𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

Did you send that email?

Has your employer received your reasonable adjustments form?

When are you due for a refill of your meds?

The door’s locked, right?

Maybe you should check it, just to be sure.

But you can’t wake up Joe. He’s asleep. The season is weeks away from starting.

Has Joe mentioned anything about a plan for tomorrow?

Off season always meddles with your routine. The season is so long and drawn out that by the time it’s finished, Joe being home more often and having less facility time always throws your routine out of balance. 

You’re getting there, though. There was no meltdown like there was last year, when your autism completely gave up on the concept of change and found it completely overwhelming. 

Still, though, your hatred of change has been another Thing for Joe to get used to. Another Thing that your brain throws at you. Another Thing that you hate that Joe has to manage. 

When you look over at the clock on the bedside table, the digital green numbers blink back at you.

12:47am.

You sigh. 

You hate that your brain is like this. 

Exhaustion is gnawing at your body. Every limb feels weighted with it. Your arms feel like soup, legs like jelly and if you were to shuffle downstairs to get a snack, you have no doubt that your feet would feel like they were walking through treacle.

You’ve been tossing and turning for almost two and a half hours. First, you were curled up in Joe’s arms, his chest bare and warm behind you. It was nice. Comfortable. 

But then it got too warm, so you gently pried yourself out of him, but not without a sleepy little sound of protest from him. Then you were cold from the overhead fan, making you tug the comforter closer to your shoulders. 

Then came trying to move into a comfortable position. 

On your back. 

One arm under your pillow, the other by your side.

On your left side, arms bent in front of you.

On your stomach, even, resting your head on your pillow with your arms folded beneath it. 

On your right side, facing away from Joe. 

But then you wanted to look at him, because even the sight of him makes you feel less anxious. Having him in your sightline gives your brain something to hold onto. It sounds clingy, but you don’t care. Not when he’s as handsome as he is. 

So here you are. Back on your original side, facing Joe, utterly unable to sleep.

Your eyes are stinging, although you’re not sure whether it’s tiredness or tears.

A soft but frustrated little huff leaves your lips. 

‘Shut up, brain,’ you mumble into the dark. 

Your head moves to the side and you see your water bottle on the bedside table next to the clock. Suddenly feeling parched, you slowly reach a hand out to it and grasp it with your hand. You wince as you carefully shift your body so you’re sat cross-legged on the bed so you can drink, the straw moving slightly with every little gulp. 

After you’ve had a drink, you replace the bottle into its original position on the table, but you don’t lie back down again. Sitting cross-legged feels good, so you stay sat for a while.

Just thinking.

Breathing.

Resting an elbow on your knee so you can rest your chin against your hand. 

Not necessarily upset, just thinking, like thinking enough thoughts will get rid of enough of them to finally let you sleep. 

You’re so deep in thought that you don’t register the little shuffle of movement next to you as Joe resurfaces. 

He’s normally a deep sleeper. He has to be, with his job. His body requires rest to recover. His brain needs it to process everything he saw in film the day before. 

But something changed in the air next to him, like his body could sense that something wasn’t quite right, and it pulled him back to the land of the living.

It takes a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness around him. He looks around, blinking sleep out of them, and then…

Then he sees you. Your back is towards him, one of his old LSU shirts swallowing your shoulders. The soft little sleep shorts are tied at your waist, although one of the legs is bunched up around your upper thigh. He knows without asking you that it’s close to setting your sensory issues off. He can see your elbow resting on the inside of your knee. Not lying down next to him, not fast asleep. 

Even from here, he can practically hear your brain whirring. 

The first thing he does isn’t saying your name. It isn’t reaching out to gently rub your back, as much as he wants to. He realises quickly that you don’t realise that he’s awake, hyper-focused on whatever you’re thinking about, and the last thing he wants to do is startle you. 

Instead, he shuffles his legs enough that your head moves to the side he’s on. The movement of him is deliberate, so that you know that he’s awake and he’s not just shuffling around in his sleep.

Your body twists, hands shifting to brace your body against the movement, and then your eyes meet his. The eyes that look back at you are grey in the dark, but still feel like home. His eyebrows are furrowed in concern. He’s already soft and sleepy, but he looks so cuddly that you almost fold yourself into him right then and there. 

‘Baby?’ he whispers, more breath than sound. 

Guilt pulses in your brain for waking him up, enough that it leaks onto your face. 

Your eyes widen, your face visibly falls and your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. It’s like the words are there, in your throat, but something is stopping them from materialising in your mouth. The frustration makes tears bloom in your eyes, for real this time. 

Joe doesn’t ask any more questions. Doesn’t make you try to explain yourself. He knows.

‘Can’t sleep, darlin’?’ 

Whether it’s the way he knows straight away what’s wrong or it’s the nickname that always slices through any emotion you’re feeling, your face crumples in a way that shatters his heart. 

You shake your head, completely unable to form words. A tear escapes your eye and winds its way down your cheek. 

That’s enough for Joe. It’s more than enough.

‘Oh baby, c’mere,’ he murmurs softly. 

Joe knows by now when you need touch and when you need space. When you need space, your body language closes up in a way that’s imperceivable to anyone else, but clear as day to Joe. Your shoulders will hunch to your ears, whole body tense. You’ll avoid eye contact. Sometimes you’ll even put a hand out to stop him from coming close, but that’s rare.

This time, though, he knows what you need. He knows you need him close, knows you need to feel his arms around you to bring you back to the room.

So he shifts onto his back and opens his arms, leaving them open for you to all but collapse into him. You breathe out a sigh of relief the second he folds them around you, one hand at the back of your head to keep it from tipping back, the other rubbing slow, gentle strokes up and down from your shoulder blades down to the small of your back. 

The feeling of his palm, warm and large, over your shirt is enough to slowly stem the flow of thoughts from pin-balling around your brain. 

One of the many things you love most about Joe is the way he never makes you feel like you have to explain yourself.

If you need quiet, he gives you quiet. If you need space, he’ll let you come to him when you’re ready. If you don’t want to be perceived, he’s never once made you feel guilty for walking around the house with your headphones in like the love of his life has taken the form of a friendly, silent ghost. 

This is one of those moments where he just knows what to do without asking you what you need. The room stays dark, because he knows that light can be too much when you’re already nearly at sensory capacity. His breathing stays soft and regular, because he knows that you match your breathing to his, often without even realising you’re doing it. The hand at your back stays rubbing soothing circles into your shirt, not sliding under the shirt because he knows, too, that skin on skin contact can sometimes make things worse. 

Already, your breathing is slowing. Already, your mind is quietening. 

But still, there’s guilt. Guilt for waking him up and disturbing his much-needed recovery and rest. Guilt for being too much. Guilt for being a distraction. 

‘Sorry,’ you mumble huskily, voice hoarse from lack of use. 

Joe turns his head to look at you but you’re too ashamed to look up at him. Eye contact is another thing he knows you struggle with. He doesn’t make you look up at him if you can’t handle it.

‘For what, baby?’

You shift slightly against him, face burrowing further into his shirt. 

‘Woke you up. Need your sleep.’ 

Something in Joe’s heart cracks a little at your words. He knows how much you struggle with sleep. He also knows it’s not something you can control. 

He takes a few seconds to think through his words, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he wants to say it right. 

Eventually, his chest rises with an exhale, then he slowly lets the breath go. You follow his lead. 

‘You didn’t wake me up, sweetheart,’ he says quietly through the kiss he presses to your forehead. ‘I woke up because I felt you weren’t asleep next to me. And then I found you ruminating and disappearing into your brain.’ 

The snort breaks through your nose before you can stop it.

‘Still awake, though. When you should be asleep.’ 

He squeezes you closer to him, just slightly, not overwhelmingly tight, just enough that he can pull you back to him.

‘That wasn’t you doing it to me, though, honey. I woke up because the person I love is awake in the middle of the night, having a loud brain moment, and I don’t want you to be alone through that. That’s all.’

That’s all. 

Two words that he says so simply without realising the impact they have on you.

Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Like waking up for you makes as much sense as throwing a ball.

Like you’re not the burden you’ve managed to convince yourself you are. 

You can’t quite find the energy or the words to respond to that. You just sigh into him and rest your arm across his stomach. 

The emotion still bubbles beneath the surface. 

His fingers thread carefully through your hair. They don’t twirl, they don’t pull, just subtle little strokes through your hair to keep you with him. 

You’re still not quite settled though. He can feel it in the way your body is still holding onto the last little morsel of tension. 

So he talks. Low, barely more than a whisper. 

‘You’re in bed, in our home. You’re safe with me. It’s dark. Temperature is set to sixty-six. Alarm is set for eight tomorrow morning. Nothing can get you here. You can let your brain rest.’ 

Another sigh leaves you, but this time it’s heavier. Beneath you, Joe can feel your body slowly relaxing. 

In his head, he goes through a few options of what to continue talking about. 

Space. 

Dinosaurs. 

Fossils.

The Spider-Man film you’re both excited to see. 

Too intense. Too charged. He needs something low-stakes, monotonous and boring to help lull you to sleep.

The answer comes to him so slowly that it almost makes him laugh when it occurs to him, then he remembers that you’re using him as a pillow, so he just smiles to himself. 

‘Welcome to Football One-Oh-One. My name is Joe, and I will be your teacher for tonight.’ 

It takes a second longer than it should for you to process what he’s said, but when you do, you finally look up at him. Even in the dark, his eyes are bright, mouth curled into a small little smile that would be smug in any other situation, but here, it’s just from how much he loves you.

‘Football One-Oh-One?’ 

‘Just trust me, baby.’

You do trust him. More than anyone in your life. He’s the safest person you’ve ever loved, so you let your head flop back down onto him. His hand resumes its track up and down your back, palm still warm through your shirt. 

‘So an NFL game is split into four quarters. Each quarter lasts fifteen minutes. First half of the game is the first and second quarter, then there’s a twelve minute break called half-time, then—’

You twist your head up to look at him again, eyes endearingly wide in the way they always do when your brain is still awake enough to hook onto something.

‘Why’s it twelve minutes?’ 

There’s a beat of silence, in which Joe blinks down at you. 

He opens his mouth. Then closes it. Opens it again.

Of course you focus on this fact. Not the quarters, not the offence or the defence. Of course the thing your magical brain latches onto is the length of half-time.

‘I don’t… I don’t actually know.’ 

You frown slightly, making his chest warm with affection. 

‘You play professional football. You’re the quarterback. I feel like you should know this.’ 

Joe sighs. There’s no way to stop the fond little smile that breaks his handsome face open, though.

‘I’ll run it past coach next time I’m at the facility.’ You shrug, then rest your head back on him like nothing happened. ‘Anyway, first half is first and second quarter, then we have half-time, and then the third and fourth quarters. If the score is even at the end of the fourth quarter, we go into overtime so we know who the winner is.’

Joe continues talking about the timing of the game and how each coach has three timeouts per half. They can use this to adjust strategy and give players a rest. 

His voice rumbles through his chest below your cheek. He talks in that quietly animated way he always does when he gets to talk about the sport he loves, but it never gets loud. It’s all low timbre, kept in a similar cadence to lull you to sleep.  

During a break in the lesson, he looks down at you and smiles when he sees the stress ebbing out of your face. The lines in your forehead are smoothing. 

He keeps going.

‘Each team has a roster of fifty-three men during the regular season, but only eleven players from each team are on the field at one time. Each team has three units, there’s the offence, led by the quarterback—’

‘That’s you,’ you interject sleepily.

He kisses the top of your head and has to physically rein in the smile on his face from getting too big. 

‘Yeah, baby, that’s me. Offence is made up of wide receivers like Ja’Marr and Tee, tight ends, running backs and the offensive linemen, the O-line. Those are the big guys that stop me from getting sacked.’ 

‘Like Orlando?’

‘Exactly like Orlando, he’s our left tackle.’

‘I like Orlando.’ You’re so tired that the words slur together. ‘He’s gentle.’ 

Joe’s heart swells. You’ve always been especially close to Orlando, the left tackle’s gentle personality similar to Joe’s. You love Ja’Marr and Tee, you always get along with all the team, but the bond you share with Orlando is special. He’s another of your safe people. 

‘Yeah,’ he murmurs into your hair. ‘He’s cool.’ 

Sensing that you’re on the cusp of sleep, Joe lowers his voice even more so that it’s barely more than a rumble through his chest. 

He drifts from touchdowns to field goals, downs to turnovers and various different penalties. 

Then, because he knows how much you worry about him getting tackled, the lesson turns to his protection. 

‘There’s a rule called the roughing the passer call. It’s basically where a defender hits the quarterback late, too low or too high, sometimes with unnecessary force. It can be that I get hit after I’ve thrown the ball, or I get hit in the head or the neck, like that game against the Steelers a couple years ago and I went down, had to get my neck checked out.’ 

He feels you tense up again beside him, hardly more than a hunch of the shoulders, but he still feels it. His hand pauses on its track up and down your back, then resumes.

‘I hated that,’ you whisper. His arms squeeze you again. Your pride in him has never been in question, but he also knows how nervous you get when it comes to game day. 

‘I know, sweetheart,’ he murmurs back. ‘Was all good, though. That’s what the rule is there for. To keep me safe and to let me do my job.’ Joe tilts his head towards you and presses the briefest of kisses to your hairline. 

His lips are soft against your skin. The feeling of it makes you nuzzle closer to him. When he looks down at you, your eyes are closed, your mouth is slightly parted and your breathing is slow and even. 

‘But the only thing you need to focus on right now is sleep. I’m here. You’re safe. My job is to keep you safe. I’ll keep talking football to you for as long as it takes.’

And he does. 

His cadence and how it keeps the defence guessing. He breathes out a laugh as he remembers times he got a player to jump offside. 

‘… and sometimes I draw it out or speed it up. Maybe I’ll fake the snap count just to see if they flinch. All it is is timing and rhythm. If we can get a free five yards in a moment we really need it, we’ll take it. Absolutely, we will.’ 

All the while, his hand is moving up and down your back. Still keeping that same rhythm. 

‘You’ve probably heard me use audibles, or codewords on the field. “Kill kill” means we’re switching to the backup play, I’ll wave my hands around my helmet and make sure all the guys are on the same page before the snap. “Alert, alert!”, pretty similar, we’re switching to an alternative play. It’s one of my favourite things about the job. I’m reading the defence and solving a puzzle in, like, three seconds. We all need to make sure we’re moving as one unit, and…’ 

He looks down again, and this time, you’re gone. Your face is completely slack with sleep, body warm against him without a care in the world. Joe smiles, pleased that you’re finally getting the rest you need, and shifts gently to look at the clock on the bedside table. 

1:04am

‘There’s my girl,’ he whispers to the room, still smiling. ‘There we go. Guess we found out what helps you sleep, huh?’ The hand on your back slows, then moves to brush your cheek, fingertips barely grazing the skin so you don’t wake. 

For a few minutes, Joe just lies there with you in his arms. He doesn’t move more than his hand that comes back to your shoulder blades, not rubbing this time, just his palm bracing your back to keep you flush against him. Your hand flexes against him in your sleep to make a fist in his shirt. 

‘Hey, I’m right here, baby,’ he soothes quietly. ‘Just sleep. You’re safe with me. I’ve got you.’  

Joe keeps his breathing deep and slow. His arms stay holding you close to him, safe from the demands of a world that isn’t always built for your brain but one that you belong to more than anyone else he knows. 

Only when he’s sure that you’re safely asleep, only when your hand loosens its grip on his shirt with your breath soft against his chest, does he finally let his eyes drift shut. 

In the quiet peace of the bedroom that night, one quarterback holds his girlfriend against him as they sleep, safe with him, just like she always will be. 

You're upstairs now. In his bathroom. Dress unzipped halfway down your back, makeup wipe in your hand. You can hear him moving around in the kitchen — the cabinet, the fridge, the soft click of a glass on the counter. Familiar sounds. The sounds of his house when you're in it.

You take your time. You like his bathroom. The mirror is bigger than yours. The lighting is better. You hum something under your breath, swipe at your eyeliner, peel your lashes off, and set them on the counter. You're not in a hurry. He's coming up. You'll get in bed. You'll wait for him.

Downstairs, the kitchen is quiet.

His phone is face down on the counter where he left it when you got home. He hasn't touched it since you sat down at the restaurant. That's not unusual. He doesn't half-live with you. When you're there, he doesn't check scores at the table, doesn't scroll between courses, doesn't pull it out in the car. You get all of him. You always do.

He picks it up now.

It lights up in his hand before his thumb hits the screen — notifications stacking on top of each other, a missed call, three texts in the same thread.

Sam: dude.

sam: [screenshot]

And underneath, in another thread:

Trey: LMAOOOO bro 😭 soft launching???

He opens Sam's first.

The screenshot fills the screen, and he stands in his kitchen, a water glass in his other hand, looking at it.

Your story. Still up. The pasta you ordered, the candle on the table, the wine glass half-empty. And in the corner of the frame — his hand. His wrist. The bracelets he's been wearing since forever.

He doesn't move.

He sets the water glass down. Opens the app. Scrolls to your account. It's still there. Twelve thousand views already. He scrolls down to the comments, and they're already there—is that Joe Burrow's hand? NO WAY, girl, post him fr. I know those fucking bracelets anywhere. Y/N spill.

He locks the phone.

He doesn't call up to you.

He just stands there in the kitchen, jaw tight, one hand flat on the counter, and waits.

—

You hear him on the stairs.

You're in bed already. His t-shirt. Hair up. Phone in your hand because you'd posted your dinner and the story is doing numbers — way more views than you usually get, comments lighting up your last post, your friends sending the fire emoji and asking where you ate. The other comments you've been ignoring. Wait, is that—.Y/N. No way. You saw them. You're not stupid. You scrolled past them on purpose. You're not going to make a thing of it. You're going to let it sit. Let people wonder. That's the move.

You'd been scrolling through it lazily, half-paying attention, half-listening for him.

His footsteps are slower than usual. You clock it, but you don't think about it. You assume he's tired. Dinner ran long. The wine.

He comes through the doorway and stops.

Doesn't get in. Doesn't kick his shoes off the way he does. Doesn't start unbuttoning his shirt on his way to the closet. He just stands there in the frame of the door with his phone in his hand and looks at you.

"Y/N."

Flat. Not the way he says it when he comes to bed. Not the way he said it in the car twenty minutes ago, hand on your thigh.

You look up.

He doesn't say anything else for a second. He crosses the room. Stops at the side of the bed. Holds his phone out.

"Take this down."

You blink at him.

"What?"

"The story," he says. "Take it down."

You sit up a little. The sheet pools at your waist. You take his phone from him, and you look at the screen.

It's your story. Screenshotted. Sent to him by Sam.

You see the pasta. The candle. The wine glass. You see his hand in the corner of the frame, the bracelets, the watch, and your stomach does something small and quick that you don't fully register yet because you're still catching up.

You look back up at him.

—

"Joe."

He doesn't say anything.

"I—" You look down at the phone again. At the screen. At your own story still glowing back at you. "I didn't think it was a big deal."

His jaw works.

"I post my dinner all the time," you say, and you hear it come out a little too fast, a little too defensive, and you don't stop. "Especially when it's good. That's like — that's just what I do, that's a normal thing I do, I wasn't trying to—"

"Y/N."

"—I wasn't posting you, I was posting the pasta, I didn't even—"

"Take it down."

You stop.

You look up at him. He hasn't moved. He's still standing next to the bed, looking down at you, and his face is doing the thing it does in press conferences when someone asks him a question he doesn't want to answer. Closed. Smooth. Nothing is leaking through.

You hand his phone back. Pick up your own. Open the app.

Your thumb hovers.

"Joe, it's literally just your hand."

"Take it down."

"You can't even see your face."

"Y/N."

"It's a hand."

He exhales through his nose. Sits down on the edge of the bed. Doesn't look at you.

"I can't just take it down."

He looks at you then.

"What?"

"I can't just take it down, Joe, that's so embarrassing, people already saw it, it's been up for a while now, if I delete it now everyone's gonna know I deleted it and that's a whole other thing, that's like — that confirms it more than just leaving it—"

"Y/N."

"—if I just leave it up it's a hand, it's nothing, but if I take it down now everyone's gonna be like oh she got told to take it down, and then it's a thing, and—"

"I don't care. Take it down."

—

You go quiet.

You're still holding your phone. Your thumb is still hovering. You haven't deleted anything.

"You don't have to talk to me like that."

He looks at the ceiling.

"Y/N."

"You don't. I'm not — I'm not a child, Joe, you can't just—"

"Then stop acting like one."

It comes out before he can stop it. You can see it on his face the second it lands — the flicker of don't, the half-second where he could've pulled it back and didn't. He doesn't take it back. He just holds your eye.

"Wow."

"Y/N—"

"No, that's — wow. That's what you think?"

"That's not—"

"That's what you think. That I'm — what, that I'm immature? That I'm a kid? You think I'm a kid, Joe?"

"I think you posted me on the internet, and now you're arguing with me about why you can't take the picture down because it would be embarrassing for you."

"It would be embarrassing—"

"You don't get it."

"I get it—"

"You don't."

You're sitting all the way up now. The sheet is twisted around your hips. Your phone is face down on the comforter. Your chest is doing something tight and quick that you're choosing not to name.

"So explain it to me."

He drags a hand over his jaw.

"Y/N."

"Explain it to me, then. If I don't get it. Tell me."

"You know what it is."

"No, I don't, Joe, because to me it's a hand, it's literally a hand, and you're acting like I — like I sold a story to TMZ, like I—"

"You didn't think."

"I did think—"

"You didn't. You sat there at dinner, took a picture, and didn't think about me being in the frame, because if you had, you would've cropped it. That's what I'm saying. You didn't think."

"I—"

"And now Sam knows. And Trey knows. And by tomorrow morning, everyone with a fan account knows where we were, what we were doing, that you were there, that I was there. And you want to leave it up because taking it down would be embarrassing."

You don't say anything.

He looks at you. Then he looks at the wall.

"That's what I mean," he says, quieter. "When I say you didn't think."

You stare at him.

"Why does it matter?"

"Y/N."

"No. Why does it matter, Joe? Like — what is the actual problem? For people know we had dinner? That people can see your hand? What is the — what are you actually mad about?"

"You know what I'm mad about."

"I don't. I really don't. Because if it's just that people saw us, then — I don't get it. We're allowed to have dinner. You're allowed to be seen with me. So what — what is it. Are you embarrassed?"

He looks at you.

"What?"

"Are you embarrassed. Of me. Is that what this is?"

"Y/N."

"Because that's what it sounds like. It sounds like — it sounds like you don't want anyone to know, and you're mad that I — that I gave them a hand, like — is that what this is? You don't want people to know it's me?"

"That's not what I said."

"It's what it sounds like."

"That's not what I said, Y/N."

"Then what are you saying. Because I'm sitting here trying to figure out why a hand is a — is the end of the world, and the only thing I can come up with is that you don't want people knowing it was me on the other side of that table?"

He's looking at you. Quiet. Jaw working.

"That's not fair."

"None of this is fair."

"You know that's not what it is."

"I don't, actually. I don't know that. Because you won't tell me what it is. You're just — you're standing here telling me I didn't think, and that I'm acting like a child, and I'm asking you a real question, Joe, and you're not answering it."

He doesn't say anything for a second.

He sits with it. You can see him sitting with it. The hand that was at his jaw drops to his thigh, fingers spread, and he looks at the floor between his feet.

"That's not what it is."

"Then what is it?"

"I told you."

"You haven't."

"Y/N."

"You haven't, Joe. You've told me I didn't think. You've told me I'm acting like a child. You haven't told me what it is."

"It's that you're twenty-two."

It comes out quieter than the rest. Not cold this time. Just true. He's looking at you.

You feel it land somewhere under your ribs.

"Cool."

"That's not—"

"No, that's cool. That's — okay. Got it."

"Y/N."

You're already pushing the sheet off. You're already swinging your legs over the side of the bed. The t-shirt rides up your thighs, and you don't do anything about it. You stand up. You don't look at him.

"Y/N. Stop."

"I'm not doing this."

"Where are you going?"

"Fuck if I know."

You walk past him. You don't slam the door because you're not — you're not going to be that. You're not going to give him the proof. You walk out of the bedroom and down the hall and into the guest room at the end of it, and you close that door quietly behind you.

—

He doesn't follow.

You grabbed your phone on the way out. You don't remember doing it. It was on the comforter, and your hand closed around it without your permission, and now you're sitting on the edge of the guest bed in the dark with it in your lap.

You don't turn the lamp on. The house is quiet around you. The bedroom door is closed at the other end of the hall, and you can't hear anything through it.

You don't cry. You're too mad to cry. You sit there with your hands flat on your thighs, and you breathe through your nose, and you wait for whatever is going to happen next.

Then you pick up the phone.

You unlock it. The screen is too bright. You squint against it and tap into the app, and there it is — your story. Twelve thousand views. Fifteen now. The pasta, the candle, and his hand in the corner.

You hold your thumb on it.

The little menu comes up. Delete story. You tap it.

Are you sure?

You're sure.

You tap it again. The screen does its little animation, the story disappearing, and then it's gone. Just your other posts. Your dinner from two nights ago. A picture of your friend's dog. A sunset.

You sit there in the dark holding the phone.

You didn't do it for him.

You did it because if he doesn't want to be seen with you, then fine. He won't be. You'll take care of that yourself. You'll be the one who decides who knows what. You'll be the one who erases it. Not him.

You put the phone face down on the bed next to you.

You wait.

You don't know how long. Two minutes. Five. Long enough that you start to wonder if he's going to leave you in here. If he's going to make you come back to him. You don't know which one would be worse.

Then you hear the bedroom door open down the hall.

Footsteps. Slow. The hardwood creaks the way it does in the spot outside the linen closet.

He stops outside the guest room door.

—

The door opens.

You don't look up.

You hear it more than see it — the soft click of the handle, the give of the hinge, the strip of hallway light widening across the floor of the guest room until it touches the bed frame. You sit very still on the edge of the mattress, and you keep your eyes on your hands in your lap.

He doesn't say anything.

He doesn't come in all the way. You can feel him standing in the doorway, weight in the frame. You can hear him breathing. Slow. Long. Like he's been holding it.

"Y/N."

You don't answer.

"Look at me."

You don't.

You hear him take a step into the room. Then another. The door eases closed behind him, and the strip of light goes with it, and you're in the half-dark again, just the spill from the hallway under the door and whatever's coming through the window from the streetlight outside.

He stops in front of you.

You can see his feet. Bare. He took his shoes off at some point. The hem of his pants. You don't look up.

"Y/N."

His voice is different. Lower. Not cold anymore. Not soft yet either. Just quiet. The way he talks to you when he's trying to be careful.

"What?"

"Look at me."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

You stare at his feet.

You can hear him breathing. You can feel the heat of him a foot away from your knees. You can feel the want to lean forward and put your face against his stomach, and the want to push him away with both hands, and you don't know which one is going to win.

"I shouldn't have said it like that."

You don't say anything.

"Y/N."

"You said what you meant."

"I said it cold. I shouldn't have said it cold."

"Same thing."

"It's not."

You finally look up.

He's looking down at you. His face is doing the thing it does when his guard isn't all the way up — that small softening around his mouth, the way his eyes are tired. He hasn't put a hand on you yet. He's keeping them at his side. You can tell that's a choice.

"It's not the same thing," he says again. "Saying it cold and meaning it. They're not the same."

"Then say it warm."

"Y/N."

"Say it warm, Joe. If they're different. Say it warm and let's see."

—

He doesn't say anything for a second.

You can see him looking for it. The way his jaw moves. The way his mouth opens and closes. He's never been good at finding the words when it counts. He's looking for them anyway.

You don't let him find them.

"I deleted it."

He stops looking. He looks at you.

"When."

"Before you came in."

His face does something small. You see it happen. The half-second where he thinks you did it for him. The half-second where his shoulders start to come down.

You don't let him have that either.

"I didn't do it for you."

He goes still.

"I did it because if you don't want to be seen with me, I'll be the one who decides."

He doesn't move.

You can see him taking it in. The way his eyes go a little flat. The way his hand at his side closes around nothing. He doesn't say anything for a long time. Long enough that you start to wonder if you've actually done it now. If this is the part where he leaves the room.

He doesn't leave the room.

He closes the space between you.

His hand comes up, and his palm is on your jaw, his thumb under your chin, and he tilts your face up so you have to look at him. His grip is firmer than it was going to be a minute ago. He's not asking.

You let him.

You haven't kissed him yet. He hasn't kissed you yet. He just stands there with his hand on your face and looks at you like he's trying to find the part of you that did it. The part that sat in here in the dark with your phone in your lap and pressed delete on him before he ever apologized. He's looking for her.

"Y/N."

"What?"

"Look at me."

You're already looking at him.

"Look at me."

You don't know what he means. You hold his eye anyway. His thumb drags along your jaw. Slow. Not soft. Just slow.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't erase me."

You don't answer.

He kisses you.

It's not soft. It's not asking. It's the kiss of someone who just got told something he can't take and is putting it somewhere in his body because he doesn't yet have the words for it. His mouth is hard against yours, and his hand is still on your jaw, and the other one comes up and grabs the back of your neck, and you don't kiss him back at first.

You make him work for it again.

He doesn't pull back this time. He just kisses you harder. Until your mouth opens under his. Until your hand comes up off the comforter and grabs the front of his shirt because you have to hold onto something. Until you kiss him back because the alternative — not kissing him back — has stopped being available.

He pulls you up off the edge of the bed by the back of your neck. You're standing. You're chest to chest. His other hand is on your hip, fingers spread, and he's pulling you in against him, and you can feel him through his pants, and you can feel his breath hot and fast against your mouth, and his control isn't where it was an hour ago. It's not anywhere. He's not pretending anymore.

"Joe."

"Don't talk."

"Joe—"

"Please, Y/N."

You don't.

He pushes you back. Your knees hit the mattress, and you sit. He stays standing. His hand goes from your neck to your hair, and he's holding it at the root, not tight, but enough that you have to keep looking up at him.

He looks down at you for a second.

Then he kneels.

—

He puts his hands on your knees. Pushes them apart. The t-shirt — his — rides up your thighs, and he doesn't help it. He looks at you sitting there in nothing but his shirt with your legs open in front of him, and his jaw works once.

"Joe."

"Shhhh."

He puts his mouth on the inside of your knee.

You don't make a sound. You're not going to give him sound yet. You're still mad. You hold onto the comforter on either side of you, and you watch him because watching is the only thing you have left, and you're not going to close your eyes for him.

He works up the inside of your thigh. Slow. He's not rushing. He kisses the soft skin above your knee and then higher and then higher, and when his mouth gets to the crease of your thigh, you can't help it — your hips shift. Just a little. Just enough that he notices.

He stops.

Looks up at you.

"You good?"

"I'm fine."

"Y/N."

"I'm fine, Joe."

He looks at you for another second. You don't soften. He goes back to your thigh, and this time he doesn't stop at the crease. He pushes your knees wider with both hands and pulls you forward by the hips until you're right at the edge of the mattress, and his mouth is on you.

You make a sound then. You can't help it. It's short and bitten off, and you hate that you made it.

He doesn't acknowledge it.

He doesn't tease. He doesn't draw it out. He goes at you like he's been thinking about it the entire fight, like the whole time he was standing in the kitchen with his phone in his hand and his jaw tight, he was also thinking about this. His tongue is hot, and his hands are gripping your thighs hard enough that you're going to have marks tomorrow, and you can hear yourself breathing now, fast, uneven, and you don't try to be quiet anymore.

Your hand comes up to his hair. You don't mean to. You grab it.

He groans against you, and you feel it in your whole body.

"Joe—"

He doesn't stop. He hooks one of your knees over his shoulder and pulls you closer, and his arm comes across your hips to hold you in place because you're not staying still anymore. You can't. Your back is starting to arch, and your head is going back, and your hand in his hair is gripping harder than you mean to be gripping, but he doesn't seem to mind; he's not slowing down, he's not letting up.

"Joe — Joe—"

"Mm."

"I'm—"

"Mm."

"Joe—"

He pulls back half an inch. Just enough to look up at you. His mouth is wet. His eyes are dark.

"Tell me you're mine."

You stare at him.

"What?"

"Tell me you're mine."

"Joe—"

"Say it, Y/N."

His arm tightens across your hips. His other hand is still gripping your thigh. He's looking up at you from between your legs, and his mouth is right there, and his breath is hot, and he's not going to give it back to you until you say it.

"I'm yours."

He waits.

"I'm yours, Joe."

He puts his mouth back on you.

—

He doesn't pace it now. He goes hard and steady, and his arm is still locked across your hips, and his hand is still gripping your thigh, and you're not breathing anymore, you're just making sounds, you're just holding onto his hair, and the comforter and your back is arching and your eyes are closing whether you want them to or not.

It happens fast.

You don't get a warning. One second you're chasing it, and the next it's already happening, the wave breaking, your whole body going tight under his mouth and his hands, and your knee tightening on his shoulder, and the sound that comes out of you isn't a word, isn't anything, it's just sound.

He doesn't stop until you stop.

He works you through it slowly. His grip on your thigh loosens. His arm at your hips eases. When you finally let go of his hair, he kisses the inside of your thigh once, soft, and then again, and then he sits back on his heels and looks up at you.

You're trying to catch your breath.

He's watching you do it.

His mouth is wet. His eyes are dark. His t-shirt is pulled tight across his shoulders from where he's been braced. He looks like a man who hasn't gotten what he came for yet.

He stands up.

You can hear him breathing, too, now. His hands go to his belt. He doesn't look away from you while he does it. He gets the belt loose, and the button and the zipper, and he pushes everything down at once and steps out of it, and his shirt comes off over his head in one motion, and then he's standing in front of you, and you're sitting in his t-shirt on the edge of the guest bed, and your legs are still open.

"Up."

You don't move.

"Y/N. Up."

You stand. Your legs are still shaking from coming. You wobble, and his hand is on your hip before you can fall, holding you. He reaches down, grabs the hem of his t-shirt, and lifts it. You raise your arms. He pulls it off over your head and drops it on the floor.

You're naked.

He looks at you.

For a second, he doesn't move. He just looks at you in the half-dark in the guest room, and his face is doing something you can't fully read. Not soft. Not cold. Just — looking. Like he's making sure.

Then his hand comes back to your jaw.

"Get on the bed."

You get into bed.

You back up onto it on your hands, and you go until your shoulders hit the headboard, and you sit there with your knees up and your eyes on him, and he's standing at the foot of the bed watching you do it. He puts one knee on the mattress. Then the other. He crawls up between your legs slowly, deliberately, his hands on either side of your hips, his eyes on yours the whole time.

He stops when his face is above yours.

He hasn't kissed you yet.

"You okay?"

You nod.

"Say it."

"I'm okay."

"Y/N."

"I'm okay, Joe."

He kisses you then. Hard. You can taste yourself on him, and you don't care. His hand slides down between you and lines up, and he's looking at you the whole time, his other forearm braced by your head, his face an inch from yours.

He pushes in.

—

You take him in one long exhale.

He goes slowly. Slower than you expect after everything. His forearm is still braced beside your head, and his other hand is on your hip, holding you steady, and he sinks in inch by inch and watches your face the whole time. Your eyes close. He says your name.

You open them.

"There you go."

He's all the way in. He doesn't move for a second. He just stays there with his forehead against yours and his breath coming hot and uneven and his hand on your hip flexing once, twice, like he's holding onto something he's afraid of losing.

Then he starts to move.

Slow at first. Deep. The kind of pace that's not about chasing anything — it's about reminding you. His hips pull back and push in, and your hands come up to his shoulders and his back and his hair, and you can't keep them in one place. He's heavy on top of you. He's warm. He smells like the cologne he wore to dinner, fainter now, and like him underneath it.

"Y/N."

"Yeah."

"Look at me."

You're already looking at him. He knows that. He says it anyway. His face is close enough that you can see his lashes. The flecks in his eyes. The way his mouth is parted.

"You're twenty-two."

You don't say anything.

He doesn't break his rhythm. He's still moving in you slowly, and his eyes are still on yours, and he says it again, quieter.

"You're twenty-two."

"Joe—"

"I'm saying it differently."

You feel it land. You feel it in your chest before you feel it anywhere else. He's not weaponizing it now. He's looking at you and saying the same word he said in the bedroom, and meaning a different thing with it. You don't know what the different thing is yet. You don't have to know yet. He's not asking you to know yet.

He kisses you. Slow. Wet. His tongue in your mouth and his hand sliding up your side and his hips still working into you, and you feel the first crack of it then — the thing in your chest that's been held tight since the kitchen. The thing that made you delete the post. The thing that's been bracing for tonight for months.

You make a sound against his mouth that isn't pleasure.

He hears it.

He pulls back half an inch. Looks at you. You don't know what your face is doing. You can feel water on it. Not crying. Just water.

His hand comes up. His thumb brushes under your eye.

"Hey."

"I'm fine."

"Y/N."

"I'm fine."

"Look at me."

You look at him.

"I've got you."

That's what does it.

You don't sob. You're not going to sob. But something in you lets go — the held thing finally easing, your shoulders dropping into the mattress, your hand on the back of his neck pulling him down because you need him closer, you need him heavier, you need his weight on you because if he's on you, he can't leave the room.

He goes. He drops his weight onto you. His forehead is at your temple, and his arm comes under your shoulders, and he's holding you down against the bed and moving in you slower now, deeper, and you can feel the change in him too. He's not making a point anymore. He's not claiming you. He's just here.

"Joe—"

"I know."

"Joe—"

"I'm so sorry, baby."

He says it like that. Baby. Low. He says it when his control is gone, and his control is gone now. His hips are getting heavier. His breath is getting shorter. You can feel him losing it in slow pieces — the rhythm getting less clean, his hand at your hip gripping harder, the sound he makes against your neck low and ragged.

"Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Stay with me, Y/N."

"I'm here. I'm here. I'm here."

You don't know if you say it three times or thirty.

He comes hard. His whole body locks up against yours. His face is in your neck, and his hand on your hip is bruising, and he's saying something you can't quite catch, something low, and his hips push into you one last time and stay there.

He doesn't move.

You don't either.

His weight is on you, and his breath is hot against your collarbone, and your hand is in his hair, and the room is dark, and the t-shirt of his is on the floor somewhere, and the comforter is half off the bed, and outside the window, a car goes by on the street, and neither of you moves.

For a long time, neither of you moves.

—

He's the one who moves first.

He doesn't go far. He shifts his weight off you, slow, careful, and rolls onto his side. His arm stays under your shoulders. He pulls you with him. You end up on his chest with your leg thrown over his and your hand flat against his sternum and his hand on the small of your back.

The room is so quiet.

You can hear him breathing. You can feel his heart under your palm. He's still catching his breath, and so are you, and neither of you has said anything yet.

You don't want to be the one who says it first.

You wait.

His hand moves up your back. Slow. Spread. He's not stroking it. He's just keeping it there, palm flat, like he wants to know you're solid.

"Y/N."

"Mm."

"That wasn't — " He stops. You feel his chest move. "What I said in the bedroom. That wasn't about you."

You don't move.

"Y/N."

"I'm listening."

He doesn't go again for a second. You can hear him thinking. You can feel his chest moving under your cheek, the way he's working something out, and you wait for it because you can tell he's not done.

"It's been in my head," he says. "Your age. It's been in my head the whole time we've been together, and I haven't told you that."

You don't say anything.

"Not because there's anything wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not — you're not a kid. You're twenty-two, you're an adult, you know what you're doing. That's not — that's not what I'm saying."

He stops. His hand at your back has gone still.

"I'm saying it's in my head. It's mine. I'm twenty-nine, and you're twenty-two, and I keep doing the math in my head about it. Like I'm trying to find the thing that makes it okay. And tonight I — when Sam texted me, and I came up the stairs, I was already — I was already thinking about it. About the math. And then you said I can't just take it down, and it would be embarrassing, and I — I used it. At you. Because it was already in my head."

He stops again.

"I shouldn't have done that."

You don't say anything.

"It's not your thing to carry," he says. "It's mine. And I made you carry it tonight."

You're quiet.

His hand starts moving again. Slow. Spread. His thumb finds the dip at the base of your spine and stays there.

"I'm working on it."

"Okay."

"Y/N."

"Okay, Joe."

You don't say it warm. You can't yet. You give him the word and you mean it, and that's the most you can do right now. He takes it.

You lie there.

You don't know how long. His hand on your back. Your hand on his chest. The window across the room, the streetlight outside, the car that goes by every few minutes, the quiet of the house, and the quiet between you.

You're the one who says it.

"I knew you were going to look at me like that one day."

His hand stops.

"What?"

"Like — " You don't finish. You don't have to. He gets it. You can feel him get it. His hand starts moving again, slower than before. His other hand comes up, and his fingers find your hair.

"I'm sorry, baby."

You don't say anything.

"I don't look at you that way."

You let it sit.

You think for a second he's done. That he's not going to say anything else. You're okay with that. You've gotten more from him tonight than you usually get, and the silence is its own kind of answer.

Then he says it.

"You make the room bigger."

You don't move.

"Y/N."

"I heard you."

"Okay."

You're quiet.

You feel him breathing. You feel his hand on your back. You feel his fingers in your hair and his thumb against your scalp and his heart steady under your cheek, and you're trying to hold onto it because you know he's not going to say things like that twice.

Except he does.

His voice is so low you almost don't catch it.

"You make me feel alive."

You close your eyes.

You don't say anything back. You don't have words for what to say back. You press your face into his chest a little harder, and his arm tightens around you, and his hand stays in your hair, and that's the answer you have.

You don't know when you fall asleep.

It's not a decision. One second you're listening to him breathe, and the next your eyes are heavy, and the next you're somewhere underneath all of it, drifting, his hand on your hip now, his thumb moving slowly.

He's still awake.

You don't know that. You'll never know that. He'll lie there for another hour with his hand on your hip and his thumb moving slowly over the bone and his eyes on the dark ceiling, and he'll go back through every line of it — the kitchen, the take it down, the twenty-two, the way you sat on the edge of the guest bed and told him you'd erased him.

And then he'll start working it.

Coffee in the morning. You like the oat milk. He's out. He'll send for it before you wake up.

Your friend's birthday next month — you'd mentioned it on the drive home, the trip to Austin, you weren't sure you could swing because of money. He'll book the flight tomorrow. He won't make a thing of it. He'll just tell you the trip is handled.

The math. He has to do something about the math. He doesn't know what yet. He knows he can't keep doing it. He knows he has to figure out where it actually comes from before he can put it down. He'll think about that. He'll keep thinking about it.

He won't sleep.

His thumb keeps moving.

Outside, another car goes by.