^_^

You’ll find the right person, his mom had said to him when he visited home, giving him that look that only parents could conjure. The I love you but where are my grandkids? look. 

So he took his mom’s advice. He’d wait, get the right moment, and it would happen. Just like in the movies and books. They meet, sparks fly, and they kiss and live happily ever after. 

It was a good plan. A great plan, in his opinion. Why rush? He was still a young man in his 30’s, he told himself. He just watched as everyone he knew got married, settled down, had kids. It was fine. Everything would work out.

Until he woke up in the middle of space, barely remembering his own name.

He could convert feet to meters in an instant, calculate the gravity of something by using a centrifuge, and chart his way back to Earth with complicated tech attached to the ship. But it took him longer to remember how he got here, shipped off to some distant solar system.

You were the one thing that stayed constant in the one place that gravity definitely wasn’t. You became his anchor, his dry land in the sea of confusion as he tried to drag his drowning mind out of the effects the drugs had on him. You helped explain your mission, watched him handle the Astrophage like a pro, and laughed when you both vomited during that time you experienced zero gravity for the first time.

Eventually, the memories came back, though. His thoughts were like a trickle, slowly filling up a cup in his mind before it overflowed with emotions and specific facts that left him reeling. You even hugged him when he sobbed about how badly he wished he were back on Earth, back teaching his 8th grade class, without making it awkward or worse. You just rubbed his back through the fabric of his science pun t-shirt, letting his tears soak your hoodie. 

Ever since then, you had kept an eye on him.

You’d watch him in your peripheral, listening for that pause in his scientific rambling, watching for the unfocused look in his eyes. Like he was here, but his mind was somewhere else. 

Today was once of those days where his mind had finally decided to reveal a portion of memories he had forgotten.

Specifically his love life.

He found out that there wasn’t much to remember in that aspect, though he still shared the stories with you. To your surprise, Ryland wasn’t embarrassed at all about his bad luck in romance. He merely found it hilarious.

“It was so awkward, I wanted to just crawl into the floorboards!” He flailed his hands, accidentally knocking his glasses off his face. He snagged them before they floated too far away. “I mean, I think I just froze. And stared at her. In the middle of our…date? If you can even call it that.” Ryland pushed the brown frames back up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “It was a disaster. I’m telling you, I’m not meant for romance.”

You nodded along to the story, still fiddling with the computer. You were trying to get your mind off of the fact that you two were responsible for saving the human race. When you woke up before him and spotted the mummified remains of the rest of your crew, it hit you pretty hard. You even thought that he was dead too, and you nearly cried from relief when you saw him actually breathe despite being in a coma.

Ryland had suggested watching a movie, and somehow you settled on rom coms. “Something light that won’t make me cry or have an existential crisis.” was what he said.

“Aha! I got it!” You exclaimed, finally managing to pull up the stash of movies that were downloaded onto the ship’s computer. It’s one you’ve seen a thousand times, one you can quote by heart.

“So…I’m sure you have some stories too, right?” He asked, perching precariously on the edge of your bed. Keeping a respectful, crewmate distance while still being close enough to see the screen. 

“What?”

“You know. Disaster dates? Or maybe you’re a lot better at it than me,” He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. 

The romantic strings swelled as the title appeared on the small screen. The familiarity of it leaves a warmth in your chest instead of a pit.

“Oh, yeah,” You shook off the nostalgia and turned to him. “One time I had this guy stick me with the check at a restaurant after he ordered like, the biggest thing on the menu. He just insisted that he’d cover the next date, but I never heard from him after that.”

“Oh, yikes,” He cringed in empathy. “Like a dine and dash but somehow worse.” Ryland shook his head, his eyes trained on the screen. “I’d never do something like that.”

That hit you square in the chest. 

Because of course he would never stick someone with a check. He’s probably the type of guy to insist on opening every door for you. He’d make sure you got home safe. He’d probably even bring you flowers.

What hit you even harder is that he never got the chance.

Ryland never got the chance to take someone out on a date that he enjoyed. He never got the chance to buy someone chocolates or roses for Valentine’s Day, or even have a wedding.

And now he never would.

Ryland noticed the silence after he said that. The movie chattered on in the background, something about a famous actress and an average guy, but he’s not even paying attention anymore. All he saw was the way your smile faltered, the way your eyes were focused on the screen but you weren’t really watching it.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked, tilting his head at you. His eyes are focused on yours, and you swear you’ve never noticed how blue they were before now. Like the skies back on Earth that you missed so dearly.

“Yeah,” You nodded and offered a small smile. “Of course.”

It only got worse after that.

When the couple finally kissed on screen, you felt him stiffen beside you. His eyes darted away from the screen, a small blush spreading across his cheekbones in the low light of the dormitory. 

“What’s wrong with you?” You teased as you nudged his shoulder. 

“Nothing!” He claimed. Ryland adjusted his position on the bed, his navy crewneck shifting against the smooth bedding.  “Just a shift in the temperature control. I’m sure of it.” He nodded while his fingers tugged at the worn cuff near his wrist.

That wasn’t convincing. The temperature hadn’t changed from a steady 21.1 degrees Celsius—or 70 degrees Fahrenheit—since you had woken up. There’d be no reason for it to shift now.

“Right. You’re acting like you’ve never seen someone kiss before. I thought you liked rom coms,” You watched his blush grow further, the pink color infecting his ears now too.

“I’ve seen people kiss before! I’m not that much of a sheltered scientist. Microbiology, remember?” He gestured to himself, and scoffed as if it weren’t affecting him, however, the color remained on his face.

It clicked then. He’d never been kissed before. Or if he has, it’s been a long time.

It should have been so obvious from the way he  talked about his failed dates. From the way his tone shifted, barely perceptible, from amusement to longing. From the way he paid attention to your past romantic experiences like he’d been experiencing them himself. 

You fought with yourself for nearly five minutes after the epiphany. The thoughts ranged from This could compromise the whole mission to he deserves someone that takes care of him.

You decided to make your move. Slowly, subtly, like approaching a skittish animal, you slid your hand over his. The moment your fingers brushed his knuckles, he stiffened all over again. 

Then his hand turned over, and his long fingers intertwined with yours. They slid into place like they were always meant to be there. He let out a shaky breath beside you, and when you dared to look up at him, his eyes were still trained on the screen.

“Ryland?”

“Hm?” He hummed, his palm clammy with nerves against yours. He was so nervous that he couldn’t even look at you. 

“Breathe,”

“Right. Breathing. I can do that.” His voice trembled as he spoke, but he managed to take a deep breath. When he let it out, his shoulders sank from their tense position.

When he finally turned his head and looked at you, it was your turn to be a little nervous. Especially when his eyes flicked down to your lips before snapping back up to meet your gaze. A move so obvious, so endearing, so him that it made your heart stutter in your chest.

“I’ve got you,” You said softly, offering a small, gentle smile when you felt his hand tremble in yours. 

Then you leaned over and kissed him. 

He froze at first, unmoving and so warm against your lips before he took a long, deep breath in through his nose and kissed you back. 

Ryland realized that the movies could never quite do it justice. There weren’t any fireworks or frantic moves. There was just the steadying softness of your hand on his stubbled jaw while a quiet warmth spread through his chest.

He clutched your intertwined hands like they were a lifeline, like he was drowning in you and needed something to pull him up for air. 

When you finally parted, he didn’t go far. He rested his forehead against yours, and just looked at you through fogged glasses like he couldn’t believe that you would actually kiss him.

“Are you okay?” You smiled at him and tilted your head. How could one man be so impossibly endearing?

“Okay? Yeah. Yeah I’m good. Great. Fantastic, even,” He rambled out, his cheeks turning a deeper shade of red. He smiled back at you, a small, shy thing that made him look younger. “Are you? Was that okay? It’s-it’s been a while since—”

You cut him off with another kiss, and you heard him gasp against your lips before returning it. Your hand slid from his jaw into his hair, your fingers carding slowly through the blond strands. 

Ryland swore he was melting from the inside out. When your fingers ran through his hair, softly scratching his scalp, he felt his stomach swoop like he was experiencing zero gravity for the first time all over again. 

After that kiss, he never really separated from you.

He’d find you staring at the ship’s control screens, lost in your thoughts. You never noticed, thank god,  that he would stand there for a long time, trying to hype himself up to finally slide his arms around your waist.

Ryland would hover near you whenever you went to one of the other levels of the ship. He followed you around like a puppy, helping where he could before you shooed him back to his lab. He’d retreat with a guilty smile, saying something about just wanting to help. He got used to having you around not just as a crewmate but as someone who really, truly cared for him.

He never really got used to the kisses, though.

There were the simple, small pecks to his cheek that you’d share before bed. Where you pressed your soft lips to his stubble before wishing him sweet dreams every time you two slept. Where his cheeks would never really cool before he fell asleep.

There were the ones you had when you couldn’t get enough of each other. When he’d catch your eye from the other side of the Hail Mary’s small lab and smile giddily at you. So of course, you had to stand up from your chair and deliver. “One more, then back to work,” You’d say, and he’d just grin like he knew you couldn’t stay away for long.

But Ryland’s favorite?

The ones where you’d kiss him in artificial gravity. Where you would fist your hands in the collar of his shirt and pull him into your lips. When his hands had finally learned what to do, where to land on your waist. One hand always stayed gripping the closest piece of furniture, though, since you made his knees feel like jelly every time you tilted your head to deepen it. 

He’d pull away with clouded glasses and the biggest, dorkiest grin on his face. “Could you do that again?” He would ask in the smallest voice, his heart still pounding against his ribcage where he was sure you could hear it in the quiet of the ship. Of course, who are you to deny him? 

After a while, you ended up sleeping in the same bed. When he got used to being close to you, he could barely take his hands off of you. The same goes for when he slept, where he pressed his cheek against your chest just to hear your heart beat. He would cling to you like a barnacle, pulling your body to his, trying to get as close as possible. It felt like he was trying to merge you two into one being, despite his extensive knowledge of physics that told him it wasn’t possible.

“Yeah. I particularly liked the one at the very start which highlighted my name and said ‘baddie.’”

He grins, looking extremely pleased with himself. “One of my students taught me that the other day. I thought you might appreciate it.”

It’s adorable, really, how much effort he’s been putting into learning recent internet culture—his references are otherwise a little dated—because when you’re not writing, or grading, or working, or hanging out with him, you are rotting in your bed and scrolling on your phone. “I did. But I don’t mean my diss, either. It’s—I’m starting to get a little, I don’t know, disillusioned with the job market.” One of the application portals (because of course, not every institution uses the same one) is currently staring at you from your screen, listing the dozens of postings that you’ve applied to. Their statuses are…not promising.

He nods thoughtfully at that, still shoving his breakfast into his mouth. “I thought you had that offer to adjunct at City?” Yep, still cute when he talks with food in his mouth, not disgusting, and you are in so, so deeply at this point.

“That’s kind of my point. I haven’t heard back from anywhere else, and everyone knows that adjuncting sucks, like, so badly, and I just. I thought that it would be fine that I missed the window to apply to tenure-track jobs, that I would just get a postdoc or a VAP somewhere and apply for those next cycle, but…I think I might not be cut out for this.”

“Hey. Look at me,” and he nudges your arm, because you had smushed your face into the table partway through your rambling. “Just because you haven’t landed something yet, doesn’t mean you won’t.”

You sigh and lift your head up to rest on your hand instead. “I don’t—this is going to sound super bitter and petty. But sometimes it’s hard to actually feel better when you say stuff like that, because it wasn’t like this for you. At all. You got a job, like, so quickly.”

“Yeah. And it sucked, and then I blew up my career, very publicly, and now I have a different job that I actually like.”

“That’s. Also true.”

“So. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t. You’ll figure it out.” He smiles, then, and reaches over to grab the hand that isn’t holding up your head, running his fingers over your knuckles gently. “Okay?”

“…Alright.” You close your laptop, then, and squeeze his hand. “You should get going.”

Ryland glances down at his watch—he’s had to start wearing one, because he gets so distracted talking with you in the morning that he’s been late to work an alarming number of times—and mutters shoot before sticking the last piece of bacon in his mouth. The check’s already been paid, also something that started because of the being late thing, so he slides out of the booth and presses a kiss to the top of your head.

He turns around, and then he stops after half a second and spins back to face you, holding out his hand. You place a snack-sized pouch of sour Skittles on his waiting palm.

--

Hm. That’s not good, you think, looking at the alert for a severe blizzard warning.

You glance between your phone and the hole in your ceiling a few times before looking up some news articles about this alleged blizzard. Okay, scratch that, immediately;it is not alleged, there are apparently going to be record low temperatures this weekend, and an amount of snow that you know the city’s infrastructure is not prepared to deal with.

This is really not good.

You groan and lean back in your desk chair, but not too far, because otherwise the entire seat will fall off the chair’s legs. This is—you really needed to hunker down this weekend, because you are so close to finishing your conclusion, and once that’s done, you can send the whole thing off to your committee and the external reader, and then you can start wrangling them all into giving you their availability to schedule your defense. And then you’re free. (Well. Not really. You’ll have to grade for the rest of the semester. But still.)

Your landlord hasn’t responded to your weekly email asking about when the hole is going to be fixed. You probably should get a lawyer at this point, but that requires money, and you know how the rest of that statement goes. Couldn’t climate change have waited until your dissertation was done?

You send another email to your landlord, one that threatens legal action—you’re pretty sure you both know that that’s not going to happen—before standing up to see how many blankets you have laying around. The plastic will keep out most of the cold, right? Or maybe you could, like, keep the oven on and hope the place doesn’t blow up. Honestly, that would probably be a kinder fate to the building than what it’s going through now under its current management.

There’s a large pile of blankets collected on your sofa when you unlock your phone again, planning to text Ryland and bemoan the current situation, but you see that he’s already sent you a screenshot of the same alert you looked at earlier.

Did you see this?

yeah.

currently taking stock of all my blankets

hey, you’re a smart science guy, you probably know the answer to this

is it safe for me to like leave my oven on

for multiple days

with the door opened

DO NOT DO THAT.

I’m serious

I would say that even if I didn’t have a PhD.

okay jeez

i was joking

mostly

…what about the stove? that’s basically like a little campfire

You are actually kidding in that last text. You mostly just sent it so you could imagine what his face must look like while reading it. The three little dots pop up a few times, and your smile grows. He likely cannot even find the words to tell you how bad of an idea that would be.

It is not. It is not like a campfire

Still nothing from your landlord about Fra Mauro?

Right. He had started calling it that about a month in, when it was becoming increasingly clear that the hole was going to be a more permanent fixture in your apartment. According to him, it was in the stage between Apollo 13 and 14, because he still believed that they were going to actually send someone to fix it.

nope

i sent him another email and said i would sue

i’m sure he got a good laugh out of that

the plastic will probably be enough

that’s a thing right?

plastic is good at. temperature things

Sure.

Or. You could just pack a bag and stay with me for a few days.

And not freeze to death

Oh. You probably should have thought of that. You stay at his place half the time anyway, especially because he has a more consistently filled fridge. (It is not for this reason. It is because you really, really like him. Also, he doesn’t even keep a lot of fresh ingredients in his kitchen, because he hates cooking. Hence the diner breakfast every day.) But—

i really need to finish my conclusion this weekend

and.

we are not very good at being productive when i stay over

Really? I would say that we are very, very good at being productive

Just. In a very specific way.

Look at it this way: you will probably still be more productive here than at your place

Because it will be pretty difficult to type when your fingers fall off from frostbite

You bite your lip and look at the hole in the ceiling again. The plastic rustles, just a little, as if it were speaking to you. Yeah. You really need to get out of here.

okay :D

i’ll head over after you’re done at work on friday?

:)

--

“You have your faucet dripping?”

“Yep.” You kick off your shoes and let him take your duffel bag from you. It seems like he’s cleaned a little, and his apartment looks nice; it’s not crazy nicer than yours—he is a teacher, after all, and he doesn’t actually make that much more money than you do—but it is certainly an improvement from the crap hole, as Ryland would put it, that you live in.

He sets the bag down by his couch. “And your oven is off.”

“I swear I really was mostly kidding about that. I’m not that stupid.” He just gives you a look and then smiles, walking back over to you and wrapping you up in his arms. “I only seriously considered it for, like, two seconds.”

His hands rub your back idly. The temperature had already started to drop considerably, and the walk to his place had been less than pleasant. “Okay. Just making sure. That would have been—really bad. Believe me.”

You hum and then still once you consider the tone of his voice more carefully, and then you’re slowly pulling back to look at him. “You. You’re making it sound like this comes from experience.”

“It’s, well—alright, stop looking at me like that. I was once a very stupid college student. A long time ago.”

“Oh, I never doubted that for a second. Well, maybe the ‘long time ago’ part—” He kisses you, then, slow and sweet, and you can tell that it’s meant as a distraction. “I want that story,” you mumble against his lips, “and I am very persistent.”

“I know.” He pulls back reluctantly. “Okay. You can set up shop on the couch. And I will be in the bedroom. Not distracting you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously. It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

“Sure.”

Ryland slowly walks backward down the hallway, moving his arms like he’s actually walking forward, so it looks (sort of) like someone has taken a video and then put it in reverse. He keeps doing this until he’s out of sight, and even then, you’re pretty sure he keeps doing it right up until the point that he runs into a wall. “I’m fine,” he calls out. “Not here, I’m a ghost, start writing.” You simply shake your head at all of this, smiling, trying to fight the urge to follow him to his room.

He keeps his promise for about thirty minutes.

You’re making some headway, though you keep having to flip back to your previous chapters in order to meaningfully reference them in your conclusion, when he slowly meanders in and then just—stands in the kitchen. He opens a cabinet, closes it, then opens the fridge, looks around for a little while, and then closes that, too.

You don’t look up from your laptop as a small smile starts playing on your lips. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing.” He opens the fridge again. “What do you want for dinner later? I just stocked up.” By ‘stocked up,’ he likely means that he bought a ton of frozen meals and maybe some bread.

“Did you get any frozen pizzas?”

“Uh, duh.”

“We can just do one of those.”

Silence falls again, save for the sound of your fingers periodically typing away or clicking through the billion different documents and tabs that you have open. He does not return to his bedroom. Instead, he stands in the kitchen for a moment before slowing padding over and sitting next to you.

You attempt to shift over, but he pats your thigh in a way that says no, it’s okay, don’t move. “What was that about being a ghost?”

“I am. I’m just a very friendly and curious ghost. Like Casper.” He rests his head on your shoulder, sprawling his legs out to rest next to yours on his coffee table. “That’s a good sentence,” he murmurs. “Very punchy.”

“Thanks.” You scroll back up to read through what you have so far, because he is unfairly distracting, and it makes writing anything very difficult.

He grabs your legs, then. “Here.” There’s some maneuvering until your back is against the arm rest of the couch, and your legs are resting over the tops of his thighs. “How much more do you have?”

“You’re like a dog, you know that? Or, like, and extremely cuddly and needy cat.” Ryland says nothing at that, simply grinning and running his fingers idly over your shins. You’re wearing sweatpants, which apparently is bothering him, because he slides them up a little so he can feel your bare skin. Goosebumps are already starting to form. “I—there’s not too much more, I think. It feels really weird, being so close to finishing this thing that I’ve been spending literal years working on.”

He hums. “I remember feeling a little like that, too, but I was also so eager to move on to the next thing.”

“That sounds like you.”

It’s quiet again as he continues tracing idle patterns into your skin. You have been rereading the same sentence for the past five minutes, and finally, you sigh and go to close your laptop, but he stops you from doing so. “No, keep working.”

You huff at that. “And how do you suggest I go about doing that? You—you’re very distracting. I have dropped so many mugs at work because of you.” (You also drop mugs sometimes even when he’s not there, but that’s beside the point.)

“I’m developing your concentration.”

He lifts up your legs and shifts over, turning to lay on his stomach between your thighs. You slide down a little so only your shoulders and head are resting against the arm rest. One of your legs is now dangling off the side of the couch, and you have to pull your laptop up to rest on your stomach. “What are you doing.”

It’s not that you’re frustrated with this new development, because this is, frankly, so much better than working on your dissertation, but he still won’t let you set your laptop to the side, and you can’t really see him with the screen in the way. “Nothing.” He starts pulling your sweatpants down, then, and you let him. “Read it out loud. It’s a good way to catch mistakes you normally wouldn’t when you’re just reading it in your head.”

He is a menace. An absolute menace. “This is. You’re evil.”

A kiss is pressed against your knee once your pants have been discarded. “I’m actually so nice. Start reading.”

You sigh contentedly as his fingers grasp your thighs and pull them apart even more so he can inch closer to you, gently mouthing against the soft skin he finds there. “Alright. Okay. I’m starting. ‘The,’ um, hah,” you breathe, because he’s just nipped at your inner thigh, “Starting over. You are. Okay. ‘The genre of hagiography can be traced back to the—the—the late antique lives of the philosophers, but the medieval period sees the genuine formation of, of.’”

“Of what?” He murmurs, his nose pressing into you, just above the crease of your hip. The cool metal of his wire frames makes your hips shift a fraction.

You swallow. “‘Of the standard tropes and formulae which would come to dominate the public perception of the lives of the saints.’ Will you just—”

The laptop is still blocking him from your line of sight, but you can feel the shit-eating grin that spreads on his face. “I don’t remember ‘will you just’ being anywhere in there.”

Screw the frostbite you might have gotten if you had stayed at your apartment. This man is going to be the death of you. He doesn’t do anything else, simply waiting for you to continue, because of course this is one of the few circumstances in which he suddenly has an endless amount of patience. You close your eyes for a beat and try to take a deep breath. “‘Scholars have argued that—’”

His teeth graze against your underwear. “Which scholars?”

“It’s—there’s a lot of them, I have a footnote.”

“You should call them out by name.”

This draws an airy chuckle from your throat. “What, like a certain someone called out the top scholars in his field?”

“Exactly. Continue.” He grasps your thighs firmly when you try to wriggle your hips into his face. “Nope, not happening. Now read.”

You bite down an exasperated whine and blink, trying to refocus on your screen. It’s so close to your face at this point that the light is starting to strain your eyes. “‘Scholars have argued that these texts drew upon a static bank of stock characters, settings, and plots, with medieval authors merely cannibalizing upon their predecessors to deliver moral lessons or entertaining stories.’”

And then you gasp, because he’s dragging your underwear aside with his teeth. “Good word choice. ‘Cannibalizing.’ It’s very evocative.” One of his arms wraps tightly around your thigh so he can hold the thin strip of fabric out of the way. His warm breath curls out, providing just the barest stimulation, and you twitch.

Then he stills, again, and you clutch your laptop. He isn’t going to make you do this the whole time, is he? Surely not. “Should I—do I have to keep going?” Silence. You try to slide your laptop over so you can see his face, but his free hand comes up to push it back before it returns to holding your thigh. “Fine. ‘However, upon closer examination, medieval hagiography was a diverse and dynamic genre, where both authors and audiences could reflect upon contemporary issues by utilizing and transforming’—Jesus, Ryland,” you break off, because the flat of his tongue has just licked a long, slow, dragging line up your cunt.

“Too many ‘ands,’” he mumbles into you. It is impressive how well he is able to talk while doing this, and you know that he can, because he does it every time. “You’re—doing too much—in one sentence.”

It’s—he’s probably right, but you’re having a little trouble concentrating at the moment, so you highlight the sentence with a shaky hand and leave a comment to fix it later. “Alright, great, I’ll change it, can I please—fuck—be done now, please?”

His fingers curl around your underwear as he juts his face deeper into your wetness, sucking at your clit, and you would very much like to see him doing this, not just hear the sounds of him devouring you like it’s his last meal. His tongue dips down and then he shakes his head, so the tip of his nose rubs against the little bud, and you cry out.

“You are, fuck you, first of all, how am I supposed to—” Ryland stops, completely, and both of his arms tighten around you to stop you from rutting into him. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, please don’t stop—I’ll start again, here, ‘by utilizing and transforming the conventions of the genre.’”

He lets go of your underwear, then, merely letting his face keep it out of the way, and he draws his arm back so he can slowly push his index finger inside of you. Your head thuds back against the arm rest. “You used ‘genre’ twice in that sentence.”

How he is able to keep track of that is beyond you, but you don’t say this, because you don’t want him to stop, not when he’s adding another finger and drawing careful circles into you with the tip of his tongue, so you simply add another comment in the document and keep going. “‘The case studies examined here have demonstrated how the lives of the saints provided a convenient medium to explore issues such as church doctrine, the changing landscape of medieval law, and the social realities of feudalism.’”

Ryland nods against you, and it means that his teeth brush up ever-so-slightly against your clit. “Good.”

The words are basically swimming off of the screen at this point. “I’m sorry, I really don’t think I can do anymore, please, please let me be done, it’s just—it’s so—you’re so good, you’re always so fucking good at this, and it is so unfair,” you babble, and evidently he decides to have a little mercy on you, because then the hand that isn’t at your cunt is reaching forward to close your laptop. Finally, finally you can see him, and he looks so perfect like this, face buried between your thighs, staring up at you with such intense fondness that you’re reaching forward to slide your fingers into his hair before you can even fully register the movement.

Your other hand slips underneath your shirt to clutch at your breast, to roll the peak of it with your fingers. Ryland tracks the movement closely and then groans, eyes fluttering behind his glasses, and the vibration of it and the intensity with which he presses his mouth against you causes your back to arch. “So, so sweet,” he sighs, “sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

It’s—you would like to comment on this, because you have tasted yourself on his mouth enough times at this point to know that ‘sweet’ isn’t quitethe adjective you would use, but the sentiment behind it is so, well, sweet, that it makes you melt into the couch and clutch his hair a little tighter.

Then he does this thing with his fingers, crooking them just right, and your hips jerk. He doesn’t stop you this time, instead nodding so vigorously that his glasses start to slide down the bridge of his nose, and you move the hand that’s under your shirt to join the one in his hair to start grinding yourself against his face.

He honest-to-God whimpers at that, at the feeling of you using him to get off, at the way your thighs tremble and clench around his head. “That’s—please, please,” because if words weren’t coming to you before, they certainly aren’t now. “Just like that,” you manage to choke out.

You look down, then, and his eyes open to watch you while he presses his tongue flat against yoou so you can grind on it, focusing on gliding his fingers inside of you at the same pace, finding that perfect little spot over and over again. You’re a little worried you’re going to rip out some of his hair at this point, but it’s too good, you can’t stop chasing it—

And then the tension swelling at the apex of your thighs finally breaks, and you can’t help but close your eyes as your hips quiver against his face. Ryland doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t withdraw his fingers from your cunt, not until you collapse against the cushions. He presses a gentle kiss to your clit and can’t seem to help himself from lapping up your slickness, even as you twitch from the overstimulation.

When he finally pulls his hand back, there’s a beat before he’s licking them clean. “You are,” you breath heavily, “such a little freak.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He grabs your laptop and sets it on the coffee table before helping you pull your sweatpants back on. “See? I told you that we’re very productive here.”

You snort. “I got through, like, three sentences.”

“Three is more than zero. And three’s a good number. Makes some of the most stable shapes,” he says as he stands, walking to the kitchen to get you a glass of water. You take it gratefully. “And can you blame me? I only get you here for two nights.”

“…Three. I brought my work uniform so I could just go straight to the diner Monday morning.”

Ryland breaks out into a smile. “Okay, I know I just said that three is a good number, but it’s also barely more than two, so I still feel justified. And you can’t argue with me because I am objectively better at math than you.”

“Hey.” (He’s right, and you also find that you agree with his assessment of the numbers anyway.)

--

You do not, as it turns out, go to work on Monday, or the day after that, because the city is blanketed in deep snow, so much that everything is essentially brought to a halt while they attempt to clear the streets.

Ryland’s school is closed, too, and so is your campus; your advisor even emails you to say that you can take extra time on your conclusion, which is surprising because, honestly, she’s just kind of mean. This news goes about how you would expect with Ryland, particularly because you have to start wearing his clothes after day three.

The days pass in domestic bliss. It makes you think more intensely about the doubts you were having surrounding the job market. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, you muse, watching him in the kitchen as he tries to make eggs (and fails, which is genuinely impressive, because scrambled eggs are really not that difficult to cook), if you took that adjunct job at City. The hours would suck, and the pay would be terrible, but—then you would have this. And that might be enough.

You’re pretty sure something is starting to burn when you pull out your phone to check your email. It’s probably your advisor, or maybe a reply from your external reviewer, or—

“Ryland.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s burning, but I have everything under control here.”

“No, it’s—” You decide to just get up and show him your phone. Your hand is shaking. “I got an interview. I’m. I got an interview,” you repeat.

He fumbles for his glasses, which are laying on the counter, and jams them on his face so he can read, ‘We are pleased to inform you that,’  and he doesn’t get much further than that before he’s hugging you and spinning you around in his kitchen while the eggs burn. “I told you,” he laughs into your shoulder, “I told you it would work out. I am so—I’m so proud of you. Which one is it for?”

You pull away to read the email again. “It’s a postdoc, on the.” You bite your lip. “The one on the east coast.”

He’s still smiling, but—there’s a little less light in his eyes. “That’s. That’s awesome. When is it?”

“Next week.” You are suddenly feeling slightly less excited. “I know we haven’t. Well. There hasn’t been a discussion on what would happen, what we would do if—”

“Hey.” He grabs your shoulders, then, and looks at you intently. “We can. We’ll figure it out. Let’s just be excited right now. Okay?”

“Okay.” You nod. There’s a slight burning in your eyes, and you can’t tell if it’s because you’re about to cry or if it’s from the smoke curling out of the frying pan. “The eggs are on fire.”

“Oh—crap—”

--

The streets are finally cleared, and you go back to your shitty apartment, and you are trying to pretend that everything is still normal.

Your advisor is surprised when you tell her about the interview, which a few years ago might have stung, but now you’ve just accepted that she’s a little bit of a bitch. She tells you that she’ll do a mock interview with you over the weekend and emails you a list of common interview questions to prep.

You finish your conclusion. Ryland’s suggestions were helpful.

It should feel like there’s a weight off of your shoulders, because your dissertation is finished—actually finished—and you have an interview, and your landlord sent you an email late last night saying someone would be coming by next week to fix the hole in your ceiling. It is, of course, scheduled exactly during your interview.

But.

The weight is still there. It is worse now, actually, because you don’t know how to have this conversation with him, because you’ve only really been dating for four months, and you are realizing that a tiny part of you had assumed that he would just move with you, or something, and now the thought seems absolutely ridiculous. Would you move across the country for someone you’ve only been with for a handful of months? Are you the sort of person worth doing that for?

Okay, that’s enough of that, because you are at work, and you are currently staring at the coffee dripping into the pot like it’s a countdown to your death sentence. The door opens. You don’t even need to look. The bell chimes next to you.

“Morning,” you say as you slide his breakfast in front of him. The coffee’s next, and you pour his sugar in for him and mix it in with a spoon, and it is still an absolutely disgusting amount of sweetener to have in one’s drink.

“Hey.” Ryland takes the coffee with a smile, but it’s still not quite reaching his eyes, and you think you might be dying on the inside. “Everything okay?”

You sigh and slide into the booth across from him. Whatever. They’re probably not going to fire you for it. And if they do, then, oh no! You’ll be slightly more broke than you already are. “My landlord emailed me last night. They’re fixing the hole.”

“Nice. Apollo 14. Told you it would happen.”

“Yeah. It’s during my interview.”

He snorts and sets the mug down. “Of course.”

“I’ll probably just have to go into the department and do it. The bus will be annoying, but I still haven’t fixed my car, for obvious reasons.”

“Just do it at my apartment.” He doesn’t look up from his plate as he says it, casually scooping his eggs onto the toast. (Yes, they are still the same as they are every morning.)

You blink at him. “Are—are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he says around the food in his mouth, “of course. I mean, I am very pro public transportation, but the buses are terrible.”

This is very true. “Alright. As long as it’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ll be at school, anyway.”

You fidget a little. “It’s just. We still haven’t really talked about. You know. The thing.”

“The thing.”

He really can’t throw you a bone here, can he? “The whole, ‘possibly getting a job across the country thing’?”

“Oh. That thing.” Part of you wants to scream, ‘what other thing would there be,’ but you do not, because in spite of what you just thought to yourself earlier, you would actually like to keep your job. “It’s just—I need some time. To think. About the thing.”

“I see.”

You should not be mad about this, because it is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for, to have time to think about such a major decision like this, because he has a job and a life that you only walked into four months ago. It’s just—well, you thought that he would have seen this coming, that you’ve been pretty clear this entire time while you were applying to jobs, and maybe if the two of you were younger it would be less clearcut, but you’re not. You are almost thirty, and you’re not really sure you want to do long-distance, and you really, really like him.

He sets his fork down, gently, as if it were about to explode. “Is that…okay?”

“It’s fine, Ryland. Why wouldn’t it be?” You throw his line from earlier in the conversation back at him. Okay, you can admit, you are being a little petty and possibly immature, but you are getting mad about this. Dating sucks. This sucks. The door opens, then—thank you, universe, for that timing—and you get up from the booth. “I have to go. I’ll text you later, okay?”

You think he says your name, but you walk away too fast to be sure.

You still give him a mini Reese’s cup on his way out, because you’re not that cruel, and he’s left you a drawing on his napkin: it’s two little atoms, copper and titanium, holding up signs that have their elements on them and spelling ‘CuTi.’ There’s a small ‘e’ added at the end, and you wonder how long he spent debating whether or not to put it there and fix the spelling or leave it off to keep the pun intact.

--

You are staring at your laptop in shock, sitting at Ryland’s desk, because you are fairly certain that you just killed it.

Apparently, it’s really working out for you that your advisor is one of the most wicked and evil people you have ever met, because the mock interview with her had been so brutal that the real thing had felt like chatting with a friend over a coffee. The interviewers had said you’d be hearing from them very soon, because you were one of the last candidates they were meeting with, and they had all been wearing wide smiles when you thanked them and logged off.

You look at your reflection in the screen for a little while before slowly closing it. The apartment is quiet, because Ryland’s at work. You haven’t seen him in a few days. You’ve just been so busy, coordinating with your committee to schedule your defense—it was looking increasingly like it wouldn’t happen until next month—and prepping for the interview, and normally you would have just spent the night last night, but you had wanted to wait at your apartment to actually see if the maintenance guy would show up. He did, thankfully, and then you had needed to practically sprint to Ryland’s place and use the spare key to let yourself in.

And. You are trying to give him the time that he asked for. To think about the thing. Even though you are starting to get increasingly frustrated that he needs it in the first place, which just makes you annoyed with yourself that you aren’t being more understanding about this.

Whatever. It’s time to be happy and excited. No more of this mopey bullshit. You send a quick email to your advisor letting her know that it went well. She will either simply react with a thumbs up or reply with nothing other than ‘ok.’ Then you open up your text thread with Ryland, even though he is most definitely in the middle of teaching.

so

not to brag or anything

but i’m pretty sure i just fucking killed that

*freaking

sorry, you’re on school grounds right now

It is immediately marked as read. You send another text before he has the chance to reply.

dude

i thought you had a strict no phones policy in your classroom

…That’s for the students. I get special privileges

And that’s awesome!! I knew that you would.

:)

Thank you for correcting yourself

Even though there is still a curse word on my screen right now.

We should celebrate!

you and your positive reinforcement lol

not everything needs a party

This is not true. Parties are always necessary.

There’s science about it. Just trust me on this

Friday? At Bob’s?

careful

i have been getting much better at pool

i even beat you that one time

Yeah, because I scratched on the eight ball.

ok, and?

a win is a win

don’t take this from me

Fiiiiine.

7?

it’s a date

:)

:)

--

Well, you don’t win at pool, again, but it’s fine, because both of you are pretending that there isn’t a giant, terrifying conversation looming over you, and he’s smiling and doing stupid dance moves with the pool cue like it’s a cane, just to make you laugh.

You buy him his victory drink, and he protests just like he does every time. You explain, again, that it’s basically like he’s buying the drink himself anyway, because he still leaves you a tip at the diner, which is very weird, by the way. He says it’s just easier, because he’s memorized how much his breakfast costs with the tip included, and this way he doesn’t have to do the math every morning. You point out that this shouldn’t be a problem, because he’s a nerd who likes doing math. He throws a balled-up straw wrapper at you and misses.

“So. The date’s final, then?”

“Yup.” You watch as Ryland starts peeling off the label of his beer across from you in your booth. They should put a plaque with your names on it at this point. “It took the stars aligning to figure out a time when my entire committee was available, but it’s officially scheduled now.”

He hums. “What date?” You tell him, and he whips out his phone to plunk it in his calendar. “Oh, sweet, it’s on a Friday.”

“Yeah. I was a little pissed at first—don’t even—because it had to be so far out, but I’m pretty happy with that.”

It’s quiet, then, outside of the shitty song playing—the only singles in your wallet are coke singles, unfortunately, so no TouchTunes for you tonight—until he reaches forward to start messing with your fingers instead of his bottle. “Heard anything about the postdoc yet?”

You shake your head. “Not yet. They said by Monday, though, so.”

“Gotcha.” His hand finally settles around yours. “I am still thinking about it,” he says quietly. “I’m always thinking about it. I promise.”

You say nothing, instead squeezing his hand and giving him a small smile. It’s. You’re still a little frustrated, if you’re being honest with yourself. You had spent such a long time letting yourself rest in the comfort of being in the middle of things without seeing them through, but recently that has changed, and you’re finding it much harder not to push and finish this yourself. But he has to be the one to do this. So you’ll wait, even though it’s kind of killing you, because you haven’t quite gotten the patience thing down yet.

--

You get the second-round interview. You have to go into the diner on your day off to ask Gertrude to cover your shifts, and then you show her where you keep the candy.

Two weeks later, you fly out to the east coast. The campus is beautiful, and all of your potential colleagues are great, and your job talk goes swimmingly. The morning you fly back, you have two pieces of wheat toast, scrambled eggs, and some bacon for breakfast.

--

Your dissertation defense starts in five minutes, and you think you might be about to throw up.

This is fine, you tell yourself. You know the thing inside-and-out by this point. You had spent all of last night rereading it, and then Ryland had asked you mock questions, and he hadn’t pulled any punches, but he also gave you a kiss after every answer. He still hasn’t told you whether he’s reached a decision or not. You think he might be waiting until after you find out if you’ve gotten the job, and you are trying to ignore the rotten taste that the thought puts in your mouth.

You look at his ‘Good luck!!!’ text for the fourteenth time. Obviously, the defense was scheduled during normal work hours, which meant that he was stuck teaching, but he reassured you that he had something ‘very special’ planned. No amount of goading and pleading had gotten him to fess up about what this was.

The elevator dings in the hallway as you flip through your notes again. Probably some other grad student in your department coming in at the last second, although you’re pretty sure everyone you’re friends with is already here, along with the rest of your committee. Whatever. You are too busy trying not to hurl all over the table to wonder about it.

There are two minutes until the end of your graduate career begins, and then Ryland is walking into the room, squeezing past the people sitting against the wall and muttering apologies while he does so, and screw the throwing up, you think you are about to burst into tears. It is unclear whether this would be better or worse than spewing your lunch everywhere. He’s still wearing his bike helmet, even when he sits down and finally looks at you, when he smiles and gives you a thumbs up.

You mime taking the helmet off, even though you look absolutely ridiculous doing so in front of your entire department. He mouths oh, right, and unclips the strap under his chin before setting it on the floor.

The public portion of your defense finally begins, and you give a small presentation, detailing how you came to the idea, your general argument, the specific theories and scholarship that you drew on, your plans for turning it into your first book. You finish with your acknowledgments: thanking your fellow grad students, your committee, and, finally, Ryland, although you don’t call him out by name, simply addressing him as your partner who ‘made finishing it that much sweeter.’

It is incredibly cheesy, and you’re pretty sure that he’s starting to cry.

Then your advisor directs the audience to leave, and the real defense begins.

It takes an hour. It is grueling, and exhausting, and kind of the worst, but then it’s over, and you’re stepping out into the hallway so your committee can deliberate.

You think the other grad students are congratulating you, or something, but to be honest, you kind of can’t hear them, because you are laser-focused on walking up to Ryland.

“You came.”

“Of course, I did.” He pulls a pack of Skittles out of his pocket and hands it to you. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

You don’t eat the Skittles, because you’re fairly certain the sugar might actually be the thing that upsets your stomach enough to make you barf, but you slide it into your pocket for safe keeping. Then he just holds you, for a while, since you don’t think there are any words left in your brain, until the door opens and your advisor is smiling, possibly for the first time in her life.

“The committee is ready for you, doctor,” she says, and then everyone’s cheering, and it feels just like a movie, to be completely honest, particularly when you turn around and kiss him in front of your entire department. It should be embarrassing. It is so, so not.

--

You get the email while you’re waiting in your apartment for Ryland to take you to the ‘very special’ thing he has planned. He had told you to wear something ‘nice, but not too nice.’ Super helpful, thank you, Ryland.

You make it as far as ‘The department loved getting the opportunity to learn more about you and your research, however,’ before you look up at your ceiling, where the hole used to be but where there is now a tile that does not match the others, trying to blink away tears.

Okay. Alright. This is fine. Your first thought is that you should text Ryland, even though he is presumably on his way over, because this feels like the kind of thing you should tell him about immediately.

And then you still. No, don’t do that, that’s a really bad idea, you tell yourself, because you are suddenly considering not saying anything to him, because he never told you what he’s been thinking about all of this, and you would really like to know, even though it is no longer a reality.

You stare at the mismatched ceiling tile, waging war with yourself, until he’s knocking at your door, and you’re carefully dabbing at your eyes so it doesn’t smudge your makeup.

--

“Is this—really necessary,” you say, as you stumble for the fifth time in the past three minutes. His hands are over your eyes as he guides you along. He also made you close them just in case you tried peaking. You are being very good about not trying to do so anyway.

“Yes. We’re almost there.”

You huff but keep walking. “I feel like you can just tell me, then, if we’re almost there.”

“Nope.”

“Please?”

“Still no.”

The two of you are walking for a few more minutes. You only trip twice.

Then, finally, his hands move from your face. “Okay, you can open now.”

You blink a few times. It’s—“This is. The diner. My place of employment.” You turn toward him. “Okay, this might sound incredibly bitchy, but are we seriously—”

“Just—open the door.”

You give him a confused look before following his instruction, and you’re about to tell him that, look, it’s cute and all that you’re having dinner where you first met, but like, it is the place that you work at, and it’s a diner, in case he’s forgotten, which is not really the best way to celebrate finally becoming a doctor, but then you step inside. And all of your fellow grad students are there, and some of your professors are there, even your advisor is there, wearing her second-ever smile, and Gertrude is making milkshakes.

“This—what?” You whip around to face him. “How. What? The diner is open twenty-four hours. They don’t do special events.”

He simply grins sheepishly and rubs the back of head. “Yeah, I know. But I kind of give them, like, half of their yearly income, so it didn’t take that much convincing. I did have to promise we’d clean up after, though. Sorry.”

You kiss him in front of your department for the second time that day. “That’s—I don’t even care, I think I could clean this place in my sleep at this point. Thank you.”

Ryland just smiles softly and wipes a tear from the corner of your eye. “Go. There’s lots of people waiting to congratulate you.” Then he adds, “Doctor,” and you kiss him again.

--

When all is said and done, it is probably the most fun that you have had inside this establishment, minus all of the time you have spent with Ryland at the booth next to the window.

It’s almost one in the morning by the time everyone filters out, and you stay behind with him to run the milkshake glasses through the dishwasher. You’re wiping down the counter, turning over how to break the news to him that you didn’t get the job, when he comes up behind you.

“Hey.”

You turn around to face him. “Hi.”

The two of you look at each other for a few moments. “I’ve finished—”

“There’s something I—”

He starts to motion for you to go first, but then he stops. “No, actually, sorry, I need to—I’ve finished thinking about it. The thing.”

“Ryland.”

“No, no, I really have to say this, so just—I’ll go with you.” He blinks, as if he is surprised at how this is going, even though he’s the one driving the bus at this point. “Wait. There was more lead up. I had a whole thing. I’m just. Okay. I have been thinking about this every single day, to the point where my students can tell, and at first I thought it was about them. That I didn’t want to leave them. But. There are students everywhere. But—you’re not everywhere. This is not making any sense.”

“Ryland,” you try again, but he’s not having any of it.

“Please let me finish. I realized that I have been stuck, so stuck. I mean, I order the same thing for breakfast every day. You know this. I know this. And. I thought it was fine. It was fine. And then it wasn’t, and I’m not—gosh, this is not going the way I wanted it to.”

“Ryland,” you say for the third time, and three is still the magic number, apparently, because then he stops, simply looking at you, his blue eyes shining behind his glasses. “I didn’t get it. The job. I didn’t get the postdoc.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Well, that’s.” He pauses for a moment. “This is going to sound totally messed up, but that’s making this a lot less romantic than I thought this whole thing would be.”

You just look at him for a moment, then, incredulously, until you start laughing, and you can’t stop, and then he’s wheezing right along with you. “You can—you can try the whole speech again,” you say between gasps, “if you want to.”

“That’s really not necessary, it’s fine.” He wraps you up in a hug and presses a kiss into your temple. “I’m sorry. About the postdoc.”

“It’s fine.” You pull back and look at him, really look at him, searching his face and mindlessly pushing up his glasses for him. “You mean that? You’re actually sorry? Not just, you know, relieved that it’s not an actual thing.”

“Actually sorry,” he affirms, moving his hand to smooth your hair back. “I started. I was looking at apartments. Researching how to transfer my teaching license.”

That’s. It’s very sweet, is all you can think, but you don’t say it, instead bringing your hand to rest on his cheek, and then he kisses you, again, but it’s not the chaste kind, the kind that they’ve been all day; it is desperate, like he’s trying to give you the speech he’s been planning in this one moment.

When his hands move underneath his shirt, you pull back. “I’m sorry, it’s just—I don’t really know if I want to have sex in the place where I work.”

He rests his head on your shoulder and nods. “Fra Mauro has been filled in?”

“Yeah,” you giggle. “It has. The new tile is, like, several shades lighter than the rest of my ceiling, but there is no longer a hole. And it hasn’t rained recently, so. There should be no interruptions.”

“That’s. Really good. Great, even.”

The two of you don’t leave, not yet, because he’s fiddling with his phone, then, and playing a song through the speaker he brought, the Tears for Fears song that you always play on the TouchTunes at Bob’s when the machine will accept your dollars, and he dances with you in the aisle of the diner and sings along, even though he’s really not that great at singing.

--

epilogue pt. 2

You don’t even have to worry about the ceiling tile, because the two of you actually make it to your bedroom this time.

“I meant it,” he gasps, rolling his hips into you, his fingers intertwined with yours beside your head. “I think—I’d follow you anywhere.”

He huffs out a small laugh at whatever expression must be on your face while you go through these mental gymnastics. “Sorry—I come here all the time, and normally they just start making  my food when they see me locking my bike up outside, and then someone slides it onto the table without saying anything.”

Oh. Okay, that makes more sense. “They’ve probably already made it, then, and just didn’t tell me.” As if on cue, the bell in the window to the kitchen rings. “I’ll bring it over and try to remember that for next time. Oh—I’ll get you a water, too.”

The man smiles easily at you, and you take a moment to look him over. He seems a little older than you are, probably around five years, maybe a little more, you think, but he’s well-kept, despite the fact that his hair is kind of sticking up all over the place like he hadn’t bothered to brush it after rolling out of bed. Wire-frame glasses that are barely hanging onto the tip of his nose, striking blue eyes, and—okay. Right. You are at your job, and you need to be working, not giving this man the up-down. “I’ll take a coffee as well,” and then he squints down at your name tag, “uh…Gertrude?”

“Ah—yeah, that’s not my name, they just haven’t made my tag yet, but apparently I have to wear one for customer service, or whatever. Even though it’s not right.” You tell him your real name and he nods, probably because it fits a little better than Gertrude does. “I’ll be right back.”

You run over to the window and grab the plate. Pretty standard diner breakfast fare: two pieces of wheat toast, scrambled eggs, some bacon. You return with the food and a glass of water before scurrying off to grab the coffee pot and a mug. “Thank you,” he says, and it should be a little gross because his mouth is already full of food, but you find that it is actually kind of cute.

Stop that, you tell yourself. Don’t crush on this random guy at your workplace. That never ends well. And besides, you don’t have time for dating. Your current chapter was due two weeks ago, and your advisor has started sending you passive-aggressive emails checking on your progress. Sometimes she doesn’t even put anything in the body of the email, just a subject line that says ‘how many pages have you written this week’ in all lowercase. “No problem. Let me know if you need anything else, um…”

“Oh, right. Ryland.” He lifts up the lanyard around his neck, which has a little ID badge titled ‘GROVER CLEVELAND MIDDLE,’ underneath which is a picture of him and his full name, ‘Dr. Ryland Grace.’

There is a lot to comment on here. You think you live pretty close to that school, first of all, but that’s probably the least interesting thing, because you live close to the diner, too, and so he must stop here for breakfast on his way to work. You settle on the picture, because it is laughably bad: he is only sort of smiling, but mostly he looks surprised, like the flash caught him off guard.

Ryland notices you looking at that and grins sheepishly. “Not the best picture, I know. You think I would be used to the flash since I have to get my picture taken every year. But, no. And of course this is the one going in the yearbook, too.”

“That’s…unfortunate. And also amazing.” Your gaze drops to his full name. “What’s your doctorate in?”

“Molecular biology. So, as you might be able to guess, I teach science.”

“Little overqualified for middle school science, huh?”

He smiles, but it’s a little strained. Oops. You don’t know what you said that is causing this reaction, but either way, it’s not good, because you would really like him to leave a nice tip so you can buy groceries later. “You would be surprised. Teaching middle school is not for the faint of heart.” Wonderful. He’s not totally pissed at you. You might actually be able to eat dinner tonight.

You simply nod and look at him for a little longer, and then realize the coffee pot is still in your hands and is starting to tip dangerously toward the floor. “Enjoy your breakfast! And let me know if you need anything. Just call my name—or Gertrude, honestly, either works, because I’ve already started to respond to it.”

“Actually—” His voice stops you from turning around completely. The coffee sloshes in the pot, and you hold it with your other hand to stop it from spilling on your legs (again), and this is a bad idea because the glass is incredibly hot. You keep it there out of spite and embarrassment. His eyes dip down toward your hand, but he does not comment on it. “Could I get some sugar? For the—coffee. Not like that. Just normal sugar.”

Shoot. You forgot to ask him about that. “Of course. Any cream?”

“Nope, just some sugar. Coffee. Coffee sugar.”

Your eyes crinkle a little at the edges. This is very dangerous. He’s cute, and he has a job, and he is most definitely a nerd who is slightly awkward but still polite. “You’re fine. I’ve been working since four AM, and the late drunk crowd was—well, about what you expect. I got comments much worse than asking for some sugar.”

Ryland winces at that but doesn’t say anything else, so you leave to return the coffee pot and grab him one of the sugar containers from the counter. You watch as he immediately grabs it after you place it on the table and dumps an absolutely obscene amount of sugar into his mug. Like, it is so much. Enough that you wonder if the texture of the drink is now equivalent to wet sand. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth,” he offers, a little embarrassed.

“I might have figured that out, yeah.”

He takes a sip of the coffee and sighs contentedly, eyes fluttering shut. Oh, no. This is bad.

You clear your throat. “Let me know if there’s anything else. I’ll be around,” you gesture vaguely toward the rest of the diner, “for the next four hours or so. Not that you’ll be here that long. You know. Job. Not that I’d kick you out or anything. Okay. I’m going to go now.”

His lips pull into a smile as he raises the mug to take another drink. You turn on your heel to check in on your other table and try not to think about how much of a disaster that interaction was.

The diner starts to fill up a little more as the morning breakfast crowd comes in, mostly old couples and blue-collar workers. You do your best to turn up the charm, adjusting your lines based on the customer, hoping to maximize your tips. Your fridge has been depressingly empty for a few days. Maybe they’d let you take something home from the kitchen.

You stop by his table once to ask if he’s still doing good, and then again to refill his water and coffee. Finally, he signals for the check and already has his card out when you return with the receipt.

After you ring him up, you’re about to walk back over to give him his card and the final receipt when you see the bowl of Tootsie Rolls by the register. You grab one and place it on the table in front of him along with a pen. “Have a good day,” you say, and then after a few moments, you tack on, “and have fun with the middle school science. And that sort of stuff.” What is wrong with you?

If Ryland is wondering the same thing, he doesn’t show it, simply taking the candy and sliding it into his pocket before picking up the pen. “Thanks. We’re doing the Krebs cycle, which will be very fun for me, and possibly less fun for them.”

“That sounds…vaguely familiar? I haven’t taken a science class in—a long time. Probably over a decade.” You try to think back, but not a lot comes to you. “Isn’t that, like, really hard? Especially for middle schoolers?”

He grins and looks up at you, reflexively lowering his glasses. He must be far-sighted, you think idly. “I’m a bit of an overachiever.”

This should not affect you in the way that it does, but suddenly you are wondering if that extends to every area in his life. Like physical ones. Okay, that’s enough of that. “Well—good luck with all of that.”

When you return a little later to bus his table, you grab the receipt and look it over. Generous tip! Score! He didn’t think you were a total weirdo! You bring it a little closer to your face and realize that he’s written something on the back, so you turn it over. There’s a little diagram of the Krebs cycle, complete with little pictures and labels.

You are so screwed.

--

He’s back, two days later, when you’re working again. (Technically, he could have come in on the days you weren’t scheduled, but you don’t want to assume.)

“Welcome in,” you call behind you when the door chimes. “Be with you in just a moment.” This morning had been a little slower—no drunk crowd, just a few truck drivers stopping in for food before getting back on the road. You don’t realize that it’s him until you turn around from the coffee machine. “Oh, it’s you! Your food is probably—” The ding interrupts you. Thank you, bell.

After a few minutes, you slide the plate in front of him (two slices of wheat toast, scrambled eggs, bacon) along with a glass of water, a mug, and the sugar canister. You are very proud at how quickly you learned to carry this much stuff over the course of your first shift. “Morning, Ryland,” you smile, pouring out his coffee.

“Morning, not-Gertrude. Your name tag is right, now.” His eyes flick down. He looks about the same as he did two days ago; hair still slightly messy, the wire arms of his glasses begging to be put out of their misery, lanyard resting on top of his tie. It all creates the same fluttery feeling in your stomach that it did then, too. Whatever. Having a harmless crush makes the job more fun. “Oh, you remembered.”

Ryland is already grabbing the sugar and dumping it into his coffee. “Yeah, it’s a little hard to forget when someone pours a metric ton of sugar into their drink. I don’t know how you still have teeth.” He does the thing again, where he takes the first sip and acts like he’s seeing God. Something does a little flip in your chest. “And I have a pretty good memory. Mostly use it for dates and stuff, but it comes in handy for other things.”

He chokes a little on his coffee. That’s weird. “Er, dates? Like—dating?”

“Oh—no, no,” you laugh, “sorry, I can see how that’s confusing. I’m a grad student in history. So years and those sorts of boring things. I can’t even remember the last time I went on a date.” Hm. That was not a normal thing to say to a customer. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s. You’re fine.” He takes a long sip of his water. “Grad student, huh? Masters?”

“PhD. Currently ABD, so. I’m kind of in hell.”

“Oh, gosh, I bet. I really do not miss that. How many years do you have left?”

You watch as he starts piling his eggs onto his toast before taking a giant bite. He really doesn’t do things halfway, does he? The overachiever comment from the other day pops into your mind, suddenly, as you watch him catch a stray piece of egg and pop it into his mouth. “Uh, this is supposed to be my last year.”

Ryland glances back up at you. You should probably end this conversation to go check in on the elderly couple at the counter, but you stay standing there anyway. “Supposed to?”

“I might be. Taking a little longer on my dissertation than I should be. My advisor is—she’s not very happy with me, at the moment.”

He smiles and his eyes go a little distant. You think he might be recalling some memory from his own grad student days. “Well, you know what they say. It doesn’t need to be a good dissertation, it just needs to be—”

“A finished one,” you interrupt, a little grin of your own playing on your lips. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that line before. Once or twice.”

The two of you just stare at each other for a moment. His fingers start messing with the handle of his mug. They’re nice fingers, you think idly. Probably good at lots of things.

Like grading! That’s what you’re thinking of in that moment. You really need to go back to doing your job. “Well, I’ll leave you to your food. Holler if you need anything.”

He does a little mock salute before you walk away. Unfortunately, there are still not that many customers, which is bad both because you would really like more money and also because now you have nothing to do with yourself. You settle on watching him for a little while, promising yourself that this is not creepy. You are simply making sure he doesn’t need anything.

His water is only half empty, but you are really, really bored already, so you walk over to fill it up. “I forgot to ask earlier—how did it go with your students? The Krebs. Thing. Cycle! The Krebs cycle. And the ATP stuff.”

“Glad to see my diagram was helpful.”

“Oh, it was great. Very detailed. You must be a really good teacher.”

His ears start to turn a little pink. It is adorable. You are in so much trouble. “I don’t know about that right now. It’s—I may have overestimated the ability of pre-teens to understand cellular respiration.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” You have the sudden urge to lay a hand on his shoulder. The urge gets stomped down, because this man is a customer, and this is only the second time you have met him, and to top it all off someone has just walked in. “Welcome in! Take a seat wherever you’d like.” You turn your attention back to him. “Sorry, duty calls. Enjoy your mug of wet dirt.”

You hurry away before you can consider this last sentence over any further in your mind, because you are fairly certain it was one of your disastrous attempts at flirting. For some reason, you always default to playful insults, and—look, it’s been a while, what with the dissertation of it all looming over your head. The last time you’d dated was about four years ago, with someone a few years above you in your program. That did not go over well.

The next time you walk by, he asks for the check, and this time you bring it over with a Tootsie Roll and a mint. Those are immediately swiped off the table and stuffed into his jacket pocket.

There’s no diagram on the back of the receipt this time, but there is a drawing of a little cell guy. Next to it is a speech bubble. Apparently, the tiny cell is saying, “Thanks for the glucose!”

You take a picture in case you don’t remember to keep the receipt after you’ve cashed out your tips at the end of the shift.

(This does not happen. You think about the drawing for the next few hours, and before you leave, it gets gently folded and put in your bag. The receipt now lives taped up on your wall next to your desk.)

--

You are scheduled the next three days in a row. He comes in for two of them, Thursday and Friday, and each time you give him some candy with his receipt, and in return you get two more little drawings. One is a diagram of mitosis. The other is a mitochondria, with a very long pun about being the powerhouse of the cell. You wonder how long it took him to think of it, or if he just had that at the ready.

After your shift on Saturday, the day that you do not see him, you buy a variety pack of candy with some of your tip money. You tell yourself that this serves two purposes: one, so you can have a snack while you work. The second one is very obvious, and does not need to be acknowledged.

--

Ryland immediately notices the new candy selection.

“Wow, Skittles? I’m really getting the five-star treatment here.” This time, instead of putting the candy into his pocket like usual, he immediately opens the bag and chucks a few into his mouth. “Thanks. I didn’t even know you guys had these here.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. I found them—in the back. Where things are stored.” If by ‘in the back’ you mean ‘in your backpack,’ then, yes, you are technically telling the truth. He doesn’t need to know all of that.

“How’s the dissertation coming?” He laughs when he sees the face you’re making. “Sorry. The dreaded question.”

You try to let the grimace slide off your face. “It’s—fine. There are. There are words. In a document.”

“Words are good.”

“When there’s enough of them, sure.” A sigh leaves your lips. “I really need to send in this chapter by the end of the week, but the AC in my shitty apartment isn’t working again, and if I go into the department I’ll just talk to everyone. It’s a problem. I’m probably, like, avoidant or something. I don’t know, I haven’t been to a therapist in a while.” What is it with you and oversharing with this man that you serve breakfast to almost every morning? “Sorry. Anyway, I’m thinking I might come here and try to power through the rest so I have something to give my advisor. At least I’ll have free coffee here.” Because your little Keurig is also broken. You are very, very broke. Hence the waitressing job.

Ryland simply nods along and doesn’t comment on the therapist thing. “A change of scenery might be good. Help the words come a little easier.”

“Here’s hoping.” You watch as he finishes the Skittles, shaking the bag so the last few fall into his mouth. His lips are a little stained from the candy. “Well, anyway. If you see me here in a few days out-of-uniform, feel free to pay your respects. Because I’ll be dying on the inside.”

The laugh that comes out of him is a little startled, as if he wasn’t expecting it to happen himself. You blink. The crush is not staying little, not remaining a tiny thing that you keep in your pocket and take out to pass the time at work.

It’s just been a while, you tell yourself. That’s all.

--

You pick a fantastic day to work in the diner, because it is currently pouring outside. While the rain helps cool things down—and therefore alleviates the AC issue—there’s a leaky roof tile in your shoebox apartment that still hasn’t been fixed despite your numerous maintenance requests. The thing drips incessantly, and the rhythmic noise of the water falling into the bin you’ve placed underneath it drives you absolutely insane.

Really, you need to find a different place to live, one that doesn’t fall apart every other day. But that requires money. Which you do not have. So, instead, you put the bucket down to catch the dripping, hoping that it won’t overflow in the time that you’re gone, and drive to the diner. Normally you just walk, but it is literally apocalyptic outside. Maybe, you decide, if you manage to finish your chapter, you’ll drive to the nearby strip mall and treat yourself to some window shopping. (Again: no money.)

The diner provides just the right amount of background noise to help you settle in. Well, it would, except you’ve been staring at the cursor in your document for about eight minutes straight, like you’re expecting it to do something on its own, but it simply blinks back at you.

The door chimes as it opens, and you reflexively glance up before returning to your staring contest. Then you look up again, because it’s Ryland, and he currently looks like a wet cat, both in terms of misery and being drenched. He sees you after a moment, and you offer him a little wave. (It’s one of those incredibly awkward ones, where you’re worried that the person you’re waving at might not see you, but obviously he’s going to see it, because he’s looking right at you, which just makes it all even more awkward.)

His shoes squeak against the tile flooring the entire time he walks over, until he plops down into the booth to sit across from you. He takes his helmet off and sets it on the table. Water drips from his hair, and one of the little rivulets slides down the bridge of his nose. That is—that’s an image to review later.

“Morning,” Ryland says cheerfully, in spite of the fact that he looked about ready to cry a few minutes ago. “It’s a little damp outside.”

“…Yeah. I think you might have brought the entire Bay in with you.”

Gertrude (whose name tag you borrowed for your first shift) comes by and slides Ryland’s breakfast and a cup of coffee in front of him without a word. Hm. He really doesn’t talk to anyone else who works here, you realize, because otherwise he probably would have made a joke about the chances of two Gertrudes working in the same diner on that first day.

You don’t know what to do with this information.

Nothing comes to you, so you chuck it away somewhere in your mind before sliding the sugar over to him. He smiles gratefully and starts concocting his cement mixture of a beverage. “So. How’s the writing coming?” You say nothing at this, simply resting your elbow on the table and smushing your face into your hand, giving him the most despairing look you can conjure. “That bad, huh?”

A frustrated noise grumbles in the back of your throat. “It’s just—I know what this section needs to do, and I’ve outlined it, but. Every time I write something, it’s shit.”

“Hey, language,” but it’s almost entirely muffled by a piece of toast (wheat) and eggs (scrambled).

“Sorry, Mr. Grace,” you scoff. You’re smiling, though. “I don’t know why I’m having such a problem with this chapter. I thought it would be my favorite one to write, but…”

Ryland swallows his current bite and looks at you for a moment before finally speaking. “Can I see it?”

“What, my dissertation? It’s not exactly easy morning reading.”

He waves his hand and starts sliding your laptop around to face him. “I’ll just look at the abstract and the intro to your current chapter.”

Then the only sounds are him clicking around the headings of your document and the bustle of the diner. This is, possibly, the worst: watching someone read your dissertation right in front of you, with nothing to do but wait for them to finish. At least when you send things off to your advisor, you don’t have to watch her angrily leave comments. Sometimes they highlight entire paragraphs and just say ‘bad.’ Super helpful.

After a little while—but not as long as you expect; he’s a shockingly fast reader—he nods and looks back up at you. “Take my advice with a grain of salt, because this is way out of my field of expertise, but I think you need to move your current section up. It makes more sense to go before the previous one, which seems to me like it’s actually the crux of the chapter.”

You blink at him a few times before slowly dragging your laptop back in front of you. You look at your chapter introduction again, and then skim the section he’s talking about. “Huh. That’s actually—I think you’re right.” You look up at him. “That’s the most helpful advice I’ve ever gotten on this thing. Genuinely. Can you be my advisor?” Ryland simply laughs at that and takes a sip of his coffee. His eyes do the thing. It’s fine. You’re fine. “Seriously, though. How come you’re not in a department somewhere with a cushy office? You’d have grad students lining up out the door.”

The coffee mug is set down gently. “I was, for a little while. Then—well. I might have. Kind of implied that someone wasn’t worth the organic materials they were made up of. At a conference. Um. The UNESCO conference. In Denmark.”

He looks at you while you take in this information. Finally, you say, “This might sound really insensitive. But that’s kind of awesome.”

This draws another laugh out of him, the startled one, and you can’t help the massive grin that grows on your face. “Really? It’s awesome that I insulted one of the most preeminent microbiologists alive and got my funding cut?”

“Well. When you put it like that, it’s less awesome. But do you know how many scholars there are in my field that I would love to call an idiot? There’s a lot,” you answer for him. “Do you miss it?”

“Honestly? No. I actually enjoy my life now.”

“There you go. That’s all any of us can hope for.”

Ryland starts fiddling with the spout of the sugar canister. “Yeah. My colleagues had a slightly different opinion, back then.”

“Fuck ‘em.” You don’t give him the time to call out your language again, even though you know he’s (mostly) joking when he does it. “I mean it. Obviously, I would kind of kill to have been in your position, because getting a tenure-track job feels less likely than winning the lottery, but if you’re happy, who cares what they think? You’re, like, preparing the next generation to be capable citizens, or whatever.”

He doesn’t say anything at that. He simply stares at you for a while with an unreadable expression. This is a new one, one that you haven’t seen on his face before—not that you spend that much time looking at his face (you do)—and you find that you would very much like to know what it means.

You do not get to, because then he’s looking down at his phone, and his eyes go wide. “Shoot. I am going to be so late.” Right after he pulls out some cash and slams it on the table, there’s a loud clap of thunder. The timing is almost comical.

“Ryland. I drove here. Do you want a ride?”

You think he might be getting ready to politely refuse, but then he glances at the window and the way the rain is pummeling the glass. “…Possibly.”

--

“I have to ask,” you say, white-knuckling the steering wheel, because it’s kind of hard to see out the windshield at the moment, and you really need new wiper blades (the reason you have not gotten them should be obvious at this point), “how exactly did you word the thing you said? At the conference?”

He clears his throat beside you. “I believe I called him a ‘staggering waste of carbon.’”

“Oof. That’s good.”

Ryland simply hums and then points out the window. “It’s the next turn, there.”

Then you’re pulling up to the school. It really isn’t that far from the diner. “Here, give me your phone.” You hold your hand out expectantly.

“Uh—why?” He looks at your hand like you’re holding a bomb.

“So I can drive you back to the diner later? Since you had to leave your bike.” It hadn’t fit in the back of your car, because the thing is really just a tiny, glorified bucket of bolts. You wiggle your fingers a little. “Give it here.”

After a few beats, he shifts in your passenger seat to pull his phone out before unlocking it and placing it in your hand. You tap your number in and set your contact as ‘Not Gertrude.’ Hopefully he gets a kick out of that. “Here. Text me when you’re done and I’ll come get you.”

He looks down at the new contact. The corners of his mouth lift up and his nostrils flare a little. “Will do. Thank you, again. Seriously.”

“Of course.” Ryland moves to open the door. “Wait!” You reach your arm back to grab your backpack and then dig around for a little while, until you finally produce a little snack-size bag of Skittles and toss it at him.

It hits his nose, and he does this little surprised squeak as he brings his hands up to catch it. He looks between you, your bag, and the Skittles a few times. “The diner doesn’t keep Skittles in the back.”

“Uh. No. You caught me?”

The new expression is back. You still really want to know what it means. He does not explain. Instead, he opens the car door and runs to the entrance of the school. Just before he vanishes inside, he turns around and gives you a little wave.

--

It is still raining out, though not the absolute downpour it was in the morning, when you get the ‘All done here!’ text from Ryland.

“Oh, thank god,” you breathe, because you think if you have to spend another second writing you will launch yourself into the sun. You quickly gather up your things and holler, “See you guys next week!” to the kitchen before leaving.

The drive to the school is less harrowing than it was earlier, since you can actually see further than five feet in front of your car. You pull up to the curb and park—hopefully you won’t get towed—and then pull out your phone to send a quick ‘here!’ back to him.

Then you wait. And wait. At one point, you realize that you haven’t added him back as a contact, so you spend a few seconds staring at the blank name line before simply putting in ‘Ryland Grace.’ You didn’t have anything funny like ‘Not Gertrude.’

After about five minutes, you start to get restless. “Fuck it,” you mutter, and you turn the car off and step outside. Your car probably won’t get towed. The rain feels kind of nice, so you walk leisurely up to the door. It’s locked, and you have to press the little intercom buzzer. “Uh, I’m here for Ryland Grace?” Nobody says anything back, but you hear the door click.

Hm. Slight wrinkle in the plan. You have no idea where his classroom is. Thankfully, the admin office is right by the front door, so you pop your head in. “Hi. I’m looking for Mr. Grace? I’m just—I’m giving him a ride home, and he didn’t respond to my text so. Now I’m here. Asking where his classroom is.” They probably didn’t need all of that information.

The directions are only slightly confusing—something about taking a left, and then another left, and then the second right, and his classroom is somewhere in that hallway—and you only make one wrong turn on your way there.

“Knock, knock,” you call into the room.

He jumps from where he’s sitting behind his desk. “Oh, crap, sorry. I got distracted—grading—you know how it is.”

You simply hum while he rushes to gather up his things. His classroom is kind of amazing. Plants, dioramas, cute posters, even a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. “How long did it take you to put all of this together?”

“Hm? Oh.” Ryland looks at you, then, gazing around the room in awe. “A few years. We don’t get extra money to decorate, so it all had to come out of my own pocket.”

“Damn.” You smile at him. “It’s really nice. I think this proves my point. That you’re a really good teacher.”

“…Thanks.”

It’s quiet, then, and he doesn’t move from where he’s standing. You’re about to ask him about the look, the new one, the one that is on his face again, but you don’t. Instead, you clear your throat. “Ready to go?”

--

Later that night (like, very much later), you finally send your chapter off to your advisor. Ryland had turned out to be entirely correct: moving the section up immediately made everything flow better. The relief that washes over you when you hit ‘send’ is almost indescribable.

You pull out your phone and stare at it for a few seconds before opening your messages up. It’s late, very late, and he’s probably not even awake, but you send him a picture of the email in your ‘sent’ folder anyway. The attached document in the picture reads ‘FINAL final draft 5.4.’

it is done

Then, about five seconds later, you’re picking your phone up again, because he’s already responded. The tiny workplace crush is, possibly, no longer just a crush at all.

That’s awesome!

What are you going to do to celebrate?

idk, probably put a bunch of stuff in my amazon cart and then never buy it

i have no money

in case you didn’t know that by now

I might have realized that at some point

You should actually celebrate, though.

You get up from your desk to lay on your bed. It feels a little like being a high school teenager in a movie.

i’ll probably just go to bob’s

Bob’s? On Sycamore?

yessir

That place is a crap hole.

It is adorable that his no cursing schtick extends to texting. This whole exchange is kind of adorable, actually.

yeah but it’s MY crap hole

wait

that sounds really gross

ignore that

they have cheap drinks and a pool table

what more could a girl ask for

also, sometimes the bartender gives me a free shot if i flirt with him a little

He doesn’t respond right away, and you bite your lip nervously. Was that too many texts in a row? Or maybe it was the bartender thing. You’re about to type out ‘jk but really it’s just close to my apartment’ when you finally get another text.

When do you think you’ll go?

You really, really hope this is implying what you think it is.

probably tomorrow night honestly

it IS a friday after all

tgif and all that

and i don’t work on saturday so. no need to worry about the hangover

What time?

This is silly. The excitement that you are feeling right now is just silly. The thought does not stop your cheeks from hurting at how much you’re smiling.

like 7

that way i can get drunk and still go to bed at a reasonable time

i’m not as young as i used to be

You stare and stare as the three little dots come up, and then disappear, and then reappear again. Finally:

I’m really bad at pool

Like, really bad.

Disastrously bad.

that’s ok

loser buys the winner a drink? :)

I was probably going to do that anyway

You’re broke, remember?

ouch

you wound me

Am I wrong?

…no

I’ll see you tomorrow

:)

You stare at the smiley face until your eyes start to drift shut, and you fall asleep holding the phone to your chest. It is very teen rom-com, and it is wonderful.

--

Ryland is right: Bob’s is a crap hole.

It is dark, and a little dingy, and the bar is cash only, and the door handle to the bathroom sticks a little. It is, possibly, your favorite place in this entire city, because it’s been there for you through everything: moving, getting over the breakup with that older grad student, passing your qualifying exams, birthdays, everything.

You take it all in with a small smile as you wait, sipping on your drink and guarding the pool table with your life. It’s really not necessary, because it’s only seven, and for now there’s only a few regulars sitting at the bar and a couple making googly eyes at each other in a booth.

A little bit of the condensation from your glass drips onto your jeans, and you frown and try to dab at it with a napkin. You spent way too long, probably, getting ready and trying to figure out what to wear, because it is unclear to you whether this is a date or a friends sort of thing. You know he’s single, obviously, he’s mentioned it before, but you are starting to nervously spiral a little bit. What if he doesn’t like that you’re a little younger? This thought seems a little silly, because you are swiftly closing in on thirty, but—maybe he’s just really weird about it.

All of that is to say that you settled on jeans and a somewhat cute top, because ultimately you are in a dive bar, and you are very serious about winning at pool and getting that drink. A complicated outfit will not be getting in the way.

The door finally opens again, and Ryland walks in. The place is tiny, so it does not take him long to spot you by the pool table. He is—he looks very cute, your mind supplies unhelpfully. His shirt has the periodic table on it, and underneath it reads ‘I WEAR THIS SHIRT PERIODICALLY.’ His jeans. Fit him very well. And the dirty canvas shoes are right at home in the bar.

Finally, you notice that his hair is slightly styled. Not much, and it’s still a little messy, but it seems deliberately ruffled, rather than the afterthought it usually is.

You do not have the chance to consider this any further, because he’s stopped walking to stand right in front of you. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Congrats on the chapter.”

“Thanks.”

“You already have a drink.”

You look down at the glass in your hand. You had already forgotten it was there. “I might have gotten here a little early. To scope out the pool table.”

“I see.” He glances behind you at the table, then, which you have already inserted quarters into, and the pool balls are already racked. “I’ll go grab a drink,” he nods towards the bar. But then he doesn’t move, not yet. “Is that the bartender?”

“Uh. Yeah.” You are wishing you had not shared that little tidbit with him.

Ryland nods and seems to be turning something over, very carefully. “Maybe—don’t flirt with him tonight.”

There’s no time to ask why, because he’s already walking away to order something. You already didn’t have any plans to flirt for a free shot, anyway, but now you almost want to, just to see what Ryland would do.

You watch him walk away and then lean against the bar top. You’re not—you’re not looking at anything in particular.

Okay, just one little look.

How are you supposed to—this is so unfair.

--

“You lied to me,” you say accusingly. “You are such a liar.”

He sinks another striped ball and walks around the table. “In my defense, I really thought you were going to be a lot better. You were the one who brought up pool in the first place.”

You gasp with mock offense. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. On today, of all days, when we’re celebrating my dissertation chapter.”

Another ball shoots into a pocket. “I’ll still buy you a drink.”

“Absolutely not. I need to win that drink. It’s about the principle.”

Ryland finally misses—likely only because there really weren’t any good angles—and you step up to the table. “I think you should—”

“Don’t coach me. The principle.” You line up your shot very, very carefully. “Watch. This is where the comeback starts.” If anyone were to ask you about your positioning right now, you would very tactfully answer that there is nothing purposeful about the way you lean over the table or the arch of your back.

You take a deep breath and—“Son of a bitch!” He raises his eyebrows when you stand up, a smile playing on his lips. “Don’t even, we’re in a bar.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but you thought it.”

Your brain kind of can’t handle the look he’s giving you at the moment, so you turn your attention back to the table. Of course, you’ve given him the perfect angle, and he wastes no time to—

He misses.

You narrow your eyes at him. Ryland simply shrugs. “Lost my grip.”

“Uh-huh.”

He lifts his beer to his lips, watching you the entire time with a grin. “And I didn’t re-chalk before my shot.”

“Everyone knows that the chalk is just to look cool. It doesn’t do anything,” you scoff.

The bottle stills against his mouth, and then he slowly lowers it. “That’s not—I need you to know that that is not true. There’s a physics to it and everything.”

In your mind, there was a version of tonight where he did the incredibly cheesy move of wrapping his arms around you to show you how to use the pool stick. Apparently, the real version is him animatedly explaining the physics of pool, how factors like spin and angle affect the shot, the way to account for the friction of the table.

It is, you find, much better than the version you cooked up in your brain, because he’s looking at you the whole time, blue eyes wide with excitement, waving his hands around so much that his beer has started to slosh dangerously.

“Alright. Did all of that make sense?”

“I’m going to be so honest. I checked out for a while there. But I appreciate how enthusiastic you were.”

“What was that you were saying yesterday about me being a good teacher?”

You grin and stick your tongue out a little. You hope the way your nose is scrunching is cute and not stupid. “You are. I’m just a bad student.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “There are no bad students. It just takes patience to figure out how they learn. What’s your learning style?” His voice drops a little at the question. Your fingers tighten around the cue stick. Being asked your preferred method of learning should not be affecting you in the way that it currently is.

There are options here. Either you play it safe, crack a joke, and take a shot that you will probably miss. Or. “I’ve always been a pretty tactile learner.”

Ryland hums. “I see.” Then he walks around the table and stands behind you. “Line up your shot,” he murmurs. You think that you might explode, because actually, it turns out, you do get to have the version of the night you concocted in your mind while getting ready.

It is suddenly very difficult for you to concentrate on anything, but you step forward and lean down, aiming for the red ball in front of the back right pocket. His arms come around you, then, and his hands slide over yours. You watch his fingers curl around your left hand. Yes, you think, his fingers are good for a lot of things.

“Keep your dominant eye focused. Aim right for the center since you have a pretty dead-on angle. The friction coefficient is around—”

“Ryland,” you whisper, “that means nothing to me.”

“Right. Just—hit it really hard, so the cue ball doesn’t go into the pocket. You want all of the momentum to transfer to the red ball.” His thumb smooths over your knuckles. Something swirls in your stomach.

You nod and try to ignore the way you can feel your hair catching slightly on his stubble. “Great. Hit it hard. Actionable advice, thank you.”

You draw the pool cue back. His arm moves with you, but he’s careful not to contribute any of his own force to the motion. After a few practice slides, you hit the cue ball for real, and it rolls into the red ball with a crack and stops. The red ball shoots forward into the pocket.

“Yes!” The two of you stand up, and you turn around to give him a high five. Ryland just smiles widely as he looks down at you. That look crosses his face again, and you realize how close you’re standing, and that his cheeks have started to tinge red, but—well. You really want him to buy you a drink. And you’re having fun, a lot of fun, and you want to enjoy it for as long as you can, just in case you are reading all of this wrong and it goes south later. “You’re going down. I am the queen of pool now.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “One ball sunk and suddenly you’re trash talking. I’ve created a monster. Also, what about that whole principle thing earlier? About not being coached?”

“Fuck the principle, I want my free drink.”

You’re taking a sip of your current drink, the one you bought with your hard-earned tip money (which makes you realize that he’s kind of already bought you a drink, in a sense), when he suddenly blurts out, “Please don’t fuck my principal,” and then you’re choking and laughing, and a little bit of club soda is coming out of your nose, probably, because the joke is already pretty funny but is made that much better with the curse word. You wonder if that’s a very small reason he is so uptight about not cursing; he can wield those words with so much more effectiveness when he does use them.

He hands you a napkin so you can clean up the mess dripping from your face, and for a beat you’re a little worried that you look ridiculous, but he’s still smiling and looking at you with what you’re pretty sure is fondness.

You miss your next shot, and you find that you don’t really care.

--

Ryland does not let you win, because he is, as you have just discovered, intensely competitive. He still buys you your next drink, which you are now sipping on as you sit across from him in one of the booths along the wall.

“I still think,” you say around your straw, “that I could have pulled that off.”

“How so?” He leans his elbow on the table and rests his cheek on the heel of his palm, lifting one finger up to lower his glasses a little. Which feels unfair, but, whatever.

“It’s a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Doesn’t seem like a ‘feeling’ is based on much evidence.”

You scoff playfully and wave a dismissive hand. “You scientists and your evidence.”

His smile grows. You are pretty sure the two of you have not stopped smiling since he walked into the bar. “Aren’t historians pretty nitpicky about their evidence, too?”

“Irrelevant.”

It seems like he’s about to say something else, but whatever it was going to be is interrupted with a yawn. “Sorry, sorry.”

Right. He worked all day today. You’re surprised he’s still upright. “No, you’re fine. We can finish these and head out, you should sleep.”

It’s his turn to wave dismissively at you. “I’ll be alright.”

“It’s okay. Seriously. I had a really good time tonight. My chapter feels properly celebrated.”

“Good. I know I didn’t read the finished product, but—it was good. You’re a strong writer. Really vivid voice. And you made it really easy to follow along.”

Your face feels warm. “Well, that’s—I mean, you have a doctorate. You have lots of practice reading things like that.”

“Biology articles? Sure. History dissertations? Not so much. But I never felt confused when I was reading it.” He clinks his beer against your glass. “Take the compliment.”

“Okay.” You bring your drink to your lips at the same time he does, and the two of you simply look at each other, long after your drinks have returned to the table. There are—you have a lot of things going on in your mind, at the moment, and a question that you would really like to ask, and you’re pretty sure it’s going to go over well, but.

It pains you to admit it, but you are a little nervous, because it has been quite a while since you’ve done this, and the thing that started out as a little crush at work has turned into something so much larger, a thing that you really do not want to fuck up, and you’re realizing that it’s becoming a lot like your dissertation. It is not a thing that you do not want to do; actually, you want to do it so badly, and it is so important, and you are putting it off because there is comfort in remaining in that in-between stage, of being able to say that you’re doing it but never actually seeing it through.

“Okay,” you repeat, standing up, because this has suddenly become a lot. “I am going to go commandeer the TouchTunes now.”

“…Alright?”

The machine doesn’t like the first dollar you try to put in, which is fair, because you’re pretty sure the customer who gave it to you had used it to snort coke. The second dollar, after some smoothing, is accepted. Score. You scroll through different songs before just typing in one of your go-to’s.

A few seconds later, the song is filtering through the shitty speakers of Bob’s, and you slide back into the booth. “Tears for Fears. Nice,” he comments.

“Thanks. To be honest, this is the only song I know by them.”

“Hey, a classic’s a classic for a reason.”

The two of you go back to looking at each other. You try to steel yourself, because, just like your dissertation, this is a thing that ultimately needs to be seen through. All the way to the end. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.” Ryland makes a little finger gun. It is extremely cute and slightly soothes the nerves bunching up in your chest.

You turn your gaze down to your drink as you swirl the straw around the ice cubes. “Was this a date? Wait, I probably should have led up to that a little more. Except I don’t really know how. Okay. Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve been on one, and I think I might be a little bit rusty, and I kind of like you a lot, but I have no idea if I’ve been reading all of this wrong. You have this look, you see, and I think I know what it means, but I’ve never asked, and I also don’t know if you’re weirded out by the age gap thing, which I’ve also never asked about either. And. I’m going to stop, now.”

If there’s a God up there, you think, please let the floor open up and swallow you now, because that was probably the worst speech you think you could have given.

But then he’s saying your name, quietly, and you look up at him. “Yeah. You’ve been—your read of the signals is correct. Very correct. I don’t, uh, I don’t leave little drawings for all of my waitresses.”

“That’s good. Good to know. That would probably hurt my feelings.” You feel like you’re about to start giggling like a maniac, because all of the tension in your chest is dissolving, leaving only giddiness.

He seems to be feeling something similar, but then he looks confused for a moment. “Also, ‘age gap thing’? Aren’t you almost thirty?”

“Yeah. Don’t remind me.”

“Hey now. And I’m pretty sure that’s around when that stops mattering.” Another beat. “How old do you think I am?”

“It varies. Sometimes it gets up to sixty because you order the same thing for breakfast from a diner every day of the week. Then it lowers down to upper teens when I watch you pour the entire sugar canister into your coffee. Seriously. I am concerned you are going to develop a health condition.”

Ryland laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and you giggle right along with him, and in a burst of confidence you reach forward and put your hand on his, and you’re thrilled when it shifts to hold your fingers gently.

“Do you—would you like to go somewhere else?” You ask. “Like. A secondary location. But not the kidnapping kind.”

His thumb brushes over your knuckles, just like it had when he was helping you line up your shot in pool earlier. “Your song isn’t finished.”

You shrug. “We can come back another night and I can play it again. I have lots of singles. Some of them don’t work because I think they were used for cocaine.” You pause. “I’m realizing that I sound like a stripper right now.”

Ryland snorts and squeezes your hand. “Yeah, we can go to a secondary location. I’d like that. As long as it’s not, you know, the kidnapping kind. That’s a non-negotiable.”

He keeps holding your hand as you both get up out of the booth, as you walk out the door and into the night air. Neither of you finished your drinks, you realize, but that’s fine. He’ll probably buy you another.

--

epilogue

“Welcome to my crib.”

Ryland takes in your shitty apartment. You had cleaned up a little earlier, in a spurt of confidence, although the bin that you use to catch the water leaking from the ceiling is still out, because it hadn’t finished raining until this morning. “Wow. This is. It is really a place that someone lives in.”

You punch his shoulder then, lightly, and smile while you kick off your shoes and flick the lights on. “Yeah. I really need to move out. But that requires—”

“Money,” he says at the same time you do. “If it makes you feel any better, you won’t be living on a grad student stipend forever.”

“Here’s hoping.” You walk into your tiny kitchen, then, and call over your shoulder. “You can sit wherever. And by wherever, I mean on the couch, because that’s the only seating I have. Do you want anything to drink? I have—” You peer into your depressingly empty fridge. “Well. There’s water, a half-drunk bottle of Sprite, and vodka. So. Pick your poison.”

“I’m fine. What’s up with the unfinished Sprite?”

You take a quick drink of water before padding over to the living room. “It’s a chaser. For the vodka.”

“Of course.”

Ryland is sitting on the couch, and it’s very cute, because he’s trying to be polite but is also incredibly restless, if the way his knee bounces up-and-down says anything. You climb onto his lap. “Hi.”

“Hey there.” He looks up at you at that, his hands coming up to rest on your hips, and you carefully take his glasses off and set them behind you on your thrifted coffee table. “I kind of can’t see without those.”

“That’s fine. If we do something that requires seeing, you can have them back.”

 “Sounds like a plan.”

Then, before you lose your nerve, you draw your hands up to cradle his face and kiss him, sweetly at first, until you open your mouth, and he groans as you lick along his bottom lip. He squeezes your hips, and his fingers mess with the hem of your shirt a little before slipping underneath it to run along your skin. Yep, your guess is still holding, his fingers are great.

You are about to start grinding down onto him when there is a loud crash, and then the two of you are jumping, and you look behind you. The leaking ceiling tile has, apparently, chosen this moment to collapse onto the floor and knock over the bin of water for good measure.

His chest is shaking with laughter when you lean your head against his shoulder and groan. “Can we just ignore that for now and go back to what we were doing, please?”

“Counteroffer,” he says, still laughing, “I help you clean that up, and then we can resume. And then in the morning you will put in a maintenance request.”

“Deal. And they don’t really respond to those. Hence the ceiling tile that just fell.”

“I probably should have guessed that.”

In the morning, you can’t cook him breakfast because there’s nothing in your fridge, but you order it for him as the next best thing—wheat toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon—and put it onto a plate in the kitchen, wearing nothing but his periodic table shirt and your underwear, as if you had actually cooked it yourself. He comes up behind you and kisses the side of your neck.

Standing impossibly close. Closer than you ever stood now. His arm was wrapped around your waist, your hand resting against his chest. Neither of you was looking at the camera. You were looking at each other instead. As though nothing else in the world existed. As though the other people in the room, which looked like some kind of pub or bar, had simply disappeared. You were smiling. Not the polite smile shared between coworkers or friends, but the quiet, intimate smile of two people who meant far more to each other than either was willing to admit.

Your heartbeat stumbled. This had been before the Hail Mary. Somewhere back on Earth. Before either of you had boarded the mission that was meant to be humanity's last hope and before the memories of your life before launch had been stripped away.

"Ryland?" You spoke his name almost unconsciously, never taking your eyes off the photograph.

He looked up from across the dormitory, where he had been digging through his belongings in search of a clean shirt. The color drained from his face. For a long moment, he simply stared at you, then he crossed the room far too quickly.

"Where did you find that?" His eyes immediately darted toward the storage compartment.

"It fell out of yours," you murmured.

His eyes slipped shut for a brief second. "Damn."

He should have hidden it better. Though, on a spaceship where every centimeter of space was shared, there really wasn't anywhere to hide anything. You held the photograph out toward him.

"You knew about this." It wasn't a question. His expression answered it before he could. "You knew."

"I found it a few days ago," he admitted quietly.

"And you didn't tell me?" You frowned.

Lately, whenever either of you remembered something, even the smallest fragment, you always shared it immediately, hoping every recovered piece might eventually fit into the larger puzzle.

"I wasn't sure I should," Ryland admitted honestly.

You looked back down at the picture. You didn't seem angry, if anything, you looked quietly astonished.

"We're... close."

His hand immediately found his hair, ruffling it the way he always did whenever he grew nervous. "Yeah."

"'Yeah?' That's all you have?"

Ryland rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know what it means. Neither of us does."

"You hid it." Your eyes met his again. "Why?"

He sighed, resting both hands on his hips before lowering his head for a moment. He had known this conversation would happen eventually.

"Because..." he said softly, "I woke up on this ship with almost no memory. Just like you. Then I found a picture of me holding what looks like the most important person in the universe..."

Surprise flickered across your face. "It's just a photograph. You don't know that."

Ryland let out a quiet laugh, then he looked directly into your eyes. There wasn't a trace of dishonesty there, only sincerity and fear.

"I think I do," he said. "I've seen the way we're looking at each other." His voice became almost a whisper. "People don't fake that."

The room suddenly felt much smaller. The quiet hum of the Hail Mary seemed louder than ever, filling the silence between you. A strange sensation settled deep inside your chest, as though your mind and body were struggling against something trying to force its way back into your memory.

"You should've shown me," you said at last.

There was disappointment in your voice. You were in this together. You weren't supposed to keep secrets from each other, not on a mission this important. Ryland looked exhausted and more than a little ashamed.

"I know."

"So why didn't you?"

He hesitated before answering. "Because...you've seemed comfortable around me. I didn't want to hand you a photograph that basically screams, 'Hey, maybe we were in love.'"

Your breath caught. A shy smile tugged at your lips. "In love?" you repeated.

"I don't know." He shrugged.

"You just said…"

"I said maybe." He looked away. "I didn't want to put ideas in your head that weren't actually memories. I thought that would've been unfair."

You lowered your eyes to the photograph again, your thumb tracing its worn edge. The scene felt strangely familiar. Like a memory from another life. Like a movie you'd seen years ago but couldn't quite remember.

"I've been having dreams," you admitted softly. Your voice had become quieter. Almost dreamy and shy.

His head lifted immediately. "What kind?"

"I don't know." You shrugged, trying to sound casual, as though it didn't matter, but it did. "They're blurry. I never see a face. But... I keep feeling someone's arms around me. I keep waking up convinced I kissed someone."

You still weren't looking at him, only at the picture. It felt like a key to another locked door in your memory. To memories that, if this photograph was telling the truth, belonged to both of you.

"Sometimes..." you whispered, "I miss someone I can't even remember."

Ryland's jaw tightened. "I know exactly what you mean."

Your head snapped up. "You do? How?"

"I keep feeling like I'm supposed to protect somebody." His voice grew quieter. "And every time something goes wrong on this ship…my first instinct is to make sure you're okay. I don't know why."

Silence settled between you again. Only the steady hum of the ship filled the room. You glanced back at the photograph.

"I wish I remembered," you whispered.

Your voice faltered. You could feel Ryland watching you, waiting for whatever you might say next. That was how it always worked now. Every recovered memory was another lifeline. Another chance to remember who you had been before the mission.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"When we're together..." You searched for the right words. You knew thousands of them, yet somehow none felt right. "...does it ever feel...familiar?"

Ryland let out a slow breath. "Every day." The answer came without even a second's hesitation. “You're easy to talk to. I trust you. I know what you're going to say before you say it." A faint smile appeared. "And every accidental touch feels...important."

You noticed the tips of his ears turning pink. Despite yourself, you laughed softly. "It does."

He looked back up.

"When your hand brushes mine..." You smiled sheepishly. “I forget what I was thinking. And when you stand too close...my heart starts acting like an idiot."

Ryland covered his face with one hand. "Oh, thank God. I thought I was the only one."

Another silence settled between you. This one was gentler. You looked at the photograph one more time, smiling to yourself. 

"I don't know if we were together. I don't know if we loved each other." You looked up. "But… I'd like to find out."

Ryland stared at you as though your words had stolen every bit of oxygen from the room. You were standing within arm's reach. And yet he still seemed afraid to close that final distance.

"Without forcing it," you continued softly. "Without pretending we remember. Let's just... see where this goes."

A nervous smile spread across his face. "I'd like that too."

Ryland clipped the last tether to his suit and checked the pressure gauge one final time.

"You know," he said over the helmet speakers, "for someone who's supposedly fearless, I'm still not thrilled about voluntarily stepping into space." He chuckled to himself. "It's fundamentally against human nature."

You smiled despite yourself"You've mentioned that... several times."

"Good." His laugh crackled through the comms. "I'll be back before you have time to miss me."

The words lingered between you. Before you even had time to think, you answered quietly,

"I already do."

Silence. Just a brief one, but it felt different. Those words had slipped out so naturally neither of you had planned them.

"Well..." His voice had softened noticeably. "I'll try to hurry, then."

From inside the ship, you monitored his suit telemetry while Ryland carefully crawled across the outer hull. Every reading looked perfectly normal. Everything exactly where it should be. Even so, you hated when he went outside. Ryland Grace wasn't someone who enjoyed taking risks, but out there...he was completely alone. And if something went wrong, there was nothing you could do from your chair except watch.

"You seeing the damaged panel?" you asked.

"Loud and clear," he answered after a moment. "You were right. One of the couplings cracked. I can fix this."

Nearly forty minutes passed. The repair was almost complete. 

"I've got the replacement seated," Ryland reported. "Just tightening the final…"

A violent metallic crack exploded through the comms. The entire ship lurched. Warning alarms screamed and the lights flashed crimson.

"Ryland!"

"I'm here." his breathing became ragged instantly. "The panel shifted."

Another deafening bang echoed through the hull.

"My tether…" static swallowed the rest.

"Ryland!"

No answer. Only broken fragments. "...hold..." "...can't..." "...damn…"

Your heart slammed painfully against your ribs. Before you even realized what you were doing, you were already running through the narrow corridors toward the airlock. Your portable communicator was clenched tightly in your hand.

Please. Please answer.

"Ryland!"

"I'm... still..." More static.

The Hail Mary jerked again, harder this time. Your boots lost traction and you slammed shoulder-first into the wall before your head struck the sharp corner of a storage cabinet. White-hot pain exploded behind your eyes. For one impossible second everything disappeared.

A narrow corridor. Not aboard the Hail Mary. Another ship, back on Earth, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Ryland stood awkwardly in front of you, holding two paper cups of coffee.

"I accidentally ended up with two."

You smiled as you walked toward him. "You like their coffee that much?"

"It's actually pretty terrible," he admitted, staring suspiciously at the cups. He was very obviously trying to start a conversation.

"So why did you get two, Dr. Grace?"

He laughed nervously. "Because I was hoping you'd take one."

Relief washed across his face the moment you smiled back.

Another memory. Your first dinner together. You teasing him for explaining orbital mechanics using ketchup bottles. His hand brushing yours across the table. You stealing fries from his plate while he pretended not to notice.

A rainy evening. Your tiny cabin and his forehead resting against yours.

"I've wanted to kiss you for weeks," Ryland whispered.

"So why didn't you?"

He sighed dramatically. "I was collecting statistically significant evidence that you liked me back."

You laughed right into the kiss.

The pub. The same one from the photograph. His arms wrapped around your waist. Someone raising a camera, music playing, people laughing around you. And Ryland leaning close enough for only you to hear him. 

"Now I'll finally have proof that you really do like me."

Another memory. You walked out of Stratt's office. Tears streamed down your face. Ryland cupped your cheeks with both hands.

"I don't want to leave." His voice trembled. "Not now. Not when you're here."

"We don't have a choice," you whispered. 

Even speaking the words hurt. Ryland kissed you. As though he could somehow stop the tears. As though he could make you forget how much this mission was about to cost both of you.

Another. Doctors and needles. Conversations about memory suppression. Your fingers gripping his hand so tightly your knuckles ached.

"I hate this," you whispered so quietly only he could hear.

"I know." His fingers tightened around yours.

"What if I forget you?"

Ryland smiled, even though his eyes were already red. "Then...I'll make you fall in love with me all over again."

You came to with a sharp gasp. The alarms were still blaring. Red emergency lights pulsed through the corridor, casting restless shadows across the walls. For a disoriented moment you couldn't tell how long you'd been unconscious. Your hand flew to your mouth.

"Oh..." Your voice cracked. "Oh my God..."

Tears blurred your vision just as the communicator crackled to life. "Can anyone hear me?"

Ryland.

His voice was strained now, his breathing heavy. "Please...answer me."

Your heart clenched, but this time not from fear, from recognition. You pushed yourself upright, grabbed the communicator, and pressed it to your lips. "I'm here." Your voice trembled. "I'm here, Ryland."

A long breath of relief escaped him. Then, after only a heartbeat, he spoke again. "You sound different."

You closed your eyes, because everything was different now. Or maybe everything had finally become exactly the way it was supposed to be.

"I remember," you whispered. Then, louder, "I remember us, Ryland."

Silence. For so long that, for one terrifying second, you wondered whether the connection had been lost again. Then you heard him inhale sharply.

"Don't..." His voice broke "Don't say something like that unless you're absolutely sure."

A tear rolled down your cheek "I'm sure."

Another long silence. Then, barely louder than a whisper. "Did I keep my promise?"

You smiled through your tears as you hurried toward the airlock controls. "You idiot. You didn't have to. I never stopped loving you."

The inner airlock cycled with agonizing slowness. Pressure equalized, indicator lights shifted from red to green. You stood so close to the hatch that the warning system politely reminded you to step back, but you ignored it. The door slid open with a hiss and Ryland stepped inside. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion. His suit was scraped and scarred. But he was alive.

The helmet came off first. His hair clung damply to his forehead, cheeks were flushed from the EVA. The instant he looked up and saw you waiting, he smiled.

"You look terrible," you whispered.

"I was about to say the same thing."

Neither of you move at first. Then you crossed the distance between you. Your arms wrapped around him. He froze, but only for the briefest heartbeat. Then his own arms circled you automatically, pulling you close with a familiarity neither of you questioned anymore. A slow breath escaped against your shoulder.

"You sounded different," he murmured. He leaned back just enough to search your face. "Like you finally recognized me."

You nodded. "I remember everything. Every moment. Every time we met. The coffee. The way you explained all your wonderfully weird science to me. I remember the doctors… You dreamed too?"

He nodded, leaning back against the airlock wall. "Yeah."

"What did you dream about?"

His entire expression changed instantly. "Uh..."

You frowned. Ryland scratched the back of his neck.

"You can tell me," you encouraged gently.

His ears immediately turned pink. "It's... kind of embarrassing. I remembered pieces."

"What kind of pieces?"

The blush spread all the way to the tips of his ears. "I... Let's just say I woke up with a rather significant problem this morning." 

You blinked. "Oh."

He gestured helplessly. "You know… The...biological kind."

For two full seconds you simply stared at him. Then realization hit.

"Oh my God..." A laugh burst out before you could stop it. "You had...a sex dream?"

Ryland buried his face in both hands. "I am begging you...please don't say it out loud."

You laughed even harder. "I cannot believe this."

He sighed dramatically. "My subconscious apparently has absolutely no sense of timing."

You stepped a little closer. "And..." Your grin widened. "Was I in it?"

He peeked between his fingers.

"Maybe." Your eyebrows shot upward.  "Okay..." Ryland groaned. "Yes."

A triumphant smlie spread across your face.

"What happened?"

"I refuse to answer that."

"Oh, you absolutely have to." You folded your arms. "We should document the data."

"There will be no documentation."

You stepped even closer, unable to stop smiling. "You look incredibly flustered."

His groan echoed around the airlock. "You are enjoying this far too much."

You laughed so softly it made his heart ache. Then, slowly your smile faded. The teasing disappeared. You reached up and gently rested your hand against his cheek. His breathing stopped.

"I remembered something else." 

He searched your face. "What?" 

You smiled through fresh tears. "The last thing you said before the procedure." His own smile vanished. Very quietly, you whispered, "If you forget me... I'll make you fall in love with me all over again."

Instead of giving him the chance to answer you rose onto your toes and kissed him softly. As though you wanted him to know that every feeling had returned with every memory. For one heartbeat Ryland stood perfectly still, but then he kissed you back. When you finally pulled away, his forehead rested gently against yours.

"So..." you whispered, unable to suppress another smile. "about that dream..."

Ryland let out the most defeated groan imaginable. "I knew kissing you was somehow going to make this conversation even worse."

Forty minutes later, the emergency repairs were complete. The Hail Mary had settled back into its familiar rhythm. Fans hummed softly, pumps clicked somewhere deep within the ship. Water flowed through the pipes, producing the quiet sound Ryland had once insisted was "surprisingly comforting."

You found him in the laboratory. He was sitting on the edge of a workbench, absentmindedly spinning a wrench between his fingers. You walked over until you were standing between his knees. He looked up at you with a faint smile.

"You know," he said quietly, "I've been thinking. I keep remembering little things. Weird little things."

You nodded. "The important memories came back first."

"Yeah." He looked at the wrench before setting it aside. "But now the little ones are starting to come back. They're somehow even stranger."

"Like what?" you asked.

Ryland frowned thoughtfully.

"I remembered that you always stole my hoodies. I also remembered how often we'd sneak out onto the observation deck whenever we wanted a few minutes alone." 

Your smile faded into something gentler. "I remembered movie nights. The ones where you never made me feel stupid because I didn't understand half the scientific documentaries you insisted on showing me. "You just...explained everything."

Ryland laughed but after a while the silence settled between you again. The kind that only existed between people who had long since stopped feeling the need to fill every quiet moment with words.

Then Ryland spoke again. "I remembered something else. The night before launch."

Your smile disappeared. "So did I."

Neither of you spoke for several long seconds. Ryland looked down at his hands.

"I remember being terrified. We were both supposed to be sleeping. But we stayed awake almost the entire night. Talking about everything."

You nodded slowly.

"But most of all..." He hesitated. "I remember what we talked about if the mission somehow succeeded. I remember asking you something." His eyes searched yours. "I never got to hear your answer."

Your heart skipped. "You asked… *"'Would you finally let me marry you?'"

Ryland stared. "I don't even remember planning a proposal."

"You didn't. You just…looked at me like the world was ending."

"Which, to be fair..." He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. "it kind of was."

You nodded. Ryland took a slow breath.

"And your answer?"

You smiled sadly. "You kissed me before I could say anything."

A slow grin spread across his face. "I assume that was a good sign." He shifted nervously where he sat, suddenly looking much younger. "But I never actually heard the word."

You pretended to think and his eyes narrowed. "Oh, don't you dare."

You bit back a smile. "I think..." You let the silence stretch just a little longer. "my answer is still yes."

For a long moment he simply stared at you. Then he laughed. A quiet, disbelieving laugh that almost dissolved into tears.

"I haven't even proposed this time." He looked around the lab dramatically. "I don't have a ring. No flowers. No romantic speech."

You laughed. "Yeah. Worst proposal ever."

"I know." He slipped an arm around your waist, drawing you closer. "Maybe. But...If we make it home .I'd like to ask you properly."

Your eyes began to sting again, but you smiled through the tears. "I'll still say yes."

This time, when he kissed you there wasn't the slightest hesitation. Outside the hull of the Hail Mary, the universe stretched endlessly in every direction. Inside the tiny laboratory the future no longer felt like something either of you had lost. It felt like something you could finally find together.

Josh. You do not like him, not just because he’s exactly the arrogant STEM grad student you just described, but also because you think he’s terrible for her. But she’s head-over-heels, and you want to be supportive, so whatever. You give it a month.

“And,” she says lightly, fanning her face with her hands, “his roommate is really cute.”

“No.”

“And nice! He’s so nice. I think you’d like him.”

“Probably not.”

Marissa pouts, then, and after a moment she takes the eyeliner pen from your hands and motions for you to turn to face her. You close your eyes as she gently swipes the black ink at the corner of your eye. “Just give him a chance. And if he’s lame, or the party is boring, we can come back here and gorge ourselves on canned cocktails and popcorn. Open.”

You open your eyes and turn back toward your reflection. It is annoying how much better she is at makeup than you. “Thanks. And…fine. But I am holding you to that. And I make no promises about the roommate.”

“Deal. Now hurry up, we’re going to be late.”

--

You’ll give them one thing: STEM students do not do parties halfway.

The two of you had arrived only a little late, and half of the people there were already shitfaced. They must carefully calculate what alcohol to knock back in order to get drunk as quickly and efficiently as possible. Nerds.

Marissa immediately beelines to Josh, leaving you standing in the entryway awkwardly. Fine. You’ll tell her she’s a bad roommate tomorrow and make her buy you a coffee. You head to the kitchen, presumably where the alcohol is; it’s also more well-lit than the rest of the apartment. A few people are standing around, chatting, but you ignore them to survey the bottles crowding the counter.

You settle for making a simple vodka lemonade when someone sidles up beside you. “Hi. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Probably not.” You don’t look up at him from making your drink, because you’re kind of not interested in trying to go home with someone tonight. There is a metric fuck ton of grading waiting for you in the morning.

He doesn’t seem to take the hint. “I’m Ryland. One of the hosts for this evening.”

Why is he talking like that? Whatever. This must be the roommate Marissa mentioned. Even though you told her, multiple times, that you weren’t promising to put in any effort here, you sigh and turn toward him anyway to give him your name in return. “I’m Marissa’s roommate.”

“Oh, Josh’s girlfriend. Nice.”

“Sure.”

Annoyingly, Marissa was right. Ryland is cute. His blond hair is ruffled in a way that screams ‘I don’t care’ but is also most definitely styled that way on purpose. There’s a little bit of stubble coming in on his face. You think he’s recently decided to try growing it out. His blue eyes have a hint of mirth behind his wire-frame glasses as he watches you look him over. “What department are you in? Wait—don’t tell me. I have a sixth sense for these sorts of things.

You watch, then, as he takes his time looking you over. You try not to roll your eyes. He is already giving you the distinct sense that he is the kind of person who is used to getting everything that he wants, and suddenly you are hit with the urge to humble him, to knock him down a few pegs so he can have some meaningful character growth.

He snaps his fingers. “Chemistry.”

You make a buzzer sound. “Wrong.”

“Really? Hm. Okay. Not bio—I would have met you already. Earth sciences?”

“Nope. That’s strike two.”

He grins. It’s annoying. He’s annoying, you have decided, because the alternative is something that you will not allow. “I didn’t know we were going off of the strike system.”

You bring your plastic cup to your lips. Oops. You might have made your drink a little too strong. “We are now. Last guess.”

Ryland leans his hip against the countertop and looks you over again, even more intensely. “Comp sci.”

“Wow. That is…” You let it hang there for a second, so he can feel good about himself before you let him down. “Incorrect. Sorry. No prize for you.”

“There was a prize? Damn.” He’s still grinning, seemingly unfazed by being wrong. Boo. “Well, what is it?”

“English lit.”

His eyes widen. “Yeah, I never would have guessed that.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, for starters, pretty much everyone in this apartment right now is in the sciences.” He picks up his own drink, then, and takes a long sip, looking at you over the rim of the cup. “And you don’t look the type.”

You scoff and cross your arms. “The hole you’re digging yourself into is getting deeper. You know that, right?”

“I just meant—I don’t know, you seem intelligent.” Instead of deigning that comment with a response, you mime digging and throwing dirt over your shoulder. “Alright, that’s fair.”

“This usually goes a little better for you, huh?”

“A bit, yeah. Can I get a do-over?” Ryland mirrors your posture, crossing his own arms over his chest. His shirt has some kind of science pun printed on it, but you can’t see all of the joke.

“No.” You shift against the counter and uncross your arms—no body-mirroring for him—before taking another sip and then sighing. Ugh. Fine. “But you can ask me again after I’ve had a few more drinks.”

This makes him smile again, but this time it’s a little more purposeful, a little calculating. “Bottoms up, then.” He taps his cup against yours, and you both take a deep drink.

The two of you just look at each other, then, sizing up your opponents, until someone yells in the living room. “Everyone, get in here! We’re playing a game.” You’re pretty sure it’s Josh. Man, you fucking hate that guy.

“Shall we?” Ryland gestures toward the doorway.

You say nothing, simply turning around and walking out of the kitchen. You will be doing everything in your power not to sit next to this frustratingly cute and, frankly, annoying man.

--

They have been arguing over the rules for the past fifteen minutes.

Marissa is sitting on Josh’s lap next to you. You are trying not barf at the way he’s groping her thighs. On your other side is Ryland, because evidently the universe is choosing to punish you this evening.

You sigh as someone nitpicks another rule again, something about ‘well that’s not how I’ve always played it,’ and pull out your phone. Initially, you intended to just look up the rules yourself so something will actually happen, but then you see an email from your advisor. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Ryland leans over to look at your phone, pressing into your side. Great. He’s an arrogant dick who also has no sense of personal space. “You know, it’s a little lame to be on your phone at a party.”

You ignore the last comment. “It’s an email from my advisor.”

“Short story due at eleven, or something?”

Does he think that this is effective flirting? Being an asshole? “English lit, not creative writing, remember? And she wants to meet about potential dissertation topics.”

He hums and peers at your screen a little more closely. You turn it off out of spite. “And do you have those? Ideas for your diss?”

“Victorian novels. I just need to pick a more specific lens.”

“Wow. Isn’t that stuff super uptight and prudish?”

It is actually impressive at this point. “It’s literally kind of the opposite. God, you probably don’t even know who Foucault is, do you?”

Ryland waves a hand and takes another drink. “Sure I do. History of Sexuality, right?” You blink at him in surprise, and he just smiles cheekily. “Not all STEM students are illiterate.”

“You could have fooled me,” you snipe back. You lift up your cup. Damn. Empty.

You start to stand to get another drink, because it doesn’t seem like much progress has been made on the rules, but he gets up instead. “I got it. What do you want?”

“Um. Vodka and…whatever is fine. Don’t roofie me. I watch a lot of true crime. I know how to make it look like you’ve had an accident.”

Ryland laughs, abruptly, like he wasn’t expecting it. “Good to know.”

You watch as he walks away. Marissa elbows you. “Sounds like it’s going well. I told you.”

“Uh, have you even been listening? He’s an asshole,” you scoff. She simply smiles knowingly. “Absolutely not.”

Josh pipes up. You wish he wouldn’t. “Ryland’s a great guy, actually. Probably the smartest person in the department. The faculty love him.”

There are a few things you would like to say in response, ranging from ‘who asked’ to ‘being smart doesn’t give you license to be a prick,’ but you don’t get the chance to pick, because Ryland is already returning from the kitchen and settling in beside you again on the couch. It is unclear whether he is pressing his thigh against yours on purpose. He clinks his cup against yours after he’s handed you your drink.

You sputter the second it hits your lips. “Jesus Christ, what did you put in this? Gasoline?”

“You said vodka and whatever. I might have emphasized the vodka over the whatever.” He clinks you again. “Come on, proper drink this time.”

“Are you trying to get me shitfaced?”

He sets his cup down on the table with a grin before sprawling his arm across the back of the couch behind you. “You did say I’d have to wait for a do-over until after a few drinks,” he points out.

God, it must be 80% liquor. You try not to grimace as you swallow it down. “Actually, I said you could ask for one. I never promised I’d say yes.”

The hand that isn’t behind you taps against his thigh. “Are you this pedantic with everyone you meet?”

“No. Just the annoying people.”

“Mm. I see.” The look he’s giving you is—you don’t like it, whatever it is, you don’t like the way his eyes seem to sharpen at the challenge, how he searches your face, the fact that he’s still smiling, but it’s gained that calculated edge again. “Guess I’ll just have to take my chances.”

Yeah, good luck with that, buddy, you think.

--

“That’s not even—I’m starting to think you haven’t even read volume one, you just threw out the title to try and score some points.”

Ryland is still grinning, and the two of you are still sitting on the couch, because he’d goaded you into a conversation after the game finished. You are pointedly ignoring Josh and Marissa making out next to you. You feel your hand twitch, probably because you would like to punch the look he’s giving you off his face.

“I’ve skimmed it.”

“You’ve. Skimmed it.”

“Yeah. It was kind of boring.”

The worst thing is that you kind of agree with him, because Foucault is so ubiquitous at this point that he can be kind of a chore to read, but you will not be giving him the satisfaction. “Right, sorry, I forgot—your critical thinking skills are probably a little lacking. They don’t really emphasize close reading in microbiology, do they?”

This makes him smile harder. “You remembered.”

“Oh, fuck off, Marissa probably mentioned it before. Speaking of—Marissa? I’d like to—” You turn around and immediately regret the decision, because now you’ll need to and burn the image of Josh’s tongue stuck down her throat out of your mind.

“I think she’s a little preoccupied at the moment.”

“Yeah, I see that now. Whatever, I’m going home.”

His eyebrows furrow. “Uh, it’s, like, one in the morning. Just crash on the couch.” You look at him flatly. “Right. It’s kind of in use at the moment.”

“I’ll just walk, it’s fine. It’s not that far.” You go to stand and then almost fall over. “Okay, I know that made it look like I’m too drunk to stand, but the couch is just really deep.”

“Of course.”

“Seriously. I’m just going to find my shoes and bounce.”

He stands up beside you. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Not necessary.”

“It kind of is.” Ryland finds your shoes before you can and hands them over. “This neighborhood is terrible. My bike keeps getting stolen.”

You slip your shoes on after a few attempts. “Have you tried not getting it stolen?”

“Hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.”

A laugh slips out before you can even register it. You purposefully do not look to see whatever smug expression he’s likely wearing. “Fine,” you sigh. “Just—I don’t owe you for this, or whatever. Don’t go asking for any favors like proofreading your papers, since I’m sure they’re probably riddled with grammatical errors.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

--

The walk really isn’t that long, but he sticks with you the whole way, catching your arm when you stumble over a raised crack in the concrete. He also doesn’t shut up the entire time, bouncing between commenting on the houses or pointing out the meager constellations in the sky above you.

When you finally reach your apartment complex, he turns to face you as you’re fumbling with your keys and unlocking the door. “So. About that do-over.”

You smile at him, sweetly, standing just inside the threshold, before closing the door in his face.

--

Erik Satie is drifting through the apartment from the TV—that three-hour loop of Gymnopédie no. 1, but it’s from your neighbor’s apartment, you know the one—while you skim through the final reading you need to do for next week’s seminar. You are comfortably swaddled in your favorite blanket, and a glass of wine sits untouched on the coffee table, because you are waiting to drink it until you finish the reading. As a treat.

The door to the apartment swings open. “I hope you’re decent,” Marissa calls, “we’re just stopping by to drop some stuff off before we head out again.”

You glance down. You’re only in pajama shorts and a tank top, but most of it is hidden by the blanket, so it’s probably fine. “Yeah, I’m decent. Also, who’s ‘we’?”

Marissa doesn’t need to answer, because then she’s walking in with Josh and—Ryland. Of course. Great. Wonderful. “We’ll be out of your hair in two seconds!” And then she and Josh are walking into her room, leaving you alone with Ryland.

He looks at the TV, then at your blanket cocoon. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then, because he’s an annoying prick, he walks over and plops down right next to you on the couch. “What are you up to?”

You shuffle over as best as you can while still wrapped up in the blanket. “Reading for class. Lacan.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Figures.”

“Can I see?” He doesn’t bother waiting for a response, because he’s already grabbing your laptop from your lap and skimming the text, pushing his glasses up while he does so. “Oh, psychoanalysis. That always seemed like a load of BS to me.”

Your left eyelid twitches, not because he’s snatched your laptop without actually asking or even that you disagree with him. It is, once again, because you do agree with him. “Well, it’s important for the history of literary studies, so.”

“How so?” He sets the laptop on the table instead of handing it back to you. Whatever. You were almost done with it anyway. “Also, classic video,” he says, gesturing at the TV.

“Thanks. And seriously? Psychoanalysis has been a dominant critical lens in lit for, like, decades.” Unfortunately.

Ryland simply leans back, making himself comfortable on the couch. Your couch. “I’ll take your word for it.”

The soft piano music is still playing. It feels at odds with your growing frustration. You lean forward to close your laptop, letting the blanket slip off of your shoulders. He shifts, just barely, beside you on the couch. “I feel like it’s been longer than a few minutes,” you mumble, waving your hand in the direction of Marissa’s room. “Aren’t you guys going to be late to—whatever it is that you’re going to?”

“Nah. We’re just going to a bar to meet up with some people in bio and astrophysics.” He sits up a little straighter, then, as if he’s been struck with an idea. “You should come.”

“Uh, no. I already have plans.”

“Right. I’m guessing those plans involve the glass of wine and Erik Satie.”

“Precisely.”

Ryland looks between you and the wine for a few beats, before his hand shoots out and grabs the glass. And then he’s chugging it.

“Dude, seriously?” You whine. “I was saving that.”

He brings the glass down from his lips, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sorry.” He does not sound even a little apologetic. “Here, there’s still some left.”

You make a disgusted face at him and push his hand away. “Ew, no, I don’t want it now. It’s probably got your disgusting backwash in it.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, and then downs the last swallow. “It wasn’t even very good wine. You should try a Zinfandel next time. Maybe a White. I think you'd like it.”

This man. Comes into your apartment. Chugs your wine. And then insults it. “You’re incorrigible.”

The right corner of his mouth lifts. “I get that a lot. Also, ‘incorrigible’? Very Jane Austen.”

“Don’t even. Your lips aren’t worthy to speak her name.”

He laughs, and it’s the surprised one again, and your mouth pulls into a smile without you meaning to. “Well, looks like your evening just opened up. Come with us.”

Marissa and Josh choose that moment to reemerge from her room. “Ooh, yes!” She gasps. “You should totally come. I want you to meet the new astrophysics cohort. I think you’d like them.”

Probably not, but she’s looking at you so pleadingly, and you figure you can leverage this into her paying for groceries in a couple days. “Fine, fine. I just need, like, ten minutes.”

You stand up and leave the blanket crumpled on the sofa. “What, you don’t want to go dressed like that?” Ryland says behind you.

You say nothing as you walk to your room, though there may be a middle finger thrown up somewhere along the way.

--

You are getting so tired of being subjected to science while drinking.

One of the new first-years that Marissa mentioned is chatting animatedly at you. Not to you, at you, because you can’t even remember the last time you said something in this increasingly one-sided conversation. Something about going to Harvard, you think, and it’s unbearable, because he keeps referring to it as ‘the school in Boston,’ as if that isn’t widely known as the way people who go to Harvard and need everyone to know that fact talk about it.

You’re contemplating how much it would hurt to start slamming your head against the bar top when Ryland—because of fucking course—walks up to the two of you. “Sorry—George, right? I have a burning English literature question for my friend here, so I need to steal her away for a second.”

He tugs you away, and you barely have time to grab your drink from the bar. “Not friends.”

“Sorry, what was that? ‘Thank you for saving me from that conversation’? If so, you’re welcome.”

You roll your eyes as the two of you stop and stand toward the back of the bar. “I didn’t need saving. The conversation would have stopped eventually.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs. “I’m pretty sure he was trying to get in your pants.”

“So? What do you want, a medal? ‘Oh Ryland,’” you fawn, overexaggerated and utterly fake, “‘thank you for saving me from someone who wanted to have sex with me! Whatever would I have done without my white knight!’ Something like that?”

He looks down at you over the rims of his glasses and leans against the wall. “I think that’s the first time you’ve actually said my name.”

“Oh, my God. Do you have to try to be this self-centered, or does it just come naturally to you?”

This, apparently, does not warrant a response in his mind, because he simply brings his beer to his lips and takes a swig before speaking again. “I did actually have a question. Do I get my do-over yet?”

You hope that the look you’re giving him right now is effectively communicating how ridiculous you think all of this is. “Are you seriously still stuck on that? That was, what, a month ago?”

“Three weeks, actually.”

A huffed laugh comes out through your nose at that. “And you called me pedantic.”

Ryland smiles, wide and brilliant, and you are choosing to define the weird flip in your chest as annoyance. “So you do remember our conversation.”

“Why are you, like, obsessed with me? Is annoying me just that much fun for you?”

“Nah.” He steps a little closer to you, then, and you have to tilt your head up to maintain eye contact. “I just like the challenge. I’ve never met a problem I couldn’t solve.”

You decide, in that moment, to be the biggest, most frustrating, and, most importantly, most unsolvable problem ever.

--

The library is packed and deadly silent, save for the periodic page-turn and the clacking of laptop keys. There’s a tinge of seriousness to the air as the undergraduates bear down for midterms: no quiet laughter, no running around, no music blasting way too loud out of someone’s ear buds.

Josh is over at the apartment, again, which is annoying, firstly because it means the relationship is lasting longer than you thought it would, and second because you cannot get any work done when they hang out. (For obvious reasons.) There’s no exam you’re prepping for like many of the students around you, but you are trying to work on one of your seminar papers. Last year you had put most of them off until the end of the semester, and that had been a disaster, so you’re trying to get into the habit of starting them early.

You can sense him before you see him. He has a knack for finding you around campus. At first, you thought he might be stalking you, but you have come to learn that he is simply not organized enough for something like that.

“Is this seat taken?” Ryland asks. He sits down, because he never bothers to wait for your response. “What are you up to?”

“Writing a paper. Hush. We’re in a library.”

“Right.” He doesn’t take anything out to work on, instead just sitting there and tapping his fingers on the table, then grabbing one of your books and flipping through it.

He’s fidgeting. “You’re fidgeting,” you whisper. “It’s annoying. Stop.”

He sighs and puts the book down. “Did you like the thing I sent you?” Someone at the next table shoots him a death glare, and he puts his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry.”

Then he pulls his phone out and types something before setting it down on the table. The screen of your own phone lights up. Ryland looks between it and you expectantly. You close your eyes, sighing, and grab it. You don’t even know who originally gave him your number. Probably Marissa.

Hey

Hi

What’s the paper about?

applying psychoanalysis to Wuthering Heights

Sounds boring.

What are you doing this weekend?

…applying psychoanalysis to Wuthering Heights

I see

Well what if

And hear me out on this

You did something else?

Something that is actually fun and interesting

like what.

also, I want you to know that I am actively choosing to ignore that you are insulting my field.

Noted.

And, coming to the observatory

Marissa is giving that public-facing presentation

And they’re doing a cool show after

You should come!

It will heal your inner child

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, because you’re worried you’re going to strain them with how much you’ve been doing it recently. You had accidentally let it slip to him a week or so ago that your dream job as a child was being an astronaut, and he simply would not let it go, no matter how many times you pointed out that most people’s dream job when they were a kindergartener was to be an astronaut.

if I say yes, will you stop talking about my ‘inner child’?

it’s especially rich coming from someone who thinks psychoanalysis is ‘a load of BS’

…I can try?

You put your phone back down and try to return to your paper. It lights up several more times, and Ryland grows more fidgety each time you ignore it. He looks about ready to explode when you finally give up and look at the little screen again.

So is that a yes?

I’m assuming that’s a yes.

Hellooooo

I know that you know that I’m still texting you

Your eyes do this thing. I don’t know if you’re aware

But it makes it obvious

And I am very perceptive. Some would say the most perceptive person ever

I want to go get a coffee. Do you want a coffee?

You should come get a coffee. You look tired

you really need to get tested for ADHD

Probably, but that sounds like a lot of effort

it’s really not. I got tested last year

Wait really?

You have ADHD?

I didn’t know that

I’m well-medicated

you should try it.

Meh.

Sooooooo

Coffee?

You are pretty tired, and it is becoming very clear that you will not be getting any work done as long as he’s sitting there, so you sigh (again) and start packing your things up. Ryland stands immediately and waits for you, impatiently tapping his foot and messing with the pockets of his jeans. You put your things in your backpack even more slowly, just to mess with him.

He exhales loudly when you finally make it outside. He had gotten stopped by an undergrad, one of his students, probably, since you’re pretty sure you heard something about office hours. The student had looked at Ryland like he hung the stars in the sky; it is actually quite annoying how good he seems to be at teaching. He even has a RateMyProfessor page, which TAs don’t often get, and it is full of glowing reviews. Not that you’ve looked at it, or anything.

“Finally. I don’t know how you get any work done in there. Way too quiet.”

“Again. ADHD. Testing. Go do it.”

“Nah. I mean, everything’s worked out for me pretty well so far without being treated for it. I am a—”

“A presidential fellow, yes, I think you’ve mentioned that before.” He falls into step beside you, shortening his strides so you don’t have to quicken your pace to keep up. “And a published scholar, and you already have a research assistantship lined up for the summer. It’s incredible, really, how much you manage to talk about yourself.”

The conversation has, evidently, grown boring for him, because he immediately changes the subject. “You never answered my question. About if you liked the thing that I sent you.”

You snort. “What, the picture of Mr. Darcy with the caption ‘literally me’? As if. You wish you were Mr. Darcy.”

“Hey. I could be. I think I could pull of the tall, dark, stoic persona.” You look at him sideways and quirk an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe not the stoic part.”

“Or the dark hair. You’ve got the insufferable pride down, though.” The whole point is that Mr. Darcy isn’t actually all that insufferably proud, not really, but whatever,

Ryland ignores the second comment. “Yeah, I don’t think I could do the dark hair. To be honest, I’ve never even seen that movie. Or read the book, but that’s probably obvious.”

You stop in your tracks. He keeps walking for a few seconds until he notices that you’re no longer beside him, and then he also stops and turns around. “You’ve. Never seen. Pride and Prejudice.”

“Uh, no?”

“Not even the BBC series?”

“Well, seeing as I didn’t even know there was one until just now, nope.”

This is. Unacceptable. You’re about to tell him as much, but then you realize that you shouldn’t care whether he’s seen the movie or not, and that, actually, it gives you something to hold over his head, so you resume walking.

He matches your pace again. “Why, should I?”

An image pops into your mind, then, unbidden: the two of you sitting together, watching Pride and Prejudice, drinking wine. That gets mentally waved away. “No. Whatever. Do what you want, I don’t care.”

Ryland is silent for a moment, which is pretty unusual for him. “Yeah. I probably wouldn’t like it, anyway.”

He’s goading you, and you know it, and you know that he knows it, so you purposefully choose to stay silent. It does not take him long to start talking again, all the way to the coffee shop, the entire time you sit there and drink your shitty cappuccino that he ordered for you without asking what you wanted. (It would have been the cappuccino.)

--

“Thank you for coming, everyone, and enjoy the observatory!”

Marissa steps away from the podium and walks toward you, Ryland, and Josh. She immediately wraps her arms around Josh’s neck and kisses him. You fight the urge to grimace.

“That was amazing,” you say, once she’s done with that revolting display.

Ryland nods next to you. “Even she managed to follow along,” and he nudges you with his elbow. You jab him back, much harder.

“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you all coming. Now, go, go, Josh and I are going to—enjoy the observatory.” She grins and does an exaggerated wink before walking away with Josh.

You and Ryland stand next to each other, silent, watching them leave. “I think they’re going through a rough patch,” he finally remarks.

That makes you whip your head towards him. “Really?” Marissa hadn’t mentioned this to you, although you both had been so busy recently that you hadn’t had much time to hang out together, just the two of you.

“Yeah. Can I be honest?” Once again, he does not wait for an answer. “Josh is kind of a dick, and Marissa is way out of his league.”

“Oh my God, thank you!” You burst out. He looks at you with a slightly shocked smile. “Sorry. I really don’t like him. I thought they would have broken up already.”

He simply laughs and then looks away, gesturing vaguely toward the rest of the observatory. “Well. Do you want to look around?”

“Sure. As long as there is no mansplaining along the way.”

You follow him toward the first exhibition area on the way to the domed screen room. “Is it mansplaining if I know what I’m talking about and you don’t?”

“Tonight? Yeah. It is.”

The next hour or so is spent moving leisurely through the observatory. Unfortunately, you have to admit—begrudgingly—that he is quite knowledgeable about all of this, and you end up listening attentively as he comments on the various displays. It’s—he’s just a tad less insufferable like this, when he’s explaining the solar system or the speed of light, and there’s a gleam in his eyes that makes you understand why people are otherwise so drawn to him.

At one point, he stops in front of a didactic discussing the possibility of life beyond Earth. “People are so hung up on water,” he murmurs, “and they swear that it’s necessary for life.”

“I mean, isn’t it?”

Ryland looks at you then and smiles. It’s almost wistful. “That’s what the prevailing opinion has been, yeah. I’m going to prove them wrong.”

You should think that this is incredibly cocky, just like everything else about him, but he sounds so convinced, so sure of himself, that you find yourself almost believing him. Almost.

--

The ‘rough patch’ that Ryland referred to becomes apparent on the day of your birthday, when Marissa tells you that Josh isn’t coming to the party, because apparently he doesn’t want to hang out with your ‘humanities friends,’ as he called them, and her mouth twists when she says it.

“Ryland’s coming, though,” she adds, her face buried into your shoulder as you hug her. “Said he wouldn’t miss it.”

“That’s—I mean. He could if he wanted to.”

She chuckles, a little wetly, and pulls away. “I still don’t understand why you hate him so much.”

“I don’t…hate him.” The admission is probably more surprising to you than it is to Marissa. “I just think he’s insufferable, and arrogant, and incredibly self-centered.”

“I cannot wait until the two of you hate fuck. It’s going to be awesome, and I am going to tell you ‘I told you so’ every day.” There she is. Fuck Josh. It’s your birthday, and you want her to be happy.

You scoff and continue setting out the alcohol the two of you had purchased earlier that day onto the kitchen island. “As if. The universe will experience heat death before—that happens.”

“See?” Marissa smiles. “You’re even using science metaphors. He’s in there.” She presses a finger to your temple.

“Sure. If by ‘in there’ you mean it like termites in your walls. Or bed bugs.”

About thirty minutes later, people start to filter in, mostly other grad students in your department, some from Marissa’s that you can actually tolerate. Ryland is right on time, and he gives you a hug and whispers ‘happy birthday,’ but you otherwise don’t see much of him; you’re too busy flitting around and saying hello, engaging in a debate about Charles Dickens and trying to avoid the guy in the year above you—Ben—who you hooked up with for a while last year.

It’s fun. You’re having fun, you tell yourself, even though all anyone can talk about is English literature, and you are so tired of talking about it, because it’s all you think about most of the time, and Ben had cornered you at one point and given you a hug that lasted way too long.

You’re standing out on your dinky little balcony off of the living room, trying to take a breath and enjoy the cold night air, when the glass door slides open and Ryland walks out. “Having fun?”

“Yeah. Loads.” You adjust the party hat on your head that Marissa had wrestled you into.

He comes up beside you and drapes his arms on the railing. “Who was that guy you were talking to, earlier?”

“Ben, probably.”

He hums. “He seemed. Eager.”

You turn around to rest your back against the wood. “Something like that. We used to—well.”

“But not anymore?” You can tell that he’s trying to say this lightly and failing, because the words come out a little strained.

“No. It was—it was fine, for what it was. Why do you care?”

Ryland doesn’t answer the question, instead shifting so he’s facing you. “Fine? Not good?”

“I guess. He wasn’t. I don’t know.”

“Not good at giving you what you wanted?” His voice has dropped, coming out low and raspy, and he moves forward an inch. “He doesn’t seem like the type.”

Your body tilts, reflexively, and you look up at him, watching his eyes search your face, his glasses sliding down his nose a little. “What type would that be?” You whisper.

His hand reaches forward, then, and his fingers graze your upper arm, just above your elbow. “The type to know what you need and be able to give it to you.”

The streetlamp in the distance illuminates the side of his face, just barely, enough to show you the look in his eyes, the hunger there as he steps a little closer, as his hand curls around your bicep. “And you think you know what that is, I take it?” Your voice almost catches in your throat.

“I don’t think,” he murmurs. “I know.”

And then he closes the distance, his nose brushing against yours, and he’s kissing you, and it is not soft or reverent or gentle. It is desperate, and wet, and fierce, and you moan as his other arm wraps around the small of your back. He licks into your mouth, then, and you press your body against him. You are aching, aching for the friction and the taking and the wanting, and—

And then someone is fiddling with the glass door, and the two of you jump apart as Marissa finally manages to slide it open. “Cake time! Oh—sorry. Am I…was I interrupting something?”

“No,” you say, at the exact moment Ryland says, “Yeah, kind of,” and then the two of you are looking at each other, and you remember how annoying he is, how he had assumed everything about you, what you wanted and needed, and that he could give it to you; so you push past him back into your apartment.

When you blow the candles out, you can’t think of a wish.

--

Marissa and Josh break up by the end of the semester.

You spend a week comforting her, promising her that it wasn’t her fault, that Josh was a dick who didn’t deserve her—which is true, by the way—and the whole time you try not to think about how this means you would likely be seeing a lot less of Ryland.

He hadn’t texted you, not since your birthday, and he had stopped popping up randomly around campus. This is good. It means that you finish your paper, and then Marissa decides to go home a little early to spend time with her family, and then you are alone in your apartment, ignoring a text from Ben and finishing up the last of your grading for the semester.

Then you get an email from your professor, the one you had submitted the Wuthering Heights paper to, and—it wasn’t great. The feedback was mostly negative, calling it pessimistic and overdone, warning you that your dissertation would need to be better.

So now you’re bundled up on the couch, attempting to get drunk off of a bottle of White Zinfandel, while Erik Satie plays in the background. You really wish Marissa was here, so you could commiserate together, but she’s not, so you simply down the last little bit of wine in your glass, and you find that you don’t have the energy to get up and pour yourself another, even though you’re barely buzzed at this point.

There’s a knock on the door.

You have no idea who it could be, so you decide to ignore it, but then they keep knocking. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” you call out, shuffling over to the door because the blanket is still wrapped around you.

Ryland is on the other side when you open it, holding a cardboard box. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

A few beats pass, and then he holds the box up. “Some of Marissa’s stuff. Josh was—well. You know how he is.”

“Yeah. She’s not here. You can—just set it down on the counter.” You step aside so he can walk in and place it on the kitchen island.

He looks at the TV, then the empty glass on the coffee table, the wine bottle sitting out by the fridge, and finally the way that you’re currently waddling around in your cocoon. “Rough night?”

“Something like that.” You’re too exhausted to bicker, so you simply make your way back to the couch and sit down. “Bad feedback on a paper. Really bad.”

“The psychoanalysis one?” He’s still in your apartment. Whatever. You can’t find it in you to care. You nod. “Hm. I told you it was boring.”

“Ryland.” This makes him freeze, because you’ve made it a point not to call him by his name. “I can’t. Not tonight.”

“Alright.”

Then he does something you do not expect: he walks forward instead of just leaving, sitting down on the couch next to you, grabbing the remote off the table and navigating through a bunch of different menus. “What are you doing.”

“Putting on a movie.”

He has to pull his credit card out, because Pride and Prejudice isn’t on any streaming services. You have it on DVD. You do not tell him this.

The movie starts playing, and you close your eyes as the opening piano number starts playing, and he shifts a little closer and puts his arm around you. You let him.

He laughs when he should, and makes stupid little comments, about how it doesn’t make sense that they’re calling Lizzie plain because Keira Knightly is beautiful, and that Mrs. Bennett is kind of an overbearing bitch, and at one point you giggle at something he says, and his arm tightens around you.

Then he watches, raptly, as Mr. Darcy helps Lizzie into the carriage, at the shot of his hand flexing afterward. “Oh. I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“The appeal. The—he loves her. So much that the touch is enough and also not. He knows that she might not feel the same, and that it doesn’t make sense for them to be together, and he still hopes that she loves him back. And if she doesn’t, he’ll live off of that touch for the rest of his life.”

It’s—you’re not a film scholar, but he’s reading the scene quite well, and he’s looking at you in a way that you can’t place. The two of you just keep staring at each other for a while, until you finally whisper, “You’re not watching the movie.”

“Right. Sorry.”

The rest of the movie plays, and you cry a little when Mr. Darcy walks through the field at sunrise, when he calls Lizzie ‘Mrs. Darcy’ and kisses her at Pemberley, wishing that you could be seen and loved so thoroughly. “Well, what did you think?” You ask, wiping at your face and clearing your throat.

“It—I liked it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You keep staring at the TV for a little while, because you’re scared to look at him, scared to break the fragile silence that has fallen around you both, scared to admit that you have been a little bit unfair in your judgement of him.

He squeezes your shoulder. “Hey. Look at me.”

You turn to face him, and you let the blanket wrapped around you fall as you do. Ryland’s eyes dip down, just for a moment, to look at the straps of your tank top, the way that the blanket pools around your waist. When he meets your gaze again, his eyes are wide and pleading, and his eyebrows are raised, pinching at the center. “Ryland,” you breathe.

“Yes?”

“I—I’m sorry. About my birthday.”

“Uh, what?” For a moment, the irrational part of your brain thinks he doesn’t remember, and he must catch the way that your face falls minutely. “No, I’m not—I just wasn’t expecting. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But I did.”

“But you didn’t,” he insists. “I was—what was that word you used—incorrigible, that’s it.” You smile, just a little, and it makes him that much bolder, bringing his hand back up to grasp your nearly bare shoulder. You shudder at the touch. “What did Mr. Darcy say? About pride?”

His fingers shift to play with the strap of your top. You turn toward him more fully so you can place a hand on his knee. “That—it’s hard to forgive someone’s offenses against him. That once his good opinion is lost, it’s lost forever.”

Ryland hums. “Have I lost your good opinion, then?”

“No,” you whisper. Because—as much as he has been utterly insufferable over the past few months, he has also been kind, and caring, and devoted, and you don’t think anyone else has been so utterly captivated by you before. “No, you haven’t.”

You lean forward, then, and this kiss is soft, and gentle, so gentle that you have to be the one to deepen it, squeezing his leg and running your tongue over his bottom lip, and the way he groans into your mouth goes straight between your thighs. “Ryland,” you mumble into his mouth, “please,” and you don’t even know what you’re asking for.

But he does—of course he does—and he leans forward until your back is resting against the couch, and he’s unraveling the blanket around you, pressing his mouth against your neck as he drags your shorts down. You think you know where he’s going, then, but he keeps surprising you; his hands slide up underneath your shirt and lift the fabric up until he’s licking at your breasts, and at the shocked gasp you let out, he smiles. “I told you I knew what you needed.”

You don’t get a chance to respond. His lips close around one of your nipples, sucking and licking, and you clutch at his shoulders and buck your hips up. “Oh,” you sigh, “that’s—just like that, you—you—”

His hips rut against the couch, but he keeps taking his time, laving his tongue against you, grasping your thigh with one of his hands and pressing the palm of the other into your cunt. You whine, and then you can feel him grinning against your breast, and that old fire flickers inside of you, the one that urges you to put him in his place. You decide to wait. For now.

Finally, he nudges your underwear aside and feels the heat, the wetness of you, just for a moment, before one of his fingers slowly slides inside of you. Your back arches, just a little, at the feeling, and he looks up at you from your chest. His glasses are crooked, and you fix them before sliding your hand into his hair. “You sound—it’s just like I imagined,” he groans around the bud of your nipple, “so needy. Just let me, I can make you feel so good, I know I can, I know I’m the only one who can do it, just the way you need.”

Your hips jerk against his hand, and he dips another finger inside of you, and the sound of it is utterly obscene. “You—you’re so fucking cocky,” you manage to get out, “always so sure that you’re right.”

His hand shifts, then, so that he can press his thumb against your clit, and it sends your head pressing against the cushion underneath you. “But I am. That’s the thing, isn’t it—I’m right, and you know that I’m right.” You simply turn your cheek into the couch instead of responding, because you think you can come like this, with his fingers inside of you and his thumb rubbing at your clit. “No,” Ryland mutters, the hand that was holding your thigh coming up to grasp your jaw, forcing you to look at him. “This isn’t—I’m not done.”

You want to ask him what he’s not done with, but then he’s shifting down the couch, pulling your underwear down and staring at your glistening cunt, pushing his glasses up to make sure he can see it. Part of you wants to feel a little embarrassed, but mostly you just want him to make you come, so you jut your hips up towards his face.

His eyes flick up to yours, just for a moment, full of amusement, and then his mouth comes up against you, and you realize in that moment that it’s not just good for talking. It’s—he actively learns your movements, gaging the way you grind against his tongue, adjusting how his tongue laps at you to drag out your pleasure, quickening when you need it and slowing when you want him to go faster. “You—you motherfucker, please,” you whimper.

“No,” he says, simply, into the slick of you.

“I—What? What do you mean, no?”

His head tilts up, then, resting against your thigh. His fingers are still dragging inside of you. “I said I know what you need, not just what you want. This is me giving it to you,” and he curls against your walls, “Don’t you want that?”

You can only gasp and clutch at his hair. “Fuck. You.”

“That’s the plan.”

Time is meaningless, then, as he licks and sucks and teeths at your clit, adding another finger inside of you, always stopping right when you’re on the edge, until you’re trembling against the couch, until the only thought on your mind is coming against his mouth. Finally, finally, he doesn’t still when he normally would, moaning into your cunt as you ride your orgasm out against his face.

When he pulls his shirt off over his head and shimmies out of his jeans, you’re able to gather yourself enough to push at his shoulders, until he’s sitting on the couch while you straddle him, and you try to commit the surprised and wanting look on his face to memory. “You think you’ve got everything figured out,” you laugh breathlessly. “But maybe I know what you need, too.”

He clutches your hips as you hover over him. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“Someone to put you in your place.”

You sink down onto him, then, and relish the way his eyes flutter shut, the way his lips part and let out a moan, how his fingers dig into your skin. The pace you set is slow and exacting. You want to watch every look that crosses his face, feel every twitch of his cock inside of you, hear the way he whimpers and whines, just like you knew that he would.

“So good.” Your hand moves up to rest on his throat, and his eyes snap open, and you find that you can’t look away from the deep blue of them, even if you wanted to. “So good, just for me.”

Ryland nods feverishly as his hands draw up your back. “Wanted this—for so long. So fucking long.”

You smile and quicken your pace, clutching at the back of the couch behind him with your other hand. “I know. I know you did.”

His head lolls back as you grind down onto him, and after a few moments the hand at his throat moves up so you can grab his jaw and make him look at you. There aren’t any more words, now, save for the way he gasps your name, over and over and over again, and you know that you’ll never get tired of it, the way your name sounds when it’s cried out from his mouth.

You can tell when he’s close, even before he tells you, when he’s babbling into your throat as you press your chest against his. “I—I’m—don’t want to, not until you come again.”

“Then do something about it, if you want it so bad.”

He lifts you up, then, briefly, before laying you back against the couch again, never taking his eyes off of you, leveraging the access the position gives him to circle at your clit again with his fingers. You fight the urge to close your eyes. You want to watch him, watch as he looks at you with this expression that you cannot name; you want to be able to look down to see his hips snapping into yours, his fingers moving in frantic circles because he cannot stand the thought of not giving you what you need, just like he promised.

“Ryland,” you moan again, grasping his shoulders. His name on your lips is like some kind of command to attention for him. “Just. Just like that. It’s so—you—”

He dips his head down to bite gently at your throat. “I know, I know, I—I told you, I told you I could do it, that I knew how, just let me do it, please, please, I need you so badly,” and that makes your body draw taut and then release, the thought that he doesn’t just want you to satisfy some childish urge, but that he needs you, he needs you to feel good, needs to feel you come around him.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that you can feel him still against you, his teeth grazing against your neck and your name vibrating against the flutter of your pulse, and then he just stays there, resting inside of you, skin pressed against yours.

You let your breaths fall into pace with his for a while. Every so often, you clench around him, just so you can hear his strangled moan. Finally, you speak, your fingers brushing up the length of his spine. “Marissa is going to be so insufferable when I tell her about this.”

“Probably,” Ryland mumbles into your neck. You shudder against him at the feeling. “She was the one who told me to go up to you at the party.”

“Wait, really?” Your hand stills. “She never told me that.”

He huffs a little. “Yeah. She said that I was your type.”

Dealing with kids is nothing new for Grace, he’s been teaching middle schoolers, (occasionally undergraduates) for years. He loves every second spent with his students, to the point that they’re basically his children— however, nothing really prepares you from teaching middle schoolers to suddenly elementary grade.

Middle schoolers are rowdy, childish, (very much expected so, they are still children after all) and possibly every single annoying thing you can imagine, of course that doesn’t change the fact that he loves them dearly but can you just imagine spending 7 hours surrounded 20 hyper children, then multiply that by a hundred.

That’s exactly what Grace is currently having the pleasure of doing this afternoon. A fellow teacher of his had gone down with a flu and the school didn’t have anybody else available to fill in his spot, Grace being Grace thought to himself that there’s no harm right? Might as well since he doesn’t have anything urgent to do that day.

His hands dragged itself all the way to his temple to hopefully rub out the headache that he can feel is slowly getting worse. How much energy can these children store? For such a little body they sure have the energy of an extremely active golden retriever.

Grace had spent years earning his doctorate in molecular biology, he'd defended his dissertation before a panel of experts, he survived budget meetings, and middle school science affairs. (a great achievement if he does say so himself)

Even so, none of it had prepared him for the never ending chaos these children ensued.

“Mr. Grace Liam looked at me weird!”

“Mr. Grace Sophie breathed on my pencil!”

“Mr. Grace, how do sharks brush their teeth?”

Okay well, at least once in a while he does enjoy the questions they ask.

Grace had intended to answer briefly then derail the kids to finally go back to their seats or else the day would be over well before he could get the lesson started.

He truly tried.

Despite his effort (none really) a few minutes went by and he's already halfway explaining how sharks continuously replaced their teeth while drawing a crude diagram on the whiteboard.

“Which is why brushing really isn't necessary—”

He stopped.

The lesson plan on his table read: Science - States of matter.

It was practically screaming at him to finally move his ass and start teaching the actual lesson assigned. He'll have to send a message and apologize if he didn't finish it today.

Grace looked at the lesson plan then to the shark he'd drawn on the blackboard.

“....right” he muttered while erasing the shark with a defeated swipe. “let's pretend that never happened.”

“No more shark questions.”

A girl at the back raised her hand anyway.

“Do sharks use toothpaste?”

“No.”

“Are there shark dentists?”

“Also no.”

“Can a shark get cavities?”

Grace lets out a long sigh, he adores children he really does, but they sure are tiring.

He stared at the ceiling for a brief moment. It was going to be a long day but oh well.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed without much disruption. The kids were still very much awfully curious that led Grace's answer to one question to even more questions, it was eating their class time but what can he do? With how the kids are in this generation, he's surprised with just how engaged they are with the lesson.

By the time the dismissal bell rang, Grace had learned two things.

First, teachers definitely deserve a substantial raise.

Second, he'll never agree to substitute ever again.

One by one, students were swept away by waiting guardians and parents, dragging out the liveliness along with them. Silence slowly enveloped the room as it went empty, the sound of cheerful goodbyes echoing across the hallway until one student remained.

Sophie.

Grace curled an eyebrow as he approached the girl who sat quietly in her desk, coloring— a sharp contrast with how energetic she was earlier.

He glanced at the clock when he got to her side.

20 minutes.

It's been 20 minutes since the last student before Sophie had been picked up.

“Hey Sophie, who usually picks you up?” He asked gently, with that the little girl looked up with a bright smile. “My Nanny is usually here by now.”

Grace hummed before asking if he could take a loot at her ID, which she happily gave. Just as he was about to call the number at the back, he tilted his head upon seeing the girls last name. It was awfully familiar.

A name he knows well, right. A boy— a middle schooler he was teaching did mention he has a little sister. But it's not really about him, It's about you.

He remembers the first time he saw you when you dropped off Kevin's lunch when he had forgotten it at home.

.✦ ݁˖

“Sorry to interrupt.”

He looked up.

You stood in the doorway, one hand holding a lunch bag while the other was resting against the door frame. There was nothing particularly extravagant about you, you'd come in a hurry, your shirt was put on hastily, half of it was tucked in your pants while the other was hanging loose by your waist. Your hair wasn't overly messy but there were strands that's very persistent and chose to stand tall and confident.

“Kevin forgot to bring his lunch.”

Grace still remembers how your voice sounded that day, it was pleasant, soft, warm. It almost seemed like the chatters inside the room faded for a second so he could focus and listen to you.

Then you smiled when Kevin took the lunch from your hand awkwardly.

It was a genuine smile that he swore swept him off his feet.

It was bad.

Grace forgot what he'd been doing. He'd met countless people throughout his academic year, professors, researchers, students— but for the first time his thoughts came to a full stop.

Oh.

This was so unfair.

.✦ ݁˖

Grace snapped out of his thoughts when the classroom door was opened with a force enough to probably break down a wall, how the door survived he'll never know.

“Sophie I'm so sorry.” you hurried to her side and cupped the little girl's cheeks, however, the apologies died on your tongue the moment you spotted Grace.

“Mr.. Grace, it's nice seeing you here.”

Your shocked expression was to be expected, well, Grace didn't know he was substituting today either.

He offered the same polite smile he always gives you whenever your paths crossed.

“Long day?”

“Something like that.” you laughed sheepishly while crouching down to grab Sophie's bag before standing again. “Sorry for having you stay behind so late.”

“Ah.. No worries, don't apologize.”

An awkward silence settled between the two of you.

Grace had always assumed that you weren't interested in any way. Each conversation ended quickly, you rarely met his eyes for more than a second or two before looking elsewhere. You answered in short, courteous replies that felt more obligatory than genuine— not that it's wrong, don't get his words twisted. You're acting like a completely normal parent talking to their teacher, respectful and appropriate, as it should be really.

He can't even count the number of times single moms (and dads) hit him up during teacher parent meetings and it's more or less— extremely awkward. Grace believes it's inappropriate which is why he always turns them down, gently, he does not want another parent to be angry at him for absolutely no reason.

But of course, you seemed to bend and twist his morals the moment you came into his life. He had to take a breather when he caught himself wishing you'd at least flirt with him in some way. It's ridiculous really.

Grace turned to look at you when you cleared your throat, ah..he must've been staring creepily again.

“We'll…we'll get going then..”

“Drive safely.” Grace breathed out, a slight sound of reluctance laced his words.

“I will, thank you Mr. Grace.”

Still, after bidding your goodbye, it seemed like nobody wanted to move.

It was there, a proper goodbye had already been exchanged, yet your foot remained rooted on the floor. You busied yourself, smoothing out non existent wrinkles from Sophie's uniform— checking her bag for what feels like a hundredth time, all while Grace pretended to organize the papers on his desk, stealing the most obvious-non-obvious glances towards your way when he thinks you aren't looking.

It shouldn't have been surprising— with how curious Sophie was earlier, when she suddenly opened her mouth and said something that made you choke on your own saliva.

“You haven't mentioned Mr. Grace is handsome today yet, you always say it.”

You froze in your place, not daring to look at Grace's direction at all.

“Sophie.”

“Yes?” she looked up at you with that oh so innocent eyes, like she didn't just drop a bomb between the two of you.

“We talked about not blurting out everything that comes to mind.”

“But it's true! You always say it.”

Heat creeped up your face, giving it a warm tint.

The classroom was silent once again, with your daughter looking both at you and Grace, confused as to why the two of you are suddenly acting weird.

Grace's laugh tore the deafening silence, you gained the courage to look at him.

He didn't seem to be mocking you, it sounded like a disbelieving breath that escaped his mouth long before he could stop it.

“You think I'm handsome?”

“I was hoping to deny it,” A hand covered your face. “Unfortunately, I live with a tiny informant.”

Another chuckle escaped his lips. “I see.”

Grace looked at you for a long second. All this time he had mistaken your nervousness for indifference. The way you cut conversations with him short, the way you never seem to meet his eyes— suddenly the floor was much more interesting to look at, the clipped replies, and many more than he had believed to be signs of you not having any interest in him. He'd spent months convincing himself to leave you alone, thinking that anything more would only make you uncomfortable.

But if Sophie was telling the truth..

Maybe he'd been wrong.

Grace had long abandoned the papers on his desk as he dragged his feet across the floor to get to your side.

“This might be a little forward..” he admitted before rubbing the back of neck.

Grace pulled out a small notebook from the inside of his blazer and wrote something in it, he ripped a page off the spine before handing out the paper towards you.

“My number.”

You stared at the paper as though it might disappear.

“You don't have to use it,” he laughs nervously. “In fact, feel free to throw it away the moment you leave if you deem this inappropriate.” His smile turned sheepish. “But if you're comfortable with it..” he hesitated, the slightest uncertainty crossing his face.

“Would you let me take you out to dinner?”

You looked at the piece of paper in your hands then to Grace.

“Dinner?”

“Yes, dinner.”

“You want to take me out to dinner?”

“I was under the impression that part was obvious.”

Despite the embarrassment crawling under your skin, you still managed to let out a soft laugh. “I thought you didn't like me.”

“Really?” Grace asked, perplexed.

“Really.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I thought the exact same thing.”

Butterflies were invading your stomach, thrashing around that makes it hard for you to focus. “Okay so..Thursday?”

“I'd love to.” Grace answered. Already feeling giddy, the fact that this used to be a fantasy of his— something he thinks about daily to cope with the fact that he'll never be able to be with you. But now here he is, boldly asking you out for dinner, he deserves a reward for this, he really does.

“Are we going home or not?” Sophie's voice broke you out of your trance, right. It was late and the both of you needed to go home.

“Well— yeah, yeah we should.” You and Sophie hurriedly jogged towards the door, not before she could turn around and say bye to her new favorite teacher.

“Bye Mr, Grace!” Sophie called.

“See you Sophie.” Although she's a nice kid, he doesn't think he wants to go back to teaching elementary school kids.

You let yourself be pulled out by your daughter out of the classroom. All while Grace is still standing where you'd left him.

You offered him one last smile. “I'll text you”

His expression softened instantly. “I'm looking forward to it.”

divider by @/feimingo

1 | The Gospels

-> fanfiction (longer oneshots)

1.1 Chiseling Quartz (to Reach Love) | Ryland Grace x PHM OC

1.2 Blowing Ryland Grace for the First Time | Ryland Grace x Reader

1.3 drowning deep | Sub!Ryland Grace x Reader

1.4 An Experiment | Ryland Grace x Reader x Ortiz!Rocky

1.5 A Mutual Lack of Restraint | Drunk!Ryland Grace x Reader (ask)

1.6 Made Manifest, Orisons Thine | Ryland Grace x Reader Roommate AU

1.7 An Experiment, part 2 | Ortiz!Rocky x Reader

1.8 Strike a String Within me | Ryland Grace x Reader

1.9 Lover, Burn me Tender | Lars Lindstrom x Reader

2 | The Wisdom Books

-> imagines, scenarios, shorter oneshots

2.1 Grace being overwhelmed by pleasure

2.1.1. Grace overwhelmed by + crying from pleasure2.1.2. Additional Thoughts on Grace crying during sex

2.2 Calling Sub!Grace "puppy"

2.3 Calling Grace "Dr. Grace" in bed

2.4 Munch!Ryland Grace

2.5 Something about Holland March

2.6 Grace and Dangling Earrings

2.7 Sub!/Bottom!Ryland Grace

2.8 Grace and Jealousy

2.9 Wearing Grace's Fox Cardigan

3.0 Ryland with a Breeding and Sexual Overstimulation Kink

3.1 Human!Rocky x Reader

3.2 Breeding + Sexual Overstimulation + Dacryphilia | Ryland Grace

3.3 Depression Sex | Ryland Grace

3.4 Handjob + Light bondage + Implied edging | Ryland Grace

3.5 Needy!Driver

3.6 Ortiz!Rocky x Reader

3.7 Edging Lars

3.8 Sub!Lars Lindstrom x Dom!Reader

3.9 Somnophiliac Ryland

4.0 Nonchalant!Reader x Driver imagine

4.1. Holland x Reader with Sexual Intimacy Issues

4.2 Eridian!Rocky Fingering Reader

4.3 Professor!Ryland Grace x TA!Reader

4.3.1. Making out with Professor!Ryland 4.3.2. Professor!Ryland Fingering you in his Office

4.4 Dom!Ryland Grace (check the #dom!ryland grace tag as well)

4.4.1. Sensory Play/Confusion

3 | The Letters

-> headcanons

3.1 Dom!Ryland Grace

3.2 Sub!Ryland Grace

3.3. Morning Sex with Ryland Grace

3.4 Smut Headcanons for Lars

3.5 Goose Boys who Come a lot

3.6 Grace and Cunnilingus

3.7 Size/Strength Kink | Lars Lindstrom

3.8 Size/Strength Kink | Ryland Grace

3.9 First Time with Grace

3.10 Dacryphilia | Ryland Grace

3.11 Favorite Sex Positions | Grace, Lars, Holland, Driver

3.12 Light Masochist!Holland

3.13 Urethra Play/Sounding | Ryland Grace

3.14 Initial Impressions | Driver

4 | Encyclicals (SFW works)

1.0 Confession | Eridian!Rocky x Reader

Through Lover's Eyes (Series)

1.0 Lars Lindstrom

You are curled into a tight ball on the "bed"—that massive, reinforced platform layered with every soft textile and scrap of insulating foam salvaged from the Hail Mary. Every few minutes, a sharp, white-hot wave of pain rolls through your abdomen, a familiar monthly visitor that feels particularly cruel when you’re light-years away from a pharmacy.

Under your shirt, the jagged line of your "Rocky Scar"—the mark left behind when your Eridian friend saved your life—pulses in sympathy-like with the cramps. It’s a reminder of survival, but right now, you just feel like a mess of malfunctioning nerves and a waste of carbon.

A heavy, metallic thump-clack echoes across the floor. You don't have to look up to know it’s Rocky. His five-legged structure is as familiar to you as your own mind. Beside him, the lighter, more melodic tapping of Adrian’s claws follows.

"Question?" Rocky’s synthesizer voice rings out from the nightstand, clear and inquisitive. "Why is Human Y/N still in the insulation pile? The 'sun' has cycled twice. Teaching time is soon. Grace confused. I also confused."

You groan into your pillow, a sound that translates to the Eridians as a low-frequency distress signal. Adrian moves closer, her form rotating with concern. She reaches out a warm, stone-like limb, hovering it just inches from your back.

“Temperature is high,” Adrian’s whistles and clicks are translated by the small device clipped to her harness. “You are leaking heat. Is there a hull breach in your biology? Is human dying!? Please do not die! It would be very inconvenient and sad.”

"I'm not dying, Adrian," you wheeze out, squeezing your eyes shut as another cramp ripples through you. "It’s just... a human thing. My body is resetting. It hurts. A lot."

Ryland wanders in then, looking disheveled, holding a mug of chamomile tea the Eridians replicated. He sees the three of you huddled together and immediately softens. He knows the look in your eyes; he’s seen you power through lab accidents and alien microbes, but he knows this particular brand of misery is one that requires total surrender.

"They're worried about you," Ryland says softly, sitting on the edge of the platform and placing a hand on your shoulder. "Rocky thinks you’re melting because your core temp jumped a degree. I tried to explain human reproductive cycles to him, but he just got offended that your body 'destroys its own systems' once a month. He thinks it’s bad engineering."

“It IS bad engineering!” Rocky interjects, his claws clicking rapidly against the floor. “Why break the internal walls? Just keep the walls! If I built a ship that melted its floor every thirty days, Grace yell at me!”

"He's not wrong," you mutter, pressing your face into Ryland's thigh. "Ryland, tell them I'm okay. I just need to be a potato for about four days."

Adrian tilts her head, her 'eye' focusing on where you are clutching your stomach. “You are in pain. Pain is for when predators bite. There are no predators in the dome. Except maybe the vacuum, but the dome is strong. If you are in pain, we must fix.”

"You can't fix it, Adrian," Ryland says, stroking your hair. "It just has to happen. Heat helps, though."

The word heat seems to trigger something in the Eridian pair. On a planet where the surface temperature could melt lead, "heat" is their specialty. They are technically biological furnaces, their carapaces radiating a steady, dry warmth that far exceeds any electric heating pad.

Rocky steps up onto the platform. The bed groans under his weight, but it’s sturdy. “I am heat, statement.” he declares with a flourish of his limbs. “I very good at being hot. I am the best heater on Erid. Adrian is also a good heater. We will insulate the problem.”

Before you can protest, Rocky moves with surprising gentleness. He doesn't crowd you; instead, he maneuvers his heavy, five-sided body so that he is braced against your back, his warm carapace pressing firmly against your spine. The heat is immediate and intense, sinking through your shirt and into your aching muscles. It’s a dry, deep warmth that seems to vibrate.

Adrian doesn't want to be left out. She climbs onto the other side, tucking her limbs in and resting her front-side near your abdomen, being careful not to put her full weight on you. She feels like a living stone warmed by a desert sun.

Ryland watches them with a look of pure, unadulterated affection, full of care. "I think you've been secured by the Eridian Heating Company," he jokes. He crawls into the middle of the pile, slotting himself behind Rocky so he can still reach over and hold your hand.

"This is... actually amazing," you whisper. The crushing weight of the Eridians combined with their radiating heat acts like a full-body pressure therapy. The sharp stabs in your stomach begin to dull into a heavy, manageable ache.

Then, the sound starts.

It begins as a low-frequency hum, so deep you feel it in your teeth before you hear it. It’s a rhythmic, pulsing vibration coming from both Rocky and Adrian. It isn't the musical whistling of their speech; it’s more primal, a steady thrum-thrum-thrum that echoes the beat of your own heart.

"Are they... purring?" you ask, your eyes fluttering shut as the tension finally drains from your shoulders.

"Yeah," Ryland whispers, his voice thick with sleepiness. "Rocky told me about this once. When they have 'pebbles'—their young—they communal-sleep. They produce a resonance in their carapaces. It’s meant to stabilize the heart rates of the young and keep them calm while they grow. It’s a biological lullaby."

“You are small,” Rocky’s translator chirps, though his voice is lower now, hushed. “You are un-harmonic. You are pebble today. We vibrate buzz pain away. Sleep now, statement. Grace, sleep. You are noisy when worry.”

Ryland chuckles, his fingers interlacing with yours. "Copy that, Rock'. Sleeping now."

The dome is silent save for that incredible, ancient purring. It’s a sound that has existed on Erid for millions of years, a song of protection and kinship. Nestled between the two aliens and the man who traveled across the stars with you, the pain in your body feels insignificant.

You feel the scar on your side—the one that matches the one on Ryland's arm. It feels warm, almost glowing against the heat of Rocky's shell. You aren't just a human in a dome anymore; you are part of their kin, a family that doesn't care about biology or species, only about the fact that one of their own is hurting.

The lavender and apricot light of the artificial sunset fades into a deep, restful indigo. As the Eridian purring synchronizes, your breathing slows. Ryland’s head drops onto your shoulder, his breath hitching in a soft, rhythmic snore. Adrian shifts her weight, her claws making a tiny, comforting tink against the bed frame.

The last thing you feel before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep is the overwhelming sensation of being loved—not just by a man, but by a planet. You are tucked into the safest place in the universe: a cuddle pile at the edge of the galaxy, guarded by two biological furnaces who think you’re a very poorly engineered, but very dear, friend.

Outside, the Eridian winds howl and bash against the glass, but inside, there is only the warmth, the purring, and the steady, unbreakable bond of home.

He huffs out a small laugh at whatever expression must be on your face while you go through these mental gymnastics. “Sorry—I come here all the time, and normally they just start making  my food when they see me locking my bike up outside, and then someone slides it onto the table without saying anything.”

Oh. Okay, that makes more sense. “They’ve probably already made it, then, and just didn’t tell me.” As if on cue, the bell in the window to the kitchen rings. “I’ll bring it over and try to remember that for next time. Oh—I’ll get you a water, too.”

The man smiles easily at you, and you take a moment to look him over. He seems a little older than you are, probably around five years, maybe a little more, you think, but he’s well-kept, despite the fact that his hair is kind of sticking up all over the place like he hadn’t bothered to brush it after rolling out of bed. Wire-frame glasses that are barely hanging onto the tip of his nose, striking blue eyes, and—okay. Right. You are at your job, and you need to be working, not giving this man the up-down. “I’ll take a coffee as well,” and then he squints down at your name tag, “uh…Gertrude?”

“Ah—yeah, that’s not my name, they just haven’t made my tag yet, but apparently I have to wear one for customer service, or whatever. Even though it’s not right.” You tell him your real name and he nods, probably because it fits a little better than Gertrude does. “I’ll be right back.”

You run over to the window and grab the plate. Pretty standard diner breakfast fare: two pieces of wheat toast, scrambled eggs, some bacon. You return with the food and a glass of water before scurrying off to grab the coffee pot and a mug. “Thank you,” he says, and it should be a little gross because his mouth is already full of food, but you find that it is actually kind of cute.

Stop that, you tell yourself. Don’t crush on this random guy at your workplace. That never ends well. And besides, you don’t have time for dating. Your current chapter was due two weeks ago, and your advisor has started sending you passive-aggressive emails checking on your progress. Sometimes she doesn’t even put anything in the body of the email, just a subject line that says ‘how many pages have you written this week’ in all lowercase. “No problem. Let me know if you need anything else, um…”

“Oh, right. Ryland.” He lifts up the lanyard around his neck, which has a little ID badge titled ‘GROVER CLEVELAND MIDDLE,’ underneath which is a picture of him and his full name, ‘Dr. Ryland Grace.’

There is a lot to comment on here. You think you live pretty close to that school, first of all, but that’s probably the least interesting thing, because you live close to the diner, too, and so he must stop here for breakfast on his way to work. You settle on the picture, because it is laughably bad: he is only sort of smiling, but mostly he looks surprised, like the flash caught him off guard.

Ryland notices you looking at that and grins sheepishly. “Not the best picture, I know. You think I would be used to the flash since I have to get my picture taken every year. But, no. And of course this is the one going in the yearbook, too.”

“That’s…unfortunate. And also amazing.” Your gaze drops to his full name. “What’s your doctorate in?”

“Molecular biology. So, as you might be able to guess, I teach science.”

“Little overqualified for middle school science, huh?”

He smiles, but it’s a little strained. Oops. You don’t know what you said that is causing this reaction, but either way, it’s not good, because you would really like him to leave a nice tip so you can buy groceries later. “You would be surprised. Teaching middle school is not for the faint of heart.” Wonderful. He’s not totally pissed at you. You might actually be able to eat dinner tonight.

You simply nod and look at him for a little longer, and then realize the coffee pot is still in your hands and is starting to tip dangerously toward the floor. “Enjoy your breakfast! And let me know if you need anything. Just call my name—or Gertrude, honestly, either works, because I’ve already started to respond to it.”

“Actually—” His voice stops you from turning around completely. The coffee sloshes in the pot, and you hold it with your other hand to stop it from spilling on your legs (again), and this is a bad idea because the glass is incredibly hot. You keep it there out of spite and embarrassment. His eyes dip down toward your hand, but he does not comment on it. “Could I get some sugar? For the—coffee. Not like that. Just normal sugar.”

Shoot. You forgot to ask him about that. “Of course. Any cream?”

“Nope, just some sugar. Coffee. Coffee sugar.”

Your eyes crinkle a little at the edges. This is very dangerous. He’s cute, and he has a job, and he is most definitely a nerd who is slightly awkward but still polite. “You’re fine. I’ve been working since four AM, and the late drunk crowd was—well, about what you expect. I got comments much worse than asking for some sugar.”

Ryland winces at that but doesn’t say anything else, so you leave to return the coffee pot and grab him one of the sugar containers from the counter. You watch as he immediately grabs it after you place it on the table and dumps an absolutely obscene amount of sugar into his mug. Like, it is so much. Enough that you wonder if the texture of the drink is now equivalent to wet sand. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth,” he offers, a little embarrassed.

“I might have figured that out, yeah.”

He takes a sip of the coffee and sighs contentedly, eyes fluttering shut. Oh, no. This is bad.

You clear your throat. “Let me know if there’s anything else. I’ll be around,” you gesture vaguely toward the rest of the diner, “for the next four hours or so. Not that you’ll be here that long. You know. Job. Not that I’d kick you out or anything. Okay. I’m going to go now.”

His lips pull into a smile as he raises the mug to take another drink. You turn on your heel to check in on your other table and try not to think about how much of a disaster that interaction was.

The diner starts to fill up a little more as the morning breakfast crowd comes in, mostly old couples and blue-collar workers. You do your best to turn up the charm, adjusting your lines based on the customer, hoping to maximize your tips. Your fridge has been depressingly empty for a few days. Maybe they’d let you take something home from the kitchen.

You stop by his table once to ask if he’s still doing good, and then again to refill his water and coffee. Finally, he signals for the check and already has his card out when you return with the receipt.

After you ring him up, you’re about to walk back over to give him his card and the final receipt when you see the bowl of Tootsie Rolls by the register. You grab one and place it on the table in front of him along with a pen. “Have a good day,” you say, and then after a few moments, you tack on, “and have fun with the middle school science. And that sort of stuff.” What is wrong with you?

If Ryland is wondering the same thing, he doesn’t show it, simply taking the candy and sliding it into his pocket before picking up the pen. “Thanks. We’re doing the Krebs cycle, which will be very fun for me, and possibly less fun for them.”

“That sounds…vaguely familiar? I haven’t taken a science class in—a long time. Probably over a decade.” You try to think back, but not a lot comes to you. “Isn’t that, like, really hard? Especially for middle schoolers?”

He grins and looks up at you, reflexively lowering his glasses. He must be far-sighted, you think idly. “I’m a bit of an overachiever.”

This should not affect you in the way that it does, but suddenly you are wondering if that extends to every area in his life. Like physical ones. Okay, that’s enough of that. “Well—good luck with all of that.”

When you return a little later to bus his table, you grab the receipt and look it over. Generous tip! Score! He didn’t think you were a total weirdo! You bring it a little closer to your face and realize that he’s written something on the back, so you turn it over. There’s a little diagram of the Krebs cycle, complete with little pictures and labels.

You are so screwed.

--

He’s back, two days later, when you’re working again. (Technically, he could have come in on the days you weren’t scheduled, but you don’t want to assume.)

“Welcome in,” you call behind you when the door chimes. “Be with you in just a moment.” This morning had been a little slower—no drunk crowd, just a few truck drivers stopping in for food before getting back on the road. You don’t realize that it’s him until you turn around from the coffee machine. “Oh, it’s you! Your food is probably—” The ding interrupts you. Thank you, bell.

After a few minutes, you slide the plate in front of him (two slices of wheat toast, scrambled eggs, bacon) along with a glass of water, a mug, and the sugar canister. You are very proud at how quickly you learned to carry this much stuff over the course of your first shift. “Morning, Ryland,” you smile, pouring out his coffee.

“Morning, not-Gertrude. Your name tag is right, now.” His eyes flick down. He looks about the same as he did two days ago; hair still slightly messy, the wire arms of his glasses begging to be put out of their misery, lanyard resting on top of his tie. It all creates the same fluttery feeling in your stomach that it did then, too. Whatever. Having a harmless crush makes the job more fun. “Oh, you remembered.”

Ryland is already grabbing the sugar and dumping it into his coffee. “Yeah, it’s a little hard to forget when someone pours a metric ton of sugar into their drink. I don’t know how you still have teeth.” He does the thing again, where he takes the first sip and acts like he’s seeing God. Something does a little flip in your chest. “And I have a pretty good memory. Mostly use it for dates and stuff, but it comes in handy for other things.”

He chokes a little on his coffee. That’s weird. “Er, dates? Like—dating?”

“Oh—no, no,” you laugh, “sorry, I can see how that’s confusing. I’m a grad student in history. So years and those sorts of boring things. I can’t even remember the last time I went on a date.” Hm. That was not a normal thing to say to a customer. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s. You’re fine.” He takes a long sip of his water. “Grad student, huh? Masters?”

“PhD. Currently ABD, so. I’m kind of in hell.”

“Oh, gosh, I bet. I really do not miss that. How many years do you have left?”

You watch as he starts piling his eggs onto his toast before taking a giant bite. He really doesn’t do things halfway, does he? The overachiever comment from the other day pops into your mind, suddenly, as you watch him catch a stray piece of egg and pop it into his mouth. “Uh, this is supposed to be my last year.”

Ryland glances back up at you. You should probably end this conversation to go check in on the elderly couple at the counter, but you stay standing there anyway. “Supposed to?”

“I might be. Taking a little longer on my dissertation than I should be. My advisor is—she’s not very happy with me, at the moment.”

He smiles and his eyes go a little distant. You think he might be recalling some memory from his own grad student days. “Well, you know what they say. It doesn’t need to be a good dissertation, it just needs to be—”

“A finished one,” you interrupt, a little grin of your own playing on your lips. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that line before. Once or twice.”

The two of you just stare at each other for a moment. His fingers start messing with the handle of his mug. They’re nice fingers, you think idly. Probably good at lots of things.

Like grading! That’s what you’re thinking of in that moment. You really need to go back to doing your job. “Well, I’ll leave you to your food. Holler if you need anything.”

He does a little mock salute before you walk away. Unfortunately, there are still not that many customers, which is bad both because you would really like more money and also because now you have nothing to do with yourself. You settle on watching him for a little while, promising yourself that this is not creepy. You are simply making sure he doesn’t need anything.

His water is only half empty, but you are really, really bored already, so you walk over to fill it up. “I forgot to ask earlier—how did it go with your students? The Krebs. Thing. Cycle! The Krebs cycle. And the ATP stuff.”

“Glad to see my diagram was helpful.”

“Oh, it was great. Very detailed. You must be a really good teacher.”

His ears start to turn a little pink. It is adorable. You are in so much trouble. “I don’t know about that right now. It’s—I may have overestimated the ability of pre-teens to understand cellular respiration.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” You have the sudden urge to lay a hand on his shoulder. The urge gets stomped down, because this man is a customer, and this is only the second time you have met him, and to top it all off someone has just walked in. “Welcome in! Take a seat wherever you’d like.” You turn your attention back to him. “Sorry, duty calls. Enjoy your mug of wet dirt.”

You hurry away before you can consider this last sentence over any further in your mind, because you are fairly certain it was one of your disastrous attempts at flirting. For some reason, you always default to playful insults, and—look, it’s been a while, what with the dissertation of it all looming over your head. The last time you’d dated was about four years ago, with someone a few years above you in your program. That did not go over well.

The next time you walk by, he asks for the check, and this time you bring it over with a Tootsie Roll and a mint. Those are immediately swiped off the table and stuffed into his jacket pocket.

There’s no diagram on the back of the receipt this time, but there is a drawing of a little cell guy. Next to it is a speech bubble. Apparently, the tiny cell is saying, “Thanks for the glucose!”

You take a picture in case you don’t remember to keep the receipt after you’ve cashed out your tips at the end of the shift.

(This does not happen. You think about the drawing for the next few hours, and before you leave, it gets gently folded and put in your bag. The receipt now lives taped up on your wall next to your desk.)

--

You are scheduled the next three days in a row. He comes in for two of them, Thursday and Friday, and each time you give him some candy with his receipt, and in return you get two more little drawings. One is a diagram of mitosis. The other is a mitochondria, with a very long pun about being the powerhouse of the cell. You wonder how long it took him to think of it, or if he just had that at the ready.

After your shift on Saturday, the day that you do not see him, you buy a variety pack of candy with some of your tip money. You tell yourself that this serves two purposes: one, so you can have a snack while you work. The second one is very obvious, and does not need to be acknowledged.

--

Ryland immediately notices the new candy selection.

“Wow, Skittles? I’m really getting the five-star treatment here.” This time, instead of putting the candy into his pocket like usual, he immediately opens the bag and chucks a few into his mouth. “Thanks. I didn’t even know you guys had these here.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. I found them—in the back. Where things are stored.” If by ‘in the back’ you mean ‘in your backpack,’ then, yes, you are technically telling the truth. He doesn’t need to know all of that.

“How’s the dissertation coming?” He laughs when he sees the face you’re making. “Sorry. The dreaded question.”

You try to let the grimace slide off your face. “It’s—fine. There are. There are words. In a document.”

“Words are good.”

“When there’s enough of them, sure.” A sigh leaves your lips. “I really need to send in this chapter by the end of the week, but the AC in my shitty apartment isn’t working again, and if I go into the department I’ll just talk to everyone. It’s a problem. I’m probably, like, avoidant or something. I don’t know, I haven’t been to a therapist in a while.” What is it with you and oversharing with this man that you serve breakfast to almost every morning? “Sorry. Anyway, I’m thinking I might come here and try to power through the rest so I have something to give my advisor. At least I’ll have free coffee here.” Because your little Keurig is also broken. You are very, very broke. Hence the waitressing job.

Ryland simply nods along and doesn’t comment on the therapist thing. “A change of scenery might be good. Help the words come a little easier.”

“Here’s hoping.” You watch as he finishes the Skittles, shaking the bag so the last few fall into his mouth. His lips are a little stained from the candy. “Well, anyway. If you see me here in a few days out-of-uniform, feel free to pay your respects. Because I’ll be dying on the inside.”

The laugh that comes out of him is a little startled, as if he wasn’t expecting it to happen himself. You blink. The crush is not staying little, not remaining a tiny thing that you keep in your pocket and take out to pass the time at work.

It’s just been a while, you tell yourself. That’s all.

--

You pick a fantastic day to work in the diner, because it is currently pouring outside. While the rain helps cool things down—and therefore alleviates the AC issue—there’s a leaky roof tile in your shoebox apartment that still hasn’t been fixed despite your numerous maintenance requests. The thing drips incessantly, and the rhythmic noise of the water falling into the bin you’ve placed underneath it drives you absolutely insane.

Really, you need to find a different place to live, one that doesn’t fall apart every other day. But that requires money. Which you do not have. So, instead, you put the bucket down to catch the dripping, hoping that it won’t overflow in the time that you’re gone, and drive to the diner. Normally you just walk, but it is literally apocalyptic outside. Maybe, you decide, if you manage to finish your chapter, you’ll drive to the nearby strip mall and treat yourself to some window shopping. (Again: no money.)

The diner provides just the right amount of background noise to help you settle in. Well, it would, except you’ve been staring at the cursor in your document for about eight minutes straight, like you’re expecting it to do something on its own, but it simply blinks back at you.

The door chimes as it opens, and you reflexively glance up before returning to your staring contest. Then you look up again, because it’s Ryland, and he currently looks like a wet cat, both in terms of misery and being drenched. He sees you after a moment, and you offer him a little wave. (It’s one of those incredibly awkward ones, where you’re worried that the person you’re waving at might not see you, but obviously he’s going to see it, because he’s looking right at you, which just makes it all even more awkward.)

His shoes squeak against the tile flooring the entire time he walks over, until he plops down into the booth to sit across from you. He takes his helmet off and sets it on the table. Water drips from his hair, and one of the little rivulets slides down the bridge of his nose. That is—that’s an image to review later.

“Morning,” Ryland says cheerfully, in spite of the fact that he looked about ready to cry a few minutes ago. “It’s a little damp outside.”

“…Yeah. I think you might have brought the entire Bay in with you.”

Gertrude (whose name tag you borrowed for your first shift) comes by and slides Ryland’s breakfast and a cup of coffee in front of him without a word. Hm. He really doesn’t talk to anyone else who works here, you realize, because otherwise he probably would have made a joke about the chances of two Gertrudes working in the same diner on that first day.

You don’t know what to do with this information.

Nothing comes to you, so you chuck it away somewhere in your mind before sliding the sugar over to him. He smiles gratefully and starts concocting his cement mixture of a beverage. “So. How’s the writing coming?” You say nothing at this, simply resting your elbow on the table and smushing your face into your hand, giving him the most despairing look you can conjure. “That bad, huh?”

A frustrated noise grumbles in the back of your throat. “It’s just—I know what this section needs to do, and I’ve outlined it, but. Every time I write something, it’s shit.”

“Hey, language,” but it’s almost entirely muffled by a piece of toast (wheat) and eggs (scrambled).

“Sorry, Mr. Grace,” you scoff. You’re smiling, though. “I don’t know why I’m having such a problem with this chapter. I thought it would be my favorite one to write, but…”

Ryland swallows his current bite and looks at you for a moment before finally speaking. “Can I see it?”

“What, my dissertation? It’s not exactly easy morning reading.”

He waves his hand and starts sliding your laptop around to face him. “I’ll just look at the abstract and the intro to your current chapter.”

Then the only sounds are him clicking around the headings of your document and the bustle of the diner. This is, possibly, the worst: watching someone read your dissertation right in front of you, with nothing to do but wait for them to finish. At least when you send things off to your advisor, you don’t have to watch her angrily leave comments. Sometimes they highlight entire paragraphs and just say ‘bad.’ Super helpful.

After a little while—but not as long as you expect; he’s a shockingly fast reader—he nods and looks back up at you. “Take my advice with a grain of salt, because this is way out of my field of expertise, but I think you need to move your current section up. It makes more sense to go before the previous one, which seems to me like it’s actually the crux of the chapter.”

You blink at him a few times before slowly dragging your laptop back in front of you. You look at your chapter introduction again, and then skim the section he’s talking about. “Huh. That’s actually—I think you’re right.” You look up at him. “That’s the most helpful advice I’ve ever gotten on this thing. Genuinely. Can you be my advisor?” Ryland simply laughs at that and takes a sip of his coffee. His eyes do the thing. It’s fine. You’re fine. “Seriously, though. How come you’re not in a department somewhere with a cushy office? You’d have grad students lining up out the door.”

The coffee mug is set down gently. “I was, for a little while. Then—well. I might have. Kind of implied that someone wasn’t worth the organic materials they were made up of. At a conference. Um. The UNESCO conference. In Denmark.”

He looks at you while you take in this information. Finally, you say, “This might sound really insensitive. But that’s kind of awesome.”

This draws another laugh out of him, the startled one, and you can’t help the massive grin that grows on your face. “Really? It’s awesome that I insulted one of the most preeminent microbiologists alive and got my funding cut?”

“Well. When you put it like that, it’s less awesome. But do you know how many scholars there are in my field that I would love to call an idiot? There’s a lot,” you answer for him. “Do you miss it?”

“Honestly? No. I actually enjoy my life now.”

“There you go. That’s all any of us can hope for.”

Ryland starts fiddling with the spout of the sugar canister. “Yeah. My colleagues had a slightly different opinion, back then.”

“Fuck ‘em.” You don’t give him the time to call out your language again, even though you know he’s (mostly) joking when he does it. “I mean it. Obviously, I would kind of kill to have been in your position, because getting a tenure-track job feels less likely than winning the lottery, but if you’re happy, who cares what they think? You’re, like, preparing the next generation to be capable citizens, or whatever.”

He doesn’t say anything at that. He simply stares at you for a while with an unreadable expression. This is a new one, one that you haven’t seen on his face before—not that you spend that much time looking at his face (you do)—and you find that you would very much like to know what it means.

You do not get to, because then he’s looking down at his phone, and his eyes go wide. “Shoot. I am going to be so late.” Right after he pulls out some cash and slams it on the table, there’s a loud clap of thunder. The timing is almost comical.

“Ryland. I drove here. Do you want a ride?”

You think he might be getting ready to politely refuse, but then he glances at the window and the way the rain is pummeling the glass. “…Possibly.”

--

“I have to ask,” you say, white-knuckling the steering wheel, because it’s kind of hard to see out the windshield at the moment, and you really need new wiper blades (the reason you have not gotten them should be obvious at this point), “how exactly did you word the thing you said? At the conference?”

He clears his throat beside you. “I believe I called him a ‘staggering waste of carbon.’”

“Oof. That’s good.”

Ryland simply hums and then points out the window. “It’s the next turn, there.”

Then you’re pulling up to the school. It really isn’t that far from the diner. “Here, give me your phone.” You hold your hand out expectantly.

“Uh—why?” He looks at your hand like you’re holding a bomb.

“So I can drive you back to the diner later? Since you had to leave your bike.” It hadn’t fit in the back of your car, because the thing is really just a tiny, glorified bucket of bolts. You wiggle your fingers a little. “Give it here.”

After a few beats, he shifts in your passenger seat to pull his phone out before unlocking it and placing it in your hand. You tap your number in and set your contact as ‘Not Gertrude.’ Hopefully he gets a kick out of that. “Here. Text me when you’re done and I’ll come get you.”

He looks down at the new contact. The corners of his mouth lift up and his nostrils flare a little. “Will do. Thank you, again. Seriously.”

“Of course.” Ryland moves to open the door. “Wait!” You reach your arm back to grab your backpack and then dig around for a little while, until you finally produce a little snack-size bag of Skittles and toss it at him.

It hits his nose, and he does this little surprised squeak as he brings his hands up to catch it. He looks between you, your bag, and the Skittles a few times. “The diner doesn’t keep Skittles in the back.”

“Uh. No. You caught me?”

The new expression is back. You still really want to know what it means. He does not explain. Instead, he opens the car door and runs to the entrance of the school. Just before he vanishes inside, he turns around and gives you a little wave.

--

It is still raining out, though not the absolute downpour it was in the morning, when you get the ‘All done here!’ text from Ryland.

“Oh, thank god,” you breathe, because you think if you have to spend another second writing you will launch yourself into the sun. You quickly gather up your things and holler, “See you guys next week!” to the kitchen before leaving.

The drive to the school is less harrowing than it was earlier, since you can actually see further than five feet in front of your car. You pull up to the curb and park—hopefully you won’t get towed—and then pull out your phone to send a quick ‘here!’ back to him.

Then you wait. And wait. At one point, you realize that you haven’t added him back as a contact, so you spend a few seconds staring at the blank name line before simply putting in ‘Ryland Grace.’ You didn’t have anything funny like ‘Not Gertrude.’

After about five minutes, you start to get restless. “Fuck it,” you mutter, and you turn the car off and step outside. Your car probably won’t get towed. The rain feels kind of nice, so you walk leisurely up to the door. It’s locked, and you have to press the little intercom buzzer. “Uh, I’m here for Ryland Grace?” Nobody says anything back, but you hear the door click.

Hm. Slight wrinkle in the plan. You have no idea where his classroom is. Thankfully, the admin office is right by the front door, so you pop your head in. “Hi. I’m looking for Mr. Grace? I’m just—I’m giving him a ride home, and he didn’t respond to my text so. Now I’m here. Asking where his classroom is.” They probably didn’t need all of that information.

The directions are only slightly confusing—something about taking a left, and then another left, and then the second right, and his classroom is somewhere in that hallway—and you only make one wrong turn on your way there.

“Knock, knock,” you call into the room.

He jumps from where he’s sitting behind his desk. “Oh, crap, sorry. I got distracted—grading—you know how it is.”

You simply hum while he rushes to gather up his things. His classroom is kind of amazing. Plants, dioramas, cute posters, even a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. “How long did it take you to put all of this together?”

“Hm? Oh.” Ryland looks at you, then, gazing around the room in awe. “A few years. We don’t get extra money to decorate, so it all had to come out of my own pocket.”

“Damn.” You smile at him. “It’s really nice. I think this proves my point. That you’re a really good teacher.”

“…Thanks.”

It’s quiet, then, and he doesn’t move from where he’s standing. You’re about to ask him about the look, the new one, the one that is on his face again, but you don’t. Instead, you clear your throat. “Ready to go?”

--

Later that night (like, very much later), you finally send your chapter off to your advisor. Ryland had turned out to be entirely correct: moving the section up immediately made everything flow better. The relief that washes over you when you hit ‘send’ is almost indescribable.

You pull out your phone and stare at it for a few seconds before opening your messages up. It’s late, very late, and he’s probably not even awake, but you send him a picture of the email in your ‘sent’ folder anyway. The attached document in the picture reads ‘FINAL final draft 5.4.’

it is done

Then, about five seconds later, you’re picking your phone up again, because he’s already responded. The tiny workplace crush is, possibly, no longer just a crush at all.

That’s awesome!

What are you going to do to celebrate?

idk, probably put a bunch of stuff in my amazon cart and then never buy it

i have no money

in case you didn’t know that by now

I might have realized that at some point

You should actually celebrate, though.

You get up from your desk to lay on your bed. It feels a little like being a high school teenager in a movie.

i’ll probably just go to bob’s

Bob’s? On Sycamore?

yessir

That place is a crap hole.

It is adorable that his no cursing schtick extends to texting. This whole exchange is kind of adorable, actually.

yeah but it’s MY crap hole

wait

that sounds really gross

ignore that

they have cheap drinks and a pool table

what more could a girl ask for

also, sometimes the bartender gives me a free shot if i flirt with him a little

He doesn’t respond right away, and you bite your lip nervously. Was that too many texts in a row? Or maybe it was the bartender thing. You’re about to type out ‘jk but really it’s just close to my apartment’ when you finally get another text.

When do you think you’ll go?

You really, really hope this is implying what you think it is.

probably tomorrow night honestly

it IS a friday after all

tgif and all that

and i don’t work on saturday so. no need to worry about the hangover

What time?

This is silly. The excitement that you are feeling right now is just silly. The thought does not stop your cheeks from hurting at how much you’re smiling.

like 7

that way i can get drunk and still go to bed at a reasonable time

i’m not as young as i used to be

You stare and stare as the three little dots come up, and then disappear, and then reappear again. Finally:

I’m really bad at pool

Like, really bad.

Disastrously bad.

that’s ok

loser buys the winner a drink? :)

I was probably going to do that anyway

You’re broke, remember?

ouch

you wound me

Am I wrong?

…no

I’ll see you tomorrow

:)

You stare at the smiley face until your eyes start to drift shut, and you fall asleep holding the phone to your chest. It is very teen rom-com, and it is wonderful.

--

Ryland is right: Bob’s is a crap hole.

It is dark, and a little dingy, and the bar is cash only, and the door handle to the bathroom sticks a little. It is, possibly, your favorite place in this entire city, because it’s been there for you through everything: moving, getting over the breakup with that older grad student, passing your qualifying exams, birthdays, everything.

You take it all in with a small smile as you wait, sipping on your drink and guarding the pool table with your life. It’s really not necessary, because it’s only seven, and for now there’s only a few regulars sitting at the bar and a couple making googly eyes at each other in a booth.

A little bit of the condensation from your glass drips onto your jeans, and you frown and try to dab at it with a napkin. You spent way too long, probably, getting ready and trying to figure out what to wear, because it is unclear to you whether this is a date or a friends sort of thing. You know he’s single, obviously, he’s mentioned it before, but you are starting to nervously spiral a little bit. What if he doesn’t like that you’re a little younger? This thought seems a little silly, because you are swiftly closing in on thirty, but—maybe he’s just really weird about it.

All of that is to say that you settled on jeans and a somewhat cute top, because ultimately you are in a dive bar, and you are very serious about winning at pool and getting that drink. A complicated outfit will not be getting in the way.

The door finally opens again, and Ryland walks in. The place is tiny, so it does not take him long to spot you by the pool table. He is—he looks very cute, your mind supplies unhelpfully. His shirt has the periodic table on it, and underneath it reads ‘I WEAR THIS SHIRT PERIODICALLY.’ His jeans. Fit him very well. And the dirty canvas shoes are right at home in the bar.

Finally, you notice that his hair is slightly styled. Not much, and it’s still a little messy, but it seems deliberately ruffled, rather than the afterthought it usually is.

You do not have the chance to consider this any further, because he’s stopped walking to stand right in front of you. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Congrats on the chapter.”

“Thanks.”

“You already have a drink.”

You look down at the glass in your hand. You had already forgotten it was there. “I might have gotten here a little early. To scope out the pool table.”

“I see.” He glances behind you at the table, then, which you have already inserted quarters into, and the pool balls are already racked. “I’ll go grab a drink,” he nods towards the bar. But then he doesn’t move, not yet. “Is that the bartender?”

“Uh. Yeah.” You are wishing you had not shared that little tidbit with him.

Ryland nods and seems to be turning something over, very carefully. “Maybe—don’t flirt with him tonight.”

There’s no time to ask why, because he’s already walking away to order something. You already didn’t have any plans to flirt for a free shot, anyway, but now you almost want to, just to see what Ryland would do.

You watch him walk away and then lean against the bar top. You’re not—you’re not looking at anything in particular.

Okay, just one little look.

How are you supposed to—this is so unfair.

--

“You lied to me,” you say accusingly. “You are such a liar.”

He sinks another striped ball and walks around the table. “In my defense, I really thought you were going to be a lot better. You were the one who brought up pool in the first place.”

You gasp with mock offense. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. On today, of all days, when we’re celebrating my dissertation chapter.”

Another ball shoots into a pocket. “I’ll still buy you a drink.”

“Absolutely not. I need to win that drink. It’s about the principle.”

Ryland finally misses—likely only because there really weren’t any good angles—and you step up to the table. “I think you should—”

“Don’t coach me. The principle.” You line up your shot very, very carefully. “Watch. This is where the comeback starts.” If anyone were to ask you about your positioning right now, you would very tactfully answer that there is nothing purposeful about the way you lean over the table or the arch of your back.

You take a deep breath and—“Son of a bitch!” He raises his eyebrows when you stand up, a smile playing on his lips. “Don’t even, we’re in a bar.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but you thought it.”

Your brain kind of can’t handle the look he’s giving you at the moment, so you turn your attention back to the table. Of course, you’ve given him the perfect angle, and he wastes no time to—

He misses.

You narrow your eyes at him. Ryland simply shrugs. “Lost my grip.”

“Uh-huh.”

He lifts his beer to his lips, watching you the entire time with a grin. “And I didn’t re-chalk before my shot.”

“Everyone knows that the chalk is just to look cool. It doesn’t do anything,” you scoff.

The bottle stills against his mouth, and then he slowly lowers it. “That’s not—I need you to know that that is not true. There’s a physics to it and everything.”

In your mind, there was a version of tonight where he did the incredibly cheesy move of wrapping his arms around you to show you how to use the pool stick. Apparently, the real version is him animatedly explaining the physics of pool, how factors like spin and angle affect the shot, the way to account for the friction of the table.

It is, you find, much better than the version you cooked up in your brain, because he’s looking at you the whole time, blue eyes wide with excitement, waving his hands around so much that his beer has started to slosh dangerously.

“Alright. Did all of that make sense?”

“I’m going to be so honest. I checked out for a while there. But I appreciate how enthusiastic you were.”

“What was that you were saying yesterday about me being a good teacher?”

You grin and stick your tongue out a little. You hope the way your nose is scrunching is cute and not stupid. “You are. I’m just a bad student.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “There are no bad students. It just takes patience to figure out how they learn. What’s your learning style?” His voice drops a little at the question. Your fingers tighten around the cue stick. Being asked your preferred method of learning should not be affecting you in the way that it currently is.

There are options here. Either you play it safe, crack a joke, and take a shot that you will probably miss. Or. “I’ve always been a pretty tactile learner.”

Ryland hums. “I see.” Then he walks around the table and stands behind you. “Line up your shot,” he murmurs. You think that you might explode, because actually, it turns out, you do get to have the version of the night you concocted in your mind while getting ready.

It is suddenly very difficult for you to concentrate on anything, but you step forward and lean down, aiming for the red ball in front of the back right pocket. His arms come around you, then, and his hands slide over yours. You watch his fingers curl around your left hand. Yes, you think, his fingers are good for a lot of things.

“Keep your dominant eye focused. Aim right for the center since you have a pretty dead-on angle. The friction coefficient is around—”

“Ryland,” you whisper, “that means nothing to me.”

“Right. Just—hit it really hard, so the cue ball doesn’t go into the pocket. You want all of the momentum to transfer to the red ball.” His thumb smooths over your knuckles. Something swirls in your stomach.

You nod and try to ignore the way you can feel your hair catching slightly on his stubble. “Great. Hit it hard. Actionable advice, thank you.”

You draw the pool cue back. His arm moves with you, but he’s careful not to contribute any of his own force to the motion. After a few practice slides, you hit the cue ball for real, and it rolls into the red ball with a crack and stops. The red ball shoots forward into the pocket.

“Yes!” The two of you stand up, and you turn around to give him a high five. Ryland just smiles widely as he looks down at you. That look crosses his face again, and you realize how close you’re standing, and that his cheeks have started to tinge red, but—well. You really want him to buy you a drink. And you’re having fun, a lot of fun, and you want to enjoy it for as long as you can, just in case you are reading all of this wrong and it goes south later. “You’re going down. I am the queen of pool now.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “One ball sunk and suddenly you’re trash talking. I’ve created a monster. Also, what about that whole principle thing earlier? About not being coached?”

“Fuck the principle, I want my free drink.”

You’re taking a sip of your current drink, the one you bought with your hard-earned tip money (which makes you realize that he’s kind of already bought you a drink, in a sense), when he suddenly blurts out, “Please don’t fuck my principal,” and then you’re choking and laughing, and a little bit of club soda is coming out of your nose, probably, because the joke is already pretty funny but is made that much better with the curse word. You wonder if that’s a very small reason he is so uptight about not cursing; he can wield those words with so much more effectiveness when he does use them.

He hands you a napkin so you can clean up the mess dripping from your face, and for a beat you’re a little worried that you look ridiculous, but he’s still smiling and looking at you with what you’re pretty sure is fondness.

You miss your next shot, and you find that you don’t really care.

--

Ryland does not let you win, because he is, as you have just discovered, intensely competitive. He still buys you your next drink, which you are now sipping on as you sit across from him in one of the booths along the wall.

“I still think,” you say around your straw, “that I could have pulled that off.”

“How so?” He leans his elbow on the table and rests his cheek on the heel of his palm, lifting one finger up to lower his glasses a little. Which feels unfair, but, whatever.

“It’s a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Doesn’t seem like a ‘feeling’ is based on much evidence.”

You scoff playfully and wave a dismissive hand. “You scientists and your evidence.”

His smile grows. You are pretty sure the two of you have not stopped smiling since he walked into the bar. “Aren’t historians pretty nitpicky about their evidence, too?”

“Irrelevant.”

It seems like he’s about to say something else, but whatever it was going to be is interrupted with a yawn. “Sorry, sorry.”

Right. He worked all day today. You’re surprised he’s still upright. “No, you’re fine. We can finish these and head out, you should sleep.”

It’s his turn to wave dismissively at you. “I’ll be alright.”

“It’s okay. Seriously. I had a really good time tonight. My chapter feels properly celebrated.”

“Good. I know I didn’t read the finished product, but—it was good. You’re a strong writer. Really vivid voice. And you made it really easy to follow along.”

Your face feels warm. “Well, that’s—I mean, you have a doctorate. You have lots of practice reading things like that.”

“Biology articles? Sure. History dissertations? Not so much. But I never felt confused when I was reading it.” He clinks his beer against your glass. “Take the compliment.”

“Okay.” You bring your drink to your lips at the same time he does, and the two of you simply look at each other, long after your drinks have returned to the table. There are—you have a lot of things going on in your mind, at the moment, and a question that you would really like to ask, and you’re pretty sure it’s going to go over well, but.

It pains you to admit it, but you are a little nervous, because it has been quite a while since you’ve done this, and the thing that started out as a little crush at work has turned into something so much larger, a thing that you really do not want to fuck up, and you’re realizing that it’s becoming a lot like your dissertation. It is not a thing that you do not want to do; actually, you want to do it so badly, and it is so important, and you are putting it off because there is comfort in remaining in that in-between stage, of being able to say that you’re doing it but never actually seeing it through.

“Okay,” you repeat, standing up, because this has suddenly become a lot. “I am going to go commandeer the TouchTunes now.”

“…Alright?”

The machine doesn’t like the first dollar you try to put in, which is fair, because you’re pretty sure the customer who gave it to you had used it to snort coke. The second dollar, after some smoothing, is accepted. Score. You scroll through different songs before just typing in one of your go-to’s.

A few seconds later, the song is filtering through the shitty speakers of Bob’s, and you slide back into the booth. “Tears for Fears. Nice,” he comments.

“Thanks. To be honest, this is the only song I know by them.”

“Hey, a classic’s a classic for a reason.”

The two of you go back to looking at each other. You try to steel yourself, because, just like your dissertation, this is a thing that ultimately needs to be seen through. All the way to the end. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.” Ryland makes a little finger gun. It is extremely cute and slightly soothes the nerves bunching up in your chest.

You turn your gaze down to your drink as you swirl the straw around the ice cubes. “Was this a date? Wait, I probably should have led up to that a little more. Except I don’t really know how. Okay. Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve been on one, and I think I might be a little bit rusty, and I kind of like you a lot, but I have no idea if I’ve been reading all of this wrong. You have this look, you see, and I think I know what it means, but I’ve never asked, and I also don’t know if you’re weirded out by the age gap thing, which I’ve also never asked about either. And. I’m going to stop, now.”

If there’s a God up there, you think, please let the floor open up and swallow you now, because that was probably the worst speech you think you could have given.

But then he’s saying your name, quietly, and you look up at him. “Yeah. You’ve been—your read of the signals is correct. Very correct. I don’t, uh, I don’t leave little drawings for all of my waitresses.”

“That’s good. Good to know. That would probably hurt my feelings.” You feel like you’re about to start giggling like a maniac, because all of the tension in your chest is dissolving, leaving only giddiness.

He seems to be feeling something similar, but then he looks confused for a moment. “Also, ‘age gap thing’? Aren’t you almost thirty?”

“Yeah. Don’t remind me.”

“Hey now. And I’m pretty sure that’s around when that stops mattering.” Another beat. “How old do you think I am?”

“It varies. Sometimes it gets up to sixty because you order the same thing for breakfast from a diner every day of the week. Then it lowers down to upper teens when I watch you pour the entire sugar canister into your coffee. Seriously. I am concerned you are going to develop a health condition.”

Ryland laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and you giggle right along with him, and in a burst of confidence you reach forward and put your hand on his, and you’re thrilled when it shifts to hold your fingers gently.

“Do you—would you like to go somewhere else?” You ask. “Like. A secondary location. But not the kidnapping kind.”

His thumb brushes over your knuckles, just like it had when he was helping you line up your shot in pool earlier. “Your song isn’t finished.”

You shrug. “We can come back another night and I can play it again. I have lots of singles. Some of them don’t work because I think they were used for cocaine.” You pause. “I’m realizing that I sound like a stripper right now.”

Ryland snorts and squeezes your hand. “Yeah, we can go to a secondary location. I’d like that. As long as it’s not, you know, the kidnapping kind. That’s a non-negotiable.”

He keeps holding your hand as you both get up out of the booth, as you walk out the door and into the night air. Neither of you finished your drinks, you realize, but that’s fine. He’ll probably buy you another.

--

epilogue

“Welcome to my crib.”

Ryland takes in your shitty apartment. You had cleaned up a little earlier, in a spurt of confidence, although the bin that you use to catch the water leaking from the ceiling is still out, because it hadn’t finished raining until this morning. “Wow. This is. It is really a place that someone lives in.”

You punch his shoulder then, lightly, and smile while you kick off your shoes and flick the lights on. “Yeah. I really need to move out. But that requires—”

“Money,” he says at the same time you do. “If it makes you feel any better, you won’t be living on a grad student stipend forever.”

“Here’s hoping.” You walk into your tiny kitchen, then, and call over your shoulder. “You can sit wherever. And by wherever, I mean on the couch, because that’s the only seating I have. Do you want anything to drink? I have—” You peer into your depressingly empty fridge. “Well. There’s water, a half-drunk bottle of Sprite, and vodka. So. Pick your poison.”

“I’m fine. What’s up with the unfinished Sprite?”

You take a quick drink of water before padding over to the living room. “It’s a chaser. For the vodka.”

“Of course.”

Ryland is sitting on the couch, and it’s very cute, because he’s trying to be polite but is also incredibly restless, if the way his knee bounces up-and-down says anything. You climb onto his lap. “Hi.”

“Hey there.” He looks up at you at that, his hands coming up to rest on your hips, and you carefully take his glasses off and set them behind you on your thrifted coffee table. “I kind of can’t see without those.”

“That’s fine. If we do something that requires seeing, you can have them back.”

 “Sounds like a plan.”

Then, before you lose your nerve, you draw your hands up to cradle his face and kiss him, sweetly at first, until you open your mouth, and he groans as you lick along his bottom lip. He squeezes your hips, and his fingers mess with the hem of your shirt a little before slipping underneath it to run along your skin. Yep, your guess is still holding, his fingers are great.

You are about to start grinding down onto him when there is a loud crash, and then the two of you are jumping, and you look behind you. The leaking ceiling tile has, apparently, chosen this moment to collapse onto the floor and knock over the bin of water for good measure.

His chest is shaking with laughter when you lean your head against his shoulder and groan. “Can we just ignore that for now and go back to what we were doing, please?”

“Counteroffer,” he says, still laughing, “I help you clean that up, and then we can resume. And then in the morning you will put in a maintenance request.”

“Deal. And they don’t really respond to those. Hence the ceiling tile that just fell.”

“I probably should have guessed that.”

In the morning, you can’t cook him breakfast because there’s nothing in your fridge, but you order it for him as the next best thing—wheat toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon—and put it onto a plate in the kitchen, wearing nothing but his periodic table shirt and your underwear, as if you had actually cooked it yourself. He comes up behind you and kisses the side of your neck.

You closed the laptop, not even thinking of a reply.

The desert wind blew the tarps on your research tent wild, and it flapped up and down as you escorted yourself away and toward your dig team. 

They were standing over a square of dirt marked with white rope, measuring around 6 feet each way. 

The dirt was shoveled enough away to show some promise, and you suspected there were human remains underneath, considering there was an ancient city nearby, but you couldn’t figure it out until you had your chance at brushing. 

Even if they weren’t human remains, maybe you’d find the remains of a plant or ancient medical equipment you could swab and bring back home for chemical testing.

“Hey, can we get a set of brushes over here, and a tape measure?” You asked, shouting in the general vicinity.

You heard footsteps scraping against the dirt, behind you.

“This what you’re looking for?”

You thought, what a dumb question to ask, everyone here knows what a dig kit looks like, and once you turned around to grab the toolbox from the outstretched hand you jumped at the familiar face.

“Dr. Grace–what are you doing here? When did you arrive?”

He answered without hesitation.

“Just now, they’ve been expecting me. I didn't want to ruin the surprise.” 

You grabbed the toolkit from his hands and he shrugged, like it was obvious this is where he needed to be.

“Your email didn’t prepare me enough.” You murmured.

If he heard you, he ignored you, and how could you blame him after all he was the one who advocated for your success in the program, the least you could do was let him see you at work.

“I wanted to see what bioarcheology looks like, since we’ll be analysing and conducting chemical tests on the samples you guys collect here together in just a few days.” He explained. 

He sent you a smirk, adjusting his signature glasses, a smirk that he’d often send you in a way you couldn’t read. 

It was always a smirk you were unsure of…on the one hand he was notorious for being smug in academic settings, you knew about his reputation. He’d smirk at any scholar at any chance he could get, and mostly because he was right. 

However, on the other hand he could be smirking in a way that meant he was attracted to you in ways he could never admit, and you could never ask, and you could never do anything about anyway if you felt the same. 

And then there was the possibility that his smirk was overcompensating for his awkwardness with his students in particular that you witnessed just as much as his smugness.

You had to stop yourself from smirking back.

You shrugged, opened your tool kit and grabbed a few scraping tools and brushes.  

“Well I could walk you through it, but I’m mostly just excited to get back home and conduct tests on all of it.” 

“Really? Homesick already?” He asked.

“Not really.” You lied. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

It’s actually the loneliest you’ve ever been. But you weren’t going to admit that to a professor you were working on research with. 

He followed you as you stepped down into the dig site, walking swiftly down and in between various holes avoiding stepping in the white ropes and finally to the site your team was on. 

The rest of your team hopped out of the hole toward the tents mumbling something about taking fifteen, patting you on the back as they left you alone with Dr. Grace. 

When you reached the specific cubic square of the dig site, you laid down on your stomach, and Dr. Grace — or professor Grace, sat down in front of you.

You grabbed a scraping tool, and started scraping tediously in between the dirt and hard stone (or bone) you felt with your finger tips.

“This is pretty boring stuff, but we do it this way to preserve its shape. We don’t want to damage anything by working too quickly. Otherwise we can’t get an accurate testing in the lab.” 

When you looked up for a moment from your work at Dr. Grace, his head was shifted to the right away from you. His jaw line being cut perfectly by the descending sun, his hair flowing in the wind. 

You rolled your eyes for a moment before looking at what he was looking at.

His gaze was fixated heavily on your dig team from before. They were passing around a soccer ball and laughing. Even your archeology expert — a very stubborn archeology prof named Dr. Catherine Hicks and also a mother of three — was playing. 

“So you dig and they play soccer.”

“Well, that’s just now. Not always.” You shrugged.

“Do you play?” 

“No, I never have time, I’m kind of trying to finish a thesis here.” 

“Would you live a little?”

He said it in a way that implied he was going to force you to play soccer, but when you looked up, he was the one running toward the team of soccer player archaeologists. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

The sun was setting now, and you heard everyone switch on the battery operated lanterns around you illuminating the camp in a soft warm hue.

You followed him up out of the dig site onto the main terrain beside the tents and stood watching him kick around the soccer ball with Dr. Hicks. He was bouncing around like a golden retriever, awkwardly fumbling the ball around, missing kicks, and when you met your gaze with his, there was something about pride and determination that knocked the wind out of him as he turned around to kick the ball again. Dr. Hicks let out a genuine laugh for the first time in weeks.

“What’s so funny?” You asked.

Hicks just gestured at Dr. Grace.

“If you had told me two years ago that Dr. Ryland Grace, our leading expert on molecular biology in the entire faculty was playing soccer with archeologists, I’d think you were lying. He went through…a tough phase, something about his relationship with his brother. But something new is driving him. I think, to be more involved in the faculty.”

You just firmly nodded, a dozen questions circulating in your head like: what was Dr. Grace like two years ago? and Why hasn’t he ever talked about his brother?

Your conversation was slightly interrupted as the group let out a howl of laughter, and you heard a loud shifting of sand and a thud hit the ground.

You turned your gaze toward Dr. Grace, you noticed he was on the ground, he was rubbing his back in pain.

“Oh god, let's pull out the instant ice packs.” You instructed.

Dr. Hicks nodded, reaching around you into the tent, handing you the icepack unpopped.

You fumbled toward Dr. Grace, and you popped the ice pack, kneeling on the ground to assess his state fully. His glasses were now off of his face clipped to his shirt. He groaned, and reached out, both of your hands sliding against each other awkwardly, your eyes focusing in on each other in a way that you were unfamiliar with. Maybe in embarrassment? 

He pulled the icepack from your hand and pulled it toward his lower back.

“This is exactly why I dig instead of playing soccer.” 

He let out a short laugh.

“I guess I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.” 

You had to actually think about his statement. Because yes he was probably around 45 — not that you’ve had the courage to ask — but it never really felt like there was much of an age difference between you two. It was almost like the sudden remembrance that the gap was there at all distressed you. 

“Maybe, or maybe you just went too hard.” You tried, reassuring.

Your first name slid off his lips in a sarcastic way, and you realized you’ve never heard him say your first name until now. There was always something overly academic about the way he’d call all his students by their last name.

“I know how old I am, you don’t have to reassure me.”

You reach your hand out to help him up, and you start leading him toward a spare tent. You knew he needed rest and knew full well you’d be up all night digging if Dr. Hicks allowed you to use her head lamp and her stationary LED lamps.

Only when he was on his feet did you both acknowledge that you were holding his hand for a little too long with the tilt of his face toward your hand. You let go abruptly, embarrassed.

You gestured at the tent.

“So uh, this is the spare tent, it’s usually for our funders who come to visit…but seeing as there are none on sight tonight…”

“Then it goes to me, how special.”

You opened the tarp doorway and walked in behind him, closing the tarp behind you both. The mere idea of being in an enclosed space with him wasn’t unfamiliar, you’d been in labs alone with him, in his office discussing your ideas — admittedly shifting your conversation to things a little more casual like your shared interests — but you had never spent a night in the same camp as him.

“So this is it, I guess.” You said, turning on the battery powered lantern. “I guess I’ll leave you to–”

“Wait, stay a little, let’s talk about your progress.” He said abruptly. 

“Oh.”

“Unless you wanted to dig more, but I have a feeling you’ve been overworking yourself enough already.”

He sat down on one of the two foldable cots in front of you, you reluctantly sat in front of the cot across from him. Not because you didn’t want to talk to him, but because you could feel a ‘Dr. Grace talk’ about to start. The kind of talk where he’d give you unprompted advice because he could read you so well and somehow knew you needed it, even though every time you were stubbornly reluctant about said advice. Something about it always bothered you, you didn’t know what. 

“I mean…I kind of have to if I want to do my master’s.”

“What’s the rush?” He asked. “Why not travel the world and fall in love–”

You couldn’t believe what kind of conversation this was turning into, you didn’t know whether to be mad or confused. Your instinct reaction, words slipped out,

“Why is there this inherent rule that you can’t fall in love and pursue your career? I mean maybe I don’t get it because I’m not that kind of person–”

“What kind of person?”

You thought for a moment, rewinding your train of thought. You wanted to ask him about his brother, but you couldn’t, he had never told you about his brother in confidence before. But you knew exactly what he was trying to get you to say, and the conversation wasn’t about that anyway.

There was something about the way Dr. Grace could read you and talk at you that made words fall seamlessly out of your brain and out of your mouth into mid air without having to think. 

“The kind of person that prioritizes love over career, the kind of person that falls madly in love that it becomes self sacrificing I guess. Maybe I’m too young to understand. I don’t know.”

“How old are you again?”

You realized it was the first time he’s asked.

“I’m twenty-five.” 

“Right…”

His gaze drifted elsewhere as he moved to shift the ice pack away from his back, to toy with in his hands. You were staring a little too long at the way his hands moved, comparing the size of them with your own in your head.

There was a silence just then that for you solidified a difference between you and him that was untouchable. It solidified another idea: that you were aimlessly waiting for him to excuse that difference, to make it feel okay for thinking there was something less academic there. Instead you talk,

“Dr. Grace?”

The formal title seemed to knock something back into him, and he looked back up at you, unclipping his glasses and putting them back on his face. He mumbled a soft ‘hmm?’.

“Were you ever that kind of person when you were my age?”

You were expecting a cringe at the reminder of your difference, but it didn’t come. He just leaned forward toward you, placing his hands on your thighs, his gaze looking at you hesitantly.

You felt your body freeze up and as if he realized who he was talking to he pulled his hands back leaving you embarrassingly desperate for them to be back on you again.

“I think I used to be so against being that kind of person, but now I envy people who are capable of being that kind of person and succeed. Like maybe they were right all along.”

This time, you reach over and place your hand on his knee, rubbing there with your thumb comfortingly. You try and not magnify this fact, just try to touch him like you’ve now just realized you’ve always wanted to. He swallowed loudly, and he looked at you, a blush now spreading across his cheeks.

“Maybe they were wrong all along.” You shrugged. “My ex was like that. He wanted to settle down and I wanted to well…do this. I just think maybe there can be both. But especially this.”

You lifted your hand from his knee and gestured around the room, signifying that this was the moment you were in right there.

“I think there can be both.”

And when he said it he looked at you like he was an option, and you cleared your throat as you stood up suddenly at the revelation. 

“I’m gonna–um–”

“Uh yea–you have work to do.”

You turned toward the door, before turning abruptly back to face him again.

“Uh, when do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.” He spoke.

“Oh–”

“Yea, well I just wanted to see you before you head to Antarctica.”

“Right. To monitor my research.” You said plainly, your excuse for what had just happened.

“Right.” 

You shifted on your feet for a moment, your heart now racing at the implications of the interaction. 

“Well, I’ll come say goodbye tomorrow morning, and I’ll send you an email updating you…to let you know what we’ll need in the lab when I get home.”

He nodded, and you both said nothing and you headed back out toward your dig site feeling like you were in a very strange dream.

The next morning was cordial. You said goodbye to Dr. Grace, unable to make any kind of meaningful eye contact, and loaded him back into the shuttle toward the airport.

 And when you finally completed your dig a total of five days after Dr. Grace’s visit you received another email just as you were about to head to the airport yourself for your next dig site. You found yourself excited to read it, your heart racing again.

August 20 — from: [email protected]

I am so sorry for you having to witness me throw out my back, but I hope the rest of your next program in Antarctica goes smoothly. 

I have to admit, there was something about you that made me realize how lonely you must be without that one friend I assigned as your lab partner three years ago.

I hope to see you in the lab soon.

Dr. Grace

PhD Molecular biology

Associate professor in the faculty of science

***

August 25 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

It was quite a joy actually, witnessing your age show. I hope you don’t mind that I’m teasing you about that. I was definitely less lonely after seeing you, pardon my bluntness.

My Antarctica program is going smoothly…I’ll tell you more once I’ve settled in.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology

September 1 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

I am finally settled into Antarctica. The team and I managed to find Dr. Delaware’s old bottle of whiskey, we stole it from his side of the outpost. Anyway, we managed to get caught sharing the whiskey drunk out of our minds, and instead of chastising us, Dr. Delaware grabbed the bottle and joined us. This is a secret you must not tell anyone!

He kept asking about you. My best friend back home keeps asking about you. And admittedly, mostly, I am here in this email asking about you.

It’s way too cold here, I hope you’re warmer back home.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology

September 20 — from: [email protected]

These requests seem too stealthy to answer with my university email, so I’m replying with my personal. You can feel free to use this. 

I promise to never tell Dr. Delaware that you stole his whiskey. 

I have to resist myself from asking anyone who will listen about you.

P.S I owe you a hot chocolate to make up for the cold down south.

Ryland Grace.

PhD molecular biology

September 25 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

Thank you for keeping my secret.

I have finally finished my research down south.

As for the lab…I am planning on flying back home to finish our lab work next week. 

Unfortunately, I am in Los Angeles to visit that friend you were talking about in your last email. She ended up having a stroke, so I’ll be in LA for the next couple days.

I’ll take you up on that hot chocolate next week.

P.S it’s flattering to hear you ask about me as much as I ask about you.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology 

***

You were in LA when you received a reply to your email — an email you sent five days ago — you’re sitting by the pool behind your shitty motel, it’s nearly midnight and you had your earbuds in, and your feet in the water. 

The only light in sight came from the vacant sign. The shitty motel, the only one you could afford off of your limited student loans you had left. The pool is the only thing illuminated now too, behind the hotel, no doors in sight, nothing to bother you, just your own thoughts.

You had to admit you were being unusually flirty with someone you had assumed to not want to cross the boundaries of. But Dr. Grace was right, you were lonely, and he was giving you something you hadn’t experienced in a while — someone who genuinely listened. The chime of the notification interrupted the Sara Bareilles song you were listening to, and you fumbled to open it. You paused your music and took your headphones out.

September 30 — from: [email protected]

Don’t worry about it, your friends come first. A stroke at 25(?) seems a bit young and I’m so sorry! I’m actually in LA too to see my brother who managed to fall off a building and break his back. I'd tell you more, but I’m arriving at my motel in a bit.

And let’s be honest this doesn’t seem like the academic talk you need right now.

P.S Get your first draft of your thesis into Dr. Morgan’s office by Wednesday and we will regroup.

Ryland Grace.

PhD Molecular Biology

You hoped the world was forgiving for wanting to use Dr. Grace’s personal email for much more than academic rigour. You couldn’t seem to get the thought out when you heard a familiar voice rounding the fence, and you knew who it was without looking.

Dr. Grace was pacing on his phone, talking loudly, angrily, before he saw you, and he reacted as if he had done something horrible. He managed to hang up the phone and he freezed on the other side of the fence. You discarded your phone to the side.

“Are you following me, Professor Grace?” You asked, a smirk appearing on your mouth experimentally.

He walked through the gated door.

“Wow this looks extremely unprofessional doesn’t it?” He grumbled, he lifted his glasses to rest on top of his head, pinching his nose in between his fingers. “I swear to god I had no idea you were here, I just came back from the hospital and this is the only motel–”

“You could afford it. Yea it’s tough out here. Sit.” You instructed, patting the edge of the pool, the area next to you.

Dr. Grace lowered himself next to you cautiously, forcing about a foot of space next to you. You let out a laugh at him, and at yourself for wanting him to be much closer than he was. How ridiculous was this?

You both looked out into the pool, silence overcame you both, you cleared your throat. You may as well talk, you invited him to sit…and you so desperately wanted to know what this dynamic change meant.

“Your brother fell off a building?” You asked.

He flinched at your words, as if he was consumed by his own inner thoughts. He relaxed when his eyes met yours, and he barely laughed, a tilted smile sent your way. 

“He’s a stuntman. I guess something went wrong with the rig.” He said, he was untying his shoes now, discarding them so he could put his feet into the water.

“Oh.”

“Yea.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

You traced your mind back to the email, to the questions you wanted to ask but could never before…because you were just a student and he was just a professor overseeing your work. But this fact was becoming lose as the emails went on so you spoke,

“Dr. Grace?”

“Ryland, please. I think it’s time, I mean you’re graduating in four months.”

“Right. Ryland, are you and your brother close?” You asked. 

He shrugged, and you watched as he moved the question around in his head, considering your words.

“I think we used to be…before he dropped out of university. He said he wanted to do stunts, and I took that as a failing. I was too involved in my own success that I found myself comparing him to me.” He admitted.

“Stunts sound cool.” The only thing you managed to say. “I’m sorry he got hurt.”

“Yea well, it happens…I guess in that line of work.”

You frowned.

“How was Antarctica?” He asked.

“Cold, lots of whiskey, lonely. We found so much less than we did in Mexico, but, oh well.” You shrugged.

“I still cannot believe you got drunk with Dr. Delaware.” He laughed.

“Me neither to be honest. I wish you had been there.”

And that honest fact had an edge in the conversation, but it didn’t halt it enough for him to stop laughing at your candor. He shifted closer to you, you wondered if it was a conscious choice or not.

“How’s your friend? She’s too young to be having a stroke.”

“You didn’t manage to catch some hot chocolate on the way did you?” You asked.

Ryland sent you a look, his expectation that you answer…oh the professor in him peeking out. You cringed at the thought, you weren’t in the classroom, you were sitting beside a pool with a very attractive man who happened to have been your professor one time and it frustrated you that you didn’t know how to navigate the fact that you’ve both been sending signals back and forth for weeks.

“Do you have to be so noble?” You asked.

You were never much for vulnerability. You had a deflection in mind.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

You rolled your eyes at his fake obliviousness.

You just shrugged, forgetting it, and stood up, you shrugged off your shirt, leaving you bare chested.

“Woah, hey–”

“Would you live a little?” You asked, the same question from Mexico he had asked falling off of your lips.

You looked down at his face, he paused, lifting his head upward toward you. It took everything in you not to bring your hand down toward his face to run your hand over his stubble. His mouth hung agape, his eyes fighting between shifting to your chest and to your face. 

You looked away, shrugging your pants and underwear off next, before jumping into the pool. When you surfaced, Ryland was sitting there still, his clothes slightly splattered with water droplets that flew toward him during your plunge. Water droplets slipped down the lenses of his glasses too.  

You wondered why you didn’t feel embarrassed, you had no idea what his intentions were. But maybe it was the fact that you had been awake for more than 12 hours, and the fact that it felt like your world was crumbling and you just needed to feel something…that helped you give no shits. 

You swam closer to Ryland, your feet barely touching the floor, you peered at him in between his opened thighs. You placed your hand on the same knee you had your hand on weeks ago, wetting his jeans with the water running from your skin. 

“Your turn.” You whispered.

You reached forward, taking his glasses off of his face and placed them on the edge of the pool.  

And you were shocked, when Ryland wordlessly stood up, his eyes still wide in shock, and threw off his own shirt. You heard his breath hitch when his hands stumbled toward his belt and the zipper off his jeans.

When you saw the zipper un zip, and watched him discard his belt, you turned to look away, drifting in the water, the seriousness of the situation coming back to you. 

“You can–you can watch.” You heard Ryland say.

And it pierced through you, your heart picking up speed at the idea of seeing professor Ryland Grace naked. 

You had moments during labs when you’d catch yourself staring at his biceps for longer than you had intended, and moments like in Mexico when you couldn’t help but categorize every moment you thought he was even the slightest bit attractive into a folder in your mind. But this was different.

You turned your body back around to face him, a blush rising to your face.

Ryland pulled his jeans off, leaving him in only white boxer briefs. You followed your eyes down his chest toward his V line, trying your best to keep a straight face. When he hooked his thumb into his boxers, and you looked at his face, you caught something like hesitation there…as if he was about to put all of it back on. Instead, he pulled them off too.

You caught a glimpse of him well enough to see him smirk at the way your eyes traveled, before he jumped into the water after you. The splash shocked you and a laugh escaped your throat as he surfaced from the water too, he gasped for air.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, bewildered.

“I honestly don’t know.” You answered.

You experimentally drifted in the water toward him, surprised to have his hands land on your waist under the water as you gripped onto his bare shoulders.

“This is a compromising position.” He whispered.

And yet neither of you managed to protest even a little. He lifted his hand to swipe away the wet hair from your forehead and you gasped at the casual contact.

“Professor Grace–”

“Ryland.” He corrected.

“Ryland,” You murmured, and tilted your head closer to his.

He pulled back clearly in protest with himself, you let out a frustrated groan. 

“What happened with your friend?” He asked. “Please.”

It came out as a beg, like he needed the distraction, his grip on your waist tightened, and he held you at an arms length distance, your feet now both touching the ground of the pool as he led you to push you against the wall. Apparently, nakedness was also a forbidden thought, your most vulnerable parts so close together, not something you’d dare to bring up.

You caught his eyes, the glance between your mouth and your eyes.

“Well…I used to always compare myself to her. She was doing excellent in your labs, in every class really…and one day I asked how.”

“And?” 

“She had a cocaine habit, and apparently an adderall habit too. Anyway, it got bad and she was forced to move back home and she ended up having a stroke at work. I mean, I tried to help her so many times, and I thought it was my fault, but–”

Ryland moved his head down to graze his mouth against your lips, and you both stood there for a moment doing nothing about it. 

Your lips both moved close enough for a second to engage in a very small feathery light kiss, nothing more, his mouth breathing heavily into you, he whispered your last name softly, you corrected him, instructing him to use your first name, and he did in a way you had never heard anyone say your name before.

His forehead fell onto yours desperately, and you whined.

“It wasn’t your fault.” He whispered, the vibrations of his voice hitting your face.

“It wasn’t your fault either.” You breathed. “Your brother will be fine.”

This time you try to tilt your head in a way that would land your mouth on his more meaningfully, more concretely, in a way that would count. But he dodged it and you sigh at his avoidance.

“I don’t know what this is.” You admitted.

And that got him off of you immediately, lifting his forehead fully. He unclamped his hands off your waist and pulled away abruptly. His eyes widened in sheer panic.

“I can’t–I’m too old for this, for you–”

“Ryland–”

“Dr. Grace.” He corrected.

And you watched as he descended out of the pool, putting back on his clothes, leaving you literally naked and confused in the motel pool.

***

October 5 — to: [email protected]

Ryland, 

I’m so sorry for putting you in such an awkward position when you were most vulnerable…I guess I was feeling a little vulnerable myself.

I hope your brother has a speedy recovery.

Yours

Bachelors or archeology and biology

October 25 — from: [email protected]

Just checking in on how your thesis is going, are you in need of more lab time?

Ryland Grace.

PhD molecular biology

***

You avoided Ryland like the plague when you got back home, but it became abundantly clear that you could no longer avoid lab time like you so desperately wanted. 

So when you received Ryland’s overly professional email, you were checking your email on your phone one evening as you were about to leave your apartment to the university, to use the lab offered to you by a different professor. That professor exclusively promised you that you could work in his lab after hours, like now — 6:00pm — since you told him you worked better at night.

You were just about to grab your laptop and start heading out, until you heard a horrible crashing sound. 

You ran toward where the sound was coming from — your bedroom — and gasped as you watched water spew out of the ceiling in huge heaps straight onto your bed comedically, flooding the entire room. Your laptop was completely destroyed, along with your other things.

Not only were you avoiding the one person you respected the most at the entire university, you were running on two hours of sleep trying to finish your thesis, your best friend had just recovered from a massive stroke, and now your laptop was damaged.

You grabbed your soaked laptop, and your tote bags — one containing research samples you definitely should have put in the lab chamber and one containing your charger and notebook — and dialed your landlord's number. 

When he picked up, he told you he was going to send people to shut off the water coming from upstairs, but that you should find somewhere else to go while they do maintenance. 

So instead of staring at the pouring water continuing to flood your apartment, you got into your car and drove to the university, sobbing hysterically on the drive then up until you tried pushing the door open to the lab.

When it didn’t open, you realized you'd made a horrible mistake. Because you looked up through the locked glass door and made eye contact with Ryland. You had instinctively walked toward Ryland’s designated lab.

You caught Ryland’s eyes, he was wearing one of his science pun shirts, the lab safety goggles pushed to the top of his head, his glasses firmly on his face, those stupid glasses that were the first thing you’d ever realized was what made you attracted to him in the first place.

He rushed over to you, opened the door swiftly, and when you panicked going to turn around, he grabbed your wrist, pulling you inside.

“Ry–Dr. Grace, I’m sorry I meant to—”

“Woah, hey, hey,” He grabbed your shoulders, pulling you into the light of the lab. “What’s wrong?”

You laughed through your hysterical sobbing, dropping your bags on the floor.

“My apartment flooded!” You shouted.

“How long have you been awake?” He asked.

“Four days, but I had a 20 minute power nap…yesterday.” 

You sobbed again, harder this time, and Ryland looked at you just as panicked as you felt. Your mind drifted toward your laptop in your bag, drenched in water, and you gasped at the realization.

“My thesis is on my laptop, and it's destroyed.” 

You pushed away from him, pulling your laptop out of your bag. You shoved it in his hands, the water still seeping in the sides of it. That was also when you registered that the bottom of your pants had been soaked in water, and you hadn’t managed to even bring a jacket. You had managed to walk to your car in the windy conditions, as well as through the university campus without even feeling the chill.

His silence was deafening and you didn’t have the nerve to look into his eyes, not since your last encounter that had managed to change things drastically. He placed your laptop down on a lab bench.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled. “I don’t actually know why I’m here–well I do, I was going to do work in Dr. Delaware’s lab, but then I—and then you–”

“Hey, come here.” He interrupted, signalling you over with two fingers.

You crossed your arms over your chest, assessing his face, his body.

“Really?” You asked.

And he nodded, like it was the easiest interaction he’s had with you in weeks. He opened his arms, and you walked over wrapped your arms around his neck, and you nuzzled your head into him, his biceps securing you strongly to his chest.

You both stayed there for what felt like forever, and you listened to his heart beating. The tapping of it against your head regulating you, and he breathed slowly in and out leading you to breathe too. 

“That’s it, that’s perfect.” He praised, when your breathing began to match his own. “It’s going to be okay.”

He pulled you back enough to raise your face with his hand, and you thought for a moment — in the silence and in the way he was looking at you — that he might finally kiss you like he meant it, that he’d finally kiss you like he could care less about rules and conventions. But instead he said,

“Grab your things, we’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my apartment, you need food and sleep, not research.”

“You know I’m not fragile, I’m actually quite strong.”

“You have your fragile moments, this is one of them.”

For once, you didn’t feel the energy to argue.

“Take my car.” You responded, drained.

You grabbed your bags off the floor beside your feet, and this time, surprisingly, Ryland was the one to grab your hand, intertwining your fingers, his panic turning into shyness as you walked out the lab and toward the parking lot.

As you walked through the dark campus, no eyes on either of you, you wondered what it would be like to have him like this in the daylight. What perceptions would people have of you both, what would his reputation turn into? His thumb rubbed softly against yours. 

“I don’t know what this is either.” He admitted.

You managed only an ‘Okay’, when you reached your car in the upper campus lot. He opened the door to the passenger seat, a silent agreement that you were in no condition to drive. 

You slumped into the seat and you let him buckle you in, he grabbed your car keys and he closed the door quickly to get into the driver's seat, adjusting the seat so it pulled back for his long legs and his mirror height.

The drive to this apartment was quiet, a different kind of silence, one that was comfortable. A comfortable silence you often found in places like the lab with him, or in office hours when you were secretly staring at him when he proof read your research drafts and research proposals. This was just like that. You stared at him as he drove. You followed the arch of his nose, the clench of his jaw, and your eyes ran down to his hand as he reluctantly placed it on your thigh, rubbing you with his thumb, his hand staying firmly in place.

When he parked the car he managed to get to your door quickly enough to open it for you as you unbuckled.

You chuckled.

“Were you this sweet when you were my age?”

He cringed then shook his head.

“Tried to be…I think.” He simply responded.

You grabbed his arm as he closed the door leading you into his apartment complex. In the elevator you felt yourself getting drowsy, your head fell onto his shoulder in exhaustion. In response he moved his arm to wrap around your waist, steadying your collapsing body.

When you got to his door you waited as he unlocked it, and grabbed your bags from you as you stepped in. It was surprisingly organized — small — but organized.

Everything had a place, all his books on an ikea shelf, his CD’s in a shelf on the wall, his blankets folded on the small green couch, even his shoes and jackets were hung up nicely.

You noted the sci-fi posters and the posters of the cellular structures of plants and animals, the coffee rings on the table, a book he must have been currently reading on the coffee table, a photograph of a man you assumed to be his brother — who looked identical to him — and a plant he seemed to take tedious care of in the corner thriving.

You turned toward the kitchen, a simple kitchen with granite counters and wooden cabinets. Nothing too special, it flowed easily into the living room.

It was like looking into a version of him you never got the privilege of seeing because he was just another professor. But you were a different version of yourself now standing in his living room too and you couldn’t take that as solid evidence that being there and being with him was allowed, but it surely counted for something.

“Huh.” 

“What?” 

Ryland closed the door with his foot, locking it, and hung his keys on the key rack beside his jackets.

“Nothing, I just–like it.” You said, signalling to the room.

Ryland ducked his head in embarrassment, his gaze shifting toward his feet.

He mumbled when he was nervous and you noticed it often when he had forgotten the instructions to a lab test you were asking to do, or when he was giving any kind of public seminar.

“It’s not the best for a professor, but I think my salary is about to increase–”

“Ry,” the nickname caught his attention, and he looked back up at you. “I like it, really I do. Thank you for letting me stay.”

He bobbed his head in a simple nod and then he walked toward you, leading you — with his hand on your lower back — into his bedroom. 

“Your pants are covered in flood water, you can uh–you can pick out some sweatpants and a shirt if you need, they’re in the bottom dresser drawer.” He explained, and you noted the blush rising to his cheeks.

“Okay.”

“Okay. I’ll–I’ll let you change. I’ll make you some food and by food I mean heating up leftover Chinese from my grading session with my TA’s.”

Ryland left the room back into the kitchen and living room situation. 

You leaned down to open the wooden dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. You picked a pair of grey sweats, and closed the door to undress. You pulled off your wet jeans, and stepped into his pants, they were baggy, but comfortable and you sighed at how relaxed you suddenly felt. 

You slipped your shirt off too instinctively, and picked the first shirt you saw. A shirt that said “UM the element of confusion”, and you laughed at how accurate the feeling was right then before pulling it over your head. You heard the microwave beep as you dropped your old shirt to the floor.

You walked back into the living room, and into the kitchen area. When Ryland glanced at you, he smiled, he smiled at you just entering the room with teeth and all. You witnessed his chest relax, his shoulders fell and you relaxed in part.

“Thank you for the clothes.”

“You’re welcome,” He rubbed the back of his head, and he stepped toward you tugging on the shirt you wore. “You look good in my clothes.”

You blushed, unsure of what category the relationship you had was falling into. 

“Thanks.”

Ryland walked back toward the microwave, and handed you a white bowl of leftover Chinese noodles and rice — along with a metal fork — and popped his bowl into the microwave. You resort to sitting on top of the kitchen island in front of him, your legs hanging off the edge as you ate.

He pulled his food out of the microwave and stood in front of you eating. Neither of you were sure how to navigate that. You ate in silence, and when you were done, you put your bowl down on the counter. You watched as he ate silently, and you tried to be logical, to not feel the thing you feel right then, but you did. Because you were sitting in his apartment, wearing his clothes, eating his leftover food, because your apartment flooded and he so nobly offered you a place of refuge. 

There was something about that, that had to account for something…had to mean that this was okay now, this was easy, you could stop pretending you were just a student to him.

His mouth opened and shut, and you took it in yourself to speak first,

“For some reason I have this fear that you don’t think about me unless I’m right in front of you. I feel like I’m running around in figure-eights around you. And you’re the one who sent the first email!”

He stepped closer to you, in between your legs his face looking at you directly at the same height, and you thought, this is the most eye contact we’ve done for weeks.

He placed his hands on your clothed thighs, and this time he didn’t pull back, and you experimentally placed one hand on top of his. You had been right previously, his hands were much larger compared to yours.

“I try not to think about you, but I can’t stop, that’s the truth.” He threw his hands up agitated. 

You watched him back away and he started to pace across the hardwood floor.

“I get so anxious and nervous around you, I can’t stop thinking about your mouth, and how incredibly talented you are, I always want to tell you all the new fun facts I learn — I mean did you know that penguins have a gland above their eye that converts saltwater into freshwater,” He looked at you, his eyebrows perking up.

You laughed at his adorable rant, the Ryland you knew coming out.

“It’s called a supraorbital gland,” He clarified, solidifying the fact with a downward motion of his hand. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that one for weeks when you mentioned seeing the penguins at the zoo last term! I mean—I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“What if it’s just gravity? We just keep falling toward each other, and maybe this doesn’t have to mean anything more than that?”

“And what if it’s timing? I mean, I didn’t ask to be a renegade when I met you.”

“Is that what's stopping you, anxiety?”

He didn’t hesitate when you pulled him down by the collar of his shirt so his face was a mere inches in front of yours. His lips grazed yours again and this time, he was the one to finally press a firm kiss to your bottom lip, your lips parted as you kissed him back just as firm, lifting your hand to the back of his neck…running your fingers through his hair there. He shivered at the feeling, and pulled back, gasping for air.

“We can’t–I can’t–”

“I’m graduating in four months,” You reached toward him, lifting the glasses off of his face and pulling him down again by his shirt firmly, you kissed him again, and he groaned into it. “And you’re not even my professor anymore.”

He placed his hands on your body, running them up your thighs, and up to your waist, before pulling them under your shirt and running them up your bare back.

He pulled you closer to the edge of the counter, against his body. His mouth desperately parting in hungry kisses, his tongue for the first time grazing yours — which you welcomed with the tilt of your head to the left — for a second before his mouth landed on your upper lip.

He pulled back only, to drift his mouth to the right side of your neck. His mouth sucked and kissed along the skin there, and your head fell back instinctively in response, and a whine left your mouth and you were surprised it came out at all — his mouth making your body surrender and pull down all your defenses and tendencies to stay quiet out of embarrassment.

You didn’t care, he was there, making you feel good.

“You are trouble.” He groaned the last syllable.

“I know.”

He kissed you again, your mouths fighting for dominance. He pulled his hands back to your thighs and instructed you to wrap them around his waist.

He lifted you off of the counter and you separated from his mouth, his lips chased yours as he walked backward toward his bedroom. You smiled at his desperation, you lowered your head to nip at the skin below his jaw and he whimpered. It shocked you, how fragile he was at the whims of you.

He didn’t even bother closing the door as he lowered you onto the bed, the blankets already a mess, neither of you caring as he used his hand to open your thighs, you stopped him and grabbed his hand lowering it to the elastic waistband of the sweatpants you wore.

“You just put these on.” He whispered.

His tone implied that this was his way of taking care of you, his eyes shone in empathy at you and you brought your hand up to his face, rubbing the stubble with your thumb.

“Professor Grace, please, I have been begging for you to touch me.”

Ryland groaned, dropping his head at the formality and it took him less than a few seconds to take his sweatpants off you.

“Okay.” He whispered, a blush creeping up his face to his ears.

His sudden shyness made you curious, you wanted to understand how his smugness shielded it.

You laid your head against his pillow, and you looked at the ceiling waiting in anticipation for him to touch you in any way. You felt his hands travel to open your legs, and he kissed up your neck again. His fingers ran down your left thigh, up and down, until he swiveled them to graze closer to your center.

When you felt his fingers graze up and down the fabric of your underwear, finding your clit circling it through the fabric, your hips stuttered and you sighed.

You relaxed in the idea of his fingers on you, making you feel good, the same fingers he’d use to adjust your microscope in the lab or graze against yours when you grabbed a glass jar of chemicals. This was less sterile. This was different.

His mouth that was still on your neck formed into a smile.

“Hmm, you want more?” He asked.

“Please.” You begged.

“I’ve been wanting to taste you.” He admitted.

And you sat up a bit, to watch his reactions. He paused, and he looked at you for the go ahead. You were so shocked at the idea of your professor having thought about you like this before.

You gave him a nod. So he cautiously, as if you were fragile — and you were this was becoming a fragile moment — hooked his finger into your underwear and pulled them down your legs. His eyes stayed on your as he discarded them to the side.

He watched wordlessly as you sat up and took off the shirt in one fluid motion too.

He kissed you then, a firm peck, before he began kissing down your chest. He sucked and paid close attention to how you shivered, and how your body arched in anticipation.

He began kissing down your stomach and when he paused and looked up at you his eyebrows furrowing in your direction you were worried you had done something wrong, but all he said was,

“You’re perfect.”

And continued down to your thighs. When finally you felt his tongue find you, you felt him lick a straight line from your entrance up toward your clit, the contact shook you.

Your hands immediately locked onto his head, pulling at his hair. And his mouth began to move, his tongue circled your clit in agonizingly slow motions. And his mouth moved to latch onto it fully, you felt his tongue drift up and down and when he licked into your entrance his nose rubbed against your clitoris perfectly.

“Oh god, Ryland, so good.” You whined, writhing.

He groaned when you began rocking your hips, grinding against the bridge of his nose. The nose you always found so attractive, his side profile you’d stare at subtly in labs.

“Fuck, that’s it, you taste amazing.” He moaned.

His voice was muffled by you as his mouth moved over your core.

It felt like every worry in your mind about what this was was nowhere to be found.

You gripped the bedsheets with your free hand, your grip on Ryland’s hair getting tighter as you rocked over his nose. Your legs opened further and your feet planted themselves on the mattress.

You could feel the pressure building, you were already getting close, and that’s when he inserted a finger inside of you, rubbing that perfect spongy spot firmly with the pad of his finger. You moaned pornographically, and only then — for the first time in the entire night — were you embarrassed.

“You’re going to come, aren’t you?”

He asked, and he titled his head up, to watch you writhe and then back down to let you continue your rocking. You nodded incessantly.

“Yes, Ryland, please.”

“That’s it, that’s perfect, come for me.”

And you did, hard. Your back arched and you felt the pressure built into a radiating pleasure that flew up your body, and the sound that came out of your mouth echoed through the room.

He laughed. Actually laughed when you relaxed. You let out a content sigh, your body going limp under his hands.

And instead of pausing, he licked you again, drinking up your cum, and you whined at the feeling, letting him do his thing, until you tugged on his hair and you pulled him up toward you.

His mouth was covered in your wetness, and his nose glistened from your slick as well.

“You laughed at me.” You accused.

He lifted his hand to cup your face, looking down at your lips, not a smirk, a genuine smile being sent in your direction.

“That’s just the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you.”

This time you smiled genuinely, and you kissed his cheek.

“Thank you.” You murmured.

When you pulled your mouth down to nibble at his skin, your tongue licking there before sucking, it was his turn to crumble. And when you felt him scooch up toward you, and you ran your hand down his chest, and to his jeans, you felt how hard he was already.

You ran your hand over his clothed cock, and his hips bucked forward, you laughed at him this time as he groaned.

“You laughed at me.” He accused this time.

“It’s just. you’re not as strong as I previously thought.”

“I want to be inside of you.” The words came out faster as you ran your hand up and down his clothed length. “God I’m gonna be in so much trouble.”

“Nobody will find out.” You said, bringing your mouth back up to kiss him.

He leaned forward, kissing you, guiding you to lay back down on your back.

You watched as he stood and threw his shirt off, his toned chest once again making you drool. He slowly took off his belt, and this time when he unzipped his jeans, and pulled them down along with his boxers, you took in the sight of his hard cock already seeping with precum. He smirked at your reaction, and slowly crawled back toward you on the bed.

When he found your mouth, he lowered himself, so that his arms were on either side of you. He kissed your button lip once, then your top lip before parting his lips to slip his tongue against yours.

And you opened willingly, grazing your tongue against his in one big fluid motion, tilting your head to deepen it before you kissed him again harder.

You felt Ryland bring his hand down to his cock, and you pulled back to watch him stroke himself. He whimpered, his head falling back at the feeling of his own hand, his eyes shutting momentarily.

You brought your hand down to his cock, and paused his own motions, you bit your lip as you guided his length through your folds.

“Mmm, you’re gonna kill me.” He moaned.

And you rocked your hips, just relishing in the friction of his cock sliding against your wetness, the tip of it hitting your clit.

When his hips tilted back, he grabbed himself, and lined up to your entrance. And he paused, his eyes slightly wider than before, yet still drunk in you.

He scanned your face, and you scanned his face back and he asked,

“Is this okay?”

And you nodded, and you let him thrust forward and sink inside of you. The feeling was just as you imagined, and when he bottomed out, his hips close to yours, he fell forward his chest against your chest, and he kissed you softly.

“God, I’ve imagined this way too many times before.”

“For how long?”

“Since August.” He whispered.

You only rocked your hips in response and he let out a moan you only heard in pornographic audio book readings or in erotica audio subscriptions.

He thrusted forward to meet your motions, and you scanned his face, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes closed so much you worried he’d strain his forehead.

“Move your hips just like that, good.”

The humour of his instruction sounding academic did not miss you, in fact it turned you on even more.

You clenched around him unconsciously, he whimpered at that fact. He lowered his head to kiss at your collarbone.

“Yea? You like it when I praise you? When I instruct you? The whole professor thing works for you?” He was babbling, moving his hands to grab so hard onto your waist it would cause bruising.

Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment because he was right.

And if you knew Ryland, you knew he was marking that down for later.

But you had no chance to respond as he raised himself away from your chest, to piston into you as he threw your leg over his shoulder.

He was hitting that one perfect spot over and over again, and you struggled to reach, to graze your hand against his sweaty abs. And you whimpered as you felt him reach forward to rub your clit in circles with his thumb, the firm pressure there making your orgasm come to your horizon. You matched his thrust, lifting your hips perfectly.

“Oh fuck, you’re gonna make me come.” He gasped.

You threw your head back.

“Come inside me please.”

And it only took a couple more thrusts for your orgasm, to arrive. You clenched around him and Ryland moaned your name once, his hips stuttered, and he thrusted again.

“I’m coming, oh fuck-”

And he collapsed on top of you, his cum shooting inside of you as he thrusted. He grabbed onto you desperately, and sighed as he fell on top of you.

You both let out a deep breath, and when Ryland pulled out of you, suddenly everything was back. The fact that you had just slept with a professor on your research team, for your undergrad thesis, shot its way through your brain once again.

Ryland rolled off of you, and you both looked at the ceiling, then at each other, your disheveled states hilariously present and you asked,

“So…what does this mean?”

Ryland’s breathing leveled out, and you felt his hand reach for yours, and he answered,

It's a Friday - your day off. You're alone and bored in the apartment you share with Ryland, who is (much to your displeasure) stuck at work for a professional development day. The first part of the morning had slipped by quickly as you ran errands and tidied up the apartment, but as noon approaches you find yourself growing restless.

You glance at the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick steadily by. Ryland will be at work for at least another two hours. You're sure he'll be exhausted when he gets home, and will most definitely complain about the latest curriculum adjustments or whatever lackluster guest speaker the district had decided to hire this year.

A sinful idea pops into your head just then. It's almost lunchtime, which means Ryland will text you soon to check in on you. Maybe you can help lighten his mood a little before he has to slog through the rest of his afternoon.

You hurry into the bedroom and head for the closet, shedding your clothes as you go. You're left standing stark naked in front of your shared closet, flicking through Ryland's collection of button-up shirts.

You settle on your favorite one: a lovely cornflower blue with white buttons. It's slightly more form-fitting than the rest of the shirts Ryland wears, hence it being your favorite. Whenever he wears it you inevitably catch yourself staring at the way the material stretches over his shoulders and hugs his biceps. Once, he'd worn it with the sleeves rolled up and you'd been pretty sure you were going to pass out from how quickly your blood rushed south.

You slip into the shirt and button it up halfway, trying not to get terribly distracted by the scent of his cologne clinging to the collar. There's at least a two minute period in which you fight with the sleeves, trying to roll them up one-handed. Eventually you wrestle them into place and spare a glance at the clock on the nightstand. Only a few minutes left till Ryland's break. You hurry back into the living room and snatch up your phone, settling into the corner of the couch. Time to translate your idea into action.

You open the camera on your phone and snap a picture. When you open up the camera roll to assess your work you're pleased with the result: a view of you from the waist up, a cheeky smile on your face and just a hint of cleavage visible between the open buttons of his shirt.

All things considered it's fairly innocuous. Better to start off modest and work your way up to the main event once you've been assured he's alone. How mortifying it would be for the both of you if he were to open his phone around his coworkers only for them to get a full view of your tits. He'd definitely get fired and you'd have to live with the knowledge that you'd digitally flashed his middle-aged coworkers.

You pull up your text thread with Ryland and send him the picture. Miss you, you add after, tacking on a red heart.

Six minutes later (six minutes you most certainly were not counting) his reply comes.

Ryland: miss you too sweetheart ❤️

Ryland: you look so good in my shirt.

Ryland: how's your day been?

Ryland's not shy about how much he enjoys seeing you in his clothes. There have been numerous occasions where you've donned one of those nerdy science pun tees he's so fond of and stepped out into the living room while he's trying to grade papers just so you could see him look up once, do a double take, and watch any thoughts of work vanish from behind his eyes. It's flattering, knowing you can have that kind of effect on him.

You tap out an answer: good, managed to get lots done around the apartment.

You: it'll be a better day once you're home.

The message is marked as read immediately. A second later a little red heart react pops up on your last text.

You: you around anyone right now?

Three little dots appear on the bottom of the screen and you watch eagerly as Ryland types out his reply.

Ryland: just a few more hours, thank god. wanna watch a movie tonight?

Ryland: and no, i stepped outside for some fresh air.

Ryland: why? 🤨

Your mouth curls into a wicked grin as you flick open the next button on the shirt and open your phone's camera again. The selfie you take this time is more salacious than the last. Your lips are curved into a seductive smile, cleavage bared, breasts pressed together in a tantalizing display. There's a hint of areola peeking out, the rosy pink contrasting against the pale blue of the shirt. It's sure to draw his eye.

You send it to him before you can second guess yourself.

You: wanted to show you what's waiting for you when you get home, that's all 😇

It's a risky move you're pulling, teasing him while he's at work. You've sexted him before while he's away from home. Every time you do he comes home in a flurry, barely even grunting out a greeting before he has you pulled flush against him, lips sliding against yours, hands gripping at your waist and hips and breasts, hard cock pressed against your lower belly. Every time you let him take his pleasure and return it to you twofold, leaving you both sweaty and sated

The seconds seem to stretch, those three bouncing dots appearing and disappearing and then appearing again.

Ryland: oh my god

Ryland: baby please

Ryland: are you trying to kill me?

Ryland: jesus I'm getting hard at work

Ryland: you're a menace

His rapid-fire messages pause for a moment. Your phone dings when he adds:

you're probably laughing at me

He's right, you are, your face buried in the crook of your elbow as you snicker at his flustered response. He's supposed to be working on his professional development but his reaction to your image is very much not professional.

You: me, laugh at you? never.

Then, because you never know when to leave well enough alone, you take one last picture. This time the shirt is hanging off your shoulders, exposing the upper curve of your breasts and the subtle line of your collarbones. You angle the camera in such a way that he can see the bare expanse of your thighs. It's a shame the camera can't capture the slickness you feel gathering there, your skin prickling with excitement and arousal as you send the photo off.

Ryland: baby you can't do this to me while I'm at work, it's not fair.

Ryland: how the hell am I supposed to focus on team building exercises now?

You feel only a little bad for him. You're a little too focused on the heat gathered between your legs and the pleasant shiver that slithers along your back and down your limbs as you imagine what's in store for you when he gets home. Pressing your thighs together offers little relief. You're so, so tempted to slide your hand down and sate your growing arousal. But you don't. You're determined to delay your wandering hands, to suspend your pleasure for as long as possible. You know the wait will be worth it.

Your fingers tap across the keyboard: you're smart, you'll figure it out ;)

You closed the laptop, not even thinking of a reply.

The desert wind blew the tarps on your research tent wild, and it flapped up and down as you escorted yourself away and toward your dig team. 

They were standing over a square of dirt marked with white rope, measuring around 6 feet each way. 

The dirt was shoveled enough away to show some promise, and you suspected there were human remains underneath, considering there was an ancient city nearby, but you couldn’t figure it out until you had your chance at brushing. 

Even if they weren’t human remains, maybe you’d find the remains of a plant or ancient medical equipment you could swab and bring back home for chemical testing.

“Hey, can we get a set of brushes over here, and a tape measure?” You asked, shouting in the general vicinity.

You heard footsteps scraping against the dirt, behind you.

“This what you’re looking for?”

You thought, what a dumb question to ask, everyone here knows what a dig kit looks like, and once you turned around to grab the toolbox from the outstretched hand you jumped at the familiar face.

“Dr. Grace–what are you doing here? When did you arrive?”

He answered without hesitation.

“Just now, they’ve been expecting me. I didn't want to ruin the surprise.” 

You grabbed the toolkit from his hands and he shrugged, like it was obvious this is where he needed to be.

“Your email didn’t prepare me enough.” You murmured.

If he heard you, he ignored you, and how could you blame him after all he was the one who advocated for your success in the program, the least you could do was let him see you at work.

“I wanted to see what bioarcheology looks like, since we’ll be analysing and conducting chemical tests on the samples you guys collect here together in just a few days.” He explained. 

He sent you a smirk, adjusting his signature glasses, a smirk that he’d often send you in a way you couldn’t read. 

It was always a smirk you were unsure of…on the one hand he was notorious for being smug in academic settings, you knew about his reputation. He’d smirk at any scholar at any chance he could get, and mostly because he was right. 

However, on the other hand he could be smirking in a way that meant he was attracted to you in ways he could never admit, and you could never ask, and you could never do anything about anyway if you felt the same. 

And then there was the possibility that his smirk was overcompensating for his awkwardness with his students in particular that you witnessed just as much as his smugness.

You had to stop yourself from smirking back.

You shrugged, opened your tool kit and grabbed a few scraping tools and brushes.  

“Well I could walk you through it, but I’m mostly just excited to get back home and conduct tests on all of it.” 

“Really? Homesick already?” He asked.

“Not really.” You lied. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

It’s actually the loneliest you’ve ever been. But you weren’t going to admit that to a professor you were working on research with. 

He followed you as you stepped down into the dig site, walking swiftly down and in between various holes avoiding stepping in the white ropes and finally to the site your team was on. 

The rest of your team hopped out of the hole toward the tents mumbling something about taking fifteen, patting you on the back as they left you alone with Dr. Grace. 

When you reached the specific cubic square of the dig site, you laid down on your stomach, and Dr. Grace — or professor Grace, sat down in front of you.

You grabbed a scraping tool, and started scraping tediously in between the dirt and hard stone (or bone) you felt with your finger tips.

“This is pretty boring stuff, but we do it this way to preserve its shape. We don’t want to damage anything by working too quickly. Otherwise we can’t get an accurate testing in the lab.” 

When you looked up for a moment from your work at Dr. Grace, his head was shifted to the right away from you. His jaw line being cut perfectly by the descending sun, his hair flowing in the wind. 

You rolled your eyes for a moment before looking at what he was looking at.

His gaze was fixated heavily on your dig team from before. They were passing around a soccer ball and laughing. Even your archeology expert — a very stubborn archeology prof named Dr. Catherine Hicks and also a mother of three — was playing. 

“So you dig and they play soccer.”

“Well, that’s just now. Not always.” You shrugged.

“Do you play?” 

“No, I never have time, I’m kind of trying to finish a thesis here.” 

“Would you live a little?”

He said it in a way that implied he was going to force you to play soccer, but when you looked up, he was the one running toward the team of soccer player archaeologists. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

The sun was setting now, and you heard everyone switch on the battery operated lanterns around you illuminating the camp in a soft warm hue.

You followed him up out of the dig site onto the main terrain beside the tents and stood watching him kick around the soccer ball with Dr. Hicks. He was bouncing around like a golden retriever, awkwardly fumbling the ball around, missing kicks, and when you met your gaze with his, there was something about pride and determination that knocked the wind out of him as he turned around to kick the ball again. Dr. Hicks let out a genuine laugh for the first time in weeks.

“What’s so funny?” You asked.

Hicks just gestured at Dr. Grace.

“If you had told me two years ago that Dr. Ryland Grace, our leading expert on molecular biology in the entire faculty was playing soccer with archeologists, I’d think you were lying. He went through…a tough phase, something about his relationship with his brother. But something new is driving him. I think, to be more involved in the faculty.”

You just firmly nodded, a dozen questions circulating in your head like: what was Dr. Grace like two years ago? and Why hasn’t he ever talked about his brother?

Your conversation was slightly interrupted as the group let out a howl of laughter, and you heard a loud shifting of sand and a thud hit the ground.

You turned your gaze toward Dr. Grace, you noticed he was on the ground, he was rubbing his back in pain.

“Oh god, let's pull out the instant ice packs.” You instructed.

Dr. Hicks nodded, reaching around you into the tent, handing you the icepack unpopped.

You fumbled toward Dr. Grace, and you popped the ice pack, kneeling on the ground to assess his state fully. His glasses were now off of his face clipped to his shirt. He groaned, and reached out, both of your hands sliding against each other awkwardly, your eyes focusing in on each other in a way that you were unfamiliar with. Maybe in embarrassment? 

He pulled the icepack from your hand and pulled it toward his lower back.

“This is exactly why I dig instead of playing soccer.” 

He let out a short laugh.

“I guess I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.” 

You had to actually think about his statement. Because yes he was probably around 45 — not that you’ve had the courage to ask — but it never really felt like there was much of an age difference between you two. It was almost like the sudden remembrance that the gap was there at all distressed you. 

“Maybe, or maybe you just went too hard.” You tried, reassuring.

Your first name slid off his lips in a sarcastic way, and you realized you’ve never heard him say your first name until now. There was always something overly academic about the way he’d call all his students by their last name.

“I know how old I am, you don’t have to reassure me.”

You reach your hand out to help him up, and you start leading him toward a spare tent. You knew he needed rest and knew full well you’d be up all night digging if Dr. Hicks allowed you to use her head lamp and her stationary LED lamps.

Only when he was on his feet did you both acknowledge that you were holding his hand for a little too long with the tilt of his face toward your hand. You let go abruptly, embarrassed.

You gestured at the tent.

“So uh, this is the spare tent, it’s usually for our funders who come to visit…but seeing as there are none on sight tonight…”

“Then it goes to me, how special.”

You opened the tarp doorway and walked in behind him, closing the tarp behind you both. The mere idea of being in an enclosed space with him wasn’t unfamiliar, you’d been in labs alone with him, in his office discussing your ideas — admittedly shifting your conversation to things a little more casual like your shared interests — but you had never spent a night in the same camp as him.

“So this is it, I guess.” You said, turning on the battery powered lantern. “I guess I’ll leave you to–”

“Wait, stay a little, let’s talk about your progress.” He said abruptly. 

“Oh.”

“Unless you wanted to dig more, but I have a feeling you’ve been overworking yourself enough already.”

He sat down on one of the two foldable cots in front of you, you reluctantly sat in front of the cot across from him. Not because you didn’t want to talk to him, but because you could feel a ‘Dr. Grace talk’ about to start. The kind of talk where he’d give you unprompted advice because he could read you so well and somehow knew you needed it, even though every time you were stubbornly reluctant about said advice. Something about it always bothered you, you didn’t know what. 

“I mean…I kind of have to if I want to do my master’s.”

“What’s the rush?” He asked. “Why not travel the world and fall in love–”

You couldn’t believe what kind of conversation this was turning into, you didn’t know whether to be mad or confused. Your instinct reaction, words slipped out,

“Why is there this inherent rule that you can’t fall in love and pursue your career? I mean maybe I don’t get it because I’m not that kind of person–”

“What kind of person?”

You thought for a moment, rewinding your train of thought. You wanted to ask him about his brother, but you couldn’t, he had never told you about his brother in confidence before. But you knew exactly what he was trying to get you to say, and the conversation wasn’t about that anyway.

There was something about the way Dr. Grace could read you and talk at you that made words fall seamlessly out of your brain and out of your mouth into mid air without having to think. 

“The kind of person that prioritizes love over career, the kind of person that falls madly in love that it becomes self sacrificing I guess. Maybe I’m too young to understand. I don’t know.”

“How old are you again?”

You realized it was the first time he’s asked.

“I’m twenty-five.” 

“Right…”

His gaze drifted elsewhere as he moved to shift the ice pack away from his back, to toy with in his hands. You were staring a little too long at the way his hands moved, comparing the size of them with your own in your head.

There was a silence just then that for you solidified a difference between you and him that was untouchable. It solidified another idea: that you were aimlessly waiting for him to excuse that difference, to make it feel okay for thinking there was something less academic there. Instead you talk,

“Dr. Grace?”

The formal title seemed to knock something back into him, and he looked back up at you, unclipping his glasses and putting them back on his face. He mumbled a soft ‘hmm?’.

“Were you ever that kind of person when you were my age?”

You were expecting a cringe at the reminder of your difference, but it didn’t come. He just leaned forward toward you, placing his hands on your thighs, his gaze looking at you hesitantly.

You felt your body freeze up and as if he realized who he was talking to he pulled his hands back leaving you embarrassingly desperate for them to be back on you again.

“I think I used to be so against being that kind of person, but now I envy people who are capable of being that kind of person and succeed. Like maybe they were right all along.”

This time, you reach over and place your hand on his knee, rubbing there with your thumb comfortingly. You try and not magnify this fact, just try to touch him like you’ve now just realized you’ve always wanted to. He swallowed loudly, and he looked at you, a blush now spreading across his cheeks.

“Maybe they were wrong all along.” You shrugged. “My ex was like that. He wanted to settle down and I wanted to well…do this. I just think maybe there can be both. But especially this.”

You lifted your hand from his knee and gestured around the room, signifying that this was the moment you were in right there.

“I think there can be both.”

And when he said it he looked at you like he was an option, and you cleared your throat as you stood up suddenly at the revelation. 

“I’m gonna–um–”

“Uh yea–you have work to do.”

You turned toward the door, before turning abruptly back to face him again.

“Uh, when do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.” He spoke.

“Oh–”

“Yea, well I just wanted to see you before you head to Antarctica.”

“Right. To monitor my research.” You said plainly, your excuse for what had just happened.

“Right.” 

You shifted on your feet for a moment, your heart now racing at the implications of the interaction. 

“Well, I’ll come say goodbye tomorrow morning, and I’ll send you an email updating you…to let you know what we’ll need in the lab when I get home.”

He nodded, and you both said nothing and you headed back out toward your dig site feeling like you were in a very strange dream.

The next morning was cordial. You said goodbye to Dr. Grace, unable to make any kind of meaningful eye contact, and loaded him back into the shuttle toward the airport.

 And when you finally completed your dig a total of five days after Dr. Grace’s visit you received another email just as you were about to head to the airport yourself for your next dig site. You found yourself excited to read it, your heart racing again.

August 20 — from: [email protected]

I am so sorry for you having to witness me throw out my back, but I hope the rest of your next program in Antarctica goes smoothly. 

I have to admit, there was something about you that made me realize how lonely you must be without that one friend I assigned as your lab partner three years ago.

I hope to see you in the lab soon.

Dr. Grace

PhD Molecular biology

Associate professor in the faculty of science

***

August 25 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

It was quite a joy actually, witnessing your age show. I hope you don’t mind that I’m teasing you about that. I was definitely less lonely after seeing you, pardon my bluntness.

My Antarctica program is going smoothly…I’ll tell you more once I’ve settled in.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology

September 1 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

I am finally settled into Antarctica. The team and I managed to find Dr. Delaware’s old bottle of whiskey, we stole it from his side of the outpost. Anyway, we managed to get caught sharing the whiskey drunk out of our minds, and instead of chastising us, Dr. Delaware grabbed the bottle and joined us. This is a secret you must not tell anyone!

He kept asking about you. My best friend back home keeps asking about you. And admittedly, mostly, I am here in this email asking about you.

It’s way too cold here, I hope you’re warmer back home.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology

September 20 — from: [email protected]

These requests seem too stealthy to answer with my university email, so I’m replying with my personal. You can feel free to use this. 

I promise to never tell Dr. Delaware that you stole his whiskey. 

I have to resist myself from asking anyone who will listen about you.

P.S I owe you a hot chocolate to make up for the cold down south.

Ryland Grace.

PhD molecular biology

September 25 — to: [email protected]

Dr. Grace,

Thank you for keeping my secret.

I have finally finished my research down south.

As for the lab…I am planning on flying back home to finish our lab work next week. 

Unfortunately, I am in Los Angeles to visit that friend you were talking about in your last email. She ended up having a stroke, so I’ll be in LA for the next couple days.

I’ll take you up on that hot chocolate next week.

P.S it’s flattering to hear you ask about me as much as I ask about you.

Yours

Bachelors of archeology and biology 

***

You were in LA when you received a reply to your email — an email you sent five days ago — you’re sitting by the pool behind your shitty motel, it’s nearly midnight and you had your earbuds in, and your feet in the water. 

The only light in sight came from the vacant sign. The shitty motel, the only one you could afford off of your limited student loans you had left. The pool is the only thing illuminated now too, behind the hotel, no doors in sight, nothing to bother you, just your own thoughts.

You had to admit you were being unusually flirty with someone you had assumed to not want to cross the boundaries of. But Dr. Grace was right, you were lonely, and he was giving you something you hadn’t experienced in a while — someone who genuinely listened. The chime of the notification interrupted the Sara Bareilles song you were listening to, and you fumbled to open it. You paused your music and took your headphones out.

September 30 — from: [email protected]

Don’t worry about it, your friends come first. A stroke at 25(?) seems a bit young and I’m so sorry! I’m actually in LA too to see my brother who managed to fall off a building and break his back. I'd tell you more, but I’m arriving at my motel in a bit.

And let’s be honest this doesn’t seem like the academic talk you need right now.

P.S Get your first draft of your thesis into Dr. Morgan’s office by Wednesday and we will regroup.

Ryland Grace.

PhD Molecular Biology

You hoped the world was forgiving for wanting to use Dr. Grace’s personal email for much more than academic rigour. You couldn’t seem to get the thought out when you heard a familiar voice rounding the fence, and you knew who it was without looking.

Dr. Grace was pacing on his phone, talking loudly, angrily, before he saw you, and he reacted as if he had done something horrible. He managed to hang up the phone and he freezed on the other side of the fence. You discarded your phone to the side.

“Are you following me, Professor Grace?” You asked, a smirk appearing on your mouth experimentally.

He walked through the gated door.

“Wow this looks extremely unprofessional doesn’t it?” He grumbled, he lifted his glasses to rest on top of his head, pinching his nose in between his fingers. “I swear to god I had no idea you were here, I just came back from the hospital and this is the only motel–”

“You could afford it. Yea it’s tough out here. Sit.” You instructed, patting the edge of the pool, the area next to you.

Dr. Grace lowered himself next to you cautiously, forcing about a foot of space next to you. You let out a laugh at him, and at yourself for wanting him to be much closer than he was. How ridiculous was this?

You both looked out into the pool, silence overcame you both, you cleared your throat. You may as well talk, you invited him to sit…and you so desperately wanted to know what this dynamic change meant.

“Your brother fell off a building?” You asked.

He flinched at your words, as if he was consumed by his own inner thoughts. He relaxed when his eyes met yours, and he barely laughed, a tilted smile sent your way. 

“He’s a stuntman. I guess something went wrong with the rig.” He said, he was untying his shoes now, discarding them so he could put his feet into the water.

“Oh.”

“Yea.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

You traced your mind back to the email, to the questions you wanted to ask but could never before…because you were just a student and he was just a professor overseeing your work. But this fact was becoming lose as the emails went on so you spoke,

“Dr. Grace?”

“Ryland, please. I think it’s time, I mean you’re graduating in four months.”

“Right. Ryland, are you and your brother close?” You asked. 

He shrugged, and you watched as he moved the question around in his head, considering your words.

“I think we used to be…before he dropped out of university. He said he wanted to do stunts, and I took that as a failing. I was too involved in my own success that I found myself comparing him to me.” He admitted.

“Stunts sound cool.” The only thing you managed to say. “I’m sorry he got hurt.”

“Yea well, it happens…I guess in that line of work.”

You frowned.

“How was Antarctica?” He asked.

“Cold, lots of whiskey, lonely. We found so much less than we did in Mexico, but, oh well.” You shrugged.

“I still cannot believe you got drunk with Dr. Delaware.” He laughed.

“Me neither to be honest. I wish you had been there.”

And that honest fact had an edge in the conversation, but it didn’t halt it enough for him to stop laughing at your candor. He shifted closer to you, you wondered if it was a conscious choice or not.

“How’s your friend? She’s too young to be having a stroke.”

“You didn’t manage to catch some hot chocolate on the way did you?” You asked.

Ryland sent you a look, his expectation that you answer…oh the professor in him peeking out. You cringed at the thought, you weren’t in the classroom, you were sitting beside a pool with a very attractive man who happened to have been your professor one time and it frustrated you that you didn’t know how to navigate the fact that you’ve both been sending signals back and forth for weeks.

“Do you have to be so noble?” You asked.

You were never much for vulnerability. You had a deflection in mind.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

You rolled your eyes at his fake obliviousness.

You just shrugged, forgetting it, and stood up, you shrugged off your shirt, leaving you bare chested.

“Woah, hey–”

“Would you live a little?” You asked, the same question from Mexico he had asked falling off of your lips.

You looked down at his face, he paused, lifting his head upward toward you. It took everything in you not to bring your hand down toward his face to run your hand over his stubble. His mouth hung agape, his eyes fighting between shifting to your chest and to your face. 

You looked away, shrugging your pants and underwear off next, before jumping into the pool. When you surfaced, Ryland was sitting there still, his clothes slightly splattered with water droplets that flew toward him during your plunge. Water droplets slipped down the lenses of his glasses too.  

You wondered why you didn’t feel embarrassed, you had no idea what his intentions were. But maybe it was the fact that you had been awake for more than 12 hours, and the fact that it felt like your world was crumbling and you just needed to feel something…that helped you give no shits. 

You swam closer to Ryland, your feet barely touching the floor, you peered at him in between his opened thighs. You placed your hand on the same knee you had your hand on weeks ago, wetting his jeans with the water running from your skin. 

“Your turn.” You whispered.

You reached forward, taking his glasses off of his face and placed them on the edge of the pool.  

And you were shocked, when Ryland wordlessly stood up, his eyes still wide in shock, and threw off his own shirt. You heard his breath hitch when his hands stumbled toward his belt and the zipper off his jeans.

When you saw the zipper un zip, and watched him discard his belt, you turned to look away, drifting in the water, the seriousness of the situation coming back to you. 

“You can–you can watch.” You heard Ryland say.

And it pierced through you, your heart picking up speed at the idea of seeing professor Ryland Grace naked. 

You had moments during labs when you’d catch yourself staring at his biceps for longer than you had intended, and moments like in Mexico when you couldn’t help but categorize every moment you thought he was even the slightest bit attractive into a folder in your mind. But this was different.

You turned your body back around to face him, a blush rising to your face.

Ryland pulled his jeans off, leaving him in only white boxer briefs. You followed your eyes down his chest toward his V line, trying your best to keep a straight face. When he hooked his thumb into his boxers, and you looked at his face, you caught something like hesitation there…as if he was about to put all of it back on. Instead, he pulled them off too.

You caught a glimpse of him well enough to see him smirk at the way your eyes traveled, before he jumped into the water after you. The splash shocked you and a laugh escaped your throat as he surfaced from the water too, he gasped for air.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, bewildered.

“I honestly don’t know.” You answered.

You experimentally drifted in the water toward him, surprised to have his hands land on your waist under the water as you gripped onto his bare shoulders.

“This is a compromising position.” He whispered.

And yet neither of you managed to protest even a little. He lifted his hand to swipe away the wet hair from your forehead and you gasped at the casual contact.

“Professor Grace–”

“Ryland.” He corrected.

“Ryland,” You murmured, and tilted your head closer to his.

He pulled back clearly in protest with himself, you let out a frustrated groan. 

“What happened with your friend?” He asked. “Please.”

It came out as a beg, like he needed the distraction, his grip on your waist tightened, and he held you at an arms length distance, your feet now both touching the ground of the pool as he led you to push you against the wall. Apparently, nakedness was also a forbidden thought, your most vulnerable parts so close together, not something you’d dare to bring up.

You caught his eyes, the glance between your mouth and your eyes.

“Well…I used to always compare myself to her. She was doing excellent in your labs, in every class really…and one day I asked how.”

“And?” 

“She had a cocaine habit, and apparently an adderall habit too. Anyway, it got bad and she was forced to move back home and she ended up having a stroke at work. I mean, I tried to help her so many times, and I thought it was my fault, but–”

Ryland moved his head down to graze his mouth against your lips, and you both stood there for a moment doing nothing about it. 

Your lips both moved close enough for a second to engage in a very small feathery light kiss, nothing more, his mouth breathing heavily into you, he whispered your last name softly, you corrected him, instructing him to use your first name, and he did in a way you had never heard anyone say your name before.

His forehead fell onto yours desperately, and you whined.

“It wasn’t your fault.” He whispered, the vibrations of his voice hitting your face.

“It wasn’t your fault either.” You breathed. “Your brother will be fine.”

This time you try to tilt your head in a way that would land your mouth on his more meaningfully, more concretely, in a way that would count. But he dodged it and you sigh at his avoidance.

“I don’t know what this is.” You admitted.

And that got him off of you immediately, lifting his forehead fully. He unclamped his hands off your waist and pulled away abruptly. His eyes widened in sheer panic.

“I can’t–I’m too old for this, for you–”

“Ryland–”

“Dr. Grace.” He corrected.

And you watched as he descended out of the pool, putting back on his clothes, leaving you literally naked and confused in the motel pool.

***

October 5 — to: [email protected]

Ryland, 

I’m so sorry for putting you in such an awkward position when you were most vulnerable…I guess I was feeling a little vulnerable myself.

I hope your brother has a speedy recovery.

Yours

Bachelors or archeology and biology

October 25 — from: [email protected]

Just checking in on how your thesis is going, are you in need of more lab time?

Ryland Grace.

PhD molecular biology

***

You avoided Ryland like the plague when you got back home, but it became abundantly clear that you could no longer avoid lab time like you so desperately wanted. 

So when you received Ryland’s overly professional email, you were checking your email on your phone one evening as you were about to leave your apartment to the university, to use the lab offered to you by a different professor. That professor exclusively promised you that you could work in his lab after hours, like now — 6:00pm — since you told him you worked better at night.

You were just about to grab your laptop and start heading out, until you heard a horrible crashing sound. 

You ran toward where the sound was coming from — your bedroom — and gasped as you watched water spew out of the ceiling in huge heaps straight onto your bed comedically, flooding the entire room. Your laptop was completely destroyed, along with your other things.

Not only were you avoiding the one person you respected the most at the entire university, you were running on two hours of sleep trying to finish your thesis, your best friend had just recovered from a massive stroke, and now your laptop was damaged.

You grabbed your soaked laptop, and your tote bags — one containing research samples you definitely should have put in the lab chamber and one containing your charger and notebook — and dialed your landlord's number. 

When he picked up, he told you he was going to send people to shut off the water coming from upstairs, but that you should find somewhere else to go while they do maintenance. 

So instead of staring at the pouring water continuing to flood your apartment, you got into your car and drove to the university, sobbing hysterically on the drive then up until you tried pushing the door open to the lab.

When it didn’t open, you realized you'd made a horrible mistake. Because you looked up through the locked glass door and made eye contact with Ryland. You had instinctively walked toward Ryland’s designated lab.

You caught Ryland’s eyes, he was wearing one of his science pun shirts, the lab safety goggles pushed to the top of his head, his glasses firmly on his face, those stupid glasses that were the first thing you’d ever realized was what made you attracted to him in the first place.

He rushed over to you, opened the door swiftly, and when you panicked going to turn around, he grabbed your wrist, pulling you inside.

“Ry–Dr. Grace, I’m sorry I meant to—”

“Woah, hey, hey,” He grabbed your shoulders, pulling you into the light of the lab. “What’s wrong?”

You laughed through your hysterical sobbing, dropping your bags on the floor.

“My apartment flooded!” You shouted.

“How long have you been awake?” He asked.

“Four days, but I had a 20 minute power nap…yesterday.” 

You sobbed again, harder this time, and Ryland looked at you just as panicked as you felt. Your mind drifted toward your laptop in your bag, drenched in water, and you gasped at the realization.

“My thesis is on my laptop, and it's destroyed.” 

You pushed away from him, pulling your laptop out of your bag. You shoved it in his hands, the water still seeping in the sides of it. That was also when you registered that the bottom of your pants had been soaked in water, and you hadn’t managed to even bring a jacket. You had managed to walk to your car in the windy conditions, as well as through the university campus without even feeling the chill.

His silence was deafening and you didn’t have the nerve to look into his eyes, not since your last encounter that had managed to change things drastically. He placed your laptop down on a lab bench.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled. “I don’t actually know why I’m here–well I do, I was going to do work in Dr. Delaware’s lab, but then I—and then you–”

“Hey, come here.” He interrupted, signalling you over with two fingers.

You crossed your arms over your chest, assessing his face, his body.

“Really?” You asked.

And he nodded, like it was the easiest interaction he’s had with you in weeks. He opened his arms, and you walked over wrapped your arms around his neck, and you nuzzled your head into him, his biceps securing you strongly to his chest.

You both stayed there for what felt like forever, and you listened to his heart beating. The tapping of it against your head regulating you, and he breathed slowly in and out leading you to breathe too. 

“That’s it, that’s perfect.” He praised, when your breathing began to match his own. “It’s going to be okay.”

He pulled you back enough to raise your face with his hand, and you thought for a moment — in the silence and in the way he was looking at you — that he might finally kiss you like he meant it, that he’d finally kiss you like he could care less about rules and conventions. But instead he said,

“Grab your things, we’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my apartment, you need food and sleep, not research.”

“You know I’m not fragile, I’m actually quite strong.”

“You have your fragile moments, this is one of them.”

For once, you didn’t feel the energy to argue.

“Take my car.” You responded, drained.

You grabbed your bags off the floor beside your feet, and this time, surprisingly, Ryland was the one to grab your hand, intertwining your fingers, his panic turning into shyness as you walked out the lab and toward the parking lot.

As you walked through the dark campus, no eyes on either of you, you wondered what it would be like to have him like this in the daylight. What perceptions would people have of you both, what would his reputation turn into? His thumb rubbed softly against yours. 

“I don’t know what this is either.” He admitted.

You managed only an ‘Okay’, when you reached your car in the upper campus lot. He opened the door to the passenger seat, a silent agreement that you were in no condition to drive. 

You slumped into the seat and you let him buckle you in, he grabbed your car keys and he closed the door quickly to get into the driver's seat, adjusting the seat so it pulled back for his long legs and his mirror height.

The drive to this apartment was quiet, a different kind of silence, one that was comfortable. A comfortable silence you often found in places like the lab with him, or in office hours when you were secretly staring at him when he proof read your research drafts and research proposals. This was just like that. You stared at him as he drove. You followed the arch of his nose, the clench of his jaw, and your eyes ran down to his hand as he reluctantly placed it on your thigh, rubbing you with his thumb, his hand staying firmly in place.

When he parked the car he managed to get to your door quickly enough to open it for you as you unbuckled.

You chuckled.

“Were you this sweet when you were my age?”

He cringed then shook his head.

“Tried to be…I think.” He simply responded.

You grabbed his arm as he closed the door leading you into his apartment complex. In the elevator you felt yourself getting drowsy, your head fell onto his shoulder in exhaustion. In response he moved his arm to wrap around your waist, steadying your collapsing body.

When you got to his door you waited as he unlocked it, and grabbed your bags from you as you stepped in. It was surprisingly organized — small — but organized.

Everything had a place, all his books on an ikea shelf, his CD’s in a shelf on the wall, his blankets folded on the small green couch, even his shoes and jackets were hung up nicely.

You noted the sci-fi posters and the posters of the cellular structures of plants and animals, the coffee rings on the table, a book he must have been currently reading on the coffee table, a photograph of a man you assumed to be his brother — who looked identical to him — and a plant he seemed to take tedious care of in the corner thriving.

You turned toward the kitchen, a simple kitchen with granite counters and wooden cabinets. Nothing too special, it flowed easily into the living room.

It was like looking into a version of him you never got the privilege of seeing because he was just another professor. But you were a different version of yourself now standing in his living room too and you couldn’t take that as solid evidence that being there and being with him was allowed, but it surely counted for something.

“Huh.” 

“What?” 

Ryland closed the door with his foot, locking it, and hung his keys on the key rack beside his jackets.

“Nothing, I just–like it.” You said, signalling to the room.

Ryland ducked his head in embarrassment, his gaze shifting toward his feet.

He mumbled when he was nervous and you noticed it often when he had forgotten the instructions to a lab test you were asking to do, or when he was giving any kind of public seminar.

“It’s not the best for a professor, but I think my salary is about to increase–”

“Ry,” the nickname caught his attention, and he looked back up at you. “I like it, really I do. Thank you for letting me stay.”

He bobbed his head in a simple nod and then he walked toward you, leading you — with his hand on your lower back — into his bedroom. 

“Your pants are covered in flood water, you can uh–you can pick out some sweatpants and a shirt if you need, they’re in the bottom dresser drawer.” He explained, and you noted the blush rising to his cheeks.

“Okay.”

“Okay. I’ll–I’ll let you change. I’ll make you some food and by food I mean heating up leftover Chinese from my grading session with my TA’s.”

Ryland left the room back into the kitchen and living room situation. 

You leaned down to open the wooden dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. You picked a pair of grey sweats, and closed the door to undress. You pulled off your wet jeans, and stepped into his pants, they were baggy, but comfortable and you sighed at how relaxed you suddenly felt. 

You slipped your shirt off too instinctively, and picked the first shirt you saw. A shirt that said “UM the element of confusion”, and you laughed at how accurate the feeling was right then before pulling it over your head. You heard the microwave beep as you dropped your old shirt to the floor.

You walked back into the living room, and into the kitchen area. When Ryland glanced at you, he smiled, he smiled at you just entering the room with teeth and all. You witnessed his chest relax, his shoulders fell and you relaxed in part.

“Thank you for the clothes.”

“You’re welcome,” He rubbed the back of his head, and he stepped toward you tugging on the shirt you wore. “You look good in my clothes.”

You blushed, unsure of what category the relationship you had was falling into. 

“Thanks.”

Ryland walked back toward the microwave, and handed you a white bowl of leftover Chinese noodles and rice — along with a metal fork — and popped his bowl into the microwave. You resort to sitting on top of the kitchen island in front of him, your legs hanging off the edge as you ate.

He pulled his food out of the microwave and stood in front of you eating. Neither of you were sure how to navigate that. You ate in silence, and when you were done, you put your bowl down on the counter. You watched as he ate silently, and you tried to be logical, to not feel the thing you feel right then, but you did. Because you were sitting in his apartment, wearing his clothes, eating his leftover food, because your apartment flooded and he so nobly offered you a place of refuge. 

There was something about that, that had to account for something…had to mean that this was okay now, this was easy, you could stop pretending you were just a student to him.

His mouth opened and shut, and you took it in yourself to speak first,

“For some reason I have this fear that you don’t think about me unless I’m right in front of you. I feel like I’m running around in figure-eights around you. And you’re the one who sent the first email!”

He stepped closer to you, in between your legs his face looking at you directly at the same height, and you thought, this is the most eye contact we’ve done for weeks.

He placed his hands on your clothed thighs, and this time he didn’t pull back, and you experimentally placed one hand on top of his. You had been right previously, his hands were much larger compared to yours.

“I try not to think about you, but I can’t stop, that’s the truth.” He threw his hands up agitated. 

You watched him back away and he started to pace across the hardwood floor.

“I get so anxious and nervous around you, I can’t stop thinking about your mouth, and how incredibly talented you are, I always want to tell you all the new fun facts I learn — I mean did you know that penguins have a gland above their eye that converts saltwater into freshwater,” He looked at you, his eyebrows perking up.

You laughed at his adorable rant, the Ryland you knew coming out.

“It’s called a supraorbital gland,” He clarified, solidifying the fact with a downward motion of his hand. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that one for weeks when you mentioned seeing the penguins at the zoo two months ago! I mean—I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“What if it’s just gravity? We just keep falling toward each other, and maybe this doesn’t have to mean anything more than that?”

“And what if it’s timing? I mean, I didn’t ask to be a renegade when I met you.”

“Is that what's stopping you, anxiety?”

He didn’t hesitate when you pulled him down by the collar of his shirt so his face was a mere inches in front of yours. His lips grazed yours again and this time, he was the one to finally press a firm kiss to your bottom lip, your lips parted as you kissed him back just as firm, lifting your hand to the back of his neck…running your fingers through his hair there. He shivered at the feeling, and pulled back, gasping for air.

“We can’t–I can’t–”

“I’m graduating in four months,” You reached toward him, lifting the glasses off of his face and pulling him down again by his shirt firmly, you kissed him again, and he groaned into it. “And you’re not even my professor anymore.”

He placed his hands on your body, running them up your thighs, and up to your waist, before pulling them under your shirt and running them up your bare back.

He pulled you closer to the edge of the counter, against his body. His mouth desperately parting in hungry kisses, his tongue for the first time grazing yours — which you welcomed with the tilt of your head to the left — for a second before his mouth landed on your upper lip.

He pulled back only, to drift his mouth to the right side of your neck. His mouth sucked and kissed along the skin there, and your head fell back instinctively in response, and a whine left your mouth and you were surprised it came out at all — his mouth making your body surrender and pull down all your defenses and tendencies to stay quiet out of embarrassment.

You didn’t care, he was there, making you feel good.

“You are trouble.” He groaned the last syllable.

“I know.”

He kissed you again, your mouths fighting for dominance. He pulled his hands back to your thighs and instructed you to wrap them around his waist.

He lifted you off of the counter and you separated from his mouth, his lips chased yours as he walked backward toward his bedroom. You smiled at his desperation, you lowered your head to nip at the skin below his jaw and he whimpered. It shocked you, how fragile he was at the whims of you.

He didn’t even bother closing the door as he lowered you onto the bed, the blankets already a mess, neither of you caring as he used his hand to open your thighs, you stopped him and grabbed his hand lowering it to the elastic waistband of the sweatpants you wore.

“You just put these on.” He whispered.

His tone implied that this was his way of taking care of you, his eyes shone in empathy at you and you brought your hand up to his face, rubbing the stubble with your thumb.

“Professor Grace, please, I have been begging for you to touch me.”

Ryland groaned, dropping his head at the formality and it took him less than a few seconds to take his sweatpants off you.

“Okay.” He whispered, a blush creeping up his face to his ears.

His sudden shyness made you curious, you wanted to understand how his smugness shielded it.

You laid your head against his pillow, and you looked at the ceiling waiting in anticipation for him to touch you in any way. You felt his hands travel to open your legs, and he kissed up your neck again. His fingers ran down your left thigh, up and down, until he swiveled them to graze closer to your center.

When you felt his fingers graze up and down the fabric of your underwear, finding your clit circling it through the fabric, your hips stuttered and you sighed.

You relaxed in the idea of his fingers on you, making you feel good, the same fingers he’d use to adjust your microscope in the lab or graze against yours when you grabbed a glass jar of chemicals. This was less sterile. This was different.

His mouth that was still on your neck formed into a smile.

“Hmm, you want more?” He asked.

“Please.” You begged.

“I’ve been wanting to taste you.” He admitted.

And you sat up a bit, to watch his reactions. He paused, and he looked at you for the go ahead. You were so shocked at the idea of your professor having thought about you like this before.

You gave him a nod. So he cautiously, as if you were fragile — and you were this was becoming a fragile moment — hooked his finger into your underwear and pulled them down your legs. His eyes stayed on your as he discarded them to the side.

He watched wordlessly as you sat up and took off the shirt in one fluid motion too.

He kissed you then, a firm peck, before he began kissing down your chest. He sucked and paid close attention to how you shivered, and how your body arched in anticipation.

He began kissing down your stomach and when he paused and looked up at you his eyebrows furrowing in your direction you were worried you had done something wrong, but all he said was,

“You’re perfect.”

And continued down to your thighs. When finally you felt his tongue find you, you felt him lick a straight line from your entrance up toward your clit, the contact shook you.

Your hands immediately locked onto his head, pulling at his hair. And his mouth began to move, his tongue circled your clit in agonizingly slow motions. And his mouth moved to latch onto it fully, you felt his tongue drift up and down and when he licked into your entrance his nose rubbed against your clitoris perfectly.

“Oh god, Ryland, so good.” You whined, writhing.

He groaned when you began rocking your hips, grinding against the bridge of his nose. The nose you always found so attractive, his side profile you’d stare at subtly in labs.

“Fuck, that’s it, you taste amazing.” He moaned.

His voice was muffled by you as his mouth moved over your core.

It felt like every worry in your mind about what this was was nowhere to be found.

You gripped the bedsheets with your free hand, your grip on Ryland’s hair getting tighter as you rocked over his nose. Your legs opened further and your feet planted themselves on the mattress.

You could feel the pressure building, you were already getting close, and that’s when he inserted a finger inside of you, rubbing that perfect spongy spot firmly with the pad of his finger. You moaned pornographically, and only then — for the first time in the entire night — were you embarrassed.

“You’re going to come, aren’t you?”

He asked, and he titled his head up, to watch you writhe and then back down to let you continue your rocking. You nodded incessantly.

“Yes, Ryland, please.”

“That’s it, that’s perfect, come for me.”

And you did, hard. Your back arched and you felt the pressure built into a radiating pleasure that flew up your body, and the sound that came out of your mouth echoed through the room.

He laughed. Actually laughed when you relaxed. You let out a content sigh, your body going lip under his hands.

And instead of pausing, he licked you again, drinking up your cum, and you whined at the feeling, letting him do his thing, until you tugged on his hair and you pulled him up toward you.

His mouth was covered in your wetness, and his nose glistened from your slick as well.

“You laughed at me.” You accused.

He lifted his hand to cup your face, looking down at your lips, not a smirk, a genuine smile being sent in your direction.

“That’s just the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you.”

This time you smiled genuinely, and you kissed his cheek.

“Thank you.” You murmured.

When you pulled your mouth down to nibble at his skin, your tongue licking there before sucking, it was his turn to crumble. And when you felt him scotch up toward you, and you ran your hand down his chest, and to his jeans, you felt how hard he was already.

You ran your hand over his clothed cock, and his hips bucked forward, you laughed at him this time as he groaned.

“You laughed at me.” He accused this time.

“It’s just. you’re not as strong as I previously thought.”

“I want to be inside of you.” The words came out faster as you ran your hand up and down his clothed length. “God I’m gonna be in so much trouble.”

“Nobody will find out.” You said, bringing your mouth back up to kiss him.

He leaned forward, kissing you, guiding you to lay back down on your back.

You watched as he stood and threw his shirt off, his toned chest once again making you drool. He slowly took off his belt, and this time when he unzipped his jeans, and pulled them down along with his boxers, you took in the sight of his hard cock already seeping with precum. He smirked at your reaction, and slowly crawled back toward you on the bed.

When he found your mouth, he lowered himself, so that his arms were on either side of you. He kissed your button lip once, then your top lip before parting his lips to slip his tongue against yours.

And you opened willingly, grazing your tongue against his in one big fluid motion, tilting your head to deepen it before you kissed him again harder.

You felt Ryland bring his hand down to his cock, and you pulled back to watch him stroke himself. He whimpered, his head falling back at the feeling of his own hand, his eyes shutting momentarily.

You brought your hand down to his cock, and paused his own motions, you bit your lip as you guided his length through your folds.

“Mmm, fuck you’re gonna kill me.” He moaned.

And you rocked your hips, just relishing in the friction of his cock sliding against your wetness, the tip of it hitting your clit.

When his hips tilted back, he grabbed himself, and lined up to your entrance. And he paused, his eyes slightly wider than before, yet still drunk in you.

He scanned your face, and you scanned his face back and he asked,

“Is this okay?”

And you nodded, and you let him thrust forward and sink inside of you. The feeling was just as you imagined, and when he bottomed out, his hips close to yours, he fell forward his chest against your chest, and he kissed you softly.

“Fuck, I’ve imagined this way too many times before.”

“For how long?”

“Since August.” He whispered.

You only rocked your hips in response and he let out a moan you only heard in pornographic audio book readings or in erotica audio subscriptions.

He thrusted forward to meet your motions, and you scanned his face, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes closed so much you worried he’d strain his forehead.

“Move your hips just like that, good.”

The humour of his instruction sounding academic did not miss you, in fact it turned you on even more.

You clenched around him unconsciously, he whimpered at that fact. He lowered his head to kiss at your collarbone.

“Yea? You like it when I praise you? When I instruct you? The whole professor thing works for you?” He was babbling, moving his hands to grab so hard onto your waist it would cause bruising.

Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment because he was right.

And if you knew Ryland, you knew he was marking that down for later.

But you had no chance to respond as he raised himself away from your chest, to piston into you as he threw your leg over his shoulder.

He was hitting that one perfect spot over and over again, and you struggled to reach, to graze your hand against his sweaty abs. And you whimpered as you felt him reach forward to rub your clit in circles with his thumb, the firm pressure there making your orgasm come to your horizon. You matched his thrust, lifting your hips perfectly.

“Oh fuck, you’re gonna make me come.” He gasped.

You threw your head back.

“Come inside me please.”

And it only took a couple more thrusts for your orgasm, to arrive. You clenched around him and Ryland moaned your name once, his hips stuttered, and he thrusted again.

“I’m coming, oh fuck-”

And he collapsed on top of you, his cum shooting inside of you as he thrusted. He grabbed onto you desperately, and sighed as he fell on top of you.

You both let out a deep breath, and when Ryland pulled out of you, suddenly everything was back. The fact that you had just slept with a professor on your research team, for your undergrad thesis, shot its way through your brain once again.

Ryland rolled off of you, and you both looked at the ceiling, then at each other, your disheveled states hilariously present and you asked,

“So…what does this mean?”

Ryland’s breathing leveled out, and you felt his hand reach for yours, and he answered,

It's a Friday - your day off. You're alone and bored in the apartment you share with Ryland, who is (much to your displeasure) stuck at work for a professional development day. The first part of the morning had slipped by quickly as you ran errands and tidied up the apartment, but as noon approaches you find yourself growing restless.

You glance at the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick steadily by. Ryland will be at work for at least another two hours. You're sure he'll be exhausted when he gets home, and will most definitely complain about the latest curriculum adjustments or whatever lackluster guest speaker the district had decided to hire this year.

A sinful idea pops into your head just then. It's almost lunchtime, which means Ryland will text you soon to check in on you. Maybe you can help lighten his mood a little before he has to slog through the rest of his afternoon.

You hurry into the bedroom and head for the closet, shedding your clothes as you go. You're left standing stark naked in front of your shared closet, flicking through Ryland's collection of button-up shirts.

You settle on your favorite one: a lovely cornflower blue with white buttons. It's slightly more form-fitting than the rest of the shirts Ryland wears, hence it being your favorite. Whenever he wears it you inevitably catch yourself staring at the way the material stretches over his shoulders and hugs his biceps. Once, he'd worn it with the sleeves rolled up and you'd been pretty sure you were going to pass out from how quickly your blood rushed south.

You slip into the shirt and button it up halfway, trying not to get terribly distracted by the scent of his cologne clinging to the collar. There's at least a two minute period in which you fight with the sleeves, trying to roll them up one-handed. Eventually you wrestle them into place and spare a glance at the clock on the nightstand. Only a few minutes left till Ryland's break. You hurry back into the living room and snatch up your phone, settling into the corner of the couch. Time to translate your idea into action.

You open the camera on your phone and snap a picture. When you open up the camera roll to assess your work you're pleased with the result: a view of you from the waist up, a cheeky smile on your face and just a hint of cleavage visible between the open buttons of his shirt.

All things considered it's fairly innocuous. Better to start off modest and work your way up to the main event once you've been assured he's alone. How mortifying it would be for the both of you if he were to open his phone around his coworkers only for them to get a full view of your tits. He'd definitely get fired and you'd have to live with the knowledge that you'd digitally flashed his middle-aged coworkers.

You pull up your text thread with Ryland and send him the picture. Miss you, you add after, tacking on a red heart.

Six minutes later (six minutes you most certainly were not counting) his reply comes.

Ryland: miss you too sweetheart ❤️

Ryland: you look so good in my shirt.

Ryland: how's your day been?

Ryland's not shy about how much he enjoys seeing you in his clothes. There have been numerous occasions where you've donned one of those nerdy science pun tees he's so fond of and stepped out into the living room while he's trying to grade papers just so you could see him look up once, do a double take, and watch any thoughts of work vanish from behind his eyes. It's flattering, knowing you can have that kind of effect on him.

You tap out an answer: good, managed to get lots done around the apartment.

You: it'll be a better day once you're home.

The message is marked as read immediately. A second later a little red heart react pops up on your last text.

You: you around anyone right now?

Three little dots appear on the bottom of the screen and you watch eagerly as Ryland types out his reply.

Ryland: just a few more hours, thank god. wanna watch a movie tonight?

Ryland: and no, i stepped outside for some fresh air.

Ryland: why? 🤨

Your mouth curls into a wicked grin as you flick open the next button on the shirt and open your phone's camera again. The selfie you take this time is more salacious than the last. Your lips are curved into a seductive smile, cleavage bared, breasts pressed together in a tantalizing display. There's a hint of areola peeking out, the rosy pink contrasting against the pale blue of the shirt. It's sure to draw his eye.

You send it to him before you can second guess yourself.

You: wanted to show you what's waiting for you when you get home, that's all 😇

It's a risky move you're pulling, teasing him while he's at work. You've sexted him before while he's away from home. Every time you do he comes home in a flurry, barely even grunting out a greeting before he has you pulled flush against him, lips sliding against yours, hands gripping at your waist and hips and breasts, hard cock pressed against your lower belly. Every time you let him take his pleasure and return it to you twofold, leaving you both sweaty and sated

The seconds seem to stretch, those three bouncing dots appearing and disappearing and then appearing again.

Ryland: oh my god

Ryland: baby please

Ryland: are you trying to kill me?

Ryland: jesus I'm getting hard at work

Ryland: you're a menace

His rapid-fire messages pause for a moment. Your phone dings when he adds:

you're probably laughing at me

He's right, you are, your face buried in the crook of your elbow as you snicker at his flustered response. He's supposed to be working on his professional development but his reaction to your image is very much not professional.

You: me, laugh at you? never.

Then, because you never know when to leave well enough alone, you take one last picture. This time the shirt is hanging off your shoulders, exposing the upper curve of your breasts and the subtle line of your collarbones. You angle the camera in such a way that he can see the bare expanse of your thighs. It's a shame the camera can't capture the slickness you feel gathering there, your skin prickling with excitement and arousal as you send the photo off.

Ryland: baby you can't do this to me while I'm at work, it's not fair.

Ryland: how the hell am I supposed to focus on team building exercises now?

You feel only a little bad for him. You're a little too focused on the heat gathered between your legs and the pleasant shiver that slithers along your back and down your limbs as you imagine what's in store for you when he gets home. Pressing your thighs together offers little relief. You're so, so tempted to slide your hand down and sate your growing arousal. But you don't. You're determined to delay your wandering hands, to suspend your pleasure for as long as possible. You know the wait will be worth it.

Your fingers tap across the keyboard: you're smart, you'll figure it out ;)

ᯓ★

The first time, you could probably play it off as a heat of a moment sort of thing.

Adrenaline gets you going. You can't help it, so why fight it? Your ears were still ringing from the gunshots earlier. You'd gotten into a skirmish with some guys that were looking for the same perp as you, March, and Healy, getting out by the skin of your teeth.

Healy had been furious with March for almost getting everyone killed, and insisted on calling it quits. The passenger door of March's car slammed shut behind Healy as he stormed back to his apartment, and then March had met your gaze in the rearview mirror, an odd look in his eyes.

"I need a drink," he'd said, and it sounded more like an invitation than a statement.

"Okay," you'd said. You got out of the car and slid into where Healy had been sitting moments before, and March drove the both of you home, the Los Angeles night coasting by.

And that had been that.

You try not to make a habit out of it. Both running with the "Nice Guys" and sleeping with Holland March. You like to work alone, and March is too much of a mess for you. He drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney, with no intention of slowing down, and it affects his work. Sometimes you worry he'll get himself killed, but he always comes out mostly unscathed. Besides, it's not any of your business.

Sometimes your paths will cross, hunting the same person or chasing the same lead. This city is big, but it's not that big. And, without fail, you and Holland March fall into bed together every time you cross paths. You're pretty sure Healy knows, but he never mentions it in front of you, which you're thankful for. It's already embarrassing enough.

You don't have a similar excuse for the second, third, or fourth time. And so on. You have to be somewhere close to twenty now, after the last two years, and pushing forward steadily.

"Hey, you."

You glance up from where you'd been digging around in your purse for your keys. March is in front of you, leaning against your car. His suit is a dark green, a white tie—or is it beige? You can't tell in this lighting—sits snug against his throat. One hand is shoved in his pocket, the other ashes a cigarette onto the asphalt. He looks so obnoxiously smug that you consider slapping it off of him.

"Why are you here?" You look around the empty parking lot with no small amount of suspicion.

You'd been working a case tonight, talking up some patrons of a bar your client's missing brother went to sometimes, but came up frustratingly empty handed. You haven't seen March or Healy in a couple months, not since June, at least, and you have no idea what his business could possibly be, tracking you down like this.

Well… you have some ideas.

"I'm a detective, baby," he says, making a vague gesture with the hand holding his cigarette. "It's my job."

"You're washed up," you say, but you're smiling. "And don't call me that."

"I know you like it," he says, and now he's smiling, too. "Seriously, what are you doing tonight?"

"Nothing involving you. Move."

He pushes himself off of where he was resting against the driver side door with a dramatic flourish. You unlock your front door and he opens it for you, allowing you to get in but stopping you from closing the door, a hand wrapped around the frame.

"Woah, woah, woah," he says. He places the cigarette back in his mouth, smoke curling around his face, and you pause where you were about to jam your keys in the ignition. "Where are you goin'?"

"I'm going home, March," you say, unimpressed.

"Without me?"

You wrinkle your nose. "Why would you come with me?"

You know why. You know exactly why. And March knows you know, too, because his grin widens, and he raises his eyebrows expectantly.

"Can't a guy just wanna see a girl he misses?"

"Not if it's you," you say, "and not if it's me."

"That's too bad, baby, 'cause it is me, and it is you."

You roll your eyes. "I hate you."

"Can I get in?"

"Fine."

March lets out a triumphant whoop and skirts around the hood of your car. You lean over to unlock the passenger door from the inside to let him in, and before you know it he's buckling himself in beside you and you're driving back to your apartment.

He's the same as he always is, moronic and charming and irritatingly handsome. He messes with your stereo and turns the music up, rolls down your window to flick his cigarette out and thumps his hand against the door in time with the beat of whatever's playing. You think if you got into a fatal car crash you wouldn't be too upset about it, but a part of you knows you can't say no to him even if you try your hardest.

This is the first time either of you have seen each other outside of work bringing you together. You wonder what made him want to seek you out—if he'd been thinking about it, or if it was a spontaneous itch he wanted to scratch. You also wonder how he found you, and how he got to you without his car. Stupid bastard.

The ride to your place is short, less than ten minutes, and the moment you've closed your front door behind you, March is on you.

His hands are everywhere, at your waist, your back, sliding down to squeeze your ass, the other tangling in your hair, pulling you in to press your mouths together. You want to tease him for being so desperate, but you're just as bad.

You kick your heels off without breaking away, grabbing him by the tie to keep him close. His mouth is warm and wet, tongue sliding against yours with familiar ease. He tastes like cigarette smoke and cheap beer and mint, and you wonder for a moment if he brushed his teeth before coming to see you.

You both stumble backward in the vague direction of your room. March fumbles with the zipper on the back of your dress, managing to tug it down so it loosens around your chest, the straps slipping down your shoulders. You get him to slide his suit jacket off, and it falls to the floor, forgotten.

"Been wantin' this so bad, baby," he murmurs against your lips. "Missed you so much."

"Missed you, too," you breathe against him, and the noise he makes at your words is worth the admission, even if you know he'll never let it go.

Despite having semi-regular sex and your obvious interest in him, March is always chasing your praise. Any compliment, encouragement, any notion of flattery, whether it be sexual or work-related, has him eating out of the palm of your hand. It's a bit pathetic, but you like it that way.

March wants to be good for you, and who are you to deny him?

He pushes your door open and walks you backward until your legs hit the bed. You sit, pulling him down into another kiss, teeth clacking painfully with the force of it. You thread your fingers in his hair and your other hand smooths over his shoulder, nails digging into the muscle of his back through his dress shirt. When you pull away, he gives a small sound of protest, his mouth chasing yours.

"March," you say, and you're nauseated at how wrecked you sound, scratchy and needy.

"'M sorry," he mumbles, and you know he has no clue what he's apologizing for. He mouths at your neck, moving down to nip at your collarbones, leaving bruises for you to deal with tomorrow.

You don't respond, instead opting to flatten your hand over his shoulder, pushing him down gently.

You regret any time you thought, or told him to his face, that March is an idiot. Right now, he's a very, very smart man. He kneels on the floor, positioned between your legs, and looks up at you with big, glassy eyes. His irises are slivers, pupils blown wide with want, and a thrill crawls down your spine, landing right in your core.

"This what you wanted, hm?" he asks, his words slightly muffled by your skin as he peppers kisses along the inside of your knee.

"Yes," you say, swallowing hard.

He doesn't waste any time shoving the material of your dress up above your waist, exposing your underwear and the damp patch over your center that tells him exactly how much you want him. His mouth trails from your inner thighs to hovering over where you need him most, and he waits.

"March," you complain. You dig the heel of your foot into his back to urge him forward, but he doesn't budge.

"Holland," he says. His breath is warm against you and you're aching, aching so badly for something, anything. His mouth or his hands or his cock—you don't care. And he's not giving it to you.

"What?" you ask, and it comes out as more of an impatient growl than an actual question.

"C'mon, sweetheart." An unhurried kiss is pressed to the space just above your clit. For a man that could hardly wait to touch you earlier, he sure seems to be perfectly happy taking his sweet time when it comes to devouring your cunt. "You know what I want."

"Are you fucking with me?" March hasn't once given you any indication that he cares what you call him. Before, if you'd told him you wanted a dog, he would have gotten on his knees and barked. Now, you're not so sure.

"I wish I was," he says wistfully. He yanks your panties to one side before you can respond, a thumb swiping through your embarrassingly wet folds. You shudder and let out a small, shaky exhale, your hips jolting.

"Okay," you say, your voice pitched a bit higher than normal. You gasp as he repeats the motion, this time letting his thumb settle over your clit. Maybe you should be disappointed in yourself for folding so easily, but your desire is a pulsing thing, and you'd do anything to soothe it. "Okay, fuck. Holland, please."

He smiles, victorious, and pulls back slightly in order to tug your panties completely off. "Since you asked so nicely."

He rewards you immediately, lapping at you with poorly contained groans and hums. You fist his hair, thighs tightening around his head. Your head lolls back, a low, throaty moan ripped from you as you feel two of his thick fingers slip inside you with little resistance.

He alternates between licking and suckling your clit as he pumps his fingers, obscene squelching sounds filling your bedroom, his eyelids drooping in self-satisfied pleasure. You think if he went at it long enough he could come just like this, untouched. His free hand digs into the soft skin of your hip, keeping you close even as you writhe underneath him. The scrape of his facial hair against your inner thighs is a pleasant sting, grounding you in the moment.

"Holland," you pant, unable to stop yourself from grinding against his face. "Fuck, yes, that's so—feels so good."

He moans into your cunt, the vibrations sending heat rippling through you, your chest, down to your toes that curl involuntarily. He works you toward the edge with a patience that could be considered cruel. You come with a choked sob, the world dissolving into a white-hot wave of bliss. March lifts his mouth from your clit, the bottom half of his face glistening with your arousal, but he doesn't stop pressing his fingers into you, curling with every plunge until you really are about to cry, dazed and overstimulated.

Your hand shoots down to clamp around his wrist, pausing his motions, and he finally relents. He pulls away, leaving you to clench helplessly around nothing, and holds his sleek digits in front of your mouth. Your lips part and he pushes them inside. You suck eagerly, head spinning, and keep your eyes fixed on his as a loud breath escapes him.

"So pretty, sweetheart," he says, a note of condescension coloring his tone. "Do you like that? You like how you taste?"

Your approving whimper is muffled around his fingers. He takes pity on you, drawing them out, smearing your own saliva over your lips and chin. He sits back on his knees, fumbling to get his tie off and unbutton his shirt. He throws them both on the floor and stands. You find his belt and start unbuckling it for him, hands trembling with impatience. He tugs roughly on your dress so your breasts spill out, then helps you out of it completely, sliding the fabric down your legs.

He kicks his pants off, nearly tripping in his haste to get his boxers to follow, which has you smiling despite the tense, electric atmosphere. As soon as he's steady on his feet, you wrap a hand around the base of his cock. He's so hard that it must hurt, and he's heavy, hot in your hand, precum smeared on the head. You give a few slow, velvety pulls, giving a pleased hum when March's knees nearly buckle under your touch.

"No, baby," he says, and it's his turn, now, his big hand coming to cover yours, making you pause. "Not tonight. C'mon, I wanna fuck you. Let me fuck you, please…"

How romantic. Your brow pinches, and he laughs softly, a bit sheepish, as if reading your mind. He slides from your fingers to encircle your wrist, pulling it away from his erection. He crowds in on you, his free hand pressing against the small of your back, guiding you to lie down on the bed and slotting between your legs once more.

You watch with wide eyes as he grabs your other hand, pinning both your wrists above your head. He rests a bit of weight on them, pressing into the mattress. If you tried to escape, he would be strong enough to force you to stay put. The thought sends goosebumps prickling over your skin, the hair on your arms rising and the back of your neck tingling in anticipation. March would never do something like that, you know in your heart, but the idea that he's even capable of it sends a new flush of arousal cutting through your post-orgasm haze.

Keeping hold of your wrists, his free hand snakes between your bodies. He fists his cock, stroking a few times before dragging the head over your entrance, collecting the slickness gathered there. His head drops, chin tucked to his chest, as if unable to look away from the lewd sight.

"You're so wet," he says reverently, more to himself than anything. "All for me, huh, honey?"

You nod, trying to lift your hips up, hoping his cock would catch and he'd slip inside, or at the very least grind against your clit, but he shakes his head.

"Let me hear you say it," he says.

"March," you grumble, face reddening.

You glance away, prepared to argue, when he releases his hold on himself, delivering a light slap to your pussy. You yelp, jerking in surprise at the sensation. Your eyes snap back to his face and you have a brief moment of clarity in which you wonder what the actual fuck this guy's problem is. The last two years have been full of secretive hook ups, quickies, entirely vanilla sex (though still thoroughly enjoyable), so something must have put him in an exceptionally punishing mood to be acting like this.

Not that you're complaining, if you're honest.

"Holland," he corrects.

"I'm sorry," you plead. "Holland, I'm sorry. Just, please…"

Another slap. Your words break off into a feeble moan. You arch your back, wrists straining against the death grip he keeps you in.

"Oh, fuck," you gasp out, feeling as though the air has been punched from your lungs. Your brain is starting to feel fuzzy, overwhelmed with both verbal and physical stimulation, you can hear it in your voice, the way your words slur together. "It's for you. It's only you, Holland."

Content that you've learned your lesson, Holland lets go of your hands. They fly to touch him as though with a mind of their own, one squeezing his forearm and the other sliding over the muscle of his abdomen, nails ghosting over his skin. He leans down, nipping at the shell of your ear.

"What a smart girl," he coos. He pinches one of your nipples, rolling it between forefinger and thumb until you're crying out, then switches to give the other a similar treatment. "So smart, and beautiful, but you're such a slut, too. Isn't that right?"

You nod. It's like you're floating, somewhere halfway between heaven and earth, in a way that only Holland can make you feel. He knows it—can see the euphoria written on your face—because as you look up at him, eyelashes fluttering, he's wearing a proud smile.

"I know, sweetheart," he says, mockingly sympathetic. "I know. Don't worry, I'll give you what you need."

He enters you in one smooth thrust, your breath faltering at the sudden intrusion, the sudden fullness. He curses, hissing through his teeth, and when you glance up, you see his eyes screwed shut, reveling in the feeling of you around him. He gives you a moment's reprieve before he slides almost all the way out, driving back into you with a sharp snap of his hips. You claw at his back in an effort to keep him as near as possible. The heat of his chest against yours is comforting, in a way. He feels more real like this, as the head of his cock drags deliciously against your walls, and you think you could stay in this moment forever.

Holland scoops your legs up, hooking your ankles over his shoulders and folding you into a mating press. He braces himself on his hands, caging you under him. He sets a harsh, incessant pace, both of your moans rising in volume at the new, deeper angle.

He whimpers your name into your neck and bites down, firm enough to make you shudder but gentle enough not to break the delicate skin. You clench mindlessly around him, keening a string of words that hardly passes for English. He lifts his head and a droplet of sweat rolls from his hairline down his nose, landing on your mouth. Your tongue glides over your lower lip without thinking, and you're only allowed to relish in the tang of salt for a moment before he's kissing you again.

He stays like that, noses brushing, hips slamming against yours and groaning into your mouth. Every thrust caresses your cervix, pleasure sparking behind your eyelids. You mewl, powerless, unable to do anything but take what he gives you.

You're lucky that Holland is feeling generous tonight.

"Holland," you babble. "Fuck—oh, my god, Holland, yes. Don't stop, please don't stop, I'm so close, I'm so close—"

"Yeah," he rasps, "I know, honey, I've got you. Come for me."

Your orgasm is startling in its intensity, your spine tightening with tension and releasing with pleasure as you convulse. Your walls spasm, squeezing Holland as he moans in response. You're gripping his back so hard you're certain you've drawn blood, but he doesn't seem to mind.

He fucks you through it, unrelenting even as his pace stutters, strokes becoming erratic while he chases his own climax. It feels good, you think, to be used like this. To be used by him. He pulls out at the very last second with a whine, spurts of come coating your stomach and breasts, hot on your skin. When he's ran himself dry, he tilts his head down and leaves absent-minded kisses on your mouth, then your cheeks and your throat. His cock, already beginning to soften, rests on your pubic mound, and he grinds against you once, then twice, as if to savor the feeling.

You don't know how long you linger there, pressed together and breathing heavily. Holland's back is slick with sweat as you run your fingers up and down the ridge of his spine, exhaustion already beginning to lull you from consciousness.

Eventually he pulls himself off of you, leaving you utterly boneless. You can hear the rustle of fabric as he yanks his boxers back on, then the sound of him rummaging around in the closet. He returns to bed quickly, familiar with where you keep your things, a big sleep shirt and a clean towel in hand.

"Hey, baby," he says, settling beside you once more. You don't even have the energy to tell him not to stop calling you that. He cleans you off with tender, reluctant swipes, like he would rather keep you like this, painted in his come as evidence that he had you, at least for a little while.

When he's finished, he tosses the towel away and hands you the shirt. You put it on, running a hand through your hair. It won't fix anything; Holland has affectionately told you before that you get "sex hair" (he claims to be the one that invented this term), but it calms that small, bashful worry in you, so you do it anyway.

It's a wordless exchange, one you're both acquainted with by now—the way he rolls you onto your side, curling up behind you and pulling the sheets over you both. His chest presses against your back, breath tickling your neck, slinging an arm around your waist. He flattens his palm against your stomach as if to bring you closer despite the entire length of your bodies touching, and a warm, fluttering feeling blooms in your chest.

You know, in about ten minutes, Holland will kiss your shoulder and get out of bed. He'll gather his things, say a quick goodbye, and be on his way like someone lit a fire under his ass. You try to stay awake in order to be there when he goes, struggling against the sleep that threatens to overcome you, but you are so, so tired.

It doesn't take long for you to fall asleep in the warmth of his arms, childishly wondering if tonight was so different simply because he's finally planning to stay.

When you open your eyes, the other side of the bed is cold.

Morning light paints your room in stripes, bleeding through the slats of your blinds. You shift, your body sore and protestant, and wipe the bleariness from your vision. Holland must have left without waking you, leaving you to sleep through the night.

You press the heels of your palms against your eyes, chiding yourself. Did you really expect him to stay? You're being ridiculous. You and Holland have an arrangement, and it works because neither of you ask for more. You occasionally team up for cases and have casual sex. You're hardly even friends.

But… you do want to ask for more, don't you? And you think you have for a while now. Even then, maybe last night had been a mistake. It's more than likely you had misinterpreted the way he was acting—like you might disappear if he went too long without touching you, like he needed you to breathe, to live—and you're reading too much into things. The only way this will end is with you hurting your own feelings.

You sit up, coming to the unfortunate conclusion that you should probably end things between you and Holland, or at least start going out of your way to avoid him and hope he gets the hint, when something catches your eye on your nightstand.

Propped against the lamp, stark white against the dark wood, is his business card. You pick it up and frown, wondering what the hell you're supposed to do with it. You know Holland's number, have for a while now from working together. Why the hell would he leave it here for you?

You can't chalk it up to the card slipping from his pocket. For one, it was laid out far too neatly to be an accident and secondly, you'd think you'd find something like this on the floor, rather than your nightstand. You run your thumb over the illustration of Holland's face, the big block letters spelling out "THE NICE GUYS AGENCY" and mill it over in your head.

He wants you to call him.

The realization hits you hard, the cold, apprehensive knot that had been building in your stomach melting into an elated heat that pinkens the tips of your ears.

"What a coward," you murmur, turning the card over in your hand. He took the easy way out, using plausible deniability in case you either didn't pick up on his message or rejected it entirely. It's smart, in a stupid way.

You let out a small, disbelieving laugh, and reach for the phone.

ᯓ★