For shits and giggles!

The man’s wet, ocean eyes flit between your face and the food in your lap. A rogue brown curl fell over his forehead as he nodded down towards you. “What’s, uh… What’s that?”

“My mortal enemy,” you answered gravelly, before turning away. “It’s a Pear Mille-Feuille… I thought maybe I could finally get it right before we closed…”

Carmy blinked owlishly at your profile. “…Well, did you?”

“Nope…” you answered through a heavy sigh, popping your lips together. “The pastry’s too soft. But somehow the pears are still overdone, so… I can’t win.”

Carmy looked it over with an inquisitive eye — the thin gold layers of puff pastry, all stacked neatly atop one another; pears poached to the perfect amber color; thick cream piped with a near impossible precision. It looked like something straight out of a magazine. And, if Carmy had to guess by how hard you were on yourself about the whole thing, it’s entirely likely you’d been published in one before.

“Well, it looks good, at least.”

“That’s only ‘cause you’re standing six feet away.”

Carmy scoffed a quiet laugh and found his breath coming more easily to him. “Here,” he offered, shoes scraping the worn pavement as he approached you. “Let me try it.”

Your head snapped in his direction. Your wide eyes raised to follow his form as he loomed suddenly over you, black blazer rippling in the cool, late-summer breeze. The night air filled suddenly with the scent of him — deep cologne, cigarette smoke, and nicotine gum.

“Wh…What?” you stammered.

“Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective, is all. Like, uh… A new pallet, you know?”

Carmy reached a tattooed hand in your direction, leaving little room for argument. You got the feeling that he must run a restaurant of his own as you passed him the ceramic plate, fingers trembling. You watched anxiously as he took the fork in his large hand and cut himself a slice of the pastry.

He shoveled it into his mouth — an explosion of butter, vanilla, pear, and caramel — the near-perfect balance of elegant and comforting. Just refined enough not to impose too much on itself. 

His cheek jut softly out as he chewed. He nodded to himself until the words caught up to him. “Yeah, this is… incredible, Chef,” he said through the mouthful, laughing slightly through his nose. The sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

You didn’t believe him, not entirely, but the line in your taut shoulders relaxed slightly at his praise anyway. Sometimes, feeding others felt like a leap of faith. Sometimes, feeding someone felt like handing over a piece of yourself to them, and hoping they found something worth keeping.

—

Months later, Carmy realizes that there are only two kinds of things a person holds onto in this world — things they can’t bear to lose, and things they never meant to keep.

Mikey belongs perpetually in the first category. And, ever since you started working here, he’s begun to realize that you belong in the second. Maybe that’s why he felt himself on the verge of a panic attack for the third time today, ‘cause he was spending his evening excavating his brother’s office like an archeological dig, and found himself surrounded by both at once.

This office had belonged to Mikey, and would be the last thing that ever truly did.

Carmy thinks, knows, that’s why he put off cleaning it out for so long — like keeping it exactly the way his brother left it would preserve his ghost there in some way. This place was practically his tomb, made of four concrete walls faded to the color of old dishwater, an ancient desk so cluttered you can barely see its surface, and a bunch of dented filing cabinets that haven’t been organized in at least three presidential administrations.

They’re all half empty now, organized in boxes with Mikey’s frantic scrawl left on every crumpled receipt, invoice, and payroll record. Soon this office would match the rest of the place — clean, sleek, erased — and what’s left of his brother would be gone.

Carmy slouches against the cool brick with his arms propped on his bent knees, holding the last of Mikey’s things in a tattooed hand. A prescription pill bottle with the label scratched off, which he found while grave-digging through the cabinet drawers. He clutches it tight in his fist, holding the remnants of addiction as if it were his brother’s hand.

The grey, mildew-and-coffee-scented abyss of his grief is abated only by the sound of your laughter, which bounces off the concrete walls and finds him like the rays of milky-orange sunlight filtering through the stained window above his head, which turns his wild curls a more golden shade of brown.

His heavy ocean eyes lift and find you instantly — the way they always seemed to do — and his features flood with horror when he finds you with his sketchbook in your hands.

“What’s all this?” you wonder with a quiet laugh, beneath the subtle thwipping of the pages as you flick through them with your thumb.

Inside are random lists, phone numbers, and mock-ups for the restaurant, all in Carmy’s scrawled handwriting. Then you stumble upon a series of sloppy portraits — some of them of the others in the kitchen; most of them of you, like he was trying to capture you just right.

They feel like memories in some way, moments stolen when no one else was looking. They’re slightly messy, as if drawn by a loose and absentminded hand. It’s quite strange, looking at yourself from another person’s perspective. But even still, you don’t think you’ve ever looked so pretty, so alive, than on these pages of smudged ink.

“I didn’t know you could draw.”

Carmy shrugs lazily with his pink mouth softly jutted, feigning an air of indifference despite the red tint speckling across his cheeks.

“I can’t,” he mumbles through a huff as he stands to full height again, bracing himself on the cleared-out desk beside him. He tucks the pill bottle into the front pocket of his slacks and clears his throat when he feels his pulse skipping there. “N-Not really.”

“Well, I beg to differ,” you scoff and turn another page.

Another scribbled portrait of you sits in the center, drawn in blue ink this time. You’ve got the eraser end of a pencil in your mouth and another sitting behind your ear, concentrating on coming up with a new dessert menu. You were captured quite beautifully, even in your subtle frustration. “I didn’t think I was capable of looking this good until now.”

“You look good all the time,” he dismisses quietly, curls swaying when he shakes his head at you.

He grimaces at himself right after the words spill from his lips, face flaring hotter when the expression on your face shifts slightly in response to them. He lacks the courage to meet your eyes as he looms before you, smelling of stale cologne and sweat from days of renovation.

“What do you, uh— What do you usually draw?” you stammer and pass the sketchbook back to him.

“I don’t know…” Carmy mutters. “Whatever’s, you know, on my mind, I guess—”

Your heart lurches in your chest, both at his words and at the office door slamming suddenly open across the room. Your heads snap to the side in tandem to find Richie towering in the narrow doorway. “Cousin, I swear to god, I’m about to fuckin’ lose it, man—”

“You’re so dramatic, Richie, jeez…” Sydney sighs as she walks past him and further into the newly renovated kitchen, to busy herself with actual work.

Carmy hangs his head and closes his eyes, digging his thumb and forefinger into the sockets in a quiet frustration. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come to me with any problems while I was in here—”

“I know that,” Richie shrugs. “It’s not a problem.

“—I don’t have time for this shit right now, Rich.”

“Well, it’s not a fuckin’ problem, Carm! What do you want me to say?” the older man repeats, louder now.

“It’s literally a problem,” Syd monotones from somewhere further inside the kitchen.

“Well, Ms. Know-It-All over here wants less tables in the dining room— says it’ll fuckin’… make it more systematic or whatever, I don’t know,” Richie rambles, gesturing wildly with his hands. “But I told her we’re opening a restaurant here. Not a library. More seats means more customers, which means more money— Which we’re slowly running out of, might I add!”

He turns over his shoulder to yell into the kitchen. You wince when his voice bounces off the bare concrete walls.

“Yeah, Syd’s right,” Carmy nods.

“Thank you!” the girl calls distantly.

Richie blinks slowly in offense. “…What?”

“Syd’s right—”

“No, I heard you—”

“Then why’d you say what—?”

“‘Cause you’re fucking with me,” Richie scoffs an emotionless, half-delirious laugh.

“I’m trying to be efficient here, Rich—”

“You’re all fucking with me—”

“We can turn over tables quicker if there’s less of them,” Carmy explains, much more calmly in response, though there’s a sudden bite behind his words that you don’t miss. He keeps one hand propped on his waist while his other gestures with the sketchbook between his fingers. “Which means more customers, which means more money, which… we are running out of…”

Richie laughs like it’s funny. “Well, that’s real funny, Carm, ‘cause I bet if I brought Claire-Bear in here, and she agreed with me — which she would, by the way — you’d change your mind like that—”

Carmy flinches when the man lifts his hand to snap in his face. He swats him away with a little more aggression than probably necessary. “Get your hand out of my face— What are you twelve?”

“Yeah, you’re mad ‘cause you know I’m right.”

Your head tilts to the side like an intrigued puppy at the foreign name, which you haven’t yet become acquainted with in your weeks working here. Your wide eyes dart between the two men in front of you. Your smile trembles slightly at the edges.

“Who’s… Who’s Claire-Bear?”

Carmy’s head snaps in your direction. His mouth parts, but nothing comes out for an embarrassing fraction of a second, as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. Bringing her up in front of you feels wrong in a way he can’t explain.

“She’s uh… She’s— She’s no one,” Carmy stammers.

“Oh, please,” Richie scoffs, dark blue eyes flitting in your direction. “She’s his girlfriend.”

Your stomach sinks, even despite Carmy’s arguing.

“For the last time, she’s not my fucking girlfriend. Richie—”

“Well, not for lack of tryin’, cousin—”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Carmy repeats, this time only to you. There’s a solemn look in his light eyes, like he’s trying to make sure you really hear him. “She’s, you know, an old friend. A family friend. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Richie laughs. “I bet Claire-Bear would love to hear that.”

“Fuck off, Richie,” Carmy spits.

“Oh, there you are.” A softer, deeper, more foreign voice breaks through the boyish bickering in an instant. Luca appears in the doorway behind Richie — golden locks pushed over his forehead, physically built beneath his white undershirt, looking a lot less plagued by the chaos of the kitchen than the rest of them. His pink lips quirk into a smile at the sight of you. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you— I need an expert opinion on this lemon-blueberry trifle I’m trying out.”

“Yeah, put this girl out of her misery. Please,” Richie scoffs drily, then turns back to you with a warm, sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “I apologize for my cousin, Sunshine. I did warn you he could be a bit of an asshole—”

“Richie.”

“It’s… okay,” you murmur with a sheepish laugh, before glancing over at Carmy beneath your lashes in a sheepish look. “Are you… okay in here?”

Carmy’s expression shifts slightly, like he’s about to say the exact opposite of what he really means. He feels his chest stinging with a pinch of misplaced jealousy — because he knows you spent time in Copenhagen with Luca some years back, and the idea of someone knowing parts of you that he doesn’t feels a little like a punch to the stomach.

“Yeah,” he nods anyway, slightly strangled, like his body’s trying to keep him from saying the words. “Yeah, I got the rest of it. Go ahead.”

You flash the boy a smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes as you go. Carmy watches you trail behind Luca out of the office and back towards the dessert station. Richie watches Carmy watch you.

“So about the tables—”

“Enough about the fucking tables, Richie!”

II. ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY.

There were only two times in your entire life that you swore you’d never bake again: first, when you got your first scathing review that sent you on a downward spiral for longer than you’d like to admit, and second, when Ever closed down for good.

There was still joy in it, somewhere deep down, you just couldn’t find it anymore. Honestly, you had trouble finding it most days in most anything. Which is probably why Luca told you to give The Bear a shot in the first place.

“I’ll tell him you’re stopping by, alright?” he’d told you over the phone that evening. “Just talk to Carmy. See the place out. And if you hate it, I will personally fly myself across the Atlantic so you can say ‘I told you so’ to my face.”

“That sounds very expensive, Lu.”

“Well, it’d be worth every penny.”

So there you were, weaving through a restaurant that seemed more abandoned than not — as though someone had taken a perfectly good kitchen and detonated a small explosive in the center of it. Walls had been torn down. Floors were covered in sawdust. Extension cords snaked across the room like vines. The smell of drywall and fresh paint grew stronger the further you went.

For a moment, you worried that no one was inside waiting for you, and that you had accidentally committed a breaking and entering — until you spotted a curly-haired stranger hunched over a metal counter in the not-quite kitchen, scribbling at a notepad with his pen.

He glanced up at the sound of your footsteps, dark curls hanging over his eyes. A mixture of surprise and confusion flashed in his gaze, brows raising and lowering again.

You lifted a hand in an awkward wave. “Hi…”

“Hey…”

“I’m sorry. I let myself in— I… I tried to knock, but I guess you couldn’t… hear me…” You trailed off with a wavering smile, scratching anxiously at the back of your neck. “Uh, Luca was supposed to call you, I think...”

Realization flooded the sharp edges of Carmy’s face.

“Oh. Right,” he nodded. “Yeah, for the, uh...”

“Yeah…”

Carmy swallowed hard, tapping his pen along his palm, no more anxious than you are now. “Well, uh, I— I hope he warned you that we don’t have much of a kitchen yet...”

“Yeah…” you answered with a breathless laugh, eyes wandering across the spray-painted tarps hanging as makeshift walls as you strolled further inside. “I just… I thought he was exaggerating a little bit.”

A short laugh escaped him then as he rounded the counter in front of him. “Yeah, this is— basically a construction zone more than a kitchen at this point, so… Sorry in advance.”

“Well, if we’re sharing apologies, I’m sorry for not bringing a résumé,” you confessed sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s gaze when he stood before you. The scent of paint and sawdust clung heavily to his navy sweatshirt. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me working here.”

“C’mon. I know your résumé,” Carmy scoffed. “I’ve actually eaten your food before, remember?”

“The desert I was crying over at Ever, you mean?”

His lip twitched into a soft smile before he turned away, too shy to say this to your face:“Well, in my opinion, something that perfect is worth crying over.”

You grinned at the back of him, wider than you realized. “You’re still sparing my feelings after all this time…”

Carmy planted himself on the right wing end of the soon-to-be kitchen and turned to face you again. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but… This is gonna be our dessert station. Hopefully. If this entire place doesn’t cave in—”

‘Ours,’ he said, as if it were already yours in some way, too.

“—That’s a joke. Sorta,” he said, scratching at the back of his wild curls. He glanced up at you once more. “Have you tried making it again since we met?” he wondered suddenly. “You know that… pear… mill-fill thing?”

A giggle sputtered from your lips before you could stop it. Your hand flew to your mouth, as if you were trying to put it inside.

Carmy grinned shyly at having earned the pretty sound, despite his mild embarrassment. He fidgeted with the pen in his tattooed hands and gave you a sheepish look in response. “Help me out here…”

“It’s French,” you told him. “It’s mee-fwee.”

His brows lowered with a visible hesitation. “Mee… foy…”

“Close enough,” you laughed with a shake of your head. “And, to answer your question, no. I haven’t made it again. And I probably never will— I’m too fragile for another defeat.”

The grin that tugged at the corner of Carmy’s mouth then was brief, but no less genuine. “You will,” he said, like some kind of an oath, with so much conviction you couldn’t help but believe him.

—

“You seem happier here.”

Luca’s observation comes suddenly. His English-deep voice cuts through the soft quiet of the empty restaurant, renovated to near completion now. The two of you lie supine on the cool hardwood, the tops of your heads nearly brushing, as you put together Carmy’s newest splurge — which his uncle called “expensive, ergonomic, fuckin’ hippie tables.” You screw each bolt in by hand. You can feel your fingers threatening to cramp around the screwdriver clutched between them.

“Happier than Copenhagen, I mean,” he continues.

You scoff. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure any version of me is happier than I was in Copenhagen…”

“Oh, c’mon…” Luca lilts lowly. “I wasn’t that bad company, was I?”

“You know it wasn’t about you…” you mumble.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know…”

It was the fault of that goddamn critic, and the devastating review he left that seemed to compliment everything but your work alone.“The pear mille-feuille reads less like a dessert and more like a young chef begging for validation,” the publication read. “For all its technical accomplishment, the pastry never once feels human. It is difficult to imagine, dear reader, a pastry with so much insecurity baked into each of its layers.”

Your world seemed to shrink after that. The singular paragraph of disapproval lodged itself somewhere deep within your psyche, along with all the cynicism and sorrow that built a home inside you, too. Every other failed recipe somehow led back to it, and every success thereafter felt purely accidental — until, eventually, baking stopped being fun and started being the one thing most capable of hurting you.

It hollowed you from the inside out. You worked the kitchen like a ghost returning to its haunt. You wanted to quit, in virtually every sense of the word, and it was Chef Andrea who convinced you to stay — by sending you four thousand miles away to Copenhagen, that is, to remember a world without critics and service and non-stop perfection; to remember what it felt like to exist without constantly needing to prove yourself.

It was there that you met Luca, who taught you what it meant to approach food with curiosity again. And it was here now, in the bones of The Bear, that reminded you how to love the work again — the simple joy of making something with your bare hands and sharing it with the people who mattered most.

“I’m just glad you didn’t stop cooking…” Luca continues with a quiet grunt in the back of his throat as he slides out from under the table. “And I’m glad Chef Andrea sent you over to my neck of the woods.”

“Let me?” you scoff, tilting your head back against the floor to look at the boy upside down. “She practically forced me on that plane.”

“Best thing she ever did,” the boy croons with an air of sarcasm to mask his sincerity. He rises to full height and dusts his palms off on his slacks. “I’m headed out for the night… Need a ride?”

“I think I’m gonna stay here for a while…” you sigh.

“Suit yourself,” he huffs and walks away. “Just don’t overdo it.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will be very upset with you,” he deadpans with faux-solemnity.

“Oh, the horror!” you call to his disappearing figure, right before the door shuts behind him.

Silence returns when he’s gone. Your chest deflates with a heavy sigh, a held breath you didn’t know you were keeping, as you return to your work — twisting the screwdriver in your fist and reveling in the burn in your wrist, the only thing keeping you from thinking.

About that critic. About Copenhagen. About Carmy’s sketchbook, about Carmy and the girl called Claire-Bear.

You rise onto your elbows with a huff when you’re done, stretching out the aching tendons in your neck. You vaguely hear the kitchen door swishing open and shut again before a sudden voice calls out. “Oh, hey—”

The sound of Carmy’s voice startles you for a reason you can’t name. You sit further up on instinct and slam your head against the table with a whack that jostles one of the screws.

“Ow...” you whimper.

“Shit—” Carmy rushes to your side, catching the wooden top when it wavers. His long, tattooed fingers curl around the edge of it to keep its weight from falling back on you. He ducks his head to look at you, features twisting with a sympathetic grimace as you rub at your aching forehead. “Sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you…”

“You didn’t scare me…” you assure him weakly.

His mouth lifts into an amused half-smile. “No?”

You shrug, lips jutted in feigned apathy despite the newfound pounding in your skull. “Not even a little bit...”

Carmy’s grin widens, but he makes no further argument. He just crouches down in front of you and keeps the tabletop steady while you lie back to realign its leg. You spend the next minute or so screwing the loose bolts back into the blanched oak, hands going clammy around the screwdriver at the proximity between you now. The air grows considerably warmer accordingly, filled with the familiar scent of him — of cologne, garlic, and cigarette smoke. You have to keep reminding yourself to breathe.

“You, uh— You never told me,” Carmy starts suddenly, as if he’d been sitting on the words for some time and only now got the courage to say them. He swipes at his nose with the back of his free hand and mumbles shyly behind his fingers.“About, you know, why you almost didn’t come here… Why you went to Copenhagen...”

Your breath hitches faintly in throat. You hope he doesn’t notice. The screw twisting itself back into the pale wood above you becomes the most interesting thing in the room. “It never came up…” you answer quietly. “It was stupid anyway…”

“No, what the asshole critic said was stupid.”

You turn your head against the floor to flash him a playful look, hiding behind the veil of your sarcasm. “There you go again…”

“There I go again?” he echoes.

“Sparing my feelings.”

“No, I— I’m serious.” Carmy stammers with a breathless laugh. “And I know I’m right because I’ve had your stuff before.”

“Yeah,” you scoff and turn away again. “That stupid fucking pear dish that I still can’t get right.”

“No, it was, uh…” Carmy trails off and shakes his head, going distant with recollection. He rests the elbow of his free arm on his bent knee and drops his wild head into his palm. He digs his thumb and forefinger into his eyes as he struggles to recall the name. “It was, uh… It was the— the Bordeaux, I think?”

He lifts his head to glance down at you once more. Your arms fall to your lap, eyes narrowing in confusion as your lip twitches into a shock half-smile. “The Canalé de Bordeaux?” you repeat with much more ease.

“Yeah,” Carmy nods, brown curls swaying. “It was right before I took over here— when I was, you know, eating everywhere I could, trying to learn as much as I could, and I…” His mouth lifts into a distant smile; his eyes glaze over at the memory. “I didn’t even place it until you made it for the kitchen the other day… Don’t think I would’ve noticed otherwise…”

“That was… God, that was forever ago,” you say with a laugh of disbelief, rising back up onto your eblows. “I’m surprised you remember it now.”

“I remember everything,” Carmy shrugs.

“That sounds… terrifying,” you scoff.

“It is. Sometimes,” he jokes with a breathy chuckle. “But, I don’t know… Now I’m starting to think it’s not so bad…”

His light eyes lock with yours. You lose your breath almost instantly, chest aching as your lungs struggle to find it again. You feel like the distance between you has vanished in a blink; each of your breaths feels like inhaling him in some way. You feel like you can taste him, almost, and your mouth waters at the thought alone, parting for his on instinct.

With your heavy eyes settled on his glassy ones, you catch the soft blue of his irises flick down to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You want so desperately for him to kiss you. And you hate how badly you need it.

“I-I don’t think this is a good idea,” you hear yourself blurt.

Carmy’s brows lower in confusion as you scramble suddenly out from under the table. You rise to full height on shaky legs and place several feet of distance between the two of you, crossing your arms over your chest in a feeble attempt to soothe your racing heart.

Carmy rises slowly from his crouched position, blinking the lingering haze from his eyes. “Wha… What are you talking about?” he stammers with his hands splayed in front of him, approaching you again the way someone would a stray puppy.

“Because of, you know… Because of… Claire.” You whisper the name like it’s a curse of some kind.

The confusion etched on his features only deepens further. “Claire?” he echoes, face screwed. “Wh—What does Claire have to do with this? Claire is— Claire is nobody—”

“Does she know that?” you press, brows raised.

“Yes!” he answers without missing a beat. “Because nothing ever happened between us! Because nothing will ever happen between us! Because I— I’m not into her that way!”

“That… way?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, tattooed biceps straining against the sleeves of his undershirt as he rests his hands on his hips. “You know, the— The way I’m into…”

He trails off when he catches himself. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. His unwavering stare bores into yours as he weighs the words in his head, wondering briefly if he should say them aloud. His wild curls sway as he shakes his head to himself. “You know what. Fuck it. The way I’m— The way I’m into you.”

Your chest warms at his words. So furiously, it feels someone has taken a white-hot blade and pierced your sternum with it. You can feel the heart flaring in your face, too, as your mouth curls into a wide, slightly apprehensive smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Carmy nods firmly, though something in his gaze seems distantly surprised by his own forwardness. He scratches at the back of his curls and looks down at the table just beside you. “Are you, uh— Are we you good here?”

You nod rapidly until the words to speak catch up to you. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” he hums. “Do you… Do you need a ride, or…?”

You hesitate on instinct, nose scrunching sheepishly. “If it’s not too far out of your way…”

Carmy scoffs like it’s funny. “You’re never too far out of my way,” he says and turns on the heel of his sneaker to walk away, as if he hadn’t just taken all the breath from your lungs right with him.

III. ALMOND PRALINE.

Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

You pressed your back hard into the rough brick behind you, letting it snag against your chef whites in a feeble attempt to ground yourself. You tipped your head back for further assistance, and fought every instinct that told you to beat your skull against the concrete as your heart thrummed wildly in your throat — as though it were trying to burst through the delicate tendon there altogether.

Adrenaline soared through your veins. The starry night air refused to pierce through your burning skin, face burning red-hot while your fingers turned to ice.

You had survived a million dinner services much harder than this one, The Bear’s very first. You had survived Carmy’s anger, Richie’s shouting, and the entire kitchen learning how to operate itself. But it was the food critic that nearly killed you — the man who came in older than you remembered, greyer, and a little skinnier than you recall.

It took you a long moment to remember to breathe as you watched Fak seat him through the kitchen window. “I need you back at your station, Chef,” you heard Carmy telling you from the expo, though his voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. “Back at your station, Chef! Now!”

You listened, but your body seemed to work on autopilot. You broke out the baking sheet, the jelly roll pan, and the perforated pastry tray without thinking. You patted out the puff pastry and fired the pears like it was muscle memory to you. You had Richie deliver it to the man, on the house, and tried to expel the rest of it from your mind.

You forgot how to be human thereafter, hardly more useful than a fumbling ball of panic. Carmy told you to get out of the kitchen when you dropped a bowl of sourdough starter you’d been tending to for nearly two months. And now there you were, post-shift, with all the anxiety of a prey animal being hunted for sport.

And the worst part was, you couldn’t tell if you were terrified or exhilarated. Or both.

The heavy metal door beside you squeaked slowly open. A familiar voice broke through the memory. “There you are…” Carmy hummed as he walked out, chef coat hanging open, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the expanse of his tattooed arms.

His wild curls were still damp from sweat and steam, glowing a more golden shade beneath the amber streetlights. The exhaustion of the shift seemed to carve into all the chiseled edges of his face. But his eyes were heavy with relief at finally being alone with you all the same.

You grew sheepish as he stood before you, struggling to meet his gaze like a scolded child. “I’m sorry, by the way. For… all that.”

Carmy shrugged and cupped his palm around the cigarette he pinched into his mouth. His lighter clicked a few times before it lit, basking his features in a flicker orange hue. “It happens,” he mumbled before inhaling the nicotine into his lungs. The grey smoke left through his nostrils a few seconds later as he flashed you a sterner look. “Just don’t let it happen again, Chef.”

You nodded once. “Heard, Chef…”

Carmy flicked the orange filter with his thumb. His eyes fell to your lap, where you wrung your hands together in a feeble attempt to keep them from trembling. Concern surged through his chest instantly.

“Jeez,” he mumbled.

Your eyes followed his form as he crouched to set the newly-lit cig to the sidewalk, leaving it burning there as he rose to full height again.

“What?”

“Your hands… You’re shaking…” He closed the brief distance between you and took your hands in his warmer, larger ones. The contact stole the breath from your lungs. You’re still getting used to touching him so freely. “God, you’re ice cold.”

You laughed breathlessly. “Because my nervous system is shot.”

Carmy began to rub the warmth back into your fingertips. His palms felt like velvet, calloused from years of burns and knives and hard labor. The gesture was so gentle that it made you feel the crying. Again.

“He liked it, you know,” he told you. “The critic, I mean.”

Your stomach fell as anxiety flooded your veins once more. “I appreciate the sentiment, Carm, but… You can’t know that…”

“No, he said it. Cousin cornered him on the way out— asked him about it,” Carmy confessed. “And after he answered, Richie defended you. Said the guy was an asshole, and that he was a pretty shit critic if he didn’t know what good food tasted like.”

Another startled laugh sputtered from your lips. “That means we’re definitely getting a bad review outta him, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “But it’ll be worth it.”

Quiet settled between you. The city grew louder on either side of you in its wake — wind whipping warmly down the alley, cars passing distantly, a train rattling against the tracks somewhere further away. Carmy still hadn’t let go of your hands; he just kept holding you there as his eyes flicked down to your mouth.

He spent a long moment just staring, as if silently trying to will some courage into his body.

Your lips curled slowly into a sheepish smile. “You gonna kiss me, Bear?” you wondered lowly, almost inaudibly.

He nodded for a moment, then pinched his brows to ask. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

“I always want you to kiss me,” you laughed.

His mouth twitched shyly. “Then get over here then.”

Your chest swelled when he urged you forward with a gentle tug at your hands. You pressed yourself to his chest as his mouth ducked down to yours, tasting of nicotine and garlic and boy. You moaned at the feeling of him against you, fingers twisting in his silky brown curls. His larger, tattooed hands splayed along your waist, a little less confident in comparison.

The metal door shrieked open once more with little warning. The droning of ten different conversations filled the air as the rest of the kitchen staff spilled out all at once. You and Carmy sprang apart quickly, losing any and all ability to play it off.

The conversation quietened in an instant. You turned away, wiping at your mouth with the back of your hand and refusing to meet their eyes. The three or more seconds of silence that went by felt like a lifetime, until—

“Pay up, assholes!” Richie shouted, fist pumping triumphantly in the air. He continued gloating through the chorus of laughter and groans of failure. “I knew you idiots were dating, and everyone acted like I was losing my mind! But the house always wins, baby!”

—

Carmy sat along the top of the booth with a plate of Canalé de Bordeaux in his lap. Family was your turn tonight, and you’d opted to make the first dish of yours that Carmy had ever tried for the rest of the kitchen. No one knows just how much tenderness is cooked into the caramelized crust and soft custard. No one, perhaps, other than Carmy.

His sneakers dig into the smooth pleather booth below as he props his back against the wall behind him. The rum-vanilla dish melts in his mouth as he surveys the bustling dining area, filled with his family and friends, some of whom were halfway strangers to him a few years ago. His eyes fall to you without trying as you deliver an alcohol-free dessert to a heavily pregnant Sugar. A distant smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your lips move with a conversation he can’t hear from here.

The soul music playing on the radio drowns out your conversation, but not the sound of Richie’s voice as he slides into the booth next to Carmy. His long, graceless limbs bump against the table as he goes, trying to cut a bite of dessert to shovel into his mouth at the same time.

Annoyance twists in the younger boy’s features on instinct. “I’m not cleaning that up if you spill it—”

“I’m not gonna spill it!” Richie argues boyishly, with his mouth full of food, as he settles into the booth a few inches from Carmy’s sneakers. He nudges the boy’s leg with his elbow. “And get your feet off my booth, you fuckin’ animal... Jeez, I don’t know what that girl sees in you…”

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole…”

“No, I’m serious!” the older man laughs with amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. He shovels another too-big bite into his cheek and talks through the yellow custard clinging to the sides of his mouth. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, cousin— There’s no way you even know what to do with all that.”

Richie turns away, still laughing through his nose at his own stupid joke. He cuts himself another bite, already calculating a retort to Carmy’s inevitable argument on the matter — only one never comes.

The younger boy just stabs absentmindedly at his plate, distracting himself from the topic under the guise of forming the perfect bite.

Richie pauses with his own fork to his mouth. He turns slowly over his shoulder, brows raising to his hairline until four wrinkles line his forehead. “Oh, shit,” he scoffs after a few moments. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

“Shut up…” Carmy murmurs under his breath, taking another aggressive bite.

“Oh, c’mon! Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your dick wet, Carm—”

“Keep your voice down, fuck-o!” he spits through his mouthful, eyes darting anxiously to make sure no one else had heard him — that you hadn’t somehow heard him, from your spot all the way across the room, laughing with Sugar and Tina. Carmy turns away with a lazy shrug. “We’re just… We’re taking things slow. Not that it concerns you, FYI.”

“Well, FYI, you guys have been dating for months—”

“Oh, thanks for keeping track. I had no idea.”

“—And if she isn’t getting it with you, she’s gotta be getting it from someone else,” Richie rambles absentmindedly as he turns back to his plate. “I mean, I don’t even swing this way, obviously, but if I were a chick, I’d be all over that Luca guy—”

Carmy’s chest stings with a misplaced jealousy. He shouldn’t listen to Richie; he trusts you far too much for any of that. But maybe it’s his own lingering insecurity coming through — the cynicism that always lingers in the back of his head like a shadow, telling him that he’s unworthy of touching you, and then berating him for not being man enough to try.

He huffs. “Well, this is making me feel a whole lot better, cousin. Thank you.”

“I’m just sayin’!” Richie says, muffled through the dessert wadded in his cheek. “She’s obviously crazy about you, man— She looks at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon! I’m just sayin’, you know, trust your instincts. That’s all.”

“…Trust my instincts?” Carmy monotones.

“Yeah,” the older man shrugs. “You’re a chef. Isn’t that supposed to be, like, your whole thing?”

Carmy just blinks at him. “Your point?”

“My point is… She likes you. And you like her— I’m pretty sure half of Chicago knows that by now. So just… Stop getting in your own damn way before you ruin somethin’ good, alright? She picked you, cousin—”

Carmy leans back when Richie gestures too closely with his fork.

“So if you can’t trust your own judgment, at least trust hers.”

Richie’s words pierce him almost physically, giving him that surge of courage he’d been lacking these past few months with you. It makes him want to stop dissecting each of his feelings, for once, until they’re just lying there ahead of him, dead and useless.

Carmy’s light eyes narrow suspiciously. “You know… You’ve gotten, like, really good at giving advice since becoming house manager. You know that?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s freaking me out, too,” Richie deadpans, stabbing at his plate. “Sometimes I hear myself talk and I’m like, who the fuck said that?”

IV. PUFF PASTRY.

The first time you spent the night at his place, Carmy had a panic attack.

It started as a dream, or a nightmare, or maybe a memory. It played through static like an old film — Christmas Eve at the Berzatto house, beneath glowing Christmas lights and smoke from his mother’s cigarettes and something she burnt on the stove. He could smell the nicotine hanging in the hair, and the thick smell of tomato sauce, and Cicero’s expensive nose-stinging cologne.

Carmy was sitting at the head of the table, unable to move from his chair. The rest around him were empty, save for the one at the opposite end. Mikey’s seat. The ghost of his brother was laughing one moment, then screaming at him, then crying the next. Carmy was terrified — the kind of terrified he got as a kid when his mother got in another one of her moods — but he was comforted, at the very least, that his brother was here.

Alive.

Then the lights went out, for only a fraction of a second. And the Christmas lights were glowing again, but his brother’s seat was empty. And the silence was worse than the screaming.

Carmy woke with a sharp breath to a bedroom filled with a navy blue darkness. He rose to his elbows, chest aching as he waited, for a fleeting moment, for the Christmas lights to come back on. Then he realized that he was back in his bedroom, and his brother’s still dead; but you were beside him now, and that was enough.

As his eyes adjusted, he found you lying beside him, bathed in the dim glow of the muted streetlamp outside his window. You’d kicked off the sheets, revealing the expanse of your bare legs and the softness of your stomach from where your shirt had ridden up — one of his, which you wore with a plain pair of cotton underwear. Your mouth was softly parted; your breathing was even and slow.

He tried to match each of your exhales, but the panic dug deeper into his chest. His lungs refused to fill properly. His skin felt too tight. The air was too hot, but his teeth were still chattering. He couldn’t ask you for help if he tried.

The walls spun around him as he rushed immediately to the kitchen. He bent over the sink, gripping the counter hard enough to blanch his knuckles with one hand, while his other scooped handfuls of freezing water into his mouth. He was not sure how much it was helping.

The muscles in his back tensed when a warm hand settled suddenly between his shoulder blades. Carmy didn’t realize you’d followed him out until then; until he heard your voice in his ear, cutting through the wild pounding of his heartbeat.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “Just keep breathing. You’re okay. It’ll pass.”

His breath came easier to him after that. The kitchen soon filled with the sound of his trembling pants and the loud hissing of the kitchen sink. Carmy’s shoulders loosened slowly under your hand.

“Do you need me to do something?” you wondered quietly.

He shook his head, curls hanging over his eyes from where he was still hunched over. “No, I— I got it— I’m… I’m good now.”

He waved you off with a trembling hand. You couldn’t help but notice the way he avoided your gaze; the way he fought every instinct to tense again when you rubbed along his spine. You wondered if you were only making it worse.

“Do you want me to go—?”

“No,” Carmy blurted instantly. His head snapped in your direction. He blinked back at you with wet ocean eyes. “Please. D-Don’t go. I just— I had a bad dream. I’m okay, I swear.”

You didn’t look convinced, and, honestly, neither did he.

“No, you’re not, Bear…” you murmured gently, with a sleepy smile that bordered on sympathetic. But you didn’t ask him to explain the feelings he didn’t have the words for. You just stood beside him and asked if he wanted breakfast.

—

Carmy’s apartment always smelled different when you were in it. Less like an ashtray and more like warm sugar, and your fruit-sweet perfume, and whatever sweet treat you’d spent the service dreaming about. Tonight, it was homemade churros.

Carmy can smell it down the hall when he exits the bathroom. The shower steam mixes with that sweet cinnamon wafting from the kitchen — where he finds you standing at the stove, tapping a socked foot to the synth pop on the radio, and stirring a pot of glossy chocolate syrup with a wooden spoon.

“Only a psychopath spends all night cooking just to come home and cook some more,” he says to announce his presence as he leans against the doorway, replacing his uniform with a sweatshirt and a pair of plaid boxers. “You know that, right?”

“What can I say?” you grin as you glance over your shoulder at him. “You’re rubbing off on me, Bear.”

Carmy exhales a quiet laugh and spends a long moment just watching you, with all the attentiveness of someone who watched sunsets come or go or mapped constellations in the starry sky. You occupied his kitchen as if you’d been there this whole time, in a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to your elbows, big enough to hide the less-than-flattering underwear you’re wearing beneath it. You look like home, in every sense of the word.

“You know…” Carmy starts lowly, swiping at the tip of his nose with his thumb. “For a while there… I kinda thought I was done with all this…”

Your spoon slows as it slides along the bottom of the pan. “…What do you mean?”

“Cooking,” he answers. “There was a stretch where I couldn’t even look at a stove without… hoping it would blow up.”

He laughs at himself, though, admittedly, the words sound slightly more concerning leaving his lips than they did in his head. He swallows hard, grateful when you don’t press him on the matter. You just eye him with a carefulness that makes him shift his weight on his bare feet — uncomfortable at being so foreignly vulnerable.

He crosses his arms over his chest in a childlike attempt to hide, scratching along the expanse of his bicep. “Yeah, I, uh… I just— didn’t enjoy it anymore. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore.”

“What changed?” you press gently.

“You came around,” he confesses. “And I watched you learn to love it again— have fun again, and it made… realize why I loved doing what I do.”

Your mouth lifts in a sheepish half-smile. You turn away, grinning wide at the pot of dark chocolate below as it ripples beneath the spoon.

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have learned to have fun again if I didn’t start working at The Bear…” you tell him. “It’s very likely I would’ve stopped baking altogether. I mean, Copenhagen was great and all, but… you, and Syd, and Richie— watching all of you work… I feel like I could do this forever…”

Carmy’s eyes soften as he watches you. A strange emotion surges warmly through his chest and up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.

“Yeah,” he hums, half-strangled. “Me too…”

Your smile turns shy when you look back at him, nodding your head to beckon him over. “C’mere. Come try this.”

Carmy obeys instantly, as if every muscle and bone in his body was made to be under your command. You twist the spoon to gather the liquid chocolate and hold it out toward him, cupping your free hand beneath it to catch any rogue drizzles. Carmy’s pink mouth parts for a taste — the syrup is warm on his tongue, silky and rich as it coats his mouth.

A low sound of approval sounds in the back of his throat. His damp curls sway as he nods.

Your smile widens instantly, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Yeah?”

“Mm,” he hums. “Hell yeah.”

His smile falters slightly when your free hand reaches suddenly towards him. Your thumb brushes the corner of his mouth, gathering the bit of chocolate lingering on the corner there. You press the pad of it to his lips without thinking, and Carmy drags his tongue against it just the same.

The motion was more instinctive than not. He didn’t realize how charged the moment was until your eyes flickered with it — going glassy and heavy in an instant. Even still, you don’t part from his stare as you bring your hand to your mouth, licking the remnants of chocolate on your thumb that was more of Carmy’s spit than anything.

Carmy’s ocean eyes darken in a flash. The cynical, uncertain thing that lingered in him like a shadow seemed to vanish, as his racing heart lurched with an emotion that bordered on primitive. He decides not to think — to follow his instinct, as it were.

He ducks down to kiss you, hard, with the bridge of his nose smushing against the side of yours and his tongue licking into your mouth.The spoon in your hand clatters hopelessly to the tile floor when he urges you back against the counter with a pair of wide hands splayed along your waist.

Behind you, the chocolate continues to simmer.

V. SPICED PEARS.

The first time Carmy had tasted any part of you was at Ever.

It wasn’t long after Mikey died, and he was making his tour around the city to try new food — seeing what changed and what hadn’t — and trying to take his mind off all the rest. He sat alone at a small square table, finishing up his lemon chicken piccata, when another plate was slid suddenly in front of him.

“Oh, I— I didn’t order this,” he stammered.

Then his eyes lifted to find Chef Terry standing before him, with a smile much gentler than he remembered.

“This one’s on the house,” she’d told him. She did not mention the death of his brother, but Carmy knew that was likely why she came over. “Figured you might appreciate something with a wee bit of alcohol in it. I had our pastry chef whip it up for you—” Her eyes flickered with warmth at the mention of you, who Carmy had not yet met. “I’m quite proud of that one.”

She left him with a pat on the back and nothing more. Carmy eyed the dessert before him, studying it.

The burnished bronze pastry sat on the small plate ahead of him like a tiny piece of architecture. The caramel on the ridged exterior gleamed in the candlelight. The shell cracked audibly beneath his fork, a delicate snap that most chefs spend weeks trying to perfect. The inside yielded immediately — golden custard oozing from its center.

Carmy scooped a bite into his mouth, and his world stopped for a fraction of a moment.

The deeply caramelized sugar hit his palate like a memory; a taste of nostalgia accompanied by a satisfying crunch. The silken custard melted on his tongue, rich with vanilla and warm with dark rum. A brittle shell followed by an impossibly soft heart.

Carmy thought, at the time, that it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

But it wasn’t.

—

You were.

His face burns hot between your thighs, which tremble on either side of his flushed cheeks from your previous orgasm (that he gave you with two of his fingers, a lot quicker than you’re willing to admit to.)

“Can you take another?” he’d asked, right after pulling his hand out of your underwear and licking your cum off his fingers, which glistened down the knuckle. You whined at the sight of it, half-scared at the warmth still lingering in the pit of your stomach. “C’mon. Let me taste it, yeah?”

You lift your head from the pillows to watch the boy slink down your body, still wearing all of his clothes despite you lying half-naked in the center of his unmade bed. He slides your panties to the side with a pair of tattooed fingers and licks a fat stripe up your pussy, from your pulsing hole to your already sensitive clit.

Your whine fills the lamplit bedroom as your hips buck to follow him.

Carmy pulls off wearing a barely-there half-smile. “Good?” he asks, for the hundredth time or so since you started.

“Yes…” you moan, head tipped back.

And then he starts eating you. Like eats you, eats you — with his mouth wide and his broad nose smushed into your clit. He’s led by nothing more than primal emotion and pure instinct as he laps all the honey you leak for him. The lewd wet noises of his mouth are only slightly muffled by your contented sighs and his own moans, as he rocks his hips against the mattress in a feeble attempt to relieve the ache in his boxers.

Your fingers tighten in his wild curls, as though you mean to pull him off of you, though your hips chase his tongue all the same. His lips latch on your clit, sucking the delicate button, and you cum with a drawn-out sound you didn’t know you were capable of making. He pushes your knees to your chest with a pair of wide hands to milk the orgasm from your pulsing confines.

“No— No more,” you whine feebly, watching with a pained sort of look as he continues licking at you. “It’s too much, Carm—”

“Just let me taste it, baby,” he says, half-muffled against you.

He’s wearing your glittering cum down to his chin when he crawls back up your body. It’s a mess of awkward, tangled limbs as you drag his sweatshirt up his torso from the hem while he reaches into his nightstand for a condom (a feat made more difficult by the fact that the box is still wrapped in its plastic). He kneels between your thighs, open and wet, and tucks his heavy balls under the hem of his plaid boxers.

You watch him as he rips the foil open with his teeth and rolls the latex on. Your eyes trail down his tattooed torso — over the sparse brown hair along his sternum and down to where it trails along his stomach in a thin line. His cock is heavy in his fist, glowing crimson with desire at the tip and leaking drops of pearly-white.

You should tell him that it’s been a while for you — long enough that you’re not sure if you can take something so thick — but you don’t want to stop the momentum you have going, not even for a second. You just curl your arms down and over his shoulders, palms splayed along his sweat-slick back, and fall back with him when he leans down over you.

His gold chain brushes your chest as he ducks down to open his mouth against yours. He rolls his hips forward and back, gliding his cock through your velvety folds, before piercing you fully.

There’s a fleeting, burning sensation as your cunt stretches around him — which quickly floods into a warmer, fuller feeling when he’s seated fully inside you, with his tuft of coarse hair pressed mercilessly against your throbbing clit.

“Oh, fuck—”

Carmy’s words sound less pleasured and more terrified.

Your eyes snap open. You catch a mere glimpse of his profile as his lips smudge along your burning cheek. “You okay?” you ask through panted breaths.

“Y-Yeah. I just—” The words come out strangled and half-muffled against your neck. “It’s just… been a while for me. I can’t— I can’t move.”

A delirious grin tugs at your mouth. You rake your nails gently along the expanse of his spine, until he shivers on top of you. “You can move, Carm,” you tell him.

He laughs breathlessly, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “I can’t, babe. I— I really can’t.”

“It’s okay if you’re close,” you murmur gently, smearing your lips along his flushed cheek. “You already made me cum— twice. This is about you feeling good, too, you know?”

Carmy makes a strangled noise, as if your words had hit him physically somehow. He lets himself go at your permission to feel good and rolls his hips against you. There is little rhythm or precision to his thrusts. They’re shallow and quick and a little sloppy, never pulling all the way out, as he buries his moans into your neck. The bed creaks below you like it might break.

“Fuck,” he groans like it hurts him, like he’s half-scared of his own orgasm.

“That’s it...” you coo in his ear. “I know you’re close, Carm. It’s okay. Just cum for me—”

“Fuck!” It comes out like more of a whimper this time, because he’s trying to calculate how long it’s been — two minutes, if that — but his brain’s too fogged and his stomach is starting to cramp from how hard he’s tensing to keep the feeling going a little longer.

Carmy doesn’t warn you when he cums. Not that you need him to. His heavy body just tenses on top of you, forearms shaking beside your head. You exhale a contented sigh when you feel him pulsing inside of you. “There it is…” you whisper in his ear. “Give me all of it, bear. C’mon. Doing so good for me…”

As your hands rub soothingly along his spine, you feel his bare shoulders shaking a little harder than before. It’s like he’s laughing to himself, or crying maybe. Then you feel something warm and wet drip along your neck.

“Bear?”

“Fuck—” He clears his throat when his voice breaks, lifting one hand to wipe at the tear running down the bridge of his nose. He laughs wetly at himself. “Fuck, I’m so lame. I’m sorry.”

“Are you okay?” you whisper, as if anything too loud might break him.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he assures you, sniffling as he pulls slightly off of you. “It was just— a lot, you know?”

“Yeah,” you nod.

“I wasn’t lying when I said it’s been a while for me.”

“Wow,” you hum sarcastically. “You’re telling me the anxious-avoidant chef who keeps his jeans in his oven isn’t absolutely drowning in ass? In this… very illustrious bachelor pad?”

His laugh is more humorous this time. “Fuck you.”

“You already did,” you remind him with a cheeky grin. “Unless you’re askin’ for round two— which I’m not opposed to.”

His mouth twitches into a more sincere grin. His glassy eyes soften further as they dart across your features, memorizing the wrinkles beside your squinted eyes and how your smile sits a little crooked to the left.

He shakes his head, ocean eyes still a little wet, as he smooths his fingers over your temple to brush away an invisible strand of hair there. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that?”

“Oh, but what a sweet, sweet way to go,” you croon as he ducks down over you again.

But if loving you is a slow death, why does kissing you taste like salvation?

Steve trudged across the sand, easily securing you over his shoulder with one strong arm, while he held both your pairs of shoes in his other. He dropped them down when he reached the shore. Then, gently, set you down. 

Both of his arms wrapped around you - not possessively, but a soft embrace into which you instinctively leaned. Your back pressed to Steve’s chest, head resting on his shoulder. 

Waves softly brushed your toes, lulling you into blissful calm. In front of you, the blue of the sea sparkled with golden spray of setting sunlight. The horizon burst with orange, pink, violet and blue. Everything was soaked in warmth. 

“Had fun with those shots, Sweet Brat?” Steve chuckled quietly.

“I couldn’t help myself. They are called Orgasms!” You tilted your head back, grinning up at him. 

Steve lightly shook his head, but the corners of his eyes were crinkled with amusement. His lips pressed to your temple, purring a challenging question:

“Want a better one?” 

You remember the very first one you wrote. Your first love letter. 

Although, it wasn’t a love letter in a traditional sense. It was a ‘I need you to stop consuming my thoughts, so I’m writing it all down on paper and then sealing it away forever’ kind of love letter. And it was never meant to be seen by anyone else’s eyes but your own.

You wrote 3 in total, and all of them were coincidentally for boys with the same name: Peter Parker.

You knew the universe had a funny sense of humor with that one. Thankfully, they all had nicknames to avoid any confusion.

The first letter you wrote was for Pete. He was a few years older, with beautiful blue eyes, perfectly combed hair, and a smile that was worthy of being plastered all over a dental ad. Pete was your classic boy next door, always riding his bike to school, the local Y.M.C.A to volunteer on the weekends, and to Joe’s Pizza for his after-school job. You met him when you signed yourself up for science tutoring sessions your freshman year. He was a senior then, and your tutor for that entire semester, but even after that, he would still always say hi to you in the halls. 

He was sweet and soft-spoken and always encouraged you, even going as far as supporting you at the freshman science fair when it was senior skip day at school.

“You didn’t have to come, you know. You’re only a senior once,” you say bashfully, looking down at your display table to keep him from catching the heat rising to your cheeks. 

“And miss out on you destroying your competitors? Not a chance,” he says, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like his attendance didn’t mean the absolute world to you. “I mean, biodegradable alternatives to plastic? That’s life-changing stuff.”

You chuckle, flashing him a grateful smile. “Well, I did have the best tutor. If it weren’t for you, this would be the 8th volcano entered today,” you say, and Pete laughs. 

“I always knew you were smart. You’re capable of anything you set your mind to,” he says, and your heart swells. 

You ended up placing second, and you’ve never forgotten the way he cheered for you when you were presented with the big blue ribbon. He even treated you to pizza afterwards.

It was almost impossible not to have a crush on Pete. He was perfect. 

Right before he left for college, however, you knew he would take your crush with him. So you decided that the proper way to let him go was to write him a letter that you would never send.

Dear Pete…

And in that letter you described everything you felt for him. The way your breath caught in your throat every time he leaned in closer to you to gently correct an answer you got wrong on a worksheet. How seeing him clap and smile for you at the science fair made you feel like the luckiest girl in the room. How all of Midtown High was obsessed with him, but he still always had time for you, and it made even the hard days easier. You wrote until the all-consuming love you had for him no longer felt all-consuming. 

You wrote your second letter 2 years later. 

You met Peter in your second period economics class. He was a total boy genius, the first-place winner of your freshman year science fair. He knew the answer to every question, aced every pop quiz, and the worst part was that he was always humble about it.

Worst, because it was one of the reasons why you inevitably fell in love with him.

Aside from being ridiculously smart, he was also the kind of cute that made butterflies flutter in your stomach, with puppy dog eyes and fluffy brown hair. You would chew through pens just staring off at him during class, something that your friend, MJ, had to regularly snap you out of.

“You’re literally drooling,” she whispered to you, and you felt your face heat up as you tried to compose yourself.

You even went as far as joining the academic decathlon team that year so you had a chance to spend more time with him. The problem was, you sucked, but Peter, being the good guy that he was, never made you feel bad about it.

It started with him inviting you to ‘brush up on those decathlon skills together’ right before your club meets and soon turned to homework at the library, Star Wars marathons with him and Ned, and hitting up the bodega to split his favorite sandwich together every Wednesday after school. 

On one particular Wednesday, you had sat together at a bench in the park, making up conversations and scenarios for the people who walked past you, a little game you both would play often.

“You see, I really must go; I left a pot roast in the oven, and it’s burning as we speak,” Peter says in a high-pitched voice, mimicking a lady who was pulling at her poodle’s leash, very obviously trying to eject herself from the conversation with a man beside her.  

“Your pot roast? I’ve had it before, trust me, you're better off letting it burn,” you say in the deepest voice you can muster, voicing the man next to her who looked completely over the conversation himself, and you both fall into a fit of laughter.

Peter turns to you, eyes seemingly catching something as he leans in close.

“Oh wait, you got mustard on the side of your mouth,” he said, and you still remember the way his thumb gently wiped at your skin, a trail of heat left behind.

He stares at you for a moment, cheeks flushing before letting out a nervous laugh, shaking the strands of hair away from his forehead.

“S-sorry.”

You had to practically force yourself to wash your face that night. Wanting to keep his touch forever on your skin. You were absolutely smitten with him until the day he confessed to you. 

“I like someone,” he says, and for a moment you think it’s actually you until you see the faraway look in his eyes and droopy smile on his face. “Liz Allan,” he says, and your heart breaks with it.

Peter asks Liz to the junior prom that year, and you decide that an unrequited crush was not how you wanted to spend the rest of high school. So you write him a letter to release him once and for all.

Dear Peter…

It details the very truth of your feelings for him. The way your stomach did flips whenever he smiled, how you admired the twinkle in his eyes whenever he passionately expressed his interests, the love you felt for him beyond just that of a friend. How you wanted him to touch your face again, the way he did that Wednesday afternoon at the park. All of it, until it was finally out of your system. 

Your 3rd love letter, and your last, was written in your first year of college. 

You had Peter B. for your photography class, but you remember first seeing him riding his skateboard towards the school building. When you entered the class, you pinpointed him immediately; Tall and effortlessly cool-looking, with a face that made him look like he could model if he wanted to. He wore an oversized army jacket, and you wondered what it would be like to wear it. 

For how handsome he was, it didn’t seem like he knew it, because he mostly kept to himself. You and Peter B. didn’t interact as much, but in the moments that you did, it was all you could think about for days at a time. 

Can I borrow a pen?

Hey, do you know when the next assignment is due? 

I forgot my 50mm lens at my dorm; do you mind if I borrow yours real quick for this shot?

So maybe that last one was just you looking for an excuse to talk to him, but each interaction made your heart flutter. There was something about Peter B. that was mesmerizing to you. In the soft way he spoke, in how he skillfully glided on his board around campus, in his quiet wittiness. 

Falling in love with Peter B. was unlike the past two Peters, because unlike them, it wasn’t fast and all-knowing. It was quiet and snuck up on you, like time or growth. In fact, you wouldn’t have even thought you were in love with Peter B. until one night, right before the holiday break. You were tipsy at a dorm party, and all the tightly pressed bodies and loud music made you queasy, so you stepped out of the building for some fresh air. 

Your teeth shattered as your hands crossed over your arms, rubbing them up and down to create some kind of heat. In the distance, you spot something zooming at you. You raise a brow as the mysterious figure makes it close enough for you to distinguish them; Peter B. landed in front of you, foot extended out as he stopped his board. He pulled his headphones off his head and hung them around his neck.

“If it isn’t my pen savior. What are you doing out here so late, Mother Teresa?” he asks, and you spot a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. 

“Shh, don’t blow my cover, but I’m actually undercover as a typical college student. The current assignment is to get drunk at a party inside of a dorm that’s too small for the amount of people stuffed in there. I’m taking it very seriously,” you say, and he chuckles, and you almost want to puke from how giddy it makes you.

“Noted. Wouldn’t there be something in the rules about not drinking on the job though?” he shoots back.

“Not if you’re the one who made up the rules in the first place,” you state with a wink, earning another chuckle from him and another stomach flip for you. 

“Giving and funny. Careful, you're after my heart there,”  he says, and you have to stop yourself from thinking you had enough liquid courage to say, ‘And what if I am? Would you give it to me?’

He spots a shiver run through you and immediately shrugs his jacket off, gently laying it over your shoulders.

And now you knew what it was like.

The action was soft and innocent, but it made your heart beat rapidly in your chest. He ended up walking you to your dorm after that. Or, well, you stood on his skateboard as he held your hand and guided you there. 

Your hand felt like it was tingling the entire night.

You wanted to know more about Peter B., but sadly, you never had the courage to. That night was all you had to show for it. 

So you wrote him a letter to put an end to it, as it looked like it would never begin in the first place.

Dear Peter B.…

It detailed the rush of emotions you felt for him. How the way he viewed the world through a lens left you in awe. How you craved more from him, but the lack of understanding didn’t take away from the beauty you already saw within. How he should really stop wearing his glasses on a whim because it made him look unbearably attractive. 

And that was the last and final letter you wrote.

You were now a graduate of Empire State University and worked as a journalist for Vanity Flair, a pop culture and fashion magazine with an office located in the city. You lived in a two-bedroom apartment with your best friend since high school, MJ, and you were the proud owner of a fiddle leaf fig, regifted from your boss Ms. Felicia Hardy, who hated taking care of any living thing. 

Another thing Felicia hated? Uninspired magazine articles. Which she now claimed all of the ones you had just pitched to her were. 

“It’s not interesting. It’s not exciting. I want people to be inspired when they read our magazine. Not bored to death,” she spat, looking at her sharpened fingernails.

You process her words, trying to keep your composure. “I agree, Ms. Hardy. I was also thinking maybe I can write about trend predictions? Like how fashion moves in 20-year cycles and maybe the next style trends would be-”

“You know what people love reading about?” Felicia questions out loud, interrupting you unapologetically. 

You remain silent because you knew she already had the answer. 

“Love,” she answers. “I want you to write about that.”

Your eyes just about bulge out of your head. “Ms. Hardy, I-I don’t know much about that…”

“You know, you’ve survived 3 months here already, so I'm gonna give you some advice in the hopes that you can survive another day. What I want most out of the people who work for me is growth. This magazine is all about elevating yourself. I’m not hiring one-trick ponies to bring out whatever comfortable party trick they’ve mastered over the years. I want versatility. Just like the readers, I want to be excited. So either bring me something that does, or clean out your desk. I expect either decision by tomorrow’s morning meeting,” she states, and you can pretty much see your hopes and dreams burst into flames. 

You can even picture a mini version of yourself screaming and running around with her hands up at the chaos, 4 years of student loans and a journalism major down the drain…

Well, there goes your future. 

That night when you get to your apartment, you make a beeline for your room, ignoring MJ, who was cooking in the kitchen, the smell of something tomato-y filling your shared space. You push the door open and immediately flop on your bed, head first.

“Tough day?” you hear her call out, and you groan into your pillow. 

You feel eyes on your back, so you turn over and see her leaning on the door frame, wooden spoon in hand. “You know what we said about wallowing. We’re not doing it in the big 2026 anymore. We’re adults now. We fix our problems. And…” she leaves the door for a moment, voice trailing, before returning with a bottle of wine. “We use wine to help.” 

Getting wine drunk on a Tuesday evening was nothing new for MJ and you. In fact, ever since working for Felicia, you found yourself participating in it more often than not. But it was all in good fun, and MJ always made you feel loved and supported, and at the end of it you felt as carefree as the $8 grocery store wine could get you.

“Felicia is such a hardass. She acts like y’all are writing for The New Yorker or Foreign Affairs. You guys once had Ariana Grande’s dog as the cover for your magazine. Like, sans Ariana Grande,” she says, and you burst out in laughter, your wine glass jiggling in your hand.

“No, for real! Her expectations are absurd. She also couldn’t have picked a worse person to give this assignment to. I literally have zero experience with love,” you state, grabbing handfuls of chips from your shared bowl.

“Oh, come on. It’s not zero. You’ve dated a couple people,” she says, rolling her eyes at you.

You shove the chips in your mouth, messy as you shake your head and muster up a ‘Nuh uh’ before swallowing. “I mean. I’ve dated, yeah, but I was never in love with any of them. And the only times I felt like I was ever in love, like, for real, all I did was write them a letter. And I never even sent them,” you confess, the wine transforming itself into truth serum. 

At this, MJ snaps her head towards you. “Letters? What?” she asks, intrigued.

You hiccup, nodding. “Yup. Like old-fashioned, handwritten, tied up with a bow and everything. To the three boys I’ve fallen in love with,” you say, licking the salt from your fingers.

“Shut up,” MJ says, arms crossed. “Proof or you're lying.”

You raise a brow at her. “Proof? Like you want me to pull out these letters?’ you ask, and MJ nods.

“Or else it’s total bullshit,” she says with a challenge.

You laugh, swatting the air. “Well, you’re in luck ‘cause I’m a memory hoarder and I’ve kept them after all these years,” you say, standing up from your cross-legged position on the couch. “One sec,” you say as you practically bounce over to your room, heading straight to your closet.

MJ laughs, yelling out a “No way!” from the living room as you open your closet door and stand up on your tiptoes, grabbing a shoebox from the very top. The shoebox was decorated in pink wrapping paper featuring delicate-looking white swans; An old elementary school Valentine's Day box you made to stick all your cards in.

You then race back into the living room and present the box to her. “Madam,” you say playfully as you bow and hand her the box. 

MJ stares at you, hand over her mouth as she eyes the box. “Stop. You’re totally not kidding, are you?” 

She takes the box from your hands and practically tosses the lid open. Inside were several cartoon Valentine cards from the past, but at the very top were 3 pastel colored envelopes. One was a light yellow, another a baby blue, and the third a soft pink. All three were tied in white ribbon and lace. 

“Dudeeeeeeee!” she practically squeals, grabbing the 3 envelopes out of the box.

“Now why would you think I made this up? This is like real heart-yearning stuff. I've never told anyone about this,” you say, and MJ looks up at you.

“Oh my gosh. It’s like the plot of a rom-com. Letters to boys that you love? That you never sent?”

“You wanna know the worst part?” you say, biting your lip. MJ nods vigorously. “They all have the same name.”

“SHUT UP!” MJ yells, slamming her hands on her thighs. 

You crack up at that, nodding as you flop on the couch, hands in your face, embarrassed. “Yup. I couldn't make this up even if I tried.”

“Wait, wat, wait,” MJ says, crawling over to you, head resting on the couch seat next to you. “Who are they?” she questions, and you shake your head.

“No, absolutely not.”

“Oh come oooooon. You can’t do that to me. You just gave me like the juiciest secret ever and only shared, like, half of it. You might as well just reveal the whole thing.”

You pry the hands away from your face and look at her. “Ok, fine. So two of them actually went to our high school. The first letter was to a guy who was a senior when we were freshmen. It was before you and I became friends. His name was Peter Parker,” you state, bracing yourself, because you knew that with one name, MJ would immediately figure out who the next letter was for. 

MJ stared at you, wide-eyed, before collapsing dramatically on the floor. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Peter Parker?! Golden boy Parker?? Shut up!” she says, and you squeal, both embarrassed and giddy at finally confessing.

You nod. “Yeah. He used to be my science tutor. He was a pretty great guy.”

“Wait, so if you sent a letter to Golden Boy Peter Parker, then that means,” and she lifts herself up like a zombie being resurrected, wide eyes on you. You form just the beginning of a nod before MJ collapses once again, yelling, “Lover Boy Parker!! OH MY GOSH, YES! You were literally drooling for that kid!”

You try to shush MJ through your fits of laughter, face on fire. “I know. I had it bad. So embarrassing,” you say, pressing the cold wine glass to your cheek in an effort to cool it down.

“Wait, so we have Golden Boy Parker, Lover Boy Parker, and… there’s seriously another Peter Parker on this planet that you wrote a letter to?”

You nod, biting your lip. “First year of college, a guy in my photography class. Peter. B. Parker,” you say, and MJ’s eyes look like they're about to fall off her head.

“That’s literally insane. Like, Twilight Zone level of insane,” she says.

You lean over and grab the envelopes from her hand. 

“Golden Boy Parker, AKA Pete,” you say as you lift the yellow envelope up.

“Lover Boy Parker, AKA Peter,” baby blue envelope.

“And….” you pause, thinking for a moment before continuing. “We’ll call him Skater Boy Parker, AKA Peter B.,” pink envelope.

As you're now face to face with each envelope after years of storing them away, you feel the emotions rush back to you. There were only three boys that you’ve ever loved in your entire life, and it was like they were face to face with you now; each envelope holding a moment in time inside of them.

“Well, there’s your article,” MJ says, snapping you out of your nostalgia.

You look at her, brows furrowing. “What? Write about my letters? Isn’t that like… juvenile? Like for a sophisticated magazine like Vanity Flair?”

MJ snorts. “Vanity Flair. Sophisticated. Sure,” she says sarcastically before proceeding, “Anyways, this is juicy stuff. If Felicia was all on you about an ‘exciting love story’, this is it.” 

You take a moment to process her words.

An article about love letters written to the boys of your past, who all share the same name, whom you've never even sent them to.

“And if you're scared about them finding out, though I doubt any of them would be spending their time paroozing through Vanty Flair, you can just keep the names out,” she continues, and maybe it was the wine or the way MJ was very persistent about this, but you jump out of your spot on the couch and fetch your laptop from your room. 

To: VF Felica Hardy

CC: VF Editors 

Subject: Love Letters I’ve Never Sent (Article Idea)

═════════════════════════════════════════════

The next morning you wake up hungover with yesterday's mascara crusted on your lashes and half a chip inside your shirt. Your head pounds as you shower and get ready for the day, tiptoing around a snoring MJ who had passed out on the couch after last night's escapades. You pour yourself a cup of coffee before a sudden memory makes itself known to you, and you gasp as you immediately fish your phone from out of your pocket.  

There it was.

The email you sent. The one that detailed how pathetic your love life truly was. The one with pictorial evidence of your letters, so you couldn’t even say it was made up out of desperation.

Nope, you were just authentically that desperate. 

You let out a deep breath as you closed your eyes, hoping and praying that Felica would be gentle with you when you entered the meeting room today. You knew she would rip into you for thinking that idea was even good enough to send to her at 1 am, let alone to cc the editors, a step only made when it was ready to be edited for publishing.

Your career at Vanity Flair was officially over. 

You wondered if Felicia would ask for the fiddle leaf fig back. You grew to really like that plant.

You entered the meeting room that morning like you were walking to your death sentence. You were one of the first few people who arrived, so thankfully you wouldn't be eaten alive for being late as well. You watched as the rest of the staff trickled in, and finally Felcia, with her long white curls and another perfectly tailored business suit.

The meeting goes off without a hitch. Talks about the rollout for the upcoming issue, suggestions for future celebrity features, and details on next month's Vanity Flair gala.

No mention of your email.

You think it's some kind of miracle you were gifted. Maybe the universe did you a solid, seeing as you’ve dealt with so much already. But once the meeting is adjourned, and Felicia tells you to stay behind, you know why she waited till the very end; she wants to destroy you in private.

No witnesses. Smart move.

“Yes, Ms. Hardy?” you ask, acting like you had no idea whatsoever why she would want to talk to you.

Pathetic.

“So I got your email last night. At 1 am, was it?” she says, and you feel your stomach climb up your throat.

“A little unprofessional if you ask me. Lucky for you, however, I was riddled with insomnia and was going over my emails when lo and behold, I see a very interesting subject matter.”

Interesting, ok. Not a bad word. Not offensive or horrible or ludicrous. You could live with interesting.

“‘Love letters I’ve never sent’,” she quoted, an eyebrow raised as her eyes never left yours.

You braced yourself.

“Absolutely brilliant,” she says, after leaving you hanging for a few seconds, and you feel yourself immediately regain the ability to breathe. “It’s intriguing and authentic and just the right amount of sad and pathetic to reel people in. And most importantly, it’s exciting,” she says, a smirk on her lips, the closest you'd ever get to a smile.

You couldn’t believe it; MJ was actually right. You make a mental note to stop by the cafe after work to get her her favorite drink and pastry as a thank-you gift. 

“I'm not going to lie, however, I was prepared for you to disappoint me. But you really came through with this article. So much so that I sent it to print expeditiously so that it can come out with this month's issue.”

You stiffen for a moment. Eyes wide. “Oh really? W-wow, that’s really fast. I mean, the issue is coming out next week.”

“No need to thank me. I mean, you did already tag the editors on the email. Something I would refrain from doing again in the future, by the way, but even you knew you struck gold here. Why wait a month when we can feed the hungry now,” she states, and you nod in agreement because whatever Felicia wanted, she got. 

“Oh, and we’re keeping the names.”

And your stomach immediately drops. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, the anonymous thing just doesn't work for this story. And part of its charm is the fact that you fell for not one, but three Peter Parkers? I'm sorry, but that's the selling point of this article,” she states unapologetically, and you immediately gnaw at your bottom lip.

“So, you’re saying everything in my letters will be published in the magazine next week. Including the real names of the real people I wrote real love letters to?” you say out loud, trying to process the reality of it.

Felicia gives you a wink. “Get ready. You got a hit in your hands,” she says as she grabs the portfolios on her desk and struts her way out of the meeting room.

You remain in your seat, unable to move as you mentally go through a quick slideshow of everything that has transpired in the past few hours. 

The feelings you kept hidden away in letters for years were now going to be exposed for the whole world to read in just a few days' time. 

Dear Y/N…

The Colosseum is a home for bloodbaths.

There is a symphony of cheers and screams that rings throughout the entire dome. Swords clash against swords, sweat and blood dance together, dirt kicks into the air, and alcohol and spit shoot out of patrons’ mouths.

It is meaningless—all of it just a cruel form of entertainment for the emperor and his family.

You are thankful that you hadn’t been born a male to be pushed into these silly games, but instead, you are a woman—and that might be worse. But for now, despite all the screaming happening outdoors, you find solitude and a somewhat sense of peace near the barracks, sweeping debris and scrubbing the blood and grime off the floors from the defeated champions who walked away, already on the verge of death.

“Look at them,” you breathe. You pause your sweeping, wiping a strand of sweaty hair out of your face as your eyes peer through the wide holes of the wooden gates. “Animals. The whole lot of them.”

Livia does not need to look up to know what them you are referring to. There is only one kind of ruthless animal in the world—and that is men.

“Do not stare,” she warns you quietly. “If they catch you looking, they’ll punish you.”

“Please,” you scoff. “Their heads are too far up their own egos to notice us.”

“Big egos, yes.” Livia’s golden eyes glance over her shoulder from where she kneels on the floor, scrubbing grime. “And bodies. They are also quite handsome.”

Your eyes snap to her in revulsion. “Handsome? How can you say such a thing!” You glance back at the two men battling in the center of the dome. “Look at them. They are monsters.”

In the center is a man that you recognize—Bucky Barnes, the reigning champion for years. The White Wolf, is what the Emperor likes to call him. He is fighting another man, not much bigger than him, and certainly a man you do not recognize, meaning a man who will soon be falling to his doom beneath Bucky’s swords.

You have to admit, however, the man was giving The White Wolf a run for his money.

Finally, the man kneels before Bucky in defeat. Bucky raises his sword and delivers the final blow that sends the man to his grave.

Cheers erupt inside the dome. People jump out of their seats to shout and stomp. More debris and dust fall from above, landing on your and Livia’s faces—making you both cough.

The gates of the dome rattle as the herald’s voice shouts over the roaring crowd.

“Victory belongs to the undefeated! Behold your champion—The White Wolf!”

Thousands of voices chant his name as the dome thumps in a cadence that shakes the stone foundations around you. Through the wooden slats of the gate, you watch Bucky raise his blood-slicked sword to the sky. Unlike the other victors, he doesn’t smile. He never smiles.

Livia wipes the dust off her brow. “Another one to his name. He truly is unstoppable.”

You pull your gaze away. “He is a butcher,” you mutter.

Livia pushes herself off the floor with a light groan. She lifts the empty wooden basin to her chest. “I am going to refill this,” she says. “We’re going to need a lot of water to wash the victor up. I will be back.”

The wooden gate in front of you begins to groan as it slowly lifts. You grip your broom tight, moving to the side to make space for the blood-soaked victor to return back inside.

When Bucky steps in, the cool shade of the barracks is pure bliss against his hot body. Behind him steps the herald, adjusting his fine robes and wiping a pristine handkerchief over his sweaty brow, while the champion in front of him bleeds everywhere.

Bucky drops onto a wooden bench, and it creaks beneath his large body. His chest heaves as he catches his breath. With eyes still fueled by the adrenaline of battle, he watches as you approach him with a damp cloth and drop to your knees, wiping the splattered blood from his shins and boots.

“A magnificent display, White Wolf,” the herald boasts, pacing the floor and waving a hand dismissively in your direction as if you were just another piece of furniture. “The Emperor was thoroughly pleased. The coin will be transferred to your keeper, of course, but the Emperor insists on a personal reward for his favorite fighter tonight. A token of appreciation. Wine? A feast? Or perhaps a woman from the upper courts?”

Bucky does not answer the herald.

You try to keep your eyes down, working on scrubbing the crimson off his leather armor, but you can feel his cold stare watching your every movement, tracing the line of your shoulders and the curve of your vulnerable and exposed neck.

“We have the finest women prepared,” the herald continues, oblivious. “You have earned the right to take whatever, or whomever, you please.”

A massive and calloused hand suddenly shoots out. His fingers lock around your fragile wrist, making you wince and drop the rag.

“This one.”

You meet the champion’s eyes, and the spirit behind them terrifies you.

Bucky looks at you, not the way he stares at his opponents, but with something far more lethal. He looks at you as if you are roasted meat served on a silver platter by the Emperor himself. It sends shivers down your spine, and you avert your gaze.

The herald stands confused beside him.

“Her?” the herald sputters, looking down at you in disbelief. “White Wolf, she is a mere servant. A floor scrubber. The Emperor offered you a lady of the court. Someone fit for a powerful champion, such as yourself!”

The way the herald utters the word lady sounds like an insult to you—as if insinuating you’re not woman enough for a man like Barnes.

Bucky’s grip on your wrist tightens again as he gives your arm a rough shake, forcing your attention back to him with a gasp.

“Want her,” Bucky grunts, his tone leaving no room for argument.

The herald blinks, his eyes flickering down to you where you kneel before the champion. He clears his throat uncomfortably. “You must be mistaken, champion. She is nothing but a dirty servant—”

Bucky’s leather gloves creak as he tightens his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the herald falls silent, taking that slight movement from the gladiator as a threat to shut up.

“Fine, fine,” the herald mutters with a defeated sigh. “If that is what pleases you, then she is at your disposal.”

Your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. You hadn’t expected the herald to give you up so easily. You had hoped he would insist Bucky find a better woman—someone of higher value, and nowhere near your station.

“Wait, sir—you can’t possibly—!”

“I will let the Emperor know of your decision.” The herald turns on his heel, continuing to talk as if you aren’t even present. “He will be very amused. Though… it does make my job easier, finding another prize… I shall consider this a win for the both of us!”

The herald scratches his beard and shrugs as he continues to walk away. You feel like your life is already flashing before your eyes. There are horror stories of men like Bucky—men who just take and take without remorse. You are no exception. You don’t even want to imagine the kind of things he would do to a woman like you once the herald leaves you two alone. Ignoring Bucky entirely, you try to pry your weak arm away from the fighter’s grip and get to your feet.

“Sir, wait! Don’t leave me here with him!”

But Bucky’s grip remains tight. He hauls you against his broad, bare chest as he stands up. You collide into him with a yelp as he pins you still.

“Mine now,” he rumbles deeply.

You try to pull back, your heels digging into the grime stained floor, but it’s like trying to move a stone pillar. “Let me go! I have to finish cleaning, I have to—”

Without a word, he crouches before you and wraps both strong arms over your legs, hauling you like nothing and propping you over his shoulder like a prize he rightfully deserves.

“Come,” Bucky barks without a single opportunity for defiance. “Take you home.”

Your voice is dry from all the shouting and begging for him to release you. Your fists are weak from pounding his back in an attempt to make him let you go. Now, as you sit at the edge of his worn bed in his small home—which feels like it’s being held up by nothing but sticks and tapestry—you realize all of it was futile.

Tears streak your dirty cheeks as you wipe at them pathetically. You couldn’t even say goodbye to your dear friend, Livia. She must be worrying herself sick about you.

Bucky stands large and imposing in the center of the already tiny home. He wastes no time as he strips himself of his clothes, eyes locked onto your trembling frame. This man in front of you has no sense of shame as he leaves himself completely bare, his cock already hard and springing to his muscular lower belly.

You glance up, your breath catching in your throat at his size.

He is huge, his tip already gorging into an angry red while pre-cum dribbles out from the slit. Your eyes follow the veins that decorate his shaft up until you reach the base of his cock, where dark curls sit unruly and trail thinner up to his belly button.

“Good,” he grunts in approval. “Look at me. Only me.”

Bucky’s strong legs stalk forward to meet you at the edge of the bed. All you can do is stare at him with wide eyes. The campfire flickering behind him casts a warm light, highlighting his muscles and the sharpness of his features.

As he gets closer, you scramble backward. His knees dip and creak the bed as he crawls after you. To him, this is a game of cat and mouse—and he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re terrified, but he sees this as foreplay. The two of you continue this until your back hits the stone wall, leaving you nowhere else to run.

“Please,” you whimper. “Don’t do this.”

Then, without warning, his hand shoots out to grab the neckline of your dress. With a simple tug, his mere strength tears right through it.

“No!” you shriek, your hands coming up to cover your breasts before he even catches a glimpse. “Stop!”

Bucky furrows his brows. Your cries and actions only confuse him. His hands grab your arms, trying to pry them away from your chest. He is so much stronger than you; he could easily break you if he wanted to.

“No! Stop! I’m not ready!” you cry again, shaking your head as you gather all your strength to fight back. “I said, I’m not ready—!”

With your hand acting on a mind of its own, it reaches out and delivers a hard slap across the gladiator’s face.

Bucky’s head whips to the side, his dark, matted hair covering the features of his face—you can’t make out his expression at all.

Your eyes go wide, and your hand weakly retreats back to your chest. If you hadn’t thought Bucky was going to kill you before, you are certain he is going to skip the sexual act and kill you right now instead.

But, being as stubborn as you are, you hold onto the shovel that digs your very grave.

“I told you to stop,” your voice is shaky, but you try to find your footing. “I said no. Countless times. I did not give you my consent. Don’t you know what that word means?”

This is foolish, you think to yourself. Talking to a gladiator like Bucky is like talking to a brick wall. Your words will just go in one ear and out the other.

Bucky slowly turns his head back to you, his gaze locking onto yours with eyes so sharp you could swallow the blade. This is it. You’re certain this is where you die.

He makes an expression—not a pained one, but confused. His jaw is tight where your hand just struck him. He doesn’t move to strike back like you think he will, and he doesn’t wrap his hands around your throat to kill you.

He tilts his head, his face scrunched now in a way that makes him look almost like a kicked puppy.

“No?” he repeats, treating it like a question.

The syllable sounds clunky, foreign, and deeply awkward rolling off his tongue.

He looks down at your hands, still clamped tightly over your torn dress, and then back up to your glassy eyes.

“Consent?” he tries the next word, his brows furrowing from how unusual it sounds.

You nod, holding your breath. “Yes. Consent. I did not give it to you.”

Bucky blinks as the cogs work—or try to—in his head.

The reigning champion of the Colosseum, the brute of a man who knows exactly how to sever someone’s limb or take a prize by force, looks completely lost. For his entire life, the rules were simple: fight, win, take. No one had ever told him ‘no.’ No one had ever given him a choice, and he had never given anyone else one either.

“Consent,” he tastes the word again, as if trying to see if he likes it or not. Then, he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Now, you are just as confused as he is.

You stare at the gladiator who kneels before you on the bed. He is probably the most feared man in the empire, yet he sits there naked and baffled by such a basic concept.

“You don’t know?” you whisper. “You don’t know what the word consent means?”

Bucky shakes his head, his broad shoulders slumping a fraction. He looks down at his own massive hands, then back at you, looking almost defeated and unsure of what to do from here.

You let out a trembling breath, slowly adjusting your grip on your torn dress to keep yourself covered as you try to find the words to explain it to a man raised only for slaughter.

“It means... permission,” you explain softly. “It means that my body belongs to me, just like yours belongs to you. To take a woman to bed, she has to want it too. She has to say yes.” You gesture weakly between the two of you. “If I say no, or if I say stop, you have to stop. Otherwise, you are just hurting me. You are just forcing me.”

Bucky listens intently, his dark eyes watching your lips as you speak.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” he answers, his voice rough and strained.

That catches you by surprise. You didn’t expect that kind of softness out of him. Then, he meets your eyes again and continues. “Not yet, at least.”

You pull the torn dress tighter against your chest with a slight frown, and Bucky notices. He shifts awkwardly on the back of his heels—his cock still hard but his mind just as confused.

“How do I get you to want it?” He rests his hand on your bare ankle, tugging you gently. “Like how I want you?”

You swallow hard as you stare at his large hand wrapped around your ankle. He could grab you and break you—mold you and bend you so easily to his will—but he doesn’t.

“You have to… court me,” you try to explain. “You have to make me feel safe, and you have to make me want it.”

Bucky tilts his head. Everything you have just said—even the word safe—feels alien to him.

Your teeth worry your bottom lip as you continue. “It means you don’t just take what you want. You touch softly. You talk to me, and you kiss me.” You point a trembling finger to your mouth, then to his. “With your lips. To show me that you care about how I feel, not just what you want.”

“Touch softly,” Bucky repeats, drilling the instruction into his mind.

You shudder as his hand, once wrapped around your ankle, turns into a gentle caress with his fingertips.

Up and down, his calloused fingertips trace your foot up to your bare calf. He leans over your body, forcing you to lie down beneath him as he hikes up the hem of your skirt. He flattens his palm so it rests heavy against your bare thigh.

“Kiss,” he murmurs, his blue eyes tracing the curve of your lip. “Make you safe.”

He lowers his head, his dark, unruly hair brushing against your cheeks as he brings his face inches from yours.

He hesitates for a second, his nostrils flaring like an animal as he breathes you in. Then, with an awkward, slow movement that he isn’t at all used to, Bucky presses his lips to yours.

The kiss is clumsy and far too hard at first, but as much as he wants to, he doesn’t force his way inside. He doesn’t push his tongue into your mouth, demanding dominance. He keeps his mouth pressed against yours, his lips slightly parted, mimicking the action as best as his instincts allow. It is gentle, surprisingly soft, and very wet—he might’ve even been drooling, aching to kiss you.

He pulls away just a fraction and searches your face for any sign of fear.

“Like this?” he murmurs, his breath hot against your mouth. “Safe?”

Your heart flutters wildly in your chest, except this time it has nothing to do with fear. You stare up at the man before you with wide eyes and wet lips. Bucky studies your face, trying to make out if what he did was right or wrong.

“Y—yes,” you breathe out. “That was good.”

Satisfied with your answer, he leans back down and kisses you again. One hand rises up—slowly, to avoid startling you—and cups your cheek gently. His thumb grazes over the curve of your cheek while his lips explore yours.

A soft, needy sound leaves your lips before you can stop it, and Bucky answers with a deep groan. While one hand cradles your cheek, his other hand slowly rises beneath your dress to grip your smooth hip.

You find yourself unexpectedly leaning into the kiss, matching him until his tongue pokes past your lips and swirls around yours. The two of you breathe heavily, moaning softly against each other as Bucky positions himself between your legs. His cock grows even harder, poking against your warm inner thigh.

He can’t take it anymore. Each moan that leaves your lips sounds like yes, yes, yes to his ears. His desperate hands find the waistband of your panties, threatening to tear them.

You suddenly pull away from the kiss with a gasp, catching your breath. Your hand presses against his bare chest, stopping him.

“No,” you pant as you stare up at him. “Stop. Not yet. You have to be patient.”

At the word stop, Bucky freezes. A snarl rips from the back of his throat, and his face twists in frustration. His jaw clenches so hard, his muscles twitch. You wince back into the pillows in fear, thinking you are in over your head and have pushed him too far.

You brace yourself, closing your eyes tightly.

“I’m trying,” he growls, the words tearing past his teeth. “What do I have to do? Tell me.”

You open your eyes and see him hovering over you. His large body acts as a blanket of warmth while one strong arm props him up, the muscles straining under his own weight and restraint.

“You have to touch me,” you explain gently, pulling his hand away from your underwear and bringing it up to your chest. “Like this.”

Bucky’s eyes follow your movement. Your smaller hand rests over his as you guide him to squeeze your breasts. His breathing grows heavier as his fingers tug and start to play with your budded nipple, relishing the way you moan and arch your back into his touch.

“Like that,” you moan softly. “Good—good boy.”

He groans loudly at your praise. His dark, unruly hair brushes your skin before his mouth closes over your budded nipple. He begins to lick and suck hungrily, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak while his teeth graze the edge.

“Mm…” Your eyes flutter shut at the pleasure, your head tossing back against the pillow while he makes love to your tits.

Encouraged by your sounds, he grinds his thick hard cock firmly against the smooth skin of your bare thigh, seeking any kind of friction to relieve the ache between his legs.

One hand leaves your breast to grip your hip, digging his fingers into your skin to hold you still while he ruts against you like an animal. He whimpers against your chest, drunk on your scent and the high of your soft moans.

“Please,” he begs, his stubble tickling your bare chest. “Say yes. Let me have you. Now.”

The way he pleads sends a warm rush through your lower belly, a feeling that leaves you craving him just as badly. The man who is used to taking whatever he wants without remorse is reduced to being entirely at your mercy between your legs. A sensation settles inside you that you never thought you would harbor.

Control.

Just one word—one breathless little “yes”—would send Bucky over the edge. His pleasure and his craving are both held in your hands.

“Okay,” you say, giving him a small nod, satisfied with how well he has done. “You can have me.”

A growl rips from his chest. Driven by instinct, his large hands grip the waistband of your panties once more, his knuckles pulling taut as he prepares to shred the flimsy fabric to pieces.

“No,” you interject quickly, slapping his hands away. “Don’t rip them! That’s rude!”

He scowls as he draws his hand back, a whine of frustration catching in his throat like a disappointed hound. It’s clear he is unhappy about facing another rule when he is so close to the edge, yet he listens.

“Pull them down slowly,” you instruct.

Using every ounce of restraint in his veins, he resists the urge to tear the cloth. He hooks his thick fingers into the sides and slowly pulls the fabric down past your hips and thighs until you are completely bare beneath him.

“There you go,” you sigh softly, pleased with his gentle movements. “Good boy.”

Bucky’s eyes drop to the slick heat waiting for him. He hovers over your body, his heavy breathing filling the space between you as he positions the thick head of his cock right at your entrance. He rubs himself up and down against you, soaking his length in your arousal and sucking in a breath at the heat of your touch.

He is too big—impossibly so—and you aren’t sure if he will fit.

“Need to fuck you,” he grits through clenched teeth. “Hard.”

Holding himself at the base, he works at your entrance. His tip slowly slides in, stretching the opening and pushing deep enough to make you arch your back off the bed with a painful hiss.

He pauses at the sound.

“No,” you whimper, blinking tears away as you peer down at him. “If you’re going to have sex with me, you have to be gentle.”

His face twists into a strained expression, but he reluctantly abides.

One hand steadies your hip while the other holds his heavy cock, sliding into your warm, tight walls. Your body is so tight, not used to accommodating such a size, but he relents and continues pushing in.

You cry out, eyes squeezing shut as your arms rest on his shoulders for support.

“Look at me,” Bucky commands in a rough, deep voice. When you don’t listen, he tilts his head down so he is in your line of sight and tries again. “I said look at me.”

You finally do, and his eyes search yours intently. The ring of blue demands that you look at him, and him only.

“Keep them open,” he instructs. “Look at me. It will feel better.”

So, you do.

You both stare into each other’s eyes while he slides himself even deeper. As his cock stretches you wide, his brows furrow and his face twists into a snarl, baring his teeth at the tightness of your body until he finally sheathes himself fully inside with a groan.

“Gentle,” he rasps brokenly. “Gentle. Gotta be gentle.” He repeats the words as if he’s trying to remind himself.

Your legs shake around him, your body trying to get used to his size.

He hasn’t moved yet, but you already feel impossibly full. Your walls embrace him, and you feel your body slowly opening up to let him in. As his cock settles deep inside you, pleasure slowly overwhelms your senses.

For Bucky, it feels like pure torture. Your body is snug and warm—like a wet, tight fist wrapped around his cock, so much better than what he’s used to with his own calloused hands.

“Need to move,” he curses. “Need to fuck. Say yes.”

His voice comes out rough and crude, but he refuses to move without your consent.

“Hold on,” you whimper, still adjusting to his size. You shift your hips slightly, trying to get comfortable, but the movement only makes him groan in pleasure.

“Fine,” he grunts, squeezing your hip.

After what feels like forever, you finally nod your head.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m ready.”

And just like that, you open the pearly white gates to heaven for him.

With a hungry growl, he draws his hips back until only half of him remains, and then he slides himself back in. Your lips part in a gasp as he fills you again—his cock sinking even deeper, kissing your cervix.

“Tight,” Bucky clicks his tongue, growing frustrated. “Too tight.”

He pulls out halfway before slamming into you again, and again, and again. Each thrust grows harder and more unrelenting, forcing your body to yield to his cock.

“A—ah! It’s… s’too much—”

“Want me to stop?” he groans out painfully and reluctantly, like he doesn’t want you to answer with a ‘yes’.

“No,” you manage to breathe out. “Don’t stop.”

Moans and gasps spill from your lips every time he fills you. His girth splits you open with every savage thrust, his strong thighs forcing your legs wider for him.

His eyes never tear away from yours. Every time you try to squeeze your eyes shut from the force of his thrusts, he grabs your chin roughly and shakes you, forcing you to look back at him.

“Eyes. On. Me,” he hisses angrily.

Squeezing your cheeks to force your lips apart, he drags his thumb down your lower lip to pry them wider. He leans down, his hot breath tickling your skin while his damp strands of dark hair dance over your face.

He spits into your mouth, the traces of it dripping from his lips down to his chin, slicking your open mouth. It’s wild and savage, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. Without giving you the opportunity to pull away, his lips cover yours as he forces his saliva to swallow down your throat.

His tongue dances around yours again while he fucks you deeply, each move threatening to break both you and the bed.

Your eyes roll back so far in your skull while your legs dangle helplessly around his hips. Every thrust feels like a punishment for making him wait. Your nerves are crying out for release—and eventually, you give in. Your cunt spasms violently around Bucky’s length as bliss overwhelms every single sense.

“Oh my god,” you cry. “I’m gonna cum—!”

Your cries fill the small house as your back arches off the damp bed. Bucky insists on making eye contact with you, holding your jaw and forcing you to look at him while he fucks you through your climax.

You clench him tightly, your pussy pulsing in loving beats and squeezing him for every last drop.

“Fuck. Yes. Good, feels so good,” he rasps angrily, his thrusts becoming harder and more desperate.

His balls slap vulgarly against your wet pussy, traces of your slick clinging to him every time he bottoms out. His balls churn with pent-up seed, aching to fill you deep. Your cries grow louder, your hips shifting around to accommodate the overstimulation—but it’s no use.

Bucky’s close, so close. While his eyes bore into yours, his pupils dilate with desire. He just needs to get deeper, to fuck you at an impossible angle to pump you full…

“Wait,” you dig your nails deep into his back, making him gasp in pain. “Slow down—it’s too much…”

He snarls angrily, his hips slowing down just a fraction, but not entirely.

The sound that leaves your lips is a cocktail of pain and bliss. It’s a sultry sound that encourages him to continue, to take what he wants, but the words leaving your mouth say otherwise.

“No,” you shake your head. “Stop, please. It’s too much for me. You’re going to break me—”

His hands release your cheeks roughly as his head drops to press his sweaty forehead against yours. Another animalistic sound tears through him as he forces his hips to come to a stop. His cock stills inside you—pulsing for any form of friction. Just a few more thrusts, and he’ll cum. He’ll cum hard. But he stops, because you asked him to.

“Need to cum,” he pants against your face, taking in the way your eyes have gone teary. “So close.”

“I know,” you say with a soft sigh, your eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. “I know. I just… just need a minute.”

You let your fingers trail up and down his back, and he shudders at the feeling.

The two of you lie there, tangled in each other’s limbs while you catch your breath. Bucky waits impatiently—his heart beating so fast in his chest as he uses every ounce of restraint in his blood to refrain from fucking you right through the bed.

Your pussy is already swollen and puffy from his size, and the longer he remains stuffed inside you, the tighter your body squeezes around him.

With his forehead pressed against yours, he shifts his knees and hips slightly to get comfortable, but even those tiny, forced movements are agonizing. Breathy moans and grunts escape both your lips, shared in the tight space between you. It’s sex without the vulgar movements, and it feels far too intimate for a ruthless man like Bucky.

Finally, you grant him permission.

Staring into his eyes, you give him a small nod to let him continue. And the moment you do, the last thread holding Bucky’s control snaps.

He grabs your legs and shoves them high over your shoulders, splitting you wide and pinning you down into a deep mating press. “Need to go deeper. Hold still.”

You had just gotten used to his size, and the sudden change in position makes your eyes fly open. Your mouth falls open in a gasp as he draws his hips back before bottoming out completely inside you.

His heavy, sweaty body crushes down on yours as he begins to fuck you hard and fast. Every draw of his hips fills you impossibly deep, your stretched cunt molding helplessly around his thick length. He works his hips in a wild, frantic rhythm, chasing his release at full speed before you can say another word to stop him.

“Mine,” he rasps through gritted teeth, his chest heaving as his sweat drips onto your skin. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine—”

The force of his hips slamming against yours knocks the breath right out of you, your moans coming out as breathless gasps while he pounds into you. His eyes bore into yours, waiting for you to finally give in.

“Tell me you’re mine. Say it.”

You blink through tears of bliss. “I—I’m yours—” you manage to stammer out.

His face twists in pleasure, baring his teeth as he pins your legs against your chest while the tip of his cock works deep against your cervix. “Good. A perfect sleeve for my cock. Look at me while I cum inside you.”

The sight of your face scrunched in pleasure and vulnerability sends a wave of heat coursing from his lower gut to the very tips of his toes. His cock pulses and throbs inside, slicking your walls with his pre-cum—a warning before giving you the real thing.

“Pump my cum,” his large palm settles over your lower belly. “All in here.”

The thought of you walking around the house barefoot and round with his children—growing up to be champions just like their father—makes his head spin and his balls grow heavy.

“Close. So close,” he curses and groans over and over, speaking more than he ever has. “Hold still. Take it all for me, wife.”

Bucky buries himself as deep as his length will go, pinning you down as his entire body locks tight. His cock pulses, pumping wave after thick wave of his hot seed deep inside your womb.

His head drops into the crook of your neck, his large, sweaty chest heaving against yours as he rides out his pleasure.

He releases your legs for a moment until both your rapid hearts finally slow to a steady beat. Slowly, agonizingly so, he draws his thick length back, pulling out of your slick, overstimulated cunt with a wet suction sound.

You let out a soft, breathless gasp at the sudden empty feeling. A ring of creamy white circles the base of his cock, and his seed dribbles between your folds—physical proof of what he just did to you.

Without a word, he grips both your ankles with one large hand, pinning your thighs together and pressing your legs straight up into the air to hold them suspended above you.

You blink at him—dazed, exhausted, and thoroughly used. His cock rests half-limp between his strong legs, so he clearly isn’t going for another round.

“What are you doing…?” you whisper softly, confused.

He holds your legs firmly in place as his dark eyes scan your bare, trembling body.

“Make sure it takes,” he grunts out, his voice rough from satisfaction. He uses his free hand to trace a warm, possessive line down to your lower belly, pressing down gently right over your womb. “Keep your belly round with my sons.”

You stare up at him in disbelief while your legs are held helplessly aloft by his massive hand. You’re too exhausted to argue, your brain still foggy from your orgasm. Still, you manage an incredulous laugh.

Does he seriously think propping your legs up like a pair of stilts is going to magically guarantee a pregnancy?

He looks so proud of himself that you don’t even have the heart to argue. He squeezes your ankles slightly, letting out a satisfied hum from his chest once he’s convinced his little trick did the job. The smile on his face is almost boyish in a way that does not belong to a rough man like him.

“Good wife,” he praises you. “Birth me healthy champions.”

You let out a soft sigh, fluttering your eyelids shut as fatigue finally crawls its way into your bones.

As you drift into slumber, you make a mental note to teach this brute a lesson on how gravity works. And right after that, you’ll teach him what aftercare is—especially if he plans on keeping you forever and making you his wife.

if you've made it this far, as always thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. interactions are always appreciated, I love reading every bit of them!

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Alfie’s bakery itself was not much to look at from the street, it was nothing but a modest front of brick and glass with the name painted in gold that had started to flake, but everyone knew it was only ever half the story. The real money never came from loaves. The real money came from the rum barrels tucked away, from the horses, and the shipments whose contents were merely whispers. The bakery was a convenience, a respectable face. Somewhere men could come and go without drawing the wrong kind of eyes.

Alfie sat behind his wooden desk, his bulk filled the chair like a man who had never learned the art of taking up less space than he was owed. His coat was open, his waistcoat strained across his middle, and the gold chain of his watch winked every time he moved his arm. 

He was tapping one finger on an irregular rhythm against the wood. Ollie hovered near the door that led out of his office, nervous in the way he shouldn’t be after working for Alfie for so long. “Come on, Alfie,” Ollie said, pitching his voice low so the hopefuls waiting beyond the door wouldn’t hear the impatience in it. “Everyone’s waiting. Some of them have been standing out there since before sunrise. They’re starting to look like they might riot”

Alfie did not look up, instad he placed the glass of whisky he’d been holding on the desk. When he spoke, each syllable sounded chewed and considered. “Ollie, my boy… I don’t see why I need to bother with this. You see, I could put a donkey out there to bake the bread and I still wouldn’t give a shit. The lads would still buy it because they’re hungry and they’re not particular and this is Camden, not the fucking Ritz.”

Ollie shifted his weight from one polished shoe to the other. “So should I… just point? Pick someone? There’s a big bloke with big arms who looks like he could knead dough for twelve hours straight without blinking.”

Alfie’s head came up at last. “Just choose the one who looks the more competent,” he said, waving one large hand in a vague circle. “Competent. You know the word? Means they won’t burn the place down or poison the customers or, god forbid, start getting ideas about unions. If they look like they’ve ever thought a complicated thought in their life, send them packing.”

Ollie hesitated, and the silence stretched. “But we told everyone to bring something freshly baked,” he said carefully. “That was the whole point, Alfie. So you could taste it. So it—”

“Holy fuck, Ollie.” Alfie’s voice rose without quite becoming a shout, it never needed to, the way he said it was enough. He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the desk. “You know what? Tell them to come in. One by one. Go.”

Ollie went. He opened the office door and the murmur of voices from the shop floor swelled for a moment, the men shifting impatently, people who needed work and they’d been forced to waste an entire morning in this shithole. It all cut off as Ollie cleared his throat and called the first name.

The man who entered Alfie’s office was broad across the shoulders and thick through the middle. He carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in both hands, stopped a respectful distance from the desk and waited.

Alfie regarded him in silence for a long moment. Then he made a small gesture with two fingers. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Show us what you’ve brought, my son.”

The man unwrapped the cloth with careful fingers. Inside lay a round loaf, still faintly warm. The smell that rose from it was good enough, of yeast and a hot oven. He set it on the table and Alfie tore a piece free with his fingers. He brought it to his nose first, sniffed once, then again with suspicion. Then he put it in his mouth. He chewed it slowly, his face remaining carefully blank for three full seconds. Then he twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. He chewed once more, swallowed with effort, and set the remainder of the bread down.

“What,” he said, very quietly, “in the name of every living, suffering creature, is this supposed to be?” The man opened his mouth, but Alfie raised one finger, and the man closed it again. “I have eaten things in the trenches that had more dignity than this. I have eaten things that tried to eat me back and still managed to leave a better impression. This—” he poked the loaf with one finger “—this is an insult to the very concept of bread. Worst thing I have ever put in my mouth, and I have put some deeply questionable things in my mouth in my time, let me tell you. Fuck off. Take your sad little brick and fuck off.”

The man’s face went from red to a blotchy purple. He snatched up the remaining bread, muttered something that might have been an apology or a curse, and retreated so quickly he nearly collided with the doorframe. Ollie ushered him out with the face of someone who had seen this particular performance from Alfie before, many times, and still found it freshly exhausting.

The door closed. The room settled back into its warm, yeasty quiet. Alfie wiped his fingers on a handkerchief that had seen better decades and muttered something under his breath about the decline of standards in the baking trades.

Ollie opened the door again.

“Next,” he called. You stepped through, and the change in the air was immediate, though neither Alfie nor Ollie could have said exactly why. The heat of the room seemed to pause as you carried your own cloth-wrapped offering, the warmth of it still seeping through the fabric into your hands.

Alfie looked up and whatever cutting remark or theatrical sigh he had been preparing died somewhere between his chest and his throat. His blue eyes, usually so quick to narrow in suspicion or amusement, widened by a fraction. He sat very still, watching something unexpected that had just walked into his kingdom.

You looked, to him, like something that did not belong in the back room of a Camden bakery that doubled as a front for darker enterprises. The light from the high window caught you just so, turning the edges of you luminous, almost lke a halo. An angel, he thought, with sudden clarity. He forgot, for several long heartbeats, that he was meant to be hiring a baker, he simply looked at you.

You could feel the heat of the place settling onto your skin, but you kept your shoulders straight, and your chin lifted just enough. “Good morning, Mr Solomons,” you said. “I’m here for the baker position.”

Alfie’s mouth twitched in something both softer and more dangerous than a smile. He sat back slowly in the chair, and regarded you as if you had just walked out of a different century entirely.

“And what’s your name, love?” he asked. You told him and the sound of it hung there in the room for a moment. Alfie roamed his eyes over your face as if he were committing the shape of it to memory. “Beautiful name,” he said. “Beautiful.” The second time his voice came out quieter, like he was saying it almost to himself. He cleared his throat. “Well then, let’s see what you’ve brought me. Don’t just stand there looking like a painting, show us the goods.”

You stepped closer to the table and set the cloth-wrapped parcel down with care. You unwrapped it slowly, revealing the poppy seed cake beneath. The scent rose immediately, the sweetness of a cake baked that morning and no earlier. Alfie leaned forward, reaching out for it with one hand and tearing a piece free with surprising gentleness. He brought it first to his nose, sniffed once and then put it in his mouth.

The change in his face was almost immediate, the scowl that lived around his mouth eased, and his eyes half-closed for a moment. He chewed slowly, and when he swallowed, he looked at the remaining cake as if it was offensive to taste so good.

“Fuck me,” he muttered. Then, louder, “This… this tastes like the one my mother used to bake, the exact same. She used to make it on Fridays… haven’t tasted anything close in years.” He looked up at you. “Proper little miracle, this is.”

You felt heat rise in your cheeks. You’d been complimented for your baking a million times, but somehow this felt more personal than any other nice word you’d received. “I’m glad,” you said simply.

Alfie tore another piece, smaller this time, and ate it with the same thoughtfulness. He wiped his fingers on the handkerchief and sat back. “So, why d’you want the job, love? Pretty thing like you. Could be doing a hundred other things that don’t involve getting flour up to the elbows”

You met his gaze and went with the most honest answer. “I’m seeking a little more independence.”

The word seemed to amuse him, he let out a sound, close to a laugh, that rumbled out of his chest. “Independence?” He spread his hands, the heavy rings catching the light. “Well I’m all about women’s independence, ain’t that right, Ollie?” He glanced toward the door where his assistant still hovered. “Tell her, Ollie. Tell her how progressive I am. How I believe a woman should be free to earn her own coin and stand on her own two feet and not have to ask some useless bastard for permission every time she wants a new hat. Go on.”

Ollie cleared his throat, internally rolling his eyes with disdain. “Yes, Alfie. Very progressive. You’ve said so. Many times.”

“See?” Alfie turned back to you. “Independence. Beautiful word. Almost as beautiful as your name. Almost.” He tilted his head, studying you. “You married, love?”

You moved your right hand without conscious thought, brushed the simple band on your ring finger. You let your fingertips rest there a moment longer than necessary, making sure he saw it. “I am,” you said. “Is that a problem?”

Alfie’s gaze lingered on your hand. Specifically on the ring, not too big, not too shiny or flashy. And he saw the way you curled your fingers protectively around it. “No,” he said slowly. “Not a problem. Happily married, are we?”

The lie came easier after being said so many times before. “Yes.”

Alfie made a small sound in the back of his throat. He looked down at the cake again, tore another piece, and spoke around it, low enough that you couldn’t hear. “We’ll see about that.”

He chewed, swallowed, and set the rest of the piece down with care. “I’m not gonna lie to you, love,” he said, louder now, businesslike again. “Your cake is excellent. Proper excellent. But look at you.” He gestured with one hand, encompassing all of you from the crown of your head to the hem of your skirt. “Look at those arms. You think you can knead bread for hours on end? Proper kneading. You think you can haul sacks of flour up from the cellar when the delivery comes? This is a working bakery.”

You straightened your shoulders, lifting your chin with the stubborn defiance that had carried you this far into the room. Ever the little fighter, determined not to let this opportunity slip away, you met Alfie’s gaze. “I’m stronger than I look.”

Alfie studied you for a long moment. “I don’t want to discriminate on account of your sex, believe me,” he said at last. “I am a modern man. Progressive, like Ollie said. But we’ve always had male bakers here. Big lads who can lift and carry and sweat without anyone batting an eye. A woman like you…” He swept his gaze over you again, slower this time, lingering in ways that had nothing to do with assessing upper body strength. “A woman like you could be out front, smiling at the customers. But sadly all those positions are taken, and I don’t see how putting you in the back is anything but a waste of something that looks like it belongs in a different sort of room entirely.”

You stepped closer to the table, close enough to smell the rum scent lingering in his clothes.  “Please, Mr Solomons. I’ll work harder than any of those men out there will. I can assure you of that. Harder, and better. I won’t complain, I won’t show up late, Iwon’t drink on the job or pick fights. Give me the chance and I’ll prove it. Every single day.”

Alfie watched you, drumming his fingers once against the wood, then twice before he stilled. “You know what,” he said slowly, lifting the corner of his mouth. “I like your attitude. There’s fire in you. Didn’t expect that, not with the face of an angel."

Ollie raked his eyes over you with suspicion. His voice, when it came, was deliberately unfriendly. “Do you have any references from previous employers?”

You met his gaze without flinching. “No. I haven’t worked before. But I’m very responsible, I learn quickly, and I brought the cake so you could judge the work for yourself.”

Ollie turned his head just enough to catch Alfie’s eye. The look he gave him was a silent don’t even think about it. The kind of look that said this was a bad idea, that a woman with no references and a pretty face was more trouble than she was worth.

Alfie ignored the look completely. “Ah, references,” he said, the word rolling out like it was something ridiculous. “Who needs references, Ollie? What am I supposed to do with a letter from some old bastard who thinks she knows how to bake? I don’t need a prick telling me she’s good. I can taste it in the cake. References.” He snorted. “References are for men who can’t trust their own tongue. I trust mine. And my tongue is telling me this woman knows what she’s doing. She’s hired.”

Ollie opened his mouth. “Alfie…”

But Alfie was already looking at you again. “Welcome to the bakery, love. Try not to let Ollie’s worrying rub off on you. He means well… mostly.”

Behind you, Ollie made a strangled sound. “Alfie… there’s like fifteen other people out there. Don’t you want to talk to them first? The one with the big arms is still waiting. And there’s a fellow who used to work at that place up in—”

Alfie did not even turn his head, his eyes remained on you. “Shut up, Ollie.” The command was soft but absolute. “The lady here is hired. End of discussion. Tell the rest of them to fuck off and find honest work elsewhere. Or dishonest work. I don’t care. Just get them out of my bakery before I decide to start charging them rent for standing around.”

Ollie opened his mouth, but he thought anything he could say was simply pointless when his boss’s head was set around something, so he closed it, nodded once, and slipped out the door. 

You stood very still in the suddenly quieter room, feeling your heart beating steady and hard against your ribs. “Thank you so much, Mr Solomons,” you said with a wide smile adorning your face.

Alfie waved the gratitude away with one hand, though the look in his eyes said he was filing the sound of your voice saying his name somewhere private. “We expect you here in the morning. Every day. Four a.m. sharp until two in the afternoon. Sixty shillings a week. How does that sound?”

Sixty… The number was generous, more than generous. You knew it, and he knew you knew it. “Excellent,” you said.

The door opened again, and Ollie, who had clearly been listening to the conversation, hovered on the threshold, looking like he'd aged five years in the last two minutes.

“Alfie,” he said carefully, “we paid forty the last one. And he worked three hours more every day. Forty shillings and he was grateful for it.”

Alfie finally turned his head. The look he gave his assistant could have made some people piss themselves. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up, Ollie? Or do I need to write it down? Big letters, so even a man like you could understand. The lady is hired. Sixty shillings. Four until two. And if I hear one more word about the previous arrangement or the previous baker or any other previous fucking thing, I will personally see to it that your next position involves a great deal more lifting and a great deal less talking. Clear?”

Ollie swallowed. “Clear, Alfie.”

“Good.” Alfie turned back to you, and the irritation melted out of his face as if it had never been there, replaced by something softer. He gestured at the remaining cake with one thick finger. “Take the rest home with you, love. No, no, leave it. I’ll finish it myself and think of my mother and the way things used to taste before the world got bloody and full of people who can’t bake for shit. Either way.” He sat back. “Six a.m. tomorrow. Don’t be late. I hate lateness.”

You thanked him again, the words soft but sincere. “Thank you, Mr Solomons. Truly. You won’t be disappointed, I promise you that.” With one last small nod, you turned toward the door, and stepped out, your heart still racing from the weight of the moment. 

Minutes after you left, Alfie tore another piece of cake free, and ate it slowly, with his eyes half-lidded, tasting memories and not just the sugar and butter. Ollie closed the door with more force than necessary and turned. For a moment he simply stood there, then he folded his arms.

“Progressive, huh?” he said. The words were laced either an edge of accusation. “You’re a progressive man?”

Alfie did not look up. Instead he chewed, swallowed, and reached for another piece of cake.

“I can be,” he said around the mouthful. “I contain multitudes, Ollie. Depths. A man can evolve, a man can look at the world as it is and decide, on a Tuesday afternoon, that perhaps the old ways are not the only ways. Women earning their own keep, women standing on their own two feet. Yes, I can be progressive. Watch me.”

Ollie took a step closer, making the floorboards complain under even his light weight. “Sixty shillings. You’ve lost your mind.”

The piece of cake in Alfie’s hand was forgotten, crumbs clinging to his waistcoat. “Don’t talk to me like that, you little shit. That woman was something special. I could see it in her eyes. I think it’s gonna be good to keep her around. Useful…. decorative, possibly both. And if I want to pay her sixty shillings a week, then that is my business. My bakery, my coin, and my progressive fucking principles.”

Ollie let out a short, incredulous breath. He glanced at the closed door as if the fifteen rejected men might still be pressed against it listening. “You wanna know what I saw?”

Alfie waved his hand in a lazy and dismissive arc. “Nah. Not really. I find that most of the time when people offer to share what they saw it turns out to be something tedious and moralising and ultimately none of their concern. Spare me the sermon, Ollie.”

Ollie did not spare him. “That you want to sleep with the woman,” he said, each word precise. “That’s why you gave her that ridiculous payment. That’s why you didn’t even look at the others. That’s why you’re sitting there eating her cake like it’s a religious experience and talking about her eyes like she’s the first pretty face that ever walked into this place. You want her. Plain and simple. And you’re dressing it up as noble intentions and women’s independence so you don’t have to admit that you just got his head turned by a married girl.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Alfie set the remaining piece of cake down with exaggerated care. He brushed the crumbs from his fingers one by one, and then he leaned forward. When he spoke, the voice that came out was wounded and theatrically offended.

“What?” He let the single word hang there. “You’re saying,” he continued, “that my noble intentions of employing a young woman in seek of her financial independence are merely the result of me wanting to get between her legs? That the sixty shillings, a fair wage, a progressive, right? Progressive wage, a wage that says ‘here is a woman who will not be underpaid simply because the world has decided her labour is worth less’  is somehow a bribe? A down payment on future fornication? That I, I, looked at that angel-faced creature and thought only of tumbling her into the nearest flat surface like some common beast in heat?”

“That’s exactly what I saw,” Ollie said.

Alfie’s eyes were wide with manufactured horror. “You got a sick mind, Ollie. Proper diseased. You disgust me. Truly. I am sitting here trying to do a good deed in a wicked world, and you reduce it to base carnality. I am wounded, I am wounded in my progressive soul. My mother, God rest her, would be spinning in her grave if she could hear the filth you just poured into this sacred place. I hope you can imagine the depths of my distress.”

Ollie opened his mouth, but Alfie raised one finger. “No. Do not speak. Do not compound the obscenity by trying to justify it. I have hired a baker, a baker whose cake has temporarily restored my faith in the concept of home and family. That is all, if she happens to have a face that could make the sanest man go absolutely mad, that is incidental, purely incidental. And if I choose to pay her what she is worth instead of what the market has decided a woman is worth, that is called being a man of fucking principle. Principle. Look it up, it’s in the dictionary.”

He picked up the last piece of cake, bit into it and chewed with defiant pleasure, the poppy seeds cracked between his teeth. “Now, go and make sure those rejects have properly dispersed. I don’t want them lingering here. And Ollie?”

Ollie, who had gone a mottled shade of angry red. “Yes, Alfie?”

“If you ever again suggest that my interest in that woman’s employment is anything other than pure and high-minded and deeply, almost spiritually progressive…” Alfie smiled then. “I will introduce you to a concept called unemployment. Clear?”

“Clear, Alfie.”

“Good boy.” Alfie waved him off with the hand that still held the final crumb of cake. “Fuck off and be useful. And by the way, her cake is indeed a religious experience, you should buy a slice tomorrow afternoon.”

Ollie fled, leaving Alfie sitting alone in the room. His eyes had gone distant, fixed on the place where you had stood only minutes before. He murmured to the empty room. “Happily married. We’ll fucking see.”

***

You woke before the sun had risen, dressing quickly and buttoning up your dress with steady fingers even though your pulse was not so steady. You pinned your hair back, simple and practical, nothing that would get in the way. The streets of Camden were quiet at that hour, you walked with your coat pulled tight and a cloth bag with your clean apron.

The bakery blinds were already open when you reached it, a yellow light spilling from the high windows onto the pavement. You pushed inside, and Ollie was waiting for you with an expression of lingering disapproval.

“You’re early,” he said. “Good. Alfie hates lateness. Come on then. I’ll show you the lay of it before the real work starts.”

He took you through everything with efficiency, as if he had done this too many times and still found it tedious. The big brick ovens along the back wall, the flour sacks stacked in the cellar, the schedule chalked on a board. “Don’t skimp, he’ll know. The knives are sharp. If you cut yourself, try not to bleed into the dough, it puts the customers off. Apron on, hair up, sleeves rolled. Questions?”

Before you could open your mouth, Ollie was already turning around, leaving you to it with a muttered “Don’t burn the place down” and disappearing toward the front to deal with the early delivery men.

You tied your apron, rolled your sleeves, washed your hands in the stone sink, and then you began. The rye bread came first. You mixed by what felt right more than the measurements that were written on the board. Your hands knew the work, push, fold, turn, push again, until the dough stopped fighting and began to mold under your palms. 

The first hours passed in a blur, feeling physical satisfaction of work that asked something real of your body. By the time the clock on the wall showed half past five, the bread loaves were rising in the ovens and the honey cakes were cooling on the racks. You had moved on to the next batch, your arms ached in the good way, and flour dusted your forearms and the front of your apron, with a streak of it that had somehow found your cheek. 

You had just finished with the onion rolls for the afternoon orders, when the fine hairs on the back of your neck lifted. Someone was behind you, close enough to hear their breathing. You spun, feeling your heart slamming hard against your ribs, a sound catching in your throat before you could stop it.

Alfie stood there in the middle of the kitchen, filling the space between the benches. “Calm down, love,” he said. “It’s just little old me.”

You pressed a floury hand to your chest, trying to slow the frantic beat. “Sorry, Mr Solomons. You scared me.”

He tilted his head, fighting back a smile. “Am I seriously that ugly? Proper frighten the pretty ladies, do I? Make small children cry at the mere sight of my face?”

A startled laugh escaped you before you could catch it. “No. No, of course not. I just wasn’t expecting you here. It took me by surprise.”

“And why is that?” He stepped closer, not enough to crowd, but enough that the heat of him mixed with the heat of the ovens. “I wanted to see how my newest employee is adapting on her first day. Call it quality control.”

You wiped your hands on your apron, leaving white streaks on it. “Everything’s going well so far. The batches of bread are ready. The honey cakes are cooling. And now I’m on the onion rolls for the afternoon orders. The dough’s almost ready for its second prove.”

Alfie breathed in deep, expanding his chest and half-closing his eyes for a moment. “Wonderful. Fucking amazing. This place smells great. You’ve got the gift, love. I knew it the second I tasted that cake yesterday. My mother would have approved, and she didn’t approve of much. Especially not me.”

You felt the flush rise again, part of it was pride, but the other something you couldn’t quite name. “You won’tregret hiring me. I promised I’d work harder than any of those men. I meant it.”

He waved one hand. “We’ll go on, love. I’ll let you work. Don’t let the presence of management put you off your stroke.” He said it, and then he did not leave.

You turned back to the onion rolls dough because the alternative was to keep staring at him like a fool. You floured the bench, turned the dough out, and began to knead again. The muscles in your arms and shoulders felt the work even while every nerve ending remained painfully aware of the man standing three feet behind you. You could feel his eyes, the weight of them, how they tracked the movement of your hands, the line of your back, the stray curl that had escaped your pins and now clung to the damp skin of your neck.

Minutes stretched, finally you spoke without turning, keeping your voice carefully light. “Am I doing anything wrong? Or is this an evaluation of some sort?”

Alfie’s reply came thoughtful, the words rolled around his mouth. “Just observing how you handle things, love. The way you touch the dough. I am expanding my mind.”

You kept kneading, though your hands had gone a fraction less sure. “I just know you’re a busy man. I imagined you had more important things to do than watch someone make onion rolls at six in the morning.”

“Nonsense.” The word was firm. He moved then, you heard the creak of the floorboards, and came to lean against the edge of the bench beside you, close enough that his coat brushed your skirt. “Nothing more important than this. The bakery is the face we show the world. So yes, watching you work is important. Critical, even.”

There was a pause, you felt him studying your profile. “So,” he said, quieter. “You know about me, huh?”

You glanced sideways. “A little. I mean… everyone does.”

“And aren’t you afraid?”

The question hung between you, but you kept working, pushing the dough into itself, feeling it grow silkier. “No,” you said with honesty. “I’ve heard the good things too.”

Alfie raised his eyebrows in what was a sceptical lift. “Yeah? What good? Don’t spare my blushes, love. I can take it, I’ve got a weak sense of shame.”

You hesitated only a moment. “I had a cousin who came back blind from the war. Last year he got a dog, a guide dog, trained, from that Blind Jew charity. Everyone knows it was thanks to one of your donations. He walks free now because of it.”

For a long moment the only sounds were the roar of the ovens and the rhythmic slap of the dough against wood. Alfie looked away, drumming his fingers once on the edge of the bench. “Oh. That?” He made a dismissive gesture, but it lacked conviction. “That’s nothing. Loose change. Don’t go making me into a saint, love. Saints don’t last long around here. That’s not goodness. That’s just… a clear conscience for five minutes.”

He fell silent. You kept kneading because your hands needed something to do. The dough was ready now, you shaped the rolls and set them in the oiled bowl, covered it with a clean cloth. Only then did you look at him fully, Alfie was watching you with an expression you had not seen on him before. Something that looked almost like hunger, though whether for the honey cakes cooling on the rack or for the woman who was standing in front of him was impossible for you to say.

“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Turn up with a cake that tastes like my childhood. Refuse to be afraid and quote my better deeds back at me.” He dropped his eyes briefly to your left hand, then lifted again. “Happily married. Still sticking to that story, are we?”

You did not answer, and so Alfie pushed off the bench with a grunt. “Right. I’ve taken enough of your time, love. Carry on, make me proud, make the neighbourhood weep with joy at the quality of their morning loaf. And if anyone gives you trouble, the lads, the customers, Ollie with his little disapproving face, you come find me. I’ll sort it. Personally.”

Then he was gone, his heavy footsteps fading toward the back, where the real business was done,  leaving you alone in the heat with flour on your cheek, dough under your nails, and the distinct certainty that nothing about this job was going to stay simple for very long.

***

A week later, Alfie was already half out of that chair of his office. The gold chain of his watch winkled as he checked the time, like he had somewhere far more important to be than his business meetings.

Ollie stood between him and the door like a particularly anxious gatepost. “You can’t go now,” he said. “Thomas Shelby just arrived for the meeting, remember? You were gonna discuss the price of the—”

“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” Alfie lifted his hand with the fingers spread in a theatrical gesture. “Save your words, Ollie. Husband them. I don’t care. Tell Thomas Shelby to wait. Tell him Alfie is engaged in matters of critical importance. Tell him whatever pretty little lie floats through that head of yours. Just make him wait.”

Ollie’s face did something complicated, a grimace of disbelief. “Alfie, he came all the way from Birmingham. I can’t just tell the man to wait.”

Alfie paused in the middle of buttoning his coat. He turned fully, and the smile that spread across his face was slow and deeply unimpressed. “Oh, come on. He’s not gonna slice your throat with his razor blade, not over a few minutes. Thomas Shelby is a busy man, same as me. He understands the concept of priorities. Entertain him, sing him a little song, do him some magic tricks. Pull a fucking rabbit out of your arse if you have to. Offer him a honey cake, the new girl’s honey cakes.”

Ollie took a step closer, lowering his voice even though the door was shut and the walls were solid. “You can’t go see her every day, Alfie. We need you here. We need you handling what needs to be handled. The little problems that turn into big problems if they’re left unresolved. Not distracted. Not… whatever this is.”

Alfie went very still. His hat dangled from one hand, for a long moment the only sound was the distant sound of the men working outside.

Then Alfie laughed. A laugh edged with genuine delight at the absurdity of being lectured by his own assistant. “Well,” he said, spreading his hands. “I suppose I should just hand you the whole fucking business, shouldn’t I? Keys, ledgers, the combination to the safe. Seeing as you know it all, Ollie. Seeing as you’ve got the entire operation running so smoothly in that clever little head of yours that you can spare the time to tell me where I can and cannot point my own two feet.”

Ollie flushed, but he did not back down entirely. “What’s so special about her anyway? I get it, she’s pretty. But there’s a thousand other pretty women out there, and you’ve never been like this before, not over any of them. Disappearing every chance you get, watching her kneading dough like it's a spectacle. What’s different?”

Alfie set the hat down on the desk with deliberate care. He planted both thick hands on the wood and leaned forward. His voice had softened into something quieter, almost as a confession. “Ollie, my boy. You wouldn’t recognise special if it walked up and hit you square in the face. That woman…” He paused, searching for the words. “She’s got something, let me tell you that. Not just the face, though the face is a fucking miracle, I’ll grant you. It’s the eyes, the way she looks at you and doesn’t flinch, the way she talks about independence, the way she baked a cake that tasted like my mother’s cake and then stood there and told me she wasn’t afraid of me. Do you know how rare that is? In this life? A woman who looks at me and decides the rumours are less interesting than the man standing in front of her?”

He pushed off the desk and began to pace the short length of the office. “She draws me in like a magnet. I go there for five minutes to check the ovens and an hour disappears. She’s not any woman I’ve seen, and I find I cannot stop tuning myself to it. Is that clear enough for you, Ollie? Or shall I draw a diagram? ‘Alfie’s inexplicable gravitational pull toward the new baker’ would that help?”

Ollie dragged a hand down his face. “Alfie, we need you on planet Earth. Not on the moon.”

Alfie stopped pacing and turned, looking at Ollie with a smile that split his face, a ittle unhinged around the edges. “Oh but I am on the moon, Ollie.” He spread his arms as if encompassing the absurdity of it. “She’s got me swept away. I’m walking around up here in the thin air of whatever delision this is, and I find I don’t particularly want to come down.”

He snatched the hat back up, settled it on his head with a tug and moved toward the door, deciding the conversation was over. “Keep Thomas Shelby waiting,” he said over his shoulder. “Give him a drink. Give him a cake. Tell him Alfie will be along when Alfie is good and ready and not a moment before.”

He pulled the door open, Ollie made one last desperate sound. “Alfie—”

“Entertain him,” Alfie repeated, already halfway down the hall. “Magic tricks, Ollie. I have faith in you. Somewhere under all that anxiety is a man who can keep Tommy Shelby occupied for twenty minutes without losing a finger. Prove me right, or don’t. Either way I’ll be back when I’m back.”

A few minutes later, Alfie came through the kitchen door, he didn’t announce himself with any of the theatrical booming that usually preceded him, he simply crossed the floor, snagging a sturdy wooden chair from against the wall, and setting it down beside your bench. Then he sat, making the chair protest under his weight.

“How are you doing on this beautiful morning, love?” he asked, spreading his knees and tipping his head back slightly, breathing in the air.

You kept kneading, though every nerve had gone aware of the man now sitting close to you. “I’m doing good,” you said. “What about you?”

Alfie reached out without asking and snagged one of the still-warm beigels from the rack, turning it over in his fingers with the appreciation of a man examining a rare jewel. “Business is a shitshow,” he confided cheerfully. “Tommy Shelby’s in my office and Ollie’s having a nervous breakdown because I left him to play host. Everyone wants a piece of me. But—” he tore a piece of the beigel free and pointed it at you like a teacher making a point “—now I’m doing better. Dramatically better. The second I came through that door and the smell hit me, the entire shitshow receded. Funny how that works.”

You smiled and nodded at the beigel in his hand. “You want to try it properly? They’re best when they’re still warm. I made the dough last night so it could have a long prove.”

“I’d love to,” he said, and bit in. The sound he made was obscene in its sincerity, an appreciative groan that seemed to come from somewhere in his chest. He chewed slowly. “Fuck me,” he murmured once he could speak again. “It’s amazing. I’ve never, and I mean never, met someone who cooked exactly like the food I tasted as a child.” He took another bite, larger this time, and spoke around it. “Where did you learn to cook like this, love? Because this isn’t ordinary talent.”

You pushed the dough away for a moment, wiping your hands on your apron. “From my nana. We used to spend the afternoons together baking when I was small. She’d pull out this little book, battered thing, every recipe had a little note in her handwriting. A touch that was just hers. A pinch more salt here, a longer prove there. I know all of them by heart now”

Alfie went still. “God bless your nana,” he said quietly, what remained in his voice was completely sincere. “God bless her hands and her little book and the afternoons she gave you. May her memory be a blessing. Because whatever she put into you… it’s still here. I can taste it. I can fucking feel it.”

A startled laugh escaped you, bright and sudden. It rang off the high ceiling, Alfie watched the sound leave your mouth, and something softened in his expression. “You’ve got the laugh of an angel,” he said. “Celestial. Makes a man want to say stupid things just to hear it again.”

Heat flooded your face so fast it was almost dizzying. You turned back to the dough with more force than necessary, kneading it hard. Your ears were burning, you could feel him watching your nervous smile and the way your hands had gone suddenly less certain.

He let the silence stretch just long enough to be merciful. “You’d mentioned your cousin served. The one who came back blind. Did you have many family sent over to France, love?”

You kept your eyes on the dough. “Most of them,” you said. “All my cousins. And my brother.” A breath. “He didn’t make it. They never found enough of him to bring home properly.” You swallowed and kept working. “My husband luckily stayed in London. He managed a military warehouse here. That kept him out of the trenches.”

Alfie made a low sound of understanding and set the half-eaten beigel down on the edge of the bench with surprising care.

“Right,” he said. “Guess some lads were luckier. Didn’t have to be sent over to drown in the mud and the gas. Lucky.” He studied you sideways. “Anyway, what does your husband do now?”

“He works in a factory. He’s a machine operator.” You didn’t particularly enjoy talking about your husband with Alfie. You hated the way his questions about him, about your marriage, made something twist uncomfortably in your chest. Lying to Alfie felt heavier, somehow more difficult, than lying to anyone else.

Alfie’s eyebrows rose, he leaned in a fraction, making the chair creak under the shift of his weight. “And he doesn’t make enough money that he has to send his wife out to work?” The question was mild, almost idle. But his eyes were anything but. “Pretty young thing like you, hands made for miracles, spending her days covered in flour. Seems curious.”

You laughed againm, shorter this time, edged with the defensive spark he seemed to enjoy pulling out of you. “I told you. I just like being financially independent. Earning my own money, feeling like I’m being productive. I don’t like staying in the house doing nothing.  This—” you gestured at the dough, the ovens, the cooling beigels, the entire room “—this makes sense to me. And the money is mine, fairly earned.”

Alfie watched you for a long moment. “And you don’t have children, do you?”

The question was careful. As if he already knew the answer and still needed to hear you say it. You met his eyes. “I don’t,” you said.

“No children,” he repeated softly, almost to himself. “Independent, productive, laugh like an angel, and a husband who works long factory shifts. Interesting… the things a man learns when he bothers to sit down and eat a beigel with his newest baker on a beautiful morning.”

…

The days began to blur in the best and worst of ways. Mornings belonged to the bakery, before the first light touched the windows, you were already floured to the elbows. And every day, without fail, Alfie appeared sometime before mid-morning, shrugged out of his coat, and dragged the same scarred chair to the exact same spot beside your bench, staying for two hours, sometimes three, as if the rest of his business could wait indefinitely on the pleasure of watching you work.

He talked. God, how he talked. His voice rolled out in long rivers while you pushed and folded and turned the dough. He told you about the horses, about the meetings with the Italians, about his mother. He asked questions too, about your grandmother’s little book, about the brother you lost, and the shape of the life you claimed to have waiting at home. And every time you answered, every time you laughed or fell quiet or wiped flour from your cheek with the back of a wrist, something in the air between you got warmer.

Sometimes he fell silent for long stretches, tracking the roll of your shoulders with his eyes, the flex of your forearms, the way the dough yielded under your palms. Once, when a strand of hair escaped your pins and fell across your eyes, he reached out without thinking and tucked it behind your ear. His fingertips were warm, and they lingered half a second too long against the shell of your ear.

The bakery became the only place that felt real, because home was something else entirely. You returned each afternoon to the small flat, and the moment the door closed behind you, the warmth of the ovens and Alfie’s voice drained out of you. Your husband would already be there more often than not, home early from the factory.

“You’re late again,” he would say, not looking up from the newspaper. “Third time this week. I had to get my own lunch. Again. What am I, a fucking orphan? I’ve got a wife, haven’t I? Or did I imagine the whole wedding?”

The fights were never dramatic, because that would have required passion, and passion had left this marriage years ago, carried out with the tiny body you had lost and never properly buried. The fights were mean. Him listing every way your absence inconvenienced him, you answering too calmly at first, then with rising heat when he started in on how no decent woman left her husband to fend for himself so she could play at being a baker for some gangster. 

“They’re talking,” he said one night. “Down the pub. About you and him, about how Solomons’ new pet never goes home on time. About how he’s always down there watching her like a dog with a bone. You want to be one of his whores, is that it? That why you’re never here? That why the flat’s empty and my belly’s empty and I’ve got to listen to every bastard with a mouth making jokes about my wife’s extra duties?”

You stopped answering after a while, there was no point. The truth, that you were saving every shilling of the sixty he paid you, that the tin under the loose floorboard was growing heavier every week, that you were counting the days until you had enough for a room of your own and a clean break and a life that did not smell of his resentment, would only make it worse. So you let him talk himself hoarse, you washed the few dishes, and you lay on your side of the cold bed waiting for sleep that never came easy.

He had stopped touching you after the miscarriage. That was the cleanest way to say it. One day there had been a child,, hoped-for and already named, and then there had been blood and pain, and after that your husband’s hands never found you in the dark again. He looked at you like you had failed at the one thing you were put on earth to do, like your body had betrayed him personally. The whores started sometime after that, you heard the whispers the way every wife in the neighbourhood heard them, the sideways glances at the market, a soft laughter that stopped when you passed, the occasional “friend” who felt obligated to tell you what everyone already knew. He did not even bother being careful anymore, some nights he came home smelling of cheap perfume and simply fell into bed with his back to you, as if daring you to care. You had cared, once. Now you only cared about the tin.

Every Friday Alfie pressed the week’s wages into your palm, sixty shillings, always with an extra little something pressed on top. You thanked him, and every night you knelt on the floorboards, lifted the loose one, and added to the growing hoard. You calculated rent on a clean room somewhere far from this flat, you needed to leave so you could be happy again.

Happiness had become a place that existed only between the hours of four and two, in a warm room that smelled of bread, with a dangerous man who looked at you like you were something worth keeping. 

At the bakery, Alfie grew bolder in small ways, placing a hand at the small of your back as he moved past you in the narrow space between benches. A quiet you look tired, love when the shadows under your eyes grew too dark to hide. A long look when you laughed at one of his more ridiculous stories. But at home the fights sharpened, your husband started waiting up and smelling your clothes for rum and the smell of man’s cologne. He started throwing the word whore around when the whisky loosened his tongue. “You’re never here,” he snarled one night, blocking the bedroom door with his body. “I come home to a dark kitchen and an empty bed and the knowledge my wife is off playing house with a gangster. You think I don’t know what men like him do with girls who need money? You think I don’t hear what they say?”

One rainy morning, in the office, Alfie was once again sitting behind his desk with a faraway look in his eyes. He looked like a man wrestling with something far more complicated than the usual calculations of business negotiations. Ollie hovered near the door, holding papers in hand, his expression already pinched with the particular exhaustion that came from trying to keep Alfie on task.

“Alfie,” he ventured carefully. “The Italians. The proposal. We were supposed to be thinking about—”

“Shh. Shhh.” Alfie lifted one large hand without looking up. The gesture was absent, almost gentle. “Ollie, my boy. What do you think about silk stockings?”

The silence that followed was so complete you could have heard the bat of a fly’s wings. Ollie blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Silk stockings,” Alfie repeated, slower this time. “For a woman’s legs. You know the ones. The kind that make a man forget his own name. What do you think?”

Ollie’s face went through several stages of disbelief. “They’re… pretty?”

Alfie finally looked up. “No, you idiot. I meant if it’d make a good gift. For my angel. Something delicate, something that says I see you. Silk stockings, proper ones, not the cheap rubbish.”

Ollie rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they did not fall out of his head. He dropped the papers onto the desk with a slap. “Alfie. You were supposed to be thinking about the business proposal the Italians made us, not stockings”. 

“I’ve been thinking about her legs,” Alfie confessed, almost dreamily. “ And I keep picturing them in silk, in dark silk. I think they’d look prettier. I think the entire world would look prettier if those particular legs were sheathed in something worthy of them.”

Ollie made a strangled sound. “How have you been thinking about her legs? You’ve never seen that woman’s legs, not once. She’s buttoned up to the chin half the time. You’ve seen her hands and her face and the occasional flash of wrist when she rolls her sleeves. That is the full inventory, not even her ankles.”

Alfie waved the objection away. “Ah, Ollie boy. I don’t need to see them to know they’re beautiful. I can imagine them. I’ve got a very vivid imagination when properly motivated, and that woman motivates me. She walks past and my brain helpfully supplies the rest. It’s become a proper problem, I close my eyes and there they are. I open them and I’m still thinking about them. It’s affecting my concentration, my sleep, my ability to give a single shit about Italian proposals.”

“You’re not her husband. You can’t just buy her stockings. She’d think it's scandalous.”

Alfie leaned back in the chair. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re right. She’d think it's scandalous. Can’t have that. Can’t have my angel thinking old Alfie just wants to get between her legs.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulled out a thick roll of notes, and tossed it across the desk to Ollie. “Right, change of plan. Go out and get me a perfume bottle. An expensive one, something that smells like vanilla. None of that chemical rubbish, and don’t come back until you have it.”

Ollie stared at the money as if it might bite him. “Alfie. You’re not expecting me to go out and buy perfume. That’s not my job. I’m your assistant, not your bloody personal shopper. I handle the books, and the meetings—”

Alfie’s voice dropped into that particular register that brooked no argument. “Your job, Ollie, is to do whatever the fuck I tell you to do. Today that happens to be buying perfume. Expensive perfume, for a woman who deserves something that smells like heaven. Now go. Go, boy. Before I start thinking about what else might look good wrapped around her ankles.”

Ollie opened his mouth, and closed it. He snatched the money, knowing he had long ago accepted that working for Alfie required a flexible definition of dignity. “Vanilla,” he muttered. “Right. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Alfie waved him off without looking, already rising from the chair. He reached behind the desk and picked up the bouquet he had bought earlier that morning. He walked to the front of the building where the bakery was. 

You looked up as he entered the kitchen. The small smile that always appeared when he walked in, the one you tried and failed to hide. Alfie crossed the floor without hesitation, holding the flowers out in front of him like an offering. He stopped beside you and presented the bouquet with a small courtly bow.

“Beautiful flowers,” he said, “for a beautiful woman. Seemed only right, the world’s been grey enough lately, figured you deserved a bit of colour to brighten up.”

You stared at the flowers. They were stunning, but your hands, still dusted white, hovered uncertainly above them. “Thanks, Alfie. These are beautiful. But I… I can’t have them.”

He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes like he was preparing arguments. “Of course you can. They’re flowers, love. Not a proposal of marriage. Just flowers for the woman who makes this place smell like my childhood and my future all at once. Take them, they’re yours.”

You reached out despite yourself, brushing the red petals with your fingers. “I can’t show up home with these,” you said quietly. “A married woman can’t come home with flowers another man gifted her. It’s already bad enough as it is.”

The last part slipped out before you could catch it, an admission you had kept locked behind your teeth for weeks. You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, and quickly your hands returned to the dough.

Alfie didn’t move, he simply stood there. “What do you mean ‘bad enough,’ huh?” he asked. “Is your husband the jealous type? The kind who sits at home imagining all sorts of things that aren’t happening just because his wife has the audacity to earn her own coin?”

You kept your eyes on the dough, pushing it harder than necessary, as if you were trying to escape the conversation. “It’s nothing… It’s just… he thinks I spend too much time here. And he’s heard what some people say. Gossips, maybe from the ladies at the front… that you spend too much time with me back here. In the back… alone.”

Alfie let out a short laugh, he set the bouquet down on the edge of the bench and leaned in closer. “So he’s an insecure little cunt with an inferiority complex who thinks his wife would cheat on him just because there’s a man close to her,” he said flatly. “A man who can’t keep his own house in order so he points the finger at the bakery instead. Pathetic, truly. Some men are born with small minds and even smaller pricks and they spend their whole lives trying to make the world feel as cramped as they do.”

“Alfie. That’s not nice to say.” His sincerity caught you off guard, it left you feeling even more embarrassed. He was hitting dangerously close to home, unearthing truths you had buried beneath layers of practiced smiles and half-spoken excuses. 

He waved a handd. “Nice has very little to do with the truth, love. I’ve met a thousand men like him. They talk loud and wonder why their wives start looking for doors. Tell me the truth.” His voice dropped, softer now but no less serious. “Does he ever hurt you more than with words? Does he dare put a hand on you? Because if he does, if that sorry bastard has ever laid so much as a finger on you in anger, you tell me right now. I’ll rearrange his face personally, until not even his mother could recognize him.”

You shook your head quickly, too quickly, making the loose curl of hair bounce against your temple. “No. No, it’s not like that. We just fight a lot. He yells and says things… ugly things. About me being here, about you, about how a proper wife should be home making his lunch instead of… whatever he imagines I’m doing back here with you.”

Alfie felt his jaw tighten, he reached out without thinking and brushed a streak of flour from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “He yells at you? What does he tell you? Don’t spare me the details, love. I’ve heard worse, I’ve said worse. But never to a woman like you.”

You hesitated, but eventually the words came out in pieces, quiet and ashamed. “He tells me that people whisper about us being here for hours… that I’m making him look like a fool. A fool who has a whore for a wife.”

Alfie listened without interrupting. His expression darkened with every word you said. When you fell silent, he let the quiet stretch for a long moment. “A man yelling at his wife such things,” he said at last, almost wistfully. “I’ve always thought it should be the other way around. A man making his wife scream, and not in anger exactly.”

Your face burned scarlet, making you turn back to the dough with fierce concentration, kneading as if your life depended on it. “We’re just going through… a rough patch,” you managed. “That’s all. Marriages have them. It’ll pass.”

Alfie made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. “Rough patch my arse. That man doesn’t love you if he treats you like that. If he can look at this face, sculpted by god himself on one of his better days, and this smile that lights up the whole fucking room, and still chooses to yell?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not love. You deserve better, love. You deserve someone who sees you and thinks the sun rose just to have something to compete with.”

You swallowed hard. “It’s not appropriate that I talk of these matters anyway,” you said. “They’re private. Between a husband and wife. I shouldn’t be… burdening you with them.”

Alfie stepped closer. The space between you shrank until you could feel the warmth radiating from his body, until the scent of him wrapped around you. “Love, you see I’ve grown quite fond of you. More than fond, proper attached. And I can see the little sadness you try so hard to hide in your eyes, the way it flickers when you think no one’s looking. And it makes me think that you deserve a man who can make you scream with joy. Who’d never let you shed a single tear unless it was from laughing too hard or feeling so much pleasure so hard you forget your own name. A man who would burn the world down before he let it dim that light in you.”

The bakery kitchen felt suddenly too small. Your heart was hammering against your ribs, loud enough that you were sure he could hear it over the ovens. You wiped your hands on your apron, and forced your voice steady. “Thanks. But like I said… my husband and I are going through a rough patch. Things will get better.”

Alfie studied you for a long moment, the way your fingers twisted in the edge of your apron like they needed something to hold onto. He didn’t look convinced. The moment stretched until a knock sounded on the door that led from the kitchen to the back.

“Alfie,” Ollie’s voice came through the wood, full of exasperation and something close to panic. “Sabini is here for the meeting. He’s waiting, and he’s not the patient sort. You know how he gets.”

Alfie did not turn immediately, he simply let out a theatrical sigh. “Entertain him, Ollie,” he called back. “Magic tricks, remember?”

You could hear Ollie’s muffled groan through the door. “Would you stop playing house and come handle business like you did before all of this nonsense? The whole bloody business is waiting back there while you sit down here watching her knead dough.”

Alfie snapped his head toward the door. His expression darkened in an instant. “Ollie,” he said, dropping his voice to a low and dangerous register, “I’m gonna start shooting at the door, so you’d better not be standing there in the next ten seconds. Count with me, my boy. Ten… nine…”

Footsteps retreated rapidly down the corridor, and the knock did not come again. You let out a soft laugh despite yourself, it broke some of the tension, though not all of it. “I think Ollie’s not particularly fond of me. Every time he sees us back here he looks like he’s swallowed a lemon.”

Alfie turned back to you, the storm in his face clearing as quickly. “He just thinks I’ll give his job to you,” he said, twitching the corner of his mouth into a crooked smile. “Poor Ollie. Loyal as a dog and twice as anxious. He sees you here and he imagines you’re gonna take his place. Can’t blame the lad, really. You do have that effect.”

You shook your head, a small smile tugging at your lips despite the blood still warming your cheeks from the earlier conversation. “Tell Ollie he has nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t take his job. I’m happy here. With the dough, with the ovens. With…” You hesitated, then finished softly, “With the way things are in this room.”

Alfie reached out and brushed another stray streak of flour from your cheek, his thumb lingered there this time, tracing the line of your jaw with a gentleness that felt at odds with the man who had just threatened to shoot through a door. “I should give you a rise,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

You blinked, feeling surprised. “Why? I’ve only been working here a month.”

“A month is enough,” he replied. “More than enough. The sales in the bakery have doubled. People are talking, the best bread in Camden, they say. It’s all thanks to you, love. You walked in here and you changed the whole bloody atmosphere.”

You smiled then, a real one, shy but genuine. Alfie went very still, dropping his gaze to your mouth, then lifted again, looking hungrier.

“God,” he murmured, almost to himself. “That smile again. That fucking smile that makes a man think things he should have no right to be thinking about. Things that end with my hands in places they’ve got no business going.”

He stepped closer, and suddenly the space between you vanished. His body pressed forward until you could feel the heat of him through your clothes. Alfie lifted his hand, cupping the side of your face with surprising tenderness, brushing your lower lip with his thumb.

“I’ve been driving myself insane ever since you walked into my life,” he said with devastating honesty. “Tell me you feel the pull between us too. Tell me I’m not the only one losing my mind. Tell me—”

Before you could answer, before you could even draw breath, Alfie grabbed you. He slid his large hand to the back of your neck, pulling you in with undeniable strength. He wrapped his other arm around your waist, pressing your body tight against his solid bulk. The kiss was hungry, full of desperation. He devoured your mouth like a man who had been starving for weeks, sweeping his tongue in with heat, his lips claiming yours with a groan that vibrated through his chest and into yours. 

The taste of him, of rum and desire, flooded your senses. His body was unyielding, holding you flush against him, splaying one hand across your lower back as if afraid you might vanish. For one dizzying moment you melted into it. Into the warmth, the strength, the way his mouth moved like he had been dreaming of this exact kiss since the day you first brought him that poppy-seed cake.

Then reality crashed back. You pulled away, gasping, pressing your hands against his chest. Your lips felt swollen, and your heart hammered wildly. “I can’t do this, Alfie,” you whispered, though your voice was shaky. “I’m married. I’m still married… and this is wrong.”

Alfie did not release you immediately, he rested his forehead against yours, still holding you close with his arm around your waist. “Your mouth,” he murmured, tracing your lower lip again with his thumb, “is better than I even thought about. Softer, sweeter, like it was made for this. A glorious experience, love. A fucking revelation. I could spend the rest of my days kissing you and still die wondering how I ever lived without it.”

The words sent another rush of heat through you. But you stepped back, putting the bench between you once more, though it felt like far too little distance. “Please stop saying these things,” you said, barely above a whisper. You touched your lips instinctively, as if you could wipe away the evidence of what had just happened. “I can’t… we can’t.”

Before either of you could say more, the knock came again, sharper this time, more insistent. Ollie’s voice filtered through the door. “Alfie. Sabini’s getting impatient. And he’s brought men. You need to come up. Now.”

Alfie let out a frustrated growl. He straightened, adjusting his waistcoat with hands that still trembled slightly from the force of the kiss. “I won’t stop thinking about this,” he said quietly. “Not for a second. Not while I’m back there dealing with Sabini and his bullshit. Not tonight when I’m alone in bed. Not ever, love. You’ve ruined me for anything less.”

He turned toward the door, pausing once to glance back at you, at your swollen lips and the way your hands had returned to your apron like an anchor. Then he was gone, leaving the kitchen suddenly too quiet, but far too full of the ghost of his mouth on yours and the flowers still sitting on the bench.

The walk home from the bakery felt longer than usual that evening. Your feet moved on autopilot along the familiar route, but your mind was miles away, or rather, still back in the bakery kitchen, pressed against Alfie’s solid chest with his mouth claiming yours like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

The kiss replayed in relentless detail. The way his large hand had cupped the back of your neck, the heat of his body pulling you flush against him. The taste of him, the groan that had vibrated from his chest into yours. For those few stolen seconds you had felt wanted. Not only wanted, but desired and seen. Not as a convenience or a disappointment or a body that had failed at its one expected duty, but as something precious, something worth devouring. 

You had been lying to yourself for weeks, you realised now, as your key turned in the lock of the small flat. Hiding how good it felt to have a man look at you the way Alfie did, like you were the centre of the room, the reason he lingered for hours watching your hands move through dough. It had been so long since anyone had made you feel wanted and cherished in even the smallest ways. Your husband’s touch had vanished years ago, as if your body had become a reminder of failure rather than a source of comfort or pleasure. But Alfie made you feel like a woman again, like someone worth the risk of a hard kiss in the back of a bakery while the world waited.

God, you felt the pull between you too whenever he stepped close. The way your skin remembered his fingertips on your cheek, the way your laugh came easier around him. But you were still married. The ring on your finger was a fact. You needed to focus on saving, on getting your own place and redoing your life from the ground up. Love, or whatever intoxicating thing this was with Alfie, could wait until you were free. Until you stood on your own two feet without needing to explain yourself to anyone.

The flat was quiet when you stepped inside, you set your bag down and rolled up your sleeves, moving through the familiar evening tasks. You tidied the small kitchen, filled the basin with cold water and began washing the clothes that had piled up. 

That was when you saw them. Lipstick stains on the collar of one of his shirts. A cheap red that did not belong to you. Another smear lower down, near the buttons, as if someone had pressed his lips there, lingering for a moment. You stared at them for a long moment, the cold water dripping from your hands onto the floor. You were used to this, the whispers, the late nights, the way he came home reeking of other women and still had the nerve to accuse you of the same. 

You wrung the shirt out with more force than necessary, watching the water run pinkish-red down the drain. Why, you wondered, were you still loyal to him when he had never once been loyal to you? Why did you cling to the vows when he treated them like suggestions?  And still you stayed, still you washed his shirts with another woman’s lipstick on them.

You finished the laundry in silence, hung the clothes to dry and prepared a simple supper you knew he would barely touch. Night fell fully, after changing into your nightdress, you slipped into bed, the sheets felt cool and lonely on your side. Sleep came in fits, haunted by the ghost of Alfie’s mouth on yours and the memory of how safe and alive you had felt in his arms. 

Hours passed before the door finally opened. Your husband stumbled in later than usual, the familiar scent of cheap perfume clinging to him. He did not look at you, he never did anymore on nights like this. He simply shed his coat, kicked off his boots, and fell into bed on his side with his back to you, the smell of another woman filling the small space between you.

You lay there in the dark, staring at the crack in the ceiling. The question turned over and over in your mind. Why were you refusing Alfie’s advances when your husband had never refused any whore?

The kiss burned in your memory again, the way Alfie had held you like you were something precious, the way he had looked at you afterward, like the entire world could burn and he would still choose your mouth. He saw you, wanted you, made you feel desired in a way your husband had not in years. And yet here you were, loyal to a marriage that had become nothing but a cage of resentment.

***

Alfie sat alone in his office long before the first grey light touched the rooftops. Sleep had become impossible, the bedroom had felt like a trap where every shadow still carried the ghost of your mouth against his.

The office door opened, and Ollie stepped in, holding papers under one arm, already mid-sentence.

“Alfie—”

Alfie had his fingers steepled under his chin, with an almost beatific smile spreading across his face. The smile was wide enough to show even his teeth at the back. “Shut up, Ollie.” The words came out soft, almost dreamy, without the usual bite. Alfie did not open his eyes. “I’m thinking.”

Ollie stopped and stared at the expression on his boss’s face. Working for Alfie, Ollie had grown accustomed to most of his eccentricities, but this was a face he’d never seen before. “Thinking about what? Why are you smiling like that? Is it because of what Sabini said yesterday about the docks, or—”

Alfie opened his eyes, they were slightly unfocused, as if he were still somewhere else entirely. He raised one hand in a grand gesture that took in the entire room. “What? Sabini? No. God, no. I’m smiling because of something much deeper, my dear Ollie. I’m smiling because today the birds are singing a better melody, because the sun rays are warmer in this miserable city. Because the air is fresher and the flowers are brighter. I’m smiling, Ollie, because yesterday I tasted the sweetest lips I have ever had the privilege of putting my mouth on.”

He stood, in two heavy steps he was around the desk and had one arm draped around Ollie’s thin shoulders, pulling the younger man into a half-embrace. “I had an epiphany yesterday,” Alfie continued. “Proper revelation. She’s the woman of my life. She’s the one. The absolute, undeniable, end-of-the-fucking-story one. I looked at her and I thought, Alfie Solomons, you bastard, you’ve been wandering around this earth collecting debts and breaking bones and all this time the actual point of the whole exercise was this woman.”

Ollie stood rigid under the arm, holding the papers crushed against his chest. “What? Wait… what lips? Did you… did you kiss her?”

Alfie released him only far enough to place both hands on Ollie’s shoulders and look him dead in the eyes. The smile had not faded, if anything it had grown wider. “It wasn’t a kiss, Ollie. Let’s not diminish the thing with ordinary language. It was a revelation, a fucking sacrament. It was the moment the universe stopped pretending it was indifferent and decided to hand me something worth keeping.”

Ollie blinked rapidly. “I don’t understand. You kissed her or not?”

“Yes,” Alfie said, simply. “I kissed her.”

“Okay, fantastic. Congratulations. But we still need to sort the—”

Alfie waved the interruption away, already pacing again. “And I fear it’s not enough. One kiss only made me thirstier. That woman has me bewitched, Ollie. A touch of her lips and I can’t stop until I’ve had the whole thing. Do you think she wants me too? The same way I do? With the same stupid, helpless, all-consuming hunger?”

Ollie looked like he'd been asked to solve an equation in a language he did not speak. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Well, go ask her,” Alfie said, then immediately held up both hands. “Wait, no. Don’t go. I need to give her time to think. She pushed me yesterday when we kissed. Of course she didn’t mean it like that. It wasn’t a ‘get away from me you ugly bastard’ push. It was a nice one, a little reluctant. She feels it, I know she does.”

Ollie pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe she pushed you because she’s a married woman. Out of all the women in London, you chose a married one.”

Alfie stopped pacing. He turned, and for a moment the theatrical light in his eyes dimmed into something colder. “What if we kill her husband?”

Ollie considered it with weary professionalism, like he'd heard worse suggestions. “Well… I guess we’ve killed men for less.”

Alfie nodded slowly, as if filing the option away for later. Then the softer expression returned. He stepped closer again. “Ollie, be honest with me. Am I worthy of her? Look at me and tell me the truth. This face, this body, tese hands that have done things I don’t always like remembering. Am I the sort of man a woman like that could look at and think, yes, him, I’ll take him if it means being looked at the way he looks at me?”

Ollie hesitated, he glanced at the door as if calculating the distance to escape, then sighed. “…Sure. Why wouldn’t she like you too?”

Alfie’s face lit up again. “I knew it. Yes. I knew it by the way she kissed me. She feels like I do.” He clapped his hands together once. “I’m gonna write her a letter. Telling her how I feel. And then you’ll go down there and give it to her, personally. Watch her face when she reads it and report back.”

Ollie rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they stayed in his head. He turned toward the door, already defeated, already calculating how many more hours of this madness he would have to endure before the day improved.

“Tell me when you’re done,” he muttered with his hand on the doorknob. “And try not to propose marriage in the first paragraph.”

Alfie sat at his desk for nearly an hour. The ink blotched on places where emotion had made him press too hard. When he finished, he read it twice, folded it with care, and sealed it simply with a drop of wax from the candle on his desk. He called for Ollie without raising his voice much above a murmur. The younger man appeared in the doorway looking like he had already aged another year.

“Take this down to her,” Alfie said, holding out the folded letter between two fingers. “Personally. Give it to her when she’s alone and watch her face while she reads it. Then come back and tell me everything. I want to know if she smiled, if she touched her lips, or if she cried”

Ollie took the letter like it might explode. “You’re really doing this.”

“I’m really doing this,” Alfie confirmed, the smile from earlier still lingering at the corners of his mouth. “Now go.”

Ollie walked though the hallway with the air of a man marching to his own execution. The bakery was in full swing when he pushed open the door to the back kitchen area. You were at the central bench with your sleeves rolled high and your hair pinned back with a few rebellious hairs escaping to cling to your damp temples.

Ollie stopped a few feet away, holding the letter between thumb and forefinger. “Alfie got this for you,” he said with disapproval. There was no warmth in it, just the weary resentment of someone who had watched his carefully ordered world tilt toward chaos because of you

You looked up, wiping your hands on your apron. “What is it?”

“A letter,” Ollie said as he extended it toward you. “Obviously. From him.”

You took the letter. The paper was thick, good quality, still faintly warm from Alfie’s hands. Your name was written across the front in his bold script. Your fingers trembled slightly as you broke the seal.

Ollie lingered for a moment, watching you, then muttered something under his breath about “playing house” and retreated to the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He did not leave entirely, he was waiting to see your reaction, only to report back with the precision Alfie would demand.

My dearest angel,

Or should I call you love? Because that is what you have become to me in these short weeks… love. Not the cheap or easy kind, but the one that’s real. The kind that makes a man sit in his office with his eyes closed and smile like a fool because the world suddenly feels worth inhabiting again.

I kissed you yesterday. I have not stopped thinking about it since. Your mouth, God help me, was softer than I had any right to imagine. It tasted like the best parts of my childhood and all the things I never knew I was missing until you walked into my bakery. When I pulled you close I felt the whole of Camden disappear, none of it mattered. Only you. Only the way you fit against me for that brief and perfect moment before your conscience reminded you of the ring on your finger.

I have kissed women before. I will not insult either of us by pretending otherwise. But I have never kissed a woman and felt the entire architecture of my life rearrange itself around the simple fact of her existence. That is what you did to me in the space of one kiss. One glorious, incomplete, far-too-short kiss.

I know you are married. I know it and I hate it. I have thought: this woman deserves a man who sees her as the miracle she is. A man who would burn the world down before he let anyone dim that light in her eyes.

You feel it too. I know you do. Tell me I am not imagining it. Tell me that when I kissed you, you kissed me back for more than just a moment. Tell me that the push was not because you wanted me gone, but because you were afraid of how much you wanted me to stay.

I am not a good man. I have done things that would make angels weep. But for you I could try to be better, or at least better at the things that matter. Take your time. Think. I will not rush you, but know this: every morning when I come down to that little kingdom you have made of my bakery, I will be hoping. Hoping that one day you will look at me and decide that the ring on your finger is not worth more than the way I look at you.

Until then, I remain yours in every way that matters,

Alfie

You read it twice. Then a third time, more slowly, tracing the ink with your fingers as if you could feel the heat of his hand through the paper. Your heart was beating too hard, you could feel it in your throat, in the tips of your fingers, in the space just beneath your ribs

You felt wanted. Properly, fiercely, unapologetically wanted. Not as a convenience, not as a body that had failed to produce a child, not as a wife who was expected to make dinner and warm a bed while her husband chased other women. Alfie looked at you and saw something rare, something worth the risk.

Ollie cleared his throat from the doorway, his arms still crossed. “Well? Are you going to stand there staring at it until the bread burns, or should I tell him you’ve gone speechless like every other woman who reads one of his letters?”

You folded the letter carefully, pressing it against your chest for a moment as if you could press the words into your skin. When you finally looked up, your voice came out softer than you intended, almost shy.

“Tell him this is really… thoughtful,” you said, still prssing the letter gently against your chest, as if you could press the sincerity of his words into your skin. “And I will think about it. Tell him that. I need time. But… it’s thoughtful. I liked it.”

Ollie nodded once, though his expression suggested he would rather be doing almost anything else. “Right. Thoughtful. I’ll pass it along.” He turned on his heel without another word, the door swinging shut behind him with a click.

Upstairs, Alfie was not waiting patiently. He paced the length of his office like a caged animal. The letter had been a risk, an honest outpouring that left him more exposed than he had been in years, and the waiting was torture. When the door finally opened and Ollie stepped through, Alfie was already at the threshold, grabbing the younger man by the shoulders with both hands before he could even cross the room properly.

“Well?” Alfie demanded, searching Ollie’s face with ferocious intensity. “What did she say? Did she like it? Did she cry? Did she smile? Did she press it to her chest like it was something precious? Tell me everything, Ollie. Every single detail. Leave nothing out.”

Ollie pried himself free with a long-suffering sigh, smoothing his jacket where Alfie’s grip had wrinkled it. “I do not appreciate being an errand boy between the two of you,” he said with irritation. “I handle the books, the meetings. I do not handle love letters. This is beneath me. This is—”

“Shut up, Ollie,” Alfie interrupted as he began pacing again. The energy rolling off him was almost tangible. “Tell me what she said. Exactly. Word for word if you can manage it. I need to know. I need to know if I’ve scared her off.”

Ollie exhaled through his nose with resignation. He leaned against the edge of the desk, crossing his arms once more. “She said it was really… thoughtful. And that she will think about it. She needs time, that’s it. She looked a bit overwhelmed. And yes, she pessed the letter to her chest and read it more than once. But she didn’t cry, not that I saw. So I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you.”

Alfie stopped pacing, he turned slowly, the wide smile from earlier creeping back across his face. “Thoughtful,” he repeated, tasting the word. “She said it was thoughtful. Not terrifying, not inappropriate. Not ‘how dare you, you mad cunt.’ Thoughtful, that’s something, Ollie. That’s more than something, that’s a crack in the wall She’s thinking about it. She pressed it to her chest, my words against her heart. She’s going to think about it.”

He dropped heavily into his chair, and steepled his fingers under his chin. “One kiss and she’s thinking. God, Ollie. That woman. She’s got me by the throat and she doesn’t even know it. I’ll give her time. A day, maybe two. Then I’ll find another way to remind her that there’s a man who looks at her like she hung the moon and who would rather die than make her shed a tear of sadness.”

Ollie pushed off the desk, heading for the door. “Just… try not to burn the place down while you’re mooning over her. Or get us all killed, some of us still have work to do.”

Alfie waved him off without looking, already reaching for another sheet of paper, already composing the next message in his head.

Two days later, the frantic rhythm of preparation before Shabbat had you working longer than usual. The trays slid in and out of the heat as the front of the shop bustled with last minute customers seeking the last fresh loaves before the sun dipped.

By the time the light outside began to soften, your shoulders ached, your feet burned, and your mind was a tangled mess of the memory of the kiss you'd shared with Alfie days ago. The words written in his love letter still echoed in your mind, but Alfie had not come down since you both kissed, not once. The absence had felt louder than his presence ever did, it left space that made you wonder whether he regretted the press of his mouth on yours, or whether he was simply trying to forget the way you had pulled away.

You untied your apron, folded it neatly, and reached for your coat, ready to step back into the grey streets. But the door to the back room opened.

Alfie’s eyes found you immediately. “How are you doing, love?” he asked as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a click. “After... everything that happened between us.”

You busied your hands with the last of the trays, avoiding his gaze. “I’m fine,” you said quietly. “About to go home.”

Alfie crossed the room slowly and stopped close, leaning one hip against the bench where you had stood kneading only minutes before. The flowers from three days ago were still there, slightly wilted now but stubbornly bright. He picked one up, turning the stem between his fingers as if it held answers.

“The kiss,” he said, slow enough to taste every syllable. “I don’t regret it for one second. Not one. Your lips, love… they’ve been the only thing I’ve been thinking about. They consumed me. The softness, the way they gave under mine like they’d been waiting. Like they knew exactly where they belonged. I’ve sat in my office all day and all I could see was your mouth, all I could taste was you. Tell me you’ve thought about it too, don’t lie to me, and for fuck’s sake don’t lie to yourself. I felt the hunger in your mouth. You were starving for it, same as me.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs, you turned away, folding the apron again though it was already neat. “Alfie, we need to pretend that didn’t happen. We have to. I’m married. This… this can’t go anywhere. It’s wrong.”

He let out a rough sound, like a growl of laughter. “Pretend? Oh, love, that’s a good one. Tell me you’ve thought about it too. I saw it in your eyes when you pulled away, I felt it in the way your hands pressed against my chest but didn’t pushh, not really, not like you meant it. Your husband, does he let you starve like that? Does he have this pretty thing all for himself, this woman who bakes like an angel and laughs like heaven, and still lets you go hungry?”

The words hit too close, you remembered the lipstick stains, the empty bed, the nights he chose other beds. Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. “Alfie… this… we shouldn’t.”

He moved then, faster than you thought a man his size could. Wrapping one arm around your waist, he pulled you close against the solid heat of his body. He slid his other hand into your hair, tilting your head as his mouth found the side of your neck. The kiss there was hot, open-mouthed, grazing your skin with his teeth just enough to make you gasp. He held you pressed tight, devouring the curve of your throat.

“Tell me the truth,” he murmured against your skin. “Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. I can see the sadness in a woman’s eyes, love, I can feel the hunger in her mouth. A woman who’s not happy at home, who’s not satisfied. Who lies awake wondering why the man who vowed to cherish her treats her like an afterthought. He makes you deeply unhappy, I see it. Every day I see it, and it makes me want to burn the whole fucking world down until someone treats you the way you deserve.”

The memory of the shirts flooded back, the cheap red lipstick, the cloying perfume on his clothes the other night. The words slipped out before you could stop them. “It’s not just the fights,” you whispered. “He… he stopped loving me after I lost our baby. Stopped looking at me, stopped touching me. Like it was my fault, like my body had failed him and that was the end of it.”

Alfie stilled against your neck, then he pulled back just enough to look at you, his large hand cupped your face with surprising tenderness. The dark with lust eyes were soft now, almost pained. “I’m so sorry, love,” he said, gentler than you had ever heard him. “You didn’t deserve that, not one bit of it. No woman deserves a man so weak he lets her suffer alone in her grief and then blames her for her own sorrow. A real man would’ve held you through it. Would’ve crried the weight with you instead of turning away like a coward. You lost a child, and you carried that pain. He left you to carry it alone, that’s not a husband.”

The tears pricked at your eyes, you tried to blink them back, but one escaped anyway, tracing down your cheek. Alfie brushed it away with his thumb. “I know he sees other women,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “That’s why I took the job, that’s why I’m saving every shilling. To leave, to have something of my own. To stand on my own feet without him.”

Alfie tightened around you in an act of protectiveness. “Why be loyal to someone who doesn’t respect you?” he asked. “Why tie yourself to someone who treats his vows like they’re optional, who comes home reeking of other women and still has the nerve to call you unfaithful for standing in here? Loyalty is a two-way street, love. And he’s been walking the wrong way for years. You deserve better, you deserve someone who sees the miracle in you every single day. Who would rather burn than let you carry that sadness alone.”

He kissed you then. Not the hard, devouring kiss from days ago, but something slower. His mouth claimed yours with hunger, tracing the seam of your lips with his tongue until you opened your mouth for him. He kept one hand at the small of your back, pressing you tight against the warmth of his body, while the other cradled your face like you were something fragile and infinitely precious. For long, dizzying moments there was only Alfie, only the heat of him, only the way he kissed you like he had been waiting lifetimes for exactly this.

When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, breathing raggedly. “Tell me you feel it too,” he whispered. “Tell me I’m not the only one going mad in here.”

“You’re not.”

Alfie’s hands moved then, sliding one palm down your back, tracing the curve of your spine through the fabric of your dress, pressing you tighter against him. The other hand roamed lower, cupping the swell of your hip, digging his fingers in with just enough pressure to make you gasp. His mouth found yours again, not so gentle this time, but hungry, as if he could drink down every hidden longing you had buried for years. He kissed you like he owned you, like every inch of your body had been waiting for his claim. His hands explored without shame, brushing the undersides of your breasts through the layers of cloth, then down again to grip your thighs, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you.

“Fuck, love,” he growled against your mouth. “If I told you all the things I’ve thought about you… all the filthy, depraved little fantasies that have kept me awake at night since the day you walked in here… you’d probably slap me across the face and call me a degenerate. A proper degenerate. But God help me, I can’t stop. Can’t stop imagining these hands of yours wrapped around me. Can’t stop seeing you bent over this bench, moaning my name while I show you what a real man can do.”

He grabbed you then, effortlessly lifting you with a grunt of effort and setting you on the edge of the wide wooden bench. You parted your legs instinctively as he stepped between them, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him closer. Your legs followed, locking around his hips, digging your heels into the back of his thighs as if your body had decided for you. He was hard already, you could feel the line of his erection pressing against you through his trousers, insistent and hot. Alfie groaned at the contact, rolling his hips forward, grinding against your core in a slow motion that made you whimper into his mouth.

“Look at you,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to look down at the way your body had opened for him. He ran his hands up your thighs, pushing your skirt higher and stroking the sensitive skin just above your stockings. “Your body’s been starving for this, love. Starving for a man who sees it, who wants it. Who’s been mad thinking about how soft you’d feel under him and how wet you’d get just from a kiss like that.”

“I want you,” you whispered, the words tumbled out before you could stop them. Your voice was shaky with all the need you felt from years of denial. “So much, Alfie. God, I want you.”

A triumphant sound rumbled in his chest. “I know, angel. I know you do.” He tightened his hands on your hips, holding you in place as he rocked against you again, the friction sending sparks up your spine. “And I’m gonna show you how a real man treats a woman, how I’d treat you every single day if you were mine. Slow when you need slow, hard when you need hard. I’d worship this body until you forgot every cold night that bastard ever gave you”

His fingers found the buttons of your dress, the simple row running down the front. With a growl of impatience he ripped them open, the delicate fabric giving way with a series of sharp pops that echoed in the kitchen. The cool air kissed your skin as he pushed the dress off your shoulders, tugging it down your arms until it pooled around your waist. You sat there in your brassiere and knickers, the garters and stockings still clipped neatly in place, the lace and silk suddenly feeling far too exposed under his gaze. Alfie stepped back just enough to look at you fully, his eyes raking over every inch.

“Fuck me,” he breathed the words. His hands returned, running all over your body with hunger, sliding his palms up your sides, hooking his thumbs under the edges of your brassiere to trace the swell of your breasts, then down over the curve of your waist and hips. He cupped your breasts through the thin fabric, squeezing them gently, circling your nipples until they hardened under his touch. “You’re even more delightful than any image my imagination ever created. Such a beautiful creature, so fucking appealing. Soft where you should be soft, strong where you’ve had to be strong. Look at you, like you were made to drive a man mad. You’ve got my cock so fucking hard it hurts, love. Proper aching for you. Been aching since the first day.”

He leaned in again, his mouth finding your neck, then lower, kissing along your collarbone, nipping at the tops of your breasts as his hands continued their exploration. Alfie slipped one hand between your legs, cupping you through the thin knickers, feeling the heat and dampness there with a groan of pure satisfaction. His fingers stroked you slowly, pressing the fabric against your most sensitive spot until your hips jerked against his hand. 

As if he couldn’t wait another second, Alfie hooked his fingers into the fabric of your brassiere. With a growl, he pulled it down, freeing your breasts to the air. “Fuck, look at these,” he murmured, cupping them immediately, lifting and squeezing them with just the right pressure, circling the sensitive peaks with his thumbs. “Perfect. Fucking perfect. Been dreaming about these tits since the first time I saw you. So soft, made for my mouth.”

He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard enough to make you arch against him with a sharp cry. His tongue swirled, licked, teased in wet circles that sent sparks down to your core. He massaged the other breast with his hand, rolling the nipple between fingers, pinching just enough to border on pain before soothing it with his palm. All the while his other hand stayed between your legs, cupping your cunt and pressing the heel of his palm against your clit in grinding circles that matched the rhythm of his mouth. 

You rocked against his hand desperately, grinding down on the pressure, chasing the friction as your hips rolled in needy little movements. Alfie groaned around your nipple before he switched sides, sucking the other breast deep into his mouth while he kept working you, cupping and stroking, feeling the growing wetness soak through the fabric.

“Tell me,” he rasped against your skin. “Tell me how much you want me, love. Say it. I want to hear it from that pretty mouth while you’re grinding on my hand.”

The words spilled out of you, breathless between soft moans. “I want you so much, Alfie… everything aches for you. My whole body… it’s been so long… I need you. Please.”

A satisfied sound rumbled in his chest. He released your nipple with a wet pop, looking up at you with glittering eyes. “That’s my good girl. I know, angel. I know you do. And I’m gonna soothe that ache, every bit of it. When I’m done with you, the only thing that’s gonna hurt is gonna be your throat from screaming my name.”

Hie moved his hands lower, tracing the tops of your stockings, hooking his fingers under the clips of your garters one by one, undoing them with care. The silk whispered against your skin as he rolled the stockings down, peeling them off like he was unwrapping something precious. His palms followed, stroking every inch of newly bared skin, your calves, knees, and the soft insides of your thighs, as if he could not get enough of touching you.

“You’re a vision,” he murmured with awe. “Such a beautiful creature. So soft and ready for me. Look at you, all laid out for me like a feast I’ve been waiting my whole fucking life to taste.”

He hooked his fingers into the waistband of your knickers and slid them down your legs, baring your cunt completely. The air hit your slick and dripping folds, making you shiver. Alfie stared, transfixed, as he traced the seam of your pussy with one finger, gathering the wetness that had already coated your thighs.

“Fuck me, you’re soaked,” he groaned. “So wet and slick and dripping for me already. This pretty little cunt is weeping for attention, love. Been neglected for far too long.” He looked up at you, his eyes were a dark shade of blue now, full of lust. “You want me to eat this cunt, don’t you? Want my mouth on you?”

You nodded frantically, twitching your hips toward his hand. “Yes… please…”

He smiled. “Ask me nice, angel. Use your words. Tell me exactly what you want.”

A whine escaped your throat, the need was louder than the embarrassment. “C-could you… could you eat my cunt, Alfie? Please?”

“With pleasure,” he dropped to his knees on the wooden floor in front of the bench, a man of his size and power willingly kneeling for you. He gripped your thighs and spread them wide, opening you completely to his gaze. 

His breath ghosted over your exposed pussy, making you tremble. “Keep them open like this,” he ordered in a commanding tone. “Wide for me. Scream if you need to, pull my hair, wrap your legs around my neck and ride my face. But don’t you dare close these thighs. I want all of you, every drop. Understood?”

You nodded breathlessly, bracing your arms behind you on the bench as you watched him. He started slow, pressing soft kisses to the inside of your knees, then higher along your thighs, his beard scraping deliciously against the sensitive skin. He kissed your mound, lips brushing the soft curls there, then lower, feather-light kisses along your outer lips, teasing and tasting the slick that had gathered there. 

Then, he finally dragged his tongue slowly up your slit in a long and broad stroke from your entrance to your clit that made your back arch and a broken moan tear from your throat.

“Fuck, you taste like heaven,” he groaned against your core. “Sweet and wet. Been starving for this too, haven’t you, love? This pretty cunt hasn’t been properly worshipped in years. But I’m here now. Gonna take my time, gonna lick every inch until you’re shaking.”

He sealed his mouth over your clit, sucking gently at first, then harder, flicking his tongue in circles. Alfie ate your cunt like a madman, ravenous, unrelenting, completely lost in the taste of you. He sealed his mouth over your dripping folds with wet sounds that filled the quiet kitchen, thrusting his tongue deep inside you before dragging it back up to circle your swollen clit with firm strokes. He sucked the sensitive bundle of nerves into his mouth, flicking it rapidly with the tip of his tongue, then lapping slowly as if he could not get enough of your taste. 

He used his large hands to grip your thighs with bruising strength, digging his fingers into the soft flesh to keep them spread wide open for him. No matter how much you trembled or tried to close them instinctively from the overwhelming sensation, he held you firmly in place, refusing to let you hide even an inch of yourself from his mouth. “That’s it,” he growled against your pussy, the words sounding muffled. “Keep these pretty thighs open for me, love. I’m not done feasting, not by a long fucking shot.”

You were moaning openly now, shameless sounds spilling from your lips as your hands fisted in his hair. “Alfie— oh God, don’t stop… please don’t stop…” The words came out broken and desperate, it was years of denial pouring out of you in a flood. 

As you bucked his hips against his face, chasing the pressure of his tongue, you looked down, and the sight nearly undid you completely, Alfie on his knees between your spread legs, his eyes half-lidded with lust, his beard glistening with your wetness, and his mouth buried in your cunt like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He looked up at that exact moment, locking his gaze with yours while his tongue continued its devastating work, sucking hard on your clit. The eye contact was intimate, you saw the raw hunger there, the possession, and it made your walls clench around nothing.

The intensity pushed you over the edge of control, and you started grinding slowly on his face, rolling your hips in needy circles, using his mouth, his tongue, his beard for friction. The coarse hair tickled and scraped deliciously against your sensitive folds and inner thighs. With a broken cry, you let yourself fall back onto the wooden bench, spreading your arms out above your head, arching as you gave yourself over completely. 

Alfie groaned in approval, sliding his hands under you, grabbing your ass with both palms to squeeze the soft flesh, kneading it as he lifted your hips higher, bringing your dripping pussy even closer to his face. He held you there like an offering, devouring you with ferocity.

You were whimpering louder now, the sounds turning into high cries that echoed off the walls. “Alfie— fuck— I’m so close… don’t stop, please don’t stop…” Your thighs shook violently around his head as the orgasm built, ready to explode. Every nerve in your body felt alight, years of neglect and loneliness unraveling under the assault of his mouth.

He growled and moaned into your cunt, the vibrations pushing you right to the edge. “Cum for me, angel,” he rasped against your folds. “Cum on my tongue like the starving girl you are. Give it to me, let me taste how much you’ve needed this.”

The orgasm hit you like a freight train. It was intense, shattering, the first one you had experienced in years. Your whole body seized, your back bowing off the bench as the pleasure crashed through you in waves. Your cunt clenched around nothing, gushing wetly against his mouth as he continued licking and sucking you through every pulse and aftershock, drinking down every drop like a man dying of thirst. 

Alfie held you through it all, his grip on your ass firm, never letting your hips drop, never stopping the soothing laps of his tongue as the pleasure finally began to ebb. He kissed your swollen folds gently, murmuring praises against your skin between soft licks. “That’s my good girl… fucking beautiful when you cum for me. Look at you shaking and dripping and mine. First of many, love. I’m nowhere near done with you yet.”

You lay there on the bench, with your chest heaving and your body limping and trembling, as Alfie continued to kneel between your spread thighs, pressing worshipful kisses to your inner thighs and mound. 

Alfie finally rose, towering over you. He wiped his glistening beard with the back of his hand, looking down at your spent form spread out on the bench. 

“Eating this cunt is a biblical experience, love. Proper fucking revelation. I thought nothing in this godforsaken world tasted better than those cakes you bake. But this?” He dragged two thick fingers through your slick folds, gathering your wetness and his saliva, then brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean with an obscene groan. “This cunt is better. Sweeter, wetter, more addictive. I could die wondering how I ever lived without the taste of you on my tongue.”

You were still catching your breath, but something wild and long-denied had broken loose inside you. You sat up, grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands, and pulled him down into a fierce kiss. Your fingers worked frantically at the buttons, popping them open one by one until the fabric parted to reveal the broad, hairy expanse of his chest. You slid the shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, and ran your hands all over him, tracing the muscle of his shoulders, the softness of his belly, the hair that covered his chest and trailed down toward his waistband. 

Alfie chuckled against your mouth, the sound amused and utterly pleased. “Look at you,” he murmured, nipping at your lower lip. “Someone’s in a rush, huh? Greedy little thing. One taste and you’re ready to devour the rest of me. I like that, fucking like that.”

You kissed him harder, tangling your tongues together in a kiss that grew messy and desperate. While your mouths moved together, you dropped your fingers lower, fumbling with his belt. The leather gave way, and you popped the button of his trousers, tugging the zipper down and shoving both trousers and underwear down his thighs in one eager motion.

Alfie’s cock sprang free, thick, and already leaking at the flushed tip. It was substantial, veined and hard, with a thatch of dark hair at the base that made your mouth water. You stared for a moment, as it bobbed heavily between you.

Alfie watched you looking, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You like what you see, love?” he asked. “Go on, don’t be shy. Give it a stroke, feel what you do to me.”

Your wrapped a hand around his shaft without hesitation. He was hot and smoothl, pulsing in your grip. You stroked him slowly at first, up and down, swirling your thumb over the leaking head on every pass to spread the wetness. Alfie groaned, tipping his head back for a moment, half-closing his eyes in pleasure as he let you work him. He rocked his hips gently into your fist, fucking your hand with lazy thrusts while he simply enjoyed the feeling.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “Good girl. Look at that pretty hand wrapped around my cock.”

While you continued stroking him, finding a steady rhythm that made his breath hitch, Alfie moved his hand back between your legs. His fingertips gathered the slick mixture of your juices and his saliva that still coated your pussy, and then he slid two fingers deep inside you. He curled them, stroking that spot inside while he circled your clit in lazy spirals with the pad of his thumb. He opened you slowly, scissoring his fingers to stretch you. 

Your hand continued to pump his cock while his fingers fucked you open. You moaned into his mouth as you kissed again, sliding your tongues together. Your strokes on his cock grew faster and tighter, making Alfie groan into the kiss and jerk his hips.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he rasped against your lips, breaking the kiss to look down at where your hand worked him and where his fingers disappeared inside your cunt. “So tight and wet. This pretty little hole is sucking my fingers in like she knows exactly who it belongs to now. Gonna make you feel so full when I finally give you this cock, gonna ruin you for anyone else.”

Then, with a growl, he pulled his fingers out of you, making you whimper at the sudden emptiness. At the same time, he closed his other hand firmly around your wrist, stopping the movement of your hand on his throbbing length. You looked up at him with your lips parted in a moan, and your eyes dark with need. Alfie held your gaze, his own eyes overwhelmed with lust.

“Do you want my cock inside you, love? Because all of this, my mouth, my fingers, that’s been foreplay. Beautiful, filthy foreplay. But if I put my cock inside this pretty little cunt… things won’t go back the way they were. You’ll be all mine. Once I’m buried deep, there’s no pretending. No going back to that cold bed and that useless husband. You’ll be mine. Say it, tell me you understand what you’re asking for.”

The words hung in the warm kitchen air. Your heart hammered wildly at the thought of belonging to Alfie. Years of loneliness and a body that had been ignored rose up in a desperate wave. You nodded frantically. “I want you,” you whispered, then louder, more desperate. “So much, Alfie. Please… Please fuck me. I need you inside me.”

A satisfied smile spread across his face. “Look at you,” he murmured, brushing your swollen lower lip. “You’re so beautiful when you beg. You’ve got the face of an angel and the voice of one too, it’s fucking celestial. Begging for my cock like the dirty girl you are.”

He stepped closer, until his thick cock was nudging against your slick entrance. “Wrap your legs around my waist, love. Hold me tight, I want to feel you clinging to me when I finally sink into this heaven between your thighs.”

You obeyed instantly, locking your legs  around his hips, digging your heels into the back of his thighs and wrapping your arms around his shoulders. The position left you completely open to him, your cunt pressed right against the head of his cock. Alfie gripped the base of his shaft with one hand, the other arm banded tight around your lower back, holding you steady.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “Right here. I want to see that first second when I get inside you. Want to watch your face when this cock stretches you open and fills that hungry little hole for the first time.”

You locked eyes with his, and then Alfie pushed forward. The thick head of his cock breached your entrance, stretching you slowly and inexorably. You gasped sharply at the burn and the fullness, your walls fluttering around the invasion as he sank deeper inch by inch. He was thick, so thick, and long, filling you in a way you had never been filled before. 

Crescent marks painted his shoulders when you dug your nails into it. You let your body adjust, clenching and relaxing around him. Alfie groaned deeply but his eyes never left your face, watching every flicker of pleasure as he pushed forward, until he was buried to the hilt, with his heavy balls pressed against you.

“Fuck… so tight,” he growled, holding perfectly still for a moment, letting you feel every inch of him inside you. “This cunt is gripping me like it never wants to let go, like it knows exactly who it belongs to now.”

Then he began to move, holding you tight against him with an arm around your waist and the other braced on the bench as he thrust deep, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in with a powerful snap of his hips. Each thrust was deliberately hitting your g-spot, making stars explode behind your eyelids.

“Alfie! Oh God, yes, deeper—” you gasped, digging your nails harder into his arms, leaving red trails down his skin. You tightened your legs around his waist, pulling him impossibly deeper with every thrust.

He kissed you hard, using his tongue to fuck your mouth in the same rhythm as his cock pounded into your cunt. The bench creaked beneath you as he fucked you with increasing force, snapping forward, making the length of him drag against every nerve inside you. His balls were sapping against your ass with every deep thrust, and the hair at the base of his cock rubbing deliciously against your clit.

“That’s it, angel,” he moaned between kisses. “Moan for me, let me hear how good it feels to finally have a real man inside you. This tight cunt was made for this cock… made for me. Gonna fuck you until you forget every lonely night, until the only name you remember is mine.”

Alfie watched your face the entire time, drinking in every expression, the way your lips parted on a cry, the way your eyes fluttered half-closed in ecstasy. “Beautiful,” he growled, slamming deep and grinding his hips in a circle. “Fucking beautiful when you’re taking my cock like this. Look at you, all spread open and dripping for me. My angel.”

The pleasure built again, faster this time, coiling in your belly as Alfie’s rhythm grew punishing. You couldn’t help the way your walls fluttered and clenched around him with every stroke, the grip of your cunt pulsing and rippling along his length as the pleasure increased. The sensation of being so full, so stretched, so completely claimed by him was overwhelming

Alfie cursed, his hips stuttering for a moment as your cunt clenched particularly hard around him. “Fuck—! stop doing that with your cunt, love,” his voice came out rough with the effort of holding back. “Squeezing me like that… you’re gonna make me cum too soon. This tight, greedy little hole is trying to pull the life out of me. Slow down, angel, or I won’t last.”

“I can’t help it,” you whimpered high and broken, rolling your hips up to meet his thrusts desperately. “It feels too good… I think I’m gonna cum again, Alfie— oh God, I’m so close…”

A satisfied chuckle rumbled out of him, turning into another deep groan as your walls fluttered around his cock once more. “You’re gonna make me cum, angel,” he growled. “Gonna pull it right out of me with this perfect cunt. But not yet… not until I feel you fall apart around me again.”

His hand found your clit with unerring accuracy, and he rubbed circles over the bundle of nerves, never slowing the pounding rhythm of his cock driving into you. The dual stimulation was devastating, the pressure on your clit was pushing you straight toward the edge again. 

Alfie leaned in and kissed you hard, swallowing every cry and whimper as he drove you higher. “Cum for me again, love,” he rubbed faster. “Let me feel this pretty cunt pulse and flutter around me. Squeeze my cock while you fall apart. That’s it, good girl, cum on my cock like you were born for it.”

The orgasm crashed over, even more intense than the first. Your whole body seized as the pleasure ripped through you in shattering pulses. Your cunt clenched hard around his thick cock, fluttering and pulsing rhythmically, milking him with squeezes as you came with a loud scream of his name. Slick gushed around his cock, coating his balls and dripping down onto the bench beneath you.

“Fuck yes! That’s my angel.” Alfie’s voice was strained as he felt you cum apart around him. He kept thrusting through it, fucking you through every pulse. “So beautiful when you cum for me. Squeezing me so tight… gonna make me fill this pussy. I’m gonna finish inside you, love. Gonna pump every drop deep into this greedy cunt. Mark you from the inside so you remember who you belong to now. Gonna fill you up until you’re dripping with me for days.”

His thrusts grew more erratic as he chased his own release. His cock swelled even thicker inside you, until with a final and powerful snap of his hips, Alfie came. He flood you with thick ropes of cum as he emptied himself completely. He kept thrusting through it, making sure every drop stayed buried inside you, filling you until you felt impossibly full.

He collapsed forward, stroking with his hand up and down your back, tracing patterns along your spine, then sliding around to caress your sides, your ribs, the curve of your waist. His other arm held you securely against his chest, keeping you pressed close as if he feared you might slip away. 

“Does your throat hurt, love?” he asked quietly, a gravelled murmur against your skin.

You let out a breathless laugh, the sound hoarse from all your moaning. “A little,” you admitted, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him. “But it’s a good hurt.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through you where you were still joined. “That’s a good sign, angel. A cunt filled and dripping with my cum, and a throat sore from screaming my name. That’s how a woman should be, love. Thoroughly loved, thoroughly pleasured, thoroughly claimed. That’s how it would be every single day if you were mine, I’d wake you up with my mouth between your thighs. I’d make you cum until you couldn’t remember your own name. You’d go to sleep every night with my cock still inside you and my cum leaking down your thighs. Loved, cherished, worshipped like you deserve.”

You tightened your arms around his shoulders. Meanwhile, Alfi’es hands continued their slow exploration, sliding down to cup your ass gently, then back up to trace your sides and the curve of your breasts where they pressed against his chest. “Your cunt was a holy experience,” he murmured after a long, contented silence. “I saw God for a moment there, love. Nothing in this world, nothing has ever felt like being buried inside you. I’m not sure I can live without it now, I’m not sure I can live without you. Ever since you walked into this place with that cake and that smile that lit up the whole room… you’ve ruined me, angel. Ruined me for anything less, I look at you and the rest of the world feels grey and small and pointless.”

When you lifted your head, you saw his eyes, your own still hazy with pleasure. “Maybe you won’t have to,” you whispered.

“You’re not going back to that cunt of a husband you’ve got,” he said. “Not after this, not after the way you came for me, not after I felt this perfect cunt. You’re done with that life, love. I won’t allow it.”

A tired, but genuine smile painted your face, and you rested your forehead against his. “With this Friday’s payment… I saved enough to rent my own place. I’ve been putting every shilling I could away.”

Alfie’s expression softened further, something almost tender breaking through. He kissed you slowly. “Smart girl, saving and planning. I’m gonna make sure you’re okay. More than okay. You’ll have that place, you’ll have safety. And you’ll have me, whenever you want me, however you want me.”

You stayed wrapped around him, with your legs locked at his waist and your arms around his neck, your face tucked into the warm curve of his shoulder. Then came the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

“Alfie?” Ollie’s voice echoed down the corridor, with that typical frustration and an edge of exhaustion. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Please don’t tell me you’re still in there watching her knea—”

The door to the back room swung open and Ollie stopped cold in the doorway, his words dying in his throat. His eyes widened, taking in the scene before him: you on the bench, with your dress bunched around your waist, brassiere pulled down and breasts exposed and marked with the evidence of Alfie’s mouth. Alfie still buried between your spread thighs, his trousers around his ankles and his shirt open, the two of you flushed and unmistakably tangled.

Alfie reacted instantly, wrapping one arm around your back and pulling you against his chest to shield your bare breasts from view, while his other hand tugged the front of your dress up as best he could. “Jesus fuck, Ollie!” he barked with exasperation. “Didn’t your mother teach you how to knock? Get the fuck away from here. Now. Before I decide your eyes need a permanent reminder of what happens when you walk in on things that aren’t your business.”

Ollie’s face went a mortified red, he spun on his heel so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet, muttering something that sounded like a urse. The door slammed shut behind him with a bang, and you heard his footsteps retreating rapidly down the hallway.

The silence that followed was broken only by your sudden, breathless laugh. Alfie’s chest rumbled with a chuckle that turned into full laughter. “Poor Ollie,” you gasped between giggles. 

“Serve him right,” Alfie said, still laughing. “Walking in like he owns the place. Should’ve knocked.”

You stayed like that for a few more minutes, wrapped around each other. But eventually, with a reluctant sigh, Alfie pulled back just enough to look at you, as he slowly eased his softening cock out of you. You whimpered at the loss, feeling the warm trickle of his cum leaking down your thighs. 

“Come here, love,” he murmured, helping you down from the bench on shaky legs. “Let me take care of you.”

He dressed you with surprising gentleness. First he slid your knickers back up your legs, settling them into place and smoothing the fabric over your still sensitive cunt. Then he adjusted your garters and rolled your stockings back up your thighs, clipping them neatly. He helped you back into your brassiere, cupping your breasts as he did so, brushing your nipples one last time before covering them. Finally, he buttoned what remained of your dress, straightening the fabric and brushing flour from your shoulders and hair with tender strokes.

“There,” he said quietly, stepping back to look at you. “Presentable again. Though I much prefer you the other way.”

You smiled, still a little dazed, and leaned into him. Alfie wrapped his arms around you once more, holding you close. “This Sunday,” he said after a long silence, “you’re gonna bring in the money you’ve got saved and a bag with your belongings. I’m gonna help you find your next place to live. Something far away from that useless bastard. You won’t have to do it alone, love. Not anymore.”

You nodded against his chest. “This Sunday,” you agreed softly.

For the first time in years you are not bracing yourself for the walk home, thinking of a cold bed, and an even colder husband. You think of the mornings still to come, waking up without dread and walking the streets knowing the ring on your finger is gone, and the weight it carried is gone with it.

…

A/N: Omg guys, I think it’s finally up for good!! After getting flagged like 10 times, I think I finally figured out what the issue was. I swear I’ve been so stressed over this whole thing. So if you enjoyed it, I’d absolutely love it if you could help me out with a reblog. It would mean a lot to me and help the fic reach more people after everything it’s been through.

This fic actually started out as something much angstier. My original idea was that Alfie and reader met because she worked as a seamstress and he’d bring her clothes to be repaired. Reader’s marriage was also supposed to be a lot darker. I even had about a page of it written in google docs.

But then, while looking for pictures on pinterest, I came across a photo of a bakery and suddenly thought, wait… wouldn’t it be adorable if reader worked as a baker and Alfie was completely gone for her?😭 So I scrapped everything I’d written and started over from scratch. This time, I decided not to make it quite so dark and instead added a bit more humor and lightheartedness to it.

The first thing you notice, waking from a nap on the floating bed in the pool, is that Andy is gone.

Not gone gone, just not on any visible axis of the infinity pool, nor on the adjacent stone terrace, nor peering at you from the shade of the loggia the way he sometimes does, as if he’s making a private study of how thoroughly the Italian sun kisses your skin. You hear the distant echo of his voice, maybe a phone call, maybe not, and the hush of water lapping gently under your body—then, nothing but bird noise and the lethargic patter of an October breeze, already shifting the air toward winter.

You close your eyes and count each lapping wave, the buzz of distant bees, the punctuation of a single, insistent fly spiraling nearby is the only irritant these days. It’s nearly impossible to believe this is your life now, but three weeks in, the unreality is smoothing into a different genre of normal.

The days have been long and slow, a sequence of luxuries and heat, the kind of leisure you used to think only existed for other people. You and Andy fuck constantly, everywhere—on the bed, the pool steps, once on the sun-warmed hood of the vintage Maserati that he’s aquired for this house. There is no schedule, no work—or rather, your work is to be together, to weather the strange storm of his affection and your own disbelief that you are, in fact, married.

The rhythm of the days is built around meals and sex, though not always in that order. Some mornings you wake to croissants and espresso, some to the weight of Andy’s body already moving inside you, his mouth flattening any chance you had at protest. There’s a kind of athleticism to it now, a drive that’s less about conquest than about seeing how far the two of you can dissolve into each other before you lose track of who’s who.

And here there is just time: for sleeping in, for reading entire novels on the terrace, for walking the estate’s perimeter in silence, hand-in-hand, or apart but within each other’s sightlines.

Only twice in these three weeks has Andy vanished, usually for less than an hour, silent and grim, striding off with his phone pressed to his ear. Each time you think you should be annoyed, resent the way he leaves you alone, but shouldn’t you want the alone time? Regardless, the sense of abandonment never quite blooms. He always comes back to you, faster than you expect, with a heat in his eyes that insists you are the thing he wants most.

You learn the gentle rhythms of the house. The gardener, Ugo, arrives at sunrise, and if Andy’s not already up and prowling the study, you’ll often find him barefoot on the dew-wet grass, talking with Ugo in a tangle of Italian that sounds almost like music. You learn that the best breakfast is not at the marble table but at the ancient wooden bench near the back door, looking out over the lake with your legs over Andy’s lap, watching the chop of early light on the water.

The villa is built on a steep slope that plunges into Lake Como, all pale stone and terracotta roof tile, the kind of property purchased only by those who intend to keep it for generations.

Andy is softer here, in a way that doesn’t mean gentle. He is more relentless, if anything, but less guarded. He will spend hours reading in a chair beside you, or spiral into long monologues about Roman history, or sleep like the dead, one hand always on your skin, as if the long habit of possession won’t dissolve even under a Mediterranean sun.

You get out of the pool, towel off in the sun and walk toward the second floor bedroom you share with its view onto the glassy blue lake. You peel off the swimsuit, and change into a loose linen shirt and soft drawstring pants, and even this luxury feels excessive. Since your engagement, Andy has thrown out half your old wardrobe, replacing it with indecently fine things that you pretend to resent but wear anyway. It makes your skin buzz, the way he dresses you for both your pleasure and his.

You tidy your hair in front of the wide, low vanity—a walnut table, ancient, with a marble top. It’s the kind of thing you would have rolled your eyes at a year ago—the velvet stool, a beveled oval mirror, and an array of perfumes and powders, all staged with an artful disregard for clutter. But you’re drawn to it every day, primarily because of the golden brush and hand mirror that sit at its center, a vintage set that Andy gifted to you the first morning here in Lake Como.

He presented them to you the very first morning. They’d been in a heavy walnut case lined with blue silk. “It belonged to my grandmother,” he’d said, watching your reaction with the same intensity he brought to every other element of his life. “My mother used it every day. I think she’d rather you have it than leave it locked in a safe.” The set was shockingly beautiful—brushed gold handles, and fine porcelain painted with an intricate flower pattern. The bristles are impossibly soft. The mirror refracts your face into something both clearer and less familiar. Every morning, you brush your hair with it. Every morning, you catch Andy watching you in the reflection.

He is in the doorway now, arms folded, his own shirt liberally unbuttoned down the front. You didn’t hear him come up. He has a look you know: right on the seam between hunger and amusement, as if the sight of you is a surprise every time, but never unexpected.

“You’re lurking,” you say. In the mirror you watch Andy tilt his head very slightly, a fox reading a threshold.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He approaches and stops just behind you, not touching you yet, but close enough that you feel the warmth of him.

He watches you finish brushing your hair all the way through, slow, deliberate strokes until the ends fall perfectly straight. Setting down the brush, you turn and face him, waiting.

“You look like you belong here,” he observes.

You arch a brow. “Didn’t you hope it was an inevitability?”

“I don’t leave things to hope.”

He bends and kisses your shoulder—slow, savoring—then lingers, breathing in the scent at your neck. Despite your engagement and these three weeks, you are not yet immune to this. He knows it, too, the way every nerve in you wakes up and goes hunting for more.

But today, he does not escalate—he holds you, chest pressed to your shoulder-blade, and lets the moment dissolve without claiming it. You wonder if he’s in a rare mood of restraint, or whether some part of him is truly, for once, at peace.

You pivot in his arms—quick, surprising him—until you face him fully. The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, exposing the familiar whorl of dark hair, a constellation of fading scars, and the lick of some of his tattoos exposed.

Andy’s hands settle at your hips, his thumb pressing the linen flat to your skin. “We’re having company tonight,” he says, almost offhand, but you catch the flicker of something in his face—a signal flare if you care to read it.

You blink. “Who?”

He feigns a sigh, but there is almost the hint of a smile around his mouth. “Someone we can’t avoid any longer.”

“That sounds cryptic and ominous,” you say, though not entirely without humor. “Are they dangerous?”

Andy tilts his head as if considering how much he wants to reveal before confirming, “Not to you.”

You frown. “Who is it, then? Another family? A business rival?” You half expect to hear a name you’ll have to Google later, some ancient consigliere or a senator’s nephew with a gambling problem.

Andy hesitates longer than you expect, then finally, “My stepbrother.”

Your brain stutters, reboots.

Stepbrother?

Not a word you’d ever heard applied to the realm of Andy. You comb through every memory of his disclosures, minimal though they have been thus far, and come up empty. You shake your head, as if a drop of pool water still clings to the inside of your ear. “You never said—” you start, but Andy is already laughing, soft and sharp.

“Didn’t seem relevant, until now.” He grins, his hands tightening at your hips as if to steady you through the shock. “He’s an acquired taste.”

“So, is he coming for dinner, or for war?” you ask.

He shrugs one shoulder, brushing off the gravity even as you feel an undertow. “He’ll be here at seven. He’s in Switzerland, claims traffic, but really he’s just never been on time for anything like this.”

You lean back against the vanity. “Why now?”

The answer is a smile, but not one that reaches his eyes. “Curiosity.”

You process this. Maybe you should be mad, but if Thea read way too many mafia romance novels, you’ve read just as many mafia and non-mafia romance novels to have where the heroine manufactures outrage over nothing, and you’ve always found it exhausting—the obligatory fight, the unnecessary tension, the reconciliation that changes nothing.

And you’re not actually mad at all that he hasn’t told you about a stepbrother. There’s a long list of things you haven’t told him about because you don’t want to.

So really, you’re just genuinely shocked at a stepbrother’s existence.

“Should I be nervous?” you ask. You’re already running the math in your head: whether this stepbrother is the mold Andy was cast from, or the thing he was cast against. Whether they’re estranged or just whatever the word is for two men who have learned to exist in separate countries.

“You’re not the nervous type,” Andy says, though there’s a sweetness in it, a note of reassurance. He tugs you closer, hands molding you against his chest. “It’s just a meal. He’s not the enemy, he’s just…” Andy trails off, one hand sliding up and down your waist. “Don’t let him get in your head,” he says, softer now. “He’s got a talent for it.”

You know a warning when you hear one.

Seven isn’t so far off. You spend a bit more time trying to care about what to wear, but finally just keep on the linen, Andy insisting that you don’t need to dress up. Your husband, without comment, switches out his shirt for another almost as lazily unbuttoned.

At precisely 6:58 pm, Andy’s phone vibrates where it’s been abandoned on the edge of the sideboard, humming a predatory sound against the wood. He glances at it, then at you, and the look—dry, resigned—tells you more than words could.

“He’s early,” Andy says, but doesn’t move to get the door. Instead, he lets you lead, and you do, padding barefoot down the stone staircase, the cool tile sending a charge up your calves.

The villa’s front door has already been opened by one of the Italian security detail, and waiting on the threshold is a man who waits, arms crossed, with a patience that broadcasts itself as challenge.

The men are nearly the same height, but the similarities differ endlessly between them. Where Andy is all cool blue flame, this man is severe angles and a sharp, surgical presence, muscles hardly contained by his frame. His blue eyes are nearly black, set under straight, unyielding brows—nothing of Andy’s bright, sly smile here. His nose is as straight as a blade. Even his hair is a darker, more exacting version of Andy’s, trimmed so close at the sides it’s nearly military, but longer on top and combed back with obsessive precision.

His clothes are immaculate, but in a way that feels less tailored and more engineered: a black shirt, jacket fitted so closely it suggests armor. Ex-military, you think immediately, but then you see the tiny glint of gold at his left wrist, a watch so expensive and so quietly worn that only someone who doesn’t need you to notice it would ever put it there.

And that mustache.

That’s certainly its own personality trait altogether.

Andy’s stepbrother is attractive, but not in any safe or approachable way. If Andy is handsome in a way that draws you in, this one is repellent, polar, a negative charge that wants to spark or burn.

Even his name, when Andy says it, carries its own weight: “Lloyd.”

“Andrew.” The greeting is a handshake, but Lloyd’s eyes dart sideways, taking you in with an efficiency that’s almost anatomical.

He clocks you in less than a second, blue eyes cutting across the foyer before you can even finish your first, startled blink. A once-over that would be offensive if it weren’t so openly, audaciously clinical. You feel yourself stand a little straighter, some competitive impulse sparked by his entrance, so you paste a smile on your mouth and force yourself to hold his stare.

He doesn’t smile back. “The wife,” Lloyd says, like a fact he’s verifying on a checklist.

You offer your hand because it’s the only move that gets you both out of the standoff, and he takes it in his own, the grip surgical and dry, yet with a voltage that makes your wrist bones hum. He doesn’t give his name or prompt you for yours, just releases and steps inside, sweeping the room with a predatory calm. When he’s satisfied, Lloyd turns his attention back to Andy, and whatever conversation occurs between them is nonverbal but absolutely deafening.

“Congratulations,” Lloyd says, and the word lands somewhere that feels simultaneously genuine and hideously sarcastic.

Andy only smirks. “Let me get you a drink.”

You watch them move into the library off the foyer, and you follow in their wake, observing Lloyd as he glances at the rows of rare books like he’s casing the place for weak spots.

“Scotch?” Andy asks.

“Negroni, if you’ve got a proper vermouth.”

Andy doesn’t dignify this request with a joke, just flips open a lacquered sideboard and pulls down a cut-glass decanter of gin, a bottle of Campari, and an unfamiliar squat bottle with an Italian label. “They make this two kilometers from here,” he says, pouring with a reverence that is almost priestly.

Lloyd, meanwhile, has found the one chair in the room that could double as a throne and seats himself with a proprietary air. Without invitation, he props a booted foot on the low table, surveying you over steepled fingers. He says nothing, but the silence is medical in its sharpness, and you sense he is running diagnostics with each flick of his gaze. You perch on the leather couch next to where you know Andy will sit, knees angled out, showing Lloyd you’re not planning to shrink beneath a family dynamic you have just now learned exists.

It is an old, beautiful library, full of rare bindings and the smell of dust and oil, but the air between the men is fresher, the distinctions newer. Andy sets Lloyd’s negroni before him, then offers a glass of your favorite drink to you, settling in beside you.

“So, Lloyd,” you try, figuring you might as well trot out some kind of conversational opening gambit, “how long are you in Italy?”

He weighs the question for sport. “I’m based out of Switzerland. But till Friday. Then Tokyo.” He sips the drink, his mouth compressing to a tight, precise line, then finally flickers a look your way. “I’ll admit,” he says, “I did not think Andy would ever get married again.” He makes the word again do all the work of a punchline.

Andy’s face does not move, but you sense him recalibrating in the space beside you.

You shrug, as if immune to the dig. “I was as surprised as anyone.”

“You must have really good dirt on him,” Lloyd says, turning to you with a wry arch of his eyebrow. “Otherwise, I can’t imagine him tying himself down at this stage of the game.”

You sputter, shocked since it was exactly the opposite. But Andy intervenes, with a hand on your thigh. “She doesn’t need dirt to get what she wants from me,” Andy says, just on the edge of a threat, but it seems to be a warning to Lloyd, not to you. “She’s the only woman who’s ever really tempted me.”

You blink at Andy, a little surprised, warmth squirming through your chest, unsure how to catalog what he’s saying, and if it’s just for Lloyd, or if it’s actually true.

You’re still processing what even to say to that, but before you can land a response, Lloyd sets his glass down with a decisive clink and leans forward, elbows on knees, gaze slicing into you with surgical clarity.

“So, what do you actually do, then? Wife of Andrew Barber.” The way he says it, with the capital W, makes it clear he sees it as a job in itself. You cock your head, deciding whether to play petulant, sincere, or unvarnished.

“I sleep in, I swim, I read too much. Apparently, I get kidnapped from my life in Boston and flown here for undetermined weeks of forced relaxation.”

Lloyd surveys you, a flicker of amusement passing across the frost of his face, then turns to Andy. “I really hope ‘forced relaxation’ is code for indecent amounts of honeymoon sex or else I’ll have to object to everything this marriage stands for.”

“Lloyd!” Andy’s tone is the admonishment of an older brother, but also a little exasperated, as if Lloyd is forever blurting the worst possible thing at the best possible time.

You can’t help but laugh, which seems to catch Lloyd off guard. “Oh, it’s absolutely code,” you say. If Andy’s hand tightens a fractional increment on your thigh, it’s matched by the up-curve at the corner of his mouth.

Lloyd throws his head back and barks out a single, cold laugh, and then, abruptly, all the armored tension in the room fractures. He shoots you a look that’s almost warm—impressed, maybe, or at least entertained—and Andy, feeling the shift, leans more comfortably into the sofa.

“For a second, I thought you’d be one of those tragic, blink-twice-if-you-need-rescue brides or a total waif and a bore,” Lloyd says. “But I think I’m going to like you. You’ve got bite. A spine. Under different circumstances we might’ve had a one-night-stand.”

You say nothing to that—what can you say?—and take a slow sip of your drink. Lloyd grins, animate now, as if he’s been waiting for a worthy audience all along.

Andy glances over, reading the beat of your silence, and says to Lloyd, “She’d have eaten you alive.”

“She’s doing that now, Andy,” Lloyd says, tipping his glass at you.

The more Lloyd talks the more you see—he’s not so much Andy’s shadow as his negative. Where Andy is tactician, Lloyd is dismantler. Maybe even a little unhinged, but in a way that’s technically useful. You can see why Andy can’t ignore him, but also why he’s arranged his life at a safe distance.

“Tell me, Lloyd,” you say, enjoying the game, “what do you actually do? And do you bring this much charisma to all your diplomatic functions?”

Lloyd refills his own drink, swirling the red liquid with a kind of absent, precise menace. “Officially, I’m a strategic consultant. Audit committees, risk and compliance, that sort of thing. Unofficially… Let’s say I help people find their limits, sometimes by exceeding them.”

You smile, liking this more than you should. “So, you’re the fixer.”

Lloyd shrugs, a gesture of such exaggerated modesty it circles around to arrogance. “I fix things, sometimes. Break them, sometimes. It’s the same art, in the end.” He slouches further in his chair, all calculated ease. “But unlike Andy, I don’t long for power. I just want to see how everything works. People, organizations, the occasional marriage.” He flashes a brief, knife-sharp smile. “I’m here because I couldn’t miss the spectacle.”

Andy groans before throwing back the rest of his drink. “Let’s get this dinner over with.”

It’s late, and the moon is a white saw-curve over the lake, when you and Andy finally give Lloyd a send-off in the gravel half-moon of the drive, hand in hand.

Lloyd had commented on every course over dinner, praising the risotto, bemoaning the use of an olive tapenade as an accompaniment to the roasted vegetables (to which you had to agree), and providing a two-minute oral history of the grappa served afterward (“Never drink it after midnight, unless you want to wake up in another country, married to a Turkish heiress, with a contract out on your spleen”). He did not attempt to murder Andy, nor did he try to seduce you, though there was a blank period in the middle of the evening where he became weirdly intent on teaching you the difference between “threat” and “risk” (both as a business concept and a party game).

Lloyd catches your eye, and for a moment you see the flicker of a new alliance—something conspiratorial. You suspect the two of you are possibly the only two people in existence to challenge Andy so much, and the shock of it seems almost to delight him.

“How long’s this honeymoon gig scheduled to last for you lovebirds?” Lloyd asks.

You, of course, don’t know, so you turn to Andy, who responds with a simple, “Undetermined.”

Lloyd raises both eyebrows. “If that’s true, that’s a first for the mastermind of our operation.”

Andy doesn’t react to the dig—just shrugs, unbothered—but you catch the way his grip tightens imperceptibly on your hand. Lloyd’s grin is the most honest expression he’s worn all evening, something primal and delighted lighting his face.

“Listen, don’t you ever let him win at anything,” Lloyd says, blatantly baiting Andy for maybe the eightiegh time this evening.

“Careful,” Andy says, “You’re going to make a friend out of my wife, and I wasn’t the marrying kind, but we all know you don’t do friends.”

“No friendship here,” Lloyd laughs. “Maybe an ally though,” he says with a ridiculous wink.

You grin, and at that moment you know you’ve not only survived an impossible dinner, but recruited a kind of secret weapon—one more unpredictable variable in a world where all bets have been, for so long, placed in advance.

You’re not sure what you expected from Andy’s stepbrother—less terror, more frat boy turned finance bro smarm—but the actual Lloyd is something more dangerous. The air always feels as if it’s about to spark, but you’re reassured with the knowledge that the threat is mostly performance. He is less a bomb than a demolition analyst, carefully always looking for the support beams to test.

Lloyd shakes Andy’s hand, the briefest clamp of muscle around bone, then holds your gaze a half-second longer than is polite. “Next time,” he says, tilting his head at you, “let’s try for lunch. Or something more dangerous.”

He stalks off into the dark, coat slung over his shoulder. His footsteps barely crunch on the gravel; you imagine he never leaves a trace.

You and Andy linger at the end of the drive until the taillights are just two points of red at the base of the hill. There’s static in the air, a lingering voltage that belongs to the aftershock of Lloyd, but maybe to something else, too.

“Are all your family gatherings like that?” you ask.

Andy chuckles. “Not even close. He’s the only family I really have left, and that’s the most time I’ve spent with him in years.”

“Really?”

He hums in the affirmative. “Lloyd’s dad married my mom when the two of us were in our last two years of high school. We put up with and defended each other in equal measure. Built trust. Still stuck with each other even though both our parents are gone.”

You soak this in as you walk back into the villa, side by side, Andy’s pinky hooked in yours as if he doesn’t trust the night not to take you. The air’s gone cool, the breeze off the lake hinting at woodsmoke and dying leaves. You’re so full of food and conversation that you could float, but you also sense the edge of some deeper story curling beneath everything Andy’s said tonight.

Upstairs, the master suite is all golden lamp light and the faint scent of warm linens and cypress from the trees outside. You kick off your sandals near the door and watch Andy cross to the low settee at the foot of the bed. He sits, elbows on knees, head bowed in that posture you’re learning means he’s prepping to tell you something he hasn’t told anyone in years.

You open the window wide, let silence in with the night air, and begin your bedtime routine. You’ve learned that it soothes Andy to watch you. You move through it slow, deliberate—untangling your hair, massaging lotion into your legs, washing your face, brushing your teeth. When you glance in the mirror, you see he’s still hunched, lost in the linen folds of his shirt, and you feel a pang that is half affection, half something harder.

Whatever the complex mix of what’s brought you to this point, he is your husband, and there’s a solid, warm weight about that fact that exists in the cavity of your chest now, unquestionably.

You finish by the window, looking out at the moonrise over the lake, and say, “Tell me about your mom and Lloyd’s dad.” You don’t mean it as a challenge, only an invitation.

He stretches his legs, slides his palms down his thighs, then says, “He was widowed, and she was divorced, of course.” He glances up, eyes catching on yours, then flicking away. “The man who ws my father was put behind bars for murder when I was eight. Looking back I can see that the man put us through too much for her to ever want to tie herself to a man again. But when she met Lloyd’s dad—Henry—he found her compelling enough to put in the time, talking, showing up, respecting her boundaries for months before she finally agreed to go out with him. He was aggressive, but not creepy. Just… very determined, reliable.” Andy huffs a laugh. “They were ridiculously happy together. Lloyd and I hated each other at first, but we saw our parents were too happy to ruin it for them. I thought he was a sociopath; he thought I was a pretentious little shit. We were both right.”

You laugh before you can stop yourself, the sound bouncing off the bedroom’s high ceiling. “You still hate each other?”

Andy’s mouth twitches. “We still keep each other sharp.” There’s a thread of pride in it, or something very close. “He’s the only person alive who can predict my moves.” He’s quiet for a moment, then stands and begins to undress for bed as well. “He tests everyone, all the time. You saw that. But if you pass, he’s loyal.” He glances up at you. “Loyalty means something different to him than most people.”

“So you trust him?”

“Essentially,” Andy says flatly. “He’ll always do what he says he will do. That’s almost the same.”

You study Andy’s face as he peels away his shirt—watch the uncanny way his body sets itself at ease, all muscle and self-discipline. He rakes a hand through his hair, the thick, floofy strands that your fingers easily melt into in your intimacies.

“Lloyd’s dad was killed in a hit-and-run accident. My mom made it clear she still considered him a son, but then she only made it two more years—we discovered she had advanced and aggressive breast cancer. We couldn’t save her. He was there for her for every moment at the end. You could say we were trauma bonded.”

Though it’s a stripped-down recounting, you intuit just how much more is unsaid. It’s not happenstance that’s kept these forced-brothers bonded, but a gravitational choice not to sever the association. What they have makes sense given the context of what you know of each man.

And then there’s his mother. Though he’s spoken only rarely of her, the way he speaks of her, you know he loved her with a ferocity that was rare and consuming. You saw it in the reverence with which he gifted you her brush set, in the way he measures his words about her now, in the fondness you’ve seen in his eyes the handful of other times he’s told you something about her.

Now, in the huge, moonlit room, Andy undoes his belt and lets the sound of the leather sliding free punctuate the silence. He steps out of his trousers, as at home in nakedness as in a suit. There is no shame in him, no self-consciousness—only the expectation that you will watch and be affected.

You could, if you wished, make a study of him for hours. You have, some nights: lying sated beside him, or else propped on an elbow, watching the way breath shifts the shadows across his ribs, or how his chest rises and falls when he is, on the rare occasion, truly asleep while you’re still awake.

Andy pulls back the covers and slides in. You move instinctually to join him, crossing the room, barefoot, skin prickled from the open window and the cold stone underfoot. You watch his eyes track your movement, the intensity in his gaze a physical thing, heavy as a hand on your shoulder.

You climb onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath your weight. He reaches for you, but he has no need to draw you in tonight. You want him.

You straddle him, sliding over his hips with the smooth confidence of repetition. Andy’s cock is half hard, and the moment your thigh brushes it you feel him tense—a preemptive shudder that assures you how deeply he wants you, never mind that he had you three times earlier in the day. His hands close around your waist, greedy, guiding you down until the heat of him notches against you. You sink down slow, unhurried, taking him inch by inch.

He hisses through his teeth, eyes slitted, watching your face for every flicker of sensation. When you bottom out, you pause, savoring the fullness. His hands grip tighter, thumbs digging into the soft flesh at your waist, insistently rocking you forward. You let him set the rhythm at first—he always wants to be in control—but you slide your hands against his chest and demand the kisses you want in tandem with the slow fucking.

Your lips and tongues are devoted to devastating each other. You fuck him the way you’ve learned he likes best, slow, steady, a kind of deliberate mutual detonation, nothing performative, just the honest, hungry slide of your bodies.

It hasn’t escaped you that the reason he likes this the best is likely because he knows the level to which it completely undoes you.

You rock into him, savoring the friction, feeling every inch. Andy’s lips roam your jaw, your throat, his hands possessive at your hips, thumbs stroking small, private circles into your skin. You move together in a rhythm that’s almost lazy, but the heat underneath is anything but.

Andy’s cock pulses inside you, warm and thick. He slips one hand up to your breast, kneading it gently, running his thumb over your nipple until it’s stiff and aching. You arch into him, letting your head tip back, throat bared, and you hear the catch in his breath—the way he loses a thread of composure whenever you let him see you undone.

You ride him, your nails leaving crescents in his chest, the thick, slow grind so deep you could weep from the goodness of it. When your orgasm comes, it’s not a thunderclap but a long, exquisite ache that blooms out slow and stays. Andy holds you tight through it, riding your shudders, his hips rolling up to meet yours in perfect counterpoint until he comes, not with violence, but with a decisive, shivering surrender. He pulls you down with him, chest to chest, his arms locked around your back, the world narrowing to the feel of his pulse under your fingertips, the aftershocks echoing through both of you.

After, you lie together without talking, your cheek pressed to his heart, his hand running lazy paths over your shoulder, the length of your arm, the line of your spine. You are so tired you think you might sleep, but there is a question lingering, and you decide to put it out there, wondering if he may deign you with an answer.

“What did you mean when you told Lloyd the length of our honeymoon was ‘undetermined?’”

Andy doesn’t answer immediately, but he doesn’t tense or look away, just keeps stroking your shoulder, his fingers tracing patterns that feel like a signature.

“I meant it exactly as I said,” he murmurs, settling a little deeper into the pillow. “We have no return date. I haven’t set one. There’s no obligation for us to go back until we want to.”

You frown at him skeptically. “You don’t have obligations and business you have to get back to?”

Andy’s smile is lazy, almost smug. “Perk of being the one that runs the show,” he says. “I decide when I’m needed. I decide when I’m not.” He nudges your ankle with his foot under the covers, a quiet intimacy that feels more too normal to belong to the two of you. “If anyone has a problem, they’ll take it up with me when I feel like answering.”

You settle your cheek into the warm spot above his heart. “I didn’t realize crime lords had PTO.”

“Not PTO,” Andy says, his voice rumbling against your ear. “Sabbatical. Indefinite. I worked for years to keep the world in order enough that I could disappear for a while, if I wanted. Most days I didn’t want to. Now, I do.” He doesn’t have to say with you; it’s so palpable in every gesture, every way he rearranges the days around the shape of your body.

You’re quiet, surprised by how much you don’t want to leave this place either, not yet. Not ever, if you’re honest. The luxury is lovely, but it’s the feeling of waking up every day with nothing to do but want and be wanted that you’re afraid to lose.

He catches your silence, fingers tightening a fraction at your arm. “I like us here,” he murmurs reverently into your ear.

He says it so matter-of-factly, with no expectation or agenda, that you go absolutely still, unprepared for how real it lands.

But then you melt, and admit, “I do, too.”

Anyone joining me with a little swooning?

ALSO

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BROTHER-IN-LAW! MWAHAHAHA!

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The first thing you notice, waking from a nap on the floating bed in the pool, is that Andy is gone.

Not gone gone, just not on any visible axis of the infinity pool, nor on the adjacent stone terrace, nor peering at you from the shade of the loggia the way he sometimes does, as if he’s making a private study of how thoroughly the Italian sun kisses your skin. You hear the distant echo of his voice, maybe a phone call, maybe not, and the hush of water lapping gently under your body—then, nothing but bird noise and the lethargic patter of an October breeze, already shifting the air toward winter.

You close your eyes and count each lapping wave, the buzz of distant bees, the punctuation of a single, insistent fly spiraling nearby is the only irritant these days. It’s nearly impossible to believe this is your life now, but three weeks in, the unreality is smoothing into a different genre of normal.

The days have been long and slow, a sequence of luxuries and heat, the kind of leisure you used to think only existed for other people. You and Andy fuck constantly, everywhere—on the bed, the pool steps, once on the sun-warmed hood of the vintage Maserati that he’s aquired for this house. There is no schedule, no work—or rather, your work is to be together, to weather the strange storm of his affection and your own disbelief that you are, in fact, married.

The rhythm of the days is built around meals and sex, though not always in that order. Some mornings you wake to croissants and espresso, some to the weight of Andy’s body already moving inside you, his mouth flattening any chance you had at protest. There’s a kind of athleticism to it now, a drive that’s less about conquest than about seeing how far the two of you can dissolve into each other before you lose track of who’s who.

And here there is just time: for sleeping in, for reading entire novels on the terrace, for walking the estate’s perimeter in silence, hand-in-hand, or apart but within each other’s sightlines.

Only twice in these three weeks has Andy vanished, usually for less than an hour, silent and grim, striding off with his phone pressed to his ear. Each time you think you should be annoyed, resent the way he leaves you alone, but shouldn’t you want the alone time? Regardless, the sense of abandonment never quite blooms. He always comes back to you, faster than you expect, with a heat in his eyes that insists you are the thing he wants most.

You learn the gentle rhythms of the house. The gardener, Ugo, arrives at sunrise, and if Andy’s not already up and prowling the study, you’ll often find him barefoot on the dew-wet grass, talking with Ugo in a tangle of Italian that sounds almost like music. You learn that the best breakfast is not at the marble table but at the ancient wooden bench near the back door, looking out over the lake with your legs over Andy’s lap, watching the chop of early light on the water.

The villa is built on a steep slope that plunges into Lake Como, all pale stone and terracotta roof tile, the kind of property purchased only by those who intend to keep it for generations.

Andy is softer here, in a way that doesn’t mean gentle. He is more relentless, if anything, but less guarded. He will spend hours reading in a chair beside you, or spiral into long monologues about Roman history, or sleep like the dead, one hand always on your skin, as if the long habit of possession won’t dissolve even under a Mediterranean sun.

You get out of the pool, towel off in the sun and walk toward the second floor bedroom you share with its view onto the glassy blue lake. You peel off the swimsuit, and change into a loose linen shirt and soft drawstring pants, and even this luxury feels excessive. Since your engagement, Andy has thrown out half your old wardrobe, replacing it with indecently fine things that you pretend to resent but wear anyway. It makes your skin buzz, the way he dresses you for both your pleasure and his.

You tidy your hair in front of the wide, low vanity—a walnut table, ancient, with a marble top. It’s the kind of thing you would have rolled your eyes at a year ago—the velvet stool, a beveled oval mirror, and an array of perfumes and powders, all staged with an artful disregard for clutter. But you’re drawn to it every day, primarily because of the golden brush and hand mirror that sit at its center, a vintage set that Andy gifted to you the first morning here in Lake Como.

He presented them to you the very first morning. They’d been in a heavy walnut case lined with blue silk. “It belonged to my grandmother,” he’d said, watching your reaction with the same intensity he brought to every other element of his life. “My mother used it every day. I think she’d rather you have it than leave it locked in a safe.” The set was shockingly beautiful—brushed gold handles, and fine porcelain painted with an intricate flower pattern. The bristles are impossibly soft. The mirror refracts your face into something both clearer and less familiar. Every morning, you brush your hair with it. Every morning, you catch Andy watching you in the reflection.

He is in the doorway now, arms folded, his own shirt liberally unbuttoned down the front. You didn’t hear him come up. He has a look you know: right on the seam between hunger and amusement, as if the sight of you is a surprise every time, but never unexpected.

“You’re lurking,” you say. In the mirror you watch Andy tilt his head very slightly, a fox reading a threshold.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He approaches and stops just behind you, not touching you yet, but close enough that you feel the warmth of him.

He watches you finish brushing your hair all the way through, slow, deliberate strokes until the ends fall perfectly straight. Setting down the brush, you turn and face him, waiting.

“You look like you belong here,” he observes.

You arch a brow. “Didn’t you hope it was an inevitability?”

“I don’t leave things to hope.”

He bends and kisses your shoulder—slow, savoring—then lingers, breathing in the scent at your neck. Despite your engagement and these three weeks, you are not yet immune to this. He knows it, too, the way every nerve in you wakes up and goes hunting for more.

But today, he does not escalate—he holds you, chest pressed to your shoulder-blade, and lets the moment dissolve without claiming it. You wonder if he’s in a rare mood of restraint, or whether some part of him is truly, for once, at peace.

You pivot in his arms—quick, surprising him—until you face him fully. The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, exposing the familiar whorl of dark hair, a constellation of fading scars, and the lick of some of his tattoos exposed.

Andy’s hands settle at your hips, his thumb pressing the linen flat to your skin. “We’re having company tonight,” he says, almost offhand, but you catch the flicker of something in his face—a signal flare if you care to read it.

You blink. “Who?”

He feigns a sigh, but there is almost the hint of a smile around his mouth. “Someone we can’t avoid any longer.”

“That sounds cryptic and ominous,” you say, though not entirely without humor. “Are they dangerous?”

Andy tilts his head as if considering how much he wants to reveal before confirming, “Not to you.”

You frown. “Who is it, then? Another family? A business rival?” You half expect to hear a name you’ll have to Google later, some ancient consigliere or a senator’s nephew with a gambling problem.

Andy hesitates longer than you expect, then finally, “My stepbrother.”

Your brain stutters, reboots.

Stepbrother?

Not a word you’d ever heard applied to the realm of Andy. You comb through every memory of his disclosures, minimal though they have been thus far, and come up empty. You shake your head, as if a drop of pool water still clings to the inside of your ear. “You never said—” you start, but Andy is already laughing, soft and sharp.

“Didn’t seem relevant, until now.” He grins, his hands tightening at your hips as if to steady you through the shock. “He’s an acquired taste.”

“So, is he coming for dinner, or for war?” you ask.

He shrugs one shoulder, brushing off the gravity even as you feel an undertow. “He’ll be here at seven. He’s in Switzerland, claims traffic, but really he’s just never been on time for anything like this.”

You lean back against the vanity. “Why now?”

The answer is a smile, but not one that reaches his eyes. “Curiosity.”

You process this. Maybe you should be mad, but if Thea read way too many mafia romance novels, you’ve read just as many mafia and non-mafia romance novels to have where the heroine manufactures outrage over nothing, and you’ve always found it exhausting—the obligatory fight, the unnecessary tension, the reconciliation that changes nothing.

And you’re not actually mad at all that he hasn’t told you about a stepbrother. There’s a long list of things you haven’t told him about because you don’t want to.

So really, you’re just genuinely shocked at a stepbrother’s existence.

“Should I be nervous?” you ask. You’re already running the math in your head: whether this stepbrother is the mold Andy was cast from, or the thing he was cast against. Whether they’re estranged or just whatever the word is for two men who have learned to exist in separate countries.

“You’re not the nervous type,” Andy says, though there’s a sweetness in it, a note of reassurance. He tugs you closer, hands molding you against his chest. “It’s just a meal. He’s not the enemy, he’s just…” Andy trails off, one hand sliding up and down your waist. “Don’t let him get in your head,” he says, softer now. “He’s got a talent for it.”

You know a warning when you hear one.

Seven isn’t so far off. You spend a bit more time trying to care about what to wear, but finally just keep on the linen, Andy insisting that you don’t need to dress up. Your husband, without comment, switches out his shirt for another almost as lazily unbuttoned.

At precisely 6:58 pm, Andy’s phone vibrates where it’s been abandoned on the edge of the sideboard, humming a predatory sound against the wood. He glances at it, then at you, and the look—dry, resigned—tells you more than words could.

“He’s early,” Andy says, but doesn’t move to get the door. Instead, he lets you lead, and you do, padding barefoot down the stone staircase, the cool tile sending a charge up your calves.

The villa’s front door has already been opened by one of the Italian security detail, and waiting on the threshold is a man who waits, arms crossed, with a patience that broadcasts itself as challenge.

The men are nearly the same height, but the similarities differ endlessly between them. Where Andy is all cool blue flame, this man is severe angles and a sharp, surgical presence, muscles hardly contained by his frame. His blue eyes are nearly black, set under straight, unyielding brows—nothing of Andy’s bright, sly smile here. His nose is as straight as a blade. Even his hair is a darker, more exacting version of Andy’s, trimmed so close at the sides it’s nearly military, but longer on top and combed back with obsessive precision.

His clothes are immaculate, but in a way that feels less tailored and more engineered: a black shirt, jacket fitted so closely it suggests armor. Ex-military, you think immediately, but then you see the tiny glint of gold at his left wrist, a watch so expensive and so quietly worn that only someone who doesn’t need you to notice it would ever put it there.

And that mustache.

That’s certainly its own personality trait altogether.

Andy’s stepbrother is attractive, but not in any safe or approachable way. If Andy is handsome in a way that draws you in, this one is repellent, polar, a negative charge that wants to spark or burn.

Even his name, when Andy says it, carries its own weight: “Lloyd.”

“Andrew.” The greeting is a handshake, but Lloyd’s eyes dart sideways, taking you in with an efficiency that’s almost anatomical.

He clocks you in less than a second, blue eyes cutting across the foyer before you can even finish your first, startled blink. A once-over that would be offensive if it weren’t so openly, audaciously clinical. You feel yourself stand a little straighter, some competitive impulse sparked by his entrance, so you paste a smile on your mouth and force yourself to hold his stare.

He doesn’t smile back. “The wife,” Lloyd says, like a fact he’s verifying on a checklist.

You offer your hand because it’s the only move that gets you both out of the standoff, and he takes it in his own, the grip surgical and dry, yet with a voltage that makes your wrist bones hum. He doesn’t give his name or prompt you for yours, just releases and steps inside, sweeping the room with a predatory calm. When he’s satisfied, Lloyd turns his attention back to Andy, and whatever conversation occurs between them is nonverbal but absolutely deafening.

“Congratulations,” Lloyd says, and the word lands somewhere that feels simultaneously genuine and hideously sarcastic.

Andy only smirks. “Let me get you a drink.”

You watch them move into the library off the foyer, and you follow in their wake, observing Lloyd as he glances at the rows of rare books like he’s casing the place for weak spots.

“Scotch?” Andy asks.

“Negroni, if you’ve got a proper vermouth.”

Andy doesn’t dignify this request with a joke, just flips open a lacquered sideboard and pulls down a cut-glass decanter of gin, a bottle of Campari, and an unfamiliar squat bottle with an Italian label. “They make this two kilometers from here,” he says, pouring with a reverence that is almost priestly.

Lloyd, meanwhile, has found the one chair in the room that could double as a throne and seats himself with a proprietary air. Without invitation, he props a booted foot on the low table, surveying you over steepled fingers. He says nothing, but the silence is medical in its sharpness, and you sense he is running diagnostics with each flick of his gaze. You perch on the leather couch next to where you know Andy will sit, knees angled out, showing Lloyd you’re not planning to shrink beneath a family dynamic you have just now learned exists.

It is an old, beautiful library, full of rare bindings and the smell of dust and oil, but the air between the men is fresher, the distinctions newer. Andy sets Lloyd’s negroni before him, then offers a glass of your favorite drink to you, settling in beside you.

“So, Lloyd,” you try, figuring you might as well trot out some kind of conversational opening gambit, “how long are you in Italy?”

He weighs the question for sport. “I’m based out of Switzerland. But till Friday. Then Tokyo.” He sips the drink, his mouth compressing to a tight, precise line, then finally flickers a look your way. “I’ll admit,” he says, “I did not think Andy would ever get married again.” He makes the word again do all the work of a punchline.

Andy’s face does not move, but you sense him recalibrating in the space beside you.

You shrug, as if immune to the dig. “I was as surprised as anyone.”

“You must have really good dirt on him,” Lloyd says, turning to you with a wry arch of his eyebrow. “Otherwise, I can’t imagine him tying himself down at this stage of the game.”

You sputter, shocked since it was exactly the opposite. But Andy intervenes, with a hand on your thigh. “She doesn’t need dirt to get what she wants from me,” Andy says, just on the edge of a threat, but it seems to be a warning to Lloyd, not to you. “She’s the only woman who’s ever really tempted me.”

You blink at Andy, a little surprised, warmth squirming through your chest, unsure how to catalog what he’s saying, and if it’s just for Lloyd, or if it’s actually true.

You’re still processing what even to say to that, but before you can land a response, Lloyd sets his glass down with a decisive clink and leans forward, elbows on knees, gaze slicing into you with surgical clarity.

“So, what do you actually do, then? Wife of Andrew Barber.” The way he says it, with the capital W, makes it clear he sees it as a job in itself. You cock your head, deciding whether to play petulant, sincere, or unvarnished.

“I sleep in, I swim, I read too much. Apparently, I get kidnapped from my life in Boston and flown here for undetermined weeks of forced relaxation.”

Lloyd surveys you, a flicker of amusement passing across the frost of his face, then turns to Andy. “I really hope ‘forced relaxation’ is code for indecent amounts of honeymoon sex or else I’ll have to object to everything this marriage stands for.”

“Lloyd!” Andy’s tone is the admonishment of an older brother, but also a little exasperated, as if Lloyd is forever blurting the worst possible thing at the best possible time.

You can’t help but laugh, which seems to catch Lloyd off guard. “Oh, it’s absolutely code,” you say. If Andy’s hand tightens a fractional increment on your thigh, it’s matched by the up-curve at the corner of his mouth.

Lloyd throws his head back and barks out a single, cold laugh, and then, abruptly, all the armored tension in the room fractures. He shoots you a look that’s almost warm—impressed, maybe, or at least entertained—and Andy, feeling the shift, leans more comfortably into the sofa.

“For a second, I thought you’d be one of those tragic, blink-twice-if-you-need-rescue brides or a total waif and a bore,” Lloyd says. “But I think I’m going to like you. You’ve got bite. A spine. Under different circumstances we might’ve had a one-night-stand.”

You say nothing to that—what can you say?—and take a slow sip of your drink. Lloyd grins, animate now, as if he’s been waiting for a worthy audience all along.

Andy glances over, reading the beat of your silence, and says to Lloyd, “She’d have eaten you alive.”

“She’s doing that now, Andy,” Lloyd says, tipping his glass at you.

The more Lloyd talks the more you see—he’s not so much Andy’s shadow as his negative. Where Andy is tactician, Lloyd is dismantler. Maybe even a little unhinged, but in a way that’s technically useful. You can see why Andy can’t ignore him, but also why he’s arranged his life at a safe distance.

“Tell me, Lloyd,” you say, enjoying the game, “what do you actually do? And do you bring this much charisma to all your diplomatic functions?”

Lloyd refills his own drink, swirling the red liquid with a kind of absent, precise menace. “Officially, I’m a strategic consultant. Audit committees, risk and compliance, that sort of thing. Unofficially… Let’s say I help people find their limits, sometimes by exceeding them.”

You smile, liking this more than you should. “So, you’re the fixer.”

Lloyd shrugs, a gesture of such exaggerated modesty it circles around to arrogance. “I fix things, sometimes. Break them, sometimes. It’s the same art, in the end.” He slouches further in his chair, all calculated ease. “But unlike Andy, I don’t long for power. I just want to see how everything works. People, organizations, the occasional marriage.” He flashes a brief, knife-sharp smile. “I’m here because I couldn’t miss the spectacle.”

Andy groans before throwing back the rest of his drink. “Let’s get this dinner over with.”

It’s late, and the moon is a white saw-curve over the lake, when you and Andy finally give Lloyd a send-off in the gravel half-moon of the drive, hand in hand.

Lloyd had commented on every course over dinner, praising the risotto, bemoaning the use of an olive tapenade as an accompaniment to the roasted vegetables (to which you had to agree), and providing a two-minute oral history of the grappa served afterward (“Never drink it after midnight, unless you want to wake up in another country, married to a Turkish heiress, with a contract out on your spleen”). He did not attempt to murder Andy, nor did he try to seduce you, though there was a blank period in the middle of the evening where he became weirdly intent on teaching you the difference between “threat” and “risk” (both as a business concept and a party game).

Lloyd catches your eye, and for a moment you see the flicker of a new alliance—something conspiratorial. You suspect the two of you are possibly the only two people in existence to challenge Andy so much, and the shock of it seems almost to delight him.

“How long’s this honeymoon gig scheduled to last for you lovebirds?” Lloyd asks.

You, of course, don’t know, so you turn to Andy, who responds with a simple, “Undetermined.”

Lloyd raises both eyebrows. “If that’s true, that’s a first for the mastermind of our operation.”

Andy doesn’t react to the dig—just shrugs, unbothered—but you catch the way his grip tightens imperceptibly on your hand. Lloyd’s grin is the most honest expression he’s worn all evening, something primal and delighted lighting his face.

“Listen, don’t you ever let him win at anything,” Lloyd says, blatantly baiting Andy for maybe the eightiegh time this evening.

“Careful,” Andy says, “You’re going to make a friend out of my wife, and I wasn’t the marrying kind, but we all know you don’t do friends.”

“No friendship here,” Lloyd laughs. “Maybe an ally though,” he says with a ridiculous wink.

You grin, and at that moment you know you’ve not only survived an impossible dinner, but recruited a kind of secret weapon—one more unpredictable variable in a world where all bets have been, for so long, placed in advance.

You’re not sure what you expected from Andy’s stepbrother—less terror, more frat boy turned finance bro smarm—but the actual Lloyd is something more dangerous. The air always feels as if it’s about to spark, but you’re reassured with the knowledge that the threat is mostly performance. He is less a bomb than a demolition analyst, carefully always looking for the support beams to test.

Lloyd shakes Andy’s hand, the briefest clamp of muscle around bone, then holds your gaze a half-second longer than is polite. “Next time,” he says, tilting his head at you, “let’s try for lunch. Or something more dangerous.”

He stalks off into the dark, coat slung over his shoulder. His footsteps barely crunch on the gravel; you imagine he never leaves a trace.

You and Andy linger at the end of the drive until the taillights are just two points of red at the base of the hill. There’s static in the air, a lingering voltage that belongs to the aftershock of Lloyd, but maybe to something else, too.

“Are all your family gatherings like that?” you ask.

Andy chuckles. “Not even close. He’s the only family I really have left, and that’s the most time I’ve spent with him in years.”

“Really?”

He hums in the affirmative. “Lloyd’s dad married my mom when the two of us were in our last two years of high school. We put up with and defended each other in equal measure. Built trust. Still stuck with each other even though both our parents are gone.”

You soak this in as you walk back into the villa, side by side, Andy’s pinky hooked in yours as if he doesn’t trust the night not to take you. The air’s gone cool, the breeze off the lake hinting at woodsmoke and dying leaves. You’re so full of food and conversation that you could float, but you also sense the edge of some deeper story curling beneath everything Andy’s said tonight.

Upstairs, the master suite is all golden lamp light and the faint scent of warm linens and cypress from the trees outside. You kick off your sandals near the door and watch Andy cross to the low settee at the foot of the bed. He sits, elbows on knees, head bowed in that posture you’re learning means he’s prepping to tell you something he hasn’t told anyone in years.

You open the window wide, let silence in with the night air, and begin your bedtime routine. You’ve learned that it soothes Andy to watch you. You move through it slow, deliberate—untangling your hair, massaging lotion into your legs, washing your face, brushing your teeth. When you glance in the mirror, you see he’s still hunched, lost in the linen folds of his shirt, and you feel a pang that is half affection, half something harder.

Whatever the complex mix of what’s brought you to this point, he is your husband, and there’s a solid, warm weight about that fact that exists in the cavity of your chest now, unquestionably.

You finish by the window, looking out at the moonrise over the lake, and say, “Tell me about your mom and Lloyd’s dad.” You don’t mean it as a challenge, only an invitation.

He stretches his legs, slides his palms down his thighs, then says, “He was widowed, and she was divorced, of course.” He glances up, eyes catching on yours, then flicking away. “The man who ws my father was put behind bars for murder when I was eight. Looking back I can see that the man put us through too much for her to ever want to tie herself to a man again. But when she met Lloyd’s dad—Henry—he found her compelling enough to put in the time, talking, showing up, respecting her boundaries for months before she finally agreed to go out with him. He was aggressive, but not creepy. Just… very determined, reliable.” Andy huffs a laugh. “They were ridiculously happy together. Lloyd and I hated each other at first, but we saw our parents were too happy to ruin it for them. I thought he was a sociopath; he thought I was a pretentious little shit. We were both right.”

You laugh before you can stop yourself, the sound bouncing off the bedroom’s high ceiling. “You still hate each other?”

Andy’s mouth twitches. “We still keep each other sharp.” There’s a thread of pride in it, or something very close. “He’s the only person alive who can predict my moves.” He’s quiet for a moment, then stands and begins to undress for bed as well. “He tests everyone, all the time. You saw that. But if you pass, he’s loyal.” He glances up at you. “Loyalty means something different to him than most people.”

“So you trust him?”

“Essentially,” Andy says flatly. “He’ll always do what he says he will do. That’s almost the same.”

You study Andy’s face as he peels away his shirt—watch the uncanny way his body sets itself at ease, all muscle and self-discipline. He rakes a hand through his hair, the thick, floofy strands that your fingers easily melt into in your intimacies.

“Lloyd’s dad was killed in a hit-and-run accident. My mom made it clear she still considered him a son, but then she only made it two more years—we discovered she had advanced and aggressive breast cancer. We couldn’t save her. He was there for her for every moment at the end. You could say we were trauma bonded.”

Though it’s a stripped-down recounting, you intuit just how much more is unsaid. It’s not happenstance that’s kept these forced-brothers bonded, but a gravitational choice not to sever the association. What they have makes sense given the context of what you know of each man.

And then there’s his mother. Though he’s spoken only rarely of her, the way he speaks of her, you know he loved her with a ferocity that was rare and consuming. You saw it in the reverence with which he gifted you her brush set, in the way he measures his words about her now, in the fondness you’ve seen in his eyes the handful of other times he’s told you something about her.

Now, in the huge, moonlit room, Andy undoes his belt and lets the sound of the leather sliding free punctuate the silence. He steps out of his trousers, as at home in nakedness as in a suit. There is no shame in him, no self-consciousness—only the expectation that you will watch and be affected.

You could, if you wished, make a study of him for hours. You have, some nights: lying sated beside him, or else propped on an elbow, watching the way breath shifts the shadows across his ribs, or how his chest rises and falls when he is, on the rare occasion, truly asleep while you’re still awake.

Andy pulls back the covers and slides in. You move instinctually to join him, crossing the room, barefoot, skin prickled from the open window and the cold stone underfoot. You watch his eyes track your movement, the intensity in his gaze a physical thing, heavy as a hand on your shoulder.

You climb onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath your weight. He reaches for you, but he has no need to draw you in tonight. You want him.

You straddle him, sliding over his hips with the smooth confidence of repetition. Andy’s cock is half hard, and the moment your thigh brushes it you feel him tense—a preemptive shudder that assures you how deeply he wants you, never mind that he had you three times earlier in the day. His hands close around your waist, greedy, guiding you down until the heat of him notches against you. You sink down slow, unhurried, taking him inch by inch.

He hisses through his teeth, eyes slitted, watching your face for every flicker of sensation. When you bottom out, you pause, savoring the fullness. His hands grip tighter, thumbs digging into the soft flesh at your waist, insistently rocking you forward. You let him set the rhythm at first—he always wants to be in control—but you slide your hands against his chest and demand the kisses you want in tandem with the slow fucking.

Your lips and tongues are devoted to devastating each other. You fuck him the way you’ve learned he likes best, slow, steady, a kind of deliberate mutual detonation, nothing performative, just the honest, hungry slide of your bodies.

It hasn’t escaped you that the reason he likes this the best is likely because he knows the level to which it completely undoes you.

You rock into him, savoring the friction, feeling every inch. Andy’s lips roam your jaw, your throat, his hands possessive at your hips, thumbs stroking small, private circles into your skin. You move together in a rhythm that’s almost lazy, but the heat underneath is anything but.

Andy’s cock pulses inside you, warm and thick. He slips one hand up to your breast, kneading it gently, running his thumb over your nipple until it’s stiff and aching. You arch into him, letting your head tip back, throat bared, and you hear the catch in his breath—the way he loses a thread of composure whenever you let him see you undone.

You ride him, your nails leaving crescents in his chest, the thick, slow grind so deep you could weep from the goodness of it. When your orgasm comes, it’s not a thunderclap but a long, exquisite ache that blooms out slow and stays. Andy holds you tight through it, riding your shudders, his hips rolling up to meet yours in perfect counterpoint until he comes, not with violence, but with a decisive, shivering surrender. He pulls you down with him, chest to chest, his arms locked around your back, the world narrowing to the feel of his pulse under your fingertips, the aftershocks echoing through both of you.

After, you lie together without talking, your cheek pressed to his heart, his hand running lazy paths over your shoulder, the length of your arm, the line of your spine. You are so tired you think you might sleep, but there is a question lingering, and you decide to put it out there, wondering if he may deign you with an answer.

“What did you mean when you told Lloyd the length of our honeymoon was ‘undetermined?’”

Andy doesn’t answer immediately, but he doesn’t tense or look away, just keeps stroking your shoulder, his fingers tracing patterns that feel like a signature.

“I meant it exactly as I said,” he murmurs, settling a little deeper into the pillow. “We have no return date. I haven’t set one. There’s no obligation for us to go back until we want to.”

You frown at him skeptically. “You don’t have obligations and business you have to get back to?”

Andy’s smile is lazy, almost smug. “Perk of being the one that runs the show,” he says. “I decide when I’m needed. I decide when I’m not.” He nudges your ankle with his foot under the covers, a quiet intimacy that feels more too normal to belong to the two of you. “If anyone has a problem, they’ll take it up with me when I feel like answering.”

You settle your cheek into the warm spot above his heart. “I didn’t realize crime lords had PTO.”

“Not PTO,” Andy says, his voice rumbling against your ear. “Sabbatical. Indefinite. I worked for years to keep the world in order enough that I could disappear for a while, if I wanted. Most days I didn’t want to. Now, I do.” He doesn’t have to say with you; it’s so palpable in every gesture, every way he rearranges the days around the shape of your body.

You’re quiet, surprised by how much you don’t want to leave this place either, not yet. Not ever, if you’re honest. The luxury is lovely, but it’s the feeling of waking up every day with nothing to do but want and be wanted that you’re afraid to lose.

He catches your silence, fingers tightening a fraction at your arm. “I like us here,” he murmurs reverently into your ear.

He says it so matter-of-factly, with no expectation or agenda, that you go absolutely still, unprepared for how real it lands.

But then you melt, and admit, “I do, too.”

Anyone joining me with a little swooning?

ALSO

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BROTHER-IN-LAW! MWAHAHAHA!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

You were standing behind the counter dusted in flour, arranging apricot tarts in the display case, when the bell above the door chimed and a silence settled over the room so quickly it felt as though someone had sucked all the air out through the chimney.

You looked up.

Everyone else looked up.

And there stood Alfie Solomons.

Large.

Bearded.

Coated in enough authority to make grown men forget their own names.

He stared at the display case.

The display case stared back.

Then he pointed.

"What's that?"

You glanced at the tray.

"Lemon tart."

He nodded thoughtfully.

Then pointed again.

"That one."

"Custard slice."

Another nod.

"And that one."

"Cherry danish."

The questioning continued for nearly three minutes.

Not because he was struggling to decide.

Because he seemed genuinely fascinated.

Eventually he purchased one of everything.

Literally.

One.

Of.

Everything.

You watched him leave carrying enough pastries to feed a small family.

The entire bakery remained silent for several moments.

Then one customer quietly asked,

"Did Alfie Solomons just buy twelve pounds worth of cake?"

You looked at the empty display shelf.

"Apparently."

The following morning he returned.

Which wasn't entirely unexpected.

People came back once they'd tried your pastries.

The surprising part was that he arrived before opening.

You unlocked the front door at seven sharp.

Alfie was already waiting.

Not pacing.

Not smoking.

Just standing there.

As though this was perfectly normal behavior.

"Morning," you said.

"Morning."

"You've been waiting?"

"Yeah."

A pause.

Then:

"Need those raspberry things."

You blinked.

"The turnovers?"

"That's them."

You tried not to smile.

Failed.

Alfie watched you smile.

Then immediately looked away.

Three weeks later he had become a fixture.

Not a customer.

A fixture.

Like the display case.

Or the front door.

Or the oven.

People expected Alfie Solomons to be there.

Which should not have become normal under any circumstances.

Yet somehow it had.

Every morning.

Every afternoon.

Sometimes twice a day.

Sometimes three times.

He always had a reason.

At least officially.

Unofficially, nobody believed him.

"Business meeting."

That was usually the explanation.

"Business meeting."

Again.

"Business."

"Important discussion."

"Negotiation."

"Meeting."

The issue was that his business meetings increasingly involved only himself and a cinnamon bun.

People started noticing.

One afternoon a bookmaker wandered into the bakery looking for Alfie and found him sitting alone at a corner table eating a custard tart with the concentration of a man decoding military intelligence.

The bookmaker stood there for several seconds.

Then asked,

"Thought you had a meeting."

Without looking up, Alfie replied,

"I do."

The man looked around.

"There ain't anyone here."

Alfie took another bite.

"There is."

The bookmaker followed his gaze.

Directly to the counter.

Where you were frosting cupcakes.

The realization was immediate.

The expression that followed was priceless.

Word spread.

Because of course it did.

Camden thrived on gossip almost as much as crime.

Soon people were placing bets on how long it would take Alfie to invent an excuse to visit your bakery on any given day.

The current record was eleven minutes.

A man delivered paperwork to Alfie's office. Alfie read half a page. Declared he required pastries for concentration.

Left immediately.

The truly alarming thing was that he wasn't subtle.

At all.

Alfie Solomons approached subtlety the same way a freight train approached flowerbeds.

He learned your baking schedule. He learned which days you made seasonal pastries. He learned how long croissants took. He learned what time you arrived every morning. He learned which suppliers annoyed you. Which recipes were family recipes. Which ones you'd invented yourself.

He remembered everything.

Every offhand comment. Every complaint. Every preference. Every story.

One rainy afternoon you mentioned you disliked making macarons because they were temperamental.

Three weeks later Alfie appeared carrying a crate of imported almonds.

You stared.

Then stared harder.

Then looked at the almonds again.

"Why?"

Alfie shrugged.

"You were annoyed."

"That was weeks ago."

"Yeah."

You waited.

"That's it?"

"Mm."

Your heart did something deeply inconvenient.

The staff noticed first.

Then the customers.

Then the entire borough.

Eventually even the rival gangs noticed.

Which was arguably ridiculous.

A man once walked into a warehouse expecting a criminal negotiation and instead found Alfie discussing puff pastry techniques.

The man stood there for nearly a full minute before finally interrupting.

"Alfie."

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Talking."

"About what?"

"Butter."

The man blinked.

"Butter."

"Yeah."

A pause.

Then Alfie pointed accusingly.

"Important ingredient, that."

The funniest part was that Alfie seemed genuinely unaware that everyone knew.

Or perhaps he simply didn't care.

Both possibilities were equally likely.

Meanwhile you found yourself looking for him.

Which was unfortunate.

Because once you started noticing his absence, there was no going back.

You noticed if he arrived late. You noticed if he skipped a day. You noticed if he looked tired. You noticed when he'd clearly forgotten to eat proper meals and was surviving primarily on tea and stubbornness.

Which happened more often than it should have.

One morning he failed to appear entirely.

At first you assumed he was busy.

Then lunch arrived.

Then evening.

Still nothing.

The bakery felt oddly empty.

You hated that realization immediately.

The next day he appeared shortly before noon.

A bruise darkened one side of his face.

His coat looked worse for wear.

And there was exhaustion in his eyes he hadn't quite managed to hide.

You didn't even think.

The concern escaped before you could stop it.

"What happened to you?"

Alfie froze.

Actually froze.

For a man who regularly stared down armed opponents without blinking, the reaction was startling.

Slowly he looked up.

"You worried?"

The question sounded almost disbelieving.

You frowned.

"Obviously."

Silence.

A very strange silence.

Then:

"Right."

He sat down heavily.

And for the first time since you'd met him, he seemed genuinely at a loss for words.

Later, much later, after closing time, after the final customers had gone home and the streets outside had grown quieter beneath the amber glow of gas lamps, Alfie remained seated at his usual table nursing a cup of tea that had long since gone cold while you counted the day's receipts behind the counter.

The familiar comfort of his presence settled over the bakery like a second layer of warmth, and it occurred to you suddenly that somewhere along the way the large, intimidating, endlessly complicated man had become as much a part of your routine as the ovens themselves.

You glanced up.

He was already looking at you.

Not unusual.

Lately he'd been doing that a lot.

Watching.

Thinking.

Studying.

As though he'd discovered something he couldn't quite stop returning to.

"What?" you asked.

Alfie rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

Then sighed.

A long sigh.

The sort that suggested he was about to say something significant and was annoyed about it.

"You know," he began, "I've spent six months convincing myself I've got perfectly sensible reasons for being here."

You raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

He gestured vaguely.

"Business."

You laughed immediately.

"Alfie."

"Listen."

"No."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Then his expression softened.

Only slightly.

But enough.

Enough that your heart skipped.

Enough that the room suddenly felt smaller.

"The truth is," he said quietly, "I don't actually give a shit about half the meetings I arrange."

You smiled.

"I know."

"Yeah."

A pause.

Then:

"Arrange 'em anyway."

"I know."

"Know why?"

Your pulse quickened.

Because suddenly this conversation felt important. Dangerously important.

You shook your head.

Alfie looked at you for a long moment.

Long enough that the air seemed to hold its breath.

Then he said:

"Because if I don't, I don't get an excuse to see you."

Silence.

Outside, Camden continued moving.

Carriages rolled over cobblestones.

Voices drifted through the evening.

Life continued.

Yet inside the bakery the world narrowed to a single moment.

A single man.

A single confession.

Alfie looked mildly irritated by his own honesty.

Which somehow made it sweeter.

"You know," he muttered, "that's probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever said."

You laughed softly.

"I seriously doubt that."

"Trust me."

Your smile grew.

And something in his expression eased immediately at the sight of it.

As though your happiness mattered far more than his dignity.

Slowly you walked around the counter.

Crossed the room.

Stopped in front of him.

For perhaps the first time since you'd known him, Alfie Solomons looked uncertain.

Not frightened.

Not nervous.

Just vulnerable.

A man waiting to discover whether he'd misjudged everything.

You reached for his hand.

His fingers immediately curled around yours.

Instinctively.

Like he'd wanted to do it for months.

Maybe longer.

"You know," you said softly, "you could have just asked me to dinner."

Alfie stared.

Then barked out a laugh.

A genuine one.

Rare and rough and wonderful.

"Spent six months buying pastries when I could've done that?"

"Apparently."

"My God."

You grinned.

"You are ridiculous."

He pulled your hand gently.

Just enough to bring you closer.

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"Probably."

Then his gaze settled on yours.

Warm.

Steady.

Certain.

"But it worked, didn't it?"

And honestly..

Looking down at the man who had somehow turned an obsession with pastries into a courtship, who had filled your bakery with laughter and conversation and warmth until neither of you remembered what it had been like before the other arrived, you found yourself smiling.

Because it had.

And somewhere outside, half of Camden would undoubtedly be delighted to learn that after months of pretending business required pastries, Alfie Solomons had finally admitted the truth.

He'd only ever been coming for the baker.

Andy only slept for a couple of hours next to you, restless and unsettled, for better and for worse - fitting since the dawn breaking through the window was that of your wedding day.

He props himself on his elbow, watching the sun spill over your skin, striking gold from the fine hairs on your cheek and the unruly sweep of hair across your pillow. The covers have slipped, pooling at your waist, leaving the topography of your neck, your shoulder, and the softness of your curves lit in fresh daylight.

He memorizes the moment, the way your mouth is slightly ajar and your lashes flutter at the threshold of dream. Last night’s conflict has cooled on the air, replaced by the slow, syrupy warmth you always bring to a shared bed, though you don’t know it. God, he’s addicted to you, and he thought it was bad in the beginning.

Andy studies you for three or four shallow breaths, then slides gently out of the bed. You don’t stir, and that’s for the better. He knows he kept you up—kept you up waiting, and then kept you up trying to make up for the waiting.

Part of him is still genuinely surprised over how emotional you had been. That you’d attempted to wait up at all. He knows he’s on a long road to win you over completely, but last night was an unexpected indication that he’s further along than he thought.

He pads to the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth, and from there he stands a good three minutes, arms braced on the lip of the marble sink, absorbing the fact that he’s getting married today. He never thought he’d marry again.

Until you.

He thinks of you waking, drowsy and annoyed, scanning for him with that sense you have for knowing whether you’re alone or not. You hate being the first one up, but you hate empty beds more. He will be back before you miss him.

He’s had his share of women. Many, if you cared to count. But this is different—has been different since the first time he saw you. You hit him like a freight train, and you hadn’t even known it.

He’s changed, that’s the unexpected part. All the years building up callus, thickening moral cartilage, solitary walls, drilling in the discipline to never, ever let anything leak out. The years with Laurie had their own currency; that was a different flavor of ambition and mutual respect, a cold calculus he’s always valued even after the marriage ended and evolved into only the business arrangement. She never got in, not really. She never even wanted to. But this—this thing in the next room, wrapped now in sheets and vulnerability—this is something else. This is a full breach of his defense. And he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He stands in the doorway and gazes on you once more.

Then he leaves the bedroom on bare feet, stepping out into the hush of the hall, and finds the house already humming with the early, invisible work of staff. He smells coffee, hears the distant whir of a vacuum, and the low rumble of men’s voices as his security team keeps circulating, moving, monitoring. Everything about this morning is ceremonial, abuzz with anticipation. He’s more used to the casual constancy of threat in the air—a job to be done, a move to be countered. This, the wedding, the luxury of it, makes him almost more uneasy, but things have been different since the first morning you woke in his bed.

Brendan, his head of security, is at the oak table in the security den, laptop and phone and a half-empty mug, eyes flicking up as Andy enters. “Boss,” he says. The casual air is for show, underneath, Brendan is all readiness, efficiency, vigilance.

“Status?” Andy asks, not bothering to sit.

“Mark’s swapping the car rotation,” he says. “Everything is clear so far: perimeter checks, vendor arrivals, a revised guest list. It’s early, but we’ll be on it all day.”

“And any developments since the incident last night? Lupo or Levinson?”

Brendan shakes his head. “Quiet. Lupo’s side is posturing—socials and our sources indicate a few goons gathering but no sign of actual muscle movement. Jersey’s got no appetite for a Boston brawl and Lupo reminded his men of that after the sit down with you and Ari.” He taps the laptop. “Full logs if you want the details.”

Andy waves it off. If something mattered, Brendan would have led with it. He prefers the trust, almost as much as he likes testing it.

“We’ll keep our own hand on the situation, but Levinson’s outfit assured us their boss wants to make sure you’ve got a clean day as his particular wedding gift to you.”

Half of Andy’s mouth quirks up. He nods, a brief flick of the chin, then drags a finger along the grain of the table before pushing off. “Keep it that way.” He leaves Brendan to his screens and walks the circuit of the first floor—habit, comfort, a ritual like prayer but more honest. He checks the kitchen, the garden doors, the garage, noting each detail the way he’s trained himself: who’s working, who’s slacking (no one), where the weaknesses are.

It’s dangerous, getting married. Too many moving parts. Too many incentives to fuck with the day. But he’s made a fortress of the day: layers of staff, loyalty, and contingency plans stacked one on top the next. Even if someone wanted to take a shot, they’d hit a wall of a wall of professional, cold-eyed men before they even crossed the county line.

He will make this happen and do it right, no matter the cost.

The wedding is a statement while also being a gesture.

A statement to everyone around him.

A gesture to the life he intends to build marrying you.

He takes the stairs two at a time, the climb burning off some of the adrenaline that knots at the base of his skull. The master suite is still, the hush broken only by the sound of your breath—the slow, measured in-and-out, so regular he could set his watch by it. You’ve shifted again in sleep, tangled limbs and hair, one knee exposed, the sheet askew at your thigh.

He slips back into bed just as you roll over, blinking awake like you’re coming to from anesthesia. You see him and scowl, though it lacks conviction. Andy reads it as a greeting and presses close to plant a kiss on your forehead.

You can’t seem to help but let a little sigh escape, but then burrow down into the pillow. “What time is it?” you ask, your voice a croak.

“Early. Go back to sleep,” Andy insists.

You mutter, “No, I won’t,” but you settle more into the mattress, your cheek pressed to the pillow, tension gone from your brow. He tucks the covers back over your shoulder, as if making up for all the things he can’t tell you if he can at least keep you warm for five minutes more. He should let you sleep—so much of today will be performance, for both of you—but instead he can’t help but trace his fingers along your jaw, your neck.

He runs his thumb along the curve of your cheekbone, marveling at the warmth that radiates from you, and the hold over him you have that he negotiates inch by inch.

He wants to fuck you again. When doesn’t he? He almost needs it after last night—not because of the business he had to deal with, but because he’s still unsettled with the new element that your existence has created in his universe. You’re a complication. Collateral he won’t let be damaged.

But he doesn’t.

The memory of last night is sharp, and the skirmish between Lupo and Levinson’s men isn’t what has him uncertain, it’s what happened after. He saw the way you collapsed, not just into his arms but into yourself. He saw the fine tremor in your hands, the way your voice had frayed when you’d asked him not to leave you like that again. It was the opposite of a threat and yet so much more potent. He’s been responsible for countless men, held thousands of secrets, and yet the look on your face made him more nervous than walking into the last sit-down with three guns pointed at his chest because last night was a reminder that he can’t make you any of the promises you crave, maybe not even the promises you deserve.

But he won’t relinquish you.

And he can’t leave you unprotected.

He reaches for your hand—fingers barely brushing yours on the sheet. You don’t pull away. He interlaces his fingers with yours and considers, for a fleeting second, what it would mean to never let go of this. When you squeeze once, almost irritably, he feels the pressure all the way up his arm. Married, he thinks. This is what married is supposed to be.

Maybe you won’t regret marrying him forever. He lies there longer than he should, the heat of your body drawing him into a stillness he doesn’t indulge for anyone else. The air is thick with the intimate vulnerability of sleep. Through the glass, the sun carves its way around the heavy velvet curtains, striping your bare shoulder and the mess of hair at your temple. Andy should regret disturbing the scene, but he’s never been any good at leaving beauty unbroken. He smooths your hair. You twitch and mumble, burrow deeper, exposing the tender shell of your ear.

“I’ll give you a perfect day, sweetheart. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you.” He whispers the vow into your hair, too faint for you to hear.

He waits. Two more minutes. The world can roll on without him for two more minutes. Then he’ll leave, letting you continue to sleep until the bridal party descends and sweeps you up for a celebratory brunch and a day of getting ready for you to walk down the aisle where he’ll be waiting for you and make you his.

🫠🫠🫠

So? Feels?

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Even the mention of his old crew left a sour note on his tongue. Their memory burned deep in his blood. The mark his years running the streets had left on him, the matching stain on his record. 

"I'd just be slowing you down anyway." He lamented. 

Bucky scoffed, grabbing him by the shoulders and giving them a good shake. 

"Don't be ridiculous." He tightened his grip, "You're our founding father, we're always gonna need you." 

His friend let go, taking just a few steps back. It'd been at least a week since they'd seen each other, if not two. Steve hated to say it, but he looked terrible. Dark circles under his eyes, greasy strands oh hair sticking to his forehead. He looked skinnier too, like he'd been running more than usual and not eating enough to make up for it. 

"I need you Steve." Bucky finished, this time a little softer. None of that bravado behind it. "There's gonna be a rumble." He whispered. 

Steve's eyes blew wide. "A rumble? Are you crazy?" 

The whole room seemed to tilt on its axis, the feeling in his gut warping with it. A wave of dread, heavy and ice cold washing over him. 

Bucky sighed, crossing his arms. "I don't have a choice!" 

"Of course you do." Steve challenged, poking two fingers into Bucky's chest, "What the hell could be so bad that you need to do something dumb as a rumble?" 

Bucky lost his balance, falling back a few steps with the force of Steve's push. 

"All for a couple streets? The Strays'll never go for it I'm telling you now." 

Bucky shook his head, something terrible set in his eyes. "No it's not like it was when you were running with us Steve. It's worse now." He took a deep breath. "There's a fight every day, last week Sam almost lost an eye 'cause one of them pulled a switch knife."

Steve shrugged, "Did Sam pull his first?"

"Doesn't matter." Bucky denied. 

"Of course it does!"

"No!" Bucky shouted, "it doesn't."

Silence filled the space between them. Cavernous and wide. They just stood there for a minute, two young men. Two young men who knew each other inside and out, who had seen each other through the deaths of their parents and raised themselves on the streets.

"I need this all settled I go." Bucky finally spoke up, all the vitriol gone from his voice. Surrender taking its place.

"Go?" Steve asked, "Buck what are you talkin' about?"

Bucky reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a crumbled letter. 

"Got my orders." He held up the envelope, unfolding it so Steve could see the Government stamp on the front. "I leave in a week." 

"Shit, Buck I had no idea-"

"So you're coming tonight right?" Bucky interrupted, stuffing the letter back in his jacket. "Need my best man if I'm gonna end this once and for all." 

Steve recognized the look now. He'd seen it on other kids they'd grown up with, ones who had left in a uniform and never come back. Fear. 

"Yeah." He agreed, nodding solemnly. "I'll be there." 

He'd sent Bucky off with a promise and an agreement to meet at the soda shop before hand. The wind blew his entire walk home, angry gusts carrying bitter cold breezes. It felt like a warning, like a sign. 

The day you met Steve Rogers had been completely ordinary. 

Well that's not entirely true, it was also the day of your first dance. 

Sure, you went to the dress shop as usual. Stopped at the market on your way home and picked up bread for dinner like your mother had asked. Although today Then you'd used some of your earnings to buy new ribbon. Bright red and silky, it shone against your skin and would surely do the same in your hair. 

All the same, nothing a miss. 

It was just the butterflies in your stomach, the pep in your step. The way you couldn't seem to stop smiling even as the wind tried to wipe it off your face. 

Like your body knew something you didn't, every ounce of your crying out with joy for something it didn't even know existed yet. 

Then you saw your dress. 

"Wanda please I am begging you," you pleaded, holding the dress up to her. "Just a few inches off the hem, please!" 

Wanda is the closest thing you know to an older sister, her family moved into the building around the same time as yours. 

They immigrated from Sokovia only two months prior to your own arrival. You'd bonded over missing food from home and the struggles of adjusting to life as newly minted American girls. 

Then she'd started dating your older brother, Vis and you really became family. 

"Absolutely not." She insisted, shaking her head as she took the dress from your hands. "Your mother would kill me. Then your brother would kill me again."

"Not true!" You promised, grabbing her forearm and forcing her to look at you. "They would kill me first and you'd have plenty of time to run!" 

Your jutted your lip out, giving her your best version of puppy dog eyes, the same ones you used to get permission to go to the dance in the first place. 

Wanda stared deadpan, completely unmoved by your efforts. 

"Ugh!" You groaned, "please Wanda. It's my first night out since we moved here and I want to make an impression."

"These aren't the kind of boys you need to worry about that with." Wanda tried to appease you, "you already know most of them. The ones you don't know are for a reason."

"Oh Wanda enough!" You groaned, "They're just boys."

"Boys who don't like anyone different from them. Remember that." She narrowed her eyes, "just stay to our side of the gym will you?"

You sighed, but nodded. "Fine." 

She rolled her eyes, walking away from you and taking a seat at her sewing machine with the dress still in her hand. She stretched it out on the table in front of her, assessing the seams and feeling them between her fingers. Then with a sigh, she spoke. "Two inches off the hem, that's it." 

Your squeal surely echoed down the hallway, loud enough make Wanda jump in her seat.

"Oh thank you thank you thank you!" You giggled, running over to squeeze a hug around her shoulders. "You are the bestest friend a girl could ask for."

"I am your only friend." She reminded you, licking the end of her thread before pulling it through the needle. 

"My only friend who will also take two inches off the neckline?" You poked, giggling all the while.

Wanda threw you a glare over her machine, reaching into her bag and pulling it some ribbons. 

"Don't push, I could make it longer just as easily." 

"No!" You panicked, shaking your head. "Two inches is perfect! Nothing else that is wonderful thank you Wanda." 

He lips curled into a smile, a little laugh falling past her lips. 

You sat in silence while she worked, mindlessly playing with your hair while she toiled over the old fabric. What necklace would you wear? Perhaps mother would let you borrow one of hers, or even a bangle for your wrist. Oh the possibilities were endless. 

Perhaps you would meet a boy, someone your brother doesn't know. Someone who would see a woman and not just the little girl he had declared off limits the moment you touched ground in this city. 

Wanda finished the dress with a triumph "Aha!" Happily sliding it off her sewing machine and holding it up for you see. 

The hem was shorter, probably closer to two and a half inches. A small mercy you immediately threw her a grateful smile for. Then your eyes darted to the neckline, while she hadn't lowered it, she'd squared off the neckline. What had previously been a round neck with a sweet bow in the center was now a square neck free of any frills. It was womanly, undeniably so. 

Finally you noticed the pièce de résistance sitting at the waist. 

There against the fabric, shining bright against the white dress was a beautiful red ribbon. It was a near perfect match to the one you'd bought for your hair. A completely innocent way to highlight all the curves you often had to hide. 

"It's perfect!" You gasped, reaching out to touch it, running your fingers over the ribbon in disbelief. "Oh Wanda thank you!" 

Wanda smiled, standing up and bringing the dress and you in front of the mirror. Then she held it up in front of you, holding the neck where it would fall so you could see. 

"So beautiful." She whispered. "Any boy who doesn't notice you would have to be blind."

You took the dress into your own hands, pressing it to your shoulders and giving it a good twirl. "It's wonderful!" You ran your finger over the new neckline before laying it out over your dress.

"Tonight's the night Wanda I can feel it." You pulled her into a tight hug, whispering the words conspiratorially in her ear. "My whole life changes tonight."

The gym feels like another world. 

As if a gateway to different life has emptied out onto the waxed floors. The light catches them differently than usual, casting the wooden planks in an amber glow. 

A fifth of rum poured in the punch is just the cherry on top. 

There's a live band is playing on the stage, loud enough to drown out the click of heels on the floor and out of the way enough to nearly be forgotten. 

They're playing Steve's favorite song.

He's late, at least later than he told Bucky he'd be. 

Nearly an hour of debating if he should even come in the first place. A battle fought between loyalty and self-preservation. 

Loyalty won in the end. 

Maybe. 

Steve had spotted Bucky almost immediately, a blur of dark curls holding a on to a spinning blonde. They hadn't stopped since he got there, dancing from one song to the next with hardly a break to breathe. 

So he took root in a corner and waited. Planting himself in the protective shadows of the bleachers. 

It was the same as it had been a few months ago, back when was Steve was alongside them on the floor, a girl to match Bucky's on his arm. Back before his time at the Reform House, before he had been stupid and paid the price. 

It feels like a whole 'nother life now. 

He can't go back, can't lose another six months. 

He can't afford to lose another friend either.

He has to get Bucky to call it off. 

The Strays have been piling in slowly, each group gaining in numbers until the dance floor began to split itself. A gang on each side, a room filled with kids forgotten by the rest of the world. 

It may be neutral territory, but that doesn't mean there isn't still tension. 

It's palpable, static cracking across the divide, threatening a lightning strike every time someone drifts to close to the invisible line. 

Another reason to stay in the shadows.

It changes the way he views the entire room, how it morphs under the weight of this silly feud. He pays extra attention to every grimace, how when Vision lifts his girl Bucky has to do the same. How Bucky tries to throw her even higher. 

It makes Officer Ross stick out like a sore thumb, his frumpy uniform blending blue and black together until he becomes the human approximation of a bruise. 

When you're in the shadows, it makes it that much easier to spot the light.

There, across the gym, is where he sees you. Similarly sidelined, you stand just a hundred feet away at the other end of the bleachers. Steve can't seem to pull his gaze away once it finds you. Like a magnet finally finding its South Pole. The seats are extended, framing you beneath them in a halo and making it so Steve can see straight through. 

You're busy staring at the scene in front of you, a soft smile playing at you lips. Unconsciously swaying to the music with gentle turns of your hips in just enough to make the hem of your dress dance around your knees. 

Steve's heart cracks wide open. The feeling in his gut- the one he's spent all day trying to name- unravels. It floods his chest with warmth and begins to carry his legs in your direction. 

It's everything you had pictured and absolutely nothing like you imagined. 

You're hypnotized by the dancing, the way everyone seems to just know what to do. How skirts flare and skinny shoes refract the light. Every time someone lifts you hold your breath, every time they hit the group you clap. You're enraptured, hypnotized, utterly bewitched. 

You're standing in the corner. All that fuss with Wanda and your hem just for it to be wasted under the bleachers. 

Speaking of Wanda, she's breathless from dancing and yet making no moves to slow down. Her smile is the brightest it gets, all teeth and happiness. The smile she only gets around your brother. 

Vis, is well, a vision. The tallest one in the room, he towers over everyone, shoulders set with his arms drawn tight around Wanda. He's smiling too, it's your mother's smile, her cheeks and the nose you both share. His skin glows under the lights like this, casting him ethereal. It's the same shade as yours, and yet you somehow doubt the same effect is being cast on you. 

Still, it's every bit as magical as yours imagination advertised.

Wanda spins again, her dress fanning out around her. She looks every ounce the woman you so desperately want to be. Effortless, sexy, poised at every turn, and loved. 

The boys are- well, boys. They cower in the corners and nurse the same glass of punch. They flash you a smile but never for too long, lest your brother see. 

You aren't sure how Vis came to be so important here, what he did to earn the respect of so many of his peers. For some reason every boy on the block would do anything he asked. Including but not limited to, staying away from his baby sister. 

One dance. That was what you'd managed. 

More accurately half a dance. Peter, the nice boy from a few apartments down. He'd been brave enough to approach, ask you to dance and taken your hand in his sweaty palm. 

Then he'd scampered like a kicked puppy when he realized your brother was there. 

So here you stand along the bleachers, enjoying their protection and the view. Even if you weren't out there it was still exciting to watch everyone. How the couples move like they're anticipating each-others movements. The way they slip into a language spoken only with their bodies. 

The more you watch the more you want to know what it feels like. 

Love.

You think about love a lot, you're surrounded by it after all. 

You see it in your brother and Wanda, the way she softens his edges in a way no one else can. It's in your parents, most of the time. Sometimes it's across the street, between the old couple from Ireland who sit on their stoop and feed the pigeons. It's in one of the girls you work with, Natasha. In the letters she reads you from her beau back in Russia. 

You covet it, lean in closer when they speak as if you can catch it like a cold. 

You feel it breathing down your neck, waiting to strike. Your heart is open, you just need someone to walk into it. 

Or stare into it.

You feel Steve's eyes on you before you find him. The heat of a gaze and that intangible feeling that you're being watched. It breaks the spell that the dancers had cast on you, turning your head as if with a magnet. An undeniable pull to look.

Steve recognizes you before he even knows your name. 

Not from seeing you around, or because you came into the shop while he was working. No, he'd remember that.

It's something deeper, like his body- like his soul knows yours.

When your eyes meet his it's as if he turns to air, disembodied and floating toward you. 

The entire room disappears, fades into the back of his mind. All that's left the thump of the music beneath his feet and you standing about ten feet away from him.

He's not sure who gets there first, but the middle finds you only a foot apart, toe to toe and locked on each other's gaze.

You're stunning. 

Stunning doesn't even really do you justice, as if you've been carved from the likeness of Aphrodite herself. 

Angelic is more apt. Soft curves emphasized by the cut of your dress. The swell of your hips and delicate outline haloed by the gym lights. 

There's a curve in your lips, a soft smile that threatens to blind him with the light exude. He's hooked. 

His feet move first, one half step in your direction then a pivot. It's a poor copycat of what the couples are doing just on the other side of the bleachers. 

You fall right into step anyway, smile breaking even further as you match his pose. It brings you chest to chest, hardly an inch them. 

Then a spin, each of you carefully walking around the other, ensuring no loss of distance. 

The music finally fades back in, triumphant and joyous as tensions continue to grow in the rest of the room. 

It gives Steve the courage to touch. First the palm of his hand, laying over top of yours as you turn it upwards to meet him. Your skin is hot against his, electricity bubbling between you. 

You're burning, a fire lit under the weight of his stare.

You've never felt more alive. 

You've hardly known the boy five minutes and you already never want to feel anything else.

He could holds the entire world in those big, beautiful, blue eyes and all you can see is yourself.

Your tongue slips with a drop of your name, soft and breathlessly shared. As if talking too much will break the spell. 

He stops moving, his fingers slowly lacing through yours. 

"Steve." He whispers. His voice matches the rest of him, soft but unyielding. 

"Stevie?" You repeat, dragging the syllables along your tongue as you try to get it right. 

"Yeah." He whispers, neck craning and bringing his face an inch closer to yours. "Stevie."

Stevie is like the men in the movies, broad and sturdy. There's a beauty in his face you didn't know was possible in real life, in the cut of his jaw and the plump of his lips. 

His lips, now that you've looked at them you can't look away. They part just enough for air to pass, pink and pretty and you can't get over the way they shaped around your name. 

You want to feel them, want to know how they would press against yours. You want to know every kind of kiss with him. The hungry ones, the slow ones, the chaste ones and hello-goodbye ones. 

The first one is at the top of your list though. 

Steve isn't much better, his palm is turning clammy in your grasp. Nerves spiking the longer you hold his gaze. 

You laugh, sudden and unbridled. It's like a songbird, sweet and natural. Like it's one of the worlds most natural wonders. 

No wonder he gave in. 

The kiss is tentative, barely more than lips pressed to lips. It's a test, making sure neither of you erupt into flames. 

It only survives that way for a moment, then the damn breaks. 

Your hands grab first, reaching up for fistfuls of shirt and using the leverage to pull his mouth firmer against yours.

Steve's are similarly unrestrained, wrapping around your waist and bringing your chests flush as well. 

Together you cross a line that was drawn by people in the very same room. You tear it apart and dance on its memory, stomping it into the ground with completely disregard of everything it stands for. 

A war between boys means nothing in the face of a love orchestrated by fate. 

That's what you have between your hands, a boy who you believe with every confidence was made for you. As his hands slot over your hips, his nose tilting and falling into place along yours, you're certain he was made for you too. 

Steve's kissed plenty of girls, he never really understood the appeal. Kissing was a means to an end, a bridge he had to cross to get to the next step of intimacy. Girls liked kissing, so he would kiss to appease them. It was never something he felt the need to do.

With his lips pressed to yours Steve already feels like he needs to kiss you for the rest of his life. 

It's softer than kisses he's known before, there's no rushing or wandering hands. There's no room for the voice in his head to be bored or complain about lipstick getting on his skin. 

He's consumed by it. His chest is air and his head is empty and all that exists is you in his arms. 

Neither of you hear the stop in the music, the sudden cut off or the way the trombone flails with one last note before falling to silence. 

Neither of you hear the shouting, the raised voices and thrown insults. 

Neither of you hear the gasps, the sound of Officer Ross pulling his baton from his belt. 

Neither of you hear the footsteps as everyone starts to scatter.

There's a hand at the back of your dress, Wanda's manicured fingers scratching your skin as she pulls you back and out of Steve's arms. 

When it finally comes back into focus, the gym is chaos. Vis stands at the end of the bleachers, yelling for you and Wanda to hurry. There's something about getting you home, getting you both safe. 

Your feet move, walking backwards as Wanda loosens her grip and takes you by the hand instead. 

The look in Vis' eyes is enough for Steve to recognize what line he crossed. It weren't than the similarities between you would be. Nevertheless his heart pounds, any reservations he had for him disappearing. 

Steve takes a few steps after you before remembering himself. Bucky is out there yelling his name and he doesn't even care. By the time he stops staring at the space you left behind, the gym is nearly empty. All that's left is the sound of rubber soles on the floor and distant footsteps 

Steve searches the streets for an hour.

With your name etches on his tongue he shouts it down every alley, cries it toward every open window. 

It's nearly eleven when he finally finds you. 

A silhouette glows from a two stories above, soft yellow light escaping around it and filtering onto where he stands on the pavement.

Steve knows it in an instant. 

You can hear his smile when he calls your name again. 

It bounces off of brick walls, shakes the puddles and threatens to wake your neighbors.

Your head snaps in his direction, a mix of excitement to see him and panic at the risk of getting caught. With as much restraint as you can bear, you race towards the window sill. 

The glass creaks with a groan, pushing out into the fire escape as you swing it up and open. 

"Stevie!" You gasp, heart jumping at the sight of him. It's only been a few hours but your aching heart immediately eases. "How did you find me?"

Steve's at the bottom of your fire escape in an instant, climbing up two rungs at a time. He doesn't slow down until he on the platform below you, stopping at the bottom of the steps just as you move to stand at the top of them. 

"I've been to every building south of the waterfront." He says, "I looked for your light."

"You found it." You affirm, smiling breaking. "Found me." 

You both move at the same time, meeting in the middle of the steps and wrapping your arms around each other. 

Steve's arms close around your waist, encircling you in his embrace just like at the gym. You do the same, squeezing him even tighter this time. 

You breathe him in, deeper than you'd been able to before. He smells like summer air, a heavy musk mixed with cheap cologne. You want to bottle it. Spray it on your pillow and pretend it's his chest. 

"I know it's silly but-" 

"I missed you too." Steve whispers. He did, from the moment you left his arms a chill had settled over his bones. Like when anxiety curdles in your stomach, or a fever burns behind your eyelids. An utterly physical reaction to the lack of you. 

He bends his head, pressing a kiss to your hairline. "I'm sorry for coming so late," he pulls away just enough to read your face, taking a step down so you're eye level with him. "I just had to see you." 

You curl a hand over his cheek, resting it in the swell of his jawline. "I'm glad you came." You promise, using your other hand to card through his hair. "I didn't get to give you..." you trail off struggling to find the english version of the word. "Uh sleep kiss? Happy night kiss?"

Steve watches you shrink into the insecurity, heart aching as you tense for his reaction. 

"A goodnight kiss." Steve says it slowly, careful not to sound cruel. 

"Yes." You breathe a sigh of relief, repeating him in your own accent. "a goodnight kiss." 

"Yeah?" Steve asks, leaning into your touch like a dog. You wonder if you scratched behind his ear would he pant? 

"Mhm." You hum, shuffling forward until only your heels are on the step. You like being this height you realize, you can see his face better. Especially with the moonlight, you can make out all the beauty in his features. The way his blue eyes shine, the long curl of his lashes. There's a curve in his nose, a gentle swell you want to trace with your finger. 

Steve stares up at you, just an inch shorter now, but the height different makes his stomach flip. His hand fans out over your lower back, both in possession and to help you balance on the step. 

He wants to speak, to say something clever and charming the was Bucky would. They way he would have just a few months ago. The words run dry though, nothing left but earnestness and the urge to beg.

"What did I do to deserve that?" He asks, licking his lips without even thinking of it. 

His eyes dart to yours, just as hypnotizing as they were at the gym. Maybe even more so now that he knows what they feel like. 

"You were handsome." You nod, leaning in until your nose touches his. Your chest rests against his own, leaning your weight onto his body. "Also kind."

Steve takes it without complaint, leaning just as hard into you. He can feel your breath fan his lips, how it hitches when he juts his chin just a little. 

"Than thank goodness I found you." 

Distance disappears, another kiss and it's exactly the same but also completely different than the first one. 

The world doesn't disappear this time, instead it reorients itself around you. The moon shines with its approval, the night bird sing with envy. Even the crickets chirp in time with your heart. There's no threat of being caught, no tensions seeping between bleachers and staining the moment. 

It's just his lips against yours, their sweet movement and the way they seem to be trying to memorize yours. 

Steve's a good kisser, you think. I could kiss him forever.

Steve is similarly wrecked, pulling back from you with reverence painting his vision.

"Tonight," he breathes, holding you in place with his gaze. "When I saw you it was like the entire world disappeared."

You can't help but melt, spine turning to dripping butter under his touch. "All I saw was you." You whisper, fingers curling through his hair. "All I see is you." 

"So you'll see only me?" Steve asks, nerves shaking his voice despite the way you're currently wrapped in each other. 

"Only you," you promise. "Forever."

Another kiss, this one more fervent, more needy. It's relief bottled with want and then shook up like a soda pop. You're both bubbling over, nerves fizzing with love and sugar.

"When can I see you again?" Steve asks the question before he's even completely pulled again, lips moving even as they still touch yours. 

You giggle, unabashed and joyful. "You haven't even left me yet and you're already worrying about when you're going to see me again?" 

He nods, instant and insistent. "I don't want there to be any uncertainty about this, about us." His hand cradles your cheek, swiping his thumb over it. "I refuse to leave this to chance."

Your smile is so wide it hurts your cheeks, the feeling in your chest so pure you can't see past it. 

"Tomorrow." You tell him, "I work at the dress shop over on main. Come by at four, just after we close." 

Steve kisses you one more time, less a kiss and more so a pressing of smiles. Teeth clink and lips miss and it's just as beautiful as the one in the gym. 

"Tomorrow." He agrees. "At the dress shop. I'll be there." He pushes onto his toes, kissing your forehead. 

Steve detaches himself from you slowly, letting his touch linger as much as possible. Then he backs down the steps, eyes never leaving yours. 

"Goodnight." He whispers, blue eyes catching in the moonlight.

"Goodnight Stevie." You whisper, backing up until you're finally on the platform with your bedroom windows. 

Your father calls one more time from inside, this time closer than before. You allow yourself one last look, one final sweep over his shoulders and account of his mussed hair. You want to remember him exactly how he is tonight, the version of him that exists in this moment. The one that is utterly and completely yours.

"Goodnight." He whispers again. 

You climb back through your window, reluctantly putting the barrier of brick back between you. Through the grates you answer one more time. "Goodnight Stevie." 

The window clicks shut and your curtains are drawn just in time. Your father coming inside to lecture you for still being awake. 

Outside Steve stares at your window his entire descent, as if he still can't believe that you're real on the other side of it. 

Tomorrow, he'd see you again. He'd hold you again. He can only imagine how slowly time will move in the meantime. Whatever it brings though, nothing will change the blooming in his chest.

Bucky comes in like a storm.

The slam of the door, a loud ring of the bell, both matched by stomping foot steps. 

"Steve." He yells, voice bouncing off the walls. "Steve!"

Steve nearly hits his head rushing up from the cellar, "What- Jesus Buck what is it?"

His friend looks even worse than yesterday, like he hasn't slept since before the dance. He's still in the same clothes, dress shirt muddies and pants torn. He's out of breath and wild-eyed. 

"Where the hell did you go last night?" Bucky prods. "Been lookin' for you everywhere."

Steve shakes his head, "I had something to take care of." 

Bucky laughs, full of mirth and disbelief. 

"Something more important than us?" He accuses.

"Us?"

"The Wolves- for fucks sake Steve what the hell?" 

The Wolves. Steve remembers with a grimace, the very thing that brought him to you and threatens to take him away. A worse thought follows. The Rumble. 

"I can't be apart of it Bucky, like I told you I'm not in that life anymore."

"I ain't asking." Bucky bites back, his answer immediate. "This is bigger than us Steve."

"No." Steve holds firm, "It's not just me anymore."

Bucky freezes, face crumbling as if he's been stabbed. The words hang in the air between them, building a bridge but already flooding the river beneath it. Forgiveness and distance created in the same breath. 

When the moment breaks there's a smile, the pop of his friend's chin dimple followed by a clasp of his hand on his shoulder. 

"You dog." Bucky whispers. "Who is she?"

Steve freezes with the realization that, his oldest, best friend would never understand. 

So he shakes his head, lets himself smile but give nothing else away. "It's new."

"C'mon that's all you're gonna give me?" Bucky groans, "you're smiling like the cat who ate the damn canary."

"I don't kiss and tell." Steve insists, shooting his friend a look. "Anymore."

Bucky rolls his eyes, holding a hand to his chest as if he's been wounded. 

"Wow I see how it is." He laughs, "good for you man. You deserve it."

There's an honesty in the way he says it, something that throws Steve off a little. There's weight behind his implication. 'It' could be a-lot of things. Love? A future? Something new?

The memory of Bucky's news flashes through his mind, the fast approaching deadline. 

"Is this really how you want to spend your last few days in the city?" Steve asks, daring to prod. "Fightin' and looking over your shoulder?"

Bucky sighs and Steve waits for his defense. Waits for the anger or raised voice. Only it never comes.

"We always said we wanted to make things better." Bucky says, "that the Wolves were our way to do that." 

Sure, that had been how it started when they were kids. A couple of preteens wandering the city and looking for ways to keep busy and maybe make a little money. Helping old ladies cross the street, shining shoes outside the barbershop, the summer they ran groceries at the farmers market. The ethos had always been the leave their city better than they found it.

When had it devolved to this?

"Yeah, I remember." Steve says, nodding along as the memory plays. "What's that got to do with all this?"

"They're changing things, it's all so different with them here."

"Different doesn't mean back Buck-"

"They're pushing us out!" Bucky exclaims, anger flashing across his face. "Taking what used to be ours and leavin' nothing left for us." 

"Its not that simple-"

Bucky shakes his head, cutting Steve off. "Isn't it though?"

His words hang between them, heavy and mean. Bucky's anger falters in the silence, resigning itself to something more bleak.

Bucky rolls his shoulders back, stuffing his hands into his pockets and averting his eyes to the ground. "I wanna leave knowing I put this behind us." He shrugs. "All of us."

The last bit is pointed at Steve. A not so subtle reminder that try as he might to escape, he's still in this worlds orbit. 

"What time is it?" Steve asks, finally caving. 

Bucky sighs, "Midnight at the docks." 

"Hands or knives?"

"Hands." Bucky confirms, "each side is picking their best man." 

Steve feels his surprise paint his face. Bucky never chooses to shrink a fight, he's always been more of a strength in numbers leader than one to honor a fair fight. 

"I'll be there." Steve promises. 

Bucky scoffs, "like hell you will be."

"What?" 

Bucky shakes his head, "you're not gonna be anywhere near this you hear me?" 

His voice is firm, commanding in a way Steve's never heard before. A solemn reminder how much his friend was forced to change in his absence. 

"You got a girl now, a chance to make something better for yourself." 

"But Buck-" Steve starts, "what if you need backup?" He's not sure why he's pushing, why now that it's been taken off the table he's suddenly crushed with guilt at the thought of not being there. 

"Don't worry," Bucky promises, and then as if he's just stretching Bucky lifts his arm over his head, pulling the hem of his shirt up enough to reveal a sliver of skin and a handgun tucked into his waist band. "I'll be ready if things go south." 

Steve doesn't have time to react, Bucky slapping him on the shoulder and slipping out of the shop.

Even with Bucky's blessing, his heart feels pulled in two different directions. One half tugging him toward you, placing a future into his lap. The other one is tangled with loyalty, the overwhelming guilt of abandoning the family he created. 

When morning breaks you can't help but feel like the whole world should be as happy as you are you.

The sun spills joy onto the streets, the birds sing a song perfectly in-tune, and there is nothing that could possibly ruin it. 

You feel different than you did yesterday. Like your skin as grown thicker, your hair shinier. It's as if you went to bed a girl and woke up a woman, a beautiful one at that. 

Every mirror you pass it sings it back to you, each reflection you don't see yourself, you see the girl who has stolen a boys heart. Even if you gave yours in return it still fills you with a giddy thrill. 

The work that typically bores you can't even sway your emotion. The prick of a needle in your finger does no damage. When you spend an hour scrubbing the floors the ache in your back never comes. 

It's as if a cloud as come and replaced your body, filling you with light and promise. 

"What has gotten into you today?" One of the girls asks, laughing as she catches you staring into a mirror for the third time. "Even Narcissus was not so self obsessed."

You ignore her, not even bothering to listen. 

"Wanda do you know what this is all about?" She asks. 

Your friend hums from across the shop, a dress in her lap that hardly spares a glance as she answers with a knowing smirk.

"Haven't you heard? She's in love."

The shop erupts, half a dozen voices abandoning their tasks in favor of crowding you instead. 

You don't even have to temptation to deny it, no shyness or insecurity to hide behind.

"Is it true?" 

"Who is he?"

"How long?" 

Their questions come flying, everyone speaking at once and leaving no room for you to even try and answer. 

"He's sweet." Is what you settle on. 

"And handsome." Wanda adds, unmoved from her own project as she pulls the needle through a seam. 

You throw her a dirty look, only have meaning it. 

The girls squeal around you. "Our baby is all grown up!" One of the coos. 

"Did you use protection?" Another one prods, more accusatory than excited.

"Where is he from?" 

The last one stings, it settles uncomfortably in your stomach. He's from here. You think to yourself, something you decidedly are not. Something that is blatantly obvious and yet Steve didn't even care to ask about.

"It's not like that," you assure them. "We haven't- not yet anyway." You promise. "It's new."

A chorus of 'ooohs' echo through the room.

They start to disperse, one by one leaving you be as they realize they won't get anymore answers. 

"What did he do to get you all smiley anyway?" The last one asks, "You're practically glowing." 

You shake your head, not bothering to hide your giddiness. "He just," you think about it for the moment, struggling to find the right word. "Makes me feel pretty." 

She nods, understanding. 

"We should all be so lucky." She whispers, nudging you with one last smile before she too goes back to her work load. 

You only get a few moments of peace, a chance to check the clock and do the math one more time on just how long it will be until you see him again.

"It's a fair question." Wanda startles you, not having moves from her chair.

The rest of the girls are occupied enough to not even hear her. 

"What is?" You ask, finding dress to mend and taking a seat beside her. 

Wanda fixes you with a look, one of those all-knowing ones she reserves for special conversations. 

"Where is he from?" She asks. The question isn't pointed, no edge or teasing. It's more like when a mother shares a worry, like she's propping you up to a learn a lesson. 

You shake your head. "Here." You admit, "he's one of them." 

Wanda stops all together, hand freezing with the needle still pinched between her fingers. 

You panic, rushing to better explain. "He's not really though, at least I don't think he is." 

Wanda's voice is much too steady when she does speak. "You want that kind of trouble?" 

Protectiveness creeps into your veins, spidering across your chest. "He's not like the rest of them." You assure her, "he's gentle. And kind."

"And you've known him a day." She reminds you. "If Vis heard about this…" 

"It feels like longer!" You insist. You've turned to face her now, entire body shifted towards hers as you try to get through. "Vis doesn't need to know, not yet." 

You put down your work, taking one of her wrists in your hand as you plea. "Please Wanda, just give me sometime to enjoy this before the rest of the world decides I don't deserve to."

She sighs, closing her eyes with frustration but nodding nonetheless. When she looks at you again her familiar fondness is there, the one that predates her relationship with your brother and goes back to when you were just each-others first friends. 

"Fine." She agrees. 

Too happy to help it you reach over and hug her, arms wrapping around her shoulders with a tight squeeze. "Thank you Wanda." 

She nods, pushing you off with a smile that gives her away. "C'mon back to work." She waves her hand over the dress on your lap. 

You pick it up happily returning to your stitching. An anxiety that had bubbled in your chest sufficiently quelled.

There's only a few minutes of peace though, before you dear friend speaks again. 

"You should know though," she begins, a heavy sigh at the top. "There's going to be a rumble tonight." 

"A rumble?" You ask, heart dropping. 

"The Strays and the Wolves." She reminds you, "Vis wants to settle this once and for all." 

"Wanda they'll kill each other." Your spark dims, terrifying visions of them all covered in blood and dirt conjuring themselves. Your brother beaten and bruised within an inch of his life. You've seen him like that before, you can hardly bear the thought of seeing it again.

"Maybe." Wanda says, "probably not." 

You sit with her words. Letting their weight rest across your shoulders. 

"It's not your brother I'd be worried about anyway."

Stevie.

Would he be there? Could he stop it if he is? What could possibly be worth the torn knuckles and black eyes? 

Yes, you think. I'll have to ask him to stop it. For both their sakes.

"You're going to have a busy night then." You tell her, doing your best to push the fear aside. "Why don't you let me lock up tonight?" 

Wanda drops her needle once again, looking toward you with a raised brow. "You hate locking up. You think it's creepy when you're alone."

"I'll be okay." You assure her.

"Ah." She breathes, her smirk shifting to something more mischievous and knowing. "You won't be alone."

You don't dignify her with an answer, or more aptly a lie. 

"Fine." She agrees, "you can lock up." 

You have to bite your lip to stop yet another squeal from escaping. 

Steve's knock comes at exactly ten minutes after four. Eight minutes after your last customer left. Four minutes after Wanda and the rest of the girls slipped out for the day. Two minutes after you flipped the sign on the door from 'open' to 'closed.'

He feels sheepish, standing on the street and waiting for you to answer with baited breath and his heart in his hands. Also flowers, a little bundle he bought from one of the corner shops on his way over. Mostly baby's breath it smells delicious and looks as delicate as the dress you wore to the dance.

Like a fool, he even dressed up. One of his nicer button downs, one with no stains on the cuff or loose threads.

You're still in your uniform when you answer, apron pulled tight around your waist. 

He steps inside the second you open the door, laying his hand over yours on the knob to push it shut behind him.

The air in the store goes still once it clicks in the lock. 

"Hello." He whispers. 

"Hi." You beam, both of your hands still resting on the door. 

Steve's other hand hand flexes, causing the bouquet in his grip to crinkle. 

"Are those for me?" You ask, eyes lighting up as you take notice of them. 

Steve flusters, pink dusting his cheeks as he remembers himself. 

"Yes." He passes them over, a clumsy stretch as he all but forced them into your hands.

"They're beautiful Stevie." You hum as you take a deep breath, sticking your nose between the petals and closing your eyes. "Thank you." 

Steve doesn't answer, too distracted by how your eyelashes kiss your cheeks. 

Your hand gently pulls out from beneath his, walking over to one of the stations and putting the flowers down next to your things. 

"We don't have long." You warn him, "Wanda's expecting me home by five. She wants us all to eat dinner together before-" 

You cut yourself, voice trailing with what's unsaid. 

Steve catches your shift anyway, sighing and walking further into the shop with you. 

"Before the rumble?" He finishes for you.

You nod, a short one that makes your nerves clear to him. 

"I'm not going."

Your head snaps up at that, eyes flaring with surprise and something else.

"Stevie you have to go." You insist, moving until you're toe to toe with him. "You have to go and you have to stop it."

Steve's heart drops. 

"I don't know if I could- even if I went Bucky and Vis are both set." He shakes his head, petting a hand over your hair as if to soothe. "It's going to happen." 

You pull away, stepping back just out of reach. "You have to at least try." 

"What makes you think I can stop them?" He asks, dragging a hand down his face in frustration. Not with you, no with himself. With the twist in his gut and the fact that he knows he'll go. If you're asking? Steve would do anything if the request came from your lips.

You hum, as if thinking of your answer. Slowly, you close the distance again, toeing your way closer until your hands find his. "You're kind." You start, "you have a good heart, people listen to those who have a good heart." 

Steve's unconvinced, but the look in your eye is steadfast. You're not trying to telling him anything untrue, you're simply trying to make him see himself as you do. 

"Please Stevie." You try one more time, jutting out your bottom lip in a pout. "I don't want anyone hurt." 

Steve bends like a wave to your tide, nodding before he can find another excuse. 

If you can see that good in him, than perhaps it really is there. 

"Fine." He whispers, leaning down to press his forehead against yours. "But only because it is you asking."

You brighten, l if that is even possible. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" 

A chaste press of lips follows, casual familiar contact. You take it as if his lips belong to you, and as far as Steve is concerned, they do. 

You pull back just as quickly, moving to fuss with something else in the store as you finish closing up.

The picture paints itself in front of him. The store replaced with a house, something small but homey, covered in decorations and colors and something distinctly you. 

There's dinner on the stove, fresh flowers in a vase on the counter, and open windows letting in the sun. There's bird song instead of cars honking, city noise substituted for something more suburban. 

It feels tangible, inevitable. 

You stop what you're doing, turning to look at him with a shy small and a small "What?" on your lips.

Steve walks over to you, taking you in his arms and this time stealing a deeper kiss. 

You melt into him, spine curving as you arch into his touch. It's like molten lava seeping through your bones, bigger than the butterflies you've always been told to expect.

"What was that for?" You gasp when he finally lets you go.

Steve smiles, baring all his teeth and dimples to boot. 

"Just saw our future for a minute there." He whispers.

"Yeah?" You hum, arms encircling his waist. "What was it like?"

"You being there when I come home." Steve starts, throat bobbing as he speaks. "A ring on your finger and your things in our house." 

You bring your hands between your chests, making a show of sliding a ring off of your right hand and onto your left. It's a simple band, a gift from your mother on your eighteenth birthday. You hold it up for Steve to see, pretending to assess it yourself. 

"Like this?" You ask.

"Yeah." Steve says, taking your hand in his and bringing the ring to his lips. "Like that." He places a kiss over the cool metal, leaving tingles across your entire hand in their wake. 

"What else?" You ask, voice hardly audible.

Steve pretends to think, holding your gaze as he pulls the moment out between you. 

"No fire escapes, no sirens or gangs." He continues, "Just a quiet house, on a quiet street, in a quiet neighborhood."

"Sounds nice." You hum. 

Steve nods, leaning down to lave one more soft kiss over your lips. 

You're the one who deepens it, pushing onto your tiptoes and threading your hands through his hair.

When you let him go Steve looks dazed, eyes glossy and lips even pinker than usual. 

"I keep thinking about our wedding," you confess. "Working here, surrounded by these dresses all day." You half gesture around you, the dozens of white dresses littering the walls. 

Steve looks around, finally taking note of them. 

"I think about who we would invite, who would be your man of honor-"

"Bucky of course." Steve butts in.

"Wanda would be my matron of honor, I mean I can't imagine her and Vis won't be married before the end of the year."

"So a spring wedding for us?" Steve asks. 

"Yes!" You agree excitedly. "With wildflowers and baby's breath and a great big cake."

"Who will officiate?"

"Officiate?" You ask, head tilting. It makes you look so cute Steve has to push down the urge to kiss your nose.

"Who will marry us?"

You nod, thinking seriously about it for a moment. "I'll leave that up to my parents, I'm sure they have strong feelings about it."

"I don't care who does it," Steve breathes. "As long as they tie me to you."

"So you, Steve. Take me to be your lawfully wedded wife?" You ask.

"I do." He whispers, "I take you sick, I take you hungry, I take your poor, I take you rich. I take you as long as I live."

Steve kisses you again and you think that you'll need to buy more chap-stick if he keeps this up. Not that you mind in the slightest. 

When your heart has stopped hammering, Steve finally lets you go long enough to check the time. 

"It's late." You tell him begrudgingly. "I have to get home."

Steve nods, understanding. "Bucky's waiting for me too."

You sigh, stealing one last embrace. "Come by tonight? After it's done?"

"Leave your window open." 

The Wolves are on a warpath. 

By the time Steve catches up to them, sense is impossible to find. 

With any entire day left to simmer their anger has completely bubbled over. 

Bucky's the worst of it, insisting he'll be the one to fight. 

Steve's not convinced he's even planning to try and win. There's a look in his eyes, something dark and hopeless. He's decided he's a dead man either way.

Still, every time he feels the urge to run, when the voice in his head tells him its pointless, he sees your face. He sees the look in your eyes, the way you think he's good. 

He's determined to be worthy of it. 

Vis is more subtle in his anger. 

There's a rigidness in his posture, a careful control Bucky has never known. A skill Steve would desperately like to learn. 

In his hands is a switch knife. 

He spins it around, passing it over his knuckles and spinning it between long fingers. 

It moves like a piece of him, an extension of an already lethal weapon. 

"Thought we said hands." Bucky's voice echoes into the night, bouncing off shipping containers.

"Was just warming up." Vis responds, voice level as he passes the blade off to someone else. 

His words bristle through the Wolves, the hairs on every one of their necks standing on edge. 

I should say something. Steve thinks, I need to say something.

"Who fights?" Vis asks, breaking the tension. He holds out his knuckles and cracks them. "I have work tomorrow and would prefer to finish this sooner than later."

Two voices ring out. 

"I'll finish this." Bucky says just as Steve calls out-

"We don't need to do this."

Every head snaps toward him, both sides united in their reaction. 

"No." Bucky starts.

"I think we do." Vis finishes. "I would prefer to fight the one who kisses my sister though." 

A gasp echoes through the Wolves, friends turning to him with disgust. 

Bucky's gaze is the worst of all, thick with betrayal. Despite it, he still looks back to Vis. 

"No," He insists. "He's not one of us. He won't fight."

Arms encircle themselves around Steve's, holding him in place. 

Protests start to fall in a panic, pleas for them to stop, to think this through. Bucky's name slips like a beg, desperate to make his friend listen. 

A circle forms around them, Steve held just out of reach, unable to break loose, unable to do anything but watch.

Both men square up, Vis' lean build and Bucky's broad shoulders. Each with their fists raised protectively in front of their faces. 

Bucky strikes first, always too eager for his own good. 

It's a miss, Vis dodging it with ease and countering with a punch directly to Bucky's abdomen. It lands with a thud, folding Bucky's position. 

Bucky's quick to recover, dodging a second hit and landing one square on Vis' jaw. 

They trade blows for long enough that time begins to drag. The noise in Steve's ears reduced to the rush of his blood and then sickening sound of fists and flesh.

Then Bucky gains the upper hand, a loud crack as his knuckles collide with Vis' cheek. 

The taller man crumbles, knees giving out and sending him straight to the concrete. 

It should be enough, should be the end. 

But Bucky's never known when to stop.

He clambers over his crumpled body, pushing him flat onto his back and laying another punch, then another, then a third.

He keeps going, until his fists are covered in Vis' blood. 

Steve hears himself yelling, throat raw with Bucky's name. 

"Bucky you're gonna kill him!" He finally manages, voice ragged.

By some miracle it gets through to him, Bucky turning to face Steve. 

As quickly as Bucky turns, Vis rallies.

One of the Stray's passes him a switch blade, the knife already drawn in.

It happens to fast, not even enough time to get the warning out.

The knife sinks into Bucky's stomach with a dull thud. 

The entire world tilts on it's axis. 

Steve finally breaks free, numb feet rushing forward to where his friend lies on the concrete. 

"Bucky!" He cries, lifting his head into his lap. "Buck you're gonna be okay, yeah? Just hang on buddy." 

Bucky's croaking, blood bubbling up over his lips. He gurgles, like he's trying to speak only nothing comes out. His hand lifts, covered in his own blood. It touches Steve's face, just for a moment. 

Then he goes slack.

In an instant his skin goes gray, eyes glazing over as all the light from them disappears.

Steve's heart stops. It freezes in his chest, seized by grief and fear and worst of all anger. 

He remembers this morning at the shop. The smile on Bucky's face, the familar warmth of his friend. 

The gun in his waistband. 

Steve doesn't think about you when he reaches for it. 

He looks down at his best-friends body, and does the only thing he can think of.

He points it directly at Vis' chest.

The sun is nearly up when Steve finally comes.

The sky has started to turn blue, the first sign of morning peeking from the horizon. He slips inside your window, nearly falling over when he bends to fit his head in. 

You're at his side immediately, arms throwing themselves around his neck. 

"Stevie!" You whisper, sighing into his neck with relief. You wait for his arms to wrap around you, for their comfort. 

Only they never come. 

Slowly you pull away, confusion etched between your eyebrows.

"Stevie?" You whisper. 

Finally, you take him in.

He looks awful, face gaunt and grey. His clothes are torn, the knees of his jeans ripped and bruises in the crook of his arm. That's not what makes you stumble backwards.

He's covered in blood. 

It's splattered across his face, smeared along his cheek bones and dusting his blonde hair. It's all over his clothes, covering his hands and-

He has a gun. 

It's limp in his palm, hand loose around the grip. 

Your blood runs cold, a sudden and very sure feeling in your gut that something isn't right.

"What did you do?" You whisper. 

Steve lets out a tortured noise, something almost resembling an apology. 

He falls, knees giving out and bringing him down to your floor. The gun falls away, pushed to the side by his own hand. 

"What happened?" You try again, tentatively coming closer as you speak. "Stevie what happened? Vis hasn't come home yet and there have been cops up and down the street all night."

You get onto your knees in front of him, and take his face between your hands, forcing him to look at you.

Steve hiccups, tears covering his cheeks, turning dried blood in pink streaks. 

"I couldn't stop them-" he gasps, "I tried I promise I tried, but they just wouldn't listen." 

You can hardly make out what he says between breaths, the words coming out wet and messy. 

"It's okay," you try to sooth him, maneuvering until your pressed behind his back, pulling his head against your chest. "Sssh, it's okay."

Steve falls apart in your arms, broken cries and gasps pressed into your skin. 

"Bucky…" He whispers, "he's gone."

Your heart aches at the way he says, as if absorbing his own pain. 

"Oh Stevie." You whisper, pressing a kiss to his hair. "I'm so sorry."

"No." Steve croaks, "no I don't deserve it." 

You feel yourself tense. 

"What do you mean?"

Steve goes rigid in your arms, his tears still rolling down his cheeks and under his jaw. He reaches up to you with shaking hands, wrapping them around your forearm where it sits over his chest. 

"Vis had a knife and Bucky didn't see it." Steve manages to whisper. "I didn't mean to but it was like I couldn't think."

You eyes flash back to the gun in the corner of your room. 

Your ears reply the cry you heard from Wanda's apartment, the wail you blamed on someone else. 

Your brother still isn't home. 

"No." You whisper, shaking your head as soon as the thought makes itself known.

"No you didn't." You beg, tears already brimming over your lashes. "Tell me you didn't."

Steve turns in your arms and this time its him who holds your face. 

"I'm so sorry." He murmurs, "I'm so so sorry."

Your heart splinters. 

Grief like you've never known consumes it. 

Like the floor has been pulled out from beneath you and sent you in a spiraling free fall. Or as if someone has ripped off the roof and left you alone in the rain. 

It consumes you fast, tearing into your soul and taking a piece you know you can never get back. 

It's wearying. sawing you in half and then placing what's left to dry out. 

"No." You mutter, tears falling fast down your cheeks. "No, no, no, no." Your fists slam into his chest, banging into him with as much strength as you can muster. "Why?" You whimper, tossing the word at him over and over. "Why? Why? Why!" You repeat, until it devolves from a question to a curse.

Steve takes it all, letting you hit, scream, and cry. His hands fall from your cheeks, wrapping around your wrists in loose cuffs. 

He's still weeping, gasping with pain as you take out every wave of your grief on him. 

"It should have been me." Steve says, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist. "It should have been me."

You heart drops, even through the pain you find the room to protest. 

"No!" You whimper, shaking your head. "No I can't-" You break off into a sob. "I love you both."

Steve's eyes clear and for just a moment the storm lifts. 

"You love me?" He asks, voice hoarse.

You nod, tears finally slowing. 

"I love you more than I hate you."

His kiss is wet, salty with your tears. It's messy and more sad than anything you ever hoped to share with him. 

For every press of your lips becomes an exchange, another apology, another profession,

"I'm sorry."

"I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"I love you."

Until the words blend together. 

I'm sorry I love you.

You both mean it, Steve for all of the pain he's brought. You for all of the guilt eating you alive. 

Still you don't stop, bodies shifting until your back finds the floor, lips pressed together with even greater desperation.

I'm sorry I love you.

You can't stop, and some sicker part of you doesn't want to. There's no idea what the daylight will bring, what other sins will come out of hiding. You have no doubt the cops are searching for him, you could live with that. You could move on knowing he's safe, knowing he's alive. 

It's the Strays you're worried about. The boys who followed your brother, the ones who won't let his bloodshed be where this ends. The boys who have become such a big part of your new life here. The ones who sit at your dinner table and muss your hair like you're their sister too. 

They won't let Steve go. 

I'm sorry I love you.

Steve's body hovers over yours, the strong arms that made you feel so protected on either side of your head. 

His kisses have an edge to them now, a bite you match with intensity. A nibble on his lip, a suck where your teeth are still indented. Steve takes it all with a gasp, one of his thighs holding his weight between your legs

I'm sorry I love you.

You still want him. 

Your stomach twists with heat, a feeling you've never given credence too. It burns in your belly, driving your hips up against his leg. Your nightgown bunches between your thighs, wrinkling against his jeans getting caught between your bodies.

Your body lights up at the sensation, toes curling at the first press of pleasure. 

The gasp you let out into Steve's mouth is different this time, there's no pain behind it, no anger. It's something more pure.

I'm sorry I love you.

"Stevie!" You gasp, back arching as you roll your hips over his thigh again.

"I know." Steve whispers, pressing his leg firmer against your heat. "I know."

Your breath catches, the pleasure between your legs climbing up to your stomach. The fire catches there too, body seeking out as much friction as possible. 

It pulls behind your belly button, new and confusing and tantalizingly out of reach.

I'm sorry I love you.

Steve pulls back, sitting up on to his haunches and unbuttoning his shirt. He pulls at it like an inconvenience, down past the expanse of his shoulders and away from the swells of his biceps. 

He tosses it aside, his belt following suit. He undoes the buckle with one hand and pulls it through the loops in one swift movement. 

Then he's back on top of you, one hand holding himself while the other palms at your hip.

With how high your nightgown as ridden up, his hand slips under it with ease, palming the skin there as if he's not sure he's actually allowed to touch it.

I'm sorry I love you.

"Stevie." You say, grabbing at the thin material of his tank top with both hands. 

"Yes?" He answers, lips brushing yours as he speaks. "Anything."

You nod, knowing he means it. 

"I want you." You whisper, carding your hands through his hair. 

You want him, want him while he's still yours. 

Steve nods, placing another sweet kiss on your lips. "Then you can have me." 

His hands go further, emboldened by your words and your own exploration over his body. His slides between your bodies, where your cunt rests against his pants and cups it. Thin cotton turns damp beneath his touch, fabric ruined as you rut into his palm. 

You whine, pushing into him for more, desperately trying to chase the feeling he's ignited.

"This okay?" He mutters, flattening his fingers over your folds, pushing the gusset of your panties between them. 

You nod, bottom lip pulled between your teeth. "Please." You whisper, "more." 

Steve's hands stay soft, but their touch turns firm. He pulls your underwear down your legs, pushing your nightgown up to fully reveal yourself to him.

"Beautiful." He breathes, "so beautiful."

His hands come to your thighs, pushing them apart as he lowers his head between them.

I'm sorry I love you.

Your throat turns dry, breathing stops altogether as Steve looks up at you from the apex of your thighs. 

He blinks at you, giving you a chance to push him away. 

"I want you." You affirm instead, shifting your hips to give him a better angle.

Steve descends with a nod, the barest hint of a smile on his lips. 

If you thought what you felt before was fire, then Steve's lips are lava. 

It burns with the first swipe of his tongue, more exploratory than purposeful. Then a second, before he's diving in with gusto. Like a starving man Steve feasts on your cunt, as if it may as well be his last meal. 

You're wetter than you ever believed possible, slick to his chin with want. More than you've ever felt on your fingers. 

"Stevie!" You cry out, hand knotting in his hair, a sharp grip on his roots. You're gasping, a writhing mess on the floor of your bedroom. It's made all that much dirtier by your bed just a few feet over. A simple luxury denied because you couldn't wait to give in to your baser instincts.

Steve's tongue lays flat over your clit, tonguing it with kitten licks while two of his fingers explore your entrance. 

They work you over, scissoring inside of you with the best of intentions. A curl of his knuckles and you're clenching around him like a vice.

Steve doesn't speak, doesn't find any words worth interrupting your pretty sounds.

With his lips closed around your clit you cum on his tongue. A full body spasm that leaves you gasping and wrecked. A thin sheen of sweat over every inch of your skin and stars in your eyes so bright you nearly can't see Steve when he comes back up to kiss you. 

The taste of yourself on his tongue is filthier than sin, a reminder of just how far you've fallen in single night. A different girl lays beneath him than the one Steve met at the dance. This one's known joy, known sadness, known anger and pleasure. 

How is she supposed to move on?

I'm sorry I love you.

Steve pushes inside you with a gentleness you wouldn't think is possible for a boy covered in blood. He lets your entrance kiss the crown of his cock and waits until you nod before breaching it.

There's a stretch, a big one. Your entire body goes tense, freezing in shock at the sheer size of him. Everytime you think it must be over, he must be done there's another inch, another circle over your clit as he tries to soothe the ache.

It's a fullness you've never known, unlike anything else you've felt. 

He pushes inside the deepest part of you, heat throbbing as he lets you adjust. 

"Stevie." You whimper, a single tear breaking over your lash line. "So much." 

Steve twitches inside you, cock stirring at the sound of his name on your tongue. You say it slower than everyone else, like he deserves the extra time. It makes his chest feel like it could burst. 

"I know." He soothes, "I know." He kisses your forehead, but gives a tentative thrust. A slow roll of his hips to see how your body receives it. 

You gasp again, eyes still squeezed shut. Your expression changes though, from pain to something sweeter. 

There's a hum, a soft little moan this time when he gives you another.

You say his name again and this time his entire body reacts, another twitch but also a firmer roll of his hips. 

"You like when I say your name." You whisper, nose pressing against his. 

Steve nods, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself back. 

"I like when you do anything."

You sigh, dreamy and pleasure drunk. This time it's you who teases, giving a testing clench around his length. 

Steve starts to unravel, his hips jerking in response to your test. 

"Stevie." You repeat both his name and the action, pleased when it marries both reactions. 

"Stevie." And he picks up the pace, thrusts changed from delicate to purposeful. Any fear of breaking you replaced with a fear of not having enough of you. 

"Stevie." A ragged moan falls past his lips, the sound landing directly on your lower back, igniting with tingles that send your hips canting to meet his thrusts. 

"Stevie!" When you fall over the edge again, tumbling into a free fall of pleasure and an overwhelming flood of love in your chest.

Steve falls right behind you, pulling out just as he begins to spill his spend. It makes a mess on the floor instead, a mess equal to your gasping and exhausted bodies.

You lay there with him in the aftermath, a blanket pulled half-hazardly off your bed and onto your bodies. It takes minutes for your breath to catch, for your frantic heart to calm down. 

When it's settled, when your head lays on his chest and his hand draws absentminded circles on your back, Steve finally speaks.

"Run away with me." 

The words hit you between the ribs. The prospect of leaving everything you've ever known, all the people you love, the home you've made in this strange place. You've done that before, you're not eager to do it again. 

But it's him, it's your Stevie. It's your boy with the blue eyes and big heart and even with the blood on his hands you still want them to be the hands that hold you. 

You shake your head, but your smile gives you away. The future that had been so suddenly ripped from you feels within reach again. Like maybe you can be happy, maybe you can forgive and grow. Maybe that little house is waiting for you to come and fill it.

"Okay." You agree. 

"Really?" Steve asks, eyebrows lifted high. "I didn't think you'd say yes." 

You hum, tracing a line down his chest with your finger. "Me either." You tease, "there's a word in a country, for when two people are meant to love." 

"Soulmates?" Steve offers, his own grin nearly unbearable.

"Yes." You nod, tucking your head into his chest. "You are my soulmate." You tell him. 

"You're mine." Steve breathes in return, "there will never be anyone but you." 

"Then it's settled." You tell him, moving so you're leaning on his chest. "We will go somewhere, and we will find a place for us." 

"A place for us." He agrees.

You get dressed in a quiet exchange of knowing looks and stolen kisses. You take from each others lips with familiarity, two bodies shared inside one soul. 

As Steve leaves, you give him one last kiss, one last whispered exchange. 

"I'm sorry." 

"I love you." 

You're not sure what tomorrow will bring. It has clothes shoved hastily into a napsack, a note addresses itself to your parents with an apology and a promise to write. 

Outside the streets start to come to life, New York flutters in through your open window. A neighbor starts to hang her washing, a bird sings its alarm. 

A boy runs home, blonde hair shining on the sun and a smile on his lips. 

Behind him another stares with bloodshot eyes, rage in his blood. 

Only a block away, you hear the shot when it rings out. 

Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it, seriously this fic was such a fun departure from my usual stuff and it was so nice to get back to Steve!!! Love you! Say it back!

Collab Masterlist

My Masterlist

There are eighty-six people in attendance at the rooftop restaurant, and you are only sure you know the names of maybe a third. The rest are here because of Andy—to witness or test alliances, play in the ongoing power games, weigh old debts or new risks. It’s the rehearsal dinner for one of Boston Mafia’s elite, so the guest list was meticulously refined for Andy’s part. Yours as well, but not with the same intent or stakes to be considered.

Andy doesn’t own Contessa—the restaurant atop The Newbury Hotel—but he does own the hotel, so it was seamless for your team to arrange this part of the wedding nuptials there. While you and Andy aren’t having a full society affair wedding with all the bells and whistles and three or four days of events and traditions, you do have few significant event pieces woven into the wedding weekend, this being one of them. No one had asked you what to include, but you were part of the overall conversations, and if there had been anything you truly wanted to refuse, you think you might have been able to say so. But your team knows you well enough to create elements you appreciate.

And, annoyingly, so does Andy.

The room is a riot of velvet and silk and black wool, the exact social armor you expect at a pre-wedding gathering of this sort. And yet you can tell this doesn’t scream mafia to the people who don’t know the predators they’re intermingling with. It’s all too reminiscent of how you dismissed the barely-hushed rumors of Andy Barber’s potential connections before he revealed he was one of the kings of organized crime in the city. And for the sake of your parents, your friends, your family, you’re relieved and hope they remain ignorant.

Tonight will be a monumental tell for the future and whether or not you can pass, or rather, who you have to be while passing. You scan the clusters of guests and realize you should have always been able to spot true mafia at ten paces, even when they’re disguised as board members and development officers and venture capitalists. There’s a particular gravity, neither ostentatious nor shy. Men in Brioni suits who know how to vanish into the background, women with hair so immaculate it could have been sculpted from silk.

Andy’s hand has been heavy at the small of your back most of the evening, and it’s somehow almost comforting, an anchor. Occasionally you feel his thumb graze the bare inch of spine between velvet and skin, a touch so subtle it’s only for you.

You look across the room and spot your parents lingering near a tray of passed champagne, your mother straightening the lapels of your father’s jacket with the hopeless affection of people who have been married long enough to know that preening is just another form of devotion. Your mother’s dress is a shade of navy so dark it reads black, and your father looks as if he was born inside a suit, so naturally does this one fit him.

Suddenly Thea is in front of you, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing tray and handing it over, flanked by your other two other bridesmaids. Thea gives you a once-over, and says, “You look like a goddess, a terrifyingly pretty one.” You mutter a thank you, and Thea rolls her eyes. “Please pretend you believe it, just a little bit. You’re a gorgeous bride-to-be whether you want to be or not.”

She’s the only one who knows about your hesitations, and even then you’ve only indulged a fraction.

She winks at Andy, linking her arm through yours. “I’m stealing your fiancé.”

He smirks. “At least you're conceding she’s mine.”

“You wish,” Thea replies, and with a toss of her hair of her shoulder, she leads you away.

The entire evening is a kind of lucid dream. Greetings, handshakes, hugs, careful double-cheek kisses dispensed by those in attendance as you circulate the room. In reality there was no rehearsal for tomorrow’s ceremony, tonight it is merely a small gathering staged for … well, from what you gather, for the sake of it. For those closest to you, it’s to keep up the illusion that this is a wedding you want. For Andy’s world, it seems to be a necessary ritual to confirm the ranks of his order—his trusted soldiers and a handful of his choice allies.

You don’t register that your uncle Rob isn’t there until suddenly he is, and by then, the room has already begun the low-pressure phase transition from cocktails to dinner. The movement is organic—someone dims the lights, the waiters begin the subtle herding, and you are being gently, almost imperceptibly, shepherded toward the long, low banquet table at the far end of the room.

You are halfway to your seat, with Thea close behind and Andy once again at your side, when the double glass doors at the restaurant’s entrance hiss open and Rob strides in, in a full three-piece suit and with the off-kilter swagger of someone who seems to have truly rushed directly from the airport. He gives you a nod and a warm smile, though even at this distance you note it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

You wave him over, ignoring the subtle tightening of Andy’s hand on your hip. Rob moves quickly across the room to you, and immediately drops a palm on your shoulder, squeezing—warmth, family, genuine affection. “Am I horrifically late or just fashionably disruptive?” he asks, and before you answer, he’s already deflecting. “You look tired but good. He treating you right?”

Your uncle’s gaze bores into yours for a half-second, searching for something reassuring. You nod and give him a smile. He softens, but only infinitesimally.

“Uncle Rob, this is—”

“Andy Barber,” he supplies, and his gaze flicks to your fiancé, settling there a half-beat too long, cataloging him. You don’t know what’s transpired between them, but you sense something clearly has as there’s a palpable undercurrent, like two strong magnets meeting, neither yielding.

Uncle Rob gives Andy a stiff nod, but Andy merely meets the moment with an open hand. You sense the silent exchange—neutral ground, white flag for tonight, or maybe just a kind of mutual agreement not to detonate inside a room full of witnesses.

It feels strange, but it’s only another line on the list of things that aren’t normal for this entire affair. The exchange goes unnoticed by nearly everyone else since all in attendance are finding their seats, and Uncle Rob falls in among them and takes his assigned seat by your parents.

The food is dazzling, course after course in small, perfect compositions. You try to taste things, to remember flavors, but you are more conscious of the shifting dynamics around you. You are aware of Andy’s hand ever present—on your knee, tracing patterns on your arm, once just lightly gripping your wrist as if keeping you tethered to the table, to himself. You wonder if it’s meant to keep you under control, but the gesture genuinely feels more like reassurance than possession tonight.

Flanked by Andy on your left and Thea on your right, both seem engaged in a subtle contest to out-maneuver each other in their attempts to manage you. Sometimes it’s by steering the conversation, sometimes by way of silently passing you the better part of a shared dish, with Thea by gambling how much she can make you laugh given the current company and whether the moment is suitable for choking on your wine. You’re not sure if you resent this orchestration or if it’s a balm. Maybe both.

At intervals, you glance over at Uncle Rob. The smile he flashes the room is the same as ever, but his eyes seem to rove the room, always taking stock, never fully at rest. He watches Andy most of all, the way a hunter watches a rival predator—admiring and calculating, never blinking outright. At one point, your eyes meet and Rob lifts his glass in a toast, not quite a salute, but you feel the force of the message: he’s here, for you, and he’s not leaving until he’s sure you’re safe. He’s always been more protective of you than anyone else in the family, but this seems more intense, even for him.

Halfway through the meal, Andy excuses himself to confer with two men in dark suits who materialize at the edge of the room, and you find yourself, for the first time all evening, feeling alone at the lack of him. Thea leans in. “You doing okay?” she whispers, but with a smile on her face so it reads as idle gossip.

“It feels like someone else’s wedding,” you mutter back. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

She gives you a look that is both knowing and impossibly gentle. “If you want to run, just say the word. I have five hundred dollars in cash and a getaway Prius, and that’s enough to get us at least to New Hampshire before anyone notices.”

You snort-laugh, a little louder than you meant to, and feel lightheaded for an instant. There is some relief in naming it, even as a joke, even though you don’t question she’s serious about the Prius and the cash.

There is a moment, a half-second, a single synaptic twitch, in which you consider the offer or vanishing into an Uber for Logan Airport. But the urge passes. You already jetted away once and came back.

And that coming back was your choice.

It doesn’t make sense to escape again now.

The rest of dinner passes in a spiral of rich food and laughter that from most people seems to be unforced. Andy returns, all courteous apologies, and places his warm palm on your back again as if plugging back into a vital organ. He leans in and presses a kiss to your temple, his voice pitched only for you. “I’ll need to disappear for a bit after dessert. Business.” He says it lightly, but the tension is a wire behind each syllable. You nod, and at the same moment he gives your leg a squeeze under the table, as if to say: Don’t worry, I’ll be back. For you. Always that emphasis.

When the meal ends, the room doesn’t thin so much as it condenses. People abandon their seats in favor of looser, more volatile clusterings near the bar or moving out onto the balcony. You sense the shape of the next hours—a kind of shadow afterparty, drinks and ritual toasts and the swerve toward dysfunction that all close social gatherings eventually take. Andy fields a last volley of congratulations, then gives you a look that says thirty seconds, and moves toward a private door near the kitchen, shadowed by his men. You watch him go, feeling again the negative space at your side.

It’s at this point that your uncle finds you again.

“You sure about this?” he murmurs, like you’re trading nuclear secrets instead of making polite familial small talk at your rehearsal dinner. “Not too late to call it off.”

You set your jaw, then, because the answer is yes. Or as close to yes as you’ll ever have. If there’s a question curled up in the base of your spine, it’s quieter now—not gone, but quelled by Rob’s questioning.

You find yourself saying, “I’ve made my decision.”

Uncle Rob’s expression is unreadable, then softens just enough to let a sliver of affection through. “Your folks are damn proud. Just so you know. You do know that, right?”

You give half a shrug and a nod.

“And you know that you can always come to me, for anything.”

“Even ashes and body disposal?” you ask, letting a smirk break through the anxiety. He huffs a laugh, but you can see he’s not disarmed by it, not really.

“Especially that,” he says. But then, gentler, yet more serious, he says, “You ever want out, you just say so. Don’t matter what anyone else wants, least of all him. You come to me. You hear?”

You nod, only then realizing, “You know who he is.”

He nods and knocks his glass lightly against yours. “I’m only a phone call away. Fuck the protocols.”

You don’t know exactly what his ties to Andy’s underworld are, or how long he and Andy may have known each other, but some unexplained parts of Uncle Rob’s past make a whole lot more sense if he’s involved with the mafia. You imagine the more you trace back, the more certain absences and behaviors could ultimately be explained.

You don’t allow yourself to ask the next rush questions assembling in your mind. Instead, you clink glasses with Rob again, and when Thea reappears at your side, he makes an excuse and fades back into the crowd. You watch him go, feeling heavier and lighter at once.

“You want air?” Thea asks, as if the answer could ever be no.

Out on the balcony, you stand at the stone parapet for a while, each of your with a glass in hand, the city shining beneath you. Over the railing, half the Back Bay looks like a jewelry case, all neat squares and gold filigree light.

Thea tips her chin out into the dark. “So what’s it like standing up here, knowing you’re about to be a married woman?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a nervous tickle in your chest. “About the same as it is being an unmarried one, only with more witnesses.”

You expect her to laugh, but instead she fixes you with a sly, assessing stare. “He scares me a little, you know,” she says, so matter-of-fact it undercuts any drama. “Not for anything he’s said or done. More in the way those security guys all treat him like he’s royalty. Which, I guess, he basically is, right? Mafia royalty?”

You hesitate, glass at your lips. Did you ever say it to her? You don’t think you did, because you went to Stockholm on the heels of signing the pre-nup which included the NDA elements… You race back through every conversation, every running-on-fumes phone call, and there’s nothing you can recall that would have spelled it out. But your silence lingers half a second too long.

Thea’s face splits in a grin that’s bright and wolfish at the edges. “I KNEW it,” she crows, as if you’ve just confirmed a conspiracy theory about the moon landing. “Oh my god. I knew it. I KNEW IT! Don’t even try to deny it.”

You gawk. “What are—how did—”

You try to look innocent, but Thea is already cackling, delighted with herself, her elbows resting on the parapet like a triumphant detective. “Please,” she says, waving her hand at the party inside, “He’s waaaaaaaaay too rich, I’ve read way too many mafia romance novels, and you had a security detail when you visited me in Stockholm using his private jet. I was 99% sure, and your hesitation there hesitation gave me the last percent.”

You consider protesting, but technically you’ve broken nothing in the contract, and the fact that your best friend knows—that anyone knows—feels like an instant balm.

You clamp a hand on Thea’s wrist. “Promise me you won’t say a word. Seriously. Not to a soul. I mean it. Not a joke, not even a whisper or a meme reference.” There’s an urgency in your voice, and Thea, reading the shift instantly, sobers.

The brightness in her eyes dims by an iota, the seriousness of your tone cutting through the fizz of her delight. She nods, solemnly, and you know that as cavalier as she can sometimes be, she doesn’t question the gravity of your insistence. “I won’t,” she vows, putting her hand over yours.

In the shared silence, you feel her searching your face for something she doesn’t want to say. You let the air prickle between you, each steadying the other just by being present, until Thea finally asks, “Does he make you happy?”

You don’t answer, not at first. You stare into the bright helix of city lights and let the question slide down your spine and settle into your gut. You want to say yes, or even no, anything definitive, but instead you just tell her, “He makes me feel alive,” and hope she hears the ambiguity for what it is.

She nods, lips pressed together. “I’m still not sure why you’re doing this, but I will admit that even though I still have questions, one of those questions is not how much that man cares for you.”

Thea fixes you with a look so curious and gentle it makes you want to squirm out of your skin. “It doesn’t look like any love story I’d picture for you,” she says. “It’s not the type people write poems about or that you see on Pinterest boards. I don’t even know that it’s love, but it’s definitely fierce, and runs deep.”

“Thea,” your voice is a little choked.

“He looks at you like you’re the last thing on earth he thinks is worth burning for.” She shrugs and takes another sip of her champagne. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s true.”

You’re grateful, even if you can’t manage the words to say so outright. Thea is one of the few souls you trust without hesitation in this world. You study her face in the city-dark, finding closeness there that reminds you, with a pang, of who you were before all this.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you say. You mean it harder than it sounds.

Thea bumps shoulders with you. “I’d literally stand in front of a bullet for you.” She glances toward a distant rooftop bar, probably scouting for snipers. “Metaphorically, but also probably literally.”

You stay there together a little longer, the gentle thrum of summer and the humid glow from the party behind you, breathing easier for the reminder that not all loves are fairy tales, that some are knife-edges, and open secrets, and best friendships.

Shep slides out the glass door with the hush of someone practiced in not disturbing an armed perimeter. He doesn’t interrupt, just drifts into the range of your awareness and waits. When you finally realize on a conscious level that he’s there, turning your head and giving him a small, tight-lipped smile, he says, “Time to make our exit, if you’re ready.”

There’s a quiet emphasis on the word “our,” and you realize how long you must’ve been out here.

“Where’s Andy?” You look over his shoulder, expecting to see him somewhere in the glow and tangle of the party, looming, waiting for you expectantly, but he’s not there. You’re surprised at how keenly you feel his absence. Then you ask Shep, “He’s not coming back tonight, is he?”

Shep shakes his head, a single, precise movement. “He wanted me to see you home. Mark’s already downstairs.” He hesitates, then softens with a half-smile, reading some of your reluctance to leave. “You can have ten more minutes if you want them.”

You take the ten.

It’s enough time for Thea to finish her glass and for you to make the rounds of the party, saying goodnight to your circles of friends and family who were invited to be part of tonight.

Your mother is waiting for you near the coat check, her dark eyes shining, twin tears perilously close to the edge. She pulls you in for a fierce, almost painful hug, her perfume sealing around you like a memory from childhood. “You’re my treasure,” she says into your ear so hard you forget to breathe for a second. She pulls away, fixing your hair with a trembling hand. “Just tell me he’s as good as he looks. That’s all I ask.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and you bob your head, not trusting yourself to say anything more.

Outside, the night air is a slab of heat. Shep guides you to the waiting Range Rover with a balanced mix of deference and I’m still your bodyguard. Mark already has the curbside door open, and you buckle yourself in, feeling the exhaustion of the night releasing through your limbs. You lean your head back against the headrest and close your eyes. As complicated as your feelings are around Andy, his absence gnaws at you in a way you didn’t expect. Especially tonight.

When you walk into the mansion, the silence is as sharp as a slap. You expected it, or something like it, and yet standing in the cavernous hush of the marble entry, clutching your tiny evening bag, you’re overtaken by an urge to slam the door hard enough to wake the dead. You don’t, though. You click it shut, toe off your heels and hook them on your fingers, and walk barefoot through the dark to your rooms upstairs.

Andy’s absence is complete and total—no jacket left half-flung on the banister, no ghost of movement or glass of half-drunk bourbon left somewhere. You resist the urge to immediately check your phone, because you want to feel the ache fully, let it sharpen until it outcompetes the dull, unanswerable questions that have circled every day since you said yes, but especially tonight.

You go to the bathroom and take a long, methodical shower. You take your time as you finish getting ready for bed, drifting through the mechanical rituals of skincare and pajamas and teeth-brushing, but you take no comfort in the delicate, orchid-scented candle you light, or the feel of the silk on your skin.

You check your phone, eventually. There’s a text from him, timestamped an hour ago.

ANDY: I’ll be late, don’t wait up.

You want to scream. You want to hurl the phone at the wall or at least send an angry string of messages to force some reaction from him, but you don’t. You sit at the end of the bed with your phone in your palm, glaring at the glow as if it can blink first. Don’t wait up, as if this is remotely normal. You know he’s got business, but he’s never missed an evening with you, never let you go to sleep without him there, touching you, fucking you, just being with you. And now he’s gone the night before your wedding?

You thumb your phone off, toss it face-down onto the bed, and stand for a moment in the hush. You are lit by moonlight coming by moonlight coming in a narrow spill through the vast window, alone with the hum and pop of baseboard heat, a ghost in your own life. You want to be sated by this, to have the sudden expanse and absence feel like relief, but instead it gathers pressure inside your chest. Under the thin silk of your robe, your skin feels hypersensitive, almost electrical, and the wet ends of your hair drip cold water down your spine.

You don’t want to admit how badly you want him here—how quickly your anger at his text has curdled into a more woeful, sticky missing. It chafes to need him.

You try to zone out streaming something on TV, but nothing cuts through to capture enough of your attention in the absence. You’re so used to the energy of Andy’s presence—the kinetic hum of him near you, whether he’s angry or amused or simply radiating power from the next room—that the void he leaves behind is almost audible.

Eventually you are able to at least focus on reading, legs tucked up under you on the settee.

You must have fallen asleep, because the next sensation is not the passage of time but abrupt displacement.

You’re in mid-dream when you sense the shift, the weightless suck of gravity before the realization: someone is lifting you. You twist, half-awake, to find Andy’s arms locked under your knees and back, carrying you with the unthinking efficiency of someone who has probably hauled bodies at some point. You mutter something into his shirt, a syllable heavy with sleep and protest, and he just keeps moving, your head lolling against his chest, too groggy to fight him off at first.

Then you thrash, not gently. You elbow at his chest, catch his ribs with a knee, and hiss, “Put me down.” You mean it. You’re not just startled—you’re still feeling that lingering anger—and Andy, to his credit, sets you down with more care than you expected. You sway and nearly lose your balance, but he catches your wrist, keeping you upright.

“Easy,” he murmurs, voice absurdly gentle, and that somehow pricks worse for all its reasonableness.

You rip your hand away. “Don’t do that. Don’t just—pick me up.”

He studies you, searching your face with an unreadable patience. “You were sleeping,” he says.

You steady yourself and glare up at him, refusing to let your fatigue soften the edge of your voice. “You missed the whole rest of the night, Andy. Where were you?”

Although his expression remains the same, the tension around his eyes tightens. “You know I’m not going to tell you that.”

You scoff. “How do I know that?”

Maybe it’s the sleep, maybe it’s the hunger you’ve been stifling, but it lands with a new kind of sharpness, how Andy answers a question only by hollowing out the possibility you’ll ever ask again. But you refuse to fold into that silence tonight.

“I want you to tell me,” you say.

Andy closes the gap between you with a slow step, his gaze not leaving your face. “Tomorrow’s our wedding,” he says, low and thick in his throat, a softness that isn’t practice so much as exhaustion. His hand goes to your shoulder, thumb pressing the knot between bone and tendon, and you flinch at the intimacy of it, at how easily he can make you want to forgive him. You step back, and he lets you, his arms falling to his sides in a slow, theatrical surrender.

“Don’t do that,” you say again, voice thin this time. You hate the tremor more than you hated his absence.

He tilts his head, studying you in the low light. “You’re angry.”

He smiles, weary but pleased. “You’re angry because you missed me.” He says it not as an accusation, but a simple, delighted observation, like he’s just solved a riddle in your presence. “You care.”

You make a sound, a cross between a snort and a huff, and turn your head before he can get a better look at your face. “I’m angry because you’ve insisted on all of this—me, the wedding, pulling me into your life—and then you desert me the night before we’re supposed to get married? Leave me during the rehearsal dinner? And all I get is a ‘don’t wait up’ text?”

You hate that your voice rises, hate the heat behind your eyes. Andy comes closer, and you want to slap him and also want him to hold you. You flex your jaw, force your gaze to stay away.

He listens. He lets you say it all, and when it’s out of your mouth, tumbling and ugly, he says, “I know. But there are things I can’t and won’t tell you. I can’t ever expose you to certain things. I won’t allow them near you.” His voice is all iron and velvet. “I’m protecting you, even if it doesn’t look or feel like it.”

He lets the pause hang, then takes a slight step closer—close enough that you nearly shiver at the radius of his heat.

There are things I won’t shield you from, either. You told me to never lie, so I won’t pretend I’m made another way. But I will always come back.” He says it softly, neither a threat nor a comfort.

After a lengthy moment of silence, you tell him, “I don’t want another night like this. I don’t want to ever be stranded in the dark.”

He considers it. Not with a smirk or a challenge, but real intent, a resolution hardening. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I’m not good enough,” he says, and it is the flattest, most relentless admission. “But I am what you’re marrying.”

You should laugh. You almost do, at the incredulity, the audacity, the unfairness of his answer, of this entire situation, but then he reaches out, just a single knuckle under your chin, and you’re suddenly taking in a shaky breath.

You hold his eyes for a full count, your body picking up the stutter of your pulse, anger and want running convergent through your system. You want to turn away, to break the connection, but you can’t.

“Then show me. Make it better,” you say, and your voice is a command, not a plea.

You let him guide your face up. His thumb travels a gentle path down your jaw. He leans in, pressing his words, and his mouth, against your skin. “You want more than this? I will never give you less.” The last of it is a murmur, not a vow, but it lives in the hollow between you, nudging the edge of promise.

He kisses you behind the ear, slow and intentional, and your whole body contracts around the point of contact. You hate how even this controlled display of contrition draws you in. Were you less tired, were it not the night before your wedding, you may have pushed him away. But he knows exactly how to pull on the string that unravels you, and you can’t leave it at that, so you cup his face and press your mouth against his, not sweet or apologetic but with a frustrated need to bite, to mark. He lets you, opens willingly, tongue flicking yours, and the pressure he uses to guide you toward the bed is insistent. You pull him with you, backwards, the two of you bumping knees, bumping hips, his hands already finding the tie at your robe and making short work of it.

He pulls it from your shoulders, lets it float to the carpet with exaggerated gentleness that’s belied by the urgency of his mouth and hands. You take brief satisfaction in yanking at his shirt buttons, two of them tumbling somewhere onto the bedding, but Andy just shrugs out of the rest and lets it fall to the floor.

He is, as you’ve come to expect, taller and heavier than you in the moments that matter. He pins you beneath him, stretching your arms above your head, taking his time as if you both aren’t aching with a violent need. He kisses you with a patience that does not match the tension in his body, hands working down your ribs, touching and teasing the places he’s learned draw your responses.

You let him press you down, let him grind against you, clothed below the waist but with a bare chest and a punishing grip as he presses one of your thighs up and open for him. Your silk nightgown is tangled above your hips, ruined for decency, and the sheets under you bunch as you wrap your leg around him.

You are not even sure when you stop resisting—the anger, the loneliness—maybe when he murmurs, “I’m here,” into the shell of your ear, or maybe it’s before that, at the familiar drag of his teeth across your shoulder. You want to snarl at him, but you can only gasp and tear one of your hands away so you can grab for his waistband, the zipper, too impatient for finesse.

The button resists for half a second before you hear the pop. Andy’s hips cant, the gesture half involuntary. He is, unlike you, a master at not showing his hunger—unless he wants you to see it, and tonight he must, because the restraint rubs your skin raw in a way that’s almost a dare. You dig your heel into the mattress, lift your pelvis to grind into the urgency that’s thickening between your bodies. He lets you, but barely; his hand catches your thigh, squeezes, and you wonder if there will be marks tomorrow. You hope so.

He pulls back, and you make a desperate, wordless noise—appalled at the empty space, the abrupt loss of him. Andy grins, a glint of teeth in the dark, and then he’s dropping to his knees at the edge of the bed, eyes black and bottomless. “Patience,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “I want you naked for me. Completely.”

You’re tempted to resist him, to force him to earn the reveal, but you want the heat and the gaze and—more than anything—the feeling of him unraveling for you. So you tug the nightgown up and off, shimmying as best you can.

Andy reaches out to assist, dragging your panties off in a single, practiced movement, leaving you splayed open and vulnerable in the spill of moonlight, the air cold and sharp against your skin.

He stands, shucking his pants and boxers with ease. His cock is already hard, and he takes himself in hand, stroking slow, almost lazy, but you can see the tension in his jaw, the way his forearm tightens, every line of his body at the edge of restraint. He stands there for a moment, head tipped, just watching you with that focus, just this side of feral. It should alarm you. It should, maybe, make you recoil, the ferocity in him, so unlike the men you’ve known before. It’s a look that should have scared you from the beginning—but no one has wanted you the way he wants you, and you’ve grown addicted to how Andy’s hunger works.

You want to wipe that look of composure from his face, and you know exactly how to do it. You arch your back, knees falling apart, and bring your fingers to your cunt—slow, deliberate. Andy’s mouth parts the barest inch, but he doesn’t move to stop you. You circle your clit with two fingers, the slide easy and slick, and moan just loud enough that you know he’ll hear it for days. He watches, lips parted, and the tension in his neck sings.

“Is this what you want?” you ask.

You don’t wait for an answer. You drag a slick, purposeful circle with your fingertip, then roll your hips up again, forcing his attention onto the precise spot you want it. Your other hand moves to your breast, pinching a nipple until the ache flashes through your belly. You moan again, longer, keeping your eyes pinned to his as though you can draw out his release through sheer insistence.

Andy comes closer, his hand sliding up your calf, kneading the inside of your knee with enough pressure to make you gasp and lose the rhythm of your own touch. He takes your wrist in his, slows your movements, and brings your fingers to his mouth. He licks them, savoring your taste, then sucks the tips into the heat of him, eyes trained on yours the whole time. “You want to make me lose control?” he murmurs. “You’re close, sweetheart.”

You shudder, half from his voice and half from the pleasure needling up your legs. “Then what are you waiting for?”

“Flip over,” he says, and you obey. Not because you care to perform for him, but because this is the only language you speak fluently with each other.

You turn, face pillowed in moonlight, the curve of your ass arched and on display. The sheets are cool under your cheek. Andy’s hands find your hips, not rough but absolute, his palms broad and braced. He kneads you for a long moment, a brief, silent exhibition of ownership, before running his thumb down the seam of you, spreading you open with the same clinical certainty he uses to carve out secrets.

He fucks you in one smooth, relentless motion, every inch filling you until your body feels engineered for the shape of him. You groan from the fullness, and he groans being sheathed inside your cunt. He leans forward, curling over you, and presses a kiss into your neck.

He holds you there, pressed hard against the mattress, your knees bracing apart as his cock drives into you with a steadiness that’s almost brutal but never crosses over into pain. You have only ever known men in this position to get greedy, to lose their pacing almost immediately, but Andy’s rhythm is a ruthless metronome, each thrust a little deeper, a little harder, calibrated to keep you right at the edge.

His weight is a gravity you loathe and crave; you let him press you into the bed and hold you there. You’re still angry, still trembling, but everything is blurred with your arousal, your hunger, the lines so tangled you can barely see the difference.

You try to deny him your pleasure out of spite, but it’s a losing proposition—Andy finds the angle he wants, rocks into you so that you choke on a half-sob, and holds there until you scratch at the sheets, half-crazed. The sound you make is ugly and desperate, and the only thing worse is how much you want him to hear it, to be stoked by it, to see what he does to you. He seems to sense this, his voice a gravel scrape against your shoulder blade. “Take it, sweetheart. Let me hear how much you want it.”

His thumb finds your clit, presses in tight, and for a few strokes you somehow resist, but then your hips buck and your vision splotches out, and you do let him hear how much you want him. It’s exquisite. He continues to fuck into you, working your clit, every nerve burning, every muscle tightening in a white, brutal wave. He fucks you through it, groaning, not letting up until a second, sharper quake rips through your body. Then and only then does Andy let himself go—slamming into you, his hand a vise around your hip as he spends himself, jaw pressed to your spine. The shudder of him fully inside you is shocking, almost convulsive, and he bucks in you until the last aftershocks fade and the only sound in the room is two desperate people fighting for air.

He doesn’t pull out right away. He just stays there, draped over your body, letting you catch your breath, his weight an absolute. When he does finally move, he’s slow and careful, laying beside you and rolling you into his arms, not a word spoken. You’re still too fogged by want and exhaustion to move, content to let him hold you close, the press of his cheek against your hair. Neither of you speak for a very long time.

But there are thoughts you still need him to hear.

You find your voice in the hush, not loud or demanding but plain, with the rough edge of sleep and aftershock. “I don’t want more nights like this,” you say, and you can feel the way Andy’s chest stills under your hand. “I didn’t want to be coerced into your bed, I didn’t want to be forced into an engagement, I didn’t want to get married like this. You exploited the attraction, you’ve made me weak for you, but please,” your voice breaks, “please don’t make me the wife who has to wait up alone for you.”

Andy doesn’t speak, not at first, and the silence unsettles you, but you make yourself hold it—make yourself show that it matters. You refuse to shrink or swallow the need. If he’s going to be the kind of man who pulls you into his orbit, he’s damn well going to know he can’t just leave you in the dark. Not without a fight. He’s made slow but small shifts in some areas you’ve pressed with him. Maybe you can have resonance here, too.

He smooths a hand from your shoulder, down your back, each pass gentler than the last. He’s thinking, you know. Not just brushing off what you said, but actually holding it up to the light, inspecting the seams. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and soft, but firm.

“I meant it when I said I’d do my best,” he says. “I don’t want you to be her—the wife who waits at the window. But I also can’t give up what I am.” His hand lingers at your waist, a heavy presence.

You sigh, too thoroughly boneless to summon the right words, so you simply roll over, and it’s too natural how your body melds against him as he curls his arm around you and pulls your back flush against his chest. All you can do now is hope your sentiments will start to seep into him through osmosis.

You let the silence ride a little longer, curled together as if this is some and listen to the slowing cadence of his breath, to the metallic taste of words you didn’t say, and you wonder if this is what love might be—the willingness to be furious and still stay.

And you wonder if this is love—not because it’s gentle or clean or what you imagined, but because it has weight, because it has teeth, because it sits in your chest like a stone you keep reaching for. Because you are angry and ruined and held, and somehow all three of those things are the same thing. Because no one has seen you the way he does. Because no one has made you feel so wanted, even if it’s infused with possession. But even through the moments you know there are things he isn’t telling you, you know he’s never lied to you. Even when he says things you don’t want to hear, he speaks to you openly. Even when his actions are incendiary and disagreeable, they’re still somehow for you now.

He says your name. It’s a quiet thing, a soft push through the dark, but it lands with a rattle in your chest.

“I want to tell you something,” Andy says. “Not because you asked, but because if you’re going to be my wife, you will need to know.”

You swallow, knowing instinctively that to interrupt is to lose the tiny, trembling momentum inside him. He never initiates these confessions. He’s all action, never exposition. You hold your body still, afraid any breath will snap the thread.

“They brought me in tonight to consult on a sit-down. Not a war, but something close. One of the families in Jersey—Lupo’s people—made a move on Levinson’s properties—of one of our allies—along the North River. Not a huge play, but enough to draw blood. No one got shot. But next time, someone will.” Andy’s hand flexes at your hip, tightening like a vise. “If that happens, everything changes. This life, the way we can have it, ends. The only thing that keeps us—keeps you—safe, is the order.” He breathes out, a single tight exhale. “If the peace goes, I can’t guarantee anything. Not for you, not for me. And that’s not something I’m willing to risk.”

You lie there, staring at the ceiling, sheets cooling under your legs, and you realize what he’s giving you is not reassurance, but the truth of his world, knife-sharp and blood-warm. It should terrify you. It does, to a degree, but you’ve had a security detail, you know there are six loaded guns hidden here in the master suite. There is nothing normal about any of this, but the fact of Andy’s world is that it remains obsessively ordered only so long as no one has reason to start a war.

“When I have to go, I have to go, and I’ll never apologize for that,” he adds when you don’t say anything more.

Thea joked about reading mafia romance novels, but this is not a genre, this is your life now. When you let the reality land, it isn’t just gravity, but something like inheritance: no matter what you wanted or didn’t, you’re marrying into all of this.

And yet, as you lie there, taken apart and held tightly yet again, you find a calm in yourself you didn’t realize you could access. Maybe it’s the spill of adrenaline draining away, or the simple fact that Andy—your future husband, in a matter of hours—has finally handed you the truest thing he’s ever said. Everything is always at risk.

But if the world really is this dangerous, you’ve no doubt you’re held by the most powerful man you’ve ever met, and since he stopped at nothing to secure you, he will stop at nothing to keep you secure.

Uncle Rob! Thea! Andy! A Levinson name drop?!

There are so many things here that I've been plotting for ages, and so I think it's half the reason it took me so long to finish this chapter. Back in May I had written what I thought was about 3k to make up the first half of the chapter, but something about it just wasn't working, so I pulled it apart, kept a few of the scraps, and went back to the drawin board. I'm pleased where it finally ended up, and even though I know parts of this story are frustrating (coughSOMEOFANDY'SBEHAVIORcough), I do hope you all like the chapter.

And I know this is at the verrrrrry tail end of Monday for the first of what I'm hoping will be I'm Your Man Monday, but we made it! So we'll see if I can make this happen and get you another update next week!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

His left hand clamps your hip, steadying, insistent. He knows your rhythm because he made it, and this knowledge is an undeniable truth between you. The water’s scald has tuned your skin to a thousand nerve endings, each one ablaze.

Andy’s breath is in your ear, lips sucking on your lobe. You brace yourself on the tile, forehead pressed to grout. His hands are all over you, strong and sure, squeezing the meat of your hips, thumb grinding a bruise into your lower back as if he’s signing his name. Your knees are already shaking but you don’t ask him to stop. When he comes, he bites your shoulder, hard, and it triggers the avalanche of your release.

After, you both lean against the wall and let the water scald you into silence. Andy kisses a line from your jaw to your ear, nuzzling like a true lover, and you wonder if he’s grateful or just hungry. “Breakfast?” he asks, not quite looking at you.

You don’t answer. You run your hands over your scalp, tilting your head back until the water rakes your face clean. Andy reaches to turns off the tap, but you grab his wrist. It surprises him as much as it surprises you.

“Wait,” you say, and he does. He looks intrigued, almost wary. The steam rises, heat beading on the glass, the air between you thickening. You usher him back into your personal space, plant a kiss on his jaw, then press your palm flat on his chest.

“Kneel,” you say, and you’re surprised when he does. Andy’s never been the type for submission, relentless in his hold on power, control, but he seems willing to indulge your desire. You see the calculation cross his face—no embarrassment, no machismo, more the animal impulse to please his mate. He lets the water pelt his shoulders, then angles his face up to yours, eyebrow cocked. Fine, his look says, finally.

You shift your stance, hips canting forward, and Andy doesn’t waste a moment. He grips your thigh, raises it over his shoulder, and pins you neatly against the cold tile with his face perfectly aligned to your cunt. His beard scrapes your skin, his lips are determined, his tongue plunders your folds immediately.

Andy’s not delicate. He knows what you like, which is everything. He pulls you forward, deeper onto his mouth, and you feel the tremor in his neck as he devours you—for your pleasure as much as to take something, a raw fuel, into himself. With each flick of tongue, each graze of teeth on your sensitive flesh, you feel the old wall between you thinning. Your hands wind through his hair and pull him closer, hard enough that he grunts.

You finish faster than you want, wanting to draw it out, to show Andy that you can control this, but your body betrays you. He reads your stuttered exhale, the slackening of muscle, and withdraws only when you flinch. A few beats, then Andy is back on his feet, bracing for your collapse with that irritating gentleness you never asked for but unwillingly want.

You step out first, leaving a trail of wet footprints as you towel off. Andy has the presence to find something fascinating about the faucet lingering in the showeer a beat after your exit. He dries himself briskly, practical as ever, while you don’t watch him in the morning light: the inked lines across his shoulder blade, the faded round scar at his hip, the amused brightness in his eyes when he catches you staring.

“Breakfast?” he says again, voice low, and you nod.

Your couplings always have this aftertaste. You want to ask—how long, and why, and whether any of this really counts for anything—but instead you pad to the palatial closet and insert yourself into the rest of your morning routine, getting dressed and ready before heading downstairs for the morning meal.

Over your time together, you’ve found that Andy is neither quiet nor chatty, but he seems to be holding back from conversing in a way you don’t notice the strangeness of until you realize he’s said almost nothing as you’re close to clearing your plates.

You notice, as you set your fork down, that Andy is watching you with an expectant patience, a kind of study you haven’t seen since the first weeks, when everything was new.

You reach for your tea, catch his eyes, and just say it. “What’s going on?”

“I set up a lunch for you today,” he says almost brightly, as if he’s offering up a treat. He waits for your reaction, his face unreadable except for the slight tightening around his eyes.

“With who?” you ask, not hiding the skepticism.

Andy drums his fingers on the edge of the table. He doesn’t say, just inclines his head, and pats at his mouth with a linen napkin. “One of my business associates. They’re expecting you at Casarecce at noon.”

“And if I say no?”

Andy shrugs, slow and deliberate. “You won’t.”

Your phone buzzes on the table, and for some reason you’re certain it’s Andy, even though he’s in the room. But it’s just a calendar alert: Casarecce, 12:00. You suspect he added the event himself, sometime while you showered. His reach is longer than any arms should be.

You look at him, and he holds your gaze for as long as you’ll let him.

“It’s just lunch. I knew you’d be interested, that’s all.”

You bristle at the condescension, the easy way he slips into arranging your day without asking, but you say nothing. There is the echo of his teeth in your shoulder, the memory of his lips on your cunt, and you suspect that this is compensation—either for the favor you’re about to perform for him, or for the fact that he doesn’t plan to tell you the full truth.

It is always this way with Andy. You want to continue to resent him for it, but mostly you resent yourself for the interest you are starting to get from being folded into his schemes.

You ignore Andy’s parting smile and the way he runs his hand over the back of your neck as he leaves, a blend of benediction and threat.

You work through the morning, touching base with Effy, Lila, and Dev on various aspects of the upcoming events, including your wedding. It’s a pleasant enough morning, and you know much of that is due to the study devoted solely to you. You love the furnishings, the way the light comes in, the view out onto the grounds of this palatial house, the plants you’ve brought in. If you hated it, settling into this life would be more difficult.

When it’s almost eleven, you pull yourself back upstairs and get dressed with a kind of reverse spite, choosing the exact outfit you know Andy will think is too severe, almost funereal. You want to look like the kind of person who ruins appetites at sunny lunches. In the mirror you examine the hard angles of your blouse and the monochrome suit, annoyingly tailored to fit your curves well.

Downstairs, Mark and Shep are waiting for you, and the pleasantries you exchange are more and more natural each week, today no exception, even if you’re only grudgingly acquiescing to this meeting. Your displeasure is with Andy, not them. And so you slip into the back seat of the black Range Rover, Mark takes the wheel, and Shep, as always, rides shotgun, head turned just enough that you can see his profile in the rearview mirror.

Casarecce is in Boston’s North End, but any time you go into town, the route is never the same. Mark prefers the novelty of switching up the route, but Shep supports it for the safety that not falling into predictable routine affords. You overheard them strategize and agree to it in the early days that they were assigned as your security detail.

You expect Casarecce to be humming, but when you walk in—Mark and Shep peeling off to stand vigilant at the door—the only movement is a man you assume is very likely the owner. He greets you by name though you’ve never graced his establishment before, effusive, with a congenial warmth. You smile stiffly and scan the room. Apart from a woman seated alone at a central table, the restaurant’s tables are dressed but devoid of patrons. You recognize that it’s not a slow day. It’s closed. For you.

The woman stands before you’ve even registered her face, brushing an invisible crumb from her lapel. She’s older than you, but not by much, close to the age you assume Andy to be. Black hair hangs at her shoulders, framing a face of alabaster skin and striking, dark features. Her suit is a near-match for yours, an almost comical echo of your dressing-room defiance, except hers is a shade darker, softer at the shoulders. She waits for you to cross to her, a half-smile rising—genuine, you think, but circumspect. Her presence is a subtle performance, posture measured, gaze neither challenging nor yielding. You brace yourself for a chess match of a woman.

She motions for you to sit. The table is set for two, wide enough to keep both of you honest. She doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

“I’m here at Andrew’s request,” she says, righting her napkin before draping it over her lap. “He thought it would be… useful for us to meet.”

Andrew. You digest this. She has a voice that would be cold if not for the edge of humor lurking under the phrasing. You notice the way her fingers drum the stem of her water glass, a metronome to something unspoken.

You wait, and she lets the silence settle between you both, as if wondering how long you’ll let it stretch.

“I’m Laurie,” she says at last, her hands folding with deliberate grace. “I’ll assume Andrew has not told you anything useful about me.” She watches your face closely, reading for the shape of any reaction.

“That’s a safe assumption,” you reply, and this, apparently, is the correct answer. Laurie’s smile flicks on, faint but there.

“Then, for the record, I’m not an adversary,” she says. “But Andrew and I do have…crossed interests, sometimes. One longterm joint venture. My advice is ignored as often as it’s considered, but that’s one of the many reasons he and I didn’t remain married.”

You blink and reset your face to absolute neutrality. You keep your posture neutral, but something else must betray you because Laurie gives you a quick, not unkind smile and lifts her glass or wine in a kind of half-toast to your shock.

“That’s right,” Laurie says lightly. “Andrew and I were married. I see you didn’t know.”

“He told me he’d been married before, but he didn’t tell me anything else about you, or anything about who I was coming to meet today.” You hold your gaze steady. “He’s not big on sharing history.”

Her head cocks, amused. “Or much else, unless there’s leverage in it.” She sips her wine, then sets it down with a clink. “I’m not here to reminisce or warn you off, by the way. That’s a tired routine, and you strike me as in no danger of being swept away by his bullshit.”

That takes the edge off, slightly. The initial surprise fades into a sharper curiosity: if this isn’t a soap opera, what is it? You decide to keep your own cards close, since she has not made clear yet what the purpose of this meeting is.

Laurie orders for both of you, as if the menu is just for decoration, rattling off requests to the hovering owner—no, Carlo, not the truffle oil, please don’t embarrass yourself; yes, the fried artichokes, but only if they’re not the jarred ones—before waving him away. The performance feels calculated, but not for your benefit, more that she expects the world to tailor itself to her comfort, and is practiced at making it so.

You feel yourself relaxing, a little. The openness in her face isn’t feigned, exactly, but it’s not quite unguarded. You read an entire decade’s worth of high-stakes negotiation in the set of her jaw.

The food starts to arrive mere moments later under careful choreography—first warm focaccia, then jewel-like appetizers, and as you chew, Laurie watches you with professional assessment. As each course appears, Laurie commandingly charts the course of conversation, asking about you, sharing slivered, very packaged pieces of herself in turn. If this were any other new acquaintance, a casual meeting of a new friend, you wouldn’t be scrutinizing or suspicious, but because this is not only a meeting orchestrated by Andy, but a meeting with his ex-wife, you’re studying every second, evaluating. You recognize that while she’s encouraging you to speak, giving back anecdotes in exchange, nothing she’s said is private or vulnerable. No liabilities.

You’re not giving her deep cuts of yourself, either.

You recognize the skills designed to build rapport, to cultivate a working relationship, because you’d done it a hundred times with clients and business connections of your own—especially brides-to-be when you took on weddings. You needed to know enough about them to plan their dream day, and they needed to feel enough of a bond to trust you with executing said dreams and helping them navigate decisions—decisions about the event, but inevitably many of them came to you seeking advice outside what they needed professionally. Those relationships weren’t fake or manufactured, but they were facilitated and authentic even if they didn’t go deep or last beyond what was necessary. Some did, most didn’t.

You waited until dessert is brought out to finally ask, “So, what is it you actually want from me?”

Laurie lets her spoon hover with a scoop of gelato from her affogato, the ghost of a smile in her eyes but not in her mouth. For a second, you think she’ll deflect or dismiss your sharpness, but instead she tilts her head and says. “Nothing.”

“Then why are we meeting?”

Laurie’s spoon clinks softly against the cup. “Because you’re smart and capable and in a situation with Andrew Barber that only a few people can really appreciate. Because you’re being drawn into something that will get messy, if it isn’t already. Because Andrew trusts power more than people, and I’m the only one who knows what it’s like to be married to him.”

You watch her, trying to gauge if this is a recruitment pitch, a warning, or an overture for some future alliance. She’s poised, careful. The neutral colors of her suit are more like camouflage than drabness, and her hands, even when at ease, look ready to break glass and improvise a weapon.

“You’re worried about him?” The question surprises you, because you’re not sure you even mean it. You can’t decide if you’re fishing for reassurance or for dirt.

Laurie laughs. “No. He can take care of himself. But I’m always interested in who else he is betting on. And I’m interested, professionally.”

You frown. “Professionally?”

“While we were together, we set up a non-profit to fund after-school programs in the neighborhood we both grew up in.”

You blink, shocked.

This garners the first true grin from her. “Yes, I know. But any good mafioso has to have their philanthropic endeavors to garner enough goodwill from the people that we can get away with murder. Sometimes literally.”

Your eyes widen.

You can tell she’s loving this exposition. “I’m not supposed to tell you the whole story, but I’ll tell you as much as I want, and he can deal with it.”

“You’re not supposed to tell me,” you echo, watching the froth in her demitasse. “But you will.”

“I will, just enough to be useful, which is my standard approach to most things. It should be yours, too.”

You wonder if this has the cadence of threat, but it feels more like a job offer, or at the very least, a request for mutual non-aggression.

Laurie picks up a biscotti, snaps it perfectly in half. “He trusts you, or at least he trusts your utility enough to marry you, which for Andrew is as intimate as it gets.”

You draw a slow breath. The sex has felt more invasive and intimate than any other sex you’ve had in your life. The late night conversations, the cake tasting, the vulnerable moments you’ve been tangled up in with him, they don’t all feel manufactured any more. You’re still holding yourself at arm’s length, but nothing about whatever this tangled web is business only.

You don’t feel like only a utility.

Which has you wondering more about what their marriage was like.

Fortunately for you, this is the next path Laurie deemed worth sharing without you even prompting.

“We were young when we got married. Not too young to be married, but young enough that we were doing it with an agenda. I was finishing up my MBA, law school for him—the best degrees for people wanting to go a long way in the mafia. He had a few years into making a name for himself under the organization of one of my father’s allies, and as a mafia princess, I was supposed to marry to secure alliances and add prestige to the family empire, but it was more than that for us. I needed to be married long enough to keep my claim as heir to my father’s empire and Andy needed a high profile marriage to cement his early reputation. We knew there’d a be a conscious uncoupling from the beginning.”

You listen—and here is the strange thing, the real thing: Laurie’s language is not the vocab of hurt spouses or ex-lovers. There’s no undertow of longing, no catch in the throat when she says his name. There’s a studied detachment, almost a scientist’s pride for an experimental subject. You think about the bluntness of Andy’s affection, its transactional flavor. Not cold, just ruthlessly, charmingly pragmatic.

Laurie regards you with a kind of rueful empathy. “We thought it would work, and it did, for what we needed. We made a good team, fought when necessary, kept each other’s heads above water. When there was no more need, the marriage ended. We got three good years out of it. No mess, no bodies in the trunk. We both got what we wanted, he moved up, I inherited my father’s empire, and we both decided to keep the one thing that mattered—the non-profit.”

You think about her phrasing—three good years, not three passionate years, or three hard years, or three anything else. You wonder if they ever really fucked, or if the entire marriage was a handshake.

“The world is built on alliances, not romance.” She makes a gesture, as if to sweep away any hope of sentimentality from the table. “He’s not sentimental. He’s transactional. Neither of us are.”

But you catch something in Laurie when she mentions the non-profit—a brief dilation of the eyes, a softening, something nearly maternal. She explains, not for effect, but probably because it’s the only part of the story she believes in. “It’s in both our names. I thought about ceding it to him, or vice versa, but neither of us wanted to let go. We run it like a joint venture, equal shares, and we both get veto power over every major decision. I like to think it keeps us honest, or as honest as a pair of glorified criminals can be. And since it’s something that matters, it’s cemented us as long term if distant allies, which is beneficial in our line of work.”

You sense that the meal has moved into its denouement. The last of the wine poured, the affogato devoured by each of you respectively. The sum of your meeting has the air of mutual respect.

You think you like her.

So much so that you hear yourself blurt, “You should come to the wedding,” before your brain can veto the impulse.

Laurie’s laugh is instant, throaty and delighted, a full octave lower than her speaking voice.

“Oh, god, no,” she says, waving you off. “Absolutely not. But thank you for asking. That’s the most adorably polite thing that’s happened to me in years.”

You flush a little, but it feels like a safe embarrassment, no true shame.

Laurie regards you thoughtfully. “You don’t really want me there, do you?”

“I don’t really want most of the people who will be there,” you say, which makes her bark another sharp, delighted laugh.

A few minutes later, as you leave the restaurant together, Laurie says, “If you need help with seating charts, call me. I have an entire arsenal of ways to avoid blood feuds at mafia social events.”

You tilt your head and put a hand to your heart. “That’s the very least I’d expect from my new Maid of Honor.”

A long, flat look from Laurie before her mouth twitches. “You’re a menace,” she says, but with a secret pride, as if you’ve passed a trial.

“I approve, though,” she adds. “If you’re going to survive Andy Barber, you’ll need sharp weapons. Humor is as good as any.”

You try to picture her at the wedding, looming by your side with a dry wit and a color-coded spreadsheet of vendettas. There’s a connection that’s been forged here, though you know it’s not a friendship. Still, the image is entertaining, and you find yourself grinning, which is rare these days. “You ever do bridesmaid duty before?” you ask.

Laurie shrugs. “I did it for my cousin Sofia, once, but she hated me by the end. Probably hated me before, but family is family.”

You and Laurie step out into the too-bright spill of sidewalk, trailed by the restaurant owner’s gratitude and your own buzzing thoughts. Shep and Mark are already waiting. Across the street, a black Cadillac Escalade bleeds menace at the curb. Laurie’s people, clearly, because the moment you’re outside, a younger woman in an impeccable suit glides out from the SUV to open the rear door.

Laurie shakes your hand, surprisingly soft in her grip. “I’ll see you around,” she says, and it’s not a threat.

You watch as she gets into her vehicle, flanked by her security, and you are learning more of the way this world works: everyone is someone’s moving part, everyone is watched.

You climb into your Range Rover, the deliberate choreography of protection as Mark and Shep move into place around you, the orbit just like that of an old American gangster movie.

Shep, impossibly alert and yet always casual, gives you a glance in the mirror. “How’d it go?” he asks.

“Like a papal audience,” you say. “With better food and more existential threats.”

The briefest shadow of a smile pulls at the edge of Shep’s mouth. “Glad you survived, boss.”

You’re silent the rest of the ride home. You send Andy a single text:

YOU: Finished lunch.

He reacts with a thumbs up.

ANDY: I meant what I said, I’ll tell you everything and answer any questions. I thought it would be more useful for you to meet first.

YOU: Tonight.

ANDY: Over dinner.

At least it’s set, understood. Confrontation or maybe just another conversation, and it will likely leave you both more and less sure of what exists and is evolving between you and Andy at once.

BET YOU DIDN'T EXPECT ANY OF THAT!!!

Laurie's existence + when we would meet her has always been part of this AU for me, but the how and when and elements of it being THIS began to take shape and have been rattling around in my brain for about ten months, so I'm happy to have finally brought in this new piece of the verse. I'll be waiting to know what you think...

And also what we think of that moment where you grabbed Andy and sought out something you wanted... The shower sex was always going to be the opener, but that moment was unplanned until the moent I was writing it...

NEXT CHAPTER: LAST VOWS BEFORE THE ALTAR

Also, hi! Surprise! I've been secretly whittling away at a slew of things and plan to bring you fourteen stories/somethings over the next two weeks in a Valensmut Fest!!!

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