by some miracle, your account was public - dumb, but convenient, Frank mused.

From there, it was like someone had released the hounds. He wasted no time scrolling through your extensive post history: a trip to the Maldives, some photos of your various meals, and a photo dump of you almost exclusively in bikinis.

Look, he knew he shouldn’t.

But his free hand was already pushing into his boxers, and his dick was already half hard.

Besides, if he had already exercised all of his worst impulses, what was one more? It wasn’t like you would find out.

That was all the convincing he needed, fingers coming to wrap around the shaft as he groaned. He had denied himself this for too long.

Then, he continued his exploration - cock in one hand, phone in the other. He flicked through the slideshows, smearing his precum around the tip as he looked at your lips, shiny and pouting. God, what would they feel like wrapped around his dick? A question for the ages.

He was stroking the shaft when the next slide took him by surprise: a photo of you from behind, bikini practically wedged between your cheeks. His hand sped up, that sound of skin against skin filling the room as he raced to match the thoughts that were speeding through his mind. Your skin looked so soft, and God - your ass was perfect. How had he not done this sooner?

Frank began to lose himself in the pleasure, imagining the way you would sound beneath him, sweet and encouraging. Breathless as he would bend your knees over his shoulders, pace harsh and unforgiving - punishment for the way you had embarrassed him.

What really finished him off, though, was thinking about how you would sound as you came, all coos and whimpers, drunk on his cock. It was almost instantaneous, Frank cumming alongside the imaginary you he created, his load spurting onto his phone.

In the midst of his orgasm, he scrolls one more post, searching for something to ride out his high to. He thought he had struck gold, only to end eye-to-eye with his boss, who was now coated in a sheen of Frank’s cum.

Post-coitus had never been so short, as Frank leapt from the bed and waddled to the bathroom, wiping his screen clean with a towel. It was only then that he noticed your username, and that he had accidentally hit the follow button.

@yn_robinavitch2003

Fuck.

thank you so much for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed!!! my asks are shamelessly open, so please send in any requests!

A/N: based on this gorgeous ask, sorry it took so long but thank you so much for the request, i hope this isn’t dull or ooc! part two is coming and it won’t take so long this time i promise 💕 also i haven’t proofread, i’ll do that in the morning!

When Frank Langdon got divorced from his wife, he moved into a new apartment, ready to start fresh. 

He found that it was incredibly lonely. 

So, he bought a cat. Not a dog, like he had almost mistakenly gotten for Abby before he went to rehab. He worked too much to take care of a dog. So he settled for a cat. A cute, tortoiseshell cat from the local shelter named Corey. 

She became the perfect companion to his new life, and he grew quite fond of her. 

Then, some months later, he met you. An ICU nurse, when you were floated down to the ER for a shift, whom he had instantly found almost tantalizingly perfect. His therapist had told him it was good to not hole himself up after his divorce, to force himself to get out in the world. No matter how uncomfortable that might be. So, he asked for your number, and you obviously gave it to him. You had hit it off immediately, and he had a really good feeling about you. 

Unbeknownst to him, however, you were allergic to cats. 

⦮ ⦯ ⟆ 

Frank had mentioned his cat to you a few times before inviting you over to his apartment. You have had allergies to them for as long as you can remember. But, you hadn’t been around cats in awhile, so you were thinking, praying, that it hopefully went away with age. So you didn’t mention any allergy to Frank. 

It did not, you found out, go away with age. 

The first time you were at his apartment, you gushed over Corey. And she loved you too, cats had a way of sniffing out an allergy and putting extra love and dander on those people. You barely paid attention to Frank as you both watched the movie he’d put on. His arm around your shoulders, and you barely even noticed. You were much too busy petting the adorable cat who had settled in your lap. Frank didn’t seem to mind the lack of attention either, he found this new bond between you and Corey very adorable. 

Halfway through the movie was when your allergies caught up to you. 

You sneezed and Frank blessed you quietly, watching as you carefully deposited the cat into his lap and excused yourself to the bathroom. You blew your nose violently, hoping he couldn’t hear through the door, but of course he could. You also quickly took the zyrtec you had brought in your pocket for this exact situation, praying it kicked in soon as you sneezed again, and again. You washed your hands for a long time, hoping to wash all the dander off them and thinking back to if you had touched your face or not. Your eyes looked ok, so you were at least marked safe from that. You headed back out to the living room, taking up your seat again. Frank looks over at you with furrowed brows. 

“What?” You ask, matching his expression. You already knew your cover was blown, you sounded congested as hell. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, scooting closer to you, his eyes moving all over your face, studying you for anything off. You exhale and nod in assurance before speaking again. 

“I’m fine, really,” You start, hoping you aren’t scaring him off, you had only been together a few weeks at this point, “I just have a slight allergy to cats.” You admit, leaning over him to pet Corey. Her tail end sticking up slightly as you do, her paws kneading into Frank’s thigh. He furrows his brows more and cocks his head to the side. 

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” He asks, you shake your head slightly, pushing his concern aside. 

“I-” You start, but are cut off by another sneeze, you exhale in frustration, “I thought I had aged out of it, apparently not. But it’s not a big deal, I’ll probably get used to her the more I’m around.” You say, still petting her, hoping you’ll get more opportunity soon to be around her. 

“Are you sure it’s not a big deal?” He asks with raised brows, you sniffle and nod, smiling at his concern. 

“Yes, I just took an allergy pill, so it’ll hopefully kick in soon.” You say, smiling softly and leaning in closer to him. You see his shoulders relax a little bit, clearly it was important to him that you and Corey got along. 

“So, you’re good to spend the night? Only if you want, of course.” He says, you smile and laugh a little, nodding and leaning in to kiss him. 

“Of course I want to stay the night.” You mumble against him. His newly grown stubble scratching you slightly as your face rubs against his. 

“You should keep this y’know.” You mumble out, rubbing a hand over his face, grabbing his chin. You see his face go a faint pink, making you smile even more. 

“You think so?” He asks with raised brows, you smile and nod immediately. 

“Absolutely.” You say, right before pushing him away so you could sneeze once again. Ruining the moment. 

⦮ ⦯ ⟆ 

You really, really thought your allergies would get better with time. 

You thought wrong. 

It had been a few weeks and you were being very careful around Corey. Taking allergy pills, washing your hands frequently, doing everything right. Yet your allergies seemed to get worse every time you went over to Frank’s. 

You were helping him cook dinner, Corey at both of your feet, hoping one of you dropped a scrap of food. You went to scratch your neck after you finished chopping vegetables, when Frank looked at you, the worry in his eyes was obvious. He moved your hair to look at your neck without saying anything. You raise a brow at him and go to scratch at it again, but he stops you. 

“You’re breaking out in hives.” He mumbles, looking over your arms for any more, satisfied when he doesn't find any. 

“Hives?” You say, watching as he goes to his medicine cabinet, rummaging around. 

“Your cat allergy is getting worse, honey. Not better.” He says, walking back up to you with a brand new package of Claritin, seemingly bought in preparation for this moment, and a tube of hydrocortisone cream. 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” You say, sniffling, taking a Claritin from him with a small ‘thank you’. Frank put a small amount of hydrocortisone cream on his hand, silently asking permission from you, when you nod, he slowly starts applying it to the hives on your neck. 

“There’s some special food for Corey I can try out, might help.” He says, your faces are very close to each other now. 

“It’s way expensive though.” You say with furrowed brows, leaning into him as he caps the cream and sets it onto the counter. 

“You’re worth it.” He says, putting his hands on your hips. You rest your chin on his chest, looking up at him. He smiles down at you, moving hair out of your face. 

“I’ve been meaning to get allergy shots, just haven’t gotten around to it.” You say with raised brows, Corey getting between your feet, demanding attention. You both laugh, shaking your head. 

“We’ll figure something out, I hate that you feel so shitty whenever you come over.” Frank says, going back to making dinner, you follow suit. 

“She’s worth it.” You say with a smile, he nods in agreement. 

“Yeah, my two favorite girls.” He says, turning away, putting the vegetables in a sauce pan. You blush, looking between him and Corey. This all definitely made the sneezing, hives, congestion, and every other symptom worth it. 

⦮ ⦯ ⟆ 

The special food Frank had been buying was working, just not enough. 

You had accidentally pet Corey and rubbed your eyes right after, making them red and itchy. Frank ran his fingers through your hair and helped you put drops in your eyes. Muttering sweet nothings as he did. 

“Maybe we should start doing more stuff at your apartment, honey.” He suggests, lifting your eyebrow a bit so he can get a better look at your eye. You furrow your brows and shake your head immediately at the suggestion. 

“No, I love Corey. I love cats, they just don’t love me.” You say, shrugging your shoulders, leaving the bathroom, him in tow. 

“Well I ordered an air purifier, should be here soon.” He says, putting his arm around you as you sit down on the couch. 

“You’re taking this very seriously.” You remark with raised brows. 

“Well your body takes cat dander very seriously.” He says, and with that you laugh, laying on his chest. 

“Thank you, by the way.” You mumble out against him, he smiles, putting his chin on top of your head. 

“Don’t even mention it, honey. Not your fault your body hates cats.” He says, kissing your head before resting his chin back on top of it. 

“I need to get around to those shots.” You mumble out tiredly, falling asleep against him. He nods against you, his hand rubbing up and down on your arm. 

“You should get around to going to sleep.” He mumbles out, and you give in almost immediately. Frank is more than content to lay with you on his chest and Corey on the armrest of the couch. 

⦮ ⦯ ⟆ 

You loved working in the ICU, but these days, you really didn’t mind when you got floated down to the ER. It meant you got to see Frank, be his coworker for the day. Even if the Pitt was chaotic, it was worth it seeing Frank in his element.

You were in between patients when Frank came up to you. His hand on your back as he gestured over to triage. You furrowed your brows, but followed him anyway. He leads you to an empty triage room, still not saying anything yet. 

“What’re you doing?” You ask, he just smiles a little and has you sit down in the chair. He preps a tray next to you with a syringe and band aid, now you’re even more confused. 

“Frank, use your words.” You say with raised brows and a smile. He laughs a little and shakes his head. 

“You said you wanted to start getting allergy shots, but you never got around to it.” He says, lifting up your sleeve and rubbing an alcohol wipe on your arm, “So I thought, pretty easy for us to do it here.” He says, prepping the syringe. You smile and shake your head a bit. 

“Off the record? You’re bad, Dr. Langdon.” You tease and he smiles a bit, letting out a small laugh. 

“Small pinch.” He mutters out with a smile before administering the shot in your arm, carefully placing the band aid over it. Pink, picked out specifically for you. 

“We’ll do this once or twice a week until you feel better.” He says, kissing right above the band aid, starting to clean everything up. You stand and look up at him with a warm smile, carding your fingers through his hair. 

“You’re very thoughtful, y’know.” You say, watching as he discards everything, guiding you out of the room. 

“I’m just watching out for you is all.” He says, you shake your head, he can never take a compliment, too humble. 

“Can I come over tonight?” You ask with raised brows, stopping at the nurse’s station. He immediately smiles and nods. 

“You just wanna see Corey, huh?” He asks and you laugh a little. 

“That’s not the only reason.” You say with shrugged shoulders. Frank starts to reply, but is interrupted by Dana. 

“You two! Are you gonna get back to work or are you just gonna flirt all day?” She asks, her hands on her hips and her expression pointed. You and Frank explode in laughter before going off to your respective duties. 

Frank Langdon had proved repeatedly that he was the perfect man for you, and it wasn’t just because he had the world’s cutest cat. 

⦮ ⦯ ⟆ 

A/N: Thanks for reading!! My requests are open for future fic and smau ideas! And I’m working on a few new things so if you have requested something be on the lookout💕