icy

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He’s never been a smoker, but if he were, would that really be worse than being addicted to benzos? It’s not like American Spirits or cotton candy flavored vapes would drive him to steal from his job.

Yeah, yeah. Cancer. Lung cancer, esophageal cancer, all the cancers. Gum disease and tooth decay. He is still a doctor, even if it took him a long time to start feeling like one again. He knows the risks. And that is exactly why he hasn’t tried filling the void with nicotine.

He works out just enough to be able to say that he does and it not be a complete lie, but he’s never understood how people can get addicted to exercising. He understands the science behind it, but every time he steps on a treadmill, it just feels like an opportunity to think too much about every mistake he’s made in the last few years.

Video games have never really been his thing. He’s still paying off his stint in rehab, so betting and gambling are off the table. Alcohol, of course, is out of the question for obvious reasons.

When he hit one hundred days of sobriety, he really thought he was in the fucking clear. He let himself breathe a little for the first time in a long time, thinking he had finally learned his lesson.

Never did it cross his mind that he could become addicted to a person. Least of all one that he isn’t even supposed to like.

Least of all you.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

“This is a really fucking bad idea.”

Frank grunts, bottoming out as he fills you so full of him that it takes your breath away.

He stills, looking down at you in the glow of your living room television. His hands were on you the second your apartment door clicked shut - the two of you didn’t even make it down the hallway to your bedroom before you were pulling him onto the couch by the collar of his scrubs, his lips chasing yours with a degree of desperation that you might have found laughable if it weren’t for the fact that you had to bite back a moan the second that his tongue slipped between your lips.

He huffs a half breathless laugh. “We can stop if you want to, but I’m already inside you, so it’s a little late to realize this is a bad idea.”

You wiggle your hips, grinding down where his body meets yours. His eyes roll shut at the sensation, his muscles tensing beneath where your fingers grip his biceps.

“Didn’t say that I wanna stop,” you breathe. “Just said this is a bad idea. It’s called an observation.”

Frank snorts, retaliating by hiking one of your legs over his hip to deepen the angle. You hiss, your walls clenching around him. “You didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea when you were drenching my face a few seconds ago.”

You aren’t surprised in the least that his argumentative nature carries over into sex, but the dirty mouth on him does take you by surprise.

“So, what?” You hum, part challenge and part genuine curiosity. “You don’t think this is a bad idea?”

He shakes his head. He snakes a hand between your bodies, his thumb finding the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of your folds. “It’s definitely a bad idea. I’m just finding it really hard to give a shit right now.”

You whimper at it all - the rough timbre of his voice, the the soft pad of his thumb brushing over your clit, the way he somehow still smells like musk and allspice even after working a full twelve hours in the emergency department and how his kiss-swollen lips glisten from his time spent between your thighs.

Come morning, you’ll regret this. Twelve hours from now, when you can’t concentrate on a routine intubation because you’re having flashbacks of pretty cerulean eyes peeking up at you as he brought you to climax with only his tongue, you’ll regret this. When you can’t take two steps tomorrow without the ache between your thighs reminding you where he’d been, you’ll regret this.

Probably should’ve thought about that before deciding that the best way to cope with stress of an exceptionally shitty day was by kissing him in the empty parking garage and inviting him back to your place, but you’ll deal with the aftermath of that when he’s no longer buried half a foot inside you.

You take his chin in your hand, stilling his face in front of yours. “Just so we are clear, this is a one time thing.”

Frank looks like he’s fighting the urge to laugh, a familiar, cocky smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know you’re the one who kissed me and practically ripped my clothes off, right?”

Your hands ghost over the planes of his shoulders and up his neck before settling at the base of his skull where your fingers thread through the short locks of his hair. “Don’t let it get to your head. You were the closest conventionally attractive man I could find after that shitshow of a shift. Don’t confuse convenience with desire.”

He cocks a brow. “What I’m hearing is that you think I’m attractive.”

You roll your eyes, pulling your hands away from his hair and playfully shoving his shoulders. You don’t bother denying it, though. He is attractive. Annoyingly, irritatingly, frustratingly attractive.

“I’m serious. One time, Langdon.”

He doesn’t verbally respond right away. Instead, he leans down, closing the space between your lips and his. You taste yourself on him, sweet and salty with a hint of the gum he had been chewing when you first kissed him in the parking garage. It’s slower than the first time, and the second, and the third, making heat bloom where he’s hard inside you.

He pulls back just enough to murmur the words against your lips.

“One time.”

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Two months ago, Frank Langdon kissed you and swore that he was only going to fuck you one time.

Two months ago, he lied through his teeth.

The good news is that you’re as big of a liar as he is.

Because one time turned to two, and two to three, and now the Pittsburgh winter has turned to spring and he’s forgotten all about that broken promise.

He knew before the words had fully left his lips that they were bullshit. How could he mean them when your kiss tasted like watermelon lip gloss and being bare inside you made him feel the best he’s felt since he got sober?

But still, he tried. For a whopping seven days, he tried his hardest.

One week. That’s all it took for him to feel like he was going to lose his fucking mind if he didn’t touch and taste you again.

Then, in a moment of weakness - the kids were at Abby’s, he’d spent his day off cleaning his entire apartment in an attempt to keep himself busy, he’d already gone to an NA meeting earlier that afternoon, and he couldn’t get this one specific sound you had made when he nipped at the column of your throat out of his head - he did something he’s never done before.

He texted you.

Are you off work yet?

Short and vague, but you’re far from being dumb. He was confident that you could read between the lines without him having to spell it out for you.

Much to his relief, you replied before he could overthink the simple text message.

Keeping track of my work schedule now?

He scoffed to himself, smirking down at his phone. As if you haven’t worked the same set schedule the entire time he’s known you. At least, that was his excuse for knowing you’d be leaving work at approximately that time.

You replied fast. I take it that you are off?

He stared down at the screen as you typed, grateful that technology doesn’t allow you to see him waiting for your response in real time.

Leaving now. But if you’re about to say what I think you’re going to say, then you should know that I have been both puked and peed on today.

That should have deterred him, but it didn’t. In fact, it only further encouraged him, because you didn’t immediately tell him to fuck off like he halfway expected you to.

I happen to have a shower.

Then, before you can type a rebuttal, he sends a second text with his address.

You didn’t even reply, but twenty-three minutes later you knocked on his front door.

(It goes without saying that yes, you insisted on showering, and yes, he insisted on joining you, and yes, he ate you out until your legs turned to jelly and he had to help hold you up).

After both of you were thoroughly spent, he expected you to say something similar to the first time - when he had you pinned to your couch, balls deep inside you, and you told him that it would be a one time thing. He expected you to insist that what just happened would not be happening again, that it was a mistake for you to come over, and that he should lose your number entirely.

So it took him by surprise when you got out of his bed, put your clothes back on, and said, “it goes without saying that this stays between us, right? If this is going to be a thing, the last thing I want is Perlah and Princess spreading it all over the hospital.”

“Please,” Frank had scoffed, pulling his own t-shirt over his head. “Like I want the entire emergency department making a bunch of ridiculous bets about us. Trust me, this stays between us.”

And that was that. There was no further discussion of what exactly this is, but Frank knows.

He knows what it is, and he knows what it isn’t. For two months now, you’ve been on the same page. He comes to your place, or occasionally, you’ll go to his. One time, you even rode him in the backseat of his dad mobile, as you had referred to the midsize SUV.

But work is off limits. You have made that abundantly clear by acting indifferent to his existence anytime a coworker or patient is within ten feet of you, which happens to be damn near always. When the two of you are at work, he pretends like he doesn’t know that you clench around him every time he tells you how well you’re taking him or where your birthmark is located.

As soon as he walks out of those hospital doors, though, all the pretending comes to a stop.

It most often happens after long shifts, when one or both of you needs to decompress and not think of whatever horrors had been witnessed that day. But every now and then, like that day you and Frank both broke the initial agreement of this being a one time thing, he’ll find himself alone with thoughts of you that are a little too loud and unrelenting.

So instead of only thinking about the way your breathy, fucked out voice sounds saying his name when you’re on the verge of coming apart, he calls and hopes that you answer.

And, for some reason that Frank refuses to let himself dwell on, you always do. He knows that there will inevitably come a day that you don’t.

But he doesn’t let himself dwell on that, either.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

“Meet me in the empty on-call room in fifteen minutes.”

The words are murmured low enough for only him to hear. He glances up from his charting, utter disbelief on his face. He opens his mouth to question you, but you’re already walking away.

You’re weak. Spineless as a damn jellyfish, really.

And it’s all Frank Langdon’s fault.

If he didn’t kiss you like you’re the air he needs to breathe, go down on you like you’re the last thing he’s ever going to taste, and fuck you like he’s trying to ruin all other men for you, then it wouldn’t be so embarrassingly easy for you to go back on your word.

But here you are. Going back on your word. Again.

The first time it happened - when he texted you his address a little over two months ago and you wasted no time driving to his apartment even after telling him and yourself that you would not be hooking up with him again - you forgave yourself. You allowed yourself the small comfort of knowing it was him that reached out. It was him who caved first, even if you had thought about doing so every day since you first slept together.

But this time? Telling him to meet you in an empty on-call room in the middle of the day at work? Where any of your coworkers could potentially catch you? This boundary being crossed is all on you.

You must have a competence kink. That’s the only logical explanation for why you’re willing to let this happen right here, right now.

Your watch reads 2:17. He’s two minutes late.

Two more minutes. If he isn’t here in two minutes, then you’re leaving this room and forgetting that you ever even considered doing this.

The door creaks open and he slips in with only twenty seconds to spare.

“Wasn’t sure if you were actually going to come,” you hum from where you’re perched on the edge of the mattress.

Frank locks the door behind him. He still looks as confused as he did when you first told him to meet you here, but there’s now a hint of amusement on his features, too.

“Sorry,” he huffs a laugh, slowly walking towards you with his hands shoved in his scrub pockets. “I came as quickly as I could. My patient in Central 14 pulled up WebMD on his phone to try to argue about his diagnosis so I got a little tied up with that.”

You snort. “Don’t you love when they do that?”

“So…” he drawls, eyes glancing around the small room, empty save for the two of you. He comes to a stop directly in front of where you sit on the bed. “You gonna tell me what we’re doing in here right now?”

You look up at him from beneath your lashes. “What do you think?” Then, before he can answer, your hands go to the waistband of his pants. You don’t look away from his face, blue eyes dilating and pretty lips parted in surprise.

“Seriously?” He breathes, looking around the room again as if there’s anyone around to catch you in the act. “Here?”

You shrug, tugging his pants down just enough to expose the soft patch of dark curls below the waistband. “What can I say? Watching you perform that closed cervical reduction really did something to me.”

He blushes. Even with the curtains closed and only a small bedside table lamp illuminating the room, you can see pink bloom across the apples of his cheeks.

“That’s all it takes to make you stop avoiding me like the plague while we’re here?” He scoffs low. “A closed cervical reduction?”

You hum a laugh. “Sorry, does it hurt your feelings that I don’t spend my shifts fawning over you like every early-to-mid twenties female that walks into this place?”

Frank chuckles lowly. “Not quite.” He cups your face in his hands, thumbs brushing against your cheekbones as he leans down far enough that his lips hover just above yours. “You might not fawn over me, but you’re the one who got me alone just so you can give me head.”

Under normal circumstances, you’d keep going until you get the last word. But right now, you have a list of patients who need tending to and a boss who has already been on your ass about patient satisfaction scores today.

And as much as it physically pains you to admit, he isn’t wrong.

“Mm-hm,” you hum in agreement. “I did. Now are you going to let me or not?”

With your fingers still hooked into the waistband of his pants and boxers, you pause. It’s not like he’s ever said no to receiving head from you before - and the unmistakable bulge behind the fabric of his scrubs would normally be enough of an answer - but he is just now finding his way back into Robby’s good graces, so the risks here may outweigh the reward.

He exhales a shaky laugh, his nose brushing against yours as he nods slightly. “If I ever say no to that, page neurology, because something is very wrong with me.”

You roll your eyes, pretending you aren’t slightly charmed by the dorky remark. “Sit down, then.”

The two of you trade places. He lowers himself onto the edge of the mattress, and with help from you, his scrubs and boxers fall to a puddle at his feet. You spread his thighs gently with your palms, nestling yourself between them. You take his hard length in your hand, giving a few languid strokes as you look up at him.

“I mean it, you know,” you murmur, voice uncharacteristically earnest. For a moment, you drop the sarcastic facade. “The closed cervical reduction was very impressive. You were incredible.”

He swallows thickly, his cock twitching in your hand as he stares down at you in the dim lighting. Despite the truth to your words, you expect him to brush the compliment off with a cocky grin and smartass retort that undercuts the rare instance of genuinity between you.

Instead, he leans forward without a word, takes your face in his hands, and crushes his lips against yours. He tilts your head slightly, sweeping his tongue across your bottom lip to encourage you to open up for him. You can’t help but lose yourself in the effortless familiarity of his kiss that you’ve grown to crave more than you ever thought possible.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t release the careful hold on your face. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his breath warm against your lips. “Means a lot coming from you.”

For one impossibly long second, the two of you stare at each other until the sincerity of the moment starts to feel suffocating.

And because you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do with that, you swallow it down and do what you came here for.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Frank sees you before he finishes parking his car next to the ball fields.

At first, he thinks he’s seeing things. It must be someone who looks like you - someone with the same hair color and skin tone as you, who just so happens to be roughly the same height - because it couldn’t possibly actually be you.

Why the hell would you be at a Pee Wee soccer game bright and early on a Saturday morning?

He knows exactly why he’s here - it’s one of Penny’s last games of the season and between a pain in the ass custody arrangement and an even bigger pain in the ass work schedule, Frank has only been able to attend a few of his daughter’s soccer games this spring season. He would have missed today’s game, too, if Robby hadn’t agreed to him switching a couple shifts around and Abby hadn’t been willing to let him take Penny for the day during her week with the kids.

You don’t have children, though. He’s sure enough of that. There’s no way you wouldn’t have said something about having a kid at some point during your time spent together these last few months. He’s been over to your place enough times to have noticed toys scattered around the living room or sippy cups in the sink or tiny clothes left lying on the bathroom floor.

But as Penny sprints ahead to join the rest of her teammates and Frank crosses the field to where all of the player’s families sit in lawn chairs, he realizes that his eyes are not playing tricks on him.

Even from behind, he knows it’s you. He’s spent enough collective hours memorizing the curves of your body to recognize you anywhere - even wearing something so different than what he normally sees you in: scrubs or nothing.

He comes to a stop a couple feet behind you to take you in. It’s an unseasonably warm day, with temperatures already in the mid 70s before nine o’clock in the morning, and you’re dressed to match the weather. His gaze trails from your polished toes that peek out of your sandals and up the expanse of your legs before settling on the sun-kissed skin of your shoulders.

You’ve yet to notice his presence as you wave to a kid in the distance as all of the players start to take their positions on the field. “Good luck, Holly!”

He smirks, his eyes darting back and forth between you and the little girl with curly pigtails.

“Who’s Holly?”

You jump as if you had been electrocuted, your head snapping to look in his direction. He can’t see your eyes well because of your sunglasses, but he can clearly picture the look of surprise on your face.

“Jesus, Frank. What are you doing here?”

He snorts, coming to stand beside you, as he brushes off the fact that you called him Frank instead of Langdon. “My daughter is playing. What are you doing here?”

“My niece is playing.”

He looks back out to the field - your niece, Holly, you had called her - is standing right beside Penny. They’re wearing matching jerseys. Same team.

“Huh. I didn’t know that you have a niece.”

Now it’s your turn to snort. You cross your arms over your chest with a shrug. “We don’t exactly spend very much time talking about our personal lives, do we?” You glance around, seemingly looking for something - or someone. “Where’s Abby?”

“Oh,” Frank clears his throat, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants just so he has something to do with them. “It’s Abby’s week with the kids, but she let me take Penny for the day. She’s uh…she’s not here. She’s spending some quality time with Tanner today.”

You nod, your posture relaxing slightly. He isn’t sure if he’s just imagining things, but he can’t help but think you look a little relieved to hear that his ex wife isn’t here.

Not that he’d blame you for not wanting to see the ex wife of the man you’ve been casually fucking on a regular basis for months now. He definitely wouldn’t want that, either, and feels extremely relieved himself that Abby isn’t here to witness this interaction.

“That was very nice of her,” you say after a beat of silence with a small smile. “I’m sure Penny is happy that you’re here with her.”

Frank glances around now. You had been standing alone when he approached you, and you don’t seem to be here with anyone else. “So, is Holly your sister’s…or brother’s…kid?”

He mentally curses how fucking awkward he sounds. He knows what the most intimate parts of you taste like, knows what you sound like when you come for a third time in a row because of him, but he doesn’t know how to ask you a straight forward question about your personal life.

But he wants to. He shouldn’t, but he does. He wants to know if you have siblings, and how many, and if you have other nieces or possibly nephews. He wants to learn things about you because he asks and you answer or because you volunteer the information freely.

He wants to know what you do after a hard day at work, when you aren’t doing him after a hard day at work. He wants to know things because you want him to know things. Not just the shit that he observes at work (like how you take your coffee) or during the ten minutes that he lays in your bed after finishing inside you (like that you have a white noise machine that is basically always on).

“She’s my brother’s,” you answer, looking away from him to watch as Holly, Penny, and a few other girls all sprint after the soccer ball. For a second, he thinks you’re going to leave it at that, but then you continue. “He and Holly’s mom are going through a pretty nasty breakup. He only has Holly on weekends right now, and he works a lot, so…I’m just trying to help him out a little.”

“Ah,” Frank hums, surprised by the answer for more reasons than one. “Yeah, that’s tough. I know firsthand how…messy that kind of thing can get.”

“Yeah,” you agree with a sigh. “It sucks. But it’s probably for the best. They weren’t good together. I’m just hoping they can learn to co-parent for Holly’s sake.” You pause, eyes cutting back to him. “Seems like you and Abby do a pretty decent job with that.”

He has to refrain from laughing at that. He exhales slowly through his nose, gaze drifting back to the field. There’s a lot he could say in response to that - about lawyers and custody hearings and the same arguments that he doesn’t know if he and Abby will ever stop having - but if he starts then he might not stop, and he highly doubts you care to hear all of that. You’re here to watch your niece play soccer. Not listen to your fuck buddy trauma dump about his divorce.

“We try,” he settles on instead. “It’s still a work in progress, but we’re figuring it out.” Then, so you don’t feel pressured to respond in any particular way, he glances down at the lawn chair that he brought, still folded and tucked between his arm and side. “You uh - you want to sit? I brought a chair.”

He unfolds the chair, not giving you the opportunity to object as he takes a seat on the still slightly dewy grass right next to the chair.

The rest of the game continues with the two of you sitting side by side, watching the girls in an unfamiliar but not uncomfortable kind of companionship. He cheers for Holly, and you cheer for his daughter just as much.

You even introduce herself to her when Penny runs over to where Frank sits for a sip of water. As his coworker, of course. Because that’s what you are, even if the relationship title rubs him the wrong way for reasons he won’t let him think about for long enough to have to be honest with himself.

Still. It’s nice. Much different than how time with you is normally spent - working together to save someone from a pulmonary embolism, or naked between bedsheets - but this doesn’t feel wrong. It’s unexpected but pleasant, Frank thinks.

He tries not to think about how you feel about it, instead focusing on Penny chasing and kicking the soccer ball (sometimes in the wrong direction, but she’s four, so it’s cute).

When the final whistle blows, the swarm of four and five year olds erupts into excited shrieks. Penny and Holly spot the two of you at the same time and sprint over - Penny with her white tube socks stained green with grass and Holly with hair falling out of her pigtails.

Holly reaches you first, practically launching herself into your lap. “We won! We won! Did you see how far the ball went when I kicked it?”

“Of course I did,” you answer cheerfully. “You were amazing. I’m so proud of you. You did so great too, Penny.”

Before he has a chance to recover from the way the softness in your voice made his chest tighten, Penny starts jumping up and down, chanting daddy, daddy, daddy.

“Daddy, can Holly go with us to get ice cream?”

Oh. That’s right. He had promised his daughter ice cream after the game.

“Uh—” Frank hesitates, just for a second, glancing over at you. With your sunglasses now resting on the top of your head, he can see your wide, slightly panicked eyes. “We…we don’t know if Holly and her aunt already have plans, sweetie,” he says gently, not wanting to disappoint her but also giving you the out that he’s almost certain you’ll take.

But Holly is already looking up at you with pleading eyes. “Please, please, please can we go get ice cream?”

You let out a small laugh, eyes darting between Holly and Frank. He offers a small smile of his own, shrugging as if to say the ball’s in your court.

“Why not?” You sigh. “Sure. Ice cream sounds good to me.”

Frank might not show it in the same way that the girls do - with wild cheers and shrieks of laughter - but he’s just as pleased that you said yes.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

More and more often, you find yourself wishing that you met Frank Langdon when you were younger.

Not because you wish you met him before he got married or before he had children or before he fell into addiction. None of that deters you, actually.

Maybe it should. It probably should. But it doesn’t.

No, you wish you met him when you were still an optimist. When you still welcomed love with open arms and wore your heart on your sleeve and believed that everyone you met had as good of intentions as you do.

You wish you met him before your past tainted the mere idea of relationships and romance and trust.

You know it’s irrational. Things are the way that they are for a reason. If you had met him in med school, you probably would’ve thought he’s such a douche that you never would have even entertained the idea of kissing him.

But sometimes you still can’t help but wonder…

If you had met him at a different time, would there be more days like today? Early morning sunshine and soccer games and ice cream instead of late night booty calls that turn into mornings where you still wake up all alone, breathing in the scent he leaves behind on your pillow?

It’s fun to imagine that things could be different.

Then you remember the hurt and the heartbreak that comes with loving, and you shut those thoughts down. Back to sporadic, unplanned hook-ups and the illusion of control that they give you.

You suppose you can still allow yourself to sniff the scent of him that lingers after he leaves your bed, though.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

There’s a gradual shift in your and Frank’s dynamic over the weeks following Holly and Penny’s soccer game and the subsequent ice cream date that somehow ended in you and Frank sharing a chocolate soft serve.

It’s so subtle that at first, the changes don’t register as out of the ordinary.

You’re a little more reluctant to put your clothes back on and leave his place after sex. You stop ignoring each other at work, even exchanging jokes at the nurse’s station. He compliments you openly when you do something impressive with a case, not caring who might overhear the praise. When it’s his day off, you’ll randomly text him to tell him about something crazy that he missed at work. He starts opening up more - about his recovery, about his divorce, about his children. Not all at once. Just little pieces of his life bit by bit that you weren’t privy to before.

And you open up to him, too. Without realizing it. Without even meaning to.

It slips out by accident. You can’t even recall exactly what you’d been talking about at the time, but you tell him that he’s the first person you’ve slept with since your ex.

Your ex that you broke up with nearly two years ago.

He’d looked surprised when you revealed that. But he didn’t laugh, or say anything to tease you. He just turned to lie on his side, propped his head in his hand, looked down at you lying beside him, and asked you the same question that you’ve asked yourself on more than one question but have never answered.

“Why me, then? If you waited that long to…be with someone again. What made you kiss me in the parking garage that night?”

You stare up at him for a moment before answering, your fingers teasing his chest hair. “I’m not really sure,” you answer honestly. “Maybe I thought you were having as shitty of a day as I was, and that you looked like you needed someone as badly as I did. Maybe I thought it would be a good thing for both of us.” You pause. “Or maybe I just thought you looked like you’d be good in bed.”

He exhales a shaky laugh. One hand rests on your hip, fingers drawing lazy circles across your skin. It’s too dark to tell with only the moonlight from your open curtains illuminating the room, but if you had to guess, you would say that he’s blushing. It takes practically nothing to make him blush, a fact that you often take full advantage of because you think he looks pretty when he blushes.

“And were you right?”

“About which part?” You murmur, your hand stilling against his chest.

He gives a half shrug, hesitating just long enough for you to know exactly what he’s asking without him saying it. “The part about me being good in bed,” he says instead, with no trace of his normal humor in his voice.

“Frank.” You cup his face in your hand, swallowing down the answer to the question he won’t ask. “You know you are.”

It wasn’t a lie. He’s more than good. He’s the best you’ve ever had, and that’s exactly why you’re blind to the most damning way the lines begin to blur.

What started as stress relief, as a coping mechanism for a shit day, turned into something that started to feel less like an escape from reality and more like something that feels terrifyingly like love.

Just coworkers with benefits turned friends with benefits don’t stare into each other’s eyes during sex like they’re trying to see into each other’s souls. They don’t touch you, hold you, and kiss you like you’re their lifeline. Like you’re the air they need to breathe.

They definitely don’t call you baby when they’re telling you to come for them.

But then Frank goes and does just that.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Frank’s hips slam into yours, repeatedly hitting that sweet spot deep inside you that makes you croon his name against the sweat-slicked skin of his throat.

You weren’t supposed to come over tonight. He had come to your place last night, and the two of you have never hooked up two nights in a row before.

You’ve also never hooked up when his children are sleeping in their bedrooms just down the hallway.

But he called you, right as you were leaving the hospital, and told you that he wants to see you. That he misses you. He even said please in a low, sleepy voice that made heat bloom down your spine.

And you pictured him - skin flushed and dewy from his shower and dark gray sweats hanging low on his hips - and then next thing you knew, you were driving the route to his apartment that has become as familiar as the route to your own.

He noticed you were tired as soon as you walked in. Laid you down in his bed, undressed you, and kissed down your body until stopping between your thighs, where he spent even more time than he usually does - so much time, in fact, that your legs were shaking around his head when you pulled him up to you by the tops of his arms and all but begged him to fuck you.

And he did. Is.

Sounds of flesh on flesh and his bed frame creaking fill the room as your nails scrape down the skin of his back and his teeth dig into the meat of your shoulder, the familiar fiery coil in your core dangerously close to snapping again.

“Frank,” you breathe, voice unrecognizable. “Fuck, I’m close. I need - I’m gonna—”

He gently shushes your incoherent babbling, slanting his lips over yours with a sloppy, open mouth kiss that makes you cry into his mouth.

“I know,” he grunts low and breathless when he pulls away. Skilled, slender fingers find the swollen bundle between your folds, coaxing you to climax. “I can feel it. Squeezing me so fuckin’ tight. You’re so close, just let go for me, baby.”

The foreign pet name falls from his lips so effortlessly that it sends you over the edge - warms you from head to toe, white-hot pleasure coursing through you as he fucks you through your orgasm and his own.

Baby, baby, baby.

You barely register the fact that he pulls out and collapses beside you on his mattress, his thigh brushing against yours.

Every nerve in your body vibrates with the typical post-coital blend of oxytocin and serotonin but the bliss is background noise to the word he’d murmured so pretty against your skin.

It flashes in your mind like a neon sign. Baby.

Suddenly, everything leading up to this moment begins to play like a highlight reel.

The touches that linger for a split-second too long, the random texts throughout the day, the just because kisses that don’t necessarily lead to sex, your favorite vending machine snack randomly appearing on your desk at work when you’re having a hard day, how you know his go-to take-out order by heart, baby, baby, baby—

You bolt upright, cutting Frank off in the middle of a sentence that you hadn’t registered a single syllable of. You throw your legs over the side of the bed, reaching down to pick your underwear and scrubs up off the floor.

“Uh—” He lets out a soft, confused laugh. “You okay?”

You pull your shirt over your head, unable to bring yourself to look at him. “Yeah,” you say, your voice unnaturally high. “It’s just late. I’ve got work in the morning, so I should get going.”

“O…kay,” he draws the word out, obviously unconvinced. “You sure that’s all it is?”

You jump up, yanking your pants into place. “Yep. Just tired.”

He’s silent for a moment, as if trying to gauge the sudden shift in your demeanor. Then, he clears his throat. “I mean, if you’re tired, you can sleep here. Probably shouldn’t drive—”

“What the hell are we doing, Frank?”

He pushes himself up on one elbow, eyebrows knitting together. “What are we doing?” He repeats. “Same thing we’ve been doing for the last few months, I thought.”

You’re shaking your head before he can finish the sentence.

“It’s not the same. It’s not the same and you know it.”

He sits up straighter, blue eyes boring into you like he’s trying to read your mind. It feels like an eternity before he speaks again, and when he does, his voice is low and restrained. “Where is this coming from?”

You make a vague, exasperated gesture with your hands. “It’s coming from…all of it. You call two nights in a row and I come running. People at work are starting to talk because we barely even try to hide it. Your kids are sleeping right down the hall and you’re offering to let me spend the night—”

“Okay, okay,” he interrupts gently. He exhales slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. “Okay. You’re right,” he admits. “Things aren’t exactly the same. Haven’t been for a while now.” He pauses, the intensity of his stare keeping you glued to the spot where you stand next to his bed. “I just don’t see why that’s a bad thing.”

Your chest constricts at the way he doesn’t try to argue. Doesn’t get defensive, just wants to understand.

“Because it was never supposed to be…this.” Your gaze drops to the floor. “It was supposed to be casual. No strings attached. No feelings. But now?” You look back up to find him still staring at you, jaw clenched. You mentally will your voice to stay level, but emotion still slips through. “Cuddling all night then having breakfast with your children in the morning? Calling me baby like I’m yours? That’s not casual, Frank. That’s—”

He cuts you off with an incredulous laugh. “That’s what this is about?” He pushes the covers off of him, grabbing his underwear as he jumps out of bed to yank them on. “Me calling you baby?”

You’re silent as he walks over to you, stopping when his still bare chest is just inches from yours. He looks at you, unblinking, as he waits for you to answer.

You stare up at him, offering a small shrug. “Tell me it didn’t mean anything. Tell me it just slipped out and meant nothing and I’ll let this go.”

He lets out a breathy, humorless laugh and shakes his head. “I’m not going to lie so you can stay in your comfort zone,” he says, voice dangerously low. “It wasn’t just a slip. I called you baby because that’s what you are to me. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but at least be honest with yourself about why it upsets you.”

His words hit you square in the chest, knocking the air from your lungs and causing you to take a small, involuntary step back. “And why exactly do you think it upsets me?”

He leans in slightly, his eyes darkening. “Let me ask you this. Are you really that pissed off that I called you baby? Or are you upset that me calling you baby made you come harder than I’ve ever felt you come?”

You laugh at that. Cackle, really. Louder than you probably should at this hour when his children are sleeping with only walls in between you.

“Wow,” you exhale. “Okay.” You nod. “You’re a dick, and I am leaving.”

You don’t wait for a response before you’re grabbing your tennis shoes and bag off of his floor, not even bothering to put the shoes on your feet before storming out of the bedroom and making a beeline for the front door.

You’re aware of footsteps trailing after you, of Frank calling your name in a desperate whisper-shout, but you don’t stop. You aren’t thinking, you aren’t processing what just transpired, you just want to go back to your place, scream into a pillow, and hope that when you wake up in the morning, your heart is no longer doing gymnastics in your fucking ribcage.

“Please,” he breathes, his hand blanketing yours over the doorknob when you go to turn it. “Hear me out for just a second, okay?”

You don’t look up. His palm feels like wildfire against your skin and your brain is screaming at you to yank your hand away but you’re frozen in place.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he starts, voice a notch above a whisper. “If you want to leave, you can leave. But I can’t let you walk out of here thinking that this is still just sex to me. It was at first. I don’t know exactly when that changed for me, but it did. And I think it did for you, too.”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. All of the words that you know you should probably say pile up in your throat.

I can’t be what you want me to be. I don’t know how.

I’m scared of hurting you. I’m scared of getting hurt.

It’s easier for me to shut down than to admit how I really feel.

I don’t remember how to let someone in. I wish I could.

For you, I wish I could.

You swallow them all down.

But you don’t tell him he’s wrong, either.

“I’ll see you at work, Frank.”

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Though the cravings have yet to subside, Frank is now a month sober from the exact thing his therapist had warned him about in the earliest days of his recovery.

Unlike when he got clean from benzos, this specific brand of newfound sobriety isn’t his choice. It’s yours.

He would never choose this for himself.

But still, he has surprised himself. Hasn’t reached out, no matter how much he has wanted to. Hasn’t texted you, no matter how many drafts he’s typed and deleted. Hasn’t called, even though it has killed him inside to watch your name get lower and lower in his call history. He’s given you space at work and has only talked to you when it pertains directly to a case.

He’s hated every fucking second of it, but he can officially say that he is thirty days clean. If the past thirty days have taught him anything, though, it’s this: he’d happily fall back into old habits, if only you’d give him the chance.

Because it isn’t the sex that he misses most. The sex doesn’t even crack the top ten things he thinks about when he’s trying to fall asleep at night.

It’s the way you’d occasionally forget a hair clip or chapstick on his bedside table and he’d find little pieces of you when you weren’t around and smile. It’s the way he’d get a text from you when he least expected it. It’s the way you’d ask about his children, and make a point to celebrate his recovery milestones even when he didn’t.

And now he’s here, thirty days without you, and one thing has become abundantly clear to him: he didn’t fall back into addiction, he fell in love.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

The news comes on a random Tuesday.

Temple University Hospital. Philadelphia. An internal medicine based fellowship you had impulsively applied for the night after you slept with Frank for the last time.

You had already made peace with the fact you weren’t going to get it. Didn’t think you even stood a chance, really, and you were okay with that. You had already been offered a pediatrics fellowship here in Pittsburgh, anyway.

Then the email appears in your inbox on a random Tuesday morning while you’re at work.

Suddenly, you have what most doctors approaching the end of their residencies don’t have: options.

And because you can’t talk to the one person you most (selfishly) want to talk to about it all, you talk to Cassie, instead.

“Wait. Temple?” She exclaims. “As in Philadelphia? I didn’t even know you had applied! What happened to pediatrics here in Pittsburgh?”

You sigh, taking a seat on the concrete curb in the ambulance bay. “It was really last minute. I didn’t say anything because I really didn’t think I’d get it. And as for the peds fellowship…” You shrug. “I don’t know what I’ll do now.”

“Oh my god,” she laughs, sitting down beside you. “That’s amazing. Do you know how hard it is to get into that program? They’re crazy selective.”

You force a smile. “I know.”

Cassie’s smile falters into concern. “Why does it seem like you aren’t thrilled about this?”

“I am,” you answer way too quickly, hugging your knees. “I’m just…surprised, that’s all. It’s big news.”

She stares at you as if you’re a patient who’s lying to her about how much pain they’re in. “You sure that’s all?”

Before you can bullshit a response, the automatic doors to the hospital slide open, and the very reason that you find it impossible to jump for joy right now steps outside.

He’s saying something to an EMS worker, completely oblivious to you watching him from across the bay, but the mere sight of him makes your heartbeat stutter and palms go clammy.

“I’m sure,” you force out, your eyes still glued to Frank. “It’s just…”

“Just…?” Cassie prompts, then follows your gaze. A few seconds of heavy silence pass between you before the pieces click into place. “Oh.”

You nod slowly, your throat tightening. “Yeah. Oh.”

She clicks her tongue. “So that’s why you submitted a last minute application for a fellowship in Philly.”

You can’t deny it. Not when you know she’s right. Not when you’re staring right at him with every feeling you’ve been trying to bury since the very first time you kissed him bubbling to the surface.

“I really fucked things up, Cass.”

You finally look away from him, your eyes burning with the threat of all of the unshed tears that you’ve refused to let spill for the last month.

“Between you and Langdon?” She asks gently.

You let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. I completely shut down the second things started to get real. He told me how he felt and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I feel the same. I just ran like I always do and…”

“And now you’re thinking about running to Philadelphia.”

Again, you can’t even deny it. Not in any way that would be halfway convincing.

“Temple would be a great opportunity,” you mumble instead, looking down at your shoe.

Cassie purses her lips. “It would be,” she agrees. “But moving five hours away isn’t going to magically erase your feelings. You have great opportunities here, too. And I don’t just mean peds.”

She nods in Frank’s direction. You glance back over to where he still stands chatting with the EMS worker. At the same moment, he looks up and his blue eyes meet yours.

You exhale, hoping that he doesn’t have a hidden talent for reading lips. “I don’t know if he even wants to talk to me at this point.”

She snorts. “Please. If the way he’s been moping around like a dejected puppy for the last month means anything, then you have nothing to worry about.” She pauses. “Look, if you really want to go to Philly, then I’ll help you pack. But if you’re gonna go, go for the right reasons. Not because facing your feelings scares you more than the thought of moving three hundred miles away.”

You hate that she’s right. But not as much as you hate the fact that you know she’s right, and still might take the easy way out, anyway.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

What hurts Frank more than anything is that he doesn’t hear the news directly from you.

He isn’t supposed to hear it at all, actually. He only finds out because he happens to be standing a few feet away at the nurse’s station, and Victoria’s voice carries.

“I heard about your fellowship offer from Temple,” Victoria practically sings. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you. Internal medicine, right?”

Frank doesn’t even look up from his tablet at first. He isn’t sure who Victoria is talking to, but he has no reason to believe it’s you. You didn’t apply to any fellowships in internal medicine. You’ve always been interested in going into emergency pediatrics—

“Oh—” Your nervous laugh causes Frank’s eyes to shoot up. Your back is to him, so he can’t see your facial expression. “Yeah, thanks,” you tell Victoria, your voice an octave higher than it typically is.

He doesn’t register the rest of the conversation because of a shrill ringing in his ears that makes him bolt to the restroom.

It’s been one month since his last legitimate conversation with you, and now you’re moving to Philadelphia? For a fellowship in internal medicine, which you’ve never expressed interest in during all the years you’ve worked together or months you slept together?

And you didn’t even tell him yourself. He heard it from Victoria talking so loudly that patients in fucking triage probably heard the news.

Not that you owe him anything. Of course you don’t have to run your life decisions by him. He was just blindsided is all.

Blindsided, and more devastated than he probably has any right to be.

He wishes he could be as happy for you as Victoria is. But no matter how much Frank works on himself, no matter how much time he spends in therapy or how many self-help books he reads, he’s always been a selfish man when he’s in love.

But you aren’t his to be selfish over. He knows this. He’s painfully aware of it every time he sees you at work and every time he feels your absence when he’s alone at night.

So when he sees you walking to your car in the parking garage after work that night, he tries to do the right thing even though it feels wrong.

“So, Philly?”

You come to a halt beside your car, slowly turning around to face him. You purse your lips in the way that Frank knows that you normally do when you’re nervous, adjusting your bag over your shoulder.

“You heard about that, huh?”

Frank stops a couple feet away from you, one hand on the strap of his backpack and one crammed in his pants pocket. “Yeah, Javadi doesn’t exactly whisper.”

“Ah,” you breathe. Then, with a small laugh, “No, I suppose she doesn’t.”

An awkward beat of silence passes between you as it dawns on Frank that this is damn near exactly where he stood months ago when you first kissed him. The realization makes his gaze flash to your lips.

God, what the hell is he doing?

He clears his throat and starts to take a step back. “Well, I just wanted to say congratulations. Temple will be really lucky to have you—”

“I haven’t decided anything yet,” you interject quickly, the words nearly running together. “I just found out yesterday so I…I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet.”

Frank hopes that his face doesn’t show the sudden relief he feels to hear of your indecision.

“But I’m sorry you found out that way,” you add in a smaller voice, not meeting his eye. “I was going to tell you, once I made a decision.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says softly. “You don’t owe me anything. I just want you to be happy. Even if it’s not here.” He pauses and adds the words that taste like bile when they leave his mouth. “Even if it’s not with me.”

But goddamn, do I wish it was, he thinks.

A storm of different emotions flicker across your face in the span of about two seconds. For one of them, Frank thinks you might step toward him.

But it’s just wishful thinking, or maybe the shitty parking garage lighting.

“Thank you, Frank.”

Anything else he could possibly say would be solely for his own benefit, so he nods.

And he doesn’t want to risk ruining the moment, knowing there’s a chance that he may not have many more with you.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

The words on the screens in front of you bleed together.

The email you received yesterday morning from Temple University Hospital is open on your laptop screen. The iPad in your hands displays UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s website.

You’ve scanned and scrolled as if the answer you’re searching for will appear in bold letters across one of the screens, but since you got home from work a few hours ago, the only decision you’ve succeeded in making is chamomile over peppermint tea.

You thought taking a hot shower might help you clear your mind. All that resulted in was remembering all of the times that you ended up at Frank’s or he ended up at yours after work and you’d shower together, washing off the long day with your hands and lips on each other the entire time.

After cutting your shower short, you figured eating something other than a protein bar would help you gain at least a little mental clarity - but then you opened your fridge to see leftover takeout from the Italian place down the road that you know Frank likes, and completely lost your appetite.

The following hours weren’t much different.

Put on body lotion - remembered how much Frank loved the smell of it. Turned on music - the first fucking song that played on shuffle was by an artist that Frank introduced you to. Searched through a pile of laundry for a cardigan - found a t-shirt Frank accidentally left at your place over a month ago that you can’t bring yourself to give back to him.

He’s still everywhere. It’s been a month and he’s still occupying spaces that he hasn’t been in weeks. In your apartment and in your brain and in your heart.

And to top it all off, the words that he had said to you in the parking garage tonight won’t stop replaying in your head.

I just want you to be happy. Even if it’s not here. Even if it’s not with me.

But what if it is? What if it is here? What if it is with him?

You sigh, rubbing your eyes, but it does little to improve the quality of the words on the screens in front of you. Maybe, if you put on your reading glasses, everything will become clear to—

Your hand freezes on a piece of paper in your bedside table drawer as you’re searching for your glasses.

A bright blue, wrinkled sticky note. You don’t even have to flip it over to remember what it says but you do, anyway.

Stop overthinking. You made the right call. You always do.

Also, stop scowling.

Frank’s handwriting. He’d scribbled the words, crumpled the paper up, and flicked it at you across your desks while charting after a particularly brutal trauma that he knew you were beating yourself up over.

It had been the first thing to make you smile that whole day. It was a reminder that you desperately needed at that moment. And it was from Frank. Of course you kept it.

And now here it is. At the exact moment you so desperately need that reminder once again.

Stop overthinking.

So that’s exactly what you do. You stop overthinking, and do what you should have done a long time ago.

He’s probably already asleep, but you put on your shoes.

There’s a voice in the back of your mind telling you that you’re probably too late, but you grab your car keys and make the short drive to his place.

And there’s a tight ball of anxiety in the pit of your stomach that begs you to turn around, but you raise your hand and knock on his front door.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Frank is convinced that he must be dreaming.

He didn’t actually hear a knock and open his front door to you standing outside at midnight.

There’s no way this isn’t his subconscious playing some cruel joke on him. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve appeared in his dreams, but it is by far the most realistic he’s had. He can feel the chill of the night wind as it blows the familiar scent of your body lotion in his direction and it is all so, so lifelike.

It doesn’t register that he is very much awake and you are very much here until you speak.

“Shit.”

It’s the first word out of your mouth.

“I’m sorry,” you huff. “Are the kids here right now? I hope I didn’t wake them up. I didn’t really think this through. I just got in my car and drove here before I could chicken out because I’m tired of chickening out and—”

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, stepping over the threshold of his doorway. He almost reaches out and touches you, but stops himself at the last second.

You’re here. You’re actually fucking here right now. It’s the middle of the night and you’re in your pajamas and slippers and he has no idea what you’re talking about, but you’re here.

“What’s going on?” He asks gently, unable to keep obvious concern from his tone. “It’s…after midnight. Is everything okay?”

You nod. “Everything is fine. I’m sorry to freak you out. I just…I told you that I was going to tell you whenever I came to a decision.”

Frank stares at you, his mouth slightly agape. You did say that…approximately five hours ago.

The shock and the hope he had initially felt upon realizing that you’re standing on his front porch is quickly replaced with dread at what you might say next.

He swallows, his voice rough. “So…you made a decision, then? About Philadelphia?”

Another nod, followed by a smile that he can’t quite read. “Philly sounds great. I mean…the Eagles, the Liberty Bell…cheesesteaks.” Your shoulders lift in a small shrug. “And the internal medicine program at Temple would be a really great opportunity.”

Frank drops your gaze, bracing for what surely comes next.

“But Philadelphia does not have the guy that I love.”

His eyes shoot back up. You’re staring at him, eyes wide and closer to tears than he thinks he’s ever seen from you. Before he can speak, you take a step closer and he forgets how to breathe.

“It doesn’t have you.”

Frank knows it defies all science and logic, but he swears the entire city freezes around you two right then and there.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt before his brain has a chance to catch up. “Frank, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have walked out on you like I did. I shouldn’t have shut you out, I shouldn’t have taken this long to get my head out of my ass—”

“Hey—” he tries gently, but you’re on a roll now.

“—and I should have told you that you were right. It wasn’t just sex to me, either. I don’t think it ever really was. And I get it if I’m too late. I get it if you can’t give me another chance. But I’m not going anywhere, I’m done running away from what I feel, and if I have to prove every day that I love—”

That’s it. He won’t listen to another word.

Not that he doesn’t love the sound of them coming from your lips because goddamn, he does. Every word, every apology, every promise you’re willing to give, Frank will take.

But he can’t just stand here and watch the way your hands are starting to shake and listen to your voice begin to tremble when every part of him that has missed you for the last month screams at him to pull you close, so that’s exactly what he does.

It only takes a fraction of a second for you to process that his lips are moving against yours.

Your hands fly to his hair, his own dropping from your face to your waist to pull you flush against him. You gasp into his mouth, a pretty noise that Frank is happy to swallow down. It takes no time at all for the kiss to turn fervent, a clash of tongue and teeth that makes him grateful that it’s the dead of night and all of his neighbors are asleep.

“—you,” you finish when you reluctantly break apart, your breath warm against his lips. “I love you.”

The three words are everything he’s been waiting to hear since the first night you kissed him. He just didn’t know it at the time.

“I love you, too, baby,” he murmurs low. A smirk forms on his kiss-swollen lips. “It is okay that I call you that now, right?”

You let out a sound that is half laugh, half sob at the words. You grab his face in your hands and pull him down again for one more kiss, this one shorter but just as sweet.

“Please,” you sigh, smiling up at him. “Because you weren’t wrong about the effect it has on me.”

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆