“Hey,” he said, trying for casual. “Sorry. Got held up.”

That was all.

You climbed in and shut the door harder than you meant to, the sound filling the car before you could pretend you hadn’t done it on purpose.

Steve glanced over at you, one hand still resting on the gear stick. “Okay. That sounded personal.”

“It wasn’t,” you said, looking ahead.

“It definitely was.”

“I’m fine.”

Steve stared at you for a second, and even without looking at him properly, you could feel the way his attention settled on the side of your face. “That’s not a fine face.”

You turned to him. “I don’t have a fine face.”

“Yeah, you do. It’s this little…” He gestured vaguely, as if drawing your expression in the air. “Tight mouth thing.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have a tight mouth thing if you weren’t always late.”

Steve blinked, like he hadn’t expected the conversation to turn that quickly. For a second, there was still room for him to soften, still room for you to smile and make it less serious than it sounded, but neither of you took the chance.

“I said I was sorry,” he said.

“You said you got held up.”

“Okay, and then I said sorry.”

“Barely.”

He let out a small laugh, but there was no humour in it, only frustration starting to edge into his voice. “What do you want me to do, get on my knees in the parking lot?”

“No, Steve. I want you to show up when you say you will.”

The car went quiet.

Steve looked away first, pulling out of the parking lot with his jaw set and his hand a little too tight on the steering wheel. “I’m twenty minutes late.”

“You’re always twenty minutes late.”

“That’s not true.”

“It kind of is.”

“Right,” he said, nodding once as he looked at the road. “Okay. So we’re doing this.”

You frowned. “Doing what?”

“The thing where one small thing suddenly means I’m the worst boyfriend in Hawkins.”

“I never said that.”

“You’re acting like it.”

“I’m acting like I’m annoyed because I was waiting for you.”

“And I’m acting like I’m sorry because I was late.”

“No, you’re acting like I’m dramatic for being annoyed.”

Steve glanced at you, his eyebrows lifting before he could stop himself. “You are being a little dramatic.”

The second he said it, you both felt the shift.

Your face dropped, and Steve’s expression changed too, just enough to show he knew he had said the wrong thing. But pride got there before the apology did, and instead of taking it back, he tightened his grip on the wheel and stared ahead.

“Seriously?” you said.

He exhaled through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I meant-” He stopped himself, shaking his head as if he already knew whatever came next would make it worse. “Forget it.”

You turned toward the window, watching the passing streetlights blur into soft gold lines against the glass.

Fine.

If he wanted to forget it, you would forget it.

Except neither of you did.

The silence stretched all the way to your house, but it did not make anything better. It only gave you both more time to sit in everything you had said, more time to replay the little digs, more time to feel hurt without admitting that was what you were feeling.

When Steve finally pulled up outside your house, he parked by the curb but left the engine running, one hand still on the wheel like he was already halfway to leaving.

That annoyed you even more, partly because you knew he was probably just unsure what to do, and partly because you hated that he was making you ask.

“You can come in, you know,” you said, though your tone made it sound more like a challenge than an invitation.

Steve looked at you carefully. “Do you want me to?”

“Do you want to?”

He gave a frustrated little laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Why are you answering everything with another question?”

“Why are you acting like being here is a chore?”

“I’m not.”

“You literally haven’t turned the car off.”

Steve looked at the keys, then back at you. “Because I didn’t know if you wanted me to come in.”

“You could ask.”

“I just did.”

“No, you asked like you were hoping I’d say no.”

He leaned back in his seat, his shoulders tense and his expression caught somewhere between hurt and irritation. “I can’t win with you tonight.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

You turned to him fully. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m trying, and everything I say is apparently wrong.”

“You’re not trying. You’re defending yourself.”

“Because you’re acting like I did something awful.”

“I’m acting like I wanted to spend time with you and you showed up late, then made me feel stupid for caring.”

Steve’s expression changed for a second. Softer. Guilty. Like the words had actually reached him.

But then he looked away.

“I didn’t make you feel stupid.”

The softness in you closed again, because for one tiny moment you had thought he understood, and then he had gone straight back to proving his point.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I’m not deciding it. I’m saying that wasn’t what I meant.”

“But it is what you did.”

Steve’s fingers tapped once against the wheel. “Okay. So what do you want me to say?”

The question came out tired, but it sounded dismissive, like he was asking for the correct answer instead of actually wanting to understand you.

You stared at him. “Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing makes a girl feel loved like her boyfriend asking what line he’s supposed to say to stop the argument.”

Steve closed his eyes briefly. “That is not what I meant.”

“Then maybe think before you say things.”

He looked at you then, and for half a second, the hurt on his face was plain before he covered it with a harder expression. “I do think.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The car went silent.

You regretted it almost immediately. Not enough to say so, not yet, but enough for your stomach to twist and for your fingers to curl slightly in your lap.

Steve looked forward, his jaw tight. “Nice.”

You swallowed. “Steve-”

“No, it’s fine.” He nodded once, eyes fixed on the road ahead even though the car was still parked. “Apparently I don’t think. I don’t try. I’m always late. Got it.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That is exactly what you said.”

“No, it’s what you’re choosing to hear.”

He laughed under his breath, bitter this time, and you hated it. You hated the way it made you feel like he had already decided you were impossible, like he had stopped seeing why you were hurt and only saw the argument itself.

“Right,” he said. “Yeah. Of course.”

“You know what?” you said, reaching for the door handle because leaving suddenly felt easier than staying there and letting the whole thing get worse. “Forget it.”

Steve turned his head. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“You’re just leaving?”

“You were clearly about to anyway.”

“I was parked outside your house.”

“With the engine still on.”

“Because we were talking.”

“No, we were arguing.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rising slightly now, “because you’re mad at me for being late, and I’m trying to explain-”

“You’re not explaining, Steve. You’re making excuses.”

That did it.

His expression shut down.

“Fine,” he said.

The word landed between you like a door slamming.

You waited for him to say something else. To soften. To reach for your hand. To do any of the things he usually did when he realised you were both going too far.

But he didn’t.

He just stared ahead, breathing hard through his nose, and the longer he said nothing, the more impossible it felt for you to say anything either.

Your hand tightened on the door handle.

Fine.

You opened the door and got out.

The cold air hit you instantly, but you barely felt it as you shut the door, harder than you meant to, and started toward your house. Behind you, Steve didn’t drive away, and for one second you thought he might get out.

You wanted him to.

You wanted to hear his car door open. You wanted him to call your name, to come after you, to say the whole thing had been stupid and he was sorry and could you both please just stop before you said something else you couldn’t take back.

But nothing happened.

So you kept walking.

When you reached your front door, you glanced back despite yourself.

Steve was still there, hands on the wheel, head lowered slightly, and for one tiny second your anger wavered because he looked less angry than lost.

Then his headlights shifted as he pulled away from the curb.

Your chest tightened.

Fine.

If he could leave, then you could let him.

You went inside without looking back again.

Hours later, the argument felt even stupider.

That was the worst part.

It hadn’t been about anything serious, not really. It had started with Steve being late, then a comment, then a look, then him saying something sharper than he meant to and you snapping back before you could stop yourself. Within minutes, it had grown into something neither of you knew how to get out of without being the first one to back down.

Now you could barely remember who had actually started it.

All you knew was that Steve had left with his jaw tight and his hands fixed on the steering wheel, and you had let him go because you were too proud to ask him to stay.

You told yourself you weren’t waiting for him.

You weren’t.

You were just sitting on your bed, staring at the same page of your book for the past twenty minutes because the words would not settle in your head. Every little noise outside made your eyes flick toward the window, and every time the phone stayed silent, your chest pulled a little tighter.

He was probably still mad.

Fine.

You were still mad too.

At least, you were trying to be.

You had replayed the argument so many times that the words had started to blur together. One second you remembered Steve’s face when you snapped at him, the way his expression had dropped before he covered it with irritation, and the next you remembered him looking away from you, muttering something under his breath like he didn’t trust himself to speak properly.

You hated that part most.

Not because he had left, exactly, but because you had stood there and watched him go. You had waited for him to turn around. You had wanted him to. But when he didn’t, you had folded your arms, lifted your chin, and pretended you didn’t care.

You cared.

Far too much.

Your room felt quieter without him in it. Usually, Steve had a way of filling the space even when he wasn’t doing much. He would sit at the end of your bed and flick through one of your magazines, making little comments under his breath, or he would complain that your window was impossible to open even though he still insisted on climbing through it half the time.

Now, the silence felt pointed.

Lonely.

You closed your book and threw it lightly beside you before pressing the heels of your hands against your eyes.

“I’m not apologising first,” you muttered to yourself.

The sentence sounded childish out loud, which only made you more annoyed.

Then there was a knock at your window.

You froze.

For a second, you thought you had imagined it. Then another knock came, quieter this time, followed by a familiar voice through the glass.

“Don’t throw anything at me.”

Your heart betrayed you immediately.

You got up slowly, pulling the curtain back to find Steve Harrington standing outside your window, hair slightly messy and jacket zipped halfway, holding a paper bag in one hand and looking far less confident than he usually tried to.

For a second, neither of you moved.

Then he gave you a small, awkward wave with the hand holding the bag.

You opened the window but didn’t move aside yet. “What are you doing here?”

Steve looked down at the bag, then back at you. “I brought you something.”

You glanced at it. “Is that supposed to fix everything?”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I know it doesn’t. I just…” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as his eyes dropped from yours. “It’s your favourite snack.”

Your expression softened before you could stop it.

Of course he remembered.

Steve noticed things like that, even when he pretended he didn’t. He remembered which flavour you picked out first, how you always claimed you weren’t hungry and then stole half of his food anyway, and the small details you mentioned once and forgot about until he brought them back to you like they mattered.

“I’m still mad at you,” you said, but your voice had lost most of its edge.

“I know.”

“And you were being annoying.”

“I know.”

“And stubborn.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Okay, that one feels a little unfair coming from you.”

You gave him a look.

Steve immediately nodded. “Right. Not the time.”

For a moment, the silence sat between you both. It wasn’t heavy like before, but it was awkward and careful, like both of you were standing on opposite sides of something fragile and neither wanted to be the one to break it again.

Then Steve held the bag out a little.

“I miss you,” he said.

It was quiet, so quiet you almost thought you had imagined it.

Your throat tightened.

Steve looked embarrassed as soon as the words left his mouth, his eyes dropping to the window ledge as he let out a small breath. “I know it’s only been a few hours, and I know that sounds dramatic, but I do. I hate fighting with you. I hate walking away and pretending I’m fine when I’m just driving around like an idiot, thinking about what I should’ve said instead.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

The anger you had been holding onto felt smaller now, not gone completely, but softer around the edges.

“You were driving around?” you asked.

Steve huffed, glancing away. “Yeah.”

“Steve.”

“I know.”

“That’s very dramatic.”

He looked back at you. “I literally just said that.”

A tiny smile pulled at your mouth, and Steve’s shoulders dropped like that one small reaction had taken half the weight off him.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he admitted. “I went past Family Video twice. Then Dustin’s house, but I didn’t stop because I knew he’d somehow make it worse. Then I ended up buying that.” He nodded toward the bag. “And then I sat in my car for ten minutes trying to decide if showing up here made me look pathetic.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. “A little.”

Steve sighed. “Great. Love that.”

“But in a sweet way.”

His eyes flicked back to yours. “Yeah?”

You nodded, softer now. “Yeah.”

Steve swallowed, his hand still resting on the window frame. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what I said. And for leaving like that. I shouldn’t have.”

You looked down at the bag in your hands, the paper crinkling under your fingers.

“I’m sorry too,” you said quietly. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“You kind of had a reason.”

“So did you.”

“Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “But I still hated it. The second I walked away, I hated it.”

You glanced up at him.

Steve’s face had gone serious in that way it sometimes did when he was trying not to joke his way out of something. His hair was falling slightly out of place, and there was a nervous little crease between his brows.

“I don’t want us to be like that,” he said. “The whole saying things just to win thing. I don’t want to win if it means you look at me like that after.”

Your chest ached because you knew exactly what he meant. You had both been trying so hard to prove a point that neither of you had stopped to listen properly, and now that the anger had thinned out, all that was left underneath it was how much you hated being apart from him.

“I don’t either,” you said.

Another silence passed, but this one felt different.

Gentler.

You finally stepped back from the window. “Are you coming in or are you planning to stand there looking sad all night?”

Steve blinked, then pointed at himself. “I looked sad?”

“You looked very sad.”

“I was going for regretful.”

“Same thing.”

He started to climb through the window, which would have been much more graceful if his foot had not caught on the frame halfway in.

“Careful,” you said, grabbing his arm.

“I’m fine,” Steve said quickly, despite nearly falling into your room. “Totally fine. Very smooth.”

“You almost face-planted.”

“Didn’t, though.”

You shook your head, but you were smiling properly now, and Steve noticed that too.

Once he was inside, he stood in front of you, close enough that you could smell his cologne and the cold air still clinging to his jacket. For a moment, neither of you said anything, and then Steve reached out gently, his fingers brushing your sleeve like he still wasn’t completely sure he was allowed to touch you.

“I really did miss you,” he said again, softer this time.

Your chest warmed.

You leaned into him before you could overthink it, wrapping your arms around his waist, and Steve didn’t hesitate. He pulled you in immediately, one hand settling against your back while the other cradled the back of your head, holding you like he had been waiting all night to do it.

For a while, neither of you moved.

His hold was firm, almost like he was trying to apologise through it, like he wanted you to understand all the things he had been too stubborn to say earlier.

“I was waiting for you to apologise first,” you mumbled into his jacket.

Steve laughed under his breath. “Yeah, me too.”

“That was stupid.”

“Really stupid.”

“You’re still stubborn.”

“So are you.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him, and Steve’s mouth twitched.

“But, like, in a cute way.”

“Careful.”

“Right. Sorry.”

You shook your head, trying not to laugh as he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. It was slow and soft, lingering just long enough to make your eyes close.

When he pulled back, he brushed his thumb lightly over your sleeve.

“Next time,” he said, “we should probably not wait hours to say sorry.”

“Probably not.”

“And maybe one of us should be the bigger person.”

You looked at him.

He nodded seriously. “I vote you.”

You shoved his shoulder lightly. “Steve.”

“What? You’re very emotionally mature.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“And yet you missed me.”

You tried to glare at him, but it came out too fond to work.

Steve smiled, warm and pleased, then reached for the paper bag still sitting between you. “So,” he said, holding it up, “am I forgiven enough to share these, or is this more of a peace offering I have to surrender completely?”

You took the bag from him. “I’ll think about it.”

“That means yes.”

“That means sit down.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He kicked off his shoes and sat on the edge of your bed like he belonged there, because he did. You joined him a second later, the space between you smaller than it had been all night, and Steve watched as you opened the bag, his knee brushing yours.

“You really remembered my favourite?” you asked.

He looked almost offended. “Of course I remembered.”

“I’m just checking.”

“I remember everything.”

You raised an eyebrow.

Steve paused. “Okay, not everything. But important things.”

Your smile softened.

He nudged your knee gently with his. “You’re important.”

The words were simple, but they settled into you anyway.

You leaned your head against his shoulder, and Steve shifted at once, making room for you like it was instinct. His arm came around you a moment later, warm and familiar, and for a few minutes neither of you said much at all.

The argument wasn’t fixed all at once, not completely. There were still things to talk about, still feelings to untangle, still apologies that would mean more because of what happened after them rather than what was said in the moment. But Steve was there, holding you like he didn’t want to let go, and your favourite snack was sitting between you like a tiny peace offering.

When he pressed another kiss to the top of your head and whispered, “Still mad?”

You looked up at him, pretending to consider it.

“A little.”

Steve nodded. “Fair.”

“But less.”

His smile came back, soft and relieved. “I can work with less.”

For now, that was enough.

As has this– the first, aching moments of the morning, when he rises promptly every day at 6 AM. It’s another habit that’s been quite literally beaten into him. 

Gator’s eyes open groggily, and he extracts one of his arms to reach over and slap the stop button on the alarm. He misses it the first time, and it disturbs you. You turn slightly, your sleeping face already pulling in a frown, and hit the back of your hand against Gator’s chest to tell him to kill the noise. 

He fights his amusement and finally gets the damn alarm off. 

You make a half-conscious noise of approval and roll back over. Gator can’t help but follow you, spend even one more minute burrowed into the heat of the bed together. He slips his arms around your waist again, nosing his way into the crook of your neck. Places a gentle kiss there, soft enough not to wake you.

Your skin is blazing with sleep, your hair fanned out across the pillow. Right now, he wants nothing more than to bury himself in that warmth, back into the gentle scent of your faded perfume, tucking you against his chest where he knows for certain you’ll be safe.

But that’s a dangerous game– and if he lets himself indulge in it, he’ll never be able to drag himself out of bed and into his day. So, reluctantly, he presses another kiss to your neck, then one each to your jaw and your temple, and slips out from under the covers. 

You make another garbled noise at the loss of warmth, flopping around a little to make yourself comfortable again. You’re an active sleeper, to Gator’s endless amusement. He fights his laugh and sets about getting ready.

When he emerges from the closet dressed in his cargos and a black t-shirt, shrugging on his vest, you’ve moved again. Overheated now, you’ve shoved the covers off, one leg thrown over them. The movement has rucked up your sleep shorts, exposing the long line of your thigh and your ass. It’s no shock where Gator’s eye goes as he drinks you in. 

He swallows, eyes tracing your supple curves, the way you’re so blissfully unaware of what you’re doing to him first thing in the goddamn morning. Fighting heat in his abdomen, he traipses over to your end of the bed and bends down, ignoring the noise his combat boots make against the squeaky old hardwoods. Gently, he brushes back a few stray pieces of your hair and presses one last kiss to your cheek. “Love you,” he murmurs into your skin.

Here in this bedroom, he almost feels like a different man. 

A man exempt from hardness. A man who can’t stand to be anything but what he’s been trained not to be– a man fitted into your grooves, melted like butter, softness in every fiber of his muscles. When he touches you, kisses you, fucks you, it’s like this, wrapped in spell-binding sheets that drain every last scrap of depravity out of him. There’s nothing in him anymore but desperate, gentle hands, pawing for affection, giving it out readily in return. In the warm, hazy spell of the morning, it’s the only thing he is. He’s gone soft, just like his daddy warned him, and somehow, he can’t get enough of it.

Gator rises, the image of you captured and preserved in his mind to antagonize him for the rest of his day. With one glance back at you, arousal and affection melding in his gut, he leaves for work.

---

"Should I send him back here or are you goin' out front?" she asks, ignoring your thinly veiled advisory.

"I'll just take my break now," you reply. Janice nods, a smirk on her lips as you brush past her, but not before she squeezes your arm comfortingly. You can't help it as you swallow nervously, nibbling on your bottom lip as you walk out front, finding none other than Gator Tillman standing there, his hands behind his back.

His eyes immediately brighten when he sees you, and you try not to let your entire body melt.

"Hey, kid," Gator greets, using the nickname that, for some reason, always makes you warm beneath his gaze. You smile despite the butterflies flapping anxiously in your stomach. "Sorry if it's a bad time. Just wanted to drop by 'fore I head in for my shift at the station."

You shake your head, "No, no, now's good. I'm taking my break."

Gator grins. "For lil' old me?"

He reaches out to wrap an arm around your shoulders and your mouth dries, especially when he presses a kiss to your temple. Your relationship — could you even call it that yet? — hasn't been filled with the most PDA, solely because it's something that you're not experienced with. Moments like these, when it's just you and Gator (and Janice, probably, watching from the back), feel less high-stakes and more comfortable.

"C'mon, can I take y'for a walk? Got something for you in my car."

"As long as that's not some line just to makeout with me," you tease softly, making Gator laugh loudly. You've been coming out of your shell more every time you see each other, and he loves the side of you that rags on him.

"I'd never use a line for that, kid," Gator replies, keeping his arm slung around you as you walk towards his truck. "Don't need one, anyway. Think I remember you wantin' to kiss all through your lunch last week."

"Oh, shut up," you giggle, shoving his side. Gator cackles and presses a quick kiss to your forehead when you arrive at his truck.

"No peeking," he says, and you nod, closing your eyes. He opens the passenger's side door and reaches inside, only to push something in your hands. You grasp what feels like grass, then bat your eyes open, finding a small gathering of wildflowers wrapped with a rubber band. Your eyes widen and you glance up at Gator, who's standing up a bit straighter now.

"Buncha wildflowers bloomed over at the ranch this week and, uh, they reminded me of you. Got up this morning and picked some for ya. I've never given anyone flowers before, but, y'know... wanted you to be the first, I guess."

You clutch the flowers closer to your chest, sniffing their beautiful aroma. You swear you feel your heart blossom, just like the wildflowers Gator picked for you.

"This is so sweet," you say softly. "Thank you so much. I don't even know what to say."

"Really?" he asks. "You like 'em?"

You grin, reaching for his hand. "I love them, Gator."

Gator shifts his weight from foot to foot.

"You don't think it's, like... stupid, or nothing?"

"Absolutely not," you reply with a shake of your head. "It's one of the sweetest things anyone's ever done for me."

"And you're not just sayin' that?"

You’re still not entirely sure why you let him. Or rather, you know roughly why - he is, to put it plainly, an exceptionally good fuck - but you’d expected it to run its course. That’s what these things do. A few weeks, the novelty wears off, you go back to being two people who work in the same building and nod at each other by the coffee machine, no harm done.

Four months later he’s still showing up, and you’ve stopped expecting him not to.

It’s not a relationship. You have to be clear about that, at least to yourself, because clarity feels important. You don’t talk much outside of work. He doesn’t stay when he turns up at your door in the middle of the night when a shift’s gone bad and he needs to put the pent-up energy somewhere. You don’t ask him to, and he doesn’t offer, and the arrangement has a clean, unspoken logic to it that suits you both. You’d barely consider the two of you friends. You’re something more specific and less nameable than that - two people who work thirty feet apart and have discovered, through what was honestly an accident, that they are spectacularly good at getting each other off.

What you didn’t expect - what you genuinely did not factor in at all - was that he’d be funny. Not charming-funny, and not the cruel kind of funny men deploy on purpose, like a tool or a weapon. Just occasionally, accidentally, genuinely funny. The first time it happened you’d been in your kitchen at two in the morning, after, while he was pulling his jacket back on. He’d said something - a dry, throwaway observation about your bright pink coffee maker, of all things, something so understated you almost missed it - and you’d laughed before you could stop yourself. Really laughed. And he’d gone very still, like he wasn’t sure what he’d done, like no-one had genuinely laughed at something he’d said in a long time and he didn’t quite know what to do with it.

You’d thought about that look more than you’ve thought about most things that have happened in your bed. Which is saying something. You’ve been trying not to examine why.

****************

It was Brett Kowalski who asked you out. Brett from the county assessor’s office, who is nice and has never done a single thing wrong in his life, which should be a point in his favour but somehow isn’t. He’d asked you outside the Cenex on a Tuesday lunch break and you’d said you’d think about it, which you both knew meant no, and that should have been the end of it. A guy had tried his luck, struck out, and that was that.

Your mistake was mentioning it when you got back to the office.

You’re still not entirely sure why you did. Gator had been in a mood - some family thing, he never said what, but you could tell from the firm line of his mouth that he was not going to be fun today. He was sitting at the break room table while you made coffee, and the silence had an edge to it, and so to break it you’d blurted it out - “Brett Kowalski just asked me out” - mostly just to fill the space.

The change in him was fast. Not dramatic, he didn’t throw anything, but something in his face went dark - darker - in a way that was its own kind of loud.

“Kowalski,” he said.

“From the assessor’s office.”

“Yeah, I know who he is.”

You’d turned around then, leaning against the counter, watching him. “Do you?”

He didn’t answer that. He picked up his coffee and looked at it like it had done something to offend him.

“You’re not going,” he said, eventually.

And that was when you made the decision that has resulted in you sitting in an Applebee’s in Dickinson on a Saturday night, so in retrospect maybe you should have let it go. But something about the flatness of it - you’re not going, like that was just a fact about your life that he was informing you of - had gotten right up under your skin.

“Excuse me? I’m not going? Says who?”

“I’m saying. Kowalski’s a… he’s fucking weak. You’re not going.”

You’d pressed up from the counter and folded your arms across your chest. He’d at least had the sense to pretend not to look.

“If you don’t like it,” you’d said, keeping your voice very pleasant, “maybe you should ask me on a date.”

The look on his face had been almost worth everything that followed.

“Fine,” he said, very careful about keeping his eyes on yours and not anywhere else.

You hadn’t expected that. “Fine?”

“Yeah, I said fine. A date, on Saturday.”

“I pick where we go.” You’d been firm about that. The venue was your choice.

He’d looked like he wanted to argue that, but he’d thought better of it. “Fine. Seven o’clock. Text me the place.”

Which is how you ended up here.

****************

Applebee’s was maybe a little mean. You’ll admit that. But you’d wanted to see what he’d do with it, and the answer - Gator Tillman walking through the door of an Applebee’s in a button-down shirt that he’d clearly ironed badly, looking around the room like he was conducting a threat assessment of the salad bar - has already made the whole thing worthwhile.

He spots you, and doesn’t smile about it. Then he crosses the room and sits himself down with a thud into the chair.

“Applebee’s is where you wanted to go,” he says, flat. “Seriously?”

“I come here all the time,” you say, smiling sweetly. “Great neighbourhood feel.”

He looks around the neighbourhood feel. Two middle-aged women are getting wine-drunk in a booth nearby. A family of five is arguing about whether to get the riblets. Someone has put “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the jukebox in the bar area.

“What neighbourhood feels like this?” he asks, bemused.

The waitress comes over - a high school kid, very cheerful, name tag says Britnee - and you order a strawberry margarita because you’ve decided to commit to the bit. Gator orders a beer, and when Britnee asks which kind he just says don’t care, whatever’s cold in a tone that’s probably a little much for a Saturday night in Dickinson, but Britnee writes it down and disappears with the speed of someone who has good survival instincts.

“You could’ve just said Bud Light,” you say.

“I don’t care what kind it is.”

“I know. But now she’s going to take a while trying to decide which cold beer you’re less likely to scowl at her for bringing.”

He looks at you across the table. In the bleak horror of Applebee’s lighting - which spares no one, it’s one of its few honest qualities - he looks tired. Really, really tired, younger than he usually lets himself seem, and oddly unsure of himself in a way that sits strangely on him.

“I don’t do this,” he says, abruptly.

“Ask for unspecified beer?”

“You know what I mean.”

You do. You look down at your menu. “Why not?”

He doesn’t answer you immediately, choosing instead to pick at a crack in the corner of the laminated menu. You can feel him deciding how much he wants to give you. “Guess I didn’t see the point.”

“Of going out to dinner?”

“Of -” He starts tugging paper napkins out of the caddy, needlessly. “Of all of it. The whole thing.”

You look up. He’s not looking at you, he’s looking at his napkins and then the menu like it requires serious concentration, which given Applebee’s it really doesn’t. You watch his face for a moment.

“What about now?”

He doesn’t answer straight away. Britnee reappears with your drinks and takes your food order - you get a chicken pasta because you’re here now, you might as well, and Gator gets a steak because of course he does - and disappears again.

“Now I’m in fuckin’ Applebee’s,” he says, finally, like that comes close to an answer. Maybe it does.

****************

The thing is, once you get past the first twenty minutes, it gets easier.

It shouldn’t. There’s no reason for it to - he still looks tired and you know picking this place was a little mean of you. But somewhere around the point where you’re arguing about whether Dickinson has anything worth doing on a weekend (you say yes, he says name one thing, you say the bowling alley on Fifth, he says that place has a rat problem, you say you’ve bowled there a few times and never seen a rat, he says that doesn’t mean there isn’t one), something loosens between you. Some held thing lets itself go.

He’s opinionated - which you’d known since you’d walked into the sheriff’s department on your first day three year ago - but in a regular-person way you haven’t had much chance to see before. He thinks the bypass construction has been mismanaged from the start, which, fair. He has thoughts about the new pastor at the Lutheran church that are surprisingly nuanced for someone who you wouldn’t have pegged as a man with nuanced thoughts about Lutheran pastors. He grew up watching old Westerns with his mother, which he tells you almost by accident, mid-sentence - ‘she’d pick the ones with the most horses, didn’t matter what else was in them’ - and then he moves past it so fast, back to the bypass construction or whatever came before, that you almost let it go. Almost. But you catch the small, careful way he’d said she’d, past tense, and you don’t ask, and he doesn’t explain, and that silence between you is different from the others.

Your food arrives and it is exactly as mediocre as Applebee’s food always is, and you say so, and Gator says you picked it, and you say I know, that’s what makes it funny, and he looks at you for a second and then something happens to his mouth that you realise, with a small shock, is him trying not to smile.

“What?” you ask him, a little incredulous.

“Nothing.”

“You almost smiled.”

“I didn’t.”

“Gator. I saw it.”

He cuts into his steak. “Shut up, eat your pasta.”

But the almost-smile stays at the corner of his mouth for a while after, and you find yourself doing something you hadn’t planned on, which is having a good time.

****************

It happens over dessert, which you’d ordered without asking him because you wanted to see what he’d do, and what he’d done was look at the brownie bites the waitress put between you and then pick up a spoon, which felt like a significant moment of growth.

You’re telling him about your cousin’s wedding last summer - the one in Bismarck, the one where the DJ had played Gangnam Style three times and your uncle Gerard had done the dance moves perfectly each time - and Gator is listening in a way that he doesn’t always, really listening, and you’re doing the arm movements a little to illustrate, quietly, so as not to disturb the riblet family, and he laughs.

Not almost. Actually laughs. Short and real and true, there and gone, like he hadn’t meant to and doesn’t quite know what to do with the aftermath.

You feel it happen while you’re still doing the arm movements. It doesn’t announce itself. It’s not a feeling so much as a shift in register - the way a room looks different when someone turns on a lamp you hadn’t noticed was off. You lower your hands. He’s still coming down from laughing, jaw working a little like he’s figuring out what expression belongs on his face now, and you look at him across the sticky table and something you’d been holding at a careful distance closes the gap without asking permission.

Because here’s what you see, across an Applebee’s table with a plate of brownie bites between you - a man who badly irons his shirt for a date he was manipulated into, who has opinions about bypass construction and Lutheran pastors and the imaginary rat problem at the Fifth Street bowling alley, who grew up watching cowboy films with his absent mother, who laughs when he forgets to stop himself, who is capable of making you forget your own name with the flick of his wrist. Who is, against what should be considerable odds, genuinely good company when he stops pulling on the costume of Deputy Gator Tillman.

You’d thought you’d known what he was. You didn’t know this part.

You’re not sure what to do with it, so you eat some of the brownie and let the moment settle, and he does the same, and Applebee’s plays something that might be early 2000s country over the speakers and neither of you mentions it.

****************

Outside, the parking lot is cold and lit orange, and your breath makes small clouds. He walks you to your car without being asked, without making anything of it, and you don’t say a word about it because saying something would make it feel lesser.

You get to your car and turn around. He’s closer than you’d registered, and neither of you speaks, and the silence is not uncomfortable exactly - it’s the kind that’s waiting to see what you’ll do with it.

“We don’t have to call tonight a date,” you offer. “If that’s easier for you to, I don’t know, live with or whatever.”

He looks at you for a long moment. It’s not defensive, something more complicated than that, something moving behind his eyes that he isn’t going to name and you’re not going to ask him to. “It was a date,” he eventually says, firm with it.

“Okay.”

“We’re not doing Applebee’s again.”

“Fine.”

“I’m picking next time.” He nods, once, like a verdict. Then he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair back from your face - delicately, like he’s been deciding whether to do it since somewhere around the brownie bites - and his hand drops and he steps back and the cold air fills the space.

“I’ll call you,” he tells you. It’s not a question. He’s still the Deputy, always still that, but under it something that sounds almost careful.

You think of Brett Kowalski from the assessor’s office. You let him go.

“Yeah,” you say. “You’d better.”

You drive home south through the dark flat nothing of North Dakota, radio low, fields black on either side of the road, and you think about how you had gone into tonight with a very clear idea of what it was. A point being made. A small, petty correction to the way he’d said you’re not going like it was just a fact. You’d had it all mapped out.

You pass the grain elevator outside of town and you’re still thinking about the way his face had looked when he laughed. The surprise in it, like he’d caught himself doing something he hadn’t planned on.

Somewhere on Route 22 it happens - that small, involuntary thing. You notice it because your face is still cold from the parking lot and the smile pulls at skin that was already tight with it, and you’d been so busy thinking about him that you hadn’t noticed it starting.

You don’t try to stop it.

You smile politely as the women drone on about neighborhood gossip and recipes they simply have to send you and how they dropped off a snickers salad for the preacher’s wife last night ‘cause she’s had so much trouble cookin’ lately. They’re old women, and they’re multitasking between their card game and keeping you shackled to their conversation. It’s like this every Sunday they can get their hands on you.

Sometimes you think it’s no wonder you and Gator were drawn to each other– despite how much better you mask it in public, you both share the affliction of being easily frustrated by nosy small-town people who won’t shut their traps. And speaking of your boyfriend…

Gator seems trapped in a dialogue of his own across the lawn, Roy standing before him, so clearly laying another lecture onto his son’s shoulders. Gator squirms like a kid when his dad yells at him, and you can see it now, that lack of attention span from the ADHD you keep telling him to get tested for driving Roy even crazier than he already is. Finally, Roy makes his point and relents, and Gator makes his way across the lawn toward you, the set of his shoulders still tense.

“Hey, baby,” he mumbles as he nears, dropping a kiss onto the top of your head. He smiles tightly and nods to the bridge ladies, who coo over his arrival, and slides onto the bench beside you, straddling it to face you. One of his hands goes immediately to your lower back like he needs the contact, or maybe an excuse to cop a feel in the modest sundress you’ve donned for church today. 

“Gator, honey,” one of the ladies– Mrs. Pearson, whose husband runs the hardware store near the diner where you work– greets him. “We were just tellin’ your little missus here ‘bout some recipes she should get her hands on.”

Gator nods and doesn’t reply further, unamused. You press your thigh into his leg, telling him silently to play nice. You know he’s only over here because you are, and that he’d always rather be long gone once the church service ends, but this is what it takes to be a part of a community, and even grudgingly, he knows that. Still, his constant frustration with these people is part of the reason they’ve always liked you more than they like him. He is the town bully who barely grew out of it, still brash and impulsive and rude at times, still hiding that sweetness behind his tough-guy face except when it comes to you. You are the town darling, the one who runs Sunday school when the preacher’s daughter can’t, the model future wife for the sheriff’s son. You always wear your church skirts to your knees, and from your pretty smile, no one can tell it’s Gator who’ll bunch them up to your waist when he bends you over later.

“She’s such a nice girl,” one of the other ladies croons, smiling widely at you. There’s pink lipstick on her teeth. “You know she’ll do a bang-up job as your little wife, mister.”

“That’s right!” Another one chimes in, placing down a card with a wrinkled hand. “I mean, geez Louise, forget about the cookin’! She’ll have that house spick and spam for ya, isn’t that right, sweetiepie?”

You laugh indulgently, although everything in you wants to roll your eyes and find a way to escape this table. Sure, you can cook, and you’ve always kept the house far cleaner than Gator cares to, but you don’t need these women telling him that. If he hasn’t figured out the virtues of keeping you around already, he’s certainly not gonna listen to them tell it.

“I’d say, with how handsome a couple you two are, you’d better get movin’ on those little ones!” Mrs. Pearson adds.

“Little ones?” Gator repeats flatly, and you step on his toe under the table.

“Well, I betcha your daddy wants another baby in the family soon,” Mrs. Pearson explains laughingly, then leans over to touch your cheek. “It’d be a shame to waste those cheekbones, anyway. You two better get crackin’ on those kids before the sheriff has to tell ya to!”

You hear more than see Gator’s jaw grind. He opens his mouth to say something you’re sure won’t be too flattering, but you cut in before he can, slipping your hand over his on his thigh. “You know, you ladies are too right. In fact, I think we’ve got a little business to attend to at home, come to think of it. Can’t let that house go too long without a cleaning, can we?”

The ladies laugh at the scandalous joke, waving you off. 

“You kids!” Mrs. Pearson smiles. “Go, enjoy the day, sweeties!”

You rise to your feet, smiling back at them, and pull Gator up by the hand, dragging him away from the table before he can say something the both of you will regret. He follows behind you, one of his hands sliding over your waist as you cross the grass again. You can tell he’s angry by how quiet he’s gone, the way he tugs at the collar of his crisp black button-up.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he mutters in your ear. “You put in your damn time.”

“Let me grab my purse,” you tell him gently, smoothing a hand down his chest— already having guessed from his mood you’d be taking off early. “You grab the tupperware from the scones, and I’ll meet you by the truck.”

“Don’t stop to chat,” he says gruffly, hand tightening on your waist. “I’ll blow my brains out if Mrs. Pearson finds me again.”

You bite back a smile and kiss his cheek, heading off swiftly to gather the rest of your belongings. 

You intercept him on the way back, two more of his shirt buttons already undone and his sleeves pushed up to the elbow. You slip your hand into his as you walk back through the parking lot together, not daring to check behind you to see if anyone’s noticed your early exit. 

Gator opens your door for you and waits for you to get in, a muscle in his jaw twitching. You worry about that expression on him– about what his father might have said to him to get him so fired up. 

It’s only when you’re speeding back down the dirt road from the church that you finally ask, reaching over and squeezing his arm as you do. 

“Gate.”

“Hm?” he replies, eyes on the road.

You keep your hand on his forearm, thumb brushing up and down

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’,” he mutters.

You snort. “Convincing.”

He shoots you a dirty look out of the corner of his eye. “Will you leave me alone, woman?”

You roll your eyes, removing your hand and shifting back to your side of the car with a quiet sigh. When he gets grumpy like this, you’ve found over the years it’s best to just leave him to mope.

You drive in silence for a while, staring out the windshield and not bothering to keep your face polite. Eventually, you hear Gator muttering to himself, and your attention snags on the noise.

“Nosy old hags.”

“What?” you ask, brow crinkling. 

Gator doesn’t repeat himself, but you heard him clearly enough the first time.

“You’re upset about Mrs. Pearson and the ladies?” you surmise, voice flat. For goodness’ sake, he could have just told you that.

“They’re sticking their damn noses where they don’t belong,” he finally snaps, the one hand he has on the steering wheel gripping the leather. 

“That’s just what they do, Gator,” you say mildly. “That’s who they are. They gossip about everyone in town, not just us.”

“Yeah, well, they can say what they want about all those other assholes, but not about me ‘n you,” he bites, his jaw ticking again.

You fight another sigh and take his free hand in both of yours, squeezing it. “They’re not being nasty. They’re just old women.”

The words have the opposite of their intended effect of calming him. Gator’s voice rises as he snaps, “Well, what goddamn business of theirs is it when we’re havin’ any fuckin’ kids? We’re not even hitched yet, and they’re breathin’ down our necks.”

You exhale through your nose, wishing silently he wasn’t so sensitive when it came to what other people thought. “Well, when you’ve been together for three years, those are the kind of questions people ask, Gate. Marriage, kids. I mean, we live together, baby. It’s not totally crazy.”

“So you’re on their side, then?” he demands, head whipping between you and the road.

You stare back at him, starting to be irritated. “I’m on your side, always. You know that.”

“Then why are you fuckin’ defending them?”

“I’m just saying they didn’t do anything wrong, Gator,” you huff, withdrawing your hands again. “They’re just nosy. If you don’t wanna hear any gossip, we’re gonna need to find another place to live.”

“Like hell they aren’t doin’ shit wrong,” he fires back at you. “Draggin’ themselves into our business like that, basically asking when I’m finally gonna man up and knock you up–”

“Well, you don’t seem to mind the idea so much when you’re inside me, now do you?” you cut in flatly.

Gator whips his stare to yours. “The hell’s that s’posed to mean?”

You look back at him coolly, your displeasure evident. “I just didn’t think you found the idea of settling down with me so terrible. My mistake.”

“Don’t be like that,” he grunts.

“Well, what else am I supposed to think, Gator?” you challenge him. “You’re practically jumping down my throat for suggesting people aren’t totally crazy when they ask if we’ll ever have kids.” “They’re not askin’, they’re tellin’.” Gator snaps. “And I’m sorry, but I happen to think a man has a right to privacy ‘bout a few things, and puttin’ a baby in his woman is one of ‘em.”

Your lips tighten, and you look back out the windshield. “How romantic.”

“A man should get to decide when he wants all that shit to happen, alright?” he repeats himself loudly. Y’should get to do it in your own time.”

“Fine,” you cut in, now more than a little pissed with him. “Next time, I’ll just tell sweet old Mrs. Pearson to fuck right off.”

“Now that would be bein’ on my fuckin’ team,” he bites.

You shake your head, knowing arguing with him again about how disagreeing doesn’t diminish how you feel about him would be a moot point. “Whatever.”

“Y’could drop the attitude, you know,” he adds bitterly. “Don’t ‘whatever’ me.”

“Well, I guess I’m not your fuckin’ wife, so there’s no sense in me being all respectful and proper, now is there?” you spit back at him, crossing your arms.

Gator seethes to himself as you pull into your driveway, not looking at each other. 

“I’ve got a shift at the diner,” you inform him flatly, jumping down from the truck without waiting for him to open your door for you– something you know full well will piss him off even more. “I’m off at six. Don’t wait on me to eat dinner.”

“Really?” he snaps, following you into the house. “That’s it?”

“Guess so,” you toss over your shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to actually settle anything, would we?”

Gator lets you slam the door to the bedroom, changing swiftly into your work uniform. As you throw on your clothes, still steaming with anger at your mule-stubborn boyfriend, you can hear him mutter something unflattering at you through the door.

You’re still wearing a frown while pouring coffee three hours later, and nothing at work is helping to lighten your mood. 

Two of your regulars have already told you to put a smile on your face, but you can’t help it. You hate fighting with Gator. As much as things have calmed down in recent years between the two of you, as much as you’ve settled into each other and smoothed over so many dangerous cracks, every now and again, something like this will come up and you’ll feel like the two of you are right back to square one. 

You move back through the diner and behind the counter again, coffee pot in hand. Your eyes sweep the tables for empty cups, which means you catch it when the door opens and the tiny bell above it rings, announcing the presence of your newest customer just as surely as the heavy tread of his combat boots.

Eyes pointedly cast down, you focus on refilling three more mugs as Gator strides up to the counter, sliding into a barstool and leaning on his elbows over the table. 

“Hey, mama,” he greets you, and you can tell from his voice alone he’s already over your fight. He’s grinning, actually, just like he always is when he stops in mid-patrol for a quick pour and a kiss or two from you. He’s always been so good at putting arguments like this behind him– like whatever tiny thing had had him cursing and spitting a few hours ago had faded completely to the back of his mind. You hate that he does that. It’s like he can’t understand how not to move on without resolution. 

“Hey, yourself,” you toss back flatly, still not meeting his eyes. You ignore the way he’s clearly leaned toward you and refill the coffee of the customer to his right. 

Gator’s eyes track you, scanning over your face. “What, you’re not gonna greet your boyfriend?” he asks, that shit-eating grin still painted on his lips. “Gimme a kiss.”

“I only kiss my boyfriends who are nice to me,” you intone, sliding the coffee pot back into the machine. It’s a low blow, and you know it– alluding to your made-up other boyfriends. But it still gets under Gator’s skin every time, that jealousy he can’t seem to stifle.

“So you’re still pissed at me, then,” he surmises, leaning back and digging in the pocket of his tactical vest for something. 

You point a finger at him, that heady anger rushing back to you. “Gator Tillman, if you pull that disgusting vape out of your pocket–”

He pulls free a different pen– one of the fake ones you introduced him to when he finally gave into all your pleading for him to quit nicotine. He holds it up as if in surrender. “Relax, babe. It’s just the bullshit one.” He takes a hit off of it, though if it actually calms him down, you wouldn’t know.

Unimpressed, you move over to the cash register, counting and stacking your receipts just to have something to do. 

“So, what, you never gonna talk to me again?” he teases you, clearly nonplussed by your bad mood. 

It works to piss you off even more– the fact he’s brushing off your annoyance like it means nothing. Like there was no reason for it in the first place. 

“Depends, are you gonna apologize for losing it on me earlier?” you muse, flicking between receipts.

Gator’s amusement finally fades, and he slips off the barstool to come around the cash register. “Don’t see what I’ve gotta apologize for.”

You huff a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you never really do, do you?”

“Hey,” he cuts in, “You were the one defending those old bags.”

You scowl, rounding on him. “Oh, will you just drop that? I wasn’t defending anyone.”

“Yes, you fuckin’ were,” he argues, glaring down at you. 

“Why can’t you ever just admit you were too harsh and apologize?” you demand, shooting daggers at him with your eyes even as he towers over you. 

“Maybe I would if you quit flappin’ your fuckin’ mouth!” he fires back. “God, d’you have to be such a bitch about it?”

Shock flashes through you, and you scoff, bewildered. Dangerously, you ask him, “You wanna rethink a couple of those words?”

“Nah, I don’t think I do,” he spits, looking you up and down. 

You clench your jaw, fighting back the sting in your eyes that’s telling you tears are coming whether you like it or not. God, this man frustrates you so much sometimes you could scream. “Great. Then I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about.”

“Great,” he says back, tone nasty. “I’ll finally get some peace and goddamn quiet.”

You huff an incredulous laugh, turning away. “Have a great shift, Gator,” you tell him bitterly, not meaning a word. 

“I’ll see you at home,” he promises, stalking away. 

You don’t check behind you after the bell rings– you know he’s gone. And you know he won’t look back.

Perched on a stool at the counter of the least shitty dive bar in town, you clutch your drink, the ice biting against your fingers. 

You’ve been here almost an hour, and your mood hasn’t significantly lifted, despite how you’ve been faking smiles with your friends and tossing down liquor to try and stifle the endless repeat track of your boyfriend’s callous words. It’s almost 7:30. He’ll be waiting up at home for you when you get back, and if you know anything about Gator, you know he’ll be furious. 

You don’t care. Let him have a taste of his own medicine– let him be the one getting hurt for a change. If he didn’t care to communicate like an adult, then you shouldn’t have to, either.

“Babe,” one of your friends calls to you, voice raised over the blaring music. “You’re being a total buzzkill. You sure you don’t wanna just head home?”

In times like these, even in your dismal mood, you can’t help but consider yourself exceptionally lucky for your friends. When you pulled the group of waitresses aside after Gator left the diner and asked if they wanted to grab drinks after work, they must have seen your expression and knew you needed it more than you let on. They agreed instantly, and now here you are– utterly failing at distracting yourself despite their best efforts.

You shake yourself, trying to escape your self-pity and lingering resentment. “No, no– sorry. Those shots just haven’t kicked in yet.” Your friend’s face tells you she sees through it, but she just sips from her colorful drink with a rueful smile. “That handsome boyfriend of yours isn’t gonna show up and kill us for stealing you away tonight, is he?”

Knowing Gator, that wasn’t entirely out of the question. You smile behind your glass as you tell her, “Don’t worry about it. If he’s got something to say, he can say it to me.”

“I hope I didn’t just hear the word boyfriend.”

A voice from behind you makes you twist slightly in your seat, and a man you’ve never seen before sidles up to you and slides into the barstool to your left. “Never seen you before, gorgeous. Where’d you come from?”

You flatten your eyes slightly, hoping he’ll take the hint you’re not interested. While you’re usually alright pushing your limits with Gator, appearing to flirt with another clueless guy at a bar would be about four steps over the final line. “My gunowner boyfriend’s house,” you supply mildly. “How ‘bout you?”

The guy points back to the other side of the room, unphased. “I came from over there once I saw that pretty little skirt on you. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Pretty sure my tag says ‘property of Gator Tillman’,” you tell him. The name alone should put some kind of nerves into this guy if he has any sense at all. “If found, please call 1-800-bite me, I’m taken. Nice meeting you.” You turn back to your friend, hoping he’ll just cut his losses and move on.

“Well, hang on a second, sweetheart–” the man goes on, reaching out and grabbing your forearm. 

Your head whips back to him, brows raising in shock he actually touched you. You make to rip your arm away from him, but it turns out, when you’re Gator Tillman’s girlfriend, you don’t have to. 

You watch as the man is yanked forcefully off his barstool and pulled to his feet. Gator’s standing there like an apparition, fury contorting his face as he grips the man’s shirt in his fist and shoves him up against the bar before he can regain his balance. 

“You heard her, shitbird,” he tells him, voice low and face inches from the poor idiot’s. “Now get lost before I put you in the fuckin’ ground.” The man pales, nodding once. Gator releases him with one last shove, watching as he hurries back across the crowded bar. And then he turns back to you, and all that fury finds a new target. 

Between the booze and your lingering anger, seeing him again is a head rush. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for the intervention or annoyed he’s here or anxious about the fight that’s building between you like an oncoming storm. 

Your friend must sense the tension, because she squeezes your shoulder and slips off her barstool with a farewell smile. You can’t bring yourself to care too particularly much when Gator’s still looking at you like that. 

“Been all over fuckin’ town lookin’ for you,” he starts, barely-controlled anger in his voice. “You don’t come home, and this is where you’ve been all night?”

“The girls and I were just getting some drinks after work,” you explain, a little quieter than you mean to. Oh, he’s mad– just about as angry as you’ve ever seen him. You can’t help the little thrill it sends through you. 

“And you didn’t think to call and tell me that?” he challenges, towering over you where you still sit on the barstool, muscles tight with anticipation. “Didn’t think you’d let me know you weren’t fuckin’ kidnapped? You know how worried I’ve been?”

“It’s been an hour,” you drawl, sipping from your drink. “I’m hardly a missing person's case.” 

You can tell from the deepening scowl that that was the wrong answer. Gator points to the bar door, eyes not leaving yours. “Get your ass in gear. Let’s go.”

“I’m not done with my drink,” you tell him stubbornly, fingers tight against the glass.

He rips it out of your hand and knocks the rest of it back, the ice reverberating through it as he slams it back down on the counter. “And now you are.”

You scowl at him, the liquor finally giving you some courage. “I’m not through here, Gator. I want to stay.”

He takes a shallow breath through his nose, in and out. “I wasn’t askin’, mama. Now get in the fuckin’ car.”

“No,” you tell him, firing the word between you.

His brows lift, and he laughs humorlessly, low and harsh. “Some fuckin’ attitude on you tonight. I ain’t gonna say it again, baby. Get in the car.”

The pet name in contrast to the sharp tone does what it always does and riles you. As you stare down your boyfriend, you decide that, today, you might just be angry enough to push back. “No,” you say again, plain and stubborn.

The corner of Gator’s mouth twitches up, his face still hard and set. There’s no humor to be found there, and that particular fact feels more thrilling than the liquor does. 

“I warned ya,” he sighs, like he’s giving in— as if he’s ever once done that.

And then his hands are on you, pawing your waist and throwing you over his shoulder.

You yelp at the sudden movement as he lurches you both to his feet, gripping your thighs as he hauls you back through the bar. 

“Gator!” you yell in shocked protest, not caring how badly the two of you are making a scene. “Put me down, you asshole!”

“Since you don’t wanna listen, guess you need a little help,” he tells you, his voice gratingly calm. His hands are a vice grip on your bare legs, even while you thrash around. You beat at his back, your hair getting in your face and the buzz of alcohol not helping with keeping your head straight any more than the rapid motion. “Gator, I swear to God, if you don’t let me go–”

“Yell all you want, mama,” he muses as he directs you both through the crowded bar tables. “These assholes aren’t gonna do shit. They know you’re with me.”

As arrogant as the statement is, he’s probably right. If they didn’t recognize Gator’s face and know better than to interject already, they’d sure recognize the Stark County Sheriff's Deputy badge pinned to his chest. Deep-rooted frustration roils in you, and you squirm even more against the arm he has pinning your legs.

“You’d better knock that off, pretty,” he tells you, a warning in his deep voice.

“Or what?” you spit.

You can almost hear the wicked smile in his voice as he replies, “Or I might just have to take you to the bathroom and fuck that attitude outta ya.”

“Pig,” you hiss at him, scowling even as warmth coils in your gut at the words– at what’s probably waiting for you at home as a punishment for your misbehavior. 

He doesn’t set you down until you’re right next to his truck, haphazardly parked in one of the first open spots in the bar parking lot. You wonder how long he drove around looking for you before he thought to come here– wonder how long he waited in the house pretending old wounds weren’t being poked by your absence. For a second, a flicker of guilt runs through you. Sure, your boyfriend isn’t exactly a paragon of emotional stability. But you could have done better than you have tonight to fight that.

Gator releases you and reaches around you to yank open your door. 

Your cheeks flushed, you stand before him stubbornly and cross your arms, refusing to move. He’s placed himself in between you and any possible escape, fencing you into the truck.

“Get in the car,” he orders you again, face entirely uncompromising. 

You’re a little drunk, and your resolve is cracking, but you still manage to glare up at him. “Isn’t there something you wanna say first?” 

“You want an apology outta me after the shit you just pulled?” he demands, brows shooting up. “You’re lucky I don’t lock you up after a stunt like that.” “You don’t own me, Gator,” you remind him, scowling into his stern face.

“That’s not what you were saying to that idiot back there,” Gator challenges, his dangerous voice purring.

You flush harder, wishing you had more faculty over your words. “I’m not going with you until you apologize.”

His eyes flash, all the pushback getting to him. “We’ll talk when you’re safe at home. Now get in the fuckin’ car.”

You falter slightly at the offer to talk. He’s learning– you know he is. A year ago, he’d have brushed this whole thing under the rug, chalked it up to some kind of female dramatics. But now, even if your ‘talking’ is probably gonna amount to another screaming match and some makeup sex… well, you suppose communication takes many forms.

He sees your hesitation and settles slightly, jerking his head to the seat. “Don’t make me throw you in there.” You shoot him one last dirty look and relent, climbing into the truck and taking your seat indignantly. 

Gator slams the door behind you, telling you through the open window, “S’like wrangling a fuckin’ bobcat with you.”

You’re still sulking when you pull into the driveway of your home, the lights in the living room still on like Gator didn’t bother turning down the house before he left. He must have been worried. That guilt flips through you again. 

Gator walks behind you into the house, and although he doesn’t say it, you know it’s probably so he can catch you if you drunkenly stumble. Always so protective, this one– even when he’s infuriated with you.

You sigh as you pad through the entryway, tossing the bag stuffed with your work clothes by the shoe rack haphazardly. You hear Gator’s keys hit the dish, but you don’t turn back to look at him– just make your way to the kitchen and pull a water bottle from the fridge, drinking from it deeply to clear your throat. 

Gator sheds his leather jacket and throws it over the hook by the door before stalking into the kitchen after you. You eye him coolly as he comes up to the counter, his hands resting on it as he watches you back. 

“So, you gonna tell me what the fuck you thought you were doing tonight?” he starts, his voice already harsh. 

“Drinks,” you tell him again, taking another swig of water. “With my friends. Told you.”

Gator runs a hand through his hair, mussing it. Out of his heavy uniform, when he’s as rumpled as he is now, he’s nowhere near as intimidating as most people find him. “You told me you were off at six,” he barks. “I get home, no call, no text, and you’re out with your fuckin’ girlfriends like it’s goddamn mardi gras.”

“It was one fucking hour,” you gripe, fingers locked around the plastic of your water bottle.

“I don’t give a damn,” Gator snarls, planting his hands on the counter and leaning toward you. “You don’t just run out on me. Plans change, then you call me and let me know and then I come and haul your ass out of the bar.”

You know where this fear comes from– know what he’s getting at, know why he’s ordering you so uncompromisingly. But maybe you’re too drunk and heady with anger to care, because once again, you can’t help but keep pushing. “Maybe I just didn’t want to talk to you, ever think about that?”

“You’re the one always harpin’ on me about communicating, aren’t ya?” he drawls, that dangerous edge still in his tone. 

“Well, forgive me if I don’t have a strong interest in sitting here and letting you call me names over things that aren’t my fault,” you spit, and to your frustration, you feel your eyes start to prick again at the memory of what he called you this morning. 

His jaw ticks, his lips pressing together. “You know damn well I didn’t mean that.”

“I have yet to hear you say so,” you challenge, face twisting. “I guess it’s just fine that you call me a bitch and tell me to shut my mouth? That’s just fine now?”

You see his hackles raise– see frustration and aggression fight for dominance in his expression before he finally relents– retreats just an inch for you. “I’m sorry,” he says firmly. “You bring it outta me when you push me like that. You know that.”

You shake your head, still not satisfied. “You can’t just lash out at me ‘cause you’re pissed with someone else. I’m not your proxy for the bridge ladies, Gator.”

“I know that,” he snaps, some of the softness fading. “I know you’re not sayin’ what they’re sayin’!”

“Then why are you yelling at me?” you spread your hands, incredulous.

He drags his hand through his hair again, aggravated. “I’m not–”

“You are,” you argue. “You are, Gator. I mean, why can’t you just talk to me about it?”

“I’m sick of fuckin’ talkin’ about it!” he yells. “I’m sick of all these people and their pushin’– all the little hints and nudges and tellin’ me what to do!”

“Who’s been saying that?” you plead with him, shaking your head. “It’s a couple of old ladies, Gator. It doesn’t matter what they think.”

“It’s not just them, it’s everyone!” he argues, still steaming. You can almost see that anger bubbling up in him– though, once again, you can tell you’re not its intended target. “Roy was on my ass about it this morning, too,” Gator spits out bitterly. “Talkin’ about makin’ an honest woman outta you. Carryin’ on the family name and all that horseshit.”

You fall quiet, the pieces clicking into place; the true reason for Gator’s bad mood this morning, his reason for coming over to sit with you in the first place. The pressure you can almost see in the set of his shoulders, the burdens he doesn’t realize he willingly takes on, the impossible expectation you’ve tried so hard to teach him to forget. But as long as Roy is here, some things will cut too deep into Gator for even you to mend. And this, the ‘pushing’ he keeps bucking, is about something bigger than the words you’ve thrown at each other tonight.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, and for the first time tonight, you really mean it. “He shouldn’t have said that. You’re right, it’s none of their business.”

You watch as Gator deflates slightly, the calmness of your voice finally working on him. 

“You can’t let it get to you like this,” you go on, brow creasing. “You can’t let him get in your head, baby, it’s—“

“You fucking try it,” he fires at you.

Your expression hardens again. “You don’t see me losing my shit when those people say I'm nothing more than a good housewife in the making.”

“That shit is different and you know it,” he says, thrusting a finger at you. “You know that’s not you. You play that game, but you know that’s not you.”

He’s still pushing— still fighting you. And, just now, it feels as heartbreaking as anything else he’s done, especially when it comes to this— to the little hopes you've fed each other, the plans you’d thought were in the making. That’s what finally gets you— finally makes you blurt it out. “Why is this such an issue for you?” you make out, and your voice cracks as you say it. You're reminded of the fact you’re still a little drunk as tears pool in your eyes, threatening to spill down your face.

Gator sees it, too. His expression creases, and he tears his eyes away, his resolve all but completely breaking. It’s the one thing he’s never been able to stand— you crying. The second he sees he’s pushed you there, the second your voice starts to wobble, he can’t take it– he always relents.

He heaves a sigh, his face falling and his shoulders drooping. “Baby– baby, why are you crying? Come on, don’t– don’t cry.”

The words do nothing to help matters. Tears fall swiftly down your cheeks, and you reach up to brush them away just as quickly. “Do you–” you take a breath, your voice weak with emotion. “I mean, do you… not want that with me?” You feel idiotic– naive. That quiet dream you keep locked away in your chest, that fantasy of a rowdy reception hall blaring music and a carseat in the back of the truck and tiny, sticky hands gripping a camo pant leg… maybe it was only ever that: a beautiful, foolish dream. But after three years, what else could you expect? How could you not have pictured it all with this boy who’s taken possession of you?

His expression contorts, confusion flashing in his eyes. “That’s what you think?” he demands.

“That’s how you make it sound, Gator!” You cry, hands flying to wipe furiously at your face. “That’s what it sounds like when you act like it’s so offensive that people think we’re gonna be a family one day!” You watch as that one word– family– hits him square in the chest. “You’re not gettin’ it,” he shakes his head, his voice infinitely quieter. “You don’t get it, doll.”

“You’re damn fucking right, I don’t!” you snap back, sniffing. 

“I just–” Gator turns from the counter again, frustration choking his voice. “I just can’t listen to any more of these fuckers tell me what to do. Not about this. Not about you.”

You shake your head, tears blurring your vision. 

“Listen,” he tells you, suddenly insistent. Like he can’t stand it any longer, he rounds the counter toward you, stopping just before you. His hand comes up to fit over your jaw, almost covering the lower part of your face. He’s holding you there, forcing you without pain or aggression to look up at him. It’s possessive in its utter gentleness. “I don’t have a lot ‘a shit that’s mine,” he tells you, and something in his eyes shifts, melts a little. “But you? You and me, baby? That’s just mine. That belongs to me, you understand?”

A pathetic noise, a tiny gasping sob, works its way out of your mouth. Gator’s fingers are firm and warm on your face as he holds you, rooting you in place with that one hand. 

“I want this because I want it,” he says, low and clear. “Not ‘cause I'm told to. Not as somethin’ my dad’s makin’ me do for him. I want you ‘cause I love you like nothin’ I’ve ever felt.”

You’re trembling, heart stuttering at the admission. Your hands come up to grip his arms, needing something to stabilize you.

“No one else gets to tell me to love you,” he says fiercely, staring down into your face. “No one gets to tell me what to want. I pick you.” His hand slips into your hair, cupping the back of your head, and he pulls you into him, crushing you into his chest.

You let out another sob, arms coming around him immediately. You clutch him back, your feet nearly lifted off the ground by the strength of his embrace. But you need it– you’ve always needed Gator’s force, his violence. You need his hands, his words, his love imprinted onto your skin in red lines like sleep marks, the intensity existing as the proof that it’s real.

“I love you,” you choke out, eyes fluttering shut. 

Gator’s fingers scratch at your scalp, his strong arms tight around you. “Don’t you ever run out on me again.”

You hear the desperation in his voice, much as he might try to hide it. “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” you whisper, drawing back to look up at him. 

He’s so serious when your eyes meet again– his face drawn and pensive. One of your hands comes up to brush over his cheek, marvelling at the unexpected softness of his skin. “Fuck ‘em all,” you tell him, a smile flitting across your lips. “You and I are on our own timeline.”

He turns his head into your hand, nuzzling your palm. “I love you,” he says again, the words a grumble in his chest.

That naive, perfect dream is back in your chest, stronger and more insistent than before. As you stare up at Gator, his face softer than you might ever have hoped, you feel it softly glow.

---

“Right where I left you,” Gator hums, arms tightening around you, nose prodding into your cheek. From the feeling of his chest pressed up against you, you can tell he’s still in his work clothes, though he’s ditched the tactical vest. He’s been patrolling later than usual lately, much to both of your dismay. Were it not for how sweet he almost always is when he gets back and the fact it usually means you can sneak in an evening nap like this one when he’s gone, you might have had to pick a fight with his boss. 

You groan again, turning your head over your shoulder so he can see the frown on your face, your eyes still stubbornly shut. “‘M sleeping,” you mumble, voice thick. 

Gator’s letting the cold under the covers, and he probably knows it. He relishes annoying you like this, and you can feel the smirk on his lips as he presses them into the warmth of your neck.

“So fuckin’ lazy,” he chuckles. 

“Rude,” you grumble, rolling over. He laughs as you slip your arms around him, clutching him closer. In contrast to the idyllic heat of your bed, his arms are chilled from so long spent out in the Dakota snow.

“You’re wearing outside clothes,” you complain, finally opening your eyes. You blink at him, clearing them of sleep. 

He’s got that smug, lazy grin painted on his face as he watches you, and his hair is loosened slightly from its gel. “So?”

“You can’t bring outside clothes into bed,” you chide him gruffly, snuggling further into his chest. Damn it, but you’ve always slept better in his arms than alone, and as much-needed as your nap today was, you’ve missed him. You breathe him in, savoring the faint scent of perspiration and that sharp cologne you’ve told him you don’t like.

“I don’t see you complainin’,” he teases, his fingertips pressing into you. 

“Mmm,” you intone, already feeling sleep attempt to drag you under again. “How was work?”

“Same shit as usual,” he grumbles, tucking your head under his chin.“Rather be lazing around all day here with you, that’s for damn sure."

You tap a pattern onto his sternum with the pad of your finger. “I’ll have you know I’ve been slaving away all day,” you argue sleepily. 

“Oh yeah?” he snorts. “Believe that when I see it.”

If you weren’t so comfortable cuddled against his chest, you would have glared at him. “I have. I made scones for the church picnic, and I cleaned out the laundry room cabinets–”

“Mm, sounds hard,” he mocks you.

You huff indignantly. “Sounds like you’re not getting any of my scones.”

His laughter rumbles in his chest.

“I also went to check in on Mrs. Dougherty–”

“Crazy old bat,” Gator grumbles of your eighty-two-year-old neighbor who despises him. She’s really a sweet lady– just sees too much of Roy in Gator. You go over there every now and again to pick up the house for her and attempt to smooth things over between the two of them.

“And I picked up a morning shift at the diner,” you finish stubbornly. “And nobody else competent was working.”

His sigh ruffles your hair. “Baby, what’d I tell you about picking up those extra shifts?”

You roll your eyes. “It was only four hours, Gate.”

Gator pulls back to give you a displeased look. “I wish you’d just quit working at that fuckin’ place already. Those scumbags’re runnin’ you ragged.”

“I like my job, Gator,” you tell him pointedly. And you did– as shitty as any off-the-highway diner job was, yours was just decent enough to keep. And besides, you liked your coworkers, and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to spend your hours keeping children from crying with smiley-face pancakes. It was more rewarding than what Gator did all day, that was for sure. “The people are nice. The tips are good.”

“Tips’re only good ‘cause you’ve got all those jackoffs making eyes at you,” he complains.

You fight not to roll your eyes again. “That’s not the reason.” Gator’s always been the jealous type– something you both love and hate about him. If he didn’t make it so difficult every time he came into your work or went out with you to a bar, you might have found the trait endearing. But he always made it all but impossible for you to hold a conversation with another man– interjecting and putting his hands all over you like you weren’t in public. It was no secret in town who you belonged to– Gator had made damn sure of that.

“Like hell it isn’t,” he argues. “I see ‘em every time I’m in there. Runnin’ their eyes over ya like they want a piece of ya.”

“Gator,” you cut in placatingly. “Everyone in town knows I’m with you. They know better than to try anything.” More importantly, they know Gator– know what it means when Roy Tillman’s son staked his claim. Every one of your regulars would much rather keep their eyes from wandering and their tone respectful than face the other end of a bloodied tire iron. 

“They fuckin’ better,” Gator adds, already spinning himself into a bad mood. But, as if he’s caught himself on it, realized what he’s doing, that anger melts slightly, replaced with a wicked, possessive mischief. “Maybe I should just knock you up. Finally send a message to all those assholes.”

Shock and a delicious jolt of warmth travel through you, and you glare at him. You pinch his side, then pull one of your hands free and hold it in front of his face, waggling your fingers. “Or maybe you could just get a move on and put a ring on it, stud. Start there.”

“You gonna quit your job if I do?” he teased, leaning forward to nip playfully at your neck. “Stay home all day makin’ scones ‘n shit?”

“Gate,” you sigh, your hand cradling the back of his head as he attacks your neck. “You know I like having something to do with my time besides sit around and take care of you.”

“Takin’ care of you’s my job,” he insists, his voice muffled against your skin. The vibrations travel up your pulsepoint, and you fight your shiver. “Y’should let me do it better. I’m the man. S’posed to provide for you.”

“You do,” you assure him, knowing this is a pressure point for him. “I’m just better for you if I’m not going stir-crazy in this house every day.”

He sighs, finally retreating from the junction of your shoulder and neck. “You’re so fuckin’ stubborn. Drives me crazy, woman.”

You press forward, locking your lips onto his. Your mouths move together, slow and luxurious. “I love you,” you mumble, eyes crinkling as you stare back at him. 

“Mm,” Gator intones, holding out on you on purpose just to show he’s still not pleased. You snort, nonplussed by his pouting.

“I’m starving,” he announces, pressing one last kiss to your cheek before beginning to extract himself from the bed. “Gonna go make something to eat. You want anything?”

That reminds you– you make yourself sit up and get moving again, yawning wide. “There’s pulled pork in the slow cooker. I waited for you.”

“Why the hell’d you do that?” he asks, exasperated. He stands by the side of the bed waiting for you, which betrays the annoyed look on his face with more of that hidden sweetness.

You shrug, stretching your arms above your head. “I don’t like when we don’t have dinner together.”

“You shouldn’t have waited,” he scolds you, a frown tugging at his lips. “It’s late, doll. You can’t just starve ‘cause you’re waitin’ up on me."

“What time is it?” you ask, still groggy, ignoring his chastisement as you grab his right wrist and pull it up so you can look at his watch. When you see the time, you roll your eyes. “It’s only eight-thirty, Gator.” You swing your legs over the side of the bed and let him grab your wrists, pulling you to your feet. 

“You just told me you worked all day, stupid,” he reminds you, letting you lead the way out of the bedroom. “Next time, you eat without me. Got it?”

You shake your head, smiling to yourself as you pad down the hallway toward the kitchen. It’s almost endearing how fast he switches between the insults and frustration and that care you’ve come to see in him– care that’s unlike how anyone’s ever treated you before, huge and constant and limitless. Like this boy would drive to the ends of the earth for you and yell at you all the way back home for being dumb enough to strand yourself out there. 

He’s got rough edges, your Gator. But there’s no denying he loves you.

When he’s standing behind you, beating you to taking the plates down from their high shelf as you stretch for them, you can feel it. When he watches you dig into your food and complains that you’re eating like you’ve been starving to death, it’s there, too. When he takes the dirty dishes from out of your hands and washes them while you sit on the counter beside him, drying them with a dishcloth, it’s impossible to ignore. 

On the way back to the bedroom, Gator lands a sharp smack to your ass, and you jump, glaring over your shoulder at him. He grins at you, the expression turning him so boyish. “Gotta be my favorite part of comin’ home.”

“Hm,” you intone, flicking your hair over your shoulder as you walk. “Mine’s giving you head. But I don’t know if you’ve been nice enough tonight.”

He laughs aloud, catching up to you and gripping you around the waist, spinning you in his arms as you reach the bedroom and he kicks the door shut behind him. Ignoring your squeal, he picks you up and throws you back onto the unmade bed.

You can’t help but grin as he comes over you again, his arms caging you in. 

“Careful what you wish for, pretty,” he teases, his voice a husk. “You’re lucky I love you so much. Wouldn’t take this kinda attitude from anyone else.”

Your fingers come up to clasp behind his neck, teasingly chaste. “If anyone else is offering you head, you’ve got another thing coming, Alligator.”

He leans down and kisses you, his tongue sweeping past your lips as he languishes in your taste. When you part for air, he’s smiling. “I love you,” he says begrudgingly, like he’s admitting something you can’t already tell in everything he does.

So, grinning back up at him, you only tell him, “I know.”

---

a/n: wrote, edited, and posted this in like one hour which is bizarre for me so apologies for any mistakes. also my first real x reader fic...

You walk farther into the room, dumping everything onto the dresser with loud plastic clacks. “It’s my full routine. Hair mask, exfoliating, shaving, skin care. The whole thing.”  

“A hair mask,” he repeats slowly.

“Yes.”

“You put a mask on your hair.”

“Well, it’s basically just deep conditioner.”

“But y’call it a mask.”

“Yes, Gator.”   

He squints harder, visibly trying to work through the logic of that.

Honestly, you can’t even blame him. 

You’ve seen your boyfriend's shower routine. 

Well, calling it a routine is generous. 

One sad, dented bottle of cheap 3-in-1 shoved in the corner of the tub with the label peeling halfway off. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash—it probably doubles as dish soap and engine degreaser too. You once asked him what face cleanser he used and he looked at you like you’d started speaking French.

You walk over to the bed with a sigh, hooking your fingers into the waistband of his sweats.

“C’mere. I’ll show you.”

“I know how showers work.” 

“Do you, though?”

“Real funny.”

Still, he lets you tug him up. Peels off the mattress with a groan, warm and sleepy, hair sticking up everywhere from laying around all evening. His shirt rides up when he stretches, exposing a strip of skin and the soft trail of hair disappearing beneath his sweats.

He follows you toward the bathroom, scratching absently at his stomach while he grumbles under his breath. 

“You women use too much shit.”

“Yeah, and you use dish soap to wash your whole body.”

“It cleans me, don’t it?”

“Mm, debatable.” 

He snorts, stepping behind you as you twist the shower handle. Water blasts against the tile, steam already beginning to curl through the air. The bathroom warms quickly, mirrors fogging at the edges while you line up bottles along the shelf with practiced precision.  

Gator leans against the sink watching you.

The second your shirt hits the floor, he goes dead silent. 

You feel it before you even turn around—that heavy, heat-soaked stare settling low on your back and dragging slowly downward.

You glance up toward the fogging mirror and catch him watching openly, head tipped back while his eyes track the slow slide of your shorts down your thighs.

Teeth catching on his bottom lip, pupils gone dark.

There’s nothing subtle about the look on his face.

By the time your shorts pool around your ankles, he’s already pushing lazily off the sink.

You barely get half a breath in before his palm cracks sharply against your ass.

The sound echoes off the tile.

You jolt with a gasp, shooting him an unimpressed look over your shoulder while he just stands there grinning crookedly at you.

“Gator.”

“What?” he smirks, all fake innocence, though his voice has already dropped rough around the edges. His hand lingers where he smacked you, fingers spreading possessively over the curve of your hip. “You standin’ there lookin’ like that... ain’t my fault.”

You turn away before he can catch you smiling.

By the time you step into the shower, the room is thick with steam. Warm water pours over your shoulders the second you step under the spray, heavy enough to make you sigh. Heat slides down your spine, loosening every tight muscle in your body.

A second later, the shower curtain jerks open.

Then:

“Oh—jesus CHRIST—!” 

You burst out laughing as Gator physically recoils the second the water hits him, one hand slapping against the tile wall to keep from slipping on his bare ass.

“Why the fuck is it so hot?”

“It’s not that hot!”

“My skin’s peelin’ off!” 

“It’s just warm.”

“Goddamn, it’s like Satan’s asshole in here.”  

You laugh harder, grabbing his wrist before he can escape.

“C’mere.” 

“No, wait—hang on, hang—babe—”

You yank him fully under the spray.

Hot water drenches him instantly.

His hair flattens against his forehead, dark strands dripping into his eyes. He squints through it with a look of genuine betrayal while the spray beats against his shoulders.

“Shit—” He jerks slightly, hissing through his teeth when the water hits the back of his neck. “Y’tryna boil me alive?”

“Oh my god, you’re so dramatic.”

“I’m serious.” His hands land on your waist like he needs support through this deeply traumatic experience. “I’m literally cookin’ in here.”

The heat has already flushed his skin pink across his chest and up into his cheeks. Tiny beads of water cling to his lashes every time he blinks, steam blurring the usual sharpness of him—the hard set of his brows, the tension around his mouth.

He looks so soft like this.

Prettier, somehow.

Especially with those flushed, perpetually pouty lips.

You can’t help but smile.

“You’re such a baby,” you coo softly, reaching up to smooth his soaked hair back. “C’mere, you big baby.”

He grumbles something vaguely offensive under his breath, even while leaning into your touch.

Your palms slide over warm, wet skin, fingertips tracing through the damp hair over his sternum before your arms curl loosely around his neck. Water streams between your bodies in hot sheets, slicking your skin together every time he shifts closer.

And he is close now.

Chest pressed against yours, big hands spread over your waist. He’s radiating heat under your palms, muscles slowly relaxing despite all his complaining.  

You cup his face in both hands, rubbing your thumbs affectionately over his flushed cheeks.

He sniffs once, still pretending to pout, though his eyes have already started drooping heavier from the heat. A bead of water slides down the bridge of his nose before disappearing against his mouth.

God, he’s gorgeous like this.

Dripping wet, hair hanging in his face, lips pink from the heat and pulled into that stubborn little pout he gets whenever he wants attention but refuses to ask for it directly. 

You kiss him before he can start complaining again.

And, for all his dramatic huffing and bitching, a quick press to his baby-pink lips is all it takes.

The second your mouth touches his, he melts.

A low sound rumbles deep in his chest as his arm snakes tighter around your waist, hauling you flush against him beneath the spray. The kiss starts lazy, warm and lingering, and he sighs into it like he’s been waiting for it since the second he stepped under the water.

“Mm,” he mumbles, mouth curling against yours, “So this ‘everything shower’ thing…”

You already know what he’s about to say.

“…that include me bendin’ you over in five minutes or...?”

You laugh into his mouth.

“Gator.”

“What? You said everything.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“False advertisin’, then.” 

He steals another kiss before you can answer, smiling into it this time, all smug and pleased with himself. His hands spread possessively over the curve of your waist, thumbs rubbing slow circles against your hips.

When you shove lightly at his chest, he barely moves.

“Focus,” you tell him. 

“I am focused.”

“On the shower.”

“I can multitask.”

“No, you cannot.” 

He grins against your temple, pressing one lingering kiss there before finally loosening his grip enough to let you move around him.

Barely.

Even then, his hand stays planted firmly on your hip while you start reaching for products. 

And despite all his whining about how hot the water is—despite the way he keeps distracting you every thirty seconds by kissing your shoulder, squeezing your ass, groping your tits, dragging his hands over your stomach whenever you lean forward— 

He’s fascinated.

You can see it all over his face, clear as anything.  

His eyes follow every little thing you do. The loofah hanging from the hook. The jars lined neatly along the shelf. The soft clicks of lids opening and the thick, sweet scents blooming through the steam one by one: vanilla, cocoa butter, orange blossom, lavender.

“So what’s all this shit for?” he asks eventually.

“Language.” 

He snorts and picks up one of your body oils carefully, turning it over in his massive hand while water drips from his wrist.

“Why’s this bottle so fuckin' tiny?”

“’Cause it’s expensive.”

“How expensive?”

You hesitate.

His eyes narrow immediately. “How expensive.”

“…Thirty dollars.”

“For that tiny-ass bottle?”

“It’s good oil!”

He looks genuinely horrified.

“Holy shit. You could buy, like… a car part with that.”

“Yeah, because those are definitely comparable purchases.”

He rolls his eyes, turning his attention on the scrub jar in your hand.

He squints at the label through the water dripping into his eyes.

“Sugar scrub?”

“Yeah.”

“The hell’s that mean?”

You grin instantly. “Hold still.”

His eyes narrow with immediate suspicion. “Why.”

“You ask too many questions.”

Before he can move away, you scoop a handful into your palm. 

It’s your favorite scrub too—the ridiculously overpriced strawberry pound cake one that smells good enough to eat, warm brown sugar and whipped vanilla frosting.

You rub it over his forearm without warning. 

He flinches immediately. “Ow, what the fuck—"

"Relax."

Sugar crystals drag slowly across his skin while your hands work over the hard muscle of his arm. The scrub softens beneath the heat, turning slick and grainy between your fingers.

His brows pinch together while he watches you.  

“…What’s it even doin’?”

“Gets rid of dead skin.”

“I don’t got dead skin.”

“Everybody has dead skin.”

“I don’t.”

“Sure, babe.”  

He eyes the scrub suspiciously while you keep going. "Is this gonna make my arm all... glittery, or whatever?"

“...No.”

“You hesitated.” 

“No, I didn’t!" you insist, laughing. “I do have a glitter shower jelly though.” 

“A what.”

“A shower jelly.”

“The fuck is a shower jelly?”

The grin spreading across your face makes him immediately point at you.

“No.”

“Too late!”

You twist around beneath the spray, reaching behind him toward the crowded shower shelf. Your fingers close around the little plastic pot wedged between your body wash and conditioner. It jiggles in your hand when you pick it up—golden and translucent, packed with tiny flecks of glitter that catch under the warm bathroom light. 

You plop it directly into his palm.

The jelly slips against his skin, wobbling in his hand like a living thing, and his entire face twists in genuine alarm.

“What the fuc—why’s it doin’ that?”  

You dissolve into laughter, doubling over against him while he stares down at the jiggling soap with genuine distrust, holding it out at arm’s length like it might suddenly grow teeth. 

“This ain’t right,” he mutters, poking it cautiously with his thumb.

“It’s just soap!” 

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes while you hide your face in his shoulder, laughter shaking out of you in muffled bursts against his warm skin. His chest hitches once beneath you, reluctant amusement creeping in despite himself.

When you finally manage to pull back and look at him, his expression has changed completely.

Water slides slowly down his face in shimmering trails, gathering at his jaw before dripping down to his chest.   

He’s not looking at the shower jelly anymore.

He’s looking at you. 

Hazel eyes much softer than you’re used to, focused in a way that makes your laughter taper off.    

It still manages to catch you off guard, even after all this time.  

Because Gator’s never been good at saying things straight out. He jokes, he deflects, he fills silence with anger and attitude—whatever comes easiest.

But sometimes, when he looks at you like this, it feels like he doesn’t need to say anything at all. 

You’re still peering up at him when he blinks, huffing as he tosses the shower jelly toward the shelf without even looking where it lands. 

“Thing’s fuckin’ haunted.”

Then his hands settle on your waist.

Big, warm palms slide around your hips without hesitation, dragging you forward until there’s no space left between you.

You squeak when you lose your footing against the slick tile.

“Gator—!” you gasp, grabbing his shoulders to steady yourself, laughter spilling out of you again even as your pulse jumps.

“What?” he says, mouth curling into that lazy, knowing grin.

“I almost slipped,” you breathe, trying to find balance against his chest.

“Nah.” His smile widens. “Got you.”

Then his nose nudges along your neck, inhaling deeply.

“Why’s all this shit smell like food, huh?” 

You huff a laugh, squirming when his lips skim the damp skin just below your ear.

“Jelly,” he mutters between kisses. “Sugar scrub. Vanilla frosting. Coconut whatever… what’s next? Rotisserie chicken lotion?”

That gets another laugh out of you, helpless and bright, the sound buried as you press closer into his shoulder. Your arms slide up around his neck, fingers threading through the damp hair at the nape.

“I’m serious,” he mutters, though you can tell he’s smiling too. You hear it in the lazy drawl of his words, feel it in the way his chest vibrates beneath your cheek. “Like I’m showerin’ inside a damn bakery.” 

You love moments like this.

Doing nothing else but being close with one another, swaying under the steady press of warm water, cocooned in steam while the rest of the world falls away.

His hands move absentmindedly over your back, gliding up and down your skin in a comforting rhythm.

Then, naturally, his grip slides lower on your hips.

You feel the shift in him before you even see it, his grin turning cocky in a way that always spells trouble.

“So…” he murmurs, voice dropping low in his chest. “Can we fuck now?”

You snort, pushing lightly at his shoulders so you can look at him properly.

His expression is completely shameless, nothing but open, unapologetic confidence.

You wouldn’t expect anything less from your boyfriend.  

“No,” you say flatly.

His expression sours. “No?”

“We still have to exfoliate.”

Gator rolls his eyes so hard you’re surprised he doesn’t injure himself.

“You’re killin’ me.”

But he doesn’t let go. 

And honestly, the longer this goes on, the less he even pretends he wants out of the shower.

Especially once your hands slide higher over his shoulders.

The second your thumbs press into the tight muscle at the base of his neck, his whole body jerks beneath your hands. 

“Jesus…” he mutters under his breath.

“Too hard?”

“No,” he says immediately. “Just... keep goin’.”

That alone makes you smile again.

Because two weeks ago this man would’ve rather thrown himself into traffic than let something pink and strawberry-scented anywhere near him. 

Now he’s standing beneath scalding water while you rub sugar scrub into his shoulders, massaging the tension out of him like a spoiled housecat.

You take your time with him, working your thumbs into the tendons there. 

God, he’s tight everywhere.  

The muscles across his shoulders feel hard as stone beneath your palms, thick bands of tension packed so tightly they barely move under your touch. Every time your thumbs drag across another knot, his breathing catches slightly.

Your smile fades little by little.

“Baby,” you murmur quietly, “when’s the last time you relaxed your shoulders?”

“Uh, dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

He shrugs, though even that movement looks stiff. 

“Never really think about it.”  

Your fingers drag slowly down the back of his neck again, pressing into another rigid knot there.

“Gator,” you say softly, brows pulling together, “you’re hard as a brick back here.”

He snorts quietly at that. 

You roll your eyes, but the innuendo doesn’t land quite the same now. 

Because once you really start paying attention—really feeling him beneath your hands—you realize how tense he actually is.

Every inch of him feels wound tight.

His shoulders sit high even while he’s supposedly relaxed, thick muscles rigid beneath your palms no matter how much steam fills the shower or how hot the water runs over him. 

Like he’s always bracing for something. 

The realization tightens something in your chest in return. 

And maybe he notices the shift in you, because after that, he goes unusually quiet.

No more smartass comments. He just stands there under the spray while you finish working the scrub over him.

The pink sugar crystals melt gradually beneath the water, dissolving against warm skin while your fingers work over the hard planes of his chest and shoulders.

Gator watches your hands more than anything else.

You notice it every time you glance up.

His eyes tracking the slow circles of your palms, the drag of your nails lightly scratching through the damp hair on his chest. The way you smooth water over his shoulders afterward. 

You catch yourself wondering, briefly, if this is something he’s ever really experienced before outside of sex—outside of anything physical and fleeting. Being touched without it carrying an expectation, without it needing to lead anywhere else or turn into something more.

His shoulders begin to drop first. Then his jaw loosens. Then the permanent little line between his brows eases until he stops looking so guarded all the time.

"Kinda feels nice, I guess,” he admits after a while, voice quieter than usual.

You smile to yourself.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.” 

When you reach for the shampoo, he tips his head forward without being asked.

You work the product through his hair slowly, fingers sliding into damp strands as the scent of citrus and jasmine fills the steam around you. It lingers warm and clean, cutting through the heavy sweetness left from everything else.

Then your nails scrape lightly across his scalp.

And the sound he makes is... well.

Your gaze lifts slowly.

Gator’s standing completely still beneath the spray, eyes shut tight, brows pinched together while a slow breath slips through his parted lips. 

“Gates, was that...?”

His eyes snap open. 

“No.”

The denial comes way too fast.

You stare at him for exactly one second before laughter slips out of you.

“Oh my god, it was!”

“It was not.”

“Yes, it was!”

“No, it wasn’t. Shut up.”

You bite back another laugh at how seriously he suddenly sounds about it.

His cheeks are already flushed pink from the heat, but now the color creeps higher—up the tips of his ears too.

Interesting. 

Purple-tinted shampoo runs in slow trails down his temples as he glares at you through wet lashes, mouth twitching while water streams down the sharp slope of his nose.

“You’re annoyin’,” he murmurs. “I’m leavin’.”

“No, you’re not.”

To prove your point, you drag your nails lightly against his scalp again.

A gruff noise slips out of him before he can stop it this time, low and helpless, pulled up from somewhere deep in his throat. His eyes squeeze shut and his hands tighten briefly at your waist.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “I hate you.”

“Liar.”

He makes no move to leave.

If anything, his grip on your waist tightens when you start rinsing the shampoo from his hair, angling his head toward you so you don’t have to reach so far.  

You’ve known Gator long enough to understand how big this actually is.

Because for all his flirting and constant touching, genuine softness doesn’t always come naturally to him.

Not receiving it, anyway.

He’s good at grabbing your waist to pull you into his lap while you’re trying to cook dinner. Good at kissing your neck in the kitchen while murmuring filthy things against your skin just to hear you laugh.

He knows how to want, how to take up space. 

But this? 

Standing still while somebody takes care of him?

That’s different.

And for the first time since he stepped into the bathroom, he looks completely calm.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him be this still for so long.

Usually there’s always something twitching in him somewhere—a bouncing knee, fingers tapping against his thigh, shoulder bunched up to his neck and his jaw locked tight like he’s perpetually gearing up for a fight. 

But right now, he just looks tired.

Like he doesn’t feel the need to bury it, for once. Safe enough to let the exhaustion sit in him without pushing it away.

So you keep touching him gently. Combing your fingers through his hair while water pours through the strands in dark rivulets, nails scraping softly over the base of his skull until he shivers.

By the time you finally finish rinsing him off, Gator looks completely wrung out.

His cheeks are flushed deep pink from standing under the heat too long, damp hair sticking up in uneven directions, his eyes gone heavy-lidded in that sleepy way they get late at night. 

You step out first, wrapping a towel around yourself while he stands there dripping on the bathmat, rubbing absently at his own forearm.

His brows furrow thoughtfully.

“Huh.”

You glance over while tightening your towel. “What?”

He rubs his arm again slowly, fingertips sweeping over the skin where you used the scrub earlier.

“…Feels different.”

The smile that breaks across your face is immediate.

“Right?!”

You sound so aggressively excited about it that he snorts quietly, shaking his head.

Still, he keeps touching his arm. 

Testing the skin with obvious confusion, thumb brushing over the softness there.

“Huh,” he says again, quieter this time. 

Then, because he physically cannot allow himself to sound too impressed for longer than thirty seconds, he shrugs and reaches for a towel.

“S’fine, I guess.”

Which, translated from Gator-speak, is basically a standing ovation.

You grin to yourself while he drags the towel roughly over his hair—

Then immediately shakes his head like a dog, spraying droplets all over the floor.

“Oh my—Gator!”

...

Afterward, you settle onto the bathroom counter in one of his oversized shirts, rubbing lotion into your legs while the room stays thick with leftover warmth.

Everything smells sweet, vanilla and strawberry sugar lingering heavy in the humid air. 

Gator sprawls across the closed toilet seat nearby in a fresh pair of sweatpants, elbows planted on his knees while he watches you through heavy-lidded eyes.

You try not to stare too much at how pretty he looks like this too, softened and comfortable, relaxed enough to practically fall asleep upright. 

You hold up a bottle.

“This one’s toner.”

“Uh huh.”

“This one’s moisturizer.”

He gives you a flat look.

“Yeah,” he drawls slowly. “I know what moisturizer is, babe.”

You ignore him.

“And this one’s hyaluronic acid.” 

“You put acid on your face?”

“It’s not that kind of acid.”

His skeptical hmph makes you laugh quietly while you pat serum into your cheeks.

And even though he’d rather chew glass than admit it out loud, something about all of this clearly gets under his skin in a way he doesn’t entirely hate.

It's starts small at first.

Lingering in the bathroom doorway while you do your nighttime routine, pretending he’s only there because he’s “waitin’ for you to finish the hell up already.”

He picks up random bottles in the meantime, squinting suspiciously at labels.

“What’s body butter supposed to be?”

“It’s moisturizer.”

“So lotion.”

“Thicker lotion.”

“That’s stupid.”

Three days later you catch him using it. 

Only because, apparently, “my hands are dry as shit.”

Then he uses it again the next night.

And the night after that. 

After that, it stops being occasional. 

You start catching him using your products without even asking first.

Rubbing lotion into his hands while standing in the kitchen. Swiping your expensive lip balm across his mouth while pretending not to notice you watching him.

And honestly, you think part of it stops being about the products pretty quickly.

You think he likes the familiarity of it. The closeness.

Smelling your body wash on his skin. Coconut lotion rubbed into his knuckles and vanilla sweetness clinging faintly to the collar of his shirts.

Little pieces of you following him around. 

It becomes most obvious after rough days.

The kind where he comes home exhausted down to the bone, shoulders slumped, smelling like sweat and engine oil.   

Sometimes he barely makes it through the front door before he drops, collapsing face-first into your chest with a groan. His forehead presses into your shoulder while his arms wrap loosely around your waist.

And when you run your fingers through his hair and murmur, “Everything shower?” he’ll let out a long exhale against your neck before mumbling a tired little, “Yeah,” into your shirt. 

Some nights he’s too drained for anything else. 

He just stands beneath the spray with his eyes closed while you wash his hair slowly, his hands resting heavy on your waist more for grounding than anything possessive.

Other nights, though, he’s more awake. 

More opinionated.

“Wait,” he says one evening, catching your wrist before you grab a scrub jar. “Not that one.”

You blink over your shoulder. “What, this one?”

“Nah.” He points lazily toward the shelf. “The other one.”

“The cotton candy scrub?”

“…Yeah.” 

You can’t help it—you grin a little, slow and knowing. 

“What? It smells better than that strawberry cake shit.”

Soon enough you’re rubbing cotton candy and shea butter into his skin, pink suds sliding down his tattooed bicep while he stands there acting like this is all one giant inconvenience he’s tolerating for your sake. 

And in return, he starts taking care of you too.

Not always gracefully, and definitely not innocently.

His hands wander plenty, soap-slick palms gliding over your hips, sudsing up your tits and ass under the excuse of “helping.”  

Sometimes it’s worse when he’s half asleep. Distracted kisses pressed against your shoulder while you’re mid-sentence, mouthing lazily along your neck as he absentmindedly drags the loofah across your stomach.

You’ll be talking about your day and suddenly realize he stopped listening five minutes ago because he got distracted kissing your collarbone.

But underneath all the flirting and grabbing and constant horny commentary, something softer grows there too.  

Comfort in the repetition of it.

In knowing that no matter how exhausting the week gets, eventually there’s this: warm steam, your skin pressed up against his, the familiar clutter of bottles lined along the shelf and your voice explaining what each one does while he pretends not to care—even though he remembers every single one.

It becomes yours. 

This quiet little thing that belongs only to the two of you.  

Most nights, things do escalate eventually. Slow kisses wrapped up in steam-heavy air, wet skin sliding together while his mouth finds your throat and your fingers tangle in his hair.  

But sometimes he’s honestly too tired for any of that.

Sometimes it ends exactly here. 

With dryer-warmed towels and sleepy silence afterward, the bedroom dark and cool against freshly showered skin while Gator stretches across the bed with a groan, head dropping heavily into your lap.

You scratch lightly against his scalp, carding your fingers through his damp hair while he drifts in and out of sleep.   

His arms slide around your waist eventually, a little clumsy with exhaustion before settling properly. He pulls you closer until his face presses into your stomach, breath warm through your shirt. 

“Mmfh…” he mumbles, words blurred heavily by sleep. “You’re the… the best thing that ever happen’ to me, y’know that?”

You know there’s a good chance he won’t fully remember saying it tomorrow.  

Not because he doesn’t mean it; just because honesty comes easier when he’s too exhausted to keep it buried. 

You smile, fingers never stopping their slow rhythm through his hair.

“I love you too,” you murmur back, just as gentle. 

And you think, as he drifts into sleep in your lap, that he looks most like himself when he stops trying to be anything at all.

Heidi didn’t call him out for his bullshit. Heidi didn’t make him laugh like you did. Heidi didn’t roll his eyes when he had kept his cap on during dinner. Heidi was clearly just trying to get into his pants and Gator almost let her. In fact, he went home with her. But the moment her lips touched his, Gator felt dirty. Like he was doing something incredibly, incredibly wrong.

He ended up running out of Heidi’s apartment. She hadn’t even cussed him out for it. You wouldn’t have done that—you would have probably yelled at him and called him an asshole.It had been thirty six days since you had broken up and Gator had had enough.

“Are you fucking kidding me—” you mutter to yourself as you drag yourself out of bed. You grab a nearby sweatshirt and pull it over your head before stomping out of your bedroom. 

Someone—undoubtedly Gator—was banging at your door, apparently not giving a fuck that you had neighbours or that you had to be up in four hours for a shift at the hospital.

“Could you fucking stop that?” You snap at Gator through your apartment door, teeth gritted as you grab your keys. “Or I swear to god Gator, I’ll leave you out there all fucking night—”

“—please don’t.”

The sound of his voice makes you pause. Despite the fact he was banging at your door, he didn’t sound angry. He sounded desperate. Sad even.

You falter. Your keys clatter to the floor but you don’t rush to pick them up. 

“Please, baby—just open the door. Please. I just wanna talk.”

You should say no. You should tell him you had work in a few hours. You should tell him to fuck off. That you broke up with him for a reason, that he was a selfish asshole and he should leave you alone.

But you don’t do that.

Instead you open your front door.

You barely recognise the man standing in front of you. You knew it was Gator because you’d know that gorgeous face anywhere. But it was the defeated, almost broken look on his face that you didn’t recognise. And it was that look that made you step aside to let him into your apartment.

He doesn’t say thank you as he steps inside. He just nods and steps into your space as though he never left.

“It’s one in the morning, Gator,” you say as he sinks down onto your couch, legs spread and large hands resting on his thighs.

“I know,” he mutters, kicking his boots off. “My truck has a clock.”

You take a deep breath in through your nose as you fight the urge to yell at him for his attitude and for taking off his boots like he was expecting to stay. You were starting to remember why you had broken up with him in the first place.

“You wanted to talk,” you begin after a moment. “So talk and make it quick. I gotta be up in like four hours for a twelve hour shift.”

Gator looks up at you properly then, his big hazel eyes looking up at you in a way he never had when you were together.

“You’re wearing my sweatshirt,” he murmurs, pointing at the camouflage sweatshirt you had grabbed before leaving your room.

You look down at the sweatshirt and swallow. Because he was right. It was his. 

“Don’t overthink it,” you mutter, crossing your arms over your chest and trying your best to keep a straight face. You don’t tell Gator that you had been wearing that damn sweatshirt for almost thirty six days. That you had only washed it once and cried when it no longer smelt like him. You definitely don’t tell him that. Instead, you tense your jaw and look back at your ex boyfriend and try to remind yourself of all the reasons you had broken up with him. You remind yourself that he only started buying you flowers after you had broken up. That he hadn’t wanted to meet your family despite your attempts to have him do so. That he had left you hanging when you had finally said ‘I love you’.

“But still. You’re wearing it,” Gator says. “That means something.”

“It means nothing. It’s just a sweatshirt—”

“—but it’s my sweatshirt. It means something.”

You wanted to throw something at him. Maybe one of his boots. He was such a smug asshole and you just wanted to smack him for it. But you don’t.

“Could you just go?” You ask him, rubbing your temples before gesturing towards your front door. “You clearly just came to piss me off and you’ve done just that so go—”

“—I can’t just go.”

“Why the fuck not—”

“—because I’m fuckin’ goin’ crazy without you!” Gator snaps, his voice cracking the last word. It’s enough to make you look at him. “I’m—shit—I sent you flowers for fuck sake, d’you know fuckin’ desperate I have to be to send you flowers like some fuckin’ sap?”

“The flowers mean don’t shit to me if that’s your attitude about it, Gator,” you retort. “You’re just trying love bomb me and—”

“—I’m not, I’m just—”

“—just what? Just trying to remind me that you never—”

You cut yourself off, your eyes betraying you as they start to well up. You have to look away.

Gator says your name but you don’t look at him. You’re too busy trying to fight the tears that were threatening to fall.

“Are you crying—”

“—could you just fuck off?” You snap, finally looking back at him. Your breath hitches in your throat when you see that he is no longer sitting on your couch but instead, standing right in front of you. “Seriously Gator, could you—”

“—No,” Gator says firmly with a shake of his head as he takes a step closer. “M’not going to fuck off. Not because I want to piss you off anymore than I already have but be—because—I love you.”

The silence that followed was one of the loudest you had ever heard. You blink, wondering if you had misheard Gator until—

“I love you,” Gator repeats, his voice still unsteady but the look he gave you was unwavering. Certain.

You let out a shaky breath before you lift a hand to wipe your eyes, shaking your head.

“No you don’t, Gator. You love stringing me along and you love that I challenge you but you don’t love me—”

“—yes, I do—”

“—no, you don’t—”

“—yes, I do,” Gator practically snarls as he steps right into your space. “I—I fucking love you. I really do. I love you so much that I—I would do anythin’ just to make you smile. I feel like the biggest fuckin’ sap for admittin’ it but I would. And I’ve tried movin’ on but everytime I try I just keep fuckin’ wishing’ it was you on the other side of the table. And I—m’sorry. I’m really fuckin’ sorry for not sayin’ it back t’ya and treatin’ you like I did. For never spoilin’ you like I should’ve. For not going to meet your parents but I—I figured they wouldn’t like you being with an asshole like me and I—I really wanted them to like me—”

“—and you didn’t think to just tell me that?”

Gator rubs a hand over his face in frustration before taking off his cap so he could run a hand through his hair too. You notice how it wasn’t gelled. You once told him you preferred his hair without gel, apparently he had listened.

“No, I didn’t,” Gator admits quietly. 

“Gator, I don’t know if I—”

“Please,” Gator croaks out desperately, reaching for one of your hands and squeezing it. “Please don’t—don’t give up on me. On us. I can do better, baby. I know I can.”

You falter just slightly when he calls you baby. It makes you feel warm, makes your insides feel as though they were made of goo.

But still, you say nothing.

And Gator doesn’t know what else to do.

“Please,” he repeats, his voice desperate once again and you watch in complete shock as Gator Tillman, still holding tightly on your hands, drops down onto his knees in front of you. “Please baby. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good t’ya.”

“Gator—”

“—I mean it, baby,” he continues, pressing his lips to your knuckles as he remains on his knees. “I’ll tell you every fucking day that I love you. I’ll meet your parents. Grandparents. Whoever the fuck else you want me to meet. I’ll get you flowers. I’ll make you coffee every mornin’ before your shift. Maybe even breakfast in bed. Whatever you want just don’t—please don’t give up on me.”

You were speechless. Genuinely speechless. Because Gator Tillman was not the type of man to beg for anything. He could probably count the amount of times he had said ‘please’ on one hand but the fact he was on his knees begging you for forgiveness? Well—it made you think twice about kicking him out of your apartment. You were still undecided on throwing a boot at him.

You look down at Gator, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth for a moment before you give his hands a gentle tug, silently telling him to stand up. He obeys because of course he does. Because he loves you. Because he really would do anything for you.

Gator stands—looking back at you and waiting for you to talk. His hands are still holding yours. Still hoping, praying that you’ll trust him.

“Breakfast in bed,” you ask him quietly with a faint smile. “Really? You're gonna wake up at five in the morning just to scramble some eggs?”

The corner of Gator’s mouth twitches, his hazel eyes sparkling just a little as he looks back at you. “I also make omelettes."

You try not to laugh but it somehow escapes you.

Gator’s eyes soften, he gives your hands another squeeze before he lets go in favour of cupping your cheek with one hand, the other resting gently at the side of your neck.

“I meant every word, baby. I love you and I—”

Whatever he was about to say, whatever speech he had rehearsed, you don’t get to hear. Because your lips were on his before he could finish his sentence. Gator takes a second, maybe two, before he responds and when he does, he lets out a low groan before kissing you back.

Gator kisses you like he was starving, like you were an oasis in the desert, like even the thought of pulling away from you might cause him physical pain.

The hand cupping your face was soft but firm, tilting your head back so he could deepen the kiss. Your hands tangle their way through his ungelled hair as the hand that had been brushing over the side of your neck trails down to curl an arm around your waist, tugging you closer. His mouth was so eager that it made you feel a little lightheaded, your body humming with need for the man in front of you.

And had it not been nearing half one in the morning, you may have given in. May have fallen into bed (or even the couch, you weren’t picky) with him. But the thought of being up in a few hours was the thing that finally pulled you away from him.

Gator whines at the loss and the sound sends heat rushes through you like molten lava but you shake your head, pulling yourself out of it. Not tonight. 

“I’ll be expecting my omelette and coffee bright and early,” you tell Gator with a soft smile as you gently comb a hand through his hair.

Gator hums, leaning in to press his forehead against yours and closing his eyes for a brief moment before nodding. “I’m gonna make you the best damn omelette baby, I promise you.”

It wasn’t perfect and you had more to talk about, a lot more to work out but for now? An omelette, coffee and Gator Tillman loving you? It was more than enough.

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He has come to appreciate books a hell of a lot more since TVs became mostly useless. He misses movies, maybe wishes he studied harder so he understood words like ‘propagate’ to mean more than when his grandma used to plant flowers on the foothill of her yard hoping they’d grow to the top naturally. He can guess the meaning, of course, and he reads over the poetry quietly, forgetting you for a moment, even as he thinks of you.

“Hey, listen to this,” he says, clearing his throat. “‘I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride–’”

“Are you proposing?” you ask, flummoxed. 

Steve shushes you. “I’m reading to you.”

“Um…” You peer around his leg to see the book. “Where’d you get that?”

“In my jacket.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, finish it if you want, sorry. I’m listening,” you say.

Steve turns to look down at you, then stares at the book instead, caught by the image of you with your eyes as wide as they go, your mouth soft and parted, plush, the shape of your nose and your hands in your lap, waiting for him to talk, to read to you. He says the line again, then his voice goes to a slight husk. “‘I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you, so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,’” —mortified, Steve clears his throat as subtly as he’s able to, thinking of every night and morning spent with your hand laid over his chest— “so close that your eyes close with my dreams.’”

He won’t cry. It’s not tears. But something in him feels embarrassingly wobbly at such a quick turn to emotion. Steve doesn’t love you without problems or pride, he is so prideful, and there are always problems, but he supposes if he got to the root of how much he loved you, he’d find it without complication. It’s not like he feels like he has much choice in things, it’s a desperate thing to need you, even if he wouldn’t change it. 

You toy with one of his shoelaces. “So close that your eyes close with my dreams,” you say, letting your voice list, your fingertips finding his ankle through his jeans. “Do you think he meant it literally, like they’re so in love she dreams his dreams, or that when she closes her eyes she thinks about what she has to do to– to get him the things he wants?” you ask. 

Steve blinks. “I think it’s that he loves her so much he sees her as another part of himself. Like they’re completely– they’re the same.”

You chance a sheepish glance up at him. “Like us, then,” you say, likely knowing how deeply corny it is to confess, but it doesn’t feel corny to Steve. It’s just affirmation that all his needs and wants are already fulfilled. “I like thinking my hand is your hand. Is that weird?”

Steve offers his hand to you and helps you stand. “Does it matter if it is? If we’re the same, then I said it. You used my mouth.”

“There’s a hundred of those in there?” you ask, nodding at the book's title. “If we get a pencil and underline everything that applies to us, is that totally lame?”

Your laugh makes Steve laugh. “Nope. Might need two pencils, though,” he says.

You slink your arms around him to force a hug. Steve squeezes you tight, resting his cheek contentedly against your temple. 

“And I already proposed, by the way,” he murmurs, rubbing his nose into your skin. “So I couldn’t have been doing it again.”

You make an excited huff of a laugh and wiggle a bit in his arms, apparently pleased with the reminder. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind it. Propose to me lots and lots.”

first of all, the pet names.

god, the pet names.

there's the basic ones, like honey and baby and sweetheart.

occasionally there's a sugar or angel or sweetness or doll or pretty girl.

then there's the just outright ridiculous ones. the ones that he knows you hate and it's the only reason he uses them.

sugarplum. lovebug. peach. trouble.

lovebug isn't actually all that bad, it's just that he uses it to tease you when you're tired and exceptionally clingy.

he does this thing where he pretends he isn't looking at you even thjough he's very obviously staring.

you'll glance over, he'll whip his head away, then two seconds later he's right back to staring.

"what? can't a man look at his girl?"

he will brag about you to literally anyone and everyone within earshot. but in a dumb way.

some guys will say their girlfriend is so amazing.

gator will say "she parallel parked first try the other day. didn't even hit the curb" with a proud little smirk.

he really enjoys picking you up randomly with zero warning.

you're mid conversation and suddenly you're off the ground.

sometimes it's bridal style, sometimes you're tossed over his shoulder like a pack of potatoes.

he loooooooooves hooking a finger through your belt loop to guide you places.

or a hand in your back pocket.

he's a big fan of that one.

one hundred percent tries to impress you with things that aren't that impressive.

"watch this" and he opens a bottle with his teeth.

lifting something heavy then looking at you the entire time to make sure you're watching.

fixing things around your house, even things that don't necessarily need fixing.

dining chair? suddenly it's too wobbly.

your bedroom door? "this don't close right, lemme get my tools"

he just wants to feel useful.

gator will dramatically overreact if you're just slightly hurt.

you'll have a paper cut and it might as well be a state wide emergency.

you tapped a hot pan once and mumbled "ouch"

you could hear him down the hall practically tripping over himself and bumping into a wall just to get to you.

however, gator also enjoys wrestling you.

not aggressively, obviously, just playful and annoying and all over the living room floor like a proper wwe match.

sometimes he'll randomly get a bit soft out of nowhere, then immediately ruin it.

he'll brush your hair back, stare at you with his soft brown eyes, it'll be a romantic silence for a moment, then here he comes with "you got somethin' on your face"

deep down, gator is a gentleman, of course.

like he'll get out and actually knock on your door when he's picking you up, so that he can walk you to his truck and open your door for you.

but before he gets out to come knock on your door, he always makes a point of revving his truck in your driveway to let you know he's arrived.

which prompts you to peek through the curtain with a brow raised and an expression that looks like you're mentally scolding him.

he just grins.

he'll often show up unannounced but act like it's nothing.

"was in the area" and he drove 20 minutes.

and you know what, he's absolutely a guy who will hear you mention liking something once then buy it for you in bulk.

"you said you liked those strawberry candies" "gator, this is a three pound bag" "well...yeah. didn't want you runnin' out"

he stands just a bit closer when other guys are around.

if one guy makes you laugh a little harder than usual, he'll ask you extremely specific questions later on.

"you know that guy?" "what guy?" "mr wannabe comedian"

and gator always sleeps better when you're there, but very rarely does he admit it.

you stay over one time and suddenly every night he's like "so...you comin' by tonight or...?"

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“Do I look good?”

You came down the bottom of the stairs wearing a little black floral sundress, flattering but not short enough to be ‘inappropriate’. This was Sunday dinner, after all.

Gator looked up from his phone, vape in his mouth. His eyes went wide as he breathed out the strawberry scented vapor. “‘Do I look good?’” He mocked, scoffing as he looped an arm around your waist to pull you against his chest. “Babe. You look hot as fuck.” He leaned down and kissed your neck. “An’ I think you know it, too.”

“We don’t have time to do anything,” you reminded him regretfully, knowing where he was headed, his lips already brushing across your jaw. You gently pushed his chest, ignoring the heat already building within you. “Your dad’s expecting us at 5…”

He groaned, knowing you were right. He let go of you and peered into the hall mirror. He smoothed a hand over his gelled hair, making sure it was all in place. He was dressed in khaki pants with a black button up and his usual boots. He looked fine as hell, you thought.

This would be your first time meeting his father, and you were both nervous. Terrified, even. He had told you only a few stories about his father, and he didn’t sound like the nicest, most open minded guy.

“Guess we should get goin’ then,” Gator said. He took your hand in his larger one, a smile spreading across his lips. “You sure you’re ready?”

“Not really,” you admitted. You were about to meet Roy Tillman—could you ever truly be ready? “He’s gonna hate me, isn’t he?”

“He’s not gonna hate you,” Gator said, but the look on his face didn’t make you feel the most confident. “…Whether or not he’ll be a total asshole is somethin’ else.”

Gator led you out of the house with his hand on your lower back, guiding you to his truck. He opened the passenger side door for you, gripping onto your waist and helping you climb up. His hand brushed over your ass as he did—as if he thought you wouldn’t notice. You shot him a playful glare as you sat in the leather seat, but he just grinned before shutting the door.

You watched the scenery pass you by as Gator drove to Tillman Ranch. The atmosphere in the vehicle was heavy, weighing on you both the closer you got to Gator’s family home.

You’d heard a lot about Roy, even before you started seeing Gator. Everyone knew Roy Tillman. He was the Sheriff, either loved or hated by everyone in Stark County (and even beyond). Feared, even. Some would say he’s what this country needs, while others would say he’s a power hungry cheat using the state’s money for his own gain. You weren’t 100% sure where you landed on the scale of opinion on the man himself just yet. Gator had never been too forthcoming with information about him.

When Gator turned onto the long dirt road leading to the ranch, your stomach tied in knots. Were the armed guards by the entrance necessary? You turned to your boyfriend to ask, but he looked as casual as ever. You guessed that was normal.

You kept your gaze out the window, taking in the property. The horses and cows, all the ranch hands tending to things. The ranch was bigger than you expected.

“That was my job as a kid,” Gator said, nodding towards a young man caring for the horses. He dragged on his vape, blowing out a cloud of vapor. “Liked it well enough. Better’n the cattle.”

“I didn’t know you worked on the ranch,” you said, smiling over at him.

Gator raised his eyebrows at you. “Are you kiddin’? We all work here. Dad hates laziness. Says we gotta earn our keep, even as kids.” He smirked. “A perk of movin’ outta here an’ in with you.”

“That’s the motivation, huh?” you giggled. Even as you joked with him, that anxiety settled back in. What if his father really did hate you? What if he disapproved of you so strongly, he pushed Gator to end things?

Gator glanced over at you. “I see you thinkin’ too hard again,” he said, breathing out another sickeningly sweet exhale. “Don’t stress, darlin’. Even if he acts like an ass, don’t pay him no mind. Not much impresses him.” He turned to look at you seriously as he spoke again. “And you’re everythin’ to me. That ain’t changin’.”

His words softened you immediately, and they eased your anxieties at least a little. He placed his hand palm-up on the center console, and you took it, interlacing your fingers together. “I’ve already been spending all my time with one Tillman for five months, I should probably be used to the asshole-ry,” you teased.

He shot you a look. “Now you know damn well I spoil the hell outta ya.”

You giggled, because it was true. Gator had a reputation around town, and it wasn’t a good one. But you’d never seen that side of him, not since the first day he’d met you at that bar your friends had dragged you to. He’d come up to you with that cocky attitude he was known for, but the second you met eyes properly, he was a goner. You weren’t a quick, meaningless hookup. He looked at you and he saw forever.

Not that he’d want anyone else to know how completely wrapped around your finger he was. The way he spent almost every night at your house already, coming over right after his shift and wanting nothing more than to get in bed with you—and not just for sex. The way he’d bring you dinner, rub your feet without being asked even if his own were killing him, wash your hair for you in the shower together. And he definitely didn’t want anyone to know how his favorite thing in the world was to cuddle with you, especially to lay his head in your lap while you played with his hair. He’d never known peace like he did in those quiet moments with you.

The ranch house appeared, pulling you from your comforting thoughts and bringing you back to the present. The house was lovely. Dark painted siding, two stories with a wraparound porch. Gator pulled up near the front and killed the engine.

The soft ticking of the cooling engine was the only sound in the otherwise silent truck cab. Neither of you made a move for a solid minute. Gator hit his vape again—it was habitual, the device practically glued to his hand every time he was stressed. If you were at home you’d gently take it from his hand and tell him to go get undressed and meet you in your bedroom, but that wasn’t an option now.

“We don’t have’ta do this if you don’t want,” he said finally, an elbow resting at the bottom of the window. He looked ahead as he spoke, at the house, like he was keeping an eye on it. “We can leave, turn around, go back t’yours and order in some of those noodles you like—“

“Gator,” you said softly, cutting him off. He finally drew his attention from the house to meet your eyes instead. “We kinda do have to do this. We’ve already been putting this off for months. You’re planning to move in. You can’t hide me from your dad forever.”

He sighed, the weight of it all seeming to visibly settle on his shoulders. “I know. You’re right.”

“As usual.”

“As usual.” He grinned. “I just…” he paused, looking away from you and back out the windshield. “I don’t want him to scare ya off. He’s ruined a lotta good things for me. Things that don’t…fit in his plan.”

You put a hand on his arm. “He’s not gonna scare me off, Gator. I don’t care how bad it is. You’re not your dad.”

The last of your words seemed to hit him like a physical blow. He let out a sharp exhale, looking at you with a soft smile and a deep fondness in his hazel eyes. “Goddamn. I love you, ya know that? More’n anything. Scares the hell outta me how much.”

Your eyes stung with emotion you tried to hold back, at least for now. “I love you, too. More than I can say.”

Gator turned away and sniffed once, wiping at his own eyes, trying to look more like he was just scratching an itch. “Alright. Enough’a that. Let’s get goin’ before he comes out here lookin’ for us.”

He walked around the truck to open your door for you. You took the hand he offered, his other coming to rest on your back and help you down. It remained there even as he closed the door and led you up the porch stairs. He paused at the front door, like he was steeling himself, before finally opening it.

The smell of dinner greeted you the second you walked into the entryway. It smelled amazing, like a perfectly cooked roast. You could hear voices from the left, Gator rubbing your back softly before leading you to that doorway.

The voices stopped right before you entered, no doubt hearing the heavy thuds of Gator’s boots and the softer clicks of your heels against the floor. The quaint kitchen was on the right, cabinets painted white with a stove against the wall and a fridge decorated with some photos and children’s artwork held by magnets. To the left sat a dining table with seating for six, already set, the main course you’d recognized sitting in the middle surrounded by mashed potatoes, green beans, and freshly baked rolls. The wallpaper was patterned with images of chickens.

Two identical young girls sat at the table already, eyeing you the moment you walked in. You gave them a soft smile before looking at the other two figures, who also weren’t shy about the way they were sizing you up.

The woman stood back near the stove, her thin frame standing taller in an attempt to display more confidence than she seemed to actually feel. She wore a nice deep purple blouse with dark blue jeans, her short brown hair neat above her shoulders. You knew her to be Gator’s step mother, Karen, but she looked younger than you’d expected.

It was the man standing slightly in front that drew your attention immediately. He was close to Gator’s height, but broader. His grey hair was perfectly styled, thick and full, clear where Gator had inherited the good genes. He wore a deep red button up tucked into his jeans and nice dark brown leather cowboy boots. The man was handsome, but held an air of authority that made you feel intimidated under the heavy gaze of his green eyes.

Roy Tillman, of course.

“So, this is her,” Roy said to Gator, as if you weren’t even standing there even as he looked right at you.

Gator’s hand slid from your lower back to wrap completely around your waist, pulling you closer into his side. “Yeah,” he said. “Uh, Dad, Karen, this is my girlfriend.” He introduced you by name, his hand lightly squeezing your hip.

You smiled warmly. “Hi. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“The schoolteacher,” Roy stated, and you wondered briefly if Gator had given that information or if Roy had looked into you. Maybe both. His eyes dragged up and down your body, not quite leering but definitely uncomfortable. “That’s an…interesting choice of attire, sweetheart. I hope you don’t wear short little skirts like that at school. That’s a lotta leg.”

Your mouth dropped open slightly, and you could feel Gator’s whole body tense beside you. The skirt of your sundress was above your knees, but you’d looked in the mirror a million times as you got ready, making sure it didn’t cross any lines. “Um…no. I don’t.”

“Dad,” Gator muttered.

“Why don’t we sit down before dinner gets cold?” Karen said quickly, and you were grateful for the diversion. She grabbed some napkins and moved to the table. “Go wash up, girls, quickly.”

The two little girls—Gator’s half sisters, Jessica and Maude—ran off. Gator pulled out your chair, and you smiled up at him as you took the seat. He looked back with equal adoration before taking the seat next to you. The kids were back by the time everyone was seated.

Roy sat at the head of the table. He took Karen’s hand in his right and held out the left on the table for Gator. Gator placed his hand in his father’s, his left holding yours. It took you a second to understand what was happening, but once you realized, you took the waiting hand of the little girl next to you. Everyone bowed their heads, and you followed suit.

“Heavenly father,” Roy began. “We thank you for providing this delicious bounty of food that Karen has prepared for us. We thank you for the blessings you’ve bestowed upon us, and the gift of enjoying a meal together as a family with our…guest. May our family continue to prosper and serve you. Amen.”

A quiet chorus of amens sounded from around the table, and everyone began moving to serve themselves from the dishes in the center. Before you could reach for the serving fork, Gator moved first, lifting your plate.

“I got ya,” he said softly, stabbing a slice of roast and transferring it to your plate. He piled on a healthy serving of green beans and potatoes, too. You felt a little shy about it, but let him. Gator liked to show you how much he loved you in any way possible.

You could feel both Roy and Karen staring, watching the interaction. “A man serving his woman?” Roy said. “Bit backwards, don’t you think? City girls don’t take care of their men?” When you didn’t respond, he continued. “Ephesians 5:22-23 says, ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body.’”

Your whole body heated with embarrassment. The silence that settled over the whole room made the moment even more awkward and uncomfortable, the only sound for several long seconds the quiet ticking of the clock on the wall.

“We’re not married,” Gator mumbled, starting to fill his own plate. He stabbed the roast with a little more force than necessary. “Don’t usually do that anyway. Was just tryin’ to be nice.”

“But you intend to be married some day soon, right?” Roy asked as everyone finally began serving themselves, too. “If you’re bringin’ her into my home?”

Gator’s jaw clenched. “That ain’t what it’s about.”

“Then what’s it about?” Roy pressed.

He paused. “It’s about…introducin’ you to someone important to me,” he said quietly, his words more vulnerable than he usually allowed. A warmth spread through your chest, a deep affection more powerful than any uncomfortable family dinner.

Everyone moved on, eating with some quiet, casual conversation. Roy quieted, simply listening as Karen made small talk. She asked about your experiences teaching kindergarten, how you liked the school, if you knew Mrs. Reed, who taught the girls. How you’d liked living in Lehigh for the past year, what you did for fun.

It was too good to last, of course it was. Roy had spent the entire conversation watching as he ate. He was calculating, looking at you like you were something to be studied, a test you knew you were taking despite not knowing the answers.

“So, Gator, any reason you’ve been hidin’ her from us?” Roy finally asked. The comfortable environment that had developed vanished instantly, that same hostile, overwhelming heaviness returning with a cold chill.

Gator tensed again, staring down at his plate. “I ain’t hidin’ her—“

“Just because I told you it was time we met her,” Roy said. “I’m not stupid, boy. I know you’ve been seein’ her for a while. Half a year, almost, ain’t that right? This town talks.”

Gator’s knuckles went white around his fork. “Just wanted to get to know ‘er. Make sure it was serious before…”

“And is it?” Roy questioned directly, looking right at Gator. “Serious?”

To your surprise, Gator lifted his head, meeting his father’s eyes head-on. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

Your breath hitched. The Tillman men held each other’s stares, some kind of unspoken battle between them. You, Karen, and even the girls watched, the tension thick and suffocating in the small dining room.

Roy looked away first, but only to look at you instead. “You intend to marry my son?”

“Dad!” Gator exclaimed, frustrated, dropping his fork to his plate with a clatter. “Jesus, what’s with the interrogation?”

“Just wanted to know her intentions,” Roy answered, eating another bite from his plate casually. He was the only person at the table who seemed fully at ease. “The Tillmans are a respectable family. Always have been. Can’t have just anyone comin’ in.”

You swallowed. “Gator…means a lot to me,” you said softly. “I’ve loved getting to know him. I love him. Wherever things go…I’m serious about him, too.” The truth was, if Gator asked you to marry him tomorrow, you would say yes. You knew that deep inside, even though you didn’t say it aloud.

Gator looked at you with an expression so tender and loving it nearly took your breath away. The smile that crossed his lips was gentle, one of those rare looks reserved only for you.

Roy only grunted in response.

Dinner moved on once again. Plates were cleared, bellies full. The dinner had been delicious—Karen was an excellent cook. You told her so, thanking her for the meal. When Karen stood, starting to gather the dishes, you stood as well.

“Let me help you,” you said quietly. She sent you a grateful smile from across the table.

“Now that’s more like it,” Roy said, leaning back in his chair with a cocky grin, one that reminded you of the Gator you’d seen across the bar before you’d properly met. “Maybe she won’t be hopeless as a wife after all.”

You froze. The comment had been a low blow. You knew exactly how much you took care of Gator—cooking for him (because lord knows he couldn’t cook), washing any clothes he left at your place, massaging the tense muscles in his back, happily helping him work out all those frustrations when he had a particularly stressful day. But Gator took care of you, too. It was give and take, effort given on both sides, and you both liked it that way. You showed your love for each other in your own ways.

“She takes good care of me,” Gator defended.

“She takes care of you, huh?” Roy chuckled. “Yeah, I bet. You always did like a pretty little thing.” His eyes dragged over your body again, and this time, it did feel predatory. It made your skin crawl. “And she is real pretty. No wonder you’ve gone so soft.”

Karen bowed her head, hurrying to the sink with the dishes she’d gathered. You stood there for just a moment longer, stunned. Gator was coiled tight, looking like he was seconds from exploding. A man who’d never talked back to his father, who tried his whole life to make him proud, looked nearly ready to throw a punch.

You finally made your feet move, walking into the kitchen. Your hands trembled as you placed the dirty dishes into the hot soapy water Karen was running. You didn’t know what Roy was like behind closed doors, but if this was him in front of company, you fully understood the fear you could feel radiating off of Karen.

“Gator,” Roy said, standing up from the table. “Let’s go have a talk in my office while the women tidy up.”

Gator didn’t respond, but you heard the creaking of his chair as he stood, too. You glanced over just in time to see the apologetic look he sent your way as he followed his father out of the kitchen.

Karen didn’t speak as she washed the dishes. You stood wordlessly next to her, drying them as she handed them off to you. Jessica and Maude, who seemed alarmingly used to all this, scurried off to their bedroom upstairs.

The kitchen was spotless by the time you saw the miraculous sight of Gator returning, Roy nowhere to be seen. He was frowning, his hands in his pockets. “You ready to get outta here, darlin’?” he asked, gentle, as if he were worried he’d scare you like a frightened animal.

“Yeah,” you said immediately, trying not to sound as relieved as you were. “Yes, I…need to get ready for work in the morning.”

His eyes softened with that same apology. You said goodbye to Karen, who thanked you for coming with a timid politeness, the confidence she’d attempted to show when you arrived now long gone.

It didn’t feel like you could breathe properly until you were out of the house entirely, taking in the clean North Dakota air. It was a little chilly now that the sun had gone down. Gator wrapped an arm around you as he walked you to the truck, opening the door and helping you in like he always did.

He didn’t pause this time, starting the engine as soon as he climbed in and driving the truck down that long driveway. You eyed the armed guards again as you passed them, the tension finally leaving your body as Gator pulled onto the road. He was puffing on his vape immediately, those nervous, constant hits.

“Jesus,” you breathed finally, the words leaving your lips in a rush of air. “That was—“

“I’m sorry,” Gator interrupted. “Fuck, ‘m so sorry. I knew he’d be bad, but—shit. I ain’t brought a girl home in…well, since prom. So, y’know, he knew you had’ta mean a lot t’me, and I told ya he likes to ruin shit for me, I couldn’t even blame ya if you never wanted to talk t’me again—“

“Gator,” you said, cutting off his nervous rambling much like you had before the dinner. “Baby. That was not your fault.”

“But I brought you there,” he said. You could hear the self loathing in his voice, and it broke your heart. “I know how he can be, and I…I brought you there.”

You placed your hand palm-up on the center console, the same way he’d done earlier. He glanced down at it, and didn’t hesitate to put the vape down and place his hand in yours, driving with his left.

“It had to be done,” you reminded him, interlocking your fingers. “If we’re gonna be serious about each other…it had to be done.”

He sighed. “I know. Fuck. But…I dunno. I feel like I could’ve…should’ve done somethin’.”

“You stood up for me,” you reminded him softly.

The words struck him. You didn’t know enough about Gator’s relationship with his father to know how monumental, how unheard of, that was—but Gator knew. He hadn’t even realized what he’d done until you said the words. Well, maybe he’d realized a little when his dad was chewing him out in his office for the disrespect, but hearing it said that way…it made him feel good. He was surprised at the pride that swelled in his chest, right along with the overwhelming amount of love he felt for the woman next to him. Nothing like anything he’d ever felt in his life.

Your cozy little house with the yellow light glowing on the porch was a welcome sight. Gator followed you up the porch steps, staying close behind as you unlocked the door.

Inside, after you hung the keys on the hook and locked the front door behind you, he pulled you into his arms. He held you close to his chest, breathing in the comforting scent of you, the smell of your shampoo that had become so familiar.

“I love you,” he muttered softly against your hair.

Your heart beat fast, thundering through your own chest and against his own. “I love you too, Gator.”

He just held you there, your bodies molded together. He rubbed your back softly, your breathing evening out, the sound of his heartbeat against your ear relaxing you.

“I’m ready to move out now.”

You paused. You pulled back just enough to look up at him. “What?”

“I’m ready to move outta there,” he said. One hand remained on your waist while the other came up to rest against the side of your face, thumb stroking your cheek. “I’m ready to get out of there for good…an’ move in here. With you.”

“Gator…” you whispered, eyes scanning his face for any sign of doubt. You found none. “Are you sure?”

“Never been more sure’ve anythin’ in my life,” he said. “Like I told you…you’re everythin’ to me. I want to start our lives together. Here. Away from…all that.”

You blinked, that stinging behind your eyes returning. “I want that too. So badly.”

He smiled, soft but genuine with pure, raw joy. “Then it’s settled. I’ll pack my shit tomorrow, I mean it. This is my home now.” He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your lips before resting his forehead against yours. “You’re my home now.”

And of every pretty thing Gator Tillman had said to you so far, that was probably the most beautiful.

as always, comments and reblogs are so appreciated!

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morning comes slow.

the light through your bedroom window is pale and washed out, creeping across the wall in thin stripes where the blinds don’t quite close all the way. for a minute you just lie there staring at the ceiling, still half caught in that foggy space between sleep and being awake.

then everything from last night settles back in.

you groan softly and drag the pillow over your face.

it’s not regret exactly.

you’ve never been able to call it that.

but there’s always this feeling the morning after. something just slightly off, like you’ve woken up with a bruise you don’t remember getting. not bad enough to stop you from doing it again, clearly, but enough to make you question things.

mostly you just end up questioning yourself.

because really, what the hell are you doing?

you roll onto your side and stare at the empty space beside you. your house is quiet except for the distant hum of the fridge in the kitchen.

it would probably be easier if this had just stayed what it was supposed to be.

a one night thing.

that’s what it started as.

months ago now, after a night at the bar outside town. you’d both been drinking, both lingering long after everyone else had cleared out. he’d been leaning against the pool table, half smirking at something you said, the usual back and forth you’d gotten used to by then. one thing led to another. and it was supposed to end there.

except it didn’t, it kept happening.

not every night. not even every week sometimes. but enough that it became a sort of unspoken routine. him showing up late. you pretending you didn’t expect him. both of you acting like it didn’t mean anything when it clearly meant at least a little something.

you swing your legs off the bed and sit there for a second, rubbing your face with both hands.

the problem is you realised something not too long ago. something you really wish you hadn’t. because somewhere along the way, somewhere between late night drives and him falling asleep on your couch and the stupid way he sometimes looks at you when he thinks you’re not paying attention, you started having actual feelings for gator tillman.

strong ones.

you refuse to call it love, even thinking the word makes your stomach twist in a way that feels equal parts embarrassing and stupid, because if there was anyone you promised yourself you would not fall for, it would’ve been him.

and yet.

you sigh and push yourself up, padding into the kitchen.

coffee first.

the machine sputters to life while you lean against the counter.

the thing about gator is that most of the time he’s exactly what everyone expects him to be.

loud, cocky, mean when he feels like it, always trying a little too hard to look like the toughest guy in the room. especially when his dad’s around.

but you’ve seen the other parts too, the ones he doesn’t show people. the moments where something softer slips through before he can shove it back down again.

like how he’ll complain the whole time he fixes something in your house, muttering about how you’re helpless, but still stay until it’s done. or how he actually listens when you talk, really listens, even if he pretends he wasn’t paying attention later.

he remembers things. little things you’ve said weeks ago.

half the time he uses that information against people if he’s trying to get under their skin but with you it’s different.

and then there’s the part that makes your chest tighten a little when you think about it too long.

how badly he wants praise.

it took you a while to notice it. at first it just seemed like regular ego, the way he’d puff up a little when someone laughed at his jokes or clapped him on the back. but the longer you’ve known him, the more obvious it’s become.

gator is desperate for someone to tell him he did something right.

because in roy tillman’s world, he never does.

you’ve heard the way his dad talks to him. everyone has. like every mistake is proof he’s not good enough. like he’s constantly failing some test he doesn’t even understand.

so sometimes he ends up here instead.

he shows up at your door or at the diner and says something stupid just to get a reaction out of you. and when you roll your eyes and say “good job, gator” or “look at you actually doing something useful for once”

you see it.

that tiny flicker of pride before he covers it with a sarcastic comment.

even if the praise comes during something as dumb as you tangled together on your couch. it still counts.

and the stupid thing is, that part of him makes you feel bad.

because beneath all the attitude, there’s still this guy who’s clearly spent his entire life trying to earn approval he’s never going to get.

your coffee finishes brewing. you pour yourself a cup and take a sip, staring out the kitchen window.

you’ve gotten pretty good at pretending none of this matters. you match his sarcasm. his banter. you shove every soft thought back down the second it starts creeping up.

because if you ever actually let it show, if he ever realised how much space he’s started taking up in your head, that would probably ruin whatever this is.

and besides.

in what world would gator fall for you?

hell.

in what world would gator fall for anyone at all.

-

the diner always looks different in the morning.

quieter.

the neon sign in the front window is still glowing faint pink when you pull into the lot, the sky just starting to turn that pale gray-blue that comes right before sunrise. the air’s colder than it was last night, the kind that wakes you up a little whether you want it to or not.

you grab your bag from the passenger seat and head inside.

the bell above the door jingles softly.

lou’s already there, of course she is.

she’s standing behind the counter with a coffee pot in one hand and a rag in the other, wiping down the same spot she’s probably wiped a thousand times before. the radio sits on the shelf near the kitchen door, playing some old country song quietly in the background.

she glances up when you walk in.

“well look who finally decided to show up” she says.

you check the clock on the wall.

“i’m three minutes early.” you snort quietly and hang your jacket on the hook near the back.

lou watches you for another second, the way she always does when she’s trying to read your mood without asking about it directly.

she’s good at that, always has been.

“coffee?” she asks.

“please.”

she slides a mug across the counter toward you before you even sit down. you wrap both hands around it, letting the warmth sink into your fingers.

early shifts aren’t really your thing.

most days you work the late ones, but because you aren't today it means you probably won’t see gator. the thought lands somewhere in your chest and sits there for a second.

honestly?

that’s probably for the best.

you take a sip of the coffee. yeah. today you definitely need the break.

lou leans against the counter across from you, watching the front windows like she’s waiting for the first regular of the morning to wander in.

“sleep alright?” she asks after a moment.

you shrug.

“slept.”

lou hums softly like she knows that answer means something but isn’t going to push it yet. she’s always been good about that too. knowing when to ask questions and when to leave things alone.

you’ve known lou a long time, long enough that sometimes it’s weird to remember there was a point when you didn’t.

you were fifteen the first time you walked into this place looking for work.

back then you were smaller, quieter, trying very hard not to look like a kid who hadn’t eaten properly in a couple days.

but small towns notice things. they notice the houses where the lights stay off too often. they notice when a kid starts wearing the same clothes three days in a row. they notice the kind of mother who spends more time at the bar than at home.

your dad was never part of the picture, you never even had a name for him.

and your mom… well.

your mom tried, in her own way.

but trying didn’t always mean much when most of the money she got went straight into another bottle.

sometimes it meant bringing strange men home because they’d hand over a few bills after. sometimes it meant there’d be food in the fridge for a couple days. most of the time it didn’t.

people in town talked about it. they always do.

lou must’ve heard some of it because when you walked into the diner asking if she needed help, she didn’t ask too many questions, she just handed you an apron and told you to start in the back.

cleaning dishes, sweeping the kitchen floor, anything that needed doing. it wasn’t glamorous but it meant you had somewhere to be after school. it meant you could sneak leftover fries or toast when nobody was looking and eventually it meant you didn’t have to go home quite so early.

years passed.

you got older, moved out, started focusing on an online university course and even picked up a few other part-time jobs here and there. but lou’s coffee shop was the only thing that ever really stuck.

she pours herself another cup of coffee and nods toward the kitchen.

“truck delivery should be here in about twenty minutes,” she says. “you mind helping me unload when it gets here?”

“sure.”

you slide off the stool and start grabbing a stack of clean mugs to bring out front.

lou watches you for another second before turning back to the coffee machine.

“you know,” she says casually, “you could’ve called if you needed the morning off.”

you pause slightly.

“why would i need the morning off?”

she shrugs one shoulder.

“just saying.”

you narrow your eyes at her.

“you’re fishing.”

lou smiles into her coffee.

“maybe.”

you shake your head and carry the mugs toward the counter.

outside, the sky’s getting lighter now.

soon the regular morning crowd will start drifting in.

construction guys, farmers, people on their way to work, a normal day.

exactly the kind of day you need.

the last thing you need right now however, is to see gator walking through that door like he always does. like nothing between the two of you ever gets complicated. like it’s all just another ordinary night.

you set the mugs down in their place behind the counter.

and for the moment at least, it feels like maybe today will stay quiet.

-

by late morning the diner has settled into that familiar rhythm. the sun is fully up now, bright through the front windows, catching in the chrome edges of the stools.

it’s busy enough to keep your hands moving. which is good. because when your hands are moving, you don’t have to think so much.

a group of deputies come in around noon.

you recognise most of them. not surprising, considering how often they end up here. they take their usual booth near the window.

you grab menus and head over.

“mornin’,” one of them says.

“morning,” you reply, sliding the menus across the table.

you pour their coffee while they start talking over each other, something about paperwork at the station and some guy who got pulled over outside town. normal stuff.

you’re halfway through writing down their orders when one of them says a name that makes your hand pause.

nadine.

you keep your head down like you didn’t notice.

“i’m tellin’ you,” one of them says, leaning forward across the table. “sheriff’s convinced it’s her.”

another scoffs.

“thought she was dead.”

“yeah well, apparently he don’t.”

you move away from the booth slowly, not wanting it to look like you’re hovering.

but your ears stay tuned in anyway.

“says he’s found her,” someone else adds.

“after all these years?”

“that’s what he thinks.”

you wipe down a nearby table, pretending to focus on the rag in your hand.

nadine.

the name sits strangely in your head like you’ve heard it before.

by the time you finish cleaning the table, the conversation has moved on to something else. you drop the rag into the sink in the back and push through the kitchen doors.

lou’s standing by the prep counter slicing tomatoes.

she glances up when you walk in.

“everything alright out there?”

you lean against the counter, crossing your arms.

“you ever hear the name nadine before?”

lou’s knife pauses for a second. just a second. then she finishes the slice and sets it down.

“where’d you hear that?” she asks.

“deputies out there,” you say. “they’re talking about how roy thinks she’s still alive or something.”

lou exhales slowly through her nose.

“figures.”

you tilt your head slightly.

“so you do know who she is.”

lou wipes her hands on a towel before leaning against the counter across from you.

“nadine was roy’s wife” she says.

your eyebrows lift a little.

“was?”

“long time ago.”

she shrugs one shoulder.

“girl got out.”

“out?” you repeat.

“left him” lou says simply.

that alone is enough to make your stomach twist a little. leaving roy tillman didn’t exactly sound like the kind of thing someone just did.

“people said she ran,” lou continues. “disappeared. some folks thought he caught up with her eventually.”

“but he didn’t?”

lou shrugs again.

“guess not if he’s still looking.”

you think about that for a second. then something else clicks.

“she’s not gator’s mom though, right?”

lou shakes her head immediately.

“no.”

the answer comes quick. too quick maybe.

you watch her for a moment.

she suddenly seems quieter than before, like the topic isn’t one she’s interested in staying on.

you open your mouth to ask something else, but lou cuts in first.

“you stay outta it” she says.

the words land heavier than you expected.

“out of what?”

“any of it.”

lou picks the knife back up, though she doesn’t start cutting again.

“the tillmans aren’t the kind of people you want to be sticking your nose around.”

you frown slightly.

“lou-”

she looks up at you then. really looks.

“they’re dangerous,” she says quietly.

the seriousness in her voice makes something in your chest tighten.

“and you oughta be careful around that boy too.”

your stomach drops a little.

“…what boy?”

lou gives you a look.

it takes about half a second for the panic to settle in your chest.

how much does she know? how long has she known?

you stare back at her for a moment before looking away first.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about” you mutter.

lou doesn’t argue, she just goes back to slicing tomatoes.

the rest of the shift passes slowly after that.

you try not to think about the conversation too much, focusing instead on wiping tables and refilling coffee and anything else that keeps your brain occupied.

eventually the diner starts quieting down again.

you glance at the clock. almost time to leave.

you’re grabbing your jacket from the hook when the bell above the front door jingles.

your stomach sinks before you even turn around.

gator walks in.

you blink at him.

“what are you doing here?”

he looks tired.

more than usual.

“how ya doin’,” he mutters, sliding onto one of the stools.

“it’s noon,” you say. “why are you here so early?”

he rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

“just… some shit with my dad.”

you wait a second.

but he doesn’t elaborate, and over time you’ve learned that asking about roy usually leads absolutely nowhere good.

so you just shrug.

“coffee?”

“yeah.”

you pour him a mug and set it in front of him, then you grab your bag from behind the counter.

gator notices immediately.

“where you goin’?”

“home,” you say. “my shift’s over.”

his brows knit together slightly.

you step around the counter but before you reach the door-

“hey.”

you glance back.

gator’s watching you.

there’s something different in his expression.

“can you stay?” he asks.

the words catch you off guard.

for a second you just stand there.

and then you remember last night.

the way you asked him the same thing. the way he paused like he might say yes before leaving anyway.

you shift your bag higher on your shoulder.

“lou’s in the back,” you say. “she’ll sort you out.”

his jaw tightens slightly.

but you don’t give him time to argue.

you turn and push the door open.

the bell jingles softly above your head as you step outside.

the afternoon air feels cooler than you expected.

you walk across the parking lot without looking back even though you can feel his eyes following you through the window.

the difference between you and gator is that leaving him there won’t keep him up all night as it does for you.

at least, that’s what you tell yourself as you get in your car.

——-

An anticipation flutters in him as his ears attune themselves to the familiar sound of your truck rolling to a stop in his driveway. Each sound is a memory that is resonating in real time: the push of your car door closing in, the chirp of your lock, your footsteps shuffling on his stoop, and the gentle sound when you ring his doorbell. You didn't really have to do that. He hopes that maybe one you'll realize that you don't have to do that.

"Hey," he greets you, recalling a time when he used to just shout that the door was open the first few sessions.

"Uh, hey to you, too," you greet him with a smile and the slightest giggle, "your hair is…different."

He's combed it in a way that has taken a lot of time and care. You notice a bit of a side part with the sides combed back. It's formal and stiff, but you can't help acknowledge the effort he's taken. He frowns, feeling shudders of disappointment and embarrassment at how you reacted. Self-consciously, he brings his fingers to touch the side of his head.

"That's not really fair, " Gator grumbles.

Combing hair, grooming, and any other kind of makeup routine is difficult for any and all of your clients. For those with close cuts or those who are balding, grooming isn't a problem. Gator's predicament is the exact opposite. His brown hair is soft, thick, and full. When he's slicked it back like he used to or combs it too perfectly, it doesn't suit him.

"Hey, you know what I mean…" You raise your hand to hover just above his temple, close enough for him to feel the ghost of your touch. "May I?"

He understands and nods. With a gentle caress, you comb your fingers through his hair. Your touch releases the confines he temporarily placed on himself. The warmth from your hands on his hair feels like a luxury, especially as he feels his hair fall naturally into place. He breathes slowly as you shake out his hair. Your fingers act as liberator and as they leave his locks, he feels free.

"There we go, much better," you say admiring your handiwork.

"Yeah?" Gator's voice rises in genuine want of your honest opinion. "How do I look?"

You find yourself trying to hide an exhale that comes from deep inside your chest, "You're gonna have to bat the ladies away now."

"What if I don't want to?" He asks with a steady and earnest voice.

He leans in a millimeter closer to you, his face directly in front of yours.

His question lives somewhere between rhetorical and pointed—between dancing around an answer that he feels he'd never be able to hear and another answer he desperately wants to know. As he works through these racing thoughts, you look up at him. You contemplate answering but find yourself working through some mental gymnastics of your own. You're not stupid and you can sense where this may be going. It's therapist-client lesson 101: don't catch feelings. You've never had this problem before.

Based on just about everything you've heard about Gator, he might as well wave a red flag outside his house every day. That's what they said. They said he was no good. But the longer you've been working with him, the more he seems to defy everyone's expectations of him.

This can't possibly end well. You think to yourself. So, you do the only thing that makes sense—you deflect to avoid really answering the question the way you want so you can protect your heart.

"Well, maybe you'll get your chance," you say with a smile, your hand gently patting his chest, "maybe there'll be a pretty girl, or girls, who will take notice when we go out today."

"Huh?" The corner of Gator's lips twitch with feigned confusion. "Are you taking me out to a bar or somethin'?"

"Yes, Gator," you say, keenly aware of how your sarcasm coats every word, "I, your therapist, am taking you to a bar mid-morning in the dead of winter in Minnesota."

He steps a little closer and you notice a smirk form at the corner of his lips.

"Now who's a smart ass?"

He's close enough that you can smell the hint of his shower gel and deodorant on his skin. You notice the smoothness of his skin and the moles that adorn his face. Almost against your will, your tongue pushes itself out of your mouth to lick your lips. An embarrassment filled heat colors your cheeks and you're thankful he can't see it. With a subtle clearing of your throat you step back from him and chuckle.

"Spoiler alert," you tease him even though you know you shouldn't, "I've always been a smartass—now let's go."

His lips are parted as he tries think of a comeback that doesn't come to him. So, he just nods and follows you to your truck. Though he's come to trust you about your training sessions, a nagging anxiety always lingers when he doesn't know exactly what you have planned. As if reading his mind, you seek to allay the concerns that you can tell he has.

"So, today's going to be a little more challenging: we're going to the galleria," you pause to gauge his reaction.

It's one of restrained discomfort that he's trying to hide from you. You reach over to grasp his hand in reassurance. He draws in a deep breath and turns his head in your direction.

"It will be fine; you will do great," you declare with confidence.

He notices how you quickly you move your hand from his. It’s the most subtle of moves, but it haunts him.

"You sure 'bout that?" He asks as he puffs his chest. "It's probably really crowded now; Christmas is so close."

"Yes, I am sure," you pause and add with a hint of teasing, "just don't go around calling kids little shits."

You observe how the corners of his lips tremble with a suppressed laugh. The grin that emerges on his soft lips draws in your gaze. Once again, you're glad he can't perceive that.

The drive to the galleria thankfully isn't a long one. He's become attuned with how your car moves. He knows when you've been going down a long stretch of road. His body feels the shifting movements of the truck with each consecutive turn you make. He feels it in his core as your acceleration decreases. All this tells Gator how close you are to your destination.

His knees shake with an anxious energy as you slowly roll your truck into a parking space. He opens his door slightly, waiting for you and knowing you always meet him there. As you pull the door open all the way for him, the bustling sounds of shoppers meets his ears.

He sets his cane on the ground and steps out of the truck, pushing the door closed behind him. Whether it be routine or instinct, he hooks his left hand into the crook of your elbow. You accept it without any second thought.

"Ok, so I know you can obviously tell there a lot of people," you tell him as you lead him to step up onto the sidewalk. "Remember your cane is essential; it's a guide for you but it really helps other people to be more aware and respectful of your space—unless they're assholes of course."

You say it just as a few shoppers zoom past Gator barely missing his cane. They look back at you when they hear your expletive and are greeted with your judgmental scowl. He turns to you, brows raised, the left corner of his lips skipping upwards into a smirk.

"Assholes, huh?" He muses, a playfulness dances through the tone of his voice. "You've been hanging around me too much; I'm rubbin' off on ya."

"You wish," you reply, nudging him lightly with your elbow.

Through the cold air, the sounds of the season flutter around you both: the giggles of children and their little voices listing off their wish lists for Santa, bells jingling, and people conversing on their cell phones about last minute presents and plans. The sounds push through the cold and Gator feels them wrap the two of you in a warmth that goes straight to his heart.

"Can we go to the record store?" You ask Gator, pressing your free hand over the hand he keeps tucked in your elbow.

"Sure," he agrees with a shrug, wondering if he even has a say.

The way Gator's grip tenses at your elbow tells you he senses how small the store is. The sensation reminds you to make it a short trip. The aromatic scent of the paper vinyl jackets, the sound of an album playing in the background, and the concurrent conversations start to overwhelm his senses. He brings his cane closer to his body as he feels bodies shuffle through the tight aisles. Other shoppers walk past him, sometimes accidentally nudging his shoulder or his cane.

"You like vinyl, right?" You ask, noticing his discomfort.

Engaging him in conversation always seem to put him at ease. The question sparks a pause in time that he uses to think on his answer. He's not sure that anyone's really asked him before.He's not sure when the last time as anyone asked him about thinks he liked or didn't like. He nods.

"Yeah," he replies allowing a beat of silence before continuing, "lost most of my collection though, after—everything—ya know?"

"Right," you murmur in thought as you remember the news.

Kidnapping. Corruption. Rituals. Murder. It had all the elements that are closer to fiction than reality. It had all the things you could put into a movie. But maybe movies just mirror real life.

"I'm so sorry 'bout that Gator, really."

You look on him, not with pity, but with sadness and the firm belief that he is deserving of so much more than what he's been dealt. And he can feel your gaze setting off a buzz of energy he can't explain. Whatever it is you do—he's never felt so vulnerable. He wishes he could see you, he thinks, as he bows his head down his hair falling towards his forehead. Taking his hand from your arm, he pushes the strands from his face.

"Well…you win some, you lose some," he states his voice trailing off.

A few more shoppers shuffle around you, looking through the shelves of vinyl. Cognizant of the tight space, you take hold of Gator's hand. Your fingers act as though controlled by something beyond you and you find yours intertwining with his. Holding some records in one hand and keeping Gator's hand in your other, you lead him to the cash register where you quickly pay.

As you leave, it feels less like you're leading Gator as he keeps in step beside you. His sweeps his cane lightly across the ground before him as you navigate the holiday shoppers in the Galleria. You keep a tight hold of his hand as Gator's awareness heightens with every step he takes. The observations in his mind take over and he notices that everyone seems engaged in themselves and their own actions. But he also senses the subtle change in their movements as they maneuver around him, aware and respectful of his space.

You bear witness to how moves with more ease with each step he takes. The anxiety he often holds gradually melts away, moving through the crowd like he belongs.

"Hey," you say as you turn to him and squeeze his hand, "you're really doing a great job. "

He moves to say something but stops when he hears a familiar voice ring out.

"Gator," a woman's voice clears the crowd, the sound of it moving closer towards you.

Gator recognizes it, his heart filling with equal measures of timidity and guilt.

"Dot?" Gator utters and you immediately loosen your fingers from his.

He wishes you hadn't let go, but he works out clearly in his head the reason you did. In a few short moments Dot and her daughter Scotty stand before you. Dot's face shines with empathy and kindness, while her daughter stays quiet at her side. You can't blame Scotty for her apprehension given all the pain and trauma Roy Tillman and Gator had inflicted on their family.

"Are you doing ok, Gator?" Dot asks, a soft kindness imbues itself in her voice and her expression. "You look like you're doing better."

Gator hangs his head down while giving a slight nod.

"Well, I'm tryin'," Gator replies and gestures towards you, "and I've had lots of help."

Dot takes your hand and squeezes it with a kind of gratitude that you feel is almost undeserved. Dot pulls Gator into a conversation. Her genuine concern never disappears as she asks him about life, therapy, and even his sleeping habits. You watch Gator listen intently to each word like a child with his mother. Shifting her weight from side to side, Scotty garners your attention by pointing at your shopping bag. At the same time, Scotty looks you up and down as though she's sizing you up.

"You got some records?" Scotty says, starting with small talk.

"Yep," you reply, turning your full attention to her, "I'm just finishing up the last of my shopping."

Scotty nods, "Did you get any for yourself?"

"No, not this time," you respond, taking note of her genuine curiosity, "trying to make sure I get stuff for others before myself, you know?"

"I would get something for myself," she says with a beautiful simplicity bestowed only to children. "Sometimes it's fun to get yourself a little gift—that's what my mom says."

You wait a few moments to contemplate on her observation while you craft your own reply. You release a chuckle as Scotty gazes at you with a wide-eyed smile and an emphatic nod.

"Your mom is a smart woman, Scotty."

"I know," she says earnestly, "I can tell you're a lot like her; you're really kind."

Scotty's eyes shift back to Gator and Dot as she speaks. Ever observant, you follow the thread of her gaze which seems to be weaving between you and Gator. You swear you catch Gator glance at you quickly before he turns his attention back to his own conversation.

"So what do you want for Christmas?" Gator hears you ask Scotty.

He hears her lists off a few items: a light up hoverboard, a knitting kit, and a kit to make jewelry at home. Your smile is bright and wide as you listen to Scotty relay her Christmas wishes to you. Her honesty and innocence shine through and you envy it.

"What about you? What do you want?" Scotty asks.

"Oh gosh, let's see," you pause in thought, "I'm a sucker for a really good pen and a pretty journal."

Scotty's confusion appears instantly on her face, "A pen and a journal! That's it??"

"I'm a pretty simple girl, Scotty," you say plainly, "I really don't need much."

"Are you sure?" Scotty squints her eyes in disbelief. "I don't believe you."

"You're persistent," you add with smile. "Ok, fine, a girl can always use a pretty bracelet or a nice pair of earrings."

With a look of contemplation that seems wise beyond her years, Scotty gives you a knowing nod that says: I told you so. You turn your attention back to Dot and Gator as they continue to converse.

"You know Scotty's got a Christmas pageant in a week," Dot says to Gator, her voice and eyes full of genuine kindness. "You should come. What do you think Scotty?"

Scotty moves closer to her mom, first looking at Gator and then gesturing back at you. "Sure, but she should come to!"

You blink rapidly with surprise at the unexpected suggestion. You to turn to Gator to take in his reaction to Scotty's request, you see his face is already turned to you with his eyebrows raised. Dot's eyes shift from you to her daughter who looks at you with the brightest smile and a wide-eyed, glee-filled gaze.

"Now how can you say 'no' that face?" Dot added with a shrug and a joyful smile of her own. "You really should come; they always do a good job and it's just a real nice event for the season."

As you look back to Gator, he presents his open hands to you, wordlessly intimating the decision is yours and yours alone. Your eyes move from to Dot and then to Scotty again. Dot does have one thing right—how can you say no that face? With a nod of your head, you give Dot your answer. Scotty claps excitedly as Gator seems to let out a quick sigh.

Dot pulls you closer and asks you quietly, "Would you be able to bring Gator?"

"I can figure it out on my own, Dot!" He exclaims having heard her request, a mixture of embarrassment and indignation coming from deep in his chest.

"Oh, Gator, I didn't mean anything by it, I just thought—," she begins, her words full of nothing but kindhearted truth.

"No, Gator, don't worry about it," you chime in, "it's not a problem, I can bring you."

"Well, it's settled then!" Dot adds before taking Scotty's hand. "We're going to go finish some errands and we'll see you both next weekend."

Gator nods and smiles before giving them slight wave. This time, you hook your hand into his arm, gently leading him through the crowds back to the parking lot. He is hyper focused on moving his cane in front of him and his posture feels a little cold and stiff.

"So do you wanna go anywhere?" You ask him, trying to break the silence that's suddenly filled the air.

Gator shrugs, "No, not really."

His terse response almost makes you want to let him go and leave him behind. But you can't; you care too damn much.

"Ok," you acknowledge while you furrow your brows with confusion. "I guess we'll just go home then?"

"That's fine."

The silence continues as you walk towards the parking lot. When you're back at your truck, you open the door for him and he climbs in quietly. His elbow finds rest on the door and he presses his chin against a clenched fist, once inside. His tight lips, the slump of his shoulders, and his overall demeanor give the distinct impression that he is sulking.

Once you settle into the driver's seat you turn the ignition and begin your drive back to Gator's house. The air in your car is thick with silence as he crosses his arms over his chest. You hate these bouts of childish silent treatment he still clings to. You can engage him but decide against, not wanting to get into an argument with him.

When you pull into his driveway, Gator is quick to open the door. He sets his can down with a loud tap on the cement of his driveway. His movements are cautious but controlled as he navigates his way to the front door. Even in his adult tantrum he impressively manages to find his way to the door. He takes a deep breath before unlocking and opening it.

"What's with the attitude?" You finally ask with exasperation, following him inside.

"I don't have an attitude," he mumbles as he sets his cane against the bookshelf closest to the front door.

"Snapping at Dot, the silent treatment in the car?" You remind him, the floorboards creaking beneath your feet as you step towards him. "It seems like it to me."

He turns around and meets you leaving only a foot of space between the two of you.

"I could get there on my own just fine," he insists with a pout of his lips, "I can figure it out! I'm not helpless."

"No one called you helpless, Gator!" You wave your hands at your side. "Dot was just trying to make it easier for—"

"I don't need your pity!" Gator asserts while taking another step towards you.

"You need to cut it out with that!" You challenge him, hoping that he can feel how hard you are glaring at him. "When have I ever treated you with pity?"

"No," he sneers, "you just treat me like a job!"

A volcano is erupting inside you. It's heating up your face. He's made you upset before but not like this.

"Has it never occurred to you that I like spending time you?!" You shout, all reason leaving your body. "That I want to spend time with you?!"

You watch as Gator's chest rises and falls breathing in the weight if your words. He moves closer and lifts a gentle hand to hover inches from your face. And when he traces a soft caress down the curve of your cheek you can't help but draw in a sharp breath of your own. The heat of his touch is something unexpected while also being something you've been waiting for.

He leans in closer and pauses, wondering if you'll pull away. You can and maybe you should, but much to Gator's relief, you don't. Instead, you lean your head into his large hand and close your eyes. The softness of your skin warms his hand as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear before settling at the crook of your neck.

His lips are finally on yours with a kiss that is timid and soft at the start. The softness of his lips pulls you in and you press your lips harder against his. The scent of you fills him with elation while his other hand pulls you closer to him. He needs more. The softness is not enough.

You feel his grip at your waist tighten before he slips his tongue gently to open your lips and when you don't fight he pushes in deeper. Gator feels your left hand caress down his shoulder until you rest it on his forearm. He can't help but pull you closer to him, his right hand beginning to meander just beneath the hem of your shirt.

Too much. Not enough. Too much.

Your mind and heart are racing as you try desperately to work through the feelings that his lips, his hands, and maybe the inkling of something else are igniting in you.

"Stop, Gator, stop!" You release yourself from his kiss and step back. "I…we can't."

He stands before you and though he can't see your face, he's certain the expression you have must hold regret. His hand falls and his heart follows, moving down to the pit of his stomach.

"Fuck. Fuck!" He swears, running his hands through his hair. "I fucked it up."

"You didn't," You insist, unable to fight moving closer to him. "I promise you didn't."

He steps forward noticing a hint of longing in your voice. He tests the waters before you both.

"No?" A teasing tone leaves his lips as he leans towards you again.

You feel his breath upon your lips as the conflict continues in your mind. Feeling his lips on yours again is a desire and a temptation. He leans in his lips just brushing yours before you back away.

"I can't do this," you say through intense breaths.

"Why not?" He moves closer to you, caressing soft fingers down the length of your right arm.

"It's unethical, I could lose my job, ," you begin spouting reasons. "It's unfair to you."

"You can't tell me you don't feel something, sweetheart," he rebukes with more than a hint of snark to his tone.

Together, his words and tone come straight for your heart.

"You're right, I can't," you confirm, your lips trembling and your stomach flopping with the myriad of emotions swirling inside you. "Gator, I just need time to think…I—I'm sorry."

He scoffs in a combination of disbelief, frustration, and most of all, disappointment. There are so many words he wants to say to you, none of them coming out. A voice echoes inside his mind, as he asks himself if anything he says would make a difference.

"I'll call you before the weekend comes, I promise," you tell him, hoping he knows that you're going to keep your word. "I've gotta go."

Before he can say something—anything— to convince you to stay, he hears the familiar sounds of the door opening and then closing behind you. He hears your gentle footsteps on his stoop, leaving instead of arriving. The sound of your truck pulling away from his driveway leaves a silence that screams in his ears. Frustration riddles his breath as the warmth you bring disappears with your absence.