Bunny

Leaning on the wall between the crew deck and the business class cabin you watch your subordinates prepare each seat for the incoming passengers, fluffing cushions, cleaning away any excess trash from the previous flight, and ensuring everything is in place.

Caleb and his co-pilot, Gideon (another missing person you knew), are expected to get to the plane at any minute. They're expected to see you again.

Despite the anger, the reminiscing, despite it all, you find your fingers fumbling with jittery nerves. Sharp pangs strike your chest every time you recall his smiles, his eyes, his hands, his touch, the joy you shard with him, and the pain from not hearing from him for years.

You're burning with anger, weeping with the remnants of your pain, and jittery with hope. Hope to restart, or even continue from where you left off.

"Chief," One of your subordinates snap you out of your thoughts. 'Chief' was a title you earned as a joke but your coworkers have made a habit of using it as a term of endearment and respect. What can you say? You do a good job.

"The pilots. They're here." Fuck everything you just told yourself. There's only fear.

You will yourself to walk to the front entrance, watching them ascend the stairs, wind flowing through their blazers like a gentle kiss goodbye from the elements.

You'd recognise him any day. You've studied him to the atom. He's changed.

His hat rests in his hand with a small suitcase. A shaded pair of glasses sits on his face perfectly, protecting his eyes from the cruel blaze of the sun. He's smiling. You hadn't seen that smile in so long.

As he draws closer to you, you force yourself to swallow your nerves and clench and unclench your fists in the hopes of grounding yourself. It's definitely making you notice he's much more muscular. And taller. And more handsome–

His hands remove his glasses as he reaches you and that does it. If not for your need to maintain professionalism you would have burst into tears. Those beautiful sunset eyes are exactly the same. Radiant, shining, and brimming with stories of you and him.

His smile trembles as his eyes dart all over your face, almost like he couldn't believe that you're here. His grip on his hat tightens.

Sharply breathing through your nose, you serenely smile as you would when interacting with passengers. "Welcome to Linkon Air, gentlemen." You step aside to grant them access to the aircraft. "It is a pleasure to work alongside you."

You smooth down your skirt as they walk by giving their thanks. Your eyes dart to the air traffic controllers out of habit, ensuring everything is in order. They have a pattern that you've learned to track since there'd always be a ton of time before prepping for passengers to arrive.

Although it's likely been minutes since you scanned the roadway, you feel a pair of familiar eyes burning right into your back.

The flight (at least for the first few hours) goes relatively smoothly. You got sleep after takeoff, since your previous flight exhausted you. Your team worked diligently, leaving you with light work as you switched shifts for the second half of the flight.

The sun has been setting from what you've seen doing your rounds checking on the passengers in the economy and business cabins. By the time you get back to your deck, the stars begin to speckle the endless horizon.

Carrying your habits from your university days, the first thing you do is make a cup of coffee as strong as it can get over tens of thousands of metres above ground. The cardboard cup in your hand unexpectedly brings back a flood of memories. Memories of your younger days. 

Memories of Caleb.

Tremors build as the aircraft reaches the higher through the clouds as the sky completely darkens, leaving you with the stars and the blinking lights of the wings. Turbulence is about to strike the plane— hopefully there aren’t any screamers on this flight.

You slowly sip your caffeinated paradise considering whether you should wait for the mini turbulence to calm or to ride it out to serve meals to the passengers. Anything to distract you from him for the time being. Just enough to get the job done.

The soft push of the door behind you send your shoulders twitching into tension but you keep your gaze right ahead. Your grip on the counter is tight enough to make your knuckles go pale against your skin.

“You look good as chief.” Your eyes flutter shut, instantly sinking into familiarity and warmth. His voice. His damned voice.

“You look good alive.” Your tone is gruffer than anticipated. You almost feel bad.

You can hear his footsteps get louder as he draws near you. Closer and closer until he’s right behind you, towering over you. “I’m–“

“Sorry?” You huff, chugging down what remains of your coffee. “I would have probably taken that five years ago. Probably. But you've said nothing. Nothing!” Your voice falls into a hushed shriek to avoid catching the attention of the attendants serving the food through the business cabin. 

Caleb’s gloved hand swiftly closes the curtains to separate you both from the cabin, at least in terms of sight. His hand slowly trails down until it’s just a twitch away from your own. “I was assigned to join the Fleet for off-planet missions.” He informs you in a hushed tone, almost too professional and commandeering for your liking. "I didn't have a choice."

“Really now, cadet?” You scoff, almost tempted to roll your eyes just like you used to whenever you didn’t believe the things he’d say. 

“Colonel.”

“That high up in the ranks, huh?” Considering the limit of space you have, you aim to toss the cup into the bin and hit it perfectly inside. “In a span five years too, very realistic.”

“Maybe we should stop dancing around in this pettiness.” You can almost hear the exasperation in his voice. And the smallest sliver of desperation.

“Perhaps you’d find it hard to be familiar with someone you assumed was dead for five years—“ You hiss as you attempt to side step away from him, only for his other hand to slam down on the counter, holding you in place.

A warm draft hits your neck directly from his breath touching your skin for the first time in so, so long. “I didn’t have a choice, pips.”

“I…” Damn him and his warmth for making you start to forget your anger. “I don’t believe you.” 

“How can I get you to believe in me?” He whispers, lips nearing your skin. Hot shivers run straight down your spine. Your head leans towards him out of instinct, so familiar and natural. “Tell you classified information? What the Fleet has been doing outside of public knowledge?”

His hand rests on top of yours, warm to the touch and gentle in grip. “Didn’t you get my letters?” His lips ghost over your ears. You can almost hear the tinge of hurt in his words. “Like the ones we used to send each other back when we were kids?”

Letters? You hadn’t gotten anything. When you visited your grandmother to ask if she received any correspondence she would always say no— oh.

“She got rid of them.” You finish your thought out loud. Even if you looked they’d likely be ashes before you get home.

“Of course.” The plane’s floor rumbles with his brewing agitation. He doesn’t even want to think about what that old woman was doing to prevent the two of you from having contact for all those years. But you’re here with him, and that’s all that matters. He’s more than ready to spend the next five years grovelling for your forgiveness.

“Caleb,” His eyes flutter shut at his name leaving your lips. There’s no anger, no resentment, only that familiar reverence you two used to share. “You sent letters?”

“Every single day.” You feel his head drop into the junction between your shoulders and neck, fitting just right. “Even when I thought I was going to be trapped in Deepspace, I wrote letters in paper, sent transmissions, did everything I thought would reach you. But since she destroyed them all—“

Caleb pauses in his tracks, deeply inhaling your scent through the thick layers of your uniform. Through the perfume foreign to his senses and the familiar smell of fabric softener, there you were. His favourite aroma, the only one keeping him sane (mind you, his only other source was your hoodie and pair of panties which obviously didn’t last him five years worth of sniffing). 

“Doesn’t matter,” He grumbles, voice muffled by your clothes. “You’re here. I’m here. And I’m not gonna disappear on you again. Not if I can do anything about it.”

Trembles strike the plane again before you can respond; this time more violent. Loud cries echo from beyond the curtain separating you and the passengers as the turbulence topples your balance. You both jerk forward, pressed uncomfortably against the counter, holding on for dear life.

“Must’ve been a while since you had air turbulence, huh?” You grin to yourself, feeling how tight his grip on your hand is. His knuckles are practically turning white. “Space didn’t prepare you for that did it?”

Caleb makes no response other that a suppressed choke. “Caleb?”

The aircraft trembles again pushing you closer together, so much so that you can feel something very hard prodding you from behind. Very hard. Familiarly hard.

You hadn't felt it in so long, your body can't help but respond intuitively. You lean into him, arching your back as he's pushed closer to you. It's as if he's constantly orbiting you in an endless gravitational pull.

Neither of you try to pull away. It's all too familiar and you don't want to run away from the very thing you haven't had in years.

His length strains against the confines of his pants, accentuating its girth and the aggressive throbbing on your core. The turbulence brings your hips into a shaky rhythm moving back and forth, grinding on each other and bringing your minds into a complete haze.

"Pips–" Caleb groans into your shoulder in a sore attempt to conceal his noises. The commotion in the passenger cabins rise as your subordinates urge them to remain calm. There is no way any of them would think to come in your direction– hopefully none of them will try.

A moan slips through your lips as his hips grind up against you in that exact delicious way he used to do it back then. Back when you had all the time to yourselves. When you had each other.

Heat pools at your core, turning your legs to jelly. His head is buried in the crook of your neck, subjecting him to your scent that hasn't changed despite the years. Still that enamouring smell that always drove him insane.

You could stay like this forever, in his hold, in this state as dangerous as it may be. For as long as you need to so long as you can live in the knowledge that Caleb will never leave again. You'd do everything to make sure of that.

"Caleb!" Gideon yells through the muffled door of the cockpit, snapping you both out of your trance. "Get back here!"

Caleb sharply inhales before pulling himself away from you, stumbling back with a ramble of apologies.

"I'm sorry, I– I–" He shakes his head and swiftly turned to the cockpit. "Forgive me, I need to attend to my duties."

The door clicks shut, leaving you to stand in the aftershock of your deeds. You don't have the time to ponder and reflect, you need to do your job.

It doesn't take long to calm the passengers down. After handing out snacks, speaking to passengers, and tying the odd few to their seats with their own seatbelts all while trying to ignore the wetness pooling at your core, the turbulence finally calms.

You can't help but feel hot in your uniform. After that, there's no coherent thought apart from Caleb.

Caleb, Caleb, Caleb.

His scent. His touch. The way his lips automatically found your neck but did not kiss your flesh. The way his hips moved with yours– it wasn't just the tremors of the plane, you were both moving together. His cock was so damn hard you thought it would make his pants unzip on its own.

You close your eyes, shuddering at the memory. It's becoming increasingly hard to maintain composure. To stay professional. But you're practically shivering with need.

Every step you take rubs the soaked cotton fabric of your panties against your clit. Every touch on your skin sends hot shivers right down to your core. Merely hearing your colleagues swoon over Caleb makes your walls clench and your gut boil in brewing jealousy.

Such a shame they didn't get to see how he was practically losing himself just moments ago.

The feeling becomes almost unbearable. The need burning deep within you becomes too much to ignore. You have to talk to him. You have to do something.

You close your eyes and straighten your back. There's a few hours left of the flight. Most of your colleagues are sleeping in their cabins. You've completed your shift. Just a few more hours.

Your hand hovers over the door to the cockpit. You just need to knock. Simple as that.

Just as your fist is about to land on the door, it slides open.

"Oh, sorry!" Gideon apologises as he steps out. "Didn't mean to startle you. By the way, do you know where your colleague is? The short, cute one."

You raise your brow in suspicion. "For what reason?"

"Nothing." He quickly responds, shoving his hands into his pockets. From what you can recall, Gideon has always had a habit of hiding his hands whenever he lied.

"Right." You sarcastically nodded. "She's in the back. Alone." You step aside you let him go through the cabin. "Don't make too much noise. Some passengers are still awake."

He simply grinned and scurried off, practically skipping as he moved.

If Gideon isn't in there anymore, that means it's just Caleb. An open opportunity.

You look around you to make sure you're fully alone and without another thought you step inside and swiftly close the door behind you.

"You shouldn't be here." His voice shoots through you like wine engulfing your tastebuds. He's standing behind his chair, hand flipping through papers that you assume are flight directives.

"I have authorisation." You defiantly stand your ground.

"By what grounds?"

"This isn't the Fleet, Caleb." You cross your arms, leaning on the door. The pounding on your chest grows louder and louder the longer his eyes look straight into yours. "Things are different here."

Caleb's eyes flutter shut as he groans. His hands move to cover the growing tent in his pants. "Don't say that."

"Don't say what, Caleb?"

"Don't say my name like that."

You raise a brow in challenge. "Caleb." You step forward. "Caleb." This time you speak in a soft whine. "Caleb." Agression. "Caleb." Need. "Caleb, Caleb, Caleb–"

His hands hold your face and he backs you against the cockpit entrance, breath heavy with a familiar scent. The scent of restricted desire. You used to hate when he held himself back.

"I tried everything, pipsqueak, everything to reach you." Your eyes closed, hands mirroring his own by holding his face and stroking his skin. His freckles are still there. His pores that you used to poke are still there. His eyelashes are still there. The incision scar from his eyebrow piercing he had when you were younger is still there. Everything is still as it was.

"I never wanted to leave," He whispers. "I wanted to stay. I fought to stay."

"I believe you." You stroke his cheeks, staring deep into his eyes. "I forgive you. I..." You hesitate, afraid it's too soon to say. But you have nothing to lose. "I adore you still, desire you still. I want you."

Caleb's hands twitched as he glanced away from your gaze. "It's been years," He whispers, unable to unite his lips with your own. "I don't even know who you've–"

"I haven't." You reach to hold his face, gently stroking his cheeks with your thumbs. "It's always been you. Only you."

Caleb huffs a quiet laugh. "Your hands are still so soft." His fear melts into adoration, soothing his nerves. "So warm."

You lean up, finally pressing your lips on his. It almost feels like the first time. His lips are soft, reminding you of how you teased him into using more lip balm. He must have kept the habit.

His hands wander lower and lower until they reach your waist and the back of your neck, maintaining a gentle grip on you. Gentle becomes needy, and needy becomes intense.

Caleb moans into your mouth as your tongue slips through his lips, tasting him like a delicacy you hadn't had in years (which is true). His hands instantly drip to your ass, palming over your curves as his hips grind against yours to remind you of his needy hard on.

Your clit tingles with desperate need as your tongues move together, not for dominance but in the greatest form of reverence you can possibly muster. Your hand reaches down to his throbbing bulge, almost nervous to feel him once more. His hips jerk to your touch.

"Please, pips," He whimpers against your lips. Your skirt raises above your hips to grant him access to your soaked panties. "I need you."

You waste no time unbuckling his belt, lips still on his, to free his cock from its confines. You almost forgot how big he is. Your hand can barely wrap around him, for one. His sacks feel so heavy in your hands, making you imagine things you wouldn't dare dignify with words. Three veins travel up his length and end before they reach his reddened tip that's leaking drops of warm precum. You thumb his slit, covering your finger in his juices to bring out a string of moans that you've almost forgotten.

"Missed you," Caleb sputters, leaning down to attack your neck with hot kisses. His calloused fingers pull your panties aside to feel your arousal, collecting your juices until it's slick enough to rub your sensitive clit. "Missed this."

Your nails claw at his nape as your grinds turn into dry ruts, unable to coherently think of anything other than satiating your need for each other.

"Caleb," You moan into his ear, tongue slithering around his earlobe as his fingers finally sink into your pussy. "The plane–"

"Autopilot." His voice is slightly muffled from his lips sucking endless marks onto your skin. "Where's Gideon?"

"With a flight attendant," You grin to yourself. "They'll be busy for a while."

His chuckle sends warmth spreading through your body like nostalgic shock before he engulfs you in his embrace again, kissing you deep and hard until all you can think about is him.

His lips are gentle on yours, almost like he can't bring himself to believe that you're here with him. The context doesn't matter. The risk serves no meaning to him. All he wants... is you.

Caleb reluctantly pulls away from your addictive hold to catch his breath. The scent of mint fans your face as he breathes deeply with you. You can't help but lean closer to his lips, desperate to feel him again. And again. And again until you're sick of him.

But you never will be.

"I need you," You mutter using your free hand to free the skin of your neck for him to suckle and mark.

And he responds swiftly, teeth sinking into your flesh unlike all those other times where he'd gently tease and lick you. Now his nibbles have turned into full-on bites, leaving wet trails of his saliva as an additional mark to his ministrations.

"I've missed you so, so much," You choke on your whispers, feeling tears well in your eyes again. "You can't ever leave me like that again."

"I know," Caleb murmured as his lips pressed another loving peck on another lovebite he leaves on your skin. "I'll never leave you again. Never. Not if I can do anything about it."

Your hand rises from his chest to his hair to tug him back. His eyes roll back with a poorly swallowed groan. "Promise me." It's hard to concentrate with how close you two are, how his cock throbs and twitches in your hand, how your bodies respond to each other like clockwork.

"Promise you'll never leave again." You tug his hair harder, hoping it will emphasise your point. "I swear, I'll keep you by my side at all times if I have to–"

Caleb swallows your surprised moan as he latches his lips back onto yours. The last thing he wants you to do is spiral while you're with him. To worry about an impossible event. He will never leave. He'd kill anyone who tries to take him from you. And if he had to show you to prove himself, he'd do it without hesitation.

"I'll never leave you again. Never." He rasps, hips jutting into your hand unable to ignore the pulsating need that makes his cock leak so much. Just for you. "I promise."

Your clothes ruffle and come apart, piece by piece until your shirts are completely unbuttoned, skirt pulled up to the waist and pants pulled down just above the knee. Your nipples are poking out of your bra, hardened and sensitive and needy for his tongue to worship.

"I've missed your taste." His tongue swirls around your pebbles, drawing one into a gentle suckle while his free hand attends to your other nipple to pinch and fondle.

Your eyes flutter shut as your head hits the wall. Oh, how you've missed the feeling of him on you like this. A soft moan flows out of your lips, hips grinding in immediate response to his touch– his love.

Caleb moans into your skin as if he's the one being touched, hands fondling your mounds. His tongue lavers spit all over your cleavage, soaking you completely.

It is inappropriate to be doing this. You should be doing your rotation and checking on passengers. Caleb should be flying the damn plane and not leaving two hundred lives in the hands of autopilot. But you couldn't care less. You wanted him. He wanted you. You needed each other.

And you wouldn't pass it up for the world– aviation laws be damned.

"I've missed how you feel," His lips wander lower as he brings himself to his knees. "How warm you are when you're with me. How you smile in the sun. You tight your pussy is when I'm deep inside you." His fingers, still pumping inside you slowly pull out to your dissatisfaction for him to taste.

"But I think I missed this the most." He closed his eyes, shamelessly moaning at your taste as soon as his fingers land on his tastebuds. "Fuck, pips. You don't know how crazy you make me feel."

He doesn't waste another second to taste you through the slight barrier of your panties– lace and red. Almost like the apples you used to eat together when you were younger. You both moan upon contact, your hands finding home in his hair and his mouth practically drooling.

"Caleb–" You whimper into your hand, worried that you'll make noise. The sun is beginning to rise on the horizon.

His tongue presses flat on your clothed clit, rolling the bundle of nerves around, checking if his old techniques were still valid to use. Your pleasured whimpers turned to soft moans as he eased your nerves with each flick of his tongue.

"You taste so divine." His hand reached down for his aching cock to stroke and tease.

His fingers circle around your entrance slowly and push deep into you in search for your sensitive core. It doesn't take long for the tip of his finger to push just the right spot, bringing your knees to a tremble.

His touch burned your flesh, sent shivers of warmth raging beneath your skin. It is endless, it's infinite, it's perfect.

You moan his name like a broken record, practically shivering with need and desire. You hook one leg over his shoulder, keeping his head in place with both your hands. His moans are muffled deep within your core as he tongues you relentlessly, desperate to give you as much as he can in a short pocket of time.

"Missed your tongue– missed your fucking tongue!" You whine. "Fuck, 'leb, I missed you so much– f-fuck– need you so bad!" Your hips rut up and down his face, lathering his face in your divine juices. You can tell Caleb it relishing in it, from the soft plapping sound coming from his hand working his cock.

"Look at you," You huff with a grin. He glances up with those sunset eyes of his completely glazed over with lust and desire. You brush his sweat-dampened cowlicks away from his forehead to stroke his skin with pure devotion. "Touching yourself for me when you should be flying this plane. Ruining me, devouring me. I want to do the same."

"Mmh," He groans into your pussy and pulls his tongue from you. "Not yet. When we land." He kisses your folds, practically making out with your pussy loud and sloppy. "Wanna take care of you, love you, give you what you've needed all these years."

He presses hot kisses up your body until he reaches your lips once more and slips his tongue right in for you to taste yourself. To relish in what drives him mad.

Your tongues dance a very familiar waltz that turns to a beloved tango, becoming more feverish, more needy, more reckless. His hands guide yours behind your back and turns you to face the door keeping you two separated from everyone outside.

"I want you right now." You both say simultaneously and laugh. For such a moment of debauchery, you would always find ways to laugh together. It's just like it was back then. You're glad, if anything.

Caleb tugs your panties further away from your core being more delicate than you expected. "For someone who used to steal my underwear, I'm surprised you haven't torn this pair."

"I intend on keeping it for myself." He grinned as he pressed another kiss on your neck. "For later use."

His cock rubs up and down and around your dripping pussy, tapping your sensitive clit with his cockhead, bumping it with every thrust as he lathers his length in your juices and his precum. "You're soaked, pips, yet you wrap around me so tightly. Practically squeezing."

"Just for you." You pant against the door. You arch into him, squeezing his girth with your thighs making him moan right into your ear. "Ah, it's all for you."

"And all of this–" He thrusts into your thighs again, securing a tight grip on your waist. "–is for you and you alone, my love."

My love. It is music to your ears.

"My love." He kisses the shell of your ear. "My devotion. My goddess. I vow to serve you. Love you. Protect you. To never leave you alone. I swear it."

He lines his tip with your entrance, shakily inhaling. It's been so damn long. And now you're both here. Finally.

"I'm yours." His cock sweetly slides into you in one swift thrust reducing you both to moaning messes. You fit each other like puzzle pieces designed for each other. You are truly made for each other.

"Fuck." Your hips move in tandem as his cock rocks in and out of you, sweet and slow to savour just how warm you are, how you wrap and squeeze around him so fucking well.

"You feel so good, pips." He whines into your ear, picking up his pace until your slick soaked skin claps loud enough to echo around the cockpit. "Oh my– s-so good. You're so good–"

Your minds become hazy as you lose yourselves in each other, hands scratching, gripping and squeezing what you can reach, his hands on the softness of your ass and your on his to push him as deep as possible. And then even deeper.

"Don't stop." You whine as he pushes his cock deeper and deeper inside until he's completely bottomed out inside you. That delicious squelching noise rings in your ears, driving you into a frenzy of desire and devotion. "Don't ever stop!"

His response is unintelligible, completely reduced to moans and mindless babbles about how perfect you are, how good you feel, everything he wants to do with you right here and now.

“Think about all the people who could be walking past.” Caleb moans into your ear as he pounds his cock into you, dragging his length in and out until your joint slick drips down your legs. “Gideon could walk in at any moment. One of your subordinates could be looking for you. One of the passengers might just hear the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

His hand reaches your neatly secured hair and gently tugs at it, granting himself more access to your exposed neck. He suckles a large bruise right where anyone can see it and sinks his teeth right into you. Your back arches from the pain and your pussy walls flutter from the pleasure, making you come completely undone from the thrill of being caught alone. 

“We both know how much you like the idea of being caught. I like it too.” Caleb muses as he continues to plough you through your orgasm.

“Gets me harder.” His thrusts slow to a cruel yet lewd grind. “Makes me consider risking it all just to feel you squeeze around me. Just to have you milk me dry.” His hand reaching to swirl your clit in circles. Your moans become cries, relentlessly growing louder until he has to stuff his fingers into your mouth.

“We don’t want to get too much attention, pips.” He whines as your walls clench tight enough to snap his cock in half. It just feels so damn good. But the risk is too high. He would rather having you screaming for him while you’re alone than to let a bunch of strangers hear what he’s been missing for years.

He pulls out of your pussy, leaving your walls clenching with need. "Caleb!"

"Hold on," You feel the ground beneath you disappear as he uses his Evol to turn you around and place you back on his cock while facing him.

His finger moves up and down, directing his Evol to bounce you on his cock as he moves to his seat. The pressure from his cock hitting your sensitive spot in a different angle, and the pressure of his Evol tightening deep inside your core renders you speechless with your eyes crossing from the intense pleasure burning through you.

"Have to be careful when sitting you down," He murmurs as he presses his lips on yours. "Can't mess up the controls or we'll end up risking an emergency landing."

He finally sits and releases his Evol on you, sinking you onto his cock once more. You both sigh into each other's lips in another kiss, tasting each other and drowning in each other's adoration.

Your soaked pussy slurps him in like a vacuum with each bounce on his thick, throbbing length, making Caleb absolutely weak beneath you. His hips jerk up, fucking you so hard that rings of cream form around his base.

"Love your cock, 'leb–" You babble, bordering being completely cockdrunk on him. You had long thrown your responsibilities out the window and you're sure he has too. "F-feel so- fuck me– so damn good! I–"

"Love you, pips," He rambles back, tongue slurping the sweat off your skin like it's water. He's definitely drunk on you and your pussy. How could he not be?

"I love you so much– wanna make you f-feel so–" Thrust. "–damn–" Thrust. "good!" The next heavy thrust his cock pounds into your weeping hole shoots hot, thick cum right up your core, spurting globs and globs of his juices until it leaks out of you.

The heat alone makes you bury your head between his neck and shoulder to mask your cry as your walls flutter around him, bringing you to another powerful orgasm.

You both pant, losing your grip on yourselves as you calm down from your joint finish. Your hands travel to each others' faces to bring yourselves into another doting kiss, this time in a warm embrace.

Just as you're about to speak, once the waves of your joint pleasure subside, Caleb gently grips your chin. "Look behind you."

You tiredly turn to feel the warmth of the dawning sun on your skin. It's rising, slowly but it has been long enough to witness your reunion with Caleb. Almost like it blessed the two of you to another chapter in your story. This time, a chapter that won't end.

"I've always told you the summer sun makes your skin glow," Caleb half-moaned half-hummed, kissing the corner of your lips in worship. "Like gold. Like diamonds."

"I've always told you that you make me shine." You smiled, leaning into his touch.

"No," He turns you to face him once more, his lips inching closer to yours to bring you into a kiss. "It's the other way around. You make me shine. You're the star I orbit, pips. Above the skies and on the ground. You are what I wake up every day for."

You'll deal with your jobs later. What matters is that your pilot is here with you. He's home. And he will stay in your orbit, now and forever.

Off to one side, a game of beer pong was underway, a crowd cheering them on. On the other, a group was doing shots. In the middle was a makeshift dancefloor with girls in the cutest outfits shaking their hips rhythmically to the music. You make note of the only other exit, a door near the pool table that someone was just heading out of.

Everyone around you was everything you wished you were: confident, excited, having fun. Instead, your brain was torturing you. The noise, the low lights, the crowd: everything was danger. You could feel your pulse spiking already, sweat beading across your forehead.

“Thanks for coming with me. Couldn’t have done this without you.” Britt offers you a smile as she tries to speak over the noise. Even though she was much more social than you, she was also introverted. But unlike you, she hated being alone. For you, being alone was solace. Comfort. Peace.

“Of course!” You force a smile back as best you can. “Do you see John?”

“Not yet.” She answers, her brown eyes searching the crowd. “Oh! He’s in the kitchen.” Dropping your hand, she waves at him until he notices. You follow Britt into the other room, trying to take some deep breaths in a way that you hope doesn’t make you look insane. Britt introduces you, and to your relief, John greets you nicely. In a way that makes you feel like he’s trying to remember your name.

Yet, the moment he starts talking to Britt, it’s like you don’t exist to either of them anymore. In a way, it’s nice. You don’t have to keep up with the conversation or pretend to be having fun. But now you need to find something to do other than disassociate and breathe manually. Grabbing a red solo cup, you it up with beer and take a small sip.

That moment is when Garrett Graham descends down the stairs of the hockey house. He’s the star hockey player, so of course people notice. Heads turn. Multiple people call out to him. And somehow it makes the house feel louder, stuffier, and more overwhelming. You shift on your feet, trying to find somewhere that feels a little less crowded, when someone slams into you.

“Shit, sorry!” The man’s voice echoes in your ear as your beer sloshes out of the cup.

“Nice job, Di Laurentis.” John deadpans.

“My bad.” The man laughs awkwardly, running a hand through his blonde hair. It’s Dean. The other hockey star. Somehow, that makes it worse. Heat rushes to your cheeks, your ears starting to ring. He says something to you that your brain won’t process, his voice sounding far away. Your only clue is him pointing at your drink. Shaking your head quickly, you mutter something about not needing another one before walking away.

Tunnel vision is your next clue things are going downhill. And then it feels like you don’t know how to swallow. Throat too tight to breathe. Hands going numb. Legs going numb. You needed to get some air. Let it pass. Not in front of all these people. The back exit is your target.

Deep breath in. Out. In. Out.

You make it outside, relief slowly blooming as the cold air hit your skin and the noise muffled when the door slams closed. No one else was out here. Just you. Crouching down on the world’s smallest deck, you keep your head low and try to breathe through it.

In. Out. In. Out.

All too quickly, the door creaks open. Your head whips around, eyes wide, heart rate picking up again.

Britt?

John?

Nope. Dean.

Shit.

“Damn, ‘s freezing out here.” He announces to no one in particular, lighting up a joint. Once he takes a drag, his blue eyes lazily scan the deck, landing on you. “Shit, it’s you. Sorry again, for spilling your drink.” The way he chuckles is so easygoing it makes you jealous. You wanted to have fun, to be casual. Your brain always had other plans.

“It’s fine.” You grit out, fists clenching so your nails dug into your palms.

“Whoa,” Dean finally takes in your demeanor. “You sick?” His attention makes your skin prickle.

“I said I’m fine.” Your voice gets harsher, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave.

“You don’t look fine.” There’s an edge of concern in his voice. That sends a new wave of panic. Dean was, based on rumors and the fact that you had eyes, the kind of person always the center of attention. The last thing you needed was someone like that focused on you.

“I’m good, I’ve got it handled.” You try to sound better than you feel.

“Sure.” Dean drawls, unconvinced.

“Don’t you want to go back to your friends?” You ask, nodding back at the door.

“I’ve got a joint to smoke. Don’t you want to go back to your friends?” He counters.

“I just need a minute.” You admit. Truthfully, he was providing the tiniest distraction. Which let feeling come back to your hands and legs. But the song playing inside changes, and the new, louder bass thump makes you flinch. Dean notices it, because of course he does.

“Too much?” He guesses. You can only nod, hoping that’s enough of an explanation to get him to drop it. He’s quiet for a minute, and you think that that’s it. “Be right back.” He promises, the door slamming shut behind him.

You exhale fully now that you’re finally alone. Trying to convince yourself that you’re safe. It’s just a party. There’s no danger. But the door opens again way too quickly, and Dean’s standing next to you, one hand with a joint and the other extending a dark blue, large pair of headphones.

“Put these on.” He offers, shaking them slightly for emphasis. It felt wrong to refuse someone trying to help, and you didn’t have the strength to argue. You grab the headphones, placing them over your ears.

Immediately, the world quieted slightly. You could still feel the bass of the music. But all the noise from the party fully faded. It was a subtle change, but somehow enough to bring much needed relief. And your expression probably showed that, because Dean was smiling down at you.

“I use those before my games. Help me block out distractions and shit.” He tells you, his voice much quieter through the headphones. As he continues to smoke, looking out across campus, you let your panic pass. Your body, as it always does, starts to calm down. In the moment, it always felt catastrophic. Like you were dying. And when it passed, it felt like you were dramatic for no reason.

Once you feel steady enough, you stand slowly. Dean is tall enough that you have to look up at him. When you take off the headphones, you hand them back with a hint of a smile.

“Those are expensive, okay? Be careful with ‘em.” He chides with a grin.

“Oh, no.” You deadpan, pretending to drop them. His reflexes are quick, his warm, large hands covering yours as he takes the headphones back. You flush again, not from anxiety this time, but from how nice it felt. And how good he looked. And that he bothered to do something nice.

“What’s your name, trouble?” He winks, seeming to like that he helped you relax. You tell him, and he repeats it a few times as if to commit it to his crossfaded memory.

“Thank you.” You say honestly, ready to make your way back inside before Britt really noticed you weren’t there.

Tom did not want to go. This had been established approximately twenty-seven times in the last hour.

Y/N was standing in front of the mirror trying to finish getting ready while Tom sat on the edge of their bed looking deeply unimpressed by the entire concept of leaving the house.

"We're going."

Tom sighed. "We could stay."

"We can't."

"We absolutely could."

Y/N smiled at his reflection. "Tom."

Before he could argue again, the bedroom door opened.

Aurelia walked in, immediately crossed the room and attached herself to her mother's side.

Tom watched this happen. "Traitor."

Aurelia poked her tongue out at him.

Y/N laughed. Then another sigh came from the doorway.

Lilith. "Do you really have to go?"

Y/N groaned. "Not you too."

"That's not a no."

"It is a yes."

Lilith looked disappointed, Aurelia looked even more disappointed while Tom looked positively heartbroken.

Y/N pointed at her husband. "Stop encouraging them."

"I haven't said anything."

"You don't need to." Tom looked offended.

Aurelia hugged Y/N tighter.

Lilith folded her arms.

Y/N looked at both girls. "Your father and I will be back later."

Neither looked convinced.

Finally Tom stood. He walked over and kissed Lilith's forehead, then Aurelia's. "Go on."

Both girls stared.

Aurelia especially. "You're helping her?"

Tom nodded. "Unfortunately."

Aurelia looked betrayed, then she poked her tongue out at him again.

Tom sighed.

Lilith immediately grabbed her sister. "Come on."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

"I'll miss Mum."

"I know."

"She'll miss me."

Lilith looked at Tom. "That's not helping."

Tom looked away.

The girls finally disappeared out the door. Or so everyone thought.

The second the door closed, Y/N turned back toward the mirror. "Love?"

"Hm?"

"Can you help with the zip?"

Tom immediately walked over. His wife stood with her back to him, dress half-zipped.

Simple task, easy to most. Except Tom got distracted. Again, because his wife was beautiful. She always was.

Thirty years later and he still found himself staring.

Y/N caught his reflection in the mirror. "Tom."

"Hm?"

"The zip." Instead of answering, he leaned forward and kissed her shoulder.

Y/N smiled despite herself. "Tom."

Another kiss, the other shoulder this time. The man was impossible. "Love."

Tom finally reached for the zipper.

Except—Instead of pulling it up he pulled it down.

Y/N blinked. "Tom."

"What?"

"Wrong direction."

"I know."

"Then why—"

He kissed her shoulder again.

Y/N sighed, then laughed. "You're ridiculous."

Tom looked entirely unapologetic. Then he examined the zipper dramatically. "Hm."

"What?"

"Hm."

"Thomas."

Tom frowned at the zipper. "It appears to be stuck."

Y/N stared at him. "It was working five seconds ago."

Tom shrugged. "Terrible quality."

"Tom."

"I suppose if the dress is broken—"

"It's not."

"—then we'll have to stay home."

From outside the bedroom came an immediate. "YAY!"

Silence.

Y/N slowly turned toward the door as Tom closed his eyes because Aurelia had clearly been eavesdropping. Again.

"It's not broken," Y/N called.

An offended groan sounded from the hallway.

Tom looked thoughtful, then very casually lifted his wand.

Y/N narrowed her eyes. "Tom."

A tiny spark shot from the tip and the zipper immediately snapped. The entire thing now broken, completely.

Y/N stared as Tom stared back.

"Convenient."

Tom nodded. "Very."

Y/N folded her arms. "You broke my dress."

"It was already struggling."

"It wasn't."

"It looked uncertain."

"It was a zipper."

"It was a weak zipper."

Y/N laughed despite herself.

Tom immediately looked pleased.

While outside the room. "IS IT BROKEN?" Aurelia sounded hopeful.

Tom smirked.

Y/N pointed at him. "You planned this."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're a terrible liar."

Tom wrapped an arm around her waist. "Fortunately, you married me anyway."

Y/N rolled her eyes. Then laughed as Aurelia burst back into the room looking far too excited about her parents potentially cancelling their plans.

Tom, meanwhile, looked completely satisfied with himself. Which was exactly why Y/N knew he had absolutely broken the zipper on purpose.

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Lucy, sitting on her left with her knees angled toward her and a cup of something hot steaming between both hands, made a sympathetic little noise that had absolutely no sympathy in it. “Of course.”

“He isn’t.”

“Right,” Monique said. “He just kissed you goodbye in front of half the hockey house and gave you his jacket because you shivered once.”

“I was cold.”

“And he, famously, is the only man at Briar with access to outerwear.”

She huffed, sinking her chin into the collar because the arena was freezing and because, unfortunately, Garrett’s jacket was stupidly warm. It smelled like cold air and detergent and that clean, sharp soap from the bathroom at the hockey house, with something underneath that was just him in a way she was trying very hard not to examine in public. 

“You’re both being unbearable.”

Lucy brightened. “Because we love you.”

“Because you’re obsessed with my downfall.”

“Same thing.”

Down on the ice, the team was warming up, bodies cutting through the pale scratch of skate marks, pucks snapping hard off sticks and boards, the sound ricocheting up into the stands like little bursts of thunder. 

It always amazed her a little, how different Garrett looked out there. Like someone had taken the boy who sprawled across the couch at the hockey house with his knee nudging hers, stealing fries from her plate, and sharpened him into something clean and fast and almost vicious. He moved like he belonged to the rink. Like the cold had been made for him.

She spotted him before he spotted her, which felt like winning something small and embarrassing. He was skating backward near centre ice, helmet tipped enough that she could see the dark mess of his curls escaping beneath it, mouth moving around something he was saying to Logan. 

Logan shoved him lightly with one gloved hand, Garrett shoved him back harder, and then Garrett’s gaze drifted up toward their section like he’d felt her looking. It was ridiculous, how quick his face changed.

One second he was all hockey captain focus, jaw set, shoulders loose, stick held easy in one hand. The next, his grin cracked open bright enough that Lucy made a tiny gagging sound beside her. He lifted his chin at her, smug and warm at the same time, and she gave him a wave that was supposed to be casual and came out entirely too fond. 

His eyes dropped, caught on the jacket around her shoulders, and the grin did something worse. Softer. More private. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t like it and failing so badly he should’ve been embarrassed.

“Oh, babe,” Monique said under her breath. “That is a boyfriend.”

“Shut up.”

“He saw you in his jacket and almost forgot he had legs.”

“Shut up.”

Lucy leaned over her knees, waving down at the ice with a wide grin like she was trying to get them married before the first whistle. “Garrett! We think you’re very brave for not having a girlfriend!”

Her stomach dropped straight into her shoes. “Lucy.”

Garrett, mercifully too far away to hear, only pointed his stick up in their direction before turning back toward the drill. But he was still grinning. The asshole.

By the time warmups started winding down and the arena filled properly, the air had shifted into that restless pre-game buzz that made even the metal railings feel charged. Students packed into rows with painted faces and cheap signs, somebody behind them was already yelling at a player who hadn’t done anything yet, and the announcer’s voice came in and out over the speakers while the lights washed everything in cold white. 

She had just turned her head to answer Monique, who was asking if she wanted to split fries at intermission, when an older couple paused at the end of their row.

The man looked familiar in the vague, unsettling way people did when you’d seen their face somewhere but couldn’t place the context. He was tall, broad through the shoulders even under his coat, with a square jaw, silver threaded through his hair, and the kind of presence that made space feel like it ought to rearrange around him. 

The woman beside him was polished, pretty in a neat, expensive way, her smile already prepared before she’d fully made eye contact.

“Oh– sorry,” she said automatically, shifting toward Lucy to make room. The jacket bunched at her elbows as she moved. “There’s space here.”

The man shook his head once, not dismissive, but close enough to it that her body noticed before her brain did. “It’s fine.”

He stepped past her, his knee brushing the edge of the row, then stopped halfway through lowering himself into the seat when his eyes landed on the jacket. The Briar lettering, Garrett’s number stitched into the sleeve.

Something in his expression flickered. Recognition, maybe. Possession, almost, though that was a strange thing to think about a jacket.

“Graham?” he said.

Her hand tightened slightly around the cuff before she realised she was doing it. “Mhm.”

He looked at her properly then. It was a quick look, assessing, the kind of look she’d seen from attending physicians when they walked into a room and decided in half a second whether you knew what you were doing. It didn’t feel rude enough to call rude, which made it worse somehow.

“Phil,” he said, holding out his hand. “Garrett’s father.”

For a second her brain went perfectly blank, like someone had dropped a sheet over every thought she owned. Phil. Garrett’s father. Garrett’s father, sitting next to her, with his hand out, while she was wearing Garrett’s jacket and had spent the last twenty minutes arguing that he wasn’t her boyfriend.

“Oh,” she said, and immediately wanted to walk into traffic. “Uh. Hi.”

His hand was firm around hers. Too firm, maybe, or maybe she was being ridiculous because her nervous system had just been handed a situation it hadn’t studied for.

She gave him her name, then remembered to smile, then hated that she had to think about smiling, because there was nothing actually wrong. People met parents. Normal people met parents. Girls met the parents of boys who were not their boyfriends all the time, probably. Maybe. Fuck.

Phil repeated her name like he was filing it away. “This is my fiancée, Cindy.”

Cindy leaned forward slightly, her smile warmer than his but still careful around the edges. “Lovely to meet you.”

“You too,” she said, and meant it enough. Cindy seemed nice. She had a gentle voice, pretty earrings, a hand resting lightly in her lap. Normal. Fine. Everything was fine.

Lucy, to her credit, had gone unusually still beside her, which meant either she was trying not to say something insane or she had also felt the temperature around them change by a few degrees. Monique gave a polite smile and then looked at the ice with the laser focus of someone pretending very hard not to eavesdrop.

The lights dropped. The crowd roared. The starting lineup began. She did what she always did when Garrett’s name came over the speakers. She cheered, because she liked seeing him win and because he was impossible not to cheer for when he skated out with his chin lifted and that loose, cocky glide like the entire arena was a room he’d already talked his way into owning. 

He came over the boards with his stick in one hand, shoulders squared, helmet low over his eyes, and she cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling loud enough for Lucy to laugh beside her. “Graham!”

Garrett looked up. For half a second, he found her and everything was exactly the way it had been during warmups. His face opened, instinctive and bright, because he had seen her. Then his gaze moved one seat over.

The grin fell off his face so fast it barely looked like an expression changing. It looked like something had been cut. Her hands lowered slowly from her mouth. 

His body went wrong in this tiny, awful way, one shoulder tightening, his stick hand flexing once, jaw locking hard beneath the cage of his helmet. From this far away, with the arena loud and the lights sharp and bodies moving everywhere, nobody else would’ve noticed, but she noticed. 

She noticed because she had watched Garrett relax under her hands on a couch, had watched him half-asleep in a kitchen at midnight, had watched him come back from games buzzing and smug and high on adrenaline. She knew the way his confidence usually sat in his body.

This wasn’t that. His eyes flicked back to her. Sharp. Caught. Like he’d walked into a room and found a door missing. She lifted her hand a little, uncertain, the motion barely more than a question.

Garrett’s mouth moved around something she couldn’t hear. Then Logan skated into his shoulder, saying something to him, and Garrett snapped his head away like he’d been caught staring. The anthem started. Everyone around them stood.

She stood too, because her body knew what to do even if the rest of her had gone strange and cold.

“You okay?” Lucy murmured, so low it barely made it past the noise.

“Yeah,” she said, eyes still on Garrett. “I just– yeah.”

Phil didn’t say anything. He stood with his hands folded in front of him, looking down at the ice with a flatness that made the fine hairs at the back of her neck lift.

The first period was bad. Bad in the way Garrett wasn’t where he was supposed to be inside his own body. His skating was still sharp, his passes still clean enough that anyone else might not have caught the seams coming loose, but she could see it in the half-second too late he turned his head, the unnecessary shove after the whistle, the way he kept taking contact like he wanted it to hurt. 

He was playing with his shoulders too high, jaw too tight, head whipping up toward the stands every time the puck moved out of his reach. Toward her. No, not toward her. Toward the seat next to her.

The first time he slammed another player into the boards hard enough to make the glass rattle in front of a whole section of screaming students, Lucy jolted beside her and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

Monique’s mouth pressed into a line. “That was… a lot.”

She didn’t answer. Her fingers had found the edge of Garrett’s sleeve and were worrying at the stitching, rubbing the seam back and forth under her thumb until it started to feel raw. 

She kept waiting for Phil to react like a father. To lean forward. To swear under his breath because his son was losing his head. To look worried, even annoyed in a normal sports-parent way. Phil only exhaled through his nose.

It was quiet, almost nothing beneath the noise of the crowd, but she was close enough to hear it. Then he shook his head once, slow and disappointed, like Garrett had missed an open net in a peewee game instead of driving himself visibly off the rails in front of everyone.

Cindy glanced at him. “Phil.”

“He knows better,” Phil said, eyes still on the ice.

The words came out too controlled, worn smooth by use, like they belonged in a room where nobody else was supposed to hear them.

On the ice, Garrett clipped someone behind the play and got shoved back for it. The whistle blew. A ref’s arm went up. The crowd erupted into boos before the penalty was even fully called.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Logan barked from somewhere near the boards, loud enough that she caught it more by shape than sound.

Garrett didn’t look at the ref. He looked up. Right at her.

His face was flushed from exertion, mouth open around a hard breath, but his eyes were too dark from here, too fixed, and something in them made the noise around her go thin and far away. She could feel Lucy watching her now. Monique too. Phil was perfectly still beside her. The ref pointed Garrett toward the box.

Phil’s mouth tightened. “Undisciplined.”

It landed in her chest in a way it shouldn’t have. One word. Nothing, really. But her body did that quiet, clinical thing it sometimes did on placement, when a patient said something that didn’t match their injury, or a family member answered too quickly, or a bruise sat in the wrong shape under someone’s sleeve. Her brain started lining up details without asking permission.

Garrett didn’t talk about his dad. Garrett joked about everything until he didn’t. Garrett, who let her steal his hoodies and his food and half his bed, had never once said, You should meet my father.

Garrett, who could take a chirp from Dean, a shove from Logan, a full-body collision from a six-foot-three defenseman and grin through it, had looked up at the stands and gone pale under the arena lights because his father was sitting beside her.

The penalty clock started. She swallowed, and it felt like trying to get down a mouthful of cotton.

“I’m gonna…” she started.

Lucy touched her wrist under the jacket, gentle and immediate. “Yeah.”

Monique nodded once, already shifting her knees aside. “Go.”

She slipped out of the row with the awkward, whispered apologies of someone trying to move through packed seats without making a scene. Phil didn’t stand. He didn’t even really move his legs. She had to squeeze past him, Garrett’s jacket brushing his coat, and the whole time she could feel his attention on the side of her face.

“Nice meeting you,” Cindy said softly, and it was the first thing anyone in that little pocket had said that sounded human.

“You too,” she managed, then kept going.

The stairs down from the stands felt longer than usual, steeper, the concrete humming with the crowd above her. The arena had always seemed fun from the seats – cold and loud and bright, full of ritual and noise – but underneath it, past the ushers and the concession smell and the taped signs pointing toward restricted areas, it became something else. More industrial. Cinderblock walls, rubber mats, the metallic tang of skate blades and old ice, the sour-sweet smell of sweat and gear drifting from the corridor that led toward the locker rooms.

She wasn’t technically supposed to be there. She knew that. She also knew enough of the arena by now, had been kissed against enough back hallways and walked past enough equipment carts with Garrett’s hand warm at the small of her back, that nobody stopped her when she hovered near the mouth of the corridor and tried to look like she belonged.

The first period ended with the buzzer tearing through the building. A few seconds later, the team came off the ice in a rush of blades and noise and male anger, helmets shoved up, sticks clattering, voices overlapping. Someone slammed a glove into the wall. A coach barked something she couldn’t make out. 

Logan came through first, red-faced and furious, snapping, “What the fuck is up your ass, G?” over his shoulder.

Garrett followed behind him. He looked worse up close. He wasn’t hurt, not physically, anyway, aside from the usual flush and damp curls plastered to his forehead and the little nick at his cheek where someone’s glove must’ve caught him. 

But there was something too tight about him, something barely leashed beneath the pads and jersey, his breathing hard enough that his chest moved like he’d been sprinting. His eyes were flat with anger until they hit her. Then it all broke at the edges.

He stopped so abruptly Dean nearly ran into the back of him. “Jesus, Graham–”

Garrett shoved his gloves and helmet into Logan’s chest without looking at him.

Logan caught them on instinct, still scowling. “Yeah, sure, I’ll just hold your shit. Great talk.”

Garrett was already moving. She barely had time to step forward before he was in front of her, too close and somehow not close enough, his hands coming up like he wanted to touch her everywhere at once and couldn’t decide what was allowed. 

He settled on her waist first, then her elbows, then the sides of the jacket like he was checking that it was still around her. His palms were damp through the sleeves. His breathing was loud between them.

“Hi,” he said.

It was so wildly, heartbreakingly wrong as an opening that she almost laughed. 

“Hi,” she said, much softer.

His eyes moved over her face, quick and frantic in a way he was clearly trying to hide and failing. “You okay?”

That made her hand come up on its own. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Garrett.” Her fingers slid into the damp curls at his hairline, pushing them back from his forehead the way she had done half a dozen times in rooms where his biggest problem was pretending he didn’t like being fussed over. “Baby, what happened?”

His eyes shut for a second when she touched him, like his whole body had been waiting for permission to unclench and could only manage it in pieces. When he opened them again, they were still too bright, too focused.

“Please move.”

Her stomach dropped. Her hands started to come away from his face. “Oh. Yeah, sorry–”

“No.” His hands caught hers immediately, fast enough that she startled, but he softened his grip the second he realised. He brought her hands back to his face himself, pressing her palms to his cheeks like he could anchor her there. “No, not– fuck. Not you. Seats. Don’t sit there.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Get your friends and move. Don’t sit there.” His voice cracked around the last word, barely, but she heard it. Garrett heard it too; she watched the flash of frustration cross his face, aimed inward, sharp and embarrassed. “Please.”

Behind him, the corridor was still moving. Players filing past, coaches calling, Dean hovering near the locker-room door with his helmet tucked under one arm and his brow furrowed in a way that looked too serious on him. 

Tucker had slowed a few feet away, his mouth set, eyes flicking between them like he was noticing more than he wanted to. Logan, still holding Garrett’s gloves, had gone quiet.

She tried to keep her own voice low. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. He just sat next to me, and then he saw the jacket, and I didn’t–” Her fingers tightened slightly against his jaw. “I didn’t mean to overstep if you didn’t want me to meet him.”

Garrett shook his head before she’d even finished. “It’s not that.”

“I swear, I wasn’t trying to make it a thing.”

“I know.” He said it too quickly. Fierce, almost. His thumbs moved once against her wrists, a small, restless stroke, like he was trying to reassure her while standing there with every muscle in his body pulled tight enough to snap. “I know. I don’t care that you met him. I mean, I care, but not like that. I just–” He stopped, jaw working. His eyes cut toward the tunnel that led back to the ice, then back to her. “I don’t want you sitting next to him.”

The fluorescent light overhead hummed. Somewhere down the hall, a coach yelled, “Two minutes!”

She looked at Garrett’s face. Really looked. There were things she could ask. A normal girl might have asked them. What do you mean? Why? What happened with your dad? 

But she wasn’t standing in a normal moment, and she wasn’t stupid, and the body learned its own language when you spent enough time reading other people’s fear in hospital beds. 

She knew what a person looked like when they were angry because anger was easier to hold than panic. She knew the tiny, devastating difference between protective and afraid. She knew what it meant when a grown man couldn’t stop checking the location of another grown man in a crowded building.

Her mouth went dry. She didn’t let her face change too much. That felt important. Garrett was watching her like he expected something to happen if she understood too quickly.

“Okay,” she said.

His shoulders moved with a breath he didn’t quite release. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, slow and steady, because something in him needed steady more than it needed questions. “I’ll text Lucy and Monique. We’ll move sections.”

His fingers flexed at her waist. “You don’t have to leave the game.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t want–”

“I know,” she said again, and she didn’t know the details, not really, but she knew enough for now. Enough to understand this wasn’t about him being embarrassed. Enough to understand that whatever Phil Graham was, whatever he had been, Garrett didn’t want him beside her in a place where he could see but not reach. “We’ll move. I promise.”

Garrett’s mouth pressed shut. He turned his head just enough to kiss the centre of her palm. The gesture was so soft it hurt.

He shuddered on the breath after, barely visible under all the pads and noise and anger, and she had the sudden, awful urge to take him somewhere quiet and lock every door between him and the rink. 

Instead, she brushed her thumb over the cheekbone beneath his eye, feeling the damp heat of him, the faint scrape of stubble, the hard pulse ticking at his jaw.

“Graham,” Dean called from the locker-room doorway, voice rougher than usual. “We have a fucking game to play, man.”

Garrett didn’t look away from her. “Yeah.”

“Now would be good.”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

Dean’s eyes flicked to her. For once, he didn’t make a joke. That, more than almost anything else, made her chest tighten.

She lifted her brows at Garrett, trying for something like normal because normal was a gift she could give him in pieces. “You okay?”

The answer was obviously no. They both knew it. Garrett nodded anyway, because he was Garrett and because there was a game and because whatever had just opened between them was too raw to put words inside with half the team watching.

“Yeah,” he said, then swallowed. “We’ll– tonight, okay? I’ll–”

“Don’t explain now.” Her thumb moved once more over his cheek, and she let her voice soften around the command, because he listened better when he thought she wasn’t letting him off the hook entirely. “Just go win.”

Something in his face loosened by a fraction. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He bent before she could decide whether that was a terrible idea in the middle of a hallway full of hockey players and coaches and fluorescent lighting, and kissed her properly.

It wasn’t the kind of kiss he usually gave her in public, quick and obnoxiously smug, designed to make her roll her eyes and make his friends groan. 

This was quieter. Messier at the edges. His mouth warm and urgent on hers, one hand sliding up to the side of her neck, the other still fisted in the side of his own jacket around her. She kissed him back because there was nothing else to do with all the feeling in her chest, because if he needed to come back to himself through her mouth for three seconds in a cinderblock corridor, she could give him that.

When he pulled back, he didn’t go far. His forehead rested against hers, helmet gone, hair damp, breath warming her lips. “Thank you,” he said, so low it barely existed.

She swallowed. “Go, babe.”

His mouth twitched. It was tiny. Barely there. But it was Garrett enough that she felt her own lungs remember what they were for.

“Graham,” Dean snapped, but there was relief threaded through it now. “I swear to God, if you make me drag you into this room by your jockstrap–”

Garrett huffed, the sound scraping out of him half-laugh, half-breath. He kissed her forehead once, quick and hard, then stepped back. His hands lingered until the last second, fingers sliding off her wrists like he hated letting go, and then he turned, caught his gloves when Logan shoved them at his chest, and jogged toward the locker room.

Logan watched him go, then looked at her. For a beat, neither of them said anything. Then Logan lifted Garrett’s helmet slightly, like a sad little toast. “He’s gonna be less of a dick now, right?”

She let out a breath that nearly became a laugh. “God, I hope so.”

“Cool. Because he was doing the whole tortured captain thing and it was fucking up the vibe.”

“Logan,” Tucker said quietly.

“What? It was.”

Dean, from the doorway, pointed at her with two fingers. “You. Move seats. Tell your friends too.”

“I know.”

His expression softened, quick and uncomfortable, like sincerity made his skin itch. “Good.”

Then they were gone, swallowed by the locker room and the burst of voices inside, the door swinging shut behind them.

For a few seconds, she just stood there in the corridor with Garrett’s jacket heavy around her shoulders and the cold from the rink crawling along the floor. Her hands drifted up to the top of her head, fingers interlocking there, elbows out, like she needed to physically hold herself in place. The breath left her in one long, uneven puff.

“Holy fuck,” she whispered to no one.

“So that’s…” Garrett’s voice thinned out before it reached the end of the sentence, like it had snagged somewhere behind his ribs. He was sitting with his back against the headboard, one knee bent under the covers and one stretched out in front of him, still in the black sweatpants he’d pulled on after his shower, his hair damp and curling messily over his forehead. The bruising around his left eye had darkened since they’d left the arena, blooming purple-black beneath the bone, the skin there swollen enough to make him look a little unfamiliar if she stared too long. “Yeah.”

The hockey house had finally settled beneath them, the late-night noise thinned down to the occasional creak of floorboards, the muffled thump of someone closing a cabinet downstairs, the low murmur of voices from the living room that would rise for a second and then sink again like the boys were trying, badly, to be subtle about giving Garrett space. 

His bedside lamp was the only light on, soft and yellow across the rumpled sheets, catching on the water glass on his nightstand, the edge of his phone, the pile of discarded gear near his closet that still smelled faintly like ice and sweat and the metallic air of the rink.

She was sitting beside him with one leg folded underneath herself, close enough that her hip pressed into his thigh. Her hand had been in his hair for the last few minutes, fingers moving slowly through the damp strands at the back of his head, not because she had any real plan for comforting him, but because stopping felt impossible. Like if she stopped touching him, the room might tilt too far in one direction and take him with it.

She took a breath, careful and quiet, then leaned in and pressed her mouth to the bare slope of his shoulder. His skin was warm beneath her lips. Too warm, maybe, or maybe her body was just paying attention to everything now – the tension in his neck, the way his hand was curled loosely against the sheet, the uneven drag of his breathing as he stared at the wall opposite his bed and looked like he was seeing something that wasn’t there.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said.

Garrett nodded once. His throat moved. “Yeah.”

She let her mouth rest against his shoulder for another second before lifting her head. There were a hundred things she could have said, and almost all of them felt either too small or too big. I’m sorry felt thin. That’s awful felt obvious. You didn’t deserve that felt true, but she didn’t know if truth was something he could hold yet without flinching. 

So she stayed beside him, fingers still working gently through his hair, and asked the question that had been sitting carefully in the back of her mouth since he’d started talking. “Does anyone else know?”

His eyes flicked down to the duvet. The corner of it was caught beneath his hand, twisted tight in his fingers now, white-knuckled in a way he probably didn’t even realise.

“Logan,” he said after a moment. “Just Logan. I mean…” He swallowed, the sound rough. “The guys know I don’t–” His mouth pulled in a faint, humourless line, like even the phrase felt ridiculous for the size of it. “They know I don’t get along with my dad. They know he’s a dick. That’s all.”

She nodded, because that made sense in a way that made her chest hurt. Garrett could live with people thinking Phil Graham was an asshole. He could live with sharp jokes, with vague references, with a clean, manageable version of the story that didn’t require anyone to look too closely. 

He could live inside the gap between what the guys knew and what had actually happened, because Garrett was good at taking pain and turning it into something people could stand to be near. A chirp. A closed door. A shrug that said nothing to see here.

She pressed another kiss to his shoulder, softer than the first. “Okay.”

Garrett made a sound that was barely a breath. At first she thought he was going to speak. His mouth opened slightly, his brow drawing together, and she felt him pull in air against her side like he was trying to push something down before it could come up. 

Then his face changed. A crack through the careful flatness he’d been holding since the words had started coming out of him. His eyes squeezed shut, his lips pressed together, and his chin dipped toward his chest with this tiny, defeated shake like he was angry at himself for not being able to stop it.

“Oh, Garrett,” she whispered, and that was all it took.

He broke quietly. His shoulders folded inward first, as if his body was trying to make itself smaller despite every inch of him being built like a wall, and then the first sob dragged through him so hard she felt it before she heard it.

He turned toward her like he wasn’t fully deciding to, like some older, younger part of him had simply reached for the nearest safe place, and she caught him before he could apologise for needing it.

“Come here,” she murmured, already pulling him in.

Garrett went with a kind of helplessness she’d never seen from him. His forehead dropped into the curve of her shoulder, his arms coming around her waist, fingers fisting in the back of her shirt like he needed something to hold onto and hated that he did. 

She wrapped herself around him as much as she could, one hand sliding up to the back of his head, palm firm over the damp curls, the other across his shoulders where all that muscle and strength was shaking under her touch. 

He was too big for her to hold the way she wanted, too broad, too solid, but she tried anyway. She tucked her cheek against his temple and kept him there while he cried into her shirt, each breath leaving him broken and uneven.

“You’re okay,” she said, low and steady, though her own throat felt tight enough to bruise. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

He shook his head against her. “I couldn’t–” His voice tore on the word, and his hand tightened at her back. “I couldn’t protect her.”

Her eyes closed.

“My mom,” he said, and it came out smaller than anything she had ever heard from him. “I tried. I swear to God, I tried, but I was–” He sucked in a breath that didn’t go anywhere useful. “I was a kid. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make him stop.”

She held him harder, her fingers pressing into his hair, her other hand spreading wide over the back of his shoulder. “Garrett.”

“I’d hear it and I’d just– fuck, I’d just stand there sometimes. I’d freeze. Or I’d go in and he’d look at me, and I knew it would be worse, but I still–” His voice collapsed into another sob, rough and furious and devastated all at once. “I couldn’t protect her.”

She shook her head against his, because the blame in his voice was so old and so deep that it made her stomach turn. It had lived in him for years, packed behind his ribs, disguised under trophies and goals and that bright, cocky grin he wore like armour.

“You were a child,” she said, and her voice came out firmer than she expected. “Garrett, you were a kid.”

He didn’t answer. His breath stuttered into her neck.

“You shouldn’t have had to protect anyone from him,” she said. “That was never supposed to be your job.”

His fingers flexed in the fabric of her shirt, and for a second she thought he might pull away. He didn’t. He stayed folded into her, face hidden against her shoulder, and she kept her hand at the back of his head because he seemed to need the pressure there. Something to push against. Something that told him where the room was.

“I don’t want to be him,” he said, almost inaudible.

She pulled back just enough to try to see his face, but he kept his eyes down, lashes wet and clumped, the bruising under one eye making everything about him look rawer. His mouth trembled once before he clenched his jaw like he could force it still.

“I don’t want to be him,” he said again, more ragged this time. “I don’t want that in me. I get so fucking angry sometimes, and tonight I was–” He dragged a hand roughly over his face, then winced when his knuckles caught near the bruise. “Fuck.”

“Hey.” She caught his wrist before he could do it again, thumb slipping over the inside where his pulse hammered too fast. “Look at me.”

He shook his head, but only barely.

“Garrett,” she said, softer now. “Please.”

It took him a second. It took three. Then he lifted his eyes. She hated what she saw there, because someone had put that kind of fear in a boy and then let him grow around it like it was just another bone. 

Garrett Graham, who could strut across campus like he owned gravity, who could grin his way through almost anything, who could charm a room without even standing up straight, was looking at her like he was waiting for her to realise he was dangerous.

She brought his hand to her lap and held it between both of hers.

“You’re not him,” she said.

His face twisted.

“You’re not,” she repeated, and she didn’t make it soft this time. She made it certain. “You're not him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” she said again, because this was one thing she could give him without hesitation. “I know you. I know how careful you are with people even when you’re pretending you aren’t. I know how you move Logan’s shoes out of the hallway when he’s drunk so he doesn’t trip over them. I know how you check the stove when Tucker falls asleep on the couch. I know you pretend Dean annoys you and then still save him the last slice of pizza because he gets pissy when he’s hungry. I know how you touch me.” Her voice caught, but she swallowed around it, leaning closer until her knee pressed into his thigh. “Garrett, you have never made me feel afraid of you. Not once.”

His eyes went wet again.

“You’d never hurt someone like that,” she said. “You’d never hurt me like that.”

The sound he made then was worse than the first sob because it sounded like relief and pain arriving at the same time. His face crumpled before he could stop it, and he folded back into her, harder this time, arms wrapping around her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. 

She didn’t care. She let him hold on. She held him back, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other moving slowly over his spine, feeling each shudder work through him and disappear into the space between their bodies.

For a while, there was only that. His breath against her neck. Her fingers in his hair. The lamp humming faintly. A car passing outside and washing headlights briefly across the ceiling. The ordinary world continuing in rude little pieces while Garrett cried.

Eventually, the sobs thinned. His breathing stayed uneven, but the worst of it loosened, leaving him heavy against her, drained in a way that made him feel younger and older all at once. 

She kept touching him until he shifted, and even then she didn’t let go immediately. He was the one who pulled back first, dragging in a rough breath and wiping at his face with the heel of his hand.

“Sorry,” he said, hoarse. “Fuck. Sorry.”

She shook her head.

He looked away, jaw tight again, embarrassment rushing in to fill the space grief had left behind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“Hey.” She caught his face between her hands before he could retreat all the way into himself. Carefully, because of the bruise. “No.”

His eyes flicked to hers.

“No,” she said again, quieter. “You don’t have to apologise.”

Garrett let out a shaky breath through his nose, like he wanted to argue and didn’t have enough left in him to do it properly. “I just–”

“I know.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

He closed his eyes under her hands. For a second he leaned into her palms so fully that her chest ached. Then he opened them again, gaze dropping to her mouth, her chin, anywhere but directly into whatever softness he was afraid she had for him.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” he said. “At the game. I’m sorry I acted like that.”

She brushed her thumb lightly along the unbruised side of his face. “You were freaked out.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No,” she said, because he was right and because she cared for him too much, in whatever unnamed, inconvenient way that lived between them, to pretend otherwise. “But I get why it happened.”

His throat moved. “I didn’t want him near you.”

“I know.”

“I saw you sitting there, in my jacket, and he was right there, and I couldn’t–” He broke off, frustration pulling at his mouth. “I couldn’t think. I just kept looking up and thinking, get away from him. And then I’d look back at the play and I’d be out of position, and then I got mad because I was out of position, and then I–” He shook his head. “It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid.” She kept her hands on him, steady even when he looked like he wanted to fold away from the tenderness. “It was a lot.”

He let out something close to a laugh, but there was no humour in it. “That’s one word for it.”

She leaned forward until her nose nudged gently against his, careful of the swelling near his eye. “And you still came through.”

His brow creased.

“You did,” she said. “You moved me. You went back out. You played. You won.”

His mouth trembled, just once. He looked down, and she watched him fight the tears coming back, his face tightening with the effort of keeping it together. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she echoed.

A long breath left him. His shoulders dropped a little with it, not relaxed, but less braced. He looked exhausted now, the adrenaline gone, the game gone, the confession gone, leaving only the boy under all of it sitting in the low light with a black eye and red-rimmed lashes and too many years of silence sitting open between them.

She slid one hand down to his chest, feeling the slow, uneven thud of his heart beneath her palm. “Do you need anything?”

Garrett shook his head.

“You sure?”

He looked at her for a moment, and there was something unguarded in it that made her breath catch. Then he reached for her, one hand settling at her waist and pulling her closer by degrees like he was asking without words. “Just this.”

Her eyes softened. “Okay.”

He shifted down the bed first, moving slowly like every part of him hurt more now that he had stopped holding himself so tight. She went with him, letting him guide her into the space beside him as he eased onto his back, then his side, then changed his mind and pulled her against his chest. 

It was clumsy in the way exhaustion made things clumsy, knees tangling under the covers, his breath hitching when her elbow brushed a sore spot from the game. She murmured an apology, and he shook his head into her hair, arm tightening around her middle.

The room settled around them again. She tucked herself against him carefully, cheek resting above his heart, one hand laid flat over his ribs. His skin was warm through the thin cotton of his shirt, his breathing still uneven but gradually finding a steadier rhythm under her ear. 

She kissed the edge of his jaw because it was there and because she couldn’t reach every place in him that hurt, but she could reach that. 

Garrett’s fingers flexed once at her back, then smoothed slowly over the fabric of her shirt, not quite a caress, more like he was reminding himself she was real.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. She stared at the soft blur of his room in the darkened edges beyond the lamp – the open textbook on his desk, the half-empty bottle of water, the heap of hoodie on the chair, the game tape paused on his laptop from earlier in the week – and tried to make the pieces of him fit around what he had told her. 

The boy who had tossed her his jacket that afternoon because she’d shivered. The captain who had come apart on the ice at the sight of his father beside her. The child who had stood in a house and listened for his mother. The man holding her now.

Her training wanted to make categories. To name responses. To trace the line between trigger and reaction, between fear and anger, between what a body remembered and what a mouth could bear to say. 

But this wasn’t a case study, and Garrett wasn’t something to be understood from a distance. He was under her cheek, breathing carefully, his arm heavy across her back, his fingers curled into the side of her shirt like he might wake up and need proof she had stayed.

So she let the clinical part of her go quiet. She pressed her palm a little more firmly to his ribs.

Garrett’s chin dipped, lips brushing the top of her head. “You okay?” he whispered.

The question hurt, somehow. That he could be lying there hollowed out and still asking after her.

She nodded against him. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

She closed her eyes. “I’m sure.”

His hand moved once over her back. She waited until his breathing had slowed more, until the tension in his stomach eased under her hand, until the house beneath them was nothing but distant pipes and settling wood and the occasional muffled voice. 

Then she lifted her head just enough to press a kiss to his chest, above his heart, and settled back down.

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“I’m picking up what you’re putting down, and I will go find Tucker to give him another beer.” Logan saluted you as he went to grab a new beer and locate Tucker.

“Am I invited to this dinner tomorrow?” Beau quipped to Dean.

“I don’t know, man. Are you?” Dean teased. “Missy, here is the woman of the house. You’ll have to ask her,” Dean jutted his thumb in your direction.

Beau turned to face you and pouted as he asked, “May I please come over for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Excuse me, I do not live here,” you mocked in defense. “But, yes, you are invited to family dinner.”

"Don't even start with that," Dean waved you off.

“Family dinner?” Beau questioned you and Dean.

Dean let out a laugh, “Yeah, Tucker and Missy have been alternating in cooking on Sundays, and now it’s family dinner,” as if that explained why you and the boys considered it family dinner. 

“Garrett invited me over to dinner at the beginning of sophomore year, and Tucker was cooking tortellini. We were all hanging out afterward, and I told them how I would cook more if I wasn’t in the dorms. I hated cooking in the dorms because the smell lingered way too long,” you started. “Anyways, he cooked dinner that night, and the next weekend I cooked, so it just kind of became a cycle. A routine.”

“Why haven’t I been invited to family dinners until now?” Beau raised a brow at Dean. “I would’ve brought something!”

You let out a giggle at his dramatics. “Yeah! Why didn’t you invite Beau?” you goaded.

“Not you too, Missy,” Dean groaned into his drink. The red solo cup is blocking the view of his face. 

Allie approached you guys and poked at Dean’s side, causing him to choke on his drink. You and Beau try not to laugh, but the second you look at each other, the laughter spills out. “What are you guys going on about?”

“Family dinner,” Dean answered her.

“Is Tucker cooking tomorrow or Missy?” Allie pondered for a moment. “Oh, wait! She cooked last weekend, so Tucker’s definitely cooking.”

“Missy wants to get him drunk tonight, so we can get him to agree to make tortellini tomorrow,” Dean explained the plan to Allie as he pulled her into his side. “You know he’ll feel bad if Missy asks and he doesn’t follow through with it since she made her famous dish last week per his request.”

Beau quit mid-laugh the second he comprehended that Allie had been attending these family dinners. “Am I the only one not attending these dinners?” he called out, exasperated. 

“Dean should’ve invited you earlier.” Garrett slapped a hand to Dean’s shoulder as he joined you all.  

“G, not cool, man.”

Garrett made his way to you with a new can of cherry Coke in hand. “For the lady,” he presented it to you and took the empty can. He set it down on the counter before turning back to you. “I’ve been wondering where you were, but I found you with these bozos and Allie.”

“Beau is very upset that he hasn’t been in attendance for family dinners on Sundays,” you whispered to him as he snuck an arm around your shoulder. 

Your eyes were on Dean and Beau as they started going at it again, but this time Allie joined Beau’s side. Dean’s eyes flared open with joking betrayal. “Babydoll, not you too. Please.”

“You want to make rounds?” Garrett asked softly, leaning down to speak into your ear. 

“Yeah, I want to check in with Tucker. Make sure Logan is getting him drunk, so we can get Tuck’s delicious ricotta tortellini.”

Garrett guided you away from the group in the kitchen. You both navigated through the living room in search of the fellow housemates. You see Tucker downing a beer and Logan immediately offering him another, which Tucker greedily took into his hands. Logan winked at you knowingly as you and Garrett approached the pair. 

“How you feeling, Tucker?” Garrett asked him, amused. 

“Great, G!”

“You’re cooking dinner tomorrow, right?” you questioned, trying to seem like you weren’t sure.

Tucker scratched his head and looked at Logan, who gave him a nod. “Yeah! Of course I am,” he blurted out.

You unconsciously leaned your head against Garrett’s shoulder. “Do you have anything specific in mind?” You glanced over to Logan with a slight smirk. 

“Dude, you should totally make tortellini again!” Logan suggested.

Tucker immediately started shaking his head, “Absolutely not. Do you have any idea how long that takes to make?”

“But, Tuck, you know how that’s my favorite! Won’t you even think about it?” You pull away from Garrett’s side to go to Tucker with the biggest pout you managed to put out. 

Tucker took one look at your face, then another at Garrett, and he folded quickly. “Yes, I will,” he sighed, knowing there was no point in saying no to you. “Only because you’re my favorite.”

You let a short cheer out and pressed a kiss to Tucker’s cheek. “You’re the best, Tuck!”

“Enough of that,” Garrett interjected you two, and he gently grabbed your hip to pull you back beside him. 

“Mr. Best Friend is jealous that I’m going to steal your heart, Missy,” Tucker joked.

Logan doubled over in laughter, fully shaking with amusement, “Oh, you know that a way to a woman’s heart is food.” 

“Might just take Missy right from you.” Tucker playfully reached out for you with a smirk, pinching at his cheeks.

Garrett’s grip on your hip tightened just enough for you to notice. Heat flooded your cheeks, and you felt like the room was getting hotter by the second. You should’ve been used to the jokes by now, but being Garrett Graham’s best friend since freshman year came with lots of teasing.

The day you and Garrett met was in a history lecture, and he was sitting behind you. When class ended on the last day of the first week, you were still gathering your stuff, and Garrett was getting up to head out. In a rush to grab his ginormous water bottle, he brought it up, and it hit you right in the back of the head.

The professor whose name you hadn’t quite remembered yet just dismissed class, and the usual chaos of shuffling backpacks with everyone gathering their things filled the room. You remained seated as you were putting away your notebook and trying to search for your headphones in your backpack. With your head slightly tucked down, you weren’t really too aware of your surroundings, and something had smacked into the back of your head.

Thunk.

It wasn’t hard enough to hurt badly. Just hard enough that it made you jump. You let out a surprised yelp and gently rubbed the sore spot before putting your arm back down.

“Oh shit.” You heard some mutter behind you. Garrett instinctively reached to touch the back of your head with his free hand but retracted, realizing it probably isn’t appropriate to do that to someone you’ve just met, even less so after you accidentally hit them in the head. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted out.

You turn around, and a guy is staring at you in complete horror. It was only a few seconds later when you realized that he was the new hot shot hockey player. Which from what you’ve seen on The Fifth Line, there was a bit of emphasis on the player part.

The expression on his face caught you off guard.

He genuinely looked like he thought he just committed a crime. 

You shook your head, amused despite the small sting. “It’s okay! Things happen.” You laughed off, softly giving him a smile, trying to let him know you weren’t mad. 

Somehow, the poor guy looked even more distressed. 

“No, seriously,” he says. “Are you okay?”

You glanced at the water bottle that is ridiculously large. 

Then back at him.

“Yes, totally.”

“No, seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“I just hit you with my water bottle.”

You laughed at the redundancy. “It was a light tap.”

He doesn’t seem reassured whatsoever. “I know that’s got to hurt a bit.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

He frowned. 

You could practically see him trying to decide whether you’ve secretly suffered a concussion. The thought almost made you laugh again. 

“Seriously,” you told him. “It’s okay.”

“Why do you have to be so nice?” he grumbled, and the look on his face made this far funnier than it should be. 

“You seem to be more upset about this than I am,” you teased, watching as his shoulders slumped. 

“That’s probably true,” he mumbled softly as he kept eye contact with you. There was a twinkle in his eye that you just knew was trouble.

“There he is.”

“What?”

“The normal person.” You get a laugh from that, escaping before he could stop it.

“I should probably introduce myself.” His lips quirked into a smile as he shook his head.

“Officially?”

He paused, confused, “What?”

“I know who you are, Garrett Graham.”

His expression fell blank for a split second before he quickly recovered it with a grin. “So you do.”

“People tend to know you when that’s the only name you hear people cheering at hockey games this year,” you confessed to Garrett.

“You’re very observant.”

“More like I have eyes and ears,” you grinned back at him.

He dropped his head into one hand with a slight chuckle. “Well, I apparently know much less about you than you know about me.”

“That sounds right.”

“So let me make it up to you.”

“By how exactly?” You quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Coffee,” he offered. 

You pretended to think about it, but mostly because you’re curious what he would do.

“Coffee?” you repeated in question.

“I owe you.” 

“You really don’t.”

“Oh, c’mon. I’m buying you coffee.”

You smiled, “Okay.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Okay?”

“Sure,” you answered again.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

He looked suspicious for a moment, like he thought there was a catch. You decided not to tell him there is one. Namely, that he still didn’t know your name. And you’re not intentionally volunteering it. You finished gathering your stuff and started to head toward the exit.

He followed right behind you.

The hallway outside is crowded with students weaving between classes. He made a quick step around you to be ahead, so he could hold the door open for you as you left the lecture hall.

Still no name. You took a short look at him, and you could tell he’d noticed. 

The occasional glance he sent your way confirmed it.

You don’t say anything. 

Neither does he.

The silence stretched all the way out of the building. Then a voice called out, “There you are, G!” A tall blond jogged towards you two. “Thought you vanished.”

Your water bottle assailant immediately groaned, “Unfortunately not.”

The blond glanced between you and Garrett. His gaze immediately stuck to you, and a faint smirk played at the corner of his lips. “Oh.”

“No.” Garrett immediately shut him down.

“Oh, absolutely.”

“It’s not–” Garrett was cut off, and the blond ignored him completely. You could tell that they were good friends.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked Garrett with a growing smile. A dangerous smile. Before either of you could answer, he added, “And why does she look like she knows every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done, G?”

You laughed, and Garrett pointed at you. “That’s exactly the problem.”

The blond stuck out his hand. “I’m Dean,” he introduced himself jokingly formally.

You reciprocated by shaking his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, beautiful.”

You playfully rolled your eyes and decided that it was time to put the poor guy out of his misery. You tell Dean your name while purposely trying to keep your attention on him rather than Garrett. 

Dean repeated your name out loud. “Nice.”

From the corner of your eye, you caught Garrett repeating your name quietly to himself like he was trying to memorize it. 

Cute. You thought to yourself.

Then Dean glanced between the two of you again, “So what happened with Missy here?”

You blinked at the nickname. “Missy?”

Garrett groaned again, and you were ignored by the two. “No.”

Dean pointed at him knowingly, “You did something! Because when I walked up, you looked like you’d spent the last ten minutes apologizing.”

“He basically has,” you snorted.

“Exactly,” Dean grinned. “So I figured he’d messed something up.”

“Maybe not messed anything up but a first impression,” you pretended to ponder as you rubbed the back of your head, hoping that it would mess with Garrett. You hid your laugh when you saw that he noticed your little joke.

Garrett looked ready to walk directly into traffic just to distance himself from the embarrassment from you and Dean.

You laughed, and when you glanced back over to Garrett, you caught a look on his face. A wide grin. The one that says he’s just had an idea. Probably a terrible one while you guys were at it.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “What now?”

“What?” he tried to play it off.

“You have that look.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” you insisted.

Dean stopped mid-walk as he burst out laughing, “Oh shit, G. She’s already figured you out.”

That’s when Garrett said, “Nothing, Missy.” You stopped walking. He kept going.

Dean nearly choked. 

“Don’t.” You shook your head at him, but you were talking to Garrett.

“Don’t what?” he responded.

“That.”

“What?”

“Missy.” Garrett’s smile turned innocent. Entirely too innocent. “You literally just learned my name,” you told him.

“Yeah.” 

“And?” 

“And that’s not it,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing. 

Dean was at the point of laughing so hard that he was barely breathing. 

Garrett just shrugged. 

You should probably have been annoyed. Instead, despite yourself, you fought a smile. Because somehow the nickname sounded ridiculous enough to work. Then, judging by the look on Garrett’s face, there was no chance he was going to let it go.

“Coffee,” you said, shaking your head.

“Coffee,” he agreed.

Somehow, before you’ve even made it to the coffee shop, the nickname Missy is already stuck.

By the time that Garrett invited you to hang out with his friends in his line, the two of you had long since become inseparable.

At some point, coffee turned into study sessions.

Study sessions turned into lunch, which led to spending entire afternoons together.

Somewhere along the way, the nickname still followed you.

No matter how many times you complain. No matter how many times you reminded Garrett, you did have an actual name.

To Garrett (plus Dean), you would always be Missy,

Which is why you weren’t surprised when he texted you one Friday afternoon midway through the semester. 

You rolled your eyes as you read his last text and scanned around your room to search for this man’s colossal bottle. How did he forget it? Beats you.

Bingo. 

You found the bottle and headed out to finally make introductions to Garrett’s friends. Who has been bugging Garrett the moment they found out he was hanging out with a girl and not hooking up with her. 

The house itself is exactly what you would have expected when four college freshmen are given a place together. It’s not particularly messy, but it felt lived in. 

The kind of place where people actually spend time together and enjoy each other’s company instead of disappearing into separate rooms 24/7.

The front door barely closed behind you before Dean appeared.

“There she is!”

You pointed at him, “You’re responsible for the nickname.”

“And proud of it,” he cheesed, that kind smile that is always so infectious that you felt your own lips curling.

Garrett appeared behind him. “You absolutely should not be.”

“She still answers it.”

You hated that he was right.

The grin he gave you says he knows it too. 

A few moments later, you’re introduced to the remaining roommates. John and John, or better known as Tucker and Logan. 

The pair bombarded you with questions, and within five minutes, they somehow learned your major, favorite coffee order, and your favorite drink.

“You seem normal enough,” Logan deemed as a proclamation as you guys talked in the living room. 

“Excuse me?”

“I expected worse,” he shrugged.

You looked at Garrett and asked the other boys, “What exactly has he been saying about me?”

Each of the boys quipped a response.

“A lot.” 

“Enough.”

“Some would say too much.”

“I hate all of you,” Garrett muttered under his breath.

“You’ll fit right in,” Logan finished.

By the end of the night, you all were sprawled across the living room arguing over movies and laughing so hard at shared stories that your stomachs started to hurt.

You sat on one side of the couch with Garrett. You were leaning against him while you were talking to Tucker and Logan about the best Batman movie. Garrett was talking to Dean about some girl Dean saw working at Malone’s. Garrett had his arm loosely wrapped around your waist, and his hand was messing with the hem of your shirt.

At some point, you realized something. 

You didn’t feel like a guest.

It was almost like you’d always been there. 

And judging by the way nobody bothered treating you differently, the guys seemed to feel the same way too.

It was the start of sophomore year, and your presence in the Boys’ house was now such a regular occurrence that you had a drawer in Garrett’s room, a toothbrush next to his, and under the sink, he had a bottle of your perfume. 

When you’d pointed it out the first time, he’d shrugged. “You forget stuff.”

“I won't forget perfume.”

“You might.”

“I won’t.”

“Baby, it’s there just in case.”

He claimed that he just wanted you to be comfortable and feel at home, but you knew one of the real reasons was that he was obsessed with seeing your stuff in his room. 

You thought that people would get better about your and Garrett’s friendship, but it seemed that people could never fathom the fact that Garrett Graham had a girl best friend.

Frankly, sometimes you couldn’t believe it yourself. 

As much as the rest of the boys in the line teased you, they were fiercely protective of you and defended you against any rumors that people tried to start. It is endearing how much you and the boys treated each other like family. 

Something you would never admit out loud is the fact you knew that you and Garrett crossed the boundary of best friends a long time ago. Sure, you were attracted to him and cared for him like no other, but his constant saying that he doesn’t have time for a girlfriend really messed with your head. 

You loved him. There was no doubt about it. You tried putting yourself out there and dating, but a lot of the time, guys weren’t interested when they found out your best friend was Garrett Graham.

It didn’t help that Garrett’s love language is physical touch. He constantly found ways to be close and touch you, whether it was an arm around your shoulder, holding your hand in his lap under the table when you and the boys hung out at Malone’s, or a hand that always found your back or hip when you guys navigated through crowds. 

Even with that, there were the puck bunnies to consider, the numerous girls who seemed to gravitate to Garrett the second he flashed that damned smile. But they wouldn’t be able to say they knew him. They didn’t know his favorite band, what major he’s pursuing, how he liked his coffee, or what his mother’s name was. But you did. Of course, you knew him like the back of your hand. 

“Missy, do you know where my–” Garrett’s voice from the bathroom snapped you out of your thoughts. 

You responded before he even finished his sentence: “Bub, your phone is still charging by the bed.”

You were sitting by the window, and the book you were reading had long been forgotten in your hands. You set it aside near a couple of other books you kept there. 

Garrett walked out of the bathroom with his hair still damp from the shower he had just taken, and a towel wrapped around his waist. You hadn’t looked over to him yet as you were folding a blanket that you kept by the window. He watched you with a soft gaze, and a smile budded on his lips.

He went over to the bed and tapped on his phone to check the time. His wallpaper flashed at him. It was a photo of you in the kitchen blowing out your birthday cake candles when he and the boys surprised you with a mini celebration last semester. 

“Hey, we should probably head down soon. I think Tuck is done cooking dinner,” he suggested. “Let me put something on, and we can go.” He went to his closet to grab some clothes. 

You nodded at him and grabbed your phone. “I’m going to head down now to see if he needs any help.” You pressed a kiss on his jawline when you headed out of the room.

You wandered down to the kitchen. “It smells like a restaurant in here.”

“Of course, with Tuck cooking,” Dean said as he carried a case of beers to the fridge. 

“I’m making tortellini,” Tucker called out on the stove.  

Your eyes scanned the room and saw several pots going at once and the counters covered with ingredients. It almost looked suspiciously professional.

“You need any help with anything, Tuck? I’m all yours.”

“Don’t let G hear you say that.” Logan chuckled as he walked into the kitchen, holding something behind his back. 

“Whatcha got, Logan?”

“You know we’d never forget about you.” Logan brought his arm around to his front, revealing a case of mini cherry cokes. 

“You guys are the best.” You buttered them up with a cheesy smile. 

He took one from the case before handing it to Dean to put in the fridge. “For the lady,” he exaggeratedly presented the can to you while bowing. 

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” You accepted the drink in curtsy. 

“Where’s G, man? Foods ready to be served, and his ass is still in his room,” Tucker howled out as he started serving the plates.

You expected to hear a response, but you noticed the silence rather quickly. You looked up from opening your can and saw all three of the guys staring at you for a response. “Why are you guys looking at me?” You blurted. 

“Well, where is he?” Dean prompted. 

“Up in his room.”

“Why is he not down here with us?” Logan added.

“You guys know that I’m not his keeper, right?” you groaned exasperated.

The boys all mirrored the same look that screamed, “Are you being serious right now?”

“I’m not!” Your voice cracked at the delivery, causing the others to laugh.

“What are you all laughing about?” Garrett’s voice broke through the laughter. 

Silence fell upon the room for a few short moments before Dean made a joke: “Just about Missy’s obsession with cherry cokes.” He held up another can to set on the table. 

“G took you long enough, man,” Logan greeted Garrett.

“We were just about to start with you,” Tucker playfully told him.

You all crowded around the old kitchen table. Nobody bothered about matching plates or utensils. One of the chairs wobbled, and Dean had the luck of getting it for the night. You were seated next to Garrett, close enough for your knees to knock into each other and neither of you cared to move. 

The meal was perfect.

You took one bite.

Then another.

Followed by another.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever had,” you praised.

Tucker laughed, “What?”

“I’m not kidding, this is heaven,” you hummed happily.

“Babe, if you think this is heaven, maybe I can show you what real heaven feels like,” Dean dramatically winked at you knowing that it would get on Garrett’s nerves.

“Quit it,” Garrett told him but turned his attention to Tucker, “I told you she’d love it.”

You narrowed your eyes between the pair, “You discussed this beforehand?”

“Obviously,” Garrett stated.

“You are all weird,” you declared to the room.

“And yet you’re here with us on a Sunday night,” Logan bemused.

You pointed your fork at each of the boys, “I regret befriending you all.”

“No, you don’t,” Garrett affirmed.

“No, I don’t,” you admitted with a smile creeping on your lips.

The table fell quiet for a half second. Not awkward. Just one of those moments that everyone wanted to take in and keep as a treasured memory. Everyone glanced at each other with fondness. 

The moment faded when Dean threw a bread roll at Garrett.

If someone were to ask you what your favorite meal is, this would still be the answer.

Maybe not fully because of the tortellini. Which was genuinely incredible. 

It was because of this. The table. The laughter. Logan arguing with Dean. Tucker pretending not to be pleased with himself that everyone kept going back for seconds (and thirds and fourths for the fellow hockey men). Garrett stealing food directly off your plate despite having an identical serving. 

You felt like you always belonged there.

The tortellini just became attached to the memory. After dinner, everyone helped to clean up. Or at least claimed to. Dean somehow managed to disappear. Tucker offered moral support rather than actual labor for once in the night as he sat on the counter, keeping you guys company. You and Garrett ended up doing most of the dishes. Logan cleaned the counters quietly.

“You know I wish I cooked more,” you said to no one in particular. 

Tucker glanced over. “You cook?”

“A little.”

“A little means yes.”

You shrugged, “I used to a lot when I was home, but with the dorms the smells lingered too long, and just not enough space.”

“That’s fair,” Tucker hummed.

“And cooking for one kind of sucks,” you whispered but it was loud enough for the boys to catch it. 

“It does,” Garrett nodded.

“Nobody asked you, bub,” you retorted.

“I’m supporting you.”

“More like interrupting,” you kid.

Tucker laughed, you brought your gaze to him. “You should cook here.”

You blinked at him, “What?”

Dean chose that exact moment to reappear, “Absolutely.”

Logan pointed dramatically, “I second this.”

“You guys haven’t even tasted my cooking,” you cautioned them.

“We’re willing to take risks,” Garrett grinned at you.

The look made you suspicious. “Oh no.”

“What?” Garrett questioned with false innocence. 

“You have an idea.” 

The other three just watched the banter between you two.

“I always have ideas,” Garrett claimed.

“That’s worse,” Logan whispered to Tucker.

You looked around the kitchen. At the house. At the boys who were crowded into it. There was a familiar comfort that you don’t remember forming. And for the first time, the idea didn’t feel strange.

It felt natural.

“Okay.”

“Done.”

By the end of the night, Sunday family dinners existed. 

Every Sunday.

One week Tucker cooked. The next week you did. On a rare occasion, Dean, Garrett, and Logan teamed up to cook for the night.

Nobody was allowed to skip without a legitimate emergency.

Dean attempted to argue that hungry bunnies counted as an emergency. That one earned him a slap on the back of the head from the other three. 

The dinners became routine. Then tradition. 

Followed by something more. People started planning their schedules around them. Sometimes new people were invited.

Bad weeks felt easier knowing when Sunday was coming.

Good weeks feel better when there are others to celebrate with.

By the end of the semester, everyone stopped pretending. Not about the dinner, but about you and Garrett. The two of you still insisted that you were strictly best friends. 

Everyone else nodded along, desperately waiting for one of you to say something about it.

Because whenever someone looked around the table, the picture was always the same.

Garrett grabbed you a cherry Coke every time he reached for his one beer for the night without thinking.

You saved him a portion when he was running late.

The pair of you always sat beside one another.

Nobody said anything. Mostly because they knew that you both would deny it.

But every Sunday, around that crowded table, the rest of the house watched the two of you and thought the same thing. 

That you two loved each other. That you lived better being next to each other. 

“Yo! Missy, do a shot with Beau and me,” Dean shouted from the kitchen, setting out the shot cups.

Before you replied, you looked to Garrett, and as if he could read your mind. “Just spend the night. It's not like you were planning to go home anyway. Go enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks, handsome.” You pressed a quick kiss against the edge of his jaw. “What is it?” you questioned when you went over to Dean and Beau.

“A shot,” Dean answered. 

“Very informative.”

You looked toward Beau, maybe the only responsible person in the house right now. He glanced up to hand you the shot. “Don’t ask me. This was all him.”

Dean’s grin was concerning. You groaned dramatically, “I feel like this is a bad idea.”

“It absolutely is,” Logan agreed.

“Not helping, Logan,” you murmured under your breath. 

Dean wiggled his shot. 

You turned your head to look back at Garrett. Automatically. The same way you always did. In a way, you didn’t realize you did so often, but Garrett noticed. One look and he already knew exactly what you were asking. 

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you, baby,” he reassured you.

“Will I?” You smelled the shot, causing your nose to scrunch up.

“Probably.”

“Probably?” He laughed at your echo as he shuffled over to you guys.

“If Dean somehow tricks you into doing more than one…” he trailed off, looking at Dean, who was setting up even more shots. 

“I heard that, G,” Dean quipped at him.

“I’ll drag you upstairs before you make any life-ruining or altering decisions,” Garrett finished. 

There was a certainty in it that made you smile. It was the thing that always settled something inside you. No matter the situation, you knew that Garrett would take care of you.

Not because he thought you couldn’t take care of yourself. Just because that’s what the two of you did for each other. 

The same way you always made sure he wasn’t overworking himself with practices, games, studying, etc. The same way you brought him his protein shakes to practice when he forgot. 

The same way you both somehow always knew when the other needed support before having to ask for it.

“You ready, Missy?” Dean winked at you.

“Yup,” you cheered with Beau and Dean. You downed the shot, and Garrett was already next to you with a chaser to help.

“One day you’re going to explain this thing between you two,” Dean pointed at you and Garrett. 

“Never,” you and Garrett said simultaneously.

Logan nearly doubled over laughing.

Tucker giggled to himself, having found his way over to the kitchen a few moments before.

Dean looked personally offended.

And Garrett just looked at you with the same twinkle in his eye from the moment you first met. 

The party died slowly with people filtering out in groups. The music was playing low. Empty cups and bottles accumulated on every available surface. By three in the morning, the Boys’ house was mostly quiet.

Tucker was passed out on the couch nearly an hour ago. He mumbled something about tortellini right before knocking out. 

Around the same time, Logan disappeared upstairs after making sure everyone downed a water bottle and some ibuprofen.

Dean was last seen stealing leftover pizza before vanishing into his room.

You were gathering the scattered trash left around the house, with Garrett following you with a trash bag in hand. You two worked your way around the house, making sure that nobody broke anything and didn't say anything about it.

You headed upstairs when Garrett went to throw out the bag outside. 

You found yourself curled into the corner of Garrett’s bed, wearing one of his hoodies that ended up living in your drawer here just for you to wear. You nursed another bottle of water. Not because you got particularly drunk. Because Garrett had handed it to you without asking before you went upstairs. 

The room was dim except for his lamp. Your drawer was half-open. A pair of your socks were sticking out. Your charger is plugged into the wall. 

There is so much evidence of you in this room now that it would be impossible to explain away. Not that either of you really tried to anymore. 

Garrett entered the room and headed straight to grab a pair of sweats. He went over to the bathroom. 

He came back out now shirtless, just in his sweats, and he threw his clothes into the hamper, which landed right on top of yours. 

Garrett sat beside you on the bed. Close enough that your arms brushed against each other. 

Neither of you said much for a while. 

The silence wasn’t awkward. It never really was. It was one of your favorite things about him. The ability to simply coexist together.

Eventually, he glanced over, “Tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“Did you have fun tonight?”

“I always do with you.” Your body started to lean into him.

Garrett brought you into his chest. The smell of your perfume overtook his senses. 

“Ready to go to bed?” he hummed into your hair.

You nodded gently and tore yourself from his grasp to look him in the eyes. Your gaze traveled from his lips to his eyes. Suddenly, neither of you was looking away. 

Something shifted. Not all at once. Just enough. Enough that you felt it, and you knew he did too. 

Garrett exhaled slowly. “Can I tell you something?”

The question snapped you out of your daze because Garrett sounded nervous. He never sounded like that around you, not anymore. 

His laugh was quiet. A little disbelieving. Like he was debating with himself.

Then he shakes his head, “I think I’ve been trying not to say this for months, hell, since the moment you cooked dinner for all of us while we were at practice back in sophomore year.”

Your heart immediately started beating faster. “Okay.”

“I keep telling myself we’re fine just the way we are.”

You blinked, “We are fine.”

“We are,” he smiled. “That’s part of the problem.”

You stared at him, and the room felt like it was getting warmer by the second. 

Garrett ran a hand through his hair. “I like you.”

“Wow.”

“What?” he quirked his brow at you.

“That sounded odd,” you giggled to yourself in disbelief. 

“It didn’t,” he defended weakly.

“It definitely did.”

“It really didn’t.” he shifted closer. “I mean it.”

Your chest hurts in the best possible way. “I know you do.” He froze at your confession.

Not because he’s told you before, but because he’d shown you. 

Every coffee he gave you when he knew you stayed up late studying.

Every late-night conversation in his room pretending that what you guys had was a normal friendship. 

Every time he remembered something small.

Every time he made space for you in crowded places.

Every time his eyes searched for yours after he scored a winning goal. 

Every time he looked at you like you were the best part of his day. 

You already knew, but hearing it made it real.

“What?”

You smiled, “I know.”

His expression looked almost offended. “You were supposed to be surprised.”

“You have a bottle of my perfume under your sink.” 

“In my defense–” you cut him off.

“You gave me a drawer.”

“You needed a drawer. How else were you supposed to stay over so often?” he shrugged.

“Maybe.” You reached for his hand. The movement was natural, like everything else with him. “I like you too.”

The room went still. Garrett stared back at you. “You do?”

You snickered. “Seriously?”

“I just want confirmation.”

“You have been my favorite person since the moment you almost concussed me freshman year.”

He covered his eyes with his hand. “Okay, moment ruined.” But when he uncovered his face, the smile that spread across his lips was devastating. Warm and content. Happy.

“So?”

“So what?” 

You shifted closer. “What does this mean for us?” You pretended to ponder. “Hm.”

“Missy.”

“I think…” You cocked your head to the side. “This means we should probably stop pretending we’re just friends.”

Garrett laughed. A real laugh. The kind that only came out around people he felt completely comfortable with. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” you repeated. 

Then he leaned forward, slowly. His hand settled against your cheek. And when he kissed you, it didn’t feel new. It felt like something you’ve been waiting for a very long time. 

When you finally pull apart, both of you are smiling. A little stunned. Definitely giddy. Garrett rested his forehead against yours. “So we’re not telling them.”

You softly chuckled to yourself, “Absolutely not.”

“They’re going to be unbearable.”

“Especially Dean.”

“He’ll claim responsibility.”

“Too bad it’s thanks to your ridiculous bottle.”

He groaned, “We are keeping this to ourselves.”

“Agreed.” 

The agreement lasted less than eight hours.

The next morning, the kitchen smelled like coffee and bacon. 

Logan was standing at the stove.

Tucker was sitting by the counter with his head in his hands. 

Dean was eating cereal directly from the box. 

Nobody looked particularly awake. You shuffled into the kitchen wearing another one of Garrett’s hoodies, which wasn't unusual. 

Garrett followed a minute later. Also not unusual. 

Nobody paid attention.

Logan continued cooking his bacon. 

Tucker still hadn’t lifted his head up yet.

Dean kept munching on the cereal.

Garrett walked directly to the coffee pot. Also normal.

He poured a cup. He added exactly the amount of cream and sugar you liked. He carried it over to you. Still normal.

“Morning, Missy.” You heard Logan call from the stove.

“Morning,” You replied.

You accepted the mug from Garrett. And without thinking or planning, you leaned up and pecked his lips. Quick. Easy.

And not normal. 

The room went silent. The silence lasted exactly two seconds. 

Then Dean practically launched out of his chair, “I KNEW IT!”

You immediately dropped your head. “No.”

“YES.”

“It has been like six hours.”

“I KNEW IT.”

Garrett groaned. 

Dean pointed to himself, “This happened because of me.”

“It absolutely did not,” Garrett remarked. 

“I brought you together.”

“You really didn’t,” you laughed.

Tucker finally lifted his head and studied you and Garrett for a moment. Then nodded, “About time.”

Garrett pointed at him, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Tucker muttered as he dropped his head back down.

Dean looked betrayed. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What else is there to say?” Tucker’s voice was muffled. 

“They’re dating!” Dean proclaimed.

“They’ve been emotionally dating for like over a year,” Logan shrugged off. 

“Fair,” you mouthed to Garrett. 

Logan flipped another piece of bacon, completely unfazed. “Bacon’s almost done.”

The room erupted.

Dean started shouting. Garrett was laughing. You nearly spilled your coffee when Dean came up to pick you up in a spin, barely giving you time to set down the mug. Garrett made quick work of grabbing it out of your hands. “I call being the godfather to your future children.”

Life seemed to be put back into Tucker, and Logan flipped around, pointing the tongs at Dean. “No man, that’s not how that works.”

Tucker looked more alive than ever. “My sous chef would never pick you, dude.”

Dean sat you down on the counter and immediately started arguing with the other two. 

And standing next to you was Garrett. His shoulder pressed against yours while he handed your coffee back. 

You realized something. Nothing felt different. Not really. The house was still home. The boys are still family. 

Garrett was still your favorite person.

He looks at you like you’re something he’s not supposed to touch, always seconds away from getting walked in, but that's half the fun at this point. He takes his time looking you over, his hand lifting to turn his hat from the front to the back with a lazy flick.

He’s on you in a second, big hands sliding around your hips as you straighten up; his body pressing into yours.

“Holy shit,” he murmurs against your skin, his voice rough with sleep—the kind that always gives him away when he’s stayed up too late the night before and woken up too damn early. “What are you doin’ down here, huh?”

“I made your coffee,” you murmur and he groans.

“Saw your text,” he hums, grazing his mouth over your cheek. “You’re too good to me.” His chain brushes your collarbone when he leans in, cool against your skin.

Garrett lets you go, reluctantly, and you start to walk toward the counter. His eyes trail up the length of you.

“It’s just coffee and toast, baby,” you smile, tilting your head slightly.

“Considering everything you did for me last night… I should be the one making breakfast—you don't owe me anything.”

Your cheeks burn, suddenly shy under all this attention as he walks closer. His hands rest on the counter on either side of your hips just as you lean over the counter, reaching for the butter, your ass arching back, right onto his lap. On purpose. You don’t even try to pretend it wasn’t.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes, his voice low and amused as he plays along with the accidental contact, his bag falling heavy to the floor, looking over his shoulder for his roommates. “Real sorry, baby.”

You let out a bubbly laugh as he grabs your body and turns you toward him, lifting you up to set you down on the cool counter.

“What if the boys see you down here, huh?”

His smile’s smug; the man stepping between your thighs as his hands slide up the back of his jersey. His rough thumbs slip under the band of your panties, gripping your hips in his big hands.

Garrett reaches up a little higher, squeezing your breasts before his thumbs brush softly against you. “And what if they did?”

“See you?” His grin widens. “Coach’s daughter wearin’ forty-four and not much else.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, arching into him a little more.

“Well, damn,” he murmurs, looking at you like he’s just remembered he has somewhere to be. “I’d be fucked—I mean, it's pretty risky. I could stop,” he grins against your skin.

“No, you couldn't,” you dismiss it with a teasing laugh.

“No shit. Wearin’ my jersey. No bra… Panties. Textin’ me telling me you made me coffee and breakfast. You honestly think I wasn't gonna thank you a little. Thank you, baby,” he breathes as he leans in, pulling the fabric up, his mouth finding your breast.

He circles it once with his tongue, then again before sucking down, rough enough that your breath hitches and your fingers thread through his dark hair, his curls tangling between your fingers as you hold him there.

“Wish we lived alone,” he grumbles, turning his face further into your chest as his curls tickle your skin.

“Yeah?” You ask breathily as your thighs widen on the counter.

“Whole house to ourselves?” He says, letting the words vibrate against your skin.

He tilts back in, greedy mouth following the curve of your neck as his hands clutch your thighs, holding you open as he leans in close.

“I’d lift up the back—bend you over the counter.” His fingers shift around your body, tracing down your spine, landing on your ass, kneading your flesh.

He smiles against your lips, snapping the waistband of your panties against your skin. “Couldn’t have put on some shorts, or somethin’?”

“More comfortable like this,” you whisper, turning his words back on him when you say, “I mean, it's pretty risky. I could run upstairs and put some on.”

“No, you wouldn't,” he hums. “You did this for me and I fuckin’ love it. Just walkin’ around here like you own the place. What if Tuck and Logan see you, huh? Dean?”

“Oh, Dean?” You ask, because suddenly this conversation makes a lot more sense.

“Don’t start,” he scoffs. “You know he likes you.”

“None of you are subtle,” you answer and he lets out a laugh.

“Yeah, well you got no idea how many conversations I’ve sat through, baby.”

Then his hand slips forward, grazing over the thin material between your legs, pressing soft little circles onto your clit until your hips twitch at his touch.

“They think they know what it’d be like to be with you—they got no fucking clue,” his voice breaks a little when he softens it. “How perfect you are—how much you do for me. To me.”

You hook a hand around the back of his neck, thinking about how easy it would be to have him press himself in and lay you out across the counter, but the both of you would never recover from being caught like that.

You pull him closer and his lips suck down on your neck, rough enough to leave a mark.

“Kept my mouth shut. Haven't said shit. It kills me…” He breathes over your collarbone right where the collar of the jersey meets your skin. “I've been such a good boy for you.”

“So good,” you whisper. “And yet, you stopped telling what we would do if this house was ours,” you breathe, nails tracing over the thick bulge in his shorts.

He laughs, liking the sound of that. “Got you bent over this counter. One hand on your hip, the other gripping this jersey in my fist while you cry out that name on your back.”

His fingers trail even lower, dipping just barely between your folds, right above your entrance, the barrier of fabric only adding to the ache between your thighs. So much for all that teasing he accused you of. He’s worse.

“Too bad you have a workout.” Your fingers card through his dark hair. “We could stay back.”

He grins as he chuckles warmly against the column of your neck, dragging your panties to the side. “Fuck, you wanna get me in trouble, huh? Won’t be able to play tonight if I don’t show—you know that. After the game, though. Boys’ll go to the bar,” he breathes as his fingers mimic the tempo of his words.

His breath catches in his broad chest as your finger slips under the band of his shorts, pulling him closer before you slide your hand inside.

“Christ,” he grits through a smile as your fingers wrap around his cock, finding him hard and heavy. You stroke and he hums deep against your lips about all the things he wants to do to you when you're alone.

“Trying to get me all worked up just to send me off,” he whispers. “That’s fucked, pretty.”

He works you with his long thick fingers, slow enough to tease. “How fast do you think I could get you off, huh?” He chuckles, his laugh buzzing against your lips. “Pretty close right now, huh?”

Garrett breathes those words against your jaw. Your hand slaps over your mouth, muffling the sound of his name.

Your pussy squeezes around his fingers and you lose the rhythm of your strokes, but he doesn't, leaning into the counter a little more. The wet sounds of his hand darting in and out suddenly, too loud but it's replaced by the pounding of your heart in your head.

“Come on, baby… Cum on my hand,” he mutters, teeth scraping your neck and your body releases, fluttering around his fingers.

Your thighs squeeze together as he keeps going, whining against your hand, before he slows his pace.

He brings his fingers to his mouth, cleaning them with his heavy gaze locked on yours, the watch on his wrist glinting.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” he mumbles as you slip off the counter and into his arms. “I love you—”

“I love you too,” you whisper as your lips find his again, hands sliding down his chest. Your hands slip lower. His shorts are already halfway down his hips, cock trapped beneath the waistband.

“What are you up to, huh?” He asks like he doesn’t already know as you back him into the counter. “Yeah?” He laughs softly. “Bet you won’t.” That challenge barely leaves his mouth before he kisses you again, eyes flicking toward the stairwell mid-kiss before dropping back to you as you sink to your knees.

“In my jersey,” he mumbles as he tilts back, hands resting on top.

He sucks in a sharp breath when the air hits him, shivering when your tongue glides up the side of his cock, tossing back his head as he bites down on his lip, holding back a moan—BANG!

“Fuck me,” he hisses, hanging his head between his shoulders when a bag drops in Logan’s room above you.

Your tongue swipes against his tip and he blows out a sharp breath through his nose, his sticky wet precum catching on it.

“Just—Just a little more,” he mutters, holding your head, following you as you take him in your mouth. You bob back and forth and his grip tightens, eyes fluttering shut—THUMP!

You draw away when you hear some more motion upstairs. He shakes his head, laughing under his breath, watching as you kiss the tip.

“That’s how we’re playin’ this, huh?” Looking back at you in playful frustration, he tugs you up fast, muttering bitterly under his breath as you tug his shorts in place.

“Sorry, baby,” you smile.

“Teasin’ me, baby. Just wait until later,” he warns with a smile, grabbing his workout bag, walking with you back up to his room.

His fingers find yours automatically as the two of you step into the hallway.

Garrett walks a half-step behind you, his thumb rubbing back and forth across your knuckles. You glance over your shoulder and catch him already looking. He drags a hand across his mouth, trying and failing to hide his smile.

You step up one stair, and by the third he already knows he’s in trouble. His number stretched across your back. His last name stamped over your shoulders. The curve of your ass peeking out each time you take a step higher.

The intrusive thoughts win without effort. His other hand reaches out for you, pulling you back and into his strong arms. “Garrett Graham!” You whisper-scream and his deep laugh echoes through the stairwell.

“You are drivin’ me fuckin’ crazy,” he mumbles like he's pissed—smiling like he's in love. “I’m just a man, alright? What do you want from me?” Your arms curve loosely around his neck, your legs wrapping around his waist as he holds you, carrying you the rest of the way. “Plus you were walkin’ up the stairs too slow, you needed my help.”

“My hero.”

“Good thing I'm riding by myself. I need some time alone with my thoughts.”

“You’re dramatic,” you cut in, but that only encourages him.

“You know one hand on the wheel, the other doin’ what you started and didn't finish… you're lucky you're gorgeous.”

“So are you,” you smile and he scowls.

By the time he sets you down inside his room, he’s smiling so hard his cheeks hurt, shutting the door before anyone can see. “I mean…” Garrett shifts his bag higher on his shoulder. “Maybe I could stay.”

You give him a look. A long look. And his shoulders slump.

“I know,” he mutters. “Goddamn, baby. You run a tight program.”

“Workout,” you whisper.

“Yeah.”

“Hockey,” you remind him.

“Mmm… Mhmm,” he hums, so dreamily you laugh. “Fuck, I love when you boss me around—”

“We’ll have all night—”

“How am I supposed to focus now? All I can think about is how pretty you looked trying not to make a sound.” His finger hooks under your chin, lifting your lips to his. “But you... you gotta be careful, baby. These boys are gonna hear you one of these days. They could have caught us down there.”

You look up at him through your lashes ever so slightly and he melts.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, blowing out a tired breath. “You own me—don’t even know why I try.”

He reaches out, grabbing the jersey on your body, pulling you closer. His nose brushes against yours—his lips doing the same, drawing back and leaving you chasing them just enough to notice before he kisses you.

“You don't have class until ten, yeah?” He murmurs between kisses.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Wishin’ you were me right now, huh?”

“Wishin’ a lot of things honestly.”

Garrett groans, dropping his forehead to yours, his voice dripping honey-sweet as he takes a different approach. “Shit, baby… what about your coffee? I should probably go get that for you, hmm?”

“Seriously—”

“Then, I don’t know…” He continues when that doesn’t work. “Maybe not get my ass beat at the gym. Sweat here instead. Do something better with my time.”

“You’re gonna be late—”

“And, I wonder why,” he cuts in. “Running out of excuses.”

“What are you gonna tell him, Captain?”

He thinks about it for a moment, stalling still. “Pretty thing. Wears my number. Torments me. Tells me I have to stay or else—”

“Or else, huh?” You giggle, and his eyes fall to your lips. “She sounds like a bitch, baby.”

“—Don’t talk about her like that. That’s my girl.”

“Such a charmer, Garrett Graham,” you hum, twirling one of his curls with your finger. “Leave—” Smack! His hand claps against your ass, the mesh barrier, just another reminder that he can't have you how he'd like.

He batts his hand against the door handle, still unwilling to let you go for another moment.

“Send me a picture or somethin’,” he mumbles against your lips. “You know, for the car ride there.”

“I don’t know, baby. You look extra pretty when you suffer,” you whisper, and he chuckles deeply, the sound going straight through you.

“Gonna ruin you later.”

“M’counting on it…” You smile and his groan breathes against your lips when he pushes open the door.

“Jersey stays on.”

“I can’t believe you got hit, dumbass!” You hiss at Dean as you clamber into Garret’s car to drive him to the ER

Truthfully it wasn’t his fault, it was a nasty hit that was clearly a foul but apparently the ref was blind or concussed because the fucking loser got sent off without a warning.

Dean looks like he’s been battered halfway to hell and you’re concerned enough that you’ve forced Garret to drive you to the closest ER.

Garret would complain if he didn’t also look concerned about the current state of one of his closest friends.

That alone lets you know that Dean shouldn’t still be groaning and hunched over the way that he is.

“It’s like you’re blaming me for getting beat to shit.” The blonde whines and you inhale sharply, trying not to stress him out more.

“It’s a stress response, can’t help that you’re an idiot that chirps guys twice the size of you,” you mumble back, rubbing his back soothingly as you hear him struggle to inhale.

“This car go any faster Graham?” You hiss to the brunette who whips his head to look at you in bewilderment.

“I’m driving the speed limit!” He says defensively.

“Rowan is not twice my size, you take that back.” Dean groans as he throws himself back against the car seat and tilts his head to the ceiling.

You scoff, “That’s the part you’re choosing to focus on? Not the fact that your smartass comments got you—“

“You love my smartass comments.”

You fight the urge to strangle the already injured man.

You and Dean are…complicated.

You’re friends at best and fuck buddies at worst.

You’re well aware you’d never be the one to lock him down, and you’d made your peace with that.

But you’d be lying if you said that the two of you didn’t occasionally toe the line between situationship and…more.

You knew for starters that you were the only girl friend Dean called to hang out with platonically, without the slightest assumption of sex.

You also knew that Dean had a set of Avengers boxers that he wore to sleep.

Either way, you knew things that other girls didn’t, that was a fact.

Unfortunately for you, that also meant you obtained the less favored girlfriend duties.

Like making sure he took care of himself and didn’t suffer some form of internal bleeding because he decided to shit talk on the ice.

“We’re 5 minutes away.” Garret remarks from the front.

Dean limply lifts one hand to give a fragile thumbs up with a wobbly smile.

“You look like you’re about to be sick,” Dean says groggily, somehow still managing a sleazy smirk on his face despite his injury.

You glower, “Sorry that I’m worried my friend is seriously hurt.”

“Friend? Ouch. Got demoted that easily?”

You can’t help it, you snort. “Shut up Di Laurentis.”

“Last name, Damn. Think I got myself in the dog house.”

You roll your eyes, stiffening when the lights of the Pittsburgh Trauma and Medical Centre flash across your window.

As Garrett parks, you open the door and tug on Deans arm to get him moving.

“Can you walk?” You ask concernedly, watching as he stumbles slightly as he gets out of the car.

He nods, looking pale in the face. You motion for Garrett to hurry up and flank Dean’s other side so the both of you can get him through the doors.

With a shaky hand and little fanfare you sign a bunch of forms before you’re called into the ED with blinding white lights and groups of nurses and doctors floating around the three of you.

You’re ushered to a room by a lovely woman called Princess and as you settle in you can’t help but bounce your legs, watching Dean and the door anxiously waiting for someone to arrive.

Garrett watches you in poorly veiled amusement, “You look like you’re about to shit yourself.” He huffs a laugh.

Dean snorts, “That’s not a look, she just does that.”

You slap his thigh with a petulant frown which has him theatrically wailing and you rushing to muffle his mouth with your hand lest he cause a scene.

Of course, that’s when the door opens as one of the doctors walk in.

Your jaw slackens in horror almost simultaneously as the two of you catch sight of each other.

“Dennis?!” You gasp out in shock.

Dennis’ eyes widen, his mouth forming your name is almost childlike wonder.

“Holy shit!” You laugh, moving your hand off of a suddenly quiet Dean’s mouth as you move towards your childhood friend.

“You’re a long way away from Nebraska Denny!” You say happily, throwing your arms around him and catching him off guard as he stumbles back before the familiar feeling of his arms wrap around your waist.

You feel him laugh into your neck, squeezing you tighter and forcing a hysterical giggle out of your chest.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs into you as he pulls away slightly, hands still on your waist but meeting your eyes.

You soften, your bottom lip wobbling slowly as you swat at his chest half heartedly, “Don’t make me emotional now, it’s good to see you too.”

You’re too invested in the sight of the little blonde you knew from high school to notice Dean’s glowering and the shared look of perplexed nature that Garrett and him share.

“Denny?” Garrett mouths at Dean, and to much of his amusement watches as the blonde’s face scrunches up in distaste.

Denny. What kind of a nickname is “Denny” anyways. You’ve never given him a nickname, what’s so special about this guy that he gets one and Dean doesn’t?

“Anyways!” You clap your hands as you stand back, moving backwards to stand next to Dean’s bed as you sway on your toes.

“You’re Mr Di Laurentis?” Dennis checks with him and Dean nods, trying not to growl as he watches you stare at the doctor with excitement.

He’s starting to hate this dude.

“Can any of you tell me what happened?” Dennis asks, catching sight of Dean clutching his left side and grimacing in pain.

“He got hit while playing, some guy body checked him into the boards and his elbow connected pretty hard with his ribs.” You remark bitterly, staring at Dean with a frown.

Dean sniffs, nodding in agreement and Dennis makes a note on his chart.

“Alright, I’ll do a physical just to feel around and see if anything’s broken before we take some blood and do some scans just to make sure nothing serious is going on, okay?” He asks.

Dean bites back a growl again as you refuse to turn to look at him, instead nodding at Dennis like he’s the first coming of Christ.

He makes fast work of it, slowly pressing down on the readily forming bruises on Dean’s abdomen and apologizing softly when it’s sensitive to force a breath of air or a slight whimper out of Dean’s mouth.

You chew on your nails anxiously as you watch Dennis work with a sharp eye.

“What can we do about pain meds? He’s been groaning since we got in the car.” Garrett remarks this time, his arms crossed as he leans against the wall.

Dennis flicks his eyes up with a look of surprise, as if he’d forgotten there was someone else there at all.

“Yeah—yeah, we can totally do that. Do you have any known allergies I should know about?”

Dean frowns, thinking. “No, I don’t—”

“He’s allergic to penicillin.” You but in and Dean turns to stare at you in disbelief.

How do you know that?

Dennis shares an uneasy look between the two of you before nodding and turning to leave.

“Alright; good to know. I will keep you guys update but come and get me or someone else if your pain gets worse or you start to feel worse.” He mentions.

You nod hastily, turning to look at Dean with a bright smile as soon as Dennis walks out.

Deans face softens. It’s not right to be mad at you, it’s not like you did anything.

And it’s not like he has any right to be jealous, he’s the one who said this whole thing was casual.

“So…you and the cute doctor huh?” Garret smirks, forcing you both to break eye contact.

Your face warms and you groan, placing your hands over your face.

“Was I weird? Was that weird?” You stress, looking embarrassed.

Dean frowns, “How do you know him?” He demands.

You look confused, “I uh—we used to go to school together in Nebraska, before I transferred to Briar.”

Garrett hums in acknowledgment, “you guys didn’t keep in contact?”

Deans whips his head to stare at his friend with an incredulous expression. He doesn’t want to hear about that.

It’s enough having the guy as his doctor and having to watch you fluster yourself whenever he’s around.

“I mean,” you shrug. “Broken Bow’s a small place and when most people get the chance to leave—they’re not really too sad about what they’re leaving behind.”

Garrett nods, sharing a small smile with you.

Dean scoffs though, “yeah he seems real beat up that he’s seeing you again.”

You frown, “you think he doesn’t like me?” You look worried, like you’re afraid that you’ve overstepped and imposed yourself where you’re unwanted.

Garrett rolls his eyes, leaning forward to swat at Dean’s shoulder in reprimand.

“Don’t say that,” he chastises the blond.

“He means that he looks like he’s into you.” Garret tells you kindly.

You switch your gaze from Dean who’s scowling to Garrett who’s offering you a comforting expression.

“And that’s…bad?” You hedge slowly.

“Of course it’s bad!” Dean snaps.

Garrett closes his eyes slowly, blowing out a breath, “I am going to check what they’ve got in the vending machine’s round here—you two—”Garret gestures largely at the two of you as he walks out of the room.

You sigh, “You have a problem with Dennis?”

Dean attempts to cross his arms but hisses when it pulls on his injury, letting them flop uselessly next to him.

“Should I have a problem with Dennis?” Dean asks mockingly.

You growl exasperated, “ I don’t know Dean! Not that I know of? He’s been perfectly nice and I’m sure you guys would get along if you got to know him more—“

“I don’t want to get along with him!” Dean bursts out, red in the face as he scowls.

You falter, “What? Why?”

Dean hesitates, “Because I—it doesn’t matter.”

Your expression hardens, “it obviously does if you’re about to chew my head off for suggesting it.”

Dean slumps in his bed, toying idly at the loose threads on the sheet.

“I just—“ he blows out a breath “I don’t like the idea of you going out with him”

“Why?” You press.

Dean grimaces, “Because I—I like you.” He mutters lowly.

You blink slowly.

“I like you too? Dean what? we‘ve been sleeping together for months of course I like you—”

Dean looks like he wants to bash himself over the head with the bedpan, “No.” He stresses.

“I like you as in, I want to be with you—exclusively.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Dean laughs incredulously. “C’mon babe, you gotta give me something more.”

You blink faster, “I just—I didn’t think—you said you don’t date!” You hiss

Dean shrugs, an innocent yet nervous expression on his face, “I didn’t.” He confirms.

“Until you.”

You roll your eyes, “Egregious line, Di Laurentis.”

“Did it work?”

Your gaze washes over his nervous expression and you soften.

You’re leaning over the bed before you know it, pressing a soft kiss to his lips with a smile.

“You’re something else.” You murmur softly against his lips, both of you grinning into each other’s mouths as your eyes meet.

By the time you walked into the fraternity house, it already felt like the night had decided what it wanted to be.

Music was spilling through every open window in waves that made the floorboards vibrate under your heels, laughter curling up the staircase and out into the night air like it didn’t belong to any one room. Someone had turned the living room into something halfway between a party and a performance, colored lights thrown lazily across the walls, cups stacked on every available surface like they were part of the architecture.

And at the center of it all, unsurprisingly, was Beau Maxwell.

Your brother had that kind of presence that didn’t just fill a room but rearranged it around him. Star quarterback, frat legend, and somehow still managing to look like he’d been born in the middle of a crowd and never left it.

He spotted you the second you stepped inside, his grin breaking wide and immediate as he pushed through a cluster of people to get to you.

“There she is,” he cheered, like the entire night had been waiting for your arrival specifically.

You barely got a chance to respond before he pulled you into a one-armed hug that lifted you onto your toes.

“Asshole!” you protested through a laugh, adjusting your jacket as he let go, finally.

He looked you over like he was assessing a critical player coming onto the field. “You look like you're ready to fucking party.”

“I always look ready,” you said.

“That’s true,” he admitted easily, then gestured broadly at the house. “Welcome to Sig Tau.”

“You live like this voluntarily,” you pointed out with a crinkled nose and squinted eyes.

He smiled like that was a compliment. “It builds character.”

It did not, in fact, look like it built character. It looked like it built diseases and questionable decisions.

You followed him deeper inside, weaving through bodies and laughter, already feeling the familiar ease that came with being around Beau in his element. You had grown up orbiting this version of him, the version that belonged to crowds and energy and people who shouted his name like it meant something beyond just a game.

Which was exactly why you hadn’t expected the shift.

It happened when Beau paused mid-conversation with someone at the counter, glanced over your shoulder, and then did a double-take so sharp it almost looked painful.

“Oh,” he cursed under his breath, but recovered with a grin nonetheless.

You turned slightly. “What?”

Beau didn’t answer right away. His expression had gone from relaxed to something faintly alarmed, like he’d just spotted a problem he had actively avoided thinking about for a long time.

You turned fully this time.

Some blonde who was unfairly attractive was standing a few feet away, still in that effortless post-practice presence he always carried even outside of hockey. His hair slightly mussed, shirt open at the collar, eyes already on you like the rest of the party had been filtered out of existence the moment he arrived.

For a second, neither of you spoke.

Then Dean tilted his head slightly, like he was trying to place something that had just clicked into focus.

And then he laughed once, low and disbelieving.

“No,” he said, pointing lightly between you and Beau. “That’s her?”

Beau’s hand came up in a slow, resigned motion. “Yeah.”

Dean blinked.

Then looked at you again, properly this time, like he was re-evaluating every interaction you had ever had.

“Little Maxwell, holy shit,” he said with a grin that was both fond and something a little more.

You raised a brow, did you know this guy? Had Beau just talked about you too much?

Something in his expression shifted immediately. Interest sharpened into recognition, then into something distinctly more entertained.

“Oh,” he mumbled again, slower this time, like the realization had weight. “Okay, I get it now.”

Beau sighed. “Don’t start.”

Dean ignored him completely, still looking at you like the conversation had already moved somewhere the rest of the room couldn’t follow.

“Listen, I get it. It's been years since we've seen each other cause you're always off doing some random shit with family in the summer, and I'm always rising and grinding during the season. But come on you don't even recognize these dimples?” He beamed at you as punctuation to his statement. His dimples pressing into his cheeks as his eyes closed in pure exaggeration.

You glanced at Beau with wide eyes, then back to the blonde.

"Dean?" Your jaw was practically on the floor at this point. This was not the little kid with a perfect side part that you grew up hanging out with. There was no way.

Beau looked vaguely like he was reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment.

Dean laughed again, shaking his head slightly as if he genuinely couldn’t decide whether this was impressive or insane.

But before he could answer, Beau stepped in half a pace, subtly but firmly placing himself between the two of you like a defensive line that had just been activated.

“Nope,” Beau put an arm between you and his best friend with a firm shake of his head.

Dean lifted a hand innocently. “What?”

“You’re not doing whatever you’re about to do,” Beau continued.

“I’m literally just standing here.”

“That’s how it starts,” Beau said flatly.

You laughed under your breath at that, and Dean’s eyes flicked briefly to you like that sound had been more important than anything else in the room.

Which Beau noticed too, because of course he did.

His jaw tightened slightly. “Tucker,” he called without looking away from Dean.

From somewhere behind the crowd, Tucker appeared like he had been summoned specifically for this purpose. He took one look at the situation, then at Beau, then at Dean, and immediately groaned.

“Oh, come on, bro.”

“Watch him,” Beau said.

Tucker pointed at himself. “Why am I always the emotional support in this house? This feels like it's just a fucking punishment at this point.”

“Because you’re reliable,” Beau said.

“That's really not a compliment in this context.”

Dean exhaled, amused, watching the entire exchange like it was a show he had not paid for but intended to enjoy anyway.

“I feel like I’m being managed,” he said.

“You are being managed,” Beau corrected immediately.

You leaned slightly toward Beau, lowering your voice just enough to be conspiratorial. “This is ridiculous, he's your best friend, why are you being such a weirdo about this?”

Beau didn’t look at you. “This is necessary, you don't know the newer Dean.”

Dean’s gaze shifted back to you again, softer at the edges now that Beau wasn’t fully blocking his view. “So,” he drawled, like he was testing the waters carefully despite the chaos around him, “you here all night, or does your brother have a curfew for you too?”

You opened your mouth to answer.

Beau answered first. “She has a curfew.”

“I do not,” you said at the same time. An offended, but exaggerated gasp escaped your lips as you glared at your brother.

Beau pointed at you like that proved his point anyway. “See?”

Dean smiled, clearly entertained now in a way that made him even more infuriating to the person trying to contain him.

“Good to know,” he hummed with a wink that was shot in your direction.

And just like that, Tucker stepped in closer, casually inserting himself between you and Dean with the exhausted resignation of someone who had accepted his role in life.

“Alright,” Tucker said, clapping Dean on the shoulder. “Let’s go get you a drink... far away from here. Preferably outside. Or in another state, fuck it, let's just go all the way to Texas for a drink.”

Dean didn’t move immediately.

His eyes stayed on you a moment longer than necessary, like he was memorizing the fact that you existed in the same room as him now in a way that couldn’t be undone.

Then, slowly, he nodded once, “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

But as Tucker started steering him away, Dean looked back over his shoulder one last time.

And mouthed, very clearly:

Maxwell.

You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling anyway. Behind you, Beau let out a long, suffering sigh.

Your brother didn’t stop watching you even after Dean had been physically removed from your immediate vicinity.

Which, considering the fact that Tucker had successfully dragged him toward the bar like he was escorting a dangerous but extremely social animal, was saying something about how seriously your brother was taking this entire situation.

You leaned against the kitchen counter with a drink you hadn’t actually decided to drink yet, watching the party unfold. People spilling through doorways, laughter rising and falling in uneven waves, someone already attempting a very confident but very incorrect rendition of a song you vaguely recognized.

Beau stayed beside you like a shadow, except he unfortunately had opinions.

“I don’t like the way he looked at you,” he said finally.

You didn’t even glance at him. “He looked at me like we were friends who haven't seen each other in years... Oh wait- maybe that's because we are.”

Beau made a noise of disagreement. “No, he looked at you like he was calculating something.”

“That’s called having eyes and a brain, Beau.”

“That’s called being Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis.”

You finally turned your head slightly toward him. “You’re being so dramatic. At this point you should be on broadway.”

“I’m being observant,” Beau corrected immediately, though his second glance in your direction and the way his lips pursed made it seem like he may have just briefly considered asking if you were serious.

From across the room, you caught sight of Dean again near the drinks. Tucker was still beside him, one hand planted firmly on Dean’s shoulder like a human barricade, while Dean leaned casually against the counter, looking entirely unbothered by the fact that he was being monitored like a public safety concern.

Except his eyes flicked up, and immediately landed on you like they’d been waiting for you to look back.

You did, of course you did... how could you not.

Dean’s mouth curved slightly, just enough to be noticed, not enough to be subtle. He lifted his drink in a small, lazy gesture that somehow felt like it belonged only to you and no one else in the room.

Beau saw it too.

“Absolutely not,” he said flatly.

You blinked. “What now?”

“He just-” Beau gestured vaguely across the room. “He just acknowledged you like that in my house.”

You looked back at him, not even bothering with arguing the my in that statement, instead you figured a better use of your time would be to get another opinion... Y'know, make sure you weren't misreading the hints that Dean was putting down. “Like what?”

Beau stared at you like you were intentionally missing the point. “Like you’re a person he’s interested in.”

You took a slow sip of your drink finally, like you needed something to occupy your hands before you said something stupid. “Maybe I am a person he’s interested in.”

That got Beau to turn fully toward you with a look of shock and appallment.

“No,” he shut down immediately.

You raised a brow. “No?”

“He’s my best friend,” Beau said, like that explained everything.

“And I’m your sister,” you replied.

“That’s exactly why this is a problem.”

You laughed under your breath. “So your logic is I’m allowed to exist as a concept, but not as a dating option?”

Beau exhaled hard, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re not a dating option.”

“That’s not how people work,” you said, your arms crossed as your eyebrows furrowed. You had been able to humor this whole protective brother ordeal for a little bit, but now you were starting to wonder if you could push this as far as you wanted it to go.

Across the room, Dean said something that made Tucker immediately react like he’d just been personally offended by the universe. Tucker grabbed Dean’s arm again, physically turning him slightly away from your direction.

You watched it happen.

Then you looked back at Beau. “Is Tucker always like this?”

“Yes,” Beau said without hesitation. “And I’m paying him in friendship points.”

“That feels like hazing.”

“It’s fraternally sanctioned, don't mention it out loud though....”

You hummed, glancing back again just in time to see Dean make eye contact with you over Tucker’s shoulder.

He lifted his brows slightly, like he was asking a question without saying it. You tilted your head, and he seemed to read that like a book.

Beau noticed immediately... again.

“No,” he said again, his rink resting on the counter now as he leaned towards you with crossed arms.

You didn’t respond.

Because Dean had just shifted, subtly shaking Tucker’s hand off his arm with a pat that looked friendly but firm, and started walking.. directly toward you.

Beau straightened instantly.

“Oh my god,” he muttered.

“Relax,” you teased, even though your attention was already fully on Dean now.

Beau stepped slightly in front of you again out of pure instinct, like blocking access was muscle memory at this point. “I am relaxed. I am very relaxed. I am so relaxed I am about to throw up.”

“Beau.”

“Do not ‘Beau’ me right now.”

Dean arrived anyway, and he stopped just short of your brother -- his bestfriend -- smiling like this was exactly the reaction he had been expecting, and maybe even hoping for.

“Tucker’s not very good at his job,” Dean said casually.

“I heard that,” Tucker called from across the room.

Dean didn’t look away from Beau. “Yeah, I wanted him to hear it.”

Beau pointed at him immediately. “Stay on your side of the room.”

Dean glanced at the finger like it was mildly amusing. “Which side is that?”

Beau’s expression tightened. “The side that is not my sister.”

That made Dean finally look past him, his eyes landing on you.

And when he did, his voice dropped slightly, the teasing still there but softened around the edges like he was aware of exactly what he was doing.

“I was just coming to say hi,” he said all too casually with a cheeky shrug.

Beau didn’t move. “You said hi from across the room.”

“I feel like it’s better up close.”

“Why.”

Dean paused, then shrugged lightly. “Higher accuracy.”

You let out a quiet laugh before you could stop yourself. That, of course, got Dean’s attention again immediately.

“Okay,” Beau interrupted, stepping slightly closer to Dean now like he was ready to physically negotiate boundaries if necessary. “You’re done.”

Dean looked at him, eyebrow quirked, and head resting to the side just slightly. “With what.”

“With whatever this is.”

“This is a conversation,” Dean informed him, like he was struggling to find the simple word.

“This is a threat,” Beau corrected.

From somewhere behind Dean, Tucker reappeared, clearly having abandoned all hope of containing anything at this point.

“I tried,” Tucker said, holding up his hands. “I genuinely tried.”

Dean finally exhaled, looking between Beau and Tucker like he was evaluating the situation in full now.

Then he leaned slightly closer to Beau, voice dropping just enough to turn private.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said. “I’m talking to her.”

Beau didn’t budge. “That’s how it starts.”

Dean’s mouth twitched. “You’ve said that already.”

“I will keep saying it,” Beau replied.

There was a beat, then Dean looked past him again, directly at you.

And this time, there was no teasing in it at all, just something unapologetically interested.

“I’ll be over there,” he muttered, nodding slightly toward the quieter side of the house. “If your brother decides to stop guarding you like you’re a national treasure.”

Beau immediately opened his mouth, but you made sure to speak first.

“I’ll find you,” you nodded with a small smile.

Beau froze, and poor Tucker made a sound like he was witnessing the end of something inevitable.

Dean, however, smiled and for once it wasn't the usual smug one.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I was hoping you would.”

And then he walked away again, slow enough not to look like retreat, confident enough not to look like permission, while Beau slowly turned his head toward you like he was trying to process the fact that you had just said that out loud.

“No,” Beau said again, but weaker this time.

You took another sip of your drink.

“Yes,” you corrected.

Behind you, Tucker sighed deeply and walked away in surrender.

← MLIST. ᝰ.ᐟ edawgz 2026.

He has one hand locked around her waist and the other flattened low on her back, guiding her down against him, not that she needs much guidance. She’s doing it on purpose now. Slow, mean little grinds that drag the seam of her panties over him through his sweats and make him lose a bit more of his mind every time. 

He’s hard enough that it’s almost painful, hot and trapped and pressed right up against her. Her mouth curves against his when he groans, like she’s won something.

“You’re so loud,” she murmurs, nipping at his bottom lip.

Garrett’s fingers dig into her hip. “You’re sitting on my dick.”

“Barely.”

“You want me to apologise?”

“I want you to do something useful.”

He huffs a laugh, except it comes out rougher than he means it to because she grinds down again at the same time, and his head knocks back against the wall behind his bed. “Jesus Christ.”

She leans forward and kisses the sound out of him, messy and open-mouthed, teeth catching, tongue sliding over his like she’s trying to shut him up and make him worse at the same time. 

It’s very effective. Annoyingly effective. Everything with her is like that. A fight. A dare. A little bit of blood under the nail. She kisses him like she’s still pissed about something he said three hours ago and intends to take payment directly out of his spine.

Her mouth leaves his and drags down his jaw. Garrett feels her smile against his skin right before her teeth sink into the side of his throat.

“Hey.” His hand tightens at her waist. “Don’t.”

She hums, entirely unbothered, and sucks harder.

“Seriously?” he says, voice strained because it’s difficult to sound authoritative when her hips are still moving and her mouth is hot on his neck. “You’re gonna make me look like I got attacked.”

She pulls back just enough to look at the mark blooming under his jaw, pleased with herself in a way that makes his stomach go tight. “You did.”

“By a girl who keeps saying she’s not my girlfriend.”

Her eyes flick to his. “You keep saying that.”

Garrett’s mouth opens, then closes, because he hates when she does that. He hates it even more because she doesn’t look hurt. She looks smug and hot and a little too bright around the eyes, like she’s waiting to see if he’ll flinch first.

So he does what he always does when she gets too close to the thing under the thing. He smirks.

“Yeah, well,” he says, sliding both hands under her skirt now, palms spreading over the backs of her thighs. “You keep leaving claw marks on my back, Kitty.”

Her whole face changes.

Garrett feels the satisfaction of it before she even speaks, because she goes still over him for one sharp second, mouth parting in outrage, eyes narrowing. “Don’t call me that.”

He grins. “What? Thought Dean said it was cute.”

She punishes him immediately by grinding down harder. His fingers flex, dragging her closer, and her expression tips from smug to hungry so fast it almost makes him dizzy.

“Yeah,” she whispers, mouth brushing his. “That shut you up.”

“You’re such a brat.”

“You love it.”

Garrett wants to deny it. It’s sitting right there, easy and obvious, the kind of thing he could toss back without thinking. Except her nails scrape lightly down the back of his neck, enough to remind him she could, and the truth moves through him in a warm, humiliating rush. 

He does. He loves the mouth on her. Loves the attitude. Loves that she’ll glare at him from across a room like she wants to throw something at his head and then end up in his bed twenty minutes later making that soft, ruined little sound into his mouth.

He settles for kissing her again, because that feels safer than saying any of it. She melts for about half a second before biting his lip.

“Fuck,” he mutters, laughing into the kiss. “You’re impossible.”

“You’re slow.”

“I’m trying to be nice.”

“Don’t.”

His hand slides between them then, and that finally steals the next smart thing out of her mouth. Her breath catches against his cheek as his fingers find the damp heat of her through her panties, and Garrett goes a little quiet. 

For all his cocky bullshit, for all the easy flirting and the grin that gets him out of most trouble he doesn’t deserve to escape, there’s a second when he touches her like this where the performance drops clean off his face. Like the fact that she wants him still catches somewhere under his ribs.

Her hips twitch into his hand.

“Oh,” he says, low, smugness returning because he’s Garrett and therefore deeply committed to being unbearable. “That’s why you’re being mean.”

She grabs his jaw. “I’m always mean.”

“Not like this.”

“Garrett.”

“Yeah?”

Her voice thins at the edges, but her glare stays intact, which is honestly impressive. “If you tease me right now, I’ll kill you.”

His thumb presses in a slow circle that makes her lashes flutter. “You say that a lot for someone currently trying to fuck me.”

“Trying,” she repeats, breathless and furious. “Exactly. And yet here we are. Discussing.”

Garrett’s mouth twitches. “Fair.”

He hooks his fingers into the edge of her panties and tugs them aside, and the room seems to shrink down to the tiny space between their bodies. Her hands slip from his jaw to his shoulders. 

Her mouth opens but nothing comes out. He can feel how wet she is, how hot, how close she already is to losing patience completely, and it does something stupid to him. Something possessive and bright and not casual at all.

She lifts on her knees when he guides her up, one hand braced against the wall beside his head, the other still on his shoulder, nails biting. He shifts beneath her, pushing his sweats down just enough, breath already jagged.

“C’mon,” he murmurs. “There you go.”

Her chin drops, her forehead nearly touching his. “Garrett.”

“I’ve got you.”

Her mouth twists like she wants to say something bitchy and can’t quite find it. That gets him more than anything. Her quiet. Her body trembling over his. The scrape of her nails at his shoulder, the hickey pulsing warm under his jaw, her skirt bunched around her hips, his name barely holding itself together in her mouth.

He lines himself up, one hand gripping her thigh, the other holding her panties aside, and she starts to sink down.

The fire alarm screams.

For one whole second, they both freeze in absolute, biblical disbelief.

Then Garrett flinches so hard his head smacks the wall. She jerks over him with a gasp, grabbing his face like she can hold the moment in place with both hands and sheer fucking will.

“No,” she says.

Garrett blinks at her through the shriek of the alarm. “What?”

“No.” Her grip tightens on his jaw, eyes wide and glassy and furious, her whole body still hovering right above him. “No, Garrett. Please. Please, ignore it.”

He stares at her. “Ignore the fire alarm?”

She nods eagerly. “Yes.”

Downstairs, Tucker yells, “OH, FUCK!”

Garrett’s eyes close.

She immediately shakes his face. “No. Look at me. Tucker says that when he finds expired hummus.”

“Baby.”

She whines softly. “Don’t baby me. We’re busy.”

“Someone might be on fire.”

From below them comes Logan’s voice, ragged with panic and laughter. “WHY IS THERE A PLATE IN THE OVEN?”

Then Tucker again, louder and more horrified. “WHO PUT A PLASTIC PLATE IN THE OVEN?”

Garrett exhales through his nose like he’s trying to summon a version of himself with morals. Unfortunately, the version of himself under her right now is hard, half-undressed, and seriously considering whether smoke inhalation is that bad.

She makes a wounded sound and drops her forehead to his shoulder. “I hate this house.”

“I know.”

“I hate your friends.”

“I know.”

Downstairs, Dean screams, “IT’S NOT MY PLATE!”

That finally does it. Garrett groans, deeply and from the soul, and helps her off his lap before one or both of them dies in the least sexy way possible.

She climbs off him with all the grace of a furious cat, yanking her skirt down, hair wrecked, mouth swollen, and Garrett nearly walks into his dresser trying to pull his sweats up over an erection that has every right to file a formal complaint.

She points at him with one trembling finger. “If this is Logan’s fault, I’m putting his head in the oven.”

“Maybe don’t threaten murder while the fire alarm’s going off.”

“I’ll be quick.”

They make it to the hallway half-dressed and murderous. Smoke curls faintly up the stairs. Dean’s halfway up already, looking delighted until he sees her crooked skirt, Garrett’s flushed face, the hickey darkening under Garrett’s jaw, and the general aura of interrupted sex radiating off both of them like a gas leak.

Dean’s mouth opens. Garrett points at him. “Don’t.”

Dean looks at the hickey. Then at her nails. Then at Garrett’s sweats. His whole face lights with reverent horror. “Oh my God.”

She points at him. “I will push you down these fucking stairs.”

Dean steps aside immediately. “Understood.”

The second time, Garrett locks the bathroom door with such focus that she almost feels bad for him.

Almost.

He twists the little button on the knob, tests it once, then tests it again, jaw set like he’s securing a submarine hatch instead of the upstairs bathroom in a house where the towel rack’s been broken since October. 

She stands near the sink in one of his Briar shirts and nothing else, watching him with her arms crossed and her mouth doing the thing it does when she’s trying not to laugh at him and failing beautifully.

“Wow,” she says. “You’ve grown so much.”

Garrett turns. “I’m being proactive.”

“You’re being traumatised.”

“By your inability to finish a sentence without insulting me?”

“By your idiot roommates.”

He points at her. “You like them.”

“I like Tucker. Logan’s useful for entertainment. Dean’s a cautionary tale with hair product.”

Garrett tries not to laugh and loses. “That’s mean.”

The bathroom is full of steam, the mirror fogged at the edges, the bathwater high and hot and carrying the faint clean smell of whatever body wash she stole from him because, according to her, his was annoyingly good and therefore community property. 

Garrett’s gone a little overboard, which she will absolutely make fun of him for later if she survives the night with any dignity left. Candles on the sink. Towels stacked near the tub. His phone facedown on the counter like he doesn’t trust it not to ruin his life.

It is, despite everything, kind of sweet.

Which is dangerous. Sweetness always is with him. It sneaks up under the banter and the hooking up and the stupid public insistence that they’re not dating, and then suddenly he’s making a bath, checking the lock twice, putting her water bottle on the sink, and setting Douglas on the folded towel beside the tub like that’s not the most damning piece of evidence in the entire room.

Garrett’s busy pretending to adjust the temperature of the water, one hand under the tap, jaw set in that deeply masculine way men get when they’re doing something domestic and hoping no one points it out. 

So she leans her hip against the sink, arms crossed, and says, “This is a lot of effort for a girl you’re not dating.”

Garrett stills. Barely. The tiniest pause of his hand under the water, the flicker of his eyes toward Douglas on the towel, then to her, then away again like that tiny purple traitor has exposed him.

“That’s not effort,” he says, turning the tap off. “That’s preparation.”

She raises an eyebrow. “For the girl you’re not dating.”

“For the girl who keeps complaining that my house is ruining her life.”

“It is ruining my life.”

“You’re welcome to leave.”

She lifts her brows.

Garrett looks at her, at the shirt falling high on her thighs, at her bare legs, at the mouth he’s already kissed swollen twice tonight, and immediately seems to regret giving her any kind of exit option. His jaw shifts. “Just… not right now.”

A smile pulls at her mouth. “Use your brain next time.”

“Bossy.”

“Proactive.”

His mouth curves despite himself as he steps into her space, hands finding her hips under the shirt like they belong there, like they’ve mapped the exact place his thumbs should sit and neither of them is going to talk about what that means. “You gonna keep running your mouth, or are you getting in?”

“You made a whole setup. I’m appreciating the ambience.”

He tilts his head. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m moved.”

“You’re a liar.”

She grins, and he kisses it off her before it can get any worse, mouth warm and open against hers, one hand sliding up the side of her waist. For a second the room narrows to steam and skin and the soft press of his thumbs beneath her ribs. Then her nails drift down his back, slow and deliberate, catching over the raised scratches she left there last time. Garrett’s whole body gives one sharp, quiet reaction against hers.

“Careful,” he says, voice lower.

She smiles into his mouth. “Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

“Jesus.” He pulls back just enough to look at her, incredulous and turned on and visibly annoyed about both. “You’re insane.”

“You keep inviting me over.”

“Yeah, well.” His eyes drop to her mouth. “I’m stupid.”

“Finally, common ground.”

He mutters something under his breath that she doesn’t catch before he kisses her again, rougher this time, like he’s punishing her for being right. His hands slip under the hem of the shirt and drag it up her body, and the second it’s over her head, Garrett forgets how to finish whatever insult he’d clearly been building toward. 

It happens so plainly she almost laughs. His eyes drop, throat working once, hands settling at her waist like he needs somewhere safe to put them before they get him into trouble.

She tilts her head. “You okay?”

His eyes flick up. “Fine.”

“You look pained.”

“Because you’re naked and still talking.”

“That usually upsets you?”

“It does when the talking is happening instead of the bath.”

She glances toward the tub, then to Douglas, still waiting innocently on the towel. “You brought him out and everything.”

Garrett’s face tightens in immediate betrayal. “Don’t make it weird.”

“Weird?” She looks offended. “That’s Douglas.”

“I know his name.”

She grins. “You should. You helped name him.”

“I said it as a joke.”

“And then it stuck. That’s how naming works.”

“I didn’t think I’d be standing in my bathroom months later listening to you talk about him like he’s a close personal friend.”

“He’s been very supportive.”

Garrett gives her a flat look. “He has a charging cable.”

“He has stamina.”

“I have stamina.”

She lets her eyes drag over him, slow and deeply unfair, until his expression shifts by a fraction. “Do you?”

Garrett’s hands tighten on her waist. “Get in the bath.”

She laughs, and he guides her in with both hands like he knows full well she might climb right back out just to spite him. The water closes around her hot enough to pull a sigh out of her, and a second later Garrett is sliding in behind her, knees bracketing her hips, chest warm against her back. 

For a second, she lets herself settle. Lets her head tip back onto his shoulder. Lets his hands move over her stomach under the water, slow and broad, like he’s smoothing out every sharp edge she keeps trying to put between them.

Then he reaches past her for Douglas. She opens one eye. “Be respectful.”

Garrett’s mouth brushes the side of her neck. “I’m always respectful to Douglas.”

“You called him a tiny homewrecker last time.”

“He knows what he did.”

“You were jealous.”

He scoffs. “I was not jealous of a vibrator.”

“You sulked.”

“I was catching my breath.”

“You glared at him.”

“He was smug.”

She laughs, and Garrett bites gently at her shoulder, enough to make the laugh catch. The vibrator hums to life in his hand, a low, familiar buzz that has heat pulling through her before he even touches her with it. She knows he feels the shift in her body, because his arm slips across her waist and his mouth settles at her ear.

“Still talking?” he murmurs.

She swallows, already hating how much rougher her voice sounds. “Still waiting.”

His smile presses into the side of her throat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Poor baby.”

She turns her head just enough to glare at him. “Don’t start.”

Garrett drags Douglas slowly up the inside of her thigh, nowhere near where she wants him, the absolute bastard. “Thought you wanted me to use my brain.”

“I want you to use your hand.”

“That’s demanding.”

“That’s proactive.”

His laugh is low against her ear, and then his mouth drops to her shoulder, open and warm, as he finally guides the vibrator higher.

“Fine,” he murmurs, voice gone rough in that way that makes her thighs want to part before she’s decided to let them. “But if you’re gonna keep defending him, I’m making him earn his place in this relationship.”

She goes still against him. Garrett goes still too, just for a second. The word hangs there in the steam, soft and stupid and too close to something neither of them has agreed to say out loud.

Then she clears her throat, eyes fixed very hard on the fogged mirror. “That what we’re calling it?”

His mouth brushes her shoulder again, slower this time. “Don’t get cocky.”

“I think Douglas should know where he stands.”

Garrett exhales a laugh against her skin, and when he speaks again, his voice is lower, threaded through with heat. “Right now? Between your legs, if you stop arguing with me.”

The words skim hot along her wet skin, and the laugh she tries for comes out smaller than planned, caught somewhere between her throat and his mouth on her shoulder.

His arm slides across her middle, dragging her back more firmly against him, the hard line of his chest pressed to her spine, his thighs bracketing hers under the water while Douglas traces a slow, maddening path up the inside of her leg.

He’s being awful about it, of course. Deliberate. Patient in a way that feels less like restraint and more like cruelty, brushing close and then away, letting the vibration skim over places that make her stomach tighten before he eases off again.

His mouth keeps moving along her neck, open and lazy, kissing beneath her ear, then the hinge of her jaw, then the spot just below it he knows makes her lose half a thought if he gets his teeth there.

She tries very hard not to squirm, because letting Garrett Graham know he’s getting to her is basically handing a loaded weapon to a man who already thinks he’s hot shit with a sniper rifle.

Unfortunately, her body has no loyalty. Her thighs shift under the water. Her fingers curl against his forearm where it’s locked across her stomach. Garrett feels both. His mouth curves against her neck.

“Garrett.”

“Mm?”

“Stop playing.”

“I thought you liked playing.”

“I like finishing.”

His breath catches against her ear in a laugh, low and rough enough to make her toes curl beneath the water. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’ve heard.”

She reaches back to smack his thigh, but he moves Douglas exactly where she needs it and her hand clenches instead, nails scraping into his skin beneath the water.

The sound that leaves her is immediate and humiliatingly soft, and Garrett goes still for half a second behind her, like he wants to feel it all the way through. Like he wants to press pause on the exact moment she stops being difficult and starts melting.

“There,” he says, lips brushing her ear. “That what you wanted?”

She refuses to answer, mostly because she can’t.

Garrett’s free hand drifts up her stomach, slow and wet and broad, palm sliding over her ribs like he has all the time in the world.

She feels the shape of his fingers before he reaches her chest, the heat of his hand closing over her, and her head tips back against his shoulder before she can stop it. His thumb brushes once, almost lazy, and her whole body answers so sharply that water laps over the edge of the tub.

“Oh,” he murmurs, much too pleased. “There too?”

“Shut up.”

His mouth presses to her temple, soft enough to be insulting under the circumstances. “You’re so easy to annoy.”

“You’re so easy to hate.”

“Yeah?” His hand tightens over her breast, enough to make her breath hitch. “This feel like hate?”

She would love to say something devastating. She has, in theory, a whole personality built around saying something devastating. But Douglas is buzzing steadily between her thighs, Garrett’s hand is warm and sure on her chest, and his mouth is at her ear, and the only thing her body manages is a thin little sound that makes him groan like it’s done something to him too.

He turns the setting up one notch. Her hips jerk. Water spills over the side again, hitting the tile in a soft slap. Garrett’s arm tightens across her waist, holding her there against him, not forcing, just grounding, making it impossible for her to arch away from the pressure even when it starts to burn low and bright through her stomach.

His fingers knead at her chest, thumb dragging in a rhythm that has her eyes rolling back before she can even pretend she’s above it.

“That’s it,” Garrett murmurs, voice gone thick. “Good girl.”

Her eyes squeeze shut.

He notices immediately, because he notices everything when it comes to getting under her skin. “Oh, you liked that.”

“Don’t.”

“You did.” His mouth brushes the shell of her ear, smug and breathless at once. “Fuck, baby, you really liked that.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” He shifts Douglas slightly, pressing it in tighter, and her whole body jolts against him. His hand slides from her breast to her throat for half a second, just holding her there, tipping her face back enough that his mouth can drag over her jaw. “You’re dripping all over my hand.”

The sound she makes would be embarrassing if she had enough air left to care. The steam has gone thick around them, clinging to her skin, turning the mirror to a blur.

Her body feels loose and tight at the same time, everything warm and wet and pulled so sharply toward the ache between her thighs that she can barely keep track of where she ends and Garrett starts. 

His chest is hard behind her. His breath is hot against her ear. His hand returns to her chest, greedy now, less patient, fingers squeezing and stroking like he’s finally losing the thread of his own control.

“Garrett,” she whimpers, and hates him a little for the way his breath catches when she does.

“Yeah, baby.” His voice drops even lower, rough enough to scrape. “I know. I’ve got you.”

“No, you don’t.”

A laugh breaks out of him, bitten off and dark. “You’re arguing with me right now?”

“You’re being smug.”

“I’m being useful.”

She tries to glare at him over her shoulder, but he presses Douglas just right and her face crumples before she can get the look properly arranged. Garrett’s mouth catches at her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, kissing whatever broken little sounds spill out of her as her thighs start to tremble under the water.

“There we go,” he murmurs. “That’s it. Let me have it.”

Her fingers claw at his thigh. His breath hitches hard.

“Careful,” he grits out, and she can feel exactly how much he means it by the way his hips shift behind her, the hard press of him against her lower back, his control fraying in quiet, satisfying little pieces.

She would absolutely mock him for that if her body didn’t choose that exact moment to climb right to the edge. Everything narrows. The bath, the steam, his mouth, his hands, the buzz pressed exactly where she needs it. 

Heat coils so tight in her stomach it almost hurts, her back arching against him, chest pushing into his palm as her head falls to his shoulder. She hears herself moan, high and helpless, and Garrett makes this ruined sound against her neck like it’s taken something out of him.

“Oh, baby,” she gasps, the words slipping out before pride can catch them.

Garrett’s hand tightens on her breast. “Fuck. Say that again.”

“No.”

“Brat.”

“Garrett–”

“I know.” He kisses beneath her ear, voice low and filthy-soft, all smugness burned down to want. “I know. You’re right there, aren’t you?”

She nods because words have become unreasonable.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, pressing Douglas in that tiny, perfect angle that makes her whole body go taut. “There you go. Come on. I’ve got you. Just like that.”

Her nails dig into his thigh hard enough that he swears under his breath, but he doesn’t stop. If anything, he holds her closer, mouth at her ear, hand on her chest, the other steady between her thighs, dragging her right up to the edge with a patience that feels like punishment and devotion at the same time.

“Garrett,” she gasps.

“I know. I know. There you go–”

A knock hits the door once, and the handle turns, and then Dean walks in.

The scream she lets out isn’t human.

Garrett shouts at the same time, jerking so hard the vibrator slips from his hand and disappears into the bath with a traitorous buzzing splash.

She lunges upright, foot sliding, hair going completely under for half a second before Garrett grabs her around the waist and hauls her back against him. 

Water sloshes everywhere. The candles flicker. Dean stands in the doorway with one hand over his eyes, which would be more useful if he had done it before seeing both of them naked and morally compromised.

“OH FUCK– I’M SORRY, DUDE– AH– FUCK!”

“DEAN!” Garrett roars.

She spits bathwater out of her mouth and whips around with her hair plastered over one eye. “WHY WOULD YOU WALK IN?”

“I KNOCKED!”

“YOU OPENED WHILE KNOCKING!”

“I THOUGHT IT WAS EMPTY!”

“THE DOOR WAS LOCKED,” Garrett yells, voice cracking with the kind of rage that only comes from a man interrupted twice in one night.

Dean’s hand remains over his eyes. His entire body is angled away from them in a panic. “IT WASN’T!”

Garrett looks at the lock. The little button has popped out. For a second, the three of them stare at it.

Dean backs up, shoulder hitting the doorframe. “I didn’t see anything.”

“You screamed ah fuck,” she snaps.

“I saw movement!”

“You saw tits, Dean.”

“I saw–” Dean stops himself, visibly choosing life. “I saw nothing. I’m blind. I have never had eyes.”

“GET OUT,” Garrett and she yell together.

Dean slams the door behind him.

The bathroom goes silent except for the steady drip of water onto the tile and Douglas buzzing somewhere under the surface like the last surviving member of a shipwreck.

She sits upright between Garrett’s legs, soaked, furious, hair in her face, chest heaving. Her skin is hot from the bath and hotter from embarrassment, every inch of her buzzing with a need that has nowhere to go now except rage. 

Garrett’s arm is still locked around her waist. His other hand is braced on the tub like he’s trying not to lose his mind. Then she feels his shoulders shake. Slowly, she turns her head.

Garrett presses his lips together.

“Don’t,” she hisses.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re laughing with your whole stupid body!”

That does it. One laugh gets out of him, low and helpless, and she stares at him with the flat, dead-eyed fury of a woman who has been edged and then waterboarded by bathwater in front of Dean Di Laurentis.

Garrett tries to kiss her shoulder. “Baby–”

“No.”

He attempts another kiss. “I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“I’ll kill him.”

She glares at him. “That doesn’t help me now.”

His mouth twitches again.

She points toward the door, hair dripping onto his arm. “I hate this fucking house.”

The third time, they try the porch because both of them have started confusing desperation with creativity.

The house is quiet behind them for once, and that should be the first warning. Nothing good ever comes out of the hockey house being quiet. It means someone is dead, asleep, or about to emerge at the exact wrong time with cereal. 

But the back porch has the fire pit going, the night air is cool, and she’s tucked sideways against Garrett on the outdoor couch wearing his sweatshirt and a little skirt because she decided to wear it specifically to make his life worse.

Now the firelight is moving over her bare thighs, over the cuffs of his sweatshirt swallowed around her hands, over the dark mark on his jaw that he’s already checked twice in his phone camera and complained about three times. 

Complained is maybe generous. He keeps touching it like he’s annoyed, then glancing at her like he wants her to do it again.

So she does. She leans in while he’s mid-sentence about practice and puts her mouth under his jaw. Garrett stops talking immediately.

Her lips curve. “What were you saying?”

“Nothing.”

“No, keep going. I’m listening.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I’m multitasking.”

He tilts his head back despite himself when she kisses lower, teeth grazing his throat. His hand slides from the back of the couch to her thigh, warm palm settling under the hem of the sweatshirt where it’s ridden up. “Don’t leave another one.”

She sucks at the skin just beside the first mark.

“Jesus.” His fingers dig into her thigh. “You’re doing it on purpose.”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

She pulls back, eyes flicking over the fresh bloom of colour. Possessive satisfaction warms under her ribs, sharp and embarrassing, so she hides it behind a shrug. “You’re pretty when you’re marked up.”

Garrett stares at her. “That might be the most concerning compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I have a game this week.”

“Wear a turtleneck.”

“I’m a hockey player.”

She laughs and kisses him properly, swallowing whatever else he was going to say. His mouth opens under hers instantly, because for all his complaining, Garrett kisses her back like an addict with a grudge. 

One hand hooks around her waist and pulls her closer until she’s half in his lap, her thigh over his, her body angled toward him in the warm orange spill of the fire.

It had started innocent. They were supposed to be sitting outside because she’d dramatically announced she needed air that didn’t contain Dean. 

Garrett had brought her his sweatshirt without saying anything, which was annoying because it made her chest feel soft in a way she didn’t want to examine. They’d been fine for maybe ten minutes. Fifteen, if she was generous.

Then he’d stretched his arm behind her, all broad shoulders and lazy mouth and stupid sweatpants, and she’d remembered she had hands. Now one of those hands is slipping down his stomach.

Garrett catches her wrist before she reaches the waistband. “Here?”

She blinks at him. “You shy?”

“No.”

“Private?”

He gives her a look.

“Right.” Her mouth twitches. “Stupid question.”

His eyes narrow. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m coping.”

“You’re coping by jerking me off on the porch?”

“I’m resilient.”

Garrett’s laugh breaks when she twists her wrist out of his grip and palms him through his sweats. His head falls back against the couch, jaw going tight, and the sight of him like that – exposed throat marked up by her mouth, hair messy, lips parted around a breath he clearly doesn’t want to give her – makes her feel a little vicious. A little drunk, even though she isn’t.

“There he is,” she murmurs, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t get smug.”

“Too late.”

“You’re such a brat.”

“You keep saying that like it’s going to hurt my feelings.”

“It’s not supposed to hurt your feelings.” His voice drops as her hand slips under his waistband. “It’s supposed to make you behave.”

She wraps her hand around him properly, and Garrett’s hips lift a fraction into her palm before he can stop himself. She smiles. “How’s that going?”

“Fuck.”

“Not well?”

“Shut up.”

She kisses his neck again, softer this time, then ruins the softness by dragging her teeth over the mark she made. Garrett’s hand flies to her hip, gripping hard enough to pull a pleased little sound out of her. He hears it. His eyes open, dark and focused.

“Come here,” he says.

“I am here.”

“No.” His hand slides to the back of her thigh. “Here.”

She lets him drag her into his lap because she’s generous and because her patience has been burned down to ash by this house. Her knees bracket his hips, skirt riding up, the fire hot at her back and Garrett hotter under her. 

His hands shove beneath the sweatshirt, finding bare skin, and his mouth catches hers with none of the carefulness he sometimes tries to pretend he has.

They kiss hard and messy, the kind of kiss that tastes like irritation and wanting and the leftover sweetness of the soda she stole from him earlier. She strokes him slow just to hear the way his breath catches, and Garrett bites gently at her bottom lip in retaliation.

“Inside,” he mutters against her mouth.

“No.”

His brows pull together. “No?”

“We go inside, someone walks in.”

“We stay outside, someone walks out.”

“Then be quick.”

Garrett makes a sound like that suggestion has physically hurt him. “You’re killing me.”

“You’ll live.”

“Barely.”

“Good.”

He laughs, rough and gone, and his hand slides higher under her skirt. She shivers so hard he feels it. The cocky look on his face softens for half a second, not into anything sweet exactly, but something lower, warmer, more dangerous to her than smugness.

Then the sliding door opens.

“Ugh,” Tucker says from behind them. “Are you kidding?”

They freeze. Tucker is standing in the doorway in sweatpants and a hoodie, holding a bowl of cereal like a man who’s walked into war with Cheerios as his only weapon. His face isn’t shocked, it’s tired. Deeply, spiritually tired.

Garrett’s eyes shut. Her hand is still down his pants. Tucker looks at it.

She removes it very slowly, with as much dignity as a person can have while straddling a not-boyfriend on patio furniture.

“Tuck,” Garrett says, voice strangled.

Tucker points his spoon at them. “No.”

“Go away,” she says.

“This is a communal space.”

“It’s currently occupied.”

Tucker gestures with his spoon. “It’s the porch.”

“Then close your eyes on your way through.”

“I live here.”

“So do I,” Garrett snaps.

Tucker looks at Garrett’s lap, then at her skirt, then at Garrett’s neck, where the hickeys are now definitely visible in the firelight. His expression goes flatter. She reaches for the nearest cushion and throws it at him. Tucker dodges it with annoying ease.

“I’m just trying to eat cereal,” Tucker says.

“And I’m trying to get laid,” she fires back. “We all have dreams.”

Garrett makes a choked sound that might be a laugh and might be him giving up on life.

Tucker blinks at her. Then, because he’s Tucker, he actually considers this with more empathy than the situation deserves. “Yeah, okay. But maybe not where we keep the grill.”

“It’s off.”

“That is not the point.”

Garrett drags a hand over his face. “Can you just go inside?”

“I came outside because Logan fell asleep on the couch with a plate of nachos on his chest and Dean is trying to convince him it’s a weighted blanket.”

She stares. “I’m moving out of this house and I don’t even live here.”

Tucker nods once, like this is fair. “Valid.”

Garrett looks murderous. “Tuck.”

“I’m going.” Tucker lifts the cereal bowl in surrender. “I’m going. I’m just saying, there are other locations.”

“We tried the bathroom,” she says sweetly.

Tucker winces. “Right.”

“And the bedroom.”

“Also right.”

“And now, apparently, the porch is under federal protection.”

Tucker pauses at the doorway, thinking. Then he says, “Car?”

Garrett goes still. She turns her head toward him.

Tucker shrugs. “What? I’m problem-solving.”

The fourth time, Garrett parks at the back of the west lot behind the rink, under a dead light near the far fence where nobody has any reason to be unless they’re committing a crime, hiding a body, or making the sort of sexual decision that can only come after being interrupted three times by men with no respect for romance.

Garrett cuts the engine. The car settles into darkness. For a second, neither of them moves.

Then she starts laughing. It comes out half-hysterical, half-furious, her head tipping back against the passenger seat while Garrett sits behind the wheel with one hand still on the keys and the other over his mouth like he’s trying not to join her. 

The rink’s dark behind them, the lot mostly empty, rain shining faintly on the blacktop. It smells like cold air and leather and the faint mint of the gum Garrett had been chewing before she leaned across the console at a red light and ruined it for him.

“This is insane,” she says.

Garrett looks at her. “We can go back.”

She stops laughing immediately. “Don’t be stupid.”

His mouth curves. “There she is.”

“I swear to God, Garrett, if you call me Kitty right now, I’ll leave.”

“No, you won’t.”

She glares at him.

He grins wider, because he’s very brave for a man one wrong word away from dying in his own car. “You’re too horny to leave.”

Her mouth drops open. “I’m too horny?”

“Yeah.”

“You dragged me to a parking lot like a criminal.”

“At Tucker’s suggestion.”

She gestures vaguely. “Which makes this worse.”

“You got in the car.”

“You said please.”

“I said please once.”

“You said it twice.”

His expression shifts, smile sharpening. “You counting?”

She unbuckles her seatbelt. “I’m about to start counting how many times you don’t make me come tonight.”

Garrett’s face changes so fast it’s almost worth the entire miserable evening. The grin drops. His eyes go darker, mouth parting around a breath he doesn’t quite take, and then his hand’s on her thigh, tugging. “Come here.”

She makes him wait three seconds purely because she can.

His jaw ticks. “Baby.”

“Oh, now you’re polite?”

“Now I’m desperate.”

That does something terrible to her stomach. She climbs over the console and knees him in the thigh, because his car isn’t designed for dignity and neither of them has any left anyway. 

Garrett catches her with both hands around her waist, laughing into her mouth until she bites his lip and he groans, the sound low and immediate and so satisfying she almost forgets to be mad.

“Back seat,” he says.

“If you make me climb again–”

“I’ll do the work.”

“You better. Captain.”

His eyes flash at that, because she knows exactly what she’s doing, and he does too. He gets them into the back with slightly more athleticism than the situation deserves and significantly less grace. His shoulder hits the door. Her boot catches on the seatbelt. She laughs breathlessly and calls his car a hostile environment. He tells her she’s the hostile environment. She tells him he loves it. He doesn’t answer quickly enough.

That silence is loud. She looks at him in the dim.

Garrett looks back, his face close, one hand braced beside her head and the other on her waist, thumb slipped under the hem of her shirt. His hickey-dark throat moves when he swallows. There are faint red marks at the side of his neck where her nails had caught earlier, and the sight of them makes something low in her go hot and possessive.

“Don’t look so proud,” he mutters.

“I made those.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

She bites her lip. “They look good.”

“I look like I fought a raccoon.”

“A hot raccoon.”

Garrett stares at her. “That’s what you’re going with?”

“I’m under pressure.”

He laughs, and she kisses him before it can turn into another thing, because if they start bantering too long, something will explode. Possibly her. Possibly him. Possibly the car. 

His mouth opens under hers, and suddenly all of it comes rushing back: his bedroom, the fire alarm, the bath, Dean’s scream, the porch, Tucker’s spoon, every almost, every ruined edge, every time she had been right there and yanked back by this stupid house and its stupid men and their stupid timing.

She pulls at his shirt. Garrett helps, yanking it over his head and tossing it somewhere near the front seat. Her hands are on him immediately, palms over his shoulders, down his chest, nails scraping just enough to make his breath catch.

“Careful,” he says, but it comes out weak.

She kisses beneath his jaw. “You keep saying that.”

“You keep not listening.”

“You keep liking it.”

His hand tightens on her thigh. “You’re gonna be impossible after this.”

“After what?”

He drops his forehead to hers, breathing hard. “After I finally fuck the attitude out of you.”

For once, she has no immediate comeback.

Garrett notices. His mouth curves, slow and devastating. “Oh?”

“Don’t look smug.”

“You got quiet.”

“I’m thinking.”

“No, you’re not.”

She kisses him hard enough to knock his head back against the seat. It turns rougher after that, hotter, both of them finally too impatient to make a performance out of pretending they’re not. Clothes get pushed aside instead of properly removed. Her hand slips between them, his fingers dig into her hips, the windows fogging at the edges while the cold presses black and distant outside. 

Garrett keeps kissing her like the world might interrupt again if he lets go for even a second. She keeps marking whatever skin she can reach – his jaw, his throat, the hinge of his shoulder – because some ugly, honest part of her wants evidence. Wants him walking into that locker room tomorrow with her mouth on him whether he calls her his girl or not.

He hisses when her nails drag down his back. “Fuck, baby.”

She stills, looking at him through the dark. “Too much?”

His hands pause on her waist. It’s the first real pause of the night, the first careful thing either of them has done since he locked the bathroom door. His breathing is uneven, eyes searching her face.

“No,” he says, quieter. “Just– fuck.”

Her mouth softens before she can stop it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His thumb strokes once along her hip, almost absent. “You’re good.”

The tenderness of it is so rude she has to kiss him again. Garrett pulls her closer, and this time, when he shifts beneath her, when he guides her hips and she sinks down onto him at last, the sound that leaves both of them is wrecked enough to fog the whole car.

For a second, neither of them moves. She stays braced over him, forehead pressed to his, mouth open around a breath she can’t seem to finish. Garrett’s completely still underneath her, every muscle locked, hands gripping her like he’s afraid the universe is going to reach through the roof and drag her away.

“Oh,” she whispers, and then hates herself for how small it sounds.

Garrett’s eyes shut. “Yeah.”

“Garrett,” she whimpers.

“I know.” His voice is rough, almost unrecognisable. “I know, baby. Fuck, I know.”

She starts to move and his head tips back against the seat, throat exposed, all those marks dark against his skin. It makes her dizzy. Or maybe that’s him. The heat of him. The fullness. The way his hands guide her down into the rhythm like he’s been thinking about it all night because he has, because they both have, because every interrupted moment is suddenly living under her skin at once.

“Finally,” she breathes, half laugh, half moan. “Holy fuck.”

Garrett laughs too, but it breaks when she rolls her hips. “Yeah. Finally.”

“You feel–” She cuts herself off, nails digging into his shoulders.

He lifts his head, eyes dark and focused. “Say it.”

“No.”

“Brat.”

“Don’t call me–”

“Wasn’t gonna.” His mouth brushes hers. “Not this time.”

That lands somewhere stupid and soft in her chest, which is inconvenient, so she moves harder. Garrett groans, low and filthy, hands sliding down to grip her ass and pull her into him. The car rocks faintly.

Her palm slaps against the fogged window for balance, leaving a streak through the condensation. He kisses her neck, then her jaw, then her mouth, swallowing the sounds she doesn’t bother holding back anymore.

“God, I missed you,” he says, like it slips out before he can check it.

Her hips falter for half a beat. He looks up at her, breathing hard, hair messed by her hands, mouth swollen, hickeys blooming along his throat like a confession neither of them has to make out loud.

She swallows. “You saw me two hours ago.”

“Not like this.”

The answer moves through her like heat. She kisses him because she doesn’t know what else to do with it, and Garrett kisses her back with both hands pulling her down, his body meeting hers in this desperate, perfect rhythm that makes the whole night narrow to his mouth and his hands and the slick slide of them finally, finally getting what they want.

“Come on,” he murmurs against her lips, voice ragged. “That’s it. Take it.”

Her fingers twist in his hair. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

His laugh turns into a groan when she clenches around him. “You sure?”

“Garrett.”

“Yeah, baby.” His hand slides up her back, holding her close. “I’ve got you.”

She’s so close it’s almost mean. Her body tightens around it, breath breaking, forehead falling to his shoulder. Garrett’s hand presses at the base of her spine. His mouth is at her ear, saying things too low and filthy and soft to survive outside the car, and her nails rake down his back hard enough that he swears.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “There’s my girl.”

The words hang there between them, fogging up the windows, pressed into the leather, warm and reckless and absolutely not casual. Then she lifts her head, eyes narrowed even though her mouth is swollen and her breathing is ruined. “Your girl?”

Garrett stares at her.

She can feel him still inside her. Can feel the tremor in his hands where they hold her. Can see him deciding, right in front of her, whether to deflect or deny or be brave for once in his stupid life. His jaw shifts.

Then someone knocks on the window, three sharp taps. Everything in the car dies. Her whole body locks on top of him. Garrett’s eyes close like he’s been abandoned by God.

Through the fogged glass, a flashlight cuts white across the back seat. Another knock.

A muffled voice says, “Campus police.”

She drops her forehead onto his shoulder. Garrett’s hands are still on her hips. His breathing is still rough. The car is still hot and fogged and full of every terrible, unfinished thing between them.

For one long, awful second, there’s only the sound of rain dripping off the roof and the distant electrical buzz of the dead parking lot light.

Then she lifts her head just enough to look at him, hair falling around her face, cheeks flushed, mouth swollen, eyes wide with disbelief and the last remaining thread of her patience snapping clean in half.

Garrett swallows.

She whispers, very softly, “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

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Start of the spring semester - your apartment - early morning

"Alright, you're going to be fine, I'm going to be fine, we're all going to be fine" You say to Seb who stares at you with those wide curious eyes and gummy smile.

"You realize he's been to the daycare before and you have had college classes before as well right?" Dean gives you a weirded out look.

You narrow your eyes at him "What are you even doing here anyways?"

"Contrary to popular belief, I am not a deadbeat"

"Literally no one believes you're a deadbeat" You tell him picking up your tote and triple double checking for the 20th time this morning if you have everything.

"Okay, either way I wanted to drive you for your first day of school" He rolls his eyes taking the baby into his arms, Seb immediately becoming distracted by the chain under his shirt.

"You do realize I've had college classes before right?" You throw his words back at him making him scoff.

"Let's go" He turns to the door and then whispers loudly to your son "Your mom is not good at firsts, I should know, I've been there for a few of them"

"For fuck's sake Dean, I was not a virgin the first time we slept together!"

"I didn't say anything about that, get your head out of the gutter, I meant your first time skating, and your first time in New york, oh and get this… Your first time giving birth!" He makes jazz hands that get him a roll of the eyes and a push as you walk ahead of him through the door, he just laughs and makes sure the door is locked behind him.

Malone's - Later the same day

"I think I might just find myself a sugar daddy" You sigh stacking napkins, you're in the middle of a shift complaining to your co-workers and new friends, Hannah and Allie "I forgot how much I disliked school"

"You're halfway there" Allie shrugs "Your baby daddy is rich isn't he?"

"Filthy" Hannah adds nodding.

"Yeah but he's also… Dean" You say.

"Okay" Hannah drags on the word "And what's that supposed to mean exactly?"

"Well… we share a kid so anything else would only complicate things" You tell them.

"Okay but what if it doesn't?" Allie perks up "Like what if you two fall madly in love and it all works out and you end up being the perfect little family? You should always give love a chance"

"Or, we find out we don't work out as a couple and maybe we realize it too late and then we have a nasty split that leaves Seb in the middle of a custody battle" You shrug "It's too big of a chance to take, plus Dean Di Laurentis? Not a settling down kind of guy"

"But-" Hannah doesn't let Allie keep arguing.

"Listen, Allie is a romantic, she's going to keep arguing for you to give it a chance, so I'm going to play devil's advocate" Allie frowns "And say, if you think it is not a good idea then don't force anything, but if you choose to give it a chance, we'll back you up"

You're surprised and moved by her words, you have not known the two for that long but the best friends have basically adopted you in the short time you've been around "Thank you guys" You say "But Hannah, I'm not sure that's how devil's advocate works"

"Whatever" She shakes her head "You still got my point"

Hockey House - Wednesday night

The house is filled with chatter when you walk in, the guys have probably the entire hockey team plus a good amount of football players plus girlfriends in here.

"Hey! You're here" Logan greets you as you're setting your things on the table by the door.

"Yeah, something smells good" You say walking towards the smell curious on what Tuck's preparing for the group they've assembled tonight.

"Oh! Thank god you're here!" Beau exclaims, there's a crowd of around 10 guys in the kitchen, your son in a football's player you can't remember the name of arms throws himself your way the second he spots you, thankfully the football player has good reflexes and grips him tighter before safely passing him over.

"I am! What's all this?" You eye the kitchen counter while Seb slaps you with a wet 'kiss' that's more of a blubbering smack with his whole face "Oh thank you"

"Last night I couldn't sleep so I called my mom and she gave he all the baby pureed food recipes I ate as a baby and then I also got some more from a mom website so I thought we could run a taste test with Seb and find out what he likes" Tucker explains with an excited glint in his eyes "But we wanted to wait for you"

"Okay" You nod "And the party you have going on here?" You look at the full house.

"Oh, some of the guys on the team heard about it and were curious"

"And then Dean mentioned it and I might have invited my teammates" Beau adds.

"Cool" You resign yourself, at least you knew people would show up for your son if ever needed.

Some time later Dean has Seb in his lap while you sit infront with a spoon and the bowls, so far you've discovered he loves peaches, bananas and carrot and hates squash and apples.

"That looks like diarrhea" Beau grimaces at the bowl Tucker hands you next.

"It's literally just pumpkin" The curly haired chef narrows his eyes at the quarterback "And if your shit looks like that I think you should get checked up"

"Can we not talk about shit while feeding the baby?" Garrett complains.

You ignore them and give Seb a taste of the puree, he doesn't even give it a chance, as soon as it touches his pursed lips he slips his tongue out letting whatever little food had gone in out and squirming when you try to give him some more.

"See" Beau points "Diarrhea"

"I'm actually curious about the taste" Nick, a football player says and you hand him the bowl with a disgusted look, you've tried not to make faces so Seb tries all the new flavors unbiased but he's already decided he doesn't like this one and the smell is quite frankly, nauseating. You all pause and look at Nick as he takes a big spoonful into his mouth, the regret is instant and he runs to the sink to spit out and rinse his omouth making you all laugh, Sebastian joining in.

"Okay this is the last one" Tucker hands you the bowl, this one's bright green and when you look up you can already see Beau making a face at it "It's broccoli"

"All right, open up Seb" Dean grimaces behind as your son tries reluctantly, surprising you all when he opens up his mouth for more, giving you a satisfied hum as he savors it, you offer him more half expecting him to throw it out but he eats it and claps his hands "Oh he likes broccoli"

"There's no way" Beau shakes his head "Give me some" He takes the bowl and spoons some up bringing it to his mouth, Seb screams then making grabby hands at the bowl clearly angry at Beau for taking his food "Yeah, no, all yours kid" The quarterback grimaces handing the food back to you as everyone laughs.

Hockey house - Thursday afternoon

Garret has been awkward around the baby ever since he was born, being an only child and not having any younger cousins he had never been around kids that small before. Today he's the only one in the house, Logan out with Jules, Dean on a quick trip to New York for a family emergency and Tucker probably still on campus. His plans? To melt into the couch while watching as many of the Jurassic park movies he can get through until he falls asleep.

His plans, however, get interrupted only a few minutes into the first movie when you burst in through the front door with the baby bag in one arm and the baby in the other.

"Tuck!" You call out.

"He's not here yet" Garrett lets you know from his spot on the couch.

"Shit" You curse contemplating your options before walking his way "Okay, I'm so late, Tuck agreed to watch him over and-" Your phone buzzes, Tucker letting you know he's late and will be there in 15 minutes "Oh, he'll be here in 15 minutes but I can't wait so can you just-"

Garrett almost jumps when you plop the baby on his chest "Uh-"

"Tell Tuck I said thanks and I'll Dean will be here in a few hours! Thanks G, bye!" You don't let him get any words out before you're gone.

The brunette blinks at the baby who stares back at him with a gummy smile devouring his own fist, drool spilling down into Garrett's chest. "Okay… um… no, yeah, we're okay" He sits up slowly making sure to keep Sebastian as safe as possible "Do you uh… you like Jurassic Park?" The baby makes a noise and slaps him on the chest "No… okay sure, no dinosaurs how about um… what the fuck do babies like?" He whispers to himself "Oh i meant frick, shit, no, I'm sorry, don't tell your mom"

He pulls out his phone and texts a 'hurry your ass home' to Tucker who replies with a thumbs up and nothing more.

For the next ten minutes Garrett awkwardly sits on the couch with the baby in his lap, his duck plushie clutched in the hand he's not chewing on as he stares curiously at the man holding him and every time the baby so much as shifts Garrett holds his breath, eventually Sebastian grows tired rubbing his eyes and settling into his uncle's chest, droopy eyes closing and soft snores escaping.

"Great, now stay like that until Tuck gets home and we'll be fine bud" He whispered settling back into the cushions and pressing play on the movie again.

Just a few minutes later, under the heat of the baby on his chest, Garrett falls asleep too.

It's not until hours later that he wakes, Sebastian now turned the other way around, eyes wide on the screen that's now playing cartoons but still on his lap and Dean, Tucker and Logan sit around him with plates of food with their attention also on the tv.

"Welcome back to the land of the living G" Dean greets him shoveling a forkfull of steak into his mouth.

"How long have you guys been home?" Garrett asks all confused "And why didn't you take your kid?"

"I tried" The blonde shrugs "But every time I got close to getting him off of you he'd cry so I just let him do his thing"

"Okay well, take him" Garrett motions to the baby that's now looking up at him with a smile, completely unaware of the awkwardness coming from the man holding him.

"Fine, look for yourself " Dean puts his plate down, by now Logan and Tucker are watching intently "Hey bud, come with daddy" The baby's smile disappears the moment his dad puts his hands under his armpits to get him up and instead he complains with a screech and flailing of his arms "See? Seb, son, we need to change your diaper at least before you leak all over uncle G"

Garrett grimaces at the sentence "Get him off please"

"I'm trying!" Dean argues picking Sebastian off finally, the baby wailing immeidately "Yeah, yeah, I'm such a bad dad for not letting you stay with Garrett even though your diaper is full and you can get a rash" He rolls his eyes "So dramatic, you get this from your mom"

Your apartment - Saturday afternoon

"So this one then?" You're on a facetime call with Allie and Hannah while trying on different outfits.

"Yeah, that one makes your boobs look fricking amazing" Hannah says, Allie agrees.

"Okay great, and then do we think hair up or down?" You're getting ready for a date, your first one since before having Sebastian, a date with a guy from the Tennis club "Wait, I think Dean's here"

Lo and behold, when you open your apartment door Dean stands there with a bright smile and a paper bag he lifts proudly "Uncle Tuck sent some snacks for Seb"

"God bless uncle Tuck" You say letting him in "Thank you so much for agreeing to babysit him tonight"

"I'm his dad" Dean deadpans "It's not babysitting, just taking care of my kid while his mom has a deserved fun night out, so you going out with friends? Hitting Malone's, someone's apartment, what is it?"

"See, most guys don't see it that way, especially on a Saturday night when they could be out partying" You point out "And neither, I'm going on a date"

Dean chokes on nothing "A date?"

You shrug "Yeah" And walk back to your room to finish getting ready and say goodbye to Hannah and Allie. Dean's already texting Beau about it.

"So… do I get to meet the date?" He asks trying to act nonchalant and failing.

"Well, I'm meeting him at the movie theater so no" You tell him putting on your shoes "But if it all goes well maybe next time"

"He's not even picking you up?" The blonde asks in disbelief "Who is this guy?"

"Goodbye Dean!" You ignore his questions and walk out the door.

The movie theater - Just a bit later

"Dude, I've always wanted to do espionage" Beau whispers loudly to Dean, both guys looking obvious as hell as they stand in the movie theater lobby dressed in black and with sunglasses even though they are inside, Seb sporting his very own little pair strapped into his dad's chest too.

"Lowkey, me too" Dean admits "Probably not for this but hey, we have to make sure she's not dating a complete douche"

"Look! There she is" Beau points at you, the two wait until you're walking into the room and follow a minute later, somehow managing to make it to their seats, three rows behind you without you noticing "Are you sure you won't just think whatever guy she dates is a douche anyways?"

"No" The blonde frowns "Only the ones who deserve the title" Beau hums unconvinced.

The movie, as it turns out, is an action one that has Beau hooked, but Dean can't stop looking at you and your date, noting every move he makes and scoffing at them. Then, something in the screen explodes loudly, Beau gasps, Seb wails in fear, that's when you turn around and notice them, Beau looks scared, Dean is trying to calm the baby down and you sigh offering your date an apology and telling him you have to go before walking up to Dean, taking Seb and walking out of the movie.

Dean immediately follows behind but you don't turn, too busy trying to calm your baby down until he stops you by your elbow, finally you look at him with anger "What?" You snap.

"I'm sorry" Is all he can say.

"Oh yeah?" You chuckle and that's when he understands how badly he fucked up "For what exactly? For bringing our seven month old baby into a loud action movie and scaring him to death or for ruining a perfectly fine date for me?"

"Everything"

"No Dean, I don't think you understand" You sigh, Seb's cries have calmed now and he tucks his little head into the crook of your neck as you continue to rock softly "That" You point to the movie room where you left your date "Is probably the only guy in all campus that's not repulsed by me being a mom and you've ruined it for me"

Dean's heart breaks a little at your words "No one is repulsed by you"

"You don't get it" You are about to cry out of frustration "You are Dean Di Laurentis, girls bow at your feet, you can have your pick every single night, you get to keep your perfect body. I don't have that Dean, guys won't even give me a second look, I can't just date around or sleep with someone because they all know I am Dean Di Laurentis' baby mama" He hates the way his name comes out of your mouth like it's venom "And if they do, they see someone with stretch marks, and loose skin and-" You choke on your words "You'll never get it Dean, how can you?" He says your name and you don't let him say anything more "Can you just drive us home?"

Now, Beau did notice you two leave earlier, but he didn't think you'd forget about him, I mean, surely you didn't just abandon him at the movie theater right? Well, now that the movie is over and he's done two laps around the parking lot with no luck finding Dean's BMW he realizes he's been left behind.

"Damn blind idiots" He mutters pulling his phone out to order an Uber "God how I hope they get their heads out of their asses and realize they love each other so they stop doing this shit"

He stares at the number beneath it, then at the downward arrow, then swipes into their messages so quickly he almost fumbles the phone into the stick rack.

Garrett: baby. eat something Garrett: now please Garrett: your dexcom’s yelling at me

The little delivered line appears. Nothing else. He waits three seconds. Four. Five. The ice keeps making noise behind him, bodies turning, sticks tapping, Coach’s whistle cutting once through the air so sharply it makes Garrett’s shoulders tense before his brain catches up. 

He types again.

Garrett: hey Garrett: answer me

Still nothing.

“Graham,” Coach calls again, closer this time, irritated but not fully pissed yet. Garrett can feel the whole team’s attention starting to swing toward him in little pieces, because he doesn’t do this. He doesn’t check out mid-practice. He doesn’t stand at the bench breathing hard with one glove off and his hair damp at his temples, staring at his phone like it’s threatened him.

He looks up. “Sorry– my girlfriend– her blood sugar’s low.”

It comes out blunt. Too blunt, maybe, because Coach’s face shifts a little. He jerks his chin toward the locker room. “Text her. Then get back out here if she’s fine.”

Garrett nods once and steps off the ice enough to call her. It rings so long that every second feels stupidly personal.

By the fifth ring, he’s already seeing her dorm room in his head with unpleasant clarity: the lamp on, laptop burning her eyes out, notes everywhere, highlighter uncapped on the comforter, some coffee she definitely shouldn’t be drinking instead of eating, her tucked into one of his hoodies like that counts as a balanced meal. 

He can picture her Dexcom stuck to the back of her arm, doing its job, screaming into his phone because she's once again decided that studying until her brain leaks out of her ears is a reasonable use of a human body.

She answers on the sixth ring. “Hi,” she says, tiny and slow, like the word has been wrapped in cotton before leaving her mouth.

Garrett’s chest tightens so hard he nearly gets angry from the relief alone. “Baby.”

“Mhm?”

“Did you get the alert?”

There’s a pause. A soft rustle. Then, distantly, like she has turned her head toward her own phone and found it personally disappointing, she says, “Oh.”

Garrett closes his eyes for half a second. “Yeah. Oh. Eat something.”

“I was gonna.”

“You were not gonna. You didn’t even know it went off.”

“I knew,” she says, with absolutely no conviction and the faint offended dignity of a girl who’s been caught being medically unserious in her own home. “I was just… looking at it.”

“At what?”

“My phone.”

“You just found your phone.”

Another pause. Then, smaller, “Maybe.”

Garrett presses the heel of his hand to one eye and breathes out. Behind him, the team is still skating. Someone laughs. A puck hits the boards hard enough to make the glass jump. The whole rink smells like ice and sweat and rubber and old adrenaline, and all he wants, suddenly and viciously, is to be in her stupid little dorm room putting sugar in her hand himself.

“Okay,” he says, forcing his voice down because she gets embarrassed when people fuss too loudly and because snapping at her when her brain is running on fumes would make him the kind of asshole he’d like to punch. “Do you have your hypo stuff?”

“Mm.”

“Words, baby.”

She sighs. “Yes.”

“What do you have?”

“Lollies.”

“Where?”

“My drawer.”

“Which drawer?”

“The drawer drawer.”

Despite himself, a laugh punches out of him, short and disbelieving. “Jesus Christ. The drawer drawer. Very helpful.”

She makes a small sound, half whine, half laugh, and he can hear how thin it is. How tired. How not fully her. “Don’t be mean. I’m low.”

“I’m aware, since your robot tattled on you.” He shifts his phone to the other ear and looks toward Coach, who is watching him now with a patience Garrett suspects has a hard expiry. “Get the lollies. Right now.”

She whines softly. “I’m comfy.”

“Baby.”

“I know.”

He huffs. “Move.”

She grumbles something under her breath that sounds a lot like bossy hockey bitch, and Garrett would enjoy that more if he wasn’t currently imagining her trying to walk across her room with low blood sugar and the coordination of a newborn deer.

There’s a shuffle, then a thump soft enough to be a drawer and not a person, thank fuck. Plastic crinkles near the speaker.

“Got them,” she says.

“Good. Eat some.”

She groans softly. “How many?”

“Enough for fifteen grams.”

Another silence.

Garrett looks at the ceiling. “The packet, baby. Read the packet.”

“I’m doing it,” she mutters, and then the line fills with the sticky little sounds of a packet being opened badly by someone whose fingers are probably trembling. Garrett hears one fall, hit the desk, roll somewhere. She sighs like it has betrayed her.

“Don’t chase it,” he says immediately.

“I wasn’t gonna.”

“You absolutely were.”

“I’m eating the other ones.”

“Good girl.”

It slips out before he thinks better of it, softer than the rest, and the line goes quiet in that particular way that means she’s heard it and tucked it somewhere warm even through the fog in her head.

Coach blows the whistle again. Garrett’s whole body twitches. “Stay on the phone with me,” he says.

“I’m fine.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Bossy.”

“Yeah. Eat.”

She does. He listens. It should be boring, standing half-off the ice while his girlfriend chews gummy lollies into the phone like a mildly annoyed possum.

It’s, objectively, not a romantic moment. There’s nothing cinematic about glucose tabs or jelly snakes or Garrett Graham in full gear with one glove hanging from his teeth, telling a girl in a dorm room to keep chewing while his coach considers whether love is worth disrupting defensive drills.

Still, his hand stays tight around the phone until the Dexcom number nudges up a little and her voice starts coming back from wherever the low had dragged it. Enough that when she says, “You’re breathing like Darth Vader,” there’s a faint smile in it.

“Because I’m at practice.”

“Hot.”

“You’re hypoglycemic.”

“So sexy that you know that word.”

He laughs then, low and relieved in a way he tries not to let her hear too clearly. “Recheck in fifteen.”

“I know.”

“Text me the number.”

“I know, Garrett.”

That sounds more like her, annoyed and soft and there. It loosens something under his ribs by a degree. He looks back at Coach again, then at the ice, then at his phone. He should go back. She’s eaten. She’s talking. The number’s not beautiful, but it’s moving. 

This is the whole point of the app, technically, to know and respond and then not act like every alert is a national emergency. She has diabetes. She handles this all the time. She has handled it before him, will keep handling it after every practice, every class, every exam week, every stupid stretch of time where Garrett cannot physically be within arm’s reach putting food in her mouth.

That’s the rational version. The other version is that his girlfriend answered the phone sounding small and floaty and alone, and now every cell in his body is pointing toward her dorm. “Alright,” he says. “I’m coming over after practice.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“Garrett.”

“I’m coming over after practice.”

She sighs, but it turns into a little pleased hum at the end, the kind she probably doesn’t know she makes when she’s too tired to pretend she doesn’t want him. “Fine.”

“Text me in fifteen.”

“Mhm.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“And eat actual food if you can.”

She huffs. “Bossy hockey bitch.”

“There she is,” he says, smiling despite himself. “Text me.”

She does, fifteen minutes later, while he’s back on the ice and only pretending not to check his phone every time he gets within ten feet of the bench. The number's come up. Safe enough that the ugly tight thing in his chest finally stops trying to chew through bone.

She adds a blurry photo of the lolly packet on her desk like evidence in a trial, one thumb half covering the lens.

Garrett: proud of you Garrett: even though you eat like a raccoon during finals week.

Her reply comes after a minute.

raccoons are resilient

Garrett grins down at his phone so hard Logan skates past and says, “Dude, you’re disgusting.”

Garrett flips him off and gets back to practice.

By the time he gets to her dorm, his hair is still damp from the locker room shower and the collar of his hoodie smells faintly like clean soap and rink, which he's been told is not a scent so much as a warning. 

He has his backpack slung over one shoulder, two granola bars from the vending machine shoved into the front pocket because he panicked after practice, and a bottle of orange juice he stole from Tucker, who had looked at him once and decided not to ask questions.

She opens the door before he can knock a second time. For one second, Garrett just looks at her. She’s in his Briar hoodie, obviously, because at some point every item of clothing he owns has become part of her little emotional support system. 

The sleeves hang over her hands. Her hair's a mess, half pulled up and half surrendered around her face, and there’s a faint crease on her cheek from what looks like a notebook spiral. Her eyes are a little heavy still, sleepy around the edges, her whole body soft and slower than usual as she blinks up at him from the doorway.

“Hi,” she says.

Garrett’s mouth does something stupid before he can stop it. Fond and worried and annoyed, all at once. “Hi.”

“I ate.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, very seriously, then steps backward to let him in. “I ate the lollies. And half a protein bar.”

“Half?”

“It tasted like shit.”

“Protein bars usually taste like that.”

He shuts the door behind him and drops his bag by her desk, already scanning the room in a way he knows makes him look insane and cannot quite bring himself to stop.

Lolly packet open on the desk. Water bottle half full. Textbooks spread across the bed like she’s been trying to summon a degree through paper-based witchcraft. Laptop still open, screen dimmed. The air smells like highlighter ink, laundry detergent, and the sour little remains of coffee gone cold.

He turns back to her. “What’s your number now?”

She points vaguely toward her phone. “Better.”

“That’s not a number.”

“It’s a vibe.”

He raises his brows at her. “Your blood sugar is not a vibe, baby.”

“It kind of is, actually.”

“Phone.”

She rolls her eyes, but there’s no real heat in it, and hands him the phone. He checks because she lets him. Because they’ve had this conversation before, clumsy at first and then easier.

The line between care and hovering. The difference between him helping and him acting like diabetes is a thing that happened to him because he loves her. He still gets it wrong sometimes. He knows that. His worry has bad manners when it gets scared.

But she’d added him to Dexcom Follow herself, sitting cross-legged on his bed with her phone in one hand and his in the other, saying, “Okay, this is not permission to become extra annoying,” while he’d promised, with a straight face, to be only normal amounts of annoying.

Now he looks at the number and the arrow, watches the trend flatten out, and hands it back with a nod. “Better.”

“Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a medical genius.”

“I am, actually.”

“You also forgot to eat.”

She makes a face and immediately looks away, which tells on her more than any confession would have. “I didn’t forget.”

Garrett’s eyebrows lift.

“I… delayed,” she says, which is such a committed piece of academic bullshit that he almost respects it.

“You delayed food.”

“Temporarily.”

“Until your blood sugar dropped and an app screamed at your boyfriend during practice.”

She pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over her hands and rubs at one eye with the cuff. “When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

“Because it was stupid.”

“Garrett.”

“Baby.”

She looks up at him then, and the argument thins out before either of them can turn it into one. There’s still a little tremor in her fingers when she lowers her hand. Barely there, but enough. Enough that all the teasing in his mouth rearranges itself into something quieter.

He steps closer. “You scared me.”

Her face shifts, the soft defensive tilt of her mouth giving way to something smaller, less arranged. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not saying it so you’ll feel bad.” His hand comes up to the side of her neck, thumb resting under her jaw, checking because he can’t help himself, touching because that’s the only language his worry knows how to speak without turning sharp. Her skin is warm. A little clammy still at the edge of her hairline. “I just– don’t do that shit alone if you’re dropping, okay? Text me back. Eat first, be stubborn after.”

Her mouth twitches faintly. “That order seems unfair to my brand.”

“Your brand needs snacks.”

“My brand is very mysterious.”

“Your brand is half a bag of gummy worms and a hoodie you stole from me.”

She leans forward then, slowly, until her forehead lands against the middle of his chest. A soft, tired little surrender into the nearest solid thing, which happens to be him.

Garrett’s hand slides automatically around the back of her head, fingers spreading into her hair, and the rest of him goes quiet around her.

“Still feel weird?” he asks.

“A little,” she says, voice muffled into his hoodie. “Mostly tired now.”

“That happens?”

“Mhm. Sometimes after.” She shifts closer, cheek turning against his chest. “And I stayed up too late. And had coffee. And forgot dinner.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “Figured.”

He can picture her last night at two in the morning, hunched over notes, telling herself one more chapter, one more diagram, one more lecture recording, the whole slippery student lie of just a bit longer until suddenly the body that’s been politely asking for basic maintenance starts knocking things over to get attention. 

She does that sometimes. Gets so focused the rest of her becomes an inconvenience. Food, sleep, water, all of it demoted beneath whatever exam or paper or assignment has started living behind her eyes.

Garrett hates it in a way that feels embarrassingly tender. He likes her focused. Likes her smart mouth and her colour-coded notes and the little frown she gets when she’s trying to force information into her brain. But he hates the part where she forgets she’s not a machine built for academic suffering and caffeine.

“Bed,” he says.

She tilts her head back just enough to look at him, chin still pressed to his chest. “You’re very annoying when you’re worried.”

“I’m very annoying all the time. You knew that going in.”

“Yeah,” she says, and the tiny smile that comes with it makes something in his ribs unclench. “I did.”

He gets her onto the bed with the kind of careful bossiness she complains about but obeys when she feels like this, all heavy limbs and delayed reactions and stubborn little noises made purely for the dignity of it. 

He clears the textbooks first, stacking them onto her desk badly enough that she makes a wounded sound from behind him. “That’s not the system.”

“What system?”

“My system.”

He ignores that and pulls back the blanket. She climbs in, still wearing his hoodie, still with the sleeves eaten over her hands, and watches him from the pillows with that floaty, softened look that would be cute if it didn’t also make the protective part of his brain start dragging furniture in front of doors.

He finds the other half of the violent protein bar and holds it up. “More shit?”

She groans. “Please don’t make me.”

“You need something longer-lasting, right?”

“I had half.”

“Baby.”

She groans. “I hate when you use the reasonable voice.”

“Because it works?”

“Because you sound like Tucker.”

“That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She smiles properly then, small but real, and reaches for the bar with great personal suffering. “Fine. But I’m doing this under protest.”

“Noted.”

She takes two bites and chews with the expression of someone enduring a great injury. Garrett sits on the edge of the mattress and watches her because he’s become the sort of guy who monitors protein bar consumption with the intensity of a playoff game. 

If Dean saw him now, Garrett would never hear the end of it. If Logan saw him, he would make a face and call it love in the most annoying possible tone. Tucker would probably approve, which remains devastating.

When she’s done enough that he decides not to bully the rest of it into her, Garrett sets the wrapper on the nightstand and kicks off his shoes. She lifts the blanket immediately, wordless, like she has been waiting for the exact second his hands are free.

“Oh, now you want me,” he says.

She gives him a look from under heavy eyelids. “I always want you.”

She attaches herself to him before he’s even fully settled, curling into his side with her cheek over his chest and one knee sliding over his thigh under the blanket. It’s clingier than usual, or maybe just less disguised. 

Her hand sneaks under the hem of his hoodie, palm finding the warm skin over his ribs like she has been assigned a location and intends to remain there.

Garrett lets out a slow breath and wraps his arm around her, hand spreading between her shoulder blades. For a while, he just rubs up and down her back in the quiet, steady rhythm he knows she likes, over the thick cotton of his hoodie and the delicate line of her spine beneath it.

Her room feels softer now with the lamp low and the laptop finally shut, the whole anxious mess of studying pushed to the edges for at least twenty minutes. Outside the door, someone laughs down the hall. Campus keeps moving with absolutely no respect for the fact that Garrett Graham’s just aged six years over a glucose alert.

He kisses her hair. “Feeling better?”

She nods against him, slow. “Mhm.”

“Less weird?”

“Less weird.” Her fingers flex once against his ribs. “Just sleepy.”

“That’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I know.” His hand keeps moving. Shoulder to waist. Waist to shoulder. Again. “Just text me back next time.”

“I will.”

“And keep stuff by your bed.”

“I do.”

“Stuff you can reach without going on an expedition to the drawer drawer.”

A tiny laugh shakes against him. “The drawer drawer was perfectly clear.”

He smiles into her hair despite himself. “You’re lucky you’re cute when your brain’s offline.”

“My brain’s online.”

“Baby, you called me a bossy hockey bitch and then argued that blood sugar is a vibe.”

“It is a vibe.”

He tips his head back against the wall and lets himself laugh quietly, relief finally loosening properly through him now that she’s warm and fed and heavy against his side. “You’re impossible.”

She hums, pleased by that for reasons that are between her and whatever sugar is currently making its way through her bloodstream. “You love me.”

“Somehow.”

She pinches his side without lifting her head, weak but accurate. “Mean.”

He catches her hand under his hoodie and holds it there, thumb moving over her knuckles where they rest against his skin. “Yeah,” he says, softer. “I love you.”

After a second, she tilts her face enough to press a kiss to his chest through the hoodie. It’s barely a kiss. More a warm little contact. A thank you she’s too tired and too proud to make formal.

“Love you too,” she mumbles.

Garrett looks down at the top of her head, at the messy spill of hair over his arm, at the Dexcom app still open on her phone on the nightstand, the graph inching back into safer territory one small dot at a time. 

His body still has the leftover adrenaline in it, the rink alarm echoing faintly somewhere behind his ribs, the ugly little flash of her not answering when he called. But here she is, tucked into him like she has no plans to be anywhere else, breathing warm against his chest, one hand under his hoodie and the other curled into the blanket.

So he stays. Practice can keep its exhaustion. His homework can rot. The rest of campus can do whatever people do when they’re not pinned beneath a sleepy diabetic girlfriend with a talent for making his whole chest feel like it has been bruised open in the best possible way.

He rubs her back until her breathing goes heavier. Every few minutes, his eyes flick to her phone. The number steadies. Climbs. Holds. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was still keeping.

Then, very softly, mostly because she’s almost asleep and because he likes saying things when she’s too tired to make fun of him properly, he murmurs, “Gonna start packing snacks in my hockey bag like a dad.”

Her mouth curves faintly against him. “Hot.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. Dilf behaviour.”

Garrett freezes, then looks down at her. “Don’t call me that when you’re half asleep after a medical incident.”

She laughs once, tiny and muffled and pleased with herself, and curls closer.

He shakes his head, smiling despite every effort not to. “Jesus Christ.”

“Snacks are hot,” she whispers.

“Go to sleep.”

“Bossy.”

He kisses her head again, slower this time, and settles his hand warm at the centre of her back. Her breathing has evened out, her body gone loose and trusting against his, the last of the low-blood-sugar fog giving way to real sleep. 

Garrett stays awake a little longer anyway, watching the graph, listening to the hallway quiet down, feeling her heartbeat through the layers between them.

When the number stays steady, he finally sets her phone facedown, tucks the blanket higher over her shoulder, and lets his eyes close with his mouth pressed to her hair.

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She feels Garrett go still behind her. Then his hand tightens at her stomach, protective before conscious, which would be cuter if her skull didn’t feel stuffed with wool. “Why?”

“Tuck burnt his hand.”

There’s a pause. Then Tucker, sounding deeply wounded and also very awake, adds, “It’s not that bad.”

Logan says, “It looks like a fucked-up marshmallow.”

“It does not.”

“It kind of does, dude.”

Garrett exhales so hard it moves the hair near her cheek. “Jesus Christ.” He lifts his head from the pillow, voice wrecked with sleep. “Go to the bathroom and run it under cool water.”

“We did,” Logan says.

“For how long?”

Another pause. A bad one. She opens one eye. 

Garrett says, flatly, “You ran it under water for twelve seconds, didn’t you?”

Tucker mutters, “It was cold.”

She sighs into the pillow, then pushes herself upright with the grim determination of a woman who’s been summoned by poor first aid. The room tilts gently around her. Garrett’s hoodie hangs off one shoulder, huge and soft and smelling like him, and her hair is probably doing something upsetting. 

She blinks at the door. “Come in.”

Garrett turns his head to look at her, curls smashed on one side, face soft and grumpy and faintly amazed. “Baby, you don’t have to–”

“They’re going to put butter on it if we leave them alone.”

The door opens before Garrett can argue, and Logan appears first, wide-eyed and apologetic in sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s inside out. Tucker stands behind him, cradling one hand to his chest, looking both embarrassed and betrayed by the universe.

She pats the edge of the bed. “Sit.”

Tucker sits immediately.

Garrett pushes himself up against the headboard beside her, still half under the sheets, watching as she reaches for Tucker’s wrist.

Her fingers are warm and sleepy, but her voice changes, smoothing out around the edges. “What did you burn it on?”

“Pan handle,” Tucker says. “Dean made grilled cheese.”

She gives him a look. “At two in the morning?”

Logan nods gravely. “Morale was low.”

“Dean’s not allowed to operate heat sources unsupervised.” She turns Tucker’s palm toward the lamp Garrett’s clicked on, squinting through the yellow light. The burn’s red across the base of his fingers, angry but not blistered in the way that makes her stomach drop. “Okay. Not horrific. Painful, though.”

“Thank you,” Tucker says, with feeling. “I said that.”

“You said you were dying,” Logan says.

“I said I could die.”

“Logan,” she says, without looking up, “bathroom. Gauze, if there is any. Non-stick dressing please, I know you have some. No cotton balls. No mystery ointments. No hydrogen peroxide.”

Logan salutes, then immediately points at her. “See, this is why you’re the best.”

“I’m half-asleep and underqualified.”

“Still top three medical professionals I know.”

“You know one.”

He disappears, and she huffs a small laugh, pressing lightly around the burn while Tucker winces. Garrett watches the whole thing from beside her, quiet now. 

He watches the way Tucker relaxes because she tells him what she’s doing before she does it. Watches her pull the sleeve of his hoodie down over her own hand when she gets cold and still keep Tucker’s wrist balanced carefully in her palm. Watches her yawn halfway through explaining swelling and still somehow sound like someone worth listening to.

It does something awful to him. Softens him right through the ribs.

Logan returns with gauze, medical tape, and a packet of condoms. She stares at the pile in his hands. Logan looks down. “I panicked.”

Garrett drops his head back against the headboard and laughs once, low and helpless. Tucker, even injured, manages to say, “For my burn, man?”

“I grabbed everything white and rectangular!”

She presses her lips together, fighting a smile badly enough that Garrett sees the exact second she loses. “Okay. Thank you for your broad-spectrum approach.” She takes the gauze and tape, wraps Tucker’s hand loosely, then taps his wrist. “Keep it clean. Cool compress if it hurts. Don’t pop anything if it blisters. If it gets worse, red streaks, swelling, pus, fever, actual badness, you get it checked. Properly. Not by me in Garrett’s bed while I’m wearing one sock.”

Tucker looks at her like she’s hung the moon. “You’re incredible.”

“She is,” Logan says, immediately.

Garrett says nothing, because the words sit too big in his mouth.

She just waves them off, already sinking back against the pillows. “Go away before I start charging.”

Tucker stands, holding his wrapped hand with reverence. “Thanks, seriously.”

“Stop touching hot things.”

“No promises.”

Logan backs toward the door. “Night, Mom.”

Garrett lifts his head. “Do not call her that.”

She snorts, half under the blankets again. “Goodnight, children.”

The door shuts behind them, finally, and the room folds quiet again. Garrett turns the lamp off, but he doesn’t lie down straight away. He just looks at her in the dark, at the messy shape of her in his hoodie, already burrowing back into his pillow like she didn’t just sit up half-dead and make his entire chest feel too small.

“What?” she mumbles.

“Nothing.”

“That’s a bad nothing.”

He slides down beside her and pulls her back into him, careful and warm, mouth pressing into the back of her shoulder through his hoodie. “Good nothing.”

She hums, too tired to fight him. “Your friends are idiots.”

“Yeah,” Garrett murmurs, smiling against her skin. His hand settles over her stomach again, thumb moving once, slow and stupidly fond. “They love you.”

She’s quiet long enough that he thinks she’s fallen asleep. Then, barely there, “Mm. I’m very loveable.”

His chest aches.

“Yeah,” he says softly, into the dark. “You are.”

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“What the fuck even is this?”

You want to die. Literally. Figuratively. It doesn’t matter. All you know is that you're two seconds away from losing it, and a group of hockey dorks just sat down on a table not far from you. 

“It’s a book, Tucker. Never seen one before?”

The implant in your ear is about to die; its ability to grant you hearing slowly fading. You forgot to charge it overnight; you were so tired yesterday after dinner that it completely slipped your mind. Your stupid mind, emptying every ounce of thought you previously had, is now gone, dispersed completely in the air. The words on the page in front of you blur into one heap of pen-smudged paper. 

“I know it’s a book, genius. It’s so big though, longer than my dick.”

Laughter fills the silent void of the library. Someone hushes a few shelves down. How pointless on their part, you know it’s futile to mute an athlete. 

You feel it before you look up. A glance, maybe two, maybe one that stretches on longer than it should. Fuck. You hoped to hide away in the corner, but life has a funny way of sneaking up on you and watching. 

The group quietens down, much to your surprise. The suspense is killing you, so, stupidly, you sneak a look back. 

His eyes burn into yours. You know who he is; everyone on this godforsaken campus does. He’s like a god. Apollo in a sleeveless shirt and sunglasses. His hair curls over his ears, wisps of dark blond tangled with soft brown roots. You look back down to the notepad in front of you and contemplate launching yourself out the window. A chair screeches over the floor like it’s being pushed out and—

Oh no. 

The footsteps turn from a soft padding to a loud march over linoleum. Oh fuck no. 

You stand before he can say a thing. A much louder sound takes root in the room, much like the bleach in his stupid hair. It’s a harsh, mechanical sound that makes your spine tingle. 

“Hey.”

His voice is soft. Honeyed and gentle as if to not disturb the mutual understanding of library etiquette. You eye him up and down with your peripheral vision. He’s tall too, but not tall enough to settle a sense of dread in your stomach. A height perfect enough for you to see his whole self, his face and his body. You’re not scared, not anymore. Years of therapy helped with that. But your heart does skip a beat, for some random, incomprehensible reason. 

"Hello," you respond flatly, already moving to pack up your belongings. A ratty backpack is strung over an empty chair; you pull at it, and the damned thing doesn’t budge. 

“Hey—you don’t need to leave; I was just coming over to say hi…”

“And you did. Now what?” You slide uncapped pens, old pencils and your notepad into the main pocket, ignoring the way he just stares at you. 

“What’s your name? I haven’t ever seen you before—”

“You come to the library very often, Di Laurentis?” Next, your computer slides into the bag, half-dead and almost older than you. Dean gapes, tilting his head over his shoulder to stare at his rowdy friends. They sit quietly; you didn’t even know that was possible.

“Excuse me," you mumble, shoulder-checking him as you walk past. He smells like bergamot and lemon. As you make your way past his friends, you feel like meat in a butcher shop. They don’t interact with you in any way, but they can’t help but gawk. It’s something you’ve become very used to over the years, but no matter how often it happens, it never gets easier. 

Dean stands there stumped. Defiled a little, his arms stings where the two of you had contact. His heart burns too, beating louder in his chest. That's… not how it usually happens. He’s never been rejected that badly, other than that time he asked a girl out who turned out to be a lesbian. That hurt then, but he understood. This, though, he doesn’t get. 

“What the fuck was that?” Beau croaks out, a smile inching up his face. He’s as confused as Dean is but amused regardless. So much for friendship. 

“I don’t know…” the blond trails off, hand coming up to rest over his chest, heart pounding. 

What was that?

Garrett doesn't look at him. Garrett is busy being mature. Calm. Supportive. A boyfriend who understands that his girlfriend is a collegiate athlete with a partner and a routine and years of training that existed before him and will continue to exist regardless of whether or not Garrett Graham’s lower intestine has decided to twist itself into a knot every time another man puts both hands on her waist.

“Yeah,” he says, flatly. “She’s good.”

Dean snorts from the other side of Tucker. “She’s good,” he repeats. “That’s what you’re going with?”

Garrett’s jaw works once. Out on the ice, she pushes backward into a clean, sweeping curve, one arm extended, the other caught in Avery’s hand.

Avery. Stupid fucking name.

Garrett has nothing against the guy as a person, technically, except for the obvious crimes of being tall, male, decent on skates, and currently in possession of his girlfriend’s hand while she looks like that.

He's probably fine. He'd introduced himself with a friendly enough smile, had called Garrett man in the harmless athlete way, had been polite to her, had checked the lift timing twice, hadn't done a single thing wrong besides existing in a category Garrett has recently decided is aggressive.

“She’s better than good,” Tucker says, because Tucker is nice and honest and willing to throw gasoline onto a very controlled, very internal fire. “That edge thing she did before? That was wild.”

“It’s called a bracket,” Garrett says automatically.

All three of them turn to look at him.

He keeps staring forward. “What?”

Dean’s grin arrives slowly, the way bad weather rolls in. “Sorry, Professor Blades. Didn’t know we were dealing with a scholar.”

“She tells me stuff.”

“Oh, I bet she does.”

Garrett finally cuts his eyes over. “You wanna finish that thought?”

Dean lifts both hands, delighted. “Nope. Not at all.”

Logan leans forward a little more, squinting through the glass. “Is this the guy you hate?”

“I don’t hate him.”

“You called him Pairs Boy for, like, two weeks.”

“That’s not hate. That’s identification.”

Tucker makes a low sound that is either agreement or an attempt not to laugh directly in his captain’s face. “He seems okay.”

“He’s fine,” Garrett says, and because the universe is committed to ruining him, this is the exact moment Avery’s hands settle firmly at her waist.

It's choreography. It's positioning. It's the same neutral athletic contact Garrett himself has done a thousand times on the ice, shoulder checks and glove taps and hands braced briefly on teammates during drills, bodies moving in proximity because sports are, unfortunately, made of bodies.

Avery’s fingers spread at her ribs and Garrett’s brain, which has survived championship pressure, Phil Graham, playoff overtime, and Dean Di Laurentis explaining the plot of a reality show with no women wearing full shirts, immediately becomes a smoking hole in the ground.

Dean sees his face and actually laughs. “Oh my God,” he says. “You’re gonna chip a tooth.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re about to challenge him to a duel.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You know he has to touch her, right?” Logan asks, which is such an obviously Logan thing to say that Garrett considers shoving him off the bench on principle. “Like, that’s the sport.”

Garrett turns his head very slowly. “Thank you, John. I had no idea.”

Logan grins. “Just checking.”

On the ice, she and Avery pick up speed.

That shuts them all up for a few seconds. Even Dean stops being Dean long enough to watch properly, because the room changes when she moves like this.

It isn’t the careful, slow, rehab-framed skating Garrett first learned with her, those early mornings when every lap felt like something fragile being carried across a room full of sharp corners.

This is different. This is closer to what she must have been before the injury took a bite out of her life and made her body something she had to negotiate with instead of command.

She’s still not reckless. Garrett can see the slight caution in her landings if he looks for it, the tiny guarded shift in the knee, the way she checks her weight for half a breath before trusting it fully.

He knows her well enough now to read the places other people would only call graceful. But she’s fast. Controlled. Her face has gone focused in that quiet, inward way that makes everyone else on the rink feel briefly less important.

Her hair is twisted back, pieces coming loose at the sides from exertion, cheeks pink from cold and work, mouth parted around her breath. The skirt moves around her thighs, pale against the black of her tights, and every time she extends a leg behind her the line of her body looks so clean it makes Garrett’s chest do something weird and unpleasantly sincere.

She's incredible. That's the other problem. The bigger one, maybe. Jealousy is stupid, and he knows it. The part underneath is worse.

The part where he watches her fly across the ice with another person’s timing stitched into hers and feels, not excluded, but confronted by the fact that there are whole languages of her body he's only just beginning to learn.

Avery lifts one arm. She takes it. They turn together, close enough now that their shoulders almost brush, her hand sliding to his forearm, his other hand at the back of her waist as he guides her through the entry into a spin.

Garrett’s fingers curl against the edge of the bench.

Dean, of course, whispers, “Thoughts and prayers.”

“I will bench you.”

“We’re not even playing.”

“I’ll find a way.”

Tucker’s mouth twitches. “You know she can see you through the glass, and you keep making that face.”

That, unfortunately, makes Garrett straighten his expression through sheer force of will. It's one thing to be jealous in the privacy of his own horrible little skull. It's another to have her look over and catch him visibly sulking because her skating partner is doing skating partner things during skating partner practice.

She would get that soft, amused little crease between her brows. She would try not to laugh because she’s nice, and then she would laugh anyway because she's less nice when she feels safe, which is one of his favourite things about her.

Out on the ice, the music shifts. Avery says something too low to hear, and she nods once.

Garrett recognises the setup before he knows the name of it. The lift is one they've been talking about all week. In careful little fragments she gives him when they’re lying in his bed or sitting in the dining hall with her knee tucked against his under the table.

Avery keeps rushing the entry. My timing feels off. It’s fine, it’s just annoying. Cam said I’m cleared for it, so don’t do your face. No, not that face. Garrett.

He does his face now without meaning to.

Avery’s hands settle. She bends her knees slightly, finding the rhythm. She looks tiny beside him for one ridiculous second, which Garrett knows isn't fair because she's not fragile, she's made of muscle and skill and sharp, quiet stubbornness, but then Avery’s hands are around her waist and she’s stepping into the lift and Garrett’s entire body goes tense in immediate, full-system objection.

“Jesus,” Logan mutters, not joking now.

For one second, it works. Avery lifts her cleanly, and she rises above the ice in this stunning, impossible line, one leg extended, arms reaching like the whole cold room has opened under her.

Even Garrett, in the middle of hating every single element of this, feels the breath leave him. She looks unreal up there, like every hard thing she's ever done to herself has learned how to look effortless for four seconds at a time.

Then the timing goes wrong.

It's fast enough that Garrett almost doesn’t understand it until his body has already moved. Avery’s grip shifts. Her hip drops half an inch. One blade catches air wrong, then ice, then panic flickers across Avery’s face in a way Garrett sees with awful clarity through the boards.

He tries to save it. Garrett will give him that later, maybe. The guy tries. His arms clamp, one hand catching at her side, but the lift has already fallen out of itself.

She hits the ice hard. Her shoulder takes too much of it, then her hip, the sound of her body striking the surface sharp enough to cut through the rink, and she slides several feet before stopping near the circle with one leg bent under her and one arm curled instinctively against her chest.

For half a second nobody moves, then Avery's on his knees beside her, white-faced. “Oh my God. Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

Garrett's already over the boards.

He doesn't remember deciding to move. One second he's sitting with the boys, the next his skates hit the ice, and he's crossing the rink with the kind of speed that makes somebody behind him swear. The cold air tears at his face. His stomach has dropped so far through the floor it feels like it’s somewhere under the zamboni bay.

She's moving by the time he reaches her, which helps and also doesn't help at all. She’s rolled slightly onto her back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open around a low, annoyed groan that's very much alive and very much in pain.

“Fuck,” she says, small and furious. “Ow.”

Garrett drops beside her so fast his knees bite cold through the fabric of his sweats. “Hey. Hey, baby.” His hands hover for one tight second because everything in him wants to touch and check and gather, and the athlete in him knows better than to start hauling someone up after a fall like that just because his heart has decided to behave like an idiot. “Look at me. You good?”

Her eyes open. They find him, which helps more than anything else has so far. The first breath she takes after that is shaky, but it comes with a little grimace that's nearly a smile if someone is generous and afraid enough.

“Hi,” she says, like this is a normal location for him to appear.

His laugh comes out once, breathless and not remotely amused. “Hi. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Yeah.” She blinks hard and shifts her shoulder, immediately regretting it if the way her face pinches means anything. “Same.”

Avery's still crouched on the other side of her, hands hovering with the horror of a man who's just dropped another human being and may never psychologically recover. “Dude, I’m so sorry. I had it and then I– I don’t know, my grip slipped or the entry was–”

She turns her head toward him, eyes sharpening through the pain. “You told me you had it.”

“I thought I did,” Avery says, miserable. “I swear to God, I thought I did. I’m so sorry.”

Garrett hates him. Garrett also, unfortunately, believes him.

This is a deeply inconvenient combination and he has no interest in processing it while his girlfriend is still on the ice looking small and pissed off and hurt enough that her fingers have curled tight against the front of her own practice jacket.

“Can you move everything?” Garrett asks, voice lower now, controlled in the way it gets when it has no other choice.

She gives him a look, faintly offended even from the ice. “Everything?”

“Don’t be cute.”

“I’m not being cute. I’m on the floor.”

“You’re on the ice.”

She rolls her eyes. “That feels like a technicality.”

Behind him, there's the scrape and scatter of hockey skates as the boys come closer but not too close. Tucker’s voice arrives first, careful in a way Garrett appreciates even while wanting everyone to shut up. “She good?”

“Give her a sec,” Garrett says without looking back.

“I’m good,” she calls, and then winces immediately because calling anything anywhere has apparently pulled at her shoulder. “Ow. Okay. Medium good.”

Logan makes a strangled sound from near the boards. “Medium good is not good.”

She lifts her uninjured hand in a weak thumbs-up anyway, because she would rather die than have a group of hockey players start treating her like a tragic little rink casualty. “All good.”

Dean, quietly but with feeling, says, “That was a fucking wipeout.”

Garrett shoots him a look over his shoulder.

Dean lifts both hands.

Garrett turns back to her. His palm has found her knee by then, not the bad one, not the one with all the old history in it, the other knee through the smooth chill of her tights. “Can you sit up?”

She nods once. “Yeah. Just… slow.”

“Okay.” He slides one hand behind her upper back, careful to avoid the shoulder she landed on, the other catching her hand. “Use me.”

Avery shifts like he wants to help too, and Garrett feels something ugly and immediate move through him before he can civilise it. She must feel it too, because her fingers tighten around Garrett’s and she says, softly but clearly, “I've got Garrett.”

It shouldn't feel as good as it does, considering the circumstances. Garrett doesn't smile, because he's not a monster. But something in his chest unlocks by one hot, stupid notch anyway.

Avery sits back at once, nodding too fast. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Garrett helps her upright with as little jostling as possible. Even so, her breath catches when her body comes vertical, a sharp little inhale through her teeth that goes straight under his ribs and turns his voice gentler by force.

“I know,” he murmurs, close enough that only she gets it. “I know. Easy.”

Her forehead nearly touches his shoulder for half a second. Not fully leaning, because they're still in the middle of the rink and there are people watching and she has pride in places that don't always serve her. But her weight tips toward him, just enough for his hand to firm at her back.

“Grazed,” she says after a second. “Hip and shoulder, I think. Maybe elbow. Nothing dramatic.”

Garrett looks at the angry red scrape already showing near the edge of her sleeve where the fabric has ridden up. “That looks dramatic.”

“It’s not.”

“You say that about everything.”

“I’m very brave.”

“You’re very concussed if you think I’m not taking you to the medic.”

“I’m not concussed.” She blinks up at him, and there's enough irritation in her face now that some of the worst fear unclenches in his spine. “My head didn’t hit.”

“Good. Great. Love that. Still getting checked.”

She exhales, then nods, giving in faster than he expected, which tells him it hurts more than she wants to say. “Yeah. Okay. Fuck, it hurts. What the hell.”

Avery makes a wounded sound. “I’m so sorry.”

She looks back at him, and the edge in her face softens slightly, not enough to let him off the hook completely but enough to keep him alive. “I know. I know you didn’t mean to.”

“I didn’t. I swear. I just–”

“But don’t tell me you have it if you don’t have it,” she says, quieter now. “I would’ve bailed out sooner.”

Avery’s face goes worse. “Yeah. No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

Garrett’s hand has settled more securely at her waist now, partly because she's upright and partly because his body has decided that if Avery’s hands can be there for choreography then Garrett’s hands can be there for literally all other reasons, including medical evacuation and personal sanity.

“Can you stand?” he asks.

She nods. “Yeah.”

“Use me,” he says again.

This time, she does. Fully. One hand grips his forearm, the other hooks around the back of his shoulder, and Garrett rises with her slowly, keeping his stance solid beneath them both.

Her skates scrape once, finding balance. Pain flashes across her face and disappears fast, tucked away with the efficient misery of someone who has been trained too well in performing fine.

He doesn’t call her on it in front of everyone. He only bends his head close to hers and murmurs, “Don’t do that.”

Her eyes flick to him. “Do what?”

“Act fine for my idiot friends.”

That gets the smallest laugh out of her. It costs her. He sees that too.

“I’m fine-ish,” she says.

“Fine-ish gets you benched.”

“I already hate this relationship.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” she agrees, and the smile, tiny as it is, makes his chest hurt. “I don’t.”

They start toward the boards slowly, her weight tucked carefully into his side. Garrett matches her pace without making a production of it, one arm around her waist, his other hand ready in front of her in case she wobbles.

It's the slowest he's ever crossed this rink while this angry. Somewhere behind them, Avery's still apologising to the coach who's come over with a clipboard and the pinched expression of a woman already mentally rewriting half a practice schedule.

The hockey boys part like they're witnessing royalty or an injured woodland creature with blades strapped to its feet.

“You okay?” Tucker asks when they get near enough, his face open and genuinely concerned.

She nods, giving them another thumbs-up that is less convincing now but still valiant. “All good.”

Logan’s eyes drop to her shoulder and back up, wince already forming. “That was insane.”

“Very helpful review,” she says, breath catching at the end but her mouth quirking anyway.

Dean points at her, solemn. “I would like to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I did not know your sport was trying to murder you guys like that.”

She looks at him for half a second, then actually laughs, soft and pained. “What did you think was happening?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Sparkles. Vibes.”

Garrett would laugh if he weren’t currently busy hating the fact that she's leaning heavier against him with every inch they get off the ice. Instead he hooks his arm more firmly around her and guides her through the little gate to the bench area.

The second she sits, the composure slips by a degree. Her shoulders drop first, then her jaw loosens, then her eyes shut for one breath too long as if sitting down has given the pain permission to arrive properly.

“Yeah,” he says, already crouching in front of her. “Okay. Skates off.”

Her eyes open. “You don’t have to.”

“Baby.”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can.” He looks up at her from where he’s already reaching for the laces. “I’m doing it anyway.”

She stares at him for a second, then her face gives in first, softening around the mouth in a way that still seems to surprise her when it happens in public. “Okay.”

Garrett unties her skates carefully, working the damp laces loose with fingers that are still colder than he expected them to be. Her tights are scraped at one hip, a pale line of ice burn visible beneath the torn fabric, and the sight makes his jaw tighten all over again.

From somewhere above them, Dean says, “G, buddy, you look like you’re about to commit a rink crime.”

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that today.”

Logan leans one hip against the boards, trying and failing not to grin now that the immediate terror has passed. “You know, for a guy who doesn’t hate Avery, you did kind of look like you were about to bodycheck a figure skater.”

“I still might.”

She snorts, then immediately presses her lips together and lifts one hand to her shoulder. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”

Garrett looks up fast. “Stop moving.”

“I laughed, Garrett. I didn’t run a marathon.”

Garrett slides one skate off and sets it beside the bench, then starts on the other.

His hands are gentle, but his mood isn’t, and she clearly knows it because she nudges his stomach lightly with the toe of her sock. “Don’t be mad.”

He glances up. “At you?”

“No.” Her eyes flick briefly toward the ice, where Avery's still standing with both hands on top of his head, looking like guilt has physically aged him. “At him.”

Garrett follows her gaze, then looks back down at the laces because his face has not yet been cleared for public use. “I hate that guy.”

She giggles, quick and helpless, then winces so sharply his hands stop. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” he says, standing at once. “Okay. No more giggling. Sit still.”

“You’re so bossy.”

He can't bite back his smirk. “You like it when I’m bossy.”

Dean makes a choking sound. Tucker immediately says, “Nope. We’re all walking away.”

“We’re in skates,” Logan says.

“Then glide away, bro.”

Her cheeks have gone pink, partly from pain and partly, Garrett suspects with a grim little flicker of satisfaction, from him. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m a little funny.”

“You’re jealous and annoying.”

“I’m emotionally injured.”

That gets her again, a tiny laugh she tries to swallow and mostly fails, one hand going carefully to her ribs as if holding herself still will make humour less dangerous. Garrett shakes his head, but his mouth betrays him.

“Seriously,” she says, quieter now, once the boys have drifted a few feet away under the very weak pretence of giving them privacy. “He didn’t mean to drop me.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I can know something and still want to punch it.”

Her eyes warm at the edges. “Very evolved.”

“I’m working on it.”

“You were watching like you wanted to climb through the glass even before I fell.”

Garrett peels off her second skate and sets it beside the first. “Was not.”

“Garrett.”

He looks up at her. She’s sitting there with one socked foot slightly tucked under the bench, practice jacket unzipped at the throat, hair escaping its bun in soft, sweaty pieces.

Her face is still a little pale under the pink of exertion, and there's a scrape blooming angry at her elbow now, and somehow she's looking at him with this small, fond amusement like his jealousy is ridiculous and known and maybe, God help him, a little liked.

He sighs. “Fine. Maybe I wasn't enjoying the... artistic integrity of the waist-grabbing.”

Her mouth curves. “The artistic integrity?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s part of the choreography.”

“I’m aware.”

“You know that?”

“I can understand waist contact.”

“Can you?”

“No,” he says. “But I’m being brave.”

Her laugh comes out softer this time, careful, and she reaches with her good hand to brush the back of her fingers over his cheek. It’s small. Barely anything. But doing it here, in front of the rink and the boys and Avery still looking like he might throw himself into traffic, makes something stupid and warm move under his ribs.

“My brave hockey boy,” she says, very quietly, almost teasing but not only.

Garrett catches her hand before she can pull it away and presses his mouth to her knuckles. “Don’t be cute. I’m mad at you.”

She blinks, amused. “At me?”

“For getting dropped.”

“I’ll try not to be so inconsiderate next time.”

“Good.”

“Maybe I’ll schedule the fall.”

“That’d help.”

She smiles, then it fades when she shifts her shoulder again, pain moving through her face in a duller, heavier wave. Garrett’s body reacts before his thoughts do. He straightens, one hand going carefully to the back of her head, thumb near her temple.

“Hey,” he says, softer. “No more jokes. Where’s it hurt worst?”

She exhales through her nose. “Shoulder. Hip. Elbow’s just gross.”

“Head?”

“No.”

“Neck?”

“Nope.”

“Knee?”

She pauses, and his stomach drops. Then she shakes her head. “No. Scared it for a second, but no. It’s okay.”

He believes her because she knows that part of her body too well to lie casually about it. Still, his thumb moves once near her hairline, and her eyes flicker as if the touch has landed somewhere bigger than the question.

“Okay,” he says. “We’re going to the medic.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. You think I’m sending you with Pairs Boy?”

Her mouth twitches. “He has a name.”

“I’ve chosen not to use it.”

“It’s Avery.”

“Mm.”

“Garrett.”

“What?”

“Say his name.”

He looks at her for one long second. “Fine. We’re not sending you with Avocado.”

She stares at him, then has to press her lips together so hard it nearly ruins him. “That's not his name.”

He shrugs. “Agree to disagree.”

Tucker steps forward at once, practical as ever. “Want me to grab your bag?”

She looks up at him, surprised by the immediate offer, then nods. “Please. It’s the black one near the far bench.”

“Got it.”

Dean points vaguely toward the hallway. “You want, like, ice? Not rink ice. Regular ice. Medical ice.”

She gives him a small, pained smile. “That would actually be good.”

Dean nods with great seriousness, thrilled to have been assigned a useful task instead of just standing there making jokes around mild trauma. “I can do that.”

Logan looks between them all. “What do I do?”

Garrett says, “Nothing.”

She says, at the same time, “Maybe tell Avery I’m not dead.”

Logan points at her. “On it.”

Garrett helps her stand, this time in sneakers because Tucker has reappeared with her bag and Garrett has made quick work of getting her feet into something that doesn’t involve blades.

She leans into him more openly now, one arm around his waist, her head tipping for one second against his shoulder when she thinks the boys aren't looking. Garrett doesn't tell her they definitely are. He only tightens his arm around her and lets her have the illusion.

As they start toward the hall, Avery calls her name from the ice, still pale, still stricken. “Seriously, I’m sorry. I’ll– I’ll text you later, okay? Or call. Whatever. Just… I’m sorry.”

She turns as much as her shoulder allows, Garrett’s arm still keeping her close. “It’s okay,” she says, then amends with a wince and a little honesty, “It’s not okay, actually, but we’ll talk later.”

Avery nods fast. “Yeah. Yeah, totally.”

Garrett feels her hand press once into his side, a warning without looking at him. Behave.

He looks at Avery and gives the tightest nod known to man. Avery, wisely, accepts that as mercy.

“You’re really jealous,” she says, softly enough that it isn’t quite an accusation.

Garrett lets out a breath and looks down at his hand. “Yeah.”

“It’s kind of stupid.”

“I know.”

“You know I have to do partner work.”

“I know that too.”

“And Avery isn’t–”

“I know,” he says again, then looks up at her properly because she deserves that much, even if it is embarrassing and he would rather be hit by a slow-moving Zamboni than have Dean hear any of it. “I know. It’s not about him. Not really.”

Her expression shifts, the teasing thinning into something gentler.

Garrett drags a hand through his hair. “I just hate watching somebody else be the one who catches you.” His mouth twists because that sounds bigger than he meant it to, but it's out now. “And then he didn’t.”

Her face goes very still.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “That was–”

“No,” she says. “No, I get it.”

“You do?”

She nods once, slow. “I like that you want to be the one who catches me.”

Garrett stares at her.

Her cheeks colour almost immediately, but she holds his gaze anyway, shy and sore and sitting in terrible fluorescent lighting with a scraped elbow and ice melt dampening one side of her tights, and somehow she has the nerve to look at him like that. Like he's something she trusts even when the day has literally dropped her onto a rink.

Then, because she clearly cannot survive sincerity for more than seven seconds without offering herself an exit, she adds, “Even if you’re being a psycho about waist contact.”

Garrett laughs, low and helpless. “I’m not being a psycho.”

“You called him Avocado.”

“Yeah, well.” He lifts his head, mouth curving despite himself. “He dropped my girlfriend.”

She softens again at the word. My girlfriend still does that to her sometimes, which Garrett has noticed and absolutely files away like a criminal. Her fingers squeeze his.

“Your girlfriend is okay,” she says.

“Your boyfriend is not.”

“Poor thing.”

“Thank you.”

“You should get him looked at.”

“Too late.”

She smiles then, small and lovely and a little wincing at the edges, and Garrett ducks his head just enough to kiss her. It’s careful because of the shoulder, because of the hallway, because the boys could come back any second with ice and concern and eleven jokes between them.

But it’s still enough. His mouth presses to hers once, warm and grounding, and she exhales into it like the day has finally found a softer place to land.

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