𓃗𓃗𓃗

𓆩 ♞ 𓆪 bout me

she/her, +18, not very active, mostly using this acc to post fanfics; english's not my first language;

2hollis mostly ★ movies ★ western goth

dni: -16

masterlist:

sister (2hollisxfem!reader, childhood friends): chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, epilogue

crash (2hollisxfem!reader)

Romeo+Juliet (2hollisxfem!reader, romeo and juliet retelling)

BADLANDS (2hollisxfem!reader, roadtrip) part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

pink in the night (2hollisxfem!reader, cheater!hollis)

sanctified (2hollisxfem!reader, priest!hollis)

taglist: @magegodmode, @2lilaclace, @angelrazor6000, @elloweezrosey, @osx12-22, @m1ndless-thoughtsss, @sweet2sin, @luvvconceal, @vlnt2kiss, @honeyperched, @rommvlas, @grandeleal, @zorixchi, @warhorseweekend, @reallyamthegoat08, @anunfortunateoutcome, @ka1aia, @ju8g, @jackkilmergf, @bambi-lia, @osx12-22, @m1ndless-thoughtsss, @7thstrunner, @misoeepy, @stellalaylas, @feershzz, @mygothicheart, @sippingonsin, @voidatelier, @222foryou222

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Three weeks since that night in his car. Three weeks of you being different in a way people around you were starting to notice. You'd been less outspoken — which already said a lot. You'd been complaining less, texting the group chat less and less, and most of all, any time Ally mentioned him, you went impossibly quiet. Before, you always had something sharp to say. He's so stupid. Do you really put up with that? Oh, please, he acts like he's fourteen. Now Ally would be telling you and Cathy about his dismissals, the way his mood would shift without warning, and you just nodded and let Cathy do the talking.

"What's wrong with you?" Cathy asked one movie night after Ally left — to be with Hollis. "She handed you a whole meal to trash that motherfucker and you just sat there."

"I don't know," you shrugged, sipping your Coke. "Would it even make a difference? It's their business, after all."

It wasn't. You hated that he was still treating her poorly even after what he'd done. Wasn't he supposed to be trying to make up for his mistake? But if anything, that night didn't seem to have cost him a thing.

You'd avoided every possible chance to see him. Until now. It was Ally's birthday, and of course — of course — her perfect, loving boyfriend was throwing her a party. To make matters worse, you ran late and had to go alone, since Cathy had left earlier with her boyfriend. On the way, you stopped at a store near his house to buy drinks. You bought as much as you could carry. One thing you were certain of: you needed to be properly drunk to get through the night.

"Hey, ain't you Ally's friend?" A voice came from behind you in line. You turned — a boy, tall, long dark hair, dark smudges ringing his eyes, pretty as fuck. You frowned; he was familiar, but you couldn't quite place him.

"Yeah, that'd be me," you said, still wary.

"You're going to her party, right? Me too. I'm Roman." He smiled — a friendly, easy smile. So pretty.

"Yeah, whoa, what are the chances," you laughed, a little awkward.

"You driving?"

"No, Hollis' house is close enough," you said, still smiling too stiffly.

"In that case, I can drive you."

You weren't about to say no. You ended up in his car — some sports car, drenched in cologne like he'd sprayed it directly onto the seats, or maybe it was just him. Either way, nauseating and pleasing all at once. He was easy to talk to, went on mostly about how he recognized you from somewhere, something about a party, and you prayed desperately it wasn't the party you were thinking of.

You arrived together to a house already packed with people. Familiar faces everywhere — Ally's friends, probably some of Hollis'. You were just beginning to scan the room for your people when you felt a hand settle on your lower back.

"Let's put these in the kitchen, come on," Roman said, and you let him lead you.

You played clueless, pretending you hadn't been to Hollis' house plenty of times before. To your surprise, they were all in the kitchen: Ally, Cathy, her boyfriend, and, of course, Hollis. The room went briefly quiet before the round of greetings. Your girls complained about how long you'd taken; Roman dapped Hollis and nodded to Cathy's boyfriend; and then there was that strange half-second where you almost moved to greet Hollis and caught yourself. His gaze passed over you — brief, but heavy enough that you had to look away.

"Are you two animals or something?" Ally said, and her noticing made your face burn.

"What?" you played dumb.

She elbowed Hollis in the stomach. "Can you two at least say hello to each other?"

He chuckled; easy, unbothered; and you kept staring, trying to smooth the panic off your face. Then you caught yourself. "Oh my God, he won't die because I didn't save a special hello for him. But fine. Hello, Hollis."

You looked at him with flat annoyance, gave a small wave. He laughed again. Light. Knowing. Infuriatingly knowing. "Long time no see, y/n."

You ignored him, slipping past him and Ally toward the balcony with the bottles. And then — stupidly, or maybe it wasn't an accident at all — you caught your foot on his boots. His hand shot out fast, steadying you by the elbows. Your instinct was to shove him off, and you almost did — your hand was already pressed flat to his stomach — but you caught yourself mid-motion. For a half second you felt his muscles tighten under your fingertips before you yanked your hand back.

"Watch out," he said, low.

You didn't answer. Just kept moving. Face burning, hoping no one noticed how strange that was. How strange you felt. How horrible. You pulled yourself a shot of vodka. Then turned it into two, back to back.

"Hey, easy," came Roman's voice from behind you, that slow, deliberate pitch to it, like he pulled every word out at his own pace. "Vodka's not exactly my drink of choice, but I'll join you."

He held out a small glass and you poured him a shot. "Yeah? And what is your drink of choice?"

"Anything sweet," he said, then turned the glass up.

You grinned at that. "Pussy." He grinned back. A quiet beat of eye contact before you were both interrupted.

"Hey man, I really need to talk to you about this—" Hollis' voice, unmistakable. His hand landing on Roman's shoulder, pulling him away from you like it was nothing.

You watched. Like he'd calculated it. Like even that was designed to get under your skin.

☆

Hours later, you'd had as much to drink as you could manage, and most of your people were spread across Hollis' couch. You were perched on the armrest, right beside Roman — not because you'd planned anything, but because somewhere between his third drink and yours you'd fallen into a real conversation about his days as a tattoo artist, and he'd finally slipped free from Hollis long enough to find you in the corner of the room.

Hollis, on the other hand, was in the armchair across the room, Ally curled over one of his knees, and you couldn't help but notice the way his hand moved absently along her thigh — those long fingers loaded with rings, the knuckles catching the light. A detail you registered without meaning to. He was deep in conversation, all the way across the room, and yet his eyes kept finding you, steady and deliberate, like he was trying to read your lips, tracking every word you exchanged with his friend.

At some point it became suffocating. You excused yourself from Roman and slipped upstairs to the bathroom. The one you knew. The one you'd used back when you used to come here for an entirely different reason.

You weren't sure how long you stood there staring at your reflection, replaying the weight of Hollis' eyes on you. Worse, replaying his eyes on you while his hands were on your best friend. The way he'd leaned in to whisper something in her ear, making her laugh, while his gaze stayed fixed across the room — on you. And viscerally worst of all was the fact that you'd been collecting all of it. Cataloguing every detail like you were building a case in your chest, piecing something together that you didn't want to name.

The knock pulled you back. "You shouldn't be up here," came his voice. "I think I made it clear the guest bathroom is downstairs—"

He went quiet when he opened the door and he found you there. His eyes didn't widen the way someone's do when they're caught off guard. Instead, he smiled — amused.

"I'm heading downstairs," you said, and didn't move. He was filling the doorway.

"I noticed you disappeared, so I figured you got tired of playing the supportive friend," he said, stepping inside. The door closed behind him.

"Only when you get tired of playing the loving boyfriend." You held his gaze.

"Is that what you want?" He raised his eyebrows. "For me to break your friend's heart?"

The bathroom was spacious, but not spacious enough with him in it. He leaned against the door, carefree in a way that made you more nervous.

"That's not what I meant."

"And yet." He tilted his head, cynical, and it landed harder than it should have, because you knew he wasn't entirely wrong — you had indulged in something you had no claim to, and you couldn't fault him for breaking her heart when you'd been helping him do it. 

"Yeah, fine, Hollis. You got me. Congrats." You stepped forward and reached for the door handle beside him. He didn't move. Up close, you could see the tension in his jaw as he looked down at you.

"You trying to get back at me through Roman?" he asked. You frowned immediately.

"The fuck?"

"Don't play dumb. Throwing yourself at him like that."

"What does that even mean?" you exhaled in disbelief.

"Yeah, I got with your friend, so you get with mine. That your game?"

"Oh my God, you're unbelievable." You laughed, genuinely this time. You let go of the door handle, looked away, because you couldn't take him seriously enough to hold eye contact.

"Not my business." He shrugged. "Thing is, I'd have to stay well clear of you. I'm not enough of a piece of shit to mess around with my friend's girl."

That was enough. You felt the prickling at the back of your neck, the irritation crawling over your face. You shoved him, hard, driving him back against the door. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" You kept pushing at his chest. "I told you to stay away from me after that night. I told you not to talk to me, not to even—"

He caught your wrists. "Fine, enough, enough." You kept fighting his grip, your whole face burning, and when you finally went still it was only because your arms gave out — not because the fury did, especially not with him watching you like that, like you were something that entertained him. "You done?"

You yanked your wrists free. Looked at the door. "Could you just…" A breath. "Let me out?"

"Sure." He stepped aside. The door was right there and you were already reaching for the handle when—

"Holli? Is that you?"

Ally.

His hand covered your mouth before you could make a sound. His other arm pressed the door shut. "Yeah?" he answered, voice even.

His palm covered half your face, and whether on purpose or not, he pulled you flush against his chest. 

"Everything okay?" she asked, tentative. "You just disappeared from the living room."

"Course, baby," he said. "I'm just… taking a piss."

You almost commented on how disgusting that was. Instead you drove an elbow into his stomach and he grunted. "What was that?" 

"Nothing." He turned you against his arm, freeing your mouth, cupping your face instead, squeezing your cheeks between his fingers. You glared, daring. "Just— can you give me a minute, baby?" 

"Oh." She sounded embarrassed. "Sorry. I'll be downstairs. I need to find y/n anyway, she's been so weird tonight."

When she said your name, he looked at you with a slow, private grin. Like that pleased him. "She's always weird. Honestly, I don't know why you keep her around."

Your mouth fell open, and like he'd predicted your move exactly, his hand was back over your lips, his body pinning you harder to the door. It had to be on purpose.

"Don't say it like that," Ally said softly, that small, sweet voice she probably saved just for him, while he held you against the door with open amusement, and it did something ugly and warm low in your stomach. 

You bit his hand. Hard. He let out a low, pained sound. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be down in a minute." You were half-smiling now, despite yourself. "I just... had a bit too much to drink. Don't worry."

"'K…" she said. Then silence. Silence that stretched, and for some reason he didn't let go.

Then, slowly, his palm left your mouth. Your teeth released him. But his hand stayed, sliding to your jaw. His thumb moved across your face — your chin, your lower lip — drawing a slow line along it until your lips parted. He pressed down gently, and it was like he had you held there by some pull you hadn't even realized. He eased your mouth open, his thumb pressing past your lips, sinking deeper, and as if it were your only instinct, your lips closed around him. You sucked slowly, eyes locked on his. His own lips parted as he watched, like it affected him too.

He withdrew slowly, his hand sliding down to your throat, holding you steady. Maybe it was the drinking, but he seemed to move in slow motion, and you watched as he leaned down and brought his face close to yours with a particular care. He stopped just millimeters from your mouth. You weren't sure if you closed your eyes and simply surrendered, or kept them open just to keep watch.

"Be good," he said. And in the same breath that it irritated you, it worked something open in you — before his lips covered yours.

It settled you instantly. Your eyes fell shut, your body melting into it, chin lifting to feel more of him, mouth opening to let him in. He tasted like beer, warm against your tongue, and you wanted him frantic, careless, but he stayed maddeningly slow, lips parting and closing over yours in a quiet, unhurried rhythm, before breaking away all at once. 

He stayed close, and when you tried to lean in for more, the hand at your throat kept you where you were. You wanted to beg. You didn't. You pressed your lips together and instead let your hands travel down his body — chest, stomach, waistband — and when you began to palm his length through his jeans, he watched you do it without blinking. He was already half-hard, and when you squeezed, he moaned low in his throat. He kissed you again, his other hand sliding down your body, under your shirt, cupping your tits and squeezing. You sighed against his mouth.

You had his belt undone fast, jeans and boxers shoved down just enough to wrap your hand fully around him. You'd rather die than admit it, but you loved the size of him — loved that your hand couldn't close all the way around, loved the weight of him, thick and heavy against your palm, the head already slick. It made your mouth water. Made you soaked. 

He broke the kiss to look down at your hand working him. "Ain't you a little slut?" He was smiling, but his voice had gone thin. You smiled back, played innocent while you squeezed and he swore at you. Like you were still competing, he tightened his grip on your throat, and you slapped his chest in return, and he pressed himself further into you.

"You fucking pussy," you said against his mouth. He smiled. "You think because you're—"

He kissed you — hard, tongue first, no warning, devouring and savoring you at once. You moaned into it and nearly cried out when he lifted you clean off the ground, arms hooked under your thighs. You let go of him to grab his shoulders instead. 

"Can't stop talking, can you?" he said.

His hands slid up under your skirt, fingers pressing against you through your panties, slow and deliberate, dragging over the soaked fabric until you had to bite down on the needy little sound climbing your throat. "Big mouth for someone soaking wet for me." 

"Big mouth for someone who just won't fuck me already."

He exhaled. Then the pressure of his fingers was gone, instead his hand pulled your panties aside, and you felt the blunt, swollen head of him line up against you. You bit back another moan as he pushed in — all at once, deep, stretching you around him in one slow, brutal slide. 

"Fuck, I hate you," you whimpered, face buried in his neck, arms locking around him, clenching down instinctively. 

"How the fuck are you this tight," he breathed against your ear, voice wrecked. 

He held you steady a moment before he started moving — lifting and lowering you on him, using your body like it was made to be handled this way. The thought alone shorted something out in your brain. Something so twisted in the collision of your hatred and want tangled so tightly you couldn't tell which one was making your skin burn. 

Both of you fought your sounds as hard as you could, even as every thrust made you want to cry out. And like punishment for every wrong thing you'd done, a knock came at the door. 

One of Hollis' hands immediately left your body. He closed it around the door handle in a grip like iron. Your whole body locked up. You pulled back to look at him, wide-eyed. "It's occupied. Bathroom's downstairs."

"You're still up here, baby?" Ally. Again. Hollis pinned you with a look — half glare, half silent order to shut the fuck up. 

"Yeah," he said, steadying his voice.

"What's going on? Are you feeling sick?" Her voice was so genuinely worried it settled in you like lead.

And then, like he really was that much of a devil, he started moving again — slow, deliberate thrusts, your back to the door, your eyes wide, mouth clamped shut. 

"Kind of," he said, with the faint trace of a grin. "I think I really overdid it tonight."

"Oh," she said, softly. "Do you need help? I can… I can take care of you."

The handle turned. He tightened his grip, forcing it still. Your body clenched around him on instinct and he mouthed a silent curse at the ceiling. "No, no—" A hard thrust punished you for it, deep enough to steal the air from your lungs, and you clapped a hand over your own mouth before anything could escape. 

"You sure?" she asked. "I feel bad being down there having fun while you're up here alone."

"Princess, don't miss your own party for me," he said, voice fraying at the edges as he kept moving, unhurried, relentless. "I'll get better soon, promise." 

A muffled hum through the door. He kept his pace, deep and even, and you dug your nails into his shoulders to keep quiet. 

"It's my birthday, Holli," she said. she said, and her voice cracked — just a little. Just enough to make you feel sick. 

You felt the weight shift against the door — she was leaning on it, unknowingly resting against the same wood where her boyfriend had you split open around him. 

"Jesus..." A beat, and his patience thinned out, sharp all at once. "What am I supposed to do if I'm not feeling well? Just go enjoy your party."

Silence on the other side. Longer than it should have been. "...Okay. Sorry." Small. Like she was used to swallowing that tone from him and apologizing for the inconvenience of asking. Then, softer, like the edge in his voice hadn't touched her the way it touched you: "I'll be down there.” A pause “I love you."

God. You weren't sure if it was the guilt or the exact angle of him pressing into that spot low in your belly, but something thick and heavy rolled through you all at once. You buried your face in his shoulder. "Love you too, babe." His voice, flat, certain, saying it to her while balls deep inside you. You bit down into his skin, hard enough to leave a mark. 

It landed in you worse than anything else that night. She'd just been shrugged off, half-scolded through a door, and she still gave him that. His hand found your breast anyway, squeezing like he needed somewhere to put everything he wasn't allowed to say out loud, and you hated that some ugly, quiet part of you felt something close to relief — that whatever this thinning patience was, it wasn't only reserved for you.

When the silence from the other side held long enough, you found your rhythm again. Still muffling everything. Still helplessly asking for more.

Eventually he set you down, slow, and pulled out of you. Still handling you with ease, he turned you toward the sink, pushed you forward until you bent over the counter, palms flat on the cold marble, your back already arching toward him on instinct. 

"How do you feel?" He watched you through the mirror, fingers dragging through your folds, spreading the slick mess of you, and then he pushed back inside — rough enough that your mouth fell open silently. "Look at yourself, baby." 

One hand gripped your hip. The other came up to your chin, tilting your face toward the mirror. He began to move again — hard, deep, your body jolting forward with every stroke.

"Don't call me that," you managed between moans. 

"What? Baby?" He was watching you in the mirror too, eyes gone dark. "What should I call you then? Slut?"

His fingers found your mouth — two of them, pressing past your lips, pulling them open. Pathetically, you let them in. You grabbed his forearm, fighting the sounds crawling up your throat. He smiled. 

"Yeah. There she is. My pretty little slut."

You wished you could answer that. Wished you could hold yourself together. But he kept driving into you, kept dragging heat through your whole body, kept pulling arousal out of you like he owned the key to it. So you just nodded, mouth working around his fingers, dumb and overwhelmed.

His hand left your hip and found your clit, working it in perfect sync with his cock. It was only a matter of time. Your whole body started to shake and you bit down on his fingers still in your mouth as the first wave broke through you. You clenched around him so tight he groaned in your ear, face dropping to your hair, nose pressed to it like he was breathing you in as he fucked you through it.

While you were still coming down, he pulled out. Your legs barely held you, and a single low word from him had you sinking to your knees without thinking. You took his cock in your hand, head swimming, and stroked him fast while your tongue worked over the tip — best way you could — until he came across your lips, your chin, your cheek, the flat of your tongue. Thick and warm; you could feel it drip down your chin.

"God," he breathed, looking down at you like you'd done something miraculous.

It took a moment to register. To get back to your senses. "Why the fuck did you—" You got to your feet, still a little unsteady, still feeling his absence inside you, though you'd rather have died than say so. "On my face."

And in your mouth too. You could taste him. You licked your lips clean without meaning to, and when you looked up he was watching with quiet amusement.

"This is entirely on you. I just told you to get on your knees," he said. You glared. "Hold on."

He reached for a tissue. You watched him in silence as he held your face still and cleaned you up, careful about it, thorough. He was probably focused on what he was doing — but his eyes kept drifting over your whole face, slow and unhurried, and it made you feel exposed in a way you hadn't expected. Couldn't prepare for.

When he was done, he didn't let go. He kept looking. Hand still cradling your face. And for some reason, you kept looking back.

"You should… go," you said first. You closed your fingers around his wrist, a quiet suggestion. He didn't move.

"Yeah," he said, in no rush. "You okay?"

You nodded. Held his gaze. A long beat before he finally let you go. You thought about saying something — something cutting, something to reclaim the distance. You couldn't. Because this time it wasn't a desperate mistake in a back alley. You'd wanted it. You'd done it while your best friend stood on the other side of a door and told him she loved him.

Hollis left, and the sound of the door pulling shut behind him dropped the full weight of it onto your chest. You couldn't look at yourself in the mirror now. Funny — minutes ago, while he was fucking you, you'd had no trouble at all.

Leaving that bathroom felt like one of those dreams where you're naked in front of the whole school. Like every person you passed knew exactly what kind of person you were. And when you got back to the living room and Ally met you with that bright, unbothered smile, you wanted to turn yourself inside out. She lifted herself from Hollis' lap, came straight to you and hugged you sideways, said she'd been worried you'd slipped out without saying goodbye.

Cathy, on the other hand, watched you like something was visibly wrong and she was the only one sharp enough to see it. Hollis you didn't look at. Not once, for the rest of the night.

You sang happy birthday to Ally. You all gathered as the other guests filtered out, until only a small handful of people remained. Hollis you still didn't look at.

It was Roman who offered to drive you home when you said you were leaving. He waited while you got your things, and that was when you glanced at Hollis again — brief, less than a second — and there was no grin on his face. No amusement. Just his eyes on you, unreadable.

"You're seriously my lifesaver tonight," you said to Roman, your hand grazing his arm lightly.

taglist: @magegodmode, @2lilaclace, @angelrazor6000, @elloweezrosey, @osx12-22, @m1ndless-thoughtsss, @sweet2sin, @luvvconceal, @vlnt2kiss, @honeyperched, @rommvlas, @grandeleal, @zorixchi, @warhorseweekend, @reallyamthegoat08, @anunfortunateoutcome, @ka1aia, @ju8g, @jackkilmergf, @bambi-lia, @osx12-22, @m1ndless-thoughtsss, @7thstrunner, @misoeepy, @stellalaylas, @feershzz, @mygothicheart, @sippingonsin, @voidatelier, @222foryou222

𓆰♱𓆪 ⛪︎

Gardnerville was a very small town before the valley. You'd been watching the landscape change for the last hour — something out of an old western, the kind your father used to watch on television on Sunday afternoons, John Wayne and endless ochre horizons.

"Are we staying here tonight?" you asked after the waitress came back with your orders and stepped away.

"No, we're not very far now. Just stopped because you said you were hungry." He looked out the window. The main street — the only street — was nearly empty even at just past noon.

"Mhm," you hummed, quieter, looking back at him.

"You okay?" His eyes came to you.

The truth was that since he'd told you about the footage, your mind had been running a quiet, constant battle between reasoning and something closer to panic. And for some reason it was your hair that kept bringing you back to it — you kept threading your fingers through it without meaning to, thinking about the profile shot, the side of your face, your long hair identifiable on some grainy security feed being run on a news segment somewhere.

"Yeah," you said. "Just nervous. First time meeting a friend of yours."

He smiled at that, nodded. "Don't worry. He's going to love you. His wife too."

His wife. You thought it and didn't say it. It was hard to picture any friend of Hollis already married and living somewhere this remote.

After you finished eating he asked again if you were alright and whether you needed anything else from town — the way he said it carrying the implication that you wouldn't be coming back for a while.

After you said no you were back on the road — maybe for the last time in a while. 

You watched the valley open around you — snowy mountains behind you now, a wide flat green stretching ahead, livestock visible in the distance, ranches and properties passing every few miles. A peaceful landscape settling under the dim gold of dusk, peaceful enough that your eyes grew heavy. You had your head resting against the window, nearly under, when the road shifted to gravel and dirt and the change woke you. You raised your head. Wood-post gates ahead. Fencing either side, a barn, a granary, and further up the dirt track, a house with a porch light on.

"Thought you were asleep," Hollis said. He looked tired — he'd been driving since the car theft, since the casino. "We're here, honey."

He parked in front of the house and got out like it was nothing. You followed him, nerves crawling up the back of your neck. There was a couple on the front porch and the moment they saw Hollis a wide smile broke across the man's face. The woman beside him smiled too — quietly, warmly, the specific fondness of someone who hasn't seen a person in too long.

Hollis went straight to the bags, which left you to walk up to the porch ahead of him. Both of them were older than you'd expected — late thirties or forties, you'd guess. You couldn't place it. You couldn't place any of it — how Hollis knew ranch people in Nevada, how a boy from Chicago had ended up with friends like this.

The man came down the porch steps before you could introduce yourself and pulled you into a hug that surprised you completely.

"You must be y/n," he said, warm, easy. "I'm Robert. That's my wife Janice." He gestured to the woman behind him. "Make yourself at home. I'll give him a hand with the bags."

He was already moving toward the truck before you could respond. You watched him go, then turned toward Janice, who was watching you with a smile.

You noticed the slight curve of her stomach as you approached, her hand resting on it in that particular absent way. She looked at you and Hollis stepping out of the truck with an expression so genuinely fond it caught you off guard.

You were almost at the top of the steps when she spoke first.

"So you're y/n!" Her whole face lit up. "Oh, Hol talked so much about you."

"He did?" It came out before you could stop it.

"Of course he did! You're the whole reason he finally came to visit after all this time." Her arm came around your shoulders. "Come inside. Let me get you some tea. Leave them with the bags."

She steered you through the door and you followed her to the kitchen, which smelled like something that had been cooking low and slow all day. She was an easy talker. Questions arriving one after another without pressure, your age, about your hometown, genuine surprise when she learned you'd come all the way from Oklahoma. She told you about her kids briefly — already in bed, she'd introduce you properly in the morning — and about the property, and about how long they'd been out here, and you mostly listened and let it wash over you, the strangeness of being inside somewhere, somewhere with a kitchen and a family and a dog that came and pressed its nose to your knee and then wandered off again.

When Hollis and her husband came through the door Janice's whole face shifted — that specific tenderness, the kind you don't see often.

"Hol!" She stood. "You look so good. Could use some extra pounds though, have you been eating properly?"

She crossed to him and took his face in both hands, squeezing his cheeks lightly. He wrinkled his nose.

"It all went to his height apparently," her husband said from behind him, laughing. You laughed too.

You watched the three of them together — the way they moved around each other, the ease of it, the particular quality of her fussing at him and him tolerating it — and thought: this doesn't look like friends. This looks like something else. An aunt and uncle. A nephew who doesn't visit enough.

Hollis excused himself not long after, genuinely tired. You followed him.

"They're very sweet," you said, changing into something comfortable — which that night meant his shirt.

"Glad you liked them." He watched you from the bed, back against the headboard.

"Janice asked me a million questions while you two were getting the bags." You crossed to him and he pulled you into him before you'd fully decided to sit. "Robert, that's his name?"

"That's his name," he said.

"I know this wasn't exactly the plan," he started.

"I'm happy we're together," you said, before he could finish. Simply. Meaning it.

He looked at you for a long moment — studying you, the way he sometimes did when he was deciding something. "Me too," he said finally, quietly. "I'm happy, honey."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

Next morning you woke before him. He was still deep under, his face tucked against your hair, the weight of his arm across your waist. You lay there listening to his breathing, to the birds outside, to voices somewhere below. When you finally tried to slip out from under him he tightened his grip and pulled you back.

"Wait," he said, sleep thick in his voice.

"Everyone's up already." You giggled when he buried his face further against your neck.

"Not us." He kissed your shoulder.

It took some time. Hollis being constitutionally opposed to getting up before he was ready, and you not being entirely convincing in your objections.

The table was already set when you two made it downstairs. Janice greeted you both warmly. Three kids sat waiting — two older boys and a small girl. You settled beside the girl. Hollis went around the table to the seat across from you, stopping on the way to mess up the older boy's hair.

"Look how big you are," he said.

The boy groaned and shoved him, both of them laughing. Hollis sat down between the younger two. "I don't know these ones yet," he said, gesturing at the smaller kids.

"Oh, right! Let me introduce 'em to y/n too" Janice sat. "That's Bob" — the older boy — "that's Timmy, and that's Betty." She pointed to each in turn. "And the one on the way is either Noah or Ada, we haven't decided."

"You two don't have a TV or something?" Hollis said, reaching for the waffles.

"Hollis," you said.

He laughed. Janice laughed too.

"I see you only got taller." Robert appeared in the kitchen doorway, walked up behind Hollis, and slapped the back of his head lightly. You covered your smile as Hollis frowned.

Breakfast was light in a way you hadn't felt in a long time — maybe since before you left Collinsville, maybe longer. The way these people moved around each other, teased each other, made space for each other at the table without thinking about it — it was so unlike the family dynamic you'd grown up knowing. And more than that, you felt included. Every time Hollis said your name in a story, every time they caught your eye to share something embarrassing about him, every time Janice refilled your cup without asking — it accumulated into something you didn't quite have a name for yet.

Afterward, Robert took you both around the property while he ran his morning routine. A small amount of animals — chickens, cows, sheep in the barn. You'd never fed a newborn calf before and spent a full ten minutes doing it while Robert watched with an amused expression. When he brought you to the horses you'd never seen Hollis's eyes go quite the way they did — lit up and immediate, moving straight to a white horse at the far end of the stable, talking to it in a low soft voice you'd rarely heard him use on anything.

"They look like twins," you said to Robert, nodding between the horse and Hollis — both tall, both with long pale hair, both carrying themselves like they were aware of it.

Robert laughed. "Good to know I'm not the only one who thinks so."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

It didn't take long to fall into the rhythm of the place. Within a couple of days it felt almost as if you and Hollis had always been here.

Janice was the sweetest — she reminded you a little of Donna, that same motherly warmth, except Janice had a dry wit underneath it that would catch you off guard and pull a laugh out of you before you'd seen it coming. You did your best to be useful. You started with small things — offering to help cook, washing dishes, sweeping — the kind of help anyone could accept without feeling obligated. But Janice didn't just accept it. She drew you in like you'd been there for years, teaching you her recipes, the small tricks she'd developed over time, things done a particular way for reasons she'd explain and you'd try to remember. Things your own mother had never had the patience to pass on.

You weren't quite there yet, though.

One evening Janice stepped out and left you alone with the stew you'd been following step by step, and you almost turned it into something unrecognizable. Not entirely your fault.

"What are you doing?" Arms came around your waist from behind. You were already frowning at the pot.

"Stew," you said, voice tight with worry. "Or something like it. I'm not sure anymore."

"The smell's good." Hollis rested his chin on your shoulder. "But is it supposed to look like that?"

You laughed despite yourself and smacked his arm. "No," you said, somewhere between a whine and a laugh. "Hers was all colorful and... I don't know what went wrong."

"We'll sort it out." He unwrapped his arms from you, took the wooden spoon gently from your hand, and poured a small amount of the sauce onto his palm to taste. "It's not bad. Really."

He said it while visibly trying not to smile. You saw the corners of his mouth going.

"You're terrible," you said, pushing him lightly. He laughed.

"I'm being supportive."

"That's not supportive." You whined. "I'm a disaster."

He stepped closer, arms coming back around you, walking you gently toward the counter until you were up against it. Then he lifted you onto it in one easy motion, positioning himself in front of you.

"I don't mind," he said, smiling. "I could learn to cook. Or we could just order in every night."

He leaned in, hand at your waist, mouth finding yours. For a moment you forgot entirely where you were — forgot the stew, forgot the kitchen — until his fingers found the hem of your skirt, and then the smell of something burning brought you back abruptly.

"Hey." You pulled back, already sliding off the counter, pushing past him to get to the stove. "Look what you did."

"Me?" He followed, watching you turn off the burner.

"You." You looked at what remained of the stew and then looked at him, and he was already laughing, which made you laugh despite yourself. "I hate you, I really do."

That night you made him stand beside you while you confessed to Janice what had happened to her recipe. You were thoroughly flustered the entire time. She laughed — gently, genuinely — and only stopped long enough to turn and scold Hollis when he joined in.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

He moved differently around the property. When he wasn't with you, you'd find him following Robert around — dealing with the animals, doing repair work, chopping wood, fixing a section of fence that had come loose. It was a completely new version of him. Something domestic in a way you didn't usually get to see. You wouldn't have admitted it easily but it was attractive, watching him work with his sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back, the particular focus he had when he was doing something physical. It also looked completely wrong on him in a way you found quietly hilarious — this city boy now covered in dirt and carrying fence posts like he'd been doing it for years.

One late afternoon you were standing on the porch when he came back from the fields. Mud on his jeans, on his hands, streaked across his white tank top in ways that suggested a genuine disaster had occurred somewhere on the property.

"What happened to you?" You held back your smile.

"There was a leak. I helped fix it." He said it simply, walking toward you in slow, unhurried steps.

"Right. Country boy."

"You mocking me, ma'am?"

He reached the porch and grabbed you before you could respond — pulling you clean off the step and into his arms. You grabbed his shoulders on instinct and held on, and it took you a moment but you did eventually register that his mud-covered hands were now on your white summer dress.

"My dress," you said, laughing. Not really caring.

"I can get used to it." He kissed your neck, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. Your legs found their way around his waist without you deciding to, and his hands settled under your thighs, holding you there.

"Me too," you said quietly, looking at him. Your fingers moved lightly over the back of his neck. "This feels like a home."

"It does." His eyes were soft looking at you, softer than the fading light. "Do you miss home?"

You shook your head and smiled. "I said it feels like a home." You kissed him briefly. "Nothing like mine."

He held your gaze for a beat too long — processing it, storing it somewhere, giving it more weight than you'd necessarily intended. Then he kissed you again, and carried you back toward the porch until you made him put you down before anyone could see.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

"When I was helping Robert with the leak," Hollis said, stepping back into the bedroom after his shower, "we passed by a pond. Really nice spot. We should go."

You were sitting up in bed waiting for him. "Mhm. When?"

"Tomorrow." He dropped down beside you, hair wet. "We don't have much on tomorrow anyway. It's Sunday and Robert said he's taking Janice and the kids to church."

"What is it with you washing your hair at night?" You reached for the towel on the nightstand. "Come here."

He had that small mischievous smile as he shifted and laid his head in your lap, letting you do what you could with the towel. "So?"

"I like the pond idea." You pouted a little. It was exactly the kind of thing that excited you and he knew it.

"Then it's a date, honey." He smiled up at you.

It always did something to you when he settled into you like that. His whole frame took up most of the available space, which made the way he curled into you so naturally all the more disarming. It melted you in a way you'd stopped being embarrassed about.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

The pond wasn't far from the main house — just beyond the property line, a fence to hop and a few minutes of walking through tall grass and trees. But it was, as promised, nice. A clearing in the green, sunlight coming down through the canopy and catching the water like a spotlight. A wide flat rock sat beside the bank like it had been placed there deliberately.

Hollis dropped the bag you'd packed and pulled his shirt off. This time you didn't wait for him to call you in. You were far enough from anywhere that it didn't matter, so you stepped forward and undressed completely — your dress first, then everything underneath — and walked into the water without looking back.

You knew his eyes were on you when you glanced over your shoulder. He was standing at the bank, slightly stilled, before reaching for his zipper.

"You coming?" you asked.

He moved quickly after that, finishing undressing — fully, the same as you — and you laughed to yourself at the symmetry of it. You dove in before he reached the water, surfacing a few feet away, and when you looked back he was smiling in that particular way that meant he was already plotting something.

It stayed light for a while. Genuinely light, the kind of easy that had been rare on the road — him making stupid observations about the fish he could see near the bottom, you splashing water at him when he got too comfortable, stolen kisses that tasted like pond water, both of you laughing at nothing in particular. You couldn't track how long it went on. You stopped trying.

At some point you climbed out and sat on the flat rock, letting the sun work at drying you, and watched him from the bank.

He stayed in the water a little longer, floating on his back, eyes closed, face tilted toward the sun. You watched the way the light caught the edges of him—the line of his jaw, the rise of his chest, the way his hair fanned out in the water like something from a painting. He looked peaceful.

When he finally opened his eyes he found you so quickly, like he already knew where you'd be before even looking at you, something shifted in his expression. Not surprise — something like recognition. 

He moved toward you unhurried and you couldn't help but notice the mess he made of your heart whenever he walked your way. Handsome in every sense of the word. Water ran off him as he came out of the pond, and you watched the way it traced the lines of his shoulders, his arms, the narrow dip of his waist. He didn't rush. He took his time, letting you watch.

When he reached you, he didn't sit. He stood over you, blocking most of the sunlight with the width of his shoulders. His skin was still wet, cool when his hand came up to your face, water dripping down your neck, your chest. You didn't move. Just looked up at him.

"Watching me?" He braced one arm on the rock above your head and gently cradled your face with the other, tilting you back so your head rested in the crook of his forearm.

"I couldn't help it," you said, the flush already moving up your cheeks.

"My perverted angel." He smiled — nothing innocent about it — and the look alone made you feel instantly warm.

His hand moved from your face to your neck, and when he held you there, gently, his thumb at your pulse, he finally kissed you. You reached for him immediately — his shoulder, then his arm, loving the way his muscles shifted under your touch. His hand moved further down, finding your chest unhurriedly, like he was simply feeling you. He squeezed lightly, then teased your nipple, and the sigh that escaped you was involuntary. He pulled back just far enough to watch your face when it happened, smiling at what he found there.

When his hand trailed lower still, a shiver moved through you — partly the cold of his fingers against your warm skin, partly anticipation. You spread your legs for him at the exact moment his hand found your inner thigh, before he'd asked you to.

He teased — his thumb brushing over you lightly, sliding between your folds without quite touching where you needed it, doing just enough to make you wet and no more.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he whispered, his face close to yours.

His fingers finally did what you were aching for — slow, circular pressure on your clit, unhurried, deliberately gentle. You gasped and whimpered and he watched your face like it fascinated him.

"Holli." His name came out as a plea, your nails pressing lightly into his shoulder.

"Tell me, my angel." His voice was tender at the center and rough at the edges, the particular combination that got to you every time.

"I need you," you whined.

"Do you?" He whispered. "Do you really need me?"

You didn't get to answer. Two fingers slid inside you and your response became a nod, wordless and helpless.

He worked them slowly at first — almost torturously slow, curling slightly, finding the places that made your back arch and your legs try to close around his hand. When he picked up the pace, stroking deeper and harder, the sounds of the pond and the wind and the birds gave way entirely to the sound of your voice and the wet noise of his fingers moving inside you. It only compounded when his thumb found your clit at the same time, and you grabbed his forearm with both hands just to hold onto something.

You couldn't look away from him. His hazel eyes had you completely, wouldn't let you go.

You were already shaking, your orgasm building through you, your toes curling against the sun-warm rock — when he said it.

"I love you."

Quiet and calm, watching your face as you came undone beneath him.

You didn't answer. He kissed you before you could, slowing his fingers through your edge, then drawing them out of you gently. The need that followed was immediate — your hand trailing down his chest, his stomach, finding his cock and wrapping around him. You stroked him slowly as you kissed, messy and open-mouthed, both of you making sounds against each other.

Then he was between your legs, filling you in one long slow push. He kept that same unhurried pace — kept his hand firm at your jaw, keeping your eyes on his, not letting you escape his gaze for even a second. Every stroke deliberate. Every throb of him inside you pulling his words back to the surface.

You pushed him back and straddled him. He sat up, arms coming around you immediately, hands gripping your ass as you rolled your hips over him. You brushed the hair from his face, took his face in both hands, looked at him — and almost said out loud how beautiful he was. Instead, breathless, so sensitive you felt like you might come apart entirely, you said it.

"I love you." Your voice broke slightly on it, more feeling than volume. "I love you so much."

It came out like something that had been held too long. Hollis smiled — really smiled, the kind that reached all the way up — kissed your lips and panted against your mouth. His large hands pressed into your skin and pulled you into a faster rhythm, and you went willingly, chasing it together until he came undone beneath you with a low, drawn-out sound, face pressing into your chest, arms pulling you in so tightly you felt it in your ribs. He spilled inside you, warm and familiar, and you held his head against you while both of you caught your breath — his face buried between your breasts, your fingers in his hair, the water running beside you and the afternoon light warm on your backs.

"Say it again," he said. "Please."

He looked up. You held his face in your hands, thumbs moving over his cheekbones.

"I love you, Hollis."

He looked at you for a moment like he was taking it in properly. Then he pulled you close again, a low, quiet laugh against your skin. "I fucking love you.”

The aftermath was slow and suspended — both of you back in the water eventually, you wrapped around him while he carried you through it, neither of you in any hurry to go anywhere at all. 

The silence was interrupted by casual conversation, you casually saying how you didn't get to go to places like this back home while Hollis added how he used to sneak out as a teenager to go diving in a dam in Chicago.

"When I was a kid, there was this dam near my house. Wide one, deep as fuck. I used to sneak out some times and go there with my friends."

You lifted your head to look at him. His eyes were on the water, distant, like he was seeing something you couldn't.

"What did you do there?"

"Jumped off the cliffs. Swam. Smoked. Just..." He shrugged. "Felt alive, I guess. It was the only place I could feel like myself."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen, sixteen." A small smile tugged at his mouth. "We thought we were untouchable. Like nothing could happen to us."

"Did anything ever happen?"

He laughed, low. "One time, my friend jumped and hit the water wrong. He was fine, but we thought he was dead for a solid minute. Scared the shit out of us. Didn't stop us from going back the next day though."

You smiled against his skin. "Sounds like you."

"Like me?"

"Reckless. In the best way possible.”

"Yeah. Guess I haven't changed that much.” 

You traced your fingers along his collarbone. The water moved around you both, slow and unhurried. “I mean, I wouldn't jump out of a cliff but this here was pretty fun, wasn't it?” You said and he laughed lightly.

“I don't need to jump off cliffs anymore. I'm gonna tell you a secret.” You looked, waiting and his gaze found yours. “I've been feeling alive ever since I saw you at that gas station.” 

“Ever since?” You asked, not fully buying it, but his gaze was unwavering. It gave you certainty.

“Every single day after that.”

You kissed him — not urgent, not demanding. Something slower. Something that said I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.

On the walk back, his hand in yours, you thought about the irony of it — that the pond had been where you finally said it out loud to each other. You'd sworn on blood. You'd crossed state lines and shared a bed every night for these past weeks. But you'd never said those words until today, in a clearing by the water on a farm in Nevada, miles from anywhere either of you had started.

Maybe the road had been too relentless for it. Maybe you actually needed to stop somewhere long enough, to be still enough, for it to find its way out.

It got you thinking about what love even was. Whether it lived in the calm — in the quiet moments only the two of you would ever know about. In a glance sideways on a long stretch of highway. A motel stop at dusk. His warm hand finding yours before you'd thought to reach for it. His body beside yours every night, a constant you'd stopped questioning. You were sure, thinking about it now, that you'd loved him for longer than today. But what bound you was more than love, or at least more than the word. You could call it devotion. You could call it despair. You could call it an aching need that overflowed you when you weren't managing it. But it was simpler than all of that. It was life. Life had brought you together. And as drastically as it sounded, you thought that only the far opposite of life could bring you apart.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

A few days later you were watching the kids in the living room while Janice rested. They were lovely, mostly — except for Timmy, who had a particular talent for finding things that shouldn't be broken and testing their limits. Currently it was his sister's doll. You managed that with patience, explaining carefully while the older boy mocked him from the couch, which made Timmy cry, which required a separate round of managing. You handled it. Somehow.

"You're actually good with them," Janice said, appearing in the doorway with two cups of coffee. "Did you have younger siblings?"

"Not really." You took the cup she offered. "But they're easy. Especially Timmy."

You winked at the boy and he beamed at you from the floor, entirely recovered.

"Do you want kids?" Janice asked.

You nearly choked. "No. I mean. Not now."

She laughed and patted your shoulder. "Relax. You two are very young. But who knows?"

"No." You widened your eyes. "No, no. There's no way."

You laughed nervously. Though somewhere underneath the laughter was the quiet, unwelcome awareness of how many times you hadn't thought about that, and the dread that followed.

Janice leaned in, her eyes catching the pendant at your chest. She reached out and held it lightly between her fingers. "I see he gave you his mother's scapular."

"His mother's?" The conversation shifted entirely. "Do you know her?"

"If I know her?" She laughed quietly. Then, leaning closer, lowering her voice: "I was her college best friend. I was there the day she found out she was pregnant with that boy."

You stared at her.

"He didn't tell you that," she said. Less a question than a realization.

"He just said Robert was a friend. That's why we were coming here."

"That dumbass." She groaned softly. "Okay. I'm going to tell you this because that boy cannot use his words to save his life. Robert was his father's business partner, until things got out of hand. We left Chicago a few years ago. Bob was only five."

"I'm sorry," you said, not entirely sure what else to say.

"Don't be. We made a life here. Away from all of it. We're happier here than we ever were there. And honestly— " She looked at you steadily. "I'm glad Hollis got out too. I couldn't have watched him turn into one of them."

There was something in her voice that wasn't just resentment. It was relief, old and deep, the kind that comes from having worried about something for a long time and finally being told it turned out alright. You sat with it quietly, and felt the itch of every question you now had no idea how to ask.

That night in bed, Hollis was telling you something about the property — something that had happened with one of the horses, you thought — when he stopped mid-sentence. You'd drifted without meaning to, your eyes somewhere past him, your hands around the scapular.

He watched you for a moment. You didn't notice.

"Y/n," he said.

"Sorry." You looked up at him. He was standing by the bed, watching you with that particular stillness that meant he was worried and trying not to show it. "I'm sorry."

"What is it?"

You sighed. Looked down at the pendant in your hands, then back at him.

"I was talking to Janice today." You kept your voice slow, careful. "She told me this was your mother's."

"It was," he said. Dry, simple.

"She told me. About her and Robert. That they were friends with your parents." You looked at him. Waited.

He crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it, back to you. The silence stretched.

"If you don't want to talk about it— "

"It's alright." He said it to the wall in front of him. "I'm just not used to it. But yeah. They were friends. I grew up knowing them."

You moved closer, reached for his shoulder, hesitated briefly before pressing it lightly. Then you wrapped your arms around him from behind. His hand came to rest over yours where it lay against his stomach. He exhaled slowly.

"So," you said, quietly. "It's like meeting your family."

He laughed, but there was something bitter at the edge of it. "Might as well be. Robert's more of a father to me than my actual father has ever been."

It broke something loose in your chest — not just because of what he said, but because you recognized it. You knew what it was to feel that way about a parent, and you hadn't wished that on him. You kissed his shoulder. His neck. Rested your face against him.

"Everyone's escaping that man." His voice came low, rough at the edges.

"And your mom?" You felt brave enough to ask before you could stop yourself.

"She left him. Two years ago." His hand tightened over yours. "Left everything, actually. I don't blame her. A bad life, a worse husband, and a troubled kid. I would've done the same."

"Hey— "

"It's okay." He lifted your hand, pressed his lips to your knuckles. "I really don't blame her. I left because I didn't want to become what I was becoming. That's all." A pause. "You'll meet her one day. She's... She's something else, honestly. Really esoteric, super artsy. But she's sweet. You'd like her."

You laughed softly at how he said it. "Do you think she'll like me?"

"Who wouldn't like you?" He said it simply, like it wasn't even a real question. "She'll adore you."

You felt the warmth creep up your neck. "Stop it."

You tried to pull back and he caught your wrist, turning in one easy motion and pulling you into his lap. His hand found your face — that warm, steady hold that always made you look at him properly, whether you meant to or not.

"You're the most charming person I know," he said. "Anyone who doesn't love you immediately is out of their mind."

You didn't have anything to say to that. You just kissed him, and felt your heart ache with it — with how open he'd been tonight, how tender underneath all of it. You could see it clearly, for the first time without any fear attached.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

Routine was starting to grow on you. Waking up in the same bed every morning, lazy mornings that stretched without obligation, talking about the day before falling asleep — you loved all of it. For a while you almost forgot why you were here. While things were this peaceful, this quiet, it was easy to let the rest of it recede.

Until you caught Hollis and Robert talking in low voices somewhere on the property, and they went quiet the moment you came close enough to hear. Or you walked into a room and the conversation stopped. It bothered you — not because you needed to know, but because it made you feel like a child being kept from the adult table.

Once it happened while you were standing with Janice, and she frowned at them — mainly at Robert. "You could both be less obvious about it," she said, and went back to what she was doing.

Which raised its own set of questions. She knew. How much did she know, and why were you always the last to have any of it?

One evening you were gathering laundry for the next morning — you and Hollis had been taking turns, and this was yours — while he lay in bed with his phone. A rare enough sight that you noticed it. He seemed focused, so you tried to start a conversation. He gave you half his attention at best.

You dropped the laundry basket onto the mattress.

He looked up, eyebrows raised. "What's that for?"

"I'm trying to talk to you," you said.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm just dealing with something." His eyes went back to the screen.

"What? What are you dealing with?"

He looked at you again, more carefully this time. "Our way out of here."

"Is that what you and Robert keep whispering about?"

"Among other things."

"And what does he know about us?"

"A lot."

"What about Janice? And why do I know nothing about any of it?" The annoyance in your voice was clear, and you weren't trying to hide it.

He sighed and set the phone down. "Come here."

It took you a moment, but you went. He did what you knew he'd do — hands at your hips, pulling you in until you were standing between his legs, his eyes coming up to find yours. Your hands settled on his shoulders on their own, and he smiled faintly.

"They know why we're here," he said, his thumb moving slowly along your waist beneath your shirt. "They know about the footage, half the things we've been doing. But there are other things — things that go back to Chicago. Things that don't involve you entirely. Not yet."

"Then tell me," you said quietly, threading your fingers slowly into his hair. "We're— I mean— we're something, aren't we?"

"Baby, we're way more than something." He laughed softly. "And I want to tell you everything. I just— I don't want to put this on you right now. Don't wanna worry you."

"I'm already worried, Holli." Your brows pulled together.

He took your hand from his shoulder and pressed his lips to your knuckles. "Do you trust me?" You nodded. "Then let me fix this. The things from Chicago, they don't touch you. Not for now. Let me sort it out, and when we actually get to start our lives, you'll know all of it. I promise. We'll have all the time in the world."

He kissed your hand again, and eventually you folded into him — your face tucked against his collar, his arms coming around you, warm and steady.

"Do you want me to do the laundry tomorrow?" he asked after a long, quiet while.

You laughed against his neck. Nodded.

"I'll do it, pretty girl."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

The next morning you woke earlier than usual. Hollis's side of the bed was already cold — you could hear the shower running, and then stopping, and then nothing. A line of pale light slipped through the gap in the bathroom door.

You dragged yourself up, still half-asleep, and pushed the door open.

He was standing at the mirror, towel wrapped around his hips, hair wet, body still drying. If you'd been any more awake it would have been a sight worth stopping for.

"Morning, honey," he said, glancing at you.

"Why are you up so early?" You pressed the back of your hand to your eyes, trying to bring the room into focus. The pale bathroom light wasn't helping.

He turned slightly, cupped your face in one hand, and pressed his lips to the top of your head. "Going to town later with Rob. Figured I'd finish my chores first."

"Very dedicated of you," you murmured, looking up at him. He'd turned back to the mirror, studying his face with a particular expression.

"What do you think about this?" He gestured vaguely at his jaw.

You squinted. It took a moment — you'd never seen it before, not once during the whole trip. He'd always taken a razor to his face before anything had the chance to grow. But now there were faint lines of a mustache beginning, the suggestion of a goatee, and along his jaw a sparse, barely-there growth that had clearly been quietly happening while you weren't looking.

"Oh," you said, stepping closer to see him properly in the mirror. "I didn't even know you could grow a beard."

He laughed. "What do you mean? I'm offended!"

"I'm sorry!" You laughed too, at your own surprise. "You just... You always shave before it gets anywhere." You looked at him in the glass. "You're still handsome, honey." You rested your head lightly on his shoulder.

"Well." He shrugged. "Better get rid of it."

He reached for the shaving foam on the sink and the thought arrived so quickly and clearly that you just said it before it had fully formed.

"Can I do it?"

He turned to look at you. "Shave me?"

You nodded. He grinned, confused and amused in equal measure.

"Do you know how?"

"How hard can it be?" You took the foam from his hand, looked at it, looked at his face, and smiled. Already committed.

"Sure, honey." He was smiling too now, settling into the idea. "Go on."

"Sit there." You pointed to the edge of the bathtub and he obeyed without argument, lowering himself down, long legs spread wide, looking up at you with that particular expression — amused on the surface, something else underneath.

You stood in the space between his knees and got to work — spraying foam into your palm, working it across his jaw, his chin, his neck, above his upper lip. Careful and focused. His eyes stayed on your face the whole time. You'd have felt self-conscious once, under that gaze, but somewhere along the way that had changed. His attention still made your heart do something, but the urge to escape it was gone. It just felt like him.

"Don't move," you said, picking up the razor.

"Wasn't planning on it," he said, the smile still there.

You hesitated briefly before the first stroke and then started. Slow, short strokes, rinsing between each one. You were frowning slightly without meaning to, brows drawn together in concentration.

"You can press a little harder, honey," he said.

"Quiet." You didn't look up.

He laughed softly. You felt it through the hand steadying his jaw. "I said don't move."

"Alright, alright."

His hands found your hips. Not pulling you anywhere, not pressing — just resting there, warm through the fabric of your shirt, like they'd landed out of habit. You noticed and kept working. You were holding your breath somewhere in the middle of it and didn't realize until you let it out. His eyes hadn't left your face. Under the pale bathroom light they looked brighter than usual, that specific hazel that you'd learned to read before you'd learned it was something you were doing.

When you finished you took the towel and wiped away the remaining foam, turning his face gently to check both sides. Even. Clean. You reached up to the cabinet without letting him stand and found a lotion, which you applied slowly across his jaw and cheeks.

He watched with a knowing smile. "What are you doing?"

"You should moisturize after shaving." You kept your voice matter-of-fact.

"Yeah?" His smile was all teasing now, entirely unbothered by the skincare advice.

He pulled you closer — arms wrapping slowly around your body, his chin lifting toward your chest as he looked up at you. You hugged him back, fingers threading into his still-damp hair, scratching lightly at his scalp the way you knew he liked.

"Thank you," he said, after a moment. Quieter now. "I'm not used to it. Being taken care of."

You pouted. Your face went warm. "I like taking care of you."

"I know," he said. He caught your hand, pressed his lips to it, then stood — pulling you with him, both of you nearly stumbling in the narrow bathroom, and you laughed. He laughed too, steadying you both, his arms still around you.

"You're so good to me," he said, low. "So fucking good."

You pulled him down by the neck, closing the small distance until your noses touched, foreheads together, eyes level.

"I love you," you said.

"I love you." He smiled before he kissed you — warm, unhurried, the kind of kiss that took the rest of your breath without trying to.

He carried you back to bed, and the early morning became something slower and quieter, his body moving over yours lazy and unhurried, both of you still half in sleep, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

Later, Hollis went to town with Robert — something about the car — and you stayed with Janice. The usual rhythm. You'd just come back to the house from feeding the chickens when you found her on the porch, scissors in hand, trimming Timmy's hair.

"You do that yourself?" you asked.

"Easier than driving to the hairdresser every two weeks for a trim. I cut my own too." She didn't look up, focused on the back of Timmy's neck.

You watched her work, and without deciding to, your hands went to your own hair. You couldn't remember ever cutting more than a few inches off it. It had been long your whole life, as long as you could picture yourself.

And then — quietly, the way realizations sometimes came — you thought about the security footage. Your profile. Your hair. The one detail that maybe could make you identifiable even in a blurry image. A new life could come with new hair.

"After Timmy," you said, "would you cut mine?"

Janice looked up, a flicker of surprise giving way to enthusiasm. She hesitated when you told her how much — just above the shoulders, significantly shorter than anything you'd ever had. But she didn't talk you out of it. You sat down, and as the long strands of dark hair fell to the porch floorboards you felt the specific strangeness of watching something you'd carried for years disappear in sections. The chills moved through you. So did something that felt almost like relief.

When you looked in the mirror and brushed the new length back, you felt like someone else. Not unrecognizable — just new. The bangs Janice had cut, the layers, the way it all framed your face differently. Someone new and also still you.

"It looks so good," Janice said from behind your shoulder. "You look so girly."

You smiled at that. You felt it.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

Hollis came back late in the afternoon. You were in the kitchen putting together a snack for you and the kids when you heard him come through.

"Honey, Jan said you were in he— " He stopped.

You glanced back. "How was town?"

"The— " He stopped again, whatever he'd been about to say dissolving entirely. "You look— that's just— "

You felt a flicker of nerves. He was looking at you with that particular stillness, eyes moving over your face like he was processing something and hadn't finished yet.

"God, you look beautiful." He crossed the kitchen in a few strides and took your face in both hands — you felt small in the best way. "Did you just— "

"Do you like it?" You looked up at him, your face warm under his hands and his attention.

"So much." He leaned down and kissed you, brief and certain. "Didn't know you could get any prettier."

"Shut up," you laughed.

He kissed you again and pulled you in with one arm around your waist.

"That's seriously gross." Bob's voice from the table.

You pulled back, laughing. Bob and Timmy were both making faces of theatrical disgust.

"Y'all too nosy," Hollis said.

"Y'all disgusting!" Bob announced.

"Disgusting?" Hollis's voice went playful and low. "Nah, little buddy. You're done now."

He went after Bob, who scrambled off his chair and started running laps around the table. Timmy was already screaming catch him, catch him with tremendous investment. You stood by the counter laughing as the chase moved through the kitchen, into the living room, and out the front door — where Hollis eventually caught up with Bob and they both went down in a heap on the grass, and then Timmy was crying because he'd tripped over his own feet following them, and Hollis spent the next five minutes quietly negotiating with him not to tell Robert, apparently offering bribes you couldn't quite hear but could absolutely imagine.

You watched from the doorway, the afternoon light warm on the porch, and thought: this is what it looks like. Whatever it was they were building toward. This exact thing, right here.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

Later that night you were lying on top of him in bed, his hand moving slowly through your hair — a light, absent caress that made your already worn-out body feel even lighter. Then his hand came to your forehead and he started brushing your new bangs back and forth across your face, back and forth, like he was experimenting with them. You laughed and pushed his hand away gently.

"What are you doing?" you asked, smiling.

"I don't know. It's different." His hand moved to your cheek instead.

"Good different?"

"Definitely." He petted your head the way you'd pet a cat and you smiled despite yourself. "It makes your eyes look bigger."

"What?" You laughed. "Is that a compliment?"

"Of course it is. You look like a doll." He pulled you in and kissed you briefly. "My pretty doll."

You didn't know how he always knew exactly what to say, but it got you blushing and tucking your face into his neck before sleep took you both under.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

It was early morning — still dim, the light just beginning to come through — and you were in the barn with Grace, the newborn calf you'd been feeding since the first day. Her mother wasn't producing enough milk, and you'd taken over the bottle without anyone asking you to. She knew you now. When you came in calling her name she made small sounds of excitement that you found entirely disproportionate and completely wonderful.

"I see you two have gotten close," a voice said from the entrance.

Robert, leaning against the doorframe with his coffee.

"I'm basically her second mother," you said, still petting her forehead.

"You really are." He laughed. "You finished with her?"

"Just saying goodbye."

"Could you give me a hand with something?"

You ended up outside holding a fence post steady while he hammered it in, the morning cool and quiet around you.

"I think you know by now," he said between strikes, "but I've known Hollis since he was about this high." He lifted one hand to his waist. You laughed, thinking of the height of the man currently asleep in your shared room. "What was he like?"

"Impossible." He said it with the particular warmth of someone who'd loved a difficult person. "You know Timmy? Make it ten times worse. He used to follow me everywhere, asking questions like I'd have every answer. Wouldn't stop talking."

"That's genuinely hard to picture," you said.

"He'd tell you his whole life story if you asked only for his name." Robert laughed to himself. "Until he grew up and learned to keep things in. And then he kept too much in. You know how it is."

"Yeah," you said quietly. "He still does."

"He learned it for his own protection." Robert paused, setting the hammer down for a moment. "I can't imagine how things got after I left."

"He holds you in a high place, sir," you said.

"God, don't call me sir. Rob, Bob, anything else." You laughed. "But listen. I'm glad he found you. When he told me he was leaving Chicago with nothing but a car it scared the hell out of me. Then he told me he'd brought you along and that scared me even more." He laughed at that, something fond in it. "I gave him hell for it, honestly. But I think you might be the best thing that happened to that boy on this trip."

"I don't know," you said. "Sometimes I feel like I've made things harder for him. He says the opposite, but— "

"You drive him crazy, he told me that too." You looked at him, surprised. "But you make him feel. And that's something I was genuinely worried his father had taken out of him."

That landed somewhere deep. Not just the words but the weight of who was saying them — someone who'd known him as a child, someone Hollis trusted with things he didn't give anyone else. Knowing he'd talked about you. Knowing someone this important to him had looked at you and approved.

"You're making her do manual labor, old man?" Hollis's voice came from behind you.

"She's being helpful," Robert said, his tone shifting easily into something playful. "Unlike you."

"Give me that, honey." Hollis reached for the fence post and you started to say you could finish, then just nodded and stepped aside, watching the two of them take over like you hadn't been there at all, and feeling entirely at peace with that.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

A few days later you were coming back from the barn when you noticed Hollis out in the field with the white horse he'd taken to immediately, embarrassingly, on the first day. He was standing close to the animal, one hand on his neck, his face near his, talking to him in a low voice. You stood watching them for a moment before he noticed you and waved you over.

"You really like him," you said when you reached him.

"Her," he corrected, glancing at you. "Her name's June."

"Sorry." You smiled. "Hi, June. You're very pretty. You look just like my Hollis."

You said it softly to the horse, who turned her large head toward you at the sound of your voice. You reached up carefully and scratched at her neck. She shook her mane and you felt the muscles beneath your hand shift and twitch, which made you laugh.

"She likes you," Hollis said.

"How can you tell?"

"She didn't bite you." He said smiling. You laughed.

"Have you ever ridden a horse?" he asked.

"A long time ago. When I was little."

"Do you want to?"

You thought about it for a moment — but he was looking at you with that particular open smile, the one that made him look younger, and you already knew where this was going.

He helped you up on her first, bareback, his hands firm at your waist, lifting you with ease. You settled onto June's warm back, the muscles beneath you shifting as she adjusted to your weight. You grabbed a handful of her mane, steadying yourself, and felt the sun on your shoulders, the breeze catching your hair.

Then he mounted behind you — one smooth motion, the kind of ease that came from practice. His weight settled behind you, and you felt the solid warmth of his chest press against your back, his thighs bracketing yours.

"Alright?" His voice was close to your ear, low and warm.

"Yeah," you said, breathing out.

His arms came around you, both hands finding June's mane, his wrists grazing your sides. You loosened your grip on the mane, let your body settle into the motion of the horse beneath you. His arms were loose around you, not holding you in place but just there, bracketing you.

June started forward, a slow, easy walk that rocked you gently.

"Doesn't it bother her?"

"She's strong," he said. You could hear the smile. "You said she looks like me, but honestly she's more like you."

"How?"

"Stubborn. But sweet about it." The horse picked up a slow, steady pace and you moved with her, adjusting. "One time I was brushing her mane and she got annoyed and pulled away, so I stopped. Left her alone. And the second I walked off she followed me halfway across the field like a lost puppy."

"That's not what I do," you said, looking back at him.

"Sure, honey." He squeezed you lightly against him.

You leaned back into him anyway, just enough to keep the contact, and he let you. You passed through the open gate and out into the field, the valley spreading ahead of you, green bathed in the low gold of late afternoon.

"This is nice," you said quietly.

"Better than the car?"

"So much better." You exhaled slowly.

His laugh moved through his chest and into your back.

"We're leaving in a few days," he said, his voice shifting into something quieter.

"California?" you asked.

"Yeah. Finally." Something in his voice had weight to it — not reluctance exactly, but heaviness. Like the word had more in it than he was letting out.

"I'll miss this," you said after a moment. "I'll miss them." A pause. "But I'm ready to actually get somewhere."

He hummed. And for a while there was nothing but the sound of June's hooves moving through the grass, the wind passing low through the field, and his breath steady at the back of your neck.

Later that evening you sat on the front porch and watched the valley turn blue and then dark. You lost yourself in thought without noticing the temperature drop, and by the time you came back to yourself your fingertips were cold.

The front door opened behind you. You looked back and found Hollis in the frame of it, the inside light behind him, his silhouette filling the doorway.

"Dinner's ready," he said.

You didn't answer right away. He looked past you, out toward the valley. And then, like he'd understood exactly why you were sitting there without needing it explained, he came out and sat beside you. He stayed quiet for a long while, the same as you, watching the dark settle over the flatland and the mountains beyond it. You rested your head on his shoulder. He was steady in a way nothing else had ever been.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀♱ ⠀

The remaining days passed faster than you expected. Janice kept you close, always finding reasons to pull you into the kitchen or onto the porch, always starting conversations that drifted naturally toward something that felt less like small talk and more like advice she was offering sideways — about Robert, about their early years, about how things weren't always easy and how that was part of it. She mentioned once that Los Angeles was only seven hours from Gardnerville, that she sometimes thought about making the drive down with the kids. It was a small thing and she said it casually, but you heard what she was doing. Not only had you grown attached to this family — the feeling was mutual, and she wanted you to know it.

The hardest part was the morning of the departure.

Janice made a full breakfast — said you had a long drive and needed to be fed. Hollis pointed out there were restaurants on the road and she swatted him. It was all warmly comic and a little melancholic, the particular feeling of a last morning somewhere you weren't ready to leave.

Then Timmy overheard.

In all the weeks you'd known him, through all the tantrums and the broken toys and the crying jags over completely invented injustices, you had never seen him like this. His small round eyes went watery almost immediately. You thought at first it was Hollis he was upset about — but then you felt a small hand close around the hem of your skirt, and a small head press against your hip, and you understood he was trying, in his quiet way, to simply keep you there.

When it was time to actually leave, he wouldn't let go. When you shifted he started to cry — silently, the way children cried when they were trying not to be seen doing it.

"Oh, Timmy," you said softly, reaching down to smooth his blond hair.

"Don't go," he said, small and shy, barely audible.

"Honey, the car's— " Hollis stopped. He'd looked down and found Timmy at your skirt. You could see the amusement starting at the corner of his mouth and you gave him a look that said don't you dare and he held it back with visible effort.

He crouched down in front of the boy instead, one hand on his shoulder, eye level. Timmy looked away, his face going from sad to sulky and betrayed.

"You're taking her away," he said.

"I'm not— " Hollis almost laughed and caught himself. "I mean, we have to go home. But we'll come back."

"You don't know that. I heard Mama saying you were going to a whole other country."

"Another state, you fool," Hollis said, and you pushed his arm lightly. He grinned. "I'll bring her back. I promise. Like I promised you that chocolate and I delivered, didn't I?"

Timmy considered this with a small pout, working through the logic of it. Then he looked from Hollis to you.

"Don't forget about me," he said, smaller again, a different register than the one he used with Hollis.

You crouched and pulled him into a proper hug. "I promise I won't."

"Hey," Hollis murmured behind you, "where's that voice when you talk to me?"

You pushed him without looking.

The rest of the goodbyes were easier, as goodbyes went. Janice held you longer than anyone, whispering thank you against your ear and telling you that you were family now, that whatever you needed she'd be there. Robert was more contained in the way he always was — a long embrace, a few quiet words to Hollis that you didn't catch. Bob and Hollis bickered for a while the way they always had and then Bob gave you a shy, sideways hug like he wasn't entirely sure how. Betty was cheerfully oblivious to the whole departure, which was its own kind of mercy — her small wave and uncomplicated smile lightening something that might otherwise have been heavier than you could manage.

You left in a different car than the one you'd arrived in. The stolen truck was gone — you figured that was what the trip to town with Robert had been for. This time you didn't watch the farm disappear in the mirror. You looked at each of their faces one last time, properly, and then turned to face the road ahead.

Your eyes kept drifting to the driver's seat. Not checking on him — just out of habit. A habit you'd caught yourself in since the very first time he'd driven you anywhere. You noticed, not for the first time, that his roots had grown in darker, the blond giving way to his natural hair. You'd noticed before but neverf quite registered. This time you just reached over and took his hand where it rested on his thigh. He looked down at it, then at you, and brought it to his lips without a word.

Seven more hours.