Comfort wasn’t part of your morning routine. This was different; no jet engines, no early calls, just the steady rhythm of someone breathing behind you.

You turned your head a fraction, glancing over your shoulder.

Jake Seresin’s arm was slung over your waist, heavy and warm. His chest rose and fell against your back, legs tangled with yours. 

Fuck. You really needed to stop drinking tequila.

Your mind caught up in stages. Last night at the Hard Deck, you had told Phoenix you were definitely not going home with anyone. Then, you had told yourself you were definitely not doing this again. And lastly, you had told Hangman, well, whatever it was that led him between your sheets. 

Again.

He never stayed the night. That was one of the two rules you had, the other being that you never ever acknowledged what you were doing. It kept your confusing cycle of getting drunk, fighting, and hate-fucking private from the inevitable judgment of your squadron. 

Yet here he was, evidently not gone. 

You lay there, very still, while irritation travelled up your spine. Of course, Hangman had to stay the one morning you needed him gone. His breathing was obnoxiously relaxed.

You shifted, and his grip tightened around you.

“Morning, honey,” Hangman mumbled against your shoulder, voice rough with sleep. His Texan accent was thicker in the morning, heavy like molasses.

Your eyes shut on instinct. Hangman’s morning voice was unfairly sexy, even as he used the condescending nickname he’d given you when you met. 

“Get out,” you snapped, no patience for civility. “We don’t do sleepovers. You were supposed to be gone by now.”

“Funny,” he hummed, kissing the bare skin of your shoulder far too casually. “You didn’t sound this mad when you were begging for me last night.”

Classic Hangman. You should have known he’d be petty first thing in the morning.

You pushed his arm off and sat up, ignoring the warmth creeping up your neck. “You need to go. Phoenix will be here any minute.”

“Phoenix already knows I sleep naked,” he said easily. “She’ll survive.”

“Hangman,” you warned. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He said it with that lazy drawl that meant he wasn’t taking you seriously at all.

You climbed out of bed, grabbed the clothes on the floor, and tossed his service khakis at his chest. “Up! Clothes, now.”

Hangman caught them one-handed without sitting up. “Sweetheart, if you didn’t want me here, you wouldn’t have picked a fight with me last night.”

“You’re easy,” you scoffed. “That’s not my problem. And I was drunk.”

“You weren’t that drunk. You knew exactly who you were dragging home.”

“I made a bad decision after three drinks. You were sober. You knew not to overstay your welcome.”

Hangman laughed under his breath. “Don’t act like I’ve lost my mind. You can’t keep your hands off me.”

You bristled. “Don’t worry, this is the last time you need to worry about my hands being on you.”

“I’m not worried,” he murmured, eyes dragging down your body leisurely. “I know I won’t have to wait much longer.”

“I mean it, Hangman.”

He looked at you like you’d just said you were moving to Mars. “Sure you do. You’ll mean it next time, too.”

Annoyance flickered hot under your ribs. The worst part was that Hangman wasn’t entirely wrong, and that always made him intolerable. You weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of giving in.

“Screw you,” you shot back. “It’s never happening again.”

Hangman pushed up on his elbows, watching you with sharp, alert eyes. The shift of muscle in his biceps hit your stomach before you could ignore it. 

“Course it is,” Hangman said. “You always say the same thing. It’s cute; you pretending you don’t give me fuck-me eyes as soon as everyone’s gone.”

He moved slowly, like he was humouring you, and stepped out of the sheets. He was, regrettably, a glorious sight: all lean planes and long lines, muscles pulling tight under golden skin as he stretched. Every flex was a reminder of exactly how he’d used that strength to his advantage last night.

His mouth curved, his grin dangerous and knowing. “You always get real serious when you’re lyin’ to yourself,” Hangman added, smug as all hell. 

“Oh, please,” you snapped. “If I’m lying, you’re delusional. You strut around base like you’re God’s gift to naval aviation when most of the time you run on sheer dumb luck.”

Hangman’s jaw tightened. “Right. And you’re, what? The poster girl for righteous indignation? You start a fight with me every time you see me.”

“You think everything’s about you,” you said. “Typical.”

He closed the space between you in three steps, one hand cupping the back of your head.

“You really think this is the last time, honey?” Hangman murmured.

You should’ve pushed him away. You meant to push him away. Instead, you pulled him closer the second he pressed his lips to yours.

Hangman kissed you as if he were making a counterargument.

It was deliciously familiar: his lips expertly weakening your knees, his thumb sliding over your jaw. You hated the way your body answered before your mind did. Your hands were already on his shoulders, your mouth already opening against his.

He angled his head, chased your mouth, swallowed the tiny sound you made.

You broke away, breath unsteady. “You need to go,” you said, glancing at your alarm clock. “Phoenix is almost here.”

That earned you a slow, smug curl of his mouth. “Sure, Bee,” Hangman drawled. It was almost impressive how he made every nickname of yours sound patronising—even your callsign. “Whatever you say.”

He started dressing piece by piece, pulling on a tank top and then his trousers. He wasn’t touching you, but your body reacted like he was kissing his way down your neck. 

It didn’t matter how good the sex was. Or how Hangman looked right now. He was a bad habit, and you sure as hell weren’t going to let this happen again. Eventually, one of you was going to crash and burn, and it wouldn’t be you.

“See you at briefing,” you managed once he was dressed.

Hangman smirked, taking one last chance to sweep his gaze across your kiss-bitten lips. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

When he was gone, you exhaled hard.

New rules: no more tequila, no more Hangman, no more mistakes.

You walked into morning briefing with Phoenix thirty minutes later, pretending you hadn’t just made out with your sworn rival.

Hangman was already in his seat, leaning back like he owned the place. He caught your eye and smirked knowingly. You rolled your eyes and sat beside Rooster, because getting caught punching Hangman by your superior officer was frowned upon.

“Alright, today we’re running three-versus-one drills,” Maverick declared once everyone arrived. “Let’s see how many of you can work together to take me down.”

Cue the disgruntled groans. Fanboy mimed slamming his head against the table.

“You’ll be running mixed teams,” Maverick continued, ignoring your dramatics. “Team leaders have been selected for the day. First up,” he checked the clipboard, “Is Bee.”

The room looked at you in unison, nodding in collective respect. You were the only person in the room who could cut through everyone’s nonsense and get them pointed in the same direction without sounding like a drill sergeant or a babysitter. 

With you in charge, they flew cleaner, faster, and better.

That moment of silent affirmation was immediately shattered by a much louder complaint from Hangman.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said, chortling. “Honey Bee?”

You rolled your eyes. “You should really work on your jealousy. It’s not very professional.”

“I’m not jealous,” Hangman fired back immediately. “I just think the team leaders shouldn’t be slow, overcautious, and afraid of a little risk.”

Phoenix kicked the back of his chair without glancing up from her pre-flight notes. “Then it’s a good thing you’re not in charge, Bagman.”

Maverick ignored all of you. “Bee, your team is Hangman, Phoenix, and Bob.”

The groans that rose from your side of the room were perfectly synchronised.

You slumped a fraction in your seat. Across from you, the light visibly faded from Bob’s eyes. Phoenix didn’t bother masking her irritation; she just kicked Hangman’s chair again, harder this time.

Beside you, Rooster whispered, “I’ll pray for you.”

“Prayers aren’t enough,” Bob said, shaking his head in resignation. 

Hangman smirked and tapped his pen on his desk. “Can’t wait.”

You resisted the urge to throw your binder at his head.

In the air, Phoenix tightened the formation around you without question, sliding neatly into place. Her and Bob’s trust in you was bone-deep. 

Hangman, on the other hand, never enjoyed taking orders from you.

“Team Leader, requesting permission to actually use my aircraft instead of admiring the scenery,” he drawled.

You smiled. “Permission denied. Stay on my wing.”

“You really get off on saying that, don’t you?”

“Only because it annoys you.”

Hangman huffed. “One day you’re gonna admit you like flying with me.”

“One day you’ll stop talking,” you replied sweetly. “And then I will actually like flying with you.”

Maverick’s voice sounded through the comms. “Team One, I hope you’re paying attention,” he said. 

Your breath sank low in your chest. It was easy to slide into the clean, dependable part of your brain that always focused when you were in the air.

“All right,” you said calmly. “Phoenix, left side containment. Bob, keep your eyes on the radar. Tell me the second you see Maverick. Hangman—”

“Let me guess,” he interrupted. “I’m the watchdog?”

You scoffed. “If I wanted a watchdog, I’d get one that barked on command, not whenever he feels like it. You’re right-flank aggression. Don’t you dare take that as permission to—”

Hangman launched himself forward like a missile. “Right flank engaged,” he announced.

“Hangman!” Phoenix barked. “You asshole!”

You gritted your teeth so hard your jaw clicked. “Hangman, return to formation. Now.”

He made a low, playful hum. “Oh, Honey Bee. Your whole thing is patience. Let me be the excitement.”

“Your thing is getting everyone else killed,” you shot back. “Return to formation. That’s an order, Hangman.”

Maverick dove at you out of the sun. You rolled left, Phoenix sliding under you, the two of you syncing with the kind of ease that only months of practice could build.

“Sloppy,” Maverick observed. “Bee, you’ve got Phoenix covered, but you’re flying without a wingman.”

“Only because someone’s allergic to teamwork,” Phoenix quipped.

You steadied your breathing. “Hangman, tighten up. You’re leaving too big of a gap.”

Bob chimed in, gentle as always, “He’s coming around again—two o’clock, descending.”

You saw it cleanly: Maverick’s angle, his speed, that little off-kilter move he did to tempt you into lunging. But you’d practised this scenario before, and you were ready to face him.

“Phoenix, pinch him left,” you ordered.

“On it.”

“Bob, let’s get a lock on him.”

“Copy.”

You dipped low—just enough to look exposed and make Maverick think you’d gotten overeager. It worked. You tracked the tiny twitch in his angle, the micro-shift he always made when he thought he saw an opening.

Hangman chimed, “Careful, Bee. You’re pushing too close.”

Of course, he’d say that. King Reckless himself warning you about boundaries? You didn’t dignify it with a reply.

You just pressed the advantage, rolling smoothly back toward Maverick’s tail. 

“Come on, Bob,” you said, eyes locked on Maverick’s plane. “Give me tone.”

Phoenix shifted into position, and you knew Bob would be able to get you a tone with that clear line to Maverick. You nudged the nose of your jet another degree. Almost there. Almost—

You exhaled, ready for that sweet hit, when everything went to hell.

Hangman shot through Bob’s line without any consideration for all the work you’d put in, engines screaming loud enough to rattle your teeth.

“I got him!” he shouted.

You watched in a moment of awful, slow-motion clarity as Hangman blocked Bob’s perfect shot. Without a wingman to help you and without Bob getting a lock on Maverick, you were doomed.

“Hangman, don’t—”

The high-pitched squeal of Maverick getting a lock on you rang throughout your plane—a final, devastating blow. Maverick had slipped beneath Hangman with a single elegant roll, like he’d been waiting for this exact moment of idiocy. 

You were a sitting duck after playing bait.

“That’s a fail,” Maverick said happily, like he hadn’t crushed your soul. “Team One, you’re dead. Sorry, Bee. It would’ve worked if your entire team had followed your lead. Team Two, suit up.”

You sat in stunned silence for a beat, breathing hard as fury made your pulse spike. 

You had him. You had sacrificed yourself to give Phoenix and Bob the perfect shot, and you lost just because of Hangman’s typical self-interest.

This was why you couldn’t stand Hangman.

The flight back to the hangar was suffocating in its silence. Your jaw locked so tightly your molars ached. You weren’t sure which made you angrier: what Hangman just did in the air, or the knowledge that you’d let him put his mouth on yours that morning.

By the time you landed, your heart was pounding, your breath clipped and shallow. You tore your helmet off so fast that the chin strap scraped your jaw. You didn’t even wait for the ladder to settle before swinging a leg out, boots hitting the metal rungs with sharp, angry clanks.

You saw Hangman descending his own ladder with that maddeningly casual confidence. He didn’t seem to think he’d just blown your chance to finally best Maverick, but that wasn’t anything new.

Bob offered you a sympathetic wince before putting distance between himself and whatever volcanic event you were about to become. You just moved, boots hitting the ground with determined strides as you marched toward Hangman.

The second he spotted you, that infuriating smirk began to form. You didn’t give him the chance to finish it.

“You asshole—” you screeched, shoving Hangman so hard he toppled backwards.

“Woah, woah, woah!”

“Bee, chill!”

Rooster and Payback each caught an arm as they passed, steering you away. They were already headed out for their turn in the exercise, and the last thing they wanted was you getting written up—even if Hangman had it coming.

Bob reluctantly helped Hangman up.

“I can’t believe you—” you began, chest still heaving from anger.

“I almost had him,” Hangman interrupted, maddeningly calm.

“You sabotaged us! You flew directly into Bob’s shot!” You jabbed a finger at him, heat prickling across your face. “You just had to make it about you.”

He smirked. “It’s always about me.”

“Not when I’m in charge,” you corrected. “And not during a team exercise.”

“I was helping.”

“Yeah, helping Maverick kill me!” you snapped, your voice cracking upward into a pitch that made Rooster flinch beside you. “You undermined the chain of command,” you said. “You ignored formation. You showboated. You risked everything—”

“Look, you had a nice little plan going,” Hangman allowed. His gaze flicked to Rooster’s hand still around your arm before he dragged his attention back to you. “But if you hadn’t been crawling like you were driving your grandma to Sunday brunch earlier—”

“Do you seriously think you can blame me for this?” You stepped forward, and Rooster’s fingers tightened instinctively to keep you from closing the distance. “I played the bait, I had Maverick hooked!”

“And I had a better shot.”

You barked out a laugh so sharp it made Hangman’s shoulders tense. “Apparently, you’re delusional as well as a selfish bastard.”

“You’re welcome for trying to get us a win.”

“Us? Us?!” You yanked your arm free from Rooster, giving Hangman’s shoulders another shove. 

It made your skin crawl that you’d had him this close only hours ago. 

You laughed incredulously. “You threw the entire drill because you can’t stand someone else getting a hit first! It doesn’t matter who gets a lock on Maverick, but it does matter that you fucked it up for everyone else!”

Phoenix saved you. “Okay, let’s go hit the showers,” she said, ushering you off the tarmac. 

You let her guide you a few steps, your pulse still hammering in your throat. You turned to see Hangman raise his chin, already bracing for another round.

“You know what your problem is?” you said. “You’re terrified that if you’re not the one who gets the win, no one will bother noticing you at all. All that bravado,” you flicked a hand dismissively at Hangman, “is just you trying to outrun the idea that you’re only as good as your last solo victory. And God forbid anyone else shine for half a second.”

Hangman’s posture twitched just enough for you to notice.

“So do us all a favour,” you finished. “If you don’t want to be part of this team, put in for a transfer. At least then we won’t have to worry about you getting us killed on a real mission.”

Phoenix’s hand landed between your shoulder blades. “Bee,” she warned quietly.

Hangman exhaled something that might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so sharp. “Funny,” he said, his voice matching your cutting tone. “For someone who’s so damn sure she knows how to lead, you crumble the second anyone challenges you. That’s the real reason you’ll never be team leader outside of a simulation.”

His words punched harder than you expected. Not because they were true, but because he’d designed them to hurt you.

Phoenix tugged you away firmly this time, steering you off the tarmac before you could keep the argument going.

“You’re a saint for not killing him,” she muttered under her breath.

You hummed noncommittally, trying to ignore the sick twist in your stomach. 

Last night you’d had your hands in his hair, tugging him closer. Today, you’d used them to push him hard enough to lose balance. You hated being stuck in this cycle.

By the time the squad hit the Hard Deck that night, the teasing had already started.

“Here we go,” Harvard said, elbowing Yale. “Bee and Hangman. Round… whatever this is. Are we counting by years or fights?”

Coyote grinned. “I’m losing track. We should make it a drinking game. Every time they say something hurtful, take a shot. No, wait—every time there’s a physical altercation, take two shots.”

You exhaled and leaned against the rail. Everyone assumed you and Hangman would fall into the usual routine: fight, make some sarcastic quip, get aggressive, and argue until everyone went home. 

Little did they know what you used to do after all that noise.

The squadron kept teasing you, even though you’d already decided you were done with anything that involved Jake Seresin.

“Sober Bee,” Bob said, passing you the Coke you’d ordered. “I approve.”

“Thanks,” you said, accepting the glass. “I’m done getting tipsy and letting Hangman bait me into an argument.”

Bob grinned and raised his own Coke. “I admire your commitment.”

Fanboy overheard and groaned loud enough for half the bar to look over. “Sober Bee? Guess we’re starved for entertainment tonight.”

“Truly the end times,” Fritz said dramatically. 

Phoenix didn’t look up as she lined up a shot on the pool table. “Calm down, boys. It’s not like she gets drunk every week,” she defended you. 

Rooster smirked. “She’s only sober because she almost bagged Maverick today and wants to remember the glory in crystal clarity,” he said, pulling you into a side-hug so tight you almost spilt your drink.

“Your team almost had a kill shot,” Halo said, pointing at you like you were a celebrity. “If Maverick had been one second slower—”

You held up a hand. “Alright, children, let’s not rewrite the story. We didn’t bag Maverick. He Houdini’d out of our trap like he always does.”

“Yeah, but you rattled him,” Payback said, grinning proudly. “He seemed proud.”

The table erupted in agreement.

Halo gave you a look. “Face it, Bee. You’ve been flying better than all of us ever since the squadron became permanent. You’re the only one who can stay calm up against Maverick.”

“Unsettlingly calm,” Bob confirmed, nodding sagely. 

You chuckled. “Calm is good, Bob. Calm means no one ends the night with a black eye.”

“Hangman ends every night with a black eye,” Phoenix said. “Emotionally speaking.”

That earned her a round of delighted laughter.

Rooster tilted his head, conspiratorial. “Speaking of Hangman, he’s watching you.”

Coyote grinned. “He’s malfunctioning. Doesn’t know what to do when Bee isn’t screaming at him.”

You rolled your eyes at their dramatics. “I’m choosing peace from now on,” you declared. “If that means I don’t have to talk to his arrogant ass tonight, then I call that a win.”

Your squadron’s laughter, their drunken banter, and Hangman’s sidelong glances were background noise for the rest of the night. 

That is, until Bob ducked away toward the bathroom. Because who else would slide into the vacant space but the devil himself?

Hangman leaned one elbow on the rail, posture loose in that unbothered manner he’d perfected. 

“You’re behaving tonight,” he said, voice low and amused. “Should I be worried? It’s getting late. If you’re planning to start something, now’s your window.”

You held up your glass. “Sorry to disappoint. No hostile takeover scheduled.”

Hangman blinked at your Coke. “You’re sober?”

“Tragically.”

“Really?” He looked you over, slow and assessing. It infuriated you that it still made your spine tingle. “I mean, it’s not like you’re drunk all the time. But I thought after today…” You raised an eyebrow. “I just mean you aren’t usually glued to Bob all night long.”

“It’s called having a conversation,” you said. “You should try it sometime.”

His mouth curved. “I don’t do ‘conversation.’ I’m more of a hands-on communicator.”

And there it was—subtext thick enough to choke on. Heat shot low in your abdomen, annoying and immediate. You straightened your spine like that would shove the feeling back down where it belonged. 

You were frustrated at the effect Hangman’s words had on your body, and infuriated that he had noticed it. 

“Well,” you said sharply, “good thing I’m off duty. No ‘hands-on’ anything. No more… whatever this was.”

Hangman’s brows lifted in amusement. “Sure,” he said lightly. “We’re doing the whole ‘pretend to fight because people are around’ routine.”

“Hangman, I’m not pretending.” You heard the sharpness in your own voice. “We argue because we never agree on how to do our jobs. Not because other people are around.”

Hangman’s smirk faltered. “Come on, honey,” he murmured. “You’re still mad about this morning? You wanted to win your way, and I wanted to win the right way.”

“‘The right way’?” You gave a short, bitter laugh. “You tanked a team drill because you needed to be the hero.” 

“That’s not what happened.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

Hangman leaned in, just enough for his breath to ghost your cheek. “You think you’re the only tactician in that cockpit?”

“No,” you said, “but I was the team leader, and ignoring me made you a liability. When you’re a bad teammate, you’re a bad pilot.”

You knew that would hit its mark. 

Hangman’s shoulders tensed; his jaw flexed hard. His eyes darted to your Coke again, like he wished you were tipsy so he could recognise this behaviour as foreplay. But you weren’t drinking, and you weren’t starting a fight just to tear his clothes off later.

“So that’s it?” he asked, brows pulled together in mild confusion. “You’re done?”

“I told you this morning it was the last time,” you reminded him. “I meant it.”

“Thought it was just post-sleepover dramatics,” Hangman admitted.

Something flickered behind his green eyes; the memory of your warm hands on his shoulders and in his hair last night. You refused to acknowledge any of it.

He huffed out a laugh, but it came out thin. “So this is it?”

“Yes.”

“And this isn’t a cooling-off period?”

“Nope.”

Hangman stood there, letting the silence stretch. His eyes kept drifting to your mouth in quick, guilty flicks he clearly didn’t mean to give away. You accidentally mirrored the movement before catching yourself. 

Nope. Not happening.

Hangman’s voice dropped low enough that you felt it in your ribs. “So we burn the whole thing down and walk away?”

“What’s there to burn?” you asked. “We don’t even like each other.”

His laugh was sharp and humourless. “Never said we did.”

“Exactly. I’m tired of waking up feeling like an idiot.”

Hangman nodded once, too sharply. “Right.”

Then he pivoted on his heel, swagger switched back on, and headed toward the bar to flirt with the nearest warm body. 

Bob returned a moment later, cheerful and oblivious. “Hey, I think I’m done for the night. Did you want a ride home?”

You nodded, chugging the rest of your Coke. “Yeah, I’m definitely done.”

The change didn’t happen overnight. It was more of a slow radio static you kept trying to tune out until it got too loud to ignore.

A couple of days later, during morning drills, Hangman missed an opening so obvious it was practically outlined in neon. 

He was flying at Rooster’s five, perfectly positioned to take the clean shot Maverick had left open as bait, but he surprised everyone. Instead of swan-diving into the shot with that infuriating confidence, Hangman waited.

He just stayed there, keeping an eye on Maverick long enough for Payback to slip in and tag the target.

“Uh—thanks?” Payback said, confused.

Hangman just nodded. No bragging, no gloating, not even a sarcastic salute in your direction acknowledging his teamwork. Nothing. 

You felt a prickle on the back of your neck, but it was too early to understand what was wrong.

It wasn’t just the lack of gloating. Hangman was almost silent over the comms. And, fine, maybe you looked at him a half-second longer than necessary, purely because you were waiting for the punchline. He didn’t deliver one, and that alone was unsettling.

By the time you landed, you thought you’d imagined it.

But the next few days didn’t snap him back to normal. If anything, the errors got stranger. Hangman was a beat too slow here, hesitated awkwardly there. Twice, he overshot an angle he could’ve flown in his sleep. Another time, he clipped a pass so wide that Phoenix muttered about checking him for head injuries.

You noticed the other things no one else would’ve clocked, like the way his fidgeting changed. Most of the time, Hangman was all effortless swagger, fingers tapping on the table. Now his tells were silent: tight little flexes of his gloved hand, averted eyes.

Day five made it impossible to brush off.

You were halfway through a dogfighting sequence when Hangman chose the defensive angle over a ballsy opportunity he’d never ignore. His flying style was starting to resemble yours, one he often made fun of you for adopting.

You felt the disruption before you really understood it. Your instincts were reacting as they always did when Hangman was about to barrel through a gap, and you’d already adjusted your angle to make room for him. 

But Hangman didn’t take the risk, so you lost the positional advantage you’d built. Maverick slipped out of your trap and tagged Phoenix before she could blink.

On the tarmac, Phoenix stared at the sky in shock. “What the hell was that?”

Hangman pulled off his own helmet. “Didn’t want to compromise the team’s spacing.”

You and Phoenix exchanged a look that said Who is this man, and what has he done with Hangman?

But Hangman wasn’t being entirely unlike himself. He still muttered at Phoenix under his breath. He still rolled his eyes when Rooster was being overdramatic. He even smirked at you once, but it came out wrong, like his mouth had forgotten the shape of it.

You knew what Hangman’s real smirk looked like. You’d seen it on nights you pushed him far enough to end up in your bed, and you’d felt the shape of it against your neck. 

This one wasn’t it.

The next time the squadron hit the Hard Deck, you didn’t talk to him. You hadn’t interacted much since you decided to stop hooking up. There wasn’t a need for it; you weren’t friends, and you’d never tried to get to know each other.

By week two, the whole squad was convinced he had a virus of some kind.

You were running a tight-knit combat simulation when Hangman raised his hand during planning. “Maybe we keep Rooster on high cover,” he suggested. “Safer for the team that way.”

The entire room turned to look at him.

Fanboy began muttering, “He’s sick. He has to be.”

Rooster just stared at Hangman like he was possessed.

You were waiting for Hangman to throw a jab at you, bait you into arguing, or make some snide crack about your flight speed. But he never looked at you long enough for you to register anything on his face, so you had no idea what he was thinking.

After the simulation, the team regrouped on the tarmac. 

“Does anyone else think Hangman’s been replaced by an alien?” Fritz asked quietly.

Harvard sighed. “I miss when he was insufferable.”

You just sipped water and watched Hangman, who stood out of earshot, double-checking a checklist you know he’d memorised back in flight school. 

The picture of responsibility; the antithesis of Hangman.

He wasn’t doing anything, but that was the problem. Hangman’s worst qualities made him a pain in your ass, but his best qualities kept the team sharp. He was the idiot who risked someone else getting hit so he could make a clean shot.

You’d never realised how much of your own flying relied on reacting to Hangman—dodging his chaos, anticipating his arrogance. 

Without Hangman flying the way he always did, the team was failing. The little mistakes and miscommunications were starting to add up.

In week three, after a messy practice that would’ve gotten you all grounded if Cyclone had been watching, Rooster finally snapped.

“Okay,” he exclaimed, sweeping an arm toward Hangman, “what is going on with you?”

Hangman barely shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Phoenix muttered.

Bob elbowed her, reminding her to keep things light. “We’re just a little confused,” he said. “You’re not flying like yourself.”

You stood there, helmet under your arm, watching Hangman stare at the ground. His shoulders were strong as ever, but the set of them was too careful.

Your chest tightened. It wasn’t your problem, and you didn’t owe Hangman anything, but it was throwing everyone off. Even as you tried to shut it out, you couldn’t avoid the fact that the once well-oiled machine of your squadron was misfiring.

When Hangman finally looked up, his eyes flicked to you once before skittering away.

Phoenix pulled you aside and said what everyone had been tiptoeing around. “You need to talk to him.”

You frowned. “Why me?”

“Because you’re good at this,” she insisted. “You’re the one who fixes people when they’re screwing up. You did it for me at Top Gun, and you did it for Rooster last year before the Uranium mission.”

“Hangman and I don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter if you two fight every time you breathe in the same direction,” Phoenix cut in. “Someone has to get him back on track, and you’re the only person on the team he actually respects as a pilot.”

You knew she was right. Hangman was a crucial member of the team, and the team was falling apart. Unfortunately, you happened to be their glue.

Perfect. A heart-to-heart with the man you’d been avoiding for the last three weeks. What could go wrong?

You barely lasted ten minutes before approaching him. As you walked beside him after debrief, matching his pace, Hangman kept his eyes on the ground. 

Every step toward him was a battle with your frustration. Despite everything, you couldn’t let Hangman spiral. You had to be the Bee the team relied on, not the one who remembered all your reckless spats.

“Hangman,” you finally said, because someone had to say something.

Nothing. Hangman just blinked and kept walking.

You knew that slow and deliberate expression, the one he used when he was thinking too fast and trying not to show it. Only you had the dictionary of Hangman’s moves, the little provocations and glances nobody else ever endured.

Fine. You could be rude, too.

“You’re flying weird,” you declared bluntly.

Hangman exhaled. Not annoyed, more like he’d been waiting for you to bring it up so he didn’t have to. “I’m flying safe,” he corrected you.

“That’s the problem.”

His mouth twitched, the ghost of a smirk that never fully formed. “Thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I don’t appreciate you switching up the entire rhythm of the team without warning,” you said. “Nobody knows how to fly around you right now. Do you think that’s helping?”

Hangman didn’t answer. He just kept walking, boots scuffing against concrete, hands tight at his sides instead of swinging with that usual swagger. 

After ten paces of silence, Hangman spoke. “I don’t like the idea that my role on the team is to get people killed.”

You stopped walking. 

Hangman got a few steps ahead before he realised you weren’t beside him anymore. When he turned, his face was pinched.

You hated how much it mattered to you; how unwilling you were to let him falter, even if he’d never done the same for you.

“That’s not your job,” you said quietly.

Hangman tilted his head. “You’d know, right? Since you’ve always had such strong opinions about how I fly.”

“You make it very easy to have opinions,” you snapped.

He stepped closer, a little too casually. “Are you watching me that closely?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Didn’t say you liked what you saw.”

You glared. “For once in your life, can you not make this about your ego?”

“Is that what you think this is?” Hangman asked. His voice was calm and practised.

Your chest tightened.

“Tell me,” you said carefully, “What’s going on?”

He huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I’m the one who takes the shots no one else can; the one who pulls the moves that’d get most people into trouble; the one who—” Hangman cut himself off, jaw clenching. “I don’t like that the only reason I’m useful to the Navy is that I’m willing to risk your lives.”

Something twisted behind your ribs. You’d said versions of that to Hangman’s face several times since you first met. You’d judged him for it, rolled your eyes at it, built half your rivalry on the assumption that he was a self-centred showboat with no concern for others.

It hadn’t occurred to you that he’d actually thought about the cost.

Suddenly, it felt like you’d been picking a fight with someone who’d already been bleeding.

Hangman scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “So I’m trying something different.”

“And it’s making the team fly worse,” you added, softer than you intended.

“Can’t win, can I?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

You closed the distance. Hangman’s shoulders were tense, his posture tight.

“Hangman,” you said, and you hated the way your voice gentled automatically. “Being reckless isn’t the same thing as being careless.”

He blinked at you. It was the same look he used to give you at the Hard Deck, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to argue with you or pin you against the wall. 

“You fly instinctively,” you continued. “Aggressively. Sharply. Sometimes stupidly, yes, but you take the crazy shot so the rest of us don’t have to. That doesn’t make you a liability. It makes you important.”

His throat bobbed when he swallowed.

The air between you tightened in that annoying, hot way that made you acutely aware of the two weeks of silence and the history that came before it.

“Look,” you said, shoving the feeling aside, “you don’t have to calculate risks and think of what’s best for the team. That’s my job.”

Hangman’s head tilted. “Then what’s mine?”

You hesitated. “You’re the wildcard. You take the stupid shot, so the rest of us get the safer one. You’re still a pain in my ass,” you added, because you were well past lying to him. “None of this should give you a big head.”

Hangman chuckled. “Too late.” 

It tugged at something annoyingly low in your stomach, the same part that was overly aware that Hangman knew exactly how far he could push without hurting you. 

You exhaled. “Whatever this is,” you gestured vaguely at Hangman, “you need to knock it off. The team needs you to be you. No matter how much that seems to clash with me being me.”

Hangman didn’t answer at first. He just watched you, expression unreadable. But for the first time in weeks, he didn’t look away.

Finally, he nodded. “Alright,” he said.

You turned before he could see the way your conversation had rearranged every label you had on him.

Great, now you respected Hangman. The thought made you shiver in discomfort.

You walked toward the locker rooms, muttering “Idiot,” under your breath.

Behind you, you heard him reply, “Control freak.”

At least some things never changed.

You were pleasantly surprised that your conversation with Hangman actually made a difference. A few days later, he was flying like himself again: sharp, ballsy, and irritatingly confident—but less prone to throwing others under the bus to get his perfect shot. 

The team’s rhythm snapped back into place with the same neat click as a helmet visor locking.

There was one difference, though: you and Hangman weren’t fighting.

Sure, you still made comments under your breath, berating and cursing him. He still smirked when you screwed up the simulation timing by half a second. You still gave each other looks that said I could push your buttons if I wanted to, and you know I could.

But you never did.

Every time one of those almost-fights hovered between you, there was a strange little beat you didn’t know how to fill. Usually, you would’ve thrown a jab, or Hangman would’ve rolled his eyes. Now you both just looked away.

You pretended you weren’t thinking about it.

Maverick wanted you early to help set up for a multi-ship coordination drill, which meant deciphering his handwriting and loading flight paths before the others arrived.

When you rounded the corner of the hangar, you paused. Hangman was in the hangar beside his jet, too busy working to even notice you.

The side panel of his jet was open, one of his hands braced against the metal frame as the other tightened something inside the wiring. His sleeves were pushed to his elbows, a smear of grease on his forearm, mouth set in concentration. 

Watching him like that made you feel like you’d stumbled onto something private. 

“Wow,” you said. “You’re doing manual labour? What’s next, hell freezing over?”

Hangman just glanced back, gave you an unimpressed once-over, and returned to the wiring. “Morning to you, too, Honey Bee.” 

You stepped closer before you realised it, drawn in by his quiet focus. “What are you doing?” 

He ignored your question, “Hand me the wrench.”

You blinked. “You’re trusting me with tools?”

“Trusting you to pass them to me,” he corrected. “Not use them.”

You found the wrench on the cart and gave it to him. Your fingers brushed, but neither of you acknowledged it. Hangman tightened something with clean, practised movements.

“Just some quick adjustments and tightening,” he said. “Saves the mechanics a few minutes.”

You stared. “Do you do this often?”

“Whenever I can spare a minute.” Hangman shrugged. “If something feels off in the air, I want to know I didn’t ignore it on the ground.”

You hadn’t expected that from him.

“That…” You hesitated. “…sounds like something I’d say.”

Hangman paused for half a second. Then he cleared his throat and kept tightening the bolt. You didn’t see the faint grin he tried to smother as he angled his face toward the jet.

He snapped the panel shut, wiped his hands on a rag, and turned to you. “You’re here early. Maverick rope you into cone duty?”

“He needs someone who can read the runes he calls handwriting,” you said. “Apparently it’s me.”

Hangman snorted. “Good luck with that.”

You nodded, then added, “I’m convinced it’s going to get the Navy in legal trouble one day.”

He cracked a genuine smile at that. You felt something in your chest unclench in relief. Hangman wasn’t quite back to normal with you, but at least he looked more like himself.

“So, you’re an unofficial mechanic now?” you asked.

“Only for the boring stuff.” He shook out his hand, though it looked suspiciously like he was shaking off nerves. “And before you say it, I’m not doing it to impress anyone.”

You raised an eyebrow. “I know. If you were trying to impress someone, you’d be doing it shirtless.”

Hangman made a face. “It’s six in the morning.”

“Never stopped you before.”

You both chuckled. Yours fading a little quicker, Hangman’s dragged half a beat longer. The lack of unity made that extra moment stretch awkwardly.

You were both acutely aware of how new laughing without menace was for you both. You couldn’t remember if you’d ever had a conversation with Hangman that didn’t end with someone storming off or tossing insults like grenades. 

“So,” he said, tilting his head, studying you with that too-familiar focus. “Why’d Maverick need you early?”

“He likes to make me suffer,” you said. “It’s character building.”

Hangman scoffed. “You don’t need more character. You’re already annoying enough.”

His words didn’t land with their usual edge. Instead, he looked strangely friendly, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to tease you gently yet.

“Says the man who colour-codes his clothes,” you shot back.

“I do not—”

You raised one eyebrow.

“…fine,” he muttered. “Once.”

“You mean you only got caught once.”

“By you,” he said.

You laughed, surprised because it wasn’t the you’re-an-idiot you usually aimed at him. You couldn’t remember the last time someone made you laugh like that, and you definitely hadn’t expected it to be Hangman.

He looked away, but not quickly enough to hide the fact that he was laughing too, like he couldn’t help himself.

You started heading towards Maverick’s office together. 

“Honestly, I’m happy to be early,” you admitted. “Gets me out of 5am pickleball practice.”

Hangman groaned. “Don’t say pickleball to me. Coyote’s trying to recruit me like it’s a cult.”

“It is a cult,” you agreed vehemently. “If one more person asks me to ‘just try a game,’ I’m joining the Air Force.”

He smirked. “So we’re hiding out in the hangar until the cult loses interest?”

“That’s the plan.”

Hangman watched you with mild amusement, hands in his pockets like he wasn’t sure what else to do with them. “Weird,” he said.

“What is?”

“Talking to you without you threatening to throw me off the carrier.”

You fought a smile. “I still might.”

“Good,” he said. “I was worried you might’ve gone soft.”

“You just admitted that you worry about me,” you pointed out, smug. “At this rate, I should be exhausted from how often I’m running through your mind.” 

Hangman huffed a laugh at your comeback, shaking his head. 

“Seriously, Hangman,” you went on. “Rent-free. Have some shame.”

“That sounds exactly like something my little sister would’ve said to piss me off growing up.”

You blinked. “Weird. Didn’t think I’d have anything in common with anyone in the Seresin gene pool.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said. “My sisters don’t let me get away with anything, and they definitely don’t take my shit.”

“You have sisters?”

“Both younger and a lot smarter than me.”

“That tracks.”

Hangman nudged your shoulder with his. “What about you?”

You smiled faintly. “I’m close with my family. I just don’t see them much.”

“Mine complain about the beach constantly when they visit,” he said. “Guess that’s what happens when you grow up far from it.”

“Right,” you said, smirking. “Texas farm boy. I get it, though. I used to get seasick just looking at boats—being on them was hell.”

Hangman chuckled, agreeing. “First deployment, I used to skip meals so I wouldn’t throw up.”

“Seriously?” you asked, a laugh already bubbling.

“Seriously,” he said. “I learned the hard way when my stomach growled loud enough to interrupt an Admiral.”

You burst into unrestrained laughter, and Hangman joined in naturally. For once, neither of you rushed to fill the silence that followed. It wasn’t even awkward, just surprisingly pleasant. 

“I should go find Maverick,” you finally said, glancing at your watch.

“Right,” Hangman said. “Wouldn’t want to be late.”

You walked side by side to the other end of the hangar. 

You’d known Hangman for years, just not this version. You knew the pilot, the competitor, the guy who made a hobby out of getting under your skin. You knew the version you saw in the air and the one you fell into at night when you both should’ve known better.

You’d spent so long assuming Hangman was all sharp corners and ego. But you enjoyed it when you weren’t fighting. For years, you’d both been too busy competing to ever actually talk. Now that you had, every assumption felt a little off.

You didn’t make it three steps into the Hard Deck before your squadron shouted your name. It was loud enough that Penny shot all of you a warning look over the bar, which Fanboy ignored by whistling loudly.

“Beeeeee!” Coyote sang. “Our favourite early bird.”

Hangman, sitting beside him, smirked. “Maverick had her running errands before sunrise. You know him, never met a chore he wouldn’t outsource.”

The table dissolved in giggles. You dropped into the empty chair across from Hangman, who looked pleased that he’d made you laugh. 

“You think Maverick forces me out of bed just to annoy me?” you said lightly. “That was only half the reason tonight.”

Phoenix leaned forward. “If he had you in early for anything other than his horrible handwriting, it must’ve been important.”

You shrugged. “Well… he wanted to tell me before he told anyone else.” You tried to make it sound casual, even though your stomach had been doing Olympic-level gymnastics ever since.

“Tell you what?” Rooster asked, brow raised.

“Cyclone made me team leader for the upcoming mission,” you said, and the second the words left your mouth, the table went still.

And then all of them absolutely erupted.

Phoenix slapped both palms on the table so hard the salt and pepper shakers toppled over. Coyote launched halfway out of his seat. Rooster choked on nothing. Even Bob pushed his chair back in pure shock.

“Bee, holy shit!”

“Finally!”

You laughed as Phoenix grabbed your shoulders and shook you like a maraca. Bob beamed at you with shiny eyes, and you caught Hangman’s expression softening into genuine satisfaction.

“Mav said Cyclone was watching our last drill and thought it was time someone other than Mav took the lead,” you said. “And, more importantly, he already told Penny that drinks are on him tonight.”

Phoenix raised her beer. “To Bee! Our fearless leader!”

You felt your face warm despite trying to play it cool. You all toasted, clinking bottles and glasses happily. Somewhere in the noise, Hangman’s “to Bee” came in just half a second late.

Your eyes flicked to him on instinct, catching the faint smile he smoothed away before anyone noticed it. Something low in your stomach tightened.

Everyone was in a fantastic mood for the rest of the night.

You meant to enjoy the party, but you kept noticing things you’d never really paused to see before; things that had been happening right under your nose while you were too busy hating Hangman.

Coyote dragged you into a darts game, and you immediately sent your first throw wide enough to make him wince. He laughed, nudging your shoulder, and you were lining up your second shot when Phoenix’s voice cut across the bar.

“No way, Hangman, that’s a scratch,” she said, sharp, competitive, and fond.

“That’s called natural talent,” Hangman argued, grinning widely.

“You clipped the eight-ball.”

“I nudged the eight-ball.”

Phoenix rolled her eyes and reset the shot while Hangman leaned against the table, amused and unbothered. 

Your eyes tracked the loose curve of his posture before you caught yourself and looked away.

Hangman ceded the table with a little salute after Phoenix sank her next two shots in a row. She smirked, victorious. He smirked back, gracious enough to let her have it.

A little later, Rooster roped you into picking a song for the jukebox. As you scrolled through the options, he hovered like he wasn’t trying to influence you. You elbowed him, he shoved your shoulder, and you landed on a song you both liked.

When you turned around, you saw Hangman and Bob at the end of the bar. They were joking back and forth, Hangman pretending to be offended while Bob said something bone-dry enough that Hangman let out a loud cackle.

Your eyes tracked the shape of his grin like you were memorising it.

It was easy and comfortable in a way you hadn’t realised they’d become over the last ten months since the squadron became permanent.

“I’ll get the next round,” Hangman said like it was non-negotiable, patting Bob’s shoulder and grabbing nearby empty bottles with one hand.

Hangman was still arrogant, still insufferable, still absolutely capable of grinding your nerves into dust. But the more you looked, the more you noticed all the things you’d never given him credit for. 

As you let your eyes linger on his hands picking up the next round, you missed the way Hangman’s gaze kept flicking back to you. It was as if he was checking if you were still there, because he didn’t want to miss anything you did.

You forced yourself to look away before you started thinking about those hands in ways you absolutely shouldn’t.

When Fanboy’s attempt at doing a cartwheel forced you to rescue an airborne beer bottle an hour later, you went to the bar to get another round.

Penny smiled. “Congratulations, Bee.”

“Thank you,” you said, grinning.

Before you could ask for the drinks, someone slid into the empty space beside you. A tall, objectively attractive man you didn’t recognise, with an easygoing smile.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to interrupt. But your group’s been celebrating you for the last twenty minutes, so I had to come over and say congrats.”

“Oh.” You blinked. “Thank you.”

He laughed. “You Navy pilots? Or just very enthusiastic bar patrons?”

You talked for a few minutes, just light, friendly small talk. The guy flirted softly, and you didn’t shut him down. You recommended your favourite coffee shop, and you politely laughed when he asked if you’d be there this week.

Across the bar, Phoenix slapped Rooster’s arm.

Yale murmured, “Uh oh.”

They turned to Hangman, waiting for the inevitable snark. The classic, she’s not worth your time, man, or she’s a walking red flag. 

Hangman surprised them all by saying nothing. His jaw was locked to hide the fact that seeing you flirt with some guy was affecting him.

If you’d been looking his way, you would’ve seen how carefully he inhaled and exhaled, like he was reminding his body to behave.

The guy at the bar leaned in a little—not close enough to overstep, but close enough to show he was interested—and that was enough for Hangman.

He didn’t storm over or square his shoulders. Hangman walked like a man doing something he had decided on long before his brain caught up.

“Hey, honey,” he said smoothly, sliding into your space.

The nickname, one you’d only heard him use condescendingly, was sugared and affectionate. It was claiming you in a way that made your blood warm.

Your heartbeat tripped at the sudden proximity. Partly because you knew what Hangman was doing and weren’t sure how you felt about it, but also because this was familiar territory.

Only this time, he wasn’t getting close to you to pick a fight.

Hangman gave the stranger a polite nod. “Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to make sure you had help carrying all the drinks back.”

The guy blinked. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know—”

“Oh, we’re not—” you started.

“Yeah, we are,” Hangman insisted.

Your heartbeat jumped hard enough that you felt it in your throat. Hangman wasn’t wearing the smug, heat-soaked look he usually used when he wanted to get under your skin. His eyes held yours like he was quietly pleading with you to hear him out.

The man picked up his drink and backed off with an easy smile. “Nice meeting you.”

You didn’t answer. Your focus was on Hangman. 

“What was that?” you asked.

Hangman took a slow breath, gaze never leaving yours. “Let’s step outside.”

“I’m not—”

“Please, Bee.” His tone wasn’t commanding but startlingly sincere. 

You followed him out to the back deck, where the ocean air cut through the heat of the bar. You crossed your arms, more for balance than defence, and took half a step back.

“You don’t get to swoop in like that,” you said, pulse still unsettled. “I wasn’t interested, but you don’t—”

“I know.” Hangman rubbed a hand over his jaw, shoulders tight. “I know you weren’t.”

“Then why—?”

“Because I didn’t like watching it.”

There it was. A truth Hangman would typically have buried under three layers of arrogance.

You swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “You don’t get to be jealous.”

“I know.” His voice dropped into something quiet and aching. “But I was.”

Hangman stepped closer, not boxing you in, but closing the distance slowly. Close enough that you felt the warmth of his body through the cold wind.

“You and I…” He shook his head. “We spent so long fighting that it felt like the only way we knew how to talk. And it worked for a while. Until it didn’t.”

You didn’t move—your body refused.

“And once we actually talked, it changed things for me.” His voice softened. “I know I can be arrogant, and stubborn, and a pain in your ass. I know you have every reason to think I’m not worth the trouble.”

Hangman’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“But I also know that the more I get to know you, the more I’m sure I want you. And not the way I used to have you, when we’d argued so much that sex was the only way to relieve the tension.” He steadied himself. “I want you for real.”

You inhaled so sharply it was almost a gasp.

“I know I’ve messed up, and I know you’re not looking for a guy to fix. I’m not asking you for anything right now. I just…” Hangman hesitated, then confessed, “I think I could deserve you, if you gave me the chance to prove it.”

The wind rustled the string lights overhead. Inside, the jukebox changed songs again, its sound muffled through the glass.

You stepped toward him.

Hangman’s breath caught when you did. He didn’t reach out to you, even though you were more than close enough now. He just stood, waiting, eyes tracking every inch you moved.

“Jake,” you said quietly. 

His name on your lips did something to him. His chest rose sharply, his lips parted just barely, and his whole posture went attentive in a way that was entirely open to you.

“I don’t know what this is,” you told him honestly. “I don’t know how to do this with you.”

“Me neither.”

“But I want to try,” you said.

The breath he let out was shaky and reverent, like you’d knocked the wind out of him.

You didn’t rush it. You stepped close enough that your chest brushed Jake’s, and he dipped his head just slightly, waiting for permission. Lifting your hands, you curled them into the front of his shirt, and that was all he needed.

Jake kissed you like he’d been holding himself together for weeks.

At first, it was restrained, almost careful, like he was afraid you’d vanish if he went too fast. His mouth was warm, steady, patient in a way he’d never kissed you before. He wasn’t trying to win, or provoke, or dominate.

And then you kissed him back.

Jake’s restraint broke like a wave. His hand slid to the side of your neck, thumb brushing your pulse, not pulling you closer but holding you like you were something precious.

This kiss wasn’t like the drunken, angry ones in the dark corners of parking lots or your hallway or his truck. Those had been frantic, messy, born of adrenaline and frustration and the fastest route to forgetting why you hated each other.

You kissed him back with equal parts want and disbelief.

You slid a hand up the solid line of his chest and into his hair, and Jake groaned quietly against your mouth, pulling you flush to him. He angled his head, deepening the kiss with a low sound in his throat that almost made your knees buckle. 

Heat shot down your spine so fast you felt dizzy, the world narrowing to nothing but the press of Jake’s mouth and the way his fingers flexed at your waist.

He knew you too well—how you liked pressure, where you liked tension, the exact moment to ease off just enough to make you chase him.

When his tongue brushed yours in a slow, deliberate sweep, your stomach tightened hard enough that you had to brace your hand on his shoulder to keep steady. Jake responded instantly, tilting you back a fraction, kissing you deeper, slower, hotter. 

When you finally broke apart, both of you breathing hard but steady, you kept your forehead pressed to his because pulling back felt wrong.

Jake whispered, voice rough, “Honey?”

You whispered back, breath still uneven, “Yeah?”

“That was…” He exhaled, chest rising against yours. “Wow.”

You huffed a breath of a laugh against his lips. “Shut up.”

Your pulse still wouldn’t settle. You weren’t sure it ever would around him again.

Inside the Hard Deck, the squadron had gone dead silent at the sight of you two through the back window. 

Payback slowly lowered his beer, eyes huge. “What the hell—”

Phoenix slapped a hand flat on the table so hard the darts jumped. “Absolutely not! No, just no!”

Rooster pointed at the window like a man who had just witnessed a crime. “Am I have a stroke?! Someone check my pulse. I think I smell burnt toast—”

Fanboy gasped, clutching the bartop. “I feel light-headed…”

Bob, who had been quietly sipping his Coke through a paper straw, shrugged. “I mean… they’ve been hooking up for, like, six months, right?”

Every single head snapped toward him in eerie, synchronised horror.

“What?!” the table exploded.

Bob blinked at all of them, unbothered. “I thought it was obvious. Why do you think they always fight until we’ve all left the Hard Deck?”

Outside, Jake huffed a quiet laugh, his forehead still against yours. You slid your hands down, looping them loosely behind his shoulders.

“Jake?” you murmured, a smile tugging at your mouth despite your best efforts. “You gonna drag me home and finish what we started?”

You meant it half as a joke, half as a challenge. 

“No,” he said, voice steady in a way that made something low in your stomach tighten. “I’m gonna take you out.”

That pulled you up short. “Like a date?”

“Yeah,” he said, thumb brushing your cheekbone in a barely-there pass. “A real one. Dinner. Walking you to your door. The whole thing.” His smile deepened. “We already know we’re good together in bed. Now I get to show you I’m worth more than that.”

You blinked. “You… want to take me on a date.”

“I want to take you on a hundred,” Jake murmured. “But I figured I should start with one.”

Your chest tightened. “You’re being serious,” you said quietly.

“I’m being very serious,” Jake said, meeting your eyes without flinching. “You gave me a chance. I’m not gonna waste it.”

Something warm and helpless pulled in your chest. You pressed your forehead to Jake’s again, smiling widely.

"Not with Mark," she says. "No, no, you cannot be having a baby with Mark. I leave you alone for a week and you decide to have baby with—”

"No.” You shake your head emphatically, as though this will somehow erase the way you conducted yourself over the course of your most recent breakup (during which Olya was on the receiving end of many a late-night drunken wallowing session), and try to free yourself from the six inches of cushion you’ve sunken into. It’s at least better than the reclaimed-driftwood-hightop-stools at the last trendy brunch popup she chose. “Not Mark. Not anyone. I’m done with men."

"Thank God. You have terrible taste. Better to give up entirely." You let this slide, though it feels a bit rich coming from someone who has been going steady with her direct supervisor for the past six months (after six months of a generationally messy on-again-off-again thing). “If you schedule appointment for Tuesday or Friday, I can drive.”

“Appointment?”

“Yeah, appointment. Baby appointment. This week, next week. Unless you just want to try DIY first?” She holds up her mimosa flute, hands it to you, pours a little, takes it back, takes a sip, considers. “Mm. Not so strong.” She hands it back to you and fills it so much that a little hill of liquid rises above the lip. “Double dose. For safety."

You bring your mouth to the glass and de-meniscus the mimosa—which, for the record, is very strong—and shake your head. “I’m not pregnant right now,” you clarify. “I’ve decided I’m going to get pregnant. On purpose.”

She squints at you. “Why would you do that.”

“I want a baby.” You hate adages about biological clocks. That said, yours is currently ticking like a bomb. “And I think I’ve reached the age where all of the men available in the dating pool are…” You shudder.

You have dated and dated and dated, and at thirty-four you’re pretty certain you’ve seen all the kinds of men the Bay Area has to offer. Divorced men. Unemployed men. Silicon Valley wunderkinds who look at you and your non-STEM degree (and your very successful private law practice, thank you very much) with poorly veiled disdain. Tall, plain men with an abundance of options and a deficit of personality; short, beautiful men who compensate for the personality with a lack of empathy that borders on psychopathy. You have dated nice men and cruel men and boring men and self-interested men, and, at the end of the day, not one none of them ever had enough redeeming qualities to make you want to stay.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” you settle for saying. “There’s only so many times I can get ready for a first date, redoing my lipstick a dozen times, listening to the same Olivia Dean song on loop, trying to talk myself out of flaking last-minute because I know the sex is going to be bad. I’m too much of an adult to be acting like that.”

“No.” She shakes her head emphatically, pouring you both more booze. You have yet to even look at a menu, and somehow the pitcher is half empty. “You go about this all wrong. You go on dates from internet, from apps. App is for fling, fun, hookups. You refuse to try and date friend, date coworker, date neighbor—“

You shake your head. You have tried dating all of the above. You have weathered several rock bottoms in the aftermath. “I’m not trying to blow up my life, thanks. I like my life as is.”

“Yes, I know,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You like your life, you love your life. This is why you want to add a tiny person with no sleep schedule who spends all your money.”

“I already have you for that.” She blows you a kiss, unrepentant. “But yes, a baby would be nice, too. I’ve thought about it. I’ve saved up. I bought, like, three bottles of prenatal gummies. Now I just need to, you know. Get some sperm.”

“Easy. Sperm is cheap.” She claps. “Tonight! I set you up with someone at trivia. Bang, boom, baby in nine months.”

“No, no, because we’ve been over this: trivia is a social circle I am a part of. Half the people at trivia are people I knew in high school, and the other half are people I’ve worked with—” You hold up a hand before she can protest. “—and I know, you are a beautiful anomaly, you and Eva, but most people aren’t so lucky. You know the rules.”

She tips her head back and groans. “You and your rules.” When she brings her head back up, it’s with a pout. “You ignore so many of my perfect, beautiful matches for your stupid rules.”

“My rules exist for a reason.”

“Yes, to keep you unhappy.” She shakes her head, waving a hand. “Fine, whatever—I match you with someone from my work.”

“I’ve worked with people from your work,” you remind her. The entire reason you met was because her engineering firm (because Eva specifically) hired you during a patent dispute. They ask you back from time to time.

“Someone new! Maybe he stays in town, maybe not. Low risk!”

“Too much risk.”

She scowls. “All risk is too much for you. Life is all risk. Baby is all risk. Anya is risking her life every five seconds.” She looks off in the distance—thinking about her niece, presumably, who is two years old and getting cuter by the day. She shrugs. “You know, maybe baby will be good for you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll come to trivia. New guy will be there, I will be there—“

“Great. Want to give me some sperm?”

“Ha. Eva will be there. Grace will be there.”

Something in your head pauses. “Ryland's back?"

She points at you. “Ah!”

“What? No.” Your attempt at a casual laugh sounds unconvincing even to your ears. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just thought he wasn’t—Olya, that’s not what I meant, I thought he was still in L.A.—”

“He is back and he will be there and he will make puppy dog eyes at you like always, and you will ignore him because you are cruel.”

“I'm not—he won't—” You let out an exhale. Then you begin to tick off items on your fingers. “One, Ryland has a very nice girlfriend. And two, he does not make puppy dog eyes at me. That’s just how he looks.”

“Yes, how he looks at you.”

“Because he’s never stopped seeing me as his best friend’s annoying little sister,” you correct her. “It’s nostalgia. I told you, he took me to prom and he—I mean. You know, nothing happened.”

“Because he was stupid teenager. Now he is a stupid man, and you are a stupid woman—perfect. I’m a genius.”

“Did you miss the part where he has a girlfriend? I thought you liked Linda.”

“Eva likes Linda, and this is only because they know the same boring history facts.”

You snort in spite of yourself. “That’s terrible.”

“It’s true! And besides, you are just asking for sperm for baby, yes? Such an old friend, such a tiny favor, Linda can’t be mad about—”

“Olesya.” You give her a stern look. She looks back with the practiced innocence of a cat who’s already swallowed the canary and hasn't yet noticed the feathers stuck in its teeth. “No.”

“No trivia or no baby?”

“Yes trivia, no to whatever you're plotting.”

She sighs. “Fine, no to Grace. He can make puppy dog eyes at you across the bar while you talk to new work friend—”

“No setting me up with anyone.” You snap your menu shut, and flag a waiter. You can't continue this conversation—or, ideally, escape this conversation—without copious amounts of French toast. “It’s the twenty-first century, you know? They have websites now. Catalogs. Safe, discreet, easy. Like you said, sperm is cheap.”

-

As it turns out, sperm is really fucking expensive.

You scowl at the laptop, willing it to give you a different answer, but the calculations come out the same the fiftieth time as they did the fifth. A couple thousand dollars, minimum, and that’s if you use an anonymous donor. For someone vetted—God forbid, someone you might get to talk to—it can go up into five figures.

You put down your notebook and plant your head in your hands. 

You are, by many metrics, a successful woman. You live in a one-bedroom apartment, in San Francisco, alone. Many of your clients see you over video, so you can more or less set your day. You have no student loans, and enough savings set aside to pay for childcare, doctor’s visits, diapers, a nice stroller.

You do not have enough to cover all of that and a round of in vitro fertilization that might not even work.

You lift your head up. You’ve been buried in your laptop for so long, the sun has set, leaving the apartment almost entirely dark, save for your screen and for the kitchen clock blaring bright green above the stove. It’s seven forty-five.

Trivia starts at eight.

You sigh. You stand up and grab your keys.

-

Trivia night is the same as always, which is to say it’s at the same dingy bar, with the same sticky black floors and pockmarked dart boards and outdated drink menu as always. You’re pretty sure the bartenders have worked here since you were too young to set foot inside.

“You came!” Olya crows, slinging an arm around your neck as soon as the door shuts behind you. “Here. Two for one.”

You gently bat away the bottle she waves in your face. "I drove.”

“Fine.” She winds her arm through yours, walking you across the bar. “I’m setting up carpool home. You and Eva can be boring designated drivers together.”

“Ha, ha.” Your eyes scan the room. You tell yourself this isn’t on purpose, which is probably true, it’s normal to take stock of a room—but you’ve taken stock of this particular room almost weekly for the past year and a half, which means there really isn’t anything in it you haven’t seen, until your eyes reach a table in the back and see Eva Stratt talking to—

“See?" Olesya pinches your waist. You jump. "I told you he is back."

“Ow."

“Come talk. We’re running late, nothing to do but drink and talk, and you don’t even drink tonight.” She bumps her hip into yours. “Maybe not for nine months, if everything goes good, eh?”

You hip check her back. “Yeah. Maybe. It’s not looking too—"

You hear your name, and you look up.

The voice is familiar. The face is familiar, if slightly more tanned from a few weeks out of the San Francisco fog; the hair a little longer. The lopsided glasses, though—and the bright blue eyes behind them, and the mouth and the smile and the dimples that go with it—are the same as they were twenty years ago. 

“Ryland.” Your face is warm, which is definitely because you just walked through a crowded bar, and for no other reason. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He stands up, so quickly he almost knocks over his bottle on the table, and catches you in a warm, friendly hug that you survive mainly on autopilot.

“Hi. Hi.” The hug ends, and you wave at Eva, who waves back, and then look back up at him. “Hi. I, um, I thought you were still in L.A.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Colt got a last-minute gig this weekend, so. I came back a week early. But it was good. He’s good. Said to send you his best.”

Colt has always been sweet. Of the two, you’d have thought he’d be the one to ask you on a family-friend-pity-date to prom. Ryland was always stuck in his books, his scholarships, too convinced of his own genius to see you as anything but silly and young, and the arrogance only got worse with each subsequent visit home from college. It was almost jarring to meet him again, two years ago, when he moved back home to teach. Somehow the intervening decade had rendered him easygoing, and softer-spoken, and humble.

Mostly humble. Trivia night almost invariably makes teenage Ryland rear his ugly head.

“That’s good," you say. "I remember the accident was…you know. Good to hear he’s getting back into things.”

“Yeah.” His eyes dart from you, to Olya and Eva behind you, to the bar, then back to you. “Do you want a drink? I’m going for a refill.”

“Oh, I’m not—”

“Virgin drink for her,” Olesya shouts from where she is now seated, which is more on Eva’s lap than in the booth. You force your face to remain neutral, as opposed to the expression it wants to arrange itself into at hearing the word virgin used in reference to you around the man who notably did not take your actual virginity at your high school prom. “Real drink for me. Double vodka Redbull. And espresso for Eva.”

“Right. Just espresso, no martini,” he says, with an automaticness that suggests he’s had the same thing repeated at him ad nauseam for the better part of an hour. “Okay. You?”

You blink up at him. Then at Olya. She mouths GO at you, accompanied with some rather violent hand gestures, and just as Ryland is about to turn and see this you grab his arm and tug. “I’ll come with you!”

When you get to the bar, you glance back to furrow your brows at Olesya, who has switched to double thumbs up and a shit-eating grin.

You roll your eyes at her, then turn to Ryland, who’s somehow managed to flag down the bartender and order three drinks in the span of fifteen seconds. “I ordered for you.”

“Thanks.” You get comfortable on a barstool, and look up at him. “So. You’ve been back—”

“A few hours.”

“A few hours? And you still rallied for Saturday night dive bar trivia? We should be honored.”

“Couldn't miss it. Everyone in L.A. kept trying to talk to me about crystals and vibes and, like artisan surfboards. I need this.”

You widen your eyes. “Oh, you didn’t hear? It’s artisan surfboard night."

He plays along. "Really?" He gets an elbow up on the bar, resting his cheek on one hand.

"Wood grain patterns, wave height stats, foam density.”

“That is…even better. I’m well-versed now.”

“An expert, I’m sure.” Your eyes map out the geography of his face. You have seen dozens and dozens of versions of this face over the past thirty years or so. This version has a few new freckles, dusted across his nose. You know, from long summers spent hiking and cycling and calling first dibs on the rec center diving board, that those freckles sometimes reach down to his shoulders, his arms, his back. "Was the sun gorgeous?"

“Maybe." His eyes don't leave yours. You wonder if he's running the same mental math, the same diagrams, the same map. It's a rare thing, to know someone your whole life. "You know I’m a sucker for the fog.”

“Ugh. L.A. is wasted on you." Once you're finished scrunching up your nose in disapproval, you sigh. "I bet it was gorgeous. I should move there.”

“You shouldn't.”

“Why? Because I’m the last person in San Francisco who remembers your landline number by heart?" Drinks arrive, and he slides one over to you. It’s red, and fizzy, and has not one but two maraschino cherries. You point at it. “Is this a fucking Shirley Temple?”

“Hey," he says, sounding unbelievably sincere in his disappointment for a man who, between the ages of eight and eighteen, taught you every four-letter word you know. "Language.”

“I’m not one of your students, and did you order me a fucking Shirley Temple?”

He shrugs, and takes a sip of his beer. “It’s the most virgin drink there is.”

You squint at him. Then you reach forward and press a palm to his cheek—not slapping him, just smushing his face away from you (and probably smudging his glasses in the process). “I should throw this at you.”

“Hey, hey!” He catches your wrist. Your pulse does something funny. Your breath is not where its supposed to be. He doesn’t notice. “That's the thanks I get? You used to love those.”

“When I was twelve," you say, tugging your wrist away, "at my mom’s third wedding.” You don't remember a lot from middle school, but you remember that wedding.

He danced with you at that wedding.

The Cotton-Eye Joe, or something stupid like that—but then also a slow dance. Half of one. He’d seen you and Colt dancing and felt left out. You’d let him lead you across the floor, in your sparkly teal junior bridesmaid dress and patent leather shoes, and that might be the first time you remember having that twinkle in your chest, that glow. 

Thinking, so this is what a crush feels like.

He clinks his bottle against your glass, shaking you out of the memory. “Good news, I’m pretty sure they haven’t changed the recipe since then.” He lifts his bottle. "To things that last."

Something tugs at your chest. “To things that last.”

You put the drink down once you’re positive that your face isn’t doing anything unhinged, which is to say after you’ve downed at least a quarter of it. When you look up again, you find he’s already looking at you, with an expression you are momentarily unable to place. It's not expectant, really. Not teasing. Just warm. Watching.

If he were aiming it at anyone else, you might even label it puppy dog eyes.

But it's Ryland, and you know Ryland. You know old Ryland, and you know this Ryland, and you know that this particular look on both of them is one of the kindest possible condescension. It means I met this girl when she was seven and I was eight, and I will see her that way forever. It means friendly, and nostalgic. It means nothing at all like what you wish it did.

You clear your throat and raise your glass. "Looks like twelve-year-old me had good taste after all.”

-

Trivia night ends the same as always, which is to say that Olya gets drunk enough to start heckling the opposition, Ryland nearly knocks over several chairs in his fervor to win, and Eva quietly leads the team to a sweeping victory. By the end of the night, the chaos has settled into a quiet hum, the room buzzing and buzzed off success and adrenaline and cheap beer.

You have not had anything to drink at all, and even you feel a little bit dizzy with the night. This could plausibly be explained by the rush of winning forty consecutive weeks in a row. It could be plausibly explained by any number of things aside from the actual cause.

You are trying very hard not to name the actual cause.

You do allow yourself to name several things around it, like: a high-five that turned into a hand squeeze that you felt long after he’d let your hand go; a smile, long and lopsided and devastating, every time a category came up he knew you’d be good at; a second Shirley Temple, ordered for you and handed to you seconds before he stood up to answer a question (at Trivia Night. Where all the questions are written down on paper. He is hopeless, and you are worse for liking it).

You are mid-naming-things-around-it, and midway to the door, when Olesya calls your name. You turn with a sigh. “Yes,” you say, with no small amount of reluctance, “I can help carpool.”

“Perfect. Every other car, full, you just need to take one person.” She calls back over her shoulder. “Grace!” She regards to you with a twinkle in her eye that you are all too familiar with. 

Your eyes widen. “Olya,” you hiss. “Olya, no—”

“All the other cars are full,” she says, pouting. “And he is on the way to your house.”

“That’s fine, I have no actual objections to that, I’m just objecting to the implication.”

“What implication?” she asks, and you don’t have time to answer because he is here and he has on a yellow raincoat and a beanie, and you hate how hard you are smiling.

“Hey,” he says. His cheeks are still a little pink from the thrill of beating another team at Who Knows The Most Useless Niche Fun Facts. His hair is a disaster. He looks between you and Olesya. “Everything’s good?”

“I found you a ride!” Olesya beams.

“Oh, I can bike home.”

“You biked?” you ask.

“It’s raining,” she points out.

“I have a raincoat.”

“He has a raincoat,” you say to Olya.

“I’m too drunk for this,” she says, before kissing you on the cheek and absconding with Eva.

You look at Ryland. He looks at you. “I really can bike home.”

The thunder is so sudden and so loud, you practically jump into him. When it’s passed, your shoulder is against his chest, and his arm is around your waist, and you blink and you breathe and then you, both of you, take a step back.

You clear your throat and pull your car keys out of your pocket. “Same address?”

-

You shouldn’t have been worried. Driving with Ryland is never bad, even if you haven’t done it in a few months. You amicably bicker about the music for a bit, and then talk about Colt (healed from his accident, back out on his first stunt gig since, apparently plotting to win back The One Who Got Away), and about your brother (teaching law on the East Coast), and your mother (flirting with golf caddies in Orlando), and about Los Angeles. You talk about your job, and his. Students. Books. Friends. The weather. And when the conversation fizzles out, it’s into a comfortable silence. 

The comfortable silence lasts approximately a minute and a half before he says, “I have to confess something.”

Your brows lift. “Oh?”

“This isn’t just a carpool. It’s a carpool with ulterior motives.”

“Thrilling start. Go on.”

"Olesya asked me to talk you out of having a baby?”

You slam on the break. You’re at a stop sign, but still. “Oh my God.”

He has his hand up on the ceiling, looking at you with—alarm, maybe? It’s difficult to tell, because the car is dark, and also because you’re trying very hard only to look at him through your peripheral vision. On account of the fact that you’re driving. Obviously. “She was pretty drunk, so, uh, maybe I misheard?” He pauses. You say nothing. He rushes to continue, “I said it was an overstep."

"Yeah."

"But she insisted."

"Okay."

"So if she asks, can you please tell her I tried? Before she sics her scary girlfriend on me?”

You snort out a laugh at that. “Yep,” you say. Then, quietly, through your teeth, “I will definitely tell her.”

Two more stop signs pass in silence before he speaks again. “Congratulations, by the way." You look over just long enough to make eye contact, or at least make contact with the glimmer of streetlight against his glasses. His face is unreadable behind them. "About the baby. Or condolences if it’s, uh, if it’s complicated.”

You hum. “It's complicated.”

“Ah.”

You realize how that sounds, and rush to continue, “Not complicated like that. There’s no father.” Does that sound worse? You think that sounds worse. “I’m not currently pregnant. Actually, I’ve sworn off men.”

He laughs. It’s brief. “Entirely?”

“Yes. Thank God.”

“Oh.”

“Except it turns out I do need one last thing from them in order to even do the single mom thing.” You roll to a stop in front of a red light, and lift one hand off the wheel to run back through your hair. “Who knew sperm could be so expensive?”

"Makes sense. They pay a lot."

You give him a look, half-delighted, half-inquisitive, and he sighs. "Ryland,” you say.

“I thought about it.”

“Ryland.”

In grad school. For the money."

"Ryland Grace."

"I didn't go through with it!” he protests. “I chickened out. I didn't like the idea of having a kid out there somewhere that I didn't know anything about. No way of knowing the parents, if they were any good or not."

"I get that." You purse your lips. "I also don't really love the idea of combining my DNA with a stranger's. I think if I was adopting it would be different, because that's a whole, real person who exists already. But that's expensive. And then sperm is also expensive, and IVF, and just, you know. Everything. I'm starting to think it'd be easier to just walk up to someone in real life and ask if they'd be willing to contribute."

“Contribute?” He snickers. “What, with a turkey baster?"

"At this point? Sure.” You flip the blinker, check your blind spot. “It's either that or the old fashioned way. You know, traditional."

He chokes.

You sightlessly grab your water bottle out of the cup holder, and pass it to him. He takes a long, long swig. The next time you pass by a street lamp, his face reappears redder than usual. "Right,” he says, then clears his throat. “Right, no, yeah, turkey baster's so—impersonal. Traditional's probably better. I'm a big fan of tradition."

“Would you have gone through with it, do you think? In grad school. If it was more like that."

"Maybe?” He considers it. “I don't know. I don't know if I was ready conceptually back then, for the idea of a kid. Too immature."

"Yeah," you agree. "You were kind of a dick."

"Hey." You give him just enough eye contact for him to think it over. "Yeah," he admits with a chuckle. "Yeah, I was."

"What about now? At the very mature, entirely un-dick-ish age you are now?”

A pause. “It would depend on who was asking."

Your eyebrows lift. “Really?” You keep your eyes very much on the road. “And how does Linda feel about that?"

“We broke up."

"Oh. I'm sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

You let the sound of the blinker fill the car for a few seconds before you speak again. “If you ever need to talk about it…"

"Not much to talk about,” he says. “She said she felt like I was only ever half-in the relationship. Like I was, uh, 'always looking for something better.'"

"Were you?"

"Yeah. I think so."

You whistle. “Ouch."

"It's fine. It was right before I went to L.A., so it gave me some distance. Time to process, figure out what matters to me."

“Figure out what ‘better’ you were looking for?”

He smiles at the next streetlight. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Right before he went to L.A. Two months, then, give or take—right after you ended things with Mark—which means they were together for three. You dislike that the calculation comes so easily. You dislike having to acknowledge, even to yourself, that this is something you have tracked.

"Gotcha." You try to keep your tone light. "I get it. I had a similar…I, uh, went through a breakup around then, too."

"I know.”

It’s the last thing either of you says for a bit.

Before you know it, you’re pulling in front of his house—his childhood house, the one he and Colt inherited. The one he lives in alone, now, since Colt settled in L.A.. It looks the same as it did when you were a kid. Same driveway, same bushes. Same bike out front. Same blue paint (peeling in the back, you assume, because they’d run out of sealant three-quarters of the way through and never got around to visiting Home Depot for more).

“Well,” he says, “this is me.” He turns, and you’re expecting a goodbye, maybe an awkward cross-cupholder-hug, but instead he just says, “You know, the landline number is actually the same.”

“555-7827.” You tip your head forward, resting it on the wheel. “God, there’s so much important shit I could be using that brain space for.”

“You can always call. If you ever need.” He gestures vaguely. “Anything."

"Anything?” You tilt your head. “Dangerous offer."

"Yeah, well. It's you.” With that, he unbuckles, and opens the door. “Goodnight.”

“I—goodnight,” you say, a little flummoxed, and a little flummoxed as to why you feel flummoxed.

He shuts the door. You watch him walk, to be polite, because you watch all of your friends to make sure they get into the door safely—but then he pauses halfway up and shouts something. Your name. You lower the window.

“Anything at all,” he calls. “You just. You just have to ask."

“Great!” You give him a thumbs up. “Thanks! Goodnight!”

He waves, and reaches the door, and he’s gone. You sit and look at the house. Then you sit and look at your hands. Then you shake your head at yourself, and you put the car back into drive, and you pull away.

-

It isn’t until several minutes into the drive home that you understand the implication.

This inspires a thorough self-inventory that probably would be better off done in the quiet of your home, rather than half-assed while driving; but alas, you are single-minded. And impatient.

There's the part of you that thinks this man is tall, and brilliant, and funny, and sweet, and has a great head of hair, and all of those sound like pretty good odds to gamble with on your future child.

There's the part of you that has wanted him, for years, for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting a kid.

Finally—and, though you hate to admit it to yourself, maybe most importantly—there's the part of you that hopes that maybe, if you were to sleep with him, just once, the wanting would leave and burn up and be gone, and you'd finally, finally be able to get Ryland Grace out of your system once and for all, the way you've been able to get every other man out of your system. Also, the excuse of the pregnancy might make it so that you could do this without entirely blowing up your friendship, the way you've done so many times before.

You go through this cycle of thoughts several times. You go through it on the drive; as you park; up the stairs, up the elevator, through fumbling with your keys and shutting the door behind you.

Ultimately, you decide to sleep on it. This isn’t the kind of thing you rush into. You could be misreading his offer. You could be misreading your own emotional capacity for doing this. You could wake up tomorrow and stumble upon the one sperm donation catalog in the history of humankind that would cost you less than two thousand dollars. You are very sensible and very logical about all of these possibilities, and several others, as you cross your apartment and sit down on the couch and pull your phone out of your bag and dial. 

He picks up after two rings.

"It's me,” you say, before he even greets you. “I'm asking.”

"You're asking me to—"

"Help me have a baby. With or without a turkey baster.”

He pauses for five seconds.

Your brain stretches this out to five years, give or take. Long enough that you barrel forward with the rest of the points you’ve come up with in response to any questions he might have.

“I know it's a big ask. You can totally say no. But you should know that I would never ask for money or anything, I can draw up a contract, it really is just a question of sperm. I mean, you wouldn't have to be involved at all post, um, post-conception. Unless you wanted to be an uncle, or a godparent—if you wanted to be a godparent, I guess you could duke it out with Olya—or, well, you can have multiple godparents, right? But also you wouldn't even have to see the baby if you didn't want to, and we wouldn't have to tell anyone, and—”

"I'll do it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah." He says it so casually. Like it's easy. No big deal, just a little sperm between friends. "Just letting you know, though, I have a very strict BYOB policy."

You puzzle over that for a half-second before your face splits in a grin. “Bring your own baster.”

"Bring your own baster,” he repeats, sounding like he’s smiling just as wide.

"Okay. I'll add it to my records.”

“Records?”

"Yeah, I have all kinds of lists and—less for you. More for me. You don't really have to do anything, except. Um. Donate.”

“Donate.”

“That. Oh, and get tested. I did last week, it’s easy—”

“Okay."

"It's not that I don't trust you, or anything, it's just, like, protocol—"

"That makes sense. I can do that tomorrow.”

“I can pay for it.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was due for a test, anyway. Good to go regularly, it’s been—um. Anyway. It’ll come back clean.”

“Great. Well. If you go tomorrow, that should be back in a few days, and then. Are you free Friday?”

“Friday…” There’s a pause, and some frantic shuffling. Pages being flipped through. “Friday I'm on detention duty, so I get off around four. Three forty five.” Another rustle of paper. “And then parent teacher conferences at eight. But I have to stop home in between anyway, so. I’ll be around.”

"Could I come meet you at four? Four thirty? At your house? I'll be s—”

"Yes,” he says, quickly. “Yes, I can do four thirty. Yes."

You pause. “Great. Okay, uh, pencil me in for four thirty to four forty-five.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“I mean, really, it doesn't even have to be that long,” you joke. “If you get yourself close enough, by the time I get there, you can basically come in me and then I'll just be on my way."

There’s a long, long silence. Finally, he says, “If that's how you want to do it, yeah. Great."

"Great."

"Great."

“Great.” You swallow. “So. I’ll see you Friday. At four thirty.”

“Four thirty,” he says. “I’ll be ready.”

-

You pull up on his street at four twenty.

You park down the block. You sit there for exactly five minutes, in spite of the fact that you see a light in the windows, his bike sitting out front. You feel like a stalker.

At four twenty-five, you pull down the sun visor and stare at yourself. You put on a fresh coat of lipstick, which then immediately makes you feel very silly, so you wipe it all off. Then you dab it back on. You pinch at your cheeks. You look down at the dress you decided to wear. It was an entirely work-from-home day, mostly paperwork, so you wore a blazer over a dress and now you’re just wearing the dress, and it’s really the kind of dress you’d wear to, like, a date, which means it is lower cut up top and shorter at the hem than most dresses you’d be wearing on a work day. It’s more of a sun dress, really. So a picnic date dress. You feel both over and underdressed. 

And also you’re wet. On purpose. As much as anyone can be wet on purpose—you’d gotten a package from Olya yesterday, with the note attached, in lieu of sperm, and opened it to find some kind of fertility-promoting lube. Which, sure, it was a joke. And yeah, sure, you used some before you left home. 

You think about what you’d said on the phone. If you get yourself close enough, by the time I get there, you can basically come in me and then I'll just be on my way. You’d meant it only half as a joke. You’ve dated enough men to keep your expectations low. You’re not going to assume he’d waste a ton of time on foreplay. He’s doing you a favor, and he has work tonight, and if he’s in a rush then at least you’ll be more ready than with just a little spit and some half-hearted fingering.

You’re wearing stockings, too, nude pantyhose which seems…you don’t, know, silly? Try-hard? One layer too many? You glance at the clock—four twenty-seven—and look out both windows, reach under your skirt, and begin pulling them off, kicking off your shoes with a muffled curse under your breath. Your underwear starts coming off with them, which you fight and then go along with and then decide to commit to. Your skirt is long enough. You’d promised him this would be quick and easy, right?

You regret it immediately. But it’s four twenty-eight on the dot, and you are allergic to being late, so you shove tights and underwear alike into your glove compartment and drive the twenty feet to his house and pull over and get out.

Up the sidewalk. Up to the porch. You knock.

You wait.

It's colder than it was when you left work. You're really feeling the absence of your stockings right about now, not to mention your underwear, and you're approximately two seconds away from going back to the car to get both when the door swings open. 

"Hey.” 

"Hi," you say.

"Hi."

He's still in his work clothes. You’ve never seen him in his work clothes, actually, and it’s doing wild things to the this man is gainfully employed and good with kids, must procreate part of your brain. It doesn’t help that he looks significantly more disheveled than you would expect after a day of teaching sound waves. He’s breathing faster than usual, chest rising and falling against the blue linen shirt, which is only half-tucked at the bottom, at which point your gaze reaches his pants and you suddenly understand all of the above.

“Hi.” You nod in his general direction. "You, um. You got ready."

“I.” His face is flushed behind his glasses, which are maybe the most properly horizontal you’ve ever seen them. You expect that to last all of five minutes. “You…sorry.” He shakes his head suddenly, as if trying to shake something loose, and the things he shakes loose are his glasses. Five seconds, then. “Come in.” You follow him through the door, shutting it quietly behind you, your focus split fifty-fifty between trying not to imagine him getting himself ready and trying to keep yourself from leaking. You are failing miserably at both.

He’s ahead of you, back turned to you, re-rolling up his sleeves. They were already unbuttoned, but shoved up rather than rolled, messy, like he’d gotten home later than planned and immediately got to work doing—whatever it is he did that you are strictly forbidding yourself from imagining.

“Chinese,” he says, nodding at a bag on the kitchen counter. His hands move over his sleeves, four neat folds on each side, and his forearms are flexing and he’s still visibly straining against the zipper of his pants. “I ordered extra. In case you didn't get a chance to eat. And then the contract you sent over, and the test results, too. I printed them out, in case you want a copy. For your records. I went to the library, though, so it switches from colored ink to black and white halfway through. Didn’t seem like the kind of thing I should be printing out at school, ha.”

Two things hit you at once: the first, that you are not going to get him out of your system with one fuck. If anything, one fuck might make things worse. The second is that you absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, kiss him, because if you kiss him you’ll almost certainly fall in love with him and if you fall in love with him your life will be ruined.

"Right. Thank you. Right.” You are looking all around the living room—there’s the couch you used to build pillow forts next to, there’s the carpet the two of you melted crayons into, there’s the dining room, opening into the kitchen, where you helped his mom bake cookies, inevitably ending up with more flour on your head than in the bowl—in a bid to avoid looking at him, because you have a hunch that if you look at him and/or stop talking he is going to try to kiss you (because that would be the normal way to start this interaction, versus the objectively insane way you've decided to go about it) and if he doesn't kiss you you suspect one look at the bemused brows-above-the-glasses expression on his face will make you kiss him, which you are not allowed to do.

“So how was—”

“I left my underwear in the car. Long story.” The story being that you decided on a whim to leave your underwear in the car and now are regretting it immensely. “And I already got myself ready, and I don't want anything to—so we should probably just, um, take care of business first, if you're all good to go—is here okay?”

Here being his dining room table, which you approach and then smooth your hands across and then bend over, pressing your cheek to the wood in order to have a more concrete reason not to be able to look at him.

He laughs. “You don’t want the bed?”

“Nope, this works.”

“Oh.” He pauses a second, like he’s waiting for you to move. When you keep your face resolutely smushed against the table, he seems to get the memo. “I—alright.”

You feel, more than hear, his footsteps, soft across the floor.

“You said you’re—that you got yourself ready,” he finally says. He sounds close enough to touch. You don’t move a muscle. “How ready?”

“Ready enough.” You twitch a finger, gesturing. “I, um, I used this thing Olya gave me, this pre-seed thing.”

“Pre-seed.”

“It’s just fancy lube, I think.” You bite your bottom lip to try and stop rambling. You cannot stop rambling. “But it's supposed to be good for, like, sperm motility, or something, and I figured if I inserted it ahead of time then you wouldn’t be late for your next thing. Four thirty to four forty-five, remember.”

It’s a weak attempt at a joke. You’re not sure it lands. “I’m not in a rush," he says.

“Your Chinese food will get cold.”

He pauses. “I might be in a little bit of a rush.” You laugh, surprised. His voice is warm when he continues, “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not worrying about you. I’m worrying about your food.”

“You don’t have to worry about me or the food. I can worry enough for the both of us. Okay?”

You inhale, you count to four, you exhale. “Okay.”

“Okay.” He claps. It’s not a very loud clap, but it still takes you by surprise. “So, um, on that note—not that it’s a worry, it’s not a worry, not worried at all, just noting—if that’s all you. If you just used the lube and didn’t.” The pause that follows lasts about twelve seconds, which you know because you’re still box breathing in order to not hyperventilate. “You might need to, um, warm up. A little. For it to be comfortable.”

"Oh. Cool.” You think about ring fingers, and shoes, and height, and all kinds of things that don’t actually have any proven causative correlation with dick size, and then you think about the tent in his pants when he was half-hard just inside the door, and you conclude that of course, of course this is the way this is shaking out, because you have the worst good luck of anyone on the planet. “Cool, cool, cool. That’s fine. I can warm myself up more. Let me just.”

“I could. I could do that for you.”

You freeze. You open your mouth, then close it. You open it again. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” he says. “Can I anyway?”

“Sure.” Your brain is producing approximately three thousand thoughts per second, none of them cohesive. “If that’s okay with you. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. Here?”

You nod. The table is cool and smooth beneath your cheek.

There is stillness and stillness and stillness and then, there—his fingers, gentle, just the tips on the back of your thigh. He starts halfway up, just kissing the hem of your dress, and then his fingers travel up and under, and they trace over where your underwear would be, and you know when he reaches the slickness that’s reached your inner thighs because he pauses.

One agonizing moment passes before his fingers continue their upward path, dipping slightly in at your entrance. You make a concentrated effort to exhale silently. You’d estimate that you succeed about sixty percent.

“You’re so…” He takes a deep breath. When he speaks again, it’s very carefully casual. “You’re wet already. That’s good. That’s great.”

You blink. “Did you just.”

“What?”

“You just used the encouraging-middle-school-teacher voice. To tell me good job for being wet. During a sexual encounter."

“Sexual encounter? I thought this was strictly business.” That gets a laugh out of you. A quiet one. You can hear him smiling, not unkindly, when he continues, “You seemed like you could use the encouragement. You’re a little nervous."

"I'm very nervous."

"I know. That’s okay.” He finds your clit. You lose the battle to keep silent. Your face flushes immediately, which he can't see, but maybe he can sense it somehow, because he murmurs, “I’ve got you." 

That just makes things worse, actually, because you feel his voice, low and sincere, run down your spine like a hand. And then he actually does stroke a hand down your back, and you wonder if maybe this is some great cosmic punishment for a past life. He’s not even doing it to turn you on, you don’t think, just to comfort you—but when his hand brushes your neck it does something to you that isn't comfort, and you clench down and whimper for lack of anything to clench down onto. “Sorry,” you mumble into the table.

“Sorry for what?”

“I don’t know. This is just—I’m being so embarrassing.”

 “It’s just me,” he says (which is, of course, part of the problem). “I’ve seen you embarrass yourself plenty of times.”

You snicker. “Hey.”

“Besides. Uh.” He swallows. “Trust me. If you could see yourself from here, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

Before you have a chance to process that, his hand slides back to where you’re wettest.

“I’m going to—” He runs one finger over your entrance, then pauses. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” 

It’s more breath than sound. But he hears it, and, sure enough, he slips one finger into you. It’s an easy slide, wet as you are, but he’s still careful about it. Slow. 

“You’re—” His voice is different. Strained. “I think you can take two. If that’s—”

“Yes. Yeah, that’s—ah.” Two fingers fit, but it’s—a lot. Snug. 

“Relax for me?” He angles his wrist to get a thumb back on your clit, and you flutter around him before relaxing enough for him to let him work the two fingers in and out of you. “There you go. Good job.”

“You’re—”

“That wasn’t the teacher voice, that was the I-have-two-fingers-inside-you-and-you-feel—you feel—” He breathes out, and it sounds unsteady as you feel. “That was, that’s what that voice was. Can I—” He curls his fingers inside you, and you let out a broken moan. “God. Can I. Can I use my mouth.”

You’ve never wanted anything more in your life. “You don’t have to.”

“You keep saying that. Can I please, can I please use my mouth.”

“Yes,” you say, and he gets on his knees so quickly you’re shocked he doesn’t bruise them in the process.

The hand on your lower back runs down, crossing the border from skirt to skin, smoothing up the fabric to reveal you more fully. He keeps his fingers in you for a few seconds more, slow, lazy, dragging them in and out, in and out. Like he’s watching them. He curls them again, deliberately, and when he pulls them back out fully you barely hold back a sob.

There’s a long moment of stillness.

His one hand is still on your ass. His other hand is nowhere at all, and he’s gone silent, which is terrifying.

You use a finger to brush a strand of hair out of your eyes. “Everything good back there?”

“Mmph.” It sounds like his mouth is full, and then, with a quiet pop, not, and your brain shorts out because you realize that’s the sound of him sucking you off his fingers. “Yeah. Yeah. I just.” He presses a kiss to the back of your leg, to the crease where your ass meets your thigh, then pulls back again, and he’s gotten both hands on you, now, and he does what you can only describe as spreading you. 

Another silence. If it were anyone else, you would feel more exposed than you’ve ever been in your life. It’s him, though, which simultaneously makes it better and much, much worse. 

“You,” he finally says, which sounds like the beginning of a sentence until it becomes clear there’s nothing to follow. He kisses your other thigh, open-mouthed, slow, then rests his forehead against it, and breathes. “Fuck.” He says it quietly. Soft. Like it’s just for him.

“Language,” you say.

You mean it as a joke. You mean it as a reference. You mean it in a way that’s meant to break some of the tension and elicit a snarky response, so you are definitely not expecting the next thing he does with his mouth to be pressing his tongue flat against you.

He licks you from your clit to your entrance. The unexpectedness of it, the warmth and wetness and the intensity of it, has your knees buckling so much that you grab the table. You make some kind of sound that you cannot allow yourself to reflect too much upon without feeling intense embarrassment. You make an even more embarrassing sound when he does it again. 

He pulls back, and you put a lot of effort into not protesting. The effort is in vain.

“What was that?” You can hear the unbearably smug grin. “I thought you were telling me to watch my tongue.”

“I wasn’t. I.” You breathe slowly, trying to collect your thoughts.

You get about fifteen percent of the way there before he tightens his grip on your hips, pulling you back to meet his mouth so that he can rub his tongue back and forth against you. You let him press you up onto your toes. Your hips tilt further, allowing him closer, and you can feel the tip of his nose nudge against your entrance at the same time his mouth properly closes around your clit.

You have multiple degrees. You pay taxes, you run a business, you live alone in a one-bedroom in San Fran-fucking-cisco, and you have enough in savings that you can decide to get pregnant, on purpose, without considering yourself financially irresponsible. You are a very respectable person. None of that is reflected in the wail you let out as he sucks harder.

His hands are tight around your legs. His face is so firmly pressed into you, you would wonder if he needs to breathe, if you had any fireable neurons left to spend wondering things like that. You are beginning to have trouble breathing. The air keeps catching in your chest, in a building rhythm, and your knuckles are beginning to go white from how tightly you are gripping the table. 

“Ry—” You can’t even get out his full name.

He doesn’t stop. He doubles down.

You don’t know how long you spend there, bent over, unable to do anything but tremble as he sucks at your clit. Just as you’re close, he pulls away—but before you can say anything about it, his tongue is inside you, and he’s reached a hand around your thighs to get at your clit from the other side, and you think you might be making sounds in tandem with the thrust of his tongue, but your blood is rushing in your ears a bit, and your toes are curling against the floor, and everything narrows and narrows and narrows until—

He says something, you think. Tries to, but you can’t understand it, because his tongue is inside you and also because you’re coming so hard that you’re probably going to get a cramp in your right foot.

He doesn’t give you any relief. He lets you clench around his tongue, for a while, then pulls out while you’re still going to get his mouth on your clit again, relentless, arms wrapping around you tight to keep you from squirming away, as though you have anywhere to go, as though you aren’t trapped, totally and entirely, between the table and him. 

You come back to yourself in pieces.

You’re aware of your breath, audible, ragged; your hands, tingling; your right foot, uncurling just in time to avoid a cramp. You’re aware of his arms, steady; his mouth, gentling on you, pulling away entirely. You make a broken sound into the table. 

Something nudges at your entrance, and it’s his fingers, three of them, and they slide into you like its nothing, setting off another wave of aftershocks, and he’s slower than ever as he fucks you open on them. “Look at that,” he says, satisfied. 

Your face is warm. The mahogany is cool against it as you press your forehead back into the table. “You’re evil.”

“You’re perfect,” he replies, and you have absolutely nothing to say to that.

He pulls his fingers out as the aftershocks ebb. You don’t have any time to respond in any direction before he replaces them again with his tongue. 

Your hips buck against the table. Your knees genuinely threaten to give out; you’re not entirely sure they don’t, you can’t tell, because his hands are back on your legs more firmly than ever.

“Ryland,” you choke out.

“Mmph.”

“Ryland,” you repeat, more desperately, reaching back with one hand to push against the top of his head. “I’m good. I’m—I’m ready, I’m ready.”

He shakes his head, pulling back only to kiss your leg again. “Just a little longer.” He’s scattering kisses up and down your thighs, now, across the crease, fingers coming back to press against your clit. “Just a little longer, you taste so good, a little more—I bet I could make you come again like this—”

“Are you going to put a baby in me or not?” You’re still a little breathless, but you get enough of a challenge into it that he pauses. “I thought this was strictly business.”

He huffs out a laugh against you. “Right.” Because he’s the worst, he licks you again, circles at your clit, laughs at the way your hips jerk from the overstimulation, before grabbing the edge of the table and pulling himself up to standing.

You hear a buckle, a belt, a zipper. A pause.

You think about how long it’s been since you met him at the door. How everything that’s happened so far has been pretty much exclusively for you. “Is there anything I can do to help?” you ask, lowering your voice.

You know what his answer will be. You’ve never once had a man turn down a blowjob, which is fine, because you don’t really mind blowjobs, most of the time, and for some reason there is a part of you that’s actually incredibly eager to get this specific man’s cock in your mouth, all of which is why you are entirely unprepared to hear him say, “No.”

You pause. “Oh?”

“I’m good.” He steps forward, the length of him brushing against your ass, and you understand just how good.

“Just from—”

“Yeah.” He uses his hand to line himself up, and you feel him at your entrance, the promise of him. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” You press your face more firmly into the table, arch your back slightly. You breathe. “Ready.”

He presses in.

You are not ready.

You are ready in that you are wet; in that it fits; in that it feels good, properly good, good enough that you let out a long, quiet moan at the same time he does. But it’s still a lot. It’s still a slight stretch, even after three fingers, even after coming on his tongue. 

It’s still him.

There’s no helping it. All of the preparation in the world could not have kept you from feeling slightly overwhelmed by the heat and the weight and the understanding that Ryland Grace is inside you. It’s making you do stupid things, like get a little choked up. You bite back a sound that you fear might come out less sexy than emotional, but you don’t bite it back entirely, and he stops, still inside you. “Too much?”

Yes. “No,” you say, and swallow, because what do you possibly have to cry about? “I’m good. It’s good, you feel—good.”

“Good.” He pulls out, then pushes back in, slowly, and the sound he makes is—God. This was the worst idea you’ve ever had. This was the best idea you’ve ever had. “You too. I’m going to—” His hands press into your waist through the fabric of your dress. “Is this okay?”

“Mmhm.” You're both still basically fully clothed, which means you're barely touching, which just narrows your focus to the one specific place where you are touching, and its making the whole thing feel dirtier than if you'd just been naked. 

You clench around him, and he makes another sound and begins fucking you in earnest.

He’s still slow. He’s being careful, you suspect, which you appreciate because he is thick and he is long and your legs are barely functional as is. But the rhythm is steady. He drives into you with slow, deep thrusts, and already you are struggling not to make a whole host of embarrassing noises. You suspect he is also struggling with this because he is losing, badly—maybe he’s stifling them from his normal volume (whatever that may be), but he is close enough that you feel his breath on the back of your neck, and every single choked-off moan and whimper and grunt might as well be piped directly into your brainstem. When you give up on trying to mute yourself, and let out a quiet, “You can—harder,” he groans, long and low, and obliges, picking up the pace enough that you can hear the slap of his hips against yours.

You reach back, at one point. You’re not exactly sure why. To grab at him, maybe—to pull at his hips, urge him deeper, faster—but he catches your hand in his, threading his fingers through yours.

“You’re so.” He manages to get his other hand under your waist, arm across, lifting, helping you stand up a little so that his chest is pressed against your back, his voice in your ear. “I knew you’d feel good, but I didn’t—you’re so—”

“I know,” you say, without really knowing what you’re saying. “Me too.”

He presses a kiss to your shoulder, where the neckline of your dress ends, and then further in, further up. You squeeze his hand. He squeezes back, thumb running back and forth across the edge of yours. When he kisses the top of your neck, wet and hot and open-mouthed just below your ear, you let out a desperate sound, not quiet at all, and you clench around him and you feel him smile and you want to strangle him almost as much as you want to kiss him. You want so badly to kiss him. You almost try to crane your head around to allow for it, except you remember dimly that you’re not supposed to, and you can’t for the life of you remember why.

When he slows down, you whine. It’s entirely undignified. You don’t really have it in you to care. “What are you doing?”

“I just. I just.” He rests his forehead against the back of your head, and through the fog you swear you feel him press his lips to your hair. “I need a second.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He swallows, and turns his head to press his cheek to your hair instead. “I don’t want to finish too fast,” he admits. You know what that voice looks like on him—it looks like beet red and mortified. “And I will. If we keep going. Right now.”

You burst out laughing. You can’t help it. “What?” You let your head hang, still shaking with laughter you don’t really have the breath to afford. “Ryland. That’s, like. The opposite of a problem. That’s the whole point.”

“That’s not the whole point.” He sounds insulted, which for some reason is even funnier, and makes you laugh even harder. He makes a vaguely pained sound, and you realize retroactively that laughing makes you squeeze which makes you squeeze around him. “You—stop doing that.”

“Then stop being funny!” You wipe a tear away, and turn just enough to make a sliver of eye contact. “You know, I would have planned a lot differently if I knew I had to factor in time to explain how babies are made.”

“I—” He goes through amused and annoyed and endeared in a comically short amount of time (and you manage to contain your reaction to light smirking, this time, because you are nothing if not good at taking feedback), and lands on an expression that is a combination of all of those things and leaves you convinced, in an even shorter amount of time, that you are in danger. “Did you really think you’d be out of here in fifteen minutes?”

“No.” You look at his lips again, and then face forward to cut yourself off. “Maybe.” You squeeze your eyes shut. “It would have been fine if you ohfuck—”

This last because he presses back into you, all the way, at the same time his hand finds your clit. “Do you still think that?”

“No.” Your voice is quiet, shaky.

“No?”

Louder now, “No, nope, not even a little—”

“Glad to hear it.” He starts moving again. It’s slow, and his voice is strained, but he’s moving and his fingers are on you at the same time he’s inside you, and he’s taking advantage of the pace to really focus on what spots he’s angling himself against. “Otherwise I might have gotten offended.”

“Didn’t mean to—okay.” Your elbows are beginning to go the way of your knees, which is to say you lower yourself back down to the table while you are still capable of doing so in a safe and controlled manner. His hand is still wrapped around yours. “Oh God. You can—faster. Faster, please.”

“I will. I just want to get you a little closer.”

“I already—”

“No, that didn’t count.” He is going faster, whether he realizes it or not; and it is getting you closer, which was maybe part of the point. “That didn’t count. I want you to come for me.”

“I did come for you.”

“On me. Around me. That’s what—that’s all I’m waiting for, you just have to—”

It’s working. What he did with his tongue, what he started and finished and started again—you feel it, feel the threads of it, lengthening, growing, sparking again each time he thrusts inside you. 

“Yeah,” you say, because what else can you say. “Yeah. Can you just—” You bite your lip. 

“What?” He’s breathing faster, again, almost panting.

“Your hand,” you manage. “On—on my neck.”

“Your neck?”

You nod against the table.

“Okay.” He doesn’t stop. “Okay. Can you—with your hand—can you keep rubbing yourself? Can you do that for me?”

You are flat against the table. The hand around yours doesn’t loosen at all. With some effort, you move your other hand down, under you, and it brushes his for a moment before he makes way for you, and uses his newly freed hand to reach up and wrap around the back of your neck.

“Like this?’’ he asks. He sounds almost hoarse, though nothing compared to the sound you let out as you nod, clenching around him even tighter than before. “Okay. And don’t stop—your clit—good, that’s good, just—”

His hand tightens around your neck slightly, just on the sides, as he starts fucking you hard, harder than before, hard and fast in a way that is forcing sounds out of you that you cannot control. You try to rub your clit in some approximation of what he was doing, and it’s more slippery than you could have anticipated and your fingers keep grazing his cock as he thrusts into you, and you’re close, you’re close again.

“I—” You make a sound into the table. “I’m.”

“I know.” He doesn’t stop. “I know, I know, I’m here—” 

He squeezes your hand again, and for some reason this is the thing that undoes you.

This orgasm is a different kind of good from the first. That was a sharp, hot, precise flash of pleasure; this time is broader, gentler, warmer. True to his word, he follows almost immediately after, shooting hot inside you, and you are full as you squeeze around him and pant into the table.

You can hear his breathing, too, behind you. You listen to it slow in time with yours.

He squeezes your hand again, this time as a precursor to letting go, and it almost hurts as much as the loss of him pulling out of you. He runs the other hand, the neck one, down your back, smoothing your skirt back down as he goes. There are shuffling sounds—boxers, zipper, belt. You don’t move.

“Hey.” His hand is on your hip again—lighter. Tentative, like he wasn’t just digging into it ninety seconds ago. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” You are still face planted into the table for the same reason as before: if you stand up, you will have to look at him, and why you ever thought that would be easier after he fucked you than before is one of the great mysteries of the universe. “Yeah. That was—I’m just—.” You stand up very abruptly. “Oh my god.”

“What?” He sounds alarmed. 

“I need to lie down.”

“Are you dizzy?” He sounds even more alarmed. “Are you—the couch, is the couch okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, the couch is fine but, do you have a towel, it’s just—I need to lie down for twenty minutes,” you say, apologetically as you can muster. He crosses a step to the kitchen, and grabs a towel, and tosses it to you. You catch it without looking at him, and you waddle over to the couch in the unsexiest manner possible, where you proceed to put the towel on top of a pillow and lie down with the pillow under your hips. Your skirt flips back up. You cross your legs as though it will help. It really doesn’t. “I completely forgot. Just so it doesn’t—you know.”

A pause. “So it doesn’t what?”

You look at him. In very short order he has gone from sounding alarmed to wearing a poorly-hidden smirk.

You narrow your eyes at him. “You know.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I do. I think. But I kind of want to hear you say it.”

You purse your lips. You stare at the ceiling, then look back at him, then back at the ceiling, then at the insides of your hands. “So it doesn’t leak out,” you say, muffled against your palms. “There. I said it.”

“You did,” he says, sounding annoyingly pleased.

“Are you happy now?”

“Very.” His voice is getting closer.

When you open your eyes again, he’s standing over you. You frown, and push his face away with both hands. “I hate you.”

“I know.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I know.”

“I can’t believe I left my underwear in the car.”

“Why did you do that?” he says, sounding equal parts delighted and bewildered.

“I don’t know,” you wail, except you can’t help but laugh with him. “It just seemed like something people do!”

“What people?” His voice is further away now, like he’s leaving the room, and there’s a vague sound of drawers being open and shut. “Internet people? Is this a porn thing I don’t know about? Because porn is not supposed to be a good representation of real life, you know, that’s a specific thing I have to say in the sex ed unit. I have to say that. To a room full of eighth graders.” A drawer shuts. “Is porn where you got the table idea from?”

“No,” you say miserably, back into your hands. You aren’t sure if he can hear you, and you don’t care. “That was all me.”

A piece of fabric hits the back of your hands. You pick it up, to look at it. Boxers. White. Black text on the band. 

“For you,” he says. “They’re clean.”

“Oh. Thanks.” You look at them a moment more, then pull them on. “You know, I really wasn’t expecting this from you.”

“Okay,” he says, leaving to the kitchen. “So what I’m hearing is that first, you thought I’d be the guy who would finish having sex and kick you out within fifteen minutes—still not over that, by the way—and then you also thought I’d let you leak in misery on the couch? For another twenty minutes? And I was still your first choice of sperm donor? Because if that’s the case, we need to have a serious chat about your taste in sexual partners.”

“You can connect with Olya about that. I think she already had an intervention planned.” You pull the waistband of the underwear out, then release, letting it snap against your waist. “But I was talking about the Calvins. I kind of assumed there’d be, like, little Bunsen burners around the band. Or some kind of day-of-the-week situation.”

“The Bunsen burners are my Thursday pair,” he says, emerging from the kitchen with a glass of water. He passes it to you before plopping down on the floor next to the couch.

You take a sip. “What are you doing?”

“Sitting. Next to you.”

“It looks like you’re lying down.”

He is, in fact, flat on the carpet without so much as a pillow. “Yeah. Next to you. Is that allowed?”

“Of course it’s allowed, it’s your house. I just don’t want to stop you from doing the things you need to do.”

“What do I need to do?”

“I don’t know. Put your cold Chinese food in the fridge?”

“I did that already.”

“Oh.” You take another sip. “Prepare for parent teacher conferences?”

“I did that already. At school. It’s mostly the same every time. Parents agree. Parents disagree.”

“Parents hit on you,” you continue for him.

His face turns a little pink. “Sometimes, yeah.”

You roll your eyes. “Of course they do.”

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“I literally said of course they do. Because of course they do.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re. You know.” You look at him—messy hair, messy glasses, messy smile—and then determinedly back at the ceiling. “You’re not completely horrible to look at.”

“Wow. And this is you after two orgasms.”

“That was a nice thing! I said a nice thing!”

“You’re in my house, wearing my boxers—”

“Yes, your Bunsen-burner-less boxers. I’ll have to plan around Thursdays, going forward.”

“Going forward?” he says.

You freeze. You do not look at him. “If it’s not too much of an imposition,” you say carefully—and then you are immediately cut off by his hand smushing your face.

“It’s not an imposition,” he says. “It is absolutely not an imposition. We can do this as much as you want.”

“Mmph,” you say.

He pulls his hand back. You look at him. “I just didn’t want to assume,” he says.

You stare. Messy glasses, hair, smile—you look back at the glass. “Like you said, this is me after two orgasms.” You are very interested in the glass and, furthermore, the water inside it. “Which was, for the record, not the point.”

“Of course it’s the point.”

“But like, okay, if we were doing this with a turkey baster, that wouldn’t even be a concern—”

“Well, we aren’t doing this with a turkey baster. I made it very clear that it was on you to provide the turkey baster, and you didn’t, so—”

You shove the water at him, if only to shut him up, but you’re grinning. He’s also grinning. You take the water back, and struggle to take a sip, because it is significantly emptier and you are still flat on your back.

He stands up. “C’mere,” he says. He helps you sit up, and then sits down where your head was, letting you lay back in his lap. “Is this okay? If I sit here?”

“It’s your house, Ryland, you can sit wherever you want—” He pinches your nose. You glare up at him. He smiles pleasantly down at you. “Yes. Idds fide,” you say. “Awesobe. Really.”

He releases your nose, and runs a hand back through your hair. Your eyes shut automatically.

“But seriously,” he says. “Was that—was there anything bad? Anything you didn’t like? I’m very open to notes. For next time. Since there’s going to be a next time.”

“It was all good,” you say. You think it might be the first time you’ve said that to a guy and honestly meant it. “The whole thing.”

“That can’t be true.”

You open one eye. “Are you calling me a liar?” The other eye opens. “Or, wait, was it bad for you?”

“What? No.”

“I mean it. I am also open to feedback, and I know I was being super weird at the beginning, I was just, like you said, I was nervous, but I can be so much more normal next time—”

“You were perfect,” he says, at the same time he runs a hand back over your head. “And, sure, I’d prefer if you weren’t that nervous all the time, but that’s because I don’t want to be doing things that make you nervous. So if I am—”

“You weren’t. It’s just you.”

As in, there’s nothing you could have done better. As in, you make me nervous just existing. As in, I’ve thought you were perfect since we were in elementary school, and I know you don’t mean it back the same way but if you were going to say it at all I wish it had been sooner than this.

He smiles. “Yeah,” he says softly. “It’s just me. And it’s just you. So there’s nothing to be nervous about, yeah?”

“Mm.” You let your eyes close back shut as you turn your head, snuggling more firmly into his lap. He makes a noise that sounds like a wince, and shifts beneath you, and you look back up at him. “Sorry. Did I—”

“Nope,” he says. His voice is definitely strained. “No. You’re fine. I just. Has it been twenty minutes yet?”

You look at him. Then you look at his lap. Then you look back at him. “Already?”

“Yeah, I think. I think it’s been about twenty minutes.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s been less.”

“Has it been an amount of time that would qualify as going forward?” he asks. Then: “We don’t have to, if you’re not up to it.”

You make a show of genuinely considering. “I am a little sore.”

“Right. That, that makes sense.”

“But not that sore.” You meet his gaze. “And probably going again is good. Statistically.”

He nods as you sit up and put the water down on the coffee table. He keeps nodding as you begin to shimmy off his underwear, his own hands going back to deal with his belt and his zipper and all. “Yeah. Better odds, definitely better. The numbers alone. If you’re sore, do you want to be on top this time? So you can have more control over how—”

"Right. I just feel like, is that counterproductive? Like, I spent all that time on my back, just to let gravity..."

“I’ll—” His mouth clamps shut. “Nope.”

You stare at him. In years and years, in decades, you’ve never known any version of Ryland Grace to do anything but say exactly what he thinks, exactly at the speed he thinks it. “What was that.”

“I was just about to say the worst thing I've ever thought."

"What."

"You'll leave if I tell you."

"What?"

"I was going to say, I'll plug you up."

You’re not smiling. Really, you’re not. It’s just that the corners of your mouth are pulling so far up and out that it’s hurting your cheeks. “Oh my god."

"I know."

"That's terrible.”

"I told you!"

“Like I’m, what, a sink? A power socket?” His face is too buried in his hands to allow anything but a muffled groan in response. You grin. He is somehow, in spite of all of this, still hard. “If you wanted me to leave you could have just said so."

“I don’t—”

"Hey, signal received, loud and clear. I’ll just—” You stand, and turn to the door. You mean it as a joke. It doesn’t matter, though, because you don’t get that far before he catches your wrist and tugs you back.

It only takes two or three movements for you to straddle him.

All at once your field of vision is very full of nothing but messy hair, and eyes bright behind his glasses, and his stupid perfect nose, and his mouth—

"We can't kiss," you blurt out.

He blinks. His face stays still otherwise. “Okay.”

"It's a rule I have. For hookups. No kissing on the mouth.” At the word mouth, his eyes drop to yours, which is fine, that’s normal, you can’t just tell someone not to think of an elephant. But the thought of him thinking about kissing you makes you dizzy enough that you rush to continue, “Everywhere else is fine, though."

You are not a good liar. He is an even worse liar, which might be the only way you get away with this. He also might be justifiably distracted by the fact that the entire naked length of him is pressed up against the entire naked length of you, and you are wetter than before from his mouth and from two orgasms and from him leaking out of you.

"Everywhere else?" he asks.

You nod. 

“Here?” His hand is warm against the back of your neck as he drags his thumb back and forth across your neck, just below your ear. 

When you nod, he follows with his mouth.

He continues lower, fingers and then lips, to your shoulder—“Here?”—your sternum—“Here?”—and then his hand is cupping your breast over your dress—“Here?”—at which point your nodding becomes frantic. You dip your shoulder, helping him push down the strap and the neckline until he’s able to dip into your bra and free you and drag a tongue across the curve, closing his mouth around your nipple as you wrap an arm around his head and press him to you and wind your fingers into his hair. 

He sucks harder, harder, until the pleasure has a sting to it. You tug at his hair. He relents, pulling away only to replace his mouth with his hand, his thumb, back and forth as he laughs into your neck.

“You’re so,” he starts, then pauses to press his hips more firmly into you, then huffs out another laugh, low and disbelieving. “The sounds you make.”

Your face heats up. “Sorry,” you mumble into the side of his head.

“No. Don’t you dare. They’re great sounds. Excellent sounds. Very helpful.” You throb against him at that, and he must feel it, because his next laugh chokes off. “Can I—are you—inside?”

“Inside,” you agree, a little breathlessly. You lift your hips just enough to line him up to you, and there’s a genuine pang in your chest from how badly you want to kiss him—

—but then he’s inside you, and inside you and inside you and inside you, taking up so much space that you don’t have any left for silly things like regret.

His mouth is back on your chest, your collar, pushing down your dress on the other side. You’re struck with—something. Jealousy, maybe. Your hands loosen from their death grip on his shoulders to grab at his shirt, the buttons, greedy, frantic. “Can I—”

You’re clumsy with the buttons, so he comes to your rescue. He’s somehow even worse. Between the two of you, you manage to fumble a few open, and having those few inches of chest-to-chest contact when you bury your head back in his neck feels nothing short of religious. 

Aside from minute adjustments of the hips, and a twitch inside you, he’s trying very hard to be still. You can tell its an effort because, when you finally move, lifting up slowly on shaky legs, his fingers tighten on your hips. You sink back onto him with a slow, intentional breath.

“Good?” he asks into your jugular. “It doesn’t hurt?”

“No.”

It does. But it’s a low, quiet ache, a base note of soreness that only intensifies the pleasure, until your thighs give out and you lower yourself back down more quickly than planned, and the hit of him against your cervix makes you yelp. “A little,” you amend.

“Sorry!” He sounds panicked, which is so endearing it almost makes you forget about the pain. His hands visit lower on your hips, cupping your ass, helping you lift up a little as he presses his hips down and away from you, and a sound escapes you that has nothing to do with pain or soreness and everything to do with the drag of him inside you. “Sorry, sorry. Is that—we should stop. Let’s stop.”

Now it’s your turn to panic. “No. No stopping.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. It’s all right if you do.”

“It is absolutely not all right, that’s—”

“I like it,” you admit, and when he looks up you force yourself not to close your eyes or look away. Whatever sentence he was in the middle of dies on his lips. You need to stop looking at his lips.

“Oh,” he says.

“It feels good.” You watch him watching you. “I want to be a little sore. I want to be able to remember you were inside me.”

That last part slips out on accident, and you have a front row seat to watch it land.

His eyes are bright behind the glasses (crooked, smudged, a little foggy), but there’s a stillness to his expression overall, like he’s trying very carefully not to scare off an endangered animal, except for a tiny little twitch at the corner of his mouth, and you want to kiss the corner of his mouth so now you do have to close your eyes.

The next two seconds feel like they last about an hour.

“Okay,” he says, like he’s still thinking it over as he says it, and then, more resolutely: “Okay.”

Something unties in your chest. You open your eyes, and see him looking at you like—like—you can’t examine that expression too closely, actually. If you think about that expression too much you are going to start having all kinds of other thoughts you aren’t allowed to have. “Okay?”

“But we go slow.”

“Slow is good.”

“And if it starts to—if it hurts in a way that doesn’t feel good, we stop. Tell me right away, and we’ll stop.”

“I will,” you agree, already shifting your hips a bit in his hands to press back against him. You don’t take him all the way down to the hilt. Almost, but not quite. You feel him press against the back of you, and you let yourself sink down just a millimeter more, earning that bit of pain, the sweet ache, before nodding. “There.” Your eyes flutter shut, your head tipping down. “Until there is good.”

He nods. His forehead is pressed to yours—not on purpose, you think, that’s just how your head fell, that’s out of your control—and you’re breathing the same air, and you honestly deserve a Nobel for not closing those last few centimeters.

“Good.” His voice has dropped about an octave.

You clench around him, and you feel his thighs flex, under yours, through his pants, as he presumably fights the urge to thrust up into you.

“Sorry,” he says, which confirms it. You feel the tip of his nose travel up across your forehead, followed by his lips, ending at your hairline. “We’re going slow. I want to go slow. It’s good that we’re going slow. I can kiss you here?”

“Yes.” He presses his mouth more firmly against your head, and you angle your face into his neck. “We don’t actually have to go that slow.”

“It’s good,” he repeats, like he’s trying to convince himself, “that we’re going slow.”

“But your food. It’ll get cold. It’s probably already cold.”

“I have a microwave. A great one.”

“Mmhm.”

“Actually it’s just okay, you remember, it’s the same one, I think it’s probably been here since the Cold War—” You laugh again, which makes you pulse around him again, and he lets out a shaky exhale. “Have I mentioned how glad I am that we’re going slow.”

“Once or twice.”

“Great, great. Good. Just wanted to make sure you got that. On the record. In your records. One of them. Both. Either. And it doesn’t hurt.”

“Not in any way I don’t like.”

He makes a sound into your hair that could best be described as tortured. His fingers are tight on your hips, digging. You know that it’s just practical, that he’s mostly doing it to help support your weight so that you don’t move too fast, don’t hurt yourself again. You are still hopeful of bruises tomorrow. You are also hopeful that he’ll fuck you properly sometime in the next ten seconds, because if he doesn’t you might die.

“You don’t have to hold back” you say. “I mean it. As fast as you need. As hard as you need.”

A pause. Then he guides your hips forward—not deeper, but closer, flush against him, and the pressure takes you by surprise, and you whimper.

“You get to feel good too,” he says. “You said whatever I need, right? Anything I want?”

“Mmhm.” He moves you, and you let him. “Mmhm.”

“Right. Not too deep,” His mouth finds its way back to your neck, just below your ear, and you keep rocking against him in that heavy, unrushed rhythm, your clit pressed back and forth against his stomach where his shirt has ridden up. “Not running anywhere, just this, just—” You pulse around him, and his voice breaks. “— just like that. Need to hear you make those pretty noises while you squeeze down on me.”

“Ry—”

“You want me to fill you up, right, you want me to put a baby in you, that’s the whole point, and I want to, I’m going to, I just—then I need to feel you—need you to feel good. Need you to come again.”

“Ryland.”

“You can do that for me, right, you can, you can, it’s only fair.”

You don’t know how long you stay like this. It’s slower than you wanted, but exactly as fast as you need, and he is patient, steady, even as the monologue runs away from him and he begins babbling nonsense into your ear. Or maybe he’s making perfect sense. You think you hear your name a few times, but who even knows anymore. You’re pretty sure you’ve lost the ability to process language.

He lets go of your hips on one side to get a hand back on your chest, gentle, rolling your nipple between forefinger and thumb. You bury your face in his neck, and then make some effort to lift it back up, until you are practically cheek to cheek.

“It’s only fair, you have your rule, I have mine,” he says. You don’t even know what he’s talking about. You’re not sure he does, either. His mouth is next to your mouth, level, along the same plane, and it would be so easy, nothing at all, to turn your head and—

And then his mouth moves higher, to your eyes, next to your eyes, and he’s saying, “Here, is here okay, can I kiss you here, can I please kiss you here.”

You make some sort of noise of agreement, so far past words you don’t know if you could produce a full sentence if you tried.

The moment he has your permission, he turns his head just the slightest bit to properly press his mouth against your temple, and he keeps it there while he crushes you to his chest with one arm around your waist, keeping the pressure of his pelvis against your clit,  and every sound he makes vibrates through your skull as he finishes inside you.

Neither of you moves for a long, long time. Your chest is pressed to his. You could almost swear you feel his heart beat through it, a little faster than yours, a little out of rhythm. 

“Your food is definitely cold,” is the first thing you manage.

“It is,” he agrees. “Because I put it in the fridge.”

“Oh.” The freckles do go down to his shoulders, you see now. You run your finger between them, tracing constellations, up until the place where they disappear under his shirt where you pushed it back. “Wow. When did you do that?”

“Before. After. Between. I told you that. I said it out loud.”

“I forgot.” The comfortable silence returns. You feel his hand, slow up and down your back, and the other in your hair, still, his thumb against your temple. “I probably need to lay down again,” you finally say. “For twenty minutes. I think that’s the rule.”

“Sure. Just one more second.”

“Okay.”

You let several minutes pass.

“I don’t even know why twenty minutes. It seems like an arbitrary amount of time”

“Yeah?” He kisses your temple again—slow, like he’s committing it to memory—and then your jaw, and then your collarbone, and then your neck again, and it tickles and you giggle and while you giggle he finally turns, careful, and lowers you back down to the couch. He pulls out of you, soft, and you’d protest but you are honestly too satisfied down to your bones to do anything but let him. “I thought you did all that research.”

“I did. Nobody on Reddit could agree on a number.”

“You did not just use research and Reddit in the same sentence,” he says, walking back to the kitchen. The sink goes, and then stops. The fridge opens. A bag crinkles on the counter. The chiming of silverware in a drawer, the one to the right of the sink, next to the junk drawer. Your heart feels so full it could burst. Here’s to the things that last.

“Cool it, doc. We can’t all have a fancy degree.”

“You want fried rice, or white?”

“Both.”

“On it. And you literally have a J.D. Juris doctor.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make me a researcher, it just means I get paid twice as much to do half the work of one.”

“Mean,” he says. You stick a tongue out at him, even though you know he can’t see it. “But fair.”

The microwave goes. You lie back, having pulled his boxers back on, and you update your mental profile of him, this man you’ve known for the better part of thirty-four years.

Ryland Grace is not the kind of guy who has sex and then kicks you out within fifteen minutes.

Ryland Grace is also not the kind of guy who lets you leak in misery on the couch.

Ryland Grace is smart but not obnoxious about it.

“You want something other than water? I guess it’s late for coffee. Or is that one of those things you can’t have? Like alcohol? I did—I haven’t done, like, research, that’s a completely different thing, but I was reading about…”

Ryland Grace is smart but mostly not obnoxious about it.

Ryland Grace prints things out at the library if he’s afraid they’re inappropriate for the school printer

Ryland Grace is the kind of guy who agrees to donate sperm to an old friend without question.

He is tall, and brilliant, and sweet, and funny, and has a great head of hair, and is also built to a crazy degree for someone whose primary form of exercise seems to be biking places.

He’s farsighted, but that means he keeps the glasses on during sex and that honestly has to count as a pro.

He is good in bed, and you get to keep on sleeping with him for as long as it takes for you to get pregnant.

That last part makes you pause.

The as long as it takes part. The part where there’s a guaranteed end date.

Which is your fault, of course, and also entirely by design. Help me have a baby is a very different context than help me have a baby and also we should date. It’s completely different than help me have a baby and also remember that time sixteen years ago when I poured my heart out to you and you—

“There.” He places a coaster on the coffee table, and a steaming plate on top of it. “You don’t have to sit up yet, it’s pretty hot. I just put a little of everything. And it’s definitely a no on the coffee, unless you want decaf, but then I remembered you hate coffee so I just brought more water.”

You take the fork he offers you. “Thanks, Ryland,” you say.

It comes out softer than you meant for it to. He doesn’t notice. He just smiles, and goes back to the kitchen to make himself a plate. You watch him go, and you think:

Ryland Grace is the perfect person for you to have fun with, have a baby with, and then forget about completely.

You can do that. You can totally do that. You just don’t know how you’re going to do that.

But then he comes back with a steaming plate of food of his own, and jokes about burning his tongue, and then immediately burns his tongue, and you laugh at it like a friend would. And, once you’re satisfied that you’ve been on your back enough to be relatively leak-proof, you sit up and race him to see who can finish their noodles the fastest (he lets you win, like he used to when you were kids), and every time you offer to leave he finds some excuse or some question that requires you to stay, until he actually has to leave to avoid being late for work, and you drive home and you shower and you go to sleep in your own bed. And you wake up only thinking about him a little.

Camille didn't lift her head from the decorative pillow on her couch, voice muffled against the beige woven fabric. "I forgot the Leafs weren't playing tonight. Can't let you experience the bars when there's no collective suffering to be had."

"Every day, I thank God for not being a Leafs fan." Elsie bit back a laugh when Camille shoved her foot off the couch.

"Like the Blues are any better."

"At least they've won something in the last fifty years."

Camille groaned and rolled onto her back. It was a dark, mid-autumnal night, and the comforting hum of the air circulating the small apartment was broken by the boisterous nature of the city beyond the walls that roused a restlessness in her bones, one that Elsie seemed immune to.

"What's your brother up to?" asked Camille. "Think he and his friend would mind if we dropped by?"

Elsie shrugged. It had played out as one big coincidence that she and her older brother's respective best friends lived in the same city, that they could time their visits so perfectly without sending their parents into a state of worry that their kids were alone in a different country, even if they spent their entire trip so far removed from one another: Elsie hadn't seen Levi since they grabbed their bags at the airport, and she had no plans to see him again until their flight home was called to board.

"At a bar, it seems like," she said, turning her screen toward Camille to show the unflattering contact photo running loose in the city. "Feel like getting dressed up?"

Camille grinned, all mischief. "Guess we're going to a bar after all."

The bar was crowded, bodies pressed together like they were squished into a club, and music pounded through the speakers until it rang uncomfortably in their heads. Elsie walked on the tips of her toes, peering over people's heads and shoulders in search of her brother, and Camille clung onto her like a child would their mother.

Finally, she spotted him—the God-awful bleached, buzzed hair, dyed with faded leopard spots like a beacon of light in this dim establishment—and each nearing step revealed the lines of ink scattered along his arms. His back was turned to them, and Elsie's lips crimped with diablerie. Her footsteps slowed, prowling like a predator scouring its prey, and she waited until she was just a hair's breadth from him to blow air into his ear.

Levi flinched, whipping around with a curse flying from his mouth. His expression hardened when he heard his little sister cackling at his distress. He rubbed his ear. "You're not funny."

"I'm hurt, Jeans," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Hey, Camille," Levi greeted, earning a distracted one in return. "What're you doing here?"

"If you don't want your little sister showing up at the same places, then you should probably turn your location off," said Elsie, snatching his beer for a quick sip before he could smack her hand away.

"I share my location with you so you know I'm not dead in a ditch when I don't answer."

"We were bored." Elsie turned to Camille, whose silence drew concern. She followed her best friend's gaze, roaming over the faces she had seen on TV before, and understood. "Quit staring."

"I can't," Camille whispered, wide-eyed.

Levi lifted an eyebrow as he placed his beer on the table surrounded by his best friend's friends. "She's a Leafs fan, right?" he signed dexterously. "Does she know?"

"I guess not. Must have forgotten."

"Oh, this will be fun," Levi smirked when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a presence returning from the bathroom. "Hey, man, look who showed up."

Joseph took a second glance at the woman standing in front of his childhood friend—the same eyes sparkling beneath the lousy lighting, the same crooked smile that spoke only of mischief, even the same bend in their noses like they'd broken it in the same spot. Recognition widened his eyes. "Elsie?" He brought her into a friendly, yet gauche hug. "Almost didn't recognise you without the blue hair."

"God, has it been that long?" she asked before introducing Camille to him, nudging her out of her stupor. Joseph had extended the same gesture to his teammates who made it out to the bars for the night, and their thin smiles had eased at the newfound familiarity.

"Hey, kid!" Levi called before Camille could yank her too far away from the crowded booth and toward the bartenders. He handed her some cash, the corners of his lips curving slightly when she thanked him and ran off.

"Okay, what the hell?" Camille asked at the bar. "Why did you never mention that you know Joseph freaking Woll? You know how much of a Leafs fan I am."

"Sorry," Elsie said sheepishly. "To be fair, in my head, he's just Joey. Half the time, I forget he exists."

Elsie managed to flag a bartender and put down enough money to cover her and Camille's drinks—courtesy of Levi, of course. They took a shot in gratitude for his generosity, then ordered another. She could feel a pair of eyes burning into her as she tipped her head back, and as she brought the lime to her mouth, her gaze couldn't help but skirt past Camille and toward the group of hockey players in the distance until she found the charming blues of her brother's best friend.

Her heart flipped—so quickly, she thought it was from the way the liquor went down her throat.

The flashing lights hid the moment Joseph snapped his attention away with his lip trapped between his teeth.

As time plunged deeper into the night, and it became abundantly clear that Camille was not going to hold her alcohol as she had in college, Elsie put a stopper on her drinks. The stranger who wanted to buy her a drink had raised an eyebrow when she settled for a water and a basket of fries.

Camille's eyes lit up when a basket of fries was shoved into her hands. Elsie laughed, then returned to the stranger—Hailey, she'd come to learn her name was. She took her forwardness with stride, leaning into the touches on her arm and returning the flirty glint in her eyes that seemed to devour every curve and dip of her figure.

It was no surprise that she had ended up with Hailey's mouth on hers not long after.

But a coldness washed over Hailey when a stern throat clearing sliced through the pounding bass of the music.

Their heads turned, and Elsie furrowed her brows.

"Your brother's looking for you," Joseph said with a slight edge in his tone.

Elsie didn't think she'd ever seen him so serious. Her gaze flickered between him and Hailey, who seemed equally as twiddled, before she excused herself and allowed the crowd to swallow her whole. She felt like a fish weaving between threads of seagrass: turning, lingering, observing, with no destination in sight.

Instead, she waited until the familiar mop of dark hair slipped past her a few feet over. Jumping forward, her hand curled around the bend of Joseph's elbow.

The alarm on his face quickly fell. "Jesus, Els."

"What's up?"

Joseph had said something, and Elsie tried her best to decipher it, eyebrows cinching together as she stared hard at his lips—a habit too hard to snap despite the years that had passed. He noticed, then—the focused expression, just how loudly the music was blaring at them, the drunken racket of voices—and glanced around for an emptier part of the bar.

Elsie smiled gratefully when he led her away, on the fringes of the booth with his friends, distant enough to avoid their own clamor. And although everything was still so loud, when he gestured to ask if she was okay, she nodded.

"Do you wanna tell me what's up?" she decided to ask again. "I know my brother's not looking for me."

"Yeah, he is."

A chuckle rolled off her tongue as she raised her phone, revealing the last text she'd received from her brother—a short few minutes ago, but enough time to crumble Joseph's narrative—about leaving with someone.

Joseph inhaled deeply, tried to ignore the faint waft of her vanilla perfume that infiltrated his senses, and rubbed his jaw. "I meant that he wanted me to look after you."

"Levi doesn't ask anyone to do that," Elsie said easily. "Besides, you didn't have to tell me that."

"Wanted to make sure you knew."

Amusement crawled up her face. She stood on her toes to alleviate the scratch of her throat over the music. "You know, if you're gonna lie, at least try to do a better job at it."

Joseph's hand steadied her hip as he leaned down. It had been an innocent move, one to ease the strain on her ears and abate the unsteady stance that came with being on her toes, but he saw it—the wave of goosebumps undulating across her skin as his breath fanned her ear. "You're my best friend's little sister," he said. "I have that responsibility to him to make sure you're safe."

And there it was—the eureka moment, the unfortunate rewrite in her memory that the heady staring from across the room and the seemingly fueled interruption had been nothing but an obligation to the person who bound them together and not born from an excitement seeking danger that sparked all the right spots in her head.

With the slightest turn of her head, Elsie met his eyes, then glanced at his lips. If it weren't for all the noise around her, she might have convinced herself she heard the slight hitch in his breath, but she had never been good at listening to more than one thing at a time. "I'm not a kid," she muttered, somewhat sourly. "I don't need protection."

"Seems like you do," he said, and the seriousness from before returned, masked with a little more mastery until it was nothing more than a drop in his tone. His posture, too, had straightened like he was trying to appear larger than he was. "You could at least pick someone different, Els. Seen her here before; she's friends with this guy who tried to get into a fight with Kniesy."

"Oh, really?" Elsie couldn't help but bark out a laugh. "Thank you, my knight in shining armor. Would you like to screen everyone I talk to?"

Joseph rolled his eyes. "She had her tongue shoved in your mouth. I don't think there was a lot of talking going on."

"Jealous?"

"What?"

Elsie's lips twitched with repressed amusement at the sight of his scandalized expression. "Then, what? You don't fuck with the gays?"

Joseph stammered over his words. "What—no! I fuck with the gays."

"Have you seen who your best friend is? I'm fucking with you." Elsie patted his chest, a little taken aback by the sturdiness she was met with (Of course, he would'd be well-muscled. Why wouldn't he be? Fucking athlete.). "I'm headed back to the bar. You're off the clock, Joey."

"Joey," he said in disbelief. "Your brother doesn't even call me that anymore."

Elsie hadn't expected him to follow her, but when she ordered another water, his voice rang behind her for one more. Then she dipped her head with a laugh when he asked for some chicken tenders and handed his card over to go with it.

"I have one memory of us, Joey," she said. "The only time we ever hung out. This kinda feels like it." She turned around with something reminiscent sparkling in her eyes. "You had to pick me up from piano lessons because someone rear-ended Levi. God, I felt like the coolest girl around, catching a ride with a high schooler who wasn't my brother. Of course, that being the only time it ever happened, the 'cool girl' status didn't really stick around for very long."

Joseph looked almost apologetic. "I honestly forgot that happened."

"I would be surprised if you hadn't," said Elsie, sipping her water. "I never could remember where you took me to get food on the way home, though."

"Could've been Town Square," he said, running his hand over his neck and jaw like he was trying to soothe himself. "I went through a phase when that was all I wanted."

"Huh." Elsie pondered his answer before her face twisted with disbelief. "Really?"

"I hear they changed the recipe for the chicken tenders, though, so I don't think you should go in with the same expectations."

Elsie blew a raspberry, earning a laugh—full-hearted and meaningfully like it'd been the funniest thing he'd seen all day. She couldn't help but smile at the sound, much kinder to her ears than the bass droning from the speakers.

"Do you have your phone on you?" she asked.

Joseph held it out.

"You're incredibly trusting considering who you are in this city."

"You're not a stranger, Els," he said.

Elsie turned her back to him, holding his phone up. "C'mere."

Their mirrored faces stared back at them. Joseph didn't contest when she snapped a photo of them—eyes crinkled with their wide grins, lighting as egregious as the music playing, his posture curved horribly to fit into the frame—finding it almost endearing.

"There," said Elsie, returning his phone. "So you have proof that you didn't let me run wild like hooker over there."

Joseph followed her thumb jutting toward Camille, who was dancing on a table. He shook his head with amusement, both at Camille's antics and at Elsie's jesting tone. She was worse than Levi in that regard, never a serious bone in her body. Levi liked to complain about that sometimes.

A basket of chicken tenders was placed between them. Joseph watched her stuff her mouth, probably faster than she could chew, and something new passed through his eyes—a fondness, perhaps. He sucked in a sharp breath when the realization flickered through his head and looked away, pushing a thin coaster around with his finger.

Elsie swallowed loudly as she watched his calloused, yet lithe fingers twirl the coaster around. She was glad she had a mouthful of chicken right now.

"Shouldn't you be with your teammates?" she decided to ask, wiping the corner of her lips with the back of her hand. A smear of grease-stained red blemished her skin.

"Is all I am to you a wallet?"

Elsie snickered. "No, that's all my brother is. You, on the other hand, I told you that you were off the clock."

Joseph tilted his head. "Do you really want me to leave you alone?"

The quick little flip of her heart happened again. Elsie vigorously shook her head.

Joseph smiled softly, reaching for a napkin. "Alright," he said. "Hold still."

Elsie froze when he held her chin in place between his thumb and pointer finger. Gently, he wiped away the smudged lipstick, careful not to remove what was barely clinging to your lips. Elsie wondered if he could sense the fried brain cells, the disorder she could only describe as highly entropic, the stilted breath that should've pelted against his skin.

Joseph released his hold on her to scrub the back of her hand.

"I could've done that myself," she said. "I'm not a kid."

"You're welcome." Joseph grinned, ruffling her hair.

"Thank you," Elsie said softly.

"Oh, fries!" Camille squeaked out, stumbling into Elsie, who caught her with ease after years of drunken excursions together.

Elsie mourned the bubble that had popped with a laugh that told nothing of it. She flipped Camille's hair out of her face. "Did you have fun dancing on the tables?"

Camille nodded, grabbing a fistful of fries. "So much fun! God, I'm so glad we stalked Levi."

"How about we skip the ranch, yeah?" Elsie said calmly. "I don't think you can stomach it right now."

"Sounds like a dare."

Elsie pulled Camille away from the bartop by her waist. "I think that's our sign to head home."

Joseph reached for his car keys. "Need a ride?" he asked. "You know, for old time's sake. I'll try to remember this one this time."

A smile curved at Elsie's lips. "Yeah, that would be great."

Camille snatched one last portion of fries from the tender-less basket and shoved them into her purse. She cried out in complaint as Elsie dragged her away like she was nothing more than a tantrumming toddler.

"You got her?" asked Joseph.

Elsie couldn't get a letter past her lips when Camille folded over her arms like dead weight. The sudden shift nearly tripped her, and a panicked yelp straggled past her lips. "I don't got her!"

Joseph laughed as he so easily brought Camille into his grasp, her body draped over his arms like a cut of silk. The sound died on his tongue when Elsie slipped her finger into his belt loop, tightening and loosening depending on the thickness of the crowd.

For a short moment, they stopped at the booth with what was left of his teammates to say their goodbyes, and maybe for that short moment, they had fooled his teammates into believing that they had known each other well—beyond the passing pleasantries when they caught rare glimpses of each other over the years, beyond the brief mentions they heard from Levi.

"Go Leafs Go!" Camille shouted over Joseph's shoulder, earning a myriad of responses from patrons throughout the bar.

"How 'bout 'go home go', hm?" Elsie asked with a teasing lilt.

Once they got Camille strapped into the backseat, Joseph and Elsie filled the front. He handed his phone over for her to type in Camille's address and gave her the freedom to browse through an extensive number of playlists.

Part of it felt oddly vulnerable, some sort of translation of his soul laid out for her to judge, but he also felt it was unfair to assume that she was as pretentious about music as her brother was. After all, between the two siblings, only one of them studied music, and it hadn't been her.

"EDM, folk, classical, country," Elsie read out. "Wow, a little bit of everything here."

Joseph turned out of the parking garage as a soft ballad drifted into Je te laisserai des mots—from his playlist of songs he'd bookmarked to learn on the piano, he recognized. A slow smile tugged at his lips. "Do you still play?"

"Not so much anymore," she said remorsefully, thumbing along the base of her hand. "It was one thing that I lost my hearing, but I also broke my wrist in high school. Never been the same since. But it's alright; my brother has all the talent anyway."

"That's funny: Levi always says you had the talent," said Joseph. "Think he was jealous of how easily it came to you."

Elsie smiled at that. "Do you play?"

Joseph was suddenly shy, the tips of his ears burning bright red. "Here and there."

"You'll have to show me one day."

"I really don't think that's something you wanna hear," he said with a dismissive laugh.

"But what if I did? It could be fun."

Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Elsie couldn't help but steal a glance at Joseph's screen as the notifications piled in and interrupted the tranquil atmosphere.

Levi Rivers Sorry to ditch Staying the night Is my sister still there? I think her phone's dead Can I put you on babysitting duty? I'll shovel your parents' driveway when it snows Thanks man See ya in the morning

Elsie stared at the series of texts that came through before it hit her that she was actively peeping at someone else's phone. Her attention darted, rather, to the passing Toronto skyline she was growing familiar with, fingers thrumming against her thighs.

A chuckle came through. "Subtle, Els. Who was it?"

Crimson spilled across her cheeks. "Levi," she answered, turning her head. Her throat grew dry: Of course, he looked good while driving, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift, body loose and comfortable like he'd settled in a well-worn chair. "Said he'd clear your parents' driveway when it snows if you'll babysit me for the night."

"Told you," Joseph all but sang.

"Right, but this doesn't seem like it was sent before you cockblocked me," Elsie said with a quirked brow.

"I really don't think cockblocked is the right word."

"Of course, on account of neither of us having cocks. Pussyblocked then."

Joseph took his eyes off the road for a moment, just long enough to send her a flat look that melted when she cracked a cheeky grin. "You've got a mouth on you now," he said. "Did you really think Levi wouldn't ask at all?"

Elsie sank into the red leather seat, suddenly curling into herself. "He never really had to," she said, fiddling with the crucifix hanging from her neck. "I mean, he moved out for college when I was still in middle school. Our circles are pretty fucking distant, if you ask me."

It was as though a bucket of ice had been dumped over his head. Revulsion wormed through Joseph's mind—not at her, but at himself. "God, I forgot how young you are."

"You make it sound like it's a curse," said Elsie. "I'm only five years younger than you. I'm 22."

"In one mile, turn right," his phone announced, and the conversation simmered.

The car seemed to grow colder without Elsie and Joseph talking, and a shiver eventually racked through her body.

"Cold?"

"A little," said Elsie, her voice small, because there was something about him actually looking out for her, vocalizing her needs because she wouldn't, that seemed to reiterate just how childish she appeared to him.

"I can turn the air down," he said, "or there should be a sweater in the back."

"I'll take the sweater." Elsie stretched her body like a cat, blinding pawing for the thick lump of fabric somewhere beside an unconscious Camille. She slipped it on, shielding the world from viewing the deep plunge of her shirt, and shuddered as a warmth and lingering scent of his cologne cradled her.

"Are you doing anything tomorrow night?"

Elsie kept her head down, picking at her nails. She hadn't felt the need to keep them trimmed and neat since she stopped performing all those years ago. "Camille was gonna take me to a bar to watch y'all play. Something about collective suffering." Her eyes jumped up. "No offence."

Joseph huffed out his amusement. "I've heard worse—a lot worse." His fingers tapped against the steering wheel, contemplative, something close to hesitant. "Would you two wanna go to the game?"

Camille suddenly lurched forward, like one final breath of life had possessed her, and Elsie nearly screamed. "You better say yes, Els, I swear to God," she whispered hotly, though her inebriation had let Joseph hear the slurred words loud and clear.

Elsie wished the passenger seat would swallow her whole when Joseph's laughter rang through the car, and for that split second in time, she felt like a little child again—the subject of her brother's teasing, her body flimsy without a confident bone to hold her up, cheeks a permanent shade of red.

"Alright, sit back down," she told Camille. "Have some decorum."

"I'll have Levi send you the tickets in the morning," said Joseph.

Elsie offered a simple smile, yet appreciative all the same. "Thank you."

She turned back to the cityscape, streaks of warm building lights and headlights going the other way blurring together, and remained oblivious to the skin on Joseph's hand blanching as it gripped the gear shift a little tighter—as though he was battling with himself and the little voice in his head that'd been deeply ingrained since his youth, since he first stepped foot into church.

"When'd you stop dying your hair?" he decided to ask. She and Levi always seemed to have layers of colors in their hair for as long as he could remember.

"Right before college," she answered. "Figured I should have a go at being a little 'normal,' I guess."

"Normal can be overrated."

"Coming from the clean-cut, golden child? How you ended up being friends with someone like my brother still astounds me."

Joseph couldn't help but smile. "You know, I play hockey for a living. I wouldn't say that's a very normal job."

"I guess not. You're a goalie, too. Makes you even weirder by default." Elsie grinned when he sent a playful flick to her thigh. It faltered at the edges for a moment, and she shifted in her seat, her voice small. "Did you like it? The hair, I mean."

"I thought it was cool," he said with a casual shrug.

"Really?"

A half-chuckle rolled off his tongue. "Really, Els."

Elsie played with the ends of her hair, clamping them between her pointer and middle fingers like a cigarette as if to examine its stiffness and gauge if the strands could handle going through rounds of bleach and color again. Maybe one of these days, she'd show up to a family function with a head of neon green like she did at sixteen, and she and Levi could battle it out for the largest disappointment in the eyes of their grandparents.

Yeah, one of these days. Maybe the next time she'd get to see Joseph. Whenever that was.

And how juvenile she felt for that, seeking everything in her power to be perceived as cool in the eyes of someone older. She thought she'd gotten over that phase long ago.

Fuck, she just wanted to beg for some semblance of fierce confidence she'd channeled in the bar—even if only an ounce of it. Faintly, she could feel the beads of her seldom-used rosary between her fingers, and a faded prayer sprout at the tip of her tongue, as though God had personally crept into her mind to provide an answer to her wishful pleading.

The reminder of how ineptly she had kept up with the faith she grew up in left a bad taste in her mouth, and something wilted deep within her soul under its weight. She felt like a horrible person. No, scratch that, she was a horrible person for it.

She might even consider having Joseph drive her to the nearest church so she could spill her guilt through the familiar latticed grate.

They hadn't made it through the door before Camille threw a panicky finger toward the bathroom. Joseph held Camille's hair back as Elsie scrambled around for the cleaning products, careful to avoid the splotch of vomit on the floor that failed to make it into the toilet bowl.

Joseph's eyes widened when Camille leaned her weight on him, sending him flopping against the bathtub. He looked down at her, slumped against his chest with a low rumbling snore, and breathed out, giving her a gentle pat on her waist as though she were a baby he had no idea how to hold.

Elsie had chuckled and continued cleaning. "You probably didn't have your night planned out like this."

"Can't say I did. Need any help?"

"Just make sure she makes it to the toilet if she has to throw up again."

Elsie finally settled beside Joseph with a heavy sigh, slouching until she was partly against his arm and the bathtub. "I'm so glad I'm not drunk right now."

Joseph leaned his head on hers, unable to see her eyes flutter shut as though she was bathing under the summer sun, and enjoyed the few moments of silence. He could fall asleep here, he thought, even with Camille passed out on his lap, even with his butt going numb against the tiled floor. If he moved just a few inches, he might reach the cushiony bathmat, but that would mean moving away from Elsie's touch—a soft undercurrent like an old lullaby his mother might have sang to him.

Five minutes had passed, and Joseph nearly thought he was trapped there for the rest of the night when Elsie tilted her head back enough to see the top of his head. "Can you help me put Cami to bed?"

Even if he could say no, the sweetened glimmer in her eyes, all stripped down by the late hour of the night, would have been a very hard refusal, for she looked as a puppy begging for scraps off the table would. And so he did, and he remained by the bedroom door to watch as Elsie gently wiped away the makeup off her friend's face, with something soft etched into his expression.

He was grateful that the dim lighting had cast disguising shadows, so Elsie could never see the cracks in his mind nor the shame that came with it.

Elsie settled on the kitchen counter, legs dangling over the edge, as she observed Joseph, from the way his eyes seemed to roam Camille's apartment—he could recognize the smiley face on the tape of the hockey stick slanted against a corner—to the twiddling of his shirt. Anything, it seemed, to avoid looking at her.

"Do you live far from here?" she asked to make conversation. "Despite what it sounds like, I don't check my brother's location all the time."

"I don't think it matters how far I live from anywhere," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "The city's a nightmare to drive through."

"So I've heard." Elsie tilted her head. "Why're you standing all the way there? Come here."

Joseph audibly gulped when he finally spared her a glance—how prettily the warm overhead lights shone down on her, like an altar worthy of reverence, and how the air seemed to calm against the cityscape beyond the windows. "I don't think that's a good idea."

The easy expression on her face fell.

She guessed why: The sweeping gaze, the looming presence, the unneeded interference. He'd even let slip the turmoil eating at him when they were in the car, the exasperated and nearly abhorrent hiss of how young she was, like he couldn't sit with the thought that he saw her as any bit more than just his best friend's little sister.

"I didn't mean—" Elsie shook her head, small, as though to herself. "Just 'cause," she gestured to her ears, "you know."

Joseph felt like a major jackass, then, but he didn't think he was imagining something forlorn in the way she looked at him. He took a few steps forward, but nothing beyond that, almost hoping it would be enough. All it seemed to do, however, was cement the damnation coursing through his head, how easily he wanted to crumble under her gaze and close every inch of distance between them, and it left him in fear of saying something that would scare her off—or just as scarily, make its way to Levi's ears.

Levi, who was his best friend. Levi, who was just as, if not more, muscular than him, could pound his face in with a simple swing. Levi, who was deathly protective of his younger sister, even if she believed otherwise. Levi, who never had to consider telling his friends not to try anything with her, least of all his best friend, because it was a given, all things considered.

Was this messed up? It felt messed up.

"Hey," Elsie said softly, leaping off the counter. "I can tell your mind's going a million miles an hour." She looked up at him with a gentle tilt of her head. "Are you stressing yourself out because you think I'm hot?"

Joseph's chest filled with air, lots of it. "You're not one to beat around the bush, are you?"

The corner of her lips curved just the tiniest amount, for just the shortest moment. "Is it really so bad?"

"Yeah," he said, "it is. You're my best friend's baby sister. I've known you since you were a kid."

"It's not like you ever paid any real attention to me back then," she said, curling her arms around herself.

Joseph couldn't stand the feeble crack in her voice. He kind of wanted to take it all back, then—wished he'd never gone up to her at the bar at all. Maybe he would save them both from this moment—the inquiry, the shame, the fluster, the dejection. Still, he couldn't help but ask, "Is that supposed to make things better?"

"I think so. Do you even know my birthday?"

Joseph furrowed his brows. "Uh...March 5th?"

"February 17th," Elsie corrected. "Did I ever have braces?"

"Seriously?"

"Timer's tickin', Joey."

He nearly rolled his eyes. "I don't know."

"You would if you ever got close enough to me to pay attention," said Elsie. "I had them for years. C'mon, what do I have to do to get this moral dilemma out of your head?"

"Be the second coming of Christ."

Elsie huffed out a laugh before she reached for his jaw. A spark jolted between them. Joseph swallowed thickly, felt her gently pelting against the armor protecting his dignity, the shred of virtue tearing him apart. Moment by moment, he felt it waver, under her soft stare, under the patience she stood with, under the delicate touch that spoke of nothing more.

It took everything in him to keep his feet planted, to keep himself contained despite the seams of his restraint unraveling. He was starting to believe it was harder than any Game 7 he would ever have to face, and he would be deemed a failure once again when his palm splayed against her hip, the denim of her jeans rough against his calluses as he walked her toward the counter.

The corner of Elsie's mouth lifted in a devilish half-smirk as the base of her spine hit granite. Her heart thundered against her ribs, her chest heavy with his overwhelming presence, caging her against the counter. She glanced at his lips. "It's your move."

For a moment, Joseph leaned forward, felt the faintest, most feather-light brush of her lips against his, felt her breath against his, felt the heat of her body against his, but just as quickly as he'd given up on his restraint, the thought of her brother spurred in his head again, and he pulled his head back.

"Fuck," he hissed, "I can't do this to Levi."

Elsie bit into the inside of her cheek, dejectedly tipping her chin away.

And maybe it was just how sad she looked, defeated like she'd just watched the very last thing keeping her going slip from her fingers, that had him slotting his hand against her neck, nearly searing to the touch. The hope in her eyes was palpable, a bright speck in the dim ambience enveloping them, and suddenly, he felt cruel.

God, messed up and cruel. He was discovering new ways of beating himself up tonight.

"I'm sorry," he said, stepping away from her, away from the chokehold she had on him. "I should go."

Elsie watched him as he crossed the open-plan of Camille's apartment, collecting his keys on the counter, then stumbling as he shoved his feet back into his shoes. She felt naïve, she supposed, in believing that he would indulge her in something like a kiss when he was beating himself up over the mere prospect of even finding her attractive.

It was like she had become every bit the kid he claimed she was—so gullible and easily fond.

"Wait—" Joseph swiveled around, reached into his front pocket, and took his credit card out. "Take this. Use it at the arena, if you or Camille want anything from the store or the concession stands. I don't really care."

"You're crazy," Elsie said. "You don't know me well enough to trust me with your card. I could buy a car, for all you know."

"Your brother asked me to look after you," he said, and something about the way he said it felt pointed.

"Yeah, for the night, not financially. Besides, you've done more than enough by helping me with Camille. We'll be okay. We have grown-up jobs."

"Just—take it," he said. "If you end up with a car, then, fuck, I don't know, you somehow end up with a car."

In some ways, it felt cheap, maybe a little degrading, to accept his credit card after the blow to her dignity his little rejection had managed to inflict—like this was his way of palliating the burn and mending the damage with a bandage made of dollar bills. Still, she plucked the card from between his fingers with no intention of ever using it and walked him to the door.

Joseph was halfway past the doorway when he paused. "Are you gonna tell Levi?"

"Tell him what?" she asked. "That his best friend thinks his sister is hot? That he wanted to kiss her? I really doubt this hasn't happened in history before, but don't worry, Joey, your secret's safe with me."

And despite how scornfully he could've taken her words, the ghost of a smile he noticed revealed something earnest, something sweet, something entirely dangerous for his frenzied mind. He figured even a puck to the head wouldn't shake it out of him.

"Hey, stop beating yourself up over it," she said, a lot less teasingly. "Nothing happened. You just dropped me and Camille off."

Joseph nodded.

"Drive safe, okay?" Elsie told him like they were words she'd always said. "Text me when you get home."

Joseph blinked at her. "You're gonna be the death of me."

Mirth flickered in her eyes. "Should we look for plots together?"

"Goodnight, Els," he said over his shoulder.

Elsie waited until he got into the elevator before retreating.

Once morning came, all Camille could remember from the night before was seeing her favorite team's players before she blacked out—from shock or the insurmountable amount of alcohol she consumed, she was yet to determine—with the minor exception of accepting Joseph's invitation to see the game live.

She would be damned if she forgot that.

Elsie laughed when Camille finally showed face in the morning, eyes barely open as a pounding headache rang obnoxiously against her skull as though a death metal concert was being held there and her feet dragging like her muscles were made of concrete.

Camille could only flip her off before flopping onto the couch. "Don't tell me I embarrassed myself."

A snort sounded, and Camille groaned.

"Alright, let's go whoop these Krakens," Camille said with the most enthusiasm she could force herself to project, which was to say, not very much.

Levi, too, had laughed once Elsie and Camille found their seats beside him, a few rows from the glass. "The sunglasses, Camille?"

She lazily shoved her hand in his face, as if to shush him for speaking so loudly. They hadn't been there for very long, taking a straight path from the parking garage to the lower bowl, but already the pulsing music was worming through her head with the right amount of suffering. "Earplugs, too."

"How hard did y'all go last night?"

"You, singular," said Elsie. "Only one of us went hard last night. Though I'm glad to see you're alive and well."

Levi nudged her. "Hey, that's why I share my location with you." He finally took note of what his sister was wearing, lips curling with disgust with each pass. "Where the hell did you get all that Leafs shit?"

"Cami's closet." Elsie pulled the sleeves of Joseph's sweater over her hands. It hadn't been a total lie—she'd raided the hat and logo-printed socks hidden by her dark-wash jeans back in the apartment—but Levi didn't need to know that the Drew House crew neck, way too large for her or Camille's frame, belonged to his best friend. "Where's yours?"

"I'm a Blues fan." He looked at her like she'd grown a second head, for it had never been a secret. In fact, it was very loudly proclaimed, and his childhood bedroom, decorated with pennant flags and banners and one-of-a-kind memorabilia collected over the years, had been all the evidence she needed. "I'm not wearing another team's gear. You shouldn't either. I thought I raised you better than that."

"But he's Joey." Elsie all but pouted.

"And he knows where my loyalties lie. Who else goes through the hassle of collecting all of his cards?"

Elsie rolled her eyes before scanning the ice. They were about halfway through warm-ups, pucks bouncing off the posts and skidding along the boards while the team glided throughout their zone with envious ease, sharpened blades scratching perfectly over the ice. She turned to Levi, and even if he wore his mask well, she could see it—the longing twisting into the edges of his mouth, the dimmed spark in his eyes, something that could've been a wiry green monster in his heart if she didn't know him as well as she did.

"Do you miss it?" she asked.

"Miss what?"

"Being out there?"

Levi huffed out a laugh, tightening with defensiveness. "I still play beer league. It's not like I've given it all up."

Elsie chewed on the inside of her cheek, tongue soothing over the tender tissue. "I know, but it's not the same as playing with your best friend."

"What are you trying to get at?" Levi nearly snapped. His glare softened almost immediately when he saw her rub her finger along the back of her ear, like the external parts of her cochlear implants had suddenly grown ten times heavier. "I don't blame you, you know," he said gently, draping his arm around her shoulders. "I'd do it all over again. Besides, I like what I do now."

The game started and quickly plunged into a bloodbath of anxiety, neither team ever allowing a lead for very long. Elsie went to grasp her necklace, as though she had hoped for a holy presence to swing the game in their favor—as stupid as she might've called herself for it—but when the cold metal never came to know her fingertips, her heart sank.

She could've sworn she just had it.

Levi raised an eyebrow when she looked under her seat. He asked if she was okay, to which she signed her frustration that she was, indeed, not okay. He raised his hands and let her be.

With an overtime loss for the Leafs, Levi, Else, and Camille filed through the corridors, passes hanging from their necks, until they found the family room, filled with wives, girlfriends, relatives, and children. They had felt a little out of place there, falling into none of the categories that really validated their presence there, so they remained huddled in a corner, waiting for Joseph to find them, as though he were a parent picking their children up from daycare.

"There he is!" Levi exclaimed.

Elsie looked over her shoulder, the hand that was soothing the front of her bare neck coming to a slow halt as her eyes brazenly scanned over the suit fitted against his figure. His tie, colorful and loose around his collar, looked like he couldn't be bothered to knot the fabric together again after the loss looming in the air. A thin smile blossomed on her lips, one that came off a little stilted, yet had painted her restraint fairly well to him.

"Not even a water?" Joseph said to her. He tried not to think too hard about how comfortable she looked in his sweater. "Really?"

"I did appreciate the sentiment," she returned his card, ignoring the spark jumping between their fingers as they brushed against each other, "but one of us is majorly hungover and can't be within a three-foot radius of a drink without wanting to throw up, and the other overpacked her carry-on and can't fit anything she'd want to buy."

Levi seemed offended. "Why didn't I get a card?"

"What?" Joseph furrowed his brows. "You said to take care of your sister."

Elsie smiled sheepishly under her brother's wry glare.

"Need another ride?" asked Joseph.

This time around, things were different: Levi, with his long legs and sinewy build, had claimed the passenger seat, forcing Elsie and Camille to the back, and considering her brother's charisma seemed to crowd the car like there were more than four people inside it, the tranquility that once threaded through the space failed to burgeon. Elsie internally bewailed it, wishing that, for a fragment of a second, it was just her and Joseph again.

But sometimes it felt like it was—in the stolen glances in the rearview mirror, in the little ways he had roped her into the conversation, like he had only wanted to listen to what she had to say.

Elsie knew she was being stupid, knew that he was just being Joseph—kind, attentive, caring, funny without meaning to be—but there was a part of her that believed that maybe, just maybe, he actually did like her beyond the intimacy of a bar and the unraveling cloak of night, saw her as more than she was, thought of her as someone worth being selfish for.

She wondered what it'd take to break his resolve, then she realized how behemoth of a task that seemed to be, for how did one tempt someone who possessed the mental fortitude to play at the highest level his sport had to offer?

She could try. She wanted to try.

Even as tortured as he seemed to be last night. That had only enticed her more. The almost flawless gift that kept on giving, coming apart at the seams at a single bat of her eyelashes.

She could reap the consequences of her beguiling before the altar. Surely, God would understand the desire He so put forth in her heart.

"Thanks for the ride, Joe," said Camille. "Can I call you that?"

Joseph snickered. "I think we're on a first-name basis after last night."

Elsie slotted herself between the front two seats, pressing a chaste kiss on her brother's cheek, then one that lingered, for just a hair longer, on Joseph's. She never let her smirk make headway, not even the slightest twitch or slant at the corner of her lips, when the light shade of pink crawled up his neck.

"Thank you, Joey," she said, "for yesterday and today."

He watched her clamber out of the car. "Anytime, kid."

Elsie's step faltered. She knew what he was trying to do, this last-ditch attempt to talk himself out of his wandering gaze and soft-hearted nature, to keep his best friend entirely oblivious to it, too. She was grateful, then, that her back was turned to the car, so he couldn't see the glimmer in her eyes fade, so Levi wouldn't be privy to anything.

But he did anyway. Because he was Levi, and he was almost too attuned to all of his loved ones' fluctuating emotions.

"Hey, kid," he called out. She turned around. "You okay?" he signed. "You've been quiet."

Elsie offered a faint smile. "Fine. Listening fatigue. I'll see you at the airport. Enjoy the rest of your night."

"Not going to stalk us this time?"

With a quick glance at Camille, she laughed. "No," she said. "Night, Jeans."

"Night, kid." Levi rolled the window up.

Joseph waited until Elsie and Camille made it inside before he drove away.

"So, wanna tell me what that was about?" Camille asked once they crossed the threshold into her apartment unit.

"What was what about?"

"Els," Camille stared blankly, "that sweater's not mine; Joe gave you his card; you can't look him in the eye; he kept looking at you—not subtly, either. What the hell did I miss?"

Elsie collapsed onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. "Tomorrow?" she asked with a sigh. "Implants are running out of juice."

Camille chuckled. "Alright."

It had been a few hours later, Elsie mindlessly scrolling on her phone in silence, when she received a video from her brother that spelled out his inebriation like he was teaching a class of toddlers. She didn't need to assume that there was yelling and music blasting—after all, Levi always knew how to have a good time—and neither did she need to assume that Joseph was with him; the only thing surprising that came out of his presence when Levi flipped the camera around, however, was how intensely he had thrown back his shots.

Like he was trying to drown out every thought in his head.

Elsie left his video unanswered and went to put her phone down when she felt it buzz—once, then twice.

josephwoll is now following you

Joseph Woll I should've kissed you last night.

NOVEMBER

Levi and Elsie weren't the type of siblings who texted all the time (maybe a meme every few weeks), or made plans to see each other every other weekend (they were on par for a hangout every month and a half), or intermingled their friend groups (Levi was as good as their dad as recognizing her friends), or asked for life updates when it'd been too long (Elsie heard from their mom that he was looking to move). They believed that made them, by definition, not close—not estranged, but not best friends like they'd seen some others.

But every once in a while, when he was bored, Levi would remember that she lived in the same city and show up at her door unannounced.

"Joe's in net today," he said. "They're playing the Blues. Watch the game with me."

Elsie's transmitter snapped into place against her head, and the racket from the TV rushed into her ears. How Levi had found her remote when she had no recollection of where it'd last been placed was beyond her, but she kept her lips sealed.

"You're not giving me much of a choice," she said, joining him on the couch. "What happened to your friends? Oh, wait, you don't have any."

Levi rolled his eyes, pulling her throw blanket over his lap. He always thought she had the comfiest things—a perfectly warm lamp on the end table, festive garlands strung along the underside of her island counter, ready for Thanksgiving, silken cushions propped on her couch, all perfectly lived-in. He might drive home with this blanket later, though, if he can sneak it out.

"Turn the captions on."

"You're actually gonna watch with me?" Levi asked in disbelief. "I figured you were gonna leave me be and fuck off."

"It's the middle of the workweek," she said, sinking deeper into the cushions. "I'm not going anywhere if I can help it."

Levi flashed his bleached eyebrows like he understood.

"Can I dye your hair?" asked Elsie.

"What, this weekend?"

"No, like, right now."

Levi inhaled deeply, palming the grown-out buzzcut plagued with dark, overgrown roots, faded color, and brassy ends. "Fuck it, yeah. Buzz it while you're at it."

Elsie saluted and scurried off to her bathroom, finding her stash of bleach, developers, dyes, and gloves that had yet to see the light of day—all prepatory in case she decided to bite the bullet again. She liked to think it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

"Hey, did you go to Mass on Sunday?" Levi yelled from the living room.

"No!" she called back, brows furrowed with concentration. "I'm not driving forty minutes home to feel guilty. I can do that on my own, thank you very much. Did you?"

"No," he said.

A second passed, and like the answer to a millennium problem sprouting in their heads, their eyes lit up with realization.

"So that's why Mom was pissed," they concluded.

"She acts like it's something new," said Levi. "You and I are Creasters, at best. Joe might even be better about that, and he's not even Catholic."

Elsie snorted, about to bring the supplies over to the living room, when she pulled out her phone instead. Away from Levi's eyes, she could do this, stew in her hesitancy, stew in the fluttery feeling in her stomach. Her manicured thumbs hovered over her screen when she read the drunken text Joseph had sent that she never found a response to, and she wondered if she should've at the time, or if sending something now, entirely unrelated to it, was a good idea.

Before she could stop herself, however, the texts were sent.

els ♒︎ heyyy joey play well tonight (not that you don't normally) but i need to rub it in my brother's face Seen now

Elsie returned to the living room and laid down plastic along her rug and couch before forcing Levi onto the floor. Briefly, she looked at the TV as the national anthems rang out, Levi quietly singing along as though it would mask how good his voice truly was, and waited until the final note sounded before she brought the clippers to his head.

Splinters of hair cascaded along Levi's bare shoulders, and she was tempted to leave him with the shaved strip down the center, but her humored giggles earned her a shove, so she kept going.

By the time she had slathered on the bleach and let it process, they were halfway through the first intermission. Levi rushed through the rinse, shouting from Elsie's bathroom as suds dripped into his eyes from his haste.

"Two minutes, Jeans!"

"Fuck me!"

With heavy stomps, Levi stumbled back into the living room with a towel obscuring his vision, drops of water tracing his path along the floor. He plopped back into his spot in front of Elsie, another string of curses falling from his lips as the jagged edges of his fallen hair speared into his legs, adding to the sharp pain radiating from his spine after sticking only his head beneath the shower stream.

Once the game ended, Elsie wasn't sure whether he was bemoaning the overtime loss the Blues had suffered or the black squiggly, ribbon-like lines now encircling his hair. She assumed it was the former, for he'd slid praise to his childhood best friend at some point, only to lament the string of losses piling on his favorite team's record.

"Hey, wanna order in?"

And it was as though Levi had never watched his team lose. "Yeah, what do you want?"

"Chinese?"

"Chinese."

A few minutes later, Elsie's phone vibrated. Her gaze slid to her brother, who was entirely encapsulated by the post-game panel breakdown of the game, before she angled her phone ever so slightly.

Joseph Woll Was that good enough?

els ♒︎ i was joking, by the way seeing you get to play is more than enough for me :) but yes, jeans is a mess Seen now

Elsie frowned when it appeared that she would receive no additional response. Had she been too much? She didn't think so—just a friend expressing her pride in his accomplishments.

That was what they were now. Friends.

Maybe.

They didn't talk all that much, and she didn't ask Levi about him, just as he didn't ask Levi about her. But they weren't as peripheral anymore, and maybe acquaintances was a better choice of words, but she didn't like the sound of that.

She didn't think it explained the way his hands brushed against hers as they walked to his car, or the way his eyes lingered, or the care with which he handled her, or how desperately he wanted to kiss her.

But with her brother just a few feet away, too perceptive a person for any change in her mood to go unnoticed, she tossed her phone aside.

"Oh, by the way, you got some bleach on your hair," said Levi. "Might be a sign, kid."

DECEMBER

"You couldn't have picked a different color?" Dana Rivers cried when her son showed up on her doorstep on Christmas Eve with neon pink stars drawn on his hair. "Jesus, Levi! What about something Christmas-y, like green or red?"

Levi ducked away from his mother's hands. "I'm not walking around looking like a bloody tampon."

Elsie barked out a laugh. She stood in the foyer, equipped with a spray can, the same chocolatey shade of her hair. She gave the can a few shakes, mixing balls clacking loudly against the calm hum of Christmas hymns warming the old suburban home.

"Oh, you came prepared, huh?" Levi narrowed his eyes.

Dana looked like she was one moment away from letting out a sob. "This is all your fault, Steve! If you had never let..."

Elsie tuned out her mother's voice as she pulled her brother into the bathroom.

Levi plopped onto the toilet lid, hissing when the first icy blast of temporary hair color hit his scalp. "What's Mom's problem?"

"Same ol', same ol'," Elsie said. "They've started up again."

A string of silence dragged on—thick, uncomfortable. Distantly, they could hear Steve finally snap at his wife's incessant badgering.

"I know, Jeans," she said, offering a thin-lipped smile. "The walls spoke."

"How long has it been going on for now?"

Elsie continued spraying his hair. "Started to pick up a few weeks ago, I think. Been especially bad lately. Think it's just the holidays, though."

Levi saw the anxious purse of her lips, the muted spark in her eyes, the bloodied cuticles that juxtaposed the cute and festive designs adorning her nails. "Don't blame yourself for it, kid."

"I don't. Not really. Not this time around."

"Okay. Good."

Levi didn't critique the blotchy work Elsie had done on his hair, not when their parents were ushering them into the car to make it to midnight mass in time to secure their seats after his little color debacle had set them back a few minutes. But he was wholly privy to it when she let out a giggle every once in a while, like it'd been her intention the entire time.

"Joe saved us a spot," he announced.

"Oh, you invited him?" Dana asked. "Well, bless him."

Elsie had slid into the shellacked pew first, flashing Joseph a quick smile when she settled beside him. The air was stiff between them, like they hadn't quite known how to exist around one another beyond the boundless thoughts of what could've happened between them, and perhaps they didn't—not in the way they should, at least.

But how could they when the longing came rushing back to the forefront of their minds?

The moonlight passed through the stained glass with a reverent glow befitting the altar that stood high and mighty, but all Elsie could think was that it illuminated like a spotlight meant to shame her for the temptation flowing through her body, the gravitation that had her seeking Joseph's touch, no matter how slight.

The guilt that followed consumed her like rot when she subtly knocked her knee into his, almost like an accident if neither of them knew any better. But he made no attempt to move away, and the nervous wire stretched tight in her spine loosened.

For a brief moment, their eyes connected, and the faintest smiles danced across their faces.

Despite the relatively lax stance she and her brother had taken toward their faith, each procession came to them like a breath of air—easy, familiar, long-held. Each move taken to stand, to sit, to make the sign of the cross, to recite each prayer, response, and creed—all of it, Elsie swore, she could do even in death.

She did not know if, at the depth of her soul, that made her a good person despite it all, or if it worsened the guilt over her lack of discipline, the guilt over the prurience distracting her, the guilt over her wandering eyes to people the Church would never let her marry, the guilt over allowing her mortal feelings and urges to become the driving force in her decisioins over the religious moral teachings ingrained in her from her youth, the guilt over existing as she did.

Her eyes glazed over with something distant and cloudy as she sank to her knees beneath the crushing weight of it all.

And a part of Joseph felt a heaviness in his chest when he watched from the corner of his eyes, past the rim of his glasses—a moment of innocent, hallowed piety that bewitched his mind and soul with something that should send him scrambling for the confessionals. He knelt faster than a flash of lightning, hoping the Eucharistic Prayer could wash him of his thoughts.

Elsie's dad had received the Eucharistic bread in his hand when she decided to tilt back, only marginally, only enough for Joseph to notice. He leaned forward, just a smidge, ready to hear whatever it was she wanted to say.

"Is there anything you'd like to confess before receiving a blessing?" she asked, lips barely moving, voice even less distinguishable.

But Joseph heard, and all he could do was nudge her forward.

Elsie's cheeks inflated with the laugh she kept contained.

In the chaos of families making their escape after Mass had concluded, Elsie had found her place before the votive candles by one of the alcoves, the gentle candlelight softly dancing against the delicate curves and edges of Mary's statue. It was just her there. She felt small, like a little child seeking the comfort of her mother, and a sudden solace mended her heart when she thought of this as no different.

Still, it was overwhelming, the feeling that gutted her from within—a fearfulness trembling her muscles, a distraughtness stinging behind her eyes.

Elsie couldn't remember the last time she'd clutched her rosary that tightly, fingers blanching like the silvery moonlight high in the sky. Maybe in high school, when she'd been confined to a sling and hoped to play the piano the way she used to, begged God not to take that from her, too. Maybe in middle school, that very day her best friend at the time had innocently grazed her hand, and she felt her heart skip a beat; God, she'd cried and cried and thought something was profoundly wrong with her and hoped she would pray herself into normalcy. Or maybe before that, as a child, pleading to have her hearing back until her knees scarred; she still had the marks to prove it.

It felt a little disingenuous, in all honesty—how she only came before the Lord when she needed something. She wondered if He ever got tired of it, if He thought any less of her for it. But the candlelight continued to burn, and she figured that had to have meant something.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

Elsie had felt Joseph's presence loitering, and she was deeply grateful that he'd let her be for just a few moments. She hastily brushed away the tears trickling down her cheeks and looked back up at Mary's statue, as though for reassurance. "You been standing there this entire time?" she asked.

"I was on my way out," he said. "Had a feeling I should stop by."

Elsie didn't turn to him when he joined her side.

A long silence lapped between them.

Joseph stuffed his hands into his pockets, craning his neck to observe Mary. Her lips were curled softly, her eyes painted with tenderness, and her palms were turned outward, as though inviting all to stand with her, to unshackle the weight of their troubles onto her, to feel the love that Jesus had.

How kind she appeared before them, despite her grandness. A sort of humility that rippled into succor.

He understood why Elsie would go to her when something troubled her.

Lowering his gaze, he noticed the tired breath expelling from her shoulders, like she didn't quite have the strength to stand from her kneeling position. He reached for her back, his fingertips only able to skim the base of her neck, but that had been enough, it seemed, when the tension in her body loosened beneath his touch, sent her leaning against his leg like it was some lifeline keeping her upright when all she wanted to do was lie down.

"Did my brother ever tell you that our dad's starting to lose his hearing?"

"Once," he said, carefully smoothing his palm over her hair. "You know how he is: For someone so attuned to everyone's emotions, he doesn't like talking about his own."

"It seems stupid to say, but I hope it doesn't get worse," she said, toying with the beads of her rosary. "I don't want him to go through what I did. It was hard getting to where I am, and I struggled—still struggle—a lot."

Joseph pressed his lips together in concentration. "I guess I never really considered how much goes into hearing again."

"Most people don't really think about deafness unless they're insulting someone." The corner of Elsie's lips swept up just the tiniest bit, like she was trying to lighten the air, but the weight of Joseph's presence and Mary's knowing stare had quickly snuffed out that attempt. "I'm grateful that I can hear again, I am, and I live a fairly normal life, all things considered," she continued with furrowed brows, "but it's not the same. Festivals, concerts, large gatherings—they're all kind of...muffled and robotic, and I can't really focus on more than one sound, and emotions don't come through the same way. It's like...I can hear, but I can't listen. Not fully.

"But that's why I studied physics in college. I may not be able to hear like I used to, but I can experience sound through numbers and graphs and vibrations, and the more I studied it, the more I realized that...everything sings. That's kind of comforting, isn't it? Poetic, even.

"Even then, that doesn't remove all the envy I feel. The worst part about everything is that I remember what sound was like before I lost my hearing—barely, but enough that I spent a lot of time upset over it, and some days, I consider just taking these suckers off and never putting them back on." Elsie had felt some sort of relief in admitting this to someone, something like stepping out of the confessionals. "But my parents used to get into fights about it, and obviously, I couldn't really hear them by that point, but I'd feel the walls shake sometimes. One night, I wanted to see what was going on, but instead, I found Levi just sitting in front of my door like he was standing guard. He wouldn't tell me what was happening, but he just looked so...sad, and I knew.

"They all put in so much time and money into helping me; it would feel like a waste if I decided to stop using my implants," she said. "I don't know—He and my mom are already starting to argue again, and I can't stand the thought of my dad experiencing what I did, and I guess, that's assuming he'll even get that bad, but it's hard not to think about it when it kind of looms over us, y'know?"

Joseph wasn't quite sure what to say: He didn't think it was right to tell her that it'd all turn out for the better, that she should be overtly optimistic—this overbearing, false sense of positivity that seemed to do more harm than good—because it was obvious that this had been gnawing at her for a while, that she hadn't quite had the chance to sit with everything fully, and he didn't want to brush her emotions off when she was opening up to someone—to him.

But neither would it feel right to tell that she was strong for persevering when everything seemed so bleak, that she should continue to be strong, because she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. It wasn't like she wanted to lose her hearing, like she wanted to sit through hundreds of audiologist and speech therapy appointments, like she wanted to live knowing that she wasn't experiencing life with the depth that sound gave everyone else.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to dump that onto you." Elsie dismissively shook her head, rubbing her eyes. "It's late."

"Hey," Joseph gently coaxed, dropping to his knees at an instant. His gaze softened when she finally spared him a glance, the skin around her eyes puffy like she'd showered in pollen. His chest tightened when they turned glassy again, her lips trembling with each passing second. "C'mere."

Elsie melted into his grasp, his arms snaking around her shoulders—comforting, anchoring, supporting, all at once. She quite liked the feel of it, how her muscles seemed to loosen, like her shoulders no longer carried the weight of the cross she was burdened with, and for a moment, her mind quieted.

Joseph pulled back enough to let his thumb collect the wetness on her cheeks. He studied her face as she leaned into his touch, felt time slow when she mustered up the courage to meet his gaze, all vulnerable and raw emotion. He knew, then, that he wanted to be the one she went to when she needed a moment away from the responsibilities of the world, so he could shield her while she rested.

Briefly, his gaze drifted to Mary. The candlelight, still as gentle and as strongly lit, seemed to soften her kind expression even more. It had never felt more heavy-laden, however, like the weight of a mother's expectations had now been bestowed upon him. He turned back to Elsie, then.

"You can talk to me about anything," he said. Before he could stop himself, he pressed a kiss onto the top of her head.

Elsie shifted, tucking herself deeper into Joseph's grasp. "I know I didn't really give you much of an option, but thank you for listening."

"You don't have to thank me." His hand brushed over her hair, careful to avoid the implants on either side of her head, and the way his heart flipped blinded him, temporarily, from all the restraint he felt he owed Levi.

But it came surging back in, left his smile fading and his soul heavy with shame for ever feeling what he did when he thought about her, let alone when she was around. The church, too, seemed to agree, the pietistic lighting within the church haloing around her head, laughing at him for ever thinking he would be worthy of her.

Then came the footfalls echoing softly against the stone floor, and maybe a little too quickly, he seemed to shove some distance between them. "You feeling better, kid?"

Elsie had understood fairly quickly—the turmoil ribbing at him and the approaching presence. Hastily, she wiped away what tears were left on her skin, nodding despite the emptiness now feasting on the warmth he had enveloped her in. She might even say she heard a crack form in her heart if it didn't sound so theatrical.

"There you are," Levi's voice rippled from behind them. His strides grew louder, then softer as he slowed down. "I've been looking all over for you, kid. Oh, hey, man."

Joseph offered a nonchalant acknowledgment, a simple jut of his chin. He saw the slight crinkle of Levi's brows at the sight of them, like each rationalization was passing through his face, before he shook his head dismissively. After all, he had no reason to believe anything else.

"Are we still on with Freddy tomorrow?" Levi asked Joseph, who gave some half-assed response. "Sweet. C'mon, kid; Mom and Dad are getting antsy."

"Night, Joey," Elsie said quietly, unable to meet his eyes, entirely enraptured by the rosary clutched dearly in her hands. She trailed alongside her brother.

"What was that about?" asked Levi.

Elsie shrugged. "Nothing."

Levi came to a halt when he heard the faint sniffle, the raspiness of her voice finally striking something in his mind. His gaze finally swept over, with detail, her mottled skin, then the slightly tumid nature of her eyes. "You were crying."

"Let's go, Jeans." Elsie tugged at his arm, but he remained firmly in place.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Briefly, his eyes flickered when Joseph passed them, and he thought back to the past few moments. "Did Joe do anything?"

Elsie stared at him, long and hard. Then she laughed, slapping her hand over her mouth to mute herself. "Joey? Your best friend, Joey? The guy who won 'Most likely to brighten your day' one year? That Joey?"

"I don't know!" Levi threw his arms up. "You were fine when Mass ended, and then I find you with him, crying. I was just throwing shit out there."

Another laugh, more of a giggle this time, had left Elsie's lips, and the sound seemed to knead away the knots in Levi's shoulders. "Joey didn't do anything. He won that superlative for a reason. We were just talking about Dad."

"Oh." Levi fell into step with his sister, opening the church doors for her. "When did you two become so close?"

"When you ditched us in Toronto," she said.

Levi thinned his lips, glaring when Elsie shot him a teasing grin. "Whatever. You steal my clothes, my pens, my car...Next thing I know, you'll be stealing my friends, starting with Joe."

It had been a joke, but Elsie couldn't help but find Joseph as he reached his car, just two spots over. He seemed to feel the weight of her stare and looked up. "You're not losing your friends to a kid, Jeans."

She climbed into the backseat before she could see the way Joseph winced.

Morning had come quickly, and Elsie stirred awake when her phone buzzed. She cursed at herself, wondering if she'd been too tired to silence her phone before she collapsed into bed when they'd gotten home from church, but she lifted her head, bleary eyes clearing to read the texts coming in.

Joseph Woll Have something for you. Think you can open the door for me?

Elsie shot out of bed, nearly tripping over her comforter tangled between her legs, and hurried out of her childhood bedroom, uncaring of how she looked—hair sticking in different directions, eyes lined with flakes of mascara she'd failed to remove last night, old pyjamas skewed and crumpled.

The front door swung open, and Joseph bit back an endeared laugh at the sight of her.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

Elsie nodded. "So what's this thing you've got for me?"

"Greedy."

"I know what I want," she said.

Joseph pulled a wrapped box out from behind him, small enough to rest entirely in his palm. "Merry Christmas, Els."

"Merry Christmas, Joey." Elsie smiled softly, even if her heart still stung from last night. Her foot seemed to twitch, like it was wondering if she should step forward to hug him or remain where she was. Instead, she took the gift and lowered her gaze, observing the paper littered with Christmas trees. "Thank you," she said. "And thank you again for last night—for listening."

"Like I said, you don't have to thank me. I meant it—when I said you could talk to me about anything."

Elsie gently cradled the wrapped gift between her interlocked fingers. "You can talk to me, too."

"Els, close the door!" Levi shouted from inside. "You're letting all the cold air in."

"It's sixty degrees outside!" Elsie yelled back. "Now, do you want me to leave Joey inside or outside?"

"In, what the hell?"

Joseph tried to suppress his smile when she shot him a wink. He had grown to accept that his resolve eroded away with each moment he spent with her, and how dangerous was that? He stepped into the house when she opened the door a little more.

Elsie felt her face burn when he squeezed her waist in passing. She closed the door, heard the rattle of his voice with Levi's, then his voice with her parents, how familiar it sounded, like an old vinyl on her father's player, then looked at the present in her hands. A smile crooked her lips, and she ran off to her room with a skip in her step.

Carefully, she peeled the taped corners and edges of the gift, revealing a velvet box. She lifted the lid and read the note slipped in there.

Found this in my car and had it repaired. Merry Christmas, Els ❤︎

Elsie moved the card aside, wondering if her mind had taken the right path, and a scream left her throat before she slapped her hand over her mouth.

"Els?" her father shouted from the living room.

"I'm fine!" she replied. "Spider!"

Elsie liked to believe she could hear Joseph laughing at her obvious lie. Her thumb brushed over the gold chain leading to the crucifix that'd once hung from her neck a few months ago; she had only just begun accepting that she'd never be reunited with it.

Excitement coursed through her body until all she could do was flop onto her back with a squeal, feet kicking in the air.

els ♒︎ you're godsent joey

MARCH

"What happened with your car?" Elsie asked as her brother climbed into the passenger seat.

"You're never gonna believe me," said Levi. "I got rear-ended again."

"You're joking." Elsie gaped. "Any more, and I'll assume you're talking to me about your sex life, which, please, never do."

Levi snorted.

"So, where are we headed?"

"Joe's. Mom and Dad are there."

Elsie's mouth peeled back with offence. "Why wasn't I invited to this?"

"This is your invite," he said. "Besides, I thought you were going out with what's-her-name."

"Rain checked," said Elsie, setting off on the forty-minute drive to their hometown that she had no idea she'd make that night. Of course, she'd known that Joseph was around—the Leafs were in town, and he'd texted her about it—but she wasn't expecting to see him until the next night, under the arena lights, surrounded by the rest of his family and friends that would keep her on her best behavior.

"Let's get this party started!" Levi exclaimed, barging through the front door.

"Where's a bathroom, Jeans?" Elsie asked quietly. She didn't think she recalled the last time she'd set foot in this house, if she'd ever. Following his directions, she turned down a hallway, counted the doors, and went to open the one she'd hoped was the right one.

The door opened as her hand grazed the doorknob, and a sharp gasp sliced through her throat.

"Jesus, Els!" Joseph flinched. "Didn't know you were coming tonight. Levi said you were busy."

Elsie's cheeks flushed at the thought that he might have asked about her before she cleared her throat. "Levi needed a ride here, and Bells canceled."

Joseph glanced down, smiling softly as the gold chain around her neck glinted under the warm houselights. He reached for the crucifix, letting it rest on his fingertips. "Glad to see it hasn't broken off."

The cool metal of the crucifix hit her skin again. Joseph almost wished he'd skipped meeting her eyes—the soft-edged, doe-like feel of them that nearly sent him to his knees, and the smile it'd brought out had wrecked him, gutted him from within until every inch of him craved being near her.

Fuck, he was so screwed.

Levi was going to kill him.

"I don't know how many times I can thank you for it," Elsie said earnestly. "Seriously, Joey."

"It was nothing," he brushed off. Then, he curled his finger into one of her belt loops, tugging at it and steadying her with his other hand on her hip when she stumbled into his chest, and swapped their places in one fell swoop. There was a flutter in his chest when she regarded him with wide eyes and parted lips, as if he'd just taken away any rational thought. "Dinner's in five."

Elsie closed the door, breath ragged and soft, all at once. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take before her heart exploded. She doubted that it'd be a very pretty sight.

How she had been sandwiched between Matthew and Joseph's younger brother, Michael, at the dinner table, she wasn't quite sure, but she hadn't complained. She knew Michael distantly from the few instances they'd crossed paths in school, and Matthew was charismatic enough to befriend just about anyone.

And maybe it was the sight of it—of Elsie enjoying herself around people closer in age to her—that seemed to tick Joseph off, seemed to set off the same arguments that'd been running through his mind for half a year now. Just when he'd thought he'd begun to quell those thoughts.

Levi and Elsie helped clean up the dining table after everyone had finished their meals, piling on dish after dish.

All it took was the first note, the first press of E on the white piano keys, for Elsie to stop mid-scrub, hot water rolling off her hands. Then the second note rang, and she glanced over her shoulder, finding that her brother was still in the kitchen with her.

So, not Levi.

"Go join the rest of them in the living room," Dana said quietly, taking over at the sink.

Elsie dried her hands on her sweatpants (an unfortunate choice of clothing, because if she'd known where they were going, she would've put in a little more effort to look nicer), then crept toward the archway opening into the living room, where Joseph sat behind an old, upright piano against the wall. Her lips pulled softly with each unraveling of Für Elise that graced her ears, but it quickly fell when it transitioned into another song, as though the opening few notes were simply meant to capture their attention—her attention.

Because it had to be hers that he was chasing when Je te laisserai des mots followed.

And for a moment, she fell through the veil of time, landed back in Toronto, in the front seat of his car as the song gently rippled into the mellow air, the cityscape passing by them in soft blurs, late-night chatter filling in the gaps of knowledge between them. She quite liked that night, liked how calm everything was, even with Camille passed out in the back.

It was sweet, and it was melancholic, and it was tranquil, and it was fun, and it was dejected, and it was far too short, and yet it was something she cherished.

But she was growing to accept that, despite her efforts, she would never get that with him—too devoted to her brother, too embroiled with the thought that she was younger than him.

This fluttering of their hearts, this clandestine dance in the shadows, this rewiring of their minds each time they saw each other that left them breathless and frozen—even as he played his heart out in ways only obvious to them, she would let what simmered between them fizzle out if that was what he wanted.

She knew when to stop. Enacting it would be much harder, however.

As the last few notes dragged out, it seemed like everyone had turned to Levi, who stood behind Elsie. Everyone knew how much of a prodigy he was—how each note flowed through him like they were his life force, how the world seemed to disappear around him once he touched an instrument. It was only right to have him display his talent in front of an audience.

But his gaze had jumped to Elsie.

She shook her head like her life depended on it.

"I haven't played in so long," she said, something like a plea.

Still, Levi nudged her forward, toward Joseph, who had walked over. Her throat bobbed before she latched onto his outstretched hand, letting him pull her toward the piano. He squeezed her shoulders before stepping back, watching, first, with amusement when she tied her hair up, revealing the blue hidden underneath, then, with admiration as she inhaled deeply, eyes sliding shut like she could already feel each bar of music weaving through her soul before her fingertips had even touched the sleek keys.

He'd understood, then, what Levi had meant all those years ago—that this seemed to come easily to her. Because, despite how she'd claimed it'd been ages since she'd played, each note, each slur, each accidental, each break, each pedal mark came to her like a long lost friend—a gentle tune into the good night that required nothing but the heart and soul.

She breathed life into the second movement of the Pathétique Sonata in ways he never believed he could ever do, no matter how much he practiced. He felt it, though—the hauntingly beautiful bittersweetness of the song, like a balm for a troubled spirit—and something remorseful swept him away.

Then came the weight of a stare—Levi's stare—and Joseph wiped away any trace of fondness from his face, replaced with a shameful dip of his head to remain as avoidant of his best friend's dissecting attention as he could.

And Levi was...confused?

His gaze flipped between Joseph and Elsie, like the pieces were starting to fall into place, and questions began to bludgeon him with the force entirely contradictory to the reposeful air around them.

The piece had come to an end before he could sort out his thoughts, and he watched in deliberate silence as Joseph's mother suggested they do a duet, watched as they shared the bench and sat shoulder-to-shoulder as they browsed his phone for songs to try.

They laughed, heartily and unrestrained, with their eyes crinkled fondly and mouths wide. Even as chatter resumed around them, Levi couldn't help but hear their liveliness over it—the excited gasps and pushiness from Elsie when she found a song she liked, and the rejecting cry from Joseph, who had very little faith in his sight-reading skills. It was like they were in a world of their own, trapped in orbit, an instantaneous repulsion of everything else in the room; God, Elsie would laugh at the knowledge that he actually listened to her physics-speak and retained any of it.

"C'mon, Joey," said Elsie. "You know this one. It could be fun."

Levi saw something shift in his best friend, like Elsie had ceased any sense of fight from his body with a simple bat of her eyes.

Joseph gave in embarrassingly quickly, leaving to print off the sheet music they'd found online. In his absence, Elsie had taken to playing a string of keys in the background—softly, then a dip in mood like something in her mind had fallen, before she'd picked it back up again in time to see him return.

Elsie turned her head, and her lips parted with shock, fingers slipping from the keys when Joseph resorted to signing: "Which side of you want to sit on?"

Her eyes snapped up, found the sheepish smile on his face, and returned it softly. "It's your move."

Joseph took the spot to her left, unclamping the sheets of paper between his arm and ribs, spreading them out along the music desk. He'd felt somewhat cowardly taking the easier set of notes, but he felt even more selfish for it, too—for wanting to hear Elsie commandeer control of the melody with her nimble fingers and soulful interpretation, because he didn't think there was anything more angelic and deserving of reverence than hearing her play.

He'd almost missed his cue because of it, and he'd heard the faintest chuckle of hers that told him she'd noticed. His face flushed hot, but he still grinned.

It was a funny little thing—how Interstellar had become associated with him—but he could play the theme in his sleep, he thought, and it sounded otherworldly with Elsie beside him. It would never sound the same after this.

Applause had followed the conclusion of the song, and Elsie briefly hid her gleeful expression against Joseph's shoulder, like she didn't quite know how to receive praise after all these years. He curled his arms around hers—a side-hug just as brief as the slight nuzzle she'd given him, yet it lingered in the gentle sear against her skin.

"You okay?" he asked quietly when he noticed her rubbing her wrist. He'd felt guilty, then.

Elsie nodded, the heat of his gaze easing the throbbing pain spreading to her hand. "Just haven't played like that in a while."

"Do you need anything? I'm sure we have Advil somewhere."

"I'll be fine," she assured softly. "Thank you."

And how could she stop feeling what she did when he treated her so tenderly?

Dana and Steve had decided to go home shortly after, but they'd insisted that their children could stay without them, which Levi had planned to do anyway—and with Elsie being his ride home, she had followed whatever he said.

Everyone spread themselves across the couches and floor, with a movie humming into the dimmed living room. The energy had calmed as time plunged deeper into the night, and Elsie felt her eyelids grow heavy.

"Can I?" she whispered to Joseph, who nodded. She let her head drop to his shoulder, which grew wiry with each passing second, and it didn't take much for her to understand why: She had sensed something radiating from her brother—something unsettling that didn't allow her, or Joseph, to unwind the way everyone else had.

Elsie shifted, her eyes flickering up to find the apprehensive bite of Joseph's lips, the forced unwavering attention on the TV.

"I'm gonna get some water. Do you want any?" he asked quietly, sparing her a glance.

"Sure." Her gaze didn't follow as he stood up and left, something distant taking over. It was barely there, but Levi caught it—the downturn of her lips, the quiet purse of it—from across the couch, and that had been enough. She noticed him follow Joseph into the kitchen.

A few minutes passed before she slinked through the shadows.

"She's a kid!" Levi whispered hotly.

Joseph sighed exasperatedly, skirting his palm over his jaw, because he'd had this conversation before—with himself, countless times.

"I don't believe 23-year-olds are considered children," Elsie inserted herself casually, not bothering to apologize when Joseph's shoulders jumped. She came to his side and grabbed one of the filled glasses of water. "Unless there's someone even younger I don't know about, in which case, wow, you like your women young."

"Els," Joseph sighed again, earning a sheepish smile.

"Hey!" Levi snapped his finger at him from across the island counter. "Don't talk to my fucking sister like that."

Elsie furrowed her brows. "Like what, Jeans? He just said my name."

Levi inhaled deeply, eyes sliding shut for only a moment. "Joe. Really?"

"What about him?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"You don't have to hide it anymore."

"Hide what? We're not hiding anything."

"Oh, so my best friend hasn't been screwing my baby sister behind my back?"

Elsie's face pinched. "Why'd you say it like that?"

A tired plea leaked into Levi's stare. "You said you two got close in Toronto. What happened?"

"Nothing," said Elsie. Her eyes slipped to Joseph, whose eyebrows scrunched together like he was trying to slow the conversation before him with what little he knew of sign language. "He just dropped me and Camille off at home. There was no secret rendezvous that you think happened."

"Really?" Levi gibed. "I find it really hard to believe that when you were throwing yourself around that night."

Elsie returned a scoff, just as scorned. She gripped the edge of the counter and leaned forward to hiss, "You are un-fucking-believable, you misogynistic pig! You were whoring it out, too."

"Dude!" Joseph looked at Levi in disbelief. "What the hell?"

Levi went to point a firm finger at him when the floorboards creaked.

Their heads whipped around just as the new set of footsteps came to a halt. Matthew's gaze swept over the kitchen—the rollercoaster of emotions etched on everyone's faces, the way Levi's jabbing finger and Elsie's iron-clad grip on the counter didn't speak of a peaceful confrontation, the apprehension corded through Joseph as he looked on, the tense air that stilled the heater circulating through the house.

"I'm just gonna..." Matthew crept on his tiptoes toward the cupboards, but Joseph had shoved his untouched glass of water in his direction with an apologetic look and sent him off.

Elsie turned to Joseph when his hand soothed along her back, as though the space above the spine of her scapula had been worn away by his touch. It was subconscious, she knew, because he'd stopped once she laid eyes on him, but it'd worked—softening the harsh edges that wanted to serrate through the conversation—because it wasn't a string of argumentative words that she'd thrown at her brother this time, it was a defeated sigh that returned the color to her fingers.

"Why?" she asked. "What set this off, Jeans?"

"I have eyes, kid," he said. He also had the awareness of an omniscient being—attuned to every change in the air, to every oscillation and battle in his loved ones' eyes and hearts—and everyone knew that, knew that there was very little they could get by him without him sniffing it out.

Perhaps the most impressive feat was how long it had taken him to notice something bubbling between the two people closest to him, but that, too, could have been boiled down to the simple idea that he never thought he needed to consider it.

"Do you like him?" he asked, something earnest swirling in the depths of his eyes.

Hesitation seized the use of Elsie's hands for a second, as though she was unsure if she wanted to put it all out there for Levi to pick apart, but the momentary silence was enough, and the way he looked at her—a cross between disappointment, moreso in himself than her, and remorse, like he'd wished he'd broached this differently—had her seeking comfort elsewhere.

The soft stare she received from Joseph seemed to erode the tension in her muscles, seemed to slow her heart that was coiling with anxiety. Because he knew, truly, what nestled in her chest, and if she couldn't get the words out to announce it to the rest of the world, at the very least, he knew.

And maybe that was all that mattered to her.

"Of course you do," Levi muttered, hands sliding down his face. "You're my sister, Els, and he's known you since you were a kid. You were still in middle school when we left for college, for Christ's sake!"

"Jesus, Jeans, it's not like anything happened back then, and nothing happened in Toronto because he shut me down that night!" she snapped, watching the way his face morphed with something else, something less fueled. "If you're gonna get mad at someone, it should've never been at him, because he was thinking of you. He cares about you, Jeans, and he knows what it looks like. Trust me, I've heard it all."

Levi blew a long breath past his lips. "Just—give me a moment."

He left the kitchen without so much as a glance, footsteps heavy with the intensity of his emotions.

Elsie expelled a heavy breath, cradling her head in her hands, a sharp pain radiating up from her elbows as they hit the counter. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Joseph squeezed her waist, but the initial shock had faded quickly. Still, she couldn't muster up the courage to look at him. "How long have you been learning sign language?"

"A few months," he admitted quietly.

"How much of it did you understand?"

"Not all of it, but enough." Joseph rubbed her back, finally drawing a gentle tilt of her head. He leaned down slightly, tried to get their eyes level. "I care about you, too, Els."

"I know," she hummed, "but not enough to risk your friendship with my brother, and I get it. Really. No hard feelings."

Joseph didn't say anything. Not yet. Because he did care, more than enough, and that'd been what sparked the fuse that left the kitchen a pile of rubble. He cared so much that he was willing to test the foundation of his friendship with Levi, willing to risk it for even a chance with her.

Because he'd accepted that this rush of warmth, this constant warring between his heart and his ribs, this lingering ghost of her perfume that followed him everywhere—all of it had taken root like an ancient tree, fortified, unrelenting, spreading. It wasn't going away, no matter how much he'd tried to rid himself of it.

But it felt entirely opportunistic to sweep into Elsie's life as something more after this—as a strange silence befell them, as the exchange with Levi remained fresh in their minds, as the emotions went unregulated in their bodies, as he stood as the trigger between the two people he loved.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Elsie shook her head dismissively, a large rush of air entering through her nose as she shoved her hair out of her face. "I'm sorry for starting this whole thing."

She left without giving him any room to speak.

Joseph closed his eyes with his head thrown back, a heavy sigh weighing his shoulders down. He dreaded returning to the living room, in all honesty, exposed to the all-knowing eyes of his best friend, his mother, and the girl who seemed to consume every thought of his.

But he knew he had no other choice but to join everyone else, and with a new glass of water and the one Elsie had left on the counter, he hoped his strides didn't quite show his unease as he slinked back to his spot on the couch.

Elsie glanced up when the cushion beside her dipped. She offered a slight smile when Joseph held her water out, hand spelling out her gratitude in a way that told him she wasn't in the mood to hear anything. The implants lying on her lap only confirmed that.

"You'll be okay?" he asked.

The corners of Elsie's mouth couldn't help but tug wider. How exciting that he was speaking to her in her language when no one else she'd been with had ever bothered to, not when her implants seemed to patch up that small bump in communication. Maybe they'd work in a separate universe; maybe she'd go back to school to research the possibility of a multiverse just to find the one that was true in.

"Don't you worry about me, Saint Joseph."

The joke had nearly written itself: the holy father of Christ—the protector, ever the worrier, the model of faith, of obedience, of humility, even when confusion grabbed hold of him. Elsie had seen all of that in Joseph, even as he shook the nickname off like he didn't think so, like it was too sacrilegious to believe otherwise.

As the movie droned on, the quiet and calm hum of silence surrounding her gently pulled Elsie back to a sleepy state. She shifted, and as though it'd been a puck flying at him, Joseph caught the exterior parts of her implants sliding off her thigh before they could hit the cushions, before she could accidentally roll over them amidst her slumber, the way she seemed to roll onto him.

Joseph stilled, then relaxed when he spared her a cursory glance, noticed the way the wrinkles between her brows smoothed, the soft breaths pelting against his sweater, the almost purring hum rumbling from her as she nuzzled against him. For a moment, he'd forgotten what transpired after dinner and let his fingers twirl the ends of her hair, the edges of his lips lifted when he collected the chunks of blue hidden beneath a mop of brown.

He'd always thought she and Levi were so much cooler than him for that, even with all the bad color choices over the years, the strange mixes that didn't quite blend together, or the bold and experimental choices that left him looking like a toddler had taken a paintbrush to their hair with free rein.

Then he felt the heavy stare from across the living room—dissecting, studying, frowning. And maybe, for a split second, he'd considered moving Elsie off of him, so Levi would relent the piercing examination he was inflicting on them, but their hearts had already been laid out before them, and there was no use in pretending that he wasn't at his most tender state of mind when he was with her when the one person he was most scared of knowing already knew.

So, he let her be.

But Elsie had been the kind to be attuned to every shift in the air in a way that wasn't lauded like her brother, and even in her sleep, that seemed to ring true, for she moved again, turned so her back was to Joseph, body slumped over the arm of the couch, curled up in her little corner of the sectional like a feline basking under the long summer sun.

Joseph pulled the hem of her rumpled sweater down to cover the sliver of skin across her back that'd been exposed amidst her tossing and turning, then draped one of the throw blankets over her. He didn't dare look anywhere but the screen after that.

Then came the time when everyone decided to call it a night.

Levi had volunteered to be Joseph and Matthew's ride back into the city, so not Shelley nor Bob nor Michael nor Emma had to make the back and forth through the dark abyss.

Michael snorted. "Does Els know you're offering her car up?"

"Well, she's dead asleep," said Levi, sifting through her purse for her car keys. "I don't think she really has much of a say."

"Just don't get rear-ended again, kid," Shelley snickered, grabbing Elsie's glass off the coffee table. She pressed a kiss on Levi's head. "I don't think she'd appreciate that."

Elsie stirred awake, feeling the subtle vibrations through the cushions. She blearily looked around, her heart rate skipping when clarity revealed the numerous eyes on her. She might've made a sound, perhaps a squeak, if the chests shaking with laughter was anything to go by. "What is going on?"

"I'm driving us home," said Levi, head cocking toward Matthew and Joseph.

Elsie shot up, attention flickering, searching. She shot Joseph an appreciative glance when he handed over her implants. Sound assailed her from every direction once the external transmitter snapped into place against her head. "Like Hell you are, Jeans. Not on God's green fucking Earth are you going anywhere near my fucking car."

A string of laughter echoed through the living room as offence marred Levi's face.

"Sorry for my language, Mrs. Woll."

Shelley waved her off, leaving for the kitchen.

"Is it okay if I use the bathroom before we go?" Elsie asked.

She had nearly screamed when she opened the door to leave the bathroom and was met with her brother's towering figure.

"I'm sorry," said Levi.

"It's fine," Elsie mumbled, ready to slip past him when he shoved his arm out in front of her.

"Not for scaring you," he said. "About Joe."

"Oh."

"You really want him?"

Elsie looked down with a nod, picking at her nails. She had been doing so well at leaving them alone. "Yeah," she said. "I do." She inhaled so sharply that it nearly hurt. "He's kind, and he's thoughtful, and he's funny, and he took care of me before you asked him to, even helped put Camille to bed when she was too drunk to remember her own name, and he had my necklace fixed and returned, and he listens when I tell him things I'd never told anyone else, and he's been learning sign language, and he puts up with all my teaisng, and—"

"And he likes you, too," said Levi.

"And it kills him," she added with a sigh, letting her forehead fall against his outstretched arm. "What the fuck am I doing, Jeans? I don't wanna get in between you and him. He's your best friend, and I don't want you to get angry at him."

"Hey, he and I are good. I'm not angry at him." Levi bent his arm, using the crease of his elbow to pull Elsie in. "You know, I still see you as a kid," he said, eyes closing as her grasp snaked around his torso. "You're my baby sister, and that's not changing, not even fifty years from now. I'll always hate the guys and girls you bring home, because no one could possibly be good enough for you. Except maybe Joe."

Elsie stilled.

"He takes care of you, kid, and he makes you happy." Levi rubbed her back until the tension faded from her muscles. "That's all I could ask for, and I'm sorry that neither of you felt like you could tell me, and I'm sorry for getting all up in your faces about it, and I'm sorry for what I said in the kitchen."

"I love you, Jeans," mumbled Elsie. "But I'm not apologizing for saying you were whoring it out."

Levi smiled to himself. "It's what started this anyway, wasn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," she said easily, pulling away from the hug. "He came up to me after you'd left."

"Opportunistic prick."

Elsie smacked his stomach, earning a pained grunt.

Levi ruffled her hair. "I love you, too, kid. Now, get. I really gotta piss."

Elsie stumbled past the doorframe with a laugh—a soft sound that promptly died on her tongue when she spotted Joseph at the end of the hallway, talking to Matthew by the front door. Her shoulders felt a little lighter, a little less weighed down with guilt and shame and secrecy for who had her wrapped around their finger, but none of that mattered when the person in question had cemented the notion that they could never be.

So, with feet as heavy as lead, she dragged herself over, holding her breath as she walked past him to grab her purse and bid her final farewells to Joseph's family. She came to Joseph and Matthew's side with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, fingers twiddling with the crucifix on her chest like it'd alleviate the tension whorling in her body.

"Do you want me to drive?" asked Joseph.

Elsie loosened her grasp around herself. "No, it's okay. Thank you, though." Her gaze flickered. "So, before my brother comes back, which one of you wants shotgun?"

Matthew's hand shot up. "Dibs!"

Levi eventually made his way over to the sedan parked curbside. Elsie grinned when he went to open the passenger seat door, only to find Matthew there instead. He sighed and stuffed himself into the back beside Joseph, their knees flush against the front seats and spines hunched to avoid smacking their heads against the ceiling. "You need a bigger car."

"I don't normally have three giants in here," she said. "My car is perfect for normal-sized people."

"Whatever happened to that car you said you were gonna buy with my card?" asked Joseph. "Bill never came in for that."

Elsie met his gaze through the rearview mirror and smirked. "Declined when I tried."

Matthew barked out a laugh, and Levi dragged a tired hand down his face, like he was dreading the thought of his sister's teasing infiltrating his best friend's life. Maybe his protectiveness had been all screwed up, twisted to shield the wrong person; maybe he should've been protecting Joseph from Elsie instead.

Levi's apartment had been the first stop, the closest to the suburbs out of the three of them.

"Don't worry about tomorrow," he told her. "I'll catch an Uber or something or have Mom and Dad pick me up on their way to the game."

"You sure, Jeans?"

Levi nodded, pressing a kiss to her cheek. He had nearly slipped out of the car when he turned his head. "You know, I should've said this earlier, but you two seem to forget that I studied music at Juilliard." His face twisted. "You absolute freaks. That's what gave you away."

"Get out of my car," Elsie said, cheeks flamed.

"Alright, see you tomorrow!" Joseph reached over and closed the door, muffling Levi's laughter as he waved and headed inside. "Hit the gas, Els."

"One step ahead of you."

In the silent hum of the night, tires trekking over the asphalt into the depths of the city, Matthew's fingers tapped against the center console. "So...you two...when did that, you know..."

Joseph hid his face in his hands. "Oh, God."

"Good going, Matt," said Elsie. "You've got the ol' saint saying the Lord's name in vain."

"Jesus, Els."

"Sorry." She smiled sheepishly before going on some tangent that managed to distract Matthew for long enough.

Matthew thanked her for the ride once she pulled into the hotel lobby, receiving a kind smile in return.

"Hey, you go ahead," Joseph told him. The passenger side door closed gently, and Joseph slid to the middle, leaning his forearms against the center console, eyes carefully tracing the side of Elsie's face—the slight tilt of her head to look at him, the slow drag of her eyelids over her eyes, the straightened line of her lips. "Stay the night. You're tired."

"I'll be fine," she said. "It's a ten-minute drive at most."

Joseph sucked in a sharp breath. "Let me rephrase that: Stay. Because I want you to."

Elsie wanted to cave—because this sort of admission had seemed impossible all those months ago—but she couldn't get the image out of her head, the pained twist of his face when he thought of her, the casualness with which he brushed her off when her brother was around. "Have you reconciled with the fact that you like me?"

"Yeah, I have," he said easily. "I like you a lot, Elsie Rivers, and I want to be with you, if you'll have me."

"Are you saying that because my brother says he's okay with it?"

"It certainly helps," he said, "but no. I was planning on asking you out while I was home—tomorrow, mostly, but tonight works, too."

Elsie pursed her lips, ponderous. This was all she wanted, wasn't it? After all these months, it could finally happen, free of the shackles that'd tied them with guilt. She could have what she wanted, could even have a hand at a relationship that the Church would bless. Why should she deprive herself of such a thing when it was practically begging on its hands and knees?

After all, hadn't she always been a greedy little thing?

Joseph silently watched as she reached across for the glove box, browsing its contents.

"You're lucky I have a spare charger in here. Now, move up front; I feel like a chauffeur."

Joseph was there in a split second.

The ride up the elevator felt too long, steeped in silence that grew thick until Joseph let his hand brush against hers; then, it was calm. Elsie glanced at the small space between them, then turned her palm out, smiling to herself when he twined their fingers together.

For only a moment, the room was shrouded in darkness, and Elsie hoped the whir of the air conditioner masked the ferocity with which her heart pounded. She followed him in, thanked him when he gave her some clothes to change into, and locked herself in the bathroom.

Not even the coldest water from the faucet could clear her mind. It was incredible how easily he'd reduced her to a nervous wreck.

"I can't breathe."

Joseph's head shot up from the mountain of pillows on the bed. "What?"

Elsie plopped her clothes over her purse near a corner of the room. "My heart's beating so quickly, I think it might actually jump out of my chest, and my hands won't stop shaking, and I'm starting to sweat, and—" She inhaled deeply. "I just never thought this would happen. I mean, are you sure you want me?" she asked, somewhat pitifully. "Ever since Toronto, I kept going back and forth between wanting to tempt you into betraying everything that makes you you, and accepting that it would never lead anywhere, that I was just being a stupid kid trying to seduce the lifeguard at the pool all over again, that this was just a little crush I needed to get over."

Joseph climbed out of bed, scrambling to reach her. His hand carefully slotted against her jaw, feeling the warm skin and thunderous rushing of her blood beneath his fingers. "Please don't get over it," he said, eyes flickering between hers, catching the subtle dilation and contraction of her pupils. "I want you, Els. I want you so bad, it scares me. I thought I fucked it all up tonight—with you, with Levi—and I'm sorry for putting you through the wringer while I came to terms with it."

A loud gulp constricted her throat, her trembling hands gliding over his chest and nestling into the hairs near the nape of his neck. Her heart stammered when he leaned into her touch, like he was entirely at her mercy.

"I forgive you," she whispered.

Joseph breathed a little heavier now, pulse throbbing in his throat. He leaned in, like he wanted to show his gratefulness in a million little kisses across her skin, before he stopped just shy of her lips. "It's your move."

"Hey, that's my line. You can't steal my line."

"What're you gonna do about it?"

The corner of Elsie's mouth twitched before their lips met—softly, at first, then again in a rushed and messy collision, all teeth and tongue and desperation. A gasp sliced through the air when her back hit the wall.

"Fuck," he groaned into her mouth when her fingers tangled in his hair.

"Knew you had a filthy mouth behind all that sweet talk," she said as he dragged his lips down her neck, nipping a path but not sharp enough to leave any marks.

"Jump." Joseph easily caught her as her legs wrapped around his waist, his large hands sprawled along the underside of her thighs. He blindly walked them away from the wall, cursing, when his toe stubbed against one of the legs supporting the bed.

Elsie erupted in laughter at how quickly Joseph had dropped her onto the mattress, his balance knocked off-center until he had no other choice but to fall atop her.

"Fuck, that actually hurts," he said, laughter leaking into his tone.

"The poor bed," she joked, hands gently cradling his face. Her breaths slowed as she glanced at his lips, a gently bitten pink, before bringing him in for another kiss—softer, this time, less urgent and desperate, less frenzied, like everything had started to quiet.

Joseph pulled away only to tug his shirt off, revealing the ridges of toned muscle and the smattering of hair that dipped beneath his pants.

"You should go tarps off in an interview one day," she said, looping her arms around his neck as he came back down. Her legs twined around his hips, and she felt him shiver as her cold hands found his back, mapping out the texture and dips and curves of his body.

"How do you know I haven't?" he asked, lips tracing a path from the collar of her shirt and up her neck, past the delicate necklace that abhorred the thoughts running through his mind.

"Trust me," she whispered, "I would know."

Joseph amusedly raised his eyebrows, a chuckle rolling off his tongue when she looped her finger around his chain to kiss him again. By then, they'd lost the feverish rush and simmered in something gentler, something as patient as the feelings they'd stewed on for months.

"Can I take you out for breakfast tomorrow?" he asked between kisses, fingers laced with hers beside her head like he needed to anchor himself to the moment.

"I was wondering if you were gonna bring that up before or after you fucked me," she said.

Joseph hid his face against the crook of her neck, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

"I'm being so serious right now." But even Elsie couldn't stop herself from joining in.

"See, I was getting the impression that sex wasn't on the table tonight," he said, his palm smoothing over the skin of her thigh, creeping up her hip and under her shirt to hold her ribs. He was met with a soft sigh as his thumb caressed her, and her eyes slipped shut, struggled to open back up. That only strengthened his belief. "You can barely keep your eyes open."

Elsie smiled, slow and lazy, staring into his too-blue eyes with a loud fondness. She couldn't stop herself from brushing her thumb along the ends of his eyelashes, feeling them flutter gently. She leaned up to connect their lips, like she never wanted to deprive herself of feeling them ever again. "Breakfast sounds good."

"Good," hummed Joseph. He pulled away slightly, still close enough that their noses could brush, still close enough to greedily pick apart every detail of her face. "You're so fucking beautiful."

With beet-red cheeks, Elsie bit her lip, as though she thought just showing how wide her smile wanted to be would scare him off, and looked away.

"Oh, you're shy now?"

"It's different when it's from you," she said, pushing a loose lock of hair out of his face. "It's actually so embarrassing how shy and giddy you make me."

"It's cute," he said, kissing the corner of her mouth, then the tip of her nose, then her cheek, his stubble scratching against her skin in the most perfect way.

"Did you really think you fucked it up tonight?"

Joseph pushed his tongue against his cheek, nodding. "I did," he said. "I thought you'd had enough of the way I'd been treating you these past few months, and—"

"How have you been treating me?" asked Elsie. "Because I remember you taking care of me and my best friend. I remember you listening to me at church. I remember the happy birthday text at midnight. I remember the times you've checked up on me, over the phone or in person."

"I've been mean, Els," he said. "Don't pretend like I haven't been. Pushing you away when it felt a little too real, or when your brother was around, or when that little voice in my head cursed at me for thinking about you. I've seen the frowns, so has your brother, and that's why he cornered me in the kitchen, and after that, I thought I'd lost my best friend and any chance with you."

Elsie's stare lingered, her chest rising and falling gently against his, quiet and minty breaths calm as they hit his face. "You're never going to lose Levi; there has never been a Levi Rivers without a Joseph Woll. He was just being my brother," she said, thumb brushing over his lip. "And you're right: The good doesn't erase the bad, but are you gonna go cold on me again?"

Joseph shook his head. "Never," he said. "I want you, and I'll never let anything come between that."

A slow grin danced across Elsie's face. "Then that's all I care about."

She nudged her leg into his hip, pushing him onto his back. He looked pretty like this—beneath her, wide eyes staring up at her, swollen lips parted to let his ragged breaths through, his hair tousled from the way she'd played with it, his hands holding her steady against him. Hands raking up his torso, she leaned down and let her lips drag over his chest, neck, and jaw, committing it all to memory.

Joseph tightened his hold around her waist, a contented sigh shedding weight from his soul as she melted into his grasp. He thought he could stay like this for the rest of his days—with Elsie in his arms, her legs tangled with his, her finger tracing amorphous blobs along his skin.

Propping her chin on his chest, she innocently batted her eyelashes. "Can I ask you to grab the charger for my implants?"

He squeezed her waist before gently maneuvering her aside. "Give me a second," he said, lips soft against her forehead. "I'll be back."

Elsie kept her eyes trained on his back—the muscles that rippled with each swing of his arms—as he walked to the bathroom. The door closed behind him, and her body collapsed against the mattress with a smile that burned her cheeks as she stared at the ceiling. It took everything in her to keep her squeal in.

Joseph returned with his glasses on. Amusement knit through his face when he found her with her teeth digging into her fist. "You okay?"

An affirmative hum sounded. "Just giddy."

"I see that," he said with a laugh, turning to the TV stand, where a cable rested tangled on the surface. He settled on the side of the bed as Elsie braced herself on her forearm, squeezing into the space between his arm and ribs, humming when he made room for her.

"Wanna get your last words in before I take these suckers off?" she asked.

"Hardly my last words," he signed.

"You're gonna regret learning sign language," she said. "Set yourself up for a whole new world of shit my brother will say in public."

Joseph breathed out a laugh through his nose. "Mr. Pottymouth right there. We all know where you learned your vibrant vocabulary."

Elsie smiled. She reached for the external pieces on the sides of her head, but before she could pluck them off, Joseph's voice rang through.

"Wait, one last thing," he said, earning an inquisitive stare that widened her eyes like a doe. "I think the hair's cool. I didn't get to tell you that earlier."

A moment passed. Elsie reached for the underside of her hair, blue strands twirling around her finger. Her mouth curved upward.

She snatched her implants off, and the world went blissfully silent.

There was no whirring of the air conditioner, no rare honk from outside, no rustling of the sheets beneath them, not even the rush of blood in her head. But she felt them—felt the hum of night rumble through the walls, in the springs of the mattress, in the fibres of her clothes.

It was a sensation she wasn't sure she could describe—not quite nothingness, but perhaps something like a hollow oblivion.

Joseph watched intently as Elsie twisted the battery modules off the processor and plugged them into the Y-shaped charging port. There was a flashing green light.

Elsie canted her head slightly, noticed the attentive gleam in his eyes. "It'll be a steady green light when it's fully charged," she said slowly. "Takes about four hours."

Joseph didn't feel embarrassed that he'd been caught watching her—no, now that everything had been left out in the open, he felt very little shame in his actions and thoughts. His bottom lip slipped between his teeth, and he eagerly followed as Elsie shuffled across the bed with a crooked finger.

She had barely dropped her head onto the pillow when he kissed her again, like he couldn't quite get enough of her, not when he'd deprived himself of it for so long. Her hand slotted against his neck and felt the vibrations of a groan against her skin; she could imagine how low and raspy it was as the night draped heavier against them.

Elsie waited for him to slip under the covers before nestling into his side again, her chin set against his chest as she stared up at him. He ran his fingers through her hair, watched her eyes slip shut contentedly, heard the little purr again.

Joseph wondered what it was like—to not hear anything, not even the birds chirping on a calm summer morning, except maybe her stream of consciousness. Maybe he'd grow to hate the silence, constantly seeking any chance he could to have sound wiggle into his head, or maybe he'd grow to love it, the way she had, and maybe he'd even find peace in it.

Toying with his chain, Elsie pushed it around his chest until her fingertips found the heavy thumping of his heart. She laid her palm there, felt the stuttering and racing beat that mirrored the one against her ribcage, feeling the very force that kept him running, kept him alive.

It was an oddly vulnerable thing, something he couldn't hide like he could a smile or glance, but he was alright with that.

Joseph tightened his hold on her, pulled her closer against him like she'd get absorbed into his side and fill the missing spaces in his ribs. His skin prickled as her minty breath fanned against his neck, her lips ghosting over his pulse. She pressed a chaste peck there before shifting, tucking her head under his chin. He'd nearly chuckled, his hand rubbing up and down her back.

The feel of his fingers lightly tracing along her shoulders, her arms, and her neck, as if he were trying to memorize the curves of her body, like he might a new song, had lulled Elsie into a peaceful slumber, the drumming of his heart a steady rhythm against her ear.

In the back of her mind, she might have believed she'd listened to it bouncing around in her skull like a lullaby.

It was a few minutes later when Joseph went to sleep, feeling like his soul had been freed of condemnation.

APRIL

To no one's surprise, Elsie had grown to like Toronto. She wasn't oblivious as to why that'd come to be, but it had become a recurring thought with each growing moment she spent in the city.

"Hey, Els, put your stuff with ours," Camille's father told Elsie as they stood in line in the team shop, the crowds of Scotiabank Arena cramming into the small space. She had not demurred, simply accepted the offer like it'd been her plan the entire time, and Camille spared her an inquisitive glance.

They reached the front of the line, jerseys and other apparel stacked onto the counter, each from Camille, her father, her mother, and her two brothers. Elsie watched the total price rack up, sucking in a deep breath before managing to beat Mathieu at putting her card down.

Mathieu looked affronted. "What is wrong with you?"

"What isn't wrong with her?" Camille teased, only to get reprimanded by her mother.

Elsie felt her face heat up like she was face-to-face with the Sun. "Don't worry about it. It's a small birthday gift for you."

"Small?" Mathieu cried out.

Camille had spied Elsie taking her phone out and sending a quick text. Realization clicked in her head, and her hand shot out to Elsie's bicep, subtly shooting her eyes open, only to receive a cheeky smile in return.

"I'm jealous," said Camille. "You probably snagged up the only good guy in this city."

"It probably helps that he's not from this city," said Elsie. "And you're just saying that because he's been hooking you up with tickets for most of this season."

"Yeah, and thank God for that. My parents now think I'm some hockey god for somehow always finding them decently-priced tickets in the lower bowl."

Elsie laughed.

Max, the eldest of the Charbonneau children, had gaped when they inched closer to the glass, the sound of pucks hitting the boards during warmups loud against the hard bass of the music. "Jesus, Cami, how the hell did you manage to get us all seats here?"

"I didn't this time," she said. "Els did."

"Tell me your ways, Els," said Alexis, childish eyes shimmering with awe.

Elsie staved off a smile as she led the group down the row of seats until they found Levi, who rolled his eyes at the beers in their hands and the bags hanging from their arms like they'd gone on a shopping spree at the mall, but he accepted the drink his sister held out for him.

"You're welcome," she said.

"I believe my thanks go to Joe's card, which, knowing you, I don't know why he trusts you with it."

Elsie scoffed. "At least I thought to use it to buy you something."

Levi grumbled out his gratitude before his eyes raked over Elsie's outfit—the blue marbled sweater she'd worn last time, and the ripped jeans revealing her pirckled skin beneath. "That's his, isn't it? The sweater? I thought it looked familiar. Man, I should've known."

Elsie gave a thin-lipped smile. "Guilty. It's mine now, though."

She set her things down before slipping back into the aisle, gesturing for the young Alexis to follow her. They stood just three steps from the glass, exchanging humorous words, and Elsie wondered if this was how Levi felt when talking to her when he was around her age.

Joseph spotted them from the ice and skated over, shoveling a puck onto the blade of his stick. He waited for a moment before flipping it over the glass, grinning beneath his mask when Elsie caught it and immediately handed it over to Alexis, whose face immediately lit up.

Elsie couldn't hide her fond laughter as Alexis jumped up and down, throwing his arms around her shoulders. Her gaze slid briefly to the ice, catching the wink Joseph sent her before he returned to the net.

"Mom, Dad, look!" Alexis exclaimed, nearly tripping his way down the row of seats with the puck held up high.

Camille mouthed a 'thank you' as Elsie slipped past her, earning a dismissive shake of her head in return.

With the way Elsie had cheered throughout the game, it would've been easy to assume that she'd been a lifelong Leafs fan. Camille was a little bitter that it hadn't been her arduous attempts at convincing her to join the dark side that had done it, but she would not complain when the very reason had been generous to her for most of the season.

Adrenaline coursed through their veins when the final horn blew, sealing a win for the home team against the Oilers. Their voices joined the cacophony of other fans as they made their way through the concourse, and as they went further away from the main crowds and toward the little area with several of the family members, Elsie heard the first hushed comment.

"I don't think we're supposed to be here," said Mathieu.

"Oh, wait, passes!" Camille chucked them out of her bag and handed them to her family.

"Seriously, what is going on?"

Elsie grinned, playing with the ends of her hair, now entirely the same shade of blue as the Leafs. "As I said, it's a small birthday thing."

Mathieu was starting to think his daughter's best friend from college was genuinely insane.

"Bet you've started rethinking giving these two your card," Levi said as Joseph approached them.

Joseph laughed, eyes crinkling softly. "I don't mind," he said, squeezing Elsie's waist and pressing a swift kiss to her temple. "Plus, I heard we had a birthday happening?"

Mathieu had looked like every neuron in his brain had short-circuited. His eyes flipped between Camille, Elsie, Levi, Joseph, then all over again. The rest of his family had looked no better.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Charbonneau," said Joseph, leaning past Elsie to shake his hand.

Mathieu's jaw dropped. "Holy shit, you're Joseph Woll."

Joseph's face had flushed a gentle pink.

"Here." Elsie handed a marker over to Joseph as Camille searched through the bags for something he could sign for her father.

Alexis was the first to break out of the spell ensorcelling his family. "So that's how."

Elsie grabbed his shoulders. "Don't go telling my secret now."

Alexis mimed zipping his lips, grinning when Elsie shot him a wink.

"You know, it's crazy to think that he's just Joe to us," Levi said when his sister came to his side, watching his best friend sign memorabilia and take photos with Camille's family. A twang of pride swelled in his chest as he thought back to their early hockey days in St. Louis—all of the dumb fun they got themselves into, all of the drills ingrained in their heads, all the effort that got Joseph to where he was.

Even though their journeys had led them to very different careers, at some point, their humble beginnings were something they kept dear to them.

Elsie noticed the proud glimmer in her brother's eyes and smiled softly as she leaned her head on his shoulder. She, too, had felt an admiration spark in her chest as she observed from the side, got to see him extend his attentive and caring ways to everyone else, and it only blossomed when his gaze flickered to her, his mouth tugging wider, before he looked away.

"Gross," said Levi, but it wasn't hard to pick out the lack of animosity in his tone.

"The only disgusting thing here is your hair," Camille said as she walked over to them, her lips twisting at the sight of his brassy buzz cut.

Levi gasped out her name in offense.

"She's right, brother dearest." Elsie scrunched her nose condescendingly.

"For the millionth time, I ran out of toner!" he defended.

Elsie snuck away as Camille and Levi bickered back and forth like they'd grown up together. She tucked herself into Joseph's side as he talked to Camille's family, his arm draping around her without missing a beat in conversation.

"So you're the reason why Cami's able to get all these tickets," said Sophie.

"All this guy." Elsie patted Joseph's chest, feeling the rumble of his laughter against her fingertips.

Joseph leaned down slightly, unaware of the kaleidoscope of butterflies he'd set off in her stomach. "If you hurry, I think you'll be able to snag the seat up front before your brother does."

Elsie's gaze snapped up. "Give me your keys."

"Hand over the bags."

They swapped items, and Elsie made her way through her goodbyes, wishing Mathieu a happy birthday, before giving Joseph a quick peck on the lips. She bolted through the throng of family members, then, nearly knocking Matthew over in her haste. Joseph's flushed cheeks puffed out with his suppressed laugh when Matthew looked at him with wild eyes and furrowed brows.

"Well, I suppose that's our sign to go," said Max, clasping his little brother's shoulder. "Thank you for today, Joe."

"Yeah, of course," he said. "Camille's one of Elsie's best friends. I'd do anything they asked."

Sophie snorted. "I'd be careful with saying that. Our Cami can be greedy."

Joseph chuckled because Elsie was no better, and he loved her no less for it.

Camille's family had announced to her that they were leaving, and Levi glanced around.

"Where'd my sister go?" he asked.

Joseph scratched the back of his neck. "Toilet. She'll meet us at the car."

"Liar," Alexis sang under his breath, his mouth splitting into a shit-eating grin when he received a gentle nudge from his favorite hockey player. He would be sure to bother his sister about seeing Joseph more.

Camille commandeered the string of farewells, and Joseph led the way out. One of his eyebrows arched when he spotted Elsie in the distance, not tucked away in his car as he'd expected, but locked in a conversation that drew a wide grin and hearty laugh. With each nearing step, the pillar grew less obstructive, and around the corner, Joseph found Trent on the other end of it.

Elsie's head snapped in the direction of growing voices, and her eyes widened. She seemed to give Trent a barely-there bye and darted further into the parking garage.

"A Leafs fan, dude? I thought you taught your sister better than that," Trent said to Levi, who grumbled and threw Joseph a flippant glare.

Joseph merely smiled, head hanging low.

Trent couldn't loiter for long, and after bartering promises of seeing each other when they were all back home, he ran off to get on the team bus.

"I always forget that you know all these people," Camille told Levi. "You're you, and they're them."

"What's the supposed to mean?" Levi asked, flabbergasted.

"Look in the mirror."

Levi rolled his eyes. "Well, the league could use more people with stupid hair and piercings and dumb Pinterest tattoos."

Joseph nodded slowly. "Could've been you."

"It was either hockey or my sister hearing again. I think I made the right choice," he said nonchalantly, like he hadn't just dropped a heavy piece of himself out into the world.

Something passed through Joseph's face—an understanding of some sort, of what Elsie had said back in the church: It wasn't just her parents who'd given so much for her; it was also Levi, who'd one day quit his team without so much as a reason to anyone, and she'd felt indebted to them all for everything they'd sacrificed to allow her a chance at hearing again, even if some days she wished they never did.

"Seriously?" Levi narrowed his eyes when he found his sister in the passenger seat of Joseph's car.

Joseph could only offer a thin-lipped, apologetic smile and shrug.

"Girlfriend privileges," Camille said.

"She wouldn't be his girlfriend if it weren't for me," said Levi, cramming himself into the back seat, red leather soft to the touch.

"Sorry, Jeans," said Elsie.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

Joseph passed his phone over to Elsie, oblivious to the soft blush on her face when she noticed the new lock screen background—the selfie she'd forced him to take with her at the same bar they were headed to. It looked worse than she remembered it, blurry and of poor lighting, but she could pick out their smiles, not yet laced with affection in the way they were now, yet fond in ways that spoke of what could be, and what did.

Elsie shook her head, as if ridding herself of all the mushy thoughts in her mind, and went to choose a playlist to fill the silence as they drove out of the parking garage.

The bar was as she remembered it to be—loud, busy, trembling with music and laughter against its walls. Elsie and Camille had run off to the bartenders, taking their first round of shots, face curling as the flaming liquid raced down their throats.

Joseph's eyes were a welcome weight against her body as she and Camille bounced between the dance floor and the bar, much less stained with a curling green monster she'd finally got him to admit to housing that very first night.

"You're back, eh?"

Elsie turned her head and burst out in laughter when she met Hailey's eyes.

"Your boy's not gonna jump me for talking to you, is he?" she asked, tossing a glance across the bar. "I'm not really in the mood to be on an NHLer's bad side today."

"You know, he's probably the least scary person on the team."

"I don't know," Hailey said with inflection. "I've watched enough games to catch the times he's lost his cool on the ice."

Elsie smiled with a small huff.

Hailey returned the smile before tilting her drink toward Elsie, as if to excuse herself, then to an observing Joseph, an unspoken truce. She disappeared into the crowd not long after.

Camille had long gotten lost in the tangle of bodies when Elsie tried to find her again, and she soon gave up. She figured her best friend would show face once she was ready for another drink or to leave, and so she sauntered over to Joseph.

"—leave for the night," Levi had said.

Elsie raised an eyebrow, hand gliding over Joseph's shoulder as she nestled into his side. His touch was light, yet firm, against the dip of her spine. "Ditching us already, Jeans?"

"Just in time, actually," he said, eyes flickering between them before looking over his shoulder.

Following his gaze, Elsie's own softened when she found the guy waiting by the door, his posture reeking of nothing but nervousness. She grabbed her brother's shoulder, gently nudging him away. "Go. Just send me a text of something, so I know you're not dead."

Levi saluted her, his serious expression fading with a laugh. He kissed her cheek. "Camille's on a table, by the way."

"She'll be okay," said Elsie, waving her brother away.

Joseph tightened his hold on Elsie's waist, managing to trade their places on the stool he'd been sitting on in one fell swoop. His stomach fluttered at the sound of her laughter, and again at the look she gave him—tender, despite the rambunctious air around them, and devout, like he was the sun at the center of the solar system she orbited.

"Thank you for today," she said, winding her arms around his neck. "For having me and my brother, for having Camille's family. I think you made their year."

"You and Camille did," he said, pressing his lips against her bicep. "You were the ones to think of it."

"But it wouldn't have worked out if it weren't for you, so thank you, and thank you for this."

Joseph plucked his card from her fingers, swiftly putting it away. "You really don't have to thank me. You know I'd do anything you asked."

"You should learn to tell me no one day," she said.

Joseph hummed, sounding inauthentic in his pondering. "No."

Elsie's expression turned wry. "Funny."

A smile danced along his lips.

The night had slipped from them, the hours bleeding into the early morning before they had made it back to Joseph's car. Camille was safely strapped into the back seat, and Elsie had curled up in the passenger seat, tired eyes locked on Joseph as he steered through the city, one hand interlocked with hers.

Music gently hummed in the background, and Elsie unconsciously drew shapes into his forearm to the beat of the song.

"I'm getting major déjà vu right now," she said. "A few months ago, you would've hated yourself for this."

"I didn't hate myself—" Joseph felt the look he was getting from her. "Yeah, I would've."

Elsie playfully punched his arm. "Look at that. Growth."

Joseph squeezed her thigh, his lips peeling back into a pearly smile as her laughter echoed softly through the air. "As long as you didn't think I hated you."

"I know you didn't," she said, leaning forward to kiss his shoulder. "You were so into me, you creep."

Putting Camille to sleep had been easy this time around, and with a glass of water on her bedside table, Elsie and Joseph left her alone. The door closed with a soft click, masking the exhausted snores rippling from deep within the room.

A simple slant came to Elsie's lips, one that didn't quite carry any of the haughtiness a smirk did, as Joseph's arms bracketed her against the kitchen counter. Her heart flipped in her chest, disturbed the electrical pulses that kept each pump of blood steady, under his watchful and tender stare. "It's your move."

Joseph chuckled, leaning forward, sure of every move as he kissed her.

The weekend is a long time.

The weekend is a thing that has, historically, taken approximately forty-eight hours, and the weekend you have just been through took, conservatively, six weeks. You spent it doing things. You went to the grocery store. You did laundry. You graded a stack of redox quizzes and you made notes for next week's lesson and you did not think about Ryland Grace at all, except for the fourteen hours of Saturday and the eleven hours of Sunday during which you thought about almost nothing else.

You replayed the meeting. You replayed it the way he must have replayed eight months in one night, you suspect, and yours took two days. You replayed the word lazy. You replayed the careful neutral face. You replayed him walking out without looking at you, and the small cold rush of oh, no, and you replayed it from every angle, and at no point did any of the angles get any better.

You have arrived at Monday with a plan.

The plan is: act normal. The plan is: do not give him anything. The plan is: he has made his point, and if you behave for a week he will go back to being the slightly flustered man in a cardigan who you used to be able to ruin with eye contact, and the equilibrium will be restored, and you will have learned a valuable lesson about hubris.

You are very committed to the plan. You believe in the plan. The plan is going to work.

The plan lasts forty minutes.

—

He comes into your classroom at 8:20.

You are at the lab benches, setting up for second period, which is a titration unit and which therefore requires you to be carrying a bottle of sodium hydroxide across the room when he opens the door. You do not drop the bottle. You consider it. You do not.

"Morning," he says.

"Morning."

He is wearing the cardigan. He is wearing, under the cardigan, a t-shirt you cannot fully see, and he has a coffee in one hand and a manila folder in the other and he is standing in your doorway like he belongs there, which, technically, he does, because he is a colleague, and colleagues come into colleagues' classrooms, and you have to keep telling yourself this because your body is reacting to him being in here like he has come in to commit a crime.

"You got a second?"

"I'm setting up."

"I can see that. You got a second."

"Grace."

"Two seconds."

You put the sodium hydroxide down. Carefully. With both hands. He waits.

"What."

He holds up the folder. "Curriculum thing. Alvarez wants it by Wednesday. Thought you might have notes."

"You could have emailed."

"I could have."

He has not moved from the doorway. He is still holding the coffee. He is looking at you with the very mild, very patient, very neutral expression of a man delivering an administrative update, except that his eyes have not left your face since he came in, and a man delivering an administrative update would have looked at the folder at least once.

"Was there something else," you say.

"You said my teaching was lazy."

"Grace."

"I just want to make sure I understood what you meant."

"I was making a point."

"In a meeting."

"Yes."

"In front of the department."

"Yes, Grace, that is generally where meetings happen."

"Mm."

He takes a sip of his coffee. He does not look away. You have, in the last forty seconds, lost approximately three layers of skin and you are trying very hard not to show it.

"Do you still think it's lazy."

"I-"

"Because I went home and looked at the unit and I think you might be right."

"What."

"I think you might be right. I'm changing the unit. I'm doing the yeast thing."

"Grace."

"I just wanted to say that. In person. Since you said it in person."

He is, you realise, not letting you off the hook. He has come in here at 8:20 on a Monday morning to agree with you, and he has done it with the polite, neutral, conscientious face of a man closing a loop, and you cannot tell if you are being thanked or being punished or both, and the both is, you suspect, the answer.

"Okay," you say.

"Okay."

"Was there anything else."

"No."

"Okay."

He nods. He does not leave. He takes another sip of his coffee. He looks, very briefly and very deliberately, at the lab bench where you are standing, and then back at your face. He is, you realise, doing a thing. He is doing a thing that is so subtle that if you described it to anyone they would say you were imagining it, and if you described it to him he would say what thing, and you would have nothing to point at, because the thing is not a thing, the thing is a series of very small choices that add up to him standing in your classroom drinking coffee and looking at you and not leaving.

He is doing exactly what you used to do to him.

"You should go to your classroom," you say.

"Probably."

"First period's about to start."

"Mm."

"Stop."

"Stop what."

"Stop saying mm."

"You say mm."

"That's different."

"How."

You don't have an answer to how. You stand there with your mouth slightly open, and he watches you not answer, and the corner of his mouth does the millimetre thing, and he takes another sip of his coffee.

"Have a good first period," he says.

He turns. He goes. He pulls the door closed behind him with the quiet, considerate click of a man who has just left you in a chemistry lab holding nothing and staring at nothing and having to teach sixteen-year-olds about titration in eighteen minutes.

You sit down on the lab stool.

You sit down on the lab stool and you put your face in your hands and you laugh, which is the wrong reaction, which is the reaction of a person whose brain has fully come off the rails, and you laugh for approximately fifteen seconds and then you sit up and you finish setting up the titration and you do not, for the rest of the morning, allow yourself to think his name.

—

You make it until last period.

Last period is your prep. Last period he also has prep on Mondays, which is a piece of information you have, regrettably, retained, and which you are trying very hard to pretend you do not have. You stay in your classroom. You grade. You do not go to the staff room. You do not walk past his classroom. You do excellent, focused work for forty-five minutes and you feel virtuous and you feel mature and you feel like a person who has, finally, gotten a grip.

At 2:40 he knocks on your door.

You look up. He is in the doorway again, except this time he doesn't have a coffee, and he doesn't have a folder, and he doesn't have a reason. He is just there. He is leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets and he is looking at you with the same mild, neutral expression he had this morning, and you realise, with a kind of slow-motion clarity, that you are not going to make it through the rest of this conversation upright.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi."

"Are you busy."

"Yes."

"What are you doing."

"Grading."

"Grading what."

"Grace."

"I'm just asking."

"You're not just asking."

He smiles. Full smile this time. The one that crinkles his eyes.

"I'm just asking," he says again, gentler.

He comes into the room. He closes the door behind him. He walks over to your desk. He does not sit down in the student chair across from you. He sits on the edge of your desk, sideways, with one foot on the floor and one leg bent, and he looks down at you.

The teacher voice is bad. This is worse. This is the teacher voice with proximity.

"So," he says.

"So."

"You've been weird since the meeting."

"I've been weird."

"Mm-hm."

"You've been weird."

"Have I."

"Yes."

"How."

"Grace."

"How."

You stare at him. He waits. He is very, very good at waiting. You suspect, with a flash of belated insight, that he has been good at waiting this entire time and you simply never made him do it.

"You're being mean," you say.

"I'm being attentive."

"It's the same thing."

"It's really not."

He's looking down at you. His glasses are sliding down his nose, the way they always do, and this time he pushes them up himself, with one finger, slowly, and you watch him do it and you understand that he has done it slowly on purpose, and you understand that he has been waiting to do that since Tuesday in the supply closet, and you understand that you are, possibly, going to die in this chair.

He looks at you for a long second. The mild face does not change. His foot, the one on the floor, taps once against the leg of your desk.

"Stand up," he says.

It is a small instruction. It is delivered at low volume. It is delivered in the voice he uses on a student he wants to give a job to, come up to the board, hand out the worksheets, get the door for me, the easy reasonable teacher voice that you have heard him use a thousand times to a thousand sixteen-year-olds and that you have, you realise in real time, never had pointed at you.

You do not stand up.

You sit in your chair and you look up at him from your chair and you feel, very clearly, the moment he registers that you are not standing up, and the moment passes, and he is still looking at you, and he is waiting.

You should stand up.

You should stand up because standing up is the small reasonable thing he has asked for, and because complying with the small reasonable thing is the move that lets you keep your dignity, and because every cell in your body is currently telling you that not complying will be a catastrophe.

You open your mouth. You say it before your brain catches your mouth.

"Make me."

The room goes quiet.

It goes quiet in the way that a room goes quiet when you have just dropped a glass and have not yet heard it hit the floor. There is a one-second window in which you could take it back. You watch the window open and you watch the window close and you do not take it back, because the part of you that said it is the same part of you that said lazy, and that part of you is, evidently, in charge of the steering wheel and committed to driving off the cliff.

He does not move for a beat. He does not move for two.

Then, slowly, he gets off the desk.

He does not come around to your side of the desk. He does not reach for you. He does not touch you. He just stands up, at his full height, two feet from your chair, with his hands at his sides, and he is suddenly much taller than he is when he is sitting on furniture, and the height of him is taking up more of the room than it has any right to.

You stand up.

You stand up without deciding to. Your body has, ahead of your brain, calculated that remaining seated while he is standing over you like that is not a survivable position, and it has corrected for the imbalance, and you are now on your feet and six inches from him and you have to tip your chin up to keep the eye contact.

He has not done anything. He has not made you. You have made yourself. He is watching you have done it, and the corner of his mouth is doing the millimetre thing, and the millimetre thing right now is the worst thing you have ever seen on anyone's face.

"Grace."

"Don't."

"Don't what."

"Don't talk."

"I-"

"You don't get to say make me in this room, do you understand. Not here. Not at school. I cannot do anything about make me in this room, and you said it anyway, and I want you to think about that for a second."

You think about it for a second.

You think about it for several seconds. He is watching you think about it. The patient teacher mask has burned through and what is underneath is the same man, but with a finger of frustration laid quietly along the jawline of it, and the frustration is so much hotter than the patience was that you cannot, immediately, do anything except stand there and absorb it.

"Get your bag," he says.

"Grace, I-"

"Get your bag."

"I-"

"Get your bag."

You get your bag.

You get your bag without saying another word, because there is, you have correctly intuited, no word available to you that will not make this worse. He waits by the door. He does not look at you while you pack up. When you are done he opens the door and he holds it open and you walk through it, and he follows you out, and he pulls the door closed behind him with the same quiet considerate click as this morning, and the considerate click, given what is happening underneath everything, is the most threatening sound you have ever heard.

In the hallway he walks slightly behind you. Not close. Not far. Close enough that you can feel him there. You do not turn around. You do not speak. You walk through the hall and out into the parking lot and the late-afternoon air hits you and you take a breath and you keep walking.

"Did you drive," he says.

"Yes."

"Good. I biked."

"You-"

"Yeah. So you're driving."

You stop walking. You turn to look at him. He has stopped one step behind you and he is, in the late afternoon light, calmly waiting for you to process the logistics of the situation he has just described, which are: you are going to drive him to your apartment, in your car, with him in your passenger seat, for fifteen minutes, in silence, having just said make me to him in your own classroom.

"My bike's locked up at the rack," he says, helpfully. "It'll be fine overnight."

"Overnight?"

"Mm."

"Grace, you biked?"

"I bike every day."

"It's October."

"I have a coat."

You stare at him. He stares back. He is not, you realise, ever going to defend the bike. The bike is a fact of his life, like his glasses or his terrible t-shirts, and he has, in the middle of this, casually mentioned it the way one might mention having brought a packed lunch.

"Get in the car," you say.

"Mm."

"Get in the car, Grace, I swear to-"

"Easy."

He says easy in the same mild teacher voice he said stand up in. You close your mouth. You get in the car. He walks around to the passenger side. He gets in. He puts his bag on the floor between his feet. He buckles his seatbelt. He folds his hands in his lap.

He looks at you.

"You can start driving," he says.

You drive.

You drive out of the lot and you take a left at the light and you do not look at him, because you cannot afford to look at him. You can feel him in your peripheral vision. He is just sitting there. He is sitting in your passenger seat with his hands folded in his lap and his eyes, you can feel, on the side of your face, and he is not saying anything, and the not-saying-anything is filling the car like water.

You make it three minutes before you have to speak.

"You're being weird."

"Mm."

"You're being weird on purpose."

"Mm."

"Grace."

"Eyes on the road."

You snap your eyes back to the road. You did not realise you had taken them off the road. You had, at some point in the last sentence, turned to look at him, and you had not noticed yourself doing it, and he had noticed, and he had, very calmly, redirected you.

The teacher voice is going to kill you in this car.

You make it another four minutes. You make it through two more lights and one merge and a stretch of road where nothing happens. You can hear him breathing. You can hear, you are fairly sure, the seconds of your life ticking away. At one point, at a red light, he reaches over and adjusts the air vent on his side of the dashboard, casually, the way a man might in any car he was riding in, and the casualness of it is the most intimate thing he has ever done.

You make a small sound.

"What," he says.

"Nothing."

"Mm."

"Stop mming."

"No."

The light goes green. You drive. You make it another two minutes. You think, at minute eleven, I could just keep driving. I could keep driving past my apartment and just keep going and we could be in Vermont by midnight.

"You're not going to Vermont," he says, conversationally, like he can hear it.

"What."

"You're doing the face. The face you do when you're considering an exit strategy. You're not going to Vermont."

"How did you-"

"I've been watching your face for eight months, sweetheart, I know what it does."

You almost run a stop sign. You catch yourself. You brake hard. He puts one hand, casually, on the dashboard to steady himself, and does not comment.

"Don't call me that in the car," you say, through your teeth.

"Mm."

"Grace"

"You're going to miss your turn."

You make the turn. You make the turn and you pull into your lot and you park and you sit there for one second with both hands on the wheel and you think, very clearly: I am not going to survive this afternoon.

You get out of the car. He gets out of the car. He walks around to your side and he stands there, calmly, waiting for you, and you lock the car and you walk to your building and he walks one step behind you and you can feel him there and you fumble the key in the lock once, twice, and you get the door open on the third try, and he reaches over your shoulder and pushes it the rest of the way open for you, polite, and the politeness of it, given everything, is what nearly takes you down at the threshold.

You walk in.

He follows you.

He closes the door.

You turn around to face him.

You have, on the drive, prepared a speech. The speech was supposed to land you back on level ground. The speech contained the deli voice and a wry observation about his pacing and a small joke about Vermont, and you had it organised by the time you parked, and you were going to deliver it the moment the door closed, and you were going to win.

You open your mouth.

He kisses you.

He kisses you before you can get the first word out, and the kiss is not a patient, tangential, slow thing. The kiss is a man whose composure has been scratched off by the last forty minutes of you and who is, finally, allowed to use his hands. One hand is in your hair. One hand is at the small of your back. He has pulled you in hard against him and your bag has dropped somewhere and the wall is at your shoulder blades and his mouth is on yours and you understand, in a single small bright pulse of clarity, that you have miscalculated.

You go up on your toes into it because your body has made an executive decision without consulting you.

You get your hands in his hair.

You get your hands in his hair and you pull, because you cannot help yourself, because the bratting is autonomic at this point, because the part of you that has been driving all afternoon does not know how to stop driving even when the road has ended. You pull and he makes a small sound against your mouth, almost amused, and you take the amused noise personally, and you bite his bottom lip.

You bite it on purpose. You bite it harder than you mean to. You feel his lip catch between your teeth and you hear, very distinctly, the sound he makes, and the sound is not amused anymore.

He pulls back.

Not far. Just enough to look at you. His mouth is wet. There is a red mark on his bottom lip where your teeth were. His glasses are crooked. His face is doing something that has nothing to do with patience and nothing to do with mildness and nothing to do with any of the registers he has been using all day, and you stare at him and you understand, with a small descending lurch, that you have snapped him.

He does not move for a second.

Then he says, very quietly: "Okay."

A beat.

"Okay. You want to do it like that."

It is not a question. You do not answer it. You could not answer it. Your mouth has gone dry and your knees are doing something concerning and you are pressed against your hallway wall with a man you have spent eight months teasing and you have just bitten him, and he is looking at you like he is, finally, going to do something about it.

He turns you around.

He turns you around with one hand on your shoulder, not rough, just decisive, and you are now facing the wall and his hand is on the back of your neck, light, not pressing, just there, and his other hand is at your hip, and his mouth is at your ear.

"You are going to listen to me," he says, into your ear. Soft. Almost gentle. "I am going to tell you what is about to happen. And you are going to be quiet and let me tell you. Can you do that."

"I-"

"Words."

"Yes."

"Yes what."

"Yes, I can do that."

"Good."

The good goes all the way down your spine. You make a sound. He hears it. He does not comment on it. The hand at the back of your neck stays where it is.

"I am going to take you to your bedroom," he says, into your ear. "And I am going to take a great deal of time. And every time you try to rush me, I am going to stop. And every time you try to bite me again, I am going to stop. And every time you say something cute, I am going to stop. Three strikes, sweetheart, and I leave you on that bed and I go home. Do you understand me."

"Yes."

"Yes what."

"Yes Grace."

He pauses. The hand at your neck flexes, once, very slightly.

"Try again."

You stare at the wall in front of you. You can feel his breath at the side of your head and his hand at the back of your neck and your face is hot and you are, suddenly, not sure what he is asking for.

He waits.

He waits long enough that you have to think it through, and then you understand, and your stomach does the wrong thing.

"Yes," you say. "Ryland."

"Good girl."

The words do something to you that you will, later, deny. Your knees actually buckle, briefly, and his hand at your hip catches you, and he laughs, very quietly, against the side of your head.

"Down the hall?"

"Yeah."

"Show me."

You show him.

You walk down the hall and he walks behind you with his hand on the small of your back, and the hand is not gripping, it is just present, and the present-ness of it is keeping you upright in a way that is not entirely metaphorical. You get to your bedroom. You stop at the threshold. You do not know what to do.

"Inside," he says, behind you.

You go inside.

He follows you. He closes the door, which is unnecessary because you live alone, and the unnecessariness of the door-closing is a deliberate choice he is making, and you clock it, and your stomach does the wrong thing. He stops in front of you. He looks at you. He pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger, slowly, the way he did at your desk.

"Take your cardigan off," he says.

You take your cardigan off. You drop it on the chair.

"Shoes."

You take your shoes off.

"Good."

You make a sound. You can't help it. He hears it. He does not smile. The not-smiling is somehow worse than the smiling would be. You are standing in front of him in your skirt and your blouse and your bare feet on the cold wood and you are absolutely certain that you have never been looked at like this in your entire life.

"Grace."

"Don't talk."

"I-"

"I said don't talk."

You close your mouth.

He walks around you. Slowly. A full circle. He is looking at you like a thing he is appraising. You stand still because you have been told to stand still and because, frankly, you are not sure your legs could be doing anything else. When he comes back around to your front he stops and he looks at your face and he says, very mildly:

"You bit me."

"I-"

"That was a question."

"It-"

"Was that a question."

"Yes."

"So answer it."

"Yes, I bit you."

"Why."

"I-"

"Yes or no would be easier. Did you bite me because you wanted to, or because you were trying to make me stop being slow."

You stare at him. You understand the trap. The trap is that there is a correct answer and a true answer and they are not the same answer, and he is going to wait until you give him the true one.

"Both," you say.

"Mm."

"Don't mm-"

"I will mm if I want to. Sit on the bed."

You sit on the bed.

He stands in front of you. He is, now, fully out of the patient teacher register and into something else entirely, something where he is paying attention to you with the same focus he uses on a problem he is genuinely interested in, and the focus, which has been pointed everywhere else in his life for forty-eight years, is now pointed at you and you cannot, you find, look away from him.

"Look at me," he says.

You were already looking at him. You keep looking.

"You can be a brat," he says, very calmly. "I figured that out. I figured it out eight months in but I figured it out. You can be a brat with me all you want. You can say make me and you can bite me and you can do whatever you have planned for the next time you want to wind me up, and I am not going to break, sweetheart, I am going to handle it. Do you understand."

"Yes."

"Yes what."

"Yes Ryland."

"Good."

He kneels down in front of you. He is, suddenly, eye level. He puts his hands on your knees. He pushes them apart, slow, and steps in between them, and his hands are on your thighs, sliding up under the skirt, and his mouth is on the inside of your knee, and your hands fly to his hair.

"No," he says, against your knee. "Hands behind you."

You put your hands behind you, on the bed.

"Good."

The good is going to kill you. You are going to die in this bed. Of the goods. You make a small sound and he hears it and he does not comment on it and he moves his mouth higher up your thigh, slowly, and you bite the inside of your own cheek to keep from saying anything.

"You can talk," he says. "I just don't want you to push. Tell me if it's too much. Tell me if you want me to do something else. Just don't tell me to hurry. Got it."

"Got it."

"What was that."

"Got it, Ryland."

He laughs, very softly, against your thigh. He is, you realise, pleased. He is pleased with the Ryland. He is pleased with all of it.

He pushes your skirt up around your hips. His hands hook into your underwear and he pulls it down, slow, and you lift your hips for him without being asked and he says, soft, "good," and you make a sound that is not language. He drops the underwear somewhere on the floor. He puts his hands back on your thighs and he pushes them wider apart and he just looks at you for a second, with his glasses sliding down his nose and his hair already a wreck and the most focused expression you have ever seen on his face.

"Grace."

"Mm."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what."

"Like you're going to write a paper on it."

He laughs. He laughs against the inside of your thigh and the laugh hits you in three different places and you make a sound and his laugh stops, abruptly, like he has just discovered something.

"Okay," he says, quieter. "Okay. Hold on."

He leans in.

The first thing he does is not what you expect. He does not put his mouth on you. He kisses the inside of your thigh, high up, slow, and then the crease where your thigh meets your hip, and then the other crease, and you are already, embarrassingly, lifting your hips toward his mouth because your body has stopped consulting you on anything, and he places one flat hand on your stomach and presses you back down against the bed.

"Stay."

"Grace-"

"Stay."

You stay.

He puts his mouth on you.

He does it slow, the way he does everything in this bed. The first pass is just his tongue, broad and warm and exploratory, and you make a sound that is not a word and his free hand tightens on your thigh in answer. He does it again. He does it again, slightly different, slightly higher, and you can feel him paying attention, the way he pays attention to a malfunctioning copier, the way he pays attention to a problem he wants to actually solve. He is learning you. He is logging which thing makes you make which sound, and he is going to use it.

"Ryland."

"Mm-hm."

"Ryland, what are you-"

"Shh."

He finds your clit. He finds it and he closes his mouth around it, gently, and he sucks, once, and you make a noise that you would, ordinarily, be deeply embarrassed by, and the noise tells him what he wanted to know, and he does it again.

Your hands fist in the sheets behind you.

He goes slow. He goes unbearably slow. He is not in a hurry. He is, you understand with mounting horror, going to take the entire afternoon to do this if he wants to, and he wants to, and there is nothing you can do about it. He keeps his rhythm steady and patient and exact, and every time your hips try to come up off the bed his hand on your stomach presses you back down, and every time you make a sound he files it, and every time he files a sound he comes back to whatever caused it and does it again.

He slides one hand up the inside of your thigh. He hooks two fingers, gentle, just at your entrance, and pauses there.

"Yes?"

"Yes, Grace, please-"

"Words."

"Yes, you can-"

"Yes what."

"Yes you can, Ryland, please, please-"

"Good."

He pushes the two fingers into you, slow, and your back arches off the bed and his mouth is back on your clit and his fingers are crooked just exactly right inside you, like he has been practicing, like he has been thinking about it, and you are immediately, embarrassingly, very close.

"Ryland, I'm-"

He pulls his mouth off you.

His fingers stay where they are. The fingers stay where they are, slow, lazy, exactly not enough, and his mouth is at your inner thigh again, kissing, like nothing is happening, and you make a sound that is genuinely the most undignified thing your throat has ever produced.

"Grace-"

"Mm-hm."

"What are you doing-"

"Taking my time."

"Ryland, I will-"

"Mm."

He moves his fingers, just a little, just enough to make you make another sound, and then he keeps them still, and your hips try to move and he presses you down with his free hand and you understand, with a kind of furious clarity, that he is going to keep you exactly here, on the edge, for as long as he decides to, and there is nothing you can do.

You drop your head back against the pillow and you make a sound that is half a laugh and half something that is not a laugh.

"You are evil."

"Mm-hm."

"You are literally evil-"

"Ask me for it."

"What?"

"Ask me for it. Properly. Like you mean it."

You lift your head. You look at him. He is between your thighs with his glasses fogged and his fingers inside you and his free hand on your stomach and his mouth wet, and he is waiting, and you understand that he is going to wait as long as it takes, and you understand that you cannot wait as long as it would take, and you give up.

"Please, Ryland."

"Please what."

"Please, your mouth, please will you finish, please-"

"Good."

He puts his mouth back on you.

He does not, this time, go slow. He has gotten his answer, and now he is going to give you what you asked for, and what he gives you is steady and focused and exactly the rhythm he had a minute ago, and his fingers crook inside you on the same beat, and you come apart in under thirty seconds with both hands fisted in the sheets and his name in pieces in your mouth.

You come for what feels like a long time. He works you through it, mouth and fingers, until you are pushing at his shoulder with one hand because you cannot take any more, and only then does he ease off, slow, and rest his forehead against your inner thigh for one second, breathing.

"Ryland."

"Yeah."

"Up."

"Are you asking."

"I am asking, Grace, please, get up here-"

"Mm."

He gets up there.

He pulls his fingers out of you, slow, and you make a small protesting sound that you hate yourself for, and he kisses the inside of your thigh once more, and then he climbs up your body, slow, kissing as he goes. He kisses your hip. He kisses your stomach. He pushes your skirt the rest of the way up and then off you entirely, dropping it over the side of the bed, and he kisses up between your ribs and unbuttons your blouse one button at a time with his teeth around the third button which makes you laugh, and he says "don't make me laugh, I will lose track," and undoes the rest with his hands.

He pushes the blouse open. He looks at you. His face does the thing it does when he is looking at something he genuinely cannot believe is in front of him.

"Hi," he says.

"Ryland, please get off me and take your pants off."

He stops.

He stops kissing your sternum and he lifts his head and he looks at you. The look is not angry. The look is patient and very slightly disappointed, in the way a teacher looks at a student who has just done the exact thing the teacher told them not to do five minutes ago.

He sits up. He sits back on his heels between your knees. He puts his hands on his thighs.

He waits.

"Grace."

"Mm."

"What did I-"

"You're pushing."

"I'm not-"

"Mm."

You stare at him. He stares back. He is, you realise with a kind of dawning horror, not going to do anything else until you correct yourself. He is going to sit there, between your bare knees, with his glasses fogged and his hands on his own thighs, until you ask him properly.

The afterglow of the orgasm he just gave you is still in your bones. Your body is still loose and shaky and grateful, and you have just demanded that he hurry up like none of the last forty minutes happened, and he is now demonstrating, with great patience, that they did.

"Ryland."

"Mm."

"I'm sorry."

"Mm."

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Try again."

"Please. Please, will you take your pants off."

"Better."

He stands up off the bed.

He stands up and he turns away from you, slightly, and he pulls his t-shirt off over his head, slow, and you finally get to see him properly, and what you see is a man who is, by any honest measure, real. Real chest. Real shoulders. Real soft middle where his cardigan has been hiding it. Real chest hair, going grey in places. The most Ryland Grace body you have ever seen, and your mouth goes dry.

"Stop looking," he says, without turning around.

"No."

"That's my line."

"Mm."

He laughs, soft. He unbuckles his belt. He undoes his pants. He pushes them down with his underwear in one movement and steps out of them, and he is, you note with some considerable feeling, very hard, and he turns around and he sees you looking and he does not, for once, tell you to stop.

He leans over and picks his pants up off the floor and fishes in the pocket. He comes back up with his wallet. He opens his wallet. He takes out a condom.

You stare at him.

"You had that in your wallet?"

"Mm-hm."

"Since when."

"Couple weeks."

"Couple weeks?"

"Mm-hm."

"Ryland-"

"You want to keep talking about it, or-"

"Get over here."

He stops.

He stops with the condom in his hand and he looks at you, calmly, and he does not move toward the bed.

"Try again," he says.

"Grace, I-"

"Try again."

"I-"

He waits. He holds the condom. He is standing two feet from your bed, naked, hard, with his glasses sliding down his nose, and he is not coming, and you are spread out on the bed with your blouse hanging open and your underwear gone and your skin still flushed from the orgasm he just gave you, and you have just told a naked man holding a condom to get over here, and you are about to lose your mind.

"Please."

"Please what."

"Please, will you, will you come back to the bed, please, Ryland-"

"Better."

He comes back to the bed.

He rolls the condom on, slow, watching your face the whole time, and you watch his hand on himself and you make a sound and he hears it and the corner of his mouth pulls and then he is kneeling between your thighs again and he leans down and kisses you, slow, and his mouth tastes like you, and you make another sound and you reach for him and he catches both your wrists, gently, and pins them next to your head.

"Hands here," he says, against your mouth.

"Ryland."

"Stay."

You stay.

He braces himself on one forearm next to your head. He reaches down with his other hand and lines himself up, and he pauses there, just at your entrance, and looks down at you.

"Yes?"

"Yes, Grace, I have been saying yes-"

"Just checking."

He pushes in.

He pushes in slow. He pushes in unbearably slow, because of course he does, because he has not stopped being himself for one minute of this afternoon, and you feel every inch of him going in and you make a sound that has no shape, and he is making small sounds back into your neck that are not words, and when he is all the way in he goes still and drops his forehead onto your shoulder and breathes out, ragged, against your skin.

"God."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Ryland."

"Yeah."

"Move."

He moves.

He moves slow at first because he cannot, evidently, help it, because slow is his whole afternoon, but the slow does not last very long this time. The slow lasts maybe thirty seconds. The slow lasts until you wrap one leg around his hip and tilt up into him and make a small please sound against his ear, and then the slow goes out of him in long peeling sheets, and what is underneath it is a man who has been wanting this for eight months and has been holding himself together with both hands, and he is not, now, holding himself together.

He picks up the pace. He picks it up and he does not put it down. He is over you, braced on both forearms now, his hips snapping into yours in a steady deep rhythm, and his face is in your neck and he is talking, of course he is talking, and what he is saying is not the patient teacher voice from the hallway, it is not the careful handler from the desk, it is Ryland Grace talking like he talks, breathless and tangential and chaotic, into your skin.

"God, you are, you are, I have thought about this, I have thought about this so much you have no idea-"

"Ryland"

"You have no idea, I have, eight months, eight whole months of you sitting on my desk and-"

"Ryland, I-"

"Lazy, you called my teaching lazy-"

"Grace."

"In front of everyone, in front of-"

You laugh. You laugh and the laugh shakes you both and he makes a small surprised sound at the way you tighten around him and his hips stutter once before he catches the rhythm again, and you bite his shoulder, the same one as before, harder this time, and he says fuck into your neck which is the first time you have ever heard him swear and the swearing does something to you that you will, later, have to think about carefully.

He pulls his head up out of your neck.

He looks down at you. His mouth is still wet. The red mark from your teeth is still on his bottom lip. His hips have not stopped moving in that deep steady rhythm, and his face, above yours, is focused, and he is looking at you with the calm decisive attention of a man who has just decided to do something about a thing.

He leans down.

He puts his mouth on the place where your neck meets your shoulder. He does it carefully. He does it without hurrying. And then he closes his teeth around the skin there, not hard, just deliberate, and bites you.

You make a sound.

He holds the bite for one beat longer than you expect, and then he releases it, and his tongue passes over the mark he has just left, slow and soothing, and he kisses the spot once, and lifts his head again.

"There," he says, mild. "Closer to even."

You stare up at him. He is still moving. The mark on your neck is throbbing in a way that is travelling through the rest of you, and you make a sound that is not a word, and the corner of his mouth pulls.

You have, in the middle of all of it, one single very clear thought.

The thought arrives without tone. The thought arrives without any particular feeling attached to it, just a flat declarative line in your own voice in the middle of your own head, which is: I am going to murder him and then I am going to marry him.

He laughs, very softly, against the side of your head, like he has somehow heard it.

"Ryland."

"Yeah."

"Harder. Don't ask, just do it."

He stops.

He stops moving. He does not pull out. He stays exactly where he is, all the way inside you, and he goes completely still, and he lifts his head off your neck and looks down at you.

You stare up at him.

"No," you say. "No, no, no, Grace, please, please don't-"

"What did I tell you at the wall."

"Ryland-"

"What did I tell you. About the third strike."

You make a sound. It is not a word. It is the sound of you understanding, in a single small bright pulse, that he has been counting. He has been counting the pulls and he has been waiting to use the threat and the threat is now, and you are full of him and he is not moving and you are going to die.

"Ryland, I'm sorry-"

"What was the rule."

"Don't push, don't push, Ryland please-"

"And what did you just do."

"I-"

"Look at me."

You look at him.

His glasses are fogged. His hair is a wreck. His face, above yours, is focused and patient and unmoving, and his hips are still and his weight is heavy and you can feel him inside you still hard and still right there and he is doing nothing, and you understand, in the same small bright pulse, that he can do this all afternoon, that he is patient enough and frustrated enough and attentive enough to do this all afternoon, and that the only way out is through.

"I pushed."

"Mm-hm."

"I pushed, I'm sorry, Ryland, please-"

"Please what."

"Please, please will you, will you please go harder, please-"

"Mm."

He waits one more beat. He waits long enough to make you sure, for one terrible second, that he is going to say no, and then he leans down and kisses you, gently, on the forehead, and he says, very softly, "okay," and he gives you what you asked for.

It is not gentle this time.

It is not gentle and you cry out at the first hard thrust and his mouth comes down on yours and swallows the sound and then he is fucking you, properly, hard, the way you have been pushing for, and the difference between thirty seconds ago when he was still and right now is so vast that your whole body is shaking with it. His hand has come up to cradle the back of your skull, carefully, like he is making sure you don't hit the headboard, and the carefulness of the hand in contrast to the rest of him is what finally undoes you.

You feel it coming. He feels it coming. He somehow knows, because he is paying attention the way he pays attention to everything, and he reaches down between you with his free hand and his fingers find your clit and he says, into your ear, "come on, sweetheart, come on, I've got you, I've got you, good girl," and you come apart underneath him with his name in your mouth, both of them, Ryland Grace, broken, and you are not, this time, trying to be quiet, and he is saying it again into your ear while you come, good girl, that's it, good girl, over and over, soft and certain, and you understand dimly that he has waited to deploy that one, that he has held it back since the hallway, and the saving of it is the last thing that goes through your mind before everything goes white.

He follows you a few thrusts later with his face buried in your neck and a sound he makes that you will think about for weeks.

He goes still.

He is heavy on top of you. His whole weight. He is breathing hard. His hand is still cradling the back of your skull. His other hand is gripping your hip, hard enough that there will be marks tomorrow, and you do not, you find, mind.

You lie there.

You lie there for a long time. He does not move. You do not push him off. His breath slows. Yours slows. His glasses are pressed sideways against your cheek and are, definitely, bent.

Eventually he kisses the side of your neck, very softly, and lifts his head, and looks at you.

He looks like a man who has just been hit by a small truck.

"Hi," he says.

You laugh. You cannot help it. The laugh shakes you both and he laughs too, and he drops his forehead back onto your shoulder, and you put your arms around him, and he sighs, and the sigh is the most relaxed sound you have ever heard him make.

"Ryland."

"Yeah."

"You had a condom in your wallet for two weeks."

"Yes."

"That's presumptuous."

"Mm-hm."

"You were that sure?"

"I was hopeful."

You laugh again. He laughs into your shoulder. He kisses your collarbone, sleepy now, and after a second he eases out of you, careful, and deals with the condom, and comes back and sprawls half on top of you with his face in your neck.

"Your glasses are bent."

"I know."

"They're really bent."

"I'm aware."

"You should take them off."

"I'm not moving."

"Grace."

"Mm."

You laugh. You laugh and he laughs into your neck and he presses a kiss to your jaw, and you reach up and, gently, take his glasses off his face and put them on the nightstand. He makes a small grateful noise. He closes his eyes.

"Hey," he says, into your neck. Quiet now.

"Yeah."

"You're not actually allowed to call my teaching lazy in front of the whole department."

"Oh my god."

"I'm just saying. As a general policy."

"Grace, I will throw you out of my bed."

"You won't."

"I will."

"You won't."

You won't.

He pulls you closer. He is warm. He is heavy. After a minute, into your hair, he says, very softly:

"I clocked you at the meeting."

"I know."

"I want to be on record. About when I clocked it."

"Grace, I know."

"Just so we're clear."

"We're clear."

"Mm."

A pause.

"You really did call it lazy, though."

"Grace."

He laughs into your neck. You close your eyes. The afternoon light is doing something through the curtains and your apartment is very quiet and his weight is heavy against you and you think, very clearly, oh.

Oh, fine.

Okay.

You go to sleep too.

--

Enjoyed - let me know?

A few months earlier...

"Ma, yes, I'm still coming," Bob spoke into the phone pressed against his cheek and shoulder. His hands were folding his fresh laundry as it lay out on his bed.

"And your older brother needs to know if you're bringing someone with you, honey. There's no shame in coming home alone again..." his mother said in a sweet voice, but Bob knew what the underlying tone meant. All his life, he never had anyone to bring home. It was like an ongoing joke inside his family at this point. No high school or college girlfriends seemed acceptable at the time, but now he was a Navy pilot and couldn't get a girl? Well couldn't get the girl he really wanted.

Before he even thought about what he was saying, he blurted out a response, "I'm bringing someone."

What.

"What?! Robert Floyd, you better not be messing with me!" his mother squealed over the phone. "Jim!" Bob had to pull the phone away from his ear with a grimace as his mother shouted for his father. "He's bringing someone!"

"About time," he could hear his father's gruff voice on the other end of the call. "Was gettin' worried about him out there in California. That boy's not built for the beach."

"Oh, you hush! Honey, I'll go ahead and let Mark know. I love you!" his mother's excitement could be felt through the phone, her voice all high and pitchy.

"Bye Ma, I love you," Bob huffed out. What did he just do?

"How's she doing?" Bob jumped at the sound of your voice, quickly turning to you. You lounged against the door frame of his bedroom, wearing nothing but a sports bra and some running shorts. He hadn't expected you to be home from your run with Phoenix so soon.

"Ma? Oh, uh, yeah, she's good. She's good, nothing new, y'know," he fumbled through a response, trying to not to look at the way the beads of sweat ran down your neck.

You hummed at him, "That's good. Are you still up for Thai food tonight? The new place on 4th?"

Of course, he was. When you first mentioned it last weekend, he had almost jumped at the opportunity. Sure, he liked Thai food, but sitting across from you and sharing a meal was what Bob really cherished. "Yep! Yeah, that sounds good. Ready in an hour?"

"You read my mind, Bobby," you said with a grin as you backed into your room across from his.

Present time…

“What’s wrong?” you saw the scowl on Bob’s face as he stirred the pasta like he had a personal vendetta against it.

“Huh? Oh, um, just thinking about my brother’s wedding,” he said like even the thought made him sick.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” you said as you prepped the various vegetables on the countertop around you. “I love weddings. The outfits, the candles, the flowers! I can’t wait to get married. And I don’t want to have a big wedding, y’know? But like more of a backyard, summer barbecue type of vibe. Oh! And I want all my bridesmaids in different color dresses!”

Bob watched you as you described your perfect wedding, mentally taking notes. The way you had set down the knife to wave your hands around was adorable. You were always so animated, unafraid to show your emotions.

“But Bobby, the best part about weddings is…” you left the ending open for him, ushering him to fill in the blank.

“The cake?” he questioned. To be honest, he was trying to appeal to your sweet tooth.

“I mean, yeah, that’s pretty high up there. But no, it’s the look right before the first kiss. So many people say it’s the first look or the actual kiss, but for me it’s that moment where everyone knows what’s coming next and the purest emotions are on the bride and groom's faces,” you explained in pure joy and awe, like you had experienced this feeling yourself. It was sweet to watch. Your wonder and love for the simple things were something Bob loved about you.

“But, why is that moment better than the first look?” he asked innocently.

You sighed wistfully. "Just that moment when you can see the excitement on the groom's face, and he can barely contain himself. And the bride is usually so bashful, but always so excited. It's just so sweet, Bobby."

It did sound sweet. If Bob and you were getting married, he doubts he'd be able to contain his eagerness before the first kiss. No, he'd be way too focused on you to even listen to the officiant of the ceremony. Surely, he'd forget what to say, and he'd be a mess through his vows.

Bob was quiet for a minute or two, and you wondered what was going on in his head. You saw the way he had a small smile on his face, like it was hidden and just for him at this moment. And the way his shoulders relaxed, going more and more slack as time passed.

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" you asked him with a teasing smile.

"Yeah, maybe," he chuckled and went back to stirring the pasta. Bob wanted to stay in this moment forever with you. It was so domestic. Cooking together in the kitchen you shared, laughing and throwing each other playful looks, talking about weddings. Maybe one day you'll talk about your wedding. Anything you wanted for the big day, Bob was sure to agree.

Living with you had been both the best and worst thing for Bob. A few months into the program, your lease was about to let up, and you were scrambling to find a new place. Bob hadn't known you prior to the mission that brought you all down to San Diego, but you had become close very quickly. Being two of only a few backseaters in the squad, you and Bob had spent a lot of time together in training and going over mission briefs. He had met a handful of WSOs in his time in the Navy, but knowing you was like a breath of fresh air. You never diminished your position or your knowledge, even when other pilots would question your place in the military. It was a learning curve for him to be around at first; seeing you go toe-to-toe with cocky pilots was daunting. He learned that's where your call sign came from, Bee. You were sweet, but could sting when you wanted. Soon, he got used to it, becoming more confident in himself in turn.

When you joked about bumming it on Phoenix's couch until you found a new place, Bob chimed in, "You can stay at mine. I have a spare bedroom, never really got around to using it."

"Wait, really?" you asked, fully turning your body towards him. You always did that, too, gave your full attention to whoever you were talking to. It was a bit intimidating. Bob was only now getting used to it, but still felt his heart beat pick up.

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind having a roommate," he said with a soft smile.

"Oh, Bobby, I could kiss you right now!" you said with a big grin, squeezing his forearm. He wished you had.

It wasn't until you had fully moved in that Bob realized the full consequences of his actions. You were horrible to live with.

Not in the way that you left dishes in the sink to "soak" all week, or you forgot to switch your laundry out for hours on end, or even in the way that you would blast music loudly at 2 in the morning. No, you didn't do any of those things. In fact, you always cleaned up after yourself, and Bob too, taking his plate right from his lap before he could protest. You cleaned the whole apartment, top to bottom, on Sundays. Your music carried throughout the hallways as you moved from room to room. Best of all, you baked! Every week! Trying a new recipe and being a little messy was your favorite way to unwind from a hectic work week, and lucky for Bob, he was your taste tester. Sure, you brought in your treats for the entire squad on Mondays, but Bob got to sit at the counter and watch you work. You would always gravitate towards him during this time, either letting him try the new brownie batter before you added more sugar or asking him how many chocolate chips are too many.

You were a great roommate. Always so courteous and kind. Anyone would be lucky to share a space like this with you. But it was torture actually living with you.

Too many times, Bob has caught a glimpse of you walking around in nothing but a shirt and some panties. To be fair, it was almost always after you had showered and were walking to your room. But as Bob watched you track down the hallway, he cursed himself for offering up the room in the first place.

And since moving in and getting closer, you had become even more touchy than usual with him. You were quick to give out hugs and other normal affectionate gestures to everyone on the squad, Bob included, even when he had only known you for a few weeks. But now, it was like Bob's personal space was your personal space. You always pressed into him when maneuvering around the small kitchen. Bob always held his breath, feeling you up against him, reaching for the oregano or paprika. Recently, too, your hand would work its way into his windswept hair after long days at the beach. The way your nails would drag against his scalp made him want to groan every time.

But worst of all were busy nights at the Hard Deck. On multiple occasions, barstools would fill up quick, only leaving the squad with two or three seats. It was fine for most of the night, with everyone so invested in the latest match of pool between Bradley and Jake. But after a few hours, you needed a break and always found your way into Bob's lap.

"I can get up, so you can sit," Bob stammered out the first time you sat on his lap. The rest of the squad shared amused looks, careful to hide them from both of you.

"It's okay, Bobby, I know you wanna sit too. Plus, you're comfy," you said, wiggling around trying to find the best position like he actively wasn't about to combust.

A bump of your hip snapped the man back into your kitchen. "Everything okay over there, space cadet?" you asked, tilting your head to look at him better.

"Mhm, yeah. I'm okay," he said in a small voice, the smile on his lips not quite reaching his eyes.

Furrowing your brows, you wondered what was making Bob so distant tonight. "You know you can always talk to me, right?" you offered with a small smile. People say that but rarely mean it. But you meant it, and you wanted him to know that. He just nodded his head and continued stirring the boiling pasta. "Okay, Bobby. I'm here when you want to talk," you said as you rubbed up and down his back. You swore you saw a chill run up his spine.

You watched the way his face continued to fall as you worked on dinner. Bob was always quieter than you, so gentle and sweet. But you hoped whatever was bothering him would go away, or that he would talk to you about it at least. As the night continued, he gave you those small smiles, and your worry just grew.

જ⁀➴

"Why don't you just ask Bee?" Phoenix questioned as she grabbed the drink Penny put on the bar top. The Hard Deck was busy with patrons in all corners of the joint.

"I can't just ask her!" Bob squeaked out; he felt his cheeks flush at the thought of it.

"Why not? Because you have a crush on her? Come on, Bob," she teased him with a shit-eating grin on her face. She watched him slump against the bar as if she had just punched him in the gut. "If you won't take me, then why not Bee?"

Bob sighed, given that they had this conversation almost every day. Before training, after training, and even during training. Even the clear blue skies weren't safe from Natasha's questions. "It's not like I don't want to take you. But my parents know you. They're expecting me to bring someone home, y'know."

"Someone to give them grandchildren," Phoenix cackled as Bob groaned loudly. Penny placed his fizzy soda on the bar with a smile, knowing all about the man's debacle. Natasha thanked her, and they made their way back to the squad.

"Don't say that! I don't even, I can't even think- Oh jeez, Phoenix. No more talking about this. I've decided." The pilot swore she had never heard his voice that pitchy before. Bob shook his head as he wove through the crowd of people.

Once they had settled back into the fray of the squad, Natasha finally took to giving actual advice, not just teasing her back-seater. "I think you should just be honest, tell her. It's Bee."

"Oh yeah, let me just tell her I've been in love with her for months on end now. She's gonna think I'm a creep! Luring her into my apartment, making her live with me," he half shouted, half whispered at her. "And I also said, I didn't want to talk about this. Especially with her right there." Bob glanced at you laughing freely with Bradley, head thrown back. Your energy was contagious to the people around you, as he saw Bradley and Mickey spotting matching smiles. Bob found himself smiling to himself, too.

"She wanted to live with you, idiot. And I'm not saying confess your love. Just ask for this favor. You don't have to give anything away if you don't want to," she said matter-of-factly. If only it were that easy. Within minutes of you being in his childhood home, Bob would surely fold and show all the feelings he's been trying so hard to hide. One conversation and approving nod from his mother, and he'd propose on the spot.

The pair were too entrenched in their conversation to see you making your way over. You didn't mean to snoop, but you couldn't help overhearing snips of their chatter.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do. I have to tell Ma I'm not bringing anyone," Bob muttered, dragging a hand down his jaw.

"To the wedding?" You whipped around and saw Bob's eyes almost pop out from behind his glasses. Phoenix, however, let a mischievous glint dance on her face as she watched the two of you. Directing your attention back to Bob, you continued, "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But if you need someone, I'll go."

Natasha let out the biggest cackle you had heard; it even caught a few of the other aviators' attention. She looked to Bob, who seemed to be frozen in time, and decided she would do her best friend a solid.

"His family is expecting a girlfriend. That's why Bob is having such a hard time," she explained. But you just furrowed your brows further at this.

"I'll be your girlfriend," you said. At this, Bob nearly fell off his barstool. "I mean, I can be your pretend girlfriend for a week. I'm really good with parents and family and stuff. And we know each other well, too! I'm sure we'd be a convincing couple. So, yeah. If you need someone." Suddenly, you felt awkward under his gaze. You definitely gave it away. Who just proclaims they'd be someones fake girlfriend?

You met Jake's gaze from across the pool table and saw him biting down on his bottom lip, trying to suppress the grin on his face. Flashing a 'Help me!' face in his direction, the blonde man made his way over to you.

"Offering your fake girlfriend services again, Bee?" he asked with a raised brow. Both Phoenix and Bob shot him quizzical looks. "Bee came out to dinner with my folks when they were in town a few weeks ago. They were on me about not settling down, but she quelled those fears. Swear I've never seen my mom fall in love faster."

"Really?" Bob asked, looking between both of you. "You met his parents?" A flash of hurt crossed his face. You had missed it completely, but both Hangman and Phoenix caught the distress on his face.

"That's perfect! Right, Bob? Bee would be great," she hit his arm, trying to snap him out of what Jake had just said. The three of you looked at Bob, waiting for his response.

He nodded slowly before responding, "Yeah, I mean, if you're okay with missing the full week. I'd love to take you." Natasha grinned at his recovery, mentally noting to pat him on the back about it later.

"I can talk to Maverick about it tomorrow. I'd love to come," you said bashfully. Jake smiled knowingly at your response. He locked eyes with Natasha and winked. The woman just rolled her eyes but got the signal.

"When was the last time I beat you in pool Hangman? I think my trophy needs a little dusting off," she challenged, gaining the attention of the squad and taking it off Bob and you.

"Looking for a rematch? I'm happy to oblige," Jake said in a sickeningly sweet tone. He stepped closer so only she could hear the next part of his sentence, "I'll win this game, just like I'll win our bet."

"In your dreams, Seresin," she scoffed. "Rack 'em!"

જ⁀➴

Jake's couch had become a second home to you at this point. Its cushions surely remembered the way you would slump into them every weekend. Being Jake's back-seater was a challenge at first; you were never one to back down, and neither was Jake. It wasn't until you both had figured out that instead of going up against each other, you could turn your focus on the pilots around you. So as time went on, you bonded over your love for college football, dad rock, and surprisingly, the Great British Bake Off.

"Oh come on, Tom! No one is going to win with a ganache like that," Jake exclaimed from the end of the couch. There was no quippy response from you, and Jake raised an eyebrow in your direction. You had been like this all week. Mopey and weird. Your usual trash talk to other pilots or Maverick was replaced with a stone-cold face. It was just as intimidating, but Jake knew something was up.

Clutching the throw pillow in your arms, you couldn't even focus on the monstrosity that was Tom's cake on your screen. No, all that ran through your head was how you were going to contain yourself around Bob and his family. In just two days.

With a whack, fabric came flying on top of your head.

"Ow! Jake!" you exclaimed, immediately putting your arms up to protect yourself from further attacks.

"Jake! Don't Jake, me," he sassed you, only making the pout in your lips grow deeper. "What is going on with you? Is this still about Baby on Board?"

"Don't call him that," you grumbled, taking your pillow and whacking him across the chest.

He just rolled his eyes and continued, "Seriously, you need to get it together. Baby on Board and his family are expecting a perfect girlfriend, and right now, you're this."

You scowled at him as he chastised you. "Jake, that's mean. I just," you sighed before continuing. "I just don't know how I'm going to do this. A whole week? He'll know!"

Your dramatics were nothing new to Jake, but when it came to Bob, it seemed like you dialed it up tenfold. "This opportunity has been placed in your lap. I think you should take advantage of it, embrace it," he suggested.

"That's easier said than done," you mumbled.

This upcoming week made you queasy just thinking about it. It wasn't that you didn't want to go to meet Bob's family. No, you wanted all of it. But not like this. From the first day you met Bob, you knew you were in for it. His cute glasses and sweet smile almost had you confessing by the end of the first week.

When he asked you to move in with him, you had happily agreed. But as the arrangement unfolded, you realized what kind of agony would be in store for the near future. The way he always carried in all the groceries, not letting you lift a finger. How he always drove you, never letting you sit behind the wheel, no matter what kind of day he had. And he was so handy around the apartment, too. One day, the garbage disposal in your kitchen stopped working, and just as you were about to call someone, Bob brought over his tool kit and got down on his knees. It was way more attractive than it needed to be.

But these little daily pains were nothing compared to what you had walked in on about a month ago. You were about to go on your daily run with Phoenix when she called you from the car to cancel. Turning your keys and walking back into the house, you slipped off your sneakers and began padding down the hallway towards your room.

Just as you were about to head into your room, there was an odd sound. At first, you thought it was the apartment, settling, or something that people always say when a building makes noise. But as you paused, clutching your shoes and phone close to you, you knew it was something else. It was him.

His moans were unmistakable, so vocal and loud. And you froze. For a few seconds, you just stood there, listening. Listening to Bob falling apart. The schlepping of his hand against himself was unmistakable. The rocking of the bed, too. You had to peel yourself away from this. Away from his noise. So that's what you did.

You tried to forget it. But a part of you wanted to remember, as horrible as that sounds. You hadn't been able to look Bob in the eye for a few days after, and when you did, the heat in your tummy would start again.

The thought of sharing this week with Bob was more daunting than any mission you had ever faced.

"Hey! Are we going to watch this episode, or are you just going to sit and stew the whole night?" Jake's voice snapped you out of your thoughts.

"Sorry, just a little worried still," you said quietly. Jake had never seen you like this before, so in your own head.

He slid down the couch and placed an arm around your shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. Everything will be okay, I promise. Your biggest worries right now should be if Tom can figure out his presentation for the judges."

You giggled at his teasing. "Fucking, Tom," you murmured under your breath.

"Yes, fucking, Tom! God, he's selling it!" Jake boomed next to you, throwing you into another fit of laughter. "Seriously, Bee. Don't worry too much about this week."

"I will be texting you live updates every hour, I hope you know," you said with a grin.

"Wow, only hour updates. I was expecting every 5 minutes," Jake teased, poking into your sides. You just swatted his hands away, fighting off a smile.

જ⁀➴

Stepping onto the packed dirt and smelling the fresh Montana air was a relief to Bob. The picturesque mountain ranges were illuminated by the strong moonlight, and the sky was lit up by thousands of twinkling stars. It was something to get lost in, and that's exactly what Bob found as he turned to look at you. "It's so beautiful," you said, eye going a little wide, and your voice was quiet. Bob figured it was from your hours of traveling, maybe partly from the awe of the view.

Without looking away from you, he responded, "Very beautiful."

Bob's moment of peace with you was interrupted by a swift closing of the front door and a cheery voice. "Bob! Oh, honey, you made it safe!" an older, but spry woman ran up to Bob. You looked at the pair as they embraced and caught a look at them, side by side. Bob was much larger than the woman, towering over her. His arms stood out against her frame as your eyes trailed across his large muscles and hands without even realizing what you were doing. And his nose, it was the same as the woman who stood next to him. The cute button was something you always caught yourself looking at when tracing the map of his face.

A squeal snapped you out of your daze, and you were quickly met with a tight hug and a rushed introduction of Bob's mother's name, Pam. "Oh wow! You must be Bee! You are so gorgeous. I don't know why Bob kept you hidden from us for so long." She leaned back a bit and took you in, dragging her hands across your frame and face. You giggled at her ministrations.

"Thank you for having me this week. I'm so excited to get to know you all," you said with a sweet smile.

"Oh, we are so happy to have you, Bee! Such a cute little nickname, you don't mind?" she asked, but continued on anyway. "We were a little worried about Bob for a while there. Honestly, never thought he would-"

Bob's eyes widened, knowing the long list of stories his mother could tell you. "Alright! Alright, let's not talk about all that just yet," he cut her off with a blush that dusted his cheeks.

"Honestly," you started, gaining the attention of both Bob and his mother. "Bob is the best thing that's ever happened to me. You raised such a kind and thoughtful man. I'm so thankful for him." Your eyes met his as you spoke, sharing a look of genuine care. Pam caught the way you looked at her son and smiled knowingly.

"Well, you two had better head on up to bed. Your Pa is sleeping, but he'll be up bright and early. And everyone will be over tomorrow night to meet you, Bee," Pam said, finally letting you out of her grasp. Instead, she placed a hand on your lower back to guide you inside.

You turned to grab some of your bags to take inside, but instead saw Bob balancing all of your luggage in his hold, just the same as when you left the apartment and at the airport. He shot you a look, telling you to head inside. You rolled your eyes, but mouthed 'thank you' as you kept walking with his mother.

She led you to a small bedroom upstairs in the rustic-looking house. It was cosy, a queen bed with golden colored quilt, a small adjoining bathroom, and a small window with lace curtains. She gave you another quick hug and whispered 'goodnight' before heading back down the stairs to bed.

Bob set down your bags and let out a deep breath.

"You okay? Wanna shower first? You had a long day," you said, a hand coming to his shoulder and rubbing it sweetly. He melted into your touch, unconsciously leaning into you.

"No, no. You go first, I'll be okay," Bob said softly, trailing off a bit towards the end. You had been traveling since that morning, and you could tell how tired the man in front of you was. Your flight was a few hours long, and since his family didn't live in Bozeman or Billings, Bob had to rent a car and drive 3 more hours out to the small town.

"Bobby, go shower and get ready for bed. I'll unpack and lay out the clothes for tomorrow." You took your hands and placed them on both sides of his shoulder, pushing him into the bathroom as he chuckled lowly.

Bob gave you a tired, but grateful look before he closed the bathroom door carefully. Today had been long, but seeing the way you interacted with his mother made it all worth it.

Stepping under the warm stream of water, Bob felt his muscles relax instantly. He didn't want to take long in the shower, knowing you were waiting for him, but he also needed a few moments to himself. Reflecting on your day together, Bob felt himself getting half hard at the thought of you.

On the plane ride over, you had fallen asleep against his shoulder, your body angling into his. With your odd positioning, your tits were pressed right up against him for the majority of the flight. It took everything in him to keep his gaze straight ahead on the action movie playing on the little screen in front of him and not your soft, full chest.

His right hand drifted down, gripping himself firmly.

And your hair. You had been tucked right under his chin, and the scent of your shampoo was overwhelming. Sometimes, Bob would catch a whiff of it floating down the hallway after your showers, but now it was coming at him in waves. He felt like such a creep, but what was he supposed to do? Push you away from him? Bob didn't know the next time you would get so close to him.

Now, his cock stood proud under the stream.

In the car ride over, you had made it a point to keep him company since it was so late at night. Finding a radio station that played old country music, you began to sing along to almost every song that played. After the fourth song, Bob knew it wasn't a fluke that you knew all the lyrics so well. You explained that your college roommate was from Wyoming and was constantly playing her music in the dorms.

Bob knew he needed to keep his eyes on the road, but he couldn't help the way he looked over to your figure sitting beside him. Your lips moving along to whatever song was playing, your thighs pressed up against the leather seat of the truck, and the way your hand would occasionally find its way to his upper back, rubbing soft, smooth circles into it, all drove him to glance over at your sweet face.

His pace was steady now.

Bob felt so dirty, touching himself like this with you, only a thin wall away. But he knew if he didn't do it now, he wasn't sure when he would get a chance this week. So he hunched over the corner of the shower, trying to focus on anything but you. But like every time before this one, Bob's mind only wandered to thoughts of you.

What would you look like with water cascading down your tits? Or how your back would arch into the tile of the shower as he fucked you from behind. Best of all, how your face would twist with pleasure as he drilled into you, making you cum all over his thick cock.

That's what always got him to finish. Thinking about you, your pleasure. He caught the groan in his throat before it sounded, instead biting down on his free fist, whining lowly.

After cleaning up fully, Bob looked around the bathroom and realized he hadn't brought any clean clothes in with his. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he stepped out sheepishly.

At the creak of the bathroom door, you looked up from your place on the ground. You were met with Bob's nearly bare form. Water droplets from his hair were dripping down his shoulders, finding their way down his chest and waist. As you tracked one of the droplets, your eyes stopped when they met his waist. Bob's v-line was even better than you had imagined, and you had thought about it a lot.

He had an aversion to taking his shirt off around others, and that was reasonable. Especially in front of a bunch of macho, testosterone-fueled Navy men. But you had always wondered what he looked like under the kaki uniform he wore so often. Seeing it up close almost had you drooling.

"Forgot a change of clothes," he explained in a quiet voice. You just hummed, not trusting your voice. Pushing up off the ground and padding over to the dresser, you opened a drawer, and Bob found all of his clothes folded and set perfectly. His heart warmed at the thought of your delicate fingers working across all the clothing he had packed for the week. You had obviously taken care of his stuff first, as your luggage was still open on the floor.

Bob grabbed a change of clothes and kept his voice at the same quiet tone, "Thank you, Bee." You smiled up at him, staring a bit too long. But quickly, you fumbled to grab your nightwear from your bag and made your way into the bathroom.

Bob dropped the towel from his waist and began to dress. He didn't miss the way your eyes trailed down his body, and honestly, it made his stomach flip. Just as he was about to lie down and call it a night, he realized you hadn't discussed the bed situation. Bob would never want to make you uncomfortable, so he shuffled down the hall and found his way into the spare linen closet, grabbing a fluffy comforter and some blankets to lie down on the floor beside the bed.

Not too long after, you emerged from the bathroom and furrowed your brows at the sight of the empty bedroom, expecting to see Bob knocked out on the bed from such a long day.

"Down here," Bob's voice startled you as his hand shot up in a lazy wave from the other side of the bed.

"Bob? What are you doing?" you asked the man, walking over to see him laying down on the makeshift bed he had set up on the hardwood floor.

He rubbed the back of his neck, not quite meeting your eyes. "Didn't want to make you feel like we needed to share the bed or anything like that."

"We've literally fallen asleep on the couch together," you said, narrowing your eyes as a teasing smile made its way to your face at his chivalry. "I don't mind sharing the bed at all, Bobby. And that can't be comfortable."

"No, no. Ma's got the best blankets. Feels like a cloud," Bob explained with a soft smile.

You narrowed your eyes at the man before speaking, "With you back? Do you remember earlier today when we got off the plane?"

Bob recalled the moment of weakness. He had stretched out a bit too far after sitting for hours on end and felt a tug throughout his body, wincing a little. You had fused over him for the next 30 minutes, almost refusing to get in the car if you couldn't drive. But Bob, of course, got his way.

He looked as if he was about to argue with you. Bob was hardheaded sometimes, but you knew just the right thing to say to knock him out of it.

"Plus, if your mom comes to wake us up and she sees you sleeping on the floor, everything would be ruined," you offered. Seeing a look of recognition flash across his face, he nodded slowly, like he was considering your words. "Come on, Bobby. I'll help you fold everything and put it back."

You giggled as he sprang up from the floor, a hand already coming down to his lower back.

"I knew your back was going to hurt! Comfy my ass," you said, smacking him lightly across the chest. He just smiled at you, joining in with some soft chuckles that warmed your heart.

Curling into bed, you felt sleep hit you almost immediately. Letting your eyelids droop, part of you wanted to stay up and think about tomorrow. To pick Bob's brain about who might show up. Worry about what they would think of you. But the sound of Bob's voice made your heart slow and breathing even out.

"G'night, Bee. Thank you again for coming with me," Bob told you, not even sure if you were lucid enough to hear him.

"Anything for you, Bobby. Goodnight," you said in the softest voice he thinks he's ever heard from you. Your words slurred a little and were definitely muffled by the pillow, but he still heard you. He saw your eyelashes flutter across your cheeks as you settled into sleep. The way your mouth opened slightly, lips parting so delicately. How your body seemed to curl into itself, making you look so small and fragile.

Wishing to hold you close to his chest like earlier today on the plane or to grasp your hand to hold in his sleep, Bob just stayed up for a few minutes longer to watch your sleeping form. Soon enough, his thoughts of you became muddy and distant as sleep took over, claiming you both now.

જ⁀➴

Bob had awoken to soft beams of sunlight streaming through the lace curtains. Everything was quiet, and Bob let himself lie for a moment, taking in the peace. Just as he was about to stretch and get up, he looked to his side and saw you.

Your cheek was still flushed up against the pillow, and your hair was in a bit of a mess as it rubbed on the fabric. It wasn't rare that Bob got to see you relax, but it was rare to see you completely void of all concerns. Usually, you were still holding some type of resistance in your shoulders or furrowing your brows slightly, even when lying across the couch at the end of the day. But now, you looked completely free. He smiled a bit at this.

Like you had sensed him mentally tracing the outline of your nose or the apples of your cheeks, suddenly your eyelashes fluttered, and you opened your eyes.

"G'morning, Bobby," you half mumbled-half whispered into your pillow. You weren't sure he understood you until hearing his telltale chuckle that was seemingly reserved for you.

"Morning, Bee," he said softly, voice a little deeper than usual. You chalked it up to the morning hours, but it still made your tummy flip. "Did you sleep well?"

"Mhm," you hummed. Bob saw that you made no effort to move from your comfortable position and chuckled again.

He often teased you for being so out of it in the mornings, but Bob had never seen you so unguarded. On the weekends you had off from training, you would usually pad into the kitchen, eyes still a little puffy and your movement still a little soft. There was one time Bob had to quickly intervene before you poured your coffee into your cereal bowl instead of your mug. But right now was different.

"Don't laugh," you grumbled. "Need like five more minutes. Or maybe ten."

Just as Bob was about to say okay and lie back under the covers with you, he heard a familiar pattern of steps making their way up the hallway.

"I'm afraid you're not going to get that, Bee," he spoke, seeing your brows fold in on themselves at his words. But soon, the bedroom door opened, and Pam was rushing to hug you good morning.

"I can see Bob has been soft on you, letting you sleep in," she joked as you shot up in the bed to meet her embrace. "We Floyds are early risers! Better start building the habit now."

"Oh, I know. Bob's up every morning at the crack of dawn, it feels like. Always hear him trying to be so quiet around the apartment," you said with a yawn as she drew away from you. Bob's cheeks heated at the thought of you being so in tune with his morning routine.

"Well, I won't rush you this morning, but breakfast will be ready in 20 minutes. Then we'll head into town afterwards, alright, Bee?" she said with a fond smile on her face. You nodded your head, saying a quick thank you as she closed the door and left.

The room was silent for a few seconds as you and Bob shared a small smile and knowing look at what had happened. "I'm only getting up early for her this week, Floyd. Don't expect any new habits when we're back home," you joked, a teasing smile on your face.

"Oh, I know. Wouldn't want to disrupt your morning routine of inside-out jeans and backwards shirts," Bob said with full seriousness as he pushed the covers off his body.

"Whatever that happened like one time," you said, pursing your lips. Hearing his laughter fill the air made your face flush with embarrassment. "One time! It was one time!"

Your protests at his teasing had no effect. Instead, Bob's laughter seemed to increase ten-fold as he doubled over in the bed.

"Bob, stop! It was one time!" you whined now. "You said it wasn't that bad."

His laughter subsided as he began to speak, "I know, I know." There was a silence that lasted for a few seconds until he spoke again, "But it was so funny, Bee." With that, Bob burst out laughing again as you half groaned, half laughed loudly.

From the kitchen, Pam smiled to herself, hearing her son's laughter carry throughout the house.

જ⁀➴

That night, like Pam had promised, Bob's extended family was over. Honestly, Bob was a little worried for you. His family could be a lot, and given that this was the first time he had brought anyone home, he expected everyone to poke and prod at you. But as his family filed into the house, your bright smile had never faltered.

Sometime after dinner but before dessert, Bob had lost you in the crowd of Floyds. He had walked through the house about ten different times at this point, looking for you, but you were nowhere to be found. Seeing the worried look on his face, his father gently grasped his son's shoulder to gain his attention.

"She's outside," he said lowly. Bob nodded and walked with purpose towards the back porch. His mind racing, thinking of all the possibilities that would've pushed you to escape outside. Were you crying? Was this all too overwhelming? Did someone ask you a rude question? Had you finally gotten sick of him? Sick of this role you were playing?

Right as he was about to push the door open, Bob paused. He saw you outside, but you weren't alone.

Gathered around you in the grassy field was a gaggle of small children, all laughing and smiling. Bob couldn't tell exactly what you were playing with the children, but after one of his younger cousins ran up to you and tapped your hip, he understood immediately. Bob smiled to himself, seeing you take off into a run as all the children screamed joyfully.

"She's sweet. Reminds me of your mother." Bob was snapped out of his trance as his father spoke. "Good job, son," he added, hand coming to clap softly on Bob's back.

Bob felt his heart race watching you. He knew you were perfect, living with you and being best friends had proven it to him. But he had never seen you like this, so carefree and thoughtful. Sure, there were nights when Jake or Bradley would get a bit too carried away at the Hard Deck, and you would be right by their side, taking care of them. But it wasn't even close to this.

Bob saw you chase around the children, never gaining too fast on the younger kids, but still giving the older ones a run for their money. He watched as all the kids gravitated towards you, all of their smiles and laughs being thrown your way. And Bob understood this feeling deeply. He had always felt a pull towards you. It came out in various ways, like always finding your eyes when Coyote would say something outrageous during training. Or bursting out into synchronized laughter whenever Jake would ultimately lose another game of pool to Nat. And his favorite was the way you would find your way over to Bob whenever you were in a large group. You could talk to Jake or joke around with Bradley, but whenever the full Dagger Squad was together on a crowded night at the Hard Deck, you were glued to Bob's side. These moments let him know that you were undeniably in each other's orbit.

Finally, Bob pulled open the door and walked out to you and your new friends.

"Uncle Bob!" one of the children exclaimed. You whipped around, seeing Bob walking up to you with a small smile on his face.

"Thought I lost you in there," he joked. You smiled, not speaking but walking closer to meet him in the middle. He met your kind eyes, but upon looking into them further, he squinted a little at you. Just as he was about to step back, you lunged forward.

"Tag! You're it!" you blurted out, giggling as you sprinted in the opposite direction. The children seemed to follow your example, all shrieking and laughing as Bob took off.

Suddenly, you heard little cries of your name. Turning around, you saw Bob gaining on you. Before you knew it, his hands grasped your waist, picking you up a few inches off the ground, bringing you into his chest.

Tucked close into him now, you felt his breath on the back of your neck. The heaving of his chest against your back had you squirming. "Can't get away that easily," his voice close to your ear. Biting down on your lip, careful to not let the whine out, you felt your tummy flip at the position he had you in.

You had come outside to escape, yes. But not from Bob's never-ending list of uncles or aunts. From him.

During dinner, he had been nothing but kind to you. Caring. Attentive. And it had been like that all day. From when you left the house and went into town with him and his mother, you hadn't as much as blinked before Bob made sure you didn't have to lift a finger. Sure, he had done this to a certain extent back in California, not letting you open the door or always opening glass jars for you when in the kitchen together. But today was a different level.

Pam insisted on getting you a pair of real, genuine cowgirl boots. She marched you into "Jesse's Boots & Shoes" and immediately sat you down on one of the little benches. After gathering what seemed like half the merchandise in the store, she came back to you with stacks of boxes full of different types of boots.

As you began to bend down to untie your shoes, Bob suddenly appeared in front of you. On his knees.

"I got it, don't worry," he said, before delicately unlacing your shoes. His large, warm hand flew up underneath your calf, and the other shimmied off your shoe. Then he looked up with that sweet smile and repeated the whole process on your other foot. You could've sworn you saw Pam snap a picture.

Later in the day, you made it back to the house and were helping Pam fix up some lunch. She handed you a big yellow onion and a kitchen knife, but before you could even take hold of the wooden handle she had outstretched to you, Bob had rushed into your view. Stealing the onion out of your right hand and gently pushing you out of the way of the cutting board, you looked at him incredulously.

"I know how watery your eyes get. I got it, just go sit down," he offered with that same sweet smile.

"I can cut one onion, Bobby," you said, playfully trying to grab the onion from his hand. He just raised his hands above his head, ensuring you wouldn't be able to reach him.

"I got it, Bee. Don't try to argue," he challenged, raising his brows. Huffing, you rolled your eyes, but couldn't help the small smile that was creeping on your face.

Pam once again snapped a picture. This time, giggling to herself a bit like she knew this was going to happen.

The third time was right before everyone had arrived. You were upstairs, checking your hair one last time and making sure your outfit looked okay, when you noticed you had forgotten to put your necklace on this morning.

After retrieving the delicate piece from the bathroom, Bob had seemingly appeared. Seeing the jewelry in your hand, he walked forward with purpose, holding out his palm. You raised an eyebrow at his actions.

"Seen you do it a million times," he started. "Let me."

You nodded, not trusting your voice once again, dropping the piece into his hand. Softly, his free hand came down to your hip, guiding you to turn around.

Then, you felt his arms go around your shoulders, not touching, but there. It was so quiet in that moment. The only noise you could hear was the creaking of the old house and Bob's soft breathing close to your ear. It was distracting. Maddening, after the day you had.

Clasping the necklace around you, his hands dropped. Turning back around, you were met, once again, by the same sweet smile.

"You look beautiful, Bee," he told you before backing out of the room. "I'll be downstairs whenever you're ready."

Driven outside, you had wanted to sit on the porch for a bit. Think about what this weekend really meant for you. For Bob. For your friendship. But your plans were quickly interrupted after feeling a little tug on your leg and hearing a quiet invitation to a game of tag.

"Robert Floyd, you'd better let go of that girl! We've got apple pie coming out the oven!" Pam's voice drew you back into the heart-racing position you were in. Bob was quick to set you down, smoothing his hands over your hips in an effort to fix the creases in your dress that his hold had caused. But you saw the raging blush that crossed his face and burst out into a fit of giggles, and soon, all of his younger cousins were doing the same thing.

"I think this might be your inside-out jean moment," you teased with a smile, seeing the blush turn to a darker shade.

"Not funny," he said sternly, but you could tell he was trying to hold back a laugh.

"Mm, I recall saying something earlier this morning like that." You grinned at him, walking closer to the house, but your body was still fully facing the man in front of you. "But Bobby, it's so funny!" you laughed, throwing your head back. Bob couldn't help but smile, even if it was at the expense of his own actions.

What neither Bob nor you realized was the crowd of onlookers peaking through the windows, watching as Bob Floyd was struck with a look of love.

જ⁀➴

You had been right. The look before the first kiss was the best part of a wedding. Bob doesn't remember the last time he'd seen his older brother so giddy.

You, on the other hand, had missed it completely. Looking at the man who sat next to you instead. You saw the way the corners of Bob's mouth pulled upwards, smiling brightly.

The week had gone smoothly, both of you getting away with touches that were a little more lingering than usual or looks that called for a deeper conversation. To Bob's family, this looked like restraint, manners, and control. To you, this was torture, heartache, and suppression. You didn't know how many more instances of Bob's big hand on the small of your back you had in you before you broke completely. His gentle guidance and care throughout the week had been something that you reveled in. Returning to California, returning to normalcy, it all seemed so distant.

Sipping some champagne, you sat with Bob at the reception. Stringed bulbs lit up the night. Bright colors popped from all of the flowers that seemed to be placed on every table. And sweet music filled the air, inviting everyone to dance.

Bob studied your face under the night sky and limited lighting. You were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Dread filled his heart, though. The thought of this week just being a glimpse into what life would be like if he got up the courage to ask you to be with him weighed heavily on his heart.

Going to bed with you every night was something Bob didn't even know he was missing, but now he craved it so deeply. Being able to talk to you and share his thoughts with you right before bed. Getting to hear you ramble on, either about your worries or joys, was something he began to love more than anything. The way your voice would begin to taper, become gentle, when you were truly tired and ready for sleep. How you supported your face under your small palm while talking with him in the dark. How your eyes would become glassy and glazed over as you finally hit the pillow. These moments became precious to him.

"All couples! Head to the dance floor now! Tell your partner how much you care about them, and let's dance!" The DJ's voice broke Bob's train of thought. Without thinking, he rose out of his seat and offered you a hand.

Sheepishly, you took it, letting him guide you.

A soft, slow melody filled the air as you began to take your place with Bob. His hands brushed your hips, stiff, like he was in middle school, and it was his first time slow dancing. You chuckled a little under your breath.

"What's got you laughing now?" he asked, soft and sweet. Eyes searching yours with intensity you had only seen from him this week.

You looked at him for a moment and just grinned, like you knew something he didn't.

"Just so stiff, Bobby. Relax," you told him, pushing into his space a little more. Your hands found their way around his shoulders, palms settling on the broad plain of his back. Now, your face met his chest, and you melted into him.

Bob felt the sway of your hips and the light movement of your feet. If it wasn't for you, he would've stood still, not knowing what to do with you like this. Sure, he had danced like this before. But it was never this intimate. This deep. This connected.

At any moment, Bob felt like he was going to let the words spill out of him. Tell you how he was really feeling. It seemed so easy.

The way you interacted with his family. Cooking with his Ma, talking about college sports with his Pa. Even the way you talked with his brother and sister-in-law. Though it was brief, you made an immediate connection. You and his sister-in-law, chatting away like you had grown up together. And he didn't miss the way his older brother shot him a look of surprise, but approval.

But it wasn't just about them. It was also about the way you just fit so well into his life. Sure, you weren't an early riser, and Bob had learned this weekend that you weren't the best with large animals, but he didn't mind. If being with you meant slow mornings where you would coax him back to bed, hands grasping for him to come lie with you beneath the sheets, he'd be okay with that. More than okay. And if the biggest animal you owned was a chocolate lab, that would be okay by him, too.

Slowly, his large hands came around your waist, more secure and grounded. And Bob closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath. Taking in this moment with you was the most important thing to him.

You danced under the twinkling lights and stars, no concern for the people around you. No concern that this was fake, that it was all pretend. Because right now, it felt real.

Hearing the thump of Bob's heart calmed you. It was grounding you, just like the gentle guitar in the background. You swayed like that for a while, but eventually the pounding of his heart and the steadiness of his figure became all too much. While the music swelled, so did your chest. Heaving up and down at a much more rapid pace.

Bob, feeling the sudden shift in your energy, pulled back, but just slightly. Still close enough to hear the hitch in your breath, to see the quiver of your bottom lip.

Your eyes blinked rapidly. Looking up at Bob seemed like an impossible task. But with a gentle touch to your chin, you did.

"Bee?" he asked softly. Concern written across his face.

"I'm sorry," you said, even quieter. With slow moments, you pressed your lips to his.

Your lips were softer than he imagined. The way your lips slotted between his was like second nature. And before you could pull back, he learned in deeper. Taking the hand that was under your chin and pressing it into the back of your head. Meeting you in the kiss, he pressed closer to you, and you felt the strong hold he had on your hip.

Bob wanted so badly to lick into your mouth, to mix your spit. But he restrained himself upon feeling the slight jump below his waist.

The solid kiss made your tummy turn in a way you didn't think was possible. Something deeper took hold of you as you melted, once again, into the man in front of you. The heaving of your chest was still present, but now it was fueled by want rather than anxiety.

Pulling away slowly, your breathing was heavy. Your eyes searched his, trying to see what he was thinking. What would his reaction to your impulsivity be?

Before your question could be answered, you were being pulled by one of Bob's cousins, urging you to go line up for the bouquet toss.

Bob watched as you were ripped away from him. His hand came up to grab onto you, but his fingers slipped against the fabric of your dress. Your eyes widen, head whipping around to look at him. But just as quick, you broke your gaze.

જ⁀➴

As soon as the door to the guest bedroom clicked shut, you immediately began apologizing.

"Bobby, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me, and I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking," you said, hands coming up to your face in an attempt to hide from him.

"Bee," Bob tried to cut in, but you could barely hear him over the sound of your racing heart and rambling words."

"I didn't mean to ruin this. Ruin this weekend and make you feel uncomfortable. Ruin what we have. Our friendship," you kept going, stomach now turning at the thought of losing Bob from your life.

"Bee," he started again, but still you weren't hearing a thing he said.

Your hands now rubbed nervously down your dress, like you were trying to wipe off what had happened earlier that night. "I'm gonna go take my stuff and sleep in the bathroom or something. You don't have to share a bed with me tonight. And if you want me to move out, I will. I'm sorry, I just, I don't know-"

"Bee!" Bob's voice startled you into silence. He stepped closer to you, reaching for your hands, trying to quell your nervous energy.

Bob's hand closed around your wrists. Your heart was beating out of your chest as you looked at your best friend.

"Tonight," he started, hand rubbing softly against yours. "What did the kiss mean?"

He took a deep breath as you just stared at him.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," you said, feeling tears well up in your eyes.

"I'm not mad, and I'm not uncomfortable. I just," he took another deep breath before continuing. "I just want to know what it meant to you. Why you did it."

A tear slipped down your cheek at his soft-spoken words.

"I love you," you said quietly as more tears fell from your eyes. "I kissed you because I love you. Because I'm in love with you. I'm sorry, Bobby."

You felt your world crumbling around you. Years of friendship, laughter, and good memories all seemed to blur past you. Surely, when you got back to California, Bob would ask you to move out. The thought made you sick to your stomach.

Bob stared at you, silent. He felt like he was dreaming. All week, he had been trying to tell you how he felt. Been trying to get the words out. And here you were, saying everything he was thinking.

His hands quickly came up to your face, wiping the tears away. You couldn't look at him, eyes closed and body closing in on itself.

"Bee, will you open your eyes, please. I just want to talk to you," Bob pleaded. "I need to tell you something. Need you to look at me."

You shook your head, starting to feel like everything was all too much. Of course, he was still being sweet to you. After everything, after all of what you said and did. The thought made more tears come to your eyes.

"Please, please look at me," he asked again, thumbs now stroking your cheeks. Bob could see the internal debate you were having as your lips pushed deeper into a pout.

But after a few seconds, you opened your eyes. Blinking away the last bit of tears, you tried to look at the man in front of you.

As soon as your eyes met his, Bob smiled at you sweetly. "I love you. I'm sorry I didn't say it sooner. And I'm sorry about this week. I should've told you how I was feeling, but I thought everything would go okay. That we could just go back to being normal after all this."

Your shoulders relaxed with his admission, your mouth opening just a bit to look at Bob in awe.

"But we can't," you said, voice still small. It made Bob's heart ache thinking about all that you were feeling this week, knowing he was feeling the same way.

"No, I don't think we can." His eyes dropped to your lips for a split second. If you weren't watching him so closely, you would've missed it.

Something in your stomach turned at the thought of kissing him again. Your chest began to rise and fall much like it had earlier.

Still holding your face in his hands, Bob leaned in slowly. Slow enough to let you pull away if this was something you didn't want. Slow enough that seconds felt like minutes.

Finally, your lips met for the second time that night. Less rushed than before and softer. Your eyes flutter shut at the feeling.

The kiss was sweet. Bob's heart was racing out of his chest, having you like this. He was content letting your lips brush up against each other in a soft manner. But each time you kissed, he got hungrier. It wasn't until you let a soft sound slip past your lips and into his that he pressed into you harder.

Suddenly, Bob was walking you backwards into the bed. You felt one of his hands leave your face and come down to the small of your back, pressing you closer to him.

"This okay?" he asked breathlessly as you nodded, not trusting your voice.

With that, Bob got to work on the zipper at the back of your dress. He felt your hands in his hair, on his arms, pulling him in closer. Finally, the dress dropped and you let it fall to the floor.

Bob's eyes scanned your body. Wearing the prettiest set of black lace underwear and a matching bra, he felt his stomach turn. You were perfect.

Quickly, his hands were all over your body as you fell back with him on the bed. Feeling his hard length grind down on your barely clad heat had you biting down on your lip. Bob worked his mouth against your neck, looking for the spot that would make you moan against him. His licking and biting made your legs tighten around his waist, pulling him even closer if possible.

"Please, Bobby. Need you," you whispered. His head shot up to take you in. Your eyes were blinking quickly, like you were struggling to keep them open. Your mouth parted slightly, like you couldn't take deep enough breaths. Your hair splayed out around you, like you were an angel come down from heaven.

"Want me to touch you?" Bob asked as you whined, head nodding. "Gonna have to be quiet for me, okay? I wanna help you."

"Okay, I'll be good. Promise," you said, eyes searching his. Waiting for his movements to change. Waiting for him to help you feel good.

His hands moved from your hips down to your heat. Only one hand cupping it at first, while the other worked at the back of your bra. Pushing into your underwear, Bob's big hand began to feel you everywhere. His thumb quickly found your clit, and you thought you were seeing stars as he rubbed it softly.

You felt the tightness of your bra loosen, and Bob's other hand quickly moved to take it off you completely. Seconds after, his mouth came down to your pebbled nipple, swirling his tongue around it, sucking it into his mouth.

Your jaw dropped at the feeling. His kisses and ministrations made your hips jump up into his hand. "Need more, wanna feel your fingers," you said softly, trying to keep your promise to him.

Popping his lips from your tits, Bob looked at you with darkened eyes. "Being so good for me. I can feel you, so wet for me," he praised you, but still, his hand made no effort to move further into your heat.

Your brows furrowed at this, and you propped yourself up to look at the man lying above you. "Bobby, please," you whispered, kissing his cheek sweetly.

There was no way he could resist you when you asked so sweetly. His hand made its way towards your opening, stretching your underwear a bit. Bob played with you a bit more, and you whined into the pillow next to you.

"Sorry, honey," he whispered into your ear. "Just love your little pussy so much."

Your jaw dropped at his dirty words and at the feeling of two of his fingers stretching out your heat. They felt so thick, and Bob knew exactly what he was doing, moving them with expert precision. Pushing in slow and deep, reaching your spot almost immediately, your back arched off the bed into his touch.

Bob watched as you crumbled at his touch. It had to be a dream. The way your tits heaved up and down made him dizzy. Your face, now driven into the pillow next to you, silencing your noises, made his cock jump from beneath his trousers. You lying on the bed, almost completely naked, and he still fully dressed, made him bite down on his lip hard.

He was trying to take his time with you. Be gentle. Get to know your body. But every noise that escaped you and every look of longing you shot him made his resolve crumble. He could spend hours like this, with you at his disposal to play with. But sweat beaded down his forehead in restraint. Bob had to know what your tight pussy felt like around his cock.

A hand on his bicep pulled Bob from his thoughts. He felt your pussy clench up at his fingers, and he instantly moved his thumb back up to your clit. The reaction was immediate. Your body curling off the body and into him, Bob leaned into you, taking one of your tits into his mouth again, sucking harshly this time.

"Oh, fuck," you whispered as your orgasm ran through you. You never knew your orgasms could be so intense, but with Bob's constant attention to your body, you had never felt better.

Delicately, he pulled his fingers from your entrance and leaned down to kiss you sweetly.

"You're so beautiful," Bob said breathlessly. Then he brought his fingers up to his mouth, and you felt your pussy throb all over again at the sight of him licking your slick from his fingers. "Taste so good, too," he said, popping his fingers from his mouth. "Can I taste you?"

You nodded, but apparently, this wasn't enough for him anymore.

"Wanna hear you," Bob spoke softly. "Killing me, not being able to hear all your cute noises."

"Sorry," you said bashfully. "Yes, please."

"Don't gotta say sorry. Doing so good for me, my beautiful girl." Bob leaned in to kiss you again, making you feel his want and warmth as he licked into your mouth. His mouth traveled down your body, stopping to suck dark marks into your throat and all over your tits. But you didn't stop him, not really caring about how you would cover them up in the morning. His nips and licks were much more convincing than anything your brain told you.

Finally making his way down to your heat, Bob pushed your underwear to the side. Licking a broad stripe with his flat tongue, he tried to feel all of you. Your thighs worked to close around him, but his strong hands came up to grip them just hard enough to remind you of his strength, but not hard enough to hurt you. Continuing, he kissed all over your heat, much like he had just licked into your mouth. The movements made you dizzy.

Focusing on your clit, you felt one of his hands leave your thigh and dive into your heat again.

"Bobby," you whined. Quickly slapping a hand over your mouth, remembering what you had promised him. He looked up at you, chuckling a bit at your movements. But the vibrations against your heat only made you squirm and cry out more.

Removing his mouth from your heat, he kissed your thighs sweetly.

"Need me to help you, honey?" he asked, voice low and eyes dark as they looked at you.

"Mhm, please," you whispered, still moving your hips against his fingers.

He smiled at your movements. "So needy," he whispered more to himself than anything. "Didn't think you'd be that way."

Your tummy flipped at his admission. Even if he hadn't explicitly said it, just thinking about Bob touching himself to the thought of you made your pulse race like crazy.

Pulling your underwear away from your heat, Bob tossed them across the room. His hands now moved to your waist, picking you up effortlessly, flipping you on your tummy softly.

Your neck craned back, a puzzled look on your face. But he was already meeting you half way, coming up to kiss you again and ask a question.

"This okay, honey?" Bob asked, one hand coming to raise your hips. Another guided a pillow beneath them. Your stomach turned at the thought of what he was about to do.

"Yeah, it's okay," you whispered. He smiled at this, placing a sweet kiss on the crown of your head. But soon, his hand was pushing your head into the pillow, tucking your hair behind your ears, making sure you were comfortable. But still, his hand came down to guide you into the plush surface beneath you.

Not seeing Bob and only feeling him was something you never thought you would love. But the way his hands dragged down your body, fingers toying with your body, and firmly kneading your ass made your breathing sharp and shallow. Bob made his way down to your heat once more, licks more confident and sure now.

Sure enough, you whined into the pillow underneath you, pushing your hips back into Bob as he continued to work at your entrance. His tongue pushed in and out of you, sucking harshly. Hands spreading your ass, allowing him to kiss you better, get deeper.

It was quick for you to feel the familiar tug in your tummy return, ready to snap at any moment. Snaking a hand under your tummy and to your clit, Bob worked diligently to make you feel good, rubbing tight, small circles.

Your hand flew back, trying to grasp at anything you could. Your fingers found his golden locks, and you gripped them tightly as you came for the second time that night.

After a few last licks, Bob kissed up your back, letting his body sink into you a bit. It wasn't until his kisses reached your neck that you felt his hard length straining against your ass.

"So good, honey," he whispered, placing sweet kisses against your hair once more. "Gonna go get a towel to clean you up, okay?"

Soon, he moved to shift off the bed. But you shot up, grabbing his forearm.

"What's wrong?" Bob asked, concern evident on his face as he looked at you. He wondered if it had been too much. He had indulged a little bit, but he thought that you were feeling good. Or maybe he was pulling away too soon, maybe you wanted to cuddle a bit more before he got up. But what you said next made his heart jump.

"Wanna feel you. Do you not want to?" you spoke softly, forehead creasing in on itself.

Bob smiled at your question, coming back into your space, pressing his lips to yours. You smiled into the kiss, too. Something about them was so sweet and gentle, but so deep and longing at the same time.

"Course I do, just didn't want to push anything," he spoke, pulling away a bit. "And, I don't have anything here. I didn't bring any condoms," Bob whispered the last bit, like it was a secret.

"I'm clean and on birth control," you offered with a small smile that Bob swore would be the death of him.

"Me too," he said, immediately backtracking at the sound of your giggles. "I mean clean. No birth control."

Your smile grew wider at his words. Even when Bob didn't mean to, he made you laugh, always making you feel good.

"Can I see you? Think it's a little unfair you're still dressed," you teased him. Even with the faint glow of the moon and the soft bedside lamp, you were able to see the way Bob's ears turned pink.

Without a word, he began to unbutton his shirt. Scooching toward him on the bed, your hands made quick work of his belt, button, and zipper. Bob would've laughed at your eagerness if he weren't feeling the exact same way. Kicking off his pants and underwear and whipping the shirt off over his head, Bob stood before. Your tongue peeked out a bit at the sight of him.

His abs are sculpted and molded to perfection; you were able to gawk at them more openly now than a few nights ago. As your eyes traveled further, you saw his V-line, prominent and defined. And his length stood proud in front of you. Chills ran down your spine at the thought of taking all of him. You leaned down, falling on your elbows before him. Kissing his pink tip, your tongue began to kitten lick at his head.

Bob groaned audibly at the sight in front of him. Your ass up, mouth working against his length, and eyes looking up at him for approval. This wasn't real, surely. Any minute now, he would wake up in bed, spoiled underwear once again. But as you moved to take his length further in your mouth, Bob couldn't deny what he was feeling.

Knowing that if you sucked his length much longer, he wouldn't last, Bob softly grasped your head in his hands, moving you away from his length and instead onto the bed like you once were.

Lying back on the bed, you watched as Bob moved over your body. Settling on top of you, you found yourself face-to-face with him. Smiling at him, your eyes met, and you couldn't help but laugh a bit to yourself.

"What's got you so happy?" Bob asked, leaning down to kiss your neck as you let the giggles flow freely. He smiled at you, the kisses sweet rather than searing like they were before.

"I just love you," you whispered. Bob's head shot up, dopey grin now on his face.

"I love you," he whispered back. Leaning down to kiss you again, you thought about how you would never get used to this. Just a few hours ago, you were anxiety-ridden with thoughts of losing your best friend to a dumb mistake. Now, all your nerves were still on fire, but for a different reason. Bob's lips worked against yours until you felt your tummy flip again, and it seemed he felt the same way; one of his hands moved down to grip his length. Guiding himself to your heat, you felt Bob shudder in your embrace, but his lips never left yours.

Bob groaned against your lips as he pushed into you. Only a few inches at first, seeing the way your body would react to him. Your chest heaved, and your eyes screwed shut at the unfamiliar feeling. But your hands pawed at his chest and back, trying to bring him closer to you.

"Doing okay, honey? Feel good?" Bob asked, watching your face for any signs of discomfort.

You whinnied a little as you answered, "Feels good. So good. You're so big."

"You can take it, can't you, honey?" Bob asked, pushing a bit more into you as your jaw dropped at the feeling. He was now kissing up and down your throat again, unable to keep himself away from your soft, dewy skin for too long.

The man felt you pulsed around him. Your heat seemingly needing more from him. Before Bob could ask, you spoke in a breathless whisper.

"More, please. I can take it."

With that, he pushed into you fully. Balls settling against your ass, pelvis meeting yours. His arms came around under your back, bringing you tight into his embrace. Bob made sure to hold onto you, made sure he was taking care of you.

When he started moving, it was filthy. The sounds couldn't be masked as he moved in and out of your heat at a steady pace, deep enough to be hitting your spot in just the right way. Your bodies began to sweat and shine under the soft bedroom light.

You tried biting down on your lip, tried to not let the sounds escape you, but it was no use. The way that Bob moved above you drew out soft, airy noises. Bob saw that you struggled to control yourself and fully feel pleasure, so he took matters into his own hands.

Placing a large hand over your mouth, Bob met your eyes. They shot wide open at first, maybe a flicker of embarrassment, but soon they became droopy again as you focused more on his thrusts into you.

"It's okay, honey," he leaned down to talk near your ear. "Know it feels good. Just gonna help you a little."

You nodded at his words, clenching around his length again. Your moans were now muffled behind his big hand. The feeling of Bob asserting himself over you made you dizzy. You knew he was confident and could take charge if need be, but this was something else. Bob worked with precision, seemingly adjusting to your every move. It wasn't long until his other hand left its spot on your hip and made its way down to your heat once more, circling your clit in what you now learned was your favorite way. His big thumb moved in tandem with his thrusts, and you opened your eyes to look at the man above you.

Bob, seeing the way your eyes glossed over, kissed your lips, briefly moving his hand before placing it back and speaking, "It's okay, I got you. Wanna feel you cum around me."

With that, the knot in your tummy unraveled. Shaking against Bob, you pushed your body as close to his as possible. Still working into you, Bob felt the way you squeezed his length and couldn't hold back anymore, coming to his high with you.

Slowly, Bob moved his hand from your mouth and instead stroked your hair, placing a kiss on your hairline. You smiled at his actions, despite being exhausted from your rigorous activities.

"I love you," Bob told you. He watched as you relaxed against the bed, shifting slightly to hold you better.

"I love you, Bobby. Thank you for inviting me this week," you said sweetly, sharing another kiss with him as he was still nestled inside you, neither of you moving to get up just yet.

He smiled at your words. Thinking back to this week and all that had happened, Bob was grateful you were by his side. From his rambunctious family to the quietness of rural Montana, you fit in perfectly. Bob couldn't wait to bring you back, properly this time.

જ⁀➴

Like always, you and Bob went along with the squad's outstanding Saturday night plans at the Hard Deck, not caring that you had just gotten back to California a few hours prior. Jake grinned at the sight of you walking into the Hard Deck, hand in hand with Bob. He watched as Bob carefully guided you through the crowd of people, delicately holding onto your waist and shielding you from the rowdy patrons.

"Well, well, well," Jake teased as soon as you had both made your way over to the pool table full of aviators. "Looks like my plan worked."

Bob's brows furrowed at this, immediately looking to you.

"No way, Bagman, you aren't getting the credit for this," Phoenix chimed in, abandoning the game of pool.

Now it was your turn to look at Bob with confusion on your face.

"I was the one who sold Bee about the parents thing," Jake argued. You felt your face flush at his admission of your white lie.

"Well, I was the one hyping Bob up for weeks about getting her to come," Phoenix fought back. Bob closed his eyes, not thinking he could survive the look of amusement on your face.

Suddenly, both of your pilots turned to you.

"So who did it?" Phoenix asked. Both you and Bob looked at each other, puzzled.

"Oh come on," Jake said exasperatedly. "You know what were talking about. Who made the first move?"

The squad was silent, watching both you and Bob under a microscope, it seemed. A slight tilt of Bob's head in your direction made Jake cry out triumphantly, pumping his fists into the air.

"I knew it! I knew it! Suck it, Phoenix," Jake whooped as onlookers watched with amusement at his antics.

"Knew it?" Bob asked, almost scared for the answer.

Jake grinned at the both of you. "Yup!" he said, popping the ending syllable in a way that made Nat's eye roll even farther back into her head. "I knew Bee would make the first move. She's gutsy! No offense, Baby on Board."

"Jake," you chastised, but knew the nickname was all in good fun now.

"Where's my twenty dollars? My wallet seems to be missing something," Jake faux-questioned, turning his attention to Phoenix.

Digging into her back pocket and sifting through her wallet, she slapped a crisp twenty-dollar bill into Jake's outstretched hand with a groan. Jake almost giggled in delight, a sound you had only heard come out of him once or twice.

"I just want to say," he started, raising his glass to the group, "that I, Jake Seresin, best pilot among us, was instrumental in ending our suffering. That is, watching these two dance around each other forever like little lovesick puppies."

The group groaned at his statement, but raised their drinks nonetheless. You giggled into Bob's shoulder, and he smiled widely at the sound. His eyes found yours and saw a playful look on your face. Before he knew it, you leaned into his space, pressing your lips to his.

The group watched as he melted into your touch, half-cheering and half-whistling.