⊱ ─ l0ngdog ─ ⊰

You stood there for a long moment after the sound of Jack’s door clicking shut faded into the silence of the hallway.

Four inches of drywall and plaster. That was all that separated Room 410 from Room 412.

If you held your breath, you could hear the old pipes in the walls groaning as the hotel’s heating system fought against the cold. You could hear the hum of the elevators. And above all, you heard the muffled thud of Jack’s footsteps on the other side of the wall.

This entire evening was a sequence of events that should never have happened. You shouldn't have gone to the gala. Jack shouldn't have shown up there and he certainly shouldn't have driven you back. Yet, here you both were, ending up in the same hotel, in neighboring rooms.

You slid off your plum dress. Could Jack hear the hiss of your zipper sliding down? You left the dress carelessly draped over the back of the armchair in the corner. You headed to the bathroom, let down your hair and took off your makeup. Could Jack hear you turn on the shower and slide the glass door shut behind you?

It was wrong. Cruel, even, to let yourself wander down that path. Standing out there in the hallway, the urge to close the distance and feel his lips against yours had been almost suffocating. You shouldn't have wanted it. You shouldn't have craved him, not after the wreckage he’d caused. Yet you could change your job, move to Chicago and you still couldn’t escape him.

You had wanted Jack to kiss you. God, you still did, in this exact moment. Why was he the one to pull away? Your skin burned with the memory of how close he had just been.

Over your damp skin, you pulled on a T–shirt that still smelled of your laundry detergent from Chicago, slipped into flannel shorts, and slid under the stiff hotel duvet.

You weren’t exactly afraid of the dark. But sleeping in the new places didn’t come easy for you, leaving you tossing and turning in bed. Leaving even the slightest source of light brought you peace. So, you left the bedside lamp on.

The room was freezing. Outside, the blizzard raged on unabated. The wind battered the windowpanes, rattling the frame every few seconds. The snow fell horizontally, thick and blindingly white.

Then, the lights flickered.

The lamp on the nightstand went out completely, plunging you into absolute darkness for three long seconds before the bulb flared back to life.

You stared at the ceiling, feeling a familiar tightness bloom in your chest.

Your thoughts stubbornly drifted back to Jack’s hand on the steering wheel. To the bare skin of his ring finger, where his wedding band used to rest. But he had taken it off the night you left for Chicago. Not when she died but when you walked away.

Yet again, he was the one to pull away tonight.

And even without that ring, he had been living for the past six months in the house that had belonged to the two of you before the divorce. Alone, in those massive rooms filled with your unfulfilled plans he had once abandoned without a word.

You rolled onto your side, pulling the duvet tighter around your shoulders. The wall creaked under the bitter cold. Could Jack hear how you tossed in bed?

On the other side, you heard the mattress sinking under weight. Jack lay down. Or maybe he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was probably staring at the wall too.

You tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Your mind tormented you, keeping you awake and refusing to let you drift off. The thoughts swirling in your head were practically screaming and you caught yourself praying Jack couldn’t hear them.

Jack Abbot was a walking, painfully beautiful disaster. Years ago, he'd turned your world completely upside down out of pure love. Then he'd torn it apart out of heartbreak. And now - for the third time - he was undoing you all over again. Only this time, it was a messy mix of both.

The screen of your phone lit up with a harsh glare, vibrating against the nightstand.

Jack: Are you asleep?

You stared at the letters. You swallowed hard, your thumb hovering over the keyboard.

You: No. You? Jack: Obviously not.

Outside, the wind howled so fiercely that it occasionally drowned out the pounding of your heart.

The lights went out again. For about a minute, which stretched on like an eternity, the only source of light was your phone. Three dots bounced on the screen, and you caught yourself holding your breath, waiting for the next message. The dots vanished.

And then, you heard a crash from Room 412.

A heavy, violent thud against the floor, followed by the sharp shatter of breaking glass. Through the wall came a muffled groan.

Panic drove right through your chest. You didn't think about the divorce, his second wife, the ring or the fact that you were supposed to be protecting yourself from him. All you knew was the sound of the crash on the other side of that wall.

You threw off the duvet, ignoring the freezing floorboards that bit into your bare feet. You didn't search for shoes or a sweater. You grabbed your phone, using the flashlight to guide your way, and basically sprinted out of the room.

You bolted out into the hallway. Two steps to the left and you were standing in front of door 412.

You slammed the free hand against the wood, the echoing boom ringing down the empty corridor.

"Jack?" you asked, alarmed. "Jack, are you okay?"

He had to hear you.

For five terrifying seconds, nothing happened. Meanwhile, the hallway lights flickered back on. You heard a heavy, clumsy shuffling, then the turn of the lock opening with a soft click.

The door swung open slowly and you let out a shaky breath.

Jack stood there, leaning on a single crutch. He was wearing nothing but pyjama pants. His leg ended below the knee, the scarred skin completely exposed where his prosthesis would normally be.

"I'm fine," he breathed out. "I'm ok–"

"You're bleeding," you interrupted, your eyes dropping immediately to his right hand. The blood was already leaking through his fingers, smearing across his skin.

Before he could argue, you shoved past his shoulder, forcing him to hop back a step to keep his balance. "What the hell happened?"

"I took my leg off," Jack explained, his voice exhausted. "I was going to the bathroom. Then the power went out. One of the crutches slipped on my pants on the floor. I went down and took the lamp with me."

You stared at him for a long moment, your eyes then drifting down to the floor. The shattered ceramic of the bedside lamp lay scattered across the floor. Next to it lay a pair of discarded pants – the very obstacle that had taken him down.

"A veteran defeated by his own clothes," you muttered. "Unbelievable."

Jack huffed a small laugh, dragging the left hand across his face.

Your eyes traveled back to his injured hand. The wound on his hand was still bleeding, blood dripping down his calloused skin, but at least the wound wasn't deep enough to expose muscle or bone.

You headed towards the bathroom, but stopped immediately.

The shattered ceramic lamp lay scattered across the floor near the nightstand and bathroom door. Thank God it had broken into large, manageable pieces rather than powdery dust.

Jack grunted, shifting his weight on the crouch as if preparing to haul himself down onto the floor. "I’ll clean it.”

"Don't be ridiculous, Jack," you said, stopping him before he could move. "You’re missing a leg and bleeding. Go sit on the bed and watch out for the glass."

Before he could protest, you crouched down on the freezing floor. You took a towel that was neatly arranged on a nearby armchair. Pushing aside Jack's discarded clothing, you carefully gathered up the sharp ceramic pieces, scooping them into a corner of a towel. You tied it shut to keep the edges contained and tossed the whole bundle straight into the trash can.

With the pathway finally clear, you walked into the bathroom. A quick search through the cabinet and Jack’s travel cosmetic bag yielded a small first–aid kit.

When you came back into the room and sat on the edge of the mattress beside him, the old springs groaned quietly under your weight.

"Give me your hand," you commanded.

Jack hesitated for a fraction of a second before slowly extending his arm.

"This is going to sting," you warned.

You uncapped the bottle of antiseptic, poured a generous amount of it onto the corner of the clean hand towel and gently pressed it against the cut. Jack hissed through his teeth, his entire frame tensing.

"Don’t be a baby."

"You try getting alcohol poured into an open wound at one in the morning," he growled, though he didn't pull his hand away.

Luckily, the cut wasn't deep enough for stitches. Jack's eyes kept flickering between his hand and your face, tracking the concentration on your face as you wrapped the gauze around his palm. He was watching you with his lips parted, completely unsure of what to do with himself under the caring touch of your fingers.

It was only then, when your knee brushed his thigh for a brief moment, that he seemed to realize how close you were and how much it terrified him.

You sat right beside him in an oversized t-shirt, your legs practically bare, your face scrubbed clean of makeup with a faint sheen of moisturizer and your hair still damp. You smelled like jasmine shampoo and cocoa butter conditioner.

Jack pressed his lips into a thin line. This particular version of you felt like home, even if it belonged entirely to the past.

You seemed to grow more beautiful to him every single time he saw you - no matter the place, no matter the years between you. Sitting this close, watching you tenderly care for him, he felt the breath pulled right out of his lungs.

"You scared me," you admitted, keeping your eyes on his palm. "When I heard that crash, I thought you had a heart attack or… something."

"Why would you–" Jack raised a brow, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Are you calling me old?"

"I’m not calling you anything, Jack," you exhaled, slightly amused yourself.

"You’re not twenty–year–old anymore yourself."

You gasped theatrically. "I’m not old enough to have a heart attack out of nowhere, though."

"You never know." Jack shrugged, his eyes tracing the movement of your fingers.

"Is that a threat?" A snort escaped your lips.

Silence fell over the room for several minutes, broken only by the occasional howl of the wind outside. You kept your focus on the torn skin of his hand.

"How's Pittsburgh?" you asked eventually.

The corner of Jack's mouth twitched up. "Same as always. Loud and messy. How's Chicago?"

"You've already asked me that at the ball."

"I know." The man gave a single nod, his eyes locked on your face.

"Well…" You dragged the word, searching for an answer that didn't sound rehearsed. "I'm… satisfied. We've recently opened a new research program. My chief made me lead."

Jack hummed in response, a ghost of an admiring smile playing at his lips. "That's huge. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

You reached for the dressing lying on the bedsheets, then for his wrist to wrap the fabric around his palm.

 "So…" you continued. "Is the house still standing?"

"It is," Jack chuckled. "I even fixed the stairs."

You raised your brows. "Really? Ugh, that creak was so annoying."

"I know." He watched your hands work. "Was about time to fix it," he mumbled, almost to himself.

The silence returned. You were both visibly lost in thought, perhaps both surprised at how easy, natural even, the conversation seemed, considering everything that happened between you.

"I have a cat," Jack said suddenly, breaking the quiet.

"A cat?" You looked up at him, genuinely thrown off. "But you’re allergic."

A memory flashed through your mind of the time you two used to come to your family home. Your dad used to have this beautiful golden retriever. You had to sit in the garden to keep Jack, all sneezy and red-eyed, from suffocating within twenty minutes.

"I take my medication," he said.

You nodded, still slightly surprised. "What’s its name?"

"Cat."

An incredulous laugh slipped past your lips before you could stop it. "You named a cat Cat."

"What’s wrong with that?" he asked defensively, watching you shake your head. "I found him in the garden in July, sleeping in your petunias. Now he sleeps on your side of the bed."

Jack said it like it was the simplest, most ordinary thing in the world.

"Do you want to see a picture?" he asked. A genuine smile appeared on his face. Without waiting for your answer, he reached for his phone on the nightstand, swiping through the gallery. "He’s actually cute."

He turned the screen toward you. The massive, fluffy ginger cat in the photo was lying belly up on the couch, its head resting against Jack's thighs. The corners of your mouth twitched. It was, undeniably, absurdly cute.

"He's clingy as hell," he admitted, his eyes tracking every flicker of emotion on your face as you looked at the screen. "Got Robby completely wrapped around his finger. Or paw, I guess. Every time Robby comes over, those two are practically glued together."

"Never pictured Robby as a cat guy," you said, looking up.

"That's what I said," Jack murmured, a warm smile on his face. "Sneaks him treats behind my back every chance he gets. That’s why the damn thing is built like a boulder."

"So Robby's on cat-sitting duty this weekend?" you asked, the visual taking shape in your head.

"Yeah."

"How is Robby, anyway?"

"Grumpy as always," Jack shrugged. "Unless the cat’s in the room. Honestly, the guy should get his own."

A soft, genuine chuckle escaped you. Two grown men, both tough-as-nails, were now doting cat dads. Who would have thought?

Jack tapped the screen to bring up the next photo, tilting the screen toward you again. Sure enough, Robby was cradling the ginger monster in his broad arms like a newborn baby.

The man kept swiping. He tapped right past a blurry photo of a car engine without even acknowledging it, entirely focused on his mission. Jack stopped on a picture of Cat squeezed into a tiny cardboard box, staring blankly at the camera.

You leaned in a little closer, your shoulder lightly brushing against Jack's arm, as you peered at the screen.

Swipe. The cat sprawled on a stack of Jack's work papers. Swipe. The cat sleeping on his stomach. Another swipe. The cat sunbathing on the terrace. There was even a selfie of Jack wearing his reading glasses and Cat.

"I'm currently teaching him how to shake a paw."

"Oh my God," you breathed, shaking your head in disbelief.

You couldn't help the genuine smile spreading across your face. Jack Abbot had an entire phone gallery completely overrun by a cat he had to take daily antihistamines just to survive.

You could've sworn he probably had a book-

"I read articles about cats," he interrupted, cutting right through your thoughts. "Did you know that allergens are mainly found in cats' saliva, and fur is only a carrier? That's why I buy him special food. Neutralizes the protein."

"Wow. You're… very passionate about this cat."

"Oh, and I even planted catnip for him," he added, his eyes drifting away from the phone and toward the frosted window. "But it got overwatered and rotted. I made a mistake planting it under the gutter," he exhaled deeply, looking genuinely defeated.

Jack, indeed, had made a lot of mistakes in his life.

Sitting beside him on the edge of the mattress, listening to him talk, the entire domestic picture came together. Jack fixing the house, taking his allergy pills and taking care of an overweight cat, doing research on pet food, attempting to garden – it became almost too much to bear.

"I should go," you said quickly, clearing your throat to dispel the sudden tightness in your chest. "It’s late and I think you should go to bed too."

Jack didn’t try to stop you but you caught the tiny, helpless twitch of his bandaged hand in his lap. His fingers opened as if instinctively wanting to reach out and catch yours before he forced himself to hold back.

You stood up and headed towards the door.

"Thank you."

Jack's voice rasped behind you. Hearing your name on his tongue sent a shiver down your spine.

You paused, offering a faint smile. "No worries."

As you reached for the handle–

"Oh, God," you gasped.

"What?"

"My key," you said, turning around, your voice rising in pitch. "I didn't take my key when I heard the noise. Only my phone. Shit, how am I supposed to get back in?"

Jack stared at you from the edge of the bed. His expression went blank for a second before a trace of amusement washed over his face. 

"Okay, don’t panic. It's okay," he said quietly. "We’ll sort it out in the morning."

"In the morning?" You looked back at him, crossing your arms over your chest. "Jack, I’m not going to sleep in the hallway."

"Of course, you’re not. Just…" he paused. His gaze turned to the space on his mattress, then back up to you, a beat of hesitation softening his expression. "Sleep in my bed tonight."

The heat flared in your chest. What?

"No," you said immediately, shaking your head. "Absolutely not. I’ll go down to the lobby and ask for another key."

"You’re barefoot, in your pyjamas and it’s…" Jack leaned over, tapping the screen of his phone. He squinted at the bright display. "It’s almost two a.m. We’ll deal with this in the morning."

You knew you should turn around and walk out of Jack's room anyway. It shouldn’t have mattered that your feet were bare or that you were in your pyjamas. It shouldn’t have mattered how late it was or that the night clerk was probably fast asleep in his office.

Yet, you stood rooted to the spot. Because you had sworn to yourself to protect the boundaries.

But… what boundaries were even left to protect?

You had already crossed every single line you swore you’d keep intact. Jack had been living in your head for the past months. You had let him drive you away from the gala tonight. You had stood in that dark hallway and wanted him to kiss you so badly it made your chest ache, letting him sweep you off your feet once again. You weren't in control anymore. God help you, maybe you never had been.

Every rule and every wall had been dismantled piece by piece. You'd helped tear them down yourself, brick by brick, right alongside Jack. You were an active accomplice now.

"I don't know if it's a good-"

"Come on," Jack encouraged as he patted the mattress. "Get in, it's cold."

"Jack…"

Last chance to save yourself.

"Get in the bed."

What was the point anymore?

A long sigh escaped your lips, your shoulders slumping as the last of your resistance evaporated. "Fine."

Just tonight. The lie felt familiar but you swallowed it anyway.

You rounded the corner of the bed and slipped into it. You covered yourself with a spare white duvet on the bed. The sheets smelled like him and the scent you'd never forgotten made your head spin.

The mattress groaned quietly as Jack got under the sheets himself, turning onto his side to face your profile.

"Do you want me to leave the lights on?" he asked, his hand lingering near the switch on the wall.

"No, it's okay."

So he flipped the switch and the darkness swallowed the room.

Four inches between your duvets. Four inches between your pillows. Four inches of air in Room 412 was all that separated you two this time.

You lay flat on your back, staring up at the ceiling, barely daring to breathe. Every muscle in your body was locked tight, terrified that even the tiniest movement would bridge that narrow gap and cause your skin to brush against his.

"Are you cold?" Jack asked into the quiet.

"No."

"There’s spare blankets in the closet."

"I’m good."

You could hear every breath he took, feel the springs of the mattress transmitting every slight movement of his body.

"Do you want me to sleep on the floor?" Jack asked again.

"No–"

"It’s okay," he chimed in quietly, a stubborn protectiveness in his voice. "I can handle it, I slept in worse conditions. I don’t want you to be…  uncomfortable."

It would probably be safer for you both. But a man missing a leg with a freshly bandaged hand, offering to sleep on a freezing hotel floor just so you wouldn't feel awkward – it was ridiculous. Inhumane, even.

"I’m good, Jack," you reassured, your voice softening as you turned your head slightly toward his outline in the dark. "Stay where you are."

He hummed in surrender.

"So…" Jack started again, the word dragging out hesitantly. "You guys broke up?"

The question didn't catch you off guard this time. You had brushed off the radiologist's topic in the car earlier, but lying here in the pitch black, it was obvious Jack hadn't been able to let it go.

You stared up at the ceiling, inhaling deeply, feeling the phantom weight of the relationship that had collapsed two months ago. Deep down, it had probably never stood a chance anyway.

"Yes," you whispered.

"Okay."

Jack shifted in the bed. The springs groaned beneath him as he turned on his back to face the ceiling and he didn’t say anything else for a while. Then–

"Why?" he asked.

"You know why."

Jack knew indeed. He'd seen why when you looked at him in the hotel corridor with those precious eyes of yours, silently begging him to close the distance and kiss you.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Jack."

But it partly was and Jack knew it. You could almost feel how much he despised himself in that moment. He hated that he once again managed to wreck your life from hundreds of miles away. Once again, he had ruined your chance at something good. Once again, he had made your entire existence revolve around him.

Yet he kept refusing to let you go. If he hated himself so much for ruining your life, why couldn't he just stay away? Why had he kept reaching out, pushing for a friendship neither of you actually wanted? Why had he touched you and kissed you on that damn sidewalk in his mother’s town? Why tell you he still loved you, desperately trying to make you stay in Pittsburgh?

On the day of your grandfather's funeral, you literally said you wanted to change jobs. You both knew the reason was Jack himself. And it was like a tripwire had been snapped. From that exact moment, a panic seemed to take over, as if Jack had been subconsciously forcing his way back into your life ever since, clawing at whatever ground remained before you slipped out of his reach entirely.

He dragged you through the mud over and over, completely aware of the wreckage he was causing in the process. Still… why couldn't he just stop?

Selfishness, because how else could he call it, was bleeding right out of him. Had he learned a single thing?

"I spent all night telling myself to leave you alone," Jack continued, his voice dropping into a quiet register. He turned onto his side, facing you again. "But all I could think about was how much I wanted to crawl across that floor and beg you to just look at me for one more second."

A knot tightened behind your ribs, hard and aching.

"You moved to Chicago."

You swallowed hard, your throat tight. "Jack... You told me to go."

"I know."

His bandaged hand slowly moved through the four-inch gap between your beds, his knuckles sliding across the stiff sheets until his fingers found yours. His thumb settled against the inside of your wrist, resting right over the betraying rhythm beating beneath your skin. You couldn't force yourself to pull back.

"And then I told you I love you. That I never stopped," he said, the words pouring out of him now like a dam breaking after months of silence. "And you still moved. So I spent weeks trying to convince myself that letting you go was the only decent thing I had left to give you."

His hand didn't retract. Slowly, his fingers moved from your wrist until they rested on your shoulder. Jack reached further, brushing the warm skin of your neck. His fingertips lightly traced your jawline, tilting your head up until his thumb rested just at the corner of your lower lip.

"But God help me," he murmured, his forehead dipping lower. "I am so weak when it comes to you."

Your breath hitched in your chest. His touch was burning hot against your chilled skin, sending a shudder straight down your spine. Your head instinctively leaned a fraction of an inch into the palm of his hand, seeking the heat, seeking him.

"You shouldn't be saying this to me, Jack," you whispered, though you didn't lean back.

"Then tell me to shut up."

Jack shifted closer, his heavy frame shifting the weight of the mattress until the barrier between you melted away. The fabric of his t–shirt brushed against yours. His fingers slid down to the nape of your neck, tangling gently into your hair. His shadow swamped you completely, his face hovering mere inches from yours.

"Tell me to sleep on the floor," he pressed. "Tell me you hate me. Please, just say something that forces me away, because if you don't..."

His hand returned to your face. His thumb pressed against your lower lip, tracing the curve, his breath warm and uneven against your mouth. You reached out in the dark, your hand finding his wrist. You meant to push him back… or maybe to hold onto him more.

"I can’t…"

A broken sound escaped Jack's throat - a sob he choked back by lunging forward and slamming his mouth against yours.

He knew you inside out. Every year of history you shared was hardwired into his hands, his jaw, his mouth. Before you could draw a full breath, his front teeth caught your lower lip, biting down hard.

You gasped and the exact second your lips parted, Jack pushed his tongue inside. It tangled with yours with a familiar and terrifying confidence. When you tried to shift beneath him, his teeth nipped your bottom lip again, a punishing tug that dragged a helpless groan straight from your chest. His mouth worked against yours, his tongue pushing deep to claim every inch of space you offered.

Jack pressed into you like he was trying to disappear entirely inside your skin, his hands framing your face, his thumbs wiping frantically at your cheeks.

"Let me," he muttered against your lips, his breath coming in short gasps. "Please. Just let me... let me be close to you. I don't deserve it, I know I don't, but please…"

He was completely at your mercy, his large frame trembling against yours as he waited for your permission. You reached up, your fingers tangling in the short hair at the back of his neck.

"Jack," you murmured, your heart breaking for the desperation in him. "Stop begging. Just touch me."

You knew better. But it felt like taking that first drink after half a year sober, knowing full well it was going to ruin you all over again.

Just this once, you thought, pulling him closer. For the last time. A lie every addict told themselves before relapsing.

The command seemed to fracture whatever restraint he had left. Jack's uninjured hand slid lower from your neck to your hip. His fingers slipped under your shirt, squeezing your waist, his thumb drawing circles. He traveled then to your breast, your nipples hard, poking through the material, and Jack whimpered into your lips at the contact.

You gasped as Jack pinched at your nipple. "Jack, take it off, please."

Your wish was his command. Jack helped you take your shirt off and…

God, you were the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on.

His cock twitched, his shorts becoming painfully tight, watching your tits bounce as you lay back down. Jack’s mouth watered thinking about licking his way across them. He instantly leaned down, taking your nipple into his mouth. Your back arched off the mattress with a sharp gasp of pleasure, your nails digging into his neck.

It was almost cannibalistic of him. Jack wanted to lick, bite, taste, eat your body until he was full, but the truth was he would never get enough of you. He could drink you in for a thousand lifetimes and still die of thirst.

His palm squeezed the other breast and he couldn't stop thinking how your tits were sculptured for his hands.

Jack touched you as if you were something holy, something he had stolen from an altar and was terrified he’d have to give back. His hands were clumsy with urgency, yet incredibly gentle, worshipful in their execution.

"God," he panted, his hand sliding down to your waist, his fingers digging into the skin above your shorts. "I don't deserve to touch you. I don't deserve any of this."

"Jack, shut up," you breathed, your hips shifting instinctively against the mattress as his hand moved lower.

Jack dragged his lips up the column of your throat, pressing his feverish face into the crook of your neck. He bit down softly on the sensitive flesh where your shoulder met your collarbone before soothing the tiny sting with his tongue, drinking in the taste of your skin, inhaling the scent of jasmine and cocoa butter as if it were the only air left in the world.

Jack played with the band of your shorts for a moment but the lust became unbearable. He was desperate for more of you, for the whole of you. It was truly pathetic how badly he wanted to please you, not the other way around, as if that were enough to repay his incalculable debt to you.

When he reached under the material, your hips immediately jerked up and with your free hand, you sloppily pulled your shorts down. You kicked them off somewhere on the edge of the bed, as far away as possible. There was no coming back now.

His large hand mapped your thigh. A long, low groan escaped Jack when his fingers found the slick heat of you, feeling how needy you were.

"God… look at you," Jack rasped, his voice completely wrecked.

A breathless gasp escaped your lips, your fingers tangling tighter into his hair. Jack closed his eyes, letting a pained exhale at the sensation of being taken in by you again.

"I need you," you moaned.

Jack reveled in your sweet sounds beneath him. "I hear you, baby."

Your eyes teared at the pet name, longing taking precedence over pleasure for a split second.

His fingers were still exploring your wetness, pressing firmer against you. Jack slid one inside you, his other hand still kneading your breast. He looked at you, completely mesmerized, as your back arched against the matter, a whine escaping your lips.

Jack couldn't contain the gratitude of you wanting him too and letting him touch you.

It took everything in Jack not to take more of you, not to press for everything he had spent years starving for. He was painfully aware he didn't deserve a single second of this.

A broken sob caught in your throat directly against his mouth as he added another finger, stretching you. Your hips rolled instinctively against his hand, chasing the heat blooming low in your stomach. You were losing yourself over him.

He wanted to prove to himself that for these few minutes in Room 412, you were still completely his. So he kissed you again, your lips parted as he fucked you with his fingers, slowly, reveling in your body, as if he were afraid to wake up from this unrealistic dream.

"I'm right here, sweetheart. I'm all yours. Tell me what you need." 

But you were lost for words. You choked on the moan as Jack started circling on your clit with his thumb. The pleasure became almost too much. You were so close.

Jack kissed you again, the hunger in his motions uncontrollable, his lips then traveling down to the sensitive skin of your neck. He sucked on the spot just below your ear, sending goosebumps up your skin.

Then, he suddenly pulled back. You opened your eyes, finding his own eyes feasting on you. Your neck and breasts were glossy with his saliva.

He looked at you like he didn't possess the right to take you. Jack wanted you to claim him. He only wanted to serve.

"Come here," Jack whispered, his voice completely desperate. "Sit on me. Let me taste you."

He pulled his fingers out of you, making you whine at the loss of the contact. You looked at him, suddenly self–conscious, your lips parted.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He nodded beggingly, eyes shining with tears. "God, yes, please."

You swallowed, watching Jack lie down on the mattress and reach out for you. You moved in the darkness, lit only by the moonlight and the snowstorm outside, guided by Jack's touch, positioning yourself directly above his face.

Jack moaned at your slick coating his tongue.

He ate you like a starving dog. His tongue drove deep inside you, heavy and soaked with your heat, before flattening against your clitoris with a trembling pressure that made your spine arch. He was a maniac. Every time you let out a breath, he whimpered against you, his breath hot and damp against your cunt.

He was almost crying into your wetness, his tears mixing with your sex, his mouth working with a pathetic sort of stubbornness, as if he believed that if he stopped for even a second, you would vanish.

"Jack... oh God," you panted, your head thrown back, your hips rolling helplessly against his face.

"Use me," he mumbled against your wetness, his voice muffled. "God, just use my mouth. Take everything you want from me. Tell me what to do."

"Just like that," you gasped, your fingers digging into his hair. "Don't stop, Jack."

"I won't," he groaned beneath you.

He worked harder, faster, his tongue chasing your release. The submission of his frame beneath you, combined with the relentless focus of his mouth, sent a violent shudder through your core. Your walls spasmed, a sudden, hot wave of release breaking over you, and you moaned Jack's name into the darkness.

Jack drank you in, his tongue catching your every drop like a dying man given water. His chest heaved under your thighs as he let out a broken, shuddering breath.

But he didn't let you slide away. Before you could even catch your breath, his left hand tightened on your waist, guiding your hips down his torso.

There was no illusion of control left to cling to. You both knew what was coming next and the desperate pull in your own chest was just as unforgiving as his.

Guided by the steady brace of his hands, you shifted back onto your knees, the worn mattress giving way beneath your weight as you straddled his hips.

Placing your hands on his chest, you sat on his still–clothed cock. Your wetness soaked right through his shorts as you started to move on him, slowly, the feeling still overwhelming after your orgasm. Jack jolted his hips upward, tearing a gasp from your throat at his hardness pressing harder against you.

The sight of you was pornographic.

Your hair was a tangled mess around your shoulders, your cheeks flushed, and your body glistened with a delicate sheen of sweat. You were a breathtaking ruin, perched just above him.

"Fuck,” Jack breathed.

He was so close already, just by looking at you, only one step away from cumming in his shorts, right here, right now.

You reached and pulled his underwear down. His cock sprang free, heavy, thick and already leaking for you. You couldn't help but moan as you took in all of him.

You paused for one long, agonizing second when the blunt tip of his cock was resting right against your entrance. Jack's breath came in ragged, shallow gasps, his hands hovering just above your skin, too terrified to touch you without permission, yet too weak to pull away.

"Please," he choked out, his voice a pathetic whisper. "Please, just let me. I don’t deserve it... I know I don’t… but please, let me come home for one night."

You didn't give him words. You lifted your hips and lowered yourself down onto his cock in one slow motion.

"Oh my…" you whimpered, your head shooting back.

Jack’s breath completely stalled in his lungs. His large fingers buried deep into your hips, squeezing you with a bruising force. He was completely, utterly overwhelmed by the sensation of your cunt clenching around him. Every squeeze seemed to drag a low groan from the back of his throat, his lower back arching instinctively as he tried to bury himself even deeper.

You felt exactly how he remembered.

Jack watched you like you were a priceless, fragile piece of art. Your head leaned back, your hair cascading over your shoulders, your mouth parted as you let out shallow pants into the cold air.

You began to move, shifting your weight to grind down against his pelvis, circling slowly on his cock to test the sheer mass of him inside you.

His fingers dug deeper into your skin, his pelvis tilting upward. "Christ... You can do whatever you want to me."

"Jack…," your voice broke. "Just– harder."

"Yes, ma'am."

Jack suddenly rose to a sitting position. He grabbed your ass, crumpling it in his hands and leaving red marks on it, and helped you pound on him. You moaned loudly, your breath catching in your head, as his cock hit you harder each time.

His head jolted backwards, then back to look at you, taking the sign of you riding him.

"You’re so perfect,” Jack managed, his voice thick with arousal. "Like you were made for me, baby."

His hands flew out, grabbing your back. He dragged his fingers down your spine, then around to your stomach, his thumbs tracing the line of your ribs before moving upward to cup your breasts. He wanted to visit every single inch of your body with his fingers, even though he already knew it better than anyone else.

"Look at me," he whispered into the dark, his voice commanding, his face so close you could feel his breath against your lips.

"I can't see you," you panted.

"You know exactly where I am."

His mouth caught your lips again, stalling your breath before you could finish the thought. The kiss tasted of a mix of him and you.

You reached up, your hands finding his face in the dark. You moved your fingers across the facial hair along his jawline before your thumb traced the line of his lower lip. Jack parted his mouth an inch, his teeth nipping gently at the pad of your thumb before taking it in completely. Jack’s mouth sucked on your finger worshipfully, his tongue swirling around it.

When he finally pulled back, a thin trickle of saliva connected your skin and he planted a lingering kiss right in the center of your palm.

"You're so perfect," Jack whispered in pure awe against your hand, his grip on your hips tightening until his knuckles went numb as you rode him. His voice cracked, the pathetic longing rushing back into his tone with every thrust. "God... you haven't changed. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you. Please don't walk away this time. I swear to God, I'll crawl after you if you leave again."

A single tear ran down your cheek, the breath caught in your throat. "Jack, I can't think when you talk like that."

"Then don’t think," he growled, lifting you just to slam you back down onto his cock. "Just feel me. Tell me you feel me."

"I–" you moaned. "Oh– my God..."

A violent orgasm shattered your control. You screamed into his neck, your fingers tangling in the short hair at the back of his head.

Hearing you break was the final straw for him. Jack let out a loud, guttural groan, his hips slamming one last time upward with everything he had left as he came inside you.

"Fuck," he choked out, your name rolling on his tongue. "Fuck."

You could feel the thick, burning pulses of his cum hitting your cervix, wave after wave of his heat filling you.

You collapsed onto his chest, your cheek resting against his collarbone, your breathing ragged against his skin. Jack stayed buried deep inside you, his arm immediately coming around your back to hold you as if the world outside the room might try to tear you away. 

b e t w e e n  2 0 1 3  a n d  2 0 2 3

The rain outside the Boston Quarantine Zone never really stopped. For hours, the four of you had been crawling through the remains of collapsed buildings, dragging heavy bags filled with found medical supplies. The straps dug mercilessly into your shoulders, and the damp cold had long since leaked through the seams of your boots, turning every step into a squelch.

Tommy was walking just a half-step behind you with his rifle slung low over his chest. His eyes occasionally flicked from the dark window frames above to the back of your wet jacket.

"You doing okay with that weight?" he asked, nodding his head at your bags.

"I'm fine," you murmured, keeping your voice low as you entered the gloom of the ruined building. "Just ready to be out of the rain."

"Well, holler if you need me to carry ‘em for you," Tommy muttered, his mouth twisting into a playful smirk. He gave you a casual, reassuring nudge with his elbow as the path narrowed between two rusted cars. "I’m chivalrous like that, y’know. Raised right. You’re very lucky to have me keeping you company."

From a few paces ahead, Tess let out a sharp, amused snort without bothering to turn her head around. She kept her eyes locked on the dark opening of the old department store ahead, her boots stepping over a pile of shattered glass with practiced ease.

"Don't let him fool you," Tess called back. "The last time he tried to play the gentleman and carry a pack, he dropped half our ammunition into a flooded basement."

"C’mon, that was one time," Tommy protested. "Nothin’ like that happened again."

"It did actually," you cut in. "Three months ago, I think."

You saw Tess finally glancing over her shoulder, laughing under her breath at the younger Miller.

Tommy shot you a betrayed look, clutching his heart theatrically. "Women," he sighed. "They will remember every mistake you make and throw it in your face for the rest of your life. Ain’t that right, Joel?"

Joel, however, wasn't participating in the slightest. He kept his distance from you, like a man utterly isolated in his own skin, at the very front, hunched under the weight of his own backpack. His gaze constantly scanned the empty buildings, but his jaw clenched a little tighter with each word.

“Focus,” was all he said. It sounded flat and almost inaudible, but there was still a hint of irritation in his voice.

You turned your focus back on the path. The quiet murmur of the conversation with Tess and Tommy acted like a balm on your mounting exhaustion. You had been marching for so many hours that the muscles in your neck had long since gone rigid under the heavy weight of your backpack.

"Hey," Tess’s raspy voice broke through your flood of grim thoughts. You felt the firm squeeze of her hand on your shoulder. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," you sighed, though your voice didn’t sound convincing at all, even to you. "Just... I'd really like to get out of this miserable rain."

You reached up to brush away another wet strand of hair plastered to your forehead, cursing silently. You'd have to cut it again soon. At its current length, some of the layers kept slipping from your braid, whipping constantly across your eyes. On any other day, it would have been a minor annoyance, but today, with the rain blinding you and the mud pulling at your boots, a split second of distraction could cost you your life. You needed to keep your wits about you, not spend every step fighting your own hair.

“I can help you cut it later,” the woman said.

You nodded, sending her a thankful smile.

Tess was tough. You had watched her handle business and eliminate threats in the QZ without so much as blinking. She could be dangerous enough to occasionally terrify even you. Yet, there were moments when understanding and protectiveness slipped through the cracks of her armored shell.

It wasn’t long before you realized your planned route was gone. The path you'd taken just a few weeks ago was now completely blocked. Last time, however, you'd easily managed to squeeze through the rubble and cars. Now, however, you found that the remains of a second-story wall from a nearby building had given way.

Forced to double back, you had to take a detour. Joel, without so much as a backward glance, led your group through the skeleton of an abandoned restaurant.

A crooked, rusted tin sign with a faded drawing of a lobster hung askew over the entrance. The windows were entirely blown out, and the heavy metal frame of the sign groaned, tilting dangerously above the door. It looked like it was one gust of wind away from crashing down and making the kind of racket you absolutely couldn't afford out here.

Inside, the place looked like every other ruin. Anything of value had been scavenged decades ago. Overturned tables, splintered chairs and rotting floorboards stained with old blood that had dried into a dark black.

You stepped inside, picking your way carefully through the debris and navigating the overturned furniture.

"Looks cozy," Tommy murmured with a quiet chuckle, pausing for a second beside one of the ruined booths. "Might've brought a girl here on a date once upon a time."

You snorted, shaking your head at his jokes. Walking past a shattered glass counter, you caught sight of a tattered menu half-buried in the grime. You picked it up, brushing a layer of dust off the cover with your thumb. Amazingly, the print was still legible.

"Never had a steak," you murmured after a beat, tracing your finger over the yellowed print. "Ugh, I would kill for a steak right now."

A wave of dark irony hit you. The truth was, you had already done much worse just to stay alive.

Tommy, still chuckling, glanced back over his shoulder, resting his hand on his rifle sling. "Never?"

"Never. I actually had it written down in my journal, on my bucket list," you sighed, feeling a sudden ache in your empty stomach. "Shame the end of the world got in the way."

There were so many options on the menu you would’ve eaten every single one of them. Your stomach rumbled and your mouth immediately watered as your eyes drifted to the faded, peeling posters on the wall showcasing pictures of food. You dropped the ruined menu back into the dirt, trying to spare yourself the mental torture.

"Well," Tommy muttered, offering a playful wink. "If we make it back to the QZ without drowning first, I am personally taking you out for a steak."

"Right," you chuckled. "Whatever you say, playboy."

You started toward the back of the kitchen, praying the rear exit wasn't caved in. Joel and Tommy threw their shoulders against the rusted metal emergency exit. You stepped out into a narrow, shadow-drenched alley hemmed in by towering brick walls. You had never set foot in this part of the city, yet Joel moved ahead without a trace of hesitation, navigating the labyrinth as if he had mapped it in his sleep.

"Watch your step," Joel grunted. He didn't even bother looking back at any of you.

The man was a walking grievance. He was always so thoroughly annoyed by everything and dealing with his moods was more exhausting than the five-hour march in soaked boots. After all this time, you should have been used to it, but his icy silence and simmering irritability still managed to siphon away whatever energy you had left. You couldn't remember the last time you'd seen a smile on his face - a real, genuine smile. Joel went out of his way to make sure you never forgot your place, treating you like nothing more than a liability he was forced to drag along.

Walking between the two brothers, the contrast was almost physically painful. Despite all the absolute hell they had survived, Tommy had somehow managed to hold onto his humanity. There was still a flicker of warmth in his eyes, a remnant of that easygoing, flirtatious Texas charm he’d carried before the world fell apart.

But Joel had turned completely inside out. It was hard to blame him, of course. Even for you, Sarah's death had been a haunting trauma, and you couldn't begin to fathom the kind of nightmare it had left inside Joel's chest. Yet, that didn't change the fact that his endless frustration always seemed to find its outlet in you. It felt like a slap in the face every single time you tried to simply just  breathe in his presence.

Having been forced off your path, you had to scramble through the decaying remains of another office complex to try and loop back to your original route.

Tommy caught up to your side, leaning in with that easy, lazy grin of his. He didn't even bother trying to keep his voice down.

“Now that I’m thinking,” Tommy murmured, bumping his shoulder playfully against yours. “I could give ya something a hell of a lot better than a steak. Just depends on what kind of hunger we’re talking about.”

“Oh my God,” you laughed, rolling your eyes but unable to keep the grin off your face.

You took a step forward, still chuckling at him. Your boot came down on a patch of wet, spongy moss that, in the dim light, looked no different from the rest of the rotted floorboards you had been crossing for the last hour.

Until you felt it vanish beneath you.

It happened too fast for you to even gasp, let alone scream.

A white-hot, tearing agony instantly flared in your right thigh as a jagged piece of fractured rebar ripped through your denim trousers, driving into the muscle.

"Shit!"

Hanging with one leg dangling in the hole, you desperately dug your forearms into the edge of the splintering wood, clawing for any shred of balance.

The vibrations of the collapsing floor echoed through the hollow skeleton of the building, sounding loud as a goddamn explosion in the dead silence of the ruins.

You heard the heavy clatter of Tommy's rifle as he tossed it onto the wet floorboards without a second thought. Instantly, his hands were on you, grabbing your shoulders with a white-knuckled grip to haul you up before the rest of the ceiling caved under your combined weight.

"Easy, easy. Don't wrench it," he muttered, his voice shaking just a fraction as he knelt right on the crumbling edge, entirely ignoring the cold mud soaking through his pants.

You could feel the dark blood already soaking through the torn fabric of your jeans. The pain was sick and nauseating, blurring the edges of your vision into a static gray. You clenched your teeth so hard they ground against each other, desperately stifling the scream of agony tearing its way out of your throat.

"What the hell did I just say?!"

Joel's voice sliced through the musty air of the archive like a cold blade. It was pure fury. He stood over you both like an executioner. He didn't make a single move to help.

"Joel..." Tommy started, his head snapping up as he glared at his brother from the floor.

"No," Joel cut him off instantly. The tone of his voice made it clear his razor-thin patience was completely shot. "I told you to watch your damn step."

"It looked... it looked solid, Joel," you managed to wheeze out, your chest heaving in shallow, ragged pants as you fought to breathe through the throbbing heat in your leg. Sweat, mixed with cold rain, was already stinging your eyes and dripping down your temples. "I didn't see the rust under the moss."

"Then look closer next time," Joel growled, cutting off any further excuse.

He still wouldn't even look down at you. His gaze remained glued to the rainy alleyway framed by the shattered window, scanning it for any sign that the fall or your muffled cry had given your position away to whatever was rotting in the dark.

“Now we wait until the infected-”

"Joel, that's enough," Tess cut in, stepping closer to put herself between you.

You had to get your leg out of this trap, no matter what.

Clenching your jaw until your teeth ached, you braced your weight on your good leg and hands against a sturdier patch of flooring. Inch by agonizing inch, you tried to angle your thigh, desperate to ensure that the rusted piece of rebar didn't drive deeper or tear the muscle to shreds with the slightest shift.

With the younger Miller guiding your every move with tense care, you finally managed to slide your leg free. Tommy let out a shaky breath, worrying washing over his face as he immediately went to work on the wound. His hands trembled slightly as he applied pressure to the torn flesh.

"Doesn't look too deep... but it's bleeding like a motherfucker," he muttered under his breath.

Both Joel and Tess watched. Tess stood with knitted brows, unable to hide the deep concern in her eyes. Joel, on the other hand... Joel only stood there, his face completely indifferent yet, true to form, absolutely pissed off.

"It was an accident. The floorboards are rotted out and buckled everywhere," Tess said, keeping her voice even and rational, trying to diffuse the tension. "This could have happened to any of us."

"But it didn't happen to any of us," Joel shot back, stepping around Tess just enough to glare down at the two of you with pure bitterness. "It happened because you weren't paying attention. Giggling behind us like schoolkids."

Tommy didn't say a word, but you could see the vein throbbing violently at his temple. His patience was entirely spent too. Still, he managed to ignore his brother for now and focus on your thigh. Tommy pulled a stained piece of cloth from his pocket, wrapped it tight around the tear in your flesh and tied the knot with one brutal, aggressive jerk that made your teeth rattle.

Then, he slapped his hands against his knees and stood up, squaring his shoulders right in front of his older brother.

"She's bleeding, Joel, and all you can do is stand there and run your goddamn mouth?” Tommy growled. Wiping your blood from his hand onto his trousers, he didn't break eye contact with his brother for even a second.

"She's bleeding all over the floor," Joel spat back, pointing an accusing finger at the dark stain on your jeans. "The smell’s gonna bring every infected within two blocks straight down on us."

In the meantime, Tess knelt to your level. "Can you stand?"

"I can walk," you said, raising your voice just enough to make sure both brothers heard you over the rain.

You reached out, grabbing Tess's hand. Your good leg took the brunt of your weight as you hauled yourself up, the freshly tied cloth on your thigh instantly throbbing with pain. The agony made your head spin, but there was no way in hell you were going to sit on the floor while the men used you as an excuse to rip into each other.

You stared straight at Joel, your voice trembling from the effort of staying on your feet. "Thanks for caring, Joel."

Joel froze. His gaze snapped away from Tommy and locked onto you. His eyes narrowed in a mix of disbelief and pure fury, his blood finally boiling over after hours of trekking through the rain and listening to the mindless chatter behind him.

"You really think I don't give a shit?" he growled, taking a heavy step toward you. He stepped in so close he loomed over you, his hot, heavy breath hitting your face. "If I didn't care about getting you out of here alive, I would’ve left you in that hole and kept walking. Saved myself the goddamn trouble."

The words hit you harder than the fall, settling in the pit of your stomach like a lead weight. A sharp, hot sting pricked behind your eyes. You blinked away the burn desperately, refusing to let a single tear fall in front of him. You cast your eyes down to the floorboards, swallowing hard to stifle the rising tide of shame and pain tightening your throat.

"We’re leaving," Joel spat. The absolute finality in his voice left no room for debate.

His heavy boots thudded against the floor as he turned his back on you without another word, heading toward the decaying back stairs.

"Tommy, grab her bag," he tossed over his shoulder, not even slowing his pace. "If she starts lagging, you’re the one dragging her through the mud. And for Christ’s sake, keep your mouths shut this time."

p r e s e n t

The horses moved with a light, rhythmic gait along the rocky bank of the river. Their hooves clicked steadily against the stones, and the crisp mountain air carried the scent of damp earth and pine needles.

You gently pulled the reins, bringing your horse to a stop near a patch of wild brush.

"Need a break already?" Tommy teased, slowing his pace and looking back over his shoulder.

"No, look over there," you pointed toward a patch of exposed earth right by the river’s current, where the summer vegetation had withered, creating a rich, dark mulch. "It’s the perfect time to harvest, before the frost completely ruins the seeds."

"So cutting weeds again?" Tommy tossed out.

He stopped his horse and watched you dismount with an amused, patient expression. You let the reins hang loose, allowing your chestnut to graze freely on the dry grass. You knelt directly in the damp mud, completely ignoring the cold that immediately soaked through the fabric at your knees.

"These aren't weeds, smart-ass. It's chamomile," you shot back. "When your stomach starts hurting again from some bootleg moonshine, you’ll come crying to me to brew you some tea.”

Tommy chuckled.

Carefully, using a small, worn pocketknife, you began cutting the dried seed heads of the wild herbs. You tucked them into separate canvas pouches, stuffed them deep into your backpack. You noted the location and a brief remark in your journal.

"What would we ever do without ya?" Tommy muttered under his breath.

"You'd die of a simple indigestion," you retorted with a slight smile, pocketing the notebook.

"Oh, right," he remembered suddenly, straightening in his saddle. "I found another book on plants for you on my last patrol," he said. "I'll bring it to you when we get back. So much s’been going on lately that it completely slipped my mind."

"How are patrols anyway?" you asked, grabbing the leather reins and preparing to climb back onto your saddle. Your chestnut neighed softly in greeting as you approached his side, rubbing his nose against your shoulder. “Anything interesting?"

"No major issues," he sighed, though his gaze drifted for a moment toward the tree line. "Though the guys found a fresh campsite about nine miles from Jackson. A cold campfire, empty cans."

You patted your horse’s neck, slipped your boot into the stirrup and pulled yourself onto the animal's back.

"A group? Raiders?" You felt your body instinctively tense up at the mere thought.

"No, probably just passing through. Two, maybe three people," he said. "Maria had us reinforce the guards at the south gate, just in case."

You nodded in silence. These days, no one took strangers lightly, especially so close to a haven like Jackson.

As the horses fell into a walk side-by-side, you adjusted your grip on the cold leather of the reins. The question that had been lingering in your mind for a long time suddenly slipped out of your mouth without warning.

"Do you ever think about Joel?"

The light atmosphere that had filled the trail just moments ago vanished in a split second.

Tommy didn’t answer right away. For a long moment, his gaze remained fixed on the distant, snow-capped mountain peaks. You could see the muscle in his jaw clench tightly and his shoulders stiffen under his jacket before he finally let out a resigned breath through his nose.

"Every day," he answered quietly.

"Yeah," you murmured. "Me too."

Tommy nudged his reins slightly, guiding his horse a bit closer. His gently squinted eyes intensely studied your profile. "Is he the one taking up your thoughts lately?"

"What?" You blinked rapidly, quickly shaking your head. "No."

You looked down at the rushing, foaming current beneath you. For a fraction of a second, memories of Boston flashed before your eyes. You could almost smell the damp, musty air of the dark alleys in the QZ again.

"Just... sometimes I wonder how he's doing. If he's even still there. In Boston or… anywhere."

"Ten years is a hell of a long time to wonder if someone is lying dead in a ditch or if he's just gotten even meaner than he used to be," Tommy said, his voice entirely stripped of the easygoing banter he’d been throwing around minutes earlier. "But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it myself.”

For a brief moment, the only sound that could be heard was the rhythmic clop of the horses' hooves. Tommy's gaze remained fixed on the trail ahead, his expression unreadable, as if lost in thought. A sudden pang of regret hitting you, making you want to apologize for bringing Joel up. It wasn't like it was some taboo topic between you two, but it for sure stirred up a lot of emotion, no matter how hard Tommy tried to hide it.

Yet, you knew Tommy didn't regret leaving his brother for a single second. Not even when your time with the Fireflies fell apart or when the two of you were half-starved, shivering in the woods, or scraping by in the ruins of abandoned towns. Sure, the four of you, with Joel and Tess, would have been a hell of a lot safer. But leaving Boston - and specifically the older brother - was necessary. And you and Tommy both knew it.

“Sometimes I wonder if he ever looked for us,” Tommy signed after a moment. “But you know Joel. He probably figured that since we left, it was our own funeral. Maybe he was relieved he had two fewer mouths to feed."

The leather of your saddle creaked softly as you shifted your weight. You hummed, not sure how to answer. Another moment of silence stretched out, the rushing sound of the river and the horses filling the quiet space between you. 

"I really thought he wanted to leave me behind,” you murmured. “Back then, when I messed up my leg on that damn rebar."

Tommy shook his head.

"Nah, he wouldn't have," he replied. "But yeah, he sure as hell made you feel like trash for breathing his air. Joel had a way of turning every favor into a debt you couldn't ever pay off."

You remained silent, letting those words sink deep into your mind. With the perspective of time in the safety of Jackson, it hit you how incredibly absurd it was - how much energy and emotion you had wasted desperately trying to win the approval of such a deeply broken, angry-at-the-world man.

You remembered every tear you had secretly wiped away in the corner of the cramped apartment in the QZ, just so Joel wouldn't see any weakness. Every silent, desperate urge to prove to him that you weren't a burden. That you deserved to be there with them.

Suddenly, completely out of nowhere, a short laugh escaped your lips before you could choke it back.

Tommy raised his eyebrows, glancing at you with genuine surprise. "What's so funny?"

"I just remembered how pathetic I was," you began, and the whole confession felt so ridiculous in that moment that your cheeks started to burn. "You... you know I had a massive crush on him when I was a teenager, right?"

Tommy didn’t even hesitate. He simply leaned over the horn of his saddle, and a slow, knowing grin spread beneath his blonde beard. "I think everybody knew, kid.”

"Oh, shut up," you groaned, immediately turning your head to hide the hot blush that instantly rushed to your face. "It was a phase."

"A phase? Darlin’, you had it bad," Tommy teased. He adjusted his grip on the leather reins, looking at you with a chuckle. "At all those barbeques or when you'd come over to babysit Sarah, then later in Bost-"

"I did not have a crush on him anymore in Boston!" you protested, feeling like you were about to burn up from embarrassment.

"Oh, yes, you did,” Tommy grinned, shaking his head. "What is it with y’all, women, having a thing for grumpy, old men, anyway?"

"Alright, drop it," you huffed. "He was handsome, that’s it."

"That’s why you went for his brother?"

Your mouth gaped, an amused gasp slipping out.

"Shut up. I was just… using you," you laughed, shrugging your shoulders and playing unbothered. "Us sleeping together had nothing to do with Joel."

"Oh, sure," he snorted under his breath, smiling under his mustache. "Anyway, Tess brought it up to him once, you know, as a joke."

You snapped your head in his direction, your eyes wide with a mix of pure horror and absolute disbelief. "She did not."

"Oh, she did," Tommy said, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he remembered. "Tess told me about it once, after you'd gone to sleep following one of our arguments," he continued. "She walked up to Joel, shoved him on the shoulder and said: 'Listen, cowboy, that girl looks at you like you're some kind of god, so either do something about it or at least stop growling at her every time she looks your way.'"

"Oh, no."

"And do you want to know what my brilliant brother said?" Tommy asked. "Nothin’. Went right back to cleaning his gun."

"Oh my God..." You buried your face in your hands, a loud, embarrassed laugh escaping through your fingers. You wanted the earth to swallow you whole, even now, after all these years and in a completely different life.

"Don't worry about it," Tommy added in a gentler tone. "You dodged a massive bullet, kid."

"Yeah," you murmured, the embarrassment slightly beginning to fade. "Yeah, I know."

Tommy let out a quiet breath, his eyes scanning the rocky path ahead before he spoke again.

"Colton’s a good man," he said. "He cares about people, he actually enjoys being around 'em. He's... emotionally available or whatever it is Maria calls it. Trust me, if you’re having second thoughts about marrying him because of Joel-”

“I wasn’t!” you cut in defensively. You cleared your throat. “You know what, nevermind.”

Tommy snorted under his breath, a smirk playing on his lips, but he didn't press any further. He knew when to let a subject lie. He didn't say another word and the rest of the journey passed in a comfortable silence.

You swore you hadn't once thought about Joel in connection with the upcoming wedding. Not in this context. At least not until now. 

For ten long years, Joel treated you like air. He had driven you absolutely mad, and at times you genuinely believed you hated him. You hated his silence, his dismissive grunts and the way he made you feel like a liability. You had spent your youth begging for a single crumb of his acknowledgment, only to be met with nothing else but indifference.

But somewhere, buried deep beneath the scars of the last twenty years, you still carried the gilded memory of the other Joel. The one before the world fell apart. Back when he had trusted you, even though you were just a teenager who could barely keep track of her own shoes.

Colton was everything Tommy said he was. He didn’t make you feel like you had to constantly prove your worth to earn his attention and affection.

But as your horse stepped along the path, you couldn’t shake the aching feeling. Like you were still, after all the years, grieving the man who had smiled at you in Texas and died the very same night the world did.

Carrying that phantom into your future felt like a betrayal. A disloyalty to Colton, who loved you without condition and a disloyalty to yourself, as you’d fought with all your might to finally crawl out from under the crushing weight of Joel’s shadow.

The horses soon cleared the last line of trees. Tommy stretched out his arm, pointing a gloved hand toward the view unfolding ahead of you. From this distance, the massive gates of the hydroelectric dam were clearly visible, and the roar of the river now mingled with the muffled shouts of workers and the metallic clanking of tools.

The flight had been a cramped misery, leaving you with an ache in your lower back and the feeling like every bone in your body had been broken.

It matched the rest of your week. As expected, the hospital had been a madhouse. Neurology was always the first department to feel the weight of winter – car accidents and holiday decorating ending with people falling off roofs and ladders. Where there was ice, there was trouble.

When the door to your hotel room finally clicked shut behind you, you let out the long sigh of relief as you heard nothing but pure silence.

The hotel room was exactly what you expected: blue walls, a king-sized bed with a white duvet and a single window overlooking a snow-covered parking lot. You dropped your suitcase onto the luggage rack but didn't bother to open it. You didn't even take off your jacket right away before sitting on the edge of the mattress, your knees still aching from the hours spent pinned into the middle seat. You pulled your phone from your pocket to check the time.

2:10 p.m.

The fundraising gala wasn't until six, leaving you with hours of empty time that felt entirely foreign after the high-volume schedule you had been keeping for the last few months. Deciding to take a nap, you finally shed the jacket, unbuttoned your travel clothes and let them drop onto a nearby chair. Stripped down to nothing but a T-shirt and underwear, you slid into the bed. The mattress was soft enough that you felt yourself sinking, almost melting into it, until the tension began to ease from your back.

As you lay there, eyes fixed on a tiny crack on the ceiling, you realized the hotel wasn’t entirely silent.

The walls were thick, yet there were muffled noises of someone pacing in the room next door, right behind the headboard. To your surprise, the activity behind the wall wasn't irritating, but strangely calming. The rhythm helped you fall asleep, drifting off into a deep, unbroken rest for a solid hour.

You woke up with the fog in your brain slightly cleared. You swung your legs over the side of the bed, the coldness of the floor biting at your skin right away.

Maybe you actually needed this, you thought, trying to muster even a shred of enthusiasm. To get out of your head and socialize.

You walked into the small bathroom. You stripped off your clothes and caught your reflection in the mirror. Your skin was pale from tiredness, the shadows under your eyes a testament to the sleepless nights you’d spent in Chicago.

Turning the shower handle, you waited until the water ran burning hot and stepped inside. You stood directly under the heavy stream for a long time, letting the heat redden your skin. The steam clung to the tiles and filled the space until the glass door fogged over completely. It felt like a cleansing ritual to wash away the dirty feeling of the airplane cabin and the lingering ache in your body.

You did your makeup with precision, hiding the dark circles beneath layers of concealer. Then, you slid into the dress. A plum satin gown clung to your frame before spilling into a long, fluid skirt that brushed the ground with every step. You left your hair completely loose, letting it cascade in waves over your shoulders and down your back.

Finally, you stepped into a pair of white, open heels with straps wrapping around your ankles. The heels forced your posture to straighten, immediately lifting your chin and locking your spine into place. 

By the time you finished, the woman looking back at you looked like she belonged at a ball.

The event dragged into its third hour. Your feet were numb inside your heels, the thin straps cutting faint lines into your ankles with every step you took. Your throat felt dry from robotically explaining the purpose of your clinical trials to wealthy board members who smelled strongly of expensive perfume and whiskey for the last forty-five minutes.

On the main stage, the chief of the Mayo Clinic was halfway through another of his speeches. His voice echoed as he thanked everyone for their generous donations and cheerfully instructed the room to stop talking business and "have some fun".

When you finally managed to move away from the men gracefully, you barely had time to catch your breath before a familiar face cut through the crowd. It was your old colleague from the neurology department back at PTMC. 

“Look at you, gorgeous," she chirped, squeezing your arm in an enthusiastic greeting. "The nurses on the floor keep asking when you’re coming back to your senses and moving back to Pittsburgh."

"I don’t think I ever will," you said, laughing softly.

She offered a playful pout, then quickly excused herself, teasing that she needed to go hunt down some rich men before the ball ended.

Left alone again, your throat felt like sandpaper. You adjusted your grip on your clutch bag, your eyes scanning the crowded ballroom, desperately hunting for a waiter carrying a tray of champagne or water, and then–

Jack Abbot.

Your stomach dropped and regret stung hard. You should have been listening more carefully. You should have paid closer attention when your colleague was gossiping about how PTMC had sent a representative from almost every major department tonight. If you had, you would have braced yourself.

Jack was leaning against a marble pillar near the side exit, away from the crowd. He was listening to someone speak, his head tilted slightly to the right, one eyebrow arched in that skeptical way of his. His curly salt-and-pepper hair was neatly styled in stark contrast to how it usually looked after hours of a night shift.

The last time you had stood in the same air was June – the night he had laid his soul bare, his voice cracking as he confessed he was still in love with you. And instead of answering him, instead of reaching out or telling the truth about the chaos in your own heart, you had fled to Chicago.

Now, it was December and you hadn't seen his face in six months.

The professional mask he wore for the sake of the gala cracked the exact second his eyes shifted and locked onto yours. Jack froze. His brows drew together, his mouth parting in stunned disbelief, his eyes scanning your face as if he were trying to confirm he wasn't hallucinating. You could see his expression change the exact moment he realized that it was actually you standing there. 

But neither of you moved. For a few seconds, you just stared at each other across the ballroom. 

Then, the old instinct kicked in.

The defensive habit of running from him and putting as much distance as possible between you two took over. You turned your back on the stage, stepping away and pushing your way through the crowd. You knew he would still follow. He always did.

You finally stopped near the end of the bar when the absurdity of the situation caught up to you. You were a grown woman, a respected doctor, yet you were actively running away from a man in the middle of a charity gala. What the hell were you doing?

So, swallowing the lump in your throat, you forced yourself to turn around. As you predicted, he was already there.

"Doctor Abbot."

You managed to say it clearly, forcing your voice to sound steady despite the hammering in your chest. 

Jack greeted you by your first name.

"How’s Chicago?" he asked, his tone careful as if testing the waters between you.

"Good."

It was all you could manage. Your eyes darted anywhere but his face, finally landing on a waiter carrying a silver tray. You snatched a glass of champagne and took a large gulp, letting the bubbles burn in your throat. There was absolutely no way you could do this sober.

"Good," he repeated, nodding slowly.

Jack’s focused gaze never left you. He looked at your mouth where a gloss of champagne still lingered on your lower lip. Then his eyes drifted down. He took in the dress in his favourite shade of purple and the way the material hugged your figure. The intense staring made your cheeks flush, making you feel entirely exposed.

"You look incredible."

You dropped your gaze at your glass, watching the tiny bubbles rush to the surface in a poor attempt to ground yourself.

"Thank you," you murmured. clearing the tightness from your throat. "You look... good, Jack. But you were the last person I’d expect to see at an event like this."

A quiet laugh escaped his lips.

"I’m covering for Robby," he explained. "He caught something nasty from a patient and Gloria needed someone from the ED to go. But..." he paused, his chest expanding under his tuxedo jacket as he took a breath. "I could say the same to you."

You looked back at him, tilting your head. "Why?"

"Because I know you."

The words sounded completely unplanned, slipping out of him without any hesitation. However, it came out certain, like the most obvious thing in the world, a fundamental fact that hadn’t changed since the divorce. He knew you hated the crowds and he knew you drank when you were overwhelmed.

You couldn't force yourself to reply. Jack noticed.

To break the pressure, he raised his own glass and took a sip. He kept his eyes down this time, staring into the liquid as if granting you the space to draw a full breath without his stare pinning you to the spot.

That was when the light from the central chandelier caught the back of his left hand. Your breath caught in your throat the second your eyes dropped to his finger.

"Your ring," you blurted out. The words tore out of your mouth before you had the presence of mind to stop them. "You’re not wearing the ring."

Jack froze, his glass halfway back down to his side. He cleared his throat as he looked down at his own hand, his thumb tracing the pale ribbon of naked skin where the band had lived for years.

He nodded slowly. "I took it off."

"When?"

"The night you left."

You inhaled deeply. A repeated need to escape became the only clear thought left in your mind.

Even when he had crawled back into your life in Pittsburgh, begging for a second chance, Jack had still refused to part with that ring. He had been wearing the ring when he carefully proposed a clean slate of friendship. He had been wearing it when he kissed you in his mother’s town and he had still been wearing it when he stood in front of the bar at your farewell party, his voice breaking as he told you he’d never stopped loving you. Every single time Jack reached for you over the last year, that piece of metal had been there – a testament to the life he’d built after you and a sign that he clearly wasn't ready to let the past go. 

And now, when you had finally walked away, it was gone. 

The timing made your head spin, fracturing your thoughts into a dozen different directions.

Why now? Why wait until you were already gone to finally free his hand? It felt cruel. If he had taken it off a month sooner, or even the day he said he loved you, would it have changed anything? Would you still have moved to Chicago, or would you have stayed in Pittsburgh with him? Would you have been able to forgive? Would you have given him a second chance?

The unfairness of it tangled in your chest, leaving you entirely paralyzed. You didn’t know what to think, let alone how to categorize the rush of emotions flooding your mind. The anger, the heartbreak and… the hint of relief? They all blurred together until you couldn't tell them apart. 

It was too much to process with his dark eyes watching the confusion rise across your face.

"Excuse me," you whispered, your voice cracking.

You took a step backward, retreating into the crowd before he could reach out. Jack called your name, his voice laced with panic, but it didn’t stop you. You turned your back on him, letting the sea of tuxedos swallow you whole.

As your heels clicked against the marble, you forced your brain away from him. You forced yourself to focus on the numbers, on the stark reality of the room. You remembered exactly why you were here – you needed to secure donor funding for the new clinical research track in Chicago.

So, locking your jaw, you smoothed the front of your dress, blinked back the sudden burn in your eyes and forced the professional smile back onto your face as you approached a group of strangers who looked nothing like Jack Abbot.

The performance you’d pulled off inside the gala made you feel quite proud. It was kind of funny what a little professional flirting could accomplish when you needed it to. More than anything, it had successfully kept your thoughts far away from the elephant in the room. 

But the moment the event ended, you needed air, no matter how cold it was outside. 

Now, standing outside, you stared down at your phone. The little car icon on the Uber app was spinning in circles, the estimated arrival time jumping annoyingly from twenty minutes to thirty-two, then back to twenty-five.

You let out a sigh, watching the mist vaporize in the freezing air. Your fingers were already losing their feeling, locking up around the edges of your phone. You really should have waited inside.

"Nothing?"

You looked up. Jack was walking toward you from the glass door of the hospital, his coat over his arm, his car keys already in his hand. His untied bow tie was dangling around his collar, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, exposing the hollow of his throat.

"It’s a thirty-minute wait," you admitted, dropping the phone into your purse and immediately tucking your arms tight under your chest. "Apparently, everyone else had the exact same idea at the exact same time."

"I’ll give you a ride."

"No need," you said immediately, forcing a smile. "I can wait inside and–"

"I'm not leaving you out here," he interrupted. His tone wasn't aggressive, but it was the one he always defaulted to when he’d already made up his mind. You knew that tone a little too well. It left absolutely no room for negotiation.

"Jack, seriously, no," you pressed, taking a small step back. "I can manage."

"It’s the middle of December," he said, rolling his eyes as he put his coat on. "I rented a car specifically so I wouldn’t have to freeze my ass off waiting for an Uber. Don’t be stubborn."

Without waiting for your answer, he turned on his heel and headed down the salted sidewalk toward the parking lot.

"Come on."

He didn't look back, but the slower pace of his stride made it obvious he was waiting to hear the clatter of your heels behind him.

Every rational part of your brain told you to walk back inside the building. You didn’t want to accept Jack’s help. You were entirely uncertain of what that would mean to him and worse – you were completely unprepared for what it would mean to you. But you were still in heels, the hem of your dress was already damp from the snow, and the cold was biting into your skin. Your jacket turned out to be too thin for December weather.

So, with a muted curse, you followed your ex-husband.

Jack unlocked the car and you climbed into the passenger seat. Jack settled back into the driver's seat, starting the engine. He kept his right hand loosely on the steering wheel while resting his left elbow against the window frame, his knuckles propping up his chin. 

"Where are you staying?" he asked, his eyes scanning the road as he shifted into drive and pulled out of the lot into the white-out conditions.

You gave him the name of the hotel. "It’s a fifteen-minute drive."

It didn’t escape your attention how Jack’s fingers tightened on the wheel, his chest rising and falling in one heavy breath. The man didn't say a word for a full minute. The only sound inside the car was the thump of the windshield wipers clearing the snow from the glass.

"What?" you asked, turning your head to look at him.

"Nothing," he said, keeping his eyes on the road. "That's my hotel, too."

You swallowed. Oh.

The drive was rather quiet. You rested your head against the cool glass of the passenger window, watching the streetlights blur into long streaks through the melted snow. A low-volume radio station was playing Linda Ronstadt’s song, the melody filling the gaps where conversation should have been.

Every now and then, Jack’s gaze flicked sideways, as if casually, as if just for a split-second to check on you. But seeing you sitting there, so close that he could catch the scent of your perfume, was pulling at his restraint.

Jack felt sick about the ring, hating how you’d caught him off guard. This wasn't the revelation he wanted.

And, damn, this man was stuck.

It was his twisted way of coping, a loop he couldn't break out of. He had been clinging to that wedding ring for years. He had spent years wearing it, yet had taken it off the second you left. And now, while you were building a life in Chicago, he was rotting alone in the brick house you two used to share, consumed by the memory of you.

He had literally traded one ghost for another, coping with the losses by finding new ways to torture himself.

"When is your flight?" he asked as an attempt to drag the conversation into something casual.

"On Monday," you answered, not shifting your position against the window.

Jack nodded once, his eyes fixed on the red taillights of the car in front of you. "Same."

Another block passed. The snow was coming down heavier now.

"How's your…" Jack hesitated, his fingers tapping once against the wheel. "…boyfriend?"

A cold knot immediately formed in your stomach. You weren't angry with him for asking - in fact, you couldn’t blame him. "Jack…"

"Okay," he sighed. "I’m sorry."

Neither of you spoke for a long time after that. You watched the buildings pass by as Jack drove away from the city center, the sound of slush crunching under the tires filling the space between you.

"We're not together anymore," you said anyway, entirely for his own sake, knowing the curiosity was probably eating him alive.

Jack didn't look over. Not a single muscle in his face moved, but his chest remained expanded, as if he were holding his breath, absorbing the information. 

"Oh."

He didn't press any further and for that, you were grateful.

Your eyelids felt heavy, drifting shut from time to time. But every time you closed your eyes, your mind instantly replayed the image of his left hand now resting on the steering wheel. The lack of a wedding ring seemed to bother you more than when you first saw him wearing it a few years ago. It had felt like a slap on the cheek then. And now–

"Hey," Jack’s voice cut through.

He leaned slightly toward your side of the car. You opened your eyes to find him looking at you, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't you dare fall asleep on me now," he murmured. "Don't make me carry you to your bed."

When Jack finally pulled into the hotel’s gates, the parking lot looked like a ghost town. He parked the car right outside the main entrance.

Before you could even find your phone or the small plastic packet containing your room key in your purse, Jack was already out of his seat. By the time your fingers brushed the internal door handle, the passenger door swung outward from the outside.

Jack stood there with his right hand extended toward you. You hesitated for a second, your fingers tightening around your purse. Then, picturing slipping on the ice in your mind, you reached out and let your hand slide into his.

His grip was firm, but he didn't squeeze. He anchored you as your heels found the treacherous sheet of ice coating the asphalt of the hotel parking lot.

Suddenly, your foot slipped.

You lunged forward, losing your balance. Your weight shifted heavily against Jack, your free hand instinctively catching his shoulder. His forearm went rigid beneath your touch, his other hand instantly gripping your waist to hoist you upright.

"Careful," he murmured.

He was so close. Jack’s face was only inches away, his breath creating a thick cloud of steam that mingled intimately with yours. You watched his gaze drop, completely undisguised, fixing onto your mouth as his lower lip parted a little.

The fingers on your waist clamped tighter, his thumb instinctively rubbing small circles on your side. On Jack’s shoulder, your own fingers remained buried in his bicep, desperately clinging to him for balance.

"Thank you."

Slowly, you shifted your weight, testing the ground. The immediate danger of slipping had passed, yet your hand didn't move. Your fingers remained hooked into his coat as you walked toward the hotel.

It was only when your heels found the salted concrete walkway near the entrance that you finally forced your hand to drop.

Jack didn’t attempt to pull you back, but he still didn't shove his hands into his pockets when stepping back to position himself half a step behind you. He wanted to reach out – to touch your hand again, the small of your back, the curve of your waist – just for a moment, just to prove to himself again that you were actually standing there, real and within reach. But he didn't. Instead, he simply stayed close, his shadow overlapping yours, hovering near enough to ensure he could catch you if your heels failed you a second time. 

"You should get some sleep," he said. You could hear a bittersweet ghost of a smile in his words. “You look tired."

"I am," you whispered as you stepped through the door.

The hotel lobby was deserted. A single desk clerk was visible through the glass of the back office, his head buried in a book, entirely indifferent to the two of you walking past his desk. You moved toward the elevators in total silence. Jack reached out with a single finger and pressed the up button.

"Which floor are you on?" he asked.

"Four."

So he pressed the number.

The elevator ride to the fourth floor was quiet. You stood in opposite corners of the metal box, intentionally avoiding each other's reflections in its mirror. Both of you stared at the digital floor numbers as they ticked upward. You could hear Jack’s breathing and with every floor you passed, the almost violent urge to close the mere two feet of distance between you grew more intense. Yet, you stayed glued to your corner.

When the doors parted on your floor, you stepped out first, the heels clicking against the tiled floor.

"Goodnight, Jack," you said, turning around to face him, forcing a finality into your tone. "Thank you for the ride, really."

To your surprise, he stepped out of the elevator as well.

He stood on the tiled floor just inches away from you. His gaze was absorbing every single detail of you, especially the tiny tremor in your lower lip that you were unsuccessfully trying to mask. 

"Goodnight," he replied.

He turned left down the long, carpeted corridor. You let out a slow breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. You looked down at your keycard packet - Room 410 - and looked up at the room numbers mounted on the wall. The directional arrow pointed left for rooms 400 through 415.

With a small knot forming in your chest, you started walking.

Jack was about fifteen feet ahead of you. His long strides had slowed down significantly. As the corridor stretched on, you watched him walk, noting the hitch in his stride – a reminder of the prosthetic, probably aching after hours of walking, beneath his trousers. You walked behind him in the dead silence of the building, the distance between you remaining exactly, painfully the same, your heels ticking away the passing seconds like a clock.

The hallway just kept going, the silence growing more awkward with each step you took. You'd already said goodbye at the elevator, and yet here you were, trailing him through the corridor like a ghost.

Finally, Jack stopped. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his plastic keycard and tapped it against the electronic lock of Room 412. The mechanism gave a click and the little light flashed green.

Yet, he didn't push the door open.

He stood perfectly still, his large hand resting on the handle, turned sideways to you. Then, slowly, he turned his head to look at you. 

You kept walking. You couldn't exactly stop in the middle of the hallway and wait for him to go inside without looking completely ridiculous. You kept your eyes fixed on the floor three feet ahead of you until your heels stopped exactly one door away from his.

You looked up at the numbers pinned to the wood in front of you.

410.

You looked at Jack’s door. 412.

The delicate, muffled footsteps you had heard through the thin walls of your room earlier that afternoon hadn't been a stranger. It had been Jack. He had been on the other side of your headboard the entire time.

A short, ironic laugh came from his throat. 

"Of all the rooms in the building," he murmured, shaking his head.

He still didn’t enter the room. Instead, he took a half-step toward you, closing the distance just enough that you could feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes locked onto yours intensely, making your chest ache.

Jack’s gaze, yet again, dropped helplessly to your lips. His mouth parted as his chest rose in a trembling breath. You could see the muscles in his jaw tightening.

It was plain as day that keeping his hands buried deep inside his pockets was costing him everything. It was agonising to force his arms to stay still, to stop himself from catching you by the waist and pulling you against him until there wasn't a single inch of empty air left between you. It took a tremendous effort on his part to stay away.

Your brain screamed at you to step back, unlock your door and end the night.

You’d spent over a decade healing yourself from the wreckage of what you two had been, trying to learn how to breathe without him. Reopening that door now was a terrible idea as it would drag you right back into the beautiful but truly exhausting chaos of him. You knew it was dangerous, that he was dangerous, yet–

"Jack…" you breathed out.

God, you missed the time when you used to be so simple together... You missed him.

Jack’s eyes flicked back up to yours at the sound of his name, wide and vulnerable. You hadn't seen that specific expression on his face in months – the one that made it terribly clear that he was drowning in the same memories as you were. He was remembering the way you used to fit together, back when your love didn’t hurt.

"You should go inside," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, cracked wide open with a yearning he could no longer hide or control. 

"Why?" you asked, your eyes locked entirely on his lips, your own breath hitching. "Jack-"

"Please," he whispered again, his tone a pathetic plea rather than a command. He didn't move an inch closer, but his head tilted down slightly, his eyes begging you to save him from himself. "Go inside."

"Why?" you repeated.

He knew he’d broken you, and he had never even attempted to forgive himself for it. Jack loved you - more than he knew how to handle, honestly - but it seemed like every time he tried to show it, he just ended up making things worse.

Jack wasn't blind to his own nature anymore. He knew that when it came to you, he brought nothing but wreckage.

"Because if I start kissing you, I won’t be able to stop."

Your heart hammered violently against your ribs, your mind spinning as you stared up into his eyes. The promise in his words made your knees weak, your own lips parting to finally give him the permission he was begging you to withhold.

But before you could answer, before you could make the beautiful, catastrophic mistake you both wanted more than anything, Jack tore himself away.

He stepped back, the sudden distance freezing you in place. He pushed the door open and stepped inside Room 412. The door clicked shut with a soft thud, leaving you standing entirely alone in the corridor.

In JULY, the heat turned Chicago into a breathless cage, but the real suffocation remained entirely inside your own apartment.

It was a beautiful space on the tenth floor swallowed every morning by a blinding light — an ideal space for growth, a place where potted alocasias, philodendrons and you were all supposed to thrive.

It was supposed to feel like an achievement, a clean start after Pittsburgh. Instead, every time you looked at the radiologist across the breakfast island, the air in your lungs felt like sand.

The man was already awake when you walked into the living room. He looked up with an easy smile. "Morning."

"Morning."

Living with him was the easiest thing in the world. He fell into your routines seamlessly, knowing exactly the order you liked the groceries organized in the fridge, how detergents and food products couldn't be placed in the same shopping bag. When you worked late, he watered the plants without a second thought, never forgetting to add water to the humidifier standing next to the calatheas. Making a home together came naturally to him.

You wished it felt just as effortless to you. The guilt followed you everywhere.

Every time you climbed into the sheets with him, and every time you woke up next to his quiet breathing in the morning, the weight of the secrets you were keeping from him pressed down on your chest.

The ghost of another man's touch seemed to linger on your skin like an invisible stain you couldn't wash out. It didn't matter how long you stood in the shower or how hard you scrubbed your body with soap. The marks from Jack's touch were like hematomas under the skin without the purple bruise.

The intimacy on that sidewalk. Jack's mouth on yours and the desperation of his touch. The heat of the situation. And then… his stupid face and his stupid, ruinous words in front of the bar during your farewell party, when your life was already packed in boxes.

I love you. I never stopped loving you.

He had said it with those rare tears in his eyes, looking at you with a bleeding vulnerability. He hadn't even asked you to stay — not this time, not again. He hadn't begged, although the tone of his voice was doing all the begging for him. He had just laid the truth at your feet like a landmine and watched you walk away, knowing the pieces of the explosive would follow you.

Was it actually the truth? Him loving you?

The irony of it made your throat close up. This was the same man who had walked out on your marriage over a decade ago without a single word of explanation, leaving you to drown in the silence while he went off and put a ring on another woman's finger, a woman who was now gone.

For years you'd imagined hearing the words again. You had cried yourself to sleep, imagining apologies, explanations and then you started to learn how to live with the void Jack had left behind. And yet, there he was, standing in front of you at your farewell party, systematically ruining your chance for a new start without even trying. He had planted those words deep in your mind like a rot, ensuring that no matter how many state lines you crossed, you would never truly leave him behind.

You were trapped. You were living in a gorgeous, sun-drenched apartment with a gentle man who loved you, yet your mind was entirely consumed by the memory of a destructive one.

By the third week of July, the paralysis had taken over completely. You couldn't eat. The food tasted like cardboard, leaving you to push it around your plate while the radiologist talked about his day at the hospital.

"You're barely touching the quinoa," he said one evening, his caring eyes searching your face. "Is the new work getting to you?"

"No," you lied. "It's the heat. It kills my appetite."

You couldn't sleep either. You lay still for hours in the dark, your eyes wide, tracking the red digital glow of the alarm as it crept from one to two, then to three. If you moved too much, the radiologist would wake and if he woke, he'd reach for you. So you stayed frozen, listening to the hum of the air conditioning, while Jack's words repeated in your head like a broken CD player.

I love you... I never stopped loving you... I love you... I never stopped loving you… I love you...

Was it the right call to begin a new life when the old one apparently didn't yet end?

You packed your bags and crossed state lines for a clean slate, but the past caught up to you before the month was even out, refusing to let you go. On a Thursday morning, you got the proof: a thick legal envelope sitting on the lobby mail table. You loathed legal envelopes. 

Inside were papers drawn up by Jack’s attorney — an official, binding offer to buy out exactly half of your brick house in Pittsburgh. You sat at the kitchen table, staring at the pages, confused, as your head began to spin. It made no sense.

You dialed his number before you could talk yourself out of it, your thumb clumsy against the screen. But as the line started to ring against your ear, the panic set in. You weren’t ready. Not for the sound of his voice, and definitely not for everything you’d spent the last month trying to bury to come rushing back. 

“Hello?”

He picked up instantly, almost like he’d been starving for your name to light up his screen. Hearing his voice again felt so overwhelmingly intimate that you instinctively ducked your head and pressed the phone tighter to your ear to keep the sound entirely to yourself.

“Hi,” you started. “I’m looking at the papers.”

“Okay,” he muttered, waiting.

"It's not what we agreed to, Jack," you said as you paced across your apartment. "You wanted the house, so take the house."

"The agreement still stands," Jack said. "Just sign it."

You hesitated at first, but decided to trust Jack’s words and signed the papers the next day.

That house meant everything to you. You’d spent years building a life there until every corner felt like an extension of who you were. Knowing that on paper, a part of the house still legally belonged to you and it wasn't entirely gone from your life, brought you peace. The money didn’t matter, you were just grateful the place would be looked after, rather than lost to you forever.

But when you logged into your bank account a few days later, the air left your lungs. The balance staring back at you was absurd. Jack hadn't just sent his half. He’d transferred enough money to buy the entire property, yet he hadn't removed your name from a single thing.

Suddenly, living ten floors up in the air felt completely unnatural.

You missed having an actual garden. You missed the damp dirt under your fingernails and the sound of mowing the lawn. So in need to fill the void, you forced yourself to buy potted plants for the balcony railing instead. You spent hours out on the balcony railing, watering them with a plastic pitcher, trying to force them to bloom. It still felt like a cheap imitation.

When the apartment felt too empty, you took to the streets. You would leave without a word, walking for hours through different neighborhoods just to look at the green spaces. You stood there like a trespasser, watching strangers pruning their rosebushes and dragging green garden hoses across small patches of thick lawn. You were searching for a familiarity that no longer belonged to you.

But it was a pointless distraction.

Every time you spotted a cluster of pink hydrangeas blooming behind a fence, or caught the earthy scent of freshly turned soil after a sudden summer rain, your chest would tighten. Jack’s face always found you in those moments. His features would be superimposed over the strangers in the gardens, his eyes would seem to watch you through the crowded sidewalks and the passing cars.

He was in the soil. He was in the rain. He was anchoring you back to the brick house you had tried so hard to leave.

By the middle of AUGUST, you couldn't take it anymore. The heat had broken slightly, but the internal fever hadn't left you. You had spent the last month carrying the weight of Jack’s words like a chronic illness, his face finding you everywhere, reminding you of the rotting lie you were carrying around in your throat.

The snapping point came on a completely unremarkable Sunday evening.

The radiologist was standing by the kitchen counter, pouring a glass of water from the filtered pitcher, still dressed in his hospital scrubs. He looked tired and calm, his features relaxed as he watched the water rise in the glass.

He was entirely oblivious to the fact that your hands were trembling in your pockets. You were about to say something you could never take back.

The sight of his innocence made you feel physically sick. He had done nothing wrong. He had supported your move to this city, given you the space you asked for, and trusted you blindly. He had done nothing but love you.

You couldn't climb into that bed and sleep next to him for another night with this disgusting stain on your skin. You couldn't keep waking up to his kindness, his "did you sleep well?", while hiding a dirty secret in your chest like a piece of glass.

"I need to tell you something," so you began. The words didn't sound like yours.

The radiologist set down his glass, turning his calm eyes toward you, his expression shifting from fatigue to a quiet attention. He leaned back slightly against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Okay," he murmured, his analytical mind immediately picking up on the brittle tone of your voice. "What is it?"

You took a step forward. Your heart was hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird.

"I had sex with Jack," you confessed.

The words rushed out of you in a single breath, delivered before your brain could freeze your tongue or force you to bury the truth back down.

"We kissed, then he…" you stopped. "A few weeks before we moved."

The exact moment the words left your lips, a dizzying wave of relief washed over you. Your shoulders dropped an inch.

The secret was out. The rot had been exposed to the light. You didn't have to carry the secret anymore. You had broken the glass inside you, even if the shards were about to fly right into the radiologist's face.

But that quick, selfish relief was instantly crushed by the silence that followed.

The radiologist didn't say a word. He didn't yell, slam his hand against the counter or throw the glass of water against the wall.

For one long, agonizing minute he stayed frozen. His face went completely blank, his features locking down like ice as his mind tried to process a reality that had absolutely no place in the peaceful life he thought you were building together. But the calm in his eyes still didn't turn into anger.

"You had sex with Jack," he repeated.

It wasn't a question and it wasn't even an accusation. The sentence sounded completely foreign on his tongue.

"Yes, I'm sorry," you whispered, the initial rush of relief souring into shame again as you looked at the emptiness in the man's expression. You wanted him to scream at you. You wanted him to give you something to fight against. "I'm so sorry."

The man looked down at his glass of water but he didn't pick it up. His fingers twitching against the edge of the counter was the only sign of the violence happening inside his head.

Yet he didn't demand details. He didn't ask how many times, or where, or if you were thinking of Jack when you slept in your new bed.

The radiologist had spent the last few months patching up the spaces that Jack had left in your soul. He knew the whole story. He had memorized every scar, every trigger and every shadow of the man who had abandoned you.

He didn't ask if you still loved Jack. He probably knew the answer.

What was the answer?

Was it love, or was it just a pathetic, hardwired addiction to the man who had broken you first? Was it love if it felt like a constant pain? You didn't have a clean answer. All you knew was that the moment Jack's mouth had touched yours on that sidewalk, a decade of survival vanished and you had willingly become a traitor to the only man who had ever actually treated you with kindness.

Instead-

"Okay," the radiologist said quietly. Just okay.

Then he stood up straight, his arms dropping to his sides. He turned away from the counter without looking at your face. His footsteps were soft as he walked out of the kitchen. You listened to the sound of them receding down the hallway until the click of the bedroom door signaled the end of the conversation.

You stayed in the kitchen for thirty minutes, your back pressed against the wall. And for the first time in weeks, you breathed freely.

In SEPTEMBER, the apartment became absolutely silent. It was almost as if the words you'd spoken in the kitchen had never actually been uttered.

You deserved it. You knew you did, so you didn't push the radiologist for answers. You didn't ask him how he was doing, and you didn't try to force a conversation that neither of you had the emotional strength to carry. You didn't ask him how he was doing when you saw him staring at his coffee mug, and you didn't offer excuses.

So… there were no follow-up conversations, no late-night arguments through tears  and no drama. Instead, a mutual, unspoken agreement took shape between you — a collective decision to pretend the foundation hadn't cracked.

You both threw yourself into your work, taking on long shifts that turned the apartment little more into a hotel. You passed each other in the hallway like polite strangers — one coming home just as the other was grabbing their keys to leave, exchanging nothing more than a nod or a functional word about the mail.

"The water bill is on the table," he would say, his voice perfectly level, his glance fixed on his briefcase.

"I'll take care of it," you would reply, keeping your eyes on the floor near the man's shoes.

"Thanks."

Underneath that professional courtesy, the guilt was a living thing, a parasite eating away at your stomach from the inside out. You felt utterly monstrous, trapped in a hell of your own making.

He didn't act like he hated you. He was simply, inch by inch, erasing himself from your shared life so cleanly it made your bones ache. A decade ago, Jack had vanished almost overnight, leaving behind a void and a mountain of unanswered questions that had nearly destroyed you. The radiologist was doing the opposite — he was fading out, turning himself into a ghost before he had even packed a single bag.

Yet this time you knew with absolute, gut-wrenching certainty that you deserved every ounce of that coldness.

The only time that absolute silence ever truly broke was when the physical distance inside the apartment became too much to maintain.

Over the course of those exhausting September weeks, you still had sex, but the tenderness had vanished completely from the bed. It was replaced by a sort of routine necessity. It became the only real interaction you had left — a desperate discharge of everything you weren't saying out loud.

Whenever you finally found yourselves in the kitchen or the hallway together after a long shift, there was never a preamble. No soft kiss on the shoulder, no quiet "how was your day", no gentle touch to see if you were alright. He would simply look at you from across the room, his eyes dark with an angry, volatile friction that replaced his everyday indifference. Then, he would walk over and pull you toward the bedroom by your wrist, his grip tight enough to leave red bands on your skin.

He'd push you against the mattress, his touch demanding and bruising. He never once crossed the line into actually hurting you, but he was testing the limits of your body, using his weight to lock you down. It was simply his unexpressed anger, his mourning for the future you'd killed, and his pride finally breaking through.

And, God, the sex… it was incredible.

The radiologist would spank you a little harder than usual. He would close his hand around your throat, choking you just a little longer than he ever had before, holding you down until the air in your lungs turned to lead and your vision blurred at the edges. 

There was a quiet violence to the way he controlled your breath, but he always made sure you came. He practically forced those orgasms out of you with a calculated focus, his crushed ego slipping through the cracks of his restraint. It was as if he needed to hear you break under him, as if he was trying to extract proof from your body that he was better than Jack, that he could possess you more completely than the man who still held your soul.

He had never called you a whore before, but one night, with his mouth pressed hard against your ear and his fingers tightly tangled in your hair, the word slipped out of him.

You didn't mind. In fact, you welcomed it. It felt like the first honest thing he’d expressed since August, a verbal branding that perfectly matched the wreckage of your own choices.

You were indeed a lying, cheating piece of shit, a slut who had broken trust without a second thought. You needed him to treat you like garbage because you couldn’t stand the sight of yourself in the mirror.

You wanted the degradation — you had earned it.

Even if it was a dark kind of heat born out of pure frustration, it was consuming. It was as if the radiologist was trying to use your bodies to voice the screams he had been keeping behind his teeth since August, trying to physically scrape away Jack Abbot’s name from your skin by leaving his own marks over the ones from your ex-husband.

You met the radiologist's intensity head-on, your fingers digging into the muscles of his back, drawing him deep down into you, driven by your own need for distraction. You wanted him to fuck the thoughts out of your head until the room spun, until everything went completely blank, until the memory of Pittsburgh was burned out.

And the moment it was over, the silence always returned before your breathing could even slow down.

He would roll away immediately to his side of the bed, his back turned to you while you stared at the ceiling. Neither of you ever said a single word. There was no comfort, no aftercare. You were just two tired people who used each other's bodies to quiet the noise in your own heads, hoping it might actually help you fall asleep.

And even if you woke up with your bodies tangled together out of simple, old habit, you’d still wake up as strangers, pulling away the second awareness returned, 

The only mercy was that the violence of the routine actually worked.

The looping playback of Jack's voice began to scratch and fade in your mind, buried under the silence of your new life, and his face didn't find you in the features of strangers on the street nearly as often anymore. The green spaces of Chicago became just grass again.

The fragile peace you had maintained finally broke down a little over a month after your confession. In OCTOBER, the radiologist moved out of the apartment.

When you walked through the door after an exhausting twelve-hour shift, the first thing that caught your eye was the sight of his bags packed and lined up in the hallway. Instantly, you knew the plaster had cracked.

He was standing by the kitchen counter, exactly where he had been in August, but this time he was already dressed in his coat, his car keys gripped loosely in his right hand. He didn't look angry, as he never did, only incredibly worn out.

"I need some time," he explained flatly, his voice lacking any of the warmth that used to define him. He didn't look you in the eye as he said it, choosing instead to focus on the grey weather outside the window. "To think, process."

"I'm sorry," you whispered. The apology felt like a reflex, tearing from your throat before you could stop it. You walked a few steps closer, but stopped before you reached the threshold of the kitchen, keeping the distance wide. "I'm so sorry."

The words felt small, pathetic and entirely useless.

The radiologist gave a single nod — not an acceptance of the apology, just an acknowledgement that he had heard the sound you made. Then he stepped past you. He moved so carefully that his shoulder didn't even brush against yours. The man picked up his bags from the hallway and the front door clicked shut behind him.

Was your relationship over? You didn't know.

Was this a temporary break-up, a need for breathing room before he decided he could live with your sins? You didn't know.

You didn't ask him to clarify, you didn't yell after him, and you certainly didn't follow him down the hall to the elevator. You stayed exactly where you were, standing in the middle of the apartment, staring at the blank wall where his coat used to hang.

Perhaps you kept your mouth shut because you were terrified of a definitive, positive answer — that he was never coming back, which would be an official seal on the end of your new life, forcing you to accept the wreckage you'd caused.

Or perhaps, deep down in the darkest, most honest corners of your mind, you were terrified of a negative one.

You were terrified that he might actually clear his head after a month or two, turn around, come back through that door, and ask you to keep trying to love him. You were scared of the effort it would take to pretend, scared that he would ask for a commitment you couldn't give when you knew that your heart was still buried four hundred miles away in the brick house in Pittsburgh, under the dirt you missed so much.

So just like that, without any screaming or throwing dishes, you were living all alone again.

The Chicago apartment became peaceful and quiet again, leaving you with nothing but the consequences of your choices and the changing season outside.

Every corner of the flat, from the tidy kitchen counters where his coffee mug used to sit to the empty hangers clicking against each other in the closet, was a reminder of everything you had broken. The bed was the worst part — huge and freezing, the sheets holding no scent of anyone else, leaving you completely alone with your thoughts. You would wrap yourself in blankets, but the chill seemed to come from the space where a good man used to sleep.

With the radiologist gone, the distractions failed. And that was when Jack's face started haunting your dreams all over again.

In NOVEMBER, the plants you bought in the summer were nothing but blackened, brittle stalks now, frozen solid in their plastic pots, covered in a thin dusting of frost.

You couldn't bring yourself to throw them away. You left them out there, rattling against the railing whenever the wind picked up. The flat had now become a museum of errors you couldn't erase, and those dead leaves were just another exhibit in the collection of things you had failed to keep alive.

You lived in your scrubs. You took double shifts in the hospital until the skin under your eyes turned violet and your hands shook slightly when you reached for a syringe. The physical exhaustion was your only distraction. But when your bones ached and your head throbbed from hours of monitoring patients and filling out charts, you didn't have the capacity to think about the radiologist or Jack.

Yet that strategy failed the moment you went to sleep. The dreams didn't care how tired you were. In fact, the deeper the exhaustion, the more vivid the betrayal of your own mind became. Your brain would slide right back inside of the house in Pittsburgh, forcing you to relive the touch and the spoken words over and over.

By the middle of the month, your department head called you into her office.

"Sit down," she said, gesturing vaguely to the leather chair opposite the desk without looking up immediately.

Dr. Mohanty was a living legend at Northwestern Memorial. You vividly remembered a lecture she had given during your med school days and listening to her speak about the human mind with such passion was the exact reason you had fallen in love with the brain in the first place. To learn from her now was the highest honor of your career.

You sat, your knees stiff from a night spent on your feet. "Is there an issue, Doctor?"

"No, absolutely not." She shook her head. "If anything, you're working too much, which brings me to my point."

The woman reached down, sliding a beige envelope across the polished wood. Your stomach did a familiar, unpleasant flip. Again with the elegant envelopes.

"The administrative board has selected three representatives from our hospital to attend the charity ball," Dr. Mohanty explained.

You looked down at the gold lettering, your eyes scanning the elegant script:

The Annual Charity Medical Ball. Benefiting Clinical Research at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. December 11th, 6 p.m.

The words stared back at you from the stiff paper.

"With all due respect, Doctor, December is packed with head injuries," you said, furrowing your brows as you looked up, trying to inject as much urgency into your voice as possible. "I can't leave the floor."

"The unit will survive forty eight hours without you," your boss laughed under her breath, but the sound had no real amusement in it. She exhaled, tapping her pen against the desk, her sharp eyes assessing your pale face, the dark circles you hadn't managed to hide with makeup. "You've been basically living here, pulling double shifts. This isn't an invitation you decline, you know."

"I'm sure there are others who are far more suited for a gala environment," you tried again, your fingers tightening around the edge of your scrub pants. "I don't have the—"

"You'll be perfect," Dr. Mohanty said, her tone signaling the end of any discussion. She offered a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "And it's good for your career. Get out of this hospital. Buy a dress, smile for the cameras and make the hospital some money. The administration is covering the travel and the hotel."

She grabbed her tablet again, a professional dismissal.

You stood up, your legs feeling oddly hollow and picked up the envelope. You walked out into the corridor, staring at the address on the invitation.

b e t w e e n  2 0 1 3  a n d  2 0 2 3

"Oh my god," you moaned, your head tilting back into the flat pillow as your fingers dug deep into the rigid muscles of his shoulders. "Tommy, don't stop... Please."

"You feel so fucking good," Tommy muttered in pleasure, his voice rough and breathless against your neck.

He didn't slow down. Instead, his large hands gripped your thighs and spread them even wider as he thrusted deeper into you. You let out a ragged gasp.

He leaned down, his mouth catching yours in a sloppy kiss that tasted faintly of cheap cigarettes. His tongue slid against yours, and his fingers dug harder into your hips, almost painfully.

"F-fuck," he breathed against your lips, pulling back just an inch, his eyes completely blown out as he looked down at you. "Look at you. All spread out for me."

"Shut up," you choked out, your voice fracturing as you arched into him, your head spinning from the heat rising between your thighs. "Just… harder."

Tommy let out a low chuckle that vibrated right through your chest. "Demandin' today, aren't we?" he grunted, his hips slamming hard against yours with a frantic pace that stole the remaining air from your lungs.

"Tommy, please…" you whined, your hands slipping from his shoulders to grip the damp sheets. "I'm gonna—"

"God, you're trying to ruin me," he whimpered. His teeth caught the sensitive skin right where your shoulder met your neck, making you shiver violently.

Your legs curled tighter around his waist to pull him deeper. You clutched at his back, your nails leaving faint red marks on his skin as you finally came on his cock.

"I've got you, baby," he grunted, his own pace fracturing into something desperate as he buried himself inside you one last time. His chest heaved wildly against yours as he came, his forehead pressing hard into the crook of your neck, his breath rattling against your skin.

You stayed like that for a minute, staring up at the yellowed water stains on the ceiling while your pulse gradually slowed.

A sudden, quiet laugh escaped your lips. Tommy chuckled softly beside you, rolling over onto his back with a groan and dragging a hand across his sweated face.

In truth, Tommy was genuinely one of the few good things left in this place. Over the last few years, you had actually become close friends. He didn't treat you like a burden or an extra mouth to feed — he just treated you like a real human being. It made the sex simple, a natural extension of a solid friendship between two people who just needed to block out the world for an hour.

There was no grand poetry to this, no sweeping love story, no declarations of devotion or promises for a future that likely wouldn't happen — just a clean, functional way to feel something warm and human once in a while.

When the world outside your door consisted entirely of ration cards and the constant dread of the infected, you learned to take comfort wherever you could find it. And all you needed was skin against skin, which Tommy provided.

And, God, he was excellent.

When it was over, there was no awkwardness. He’d just lie there beside you with a lazy, satisfied grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was exactly what it needed to be — completely uncomplicated.

Tommy cleared his throat. "I should go," he said, his voice still thick with exhaustion.

"Five more minutes," you muttered, closing your eyes.

The man chuckled, turning back onto his side and planting a few soft kisses on your bare shoulder.

Then, someone banged violently at the door. The three short, aggressive strikes rattled the loose hinges, making your stomach instantly drop.

"Tommy!" Joel’s deep voice cut straight through the wood, dripping with pure annoyance. "Move your ass!"

Tommy let out a long, defeated groan into the crook of your shoulder, his forehead dropping against your collarbone as he cursed softly under his breath. "Jesus." He scrambled out of the sheets, untangling his legs from yours, and hastily pulled his jeans up over his hips. He didn't even bother buttoning them completely as he walked over and cracked the door open just a few inches.

Joel was standing in the corridor, his arms crossed tightly over his massive chest, his brow furrowed into a hard, unforgiving line. The collar of his jacket was dark and damp from the rain outside.

"Give me a second, goddamn," Tommy muttered, running a hand through his messy hair. He turned back and headed to the bathroom, leaving the door wide open and completely abandoning you with Joel.

Joel stepped inside the apartment, his boots thudding against the warped floorboards. He didn't shoot a single glance in his brother's direction. Instead, his focus shifted entirely to the bed.

You felt incredibly self-conscious, pulling the blanket tighter around your body under Joel's unblinking stare. He didn't look away — his dark eyes burned with a judgmental irritation that seemed to take in every detail of the messy room.

Your clothes were discarded carelessly on the floor, tangled with Tommy's flannel shirt. Your skin was still flushed, and your hair was a wild mess around your face. Most importantly, you were only covered by that old, scratchy blanket.

You could feel the weight of Joel's judgment tracing the bare line of your collarbone, and the realization of just how vulnerable you were under his gaze made your throat go tight.

Joel's eyes lingered a second too long on the exposed curve of your breast where the wool had slipped, his jaw clenching.

"If you must screw my brother, at least don't make him late because of it," Joel said, his voice low and reserved only for your ears. "Again."

A prickle of heat and embarrassment flared in your chest, instantly followed by a defensive spark of anger. You hated how his judgment could make you feel so small, like a child caught doing something naughty.

"He's a grown man, Joel," you shot back, keeping your voice steady despite the way your heart was hammering against your ribs. "He makes his own choices. You don't own him."

"He’s up here wasting time," Joel stepped a fraction closer to the mattress. "And you’re letting him."

"Oh, so it's my fault now?" You let out a harsh, bitter laugh, digging your fingernails into the blanket. "I didn't tie him to the bed, Joel. If you're so pissed, take it up with him. Leave me out of it."

Joel’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Tess is already waiting at the checkpoint, risking her neck because you two couldn't keep your hands to yourselves for one damn night."

A frustrating, uninvited twinge of jealousy flared in your chest at the sound of her name. God, you were so sick of it. It was always Tess.

Joel used her as the standard for everything you weren't, constantly throwing her name in your face like a reprimand. Tess was the partner he trusted — the one who didn't cause problems, who didn't complicate things, who always kept her head in the game.

But what infuriated you the most was the way Joel looked at you — like you were still only a teenager who used to look after Sarah while he worked late. For some annoying reason, he couldn't see past that. But you had starved, bled, and killed to survive just like the rest of them, and yet, he still refused to acknowledge it.

You respected Tess, you genuinely liked her, but the constant comparison made you want to scream.

"Tess knows how to handle herself," you said, your voice dropping a fraction, trying to match his lethal tone.

"Yeah, because she focuses on the job," Joel grunted, his eyes tracking the tight, defensive grip of your fingers on the blanket before locking back onto your face. "Not whatever the hell it is you two are doing."

"Oh, please," you hissed, leaning forward slightly, forgetting for a moment that you were completely naked beneath the wool, the anger boiling over. "Don't act like you don't screw Tess."

Joel froze. In an instant, his irritating impatience vanished, replaced by a stiffness. He didn't blink, his dark eyes locking onto yours. "Watch your mouth."

"Why? Because it's different when it's you?" you shot back, refusing to look away. "I'm not nineteen, and you're not my boss anymore, Joel."

"Tess and I don't let our personal business put a shadow on our runs," Joel muttered, leaning down just enough to narrow the space between you. "If we're late, people die. If we're distracted, we get caught. It's that simple."

You let out a humorless breath, shaking your head. "I guess you want everyone to be as miserable as you are."

"I want everyone to stay alive," Joel said flatly, his voice cold as ice. "And right now, this, whatever this is, is making you both sloppy."

Before you could fire back another insult, Tommy emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed now, buckling his belt. He looked between the two of you, picking up on the tension vibrating through the room, and let out an exhausted sigh.

"Alright, that's enough," Tommy said, stepping closer. "Joel, drop it. The girl didn't do anything. I'm ready."

Joel didn't look at his brother. He kept his burning gaze fixed on your face for one last, agonizing second, a cold shadow crossing his features as his eyes dipped down to the blanket one final time. Then he turned back and headed towards the exit. "Let's go."

p r e s e n t

It was the first proper day off you’d had in nearly three weeks. Between tending the community greenhouse and cataloging the supplies, your hands were usually stained with dirt and dust from sunrise to sunset. But today, the wooden chalkboard calendar in the communal kitchen finally had your name cleared.

It was a strange, peaceful kind of domesticity that you still weren't fully used to, even after all this time. In the old days, a free afternoon was a luxury you couldn't afford — it meant you were either starving or hiding. Here, it just meant you had time to watch the dust motes dance in the sunlight.

A familiar knock on the door broke the silence. You walked over, pulling the door open to find Tommy standing on the porch, looking relaxed in his shearling-lined jacket.

"Hey," he said, leaning his shoulder casually against the doorframe and tilting his head. "Look at you. Actually relaxing. I wasn't sure if the rumors were true."

"Don't get used to it," you let out a quiet laugh, stepping aside to let the man inside. "What are you doing here, Tommy? I thought you were on patrol duty today."

"I switched with Adam."

Tommy stepped inside and sat on the sofa, stretching his legs out with a heavy sigh. The old leather groaned under his weight as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Spoke to Colton this morning before he headed out," Tommy said, his eyes tracking you as you moved around the small living room. "He mentioned he hasn't seen much of you lately."

"We literally live together," you shot back.

"Yeah, well, sharing a roof don't mean you're actually in the same room," Tommy countered, a small smirk playing under his blonde beard. "What are you, avoiding him?"

"I'm not avoiding him," you muttered, keeping your eyes on the blanket you were smoothing down. "Just busy."

"Right. Busy," Tommy repeated, a knowing chuckle in his voice. "He's just worried about you."

"I'm just tired," you said softly, finally stacking the last blanket on the arm of the chair. "The greenhouse's been a nightmare this week. Half the irrigation pipes froze up on Tuesday, and the tomatoes are barely hanging on."

You stood there for a moment, letting the quiet settle between you.

Winter was fast approaching, and in Jackson, that meant the real trial was only about to begin. The upcoming drop in temperature meant twice the amount of work down at the community greenhouses — the glass panels needed extra insulation to protect the fragile crops from the impending mountain frost, and there was a narrow window left to harvest the final yield and catalog the seeds for next spring's planting before the ground froze solid.

"You need to catch a break, girl," Tommy said after a while, his expression softening as he leaned back against the cushions. "You'll work yourself to death."

"Well, if I die, bury me under the apple trees," you shot back with a faint smirk, wiping a strand of hair from your forehead. "The human body makes great compost. At least I'd finally be useful to the soil."

Tommy shook his head, laughing, a loud, genuine sound that filled the house. "Jesus."

"So… did you actually need something or did you just want to come in here and critique my relationship and my funeral plans?" you asked, turning around with your hands on your hips, giving him an amused look.

Tommy chuckled again, holding his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm actually heading out to check on the hydroelectric dam. Colton and the boys are down there right now. Said they're going to try to start the turbines today, see if we can get proper power running through the town."

You raised an eyebrow, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. "What do you need me there for? I don't know a single thing about it."

"C'mon," Tommy chuckled, pushing himself up from the couch. "It’s a beautiful afternoon, the trails are clear, and I figured you could use some fresh air, get out of your own head for a few hours before you actually bury yourself under those apples."

You hesitated for a moment. The laundry was still waiting, and there was always more prep work to do before the November snow, but the thought of spending the rest of your afternoon staring at these four walls suddenly felt incredibly boring compared to the open trail. You needed a break.

"Besides, Colton would probably love to see your face out there," Tommy teased, giving you a playful nudge with his shoulder as he walked past.

"Okay, fine," you exhaled after a second, a small smile breaking through. "Give me two minutes to change."

2 0 1 3

"I'm gonna be late tonight," Joel’s voice rumbled through the phone, sounding completely exhausted. "Tell her I'm sorry."

You shifted the device against your ear, leaning against the kitchen counter as you looked over at Sarah. She was curled up on the sofa, her eyes glued to the television screen.

"Joel, it's your birthday," you exhaled, a gentle, reprimanding tone in your voice.

"I know, I know, sweetheart," he sighed deeply, the sound of heavy machinery or traffic muffled in the background. "I'll buy food on the way home."

"Just don't be too late," you teased softly, checking your watch. "I have a date tomorrow. Don't want to be a zombie for it."

There was a brief pause on the line, the subtle sound of Joel shifting his phone. "You'll be home before midnight, I promise," he murmured. "See ya."

He hung up before you could answer, leaving you smiling as you cradled the phone.

In truth, you didn't mind staying late at the Millers' house to watch Sarah; you loved that kid like she was your own little sister. At nineteen, you were caught in that dizzying limbo between girlhood and adulthood, and though you were supposed to be focusing on college, your favorite place to be was right here. Whenever you had a few free hours, you found yourself over at their house, keeping Sarah company, helping her with homework, or arguing over what to watch on TV.

Millers were old family friends — Joel and Tommy had been in your life for as long as you could remember. Because of that, Joel saw you as the reliable, responsible girl just a block away whom he could trust completely with his daughter.

But to you, Joel was everything a nineteen-year-old girl could dream of: mature, experienced, and unbelievably hot, with just that first faint hint of gray creeping into his dark hair.

"Was that dad?" Sarah asked, popping her head over the back of the sofa.

"Yeah. He's stuck at work for a bit longer," you said, walking over and plumping down beside her. "But he promised he's bringing food."

"He always says that," Sarah rolled her eyes with the classic dramatic flair of a twelve-year-old. "Come on, let's find a movie. But you have to promise you won't fall asleep during the good parts this time."

"Hey, I only blinked for a long time last time," you defended yourself, laughing as she scrambled over to the shelf of DVDs.

Hours drifted by in the quiet suburban house. By the time the second movie started rolling its credits, Sarah’s head was heavy against your shoulder, her breathing slow and rhythmic. Despite your promise, your own eyelids grew impossibly heavy, the low murmur of the television eventually lulling you into a deep sleep.

The jingle of keys in the front door woke you up.

You blinked against the dim light of the living room, rubbing your eyes as you saw Joel's broad frame silhouetted in the doorway. He looked completely worn out.

"Hey, kiddo," Joel said quietly as he stepped inside, trying his best not to wake his daughter.

You smiled at him, a sleepy yawn catching you off guard as you shifted on the couch. Looking past him toward the wall, you noticed the clock was already ticking toward eleven o'clock. Joel's gaze tracked yours.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, noticing the hour. "Didn't mean to keep you waiting this late."

"It's okay," you said softly, carefully shifting so you wouldn't disturb the sleeping girl beside you.

"The truck broke down, and Tommy and I had to spend two hours just—"

"Joel," you cut in, offering him a warm, reassuring smile. "It's okay, really."

The sound of your voices started to wake Sarah. She stirred against your side, her long eyelashes fluttering open. Her face lit up the moment she saw her dad. She jumped right off the sofa, completely abandoning her blanket, and crashed directly into his arms.

Soon, as the film hummed in the background, the initial bursts of laughter faded into a quiet. Sarah drifted off first, her head resting heavily on her dad's lap, completely dead to the world.

Joel sat up slowly, carefully maneuvering so he could slide his arms under her small frame. He lifted her effortlessly, giving you a quiet, apologetic look as he headed toward the stairs. "Give me a second," he whispered.

He came back down after a few minutes, just as you were collecting your things and searching for your blouse. He reached the bottom of the steps, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his dark eyes tracking your movements.

"Stay the night," Joel said suddenly.

You paused, holding your bag a little tighter as a sudden wave of heat rushed up your neck. "I don't want to intrude. Sarah's already asleep, and you've had a brutal shift. You don't need a house guest, Joel."

"You're not a guest," he countered softly. "And you sure as hell aren't an intrusion."

You raised your eyes, looking at Joel, completely unconvinced. You knew how much Joel valued peace and quiet after a backbreaking day of work. You didn't even expect him to offer you a ride home like he always did; you were completely fine with going on foot.

"Come on," he said instead, already stepping closer. The exhaustion on his face seemed to melt away, giving way to a boyish, teasing smirk that completely caught you off guard. "It's still my birthday for another few minutes. Don't make me spend it alone."

He then flashed you a genuine smile — the kind that reached all the way to the corners of his eyes — and it instantly gave you a fierce rush of butterflies in your chest.

How could you ever say no to this man?

"Fine."

You let out a defeated laugh, completely helpless against that look, and dropped your bag back onto the armchair.

"Beer?" Joel offered, a playful glint in his eyes as he walked past you toward the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door, the yellow light illuminating his profile. "Or am I too old for offering you a drink?"

You sat down on the edge of the sofa.

"You're not an ancient artifact just yet, you know," you called back, a small smirk playing on your own lips as you watched him move.

The man's laugh drifted from the kitchen, accompanied by the clink of glass bottles and the hiss of two caps being popped off. Joel walked back into the living room and handed one to you. His calloused fingers brushed against yours for a brief second, sending a shiver down your spine.

Joel sat next to you. He leaned his head back against the cushions, letting out a long breath, the exhaustion finally wearing off.

The green digital display of the kitchen clock shifted to 11:55 p.m. Only five minutes left of his birthday.

"Happy birthday, Joel," you said softly, your voice trembling slightly with that intense, nineteen-year-old nervousness.

And before your brain could talk you out of it, you shifted closer. You leaned in, your hand instinctively rising to rest against his shoulder for balance. You closed your eyes and pressed your lips against his cheek.

His skin was warm, his fresh stubble slightly rough against your lips. It was supposed to be a simple, sweet gesture, but the sudden proximity made your heart beat erratically against your ribs.

Joel didn't move away. Instead, you could feel his cheekbones rising as he smiled. "Thank you, sweetheart," he murmured.

His deep voice made your stomach flip.

You stayed like that for a moment, your faces turned towards each other, only inches away. Your imagination was running entirely wild now.

"So…" Joel started. "You really have a date tomorrow, or you just wanted me to come home sooner?"

"Can't tell," you giggled, leaning back on the couch. "Maybe both."

"Maybe both?" Joel repeated, letting out a low chuckle. "Come on, sweetheart. Who's the guy?"

You hesitated for a brief moment.

"Ben."

"Ben," Joel tested the word like it tasted bad. "He sounds boring."

"You only know his name," you laughed.

"Yeah, because he doesn't exist," Joel murmured, his dark eyes locking onto yours with a sudden, knowing intensity that made your breath catch. "I know you just wanted me home sooner."

You felt a hot flush rush up your neck. You threw your hands up in mock defeat, trying to sound chill and relaxed, but your hands were trembling a little. "Fine, you got me. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Joel said. His knee brushed against yours, and this time, he didn't pull it away. "It feels nice actually."

"Oh, really?" you teased, leaning in just a fraction of an inch.

"Sure," Joel whispered, his Texas drawl thick as he tilted his head, studying your face. "S'been ages since a woman wanted me home."

"Oh my…" You shook your head as a breathless laugh escaped you. "First of all, you make it sound like I'm hitting on you, and I'm not. Second of all, I'm sure—"

"Is that right?" Joel interrupted, a lazy smile touching his lips. He leaned in a little closer, his broad shoulder brushing against yours. "Well, you could've fooled me, sweetheart. Because from where I'm sitting, you're doing a pretty good job of it."

Your pulse hammered in your throat.

"I'm just being a good friend," you protested weakly, though the way you were looking at his mouth completely gave you away.

"Mhm."

You sat in silence for a while, just staring at each other, and his physical presence suddenly felt entirely overwhelming.

His arms were thick and well-defined, the muscles of his forearms taut as he sat leaning slightly forward. His dark hair was messy, falling carelessly over his forehead, and the skin of his face and neck was weathered and sun-darkened from regular outdoor labor.

You couldn't take your eyes off him. He looked so impossibly handsome, gorgeous, beautiful, breathtaking…

Sitting there in the light of the floor lamp, he didn't possess the restless, performative energy of guys your own age; Joel was a grown man who knew exactly who he was and how to hold his space.

Up close, you could see the exhaustion etched into the faint lines around his eyes, yet those eyes remained focused on your face, tracking your every breath with an intensity that made your chest ache.

"You work too much," you said, exhaling. "You deserve a break, to actually be home."

"I am home," Joel whispered, all the teasing completely fading away.

You didn't answer.

"Thank you," he said again after a while. "For staying with Sarah... and with me."

The vulnerability in his voice caught you completely off guard, melting away the playful barrier you had tried to keep up. At nineteen, hearing this independent, gorgeous man express actual appreciation for your presence made something ache deeply in your chest.

You bit your lower lip to keep from letting your emotions show too clearly.

Joel noticed it instantly, his jaw tightening as he caught himself staring at your lips.

Maybe it was the exhaustion of a fourteen-hour workday, his older brain playing tricks on him, but for a split second, he viewed you a little differently. The familiar image of the reliable girl from down the street blurred, replaced by the reality of how close you were sitting, and how entirely focused you were on him.

But as quickly as the thought flared up, the reality pulled him back. You were nineteen — way too young for him. There were rules and boundaries he had no intention of crossing just because you happened to pay him a little too much attention on his birthday.

You flinched at the piercing sound of the phone, breaking the tension between you two.

Joel stood up and headed towards it, confusion written on his face as he checked his watch. It was past midnight — nobody called at this hour unless something was seriously wrong.

"It's Tommy."

p r e s e n t

The sun was dipping behind the mountain peaks, casting long, orange shadows across the wooden fences and roofs of Jackson. You stood in the greenhouse, holding a crate of tomatoes. It smelled like damp earth and crushed leaves in there.

There was plenty of work to do around the settlement. As a member of the council, you handled supplies, mostly focusing on the gardens. You knew the warehouse stock and the planting calendar by heart.

You wiped your forehead with the back of a dirty hand. In the greenhouse glass, you caught your reflection: a faded shirt, a tool belt resting on your hips, hair pinned up on top of your head.

You were thirty-nine, with a few new wrinkles around your eyes now and a small scar on your jaw — a souvenir from a run-in with scavengers somewhere in Colorado.

And soon, you were getting married.

You snorted to yourself at the very thought.

A wedding. In a world that had turned to an end twenty years ago, you were about to put on a simple, cream-colored dress found in some old warehouse stock and say 'I do.'

"Hey, how’s the prep coming along?" Tommy called out, leaning against the doorframe with that familiar roguish smile of his.

He had plenty of gray hair at his temples now, but he was still the same Tommy who had stepped in like an older brother during the worst moments of your life.

"Almost done," you said, wiping your hands on a rag. "Now I'm just hoping the groom doesn't bolt before we get to the altar." You chuckled under your breath.

"I wouldn't worry about that. The kid’s completely lost his head over you."

You smiled, but you felt a familiar knot tighten in your stomach. Tommy noticed you grew quiet.

"Everything okay?" he asked softly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "If it's pre-wedding jitters, that's normal. I almost threw up behind the stables before marrying Maria."

"Yeah, I'm fine," you replied, leaning against the seed table. "Just… the wedding in this world—"

"Hey, we all need normalcy," Tommy cut in, instantly getting your point.

You were only nineteen when the outbreak hit, yet you remembered it like it was yesterday evening. How terrified you were, hearing all the screams, seeing the explosions, and the fire. People — no, animals, by then — threw themselves at anyone in sight, tearing them apart and killing them on the spot. It was still a recurring nightmare that haunted you every night.

You survived the hell of the escape that night, but Sarah… she died on that road, right in front of your eyes.

From that moment on, the three of you stuck together. But eventually, things started to sour between the  Miller brothers, and when it was time for you to make a choice, it had almost killed you, choosing Tommy's side.

You remembered that last screaming match. Tommy’s packed rucksack by the door, and the words he spat on his way out: "I don't ever want to see your goddamn face again."

After packing your things and leaving the QZ with Tommy, the two of you had gone a long way before finally ending up here in Wyoming and founding Jackson.

And now, twenty years since the outbreak…

Look at you.

You had your own home, a real roof over your head, and a small garden with rich soil where things actually grew. You had a community where everyone genuinely gave a damn about your safety and well-being. You'd found someone who could still be kind and warm, despite the horror happening just outside the walls of Jackson.