all my loves

He looks down at you with a smile. The smile.

“Stop smiling at me like that.”

“Can’t.”

“Don’t,” you breathe.

“What?”

“I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

“Wanted to see it when it was quiet,” he mumbles, rocking back on his heels with his hand stuffed in his pocket, the other locked in yours.

“Mhmm,” you huff, rolling your eyes but your smile never fades.

“I mean...” He gestures toward the empty arena. “Seems a shame to waste all this.”

“You’re unbelievable—”

“Whole arena to ourselves.” He shrugs, eyes sliding away like you’re being irrational. “Seems irresponsible not to.”

“Baby…”

“For me?” He pouts, lifting your hand to kiss the top, but he already knows you’re down.

“For you—” Before you can get another word out, he’s got his arms around your waist, lifting you clean off the ground.

He laughs, warm and breathless against your mouth before kissing you, stealing whatever rational thoughts you had left about how badly this could end.

Because for Garrett Graham, there’s not much you wouldn’t do.

You knew him before any of this. Before the draft. Before reporters crowded around his locker after games. Before kids started showing up to the rink wearing his jersey and asking for autographs.

You knew the version of Garrett that stayed at the rink until the lights turned off. The version of him that called you after losses, only to spend forty-five minutes talking himself in circles until you talked him down.

And somehow, standing here now in an empty arena after the biggest night of his life, he still looks at you exactly the way he always has.

Your hands slip into his hair and you shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You made it, Garrett Graham.”

For a second he just stands there holding you, letting those words sink in.

“You’re here too. We made it.” He laughs quietly, shaking his head. “Couldn’t have gotten through half of it without you,” he says, his voice breaking a little. His forehead bumps gently against yours as he breathes you in. “Best night of my life. Wouldn’t wanna share it with anyone else.”

“You happy?” You whisper, and the corners of his lips curl into a smile.

“The happiest,” he hums, tilting in for a kiss. Your back bumps lightly against the glass as his fingers tighten on your thighs, holding you there.

“What if we’re super quiet?” He mumbles. “Like super… fucking… quiet.” Garrett’s voice lowers, peppering words between kisses.

“What if we get caught?” The question sounds more like a challenge than a warning, and Garrett knows it.

“We’ve done this before—”

“In college,” you giggle.

“Just a few more seats, pretty. Ice in the middle. Practically the same thing.” His body presses into you, pulling out a sound from you that has him groaning against your lips. “You know,” he adds, “for someone who keeps telling me this is a bad idea, you sure haven’t tried very hard to leave.”

Your fingers release from his hair and the back of his shirt, your kiss softening just enough to disprove his point but it’s too late.

“Nah, keep going, baby,” he teases, pulling you off the wall and toward the side door of the penalty box before he slides in with you, gripping the handle and pushing it shut until it clicks. The sound echoes across the empty arena, making both of you flinch before dissolving into quiet laughter.

He drops onto the bench like he owns it. “C’mere, pretty girl,” he murmurs, pulling you onto his lap, your knees pressing into the metal bench.

Your hands come up, wrapping around his shoulders, settling on top like you’ve probably done too many times before if you’re being honest.

He tilts forward, pressing a lingering kiss against your neck. The warmth of his breath sends a shiver through you. The arena is silent around you, the ice glowing faintly beyond the glass.

His hands drift along the waistband of your skirt. “This okay?” He whispers.

And you nod in reply as his hands drag over your thighs, slipping in between, your breath catching when he drags his palm back up your panties.

“Holy shit.” The words rush out of him as he grabs the waistband of his sweats and tugs them down just enough, the gold chain around his neck swinging free.

“So good to me,” he mumbles, licking his lips as his rough fingers shift the soft material to the side.

He groans softly when the air hits him, forehead pressed to yours. His eyes roll back when your hand wraps around his dick, the tension between you thick as you start to stroke. Garrett’s fingers push inside you, making your brows furrow.

His lips fall open as the two of you settle into a rhythm, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when you throw your head back, his long fingers curving just right.

Garrett lets out a low moan, his eyes never leaving you. The excitement from the game is still written all over him, his chest rising and falling as you fist his cock, his lip tucked between his teeth, still riding high off adrenaline.

You shift closer as anticipation twists through your stomach, cursing under your breath as he grips your hip with one hand, dragging the tip of his dick along your slit with the other.

“I’ll go slow,” he mumbles, his chin tipped up to match your gaze as you straddle his lap.

Your breath catches and you bite down on your lip to keep quiet. Garrett’s forehead presses against yours, eyes pinched shut as he lets out a rough breath. His hand tightens at your waist, holding you steady as you sink lower.

His jaw tightens as he glances between you, watching the distance disappear until you’re settled in his lap, your thighs pressed against the bench.

When you finally look at him, Garrett is already watching you.

A shaky laugh escapes you before you can stop it, making Garrett’s heavy eyes immediately soften.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing against your cheek. “Feels good?”

“Mhmm,” you breathe, rolling your hips, the stretch making your muscles shake.

“Then why are you trying so hard not to make any noise, huh?”

A helpless laugh slips out of you.

“I don’t wanna get caught,” you whisper, his thumb tracing along your bottom lip. “I don’t wanna stop.”

“Yeah?” He murmurs sweetly. “You’re being so good for me—” Crack! His palm lands against your ass, sharp enough to make you gasp. Your body tenses, tightening around him and pulling a moan from his throat, his deep voice humming through the penalty box.

Garrett’s head tips back for a second. The sight sends a flutter straight through your stomach—hair damp and curling beneath his hat, lips wet from kissing, cheeks flushed. The muscles under his shirt are flexed tight, the team logo pulled taut across his chest.

Your hands brace against the wall behind his head as you move against him—riding him shamelessly.

“You’re killin’ me,” he mutters, his large hands gripping your ass, coaching each roll of your hips. “Pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

You smile, taking control on top, each shift drawing the two of you closer to the edge. You can feel every inch and ridge of him—each vein and curve—as he moves beneath you, heat building low in your stomach with every bounce.

His mouth finds yours again, lips parting so he can slip his tongue inside. “Need you to cum for me,” he mumbles between kissing, catching your moan in his mouth when his fingers press against your clit, rubbing tight circles on top.

“Yes. Yes,” you pant, and he groans.

“Mmm’fuck, baby,” he hums against your lips, pounding up into you as you fall apart, his name breaking from your lips in a breathless whine.

His rhythm falters with a low, broken sound as he finishes deep inside you, pulling you down as close as he can. His forehead presses to yours as the two of you share the same breath.

“Fuck me,” he breathes, hands drifting slowly up and down your thighs before smoothing your skirt back into place, still wearing that same stunned expression he’s had since puck drop.

“I love you,” you mumble, your hands holding his cheeks as you kiss him.

“I love you too, baby,” he hums. Garrett chuckles against your lips, raspy and deep.

“What?” You smile.

“Never gettin’ over this look on you, pretty,” he sighs blissfully, his hands settled on your hips. “Post-win. Freshly-fucked—”

“Garrett Graham,” you gasp like you’re surprised, giggling against his lips as he does the same, but a metallic clunk echoes somewhere above you and both of you freeze. Your heart immediately drops into your stomach.

“WHO’S DOWN THERE?” The voice cuts through the darkness and panic hits you all at once.

“Oh my God,” you hiss, climbing out of his lap as he fights with the waistband of his sweats, laughing a little at your panic. Not loud. Just enough to make you want to strangle him.

“Baby, move,” you scold.

“I’m movin’!” He chuckles, the two of you scrambling out of the box, hands shaking, your pulse pounding so hard you can hear it in your ears while Garrett somehow looks like he’s having the time of his life.

A beam of light sweeps across the home bench as you run through the tunnel.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you hiss.

“Language,” Garrett mutters.

“Oh, please.” You shoot him a look as he catches your hand, his tongue poking through his teeth.

His laugh bounces off the concrete walls as he tugs you through the exit to player parking.

You barely make it around the corner before Garrett catches your wrist and pulls you against the brick wall. The momentum knocks a laugh out of both of you.

“We’re good, baby—FUCK!” He barks, throwing up a hand to shield both of you from the blinding headlights as a pair of beams sweep across you, the engine of a sports car roaring to life.

Music spills from the speakers and the fear in Garrett’s eyes disappears instantly, his shoulders relaxing as he wraps an arm around your waist.

His captain’s car slow-rolls forward and a deep chuckle drifts from the open window.

“You two have a nice night?” He asks, a smile tugging at his mouth, his thick Russian accent laced with teasing.

“Mhmm,” Garrett answers, nodding his head, his shoulders trembling as he fights back a laugh. “Great night, Roz. Thanks.”

“Good job tonight, kid,” Ilya says, giving him a wink.

“Appreciate it,” Garrett says, his voice cracking on the last word, embarrassment painting his cheeks red. The finger gun he shoots at his captain definitely doesn’t help, but thankfully Rozanov is already rolling away as his taillights disappear into the dark Boston night.

“Got a permit for that thing,” you whisper.

“Shut up,” he laughs, pulling you into a playful headlock, using his hold to press a rough kiss on your lips.

“Language,” you whisper his words from before, but he’s quick, tickling you as you try your best to wiggle away but he’s having none of that. And the moment he pulls you in, your stomach falls, your eyes going wide on his like a deer in the headlights.

He looks down at you, quirking an eyebrow as you stare up at him. He nods, preemptively answering the question that you’re too mortified to ask.

“Mhmm,” he hums.

“Oh my God,” you gasp, heat rushing to your cheeks, but Garrett looks completely unbothered. He turns you around wrapping you up in his strong arms as you unravel.

“You think he knows?”

“Absolutely.” Garrett ducks his head, trying and failing to stop laughing. “Baby, he definitely knows.”

You let out a dramatic groan, throwing your head back, but he cradles the back of your head and pulls you against his chest. His heart thumps steadily beneath your ear, his lips resting against the top of your head as your breathing slowly settles together.

When you finally glance up at him, he’s already smiling. His eyes drop to your lips before he steals a soft kiss.

“Best night of my life,” he whispers against your mouth.

“Even after getting caught?” You mumble back.

“‘Specially after gettin’ caught,” he chuckles breathlessly. “Doesn’t get much better than this, huh?” He looks at you for a second and starts smiling all over again.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, swaying with you a little. “Just happy.”

“The happiest,” you whisper.

“Let’s go home, baby.”

“I’m just saying you need to give yourself a break, you are exhausting yourself mentally and physically.”

“You just don’t understand, this is everything.” He paced his room, running a hand through his messy curls one too many times.

“I know hockey is everything to you Garrett, but you are going to burn out eventually.” You reached out to touch is arm, but he jerked away from you and shook his head.

“Just leave, please. I don’t need this right now. You’re just distracting me, okay. That’s the last thing I fucking need.”

Silence filled the room.

“Fuck you, Garrett.”

You left with a burning sensation behind your eyes, but you didn’t look back. If he wanted space then you’d give it to him. You made sure to turn your phone on dnd and not send him any encouraging messages like you always did before his games. You still showed up though. For him you always showed up.

His nostrils flared through his helmet as he clenched his fists through the gloves. They were down a point against their upcoming rivals. The stakes were high and you knew Garrett was holding the weight of the team on his shoulders. So when the other team scored the winning goal and Garrett chucked his helmet against the glass, you stayed in your seat and waited.

“You sure you’ll be okay, babes?” Allie looked down out you, a worried expression covering her features.

You nodded. “We need to talk.”

She gave you one last encouraging smile and made her way down the stairs where Dean waited with an outstretched hand. You took a deep breath and made your way towards the now vacant locker rooms.

A startled breath escaped you when a pair of large hands planted themselves on your waist and you were pulled back into a hard chest.

“Garrett?” You whispered.

You melted against him when he squeezed your waist and attached his lips to your neck. Your eyes fluttered and a soft moan fell from your lips.

“Where’s my bunny been, hm?” His teeth nibbled along your ear. “You’ve been avoiding my messages, haven’t come to one practice, you’ve been avoiding me.” He said in a deep resonating tone.

You were full blown under Garrett Grahams spell. He spun you around so you were facing him and crushed his mouth over yours. He wasn’t gentle nor was he taking his time. His hand tangled in your hair and the other cupped the side of your neck. He claimed you in one kiss. Your back hit the lockers, lips still locked in a heated rivalry. Anger, love, sadness all spilled into one. Your hand fisted his hair and yanked hard. He groaned loudly and pulled away first.

“Need you, baby.” His fingers worked on the button of your jeans and you didn’t stop him because you needed this too. You needed him. Garrett yanked your jeans the rest of the way down leaving you in nothing but his jersey.

“Fuck, you’re incredible.” He said lowly, kneeling in front of your parted legs. “Let me show you, bunny, please.”

“Yes, please.” Your hand cupped his cheek and he placed a lingering kiss on your palm. He kissed up your thighs and gently raised your leg over his shoulder.

You let out a loud gasp once his mouth found where you needed him most. Your back arched against the lockers and hands tangle in his damp curls.

“Cum on my face, bunny. I know you want to.” He growled, and your body seized until your orgasm rushed over you. You panted and watched as he stood up and pulled you into a deep kiss. He picked you up and you wrapped your legs around his waist on instinct, sighing against his lips.

“Is this your way of apologizing, Graham?”

His lips twitched, nose brushing against your own as he walked you further into the locker rooms. “I’ll be apologizing for a while, baby. This is just the beginning.” Heat pooled in your stomach when he slowly let you down and reached down to tug the jersey off of you. He peeled his pants off and reached behind you to turn the water on and before you could say anything else, his lips were back on yours.

“Forgive me,” he panted against your mouth. He kissed you harder before you could respond and picked you up once against. He placed you against the cold tile. “Please,” he begged. You nodded and cupped his face.

“Of course I forgive you, baby.” You tangled a hand in his hair and yanked his head back so you could kiss up his neck. He groaned and rolled his hips against your own.

“The real question is how are you going to make it up to me?” You whispered teasingly, licking a stripe up his neck. He leaned his forehead against yours, dark eyes scanning your face. His tip found your entrance and before you could think, he sunk into your warmth and swallowed your moans with a kiss.

He rolled his hips harder and placed a hand behind your head to protect you from the stone tile. His pace became relentless until the only noise was your gasps and his grunts echoing through the quietness off the locker room. His fingers dug into the flesh of your thigh and your nails dragged down the skin on his back.

“Garrett!” You cried and squeezed his waist until your vision went white and mouth fell open in a silent scream.

“Fuck!” His chest rumbled deeply, mouth panting harshly against your neck.

He pressed a gentle kiss against your neck and moved so you were both standing under the warm water.

“Hey Gar?” You mumbled tiredly.

“Hmm?” He ran his hands down your back soothingly, the warm water satiating the ache settling in your bones.

“We should have makeup sex more often.”

A laugh tore from his chest.

“I’m still mad at you.”

Ever since he got you upstairs away from the crowd, his attention has been completely focused on you and as a result, he’s still fully dressed. Wanting him closer, you help him out of his t-shirt between fevered kisses, running your manicured nails over the rippled muscles of his back.

Every time he grinds his hips into the heat of your barely covered pussy, you can feel him getting harder under his sweats. The firm outline that keeps rutting against you seems impressive in size, but you’re not really sure what to expect because it’s your first time together and you haven’t seen him naked yet.

When he turns onto his side so that you’re facing each other, you let a curious hand run down his well-defined stomach, fingers tracing the fuzzy trail of hair below his navel and then over the sizable bulge that’s stretching the front of his pants.

The sound he makes against your lips when you cup his cock through the cotton is so addictive, the thick outline pleasantly warm as it overflows your palm.

“Can I see you?” you murmur sweetly. Without another word he’s pushing down his sweatpants and boxer briefs in one smooth motion, flipping onto his back so that his cock springs up semi-hard to slap against his stomach, the tip already leaking drops of shiny precum onto his soft treasure trail.

Lips parted in wonder, you let out an audible gasp at his size. Seemingly amused by your reaction, he runs a hand through his tousled hair and chuckles softly, his almost shy expression still underlined with its usual cockiness.

In your opinion, he’s deservedly proud—thick and long, slightly curving to the left and lined with delicious veins and ridges that you can’t help but imagine tracing with your tongue. Nestled against a dark thatch of neatly trimmed hair, he’s bigger than anyone you’ve ever seen before and with a sinking sensation you realize he’s not even fully erect.

“Garrett…I don’t know…” you trail off, eyes widening as you try to imagine how you could possibly manage to take something so big, knowing from experience that your pussy is pretty tight. Thinking back to earlier in the day, you curse yourself for skipping out on your morning yoga class. You probably could have used some stretching exercises.

Garrett is patient with you, rubbing a soothing hand along the curve of your hip. “It’s ok, we can take our time,” he promises, nuzzling his full lips against the sensitive spot just below your ear. “We have all night. There’s no need to rush.”

“But, I don’t know if I can do it,” you whimper, voice nearly trembling with disappointment. Finally a chance to hook up with the hot guy you’ve been crushing on for months and now he’s going to think you’re terrible in bed.

“It’s just—everyone always tells me that I’m really tight,” you pout in a sulky voice, watching his eyes grow noticeably darker with the knowledge.

“I’ll make sure you’re ready,” he promises with a patient smile.

And he does his very best, down on his stomach between your soft thighs, thick tongue delving through your dripping folds, luxuriating in your taste. As he suckles on your clit and scissors his fingers inside you to stretch you open, you run your hands through his curls calling out his name as you cum for the first, and second, time.

“Oh god, Garrett—fuck.”

Lips still shiny with your release, he crawls back up your body once he’s had his fill. As he hovers, your eyes catch on the golden chain around his neck, glimmering in the warm lamp light as his heavy-lidded eyes gaze into yours, almost pleading for more.

“Need you so bad.” His voice is raspier than usual, thick with want, and you can feel the heat of his cock pressed against your thigh. “Do you think you’re ready for me?”

When you nod, still glassy-eyed in your post orgasm haze, he grasps himself and runs the tip of his cock back and forth through your folds, coating himself in your arousal so he’ll be nice and slippery for you.

Each time the fat head bumps against your sensitive clit, it makes you moan in the sweetest way. Unable to hold back any longer, he slowly pushes the tip inside, keeping his eyes on yours as they widen along with the increasing burning stretch.

His gaze never leaves yours, in tune to every subtle change in your expression.

“Ooh—you’re so…big,” you exclaim, sweaty fists gripping onto the bedsheets beneath you.

“Shh, it’s okay.” His lips brush over yours as he soothes you. “You’re doing so well. Just relax and breathe.”

The whole time, the strong muscles of his buttocks are clenching with the effort of holding himself back because you’re so warm and tight around him that it’s making it hard for him to go slow. All he wants in the moment is to slam his hips into yours and bury himself deeper inside you than anyone has ever been before. Fuck you so good that you’ll be screaming out his name for everyone to hear.

But instead, he’s going to be patient. Work you up to it.

He’s been into you for a while and now that he has you where he wants you, he doesn’t want to rush things and scare you away. Other girls might be able to take him with ease, but that doesn’t matter because he’s not interested in them. He only wants you, so he’s going to make it work.

“Ohhh…” you gasp as he slowly inches his way inside your still-pulsing cunt. You’ve never felt such a conflicting sensation—the stretch slightly painful but somehow exceedingly pleasant at the same time.

Your nails dig into the flesh of his shoulders as he continues to whisper soft praise in a low, rumbling voice against your ear.

“You’re so fucking good,” he murmurs as his hips slowly buck into yours. “So good for me.”

Only once he’s fully seated does he start to move. You grasp onto him tight, letting out sweet little gasps with each slow thrust. Soon it’s like your body is opening itself up to his rhythm, relaxing into the overwhelming sensation of fullness that’s making your head feel a bit fuzzy and warm.

The way his cock is hitting you so deep inside has you seeing stars and sighing his name like it’s the only word you remember.

Garrett can barely hold on, stamina failing as his hunger for a release builds with each smooth roll of his hips. You feel too good for him to last much longer with the way your cunt hugs tight around his cock like you were made just for him.

“Oh fuck—” he groans right before he cums, pressing his forehead to yours and panting as his hips jerk against you, filling you up with everything he has to give.

Afterwards you share a tender kiss that lingers while your sweaty bodies are still entwined in a tangle of limbs, then he pulls out, watching your pretty cunt clench around nothing as his cum drips down your puffy folds and onto his sheets.

“D-did I do good?” you ask in a quiet voice that tugs at his heart with its earnestness.

He smiles as he strokes your cheek with his thumb. “You did so good, baby. So good.”

The relief on your face in response causes an unfamiliar warmth to spread through his chest. You’re so perfectly sweet and now that you’re his, he’s going to take his time with you, teach you how to take him in so many different ways.

Garrett might not have ever been interested in relationships or girlfriends in the past, but with you it’s going to be different.

You’re exactly what’s he’s been waiting for—the perfect fit.

The lecture theatre had noticed it immediately. There was a weird, restless buzz moving through the rows, people shifting in their seats and leaning toward each other, whispering guesses with the kind of energy usually reserved for fire alarms or free pizza. 

Beside her, a girl in a Briar hoodie muttered, “I swear to God, if this is an icebreaker, I’m dropping out,” and someone two rows back laughed too loudly.

Dr. Miller looked delighted, which was always a terrible sign.

“Alright,” she said, clapping her hands together once. “Settle down. I promise this will be painless.”

That was, historically, the kind of sentence said before something deeply annoying happened. She reached for her coffee and took a careful sip as Dr. Miller started explaining the assignment. 

Community participation. Immersion. Observational research. Four weeks of attendance. A reflective essay at the end on the role of student clubs in shaping identity, support networks, and campus culture. Partners randomly assigned. Club randomly selected.

A few people groaned. Someone near the front said, “Randomly?” with real fear in his voice.

“Yes, randomly,” Dr. Miller said, still smiling. “Which means no, Mr. Collins, you cannot choose the Gaming Society again because you already go every Friday.”

There was a ripple of laughter. The guy in question sank a little lower in his seat. She was still trying to decide whether this was annoying in a normal way or annoying in a potentially disastrous way when Dr. Miller started reading names off a printed list.

“Jenna Clark and Olivia Redding. Mateo Alvarez and Priya Shah. Daniel West and Claire Thompson.”

Her pen rolled off her notebook and hit the floor near her boot. She bent down to grab it, already only half listening, until Dr. Miller said her name.

Then, after one awful little beat, “Garrett Graham.”

The lecture theatre did that thing people did when they were trying not to react and reacting anyway. A soft swell of noise, a few heads turning, a couple of muffled laughs. 

Someone behind her said, “Lucky,” under their breath, and she felt heat crawl up the back of her neck in a way that made her want to turn around and throw her coffee at them.

Garrett, two rows behind and three seats over, lifted his head like he’d been called in a locker room instead of a classroom. He had one arm slung over the back of the chair beside him, a black Briar Hockey hoodie stretched across his shoulders, and dark curls still slightly damp at the ends, like he’d showered after morning practice and then barely made it here on time. 

He looked too comfortable for someone who had just been handed a four-week group assignment with a stranger, mouth curving faintly as his eyes cut over to hers.

Obviously he was cute. It was Garrett Graham. You would have to be blind to miss it, and even then, she was pretty sure blind people probably sensed it in the air around him. Some kind of deeply irritating atmospheric pressure. A shift in the room. Girls fixing their hair for no reason. Boys pretending not to be impressed by him. Professors learning his name faster than everyone else’s.

He raised his brows at her, all easy recognition and lazy amusement, like they were already in on a joke together. She looked back down at her notebook because she refused to be taken out by a man with wet hockey hair before ten in the morning.

Once all the partners had been assigned, Dr. Miller waved them down by pair to draw their clubs. There were normal options at first. Environmental Action. Debate Society. Campus Radio. The French Film Club, which got a pained little silence from the two guys who pulled it. Someone got Knitting for Beginners and looked weirdly pleased about it. Someone else got Ballroom Dance and immediately started bargaining with God.

When Dr. Miller called their names, Garrett stood first. He was taller up close than he looked from a distance, which was rude because he already looked tall from a distance. He came down the lecture steps with his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, moving with that loose, athletic ease that made everything seem like less effort than it probably was. 

She met him at the aisle and tried very hard not to notice the faint clean smell of soap and cold air coming off him.

“Partner,” he said, like they’d planned this.

“Graham,” she said, because her brain had decided the best defence against hot men was sounding unimpressed.

His grin twitched. “Already using my last name. Feels serious.”

“Don’t get attached. I’m mostly trying to remember which one you are.”

“Ouch.”

“You’ll survive.”

“I dunno.” He pressed a hand to his chest as they reached the front. “That one hit pretty hard.”

Dr. Miller held the hat out toward them with theatrical importance. “Moment of truth.”

Garrett glanced sideways at her and made a small sweeping gesture with one hand. “Ladies first.”

“Wow,” she said, reaching into the hat. “Chivalry’s alive.”

Her fingers closed around one folded slip of paper. Garrett leaned over her shoulder before she could open it, close enough that she caught another brief hit of soap and wintergreen gum. “Don’t get us something weird.”

“I’m not controlling the hat, Graham.”

“Manifest better.”

She unfolded the paper. For a second, the words didn’t make sense. They were just black ink on white paper, the letters sitting there with obscene calm while her stomach did a slow, cold drop toward the floor.

CELIBACY CLUB.

She blinked.

Garrett’s breath left him in a low, disbelieving groan beside her ear. “Oh, fuck me.”

Which was, considering the club, maybe not ideal phrasing.

Dr. Miller tilted her head. “What did you get?”

There was a horrible little pause. She looked at Garrett. Garrett looked at the paper. Then he lifted his head and called out, voice carrying easily across the theatre, “Celibacy Club.”

The room exploded. Actual, full-body laughter rolled up the rows. Someone whooped. Someone clapped. A guy near the back yelled, “Damn, sorry, G!” and another voice immediately followed with, “Season-ending injury!”

Garrett turned just enough to shoot the back rows a look, but it was impossible to tell whether he was annoyed or fighting a laugh. His jaw flexed once. The corner of his mouth gave him away. She wanted to crawl directly into the hat and live there.

Dr. Miller, traitor that she was, looked amused. “Wonderful. A valuable perspective on campus values and social norms.”

“Valuable,” Garrett repeated, so dryly that the front row snickered.

She folded the paper back up with very deliberate fingers and handed it over. “This is going to be a nightmare.”

Garrett glanced at her as they started back up the stairs. “You think?”

“I think the universe is either hilarious or evil.”

“Both, probably.”

They got back to their row under the soft, gleeful attention of what felt like every person in the room. Garrett dropped into the seat beside her this time, deciding partnership meant proximity now, and leaned back with his knees spread wide enough that one of them nearly brushed hers.

“Oh, fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

She looked at him. “Already struggling?”

His eyes cut to hers. Dark, amused, offended. “Careful.”

“What?”

“You sound like you’re doubting me.”

“I don’t sound like anything.”

“You sounded very doubt-y.”

She pressed her lips together and looked toward the front where Dr. Miller was explaining attendance logs. “Maybe I’m just worried about the quality of our research.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Immersion matters, Graham.”

He huffed a laugh, low in his chest. “Yeah? You gonna immerse yourself in celibacy?”

The way he said it made her want to laugh, which was annoying. “For the grade? Sure.”

“For the grade,” he echoed, nodding slowly, like he was considering a play on the ice. “Right.”

She should have known, probably, that this was the beginning of the problem. Garrett Graham sitting beside her with his knee almost touching hers, acting like four weeks was nothing, while the entire lecture theatre continued to make jokes under their breath because Briar University had the emotional maturity of a middle school cafeteria.

The problem was that she found him funny. That was where things started going downhill.

Their first actual meeting outside class was in the library two days later, and Garrett arrived only twelve minutes late, which, based on what she knew about hockey players as a species, was basically early.

He came in carrying a laptop under one arm and two coffees in the other hand, wearing a backwards cap and a grey Henley that looked unfairly good on him for something that was technically just a shirt. 

There was a fading bruise along one side of his jaw, yellow-green at the edges, and she caught herself looking at it before she could stop.

“Peace offering,” he said, setting one of the coffees in front of her.

She looked at the cup, then at him. “For being late?”

“For being… a bit delayed.”

“You mean late.”

“Yeah, but your version makes me sound bad.”

“You are bad.”

His grin flashed. “That’s what I hear.”

She stared at him for half a second, then down at her laptop, mostly because smiling felt too much like encouragement. “I’m not rewarding that.”

“You don’t have to. Your face did.”

“My face did nothing.”

“Your face said Garrett, wow, thank you for this coffee, you’re so thoughtful and punctual.”

“My face has never sounded like that.”

“Agree to disagree.”

He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, sprawling almost immediately, one foot nudging the leg of the table as he opened his laptop. 

For someone with a reputation that moved around campus ahead of him like weather, he was weirdly focused once they started. He asked about the rubric. He made a shared document. He typed notes in short, messy fragments and frowned at the assignment sheet. 

When she made a joke about him outsourcing all his academic labour to her, he looked genuinely offended.

“I need a good grade in this class.”

She glanced up. “For hockey?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” She leaned back in her chair and wrapped both hands around her coffee. “So you’re actually taking this seriously.”

His eyes flicked up. “Why’d you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you expected me to just sit back and do nothing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you implied it.”

She shrugged and shook her head. “Your GPA is not my business.”

“Damn right it isn’t.”

“But,” she added, because she had a death wish, “I still don’t think you’re going to take the club part that seriously.”

Garrett stopped typing. His fingers rested on the keyboard. Slowly, he looked at her. “What’s that mean?”

“It means…” She dragged the word out, already regretting it and enjoying herself too much to stop. “It means you’re Garrett Graham.”

His brows lifted. “And?”

“And your sex life is kind of… well known.”

“My sex life?”

“Girls talk, Garrett.”

He stared at her for a second, then barked out a laugh and leaned back in his chair, hand rubbing along his jaw. “Jesus. What’re they saying?”

“I’m not giving you a performance review.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No.”

“Is it good?”

She gave him a look.

His grin widened. “Okay, so it’s good.”

“You’re proving my point.”

“Your point being?”

“That you are absolutely not abstaining from sex for four weeks.”

Something shifted in his face so quickly she almost missed it. The amusement stayed, but sharpened a little at the edges, catching on pride. His knee stopped bouncing under the table. 

He leaned forward, forearms braced near his laptop, and looked at her like she’d just challenged him to a shootout. “You think I can’t?”

She took a sip of coffee. “I think you won’t.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“No,” she said, and smiled a little despite herself. “I don’t think you can.”

Garrett went very still. Then he huffed once, almost to himself, and nodded. “Okay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Okay?”

“You’re on.”

“I didn’t bet anything.”

“You bet my pride.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“It’s now a shared academic problem.” He pointed at the document. “Four weeks. Full immersion. No sex.”

She should have backed out. A normal person would have backed out. A normal person would have said, Garrett, I was making fun of you, please stop turning sociology into a masculinity crisis. 

Instead, she looked at his smug, stupid, determined face and felt something bright and reckless kick at the inside of her ribs. “Fine,” she said. “No sex.”

His eyes held hers for a beat too long. “For either of us.”

Her stomach gave an inconvenient little twist. “Excuse me?”

“If I’m doing it, you’re doing it.”

“You think I can’t?”

“I think,” he said, leaning back again, all lazy confidence now that he’d successfully dragged her into the mud with him, “you suddenly look less smug.”

“I do not.”

“You do.”

“I can go four weeks without sex.”

“Great. Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She hated him a little for that.

By the time they walked into their first Celibacy Club meeting, she’d already decided the essay was going to be either a masterpiece or evidence in a future trial. The club met in a small multipurpose room on the second floor of the student union, the kind with beige walls, fluorescent lights, and a whiteboard that still had faint ghost words from someone’s failed attempt at erasing a finance club agenda. 

There were folding chairs arranged in a circle. Someone had set out a tray of grocery store cookies and a stack of napkins with tiny pink hearts on them, which felt either deeply sincere or deeply hostile.

Garrett paused in the doorway beside her. She looked at him. “You okay?”

He looked at the circle. Then the cookies. Then the hand-lettered poster taped to the wall that said SELF-CONTROL IS SELF-RESPECT.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just trying to decide if this is too late to switch to French Film Club.”

“You wanted the bet.”

“I wanted to defend my honour.”

“Your honour is sitting in a folding chair for fifty minutes.”

He sighed. “My honour’s been through worse.”

They took two seats near the back of the circle, which was a ridiculous concept because circles didn’t have backs, but somehow Garrett found one anyway. He sat the way he did everywhere, one arm draped over the back of his chair, legs spread, knee bouncing occasionally while people introduced themselves and talked about why they’d joined.

Some of them were sweet. One girl spoke shyly about wanting a space where dating didn’t feel like pressure. A guy with glasses talked about religion in a way that was earnest without being preachy. Another girl said she was tired of people acting like you had to hook up to be interesting. Then a girl named Bethany started talking about hookup culture like it had personally murdered her family.

“Sex,” Bethany said, with both hands folded in her lap and the expression of someone delivering a eulogy, “has become a distraction from true emotional purity.”

Garrett’s knee stopped bouncing. She looked down at her phone and typed, emotional purity??? in her notes.

Garrett leaned subtly closer, his voice barely above breath. “Don’t write ‘bullshit’ in the notes.”

“I wrote emotional purity.”

“Same shit.”

She had to bite the inside of her cheek.

Bethany kept going. “When we deny the body, we free the soul.”

Garrett’s mouth twitched. She typed, denies body, frees soul, makes everyone uncomfortable.

He glanced at her phone and made a soft sound that could have been a cough if he had any discipline at all. 

After the meeting, they spilled out into the hallway with everyone else, blinking under the brighter lights of the student union. For a moment neither of them said anything. 

They just walked side by side past the bulletin boards, past a girl putting up flyers for an a cappella audition, past two guys arguing over whether the vending machine had eaten their money or whether they were simply idiots.

Garrett pushed open the glass doors and held one for her with his shoulder. Cold air slid under her jacket and made her shiver.

“I mean,” he said, once they were outside, “it’s bullshit, right?”

She laughed immediately, the sound puffing white in the cold. “Complete bullshit.”

“Thank God.”

“I was worried you were about to tell me your soul felt free.”

He scoffed. “My soul sat through Bethany calling sex a distraction from purity.”

They started down the path cutting across campus, the lamps turning the wet pavement gold in patches. It had rained earlier, one of those thin, miserable showers that made everything smell like damp leaves and concrete, and the air still had that cleaned-out bite to it. Garrett walked close enough that his shoulder almost brushed hers every few steps. 

“That girl,” she said, tucking her hands deeper into her coat pockets, “has definitely never had good sex.”

Garrett nodded instantly. “Clearly.”

“Like, I’m not even being mean.”

“No, that’s just facts.”

They talked about the essay at first because that was what they were supposed to be doing. Themes. Contradictions. The useful parts of the club versus the more cult-adjacent energy of the poster. 

Garrett wanted to write about pressure in athletics, which surprised her for half a second before it made perfect sense. He talked about locker rooms and expectations and the way guys turned sex into a scoreboard because nobody had ever taught them how to shut up and be normal. He said it lightly, but not flippantly. Like he’d thought about it before and didn’t love that he had.

Then they talked about other things. Her roommate who stole oat milk and pretended she thought it was communal. His housemates, who sounded exactly as exhausting as their reputations suggested. A class he hated. A professor she loved. The weirdly aggressive squirrel outside the science building. The way Briar acted like hockey games were civic holidays and how, according to Garrett, that was because they were.

“School spirit matters,” he’d explained.

“You mean people screaming your name matters.”

“That also matters.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling, and then realised with a little start that they were outside her dorm.

The building rose in front of them, warm rectangles of light in the windows, music faintly thumping from somewhere on the second floor. She stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up, then back at him. “This is me.”

Garrett glanced at the building like he was only now noticing where they’d ended up. His hands were in his jacket pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold, hair curling messily over his forehead.

“Okay,” he said. “Well. I’ll see you next week?”

“Yeah.” She shifted her weight, suddenly conscious of the space between them. “For round two of soul freedom.”

His mouth curved. “Can’t wait.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah.” He smiled properly then. “You coming to the game Saturday?”

She blinked. “What?”

“The game.” He nodded toward the direction of the rink, like she might have forgotten where hockey lived. “You coming?”

“Probably. I think my friends are going.”

“Cool.” He looked pleased in a way that was small but annoyingly visible. “I’ll see you there, then.”

She nodded, gripping the strap of her tote. “Thanks for walking me.”

“Yeah,” he said, softer. “Anytime.”

She went up the steps before she could make the moment weird. At the door, she glanced back once, because she was very committed to embarrassing herself in private. Garrett was still there, standing at the bottom of the stairs with his hands in his pockets, watching long enough to make sure she got inside.

By Saturday, she had officially gone one week without sex, which wasn’t impressive, it was barely even interesting. She was not, despite what her roommate implied after finding her glaring at a banana in the dining hall, some kind of feral creature who needed to be locked in a basement every time she went seven days without getting laid.

The annoying part was the rule. The annoying part was knowing she couldn’t.

It made everything louder. Every couple making out near the mailroom, every girl walking down the hallway in a borrowed hoodie, every low laugh from some guy on the other side of the library shelves. Even her own bed had started feeling rude. Too soft. Too big. Too aware of her.

And then there was Garrett. Briar’s rink was packed by the time she and her friends found seats, the air already hot with bodies and sharp with the scrape of skates from warmups. The student section was a mess of jerseys, painted cheeks, noise bouncing hard off the glass. 

She’d been to games before. Plenty of them. Briar hockey was one of those things people attended even when they didn’t care about hockey because the atmosphere made caring feel mandatory.

But Garrett on the ice after a week of thinking about not having sex was a whole new category of problem. He was fast in a way that made her stomach drop. Controlled, like every turn and burst and stop came from somewhere deep in his body that understood force better than gravity did. His shoulders looked broader in pads. His jaw was set under the helmet, mouthguard tucked against his teeth, eyes locked hard on the play. 

There was nothing lazy about him out there. Only focus, aggression, a kind of clean, ruthless confidence that made the crowd lean forward whenever he touched the puck.

“Oh my God,” her roommate said beside her, laughing. “Are you okay?”

She realised her legs were crossed so tightly her knee had started bouncing. “I’m fine.”

“You look stressed.”

“I’m appreciating athleticism.”

“You’re appreciating something.”

Garrett slammed an opposing player into the boards directly in front of their section with a hard, satisfying crash that made everyone scream. He peeled away like it was nothing, barely glancing up, and she felt the sound of it somewhere low in her stomach. This was actually so stupid.

He scored in the third period because the universe wanted her dead.

The place erupted, people jumping up around her, drinks sloshing, arms hitting arms. Garrett’s teammates slammed into him near the net, helmets knocking, gloves grabbing at his jersey. 

He grinned then, bright and vicious, and when he looked toward the student section for half a second, she had the horrible, impossible thought that he might have found her in the crowd.

He probably hadn’t. He was Garrett Graham. He probably did that to every section. Probably glanced into the stands and made twenty girls feel selected by accident.

Still, when his eyes seemed to catch hers through the glass and the noise and all the bodies, her breath snagged in a way that made her hate him on principle.

By the end of the second week, Garrett was starting to think he’d made a massive error. Not because he couldn’t go without sex, he could, obviously. He was a grown man with discipline. 

He woke up at five for practice, lifted until his muscles shook, skated through drills that made freshmen look like they were about to meet God, and had spent most of his life being told his body was a machine that existed to obey him. Four weeks without sex should have been nothing.

Except she was sitting on his bedroom floor in a tank top and jeans, chewing the end of her pen while she read over their introduction, and Garrett was having a hard time remembering any word in the English language that wasn’t related to her mouth.

It wasn’t even a fancy tank top – that was the part that felt insulting. Plain black, thin straps, tucked just slightly into the waist of her jeans because she’d been warm when she came in and shrugged off her sweater twenty minutes ago. Her hair was pulled back messily, she had one socked foot tucked under her thigh and the other stretched out toward his bed, toes flexing occasionally while she concentrated.

He’d seen her around before this. She came to games sometimes. She went to parties sometimes. She was in his class, and Briar wasn’t that big, not really, not when you lived in the gravitational pull of the same few houses and bars and lecture halls. 

He’d always thought she was pretty. Pretty enough to notice. Pretty enough to look at twice. But she’d never looked especially interested in him, which was weird only because most people were at least a little interested in him. She’d been polite. Funny sometimes. A little unimpressed, like she knew exactly what he was and had decided it wasn’t urgent.

And because Garrett was not in the habit of begging girls to want him when there was usually someone already leaning into his side at a party, he’d left it alone. That was before the hat. That was before she started sending him texts about Bethany’s latest club email with the subject line PLEASE READ: TEMPTATION TRIGGERS.

That was before he knew she drank coffee too late and then complained about being awake. Before he knew she made little notes in the margins of articles that were half useful and half insults. Before he knew she got mean when she was hungry and weirdly soft about people who were earnestly trying, even when they were annoying. Before she sat in his room and made his sheets smell faintly like her shampoo just by leaning against his bed.

She snapped her fingers in front of him. “Garrett.”

His eyes jerked up. She was staring at him over the top of her laptop, brows raised. “Focus.”

“I am focused.”

She gave him a flat look. “We should have written way more of this by now.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry. Distracted.”

“Clearly.”

He looked at her mouth again before he could stop himself. Her lips parted slightly, just enough for the air between them to change.

Garrett looked back at his laptop so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. This was fine. Everything was fine. He was the captain of a Division I hockey team. He could survive one girl in a tank top on his bedroom floor.

Then she leaned forward to grab her coffee from his desk, her shoulder brushed his knee and he got a view of right down the front of her top. Garrett closed his eyes for one second and asked whatever god was available to stop laughing.

Halfway through the third week, she was in bed with the lights off, her laptop abandoned on the floor and her phone held above her face while she scrolled without absorbing anything. Her roommate was out. The hallway was noisy in patches, doors opening and closing, someone laughing too loudly near the bathrooms, the distant thud of music from a room where apparently nobody had a morning class.

Her whole body felt restless in a way that had stopped being funny days ago. It wasn’t only sex. Sex would have been simpler. Sex was a clean, obvious want. 

This had edges. This had Garrett sending her a photo of the Celibacy Club’s latest inspirational quote with the message this feels targeted. This had Garrett bringing her coffee again without asking how she took it because he knew now. This had Garrett walking her back to her dorm after meetings and lingering at the bottom of the steps like he was always deciding whether to say one more thing.

Her phone buzzed in her hand.

Garrett: Is this as shit for you as it is for me?

She stared at it, then let out a laugh that felt too loud in the dark room. Her thumbs moved before she could overthink it.

Yeah. It’s fucking awful. Why the fuck do people do this willingly?

The response came almost instantly.

Garrett: Torture I guess.

She smiled up at the screen, helplessly stupid about it.

Very academic take.

Garrett: Put it in the paper.

“After three weeks of immersive observation, we conclude: torture, I guess.”

Garrett: A+

Dr. Miller cries. Harvard calls.

Garrett: I transfer. Become a monk.

You’d last nine minutes as a monk.

Garrett: Generous.

She rolled onto her side, tucking one hand under her cheek while the phone lit her pillow blue-white. For a minute, neither of them sent anything. She watched the typing bubble appear, disappear, appear again.

Garrett: You awake because of the assignment?

Her chest tightened in a small, irritating way.

Sure.

Garrett: Liar.

She bit her lip, smiling despite herself.

Go to sleep, Graham.

Garrett: Trying.

Try harder.

Garrett: Bossy.

Garrett: Night.

She stared at the word for a long moment. Then she typed back.

Night.

At the end of the third week, the hockey house was so loud the walls were shaking. The boys had won again, which meant the place was packed and sticky-floored and pulsing with the kind of victorious male energy that probably needed to be studied under supervision. Someone had knocked over a lamp in the living room and simply moved it into a corner like that solved the problem. 

The kitchen smelled like beer, pizza, and whatever cheap cologne the freshman boys had decided to bathe in. Music shook through the floorboards. There were people on the stairs, people leaning against doorframes, people making out badly near the back hall like they’d been assigned it for extra credit.

She stood near the kitchen island with her friends, nursing a drink she didn’t really want, her eyes tracking toward the living room every few seconds without permission. 

Garrett was somewhere in the house. She knew that because the whole house felt different when he was in it. Which was a stupid thought. Horrible. Embarrassing. She wished she could reach into her own brain and remove it with salad tongs.

“You’re seriously still doing the no-sex thing?” one of her friends asked, staring at her like she’d announced a minor cult membership.

“Yes.”

“For this stupid assignment?”

“Yes.”

Her roommate leaned against the counter, eyes glittering with the mean little joy of someone who had been living with her through all three weeks. “She’s committed.”

“I’m principled,” she said.

“You snapped at me yesterday because I breathed too loud while eating cereal.”

“You were chewing aggressively.”

“I was eating Cheerios.”

Her friend laughed and took a sip from her cup. “Okay, but Garrett would never know if you hooked up with someone.”

She looked at her sharply. “That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

She gestured with her drink. “The deal was he wouldn’t have sex, and I wouldn’t either.”

Her friend rolled her eyes. “You get that he’s Garrett Graham, right?”

“Yes, thank you, I was present for the lecture theatre’s public mourning.”

“So he’s probably suffering way more than you are.”

“Rude.”

“I’m just saying.”

Her roommate pointed at her with her drink. “You’ve been antsy.”

“I have not.”

“You reorganised the spice shelf at midnight.”

“It needed reorganising.”

“You don’t cook.”

Before she could defend herself, which would have been difficult because that last part was unfortunately true, the laughter from the living room shifted. She looked over automatically.

Garrett was near the doorway with Logan and Tucker, one shoulder against the wall, beer loose in his hand. He’d changed after the game into dark jeans and a black t-shirt that sat too well across his chest, his hair still damp from a shower, a thin gold chain visible at his throat whenever the collar shifted. He was listening to Logan with an expression that suggested he was physically present but mentally elsewhere.

Then his eyes found her across the room. Everything in her body tightened at once. She looked away so quickly her neck almost cracked.

Garrett, meanwhile, was beginning to understand that pride was a disease.

“The fuck is up with you, man?” Logan asked, following his gaze with shameless interest. “If you like that girl, just go talk to her.”

Garrett looked back at him. “I do talk to her.”

“Cool. Great. Inspiring. Maybe try doing it without looking like you’re about to skate through a wall.”

“I don’t look like that.”

Tucker, sitting on the arm of the couch with a beer balanced on one knee, looked over. “You kinda do.”

Garrett shot him a look.

Tucker lifted his free hand. “Just reporting what I’m seeing.”

“We’re partners on this assignment,” Garrett said, which sounded stupid even before Logan’s face lit up.

“Oh shit,” Tucker said. “The no-sex one?”

Logan’s head snapped around. “You’re actually doing that shit?”

Garrett took a drink of beer. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She bet me I couldn’t.”

There was a silence. Then Logan started laughing.

Garrett scowled. “Fuck off.”

“No, no, sorry.” Logan pressed a hand over his mouth, failing badly. “That’s beautiful. You’re celibate because a pretty girl hurt your feelings.”

“She didn’t hurt my feelings.”

“She looked at you with those big judgmental eyes and said bet you can’t keep it in your pants, and now you’re three weeks into monkhood.”

Tucker winced through a grin. “Man.”

“I’m not gonna lose,” Garrett said.

“Jesus Christ,” Logan said, still delighted. “You realise there’s no trophy, right?”

“There’s dignity.”

“There’s absolutely no dignity in what’s happening to you right now.”

Garrett looked across the room again. She was laughing at something her roommate said, head tipped down, hair sliding over one shoulder. She had this little crease at the corner of her mouth when she tried not to smile too hard. He knew that now. He knew too many things now.

Tucker followed his gaze and his expression softened, just a little. “You actually like her.”

Garrett didn’t answer fast enough.

Logan’s grin changed. “Oh, you’re fucked.”

“Currently, no,” Garrett said.

Logan choked on his beer.

By the start of the fourth week, the tension had stopped being a background problem and started becoming something that sat in the room with them like a third person.

They talked every day now. Sometimes about the assignment. Sometimes about Celibacy Club, which had somehow become less bizarre and more interesting the longer they spent around it. Sometimes about nothing at all. Garrett sent her dumb pictures from the hockey house. A broken toaster with the caption Dean says this is still usable. A sock frozen into the back porch ice. His laptop open beside a plate of eggs, morning light catching the edge of his kitchen table, captioned if I fail this class I’m blaming emotional purity.

She sent him things too. The club poster she’d seen peeling off the student union wall. Her roommate’s aggressively labelled oat milk. A picture of her laptop screen at one in the morning with the cursor blinking after the words The function of abstinence-based student communities and the caption kill me.

The sex part had become unbearable somewhere along the way, but worse than that was the fact that she liked him. Really liked him.

Which felt like the bigger betrayal. Wanting Garrett Graham was basic biology. Liking him was inconvenient. Liking the way he listened, the way he made fun of himself before anyone else could, the way he remembered little things and pretended he hadn’t. Liking how serious he got about hockey without making it everyone else’s problem. Liking that he walked her home and never made a big thing out of it. Liking that when she said something sharper than she meant to, he didn’t flinch or get mean back; he just tilted his head and looked at her until she rolled her eyes and softened.

They were in his room again, supposedly polishing the essay, which was a generous way of describing two people staring at the same paragraph while actively losing their minds.

His room was cleaner than she’d expected the first time she’d seen it. Hockey gear shoved into one corner. A pile of textbooks on the desk. Laundry in a basket. The bed was made badly, one side of the comforter dragging lower than the other, pillows dented from where they’d been leaning against them for the last hour. Outside the window, late afternoon light had gone grey-blue, turning the glass reflective enough that she could see the vague shape of them sitting side by side on the bed.

Garrett had the laptop balanced between them, one hand on the trackpad, the other braced behind him. He’d been explaining how he wanted to word the section about athletics and social pressure, his voice lower than usual because they were close and because, apparently, volume control became impossible when every inch of air felt charged.

“I don’t think it should sound like we’re saying the club fixed anything,” he said. “Because it didn’t. But it gives people a place to talk about stuff without–”

He stopped when she turned her head. He was right there.

So close she could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the little healing split at the corner of his mouth from the last game, the way his eyes dropped to her lips before lifting again. His hand, resting on the bed between them, flexed once against the comforter.

Her pulse moved everywhere at once. Throat, wrists, stomach, the warm hollow behind her knees. She forgot the laptop. Forgot the essay. Forgot Dr. Miller and Bethany and the stupid hat. The room seemed to pull tight around them, all the noise of the house going muffled and far away until there was only Garrett’s breathing and her own.

He shifted forward, barely. A small, helpless tilt, his nose brushing hers so softly she felt it more in the anticipation than the touch itself.

Her eyes fluttered shut. His lips hovered over hers.

A ghost of warmth. The almost-shape of his mouth. So close her body answered like they’d already kissed, like some wire had been cut and sparked anyway. Her fingers curled into the comforter. His breath shuddered out against her cheek, and the sound went through her with such clean, stupid force that she nearly made one of her own.

“Garrett,” she whispered. “Please.”

He went still. For one second, she thought he was going to do it. She felt the decision move through him, felt the way his hand came up like he was going to touch her face, felt his mouth brush so faintly against hers it might have been imagined if her whole body hadn’t clenched around it.

Then he exhaled, rough and furious. “Fuck.” He pulled back like it hurt. “Nope. No.”

Her eyes opened. He was staring at the wall over her shoulder, jaw tight, one hand dragging down his face.

She blinked at him. “No?”

“No.”

“No?” she repeated, because the only word her brain had retained was the worst one.

He looked back at her and laughed once, breathless and pained. “We can’t.”

“We absolutely can.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I kiss you,” he said, and his voice had gone lower, scraped raw at the edges, “I’m not gonna stop.”

The words landed low in her stomach. She pressed her lips together, partly because they were still tingling from nothing. “You suck.”

His grin broke through then, slow and crooked and dangerous enough that she almost threw the laptop at him. “Unless you wanna lose.”

That snapped her back into herself. Barely. “Nope.”

“No?”

“I don’t lose. Ever.”

“Good.” He stood abruptly, like putting vertical distance between them might save his life. “Great. Perfect.”

She sat there on his bed, pulse still stupid, mouth still warm, and watched him pace once toward the desk. He shoved both hands through his hair, turning away from her. His shirt rode up slightly at the back, showing a strip of skin above his jeans.

The room was silent except for the hum of his laptop. Something petty and reckless unfurled in her chest. Garrett turned back around and she was still looking at him.

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s a lie.”

“You started it.”

“I stopped it.”

“That’s the problem.”

His mouth twitched. “You mad?”

“I’m inspired.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It is.”

He held her gaze for a beat. Then, with the kind of awful calm that should have been illegal, he reached back and pulled his t-shirt over his head.

Her entire brain went white. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known he was built. Everyone knew Garrett was built. There were posters. Games. Photos online. An entire campus of people capable of reporting, with varying degrees of thirst, that Garrett Graham had abs. 

But knowing something in theory and having it standing shirtless in front of you in a bedroom were very different academic experiences.

His shoulders. His chest. The hard line of his stomach. The faint dusting of hair low on his abdomen disappearing under the waistband of his jeans. His arms flexing as he tossed the shirt onto his desk chair. The chain at his neck catching the dim light when he breathed.

Garrett’s grin was pure trouble. “You good?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“That feels like losing.”

“You wish.”

“Do I?”

She stood before she could talk herself out of it. His grin faded slightly. Good. She held his gaze, reached for the hem of her top, and pulled it over her head. The air hit her skin cool enough to make her stomach tighten. She dropped the shirt on his floor and stood there in jeans and a lacy bra she had absolutely not worn for him, except maybe some horrible secret part of her had known she was coming here and chosen it anyway. 

Garrett’s eyes dropped instantly. Straight to her chest, then lower, then back up like he had to physically drag himself by the collar. His jaw flexed.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Her skin felt too small for her body. “You gonna break?”

His eyes were dark when they met hers. “Nope.”

“No?”

“No.”

She shrugged, even though her heart was punching at the inside of her ribs. “Me neither.”

For a moment neither of them moved. Then Garrett nodded toward the laptop on the bed, voice rough with effort. “Guess we’re writing our paper like this, then.”

She sat back down, chin lifted. “Guess we are.”

They lasted nine minutes. Nine full, academically useless minutes of sitting on opposite sides of his bed, half-dressed, pretending to care about sentence structure while Garrett’s bare shoulder nearly brushed hers and her own bra seemed to become more noticeable with every breath. 

At one point he corrected a comma splice with the grave concentration of a man defusing a bomb. At another, she leaned forward to type and heard his breath catch so quietly she almost missed it. She didn’t miss it.

That night, alone in her bed, she thought about his mouth hovering over hers, his chain against his chest, the way he’d said if I kiss you I’m not gonna stop like a warning and a promise and a problem he was barely surviving.

She lasted about three minutes before her hand slid under the waistband of her sleep shorts. She was not proud. She was also not sorry.

The essay was due Friday at four. They handed it in at three-forty-two. Dr. Miller’s TA accepted it with the dead-eyed calm of someone who had received too many PDFs named final_FINAL_real_final.docx and no longer believed in students as people.

The second the submission confirmation appeared on Garrett’s laptop screen, she felt something unclench in her chest. Done.

Four weeks of meetings, notes, longing glances, stupid texts, Garrett’s room, Garrett’s mouth almost on hers, Garrett shirtless like a criminal, all wrapped up in twelve pages of sociological analysis and one works cited list.

“Thank fuck,” she said.

Garrett laughed beside her. “That heartfelt, huh?”

“I never want to see the words campus values again.”

“Or emotional purity.”

“Especially emotional purity.”

He closed the laptop slowly. “So.”

She could feel him looking at her, and suddenly, horribly, everything that had been funny and electric for the last four weeks felt fragile in a way she didn’t know what to do with. 

Because maybe this had only been fun because they were trapped in it. Maybe Garrett liked the chase. Maybe he’d wanted her because he couldn’t have anyone else, because deprivation did strange things to ego and attention. Maybe now that the assignment was done and the bet was over, he would go back to being Garrett Graham, campus golden boy, and she would go back to being a girl from his sociology class who had almost kissed him once in his room.

She couldn’t stand there and watch that happen in real time. So she shoved her laptop into her bag and stood too quickly. “I have to go.”

Garrett blinked. “You do?”

“Yeah. I told my roommate I’d meet her.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“I forgot.”

His brows drew together slightly. “Okay.”

“Thanks for doing the paper.” God, why did she sound like a colleague in a group project from hell? “I mean, obviously we both did it, but– yeah. Good work.”

“Good work?” he repeated.

“Shut up.”

His mouth curved, but his eyes stayed on her face, searching. “You okay?”

That was worse. Him noticing was worse. “Yeah.” She forced a smile. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

Something moved across his face. Too quick to catch. “Right.”

She hated herself a little as she turned away.

The party that night was not technically a celibacy-is-over party, because nobody else in the universe was insane enough to care, but it felt like one to her.

The hockey house was crowded again. They had a game tomorrow, so the team was pretending to behave, which mostly meant the beer was slightly less visible and the music was low enough that people could hear their bad decisions forming. 

She arrived with her friends and immediately regretted the top she’d worn because it was cute and a little too deliberate, and if Garrett didn’t care, she was going to have to live with having dressed like she hoped he would.

She stayed near her friends. That was the plan. Drink something. Laugh. Be normal. Prove she could exist in the same house as him.

For twenty-three minutes, the plan worked. Then an arm slid over her shoulders. Warm. Heavy. Familiar now, somehow, even though he’d never done it like this before.

Garrett leaned in from behind, his mouth near her ear, smelling like clean laundry and mint and the faint cold air from outside. “What’re we talking about?”

Her whole body lit up so fast it was embarrassing. Her friends went quiet in the exact way people went quiet when they were about to be incredibly annoying later.

She turned her head. Garrett was right there, grin easy, eyes not easy at all. He wore a dark hoodie and jeans, curls messier than usual, one hand hanging loose over her shoulder like he’d been doing this for years.

“Hi?” she said. “Can I help you?”

His grin widened. “Yeah. Hopin’ so.”

Her stomach dropped. His eyes flicked briefly toward the stairs.

Oh, fuck.

She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to keep from smiling too big. “You have a game tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Shouldn’t you be hydrating and doing captain things?”

“I had water.”

“One water?”

“Don’t worry about my performance.”

Her friend made a strangled little sound into her cup. Garrett ignored her completely, still looking at her. After four weeks of proving he could stop himself, he needed her to be the one to move now.

Her fingers found his where they rested near her collarbone. She squeezed once. His hand turned immediately, catching hers.

They made it upstairs faster than was dignified. The hallway was dimmer up there, the noise from downstairs turning thick and muffled through the floor. Someone had left a laundry basket outside one door. A sock sat abandoned near the bathroom. Garrett’s hand stayed wrapped around hers, warm and firm, tugging her behind him with just enough urgency that she had to bite back a laugh.

“This feels very scholarly,” she whispered.

He glanced back, eyes bright. “I’m about to conduct research.”

“Wow.”

“Peer reviewed.”

“You’re so embarrassing.”

He opened his bedroom door, pulled her inside, and shut it behind them, and for one tiny second, there was quiet. Then he was on her.

His hands came up to her face, decisive, like he had spent four weeks thinking about the exact angle of her jaw and was done being patient about it. He pulled her in and kissed her hard enough that her back hit the door, the sound of it dull behind her. 

She gasped into his mouth, and he took it, his lips warm and firm and so much better than the almost-kiss that had been haunting her all week. This wasn’t careful. This was Garrett’s restraint snapping clean down the middle. His mouth moved over hers like he had a point to prove, like every second he’d spent not kissing her had been stored somewhere in his body and now wanted out.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back with the same helpless lack of dignity. Her fingers pushed into his hair, and he made a low sound against her mouth when she tugged, one hand sliding from her cheek to the side of her neck, thumb brushing under her jaw. His other hand found her waist, pulling her closer until there was no polite space left between them.

He tasted like mint and beer and Garrett, which was an insane thought but the only one her brain had. Warm. Familiar. New enough to make her dizzy. His hoodie was soft under her hands, his body hard beneath it, and when he pressed his hips into hers, she broke the kiss on a shaky little inhale.

Garrett’s mouth moved to her jaw immediately. “Fuck,” he breathed, the word hot against her skin.

She tilted her head back against the door. He kissed down the side of her neck, open-mouthed and unhurried now, like urgency had gotten him here but hunger was deciding what happened next. His teeth grazed under her ear and her knees actually softened, one hand tightening in his hair.

“I,” he said against her throat, then kissed her again, lower. “Really.” Another kiss, slower, meaner. “Like you.”

The words hit harder than she expected. He sounded wrecked and a little annoyed by it, like the confession had been dragged out of him by proximity and her pulse under his mouth. It was so Garrett, that warmth cracked open under all the want, soft and bright and horribly sweet.

She tugged him back up by his hair. His eyes met hers, dark and slightly unfocused.

“I really like you,” she said.

His expression shifted, just a little. The smugness flickered, and something younger, more pleased, came through before he buried it under a grin. “Yeah?”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“I kind of want you to.”

“Garrett.”

“Fine.” He kissed her again, smiling into it this time. “I’ll earn it.”

His hands slid down to her ass, and then he lifted her like she weighed nothing. She made a startled sound against his mouth, legs wrapping around his waist automatically, and he laughed low in his throat as he carried her toward the desk.

“Show-off,” she muttered.

“You into it?”

“Shut up.”

He sat her on the edge of the desk, stepping between her knees, and she shoved at his hoodie before he’d even settled. He pulled it off in one clean motion, shirt rucking up underneath for a flash of stomach before he tossed the hoodie aside. She caught the front of his t-shirt and dragged him back down to her mouth.

This kiss was messier. His hands were everywhere in a way that still managed to feel like he was paying attention: her waist, her thighs, the curve of her back, his thumbs slipping under the hem of her top just enough to make her skin jump. She hooked one foot behind his thigh and pulled him closer, smiling when his breath punched out.

“You gonna fuck me, Graham?” she asked against his mouth.

His hand slid up her thigh. “Got four weeks to make up for.”

He lifted her again before she could answer, and this time she did squeal when he tossed her onto the bed, the sound breaking into a laugh as she bounced against the comforter. Garrett stood at the foot of the bed for a second, looking down at her with his hair a mess from her fingers, mouth swollen from kissing, chest rising harder than it should have been.

He wiped a hand down over his mouth like he couldn’t quite believe she was there. “Fuck Celibacy Club,” he said.

She laughed, breathless and warm and still reaching for him. “Fuck Celibacy Club.”

His grin came slow. Then he crawled over her, one knee sinking into the mattress between her legs, chain swinging loose at his throat, and kissed her like he'd been waiting all month to do it properly.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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Your father had made his first and only rule very clear the day you moved back to campus. “Stay away from my players. I mean it, kid. No hockey boys. Ever.”

You’d looked him in the eye and said, “Yes, Coach.”

You’d meant it, too. You’d seen what that life did to girls. The late nights, the ego, the constant useless drama. You’d watched your father coach long enough to know better.

But then there was Dean Di Laurentis.

He wasn’t just any hockey player. He was the hockey player. The wicked golden-boy. Sharp jaw, sharper tongue. The kind of man who walked into a room like he already owned it and everyone in it. The worst part? He knew exactly what he did to you.

And that’s exactly why now his face was buried between your thighs with raw fervor.

You gasped sharply as Dean devoured you.

His mouth was hot and relentless, tongue dragging through your slick folds with greedy strokes that made wet sounds fill the otherwise quiet room. He groaned deeply against your pussy, the vibration rumbling through your core as he licked and sucked like a man possessed. His strong hands gripped your thighs hard, spreading you wider, fingers digging into your soft skin while he held you open for him.

“Fuck, can’t get enough of you,” he muttered roughly, voice muffled as he dove back in. His tongue circled your clit with feverish intensity before sucking it hard into his mouth, the sharp pull sending sparks of pleasure shooting up your spine. You could feel how soaked you were, your arousal coating his chin, dripping down as he lapped at you messily, almost desperately.

Dean ate you out with complete abandon, alternating between broad, flat licks that dragged slowly over your entire pussy and flicking motions against your swollen clit that had your legs shaking. The wet heat of his mouth, the scratch of his light stubble you’d told him to shave days ago against your sensitive inner thighs, the filthy sounds of him sucking and slurping at your wetness. It was overwhelming. Every breath you took was filled with the scent of his cologne, every nerve in your body lit up as he fucked you with his tongue, pushing it inside you before pulling back to devour your clit again.

You moaned loudly, fingers twisting tight in his golden hair, hips grinding against his face as he growled in approval. He was so into it, so lost in the taste of you, that his groans grew louder, more desperate, the vibrations making your toes curl.

Your back arched off the bed, pleasure building fast and intense under his annoyingly skilled tongue…

Your phone rang on the nightstand.

The sharp, familiar ring sliced through the heavy breathing and wet sounds like a blade. Your heart slammed against your ribs as you saw the name on the screen.

Dad.

Pure panic flooded your chest. “Dean, stop, it’s him,” you hissed, trying to twist away. The shame hit you instantly, hot and nauseating. This was your father. The man who had raised you, trusted you, explicitly warned you. And here you were, legs spread obscenely wide in your bedroom while one of his players had his tongue buried in your pussy.

But Dean only tightened his grip on your thighs, his fingers digging in possessively. He looked up at you, lips shiny with your arousal, eyes dark with lust and something dangerously close to triumph. “Answer it,” he said, low and commanding.

“I can’t, Dean, please,” you whispered desperately. The guilt was already twisting in your stomach, but so was the undeniable thrill. The same thrill that had gotten you into this mess in the first place.

Dean’s smirk deepened. He dragged his tongue slowly up your slit, teasing your clit just enough to make your breath hitch. “Remember last week?” he murmured against your soaked flesh. “You kept bouncing on my cock until I came inside you while I was talking to him. You loved it. You know you did,” His eyes flashed. “Now it’s my turn.”

The phone kept ringing. Each ring felt like a condemnation.

You hated how wetter you got at his words. The taboo, the sheer wrongness of it, was flooding your system like a drug. Your own father on the other end of the line while his star player licked your pussy. The absolute betrayal. The power imbalance. It made you feel filthy. It made you feel alive.

With a trembling hand, you answered. “H-Hey, Dad,” you forced out, voice strained and higher than normal. Dean immediately dove back in with vicious hunger.

“Hey sweetheart,” your dad’s warm, familiar voice filled your ear. “Just calling to check on you. Everything okay back home?”

At the exact same moment, Dean sucked your clit hard into his mouth. The contrast was devastating.

A violent shudder ripped through you. The whiplash was insane: your father’s concerned, loving tone pouring into your ear while Dean’s wicked mouth devoured you with filthy enthusiasm. Shame burned through you, sharp and acidic, but it only made your pussy clench harder around nothing.

“I-I’m fine,” you stammered, gripping Dean’s hair with white knuckles. “Just… studying. How’s the game?”

Dean chuckled darkly against your cunt, the vibration traveling straight up your spine. He pushed two thick fingers inside you and curled them perfectly, stroking that spot that made your vision blur, all while his tongue flicked rapidly over your swollen clit.

The filthy sounds of him finger-fucking your dripping pussy grew louder. The squelching noise every time he thrust his fingers deep was growing so loud, you were afraid your father might pick up something through the phone. He sucked hard on your clit again, pulling it between his lips with wet, hungry suction while his tongue lashed relentlessly across the sensitive bundle of nerves.

You were soaking his face. Your arousal coated his chin, his lips, and dripped down onto the sheets, but Dean was too far gone to care. He groaned loudly into your cunt like he couldn’t get enough of your taste.

Then you felt the mattress start to shift rhythmically beneath you.

Dean was grinding his hips against the edge of your bed, humping the mattress desperately to relieve the aching pressure in his cock. His hard dick strained against his sweatpants, and he rocked forward in shallow, needy thrusts, rubbing himself against your bed while he devoured your pussy. The movement was frantic, almost involuntary, like eating you out was turning him on so much he couldn’t stop himself from seeking friction.

Your dad kept talking, completely oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the line. “All good, we’re up by 1 even without that fucker Di Laurentis. Called in sick, I don’t buy it. Have you seen him around campus, sweetheart?”

The guilt was almost unbearable. Yet the shame only intensified the pleasure.

Dean’s eyes flicked up to meet yours, dark with lust and filthy satisfaction. He curled his fingers harder inside you, rubbing that spongy spot with ruthless precision while his tongue flicked even faster over your throbbing clit. At the same time, his hips kept rolling, grinding his throbbing cock harder against the mattress, the bed creaking softly with every desperate thrust. He pulled back just enough to whisper, “Tell him how you’re being a good girl.”

You were mortified. You were absolutely the wettest you’ve ever been. And you were terrifyingly close to coming.

You wanted to hate him for this. You wanted to hate yourself more. Instead, you choked out, “No Dad, I’ve not seen him around… I’m being good. Really focused, studying mostly.”

Dean rewarded you by sucking your clit with renewed fervor, fingers pumping faster. The taboo coiled tighter in your belly. You were drowning in him: the fear of getting caught, the intoxicating rush of betrayal, the sick arousal of being so filthy right under your father’s nose. Every second on the phone stretched your nerves to the breaking point.

Your dad chuckled. “Alright, I won’t keep you. Love you, kiddo.”

“L-Love you too,” you barely managed, voice cracking.

The moment you hung up, Dean moaned loudly against your pussy and attacked you with single-minded intensity, determined to rip the orgasm out of you. “Fuck yes, that’s it,” he growled into your soaked cunt, his voice muffled and rough. “Come on my tongue like the dirty little slut you are.”

His fingers slammed into your dripping pussy harder, curling viciously against your g-spot with every brutal thrust. He sucked your swollen clit into his mouth with filthy hunger, tongue flicking rapidly.

At the same time, Dean’s hips kept rutting desperately against the edge of your bed, grinding his rock-hard cock into the mattress in frantic, needy strokes.

“You gonna squirt on my face, baby?” he taunted between licks, his breath hot against your pussy. “Gonna soak your sheets while I hump your fucking bed like a dog? Come on, let me feel this tight cunt squeeze my fingers.”

He doubled down, fingers pumping faster, tongue lashing relentlessly over your clit. The wet, squelching sounds of your pussy were pornographic as he fucked you with his fingers and devoured you. Your orgasm hit you like a freight train.

“Dean… fuck!” you cried out as pleasure exploded through you. Your pussy clenched hard around his thick fingers, gushing all over his tongue and chin as you came violently. Your back arched sharply, thighs locking around his head while your hips bucked wildly against his face.

Dean groaned loudly, the sound vibrating straight into your clit. “That’s my fucking girl. Drench me. Keep coming on my tongue. Fuckkk, you’re soaking my face.”

He didn’t stop. His fingers kept slamming into you, curling and stroking through every pulse of your orgasm while his mouth sucked and licked up every drop of your release. His own hips rutted harder against the bed, desperate and shameless.

You came so hard your legs shook uncontrollably, a loud, broken moan ripping from your throat as wave after wave crashed through you.

When your body finally went limp, trembling and spent, Dean slowly pulled his fingers out of your pulsing cunt and sat back on his heels. His face was a complete mess, lips swollen, chin dripping with your cum, cheeks shiny with your arousal.

He looked up at you with that signature cocky smirk, eyes dark and satisfied. Without a hint of shame, he wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand, then slowly licked his fingers clean, savoring every drop while maintaining eye contact. “Goddamn,” he chuckled, voice rough and smug. “You taste even better when you’re trying not to moan for your dad on the phone.”

He crawled up your body, still grinning like the arrogant asshole he was, and hovered over you. “Bet your old man has no idea his precious daughter just got her pussy devoured in her own bed. And came like a fucking pornstar while telling him she loves him.” He leaned down and kissed you deep, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. “You’re such a filthy little slut for me.”

Michael’s off days always carried a different kind of atmosphere inside the house.

Softer. Slower.

Not because he suddenly stopped being a doctor the second he clocked out of the hospital because honestly, you didn’t think that part of him would ever fully turn off but because on days like this, he tried so hard to belong entirely to you and Aria.

And you noticed it in the little things first.

Like how he stayed in bed longer that morning instead of immediately reaching for his phone. How he lazily pulled you closer against his chest when you tried getting up too early. How he buried his face into your shoulder and muttered a sleepy, “Five more minutes,” in that rough morning voice that always weakened your knees a little.

Then there was Aria.

The second she climbed into bed between both of you, Michael’s entire attention shifted immediately.

“Papa,” she announced very seriously while sitting on his stomach. “Mama says your ponytail skill is ugly.”

You burst out laughing instantly from beside them.

Michael looked deeply offended.

“Excuse me?”

“You make me look like broccoli yesterday.”

“You did look like broccoli,” you added helpfully.

Michael narrowed his eyes at both of you.

“I’m being bullied in my own home.”

Aria giggled loudly when Michael grabbed her dramatically and buried his face into her tummy until her squeals echoed across the bedroom.

The morning continued like that afterward; warm, messy, domestic.

Michael making breakfast while wearing sweatpants low on his hips and glasses sliding slightly down his nose because he refused to put contacts in on his days off. Aria sitting on the kitchen counter kicking her legs while demanding pancake shapes that made absolutely no sense.

“I want bunny pancake!”

“You had bunny yesterday,” Michael pointed out while flipping another pancake.

“Okay… dinosaur bunny pancake.”

You snorted into your coffee.

Michael looked at her silently for a moment before sighing like the burden of fatherhood was simply too heavy.

“…I’ll see what I can do.”

And somehow, ridiculously, he actually tried.

The pancake looked horrifying.

Aria thought it was beautiful.

After breakfast, the three of you got ready to head out to the mall. Nothing extravagant. Just errands. Groceries. Things for the house. A few things Aria needed for preschool. Some skincare you’d casually mentioned running out of three weeks ago that Michael somehow remembered better than you did.

Unfortunately for you, Michael’s off days also triggered another problem.

His spending habits.

More specifically

His inability to say no to you and Aria.

“Michael,” you sighed while watching him casually toss another dress into the cart for Aria. “She does not need this.”

“She likes strawberries,” he replied simply, like that explained everything.

“It has strawberries on it,” Aria defended immediately from inside the cart.

“She already has clothes with strawberries.”

“But not this strawberry.”

Michael nodded once. “Exactly.”

You stared at both of them with betrayal.

“This family enables each other.”

Neither of them even looked guilty.

If anything, Michael looked amused.

And honestly? Watching him like this always did something dangerous to your heart.

The way he walked beside the cart while absentmindedly rubbing Aria’s hair every time he passed her. The way his large hand settled automatically on your lower back whenever crowds got thicker. The way he kept reaching for your hand for absolutely no reason other than he liked touching you.

Even while grocery shopping.

At one point, you stopped to compare prices between two products.

Michael glanced once.

Then immediately grabbed the more expensive one.

You frowned. “Michael.”

“What?”

“This one is cheaper.”

“You like the other one more.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is to me.”

Then he leaned closer slightly, voice lower near your ear.

“I work hard so my girls don’t have to stare at price tags.”

Your face warmed instantly.

“Stop saying things like that.”

“Why?” he smirked faintly. “It works every time.”

Unfortunately, the mood shifted later.

Subtle enough that Aria didn’t notice.

But you did.

The three of you had just walked out of another store when someone suddenly called his name.

“Michael?”

Michael turned first, confusion briefly crossing his face before recognition replaced it.

“…Daniel?”

The man laughed immediately and walked forward, pulling Michael into a quick one-armed hug.

“Holy shit, man. Look at you.”

You stood quietly beside Michael while they caught up, and it was strangely nice watching this older version of him interact with someone from a completely different chapter of his life.

College stories.

Old professors.

Complaints about work schedules.

The exhaustion of getting older.

At one point Daniel looked toward you and Aria.

“And this is your family?”

Michael’s expression changed immediately.

Softened.

His hand rested instinctively on Aria’s head, fingers sliding through her hair carefully.

“My daughter,” he said first, his voice gentler without realizing it. “Aria.”

Daniel blinked. “You have a whole kid now?”

“A very spoiled one,” Michael corrected.

“I heard that!” Aria protested immediately.

Daniel laughed loudly at that.

Then his attention shifted to you.

“And your wife?”

For a second, Michael looked at you.

And there it was again.

That look.

That impossibly soft look that still made your stomach flip even after all this time.

“My wife,” he repeated simply.

Not your name.

Not an introduction.

Just my wife.

Like that title alone already carried too much pride.

Everything stayed warm after that.

Easy.

Until Daniel checked the time and sighed.

“Damn, I gotta go.”

“Yeah, us too.”

They exchanged another quick hug before pulling apart.

Then Daniel grinned teasingly.

“Bye, oldie.”

Michael rolled his eyes instantly. “Fuck off.”

“I’m kidding!” Daniel laughed loudly, already walking backward away from your family. “Take care, old man!”

Michael shook his head with a quiet snort.

But afterward…

Something changed.

Not obviously.

Not enough for anyone else to catch immediately.

But you knew him too well.

At first it was just the silence.

Michael became quieter while walking beside you.

Still present physically but mentally somewhere else.

Aria would show him things excitedly, and he’d react a second too late.

“…Papa, look! Bluey bag!”

Michael blinked like he’d been pulled back into the moment.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, baby. Cute.”

But his smile didn’t fully reach his eyes.

Later, while you were waiting for coffee, you caught him staring at his reflection in the dark window of the café.

Not casually.

Not absentmindedly.

Really looking.

At his face.

At the gray in his beard.

At the lines around his eyes.

At the tiredness sitting heavier on him lately.

And suddenly Daniel’s joking “oldie” comment replayed itself loudly in your own head too.

Oh.

The realization settled heavily in your chest after that.

Throughout dinner, Michael stayed attentive enough not to worry Aria, but you noticed every little thing now.

The way he touched his beard more often.

The way his eyes lingered on younger couples walking by.

The way he smiled automatically at your jokes but seemed distracted immediately afterward.

And Michael had always been like this sometimes.

Quietly insecure.

Especially about his age.

Especially with you.

By the time you got home and finished putting Aria to bed, the feeling in your chest had turned into full worry.

You changed into your pajamas quietly afterward before heading into the bathroom to brush your teeth.

That’s when you saw him.

Michael stood shirtless in front of the sink wearing only his briefs, one hand gripping the edge of the counter while the other slowly moved over his beard.

The bathroom light was unforgivingly bright.

It highlighted every silver strand threaded through the darker beard he used to complain about trimming. The faint wrinkles near his eyes. The exhaustion etched into his features after years of stress, sleepless nights, responsibility.

His stomach wasn’t as firm as it used to be years ago either.

And the saddest part?

The way he looked at himself.

Not with vanity.

Not even frustration.

Just… quiet disappointment.

Like he was mourning a version of himself he thought he was supposed to stay.

You didn’t speak immediately.

Instead, you walked slowly toward him until you stood right behind him.

Then gently, carefully, you wrapped both arms around his waist and rested your cheek against the warmth of his back.

Michael startled slightly before relaxing once he realized it was you.

For several long seconds, neither of you spoke.

You simply stood there together in front of the mirror.

Looking at him.

Looking at the man you loved.

The man who still made Aria laugh until she snorted milk through her nose.

The man who still reached for your hand in his sleep.

The man who stayed awake through fevers, nightmares, sickness, breakdowns, exhaustion without ever making you feel alone.

“You’re thinking too much again,” you murmured softly.

Michael let out a quiet breath through his nose.

“…Am I wrong?”

Your brows furrowed immediately.

“About what?”

He looked at himself again.

“I’m getting older.”

The way he said it hurt your heart.

Not because it was true.

But because he sounded afraid of it.

You tightened your arms around him slightly.

“So am I.”

“It’s different.”

“No,” you whispered gently. “It isn’t.”

Michael laughed softly then, but there was no humor in it.

“You don’t see what I see.”

“Then tell me.”

His jaw shifted slightly.

“The gray hair. The wrinkles. The stomach.” His voice lowered more. “I don’t look like I used to.”

You stayed quiet for a moment before speaking carefully.

“Michael… do you know what I see when I look at you?”

His eyes flickered toward yours in the mirror but he didn’t answer.

“I see the man who held me after labor when I cried because I thought I wasn’t doing enough for Aria.” Your voice stayed soft and steady. “I see the father who slept sitting upright in a hospital chair because our daughter wouldn’t stop crying unless she was on his chest.”

His throat moved slightly.

“I see the husband who still buys my favorite snacks even when I forget mentioning them.” You pressed another kiss lightly against his shoulder blade. “The man who works himself to exhaustion just to make sure the people he loves are safe.”

Michael lowered his eyes quietly.

“And every gray hair?” you whispered. “Every wrinkle? It just means you stayed. It means you lived. It means Aria got more years with her papa.”

Silence filled the bathroom afterward.

Heavy.

Emotional.

Michael’s breathing slowed slightly beneath your arms.

Then finally, quietly

“You really still look at me the same?”

Your chest ached instantly.

You moved around him then, standing directly in front of him before reaching up and holding his face gently between your hands.

“Michael,” you said softly, firmly. “I have never once looked at you and wished you were younger.”

His eyes closed briefly.

“I look at you and thank God you exist.”

Something fragile flickered across his face then.

Vulnerability.

Relief.

Love.

He leaned forward slowly until his forehead rested against yours, his hands finally settling around your waist tightly.

And when he hugged you afterward, it felt desperate in the smallest quiet way.

Like he needed to be reminded he was still loved exactly as he was.

Later that night, the bedroom stayed dark and peaceful.

You slept curled against Michael’s chest, one leg tangled with his while his arm stayed wrapped securely around your waist beneath the blanket.

Even half asleep, he still held you close instinctively.

Then sometime in the middle of the night

The bedroom door creaked open softly.

Tiny footsteps shuffled across the floor.

Michael stirred first, eyes barely opening before immediately softening.

Aria.

Still sleepy.

Still holding her bunny plushie by one ear.

Her hair was a complete mess, cheeks warm from sleep, eyes barely even open properly as she climbed onto the bed clumsily.

Without a word, she crawled directly toward Michael.

Half onto him, honestly.

One tiny leg over his stomach while she snuggled against his side like she belonged nowhere else.

Which she didn’t.

Michael let out the quietest sleepy laugh.

“Hey, baby…”

Aria rubbed her face against his chest tiredly before whispering in the softest little voice imaginable,

“I love you, Papa.”

Michael’s entire expression softened instantly.

Then Aria added sleepily,

“You’re my papa.”

Not complicated.

Not poetic.

Just certain.

Absolute.

Like in her little world, there was nobody better to belong to.

Michael swallowed hard before wrapping his arm tighter around her automatically, pulling her close while keeping you tucked safely against his other side too.

Three people tangled together under warm blankets.

And in the darkness, with his daughter asleep against him and you breathing softly on his chest

Michael stopped seeing gray hair.

Stopped seeing wrinkles.

Stopped seeing age.

Because all he could feel was love.

You didn't look up immediately. You couldn't. You were in the middle of synthesizing a complex thesis statement, your fingers flying across the keyboard. But the sudden shift in the air—the immediate intrusion of expensive cologne, cherry-flavoured chewing gum, and the distinct scent of a cold hockey rink—told you exactly who had breached your perimeter.

"Hey," a low voice whispered.

You ignored him, aggressively highlighting a paragraph on your screen.

A large hand slid into your peripheral vision, gently tapping the wooden table right next to your mousepad. "Hey. Look at me."

With a long, suffering sigh, you finally lowered your eyes from the screen and leveled Dean with a flat, unimpressed stare.

He looked entirely out of place among the quiet academics. His thick, perfectly styled blonde hair was slightly messy, a few stray strands falling across his forehead. But instead of his usual smug, devastatingly handsome smirk, Dean looked thoroughly miserable. His blue eyes were narrowed, tracking your face with a tight, intense scrutiny.

"You're late," Dean muttered, leaning his forearms on the table, invading your space.

"I'm not late, Dean," you whispered back, keeping your voice low to avoid the wrath of the librarian. "I never said I was meeting you today."

"Doesn't matter," he countered, a cocky, unapologetic smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Practice ended at five, which means you’re exactly forty-five minutes late to coming home and paying attention to me," He tapped his watch with a dramatic sigh, tilting his head as his eyes locked onto yours, completely unbothered by how ridiculous he was being. "And Tucker said he saw you walking with some guy from your seminar. The tutor guy. What's his name? The one with the stupid glasses."

A small, incredulous laugh escaped your throat. "You mean Aaron? My study partner? We had a group project meeting."

The mention of the name made something flash dangerously in Dean’s eyes. He didn't just look annoyed; he looked possessive, a simmering jealousy clouding his features. Dean Di Laurentis was known all over campus as a playboy, a guy who took nothing too seriously, who loved sex, parties, playing hockey on the occasion, and enjoying the easy thrill of the chase. But right now, looking at you, there wasn't a single playful thing about him.

"I don't like him," Dean said flatly, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a heavy, unyielding weight. "I don't like him breathing your air. And I definitely don't like him keeping you away from me for three hours."

"Baby, I have to keep my grades up," you sighed, leaning forward so only he could hear you. "I have to study, and right now, you are a distraction."

"Then let me distract you," he murmured, his eyes dropping to your lips for a split second before snapping back up. "Come home. I’ll make it worth your while. You know I will."

The blatant, arrogant proposition made a warm flush creep up your neck, but you firmly clamped down on it. "I'm staying here until this paper is done."

Dean stared at you, his chest rising and falling in a heavy, frustrated breath. He was used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it. But as he looked at your stubborn jawline and the absolute determination in your eyes, he realized he wasn't winning this argument.

With a low grunt, he slid back into his chair. "Fine."

"Fine?" you repeated, blinking. "So you're leaving?"

"Hell no," Dean muttered. He reached out, grabbed his massive duffel bag from the floor, and hauled it onto the table with a heavy thud. "If you're staying, I'm staying."

Three hours later, the library had grown entirely dark outside, the only illumination coming from the green lamps scattered across the tables.

True to his word, Dean hadn't left. But calling his presence "emotional support" was a massive stretch. He was, without a doubt, the neediest human being on the planet when he wasn't the center of attention.

For the first hour, he had tried to read a sports psychology textbook, flipping the pages so loudly and aggressively that you had to kick him under the table. After that, his attention span completely shattered. He resorted to tapping his fingers on the wood, spinning his car keys, and sighing loudly enough to draw glares from a group of freshmen nearby.

Right now, Dean was slumped low in his chair, his long legs stretched out under the table, his ankles locked securely around yours—a physical anchor ensuring you couldn't slip away. He had dragged his chair around to your side of the table, sitting so close that his shoulder was pressed firmly against yours.

The heavy, rhythmic click of your fingers against the keyboard was the only barrier keeping his relentless neediness at bay. You were deep in the zone, entirely focused on drafting the final conclusion of your paper, while Dean remained anchored to your side, his chin resting heavily on your shoulder as he let out another long, dramatic sigh.

"I’m dying," he mumbled against your neck, his voice a low, husky vibration that sent a treacherous little shiver down your spine. "Dean is fading away. Dean is sad. Dean needs attention."

A breathless laugh escaped your lips, though you kept your eyes glued to the screen. "Dean needs to let me finish this paragraph. I'm almost done."

"You’ve been saying that for twenty minutes," he complained, his large hand sliding up from your knee to map the curve of your thigh, his fingers squeezing possessively through the fabric of your jeans. "Dean is losing his mind. Look at Dean. Just for five seconds."

"I have to go to the bathroom," you announced, finally cutting him off as you pushed your chair back.

He groaned, his arm wrapping around your waist for a brief, stubborn second to keep you in place before he finally let go with a tragic roll of his blue eyes. "Fine. But if you’re not back in two minutes, I’m coming in after you. I don't care which bathroom it is."

"Give me five," you fired back with a sharp, playful smirk, sliding out of the alcove. You left your laptop open, throwing your hoodie over the back of the chair and leaving your phone face-up on the heavy wooden table right next to his hand.

The moment you turned the corner toward the restrooms, the quiet settled back over the alcove. Dean slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his blonde hair, his jaw tightening the second he was left alone with your textbooks.

Then, the wooden table vibrated.

Dean’s eyes snapped down instantly. Your phone screen lit up, a bright banner cutting through the dim light of the green lamp.

Aaron (Seminar): Hey, just checked over the data layout we talked about earlier. You're brilliant, seriously. Let me buy you a coffee tomorrow to say thanks?

Dean froze. The playful, whining boy from two seconds ago vanished, replaced instantly by something fierce and cold. His blue eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he stared at the screen, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, heavy breath. Brilliant. Coffee tomorrow.

Before he could even process the spike of pure adrenaline shooting through his veins, the phone buzzed a second time.

Aaron (Seminar): Or drinks, if you're free tonight instead? Just the two of us to celebrate finishing early.

A dark, dangerous laugh caught in Dean's throat. He didn't think; his calloused hand snatched your phone off the table, his knuckles turning white around the edges of the case. The possessive, territorial instinct that made him a nightmare on the ice flared up instantly, turning his blood to fire. Just the two of us.

He knew he shouldn't open it. He knew you'd be furious. But Dean Di Laurentis didn't play by anyone's rules when it came to what belonged to him. He unlocked the screen, his thumb hovering over the keyboard as a volatile mixture of anger and raw jealousy tightened his chest.

By the time you came back, adjusting the sleeves of your shirt, the atmosphere in the corner had completely shifted.

Dean was sitting perfectly upright now, his broad shoulders squared, his eyes fixed on the entrance of the alcove. Your phone was gripped tightly in his hand, resting face-down on the table.

"Dean?" you asked softly, stopping in your tracks as you noticed the rigid, unyielding line of his jaw. "What's wrong?"

"Aaron," he said flatly, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. He didn't shout—his voice was incredibly low, a quiet, dangerous purr that made your heart skip a beat. "Aaron thinks you're brilliant."

Your eyes dropped to your phone in his hand, and realization hit you. "Did you look at my messages?"

"He wants to buy you drinks tonight," Dean continued, completely ignoring your question as he stood up, his massive frame instantly towering over you and blocking out the rest of the library. He stepped around the table, closing the distance between you until his chest was practically brushing against yours. "Just the two of us, he said."

"He's just a classmate, Dean—"

"I don't give a damn what he is," he growled, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck, his long fingers tangling in your hair to gently but firmly tilt your face up to his. His blue eyes were blazing, wild with a raw, pure jealousy. "You’re going to text him back and say you have plans with someone way more important." He leaned down a fraction of an inch, the tip of his nose brushing lazily against yours in a slow, deliberate distraction while his thumb stroked the soft skin of your cheek. "Someone who is going to take you home, lock the door, and make you completely forget what subject you were even studying."

The sheer, possessive weight of his gaze anchored you to the floor, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. Having him crowd into your space this intensely made it absolutely impossible to form a coherent thought.

"Dean..." you whispered, your defenses completely melting under the intensity of his stare.

"No," he muttered, his thumb tracing your jawline with a fierce, trembling intensity that betrayed just how much the thought of anyone else touching you tore him apart. "Dean is done being patient. Dean is taking you home right now."

You couldn't hide your amusement any longer, a soft smile breaking across your face. "You are completely ridiculous, you know that?"

"Yeah, well, I'm a ridiculous guy who happens to be completely obsessed with you," he smirked, his voice softening just a fraction, though his grip on you didn't loosen an inch. He slanted his lips over yours before you could even reply, capturing your mouth in a slow, deep kiss that completely stole your resolve. His lips were hot and demanding, parting yours with an intoxicating ease that made your hands instinctively grip his jacket for balance. His tongue slid into your mouth with a cocky confidence that made your knees go weak, tangling with yours, mapping the inside of your mouth like he owned it. He drank in your quiet gasp, swallowing your soft whimper and leaving you completely dazed in the middle of the library alcove.

Dean Di Laurentis leaned against the glass like he belonged in a hockey equipment ad. Sporting a Briar hoodie with a baseball cap shoved backward. An annoyingly amused expression plastered on his face.

Up close, he looked less polished than he did in the campus photos. Tired around the eyes. Hair curling slightly from the humidity of the rink.

Still irritatingly attractive, unfortunately.

“I support competence,” I replied. Dean barked out a laugh. “Jesus. Remind me never to disappoint you.” “You play hockey at Briar. I’m assuming disappointment isn’t something you experience often.” “Wow,” he said. “You know, most people start with hello.” I finally shut my textbook. “Most people don’t hover over me while I’m trying to study.” “Fair.”

For a second, neither of us said anything. The sounds of skates scraping across the ice filled the silence.

Then Dean nodded toward Leo. “You were right last week, by the way.” “About?” “The shoulder thing.” He crossed his arms. “Kid practically announces his backhand before he even moves.” I tried not to look too smug. “I’ve been telling him that for a year.” “Yeah, well.” Dean shrugged. “You explained it better than his last coach.”

That caught me slightly off guard.

Not because he complimented me. Mostly because he said it like he actually meant it. Before I could respond, a puck slammed against the boards behind him.

“Coach Dean!” one of the kids yelled. “Mikey said a bad word!” Dean closed his eyes briefly. “Fantastic.”

I snorted before I could stop myself.

His head turned toward me immediately, like he was surprised I’d laughed at all. Then he grinned.

And that was probably the first real problem.

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Over the next couple weeks, Dean became weirdly unavoidable. Not in an aggressive way.

Just… present.

Sometimes he’d stop by the bleachers between drills to complain about the kids trying to fight each other. Sometimes he’d steal my highlighters. One time he sat next to me without asking and spent ten straight minutes trying to guess what I was studying based solely on diagrams.

“That one’s definitely the liver.” “It’s the brain.” “Well,” he said, frowning at the page. “That feels poorly drawn.”

Another time, he showed up with a caramel iced coffee and handed it to me casually.

“I didn’t ask for this.” “Yeah, but you looked miserable.” “I always look miserable here.” “That’s true,” he admitted. “But today looked worse.”

I tried very hard to stop the familiar feeling in my stomach.

It got worse after he started actually helping Leo. Not fake mentorship-program helping. Real helping.

Dean stayed late after practice fixing Leo’s shot mechanics. He chirped at him constantly, but he was patient about it. Never made him feel stupid. Halfway through one drill, Dean pointed toward the ice with his water bottle.

“Watch.”

Leo pushed forward into the line, shoulders level this time instead of dipping left before his backhand. The puck snapped cleanly into the top corner. Leo immediately turned toward the bleachers, both arms raised like he’d just scored a game winner.

Dean looked annoyingly pleased with himself.

“Okay,” I admitted reluctantly. “That was actually a good adjustment.” “Thank you,” Dean said solemnly. “I’ll remember this compliment forever.”

Leo adored him almost immediately.

“You know he likes you, right?” Leo asked one night while I helped him untie his skates. You: “Dean likes everybody.” Leo: “No, like likes you.”

I nearly dropped the skate.

You: “He does not.” Leo gave me a look that was far too knowing for a ten-year-old. “He asked if you were coming next Thursday.” You: “That doesn’t mean anything.” Leo: “He remembered your coffee order.” I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you paying attention to this?” Leo: “Because it’s embarrassing watching both of you pretend.”

I stared at him.

You: “Who let you get this nosy?” Leo: “You did. You raised me.”

Unfortunately, he had a point.

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The first time Dean and I really talked was because the rink vending machine ate my last five dollars. I smacked the side of it again.

Nothing.

“You know violence isn’t usually the answer.”

I looked over to find Dean walking into the lobby carrying his gear bag over one shoulder.

“This machine just stole from me.” “Tragic.” “I’m serious. That was the last of my cash.”

Dean crouched in front of the vending machine, inspecting it like it was a complex debate. Then he hit one specific spot with the side of his fist.

My granola bar dropped. My immediate thought was wow even a damn vending machine listens to him.

I blinked. “What.” “Spent enough years in hockey rinks, you learn things.” “You learn how to assault vending machines?” “It’s a gift.”

He handed me the granola bar with a dramatic flourish before dropping into the chair across from me.

“You’re here late.” “Organic chemistry.” “That sounds fake.” “It unfortunately isn’t.” Dean leaned back in the chair. “Okay, explain one chemistry thing to me.” “Why?” “Because I failed a chem quiz last semester and I’m still bitter about it.” A laugh slipped out. “You failed chemistry?” “Relax. I’m just pretty and athletic.” “That’s actually devastating news for women across campus.” “I know.”

He smiled when he said it, but there was something loose about him tonight. Less performative.

Not hockey-star Dean. Just… Dean.

And somehow that version made it worse for me.

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A week later, Dean picked up one of my anatomy flashcards off the table during practice.

“CN Seven,” he read. “This sounds fake already.” “It’s the facial nerve.” “And you just know that immediately?” “I’ve already had to memorize all twelve cranial nerves for three separate classes this past semester.” “That’s horrifying.” “You’re telling me.” He flipped the card over. “Okay, wait. What does this one do?” “Motor function for facial expression. Taste for the front two-thirds of the tongue.” Dean stared at me for a second. “You people are terrifying.” “You play hockey for fun.” “Yeah, but concussions are different from homework.”

Somehow, he made being mocked feel like a compliment.

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The rink got colder the later it got.

By the second half of practice, I’d started stuffing my hands into my sleeves between highlighting notes.

Dean noticed eventually.

Didn’t say anything about it, either.

He just walked past after drill rotations and dropped his Briar hoodie over my head like he was throwing a blanket over furniture.

I pulled it down enough to glare at him. “What is wrong with you?” “You looked cold.” “And this was your solution?” “You’re welcome, by the way.”

The stupid thing smelled like laundry detergent and his cologne.

Is it bad that I wanted to take it home?

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By the time the late-night skating happened, it didn’t feel random anymore. It felt inevitable in the way small things sometimes do before you realize they’ve become important.

Leo’s practice had ended almost an hour earlier. One of the other parents offered to drive him home, which left me alone in the nearly empty rink lobby with my laptop, a pile of flashcards, and a rapidly deteriorating mental state.

The overhead lights above the rink had been dimmed, leaving the ice washed in cool blue light that stretched long shadows across the empty surface.

Dean wandered out of the varsity locker room sometime after ten, hair damp from his shower and duffel bag hanging off one shoulder.

He slowed when he spotted me.

“You’re still here?” “Anatomy exam tomorrow.” “Bad?” “I think my brain has started rejecting information on principle.”

Dean dropped into the chair across from me and picked up one of my flashcards before I could stop him.

“CN Ten,” he read. “This one sounds important.” “The vagus nerve.” “Huh?”

Despite myself, I grinned down at the table.

Dean noticed.

That was the issue with him lately. He notices things.

Dean grinned slightly before flipping the card over. “What’s it do?” “Parasympathetic control of the heart, lungs, digestive tract—” “Okay, hold on.” He held up a hand. “How are you remembering all of this?” “I’m not,” I said flatly. “I’m actively dying.” “Seems dramatic.” “You failed chemistry.” “That was one time.” “Didn’t you just say you were still bitter about it?” Dean pointed at me. “See? This is why I can’t stand pre-med students. You people remember everything.”

After a minute, he leaned back in his chair and nodded toward the rink doors.

“You need a break.” “I really don’t.” “You’ve been staring at flashcards for like three hours.” “I have an exam.” “And your eyes look crossed.” “They are crossed.”

Dean stood up and grabbed two pairs of skates from beside the rental counter.

“Oh my god.” “Ten minutes.” “Dean—” “Doctor’s orders.” “You’re not a doctor.” “Well… Coach's orders, then.” he said, which honestly sounded more like a question.

I should’ve said no.

Instead, twenty minutes later, I was stepping out onto freshly zambonied ice in borrowed skates while Dean skated backward in front of me with entirely too much confidence.

The rink was quiet except for the soft scrape of blades cutting across the ice.

Better than anatomy, unfortunately.

Dean matched my pace easily. “You know, you’re less scary when you’re not holding flashcards.” “That’s disappointing. Fear was all I had going for me.” “Nah.” He glanced over at me briefly. “You’ve also got the judgmental staring thing.” “I do not.” “You absolutely do.”

I opened my mouth to argue and immediately lost balance slightly on a turn.

Dean caught my waist automatically. For a second, neither of us moved.

Then he let go.

Not awkwardly per se.

Just aware. As usual.

“Oh my god,” I muttered. “Leo is never hearing about this.” Dean chuckled quietly. “Your reputation survives another day.”

We skated another lap after that.

Then another.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t thinking about the exam anymore.

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