jammie

deran flies home three days before christmas. you don’t live in oceanside anymore, but you’re still in california: up north, where the beaches aren’t as crowded and twice as beautiful; deran comes by himself and he makes a joke about not wanting to spend the holidays with adrian’s parents but you’re fairly certain he was just looking for an excuse to be with his own family for the first time in years. 

to say he is surprised when he steps through the airport lounge to find three little kids waiting there with a WELCOME UNCLE DERAN sign is an understatement. The sign is big and messy, much like your home life— there are hand prints in red and green adorned around the words, crudely drawn christmas trees adorned in glitter and the ‘e’ in deran is written backwards because each kid wrote one of the words and julia is still learning her letters. 

you’ve never met deran before. pope kept you away from his family when the two of you first started dating and, while you’d been offended at first, it was easy to see the level of damage that his childhood had done to his psyche, so you stayed away. it’s been almost a decade since then though and, apart from andrew, deran is the only one alive— so you pull him into a hug as if you’ve known each other for decades before introducing each of the kids: the twins, theo and ethan, who are both six and absolute menaces and then julia, at just four years old, that looks so much like your andrew as she shies away from deran’s greetings. 

“andy told us so much about you.” you say, unable to hide your smile when andrew himself pulls deran into a long hug; you know how hard it is for him to initiate contact and, although it has mellowed out with the children, it still takes a lot for him to stiffly wrap his arms around his younger brother’s shoulders.

“three kids, huh?” deran asks that evening, long after the children have gone to bed. the three of you sit on the back porch of your home, pope and deran side by side while you sit perched on pope’s lap. deran is on his second beer while you and pope share a glass of iced tea— andrew stopped drinking years ago, before the twins, after he finally managed to find a psychiatrist he could trust. 

“four.” pope says, big hands sprawling over your stomach. “her due date’s in may.”

“holy shit.” deran shakes his head, but the smile that curls around the bottle is a fond one. “pope cody, family man. who would’ve guessed.”

“i knew from the day we met.” you say, then, turning a little from your spot so you could look down at your husband. andrew’s head tilts back against the beach chair and you bring a hand up, tucking a stray curl — more grey than ginger, now — behind his ear. “knew it from the moment i saw how good he was with lena.” 

andrew’s face blushes hard, bright red as it always does whenever you compliment him. he presses a kiss to the inside of your wrist and whatever he’s about to say is drowned out by a loud, whiny ‘daddyyyyyy’ coming from the living room. pope is out of the chair before you can even register julia’s voice, his hands gently cradling your hips to guide you back into his seat before he disappears into the house. 

“he’s happy.” deran breaks the silence the two of you fall into. you bite your bottom lip, watching through the window as andrew throws julia over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “i don’t think i’ve ever seen pope unclench his asshole before.” 

you giggle, finishing your tea, knees to your chest— as much as your hardening belly allows you to, anyway. the night sky is bright with silver stars above you, the ocean breeze just enough to make it chilly. you know what deran means, you’ve met the uptight, overvigilant version of andrew, but it’s so far in the past you can barely remember what he was like before.

“he’s loved.” you say, eventually. “i think that’s the main difference.” 

“thank you.” deran tells you. you take your eyes from the stars to look at him, blinking in confusion. “for loving him.” 

you don’t know how to answer that. it doesn’t seem like the sort of action that requires a thank you, it’s not the sort of thing you could ever stop and it surely isn’t labor; but you think you understand, deep down, what deran means. pope hasn’t had people love him — truly love him — before. 

“pope didn’t even tell me he has kids.” deran groans when you don’t say anything, rubbing his forehead. “i’m gon’ have to run around the mall on christmas’ eve to get gifts for the damn brady bunch because the motherfucker didn’t warn me.” 

you bark out a laugh. “it’s alright, deran.” 

“no, it isn’t— i can’t have these kids thinking i’m a shit uncle on our first christmas together.”

“i’m sure you’ll find a way to get him back for it.” 

“oh, i will.” deran turns his head to you, a small grin on his lips. “did he ever tell you about the permanent marker incident?”

“he did.” you point a finger at him. “and you will not ruin my christmas pictures, sir. go sow all of his leg pants shut or something like a normal brother.”

“what’re we talking about?” andrew says, coming back through the sliding glass door. 

“julia alright?” you ask, getting up just so you can crawl back onto his lap. 

“blankie went awol, she dropped him in her sleep. ‘s all good now.”

“we were talking about how much of an asshole my big brother is for not telling me there would be kids in the house on christmas. do you have any idea how much cheaper it would’ve been if i bought their presents from home?”

“deran’s going to get revenge on you for making him fist fight all the other deadbeat uncles that are buying kids toys on christmas eve.” 

andrew snorts, a hand running up and down your thigh. “i know where all the permanent markers are in this house.”

“absolutely not.” you waggle a finger at the both of them. “no permanent markers anywhere visible on photos.”

“your woman’s damn bossy, pope.”

andrew grins up at you. “yeah, she is.”

Brendon scoffs slightly, “you’re ridiculous; my hands are masculine”

“They absolutely are, breakin bones every day, pushing your daughter on the swing, teaching her how to swim”

Brendon reaches over to you, pushing your hair out of your face, “you’re soft too y’know” he murmurs, “said motherhood never would suit you, said I’d find better”

You roll your eyes. Because what he’d said is true, when the topic of kids got brought up you’d said he’d be better off with a different woman. That there wasn’t much soft about you. And he’d changed your mind, patiently waiting, reminding you that he chose you, not something in the future. You. Now. Forever.

“I was wrong” you whisper, “I love being a mommy, I love being yours, I love the life we built”

Brendon pulls you closer, pressing kisses against your lips, cheeks and eyelids, only stopping when you pull away, “what?” He whispers.

“She’s up” you murmur, Brendon lifts his head up at that, and moments later a wide eyed toddler waddles into the master bedroom, “hi baby”

“Mama” She smiles, reaching her arms up in a signal that she wants up onto the bed. You pull her into the bed, letting her curl up in the middle of you and Brendon, “g’morn”

“Hi princess” you smile, she wiggles up against Brendon, pressing her entire body length against his chest, “oh you just want daddy huh?”

She grins as she sucks her thumb, “uh huh”

Brendon can only smile, “did you sleep good princess?”

Edith nods.

The morning continues like that, soft. Sweet. Feeding your three year old her pancakes, trying to wipe the syrup off her face, “you’re not on call until later right?” You ask Brendon, watching as he swallows his coffee.

“Yeah, until ten- so I’ll be home around eleven”

You nod, “was thinking of going to the farmers market”

By mid morning Brendon has Edith wrapped against his chest, ball cap pulled low as you wander through the vendors, picking up strawberries and pastries for the week.

His family is something Brendon rarely mentions, mostly because he likes the privacy. And because it’s relatively looked down upon that the woman he used to do knee reconstructions and acl and mcl surgery on is now his wife.

“Are you married?” Emma Nolan asks as she looks up from the charts, “today- was that you. The farmers market on fifth and ninth?”

Brendon nods, “yeah. Been together for about six years, had our daughter three years ago”

He doesn’t explain much, doesn’t feel the need to do more than confirm or deny.

When he comes home you’re curled in bed, on his side of the bed. You say it’s because it smells like him and you miss him in your sleep. He gently lifts you, easily placing you back to where you usually sleep, but you grunt a little. Eyes fluttering open, “you’re home” you whisper, “baby keeps” you wave your arm, “wiggling”

Brendon smiles, body soft and pliant as you curl back up to him, “night wifey”

If someone had told you six months ago that you’d currently be dating the Dean Di Laurentis, star of the Briar University hockey team and well-known playboy, you would’ve probably laughed to the point of tears.

Oh, how things can change so drastically.

You’d met at a frat party, bumping into each other on accident. The alcohol held loosely in his grip sloshed out of the Solo cup upon impact, sending lukewarm beer down the front of your top.

“Oh, fuck! I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Dean seemed apologetic, but the way his eyes subconsciously trailed down your now soaked top (and the black bra clearly visible) were anything but sorry.

You were starstruck as you let out a meek “It’s fine!”, scrambling to find napkins to wipe yourself down and appear decent again.

“Hey, wait, I think I have an extra top upstairs. You can change into that if you’d like.”

“Do I want to make a guess as to why you have women’s clothing in your room upstairs?”

His sly smirk in response was all the answer you needed.

“Nope, never mind. I’m just going to head home and take a shower or something. It was nice to meet you.” You whipped around, intent on making a beeline for the front door.

A strong, large hand wrapped around your wrist before you could go far. “Hold on!” You turned around slowly, skepticism clear on your face. “It’s actually just one of my sister’s shirts- she left it here the last time she came to visit. Would you please come change so I can get to know you better?”

You paused, thinking over both options. If he was just looking for a quickie, he found the wrong girl. On the other hand, you were covered in sticky beer and every crevice of your body smelled like it.

The gross feeling of the beer stuck to your skin won out. “Fine, I’ll change. But no funny business. I mean it.”

Dean grinned like he had you right where he wanted you. In a sense, he truly did. “Of course, sweetheart. Lead the way.”

The two of you ended up talking until the early hours of the morning, ceasing conversation only when everyone else had gone home and the other guys were passed out in various spots around the house. True to his words, Dean never made any sexual advances toward you, remaining respectful and listening intently to what you were talking about.

Late night talking turned to coffee dates, which turned into lunch dates, ultimately ending in multiple dinner dates before you finally decided to call yourselves a couple.

Dean, surprisingly, was everything you wished for in a boyfriend. He was chivalrous, kind, and put you first before everything and everyone else. You’d agreed to just keep the relationship light and fun, leaving the serious parts for a later time if you got there.

The pair of you were rapidly approaching the month mark of being together, and everything thus far had been amazing.

“Why hello there, gorgeous.” A pair of arms wrapped around you from behind on the quad, pulling you backward into them and placing kisses down your neck. “Funny seeing you here.”

“Dean, stop.” You giggled, squirming in his hold from the ticklish sensation. “You knew I’d be here! It was your idea to meet for lunch.”

“And what a fantastic idea it was.” He grabbed your hand, leading you over to a picnic table nearby, sliding food across the table before sitting beside you on the bench and throwing an arm around your shoulders.

As the two of you ate and chatted, you scanned the courtyard, people watching. There were a group of freshmen discussing their days, another couple making out on the opposite end of the quad, and at another table you could see Hannah and Allie, talking in hushed whispers.

You locked eyes with Hannah, grinning and sending her a wave. She sent a small wave in greeting back, Allie turning to see who she was looking at. You waved at her as well, expecting the same in return. Instead, you got a scathing glare and a small frown in response before she whipped her head back around.

Huh, that was weird. Allie and Hannah were besties, but you also occasionally hung around them. You’d always had good times together, which made Allie’s sudden change in personality even more confusing.

“Well, that’s odd.” You told Dean.

“Yeah, sure.” He responded, but his voice sounded distracted. Upon looking at him, you noticed he wasn’t staring at you- he was looking intently at Allie

“Everything okay?”

“What?” It was as if your question snapped him out of a daze. “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Just had my head in the clouds, I guess. Want some more fruit?”

“Sure,” you responded, growing more suspicious at his suddenly flippant attitude.

As the two of you finished lunch, you couldn’t help the sudden lump in your throat. Something odd had happened, and you were determined to find out one way or another. Even if that meant doing some deeper digging.

The night of Logan’s fundraiser rolled around quickly, a rare night off for you while Hannah and Allie took the shift at Malone’s. You were still there, just in front of the bar rather than behind it.

You’d seen Dean once or twice while you hung out with Dexter, but only fleeting moments, never once being able to sit and talk to each other.

“You and Dean seem pretty cozy.” Dexter teased, nudging your shoulder lightly with his own.

“Yeah, I guess you could say so.” You couldn’t seem to wipe the giant, lovesick grin from your face.

“You know, I was wondering how long this act between the two of you was going to last.” Birdie chimed in from his spot at a nearby table.

“What do you mean?” you asked, smile slipping slightly from your face.

“I just mean you’re a great friend, is all. Dean and Allie had a good fling going before she broke it off. He was really heartbroken for a while.”

Dexter came to your defense quickly, questioning, “And what does that have to do with Y/N?”

“Oh, c’mon, guys, you can cut the act when it’s just us. The whole hockey team knows.”

“Knows what?”

“They know about your little arrangement so he can get Allie back. It’s all ‘Allie this, Allie that’ when it comes to him in the locker room. It’s totally working, too; she hasn’t been able to stop watching the two of you like a hawk for the last month. They’ll be back with each other by the end of the weekend, I guarantee it. You’ll be off the hook soon.”

At the dumbstruck looks on your and Dexter’s faces, Birdie froze.

“…oh shit, you weren’t in on it?”

You turned, seeing nothing but red as you searched the crowd for the one person who’d know could tell you where Dean was.

“Beau,” you shouted, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket. “Where’s Dean?”

“Oh, um,” he stuttered, clearly surprised by your sudden fury. “I’m not sure. Last I saw him, he was on stage announcing the raffle winners.”

He took in your expression, asking hesitantly, “Did…did something happen?”

“How long have you known?”

He winced. “Since the beginning.”

You released his jacket as if he’d burned you, whipping back around and searching for Dean, eyes wild.

“Wait, Y/N, I’m sorry! We can still talk about this!” His words were useless to you, only adding to the fire burning deep in your stomach.

You’d caught him saying something about the photo booth, heading in that direction to see. As you approached, you noticed Dean’s familiar sneakers under the curtain.

Along with another pair of shoes facing him.

You tugged the curtain open, freezing as your worst fear came to life right before your very eyes. Dean and Allie were making out right there in the booth, closer than you ever thought possible.

They broke away at the sudden interruption, Dean’s eyes widening as he noticed the reason for the distraction.

“Oh, shit, Y/N, wait!”

Not a chance in hell you were going to wait for him. You took off toward the front door, pushing your way out with force as tears streamed freely down your face in heavy sobs.

“Baby, please! Wait!”

“What the fuck do you want, Dean?” You screamed, shaking off his hand on your shoulder as you gasped for breath.

“I am so, so sorry. You weren’t meant to see that in any way.”

“Oh, so if I hadn’t seen it then that would’ve been fine? Give me a break.”

He winced at your sharp tone. “No, absolutely not. I know I’m an asshole, okay? I just didn’t know what I wanted. What Allie and I had was great, but I really care about you and would never want to hurt you like I just did.”

“Yeah, caring about me, my ass. I should’ve known it was too good to be true. I wish I had never, ever gone out with you in the first place.” You seethed.

“Look, why don’t we go inside and talk about this?”  He noticed the gathering crowd around you, some whipping their phones out to record the spectacle. “Come on, honey.”

“I hope you figure out what you want, Dean.” You shook his hand off your arm, beginning to walk away. “It just won’t be with me.”

As Dean watched you walk away, silent sobs making your shoulders shake, he couldn’t help the way his heart shattered. He really had grown to feel for you over your time spent together, feeling more guilt with every meeting at the idea of breaking your own heart the way he just did. All this time, he had convinced himself that Allie was the woman he wanted.

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

"So I ran into Olivia Tucker — you remember her, right? From church? She had a son named John," she said, not looking at the camera.

You had learned years ago that it was easier to say yes, of course than to endure five minutes of your mom describing a person like she was giving a statement to the police.

"Yeah, of course. I remember Mrs. Tucker."

"She mentioned her son John is attending the same college as you." She said it like she was reading off a notecard. Matter of fact. "She said he's playing hockey now."

Oh. That John Tucker.

"Yeah, I know who he is," you said, cleaning up the mess on your middle finger.

"Isn't that a big coincidence?"

"I mean, not really — he's like a year younger than me, right?"

"Yes, but you two used to play together when you were kids. At church, remember?" You did not remember. Your family went to church maybe twice a year. "Anyway, I gave her your number so she could pass it along to him. So you two could talk."

"Mom — what, that's not really —"

"She's probably not even going to use it."

She used it. Mrs. Tucker called three days later, and with the grace of a good Southern woman, she asked you to keep an eye on John — not in so many words, of course. She said he'd moved into a house with some of the other players and she just wanted to know he was taking care of himself. She didn't want you to do much. Just stop by, take a look around, report back. She'd handle the rest by phone.

What she did not tell you was that Tucker already knew about her plan.

He opened the door looking completely unsurprised to see you, leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin that said nice try. He was, it turned out, perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, annoyingly, other people too.

Which is how you ended up here, almost a year later, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island in the off campus house, crying into an onion.

"I'm just saying, get a dicer," you said, keeping your eyes on the knife because you had to. "This is inhumane."

"A real chef doesn't use those kinds of things," Tucker said from across the kitchen, doing significantly less chopping than you were.

"Well, good thing you're not a real chef then."

He turned around, visibly offended. "What did you just say?"

You opened your mouth to repeat it — and then Garrett wandered in from the living room, grabbed an apple from the counter, looked at Tucker's side of the kitchen and then at yours, and pointed at you. "She's doing all the work," he said, to no one in particular, and wandered back out.

"He's right," you said.

"He's a traitor," Tucker said.

You opened your mouth to agree and then the sound of footsteps came down the hallway, and Dean came around the corner fresh out of the shower, towel low on his hips and water still tracking down his chest.

You sniffed, eyes watering, nose red.

Dean stopped. Looked at you. And then let out a slow, deeply entertained laugh.

"Well," he said, "I've heard a lot of reactions from girls seeing me like this. But crying might be a first." He tilted his head. "You alright there, sweet pea?"

"It's the onion," you said flatly. "Tucker's making me cut it."

"Sure." He was already turning toward the stairs, completely unbothered. "Whatever floats your boat."

He winked at you over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.

You looked back down at the onion.

Tucker was very pointedly not looking at you.

"Not a word," you said.

"I didn't say anything," he said, in the tone of someone who was saying everything.

The party invitation from Tucker arrived as a single text on a Thursday night.

party saturday, be here, i made a playlist

You were in the middle of your readings and you looked at the message for a moment before typing back: do I need to bring anything?

yourself and good energy

You put your phone face down and went back to your reading. Then picked it up again.

what time

nine but come at eight so we can hang before it gets loud

That was Tucker's way of saying he wanted to cook with you beforehand, which you appreciated more than you would ever tell him out loud because he would absolutely use it against you. You sent back a thumbs up and returned to your notes, and you did not think about the fact that Dean would be there, because that was not a relevant consideration.

You thought about it the entire rest of the week.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet, persistent way of something you kept putting down and finding in your hand again. You were honest with yourself about Dean, had been from the beginning. You knew what he was. Charming in a way that looked effortless because it mostly was, easy with people, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. You'd watched him for almost a year. You knew the way he talked to people, the way he leaned in when something was funny, the way he'd come into the kitchen sometimes when you were there and open the fridge and just stand there for a full thirty seconds like the answer to whatever he was looking for might eventually appear.

You knew that he'd noticed you too. That wasn't ego, just observation. The way his eyes would find you first when he walked into a room where you already were. The way he'd aim a comment at you specifically when he had a whole group to choose from. The way he'd said I've heard a lot of reactions like your reaction was the one that mattered.

You'd been sensible about it for a year. You'd made the choice, every single time, to not do anything about it. And you were fine. You were genuinely fine with that. You knew what Dean was, knew what it would be, and you'd decided the math didn't work out in your favor so you'd left it alone.

It was just that sometimes, quietly, in the back of your head, a voice said but what if you didn't.

You got dressed Saturday night and told that voice to shut up, and went to the party anyway.

Tucker met you at the door at eight on the dot, already in a good mood, which meant either the playlist was really good or he'd already had a drink.

"You look great," he said, holding the door open.

"You say that every time."

"Because it's true every time." He handed you a beer from the counter as you came into the kitchen, already comfortable, already home in the easy way the house had started to feel over the past year. "I was thinking we do something with the leftover rice from yesterday, I got peppers —"

"Tucker."

"What."

"We're not cooking. There are already people here."

He looked genuinely confused. "So?"

You took the beer from him and looked around the kitchen. Logan was leaning against the far counter talking to someone from the team, and Garrett was already in the living room, and the house had that particular pre-party hum to it, not yet loud, still settling into itself.

Dean wasn't in the kitchen.

You noted this the way you noted a lot of things quietly, without making anything of it.

Logan glanced over when Tucker handed you the beer. "You're here early."

"She's basically a resident," Tucker said, like this was a fact.

"I'm a guest," you said.

"Guests don't know where we keep the good knives," Logan said and winked, and went back to his conversation.

You spent the next hour in that easy pre-party mode, moving between the kitchen and the living room, talking to people you knew by name now, accepting a second drink from someone who was mixing them near the back. Tucker orbited you loosely the way he always did at these things, appearing at your elbow every twenty minutes or so to say something that made you laugh and then disappearing again. This was one of your favorite things about him, he was never clingy, never needed to keep you close, just checked in like punctuation.

Dean appeared sometime around ten.

He came down the stairs and into the living room and you saw him before he saw you, which felt important. He was wearing a dark green shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he had that easy unhurried way of moving through a room like it had already arranged itself around him. He said something to Garrett near the bottom of the stairs and laughed, and you looked away before he could look up.

So. He was here. That was fine. That was completely normal and fine.

You went to find Tucker.

The next hour you spent being very deliberate about not being obvious. You talked to people on the back porch when Dean was in the living room. You came inside when he drifted toward the kitchen. You were not proud of it exactly, but you were not going to stand around waiting for him to decide whether tonight was a night he felt like paying attention to you. You'd done a lot of things in your life. That was not going to be one of them.

Your friend Anna, a sorority sister, texted at eleven: how's the party

You typed back: fine. dean's here.

Three seconds.

oh. OH. okay. call me tomorrow.

maybe

that means yes. don't do anything I wouldn't do

You locked your phone and put it in your pocket and thought about the specific, limited list of things Anna wouldn't do and found it unhelpfully short.

The thing was, and you'd been over this, you'd been reasonable about this, you knew what it would be. A night, maybe a few nights, comfortable and uncomplicated and then done. Dean DiLaurentis didn't do anything that looked like what came after. You'd watched him long enough to know that too. And you'd decided that wasn't what you wanted, so you'd kept your distance, and that had been the right call, and it remained the right call.

You were in college at a party on a Friday night and you had been sensible about this for almost an entire calendar year.

The voice in the back of your head said but you knew that going in and it doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to mean.

You told it to shut up.

It had a point though.

You refilled your drink. Stood near the back door where the air was a little cooler and the noise slightly less consuming. Watched the party happen around you. Thought, very clearly and deliberately: you know what it is. you've always known. that doesn't have to be the reason not to.

You were still working through the logic of that when you felt someone come to stand beside you.

"(Y/N). You've been avoiding me."

Dean. Not accusing, just observing, the same way he did most things, like he was simply noting a fact about the universe. He had a drink in one hand and he wasn't looking at you yet, eyes scanning the room like he'd just happened to end up here beside you, which you both understood wasn't true.

"I've been talking to people," you said.

"You've been talking to people on the opposite side of every room I was in."

"Maybe I just like that side of the room."

He looked at you then. Really looked, in that direct way of his that felt like being assessed and appreciated at the same time. The music was loud enough that the conversation existed in its own small space, just between you.

"You've been doing that for a year," he said.

"Has it been a year?" You kept your voice light.

"Almost." He took a drink. "I've been patient."

The word landed simply, without performance. Patient. Like he'd been waiting. Like the last year had been something he'd noticed too, kept track of, decided to let run its course.

You looked at him for a long moment. The party moved around you, loud and warm, and you stood in it and made the decision clearly, with both eyes open, which felt like the important part.

"Bathroom's upstairs," you said.

Something shifted in his expression, not surprise, just confirmation. Like he'd known, and now he knew for certain.

"Yeah," he said.

He followed you up the stairs without touching you, which felt somehow more loaded than if he had. You could feel him behind you the whole way, that particular awareness of someone close, and by the time you reached the top of the stairs your heart was doing something inconvenient.

The upstairs bathroom was at the end of the hall. You went in, he came in behind you, and you turned to click the lock and found him already there, close enough that turning around put you nearly chest to chest with him, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him before he'd laid a hand on you.

He didn't kiss you right away.

That was the first thing. You'd expected him to, he'd been patient for a year, you'd just told him where the bathroom was, you'd expected him to close the distance immediately. Instead he just looked at you, and the looking was its own thing, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time now that he finally had you here and he wanted you to know it.

"You made me wait a long time," he said.

"You could have said something sooner," you said.

"I said something tonight."

"Barely."

Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, more like he'd just decided something. He reached up slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers grazing your jaw, and the touch was so light it was almost nothing, which somehow made it worse.

"You're going to be like that," he said. Quiet. Certain.

"I don't know what you mean," you said, which was a lie and you both knew it.

He tilted your chin up with two fingers, not roughly, just — directing. Making you look at him. "Yeah you do," he said, and then he kissed you.

It wasn't tentative. It was a kiss from someone who had thought about this specifically, who knew what he wanted and had decided tonight was when he was going to have it, and you kissed him back and felt a year's worth of deliberate distance dissolve somewhere at the back of your mind.

He walked you backward until your hips met the bathroom counter and left you there, stepped back just enough to look at you again with that same unhurried attention, and you understood then that he wasn't in a hurry. That he'd waited this long and now he was going to enjoy it, and you were going to have to let him.

"Take your jacket off," he said.

You did.

He watched you do it. That was all — just watched, arms loosely crossed, completely at ease, like this was exactly where he'd planned to be tonight. You set the jacket on the counter and looked at him and he looked back.

"Good," he said, like that meant something.

Your heart was doing the inconvenient thing again.

He came back to you slowly, hands finding your waist, and kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding into your hair and gripping, not painfully, just holding you exactly where he wanted you. You made a small sound against his mouth and felt him smile.

"There it is," he murmured.

"Shut up," you said.

"Make me," he said against your jaw, and then his mouth was on your throat and the option to respond coherently became briefly unavailable.

He took his time with your throat, your collarbone, the soft place below your ear that made your fingers curl into his shirt without your permission, and every time you moved to pull him closer he'd ease back just enough to remind you that he was running this. Not mean about it. Just clear.

"Dean —"

"I've got you," he said, against your skin. "I'm not going anywhere."

His hands moved to the hem of your top, pulling it up slowly, and he stepped back to pull it over your head and dropped it somewhere on the floor and looked at you again with that particular focus, and you had to actively resist the urge to cover yourself, because that was not what you did, but the way he was looking at you made you feel like you were already coming apart.

"You have no idea," he said quietly, more to himself than you, and then his mouth was on your collarbone and his hands were at your waist and you gave up on dignity entirely.

His hands moved to the button of your jeans, unhurried, and he looked up at you first — not asking exactly, just checking — and you nodded and he undid it and crouched down to pull the fabric down your legs with a thoroughness that felt like a point being made. He looked up at you from there, and whatever was on your face made him look deeply, quietly satisfied.

"You've been thinking about this," he said. Not a question.

"Don't," you said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't be smug about it."

"I'm not being smug." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, which short-circuited something. "I'm just paying attention."

He stood back up slowly, hands trailing up the outside of your thighs, and lifted you onto the counter like it was nothing, stepping between your knees. You pulled him back in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him harder than you'd meant to and he made a low sound and kissed you back the same way, one hand flat against the small of your back pulling you closer.

"Tell me what you want," he said, against your mouth.

"You know what I want."

"I want to hear you say it."

You pulled back and looked at him. He looked back, completely unbothered, and you understood that he meant it, that he was going to stand here all night if he had to, patient as anything, until you said it out loud.

"Dean."

"I'm right here," he said pleasantly.

"You're so —"

"Tell me."

You told him.

"Please"

The expression that crossed his face was worth it. He kissed you once, hard, like a reward, and said good against your mouth, and then his hand moved and all the words you'd been planning to say next went somewhere inaccessible.

He knew what he was doing in a way that felt almost unfair, thorough, attentive, like he'd already decided exactly how this was going to go and was now simply executing. When you tried to rush it he slowed down. When you made a sound he filed it away and came back to it. The tile was cold at your back and his hands were warm on your thighs and his mouth was at your cunt and the things he said there were quiet and precise and designed specifically to ruin you.

"You've been driving me crazy," he said. Low, unhurried. "All year. You know that."

"Dean —"

"Every time you walked into a room." His hand didn't stop. "Every time you looked at Tucker instead of me. Every single time."

"That's your fault," you managed.

"I know," he said. "I know it is." Something almost rueful in it. "Doesn't change the fact."

When you finally came it was with your head hitting the mirror behind you and holding his shoulder and his name somewhere in the middle of it, and he stayed with you through the whole thing, unhurried, like he had nothing else in the world to do.

He gave you a moment. Then he pulled back and looked at you with an expression that you could only describe as thoroughly pleased with himself, which should have been annoying and wasn't.

"Don't," you said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was going to ask if you were okay," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed, and the laugh broke something open in the room, and he grinned, a real one, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen before, and kissed you again before it could turn into a whole thing.

You worked his belt with hands that weren't entirely steady and he helped without comment, and then his hands were at your hips and he pressed his forehead to yours for just a second.

You watched him look for a condom on his backpocket.

"Yeah?" he said quietly. All the performance gone.

"Yeah," you said.

He pushed into you slow and you exhaled against his jaw, fingers gripping his shoulders, adjusting to the feeling of him. He gave you a moment, forehead still to yours, patient, present, and then he moved and everything else became temporarily beside the point.

It was charged the way it only gets when two people have been waiting too long. Not frantic but urgent, with a focused intensity that felt like something being resolved. His grip was firm and deliberate and you pulled him closer when he slowed down and he got the message and didn't slow down again. The mirror was fogging and somewhere below you the party was still happening and it was completely irrelevant.

"Look at me," he said.

You did. He held your gaze and something passed between you that neither of you named, and you felt it in your chest more than anywhere else.

"Months," he said again. Quieter now.

"I know," you said. "I know."

When he came he buried his face in your neck and went quiet and still, one hand flat against the small of your back holding you against him, and you held onto him too because it seemed like the thing to do, and because you wanted to, and those were the same thing tonight.

You stayed like that for a moment longer than necessary.

Then you both exhaled at roughly the same time, which broke the tension, and Dean huffed a quiet laugh into your shoulder.

You untangled carefully, straightened yourselves out. You hopped off the counter and turned to the mirror, fixing your hair, smoothing your top back into place. He leaned against the wall watching you do it, arms crossed loosely, shirt back on. His hair was a mess and he didn't appear concerned about it.

You met his eyes in the mirror.

"This doesn't have to be a thing," you said. Even, matter of fact. Not cold, just clear. You were giving him an out because you'd rather give it than have him feel like he needed to take it badly.

Something moved across his face. He pushed off the wall slightly. "What if I want it to be a thing?"

You turned around. "What kind of thing?"

He held your gaze. Didn't answer right away, which was an answer, and you'd known it would be, you'd known before you came upstairs, and still it took a small quiet moment to settle.

"Right," you said simply.

Not angry. Not hurt, or at least not visibly. You'd gone in with both eyes open and you'd meant it, and the math was what you'd always known it was. That was fine. You were fine.

You unlocked the door.

"Hey," Dean said.

You looked back.

He opened his mouth, closed it. Something in his expression that you couldn't entirely read. "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind."

You nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.

Downstairs, the party had peaked without you. The music was louder and the living room was full and Tucker was in the kitchen, which is where Tucker always ended up at some point. He took one look at your face when you appeared in the doorway and turned to open the fridge and produced a beer, which he held out without a word.

You took it.

"Having fun?" he asked, very casually, eyes on the fridge.

"Yeah," you said. "Party's good."

"Cool." He closed the fridge. "I made queso."

"Tucker."

"It's in the pot on the back burner."

You looked at him for a second. He looked back, perfectly neutral, perfectly unbothered, and completely full of information he was choosing not to say.

"Thank you," you said.

"Don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation."

You laughed despite yourself, and some of the tightness in your chest loosened, just a little.

Tucker handed you a chip.

You both stood at the stove and ate queso and said nothing about any of it, and that was, genuinely, one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a while.

Dean came downstairs eleven minutes later, you weren't counting, you just noticed, and grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter across from you, and the three of you stood in that kitchen like nothing had happened at all.

Dean looked at the pot on the stove. "Is that queso?"

"Made it myself," Tucker said.

"You absolutely did not."

Tucker looked at you. You said nothing, scooping queso onto another chip. Dean's eyes moved between you both and landed on you with something unreadable in them.

"Can I have some?" he asked.

"It's your house," you said.

He got a chip. Ate it. Looked at the pot. "That's really good."

"I know," you said.

Tucker stared directly at the wall and smiled at absolutely nothing.

It didn't have a name. That was the thing , it never got one, and neither of you tried to give it one, and somehow that made it easier to just let it exist.

It started simply enough. A week after the party, Dean texted you at eleven on a Tuesday night. Just: you up?

The second text was a trailer link. No context, no explanation, just: this.

You watched it once. Typed back: that looks pretentious.

i know. yes or no.

fine.

The house was quiet when you got there , Garrett's door closed, Tucker apparently out, and Dean was on the couch with a beer and the energy of someone who had been waiting without admitting to waiting.

You sat in the middle of the couch.

He pulled up the movie without comment.

It was pretentious and it was also actually good, and you told him so twenty minutes in when he glanced over to see what you thought. He said told you without looking back at the screen. You said you said it looked pretentious, which is not the same as saying it wasn't good. He said that's a very specific distinction. You said I'm a specific person. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then said: yeah.

Somewhere around the third act the distance between you closed. You weren't sure who moved, maybe both of you, gradually. His arm along the back of the couch and your shoulder under it and neither of you addressed it.

The movie ended and neither of you moved.

He found something else. A documentary, shorter, that turned out to be genuinely interesting. You watched most of it. Somewhere in the second half you were closer still his arm properly around you now, your feet tucked up beside you — and the lamp in the corner was the only light, and in here it was warm, and you were paying attention to about thirty percent of the documentary.

You woke up at two in the morning with a blanket over you that hadn't been there before. Dean was asleep at the other end of the couch, head back, completely unconscious. The TV was still on. You looked at him in the blue light of the screensaver, the line of his jaw, the stillness of someone actually asleep and felt the quiet weight of something you were not going to examine.

Then you got up, folded the blanket, left it on the cushion, and walked home.

You didn't text him about it. He didn't text you about it. Two days later he sent: you around tonight? and you said depends and he said on what and you said what's the plan and he said no plan and you said okay.

That was how it started.

By November it had a shape, even if it didn't have a name.

You came over two or three times a week. Sometimes it was a movie, sometimes it was just you in the kitchen making something with whatever was in the fridge while Dean sat at the counter with his phone and ate everything you put in front of him without comment except occasionally this is really good in a tone that suggested he was a little annoyed about it. Sometimes the whole house was there, Tucker loud and cheerful, Garrett and Logan drifting in and out, the TV on in the background and sometimes it was just the two of you and the house was quiet and those evenings had a quality to them that you tried not to examine too closely.

He texted you things that weren't questions. A link to an article about something you'd both argued about in passing. A photo of a sunset he'd apparently seen from the library roof, no caption. A voice memo once, at midnight, that was just him reading something in the flat unimpressed tone he used when something was genuinely getting on his nerves — listen to this, the message said, and you did, and you laughed, and he sent back a single: right?

You sent him things back. A recipe you thought he'd actually like. A clip of something that reminded you of a conversation you'd had. He always answered. Not immediately, not performatively, just he answered.

Garrett had noticed, in his way. He'd stopped doing double-takes when you were in the kitchen on a Tuesday night, had started just saying hey and opening the fridge like your presence was a given. Logan was less subtle, he'd caught your eye once across the living room when Dean laughed at something you'd said, and raised an eyebrow, and you'd looked away and he'd had the decency not to push it.

You talked to Anna about it on a Sunday afternoon in November, feet up on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she did her readings across from you.

"So it's a situationship," she said, not looking up.

"I didn't say that."

"You described a situationship."

"I described two people who spend time together."

"With benefits."

"Occasionally."

She finally looked up. "How often is occasionally?"

You said nothing.

"That's what I thought." She went back to her reading. "Are you okay with it?"

You thought about it honestly, the way you tried to think about most things. "Yeah," you said. "I went in knowing what it was."

"That's not what I asked."

You looked at the ceiling. "I'm fine," you said. "It's fine. I know what it is."

Anna made a small noncommittal sound that you chose not to interpret.

The physical part of it was easy in a way you hadn't entirely expected. Comfortable in a way that felt like it should have taken longer to get to. He knew what you liked with an attentiveness that might have been alarming if you'd let yourself think about it, and you knew what worked for him, and there was none of the awkwardness of newness anymore.

The only thing you were consistent about was the condom. Every time, without exception. Until one night in late November when Dean caught your wrist gently before you could reach for the nightstand.

"Why do you always —" He stopped. Nodded toward it. "Every time."

"Because I'm not stupid," you said. "You were getting around a lot before this and I don't know what this is and I'm not asking but I'm also not —"

"I haven't," he said. "Since the party. I haven't slept with anyone else."

The room went quiet.

"Oh," you said. A beat. "Me neither."

Something moved across his face that he didn't entirely manage to control. His thumb traced a slow absent line against the inside of your wrist.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"Okay," you said.

The air in the room changed into something neither of you was going to name. Then he kissed you, and it was different, slower, more careful, like something had been confirmed that he hadn't known he was waiting to confirm, and you let yourself feel it without examining it too closely, because that felt fair.

The first sign was the texts.

Not that they stopped completely, that would have been obvious, and Dean was too smart for obvious. They just slowed. A reply that came four hours later instead of forty minutes. A shorter answer where there used to be a real one. The voice memos stopped. The links stopped. You'd send something and get back a single word where there used to be a sentence, and you'd look at it and feel the shape of what was happening without being able to name it yet.

You told yourself it was school. Exams were coming, everyone was disappearing into the library, that was normal. You told yourself he was busy, stressed, in his head about the end of semester and the hockey team. You were busy too. You had your own readings, your own papers, your own life that existed completely separately from the off campus house and always had.

You kept coming over. Tucker needed someone to watch the game with and you'd promised him a recipe you'd been meaning to show him and you were not going to rearrange your life over a shift in text frequency.

But you noticed.

You noticed the way Dean would come into the kitchen when you were there and open the fridge and not look at you the way he used to. Not hostile, just absent. Like you were furniture. Like the awareness he'd always had of you in a room had been switched off at a source you couldn't locate. He ate the food you made without commenting on it. He answered direct questions. He didn't start anything.

You didn't push. That wasn't who you were.

But by the second week of December you were lying in your room at night doing the math and the math was not coming out well, and you were tired of pretending it wasn't.

You went over on a Thursday.

Tucker was at a class. You'd known that, you'd checked, because you wanted the house quiet, because you wanted five minutes of honesty without an audience. Garrett's truck wasn't in the driveway either. You knocked on Dean's door and he opened it in sweats and a Briar hoodie, textbook open on his desk, and the look on his face when he saw you was almost nothing, which was its own answer.

"Hey," you said.

"Hey." He stepped back to let you in, which you took as an invitation, and you came in and stood in the middle of his room and he closed the door and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Not aggressive. Just closed.

You looked at him for a moment.

"What's going on with you?" you asked. Quiet, direct. No accusation in it, just the question.

He shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. Finals."

"Okay," you said. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

A beat. Something moved behind his eyes and then went still.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he said.

"I want you to say what's actually happening."

He looked at you. Then he looked away, jaw tightening slightly, and you recognized the particular quality of someone deciding something, not discovering it, deciding it, and some quiet part of you braced.

"I think this has run its course," he said. Flat. Careful.

You kept your face even. "Okay. What does that mean."

"It means —" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want this anymore. Whatever this is. I don't want it."

"Okay," you said.

He looked at you, and something in your steadiness seemed to irritate him, which you hadn't expected, and that was maybe the thing that cracked something open in him that should have stayed closed.

"I don't know what you thought this was," he said, and his voice had an edge now, "but it wasn't — I wasn't —" He made a short, almost contemptuous gesture. "You've been coming over here for months like you live here. Cooking, watching movies, acting like this is some kind of —"

"I never called it anything," you said.

"No, but you acted like it was something. You act like everything is fine and nothing bothers you and you're so —" He stopped, and the word he landed on was quiet and precise and clearly chosen to land: "You're so comfortable here. Like you belong here. And you don't."

The room was very quiet.

You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the moment he heard what he'd just said, saw something flicker across his face that might have been regret but came too late to matter.

"You're right," you said. Your voice was completely level. "I don't."

He opened his mouth.

"I'm not going to make this into something," you said. "You don't want it, that's fine. I went in knowing what it was." You picked up your jacket from where you'd set it on the edge of his bed. "I hope finals go okay."

"Hey —"

"Good night, Dean."

You left. You closed the door behind you, not hard, just closed, and you walked down the stairs and through the front door and out into the December cold and you kept your shoulders straight the whole way home.

You didn't cry until you were in your own room with the door locked, and even then it wasn't for very long, because you'd known, you'd always known, and knowing didn't make it nothing but it made it survivable.

You texted Anna: you were right.

She called immediately. You let it ring twice, then picked up.

"I'm okay," you said, before she could ask.

"I know you are," she said. "Tell me anyway."

The hard part came later, at midnight.

You were lying in bed and you saw a link, a restaurant that had just opened, a tasting menu you'd been meaning to mention and you had his name pulled up in your contacts before you caught yourself. Thumb over send. The restaurant unremarkable and the gesture everything.

You put your phone face down on the mattress and looked at the ceiling for a while.

You'd known. You'd always known. That didn't make it nothing. It made it survivable, which was what you'd agreed to, and you were keeping that agreement.

The next afternoon you went to the off campus house.

Not because of Dean. Tucker had texted you at noon — i made something and i think i made it wrong, come look at it — and you'd said what did you make and he'd sent a photo that made you genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and you'd said I'm coming over because that was what you did.

You showed up at three in the afternoon in your good boots and your coat, hair done, bag over your shoulder, because you had a study session after and you were not rearranging your life. You walked into the kitchen and Tucker was standing over something on the stove that smelled questionable and turned around with the expression of a man who needed saving.

"What is that," you said.

"I was trying to do the thing you showed me with the —"

"Tucker."

"I know."

You put your bag down and took your coat off and hung it over the stool and rolled up your sleeves and looked at whatever was happening in the pot, and Tucker stood next to you like a man watching a surgeon assess a patient.

"It's salvageable," you said.

He exhaled. "I knew it."

"Get me the garlic."

You cooked. Tucker hovered and passed things when you asked and made commentary that you ignored selectively and the kitchen filled up with something that smelled the way the kitchen was supposed to smell, and it was normal. It was completely normal. You were fine.

Logan came through at some point, stopped in the doorway, looked at the pot. "That smells good." Then he looked at Tucker. "Did you make that?"

"We're collaborating," Tucker said.

Logan looked at you. You said nothing. He grabbed a water from the fridge and left, which was exactly the right thing to do.

Dean came downstairs at some point, and you heard him stop at the bottom of the stairs, and you stirred the pot and didn't turn around.

"Hey," Tucker said, in the careful voice of someone being very casual.

"Hey." Dean's voice from the doorway. A pause. "What are you making?"

"She's fixing what I made," Tucker said.

You felt Dean's eyes on your back. You reached past the stove for the spice rack.

"Smells good," Dean said.

You said nothing. Not pointedly — just nothing. Tucker handed you the paprika.

Dean didn't leave. You could feel him still standing there, which told you something you set aside for later. You plated what you'd made, put Tucker's portion in front of him, put the extra in a container that you labeled with a piece of tape and a marker the way you always did, and started washing the pan.

"There's extra," Tucker said, to the room.

"I can see that," Dean said.

Tucker ate a bite. Made a sound of profound relief. "You're genuinely talented, you know that?"

"I know," you said, drying the pan.

You stayed another forty minutes, finishing your tea, going over the recipe with Tucker so he could try again, answering a text from Anna. Normal. Easy. The house the same as it had always been, Tucker the same as he'd always been, you the same as you'd always been.

When you left you said, "Bye Tuck, don't touch the leftovers until tomorrow, they're better the next day."

"Noted," Tucker said.

You pulled on your coat. Picked up your bag. "Later," you said, generally, to the room, and you walked out.

Dean stood in the kitchen after the front door closed.

Tucker was eating. Not looking at him. The kitchen smelled incredible and there was a labeled container in the fridge and the pan you'd used was clean and back on the rack like you'd never been there.

"She labeled it," Dean said.

"She always labels it," Tucker said.

Dean looked at the fridge. "For who."

"I don't know, Dean." Tucker turned a page in whatever he was reading. "Whoever wants it, I guess."

He couldn't focus in class the next morning.

The professor was talking and Dean had his laptop open and his notes half-started and none of it was going in because he kept coming back to the same thing, the same image, which was you standing at his stove with your back to him like nothing had happened.

Not performing like nothing had happened. Actually fine. The difference between those two things was something he understood logically and couldn't reconcile emotionally and it was making him insane.

He'd expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. Something. Some sign that what he'd said had mattered, that he had mattered, that the months of you being in his space and in his kitchen and in his bed and knowing how he took his coffee and showing up when Tucker texted you and falling asleep on his couch and leaving your chapstick on his nightstand —

You'd taken the chapstick. He'd noticed.

You'd taken it and labeled the leftovers and said later to the room and walked out and that was it, apparently. That was the whole thing. He'd said you don't belong here and you'd said you're right and you'd meant it, and that was the part he couldn't get past. You'd meant it not because you believed it but because you weren't going to fight him on it. Because you didn't need to.

You act like you belong here. And you don't.

He'd said that. He'd actually said that.

He stared at his laptop screen.

You'd been coming to that house since before he'd ever spoken a full sentence to you. Tucker's mom had called you, you'd shown up, you'd been folded into the house slowly and completely the way only people who actually fit somewhere ever are, Tucker texting you unprompted, Garrett knowing your coffee order, Logan moving over on the couch without being asked, and Dean had stood in his own room and told you that you didn't belong there and you'd looked at him like you were giving him the chance to hear what he was saying and he hadn't taken it and you'd left.

And then you'd come back the next day and cooked Tucker's disaster and labeled the leftovers and said later.

Later. Like you'd see them around. Like the house was still just a place you came to, unconnected to Dean, existing independently of whatever he'd decided.

Because it was. Because Tucker was your friend. Because you'd built something there that had nothing to do with Dean DiLaurentis and apparently had no intention of dismantling it on his account.

He wrote something down without reading it.

The thing was and this was the part that was sitting in his chest like something he couldn't shift, he'd ended it because it was getting too real. That was the honest answer, the one he hadn't said out loud to anyone including himself until approximately right now, which was not ideal timing. He'd felt it getting heavier and closer and more like something that had a name and he'd panicked, and when Dean DiLaurentis panicked he went cold, and when he went cold long enough he said things he couldn't take back.

You don't belong here.

He closed his laptop. Opened it again.

You hadn't fought for it. He'd said something genuinely cruel and you'd said you're right and you'd left, and the version of events he'd been running in his head where you'd be upset, where you'd pull back from the house, where he'd see the evidence of having mattered somewhere in your behavior, none of that had happened. You'd come back with your boots and your coat and your labeled container and your later and you were fine.

He was not fine.

That felt deeply, profoundly unfair, and he was self-aware enough to recognize that he had no one to blame for it but himself, which made it worse.

Wait, said something in the back of his head, quiet and inconvenient.

He picked up his pen. Put it down.

Wait.

He didn't finish the thought. He stared at his notes until they stopped meaning anything, and outside the window the Briar campus went on being cold and grey and completely indifferent to the fact that Dean DiLaurentis was sitting in class slowly understanding something he wasn't ready to understand yet.

The problem with ending things, Dean was discovering, was that it only worked if the other person let it end.

You hadn't made a scene. Hadn't texted him anything he had to respond to, hadn't shown up at his door, hadn't done a single thing that gave him something to push against. You'd just continued. Existing in the house, in the kitchen, in Tucker's orbit, completely unchanged, like Dean's opinion of the situation was one data point you'd received and filed appropriately and moved on from.

He ate everything you made. That was the humiliating part. Every single time you left something in the fridge he ate it, sometimes within the hour, standing at the counter in the kitchen alone like some kind of punishment he was administering to himself. Tucker never commented on this. Tucker never commented on anything, which was its own form of commentary.

You'd left soup once. Labeled, like always — back burner, twenty minutes, don't let Tucker have more than one bowl he'll eat the whole thing. Dean had read the label four times. Eaten two bowls. Stood at the sink washing the pot afterward feeling like a man losing an argument he wasn't allowed to be having.

Garrett had found him standing there once, staring at nothing, and said "you good?" and Dean had said "yeah" and Garrett had looked at the labeled container still on the counter and said nothing further, which somehow made it worse.

He started noticing everything.

The way you'd laugh at something on your phone and not share it with the room, just smile to yourself and put it face down. The way you always took your shoes off at the door and lined them up neatly to the left, always the left, and he'd started checking for them when he came downstairs, the presence or absence of your boots telling him things about the afternoon before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. The way you said Tucker's name — comfortable, fond, like a shorthand — and the way you had, at some point, stopped saying Dean's name at all. Not pointedly. Just it didn't come up. He wasn't who you were talking to.

He'd done that. He understood that he'd done that.

He just hadn't understood what it would feel like to have done it.

He tried, for a while, to be reasonable about it.

He made a list, mentally, of all the reasons this was fine. He didn't do relationships. He'd never done relationships. He had a plan for his life that had been in place since he was sixteen, and that plan had no room in it for whatever you were. Whatever you'd been. The comfortable weight of your presence, the evenings when you were in the house versus evenings when you weren't, the way he'd started coming across things during the week and thinking you'd have something to say about this —

That was the problem right there. That was the thing he kept running into.

He'd been having conversations with you in his head for weeks. Full conversations, with your actual responses, because he knew how you thought well enough to fill both sides, and that was, that was not the behavior of someone who was fine.

He talked to Garrett on a Tuesday night, which he never did, and talked around the subject for twenty minutes before Garrett said, flatly: "Just tell me what she did."

"She didn't do anything," Dean said.

A pause. "Then tell me what you did."

Dean stared at his ceiling. "I ended it."

"And?"

"And she's fine."

"That's it? She's fine and you are like this?"

"She's too fine," Dean said, and hated how that sounded.

Garrett was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dean."

"What."

"You absolute idiot."

January settled over Briar cold and grey and Dean settled into a particular kind of misery that he was too proud to name properly. He went to class. He did his readings. He played well enough at practice that Coach didn't get on him, which required more effort than it should have because his head was not where it was supposed to be.

You came over on Saturdays, usually. Sometimes Thursdays. Tucker had apparently taken to texting you about things that had nothing to do with cooking, Dean had seen the thread once, accidentally, and it was just the two of you sending each other increasingly unhinged videos with no context, a friendship that existed completely on its own terms, owed nothing to Dean, and was apparently thriving.

Logan had said, once, carefully, over breakfast: "She was here yesterday."

"I know," Dean said.

Logan looked at him. "Just saying."

"I know," Dean said again.

Logan went back to his cereal and didn't push it, which was the right call, and Dean appreciated it and resented it in equal measure.

He watched you from across rooms and told himself he wasn't doing that.

You never looked uncomfortable. That was the thing that was going to actually kill him. You'd come in, take your boots off, left side of the door, say hey to whoever was around, drift toward the kitchen with the ease of someone in a place they belonged, and it would be normal. Warm. Real. And Dean would be somewhere in the same house eating himself alive and you would be completely, genuinely fine.

He thought about the things he'd said. You act like you belong here. And you don't.

He thought about those words with a frequency that was becoming a problem.

It was a random Wednesday in late January.

Dean came home from a late class tired and cold and in the specific bad mood that came from hours with a professor who seemed to find his suffering amusing. The house was lit up when he got there, which meant people were home, and he could hear voices from the kitchen before he'd gotten his coat off.

Tucker's laugh. And then yours.

He stood in the hallway for a second with his coat half off.

"—absolutely not, that's not how that works—" Tucker, indignant.

"I'm telling you, Tucker, I watched you do it, that's exactly how you did it—"

"I was recovering, there's a difference—"

"There is no difference, the result was the same—"

Tucker said something Dean didn't catch and you laughed, full and real, the kind of laugh that meant you'd actually been caught off guard by it, and the sound of it hit Dean somewhere undefended and just stayed there.

He finished taking his coat off. Hung it up. Walked to the kitchen doorway.

You were at the island, Tucker leaning on his elbows across from you, some kind of card game between you that Dean didn't recognize. You had a mug of something and your hair was down and you were still smiling from whatever Tucker had just said, and Tucker was looking at you with the expression of someone who had won a point. Garrett was on the couch in the next room, feet up, barely paying attention, the way Garrett existed in the house like ambient weather.

"Dean," Tucker said. "Tell her that recovering from a bad move is a valid strategy."

"Depends on the move," Dean said, automatically.

"See," Tucker said to you.

"That's not what he said," you said, and glanced at Dean briefly,not long, not loaded, just a glance, the kind you'd give anyone and looked back at Tucker. "Your move."

Dean got a glass of water. Stood at the counter. The card game continued. Tucker accused you of cheating, you denied it with the specific serenity of someone who was absolutely cheating, Dean watched and said nothing and felt the sensation of standing outside something warm.

An hour later you started putting your coat on.

"Okay," you said, gathering your things. "Tucker. Rematch Thursday."

"Thursday," Tucker confirmed. "I'll win."

"You won't." You pulled your bag onto your shoulder. Looked at Tucker with something genuine and warm. "Bye, Tuck."

"Bye." Tucker was already looking back at his phone.

"Later, Garrett," you called toward the living room.

"Later," Garrett called back, not looking up.

You walked toward the door. Past Dean, close enough that he could have said something, close enough that the window was right there, and he stood at the counter with his glass of water and said nothing, and you pulled the door open and walked out, and the door closed, and that was it.

Tucker looked up from his phone.

The two of them sat in the quiet kitchen, the card game still spread out on the island, your mug still on the counter.

"She forgot her mug," Dean said.

"She'll get it Thursday," Tucker said.

Dean put his glass down. Picked it back up.

"She said bye to you first," he said.

Tucker looked at him for a long moment. Set his phone down. "Yeah," he said. "She did."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"Tucker —"

"I'm not doing this, Dean."

"I'm not asking you to do anything."

"Good." Tucker picked his phone back up. "Because I really, genuinely, am not getting involved."

From the living room, Garrett said nothing, which meant he was listening to every word.

Dean looked at the door.

"She left her mug," he said again, quieter, to no one in particular.

Tucker said nothing. Which was, as always, its own kind of answer.

He lasted four days.

Four days of your mug on the counter — Tucker had washed it and left it there — four days of picking up his phone and putting it down, four days of being a reasonable adult who had made a decision and was living with it, and then on Sunday night at eleven p.m. he put on his shoes and his coat and walked across campus to the Kappa house like a man who had exhausted every other option.

He stood outside in the cold and looked up at the second floor windows and felt genuinely insane.

He found a handful of small rocks from the landscaping border. Looked at them. Looked up at the windows.

He threw one.

It hit the wrong window. A light came on and someone looked out — not you, someone he didn't recognize — and he stepped back into the shadow of the tree until the light went off again.

He tried the next window. Nothing. The one after that.

The window opened.

You leaned out, hair messy, clearly pulled from sleep or close to it, and looked down at him in the dark with an expression that moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief. Before settling on something that was almost exasperated and almost amused and fully of course.

"Dean," you said, not loud. "What are you doing."

"I need to talk to you."

"It's eleven o'clock."

"I know. You weren't answering my texts."

You stared at him. "You texted me twenty minutes ago."

"You didn't answer."

"I was asleep."

"Can I come up?"

The expression on your face did something complicated. "You want to climb the sorority house."

"There's a trellis."

You looked to the left, apparently confirming the existence of the trellis, then looked back down at him. "Dean."

"Five minutes," he said. "I just — five minutes. Then I'll go."

You looked at him for a long moment, and he stood in the cold and let you look, because he'd run out of ways to manage how this went. You could close the window. That was a real option and he'd accept it.

You didn't close the window.

"The trellis is on the left," you said. "Don't break anything."

He made it up without incident, which he felt was frankly more than he deserved. You'd stepped back from the window to let him climb through, and he came in trying not to knock anything over and stood in the middle of your room feeling the full absurdity of the situation settle over him.

Your room was small and warm. Books on every surface, a desk lamp on low, a quilt on the bed that looked like it had been in your family for a while. It smelled like you, something warm, something that had been living in the back of his brain for months without his permission.

You sat on the edge of your bed and looked at him with your arms loosely crossed, not hostile, just waiting. Giving him the floor.

"I need to say something," he said.

"Okay."

"And I need you to let me say it without — I need to actually get through it."

"I'm not stopping you," you said.

He looked at you. You looked back, and there was something in your expression: patient, steady, not giving him anything, and he understood suddenly that you were going to make him do this himself. All the way. No half measures.

He took a breath.

"I said things to you that I can't take back," he started. "That night in my room. And I knew when I said them that they weren't — I knew they weren't true. I said them because I was scared and I was trying to make you leave and I wanted it to work so I made it as —" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted you gone and I made sure you'd go and then you went and I've been —" He stopped again.

You waited.

"I've been losing my mind," he said. "For weeks. You keep coming over and cooking Tucker's food and laughing at his jokes and you left your mug on the counter and you said bye, Tuck and walked out like I wasn't standing right there and I —" He stopped. The words that needed to come next were the ones he'd been circling for weeks and he was done circling. "I'm in love with you."

The room was quiet.

"I'm in love with you," he said again, because it had come out steadier the second time and it was true and he was done with it living only in his head. "I have been for a while. I didn't know what to do with it so I — I did what I did. And I know that's not an excuse. I know what I said. But I needed you to know that it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you mattered too much and I didn't know how to —"

"Dean," you said.

He stopped.

You looked at him for a long moment. Something in your expression that was careful and real and not entirely closed.

"I know," you said quietly.

He blinked. "You —"

"I knew." You said it simply, without cruelty. "I've known for a while. I needed you to know it too." A pause. "And I needed you to say it. Out loud. To me. Without me making it easy for you."

He held your gaze. "Because you're not going to make it easy for me."

"No," you said. Not meanly. Just honestly. "I'm not."

He nodded slowly. That was fair. That was completely fair.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said. You don't belong here — I knew that wasn't true when I said it. That's the worst part. I knew and I said it anyway."

You looked at him. And he watched something in your expression shift, not all the way, but enough, a small careful opening.

"I know," you said again. Softer this time.

"Can we —" He stopped. Tried to find the right shape for the question. "Is there a way back from this. Is that something that exists."

You were quiet for a moment that felt very long.

"Come here," you said.

He crossed the room and you stood from the bed to meet him and he kissed you carefully, like he was asking, and you kissed him back like you were answering, and it was nothing like the first time and nothing like any of the times in between, because those had all been about desire and this was about something that didn't have the same kind of ceiling.

His hands came to your face, gentle, and you let him, and he kissed you like he was trying to say the things that words hadn't been sufficient for the weeks of watching you from across rooms, the soup, the mug, the way your boots on the left side of the door had started to feel like something he needed, all of it, moving through the kiss like it had somewhere to go now.

You pulled back after a moment and looked at him.

"Say it again," you said quietly. Not a test. Just you wanted to hear it again.

"I'm in love with you," he said, without hesitating.

You looked at him for one more second. Then you kissed him again and this time you meant it differently, your hands in his collar pulling him in, and the tenor of the whole thing shifted from careful to something warmer and more certain.

He walked you back to the bed gently, and you sat and pulled him down with you, and he went willingly, propping himself above you, and looked at you for a moment. Your hair on the pillow, your expression open in a way he hadn't been allowed to see in weeks.

"Hi," he said, quietly.

The corner of your mouth moved. "Hi."

He kissed you again, slower this time, and his hands moved over you with a deliberateness that was different from anything before not performing, not proving anything, just present. Your shirt came off and his followed, and he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, your shoulder, the soft curve of your throat, taking his time in the way of someone who wasn't going anywhere.

"Dean," you said softly, fingers in his hair.

"I know," he said, against your skin. "I've got you."

You exhaled like something releasing.

It was slow and close and almost unbearably tender, the kind of thing that didn't have anything to hide anymore. He was attentive in a way that felt different now not just knowing what worked but wanting you to feel it, wanting you to know he was there, all the way there, not halfway out the door. You made soft sounds against his jaw and pulled him closer and he went, and you moved together in the small warm room with the desk lamp still on low and neither of you suggested turning it off.

When you came it was quiet and deep and you said his name and he held you through it with his face pressed to your temple, and afterward he stayed close, closer than strictly necessary, and you didn't move away.

When he followed he was holding your hand, fingers laced, which hadn't been planned and was completely true, and you held on.

Afterward you lay in the small bed in the quiet and the lamp was still on.

Your head was on his chest. He had his arm around you. Neither of you had suggested otherwise.

"You really threw rocks at my window," you said, to the ceiling.

"Small rocks."

"You hit Anna's window first."

"She didn't see me."

"She definitely saw you." A pause. "She texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I had a 'nighttime visitor.'"

Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Great."

You laughed, quiet, against his chest, and he felt it more than heard it and thought: there it is. there's the thing I've been missing.

He pressed his mouth to your hair.

"For the record," he said, "you do belong there. In the house. That was — I need you to know that was the opposite of true."

You were quiet for a moment. "I know," you said. "I always knew."

"You're annoyingly self-possessed, you know that?"

"You've mentioned it."

"Not a complaint."

You tilted your head to look up at him. Something in your expression that was warm and a little careful still, not closed, just real. This was going to take time, he knew that. He'd put something between you that didn't disappear overnight and you weren't going to pretend it had, because you didn't do that.

"Tucker's going to be insufferable about this," you said.

Dean thought about Tucker, who had said absolutely nothing for weeks and washed your mug and left it on the counter. "He already knows," Dean said.

"He's known for months."

"I know."

"He texted me two weeks ago," you said, "and said 'just for the record I think he's an idiot.' I asked who and he said 'you know who.'"

Dean stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to kill him."

"You're not."

"No," he agreed. "I'm not."

A beat.

"Garrett's going to say I told you so," you said.

Dean closed his eyes. "Did he tell you so?"

"He texted me a single thumbs up the morning after the speech. No context."

"I'm going to kill Garrett too."

"You're really not."

"No," he said. "I'm really not."

You settled back against him and the room was quiet and warm and your hand was resting on his chest and outside the world was doing whatever the world was doing and in here it was just this, finally, with a name on it.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," you said.

You taste like a bullet, like gun powder and lead underneath my tongue as my mouth claims yours, stealing away your breath. You try to fight me, to resist but my hands grasp your wrists like shackles, pinning you to the wall outside of your father’s office as I drive my pelvis against yours, grinding so that you can feel that molten steel through the fabric of your cocktail dress. You gasp at the action, your lips parting, the seam of your mouth opening. My tongue plunges inside, licking the sweet flavour of dark chocolate and raspberries from the confines.  

I don’t care if there’s a room full of mafiosos on the other side of that door, that your father is arranging your marriage to the Del Costa Family, that your future husband is sipping a glass of champagne while he plans a wedding you don’t want. You don’t belong to him, you belong to me and I’m determined to show you.

You yield to me, your soft curves pressing against my sharp edges as your teeth nip my lower lip, an explosion of raw heat searing through my nerve endings as I breath in the scent of your perfume. Orange blossoms flood my senses, a heady fragrance that once clung to the sheets of my bed after we made love while your father was away on one of his business trips.

A mafia princess and her bodyguard…

It’s madness.

A love story written in blood and danger. One that ends with a bullet in the back of my head if we’re caught. But that doesn’t matter right now, all that matters is you, the feel of you, the taste of you…

You whine against my lips as my thumb skirts the hem of your black cocktail dress, my calloused hand caressing your thigh, the roughness creating a delicious friction again your soft skin as I guide it higher until the pad brushes across the sheer fabric of your panties, feeling the wetness gathered there.

“Naughty girl.” My tongue clicks, a tut that brings a gleam to your eye as you remember all of those times I ‘disciplined’ you.

Spanking your ass until it was red, until you were thrusting back against my fingers, trying to fuck them. I’d made you so desperate you’d begged me for my cock, and then you’d thanked me for it while I fucked you.

My hand glides between your thighs spreading them wider, my fingers caressing the delicate petals of your slit as my palm rubs against your clit. You’re so wet, you’re practically dripping down my fingers.

“I still own this pussy, it’ll always be mine, won’t it?”

I draw back my hand, rendering a hard slap across your clit to get my point across and you practically melt into me, your teeth sinking into your blood red lip to stifle the noise. On the other side of the door there’s a laugh, your father offering up cigars as they iron out the details of your contract.

“Say it sweetheart, I want to hear it.”

The words leave your mouth, and I drink them down like whiskey, fresh from the oldest casks in Scotland as my thumb starts to trace deviant circles over your clit. Your fingers thread through my hair, gripping it as my own tap against the desperate little space between your legs, the one that’s begging to be filled.

“You need this don’t you? You need to be reminded of who you belong to don’t you principessa?”

I pull your panties aside, my fingers stroking over that needy little hole, barely parting your lips. My other hand claps over your mouth, and you moan against my palm as the first knuckle sinks in, your honey soaking the onyx signet ring your father gifted me with when I became his right hand man.

“That feels good doesn’t it? I know you can take another.”

My second finger inches in and your eyes almost roll back into your head as I crook both of them against that naughty little spot on your inner walls.

“Oh that’s it. Remember who your real daddy is.”

My fingers piston in and out of you, thumb pressing down on that filthy little button as your hips rock against me, desperate, needy. I’m desperate too, desperate to leave my mark on you, to make myself indeliable so that you’ll remember me long after you marry a mafia prince.

Your breathing is heavy against my palm, your chest heaving, flushing as your nipples form stark points against the fabric of your dress. You look so beautiful in the moment like those nights you spent fucked out across my pillows, like you belonged there, like you belonged with me.

You tighten around my fingers, the throes of orgasm lighting up your features as you clamp down on my hand, soaking it as the rapture hits. I fuck you through it, wringing out every last drop of ectasy, the sounds of your pleasure muffled by my palm.

Another eruption of laughter from the otherside of the door. A reminder that I was sent to summon you from your hosting duties at your mother’s birthday party so that your father could present you like some fucked up prize to a man who’ll never love you.

I withdraw my fingers, my hand slipping from your jaw. Your lipstick is smudged, the stain smeared across the base of my palm. I use my fingertips to trace over your mouth, smearing your taste across your own lips as I chase away the errant shade so you look almost pristine again as you hike down your dress.

Footsteps on the other side of the door. The creak of the handle turning downwards as we straighten up. The door opens, your father standing there with a cigar hanging out og his and a smile on his face that tells us both that a deal has been struck.

“Principessa!” He greets you with an exhuberance that makes me want to murder this man, the one I’ve known since I was eighteen years old. “Come, come little bird. It’s time for you to meet your future husband.”

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